This article sheds light on the social nature of shame in rabbinic law in its analysis of the Bab... more This article sheds light on the social nature of shame in rabbinic law in its analysis of the Babylonian Talmud’s discussions of legally actionable shame (boshet) and the emphasis therein on visual experience in defining both shame and legal obligation. The article highlights a connection within rabbinic thought between sightedness and what it means to be fully aware of and responsible for others. By exploring these interactions between sight, obligation, and emotion, this article reveals that the rabbinic understanding of vision is at the core of their conception of both the affective and legal dimensions of shame.
This conversation emerged from the work of Created Equal, a research group at the Shalom Hartman ... more This conversation emerged from the work of Created Equal, a research group at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Kogod Research Center, in 2022. We address the "afterlife” of sexual scandals in light of rabbinic, medieval, and contemporary sources. This is not a how-to guide, but rather a starting point for Jewish communities that find themselves in acute need of guidance on how to respond—with respect for the dignity of victims of sexual abuse, with respect for the abuser’s potential for change, and with communal tikkun, repair, as a guiding principle. We argue that a typical understanding of teshuvah as an individual’s internal process of repentance is inadequate. We emphasize the need for the setting and maintenance of better norms around sexuality through public, communal teshuvah and education, and we suggest some means by which individual perpetrators might—with some limitations—rejoin our communities.
Humans rely on social interaction to achieve many important goals. These interactions rely in tur... more Humans rely on social interaction to achieve many important goals. These interactions rely in turn on people’s capacity to understand others’ mental states: their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires. Do different cultures achieve this ability in different ways, or do universal principles describe how all peoples understand mental states? Here we investigated mental state representation in 57 countries, 17 languages, and 3 historical societies. We quantified mental state understanding by analyzing large bodies of text produced by each culture. We then tested whether a theory of mental state representation – the 3d Mind Model – could explain which mental states were similar in each culture’s text. The model explained mental state representation in all cultures studied, suggesting that universal principles describe how people understand other minds.
The paper looks at several episodes in which R. Yirmiyah is rebuked for questions that are portra... more The paper looks at several episodes in which R. Yirmiyah is rebuked for questions that are portrayed as epistemologically destabilizing to the rabbinic legal project.
This article offers the argument that suffering (yisurin) in the Babylonian Talmud functions as a... more This article offers the argument that suffering (yisurin) in the Babylonian Talmud functions as a locus for the relationship between God and rabbinic Jews. Scholars of rabbinic martyrdom and asceticism have tended to claim that the Talmud's positive portrayal of suffering is a theodical apology for unexplained evil in the world. However, the article argues that the Talmud-in contrast to earlier rabbinic texts-presents suffering as spiritually relevant not primarily to justify preexisting suffering, but rather to develop a site at which to interpret information about an individual's spiritual status. The article draws on theories of sacrifice's structure and function, in conjunction with close analysis of rabbinic texts that relate suffering to sacrifice. The pericope at the core of the article's argument demonstrates a strikingly technical approach to the human experience of suffering, describing four examples of yisurin in which no real physical suffering occurs; in each instance the "victim" experiences extremely mild discomfort at most, and at the least barely registers an experience of inconvenience. Nonetheless, these experiences each qualify as "suffering," and are thus still understood to bear indisputable soteriological import. Physical suffering in the Talmud is thus open for interpretation, yielding information about the status of the sufferer's spiritual self. Human suffering is viewed as religiously desirable in both late rabbinic and early Christian literatures. By developing an understanding of its hermeneutical function for the rabbis, this article helps to elucidate the value of suffering for rabbinic literature as a subset of late antique religious discourse.
This article sheds light on the social nature of shame in rabbinic law in its analysis of the Bab... more This article sheds light on the social nature of shame in rabbinic law in its analysis of the Babylonian Talmud’s discussions of legally actionable shame (boshet) and the emphasis therein on visual experience in defining both shame and legal obligation. The article highlights a connection within rabbinic thought between sightedness and what it means to be fully aware of and responsible for others. By exploring these interactions between sight, obligation, and emotion, this article reveals that the rabbinic understanding of vision is at the core of their conception of both the affective and legal dimensions of shame.
This conversation emerged from the work of Created Equal, a research group at the Shalom Hartman ... more This conversation emerged from the work of Created Equal, a research group at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Kogod Research Center, in 2022. We address the "afterlife” of sexual scandals in light of rabbinic, medieval, and contemporary sources. This is not a how-to guide, but rather a starting point for Jewish communities that find themselves in acute need of guidance on how to respond—with respect for the dignity of victims of sexual abuse, with respect for the abuser’s potential for change, and with communal tikkun, repair, as a guiding principle. We argue that a typical understanding of teshuvah as an individual’s internal process of repentance is inadequate. We emphasize the need for the setting and maintenance of better norms around sexuality through public, communal teshuvah and education, and we suggest some means by which individual perpetrators might—with some limitations—rejoin our communities.
Humans rely on social interaction to achieve many important goals. These interactions rely in tur... more Humans rely on social interaction to achieve many important goals. These interactions rely in turn on people’s capacity to understand others’ mental states: their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires. Do different cultures achieve this ability in different ways, or do universal principles describe how all peoples understand mental states? Here we investigated mental state representation in 57 countries, 17 languages, and 3 historical societies. We quantified mental state understanding by analyzing large bodies of text produced by each culture. We then tested whether a theory of mental state representation – the 3d Mind Model – could explain which mental states were similar in each culture’s text. The model explained mental state representation in all cultures studied, suggesting that universal principles describe how people understand other minds.
The paper looks at several episodes in which R. Yirmiyah is rebuked for questions that are portra... more The paper looks at several episodes in which R. Yirmiyah is rebuked for questions that are portrayed as epistemologically destabilizing to the rabbinic legal project.
This article offers the argument that suffering (yisurin) in the Babylonian Talmud functions as a... more This article offers the argument that suffering (yisurin) in the Babylonian Talmud functions as a locus for the relationship between God and rabbinic Jews. Scholars of rabbinic martyrdom and asceticism have tended to claim that the Talmud's positive portrayal of suffering is a theodical apology for unexplained evil in the world. However, the article argues that the Talmud-in contrast to earlier rabbinic texts-presents suffering as spiritually relevant not primarily to justify preexisting suffering, but rather to develop a site at which to interpret information about an individual's spiritual status. The article draws on theories of sacrifice's structure and function, in conjunction with close analysis of rabbinic texts that relate suffering to sacrifice. The pericope at the core of the article's argument demonstrates a strikingly technical approach to the human experience of suffering, describing four examples of yisurin in which no real physical suffering occurs; in each instance the "victim" experiences extremely mild discomfort at most, and at the least barely registers an experience of inconvenience. Nonetheless, these experiences each qualify as "suffering," and are thus still understood to bear indisputable soteriological import. Physical suffering in the Talmud is thus open for interpretation, yielding information about the status of the sufferer's spiritual self. Human suffering is viewed as religiously desirable in both late rabbinic and early Christian literatures. By developing an understanding of its hermeneutical function for the rabbis, this article helps to elucidate the value of suffering for rabbinic literature as a subset of late antique religious discourse.
Uploads
Papers by Sarah Wolf