Since 2013 when she was elected to the Knesset as a member of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid

party, Ruth Calderon has become famous throughout Israel. But for 25 years before
that, she was well known as a creative force in Jewish education in Israel and, to a
lesser extent, outside of Israel.

She has founded two innovative study centres for adults: Elul in Jerusalem, a beit
midrash ( house of study, a term generally connoting a yeshiva or other traditional
religious institution) where secular Jewish men and women study traditional Jewish
texts together; and Alma in Tel Aviv, another study centre where such text study is
combined with the creative arts and cultural activities.

Years before her political life began, Calderon, who has a PhD in Talmud from the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published a Hebrew book combining creative and
scholarly readings of rabbinic stories. The book has now been released in a first-rate
English translation by Ilana Kurshan, under the title A Bride for a Night: Talmud Tales.

The book’s 17 chapters all have the same three-part structure: the text in English of a
very short story, usually less than one page long, found in the Talmud or in another
collection of rabbinic texts; a creative retelling of the story; and a short analysis of the
story’s significance and meaning.

The unique part is Calderon’s creative retelling. For example, after she presents the
talmudic story from Kiddushin 40a about a rich Roman woman propositioning Rabbi
Zadok (first century), she retells it in the first-person voice of the woman. Another
story originates in Rashi’s Talmud commentary to Avodah Zarah 18b. In it, Rabbi Meir
(second century) urges one of his students to try to seduce Rabbi Meir’s own brilliant
and learned wife, Beruriah, in order to teach her a lesson. Calderon retells this
disturbing story in the first-person voice of the student. Readers who are used to
traditional ways of studying Talmud might find these retellings jarring, but they help to
bring the stories and their characters to life in a new way.

Calderon’s worldview is unabashedly modern, feminist and egalitarian, and the talmudic
stories generally are not. Yet her explanations, most of which centre around women,
are impressive and sometimes surprising. One example follows: the little-known story
(Yalkut Shimoni Proverbs 18) about the wedding night of the son of Rabbi Akiva
(second century).
“What did he do? When he brought his wife home he stayed up all night reading the
Torah portion. He said to his wife: ‘Hold a lamp and illuminate my page.’ She held a
lamp and stood before him. She illuminated his page until morning came.”

After movingly retelling this story in the first-person voice of the bride who had had
different expectations for her wedding night, Calderon addresses the question of what
this strange story means. She admits it is possible for modern readers to read it as the
story of an unfeeling husband who ignores his wife’s needs and desires even on their
wedding night. She, however, offers a different explanation.

She reminds her readers of the famous talmudic story (Ketubbot 63a) about the
groom’s father, Rabbi Akiva, who was an ignoramus until he married but then, with his
wife’s permission, went off to study at an out-of-town yeshiva. He returned home only
24 years later and was then a renowned scholar with 24,000 disciples.

The saga of Rabbi Akiva and his wife is often presented as a story of the true love of a
long-separated husband and wife. After all, the Talmud reports that Rabbi Akiva told his
disciples that all his accomplishments and all their accomplishments in Torah study
were to be attributed to her. They had married, according to the Talmud, against her
father’s wishes, because she saw and admired his positive character traits. Later in life,
Rabbi Akiva lavished expensive gifts on his wife.

Calderon, however, focuses our attention on how difficult it must have been to be Rabbi
Akiva’s son, growing up without a father at home. When you consider how the son
presumably felt about a father and husband who abandoned his family in order to study
Torah, then the son’s unusual wedding night behaviour takes on a different meaning.
From the very beginning he was making the point that in his marriage, Torah study
would not involve separation from his wife.

The ending of the story describes the conversation between Rabbi Akiva and his son on
the morning after the wedding. Rabbi Akiva asks his son whether he has found a good
wife and his son answers that he has. Calderon suggests that this short conversation
has a deeper significance. Rabbi Akiva presumably was delicately asking whether all
had gone well on the wedding night. When his son said that he had found a good wife,
though, he was telling his father (with dramatic irony, as we the readers know what he
meant but his father doesn’t) that he had established a better relationship with his wife
than Rabbi Akiva’s relationship with his.

In her first speech in the Knesset, Calderon argued passionately that the Torah and
Talmud belong to all of the Jewish People, not just to Orthodox Jews. (The video of her
dynamic speech, with English subtitles, can be found on -YouTube.) Her book shows
how different and worthwhile readings of our people’s classics by knowledgeable Jewish
readers from non-traditional backgrounds can be.

Traditional Judaism is a religion in a completely different sense than Christianity.

Christianity is a religion in the orthodox (correct belief) sense of a faith commitment -
faith not just in God but in Jesus as the messiah (savior). There are in Christianity
different streams (orthodox, catholic and protestant) and many different approaches
within each stream, but what defines one as a Christian is the fundamental faith
commitment in Jesus as the messiah. Christianity is a community of believers, and one
who lacks the fundamental faith commitment in Jesus as the messiah is not a true
Christian even if born of Christian parents. That is, in principle there can be no such
thing as a secular Christian. By contrast, traditional Judaism is a religion not in the
sense of a faith commitment but in the orthoprax (correct practice) sense of a culture
and way of life of the Jewish people - not faith in God nor any other faith commitment
defines one as a Jew, and among the Jewish people there are those who define
themselves as religious and those who define themselves as secular. There are in
Judaism different streams (orthodox, conservative, reconstructionist, reform and
secular) and different approaches within each stream, but what defines one as a Jew is
being born to a Jewish mother or having converted - and what unites Jews is not a faith
commitment but being part of a people with a shared history, language, land and culture
or way of life.

Traditional Judaism as a religion is based not only upon the Hebrew Bible but upon the
Jewish rabbinic tradition, and the foundation of the Jewish rabbinic tradition is the
Talmud - although actually there are two Talmuds (the Jerusalem and the Babylonian),
and both are commentaries upon the Mishnah, a short legal work based upon the Bible
that is the foundation of the Jewish tradition from a legal point of view. The Jerusalem
Talmud is a product of the Yeshivot (study academies) in the land of Israel (from about
100 BCE to about 500-600 CE); and the Babylonian Talmud is a product of the Yeshivot
in the land of Babylonia (also from about 100 BCE to about 500-600 CE). For a variety
of reasons the Babylonian Talmud is the authoritative Talmud, and when the term
Talmud is used without referring specifically to the Jerusalem or Babylonian Talmud,
the Babylonian Talmud is intended.
The central term of traditional Judaism is the term Torah, which literally means
instruction or guidance - and, the term refers not only to the 5 Books of Moses but to
Judaism in the sense of the rabbinic tradition based upon the Bible. Torah includes two
kinds of instruction or guidance (the literal meaning of the term Torah) - legal guidance
(Jewish law) that is called Halacha, a word coming from a root meaning to walk as law is
the path upon which a traditional Jew walks; and, moral, philosophic and spiritual
guidance that is called Aggadah a word meaning story as a story is a repository of moral,
philosophic and spiritual ideals and ideas. Halacha is referred to as "bodies of the
Torah" in the Talmudic literature and is the external aspect of Torah (and law is an
external system of authority), while Aggadah (moral, spiritual and philosophic
teachings) is the internal aspect of Torah and can then be seen as the soul of Torah. The
Christian polemic portraying Judaism as a religion of law is a misconception, as
Judaism includes both legal (Halacha) and spiritual (Aggadah) guidance. Halacha (law)
is material that is authoritative in establishing permissible and forbidden behavior as an
external system of authority demanding obedience to its authority; whereas, Aggadah
(moral, philosophic and spiritual teachings) is a matter of internal autonomy and not
authoritative.

In the Talmudic and medieval periods there were Jewish sects outside of the Jewish
rabbinic tradition - like the Sadducees in the Talmudic period and the Karaites in the
medieval period. The terms Pharisees and Sadducees took on a negative connotation
due to Christianity, but both the Pharisees and Sadducees were Jewish sects during the
Talmudic period. The Sadducees were a priestly sect, and most of the ancient, hereditary
priesthood in Judaism were Sadducees. The Sadducees rejected the rabbinic tradition
(the Oral Torah) and attempted to live as much as possible by what was written in the
Bible (the Written Torah). The Sadducees disappeared with the destruction of the
ancient Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans - the Temple being the institutional center
of the priestly cult. The Karaites were a medieval sect who like the ancient Sadducees
rejected the rabbinic tradition (Oral Torah) and attempted to live as much as possible by
what was written in the Bible. There were Karaite Jews in large numbers during the
medieval period, but they too have largely disappeared. The Pharisees were a sect that
was in the main led by scribes and teachers. The Pharisees did not feel bound by what is
written in the Bible but by the Bible as understood according to the Jewish rabbinic
tradition. The Talmudic rabbis were ideological descendants of the Pharisees. Thus, in
traditional Judaism we as Jews live not by what is written in the Bible (the
Written Torah) but by the Bible as interpreted and understood by the
Jewish rabbinic tradition (the Oral Torah). However, I repeat that the Jewish
tradition is authoritative only in the realm of Halacha (law), and Aggadah (moral,
philosophic and spiritual teachings) is not authoritative.

