A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter T

Talmud

World Religion
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The central text of Rabbinic Judaism, comprising the Mishnah (oral law) and the Gemara (rabbinic commentary on it).

Detailed Definition
The Talmud is a vast compendium of Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, and folklore, representing centuries of scholarly debate and interpretation. It is the foundation of Jewish life and thought. In poetry, the Talmud symbolizes the vast, labyrinthine, and living tradition of learning and debate. It can represent the weight of tradition, the beauty of intricate argumentation, or the search for meaning within a sacred text. Poets, particularly Jewish ones, may reference it to evoke a world of study, divine inquiry, and the transmission of wisdom through generations.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Jewish poetic tradition, Talmud is sea of debate: “Rabbi argues Rabbi—Talmud, where truth emerges in dialogue”; In Yiddish verse, Talmud shapes identity: “Study by candle—Talmud, bread of exile”; In contemporary poetry, Talmud is intellectual sanctuary: “Beit midrash walls—Talmud echoes with centuries of ‘why?’”; Poets honor Talmud’s complexity: “Not answers, but questions—Talmud as sacred wrestling.”
Additional Notes
The Talmud, compiled between the 3rd and 6th centuries CE, is a vast compendium of legal debate, ethical reflection, and narrative in Rabbinic Judaism, existing in two versions: the Jerusalem (Yerushalmi) and Babylonian (Bavli) Talmuds; its dialectical style—questioning, interpreting, and reinterpreting Torah—has deeply influenced Jewish thought and literary forms, offering poets a model of layered meaning, textual reverence, and dialogic spirituality.
Also Known As
Gemara Oral Torah
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