Mira Balberg, "Fractured Tablets: Forgetfulness and Fallibility in Late Ancient Rabbinic Culture" (U California Press, 2023)

Beyond the Margins: The University of California Press Podcast · Nov 16, 2023 · 40m

The Rabbinic Sages of the Tannaitic era were fixated on memory and terrified of forgetfulness. In promulgating their own interpretations of Jewish law, the Tannaim not only took seriously Moses’s admonitions to remember and not forget, they painstakingly constructed a system of laws thar recognized that helped create and enhance a powerful and dynamic memory form. The rabbis also knew, however, that people are fallible and they’re going to forget. To try to ensure communal coherence within the embrace of the covenant in the face of the loss of a cultic center, the rabbis built a system of…