Talk:The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness

Suggested improvements

This article would benefit from:

• images (that don't have copyright problems), like a marked-up Talmud page (?)
• elaboration and more clarity about different interpretations of the sugya among rishonim
• editing of the sugya text, so that it is "hidden" unless clicked by reader, and to differentiate original text from "elucidations"

Other ideas? ProfGray (talk) 00:25, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that a Talmudic passage, "The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness", is used in Jewish medical ethics to justify patient autonomy?

• Source: current footnote 12: Berger, Zackary; Cahan, Rabbi Joshua (2016). "Patient Autonomy in Talmudic Context: The Patient's "I Must Eat" on Yom Kippur in the Light of Contemporary Bioethics". Journal of Religion and Health. 55 (5): 1778–1785: "Here, we analyze a discussion in the Mishna, a foundational text of rabbinic Judaism, regarding patient autonomy in the setting of religiously mandated fasting, and commentaries in the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, finding both a more expansive notion of such autonomy and a potential metaphysical grounding for it in the importance of patient self-knowledge."

• ALT1: ... that a Talmudic passage, "The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness", has been used to justify a rabbinic law project by and for transgender Jews? Source: current fn #5: Soloman, Laynie; Pearce, Russell G. (2022). "'Nothing about Us without Us': Toward a Liberatory Heterodox Halakha". Touro L. Rev. 37: 1769–1836 – via HeinOnline: ""The heart alone knows its bitterness" is not simply a mantra about the essential power of individuals to dictate their medical needs when confronted with a disputing party. This statement, as we have seen, becomes an interpretive principle that we can utilize to articulate a truth at the center of a vision of a liberatory Heterodox halakha that attempts to center the needs, realities, experiences, and expertise of the community from which it emerges. (1830)... The approaches to Heterodox halakhathat we have described thus far are the ideologies that ground the Trans Halakha Project, a recent initiative that "aims to curate existing resources that have been developed for trans Jews and by trans Jews..." (1832)

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Elin Falk
• Comment: I'm very sorry, I lost track of the timing (because I put wrong creation date on my user page)! It's a few days over. But the hooks are short and clearly sourced, so hopefully easy to review.

Created by ProfGray (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 7 past nominations.

ProfGray (talk) 14:10, 19 November 2024 (UTC).

• Comment: That's fine, User:ProfGray, but please make a note to avoid this again. This is at least the second time you've missed the cutoff date and if you make it a habit, some editors are likely to decline in the future. I will compose a review. Viriditas (talk) 23:17, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• @ProfGray:

• The lead hardly summarizes the body.
• No quotes for "The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness" as the title?
• You alternate between the uppercase title "The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness" and the lowercase phrasing of "the heart knows its own bitterness" of the sugya and the proverb it refers to. That's three different references, and it must be really confusing for our readers. You probably need a dab header pointing to the Proverb as well. Figure out a way to make it clear that you are differentiating between the 1) principle 2) the sugya, and the 3) proverb.
• It is because the verse states: "The heart knows the bitterness of its soul" (Proverbs 14:10) Please link to Proverbs 14
• In a 2022 law review article, Laynie Soloman and Russell G. Pearce deploy The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness as one of two No quotes for "The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness" here?
• While applying The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness for a Jewish ethics by a those outside the mainstream No quotes here?
• Citation 2: ""The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness". You've got two quotes in front of the title. This can be solved by using a single quote in the title field.
• gemara. You're using a different convention for Gemara than Wikipedia. Here, it is uppercase with no italics. You're doing the same for other words like Yoma, etc. Note: I see you are doing this for a specific reason, but that it isn't evident to most people, so perhaps add a footnote explaining the usage differences.
• Hence it is discussed in the 313rd mitzvah Per WP:EL, don't use an external link in the body of the article. Add the footnote.
• Jewish Medical Ethics. Add the pub date so we know the year like this: Jewish Medical Ethics (1959). I believe it is 1959, but you should verify.
• I added the link to the source in the hook. Please also add it to the article.
• Along these lines, Libson mentions the case of a rabbi (a Tosafist, Isaac ben Asher) who fasted to death in the medieval period, earning some recognition for piety as well as push back on the rabbinic acceptance of such conduct There's a great opportunity to add some interdenominational cross-referencing if the sources support it. Fasting to death was a thing in Asian Buddhism and was practiced to achieve self-mummification. Apparently, these bodies of monks who fasted to death are still in public view (China, Japan, Korea).
• Yes if a person says they need food, their view outweighs even 100 doctors who say they should fast. That's not encyclopedic style. Please rewrite that passage.

