Solomon Schechter and medieval European rabbinic literature

Solomon Schechter’s contributions to our knowledge of the rabbinic texts in the Cairo Genizah are legendary. But Schechter also expressed a wide variety of important ideas and theories about rabbinic literature and thought from other locales and periods. Several broad examples of these interests will suffice. At the plenary session of the World Congress of Jewish Studies held in Jerusalem in 1997 – marking the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the Cairo Genizah and Schechter’s role in that discovery – Ya’akov Sussman noted that at this point in his academic career, Schechter had been deeply interested in a series of talmudic works such as the Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, and in rabbinic theology as well.1 Moshe Idel, in an article that appeared in the centenary volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review in 2010, highlights how much Schechter had to say about Nahmanides and the disciplines that he represented, including and perhaps especially Kabbalah. And recently, Elliot Wolfson has re-assessed Schechter’s trenchant analysis of the mystical traditions in sixteenth-century Safed. The present study sets its sights on another area of rabbinic creativity in the medieval world – rabbinic writings from Christian Europe – where Schechter’s work has gone relatively unnoticed and unremarked. In a brief period during the 1890s, from his vantage point at Cambridge, Schechter published a series of articles that present some of the rabbinic materials that he encountered in manuscripts held at Cambridge and in other European libraries as well. What strikes me as special about these studies is not only the great breadth of knowledge and the suggestive comparisons and associations that Schechter offers, but also the extent and quality ofhis “eye” and his intuition, which enabled him to see and to highlight rabbinic figures and texts that in many instances proved to be crucial to our overall understanding of medieval European rabbinic literature – even as modern scholarship did not fully realize the significance of these works until much later. Our focus will be Schechter’s treatment of five manuscripts from the libraries at Cambridge, the Palatina in Parma, and the Vatican. As we shall see, each of these works has an element of mixed geographic contexts and circumstances, just as they represent different rabbinic genres. Thus, these are all crossroad texts (parashat ha-derakhim), both geographically and intellectually, which I suspect is what attracted Schechter’s attention to them in the first place. Nonetheless, Schechter’s ability to put his finger on these particular texts, in talmudic commentary and Halakhah, piyyut (liturgical poetry), liturgy more broadly, and biblical interpretation – which were composed in Germany, northern and southern France, Spain, and Italy – and to grasp their significance is at times astonishing, especially given the lack of supporting texts and other relevant bibliographic data

Lifnim mišurat ha-din ir derekh erec problema, arba etikos paieškos žydų tradicijoje ir Vilniaus Gaono kranklys

