Limmud Seattle 2019

The session engages in a close literary reading of a captivating Talmudic narrative (BT Gittin 45a). Particular attention will be given to the power dynamics within rabbinic culture: how authority is consolidated by drawing boundaries that delimit an inside and an outside, an "us and a them." We will consider how this story, which is set on the margins of rabbinic society, unsettles, even suspends the established societal order. Indeed, it problematizes much of what we know about how the Talmud conceives of gender and sexual identity, knowledge and elite authority. Listening to the voices and counter-voices within this Talmudic tale will enable a broader, philosophically-informed, and relevant conversation about structural power and the prospects of its disruption.