What is Talmud? : the art of disagreement PDF
Preview What is Talmud? : the art of disagreement
What Is Talmud? The Art of Disagreement Sergey Dolgopolski What Is Talmud? fup-dolgopolski-00fm.indd i 4/27/09 3:51 PM fup-dolgopolski-00fm.indd ii 4/27/09 3:51 PM What Is Talmud? THE ART OF DISAGREEMENT Sergey Dolgopolski fordham university press new york 2009 fup-dolgopolski-00fm.indd iii 4/27/09 3:51 PM Copyright © 2009 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dolgopol’skii, S. B. (Sergei Borisovich) What is Talmud? : the art of disagreement / Sergey Dolgopolski. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8232-2934-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Talmud—Methodology. 2. Talmud—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3. Talmud—Philosophy. 4. Reasoning. 5. Rhetoric. I. Title. BM503.6.D65 2008 296.1'2506—dc22 2008043310 Printed in the United States of America 11 10 09 5 4 3 2 1 First edition fup-dolgopolski-00fm.indd iv 4/27/09 3:51 PM To the blessed memory of my mother z”l, my most important teacher lòòz ytrwm ymal fup-dolgopolski-00fm.indd v 4/27/09 3:51 PM fup-dolgopolski-00fm.indd vi 4/27/09 3:51 PM contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction i part one: what is talmud? 1. What Is Talmud? 7 2. The Talmud in Heidegger’s Aftermath 14 3. The Art of (the) Talmud 69 4. Talmud as Event 117 part two: THE WAYS OF THE TALMUD in its rhetorical dimension 5. The Ways of the Talmud in Its Rhetorical Dimension: A Performative Analytical Description 179 part three: the art of disagreement 6. The Art of Disagreement 233 Notes 275 Works Cited 319 Index 327 fup-dolgopolski-00fm.indd vii 4/27/09 3:51 PM fup-dolgopolski-00fm.indd viii 4/27/09 3:51 PM preface It is no secret that prefaces are written after the work is already done. Although the preface is placed at the beginning of the book, I am writing it to highlight my current position in my larger intellectual journey and the role this book plays within it. This book grew out of my interest in the rhetoric of religious discourse, in particular the rhetoric of the Talmud, the main normative text of Jewish tradition originating in late antiquity. Because the Talmudic tradition devel- oped in the same intellectual times and places as did Western philosophical and rhetorical traditions, I began to wonder how their approaches came to differ so much, and why one of them became dominant while the other remained largely unknown. In particular, why does the Talmudic approach to disagreement as a goal in itself seem exotic and esoteric while Western philosophy’s goal of reaching agreement in any discussion, intellectual or political, shapes common parlance? These questions intrigued me, and this book is my way of addressing that unfamiliar side of Western civilization, the side of disagreement as an end rather than as a means. Entering the area of the unfamiliar realm of Talmudic disagreement as a goal of discourse required me to reconsider the familiar boundaries—only recently established in the twentieth century—between studies in phi- losophy and studies in the Talmud. Doing this required my undertaking a complicated and complex intellectual journey into two hitherto separate ix fup-dolgopolski-00fm.indd ix 4/27/09 3:51 PM
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