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Full Description
Making the rich narrative world of Talmud tales fully accessible to modern readers, renowned Talmud scholar Jeffrey L. Rubenstein turns his spotlight on both famous and little-known stories, analyzing the tales in their original contexts, exploring their cultural meanings and literary artistry, and illuminating their relevance.
Delving into both rabbinic life (the academy, master-disciple relationships) and Jewish life under Roman and Persian rule (persecution, taxation, marketplaces), Rubenstein explains how storytellers used irony, wordplay, figurative language, and other art forms to communicate their intended messages. Each close reading demonstrates the story's continuing relevance through the generations into modernity. For example, the story "Showdown in Court," a confrontation between King Yannai and the Rabbinic judges, provides insights into controversial struggles in U.S. history to balance governmental power; the story of Honi's seventy-year sleep becomes a window into the indignities of aging. Through the prism of Talmud tales, Rubenstein also offers timeless insights into suffering, beauty, disgust, heroism, humor, love, sex, truth, and falsehood. By connecting twenty-first-century readers to past generations, The Land of Truth helps to bridge the divide between modern Jews and the traditional narrative worlds of their ancestors.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Of Stones and Stories
Part 1: The Human Condition
Chapter 1: The Surreal Sleeper
Chapter 2: What to do with an Aged (and Annoying) Mother?
Chapter 3: Forbidden Fruit, or How Not to Seduce Your Husband
Chapter 4: Men are from Babylonia, Women are from the Land of Israel
Chapter 5: Sufferings! Not Them and Not Their Reward!
Part 2: Virtue, Character, and the Life of Piety
Chapter 6: The Ugly Vessel
Chapter 7: An Arrow in the Eye of Satan
Chapter 8: The Land of Truth
Chapter 9: Torah for Richer and Poorer
Chapter 10: Heroism and Humor
Part 3: The Individual, Society, and Power
Chapter 11: Showdown in Court
Chapter 12: Alexander the Great and the Faraway King
Chapter 13: The Carpenter and His Apprentice
Chapter 14: Standing on One Leg
Bibliography
Index by Subject
Index by Biblical and Rabbinic Sources
