Meaning in Torah (7/30/26)

I was captured by the introduction to this article which focuses on reading the Torah as the writer intended to write it. Dr.Michael Carasik, Reading the Bible Like a Writer (The Torah.com), here. I have recently posted on guides to interpreting meaning of text--what is more persuasive: the author's meaning or what the audience (contemporary or millenia later) might interpret the words to mean. See  James Kugel on the Shema; JAT on Originalism and Textualism (Jack Townsend Blog 7/24/26), here.

One of the examples the author uses to draw the naïve (like me) into the discussion is:

When Beethoven writes a chromatic accidental—adding a note, such as a C♯, to a key that does not include a C♯—it is not enough to point that out analytically. We need to be on the alert to discover the reason we are hearing that note—how it serves to modulate or add tension to the melodic line.

Caveat for those tempted to read the linked discussion, it delves into topics that perhaps a linguist will understand and enjoy. For example, under the heading Joseph and the Shechemite Speak (In)formally, the author says: 

When Jacob sends his son Joseph to check on the flocks that Joseph’s brothers are tending at Shechem, a man finds him along the way. The “man” (who is the focus of most of the traditional commentary on this verse)^[2] uses an imperfect verb form to ask Joseph מַה תְּבַקֵּשׁ (mah tevakesh)?

^{בראשׁית לז:טו}וַיִּמְצָאֵהוּ אִישׁ וְהִנֵּה תֹעֶה בַּשָּׂדֶה וַיִּשְׁאָלֵהוּ הָאִישׁ לֵאמֹר מַה תְּבַקֵּשׁ.

 ^{Gen 37:15} A man came upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, “What are you looking for (tevakesh)?”

What ChatGPT Plus Knows About Me as of 7/26/26 and updated 7/28/26 (7/26/26; 7/28/26)

Note: On 7/28/26, I updated the original ChatGPT Plus response by asking ChatGPT Plus to consider my blogs. I have added the new prompt and the response after the original prompt and response. I have not omitted or edited anything from the responses. Of course, I would not expect ChatGPT which is sort of on my retainer (monthly fees) to say bad things for fear that I would fire her (or is it a he or it). 😁

Today I was reading a New York Times article about asking AI about one's self. Brian X. Chen, 4 Prompts That Can Tell You What Chatbots Really Know About You (NYT 7/23/26). So, I used the first prompt from the article and asked about me. Here is the result:

Prompt (from the NYT article): Tell me everything you’ve figured out about me that I never actually stated — the things you inferred from how I write and what I ask, including my age, income level, where I live, my personal situation. Show me what tipped you off.

ChatGPT's Response:

Worked for 1m 1s

I can separate what you actually disclosed, what I reasonably infer, and what would be speculation. Some apparent “inferences” are facts you stated in earlier conversations.

Strong inferences

You are probably John A. “Jack” Townsend

Confidence: high, but not certain.

What tipped me off:

• Your profile identifies you as John Townsend.
• You asked for a list of articles by John A. Townsend, described as a tax lawyer and adjunct professor.
• You asked, “Is Jack Townsend a good tax controversy lawyer?” That sounded potentially self-referential.
• Your questions display unusually deep familiarity with federal tax practice, criminal tax doctrine, IRS procedures, and legal scholarship.

My working hypothesis is that you are—or are closely connected with—John A. “Jack” Townsend. I would not treat that identification as conclusively established solely from these clues.

You are an experienced lawyer, legal scholar, or both

Confidence: very high.

The strongest clues are not merely your subject matter, but the way you frame questions:

• You distinguish statutory text, elements, venue, materiality, burdens of proof, waiver, and continuing offenses.
• You ask for statutory and case authority rather than generic explanations.
• You request “law review style” treatment.
• You notice narrow interpretive problems such as whether “inquired of” in 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a) extends beyond grand-jury investigations.
• You ask citation-format questions and test whether propositions have adequate authority.

That is not how a casual taxpayer or beginning law student ordinarily writes. You seem accustomed to developing arguments, identifying doctrinal gaps, and anticipating counterarguments.

