> While I was at the conference, I stayed at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where young rabbis--I think they were Orthodox--were studying. Since I have a Jewi

> While I was at the conference, I stayed at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where young rabbis--I think they were Orthodox--were studying. Since I have a Jewish background, I knew of some of the things they told me about the Talmud, but I had never seen the Talmud. It was very interesting. It's got big pages, and in a little square in the corner of the page is the original Talmud, and then in a sort of L-shaped margin, all around this square, are commentaries written by different people. The Talmud has evolved, and everything has been discussed again and again, all very carefully, in a medieval kind of reasoning. I think the commentaries were shut down around the thirteen- or fourteen- or fifteen-hundreds--there hasn't been any modern commentary. This is mostly wrong as other have pointed out. JTS is not by any estimation orthodox. At most it would be considered Jewish-conservative. I’m surprised to learn they are concerned with not pushing elevator buttons, if that was true then it’s certainly not true today. Additionally, the Talmud absolutely has commentaries from the modern era, you can find commentaries from even the 1950s. Though it does take a few years for those to make it into the book. Maybe not directly in the margin but likely sub-noted to the back of the book. I also find it hilarious that he calls it medieval logic and then admits they out foxed him at every turn in any logical debate he tried. Not to mention I could likely take down the arguments he proposes without much trouble and I’m no rabbi.