Wimpfheimer_ Is it not so.pdf

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Toward a Poetics of Legal Narrative in the Talmud ❙ 75 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993), 119±64; Je²rey L. Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). 3 Daniel Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). 4 J. N. Epstein and Ezra Zion Melamed, eds., Mekhilta derabbi Shim¦on ben Yoai (Jerusalem: Mekitsei Nirdamim, 1955), 206±7; Tosefta Bava Metsi¦a 8:20±21, Saul Lieberman, Tosefta (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1988), 106±7; BT Bava Metsi¦a 95a. PT Bava Metsi¦a 8:1, 11:3±4 attributes it to the amora R. La. 5 Piskei haRosh Bava Metsi¦a 8:6 reads ``Rav Ashi'' here. This is likely an orthographic shift from `ax to '` ax. 6 This statement in parentheses, missing from the Florence II I 8, Hamburg 165, and Cremona ebr. T. IV 10 manuscripts, is an explanatory addition. 7 This scenario strains the formal de®nition of owner presence, since the ®nite act of pouring is independent of the borrowing and is terminated before the borrowing commences. Shittah, cited in Shittah mekkubetset, explains that the borrower performs the act of acquiring the animal while in the process of pouring. (An analogous position is found in the Hebrew/Judaeo-Arabic commentary in S. Schechter, Louis Ginzberg, and Israel Davidson, Ginzei Shekhter [New York: Hermon, 1969], 2:392.) Or zarua¦ (Bava Metsi¦a 8:311) explains that the borrowing transpires between the verbal commitment to pour and the act of pouring. Talmid haRashba, in M. Y. Blau, ed., Shittat Hakadmonim on the Tractate Bava Metsi¦a (New York: M. Y. Blau, 1985), 251, suggests that the borrowing transpires after the act of pouring, but that the verbal commitment connects the discrete actions and creates owner presence. This scholar is so taken by the simple reading of this passage that he interprets the Mishnah's requirement of owner priority to describe such a case. These solutions recall similar ones regarding a passage on Bava Metsi¦a 81a±b. In that passage, the stam responds to two tannaitic sources that describe exchanges in watch duty by saying that these constitute owner presence. Shamma Friedman, Talmud arukh: Perek hasokher et ha¥umanin (Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1990), 268±73, 288±89, notes that the notion of an owner being present not through physical work in the hirer's domain is unparalleled in the essential texts that describe owner presence. In light of the di³culty, Friedman suggests a reading of Rav Pappa that is independent of the stam and unrelated to the notion of owner presence.
76 ❙ Barry Wimpfheimer In our passage, there is no possibility of separating amoraic statement from postamoraic commentary. Rather, our passage unequivocally states that two discrete actions that place both the lender and the object in the borrower's employ can constitute owner presence though the owner's employment is terminated before the object's acquisition. Though the contract for the pitcher is never mentioned, we must assume that an oral agreement binds these actions together and that the contract can create priority/simultaneity and owner presence. If this is the case, then Rav Pappa (or the usage of Rav Pappa by the author of the questions that precede his meimra) can be understood as limiting the power of contract by saying that if one contracts for actions to take place at di²erent times, this does not constitute owner presence. This reading is explicit in Isaiah ben Mali of Trani, Piske haRid, ed. Abraham Joseph Wertheimer and Avraham Lis (Jerusalem: Institute for the Complete Israeli Talmud, 1964), 278. 8 This statement, missing in MS Florence II I 8 and some geonic witnesses, is an explanatory addition. 9 Meir Ayali, Otsar kinuyei ¦ovdim besifrut hatalmud vehamidrash (Tel Aviv: Hakibbuts Hame¥uad, 2001), 77, notes that the term makri dardeki (teacher of children) is exclusive to the Bavli. In a paper presented at the Association of Jewish Studies, 2002, I have noted the interrelationship of similar worker lists in three sugyot: Bava Metsi¦a 97a, 109a±b and Bava Batra 21b. The conclusion of that paper is that the term shatla (gardener) is not original to this list, the term makri dardeki may not have been original to this list, and the term sofer matta may have existed in a shorter form such as sofer. The textual-critical confusion makes a determination of the law's purpose from the list's composition virtually impossible. 10 This is also a Bavli-exclusive term (Ayali, 25). Among medieval commentators, the array of de®nitions for this term includes: planter (Rabbenu ¼anan¥el, ¦Arukh); public planter (Rambam, Ginzei Shekhter, Beit habeirah); sharecropper (Rashi, Nimmukei Yosef, R. Yesha¦yah Aaron, Or Zarua¦). 11 According to the medievals: Bloodletter (Rabbenu ¼anan¥el, Rambam, Ginzei Shekhter, Rashi 97a, Beit habeirah, Nimmukei Yosef, R. Yesha¦yah Aaron, Or Zarua¦); circumciser (Rabbenu ¼anan¥el, Ginzei Shekhter in name of Yesh Mefareshim, Rashi Bava Batra 109a); barber/bloodletter (Talmid haRashba). 12 Maggid Mishnah Sekhirut 10:7 suggests that the term matta or town, might be distributed to every term in the list. In light of the contention of my unpublished paper that the term sofer matta is drawn into the meimra in Bava Batra 21b from the context of Bava Batra 21a, this cannot be sustained. 13 According to the medievals: barber (Rashi 97a, one position found in Nimmukei Yosef, Or Zarua¦); scribe (variant cited in Rabbenu ¼anan¥el, ¦Arukh, Rambam, Rashi
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