Well, THAT was interesting.
This is the twelfth anniversary of the death of my father. As an evangelical minister (at various times Free Will Baptist, Cumberland Presbyterian, [these were before I came along], Southern Baptist [what he spent the most time as and what he was at his death], and Assemblies of God), he was of course obsessed with the Bible.
His death certificate says he died at 11:45 pm (which sounds about right from what I remember). I decided to note the moment (I know he died Central time, but I'm not going to stay up that late and observed Eastern time).
About a minute before, I was just looking at my phone and noticed a message on Slack for my daf yomi (daily Talmud study) class. In today's daf, there was a quotation from Esther (interesting timing given that Purim just happened) and, at the end of class, I asked if anyone had done a study of how often particular books of the Bible were quoted in the Talmud, and a very learned member of the class (who sometimes substitute teaches when the rabbanit who leads the class can't make it) said he could get the answer for me by tomorrow. It turns out that he had tonight posted an AWESOME spreadsheet he had put together from Sefaria with overall statistics, statistics for how often which book is quoted in which tractate, vice versa, really a work of beauty.
I think my father had a very distorted and misguided understanding of the Bible and of who God is. I find my understanding of both the Bible and God to be greatly enriched by the study of Talmud and consider my daf teacher and classmates some of my greatest teachers and love grappling with theology as it arises from the daf with them.
And, somehow, looking at the magnificent spreadsheet analyzing biblical quotations in the Talmud by book, seems like it was what I was meant to be doing at the moment of the twelfth anniversary of his death.
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