Talmudic Literature Research Articles

The Dialectic Nature of Sexual Intimacy in Talmudic Literature

The Dialectic Nature of Sexual Intimacy in Talmudic Literature

The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature by Marina Zilbergerts

Reviewed by: The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature by Marina Zilbergerts Wendy Zierler Marina Zilbergerts. The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022. 184 pp. It has long been acknowledged that deep knowledge of biblical and rabbinic literature on the part of early modern Hebrew poets and prose writers played a vital role in the creation of modern Hebrew literature and the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language. As Benjamin Harshav notes, “Secular Hebrew poetry grew in the soil of Hebrew study in the religious society against which all Hebrew poets rebelled in their youth.”1 In light of this, Marina Zilbergerts’s new study of the yeshiva and the rise of modern Hebrew literature might seem, at first, like old news. Far from it, however. Whereas previous studies of this subject emphasized the role of Haskalah, Zionism, or secularism, Zilbergerts examines the rise of the modern yeshiva, with its elite ethos of Torah lishmah (Torah study for its own sake), as a way of explaining the seemingly miraculous rise of Hebrew literary culture. The book sets out to answer several questions from this vantage point: How and why did modern Hebrew literature come to be, and why in the setting of late nineteenth-century Russia? Given the utter impracticality of creating a literature in a language that no one actually spoke, and the ideological push in Russian culture for writing that was materially useful to society, how did these mid- and late nineteenth-century Hebrew writers make the case for their writing? Zilbergerts argues that the text-centeredness of the modern yeshiva led to an orientation where texts became more real than the physical world, where the “play and pleasure” of textual learning took on heightened importance. The result of viewing Torah as an omnisignificant literature to be interpreted and debated through a variety of hermeneutic and literary strategies was a blurring of the conventional boundary between sacred and secular Hebrew texts. All this laid the groundwork for these text-centered values to be transferred to secular Hebrew literary production once these young writers left the yeshiva. In addition to considering the autotelic value of text in yeshiva culture, Zilbergerts considers corresponding patterns of study and ideological dissent among nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox seminarians. Yeshiva and Russian Orthodox students alike experienced both the exhilaration of elite study and deep [End Page 240] despair over their lack of practical skills and economic opportunities, despite their erudition. Seminary-educated Russian nihilist writers such as Nikolay Chernyshevsky (1828–1889) and Nikolay Dobrolyubov (1836–1861) expressed deep dissatisfaction with their church education, along with a strong desire to achieve social usefulness. Nevertheless, these nihilist writers often mimicked the practices of Russian Orthodox hermeneutics in their critical writing, a cultural pattern that was reproduced by disaffected ex-yeshiva students. Indeed, even when yeshiva students abandoned their studies, they carried with them a reverence for textuality for its own sake. Under the pressures and influence of Russian nihilism, Hebrew writers such as Avraham Uri, Shaul, and Yiẓḥak Aizik Kovner attacked the maskilic Hebrew language and literature for ignoring the pressing material issues of society. Still, these same critics often resorted to the Hebrew wordplays and exegetical practices of the very rabbinic/maskilic culture they sought to critique. Even as these writers sought to detach themselves from the constraints of their yeshiva background, they kept returning to the practices and aesthetic models of Torah lishmah, redirecting these practices to the creation of their new secular Hebrew poetry and prose. Moshe Leib Lilienblum thus inveighs against the superstitions and backward practices of traditional Judaism, including kest marriage, and the failure of the yeshiva system to provide young men with a practical vocation, only to defend talmudic literature against maskilic charges of nonsense. Similarly, ex-Volozhin Yeshiva students Mikhah Yosef Berdichevsky and Ḥayim Naḥman Bialik produced literary works that decry the dead-in-life nature of text study, but also revel in it with a kind of sublimated sexual energy. “The freedom to engage with Jewish texts and ideas without exterior motive,” Zilbergerts argues, “along with the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, was arguably...

