Fractured Tablets : Forgetfulness and Fallibility in Late Ancient Rabbinic Culture / Mira Balberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Balberg, Mira, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Memory--Religious aspects--Judaism.

Memory.

Rabbinical literature--Criticism and interpretation.

Rabbinical literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (300 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, [2023]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. This book examines the significant role that memory failures play in early rabbinic literature. The rabbis who shaped Judaism in late antiquity envisioned the commitment to the Torah and to its commandments as governing every single aspect of a person’s life. Their vision of a Jewish subject who must keep constant mental track of multiple obligations and teachings led them to be very preoccupied with forgetting: forgetting of tasks, forgetting of facts, forgetting of texts, and—most broadly—forgetting the Torah altogether. In Fractured Tablets, Mira Balberg examines the ways in which the early rabbis approached and delineated the possibility of forgetfulness in practice and study and the solutions and responses they conjured for forgetfulness, along with the ways in which they used human fallibility to bolster their vision of Jewish observance and their own roles as religious experts. In the process, Balberg shows that the rabbis’ intense preoccupation with the prospect of forgetfulness was a meaningful ideological choice, with profound implications for our understanding of Judaism in late antiquity.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Memory and Doubt

2 Remembering Forgetfulness

3 Partial Eclipse of the Mind

4 Rituals of Recollection

5 When Teachings Fly Away

6 Bad Tidings, Good Tidings

Conclusion: What Moses Forgot

Bibliography

Subject Index

Source Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Mai 2023)

ISBN:

9780520391888

OCLC:

1338303318