Author Archives: The Talmud Blog

English, Guest Posts

Doing Daf Yomi- Guest Post by Yaakov Elman

This post, a first in what we hope will be a series on the Daf Yomi as its 12th cycle comes to a close, was written by Yeshiva University’s Prof. Yaakov Elman. A long time daf yomi learner, Prof. Elman was also Shai’s doktorvater, and his deep influence on this blog parallels the one that he has had on the field of academic Talmud.

The Babylonian Talmud (hereafter: the Bavli) is made up of approximately 1,863,000 words, spread out across 2,711 double folio-pages. Studying a double-page- known as a “daf“- a day, it takes seven years, five months, and approximately six days to complete a cycle of study of the Bavli, and the completion of the twelfth cycle (inaugurated in 1923) will be celebrated today, August 1st, by hundreds of thousands of people world-wide, with an expected 100,000 attendees at MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands.

Such a regimen is definitely a daunting task, but tens of thousands of Jews rise early, stay up late, or somehow crowd an hour or so of study into their daily schedule, often in synagogue before or after services, on commuter trains, subways, and the like. Most of them do so in groups, with a leader taking them through the intricacies of an Aramaic-Hebrew text that has challenged the best minds the Jewish people have produced for the last millennium and a half. Of course, being part of a group allows for social interchange, and the feeling of participating in a shared goal. But my own experience suggests that while the text alone can be riveting at times and “merely” interesting at others;the Bavli hardly ever requires a stiff upper lip to see it through.

I have been asked to describe the experience of studying the Talmud in this way; let me begin by admitting at the outset that I am not a typical daf yomi person. In the forty-some-odd years that I have studied daf yomi, I have never taken part in a daf yomi group; my schedule is seven blatt on a Sabbath rather than a daf a day. Still, by not taking part in a group I was forced to rely on my own resources, and thus my view of the Bavli is my own and reflects my interests. These have changed over the years, but for the most part, my focus has been on the Bavli’s cognitive style and modes of argument, the individual contributions of its major voices, the society that produced it, and the interaction of that society with its general environment.

I began daf yomi when the thought that I would never complete even the most cursory review of the whole of the Bavli in my lifetime (at the rate I was progressing) became intolerable. I couldn’t stand the thought that I would never get a sense of the whole of the Talmud. One may ask: If the Bavli is more or less uniform in its style of language, thought and argumentation, what’s the difference, apart from the changing subject matter?

The short answer is that not only do the topics change, but the “research agenda” changes as well. Discussions of the Temple service are different from those on practical matters of civil law, for example. Some tractates concentrate on the biblical derivations of the Mishnah’s rules (Zevahim, Menahot); in some, most of talmudic law is based on custom rather than Scripture (Bava Batra, for example). While there are only 12 or 13 major figures, not all appear in the same proportion throughout the whole Bavli, and so one does not get a sense of their approaches without having kept track through a complete cycle (at least).

Daf Yomi takes its participants through the Bavli in a close-up view of the discussions carried on among the Babylonian rabbis of 220-530 CE, from prayers and blessings though the rules governing celebration of the Sabbath and festivals, through rules governing gender relations, civil law, to the Temple service and slaughter. But it is also a reflection of the society whose norms determined the shape of Jewish life for a millennium and a half, and continues to do so for hundreds of thousands of Jews today. It is also the cognitive underpinning of the Jewish mind as it has developed over the last two millennia, indeed, much more so than the Hebrew Bible.

Let me quote from a short description that I published a few years ago on which I would like to expand:

…The Babylonian Talmud is marked by a salient characteristic, its continuous and unending dialogue. The debates are not haphazard. Certain authorities who were contemporaries or near-contemporaries debate all sorts of issues related to the Mishnah, issues that are sometimes only remotely relevant to them personally. Some statistics will give us an idea of what is happening. The Babylonian Talmud is the creation of at least seven generations of Babylonian authorities, and contains several generations of Israeli authorities as well. However, of the hundreds of authorities mentioned by name, more than forty thousand times in toto, only a dozen or so dominate the discussion and are scattered in pairs… These debates are often arranged as structured discussions on a given topic, so that they appear to be stenographic records of actual debates. This appearance is literary only, however, as few of these authorities lived in close proximity. This is true even though the discussion, or sugya (a “walking through), sometimes seems to reflect a long debate over a point, a debate that gives the appearance of having lasted for generations.

The cognitive style of the Bavli is dialogic and dialectical, as manifested not only by its predominant voice, that of its anonymous redactors, who contributed over half of its text (the stama di-gemara), but by its named authorities, who both query and question and investigate incessantly. They take very little for granted; everything must have an authoritative source—and sound logic counts as such a source. As my first Talmud teacher told us ten-year olds: “A gemoro daf men farshtein, nit nur gloiben” (“We must understand the talmudic text, it us not enough to believe it”).

The predominant mode of inquiry is binary: Is A to be construed as X or perhaps (o dilma’) as Y? But while the query may seem simple, the answers seldom are, and alternate possibilities are brought into consideration. At times the query leads to another, in a dizzying array of cantilevered logic. If A, then X or Y or Z. But if A leads to X or Y or Z, then other binary possibilities open up… and so on. This is one of the ways in which the Bavli comprehends the complexities of human experience.

One consequence of the predominance of about a dozen figures over seven generations is that a few sages have a outsize influence on the whole. Furthermore, the contribution of some sages outside this dozen is quite distinctive and can easily be traced. Thus, R. Yirmiyah (a Babylonian who went on aliyah) and Rammi bar Hamma (a Babylonian who stayed home) both tend to propound theoretical problems, often involving boundary conditions for whose solution no authoritative text exists; an inordinate number of their problems defy solution. One result is that after one such query R. Yirmiyah was ejected from the study hall (Bava Batra 23a); on a later occasion, however, he was brought back by dint of another such question (Bava Batra 165a). Another reaction, that of the highly-influential fourth-generation sage Rava to two of Rammi bar Hamma’s questions was “His sharp-wittedness has brought him to error!” It is perhaps no surprise that R. Yirmiyah praised Rammi bar Hamma to his own teacher R. Zeira (Pesahim 48a). It is also not surprising that on at least one occasion R. Yirmiyah’s suggestion was so astounding that the Bavli interprets it as an attempt to make his master, R. Zeira, smile—but, as the Bavli notes: “R. Zeira did not smile” (Niddah 23a).

There are two other aspects of the Bavli’s thought that I think are essential to its understanding: its sense of proportion, and its requirement of reasonableness (as opposed to adherence to pure logic), that is, that statements conform to reality. One might think that with its continuous arguments the Bavli would be bound to strict logic, but then logic is not always reasonable. Thus, in Shabbat 5a, a particular analysis of the text at hand (quoted, as it happens, in the name of a western scholar for which there is no parallel in the Talmud of the Land of Israel) results in an interpretation in which a midget (or an normal-sized person bent over or standing in a pit) is holding a basket within three handbreadths of the ground. Rava reacts as to this proposal as follows: “Did the authority of the mishnah then trouble himself to teach us these [highly unusual] cases?” Though this retort appears only five times in the Bavli, this may be because such interpretations are rare.

