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You Can Do It! Mud, the Main Works in the Canon of Jewish Law ja Fall 2011_Layout 1 8/16/11 12:56 PM Page 81 Books WWaWanta totn bebt a partpo ae rrtt oof somethingst amazing?amethinof g?mazing Vision and Valor: The Oral Law of Sinai: An Illustrated History An Illustrated History RunuR n wwithitthh TTeameaeaamm YYachadachadachad! of the Talmud of the Mishnah By Berel Wein By Berel Wein Maggid Books Jossey-Bass Jerusalem, 2010 San Francisco, 2008 255 pages + xiv 208 pages Reviewed by Hillel Goldberg can dream. In theory, someday I’ll visit Ithe Arch of Titus in Rome to see a de- piction of Roman soldiers carrying looted artifacts from the Jerusalem Temple; I’ll visit the tomb of Shammai (Hillel’s col- league) on Mount Meron in Israel; I’ll visit the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg to see the bust of the Roman Emperor Tiberius; and I’ll visit the British Museum to see the bust of Vespasian, the Roman emperor who destroyed much of Judea before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Dream? Actually, not. I do not even need to make the visits. I hold in front of me beautiful, illustrated histories of the Mishnah and the Tal- You Can Do It! mud, the main works in the canon of Jewish law. I have be- fore me a seemingly countless array of photos of coins, sarcophagi, busts, archaeological excavations and tombs. ING MIAMI MARAMARATHONATHONTHON They’re all in The Oral Law of Sinai and Vision and Valor, the AND HALF MARAMARATHONATHONTHON newest books by a worldwide master of the spoken word, Rabbi Berel Wein, who has sold some one million tapes and disks on Jewish history. SundaySunday,y,, Januarynuary 2929,9,, 20201221 Later in his fruitful career, Rabbi Wein turned to the writ- ten word. His new books’ pictures are but the bonus in the Commit to raise $3,000$3 0 foror YYachadY00, achad and the rrestest is on us! bargain. Rabbi Wein brings his vivid grasp of history to the Mishnah and the Talmud, specifically to the lives of its sages YOU’LL RECEIVE: who lived in tumultuous times and made monumental deci- UÊÊUÊÊRoundtrip airfareairfare to Miami sions that directly affected the shape of Judaism and Jewish Hotel accommodations history for all subsequent generations—including our own. UUÊÊÊÊ “What caused this critical change of mood from harmony UUÊÊÊÊUnforgettableUnforgettable YachadYachada Shabbaton at the and cooperation to strife and contention in Yavneh?” the au- beautiful Newport Beach Resort and Spa thor asks at one point in the first volume. I cite the sentence UÊÊUÊÊGuaranteed race admission & rregistrationegistration randomly to illustrate that while the author’s respect for the UÊÊUÊÊPre-RacePre-Race Pasta Party and Post-Race BBQ sages is without end, this is an honest book. Rabbi Wein hides nothing. The struggles both within and between the UÊÊUÊÊPersonalized training rregimenegimen sages, and their tricky and often devastating relations with UÊÊUÊÊAwesomeAwesome TeamTeam YachadYachad gear foreign sovereigns, all find their way into Rabbi Wein’s primers on the Mishnah and Talmud. For moremooF rr e infinformationfoormaatiti oroo rn He combines the literary and the historical. How and too jot joinin TTeTeameaamm YYacYachadac vvisitishad it why the Mishnah and the Talmud were written—a revolu- tionary concept for a law that had been conveyed orally for wwwwww.teamyachad.comwwwww.t.tteeammyacyac m.cohad centuries—is combined with realia, the historical conditions or callco ar ll 212.613.8301 and diverse personalities of the sages. Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, executive editor of the Intermountain Jewish YYacac ih aad as y ocengn o ty Orhf Udoohte nniox News, is a contributing editor of Jewish Action. Fall 5772/2011 JEWISH ACTION I 81 ja Fall 2011_Layout 1 8/16/11 12:56 PM Page 82 The relevance of Rabbi Wein’s discussions veritably ness protected the Jewish people, so that no woman died in jumps from his pages. childbirth or miscarried during the 13 years of his agoniz- Besides the fact that the Mishnah and the Talmud, as the ing illnesses.” central repositories of Jewish wisdom after the Torah, are in- The Jewish people ever since has regarded Rabbi Judah trinsically relevant, the painful issues that confronted the the Prince as a seminal figure in all of Jewish history. Yet this Jewish community in those times are relevant in our own. opinion was not shared by the widow of the son of the fa- For example, how strongly could the Jewish intellectual and mous founder of mysticism, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who spiritual leadership of Mishnaic times confront the Roman rebuffed Rabbi Judah’s proposal to marry her with a rhetori- rulers of Palestine? Plug in a few name changes—Netanyahu cal question: “A vessel that served in holiness should now be for Yehoshua ben Chananya, for example—and one sees the asked to serve the mundane?” reflection of ancient struggles in such contemporary