New JSIJ articles

JEWISH STUDIES, AN INTERNET JOURNAL has published some new articles. Click on the links to download as PDF files.

1. S Mordechai Sabato and Rabin Shushtri, "Sugyot Which Were Emended Due to the Transition From Oral Study to Written Study" (Heb.)

In this paper, the authors discuss two adjacent pericopae from Sukkah 36b. Each of these passages presents two conflicting versions of a single dictum. By examining the text of these sugyot carefully, the authors seek to demonstrate that the original versions of each of these dicta were identical. The difference between these passages found expression not in their text, but in the intonation used during oral recitation of this material, and perhaps also in the bodily gestures which accompanied such recitation. This stems from the fact that during the period close to the redaction of the Talmud its text was studied orally, so its intonation constituted an integral part of transmission of the sugya. Once the Talmud was committed to writing, its intonation was forgotten, and so was the original sense of these sugyot. Therefore, copyists and scholars emended them in their effort to grasp the meaning that was lost with memory of the intonation.

An appendix to the article discusses the correspondence between the character of the MSS and the textual traditions of tractate Sukkah as manifest in these two passages and in the rest of the tractate.

2. Mordechai Z. Cohen, "A Talmudist's Halakhic Hermeneutics: A New Understanding of Maimonides' Principle of Peshat Primacy"

In his Book of the Commandments Maimonides makes “the peshat of scripture” the sole source of halakhah that carries biblical (de-orayta) authority, relegating laws derived midrashically to the lower, rabbinic (de-rabbanan) status. While seemingly privileging the “way of peshat” championed by his older contemporary Ibn Ezra, this Maimonidean principle has long been a source of perplexity, since Maimonides elsewhere devalues Scripture’s “literal sense.” To resolve this crux, the current study begins by clearing up a confusion created by the Hebrew translations of Maimonides’ works, in which Arabic zahir (lit. “apparent [sense]”) is rendered peshat, whereas he distinguished between the two concepts. In line with his Judeo-Arabic exegetical heritage, he did not privilege the zahir, i.e., the literal (“apparent”) sense, which, in the exegetical tradition founded by Saadia (and endorsed by Ibn Ezra), was to be adjusted in light of reason and tradition. On the other hand, Maimonides used the Hebrew/Aramaic word peshat (left untranslated in his Judeo-Arabic writings) as a technical term connoting the original (and legally authoritative) sense of Scripture—according to the “transmitted interpretation” (“Oral Law”) given at Sinai, which may diverge from the literal sense. Drawing upon hermeneutical concepts from Muslim jurisprudence, Maimonides distinguished between this source of halakhah and further laws that the Rabbis derived from Scripture via midrashic extrapolation, which he likened to qiyas (legal analogy) in Islamic law.

3. "How Does One Create Fine Children: The Views of Rabbi Eliezer and the Sages about Eugenics" (Heb.), by Yitzchak Roness and Aviad Yehiel Hollander.

In Bavli Nedarim 22b, R. Eliezer’s wife, Imma Shalom, describes her husband’s behavior during intercourse, mentioning his practice to “reveal a handbreadth and conceal a handbreadth.” This statement has been understood by most traditional commentators and academic scholars as an expression of extreme modesty, or as an attempt to avoid the experience of physical pleasure, as part of a comprehensive lifestyle governed by the ascetic ideal.

Based on comparison of this text with its counterpart in Tractate Kallah, as well as the analysis of sources attributed to R. Eliezer associating the attributes of a couple’s offspring to the couple’s comport during intercourse, we propose an additional explanation of R. Eliezer’s practice.

We suggest that the ultimate goal of this practice was to ensure the birth of worthy offspring, based on the assumption that achievement of this goal depends in large measure on the woman’s state of arousal during intercourse. Nevertheless, in line with the accepted understanding of the story as depicting the exemplary behavior of an ascetic personality, we suggest that R. Eliezer’s unusual practice be understood in light of other possibilities mentioned in the Talmud which were intended to engender the same result.