The other response is far more common, and appears more than a hundred times in the Bavli. Thus, in Shabbat 151b, the redactors’ reaction to R. Yosef’s assertion that rabbinic students are never reduced to begging is: “But we see that they are!” Formally, the Bavli is a commentary on the Mishnah, a collection of laws and rules governing almost every area of life promulgated about 220 CE, but one which does not—in common with law collections of the time—decide issues at contention. But at times the Bavli will set aside the mishnaic view on matters that are not disputed as a minority opinion, or it reinterprets it so as to change it substantively, or even marginalize it in some other way.

Nevertheless, though the Bavli is often hard-headed and self-critical, and at times questioning (to the point that it embodies some of the characteristics of the later proverbial Yiddish skepticism and bemusement at human failings), these are only some of its moods. The Bavli reflects all the varied moods of a wise and discerning mentor who bemusement at human folly never stoops to cynicism, and will even at times allow itself a certain measured naivité. Its infinite variety, like that of the human mind and heart, keeps it ever fresh, and that may be the secret of why tens of thousands of people are ready to turn the page and experience the lessons of the next day.

Yaakov Elman is Professor of Judaic Studies at Yeshiva University and an associate of Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies. He has published or edited eight books and dozens of articles on rabbinic intellectual history, Jewish biblical exegesis, and hasidic thought.

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Conferences, English, Guest Posts, Readings

Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 18b and Yevamot 37b: is this temporary marriage?- Guest Post by Zvi Septimus and Lena Salaymeh

Zvi Septimus and Lena Salaymeh are currently (at the time of publication) giving a lecture entitled “Marriage for Sex in Medieval Jewish and Islamic Legal Debates” at The Jewish Law Association’s 17th International Conference, going on now at Yale University.  This post is a summary of their talk and an opportunity to participate in the discussion. 

Two well-known and seemingly anomalous lines in the Babylonian Talmud have troubled many Talmud commentators for the last thousand years—yet these lines were notably ignored by the Gaonim: “When Rav came to Ardashir, he announced, ‘Who will have me for a day?’  When Rav Nahman came to Shkentziv, he announced, ‘Who will have me for a day?’”  What do these proclamations mean? The subsequent give and take of the Talmud implies that both Rav and Rav Nahman were the equivalent of modern-day rock stars.  They would send their entourage to the next stop on their tour in order to scout out groupies willing to engage in casual sex—or a temporary marital relationship—during their stay in various cities.  After their encounter they would be on their way, off to the next city to be coupled with the next willing set of groupies.  Had these rabbis actually been modern-day rock stars, these stories would probably not trouble us or the medieval commentators, many of whom felt forced to sanitize them.  But these stories are about rabbis.

The trouble with the rock star metaphor is that it implies that sexual relationships, or any relationship for that matter, between men and woman in the ancient world were anything like the way they are today, or even the medieval Christian and Muslim worlds in which medieval Talmud commentators lived.  The story we will now tell is about the evolution of the contexts in which these two Bavli lines were positioned from the time of their first appearance as historical anecdotes of the near past to the time when, as part of a Talmudic sugya, they needed to be incorporated into the complex web of rabbinic legislation.

The two statements of these rabbis appear in succession at two very different locales in the Talmud.  The first, in the order of tractates, and, as we argue, the development of the sugya, is at Yoma 18b and the second is at Yevamot 37b.  The Yevamot context is far more expansive and has therefore generally received more attention from traditional jurists seeking to contextualize the statements legally—to make laws for their contemporaries based on the way the Talmud discusses them.  At stake, for jurists like Alfasi, Maimonides, the Ravad, Nahmanides, the Rosh, and the Tur, is the legislative approach they would take toward casual or time-bound sexual relationships in their own eras in light of both the Talmud’s attitude toward such relationships and their own social and religious realities.  While traditional marriage may receive the most attention, there are many types of sexual relationships between men and women discussed in the Talmud.  Indeed, considerable effort is expended fleshing out sexual relationships between men and women outside of the standard permanent marriage arrangement, including conditional marriage and divorce, levirate marriage, servant marriage, slave marriage, concubines, casual sex, prostitution, and incest.  The Bavli’s discussion of these varieties of sexual relationships is reflective of late antique Near Eastern customary practices.  The question we would like to pose today is: To which of these categories did the Bavli’s redactors and the rabbinic commentators assign the relationships expressed by the stories of Rav and Rav Nahman?

Even within the Bavli itself, the statements of Rav and Rav Nahman—”who will have me for a day?”—can be seen in multiple contexts.  The first is to look at the statements themselves as actual stories recorded at or slightly after the times of their occurrence.  The second is to view them in the context of the extended sugya at Yoma 18b.  And the third is to understand them within the framework of Yevamot 37b.  When looked at this way, the stories can have three separate meanings.  To compound matters, there are numerous manuscripts containing alternate versions and textual variants.  Each of these, in addition, portrays different attitudes toward the story itself.  Of primary concern is the question of what type of relationship is meant by the words “who will have me for a day?”  Is it casual sex, a form of pilegesh relationship, or a temporary marriage?  If it were a pilegesh relationship, then was qiddushin performed?  Was nissuin performed?  Was there a ketubbah?  Is it realistic to think that the rabbis would be willing to pay the 100 or 200 zuz marriage settlement for a day’s worth of enjoyment, or, from a different perspective, a day’s worth of abating sexual urges in a legitimized manner?  Secondly, was the marriage for a day or “days”?  The manuscripts contain both readings.  If “days,” then was the marriage for a specific amount of time or just designated as temporary in some non-specific way?  If for a pre-determined amount of time, was this marriage naturally dissolved or was a get required?  If for a non-specific amount of time, could either party leave at will or was the husband the sole authority in determining the marriage’s end?  Further does the term yiḥud in these Bavli passages refer to non-sexual seclusion or is it a term referring to designating the woman as a partner, perhaps a pilegesh, where there would be neither qiddushin nor a ketubbah?  These questions are not only of interest to modern academic analysis of the positions of the authors of each sugya, or versions of the sugya preserved in a manuscript tradition, they also drive the medieval commentatorial tradition of those sugyot and the efforts of the codifiers and jurists in trying to incorporate these sugyot into their legal systems.

