The Talmud, Pereq Heleq (the chapter on the share [in the afterlife])

Introduction

Judaism does not have a pope or councils that produce binding instructions. The closest thing to an authoritative collection of Jewish law and legal interpretation of the Torah is the Talmud, but there are two Talmuds (Jerusalem and Babylonian). More significantly, within the Talmuds there are many different, often opposed, opinions and debates often left with no clear “winner.” This is not to say that a normative, orthodox set of interpretations has not developed in certain times and places. It remains striking that Judaism, across its history and literature, is significantly characterized by discussion among a variety of voices.

Each Talmud is built of two parts. The earlier part is the Mishnah, which is a collection of legal material edited around 200 CE. Surrounding the Mishnah (literally on the page) is much longer commentary on the Mishnah, called the Gemara. The Gemara is mostly from 200-500 CE. The following conventions are used in your copy:

ALL CAPS indicates Mishnah, the older core.
italics indicates a quotation from scripture (often out of context and contrary to the simple sense)
[brackets] indicates words added by the translator to fill out the abbreviated way of writing in the Talmud
R. means Rabbi (or Rab, a related term)
b. is short for ben, which means “son of”
Tanna refers to one of the earlier rabbis who produced the Mishnah
Amora refers to one of the later rabbis who produced the Gemara
The footnotes are provided by the 1935 editors.
[H] takes the place of Hebrew text not included in the electronic edition.
/91a/ refers to folio 91, side a. This is the traditional way of citing the Talmud, although for one half class I’ll just use the page numbers from my PDF.
The Soncino translation is available for free online at halakhah.com. There is also a newer crowd-sourced translation at sefaria.org.

Criteria

The opening is rather optimistic, at least for the descendants of Jacob.

What must an Israelite do or avoid to keep that share?
What about non-Israelites?

Body-soul dualism

Where we have seen body-soul dualism in this course, and what is the response in the Talmud?

Resurrection of the body

Where have we seen (and not seen) resurrection of the body in this course, and what is the response in the Talmud?

Use of scripture

How do the rabbis navigate contradictory messages in scripture?
What do they have to say about literal and figurative meanings?
Note particularly the discussion of Ezekiel 37 (LINK)

Eschatological periodization

What is the distinction between the Messianic Era and the World to Come?
What is the level of imminent expectation? What are the dangers of over-eager anticipation?
Can the end be calculated by humans? What does the Talmud have to say about attempts to do so?
Is judgment day fixed in advance, or might it depend on human action? Who said otherwise?
What should be the attitude of the reader about collective eschatology?