[full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English] The problem analyzed in this article can be formulated as a question: do ethics, for the Gaon of Vilna, exist outside the Torah and Halakha? This question particularizes and analyzes the more general question posed by R. Aharon Lichtenstein in one of his articles, particularly Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha?, and presents arguments that the traditional Jewish notions lifnim mišurat ha-din and derekh erec, which a number of contemporary scholars of Jewish studies associate to an ethical impulse possibly coming from outside, remain rooted in the Torah and Halakha in the case of the Gaon of Vilna. It is based on both the legendary image of the Gaon of Vilna and the interpretations of agada attributed to him as well as derived from his customs. Through these aspects, an unconditional devotion of the Vilnius Gaon to the study of the Torah, superseding all other possible choices of virtue, can be highlighted. Concerning his customs, which often outweigh the demands of the Halakha, it would be quite problematic to find in them any ethical or social concern. While discussing the theme of animals, which was presented as an argument by R. A. Lichtenstein in finding a positive attitude to an ethical source outside the Torah or Halacha in the Jewish tradition (such as taking an example of proper behavior from a cat, rooster, or ants, as has been taught by some sages of the Talmud), it is argued that the images of animals, as far as examples for proper behavior, are too contradictory in the broader context of the Torah and Talmud: first, in the Torah, some examples of animals are referred to as possible examples; such reference thus do not go beyond the Torah. Second, in the Torah and Talmud, the images of and attitudes toward those animals (especially cats, but also dogs) are quite contradictory. Third, with regard to the Gaon of Vilnius, the animals were only images that allowed him to emphasize certain features and behavioral guidelines necessary for studying and practicing the Torah, but not as examples of ethical behavior.[straipsnis ir santrauka lietuvių kalba; santrauka anglų kalba] Straipsnyje analizuojama, ar Vilniaus Gaonui egzistavo etikos šaltinis už Toros ir halakhos ribų. Svarstant R. Aharono Lichtensteino keltą klausimą, „Ar judaizme egzistuoja etika anapus halakhos?“, straipsnyje argumentuojama, kad sąvokos lifnim mišurat ha-din ir derekh erec, kurios ne vieno šiuolaikinio judaikos tyrinėtojo siejamos su etiniu impulsu, gal ir galimu kildinti iš kitų šaltinių, Vilniaus Gaono atveju lieka įsišaknijusios Toroje ir halakhoje. Remiamasi tiek legendiniu Vilniaus Gaono įvaizdžiu, tiek jam priskirtomis agados interpretacijomis, per kuriuos išryškėja Vilniaus Gaono besąlygiškas atsidavimas Toros studijavimui, jį iškeliant virš visų kitų galimų vertybinių pasirinkimų, ir jo pamaldumo papročiai, dažnai pranokstantys tai, ko reikalauja halakha, tačiau neturintys nieko bendra su etika ar socialiniu rūpesčiu. Straipsnyje atskirai nagrinėjama gyvūnų tema, kurią kaip argumentą, kad žydų tradicijoje galima rasti pozityvų santykį su etikos šaltiniu už Toros ar halakhos ribų (tarkime, imant pavyzdį iš katės, gaidžio ar skruzdėlės, kaip mokė kai kurie Talmudo išminčiai), pateikia Lichtensteinas. Straipsnyje atskleidžiama, kad gyvūnų pavyzdžiai, kalbant apie deramo elgesio pavyzdžius, yra pernelyg prieštaringi, jei turėsime omenyje platesnį Toros ir Talmudo kontekstą: pirma, jau pačioje Toroje kai kurie gyvūnų pavyzdžiai nurodyti kaip sektini ir todėl neišeina už Toros ribų, antra, tiek Toroje, tiek Talmude santykis su tais gyvūnais (ypač katėmis, taip pat šunimis) gana prieštaringas, trečia, kalbant apie Vilniaus Gaoną, jam gyvūnai buvo tik įvaizdžiai, leidę pabrėžti tam tikras būdo savybes ir elgesio orientyrus, būtinus studijuojant ir praktikuojant Torą, o ne etiniam elgesiui

A Heretic from a Good Family? A New Look at Why Levi b. Abraham b. Ḥayim Was Hounded

Levi b. Abraham b. Ḥayim, a popularizer of rationalist philosophy active around 1300 in Occitania, was identified as a transgressor by proponents of a ban on the study of philosophy. The nature of Levi's transgressive activities and the reasons why he was targeted have remained elusive, though a consensus view suggests that his socioeconomic standing and genuinely radical ideas contributed to his being singled out. In fact, a careful reassessment of the extant sources demonstrates that Levi, as an established member of the elite class, was an inadvertent target, identified in the course of a misunderstanding between Solomon Ibn Adret and his confidant in Perpignan, Crescas Vidal. No more radical than others and one of many popularizers of rationalism, Levi became a convenient exemplar and test case for ban proponents. They struggled to define the nature of Levi's potentially dangerous effects on his students, however, and Levi remained an equivocal figure even to his detractors. Though vilified and forced out of the home of his patron, Levi was accorded basic respect and often defended; he was never subject to excommunication, censure, or any type of halakhic prosecution

Creating and curating an archive: Bury St Edmunds and its Anglo-Saxon past

This contribution explores the mechanisms by which the Benedictine foundation of Bury St Edmunds sought to legitimise and preserve their spurious pre-Conquest privileges and holdings throughout the Middle Ages. The archive is extraordinary in terms of the large number of surviving registers and cartularies which contain copies of Anglo-Saxon charters, many of which are wholly or partly in Old English. The essay charts the changing use to which these ancient documents were put in response to threats to the foundation's continued enjoyment of its liberties. The focus throughout the essay is to demonstrate how pragmatic considerations at every stage affects the development of the archive and the ways in which these linguistically challenging texts were presented, re-presented, and represented during the Abbey’s history

Irven M. Resnick. Marks of Distinction: Christian Perceptions of Jews in the High Middle Ages

No abstract is available