Exploring Jewish drinking wisdom
In the course of the first story of drinking in the entirety of the Bible, we see Noah disembarking from the ark and doing something with regard to a vineyard: וַיָּ֥חֶל נֹ֖חַ אִ֣ישׁ הָֽאֲדָמָ֑ה וַיִּטַּ֖ע כָּֽרֶם Noah, man of the soil, [something] to plant a vineyard. It’s unclear how to translate the word ויחל here, […]
In the very first instance of drinking wine in the Bible (Gen. 9), we read of Noah drinking, getting drunk, and then his son, Ham, doing something to him. What did Ham do to Noah? In this episode of Jewish Drinking: The Show, I (Rabbi Drew Kaplan) discuss this Noah-Ham incident with Professor John Bergsma, a […]
A new project I’m launching is Pshats for Shots, a weekly one-page pdf with a brief d’var Torah, which is great for kiddush clubs, Shabbas meals, and other gatherings. Here’s the first sheet: Pshats for Shots – Genesis 5780
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 […]
![Some Considerations of Storing Non-Wine Liquids in Containers That Had Previously Contained Gentile Wine [YD 137:4]](https://jewishdrinking.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/containers-for-wine.jpg)