The Mishnah and beyond- The Talmuds, Responsa, Codes

Chapter 7AntisemitismTribe

There is a Yiddish joke-King Lear by William Shakespeare translated and improved in Yiddish.

One of the salient traits of the “Tribe” is that there is always one of them who thinks they can improve on anything.

In the Yeshivot (Academies) of old and today finding a “Chiddush” (a novel interpretation) is the mark to aim for. So, the Mishnah was destined to be interpreted and expanded in the academies of Israel and Babylonia. In the sense that changing times and new needs were a reality the Talmuds expanded as well as explained the rulings of the Mishnah.

Both Talmuds are the product of the academies of Israel and Babylonia. The language of the Talmuds is in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic known as “The Holy Tongue-Lashon HaKodesh. They are different in the Aramaic dialect of Israel is different from that of Babylonia. Also, the Babylonian Talmud has much more in the way of Aggadata (stories that vary from the sublime to the ridiculous). Ramban (Rabbi Moses ben Nachman ) in his dispute with Pablo Christiani of 1263 in Barcelona stated regarding the Aggadata (stories especially in the Babylonian Talmud): the Jew is bound to believe in the truth of the Bible, but in the exposition of the Talmud only in regard to points of religious practise; and that he is at liberty to reject the haggadic interpretations, which are only sermons expressing the individual opinions of the preacher, and do not possess authoritative weight. 1

The difference between the Talmud of Israel and that of Babylonia is more than a difference in Aramaic dialect. The Israel Talmud while it comments on all the Agricultural parts of the Mishnah never was completed or had a final edition. It is also short on Aggadata and cannot compare with the stories told in the Babylonian which run the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous. The fifth chapter of Bava Batra which deals with the sale of ships is notable for some of the improbable stories that are reminiscent of “Sinbad the Sailor.” There is mention of a Rabbi Yehudah Hindua probably a convert from India. In the Middle Ages tales of Mishlei Sendebar” were transported form origins in the east to the west. 2 The belief in demons was prevalent in Babylonia, and they were conceived of causing harm (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot.6a). Asmodeus or in the form in the Babylonian Talmud Ashmedai 3 was the King of the demons and briefly evicted Solomon from his throne 4. Jews assimilated the folklore of the many societies in which they lived. The Mishnah apparently allowed one to carry on one’s person on the sabbath an amulet provided it was made by an expert! 5. In the Talmud it is explained that the amulet was a device to ward off or cause healing of an illness. 5 Jews then as now were open to assimilating the folklore of their neighbors. (See Sefer Hasidim-Souls coming out of graves to pray for Jews on evening of Hoshanah Rabbah-Close in time to All Souls Eve (Halloween). One of the most important innovations of the Babylonian Academy of Nehardea was the “Heter Iska” (Permission for Enterprise). The strict interpretation of the law against charging interest is found in Deuteronomy 23:20-21. According to the interpretation of these verses both the Church and the Mosque forbade lending money in the expectation of making money on the loan. The Talmud created a vehicle to allow business to proceed with the lender, assuming two-thirds of any loss while benefiting from half of the profits. 6 Due to the pressure of high taxes and impositions of rulers great and small the ruling against lending money on interest to non-Jews was relaxed. 7 During the Middle Ages the Jews were small time moneylenders. As Rabbeinu Tam noted the rulers of kingdoms and nobility exacted a heavy premium from the Jews. The result was the Christian rulers exacted the money, and the Jews inherited the hatred of the gentiles. Shakespeare’s Shylock was an invention since there were no Jews in England after 1290. But it reinforced the prejudices that were portrayed in Chaucer and the blood libels of William of Norwich and Hugh of Lincoln.
Christians soon could not resist the call of making money and the Medicis soon overcame Christian scruples and with the added ability to coin money they and the Fuggers became the richest banking houses. The exposition and development of Halakhah as the prescription for Jewish life preceded from the Babylonian Talmud through the next period when the academies of Sura and Pumbedita flourished up to the year thousand. The heads of the academies had their rulings made law for Jews worldwide. Subsequently in lands beyond Babylonia new authorities explicated Talmudic discussion with commentaries and codes. The Middle Ages were not as dark as the perception of later times. The conquests of Moslems which brought them up to the gates of Vienna had a salutary effect on the spread of Greek Philosophy. Ibn Rushd (1126-1198) Andalusian jurist and polymath and Ibn Sina (Avicenna 980-1037) physician, polymath and scientist shaped the western world to adopt Aristotle and his philosophy as the highest form of reasoning. Their popularizing the philosophy of Aristotle had a lasting impact on both Christianity and Judaism in the works of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and Moses ben Maimon (1138-1204) commonly known as Maimonides and in Hebrew as The Rambam. Moses Maimonides is the most respected authority in Jewish thought and Halakah who is never followed as a source for practical application! The whys and wherefores for this belong to the story of history. Maimonides was born in 1135-1138 in Cordova in the province of Andalus, one of the remaining Moslem outposts as of yet not fallen to the “Reconquista.” After 1146 Moslem Spain came under the rule of the Almohads of North Africa and Jews and Christians fled their domain. Maimonides family took to North Africa and he settled in Fustat (adjacent to old Cairo) and first capital of Moslem Egypt. It can be argued that Maimonides avoided a commentary to the Babylonian Talmud because of the necessity of explaining the absurd aggadata that was embarrassing to the intellect. Instead, he wrote a short and pithy commentary to the Mishnah in which substituted for belief in demons a psychological explanation. In the second chapter of the Mishnah Shabbat, we read that one is allowed to extinguish the Shabbat Lamp because of an “Evil Spirit.” Maimonides explains: An “Evil spirit” is what are called all types of sickness that is called in Arabic “Melancolia.”

