An excerpt from the work of Eitam Henkin, a brilliant doctoral student who was murdered by terrorists in front of his four young childrenThis article is a reprinted chapter of his book, Studies in Halakhah and Rabbinic History (Koren, 2022). Excerpt:
Despite our dismissal of the aforementioned claims, the reliability of the Bruriah Episode is worthy of clarification. Rashi’s source is unknown to us. The story does not appear anywhere in Talmudic literature, it is not mentioned in Ge’onic writings, nor do we find even a single mention of it in the period of the Rishonim, except for Rashi (and, in his wake, Menorat HaMa’or and Maharil, as we shall presently see). The story is singular and improbable, casting two exceptional Talmudic figures in a most problematic light.For a review of the book see What the Straus Center Is Reading — Studies in Halakhah and Rabbinic History (Stu Halpern, YU News).
Mosaic also has a 2020 essay by David Wolpe on the Bruriah tradition: The Woman Who Earned a Place Alongside the Rabbis of the Talmud. Bruriah is the only female cited repeatedly as a religious authority, and rarely shown in the roles the Talmud generally associates with women. Who was she?
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