A decade after the publication of his book Scripture as Logos, which presented an analysis of the tannaitic midrashim identified with the school of Rabbi Ishmael, Azzan Yadin-Israel's new book Scripture and Tradition takes on the tannaitic midrash quintessentially identified with the competing school of Rabbi Akiva: Sifra on the book of Leviticus. Through a close analysis of the Sifra's hermeneutic idiosyncrasies, Yadin-Israel brings forth creative and insightful conclusions not only about the nature of this midrashic work, but about Akivan midrash more broadly and the early rabbinic project as a whole.
In the first part of the book, Yadin-Israel leads the reader through an investigation of some puzzling elements of the Sifra's midrashic technique. Yadin-Israel points out that although the Sifra appears to rely on certain hermeneutic markers in the biblical text, it is inconsistent in both its attention to these markers and its interpretation of what they signify. Furthermore, the Sifra sometimes offers midrashic readings whose content is tautological, or whose interpretation appears to bear no relevance whatsoever to the verse being glossed. Finally, although the Sifra shares some terminology with Ishmaelian midrash, it does not seem to follow the same, or indeed any, rules about how those terms should be employed.
Yadin-Israel takes the reader carefully through his texts, providing both English translations and sources in the original Hebrew in the appendix. His careful critical analysis of the Sifra's rhetoric is motivated by a desire to take the Sifra seriously and on its own terms. Having thoroughly and engagingly convinced the reader of the Sifra's hermeneutic inconsistencies, Yadin-Israel then introduces the argument that lies at the core of his book: the Sifra is in fact employing a “hermeneutic of camouflage,” in which “oral-traditional legal rulings … are repackaged as midrash” (100). The Sifra's apparent difficulties stem from its dual commitments to interpret each verse of Leviticus and to present received oral law as emerging from these verses. Yadin-Israel argues that rather than responding to hermeneutic cues in the biblical text and working to explain them, the Sifra instead focuses primarily on transmitting extrascriptural halakhot as though they were a product of scriptural interpretation.
This new understanding of the Sifra, however, appears to be at odds with the figure with whom it is associated—R. Akiva, who, according to a famous talmudic legend, interpreted “every jot and tittle in the Torah.” The middle section of the book thus reexamines the widely accepted perception of R. Akiva as an exceptionally creative, sometimes even overly inventive interpreter of Scripture. Yadin-Israel notes that this portrayal of R. Akiva can be traced to the pervasive influence of later Babylonian sources, and distinguishes the tannaitic portrayal of R. Akiva as a faithful transmitter of oral halakhot from his depiction in later amoraic texts as a scriptural interpreter par excellence.
Yadin-Israel also calls into question the widely accepted biographical depiction of R. Akiva as an ignoramus in his youth who turned to Torah study late in life. Scripture and Tradition argues that this portrayal of R. Akiva, like his portrayal as an inspired interpreter of Scripture, is a product of later Babylonian sources whose historiographical reliability can be disproved by more historically proximate accounts in tannaitic literature. Although Yadin-Israel is right to be skeptical of the historical value of rabbinic biography, his attempt to disprove this narrative about R. Akiva is not completely convincing. He argues that a passage in Sifre Deuteronomy stating that R. Akiva began to study Torah at the age of forty is an emendation from an earlier manuscript in which R. Akiva studies Torah for the first forty years of his life. Yet this argument is based on an expectation of perfect literary parallelism in this pericope (R. Akiva is listed along with Moses, Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai, and Hillel the Elder, whose lives are all divided into three forty-year periods) that is perhaps overly demanding. Regardless, the “truth” as to whether or not R. Akiva indeed began to study Torah late in life is germane but not crucial to Yadin-Israel's central claim.
Yadin-Israel argues that counter to the later portrayal of R. Akiva as a singularly inspired and unfettered biblical interpreter, the interpretations attributed to R. Akiva in the Sifra—along with other attributed derashot—exhibit the same careful attention to biblical hermeneutic markers as Ishmaelian midrash. This undermines both the biographical image of the creative Akiva found in later texts and scholarly assumptions about the fundamental differences between the two schools. However, Yadin-Israel maintains the distinction between the two midrashic schools by noting that Ishmaelian midrash tends to privilege the scriptural, while Akivan midrash tends to privilege the extrascriptural.
Furthermore, Yadin-Israel identifies two strata in the Sifra, one of attributed derashot and another anonymous, presumably later, layer. This is the layer to which he attributes the Sifra's interpretative inconsistencies. Yadin-Israel thus posits three different positions: the scriptural orientation of Ishmaelian midrash; the hermeneutically sensitive and consistent, yet extrascriptural orientation of Akivan midrash; and the later anonymous stratum of the Sifra that attempts to portray extrascriptural Halakhah as derived from biblical text.
The final third of the book situates the rabbinic movement within the context of late antique attitudes toward scriptural interpretation. Yadin-Israel notes that biblical interpretation, as “a revelatory act that lays bare scriptural mysteries” (164), was central to the religious activity of many Second Temple groups and writers, including the Qumran community, Philo, Paul, and the early church fathers. In contrast, tannaitic literature emphasizes neither the esoteric nature of Scripture nor the significance of its charismatic interpreter(s). Yadin-Israel argues that for the early rabbis, it is rather the oral tradition that is the site of God's hidden mysteries. Whether or not the rabbis did in fact connect orality with esotericism as Yadin-Israel claims, he aptly points out that the authority of oral-traditional dicta may have been threatened by the increased emphasis on scriptural interpretation and the prestige of literacy in general during this period.
Yadin-Israel argues that the differences between the Akivan and Ishmaelian schools of midrash represent two poles of early rabbinic activity, one primarily motivated by Scripture and the other focused on the transmission of extrascriptural halakhot. In making this claim, Yadin-Israel consciously situates himself in opposition to scholars who have portrayed midrash as stemming from a single, primary source of legal authority: either Scripture or oral tradition, but not both. Unlike those who claim that midrash is fundamentally engaged in the enterprise of transmitting oral law in the guise of scriptural interpretation, or that it is dedicated first and foremost to the faithful unpacking of Scripture, or even that one came to replace the other, Yadin-Israel offers a synchronic model of identifying legal authority in tannaitic sources. According to this approach, Ishmaelian and Akivan midrash arise as two coexisting “ideal types” of these authorizing models.
As Yadin-Israel shows, attention to orally transmitted halakhot as the subject of interpretation can be traced back at least as far as tannaitic literature. The tension between Scripture and extrascriptural tradition as dual sources of law is carried forth into amoraic sources as well. Yadin-Israel's explanation of the Sifra's hermeneutic curiosities is not only useful and impressive in its own right, but could also provide helpful material for scholars thinking about the reception of apodictic tannaitic legal sources as objects of exegesis in later rabbinic literature. All in all, this is an impressive and thoughtful analysis of the Sifra, offering a sophisticated and useful framework for thinking about the emergence of two separate schools of midrash, as well as the development of the rabbinic project in general.
