Monday, January 15, 2018

Again, Kurshan, If All the Seas Were Ink

TALMUD WATCH: MEMOIR BY ILANA KURSHAN, MODERN FEMINIST, SHOWS RESPECT FOR JEWISH TRADITION (Martin Lockshin, Canadian Jewish News). I've linked to other reviews of If All the Seas Were Ink, which deals with how Ms. Kurshan went through some big life transitions during the last Daf Yomi cycle. See here and links. Here's an excerpt from this review:
Her approach to Talmud is personal and creative. For example, the talmudic volume, Sukkah, teaches that fixed meals have to be eaten in a sukkah but snacking, what the Talmud calls achilat aray, temporary eating, can take place anywhere. (Kurshan playfully calls it “achilat awry.”) At the time when she was studying Sukkah, she was recently divorced and felt that much of her life and even her eating patterns were aray. Furthermore, by definition, a sukkah is a temporary structure but it has to have a certain amount of stability. Kurshan compares this to her own personal status while she studied this volume, living a life that seems flimsy and temporary while trying to find permanence and stability.

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