Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-8r8nv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-09T13:55:44.439Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“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
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Information

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

Introduction

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.Footnote 1 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.

T. Sotah 7.11–12

We shall look at two passages, one early (Tannaitic; second–third centuries c.e.) and one late (Amoraic; third–sixth centuries c.e.) that are clearly linked to one another, although we should be careful not to presume that their linkage is direct in any genetic sense.Footnote 2 The earlier of the two is from the Tosefta (Sotah 7.11–12).Footnote 3 This passage appears as the third of three homiletical interpretations of different scriptural verses that are narratively framed as having been delivered on a single occasion at Yavneh by Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah.Footnote 4 It takes the form of an atomizing interpretation of Eccl 12:11. That verse reads as follows (rendered in English as it will be rabbinically understood):

(“The words of the wise/sages are like goads, like nails firmly planted; [taught by] masters of assemblies, they were given by one shepherd”).Footnote 5 Central to the rabbinic interpretation of this verse is the linking of its double plural beginning (“words of the wise/sages”) and its singular ending (“one shepherd”). The homilist subtly equates the scriptural phrase “words of the wise/sages” with the generic rabbinic phrase “words of Torah,” and proceeds to unpack the series of metaphoric terms used in the verse to describe those “words of Torah” (and their rabbinic teachers):Footnote 6

“Like goads . . .” Just as the goad directs the cow so as to bring life to the world, so too words of Torah are only life for the world, as it is said, “It is a tree of life . . .” [Prov 3:18]. Or, just as the goad is movable, might it be so for words of Torah? Scripture says, “And like nails firmly planted.” [Or, might (words of Torah like nails) neither diminish nor increase? Scripture says, “firmly planted.”] Just as a plant flourishes and grows, so too words of Torah flourish and grow.

The first part of the verse (as punctuated above) is understood to characterize “words of Torah” through three metaphors: goads, nails, planting. As if to answer the question “why does Scripture employ three different metaphors?” the first two are said to have positive connotations, but also negative connotations, which are eliminated by unpacking the next metaphor in the series.Footnote 7 The homily continues with the latter part of the verse as follows:

Footnote 8

[1] “Masters of assemblies”: [This refers to] thoseFootnote 9 who enter and sit in multiple assemblies, declaring what is impure [to be] impure, and what is pure [to be] pure;Footnote 10 what is impure [to be] in its place, and what is pure [to be] in its place.Footnote 11

[2] Should a person [’adam]Footnote 12 think to himself, “Since the House of Shammai declares impure and the House of Hillel declares pure, so-and-so prohibits and so-and-so permits, why should I henceforth learn Torah?”

[3] Scripture teaches, “Words,” “the words,” “these are the words” [Exod 19:6].Footnote 13

[4] All of the[se] words “were given by one shepherd” [Eccl 12:11]. One God created them, one benefactor [Moses] gave them, the master of all deeds, blessed be he, spoke it.Footnote 14

[5] Therefore you should make of your heartFootnote 15 chambers of chambers,Footnote 16 and bring into it the words of the House of Shammai and the words of the House of Hillel, the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure.

The text appears to be a composite, with some jagged seams and rough transitions between its component parts. To begin with, sections 1 and 2 present seemingly different images of the nature of study among the “masters of assemblies”: consensus and dissensus.Footnote 17 The opening comment stresses the plural aspect of “assemblies,” by rendering it as “assemblies, assemblies,” meaning “many assemblies,” perhaps referring to multiple disciple circles. What is pronounced in those multiple assemblies appears to be by multiple voices declaring the ritual purity and impurity of various objects. We cannot tell from this comment whether there was unanimity all along, or whether disagreement and debate preceded the unitary judgments once consensus was reached. In any case, the scriptural phrase “masters of assemblies” is midrashically unpacked so as to signify multiple assemblies that produce multiple voices in univocal judgments.

This idealized scenario of univocality is very similar to that of t. Hag. 2.9 (ed. Lieberman, 383), according to which a unitary halakhah is issued forth from the high court in Jerusalem (following a majority vote), also with respect to univocal judgments of purity and impurity, prior to the fall from consensus to dissensus with the proliferation of the ill-serving disciples of Shammai and Hillel:

