Meet Rabbi Akiva, Rabban Gamliel and Friends: Highlights of the Talmudic Portrait Gallery. This series, taught by Leah Rosenthal will focus on a close reading and discussion of a selection of literary portraits of central Rabbinic figures who produced the canonical Rabbinic texts that make up the foundations of Jewish tradition. In this episode, Leah Rosenthal will focus on Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai– Perhaps more than any other Talmudic figure the character of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai has shifted and changed over time. Here is an opportunity to closely follow his story as recorded in the Talmud and to consider how and why this figure developed into the powerful and charismatic personality still revered and impacting the Jewish experience today.
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