Forms of Rabbinic Literature and Thought: An Introduction

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FORMS OF RABBINIC L I T E R AT U R E A N D T H O U G H T

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Forms of Rabbinic Literature and Thought An Introduction

A L E X A N D E R S A M E LY

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With oYces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ß Alexander Samely 2007 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Samely, Alexander. Forms of rabbinic literature and thought : an introduction / Alexander Samely. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN–13: 978–0–19–929673–6 (alk. paper) ISBN–10: 0–19–929673–1 (alk. paper) 1. Rabbinical literature—History and criticism. I. Title. BM496.6.S36 2007 296.1’2061—dc22 2006039412 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 978–0–19–929673–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Contents List of Tables Note on Transliteration Introduction 1. The Works of Rabbinic Literature 2. Parts and Wholes in Rabbinic Literature 3. How Statements are Linked to Each Other 4. The Quotable Bible 5. Appropriating Scripture 6. The Literary Device of Quoting Rabbis 7. Oral and Written Texts 8. Putting the World into Rabbinic Words 9. The Talmud as Conversation and Repository 10. Hermeneutic Models of Story and History Conclusion Sample Texts of Rabbinic Literature Glossary Bibliography Indices Index of Passages Index of Subjects and Names Index of Authors

vi vii 1 8 25 43 64 78 97 116 141 158 178 200 204 234 239 255 260 277

List of Tables 1. 2. 3. 4.

Key Works and their Literary Features Recurrent Small Forms Select Midrashic Reading Practices Select Hermeneutic Procedures of the Babylonian Gemara

11 14 91 167

Note on Transliteration The letters ‘ch’ (as in echad) represent the Hebrew letter h (chet) and are pronounced as in the Scottish ‘loch’.

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Introduction Rabbinic Judaism is known to us mostly through its texts alone. These texts, also called talmudic, span the period from the third to the seventh or eighth century ce. They constitute their own type of discourse and address a speciWc set of themes in a highly stylized and quite homogeneous literary manner. The main themes pursued in these documents are, on the one hand, the interpretation of the biblical Scriptures, and, on the other hand, rabbinic law (halakhah). Wider aspects of culture are often absent from these documents, and they do not explain themselves in any way to an ‘outside’. This puts an unusually heavy burden of interpretation on all scholars engaged in describing the history, literature, law, and religion of the rabbinic period. The interpretation of rabbinic Judaism oVered in this book starts from the meaning of the literary forms of the sources, rather than merely from the meaning of individual rabbinic statements on law or theology. This is necessary because the rabbinic texts do not combine single statements into systems. Their meaning within a larger whole is therefore often doubtful, even if modern scholarship tries to reconstruct that whole. The number of literary forms, on the other hand, is very limited, and used widely within documents and across them. They thus provide a second layer of rabbinic meaning, and I treat them as evidence for rabbinic thought. As a result there is much in this book which diVers from other scholarly treatments of rabbinic Judaism, not least the fact that I discuss major rabbinic genres together from a uniWed methodological perspective. Yet I do not deal with all the works of rabbinic literature. I am concerned primarily with the early phase of the corpus, and later

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Introduction

documents closely linked to that early phase. Exemplary literary forms and conceptual characteristics are drawn in particular from the Mishnah, exegetical and homiletical Midrash, and the Babylonian Talmud. These often serve to characterize the Tosefta and the Palestinian Talmud as well. The reason for concentrating on this subgroup of works is mainly pragmatic. I wish to provide an eVective key to what is, in terms of quantity, the bulk of rabbinic literature. I therefore only mention in passing a number of works which, while still clearly belonging to the rabbinic family, represent more restricted literary genres or distinct thematic concerns. Chapter 2 addresses some of these diVerences within the rabbinic corpus. The third-century Mishnah is probably the Wrst rabbinic work. In that book, which is central to the Jewish legal tradition to this day, rabbinic Judaism seems to face us nearly fully formed. Alongside and after the Mishnah, more than twenty other works were created in the succeeding centuries, in Hebrew or Aramaic, by rabbis in Palestine and Babylonia (present-day Iraq). Some of these works are very large, in particular the Babylonian Talmud which occupies 12 or more volumes in most conventional prints. Rabbinic texts contain details of a human project which could be described in modern terms as follows. Everyday life is an inWnite series of opportunities for obedience to God, whose will is articulated and implied in Scripture, a book Wlled to the brim with instructions and information. The rabbinic documents which work out this cultural project have long been an enigma and an irritant in Western culture. Under the name of one document, the Talmud, the rabbinic discourse has often puzzled and alienated European readers in general, and oVended Christian authorities in particular. The Talmud burnings of the Middle Ages are part of a larger picture of Christian and secular antisemitism in Europe, showing that the hatred of Jews is never quite unconnected to a hatred of—largely rabbinic—Judaism. Rabbinic texts constitute a scholarly discourse in that their statements are concerned with halakhic norms, or linguistic meaning in Scripture. And they are presented in a framework of arguments, and often contested. Yet is this really a discourse, is this scholarly? It does not seem so, if compared with modern academic discourse in the arts or sciences. The rabbinic texts are not suYciently systematic, organized, generalized, or explicit to be in the same league of orderly

Introduction

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inquiry. Comparison with ancient Greek and Roman philosophical and legal literature tends to conWrm that the rabbinic discourse is either less systematic, or of a diVerent kind entirely. In the modern understanding of discourse or non-Wction writing, the shape of a text is intimately linked to the contours of knowledge itself. The two activities of composing sentences into a text, and articulating the parts of a body of knowledge, are frequently the same. Almost all academic writing aspires to an ideal which calls for the text-shape to represent the knowledge-shape. (The present book is no exception.) Making the boundaries of a theme explicit is crucial for this. Normally we do not create the system-shape of our knowledge by completeness, but by declaring incompleteness. This is a compositional device. If compared to such explicitly delimited discourse, the rabbinic texts appear to be a deWcient variant: aiming for the same thing, but not getting there. Much academic research into rabbinic literature takes for granted that this is the case, without putting it in these terms. It is also often assumed that only historical accident, not deliberate composition, can explain this deWciency, unless one wishes to postulate a diVerent rabbinic rationality or a rabbinic lack of rationality. Two accidental mechanisms are often taken to be at work in the non-systematic constitution of rabbinic documents: the remnants of earlier oral shaping of some text parts, and the compilation of documents in successive stages without a full revision of the whole. In such circumstances it seems a waste of time to ask questions such as, What do these rabbinic forms of discourse mean? Yet that is exactly the topic which I wish to explore in this book. Although not discounting a contribution from the two accidental mechanisms just deWned, I suggest that there is much in the literary structures which is entirely deliberate, and thus meaningful. While the same literary structures are bound to have taken on diverse meanings in the course of the rabbinic centuries (see Chapter 7), we cannot assume that ‘form’ is a mere by-product of processes of transmission, and can thus be severed from ‘content’. I therefore inquire: What do the literary features show us about how the rabbis did their thinking? And: How do the rabbinic texts ask to be read, in contrast to how we must read them when mining them for historical information?

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Introduction

I start by describing thirteen small literary forms. These constitute apparently self-suYcient units of meaning and some of them occur in most rabbinic works. I then explain how the small forms are combined to build larger documents of various types. I address typical features of selected rabbinic genres: the Mishnah (Chapter 3), Midrashic Bible commentaries and homilies (Chapters 4, 5, and 10), and the Babylonian Gemara (Chapter 9). A Wrst-hand experience of reading continuous pages of text in these genres can be gained from the Sample Texts at the end of the book. I take no speciWc knowledge of rabbinic literature or Judaism for granted. All the technical information arising from the rabbinic discourse or modern scholarship is explained where needed, and summarized in the Glossary. I try to address the basic phenomena which one actually encounters when reading a page of rabbinic text. Although very far from being a comprehensive catalogue of literary phenomena, this book therefore can be used as a companion to the close reading of rabbinic texts, in the original or in translation. The Sample Texts provide an exercise ground for such close reading, and are accompanied by brief explanations tying them to other parts of the book. I also address the question of what rabbinic literary forms, small or large, imply for rabbinic thought. I examine the absence of truly comprehensive general principles in the sources (Chapter 2), the textual role of quoted rabbis and their disagreements (Chapter 6), the importance of oral transmission and oral Torah (Chapters 7 to 9), and the world-view perhaps implied in the casuistic form of halakhah (Chapter 8). Throughout, I shall investigate what sort of reading the literary features call for, in particular when it comes to Wnding out how rabbinic pronouncements relate to each other. I shall emphasize the important role played in this by the presumption of coherence, and by the construction of links by analogy (Chapter 3, where I also deWne my use of the word analogy; Chapters 8 and 9). In the process, I shall interpret the rabbinic expression ‘oral Torah’ as capable of conjuring up a social-historical horizon of unity for texts which appear to take no interest in demonstrating their own thematic-literary unity. Two peculiarities of this book follow from the approach adopted. First, I shall give no overview of basic rabbinic concepts or beliefs,

Introduction

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and no synthesis of rabbinic law, religion, or theology based on an amalgamation of rabbinic statements. Single rabbinic sayings may look as if they implied a whole system of ideas, like Christian doctrinal statements. But that is not how they actually work in the texts. Rabbinic literature oVers no articulation of systems of which its single statements could be taken to be the summary. The same set of statements can be put together to form entirely diVerent systems, and the nature of rabbinic documents means that none of these alternative systems is favoured (see Chapter 1 and passim). Second, where I speak of ‘the rabbis’ generally, I refer to the unknown editors or authors of our documents, and not to the named rabbis so often quoted within them. Paradoxically we know much less about the beliefs and values of the named rabbis than about the unnamed editors. The single statement’s meaning, ascribed to a rabbi but without further context, tells us very little about the rabbi’s own thinking, or the meaning it had when uttered. On the other hand, the recurrent structures into which these quoted statements are absorbed provide substantial evidence for the priorities, values, and concepts of the text-makers, namely through their texts’ formal features. This despite the fact that the text-makers minimize their own presence in the documents (see in particular Chapters 6 and 9). To students of Jewish history and culture this book oVers a basic account of all the major rabbinic literary formats, as well as an indication of how they belong together. It thus complements Stemberger’s excellent research account of rabbinic literary history, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash. My book furthermore articulates an interpretation of the evidence for rabbinic Judaism overall. As such, it can be used by readers who, already acquainted with the academic study of other cultures, wish to gain a Wrst orientation in the evidence for rabbinic Judaism. I am thinking here in particular of students of Graeco-Roman and Near Eastern cultures, of early Western and Eastern Christianity, and of the discourses of Islam. But I also hope to oVer material for comparison to scholars from further aWeld among the pre-modern or non-European cultures. I try to solve a general methodological conundrum, for which the speciWc case of rabbinic texts is merely an example. This is the question of how to read what are clearly scholarly texts (not myth, poetry, or

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Introduction

narrative), and yet not scholarship as the modern European academic knows it. Here I aim to avoid inappropriate, and in particular tacit, comparisons between ‘our’ and ‘their’ discourse. Instead I try to articulate the distance between the rabbinic evidence on the one hand, and the hermeneutic starting point of Western-educated readers on the other. Recently, scholars in rabbinics have had the opportunity to acquire some new sensibilities with respect to their sources. From the early 1980s onwards, a small number of academics started to re-read rabbinic books outside the assumptions of traditional historical and literary scholarship. Mostly they took for granted that no text’s organization can express a totally coherent body of knowledge, so that rabbinic texts are no disappointment in this regard. This has freed rabbinic discourse from the wrong sort of expectations described above, and led to a number of sensitive and stimulating readings in the works of Boyarin, Faur, and others. However, in the post-modern approach on which such readings are based, all texts are as open to fragmentation, de-centring, and contradiction as the rabbinic ones, even if they strive very hard to be totally explicit and consistent. Yet while most medieval and modern scholarly texts from Western cultures require to be actively deconstructed, rabbinic texts already are. This diVerence is important and needs to be explained. Post-modernism, deconstruction, post-colonialism, cultural theory, and allied approaches belong to a development of modern thought from Nietzsche to Derrida. They are literally unthinkable without, and self-consciously respond to, the European cultural tradition from Plato to Hegel. There can thus be no question of the rabbis somehow anticipating, by some ahistorical magic, the post-modern aesthetics and epistemology of de-centring. So while the abstract similarities between post-modernism and rabbinic discourse are important and instructive, they do not constitute an appreciation of that discourse in its historical context. There is another important trend in recent rabbinic studies which I have not accepted as a starting point for this book. This is Jacob Neusner’s assumption that the implicit, de facto boundaries of most rabbinic documents constitute strong evidence for each work’s uniWed message. I shall speak of the implicitness of rabbinic text organization throughout, and address Neusner’s hypothesis most

Introduction

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speciWcally in Chapter 3. On other topics I am often indebted to the impetus and freshness of Neusner’s questions. I wrote most of this book during 2003–4 as Leverhulme Research Fellow. I am exceedingly grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for making possible this labour of reXection and formulation; the book would certainly not exist otherwise. I am also indebted, for ongoing dialogue and instruction, to colleagues and friends in Middle Eastern Studies, Religions and Theology, and the Centre for Jewish Studies at Manchester University. A number of scholars have commented on earlier versions of this book. My wife Batsheva subjected the clarity of a late draft to some gentle, if far-reaching criticism, prompting a rewrite. Dr J. Abel, Prof. P. S. Alexander, Prof. G. Stemberger, and Prof. M. Zank (as an originally anonymous reader for Oxford University Press) made a number of important suggestions most of which I implemented gratefully. Special thanks are due to Prof. Bernard Jackson, whose detailed response to the typescript led to scores of further improvements in accuracy and user-friendliness. The remaining inadequacies expose my own limitations.

1 The Works of Rabbinic Literature In this chapter I do four things. I explain the main categories by which rabbinic documents can be sorted into groups. I introduce thirteen key small forms which make up the bulk of rabbinic literature, and also Wve main arrangement principles according to which they are put together in extended texts. I create an artiWcial synthesis of rabbinic ideas about God, the Torah, and Israel. I then explain why such syntheses have no direct evidence to support them.

DIVISIONS OF RABBINIC LITERATURE Most rabbinic documents are constituted by discourse, not by narrative. Many texts contain short narratives, but these are integrated into an ongoing fabric of exposition and argument. Rabbinic works of discourse are characterized by three main features: contents, arrangement principle, and period. For contents one can distinguish halakhic and aggadic; the two most important arrangement principles are thematic and lemmatic; and the rabbis quoted by name lived in two periods called Tannaitic and Amoraic. Modern scholarship distinguishes two types of contents. Works mainly devoted to legal themes are called halakhic, the word halakhah meaning ‘conduct’, and literally ‘walking’. Documents mainly concerned with non-legal matters are called aggadic. While the Hebrew term aggadah means ‘tale’ or ‘telling’, the aggadic works are not narratives. Rather, they tend to have the format of Bible commentary engaging with biblical narrative. The distinction between halakhic

The Works of Rabbinic Literature

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and aggadic is easy to make only for single statements, not for whole documents. Most rabbinic documents contain both types of contents. Rabbinic literature is not organized according to disciplines as articulated branches of knowledge. Its literary genres thus cannot be deWned by types of discourse contents (see Chapter 2 below). Halakhic texts are found in two fundamentally diVerent arrangements. They can be organized according to themes, so that sentences which are next to each other on the page deal with the same or a similar subject matter. This is what happens in the third-century ce Mishnah, and the somewhat later Tosefta. Halakhic information can also be shaped into a commentary on books of the Hebrew Bible. There are four halakhic Bible commentaries: two works named Mekhilta are concerned with Exodus, the Sifra covers Leviticus, and the Sifre treats Numbers and Deuteronomy. While halakhic texts can have either thematic order or commentary order, predominantly aggadic documents are almost always arranged as commentary. There are no entire aggadic documents which are independent from the thematic arrangement of Scripture. The halakhic and aggadic commentaries tend to take their order from selected key words, or lemmas, in the biblical text. The sequence of these lemmas in Scripture dictates the order of the rabbinic statements relating to them. I shall call this arrangement principle lemmatic, in contrast to the thematic one. Books of this type are called Midrash (plural Midrashim). There are only a few halakhic Midrashim, but many aggadic ones, providing commentaries to a large number of biblical books. The Midrashim can be quite diVerent from each other in character and provenance but, nonetheless, they tend to be put together from smaller units of text which have the same form. I shall call this small literary form the midrashic unit. The midrashic unit consists of a short quotation from Scripture together with a rabbinic assertion or norm. Midrashic units make up the bulk of the rabbinic works of commentary. But they can also occur integrated into the thematic arrangements Mishnah and Tosefta, and are very frequent in the Talmud. Rabbinic texts are also divided according to the period of the rabbinic masters quoted in them. All documents which, like the Mishnah, only mention rabbinic teachers who lived approximately between the Wrst and the middle of the third century ce, are called

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Tannaitic. The masters themselves are referred to as Tannaim (singular Tanna). All works which also mention later rabbis are referred to as Amoraic, and those masters are called Amoraim (singular Amora). Collectively, rabbis can also be referred to by the term ‘sages’ (chakhamim), or ‘disciples of sages’ (talmidey chakhamim). The most important work of the Amoraic period is the Babylonian Gemara. There is also a Palestinian Gemara. Both Gemaras are arranged as commentaries on the Mishnah, although this basic lemmatic order is strongly modiWed by other arrangement principles. The Mishnah’s text is interlaced with that of the Gemara, and it is the combination of the two texts which bears the name Talmud. There is thus a Babylonian Talmud as well as a Palestinian one; the two share basically the same Mishnah text (with some important variations), but have diVerent Gemaras. Rabbinic works can therefore be classiWed according to the distinctions halakhic versus aggadic, thematic versus lemmatic, and Tannaitic versus Amoraic. Table 1 oVers an overview along these lines, also anticipating information on the small literary forms presented later in this chapter. A number of rabbinic documents do not conform to any of the text types contained in Table 1, for example Mishnah Avot, Pirqey de-Rabbi Eliezer, Seder Olam Rabbah, to name but a few. With respect to their arrangement principles, some of these works are one-oVs. They nevertheless tend to be built from small literary forms which are also found elsewhere in rabbinic literature. Rabbinic works were compiled by anonymous editors who were also, to some extent, authors. Many single statements are presented as speech of a named rabbi (‘R. X says: . . .’), but may have been reformulated by the editors; other statements are not marked as quotations at all. The same passage can appear in more than one work, but will often be adapted to Wt its new literary surroundings. All rabbinic documents are controlled by anonymous voices, the ones which speak whenever no one else is identiWed as speaking. In some documents, like the Babylonian Gemara, the controlling voice is largely restricted to quoting other voices. In other works, such as the Mishnah, the anonymous voice regularly utters statements on its own behalf, as well as quoting others. In the documents themselves, these voices are never given an identity, not even a Wctional one.

Table 1. Key Works and their Literary Features

key works features Convential genre name and main contents

Mishnah and Tosefta

Mekhiltas,a Sifra, Sifre (on Exodus– Deuteronomy), and others

Babylonian Gemara (Talmud)b

Genesis Rabbah, Lamentations Rabbah, and others

Targums (Onkelos, Pseudo-Jonathan, Neofiti; Jonathan to the Prophets, etc.)

Leviticus Rabbah, Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana, Tanhuma, and others

Halakhic code; or teaching-book of halakhah; or compilation of halakhic traditions

Halakhic commentary Commentary on the Aggadic commen- Aramaic translaon biblical books Mishnah, one-third tary on biblical tion of biblical halakhic and the rest books books aggadic

Aggadic Bible interpretation; homilies

Period of quoted rabbis

Tannaitic

Tannaitic

Amoraic

Amoraic

No rabbis quoted

Amoraic

De facto arrangement

Thematic aggregate

Lemmatic aggregate, with some thematic passages

Thematic aggregates within lemmatic sections related to the Mishnah; plus other arrangement patterns

Lemmatic aggregate, with sections of homiletic Petichot

Sentence-by-sentence shadowing of the Hebrew original

Thematic homilies in the sequence of annual Torah readings, incorporating lemmatic sections

Most common recurrent units juxtaposed to create the larger texts

Norms, hypothetical legal cases, lists, disputes

Midrashic units

Norms, disputes, hypothetical legal cases, midrashic units, lists

Midrashic units, meshalim, and Petichot

No independent Midrashic units, statement formats meshalim, and forms specific to the homily: Yelamdenu, Petichah, Semikhah, Inyan, Chatimah

(Continued )

Table 1. (Continued )

key works features Larger units whose presence or absence is established by the reader Provenance and period of the document (all dates ce)

Mishnah and Tosefta

Mekhiltas,a Sifra, Sifre (on Exodus– Deuteronomy), Babylonian Gemara and others (Talmud)b

Genesis Rabbah, Lamentations Rabbah, and others

Thematic or formal sets of statements



3rd-century Palestine Later 3rd- or 4th(Tosefta 4th century)c century Palestine

Dialectical conversation (sugya); thematic or formal sets of statements

Targums (Onkelos, Pseudo-Jonathan, Neofiti; Jonathan to the Prophets, etc.)

Leviticus Rabbah, Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana, Tanhuma, and others

Not applicable

Thematic unity of the homily

c.6th to 7th-century From 4th-century Final redaction Babylonia Palestine and later from 5th century in Babylonia (Onkelos) and Palestine

From 4th to 9th century and later; Palestine and a number of Western countries

a There are two works called ‘Mekhilta’, on Exodus: the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, and the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shim’on bar Yochai (rediscovered by modern scholarship; cf. Stemberger, Introduction, 257 ff.). b The features of the Palestinian Gemara are like those of the Babylonian Gemara in some but not all respects. c The dating of the Tosefta is a matter of controversy; see Stemberger, Introduction, 151–8, Hauptman, ‘Mishnah as a Response’, and Elman, Authority and Tradition.


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Rabbinic works also do not speak of their own provenance, purpose, and intended audience. We have no contemporary description of the procedure by which any rabbinic text was created. We thus need to ask two analytical questions: What can one learn about the themes of individual rabbinic statements from the form given to them? And: How do larger themes or messages emerge from the way the individual statements are placed next to each other to form texts? These two problems will concern us throughout this book.

S TAT E M E N T S A S B U I L D I N G B LO C K S FOR AGGREGATE TEXTS What are the smallest self-contained building blocks of rabbinic documents? They come in a variety of forms, and I shall speak of rabbinic ‘statements’ when referring to them generically. Some statements are, grammatically speaking, single sentences in speciWc formats. Other statements integrate a small number of sentences with each other, forming recognizable patterns. Whether consisting of several sentences or of one, the form of the statement signals a certain step in the discourse. For, at least generally speaking, the small literary forms have recurrent message functions. Table 2 presents the thirteen most characteristic small forms of rabbinic literature together with examples. Statements in these small forms, even the longer ones, often occupy only a few lines of text. Some of them tend to present halakhic subject matter, such as numbers 1, 2, and 8, others are specialized for aggadic statements (9, 11–13), while the rest can convey both. The more complex forms 6 to 13 usually contain sentences in one of the clause formats 1 to 5. Combinations of small forms are generally very common, for example disputes involving midrashic units (combining the forms 5, 6, and 7). In addition to these thirteen small forms, one Wnds stories of various shapes and functions (other than 8 and 9). Some of these have supernatural, anecdotal, or folkloristic features (see Chapter 6). In contrast to the small forms enumerated here, the

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Table 2. Recurrent Small Forms Form

Example

I. Small forms consisting of a single sentence or part of a sentence 1. The unconditional legal Women, slaves, and minors are exempt from reciting the norm Shema’ (Mishnah Berakhot 3: 3) 2. The hypothetical legal If he was riding on an ass [when the time for saying the case prayer arrived], he should dismount (Mishnah Berakhot 4: 5) 3. The list And these things pertaining to the Passover offering override the Sabbath: slaughtering it, tossing its blood, scraping its entrails, and burning its fat pieces (Mishnah Pesachim 6: 1) 4. The general principle This is the general rule: A thing whose commandment (halakhic or aggadic) concerns the day, the whole day is valid for fulfilling it; a thing whose commandment concerns the night, the whole night is valid for fulfilling it (Mishnah Megillah 2: 6) 5. The speech report (this ‘R. X said: . . .’ and its variations; concrete examples form is never complete in below itself) II. Small forms consisting of several sentences or clauses 6. The dispute A festival booth which is higher than 20 cubits is invalid. R. Yehudah declares it fit (Mishnah Sukkah 1: 1) 7. The midrashic unit And God tested Abraham (Gen. 22: 1)—R. Yose the Galilean said: He elevated him like the flag of a ship. (Genesis Rabbah 55: 6)a 8. The narrative of a rabbi’s An incident (ma’aseh) that they decreed a fast in Lydda legal pronouncement and the rain fell for them before midday. R. Tarfon said (ma’aseh) to them: Go and eat and drink and make it a festival day. They went and ate and drank and made it a festival day and came at dusk and sang the Great Hallel (i.e. Ps. 136) (Mishnah Ta’anit 3: 9, see Ch. 6) 9. The parable (mashal ), A parable (mashal ). To what is this thing comparable? To consisting of (a) a narra- a householder who has a vineyard. He gave it to a tenant. tive component and (b) And there was in that vineyard a tree of life, and it was its application to a bibentwined with a tree of deadly poison. And he did not lical narrative. The two know what to do. He said: If I cultivate that vineyard, the parts are referred to as tree of deadly poison grows; and if I do not cultivate that mashal in the narrow vineyard, the tree of life dies. Rather, what I shall do is sense (here introduced by leave this vineyard until its owner comes and does with ‘to’) and nimshal (introhis vineyard what he wants. And thus also Abraham said: duced by ‘thus’) If I bless Isaac, then Esau would also be blessed and hence Jacob would be disadvantaged. Rather, behold I leave him until the Holy One, Blessed be He, comes and does his own (Tanhuma Buber Berakhah 1, p. 53)b 10. The list enumerating whole sentences

The Works of Rabbinic Literature 11. The pairing of two verses in the homiletical forms Petichah, and 12. Chatimah 13. The homiletical form Yelamdenu a b

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Examples in Chapters 5 and 10, and Sample Texts II and IV Examples in Chapter 10 and Sample Text IV

See below, Sample Text II, nos. 21–22. See below, Sample Text IV, no. 24.

type of contribution such stories make to the discourse is not predictable on the basis of their form. I deWne the way in which most of the smaller forms function in a discourse environment in the subsequent chapters. As functional forms, they are more abstract than any concrete verbal, grammatical, or rhetorical feature. Thus the hypothetical legal case may be introduced by ‘If . . .’, but also by ‘He who . . .’, and in other ways; the midrashic unit may present its biblical quotation Wrst and its rabbinic statement second, or the other way round; and the dispute may consist of an unadorned report of conXicting voices, or contain a rhetoric of challenge and dialectics. Such diVerences are often important for distinguishing the ‘house styles’ of rabbinic documents (see the next Chapter). However, they do not obscure the fact that the same underlying functional form is used. The thirteen small forms listed in Table 2 provide the common or overlapping stock-in-trade of many rabbinic works otherwise distinguished from each other by terminology, rhetoric, and provenance. Certain statements of the same format are placed next to each other to produce continuous text, or at least the thematic or lemmatic backbone of a document. The hypothetical legal case (2), together with the halakhic norm (1), creates much of the fabric of the Mishnah, and the midrashic unit (7) deWnes the Midrashim. The other formats occur alongside them. There are Wve common patterns of order in which statements in the small forms are placed next to each other: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v)

the thematic aggregate; the lemmatic aggregate; the dialectic conversation; lists and formal patterns; the homily, constituted from its functional parts.

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With the exception of (iv) these arrangement patterns will concern us in more detail later, and are illustrated by the Sample Texts at the end of this book. For my present purpose the thematic aggregate is the most instructive. It shows clearly a rabbinic preference for mere juxtaposition of statements. I call it mere juxtaposition because it does not explain itself, and creates no thematic or literary boundaries. The following imaginary pair of statements may serve as an illustration: ‘1. The mail is delivered twice a day. 2. Letters travel slowly.’ One’s Wrst impression is that there is a thematic link here. But the precise nature of the link, and what therefore constitutes the overall message of 1 and 2 together, is diYcult to determine without further information. Is the combined meaning of the two statements: ‘The mail is delivered twice a day, not just once; however, letters travel slowly until they Wnally arrive at the sorting oYce for delivery’? Or: ‘The mail is delivered twice a day, therefore the post oYce allows letters to travel slowly’? Or: ‘The mail is only delivered twice a day, not more often; and in addition to this, letters travel slowly’? Or: ‘The mail is delivered twice a day. By the way, letters travel slowly’? Similar ambiguities in determining the relationship between statements characterize many passages in rabbinic literature. At Wrst sight statements in an aggregate such as the Mishnah belong together in some thematic way. At least, there is no obvious other principle of order apart from the local concentration of statements with a similar theme. But by merely juxtaposing them, the editors do not divulge the precise thematic connections. Conjunctions such as ‘however’, ‘similarly’, ‘therefore’, or ‘for example’, which would inform the reader of how two statements are meant to relate, are only occasionally used. Or they are used in the occurrence of a certain passage in one document, but not in that same passage’s occurrence in another document.1 The widely used conjunction waw can mean ‘and’ as well as ‘but’. (In order to represent this equivocation, I mostly translate waw as ‘and’ wherever it occurs in the illustrations of this book.) Neither does one Wnd explicit announcements of themes, 1 One such case, Mishnah Avodah Zarah 4: 4 compared with Tosefta Avodah Zarah 5: 3–4, is examined in Hayes, Between the Babylonian and the Palestinian Talmuds, 35 ff.


17

such as: ‘We now turn to eight rules dealing with X in ordinary circumstances; for exceptional circumstances of X, see section 3 below.’ A reader may well encounter eight statements in the Mishnah which, at Wrst glance, appear to deal with a common topic, say ‘X in ordinary circumstances’. But they will not be announced as such, they will simply be there, as a continuity of individual statements no diVerent from other such continuities. It is therefore entirely up to the reader to decide questions like: Is there a common topic? What exactly is that topic, and does it unite precisely these eight, or rather these twelve, or strictly speaking only these six statements? Are there other statements elsewhere which need to be taken into account? There are two criteria for coherence in play here, and both of them are inWnitely Xexible. There is Wrst the deWnition of a shared theme, and there is secondly the textual limit of a group of statements. Readers can often work out the theme if a formal boundary is marked in the text; or the boundary within the text if they are told explicitly which overall theme to construct. But the thematic aggregates do neither. Readers thus have to choose between a very large number of possible options on how to construct the coherence of a piece of text, as well as the way it functions within the whole work. The thematic arrangement principle is capable of producing texts of any length. For it consists of the recursive use of the same literary forms, rather than the creation of hierarchies of forms, one contained within the other. The same goes for three of the other arrangement principles listed above. The exception is the rabbinic homily, which in many cases has at least an implicit beginning, middle, and end. Mere juxtaposition does not only create fundamental ambiguities in the mutual relationship between statements. It also makes it very diYcult to distinguish original passages from secondary additions. Added extra statements at the end of an existing text, or statements slotted into the middle, do not show up by distorting some larger form. Most of the rabbinic texts could have been, and very likely were, expanded (or shortened) after they were Wrst created, without thereby losing their original literary form. A third consequence of mere juxtaposition is that the theme of sets of statements is less well

18


deWned than that of single statements. The single statement has a fairly clear thematic focus, determined by its formal unity. Once readers move beyond the single statement, however, they Wnd neither forms of a higher order, nor regular explicit linkage and crossreferences. Each statement can therefore be linked just as easily to some distant statement (even in another document altogether), if it suits the potential theme, as to a statement found in the immediate environment. Rabbinic texts are thus peculiarly open to each other, and each document has a potentially unWnished character. The reader seems to be invited to continue the construction of text, by deciding whether it is necessary or not to read together statements which come from diVerent passages or books. The ideal hermeneutic response to such literature seems to consist in probing it constantly for connections of all sorts, including analogical contrast and similarity. Yet without extra-textual information the number of possible analogies would be much too numerous for making practical progress in deciding the theme and meaning of a text. Therefore the open text structures of thematic aggregates seem to take for granted that speciWc contextual information is available to the reader. That contextual knowledge would help determine which passages belong together. By contrast, in the Western tradition of discursive books the texts themselves will contain explicit instructions on which statements are to be connected with which. Links to distant passages or other texts altogether are also more likely to be mentioned explicitly.

P ROBLEMS FOR THE MODERN READER This is one of the main reasons why rabbinic documents pose a great challenge to a modern Western-educated readership, including scholars. Western texts of non-Wction, in particular those on legal, religious, or hermeneutic questions, tend to present themselves as complete and self-suYcient for some topic explicitly deWned. Limitations will be spelled out, so that it is clear for which class of objects the text claims validity. In this tradition, composing a text goes hand


19

in hand with declaring the boundaries of a theme. The makers of rabbinic texts do the opposite. All literary boundaries are only de facto, not declared, limits: readers construct them as they feel their way, in a manner of speaking, blindly, through the text. Three speciWc problems arise for the historical use of rabbinic documents, including the task of deWning what rabbinic Judaism was in the Wrst place. First, in order to give an intelligible general account of rabbinic concepts and beliefs, modern scholars are obliged to produce a synthesis of many single statements. Such syntheses articulate a larger theme, for instance: What is the rabbinic view of creation? What is the rabbinic image of Abraham? What are the basic values of halakhah? Did the rabbis believe that humans are born free? Why is halakhah so important in rabbinic Judaism? What did the unity of God mean for the rabbis? Rabbinic sources contain many scattered statements which seem to formulate aspects of such larger topics, couched in one of the small forms listed in Table 2. But they contain no coordinated account or synthesis of statements under such headings. As synthesis, the historian’s summary thus has no direct basis in the primary evidence. Second, in order to obtain a suYciently determined and detailed picture of rabbinic views on any larger topic, the scholar is obliged to draw on statements found in diVerent documents or parts of documents. Yet it is often obvious that parts of the same work were created at diVerent times and by diVerent people. They may thus contain points of view which are either incompatible or, even if compatible, were never held together. Third, the fact that single statements tend to be merely juxtaposed creates the impression that they had an independent existence before the book was composed in which they are now found. However, this impression arises from a manner of presentation, and is primary evidence only for an editor’s intention, not for the antiquity of the statements. Juxtaposition in aggregates is no less a device of text composition than any other. The general appearance of rabbinic documents as compilations, which one might think would make it easy to identify the original bits from which the text was created, actually makes it harder. Rabbinic documents use apparent noncomposition, namely juxtaposition of recursive forms, as a principle of composition.

20

The Works of Rabbinic Literature THE RABBINIC LITERATURE OF AGGADAH

The thematic arrangement is more common and extensive for halakhic statements than it is for aggadic ones. Aggadic statements almost always take the form of the midrashic unit, and are found mainly in the following three larger arrangements: (a) the lemmatic order, constituting a verse-by-verse commentary on Scripture; this is the so-called exegetical Midrash; (b) the rabbinic homilies, which create a Scripture commentary limited to a group of speciWc biblical passages, have potentially a sustained thematic focus, and are collected in works called homiletical Midrashim; and (c) thematic sets of midrashic units, which usually appear as shorter stretches of text within the lemmatic arrangements, occurring both in the Midrashim and in the Gemaras. The number of statements treating speciWc aggadic topics is very great. But many of them concern the same themes, very broadly deWned, and approach them in a vaguely similar way. This contrasts somewhat with the variety of themes and forms in Scripture, and the discrepancy is manifest in rabbinic Bible interpretation. Biblical events are largely interpreted as representative of certain schematic truths. Some of these are similar to the Bible’s own schema of salvation history, but the historical uniqueness of biblical events is often lost. For example, biblical Wgures may be taken to illustrate the nature of wicked and righteous behaviour in a timeless fashion, and their fate seen as illustrating constant laws of divine retribution. In this schematic approach to biblical narrative, wisdom-generalizations from biblical books are often used as explicit points of orientation. This is what happens regularly in the homiletic form called Petichah (treated in Chapters 4 and 10 below). One central theme of aggadah is the manner in which God governs the world. (It is quite speculative to identify such a main topic, but more on this presently.) This aspect of aggadah endows the life of halakhah with its meaning, namely as obedience to a divine king and giver of commandments. Rabbinic literature does not use concepts such as ‘God’s governance’ to unify the many thematic strands of its aggadic statements. I shall nevertheless now employ it as the unifying thread of a mock-summary of aggadah composed by me. What I am


21

going to present is an inauthentic synthesis which reduces the immense richness of aggadic themes to a common order of interconnected ideas. The synthesis therefore reXects my own and my time’s prejudices more reliably than rabbinic thought. I do this in order to give a Wrst impression of the themes of aggadah, thus bowing to some extent to the pressure on the modern historian to synthesize, mentioned above. But I also use it to illustrate what the literary structures of aggadah are not like. Since the summary is questionable, I mark it by a diVerent type, italics; and I explain the problems afterwards. God has two conXicting dimensions in what concerns his governance of the world. There is on the one hand his attribute of strict justice (middat ha-din), which calls for the exact punishment of corrupt or rebellious human acts. This strict justice is often articulated by angels, or by a prosecuting counsel in the heavenly court (Sammael, biblical Satan). There is on the other hand the attribute of mercy (middat ha-rachamim) which accepts that humans cannot live up to divine expectations, and forgives them their failings. The divine mercy is reinforced for Israel by a store of merit built up by the exemplary behaviour of the patriarchs and other biblical heroes. This ‘merit of the fathers’ (zekhut avot) is supported by the merit of righteous people in every new generation, as well as individual and collective repentance (teshuvah), and the appeal to God’s mercy in prayer. The members of Israel need this mercy as much as anybody else, for they carry the burden of the commandments. They always fall short of adequate fulWlment of Torah, that is, the will of the King. There are two main times of reckoning: the annual Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and a great day of judgement at the end of time, the details of which are vague or disputed. So are the speciWcs of the ‘revival of the dead’ (techiyyat ha-metim) and the ‘world to come’ (olam ha-ba’); yet there is some mechanism of ultimate reward and punishment. Within each human being, on the other hand, there is a struggle between the good inclination (yetser ha-tov) and the bad inclination (yetser ha-ra’).2 Both of these inclinations, just as good and bad in general, are created by God. The act of creation is motivated by divine value judgements and morality. Perhaps God began 2 For important modern accounts of these and related terms, see Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology; Kadushin, The Rabbinic Mind. See also the relevant syntheses in Urbach, The Sages.

22


the work of creation (Gen. 1: 1) only after anticipating the eventual arrival of Abraham and Israel in the world, who would justify it. Torah already played a role in creation, despite the fact that it was only revealed to humanity at Sinai. Torah was created before the creation of the world, being the wisdom that provided the blueprint of creation (Genesis Rabbah 1: 1, Prov. 8: 22–30). All reality thus expresses God’s principles of governance, God’s values. The glory of Torah is that it captures those values in language, and thus allows humankind, and Israel in particular, to become fully aware of them. This overview is basically anachronistic.3 It assembles into a unity rabbinic statements from diVerent works whose provenance and mutual historical relationship is uncertain. It also represents an entirely un-rabbinic way to talk about these topics. It suggests a basic coherent system, by tying the individual ideas to each other in such a way that a continuum of ideas emerges. This is not at all how the ideas are usually presented in the rabbinic sources, as we shall see in more detail later. Also, from the very same sources used above I could have created entirely diVerent syntheses. My overview furthermore separates aggadic ideas from the biblical verses to which they are almost always tied. This has the eVect of generalizing the rabbinic statements, so that they now appear as universal theologoumena. Additionally, by selecting these notions and leaving hundreds of others unmentioned, I implicitly distinguish main ideas from peripheral ones. Rabbinic literature never compares and ranks ideas in a systematic fashion, other than by occasionally quoting rabbis who, with rhetorical exaggeration, declare that one particular value (peace, circumcision, Sabbath observance, etc.) is greater than all others. And Wnally, my summary does not suYciently reXect the variations, explicit disagreements, or unexplained inconsistencies one actually Wnds in the texts. There is much less pressure towards creating a uniWed perspective for aggadic themes in rabbinic discourse than there is for halakhic themes. The rabbis understand the halakhah as God’s will, and intentionally admit no inconsistency to that will. Human obedience 3 Sometimes a very rudimentary coordination of some of these aggadic statements is found, for example in the Palestinian Targum on Genesis 4: 8, a stylized dialogue between Cain and Abel. Cf. Fischel, Rabbinic Literature, 35 ff.


23

to God also cannot be selective or divided. Moreover, if halakhah were conceptually inconsistent it would be diYcult to implement practically. This is reXected in the explicit manner in which rabbinic texts group together, and often implicitly decide, halakhic disagreements, or diVerences found in halakhic practice. The same pressures towards uniWcation seem not to have been felt for aggadah, for one Wnds almost no attempts to sort into groups, or integrate with each other, the many diverse claims about God, history, human nature, and morality quoted and presented in rabbinic documents. Abstract terms such as I have just mentioned—God, history, etc.—are never used as headings under which to group statements. In particular, there is no trace of a theory-driven attempt to unify either halakhic or aggadic statements in a system. Rabbinic documents do not articulate truly comprehensive principles, deWne concepts, or declare thematic unities within texts. They are not driven by a project of creating and displaying a complete body of knowledge.4 But the modern scholarly study of the past, including the study of rabbinic Judaism, is driven by such a project. In academic texts a theme is always part of a larger map of knowledge, usually by belonging to a discipline and a literary genre, and through explicit declarations. Therefore what is treated in the text is placed into relation to what is absent. This is how the contemporary academic reader of rabbinic texts is trained to create and read scholarly texts. Therefore the methods of modern scholarship can stand in the way of appreciating rabbinic texts. Select Further Reading Translations of key works are, for example, Danby’s The Mishnah, and the English version of Kehati’s The Mishnah, the latter oVering a traditional commentary. The Tosefta and Palestinian Talmud have been translated by Neusner (The Tosefta; The Talmud of the Land of Israel ). For the Babylonian Gemara, see Epstein’s The Babylonian Talmud. Many Midrash-works are available in English and other modern languages, including Neusner’s Sifra, Hammer’s Sifre, Lauterbach’s Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, and Braude and 4 Jacob Neusner’s research, however, partly postulates precisely such a project in rabbinic Judaism; cf. his Judaism as Philosophy, Jerusalem and Athens, and also Rabbinic Judaism’s Generative Logic, Ch. 7. See Chs. 3 and 8 below.

24


Kapstein’s Pesikta de-Rab Kahana; for details on other translations, see Stemberger, Introduction. The role of rabbinic texts within the overall development of Judaism is explained brieXy by P. S. Alexander, Textual Sources for the Study of Judaism, parts 1–5; cf. also Holtz, Back to the Sources. Stemberger’s Introduction is the most comprehensive summary of research on all the rabbinic works mentioned in this book. Other introductions, all of them more or less technical, are Neusner’s Introduction to Rabbinic Literature; Mielziner’s Introduction to the Talmud; and speciWcally for the Mishnah, Zlotnick’s very clear The Iron Pillar Mishnah. Short accounts of the historical developments before the rabbinic period are Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah and SchiVman, From Text to Tradition. A list of small literary forms in the Mishnah and other texts (not quite identical with mine above) is found in Neusner, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities. Part 21, 164–246, and his The Memorized Torah. Cf. the individual articles in Goldberg, Rabbinische Texte. Some of the themes mentioned in my mock summary of aggadah are treated in Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology and Urbach, The Sages. For a brief synthesis of rabbinic views in similar style, but with signiWcantly diVerent emphases, see Neusner, What is Midrash?, 50. The most important dictionaries for working with original rabbinic texts are those by Jastrow (Hebrew and Aramaic) and SokoloV (Aramaic only). All key rabbinic works have been electronically published on CD-ROM, for example by the Bar Ilan University Responsa Project.

2 Parts and Wholes in Rabbinic Literature This Chapter examines if and how rabbinic literature constitutes a uniWed historical phenomenon. I present a number of observations supporting such a unity. I also ascribe a crucial role to the hermeneutic assumption of such a unity. This assumption is provoked to full strength by the aggregate nature of rabbinic works. I illustrate some of the eVects of mere juxtaposition of individual statements, and draw attention to the fact that rabbinic general principles can be quite unreliable. I give a preliminary account of the role which the assumption of an oral tradition might play in accounting for the aggregate nature of the texts.

F E AT U R E S O F U NITY ACROSS R ABBINIC LITERATURE Rabbinic documents are loosely knit, and they seem to require each other as extensions. Often, in reading them in each other’s light, one seems to be able to obtain enough additional information to determine the meaning of a given statement. Is this legitimate? What, apart from each document’s apparent incompleteness, justiWes such a procedure? The Wrst argument derives from the formal homogeneity across most rabbinic documents. The language and small forms of rabbinic literature are closely related, often identical, from document to document. Wherever one opens a rabbinic book, one will Wnd familiar literary and terminological signals, even if one has never seen that particular page before. There are important diVerences between

26

Parts and Wholes in Rabbinic Literature

documents in the way small forms are arranged, and by what rhetoric of discourse they are presented. But the standardizing inXuence of some or most of the thirteen small forms of Table 2 is felt in most works. There is also a tendency for the same ideas, couched in the same or similar words, to recur in more than one rabbinic work. Every rabbinic work is linked to one or more others by these so-called parallels. Substantial parts of the Tosefta and the Sifra, for example, contain statements also found in the Mishnah. There is much overlap of material between the two Gemaras, and again between the Palestinian Gemara and the Midrash Genesis Rabbah. One often Wnds the same aggadic ideas in several works of Midrash, as well as in the Targums and in the Babylonian Gemara. The overlap is always tacit and unexplained. But later commentators and modern printed editions document the large number of parallels by cross-referencing them in the margins or as footnotes. Another important overlap is constituted by proper names. The teachers whom rabbinic works name come from a common stock of rabbis, and there is much overlap between the names from one document to another, although the frequency of certain names is often characteristic for a speciWc work. Almost all of these persons Wgure as speakers of statements and they are called ‘rabbis’, a title which only appears in this usage in rabbinic literature and thereafter. Furthermore, the documents mention unique events and places of a common rabbinic and biblical history. And, very importantly, rabbinic works quote from one and the same, historically unique, other text: the Hebrew Bible. A biblical verse has a unique identity, and every rabbinic passage which quotes a verse taps into this identity. In modern biblical quotations, the reference (e.g. Gen. 1: 1) is like a proper name for the verse. A quotation of its words, such as ‘In the beginning God created . . .’, can also constitute such a naming. As long as suYcient text is cited to identify a unique verse, the rabbinic quotation also functions as a proper name of that verse. In this way, the unique historical entity ‘Hebrew Bible’ is almost ubiquitous in rabbinic documents. This stands in stark contrast to the rabbinic treatment of nonbiblical books. Those are hardly mentioned and practically never quoted. That is the reason why the pre-rabbinic literary heritage of


27

Palestinian Jewry was only preserved, at least in parts, through Christian transmission. Some of the rabbinic silences are due to genuine ignorance of the pre-rabbinic literature, but others clearly express some sort of rejection. Thus a statement ascribed to R. Aqiva condemns the reading of ‘external books’ (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10: 1). This expression is often understood to refer to the originally Jewish pseudepigrapha and apocrypha of the Bible. Another unifying factor is the limited rabbinic repertoire of genre and subject matter. Oversimplifying things considerably, one might say: if a rabbinic statement is not expressed in the form of a midrashic unit, then it is bound to be about halakhah. In other words, rabbinic texts can be deWned by one theme (halakhic) or, in the absence of that theme, at least by one format (midrashic).1 This Wts a very large majority of cases. Among the exceptions are the Targums, Mishnah Tractate Avot, Sefer Yetsirah, Seder Olam, and the narrative work Pirqey de-Rabbi Eliezer. These have each their own genre. The rule of thumb, halakhic theme and/or midrashic format, deWnes a unity that straddles two independent dimensions. It thus limits neither the themes nor the forms of rabbinic literature in an absolute manner. This is why it captures the experience of recognizing undeWned family resemblances between diVerent rabbinic works. In more concrete terms, the limitations of genre can be illustrated by a comparison with pre-rabbinic literature from the Eastern Mediterranean cultures. Of the many large-scale literary genres of that cultural space, rabbinic Judaism adopts none. No part of talmudic literature is shaped according to ancient conventions of historiography, annal-writing, ‘lives’ of famous persons, epic, or narrative Wction;2 and there are no tragedies, comedies, exhortative, political, or forensic speeches, and didactic or missionary epistles. Rabbinic literature lacks systematic tracts on explicit philosophy, theology, grammar, mathematics, and all other theoretical or empirical sciences. Neither is there a continuous account of the rabbinic tradition itself, whether in terms of history, hermeneutics, or theology. Unless 1 The formula admits the—common—case of a statement being both midrashic in form and halakhic in theme. 2 For works that look like narrative, in particular the above-mentioned Seder Olam Rabbah and Pirqey de-Rabbi Eliezer, see Stemberger, Introduction, Ch. 7.

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one counts a few paragraphs in the Mishnah Tractate Avot and three lists of interpretation techniques (see Chapter 5), the Wrst attempt at such an account is the post-talmudic Letter of Sherira Gaon. Perhaps the rabbis did not adopt some of these literary genres simply because they were unacquainted with them. But they were certainly familiar with the Hebrew Bible and its formal and thematic richness. Yet, in contrast to some pre-rabbinic groups who enthusiastically emulated Scriptural forms, rabbinic documents do not follow biblical models of writing (perhaps Tractate Avot is again an exception). The limitations of form, theme, and genre in rabbinic texts will therefore have to be treated as something that connects the works with each other, and distinguishes them from a wider context of literary production. These restrictions should probably be read as a kind of value judgement. The rabbis took the trouble to devote texts to certain themes, and not to others. They furthermore created texts which dealt with those topics again and again in a similar manner, as if both the topics and the forms were a matter of deep-seated preference. It is quite likely that these preferences started life as part of a technical discourse, addressed to an expert or elite audience. But even if that was the case, the value judgement implied in them came in time to be received and promoted much more widely, namely as deWning what was worth knowing among Jews in general.

DIVERSITY IN RABBINIC LITERATURE Nevertheless, it is quite diYcult to tell what, if anything, deWnes an idea or a position as rabbinic, apart from the form in which it is couched—our topic in this book—and the historical identity of the document in which it is found. What, on the level of ideas and views, is actually ‘rabbinic’? Here the fact that the rabbis never spell out syntheses or systems creates an enormously wide range of possibilities. For only an explicit and centrally presented synthesis, summary, or system could serve to exclude with certainty speciWc ideas as nonrabbinic. The texts contain in fact some evidence for the existence of Jewish circles that were not ‘simply’ or ‘merely’ rabbinic in their outlook, and may have been, in some sense, anti-rabbinic. Perhaps


29

certain mystics, persons of speciWc priestly ideology, or messianic devotees formed such groups. Mysticism in particular seems to have produced texts employing non-rabbinic formats, as in the so-called Hekhalot documents,3 although these are also ‘rabbinized’ in a number of ways. There are three further literary genres which may preserve non-rabbinic or specialist rabbinic trends, although they are diYcult to date and contextualize. There is Wrst the Targum. Most of the Targums have distinct literary features (see Table 1) which separate them from all other rabbinic genres. They also seem to have a speciWc historical origin which is independent from, and earlier than, that of the rabbinic movement, namely the need for a public translation of the biblical text into Aramaic. The gradual (and in some respects incomplete) displacement of Hebrew as a Jewish vernacular by Aramaic took place approximately during the course of the fourth and third centuries bce in Palestine. But our extant Targums come from much later than that, namely the rabbinic period. If some of them still preserve literary features linking them to that early situation, then the rabbis have also added a thick layer of other features, and adopted the genre for the production of entirely new Targums. The overlap of ideas between Targums on the one hand, and other parts of rabbinic literature on the other—in particular the works of Midrash—is very strong. Another genre which could reXect non-rabbinic interests is the liturgical poetry (piyyut). This makes use of ideas also found in Midrash, but represents an entirely diVerent area of creativity from other rabbinic works, namely the deliberate, and increasingly artful, shaping of a poetic language which alludes to biblical expressions. It also thematizes Temple worship in a way that might reXect speciWcally priestly interests. A Wnal case of specialist literature is the Masorah, which consists of performative, text-critical, and text-preserving information on the Hebrew Bible. Evidence of the written Masorah is medieval, and the only work that is dedicated primarily to articulating its rules is posttalmudic.4 But its rules are generally assumed to have shaped the 3 See Stemberger, Introduction, 343 V. 4 This is a document called Soferim, one of the so-called minor Tractates of the Babylonian Talmud. See Stemberger, Introduction, 227–8. For embryonic masoretic lists in the Bavli, see in particular Nedarim 37b–38a and Qiddushin 30a; cf. Yeivin, Introduction.

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processes of transmitting and performing the biblical text in rabbinic times. Generally speaking, evidence for diversity among rabbinic documents allows two interpretations. On the one hand, it is possible to assume that the existence of diVerent ideas or forms of expression indicates that diverse socio-cultural groups were at work in creating them. This approach personiWes the diVerences so that a historical reality emerges, namely people with opposing ideologies. On the other hand, one can see the distinct texts as emerging from the same group of people, as they switch from one cultural context (e.g. performing a mystical procedure) to another (e.g. giving a midrashic sermon). DiVerent types of cultural activity would then coexist in the same person’s life but without ideological conXict. The conXict would only emerge, and does so emerge for the modern reader, when the conceptual underpinnings of diVerent cultural practices are articulated in a common language, the abstract language of theory. If this is the guiding assumption, then each of the four ‘non-rabbinic’ genres enumerated above (and one could add more) could represent a compartmentalized discourse practice of the rabbis, or of some rabbis. Which of these two explanations for diversity is adopted tends to depend on a scholar’s wider approach to the historical reconstruction of rabbinic Judaism. There are also other ways to make visible dividing lines within rabbinic literature. There are long-standing attempts to diVerentiate the rabbinic works from each other, or to identify pre-existing parts within them, by historical provenance. Thus important terminological or stylistic peculiarities have been identiWed which are typical of some (groups of) documents, but not others. These diVerences, which appear on the text surface, are comparatively easy to recognize, now that several generations of scholars have collected these phenomena through meticulous investigation of rabbinic texts. Some of the stylistic features are so pronounced that it is possible to identify to which work, or group of works, an isolated statement exhibiting the ‘house style’ ought to belong. They also serve text-critical scholars to peel oV the layers of later redaction (or redactions) from earlier literary cores. Additionally, there is the fact that certain sub-sets of rabbis frequently quoted can be typical for a (part of a) document, which is very suggestive as it may link texts to putative circles of


31

rabbinic masters. It is also often thought that there were two rival approaches in Bible interpretation, tied probably anachronistically to the names of R. Aqiva and R. Ishmael, which are dominant in certain midrashic works, or parts of them.5 It is much harder, however, to claim that diVerences on the level of halakhic or aggadic outlook and message also coincide with these boundaries between works or groups of works. Something similar goes for the question of origins. The nature of the evidence makes it almost impossible to allocate text parts to concrete historical provenances, for example a speciWc rabbi. Furthermore, all such attempts move entirely within the limited type of information selected by the rabbinic text-makers, namely other statements. Contextual information of a diVerent nature altogether—not other statements, but circumstances—is Wltered out or lost to an astonishing degree.

THE UNITY OF RABBINIC LITERATURE IS A H ERMENEUTIC ASSUMPTION Whatever the historical reality of diversity, the views of quite distinct groups could have been absorbed into the same rabbinic documents precisely because there is no explicit uniWcation of rabbinic doctrine. In the absence of such a doctrinal approach, there would have been no need to acknowledge a conXict. But why assume that there was a doctrinal or ideological unity even among the members of the ‘rabbinic’ group proper? People called rabbis in the sources are routinely presented as holding dramatically divergent views, at least on speciWc, limited themes. Many aggadic disagreements would, if translated into systematic statements, have the status of major theological schisms. There may have been profound diVerences in how to understand Scripture, as mentioned above. And even on the level of halakhah some disputes touch upon quite fundamental principles, aVecting large areas of law. Again, the sting is taken out of these 5 The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael and Sifre Numbers, among others, are taken to reXect (mostly) the style of Ishmael; most of Sifra and Sifre Deuteronomy are allocated, alongside other works, to the label Aqiva.

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reported disagreements by the absence of any attempt to unify them in a larger synthesis, while ascribing all of them to the same group of people: rabbis. And conversely, no rabbinic document’s authenticity and literary integrity depends on our ability to articulate its unity, in the form of a system of propositions. There is Wrst the fact that the same statements, merely juxtaposed, will usually allow a plurality of equally possible uniWed messages, as I shall explain in detail in the next chapter. And then there is the fact that in most rabbinic documents one voice quotes many others, which allows disunity within the document without thereby creating disunity of the document (see further Chapter 6). Since the task of unifying themes and positions is entirely left to the readers, the unity of rabbinic Judaism becomes a hermeneutic assumption, an assumption on which our ability to understand the texts is based in the Wrst place. For a speciWc, single text it is almost impossible to abandon the assumption of unity without abandoning the project of reading itself. And for documents which are constructed to be open towards an unspeciWed context, including other documents of the same type, the hermeneutic assumption of unity spreads to the very boundaries of that literature, that is, all documents taken together. This is what happened in the later phases of rabbinic tradition itself. Sometimes the expression ‘oral Torah’ is used in such a way that it comes close to naming precisely this hermeneutic attitude, the projected unity of all rabbinic information. Did the limited thematic and formal agenda of rabbinic discourse dominate the entire Jewish literary production for more than Wve centuries to the exclusion of everything else? Or were other, entirely non-rabbinic, works also created in Palestine or Babylonia between the third and the ninth century? Some scholars argue that such nonrabbinic works did indeed exist, but were absorbed into rabbinic documents or ‘rabbinized’. That we do not have original documents does not mean they never existed. The material existence of texts in antiquity was precarious, and works disappeared fairly quickly unless they were constantly copied and recopied. If rabbinic values, as known to us from the surviving documents, came to dominate all scribal activity even for a while during the rabbinic centuries, chances are that all non-rabbinic literature vanished without a trace. The disappearance from the rabbinic-Jewish horizon of most of the


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apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, with the exception of Ben Sira, shows this very clearly.

PA RTS AND WHOLES IN THE THEMATIC AGGREGATE So how do statements link up with each other in the same document? The Mishnah gives a Wrst orientation. It is the earliest rabbinic document to be completed, namely in the early third century ce, as far as one can tell. It is also the only rabbinic work to impose a speciWc large-scale order of themes upon its contents, halakhah. No similarly comprehensive order of aggadic themes, nor any rival order of halakhic topics, was ever created within the rabbinic period. The Mishnah is a compilation of originally 60 (now 63) so-called Tractates. Most of them bear traditional descriptive names, which are taken to indicate the Tractate’s putative overall topic. However, Tractates have no explicit internal unity, and lack precisely the systematic character that the conventional English terms, tractate or treatise, suggest. The original Hebrew term, massekhet, has the concrete meaning ‘web’. Tractates are also not linked to each other by explanations or cross-references. Instead they are juxtaposed in six groups called Orders (sedarim, singular seder), arranged within the Orders according to size. In antiquity Tractates will have circulated either singly or in groups, for the whole of the Mishnah was much too big to Wt in one scroll, or to be memorized reliably by only one person, although that is possible. Tractates are subdivided into chapters, and chapters into individual paragraphs (called halakhah or mishnah). Subdivisions such as these are nowadays found in most works of rabbinic literature. They are partly quite old (certainly for the Mishnah), but often arise from practical requirements as well as, to some extent, from thematic or formal boundaries. The Mishnah occupies about 800 closely printed pages in a modern English translation. Here are the traditional names and main topics of the six Orders: 1. ‘Seeds’: prayer norms, and norms concerning the cultivation of the land of Israel (11 Tractates);

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2. ‘Appointed Times’: Sabbath observance and the yearly cycle of festivals, also involving Temple worship (12 Tractates); 3. ‘Women’: matrimonial law, vows and their annulment (7 Tractates); 4. ‘Damages’: civil and capital law, judicial procedures; also one Tractate probably added later, called Avot, presenting general rabbinic sayings (10 Tractates); 5. ‘Holy Things’: Temple oVerings, animal sacriWces, and profane slaughter (11 Tractates); 6. ‘Purities’: ritual impurity, its sources, transmission, and remedies (12 Tractates). The Mishnah’s title, which means ‘teaching’ or ‘repetition’, gives no clue to its overall subject matter, the theme to which the topics of the 63 Tractates would be the tributaries. The Tosefta (‘supplement’) imitates the large-scale order of themes in the Mishnah almost Tractate by Tractate. The discourses of the two Gemaras create their own thematic conWguration by selecting only 361⁄2 Tractates (in the Babylonian Talmud) or 39 Tractates (in the Palestinian Talmud) for comment. If one opens a page of the Mishnah, what does one Wnd? Statements of halakhah like this, for example: He who recites the Shema’ too softly for his own ears to hear it, has nevertheless fulWlled the obligation to recite it. (Mishnah Berakhot 2: 3)

This is a rabbinic rule, in a very common conditional format: ‘He who . . . , has . . .’. The topic of this rule is one speciWc aspect of the recitation of a twice-daily liturgical proclamation, the Shema’. That proclamation consists of biblical passages and starts with the famous aYrmation, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one’ (Deut. 6: 4). We are told that the person whose own ears do not hear the recited words, for reasons that are not given, has nevertheless fulWlled the obligation to recite it. We Wnd this ruling on the third page from the Tractate’s beginning. Our sample sentence appears in a cluster of other statements mostly also couched in this form, the hypothetical legal case, and expressed either as ‘He who . . .’ or as ‘If . . . then’. This gives each statement its own micro-topic. If one deWnes the boundaries of this cluster of statements suitably, one can


35

make visible an approximate theme shared between them, say, ‘Aspects of the recitation of the Shema’ ’. I shall return to this statement and the cluster in which it occurs in the next chapter. Thematic clusters in aggadah are similar to those of halakhah, although they are much rarer. Here are the aggadic micro-topics mentioned in the opening pages of a mostly halakhic Midrash, the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael. All statements have midrashic form, but I do not represent the biblical quotations in the following summary. God speaks only to Moses, not to Aaron . . . (cf. Exod. 12: 1) Moses and Aaron are equal as prophets . . . Heaven and earth are equal to each other . . . The convenants with the patriarchs are equal to each other . . . Father and mother are equal in the honour due to them . . . (a halakhic statement) Joshua and Caleb are equal to each other . . . God addressed Moses outside the city because of its idols . . . The divine choice of places for revelation became successively narrower throughout Israelite history. . . The divine choice of persons Wt for priestly service became successively narrower . . . The divine choice of persons Wt for kingship became successively narrower . . . Prophets are addressed outside Israel only because of the merit of the patriarchs . . . Pure localities, with water, are a presupposition of revelation outside Israel . . . The divine presence is not found outside Israel . . . 6 Some of these apparent theologoumena are expressed in a shared format, and are presented in parallel to each other. Yet they are not necessarily all related in substance, for their unity is not spelled out. In any case, diVerent overall messages could be suggested, according to diVerent interpretations of the implied links. So it is up to the reader, Wrst to decide if such an overall message is intended, and then what it might be. It is also for the reader to articulate that message, by rewriting this text or commenting on it—if an articulation is wanted. 6 Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Pischa 1 (ed. Lauterbach, Vol. 1, 1–7).