The inconclusiveness of these narratives and the widespread Near Eastern practices of temporary marriage suggest that at the time of the Bavli’s redaction, some form of temporary marriage was being practiced.  Indeed, Yaakov Elman argues that these “two prominent rabbis contracted temporary marriages in accord with the Sassanian institution.”  So, if rabbinic Jews practiced temporary marriages in late antiquity, then did these Jewish temporary wives receive a ketubbah?  Moreover, how did these temporary marriages end?  Did the rabbis in Yoma 18b or Yevamot 37b deliver divorce decrees or was a divorce effected at the moment of their departure or the conclusion of the day(s)?  This is of course probably depends on whether these temporary arrangements were actual marriages or merely pilagshut. The Bavli does not provide a clear answer on any of these technical details.

This leads us to wonder, how did the Gaonim understand this rabbinic practice of temporary marriage considering their context of Islamic debates about it?  It was not until the late 8th or early 9th century that a majority of Muslim scholars prohibited temporary marriages; prior to that time, temporary marriages were widely practiced and debated.  There is a notable geographic distribution, with Muslim jurists from Mecca generally permitting temporary marriage and jurists from Iraq and Medina opposing it.  Since the Gaonic academies were located in Iraq, it is quite likely that the Gaonim were exposed to these debates about temporary marriage among Muslim jurists.  There are three different forms of temporary marriage in the late antique Near Eastern world.  First: the Shīʿī version, in which the temporary marriage contract specifies the duration of the marriage, which ends automatically without a divorce declaration.  Second: the Sunnī version, in which the temporary marriage contract does not specify the duration, but the husband and wife or one of them intend to divorce and this type only ends with a divorce declaration.  The Sunnī version is a legal fiction because the husband and wife may have agreed upon the specific duration of the marriage, but simply did not specify it in the contract; in addition, in the Sunnī version, either the husband or the wife may intend to divorce the other without this affecting the validity of the marriage.  The third version may be understood as one component of the second version: the uninformed temporary marriage mentioned by Rabbi Eliezer Ben Yaaqov, in which the husband intends to divorce the wife with a get, but has not informed her.  Yet, somewhat surprisingly, there is little Gaonic discussion of the Yoma 18b or the Yevamot 37b sugyot.  Why is it that the “Who will have me for a day?” statements in the Talmud did not generate Gaonic commentary?

We want to end with this question and encourage those of you who are able, to attend our panel at the Jewish Law Association meeting or continue this conversation in the comments section of The Talmud Blog.

Lena Salaymeh is Robbins Post-Doctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley School of Law and recently earned her PhD in the History department at UC Berkeley; and Zvi Septimus is Anne Tanenbaum Post-Doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto. He was previously Alan M. Stroock Fellow for Advanced Research in Judaica at Harvard University and received his PhD in Jewish Studies from UC Berekely.

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English, General Culture

Reading the Talmud in (The Islamic Republic of) Iran – Two Documents

One of the central interests of this blog is the relatively recent scholarly trend of ‘Reading the Talmud in Iran’ – that is, the practice of locating the Talmud in its Iranian context by highlighting connections between it and the Late Antique Iranian world from which it emerged. But we are also interested in the way the Talmud is read today – from Northern California to Korea. With all the excitement of recovering the composition of an ‘Iranian’-Babylonian Talmud, we must not ignore the experience of reading the Talmud in the Islamic Republic of Iran today.

The Vice President of Iran, Mohammad Reza Rahimi’s recent remarks that “the prevalence of narcotics and drug-addition throughout the world finds its roots in the wrong teachings of the Zionists’ religious book, Talmud (paraphrased by Farsnews)” was particularly troubling for us. Not only are his comments (and ‘retraction’) offensive in the extreme, they are entirely ignorant of the role that Iran played in producing the Talmud.

It is no secret that Iranian Jews, along with other non-Muslim minorities in Iran, frequently find themselves in precarious positions in the Islamic Republic. For Jews, one of the most disquieting matters concerns the Islamic Republic’s alleged contrast between Jews and Zionists – a distinction made by Khomeini to a delegation of frightened Jews sent to Qom on May 14, 1979, which is frequently transgressed by both the non-Jewish Iranian public and, as we recently saw, government officials.  That said, the experience of Jews in Iran today is by no means black-and-white, and Iranian Jewry’s complicated and fraught relationship with Zionism and the State of Israel must be parsed with the utmost care.

Notwithstanding the media coverage of Rahimi’s comments, there remains an extreme dearth of information regarding the state of Iranian Jewry today. We thought that it would be useful to provide our readers with two documents culled from the recent affair – a pair of letters sent by and to the Jewish community in Tehran concerning the Vice President’s offensive statements about the Talmud. The letters were posted to the Tehran Jewish community’s website and were kindly translated from the Persian by our friend and colleague Dr. Thamar E. Gindin. Needless to say, the appearance of the documents here is by no means an endorsement of their contents. Instead, we post them for posterity and discussion:

Dr Homayun Same-yah

Tir 91 (June 2012)

Mr. Mohammad Reza Rahimi
Honorable First Vice-President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

With greetings and honor,

Following the speech delivered by his honor, as quoted by the Persian news agency, on the international day against drug abuse, and his expressing an opinion about the holy book of the Talmud, I hereby state: The valuable treasure of the Talmud of the Jews includes manners of carrying out the verdicts and laws of the holy Torah. Its composition began about 1800 years ago by the Jewish sages, and took about 300 years to complete. This collection, besides discussing matters of religious law, also describes the lives of the sages and prophets, aspects of proper moral and behavior, and matters of health and medicine, within the limits of that time’s science.
The Talmud, compiled in 37 volumes, holds a very detailed, specialized, and massive text and content, which, regrettably, has not been translated to Persian to this day.
What is certain is that at the times of the Talmud, drugs for abuse were practically unknown, and had no use. Moreover, in the centuries that follow, no Jew has been known or arrested as a drug smuggler.
Since exact research and correct and valid description of affairs is every speaker’s duty and every listener’s right, when the matter is discussed by a high official authority, it especially raises the expectations in this arena. Additionally, the confusion and lack of distinction between the two matters – Judaism as a divine, monotheistic religion, and Zionism as a political party, is a big mistake, standing in contrast to the saying of the great leader of the revolution, his holiness Imam Khomeini (BM), who said “Judaism counts separately from Zionism”. Especially in this sensitive time, when the foreigners and the enemies sit in ambush to defame and create a hostile propagandistic atmosphere toward our beloved country. Therefore, the community of Jewish Iranians demands its right – the rectification of words said.
His honor Mr. Rahimi, because the Tehran Jewish Committee is certain that your honor’s sayings have been based on views of people unaware and unknowledgeable of the holy treasure of the Talmud, the Committee expresses its readiness to explain to his honor the very valuable doctrines of this book, especially doctrines dealing with love for others.
Moreover, the Committee announces that it has always kept in mind the administrations of his holiness the late Imam (Khomeini – ThEG), and likewise the valuable words of the leader of the Islamic republic of Iran regarding unity of speech (i.e. complete compliance with the supreme leader’s words – ThEG) and harmony in the great and powerful country of Iran, and expects each and every Iranian to also respect this right.
With honor,

Head of the Tehran Jewish Committee

Dr. Homayun Same-yah

———————————————————

The Vice-President’s office reply July 16, 2012

Dear Mr. Dr. Homayun Same-yah,
Honorable head of the Tehran Jewish Committee,

With honor, with peace and greetings to all the divine prophets, especially the prophet of Islam, of great dignity, and his holiness Moses who spoke with God.