ques- We have, then, in Rabbi Wein’s two volumes, vision and tions as: Can, or should, Israel act against Iran independently valor, but also the humanity, honesty, and bluntness of the of the United States? Talmud itself. Another example: How do survivors of catastrophe re- A personal postscript: I think hard before I give a Bar or build a Jewish community? Before the era of the Holocaust, Bat Mitzvah present. I always give a book or a book set, but the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE by the Romans which one? A sefer, and if so, a simple one or a sophisticated was history’s worst persecution of the Jews. The Romans one—to challenge a Bar Mitzvah boy for the future? I have killed some one million Jews in their conquest of Palestine. A some stock favorites, again, depending on the background of focused study of the struggles in the ancient period rings the celebrant, but recently I was stumped. A sefer, a book of with relevance today. stories, a work by the late Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan—whatever I To grasp Rabbi Wein’s achievement, one needs to know came up with didn’t fit this particular Bat Mitzvah girl, a that there exist no organized records or documents of the beautiful combination of innocence and intelligence. Then, I kind from which one could construct the Jewish history of saw Rabbi Wein’s volumes. They solved my problem per- an ancient or medieval period. Until the time of Azariah dei fectly. They reflect the innocence of the Divine love affair Rossi a little less than 500 years ago, Jews did not generally with the Jewish people, and the intelligence of the reader think historically; they kept few records with an eye to his- who lives in this world and takes a very different kind of in- tory. They kept travelogues, receipts, manifests, poems, spiration from the unadorned facts of Jewish history. Torah thoughts, ethical wills; but what we now call diplo- Not to mention these two volumes take me to Rome matic, political and social history were foreign to the and Mount Meron, to St. Petersburg and London. Trave- Jewish mind. logue, indeed! g This means that to write his history, Rabbi Wein had to pull together all manner of stray, contemporaneous observa- tions, and extract nuggets of historical significance from legal documents (the Mishnah and Talmud are legal docu- Do youy haveh ments par excellence) and from extra-Jewish historical records. What might seem like a straightforward literary agenda really requires a very wide knowledge. agingaginn parents? In the end, Rabbi Wein has given us a very readable, even enjoyable, history of the Mishnah and Talmud. Fascinating Without WarningW personalities populate its academies. Tragic personal stories, you can sudden heart-rending negotiations with anti-Jewish sovereigns, su- and psychologic perb minds, but also quirky ones, populate his books. It doesn’t hurt that Rabbi Wein puts matters into per- Stress & Conflict spective with a plethora of beautiful visual aids. Besides pho- can quickly man tos and art, he supplies precise, clear timelines of both the unmanaged, ann to a crisis. Mishnaic and the Talmudic sages and a handy table of all of the Mishnaic tractates, the way they are classified into six “orders,” the number of chapters in each tractate, and which tractates were commented on by the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, and which were not. INTRODUCINGINTROD UCINGTHE THE Whatever you do, don’t miss the controversy at the end of the volume on the Mishnah over Rabbi Meir and his wife OHEL Familyamily CaregiverC Bruriah, or the modesty and suffering of the main formula- HelpHelp Line & SupportSupport Program tor of the Mishnah, Rabbi Judah the Prince. He was the TrainedTTrrained prprofessionalsoofffeessionalsls hhelp identidentifyify aordableaoo lbadr e towering scholar of his day: forgiving, loyal, outreaching, alternativestanrelta ivvees and ensensuresure your peacpeacee ooff minmindd humble and wealthy to boot, but he suffered greatly. Writes the author: “Though we may not fathom the Heavenly ledger, ac- 347-695-9713347-69595-9713 [email protected]@ohelffamily.oramily.org | ohelfamily.org/helplineohelffamily.oramily.org/helpline cording to the Talmud, Rabbi Judah’s suffering and holi- 82 I JEWISH ACTION Fall 5772/2011 ja Fall 2011_Layout 1 8/16/11 12:56 PM Page 83 Norman Lamm, REFLECTIREFLE CTIOO edited by David Shatz THE JEWISH HONS ON LIDAYS NORMAN FesFestivalstivals ofof Faith:Faaith:ith: LAMM EDITED BY DAVID SHA TZ ReflectionsRefllections onn thethe JewishJewiwisish HolidaysHHolidayys ASSOCIA TE ED ITOR SIMON POSNER OU PRESS SenatorJoe The holidays take on new meaning in the hands of this masterr of Jewish Lieberman thoug bbi Lamm’s thou ons and divre Center. TheTThhe GiftGift ofof Rest:RRestesst: Individu e a veritable RediscoveringRedidisiscoveriingg thethe BeautyBBeauteauttyy ofof thethe SabbathSSabbath treasure tro gs.
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