It’s hard to believe that just a year ago, Talmudology was celebrating the completion of the Daf Yomi cycle in Jerusalem. What has happened in the world over the the intervening twelve months has been awful. But as the promise of vaccination begins to be realized, let’s spend a moment to appreciate what a bumper year for Talmudology it has been. Last year we had almost 30,000 unique visitors and 55,000 page views. This year we almost doubled that. There were 57,000 unique visitors and over 105,000 page views. Wow.
The Most Popular Posts of 2020
Here are the ten most popular posts of 2020, together with those of 2019 for comparison.
| 2020 - This Year's Top Ten Posts | 2019 - Last Year's Top Ten Posts | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Avodah Zarah 28b ~ Ear Candling.  On a silly way to clean your ears. |
Bava Basra 126b ~ The Healing Power of Saliva. Saliva, wound healing, and the magic of a firstborn’s spit. |
| 2 | Bava Basra 126b ~ The Healing Power of Saliva.  Saliva, wound healing, and the magic of firstborn spit |
Chullin 22b ~ Yellow Pigeons, Folk Medicine and Hepatitis. Why pigeons are still used to cure hepatitis |
| 3 | Kiddushin 82a ~ The Best Doctors Go to Hell. Doctors were at best useless, and at their worst, agents of death. To hell with them |
Avodah Zarah 28b ~ Ear Candling. On a silly way to clean your ears. |
| 4 | Kiddushin 30a ~ How Many Letters are in a Sefer Torah? 304, 801. Or 304, 805. And why the rabbis miscounted |
Kiddushin 29a ~ Swimming and Drowning. The Jewish requirement to teach a child to swim. |
| 5 | Kiddushin 29a ~ Swimming and Drowning. The Jewish requirement to teach a child to swim. |
Avodah Zarah 39a ~ Do Swordfish have Scales? Actually they do. So they are kosher. |
| 6 | Bechorot 8a ~ Rashi on Mermaids NEW Mermaids in rabbinic (and Greek) literature. And a sighting by Christopher Columbus |
Bava Basra 25b ~ The Sun's Orbit Around the Earth. The rabbis of the Talmud vs. Copernicus. |
| 7 | Berachot 50a ~ "The Three Who Ate" - on Yom Kippur NEW David Frischmann wrote a story about the rabbi who made Kiddish on Yom Kippur. But was it true? |
Kiddushin 30a ~ How Many Letters are in a Sefer Torah? 304, 801. Or 304, 805. And why the rabbis miscounted. |
| 8 | Bechorot 16a ~ A Flat Earth, The Eye, and the Sky NEW The geocentric universe is modeled by the structure of an eye. |
Kiddushin 82a ~ The Best Doctors Go to Hell. Doctors were at best useless, and at their worst, agents of death. To hell with them. |
| 9 | Berachot 2 ~ How Many Words Are In the Babylonian Talmud? NEW 1.8 million, give or take |
Bava Basra 27b ~ The Roots of a Palm Tree. How the United Nations supported Abayye’s botanical opinions. |
| 10 | Niddah 13 ~ Onanism, Self-Pollution and Potential People NEW The Talmud viewed sperm as potential people. It’s a viewpoint very removed from our own. |
Ketuvot 36a ~ The Aylonit Syndrome and Turner's Syndrome. How genetics sheds light on a Talmudic category. |
Where are the Talmudology readers FROM?
Here are the top five Talmudology reading countries:
USA - 61% (46,000 visitors)
Israel 12% (9,000 visitors)
United Kingdom 5% (4,200 visitors)
Canada 3% (3,000 visitors)
Australia 2% (1,600 visitors)
And there are plenty of readers from unexpected places too. Over 700 people enjoyed Talmudology in India, 90 were in Saudi Arabia when they read about the Talmud and 55 were in Iran. We should also welcome the 114 readers from the United Arab Emirates, a country now officially at peace with Israel. We value your readership, and don’t worry, we cannot identify any of you in more detail, even if we wanted to.
help talmudology reach its 1,000th subscriber
We are very close to welcoming our 1,000th email subscriber. With your help we can reach this goal. Here is a little incentive. If you already subscribe, please encourage a friend to do so. When they have signed up, let me know. The 1,000th subscriber, together with the existing subscriber who sent them, will each receive a signed copy of New Heavens and A New Earth, which is otherwise available on Amazon for the crazy price of $110. Already own a copy? Then instead you can get a signed copy of Influenza: The Hundred Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History.
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תכלה שנה וקללותיה, תחל שנה וברכותיה
The Year and its Curses have Come to an End
May the Next Year and its Blessings Begin*
*See Talmud Bavli Megillah 31b
