Word: talmudic
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...this week that has garnered the unofficial moniker of the Jewish “get-drunk-off-your-ass” day. To properly commemorate Purim, a day-long celebration of the Jews’ escape from destruction by the hands of a wicked vizier in ancient Persia, the Talmud decrees that one must so wasted that “he cannot distinguish between ‘cursed is Haman [the villain]’ and ‘blessed is Mordechai [the hero].’” Because a literal reading of this passage would essentially mean...
...repression of sensual desire, Judaism humanizes sexuality by framing its pleasure as a mitzvah if it is experienced in the proper context. Although procreation is paramount and pre-marital sex is strictly forbidden in Orthodox Judaism, physical gratification itself is viewed as anything but corrosive. On the contrary, the Talmud records that it was common practice for Torah scholars to have sex their wives on the eve of the Sabbath since, as one prominent commentator notes, the Sabbath is meant for “delights” and “bodily pleasures...