Steven Brizel responds to Liel Leibovitz on the Talmud

To the Editors:

Liel Leibowitz’s article about the Talmud was superb. As both Rabbi Soloveitchik and the Chazon Ish of blessed memory observed, the Jewish view on any subject begins with halacha, which is directly or indirectly rooted in the Talmud. One cannot be a literate Jew without having attempted to sail in the Sea of the Talmud, which spends much time on the creation and maintenance of marriage and man’s responsibility for his fellow man, as well as Shabbos, the holidays, and understanding what transpired in the Temple from the view of the rabbis of the Talmud, as opposed to outside scholarly, historical, sociological and psychological perspectives. We are far more the people of the Talmud than the people of the Book, which secular Zionists incorrectly limited to the Bible.