Marjorie Lehman

Introduction to Seder Qodashim A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud V edited by

AJS Review, 2019

A feminist analysis of Bavli Yoma draws our attention to one of the ways the rabbis reflect on th... more A feminist analysis of Bavli Yoma draws our attention to one of the ways the rabbis reflect on their relationship with the priesthood, which is through the lens of the physical body. The Temple procedure detailed in the first seven chapters of the tractate, focused as it is on the priest's body, is entirely different from the bodily self-denial discussed in the eighth chapter, where eating, washing, anointing, sandal wearing, and sexual relations are prohibited. Continuities between the observance of Yom Kippur in the Temple and the prohibitions that define the rabbinic Yom Kippur are surprisingly lacking, given the extent to which the rabbis controlled both the Temple accounts in Yoma and the discussions about Yom Kippur in the eighth chapter of this tractate. Focusing on references to feet, a part of both the Temple rite and the rabbinic observance of Yom Kippur, this article will present one perspective on how the Bavli offers insight into the rabbinic departure from the Temple Yom Kippur. Rabbinic literature is chock-full of references to the Jerusalem Temple. Indeed, the rabbis constructed and reconstructed this space by highlighting rituals that took place within it and by mapping its very structure, as for example in Mishnah Middot. As Naftali Cohn argues in his book on the Mishnah, The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis, the rabbis used ritual narratives to retell the past as they wanted to see it, reconstructing that past in accordance with their present needs. Generating such memories and thereby shaping a Temple narrative was the means through which they argued for their own authority and made claims to an imagined sense of power in the present. 1 On some level, we can extend Cohn's examination of the Mishnah to tractate Yoma as a whole, seeing the Bavli and Yerushalmi as narrative retellings of Temple practices with similar goals. Surely, we are brought into the space of the Temple and ritual performance, primarily related to the Avodah on Yom Kippur. However, we find that in the talmudim the rabbis not only reconstruct what occurred in the Temple and its ritual performances, but also at times margin-alize the groups associated with it, whether priests or women, as part of their desire I would like to thank the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford University for sponsoring a summer collaboratory in 2015 on writing feminist commentaries, where I began to develop the ideas for this article.

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The Gendered Rhetoric of Yom Kippur

Feminist Commentary of the Babylonian Talmud, Intro volume

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Feet in the Rabbinic Imagination

AJS Review, 2019

A feminist analysis of Bavli Yoma draws our attention to one of the ways the rabbis reflect on th... more A feminist analysis of Bavli Yoma draws our attention to one of the ways the rabbis reflect on their relationship with the priesthood, which is through the lens of the physical body. The Temple procedure detailed in the first seven chapters of the tractate, focused as it is on the priest's body, is entirely different from the bodily self-denial discussed in the eighth chapter, where eating, washing, anointing, sandal wearing, and sexual relations are prohibited. Continuities between the observance of Yom Kippur in the Temple and the prohibitions that define the rabbinic Yom Kippur are surprisingly lacking, given the extent to which the rabbis controlled both the Temple accounts in Yoma and the discussions about Yom Kippur in the eighth chapter of this tractate. Focusing on references to feet, a part of both the Temple rite and the rabbinic observance of Yom Kippur, this article will present one perspective on how the Bavli offers insight into the rabbinic departure from the Temple Yom Kippur. Rabbinic literature is chock-full of references to the Jerusalem Temple. Indeed, the rabbis constructed and reconstructed this space by highlighting rituals that took place within it and by mapping its very structure, as for example in Mishnah Middot. As Naftali Cohn argues in his book on the Mishnah, The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis, the rabbis used ritual narratives to retell the past as they wanted to see it, reconstructing that past in accordance with their present needs. Generating such memories and thereby shaping a Temple narrative was the means through which they argued for their own authority and made claims to an imagined sense of power in the present. 1 On some level, we can extend Cohn's examination of the Mishnah to tractate Yoma as a whole, seeing the Bavli and Yerushalmi as narrative retellings of Temple practices with similar goals. Surely, we are brought into the space of the Temple and ritual performance, primarily related to the Avodah on Yom Kippur. However, we find that in the talmudim the rabbis not only reconstruct what occurred in the Temple and its ritual performances, but also at times margin-alize the groups associated with it, whether priests or women, as part of their desire I would like to thank the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford University for sponsoring a summer collaboratory in 2015 on writing feminist commentaries, where I began to develop the ideas for this article.

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The Gendered Rhetoric of Sukkah Observance

Jewish Quarterly Review, 2006

The ʿEin Yaʿaqov: A Collection of Aggadah in Transition

Prooftexts-a Journal of Jewish Literary History, 1999

... Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (Rashi), the Tosafot, Rabbi Nissim Ben Reuben Gerondi (Ran), Rabbi So... more

The ʿEin Yaʿaqov: A Collection of Aggadah in Transition

Prooftexts-a Journal of Jewish Literary History, 1999

... Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (Rashi), the Tosafot, Rabbi Nissim Ben Reuben Gerondi (Ran), Rabbi So... more

The ʿEin Yaʿaqov: A Collection of Aggadah in Transition

Prooftexts-a Journal of Jewish Literary History, 1999

... Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (Rashi), the Tosafot, Rabbi Nissim Ben Reuben Gerondi (Ran), Rabbi So... more