A new semester

Instead of Bible this semester, I'm now taking Rabbinics. And can I just say, I am SUCH a geek! I've already done the homework for the next two weeks. It's fascinating! We're reading Mishnah, part of the Talmud, in the original Hebrew. I feel like this is the first "rabbinic" class I've had so far, on a subject that I always wanted to learn but never had the opportunity to study. Our professor is wonderful, and today, he even spent 10 minutes with us going over the Talmud Dictionary, telling us how to figure out the context of different words, their roots, and how to read the dictionary's abbreviations to figure out where the word was used in the Talmud. (And it was funny to realize that I'm concurrently learning modern, Biblical, and Mishnaic Hebrew - and the grammar is remarkably the same from Biblical times to 200 CE to now!)

If you're interested in such things, the Wikipedia entry on Talmud (here) is absolutely wonderful. Anytime I came across a word I didn't know in one of the readings, Wikipedia had it. I am so of the internet generation, and I love it!

I'm also taking "Society, Culture, and Belief of Islam" which addresses 22 countries in the Middle East. It's taught by two professors, one who knows Islam and the effect of religion, and the other who's a sociologist and is having us read U.N reports on the Arab world. It's a much more interesting topic to me than last semester's history class on Zionism.

Anyways, so it looks like more work, but also more fun!

(And as an update, my brother stayed over for a few days. But he hates being mentioned here, so I will leave it at that except to say that we watched lots of Star Trek and had a great time. :))