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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 This Toseftan pericope contains all the information of its Tannaitic companions, identifying the various pyres and linking them to the appropriate Tannaim. Moreover, its listing of the sequence of Tannaim (Yehudah–Yose–Meir) conforms to that of Sifra and B. Yoma, in opposition to that of M. Yoma. Its fundamental deviation from all the other Tannaitic sources, as we have observed, lies in T.'s lack of a clearly recognizable mnemonic pattern for the effective recall and transmission of the information. How, then, does T. Kippurim fit into the textual complex of the mnemonically managed traditions with which it shares much content but little form? The rhetorical model of the Progymnasmata, which prescribes the recycling of written texts into oral versions, suggests a way of imagining what is before us. T. Kippurim may indeed preserve a version of a written textual source standing behind the renderings of the Mishnah, Sifra, and the Bavli. The latter three, that is, may be read as rhetorically guided transformations of T. Kippurim, reshaping its written text for the oral-performative instructional setting in which Tannaitic traditions would be transmitted and analyzed. On this reading, M. Yoma, Sifra, and B. Yoma represent diverse oral-performative transformations of a foundational written text that happens now to be preserved in the version of T. Kippurim. This reconstruction of the oral-written continuum, of course, suggests that M. Yoma 4:6 does not stand at the origins of the larger stream of tradition it itself exemplifies. Rather, M. assumes T.'s information on the nature of the pyres and the sources of the various opinions and organizes T. mnemonically for use in a larger literary setting in which the mnemonic “every day/this day” defines the formulation of the material. Sifra and B. Yoma, by contrast, preserve T.'s order of authorities and information on the pyres, but reorganize the information in light of the Mishnah's creation of a mnemonic pattern of paired numbers in sequential order. This is the situation of tradition into which the composer of Y. Yoma 4:6 entered. His exegesis of the Mishnah is deeply intertwined with the Tannaitic materials we have just examined. Indeed, his own exegetical language echoes each of his sources so subtly that the literary critic has no grounds for isolating any single textual version as the primary source of the exegete's tradition. Nevertheless, the exegete's end p.139 work is distinguishable from his tradition in a crucial respect: his main contribution to M., the elucidation of the scriptural foundation of the Tannaitic opinions, is fresh with his own enterprise. He comes to answer, in fact, the one question that the antecedent tradition has left unexplored—the scriptural foundations of the opinions. Let me at this point stress the modesty of my claim about the role of written sources in the transmission of Tannaitic tradition. As is indicated in the introduction to this part of the discussion, reconstructive work with medieval manuscripts of the Yeruahalmi cannot offer definitive proof that writing was used in the construction and preservation of Tannaitic textual tradition. Neither, however, can it prove the absence of written sources in the literary milieu that ultimately yielded the written redactions in our hands. Our goal is simply to show that the existence of an exclusively oral Tannaitic literary tradition is neither likely in light of parallel Greco-Roman oral-educational settings, nor necessary in order to explain the presence of multiple versions of Tannaitic textual tradition. The Suppression of Writing and the Ideology of Orality We have established the likelihood that the use of written texts of rabbinic tradition was more widespread in discipleship training among Galilean Amoraic masters than the tradents of the Yerushalmi's textual traditions wished to acknowledge. Rabbinic disciples were not only exposed to written materials in the course of their training; the written versions could also serve as a textual standard for the correction of oral citations. But, having acknowledged such uses of written texts, we nevertheless must accept the overwhelming representation of the Yerushalmi that resorting to such writings was ancillary to preparating for a learned performance in which written sources were accessed only through memory. This was the oral examination before a Sage, in which the disciple was expected to have extensive Tannaitic sources at his fingertips, available for accurate citation and rigorous exposition. The learning exchange, that is, constituted a social space that privileged orality as expressed in a give-and-take structured by a ritualized protocol of questions and answers. 43 The Yerushalmi is rich in representations of analytic interchanges in which two or more colleagues, or teachers and students, are portrayed in dialogical analysis of shared orally reported texts. 