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“A Heart of Many Chambers”: The Theological Hermeneutics of Legal Multivocality*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2015

Steven D. Fraade
Steven D. Fraade*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

Given the multiplicity of legal interpretations and opinions, the question of the place of legal debate within early rabbinic literature of late antiquity—both as textual practice and as hermeneutical and legal theory—has occupied a particularly busy space within recent scholarship. This question centers on several issues of broad significance for the history of rabbinic Judaism and its literature: Does this phenomenon (if we can speak of it in the singular) represent a defining characteristic of rabbinic culture overall, or rather an aspect better attributed to specific times, places, and rabbinic “schools”? Did it emerge and develop internally within rabbinic Judaism, or is it, on the one hand, the continuation of antecedents in the pre-rabbinic, late Second Temple period, or, on the other hand, the result of external influences or pressures (e.g., Greco-Roman or early Christian) of a later time? Does such legal multivocality reflect the actual nature of either/both rabbinic jurisprudence or/and pedagogy, or the editorial choices of the later anonymous redactors of the composite and anthological texts that have come down to us (or, as I shall demonstrate, both)? Finally, what are its hermeneutical and theological underpinnings (as well as sociopolitical ramifications)? While these four questions will frame what follows, it is the latter two that will particularly demand our attention. They will be addressed, whether explicitly or implicitly, in several comparative textual analyses that will constitute the body of this article.

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Articles
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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 108 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 113 - 128
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2015 

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Footnotes

*

This began as a lecture at a conference on “Legal Heterodoxy in Islamic and Jewish History,” Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, April 24, 2012. I thank the organizers of that stimulating gathering of Judaic and Islamic legal scholars for the opportunity to engage the respondent and the audience in fruitful dialogue. More recently, a very astute anonymous reader for this journal made many constructive interventions from which I and, I hope, my readers are the beneficiaries.

References

1 See Richard Hidary, who surveys most of the recent scholarship on this topic in Dispute for the Sake of Heaven: Legal Pluralism in the Talmud (BJS 353; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), as well as Fraade, Steven D., “Rabbinic Polysemy and Pluralism Revisited: Between Praxis and Thematization,” AJSR 31 (2007) 1–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Yadin-Israel, Azzan, “Rabbinic Polysemy: A Response to Steven Fraade,” AJSR 38 (2014) 129–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fraade, Steven D.,“Response to Azzan Yadin-Israel on Rabbinic Polysemy: Do They ‘Preach’ What They Practice?” AJSR 38 (2014) 339–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 In other words, distinctive elements of the later version need not necessarily reflect direct reworking of the earlier one, since they could just as easily reflect dependence on other versions that are no longer extant.

3 For earlier but recent treatments, see Fraade, “Rabbinic Polysemy and Pluralism Revisited,” 31–37; Boyarin, Daniel, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) 151–201Google Scholar, esp.159; Naeh, Shlomo, “The Craft of Memory: Constructions of Memory and Patterns of Text in Rabbinic Literature” [Hebrew] in Meḥkerei Talmud 3: Talmudic Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Ephraim E. Urbach (ed. Sussmann, Yaakov and Rosenthal, David; Jerusalem: Magnes, 2005) 570–82Google Scholar, esp. 564–6 (henceforth, “Craft of Memory”); and idem, “Make Your Heart Chambers of Chambers: More on the Rabbinic Sages on Argument” [Hebrew], Renewing Jewish Commitment: The Work and Thought of David Hartman (ed. Avi Sagi and Zvi Zohar; Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuḥad, 2001) 851–75, esp. 858–75 (henceforth, “Chambers of Chambers”). For other important scholarly treatments of this passage, see Naeh, “Craft of Memory,” 570 n. 120, to which can be added Shapira, Haim and Fisch, Menachem, “The Debates between the Houses of Shammai and Hillel: The Meta-Halakhic Issue” [Hebrew], Tel-Aviv University Law Review () 22 (1999) 490–91Google Scholar. Most recently, see Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., Stories of the Babylonian Talmud (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) 106–11Google Scholar; and Richard Hidary, Dispute for the Sake of Heaven, 21–22. Also relevant to the larger topic is Yadin, Azzan, “The Hammer on the Rock: Polysemy and the School of Rabbi Ishmael,” JSQ 10 (2003) 1–17Google Scholar.

