Rabbinic Drinking

"Rabbinic literature presumes tremendous prior knowledge, and its fascinating twists and turns in logic are disorienting for even those well-versed in the corpus. In order to help readers navigate this brilliant but bewildering terrain, Rabbinic Drinking explores how rabbinic literature uses both the contents of a drinking vessel and the contexts in which they are drunk to survey key themes in rabbinic literature. Over the course of nine chapters, these themes build to introduce readers to the contours of rabbinic literature. The fact that important rabbinic concepts, from interactions with non-Jews to permitted actions on holidays, are conveyed via rabbinic discussion of wine and beer, for example, makes for engaging reading in the classroom, and beyond"--