Professor ReuvenKimelman

NEJS 126a Intermediate Talmud

Topics: 1. Voluntary versus compulsory arbitration

2. The moral and legal status of the earnings of gambling

Text: Sanhedrin, chapter three

Course requirements:

Preparation, attendance and participation,

Mid term and final

Texts:

Talmud Sanhedrin, ed. Steinzalts, Adin

Frank, Y. Grammar for Gemara

Frank, Y. Practical Talmudic Dictionary

Rec. Jastrow, Marcus. ספר מלים Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli.

Readings:

Aminoah, N. and Nitzan, Yosef. Torah the Oral Tradition: An Outline of Rabbinic Literature Throughout the Ages (WZO, 1988)

Dorff, Eliot. andRosett, Arthur. A Living Tree: The Roots and Growth of Jewish Law (SUNY, 1988) pp. 293-302, “Alternatives to Courts”.

Neusner, Jacob. Introduction to Rabbinic Literature (Doubleday, 1994) pp. 182-220.

Schiffman, Lawrence. From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple & Rabbinic Judaism, (KTAV 1991) chap. 10, pp. 177-200, and chap. 12, pp. 220-239.

This intermediate level Talmud course focuses on the Rabbinic literature that was composed in Sassanian Babylonia from the third to the sixth century called the Babylonian Talmud. The text is the third chapter of the Tractate Sanhedrin. The two major issues are voluntary versus compulsory arbitration, and the legal and ethical status of gambling. The course will focus on the literary and logical structure of talmudic argumentation along with the classical commentators from medieval to modern times. To illuminate the talmudic method of analysis and its treatment of the problematics of compulsory versus voluntary arbitration comparisons will be made with American law. Knowledge of Hebrew and rudimentary Aramaic is called for along with the ability to read “Rashi” script.

The course will follow the order of the text according to the following topics:

Topic one - Arbitration

first week: Constituting courts of arbitration.

second week: Judges as interested parties.

third week: The limits of judicial advocacy.

fourth week: The rights of judges to choose their fellow judges.

fifth week: Judicial rejection by defendant or plaintiff.

sixth week: The status of uncertified judges.

seventh week: Mutual regard among judges.

eighth week: The binding status of substandard rulings

ninth week: The binding status of extra-legal agreements.

Topic two - Gambling

tenth week: Gambling as inherent wrong or instrumental wrong.

eleventh week: Gambling earnings versus illegal interest earnings.

twelfth week: Extortion and other borderline monetary crimes.

thirteenth week: rehabilitation and recidivism.