“If you like, say . . .” : An Introduction to Talmudic Thinking

James Redfield (Saint Louis University) 

Oct 15th, 12:00  – 1:30 PM

Nov 15, 1:30 – 4:00 PM
March 8, 12:00 – 1:30 PM
April – to be announced   

This course is offered in person and online. Registration for two sessions is $30, payable through our website. Please reserve a seat by sending your payment receipt to: rsvp@primolevicenter.org. Thank you.

Students from CCNY, CUNY, and NYU can qualify for a free pass as long as they commit to attend both sessions. Please write to rsvp@primolevicenter.org.

Presentation

What is distinctive about the intellectual practice known as Talmud? How does the Talmud “think” – or teach us to think?

The answer is inseparable from Talmudic discourse, i.e., how the sages of the Talmud converse with one another and their shared texts (primarily, the Bible and rabbinic traditions).

By following their conversations and using these as a model for thinking, we not only imitate the Talmud’s culture but also creatively appropriate it for our own.

This mini-course explores how Talmudic thinking is modeled and transmitted by close study of short texts illustrating four corners of the sages’ discourse.

Sessions are open to novices as well as experienced scholars; opportunities to discuss commentaries and sources in the original will also be provided.

Oct 15th, 12:00 – 1:30 pm

1. LEGAL THINKING

We will examine a classic self-reflective story about, and an example of, the sages’ legal reasoning. What does it aim to teach about the role of law in culture?

November 15, 1:30-4:00 PM

2. POLITICAL THINKING  *With Elad Lapidot, Professor of Hebraic Studies, University of Lille*

We will retrace a mythic narrative of the birth of the rabbinic movement from a Jewish world that the Romans left in ashes. What are its lessons for Talmud as a mode and means of political self-consciousness?

March 8, 12-1:30 PM

3. ETHICAL THINKING

We will show the layers of retelling and interpretation which surround the sages’ apparently simple ethical maxims and parables. How do these exemplary words and figures not only aid in the transmission of Talmudic culture but also challenge us to complicate and criticize it?

In this session, we will also use local collections of modern rabbinic sources and documents to exemplify how these authorities continue to function as not only legal authorities but also ethical models who are, at the same time, subject to communal contestation.

April 8, 12-1:30 PM

4. POETIC THINKING

We will revisit the fantastical accounts of the “Jewish Sinbad,” a Talmudic storyteller who claims to have visited remote realms and seen exotic beasts and monsters. What do the art of his oral language, and its reception by his audience, suggest about Talmud as a vehicle not only for rational thought but also for poetry, myth, and their distinctive cultural power?

James Adam Redfield is associate professor in the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University and visiting associate professor in Jewish Civilization at the University of Chicago, (and as of December 2026: Marsha & Jay Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies, University of California Santa Barbara). He writes mainly on rabbinic literature, with a focus on rabbinic theories of law and culture, ethnography, travel, and narrative. His monograph, Adventures of Rabbah & Friends: The Talmud’s Strange Tales and their Afterlife, appeared in 2025 with Brown University Press, and Talmud /and/ Philosophy (ed. with Sergey Dolgopolski) with Indiana University Press in 2024. His edition and translation of the Yiddish writings of M.Y. Berdichevsky, From a Distant Relation, appeared with Syracuse University Press in 2021.

Image: Catacombs of St. Marcellino and Pietro, Rome, ca. 4th century