Footnote 18

Said Rabbi Yose [ben Halafta, ca. 150 c.e.]:Footnote 19 Originally there was no contention [mahloqet] in Israel. Rather, the court of seventy-one [members] was in the Chamber of Hewn Stone, and the other courts of twenty-three [members] were located in the towns of the Land of Israel. Two courts of three [members] were in Jerusalem, one on the Temple Mount, one on the Rampart. When a person is in need [of a ruling], he goes to the court in his town. If there is no court in his town, he goes to the town nearest to his. If they have heard [the proper ruling], they tell them, but if not, he and the most distinguished among them come to the court which is located on the Temple Mount. If they have heard [the proper ruling], they tell them, but if not, he and the most distinguished among them comes to the court located on the Rampart. If they have heard [the proper ruling], they tell them, but if not, these and those come to the court that is in the Chamber of the Hewn Stone.▒.▒.▒.▒The legal question is asked. If they have heard [the correct ruling], they tell them, but if not, they take a vote. If those who declare [the object] to be impure are in the majority, they declare [it] impure; [if] those who declare [it] to be pure are in the majority, they declare [it] pure. From there the law [halakhah] goes forth and is disseminated in Israel. When the disciples of Shammai and Hillel, who did not serve [their masters] as needed, became many, contentions increased in Israel, and they became two Torahs.Footnote 20

Once again, the conflicting representations of halakhic multivocality play out at both the levels of (historical) thematization and (editorial) juxtaposition. The edited text, as literary artifact, models the very frustrations posed by multivocality as a fall from an imagined past of consensus.

It is this very legal contentiousness that threatens the social/pedagogical scene in section 2 of t. Sotah 7.11–12. There it is precisely the contrary judgments of the Houses of Shammai and Hillel with respect to ritual purity, and those of other authorities with respect to what is forbidden and permitted, that leads a person (’adam) to question why (lamah) he should bother studying in such an environment of dissensus.Footnote 21 Perhaps the discordance between sections 1 and 2 reflects two different views (or hearings) of the same scene, the first from the “outside,” representing the halakhic product of consensus, the other from the “inside,” representing the halakhic process of dissensus.Footnote 22 Thus, while section 1 is reminiscent of t. Hag. 2.9 (consensus pre-disciples of Shammai and Hillel), section 2 may be compared to Sifre Deut. 48, which similarly expresses frustration with respect to irresolvable contradictory judgments regarding purity and permissibility (what is one to do?):

Behold, it says, “They shall wander about seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it” [Amos 8:12]. Our sages permitted [hittiru]Footnote 23 going from city to city and from province to province to determine whether an insect that comes into contact with a loaf of bread renders it impure in the first or second degree. Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai [ca. 140 c.e.] says: Does this [verse] come to say that the Torah will be forgotten in Israel? But has it not been said, “It will not be forgotten from the mouth of their offspring” [Deut 31:21]? Rather, so-and-so prohibits, so-and-so permits, so-and-so declares impure, so-and-so declares pure, and one cannot find a clear rule [davar barur].Footnote 24

Returning to section 2 of t. Sotah 7.11–12, we might imagine that our person (’adam) similarly desires a clear rule (davar barur), but instead encounters opposing declarations of purity and impurity, prohibition and permission. Although part of the frustration experienced by such a person (or “reader”) might be the practical difficulties of memorizing and accessing such a large mass of contradictory teachings, the Sifre passage is explicit in denying that forgetting is the main obstacle to finding a davar barur. According to the Tosefta passage, it is not so much a question of how (he’akh, as in the parallel in b. Hag. 3b), but why (lamah), that is, “Why should I bother to learn Torah henceforth if it involves learning (presumably, by memorizing) so many contradictory judgments?”Footnote 25 Our anonymous person's frustration is not just with respect to method, but also with respect to the meaning and ends of Torah study, that is, the lack of closure to the dissensus that envelops him. In other words, he is on the verge of giving up, not just because of the difficulty of mastering such a quantity of contradictory teachings, but because of his frustration at not seeing the purpose of undertaking such a difficult (and seemingly endless) project that appears to elude halakhic certitude.

Is this his problem alone? Hardly. For what is at stake (potentially at least) is the whole rabbinic enterprise, if not for hermeneutical/theological/jurisprudential reasons, then at least for the ability to attract (and keep) disciples. While we might think of him as a prospective disciple of the sages, we might just as well think of him as an outsider to rabbinic culture, upon whom have been transferred inner-rabbinic uncertainties.Footnote 26

Here I would add that the seeming discordance between sections 1 and 2 is rhetorically (if not perfectly structurally) in keeping with the preceding sequential interpretations of “goads,” “nails,” and “planting” (Eccl 12:11) as metaphors for “words of Torah,” wherein each of the first two are first given positive connotations, followed by negative connotations, with the negative ones resolved by the next scriptural metaphor in the sequence.Footnote 27 Similarly, “masters of assemblies” produces two images in turn: one positive, of multiple assemblies with multiple voices that render unanimous judgments, and one, at first rather negative, of multiple sages and groups of sages who render contradictory judgments, the latter to the consternation (or despondence) of a newcomer/outsider to this scene. As with the previous metaphors, the midrashic homily looks for resolution to the next metaphor in the sequence (“they were given by one shepherd”). Thus far, however, this section of the Tosefta has not posed the problem in expressly theological or hermeneutical (inseparable as they are) terms. But that will now change.

