Why does Shmuel cruelly humiliate the man who would become his lifelong havruta?
How does this ordeal turn the havruta into the great leader of Babylonian Judaism?
And what does this tell us about the rabbinic response to suffering?
Read the story of Rav’s rise to greatness through the Talmud and Midrash, ancient medicine and modern anthropology, Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Mikhail Bakhtin.
Gila Fine is a lecturer in rabbinic literature at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, exploring the tales of the Talmud through philosophy, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and pop-culture.
She is also a faculty member of the London School of Jewish Studies, the Nachshon Project, and Amudim Seminary, and has taught thousands of students at communities and conferences across the Jewish world.
Gila’s dynamic literary method and unique intertextual approach – ranging from folktales to fiction to film – bring the stories of the Talmud to life, revealing their relevance for our time. Her work has been featured in the BBC, Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, the Jerusalem Report, Tradition Journal, Jewish News, and the Jewish Chronicle (which selected her as one of the ten most influential Brits in Israel).
Haaretz has called her “a young woman on her way to becoming one of the more outstanding Jewish thinkers of the next generation.”