I will give an example from the realm of Jewish law to illustrate that we as Jews in
traditional Judaism live not by what is written in the Bible but by the Bible as
interpreted by the Jewish tradition. In the Bible it is written - "do not cook a kid in its
mother's milk" (Exodus 23, 19). The verse is understood by the Jewish rabbinic tradition
to prohibit the cooking and eating of milk and meat together. But, this is not the plain,
simple meaning of the Biblical verse. The Biblical verse speaks only about not cooking a
kid in its mother's milk. For example, it is possible to roast a kid on an open fire, which
would not constitute cooking according to the Jewish tradition, and to roast and eat the
kid with milk from a cow that is not the mother of the kid, which would not violate what
is written in the Biblical verse. Moreover, the Hebrew word that is translated as milk
may not actually mean milk, as the word can also mean fat. It is even highly likely that
the original meaning of the Biblical verse was that it is forbidden to cook a kid in the fat
of the mother (which may have been an ancient Canaanite practice), as in the Bible and
in the Biblical world it was the meat and fat of animals that were sacrificed as a part of
sacrificial worship. Yet, in the realm of law in which the Jewish tradition is
authoritative, the Biblical verse "do not cook a kid in its mother's milk" is understood as
prohibiting the cooking and eating of milk and meat together even though this is not the
plain meaning of Scripture.

Since we as Jews in traditional rabbinic Judaism live not by what is written in the Bible,
but by the Bible as interpreted by the Jewish tradition, in principle traditional Judaism
is not fundamentalist (in the sense of a literal understanding of Biblical texts).
Traditional Jews are not bound by the literal meaning of Biblical texts, not bound by
what is written explicitly in Biblical texts and not bound by the plain, simple meaning of
Biblical texts - and, this is true of the Halacha (legal material), and Aggadah (moral,
philosophic and spiritual teachings) of the Jewish tradition. Most of the material of the
Jewish rabbinic tradition, whether legal material or moral, philosophic and spiritual
teachings, is not the plain meaning of Scripture - and is considered midrash (midrash
Halacha or midrash Aggadah). Midrash, originally, was a method of Biblical
commentary (interpretation) of the Talmudic rabbis, according to which they elaborated
beyond the plain meaning of Scripture. Most Halachic (legal) material of the Jewish
tradition is midrash Halacha such as the prohibition of cooking and eating milk and
meat together - as this is not what is written in the plain meaning of the verse "do not
cook a kid in its mother's milk". Most Aggadic (moral, philosophic and spiritual)
teachings of the Jewish tradition are midrash Aggadah such as the concept "the world to
come" (life after death), which is a concept not found in the Bible.

The term midrash has several different usages today - the method of Biblical
commentary of the Talmudic rabbis, the midrashic interpretations of Biblical texts that
resulted from the midrashic method of study (as well as stories or parables that were
told as an elaboration upon Biblical texts) and the Midrashic literature (compilations of
midrashic interpretations that resulted from the midrashic method). Oftentimes the
very same Halachic (legal) material and Aggadic (moral, philosophic and spiritual)
teachings of the rabbinic tradition are found both in the Talmudic and Midrashic
literatures - the Talmudic literature being very loosely organized by subject matter, and
the Midrashic literature being organized by Biblical verses and books. The midrashic
method of Biblical interpretation was rejected by the Sadducees and Karaites in
attempting to live as much as possible according to what is written in Scripture. Most
important, the midrashic method of study and interpretation is what enabled the
Talmudic rabbis to interpret and elaborate upon Biblical texts beyond their plain, simple
meaning - and thus not to be bound by a literal and fundamentalist understanding of
Biblical texts.
I want to add an important point relating to the holiness of the Torah (the 5 Books of
Moses) and the Hebrew Bible within the Jewish tradition - especially given that we as
traditional Jews live not according to the Torah and Bible but according to the Torah
and Bible as understood by the rabbinic tradition. The Torah (the 5 Books of Moses as a
legal constitution of the Jewish people) and the Bible are holy not because they are the
last word (infallible) but because they are the first word of traditional Judaism
(subject to interpretation). From a practical point of view, we as traditional Jews live not
according to the plain meaning of the Torah and the Bible as the Divinely revealed word
of God, but according to the interpretations and explanations of the rabbinic tradition
(often far removed from the plain meaning of Biblical texts) - from a spiritual point of
view, the Torah (the 5 Books of Moses) and the Bible as the first word of traditional
Judaism are the historical, moral, spiritual and inspirational foundation of the Jewish
tradition revealing the moral and spiritual direction and orientation of traditional
Judaism.