Systematicity and Normative Closure in Lithuanian Talmudism

Ajs Review-the Journal of The Association for Jewish Studies, 2020

Chaim Saiman's book explores Jewish law from the time of the Mishnah to contemporary Israel. The author demonstrates extensive knowledge of Jewish legal literature. The treatment of two millennia (!) of sources enables the observation of historically recurring tropes and trends. Hence, the work's focus: identifying the pervasive presence of two poles on Halakhah's spectrum: the "regulatory" and the "idealized." These poles, argues Saiman, are inherent to the ideological system fashioned by the rabbis in antiquity and continued to complement one another through the ages. The work has received public praise. A book published by Princeton University Press, however, should be reviewed for its methodological rigor and contributions to the academic study of Jewish law. From the viewpoint of this reviewer (an academic who researches Talmud and medieval Jewish law) methodological concerns abound. There is little engagement with tannaitic law's scriptural interpretive underpinnings (41); the author leaves the impression that the historical Jesus responded to tannaitic laws (28); he is inexact regarding whether the Mishnah and Talmud were already committed to writing in antiquity (51); the author asserts that the Babylonian Talmud "feels undedited [sic] and unfinished" (70), without citing research on its literary forms; there is no serious treatment of Rashi's Talmud commentary; and the author uses gender-exclusive language ("man," "mankind," "layman") when texts and contexts do not require it. The author admits that he did not write a typical academic work. The method is, generally, ahistorical and reminiscent of doctrinal works (despite the demurral on p. 9). He writes, "Lawyers always read the past as continuous with the precedents and principles of the present" (11). The approach would be justifiable, perhaps, if we got regular reminders that the book describes what earlier texts came to mean. Saiman creates the impression, however, that later interpretations uncover an earlier text's intended meaning. Flying in the face of entire academic fields without offering substantive critiques, Saiman studies "the basic parameters of the concept of halakhah" (9) in a vacuum, as if the concept were not subject to its cultural contexts. When reading rabbinic literature-from the Mishnah to Maimonides and beyond-he gives priority to the late nineteenth-/ early twentiethcentury "Brisker" (conceptual) method, as if that admittedly ahistorical approach offers what "halakhah" really meant through the ages (212). Saiman explains that, when compared to movie making, the historical study of Halakhah is a "still-shot" approach (12-13). Each phrase in the Talmud and Rishonim is understood against its historical contexts. His approach, however, looks at the movie as a whole, aiming to uncover what Halakhah and its later interpretive practices mean. The problem with the analogy is that most movies are produced by a team with an intended goal. This is not the case with Halakhah. The Mishnah is one genre of law produced in Roman Palestine; the Babylonian Talmud another authored in Sasanian Babylonia; and medieval codes,

The focus of this essay is upon the relationship between the first and second parts of Halakhic Man and upon the interpretive challenge that arises from the tension that characterizes this relationship. Taking a hint from Soloveitchik’s favored method of Talmudic hermeneutics, we would observe that, here, two seemingly contradictory orientations present themselves, awaiting the third verse, as it were, that will resolve the contradiction between them. In this essay, however, we are more intent upon exploring this contradiction, and its broader significance, than upon resolving it.

EAJS Newsletter, 2001

SUMMARY In this essay I show that rabbinic reasoning, in its mature Talmudic form, rests on a foundation of five presuppositions, or axioms, including the comprehensiveness and non-redundancy of scripture, and is guided by two formulas. The first formula is the formula of bijection, A ∼B, which establishes a one-to-one correspondence between A the textual elements of the Torah and B the propositions of law comprising the system of halakha; the second is the formula of adequate justification, ∃fx (fx ⊃ L), which states that there is a feature fx that serves as adequate justification for the application of a law L. The 'Thirteen Rules of Rabbi Ishmael' are analysed in terms of these formulas. An outline of stages in the evolution of rabbinic interpretation and reasoning in the Talmudic period sets the Thirteen Rules in their historical context as a third-century attempt, subsequently refined, to systematize rabbinic scriptural interpretation and legal reasoning.

Tikvah Working Paper 04/10, 2010

Current scholarly study of Jewish law concentrates either on a description and analysis of halakhic doctrines, or on the jurisprudential theories underlying the thought of halakhic thinkers. Questions such as: “how halakhic decisions are actually produced?”, and “what are the various constraints operating in halakhic decisionmaking?” usually receive very limited attention in the study of Halakha. This paper calls for a shift of focus, from the “theoretical” (whether doctrinal or philosophical) to the “practical”, so that the halakhic process will occupy a central role in the study of Jewish law.

Journal of Law and Religion, 2013