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There are no words already in the text which would express whatever unifying message might be intended by it. In most passages a common thematic thread is not very obvious. Rather, the mere juxtaposition of statements can be interpreted with equal ease either as the change of some topic, or as a continuity of some (other) topic. Readers whose ingenuity goes too far in constructing thematic unity where none was intended are not reined in by mere juxtaposition; and readers who fail to recognize unity where it was intended are not enlightened by it.

RABBINIC GENERAL PRINCIPLES ARE CONTEXT- B OUND Rabbinic documents also manage to convey a profound uncertainty about the status of their general principles. This is important in the present context because such principles are capable of articulating a common theme that links many individual statements to each other. Just as summaries are usually generalizations, so principles can pull together the meaning of whole paragraphs, sections, or chapters. A considerable number of rabbinic statements are introduced by the formula ‘This is the general rule: . . .’ (zeh ha-kelal ). Others contain the word ‘all’ in an apparently unrestricted meaning, or formulate their subject matter in general terms without qualiWcations. All of these formats suggest generality of scope. But one often discovers that there is de facto a limit to the universal claim, which is not expressed in the claim itself. In particular, other statements may be found close by which contradict the general ones. And yet these appear to be presented and accepted by the same voice which presents the general principle itself. Generalizations based on decisions in individual cases are sometimes also unreliable in other legal traditions, for instance in Roman law.7 Yet rabbinic texts appear to undercut universal statements so often, and with such devastating casualness that the reader receives a veritable training in the distrust of general statements. Legal principle, law of human nature, 7 Cf. Hezser, ‘The CodiWcation’, 587.


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generalization about God—all must be taken to be potentially restricted by some other idea, expressed elsewhere. This may be the point of a dictum ascribed to R. Yochanan in the Babylonian Talmud: ‘One does not rely on general rules, even in places where the exceptions are spelled out.’8 It seems possible that general statements were at least sometimes employed as a kind of hyperbole, but with mnemonic rather than rhetorical function. The same goes for some rabbinic lists. One regularly Wnds lists which are clearly meant to delimit a class of objects by exhaustively enumerating its members, and these constitute a kind of universal proposition. But one may Wnd that additional list members are being mentioned elsewhere, and without an indication that a disagreement is taking place. The list seems a way to highlight certain themes as important, or as ‘closed’. But the question is: highlighted compared with what, within which larger whole? In the absence of a unifying order which deWnes areas of knowledge, lists concern only this or that random topic: types of grain with which one can fulWl one’s Passover obligation, six things which were created before creation, three transgressions for which women die in childbirth, thirteen divine attributes, thirteen hermeneutic moves, and many others.9 Putting next to each other the themes of lists does not provide one with a map of rabbinic knowledge. Although there is a preference for certain numbers (three, seven, ten, etc.), lists with the same number are not coordinated with each other. Thus the lists do not articulate the landscape of rabbinic ideas, either singly or when collected together from their various literary contexts. Yet they are an important literary signal, for in a manner of speaking the mere juxtaposition of statements which creates lemmatic and thematic aggregates turns every rabbinic text into a list of sorts—but one without a heading. The rabbinic use of general statements is profoundly diVerent from their use in the cultural context in which contemporary academics read rabbinic texts, unless they are post-modernists. Modern scientiWc and scholarly discourse strives to produce reliable 8 Talmud Bavli Qiddushin 34a. 9 Mishnah Pesachim 2: 5 (grain), Genesis Rabbah 1: 4 (creation), Mishnah Shabbat 2: 6 (childbirth), Bavli Rosh Hashanah 17b/Exod. 34: 6–7 (attributes), Sifra Introduction (hermeneutic moves).

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universal statements, and great care is taken in their formulation, mostly by making explicit any limits or exceptions. To do otherwise would be to undermine trust in the possibility of universal knowledge itself. Here the contrast to the rabbinic use of apparently general statements could hardly be greater. There are two consequences of this. One is that general principles do not function as summaries of the text, or as informing the reader what a group of statements is collectively about. The second consequence is that rabbinic information is diYcult to separate from its social and literary setting. Where they are reliable, general principles provide a summary of knowledge which can be taken from the context in which it was produced, and transported to some other context. The more explicitly limited or reliably general a claim is, the less it matters who spoke to whom, where, when, and why. Without generalizations summing up rabbinic documents, the principles of rabbinic thought and law are not available for use in non-rabbinic contexts. This may have had its uses in establishing a social control over the dissemination of rabbinic competence in antiquity, perhaps partly vis-a`-vis an early Christianity. But the modern academic investigation of rabbinic texts is equally aVected by it, for it too is such a non-rabbinic context. This means that we do not have the necessarily contextual competence to recognize which statements on topic X are meant to go together, or even which statements are intended to be about topic X in the Wrst place. From this also follows the questionable status of all modern syntheses of rabbinic Judaism mentioned in the preceding chapter.

THE ORAL PREHISTORY O F R ABBINIC TEXTS It seems that there is an easy explanation for the nature of rabbinic documents. They could reXect many individual bits of information, Wrst existing as oral traditions. This would account for the fact that they are created from the unexplained juxtaposition of smaller units. The key here is the assumption that individual statements could have been orally transmitted as single items, before they came to be combined in writing or orally. This may have happened, although


39

presumably not on a large, organized scale or for very long. In any case, the idea of a single orally transmitted or remembered statement does not provide a model for the crucial act of composing single statements into multiple statements, that is, a text. As long as a statement is merely being remembered by way of occasional recall which may be triggered by any external circumstance, there is no textual relationship between it and other statements. And once a statement is intended to be transmitted alongside others and conjoined to them, choices of text composition have to be made, whether orally or in writing. Any plurality of statements, regardless of how they are juxtaposed, automatically involves decisions of selection and sequence, and thus a principle of arrangement. But when it comes to identifying the typical arrangement practices of oral textuality, the modern scholarly discussion on rabbinic documents often simply peters out. What oral texts are like is taken to be somehow self-explanatory, or left entirely vague: something to do with mnemonics, and with the unconscious association of ideas in the human mind. Oral texts in that sense would lack thematic completeness, principled conceptual progress, explicitness, and problem-free generalization—all the ‘lacks’ which one can Wnd in the rabbinic documents as they are today. This also implies that the later text makers preserved those ‘oral’ features quite faithfully, and that is indeed another postulate of the approaches I am summarizing here. The type of control and planning that is possible in written documents was not in fact adopted, because the later editors were not free, or were reluctant, to change what they inherited from the oral tradition. But the postulate of a Wdelity to earlier ‘oral’ literary features alone does not explain matters either. For then one should be able to recognize two diVerent sets of literary features in the texts as they are now. One set would be ‘oral’, and found in intermediary units which the editors received fully formed and allegedly respected; the other set would be written, and visible in the larger compositions into which the oral passages were integrated by the editors. But this is not what one Wnds. Instead, mere juxtaposition dominates on almost all levels of rabbinic texts, from the single statement, in any of the small forms, upwards. The only consistent exception to this is the rabbinic homily,

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which is deWned as a hierarchy of forms (but also shows no evidence of an oral–written dichotomy). Verbal Wdelity in tradition is a problematic assumption to make in any case. With respect to the Mishnaic Tractates especially, we Wnd that statements exhibit a particularly high degree of formal homogeneity. This implies that pre-Mishnaic traditions may have come from diVerent centuries and localities, but were subjected to a thorough stylistic-conceptual revision to make them conform to a common standard. Since such a revision would have to have interfered with the wordings of those earlier statements, their textual relationship to each other would also have been open to revision. Or alternatively, most Mishnaic statements were originally formulated by authors who already followed a shared set of formal conventions, in which case the arrangement of these statements would also be an original creation (see Chapter 7). Finally, a comparison of the Mishnah with the Tosefta and the halakhic Midrashim shows that the clustering of single rabbinic statements was in fact a very Xexible aVair, while the set of statement formats from which the editors chose was quite stable. We often Wnd the same statement in two diverse textual frames, so the redactors of either the Mishnah or the Tosefta must have had the authority to rearrange the material. Something similar is true of the above-mentioned overlaps, the rabbinic parallels, in general. There is thus no reason why halakhic-thematic redactors could not have arranged statements into a fully integrated view of rabbinic halakhah.10 Such works were created, but centuries after the rabbinic period. These are the so-called halakhic codes, of which Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (c.1180), the Arba’ah Turim of Jacob ben Asher (c.1270–1340), and Joseph Caro’s Shulchan Arukh (1564) are three prime examples. They unite and streamline legal themes that appear dispersed across the rabbinic documents and assemble them in one textual place. They are thus diVerent by nature from the textuality preferred by generations of rabbinic editors, from the Mishnah to the late Midrashim.

10 There are perhaps some early traces of this; see Z. Safrai, ‘Post-Talmudic Halakhic Literature in the Land of Israel’.


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Select Further Reading The role of Greek and Hellenistic culture among Palestinian Jews is explored in Lieberman’s Greek in Jewish Palestine and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine; see further e.g. P. S. Alexander, ‘Quid Athenis et Hierosolymis?’ Jewish writings in Hellenistic genres are discussed in Schu¨rer–Vermes–Millar, History of the Jewish People, Vol. 3.1, 470 V. and Vol. 3.2. A transition from the midrashic format to narrative genres is postulated, see Stemberger, Introduction, 326– 40. For the Sefer Yetsirah, see Stemberger, Introduction, 343–5, and the use made of this document by Idel in his Golem, Ch. 2. With respect to the Hekhalot texts, see Scholem’s Jewish Gnosticism and his Major Trends, 40–79; Stemberger, Introduction, 343 V.; Goldberg, ‘Das Schriftzitat in der Hekhalot-Literatur’, and the thematic-historical exploration by Scha¨fer, The Hidden and Manifest God. An overview of the Targumic genre is found in P. S. Alexander’s ‘Jewish Aramaic Translations’ and Flesher’s ‘The Targumim’. Liturgical poetry is treated in Weinberger, Jewish Hymnography. An excellent survey of synagogue worship is Petuchowski, ‘The Liturgy of the Synagogue’. The apparatus of textual information which grew up around the biblical text and its transmission is surveyed in Dotan, ‘Masorah’. Baumgarten, ‘ ‘‘But Touch the Law’’ ’, addresses the question of what sort of ideological diVerence would actually have led to ‘schisms’ in ancient Judaism; cf. also Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 224 V. For the notion that two rival ‘schools’ of biblical interpretation existed in early rabbinic Judaism, see the summary in Stemberger, Introduction, 20–2; also Porton, The Traditions of Rabbi Ishmael, and recently Yadin, Scripture as Logos. The linguistic situation of Palestine at the turn of the era is explored in Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean, 29–56, while the question of primary education (in Hebrew or otherwise) is discussed by Hezser, Jewish Literacy, in particular 65 V., and P. S. Alexander, ‘How did the Rabbis learn Hebrew?’ Hezser also addresses the absence of non-rabbinic texts, op. cit. 425–6. For the structure and parts of the Mishnah, see Stemberger, Introduction; Neusner, Introduction. The phenomenon of the rabbinic parallels is discussed e.g. in Cohen, The Synoptic Problem. The problems arising when one treats all works of rabbinic literature as belonging together are explained in Scha¨fer, ‘Research into Rabbinic Literature’. That the homogeneity of forms in the Mishnah implies a thorough process of reformulation of earlier traditional knowledge was stressed in particular by Neusner; see his investigations in The Rabbinic Traditions, and A History of the Mishnaic Law; cf. also Introduction to Rabbinic Literature, 24 and many other places. See also Abraham Goldberg’s ‘The Mishnah’. The theories of how the Mishnah was created are summarized in Hezser, ‘The Mishnah’, 168–82; she also addresses the question whether a text as

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large as the Mishnah was likely to have been transmitted exclusively by memorization (183–4). An attempt to construct the Mishnah’s structure and meaning if it is dated after the Tosefta is made by Hauptman, Rereading the Mishnah.

3 How Statements are Linked to Each Other This chapter examines the thematic discourse as it occurs in key rabbinic books on religious obligation, halakhah. I describe three main ways in which neighbouring statements can interact with each other in such works as the Mishnah and the Tosefta. I show that the individual halakhic statement is not as self-suYcient as it may seem, and yet its role within a larger whole is usually undeWned. The resulting ambiguities are often fundamental, aVecting the historical reconstruction of rabbinic Judaism, or Judaisms.

S TAT E M E N T S I N M E R E J UXTA P O S I T I O N I shall now examine in more detail how neighbouring statements work together to form a larger thematic text, if they are approached under the assumption of coherence. Thematic aggregates are works, like the Mishnah and the Tosefta, which present some measure of deliberate thematic coordination of statements. The degree and nature of such coordination is, however, unpredictable and has to be determined afresh for each passage. Three types of thematic coordination occur regularly:

: :

The series of statements: a uniWed theme is suggested by the order or progression of statements. The cluster of statements: statements share a theme, but are not coordinated or subordinated, and there is no manifest order or progression.

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:

How Statements are Linked to Each Other The multiple theme: one and the same statement has several thematic connections to statements surrounding it.

The series is fairly rare, while the multiple theme and the cluster are common, and often occur combined. The dominant statement form in thematic halakhic texts is the hypothetical legal case (see Table 2). Therefore the most important question to ask is: How does the reader know if there is a link between the topics of two or more neighbouring hypothetical legal cases? The hypothetical legal case consists of two clauses, usually in the shape of ‘He who . . . must/ is . . .’, or of ‘If . . . then . . .’. The Wrst half consists of the schematic depiction of a situation, while the second half provides the halakhic evaluation of that situation. The two parts are commonly called protasis and apodosis, and the terminology applies as follows: the hypothetical situation (protasis)

the halakhic evaluation (apodosis)

He who recites the Shema’ [too softly] for his own ears to hear it,

has [nevertheless] fulWlled the obligation [to recite it]. (Mishnah Berakhot 2: 3)

Thousands of such binary statements are found in rabbinic texts, giving Jewish law its ‘casuistic’ Xavour. The binary format was used in early Near Eastern law texts such as the eighteenth-century bce Akkadian Laws of Hammurabi, and also occurs in the Hebrew Bible and Roman law.1 It constitutes a self-contained unit whose scope appears to be limited only by its own terms, and can often be grammatically delineated. It thus has its own thematic focus, what I have called a micro-topic in the preceding Chapter. The bulk of thematic rabbinic documents is made up from the mere juxtaposition of conditional statements in this format, although alongside or interwoven with it one also Wnds disputes, lists, precedents, general norms, and other small forms. There are few headings, summaries, or conjunctions which would link statements together. Accordingly the reader is often obliged to search for thematic connections without knowing if there are any. Perhaps the single most important mechanism of this search for connections is the testing for analogies between the neighbouring 1 Daube, Forms of Roman Legislation, 4–8; cf. Yaron, The Laws of Eshnunna.

How Statements are Linked to Each Other

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cases. I use the term analogy throughout this book as referring to the case where a reader perceives a similarity directly between two subjects mentioned in the text, without Wrst formulating a more general principle or class deWnition governing both.2 This seems to me a profoundly diVerent mechanism of interpretation from generalizing one subject, and then seeing if the second subject Wts under the generalization. In constructing analogical links, readers eVectively continue the text’s own implicitness. STATEMENTS IN SERIES Now in the series of statements, as I use the word, connections are very strongly suggested. The statements in series progressively modify a given thematic focus, by virtue of their arrangement. This is illustrated by the passage below: the hypothetical situation

the halakhic evaluation

1. The one [person] comes with his jar, and the other comes with his beam: if the vessel of the one was broken by the beam of the other, 2. If the owner of the beam went Wrst [if one walked behind the other], and the owner of the jar behind, and the jar was broken by the beam, 3. If the owner of the beam stood [suddenly], 4. If he said to the owner of the jar, ‘Stand!’ [before stopping], 5. If the owner of the jar went Wrst and the owner of the beam behind, and the jar was broken by the beam, 6. If the owner of the jar stood [suddenly], 7. If he said to the owner of the beam, ‘Stand!’,

the latter is free [from liability], for the one had the right to proceed and the other had the right to proceed. he [the owner of the beam] is free.

he is liable. he is free. he [the owner of the beam] is liable. he [the owner of the beam] is free. he [the owner of the beam] is liable. (Mishnah Bava Qamma 3: 5)

2 Some current research on analogy is summarized in my Rabbinic Interpretation, 180–210.

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Two persons are envisaged as walking, Wrst towards each other (case 1), and then one behind the other (cases 2 to 7). One is carrying a jar and the other a beam, and various possible collisions are considered. In this passage the statements are put together like clockwork. Starting from the situation of two persons walking towards each other (1), the theme progresses by changing only one factor of the situation at a time: Wrst the movement is changed to one person walking behind the other (2). This creates a new basic scenario, and the next variations are more minor: the sudden stop (3), then the warning (4); then a reverse order of walking (5), again with a sudden stop (6), and a warning (7). In each new scenario, only one situational factor is modiWed, and each scenario is an alternative to the others. What connects the cases in the series is not declared, yet the reader receives the strong impression that a common logic ties together the halakhic evaluations in statements 2 to 7. But when transforming this impression into a Wxed verbal principle one seems obliged to over-determine what the series implies. In order to explain what I mean by this, let me provide an attempt to produce a principle for the cases 2 to 7: The person with the harder object is responsible for damage to the fragile object, unless the person carrying the latter performs a motion that he cannot see or predict. This seems to Wt the series 2–7, and it does not rely on legal terms absent from this passage, such as negligence. But I was nevertheless forced to make all sorts of additional decisions: which terms to use, how abstract to make them, or in which direction to generalize, for example. Is the fragility of the jar and the hardness of the beam really the point to generalize? Perhaps if both persons carried a beam, but one beam broke after being dropped because of a collision, the same distribution of responsibilities would still apply. Also, should one integrate the scenario of statement no. 1 into the principle, or treat only 2–7 as the uniWed group?3 Perhaps one ought to include even statements preceding number 1 or following number 7? There is no straightforward 3 I am grateful to Bernard Jackson, who thinks statement no. 1 deWnitely should be included in any serious attempt to provide a principle, for discussing this passage with me.


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one-to-one correspondence between the implicit message of a series and any reader-articulated principle; and one of the key variables is what the reader wishes to do with that principle. One also Wnds aggadic series of statements, although they are not part of thematic aggregates. Aggadic statements usually have the form of a midrashic unit, as the following passage illustrates: 1. And until the land of Israel was chosen all the lands were Wt for the divine word; after the land of Israel was chosen all the lands were excluded. 2. Until Jerusalem was chosen, the whole of the land of Israel was Wt for altars; after Jerusalem was chosen the whole of the land of Israel was excluded, as it is said, Guard yourself lest you bring your burnt oVerings [in every place that you see, but in the place which the Lord shall choose] (Deut. 12: 13–14). 3. Until the Temple was chosen all of Jerusalem was suitable for the divine dwelling (shekhinah); after the Temple was chosen Jerusalem was excluded, as it is said, For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his habitation: This is my resting place for ever (Ps. 132: 13–14).4

Again, one can clearly discern a progression and thus coherence between the statements. Starting with all countries and ending with the Temple Mount, the eligibility of geographical places becomes narrower in stages. Nevertheless the overall message remains undeWned. What is the theological signiWcance of the shift from divine communication Wrst, to the sacriWce second, and last to the divine presence (shekhinah)? It remains implied in the serialization itself. Whoever wishes to say what is the overall message has to add a whole new category of statement to the text as it is. The series thus coordinates statements thematically, but tends to leave the principle of thematic unity undeclared, as in these two illustrations. The series can be followed by a general formulation (usually introduced by zeh ha-kelal, ‘This is the general rule’). But this is sometimes manifestly narrower or more general than the series implies. Series can contain from two statements upwards, but are never very long.5 They are invariably embedded in a larger textual

4 Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Pischa 1 (ed. Lauterbach, Vol. 1, 4), in my translation; for the wider context, see the summary of this text in the preceding chapter. 5 A fairly long one is Mishnah Yevamot 3: 1–7; see Samely, ‘From Case to Case’.

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environment with which they are not coordinated in the manner of a series, and the transitions to and from that environment tend to be sudden and unacknowledged.

S TAT E M E N T S I N C LU S T E R S There are no absolute thematic discontinuities in a document like the Mishnah. For all halakhic topics are somehow connected to all others, and usually there are no announcements to make clear that one topic is indeed Wnished, and a completely new one really begins. As a result, all transitions are open to be interpreted as continuity, for example through implicit analogical contrast or similarity. Conversely, almost all sequences of statements can be interpreted as shifts of topic. Comparatively clear thematic discontinuities are quite common, and include those that tend to separate the end of one Mishnaic Tractate from the beginning of the next one. But even these are no more dramatic than the topic changes that can often be observed within a Tractate. For any group of sentences found between two manifest thematic breaks, internal relationships are often quite unclear. Frequently, statements found together could contribute to a common theme, depending on how creatively one deWnes it. I am here speaking of sets of statements which have no obvious coordination, subordination, or progress, yet one can see a potential continuity linking not just two neighbouring statements, but also statements at one, two, or more removes from each other. I call such a grouping a cluster of statements, and deWne it as having, on the one hand, an undeclared and fuzzy thematic continuity and, on the other, small-scale shifts of topic which do not follow a constant principle of diVerentiation or progression (in contrast to the series). Below I have extracted fourteen statements on the Shema’6 from a more complex environment, but left their sequence unchanged. They 6 The Shema’ consists of Deut. 6: 4–9, Deut. 11: 13–21, and Numbers 15: 37–41, with benedictions preceding and succeeding it. For the latter, see e.g. Singer, Authorised Daily Prayer Book, 60–73 or P. S. Alexander, Textual Sources, 68–72.


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form a cluster as just deWned. I only represent the protases (‘if ’-parts) of the hypothetical legal statements. I also omit all disputes, and the multiple thematic links which I explain later in this chapter. A full translation is found as Sample Text I at the end of this book. Here as everywhere in this book, I translate the conjunction waw as ‘and’, although it can also mean ‘but’. Mishnah Berakhot 2: 1–3: 4 7 1. If he happened to read Scripture (including the Shema’-passage Deut. 6: 4 V.) when the time for reciting the Shema’ arrived, then, if he directed his heart, he has fulWlled his obligation. And if not . . . 2. And between the sections [of the Shema’], one [interrupts the recitation in order to] extend a greeting because of the other person’s honour, and one responds; and in the middle one extends [a greeting] because of fear (or awe) and responds . . . 3. He who recites the Shema’ [too softly] for his own ears to hear it . . . 4. If he recited it but did not enunciate the letters clearly, then . . . 5. He who recites it in a confused order . . . 6. If he recited it and then made a mistake, then . . . 7. Craftsmen in a tree or on a wall may recite the prayer there . . . 8. The bridegroom is free from [the obligation to] recite the Shema’ on the Wrst night . . . 9. He whose dead relative lies before him is free from [the obligation to] recite the Shema’. . . 10. The pall bearers . . . 11. Once they have buried the dead and return [from the funeral] to form a row of consoling friends . . . 12. Those in the inner row of consoling friends . . . those in the outer row . . . 13. Women, slaves, and minors are exempt from [the obligation to] recite the Shema’. . . 14. He who has had an emission (of semen, cf. Lev. 15: 16) . . .

Reading these statements in their sequence, one gains the impression that they somehow all belong together, certainly under a vague heading such as ‘aspects of the recitation of the Shema’’. Potential sub-groupings with more speciWc topics emerge upon closer scrutiny. Number 2 has several statements in close coordination; these form a short series as deWned above. Numbers 3 to 6 belong together more 7 Omitting Mishnah Berakhot 2: 2 and 2: 6–8 in their entirety.

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loosely, forming a category the reader might be tempted to label, for example, ‘errors in the performance of the Shema’’. Such a label is necessary if one wishes to articulate how the text is shaped, but inevitably makes assumptions which go far beyond what the text actually says. Later commentators suggest as the common feature of statements 8 to 12 that the consummation of marriage and funeral obligations, as commandments, take priority over the commandment of reciting the Shema’. They thus Wnd a reason for the textual arrangement in a halakhic rule (namely, of priority) which is not actually mentioned. Numbers 9 to 12 deal with funeral procedures. Again it is unclear if additional rules on the Shema’ in funeral settings, not mentioned here, are meant to complete the picture. If not, then this set of statements might be tacitly presented as covering all unmentioned eventualities also, for example by subordination or analogical extension.

OPEN OR CLOSED SETS OF STAT EMENTS? This latter ambiguity, arising from the mere juxtaposition, can be rephrased in a more general way. Is the cluster meant to treat its overarching topic exhaustively or merely by way of illustration? On the answer to this question depends the choice between two reading strategies. If a cluster was meant to cover a subject exhaustively, each statement must be interpreted in its widest possible sense, so that together they carve up the whole theme without remainder. Each statement’s micro-topic might be the prototype of a whole class, for example. Also, the statements would be taken as strongly coherent with each other, their meaning determined with as little redundancy as possible. But if a cluster was put together as an open set, merely sampling some of the known norms under the theme without exhausting them, then its statements can have narrow micro-topics, and there need be no strong coherence between them. One could argue that clusters are usually not meant to be closed sets from the fact that elsewhere in the same document, or in another work, one Wnds statements which belong to the same theme (to be sure, as determined by the reader). For example, there is a statement


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found outside our sample cluster here in Berakhot 2–3 which deals with the language in which the Shema’ should be recited (must it be in the original Hebrew?) That there is such a statement might indicate that the cluster forms an open set, and is meant to be complemented from outside so that a more complete picture of its overall theme emerges. Yet, there is also the other possibility: the cluster forms a closed set. In that case the extra statement may come from a diVerent or later source, or it may simply be redundant. For, if it is a closed set, then we would seek within it an implied message as to the language of the Shema’. And it is not diYcult to construe such a message. We could argue that, since the Shema’ may remain entirely inaudible (statement 3), it should also not matter if it is in Hebrew or in another language. However, the mere juxtaposition of statements also allows the opposite interpretation in our sample cluster. Statements 4 and 5 stress correct order and proper enunciation of the words, which would make good sense for the biblical original, but not so much for a translation, say, into Greek. As it happens, both positions are also represented as statements found outside the cluster. Mishnah Tractate Sotah 7: 1 mentions the Shema’ alongside other proclamations which can be recited in any language, while Tosefta Sotah 7: 7 reports an opinion that it should be in Hebrew. This brings to light the fundamental variables that are in play when interpreting the relationship of statements in thematic aggregates: Is a given set of statements a thematic cluster, as opposed to treating diverse themes? If it is, do they form an open or a closed set? If they form an open set, how does one determine which other statements were meant to be compatible with it? If they form a closed set, can one identify the rule for a given sub-topic (e.g. the language of Shema’-recitation), or are there contradictory possibilities, as in the above case? What is the provenance of thematically related statements outside the cluster? Can they be relied upon to represent the same outlook as the cluster only if they come from the same (part of the) document? For the large majority of all concrete passages in rabbinic aggregates we lack the reliable historical information which would make it possible to answer these questions with certainty. In those cases all variables are interdependent and equally ambiguous in nature. And the texts themselves do not contain explicitly the Wxed points of information—for example, a declared

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theme, a cross-reference to another statement—which would serve to anchor the reader’s chain of reasoning and interpretation.

DOCUMENT B O UNDA RIES AS EV IDENCE FOR A U N I F I E D M E S S AG E ? This uncertainty has created one of the main methodological divides in contemporary rabbinic scholarship. Historians of rabbinic Judaism have, on the whole, tended to take series and clusters as open sets of statements. In this, they have followed the lead of post-Mishnaic rabbinic literature, in particular the Babylonian Gemara. Coherence can then be established within the boundaries of the whole of rabbinic literature, across separate works, according to reader preference or tradition. However, this implies that the diVerent historical provenances of the documents are considered to be relatively unimportant. Recently Jacob Neusner and others have challenged this. To Neusner’s mind almost every rabbinic document has its own agenda or can stand in ideological competition with others. He has tried to demonstrate that individual works are strongly coherent entities, each deWned by a unique combination of the features named by him as (a) rhetoric, that is, formal conventions; (b) theme; and (c) ‘logic of coherent discourse’. On the other hand he also allows for something called ‘logic of Wxed association’, that is, passages without recognizable thematic coherence.8 Nevertheless, Neusner holds that combining statements across documents can distort their message, and insists that each statement must always be considered in its own literary context, deWned as the unity of its document. This position of Neusner partly continues long-standing attempts to diVerentiate the rabbinic works from each other, as summarized brieXy in Chapter 2. These relied chieXy on features of a common rhetoric, terminology, and style, or the frequency with which certain 8 A concise account in Rabbinic Narrative, 2–3; for more detail see his Introduction, 30–72 and many other works. The ‘Wxed association’ is explained in his Rabbinic Judaism’s Generative Logic, 137–60. For recent critical responses see e.g. Goldenberg, ‘Is ‘‘The Talmud’’ a Document?’ and Hayes, ‘Halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai in Rabbinic Sources’, 61–6.


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rabbis are mentioned—in other words similarities which are visible before any speciWc construction of coherence is placed upon them. Neusner on the other hand sets out to demonstrate thematicconceptual unity for rabbinic documents. And for this a raft of far-reaching hermeneutic assumptions need to be made, as I am illustrating throughout this chapter. In the absence of conjunctions, headings, summaries, or text-connecting principles, the unity of a theme and message can be diYcult to pin down even for a page of rabbinic text, let alone for a whole document. It is in the nature of things that evidence for this type of coherence becomes visible only because a construction of coherence is placed upon certain phenomena in the text. How convincing the result is therefore depends on a large number of subsidiary observations and judgements, all based on the assumption of some coherence. And crucial here is the selection of the level on which coherence is expected. For, in most rabbinic genres, all levels above the single statement (or narrative) are equally openended and undeclared entities. Coherence can then be found on the level of the section, the chapter, the Tractate, the Order, or the document (and indeed beyond the single document). When it comes to choosing the level on which to look for coherence, the only special privilege which attaches prima facie to the whole document is that its boundaries tend to be physically manifest. At least in the codex, there is usually no mistaking the last and Wrst page. Yet scrolls might routinely have contained only parts of documents, and even whether a physically intact-looking codex contains the ‘whole’ work is still a matter of hermeneutic judgement. It is common for manuscripts and prints of ‘the same’ rabbinic work to diVer from each other by having whole sections extra, missing, or found in a diVerent location. Each of these versions with divergent de facto boundaries requires, at least initially, its own deWnition of a unity—unless the diVerences are discounted in advance by an abstract projection of that unity. Moreover, if deWned by Wxed de facto boundaries, few texts are suYciently incoherent to resist entirely a determined eVort to construct coherence. Since Neusner’s search for coherence is tailored to the de facto boundaries of a rabbinic document in the Wrst place, the successful construction of some unity cannot, in itself, demonstrate that a uniWed document message was

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ever intended. Nor does it show that the document level is more coherent than any of the others. The question to be asked Wrst is therefore not, Which of the diVerent textual levels should we choose for Wnding coherence? but, What is the nature of documents which foist upon the reader such a choice? Why do the texts require constant decisions on whether to read for unity or for diversity, within uncertain boundaries? What is the message conveyed by this absence of a clear message of uniWcation? These themes will be investigated in several subsequent chapters of this book.

T H E S I N G L E S TAT E M E N T I N A LA RG E R THEMATIC WHOLE Let us now examine the eVect of ambiguous relationships to the surrounding text on the meaning of a single statement. Consider, once more, the statement on the inaudible Shema’. It is found alongside other statements in the cluster Mishnah Berakhot 2: 1–3: 4, number 3 in my summary above, and reads: He who recites the Shema’ [too softly] for his own ears to hear it, has [nevertheless] fulWlled the obligation [to recite it]. (Mishnah Berakhot 2: 3)

What are the thematic links of this hypothetical legal case to the environment? The immediately surrounding text (statements number 2 and 4) is not linked to number 3 by extra words. An initial inspection does not reveal any deWnite contribution from these two statements. But statement 13, found at some distance from our case, contains a general norm which aVects the understanding of our sample case. Number 13 begins: ‘Women, slaves, and minors are exempt from the recitation of the Shema’ and from the phylacteries.’9 A diVerent but related norm, exempting women from all time-bound positive commandments, is found in Mishnah Qiddushin 1: 7.10 This 9 Mishnah Berakhot 3: 3. 10 Cf. Bavli Qiddushin 33b V., for which see Jacobs, The Talmudic Argument, 133–43. See also Bavli Berakhot 20b (on the above Mishnah passage) and Tosefta Berakhot 3: 1. Cf. Hauptman, Rereading the Rabbis, 224 V.


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principle is reXected in rabbinic rulings on many diVerent halakhic topics, and profoundly aVects the role of women in rabbinic Judaism. In any case, the general norm at number 13 must surely mean that the situation of the inaudible Shema’ only concerns free adult males—unless one interprets the two statements as coming from diVerent sources, and thus as representing potentially incompatible halakhic points of view (see below). If we reject this, because statements 3 and 13 are suYciently continuous in theme and textual Xow, then the more explicit meaning of our sample case would be this: A male adult free person reciting the Shema’ too softly for his ears to hear it . . .

Rule number 13 makes its appearance suddenly, among more speciWc rules, and it does not advertise its importance. It comes after a string of other norms which now turn out to have already presupposed this information, namely the exclusion of all females, minors, and slaves. Readers who follow the Mishnaic sequence of statements without already knowing the halakhah of the Shema’ have to modify their understanding of all the earlier statements as an afterthought, retroactively. This movement of retroactive modiWcation becomes necessary (and is required very frequently), because relationships are not explained, and thus cannot create reader anticipations. The ideal reader of thematic rabbinic texts is attuned to read ‘backwards’, so to speak, to a much greater degree than the ideal reader of modern scholarly texts; the latter, by contrast, is highly trained to read ‘forewards’ through evaluating systematic hints of what is still to come, and through checking anticipations against their fulWlment later in the text. There is further rabbinic information available which might be tacitly presupposed in our statement 3. One is that proper intention is necessary for any recitation of the Shema’. Intention is mentioned once in our cluster, in case number 1, where the requirement to ‘direct one’s heart’ is speciWed, but only for one particular situation. However, the Tosefta spells out that intention is necessary for any recitation of the Shema’, at least for its opening sentence.11 Another related theme is the reason why one might recite the Shema’ inaudibly.

11 Tosefta Berakhot 2: 2; cf. Bavli Berakhot 13b.

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Statement number 3 itself seems to treat all reasons as equally valid, which might include conditions as diverse as children asleep in the same room, enemies on the prowl, deafness,12 or ambient noise. But there is a passage in the Tosefta which reports R. Aqiva as having once accepted an inaudible recitation of the Shema’ in the study house, ‘because of a Roman quaestor who was standing at the doorway’.13 This suggests that fear of persecution is what motivates the inaudibility of the Shema’ in statement number 3. In fact ‘fear’ is mentioned in statement 2 as a reason for interrupting one’s Shema’-recitation for a greeting, although in that passage fear might refer to the awe due to a teacher. Were the two statements placed next to each other to intimate a strong thematic continuity to do with fear? Perhaps the inaudible Shema’ was even considered to be acceptable by analogy to the case of the interrupted Shema’, or vice versa. From the text itself we shall never know, for there is no conjunction declaring the relationship between the two statements, such as ‘for the same reason’ or ‘similarly’. If we assume there is such a tacit analogical link, however, and also integrate all the above-mentioned information gleaned from other statements found elsewhere, we can now explicate the meaning of statement number 3 as follows: And similarly, a male, adult, free person reciting the Shema’ with proper intention but too softly for his ears to hear it because he is afraid, . . .

The statement as found in the Mishnah has neither the extra information (marked by italics), nor any links or cross-references to the statements from which we obtained it. This creates the methodological problem explained above. Were links to other statements intended at all by the Mishnaic cluster in Berakhot 2–3? And if so, were the links I made above the intended ones? A combination of literary features ensures that there is no answer to this from this text alone: the mere juxtaposition of statements, the absence of declared thematic boundaries or principles, and the absence of original crossreferences to other passages.

12 Bavli Berakhot 15a takes it in that sense. The recitation itself could in that case be audible in principle, of course. 13 Tosefta Berakhot 2: 14.


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It is clear from this example that the detail gained from other statements can make the meaning of a given statement much more precise. But in doing so one has to draw on potentially diverse sources within the Mishnah, or on sources such as the Tosefta which deWnitely have a diVerent provenance, while nevertheless treating the additional statements as compatible and relevant. In eVect, one hopes that those other passages form part of the original context which the Mishnah presupposes. Taken to its extreme, this procedure treats all of rabbinic literature as one body of information. Such an attitude is in fact promoted by the Babylonian Gemara (see Chapter 9). Yet even by such an extreme—and historically implausible—assumption one cannot resolve all the ambiguities created by clusters of statements. The possibilities are still too many and too undeWned. The Babylonian Gemara often quotes a clearly deWned selection of further statements to illuminate a given Mishnaic one. But these talmudic quotations tend not to complete the thematic picture, as I attempt to do for statement number 3 above. Instead, they often serve to point to abstract halakhic trends, or to place into analogical relation quite disparate areas of halakhah. There is thus no rabbinic work outside the Mishnah which would perform the function which the Mishnah itself refuses to perform: to cross-link all statements which are meant to complement each other. The structures which I have now reviewed under the labels of the series and the cluster show one thing very clearly. There is always the possibility that a larger meaning is meant to be constructed by the immediate textual neighbourhood, even if statements are merely juxtaposed. This holds true for all rabbinic genres. It is probably quite rare for a rabbinic statement to be thematically isolated from its own textual surroundings. The historically interested reader of rabbinic sources must engage with the possible larger theme that the textual setting might convey, by various mechanisms of logic and analogy. For the modern reader, who has no direct access to the historical context of rabbinic sources, the immediate textual surroundings must always be the starting point of the construction of meaning, and can never be left out of the equation for good.

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How Statements are Linked to Each Other STAT EMENTS WITH MULTIPLE THEMATIC LINKS

In addition to clusters and series, there is another phenomenon of coordination. These are passages in which a statement maintains two or more distinct literary-thematic connections at the same time. Where the text is arranged in this way, one and the same statement shares several diverse themes with other statements found in close proximity. Thus a statement may share theme Awith its immediate successor, but a diVerent theme, B, with the statement that follows at one remove, and perhaps even a third theme, C, with the one coming in third place. Below is an example, taken from the Mishnah Tractate Shabbat. The statement which is my focus is number 1. It envisages a Wre on the Sabbath threatening to consume holy writings. It rules that, in such a case, the prohibition of carrying an object across diverse domains, which obtains on a Sabbath, may be violated in order to rescue the holy scriptures. The next three statements (numbers 2 to 4) all relate thematically to this opening one, but each through a diVerent shared theme. Number 2 is about writings, but not about the Sabbath or a Wre; number 3 is about the Sabbath and holy writings, but has nothing to do with Wre; while number 4 envisages again a Wre and a Sabbath, together with an item to be rescued. Here are the four statements in translation; I provide a running commentary after each statement. 1. All holy writings may be rescued from a Wre [on the Sabbath, by carrying them], whether they are those which are recited [during the service] or not [e.g. the Hagiographa]. This statement has a number of thematic strands, including the ones presently called A, B, and C. 2. Even those which are written in any language [other than Hebrew, and thus not Wt for liturgical use], must be stored away [with the respect due liturgically Wt holy writings, once they become unusable]. Here theme A makes its appearance: disposal of writings similar to holy scriptures. 3. And why does one not read [Hagiographa even outside the service on the Sabbath]? Because that would cause neglect of [the talks given in] the House of Study [on the Sabbath].


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This creates thematic link B: scriptures which are holy but not recited (while the ones in statement 1 are holy and recited). 4. One may rescue the casing of a [Torah] scroll together with the scroll . . . [here follow further objects which may be rescued on a Sabbath]. The thematic strand now constituted, C, concerns items which, like those in statement number 1, may be rescued from the Wre on a Sabbath in violation of the laws of carrying. (Mishnah Shabbat 16: 1)

Theme C is created by the shared micro-focus of statements 1 and 4: the same thing is said Wrst about holy writings, then about Torah casings—they may be rescued. It is in eVect the dominant theme in this 16th chapter of Tractate Shabbat, as all the subsequent statements stay with this topic, speaking in turn of food, clothes, utensils, etc. By contrast, topics A and B are not mentioned again. Theme C thus appears to be the primary theme of statement number 1. And even if we consider statement 1 in isolation, we may consider C to be its ‘main’ topic. However, if all the subsequent statements were to continue in the vein of number 3, then the emerging topic would be something like: diVerent types of holy scriptures and their uses in various settings. And then it would be entirely reasonable to recognize that theme, B, as the key contents of statement number 1. Something similar goes for our ability to recognize theme A as the key component of statement 1, given a suitable environment. This shows that statements placed in mere juxtaposition to each other have a chameleon-like quality: they can, to some extent, change their primary thematic focus with a changing environment, and this partly explains the phenomenon of the rabbinic parallels. In our case, there are three diVerent environments—statements 2, 3, and 4 V.—and thus three diVerent thematic focal points for the same statement. The three links are maintained simultaneously and in one textual place. This is what I mean by the expression multiple thematic links. Passages with multiple thematic links, usually only two, are very common in thematic texts such as the Mishnah and often occur in clusters, including the Shema’-cluster summarized above (see Sample Text I). But the importance of multiple thematic links does not just reside in the fact that they occur very often. They also create textual

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relationships by a principle which can be used to dissolve Wxed textual arrangements altogether. Although all statements are found on the same page, they are separated from each other: statement 1 is not contiguous with statement 4, with which it forms a common theme, nor with statement 3, with which it forms another. It is only contiguous with 2. In contrast to the modern graphic device of the footnote, the multiple thematic link can express only one thematic connection by contiguity, while interrupting contiguity for the other theme or themes. In other words, the closest textual relationship turns out to be not the exclusive, and indeed not even the most important, thematic relationship. Passages containing multiple thematic links therefore teach the reader of rabbinic documents something about the intentions of the rabbinic text makers, namely that statements which they separated textually were yet meant to be united thematically (as is the case for 1 and 4). This is only obviously true on the small scale, in passages like the one quoted above which occupy only a few lines. But readers can adopt it as a generalized hermeneutic assumption, and then apply it on a large scale, across whole documents. This is how Mishnaic statements are treated by the Babylonian Gemara. In its most generalized form, all statements of rabbinic documents acquire multiple thematic links to other statements—not just those on the same page, but others found in entirely diVerent sections or even documents. The multiple thematic link, as a hermeneutic principle, liberates the single rabbinic statement entirely from the restrictions imposed by its actual textual surroundings: it dissolves, as I said above, Wxed textual arrangements altogether. In that hermeneutic mode, the reader would still take note of the links for a given statement actually embodied in the text by juxtaposition or proximity, but would treat them as a mere sample of the total number of possible thematic links, or virtual texts.

HALAKHIC KNOWLEDGE IS CONSTITUTED AWAY FROM THE TEXTS THAT CONTAIN IT In various ways, therefore, the reader of thematic halakhic texts becomes involved in selecting and combining statements, and thus


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creating a new, virtual text. That text is diVerent from the one found on the page, and can change from reader to reader and reading to reading. A number of more general observations arise from this. 1. Rabbinic documents present themselves as deriving from a common pool of statements. In using thematic connections or implicit analogies to determine a given statement’s contribution to a larger topic, the reader may end up linking statements of quite diverse historical provenance. Insofar as rabbinic thematic texts invite this move through mere juxtaposition, multiple thematic links, etc., they therefore suggest that the diVerent historical origins of texts do not matter, and that the statements are somehow coordinated with each other from the start. The rabbinic expression ‘oral Torah’ can sometimes convey just this assumption of a shapeless togetherness of statements in harmony. Academic scholarship has to question the idea that there was such an oral Torah, a pool of information without any textual structure. But it cannot stay outside the hermeneutic vortex of rabbinic textuality, which obliges all readers to probe links beyond the mere juxtaposition, and to author new, virtual, texts in the process. 2. Knowledge is not rendered independent of context. The shape of rabbinic thematic aggregates does not fully determine the halakhic information. Instead, prior awareness of halakhic information is necessary to determine which textual relationships are intended and which are not. Before the availability of the two Gemaras, the Mishnah (and perhaps the Tosefta) must have been used in speciWc social contexts of learning, training, or personal apprenticeship. In such contexts the ambiguity of the single statement within a cluster would be removed, become inconspicuous, or be irrelevant because of the social availability of other sources of knowledge: cultural practices, explicit discussions, quotations of other texts, or shared assumptions (see Chapter 7). Those social contexts are lost to us, even though the Babylonian Gemara to some extent presents itself as a substitute for them. 3. The ambiguities of earlier texts are reduced and obscured by later texts. Given the loss of a context, modern scholarship cannot remedy the ambiguities created by the mere juxtaposition of statements. But the true range of possible meanings for, say, an

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individual Mishnaic statement, tends to be underplayed or simply not acknowledged in modern scholarship. It is often taken for granted that the historical continuity between the Mishnah and later rabbinic texts was suYciently strong. Thus the general mood and method of the Babylonian Gemara are often projected back to the Mishnaic halakhah, even when it is acknowledged that individual talmudic interpretations can be far-fetched. In many scholarly treatments the ambiguities arising through mere juxtaposition are masked entirely by the scholar’s intimate knowledge of other rabbinic statements on a given theme. Yet these ambiguities constitute a core phenomenon of rabbinic textuality. The only way for readers to keep control of the extent to which they rely on later rabbinic sources for earlier ones, is to become aware of the full extent of those ambiguities. 4. Universal statements are unquotable. Anybody who wishes to draw on the explicit authority of whole rabbinic texts cannot quote uncontentious ‘basic principles’ or ‘core’ messages. This goes for the modern scholar as much as for post-talmudic Jewish theologians and halakhists. Whole rabbinic books do not make unequivocal uniWed statements, and explicit general principles often provide no reliable summary of their topic (see preceding Chapter). All reductions of a major rabbinic theme to a universal principle or an ‘essence’ are therefore the reader’s own creation. Select Further Reading A distinction of arrangement patterns in rabbinic literature similar to the one I am making in this chapter is found in Goldberg, ‘Distributive und kompositive Formen’. The notion of a series of statements is explained in Samely, ‘From Case to Case’. Biblical and rabbinic analogies are examined by Jackson, ‘On the Nature of Analogical Argument’, and the contrastiveanalogical reasoning implied in the Mishnah by Neusner, ‘The Mishnah’s Generative Mode of Thought’. For an optimistic but still guarded stance on the possibility of reconstructing what general principles, if any, were implied in rabbinic casuistic statements, see Moscovitz, Talmudic Reasoning, 30–3; 66–8. Elman’s Authority and Tradition, in particular Ch. 4, explores the relationship of a statement to its surrounding text from a diachronic perspective, with special regard to the Tosefta. The coherence of the Wrst chapter of the Mekhilta is explored by Niditch, ‘Merits, Martyrs, and Your Life as


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Booty’. Islamic legal texts seem to have an aggregate structure similar to those of rabbinic documents, which is summarized, for example, in Schacht and Bosworth, The Legacy of Islam, 397 and explored in Calder, Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence. For the role of gender in rabbinic halakhah and aggadah see, for instance, Hauptman, Rereading the Rabbis, Wegner, Chattel or Person?, Boyarin, Carnal Israel and Unheroic Conduct, and Hasan-Rokem, Tales of the Neighborhood. Neusner’s unifying approach to rabbinic documents is explained in many of his works, including: Introduction, What is Midrash? (in particular pp. 14–17 and Ch. 10), The Bavli’s One Voice, How the Talmud Works, and Texts Without Boundaries. For critical reponses, see in particular Scha¨fer, ‘Research into Rabbinic Literature’; Cohen, The Synoptic Problem. Changes of an editorial or authorial type were still made to many rabbinic texts as part of the scribal transmission of the Middle Ages, for which see, in particular, Ta-Shema, ‘The ‘‘Open’’ Book’ and Beit-Arie´, ‘Transmission of Texts’.

4 The Quotable Bible This chapter introduces the role of the Hebrew Bible in the constitution of rabbinic documents and thought. I present the smallest unit of rabbinic interpretation, and explain that brief, quotable, segments of Scripture are treated as intrinsically meaningful. I address the question whether rabbinic hermeneutics constitutes a genuine reading of the Hebrew Bible, and whether interpretations were meant to compete with each other. I distinguish forms in which the rabbis speak about the meaning of biblical words from forms in which they adopt biblical words and sentences as part of their own utterance.

S C R I P T U R E R EFR AC TING R ABBINIC TH OUG H T The most comprehensive term for rabbinic hermeneutics is Midrash (‘search, inquiry’). It is used on the one hand as a name for certain literary genres, and on the other for the ‘typically rabbinic’ approach to Scripture. When referring to the smallest literary unit of works of Midrash, I shall speak of the midrashic unit, while I deWne the genre of the resulting books as lemmatic aggregate. As to the question whether there is a uniWed hermeneutic approach which could be called ‘Midrash’, I shall explore that below. This chapter and the next are devoted to important facets and manifestations of rabbinic hermeneutics more generally, while Chapter 10 deals with the special aspect of how the rabbis interpret biblical story and history. Rabbinic statements of interpretation are often juxtaposed in the sequence of the biblical verses. This is what I have called the lemmatic

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or commentary arrangement, in which the rabbinic sentences are not connected to each other explicitly. Nor is it common for rabbinic interpretations to stress the continuities of the biblical text from verse to verse, and thus indirectly also connect the rabbinic statements to each other. On the contrary, rabbinic interpretation can identify radically divergent themes for neighbouring biblical sentences. The lemmatic arrangement thus forms aggregates of interpretative statements in which rabbinic ideas are coordinated not with each other, but each with a biblical quotation. Scripture separates the rabbinic statements, and rabbinic statements separate the contiguous biblical sentences. The two texts subject each other to a mutual fragmentation or segmentation. As far as the rabbinic statements are concerned, the message of the lemmatic arrangement is this: rabbinic ideas depend one by one on the meaning of Scripture. On the question how these ideas might be connected to each other, the lemmatic arrangement is silent.

R A B B I N I C T H OU G HT R E FR AC TING SCRIPTURE: TH E MI D R A S H IC UN I T As I implied above, Scripture is also fragmented in the process of rabbinic hermeneutics. Formally speaking, Scripture appears in rabbinic documents as bits of Scripture. The midrashic unit, which is the most important form for explicit Bible quotations, cuts down Scripture to a small size, usually no more than one verse. If this were merely a question of form, it would not imply that Scripture is fragmented. After all, a secondary representation of the biblical text in rabbinic documents could not cancel the integrity of the biblical text transmitted as an independent document. And also, how could quotations be anything else but short? What would be the point of quoting whole extensive parts of Scripture within rabbinic documents, without breaking them down by comments? Rather, what makes the use of short quotations important is that the meaning of Scripture is equally limited and cut down by rabbinic interpretation. The biblical meaning of Scripture tends to be identiWed with the meaning of its wording in the sense of short, quotable chunks.

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A measure like, ‘as many biblical words as can be grasped in one go’—that seems to constitute the most fundamental unit of meaning for rabbinic hermeneutics. Biblical meaning is actually conceived of as arising from fragments of Scripture. These fragments or segments of Scripture are treated as if they could contain the divine author’s meaning to the same degree as the whole of Scripture. Even if a verse is separated from its context, and thereby given a new topic, it is seen as retaining its power to reveal. A midrashic segment of Scripture therefore constitutes a microScripture, preserving the authority and veracity of the word of God. Indeed, the segments are created as if they were so many divine answers to individual rabbinic questions, or divine turn-takings in a conversation with the rabbis. The licence to create micro-Scripture includes all linguistic levels, from the individual letter, word, phrase, clause, to a whole verse. Letters can be combined to new words, or given a new vocalization. The latter exploits the fact that biblical words are only represented by their consonants in the original writing. Even where a whole sentence is selected as segment, the separation from its environment can still take place, and have no less dramatic an eVect on its meaning. The complete biblical episode, prophetic speech, legal code, psalmodic song, and so forth, in which a biblical sentence has its function, are often ignored when interpreting it. The literary whole is not treated as if it were necessarily greater than the sum of its parts. This is tied to the fact mentioned a moment ago that the rabbis locate meaning primarily in that dimension of Scripture which can be quoted or which constitutes some syntactical unit. By contrast, the literary whole, or the Gestalt of which the syntactical units are part, is constituted by the interplay of those sentences. It cannot thus be quoted. The Gestalt can of course be perceived and described, but such descriptions are very rare in rabbinic literature, while they are the staple of modern biblical studies. The typical biblical segment quoted in rabbinic literature is rarely more than one sentence long, and is matched by an equally short rabbinic statement. This pairing I call the midrashic unit. The midrashic unit separates and combines the two components as coming from two diVerent sources. At the same time it presents the rabbinic statement as expressing the biblical meaning again. The rabbinic statement can be about any topic, and makes its point

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in the usual rabbinic way, as one of the small forms in Table 2. But in the midrashic unit the rabbinic statement also speaks about Scripture, namely about the meaning of the quotation attached to it. In the midrashic unit any rabbinic statement gains the extra function of saying again what the biblical quotations means: The biblical segment ‘X’ means ‘Y’ (¼rabbinic statement).

This is the meta-linguistic function embodied in the midrashic format. It accounts for a very large proportion of all explicit rabbinic hermeneutics, but there are also other formats which lack this metalinguistic function (see the Wnal section below). The midrashic unit displays with great clarity the segmentation of Scripture into micro-Scripture mentioned earlier. Biblical texts of all genres and types of contents can be treated in this way. Often it is not just one, but two segments which are quoted, usually coming from diVerent biblical locations. This is particularly common in the rabbinic interpretation of biblical stories, where links between diverse events are created. The basic form of the midrashic unit can thus be extended: The biblical segment ‘X’ means ‘Y’ (¼ rabbinic statement), if seen in light of the biblical segment ‘W’.

There are many rabbinic strategies for exploring the Bible’s crossconnections. So while the Bible is refracted into segments of microScripture, there is also a strong assumption of biblical unity. But this is unity of a special kind: every verse potentially speaks with equal ease to every other, not just the ones in the immediate context. This is why the narrative, thematic, or stylistic Gestalt of which a verse is part is so easily overridden by other links. There is here a limited, if profound, parallel between the rabbinic treatment of Scripture on the one hand, and that of the Mishnah on the other. For as I explained in the preceding chapter, the Babylonian Gemara often treats the togetherness of statements in the Mishnah as if they were merely a sample of other link-ups which are just as appropriate. The abstract formula of the midrashic unit used above is not meant to prejudge the question which of the two components, the biblical or the rabbinic segment, is mentioned Wrst. Both sequences occur in rabbinic texts, and are virtually indistinguishable in their hermeneutic function, while often having distinct literary functions.

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Here is an example of a midrashic unit whose biblical quotation comes Wrst, as in the above formula: biblical quotation

linking phrase

rabbinic statement

‘You shall . . . turn their fat into smoke as an oVering by Wre for a pleasing odour (lereach nichoach) to the Lord’

—

there is pleasure (nachat ruach, literally, rest of spirit) before me, for I have spoken and my will was done.1

The expression reach nichoach in the verse is usually understood as ‘pleasing odour’. Our rabbinic statement, however, takes it to point to the meaning ‘rest of spirit’, which has nearly the same Hebrew letters, only rearranged. The two meanings are of course quite diVerent. The one suggests divine satisfaction through the perception of smell, the other divine satisfaction through the commandment being obeyed, independent of a perception of smell. Since the biblical verse is not quoted with its letters already rearranged, the midrashic unit displays the initial divergence in apparent meaning. But while on the level of the text divergence is displayed, on the level of the meaning a convergence takes place. The rabbinic statement is presented as a double of the biblical sentence. It even imitates the divine speech perspective (‘before me, for I have spoken’). The midrashic format arranges biblical and rabbinic text as standing over against each other, open to comparison. One ends up by recognizing the rabbinic meaning in the biblical words and vice versa, provided one understands the hermeneutic technique, and accepts, at least for argument’s sake, the background assumptions which Midrash makes. By separating the biblical and rabbinic voices, the midrashic unit enshrines the biblical text as an open source for future interpretation. The format allows for a separation of interpretation from text, and thus of claim from evidence. The rabbinic statement has to continue to justify itself as a suggestion of how to understand that quotation. It is true that Jewish Bible readers from the Middle Ages onwards took many midrashic interpretations on trust, using the result without 1 Midrash Sifre Numbers § 118 to Num. 18: 17. My rendering of the verse follows the Tanakh translation. Cf. also Schechter, Aspects, 160.

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recreating it through an active understanding of the hermeneutic move. But this is alien to the meaning of the rabbinic form. Where the rabbis adduce Scripture, they tie themselves to argument, not Wat. Midrashic hermeneutics has both the discipline and the playfulness of an academic, argument-driven discourse. This is to some extent possible because the full weight of Wnal decisions in sensitive areas, such as halakhic practice, is not placed on Bible interpretation alone. One verse may be replaced by another as warrant for the same rabbinic statement; and there are entirely diVerent types of arguments alongside the biblical proof text. These include logical and analogical inference, citation of precedent, oral tradition, majority decision, pragmatic considerations, and personal or institutional authority. One or several of these are often tacitly in play in addition to any midrashic justiWcation for a rabbinic statement. In claiming a biblical warrant, the rabbinic statement is presented as spelling out some aspect of the verse’s meaning. Yet the spellingout works both ways. The signiWcance and scope of the rabbinic statement must be understood, in the Wrst instance, in the light of the verse. If one separates the rabbinic statement from the verse one can often obtain an apparently independent, general-sounding rabbinic proposition. But only the rabbinic and biblical words taken together indicate what the rabbinic statement is meant to be about, and how general its claim might be. This does not mean that one cannot Wnd the same statement, once inside and once outside a midrashic unit. This is certainly quite common for halakhic statements, many of which occur independently in the Mishnah, but integrated in midrashic units in the halakhic Midrashim and the Gemaras. But that is precisely why, in each of their occurrences, their intended scope can be quite diVerent and needs to be examined separately.