I would dare say that Maimonides wrote his code of Jewish practice, the Mishneh Torah as an Aristotelian rabbi and his “Guide to the Perplexed” as a rabbinical Aristotelian. In the Guide for the Perplexed Maimonides says he go explain creation according to Aristotle who posited that matter was eternal with the “Prime Mover.” But instead he opts to go with the rabbinic “Creatio ex Nihilo.” The rabbinic “Yesh May Ayin” from nothing! In his code, the Mishneh Torah He asserts that anyone who thinks God has a form like a human is a sectarian. To which among other criticisms Rabbi Abraham ben David wrote: Greater men then he thought so. 8 In Mishnah Avot 3:19 Rabbi Akiva states that God foresees everything, yet humans have free will. Maimonides repeats this conundrum in his code. One must know that everything is done in accord with His will and, nevertheless, we are responsible for our deeds. 9 In response to Maimonides Rabbi Levi Ben Gerson (Ralbag-Gersonides 1238-1344) held that God does not have foreknowledge of what a human being will decide to do. 10 Whereas Maimonides code of law (Mishneh Torah) was greeted with great respect his Guide to The Perplexed excited a furious rejection by those who held it to contain heretical thoughts. One of the leaders of the opposition to Maimonides was Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi (d. 1264). He was one of the signers of the ban prohibiting the reading of the “Guide for the Perplexed” and the Sefer haMada of the Mishneh Torah in 1233. It was alleged that he was the instigator of the public burning of Maimonides writings by the authorities in Paris in 1233. But after the burning of the Talmud in 1242 in Paris he admitted in the synagogue of Montpellier that he was wrong in being opposed to the works of Maimonides. This illustrates a feature of the “Tribe;” the ability for some to incorporate scientific and philosophical views that may prima facie or in fact contradict established belief as formulated in Bible and rabbinic tradition. On the other hand, that creates within the “Tribe” a counter-reaction to ban or prohibit such views. Isaac the Blind, (1160-1235) son of Rabbi Abraham ben David, is credited as the originator of those speculations and formulations that were to be known, in the full sense of the word, as the Kabbalah. There is a technical distinction between earlier Jewish Mysticism and that which developed in the wake of Isaac’s ideas. He was important for the introduction of the belief in reincarnation and being the first among what was to become the Kabbalah of Provence, Catalonia, and Spain. While little is proven as to Isaac’s ideas, we may infer his influence from the work of his student Azriel ben Menahem of Geona (1160-1238). Azriel acknowledges Isaac as his teacher and so one can attribute the idea of God as the origin of this process of creation, which is never diminished by the name Ain Sof (Without End). 11

The masterpiece of the Kabbalah, The Zohar, was made public by Moses de Leon (1240-1305 CE) who claimed that its authorship could be traced to Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai a pupil of Rabbi Akiva. The competition for the minds of the “Tribe” between rationalism and mysticism was won by the Kabbalah. The reason for the massacres of 1391 and the Expulsion of 1492 was laid at the door of rational philosophy and with the time honored explanation for any catastrophe occurring to the “Tribe” their sin was to be blamed. 11 In the depopulation of the land of Israel which was accelerated by the economic conditions and Byzantine restrictions against Jewish life. 12 The “Tribe” experienced a division that accelerated differences between them. The Palestinian diaspora journeyed from the homeland to Italy where there was a Jewish settlement in Rome from the time of Julius Caesar. 13 This was to become what was to be known as the Ashkenazim (after their settlement along the Rhine). The more populous and more influential was the community in Babylonia, known today as the Edot HaMizrach (Communities of the East) and with the Arab conquest of Spain-“Sefardim.” The “The Golden age of Spain,” in which under enlightened Moslem rulers’ Jewish literature flourished especially in the field of poetry as Jewish poets like Yehudah HaLevi employed Arabic meter to produce songs and poems of religious and secular nature. 14. It came to an end with the conquest by the Almohads in 1446. The life of the Jews in lands conquered by the Arab Muslim expansion was one of relative tranquility at times interrupted by persecution. According to the “Pact of Umar.” The Pact of ‘Umar Ibn Kathir said that because of this, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of Dhimmah or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced and humiliated. As Islam expanded after Muhammad’s death, many of the conquered lands were inhabited by Jews and Christians who, instead of converting to Islam, accepted second class status as Dhimmis and paid the Jizyah 15. The Jizyah is a Head tax imposed by Islam on all nonMuslims [Dhimmis] living under the protection of an Islamic government. This led to the necessity of creating a procedure for how the Muslims were to deal with large populations of Dhimmis. The Pact of ‘Umar was reportedly a treaty between ‘Umar, the second “Rightly Guided” Caliph, and the conquered Christians of Syria, circa 637. And although Jews were not specifically mentioned in the Pact, it was nevertheless generally considered a model for how Muslims were to deal with both Jewish and Christian populations. One can find various versions of this Pact. The version used here is found in the Tafsir Ibn Kathir. Ibn Kathir wrote about The Pact of ‘Umar in a section titled Paying Jizyah is a Sign of Kufr [disbelief] and Disgrace, which was part of Ibn Kathir’s explanation of the meaning of Chapter 9, Verse 29 of the Koran.
This verse consists of Allah’s command to the Muslims to fight against the Jews and Christians until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission and feel themselves subdued. Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Vol. 4, p. 406 Ibn Kathir then quoted Muhammad: Do not initiate the Salam [greeting] to the Jews and Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley. (18) Depending on the particular ruler Jews under Islam lived for the most part in certitude of their lives and at times could even attain high office as did Samuel ibn Nagrela and Hasdai ibn Shaprut.
With the close of the Babylonian academies by the end of the eleventh century the “Tribe” was now dominated by the authorities of Ashkenaz. Charlamagne had invited Jews into his Empire 16

