Jewish Family and Marriage Law

Catalog description

Through the centuries, Rabbinic Judaism developed an elaborate set of rules for governing marriage and family life, grounded in the Hebrew Bible and adapted to the realities of life in diaspora. This complex and sophisticated system helps to explain the continuity of Jewish collective identity in the sustained absence of a shared territorial homeland. We will study together part of the Talmudic tractate Yevamot (concerning the Levirate marriage) and relevant passages from the code known as Shulchan Aruch, along with scholarship in English. Some reading knowledge of Rabbinic Hebrew-Aramaic required.