In reply to your honor’s letter nr. 17326 dated 3/4/1391 (23/6/2012; sic), I hereby say:

Following the speech of the honorable first vice-president at the “international day against drug abuse” ceremony (6/4/1391 [26/6/2012; sic]), the foreign media, especially media linked to the world-arrogance (the West – ThEG) and to the Zionist regime, have selected and distorted parts of his speech, launched a propagandistic tumult, and with this excuse, put the high officials of the sacred regime yet again to under attack.

As your honor rightfully mentioned in your letter, according to the doctrinal principles of the Islamic Republic regime and the commands of the Deceased Imam (Khomeini – ThEG) and the supreme leader, “Zionism” and “Judaism” are two completely different matters. The leaders of the regime have from the very beginning of victory of the Islamic Revolution, always differentiated between the true followers of his Holiness Moses (BM) as a divine monotheistic religion, and the current of “World Zionism”. Today, the Muslim nations of the world hold the Jewish religion and its followers in great respect, but know that Zionism is a satanic doctrine, characterized by traits such as occupation and proliferation-ambitions, and strives to achieve its goals and control the world’s sources. In the past 32 years, World Zionism and its agents have never let go of their misconception against the Islamic Republic regime. They have always strived, by means of the media related to them, to distort the facts, divert the world public opinion, and attribute to Iran and to Muslims faults such as support of international terrorism, fundamentalism, deprivation of human rights, proliferation ambitions etc.
The last hustle and bustle about the words of the honorable First Vice-President are also – like dozens of the previous false clamors, from the fatwa issued by the Holy Imam (BM) (Khomeini – ThEG) against Salman Rushdie, to the studious question of the honorable president about the Holocaust – based on distortion and lie. Regretfully, the leaders of the ruling regime, who are themselves of the main architects of racism and genocide in the world, have titled this speech “anti-Jewish and racist”. The first Vice-President, in the aforementioned ceremony, has elaborated on some matters as an opinion holder in an academic and logical discussion, regarding Zionism and their misuse of some of the sanctities of Judaism. He is the author of the book “Land Wound”, which describes the history of the formation of Zionism, the genealogy of the Islamic Resistance Movement etc. The book was published by the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in 1388 (2009-10), and for authoring this book, he has been hailed by Palestinian and Syrian elites and academics. Reviewing the text of the First Vice-President’s speech, it can be seen that he has announced “Zionism” as an agent of proliferating drugs and other corruptions in the world, and explicitly distinguished between “authentic Jews” , who are followers of Holy Moses (BM), and “the Zionists”. But agents of the Arrogance, who are terrified that the hands of World Zionism behind the curtains may be exposed, immediately tried, by distortion and partial quotations of some of the parts, to launch another propagandistic turmoil against the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  We appreciate the consciousness of the Tehran Jewish Committee in recognizing the political atmosphere of the country and the world in the present situation, and thank this committee for its perseverance in observing the administrations of his Holiness the Deceased Imam, and the statements of the supreme leader of the Islamic Revolution regarding unity of speech and harmony in our beloved country. It should be noted that in reply to the demand of the community of Jewish Iranians and in order to rectify the misconceptions arising from the speech delivered by Dr. Mohammad Reza Rahimi, First Vice President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a statement has been put at the disposal of internal and foreign media. At the end, we ask the Lord Almighty for the success of our Jewish compatriots.
Mozaffar Torabi

Thamar E. Gindin is an Iranian linguist. She’s a research fellow at the Ezri Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies in Haifa university, teaches Persian to private groups and in Tel Aviv University, lectures about present day and ancient Iran in various settings, and is the author of “The Good, the Bad and the Universe – a Journey to Pre-Islamic Iran. She intends to be Israel’s first cultural attaché to a friendly Iran.

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English, Guest Posts, Reviews

Daniel Sperber’s Greek in Talmudic Palestine- Review by Yair Furstenberg

Daniel Sperber, Greek in Talmudic Palestine, Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 2012

How much Greek in Jewish Palestine? Were Samuel Krauss to address the question titling Saul Lieberman’s seminal essay of half a century ago, we could expect in reply a most precise datum: 2370. Krauss compiled the dictionary for Greek and Latin loanwords in rabbinic literature (Griechische und Lateinische Lehnwörter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum) published during the last years of the 19th century, and this is the number of Greek entries in this work (if we are to believe those who counted). However, this enormous number, which supposedly signifies the scope of Greek knowledge in rabbinic circles, would certainly not satisfy Lieberman.

Besides the fact that the Lehnwörter was most fervently criticized early on by linguists and classicists, who rejected a substantial share of its etymologies (between 30-50%) and valued it only as a comprehensive collection of the relevant passages, Lieberman’s major concern in identifying these foreign words laid elsewhere, beyond the realm of lexicography. In the above-mentioned essay, as in his earlier books Greek in Jewish Palestine and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, he sought not only to identify within rabbinic literature traces of Greek presence, but to map out the types of rabbinic encounters with this culture and the intensity of the exposure. Thus he claims, for example, that whereas philosophical terminology is completely absent from Talmudic literature, which befits the rabbis’ complete disinterest in foreign wisdom, issues such as law, government, and rhetoric are well represented in rabbinic vocabulary.

In the last few decades, contemporary scholarship moved even farther away from the lexicographic endeavor, as it shifted from a philological paradigm in which related words serve as signifiers of sporadic cultural interaction to a broader cultural paradigm that seeks to identify shared structures of thought within the common Greco-Roman environment. From this perspective, even if spoken in the most Rabbinic Hebrew, Talmudic laws, narratives and anecdotes may sound to some like Greek. However, paradoxically, the evolution of new broader scholarly approaches has only reinforced the need for a clearer exposition of the actual contexts and agents (including people, words and institutions) through which such cultural exchange took place. Due to the incompleteness of earlier projects, some fundamental questions have yet to be systematically addressed: How “Greek” is each of the rabbinic compilations? Can we identify different trends or stages in the exposure to Greek language and culture? How should we account for the broader use of Greek in later sources? Did Christianity play a role in the distribution of Greek language and ideas in Palestine? How does the rabbinic exposure to Greek compare with that of other Aramaic and Syriac speaking groups in the eastern Mediterranean?

