Overview

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.  This book examines the significant role that memory failures play in early rabbinic literature. The rabbis who shaped Judaism in late antiquity envisioned the commitment to the Torah and to its commandments as governing every single aspect of a person’s life. Their vision of a Jewish subject who must keep constant mental track of multiple obligations and teachings led them to be very preoccupied with forgetting: forgetting of tasks, forgetting of facts, forgetting of texts, and—most broadly—forgetting the Torah altogether. In Fractured Tablets, Mira Balberg examines the ways in which the early rabbis approached and delineated the possibility of forgetfulness in practice and study and the solutions and responses they conjured for forgetfulness, along with the ways in which they used human fallibility to bolster their vision of Jewish observance and their own roles as religious experts. In the process, Balberg shows that the rabbis’ intense preoccupation with the prospect of forgetfulness was a meaningful ideological choice, with profound implications for our understanding of Judaism in late antiquity.

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"""Balberg’s book is clear­ly writ­ten and large­ly avoids bury­ing the read­er in lengthy foot­notes and recur­sive argu­ments. . .It is impor­tant mate­r­i­al for rab­bini­cal stu­dents and will appeal to those wish­ing to study the debates, argu­ments, and prac­tices of the Tan­naim at a deep­er lev­el."" * Jewish Book Council *"

""Balberg’s book is clear­ly writ­ten and large­ly avoids bury­ing the read­er in lengthy foot­notes and recur­sive argu­ments. . .It is impor­tant mate­r­i­al for rab­bini­cal stu­dents and will appeal to those wish­ing to study the debates, argu­ments, and prac­tices of the Tan­naim at a deep­er lev­el."" * Jewish Book Council *

Author Information

Mira Balberg is Professor of History and Endowed Chair in Ancient Jewish Civilization at the University of California, San Diego. She is author of Purity, Body, and Self in Early Rabbinic Literature and Blood for Thought: The Reinvention of Sacrifice in Early Rabbinic Literature and coauthor of When Near Becomes Far: Old Age in Rabbinic Literature.

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