What is behind Yaakov’s sudden adoption of Yosef’s two sons? And why does he make Yosef swear to bury him in the land of Canaan? Is his son’s word not enough?
The Tanur shel Akhnai: A tale of two methods
One of the most quoted Talmudic stories is the story of the Tanur shel Akhnai, the story of a debate between the famous R’ Eliezer ben Hyrcanus on the one side and the rest of the sages of Israel on the other side. This is the story of a dramatic upheaval in the Jewish world, whose echoes continue to reverberate down through the centuries to the present day.
