Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi Timeline xii Introduction 1 Part 1 DAILY LIFE 13 1. What Would Your Livelihood and Levies Be? 15 Location Scouting 15 What Would You Do for a Living? 16 "Creative Accounting" v. Honesty in Business 17 What Kind of Taxes Would You Be Paying? 18 2. Who Would Your Celebrities Be? 25 Priestly Watches 25 Scandal and the Priestly Watches 27 Disabled Priests 28 Other Celebrities: Helen and Munbaz 29 Rabbi as Celebrity 30 Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish 31 3. The Obnoxious Rich Kid: How Would You Feel about Those Jews in Babylonia? 34 Hillel: The Archetypal Babylonian 35 Tensions Between Sages in Israel and Babylonia 36 Israeli Pride 37 4. Right and Wrong, Crime and Punishment 39 What Would Your Greatest Virtues Be? 39 What Would Your Worst Sins Be? 41 Sin Causes the Temple's Destruction 42 Rogues Gallery: Sinning Sages 44 Response to God's "Unfairness" 51 5. How Can Judaism Compete with Christianity? 54 Intentions Count 54 The Afterlife and Limbo in the Yerushalmi 55 6. Tefillin and Tallit: Essential “Props” and “Costumes” 57 Women, Tzitzit and Tefillin 60 7. Who, Beside Rabbis, Was Running the Jewish Community? 63 Rabbis Who Do It All 65 8. How Would You Be Reading Torah? 66 More Coverage: Translation Is a Must 66 Who are the Yerushalmi’s “Extras”? 67 9. Con Men and Characters in Disguise 69 The Straight Man: The Honest Townsfolk 70 The Underdog Catches a Break: Dealing with Financial Adversity and Giving Charity 71 Karma: Justice Prevails 72 10. Who Would Your Enemy Be? 78 A Smothering Sense of Danger 79 Craven, Incompetent Government Officials 81 How Do You Carry Out Warfare? 82 Civil Disobedience 83 Martyrdom 84 Part 2 BUILDING BLOCKS OF PRAYER 87 11. The Toolbox of Prayers 89 Meditation and the Shema 89 When the Prayer Book Needs a Ruthless Editor 90 Contents vii The Amidah 91 Short Services, Please 94 Giving Thanks 95 An Attitude of Gratitude: Ben Zoma’s Prayers 97 Responses to the Priestly Benediction 99 For the New Moon 100 Prayers from the Cutting Room Floor 101 Prayers for Healing 101 A Blessing for Dessert 102 12. Ad-Libbing 104 A Blessing for Honesty in Business 104 Making the Best of a Bad Situation 105 When Someone Else Experiences Financial Loss 106 Passing Through a Cemetery 106 On Seeing a Rainbow 107 Options for Havdalah 108 13. What Would Your Mysticism Be? 110 Nishmat as Mysticism 111 Aleinu and Kaddish: Not Just Cleanup but Mystical Ascents 112 Other Heichalot Prayers You Know 114 The Tree of Life 115 14. Trailers: Meditation Techniques of the Sages 116 Silent Prayer 118 Shabbat: Looking for Loopholes 120 Women Getting Around the Rules 121 The Kiddush Cup 122 Women and Shabbat 122 Part 3 THE HOLIDAYS 125 15. What Would the High Holy Days Be Like? 127 God’s Three Books 128 High Holy Day Services Don’t Have to Be So Long 129 Yom Kippur: The Photonegative of a Pilgrimage Festival 129 Yom Kippur Was a Fashion Show 132 16. What Would Sukkot Be Like? 134 The Sukkah 135 Happy Endings 136 Sukkot = Spring Break in Florida 137 Sukkot = Memorial Day 138 Sukkot = Ritual of Rebellion 139 Sukkot v. Passover 141 17. Passover 142 “The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends” 142 Pesach in Temple Times 143 Massaging the Script 143 Four Cups 144 Exile = Slavery 146 The Real Four Questions 146 The Miracles of Disabilities 147 Catering a Movie: Making the Matzah Look Better 148 Lettuce 149 Shopping for Charoset 150 Fish for the Seder and the Thanksgiving Turkey 150 The Afikoman 151 How to be Happy on the Holiday 152 Fun and Dysfunction at Thanksgiving, and Family Dynamics at the Seder 153 18. What Would Shavuot Be Like? 155 Why Shavuot Is the Ugly Duckling 157 Reaping the Omer 157 Everyone Needs Help with the Hebrew: Ancient Cue Cards 158 19. Purim and Hanukkah 161 How to Observe Purim: Lots of Options 162 A Pedagogical Holiday 164 What Would Hanukkah Be Like? 164 The Lulav and the Hanukkah Lights 166 A Different Miracle 166 What’s the Point? Resisting the Romans! 167 20. Fast Days 169 The Seventeenth of Tammuz: Stage the Breaking of the Ten Commandments 169 What Would Tisha B’Av Be Like? 171 Messianic Hopes Gone for Good 173 Purim and Hanukkah and the Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Ninth of Av 176 Part 4 LIFE CYCLE 177 21. Childbirth (Women Are in Charge) and Parenthood 179 (Il)legitimacy 180 What Parents Must Do for Their Children 181 22. School, Coming of Age, and Learning Differences 183 A Learning System or a Legal System? 184 Grandparents Are an Important Part of the Educational Process 185 Informal Learning 186 Child Development Is an Individual Thing 186 Parental Influence 187 Powerbrokers v. Teachers: The Teachers Are the Good Guys 188 Does Anything Trump Learning? 190 23. What Would Your Wedding and Married Life Be Like? 192 Getting Engaged: Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi Doesn’t Get the Girl 192 “Going to the Chapel”? Maybe Not 193 Sex in the Ketubah 194 Wedding Crowns 199 The Chuppah: The Honeymoon Suite 200 Wedding Blessings 200 Blessing before Consummation? 201 Dancing Before the Bride 202 The Romans Threaten the Wedding’s Joy 203 24. What Would Old Age Be Like? 206 Honoring One’s Parents 207 The Indignities of Aging 208 How to Die: Rabbi Eliezer’s Deathbed 209 What Would Funerals Be Like? 210 Grave Changing 211 Rabbi’s Instruction at Death 212 Other Sages’ Shrouds 212 Buried with a Bit of the Land of Israel 213 Conclusion: What We Can Recapture 215 Abbreviations 216 When, Who, and Where 217 Orders and Tractates of the Mishnah 219 Glossary 226 The Sages 231