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“Haven't I Told You Not to Take Yourself outside of the Law?”: Rabbi Yirmiyah and the Characterization of a Scholastic
The paper looks at several episodes in which R. Yirmiyah is rebuked for questions that are portrayed as epistemologically destabilizing to the rabbinic legal project. I argue that R. Yirmiyah is portrayed as a caricature of late rabbinic scholastic thought, and that his characterization enables the writers of the Bavli to hold their own scholastic tendencies up to critique while also drawing protective boundaries around the analytical direction their legal culture has taken. I also read the passages together to demonstrate that the Bavli functions as a unified literary work in previously unacknowledged ways. These episodes form a sort of nonlinear plot, a web of stories that produce a character with his own “history.” There may be no historical rabbinic nuisance named R. Yirmiyah, but there is certainly a constructed literary one, whose reappearance throughout the Talmud plays an important role in working out tensions within the rabbinic legal project.
Journal Article
Ifra Hormiz and the Use of Mini-Corpora in the Study of the Babylonian Talmud
Ifra Hormiz is mentioned in five short stories in the Babylonian Talmud, each time accompanied by a description: \"the mother of Shapur Malka,\" Shapur the king. This essay examines the stories about Ifra Hormiz from a literary angle. It suggests that an intratalmudic, comparative, literary analysis of these stories can offer a new perspective on their creation, and that we can better reveal and highlight the differing agendas and motifs of stories that have similar literary nuclei when we examine them as part of a broader corpus of similar stories. This analysis will shed light on the stories' anonymous authors, their intended audiences, and the ways they chose to address gender issues and their attitude toward the Persian rulers of their times.
Journal Article
Tractates Šabbat and ‘Eruvin
This volume of the Jerusalem Talmud publishes the first two tractates of the Second Order, Šabbat and ‘Eruvin. These tractates deal with discussion of all regulations regarding Shabbat, the weekly day of rest, including the activities prohibited on Shabbat. The tractate ‘Eruvin covers questions of definition of what is allowed to do on Shabbat. The Second Order is the last one to be published in Heinrich W. Guggenheimer’s edition of the Jerusalem Talmud.
eBook
Protesting Women: A Literary Analysis of Bavli Adjudicatory Narratives
In five brief narratives in the Babylonian Talmud, an unnamed female petitioner protests or cries out before a rabbi. Notwithstanding echoes in a handful of adjudicatory and non-adjudicatory narratives involving male characters, this group of narratives has a distinct set of recurring features: the narrative structure and use of the expressions “protesting (or crying out)” (ṣwḥ) and “did not pay attention” (lāʾ + šgḥ). This suggests that gender was significant in the crafting and transmission of some adjudicatory narratives, and that it influenced the borrowing of literary features among the narratives. This article describes the form of Bavli adjudicatory narratives, which are some of the briefest legal narratives in the Bavli. It argues for literary analysis of those narratives in light of the narrative features described. A concluding appendix shows that English translations of the Bavli reflect gender bias in their translations of the verb, ṣwḥ.
Journal Article
Tractates Ta'aniot, Megillah, Hagigah and Mo'ed Qatan (Mašqin)
The present volume is the seventeenth and last in this series of the Jerusalem Talmud. The four tractates of theSecond Order - Ta'aniot, Megillah, Hagigah, Mo'ed Qatan (Mašqin) - deal with different fasts and holidays as well as with the pilgrimage to the Temple. The texts are accompanied by an English translation and presented with full use of existing Genizah texts and with an extensive commentary explaining the Rabbinic background.
eBook
TO ERR ON THE SIDE OF BEAUTY
B. Yevamot 44b presents an unusual baraita that is internally incoherent and that contradicts the mishna on b. Yevamot 44a that it is intended to support. The incoherence and contradiction are the result of a difference in the meanings of the facially similar terms “yoẓi” and “kofin ‘oto lehoẓi” that appear as parallels in the mishna and the baraita. This article argues that the baraita is likely a redacted version of the parallel tosefta, which was edited in order to achieve structural harmony with the mishna. The false symmetry that resulted from the difference in the meanings of the seemingly equivalent terms posed a dilemma for translators who were left with the unenviable choice of preserving the esthetic symmetry by incorrectly translating the mishna or unnecessarily emending the baraita, or of accurately translating the mishna and preserving the mistake in the baraita while sacrificing the esthetic choice of the author.
Journal Article
Sniffing the Jar: Metaphor and Body in the Story of the Encounter between Shmuel and Rav
This article analyzes the talmudic story of the first encounter between Rav and Shmuel (b. Shabbat 108a). It focuses on the structural difficulties of the plot, particularly the relationship between Rav’s interview at the beginning of the story and the aggressive medical treatment he undergoes at the end. A new interpretation of Shmuel’s request of his student Karna to “sniff Rav’s jar” can solve these problems. The request is here understood as a play on words, which concretizes the metaphorical idiom. This interpretation enables a new reading of the entire story, as one that centers on the relationship between metaphor and reality and, by extension, between the Torah and the body of the immigrant sage.
Journal Article
Merciful, Shamefaced, and Kind
The Amoraic tradition that identifies Israel as those who are “merciful, shamefaced, and kind” (y. Qiddushin 4:1/b. Yevamot 79a) centers virtue or moral character as that which sets Israel apart. This study examines the tradition in its historical and literary context, tracing the biblical antecedents to each of Israel’s constitutive virtues and considering how the three virtues function as a triad. The virtues of mercy and kindness demonstrate a concern that Israel, as God’s chosen nation, reflect the character of God. The virtue of shamefacedness is initially more opaque but ultimately demonstrates an understanding of shame as that which deters sin. The similarities between mercy and kindness and the irregularity of shamefacedness suggest a juncture in the composition of the tradition. Understanding y. Qiddushin 4:1 as a synthesis of two earlier sources and b. Yevamot 79a as a later adaptation, this study asserts that the tradition participates in an ongoing discussion concerning genealogical matters, centering the importance of both law and ancestry in determining who belongs to Israel.
Journal Article