SINCERITY AND EXCLUSIVITY IN MIDRASHIC INTERPRETATION The midrashic unit does not, as such, tell the story of the rabbinic idea’s origin. Did the rabbinic idea come Wrst, and was merely ‘read

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into’ the biblical text? Or did it come from a meaning discovered in the biblical text, thus constituting a ‘genuine’ interpretation? This type of question, which can be of great importance for the purposes of historical reconstruction is, alas, not answered by the midrashic unit. The sequence of its components is no clue: ‘Y’ is the case, because Scripture says ‘X’, is no indication that Scripture was merely an afterthought to an idea conceived by another route. And The biblical words ‘X’ mean ‘Y’ does not convey the message that the rabbinic idea ‘Y’ was Wrst conceived through a reading of the biblical words ‘X’. The midrashic unit is a form for expressing something, not a report on that something’s origin. To some extent the two formats are tied to the distinction of thematic and lemmatic arrangement. Presenting the rabbinic statement Wrst makes it easier to integrate the midrashic unit into an ongoing thematic discourse,2 while mentioning the biblical quotation Wrst allows whole midrashic units to form what looks like a running commentary on Scripture in the lemmatic arrangement. It is generally problematical to attempt to distinguish rabbinic interpretations which constitute genuine interpretation of Scripture from others which merely use the biblical text as a pretext. In the social milieu of the rabbis and other Jewish groups of antiquity, the Bible was part of the most basic education and world orientation. Adult readers would not encounter the biblical text as if for the Wrst time; consequently the reader’s mind would never be a tabula rasa. For the mature rabbinic interpreter, what the text means and what the world means to her or him, is already inextricably fused, before the Wrst conscious reader discovery is made. Generally speaking, the reading takes place in a milieu in which the rabbinic world is already Bible-shaped, and the Bible is world-shaped. This does not mean that there are no interpretations in the extant documents which the rabbinic interpreters themselves would have considered weak, farfetched, or even bogus. Occasionally the link between a set of rabbinic and biblical norms is acknowledged to be weak (cf. Mishnah Chagigah 1: 8). But recognizing speciWc far-fetched interpretations is not a straightforward business for the modern scholar.

2 Cf. Samely, ‘Delaying the Progress from Case to Case’.

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We certainly cannot tell them apart by using modern European methods of philology and literary analysis as a yardstick. Of the many midrashic readings which, to the modern historian, look anachronistic or far-fetched, most did not appear thus to the rabbinic interpreter. That much is clear from their sheer number, their roughly even distribution, and the intense eVort of thought that has gone into them. Modern scholarship is obliged to compare the rabbis’ reading of the Hebrew Bible to its own, simply in order to be able to perceive and articulate what the former’s characteristics are. But that does not mean that we need to impute the purposes and methods of scholarly readings to midrashic readings, and therefrom conclude that the rabbis failed to understand the biblical text, or did not engage with it sincerely. It is likely that Scripture formed part of the most basic life orientations for the social group we refer to as ‘rabbis’ (see the next chapter). In such a culture it would make very little sense for the reader to try to Wnd meanings in Scripture which are purely historical, as being what the biblical authors once intended, but what is now potentially obsolete and without relevance. Somewhat linked to this question is another one: Are rabbinic units of interpretation meant to be exclusive? Put diVerently, does the midrashic form imply, The biblical segment ‘X’ means ‘Y’ and only ‘Y’; or rather, The biblical segment ‘X’ means ‘Y’ among other things? Rabbinic literature gives us no explicit answer to this question, although it is sometimes taken to treat halakhic interpretations as more exclusive than aggadic ones. Probably some interpretations were intended to be exclusive, others not. Yet it is unlikely that this distinction aligned itself neatly with any division of interpretative method, content, or biblical source. Any single midrashic unit, considered in isolation, can be read as monopolizing the meaning of its particular biblical segment, and some probably were meant to do just that, at least at Wrst. But now we Wnd them mostly as part of a whole set of interpretations, presented alongside each other in works of Midrash as if no conXict was intended. The picture is complicated by the fact that we also commonly Wnd disputes about the meaning of a biblical passage between named rabbis. This means that, in some sense, exclusivity is indeed routinely claimed. And even if midrashic units within a given document are meant to complement rather than compete with each other, is this also the case with midrashic units

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coming from outside the document? To put this in the terms used in the preceding chapter, do lemmatic aggregates form closed sets of statements or open ones? No global answer is possible here. What is clear is that the exegetical Midrashim do not present their midrashic units as providing a rounded, coordinated, or exhaustive account of the meaning of any biblical passage. There are some rare rabbinic passages which sum up the meaning of a whole literary Gestalt or biblical book. These could, in theory, serve as a guiding idea for reading large parts of Scripture and for identifying a main meaning to the exclusion of other meanings. But that is not how these occasional rabbinic generalizations are employed. For example, there is a famous story how Hillel, a teacher who lived around the turn of the era, dealt with a non-Jew who said he would convert, but only if he could be taught the entire Torah while standing on one leg: He came before Hillel [with this request]. Hillel accepted him as a convert. He said to him: ‘That which you hate for yourself, do not do to your fellow. This is the whole Torah and the rest is its commentary. Now go and learn.’3

The sentence in italics is a mighty act of summation, probably in allusion to Lev. 19: 18.4 Yet the anecdote presents it as strictly for the consumption of beginners, and foolish beginners at that. The seriousness of the message is further undermined by the fact that it forms part of a chain of stories in which Hillel’s proverbial patience is tested severely, with obvious humorous overtones, and contrasted with the short temper of his halakhic rival Shammai. In any case, this summary of Torah is not backed up by any organized evidence from Scripture, either here or anywhere else. One cannot endow this statement with the systematic gravitas which a central doctrinal statement would have in Christian theology, at least not without misconstruing it.5 Yet such misconstruals are common. They are 3 Talmud Bavli Shabbat 31a. See also Talmud Yerushalmi Nedarim 9: 4 (41c), with respect to Lev. 19: 18 and Gen. 5: 1, and Bavli Makkot 23b–24a mentioned presently. 4 Whose Targumic rendering echoes Hillel’s dictum (Pseudo-Jonathan on Lev. 19: 18). 5 A summary of the earlier discussion in Urbach, The Sages, 955 f.; Moore, Judaism, Vol. 2, 87; see now the nuanced examination by P. S. Alexander, ‘Jesus and the Golden Rule’.

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the result of seeing rabbinic texts as implying a system, whether in the spirit of Christian theology or of Maimonides and his successors. Thus Lenn Goodman says, apropos a similar reduction of all biblical commandments to the single principle emunah (faithfulness) found in Bavli Makkot 23b–24a: ‘Through such continuous sifting the rabbis discover the thematics of Scripture long before Socratic method has taught them the conceptual mode of discourse.’6 But neither Hillel’s maxim nor the verse quoted in Bavli Makkot 24a (Hab. 2: 4) are summaries of a rabbinic system, or presented as such summaries. There are no systems in rabbinic sources, that is, no comprehensive articulations of propositional parts and wholes. And just as these statements do not have systematic status as general principles, they also lack the function of regulating biblical interpretation, and thus of excluding other ways of reading Scripture. The only partial exception is, perhaps, the case of the opinion ascribed to R. Aqiva that the Song of Songs is Wgurative (Tosefta Sanhedrin 12: 10). And there is one explicit condemnation of the use of Canticles verses at festivities which would favour their literal, erotic meaning.7 But even the case of Canticles does not necessarily show that rabbinic interpretations of the same biblical text are meant to be mutually exclusive. It merely points to the fact that the rabbinic approach to Canticles as torah is, in principle, incompatible with, and perhaps implicitly rejects, other hermeneutic starting points, including what one might call secular, historical, or aesthetic ones. There is certainly a doctrinal element to the things taken for granted in rabbinic Bible interpretation, which seem to have eVectively excluded radically incompatible approaches to the same biblical text, while admitting otherwise inWnite plurality. But that doctrinal unity is precisely what the literary structures never explicate or embody, as I explained in the second section of Chapter 2 above. In other words, it is again those readers who seek doctrinal unity, this time for rabbinic Bible interpretation, who also supply that unity on the basis of a hermeneutic projection.

6 ‘Jewish Philosophy’, 430. 7 Tosefta Sanhedrin 12: 10 in Aqiva’s name; Bavli Sanhedrin 101a anonymously. Cf. Mishnah Yadayyim 3: 5.

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The Quotable Bible A DO P T I N G B I B L I C A L WOR D S A S R A B B I N I C UT TERANCE; THE NARRATIVE PETICHAH

Integrated into a midrashic unit, a rabbinic statement presents itself as an account of the meaning of the biblical words. That is what I have called the meta-linguistic aspect of that format. But there is another format for employing Scripture in midrashic literature, which is not based on such a separation of biblical from rabbinic voice. In this second format the biblical quotation is adopted as rabbinic speech, much in the manner in which proverbs are both quoted and used when applied to a situation in many contemporary cultures. In this way the biblical text is cited but also uttered through a rabbinic persona, reXecting directly that persona’s outlook and commitment to the words. There is no mediation and convergence of the meaning of two diVerent wordings, as the biblical words immediately express the rabbinic idea. So the biblical words do not, as such, become thematic. There are two main literary settings for this use of biblical words. First, speciWc biblical terms can become adopted into rabbinic speech. For example, Deut. 22: 6–7 forbids the taking of the mother-bird together with its young when plundering a nest. As a theme of rabbinic halakhah, this norm is referred to as ‘letting go the nest’ (in Mishnah Chullin 12: 1 and elsewhere). ‘Letting go the nest’ is rabbinic parlance, but constituted from words which occur in that biblical injunction. The expression is thus rabbinic terminology and biblical allusion at the same time, and this happens to quite a few biblical words and phrases, whether modiWed or not.8 There are also aggadic examples of this, including such important rabbinicbiblical terms as kavod (divine glory), shem (name, of God’s name), qodesh (holy), melekh (king), Israel, aqedat Yitschaq (the binding of Isaac, see below), and many more. The most important of these terms is the word torah itself. The same mechanism can involve whole biblical sentences, not only single words. This is where the parallel to the employment of proverbs becomes most relevant. Adopting a biblical sentence as a 8 Cf. Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah, 95.

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rabbinic utterance occurs regularly in one of the literary forms of the rabbinic homily, the Petichah (plural, Petichot). In one important type of Petichah, which I call ‘narrative’, the rabbinic interpreter uses a biblical sentence from some prophetic, poetic, or proverbial biblical book in order to characterize an event narrated in some other part of Scripture, mostly the Pentateuch. The text below is summarized from Genesis Rabbah Chapter 55 and illustrates how the narrative Petichah works. I translate the full passage later in Chapter 10 and the Sample Texts. Genesis 22: 1, interpreted in the light of Ecclesiastes 8: 4 and Deut. 6: 16: God tries Abraham (Gen. 22), but he also commands Israel not to try him (Deut. 6: 16). This is a contradiction between what God does and what he says. In the human realm this would be indefensible. Yet, although there is no justiWcation for God’s treatment of Abraham, no challenge to God’s authority can be construed from this, for he is sovereign. This is expressed in Eccles. 8: 4, which needs to be understood, in its application to Abraham’s trial, as saying this: nobody can challenge the word of the king on the basis of his deeds.9

The hermeneutic movement performed here is as follows. The verse For the word of the king reigns supreme; who can say to him: What are you doing? (Eccles. 8: 4) is quoted Wrst, although as yet it is unclear how it is meant to apply. Then the tension between God’s testing of Abraham (so called in Gen. 22: 1) and his prohibition to Israel, in Deut. 6: 16, is explored by way of a rabbinic parable: what would happen if a rabbi were to forbid his disciple a certain action, but did it himself? He would be challenged. Could God respond to a similar challenge with a rational answer? No he could not. Once this conundrum is unfolded, the truth of the Ecclesiastes verse Wnds its application. What distinguishes the king (¼ God) is that his ‘word reigns supreme’, and that nobody can challenge that word on the basis of how he himself behaves. For the verse is now read, through its application to the trial of Abraham, with strong emphasis on the words ‘word’ and ‘doing’: ‘The word of the king (¼ the divine

9 My summary of Genesis Rabbah 55: 3; cf. ed. Theodor–Albeck, Vol. 1, 585 f.; Sample Text II, nos. 12–14.

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command not to test God) reigns supreme; who can say to him: What are you doing (¼ testing Abraham)?’ This link reveals itself quite suddenly, towards the end of the rabbinic passage, although the Ecclesiastes verse was quoted at its beginning. In our present context, the main point is that the verse is used, by some rabbinic voice, to speak about an event of biblical times (represented by another verse). Ecclesiastes 8: 4 is connected to the events of Genesis 22 only because a rabbinic speaker chooses to utter the one about the other. All other links, linguistic or metaphorical, follow from this basic move of re-utterance, which gives the general verse a new topic, in fact a topic of which there is no trace in its biblical location: the events told in Gen. 22. So the narrative Petichah’s use of a verse as rabbinic speech is not, as such, meta-linguistic in the way in which the midrashic unit is formally meta-linguistic. But often Petichot contain one or more midrashic units as a functional part. On some estimates there are well over 1,400 Petichot in rabbinic literature, often occurring as the opening section of a rabbinic homily.10 The number of midrashic units is diYcult to estimate, but is very much greater than that. Large parts of rabbinic literature consist of little else but midrashic units. Select Further Reading Kadushin’s The Rabbinic Mind and Organic Thinking explain the special character of rabbinic concepts, and their interaction with biblical text. I examine the segmentation of Scripture in my Rabbinic Interpretation, Ch. 2; many scholars address it under the label of the ‘atomistic’ approach of Midrash. The midrashic unit’s form is also discussed frequently, for example in P. S. Alexander, ‘Midrash’; see also Porton, ‘Midrash’; Kugel, ‘Two Introductions’; Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation, Ch. 12. The term ‘Midrash’ is deWned by modern scholars in a variety of ways. For the path followed here, see Goldberg, ‘Die funktionale Form Midrasch’; further see for instance, Porton, ‘DeWning Midrash’ and ‘Midrash’, and Neusner, What is Midrash? The importance of the graphic substratum of Scripture is explained in Goldberg, ‘The Rabbinic View of Scripture’, and Green, ‘Writing with Scripture’. Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation, Ch. 3, investigates the question whether the midrashic format amounts to the claim that a rabbinic idea has its 10 Stemberger, Introduction, 244.

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origins in Scripture. For the role of argument in general and biblical proof texts in particular, see Halivni Weiss, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara. The question of exclusivity of interpretations is touched upon in P. S. Alexander, ‘Preemptive Exegesis’. Blidstein, ‘Moral Generalizations’, explains that Hillel’s golden rule was not adopted as a fundamental halakhic principle. The use of biblical words for halakhic rabbinic speech is discussed in Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation, Ch. 4. For the employment of proverbs as explaining a narrative, see for example, Hasan-Rokem, Proverbs in Israeli Folk Narratives. Chapter 5 of my Rabbinic Interpretation, and Goldberg, Rabbinische Texte, Ch. 16, investigate the hermeneutic mechanism typical of the Petichah; see also the Further Reading section of Ch. 10.

5 Appropriating Scripture In this chapter I explain the importance of Scripture for the rabbinic world-view, using the analogy of modern sciences. I discuss the presence of the idea of ‘canon’ in rabbinic writings, and explain how cutting Scripture down to segments makes it possible to appropriate biblical words for rabbinic themes. I suggest that the segments are treated as if they constituted the divine response in a conversation with the rabbis. I conclude by listing some common techniques of rabbinic Bible interpretation.

A ME D I U M F O R T H E C ONSTITUTION O F REALITY The function of the Bible in rabbinic literature is diYcult to grasp intuitively. Certainly contemporary European societies usually have no direct parallel to the fundamental importance of the biblical text for the rabbinic reader. The closest analogue is perhaps the pervasive inXuence of the sciences on the everyday perception of reality. In an industrialized setting, a person’s ability to turn on the light in a room occasions no wonder. The link between Xipping the switch and brightness emerging from a lamp is wholly causal, as every child knows: a thing called electric current does that. Many people’s perception of their world is guided by snippets of scientiWc knowledge, arising from a superWcial acquaintance with physics, biology, astronomy, optics, psychology, etc. Now imagine such scientiWc knowledge being replaced, in a pre-technological age, by the familiarity with about a hundred stories, and many hundred

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commandments, standing expressions, sayings, proverbs, descriptive phrases, Wgures of speech, stanzas of poetry, and lines of song. Imagine further that these come from a large and complex book which is in principle available for reading, but written in what for most readers is a second language, thus making its meaning both familiar and distant, much like the technical terminology of a science. This book is accessible for consultation and memorization. However, internalizing some of its contents and phrases would be part of growing up, thereby pre-dating—and partly conditioning— any dedicated study as an adult. In this book is to be found information on all important topics, if one asks the right question. The categories and patterns of that book, the Bible, are varied and comprehensive enough to structure the rabbinic world no less thoroughly than acquaintance with mechanics, optics, economics, or psychoanalysis is for the member of an industrialized society today. In rabbinic Judaism the sun was not a star whose light takes 8.3 minutes to reach the earth and will eventually burn itself out, but one of the luminaries created by God, who is ‘the shaper of lights’,1 the maker of the day, the night, the seasons and their festivals.2 God himself is called ‘The one who spoke and the world came into being’,3 or ‘Shield of Abraham’,4 alongside many other epithets derived from the Bible. The ability of the biblical text to structure the rabbinic perception of reality also extends to human behaviour. Human nature is at least partly conceived of in terms of Abraham’s uprightness, Moses’ humility, Absalom’s pride, Laban’s deviousness, Abigail’s virtue, and so forth. The inXuence of biblical terms and structures of meaning on the rabbis’ perception of their own world is at work long before the biblical text becomes an object of explicit discourse for the individual rabbi, and it can hardly be overestimated. So the discourse on biblical meaning in the rabbinic period took place in a wider cultural context in which Scripture was already part 1 Cf. the end of the Wrst Benediction of the morning recitation of the Shema’, which echoes both Gen. 1: 15 and Isa. 45: 7; see Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud, 230; Singer, The Authorised Daily Prayer Book, 60–3. 2 Cf. Gen. 1: 14–15. 3 See below, Sample Text II, no. 67; and Text IV, no. 82. 4 Found in the Wrst of the Eighteen Benedictions, echoing Gen. 15: 1.

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of the furniture, so to speak. For the modern historian, this means that she or he cannot assume to have immediate access to the meaning and rationale of rabbinic Bible interpretations. Instead, a modern understanding of rabbinic hermeneutics needs to be built up empirically, by way of a process of construction, comparison, and contextualization in which the academic assumptions about linguistic and biblical meaning are themselves tested and constantly examined. Even so, it is entirely possible, indeed likely, that many rabbinic interpretations will remain opaque to us, for the loss of context cannot simply be made good by a close reading of the sources.

CANONICAL SCRIP TURES IN RABBINIC LITERATURE The Hebrew Scriptures had grown for centuries before what we call rabbinic Judaism Wrst emerged. The youngest book of the rabbinic Bible is Daniel, nowadays dated to the middle of the second century bce. All other biblical books were in circulation at that time. Clearly there was a core of books already considered normative, in particular the Pentateuch, rabbinically known as Torah in the term’s narrow meaning. In some Jewish circles these Wve biblical books must have become a constant companion and guide long before the rabbinic period. The contexts in which the text was drawn upon might have included, for instance, personal study—‘day and night’ as one of the Dead Sea Scrolls says,5 public readings during worship, the scribal copying of the text, the practice of commandments, Temple cult, prayer, schooling, the drawing up of legal documents, the giving of legal advice, and adjudication. By the time rabbinic literature is created there is a clear distinction in the way books composed in or transmitted from the Second Temple period are treated. One group of books is taken to contain texts which can be quoted as argument in support of a thesis, express truths that are worth repeating and rephrasing, or contain stories 5 Community Rule (1QS) VI, 6; see Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 105. The Bible itself speaks in such terms, e.g. Ps. 1: 2.


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whose detail and meaning are discussed. These constitute the Hebrew Bible of the rabbis. Another group of books, similar in style and partly just as ancient as the books of that Hebrew Bible, are not quoted at all in rabbinic literature (the notable exception being Ben Sira), and mostly not even mentioned (see Chapter 2). In other words, for the texts thereby deWned as biblical, in particular the Pentateuch, there is a massive presence in rabbinic literature; for the texts thereby deWned as non-biblical, there is a total absence. And while other sources—namely rabbinic statements—are also quoted, these are not referred to as written (katuv ; Aramaic, ketiv). The word ‘to write’ tends to be exclusively reserved for the biblical sources, albeit alongside the very common ‘to say’ (amar). And the other implicit recognition of biblical status is the brute fact of transmission itself: only some books reach the Middle Ages from the rabbinic period and through Jewish circles, namely those of the rabbis’ Bible and those of rabbinic literature. Compared with these two types of textual presence or absence, other manifestations of what modern scholarship calls the canon are almost marginal, and some apply only to parts of that canon. Certainly there is no doctrinal and conceptual elaboration of such an idea. Instead, there are a number of contexts in which some books are used or listed, and others not. To books of the Hebrew Bible apply the special scribal and philological procedures of the Masorah; parts of them are read as a liturgical act in the synagogue prescribed by speciWc halakhic rules (e.g. Mishnah Megillah Chapter 4); there is an expression ‘holy writings’ (kitvey ha-qodesh), and other terms such as ‘said in the spirit of holiness’, and ‘said in the spirit of prophecy’ are used occasionally, but more for single verses than whole books; and in one place one Wnds the biblical books listed in their chronological order.6 Finally, and that almost exhausts the conceptual evidence for a ‘canon’, it seems that those ‘holy writings’ which are Wt for liturgical use ‘render the hands unclean’ by touch,7 and that all of them are to 6 Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 14b; see, Jacobs, Structure and Form, 34. 7 See Mishnah Yadayyim 3: 5, and Tosefta Yadayyim 2: 13, which mentions the Gospels and Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) as not deWling the hands. Why liturgical status should have this eVect is unclear even in rabbinic times, although an explanation is oVered in Bavli Shabbat 14a; cf. Green, ‘Writing with Scripture’; Veltri, ‘Zur traditionsgeschichtlichen Entwicklung’, 222; Goodman, ‘Sacred Scripture’.

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be rescued from a Wre even if one thereby violates certain Sabbath laws.8 Another aspect of the picture is the rabbinic view that prophecy had come to an end,9 surely a corollary of the idea that a canon of Scriptures had come to a close. The texts take the meaning of these various rules and preferences for granted rather than explain them, and they are not coordinated with each other. It is even somewhat unlikely that one and the same idea of holiness underlies them all. It is entirely possible that the preference for certain books emerged in quite diVerent contexts of use and kept their diVerent meanings compartmentalized in that context. DiVerent contexts of cultural practice, rather than entirely separate social or historical groups, are often the great dividers of meaning. In fact, given the nature of the rabbinic sources, it is quite diYcult for modern scholarship to know if two ideas are diVerent because they come from diVerent realms of cultural practice within the same social and cultural group, or because they come from groups that considered each other cultural rivals (see Chapter 2). If the widely accepted relative dating of rabbinic works in Table 1 is correct, rabbinic Judaism became a more explicitly hermeneutic project the longer it went on. The Mishnah contains only about 600 midrashic units, the larger book Tosefta has proportionally many more. Thereafter rabbinic works either contain very substantial amounts of explicit exegesis (the Gemaras), or are entirely devoted to it, as the Midrashim and the Targums, although the latter’s form does not require explicit quotation of biblical text. In the later Middle Ages the enthusiasm for, and understanding of, midrashic interpretation diminished. Yet the hermeneutic project of Judaism continued unabated in new styles of Bible interpretation created by medieval commentators such as Rashi and his school, David Kimchi, Ibn Ezra, Nachmanides, and others.

8 Mishnah Shabbat 16: 1, cited in Ch. 3 above; cf. Bavli Shabbat 116a. 9 This conviction is mentioned, almost in passing, in Tosefta Sotah 13: 2 where the ‘holy spirit’ is said to have ceased, while the ‘heavenly voice’ (bat qol ) continues into rabbinic times. See also Talmud Bavli Eruvin 13b and Bava Metsia 59b, both quoted below at the end of Ch. 6.


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B I B L I C AL WO R D S IM M ER SE D INTO RABBINIC THEMES Rabbinic Bible interpretation constantly appropriates biblical words for recognizably rabbinic themes. This is possible because Scripture is broken down into micro-Scripture. Words and even whole sentences become much more ambiguous if considered separate from their textual environment. The Hebrew word derekh can, as the English word ‘way’, mean both ‘path’ and ‘manner’, and in the context of Deut. 6: 7 appears to mean ‘path’. But one midrashic interpretation of that verse puts it into the thematic context of the bodily posture of prayer, a theme not explicitly present in Deut. 6: 7. Once the biblical word derekh is inserted into the rabbinic theme its other meaning, ‘manner’, comes to the fore and the biblical verse can be read as if it instructed the reader on the manner of a prayer’s performance (Mishnah Berakhot 1: 3). This is an illustration of the double move of rabbinic hermeneutics, consisting of these two aspects: (a) a much more open range of meanings is created for Scriptural words by separating them from their neighbours, and (b) a rabbinic (or biblical) theme is connected to those words, which has the eVect of narrowing down the meaning to a range diVerent from that favoured by the original biblical context. One can see this mechanism at work in particular in halakhic interpretations, because often the new meaning opens up the biblical text to a clearly technical rabbinic theme. But it also fulWls a crucial function in aggadic Midrash, where the new meaning often renders microScripture open to the theme of other micro-Scripture from an entirely diVerent context (see Chapter 10). In the passage below, taken from the Tosefta, a set of rabbinic themes is formed, then one biblical quotation after another is slotted into it. This illustrates how the new rabbinic context tends to change the meaning of the biblical words. The thematic framework used is this: how does one gain divine atonement for sins of various gravity? Four types of gravity are distinguished by the rabbinic voice: (a) transgressions against positive commandments, (b) those against prohibitions, (c) all capital crimes except the desecration of the divine Name, (d ) that desecration itself. Each category of atonement

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is then allocated to a separate quotation, creating a set of four coordinated midrashic units:10 R. Ishmael says: There are four divisions of atonement. (a) The person who transgresses a positive commandment and performs repentance—he does not even stir from his place before he is forgiven, as it is said: Turn back, rebellious children, I shall heal your aZictions (Jer. 3: 22). (b) The person who transgresses a negative commandment and performs repentance, his sin is suspended until the Day of Atonement eVects atonement, as it is said: For on this day atonement shall be made for you [to cleanse you of all your sins . . . ] (Lev. 16: 30). (c) The person who commits a crime punishable by divine extirpation or by death at the hands of a human court, and performs repentance—the Day of Atonement suspends [the punishment], while suVerings eVect atonement, as it is said: And I shall visit with the rod their sin, and with plagues their transgression (Ps. 89: 33). (d) But the person through whom the heavenly Name is caused to be desecrated and who performs repentance—the repentance has no strength to suspend, and the Day of Atonement none to atone. Rather, repentance and the Day of Atonement eVect atonement for one third, suVering which takes place in the remainder of the days of the year eVects atonement for another third, and the day of death Wnishes the atonement, and about this it is said: This sin shall not be atoned until you die . . . (Isa. 22: 14). This teaches that the day of death Wnishes the atonement.

In section (a) the close sequence of the imperative ‘turn back!’ and the ‘I shall heal’ seems to be taken as indicating that, between the two actions, no further factors intervene (the words are in fact separated by ‘rebellious children’). Thus repentance alone is all that is required to bring about forgiveness. However, the verse does not mention a category ‘transgressions against positive commandments’. In the quotation for (b), there is again no biblical distinction of types of transgression, and the unused and unquoted continuation of the verse even mentions ‘all your sins’, which sits uneasily with the restriction to negative commandments. In (c) and (d ), no speciWc type of transgression is named explicitly in the biblical text. Therefore the four verses, in their own environments, constitute no 10 Tosefta Yom Ha-Kippurim, 4: 6–8 (ed. Zuckermandel, Ch. 5, with some variations from the prints). The biblical quotations are adapted from the Tanakh rendering.


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biblical set of mutual distinctions which would correspond to the rabbinic set of types of transgression. More profoundly still, biblical ‘sin’ is tacitly assimilated to the rabbinic notion of the transgression of a commandment. So what the verses oVer is a variety of routes to atonement, while the conceptual grid, created by the rabbinic treatment of the theme, imposes an order and ranking on the verses as segments. The grid speciWes the precise topic on which the testimony of each of the biblical segments is heard. It achieves this not by changing the biblical wording that is quoted, merely by separating it from its surroundings and integrating it into some diVerent ones. What I have called the ‘conceptual grid’ just now is itself often capable of being linked to biblical words. Thus the rabbinic claims of the special status of the desecration of the divine Name in (d ), and the use of the categories of divine extirpation/capital punishment in (c) could easily be linked to biblical information, and midrashic units elsewhere will create some such links. However, the anchoring of the grid in biblical information is not brought into the discussion at this point. Generally speaking, midrashic units are not coordinated to reinforce each other, or to show that the assumptions made in one interpretation are the result of another interpretation. It is sometimes suggested that Midrash does nothing more than tease out the lines of meaning that connect biblical passages in the biblical text itself. In that case the interpretations would be, as Lenn Goodman says, ‘tangential only to the immediate intentions of the context that are their springboard’, yet ‘never irrelevant to the core moral and spiritual themes of the canon, which are the real grounds of the argument that is generally left unspoken’.11 But the qualiWcation ‘unspoken’ is crucial here: midrashic sources do not set out to demonstrate this allegiance to one and only one core of Scripture, and thus their unity with each other. As I have illustrated in Chapters 2 and 3, the rabbinic sources neither articulate nor embody a uniWed outlook, although readers are tempted to create unities by hermeneutic projection. The idea of an ultimate harmony of the rabbinic view with the biblical view assumes that each in itself has one common core that can be determined in the Wrst place, and that the cores coincide with each 11 ‘Jewish Philosophy’, 430.

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other. These are big assumptions to make. One thing is certain: the fresh topics into which biblical words are appropriated are deWned by their discourse framework as prima facie rabbinic, not biblical. The segmentation of the Hebrew Bible into micro-Scripture has another eVect. Each sign can be considered on its own, each word can have diVerent meanings, each sentence diVerent topics, and each story can have many links to other stories (see Chapter 10). As a result, the biblical text as a continuum of graphic (and other) signs becomes, strictly speaking, inexhaustible. Some rabbis express this as the ‘seventy faces of Torah’,12 or by saying: ‘Turn it [i.e. Torah] and turn it, for all is in it’ (Mishnah Avot 5: 22). It is also manifest in the lemmatic arrangement of exegetical Midrashim, where new midrashic units on the same lemma are sometimes introduced by davar acher (literally ‘another word’, perhaps ‘another theme’). That arrangement can be interpreted as allowing an open-ended addition, or anthologizing, of further interpretations, unless taken to form a ‘closed set’ for each document, in the sense explained in Chapter 3. And this open-endedness is not merely a theoretical possibility; at least occasionally the number of alternative interpretations for the same biblical passage collected in one location is very large. The opening section of the exegetical Midrash Genesis Rabbah is an example of this. It oVers many alternative or complementary interpretations for just these seven words: bereshit bara’ elohim et ha-shammayim we-et ha-arets— ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ Yet an abundance of interpretations for the same biblical verse is found in many other passages, including the middle section of the rabbinic homily, the so-called Inyan (see Chapter 10).

S C RI P T U R E A S T H E DI V I NE H A L F O F A C O N V E R S AT I O N One can view the recontextualization of biblical segments by rabbinic themes as similar to some mechanisms of face-to-face conversation. 12 Midrash Numbers Rabbah, section Naso 13: 15, as part of a complex midrashic unit involving Prov. 9: 5 and Amos 6: 6.


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This is a very diVerent model of rabbinic hermeneutics from the three approaches that dominate current biblical studies in academic discourse: the philological-historical, the literary, and the systematictheological. In the conversational model the midrashic unit juxtaposes its two constitutive parts as if they were two voices talking to each other, the rabbinic one raising an issue and the biblical one providing an answer. The segments in the biblical text would thus not constitute a monologue, but God’s half of a ‘dialogue’, the divine turn-takings of a conversation with the student of Torah. The same segment could then take on diVerent themes according to which question or utterance it is taken to respond to, rather than having a topic Wxed for all time. And Wnally, the biblical segments would also not be connected to each other any more than they are connected to the rabbinic statements to which they respond. In these features the conversational interpretation Wts the actual use of biblical quotations in rabbinic texts quite closely. Midrashic hermeneutics also seeks the implied (but not the esoteric) meaning of Scripture, just as one might do in a conversation when the other partner hints at things rather than spells them out, as in the following example: A: Elizabeth doesn’t seem to have a boyfriend these days. B: She has been paying a lot of visits to New York lately.13

While not addressing explicitly the topic of Elizabeth’s attachments, speaker B yet manages to convey an implied message, namely that Elizabeth does in fact have a boyfriend in New York. Speaker A will interpret the overt switch to a new topic, in the circumstances of this exchange, as merely apparent, and speaker B intends it that way. Unless speaker A has some reason to think that B has stopped cooperating in the conversation, A will try to put a construction on B’s utterance which makes it directly relevant to her/his own remark. Once that is done, a deWnite, but implied, message emerges: Elizabeth’s visits to New York are visits to a boyfriend. Here is another example, a letter of reference for someone applying as a philosophy teacher: 13 This and the following example are taken from Grice’s ‘Logic and Conversation’; see Samely, ‘Scripture’s Implicature’.

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Dear Sir, Mr X’s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular. Yours . . .

By not addressing the question of whether or not Mr X is a good teacher of philosophy, and speaking only about other matters, the referee nevertheless implies an answer to the question, namely that he does not recommend Mr X. The apparent shift to marginal topics (attendance, command of English) brings about this eVect. Since the referee knows (s)he is expected to address the quality of Mr X as philosophy teacher, and the letter’s recipient knows that the referee knows, the letter’s total silence on the topic speaks volumes in the situation of the exchange. This is often exactly how rabbinic interpreters read the biblical text: as a response to an enquiry (‘midrash’). The response is taken to be entirely dovetailed with, and therefore does not explicitly mention again, the shared starting point only mentioned in the rabbinic statement. That a certain rabbinic theme is not mentioned in Scripture hence does not mean that Scripture does not speak about it. On a more superWcial level, traces of the conversational treatment of Scripture also abound. Some midrashic techniques treat the biblical text literally as a spoken word, as when the use of one biblical expression is taken to exclude a speciWc other expression. This corresponds to the function of placing a heavy stress in conversation, as when I say to a person walking towards a door in order to close it, ‘Could you please close the window’. The heavy stress on ‘window’ eVectively also means: not the door. The rabbis often read (or hear) biblical words with such heavy stress, namely as excluding other words: ‘day’ as ‘not night’, ‘word’ as ‘not deed’, ‘son’ as ‘not daughter’, ‘Israel’ as ‘not the other nations’, ‘two’ as ‘not one’, and so forth. Another dimension of the parallel with conversation is this. In conversation, a response is prima facie processed as both relevant to the earlier utterance, and as truthful, unless there is some reason for doubt. These two assumptions are also at work in the midrashic reading of Scripture, but radicalized dramatically. The rabbinic trust in the relevance and accuracy of what the divine interlocutor has to say is unconditional, not conditional as in human conversation. Rabbinic hermeneutics presupposes that everything in Scripture is relevant somehow, and in particular relevant for implementing the


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life of Torah in a given historical situation. Also presupposed is Scripture’s accuracy. The two assumptions have practical hermeneutic consequences, in that Scripture is often interpreted as if it contained no real repetition or redundancy, and as if there were ultimately no inconsistencies in it. These two corollaries of the assumptions of relevance and truth have an eVect which turns rabbinic hermeneutics into an alternative—really a rival—of two of the above-mentioned modern approaches to the Bible. The denial of repetition removes from view key stylistic elements of the Bible, such as semantic parallelism, and thus conXicts with the modern literary-poetic appreciation of Scripture. And the refusal to see real inconsistencies removes one of the main phenomena, contradictions, which the historical-critical study of the Bible identiWes as traces of pre-existing earlier texts being combined in the biblical document.

TECHNIQUES OF INTERPRETATION I have explained how the rabbis can appropriate Scriptural words for rabbinic themes. Modern scholarship often refers to this as rabbinic Judaism’s characteristic tendency to ‘update’ or ‘apply’ the biblical words. In fact, if one wished to venture into generalizations, one could do worse than say that the Midrashic approach treats Scripture consistently as if it were a text that can only be read by way of selfapplication to the reader, otherwise it remains unreadable and unread. In a manner of speaking, Scripture only becomes torah (in the sense of ‘instruction’) through Midrash. However, the term ‘application’ does not explain much. Indeed, some modern thinkers, for instance Hans-Georg Gadamer, claim that all reading of necessity involves updating and application (and that includes historicalcritical scholarship), so what distinguishes rabbinic hermeneutics lies in the concrete interpretative moves it habitually employs. Rabbinic hermeneutics shows an enormous productivity and inventiveness in its methods. This variety probably depends to some extent on the objectiWcation of the biblical text which is embodied in the format of the midrashic unit. The biblical text

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is objectiWed as a string of words whose meaning is suspended: open for becoming problematic and being spoken about. The format introduces a hiatus between what the rabbinic readers need to know and what they Wnd in Scripture. The needs of application do not suVocate the engagement with the signs. How Scripture applies does not go without saying for the rabbis, and this meta-linguistic attitude creates a quasi-academic freedom, even while treating the text as a source of needful information. There is no complete catalogue of rabbinic reading strategies available at present. What happens in thousands of individual interpretations in rabbinic works has never been systematically collected, compared, and described in a modern academic terminology. I oVer a selection of midrashic reading devices in Table 3, most of which are found already in the Mishnah. Some further strategies will be treated in Chapter 10. Most of these require the biblical segment to be isolated from its environment to some extent, as explained above. I distinguish four levels: the word, the sentence, the cluster of sentences, and a whole biblical event or happening. The Table oVers a mix of English and Hebrew illustrations, and short summaries of rabbinic material. There are variations of the devices explained in Table 3, and many further techniques cannot be explained without discussing examples in detail. So this is just a basic selection. There are also interpretations which remain opaque to modern scholarship (or at least to me), for which we either lack contextual information, or which were idiosyncratic even in antiquity. The actual path or method of reading is only named in a minority of midrashic units, and hardly ever explained in detail. Coherence of hermeneutic methods is neither deWned nor claimed by the texts themselves. Hermeneutic styles can vary considerably within the same document, and from one document to another. Some of these diVerences are tied to the putative rival schools of hermeneutics linked to the names of R. Aqiva and R. Ishmael (see Chapter 2). The latter is credited with a metahermeneutic statement: ‘The Torah speaks (like) the [ordinary] language of man’ (Sifre Numbers § 112). This looks like a general principle, but is capable of a number of interpretations, and has uncertain application to any concrete midrashic unit. In the long run R. Aqiva’s ‘school’ seems to have been much more inXuential.


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Table 3. Select Midrashic Reading Practices Interpretative devices

Illustrations and explanations

(i) On the level of the biblical word a meaning may be chosen or created from: 1. The full range of meanings for a word as listed in a dictionary entry, without restriction from a context 2. The homonyms of the word 3. A word’s metaphorical or idiomatic meaning versus its concrete meaning, and vice versa 4. The consonants of a word interpreted as another word, (a) by vocalizing them differently (b) or by separating them differently (c) or by rearranging them in various ways (d ) or by exchanging some of them with similar-sounding or similarlooking consonants (e) or by linking them to other words whose consonants have the same numerical value ( f ) or by taking them to belong to a different language (in particular Greek) 5. The canonical semantic traits of a word, or its necessary semantic relationships 6. What is excluded by the presence of a certain word, if stressed 7. Incidental words which occur in peripheral positions in a biblical norm promoted to the role of necessary qualifications 8. The extremes as included in semantic boundaries 9. A biblical word taken to refer to a whole class to which it is semantically linked

Hook for fishing versus hook as part of the telephone River bank versus bank as financial institution; or ‘to bank’ as a verb versus ‘bank’ as a noun A person’s leg, a table leg, the first leg of a competition, leg-pull, plus creative figurative uses involving the word The English word ‘beard’, represented only by its consonants ‘brd’ (as in Hebrew), is interpreted as ‘bored’, ‘bird, or ‘bread’ ‘around’ versus ‘a round’ host versus shot pot versus pod, and lay versus lag; e.g. the Hebrew letters he and chet, yud and waw can look very similar to each other in Hebrew, the letters also function as numbers, so that the word ahavah (love) has a numerical value: 13, and can be linked with another word of the same value, e.g. echad (one) the English word ‘gut’ is understood as the German gut (i.e. good) Wearing a glove implies having a hand Window, stressed so as to exclude door, see main text for Midrashic examples The request ‘If you enter the station place your name in the green box on the right’ is taken not to apply if the green box is on the left ‘April’ even includes the very last or first day of the month; a plural form implies the minimum two (it need not be more than two) Each of the biblical words ‘ox’, ‘pit’, and ‘fire’ in Exod. 21: 28–22: 5 is taken to stand for a wider class of objects that may cause damage to other people’s property (Mishnah Bava Qamma 1: 1)

(Continued )

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Table 3. (Continued ) Interpretative devices 10. Words such as ‘all’, ‘not’, and ‘and’ stressed for inclusion, negation, or junction; also, ‘all’ taken as including some unmentioned aspect of a theme

Illustrations and explanations ‘There are no animals left in the zoo’ is taken in an absolute sense: not even slugs are left in the grass or flies in office rooms

(ii) On the level of phrases and sentences a meaning may be chosen or created from: 11. A biblical list considered to be open to further items 12. Two subjects taken to belong to the same class of objects because there is a biblical passage comparing them in some (other) respect 13. Ambiguous syntactic relationships construed against the context 14. An apparent repetition of the same message taken to treat an entirely new topic

15. Emphasis on parts of speech which seem peripheral to the sentence (see also above, no. 7), or redundant

16. Parts of speech which are absent from a sentence, as pointing to tacit exclusions 17. An a fortiori inference taking a biblical proposition or norm as its starting point

‘Wolves, leopards, and lions need to be kept on a leash’ is taken also to include panthers and gorillas Ps. 109: 18 uses water and oil as parallel similes for curses entering the body; this is taken to indicate that the use of anointing oil is just as prohibited as the drinking of water on the Day of Atonement (Mishnah Shabbat 9: 4) ‘Betrayal of the heroes’ is taken to mean betrayal committed by the heroes, not betrayal committed against the heroes The double ‘Amen’ which the woman suspected of adultery is supposed to utter in response to her ordeal curses (Num. 5: 22) is interpreted as separately confirming her past and her future behaviour (Mishnah Sotah 2: 5; that passage contains additional ideas for doubling of topics) Lev. 14: 35 decrees that a priest’s attention should be drawn to a ritually unclean building by saying to him ‘It seems to me that there is the like of scale disease in the house’; the Mishnah takes this to stress the priestly privilege of making the final pronouncement, by leaving out the words ‘the like of ’ (Mishnah Nega’im 12: 5) ‘The trees, shrubs, and flowers need to be removed from this garden’—the lack of mention of ‘ferns’ (also known to be in the garden) is taken as deliberate, with the result that ferns can stay The Ammonite and Moabite men are prohibited from joining the people of Israel for ever (Deut. 23: 4), but their women are nevertheless allowed to join Israel right away. Should the same not be all the more true (namely that they can join right away) of Egyptian and Edomite women since the males belonging to these nations are only banned from joining Israel for three generations (Deut. 23: 9)? (Mishnah Yevamot 8: 3)a

(Continued )


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Table 3. (Continued ) Interpretative devices 18. An analogy between two subjects mentioned in the biblical text

19. Emphasizing an object or person which a biblical sentence simply presupposes as existing (often linked to 7 above) 20. The adoption of a biblical sentence as rabbinic utterance to characterize an event (as in the narrative Petichah) 21. The adoption of a biblical sentence as a person’s speech in the performance of a verbal commandment or of a prayer

Illustrations and explanations From the fact that the punishment of the owner of a man-killing ox is mentioned in the same breath as the punishment of the ox itself (Exod. 21: 29), it is concluded that the ox, just as the owner, is to be judged by a panel of 23 judges (Mishnah Sanhedrin 1: 4) Mention of the ‘thumb of the right hand’ is taken to mean that such a thumb must be in existence in the person concerned, otherwise the norm is inapplicable (cf. Mishnah Nega’im 14: 9 with regard to Lev. 14: 28) This is similar to the everyday application of proverbial expressions, operatic arias, and other quotations, as when referring to a period as the ‘winter of discontent’ For example, reciting the verse, My father was a wandering Aramean . . . (Deut. 26: 5) as part of a proclamation accompanying the offering of first fruits to the Temple (Mishnah Bikkurim 1: 2–4)

(iii) On the level of a group of sentences a meaning may be chosen or created from: 22. A differentiation of themes between neighbouring statements which are potentially overlapping in meaning

23. Taking two neighbouring clauses as intimately connected when the context suggests they are not 24. Taking propositional inconsistencies between sentences as mutual qualification, or as the mutual differentiation of topics

‘Folk can’t stand still, people just go round in circles’ understood as making two separate statements: (1) humans cannot remain motionless, and in addition (2) humans partake of the circular motion of the earth’s rotation A sign ‘Please wipe your feet when entering. Closed Mondays’, interpreted as implying that the shop is closed on Mondays because the doormat is cleaned on that day. Harmonizing two sentences diverging from each other in some detail, for instance, ‘It took less than a year’, and ‘They returned after 370 days’, by taking that particular year to have had an intercalated month; or by taking the sentences to refer to two entirely separate events

(iv) On the level of biblical events a meaning may be chosen or created from: 25. Understanding acts of biblical characters as embodying norms of behaviour which are to be followed 26. Understanding biblical events as illustrating the nature of reality under God’s governance a

Cf. my Rabbinic Interpretation, 184 ff.

When Joshua asked Achan to confess his sin before being put to death (Josh. 7: 19–20), he exemplified a procedural rule for executions in general: the condemned is urged to confess (Mishnah Sanhedrin 6: 2) Examples in Chapter 10

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Even more obscure is the maxim, ‘A [biblical] verse does not lose its peshat’ (e.g. Bavli Shabbat 63a). The term peshat, when used of biblical words, could perhaps be literally rendered as ‘Xat meaning’. So far as we can tell, it seems to have referred to the ‘traditionally accepted meaning’ rather than the ‘plain/literal meaning’. In any case, it is unknown how the maxim relates historically to the vast number of actual rabbinic interpretations. There are also three lists of interpretation procedures (middot) extant from the rabbinic period. Two of them are very short, enumerating seven procedures ascribed to Hillel and thirteen ascribed to R. Ishmael. These are respectively transmitted as part of the Tosefta (Sanhedrin 7: 11) and as a kind of preface to Sifra. The most extensive list of hermeneutic techniques, ascribed to R. Eliezer ben Yose Ha-Gelili, is probably from a much later date. None of these, however, provides a clear or comprehensive account of the midrashic practice as it can be directly observed in the rabbinic documents. These lists clearly did not serve to explain to apprentice rabbinic interpreters how to do their biblical reading. Rabbinic skills in interpretation were probably learned very largely by analogy and imitation, much like other components of rabbinic culture (see Chapter 8). And also like other aspects of rabbinic culture, rabbinic strategies of reading were neither exhaustively articulated nor codiWed in the rabbinic period. Even their modern scholarly description is still in its infancy. One further midrashic trend needs to be mentioned here. It is the fact that rabbinic interpretation can be attuned to what modern biblical scholarship recognizes as traces of pre-biblical mythology hidden under the surface of the biblical text. These traces are sometimes re-mythologized, up to a point, by rabbinic interpretation, as when forces of nature (sea, wind) are given a separate voice and will in midrashic tales. Thus there are interpretations which develop creatively indications of a possible conXict between the Red Sea and God contained in the biblical account of the crossing of the Sea (Exod. 14–15). Scholars have been particularly interested in the question of historical continuities between these ‘mythopoetic’ sensibilities of classic midrash and the explosion of mythological creativity in medieval Jewish mysticism, in particular the Zohar.


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Select Further Reading Kugel’s Traditions of the Bible gives a good idea of the richness of nontechnical interpretations of Scripture which helped shape the world-view of ancient Jewish (and Christian) readers. The role of a canon of Scriptures is explained in Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, chapter 6; see also P. S. Alexander, ‘ ‘‘Homer the Prophet of All’’. . .’. On the historical and ideological background of the Hebrew Bible as rabbinic canon, see Cohen’s ‘The SigniWcance of Yavneh’; Scha¨fer, Studien, 45–64; Veltri, ‘Zur Traditionsgeschichtlichen Entwicklung’; Green, ‘Writing with Scripture’; Goodman, ‘Sacred Scripture’. A recent examination of the citation verbs for Scripture (katav and amar) is contained in Yadin, Scripture as Logos, 11 V.; he also examines the midrashic style ascribed to R. Ishmael. While rabbinic texts became more explicitly hermeneutic in the course of time, tradition (starting with the Letter of Sherira Gaon) and some modern scholars believe that thematic information such as is now contained in the Mishnah was originally ‘taught’ by way of a midrashic attachment to the biblical texts, see e.g. Lauterbach, Rabbinic Essays, 163–256 and Halivni Weiss, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara (cf. Stemberger, Introduction, 126 V.). For an attempt to link the disjointed nature of lemmatic aggregates to the nature of biblical ‘wisdom’, see Kugel’s ‘Wisdom and the Anthological Temper’, 27–30. The lemmatic arrangement of midrashic works is modiWed in the post-rabbinic period in the creation of large anthologies of Midrashim, for example the suite of works known as Midrash Rabbah; on this see, for instance, Bregman, ‘Midrash Rabbah and the Medieval Collector Mentality’. The idea that all reading is a conversation with the text is used in Gadamer’s Truth and Method. On the rabbinic treatment of biblical parallelism, see Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry, 103 V. and Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation, Ch. 13. Some basic assumptions on Scripture made in Midrash are reconstructed in Goldberg, ‘The Rabbinic View of Scripture’. A catalogue of midrashic techniques in the Mishnah, from which the deWnitions in Table 3 are largely drawn, is found in my Rabbinic Interpretation; see also my ‘Between Scripture and its Rewording’. I explain a large number of halakhic midrashic interpretations in detail in my Database, albeit in a technical language. The three extant rabbinic lists of hermeneutic techniques are discussed very frequently by scholars; see in particular Stemberger, Introduction, part One, Ch. iii; P. S. Alexander, ‘The Rabbinic Hermeneutical Rules’; Porton, ‘Exegetical Techniques’ (without reference to Alexander’s article); and Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation, 26–7.

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DorV and Rosett, A Living Tree, 201–4 present the Thirteen with illustrations; see also Jackson, ‘On the Nature of Analogical Argument’. The mythopoetic qualities of midrash have recently been explored by a number of scholars, including Boyarin in his Intertextuality and Fishbane in Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking.

6 The Literary Device of Quoting Rabbis This chapter examines the fact that many individual statements occurring in rabbinic texts are quoted as direct speech by named rabbis. I interpret speech reports as minimal narratives which provide the form, but not the contents, of a ‘history’ of rabbinic texts. Concentrating on the Mishnah, I distinguish the anonymous voice which does the quoting, from the named voices which are quoted. I then draw attention to the importance of disputes, where the two types of voices become mixed.

Q U OTAT I O N A S P R E S E N T I N G T H E S TO RY OF H A L A K H A H Rabbinic texts take no notice of their own existence and structure. But they do point to a reality outside the text. Rabbis are reported as talking and doing things. In most cases, the kernel of such reports is a citation of what the rabbi said. To some extent, all rabbinic texts eVace themselves, their unity and constancy of composition, by the gesture of quoting. The documents appear merely as framed windows, aVording the reader a glimpse of rabbis conversing with each other. This is achieved by frequent use of a single formula: ‘R. X said/ says: . . .’, as well as by dedicated short narratives. Some of the narratives present a rabbi making a halakhic decision, thus creating a kind of precedent (ma’aseh, see below). Others are tales of conXict or challenge, usually also involving some exemplary saying or doing, and in certain respects similar to the Greek genre of the chreia. In one

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The Literary Device of Quoting Rabbis

kind of tale the rabbis are challenged by prototypical outsiders, such as the Roman emperor, the ‘philosopher’, the Roman matron (matronah), the person interested (or pretending to be interested) in converting to Judaism, the amoral or agnostic thinker (called ‘Epicurean’), the follower of a para-Jewish tradition (min), and some others. There are clearly Wctional features to many of these stories, as when the outsiders have implausible halakhic or midrashic skill, or their rabbinic counterparts are casually endowed with supernatural powers. Other narratives depict confrontations between rabbis, often aVording a tantalizingly brief glimpse of power struggles or personality clashes. Stories can also reXect a ‘popular’ culture or are interpreted by modern scholars as belonging to folklore. Even the longer narratives of this type, of which I translate an example at the end of this chapter, are still very short if compared with biblical or other non-rabbinic genres of story-telling. The shorter narratives can be divided into two types. One consists of nothing more than a speech report and a quotation: Rabbi X said: ‘A’. The other embeds the quotation into a minimal context by making it part of some interaction, usually a stylized dialogue. In most rabbinic stories, therefore, the action culminates in a pronouncement, or at least a demonstrative act. For example, the very fulWlment of halakhah can become the stuV of story in the context of religious persecution, as captured in a rabbinic tale of martyrdom. And the tale of precedent (ma’aseh) illustrates a rabbi’s commitment to a halakhic position by reporting how he implemented it demonstratively in a concrete decision, for an individual case. But in many stories it is really just the act of teaching halakhah or aggadah which is dramatized, the instruction itself constitutes the tale. The narrative heroes are teachers, and what happens could be interpreted as a teacher staging a point. No matter how unusual the circumstances in other respects, rabbis tend to be presented as making an example of themselves in what they say or do in front of an audience eager to learn. Perhaps the most drastic instance of this is the somewhat Socratic tale of R. Aqiva explaining a point (presenting a midrashic unit) to his disciples while dying at the hands of the Romans during the Hadrianic persecutions.1 This merely takes to an extreme the 1 Talmud Bavli Berakhot 61b; cf. Boyarin, Intertextuality, Ch. 8, in particular 125 V.


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underlying point of many rabbinic narratives. Even in ordinary circumstances and without any element of confrontation or supernatural powers, the rabbinic narrative tends to present instruction (torah) itself as a drama. Perhaps what energizes these stories is an idea that this human instruction conducts the business of God, and that the rabbi’s pronouncement is, even in its most ordinary setting, something akin to revelation.

THE STORY OF AN INSTANCE OF HALAKHAH One of the common forms of the didactic story reports the act of a rabbi implementing a halakhic norm. This is often introduced by the Hebrew word ma’aseh (‘incident’, ‘instance’, ‘doing’), and this term gives the genre its name in modern scholarship. The characters appearing in a ma’aseh are a rabbi and at least one other person or group. It reports a dialogue, a statement, or a non-verbal decision. Usually the ma’aseh gives only rudimentary information about the setting of the conversation, as in the following passage: An incident (ma’aseh) that they decreed a fast in Lydda and the rain fell for them before midday. R. Tarfon said to them: Go and eat and drink and make it a festival day. They went and ate and drank and made it a festival day and came at dusk and sang the Great Hallel (i.e. Ps. 136). (Mishnah Ta’anit 3: 9)

The ma’aseh addresses the following scenario. During a drought a fast day has been declared and the fasting has begun, but the rain comes even before it is midday—is the fast to continue nevertheless until the evening? The ma’aseh reports that this problem once arose in a concrete situation. The narrative-historical information presented in the ma’aseh about that unique situation is minimal: two proper names (Tarfon, Lydda), and one rabbi’s speciWc wording of his decision. Other details we are not told, for example when this happened, how exactly R. Tarfon came to be involved, or what exactly he was asked (if anything). In eVect the ma’aseh strips down the details of what happened to such a degree that what remains is a schematic case. As such it matches the structure of a hypothetical legal case. The ma’aseh, just

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like the hypothetical case, has a two-part structure. First there is the report on what happened; this corresponds to the ‘if’-part of the hypothetical case. Then there is a halakhic evaluation pronounced by a rabbinic authority, coresponding to the ‘then’-part. In fact the ma’aseh in the above passage is preceded by the same halakhic point made in the form of a hypothetical case: R. Eliezer says: [If they were fasting because of a drought and the rain fell for them] before midday, they do not complete [their fasting the whole day]; if after midday, they do complete it.

The only diVerence between the hypothetical formulation and the ma’aseh-decision which follows is the mention of a festival day in the latter. Such pairings are quite common in halakhic texts, giving the ma’aseh something of a proof function, as here. R. Eliezer’s statement disagrees with a preceding opinion and he supports his view by telling the ma’aseh. The ma’aseh above is not primarily told in order to provide historical information about Tarfon or the inhabitants of Lydda. Thus it would be absurd to speculate that R. Tarfon had a soft spot for the people of Lydda, and therefore allowed them to stop fasting. Rather, the story presents one possible option in halakhah, and the narrative roles are typiWed or schematic. R. Tarfon is a representative of the intellectual and moral fellowship referred to as rabbis or Sages, who devote themselves to determining the halakhah accurately. The ma’aseh shows, by tying this named rabbi to this quoted statement, that at least one relevant person was at least once committed enough to a certain halakhic position to implement it in a concrete decision, a ‘doing’ (¼ ma’aseh). On the one hand the decision lies in the past and is the stuV of narrative. On the other hand the decision claims, just as the hypothetical legal case, validity for similar future cases, and forms part of the timeless world of norms. In combining a timeless aspect with a historical one, the ma’aseh also seems to suggest that the halakhah is subject to development, and that new historical circumstances require fresh halakhic decisions.2 2 A point made to me by Dr Rocco Bernasconi when commenting on an earlier draft of this chapter.


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T H E S TO RY THAT R ABBINIC L ITE RATURE TELLS OF ITSELF The ma’aseh, although usually very brief, is not the shortest narrative form of rabbinic literature. Every halakhic statement can be made to acquire a narrative dimension, simply by being preWxed by the words ‘R. X said’. Thus preWxed, the statement belongs simultaneously to two orders: the ideal structure of the themes of halakhah, and a chronological point in the story or history of Judaism. Each such quotation tells the minimal story that R. X said this on one or several occasions—occasions which must have been unique, historical, narrative, all things which the norm itself is not. So, although the format ‘speech report þ statement’ is not usually treated as a narrative form at all, I shall do so for our purposes here. The speech report can use the present tense of ‘to say’ interchangeably with the past. However, the subject of the verb is always a third person (not the voice of the text), so the speaking has already taken place outside the text. Around two thousand names of rabbis populate the pages of rabbinic literature, mainly by Wguring as speakers. They are almost invariably men.3 It is generally assumed that we can know to which country and generation of rabbis they belonged. There is much incidental mention of master–disciple relationships, and thus indirect chronology.4 But most rabbis are deWned as historical individuals only by their reported utterances, they are citation ciphers. We can therefore not use their identity to elucidate what their statements meant, as we could if we had concrete biographical information. In other words, while the device of quotation turns a statement into a mini-narrative, it only provides the form of a historical contextualization, not its substance. To be sure, it points to a reality outside the text. The quotation is a literary device which says, among other things: ‘There were rabbinic persons, there were 3 One of the few exceptions, Beruriah, is found in Bavli Chullin 44b; cf. Stemberger, Introduction, 61–2; Boyarin, Carnal Israel, 167–96. 4 See, for example, the remark by R. Yehudah ha-Nasi that his acumen would be even greater had he been allowed to see the eyes of R. Meir when the master held his lectures (cf. Isa. 30: 20), instead of sitting behind him, presumably as a junior disciple (Bavli Eruvin 13b). See below on the importance of these two rabbis.

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rabbinic institutions, there was a rabbinic discourse and life. I, the voice you are hearing now, am not the source of this, I merely report.’ The quotation as a reporting gesture constantly points to a time prior to the text, to a history of rabbinic texts. But it does not actually tell that history. Thus single statements are not connected to each other within a narrative or historical framework. Citations are never embedded into a rabbi’s biography; biographies do not exist. Neither do texts of the type ‘Collected sayings of Rabbi X’, which is a plausible genre, given that rabbinic masters had circles of disciples. If such collections were used in the creation of the rabbinic documents, they are not extant. Instead, the opinions of one and the same rabbi (and presumably not all of those) are distributed over a range of rabbinic works, according to their variable thematic Wt, biblical link, or some other selection criterion unknown to us. If quotations are meant to convey the double message identiWed above—a personal commitment and an enduring validity as a halakhic option—then they do not need to be the ipsissima verba of the named rabbi. It is obvious that many utterances would have had to be modiWed grammatically in order to Wt the context in which they now appear on the page, for example when a rabbi is quoted as saying ‘That is not necessary’, and nothing else (Mishnah Eruvin 1: 1, cf. Sample Text III, no. 8). So even if the text creators had access to a verbatim record, the wording of the original utterance may have been altered by the very process of textualizing it. But perhaps the utterance had already been transformed before that, for other reasons. It is quite likely that many statements which were originally uttered in a wide variety of formats, terminologies, styles or personal dictions, were fundamentally recast in one of the canonical small forms, for example the stylized dispute between rabbis. This would explain why the forms of statements ascribed to diVerent rabbis, periods, and places are rarely distinct from each other or from anonymous ones, at least in the Mishnah. In the Gemara, there are important signals of diVerence in the statement forms, for example the switch from Hebrew (signal of Tannaitic origin) to the Aramaic of the Amoraim. Even in the Babylonian Gemara, however, the diVerences are hardly traces of a person’s unique style and voice, conveying the individuality of a speaker. Paradoxically, the clearest mark of an individual’s


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voice may be an incomprehensible statement, one whose theme is not echoed by other statements. This is the case, for example, with the following pronouncement, ascribed to Hillel at a joyous Temple ceremony: ‘If I am here everyone (or: everything) is here. And If I am not here, who is here?’5 In this statement, an individual person’s context and views seem to be truly presupposed, but many more ordinary ones could have been said by anybody, and can indeed be found ascribed to diVerent rabbis in multiple occurrences.

