Binaries: Remarks on Chaim N. Saiman's 'Halakhah'

Abstract

Binaries are helpful but deceptive, and this may be particularly true of simplistic theological dichotomies purporting to show that the Talmud is "Nitpicking" and Christian Biblical understandings "Expansive", or that Jews believe in the "letter" and Christians in the "spirit", Jews in strict Justice and Christians in "mercy", etc. This essay, which focuses on the character of Shylock and the legalistic cruelty inflicted upon him by Venice's Christians, dissolves such Binaries, leaving in their wake greater clarity about the contrary need to "re-binarize" the falsely unified hyphenated adjective "Judaeo-Christian".

Keywords: Talmud, Binaries, Shylock