Jewish Echoes of Anti-Talmudic Literature: Revisiting "The Talmud in the Additiones of Paul of Burgos"

This article revisits two Latin antitalmudic texts penned by the converted bishop of Burgos, Pablo de Santa María (c. 1352–1435). It argues, in contrast to previous assessments, that far from being a failed replica of Christian scholastic formulas, they echo the conversionist or "apostatic" argumentation that proselytes to Christianity were making in Jewish quarters, a polemic that was not shaped by a scholastic-inquisitorial perspective but rather was still very much rabbinic in style and methods. The article traces echoes of this intra-Jewish polemic, using the extraordinary corpus of Abner of Burgos (d. 1347). It focuses on three themes: the antirabbinic allusions to Zechariah's prophecy; the historical-hermeneutical brawl over the identity of Edom; and the notion of talmudic-demonic alliance. Evaluating the potential agency that Pablo's peculiar texts could have had among Christian readership, I propose that his critique of talmudic literature undermined important aspects of the Christian antitalmudic tradition, reframing the Talmud according to rabbinic conventions.

Язык в эсхатологической перспективе и перевод Писания на греческий в сборнике мидрашей Деварим рабба

Eschatology is one of the most important themes of Talmudic literature. With all the variety of end-time concepts and the abundance of research on the subject, the connection between universal deliverance and language remains overshadowed. This article is analyzing a composition from Debarim Rabba 1:1 that expresses the idea of improvement of the human language as a sign of the future world. What will lead to this improvement? One of the possible answers: translation of the Scripture into Greek. This answer, rather unexpected for the Sages of Talmud, will be analyzed in the context of the history of the attitude towards the Greek language in the Jewish culture of Late Antiquity. An image of a river, flowing out of the Temple from Ezekiel's prophecy (ch. 47), as an improved language of the universe, will be compared with Philo of Alexandria's concept of language.

Retaining Information and Knowledge in Human Memory in Mishnahic and Talmudic Periods

The current study explores Mishnahic and Talmudic literature as its basis for a discussion of the meaning of memory, its significance, and ways of maintaining it among individuals. Until the redaction of the Mishna and revoking the religious prohibition against writing down oral traditions, knowledge relied mainly on human memory and it was preserved among select scholars or by elders with good memory. In Mishnahic and Talmudic periods the need to preserve the considerable information that had accumulated in the batei midrash increased, as did the concern that the Torah would be forgotten due to historical circumstances that had a destructive effect on the scholars in batei midrash. The response to these concerns required embracing and developing methods, practices, and food recipes to help increase memory and prevent or slow down memory loss. Among the methods for maintaining memory were: Frequent revision and reviewing of study material; choosing an adequate learning environment and atmosphere; remembering ideas by associative techniques (to colours, daily activities); use of mnemonics (acronyms, signs, associations, fingers and numbers), and eating food or smelling aromatic substances for improving memory.

Тhe Image of Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi in Talmudic Literature

The article examines a variety of sources from the Babylonian Talmud and the Midrash trying to establish why, despite the visible veneration of Rabbi Yehuda-ha-Nasi (called also just Rabbi, Rabbi Judas the Prince in Talmudic literature), he was also heavily and sharply criticized both for his moral character and his ways of management.

“For We ascend in holiness and do not descend.” Jewish ultra-Orthodox women’s agency through their discourse about media

ABSTRACT“Permission” and “prohibition” are key terms in Jewish religious discourse. For generations they have dominated as part of the primarily male, rabbinic discourse in talmudic literature. This paper will show that men no longer hold the monopoly on these terms because contemporary Israeli ultra-Orthodox women include them in their daily conversation in multiple and varied ways. The study examines exposure patterns and perceptions of 42 ultra-Orthodox women toward sectarian and general mass media. In responses to detailed questionnaires, the words “prohibited,” “forbidden” and “a boundary” constantly recur along with a variety of negatives, such as “not permitted,” “not allowed” and “not kosher”.This paper argues that in describing their uses of and perceptions toward mass media, ultra-Orthodox women have adopted terminology borrowed from what was previously a primarily male-dominated conversation. Some might argue that these women are simply working within the bounds of ultra-Orthodox law which they accept as universally applicable; or perhaps that these women are simply reflecting words used by their husbands or rabbis. However, this study argues that their adoption of these terms indicates they are exercising their own agency. With a combined religious and secular education, and work that is primarily outside the house, many of them are the principal breadwinners in their homes. I suggest that this discourse is a part of their highly intelligent navigation of their simultaneous roles as both gatekeepers and change agents.

