Combining philological, anthropological and cultural tools, this study sheds new light on issues of rabbinic gender economy and sexual morality, and contributes to the nascent scholarship on the formation of the temple in the Mishnah.

Ishay Rosen-Zvi is the Head of the Talmud and Late Antiquity section in the department of Hebrew Culture Studies at Tel-Aviv University, where he teaches Talmudic literature and culture. His main interests are: Midrashic hermeneutics; the formation of the Mishna; Temple rituals in rabbinic literature; and gender and sexuality in late antiquity. His Book Demonic Desires: YETZER HARA and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press (2011).