Israel - Issues of Public Policy

This anthology sets forth, in three volumes, a selection of Talmudic discussions of problems of enduring social importance. Utilizing the categories that uniformly serve in the description, analysis, and interpretation of a religion that sets forth a theory of the social order, in this case, a Judaism, we ask about how the Talmud of Babylonia discusses topics concerning Torah, God, and Israel. Those categories in their native and classical setting speak of o1! God's o2! revealing the Torah o3! to Israel the holy people. These categories may be represented by the secular words o1! ethos, o2! ethics, and o3! ethnos. They correspond, in a religious system, to the world view, way of life, and social entity. In each case, there is an introduction to a discussion, which specifies how the ancient sages address an issue of acute contemporary consequence. The way in which the Talmud presents its authors' ideas on issues that concern humanity in the twenty-first century is laid out in the Talmud's own language and idiom.