Artscroll. A publisher; usually refers here to the volumes of its Babylonian Talmud, with elucidation, annotation and translation.
chol (חול)= sand = profane (e.g., weekdays instead of shabbat)
cholent (aka chulent) = Do you want a lovely, linguistic description? Or how to cook it? A recent Canadian guide, some blog recipes, or the full recipe archive?
daf (ףד) = page
EJ = Encyclopedia Judaica. Disambiguate from the public domain and worthy (but "outdated") Jewish Encyclopedia.
kaspit כספית = hydrargyrum, mercury, quicksilver. Symbol = Hg, atomic weight =80.
lex talionis = the approach for law, or retributive justice, of "an eye for an eye"
masechet = tractate of talmudic literature
Scylla and Charybdis = rock-dwelling monster and whirlpool (The Odyssey)
shabbat שבת= from Friday sundown to Saturday nightfall. A masechet of Talmud.
(the) Talmud = the Babylonian Talmud, Bavli (unless specifying the Yerushalmi Talmud)
yom = day, yomi (יומי) = daily
Neologisms
commendiary (cp. commentary, diary, common [i.e., collaborative] diary) (zero google hits, so "original"?)
hermercurial (cp. hermeneutics, Hermes, Mercury) (zero google hits; so original?)
Re: a critique of the material and commercial world through the interpretation of significant texts, such as rabbinic texts.
“Reading Talmud between the Greek and the Roman, the philosophical and the material, between their Hermes and Mercurius. Yes, it’s an endless hermeneutical Job to fall into both the textual and the toxical depths. A hermercurial critique.” From the introduction to this daf yomi commendiary. http://kaspit.typepad.com/weblog/2005/05/daf_yomi_commen.html
hermercurating (cp. hermeneutics, Mercury, curating)
Exhibiting or describing (without deliberate critique) the material and commercial world through the interpretation of significant texts, such as rabbinic texts.
“The daf's text here allows us to read indirectly about the rabbinic commercial culture. It does not strike me as a critique of commerce. So my reading is not “hermercurial” but rather “hermercurating”, i.e. exhibiting the Mercurius (Roman god of commerce) through the text.” From a note on the hermercurial method. http://kaspit.typepad.com/weblog/2005/05/the_commercial_.html
Rabbinic literature (nomenclature)
m = Mishnah
t = Tosefta
b = Babylonian Talmud with folio pages, e.g. 32a and 32b
y = Yerushalmi (or Jerusalem or Palestinian or Land of Israel) Talmud
Abbreviations for talmudic tractates (selections)
AZ = Avodah Zarah (i.e., idolatry)
BB = Bava batra
BK = Bava kamma (baba qamma, etc)
Git = Gittin (divorce)
Shab = Shabbat
Sanh = Sanhedrin (court of law)
Example: bAZ 32b = Avodah Zarah tractate of Babylonian Talmud, page 32b
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