Be moved and amused by the first instalment of Pam Peled’s new book, during which she tackles the Talmud

Like half the country, Pam Peled (who writes our Letter from Israel column) is watching in horror as Israel fractures. On top of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, members of the public nationwide have been protesting a proposed judicial reform that would give the Israeli government power to overrule decisions deemed ‘unreasonable’ by the Supreme Court.

Peled tackles as much in her new book, Doing the Daf as Israel Implodes, which JR is serialising online in conjunction with The Jerusalem Report. Here is the first instalment, in which she tries to make sense of the madness by trawling the Talmud (and Shakespeare).

Brachos 24.

I came late to the Talmud. You’re supposed to be four decades into life’s three score and 10 when you tackle the holy texts; but now that I think about it, maybe that only applies to the initial dive into Kabbalah. Anyway, I was almost 63 when I crashed into the sacred pages for the first time, at the “lean and slippered pantalooned” stage, when I still have my teeth and taste buds but need the spectacles to see. But As You Like It was not on my mind when I slipped into my introductory shiur (lesson), my jeans and sweater shrinking nervously under my coat as they spotted the modest skirts and head coverings of the six or seven women around the table in a living room near Tel Aviv.

My husband was dead; I was growing tired of long evenings alone watching home movies and crying my eyeballs out. My new love was an unlove; he was otherwise engaged every evening, every morning, every afternoon. He was dealing with his wife’s car or taking her to doctors’ appointments and concerts, or busy buying her groceries. He was no help to me at all.

I’d recently retired from a lifetime of teaching literature; I craved some spirituality and cranking up of neurons. An editing assignment introduced me to the Talmud’s Tannaim, Stammaim and Amoraim; who knew of these ancient rabbis and disciples with their running discourse and debates? “You should do the daf [a page of Talmud],” suggested the client who paid me for punctuating his thesis. “Think about it.”

I did think about it, and I thought it sounded like fun, so I signed up feeling quite self-righteous. Just Google “Talmud” and you’ll see why. Skip past the entries that promise Talmud will save your marriage, change your life and even grow your business – DONATE HERE – and click on Wikipedia, ‘The Babylonian Talmud’. (Later you can check out the one from Jerusalem.) You will learn that:

The Talmud is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (Halacha) and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish cultural life and was foundational to “all Jewish thought and aspirations,” serving also as “the guide for the daily life” of Jews.

Way before Jesus carried his cross through Jerusalem’s cobbled alleyways, bearded sages were obsessing over whether tucking into a gezunte (huge) Shabbos feast could land your soul in a mess, as well as your arteries. Let’s say after the brisket and potato kugel you just have to get home for your shloff (sleep). Totally, right now. Your bed is beckoning; your eyelids are fading fast. But the food in your swollen belly is nowhere near digested; peristalsis can never be hurried along, and definitely not on Shabbat. So are you allowed to leave your neighbor’s home and trudge towards your own; or does this constitute ‘carrying’, which is forbidden on the seventh day?

Have you ever considered that?

The rabbis discussed it and obsessed over details: How digested was the turkey neck; does chicken soup count if it’s sloshing in your gut? They argued with each other, and argued some more. Their disciples codified the minutia into 63 tractates… voila, the Talmud!

Throughout the millennia, Jews everywhere have sat together (male Jews, let’s just be clear on that), poring over esoteric questions such as just how big do your wife’s breasts have to be before they can be considered an impediment to her beauty, and thus grounds for divorce. If you want more exact dimensions, check out the page: Can she sling her mammaries over her shoulder, for example? Is a handbreadth’s worth of breast too big for beauty?

Some scholars skipped over the more obscure tractates like Zevachim and Temurah, which languished in dusty leather binders; some studied for seventeen hours a day. And then, in 1923, at the First World Congress of Agudath Israel in Vienna, Rabbi Meir Shapiro, a major visionary, suggested that the Talmud be sliced up into segments that could be studied one day at a time. These bite-sized snacks of holy learning would fill a cycle of seven and a half years – in under three thousand days, you could do all the dafs – or dappim, as they are known in Hebrew. A daf a day. With coffee.

The 600 delegates, all happily believing in God and His mercy just a decade before Hitler swept into the very city where they were gathered, enthusiastically endorsed Rav Meir’s hiddush (innovation), clapping and beaming approval as he addressed them; he beamed right back at them under his impressive fur shtreimel (hat):

“What a great thing!” he said.

A Jew travels by boat and takes gemara Berachot under his arm. He travels for 15 days from Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) to America, and each day he learns the daf. When he arrives in America, he enters a beis midrash (house of study) in New York and finds Jews learning the very same daf that he studied on that day, and he gladly joins them. Another Jew leaves the States and travels to Brazil or Japan, and he first goes to the beis midrash, where he finds everyone learning the same daf that he himself learned that day. Could there be greater unity of hearts than this?

Let’s go, I told my un-unified heart as I trotted off to Talmud 101. I was old, I was lonely, and I was late – the morning traffic had snarled very uncooperatively, and I was feeling more harassed than spiritual as I walked into my new life 10 minutes after it started.