4 . The parallel in b. Hag. 3a–b is treated at length by Stern, David, “Midrash and Indeterminacy,” Critical Inquiry 15 (1988) 132–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; revised version in Stern, David, Midrash and Theory: Ancient Jewish Exegesis and Contemporary Literary Studies (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press) 15–38Google Scholar. Note that Boyarin (Border Lines, 158, 184, 185) mistakenly attributes the homily to Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah, to whom, according to the narrative frame, the homilies are being reported by two of his students.

5 Most modern translations (and the Masoretic pointing) understand “firmly planted” to belong with what follows rather than with what precedes. On the difficulties of translating this verse, see Fox, Michael V., The JPS Bible Commentary: Ecclesiastes (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2004) 83–84Google Scholar.

6 On “words of Torah” denoting both scriptural (“written”) and rabbinic (“oral”) Torah, see Fraade, Steven D., From Tradition to Commentary: Torah and Its Interpretation in the Midrash Sifre to Deuteronomy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991) 258 n. 219Google Scholar. While the expression “words of the/this Torah” occurs fourteen times in the Hebrew Bible, the more generic and indefinite “words of Torah” never occurs there.

7 On the lacuna in the text of ms Vienna, filled in by Saul Lieberman from the first printing, see Naeh, “Craft of Memory,” 572 n. 134.

8 T. Sotah 7.11–12, in The Tosefta: According to Codex Vienna (ed. Saul Lieberman; 5 vols.; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1955–1988) 4:194–95. The Hebrew text is slightly altered to better reflect ms Vienna, which is the text upon which the following analysis will be based. ms Erfurt, printed by Lieberman (194) alongside ms Vienna, contains many variants, most of which shorten the text and bring it closer to the version in b. Hag. 3b. Variants in ms Erfurt, where significant (but without affecting my overall argument), are indicated in the notes below. For a preference for ms Erfurt here, see Brody, Robert, Mishna and Tosefta Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2014) 83–84Google Scholar. Since neither manuscript aligns consistently with b. Ḥag. 3b, we may presume that the talmudic text draws on the traditions represented in both manuscripts. For later parallels, which cannot be considered in any detail here, see Num. Rab. 14.4; ’Avot R. Nat. A18 (ed. Schechter, 68); and Tanh. Beha’alotekha 15, to Num 11:16.

9 ms Erfurt and b. Hag. 3b have “disciples of the sages.”

10 This is the only instance in a Tannaitic source of the expression “what is impure [to be] impure/what is pure [to be] pure.” Much more common is the expression “what is pure [to be] impure/what is impure [to be] pure”: Mek. of R. Shim’on bar Yohai 23.8 (ed. Epstein-Melamed, 216); Sifra Tazri’a pereq 9.16 (ed. Weiss, 66d–67a); and Sifre Deut. 144, 188 (ed. Finkelstein, 199, 227).

11 Boyarin (Border Lines, 159) translates, “‘Impure’ in its appropriate place, and ‘pure’ in its appropriate place,” but this does not accord with the Hebrew syntax (). This sentence is missing in ms Erfurt. I have translated it literally, preserving the symmetry of the Hebrew. Alternatively, it could be translated: “Regarding (that which is declared) impure/pure (it is) in its place,” meaning that it is impure/pure with respect to its particular place. The expression only appears in one other source, S. Eli. Rab. 3, 11, 14 (ed. Friedmann, 15, 54, 68), where the contexts are not of much help. Cf. Yalquṭ Shim‘oni Mal. r. 592 and Judg. r. 49, which cite the same traditions as do S. Eli. Rab. 3 and 11, but without . For others’ efforts to understand here, see Fisch, Menachem, Rational Rabbis: Science and Talmudic Culture (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1997) 222 n. 114Google Scholar; Fraenkel, Yonah, The Ways of the Aggadah and the Midrash [Hebrew] (Givataim, Israel: Masadah, Yad La-Talmud, 1991) 19, 570 n. 49Google Scholar (citing m. Miqw. 4.1); Meir Friedmann in note to S. Eli. Rab. 3 (p. 15).