Gulliver and the Rabbis: Counterfactual Truth in Science and the Talmud

The paper presents Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels as the first systematic attempt to claim that the normal methods of testing belief and opinion for clarity, consistence, coherence, and how they stand to the facts are powerless when applied to deep-seated normative commitments, or what Wittgenstein dubbed “framework truths.” To subject our norms to normative critique requires a measure of self-alienation that cannot be achieved merely by looking hard at or thinking hard about our world and ourselves. However, by closely examining the contrived counterfactual scenarios (or, as I have shown in former work, by exposure to the normative critique of significant others), that Swift is shown to claim, such normative framework assumptions can be challenged to great effect! The standard epistemologies of his day—Baconian empiricism and Cartesian rationalism—fiercely ridiculed in the course of Gulliver’s third voyage are cruelly dismissed as powerless to change the course of science and keep it in normative check. The transformative effect of the clever thought experiments presented in the three other voyages (of imagining London shrunk to a twelfth of its size and enlarged to giant proportions, and a more responsible and intelligent race of beings inserted above (normally sized) humans) enable Swift to obtain critical normative distance from several major assumptions about politics, religion, aesthetics, ethics, and much more, including the limits of the thought experiment itself. The paper then goes to show how the same kind of counterfactual scenarios are put to impressive use in the Talmudic literature, with special reference to foundational questions of ethics and law.

Fish and Fish Products in Late Antique Palestine and Babylonia in Their Social and Geographical Contexts: Archaeology and the Talmudic Literature

This paper looks at the ancient Jewish talmudic literature (4th-7th centuries CE) for information about fish and fish products in the ancient world and compares it with information from classical sources and from archaeology. Analysis of the texts show that information about food, and particularly fish and fish products, can be derived from texts originally written as religious regulations and moral narratives. Talmudic textual evidence, backed up by parallel archaeological finds, documents long-distance transport of preserved fish, including what is identified as Nile perch from Egypt and mackerel from Spain. Parallel papyrological evidence testifies to the import of the parrot wrasse. Graeco-Roman allec, a sauce made of macerated tiny fish, is identified by the Palestinian Talmud with tarit terufah, made of tiny chopped fish, and afitz, cf Greek afye, immature fish, often cooked as such. Remains of allec have been found archaeologically in Israel/Palestine. The Palestinian Talmud identifies tarit[a] with tzaḥana, one of a trio of strong-smelling Babylonian fish-dishes eaten by the poor: the others are gildana and harsana. The varied material on these discussed here adds to our knowledge of ancient salted and/or fermented fish-dishes. The identification of tzaḥana with 9th-to-10th century ṣaḥna from Baghdad of the Caliphs and 14th-century Cairo appears very likely. Thus tarit/tzaḥana/ṣaḥna appears to have been not very appetising processed fish food for the poor in Roman Palestine, Jewish Babylonia, Baghdad of the Abbasid Caliphs and Mamluk Egypt, and it may be identified with allec. The talmudic literature also discusses reasons for failure of the preservation processes, as well as of potentially lethal effects of insufficient preservation.

SageBook: Toward a cross-generational social network for the Jewish sages’ prosopography

Abstract In this research we devised and implemented a semi-automatic approach for building a SageBook–a cross-generational social network of the Jewish sages from the Rabbinic literature. The proposed methodology is based on a shallow argumentation analysis leading to detection of lexical–syntactic patterns which represent different relationships between the sages in the text. The method was successfully applied and evaluated on the corpus of the Mishna, the first written work of the Rabbinic Literature which provides the foundation to the Jewish law development. The constructed prosopographical database and the network generated from its data enable a large-scale quantitative analysis of the sages and their related data, and therefore might contribute to the research of the Talmudic literature and evolution of the Jewish thought throughout the two last millennia.