In his latest book, Daniel Sperber contributes to this endeavor by laying out some of the main findings of his two esteemed masters, Krauss and Lieberman, and by commenting on the challenges which, in his eyes, their works hold for future scholarship. Thus, in the first part, “Greek and Latin Words in Rabbinic Literature: Prolegomena to a New Dictionary of Classical Words in Rabbinic Literaute” (a reprint of two of his articles from the seventies), Sperber surveys the problems and methodological concerns which await the compilation of an improved dictionary, more than a century after Krauss. In the second part, “Rabbinic Knowledge of Greek in Talmudic Palestine”, he readdresses the fundamental question posed by Liebermen: “How much knowledge (and we may add, and of what nature) of the world which surrounded them did the builders of Rabbinic Judaism possess?”. To that end, he adds to Lieberman’s exposition some further examples of his own, relating to regional differences, knowledge of pagan ritual, rabbinic acquaintance with Roman legal and military terminology, and the use of Greek in magical texts.

Those who follow Sperber’s work will identify his examples from the many publications he contributed on the issue of Greek in rabbinic literature during the last three decades. Most prominent of these are his books, in which he not only offered solutions to textual cruxes by deciphering the Greek or Latin etymologies, but in which he sought to classify all foreign terms according to subject matters: A Dictionary of Greek and Latin in the Mishna, Talmud and Midrashic Literature (1984); Nautica Talmudica (1986); Material Culture in Eretz Israel (1993, 2006); Magic and Folklore in Rabbinic Literature (1996). In a way this is the most conspicuous of Sperber’s contributions, in which he dismantled the over-whelming question of Greek in Rabbinic literature into manageable, specific contexts and fields of practice.

The current book is of a different nature, and its purpose is more modest. It advances Sperbers general scholarly approach, which incidentally is largely based on that of Liebermen. However, in the margins, the unique and extremely important aspect of Sperber’s contribution does emerge in this latest book as well. Thus for example, to the list of more than 280 new words which he adds to Krauss’s dictionary (thanks to his elaborate use of critical editions and sophisticated assessment of manuscripts variants) he appended a subject index, which “highlights to us that in certain socio-cultural areas there was a greater penetration of Greek terms… administration, army and weaponry… employment, occupations and professions… building, tools or utensils” (p. 81).

But as the examples in the book demonstrate, the issue at hand is not only in what fields were the rabbis exposed to Greek, but the nature of their proficiency. Thus, the most enjoyable examples are those which not only incorporate Greek terminology but cunningly manipulate the languages through wordplays and puns. It takes an expert to identify those, today as well as back then. Therefore, although we are not surprised to find R. Abbahu in third century Caesarea proving his competence in Greek with a clever wordplay, it is no less than astonishing to find it in other, unexpected contexts. Such is the following case, my personal favorite, (discussed on p. 136) taking us back to the presumably ancient mishnah, which records the halahkhic dispute between the Pharisees and Saduccees (m. Yad. 4:6):

The Sadducees say we cry out against you, O ye Pharisees, for ye say ‘The Holy Scriptures render the hands unclean and the writings of Homer do not’. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai said “Have we naught against the Pharisees save this? For lo, they say ‘The bones of an ass (עצמות חמור) are clean and the bones of Yochanan the High Priest are unclean?

As Sperber points out, quoting Chaim Rosen, there is much more to the comparison of texts (Scripture/Homer) to bones (High Priest/ass) than the halakhic issue of impurity: behind the word “עצמות חמור” [“the bones of an ass”] there lies a Greek expression referring to Homeric poetry itself – an expression which has been doctored in a “cacophonistic” manner for the sake of derision and disparagement – “aismat homerou” – viz. “the songs of Homer”. And we can only thank the Pharisees for purifying these bones and songs, reluctantly admitting the enduring influence of Greek language and culture.

Yair Furstenberg is a Mandel scholar at the Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University. He lectures in the university’s department of Talmud and Halakha.

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English, Guest Posts, Reviews

Revolution or an Evolution? A Review of Bar Ilan Responsa Project 20- Guest Post by Josh Yuter

At the end of tractate Horayot (14a), Rabbi Yohanan recounts a Tannaitic dispute between R. Shimon Ben Gamliel and his colleagues over which type of intelligence is superior: being knowledable in the sources or being “able to move mountains” through analytic reasoning.  Generations later, this question was answered in favor of the well-read scholar on the grounds that, “all depend on the master of the wheat.”  After all, even the greatest legal mind needs to process the correct material.

Perhaps the greatest contribution to the production of “wheat-farmer” Talmudists has been the Bar Ilan Responsa Project.  While the project  officially began in 1963, the first version in its most identifiable commercial form was released 20 years ago in 1992 as a CD that not only compiled major Jewish works, but also included a powerful search engine ideal for most classical Jewish text research.  Subsequent upgrades have primarily consisted of additional texts – to the point where the Responsa Project has spun off cheaper versions for those who do not need as much material – and either adding new features or improving earlier ones such as increased hyperlinking within texts that allow users to quickly look up most biblical or rabbinic citations from other sources.  As such, although the project itself was revolutionary, each upgrate is more often than not evolutionary.

The most recent 20th version has some new features which regular users may appreciate, though much of this depends on taste.  Since I spend most of my time with Talmud searches, I’m partial to the embedded references.  For example, double clicking on a Tanna or Amora will display a brief but useful biography of that sage.  There are also tooltips for expanding abbreviations and translating Aramaic to Hebrew, including names which at times conflicts with the aformentioned biographies [Note: screenshots of these and other features are displayed in the slide-show below].

In a feature introduced for this new version, Bar Ilan 20 includes the tzurat hadaf, which allows the user to view a page of Talmud as it appears in the de facto standardized Vilna edition of the Talmud.  You will notice that the editors did not select the clearest or sharpest typesetting, but I would suspect that this would be irrelevant to the average user who insists on the tzurat hadaf – after all the plain Hebrew text is just a few clicks away.  What is important is that the tzurat hadaf is not merely a static image like a PDF, but the text operates as if one were viewing the plain text.  Most notably, hyperlinks are maintained as are their dictionary tooltips.  Speaking of layouts, Bar Ilan 20 also includes a “Recommended Layout” option for all text windows which increases the margins and line spacing, which some users may find clearer.

In terms of functionality, one new feature which stands out is the new default “Natural Language Search.”  Admittedly, I am more used to searching by idioms and grammatical variants such that I have not learned how to take advantage of this feature as it was intended.  Furthermore, I noticed the inclusion of a “Mishna and Bavli Chapters” reference which alphabetically lists all the chapter names in the Talmud.  Since it is not unusual for commentaries to reference Talmud based on page number – especially for those who lived before the tzurat hadaf was formalized – having the index would be useful for tracking down the citation in the original.  However, since most of these commentaries cite at least a few words from the Talmud in the process, it is a simple exercise to simply run the regular Bar Ilan search for those words.  (Speaking of which, here is a pro tip for users: highlight the words for which you wish to search, press Control-R and the highlighted phrase will automatically be placed in the search box.)