44 These dialogues are presented, literarily, in spare formal terms. Commonly the introductory settings employ forms of the verb “sit,”ytb. This yields such framing settings as the following: rby X wrby Y hwwn ytbyn 'mryn (“Rabbi X and Rabbi Y were in session, saying . . . ”); or rby X wrby Y hwwn ytbyn l‘yyn b'wryyt' (“Rabbi X and Rabbi Y were in session, laboring in torah”). With the introductory context established, the resulting interchange is normally framed with the simple verb “say,”'mr , repeated as frequently as the discussion requires: “he said to him” ('mr lyh ). . . ; “he replied” ('mr lyh ) . . . , and so on. Another verb commonly used to introduce a depiction of a learning session is “ask” (š'l), as in the passage we shall soon examine. Commonly such dialogues include ample citation of Tannaitic material. These, of course, represent masters and disciples interpreting previously memorized texts. Almost universally, written texts of Tannaitic tradition play virtually no discernible 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 end p.140 role in such literary representations of study sessions, but this representation of the norm is belied by at least one clear discussion of a written halakhic source. It is worth taking a look at how Y. Maaserot 2:4, 49d, cites the personal halakhic notebook (pnqs; pinax) 45 of the disciple Hilfai (early fourth century). It contained, among other things, versions of material now compiled in the Tosefta at T. Maaserot 2:3. For ease of comparison, the Tannaitic material is italicized: 46 1. One who purchases dates that he intends to mash and dried figs that he intends to press—. . . This passage offers a literary representation of an analytical exercise that would normally have been mounted in oral exposition of a Tannaitic source (1). But it differs from virtually all others in the Yerushalmi in two key respects. First, Hilfai's written version of that source (3) is cited as a serious challenge to the orally delivered version. Thus the citation of a written source is accepted for the purpose of textual criticism. More crucially, the source is subjected to an analytical interchange (4–6) that provides cogent grounds for accepting the version recorded in the notebook. Here, then, is crucial evidence for the legitimate use of written materials to control the citation of a text in oral performance. 47 One can only guess, in light of the overall silence of the Yerushalmi on written Tannaitic sources, how many other alternative readings for Mishnaic or Toseftan materials had their basis in written versions of texts meant for oral delivery. But there is at least one other clear citation of a written halakhic tradition that may have important implications for this question. Y. Kilaim 1:1, 27a, attributes to Rabbi Hillel b. Alas the habit of recording halakhic traditions on pinaxes and even walls, and it cites one of his texts. There, too, his text is introduced by the identical citational formula found in Y. Maaserot 2:4: ‘šk wn ktyb bpnqsy d- . . . (“we found this written in the notes of X”). A key figure in the tradental chain of both texts is the leading mid-fourth-century Tiberian master Rabbi Yonah. This linkage of a specific transmissional formula with a key Tiberian master of that time suggests, first, that written rabbinic texts routinely circulated among important groups of masters. It also suggests that before us is at least one literary formula for citing such written materials. These two examples, therefore, may be the end p.141 Sages say: He makes a random snack of them and removes the offerings as produce that is certainly untithed. 2. R. Yose, R. Hela, R. Lazar in the name of Hilfai: 3. Said R. Yonah: We found this written in the notebook of Hilfai: He makes a random snack of them and removes the offerings as produce that is doubtfully tithed. 4. Now, here is a difficulty: for it is reasonable to assume that a person making a random snack of produce will eventually remove offerings as produce that is certainly untithed; but if he removes offerings as for doubtfully tithed produce, he should be forbidden from making a random snack. 5. R. Yose in the name of Hela: He makes a random snack of it on the grounds that it is incompletely processed, yet he removes the offerings as doubtfully tithed produce. 6. The reason is—since it is clear that entry into the home renders the produce forbidden for untithed use, even he will separate heave- offering as early as possible. only survivors of a larger body of unpreserved Tiberian traditions that acknowledge citation from written sources. The failure to preserve traditions citing written halakhic sources seems certainly due to the concerted attempts of at least one powerful circle of masters and disciples to suppress entirely the use of written texts in the training of disciples. The earliest reports of such suppression emerges, as we noted, in materials linked to the mid-third-century master Rabbi Yohanan, who is reported to have praised those who perused homiletical texts in efforts to memorize them (Y. Berakhot 5:1, 9a). On the matter of halakhic tradition, however, he is recorded in the Talmud Bavli as holding a very different view: “those who write down halakhot are like those who burn the Torah, and anyone who studies from such writings receives no reward!” (B. Temurah 14b) 48 The Yerushalmi knows no comparable ruling ascribed to Rabbi Yohanan or any other Galilean master, but, as we shall see, there is ample evidence in the Yerushalmi that Rabbi Yohanan and his circle took the dimmest view of written texts of halakhic tradition. It is a view, moreover, entirely unprecedented in any extant Tannaitic compilation. Some of the Tannaitic authorities, we recall, had insisted upon the antiquity of rabbinic halakhic tradition stemming all the way from Sinai. Others had derived everything in the Oral Torah from scriptural exegesis. But within Rabbi Yohanan's circle a far bolder claim was formulated. Not only had halakhic tradition been, as a matter of fact, exclusively oral in its formulation and transmission; as a matter of principle, it could not be written down because its oral preservation and performance were the key to maintaining Israel's covenantal relationship with God. The oral-performative halakhic tradition stemming from Sinai was not merely the conceptual system in which scriptural norms were applied. It was superior in covenantal significance to the very 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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