By Steven Exler, YCT '09

Fascinating Frames: Blessings Upon the Torah

Shavuot, as zeman matan Torateinu, the time of the giving of our Torah, is a time for revisiting our relationship to Torah study as individuals and as a nation. How have our thinkers and teachers conceived of our relationship to Torah? Among many angles to approaching this question is considering Birkot Hatorah, the Blessings over the Torah. What is the history and form of these blessings, and what might it suggest about how the sages of different generations thought about the encounter with Torah? We'll look at a range of rabbinic and medieval sources on these questions, and wrap up with a striking consideration of the formula of the blessings themselves and their strange presentation in the Talmud.

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