This book examines the significant role that memory failures play in early rabbinic literature. The rabbis who shaped Judaism in late antiquity envisioned the commitment to the Torah and its commandments as governing every aspect of a person’s life. Their vision of a Jewish subject who must keep constant mental track of multiple obligations and teachings led them to be preoccupied with forgetting: forgetting tasks, forgetting facts, forgetting texts, and — most broadly — forgetting the Torah altogether. In Fractured Tablets, Mira Balberg examines the ways in which the early rabbis approached and delineated the possibility of forgetfulness in practice and study and the solutions and responses they conjured for forgetfulness, along with the ways in which they used human fallibility to bolster their vision of Jewish observance and their own roles as religious experts. In the process, Balberg shows that the rabbis’ intense preoccupation with the prospect of forgetfulness was a meaningful ideological choice, with profound implications for our understanding of Judaism in late antiquity.
Nonfiction
Fractured Tablets: Forgetfulness and Fallibility in Late Ancient Rabbinic Culture
January 8, 2023
Discussion Questions
Jewish experience is shaped by both personal and cultural memory. The Torah requires Jews to remember the Exodus from Egypt, the revelation at Sinai, the Sabbath, and even the Torah itself. Meticulous observance requires sharp memory, self awareness, and attention to detail. As such, memory lapses often result in transgression and failure.
The rabbis of antiquity saw it differently. In her latest book, Mira Balberg, Professor of Jewish History and Endowed Chair in Ancient Civilization at the University of California, San Diego, shows how the early rabbis normalized forgetfulness, building it into the fabric of committed Jewish practice. Through a wide-ranging and meticulous examination of the Tannaitic corpus, Balberg reveals the rabbis’ preoccupation with memory lapses, a project through which they sought to create an “inclusive elite.” Balberg’s close reading of the many cases of forgotten laws or details demonstrates that, for these rabbis, human fallibility is a part of a life of halachic devotion, affecting even the greatest of leaders. The rabbis’ vision for a life of Torah included hard work and high standards, as well as forgetfulness and fallibility.
As we have come to expect, Balberg breathes life into even the most obscure and culturally distant sections of the Mishnah. Innovative and clearly written, Fractured Tablets offers deep insight into and a penetrating analysis of the Tannaitic project.
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