Are these upgrades worth the cost? Based on the upgrade pricing scheme, it is always cheaper to postpone upgrading since the improvements are cumulative.  Personally I try to skip no more than two versions since some changes are “under the hood,” like the option (available since at least 17) to install and run searches off of the hard drive instead of the disc itself.  However, if there is a new feature or new sources which are of immediate use, then quicker upgrades could be worthwhile.

Since its initial release, the Bar Ilan CD has been one of the most powerful and versatile tools for Jewish research.  But like any tool, its real value of utility is determined by the needs and skills of the end-user, not to mention the ability to read and comprehend the material.  For what good is it to be a master of the wheat if we do not know how to harvest.

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Rabbi Josh Yuter is the rabbi of the historical Stanton Street Shul in New York’s Lower East Side. He blogs at YUTOPIA (www.JoshYuter.com), and tweets @JYuter.

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English, Guest Posts

A Monumental Loss for Jewish Learning- Guest Post by Moriah Be’er Chriki, Yedidah Koren and Davida Klein Velleman

This post, crossposted from The Times of Israel, is the first in a series on the state of advanced Talmud study for women. 

In a world just opening its eyes to the possibility of women’s advanced and committed Torah study, the closing of the Advanced Talmudic Institute at MATAN, an institution which pioneered women’s study of Talmud, is a tragedy.

In the past few decades, the gates of Torah study have been opened to women, tapping into a previously underutilized sector of our community. Our generation has been privileged to witness and experience tremendous progress in the religious education of women, as, one by one, institutes, seminaries, and houses of study for women were established and thrived as centers for learning and teaching Torah.

In accordance with these developments, today’s women have soared to new heights, becoming active participants in realms previously closed to them – as halakhic advisers, as advocates in rabbinical courts, and even as heads of batei midrash (houses of study).

As women who have devoted their time to Torah study, how fortunate have we felt to actively take a part in this world, one which was largely inaccessible to our mothers and grandmothers.

Unfortunately, these advancements are undermined with the closing of our beit midrash, the Advanced Talmudic Institute at MATAN, at the end of this year.

MATAN, the Sadie Rennert Women’s Institute for Torah Studies, was established in 1988. The Advanced Talmudic Institute began its first cohort in 1999, and is a leading program in advanced study for women. The Talmudic Institute offers its students the unique opportunity to delve deep into the world of the Talmud, using both traditional and modern methods to understand this literary and spiritual gem of Jewish tradition. Over the course of the three-year program, students hone their skills and broaden their knowledge, as they strive to impact the world of learning in particular, and society and culture in general. To help build these future scholars, educators, and religious leaders, MATAN offers students a living stipend.

The Talmudic Institute has proven itself over the years, as its graduates have filled a variety of roles in secondary school and higher education, both in Israel and in the United States, and brought sensitivity and knowledge to the religious leadership. This year, 12 fellows comprise the sixth cohort of the Institute.

But, at the end of this year, the Advanced Talmudic Institute at MATAN will be shut down prematurely. Despite the personal obstacles this has created for us, our greater concern is the implication this has for the wider Jewish community.

The Advanced Talmudic Institute at MATAN is one of the only programs for women in Israel that focuses on high-level Talmud study. Closure of the Talmudic Institute will be a huge step back in the world of Torah study for women. Not only will those seeking to learn suffer, but there will be a community-wide impact as well. This powerhouse for training women to be educators in institutions of Torah study will no longer be able to provide the Jewish community with talented and able female leaders. The institutions that have begun to open their doors to women will no longer be able to turn to MATAN to instruct and support aspiring students of Talmud.

Most of the current students at MATAN have studied Talmud in university and will continue to do so. Although we appreciate the important tools that world offers us, do we want to send the message to Jewish women that the only place they can study this most central text is in academia? A university setting cannot replace the beit midrash, which facilitates careful, intensive Talmud study in an environment that allows one to immerse oneself in its reality.

We are in the middle of a unique historical process that is changing the face of religious Zionist society. The women’s Torah-study revolution is not over; it has barely begun. We must not let it fade into the paleness of a face behind a curtain.

Moriah Be’er Chriki, Yedidah Koren and Davida Klein Velleman are fellows in the sixth cohort of the Advanced Talmudic Institute at MATAN.

UPDATE: Matan issues an update and a clarification.

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Conferences, English

Conference Review: Legal Heterodoxy in Islamic and Jewish History: Late Antique and Medieval Transformations, University of California, Berkeley, April 23-24- Guest Post by Marc Herman

I confess that I arrived at the conference last week with a healthy dose of skepticism.  Though billed as a treatment of “Legal Heterodoxy in Islamic and Jewish History,” I worried that the conference’s subtitle and chronological frame, “Late Antique and Medieval Transformations,” lightly masked a correlation of Islamic:Medieval and Jewish:Late Antique.  As I reviewed the schedule in advance, I noticed that the symposium poster announced scholars of classical rabbinics in conversation with scholars of medieval Islam.  How, I wondered, would this create a valid historical conversation?  And if history is not the goal, why study late antique Judaism alongside medieval Islam?  Would the goals be ecumenical?  Philosophical?  The theoretical study of law?

When Lena Salaymeh, one of the organizers, opened the symposium with a nod to the above disparity, it began an honest discussion of the challenge of placing Islamic and Jewish law in synchronic conversation.  The pride of place of rabbinics in both Jewish Studies and the popular Jewish imagination leads to a concomitant lack of emphasis on the medieval transmitters and interpreters of rabbinic culture.  Even among those who have studied medieval Rabbanite law, far greater work has been done on Jewish law in Latin Europe than on its counterpart in Arabic lands.  Recent decades have seen a resurgence of interest in Geonica, but surprising lacunae include Jewish law in Muslim Andalusia, North African halakhists, and even, relatively speaking, the legal writings of Maimonides.  Many books could be written about these and other topics, both from an “internal” perspective and by understanding them in light of their Muslim contexts.

This is not to say that the conference papers did not contribute to the study of Muslim and Jewish law in concert.  While previous scholarship has acknowledged connections between Sasanian-era rabbinic and nascent Islamic legal systems, these connections await thorough scrutiny.  G. Libson and others have long championed S. D. Goitein’s “Mediterranean society” view of medieval Judaism and Islam, but scholarship has not always appreciated regional or contextual factors in medieval Jewish legal history.  Developments in the study of Sasanian culture will improve the study of both Geonic-era Islamic and Jewish legal cultures.  Yaakov Elman’s paper, to nobody’s surprise, served as a good touchstone for that project. Only in teasing out what I like to call the “late antique soup” of the pre-Geonic world will we properly understand the rise of Islamic law.

