Exploring Jewish drinking wisdom
Although I know you’re probably thinking “What does the fruit that Adam and Eve ate have to do with drinking?” And that’s a great question! Wine/Grapevine? It turns out there is a rabbinic text that associates wine with this fruit (bBerakhot 40a & bSanhedrin 70a-b): תניא רבי מאיר אומר אותו אילן שאכל אדם הראשון ממנו […]
The fourth weekly installment of Jewish Drinking: The Show features Rabbi Daniel Epstein, who discusses his Jewish Biblical drinking game. Called Weird Tanakh Facts, Rabbi Epstein’s game which is currently in beta version, seeks to sharpen players’ knowledge of Biblical verses. The podcast version of the discussion is here: The video version of the discussion is […]
With the Shabbat of Sukkot coming up this weekend when the book of Ecclesiastes (ספר קהלת) is traditionally read, I invited Rabbi Daniel Epstein for a conversation on drinking in the book of Ecclesiastes for the newest video and podcast episode for JewishDrinking: Podcast Episode: Video:
With the holiday of Sukkot approaching in a matter of days, my second video/podcast episode is now live on the topic of drinking on Sukkot with a sneak preview of next week’s video on drinking in the book of Ecclesiastes:
Having imported writings of mine from other blogs on Jewish drinking texts, and with more posts upcoming, I will now also be creating video content as well as my first-ever podcast(!). The introductory video and podcast episode are now available – you can also see them listed on the videos and podcasting page I created. […]
Introduction: Appearances Wine appears in four statements in Avot – three dealing with wine as a vehicle for metaphors and one dealing with wine in a literal sense. Temporal Appropriateness Rabbi Dosa, son of Hyrcanus (while the Hebrew literally transliterates to Harkinas, it would seem that it is a variant of Hyrcanus)[1] warns against wine-drinking in the afternoon (Avot 3:10): […]
Rabbi Yosef Karo, in his Set Table, writes straightforwardly (שלחן ערוך יורה דעה קלז:ד): כלים האסורים מחמת יין של עובד כוכבים מותר ליתן לתוכם בין מים בין שכר בין שאר משקים ובלבד שידיח בתחלה לחלוחי היין שעל פני הכלים וכן מותר למלוח בהם It is permissible to place wine, beer, or other beverages in vessels that […]
There is a curious story in the Passover Haggadah that I wanted to explore: מַעֲשֶׂה בְּרַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר וְרַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ וְרַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן־עֲזַרְיָה וְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא וְרַבִּי טַרְפוֹן שֶׁהָיוּ מְסֻבִּין בִּבְנֵי־בְרַק וְהָיוּ מְסַפְּרִים בִּיצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם כָּל־אוֹתוֹ הַלַּיְלָה, עַד שֶׁבָּאוּ תַלְמִידֵיהֶם וְאָמְרוּ לָהֶם רַבּוֹתֵינוּ הִגִּיעַ זְמַן קְרִיאַת שְׁמַע שֶׁל שַׁחֲרִית The incident of Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi […]
Over this recent Purim, I was curious to keep track of the drinking parties, since I knew there were multiple such events, but hadn’t quite remembered what each of them were. While tracking them, though, I was fascinated to not only have a sense of what they were, but maybe also somewhat of a pattern. […]
With Purim upon us this week and the attendant drinking that occurs, it’s fitting to wonder about the appropriateness of praying while intoxicated (or its inappropriateness). So: what do the Talmudic rabbis have to say about it? Tannaitic Exemption One clear tannaitic text that discusses this issue finds that one should not pray while drunk […]
![Some Considerations of Storing Non-Wine Liquids in Containers That Had Previously Contained Gentile Wine [YD 137:4]](http://jewishdrinking.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/containers-for-wine.jpg)