People who daf are very, very friendly; everyone smiled as I unwound my scarf and shrugged off my coat. The rabbi’s sparkly wife was deep into a rabbinic discussion of whether the devout need to haul themselves out of bed for the morning prayer, or it’s permissible to roll over, stretch, and sling a Shema – “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One” – in bed. As I settled into my seat and opened the heavy book, the rabbi’s wife was wondering aloud: And if you’re naked? If the only thing hiding your sexiness from the all-seeing Deity is a bed sheet, can you still exhort the people of Israel to listen up and ac- knowledge that the Lord our God is One?

C’mon, admit it. You have never asked yourself that. Here’s more:

What if you’re naked in bed, together with someone else, who’s also as uncovered as Adam before the apple-guzzling scene? What then? Can you have a simultaneous Shema?

I gulped.

Not that I have a problem with nudity beneath sheets; I like waking up unwrapped by anything but someone’s loving arms. But hang on, hang, on, hang on. In the yeshivot (religious place of study) in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak (never mind New York), study halls are crammed each day with young bochers (men in yeshivot) studying this holy page. Most of them, I’d guess, unless they’re 18 and already married, have never spotted a woman’s uncovered elbow. And even if they are married, and they’ve known the joys of a woman’s bare buttocks, this is what my hard-earned tax money is funding? They’re getting paid, and very nicely too, to sit all day considering whether Rav Huna was right when he claimed that as long as the man and woman turn their heads away from each other, it’s kosher to pray in the nude. Bums don’t count as nakedness; lying butt to butt and praying to the Holy One, Blessed be He, is perfectly fine.

So now we know.

No one laughed around that kitchen table. No one asked a question.

I bit my lip and gulped again.

I am not a blasphemous person. I know, I KNOW, I K.N.O.W. that I have less than no right to take on the Talmud. I know it codifies Jewish law from agriculture to the Sabbath day, from laws of purity to laws of property – and absolutely everything in between. I am approaching it all with a wide open mind.

And yet.

And yet, I have to say, this was not what I expected. I didn’t know what was in store as I tiptoed into the Talmud, but as sure as the most certain sure, I was not anticipating boobs and bums. For one wild moment, I thought I’d joined the wrong class, but the covered hair and swishing skirts strongly suggested that this was, indeed, a spiritual quest.

Ok, then, I thought, taking a deep breath. Let’s do this.

One thing I will say: Doing the daf sets your mind a-reeling. It moved me to journal there and then, to jot down highlights. I decided to do it, however, fully clothed. I hope that’s okay with the Boss.

On that first day, so help me God, apart from dealing with who can pray naked in bed and in what position, our sages discussed (in no particular order):

1. What happens if you fart in shul?

   (Answer: Take four steps back. Release gas. Wait for odor to disperse. Step forward again and resume your prayers.)

2. What is the protocol if you want to spit in shul?

   (Answer: Either use your tallis [prayer shawl], or if that is too nice, use your turban. The rabbis also debate the merits/demerits of spitting on the ground.)

3. If your wife is separating challah, can she work the dough naked? If she sits down while kneading, is she still technically nude? After all, the earth covers her buttocks (which we’ve seen don’t really count), and her “other nakedness” is hidden from view.

4. What do you do when walking through an alleyway full of filth (and I mean filth, of the stinkiest type) if it’s time to say the Shema? Do you cover your mouth and recite the blessing? If you are in the middle of the prayer when you walk into the gunge, do you stop mid-Yisrae…?

   (Answer: Don’t assume all the rabbis agree: Rav Chisda declared that had he heard about covering the mouth and should that decree come even from R Yohanan himself, he would not follow it!)

5. A woman’s singing voice is ervah (i.e. naked; i.e. bad for men who are put off their prayers), her hair is ervah, her thigh is ervah, and even an exposed square tefach (measurement) of her body that should be covered and isn’t, is ervah. Bare a square centimeter of your boobs and… no, no, no!! Don’t even go there with your wicked thoughts (unless, I guess, her breasts aren’t beautiful).

6. Sneezing during prayers, belching during prayers, yawning or praying too loudly, where to hang your tefillin (small leather box containing Hebrew texts, used during prayer) after you pray… all these are debated and codified by laws for all eternity. Just for the record: belching is okay if it’s involuntary – manufacture a belch just as the Torah is being taken out, and you’re in trouble deep. Sneezing, on the other hand, is almost always cool.

The Talmud doesn’t mention whether it should be done into a tallis.

Unfortunately, so very, very unfortunately, my lovely husband has been dead longer than it takes to cycle through everything you ever wanted to know about anything, including passing wind during prayers. Martin has been sleeping in his grave for over a decade; his bones are naked now even of skin. So there’s little point in my going to bed unclad. If I was inclined to say the Shema tomorrow, as I woke up, I would not have to turn my head from him, leaving just the tip of my tail touching his as I turned my attentions to telling Israel to listen up. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is One.”

So nightly off I go, sadly, to slip on some practical PJs and, unsanctified, sink into sleep. But the dawn of the next day’s daf is always almost standing tiptoed on the misty mountaintops.

Talmud will be my new love.

By Pam Peled

Header photo: Israeli anti-judicial reform protests in Jerusalem, 20 February 2023

Pam Peled is a journalist and lecturer in English literature, and writes the Letter from Israel column in Jewish Renaissance magazine. She has lived in Israel for almost 50 years, so it’s safe to say her Zionist credentials stand up to scrutiny. Want to read more? The entire book is available on Amazon: https://a.co/bFCZZ3Q

This article has been reprinted by kind permission from the Jerusalem Report.