Phenomenologically, I was most excited by the papers of Steven Fraade and Mohammad Fadel.  Fraade analyzed rabbinic traditions that valorize legal pluralism, while Fadel focused on the unusual positions of Ibn Hazm (d. 1064), who lived at the end of Muslim hegemony in al-Andalus and rejected the “normative pluralism” of medieval Sunni orthodoxy.  Though it went unmentioned, it is highly suggestive that as a religious minority, Geonic culture famously downplayed the multivocal vision of the rabbis, conceivably for similar reasons to Ibn Hazm.

A good conference is marked by the questions it poses and the avenues it opens, and this conference was no exception.  In her closing review of the proceedings, Talya Fishman outlined three areas of Jewish studies that could be enhanced by greater understanding of Islamic law: (1) the consolidation of legal traditions in the Geonic period; (2) a change in the “technology” of the law (from oral to written Torah); and (3) Geonic epistemology and treatment of both aggadah and halakhah.  To this list one may add the lacunae mentioned above, as well as scholarly understanding of Karaism (something this blog has recently highlighted).  Ultimately, Judeo-Islamic studies remains a young and exciting field.

Marc Herman is a graduate student in The University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Religious Studies.

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Announcements, English

The Talmud Blog- Now on Facebook

A few weeks ago, we created a Facebook page for the Talmud blog. Our hope is that we can use the page in order to keep our readers up-to-date on Talmudic goings-on that might not merit blog posts. We would also like the page to serve as a forum for discussion, although we ask that you try to keep comments on ‘proper’ blog posts to the “comments” section located on the blog itself. Those who don’t have Facebook can follow what’s going on via the widget located on the blog’s right sidebar.  But if you do have Facebook (and if you haven’t done so already) why don’t you go right on over to the “like” button on the sidebar, and click! We’ll see you on the Facebook page soon!

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English, Recent Publications, Reviews

Otzar Ha-Geonim He-Hadash- Review by Yosaif Mordechai Dubovick

Otzar Ha-Geonim He-Hadash, Ed. R. Brody with C. Cohen and Y.Z. Stampfer (Jerusalem: Ofeq Institute, 5772).

Review by Yosaif Mordechai Dubovick

Towards the end of the sixth century, the torch of rabbinic leadership passed from the Amoraim to leaders referred to in Geonic literature as the Savoraim. Their successors, the Geonim of the Babylonian Yeshivot of Pumbedita and Sura, saw themselves as the logical heirs of Talmudic interpretation and Halakhic ruling. For a period of close to 600 years, the Geonim, through their teachings, responsa and halakhic writings (and those of their students) helped to cement the Bavli’s form. Talmud study that considers the perspective of Geonic (and Geonic-era) literature is invaluable for tracing the redaction of the text and the history and formulation of Halakha; and for understanding many subsequent medieval commentaries as well.

In practice however, using these texts for Talmud study is a daunting task. Geonic responsa have survived in numerous collections but many of them have not been properly indexed; Many Halachic codes and legal monographs shared the same fate. Despite the state of disarray of Geonic literature, from 1928 to 1942, Dr. Benjamin M. Lewin self-published – on his own printing press – 12 volumes of Otzar Ha-Geonim, which he sub-titled “Thesaurus of the Geonic Responsa and Commentaries following the order of the Talmudic Tractates”. Beginning with Berachot and ending – due to his untimely passing – with Bava Kamma, Lewin managed to achieve the impossible. His work did not end with his death: A partial volume to Bava Metsia was published posthumously and his personal hand-lists to tractates Bava Batra and Hullin were included in A. Kimmelman’s index to Geonic literature.

Lewin, working alone and under financial stress, gleaned Geonic material from responsa collections, Geonic halachic works as well as newly published Genizah fragments. He divided (in most volumes) his compilations into two sections; ‘Responsa’ and ‘Commentary’, published parallel sources alongside one another in synoptic fashion, included footnotes of his own and from other scholars of his generation (e.g. Professors J.N. Epstein, S. Assaf, S. Lieberman and S. Abramson) and added detailed indices.

Later attempts to replicate Lewin’s methods are few and far in between. Aside from Kimmelman’s aforementioned list in Shnaton Mishpat haIvri 11-12, we have H. T. Taubes’ compilation to Sanhedrin (1967) and Y. Cohen’s Ginzei Geonim on the first three chapters of Bava Batra (1995).

This is the current literary backdrop against which we eagerly greet Prof. R. Brody’s latest work, Otzar Ha-Geonim He-Hadash. To say that this volume takes up where Lewin left off would be a discredit to the effort and scholarship invested in it. The reader should not expect to find a continuation of Lewin’s oeuvre nor even a revised edition of the older material. Rather, we have before us a fresh volume, meticulously planned from its inception.

Each section has been handpicked by the discerning eye of a master of Geonic literature. This task, daunting in itself, required the editor to decide which sources to include, which are merely repetitions and may be relegated to the notes, and which sources, although related to the sugya, are not truly native to Bava Metsia and should be merely cited but not quoted. Gone is Lewin’s partition between responsa and commentary and the reader is no longer required to alternate between different sections of the work.

All previously published material has been re-edited against the original manuscripts, alongside of which we encounter much ‘new’ responsa and commentary. Specifically, we are made privy to parts of a soon-to-be-published edition of Rav Hai Gaon’s Mishpatei Shavuot. This edition was originally under preparation by the late Prof. S. Abramson. According to the introduction and bibliography in Brody’s new book, it is slated for publication this year. Along with commentaries to Bava Metsia used as source material, Brody’s notes also reference a section in the introduction, written by Abramson, dealing with Rav Hai’s retractions in halachic decisions (p. 24 no 1). And beyond this exciting news, we are provided with newly discovered sources from texts penned by Rav Shmuel b. Hofni. These include Sefer Hamashkon, Sefer Hat’naim, Sefer Hakinyanim and chapter 74 from his “Introduction to the Mishnah and the Talmud”. The great Geonic innovator also makes an appearance – parts of Rav Se’adyah Gaon’s Sefer Hapikadon and his Sefer Hashtarot are represented in Brody’s volume. These works too are being readied for publication, and we look forward to welcoming their arrival in print.

Other novellea await the reader. In Brody’s minimalistic notes, we learn of Rav Sherira Gaon’s knowledge of Greek (p. 152 no. 2 – possible) as opposed to his son Rav Hai’s certain lack of knowledge in this field (p. 120 no. 7). Philological information abounds: Persian loan-words are discussed (see p. 32 no. 8) and the editors, experts in Judeo-Arabic, trace the Arabic etymologies of many words and phrases in Geonic literature (p. 31 n. 7; p. 34 no. 4; p. 215 no. 8; p. 216 no. 1; p. 217 no. 1).

