On Quoting Talmud
a brief note on misapprehensions
Due to the nature of our I-heard-it-somewhere culture, quoting Talmud, as I sometimes do in my writing on esoteric and occult topics, is a fraught exercise. Misunderstandings abound. Social media has developed a subculture of skewed excerpts.
It is important to note that the Talmudβin addition to its myriad and sprawling tracts and varying traditionsβwas constructed in late antiquity as a literary tabernacle for an exiled nation. Hence, some tracts reflect the same civic judicialism as any law-based work of the Hebrew Bible (i.e., Old Testament).
Given the setting and nature of these late-antique and debate-prone texts, they areβliterallyβnot understandable or accurate in excerpt form. Context is everything.
Among the reasons the term βTalmudicβ entered our vernacular is because it connotes highly complex, tortuous parsing of a passage. This is what is requiredβand what the sages and students themselves felt was required. There exists no βliteralistβ meaning that easily discloses itself.
In that vein, observers sometimes post passages thatβin isolation or absent commentaryβappear pernicious. This perpetuates misunderstanding. A frequent example is Ketubot 11b. The tractβs intent is protecting the abused from being ineligible for marriageβnot defending the perpetrator.
If you wish to experience the ethical Talmudβi.e., the true meaning at its heartβ read the short, immensely powerful volume Pirkei Avot or βEthics of the Fathers.β
The phoneticism avot (βfathersβ) is also rendered avos. Both are the same. The pronunciation avot is Sephardic, i.e., Middle Eastern-North African-Persian, while avos is Ashkenazi, i.e., European. Even titles contain folds.
Ethics rescued me in adolescence (along with the Dead Kennedys). There exist myriad translations of Ethics, with one linked immediately above.
I will share a parable (with my own emphasis) from Pirkei Avot 2:6: A student is walking in a cave and sees a skull floating in the dank waters. βHow did you get here?β the student asks. βI used my words to drown others,β the skull replies, βand they returned to drown me.β
I appreciate the perspective this offers. The emphasis on context, tradition, and interpretive practice makes clear how much is lost when ancient texts are treated as quotable artifacts rather than living debates. Context here, and elsewhere, is not decoration; it is the meaning.
As long as there are still smart, responsible, honest people who are telling the truth about history, religion, politics, and all aspects of life and society, then the liars, bigots, and demagogues will encounter the appropriate challenges to their propaganda and their bullsh*t and their deception, whether it was deliberate on their part or due to them being misguided by someone else.
It's important to never feel like there's some insurmountable tidal wave of hatred or lies; social media is, as the name says, media that has been made social, where anyone can post anything. But just because you see a lot of a certain point of view doesn't mean it's being believed or even taken seriously by all, most, or many, or even half of the people who read it, especially with the diversity that exists among the Internet's global audience and the multiplicity of opinions that are being voiced.
CONTINUE to post your own point of view, whether in standalone posts (as you do here) or in immediate direct responses to others, and let every visitor see THAT and make up their own minds, whether that's in the comment section under a news article, or under a post or comment on X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Substack. After all, if you're in America, it's a free countryβin terms of free speech.