why do i tell stories that invite you to judge me?

This afternoon I had my first class for Medieval and Early Modern Judaism. After we went over the syllabus, the lecture was about a very quick overview of background information on Jewish history, all the stuff happening before we come into the era we're going to cover in the course -- destruction of the temples, Babylonian exile, diaspora, the rise of rabbinic Judaism, etc. As the professor talked about the latter, she covered the rabbinic literature being produced in the first few centuries BCE. Mishnah is the code of Jewish law; Gemara is the commentary written to accompany it; Talmud is the two of them together.

"Oh," said my brain. "It's like -- the Mishnah is the canon, and the Gemara would be the meta and fiction and other fan activity, and the Talmud is the fandom as a whole!"

I refrained from writing this analogy down in my notes.