Note: This podcast is AI generated

This is an audio summary based primarily on Richard Hidary's article Talmudic Topoi: The Hermeneutical Methods of Midrash and Greco-Roman Rhetoric. This podcast explores how early rabbis integrated methods also found in Greco-Roman rhetorical schools into the development of Mishnaic hermeneutics. While scholars like David Daube and R' Saul Lieberman highlight direct parallels between Hillel’s seven rules and classical logic the rabbis themselves remained deeply skeptical of unbridled human reason. They utilized these tools to ground oral traditions in Scripture and engage with surrounding intellectual cultures, yet they simultaneously established strict legal limitations to prevent logic from undermining traditional authority. Ultimately, the sources depict a complex rabbinic encounter with Hellenism where rhetorical dexterity was embraced as a persuasive necessity but was always held subordinate to received tradition and divine revelation.

I do not necessarily personally subscribe to all the views contained in this recording and will be discussing this work as well as the sources upon which it is based when our Avot/Paterfamilias shiur gets up to Hillel's Mishnayot.

The previous AI podcast received positive feedback and we will try to include one any week where a live recording was not done. Any additional feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Pirkei Avot 1:5-6

This week we encounter the first zugot (pairs) and learn about their lives and how their statements reflect the period in which they lived (overlapping with Hanukkah) . The statement of these sages seems to be in dialog (tension?) and represents different priorities for the leaders of the generation. We use Yose ben Yoezer's statement to shed light on an enigmatic passage in Yerushalmi Kiddushin and point out a textual variant that makes Yose ben Yohanan's statement regarding conversing with women more comprehensible.

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TEST AI PODCAST: R' Yehoshua ben Perahia the exorcist

I used an AI pdf to podcast creation tool to create this recording analyzing an academic article which explores the fact that R' Yehoshua ben Perahia (of Pirkei Avot fame) is listed in 5-6 century magic Aramic bowls (sort of house amulets) as an exorcist. The source material is here. I thought the AI did a very nice job.

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Yechezkel Chapters 5 & 6: The Worst of the Cursed

We contrast the ghoulish prophecy of punishment with the curses of Vayikra 26

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Paterfamilias: Decoding the Secrets of Mishnah Avot - episode 8

Special Chanukah Excursus: Yohanan Kohen Gadol

We explore a missing link in the chain of the mesorah, John Hyrkanus of the Hasmonean family. Who was he and why is such an illustrious figure absent from the first perek of Avot?

Josephus tells a compelling story to explain all of this.

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Paterfamilias: Decoding the Secrets of Mishnah Avot - episode 7“The reward of a thing well done is having done it.” - Ralph Waldo EmersonIn this episode we offer two radically different resolutions for understanding the puzzling and perhaps controversial statement of Antigonis of Sokho.

And then we offer a third.

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**RE-RELEASE**

Learning Genesis in depth can feel a lot like trying to swallow the ocean. We start by setting a framework for our study, meeting some of the less-common commentaries who will help guide us such as Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Luzzato (ShaDaL), Rabbi Benno Jacob, Rabbi Moshe Dovid (Umberto) Cassuto, JPS/Nahum Sarna, Andre LaCocque and R' Yonatan (Jonathan) Grossman.

We discuss discrepancies between the Chumash and science; eg birds are created before land animals while evolutionarily that order is necessarily reversed - and propose to use the late Stephen Gould's NOMA framework so that while science may tell us the 'what' of our world, Torah tells us the 'so what', as in so what does God want from me and how can I have a relationship with God?

Yechezkel Chapter 4: Ezekiel Bread

More symbolic acts in this chapter, which challenges us to understand what Ezekiel is meant to understand from these behaviors. Are they for him? For others? Both? We offer an approach that relates these strange acts to components of the service in the Bais HaMikdash which is coming to an end.

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