The Architecture of Talmud

Abstract

This article analyzes for the first time the architectural implications of the Talmud, a multivolume religious text composed between the second and sixth centuries of the first millennium. The Talmud has extensive commentaries on specifically Jewish structures such as the Sukkah, Eruv, and Mikveh, as well as on everyday buildings and public places used by Jews. Moreover, the Talmud substituted for monumental architecture during the many centuries when the Jewish people had no homeland and were subject to frequent persecutions and exiles. The architecture of Talmud, therefore, can be analyzed in two critical arenas: first, through its numerous and detailed rules and recommendations for the practice of building; and, second, amid its creation of a textual discourse whose form and character is based in large part on the memory of the destroyed Temple and lost homeland.