Talmudic scholarship: when and why was the Vilna text canonized?

One of the primary themes of Talmud Reclaimed is the exploration of how and why the study of Talmud has evolved over the 1500 or so years which have elapsed since its composition. Some changes – such as the increased focus on abstract conceptual analysis and the diminishing practice of determining practical halacha directly from the Talmud – are relatively easy to track historically and explain in religious terms. Far more difficult is to understand how rabbinic Talmud study has come to disregard girsaot – variant Talmudic manuscripts – and essentially canonize the version of the text chosen in the 16th century Bomberg edition and later popularized by the Vilna Shas.

The examination of manuscripts is an area of expertise which attempts to identify the most accurate version of the original Talmudic teachings. This undertaking involves searching for variant manuscript texts of parallel passages and the making of careful comparisons between their language in order to identify what may very well be evidence of copyist errors or inserted commentary. To a great extent, this expertise and practice is generally found in the halls of academia rather than Yeshivot – but why is this the case?

While at first glance this form of forensic analysis would seem to be very distant from Yeshiva-style Talmudics, Talmud Reclaimed demonstrates how traditional commentators from the medieval era were not only aware of the potentialities of manuscript analysis, but enthusiastically embraced and pursued it. From Sherira Gaon to Rashi, Rambam to the Ba’alei Tosafot, traditional Talmudic commentators made frequent reference to their own dealings with manuscript analysis and redaction of the Talmud within their substantive commentaries.

Sherira Gaon, Ritva and Ramban, for example, all identified significant passages of Talmud as having been later insertions of scribes. If one accepts the principle that the Talmud bears particular authority because of the status of Ravina and Rav Ashi, it becomes crucial to determine which parts of the Talmud were not included by them but were subsequently added. For this reason, the pursuit of accurate manuscripts was a matter of great importance to Rambam, who made considerable efforts to identify later insertions and scribal errors, and who changed some of his earlier explanations and rulings as a result of his findings.

In his codification of the laws governing the repayment of loans, Rambam reveals that [t]here are versions of the Talmud which state that when a person tells a colleague:

"Do not repay [a loan] unless witnesses are present" and the borrower claims: "I fulfilled the stipulation and repaid you in the presence of so-and-so and so-and-so, but they have journeyed overseas or died," his word is not accepted. This is a scribal error. For this reason, the halachic authorities erred because of those texts. I have researched ancient versions of the text and I found that they state that the borrower's word is accepted. In Egypt, a portion of an ancient text of the Talmud written on parchment, as was the custom in the era approximately 500 years before the present era, came to my possession. I found two versions of this law among those parchments. Both state: "If he claims: 'I fulfilled the stipulation and repaid you in the presence of so-and-so and so-and-so, but they have journeyed overseas or died,' his word is accepted."…Although these texts have been carefully edited, this appears to be the ruling based on the judgment of the Talmud.” [Hilchot Malveh Veloveh 15:2]

Several further examples of legal rulings and interpretations being revisited as a result of manuscript analysis are discussed in the chapter.

Having shown not only the legitimacy – but even the desirability – of careful examination of Talmudic manuscripts, we are left with the question of why it has been so broadly neglected in traditional circles in the modern era.

Talmud Reclaimed argues that an unintended consequence of the codification and popularization of the Shulchan Aruch is that modern rabbinic scholarship of the oral law has increasingly gravitated into two categories: developing and clarifying halachic rulings and the more abstract “Lomdus” analysis which reached its most powerful expression with Brisk. While both of these schools of contemporary Yeshiva scholarship are ultimately built upon the Talmud, they are clear departures from the widespread medieval commentaries which focused primarily upon the peshat – plain meaning – of the Talmud, and pursued the clarification of its laws and underlying principles only as a secondary project. For this reason, rabbinic interest in girsaot and the skills necessary for their clarification have gradually been lost to the Yeshiva world.

The increasingly popular Daf Yomi project, while focusing around the text of the Talmud, typically engages with it in a more superficial manner, and if anything has intensified the modern embrace of the text, pagination and format of the Vilna Shas to the extent that it has effectively been canonized in popular thought. Perhaps the strongest authoritative endorsement of this canonization of the Vilna Shas can be found in the words of the Chazon Ish who argued that divine providence had guided the version of Talmud used by earlier sages and that it is inconceivable that they relied on a mistaken manuscript based on a scribal error (Kovetz Iggrot, Letter #32). Ironically this view itself appears to represent a significant departure from the girsaot methodologies of the earlier sages which it seeks to revere.

Rabbi Yechiel Ya’akov Weinberg lamented how, in contrast to medieval scholars who proactively researched manuscripts and were willing to highlight apparent mistakes and propose amendments, later scholars abstained from this practice. There are however exceptions. Even as late as the close of the nineteenth century we find that the analysis of Rabbi Raphael Rabinowitz’s Dikdukei Soferim– a work which lists variants between the printed edition and other manuscripts – received glowing approbations from leading rabbis of his generation. This positive response suggests that, while neglected, the discipline remained a valued pursuit within some parts of the traditional camp. Be that as it may, the prevailing attitude to manuscript authentication in the modern era is that this practice is unessential and perhaps even a distraction from primary Talmud study.

While the text of the Vilna Shas may have become hallowed in the popular perception, scholars now have access to an ever-increasing array of manuscripts, such as fragments from the Cairo Genizah, the Munich Manuscript and Yemenite sources, none of which were available to those who compiled the Bomberg edition of the Talmud. How far should these hitherto unavailable manuscripts be explored?

