On this edition of By the Book, sponsored by Koren Publishers, Nachum Segal interviewed Rabbi Berel Wein about two fascinating new Koren publications: “The Oral Law of Sinai” & “Vision and Valor.”

From the Koren website:

In Vision & Valor, Rabbi Berel Wein traces the development of the Talmud, the record of the Oral Law of Sinai as refined, debated, and discussed over four centuries in the great Torah academies of the Land of Israel and Babylonia.This beautifully illustrated, footnoted, oversized volume is a necessity for every Jewish home interested in the soul of Judaism, its rituals, values and practices.

Written by historian Rabbi Berel Wein,The Oral Law of Sinai is an extraordinary and beautifully illustrated book that explores the Talmud’a law book that is a faithful transmission of the Oral Law of Sinai. As Rabbi Wein explains, the Talmud is two separate books comprising the Oral Law. This work offers an explanation of the first book of the Talmud, the Mishnah.

Rabbi Wein guides the reader through the mysteries of the Mishnah that detail ethical principles and moral values. It is also filled with legends and stories of psychological and historical observations. The Mishnah discusses medicine, pharmacology, dreams, botany, astronomy and mathematics, as well as human and animal biology. There is nothing about human existence, nothing about life, humans, nature, spirituality or physicality that is a taboo subject. All is Torah; all is holiness.

The Oral Law of Sinai is replete with humor, irony, pathos, soaring optimism and cold hearted realism, its drama emerges from the give and take of intensive scholarly debate and unending questioning, problem solving, and hypotheses.

Check out other By the Book archives below: