It’s a little disheartening, but also oddly comforting, to know that many of the problems we’re dealing with today have been around for a long time.
Like many others, I try to continue with Daf Yomi (studying one page of Talmud a day).
As a text that was first written down almost 1,500 years ago and has been expounded upon ever since, there are many topics and issues that are difficult to understand and sometimes even more difficult to empathize with.
Some have pointed out that in many ways, when we study these texts and their commentaries, we are actually having a conversation (and sometimes a debate) with other generations.
We are often shocked when we encounter things that are as applicable today as they were in Babylonia or the Land of Israel thousands of years ago, and we find some issues depressing, reassuring, and sometimes even humorous.
What is truly amazing is that in just a few lines on page 8 of the article I just read, Baba Batra discusses two of the most pressing issues currently facing Israeli society: the obligations of Torah scholars to the larger society in which they live, and the importance of releasing the hostages.
The issue is not black or white
While many of us would prefer things to be black and white, set in stone the way we think the world should be, life is rarely like that. And neither is the Talmud, a collection of ancient oral traditions that countless people have tried to explain and elucidate over thousands of years.
For example, while in parts of these two issues it seems clear that Torah scholars are exempt from various taxes and from participating in community enterprises, the fundamental question of who falls into the category of a “Torah scholar” remains contentious and elusive even after generations.
A few lines later, the ancient sages discuss why being held hostage is worse than natural death, or even death by sword or starvation, and why it is such an important mitzvah to free captives—so important that oftentimes charity money earmarked for other purposes must be redesignated if there is to be an opportunity to use it to secure their release.
Perhaps this single page of the Talmud has a lot to say about how we could or should deal with these issues today. Perhaps trying to read such meaning into it would only confuse and distract us, since we often simply seek to reinforce existing opinions or to find the commentator who most strongly sympathizes with our own.
There are few explicit instructions from these ancient texts for dealing with issues that have remained relevant to varying degrees across generations. But to some extent, perhaps, the mere fact that our ancestors also had to deal with those issues can provide unexpected grounding for the precarious contemporary realities we face.
The author is a Jerusalem-based writer and publicist. He is currently a senior strategist at Concrete Media and previously served as international public relations officer for the National Library of Israel.