Q UOT I N G DI S S E N T Very often rabbinic literature presents rabbis as disagreeing with each other. This aVects aggadic and halakhic statements of all formats, including midrashic units. In the thematic documents of the Tannaitic period the opening statement of a dispute is often not assigned to a name at all, but presented just like any undisputed pronouncement, spoken without an introduction. Modern scholarship calls such a statement ‘anonymous’ or, following a traditional Hebrew terminology, stam (literally, ‘mere’, ‘undeWned’). In many disputes, the stam’s pronouncement is followed by the introductory formula, ‘R. X says/said’, and then by a second, divergent statement. As the undisputed statements are, in the Mishnah at least, always anonymous, this means that the mere fact that a new statement is preWxed by a speech report can be suYcient to alert the reader to the status of that statement as disagreeing with another. The rule about the inaudible Shema’ which I quoted earlier illustrates this form of the dispute, for there is a dissenting opinion which I have so far suppressed: If a person recited the Shema’ too softly for his own ears to hear it, he has nevertheless fulWlled the obligation to recite it. R. Yose says: He has not fulWlled it. (Mishnah Berakhot 2: 3; cf. also Bavli Berakhot 13a)

Experienced Mishnah readers will know, as soon as they see the words ‘R. Yose says’, that some alternative to the stam is going to be 5 Bavli Sukkah 53a; cf. Urbach, The Sages, 258.

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presented. But there are no such words as ‘dispute’ in the text, nor is the speech report preWxed by a ‘but’ (although that sometimes happens). Only when readers have compared the meaning of the two statements does the fact of a contradiction emerge with certainty. Yet this format Statement A—Rabbi X says—Statement B is capable of signalling a contradiction even when statement B is not, as above, a direct negation of statement A. In such cases the literary format helps readers to construct the logical relationship between two neighbouring statements as mutually contradictory, when that would otherwise not be so clear. The Mishnah does not usually indicate which of the two (or more) competing opinions is meant to be the valid halakhah. The Gemaras assume it to be the stam for most cases. Amoraic sources sometimes place the following historical construction on the constellation of one anonymous voice and many named voices. The stam represents the collective consensus of all rabbis if no alternative is appended to it. If the issue was put to a vote, the stam represents the majority position.6 The named second party is therefore the one defeated by a majority vote. This is, at best, an idealization of the historical developments behind halakhic texts. There is no independent evidence for the notion that votes on all the statements that are presented in disputes took place, that stam statements found on their own were necessarily uncontested, or that they expressed the majority view where they were contested. Also, where disputes concerning the same theme are contained in two diVerent rabbinic texts, the actual number and identity of the dissenting voices can vary.7 The simpliWed picture is accordingly often complemented by other assumptions in the Gemara, starting with the view that one particular rabbi, R. Yehudah ha-Nasi, was responsible for the redaction of the Mishnah in the early third century ce, and at times used his prerogative to present his own views as stam. This construction also does not cover all the literary constellations; for example, as we shall see presently, R. Yehudah can be presented as taking issue with what is a stam view. 6 See Bavli Chullin 43a. 7 Thus Bavli Berakhot 15a quotes our sample dispute, but has a named rabbi say what in our Mishnaic text is the stam statement.


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But regardless of how questionable the Amoraic inferences as to authorship may be, the reader intuitions on which they are based tend to be sound. For the anonymous voice does indeed carry the authority of the whole document in which it appears. In the simplest case, the dispute contains one unnamed opinion followed by a single named one, as for the passage on the inaudible Shema’ quoted above. Two levels of voices are clearly distinguished in that structure: the voice of R. Yose who is committed to ‘He has not fulWlled it’, and the voice of an unknown presenter who is committed to ‘R. Yose says’. But what about the opening statement itself? This obviously does not belong to R. Yose, so in the Wrst instance it must be in the voice of the unknown presenter, yielding an implied message along the following lines: I, the presenter, say: ‘If a person recited the Shema’ too softly for his own ears to hear it, he has nevertheless fulWlled the obligation to recite it.’ But R. Yose, disagreeing with me, says: ‘He has not fulWlled it.’

If laid out like this the stam shows itself to belong to two distinct levels of dialogue, one with the reader and one with another rabbinic voice. Not being allocated to anybody else, the opening statement must belong to the same voice that later speaks the words ‘R. Yose says’. And yet the opening proposition is not about R. Yose’s statement in the way in which the words ‘R. Yose says’ are. Rather the opening statement is on the same level with R. Yose’s statement, otherwise there could be no disagreement between the two. Accordingly, the voice which presents the whole dispute appears also as one of the parties involved in it, yet no such word as ‘I’ is normally used. One of the rare exceptions to this is a passage where R. Yehudah is reported as taking issue with the Toseftan-Mishnaic stam. In that passage, alluded to above, R. Yehudah uses precisely such a selfreport: The benediction of the Hallel, and the Shema’, and the Eighteen Benedictions may be recited in any language. Rabbi [¼Yehudah ha-Nasi] says: I say : They recite the Shema’ only in the holy language, for it is said . . . (Deut. 6: 6). (Tosefta Sotah 7: 7)

This way of reporting R. Yehudah’s words could spell out what is normally implied, namely that the reader should read all stam statements as virtual self-quotations (‘I say the following: . . .’) of one and

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the same constant voice throughout, even in the anonymous statements which are not part of a dispute form at all. This clariWes the literary function of the stam, but does not touch upon the question of its historical author or authors.

PRESENTING ALL STATEMENTS AS QUOTATIONS FROM ORAL TORAH So the dispute format helps to create the impression that all anonymous statements are potential self-quotations. But does the presenting voice really quote what is merely a personal opinion in the stam, and an opinion authored for the Wrst time for this text, the Mishnah? The dispute format sends a subtle, indeed ambiguous, signal that this is not so. At Wrst sight, the stam must have been public before the text was created, for a named rabbi from outside the text, for example R. Yose in the passage above, is presented as disagreeing with it. His utterance is even elliptic, ‘He has not fulWlled it’, as if it were a direct response to the earlier words of the stam. Yet the disagreement is more oblique than appears at Wrst. R. Yose could not have responded to this very anonymous voice’s utterance, for that is happening only in the text, performed by the text itself. R. Yose could only have responded to a similar utterance made earlier by some non-textual person, and repeated here as a stam. The stam’s statement is not quoted, and thus not earlier than the text. Yet the dispute format indirectly suggests that some such position existed before the text was created. In that case, the stam position would not be merely the reporting voice’s self-quotation, despite its purely inner-textual constitution. One of the literary indications to support this view is that, as the reporting voice’s identity is nowhere declared, the anonymous voice takes on the same identity wherever it occurs. The recurrence of anonymity here suggests a constant identity, almost as strongly as would the recurrence of the same name. This has immediate consequences for that voice’s authority. In each individual dispute passage, the format implies already that the stam has an authority comparable to that of the named rabbi—they disagree at least as equals. But


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across diVerent dispute passages, the authority of the stam is enhanced dramatically, if it is assumed to be the same voice. For in the course of the Mishnah or the Tosefta, the anonymous voice is likely to disagree with most major rabbis in turn on some topic or other, and these rabbis come from diVerent generations. If the same persona is implied throughout, which is strongly suggested by it being the default voice of the whole text, then that voice claims implicitly an authority greater than that of any single rabbi. As a result, the stam suggests itself as the voice of rabbinic knowledge, and that is indeed how post-Mishnaic rabbinic literature tends to view it. This uniWed persona is an abstract identity, or a literary function of unity, not directly corresponding to a real person. Entirely diVerent historical models of authorship can Wt this literary function, such as a mechanical accumulation of statements over time, a single person assuming the role of mouthpiece of tradition (e.g. R. Yehudah ha-Nasi), a committee of editor-authors, etc. By not positively distinguishing itself, the text’s controlling voice appears to be the rabbinic tradition speaking directly to the reader, without the mediation of an author, editor, or redactor—indeed without the mediation even of a text as such. The experience which these works promote of themselves is that of pure address, pure communication. In the talmudic perception of rabbinic history, the anonymous voice of tradition is tied to major named rabbis, and the pedigree of the stam in the Mishnah is traced as follows. The substance of the Mishnah’s overall view is taken to be by R. Aqiva (died 135 ce), while the actual anonymous statements are by his disciple Meir.8 The selection and compilation of statements, that is, the Mishnah as we know it, is, according to this view, the achievement of R. Yehudah ha-Nasi, often simply called ‘Rabbi’. R. Yehudah, a head of the Palestinian rabbinic community (nasi’), died some time in the Wrst decades of the third century ce. Although he is quoted about forty times in the third person in the Mishnah, he is supposed to have arranged the Mishnah in its Wnal form, made decisions on outstanding issues, presented them as stam on his own authority, and also on occasion imposed his preference against the halakhic majority. But the gesture of quotation is seen as inherently iterative, so the 8 Bavli Sanhedrin 86a; see also Bavli Chullin 43a.

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‘authorship’ of the stam by these three rabbis is very limited. On the whole, they are credited mainly with having said again what they themselves had heard from an earlier authority. This is one way to develop the historical logic immanent in the idea of tradition speaking. It leads to the two main varieties of the post-Mishnaic notion of ‘oral Torah’, both of which coexist in the self-perception of rabbinic Judaism. In one version the origin of oral Torah is taken to its chronological beginning, the divine revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai, and all statements are either faithful or corrupt echoes of that original giving of the whole of Torah, written and oral together. The other main notion of oral Torah traces itself to the written Torah, from which the bulk of rabbinic ideas are understood to be derived as interpretations, perhaps guided by Sinaitic knowledge on how to read Scripture. This notion of oral Torah gives pride of place to the midrashic explication of biblical meaning, and is de facto endorsed by the pervasive use of midrashic units in rabbinic literature, although not to the exclusion of the other notion.

T H E P R E S U M E D ID E NTITY OF THE ANONYMOUS POINTS OF VIEW The impression of one and the same anonymous voice speaking in all disputes is created, as we saw, by its undeclared identity. This also goes for all the undisputed stam statements in its various forms: anonymous norms, legal cases, lists, stories, etc. The unidentiWed presenter of all quotations thus becomes by default the uniWed voice of the whole document. This goes for the Mishnah, and virtually all other documents of rabbinic literature. But as I have shown, these documents have no declared literary or thematic boundaries. Therefore the unidentiWed voice binds together with equal ease parts of the same document and entirely diVerent documents. For almost all rabbinic texts contain both components here called stam: sentences which report another voice’s statement, and sentences which make a statement. The Babylonian Gemara allocates in fact the diVerent documents to diVerent stam personas: the stam of the Mishnah is allocated to R. Meir as mentioned above, but the stam of the Tosefta


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to R. Nechemia, that of Sifra to R. Yehudah bar Ilai, and that of Sifre to R. Shim’on. However, they are all seen to be tied to R. Aqiva’s halakhah,9 thus postulating a single historical point of origin. Yet there is no evidence to show that there was a uniWed, consistent approach to halakhic topics across the whole of rabbinic Judaism, or even within any of its documents. Unless one assumes a creation of rabbinic documents from scratch, safeguarding the unity of the halakhic approach would have required a review and comparison of all existing single statements by the same set of criteria. Did such a review happen in the creation of the Mishnah? Sometimes R. Yehudah ha-Nasi appears to be credited with such a review, although the Mishnah itself provides no unequivocal internal evidence for that, and we have no contemporary information on the editorial process. But even if there was no review of this kind, the Mishnah itself became an eVective substitute for it by the way it was received and used. The Gemaras tend to accept the unidentiWed voice as unifying the Mishnah’s textual parts, implying in principle (not necessarily in all cases) a coherent halakhah across diverse subject matters. Although the later interpreters also uncover inconsistencies, and identify named rabbis as the authors of speciWc anonymous statements, overall the Mishnah’s text is seen as presenting the or a uniWed halakhah. The unity of halakhah is thus not aYrmed as the result of demonstration. Instead it is, with even more lasting eVect, accepted de facto as a condition of understanding the meaning of the Mishnah, that is, as a hermeneutic postulate. The Babylonian Gemara later takes the further step of using the Mishnah’s anonymous voice as a compass through the maze of all statements in the pool of oral Torah, regardless from where they come. Every non-Mishnaic statement then either intentionally complements, deliberately contradicts, or occasionally corrects, the Mishnaic stam. This is the basis for much of the discourse of the Gemara, insofar as it is concerned with the Mishnaic meaning (see Chapter 9 below). The reader assumption that there is a fundamental halakhic consistency to the Mishnah is, given that document’s undeclared thematic limits and purposes, quite impossible to disprove. Readers can respond to any initial disappointment in the search for 9 Bavli Sanhedrin 86a.

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consistency by redoubling the hermeneutic eVort, that is, by more subtle or ramiWed attempts to regain consistency. If every statement is seen as making some contribution to a virtual whole which is open to future articulation, then there are always further avenues to probe for linking up statements. However, the rabbinic documents are also open to quite diVerent hermeneutic expectations. Assuming the coherence of propositions is only one way to establish textuality, although it is favoured both by the post-talmudic Jewish tradition and by modern historical approaches. There are other approaches to textuality, in particular those of post-modernism in which the propositional unity of texts is not accepted as the guiding principle of reading. In these, the reader may simply admit the possibility that two passages contain inconsistent propositions without having to account for this by distinguishing their historical provenances. This changes what the rabbinic texts are seen to be about—they would then not constitute discourse, certainly not a type of scholarly discourse. Given the literary features of rabbinic literature it is impossible to reject such a reading strategy as historically inappropriate: it may not be.

THE GESTURE OF QUOTING DISOWNS THE COMPOSITION But if rabbinic texts are discourse, then the literary gesture of quotation, in particular its use in disputes, emerges as the coping stone for the construction of rabbinic texts. It presents an implicit literary justiWcation for the fact that larger thematic boundaries are not articulated, and that thematically linked information may be dispersed to diVerent passages and works. One could spell out that justiWcation in the following way: The building block of documents is assumed to be the single statement, and that statement is seen as having once been uttered by a rabbi or sanctioned by a group of rabbis. Therefore the prime authority of halakhah would reside within that statement and perhaps also in its original historical context (which the texts, however, make no claim to preserve). Consequently, it would be appropriate not to force these statements


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into a literary composition with Wxed thematic boundaries. Instead it would be preferable to stress, as well as maximize de facto, the dependency on an outside of the text: persons, institutions, and practices. Thus, in pervasively using the literary gesture of quotation, the compositions of rabbinic Judaism may suggest why they should really not exist at all, or constitute themselves as compositions in as small a measure as possible. Rabbinic documents thus oVer themselves to the reader as approximations of the ideal of a Xuid totality of statements for which no arrangement is necessary—perhaps the ideal of oral Torah as the totality of all rabbinic knowledge. Yet despite the lack of declared boundaries, rabbinic thematic documents constitute texts, and have their own arrangements and thus compositions. Whether they were conceived in an oral medium or as written documents, the single statement does not remain single, but is found alongside others in a determined sequence. The compositional steps that must have taken place for our documents to exist are: a decision which pre-existing statements to select for presentation; a recasting of statements in shared formats; and, very likely, also the creation of statements from scratch to express knowledge hitherto not verbalized, or not available in Wxed form to the text-maker. Also a sequence had to be imposed on any multiplicity of statements, whether according to a thematic order or some other arrangement principle. These are the features of textual composition which the reader de facto encounters when opening any rabbinic book. Yet this factuality of composition is de-emphasized on every page by the very literary structures which constitute it. The more familiar a reader becomes with rabbinic textuality and the analogical procedures by which its coherences need to be established, the more she or he becomes seduced into thinking that the documents are really not constituted as Wxed texts at all.

T H E EVA LUAT I O N OF DI S AG R E E M E N T S The dispute suggests that halakhic unity is an achievement starting from diversity: disagreements abound in all areas of the legal discourse, despite an acknowledged need to have a uniWed practice, even

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though some local variation is admitted.10 The disputes usually take much common ground for granted. Although they occur so frequently, their scope appears often quite limited, and the Gemara frequently makes a point of reducing that scope further in its interpretations of Tannaitic disagreements (see Chapter 9). The limited scope is partly a direct consequence of the concreteness of the single rabbinic statements. As no grand schemes or comprehensive principles are seriously presented as such, none are disputed. Yet even disputes which concern quite fundamental halakhic or aggadic points are apparently accepted into the undeclared thematic unity of rabbinic texts with equanimity. Explicit rabbinic evaluations of disagreements vary dramatically. Some see disputes as a manifestation of the decline of tradition, and as jeopardizing the unity of Torah.11 But there are positive evaluations also, such as the one expressed in the following famous passage: R. Abba said in the name of Shemuel: For three years the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel disagreed with each other. These say: The halakhah is according to us, and these say: The halakhah is according to us. A heavenly voice went out and said: These as well as these are the words of the living God, and [yet] the halakhah is according to the House of Hillel. (Talmud Bavli Eruvin 13b)

The formula found here for mutually contradictive halakhic positions, ‘words of the living God’, might have been a consolation prize awarded to the school of Shammai, while the school of Hillel was chosen to shape the actual practice. But halakhic disputes, ‘battles of the Torah’,12 are seen in positive terms also in many other contexts. More importantly still, the literary structures of almost all rabbinic texts embrace the dispute as a matter of course. A more emphatic endorsement of the legitimacy, perhaps even the necessity, of disputes than their routine inclusion on every rabbinic page is scarcely possible. Whoever compiled these documents did not consider disputes as jeopardizing the tradition.

10 Cf., for example, Bavli Yevamot 14a; see further Chapter 8 below. 11 Bavli Sanhedrin 88b. 12 Bavli Qiddushin 14b and other places.


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In fact the acceptance and recording of disagreements in rabbinic texts, despite their narrow scope, sets the tone for the whole rabbinic enterprise, as we know it from the literature. First, it marks out both halakhah and aggadah as domains of human choices, responsibilities, commitments, and critical inquiry. Among other things, this implies that there is a limit to the role which claims to divine intervention can play. Here is the most explicit rabbinic statement to that eVect, itself couched in terms of a dispute. It begins with a halakhic disagreement on whether or not a certain type of oven is susceptible to attracting ritual uncleanness or not. It is taught: On that day R. Eliezer gave all possible answers [concerning the status of that oven] and they did not accept him. He said to them: ‘If the halakhah is according to my view, let this carob tree teach it.’ The carob tree was uprooted from its place one hundred cubits (or, according to some, four hundred cubits). They said to him: ‘One does not bring proof from a carob tree.’ And he said to them: ‘If the halakhah is according to my view, let this stream of water prove it.’ The stream Xowed backwards. They said to him: ‘One does not bring proof from a stream of water.’ And he said to them: ‘If the halakhah is like my view, let the walls of the house of study teach it.’ The walls of the house of study started to incline so as to fall when R. Yehoshua shouted at them and said to them: ‘When the disciples of the sages [i.e. rabbis] struggle with each other over halakhah, what have you to do with it?’ They did not fall, because of the honour of R. Yehoshua, and they did not straighten, because of the honour of R. Eliezer—they are still standing in the inclined position. Again he said to them: ‘If the halakhah is like my view, let it be taught from heaven.’ There went forth a heavenly voice (bat qol) and said: ‘What is it with you against R. Eliezer, for the halakhah is like his view in every case!’ R. Yehoshua stood up upon his feet and said: It [the Torah] is not in heaven (¼ Deut. 30: 12).13 What does It is not in heaven mean? R. Yirmiyah said: ‘For the Torah is already given from Mount Sinai. We do not pay heed to a heavenly voice, for you already wrote on Mount Sinai into your Torah: . . . to follow the majority (opinion) (Exod. 23: 2).’

13 From this point onwards the text switches to Aramaic, up to here it is in Hebrew.

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R. Nathan met Elijah [the prophet]. He said to him: ‘What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour?’ He said to him: ‘He laughed and said: My children have defeated me, my children have defeated me.’14

This story seems to make an extremely sophisticated conceptual point about the relationship between original revelation and subsequent human elaboration of the halakhah. Although it is, as usual, impossible to tell how representative or widespread this view would have been at a given time during the rabbinic period, it is borne out by the literary structures that I have dealt with throughout this chapter. The business of determining the halakhah accurately is a human business. Although one type of evidence used for this task is the meaning of divine revelation as objectiWed in Scripture, the option of some further direct revelation is conceptually problematic for the human enterprise of interpreting and determining halakhah. However, despite this conceptual tension, rabbinic literature is far from presenting a consistently negative view of divine intervention. We need look no further than the above-quoted heavenly announcement of the halakhic priority of the House of Hillel (Bavli Eruvin 13b) for evidence of a positive acceptance of such divine intervention. On this issue, as on most other doctrinal points, rabbinic literature either contains opinions which were never reconciled, or tacit conceptual distinctions whose complementary relationship is not explicated. The second eVect of the literary presence of disputes is a stress on the central role which arguments, warrants, reasons, or other types of evidence play in rabbinic thought. This is why rabbinic texts, without being conceptually explicit or thematically deWned, can yet be seen as embodying a discourse of a certain type. The rabbinic talk calls for and appreciates evidence. Finally, the prominence of disputes creates the conceptual space in which rabbinic hermeneutics can unfold. For the use of Scripture as argument for rabbinic propositions depends on the existence of a wider discourse in which arguments are valued. Biblical hermeneutics and the admission of disagreement among humans are two sides of the same coin in rabbinic discourse. 14 Bavli Bava Metsia 59b; my translation is partly adapted from P. S. Alexander, Textual Sources, 81–2.


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Select Further Reading The folkloristic aspects of certain rabbinic narratives are illustrated and explained in Hasan-Rokem, Web of Life. Interesting explorations of rabbinic narratives of martyrdom are Boyarin, ‘The Talmud Meets Church History’ and Goldberg, ‘Das Martyrium des Rabbi Aqiva’. For the ma’aseh, see Goldberg, Rabbinische Texte, 22–49. Goldberg also makes an important distinction between the quotation as literary form and historical fact in ‘Zitat und Citem’, and speaks about the nature of rabbinic texts as what I have called ‘pure’ communication in ‘Der verschriftete Sprechakt’; see also his ‘Die Zersto¨rung von Kontext’. On rabbinic biography, the reliability of attributions, and the historicity of disputes, see the excellent summary in Stemberger, Introduction, 57–62; also Green, ‘What’s in a Name?’ The individual voice of a rabbi, or the manner in which the Babylonian Gemara might preserve or create distinctions between generations of rabbinic voices, is explored in Kalmin, Sages, Stories, Authors, and Editors; see also Kraemer, The Mind of the Talmud, 20–5, and the summary of tests in Elman, Authority and Tradition, 22–3; Elman himself thinks it is possible to test ‘each [Amora’s] corpus for ideological and legal consistency’ (22). Views on the Mishnaic stam, in particular where it is disputed, are summarized by Guttmann, ‘The Problem of the Anonymous Mishna’. Scha¨fer explains why it is unsatisfactory to assume that all of rabbinic literature forms one whole corpus without making distinctions of historical context in ‘Research into Rabbinic Literature’; see also the reply by Milikowsky, ‘The Status Quaestionis’. The fundamental importance of disputes and dialectical argument for rabbinic texts is illustrated in Jacobs, The Talmudic Argument, Ch. 1; rabbinic passages speaking about halakhic disputes are collected in Ben-Menachem et al., Controversy and Dialogue. On the developments that might have allowed or suppressed halakhic disagreements among the historical rabbis, see Urbach, The Sages, 593–630; see also his The Halakhah. On the forms of disputes, and their distribution in the Mishnah and the Tosefta, see Neusner, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities. Part 21, 166–90; also Fisch, Rational Rabbis. Jackson addresses the relationship between divine and human law in ‘The Practice of Justice’.

7 Oral and Written Texts Rabbinic documents present themselves to some extent as having their root in the oral transmission of information. I attempt to summarize some important aspects of the rabbis’ own explanation of this, nowadays treated under the label ‘oral Torah’. I then explore the hermeneutic eVect of oral contexts, as well as the constitution of ‘social texts’ in the interaction of several voices in conversation. For the latter I distinguish two scenarios: the selective use of an existing text in a discussion setting; and a kind of ‘committee’ meeting in which a record of rabbinic information is created from scratch. The chapter concludes with a critique of the idea that rabbinic texts were shaped by oral performance or for it.

I D E A S O F O R A L TOR A H A F T E R T H E M I S H NA H The gesture of quoting rabbis depicts them as speaking their opinions, not as writing them. So this literary device emphasizes the separate oral occasions of the statements now locked together in a Wxed order, the text. Many rabbinic statements make this point explicit by saying that rabbinic knowledge is, or should be, oral. But pronouncements on orality are, like those on any other topic, scattered across diVerent passages and works. There is no comprehensive, uniWed view on the nature of oral rabbinic knowledge explained in the sources. It appears, however, that the idea of oral knowledge became increasingly important in the self-perception of rabbinic Judaism after the Mishnah.

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I shall now try to give an overview of the variety of views on oral tradition which one can Wnd in a range of thematic settings, literary contexts, and formats. In some of these statements oral knowledge is taken to be a Wxed body of information, while in others it appears as open-ended. Pronouncements that tradition was in fact orally transmitted are found alongside others that it should be so transmitted. Occasionally one receives the impression that Xuid formulations are envisaged, at other times total Wdelity to received words is implied or expressed. Oral transmission from the earliest times can be claimed for speciWc items of information. Thus a rule that Jews who settled in the lands of Ammon and Moab are obliged to a give a certain kind of tithe is called ‘a halakhah to Moses from Sinai’ (halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai).1 The Mishnah as a whole is also a text for which an oral origin is taken for granted in the later rabbinic literature, and perhaps implicitly claimed in the opening part of Tractate Avot (which is likely to have been added later). The Mishnah, and by extension all rabbinic literature, can thus be treated by later tradition as a manifestation of ‘oral Torah’ (torah she-be’al peh). In some usages it becomes clear that the fact that rabbinic tradition is written down does not deprive it of its status as oral Torah. Accordingly, when used in opposition to the ‘written Torah’ (torah she-bikhtav), namely the Hebrew Bible, the contrast is not necessarily between one written and one oral corpus of information; it can be between two diVerent types of Wxed, written texts. What makes the diVerence then is that the ‘written Torah’ is interpreted and its meaning unfolded by the ‘oral Torah’. Sometimes the latter is seen as having been transmitted separately from (but concurrently with) the ‘written Torah’, and thus Wxed. Alternatively, it is taken to be progressively extracted from the biblical text by successive generations of readers, and thus dynamic. In some rabbinic circles, the oral transmission of halakhic knowledge was valued to the exclusion of writing, or at least certain uses of 1 Mishnah Yadayyim 4: 3; the formula is also found in Mishnah Peah 2: 6, and Eduyyot 8: 7, but the latter is not a halakhic norm. More such statements appear in other sources; cf. Scha¨fer, Studien, 184 ff.; Hayes, ‘Halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai in Rabbinic Sources’.

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writing. There is, however, little doubt that in practice both writing and memorization were used in the creation and dissemination of thematic-halakhic texts.2 There is evidence that the Mishnah’s Wxed wording and other texts were learned by rote. In some formal settings these texts were apparently recited for teaching purposes by a professional memorizer called tanna (the same word as for the Mishnaic rabbi), who acted under the direction of a rabbi. Some modern scholars think that the Mishnah was published orally, and was composed with ease of memorization in mind. I shall address this view below. With the occasional exception of cases such as a halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai just mentioned, the Mishnah’s reporting voice appears to have direct knowledge of what rabbis were saying. The report is straightforward, and the same anonymous voice is capable of saying of rabbis of all Tannaitic generations and locations, ‘R. X said’, rather like the ‘omniscient’ narrator of a novel reporting events that no one person could have witnessed directly. In other words, the perspective of the Mishnaic gesture of quotation turns all the mentioned rabbis into contemporaries of the reporting persona, and thus of each other. In the Gemaras and the Amoraic Midrashim, by contrast, the gesture of quotation becomes more complex. The documents use the simple Mishnaic ‘Rabbi X said/says’ for some quotations. But for other material, they report the report of an utterance, as in the following formulae: R. X said in the name of R. Y: < . . . > R. X said that R. Y said: < . . . > It was taught: Our Rabbis taught: , etc.3

In contrast to statements introduced by the simple ‘R. X said’, it is impossible to think of these utterances as being taken down in writing directly by the reporting voice as a witness. Rather, the iterated speech report presents them as requiring oral transmission before reaching the reporting voice: someone said what another 2 The most important explicit rabbinic statements on orality are collected and analysed in Scha¨fer, Studien, 153–97, and Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth. 3 See Mielziner, Introduction, 220 ff.; Kalmin, Sages, Stories, Authors, and Editors, 127–40.


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person said, before it reached the ears of the reporter speaking in the text. So the Amoraic works appear to place a more self-conscious emphasis on the oral mediation of rabbinic knowledge. This is part of a wider set of diVerences between the Mishnaic (and Toseftan) evidence for oral tradition and that of the later books. Some emphatic statements praising orality and memorization are tied in particular to the circle of the third-century ce Galilean Amora R. Yochanan, as cited in the Talmud Yerushalmi.4 More generally speaking, attempts to demonstrate the authenticity of halakhic statements seem to have increased after the Mishnah, either by claiming for them an early origin or by tying them to Scripture in midrashic units. The rise to prominence of Christianity as a rival religious tradition claiming the same Holy Scriptures may have helped to trigger this development. But the very appearance on the scene of the Mishnah, or of some Mishnah-like text, could also have contributed to important changes in the idea of tradition. Through its thematic arrangement the Mishnah provided a general, large-scale order for halakhic information, as well as a model of how to formulate additional small statements, whether for complementing or disagreeing with it. The Mishnah’s existence may also have accentuated a rabbinic preference for Wxed-wording halakhah over more diVuse forms of traditional knowledge, including mere custom or social practice. If taken as an exclusive model of oral Torah, the Mishnah would have suggested that only Wxed halakhic sentences carry authority. The memorization of such sentences could then have come to dominate the idea of oral Torah, sidelining any practices that were not verbalized, or accepting them only once they were verbalized (more on this in the next chapter). The orality of knowledge becomes a Xashpoint of group conXict and identity in several periods of Judaism. The priestly Sadducees are reported to have rejected the non-biblical tradition of the lay Pharisees in pre-rabbinic times. Later the rabbis may have used the idea of an exclusive oral Torah as a defence against Christian claims to the authentic biblical meaning. And in the post-talmudic period the

4 Scha¨fer, Studien, 163, and Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth, 147 ff.

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Karaites reacted against rabbinic ideas with a programmatic return to Scripture as the prime basis of authority. Applied to these conXicts, ‘oral’ tends to mean: a group laying claim to an undocumented, but originally divine, knowledge which supplements the Bible.

ORAL RECITATION AS PROVIDING ITS OWN HERMENEUTIC CONTEXT So much for the ideological role of the claim to orality. What about the historical claim implied by that ideological one? Is oral tradition a historical category of description which explains the nature of rabbinic documents? Yes and no. On the one hand, even if we had no historical evidence for an oral background of rabbinic documents, we would still need to postulate such a background as part of our taking the texts at face value. Both their ubiquitous reference to a milieu of verbal discussion, and the literary structures created by an anonymous voice constantly ‘citing’ all information, would ensure that. On the other hand, any oral scenario we can imagine seems to have shaped the extant texts only in a very indirect and partial manner. It is useful to distinguish two aspects in the eVect which a social context of use might have had. The Wrst is the hermeneutic horizon it would have provided for any text quoted or recited in it; more on this presently. The second is the mechanics of production which a social context may have imposed on the composition of new texts, or the reconstitution of existing ones. I shall argue that the emphasis placed by many modern scholars on the contrast between the written and the oral is quite misleading. Something is a text the moment single statements come to stand next to each other, are given an arrangement, whether that happens by saying them or by writing them. The fact that the oral text is—at least, in theory—more ephemeral than the written one does not mean that it can be produced without determining an arrangement, and thus the creation of some kind of textuality. The more important dividing line falls between solitary composition of texts on the one hand, and their social production on the other. I shall Wrst deal with the hermeneutic eVect of social text use, later with the question of social text creation.


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What use did rabbinic groups make of the key texts that were already in existence from the third century onwards, namely Scripture and the Mishnah? The Mishnah we have today is by no means wholly identical with that of the third century ce. But some Wxedphrase text of Tannaitic origin seems to have begun to circulate and be discussed in rabbinic circles in Palestine and Babylonia, eventually leading to two distinct Gemaras with roughly the same Mishnah as their base text. The manner of circulation of the Mishnah is generally assumed to have been oral, namely as recitation in front of a group, informally or by a professional memorizer, the above-mentioned tanna. Scripture too was presumably quoted orally on many occasions. Oral speech implies human company in social interaction, and thus usually a context which narrows down the meaning of quoted words to what made sense at that time, in that place. This is what I mean by the expression ‘hermeneutic horizon’. In the case of a fairly homogeneous group of people with shared experiences, a text’s contextualization by the present situation—the situation of gathering—would often also be intuitively shared. Thus the situation of social delivery would, almost unavoidably, fulWl a hermeneutic function. This function would be quite independent of whether or not the perceived meaning of the quoted text was also verbalized in an explicit commentary accompanying that text. Where there was explicit interpretation, that is, extra words over and beyond those of the recited text, there the shared situation may have constituted the hermeneutic horizon for that interpretation. And where there was no explicit commentary, communal reading might nevertheless have sown the seeds of a future commentary. If a member of the group later recalled the communal experience of recitation or quotation, she or he might have been in a position to spell out aspects of the shared hermeneutic horizon of that recitation. It is possible that some of the concrete interpretations of Scripture and the Mishnah now found in midrashic literature and in the Gemaras have their origin in tacit hermeneutic experiences of a communal recitation. If the word ‘oral’ is thus taken to point to the hermeneutic horizon which all socially shared recitation creates, then it makes good conceptual sense to speak of the meaning of the written Torah as oral Torah, as the rabbinic statements often seem to do. The text of

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the Pentateuch in particular was ‘made oral’ in performance by a variety of procedures: reading, rendering into Aramaic, retelling, commenting, teaching, and preaching and discussion. It was divided into sections for weekly liturgical readings from a scroll which contained only the consonantal text, and thus required a person’s voice or mind to turn it into complete language in the Wrst place. That recitation was furthermore accompanied by a rendering (targum) into the vernacular of the day, Aramaic. For those who understood both Hebrew and Aramaic, the Targum amounted to a rephrasing of the original. Selected biblical texts were also performed in the liturgy, prime examples being the Shema’ and certain Psalms, for example the group called Hallel (Psalms 113–18). Midrashic retellings of, and comments on, the biblical text were part of rabbinic expositions and homilies, delivered in a variety of settings not restricted to the synagogue service. Quoting biblical texts for teaching and discussion must have taken place in schools and rabbinic training institutions, which were also devoted to dealing with the Mishnah and related information. It is likely that the diVerent settings for a communal reception of texts were not neatly separated from each other by function or venue, whether they are referred to as beit ha-sefer (school), beit ha-midrash (house of study), beit talmud (Talmud school), beit ha-knesset (synagogue), yeshivah, or even sanhedrin and beit din (both words for ‘court’). These terms can have diVerent meanings in diVerent passages, reXecting divergences between various rabbinic periods and locations. But all of these will, at times, have provided the setting of a unique hermeneutic horizon for Wxed texts, with or without their explicit reformulation. To these must be added the domestic setting which could on occasion take on a great importance, as when a master attracted a circle of disciples to his home, or when learned parents educated their children. Silent and solitary reading of any written text was not the rule in the cultures of antiquity. This means that even one person reading for his or her own purposes in a domestic setting might well have had an ‘audience’ although there was no appointment with one. That person might even have been drawn into commenting on the text. In any case, it is worth noting that the two activities of ‘reading’ a book and of commenting on it were not as clearly separated in rabbinic antiquity as they would be today.


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So both Scripture and the Mishnah were often—perhaps usually— encountered in an oral and social medium which acted as the immediate hermeneutic horizon for their meaning. But the speciWc circumstances of such readings or recitations, and thus the concrete hermeneutic results they had, are unknown to us. Rabbinic literature makes no eVort to preserve relevant information on these unique contexts of interpretation, quite the contrary. There is pervasive indiVerence to the task of articulating historical contexts, both for single statements of interpretation and for whole works of commentary. It almost looks as if rabbinic texts are programmatic in not informing the reader about the speciWcs of any communal occasions in which its hermeneutic ideas were rooted orally, all the while stressing that they have such oral roots. This creates the impression that the historical uniqueness which distinguishes each single context from another does not matter, because the approach is essentially the same—namely ‘rabbinic’—across all the diVerent occasions. In this way the texts create the suggestion that only one context is necessary for all knowledge: the generic rabbinic one.

D I V I D I N G L A RG E T E XT S F O R U S E O N COMMUNAL OCCASIONS How would the whole of a rabbinic work, or of Scripture, be present to the user in antiquity? The communal, and therefore at least partly oral, use of texts naturally calls for a division of larger texts into smaller parts. These parts would be what one might call occasionsized. This goes both for shared readings, where all participants have a written copy handy for consultation, and for recitations where only the reciter, or not even he, uses a written text. How much of a text can be made present to a group on any one occasion? That depends both on the nature of the text and on the purpose of the communal recitation; when Ezra read from ‘the scroll of the torah of Moses’, he is reported to have taken ‘from Wrst light until midday’ (Neh. 8: 1–3). Narrative is easily grasped in one go, even if it requires a longish text to be told. If, on the other hand, the group was concerned with the precise wording of a narrative, or with details taken out of their

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context, then even narrative episodes would have to be broken down into smaller units. In the case of thematic-halakhic texts, however, the internally organized series of statements (as deWned in Chapter 3), is easier to treat than the cluster, which would probably require to be divided into smaller sub-units. The above-mentioned weekly synagogue portion of the Pentateuch, called seder or parashah, is a direct result of the requirement to cut a larger text down to occasion-sized units. If certain Mishnaic norms describe actual practice, then the weekly portion was distributed to several readers (cf. Mishnah Megillah 4: 1–2). Furthermore, each verse was a theme unto itself because its reading alternated with the Aramaic version, the Targum (Megillah 4: 4). As for the Mishnah, it would have been impossible to deliver the whole of it on one occasion, and the same goes for most complete Tractates if their substance was to be digested, taught, or discussed in the group for the Wrst time. In any case, the hermeneutic mechanism of representing texts in a communal setting clearly calls for text divisions which are in most cases signiWcantly smaller than a whole rabbinic or biblical book. Considering documents apart from their social settings, as written physical artefacts, the situation is not that diVerent. Large documents still would have had to be divided into much smaller units than is usual today. The scroll of conditioned leather was the main means for recording larger texts in writing, and it was fairly limited in its capacity. The Qumranic Isaiah scroll, which is approximately 7.3 metres long, is perhaps a typical example for normal capacity.5 Larger scrolls existed. A talmudic passage suggests that scrolls for liturgical use should contain the whole Pentateuch (Bavli Gittin 60a), rather than its individual books only.6 But while large scrolls were Wne for certain purposes, they would have been something of an obstacle course for any unguided study of a text. By contrast, the modern one-volume editions of Scripture and Mishnah presuppose both moveable print and the codex format. The codex, which was 5 See Wu¨rthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, 8; cf. Niditch, Oral World and Written Word, 73 f. The Temple Scroll, the largest of the Qumran documents, is 9 metres long; see Maier, The Temple Scroll, 1. 6 Bavli Bava Batra 13b even seems to envisage a combined scroll containing all parts of the Hebrew Bible.


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adopted with enthusiasm by early Christianity from the end of the Wrst century ce, seems to have taken until the fourth century ce to gain parity with the use of scrolls in the wider Roman world, and apparently even longer in rabbinic circles. Comparing the wording of separate passages, and jumping from one to the other, are taken for granted as procedures of modern philology and literary criticism. These would have been very diYcult with a scroll, unless the reader already possessed intimate prior knowledge of the text, or indeed had it by heart. In fact, ‘scribes’ in antiquity are often not so much distinguished by a contents-neutral ability to read and write, as by an all-round competence in a limited corpus of culturally central documents. The other rabbinic writing materials of which we know, such as wooden tablets (Greek pinax ¼ Hebrew pinkas), potsherds, and also individual sheets of leather or papyrus, would hold fairly short texts only. In a word, the technology of writing, just as the use of texts in social settings, called for the sub-division of larger texts. Nevertheless, this written and oral fragmentation need not have prevented a commanding and detailed grasp of large texts. At least, the physical togetherness of large documents is only one factor in achieving such a grasp. Nowadays both the Hebrew Bible and the Mishnah are available in convenient formats, be it as print or in computerized form, the latter with powerful search mechanisms. Yet physical or electronic compactness is just a convenient material basis for the engagement with the text. In order to achieve a mastery of large texts, long periods of study, reXection, and rereading are necessary. Constant general retention and active recall of speciWc information are crucial even for a single reading of a text.7 This is because the constitutive parts of a text, from its sentences to its passages, sections, chapters, and so forth, need to be assembled one after the other. A text is not available in one go, but always requires the bridging of separate moments of meaning across small time intervals. In this respect, material advances in the compactness of texts do not, as such, render the constitutive sentences any more ‘simultaneous’ than they would have been in antiquity.

7 The term ‘retention’ comes from Husserl’s philosophy of time consciousness; see my ‘Observations’.

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RECONSTITUTING TEXTS IN SOCIAL INTERACTION So much for the oral use of texts once they were Wxed. Was the very act of creating new texts, that is, the locking of sentences into a Wxed arrangement, also inXuenced by oral settings? Could this account for key features of rabbinic documents, in particular the following: that they form potentially open sets of statements, that their repertoire of small forms is very limited, and that they have no declared literarythematic boundaries? I think that the number of imaginary contexts that would Wt this bill is larger than is often assumed. I shall, however, concentrate on three scenarios, to be dealt with in this and subsequent sections: the selective use and modiWcation of a Wxed text in a setting of teaching or discussion, the text as a record of a thematic conversation, and the patterning of texts in oral performance. The Wrst scenario to consider would have two components: an existing text used selectively, together with extra utterances relating to that text. A new, ‘social’, text is created by such an interaction of voices, even if no record of it is produced. Firstly, the original text is reconstituted in a new way by the selection and recombination of its parts. To take an example. In Mishnah Sukkah 1: 1 there is a statement on the maximum permitted height—twenty cubits—of the festival booth (sukkah) used during Tabernacles, followed by another one on the booth’s minimum height. Such an arrangement of the two statements and themes (Wrst maximum, then minimum height) could, in social use, be suspended in favour of a diVerent one. After quoting the Wrst statement in Mishnah Sukkah 1: 1, someone in the group could quote a statement on the maximum permitted height of an entirely diVerent structure, the cross-beam which marks a private domain on the Sabbath, which has the same value: twenty cubits. This is a statement currently found in Mishnah Eruvin 1: 1. If these two statements, Sukkah 1: 1 and Eruvin 1: 1, were brought together in a social setting, the Mishnaic sequence of statements would be reconstituted to form a new text, although all statements involved would still be Mishnaic in origin. That would produce new thematic sequences, created ad hoc as part of an interaction of teaching and discussion. As I showed in Chapter 3, the Mishnah’s aggregate structure allows precisely for such rearrange-


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ments, and even for the simultaneous maintenance of multiple thematic links. While the ‘social text’ thus created comes and goes, leaving as such no permanent trace, it can nevertheless feed into a later process of reconstituting or modifying the earlier text. Perhaps the Mishnah as we have it is thus a modiWcation of an earlier text which we do not have any more.8 Secondly, there are new utterances in the situation which can Wnd their way into an enriched version of the text. There are two principal possibilities here, according to whether the new statements (1) speak about the same topic as the existing text, or (2) treat that text as their topic. (1) If the new statements are of the same type as the existing text, they complement, contradict, or complicate that text. One or more persons in the gathering would make these new statements on the basis of personal recollections of other texts (be they rabbinic or biblical), utterances, or experiences, and formulate them for that occasion. There may be verbal interaction between the persons present, although the extent of such interaction would depend on the nature of the meeting. The new statements are Xeeting and, like the rearrangement of the existing text considered above, leave no permanent record in themselves. However, they may be recalled by an author-editor on a later occasion for the purpose of enriching and expanding the existing text in certain ways, for example by way of multiple thematic links. Thus an editor may insert into an existing cluster of statements on the Shema’, occasional statements on the Eighteen Benedictions where that prayer has the same or contrasting halakhic rules. My cluster example, Mishnah Berakhot 2–3, manifests such multiple thematic links, with the Shema’ constituting the constant theme, while the Eighteen Benedictions are an intermittent one (see Sample Text I). The other main possibility is (2) that the extra information is presented as commentary on the existing text, or that the existing text is selectively quoted in such a way that one quotation illuminates the meaning of another. In that case the social text has, at least in parts, the form of a commentary. It is often considered that the 8 The Mishnah itself mentions a ‘first mishnah’, at least in connection with specific norms (e.g. Nazir 6: 1; in Sanhedrin 3: 4 opposed to the ‘mishnah of R. Aqiva’); see Stemberger, Introduction, 125–6.

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Gemara, to the extent that it is a commentary on the Mishnah, constitutes the written-down version of such social texts. For the actual wording and sequence of the Gemara’s units, this is highly unlikely (see point 6 at the end of the next chapter, and Chapter 9). But for some of its basic structural elements, this is very plausible. The Babylonian Gemara will regularly throw light on one Mishnaic statement by quoting a second statement from an entirely diVerent location, as happens at Sukkah 2a with the two Mishnaic statements used as an illustration earlier (Sukkah 1: 1 and Eruvin 1: 1).9 The Gemara thereby does two of the things mentioned above: it places passages next to each other which are textually separate in the Mishnah, and it creates a commentary about one of them. I shall say more about this in Chapter 9. The scenario of the social text thus allows for three key ways to manipulate the existing text: (a) by using it as a quarry for selective quotations, and recombining them; (b) by interweaving with it new statements on the same topic; and (c) by making it the topic of the new statements. These three elements are known to us from the relationship of rabbinic documents to each other. In particular, quarrying and recombination of earlier texts—all of which may now be lost to us—may explain the phenomenon of rabbinic parallels. These are, as explained in Chapter 3, near-identical statements (or sets of statements) occurring, apparently independently, several times in rabbinic literature, in divergent literary settings. Parallels are never acknowledged as such, and often it is impossible to identify one of the literary contexts as the original one. The social text, as I have characterized it above, is a model for such parallel occurrences of pieces of texts. It is an entirely occasion-bound reuse of parts of an existing text, so that no two occasions produce exactly the same new social text. The same selected unit could therefore Wnd itself being put to quite diVerent purposes and acquire quite divergent meanings. But if such social texts provide a model for inXuences on the later production of Wxed texts, created by memorization or by writing, then this model is entirely abstract. There are no accounts of such sessions contained in rabbinic documents (or outside) which would supply concrete detail in a descriptive fashion. 9 See Sample Text III, nos. 6–11.


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The aggregate nature of rabbinic documents as we have them today could thus be at least partly due to a constant quarry-use of their predecessor texts. Alternatively, they were partly constituted as aggregates because their future quarry-use was anticipated. There would be an important consequence of this. It would mean that the rabbis put their own texts together in the same way in which they conceived of the biblical text, namely as consisting of micro-Scriptures. Both for composing and for reading, they would thus have treated a text as if it was constituted by segments with multiple textual function. But the social text scenario, if it is historically appropriate at all, is best suited to explain how the texts could have become as thematically multi-layered as they are today. It does not account for the fact that any thematic ‘backbone’ which one might Wnd in the documents already lacks clear literary-thematic boundaries. No reasonable amount of ‘stripping out’ extra material will suddenly produce texts of an entirely diVerent nature, with clear thematic demarcation, sets of statements which are explicitly marked as closed or open, or a hierarchical subordination of parts. Nor does the scenario explain why there was no attempt in the rabbinic period to rework the information in such a way that text-shape corresponded to knowledge-shape. That must have had additional reasons, perhaps reXecting the kind of deep-seated assumptions about the nature of knowledge which I have mentioned before and to which I shall return later.

THEMATIC CLUSTERING AND THEMATIC C ON V E RS AT I O N The pie`ce de re´sistance for any attempt to explain rabbinic thematic order is the cluster as Wrst discussed in Chapter 3. Can the idea of social text production help in understanding the cluster? In the cluster of statements (or larger units), the thematic principle appears both embodied and violated, as it forms a poly-thematic aggregate, but also a thematic unity of sorts. The cluster could be summarized as a set of statements whose mutual relationship, while prima facie

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suggesting a common topic, is ambiguous and shifting throughout; which may form an open set or a closed one; and whose boundaries depend on reader decisions about whether to stress the similarities or the dissimilarities between each neighbouring pair of statements. Here again are the fourteen themes relating to the Shema’ which make up the cluster in Mishnah Berakhot 2–3: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

reading the biblical text of the Shema’, interruption for greeting, inaudible recitation, unclear enunciation, wrong order, mistake in an earlier part, workmen in a tree or on a wall, bridegroom on the wedding night, mourner before funeral, pall bearer, return from funeral, inner or outer row of consoling friends, women/slaves/minors, emission of semen. (See Chapter 3 and Sample Text I)

If compared to the control of a sole author, the manner in which these single sentences work together to form a thematic composition looks like a Wrst draft, not the Wnished product. For the Wnished product we would expect the statements to be rearranged in such a way that the toing and froing asked of the reader is minimal. This entails, among other things, that the more general information comes Wrst, so that statement number 13 would perhaps become statement number 1. One would also expect that the information would be supplemented by further statements which spell out other aspects or norms that are here presupposed (such as the role of intention, or the language in which the Shema’ is to be recited). The impression of a lack of Wnish arises from the partial use of the thematic principle: enough to cluster these statements together, but not enough to order and connect them internally. One social scenario has an equally partial use of the thematic principle: the conversation. I am thinking here of a conversation


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involving several speakers each of whom can introduce a shift of topic into the dialogue. Conversations can thus drift from one theme to another, to yet another, and so forth, without necessarily breaking the thread between any two adjacent utterances. The starting point and the end point of the conversation are connected by thematic continuity, and yet can be very far from each other, because of the cumulative eVect of intervening thematic shifts. And although the ‘logic’ of the shifts can, one by one, be interpreted and articulated with hindsight, it cannot be dictated in advance. More than one voice is constructing the social text which is constituted by the conversation, in the sense of: more than one mind, will, or intelligence is at work. I suggest that in some cases the thematic shifts of clusters may echo such conversational shifts. For that to be the case, one would have to postulate a special kind of conversation, which could have been held for the purposes of collecting and recording rabbinic information. In order to match the literary structure of clusters, I postulate more speciWcally the following features: (i) a group of persons speaking to each other about halakhic norms, each of them free to contribute the ‘next point’; (ii) an approximate theme envisaged for the meeting, but no advance agenda; (iii) one person succinctly formulating the results of the discussion for each sub-topic in the sequence in which it comes up; (iv) that person probably using the standard small statement forms to formulate the results, but not using any extra words to connect them to each other; and (v) a chairperson exercising moderate control of where the discussion is going, but aiming to err on the side of inclusion. The statements would either be taken down in writing, or, perhaps less likely, someone would be charged with memorizing them, in the sequence in which they were formulated by the person mentioned in (iii). In this scenario the literary features of the rabbinic cluster would be shaped by the following conversational mechanisms. First, the temporal succession of the mention of themes becomes the textual sequence. This is the key point, because it means that no one person is the sole author of the text. In particular, no one can exercise the sole author’s prerogative to obliterate the traces of the original sequence in which ideas came to her/him by imposing some stringent logicalthematic order. Second, each person’s commitment face to face with

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fellow experts vouches for the validity of the statements, and the authority of the group accepting that person’s report or supplementing it enhances that authority, or perhaps limits it by placing a divergent opinion alongside. Third, the actual contents of the statements are deWned by the accident of who happens to be present at a given meeting, and what they may feel necessary to articulate explicitly. What is basic enough to be taken for granted might well remain unmentioned in such a setting, or be mentioned not at the beginning. The reason for this is that the meeting would have its own contextual horizon of shared meanings (see above). The meeting would not undertake the labour—which is typically a labour of composition for the sole author—of trying to imagine the many future contexts into which the words now articulated could fall, and what safeguards would prevent ambiguity or misunderstanding. The intended audience of the text created by the meeting would be Wrst and foremost that meeting itself, or further social contexts very similar in structure and purpose. Every speaker would also be a member of the audience, and not concerned with imagining entirely diVerent audiences. Fourth, no one person’s constant outlook, experiences, or preferences would act as a Wlter for what is recorded. DiVerent statements would appear in the same cluster side by side because of the development of the conversation. They would not be neighbours because their ultimate compatibilty with each other had been tested in and by the process of composition,10 as could be the case for sole-authored texts and as is indeed expected of them in contemporary scholarship. So some of the clusters found in documents such as the Mishnah or the Tosefta might go back, in their bare thematic outlines, to records created from such ‘committee conversations’, or any other historical scenario which provides for undeclared and open-ended thematic shifts. The thematic sequence in them would be socially produced and later supplemented by various complex processes of enrichment, some of which would also be social, as described above. Plausible historical periods for the initiation of such meetings would 10 Cf. Ong, Orality and Literacy, 103, on the elimination of inconsistencies in speech and writing, and my remarks on reading cluster statements ‘backwards’ in Chapter 3.


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be the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple in 70 ce, and again that of the second revolt against the Romans in 132–5. These events, together with the emergence of Christianity, are often taken to have been catalysts for the consolidation of early rabbinic halakhah, and some such eVort of consolidation or revision must surely have taken place before a complex and formally homogeneous work like the Mishnah could appear on the scene fully formed. Why would the composers or editors have accepted the basic thematic sequence created in a conversational cluster when putting clusters together to form Tractates? Three reasons come to mind. First, there is the inertia exerted by existing structures in the absence of any strong incentive to change them. Some sequence of themes is already given in the cluster as it is—why change it unless one is driven by a need to create context-independent, self-explicating knowledge (see below)? Second, the conversational procedure implies a collective consensus and authority not just for the statements themselves, but also for their sequence of mention, which could have commanded the composers’ respect. Third, composers may have anticipated that their text would be used in contexts of social interaction of the type described in the preceding section. In that case, imposing a central arrangement on the cluster statements would have made the selective or quarry use of these texts more diYcult. The statement from a cluster is easier to place into entirely new contexts than a statement which is made dependent on its literary environment, or even lined up in a progressive series. This would also imply that the composers accorded the authority to remake the text to those anticipated users, teachers, or groups.11 I have presented the speculative scenario of the ‘committee conversation’ with some gusto in the preceding pages. Nevertheless, I do not believe that there is a one-to-one correspondence between a given literary structure (here, the cluster) and a historical scenario (the ‘committee conversation’).12 No literary structure can reliably be tied to only one purpose or only one scenario of composition. Once a literary regularity becomes perceptible in any existing text, whatever 11 For a summary of how texts were reconstructed in their use, see Hezser, ‘The Mishnah’, 174–9. 12 I am grateful to Gu¨nter Stemberger for prompting me to address the methodological issues here.

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its origin, that regularity can be imitated as such, by the same or by another author, in the same or totally diVerent circumstances. Its use can then also contaminate, undermine, or replace the effect of any individual or institutional scenario through which the form was Wrst forged (e.g. what is often called Sitz im Leben). The form is then a conventional vehicle of meaning, not an immediate mirror of its setting or Sitz im Leben. The possibility of shifts in the relationship between form and purpose is ever-present. In fact such shifts are inevitable in rabbinic literature, which was produced by scores of people over a span of more than Wve centuries. Therefore the literary structure alone cannot be considered as suYcient evidence for a projected historical scenario of composition, regardless of how well it Wts that scenario. For that we would need speciWc information on how and why a concrete passage or document was created. So it seems that the best one can do is to keep expanding the range of historically possible scenarios for the structures as we Wnd them, and this is what the ‘committee conversation’ is meant to do for the ‘cluster’.

PAT T ERNING IN HALAKHIC TEXTS Many modern historians think primarily of mnemonic or oral patterning when it comes to explaining the de-centred structures of rabbinic aggregates. In this view, the text structures arise from the process of shaping traditional knowledge through repeated oral performance. The scholarly paradigm for this is the Homeric epic, shaped mnemonically by poetic devices, formulae, and thematic set pieces. In research on oral literature more generally speaking, the main relationships between statements in a text tend to be narrative.13 Yet large-scale narrative ordering of statements is almost entirely absent from rabbinic literature.14 Non-narrative patterning 13 See the preponderance of narrative forms in the survey of Aune, ‘Prolegomena to the Study of Oral Tradition’; also Foley, The Theory of Oral Composition. But see Elman, Authority and Tradition, 82–3; cf. 38–9. 14 Tractates Yoma and Tamid follow the temporal sequence of actions in the Temple during an exemplary day, while the opening chapters of Mishnah Avot present sayings according to the chronological order of rabbis. But none of these Tractates is structured by the ‘thereafter’ and ‘therefore’ of narrative.


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of halakhic material, on the other hand, would have to be in some sense thematic. Ideally a pattern would allow the reciter to recall the number, identity, and sequence15 of halakhic sentences in a cluster, for example by some schematic order of the objects in the halakhic universe. The hypothetical legal cases one Wnds in the halakhic discourse already imply an ontology, by presupposing the existence of such entities as things, persons, place, time, intentions, actions, speech, etc. An oral drill could easily be developed from this, for example: ‘Articulate each halakhic theme according to the following sequence of situational factors: (1) time, (2) type of person, (3) locality or environmental conditions, (4) materials or dimensions, (5) intention, (6) any previous action or speech.’ This would have to be adapted to Wt the needs of divergent halakhic subjects, yet within each subject such a pattern could easily create tens or hundreds of sets of statements which follow the same internal order. The drill just suggested happens to use quasi-Aristotelian categories, but there are many other possibilities, for example the order: (1) halakhic situations to do with body parts, (2) . . . animals, (3) . . . liquids, (4) . . . buildings, etc. Any pattern would do, so long as it could be applied repeatedly, and thus act as a prompt to the memory. Yet so far no convincing evidence for large-scale thematic patterning in the Mishnah or related texts has been identiWed. What one occasionally Wnds is the use of the same distinct syntax for each sentence in a cluster. This is sometimes taken as evidence of the oral shaping of halakhic texts.16 But the universal use of some distinct shape for all statements in a cluster does not, as such, impose a pattern on the cluster. For that to happen there needs to be some criterion which gives each statement a rational position in a sequence, be it progressive, hierarchical, or otherwise coordinated. Halakhic texts such as the Mishnah, including its non-patterned clusters, were memorized, rather than orally recreated. In talmudic times such rote learning of sequences of statements was supported by 15 See Lieberman, Hellenism, 89; Mielziner, Introduction, 208–9, §§ 33, 38, and cf. n. 8 in Chapter 9 below. 16 Mishnah Megillah 1: 4–11 is the most famous example of such a cluster of patterned statements. Cf. Zlotnick, Iron Pillar, 47–8; Stemberger, Introduction, 133; cf. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 153. A different kind of patterning through repetition is found in Mishnah Parah 8: 2–7.

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the use of mnemonics which are external to the theme of the statements. They consist for example in the use of extra-thematic words or phrases (called simanim), which encode a sequence of information;17 or in the use of cantillation for the recitation of the Mishnah.18 There are also generative and hermeneutic patterns in rabbinic literature, which I shall discuss in the next chapter. But when it comes to identifying patterned sequences of non-narrative topics for halakhic compositions, scholarship has so far drawn a blank. As patterned sequences of statements would be much easier to memorize than unpatterned ones, this presumably means that repeated oral performance did not make a signiWcant contribution to the shape of the thematic texts; and also that ease of memorization was not foremost in the mind of the text makers.

T H E NAT UR E O F KN OWLE D GE A N D T H E NATUR E OF TE XT S If the requirements of oral performance do not explain why rabbinic texts lack explicit thematic boundaries and completeness, what does? I have already suggested a scenario of thematic conversation which might account for how it started, at least insofar as the thematic clustering of statements is concerned. But it is very unlikely that there is only one reason, only one origin, only one function, and only one meaning to the nature of rabbinic textuality. Let me mention some more possibilities. An explanation often mentioned in the secondary literature considers rabbinic texts as deWcient discourse, somewhat in the way of a ‘Wrst draft’ (see above). It postulates that texts were created (or at least written down) hastily because the rabbinic oral tradition was in danger of being forgotten. This would not explain why the Tannaitic preference for lemmatic and thematic aggregates without deWned 17 Cf. Zlotnick, Iron Pillar, 70–1; Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, 153–6; P. S. Alexander, ‘Orality in Pharisaic-rabbinic Judaism’, 170–2. See also Neusner, Rabbinic Judaism’s Generative Logic, Ch. 6. 18 See Zlotnick, Iron Pillar, 54 ff.