Section 3, as I understand it in this context, is a transition between the problem (section 2) and its solution (section 4), and is therefore key to understanding the larger passage's theological hermeneutic. As is so often the midrashic case, the exegetical dead end in interpreting the base verse (Eccl 12:11)—the seemingly irresolvable multivocality of the pronouncements of the “masters of assemblies”— is averted through the citation and explication of a verse (or phrase) from elsewhere in Scripture, which itself denotes a multiplicity of utterances: “these are the [divinely revealed] words” (Exod 19:6).Footnote 28 This language itself then loops back to “the words of the wise/sages” with which Eccl 12:11 and the midrash began. In typical midrashic fashion, the phrase is parsed into its component units and reassembled so as to emphasize the multitudinous nature of the “words” of both Torah and sages: “words, the words, these are the words.”Footnote 29 For a similar midrashic maneuver in a Tannaitic midrash, note how Sifre Deut. 48 (ed. Finkelstein, 113) parses the phrase “all the commandment” of Deut 11:22 as “commandment,” “the commandment,” “all the commandment,” so as to signify thereby the inclusive plurality of forms of rabbinic instruction: midrash, halakhot, and ’aggadot. Exegetically closer to (but chronologically further from) our midrash is the midrashic explication of the scriptural phrase “these are the words” of Exod 35:1, unpacked as “words,” “the words,” “these are the words,” so as to signify the thirty-nine classes of prohibited labor on the Sabbath in b. Shabb. 70a and 97b. Finally, note how, in yet other Palestinian rabbinic sources,Footnote 30 the scriptural phrase “like all the words” (Deut 9:10) is unpacked and reassembled as “words,” “the words,” “all the words,” “like all the words,” so as to include Scripture, Mishnah, Talmud, and aggadah, and “even that which an advanced student will one day teach before his master” in what was “spoken to Moses at Sinai.” As in our passage, the plural construction of “words” (and their seemingly redundant scriptural accompaniments) is inclusively construed so as to encompass the multivocality (in form and content) of rabbinic “words of Torah.” However, in our passage, the unitary revelatory source of these multitudinous words/teachings, already implicit in the scriptural context of “these are the words” (Exod 19:6),Footnote 31 still needs to be made intertextually explicit with respect to Eccl 12:11.

This is achieved in section 4 by returning to Eccl 12:11, “they were given by one shepherd,” the next and final sequential phrase in the scriptural verse being atomistically commented upon. This will provide the answer to the implied question “why should (or, how can) one study this multitudinous Torah, especially in light of its preservation of discordant halakhic judgments?” which was generated by the preceding phrase, “masters of assemblies” (section 2). Since the scriptural subject of “they were given by one shepherd” (“the words of the wise/sages”) may by now have itself been forgotten, especially after such a long series of explications, that phrase is now glossed: “All of the words of sages [ = (rabbinic) words of Torah] were given by one shepherd.”Footnote 32 With the scriptural phrase “words of the wise/sages” having been metonymically equated with “words of Torah,” the concluding phrase of Eccl 12:11 is now interpreted to mean that the multitudinous “words of sages/Torah” all derive from a single shepherd, understood to signify both God (the source) and Moses (the transmitter), and hence all such “words” are worthy (and demanding) of reception and transmission.Footnote 33 Note in particular the two-fold enunciation of “one [’ehad] shepherd” as denoting both “one God” and “one benefactor,” as well as the single “master of all deeds.” Compare, in another Tannaitic text (Sifre Deut. 306), the midrashic argument that although rabbinic (oral) Torah assumes numerous discursive (pedagogic) forms, “words of Torah are all one,” by virtue of their common divine source.Footnote 34 In sum, the multivocality of the “words of sages/Torah” is originary and not belated with respect to divine revelation. The theological import of this interpretation in its extant textual form in the Tosefta is clear:Footnote 35all of the words of the sages, whether in consensus or dissensus, were ultimately created/spoken/given by a single God and human intermediary. The many “words” (or “voices”) heard among the “assemblies” of sages are, as it were, no different, whether ontologically or epistemologically, from the many words uttered by the one God to the one Moses, or by the one Moses to the many in assembly at Mount Sinai.Footnote 36 If our passage earlier progressed (or regressed) from legal consensus (section 1) to dissensus (section 2), it has now (sections 3 and 4) traced the very multivocality of rabbinic rulings to its single prophetic and single divine origin. While this might not be a neat Hegelian progression of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, it does produce a strong argument for the hermeneutical and theological unity that underlies and suffuses, without effacing, rabbinic (and revelatory) multivocality. The discursive cacophony of the “house of study” is simultaneously divinely and scripturally grounded, while providing a portal to both.

