Hi Shalom, and thanks as always for the great digest.
I am truly interested in whatever you learn about the animatedtalmud.com project. Since we at G-dcast have been planning to begin animating stories from the Gemara for some time we will be watching their progress with interest. Although we are both animating text, the two projects have vastly different approaches, and audiences, so it will be interesting to see the response.
My answer to your question, "Why teach Gemara?" is different than a traditional educator's will be. I'd say this.
We have a vast canon of literature, and yet most young Jewish students I meet - smartypantses though they may be - have no idea it even exists. The thought that there is more to the tradition than Torah, Shabbat and maybe a few of the big holidays is a new one to many kids outside the day school circuit. I remember being a disaffected Bat Mitzvah student and asking, "Who cares?" And as soon as my Bat Mitzvah was over, I certainly didn't.
It was discovering the Talmud that reeled me back in, 10 years later. Coming to know that there was this vast, complex, funny, intellectual, sexual, argumentative, frustrating, compelling literature - that is so uniquely Jewish - was exciting. I had studied difficult-to-translate Latin in high school, difficult-to-parse ideas in college...and now I was doing that in a Jewish context for the first time. The logic and stories I was unraveling actually meant something to me in my every day life. I could answer the question, "who cares?" myself now. What Would the Talmud Say? isn't a bumper sticker yet, but it's a fun question to ask when you're posed with a practical, or a moral quandary.
Plus, it's just so colorful. We at G-dcast can't wait to start releasing our short films based on the stories in the Gemara.
-Sarah
sarah lefton
executive director, producer
www.g-dcast.com