12 Presumably any person, but perhaps a potential student, or, alternatively, a generic outsider to the rabbinic sages.

13 Lieberman, in notes to his edition of the text, gives the biblical citation () as Deut 1:1. Naeh (“Craft of Memory,” 576–79) argues for the same, on the basis of his viewing this exegetical unit (interpreting Eccl 12:11 and Deut 1:1 in combination) as forming a petihah (proem) to the reading of Deut 1:1 as part of the haqhel lection (based on Deut 31:10–13). This, in turn, he bases on a retroversion of the present text into two, originally independent parts (“Craft of Memory,” 573–79), for which he admits there is no direct textual evidence and I see no necessity. See below, n. 17. Absent these assumptions, the citation could just as well be of Exod 19:6 or 35:1. I would favor Exod 19:6 for its Sinaitic revelatory setting, wherein Moses is told to communicate God's multitudinous words to Israel, but the choice does not affect my overall understanding of the text for present purposes. Naeh (“Chambers of Chambers,” 861 n. 49; “Craft of Memory,” 572 n. 135) considers the next phrase, “all of the words” (), to belong to this string of scriptural quotes, but I (like Lieberman, in his punctuation of the text) consider it to belong to what follows, being part of a paraphrastic gloss to “were given by one shepherd.” See below, n. 42. However, note that if the phrase “these are the words” is from Exod 19:6, “all of the(se) words” appears in the very next verse (Exod 19:7). See my discussion below. If “all of the words” is a separate scriptural citation, referring to divinely revealed words, it could be from any of the following (among others): Exod 19:7; 20:1; 24:3; 24:8; or Deut 1:18. Saul Lieberman (Tosefta Ki-fshutah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta, Part VIII: Order Nashim [New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1973] 681) suggests emending the scriptural citation so as to read “all of these words” () from Exod 20:1, as in the parallel in b. Hag. 3b (and Num. Rab. 14.4, which is dependent upon it), but I find no textual warrant for this. See also Naeh, Shlomo, “The Torah Reading Cycle in Early Palestine: A Re-Examination” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 67 (1998) 185 n. 79Google Scholar.

14 Presumably “them,” as in the first printing. For “shepherd” in this verse being a designation for both God and Moses, see Sifre Deut. 41 (ed. Finkelstein, 86), based on Isa 63:11 (for Moses) and Ps 80:2 (for God). See Naeh, “The Torah Reading Cycle,” 185 n. 79. For elsewhere in the Tosefta where Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah traces halakhic debates back to Sinai, see t. Pe’ah 3.2 (ed. Lieberman, 51); t. Hal. 1.6 (ed. Lieberman, 276).

15 ms Vienna has , while ms Erfurt has , adopted by Lieberman, presumably since it better fits the context. See Naeh, “Craft of Memory,” 572 n. 138.

16 Meaning, “many chambers.” See Naeh, “Craft of Memory,” 575 n. 149. I have not been able to find another case of this expression's being used with respect to one's heart.

17 The version in b. Hag. 3b (and Num. Rab. 14.4) eliminates this seeming discordance by rendering what goes on among the “disciples of the sages,” in the parallel to section 1, as the discordance of contradictory rulings: “These forbid and those permit; these declare impure and those declare pure; these declare unfit and those declare fit (e.g., to serve as witnesses).” Naeh argues that the discordance in the Tosefta between what I have labeled as sections 1 and 2, eliminated in the Babylonian Talmud's revision (“Craft of Memory,” 573–82, esp. 580, 581 n. 177), is the product of two originally separate sets of comments having been editorially combined, with sections 1 and 4 having been entirely separate from sections 2, 3, and 5. While I agree that our present passage is an editorial composite, I am less sanguine regarding our ability to unsplice the text with such certainty. Nor do I see any evidence for Naeh's view of the former set as arguing for the unity of “written” and “oral” Torahs as divinely revealed. Even if we could deconstruct the present passage so as to reconstruct its textual prehistory, we would still need to make sense of it in its present form, assuming that it is the product of a concerted editorial effort, however imperfect.