Having established this hermeneutical and theological understanding of rabbinic dissensus, that is, having answered the person (’adam) who asks, in effect, “Why should I bother to study such a mass of contradictory teachings?” it remains (in section 5) to instruct him how it is practically possible to do so (the he’akh of b. Hag. 3b). Here Shlomo Naeh is certainly correct that the Tosefta's image of a multi-chambered “heart” (that is, mind) is that of a “memory palace,” in which the many discordant teachings of the Houses of Hillel and Shammai can be sorted and arranged according to their forms and contents, thereby satisfying the critical need of rabbinic disciples to acquire and hone the mental tools required to both store and access the many contradictory teachings of the sages who preceded them.Footnote 37 The single, multi-chambered “heart” that can thus absorb and arrange such a mass of dissimilar teachings is a fitting vehicle for the transmission of a multivocal revelation that originates with a single divine creator and a single human law-giver. In a sense, the single person (’adam) of section 2 stands, potentially at least, opposite the single benefactor, Moses.Footnote 38 Not incidentally, he is now directly addressed by our text in the second-person singular (’attah). Or, is it the rabbinic reader/auditor of our text who is being directly addressed—or are the two now one and the same?

There is no warrant for denying either the practical/pedagogical or the theological/hermeneutical thrust of this composite exegesis of Eccl 12:11, that is, the response to the frustrated student/reader or its interpretive grounding in divinely revealed Scripture, nor to force the isolation of one from the other. It is precisely in their dialectical juxtaposition, editorially achieved by the combining of what I presume to have been antecedent sources, that several motifs, elsewhere witnessed in other Tannaitic texts, are powerfully thematized and performatively dramatized as multitudinous rabbinic “words of Torah” that issue from a single divine source and can only be absorbed and arranged within a unitary human “heart of many chambers.” The multivocal “words of the sages,” while pronounced and studied in many places of rabbinic deliberation (we have encountered this in a place of assembly / presumed “house of study,” on the Temple Mount, and in rabbinic peripateticism), derive, ultimately, from a single law–giving shepherd—actually two shepherds, one divine and one human. The task of the bewildered student of this multitudinous teaching/revelation is to be attentive to all, not just as passive recipient, but as active intellectual sorter and arranger. Notwithstanding the challenges and enormity of this endeavor, our singular “person” is no longer alone (as at first), but now in excellent company extending both outward to the many assemblies of sages and backward to the singular revealer and transmitter.

B. Hag. 3b

As already noted, this remarkable passage from the Tosefta (or at least its underlying tradition) became more widely known through its adoption and adaptation by the Babylonian Talmud (b. Hag. 3a–b), to which we now turn for comparison, with particular attention to those textual elements that are new or changed:

Footnote 39

[1]Footnote 40 “Masters of assemblies”: These are the disciples of the wise who sit in multiple assemblies and occupy themselves with [the study of] the Torah, some pronouncing impure and others pronouncing pure, some prohibiting and others permitting, some declaring unfit and others declaring fit.

[2] Should a person say, “Since some declare impure and others declare pure, some prohibit and some permit, some declare unfit and others declare fit—how then shall I henceforth learn Torah?”

[3] Scripture teaches: [All of them]Footnote 41 “were given by one shepherd” [Eccl 12:11].

