Like Thinking about the Torah, this book is the result of years of teaching, studying, and writing on questions raised by the Hebrew Bible. I acknowledge the support of friends and colleagues who have helped shaped my thinking. In no particular order, they include Michael Morgan, Adriano Fabris, Menachem Kellner, Regina Schwartz, Lenn Goodman, Barry Wimpfheimer, Steven Nadler, Joseph Edelheit, David Novak, Martin Kavka, Haim Kreisel, David Shatz, Roslyn Weiss, Josef Stern, Charles Manekin, Benjamin Sommer, James Diamond, Alan Mittleman, Laurie Zoloth, Gary Saul Morson, Stefano Perfetti, and Leora Batnitzky. Special thanks are due to my friend and former colleague Mira Balberg, for lengthy discussions and detailed comments on every aspect of this book.
I also wish to thank Rabbi Barry Schwartz, director of The Jewish Publication Society (JPS), and Joy Weinberg, the JPS managing editor, for valuable editorial assistance. It is rare in this day and age for an author to get sentence-by-sentence feedback on his or her work, but that is exactly what The Jewish Publication Society offered me, and I am extremely grateful. I am also grateful to the University of Nebraska Press, publishing partner of JPS, for providing an attractive venue for authors like me. Finally, I want to thank Benjamin Ricciardi for research assistance.
All quotations from the Hebrew Bible are taken from the NJPS (New Jewish Publication Society) translation of 1985 unless otherwise noted. All Talmudic citations are from the Babylonian Talmud unless otherwise indicated by the letter “Y” for the Jerusalem Talmud.