With discussions of consensuality regarding sex and rape being quite common in news media these days, last week’s story in the JTA by Julie Wiener about Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s a statement of hers that the Talmud condones not fully consensual...
A seemingly often overlooked text found in the Talmud relating to adultery/cuckoldry is the following text which expands the notion of adultery/cuckoldry (bNiddah 13b): תנא דבי רבי ישמעאל: לא תנאף – לא תהא בך ניאוף בין ביד בין ברגל It...
There is a Talmudic tradition that 24,000 students died in the early part of the second century in the land of Israel all within a springtime period. According to that tradition, they died between Passover and Shavuot, the latter of...
A common midrash that appears in discourse around Purim and especially Shavuot (which is coming up very soon) is that of Rav Avdimi, son of Hama, son of Hasa, as recorded on bShabbat 88a, expounding on Exodus 19:17: וַיִּתְיַצְּבוּ, בְּתַחְתִּית...
One of the central texts in the Talmud as it relates to how a man and a woman should have sexual intercourse is one which does not, ostensibly, seem as if it should have anything to do with sexual intercourse....
While there is a well-known tannaitic teaching that one says a blessing – בורא פרי הגפן (Creator of the fruits of the vine) – over wine (mBerakhot 6:1), one of the interesting blessings that is created during the period of...
At the bottom of page 4b and continuing on to the top of page 5a in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Berakhot, we have the following: אמר רב נחמן אם תלמיד חכם הוא אין צריך Rav Nahman said: “If one is...
Something I noticed years ago and about which I am still curious is that women seem to be the only people who discuss their sexual experiences in the Babylonian Talmud. Now, I have not read the entire Babylonian Talmud, so...
Eight years ago, in my second year of rabbinical school, I got very fascinated by a particular topic and subsequently endeavored in much research. While I had hoped (and still hope) to write an article on the topic, it seems...
A curiosity of mine for a few years now has been the noticeable absence, when reading through the statements of the early rabbis, as to why they do not mention a reason as to why Jews are supposed to light...