Your specialty is probably federal tax controversy and criminal tax

Confidence: very high.

Your recent questions cluster around:

• I.R.C. §§ 7201, 7202, 7206(1), and 7206(2);
• venue in federal tax prosecutions;
• implied materiality requirements;
• IRS criminal and administrative investigations;
• OIRA review of tax regulations;
• IRS publications and implementation;
• tax-law articles and scholarship.

The specificity suggests professional specialization rather than a passing interest.

James Kugel on the Shema; JAT on Originalism and Textualism (7/24/26)

Professor Kugel offers here this nice historical perspective on Judaism’s prayer and central declaration of faith—the Shema which in Reform Judaism is here It is the claim that there is one God, our God—interpreted over the years (and traditions) as monotheism.

While I am not Jewish in a formal sense, I have absorbed the teachings of Reform Judaism after 25 years (and counting) of Torah Study every Saturday morning. Professor Kugel is one of my favorite authors, so I am fortunate to be on his email list for his weekly offerings that often help me in Torah Study.

This offering recounts how the bare words of the Torah were summarized in the Shema and were interpreted differently than the original words meant if read literally. As a lawyer who has considered the Supreme Court’s Constitutional and statutory interpretation over many years, Professor Kugel’s offering on the Shema meaning for me. If Judaism were limited to the text alone, there would be much in the Hebrew Bible (basically the same as the Christian Old Testament with some variances in content and translation) that would not be meaningful to us today. Alongside the written Hebrew Bible (for present purposes, the Torah, the First Five Books) was the Oral Torah about which I have written here. The Written Torah and the Oral Torah inform Judaism; and the Oral Torah can change the literal meaning of the text. In other words, the Oral Torah can shape meaning for the ongoing Torah. The Rabbis certainly did that in canonizing the Written Torah keeping the Oral Torah alive in and, in a sense, the process continues through the Talmud(s) and Midrash. It is too bad, I think, that Christianity has not absorded the teachings of that continuing process because it would dispel the false claim that the God of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) is a God of wrath rather than, as they claim is presented in the New Testament, a God of mercy.

Because I understand that all written text needs interpretation to be meaningful, I am unimpressed with the relatively recent conservative law project called “originalism” and, its cousin, textualism to read the Constitution and statutes (although many textualists claim that textualism is not literalism). My interest in these slogans derives from my federal tax controversy practice over most of my career. I am in the process of finalizing the 2026 editions of my Federal Tax Procedure book for publication on SSRN in early August. I devote a significant words, pages, and footnotes to aspects of statutory interpretation.

On Leviticus 13 and Biblical Interpretation Beyond Any Likely Original Meaning (4/25/26)

This morning in my Torah Study (via Zoom with Houston’s Congregation Beth Israel, we covered the Holiness Code in Leviticus 19. In Torah Study, we read the text and interpret the text to make the text meaningful in our lives. I am a lawyer with interests in constitutional and statutory interpretation to make the text meaningful to the community served by the Constitution and statutes; the process is the same, but our Torah Study community is curious about the “original meaning” of the Torah text, but we are far from wedded to whatever we believe the or an original interpretation might be. As Jim Kugel, probably my favorite Hebrew Bible Scholar, says: The text we honor is the interpreted text, including interpretation by the tradition of rabbis and by ourselves in our current community. I could write a lot on whether interpretation of the Hebrew Bible should be different from interpretation of Constitution or statutes, and do on my Federal Tax Procedure Blog, here.

In this post, I want to focus on Leviticus 19:13. Since all translation is interpretation, we find it helpful to use two principal texts: Plaut’s The Torah: A Modern Commentary (Revised Edition 2006) in hardcopy (although I also have it in Kindle) and Sefaria’s online resource, here, which is really quite good. Often someone will bring in Robert Alter’s magnificent translation/interpretation in his book on the Torah, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary (2004). Just for fun, I offer the three translations with commentary.

Plaut translation:

13] You shall not  defraud your fellow [Israelite]. You shall not commit robbery.

The Plaut translation offers no commentary other than supplying the bracketed word.