Jews settled along the Rhine, Speyer, Worms and Mainz as they could by river engage in international commerce. The road to the Rhine extended from Isarel to Italy to German lands. What was to become the practice to today was set in the academies of the Rhineland and the Champagne France. The commentaries of Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac and his family adorn both sides of the Babylonian Talmud since its first printing in 1519-1523 as was first arranged by Joshua Solomon Soncino in 1483. The Babylonian Talmud by its printing and commentary became the life study of the Jews of Ashkenaz. Subsequent commentary by Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel (125-1327 printed with the first edition) influenced his son Jacob (1270-1340) to compose the code of Jewish law called the Arba’ah Turim (Four Rows) to which the important commentary of Joseph Caro (1488-1575) was later condensed by him into his own code Shulchan Arukh (The Set Table) with the glosses of Rabbi Moses Isserles (1530-1572) It became the standard work to which all rabbis from that time to this base any decision. Not that that stopped further elaboration and commentary upon commentary as is the custom of the “Tribe.!” The purpose of this past exposition is to explain and state the condition under which the “Tribe” lived from that time to modernity. The Kabbalah was expanded in Safed Israel by Moses Cordovero 1522-1570 and Issac Luria (1534-1572) and their achievements impacted the inner life of Jews but the ebb and flow of life between prayer, study and persecution remained basically the same.

Under Christians and Moslems, the “Tribe” suffered as a discriminated minority at times massacred and expelled. Stubbornly keeping to their own laws, customs and thoughts. That would change with the coming of modernity.

Footnotes

  1. (Moses Ben Nahman Gerondi (RaMBaN; known also as Naḥmanides and Bonastruc da Porta):By: Joseph Jacobs, Wilhelm Bacher, Isaac Broydé Jewish Encyclopedia online) (for the dispute see A History of the Jews of Christian Spain, Yitzhak Baer, translated by Louis Schoffman from Hebrew. The Jewish Publication society of America, Philadelphia 1996-5726, pp 151-158). ↩

  2. see-Tales of Sendebar=Mishle Sendebar, Morris Epstein, Jewish Publication society of America, Philadelphia,1967. ↩

  3. Babylonian Talmud Pesahim 110a ↩

  4. Mishnah Shabbat 6:2 ↩

  5. Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 61a. ↩ ↩2

  6. Babylonian Talmud Bava Metsia 104b. ↩

  7. Rabbeinu Tam, Tosafot Talmud Bavli Bava Metzia 70b. ↩

  8. Mishneh Torah, Repentance 3:7 notes of Rabad. ↩

  9. Mishneh Torah Laws of Repentance 5: ↩

  10. See- Jacobs, Louis (1990). God, Torah, Israel: traditionalism without fundamentalism. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press. ↩

  11. “Ohr HaHayyim, Rabbi Yosef ben Hayyim (Yavetz 1438-1539). ↩ ↩2

  12. see: S. P. Scott, The Civil Law, XII, Cincinnati, 1932 Title V, IX, XI, XII ↩

  13. Suetonius-The Twelve Caesars, a new translation, Robert Grave, The Penguin Classics, 1957, Penguin books Inc. 3300 Clipper Mill Road, Baltimore 11, Md, p.47 ↩

  14. Wine, Women & Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life, Raymond P. Scheindlin, Oxford University Press, 1999 ↩

  15. Koran 9:29 ↩

  16. Heinrich Graetz, History of The Jews ↩

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