Adin Steinsaltz: The Essential Talmud

This book was unsatisfying in a few ways. For one, it was not what I expected--I bought it on the expectation that it was actual selections from the actual Talmud. Instead, it is something of an explication and a history of the book, with very little actual quotation, and no appreciable excerpts. In discharging this task, it does a serviceable job, although it could have done without, for example, an excruciatingly technical description of the layout of a Talmud page, which could not possibly be of interest to any layperson.

But there is another, more literal way in which it was unsatisfying. It does not satisfy the requirement in anticipation of which I purchased it. I'm far enough into Ward's Lifetime of Reading to be invested in continuing it (somewhere into year four), but I take exception to his suggestion that one read the entire Talmud. At first, I took the prescription to heart, but I could not, for some reason, find it at any bookstore. I searched Amazon and found the reason: it is not a book at all, but books, an encyclopedia of some 12 volumes. The suggestion that anybody other than a Jewish scholar should read the entire thing is a bit excessive. I thought I had reached a compromise by ordering The Essential Talmud, but as there is no real Talmud therein, I feel like I have not discharged the requirement that I have lain upon myself. All of which is rather tedious to have read, and good on you for getting this far. I shall herewith reward you with an interesting thought I had while reading it.

In reading the Hebrew Scriptures some last year, I felt a new perspective on what the Jews meant by sacrifice. Growing up, I had, whether by instruction or invention, come the the belief that sacrificing an animal meant giving it up, losing possession of it, either in fire or otherwise. rereading those verses as an adult, it seemed to me that the Jews did no such thing. They seemed to be allowed to eat the animal after sacrificing it.

This explication of the Talmud reinforces that conclusion. The idea of sacrifice has a different meaning in this context than one is accustomed to. The jews butchered the animal as usual, and simply gave a small portion of it as their sacrifice. They didn't give up the animal, they sacred-fied it, they made it sacred. By the same token, we often think of making sacrifices, either for religious reasons, as at Lent, or otherwise, as in a diet. Such a usage of "sacrifice" is not Biblically sound. If we sacrifice something, we make it sacred.

What a refreshing approach to living. Instead of living in scarcity, wherein we have to give something up, we can enjoy it as long as we do it in a sacred, holy fashion. In order to sacrifice something, I don't give it up, I just do it in a holy way. And every time I sacrifice a pizza, I do it on the altar of my own body, and I make it sacred.

Which, I suppose is an example of the Talmudic method of inquiry. Instead of accepting my "suffering is holy" upbringing, I could have been enjoying holy pizza all these years. As they say, ve-dilma ipkha? Is the opposite just as true?