Hebrew and Aramaic Terms in the Extractiones de Talmud. The Term “Yeshivah” in the Thirteenth-Century Latin Translation of the Talmud

Abstract Translation is hardly an exceptional event. On the contrary, it is quite common and reflects the necessity of communication despite the obvious multiplicity of human languages. Therefore, it has often exhibited a practical and prescriptive nature – as a discourse characterised by instructions to translators about how, what and why to translate. In the present article, I will pay special attention to the treatment of Hebrew and Aramaic terms in the thirteenth-century Latin translation of the Talmud – better known as Extractiones de Talmud (‘Excerpts from the Talmud’). This translation is a large anthology from the Babylonian Talmud that was compiled by Christian authorities in consequence of the famous Paris process of 1240, when the Jewish convert Nicholas Donin confronted the prominent Rabbi Yehiel of Paris regarding the allegedly blasphemous, anti-Christian nature of the Talmud. This large anthology frequently emphasises linguistic difference and abounds in providing details about specific terms from Talmudic literature. Yet the Extractiones appear to neglect the complex nature of the Talmud. They never mention that the Talmud is bilingual – as it collects Hebrew and Aramaic texts – while emphasising that in it the Jews still employ the so-called ‘Holy Tongue’. I will argue that the Extractiones’ emphasis on Hebrew has both ideological and practical purposes. On the one hand, the notion that Hebrew abounds in the Talmud resonates well with the Christian expectation that Judaism is still bound to the “hebraica veritas” (‘Hebrew truth’). On the other hand, an unexperienced Christian reader might have found it difficult to come to terms with the linguistically and historically complex nature of the Talmud. Therefore, the focus on Hebrew may have been the result of an oversimplification for the readers’ sake. The case will be proven on account of one central example: the translation of the Hebrew term “yeshivah”. I will show that the treatment of this term illustrates how the Latin translator of the Talmud intended to emphasise the cultural difference between Jews and Christians, without abandoning the practical need of offering some form of cultural adaptation.

Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World by Mark R. Cohen (review)

Reviewed by: Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World by Mark R. Cohen Robert Brody Mark R. Cohen. Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2017. 248 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009418000624 Mark Cohen's latest book focuses on the ways in which Maimonides's Mishneh Torah reflects the economic aspects of the society in which he lived, one in which—in contrast with the societies to which the authors of talmudic literature belonged—international trade and large-scale commercial enterprises filled a central role. Although I would count myself among those who tend, in Cohen's words, "to take the great codifier at his word when he insists in the Introduction to the Code and elsewhere that his work was simply a compilation … of rabbinic law up to his time and contained practically nothing new" (141), and would assert that this is an accurate characterization not only of Maimonides's view of himself but of the main thrust of his work, there is no doubt that his code includes some "updating" of talmudic law, an important aspect of which Cohen has revealed. In his opinion, Maimonides was motivated primarily by a desire to enable Jewish courts to deal satisfactorily even with cases not encompassed by earlier Halakhah in order to encourage Jewish merchants to settle their disputes in this framework rather than resorting to Islamic courts; this suggestion is plausible enough, although there is no direct evidence to support it (see inter alia pages 76, 94, and 101). The centerpiece of the volume is a study of Maimonides's treatment of a unique form of economic collaboration that predominated in the medieval Islamic world. Cohen calls this institution, which has been given various names by other researchers, şuḥba-agency. The essence of the arrangement is that each of two (rarely more) associates undertakes to execute without remuneration any commissions requested by his associate. Scholars who have written on the subject have often stressed the "informal" nature of this arrangement; Cohen, for example, emphasizes the fact that such an arrangement could be created orally, but in fact this was true of "formal" partnership agreements as well.1 In my opinion the most interesting features of this institution, from either an economic or a legal perspective, are two. First, when considered in isolation, each [End Page 458] commission executed by one associate on behalf of another appears to be a simple favor or act of friendship; it is only when the larger context is considered that the agent is seen to be compensated by the mutuality of the arrangement. Second, when merchants enter into a partnership they obviously cannot know in advance how much they will gain or lose as a result, but they do know that they are committing certain quantities of capital and labor and can expect to receive a given percentage of the profits or, at worst, to bear a certain percentage of the losses. In contrast, when they create a şuḥba-agency relationship neither partner has a clear idea of the obligations he is undertaking or the benefits he hopes to receive. The commissions he will be expected to perform on behalf of his associate and those that he will expect his associate to perform on his behalf will depend on future market conditions and economic opportunities. Nor was any effort made to set a financial value on the services that each associate performed on behalf of his colleague or to ensure that the exchange of unremunerated services was an equitable one. Cohen correctly emphasizes that Maimonides, like Saʿadiah Gaon a hundred and fifty years earlier, found a novel way to integrate this new sort of commercial arrangement into existing Halakhah, although it should be noted that neither author dealt explicitly with şuḥba-agency: each of them wrote in terms appropriate to a one-time commission, rather than a long-term and open-ended relationship.2 Saʿadiah's innovation was to treat the agent as a paid rather than an unpaid bailee; Maimonides's was to enable the merchant who commissioned the agent to impose an...

