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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 B. They tied her with ropes of reeds and placed her upon the pyre. C. And some say: She went up on a machine. Comment: A adds a narrative detail absent in the Mishnaic parallel. The point, as at other junctures in the rite where there is a particular concern to protect the end p.120 purity of the proceedings (M. Par. 3:2A/T. Par. 3:2A; M. Par. 3:3B; M. Par. 3:6A/T. Par. 3:7A), is to ensure that buried corpse-matter does not offer contamination. A is autonomous of the Mishnah, as Neusner says. 68 This is so only in the sense that it draws upon a narrative version of the rite that is shared with the Mishnah but upon which the redactors of each extant text draw selectively in light of their own priorities. The Tosefta rejoins the Mishnaic narrative version at B and D, interrupted at C by the sort of intrusion of dissenting details characteristic of Tannaitic ritual narratives (e.g., the case of Mishnah Tamid discussed earlier). E–G's account of the slaughter is of particular interest, for this is the only case in this chapter in which the Tosefta shares both the Mishnaic narrative (F) and an intrusionary disputing opinion (G). The whole is reformulated as well as the answer to a question (E). I do not regard this as a conscious improvement of a Mishnaic text already lying before the Toseftan redactor. Rather it is a legitimately independent formulation of material known to the Mishnah. That is, narrative material reaching both the Mishnaic and Toseftan editors already included within it Rabbi Yehudah's alternative rendering of the priest's actions. H–I supplies important practical guidance about priestly procedures regarding the disposition of the blood that might disqualify the rite. The material is germane to both the Mishnah and the Tosefta but in its present setting must be read as a case of the Toseftan editor's commenting on materials with which he is textually engaged. That is, the writer is not commenting upon a completed Mishnaic text lying before him; rather he is continuing his own work at T. Par. 3:10E–G. M. Par. 3:10 Comment: The narrative of the burning continues at A–C. Once the cow's carcass splits open from the heat of the pyre, the priest ascends to the top of the pit in order to toss in the elements mandated at Num. 19:6. The point of the repetition and confirmation is to guarantee that the proper elements have been immolated. end p.121 But Rabbi Eliezer b. Yaaqov says: They make a ramp for her and she'd ascend. D. Her head was southward and her face westward. E. [T. Par. 3:10] How does he proceed? F. He slaughters with his right [hand]and receives with his left, and sprinkles with his right finger. And if he deviated, it is ruined. G. Rabbi Yehudah says: With his right did he slaughter it, and he places the knife before him or to the one standing by his side, and receives with his right, and places it in his left , and sprinkles with the right finger. And if he deviated, it is ruined. H. If it splashes from his hand when he is sprinkling—whether beyond her pit or beyond her pyre—it is ruined. Rabbi Eliezer b. Yaaqov said: Beyond her pit, it is ruined; beyond her pyre, he shall bring it back. And if he brought it back it is viable. I. And if he brought the blood in his hand outside [the designated area] and then brought it back it is viable. A. [When] she burst open, then he would stand outside her pit. B. He took cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool. He said to them: Is this cedar wood? Is this cedar wood? Is this hyssop? Is this hyssop? Is this scarlet wool? Is this scarlet wool?—three times for each and every thing. C. And they replied to him: Yes! Yes!—three times for each and every thing. T. Par. 3:11–12 A. [If] some of her skin, or her flesh, or her hair burst beyond her pit— he shall return it. And if he did not return it, it is ruined. Beyond her pyre—let him add wood to it and burn it where it is [as long as it remains within the pit]. B. Rabbi Eliezer b. Yaakov says: An olive's bulk disqualifies [the procedure]; less than an olive's bulk does not disqualify it. C. [T. Par. 3:12] [If] some of her horn or hoof or excrement burst [beyond her pit], he needn't return it. For a flaw that does not disqualify her while alive cannot disqualify her in her immolation. D. And Rabbi Leazar b. Rabbi Shimon adds: Shall I throw? Shall I throw? Shall I throw? And they reply: Yes! Yes! Yes!—three times for each and every thing. Comment: A–C, like T. Par. 3:6, is one of the few materials of this Toseftan chapter that require us to posit the corresponding Mishnaic passage (here, M. Par. 3:10A) as the occasion for their formulation. That is, A–C was formulated originally to circulate with M. Par. 3:10 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2003 - 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/privacy_policy.html). Subscriber: Columbia University; date: 20 September 2011
