Interspersed with the legal material that constitutes much of the Talmud are narratives—ranging from tales about the rabbis themselves, to illustrations of real-life applications of legal principles, to expanded versions of biblical stories, to legends about Alexander the Great. In The Land of the Truth: Talmud Tales, Timeless Teachings, the scholar Jeffrey Rubenstein presents fourteen of these stories, alongside his own analysis. Yitzchak Blau, in his review, praises Rubenstein for his clarity and insight, and offers as an example his reading of this characteristically bizarre tale:

A certain man from Babylonia went up to the Land of Israel, and he married a woman there. He said to her: “Cook me two [bowls of] lentils.” She cooked him two lentils. He seethed with anger at her. . . . He said to her: “Go and bring me two pumpkins (botsiney).” She brought him two lamps (also botsiney). He said to her: “Go and break them on the head of the gate (bava).” Rabbi Bava ben Buta was sitting at the gate (bava) and judging cases. She went and broke them on his head. He said to her: “What is this thing that you have done?” She said to him: “Thus my husband commanded me.” He said to her: “You did your husband’s will. May God bring forth from your belly two sons like Bava ben Buta.” (N’darim 66b)

Blau comments:

Rubenstein first portrays the wife as a simple woman who fails to comprehend her spouse. She interprets the two food requests literally and then she misconstrues the words botsiney and bava. The fact that the husband came from a distant geographical area with a different dialect may have contributed to the miscommunication. Thankfully, Bava ben Buta has the patience and wisdom not to react in anger.

Rubenstein then offers an alternative interpretation which depicts her as a clever woman who knows exactly what she is doing. On this reading, the Babylonian husband likes to give orders and becomes irritated quickly. This wise and spirited woman adopts subtle ways to express her autonomy, including purposeful misunderstanding. Bava ben Buta appreciates what is going on and maintains equanimity, supporting the woman’s efforts. Both readings appear valid. In the realm of literary interpretation, Rubenstein implicitly suggests, we should not always strive for a single correct reading.

Rubenstein also offers literary readings that emphasize wordplay and symbolism. Yet, Blau notes, like many other academic students of talmudic narrative, he ignores almost entirely the large corpus of rabbinic commentary on these narratives. Much of that commentary was produced in the 16th and 17th centuries and presents exactly these sorts of readings.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.