Islām and Genesis 17: A Study in Scriptural Intertextuality

Abraham Geiger’s 1833 essay launched a particular genre of research that posits foreign etymology for many terms in the Qur’ān. Whereas some work has been erudite, others have posited far-fetched concepts to the point where at least one author opines that Aramaic was the original language of the Qur’ān. Muslim exegetes have compounded the problem by seeking to interpret the Qur’ān on its own, without reference to other Abrahamic scriptures. I argue that Muhammad’s audience understood him clearly since he was using terms that had become part of the Arabic language long before his time. I examine three terms: islām, imān, and dīn, showing that the meaning of these words in the Qur’ān can be deciphered by reliance on context of usage and intertextuality. To this end, I refer to several verses of the Qur’ān as well as of the Hebrew Bible and Talmudic literature. A proper understanding of these words allows us to see Q3:19 and Q5:3 as pluralistic instead of the particularistic interpretation that most exegetes proffer.

HISTORY OF THE JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 1:26, 3:5, 3:22 IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The present paper examines the plural forms found in Genesis 1:26, 3:5 and 3:22 which might appertain to the Divine and which acted as focal points for theological and exegetical discussion within the framework of the Jewish tradition. Thus, the paper studies the mediaeval Jewish exegesis of these plural forms as perpetuated in the representative Jewish commentaries and situates it against the early Jewish reception of these forms which was mirrored in the ancient Jewish Aramaic and Greek translations of the Scripture and reflected in the Midrashic and Talmudic literature. The mediaeval Jewish tradition, on the one hand, relied on the earlier exposition of such phenomena, on the other hand, it enriched and advanced the trajectory of the interpretations accepted within the limits of Judaism.

“He Did Not Embarrass Her”: Motherhood and Shame in Talmudic Literature

“He Did Not Embarrass Her”: Motherhood and Shame in Talmudic Literature

Models for Jewish Bible Theologies

Abstract Against continuing attempts to define “Old Testament theology” or “biblical theology” in exclusively Christian terms, and in light of ongoing methodological diversity and confusion between proponents of Jewish biblical theology, this article suggests three models for the latter. The first one investigates the theologies of the different parts of the Hebrew Bible on their own, diachronically, without interference from later theology or practice. The second one focuses synchronically on the form of the Hebrew Bible as canonized, and is as objective as this basic biblical text allows. The third one is explicitly subjective and confessional, reading the Hebrew Bible in relation to the larger canon of Judaism, that is, the Oral Torah (= talmudic and midrashic literature). All three models have a legitimate place in the construction of a genuinely Jewish biblical theology, but they must not be confused. They all begin with different presuppositions and pursue different goals, but when properly distinguished, they can also complement one another, each exploring different aspects of the theology of the Jewish Bible.