[4] One God gave them, one leader [Moses] proclaimed them from the mouth of the Lord of all creation, blessed be He, as it is written, “And God spoke all these words” [Exod. 20:1; emphasis added].Footnote 42

[5] Therefore you should make your ear like the hopperFootnote 43 and acquire a [perceptive]Footnote 44 heart to understand the words of those who declare impure and the words of those who declare pure, the words of those who prohibit and the words of those who permit, the words of those who declare unfit and the words of those who declare fit.Footnote 45

While we cannot presume that the talmudic version is directly dependent on (and hence a reworking of) the toseftan version, there possibly having been other versions which have not been preserved, a comparison of the two is instructive, especially as it is safe to presume that the talmudic version overall is later than that of the Tosefta. While some have drawn a sharp contrast between these two versions of what is clearly a shared cluster of traditions,Footnote 46 I wish to argue that the talmudic version represents an editorial smoothing and thereby a sharpening of the message of the toseftan version, but with a consequent effacing of the toseftan dialectical fall from consensus to dissensus. However, with respect to their hermeneutical and theological groundings of legal multivocality, they are compatible with one another, with some significant differencesFootnote 47—of which the following are the most salient:Footnote 48

1) This section, like that of the Tosefta, interprets “masters of assemblies” to refer to multiple study groups that pronounce on matters of ritual purity, permitted and forbidden activity, and fit and unfit status. While the toseftan version conveys a sense of consensus, the talmudic version conveys a sense of dissensus. The talmudic version explicitly identifies the participants as “disciples of the wise,” that is, as rabbinic sages and their students, which we may presume to be implicit in the toseftan version.Footnote 49

2) In both versions, an unidentified person (prospective student/non-rabbinic outsider?) asks why (Tosefta)/how (Bavli) he should learn Torah (that is, rabbinic Torah) under these circumstances of conflicting pronouncements. I am uncertain how much significance to attribute to this seemingly small difference in wording. Is the former more existential and the latter more practical?

3–4) Both versions respond to the person's question/protest/consternation with a scriptural proof text. In the toseftan version its identity is uncertain (although I have argued for Exod 19:6),Footnote 50 but in any case it denotes the multitudinously nested quality of the revealed words (“words,” “the words,” “these are the words”). By linking this verse in section 3 with the concluding words of Eccl 12:11 (“were given by one shepherd”) in section 4, the multitudinous words of Torah (= rabbinic discourse) are said in the Tosefta to originate with a single divine source (God) and a single human intermediary (Moses).Footnote 51 The talmudic version achieves much the same result, but by beginning in section 3 with Eccl 12:11, thereby suggesting that the plenitude of contradictory rabbinic pronouncements of sections 1 and 2 were all “given by one shepherd.” The talmudic version then offers a second proof text, Exod 20:1 (“And God spoke all these words”), which introduces the Decalogue, whose plural inclusive (“all”) language is here understood to encompass the broad and contradictory variety of rabbinic pronouncements, but now no longer attributed specifically to the Houses of Shammai and Hillel as in the Tosefta.

5) Finally, both versions conclude by addressing the reader/auditor/student of our text directly, and for the first time, with the second-person singular you (’attah). As previously suggested, perhaps it is the confounded person (’adam) of section 2 who is so being addressed. Or, have we and he been merged? In either case, the addressee is instructed either to transform his heart into one of many “chambers” (Tosefta), or his ear into something like a funnel-shaped “grain hopper” (Bavli), in both cases so as to better receive and internalize the multitude of contradictory legal pronouncements. While the toseftan metaphor emphasizes more the mental sorting of all such pronouncements for purposes of better storage (memorization), and, presumably, retrieval, the talmudic metaphor stresses the hopper-like ear, which is widest at its upper (or outer) opening so as to maximize its intake. It is only then the role of the “heart” (intellect) to “hear” (understand) them all, regardless of their diversity of form, content, and attribution.Footnote 52 These are two distinct expressions, with different emphases, of the shared insistence on absorbing all of the contradictory rabbinic pronouncements into the singular “heart” and “ear”Footnote 53 just as they originated from the singular divine source via his singular human transmitter.

Conclusion

We have critically scrutinized the differences, both significant and subtle, between the two versions of the midrash to Eccl 12:11 found in the Tosefta and the Babylonian Talmud (and the affinities that they have with midrashic passages of both Tannaitic and Amoraic provenance). Despite our inability to know whether the later talmudic version is a direct descendent of the earlier toseftan one,Footnote 54 the comparisons between the two have set the textual details of both in greater relief than if we had only had one with which to work. Conversely, we have also witnessed the endurance with which their shared valorization (and problematization) of legal multivocality has crossed several centuries (and two geographic locations) remarkably intact. The shared pedagogical solution (a wide-open “ear” and a discerning “heart”) to the challenge of scholastic legal dissensus is notably consistent, mutatis mutandis, and similarly funded by a theology and hermeneutic of scriptural revelation. Given the orally dynamic and textually fluid culture of both Tannaitic and Amoraic, Palestinian and Babylonian, rabbinic sages, especially at the level of textual redaction, the endurance of this idea (and its textual praxis), manifest as it is with variants, is all the more profound for its consistently coherent core.

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.