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thematic hierarchies, boundaries, or consistent principles of order, is visible in works of diVerent provenance, and conWrmed and repeated in the Amoraic period. It therefore cannot be exclusively tied to speciWc historical situations or crises. Perhaps the nature of rabbinic texts simply reXects a deep-seated cultural preference shared with the ‘ancient Near East’? Many Near Eastern documents have a tendency towards loose, dynamic text shapes which makes them resemble clusters and lists more than hierarchical compositions. In particular the preference for articulating law in groups of hypothetical cases is documented in Near Eastern cultures from early times, starting with Sumerian and Akkadian texts. But how exactly would such a ‘Near Eastern’ cultural preference, if it existed, have imposed itself on the rabbis? Ideologically speaking, they did not deWne themselves as continuous with the heritage of their ancient Near Eastern neighbours, on the contrary, they perceived that heritage as tainted—by idolatry, among other things. Furthermore, the unprecedented scale on which rabbinic discourse used the hypothetical legal case turned ‘law’ into an allconsuming cultural actvity and thus gave it a radically diVerent meaning from the earlier Near Eastern uses (see the next chapter), including those of the Hebrew Bible. And Wnally, if it is true that the science of ancient Near Eastern cultures was, ‘by the standards of Aristotelian logic’, merely a proto-science—namely a ‘science of lists’19—then the rabbis found themselves in a very diVerent, postAristotelian world. In this world the conceptual achievements of Greek thought and science had become quite widely disseminated. I suggest there is a factor to be considered in explaining the nature of rabbinic documents which may indeed be tied to the wider Graeco-Roman culture: the link between knowledge-shape and text-shape. It is likely that the rabbis had at least a superWcial acquaintance with the Platonic-Aristotelian philosophical tradition and its various sectarian or scientiWc oVshoots in the Hellenistic world. Philosophical ‘schools’ in antiquity often treated their knowledge with the same loyalty as religious groups adhering to a tradition,20 and there may have been overlap in institutional and 19 Westbrook, ‘The Character’, 20. 20 See in particular Sedley, ‘Philosophical Allegiance’.

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discourse practices between such ‘schools’, and Christian and even Jewish groups. However, the rabbis may also have been aware of a more radical philosophical-scientiWc discourse, in which the fact that a proposition was handed down from earlier times added no weight to it. This radical programme of knowledge, as later European philosophers perceived it in many Greek sources, gave autonomy to the human search for knowledge, and implied a kind of redemption through total self-understanding. Fully rational, comprehensive, and self-transparent knowledge of reality is a possibility in this programme, and it thus also becomes a programme of contradictionfree text composition. The ancient document that seems to embody most clearly such a radical quest for the self-transparent text is Euclid’s Elements.21 Constructed from axioms, postulates, deWnitions, propositions, and demonstrations, its literary form was emulated by Spinoza’s Ethics at the dawn of European modernity. If the rabbis were aware of such a radical project of expressing knowledge within the boundaries of self-transparency, then they seem to have implicitly rejected it, together with the text-making strategies which it underpins (and which make it possible). The rabbinic text makers may have implicitly favoured a notion of knowledge as bound to a context, in contrast to one which sees knowledge as fully transparent to itself, and thus as suYcient unto itself. Rabbinic compositions would then not generalize, systematize, and explain themselves, because their creators did not believe in generalizing, self-foundational, and self-explicative knowledge. They would furthermore not have believed in individual human self-redemption through knowledge, perhaps partly because they found it incompatible with the notion of God as a giver of commandments. At least for some rabbis some of the time, the nature of rabbinic texts would then be tied to a conviction that redemption is achieved through obedience for the sake of obedience, or through understanding for the sake of obedience—but not through understanding for the sake of understanding.

21 ‘It thus provides an early example of a deductively organized body of knowledge, and it has functioned as a paradigm for all other sciences for at least 2 000 years’, Tiles, ‘Euclid’, 231.


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Select Further Reading Summaries of the tanna’s role as memorizer are found in Zlotnick, Iron Pillar, 14–15, and Stemberger, Introduction, 13. That the Mishnah was ‘published’ orally was proposed by Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 83–99. For the information implied in the quotation formulae (note 3) see also Frankel, Mevo Ha-Yerushalmi, 19a, and Bacher, Exegetische Terminologie, Vol. 2, 238 V. The relationship of Mishnah and Sifra is disputed; see e.g. Reichman, Mishna und Sifra and Neusner, Uniting the Dual Torah. In the same book, Neusner also presents his ideas on the development of the concept of the oral Torah. The changes which the Mishnah’s text underwent right into the Middle Ages are enumerated in Epstein, Mavo. The oral background of rabbinic literature in the wider context of antiquity is explored, for instance, in Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, Aune, ‘Prolegomena’, P. S. Alexander, ‘Orality’, and L. Alexander, ‘The Living Voice’. For the rabbinic case in particular, see the overview in Stemberger, Introduction, 40 V.; Elman, Authority and Tradition, Ch. 4; Elman amd Gershoni, Transmitting Jewish Traditions, ‘Introduction’ (1–26). Milikowsky envisages an oral composition for whole rabbinic texts in ‘The Status Quaestionis’, 208–11, while Stemberger, Introduction, 40, presents the arguments for thinking that only short units of information were circulated orally and that the creation of larger texts happened in writing. An attempt to link Mishnaic small forms to mnemonic function is made by Neusner in his Introduction, 38–45 and in other places. Roberts and Skeat, The Birth of the Codex explain the role and textual capacity of codex and scroll in Roman antiquity. The writing materials mentioned in rabbinic literature are discussed in Hezser, Jewish Literacy, 127 V. and idem, ‘The Mishnah’. For the earlier period, see Niditch’s Oral World and Written Word, in particular Ch. 4. Ong’s Orality and Literacy is a highly inXuential general investigation of these two phenomena across cultures and ages; see also Olson, The World on Paper, Chs. 5 and 7. Other approaches to the question of ‘mnemotic’ order in ancient and medieval texts include Yates, The Art of Memory, and Morrison, History as a Visual Art. I am grateful to Prof. T. Kwasman and Dr O. SoVer for drawing my attention to these. The role of retention and memory in reading is examined from a phenomenological perspective in my ‘Observations on the Activity of Reading’. Various settings of rabbinic teaching, including master–disciple, are surveyed in Stemberger, Introduction, 8–14; see also JaVee, Torah in the Mouth, and Hezser, The Social Structure; Schu¨rer, ed. Vermes, History of the Jewish People, Vol. 2, 415 V.; Levine, ‘The First Century C.E. Synagogue’. For the domestic setting of instruction in biblical times, see Jackson, Wisdom-Laws, Ch. 2 (I am indebted to Prof. Jackson for

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allowing me to consult the proofs of this work). Arnold Goldberg addresses the lack of historical context for rabbinic documents and its quoted utterances in ‘Der verschriftete Sprechakt’ and ‘Die Zersto¨rung von Kontext’. The diVerence between solitary thought and thought in dialogue is reXected in Rosenzweig’s notion of speech thinking; see, for example, Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, 198–201. The cantillation of the Mishnah is explained in Zlotnick, Iron Pillar, 54 V. and Bayer, ‘Oral Law in the ‘‘Oral Law’’ ’. For the strong parallels in discourse practices between Hellenistic philosophical ‘schools’ on the one hand, and early Christianity, and some forms of Judaism, on the other, see for example, Fischel (ed.), Essays in GrecoRoman and Related Talmudic Literature; Fisch, Rational Rabbis; L. Alexander, ‘Ipse dixit : Citation of Authority’, and several of the articles by P. S. Alexander in the Bibliography. Fuhrmann, Das systematische Lehrbuch, describes how the literary structures of Graeco-Roman teaching books reXect the perceived nature of knowledge as comprehensive and systematic. Neusner claims that the Mishnah and related documents are philosophical, but that the Babylonian Gemara, as the document that most inXuenced later Jewish habits of thought, is profoundly non-philosophical through its order of ‘Wxed association’. See his Rabbinic Judaism’s Generative Logic, Chs. 6–7.

8 Putting the World into Rabbinic Words In this chapter I suggest that the rabbis’ large-scale use of the hypothetical legal case endows this format with a special signiWcance. I take it to imply that the world is the space of possible human action in response to God’s commandment. I also consider the hypothetical legal case as a mechanism by which (further) discourse on law is generated, and by which fuzzy social practices could be progressively transformed into more sharp-edged verbal norms. The chapter concludes with a survey of generative-hermeneutic patterns of thought and text composition.

A PROV I S O PAT TE R N FO R A RTI C U L AT I N G TH E WORLD The Tractates of the Mishnah and Tosefta as well as sections of the Babylonian Gemara are organized as thematic aggregates. The mutual relationships of statements are mostly undeclared, but their grouping in clusters or series constantly invites the reader to probe their interdependency and contribution to a larger theme. In other words, the texts open up vistas of variable thematic structures of halakhah beyond the single statement. This is the upshot of my investigations in earlier chapters. The format of the hypothetical case shapes the discourse on halakhah in crucial ways. It brings together a hypothetical situation with that situation’s normative evaluation, mostly in the shape of a conditional sentence of the type ‘If . . . then’ or ‘He who . . . does/

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is . . .’. The same combination of situation and evaluation also characterizes the ma’aseh in most cases, and also many lists where the heading functions like the apodosis of a group of protases. In its various guises the pairing of a situation with an evaluation is very common in halakhic discourse, and the Mishnah alone must contain thousands of examples. It must have been well suited to the rabbinic enterprise, in particular in the format of the hypothetical legal case. I shall therefore now attempt to put into words what the format, in its large-scale use, might imply. Every hypothetical case describes a hypothetical situation, and thus puts one piece of reality after another under a magnifying glass, as it were. At the same time the normative evaluations which belong to these pieces of reality are taken to represent God’s will (in human interpretation, to be sure). The form’s message might therefore be, in a rough approximation: The world is a grid of opportunities for human action, while human action is primarily a response to the divine will. The world is thus implicitly conceptualized as opportunity to respond. Opportunities are forked into many discrete and dynamic conditions: the ‘ifs’ or provisos of the world. Reality is not seen primarily as a stable inventory of items, including things, persons, concepts, and so forth, although their existence is presupposed (see below). Moreover, the large number of hypothetical situations are not reduced to general principles of nature, law, or ethics. Rather, the fact that halakhic provisos are numerous is sometimes explicitly endorsed,1 and always presupposed. The term for commandment, mitswah, can have the connotation ‘opportunity for fulWlment of an obligation’. That there is such a plurality of opportunities or provisos seems to structure the rabbinic universe all the way through. It can therefore be taken as an ontology of sorts, in the sense of a characterization of the nature of reality. Seen in this way, it provides a parallel to the Greek–European discourse of philosophy and some scholars believe that (Mishnaic) halakhah actually constitutes a philosophy.2 However, philosophy in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle tends to 1 Cf. Mishnah Makkot 3: 16 (probably a later addition to the Mishnah), with reference to Isa. 42: 21; cf. Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation, 366; Moore, Judaism, Vol. 2, 92 V. 2 Cf. Neusner’s Judaism as Philosophy and Jerusalem and Athens ; a more ambiguous position is found in his Rabbinic Judaism’s Generative Logic, Ch. 7.


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problematize, then deWne and justify, the concepts of world description. By contrast, rabbinic texts show no interest in thematizing the ultimate validity of the concepts it uses to speak about the world. And rabbinic sources seem to convey their overarching messages entirely by implication, in particular by way of repeating literary structures.3

THE WORLD AS SO MANY OPP ORTUNITIES TO GIVE A R ESPONSE The interrelationship of hypothetical cases is furthermore not conceptualized as a network of causality, such that missing one opportunity to fulWl a commandment would condemn a person to miss a series of others. Every obligation is at least in principle seen as an independent occasion. By missing halakhic opportunities, transgressing, or failing to respond in a certain way, the member of Israel does not reach a point of no return. Although there are rabbinic passages which claim the psychological plausibility of a vicious or virtuous circle in the fulWlment of commandments,4 return or repentance (teshuvah) is always possible, namely in the form of further opportunities to respond.5 The numerical independence of many speciWc rules, the so-called casuistry of halakhah, thus stands in a two-way relationship with a notion of repentance. Repentance is possible because further opportunities for action are always given; and the opportunities for action are kept discrete, thereby never blocking the way to repentance. 3 Neusner himself stresses the implicitness: ‘Here a vast composite works in detail on accumulating evidence on behalf of a single, unarticulated but always stipulated, proposition. The point of the sustained and broad-ranging discussion, never expressed, is everywhere paramount’ (Jerusalem and Athens, 122, emphasis added). 4 For example, Mishnah Avot 4: 2 and Midrash Tanhuma (ed. Buber), Ki tetse § 1 (Vol. Devarim, p. 33); cf. Fischel, Rabbinic Literature, 152–3 n. 130. 5 See for instance, Bavli Qiddushin 49b, where the concepts of completely righteous and completely wicked are undermined; Bavli Berakhot 34b. A person’s opportunities are sometimes conceptualized as choices between the good and the evil inclination (yetser ha-tov and yetser ha-ra), parts of human nature as created by God. See Schechter, Aspects, 242–92.

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Moreover, envisaging and verbalizing all manner of separate halakhic failures eVectively provides for these failures. In the halakhic evaluation of the hypothetical case, a sanction and a remedy are very often named, be it only the criminal’s confession before being executed (see Mishnah Sanhedrin 6: 2). The eVect of halakhah is thus not to judge a person’s character qua fate, and not to anticipate a divine judgement. Halakhah is as much concerned with what human beings might become in the future as with what they are in the present, or were in the past. This can be the case because, as halakhah, law is a response to another, namely a divine person. It is not obedience to an anonymous or impersonal principle (‘the Law’). God as lawgiver is king, but he is also addressed as father, as in the prayer of entreaty Avinu, malkeynu (‘Our father, our king’).6 Responding by obedience changes the person, and the father-God shapes the character of his children by asking them to fulWl the commandments. Obedience is a teshuvah, a turning, even where the person was no sinner before, re-forming the human self and forming a person’s future. The response character of halakhah explains why performance, over and beyond opinion or conviction, is so important in rabbinic texts. The act of obedience is ostensive, an expression or sign. That the act of obedience can be observed externally as a sign is crucial, even where the rabbis also stress intention, or ‘direction of the heart’, as a condition for the proper fulWlment of a commandment. Each fulWlment of a halakhic norm is thus an act of testimony, a deixis pointing towards God. In this respect martyrdom for God is just the most prominent kind of testimony. The situation in which the price of death has to be paid for halakhic fulWlment does not create, but presupposes, the sign-character of obedience. This also means that there is a fundamental parallel between performing the halakhah and teaching: both can be demonstrative acts in rabbinic literature (see Chapter 6). The proviso structure of halakhah turns all situations ideally into moments of a conversation. Every performance or omission is a turn-taking in a dialogue with God’s will, every act a

6 Bavli Ta’anit 25b records two lines with this mode of address, in the name of R. Aqiva. Full-length prayers are known only from post-talmudic sources. Cf. Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud, 189–90, 150–1, 200.


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response. The world seen as a grid of provisos thus also becomes a stage on which God is revealed through human acts. One class of commandments illustrates that particularly clearly, namely prayer and liturgy. These constitute pure response since their performance has no practical results in the sphere of everyday human life. Apart from this class, the rabbis think of commandments as penetrating the routine of ordinary people doing ordinary things. The commandments are understood as sanctifying everyday chores or joys, and the response character is frequently made explicit in the situation of performance by uttering special benedictions which thematize the act or the object. Obedience Wnally comes face to face with its own nature as a response in the study of Torah, the ‘theory’ of the life of Torah, where ultimately God’s voice is heard. In the study of Torah that which one ought to do is shown to be the contents of a divine speech addressing Israel. The study of Torah as such is taken to be commanded. One might thus say that, in the rabbis’ view, God demands that a person become aware of the fact that each halakhic action or inaction has the character of a response to him.

LEG AL CASES AS ALTERNATIVES OF EACH OTHER: T HE RO LE O F A NALOG Y The literary structures of halakhic documents emphasize the mutual independence of the many legal cases. Yet the cases must also be linked to each other. It is the readers who are invited to perform the labour of linkage. If they accept the invitation, they will tend to assume two types of coherence in particular: (a) that hypothetical situations hang together in groups determined by the same overall halakhic topic (see below), and (b) that entire cases—the situations together with their halakhic evaluations—must ultimately be compatible with each other in the underlying logic they embody. That logic can be left unarticulated, as when readers establish a direct link between cases by analogy, without Wrst formulating a common heading (see Chapter 3). Alternatively, they can subsume cases under a general rule articulated by themselves or adduced from another

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passage. In all these cases there will be an expectation that decisions on similar situations share a common rationale, insofar as these situations are presented in passages which constitute a text. Only if it were possible to read each statement as constituting its own, separate text, would this labour of linkage be superXuous. Most commonly neighbouring hypothetical cases are grouped together because they are alternatives of each other. It would be coincidence if they arose simultaneously or one after the other. Sometimes it is even impossible that they arise together. Rather, their mutual proximity on the page reXects the fact that they are parallel possibilities, that they constitute a paradigm. This makes it easy to envisage further variations. Take as an example the series of beam-and-jar discussed in Chapter 3. Its basic situation is two persons walking in line, carrying a beam and a jar, respectively. If we start from the scenario where warning of a sudden stop is given by the person in front, that person is free from responsibility if the person behind walks on and causes damage. What if the person walking behind is deaf and thus cannot hear the warning? And again, what if the person giving the warning knows the person following is deaf, and yet only gives a verbal warning? It would then have to be considered if liability does not revert back to the person going in front, as giving a warning that they know to be pointless. This last possibility shows very clearly that, in placing cases next to each other which are mutual variations, the text makers may successively reveal a logic of halakhic evaluation, in particular if the statements constitute a series of cases. The more variations of a case are brought to articulation, the sharper is that logic thrown into relief. Ultimately there is no limit on the number of variations one can think up. The possibility of inWnite variation is contained in the very idea of articulating law through hypothetical situations. The format of the hypothetical legal case is not just a blueprint for each individual statement as it is created, but also for all possible variations of that statement in further statements (see below, point 1). This also includes entirely irrelevant variations of the same hypothetical situation. Deafness in the jar-carrying person walking behind a beam-carrier, as imagined above, is arguably a critical factor, requiring a changed apodosis—if my reading of the logic of the beam-and-jar case is correct. But perhaps it is reasonable to assume


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that, in the same basic situation, the colour of either person’s hair would not make a diVerence to the halakhic evaluation. Immaterial factors such as these are treated by silence in the hypothetical legal case, and there is no other way to treat them. If hypothetical situations had to be described fully, naming every irrelevant circumstance as irrelevant, then an inventory of the world would have to be provided for every case. The format of the hypothetical legal case therefore requires that its silences are also interpreted, namely as meaning, on the one hand: ‘and the same goes for all similar cases’, and on the other hand: ‘and correspondingly diVerent for dissimilar cases’. So each hypothetical case launches two distinct chains of virtual further cases. One consists of what, by some deep-seated criteria of cultural context or rationality, would be taken to be immaterial variations X, Y, Z which make no diVerence, and are likely to be nowhere mentioned in rabbinic texts. The other consists of the variations A, B, C which require further thought to see if they would make a diVerence to the apodosis. These are worth spelling out even if they don’t, and one Wnds examples of this.7 Some of the potentially material variations may be found articulated alongside the Wrst case in the same passage, or they could be elsewhere in rabbinic literature, or even surface as part of medieval interpretations and codiWcations of rabbinic halakhah. The active reader of halakhic texts is drawn into constant comparison of the case found on the page with other cases next to it, or read about elsewhere, or remembered from experience, or constructed in free variation. These all have the potential to clarify, by their similarities or dissimilarities, the understanding of the case at hand. SpeciWcally, readers must constantly involve their capacity for analogical reasoning when constructing the meaning of halakhic texts, and that also includes modern academics who are not primarily interested in halakhah at all, but pursue an agenda of historical interpretation. Even statements that only appear in clusters, not series, can become the starting point of virtual, reader-supplied series of cases. In fact that is precisely what the format of the hypothetical legal case itself appears to call for.

7 See Samely, ‘From Case to Case’.

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Putting the World into Rabbinic Words T H E OR E T I C A L H A L A K H A H A ND T H E ARTICULATION OF EXISTING PRACTICES

Each halakhic proviso thus invites the creation of variants of itself. This means that a purely theoretical production of new law is possible. New factors which complicate a given basic situation can be furnished by the imagination, and the principles or analogies implied by the cases whose apodoses are already known can be applied to them. There is much evidence of this happening in talmudic, and indeed Mishnaic, halakhah. There is, for example, a special halakhic interest in grey areas and cross-over categories such as persons of uncertain sex or special status (e.g. half-slaves, a priest’s daughter), or temporal transitions (e.g. day-break, the months of pregnancy). The more recherche´ the envisaged variation of circumstance becomes, the less likely of course it is to arise in practice. But the format of the halakhic proviso makes no distinction at all between the purely academic and the eminently practical. There seems to be an awareness of this in rabbinic texts. Thus some Mishnaic halakhah is— later?—judged to be inapplicable in real life, while yet drawing a divine reward for its study.8 Other realms of halakhah are acknowledged as impossible to implement, such as the ordeal of the suspected adulteress or the rite of breaking the heifer’s neck (Mishnah Sota 9: 9). The same goes by implication for the bulk of Temple halakhah in the two Wnal Orders of the Mishnah. Much of those Orders’ detail seems to have been worked out only after the destruction of the Temple, at a time when it could not have been implemented, and the prospect of its implementation receded further and further into the future. In certain contexts the rabbis also distinguish between statements which are merely the ‘teaching’ of an individual rabbi, and statements which formulate a rule binding in practice.9 But despite this capacity for theoretical development, the project of verbalizing halakhah is likely in many cases to have been aimed at 8 For example, the ‘stubborn and rebellious son’ (Deut. 21: 18, Mishnah Sanhedrin 8: 1–5), in Bavli Sanhedrin 71a. 9 Mishnah Sanhedrin 11: 2; see Urbach, The Sages, 616–17; idem, The Halakhah, 127–30; 388–9 n. 49; Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud, 247; also 231.


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existing practices, perhaps in particular at the beginning of the rabbinic period. These existing practices (of varying degrees of normativity) would have become interpreted through their verbalization. One can think of the articulation of existing practices as the transformation of a non-verbalized competence into a verbalized one. Any habitual act, already as performed, constitutes a competence or know-how, independently of its being spelled out in words. In fact there is always such non-verbalized competence just beyond the ken of what is at any time verbalized. The description of physical movements, for example, is often too vague to make possible their imitation, and can in any case be reWned further.10 The practical use of language itself is such a know-how also. Even where grammar is explicated—and native speakers require no such verbalization—language use includes many competences that are not usually verbalized. Communicating in meaningful gestures or facial expressions constitutes another example of knowledge which is largely acquired by intuitive imitation. Acquiring such competences depends on observation, imitation, and shared doing in groups—occasionally supported by ad hoc verbalization (‘Don’t do it like that, do it like this!’) Leading the life of an observant Jew required ‘mimetic’ learning even in modern times.11 In the ancient world such mimetic learning would be more prominent still, because of the fact that practices qua practices often had strong normative value. The ‘ancestral traditions’ mentioned by Josephus in connection with the Pharisees may be an illustration of this.12 Yet, although it is certainly a competence and often a norm, the mere practice tends to be surrounded by a realm of ambiguities and choices. Of a mere practice it is at least initially uncertain whether it is actually prescriptive to the exclusion of other practices. Also, variations of the same practice are often acceptable, not because the diVerences are articulated and allowed, but because they are simply not thematized. These two types of vagueness cannot continue once the practice has become verbalized. The more detailed the verbal description, the more numerous are the fresh boundaries which are created in the process. This arises not 10 See, for example, Lewis, Studies in Words, 313. 11 Cf. Soloveitchik, ‘Rupture and Reconstruction’. 12 For example, Antiquities 13. 297 (xiii, 10, 6). See Scha¨fer, Studien, 189 V.; Goodman, ‘A Note’.

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from any special intention to be more prescriptive, but as an inescapable consequence of verbalization itself. Vagueness then needs to be re-created on a diVerent plane, namely as the freedom to interpret the verbal description loosely. But each verbal statement can only determine one way of doing something. It is, as I said above, incapable of exhaustively naming all the other, equally acceptable ways. For each if-then relationship there are endless irrelevant variations which vary the ‘if ’ but do not change the ‘then’. In the silences of the verbal description all the permissible ‘if ’-variations are suddenly lumped together with the ones which would actually require a changed halakhic evaluation.

THE LIMITING TENDENCY OF VERBAL ARTICULATIONS This lumping together need not lead to a restrictive interpretation of the norm as long as its verbal formulation remains subsidiary to, and in eVect interpreted by, a Wrst-hand experience of the actual practice. The openness inherent in the practice can then also keep open the verbal formulation. But if the verbal formulation is accorded priority over mimetic learning, or if no Wrst-hand experience of the practice is available, everything begins to depend on meta-linguistic room for manoeuvre. Is there freedom to interpret generously the semantic boundaries of the words used? How narrow is the conditionality to be construed which is expressed in the ‘if ’-clause of the hypothetical legal case? Yet precisely at the point where the social practice becomes secondary or unavailable, there also appears a gap in authority between the voice of the norm itself and its later interpreters. If the Wrst priority of the interpreters is to avoid transgression, then—not having the same certainty or insight as the voice speaking in the rule— they must assume that all that is not explicitly allowed is prohibited in unmentioned circumstances, while all that is not explicitly prohibited could still be prohibited in unmentioned circumstances. Such a tendency to play it safe is visible in the early halakhic texts already, although to a much lesser degree than in later rabbinic or posttalmudic ones. It is perhaps named in the rabbinic metaphor of the


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‘fence around the Torah’,13 and is manifest more generally in many disputes which line up the stringent against the more lenient opinions. It is much easier to play it safe when dealing with a verbalized norm than when dealing with a mere practice. Perhaps part of the initial purpose of the rabbinic project, insofar as it consisted in transforming mere practices into verbal descriptions, was precisely such an improved safety, such a gain of epistemic certainty in matters of the divine will. It is possible that the scale of verbalization of normative practice to which the rabbis aspired was one key diVerence setting them apart from other Jewish groups, including the Pharisees. But there is also evidence for the rabbis deliberately re-creating some fuzziness in the realm of verbalized norms. In many contexts halakhic leniency is preferred, and the divinely favoured school tradition of Hillel (cf. Bavli Eruvin 13b in Chapter 6 above) is generally presented as the more lenient one.14 There is also the notion, mentioned in a dispute, that he who argues for a more stringent alternative must shoulder the burden of proof (Mishnah Yadayyim 4: 3). Some conceptual distinctions occasionally made in halakhic discourse point the same way. Examples include the admission of local variations of practice (minhag), the separation of essential components of a prescribed action (ikkuv) from inessential ones, and the validity of certain invalid actions if they are a fait accompli (be-di’avad ), to name but a few.15 But these mechanisms of halakhic fuzziness are not applied comprehensively. Furthermore, some rabbinic passages on the nature of rabbinic authority (cf. Mishnah Eduyyot 1: 5) and the idea that rabbinic knowledge originated at one Wxed historical point in the past, were later understood to mean that there is an unstoppable decline in halakhic authority down the generations. 13 Mishnah Avot 1: 1 (seyag); cf. also Berakhot 1: 1 ‘to remove a person from transgression’, explained in this way in Bavli Berakhot 4b. The two notions are combined in Mekhilta Ishmael, Pischa 6 (ed. Lauterbach, Vol. 1, 46). But see Goldin, Studies, 6–10; 19–23. All non-biblical rabbinic halakhah may be interpreted to be such a ‘fence’, as is done in Bavli Niddah 3b. 14 Mishnah Eduyyot 4–5 singles out, presumably as worthy of note, the cases where the roles are reversed, with the House of Shammai adopting the more lenient ruling. 15 For the local custom, see e.g. Bavli Yevamot 14a; see Kraemer, Reading the Rabbis, Ch. 6; Mielziner, Introduction, 197–8, 310 explains be-di’avad (cf. Mishnah Megillah 2: 4, Mishnah Bava Batra 8: 5). For an example of ikkuv, see Talmud Yerushalmi Pesachim 7: 2 (34b top); cf. Jastrow, 1069.

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If a substantial number of hypothetical legal cases were used to verbalize some existing practice the question arises, whose practice? Can we assume that formulations now found in the same text reXect practices observed equally strongly, and all by exactly the same group of people (or all people)? Could a text such as the Mishnah even amount to a description of the way of life of Palestinian Jews in the Wrst centuries ce? Rabbinic sources do not give descriptions of Jewish life, but prescriptions, and no substantial non-rabbinic accounts of everyday Jewish life in Palestine or Babylonia are extant. There is thus no direct evidence supporting the view that Mishnaic halakhah was known to and accepted by most Palestinian Jews of that period, let alone actually implemented all the time. On the contrary, there are some striking indications, for example from synagogue architecture, that Mishnaic norms were Xouted or unknown in certain postMishnaic historical contexts. Rabbinic literature itself has a name for those who are ignorant of, or indiVerent to, halakhic rules, purity rules in particular. They call such persons am ha-arets, literally, people of the land.16 So while many Mishnaic formulations of halakhah may well have been based on someone’s existing practice, this does not preclude the possibility that large parts of the Jewish population did not fulWl them until centuries after the Mishnah was published. In medieval times most Jews (except Karaites) seem to have been exposed to the claim of rabbinic halakhah on their lives, and pressure towards compliance was eVectively exerted by social mechanisms, including those created by surrounding non-Jewish populations. But it is unwarranted to project this back to Mishnaic times, or perhaps the rabbinic period as a whole.

GENERATIVE-HERMENEUTIC PAT TERNS FOR C O M P O S I N G T E XTS I have spoken earlier about the chains of variations which can emanate from a single hypothetical legal case. Where this happens 16 See, for example, Bavli Berakhot 47b and Pesachim 49a–b; cf. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 223 V.


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new cases are articulated, thus generating new legal material. And as the new is formulated, the already existing case is interpreted in a certain way, namely as leading to these, not other, new cases. The new cases thus also become the record of how the starting case was understood—either by the people who formulated it in the Wrst place (as when all the cases in a set are created at the same time), or by later users. I shall speak of generative-hermeneutic relationships to capture this double dimension. Rabbinic literature oVers patterned ways of presenting the new in the light of the old, or presenting the old as interpreted by the new. In contrast to the alleged oral-performative patterning of rabbinic texts discussed in the preceding chapter, the generative-hermeneutic patterns can mostly be linked to the literary evidence quite directly, although that does not prejudge the question whether the texts were created as oral or as written compositions. 1. The modiWcation of only one factor of a situation at a time. This is perhaps the most common principle for constructing a series of statements, as opposed to a cluster. As I said above with respect to the beam and jar series, only one new situational factor is introduced by each statement. Here are the steps again (full text in Chapter 3): the person with the beam goes Wrst (statement 2) or the person with the jar goes Wrst (statement 5); the beam-carrier stops (3), the jarcarrier stops (6); the beam-carrier gives warning (4), the jar-carrier gives warning (statement 7). As the halakhic evaluation changes or stays the same from case to case, an underlying logic of halakhah becomes revealed or is developed. Sometimes the series is accompanied by a general statement of the principle implied, although not in our beam-and-jar example. The principle is usually introduced by the formula zeh ha-kelal (‘this is the rule’). 2. The permutation of circumstances. Often a short halakhic series is produced by combining systematically two pairs of variable factors. This is what happens in the passage below. The following variables are interacting with each other: (a) large family versus (non-a) small family; and (b) much wealth versus (non-b) little wealth:

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He who has (a) many eaters and (non-b) few possessions, brings many peace oVerings and few whole oVerings; he who has (b) many possessions and (non-a) few eaters, . . . (here follows the second apodosis); he who has (non-a) few of these and (non-b) few of those, . . . (third apodosis); he who has (a) many of these and (b) many of those, about him it is said: . . . (Deut. 16: 17, functioning as the fourth apodosis).17

The four protases articulated here exhaust the number of possible combinations: a and non-b, non-a and b, non-a and non-b, a and b. This is a pattern of halakhic thought, namely a permutation of circumstances which generates halakhic themes and information. But it also has hermeneutic function, as this case illustrates. Deut. 16: 17 is taken to speak of the Wnal variation in the set, so the series expresses a certain interpretation of that verse. Sometimes each legal case in a series receives a biblical proof-text. This creates a hermeneutic grid, similar to the grid of atonement types in Tosefta Yom Ha-Kippurim 4: 6 V., translated in Chapter 5 above. 3. The commentary patterning. The sequencing of rabbinic statements in the order of biblical verses to which they relate provides another type of patterning. The midrashic units, with their biblical quotation mentioned Wrst, are so ordered that they appear to give a running, if often selective, commentary (see Sample Text II). Yet the topics of neighbouring verses identiWed in neighbouring midrashic units are often not coordinated with each other, and can in any case belong to entirely diVerent rabbinic themes. In such a lemmatic arrangement, the biblical sequence of verses is an extra-thematic principle of order, much like the alphabetical sequencing of entries in an encyclopaedia. Some scholars have mooted the idea that the biblical text acted, at some stage, as a mnemonic prompt for rabbinic ideas. One can even imagine that the biblical text, taken as a disjointed sequence of segments, sometimes served as a springboard for the actual production of rabbinic themes and ideas. 4. The paraphrase patterning. A further generative pattern of ordered verbalization is the Targum, the rendering of the biblical

17 Mishnah Chagigah 1: 5; cf. Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation, 105.


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text into an Aramaic text. In its liturgical setting, the rendering of the Pentateuch apparently proceeded verse by verse (Mishnah Megillah 4: 4). The written Targums extant today often have information which goes far beyond the biblical wording, and a thematic orientation that can disrupt the Xow of biblical themes or narrative. In such passages the Targums exhibit an extra-thematic but lemmatic dependency on the biblical sequence, similar to the one just discussed for midrashic units. But in contrast to works of Midrash, the Pentateuch Targums are clearly constrained to account for complete biblical sentences, and for all of them in the original sequence. The genre thus allows little scope for any independent arrangement of sentences and themes. 5. The homiletic patterning. One of the most comprehensive patterns in rabbinic thought and literature is the homily. It is unique in that it creates hierarchical literary entities which are large enough to occupy several pages of print (see Sample Text IV). There are several varieties of homily, but all of them, insofar as they are transmitted intact, seem to have the following interdependent components: (1) a verse from the Pentateuch is explained in the light of another, apparently unconnected, verse from the Prophets or Writings (the Petichah mentioned in Chapter 4 above); (2) then the Pentateuch verse, and some others from the same context, are explained word by word; (3) Wnally, another verse which conveys some message of comfort is linked to the Pentateuch passage. This is a hermeneutic schema as well as a functional pattern for putting ideas into words, that is, generative. It would enable a person with a thorough knowledge of the Hebrew Bible to create simple homilies with little preparation. Considered as a compositional drill the rabbinic homily has parallels in the Graeco-Roman world. The second-century ce writer Hermogenes of Tarsus provides a drill for the rhetorical treatment of a chreia, that is, a signiWcant saying or action. The chreia chosen as a starting point is treated by the following text-generative procedure:18 (1) praise of the author of the saying, (2) quotation and elaboration of the saying, (3) explanation of its rationale,

18 Mack and O’Neil, ‘The Chreia Discussions of Hermogenes of Tarsus’, 160 V. and 176–7; cf. JaVee, Torah in the Mouth, 131–2.

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(4) demonstration of its validity from the opposite position, (5) demonstration from analogy, (6) demonstration from example, (7) demonstration from authority, (8) exhortation to act accordingly. This is a very diVerent generative-hermeneutic discipline, and yet of the same type as that of the rabbinic homily. It is, however, doubtful that the rabbinic homily as we know it from the written sources was delivered in such ad hoc performances (more on the homily in Chapter 10). 6. Disputes as personiWcation of a contradiction. The dispute expresses certain narrative-historical dimensions of rabbinic literature, as explained in Chapter 6. But it also makes an important contribution to the arrangement of statements in books that are otherwise dominated by undeclared juxtaposition. Of all thematic relationships tacitly created in halakhic texts, contradiction is the one that is most often declared, namely through the dispute format. The contradiction is expressed by allocating two (or more) statements to diVerent speakers. Propositional contradiction is thereby embodied as a type of conversation, a plurality of human voices. At Wrst sight this seems to personalize a logical relationship (contradiction), but actually its eVect is more the opposite: to ‘logify’ the personal relationships. For, as the documents routinely present them, rabbis are not rounded individuals, and we often know almost nothing about them except the statements allocated to them. So the historical persons, rabbis, appear primarily as bearers of a logic of discourse that transcends personal choices. In the Mishnah and Tosefta, disputes are presented with the barest minimum of situational information, and mostly without the use of stylized dialogue. But in the halakhic Midrashim and the Gemaras, one frequently Wnds a rhetoric of dialogue, featuring expressions such as ‘You say . . .’, ‘Am I to understand . . . ?’, ‘I raise an objection: . . .’, ‘Come and hear!’, and many similar ones.19 The Babylonian Gemara does not merely report contradictory statements in another speaker’s name. It goes a step further by splitting its own voice, the Gemara’s stam, into two roles, a proposer and an opposer. And there are other complex literary forms found in 19 For the Gemara, see the list in Mielziner, Introduction, 247.


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talmudic discourse which manage contradictory statements by allocating them to separate voices. This is one of my topics in the next chapter. Select Further Reading A number of speciWc sentence and literary structures which express the proviso-structure of halakhah are described by Neusner, History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities. Part 21, 196–246. For an attempt to locate Graeco-Roman literary and rhetorical genres in rabbinic texts, see Fischel, Rabbinic Literature; the chreia is treated, 78 V., and see index. For explicit deWnition and diairesis (conceptual separation) being used to account for knowledge in Plato and Aristotle, see e.g. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy, 148– 61, and passim; Marx, Introduction, 8–9, 22, 23 V., and Fuhrmann already cited in the preceding chapter. The growth of explicit norms in rabbinic Judaism is addressed in Jackson, ‘Legalism’. Information on halakhic life in the Middle Ages is given in Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World, and Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages; on the rejection of rabbinic halakhah by the Karaites, see Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, introduction; a research survey on the Karaites is Frank, ‘The Study of Medieval Karaism, 1989–1999’. The idea that Scripture might have provided the sequence in which rabbinic ideas were originally organized is explained in Lauterbach, Rabbinic Essays, 163 V.; Stemberger, Introduction, 126–9; see also Halivni Weiss, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara. For the genre constraints of Pentateuch Targums, see, for instance, Samely, ‘Scripture’s Segments and Topicality’. The compositional forms of the rabbinic homily are examined in detail by Goldberg, Rabbinische Texte, and summarized in Lenhard, Die Rabbinische Homilie.

9 The Talmud as Conversation and Repository This chapter examines the interplay of literary features in the Babylonian Talmud. The Gemara’s use of earlier rabbinic voices appears partly carefully orchestrated, partly merely accumulative. I describe the lemmatic division which deWnes the Gemara as a commentary of sorts on the Mishnah, analyse the dialectical conversation which gives it its ‘talmudic’ Xavour, and list some recurrent drills by which the Gemara interprets the Mishnah. I conclude by examining the way in which the Gemara suggests that the statements it quotes were historically connected, while presenting itself in an unbounded diversity of form and contents.

THE TALMUD’S ALIEN VOICE The Talmud is the most iconic part of rabbinic literature. It carries the highest prestige in the curriculum of traditional Jewish learning. It also endured the greatest hostility from Christian censors and antisemitic detractors. Again and again the Talmud has served as a source of quotations illustrating the alleged perWdy of the Jews. This partly exploited the existence of rabbinic passages expressing coarse condemnation of Christians and non-Jews generally, without placing them into a wider context. But the hostility goes much deeper than that, targeting the very nature of talmudic discourse and its themes. The Talmud contains many examples of an unXinching endorsement of the details of everyday life, be they gross or spiritually uplifting. Biased selection of passages can make it look a soulless book, in

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particular where a prejudice about Jewish materialism is already at work in the readers. And, into the bargain, it oVends fundamental intellectual sensibilities among Western-educated readers, without even promising, by way of compensation, access to esoteric knowledge or mystic experiences. The apparent absence of order and intellectual beauty has disappointed an important class of nonJewish readers: those who were looking for evidence of greatness in a nation that seemed to have lost its dignity and become mean under the pressure of persecutions. In this way, oVended reader sensibilities may in some measure have helped to prepare the ground, not just for the persecution, but for the killing of human beings. This bestows an unusual pathos and sense of purpose upon the academic task of explaining how the Talmud works. Yet while it is unusual, it does not constitute the interference of extraneous interests in the search for academic objectivity. Rather, it is merely a special case of the inescapable ethical contamination of all research in the humanities. The task of explaining someone else’s culture is properly tied to the hope that it will make it more diYcult to harm them.

T H E G E M A R A’ S O RC H E S T R AT I O N O F VOI C E S The Babylonian Gemara, on which I shall concentrate, does not explain its own purpose, topic, parts, provenance, or intended audience. As usual, the name of the document, in this case meaning ‘learning’ or ‘completion’, is much too ambiguous to clarify these issues. So its contents and literary structures are our only primary evidence. What the primary evidence shows about the document is, at a Wrst approximation, this. The text of the Gemara is in sections, and alternates with another text, the Mishnah. The Mishnah’s continuity is interrupted by this arrangement. Paragraphs or medium-sized stretches of Mishnah are separated from each other by intervening Gemara. But the Gemara’s continuity appears to be created by this alternation of texts, at least in parts. The Wrst sentence of each Gemara section usually takes for granted the presence of a speciWc piece of Mishnah, so that the Gemara’s sections deWne themselves de facto as that text which comes between two Mishnaic base texts. The material

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within Gemara sections, which can be very voluminous, is often further arranged and subdivided according to the sequence of topics within the Mishnaic base text. In this respect, the Gemara is arranged lemmatically, and presents itself as a commentary on the Mishnah. The Gemara’s discussion thus appears to take the Mishnaic base text as its starting point. But the Mishnah is only one of the external sources on which the Gemara wishes to be seen as depending. Much of the substance of the Gemara is framed as quotations of other voices, which makes the gesture of quoting totally pervasive. There are four other types of sources which are quoted regularly, usually as relating in some way to the Mishnaic base text. They are distinguished from each other by specialized quotation formulae and other signals. Starting with the base text itself, one Wnds the following: (A) The base passage from the Mishnah, placed in front of every Gemara section, and often sequentially quoted within it. (B) Statements from elsewhere in the Mishnah, not necessarily restricted to the same Tractate. (C) Statements marked as coming from Mishnaic times but not as coming from the Mishnah. These Tannaitic statements, or statements with Tannaitic authority, are referred to as baraitot (‘outside [passages]’).

Statements A to C are usually in Hebrew. (D) Statements by Amoraim, that is, post-Mishnaic teachers, mostly in Aramaic. These are sometimes referred to as memra, in distinction to baraita (for C) and mishnah (with lower case m, for A and B).

Statements A to D may have one of the small literary forms listed in Table 2, such as simple sentence or norm, hypothetical legal case, dispute, midrashic unit, ma’aseh, list, and so forth. Occasionally they are also somewhat extended, but still short, narratives (see the end of Chapter 6 for an illustration). They may thus contain within themselves further quotations of rabbis, or of Scripture. Finally there is Scripture itself: (E) Phrases or verses from the Hebrew Bible, where not encapsulated in the Gemara’s quotations A to D.


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All the voices A to E are introduced by the presenting voice of the Gemara. This voice speaks in Aramaic, and is anonymous. Like the presenting voice of the Mishnah, it is often referred to as stam in modern scholarship. The anonymous redactors of the Gemara, taken as—unknown—historical personages, are also sometimes referred to as the Stammaim,1 and in earlier scholarship as Savoraim. However, as an expression of the text’s perspective, the Gemara’s stam is no historical person. It is no more identical with the work’s historical author(s) as the Wrst-person narrator of the story of Robinson Crusoe is identical with the author of the book Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe.2 The word stam, as I use it, names a literary function in rabbinic documents. The Gemara’s stam often distances itself from the quoted baraitot (C) by naming intervening stages of oral transmission. In this it diVers from the Mishnah, as I explained earlier in Chapter 7, and it stresses the historical reality of the tradition, or oral Torah (see below). The Gemara’s gesture of quotation also suggests, in contrast to the Mishnah’s, that the presenting voice has less authority than the quoted ones. The Gemara’s stam does not tend to contradict a quoted voice. Within the quoted voices the Gemara establishes a hierarchy: Tannaim are quoted as capable of disagreeing with each other, while Amoraim interpret the Tannaim, but dispute only with other Amoraim. The Gemara’s stam can arrange the quotations it presents to form a web of ideas, usually clustering around a central disagreement. It is from this orchestration of quoted voices that the Gemara’s own position tends to emerge.

T H E C O M B I NATI O N O F T H R E E COMPOSITIONAL PRINCIPLES In many places, the Gemara is constituted by the mutual penetration of three principles of order. There is Wrst the lemmatic principle, which arranges statements according to their direct or indirect relevance to 1 See, for example, Halivni Weiss, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara, 76–104. 2 Cf. the clear explanation in Goldberg, ‘Der Diskurs’, 7–10 (268–70).

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the Mishnaic base text. This principle, expressed fundamentally in the alternation of Gemara with Mishnaic sections, explained above, creates the two levels of text and of commentary in the Talmud. Formally speaking, it appears to be the most fundamental principle of order. The lemmatic principle is complemented or suspended by the thematic principle, that is, the juxtaposition of statements on the basis of their assumed contribution to a shared, mostly undeWned, theme. There are many extended thematic clusters in the Gemara, some of them very substantial. They sustain thematic continuity while shifting the focus from statement to statement very much in the fashion of the Mishnaic cluster. There is a cluster of dream interpretations in Bavli Berakhot 55a–57b, one of supernatural reports with apocalyptic overtones in Bava Batra 73a–75b, one of eschatological statements in Sanhedrin 96b–99a, and one of narratives about the two Jewish wars with the Romans in Gittin 55b–58a, to name but some of them. The link to an overall topic can, however, be very tenuous, and so can be any link back to the Mishnaic lemma. The lemmatic and thematic principles are supplemented by the dialectical conversation, the most characteristic arrangement principle of the Babylonian Gemara. The dialectical conversation is found within the lemmatic structure, usually side-by-side with thematic clusters, series, single statements, or extended lemmatic texts on Scripture. It does not provide the basic organization of the Gemara. These arrangement principles recur regularly in mutual interference. They are complicated further by the limited use of quite diVerent strategies of order, in particular the occasional appearance of extended sections of verse-by-verse commentary on Scripture, the most prominent example of which is Bavli Megillah 10b–17a on the book of Esther; similar sections are also Bava Batra 15b–17a and Sota 9b–14a. There is, moreover, a tendency for the main three principles to become weaker towards the end of Gemara sections. In those end-locations, one can often Wnd what looks like loose collections of tangential material. This suggests that the Gemara to some extent merely stores, rather than organizes, the information it contains. Themes simply peter out. This, and the juxtaposition of disparate but large-scale principles of order, point to the fact that the Gemara appears to make no claim to be a text (see the concluding section below). But there are also indications to the contrary. Thus it seems that some


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elaborate dialectical conversations were transported from their primary Mishnaic base text further along in a Tractate to the Wrst base text of the same Tracate, a decision that ensures that many Gemara Tractates open with sections that are intricately crafted and uniWed.3 Of all the possible principles of order in the Gemara, its lemmatichermeneutic dependency on the Mishnah appears to be the most comprehensive. All other arrangement patterns seem to be contained within the division of Gemara sections from one Mishnaic base to the next. Also, any statement quoted in the Gemara is potentially meant to have a hermeneutic link to the Mishnaic base text, be it illustrative, contrastive, or analogical. The Gemara’s hermeneutic function is, precisely because it is pervasive and yet undeclared, also unlimited. Nevertheless, even the principle of tacit commentary is not Xexible enough to accommodate passages which have an entirely diVerent principle of arrangement (for example, Scripture commentary) and contain a large number of statements in their own right. Thus the initial hermeneutic assumption of unity for the document ‘Babylonian Gemara’ turns out to be deeply problematical for the reader, even more so than for most other rabbinic documents. Paradoxically, this need not mark the end of the reader’s expectation of coherence. The manner in which the Gemara presents itself shifts the burden of unity from the text as such to a postulated historical background, namely the rabbinic tradition. To such a tradition, or perhaps oral Torah, the Gemara lays claim by way of its quotations. Otherwise, it seems content to present itself not as a uniWed document, but rather as mere evidence for, or raw data from, a uniWed cultural reality. I shall return to this topic below.

T H E D I AL E C TIC AL C ONV E R SATION Many of the talmudic passages which have a manifest internal coherence are dialectical conversations. These constitute primarily a kind of two-pronged thematic order, usually attached to a lemmatic starting point in the Mishnah. The dialectical conversation quotes 3 See, for example, the case of Bavli Ketubbot 1: 1, as explained in Segal, ‘Anthological Dimensions’, 40 V.

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statements from the sources A to E listed above as supporting one of two (or more) sides of an argument. By sequencing quotations in a certain way, the statements are ordered into contradictory pairs, or are placed into the mouths of two rabbis disputing with each other. After an initial pair or set of mutually exclusive positions, further quotations tend to fulWl the role of supporting arguments or of objections. Reasons are given, Scriptural warrants for both sides are quoted, consistency is proven or refuted, analogies are suggested or rejected, and so forth. This can become thematically very ramiWed, and sustained through many turn-takings of a virtual dialogue. The dialectical conversation is often, but not always, the literary format intended when modern scholars speak of the Talmudic sugya (literally, ‘lesson’). However, there is no agreed meaning for this term. Although the dialectical conversation is usually linked, or starts oV, with the base section of the Mishnah, and this can provide a hermeneutic function for the overall conversation, the format itself is not lemmatic. Thematic coherence. The dialectical conversation is organized by the voice of the Gemara on behalf of the rabbinic voices quoted. This organization frequently goes well beyond the information on purpose, thematic scope, or underlying principle actually suggested by the quotations individually. The basic unit of the dialectical conversation is the oppositional pair of statements, and in presenting it the Gemara’s reporting voice can split into two distinct roles, thereby making clear that the oppositional pairs are interrelated with each other and create coherence in a number of ways. There is Wrst the coherence of agreement. Across the divide of the dispute, statements are mutually exclusive; but within each side, they complement each other in various logical-thematic ways. A cited statement can be a general rule subsuming a hypothetical case quoted earlier; or two cases quoted from diVerent sources can reinforce each other by analogy, and so forth. The dialectical conversation can thus have an eVect similar to the thematic series of statements, namely to reveal a consistent principle pursued by both parties to the disagreement, and thus a stable ‘core’ for each side of the dispute.4 The Gemara will in fact often explicitly raise the question of what is the underlying principle of speciWc halakhic positions. 4 A clear example is found in the series-like conversation of Bavli Chullin 32b (gufa) to 33a top.


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A uniWed context for statements. This opens up a second front for coherence. If the various sources A to E show consistency on one or the other side of an argument, there must have also been historical continuity. First, a continuity of knowledge connects the voices within each camp. If the sequencing of quotations in the dialectical conversation is even vaguely chronological, as when it moves from an initial pair of Tannaim to later pairs of Amoraim (which happens often), then there is a sense in which the story of a certain halakhic problem is traced out. The second dimension of historical continuity is created across the opposing camps. For in order to disagree with each other, the voices in the two or more camps must have known of each other across the gulf of generations and geographical locations. Thus the eVect of the dialectical conversation is to emphasize that statements were made in awareness of each other. Even where the Gemara does not quote the protagonists themselves, but cites evidence on their behalf, it takes for granted that statements are either in deliberate competition or in deliberate agreement. The format of the dialectical conversation thus assumes a unity of communication, a historical context which was the same for all the rabbinic positions. What would undermine the uniWed context is not mutual disagreement, but mutual ignorance or indiVerence, talking at crosspurposes, reinventing the wheel, etc. Occasionally the Gemara will indeed explain a certain discrepancy of position by saying that a rabbi might have been unaware of another’s opinion (or another’s change of heart), but only for speciWc points. The implied message of the form dialectical conversation points the other way, namely to the ideal of a comprehensive context in which all statements of rabbis were made in awareness of all earlier statements on the same topic. Switches of perspective within the Gemara’s voice. As the Gemara’s voice quotes further statements in support of both sides of an argument, it splits along the lines of ‘on the one hand’, ‘on the other hand’. These two reporting roles have post-talmudic names:5 tartsan (proposer or reconciler), and maqshan (objector, opposer). The most characteristic kind of objection (qashya), which can be made by both speaker roles, is that there is an inconsistency in the opposite camp’s argument. This can either lead to a resolution of the 5 The terminology is found, for example, in Rashi’s commentary on Bavli Shabbat 104a top (in the margins of traditional Talmud prints).

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inconsistency, the reinterpretation of an earlier statement, or the reallocation of the statement to a new speaker. There are a number of formal signals indicating that a switch from proposer to opposer or vice versa has taken place. These include potentially any new quotation report, specialized quotation formulae announcing an objection,6 or the use of a question.7 Yet, in order to Wnd one’s bearings in a Talmudic argument, one also has to be able to determine the substance of a quoted statement, for that shows which side of the argument is being defended, which attacked. On the other hand, statements whose substantive meaning is ambiguous will have that substance determined by their function in the dialectical conversation, if there are switching signals. In the dialectical conversation the Gemara conducts something of an interior dialogue, working out substantive issues by performing turn-takings on behalf of the earlier voices. So there is a strong logical-thematic discipline to the Gemara which draws the reader into an objectifying, critical stance. The dialectical conversation thus achieves a historical objectiWcation of tradition (by naming rabbis), but also manages to render the issues of the original discourse present to the reader. By pursuing the critical logic of the argument independently of the original protagonists, the use of quotations in the Gemara stresses that halakhic statements belong simultaneously to what I called ‘two orders’ in Chapter 6: the timeless structure of halakhah, as well as the story of the rabbis.

SO M E H E R M E NE UT I C P RO C E D U R E S O F T H E G E M A RA The Gemara’s explanation of the Mishnah often proceeds in set paths and procedures, frequently constituting generative-hermeneutic patterns in the sense introduced at the end of the preceding chapter. Some of these patterns occur in the dialectical conversation, others appear independently. Table 4 oVers a list of some of the most 6 For instance, ‘But has it not been taught [in a baraita]: < . . . >?’, ‘I object [by quoting the following]: ’, etc. Mielziner, Introduction, 239 V. There are some diVerences in the formulae for certain Tractates, see de Vries, ‘Baraita, Baraitot’; see also Friedman, ‘Uncovering Literary Dependencies’, 39. 7 Mielziner, Introduction, Ch. 9. Questions are often syntactically indistinguishable from assertions, and there is no original punctuation in the Talmud.


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Table 4. Select Hermeneutic Procedures of the Babylonian Gemara Hermeneutic move

Explanation

(i) Constructing a contrast or analogy between statements

Draws on statements from the Mishnah or a baraita to probe Mishnaic word choice for implied meanings or the halakhic principles behind a ruling Often an eVect of (i): locates the point at issue between the disagreeing parties on a much more speciWc level than would appear from its word choice

(ii) Narrowing down the scope of reported disputes

(iii) Promoting a speciWc halakhic position (iv) Declaring that a contentious matter ‘stands’ (teyku) (v) Asking: What is the biblical warrant for this Mishnaic ruling?

(vi) Quoting Amoraic statements as if they were meant to interpret Tannaitic statements, even where no such explicit link is claimed inside the quotation (vii) Textual criticism of the Mishnah, and criticism of transmission chains for other rabbinic voices

(viii) Identifying a speciWc rabbi as source of an anonymous statement in the Mishnah (ix) Constructing consistent halakhic preferences for an individual rabbi (x) Role-play by adducing arguments on behalf of the original parties to a dispute

a

Cf. Sample Text III, no. 49.

Achieved indirectly by a variety of means, including (i) and (ii), and also by announcements such as: ‘All the world agrees that . . .’a No decision between two halakhic alternatives is said to be possible; sometimes occurring at the end of a lengthy dialectical conversation One of the most regular questions the Gemara asks and either answers directly, or quotes Tannaim and Amoraim as answering. Also for a baraita or a memra: What biblical interpretation is presupposed in this Tannaitic or Amoraic position? This can produce two-layered hermeneutic relationships, by aligning a memra’s latent interpretation of Scripture (¼ v) to its latent or explicit interpretation of a Mishnaic statement or baraita A Wxed formula suggesting that the Mishnaic text needs complementing is used regularly. Various standard solutions are advanced for the case where two contradictory positions are ascribed to the same rabbi, e.g. a divergence among the disciples quoting him, or that the rabbi did indeed teach a position, but later changed his mind Can go hand in hand with the Gemara reconstructing the scope of a dispute (ii) involving a stam statement. This can lead to (ix) See main text This brings the two roles of ‘proposer’ and ‘opposer’ into direct dialogue with each other as part of the sustained disagreement which a dialectical conversation creates from pairs of quoted statements

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prominent procedures; it is meant to illustrate, rather than exhaust, the regular Talmudic patterns. Most of them can be seen at work in Sample Text III at the end of this book. The procedures can be subdivided into the loosely deWned groups thematic, lemmatic, and narrative-historical. The thematic group consists of the Wrst four moves and is quite straightforward. In the lemmatic group (v–vii), anything which one of the voices B to D is reported as saying may be used to supplement or put into perspective a statement from the base section of the Mishnah. All rabbinic voices are in turn expected to be in tune with the meaning of some passage of Scripture (E), and can thus be combined with a biblical verse to form a midrashic unit. The narrative or historical procedures (viii–x) draw on the distinctive use of names and citation formulae for diVerent stages in the history of the rabbis, Tannaitic or Amoraic. Naming a speaker can, in principle, narrow down the time of the utterance to one generation, although it has to be said that there are many rabbis who bear the same name. The Gemara’s stam thus often appears to add a narrative or historical dimension to the thematic and hermeneutic relationships it creates. Of particular importance here is move (ix), which involves the Gemara in selecting and assigning statements on the assumption that a rabbi’s approach will consistently follow the same underlying principle across diVerent topics. This is one manner in which the dialectical conversation can broaden out the point of any starting dispute to a disagreement on principles. Taken together with the opposite tendency to narrow down the dispute scope (ii), this strategy can lead to a radical reshaping of the Tannaitic opinions. The Gemara can minimize the concrete halakhic eVect of some disputes, while for others it can identify and take as fundamental an underlying diVerence in halakhic approach.

QUOTATIONS FROM NOWHERE A ND THE UNITY OF TRADITION The dialectical conversation provides unity for the diversity of its quotations. On the one hand, quotations are treated as coming from diverse or distinct sources, typically without any information on


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their earlier setting, as in the case of the anonymous baraita. On the other hand, these very same statements are then sorted into camps within which there is deliberate agreement, and across which there is deliberate disagreement. Although the Gemara can also problematize the uniWed setting of all of rabbinic tradition, in particular on the many occasions when the Xow of information between Babylonia and Palestine is addressed, this seems to be more than counterbalanced by the format of the dialectical conversation. That format presupposes or emphasizes that all its quotations stand in a sophisticated harmony with each other. As this harmony includes disagreement, it is characterized as historical, not propositional. The thrust of the dialectical conversation is thus to suggest that tradition is available from a pool of statements which, while having no textual frame, contains fully co-ordinated single statements. This is particularly clear in the case of baraitot. Many of these nonMishnaic statements are today known to us from the Tosefta. But while the Tosefta forms a text in the sense that it contains a Wnite number of statements in a deWnite linear sequence, the Gemara acknowledges no such textual frame for the baraitot it quotes. These, and all Amoraic statements also, are cited as if they came from no work. It is possible that the Tosefta as extant today was not known to the makers of the Gemara. Yet this does not mean that thousands of short units of quotation, be they baraitot or Amoraic utterances, could have found their way into the Gemara’s text one by one, by way of free association or spontaneous recall. Some textual framework must have existed for them, be it in memory or in writing. In other words, the dialectical conversation’s consistent presentation of non-Mishnaic units as if they came from no text creates a deliberate opposition between the Mishnah and the other material. The Wxed linear sequence of Mishnaic statements, ambiguous as it is through mere juxtaposition, is often explicitly interpreted.8 At the same time there is, as just explained, no acknowledgement that 8 A striking indication of this is the argument that two halakhic statements were not ‘taught with each other’ in the Mishnaic text, e.g. Shabbat 18a. Cf. Lieberman, Hellenism, 89; Mielziner, Introduction, 208–9, and also Hayes, Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, 37 V.