More in a bit. Viriditas (talk) 23:17, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed comments. And I'm sorry about the timing, not my strong suit, I'll try not to err again. I've made most of your suggested changes. (I know about Sallekhana but might seem like OR for me to refer to it, and the rabbinic case is more an exception than a comparable practice.) I see the inconsistency: should The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness generally be in title case with or without quotation marks? I revised the lead a bit but I think it covers much of the ground of the article, what do you sense should be added? ProfGray (talk) 18:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing:
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:
• Other problems: - WP:DYKCOMPLETE

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Exemption per WP:DYKNEW. Article is long enough; no problems found by Earwig except quotes. Hooks seem fine and sourced. My primary issue is with the article itself. Even though there are no maintenance tags, I think it indirectly fails WP:DYKCOMPLETE due to is tendency towards obscurantism from the style of writing, which I believe impacts the overall presentation. I realize this is not done on purpose. I recommend a complete rewrite. The current version lacks clarity and focus and is technical and dense. This problem could easily be remedied by removing all the quoted passages and reducing the topic to its bare simplicity for the general reader. Then, slowly add back in more advanced concepts and quotes as needed. I realize my review will be controversial, so after writing this, I will immediately request a second opinion. Viriditas (talk) 01:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, I've never been asked to do a complete rewrite before. It is true that the articles on the Talmud are going to get into some special terms, which have hyperlinks, and content (e.g., literary sources and legal issues). Perhaps you could mark which quotations should be removed and presumably paraphrased instead? Which paragraphs are too dense and require more clarity or clarification? Not sure that 'obscurantism' is a helpful feedback term, but I do appreciate your willingness to help me improve this. ProfGray (talk) 18:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

In terms of DYKCOMPLETE, I wonder if folks would glance at my other currently nominated articles on Talmudic topics, to check for similar concerns. Moses sees Rabbi Akiva (Menachot 29b), Sugya, Hefker. ProfGray (talk) 18:34, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I did that, and your other article on the list of older hooks needing to be reviewed didn’t appear so bad. For me, the issue here is, what if you pretend for a moment that you aren’t who you are, you’re someone who doesn’t know this subject and has no familiarity with it. Now read what you wrote with that pretend state of mind. It’s difficult to make sense of it. Like I said, work towards simplicity for the general reader and you should be fine. The easiest and simplest way to do this is to add all of the text, except for the quotes, to a sandbox page, and rewrite it. Once you've achieved a reasonable outline and structure that anyone can follow and understand, begin adding in your selected quotes if necessary. That should solve the entire problem. I will bow out of this and ask others to take over. Perhaps you will find someone who is sympathetic and will pass it. But I read it three times with the idea that I was new and a beginner and as someone who has never come across the subject before, and I couldn’t get very far. Try it yourself. Remember, we aren’t just writing for ourselves but a general audience. You’re not alone in this struggle, it’s something I keep running into in my own writing and I’m always having to make changes because I sometimes forget that I’m not the intended recipient. Viriditas (talk) 18:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't rewrite the whole article. Check out some of the better math articles like Algebra, where specific sections may not make sense to someone who has not already learned the material, but the lead is still able to provide a broad overview. I think you could take that strategy here. There are portions of the lead that, to me with no Jewish background, are unclear. Here are my notes reading through it:

The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness is a sugya (passage) in the Babylonian Talmud's tractate Yoma,

looks good

which hinges on the interpretation of a Biblical verse.

what does it mean to "hinge" here? Does it interpret the verse? Offer commentary? Both? Something else?

A snippet of the verse, "The Heart Knows its Own Bitterness" (Proverbs 14:10), identifies both the sugya and a principle derived from the sugya for Jewish ethics and law.

