The Talmud for Beginners: Prayer (Volume 1)

Rabbi Abrams' goal in Volume 1 of "The Talmud for Beginners -- Prayer" is to demonstrate that the Talmud is not just a collection of arcane laws dealing with the minutiae of Jewish civil law and ritual observance. Instead, she wants us to hear the Talmud's spiritual voice, and see the theological vision of our relationship to God that inspired and unified the work of the classical rabbis. She largely succeeds in this goal, by walking the reader through tractate "Berakhot," which deals with prayer. Each chapter in the book corresponds to a "chapter" of Berakhot. Rabbi Abrams provides a sense of the overall structure of the tractate, what themes each chapter deals with and how it relates to the whole. The commentary is not line-by-line, but there are substantial excerpts from the text, followed by comments on what the rabbis are saying in that particular sugya, how it fits into the chapter and tractate, and how it can fit into our own lives today. Berakhot is a particularly good choice for Rabbi Abrams' purpose, since it is not one of the more technical, legalistic tractates (trying to do the same thing with Bava Metzia, for example, would be a lot more difficult), and since it focuses on prayer -- something most of us are familiar with already.If you are looking for a nice, easy beach at which to wet your feet in the sea of Talmud, this book will serve your purpose. Rabbi Abrams shows that the Talmud need not be daunting and that there is a truly spiritual aspect to it. You do not need to learn any of the hermeneutical rules or understand dialectical argument in order to read and appreciate this book (as noted above, partly because of the choice of Berakhot as the tractate for discussion). This is more of an extended sermon than a scholarly commentary, although the scholarship is obviously there behind the scenes. I have only two small quibbles. First, Rabbi Abrams notes in her introduction that her interpretation is not necessarily the conventional one. I would have appreciated some indication of where her interpretation diverges and what the "conventional" interpretation is. There is virtually no discussion of the classical commentators (only one mention of Rashi in the entire book), so it's a little difficult to know exactly what you're getting. Second, although I'm guessing that at least two-thirds of the text of Berakhot is provided, there are also some significant gaps, and I'm curious about them -- did they not fit into Rabbi Abrams' understanding of this tractate? Were they too difficult for the purposes of this book? Whatever the reason for the omission, I suppose you could say that Rabbi Abrams has succeeded in making me want to read the entire tractate on my own, so perhaps this has to be counted in her favor. Overall, I would count this as a very successful introduction for beginners.