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baraitot or Amoraic statements have their own textual arrangement, or one that matters. This distinction corresponds to a functional one: that between base text and commentary. That which is acknowledged to have textual constitution—the Mishnah—forms the base text. That which is treated as if it came from nowhere—all the rest—is appropriated for explaining the Mishnah, or at least lemmatically aligned with it. At the same time this other material is quoted, and has the same independent constitution of themes which also characterizes the Mishnaic statements. In other words, the extra quotations do not already have a format of hermeneutic dependency, of commentary. If those quotations were acknowledged to have been taken from some textual arrangement of their own, then the Gemara would have to account for the relationship of two whole texts—that of the Mishnah and that of another document—before it could use them to illuminate Mishnaic passages. Treated as isolated statements, this problem does not arise. The Gemara thus turns, as it were, in front of the reader’s eyes, information which is presented as having not been originally constituted as commentary, into commentary. In particular for the baraitot it is thus stressed that the Gemara’s quoting them is what transforms them into complements or corrections of the Mishnah. So the Gemara draws attention to the fact that statements which were not produced to explain the Mishnah are yet Wt to be so used. Why? The implicit answer is, because they are historically connected with the Mishnah, and indeed with each other. Each can become commentary to the other because they were created in awareness of each other. The Gemara thus suggests that, underlying its hermeneutic use of baraitot, there is the historical link of real people talking to each other, as can only happen in a uniWed historical context, or perhaps by divinely ordained harmony. In a word, the Gemara suggests the unity of a tradition. The creators of the Gemara may have (in my view, must have) obliterated whatever textual constitution their own sources had in order to reconstitute them as a Mishnah commentary made up from quotations. What were these sources like? We do not know, and the Gemara-makers did not want us to know. One question in particular has exercised the critical scholarship of the Talmud. Are quotations ascribed to earlier voices perhaps quite spurious in the historical


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sense? There is some evidence to suggest that some baraitot at least are not from the Tannaitic period. This would underscore the artiWce of the narrative which the Gemara tells of itself, that of a ‘later’ voice which merely quotes from a tradition. But even if there were not a single pseudepigraphic baraita or memra in the Talmud, its presentation of them would still be artiWce, in fact a literary conceit of the highest order.

THE MISHNAH WHICH THE GEMARA CREATES The two Gemaras of Palestine and Babylonia are arranged as two commentaries to the Mishnah, and I have shown above how this works for the Babylonian Talmud. Nevertheless, they do not treat the Mishnah as a work with its own integrity. In both Talmuds, many Mishnaic Tractates have no Gemara at all: the Bavli covers only 361⁄2 Tractates, the Yerushalmi 39. The Order of Purities is mostly without Gemara in either work; the Order on agriculture is covered fully only by the Palestinian Gemara, while the Order dealing with Temple sacriWces only has Babylonian Gemara. The Gemaras do not explain themselves with regard to this partial coverage, and thus also give no account of their own unity as ‘commentary’. It is thus somewhat idealizing, or based on a hermeneutic assumption, to speak of the Babylonian Gemara or the Palestinian Gemara. In each case we are confronted with a plurality of Gemara Tractates of which it is not known if and how they were meant to form one work, even though there are crucially important shared features across most of them. The Gemara responds to the open textual structures of the Mishnah, as sketched in Chapter 3, by constantly probing the Mishnaic statements for analogies and connections not explicated within the text itself. It thus provides in principle just the type of contextual information on which the Mishnah tacitly suggests it depends, although the details often show that the Gemara has no Wrst-hand access to that context. The Gemara furthermore places Mishnaic statements into a network of criticism and competition, as well as completion. It thus denies the Mishnah the role of an exclusive

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information source or sole authority, and treats it as an open set of statements, not a closed one. Nor does the Gemara actually remove the meaning ambiguities of the Mishnah. Many ambiguities arising from the mere juxtaposition of Mishnaic statements are simply never dealt with. Even for those Mishnaic statements which get the full talmudic treatment, the Gemara merely tends to show how numerous the possible links are. It does not declare centralized principles which close down other options, or limit the corpus of statements with which it can be done. It is again up to the reader to decide if the Gemara’s interpretations are meant as closed sets, or if they need to be linked further across the separated talmudic passages and beyond, to achieve a yet more exhaustive treatment of a certain theme. Some of the medieval commentators, in particular the so-called TosaWsts, provide just such ‘Gemara’ on the Gemara. In the talmudic discussion, Mishnaic themes which appear to be quite straightforward take on a much greater complexity. The Gemara does not suggest, however, that the Mishnah is superWcial in its treatment of these complexities. Rather, the Mishnah is often accepted as if it were an integrative master account, a structure of deliberate verbal economy which Wnely balances its awareness of a mass of detail. A planned selection from a larger tradition, the Mishnah’s legal cases are endowed with the function of cornerstones for vast ediWces of decision-making. Because of this, the question of Mishnaic coherence which is so puzzling from the perspective of modern scholarly discourse becomes unimportant. Any undeclared thematic gap between two neighbouring Mishnaic statements merely indicates that each is the visible peak of a much larger realm of issues and sub-topics. Those submerged issues are spelled out in the Gemara. It is only a slight exaggeration of this picture of the Mishnah to say that the thematic distance between two juxtaposed Mishnaic statements is measured by the number of Gemara pages which separate them in the Talmud. Approaching the Mishnah from an experience of the Gemara, readers normally do not even try to take the Mishnaic statements as suYcient in themselves. They thus do not experience the failure of such a reading strategy, as described in Chapter 3. Rather the Mishnaic statements become immediately reduced to being pointers to a much fuller text, one of which even the Gemara is merely an


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example. By way of a retroactive hermeneutics, the Mishnah’s statements acquire the function of being summit points of the Gemara’s discussion or some discussion like it. The text explained (Mishnah) thus comes to be the summary of its commentary (Gemara). This also happens, to some extent, to the Hebrew Bible. In rabbinic and post-rabbinic readings, each of its sentences can appear as the tip of an iceberg, with the submerged part being spelled out in halakhic and aggadic texts. It is thus quite characteristic of rabbinic Judaism that the earlier texts can reverse roles with their later explanations. Here is another aspect of the methodological tension which accompanies modern scholarly readings of the rabbinic evidence. Insofar as there is a role reversal between text and commentary, rabbinic literature violates the ground rules of the very scholarship by which the modern historian must reconstruct it. On the other hand, this reversal of roles between text and commentary is one of the key phenomena stressed by post-modern interpreters of rabbinic sources.

T H E O R A L TO R A H W H I C H T H E G E M A R A P RO J E C T S The range of Talmudic themes is encyclopaedic. This does not mean that the rabbis would treat astronomy, astrology, medicine, mathematics, biology, etc., as areas of knowledge in their own right. Topics falling under these headings may be mentioned, but only given a limited and one-sided treatment, insofar as they impinge on the great rabbinic themes at all. Neither does it mean that there is an ‘encyclopaedic’ organization of themes in the modern sense, on the contrary, as I have illustrated throughout this chapter. Rather, it is encyclopaedic in the very limited sense that any theme at all might get mentioned in the course of its discussion. There is therefore no thematic boundary discernible, not even a de facto one. Furthermore, the Gemara contains a diverse variety of forms and principles of organization. The reader Wnds not just single statements, but truly substantial sections of text which form no thematic whole with their surroundings, and yet have strong internal organization. The fact that such sections occur, and that they are arranged

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according to competing principles of order which cannot be brought into a hierarchy of forms, has a profound and subversive eVect on the reader’s search for unity in the text. The projection of a unity falters for the text ‘Gemara’. Or, put diVerently, the Gemara’s unity can be projected only at the price of declaring that it is the very disparateness which constitutes its constant message. What message would that be? The message that there was a uniWed historical context from which diverse branches of knowledge and form grew. The Talmud’s principle of unity would be that it forms no text, but represents fragmentary evidence for a whole rabbinic tradition. The Gemara would oVer itself up to a historical detective work which turns every reader into a source critic. The ‘shapeless’ Gemara thus calls most strongly for an oral context in which the most diverse themes and forms of the rabbinic centuries, places, and rabbis, are suspended in a harmony which is pre-ordained and yet historically real. And because almost all rabbinic themes, small forms, and genres occur in the Talmud, the outer boundaries of the historical context projected by the Gemara come to be identical with those of rabbinic Judaism as a whole. Approached through the experience of the Talmud, the other post-Mishnaic works of rabbinic literature can Wnd their localized place in that larger hermeneutic horizon called forth by the Gemara. The Gemara is thus a document which retains its textuality only if read as a-textual data for the rabbinic tradition, an ‘oral Torah’. From this follows, strictly speaking, nothing directly for the historicity of such a tradition. The literary structures of the Gemara are evidence for a tradition, but they are evidence of a quite deliberate kind. By restricting textuality to the Mishnah, and otherwise promoting the idea that statements were textually single but historically connected, the Gemara is out to demonstrate the reality of a uniWed context. So even in the Gemara we are not invited to be Xy-on-the-wall witnesses to tradition doing its thing. Even the Gemara, nay, in particular the Gemara, is Wrst and foremost a text, that is, something that cannot be created without a measure of literary artiWce. Its recurrent textual features, including the juxtaposition of disparate sections, or the petering out of its themes, are ultimately literary conventions like any other, capable of being perpetuated in changed circumstances, adaptable to purposes other than the ones which they had at Wrst. Yet it would be quite absurd to assume that the Gemara is an elaborate


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attempt to conjure up a rabbinic tradition which in reality never existed. Its features are most easily explained as growing from just the sort of shifting social and oral settings which they project in their disunity. Thus in parts the Gemara could indeed be shaped by a lack of editorial intervention, and the accidental or deliberate deposition of further passages like sediments.9 But only up to a point, as the many other dimensions of the Gemara show which exhibit clear evidence of strong formal shaping. It may be useful at this juncture to list the diVerent ideas of tradition which we have encountered in the course of investigating the literary features of rabbinic texts. I think that all of these provide material for a critical appreciation of the notion of ‘oral Torah’. There is Wrst the hermeneutic horizon of the social use of texts or the social making of new texts (Chapter 7); second, the projection of rabbinic statements Xoating in a non-textual pool which becomes, somewhat accidentally and partially, frozen into the shape of rabbinic documents (Chapter 8 and above); third, the historical connections of (dis)agreement which the dialectical conversation usually presupposes between statements from the pool; fourth, the Gemara presenting itself as a virtual oral context for the Mishnah; Wfth, the use of statements which come from outside (‘baraita’) any text as a commentary on statements that are locked into a textual order—this goes for the Gemara’s treatment of the Mishnah, and also more generally for the rabbinic treatment of Scripture; and sixth, the hermeneutic projection of a uniWed historical context, ‘rabbinic Judaism’, for a text, the Gemara, which displays its own lack of unity prominently while claiming historical connectedness for its parts. Select Further Reading The mood and purpose of traditional Talmud study in modern times are evoked in Alon, ‘The Lithuanian Yeshivas’. A brief summary of hostility to the Talmud is found in Stemberger, Introduction, 222–4. Stemberger, Introduction, 191 V., Abraham Goldberg, ‘The Babylonian Talmud’, and Neusner, Introduction, 182–220 provide general accounts of the Gemara. Modern English translations include Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud and Neusner,

9 See Goldberg, ‘Der Diskurs’, 43–4 (294).

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The Talmud of Babylonia. Adin Steinsaltz has created a version of the Bavli text with explanatory paragraph layout, punctuation, vocalization, as well as a paraphrase and translation (of the Aramaic parts) into modern Hebrew (Talmud Bavli). Goldenberg, ‘Talmud’, oVers an introductory analysis of a sample text. In its assumptions about the textuality of the Gemara, my own account is closest to Goldberg, ‘Der Diskurs im babylonischen Talmud’. The issue of extended exegetical Midrash appearing in the Gemara is explored, for example, by Bo¨rner-Klein, Eine babylonische Auslegung der EsterGeschichte; Kraemer, ‘Scripture Commentary’. The structural and historical components of the Talmudic sugya are investigated, among others, by Jacobs, Structure and Form and his other books, in particular The Talmudic Argument, which analyses many sugyot in their movement of thought; Hauptman, Development of the Talmudic Sugya; Kraemer, The Mind of the Talmud; Kalmin, Sages, Stories, Authors, and Editors; Hayes, Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds. For the historical growth of the Gemara, see in particular David Halivni Weiss’s Sources and Traditions and Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara; see also the work of Shamma Friedman and the inXuential Ya’akov Sussmann. Moscovitz, Talmudic Reasoning, collects the evidence for a development from implicit to explicit conceptualization in halakhic discourse. The literary mechanisms of the Talmudic sugya are treated in Arnold Goldberg, ‘Der Diskurs im babylonischen Talmud’, and the dialectical argument is interpreted in Neusner, The Reader’s Guide to the Talmud, Ch. 5. On terms for the proposer and opposer as the two roles of the Gemara’s voice, see Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud, 241. Brief practical information, such as the abbreviations frequently used in the Gemara, is found in Carmell, Aiding Talmud Study. The critical stance in which the literary structures of the Gemara involve the reader are explained, for example, by Kraemer, Reading the Rabbis, 11–16 and Lightstone, The Rhetoric of the Babylonian Talmud, 276–80. Lists of the Babylonian Gemara’s main discussion procedures are given in Jacobs, The Talmudic Argument, 13–17 and Abraham Goldberg, ‘The Babylonian Talmud’, 327–33; see also Neusner, How the Talmud Works, Part II, 37–86. The aporetic disputes of the Gemara, i.e. move (iv) in Table 4, are investigated in Jacobs, Teyku. De Vries summarizes various types of baraitot and their most common quotation formulae in ‘Baraita, Baraitot’, while Elman, Authority and Tradition, explores the relationship between the Tosefta as we know it and the Gemara’s baraitot; see in particular 102 V. The question of whether quotations (of Amoraim or Tannaim) in the Gemara are even always presented as authentic is explored by Jacobs, ‘How much of the Babylonian Talmud is Pseudepigraphic?’; and see Hauptman, Development of the Talmudic Sugya. The postmodern appreciation of a reversal between text and commentary is worked


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out in a number of books, perhaps most prominently in Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash and Faur, Golden Doves with Silver Dots. The ‘store’ aspect of the Gemara is partly explored by Segal, ‘Anthological Dimensions’. A useful collection of articles on the Gemara is Chernick (ed.), Essential Papers on the Talmud. Neusner has sorted into a tentative chronology the occurrences of various meanings of ‘Torah’ throughout the rabbinic corpus in his Torah. From Scroll to Symbol in Formative Judaism. The fact that I speak almost exclusively of the Bavli in this chapter fails to reXect the historical importance of the Palestinian Talmud, its signiWcant literary diVerences from the Bavli, and the growing body of contemporary research devoted to it. For a Wrst orientation, see Stemberger, Introduction, 164–89.

10 Hermeneutic Models of Story and History The midrashic engagement with the biblical past, as it is represented in the biblical words, is substantial and detailed. I explain some major types and their literary formats, using a chapter from Genesis Rabbah as illustration. I pay attention in particular to the question of endings, both in stories and in history, as perceived by the rabbis. For the rabbis their own past and present held little strictly historical interest. I suggest that this results from the fact that the midrashic practice intensiWes the meaning of biblical events, reducing later events to the status of mere repetitions of biblical paradigms. I interpret this to be an expression of exile, that is, a state of waiting for redemption.

PA IRING BIBLICAL EVENTS Midrash aggadah, or the Midrash of ‘telling’, interprets the biblical events and tells them again. This engagement with biblical narrative takes place through scrutinizing the text of Scripture. In this process the biblical events themselves become treated like signs, and acquire a superabundance of meaning. The concrete results of this midrashic creativity, arising from the local linguistic detail of Scripture, are often unpredictable. But when one moves to a more abstract level of analysis, certain recurrent strategies of aggadic Midrash emerge. Prominent among those are procedures of pairing, and on those I shall now concentrate. I use a chapter from the work Genesis Rabbah to illustrate the following in particular:

:: ::

Hermeneutic Models of Story and History

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the pairing of a biblical event with another biblical event ; the pairing of a biblical event with a general truth expressed in Scripture (the narrative Petichah); the modelling of a biblical story through another story, the parable; the pairing of a biblical event or commandment with a prediction of future events (Chatimah).

A story does not only have one meaning, if one attempts to capture that meaning in a general statement, for example a ‘moral’. For modern literary critics and theoreticians the realization that a narrative cannot be reduced to a discursive proposition is something of a hard-won insight, and indeed still contentious. Rabbinic hermeneutics seems to take it entirely for granted, and it tends to avoid reductive or exclusive readings of biblical narrative. This is clear from the aggregate structure of lemmatic Midrash wherever several midrashic units on the same topic or biblical passage are placed side by side, but also from the frequent use of the above-mentioned procedures of pairing. With the exception of the Petichah, the pairings do not revolve around a restatement of the meaning of the narrative in terms of a proposition. Rather, they preserve many of the ambiguities of a given biblical story.

A C HAPTER OF MIDRASH AG GADAH : GENESIS RABBAH 55 I shall use a chapter from Genesis Rabbah to illustrate various hermeneutic strategies of pairing. The chapter is concerned with Genesis 22: 1–4, the opening verses of the ‘binding of Isaac’. This deed of Abraham and Isaac, the latter taken to be an adult and willing participant, is an instance of the ‘merit of the patriarchs’ (zekhut avot). God is expected to take this merit into account when judging and redeeming Israel, which is necessary because no generation’s own merit would be suYcient for acquittal in judgement. The full chapter is translated as Sample Text II at the end of the book. Here I present a summary of the hermeneutic units in their sequence. I list the more important biblical quotations from outside

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Genesis 22 and draw attention to some linguistic links made between verses. I omit hermeneutic disputes. 1. Genesis 22: 1 read in the light of Psalm 60: 6 (a Petichah):

Abraham’s trial demonstrates to everyone, like a hoisted Xag, that God’s justice (middat ha-din) is strict, and that there is no favouritism. In both verses, a word occurs that can be tied to the meaning ‘trial’ (nissah, nes le-hitnoses). 2. Genesis 22: 1 read in the light of Psalm 11: 5 (a Petichah):

God tests only the righteous, not the wicked, which is why Abraham was tested. In both verses a verb meaning ‘to test’ occurs (nissah, yivchan). 3. Genesis 22: 1 read in the light of Psalm 11: 5 (a Petichah):

God tests the righteous person, such as Abraham (i.e. the righteous is subjected to trials); semantic overlap as in number 2. 4. Genesis 22: 1 in the light of Ecclesiastes 8: 4 and Deut. 6: 16 (a Petichah):

God’s testing of Abraham cannot be challenged on the basis of his commandment to Israel not to test him, for he is the king; yet it cannot be justiWed, for there is an inexplicable contradiction in it. The two Pentateuch verses use the same word for ‘to test’ (nissah, lo’ tenassu). (This Petichah is also translated below.) 5. Genesis 22: 1 read in the light of the birth of Isaac in Genesis 21:

Abraham’s failure to bring an oVering for the birth of Isaac prompts the divine demand to oVer his son, after either Abraham himself or the angels bring the matter up. Alternatively, Isaac and Ishmael quarrel about whose circumcision implies greater merit, whereupon Isaac oVers his whole person to God, prompting God’s visitation of Abraham. 6. Genesis 22: 1 in the light of 2 Kings 3: 27 and Micah 6: 6–7:

While King Mesha’s oVering of his son was actually performed but was rejected by God, the merely intended oVering of Abraham’s son acquired as much merit as if it had taken place. 7. Genesis 22: 1:

Abraham’s trial was meant to show his righteousness to the world, not to God; or God did not command, but merely ask for, the oVering, so as to make it Abraham’s own decision, and thus a real trial.


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8. Genesis 22: 1 in the light of Exodus 3: 4 and other verses:

Both Moses and Abraham said, ‘Here I am’ (hinneni), but the former’s readiness did not match that of the latter, and Moses did not receive kingship and priesthood as did Abraham. 9. Genesis 22: 2 in the light of Genesis 12: 1:

God released information in stages when referring to Isaac in ambiguous terms in Gen. 22: 2, so as to be able to give extra merit to Abraham; the same happened in his utterance to Abraham in Genesis 12: 1. 10. Genesis 22: 2:

‘Moriah’ is the place of the future Temple, to which its name can be linked in various ways, including Canticles 4: 6 (mount of myrrh). 11. Genesis 22: 2 in the light of Psalm 110: 4:

Abraham would have been able to bring Isaac as a cultic oVering, because he was in fact appointed a priest by Abimelekh. 12. Genesis 22: 2 in the light of Genesis 12: 1 and other verses:

God keeps the righteous in suspense before telling them his purpose. Similar signs of postponed information are found in all verses quoted. 13. Genesis 22: 3 in the light of Numbers 22: 21 and two other pairs of passages:

Love and hate both upset the rules of etiquette or dignity, as when Abraham and Joseph got their animals ready in person out of love, while Balaam and Pharao did the same out of hatred; and Balaam’s (Pharaoh’s) act of hatred is annulled by Abraham’s (Joseph’s) act of love. Closely related expressions recur in the various verses. 14. Genesis 22: 3 in the light of 1 Samuel 28: 8:

Taking along two servants conforms to proper etiquette, and is reported of both Abraham and Saul. 15. Genesis 22: 3 in the light of Exodus 14: 21:

In the merit of Abraham’s splitting of the wood for the oVering of Isaac, the Red Sea was later split for the Israelites during the exodus. The same word ‘to split’ is used for both (wa-yevaqqa’ in the pi’el conjugation, wa-yyibbaq’u in the nif ’al).

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16. Genesis 22: 4:

God gave Abraham a separate reward for the ‘rising’ and the ‘walking’ mentioned separately in that verse. (Genesis Rabbah, Chapter 55: 1–8)

The structure of this midrashic chapter is quite typical of exegetical Midrashim like Genesis Rabbah. A number of Petichot are succeeded by individual midrashic units, arranged in a verse by verse sequence, or indeed word for word within a verse.

C O R R E S P O N DE N C E S A M O N G B I B L I C A L EVE N T S The interpretations in this sample of midrash aggadah problematize the meaning of the biblical words, but for the purpose of addressing the meaning of what happened in biblical times. One can Wnd answers to the following questions concerning the events: What is the nature of the biblical events? (For example, the trial was a real trial, number 7.) What brought the events about, or motivated the characters? (In particular God, as in number 5.) What is the reward for actions (number 6)? What further details are implied in the events, which are not directly mentioned in a narrative report found in Scripture? (Abraham’s status as king and priest, numbers 8, 11; the identity of Mount Moriah, number 10.) What is the moral status of the characters or their acts (numbers 3, 6, 13)? How does God govern the world in what concerns his dealings with the wicked, the prophets, the righteous, etc. (numbers 9, 12, 16)? What is the signiWcance of times and places in which actions took place (number 10)? How are humans prone to act (number 13)?

In the majority of cases, the answers to these questions involve a second passage from Scripture. By this device the interpretations create correspondences between parts of biblical stories. Here is a list of some of these correspondences; the abstract terms of relation given in italics are not found in the text, but express my own interpretation for the purposes of summary:


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the circumstances surrounding the birth of Isaac in Gen. 21 prompted Abraham’s trial in Gen. 22 (interpretation 5); the circumcision of Ishmael and the binding of Isaac stand in some correspondence to each other (5); King Mesha’s oVering of his son (2 Kings 3: 27) and Abraham’s binding of Isaac stand in a precise contrast to each other (6); Abraham’s and Moses’ saying of ‘Here I am’ are similar in some respects but not in others (8); the place of the near-sacriWce in Gen. 22 is identical with that of the later Temple sacriWces (10): Abraham anticipated the Temple; Abraham’s leaving of Ur (Gen. 12) and his binding of Isaac (Gen. 22) are parallel to each other in respect of the elaborate manner of God’s expression (9); Abraham’s actions parallel and counteract those of Balaam; Joseph’s actions parallel and counteract those of Pharaoh (13), and similarly with the actions of Abraham and Pharaoh; Abraham and Saul followed the same rule of etiquette when taking two young men with them (14); Abraham’s splitting of the sacriWcial wood merited the divine splitting of the Red Sea as its response (15).

These couplings of biblical events seem to take for granted a divine providence of a special kind, while not mentioning any such word.1 The eVect of that providence would be to make what happened in biblical times just as rich in signiWcance, and just as semiotic, as the divine revelation in words. One can read those biblical events, for they are in some sense authored, and they overXow with meaning, somewhat like the biblical text itself in its verbal constitution. Such interpretations move away from the linear chronology of merely human history. The abundance of the meaning of biblical happenings dissolves the fabric of the one and only biblical narrative. Single acts can be taken out of the context of their own stories and found to chime with each other. Each speciWc part of a biblical episode is considered primarily only for the local, bi-local, or multilocal sense it makes. This often improves on the biblical coherence, as when narrative ‘gaps’ are Wlled or neighbouring episodes are

1 Cf. Urbach, The Sages, 256 on the term hashgachah, ‘providence’; cf. Fischel, Rabbinic Literature, 138 n. 108.

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connected (see number 5 above). But at the same time it tends to open up fresh gaps, and sometimes radical incompatibilities, elsewhere in the story line. This is not treated as a problem, and normally not even acknowledged. For neither lemmatic nor homiletic Midrashim engage in attempts to construct one story from all the rabbinic narrative ideas. So biblical stories are used to refract other biblical stories. The only genre which has a tendency to maintain narrative coherence, at least at close quarters, is the Targum, embodied in particular in the Targums of the Pentateuch.2 Neighbouring units of interpretation often provide alternative versions of the same point in the biblical story. A passage summarized above as number 5 illustrates this. In one midrashic retelling of that point, Abraham himself is worried about his omission of a sacriWce for Isaac’s birth, prompting God’s acts in Genesis 22: 1V. In another version, presented next, the angels accuse him of the same omission, thereby similarly prompting God. Finally, in an argument with Ishmael, Isaac is stung into oVering himself up to God, and now this acts as the prompt for Genesis 22: 1. As stories, these are entirely diVerent. But in their hermeneutic function they are interchangeable. They Wt exactly the same niche of the biblical narrative and provide the same component: a motivation for God. Even where such midrashic components target diVerent points in the narrative, and are not as here mutually exclusive, they are not conceived as integrated with each other. They are still hermeneutic alternatives. Their sheer number and the convoluting eVect they have on a uniWed story line must dissolve the unity of the biblical chronology. This means that even within the space of a few pages of Midrash, let alone across the whole of rabbinic literature, the one biblical past becomes many possible pasts. What tends to remain constant is a range of models for divine governance and care for Israel. It appears that the rabbis felt no obligation to make choices between alternative biblical pasts, as long as all versions were equally expressive of some divine values.

2 Another exception might be Pirqey de-Rabbi Eliezer; cf. n. 2 in Ch. 2 above.


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EV E NT G E NER AL IZATIONS: THE NARRATIVE PETICHAH The matching of biblical event with biblical event is only one type of hermeneutic correspondence used by the rabbis. The literary format of the Petichah oVers scope for another type of correspondence. In the narrative Petichah an event is matched up with a general maxim, where the maxim reveals the event’s deeper signiWcance. The maxim may concern the nature of reality, God’s governance of the world, good or bad behaviour, and similar themes. What deWnes this sort of Petichah is that the general truths applied to the biblical events are themselves articulated in biblical words—they are quotations of a biblical verse. Thus Scripture is understood to contain the same truth in two diVerent modes, as it were: embodied in a reported event, and as a verbal maxim, value judgement, norm, etc. In this way general expressions of biblical piety, poetry, morality, and wisdom can serve to explain the signiWcance of biblical events told elsewhere in Scripture. Conversely, the events become illustrations of the general truths, and thus help to pin down the meaning of vague, proverbial, or poetic verses. The basics of the narrative Petichah, Wrst explained in Chapter 4, are these. It uses a general verse, often from the third biblical division, the Writings, to characterize a unique event, usually reported in a Pentateuch verse. I shall refer to the general verse as tenor verse, since it identiWes the underlying tenor or general drift of an incident told in the Pentateuch; while for the verse actually reporting that incident I use the term event verse. In the following example from Genesis Rabbah 55 the event verse is Gen. 22: 1, reporting the trial of Abraham. The signiWcance of that trial is taken to be identiWed by a verse which is entirely separated from it, and which appears to be about no speciWc event, namely the words of Eccles. 8: 4. This, the tenor verse, is quoted at the beginning, but reveals its application to the event only at the end of the Petichah. In our example, as often, the relationship between tenor verse and event verse is mediated by a parable (mashal): [And it was after these things that God tested Abraham . . . (Gen. 22: 1)]

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R. Avin expounded (patach): For the word of the king reigns supreme; and who can say to him: What are you doing? (Eccles. 8: 4). [For] R. Avin said: [This is] like3 a Rabbi who used to command his disciple by saying: Do not lend money on interest, and yet he himself lends money on interest. He says to him: Rabbi, you say to me: Do not lend money on interest, and yet you lend money on interest? It is allowed to you and forbidden to me? He [the Rabbi] said to him: I say to you: Do not lend money on interest to someone in Israel, but to the other nations you may lend on interest: From loans to the foreigner you may deduct interest, but from loans to your brother you shall not deduct interest (Deut. 23: 21). Thus Israel said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Lord of the Universe, you have written in your Torah: You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge (Lev. 19: 18), and yet you take vengeance and bear a grudge: The Lord is a passionate, avenging God; the Lord is vengeful and Werce in wrath; the Lord takes vengeance on His enemies . . . (Nahum 1: 2)? The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to them: I have said for you: You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against a member of your people (Lev. 19: 18), but I am vengeful against the other nations: Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites . . . . (Num. 31: 2). [Also it is written:] You shall not test the Lord (Deut. 6: 16)—[Yet,] And God tested Abraham!4 (Genesis Rabbah 55: 3)

The reader is expected to have the tenor verse still in mind when reaching the last line. It seems to me that the link of the diVerent parts is as follows. For some norms the distinction between inside and outside of Israel will make acceptable otherwise prohibited actions, such as charging interest or taking vengeance. But this does not hold for God’s testing of Abraham, which stands in tension with his commandment to Israel not to test God in Deut. 6: 16. The rabbi of the parable can oVer a rational explanation of his behaviour within the system of divine commandments, but God cannot, and the parable thus provides a contrasting foil for God’s act. In another version of this text, the parable itself contains a counterpart to God’s ‘unacceptable’ behaviour, in that the rabbi takes bribes and bends judgement, actions for which there can be no justiWcation.5 The 3 The preposition le-, often used to introduce a mashal; see below. 4 I mostly follow MS Vatican 30 (facsimile SokoloV ); a diVerent recension of this Petichah is found in Sample Text II at the end of the book. For rendering biblical quotations I follow mostly The Tanakh. 5 This component is found in the Vilna edition; cf. also Mirkin, Midrash Rabbah, Vol. 2, 259–60. The phrases in italics are from Deut. 16: 19.


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nature of the contradiction between Deut. 6: 16 and Gen. 22: 1 is one between what God says (to Israel) and what he does (to one member of Israel, Abraham). This way of looking at the event of the trial of Abraham seems to be captured by the words of the tenor verse in a very precise manner: The word of the king reigns supreme; and who can say to him: What are you doing? But while the tenor verse appears to admit a possible tension between word and deed, it also conveys that God is a king who, unlike a rabbi, need not account for his deeds, and whose laws have to be obeyed however puzzling his own acts. The tenor verse thus helps to bring out new meaning in the biblical event. But it also receives an interpretation from that event. Thus, the word ‘king’ is not used to refer to God in Eccles. 8: 4, which in fact cautions the wise man against betraying his real thoughts to a human king. Also, the contrast between word and deed is not especially highlighted by the original context, but is brought out by the Petichah’s presentation of a tension between Genesis 22 and Deut. 6: 16.6

T H E NATU R E OF TH E NA R R ATI V E P E T I C H A H ; T HE R ABBINIC HOM ILY The narrative Petichah appears to presuppose a speech act in which the words of the tenor verse are adopted by the rabbinic interpreter for uttering new, rabbinic, speech (see Chapter 4). That rabbinic speech refers to the unique biblical event, and thus applies the Wxed words of the tenor verse to that event. The closest parallel to this kind of Petichah is the use of proverbs in everday situations, when a proverb is uttered as a comment on what is happening or has happened. The proverb, like a tenor verse, is a Wxed verbal formulation which is general, metaphorical, or vague. And again like the tenor verse, if applied to a unique situation, the proverb can serve to thematize that situation’s signiWcance or highlight certain aspects in it. The main diVerence is that for the application of a proverb no other verbal description of the situation is necessary, while the

6 Cf. Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation, 137–40.

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narrative Petichah depends on, and engages with, the verbal report of an event in Scripture. The tenor verses tend to come from biblical books which oVer proverbial or metaphorical generalizations, such as Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes as here, or the Song of Songs. Petichot are preserved as independent units within lemmatic aggregates, as in Genesis Rabbah, or as part of integrated homilies. The average rabbinic homily is a few print pages long and tends to have at least three recognizable parts which stand in a functional relationship to each other. The Wrst is the Petichah; the second is the so-called Inyan, a word-by-word interpretation of the event verse of the Petichah and perhaps some subsequent verses; the third is the Chatimah to be explained presently.7 Scholars tend to assume that homilies were delivered to live audiences in the house of study or the synagogue. But the extant texts are often manifestly literary and very condensed. Despite what the label ‘homily’ might suggest, they do not constitute preaching in the sense that they dwell on a theme for emphasis. The rabbinic ‘homily’ is very much a terse, technical text, without padding, slackness of pace, or purely rhetorical repetition.

THE MASHAL A S M O DE L O R A NA LO G Y FO R A BI BLI C AL EV EN T The rabbis tend to treat Scripture as a model for the life of the rabbinic reader. As I suggested before, Midrash determines Scripture as a text which cannot be read except by way of self-application, as if each segment had appended to it the motto, attah ha-’ish, ‘you are that man’ (2 Sam. 12: 7). But the rabbis also create stories whose task is to model the biblical events, the parables or meshalim. The hermeneutic power of a mashal derives from the fact that any story seems to have the potential to model other stories which are in some sense structurally like it. It may be the case, as some philosophers believe, that we usually construct and make sense of our own experi7 For an example of such a homily, see Sample Text IV.


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ences by creating or recognizing narrative models; and that the same happens when we listen to other people’s lives, told to us in words. The capability of one story to model another is taken for granted in the rabbinic practice of creating parables to bring out the sense of a biblical event. A working deWnition of the hermeneutic mashal might run as follows. A mashal is a text consisting of two parts. The Wrst part presents a typiWed account of how some character(s), usually deWned by their social role or craft, pass through two (or more) sequential stages, or make a choice between two (or more) alternatives. The second part identiWes biblical actions or events which exhibit similar stages or choices. The Wrst part is often referred to—confusingly—by the word mashal in the narrow sense,8 the second by the word nimshal, usually introduced by ‘thus’ (kakh). The mashal is not a full narrative. It reports a hypothetical or typical happening, not a unique one (be it Wctional or historical). Its characters are types, not individuals. Its core lies in the motivation or causal chain which connects the two stages or alternatives of the mashal (in the narrow sense). This nexus is usually not identiWed in so many words, but it is this nexus which, in the nimshal, tends to be projected onto the biblical story. Often what is transferred from the mashal to the nimshal is thus a relation between narrative components, providing a model for the way in which the components of the biblical story relate to each other. The two-stage structure of the Wrst part of the parable sets it apart from a related hermeneutic device, the mere comparison or simile. The hermeneutic simile has no ‘before and after’ but is static, as when Abraham’s elevation through his trial is compared to the hoisting of a ship’s Xag (see unit 1 cited at the beginning of this Chapter). The following passage Wts the above deWnition of a mashal. It is much less elaborate than many other meshalim, including the mashal of the rabbi taking interest quoted above as part of a Petichah. But it fulWls the same hermeneutic function through its two-stage ‘narrative’ in the Wrst part. Its context is again the trial of Abraham. 8 Often introduced merely by the preposition le-, but also with a much fuller formula: Mashal; le-mah ha-davar domeh? Le- . . . , meaning: ‘A parable. To what is this thing comparable? To . . .’. See e.g. Sample Text IV, no. 24.

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The Lord tries the righteous (Ps. 11: 5). R. Yonathan said: Take a potter,9 he does not probe the vessels which are cracked because, if he even strikes them once, they break. Rather, what does he probe? The sound vessels, for even if he strikes them several times, they do not break. Thus (kakh) the Holy One, Blessed be He, does not test the wicked but the righteous: The Lord tries the righteous. (Genesis Rabbah 55: 2, ed. Theodor–Albeck, 585–6)

This text presents God’s trial of Abraham (mentioned in the context) as parallel to a potter’s striking his sound, not his defective, vessels. The two stages are: (i) potter hits vessel, (ii) vessel does not break (when other vessels would). In the biblical story this corresponds to God testing Abraham, and Abraham not ‘breaking’. The link between the two stages in the mashal is that of a motivation, or a choice between alternatives. The potter strikes the sound vessel because he knows that it is sound, suggesting that God tests the righteous because he knows they are righteous.

THE MASHAL AS A FORM WITH A H ERMENEUTIC FUNCTION The functionality of the mashal, like that of most other rabbinic forms, such as the ma’aseh and the Petichah, resides in internal relations within the form, and its operational link with the immediately surrounding text. This can only be captured by a discursive deWnition, such as is given above for the mashal, in Chapter 6 for the ma’aseh, or above for the narrative Petichah. The rabbis often introduce these forms with their own signal words or formulae, insofar as their use survived the vicissitudes of scribal transmission. Where those formulae are not a functional part of the form, they express the rabbinic awareness of a form—an important topic in its own right, but diVerent from determining whether we recognize the form as deWned. The rabbinic terminology may well lump together forms which we have a need to distinguish, or it may not be consistently applied at all. The word mashal happens not to appear in the passage I used a moment ago, the potter testing his vessels. Yet that passage 9 Literally: ‘This potter does not probe . . .’.


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conforms to the literary form mashal as I have deWned it above and shares its hermeneutic functionality with many passages in which the word mashal does appear. In order to avoid any confusion between the rabbinic employment of a term like mashal and its technical meaning in a scholarly meta-language like mine, one could drop the use of rabbinic expressions and instead refer to the variously deWned forms as, say, Rabbinic Form 17b, Rabbinic Form 3a, etc. This would not change the task of literary description at all. But it would mean that scholarship ceases to imply, as it does with the current terminology, that the modern academic perspective is conceptually continuous with the rabbis’ own. In a midrashic text the mashal can take its place alongside other hermeneutic devices or other meshalim, all explaining the same point in the biblical narrative. Thus the potter mashal in Genesis Rabbah 55: 2 is followed by two further meshalim. The mashal itself may contain a general point but does not express it in propositional form. Rather, it explains narrative by further narrative-like material, and is correspondingly ambiguous. Thus it is always capable of conveying ideas of uncertain ‘doctrinal’ status. Take the mashal on the rabbi who tells his pupil one thing, and does another, translated above. This rabbi’s acts, and God’s taking vengeance, turn out to be justiWed by a distinction between Israel and the other nations. If God prohibits himself to be tested, but takes the right to test others, then God corresponds structurally to Israel: what is prohibited ‘within’ is allowed vis-a`-vis the outsider. In that case, Abraham also corresponds, in some sense, to the outsider: the non-Jew. Does the mashal mean to say that, for the purpose of his trial, Abraham relates to God as a non-Jew relates to a Jew? This message may be not intended at all. But since the mashal is in itself something like a narrative, its meaning is not propositionally limited, and neither is the meaning which it uncovers in the biblical story. So this interpretation, namely Abraham as parallel to a non-Jew, remains in play. The mashal channels the superabundance of biblical meaning into a contextually narrower set of possibilities, but that set is not propositionally circumscribed, and thus not just one basic meaning. The hermeneutic parable does impose certain limitations on the meaning, however. That is why it has an explanatory eVect. It depicts a schematic or Wctional order, not experience in its messy richness.

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The kings, potters, or farmers who routinely appear in meshalim are very largely a cultural currency, embodying accepted values and conventional narrative connections. In part, they even reXect ideas formed on the basis of the biblical text itself, and are in any case not presented as the result of critical observations of real people. Their construction also depends on the biblical story line whose meaning they are meant to model.

E N DI N G S A N D THE E ND OF DAYS; THE CH ATIMA H Endings in stories are important. They distinguish stories from life, whose ending is unknown, even if a person’s self is constituted through narrative structures as some philosophers believe. The ending of a story is emphatically meaningful, and it is so by assembling information into an outcome, even if it is preliminary. Most biblical episodes are mutually continuous and open towards each other (and to the future), but many also have eVective closures. Rabbinic interpretation tends to open those closures up again, partly by detecting further links which connect the episodes to each other, as illustrated above. Endings are nevertheless important to the rabbis, in particular in the shape of God settling an account through reward or retribution. A rabbinic maxim sometimes explicitly stated, and often simply put to hermeneutic work, speaks of God recompensing humans ‘measure for measure’ (middah ke-neged middah).10 This allows for the recognition of quite indirect, indeed symbolic equivalences between actions. But the great ending, for the rabbis, is the Wnal judgement and redemption of Israel. This ending cannot be narrated, because it has not yet happened, but the rabbis Wnd information about it in the prophetic utterances of Scripture. These provide a special scheme of correspondence, namely between a divine promise and a fulWlment not realized. The concluding section of many rabbinic homilies, 10 See e.g. Mishnah Sotah 1: 7 and Bavli Sanhedrin 100a; a series is found in Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Shirata, 2 (ad Exod. 15: 1; ed. Lauterbach, Vol. 2, 13–19); cf. Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation, 124–6.


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called Chatimah (‘seal’, ‘conclusion’), is often concerned with this correspondence, this ending. The form involves, as usual, the pairing of biblical quotations, often by contrasting them with each other as in the following example: On this day they came to the wilderness of Sinai (Exod. 19: 1). [ . . . ] It is not written here On that day, but On this day. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to them: On this day I have given them the Torah and they study as single dedicated persons. But in the world to come I teach it [myself] to all of Israel and they do not forget it, as it is said: For this is the covenant which I shall make with the house of Israel, after these days, says the Lord. I shall give my Torah into their midst and upon their hearts I shall inscribe it (Jer. 31: 33). And not only that, but I shall also increase the peace among them. Isaiah said: And all your children will be students of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children (Isa. 54: 13). (Tanhuma ed. Buber, ii, Yitro § 13 (38b))

The narrative verse, Exod. 19: 1, reads in full: On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone forth from the land of Egypt, on this day, they came to the wilderness of Sinai. This sentence provides the setting for the covenant between God and Israel (19: 5–8), and the subsequent giving of Torah. The Chatimah above emphasizes the use of this in the verse. It is explained as follows. In this day, that is, the time of the rabbinic reader, only individual persons dedicated enough to invest the eVort (‘single ones’, literally) learn and do Torah. But at the time of redemption, the whole of Israel will be learning Torah, and furthermore God himself will be their teacher. That last point may be separate, or it may mean that the toil of Torah study will disappear, since Torah will be inscribed ‘upon their hearts’. This is the contrast established with the Chatimah verse, Jer. 31: 33. The formal features of the Chatimah are much less pronounced than those of the narrative Petichah. Some Chatimot take as their starting point a normative verse rather than a narrative one. Also, not all Chatimot work with the contrast between past/present and the eschatological future. Some present a message that is still in some sense comforting, but without being eschatological.

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SE EING THE PRE SENT THROUGH BIBL ICA L EY ES The rabbis do not emulate the concrete historiography of Ezra or Chronicles by telling the story of the age of Mishnah and Talmud. Perhaps the very genre of history-writing was, for them, marked as canonical communication from God, and thus not open to continuation. But even isolated references to a unique historical situation are rare. That includes homiletic texts, in which one might expect concrete references to current aVairs, if they reXect an oral setting of preaching. What one Wnds quite regularly, however, is that the present or recent past are referred to by a kind of biblical code. Thus Edom and Esau can be used as names for Rome, later for Byzantium and Christianity,11 and Ishmael as the name of the Islamic reign; Rome can be taken as the ‘fourth beast’ of Daniel 7, and any terrible hater of Jews can be seen as another instance of the archetypes of Amalek and Haman.12 These biblical proper-noun categories can be transferred from one historical reality to another, and are thus not speciWc to any. So the texts as we have them do not contain concrete, joined-up accounts of the rabbis’ contemporary world. Perhaps this is meant to be counterbalanced by the intense midrashic engagement with the past. Aggadic midrash often explores the biblical events by way of something that might be called a hermeneutic of experience, of which the mashal is an example. It constructs the biblical past as if it were Wrst-hand personal history. The biblical stories are broken down into segmented events and acts: behaviour to be emulated, behaviour to be avoided, illustrations for the enduring values of God, and manifestations of the value-laden realities of creation. All these can be perceived to conWrm the project of the rabbinic present, the life of Torah. In this perspective the present would be seen as merely re-enacting biblical events and biblical relevance. The meaning of current events in rabbinic times would be captured automatically by articulating the meaning of biblical events. If so, then of the three components in this 11 For example, Lamentations Rabbah 1: 14. 12 Cf. Bavli Sanhedrin 97b in the name of R. Yehoshua.


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hermeneutic relationship—biblical event, meaning, and current event—only the Wrst two need to be spelled out. In midrashic texts it appears as if the biblical meaning could take the place of a description (and thus interpretation) of the rabbinic present. To quote Jacob Neusner again: ‘So no new historical events, other than exemplary episodes in lives of heroes, demand narration because, through what is said about the past, what was happening in the times of the framers of Leviticus Rabbah would also come under consideration.’13 Perhaps the present was even perceived only insofar as it conformed to a biblical paradigm. Thus the biblical words and stories come to mask the details of the rabbinic present, certainly when one reads with the eyes of a historian. This is quite similar to what happens in pre-rabbinic eschatological texts, although not in the Gospels. For example, the Qumran group interpreted the prophetic announcements of Habakkuk and Nahum as applying to their own recent past. Yet their documents name no names and provide few historical details. Instead, the fulWlment-events are referred to by a coded language which is in turn partly biblical: Teacher of Righteousness, Wicked Priest, Kittim,14 Lebanon, land of Damascus, Seekers of Smooth Things, etc. The historical uniqueness is thereby lost from the verbalization. Something similar holds for books which, like the so-called pseudepigrapha, articulate the present while pretending to speak from the perspective of a biblical past. The key principle of writing such texts is to make the description of the present unspeciWc or Wgurative enough for it to appear as an earlier prediction. As a device of composition, the lack of speciWc detail merely reverses an attitude of reading, as manifest in the Qumran pesher interpretations and in early Christianity. The reader of biblical prophecy who looks for its application to the present or recent past is adept at Wltering out all concrete details which cannot be matched in some way to the Wxed verbal formulations on the page. On the other hand, this reader attitude is helped by the fact that those formulations are often obscure, generic, or Wgurative. Looking at 13 Introduction to Rabbinic Literature, 384. 14 For example, Gen. 10: 4, Daniel 11: 30; cf. for instance, Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 17–18, 54 V.

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the present as the fulWlment of a biblical prophecy requires that a general-sounding statement is applied to a unique occurrence—just the sort of move which is performed in the narrative Petichah, but there applied to the biblical past.

EXILE So there are aspects of aggadic Midrash which are continuous with earlier eschatological outlooks. They expect the post-biblical period to be patterned according to known biblical events, and generally accord importance to contemporary events only insofar as they might lead up to the Wnal redemption. What lies between the biblical past and the future redemption is a period which one might characterize by a rabbinic term: exile (galut). To some extent the idea of galut does not require that Israel is in a geographical exile: even in their own country they are in exile if God is not present. God’s presence or in-dwelling (Shekhinah) in the land, however, is tied to the Jerusalem Temple, which was destroyed around the beginning of the rabbinic period. In some rabbinic statements God himself is considered to be in exile, or to accompany Israel into its various exiles.15 The intensity and scale of the midrashic engagement with the biblical past thus could be contextualized by the rabbis’ selfperception as living in exile. Even at the heart of the life of Torah, the apparently timeless halakhic programme, there is a gap or disruption: Israel cannot fulWl the cultic commandments. These were set down mainly in Leviticus and expanded upon in the Mishnah. Israel’s exile thus consists partly in the fact that they do not have even the opportunity of fulWlling God’s will in full. The Mishnah, by devoting two of its six Orders to mostly inapplicable halakhah—sacriWces and cultic purity—can be seen as inscribing this loss into the life of Torah. Perhaps the Temple halakhah was, for a time, cultivated in readiness for a return of the sacriWcial service to Jerusalem. But it was Wnally included in the 15 See, for instance, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Pischa 14 (ed. Lauterbach, vol. 1, 113–16); Bavli Megillah 29a; Yerushalmi Ta’anit 1: 1, 64a.


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Mishnah more than 130 years after the cessation of sacriWces. At that stage it is just as likely to have been included as a consequence of rabbis accepting that the Temple would not be rebuilt through human eVort, but only as part of the Wnal redemption. That is certainly how later rabbinic generations saw it. The study of cultic halakhah is said to be capable of taking the place of sacriWces (Bavli Menachot 110a; cf. Leviticus Rabbah 7: 3). Yet what is studied are the details of an obligation that, as such, the rabbis could not fulWl. As a consequence, the loss is accentuated by the study of cultic halakhah as much as it is compensated for. A similar paradox emerges for synagogue prayer. This partly stands in parallel to Temple sacriWces and occasionally is accepted as having the same status, as service (avodah) of the heart.16 But there is no sense that one could dispense with Temple worship, and many prayers consolidated in the post-talmudic period refer directly or indirectly to the lost cult, asking for it to be reintroduced speedily. Thus the halakhah itself is, so to speak, in exile. The link between halakhah and exile also works the other way round. For some rabbis, implementing the halakhic ideal can speed up redemption. Thus Israel’s keeping the Sabbath twice ‘according to its halakhah’ is seen as bringing about redemption in one passage;17 while in another, less speciWc conditions are identiWed for redemption, namely repentance and good deeds.18 Disagreeing with the latter view, the Babylonian Amora Shemuel is cited as having said: ‘It is suYcient that the mourner continues with his mourning’. This pronouncement, as so many rabbinic statements, may well have had a concrete meaning in the original context which is now lost to us. But as used in that passage, the mention of mourning Wts well enough with a range of ideas which link exile and halakhah in practices, study, prayer, and also in midrash aggadah. In addition to a comparatively small number of speculative statements on the end of days (a cluster is found in Bavli Sanhedrin 96b– 99a), there are routine mentions of retribution and redemption 16 Sifre Deuteronomy § 41, on Deut. 11: 13. 17 Bavli Shabbat 118b; cf. Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Wayassa’ 5 (ed. Lauterbach, Vol. 2, 120), and Yerushalmi Ta’anit 1: 1, 64a (where one Sabbath is said to be sufWcient). 18 For example, Bavli Sanhedrin 97b.

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which form part even of the very mechanics of interpretation. For example, the pair of terms ‘this world/world to come’ is often used to diVerentiate between two biblical expressions or sentences which appear to say the same thing twice (see techniques 14 and 22 in Table 3). Equally common are references to the resurrection of humankind for judgement, the reward of the righteous in the afterlife, and the punishment of the wicked in Gehenna. In such passages, eschatological notions are incidental to the process of accounting for the biblical words. This means that their meaning and their validity is taken entirely for granted. Similarly, the homiletic form of the Chatimah oVers an opportunity to thematize the redemptive future, not as speculation or doctrine, but as part of a midrashic drill. So two important areas of rabbinic thought—halakhah and midrash aggadah—are profoundly tied to an eschatological orientation, in addition to prayer. There is something demonstrative about the fervour with which a biblical past is found meaningful, while the present is treated by silence; something demonstrative also about the monumental discussions of a cultic halakhah that could not be implemented. I said before (Chapter 8) that those parts of the life of Torah which could be implemented, as projected by the halakhic discourse, are certainly demonstrative in themselves. They point to the existence of a king by keeping his laws, but a king who is otherwise absent from contemporary history until the hour of redemption. These various ways of pointing to God can perhaps be seen as continuing and transforming biblical gestures of pointing. The biblical pointing to God happens in its story-historical accounts, an attitude crystallized for the rabbis in the words, This is my God of Exod. 15: 2. If so, the pointing or deixis, for which one always needs a context, would in rabbinic documents take priority over explication or description, which can be rendered universal. Rabbinic literature would then contain a kind of performative discourse which constitutes what one might call a theo-deixis rather than a theology. Select Further Reading Biblical scholarship Wnds a number of narrative correspondences intended as part of the art of story-telling in Scripture, as e.g. Alter shows in his Putting Together Biblical Narrative; see also his The Art of Biblical Narrative.


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Some of the midrashic correspondences also trace out what is now called inner-biblical exegesis, for which see, for example, Weingreen, From Bible to Mishna; Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel; Maass, ‘Von den Urspru¨ngen’; Slomovic, ‘Toward an Understanding’. Spiegel’s The Last Trial is highly informative on the Jewish interpretations of the trial of Abraham (Gen. 22), while Kugel’s Traditions of the Bible, Ch. 9 gives an idea of the prerabbinic readings. The story-contents of midrashic units were separated from their form in post-talmudic times for the creation of narrative syntheses; a modern presentation is found in Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews. What I call the tenor verse corresponds, in the case of narrative Petichot at least, to what other scholars often call ‘Petichah verse’ or ‘intersecting verse’; my event verse is otherwise known as ‘Seder verse’, ‘Inyan verse’, or ‘base verse’; see Goldberg, ‘Versuch’ and Neusner, Introduction, 360, 388, 393–403, as well as his A Theological Commentary on the Midrash. Volume One, 5–6. Hasan-Rokem, Proverbs in Israeli Folk Narratives, explores proverbs used in popular Jewish story-telling inXuenced by rabbinic culture. For the Petichah see in particular Goldberg, ‘Versuch’, and Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation, Ch. 5. What I analyse as the application of a generic verse to a unique occurrence is sometimes known as petirah (solution, reference), cf. Goldberg, Rabbinische Texte, 309–28. For the rabbinic homily as a whole, including its optional forms Yelamdenu and Semikhah, see Stemberger, Introduction, 243–6 and Lenhard, Die Rabbinische Homilie, introduction. Boyarin’s Intertextuality explores Scripture as a self-glossing text, and parables as cultural currency of meaning. For the link between the making of stories and the construction of life experiences (the self), see in particular P. Ricoeur, for whom the biblical narrative plays an important role: Time and Narrative; Reagan and Stewart, The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, LaCocque and Ricoeur, Thinking Biblically, and Valde´s, A Ricoeur Reader. The hermeneutic mashal is treated in detail in Goldberg, ‘Das schriftauslegende Gleichnis’, also Stern, Parables in Midrash; a collection of rabbinic meshalim is Thoma and Lauer, Die Gleichnisse der Rabbinen. For the most common introductory formula, see Bacher, Exegetische Terminologie, Vol. 1, 121–2. Barth, ‘The ‘‘Three of Rebuke and Seven of Consolation’’ ’, 513, considers the absence of concrete historical references to the contemporary setting of one group of homiletical texts. Hasan-Rokem, Tales of the Neighborhood (3–4, 9, and passim) connects the rabbinic ‘lack of interest in history’ to their interest in an ‘ethnography of everday life’. Links between story and eschatology are explored in Kermode, The Sense of an Ending. Goldberg, ‘Service of the Heart’, explains some of the parallels, and their limits, between Temple cult and synagogue prayer.

Conclusion The preceding chapters constitute a very incomplete account of the forms of rabbinic literature and thought. However, I hope they have shown that rabbinic thought is intertwined with the nature of its texts, with rabbinic textuality. The link between ‘form’ and ‘contents’ is intimate. Perhaps it is even unbreakable, as in certain types of poetry. In contrast to much poetry, however, it arises not from syntax or semantics, but from the ‘outside’ of the sentences. There it arises, paradoxically, from the refusal to impose a compelling, sentenceconnecting shape. It seems as if the ideal to which the rabbinic textmakers aspired was the baraita: statements that come not just from outside the Mishnah, but from outside all textual order. The paradox of texts—including the Mishnah itself—which downplay or negate their own existence must be the starting point for any appreciation of rabbinic thought. In the absence of a compelling textual Gestalt, the formal selfsuYciency and independence of the single statement allows it to enter into many diverse potential relationships with other statements, so that it can be diYcult to determine its exact scope and import. Direct knowledge of the halakhic practice of a text’s own time and place, which would resolve many such ambiguities, is mostly not available. Nevertheless, the absence of a sentence-connecting Gestalt is not a mere lack. It is, like all sustained text formation, an achievement and a contrivance: Gestalt of another order. How is it achieved? The following factors, discussed in detail in the preceding chapters, contribute to this outcome in various measure. i. Rabbinic documents are governed by an anonymous reporting voice. This voice never introduces itself, but introduces other voices.

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It is uncertain whether the same anonymous voice is heard in all parts of the same document, and even beyond the single document. Any initial position taken by the reader on this question can become a self-fulWlling prophecy; for coherence, as well as incoherence, has a way of becoming visible where it is sought—when there are no boundary signals. ii. All larger literary units in rabbinic documents appear to be made up from smaller units, statements often couched in one of the standard small formats (Table 2). These statements are not articulated into groups by thematic headings and sub-headings. Texts do not announce their themes, or the themes of their parts, obliging the reader to decide if statements found next to each other contribute to one overall theme. iii. Statements tend to be merely juxtaposed with only occasional use of informative conjunctions, such as ‘however’, ‘nevertheless’, ‘therefore’, ‘and also’, ‘by contrast’, ‘for example’, ‘by the way’, etc.1 As a consequence, the thematic or logical relationship between neighbouring statements is often not spelled out. iv. Texts do not announce their parts.2 Outside the standard small forms, there is no explicit sign-posting of beginning, middle, and end in rabbinic texts. All boundaries between stretches of text, or single statements, are constructed by the reader on the basis of perceived degrees of thematic similarity. The reader is obliged to decide what the parts of a larger text are (if any), and what is the logic of their sequence. The reader can do so by close reading, by trial and error, or by relying on extra-textual information, but the resulting types of evidence are in many cases not conclusive. v. Discourse forms are not hierarchically related to each other, except within the rabbinic homily. Thus parts of texts or individual statements do not stand in a standard meaning relationship to each other by virtue of being part of a larger form.3 1 The widely used conjunction waw can mean ‘and’ as well as ‘but’, and thus harbours a crucial ambiguity. See Sample Texts. 2 One cannot automatically treat the conventional divisions found within the documents as a binding expression of thematic or formal boundaries. 3 This excludes the text shapes of narratives whose statements do tend to have standard meaning relationships, e.g. Pirqey de-Rabbi Eliezer and most of the Targums.

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vi. General principles, where they occur, may have preliminary or exploratory status and often appear to be tacitly undermined by information found in the vicinity or further aWeld. General statements tend not to be used to organize larger text parts, by being the climax, or the starting point, of a sustained exposition. vii. The same rabbinic idea or statement often occurs more than once in the same or diVerent works. These parallels are not crossreferenced or even acknowledged. The reader is obliged to decide, usually on the basis of quite indirect evidence, if recurrences need to be read together, or read apart. viii. The historical connections between rabbinic documents are not spelled out within them. The historical context of a document is never explicitly mentioned in it, and there are no text locations dedicated to naming the purpose, author(s), or provenance of a work, such as an introduction. ix. Rabbinic documents often present explicit disputes, in a manner that emphasizes, rather than eliminates, the plurality of voices. Disputes are rarely decided explicitly (outside the Gemara), which introduces an extra ambiguity in the construction of text coherence. There is also a ‘conversational’ dimension to the gradual and unacknowledged shift of topics in the cluster. x. The implicitness of relations appears to invite the reader to search for coherence by way of analogical comparisons of single statements, not by way of applying general principles.4 Yet constructing coherence by analogical links works for passages which are contiguous as much as it does for passages which are separate from each other. It can create virtual new texts. Therefore analogy need not establish primarily the coherence of the particular text at hand—as that text and no other. Perhaps it constructs eVectively only the coherence of a projected historical entity (‘rabbinic Judaism’). These mechanisms of openness keep the outer boundaries of meaning undeclared for any given rabbinic statement. They suggest that some selective use of statements, through analogy or other hermeneutic procedures, is in principle legitimate, because it is practically unavoidable. In other words, the immediate literary context of each 4 Analogy is also a prominent method of reasoning presented in the texts themselves.

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statement as we have it would be merely one example of such a context. There must have been rules to the game of selective reading, which narrowed down the admissible re-combinations of statements. Those rules were presumably part of the speciWc historical contexts in which a rabbinic document, or a part of it, was Wrst created and then modiWed in further use. Persons or groups, following certain habits of thought or interaction, would have embodied that competence and it would presumably have changed over time. Modern scholarship has no direct evidence of those contextual rules. Only such evidence would allow us to move away with conWdence from the actual literary context of a given statement. With rare exceptions, our knowledge of the historical contexts can only be applied in a general manner to the concrete rabbinic passage or document. Thus we can almost never identify a unique historical situation as a text’s context of production or modiWcation. Yet much general contextual information is available, including archaeological and inscriptional evidence. This often points to close economic, institutional, and cultural contact between Jews and nonJews on the local level. There are also conceptual and literary practices linking Jewish texts to those of cultural neighbours in the Graeco-Roman, Christian, Sasanian, or early Muslim settings. Knowledge of the other cultures has helped in the past to discover comparative evidence regarding list-making, techniques of interpretation, mechanisms of memorization, legal approaches, and a number of other themes. But this knowledge may also help us develop new, hitherto unrecognized, models for the internal relationship of a rabbinic statement to its immediate literary context. For this to happen, a factor which has so far been largely neglected needs to enter the contextualizations. This factor is a precise understanding of rabbinic works as Wxed texts which downplay their constitution. For it would appear that the literary strategy of denying the text’s own composition and coherence is part of the meaning of many rabbinic documents. As such, it needs to be brought into the comparison with the wider historical context.