This is really unclear. Proverbs 14:10 begins "The heart knows its own bitterness", is that what is meant by snippet? If this sentence is saying that the sugya is named after the phrase "The heart knows its own bitterness" in Proverbs 4:10, then there are more clear ways to say that. If something else is meant, it's not clear.

The passage begins with a mishnah,

Is "a mishnah" just a paragraph?

which is discussed in the Babylonian Talmud.

I thought that the "sugya (passage)" is "in the Babylonian Talmud"?

There are related texts in the Tosefta and Palestinian Talmud.

good, but wikilink Tosefta, Babylonian Talmud, and Palestinian Talmud

For centuries, the sugya has been relevant to deliberations over real or perceived health risks, especially when facing religious obligations such as fasting on Yom Kippur.

good

In contemporary Jewish medical ethics, the passage is used to assess patient autonomy in relation to expert medical opinion.

good

In a more expansive move, progressive (non-Orthodox) Jews have invoked this principle and its sugya to adjust rabbinic law for gay, transgender, and disabled Jewish lives.

I don't see "disabled" in the body of the article. In addition to mentioning it in the body to give a citation, it's also not clear from the lead how "expert medical opinion" is separate from "disabled".

Hope that helps, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 23:32, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, this is sort of covered by the guideline MOS:INTRO, "Make the lead section accessible to as broad an audience as possible. Where possible, avoid difficult-to-understand terminology, symbols, mathematical equations and formulas. Where uncommon terms are essential, they should be placed in context, linked, and briefly defined. The subject should be placed in a context familiar to a normal reader. For example, it is better to describe the location of a town with reference to an area or larger place than with coordinates. Readers should not be dropped into the middle of the subject from the first word; they should be eased into it." And also also, pings to Viriditas and ProfGray. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 23:37, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

• Taking a look. I will confess I've never heard of this precise thing, but let me explain a bit as I think I can straddle the in-universe and out-universe view, which might be why Viriditas mentioned it to me. I think Viriditas has a point that we're veering into some Talmud WP:JARGON, though I don't think it needs a complete ground-up rewrite. I would just go through it and for every situation where there might be some WP:BACKGROUND, just explain the significance of the broader thing even though people who are well-versed in rabbinical studies probably already know about it (if possible, with broad sources of course). I took one look at this and I don't claim to know Talmud by heart or anything, but I immediately recognized that this as related to justification for what my mother would always tell me when we didn't fast or observe another holiday or tradition (not that we were religious anyway - Reform), particularly one that involved schlepping inconveniently if we were sick or had school or something, that Judaism taught a compassionate view (more or less - paraphrasing poorly) and would always defer to one's health. "You always have your health." "Use it in good health." That's what my dear grandmother would always say. It's closer to Pikuach nefesh, though, which you've wikilinked, so maybe the relationship between those two could be elucidated more in-depth. I also remember it coming up again involving Jewish justifications for abortion rights, so that might be another angle for it, if I'm not off-base there. So that's what this means to me. I think interweaving the examples in the earlier part of the article would work better (WP:UPFRONT) than jumping right into the sort of exposition of Jewish legalism, which I'm sure feels very comfortable and familiar if you spend time in that world at all, because that is kind of the default tone of a lot of Talmudical hermeneutics and exegesis. Maybe add a few sentences about the broader stuff earlier on in the article and figure out how to go "global and noble," since I do think this is an interesting topic but I agree that it's on the dense side. I know just reading a bunch of thrown-over-the-transom feedback that's kind of vague may not practically get us closer but if I have time in the next few days, I'll research it a little bit and see if I can find anything useful. [01:05, 23 December 2024 (UTC) P.s. I know WP:BACKGROUND is a redlink. I can't find the policy that I mean, but somewhere there is a policy that says some amount of background knowledge in the field may be assumed. Andre🚐 01:09, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

@User:AndreJustAndre: Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable? Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 01:48, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Kind of, which said ome topics are intrinsically complex or require much prior knowledge gained through specialized education or training. It is unreasonable to expect a comprehensive article on such subjects to be understandable to all readers. but I could've sworn there was a line that put a finer point on it. Maybe in an essay or a guideline somewhere....Andre🚐 02:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC)