The Jerusalem Talmud: A Translation and Commentary

9252 Pages·2010·1.05 MB·English

by  Jacob Neusner

P
REFACE
This multi-volume translation of the Talmud of the Land of Israel (Yerushalmi)
combines a translation with commentary on the same twenty-eight tractates of the
Mishnah that are also treated in the later Talmud of Babylon (Bavli), together with
a translation of the remaining eleven tractates of Yerushalmi not treated in the
Bavli. All thirty-nine tractates found in this work comprise a complete translation
of Yerushalmi (less, of course, those tractates of the Mishnah not commented
upon by Yerushalmi).
General Discussion of the Commentary
on Twenty-Eight Tractates
Both the translation and the commentary re-presents the Talmud of the Land of
Israel in a graphic manner, but the commentary more so as is described below, so
as to render the document accessible to ordinary academic inquiry into the
rationality and order of a document. My main purpose is to identify the completed
units of discourse of the document, that is, the “compositions,” and to show how
these are formed into larger groups or “composites”; to delineate the structure and
sequence of composites, showing the logic that governs their order; and to
underscore the principles of rationality and order that govern throughout. In this
way I show how the document works—how it holds together and makes sense. I
demonstrate that the Yerushalmi forms not a random collection of “this and that”
but an orderly and purposive compilation, following rules of structure and setting
forth a systematic logic. Specifically, the document reveals itself to form a
commentary to the Mishnah and an amplification of the laws of the Mishnah,
providing also topical appendices to amplify topics deemed relevant to the
Mishnah. The composites in Yerushalmi that do not carry out those two purposes
are few.
The orderly traits of the document emerge first of all in its formal structures. The
analytical translation that is now complete marked the first step in the identification
of those structures, and the visual commentary set forth here, the second. These
attest to a cogent system that comes to express in an orderly manner. The goal of
the commentary therefore is to set forth in a systematic and detailed manner the
complete structure and governing system of the document’s tractates that provide
Gemara to the twenty-eight Mishnah-tractates treated in the Talmud of Babylonia.
f1
The Purpose of the Commentary
Not a mere introduction or topical presentation of information, this commentary,
the first one ever addressed to the academy in particular, asks questions urgent
here but not necessarily elsewhere. When the Yerushalmi is studied under other,
native auspices, it is for the education of theoretical jurisprudents, able to make
informed and reliable decisions on complex problems of law. Here we ask a
different set of questions, resting on a distinctive corpus of premises. Specifically,
an academic commentary makes possible the utilization of that document not only
in bits and pieces but in its entirety. f2 Here the first Talmud enters public, academic
discourse concerning the study of questions of general intelligibility. It is given a
standard reference system, no longer appearing as long columns of undifferentiated
words. Its coherent and complete units of discourse are identified, so that we may
first ask how the document is put together and then propose a theory of primary
and secondary discourse covering the entirety of the pertinent tractates. This
academic commentary means to present its main points in a simple way, principally
through graphics that convey the information just now identified. But the promise
that is set forth here for the definition of future research should not be missed.
Accordingly, the commentary everywhere pursues the same inquiry into the
character of the document’s composition, its composites and their construction
into what I maintain is a highly disciplined and cogent formation. At any given
passage in the document questions of documentary composition on the one hand,
and intellectual context on the other, are addressed. What is at stake is access to
the whole, viewed in detail. If we know in detail how the document works,
meaning, its principles of formulation and composition on the one hand, and its
governing program and modes of thought on the other, then through a labor of
mediation we may find useful examples for the pursuit of generalizations of weight
and consequence. For, its structure and system fully exposed, the document may
make its contribution to the heritage of cases and instances of applied reason and
practical logic in expression of a profound sense for rationality and order. And that
is what I conceive to be the task of an academic commentary.
Other commentaries are abundant, and many, excellent for their manifest purposes.
But after many centuries of generally-successful exegesis for the purpose of
clarification of thought and determination of law from the time of its closure in the
fifth century to our own day, the Talmud of the Land of Israel is ready to make the
move into that larger world of public discourse concerning issues of the social
order that, in their time and place, its framers—authors of its compositions,
compilers of its compositions—proposed to address. That presentation requires an
account of the coherence of the document—cogency that is both formal and
intellectual—that has to this time not been fully grasped. Such an account has to
specify the rules of composition, the laws of rhetoric, and the principles of cogent
discourse that govern throughout. The Yerushalmi often appears meandering and
tedious. I want to know how someone can have purposively made it so: what goal
did he achieve and what effect did he wish to create (whether aesthetic or
intellectual) in laying matters out in this way, rather than in some other.
How the whole holds together at any one passage, then, requires explanation.
Questions of structure pertain to how the document is put together and is so
framed as to convey its framers’ messages in consistent forms. The coherent
formal program contains ample indication of the character and purpose of any
given detailed analytical discussion. Questions of system concern the points of
emphasis and current stress, the agenda that comes to expression in whatever topic
is subject to analysis. The framers of the composites that comprise the document
pursue a uniform analytical program throughout. Here too, they never leave us in
doubt as to what they wish to discover or demonstrate. In the concluding chapter
of each tractate, therefore, through the familiar procedure of an analytical outline
of the whole tractate, this commentary aims at exposing in rich, complete, and
accurate detail precisely how the compositors of the Yerushalmi make connections
and draw conclusions. By explaining the coherence of the whole through the
identification of the parts and the systematic specification of what links one part to
another, I mean to show the Talmud of the Land of Israel for what it is: a
document that—like all enduring works of intellect—in a monotonous voice says
the same thing about many things.
That is not how the Talmud of the Land of Israel up to now has been understood
within the processes of philological inquiry and phrase-by-phrase exegesis
conducted in other than academic settings, in yeshivas and Jewish seminaries, for
example. In that setting the Talmud of the Land of Israel serves as a source of
information, opinion, and authoritative fact, but it is rarely perceived as a cogent
and systematic statement overall. Issues of detail overwhelm concern for structure
and order. The received exegetical tradition, essential in its theological and
political setting of faith and useful also in the academic one, yields a mass of detail,
but no coherent account formed of the details. People quote sayings but grasp little
of their broader intellectual context. Setting forth bits and pieces while never
gaining sight of the whole (and in recent times some even claiming there is no
whole, only parts to be detached and reassembled as one likes), the received
exegetical and philological tradition addresses few questions of serious academic
concern. But it forms the basis for this next step in a centuries-old labor of
mediation. On the successes of this past labor, we build. Responding to questions
it did not address, we move forward.
The Character of the Commentary
The stakes now clear, we turn to the character of this commentary. The Talmud of
the Land of Israel, completed ca. 400 . ., is shaped as a commentary to the
C E
Mishnah, a philosophical law code completed ca. 200 . . It follows that
C E
Yerushalmi’s definitive character as a commentary requires description, analysis,
and interpretation. Its further components, beyond Mishnah-commentary, have
also to be identified and defined. The progress lies through a detailed, line-by-line
rereading of the document, with a uniform program of questions always guiding
our progress. Since Mishnah-exegesis defines the Yerushalmi’s purpose, though
not its character, we have to identify, and then frame our discussion around, the
Talmud’s definitive units of discourse, which are those organized around Mishnah-
paragraphs. f3 The commentary on Yerushalmi’s structure then asks how the
Mishnah-paragraph before us has been analyzed, and whether that analysis has
then dictated the introduction of further discussion. The question of structural
cogency is answered by the information produced by a description of the
Yerushalmi as Mishnah-commentary. But the Talmud of the Land of Israel
commonly moves beyond the limits of the Mishnah-paragraph that defines the
starting point of its discussion.
The essential work of an academic commentary—showing how things cohere,
when they do, or pointing out their incoherence, when they do not hold together—
now comes into view. It is accomplished for twenty-eight of the thirty-nine
tractates in the concluding chapter of each. Without that outline and the
explanation of its coherence and anomalies, the commentary is only partial and
occasional; with it, the commentary makes its full and, I believe, quite fresh
statement about the tractate and its re-presentation in Yerushalmi. My task is to
explain where that further discussion that the Talmud of the Land of Israel
introduces has led us and, if we can, also to account for the cogency of the result.
For the critical issue of structure centers upon coherence and cogency: the whole
that is made up of the parts, and that, in this context, exceeds the sum of the parts.
If we can explain how connections are made, then we can also describe those
principles of reasoning that lead us to link this to that thing, but not to the other
thing. And when we can define the principles of making selections and imputing
connections, we also can identify bases for drawing the coherent conclusions from
selecting those connections. That is to say, through the uniformities of selection,
connection, and conclusion, we may define that governing system that the
structure’s cogency both supports and also expresses in formal language. That
simple statement sufficiently explains the purpose of the academic commentary. It
is a re-presentation to the academy of a document that, for many centuries more
than the academy has existed, defined the social order of the community of the
faith to which the writers addressed themselves.
In three summary-statements now in print, I have introduced each document of
Rabbinic literature, including this one, and set forth the history of the formation of
Judaism that all the documents seen as a whole reveal. f4 The historical work,
inclusive of the history of documents and the ideas set forth as systems therein, is
complete, at least for now. A whole new set of problems comes to the fore. Here,
therefore, I carry on a labor not of introduction and historical recapitulation but of
analytical reconstruction. That is accomplished by moving the document into not
only the language but the visual idiom of our times. As I said, much of the contents
of my commentary is conveyed through the way in which I place the text in
paragraph form, the type faces that I use, and other manners of formal
presentation. When working with large aggregates of material, I find graphic
exegesis economical and efficient to make my points.
What are the specific points of interest here? Four important traits of the visual
portrait of the Talmud of the Land of Israel as I present it in the commentary
portions of this multi-volume set form the foundation of this work, because they
define the units of coherent discourse and place them into documentary context.
They call to the reader’s attention the traits of structure that predominate,
consistently, throughout the thirty-nine tractates of the Talmud of the Land of
Israel. When we speak of “structure,” we begin with a clear account of what is
primary to a sustained discussion and what is secondary, and how the whole holds
together. In the twenty-eight tractates with commentary, I indent what is
secondary, and further indent what is tertiary and so forth. What is striking is that
it is possible to indent as the discussion unfolds in its subordinated units and to
work fairly systematically from the left to the right hand margin—a mark of the
fact that the Yerushalmi is an exceedingly well-crafted document. I also indent and
mark off interpolations, as will be readily discerned.
The Graphic Visual Signals of the Commentary
By these visual signals, I make possible the immediate recognition of the traits of
the writing, seen both whole and in its component parts. These four visual signals
form an integral part of my commentary. These concern sources, language, the
specification of original compositions and the identification of the work of the
compositors.
(1) The document comprises the Mishnah and the Gemara of
Yerushalmi
To set off what is the text with which Yerushalmi is working, that is (Mishnah)
from what is commentary (Gemara), I provide the Mishnah in bold typeface. I do
the same with passages that occur in the Tosefta, the Mishnah’s first and most
important commentary, as well as in the three Tannaite compilations, Sifra and the
two Sifrés. The twin-sources of all discussion therefore stand out. f5 The framers of
the Talmud of the Land of Israel accomplished the same goal by framing their
compositions and composites in language that set off their statements from the
Mishnah’s, or by signals that accomplished the same purpose, e.g., “Our rabbis
have taught…” for formulations in Mishnah-language not found in the Mishnah,
and similar ubiquitous signals of the prevailing distinction between text and
commentary. (In Midrash-compilations the same distinction is uniformly drawn
between Scriptural-verse and Midrash-commentary.)
(2) The Talmud of the Land of Israel is composed in two languages (at
least), Hebrew and Aramaic
Passages in Hebrew are in Roman type; passages in Aramaic, in italics. This allows
one to see very quickly how the framers have used language as a means of
signaling where we stand at any given point. f6 In this way the taxonomic power of
language in a multi-lingual document becomes apparent.
(3) The Talmud of the Land of Israel is made up of composites that
are formed out of compositions.
A composition is a complete and coherent statement, containing everything we
need to understand the intent of the author(s). A composite is a construction of
two or more compositions, in which the formation and juxtaposition of completed
thoughts serve to hold together a variety of propositions in a single coherent
statement. To show what I take to be compositions, I have marked each smallest
whole unit of thought (that is, a sentence) with a letter, A, B, C, then signaled with
an Arabic numeral what I hold is a complete set of such smallest whole units of
thought to make a single cogent point. Thus 1.A. signals the opening sentence of a
complete, cogent statement (that is, a paragraph). A sequence of such cogent
statements that itself imposes sense and meaning upon all of the statements (that is,
a propositional construction) then is given a Roman numeral. Thus I.1.A. is the
first sentence of a paragraph, and the paragraph is the first component of a
proposition. f7
(4) The Talmud includes further defining statements.
The Yerushalmi includes compositions and composites that do not play a role in
the exposition of a cogent thought set forth as Mishnah-commentary or
propositional composition, but that do supply important data for the advancement
of the purposes of the framers of a commentary or a composition or a composite.
That is a somewhat abstract way of referring to what in our own day we know as
footnotes and appendices. This systematic indentation to mark what is inserted or
tacked on forms a considerable medium for my message. The most important
novelty of this commentary consists in what I set forth through the graphics of the
presentation. Much therefore is at stake in the systematic indentation that carries
out the shank of the commentary. It should be noted that this extra indentation is
not provided in the translation of the eleven tractates of Yerushalmi that are not
also treated in the Talmud of Babylonia.
In this work a footnote adds information that is relevant to a proposition but that
in the context of an exposition would interrupt the flow of the statement. An
appendix sets forth a sizable block of information that the author deems necessary
to the presentation, but that can find no economical location in the shank of a
book. Since the authors of compositions and the framers of composites did not
possess the technical capacity for subordinating information into footnotes or
appendices, they inserted into the body of their text materials that interrupt the
exposition at hand. To show what I take to be necessary but disruptive formations,
I indent a composition or even a whole composite, so indicating in a clear, visual
way what is primary to a composite (or composition) and what is secondary or
even tertiary. I discovered the systematic intrusion of what we should now call
footnotes and appendices only late in my work of translation, and in the
commentary I systematically introduce into the presentation of the Yerushalmi all
of the necessary indicators. That permits us to see with great perspicacity the
precise components of a given composite and how they are put together. f8 The
outline at the end of each tractate that is provided with commentary sets forth the
results all together in one place, and the conclusions to be drawn concerning
structure and system emerge with great clarity.
Since critical to this commentary is the identification of the structure of discussion
and the specification of what is primary and what is secondary, as explained above,
I have introduced throughout an entirely fresh system of visual presentation,
involving successive indentations and other signals of what is subordinate or
intrusive. These concern my conception of the way in which the document is
composed. The introduction of the system of indentations of secondary and
subordinated compositions utilized by composites marks the present work as
completely new, beginning to end.
Translations into English
Until now the only complete English translation is this writer’s Talmud of the
Land of Israel. A Preliminary Translation and Explanation (35 vols.; Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1984–1995). Tractates in that translation were
contributed by Tzvee Zahavy (Berakhot), Roger Brooks (Peah and Ma‘aser
Sheni), Richard S. Sarason (Demai), Irving Mandelbaum (Kilayim), Alan J. Avery-
Peck (Shebi‘it and Terumot) Martin Jaffee (Ma‘aserot), B. Barry Levi (Megillah),
and Edward Goldman (Rosh Hashanah). I translated Hallah, ‘Orlah, and
Bikkurim and all the tractates of the second, third, and fourth divisions except
Megillah and Rosh Hashanah.
A set of corrections of the preliminary translation may be found in my In the
Margins of the Yerushalmi: Glosses on the English Translation (BJS 55; Chico,
Calif.: Scholars Press, 1984).
The University of Chicago Press gave me permission to reproduce, in my Talmud
of the Land of Israel. An Academic Commentary (28 vols.; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars
Press, 1998–1999, [now Lanham, Md.: University Press of America]), Berakhot
and all of the second, third, and fourth divisions and Niddah in the sixth division of
the Yerushalmi.
This edition reproduces the English translations of the second, third, and fourth
divisions of The Talmud of the Land of Israel. A Preliminary Translation and
Explanation and Berakhot in the first division and Niddah in the sixth division as
these appeared in the tractates of the academic commentary, and it contains my
fresh translations of the first division of the Yerushalmi. To prepare the translation
of Yerushalmi Peah, Demai, Kilayim, Shebi‘it, Terumot, Ma‘aserot, Ma‘aser
Sheni, Hallah, ‘Orlah, and Bikkurim I consulted the tractates of the first division
published in Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation and
Explanation.
Translations of the Hebrew Bible are the authors own unless marked .
RSV
Acknowledgments
I did most of the work on the twenty-eight tractates with commentary at the
University of South Florida. No work of mine can omit reference to the
exceptionally favorable circumstances in which I conducted my research as
Distinguished Research Professor in the Florida State University System at the
University of South Florida. Other parts of the work on the tractates with
commentary were carried out at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York,
which provided an important research grant; and at the University of Göttingen in
Germany, where I was Von Humboldt Research Professor for the summer
semester of 1995. The eleven tractates translated without commentary have been
carried out at Bard College. I thank these centers of higher learning for their
nurture of my work.