18 Compare with t. Sanh. 7.1 (ed. Zuckermandel, 425): (At first there were no arguments in Israel except in the court of seventy-one in the Chamber of Hewn Stone. . . .) But see the textual variants.

19 ms Vienna has “Rabbi Judah” (bar Ilai).

20 Tosefta 2:383–84 (ed. Saul Lieberman),which follows ms Vienna, except as noted in the previous note. There are several parallels, with differing degrees of variation: t. Sanh. 7.1; t. Sotah 14.9; y. Sanh. 1.4 (19c); y. Hag. 2.2 (77d); b. Sanh. 88b (barayta); Sifre Deut. 152 (ed. Finkelstein, 206); and Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot mamrim 1.4. Note the important use of this tradition in Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon (ed. B. M. Lewin; Jerusalem: Makor, 1972) 9–11. For further discussion of this passage, see Fraade, “Rabbinic Polysemy and Pluralism,” 22–23.

21 See Safrai, Shmuel, In the Days of the Temple and in the Days of the Mishnah: Studies in the History of Israel [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1994) 389Google Scholar.

22 Hidary suggests that there is consensus within each group, but dissensus between the groups, as perhaps one might expect (Dispute for the Sake of Heaven, 21–22 n. 138).

23 This is the text best supported by the extant manuscripts (including ms Vatican 32) and the text upon which Rabbenu Hillel's commentary is based. For further discussion, see Fraade, From Tradition to Commentary, 256 nn. 197, 199. For another understanding of hittiru here, but consistent with my treatment of the passage, see Naeh, Shlomo, “On Two Hippocratic Concepts in Rabbinic Literature” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 66 (1997) 184–85Google Scholar: the sages interpret the prophecy of Amos 8:12 not as a curse, but as a blessing.

24 Sifre Deut. 48 (ed. Finkelstein, 112–13), according to ms Vatican. For discussion, see Fraade, From Tradition to Commentary, 114–15.

25 See Hidary, Dispute for the Sake of Heaven, 22 n. 78.

26 Cf. Hayes, Christine E., “Displaced Self-Perceptions: The Deployment of Mînîm and Romans in b. Sanhedrin 90b–91a,” in Religious and Ethnic Communities in Later Roman Palestine (ed. Lapin, Hayim; College Park, Md.: University Press of Maryland, 1998) 249–89Google Scholar.

27 See above, n. 7

28 On which scriptural verse is being cited, see above, n. 13.

29 Compare Mek. de-Rabbi Ishmael, Bahodesh 9 (ed. Horowitz-Rabin, 235), in which the word “the thunderings” of Exod 20:15 is similarly unpacked so as to stress the multitudinous “voices” of divine revelation at Mount Sinai and their interpretive reception by the multitude of Israel. See Fraade, “Rabbinic Polysemy and Pluralism Revisited,” 24–25.

30 See y. Pe’ah 2.4 (6) (17a); y. Meg. 4.1 (74d); y. Hag. 1.8 (76d); Lev. Rab. 22.1 (ed. Margulies, 496–97); Qoh. Rab. 1.10 (29); 5.9 (7); b. Meg. 19b; and Exod. Rab. 47.1.

31 On which scriptural verse is being cited, see above, n. 13.

32 For “all of these (words)” as a gloss to the scriptural phrase “were given by one shepherd,” see above, n. 13 and below, n. 41. It is also possible to understand “masters of assembly” to be the immediate antecedent and hence subject of “were given by one shepherd.”

33 See above, n. 13. For such metonymical slippage, see Fraade, “Rabbinic Polysemy and Pluralism,” 36 n. 121. Although Sifre Deut. 41 (ed. Finkelstein, 86, with rabbinic parallels in the notes there) makes an entirely different argument from that of our passage, it similarly interprets the words of Eccl. 12:11 in sequence, concluding with the claim that the phrase “were given by one shepherd” refers to both God and Moses. There too the emphasis is on the Torah teachings of humans (even one of little knowledge/status), but especially of the sages, deriving ultimately from a single God via Moses. However, there is no mention there of Torah teachings possibly contradicting one another. For fuller treatment of the Sifre Deuteronomy passage, see Fraade, From Tradition to Commentary, 79–83.

34 Sifre Deut. 306 (ed. Finkelstein, 339), according to the better reading of mss London and Oxford, the first printing, and Yal. Shim’oni.

35 Pace Boyarin, Border Lines, 159–60, 310 n. 36.

36 Although the benefactor (parnas) here is Moses, the term is also used of rabbinic sages appointed to positions of communal authority. See Sifre Deut. 306 (ed. Finkelstein, 339), with Fraade, From Tradition to Commentary, 96–99, 245–46; idem, “‘The Torah of the King’ (Deut 17:14–20) in the Temple Scroll and Early Rabbinic Law,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers from an International Conference at St. Andrews in 2001 (ed. James R. Davila; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 51–53; and idem, “Local Jewish Leadership in Roman Palestine: The Case of the Parnas in Early Rabbinic Sources in Light of Extra-Rabbinic Evidence,” in Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy (ed. Albert I. Baumgarten, Hanan Eshel, Ranon Katzoff, and Shani Tzoref; Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements 3; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011) 155–73. On the many “voices” of revelation at Sinai, see above, n. 29.

37 See above, n. 3. On the rabbinic identification of the heart with what we think of as the mind, see Kiperwasser, Reuven, “Matters of the Heart: The Metamorphosis of the Monolithic in the Bible to the Fragmented in Rabbinic Thought,” in Judaism and Emotion: Texts, Performance, Experience (ed. Ross, Sarah, Levy, Gabriel, and Al-Suadi, Soham; New York: Lang, 2013) 43–59Google Scholar.

38 Compare Sifre Deut. 41 (ed. Finkelstein, 86), also interpreting Eccl 12:11, as treated by me in From Tradition to Commentary, 79–82. See above, n. 33.

39 I follow ms Munich 95, adding punctuation and filling out abbreviations.

40 Sections have been numbered to correlate with the section numbers of t. Sotah 7.11–12, cited and analyzed above.

41 “All of them” appears in the Vilna printed edition as well as in several manuscripts as if part of the scriptural citation: mss Göttingen 3; Vatican 171; Pesaro (1514). The other manuscripts tend to place “all of them” after the scriptural citation, e.g., “All of them one God gave . . .”: mss Oxford Opp. Add. fol 23; Vatican 134; Cambridge T-S (1) 50. See also above, n. 13.

42 For both God and Moses as “shepherd,” see above, n. 14.

43 The metaphor is of a funnel-shaped receptacle into which grain is poured prior to its being ground into flour. All uses of the word in this form in early rabbinic literature are metaphoric with reference to the ear. In addition to previously cited parallels to our text (see above, n. 8), see y. Qidd. 1.9 (10) (61d); b. Hul. 89a; and Pesiq. Rab. 10 (ed. Friedmann, 38b).

44 Probably implied here for the heart as the seat of intellect, but explicitly provided in the Vilna printed edition as .

45 Translation adopted from David Stern, Midrash and Theory, 19.

46 See especially Boyarin, but also Naeh, Rubenstein, and Yadin, cited above, n. 3.

47 Similarly, Hidary, Dispute for the Sake of Heaven, 22 n. 78.

48 Or for side-by-side comparisons, see the chart at the end.

49 It is explicitly stated in ms Erfurt. See above, n. 9.

50 See above, n. 13.

51 See above, n. 14.

52 See above, n. 44.

53 Most manuscripts have “ear” in the singular, even though the Vilna printed edition has “ears” in the plural, as do mss Cambridge T-S (1) 50 and Pesaro (1514).

54 See above, n. 2, and compare such an assumption underlying the treatments of Naeh cited above, n. 3.