Preserved in the notes as well are vignettes from Abramson’s unpublished discourses, a sort of academic “torah she-be’al peh”. Hinted at is his understanding of the phrase “tartei mativta” to mean the Yeshiva of Sura and the parallel yeshiva of the Resh Galuta (Exilarch), contrary to popular convention that this refers to the yeshivot of Sura and Pumbedita (see p. 80 no. 13). Further such gems include one of Abramson’s notes to the text of Mishpatei Shavuot (p. 316 no. 5) and a discussion of an attribution issue related to a particular work (p. 51 no. 8).

The following Geonic comments provide a sampling of some of the fair: Rav Hai seemed to have understood the sobriquet “Paponai” to mean “followers of Rav Papa”, contrary to the now conventional definition “those of the city of Paponia” (p. 176 no. 5). From a citation in a responsa attributed to Rav Zemah b. Paltoi Gaon (Pumbedita 872) it is apparent that this Gaon viewed the three “Bavot” as one tractate (p. 212 no. 9). This datum adds to our knowledge of the literary structure of Talmudic corpus as understood in the middle Geonic Era.

Those who have studied Bava Metsia are aware that many of the tractate’s passages are attributed by the Rishonim to Geonim or Savoraim. The current volume makes note of this (pp. 25, 72, and 102) and the editor is of the opinion that these attributions are not to be viewed as authentic – providing another viewpoint to the debate as to how the Savoraim and Geonim added to the Talmudic text (if at all). In contrast, see p. 26 no. 2 for a Geonic reading of the sugya, which relegates a part of the text to the “stam”.

The editor informs us in his English preface that three more volumes are planned, thereby completing “Otzar Ha-Geonim” on all of Bavli, after which he hopes to “prepare a corrected and updated version of his [Lewin’s] work”. The volume on Bava Batra is cited extensively (18 times), as well as a volume containing Shavuot (pp. 10, 63, 284). Citations to Otzar Ha-Geonim on Sanhedrin are to Taubes’ edition; and no hint is given of whether the remaining three volumes will include Sanhedrin as well. Interestingly, the editor also cites material from the forthcoming volumes to the following mesechtot: Hullin (p. 70), Bechorot (p. 138) and Erachin (p. 131).

Otzar Ha-Geonim He-Hadash on Bava Metsia innagurates a new page in Geonic studies. Bava Metsia is a widely studied tractate, from both a textual as well as an halachic perspective. This volume displays a superb blend of academic and traditional Talmud study. Those with an interest in Geonic Talmud commentary would do well to avail themselves of this literary treasure. We wish to offer our thanks to Prof. Brody for undertaking this vast endeavor, and we eagerly await its succeeding volumes on all of the Talmud Bavli.

Yosaif Mordechai Dubovick is currently writing a PhD dissertation on Rabenu Hananel at Bar-Ilan University. His publications include “Rabenu Hananel on Tractate Bava Kamma” (Jerusalem, 2011).

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English, Guest Posts

The Bible in the Bavli: Some First Numbers- Guest Post by Michael Satlow

Over the past few months, as noted earlier, with the help of research assistants I have been compiling a spreadsheet that records each occurrence of a biblical verse cited in the Bavli. The purpose of this data is not so much to ask qualitative questions (e.g., where and how does the Bavli cite a particular verse?) but to allow for quantitative analysis that might lead to new questions and avenues of investigation.

As I slowly gain more familiarity with the many extraordinary but poorly documented powers of Excel, I’ve just begun to analyze this data.  Here are a couple of preliminary observations:

1.  The Bavli cites somewhere in the neighborhood of 5900 discrete verses of the Hebrew Bible.  The Hebrew Bible contains approximately 23,700 discrete verses.  That equates to about 25% of the Bible; meaning, of course, that 75% of the Bible is never cited.  It is worth noting that 3,295 verses are cited only a single time in the Bavli.  I am not yet sure what to make of this – one next step is to analyze the density of citations by biblical book.  Does the Bavli prefer citing from certain books, especially when the size of the book is also taken into account.

2.  The seven most-cited verses (with NRSV translations, and some surrounding material added for context) are:

  • Deuteronomy 24:1 (37 times): Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife.
  • Numbers 5:13 (29 times): If any man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him, if a man has had intercourse with her but it is hidden from her husband, so that she is undetected though she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her since she was not caught in the act; if a spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife who has defiled herself; or if a spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, though she has not defiled herself…
  • Leviticus 25:5 (24 times): You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land.
  • Numbers 30:3 (24 times): When a woman makes a vow to the Lord, or binds herself by a pledge, while within her father’s house, in her youth, and her father hears of her vow or her pledge by which she has bound herself, and says nothing to her; then all her vows shall stand, and any pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father expresses disapproval to her at the time that he hears of it, no vow of hers, and no pledge by which she has bound herself, shall stand; and the Lord will forgive her, because her father had expressed to her his disapproval.
  • Leviticus 2:2 (21 times): After taking from it a handful of the choice flour and oil, with all its frankincense, the priest shall turn this token portion into smoke on the altar, an offering by fire of pleasing odour to the Lord
  • Numbers 6:5 (21 times): All the days of their nazirite vow no razor shall come upon the head; until the time is completed for which they separate themselves to the Lord, they shall be holy; they shall let the locks of the head grow long.
  • Leviticus 6:3 (20 times): When any of you sin and commit a trespass against the Lord by deceiving a neighbour in a matter of a deposit or a pledge, or by robbery, or if you have defrauded a neighbour, or have found something lost and lied about it—if you swear falsely regarding any of the various things that one may do and sin thereby— when you have sinned and realize your guilt, and would restore what you took by robbery or by fraud or the deposit that was committed to you, or the lost thing that you found…

Five of these verses deal with matters of civil law; three deal with women.  Why these verses in particular, though?  Verses dealing with some expected topics, such as Shabbat or circumcision, are absent.

I have some ideas for at least some of the verses.  Deuteronomy 24:1-4 are the basis for almost the entire legal institution of divorce – the rabbis need to keep appealing to them for authority, perhaps at a time when most Jews would have respected the Bible far more than rabbinic say-so.  Similarly, the sotah (“suspected wife,” in Numbers 5), issues dealing with female vows (Numbers 30:3), and the nazirite vow (Numbers 6:5) are dealt with only in these places and all generate a large body of laws. I am not yet entirely satisfied with these explanations, and would welcome yours as well!

Michael Satlow is a professor of religious studies and Judaic studies at Brown Universityand has been a mentor and sounding-board for the New Talmud Blog from the beginning.  This post was crossposted from his own blog, Then and Now.

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