JEWISH LITERATURE 2

L'insegnamento ricade tra gli insegnamenti caratterizzanti del curriculum del corso "Lingue, Culture e Società dell'Asia e dell'Africa Mediterranea". I suoi obiettivi formativi rientrano nell'area di apprendimento delle competenze culturali e umanistiche.

Student will be introduced to the literature, the piety, and the morals of classical rabbinic Judaism (from the 4th cent. BCE to the Middle Ages) by reading and analyzing (in the Hebrew original) Tractate Avot from the Mishnah.

Communicating capabilities:
- capability to express and process the contents of the course and the topic of the papers in written form (in Italian or in English for non-Italian speaking students).

Learning capabilities:
- efficiently taking lecture notes in classroom;
- critically integrating different teaching materials (class notes, slides, handbooks, academic papers);
- independent, critical study of course-related topics not dealt in class;
- improving the student's capability to read and process materials in English.

One year of study of Hebrew, both classical and modern.

The Pirqe Avot ("Chapters of the Fathers") are a collection of wisdom sayings by Pharisee thinkers and Rabbis from the 2nd cent. BCE to the early 3rd cent. CE. By prompting their listeners and readers to sacred study of Written and Oral Torah, and to its practice in everyday life and in judicial contexts, the sayings in Pirqe Abot raise and face deep moral issues. Their wording is so concise, terse, and memorable, as to have earnt the nickname "Gospel of the Pharisees" (effective, though inaccurate) to the whole collection. The Pirqe Avot are included in the Mishnah, the code of Oral Torah that - according to a tradition reported in the Pirqe Avot themselves - was given by God to Moses on Sinai along with Written Torah. Over the centuries they were also included in the synagogue rituals of almost all the Jewish cultures of the Diaspora and translated in almost every Jewish language. After the Bible and the Passover Haggadah, the Pirqe Avot are the most widespread and popular book in the whole history of Judaism.

The Hebrew texts will be made available on the course Moodle.

Instructional tools:
1) G. Stemberger, "Introduzione all'ebraistica", Ital. transl. Morcelliana, Brescia 2013.
2) • M.S. Jaffee – Ch.E. Fonrobert (eds.), "Il Talmud e la letteratura rabbinica", Ital. transl. Paideia, Brescia 2013.
3) M. Pérez Fernández, "An Introductory Grammar of Rabbinic Hebrew", Engl. transl. Brill, Leiden/New York/Köln 1995.
4) M. Jastrow "A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature", Luzac/Putnam, London/New York 1903 and repr.(<http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/Jastrow/index.htm> ;).
5) U. Eco, "Come si fa una tesi di laurea. Le materie umanistiche", Bompiani, Milano 1977 and repr.

The final evaluation mark will depend on:
50 % - attendance to classes and participation to discussion in class;
50 % - evaluation of paper(s), considering in particular i) correctness of expression in Italian (or English) and ii) observance of the editorial rules explained in Eco's above-indicated handbook.

The list of suggested topics and bibliographies for papers will be made available to students via mailing list at the beginning of the teaching term. Papers are required i) to be in Word format (PDFs will not be evaluated), ii) not to exceed 30.000 characters (spaces included; front pages, summaries, and bibliographies are excluded from the count), and iii) to observe the editorial indications and rules for quoting bibliography explained in Eco's handbook. Papers may be submitted at any time during the academic year, regardless of the dates of the calls.


Students non attending classes are required to submit two papers.

Classroom lectures. The translation of the texts will be assigned as homework and checked in class.

Italian

written