Jacob Neusner
Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology, Distinguished Service
Professor of the History and Theology of Judaism, and Bard Center Fellow
Endnotes
ft1 This commentary was part of a larger effort to compare and contrast the common
tractates found in the Yerushalmi and the Bavli. These are found in Jacob Neusner,
The Two Talmuds Compared (3 vols.; SPSFS; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars, 1997).
ft2 I have already conducted a systematic comparison of the two Talmuds in The Bavli’s
Unique Voice: A Systematic Comparison of the Talmud of Babylonia and the
Talmud of the Land of Israel (7 vols.; Scholars Press for South Florida Studies in the
History of Judaism; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars, 1993).
ft3 These are, in general, to be divided into two types, sources and traditions, as I have
defined the basic taxonomy of types of compositions of the Bavli in Jacob Neusner,
Sources and Traditions: Types of Composition in the Talmud of Babylonia
(SFSHJ; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars, 1992). Note also the following: idem., The Bavli’s
One Voice: Types and Forms of Analytical Discourse and their Fixed Order of
Appearance (SFSHJ; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars, 1991); idem., The Bavli’s Massive
Miscellanies: The Problem of Agglutinative Discourse in the Talmud of Babylonia
(SFSHJ; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars, 1992); idem., Mishnah Commentary, its Rhetorical
Paradigms and their Theological Implications in the Talmud of Babylonia Tractate
Moed Qatan (SFSHJ; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars, 1992). I have provided a systematic
and detailed account of the other theories, both earlier and contemporary, of the same
matter in idem., The Modern Study of the Mishnah (Leiden: Brill,1973) and idem.,
The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud: Studies on the Achievements of Late
Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Historical and Literary-Critical Research
(Leiden: Brill, 1970) In addition, my discussion of the literary-historical and
exegetical theories of David W. Halivni, in addition to the treatment of his work in
those two volumes, is presented in my Sources and Tradition. Note also the section
edited by me concerning Halivni’s ideas in comparison to those of Shamma Friedman
in William Scott Green, Law as Literature (Semeia 27; Chico, Calif.: Scholars,
1983).
ft4 Jacob Neusner, Introduction to Rabbinic Literature (ABRL; New York: Doubleday,
1994); idem., Rabbinic Judaism: The Documentary History of the Formative Age.
Bethesda, Md: CDL, 1994); and idem, Rabbinic Judaism: Its Structure and its
System in the Formative Age. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995).
ft5 The relationship of the Tosefta to the Mishnah is systematically set forth in Jacob
Neusner, History of the Mishnaic Law (43 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1974–1985), in great
detail in connection with the Division of Purities, then briefly, through a rapid, short-
hand system, for the other divisions I cover. My students’ presentation of the Division
of Agriculture does so thoroughly and in great detail as well. I have not addressed the
problem of the baraita-formulations, that is, statements of the law in the language and
model of statements now located in the Mishnah or in the Tosefta. These are
identified for us by the sages’ system, which attaches some combination or other of
TNY to those statements, e.g., TN’ or TNY’ or TNW RBBNN and the like. It may
have made sense to put these formulations into bold face type as well, but I am not
certain that they derive from the same circles of formulation and presentation as stand
behind the Mishnah, on the one side, and the Tosefta, on the other, and I have no
theory on where and how these discrete sentences circulated. Since they are already
clearly marked off, and since, like the Tosefta, most of these statements appear to
depend for context and meaning on the Mishnah, they form part of that same “first
Talmud” to the Mishnah that the Tosefta sets forth for us, as I argue in Jacob
Neusner, The Bavli That Might Have Been: The Tosefta’s Theory of Mishnah-
Commentary Compared with that of the Babylonian Talmud (SFSHJ; Atlanta, Ga.:
1990).
ft6 I have explained this matter in Jacob Neusner, Language as Taxonomy: The Rules for
Using Hebrew and Aramaic in the Babylonian Talmud (SFSHJ; Atlanta, Ga.:
Scholars, 1990).
ft7 I first defined these points of analytical distinction among the components of a
composition and composite—the counterpart to sentences, paragraphs, and chapters
—in a thorough and theoretical framework in Jacob Neusner, A History of the