Flax and Linen Terminology in Talmudic Literature

Material culture data is mentioned in Talmudic (or ‘rabbinical’) literature when a relevant legal (‘halakhic’) or homiletic (‘midrashic’) context arises. Therefore, certain details may be lacking or ambiguously stated. This however is not presented in a systematic and detailed manner, such as in ‘Pliny’s Natural History’.2 Additional classical authors mention flax and linen. First and foremost: Diocletian3 in his edict of maximum prices. And in less scope and detail: Xenophon,4 Virgil,5 Strabo,6 Columella,7 Pausanias,8 and Theodosius II9 – in his codex. In some instances, these sources may be useful for comparison, contrast and clarification – to Talmudic sources. It is difficult to gauge the exact societal extent of the phenomena mentioned in this literature, however it may be assumed that they can be viewed as a representative sampling, or reliable cross-section of the material culture found in contemporaneous society in those periods (c. 2nd - 5th centuries AD) and regions (Land of Israel and Babylonia). This premise is unaffected by the academic disagreement which exists regarding the extent to which Talmudic laws were actually practiced by the general populace outside of the sphere of the Sages themselves. There is, however, academic consensus regarding those aspects of material culture which are described in this literature as reflecting Sitz im Leben. Historiography based upon Talmudic literature source material is a complex and challenging science. It will encompass aspects such as the use of various Aramaic dialects, the identities, backgrounds, times and locales of tradents10 and the legal and homiletic contexts in which the material culture data is presented. Nevertheless, these are outside of the scope of the current paper, which will focus strictly on material culture itself. The principal rabbinic works from which data is gleaned include: Mishna, Tosefta, Mekhilta, Sifra, Sifre,11 Jerusalem Talmud,12 Babylonian Talmud,13 Midrash Bereshit Rabba, Midrash Tanḥuma,14 and Aramaic ‘Targums’15 of the Pentateuch and Hebrew Bible. Each of these works embodies content originating in various periods, some of them long before the date of their respective final redactions. Pioneers in this field of Talmudic material culture research in general, and textiles specifically, were Gustav Dalman,16 R.J. Forbes,17 Abraham Herszberg,18 Samuel Krauss,19 and Saul Lieberman.20 Since then, our knowledge of Roman-era textiles has been greatly enhanced, due to research advances21 in the fields of archaeology, botany, iconography and philology. Notable among those whom have contributed to this field are Yehuda Feliks,22 John Peter Wild,23 Daniel Sperber, 24 Ze’ev Safrai,25 and Michael Sokoloff.26 All of the above will be accounted for in the current paper.

Using Lotteries in Logic of Halakhah Law. The Meaning of Randomness in Judaism

Abstract There are many phenomena in the Bible connected to the idea of the random, generally in a positive light, but sometimes in a negative one. Both in the Talmudic literature and in the Halakhah texts, the ḥazal (the Sages) also relate to random processes. As we will see here, for them every chance event has a clear meaning, usually even a holy one. In fact, every culture in the world relates to randomness. However, from the Greek philosophers until the rationalism of the 19th century, a process of denuding randomness of its holiness has been taking place. In Judaism, a lottery is not a blind process; moreover the randomness has a clear and profound theological meaning.

Meir ben Simeon ha-Meʿili on Protracted Pregnancy

Since antiquity, many people have believed that the length of human gestation is variable, ranging from seven months to ten or even twelve months. The significance of this belief is not confined to the medical sphere, since it has important legal ramifications. If pregnancy could last for an extended period, a mother could claim that her offspring was legitimately conceived from her husband even if she had not had physical contact with her husband for more than nine months prior to the birth. After surveying the history of the belief in prolonged pregnancy in ancient Greek and Talmudic literature, this article presents a new rabbinic discussion of the topic from medieval Languedoc, a hitherto unknown passage from Rabbi Meir ben Simeon ha-Meʿili’s work Sefer ha-Meʾorot.

The Talmudic hermeneutics of medieval Halakhic decision-making: ‘compound ambiguities’ and the reading practices of the rishonim

The literary ambiguities present in the discrete literary sources of a Talmudic sugya and the further ambiguities created by the redactors’ placement of these sources into dialogue with one another result in the phenomenon I call ‘compound ambiguities’. Rishonim interpret compound ambiguities in two ways. ‘Macro-reading’, employed by Rashi and Rambam, is a global approach to explaining and ruling from a sugya in which the explication of ambiguities incorporates the use of terminology, concepts and interpretations known from elsewhere in Talmudic literature. ‘Micro-reading’, evidenced in the unlikely location of Rabbi Jacob Baal HaTurim’s code of Jewish law, relies only on the local context of a sugya when ruling and ignores the overlap with Talmudic parallels, resulting in innovative inferences and understandings of Talmudic material.