Torah in the Mouth.pdf

Torah in the Mouth, Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE - 400 CE
Jaffee, Martin S., Samuel and Althea Stroum Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Washington
Print publication date: 2001, Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-514067-5, doi:10.1093/0195140672.001.0001
Name on Yom Kippurim.
Even in Jericho,
they smelled the fragrance
of the burning frankincense.
Said Rabbi Eliezer b. Daglai: 18 Father had goats in the Mikhvar range, 19 and
they would sneeze from the fragrance of the burning frankincense.
The one who won the removal of the ashes from the inner altar entered, and took the
basket and placed it before himself. . . .
The narrative continues in this fashion to describe how the lamb is ultimately tied down, slaughtered, flayed, and offered. Of interest in this
passage, however, are some textual peculiarities that I've highlighted through paragraphing and typography.
The italicized material represents the voice of the main narrator of the tractate. This voice, which dominates the tractate's composition
from beginning to end, frames all other textual material within the tractate as interjections or asides. It is, in fact, similar to the distanced,
descriptive voice of tractate Middot, a closely related tractate describing the dimensions of the Temple Mount. Indeed, both tractates
begin with the same opening lines, each of which generates an independent narrative description. While Tamid describes Temple
procedure, Middot describes the setting of that procedure. 20
The narrative voice of Tamid does not locate itself in time, although rhetorically it presents itself as an eye-witness account of events as
they took place. Nor is it possible to determine decisively whether this voice's narration stems from an oral-performative tradition or
whether it represents a more writerly mode of composition. 21
end p.104
It is probable, however, that the Mishnah's rendering of the narrative reached its present form some time before the extant version of
Tamid. I also believe that this form was that of written words on a scroll.
Note first of all that the italicized narrative is interspersed with two rather different types of expansions. These depart markedly from the
narrative in literary style and are indicated in the translation by boldface and plain type. These represent interjections, as it were, from
beyond the narrative voice and treat that voice as a textual entity in its own right. The plain-type supplements are typical of the Mishnah,
for they ground in traditional lore some additional contribution to an established discussion.
The first of these plain-type supplements enhances the narrator's account of the priest's progress, summoning Scripture to explain why the
priest enters the northern rather than the southern door. The final two address not the core narrative, but a second expansion of that
narrative, a description of the impressive sensory power of the service in the Temple. This supplement is not in the narrator's voice either.
Its lyrical rhythms and formulaic repetitions mark it as a poetic form clearly distinct from the prosaic narrative structure which constitutes
its present setting. This poetic material is itself interrupted by the two final comments, already noted. Representing neither the narrator's
voice nor that of the poet, they are the same voice that provided exegetical reference to Ezekiel.
Now let us reflect on what is before us. It is, I suppose, possible to insist that we have here a stenographic transcription of a text
composed by an orator in public performance, as a strictly “oralist” model of rabbinic tradition would require. But is this really the soundest
explanation? The variations of voice are easily explained in the language of textual description as successive supplementations of a text
whose core enjoyed the stability made possible by either memorization or written preservation. That is, the primary narrative voice (in
italics) is supplemented by a layer of poetic material (boldface); this new literary whole has then been subjected to a series of brief
amplifications which, in the form of textual asides, supply information deemed relevant to the narrative as a whole. Simply put, a text has
been edited and supplemented with other texts.
Is there anything here, then, that demands that we posit an originally oral composition at the heart of this text—that before us is a deposit
in writing of material originating a purely oral compositional setting? One might very cautiously point to the Jericho material. Its balanced,
repetitive phrases (“Even in Jericho they heard the sound/smelled the fragrance”) may suggest that before us is a written rendering of a
text composed in and for oral performance. It is a proud depiction of the greatness of the Temple service, so impressive as to have been
experienced miles away in Jericho. 22 I am tempted to call it a popular song. 23 If its perfect verb-forms are not an editorial accommodation
to the narrator's voice, it probably stems from the post-destruction era, a nostalgic reminiscence of the magnificence that has been lost. 24
The independence of this “song” from its present setting is obvious, for the narrative it interrupts continues without any sign of the song's
intervention. Moreover, the version of this song preserved in Y. Suk 5:3, 55b—which drops two of the “sounds” from our list—cites it
independently of its present setting, introducing it as a list of “Six sounds which they heard in Jericho.” Clearly, it was known as an
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