Sample Texts of Rabbinic Literature This section contains translations of sample texts from four important rabbinic genres or arrangement patterns (see Chapter 1). They are meant to provide the reader with a Wrst-hand experience of the variety of ways in which neighbouring statements can relate to each other in the space of a few pages. Because of the open-ended cumulative nature of the thematic aggregate (I), the exegetical Midrash (II), and the dialectical conversation (III), the points at which these samples end is fairly arbitrary. For the rabbinic homily (IV) I was able to follow the sign-posting arising from the homiletical form. For the others, I took my cue from conventional text divisions (I, II), or what I considered to be a clear thematic transition (III). Rabbinic texts require a slow pace of reading. This comes to particular prominence in their translations. For then they look like any other Western—say, English—text, and thus invite something like an ‘average’ speed of reading. But soon readers tend to discover that at that pace, they simply do not understand the text. This experience goes to the heart of the distinct textuality of rabbinic literature. Single statements have, prima facie, their own micro-topic. Once the statement (sometimes just one sentence) is over, the topic is over. The next statement brings a new topic, and readers are left without any comforting rephrasings, assurances, boundaries, or any further information. Instead, they are confronted with the comparatively much harder task of thinking through the relationship of two, then three, then four, etc., neighbouring statements which may be connected substantially, or not. That slows the reading down. There are certain practical procedures by which one can force oneself to adopt an appropriate pace of reading. One is to discuss the text line

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by line with a partner, as happens for the Babylonian Gemara in modern Yeshivot (Talmud academies). Another method is to copy the text out by hand while arranging the statements on the page, thus making some initial decisions on what belongs together and how closely. Using sequential numbering to separate out statements or smaller units (such as biblical quotations) can also help; for this the numbering of the mishnah-units in the chapters of the Mishnah provides a traditional model. Jacob Neusner presents his rabbinic translations with a detailed breakdown and alpha-numerical marking of units. In what follows I employ both a limited page layout and a numbering to show how the coherence might work. But in many cases I can think of other, equally valid ways to group the units. Such alternatives will be found in the existing scholarship or readily occur to the reader. This openness arises directly from the mere juxtaposition of statements. The translation style here adopted is quite literal, sometimes painfully so. The reason for this is that the samples are meant to reveal to the reader as much of the original text structures as possible. I translate the conjunction waw by its most common meaning, ‘and’, throughout. I do this in order to saddle the reader of the English with the same labour of construction as the reader of the Hebrew. For waw can mean ‘and’ as well as ‘but’. In other words, its presence does not relieve the reader from the burden of having to determine the thematic-logical relationship of the statements. There is a conjunction meaning speciWcally ‘but’ (aval), but it is used comparatively rarely (for example statement 66 in Text I). I also preserve literally the anonymous third person plural in which the prescriptive sense of rabbinic norms is often expressed, translating ‘They mention the exodus’ (statement 24 in Text I), rather than ‘one mentions the exodus’ or even ‘we mention . . .’. The square brackets mostly contain information which is not spelled out in the text, but which is assumed by later Jewish tradition and/or modern scholarship. Ultimately, this information is almost always based on links made—by earlier readers—to other rabbinic statements which are not on the same page, or indeed not in the same document. The frequency of square brackets therefore illustrates quite well the degree to which the meaning of the single statement almost constantly depends on reader assumptions of coherence, as explained in Chapter 3.

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Each sample text is followed by a brief description of selected formal features, drawing on the terminology and explanations found in earlier parts of this book.

Sample Text I Mishnah Tractate Berakhot 1–3 (thematic-halakhic aggregate) I indicate the chapter divisions but omit the numbering of paragraphs (mishnayyot) within the chapters.

Chapter 1 1. From when onwards do they recite the Shema’ in the evening? From the hour that the priests enter [the Temple] to eat of their heave oVering [after an immersion and the sundown have rendered them ritually clean], 2. until the end of the Wrst [night] watch—these are the words of R. Eliezer. 3. And the Sages say: Until midnight. 4. Rabban Gamliel says: Until the rise of the column of dawn. 5. An incident (ma’aseh) [took place], that his sons returned from a feast and said to him: We have not recited the Shema’ [of the evening] yet. He said to them: If the column of dawn has not risen yet, you are allowed [to recite it].1 6. And not only this, but every obligation of which the Sages said, ‘Until midnight’, is eVective until the rise of the column of dawn. 7. The burning of the fat pieces and limbs [on the altar]—their obligation applies until the rise of the column of dawn. 8. All the [oVerings] which need to be eaten within one day—their obligation is until the rise of the column of dawn. 9. If so, why did the Sages say: Until midnight? In order to distance man from transgression. 10. From when onwards do they recite the Shema’ in the morning? From [the time] when one can tell blue from white.

1 Textual variant: you are obliged [to recite it]. I present further variants in round brackets in what follows.


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11. R. Eliezer says: [When one can tell] blue from green. 12. [And one should Wnish it] by sunrise. 13. R. Yehoshua says: By the third hour [c.9 a.m. at the equinoxes], for this is the way of the princes, to rise at the third hour. 14. He who recites [it] from then onwards suVers no loss, like a person who reads in the Torah. 15. The House of Shammai say: In the evening all should recline and recite [it], and in the morning they should stand upright, as it is said, When you lie down and when you rise up (Deut. 6: 7). 16. The House of Hillel say: Every man recites in his own way, as it is said, And when you walk upon the way (ibid.). 17. If so, why is it said, When you lie down and when you rise up? Rather [it means], the hour when people are accustomed to lie down and the hour when people are accustomed to rise. 18. R. Tarfon said: I was once on the way and I reclined in order to recite [the Shema’] according to the words of the House of Shammai, and I put my life in danger because of robbers. 19. They said to him: You deserved to forfeit your life, for you transgressed the words of the House of Hillel. 20. In the morning one pronounces two blessings before it [i.e. the Shema’] and one after it. 21. And in the evening one pronounces two blessings before and two after it, one long and one short. 22. Where they said to use a long one, he may not use a short one; [where] to use a short one, he may not use a long one. 23. [Where they said] to conclude [the blessing with a closing formula], he may not fail to conclude; and [where they said] not to conclude, he may not conclude. 24. They mention the exodus from Egypt [in the Shema’] at night-time. 25. R. Eleazar ben Azariah said: Behold, I was about seventy years old and [yet] I had not merited [to see the justiWcation why] the exodus from Egypt should be mentioned at night, until Ben Zoma expounded it, as it is said: So that you may remember the day of your going out from the land of Egypt all the days of your life (Exod. 16: 3). The days of

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Sample Texts of Rabbinic Literature your life—[those are] the days; all the days of your life— [those are] the nights. 26. And the Sages say: The days of your life—this world; all the days of your life—to bring in the days of the Messiah.

Chapter 2 27. If he was reading in the Torah and the time for the recitation [of the Shema’] arrived, if he directed his heart, he has fulWlled his obligation.2 28. And if not, he has not fulWlled his obligation. 29. And between the sections [of the Shema’] one greets because of honour and returns a greeting, 30. and in the midst [of a section] one greets because of fear [or awe] and returns a greeting— [these are] the words of R. Meir. 31. And R. Yehudah says:3 In the midst [of a section] one greets because of fear and one returns a greeting because of honour, 32. and between the sections one greets because of honour and returns a greeting to anyone. 33. These are ‘between the sections’: Between the Wrst blessing and the second; and between the second and shema’ [i.e. Hear, Deut. 6: 4]; and between shema’ and And if you should hearken (Deut. 11: 13); between And if you should hearken and And the Lord said (Num. 15: 37); between And the Lord said and True and Wrm [i.e. the beginning of the third blessing]. 34. R. Yehudah says: Between And the Lord said and True and Wrm one should not interrupt. 35. R. Yehoshua ben Qarchah said: Why does [the section] shema’ precede the [section] And if you should hearken? So that one accepts upon oneself the yoke of the kingdom

2 The thematic sequence of units 27–63 is the object of my discussion of the ‘cluster’ in Ch. 3 and elsewhere in this book. 3 This is Yehudah bar Ilai, a diVerent person from R. Yehudah ha-Nasi who is credited with editing the Mishnah; he is mentioned very frequently as a dissenting voice (see Stemberger, Introduction, 77).


37.

39.

41. 42. 43.

45.

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of heaven Wrst and afterwards accepts upon oneself the yoke of the commandments. 36. [Why does] And if you should hearken [precede] And the Lord said? Because And if you should hearken applies both by day and by night, and And the Lord said only by day. He who recites the Shema’ [too softly] for his own ears to hear it, has fulWlled his obligation. 38. R. Yose says: He has not fulWlled his obligation. If he has recited it and not enunciated its letters properly, R. Yose says: He has fulWlled his obligation. 40. R. Yehudah says: He has not fulWlled it. He who recites in a confused order has not fulWlled his obligation. If he has recited it and made a mistake, he resumes from the place where the mistake happened. Craftsmen may recite it in a tree, or on top of a wall. 44. Which is not what they are entitled to do in the case of the Eighteen Benedictions. The bridegroom is exempt from the recitation of the Shema’ on the Wrst night, and until the end of the Sabbath if he does not perform the act [i.e. consummate marriage]. 46. A incident (ma’aseh) concerning Rabban Gamliel who married and recited it on the Wrst night that he was married. They (variant: His disciples) said to him: Did you not teach us that the bridegroom is exempt from reciting the Shema’ on the Wrst night? He said to them: I do not listen to you so as to annul for myself the kingdom of heaven even for one hour. 47. He washed on the Wrst night after his wife died. They (variant: His disciples) said to him: Did you not teach us that the mourner is forbidden to wash? He said to them: I am not like the rest of men, I am delicate. 48. And when Tavi, his slave, died, he accepted condolences for him. They (variant: His disciples) said to him: Did you not teach us that one does not accept condolences for slaves? He said to them: Tavi my slave was not like all other slaves. He was worthy.

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49. The bridegroom may, if he wishes, recite the Shema’ on the Wrst night. 50. Rabban Shim’on ben Gamliel says: Not everyone who wishes to assume the name [perhaps, for special piety] may assume it. Chapter 3 51. He whose dead lies before him is exempt from reciting the Shema’ (variant: and from the Eighteen Benedictions) and from the phylacteries. 52. The pall bearers and their replacements, and the replacements of the replacements, those going before the coYn and those coming after the coYn: those that are needed for the coYn are exempt, and those that are not needed for the coYn are obligated [to recite]. 53. These as well as those are exempt from the Eighteen Benedictions. 54. If they have buried the dead and come back, and it is possible to begin and Wnish before they have reached the line [of consoling friends], they begin; 55. and if not, they do not begin. 56. Those who form the inner line [of consoling friends] are exempt, and 57. those that form the outer one are obligated. 58. Women and slaves and minors are exempt from reciting the Shema’ and from the phylacteries. 59. and they are obligated regarding the Eighteen Benedictions, the mezuzah, and the grace after meals. 60. Someone who has had an emission [of semen, cf. Lev. 15: 16] only reXects [on the words of the Shema’] in his heart and does not pronounce blessings before it or after it, 61. and at a meal he pronounces the blessing after, and not the blessing before. 62. R. Yehudah says: He pronounces the blessing before them and after them. 63. If he was standing in prayer and remembers that he had an emission (see 60 above), then he does not interrupt it but shortens it. 64. He who goes down to immerse [for puriWcation], if he is able to come up and cover himself and recite before the sun rises, he comes up and covers himself and recites it;


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65. and if not, he covers himself with water and recites it. 66. But he may not cover himself in foul water or in water used for soaking [Xax], unless he pours [clean] water into it. 67. And how far should he remove himself from it and from excrement [when reciting]? Four cubits.4 68. A man with a Xux (cf. Lev. 15: 2 V.) who also has an emission, and a menstruant who also discharged semen, and a woman who has intercourse and also notices herself menstruating—they require immersion [so that they can recite the Eighteen Benedictions or study Torah, even if other procedures are still necessary to cleanse the respective impurities]. 69. R. Yehudah exempts [them]. Notes on some formal features: Units 1–9 are the opening of the whole of the Mishnah, if Berakhot was always treated as its opening Tractate. This passage is actually somewhat atypical for Mishnaic discourse in certain respects, of which I shall mention two. First, the ma’aseh in 5 is unusual in that Gamliel’s pronouncement, rather than simply make a decision, has the format of a hypothetical legal case. This is presumably meant to convey that his sons were halakhic disciples in their own right and that he wanted them to apply the rule themselves. 6–8 oVer the rare case of the Mishnaic stam declaring that the opinion of a named single rabbi outweighs that of ‘the Sages’, which is presumably why 9 oVers a partial harmonization of the two. The midrashic units in 25 and 26 stress an apparently redundant ‘all’ in the verse: ‘days of your life’ is in itself understood as already meaning all of those days (what else would it mean?); so the extra word ‘all’ is conspicuous through not being strictly necessary, and a new topic is found to which it can apply (see Table 3, no. 15). The form of the hypothetical legal case begins to dominate from Berakhot Chapter 2. It is found alongside the unconditional norm (as in 15, 17, and 58), used in particular for exemptions or permissions rather than obligations (see Table 2, no. 1). In most of these statements, the Shema’ is the dominant theme, but occasionally a second or third topic is appended to a Shema’-statement, introducing multiple thematic links to a cluster of statements (explained in Chapter 3 above). A regular second topic is the Eighteen Benedictions, mentioned in 44, 51, 53, and 59. In Chapters 4 and 5 of this Mishnaic Tractate the Eighteen Benedictions are the main theme.

4 Cf. the measurement of four by four cubits in Sample Text III below, no. 41.

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Sample Texts of Rabbinic Literature Sample Text II Genesis Rabbah Chapter 55 on Genesis 22 (lemmatic aggregate/Midrash)

This translation is based on Theodor–Albeck,5 the most widely used edition for scholarly purposes. Certain passages from this text were Wrst translated in Chapter 4, and the whole text is summarized and discussed in Chapter 10.

[I] 1. And it was after these things, and God tested (nissah) Abraham . . . (Gen. 22: 1). 2. You have given those that fear you a Xag (nes) to rally around (le-hitnoses) (Ps. 60: 6a). 3. Trial (nissayon) after trial, elevation after elevation. So as to try them in the world, so as to elevate them in the world like the Xag of a ship. 4. And all this why? Because of the truth, Selah (Ps. 60: 6b)—so as to justify the attribute of strict justice (middat ha-din) in the world. 5. So that, if a man says: Whomever he (i.e. God) wishes to, he makes rich; and whomever he wishes to, he makes poor; whomever he wishes to, he makes king. Abraham, since he wished to, he made rich; and since he wished to, he made king— then one is able to give an answer and say to him: Would you have been able to do what Abraham did? And Abraham was a hundred years old when to him was born Isaac his son (Gen. 21: 5). After all this trouble it is told him: Take now your son . . . (Gen. 22: 2) and he did not hesitate. 6. You have given those that fear you a Xag (nes) to rally around (or, in light of the link to Gen. 22: 1: You have given those that fear you a trial to be elevated)—And God tested (nissah) Abraham. [II] 7. The Lord probes the righteous one [and the wicked one and the one who loves violence his soul hates] (Ps. 11: 5). 8. R. Yonathan said: Take a potter,6 he does not probe the vessels which are cracked because, if he even strikes them once, they break. Rather, what does he probe?

5 Theodor–Albeck, Vol. 1, 584–94. I use Roman numerals in square brackets to indicate the conventional sections within the chapter. 6 Literally: ‘This potter does not probe . . .’.


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The sound vessels, for even if he strikes them several times, they do not break. Thus (kakh) the Holy One, Blessed be He, does not test the wicked but the righteous: The Lord probes the righteous. 9. R. Yose ben Chaninah said: Take a Xax worker. When he knows that his Xax is good, the more he strikes it the more it improves and glistens; and when he knows that it is bad, he cannot even strike it once before it splits. Thus the Holy One, Blessed be He, does not test the wicked but the righteous, as it is said: The Lord probes the righteous. 10. R. Leazar said: [This is comparable] to a householder who had two cows, one strong and the other weak. Upon which does he put the yoke? Upon the strong one. Thus the Holy One, Blessed be He, only tests the righteous: The Lord probes the righteous. [III] 11. Another interpretation (davar acher). The Lord probes the righteous (Ps. 11: 5)—this is Abraham: And God tested Abraham. 12. R. Avin opened (or, presented a Petichah): For the word of the king reigns supreme; and who can say to him: What are you doing? (Eccles. 8: 4). 13. R. Avin said: [This is comparable] to a rabbi who commands his disciple and says to him: Do not lend on interest, and he himself used to lend on interest. The disciple said to the rabbi: You said to me: Do not lend on interest and you are lending on interest? He (the rabbi) said to him: I say to you: Do not lend on interest to an Israelite, but to the nations do lend, as it is said: To the foreigner you may lend on interest . . . (Deut. 23: 21). Thus Israel said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, you have written in your Torah: You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge (Lev. 19: 18), and you: The Lord is a passionate, avenging God . . . The Lord takes vengeance on his foes, and bears a grudge against his enemies (Nahum 1: 2). The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to them: I have written in my Torah: You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge—against an Israelite [the verse continues: against the children of your people]; but against the nations:

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[IV] 15. 16.

17.

18.

[V] 19.

Sample Texts of Rabbinic Literature Avenge the Israelite people on the Midianites . . . (Num. 31: 2, addressing Moses). 14. [What about:] Do not test [the Lord your God, as you did at Massah] (Deut. 6: 16)? And the Lord tested Abraham!7 After these things (Gen. 22: 1)—thoughts8 of things were there. Who thought? Abraham. He said: I rejoiced and made everbody rejoice [after Isaac’s birth, Gen. 21], and did not provide one bullock or one ram for the Holy One, Blessed be He. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him: [This happened] so that it would be said to you to sacriWce to me your son, and you would not hesitate. [This is] according to the opinion of R. Leazar, who said: the word Elohim [is found as] we-ha-elohim (and God )9—He and his law court.10 The serving angels said: This Abraham rejoiced and made everybody rejoice, and he did not provide one bullock or one ram for the Holy One, Blessed be He. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to them: So that it would be said to him that he sacriWce to me his son and he would not hesitate. Isaac and Ishmael were quarrelling with each other. The one said: I am more beloved than you, for I was circumcised at thirteen years old; and that one said: I am more beloved than you because I was circumcised at eight days. Ishmael said to him: I am more beloved because I was capable of protesting [against circumcision] and I did not protest. In that hour, Isaac said: Would that the Holy One, Blessed be He, be revealed above me and say to me that one of my limbs be severed, and I would not hesitate. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him: So that you would sacriWce yourself to me, and you would not hesitate. R. Yehoshua in the name of R. Levi said: Despite the fact that the [following] words were said about Mesha the King of Moab (cf. 2 Kings 3: 27), they really only talk about Isaac, as

7 A translation of the MS Vatican 30 version of 12–14 may be found in Chapter 10. 8 This word resembles the biblical word ‘after’ in the verse. 9 Gen. 22: 1. Literally, ‘and the God’. 10 ‘Judges’ is a possible meaning of the word elohim (this is how the rabbis understood, e.g. Exod. 4: 16), and as a divine name elohim stands for the attribute of strict justice. The ‘and’, perhaps also the ‘the’ (see preceding note), is taken to point to unmentioned persons which are like elohim.


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it is said: 20. With what shall I come before the Lord, do homage to God on high? Shall I approach Him with burnt oVerings, with calves a year old? Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriads of streams of oil? Shall I give my Wrst-born for my sin, the fruit of my body for the guilt of my soul? (Micah 6: 6–7).11 [VI] 21. And God tested (nissah) Abraham (Gen. 22: 1). 22. R. Yose the Galilean said: He elevated him like the Xag (nes) of a ship. 23. R. Aqiva said: He really tempted him [not just for show; see 35 below], so that they would not be able to say: ‘He stunned him and bewildered him and he [i.e. Abraham] did not know what to do.’ 24. And he said to him: Abraham! And he said: Here I am, ready (hinneni; Gen. 22: 1). 25. R. Yehoshua said: In two places Moses made himself like Abraham [by saying hinneni]. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him: 26. Do not exalt yourself before the king, and in the place of the great ones [or: elevated ones] do not stand (Prov. 25: 6). 27. Abraham said: Hinneni (i.e. I am ready)—hinneni for priesthood, hinneni for kingship. 28. He was worthy of priesthood: The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps. 110: 4; see 57 below). 29. He was worthy of kingship: You are a prince of God in our midst (Gen. 23: 5). 30. Moses said: Hinneni (Exod. 3: 4)—hinneni for priesthood, hinneni for kingship. 31. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him: Do not approach hither! (Exod. 3: 5). 32. ‘Approach’—[the word] approach means nothing but priesthood, as it is said: And the outsider who approaches [to bring sacriWce] shall be put to death (Num. 1: 51). 33. ‘Hither’—[the word] hither means 11 The words ‘shall I give my Wrst-born’ (¼ Mesha’s son) are important for the link, as may be the mention of a tribute of the wool of rams in 2 Kings 3: 4 V; cf. Gen. 22:13.

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[VII] 34. 36.

37.

42.

Sample Texts of Rabbinic Literature nothing but kingship, as it is said: That you have brought me hither (2 Sam. 7: 18).12 And he said: Take now your son, etc. (Gen. 22: 2). 35. He said to him: Take now (na’)—please. Your son (ibid.). He [i.e. Abraham] said to him: Which son? He said to him: Your only one (ibid.). He said to him: The one is the only one to his mother, and the other is the only one to his mother. He said to him: Whom you love (ibid.). He said to him: Are there boundaries in my inside? He said to him: Isaac (ibid.). And why did he not reveal to him [the name from the beginning]? So as to make him [i.e. Isaac] more beloved in his eyes, and to give him reward for every single word. 38. This is according to the opinion of R. Yonathan, who said: Go out from your land (Gen. 12: 1)—this is your province. And from your birthplace (ibid.)—this is your settlement. And from the house of your father (ibid.)—this is the house of your father. To the land that I will show you (ibid.). 39. And why did he not reveal it to him [straight away]? So as to make it [Abraham’s home] more beloved in his eyes, and to give him reward for every single step. 40. R. Levi bar Chayta said: It is twice written, Go out [in Gen. 12: 1 and here in Gen. 22: 2], and we do not know which of them is more beloved [in the eyes of God], the Wrst or the second. 41. From that it is written, And go out to the land of Moriah (Gen. 22: 2), behold, the second one is more beloved than the Wrst [presumably because it mentions the Temple Mount as Moriah]. And go out to the land of Moriah (Gen. 22: 2). R. Chiyya Rabbah and R. Yannai [disagreed]. 43. One said: To the place from which the teaching [horayyah, linked to Moriah] goes out to the world [Jerusalem as the seat of the central court]. 44. And the other one said: To the place from which awe (yir’ah) goes out to the world. 45. Similarly with respect to the ark [aron, kept in the Temple], R. Chiyya Rabbah and R. Yannai [disagreed]. 46. One said: To the place from which light (orah) goes out to the

12 The word ‘hither’ is taken to summarize God’s promise in 2 Sam. 7: 16: Your house and your kingship shall ever be secure before you.


51.

52. 53. 54. 55.

56.

58.

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world. 47. And the other one said: To the place from which fear (mora) goes out to the world. 48. Similarly with respect to the Holy of Holies (devir), R. Chiyya and R. Yannai [disagreed]. 49. One said: To the place from which the [divine] speech (dibber) goes out to the world. 50. And the other said: To the place from which pestilence (dever, as punishment) goes out to the world. R. Yehoshua ben Levi said: For from there [i.e. Moriah] the Holy One, Blessed be He, casts (moreh) the nations of the world, and sinks them down (moridam) to Gehinnom [i.e. the place of punishment for the wicked]. R. Shim’on ben Yochai said: To the place which is Wt (ra’ui) to be under the upper Temple [in heaven]. R. Yudan ben Pilia said: To the place which he shall show (mar’eh) you. R. Pinchas said (in Aramaic): To the place of the dominion (maruta) of the world. Rabbis say: To the place where the incense is oVered up, as it is said: I shall go to the mount of myrrh (ha-mor), to the hill of frankincense (Cant. 4: 6). And bring him there as a burnt oVering, etc. (Gen. 22: 2). 57. R. Yudan said: He [i.e. Abraham] said before the Master of the Universe: Can there be an oVering without a priest? The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him: I have already appointed you to be a priest, as it is said: The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps. 110: 4). On one of the mountains which I shall show you (Gen. 22: 2). 59. For R. Huna said in the name of R. Eliezer: For the Holy One, Blessed be He, confounds and puts a matter in suspense in the eyes of the righteous ones, and afterwards he reveals to them the reason for a thing: 60. To the land that I will show you (Gen. 12: 1); 61. On one of the mountains which I shall show you (here in Gen. 22: 2); 62. And proclaim to it the proclamation that I tell you (Jonah 3: 2); 63. Arise, go out to the valley and there I shall speak to you (Ezek. 3: 22).

[VIII] 64. And Abraham got up early in the morning (Gen. 22: 3). 65. R. Shim’on ben Yochai said: Love upsets the order, and hate upsets the order. Love upsets the order: And Abraham got up

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early in the morning and saddled his ass (ibid.)—and did he not have servants [to do this for him]? But rather, love upsets the order. Hate upsets the order: And Balaam got up in the morning and saddled his ass (Num. 22: 21)—and did he not have servants? Rather, hate upsets the order. 66. Love upsets the order: And Joseph hitched his chariot (Gen. 46: 29)—and did he not have servants? Rather, love upsets the order. And hate upsets the order: And he [i.e. Pharaoh] hitched his chariot (Exod. 14: 6)—and did he not have servants? Rather, hate upsets the order. 67. R. Shim’on ben Yochai said: Let saddling come and stand over against saddling. Let come the saddling performed by Abraham our father in order to go and fulWl the will of the One who Spoke and the World Came into Being, and stand over against the saddling performed by Balaam in order to go and curse Israel. 68. Let hitching come and stand over against hitching. Let come the hitching performed by Joseph in order to meet his father and stand over against the hitching performed by Pharaoh in order to go and pursue the Israelites. 69. R. Ishmael taught: Let blade come and stand over against blade: Let the blade come with which Abraham our father performed—as it is said: And Abraham sent out his hand and took the knife to slay his son (Gen. 22: 10)—and stand over against the blade of which Pharaoh spoke: I will bare my sword, my hand shall subdue them (Exod. 15: 9). 70. And he took with him two of his youths and Isaac (Gen. 22: 3). 71. R. Abahu said: Two men behaved according to proper etiquette, Abraham and Saul. Abraham: And he took with him two of his youths. Saul: He and two men (1 Sam. 28: 8). 72. And he split the woods of the burnt oVering (Gen. 22: 3). 73. R. Chiyya bar Yose said concerning this in the name of R. Maysha and it was taught about it in the name of R. Bannayah: As reward for the two splittings with which Abraham our father split the woods [plural, thus minimum two] of the burnt oVering did he merit that the Holy One, Blessed be He, split the sea before his children, as it is said: And the seas were split (Exod. 14: 21). 74. R. Levi said: Let it suYce to you that Abraham did according to his strength and the Place (i.e. God) did according to His strength.


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75. And he arose and walked towards the place [of which God had told him] (Gen. 22: 3)—he was given reward for the rising and reward for the walking. Notes on some formal features: This chapter opens with a series of three Petichot (1–5/6; 7–10/11; 12–14). This is common for the sections in exegetical Midrashim. There is another, somewhat truncated Petichah in unit 19–20. It uses Micah 6: 6–7 as tenor verse, applied to each of two diVerent events: the trial of Abraham in Gen. 22 and, by way of contrast, the Moabite king Mesha’s sacriWce of his son as told in 2 Kings 3. It is interesting to note that 2 Kings 3: 27, which tells of the reprieve following the king’s deed, is here not understood as indicating that the sacriWce was accepted by God. Units 8, 9, 10, and 13 are examples of the form mashal as I deWne it in Chapter 10 above. They illustrate the overall two-part structure, with ‘thus’ (kakh) introducing the second part (the so-called nimshal). They also exemplify the two stages of action or the two alternatives within the mashal-part. In 8 there is (i) the potter strikes, (ii) the vessel does not break (but another vessel would); in 9 there is (i) the Xax worker strikes, (ii) the Xax glistens (but other Xax would split); in 10 there is (i) the householder puts the yoke on and—strongly implied by the other meshalim and the nimshal—(ii) the cow can stand it (but another couldn’t); and in 13 there is (i) the rabbi says one thing but then (ii) does another. By contrast, unit 3 (also 22) employs the Xag of a ship as a hermeneutic simile, and there are no two stages or alternatives: the Xag is hoisted (and if it were not hoisted, the simile would simply not apply). Units 42–4 provide a common combination of two basic forms: that of the dispute and that of the midrashic unit. The midrashic units elsewhere in this section, as is very frequent in aggadic Midrashim, tend to depend on more than one biblical verse. This is the type of midrashic unit which I deWne in Chapter 4 in the following way: The biblical segment ‘X’ means ‘Y’ (¼ rabbinic statement), if seen in light of the biblical segment ‘W’.

Sample Text III Talmud Bavli Sukkah 2a–3a (dialectical conversation/Gemara)13 This is the beginning of the Gemara for this Tractate. The Bavli is cited by Tractate name and folio number, with a and b used to distinguish the two

13 For an alternative English translation and form-oriented commentary, see Neusner, ‘System or Tradition’; cf. also Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud.

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sides of each numbered leaf. The page layout established in Italy in the early years of printing has been replicated in most later Talmud editions and is used to quote the text. This Tractate’s title, Sukkah, refers to the booth used during the feast of tabernacles (cf. Lev. 23: 39 V. and Neh. 8: 15V.).

[folio 2a; Mishnah Sukkah 1: 1] 1. A [festival] booth (¼ sukkah) which is higher than 20 cubits is invalid. 2. And R. Yehudah declares it Wt. 3. And [one] which is not [at least] 10 handbreadths, and 4. one that does not have [at least] three sides, and 5. one whose [roof] lets in more light than shade — is invalid. [folio 2a; the Gemara attached to this mishnah] 6. We have learned over there [in another mishnah]: 7. ‘A cross-beam [separating the public domain from the private for Sabbath purposes] which is higher than 20 cubits needs to be lowered. 8. R. Yehudah says: That is not necessary.’ [¼ Mishnah Eruvin 1: 1] 9. What is distinctive about the booth, that he [the stam voice of the Mishnah] teaches ‘invalid’ (in 1 above), and what is distinctive about the cross-beam, that he teaches a remedial action (namely, to lower it, in 7)? 10. The obligation of booths is from the [Written] Torah, therefore he teaches ‘invalid’; while the cross-beam is a rabbinical obligation, therefore he teaches a remedial action. 11. And if you will, I shall say: 12. For obligations from the [Written] Torah he could equally well teach a remedial action, but in the case of the booth which has many aspects, he cuts it short by teaching ‘invalid’, while in the case of the cross-beam, which does not have many aspects, he teaches a remedial action. 13. Whence come these words [in 1]? 14. Rabbah said: Because Scripture said: 15. So that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths (Lev. 23: 43)—16. up to the height of 20 cubits a man knows that he is dwelling in a


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booth, while above the height of 20 cubits a man does not know that he is dwelling in a booth; because the eye cannot take it in.14 17. R. Zera said: From the following: 18. And a booth (sukkah) shall be for shade from the heat by day (Isa. 4: 6)—19. up to 20 cubits a man sits in the shadow of the booth [¼sukkah, here referring to the roof covering], from a height of more than 20 cubits onwards a man does not sit in the shadow of the booth, but in the shade provided from the side walls. 20. Abayye said to him: But now, if someone made his booth [between the mountain sides] of Ashterot Qarnayim—is it also [the case] that it is not a [proper] booth [because the whole booth would be in the shade]? 21. He said to him [i.e. to Abayye]: In that case, take away Ashterot Qarnayim and there is still shade from the booth’s roof; but this case [of a booth more than 20 cubits high], take away the side walls, there is no shade from the booth’s roof. 22. And Rava said: From the following: 23. In booths you shall dwell seven days (Lev. 23: 42)—24. Scripture says: For a whole seven days leave your permanent dwelling and reside in a temporary dwelling. 25. Up to 20 cubits high a man makes his dwelling a temporary one, above 20 cubits a man does not make his dwelling a temporary one, but a permanent one. 26. Abayye said to him: But now, if he made side walls from iron and placed a booth-roof on them, is it also the case that it would not be a [proper] booth? 27. He said to him [i.e. to Abayye]: This is what I am saying to you: Up to 20 cubits a man makes his dwelling a temporary one so that, even if he creates it as a permanent dwelling [e.g. from durable material], he still has fulWlled his duty; but more than 20 cubits a man makes his dwelling a permanent one so that, even if he creates it as a temporary dwelling [e.g. from transitory material], he has still not fulWlled his duty. 14 These last words after the semicolon are in Aramaic, while the rest of Rabbah’s midrashic unit is in Hebrew.

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[folio 2b] 28. Neither of the others agree with Rabbah (in 14–16), 29. for this knowing [mentioned in Lev. 23: 43] is of the generations [and not speciWcally of those dwelling in the booth]. 30. With R. Zera (17–21) they also do not agree, 31. for that [verse, Isa. 4: 6] is written with respect to the days of the Messiah [and thus is not concerned with the normal booth]. 32. And R. Zera? [What could he answer to that objection?] 33. In that case, Scripture should say [regarding the days of the Messiah], ‘(And) a canopy shall be for a shade daily’ (cf. Isa. 4: 5–6); so what does And a booth shall be for shade from the heat by day (Isa. 4: 6) refer to? 34. Derive from this [word ‘sukkah’ also information about the halakhah of booths]. 35. The [other] two also do not agree with Rava (in 22–7), because of the objection raised by Abayye (in 26). 36. According to whom [of the three rabbis in 14, 17, 22] does the following [position] go, namely that: 37. R. Yoshiyyah said that Rav said: The dispute [between the anonymous voice and R. Yehudah in 1–2] is only about a booth whose side walls do not reach up to the roof; but if the side walls reach up to the roof, even if it is more than 20 cubits high, it is valid [according to both parties, R. Yehudah and the anonymous voice]. 38. According to whom? According to Rabbah, for he said: ‘Because the eye cannot take it in’ (¼16). 39. And when the side walls reach up to the roof, the eye can indeed take it in. 40. According to whom does the following go, namely that: 41. Rav Hunah said that Rav said: The dispute (in 1–2) is about a booth which is only four cubits square; but if it is larger than four square cubits, even if it is higher than 20 cubits, it is valid [according to both parties]. 42. According to whom? According to R. Zera, who said: Because of the shade (¼ 19). 43. And when it is spacious, then the shade comes from the roof [instead of the side walls]. 44. According to whom does the following go, namely that: 45. Rav Chanan bar Rabbah said that Rav said: The dispute (in 1–2) is about a booth which is only capable of containing


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a person’s head, greater part of the body, and table;15 but if it is capable of containing more than a person’s head, greater part of the body, and table then, even if it is more than 20 cubits high, it is valid [according to both parties]. 46. According to whom? According to none [of those three]. 47. Granted that there must be a disagreement of R. Yoshiyyah (37) with Rav Hunah (41) and Rav Chanan bar Rabbah (45), for they bring into it a measurement, and he does not bring into it a measurement. 48. But Rav Hunah and Rav Chanan bar Rabbah, can we say that they disagree about the [size for the] validity of the booth? 49. [Could we say that] one holds that the validity depends on the four cubits [space] and the other holds that the validity depends on the booth’s capacity to hold a person’s head, greater part of the body, and table? No, for all the world agrees that the validity of the booth [depends on its capacity to hold] a person’s head, greater part of the body, and table (see below 68). [So that cannot be the disagreement.] 50. Rather, it is about the following that they disagree, namely that one [of the two mentioned in 48] holds that the [original] dispute (in 1–2) is about a booth whose capacity is [exactly] a person’s head, greater part of the body, and table, but if it is more than a person’s head, greater part of the body, and table, then both [original] parties agree it is valid; 51. while the other [of the two mentioned in 48] holds that the dispute (in 1–2) is about a booth which holds more than a person’s head, greater part of the body, and table, but is no larger than four square cubits, but if its surface is more than four square cubits, then both [original] parties agree that it is valid. 52. They raise an objection [by quoting a baraita]:16 53. A booth which is higher than 20 cubits is invalid. 54. And R. Yehudah declares it valid up to 40 and 50 cubits. R. Yehudah said:

15 The use of this ‘measure’ for the booth is found in the Mishnah itself, Sukkah 2: 7. 16 Tosefta Sukkah 1: 1 contains a diVerent version of units 54–8.

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55. An incident (ma’aseh) regarding Queen Helena in Lydda, whose booth was more than 20 cubits high, and the elders [i.e. rabbis] were entering it and leaving it and said nothing to her [thus accepting it]. 56. They said to him [i.e. to R. Yehudah]: From this you wish to bring proof? She was a woman, and exempt from the [obligation of the] booth! 57. He [i.e. R. Yehudah] said to them: And did she not have seven sons, and furthermore, did she not act in all her deeds according to the opinions of the Sages [and thus would have constructed her booth according to their rules]? 58. Why do I have the teaching, ‘And furthermore, did she not act in all her deeds according to the opinions of the Sages?’ [i.e. why did Yehudah consider this additional argument necessary]? 59. Thus he said to them: If you say that the sons were minors, and minors are exempt from the [obligation of the] booth, when there were seven of them it is impossible that there was not a single one of them who [was old enough] not to require his mother’s [tending] any more? [And thus would be required to fulWl the obligation himself.]17 60. And if you say: The minor who does not require his mother’s [tending] any more is only obligated [to fulWl the obligation of the booth] on rabbinical authority [not biblical one, cf. above 10], and she paid no attention to merely rabbinical rules, then 61. Come and hear: ‘And furthermore, did she not act in all her deeds according to the opinions of the Sages?’! (¼ 57) 62. Now this is understandable according to the one who says the [original] dispute (1–2) was about a booth whose side walls do not reach up to the roof (37), for the custom of a queen is to dwell in a booth whose side walls do not reach the roof, [folio 3a] because of the circulation of air. 63. But according to the one who says the dispute (in 1–2) was about a small booth—is it then the custom of a queen to dwell in a small booth? 17 Here presupposed is knowledge of this statement: ‘And a minor who does not require his mother’s [tending] is obligated by the [rule of the] booth’ (Mishnah Sukkah 2: 8).


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64. Rabbah bar Rav Ada said: It is only necessary for the booth to contain smaller chambers [for the dispute to apply in the case of Helena’s booth]. 65. Is it then the custom of a queen to dwell in a booth containing smaller chambers? 66. Rav Ashi said: It is only necessary that there were small [side] chambers in it. Our rabbis were of the following opinion: Her sons were sitting in a perfectly valid booth, while she was sitting in a small chamber for reasons of modesty. And because of this they did not say anything to her [about the invalidity of that side chamber]. 67. And R. Yehudah was of the following opinion: Her sons were sitting beside her, and nevertheless they did not say anything to her [so the chambers were also valid]. 68. Rav Shemuel bar Yitschaq said: The halakhah requires that there be suYcient capacity for a person’s head, greater part of the body, and table. 69. R. Abba said to him: According to whom? The House of Shammai [and not the House of Hillel as usual]? (cf. Mishnah Sukkah 2: 7) . . . Notes on some formal features: This dialectical conversation illustrates how the thematic and logical ramiWcations of a topic can be built up by the Gemara’s stam mostly by quoting and placing quotes into mutual relationships. The opening move (6–12) is to draw in an analogous norm from elsewhere in the Mishnah, and to probe the two norms for meaningful diVerences. This is the Wrst of the regular procedures of the Gemara (i) which I have listed in Table 4. The Gemara thereby creates an occasion to mention more general notions, such as the distinction between biblical and rabbinic halakhah, in 10. The next move is to ask for the biblical foundation (v in Table 4) of the ruling that 20 cubits is the upper limit of the booth (13). At Wrst are presented three Amoraic statements (14–35) directly addressing this question in the form of midrashic units, together with arguments and counter-arguments. Then these midrashic suggestions are aligned (vi) with a set of further quotations of Amoraic statements which speculate about the scope of the original Mishnaic dispute (1–2): 36–46. The internal logic of mutual disagreement within this set of statements is probed (47 V.), introducing into the discussion the surface area or capacity of the booth, in addition to its maximum height. In 50–1 the Gemara manages to Wnd a function for both rival measures of the booth size, four by four cubits and ‘head, greater part of the body, and table’. In the process, the scope of the

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original dispute (1–2), as interpreted by the stam’s interpretation of Amoraic statements about it, is reduced dramatically in all of its competing constructions from what is actually suggested by its wording (ii). At 52 a diVerent version of that Mishnaic dispute is introduced as a baraita (found, in outlines, also in Tosefta Sukkah 1: 1). Unit 69 shows, by thematizing a new aspect, that the earlier topic, however deWned, comes to a preliminary end in 68. I have included the units 68 f. simply because they show how theme is bounded by theme, not by announcements, summaries, or declarations of limits. The principle which underpins the whole of the dialectical conversation is: what is quoted was historically connected by personal awareness. Thus the utterances which tie the 20-cubit rule to a biblical passage (13 V.) are assumed to be historically aligned with entirely diVerent utterances concerning the scope of the Mishnaic dispute: ‘according to whom does the following go?’ (36 V.). Thus the Amoraic statements are not merely a commentary on the Mishnah, but on each other, although they make no reference to each other and ostensibly deal with diVerent topics. The same goes for other parts of this text. Statements are on the one hand cited as independent utterances, on the other hand treated as if they belonged to the same context of awareness: either agreeing or disagreeing with each other, but deliberately so. This illustrates the point made in Chapter 9 about the uniWed historical context which the Gemara projects—an emphatic image of the rabbinic tradition arises from the very textuality of the Bavli.

Sample Text IV Midrash Tanhuma, section Berakhah (rabbinic homily/Midrash)18 There are two fairly brief homilies in this section of Tanhuma,19 and I am translating here the Wrst of these.

[A. Petichah] 1. And this is the blessing [with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the Israelites before he died] (Deut. 33: 1). [¼ the event verse of the Petichah]

18 Ed. Buber (Vol. Devarim, 52–6); an English translation of partial parallels is found in Braude and Kapstein, Pesikta de-Rab Kahana, 543 V.; cf. the translations of Townsend, Midrash Tanhuma, and Bietenhard, Midrasch Tanhuma B. 19 Thus analysed, e.g. by Lenhard, Die Rabbinische Homilie, 435; 439–40, correctly in my view.


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2. This is what Scripture says: Many builders [of mankind] have created strength [through blessing], but you exceeded all of them (Prov. 31: 29)20 [¼ the tenor verse])— this applies to the blessing of Moses. 3. For the earlier generations all blessed each its own generation, but there was not one which was like the blessing of Moses. 4. When Noah blessed his sons, there was discord; he blessed the one, but cursed the other: 5. ‘May God enlarge Japheth’ (Gen. 9: 27)—[but also:] And he said: ‘Cursed be Canaan’ (Gen. 9: 25). 6. When Isaac blessed Jacob, there was strife, as he said to Esau: 7. ‘Your brother came with guile’ (Gen. 27: 35). And it is written: 8. And Esau harboured a grudge against Jacob (Gen. 27: 41). 9. When Jacob blessed the tribes [i.e. his sons] there was strife, as he said to Reuben: 10. ‘unstable as water’ (Gen. 49: 4), and thus also: ‘Simeon and Levi . . .’ (Gen. 49: 5). 11. And whence did the patriarchs learn to bless each their own generation? They learned it from the Holy One, Blessed be He: When he created man he blessed him, as it is said: 12. And God blessed them (Gen. 1: 28). 13. And the world was conducted by that blessing until the generation of the Xood came and cancelled it, as it is said: 14. And the Lord said: I shall blot out the man whom I made (Gen. 6: 7). 15. When Noah came out from the ark, the Holy One, Blessed be He, saw that that blessing was cancelled from them; he again blessed Noah and his sons, as it is said: 16. And God blessed Noah and his sons (Gen. 9: 1). 17. And the world was conducted by that blessing until Abraham came into the world, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, added for him one blessing, as it is said: 18. That I might make you into a great people [and that I might bless you] (Gen. 12: 2). 19. When Abraham came, the Holy One, Blessed be He, said: It does not Wt my glory before me that I should be bound to bless my 20 The usual translation is: Many daughters have done valiantly, but you have exceeded all of them. The word banot (daughters) is apparently treated as coming from b.n.h, ‘to build’; cf. Bavli Berakhot 64a and Shabbat 114a; see Braude and Kapstein, Pesikta de-Rab Kahana, 453 n. 39. The ‘you’ of the verse is taken to refer to Moses.

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creatures. Rather, behold I deliver the blessings to Abraham and his seed, and for everyone for whom they determine a blessing, I shall seal it through them, as it is said: 20. And be a blessing! (ibid.) 21. And I shall bless those who bless you (Gen. 12: 3). What is And I shall bless those who bless you ? 22. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said: Behold, I deliver the blessings to everybody you bless21 and I shall seal it through you. 23. And since the blessings were delivered to Abraham, why did he not bless Isaac? Because Abraham saw that Esau would come from him. He said: If I bless Isaac, then Esau would also be blessed and hence Jacob would be diminished. 24. A parable (mashal ). To what is this thing comparable? To a householder who has a vineyard. He gave it to a tenant. And there was in that vineyard a tree of life, and it was entwined with a tree of deadly poison. And he did not know what to do. He said: If I cultivate that vineyard, the tree of deadly poison grows; and if I do not cultivate that vineyard, the tree of life dies. Rather, what I shall do is leave this vineyard until its owner comes and does with his vineyward what he wants. And thus also Abraham said: If I bless Isaac, then Esau would also be blessed and hence Jacob would be disadvantaged. Rather, behold I leave him until the Holy One, Blessed be He, comes and does his own. 25. Then came Jacob and received Wve blessings, two from his father, one from Abraham, one from the angel, and one from the Holy One, Blessed be He. 26. Two from his father, as it is said: 27. And Isaac trembled . . . (Gen. 27: 33). Why and he trembled ? R. Eleazar ben Pedat said: Because he saw Gehenna [i.e. the place of punishment for the wicked] opened for Esau [i.e. suddenly realizing his true character], he wished to utter a curse [about Esau], but instead he added a blessing [for Jacob, thus conWrming the earlier one directed at the wrong 21 As if the biblical words were vocalized to yield this meaning: I shall bless your blessed ones.


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person], and said: also he shall be blessed (ibid.)—behold this is one [blessing]. 28. The second: 29. And Isaac called Jacob and blessed him (Gen. 28: 1). 30. And the blessing of Abraham: 31. And may he give you the blessing of Abraham (Gen. 28: 4). 32. And the blessing from the angel: 33. And he blessed him there (Gen. 32: 30). 34. And the blessing of the Holy One, Blessed be He: 35. And God appeared to Jacob again . . . and he blessed him (Gen. 35: 9). 36. When Jacob came to bless the [twelve] tribes, he blessed them with [the above] Wve blessings which were available to him, and added to them one blessing, as it is said: 37. All these were the tribes of Israel . . . and he blessed them, each according to his blessing did he bless them (Gen. 49: 28). 38. When Moses came to bless the Israelites, he added for them a seventh blessing, as it is said: 39. And this is the blessing [with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the Israelites before he died] (Deut. 33: 1; i.e. the event verse). 40. [This furthermore constitutes] an addition to the blessings with which Balaam blessed Israel. For he was meant to bless with seven blessings, according to the seven altars [which he had prepared; cf. Num. 23: 1 V.], but he only pronounced three blessings, as it is said: 41. Behold, you have blessed them these three times (Num. 24: 10). 42. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him: You are a villain, your eye is sorry to bless them. And I for my part am not going to allow you to complete your blessings of Israel. There will come Moses who has a benign eye, and he will bless Israel. 43. And about him [Moses] does Solomon say: The person of generous eye will be blessed (Prov. 22: 9). 44. Do not read will be blessed, but will bless [by reading the consonants with diVeren vowels]—this is Moses our Rabbi whose eyes are benign in his blessing of Israel. 45. And he blessed them with four blessings [further to Balaam’s blessings].

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46. The Wrst: 47. And Moses saw all the work . . . and Moses blessed them (Exod. 39: 43). 48. The second: 49. And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting; and they came out and blessed the people (Lev. 9: 23). 50. The third: 51. May the Lord, the God of your fathers, add to you as you are a thousand times and bless you (Deut. 1: 11). 52. The fourth: 53. And this is the blessing [with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the Israelites before he died] [Deut. 33: 1, i.e. the event verse, thus fulWlling the tenor verse that ‘you exceeded all of them’]. 54. Therefore it is said: Many builders [of mankind] have created strength, but you have exceeded all of them [Prov. 31: 29, i.e. the tenor verse repeated as closure of the Petichah]. [B. Inyan, progression through the verses Deut. 33: 1–4] 55. And this is the blessing with which Moses blessed (Deut. 33: 1)—56. For Moses it was Wtting to bless Israel, for he was putting his life on the line for them all the time. 57. man of God (Deut. 33: 1)—58. [Understanding this as ‘husband of God’,] Resh Laqish said: If it were not Scripture it would be impossible to say it: Like a man who puts a decree on his wife and she does it, thus the Holy One, Blessed be He, puts a decree on Moses and he does it for him.22 59. the children of Israel—60. the merit of the Israelites caused him [Moses to have this power]. 61. before his death—62. And would it enter your mind that he blessed Israel after his death? So, what is this before his death? [It means:] Before the angel of death. For in the hour when the Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him: Go up . . . and you shall die on this mountain (Deut. 32: 49–50), the angel of death thought

22 The formula ‘if it were not Scripture it would be impossible to say’ usually introduces a thought considered audacious; there is also a reversal of roles (Wrst Moses is the husband, then God is the husband). This points to the possibility of the last clause being a euphemism for the intended meaning: Like a man who puts a decree on his wife and she does it, thus Moses puts a decree on the Holy One, Blessed be He, and He does it for him.


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that the Holy One, Blessed be He, had already given him power over the life of Moses, and he came and stood over him. Moses said to him: The Holy One, Blessed be He, has already assured me that he would not deliver me into your hand,23 and he blessed the Israelites before [i.e. in the presence of] the angel of death. Therefore it says: before his death. 63. [The verse] And he said: The Lord came from Sinai (Deut. 33: 2) 64. teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, took the Torah round among the nations of the world, yet they did not accept it, until he came to Israel and they accepted it. As it is said: 65. He shone upon them from Seir (ibid.)—66. These are the children of Esau, for they are the children [i.e. inhabitants] of Seir. 67. He appeared from Mount Paran (ibid.)—68. These are the children of Ismael, as it is said: 69. And he lived in the wilderness of Paran (Gen. 21: 21). 70. And it is written: When he stands, he makes the earth shake; when he looks, peoples leap (Hab. 3: 6). 71. When he saw that they were not willing to accept the Torah, he made them leap into Gehenna, as it says: 72. To leap with them upon the earth (Lev. 11: 21). 73. And in another location it says: All kings of the earth praise you, O Lord, for they have heard the words of your mouth (Ps. 138: 4). 74. And we still need [evidence from Scripture] to say that they did not wish to hear. So came Micah the Morashtite and decided the matter, as it says: 75. And I shall act with anger and wrath against the peoples who did not listen (Micah 5: 14). 76. This teaches that they did not wish to accept the Torah. 77. David came and gave thanks to the Holy One, Blessed be He, for this, as it is said: 78. You are the God doing wonders; you made known to the nations your strength (oz) (Ps. 77: 15). 79. David said: Lord of the Universe, the wonders which you have done in your world, that you made known your Torah to the nations of the world! 23 Moses is said to have died by what the rabbis read literally as the mouth of the Lord (Deut. 34: 5), thus not through an angelic agent.

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86.

92.

94.

96.

Sample Texts of Rabbinic Literature 80. [For] ‘Your strength’ (oz) only means ‘Torah’, as it is said: 81. The Lord has given strength (oz) to his people (Ps. 29: 11). 82. R. Abahu said: It is revealed and known before the One who Spoke and the World Came into Being that the nations of the world would not accept the Torah. 83. Why did he [nevertheless] fulWl his obligation to them? Because that is how the ways of the Holy One, Blessed be He, are. First he does his duty by his creatures, and [only] afterwards does he banish them from the world, for the Holy One, Blessed be He, does not come to his creatures as a tyrant. 84. A second interpretation: Why did he oVer it to them? 85. Because of the division among the patriarchs [the peoples of Esau and Ishmael also having the patriarchs as ancestors]. [The verse] And he approached from Ribeboth-kodesh (or: And a sign among the myriads holy) (Deut. 33: 2) 87. teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, is great and His Name is praised by all his host. 88. For his ways are not like the ways of Xesh and blood. 89. The way of Xesh and blood is this: If a king goes out among his entourage, if he is beautiful, there are bound to be among his hosts men more beautiful than him, and if he is strong, there are bound to be among his hosts stronger ones. But the Holy One, Blessed be He, there is no one among all his myriads like him, as it is said: 90. There is none like you among the gods [taken as angels], O Lord (Ps. 86: 8). 91. And it says: Who is like you among the mighty, O Lord? (Exod. 15: 11). [The verse] Lightning Xashing (or: the Wre of law) for them from his right (Deut. 33: 2) 93. teaches that the Torah was only given at the right hand. R. Yochanan said: Everyone who wishes to occupy himself with Torah should see himself as if standing in Wre—therefore it is said: 95. the Wre of law. He also loves the peoples (Deut. 33: 3). 97. Moses said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: [By loving the other nations,] Lord of the Universe, you are putting two yokes upon your children, the yoke of Torah and the yoke of enslavement to the kingdoms. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him:


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98. Everyone who occupies himself with Torah is saved from enslavement to the kingdoms: 99. all his sanctiWed ones are in your hand [i.e. under your protection] (Deut. 33: 3). 100. And they were crowded together at your feet (or: wore themselves out to reach your feet) (Deut. 33: 3)—101. Rav Yosef taught: These are the disciples of the Sages, who crush their feet [in walking] from town to town to learn Torah [sitting at the feet of masters], and they cast oV from themselves the yoke of the [earthly] kingdom. 102. Another interpretation. And they were crowded together at your feet (Deut. 33: 3). 103. Although they are smitten, they do not move from your tents [of Torah], but 104. [each one] accepts your words (or: commandments) (Deut. 33: 3). [C. Chatimah] 105. Moses has commanded us Torah, a heritage of the congregation of Jacob (Deut. 33: 4)—106. a heritage it is [only] for all the congregation of Jacob, insofar as everybody who occupies himself with it for its own sake merits to be the heir of Jacob, as it is said: 107. Then you will rejoice because of the Lord . . . then I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob your father (Isa. 58: 14, with emphasis on then [az]). [This is the Chatimah verse.] Notes on some formal features: As in the case of Sample Text II the typical midrashic unit here has more than one biblical passage, and thus aligns multiple meanings within Scripture, as well as coordinating a rabbinic position with a biblical text. In 4–36 there is a long chain of biblical passages brought together because they report blessings. This is part of the argument which links a tenor verse to the event verse Deut. 33: 1. The tenor verse is understood to say, of Moses, that his blessings exceeded all earlier ones (Prov. 31: 29, in 2). The list of blessings, in chronological sequence, accommodates a number of subsidiary motifs. One of these is the question why there is no report of a blessing by Abraham for Isaac (23, with supporting mashal which models Abraham’s motivation, 24). Another is the idea that Balaam’s incomplete seven blessings for Israel were completed by Moses in Deut. 33: 1. The Inyan proceeds sequentially through each part of the verses Deut. 33: 1–3, while the Chatimah continues the chain by taking verse 4 as its starting point.

Glossary aggadah, adjective aggadic Thematic category for statements or texts concerned with all rabbinic themes except halakhah, usually dealing with biblical meaning or events. Sometimes also as ‘haggadah, haggadic’. Contrasted to halakhah (see s.v.). aggregate Term used in this book specifically for documents without declared thematic-literary boundaries, shaped by the recurrence of stock smaller forms placed next to each other in mere juxtaposition. Their whole is not a hierarchy of literary forms. Amora (pl. Amoraim, from ‘to say’) Rabbinic master belonging to the second period of rabbinic literature (opposite Tanna). Scholarly convention distinguishes five generations of Amoraim in Palestine, and seven in Babylonia. apodosis That part of a hypothetical legal case which contains the legal evaluation (the ‘then’ belonging to an ‘if’); see protasis. baraita A citation unit characterized by its quotation formula as coming from a Tannaitic source, but not found in the Mishnah (thus not a mishnah). canon A modern term for the fixed collection of biblical books of various religious communities laying claim to the biblical heritage or other sacred book collections. See Hebrew Bible. cluster of statements Grouping of statements of uncertain logical-thematic relationships and boundaries, but with some shared, albeit undefined and shifting, theme. One of the patterns for coordinating statements (Chapter 3). context Term for those aspects of a situation or historical background which have the effect of narrowing down the meaning of a passage or document (see also deixis). I use this term in contrast to the actual verbal surroundings of a given passage, the textual neighbourhood. To this textual neighbourhood, or co-text as it is often called in linguistics, I refer by various expressions, including the phrase ‘literary context’. deixis Linguistic term for expressions which change their reference with each speaker or context of use, such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘now’, etc. I playfully suggest in Chapter 10 the expression ‘theo-deixis’, in contrast to the word ‘theology’, for characterizing one dimension of rabbinic discourse and halakhah.

