Between Law and Narrative in the Talmud

Between Law and Narrative in the Talmud

Feb 27, 2023 By Sarah Wolf | Public Event video | Video Lecture

This session presents the history of the law vs. narrative distinction in reference to the Talmud, and will show how this categorization became central to how Jews think about Jewish texts and Jewish learning more generally. We consider the limits of this binary by looking at some texts from the Talmud that seem to defy categorization, raising the question of what possibilities open up when we read Jewish legal texts as literature. 

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Why Did Moses Have a Speech Disability?

Why Did Moses Have a Speech Disability?

Jan 20, 2023 By Sarah Wolf | Commentary | Va'era

Moses is the quintessential prophet in the Jewish tradition. Moses’s job, like the task of all other prophets, is to convey the word of God to the people. He fulfills this role, the Torah tells us, in exemplary fashion: “Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses” (Deut. 34:10). Moses is not just the paradigm for all prophets that follow, he is the best in the business. But if Moses is supposed to serve as the first and foremost prophet—that is, to be the expert at telling people what God wants from them—why would God choose a mouthpiece who has a speech disability?

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Mandatory Fun: The Commandment of Joy

Mandatory Fun: The Commandment of Joy

Apr 4, 2022 By Sarah Wolf | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Usually we think of the mitzvot, the commandments of Jewish law, as involving specific actions. Yet the Torah also commands us to feel certain emotions, including love for God and joy on the festivals. Dr. Sarah Wolf to explores rabbinic texts that grapple with questions about what fulfillment of such a commandment should look like.

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Jealousy and Gender in Rabbinic Literature

Jealousy and Gender in Rabbinic Literature

Feb 28, 2022 By Sarah Wolf | Public Event video | Video Lecture

“Men are more likely to have anger issues.” “Women are more sensitive than men are.” We are all familiar with gendered beliefs and stereotypes about emotion in today’s world. Presumptions about gender and emotion also existed in the time of the rabbis, though not necessarily the ones we’d expect. Join Dr. Sarah Wolf to look at rabbinic texts about jealousy and other emotions that are portrayed as negative or dangerous, noticing how gender roles function in these texts, and to reflect on how rabbinic ideas about gender and emotions can help us shed light on our own.

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Fear and Forgiveness

Fear and Forgiveness

Dec 17, 2021 By Sarah Wolf | Commentary | Vayehi

ef; it can also reopen old wounds among relatives. This is what happens at the end of Parashat Vayehi, which is also the end of the book of Genesis, after the patriarch Jacob dies. Following Jacob’s death, his sons fear that things are not fully resolved in their family, and they become worried that their brother Joseph is still angry at them for the ways they mistreated him.

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Can God Prohibit an Emotion?

Can God Prohibit an Emotion?

Feb 5, 2021 By Sarah Wolf | Commentary | Yitro

Part of my current research focuses on how human emotions are discussed and legislated in the Talmud and other ancient rabbinic texts, and so the last of the Ten Commandments (as counted in the Jewish tradition) raises for me some fundamental questions.

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Sufferings Large and Small

Sufferings Large and Small

Dec 15, 2020 By Sarah Wolf | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The ancient Rabbis struggled with the classic problem of theodicy: why would God let terrible things happen to good people? But they also struggled with what may seem like a more contemporary problem: if suffering is supposed to be meaningful in some way, is there any significance to our more mundane, everyday disappointments? Explore the rabbis’ perhaps surprising take both on what counts as “suffering” and what it ultimately means.

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Retelling the Past

Retelling the Past

Jul 24, 2020 By Sarah Wolf | Commentary | Devarim

Since the wave of protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, Americans have begun to reckon with the narratives many of us have taken for granted about our national past. As part of this national awakening, the legacies of some formerly beloved past leaders are being revisited. Demonstrators in Portland, Oregon, toppled a statue of Thomas Jefferson, a “founding father” who also owned hundreds of slaves; the statue of Teddy Roosevelt in front of New York City’s American Museum of National History, which portrays him on horseback next to an African and a Native American man, has been removed. Although this is an unprecedented moment of introspection for the United States, we can turn to the Book of Devarim for some insight on what is at stake in telling and retelling the past.

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Life Under Siege: The Talmud’s Take on Trying Times

Life Under Siege: The Talmud’s Take on Trying Times

May 4, 2020 By Sarah Wolf | Public Event video | Video Lecture

How do we understand the relationship between the multiple complicating factors that arise in moments of communal hardship, such as questions of political leadership, unreliable news sources, physical privation, and economic disparity? The interplay of these challenges is at the core of a Talmudic story about the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans. Through an exploration of the values and priorities portrayed in this story, this class will help shed new light on the tensions of our present moment.

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Why Everyone Should Cry in Public

Why Everyone Should Cry in Public

Jan 3, 2020 By Sarah Wolf | Commentary | Vayiggash

Vayiggash brings us to the culmination of the drama between Joseph and his brothers that began in Parashat Miketz. Ten of Joseph’s brothers—all but Benjamin—had travelled to Egypt to buy food during a famine. Joseph, newly in command in Egypt, had disguised himself and, perhaps in retaliation for the way they had treated him earlier, forced his brothers to go through various ordeals and humiliating situations. One of Joseph’s demands was that his brothers bring their youngest brother Benjamin when they returned to Egypt, with which they now comply, despite their father Jacob’s resistance to putting his youngest and beloved son in danger. 

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Falling Wisely

Falling Wisely

Nov 2, 2018 By Sarah Wolf | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

Hayyei Sarah offers us a scene straight out of a romantic comedy. By the middle of the parashah, Rebekah has agreed to follow Abraham’s servant back to Canaan, where she will meet and marry Isaac. Rebekah and the servant near their destination on camelback as the afternoon draws to a close, and Isaac is wandering in the fields. The mood is set for an elegant and romantic first meeting.

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