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 as amplifying material. In light of the spare redactional program pursued by the Mishnaic redactor, already noted, they were omitted as extraneous and have found their way into the Tosefta. The conceptual issue, undeveloped in the Tosefta, is the degree to which—unlike sacrificial parts placed upon the Temple altar—the cow's remnants that leave the sacrificial space remain valid (cf. M. Zabim 9:1–6/T. Zabim 9:1–10). The literary profile of D is a different matter. In its present form it surely responds to the scenario described at M. Par. 3:10B–C. But if we remove the attribution formula, what remains is the logical conclusion of the narrative describing the interchange between priest and witnesses. In my view, the Rabbi Leazar b. Rabbi Shimon dictum here preserves an element of the anterior narrative that stands behind both the Mishnah and the Tosefta. M. Par. 3:11 A. He tied them together with the ends of the strip of wool and threw them into her immolation. B. [After] she was burned up, they beat her with staves, and sift her in sieves. C. Rabbi Yishmael says: With hammers of stone, and with sieves of stone was she prepared. D. A black piece that contains ash—they crush it; and one having none—they leave it. E. The bone, one way or the other, was crushed. F. And they divide it into three parts: one is placed in the Rampart, and one is placed on the Mount of Olives, and one is divided Comment: The narrator concludes his account with the immolation of the wood, herb, and wool (A), the reduction of the burned carcass to ash (B and D–E), and its disposition for future use (F). Rabbi Yishmael's intrusion at C points out that the process of crushing was undertaken with implements incapable of receiving or imparting uncleanness to the ashes. His words may retrieve for us an alternative narrative account ignored by the narrator of the Mishnaic account but deemed by the editor of this chapter as worthy of preservation as a minority opinion. end p.122 among all the priestly squads. T. Par. 3:12–14 A. Whether he tore her by hand, whether he tore her with a knife, or whether she tore open of her own; whether he threw [the bundle] into her body, whether he threw it into her immolation; whether he threw the three items together, whether he threw them in one at a time—it is fit. B. If he put them in before the fire had burned most of it or after it had become ash—it is ruined. C. [T. Par. 3:13] If he took bone or a black piece and sanctified with it—he hasn't done anything at all. D. If there is upon it any amount of cinder from her body, he crushes it and sanctifies with it, and it is fit. E. [T. Par. 3:14] And they divide it into three parts: one is placed in the Rampart, and one is placed on the Mount of Olives, and one is divided among all the priestly squads. F. The one divided among all the priestly squads would Israel sprinkle from. The one placed on the Mount of Olives would the priests sanctify with. And the one placed on the Rampart they would preserve, as it is said: “And it shall be stored away for the congregation of Israel as waters of lustration for purification” (Num. 19:9). Comment: At A–D the Tosefta supplies random points of clarification that are best understood as comments upon the extant version of M. Par. 3:11A–E. The Mishnaic narrative is resumed at E, and F supplies crucial material missing in the Mishnah. Had the Mishnaic editor known this material, I can't imagine why he would have omitted it. Therefore it is possible that F is an expansion of the extant Mishnah added as the chapter was under composition. At the same time, we cannot exclude the possibility that its origin in the Toseftan tradition stems from the anterior narrative of the rite of the red cow upon which both the Mishnaic and Toseftan redactions have drawn. We may now summarize the results of this lengthy excursion into the intertextual connections of chapter 3 of Tractate Parah in its Mishnaic and Toseftan renditions. While the extant Tosefta can serve as a commentarial source for the elucidation of the extant Mishnaic text (as it has been used by virtually all medieval and modern interpreters of the Mishnah), the compositional units of the Mishnah and Tosefta exhibit more complex patterns of relationship. We have been forced repeatedly to distinguish, on the one hand, between the Mishnah and the Tosefta as redacted documents and, on the other, between the preexisting materials from which these documents have been compiled. There are instances, for example, in which Toseftan materials are presupposed by the Mishnaic discourse. Thus M. Par. 3:3C assumes a change of scene from the Temple Mount to the Eastern Gate that is described explicitly at T. Par. 3:4A. Similarly, M. Par. 3:3F's description of the sanctification of the ash in the water is inextricably bound up with the description offered by T. Par. 3:4E. In many more instances, the Toseftan text is self-referential rather than directed toward the Mishnah in its present form. It thus represents a literary structure parallel to but independent of the Mishnaic compilation. Indeed, only a small part of the Toseftan chapter we have examined PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2003 - 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/privacy_policy.html). Subscriber: Columbia University; date: 20 September 2011
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