Glossary

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dialectical conversation Arrangement pattern for a thematic discussion found in particular in the Babylonian Gemara (often referred to as sugya) in which the stam cites statements in support of two (or more) mutually exclusive starting statements, often splitting its own voice into a proposer and an opposer. Eighteen Benedictions Also called Amidah (‘standing’) or Tefillah (prayer), the core prayer for communal synagogue worship. It consists of 19 (not 18) benedictions on weekdays and is recited three times daily. exegetical Midrash See Midrash. functional form As used in this book, a linguistic form defined by its own shape as well as by its use in the wider text in which it occurs (functional ¼ relational). The expression was introduced to rabbinic studies by Arnold Goldberg. Gaon (pl. Geonim) Title of a head of one of the Babylonian rabbinic academies at Sura or Pumpeditha after the completion of the Talmud (c.8th to 11th century ce). Gehenna or Gehinnom Place of punishment for the wicked in the afterlife. Gemara That part of the Talmud which alternates with sections of the Mishnah and often explicitly comments on the Mishnah’s meaning. halakhah, adjective halakhic Thematic category for statements or texts concerned with religious obligation or permission in the rabbinic discourse; rabbinic ‘law’. Constrasted to aggadah (see s.v.). Hebrew Bible Term used for the Bible as perceived by the rabbis, in distinction to the Christian tradition’s ‘Old Testament’. Three sections are referred to in rabbinic terminology, in addition to its individual books: Torah (here meaning Pentateuch), Nevi’im (Prophets, which includes the so-called historical books from Joshua onwards), and Ketuvim (Writings or Hagiographa). Modern scholarship also uses an acronym created from these three Hebrew terms, TaNaKh. homiletical Midrash See Midrash. hypothetical legal case The most common form for presenting a conditional law, consisting of a part which describes the hypothetical situation (protasis) and a part which assigns a legal evaluation to it (apodosis). See Table 2. juxtaposition See aggregate, lemmatic arrangement. Ketuvim See Hebrew Bible. lemmatic arrangement or lemmatic aggregate Term introduced in this book for the juxtaposition of midrashic units, with their biblical quotation coming first, in the sequence of the biblical verses to which they relate (their lemma), thereby forming larger textual aggregates. I define the

236

Glossary

genre of exegetical Midrashim (see Midrash) as being dominated by this arrangement principle. ma’aseh Minimal narrative unit which reports the announcement or implementation of a halakhic decision by a named rabbi or group; narrative of precedent, or narrative of an instance of halakhah. One of the recurrent small forms (Table 2). mashal (pl. meshalim) The hermeneutic parable (defined in Chapter 10; Table 2). memra A citation unit containing a statement ascribed to an Amora in the Gemara. mezuzah Parchment inscription in a casing affixed to the doorpost containing the text of Deut. 6: 4–9 and 11: 18–21. middat ha-din The divine attribute of strict justice (lit. measure of the judgement), in contrast to the middat ha-rachamim. The latter is the divine attribute of mercy. Midrash (pl. Midrashim) Term which is used in modern scholarship to refer to at least three different things: (i) the genres of explicit bible interpretation (falling into the groups of exegetical Midrash and homiletical Midrash); this is the sense in which I mostly employ the term in this book; (ii) the typically rabbinic approach to Scripture; (iii) the individual rabbinic interpretation; to the latter I refer by the term midrashic unit. midrashic unit Term for the typical rabbinic format in which explicit Bible interpretation is presented, consisting of a quotation from Scripture and a rabbinic statement rephrasing part of its meaning. One of the common small forms (defined in Chapter 4). minhag Customary practice, often mentioned in rabbinic halakhah when a local deviation from a norm is acknowledged as admissible. mishnah A citation unit from the Mishnah, as used in the Gemara. Also used for the sequentially numbered paragraphs within the chapters of a Mishnaic Tractate. The numbering can vary between different prints and manuscripts. Distinguished from the title of the whole work, Mishnah, by the use of a small m and italics. Nevi’im See Hebrew Bible. nimshal The second part of a hermeneutic mashal, containing the application of the model to the biblical events or characters. parable See mashal. protasis That part of a hypothetical legal case which contains the situation envisaged (the ‘if ’-part), belonging to a halakhic evaluation (‘then’-part); see apodosis. Savoraim (pl. noun, from ‘to reason’) Term for anonymous rabbinic scholars following the last generation of Babylonian Amoraim, and con-

Glossary

237

ventionally credited with the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud. Cf. Stammaim. Semikhah Optional functional form of the rabbinic homily, appearing between the Petichah and the Inyan and examining the text immediately preceding that biblical verse which is the main focus of the homily. series of statements Grouping of statements exhibiting some manifest principle of order or progression, whether articulated (as general rule) or not. A pattern for the coordination of statements (Chapter 3). Shema’ Proclamation consisting of three biblical passages, to be recited twice daily; also one of the core elements of the synagogue liturgy. speech report or quotation report Formulaic introduction which ascribes a statement to a named rabbi or group, constituted in its simplest form by ‘R. X said: . . .’ or ‘R. X says: . . .’. One of the common small forms (Chapters 6 and 9). stam The anonymous voice governing a rabbinic text and quoting other voices within it, be they Scripture or rabbis. It is treated in Chapter 6. Stammaim (pl., see stam) Term often used in contemporary scholarship for the anonymous redactors of the Baylonian Talmud. See also Savoraim. statement Term used in this book to refer to a clause, sentence, or unit of sentences found in rabbinic documents conforming to one of the small forms (defined in Chapter 1; Table 2). Talmud See Gemara. Tanna (pl. Tannaim, from ‘to teach’ or ‘to repeat’) There are two meanings for this word. (a) In the more common one the word refers to a rabbinic teacher mentioned in the Mishnah and related literature, and thus belonging to the earlier period of rabbinic literature, in contrast to the Amora. Convention counts five generations of Tannaim. (b) The second meaning is a person who has the Mishnah (or parts of it) committed to memory and, acting as the assistant of a rabbi, recites it to an audience for learning or discussion purposes. Targum Name of a genre of ancient Jewish texts concerned with the Hebrew Bible which seem to combine the features of a translation (into Aramaic) with those of a paraphrase (often in the manner of rabbinic hermeneutics). The extant Targums are either rabbinic revisions of pre-rabbinic texts or rabbinic creations. For the Pentateuch, there are three different complete Targums: Onkelos, Pseudo-Jonathan, and Neofiti. Torah Rabbinic-biblical term which has many meanings, prominent among them (a) the Pentateuch, or the whole of the Hebrew Bible (as ‘written’ Torah), on which see also Hebrew Bible; and (b) the whole of biblicalrabbinic tradition, including a component sometimes referred to as ‘oral’ Torah.

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Glossary

Writings (Heb. Ketuvim) See Hebrew Bible. yeshivah (pl. yeshivot) Meeting of rabbinic scholars. In modern parlance, institute of talmudic studies. zeh ha-kelal Formula introducing what purports to be a universal statement, sometimes found at the end of a series of statements, meaning: ‘This is the general rule. . . .’

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Index of Passages Mishnah Avodah Zarah 4:4 16 n. Avot 1:1 151 n. 5:22 86, 143 n. Bava Batra 8:5 151 n. Bava Qamma 1:1 91 3:5 45–6 Berakhot 1–3 206–11 1:1 151 n. 2–3 51, 56, 127, 130 2:1–3:4 49, 54 2:2 49 n. 2:3 34, 43, 54, 103 2:6–8 49 3:3 14, 54 n. 4:5 14 Bikkurim 1:2–4 93 Chagigah 1:5 154 n. 1:8 70 Chullin 12:1 74 Eduyyot 1:5 151 4–5 151 n. 8:7 117 n. Eruvin 1:1 102, 126 Makkot 3:16 142 n.

Megillah 1:4–11 135 n. 2:4 151 n. 2:6 14 4 81 4:2 124 4:4 124, 155 Nazir 6:1 127 n. Nega’im 12:5 92 14:9 93 Parah 8:2–7 135 n. Peah 2:6 117 n. Pesachim 2:5 37 n. 6:1 14 Qiddushin 1:7 55 Sanhedrin 1:4 93 3:4 127 n. 6:2 93, 144 8:1–5 148 n. 10:1 27 11:2 148 n. Shabbat 2:6 37 n. 9:4 92 16:1 58–9, 82 n. Sotah 1:7 192 n. 2:5 92 7:1 51

256 9:9 148 Sukkah 1:1 14, 126 2:7 223 n. 2:8 224 n. Ta’anit 3:9 14, 99 Yadayyim 3:5 73 n., 81 n. 4:3 117 n., 151 Yevamot 3:1–7 47 n. 8:3 92 Tosefta Avodah Zarah 5:3–4 16 n. Berakhot 2:2 55 n. 2:14 56 n. 3:1 54 n. Sanhedrin 7:11 94 12:10 73 Sotah 7:7 51, 105 13:2 82 n. Sukkah 1:1 223 n. Yadayyim 2:13 81 n. Yom Ha-Kippurim 4:6–8 84 n., 154 Tannaitic Midrashim Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael (ed. Lauterbach) Pischa 1 (vol. 1, 1–7) 35 n. Pischa 1 (vol. 1, 4) 47 n.

Index of Passages Pischa 6 (vol. 1, 46) 151 n. Pischa 14 (vol. 1, 113–16) 196 n. Shirata 2 (vol. 2, 13–19) 192 n. Wayassa’ 5 (vol. 2, 120) 197 n. Sifra Introduction 37 n., 94 Sifre Numbers § 112 90 § 118 68 n. Sifre Deuteronomy § 41 197 n. Amoraic Midrashim Genesis Rabbah 1:1 22 1:4 37 n. 55 185, 212–219 55:1–8 179–82 55:2 190 55:3 75 n., 185–6 55:6 14 Leviticus Rabba 7:3 197 Numbers Rabbah Naso 13:15 86 n. Lamentations Rabbah 1:14 194 n. Tanhuma (ed. Buber) Yitro § 13 192–3 Ki tetse § 1 143 n. Berakhah 226–33 Berakhah § 1 14

Index of Passages Targums Pseudo-Jonathan Gen. 4:8 22 Lev. 19:18 72 n. NeoWti Gen. 4:8 22 Talmuds Palestinian Talmud (Yerushalmi) Nedarim 9:4 (41c) 72 n. Pesachim 7:2 (34b) 151 n. Ta’anit 1:1 (64a) 196 n., 197 n. Babylonian Talmud (Bavli) Bava Batra 13b 124 n. 14b 81 n. Bava Metsia 59b 82 n., 113–14 Berakhot 4b 151 n. 13a 103 13b 55 n. 15a 56 n., 104 n. 20b 54 n. 34b 143 n. 47b 152 n. 61b 98 n. 64a 227 n. Chullin 32b–33a 164 n. 43a 104 n., 107 n. 44b 101 n. Eruvin 13b 82 n., 101 n., 112, 113, 151 Gittin 60a 124 Ketubbot 1:1 (2a V.) 163 n. Makkot 23b–24a 72 n., 73

Megillah 29a 196 n. Menachot 110a 197 Nedarim 37b–38a 29 n. Niddah 3b 151 n. Pesachim 49a–b 152 n. Qiddushin 14b 112 n. 30a 29 n. 33b V. 54 n. 34a 37 n. 49b 143 Rosh Hashanah 17b 37 n. Sanhedrin 71a 148 n. 86a 107 n., 109 n. 88b 112 n. 96b–99a 197 97b 194 n., 197 n. 100a 192 n. 101a 73 Shabbat 14a 81 n. 31a 72 n. 63a 94 104a 165 114a 227 n. 116a 82 n. 118b 197 n. Sukkah 2a–3a 219–25 53a 103 n. Ta’anit 25b 144 n. Yevamot 14a 112 n., 151 n.

257

258

Index of Passages

Hebrew Bible Genesis 1:1 22, 26, 86 5:1 72 n. 10:4 195 n. 12 183 12:1 181 21 180, 183 22 75–6, 180, 183, 212, 219 22:1 V. 184 22:1–4 179 22:1 14, 75, 180–1, 184, 185, 187, 214 n. 22:2 181 22:3 181 22:4 181 22:13 215 n. Exodus 3:4 181 4:16 214 n. 12:1 35 14–15 94 14:21 181 15:1 192 n. 19:1 193 19:5–8 193 21:28–22:5 91 21:29 93 23:2 113 34:6–7 37 n. Leviticus 14:28 93 14:35 92 15:16 49 16:30 84 19:18 72, 186 23:39 V. 220

Numbers 5:22 92 15:37–41 49 n. 18:17 68 n. 22:21 181 31:2 186 Deuteronomy 6:4–9 49 n., 236 6:4 34 6:6 105 6:16 75, 180, 186–7 11:13–21 49 n. 11:13 197 n. 11:18–21 236 12:13–14 47 16:17 154f 16:19 186 n. 21:18 148 n. 22:6–7 74 23:4 92 23:9 92 23:21 186 26:5 93 30:12 113 33:1–3 233 33:1 233 34:5 231 n. Joshua 7:19–20 93 1 Samuel 28:8 181 2 Samuel 12:7 188 2 Kings 3 219 3:4 V. 215 n. 3:27 180, 183, 219

Index of Passages Isaiah 22:14 30:20 42:21 54:13

84 101 n. 142 n. 193

Jeremiah 3:22 84 31:33 193 Amos 6:6 86 n. Micah 6:6–7 180, 219 Nahum 1:2 186 Habakkuk 2:4 73 Psalms 1:2 80 n. 11:5 180, 190 60:6 180 89:33 84 109:18 92

110:4 181 132:13–14 47 136 14, 99 Proverbs 8:22–30 22 9:5 86 n. 31:29 233 Canticles 4:6 181 Ecclesiastes 8:4 75–6, 180, 185, 186–7 Daniel 7 194 11:30 195 n. Nehemiah 8:1–3 123 8:15 V. 220 Dead Sea Scrolls Community Rule VI, 6 80 n. Josephus Antiquities 13.297 149 n.

259

Index of Subjects and Names The indices do not cover the Sample Texts, except for the notes. a fortiori (inference) 92 Aaron 35 Abba 112 Abigail 79 Abimelekh 181 Abraham 14, 19, 22, 75–6, 79, 179–84, 185–7, 189, 190, 191, 199, 219, 233 Absalom 79 accumulation, accumulative 158, 204 Achan 93 acopalyptic 162 addition (textual) 17 aesthetics, aesthetic 6, 73 afterthought 55, 70 aggadah, aggadic 8–10, 11, 13–14, 20–4, 26, 31, 35, 47, 63, 71, 74, 83, 98, 103, 112, 113, 173, 178, 194, 196, 219, 234, 235 aggregate 13, 15–16, 19, 25, 61, 63, 126, 129, 134, 179, 206, 234, 235; see also thematic aggregate, lemmatic aggregate ahavah 91 Akhnai; see oven Akkadian 44, 137 all 92, 211 alternative 145–6, 184, 189–90 am ha-arets 152 Amalek 194 amar 81, 95 ambiguity, ambiguous 17, 43, 50, 52, 54, 57, 61–2, 92, 106, 130, 132, 149, 166, 169, 172, 179, 191, 200, 201 n., 202

Amen 92 Amidah 235 Ammon 117 Amora, Amoraic 8, 10–11, 102, 104–5, 115, 118–19, 160–1, 165, 167–70, 176, 197, 225, 226, 234, 236, 237 anachronism, anachronistic 71 analogy, analogical, analogous 4, 18, 44–5, 48, 50, 56, 57, 61, 62, 69, 93–4, 111, 145, 147, 148, 156, 163, 164, 167, 171, 188, 202, 225 ancestral traditions 149 and (conjunction) 16, 49, 92 anecdotal 13 angels, angelic 21, 180, 184, 231 n. anonymous 10, 73 n., 97, 103–9, 118, 120, 161, 167, 169, 200–1, 236, 237 answer 66, 87–8 anthology, anthologizing 86, 95 anticipation 55 anti-rabbinic (circles) 28 antisemitism, antisemitic 2, 158 apocrypha 27, 33 apodosis 44, 142, 146–8, 154, 234, 235, 236 aporetic 176; see also teyku application, apply 89–90, 188, 195, 199 aqedat Yitschaq 74 Aqiva 27, 31, 56, 73, 90, 98, 107, 109, 144 Aramaic 2, 11, 24, 29, 102, 113 n., 122, 124, 155, 160, 161, 176, 221 n., 237

Index of Subjects and Names Arba’ah Turim 40 archaeological 203 argument 2, 8, 69, 77, 85, 114, 115, 164–7, 169 n., 176, 233 Aristotle, Aristotelian 135, 137, 142, 157 arrangement, arrangement principle, arrangement pattern 8–11, 16, 17, 39–40, 62, 65, 111, 120, 126–7, 155, 156, 159–61, 163, 173, 174, 204, 235, 236 artefact 124 artiWce (literary) 171, 174 association of ideas 39, 169 see also Wxed association assumption; see hermeneutic assumption; background assumptions atomistic (interpretation) 76 atonement 83–5, 154 attribute (divine) 37, 214 n., 236 attribution (of rabbinic quotations) 115 audience 13, 28, 122, 132, 159, 188, 237 author, authorial, authorship 5, 10, 63, 105–9, 127, 130–3, 183, 202 authority 69, 105–8, 110, 119, 120, 132–3, 150, 151, 156, 160, 161, 172 aval 205 Avin 186 Avinu, malkeynu 144 avodah 197 Avot (Tractate) 10, 27–8, 34, 117, 134 n. Babylonia, Babylonian 2, 12, 32, 121, 152, 169, 171, 197, 234 Babylonian Talmud, Babylonian Gemara 2, 4, 10–12, 23, 26, 29 n.,

261

34, 37, 52, 57, 60–2, 67, 102, 108, 109, 115, 128, 140, 141, 156, 158–77, 205, 219, 235, 237; see also Gemara background assumptions (of Midrash) 68, 88–9 backwards (reading) 55, 132 n. Balaam 181, 183, 233 Bar Ilan University Responsa Project 24 baraita 160–1, 167, 169–71, 176, 200, 226, 234 base text, base section (talmudic) 159–60, 162–4, 168, 170, 235 base verse 199 bat qol 82 n., 113; see also heavenly voice battles of Torah 112 Bavli; see Babylonian Talmud beam 45–6, 146, 153 be-di’avad 151 beginning 132, 185 beginning, middle, and end 17, 201 beit din 122 beit ha-knesset 122 beit ha-sefer 122 beit talmud 122 beliefs, 5; see also concepts Ben Sira 33, 81 Beruriah 101 n. binding of Isaac 74, 179, 184 biography, biographical 101–2, 115 booth (sukkah) 14, 126, 220, 223 n., 225 boundary (literary, thematic) 3, 6, 16, 17, 19, 32–3, 34, 52–4, 57, 108, 110–11, 126, 129–30, 136–7, 149, 150, 173, 174, 200, 202, 204, 234 boundary (physical) 53; see also artefact; physical

262

Index of Subjects and Names

breaking the heifer’s neck 148 but (conjunction) 16, 49, 104, 201 n., 205 Byzantium 194 Caleb 35 canon, canonical 78, 80–2, 85, 95, 194, 234 canonical semantic trait 91 Canticles; see Song of Songs cantillation 136, 140 Caro, Joseph 40 case (legal) 36, 45–6, 98–100, 108, 145–6, 153, 172 casuistry, casuistic 4, 44, 62, 143 causality, causal 143 censorship, censor 158 chakhamim 10 chapter 33, 53, 125 character (biblical) 93 Chatimah 11, 15, 179, 188, 192–3, 198, 233 Chatimah verse 193 childbirth 37 chreia 97, 155, 157 Christianity, Christian 2, 5, 27, 38, 72, 95, 119, 125, 133, 138, 140, 158, 194, 195, 203, 235 Chronicles 194 circumcision 22, 180, 183 citing, citation 97, 120; see also quotation class 37, 45, 50, 92 clause 13, 66, 237 close reading 80 closed (list, set) 37, 50–1, 72, 86, 129–30, 172 cluster, clustering (of statements) 34–5, 40, 43–4, 48–51, 52, 54–5, 57, 58, 59, 61,

124, 131–2, 134–7, 141, 147, 153, 197, 202, 206, 234 code, codiWcation (legal) 40, 66, 147 codex 124, 139 coherence, coherent 4, 6, 17, 22, 43, 50, 52–4, 62, 90, 109–11, 145, 163–5, 172, 183, 184, 200, 202, 203, 205 commandment 14, 20–1, 55, 68, 78–9, 83–5, 93, 138, 141, 143–5, 179, 180, 186, 196 commentary, commenting 4, 8–9, 11, 20, 65, 70, 121–3, 127, 128, 154, 157, 160, 162, 163, 170, 171, 173, 175, 176, 226, 235 committee, committee conversation 107, 116, 131–4 communal reading 121–3, 235 comparison 189, 202 compilation, compiled (of texts) 3 completeness, complete 3, 39, 136 composition, compositional 3, 18–19, 39, 97, 110–11, 120, 129–30, 132–4, 136, 137–8, 140, 141, 152–3, 155, 157, 161, 195, 203 comprehensive 23, 73, 140 computerized (texts) 125 concepts and beliefs 4, 19–20 condition, conditional 141, 150, 235; see also hypothetical legal case confession 93, 144 conjugation 181 conjunction 16, 44, 53, 56, 201, 205 consonant 66, 91, 122 context, contextual (literary or historical) 5, 6, 18, 28, 30, 36–8, 52, 57, 61, 67, 80, 82, 83, 85, 90–3, 98, 101–3, 110, 115, 116, 117, 120–1, 124, 128, 132–3, 138, 140, 147, 151, 152, 158, 165, 170, 171,

Index of Subjects and Names 174, 175, 183, 187, 190, 191, 197, 198, 202–3, 226, 234 contiguity, contiguous 60, 202 continuity 56, 62, 65, 131, 162 contradiction, contradict 36, 104, 109, 127, 138, 156, 164, 167 contrast 18, 48, 167, 183, 193 contrivance 200 convention, conventional 40, 52, 134, 174, 192 convergence 69, 74 conversation, conversational 66, 78, 86–8, 95, 99, 116, 126, 129–33, 136, 144, 156, 158, 164 n., 202; see also dialectical conversation copying (scribal) 32, 80 corpus (of rabbinic literature) 2, 115, 117, 125, 177 co-text 234; see also context court 122 creation 22, 37, 194 criticism, critical (of texts) 30, 89, 167, 170, 171 cross-beam 126 cross-reference 18, 26, 33, 52, 56–7, 202 cultural theory 6 cumulative; see accumulation custom 119, 151 n., 236; see also minhag Daniel (book) 80 davar acher 86 Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) 21, 84, 92 Dead Sea Scrolls 80; see also Qumran deconstruction 6 deduction, deductive 138 n. deWnition 45, 138, 157 Defoe, Daniel 161

263

deixis 144, 198, 234 demonstrative 98, 144, 198; see also deixis derekh 83 Deuteronomy 9, 11–12 device (literary) 3 diachronic 62 diairesis 157 dialectical conversation 12, 15, 158, 162–7, 169, 175, 204, 219, 225–6, 235 dialectics 15 dialogue 87, 98, 99, 131, 140, 144, 156, 164, 166; see also conversation dictionary entry (word meaning) 91 didactic 99 disagreement 22–3, 31–2, 37, 100, 103, 105, 107, 111–15, 161, 164, 165, 167, 168, 175, 225, 226; see also dispute disciple 101–2, 122, 139, 167 discipline (of knowledge) 23 discontinuity 48 discourse, discursive 1–4, 6, 8, 13, 15, 18, 26, 30, 32, 37, 43, 52, 69, 70, 73, 79, 86, 109–11, 135–8, 141–2, 151, 156, 166, 172, 176, 190, 198, 201, 211, 234, 235 dispute 11, 13–15, 31, 44, 71, 95, 102–7, 110, 111–15, 156–6, 160, 164, 167, 168, 176, 180, 202, 219, 225–6 dissemination 38 dissent, dissenting 103–4, 208 n. disunity 32, 175 divergence 68 diversity 28, 30, 54, 111, 158, 168 divine presence, divine dwelling (shekhinah) 35, 47, 196

264


doctrine, doctrinal 5, 31, 72–3, 114, 191, 198 domestic (setting) 122, 139 draft; see Wrst draft drama, dramatized 98 dream interpretation 162 drill (compositional) 135, 155, 158, 198 Eastern Christianity 5 Eastern Mediterranean 27 Ecclesiastes 188 Ecclesiasticus; see Ben Sira echad 91 economy (verbal) 172 editor, editorial 5, 10, 19, 40, 63, 107, 109, 127, 133, 175 Edom 194 Eighteen Benedictions 79 n., 127, 211, 235 electronic (texts) 24 Elements (Euclid) 138 Eliezer 100, 113 Eliezer ben Yose Ha-Gelili 94 Elijah 114 elohim 214 n. emperor 98 emphasis 93; see also stress emunah 73 encyclopaedia, encyclopaedic 154, 173 end of days 192 ending 178, 192–3 end-location (in Gemara Tractates) 162 English 90, 204, 205 environment (textual, literary) 18, 54, 59, 66, 84, 90, 133; see also context epic 27, 134 Epicurean 98

episode 66, 124, 183, 192 epistemology, epistemic 6, 151 epistles 27 erotic 73 Esau 14, 194 eschatology, eschatological 162, 193, 195, 196, 198, 199 esoteric 87, 159 Esther (book) 162 Euclid 138 European 142 evaluation (halakhic) 44–6, 100, 141–2, 144, 145–7, 150, 153, 234, 235, 236 evaluation (of disputes) 111–15 event (biblical) 20, 76, 90, 93, 178–9, 182, 183, 185, 187–9, 194, 195, 196, 234, 236 event verse 185, 188 example, exempliWed, exemplary 93, 97, 156, 195 exception 37–8 exclusivity, exclusive (of interpretations) 69, 71, 73, 77, 149, 164, 179, 184 exegetical Midrash 2, 20, 72, 86, 176, 182, 204, 219, 235, 236 exile 178, 196–8 Exodus (book) 9, 11–12 exodus 181, 205 explicitness, explication, explicit 2, 39, 84, 88, 95, 114, 133, 138, 145, 150, 156, 167, 176, 192, 198, 236 external books 27 Ezra (book) 194 Ezra 123 fait accompli 151 family, family resemblance (of works) 2, 27 far-fetched (interpretation) 70–1


265

father (God) 144 fence (around the Torah) 151 festival 14, 33, 99–100 Wction, Wctional 10, 27, 98, 189, 191 Wdelity (to oral wording) 117 Wgurative 73, 91, 195 Wrst draft 130, 136 Wrst Mishnah 127 n. Wxed (wording, arrangement, sequence) 119, 126, 128, 169, 187, 195, 203 Wxed association 52, 140 folklore, folkloristic 13, 98, 115 footnote 26, 60 for example (as conjunction) 16, 201 forewards (reading) 55 form; see literary form formula, formulaic 27 n., 36, 103, 118, 134, 139, 160, 166, 168, 176, 190, 199, 234, 237 fragment (of Scripture), 66; see also segment; micro-Scripture fulWlment 192, 195–6 functional form, functional relationship 15, 188, 190–1, 235 future 179, 193

76, 130, 138, 145, 153, 164, 179, 185, 187–8, 191, 196, 225, 237 generative-hermeneutic (pattern) 141, 152–3, 156, 166 Genesis Rabbah 11–12, 26, 86, 178, 182, 188, genre 1, 2, 4, 9, 11, 23, 27–30, 41, 53, 57, 64, 67, 97–8, 99, 155, 157, 174, 184, 194, 204, 236, 237 genuine (interpretation) 70 Gestalt 66, 67, 72, 200 gesture (literary) 97, 107, 110–11, 116, 118, 160–1, 198 glory 74 golden rule 72 n., 77 Gospels 81 n., 195 governance (divine) 20–2, 93, 182, 184, 185 Graeco-Roman 5, 137, 140, 155, 157, 203 grammar, grammatical 15, 149 graphic (signs) 76, 86 Great Hallel 14, 99 Greek 2, 41, 51, 91, 97, 125, 137–8, 142 grid (conceptual, hermeneutic) 85, 154

galut 196; see also exile Gamliel 211 Gaon 235 gap (narrative) 183–4 Gehenna, Gehinnom 198, 235 Gemara 4, 10, 20, 26, 34, 61, 69, 82, 102, 104, 109, 112, 118, 121, 128, 156, 158–77, 202, 219, 225, 235, 236, 237 gender 63; see also women general principle 14, 25, 36, 38, 45, 62, 73, 90, 142, 202 generalization, general 2, 4, 14, 20, 22, 33, 37–9, 44, 47, 54, 60, 69, 72,

Habakkuk 195 Hadrianic persecutions 98 haggadic; see aggadah 234 Hagiographa 58, 235 halakhah (as unit of text) 33 halakhah to Moses from Sinai 117–18 Hallel 122 Haman 194 Hammurabi 44 hands (rendered unclean) 81 hashgachah 183 n. heading 19, 23, 44, 50, 53, 142, 145, 173, 200 heavenly voice 82 n., 112, 113

266


Hebrew 2, 11, 24, 29, 51, 58, 90, 102, 113 n., 122, 125, 160, 176, 205, 221 n. Hebrew Bible 9, 26, 28–9, 44, 64, 71, 80–1, 86, 95, 117, 124 n., 125, 137, 155, 160, 173, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238; see also Scripture Hekhalot 29, 41 Hellenism, Hellenistic 41, 137, 140 hermeneutic approach 64, 73 hermeneutic assumption 25, 31–2, 53, 60, 86, 95, 109, 171; see also background assumption hermeneutic assumption of coherence, of unity 25, 31 43, 110, 205 hermeneutic function 67 Hermogenes of Tarsus 155 hierarchy, hierarchical 17, 40, 135, 137, 155, 201, 234 Hillel 72–3, 77, 94, 103, 112–13, 151 hindsight 131 hinneni 181 historical (meaning) 73 historiography 27 history 64, 97, 101–2, 183, 194–9 holiness 82 holy writings, holy scriptures 58–9, 81, 119 Homeric 134 homiletical Midrash 2, 20, 184, 235, 236 homily, homiletical 3, 11–12, 15, 17, 20, 39, 75, 76, 86, 122, 155–7, 187, 188, 192, 194, 198, 199, 201, 204, 226, 237 homogeneity, homogeneous 25, 40, 41, 121, 131 homonym 91 horizon 4, 32, 120–3, 132, 174, 175 house of study 58, 122, 188

house style 15, 30; see also style however 16, 201 human nature 23, 36 hyperbole 37 hypothetical 189 hypothetical legal case 11, 14–15, 34, 44–5, 54, 99–100, 135, 137, 141–7, 150, 152, 160, 164, 211, 234, 235, 236 Ibn Ezra 82 identity (of voice in the text) 106, 108 idiom, idiomatic 91 ikkuv 151 imitation 94, 149 implicitness, implicit 6, 45, 48, 61, 73, 110, 138, 142, 143 n., 202 implied, implication 87–8, 117, 143, 167 impurity (cultic) 34 inclination (yetser) 21, 143 n. inclusion 92 inconsistency, inconsistent 22–3, 89, 93, 109, 132 n., 165–6 inference 69, 92; see also a fortiori inner-biblical exegesis 199 inscriptional 203 institution, institutional 111, 122, 134, 137 intention 55–6, 130, 135, 144 intercalation, intercalated 93 intermediary (literary units) 39 intersecting verse 199 introduction (to a document) 202 Inyan 11, 86, 188, 233, 237 Inyan verse 199 ipsissima verba 102 Iraq 2 Isaac 14, 74, 179, 180–1, 183–4, 233 Isaiah scroll 124

Index of Subjects and Names Ishmael (rabbi) 31, 84, 90, 94, 95 Ishmael 180, 183, 184, 194 Islam, Islamic 5, 63, 194 Israel 8, 21–2, 33, 47, 74, 88, 145, 179, 180, 184, 186, 187, 191, 192, 193, 196, 233 iteration, iterative 107 Jacob 14 Jacob ben Asher 40 jar 45–6, 146, 153 Jerusalem 47, 196 Jesus 72 n. Job 188 Jonathan to the Prophets (Targum) 11–12 Joseph 181, 183 Joshua (book) 235 Joshua 35, 93 judgment (divine) 21, 144, 179, 192, 198 juxtaposition; see mere juxtaposition kakh 189–90, 219 Karaites 120, 152, 157 katuv, katav 81, 95 kavod 74 ketiv 81 Ketuvim 235, 238 Kimchi, David 82 king 20–1, 74, 144, 180, 182, 187, 192, 198 kingship 35, 181 Kittim 195 kitvey ha-qodesh 81 knowledge 3, 6, 9, 18, 23, 37–8, 41, 60–1, 78, 107, 111, 116–20, 133, 134, 136, 138, 140, 149, 151, 155, 156, 159, 173, 174, 200 knowledge-shape 3, 129, 137

267

Laban 79 Lamentations Rabbah 11–12 law 1, 5, 31, 34, 44, 137, 141, 142, 144, 146, 198, 235 leather 124–5 lemma, lemmatic 8–9, 11, 64, 86, 155, 158, 160, 161–4, 168, 170, 179, 184, 235 lemmatic aggregate, lemmatic arrangement, 8–10, 15, 20, 37, 64–5, 70, 72, 86, 95, 136, 154, 188, 212, 235 lenient 151, 152 n. Letter (of Sherira Gaon) 28, 95 letter 66, 68, 91; see also consonant Leverhulme Trust 7 Leviticus 9, 196 Leviticus Rabbah 11–12, 195 limit (literary, textual, thematic) 17, 18, 38 list 11, 14–15, 28, 37, 44, 92, 94, 108, 137, 142, 160, 203, 233 literal 73, 94 literary criticism, critics 125, 179 literary form, literary format 2, 3, 5, 27–8, 40, 41, 44, 89, 102–4, 106, 111, 117, 138, 141–2, 146, 148, 156, 164, 170, 178, 185, 190–1, 201, 211; see also small literary form literary function 67, 106–7 liturgical (reading) 58, 122 liturgical poetry 29, 41 liturgy, liturgical 81, 122, 145, 155, 237; see also worship logic, logical 46, 52, 57, 69, 104, 131, 137, 145–6, 153, 156, 164, 166, 201, 225, 234 Lydda 14, 99

268


ma’aseh 14, 97–101, 115, 142, 160, 190, 211, 236 Maimonides 40, 73 majority (decision) 69, 104, 107 manuscript 53 maqshan 165 margin 26 martyr, martyrdom 98, 115, 144 mashal 11, 14, 185, 186 n., 188–91, 194, 199, 219, 233, 236 Masorah 29, 81 massekhet 33 masters (rabbis) 9–10, 31, 101–2, 122, 139, 234 material (constitution of texts) 32; see also physical matron 98 measure for measure 192 Meir 101 n., 107, 108 Mekhilta 9, 11–12, 62 Mekihlta de-Rabbi Ishmael 12 n., 23, 31 n., 35, 62 Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shim’on bar Yochai 12 n. melekh 74; see also king memory, memorized, memorization 33, 42, 79, 118–19, 121, 128, 131, 135–6, 139, 169, 203, 237 memra 160, 167, 171, 236 men 101 mercy (divine attribute) 21, 236 mere juxtaposition, merely juxtaposed 11, 16, 17, 19, 25, 32–3, 36–9, 43–4, 50–51, 57, 59, 61–2, 156, 162, 169, 172, 174, 201, 205, 234, 235 merit (zakhut) 21, 180 merit of the fathers (or patriarchs) 21, 35, 179 Mesha 180, 183, 215 n., 219

messianic 29 meta-hermeneutic 90 meta-language 191 meta-linguistic 67, 74, 76, 90, 150 metaphor, metaphorical 76, 91, 150, 187–8 method (of interpretation) 71, 89–90; see also technique mezuzah 236 micro-Scripture 66–7, 83, 86, 129 micro-topic 34–5, 44, 50, 204 middah 94 middah ke-neged middah 192 middat ha-din 21, 180, 236 middat ha-rachamim 21, 236 midrash aggadah 178–9, 182, 197, 198 Midrash Rabbah 95 Midrash, midrashic 4, 9 15, 20, 23, 26, 29, 31, 35, 40, 41, 64, 69, 71, 76, 82, 83, 85, 87–94, 95–6, 98, 108, 118, 121–2, 156, 178, 182, 184, 188, 191, 194, 185, 198, 199, 211, 225, 226, 236; see also exegetical Midrash; homiletical Midrash midrashic unit 9, 11, 13–15, 20, 27, 64–9, 70–1, 74, 76, 82, 83, 86–7, 89, 90, 98, 103, 108, 119, 154, 155, 160, 168, 179, 199, 211, 219, 221 n., 225, 233, 235, 236 mimetic (learning) 149, 150 min 98 minhag 151, 236 mini-narrative 101 mishnah (as unit of text) 33, 160, 205, 206, 220, 234, 236 Mishnah of R. Aqiva 127 n. Mishnah, Mishnaic 2, 4, 9–12, 15, 23–4, 26, 33, 40, 41–2, 43, 48, 56, 57, 58, 61, 62, 67, 69, 82, 90, 95,

Index of Subjects and Names 97, 102–5, 107–9, 115, 116–22, 124, 126–8, 132–3, 135, 136, 139–2, 148, 152, 156, 157, 159–60, 162–4, 166–8, 170, 171–3, 174, 175, 194, 196, 197, 200, 205, 208 n., 211, 225, 226, 234, 235, 237 Mishneh Torah 40 mitswah 142 mnemonics, mnemonic 37, 39, 134, 136, 140, 154 Moab 117 model, modelling 179, 188–9, 192, 233, 236 monologue 87 moral (of a story) 179 Moriah 182 Moses 35, 79, 108, 117–18, 123, 181, 183, 227 n., 230 n., 231 n., 233 motivation 184, 190, 233 move, movement (hermeneutic) 37, 69, 75, 89; see also technique; middah multiple thematic links 49, 58–60, 127, 211 multiple theme 44 Muslim 203 mystics, mysticism 29–30, 94, 159 myth, mythology 5, 94 mythopoetic 94, 96 Nachmanides 82 Nahum 195 Name (divine), 74, 83–5 name (proper) 26, 168, 194 narrative 6, 8, 14, 20, 27, 41, 53, 67, 77, 97, 99–100, 102, 115, 123, 124, 134, 155, 160, 162, 168, 171, 178–9, 182–4, 189, 191, 192, 193, 195, 198, 199, 201 n., 236

269

narrative Petichah 74–6, 93, 178, 185, 187–90, 193, 196, 199 narrator 161 nasi’ 107 Nathan 114 Near East, Near Eastern 5, 44, 137; see also Eastern Mediterranean Nechemia 109 negation 92, 104 negligence 46 neighbourhood (textual), 57, 234; see also context NeoWti 11–12, 237; see also Targum nevertheless 201 Nevi’im 235, 236 nimshal 14, 189, 219, 236 non-biblical 26, 119, 151 n. non-Wction 18 non-rabbinic 29–30, 38, 98; see also anti-rabbinic; pre-rabbinic norm (halakhic), normative 2, 9, 11, 14–15, 33, 44, 54, 74, 91–2, 99–101, 108, 117, 124, 127 n., 131, 141, 144, 149–52, 157, 160, 186, 193, 205, 211, 225, 236 not 92 number 37 Numbers (book) 9 numerical value (of word) 91 obedience (to God) 2, 20, 22, 138, 144–5 objectiWcation (of text or tradition) 89–90, 114, 166 objection 164–6 observance 22, 34; see also obedience obsolete 71 occasion (of text use) 116, 123–4, 127–8 olam ha-ba’ 21

270


Old Testament, 235 see also Hebrew Bible omniscient (voice) 118 Onkelos 11–12, 237; see also Targum ontology, ontological 135 opportunity (for action) 142–3 opposer 156, 165–7, 176, 235 oral Torah 4, 32, 106, 108, 109, 111, 116, 117, 119, 121, 139, 161, 163, 173–5, 237 oral tradition 25, 38–40, 69, 117, 119, 136 orality, oral 3, 4, 38–40, 108, 116–23, 125, 134–6, 140, 153, 161, 174, 175, 194 orchestration (of voices) 158–9, 161 ordeal 148 Order (of the Mishnah) 33, 53, 148, 171, 196 origin, original 4, 11, 19, 29, 32, 57, 61, 66, 69, 77, 83, 95, 108, 109, 110, 113, 121, 122, 126, 128, 134, 136, 155, 157, 166, 170, 187, 197, 225–6 oven (of Akhnai) 113 pair, pairing 164, 178–9, 193 Palestine, Palestinian 2, 12, 27, 29, 32, 41, 107, 121, 152, 169, 171, 234 Palestinian Talmud, Palestinian Gemara 2, 10, 12 n., 23, 26, 34, 119, 171, 177; see also Gemara papyrus 125 parable 75, 179, 185, 188–9, 191, 199, 236; see also mashal paragraph (of the Mishnah) 33, 159, 236 parallels (in rabbinic works) 26, 59, 128, 202

paraphase 154 parashah 124 parellelism (biblical); see semantic parallelism parts (and wholes) 3, 25, 33, 73, 126, 159, 201 see also whole Passover 14, 37 past 178, 184, 193–6 patach 186 patriarchs 21, 35 pattern, patterning, patterned 13, 15, 126, 134–6, 141, 152–6, 166, 168, 196, 234, 237 peace 22 Pentateuch 75, 80–1, 122, 124, 155, 157, 180, 184, 185, 235, 237 performance, performative 29–30, 116, 122, 126, 134, 136, 144–5, 153, 156, 198 permutation 153–4 persona 107; see also voice perspective (of text) 68, 165 peshat 94 pesher 195 Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 11–12, 24 petering out (of talmudic themes) 162, 174, Petichah 11, 15, 20, 74–5, 77, 155, 179, 180, 182, 187–8, 190, 219, 237; see also narrative Petichah Petichah verse 199 petirah 199 Pharao 181, 183 Pharisees 119, 149, 151 phenomenological 139 philology, philological 71, 81, 87, 125 philosopher 98, 188, 192 philosophy, philosophical 2, 27, 137–8, 140, 142 phrase 66

Index of Subjects and Names phylacteries 54 physical (constitution of texts) 53, 124–5 pinax 125 pinkas 125 Pirqey de-Rabbi Eliezer 10, 27, 184 n., 201 n. piyyut; see liturgical poetry Plato, Platonic 6, 137, 142, 157 poetry, poetic 5, 29, 78–9, 89, 134, 185, 200 pool (of statements) 61, 109, 169, 175 post-colonialism 6 post-modernity, post-modern 6, 37, 110, 173, 176 postulate (hermeneutic) 109 potter 190–2, 212 n., 219 practice, practical 23, 61, 69, 111, 119, 124, 141, 148–52, 197, 200, 203, 236 practices (midrashic) 91–93, 94 prayer, 14, 21, 33, 80, 93, 144–5, 197, 198, 199, 235 preaching 122, 188, 194 precedent 44, 69, 97–8, 236; see also ma’aseh prediction 179, 195 pregnancy 148 pre-rabbinic 26, 119, 195, 199, 237 presupposition, presuppose 93, 130, 135, 142, 175, 187, 224 n. pretext 70 priesthood 181 priests, priestly 29, 35, 119, 148, 182 principle 23, 31, 36, 46–7, 53, 55, 57, 60, 62, 73, 77, 112, 129–30, 137, 144, 148, 153–4, 167, 168, 172, 173, 174, 237; see also general principle print, printing 53, 124–5, 220

271

problematization (of meaning) 90 progress, progression (of themes) 39, 43, 48, 133, 135, 237 projection (hermeneutic) 73, 85, 173–4 promise 192 proof text 69, 77, 100, 154 prophecy, prophetic 66, 82, 192, 195–6; see also spirit of prophecy Prophets 155, 235 proposer 156, 165–7, 176, 235 proposition, propositional 32, 37, 69, 73, 92, 110, 113, 138, 156, 169, 179, 191 protasis 44, 49, 142, 234, 235, 236 provenance 12, 13, 15, 30–31, 51, 57, 61, 110, 137, 159, 202 proverb, proverbial 74, 77, 78–9, 93, 185, 187–8, 199 Proverbs (book) 188 providence 183 proviso 141, 144–5, 148, 157 proximity (textual) 58, 60, 146 psalmodic 66 Psalms 122, 188 pseudepigrapha 27, 33, 195 Pseudo-Jonathan 11–12, 237; see also Targum punctuation 166 n. punishment (divine) 21, 84–5, 198; see also retribution qashya 165 qodesh 74 quarry (use of texts) 128–9, 133 question 66, 79, 87–8, 166, 167 Qumran 124, 195 quotation, quoted 4, 9–10, 15, 26, 28, 32, 35, 57, 61, 65–8, 70, 74, 82, 84–5, 87, 93, 97–8, 101–2, 105–8, 110, 111, 113, 115, 116,

272


quotation, quoted (cont.) 118, 120–2, 126–8, 139, 140, 158, 160–1, 163–71, 176, 179, 185, 193, 205, 225, 234, 235, 236, 237 Rabbah 221 n. rabbi, rabbis 2, 5, 9–11, 14, 22, 26, 30–2, 53, 71, 73, 79, 88, 90, 97– 104, 106, 108, 109, 110, 115, 116, 119, 134 n., 148, 154–6, 160, 164, 166, 167, 168, 174, 211, 236 rabbinized (documents) 29, 32 Rashi 82, 165 n. reading (public) 80, 120–3 reading into 69–70 rearrangement 127 recitation 93, 120–1, 123, 136, 237 recollection 127 recurrence, recurrent 5, 11, 13–14; see also recursive recursive (use of literary forms) 17, 19 Red Sea 94, 181, 183 redaction 30 redactor 40, 107, 161, 237 redemption, redeeming, redemptive 138, 176, 179, 192–3, 196–8 redundancy, redundant 50, 89, 92 relevance 71, 88–9, 194 remember 39, 147 repentance 21, 84, 143, 197 repetition 89, 92, 135 n., 178 response 78, 87–88, 142–5 retention, recall 125, 139, 169 retribution (divine) 20, 192, 197 retroactive modiWcation 55 revelation, reveal 35, 66, 99, 108, 113, 145 revision 3, 40, 133; see also redaction revival of the dead 21

reward (divine) 21, 182, 192, 198 rhetoric, rhetorical 15, 22, 26, 37, 52–3, 155, 157, 188 Robinson Crusoe 161 Roman, Romans 2, 36, 44, 98, 125, 133, 139, 162 Rome 194 rote learning 118, 135 Sabbath 14, 22, 34, 58–9, 82, 126, 197 sacriWce 171, 183, 196–7 Sadducees 119 sages 10, 100, 211 salvation history 20 Sammael 21 sanhedrin 122 Sasanian 203 Satan 21 Saul 181, 183 Savoraim 161, 236, 237 scenario 46, 116, 120, 126, 128, 130–4 scheme, schematic 44, 99–100, 135, 155, 191 schism 31, 41 school 122 schooling 80 science of lists 137 science, scientiWc 27, 78, 137–8 scribe, scribal 32, 63, 80–1, 125, 190 Scripture, Scriptures 2, 9, 20, 31, 49, 58, 65, 69, 70–3, 75, 76, 80, 82, 85, 88–90, 95, 108, 119, 120–1, 123–4, 157, 160, 162–4, 167, 168, 175, 178–9, 182, 185, 188, 189, 192, 198, 233, 236, 237; see also microScripture scroll 33, 53, 59, 122–5, 139 second language 79 Second Temple 80; see also Temple

Index of Subjects and Names section 125, 159–60, 162–4, 168, 173 secular (meaning) 73 seder 33, 124 Seder Olam Rabbah 10, 27 Seder verse 199 sediments 175 Seekers of Smooth Things 195 Sefer Yetsirah 27, 41 segment, segmentation 64–7, 71, 76, 78, 85–7, 90, 129, 154, 188, 194 semantic parallelism 89, 95 semantics, semantic 150, 180, 200 Semikhah 11, 199, 237 semiotic 183 series (of statements) 43–4, 46–8, 50, 52, 57, 58, 62, 124, 133, 141, 146, 147, 153–4, 164, 237, 238 sermon 30; see also homily service of the heart 197 set (of statements) 12, 17, 20, 48, 50, 52, 71–2, 84, 85–6, 126, 128– 30, 135, 153–4, 172 setting (literary) 128 setting (of texts) 124–5, 139, 155, 169, 175, 194, 199 seyag 151 n. Shammai 72, 112, 151 n. sheet 125 shekhinah 47, 196; see also divine presence shem 74 Shema’ 14, 34–5, 44, 49–51, 54–6, 59, 79 n., 103, 105, 122, 127, 130, 211, 237 Shemuel 112, 197 Sherira Gaon 28, 95 Shield of Abraham 79 Shim’on 109

273

Shulchan Arukh 40 Sifra 9, 11–12, 23, 26, 31 n., 94, 108, 139 Sifre 9, 11–12, 23, 31 n., 109 Sifre Deuteronomy 31 n. Sifre Numbers 31 n. sign 86, 90, 144, 178; see also graphic (sign) silence 88, 147, 150, 198 silent reading 122 simanim 136 similarity 18, 45, 48, 130, 147, 183, 201 similarly 16, 56 simile 189, 219 simultaneous (presence of text parts) 125 Sinai 22, 108, 117–8, 193 sincerity 69 situation, situational 44–5, 121, 141–2, 145, 146–7, 148, 153, 156, 187, 194, 203, 235, 236 Sitz im Leben 134 slave 148 small literary form 4, 8–10, 13–15, 19, 24, 26, 39, 44, 67, 102, 126, 131, 139, 160, 201, 234, 236, 237 social text 116, 120, 126–8, 131, 175 Socratic 73, 98 Soferim (book) 29 n. song 66, 79 Song of Songs 73, 188 speech 10, 66, 68, 74, 77, 97, 132 n., 135, 145 speech report 14, 97–8, 101, 104, 118, 237 speech thinking 140 Spinoza 138 spirit of holiness, holy spirit 81, 82 n. spirit of prophecy 81

274


stam 103–9, 115, 156, 161, 168, 211, 225, 226, 235, 237 Stammaim 161, 237 story 13, 15, 64, 67, 78, 86, 97–101, 108, 165, 166, 179, 182, 183, 188, 190, 191–2, 194–5, 198–9 see also history stress, stressed 88, 91, 92 strict justice (divine attribute) 21, 180, 214 n., 236 stringent 151 stubborn and rebellious son 148 n. style, stylistic, stylized 30, 53, 67, 89, 95, 102, 156; see also house style stylized 98 subordination 48, 129 sugya 12, 164, 176, 235 Sumerian 137 summary (of rabbinic ideas) 20, 24, 28, 36, 38, 44, 53, 62, 72–3, 90, 173, 226 supernatural 13, 98–9, 162 surrounding (textual, literary) 10, 54, 57, 60, 62, 85, 190; see also context symbolic 192 synagogue 41, 81, 122, 124, 152, 188, 197, 199, 235, 237 syntax, syntactical 66, 92, 135, 200 synthesis 19, 21, 28, 32, 38, 199 system, systematic 2, 3, 5, 22–3, 27–8, 31–3, 72–3, 87, 90, 138, 140 Tabernacles 126, 220 talmidey chakhamim 10 Talmud Bavli; see Babylonian Talmud Talmud school 122 Talmud Yerushalmi; see Palestinian Talmud

Talmud, talmudic 2, 9, 11–12, 148, 150, 158–77, 194, 220, 235, 237 Tamid (Tractate) 134 TaNaKh (acronym) 235 Tanakh (translation) 68 n., 84 n., 186 n. Tanhuma 11–12, 226 Tanna, Tannaitic 8, 10–11, 101, 103, 112, 118, 121, 136, 139, 160–1, 165, 167, 168, 171, 176, 234, 234, 237 Tarfon 14, 99 Targum, targumic 11–12, 27, 29, 41, 82, 122, 124, 154–5, 157, 184, 201 n., 237 tartsan 165 Teacher of Righteousness 195 techiyyat ha-metim 21 technical (discourse, theme) 28, 83, 95, 188 technique (of interpretation, hermeneutic technique) 68, 78, 88–96, 198, 203; lists of techniques 28, 94 TeWllah 235 Temple 29, 34, 47, 80, 103, 133, 134 n., 148, 171, 181, 183, 196, 197, 199 temple mount 47 Temple Scroll 124 n. temporal succession (of themes) 131, 134 n. tenor verse 185–8, 199, 219, 233 terminology, terminological 15, 25, 30, 53, 74, 79, 90, 102, 165 n., 190, 235 teshuvah 21, 143–4; see also repentance testimony 144 text-shape 3, 129, 137 teyku 167

Index of Subjects and Names The one who spoke and the world came into being 79 thematic aggregate, thematic arrangement 8–10, 15–18, 20, 37, 40, 43, 47, 51, 70, 136, 141, 204, 206 theme, thematic 1, 16, 27–8, 32–5, 36–7, 43, 45, 51–3, 56, 57, 58–9, 62, 74, 78, 83, 85–6, 88, 89, 92–3, 101, 103–4, 119, 124, 130–1, 135–6, 141, 154, 155, 158, 162–4, 166, 168, 172, 173, 185, 188, 201, 204, 205, 211, 225, 226, 234, 235; see also thematic aggregate theo-deixis 198, 234 theologoumena 22, 35, 135 theology, theological 1, 5, 27, 31, 47, 72–3, 87, 198, 234 theory, theoretical 23, 29–30, 145, 148 therefore (conjunction) 16, 201 This is the (general) rule 36, 47, 153, 238 thought (rabbinic) 1, 6, 21, 137, 140, 141, 155, 176, 198, 200, 203 time consciousness 125 n. time intervals (in reading) 125 timeless 20, 100, 166, 196 Torah 4, 8, 21–2, 59, 72–4, 80, 86, 87, 89, 99, 108, 112, 123, 145, 177, 186, 193–4, 196, 235, 237; see also oral Torah Torah reading 11 torah she-be’al peh 117 torah she-bikhtav 117 TosaWsts 172 Tosefta, Toseftan 2, 9, 11–12, 23, 26, 34, 40, 42, 43, 56, 57, 61, 62, 82, 83, 105, 107, 108, 115, 119, 132, 141, 156, 169, 176

275

Tractate, Tract (as literary unit or label) 27, 29 n., 33, 34, 53, 124, 133, 219, 236 tradition, traditions 40, 52, 107–8, 112, 119, 137, 149, 161, 163, 168, 169, 171–2, 174–5, 205, 226; see also oral tradition translation 4, 11, 237 transmission 3, 4, 30, 41–2, 63, 116, 117–8, 161, 167, 190 treatise 33 truth 88–9, 179, 185 turn-taking 66, 87, 144, 164, 166 two 88 undisputed 108 uniWcation 23, 31 unity of God 19 unity, uniWed, unifying 4, 6, 12, 18, 22, 25, 31–3, 36–7, 43, 46, 52–4, 60, 64, 67, 73, 85, 97, 107–10, 111–12, 116, 129, 163, 165, 168, 170, 171, 174, 175, 184, 226 update 89 use (of biblical words) 74 utterance 64, 74–6, 87, 88, 93, 101–2, 106, 110, 118, 127, 131, 140, 168, 187, 226 vagueness 149 values, value judgments 5, 19, 21–22, 28, 32, 114, 149, 184, 185, 192, 194 variation, variant 146–8, 150, 152; see also alternative Vatican 30 (manuscript) 186 n., 214 n. verbalization, verbalize 111, 119, 144, 148–51, 154, 195 verse-by-verse 20, 155, 162, 182 virtual 60–1, 147, 202

276


vocalization 66, 91, 228 n. voice (in the text) 10, 15, 32, 36, 68, 74, 97, 102–9, 115–16, 118, 120, 126, 131, 150, 156, 158, 160–1, 164, 166, 168, 170, 176, 200–1, 237 voice (of reading) 122

writing, written 38–40, 66, 108, 111, 116, 117–18, 122–5, 128, 131, 132 n., 136, 140, 153, 156, 169, 194; see also holy writings Writings 155, 185, 235, 238; see also Hagiographa written Torah 117, 120–1, 237

warrant 69, 114, 164, 167 waw (conjunction) 16, 49, 201 n., 205 weekly portion (of Torah reading) 124 West, Western 2, 5, 12, 18, 159, 204 whole, wholes, 43, 54, 60, 105, 108–10, 123–4, 139, 173, 174 Wicked Priest 195 wisdom 20, 22, 95, 185 woman, women 14, 33, 49, 54–5, 92, 130; see also men wooden tablets 125 word 66, 77, 88, 90–2, 94, 155, 167, 178, 182, 195 words of the living God 112 world to come 21, 198 worship 80, 197, 235

Yehoshua 113, 194 n. Yehudah (bar Ilai) 14, 109, 208 n. Yehudah ha-Nasi 101 n., 104–5, 107, 109, 208 n. Yelamdenu 11, 15, 199 yeshivah 122, 175, 205, 238 yetser ha-ra’ 21, 143 n. yetser ha-tov 21, 143 n. Yochanan 37, 119 Yoma (Tractate) 134 n. Yonathan 190 Yose 105–6 Yose the Galilean 14 zeh ha-kelal 36, 47, 153, 238 zekhut avot 21, 179 Zohar 94

Index of Authors Abel, J. 7 Abrahams, I. 157 Albeck, Ch. 212 Alexander, L. 139, 140 Alexander, P. S. A. 7, 24, 41, 49 n., 72 n., 76–7, 95, 114 n., 136 n., 139, 140 Alon, G. 175 Alter, R. 198 Aune, D. E. 134 n., 139

Danby, H. 23 Daube, D. 44 n. Derrida, J. 6 DorV, E. N. 96 Dotan, A. 41

Bacher, W. 139, 199 Bar Ilan University Responsa Project, see Index of Subjects and Names Barth, L. M. 199 Baumgarten, A. I. 41 Bayer, B. 140 Beit-Arie´, M. 63 Ben-Menachem 115 Bernasconi, R. 100 n. Bietenhard, H. 226 n. Blidstein, G. J. 77 Bo¨rner-Klein, D. 176 Bosworth, C. E. 63 Boyarin, D. 6, 63, 96, 98 n., 101 n., 115, 177, 199 Braude, W. G. 23, 226 n., 227 n. Bregman, M. 95

Faur, J. 6, 177 Fisch, M. 115, 140 Fischel, H. A. 22 n., 140, 143 n., 157, 183 n. Fishbane, M. 96, 199 Fitzmyer, J. A. 41 Foley, J. M. 134 n. Frank, D. 157 Frankel, Z. 139 Friedman, S. 166 n., 176 Fuhrmann, M. 140, 157

Calder, N. 63 Carmell, A. 176 Chernick, M. 177 Cohen, S. J. D. 24, 41, 63, 95, 152 n.

Elman, Y. 12 n., 62, 115, 134 n., 139, 176 Epstein, I. 23, 175, 219 n. Epstein, J. N. 139

Gadamer, H. G. 89, 95 Gerhardsson, B. 135 n., 136 n., 139 Gershoni, I. 139 Ginzberg, L. 199 Glatzer, N. N. 140 Goldberg, Abraham 41, 175–6 Goldberg, Arnold 24, 41, 62, 76–7, 115, 140, 157, 161 n., 175 n., 176, 199, 235 Goldenberg, R. 52 n., 176 Goldin, J. 151 n. Goodman, L. 73, 85

278

Index of Authors

Goodman, M., 81 n., 95, 149 n. Green, W. S. 76, 81 n., 95, 115 Grice, H. P. 87 n. Guttmann, A. 115 Halivni Weiss, D. 77, 157, 161 n., 176 Hammer, R. 23 Hasan-Rokem, G. 63, 77, 115, 199 Hauptman, J. 12 n., 42, 54 n., 63, 176 Hayes, C. E. 16 n., 52 n., 117 n., 169 n., 176 Hegel, G. W. F. 6 Heinemann, J. 79 n., 144 n. Hezser, C. 36 n., 41, 133 n., 139 Holtz, B. W. 24 Husserl, E. 125 n. Idel, M. 41 Jackson, B. S. 7, 46 n., 62, 96, 115, 139, 157 Jacobs, L. 54 n., 81 n., 115, 176 JaVee, M. S. 118 n., 119 n., 139, 155 n. Jastrow, M. 24, 151 n. Kadushin, M. 21 n., 76 Kalmin, R. L. 115, 118 n., 176 Kapstein, I. J. 24, 226 n., 227 n. Kehati, P. 23 Kermode, F. 199 Kraemer, D. 115, 151 n., 176 Kugel, J. 76, 95, 199 Kwasman, T. 139 LaCocque, A. 199 Lauer, S. 199 Lauterbach, J. Z. 23, 95, 157

Lenhard, D. 157, 199, 226 n. Levine, L. I. 139 Lewis, C. S. 149 n. Lieberman, S. 41, 135 n., 139, 169 n. Lightstone, J. N. 176 Lloyd, G. E. R., 157 Maass, F. 199 Mack, B. L. 155 n. Maier, J. 124 n. Marcus, J. R. 157 Marx, W. 157 Mielziner, M. 24, 118 n., 135 n., 151 n., 156 n., 166 n., 169 n. Milikowsky, Ch. 115, 139 Millar, F. 41 Mirkin, M. A. 186 n. Moore, G. F. 72 n., 142 n. Moscovitz, L. 62, 176 Nemoy, L. 157 Neusner, J. 6, 7, 23–4, 41, 52–4, 62–3, 76, 115, 136 n., 139, 140, 142 n., 143 n., 157, 175–7, 195, 199, 205, 219 n. Niditch, S. 62, 124 n., 139 Nietzsche, F. 6 O’Neil, E. N. 155 n. Olson, D. R. 139 Ong., W. 132 n., 139 Petuchowski, J. J. 41 Porton, G. 41, 76 Reagan, C. E. 199 Reichman, R. 139 Ricoeur, P. 199 Roberts, C. H. 139 Rosenzweig, F. 140 Rosett, A. 96

Index of Authors Safrai, Z. 40 n. Samely, A. 45 n., 47 n., 70 n., 74 n., 76–7, 87 n., 93 n., 95, 125 n., 139, 142 n., 147 n., 154 n., 157, 187 n., 192 n., 199 Samely, B. 7 Schacht, J. 63 Scha¨fer, P. 41, 63, 95, 115, 117 n., 118 n., 119 n., 149 n. Schechter, S. 21 n., 24, 68 n., 143 n. SchiVman, L. 24 Scholem, G. 41 Schu¨rer, E. 41, 139 Sedley, D. 137 n. Segal, E. 163 n., 177 Singer, S. 49 n., 79 n. Skeat, C. T. 139 Slomovic, E. 199 SoVer, O. 139 SokoloV, M. 24, 186 n. Soloveitchik, H. 149 n. Spiegel, S. 199 Steinsaltz, A. 148 n., 176 Stemberger, G., 5, 7, 12 n., 24, 27 n., 41, 76 n., 95, 101 n., 115, 127 n., 133 n., 135 n., 139, 157, 175, 177, 199, 208 n. Stern, D. 199 Stewart, D. 199 Sussmann, Y. 176

279

Tanakh (translation), see Index of Subjects and Names Ta-Shema, I. 63 Theodor, J. 212 Thoma, C. 199 Tiles, M. E. 138 n. Townsend, J. 226 n. Urbach, E. E. 21 n., 24, 72 n., 103 n., 115, 148 n., 183 Valde´s, M. J. 199 Veltri, G. 81 n., 95 Vermes, G. 41, 80 n., 139, 195 n. Vries, B. de 166 n., 176 Wegner, J. 63 Weinberger, L. J. 41 Weingreen, J. 199 Westbrook, R. 137 n. Wu¨rthwein, E. 124 n. Yadin, A. 41 Yaron, R. 44 n. Yates, F. A. 139 Yeivin, I. 29 n. Zank, M. 7 Zlotnick, D. 24, 135 n., 136 n., 139, 140

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