Unpublished article. The passage here examined is Aggadic put displays the characteristic features of Halakhic argumentation. The saying with which the section opens is quoted as part of a list of sayings by the early third century Palestinian ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. The sugya in Bava Kama 60b-61a consists of two passages in which there is a blend of Halakhic with Aggadic material on the theme of esh, ‘fire’, i.e. a fire kindled in a man’s own field that is allowed to spread through ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. This passage in Berachot 18a-19a, affords a good example of how Halakhic style argumentation is also employed with regard to Aggadic themes. The Mishnah (Berakhot 3: 1) discusses whether one attending to the dead is obliged to ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. The sugya on whether or not a man is allowed to take the law into his own hands (avid inish dina le-nafshey), Bava Kama 27b- 28a, is a complete unit which easily lends itself to literary analysis. The sugya is appended to the ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. The sugya examined here is that of Bava Kama 22a-23a in the Babylonian Talmud which deals with the case of ‘fire’ (esh) kindled in a private domain but which, through negligence on the part of the one who kindled it, spreads ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. The sugya examines the statement in the Baraita that Moses wrote the portion of Balaam. This accords, states the Talmud, with the opinion of R. Levi b. Lahma who observed that Job lived in the days of Moses. His proof is that ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. The lengthy sugya examined here is that of Kiddushin 41a-43b.The main theme of the sugya is the consideration of the Biblical warrant for the legal principle of agency i.e. that an act the laws require to be performed by A is ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. The passage in Yevamot 46a-47b is the locus classicus tor the procedures to be adopted when a Gentile is admitted into the Jewish fold as a proselyte. Of the procedures discussed two are debated—circumcision and immersion in ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. The Mishnah (Berakhot 1: 1) states that according to Rabbi Eliezer the evening Shema can only be recited until the end of the first watch, after which time it is too late. Now there are two opinions, to be recorded later in ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. The sugya is Bava Kama 13b-14a. According to Rabbinic interpretation of Exodus 21: 35-36 and 22: 4, if damage is done by a goring ox—keren, ‘horn’—the owner has to pay only half the damage and the same law applies to every ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article The sugya examined here is that of Eruvin 3a-b. There is no parallel sugya anywhere else in the Talmud yet a close study demonstrates that the treatment is typical of the contrived arrangement of the material by the final ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. This passage considers the scope of the fifth commandment but other topics are introduced in the course of the discussion. The passage opens with a question put to the fourth century Palestinian Amora, R. Ulla and his ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. The German Talmudist, R. Jair Hayyim Bacharach (1638-1702) published his Responsa collection in Franfurt in 1699. The following is a translation of the major part of Responsum No. 152 in which the author seeks to defend the ... Continue Reading ➨

Unpublished article. On titles of Jewish books there is an essay by Solomon Schechter (Studies in Judaism, Vol. I, pp. 270-281) and articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia (Vol.XII, pp. 156-159) and Encyclopedia Judaica (Vol. 8, pp. 71-77). But much ... Continue Reading ➨