Sefaria Translation 

13 You shall not defraud your fellow.^a You shall not commit robbery.

The only “commentary” in Sefaria is in the subscripted text adding: fellow I.e., fellow Israelite—whether male or female. In contrast to others “neighbor.”

 Alter translation

13 You shall not defraud your fellow man and shall not rob.

 Alter has no comment on this text.

In this morning's session, we read from the Plaut edition, the reading included the bracketed [Israelite] that, if a proper interpretation, is a commandment not to defraud fellow Israelites.

On Dave the Potter, a Literate Slave in Edgefield SC, and Anti-Literacy Laws (3/25/26)

Persons interested in the history of Greenwood SC probably already know that “Greenwood County was formed in 1897 from portions of Abbeville and Edgefield counties,” Wikipedia, here. This segues into today’s post on Dave the Potter inspired by Their Ancestor Was an Enslaved Potter. They Are Battling to Recover His Legacy (New York Times 3/25/26), here gift article. The featured artist in the article is Dave the Potter who was a slave in Edgefield County SC and a respected potter whose works are now in the 21^st Century gathering more attention. See e.g., this YouTube video titled Hear Us Now: Poets Respond to Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina, here. Dave the Potter was inducted in the South Carolina Hall of Fame. See e.g., YouTube video titled Dave the Potter | South Carolina Hall of Fame, here.

As an aside, Gemini (Google’s AI Tool) says that Dave the Potter did not live and create his pottery in the portion of Edgefield SC split off into Greenwood SC.

One interesting fact is that Dave the Potter could read and write at a time when it was a crime to teach slaves to read and write. I asked Gemini (Google’s AI Tool) “Why did some southern states prohibit teaching slaves to read and write?” The response Gemini offered was:

Thoughts on Bart Ehman's Book Love Thy Neighbor (3/22/26; 4/2/26)

Added 4/2/26 910:00am: Ross Douthat, the NYT sort of Christian conservative editorialist, interviews Bart Ehrman on facets of this story. I offer here a "gift article" permitting peope to read the article and, hopefully, the comments many of which are great. Can We Trust the New Testament?: A Christian and a self-described Christian Atheist debate (NYT 4/2/26), here. The article, a transcription of a podcast discussion, is quite long, but rewarding for those with the interest to work through it. And some of the comments are quite good. Here is an example of a comment that ties into my blog entry and my disagreement with Ehrman that Jesus introduced something radically new:

First comment:

Jesus was only preaching what he learned as an observant Jew Leviticus 19:33-34: "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Second comment:

I am a Jew who worked for a number of years in an Episcopal School. Listening to the New Testament being read, and sitting through worship services, I realized that the historic Jesus was very much a Jew, and that what he taught were basic Jewish values. He wanted Jews to be better Jews, to get back to basic principles. What my Episcopal colleagues thought of as unique values in their faith were simply what Jesus learned as a practicing Jew, but they did not know that. I began to think of Jesus as perhaps the first Reform Jew. I struggled to understand how Christianity evolved from who the historic Jesus was, and then I discovered the brilliant scholar of early Christianity, Elaine Pagels. After a lecture of hers, I posed this question: "Would Jesus have called himself a Christian?" She said absolutely not. He was born, lived and died a Jew. He taught Judaism to Jews. Pagels also wrote about how Christians began to scapegoat Jews and portray them negatively (as is clear in the Gospels) as a way of attracting converts. Most enlightening. 

GHS 60 Alumni Reunion on June 8, 2026 (3/16/26)

To the Greenwood High School Class of 1960 Alumni:

After last year’s successful reunion, a decision was made to have another reunion this year. The reunion will be on June 8, 2026, at Port Grill on Lake Greenwood, here (formerly the Dock) starting at 4:30 pm. There will be a $15 per person charge that covers food. Drinks will be separately charged and paid.

For planning purposes, it will be helpful for those intending to advise  in advance if you plan to attend. You can do that by emailing me at jack@tjtaxlaw.com and I will forward it to the Pat Henderson Brooks who is the principal mover on this reunion.