gevaltic (sp?)

an amazing one-liner from rabbi schwartz

שׁוּבָה, יִשְׂרָאֵל, עַד, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ:
עד ועד בכלל

i wasn't actually listening enough to figure out where, if anywhere, he took that from or went with it...

strange

for the record, i have completed at least 3 assignments in law school well ahead of their deadlines. this is truly amazong. i only hope it can continue without signalling other, less worhty, shifts in personality...
on the other hand, i just learned how to connect to the wireless network at school, which means my efficiency will likely be severely muted.

i thought i was going to call all sorts of people before yom tov., but, well, i haven't yet, so ketivah vehatimah tovah to whoever reads this...

baruch dayan emet

I wanted to take a moment to honor someone I think was a special person. I just found out today that Tikva Frymer Kenskey passed away recently. Despite some obvious differences in religious orientation, I found her, in my limited contact with her, to be all the good things people say. Her approach was never "dry," but always sought spiritual meaning in the Torah. And she let me sit in on her graduate class when I was a freshman (if I recall correctly). t.n.ts.b.h.

sanhedrin 43a

There is a famous and curious passage (not) found on Sanhedrin 43a. A gemara about Yeshu, censored in the published Gemaras but available in Dikdukei sofrim, among other places. The same Gemara goes on to discuss 5 of Yeshu's (alleged) students. All of the students have names that are conveniently similar to biblical verses which the students cite to protest the Rabbis' attempt to execute them. For example, one of the stsudents is named "Nakai" or "Naki" and he cites Exodus 23:7 - נָקִי וְצַדִּיק אַל-תַּהֲרֹג. The rabbis respond with a similar pun indicating that "Naki" ought to be destroyed.

So, what's it all about?
One option would be to find something about each verse cited and explain its role in a Jewish-Christian polemic, or somesuch. (I haven't done this, but if someone does do tell...) Instead, I want to look at the overall form as itself saying something about J/X polemics.
Each of the "disciples" cleverly reads himself, personally, into the Biblical text. The Rabbis, in turn, read them out. On the first go-around, it seems that the text wants to uphold the Rabbinic readings of the Bible as authoritative against the upstarts. Taking this idea further, though, I might want to say that the Rabbis are protesting a particular feature of Christian exegesis - the tendency to read the person, Jesus, into biblical verses that traditional Jewish interpretation would see as broader or more generally relevant. The disciples all read themselves personally into the Bible, and the Rabbis read them out, mirroring a rejection of the similar readings-in more central to Christian thought? If so, it's interesting to note that the Rabbis use the same tool - personalizing a verse - that they are fighting, just with a negative instead of a positive spin.

I don't know if this is right. I particulalry don't know much about Christian exegesis. It's just a thought I had...