For traditional Talmudists who face this challenge today, it is a question of priority rather than legitimacy. As Professor Daniel Sperber argues:

“These requirements necessitate the competence in philological and lexicographical disciplines, rarely to be found in the standard yeshivah “bohur” (student). Perhaps the advantages to be gained from such long and hard-won knowledge are so marginal that the investment in them is not considered worthwhile. But is the process of their mastery to be viewed as bitul Torah? If it is intended to deepen one’s understanding of Torah, surely it comes within the category of “amala shel Torah”, the toil and labor of Torah!”

Priority in traditional halls of study is likely to continue to be placed on substantive study of Talmudic law and the wisdom that derives from it. The determination of the correct Talmudic text should certainly not be ignored. Instead, advised Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein

“the beit midrash can reap benefits from work now largely initiated on the outside”.

This would seem to imply that the process of manuscript identification plays a secondary, supporting, role to standard Talmud and can therefore be happily delegated to academic scholars who are well trained in the necessary skills.

For more about Talmud Reclaimed: An Ancient Text in the Modern Era visit www.TalmudReclaimed.com .

For comments and discussion of this post on Facebook, click here.

Reclaimed reviewed

 I'm very grateful to Yosef Lindell for his recent incisive review of Talmud Reclaimed in the Jewish Press. The review focuses primarily on the opening third of the book.

Link to Yosef's review is here.

For comments and discussion of this post on Facebook,click here.

Talmud Reclaimed and grappling with a frozen halachah

When we assess the impact that thousands of years of exile have inflicted on our nation, our thoughts are understandably drawn to the weighty toll of human suffering and to the loss of sovereignty over our land. What we often ignore is the grave damage which has been wreaked on the Torah—the national treasure of the Jewish people.

In fact, we have become so accustomed to the Torah in its stunted exilic form that we are unable to appreciate the extent to which our relationship with it has been defined by the stagnation of halachah. The passage of over 1,500 years without a functioning Sanhedrin has led us to revere the halachic status quo to such an extent that descriptions of the Court’s legislative powers, and suggestions of how these may once again be employed at an unspecified future time, are likely to provoke considerable discomfort and even whispered claims of heresy. 

Judaism Reclaimed cites Rabbi Meir Simchah of Dvinsk’s Meshech Chochmah commentary to the Tochecha passage of rebukes and curses that we read yesterday. Explaining the words “I will break the pride of your strength [ge’on uzchem]”, the Meshech Chochmah understands this to be a reference to the Sanhedrin – the supreme court which was empowered to interpret the Torah, and to innovate and institute decrees in order to make the Torah’s core teachings more relatable to the needs and realities of each generation. In the legal system envisaged by the Torah, the Court was empowered to maintain and update Torah law in accordance with the rules transmitted to them.

As explained by the Rambam in his introduction to the Mishnah, the Oral Law consists of two categories. The first category is a core of transmitted teachings which convey the Torah’s primary intentions, and are understood to have been transmitted intact throughout the generations from Sinai. This core, explains Rambam, lies beyond the scope of judicial interference and reinterpretation or rabbinic dispute. The second category, by contrast, is made up of finer details of the commandments and was delegated to the sages to legislate through the Beit Din HaGadol. These details of biblical law – even once legislated – could be revisited by a future court if it considered that the Torah could best be interpreted differently, or that the needs and realities of the nation had evolved.

But how are we to know which Talmudic laws belong to which category? Long intricate passages and chapters of Talmud debate numerous details of biblical laws. Surely it is crucial for us to know which of these are understood to represent God’s eternal word and which were subsequently legislated additions?

Which laws would be within the legitimate scope of a new Sanhedrin to revisit and potentially amend or repeal? This is particularly important for the modern student of Talmud for whom numerous passages seem to be entirely at odds with current social and ethical values. When are we required to accept these teachings nevertheless as the immutable word of God and when is it legitimate to suggest that, had Ravina and Rav Ashi been compiling the Talmud in the 21st century, certain chapters would have been unrecognisably different from the Tractates in front of us today? And if we are to suppose that certain passages are primarily a reflection of social reality and values from a very different society, how are we supposed to approach the task of studying them in today’s world?

Shockingly, such questions are almost entirely absent from standard Talmudic curricula today. Yet these are questions that the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud were acutely sensitive to – and occupied not only their thought but also that of earlier generations of Talmudic commentators.

My upcoming Talmud Reclaimed: An ancient text in the modern era (which goes to print in a couple of months) seeks to tackle these questions along with many others, showing how they were approached by our greatest sages.

We pray daily for a restoration of the sort of Supreme Sanhedrin Court which we possessed as a nation in ancient times. While present day politics and factional infighting makes such a vision appear distant, at the very least we can prepare the ground for a new Court by focusing our study of Talmudic law around a recognition of these two very different categories that run through its Tractates and asking ourselves what scope a duly empowered Court would have to revisit many of its conclusions.

First posted on Facebook 14 May 2023, here.

Talmud Reclaimed -- primary themes explored

 

I'm excited to invite you all to an interview and discussion with the Habura later today which will explore some of the primary themes in Talmud Reclaimed. The session will be recorded for those who cannot make it.

First posted on Facebook 29 October 2023, here.

Talmud Reclaimed: a book review

 Many thanks to Rabbi Steven Rohde Gotlib for his review of Talmud Reclaimed (which is available here).

Book Talk with Rabbi Steven Rohde Gotlib: "Is the Torah from Sinai?" here.

First posted on Facebook 25 March 2024, here.