8—THE BULLETIN—Thursday, January 13, 1977
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The sfudy of the TaSmyd is ©litering upon whst hos b©@n called its '^encyclopQedici-er®."
about the Jerasolem Institute of Tolmudic Hesearclh, o new scholarly enteri>rise which aims at collatin'g
1,500 years of Talmudic commentaries.
THE TALMUD is often referred to as an ocean. The scholar, in the favorite rabbinical metaphor, navigated through vast uncharted, fathomless waters. He plotted a course of logical or textual extensions which lead to far-off, sometimes unexpected destinations. He plumbed the depths of rational argument or religious tradition, seeking the solid rock of law and authority.
The role of scholar.-explorer has beckoned Jewry's best brains throughout the centuries. Much of the attraction of Talmud study has in fact lain in the intellectual freewheeling and expansiveness-which it encourages. For the original source material of the Talmud is^ notoriously disjointed and disorderly, the text often wandering haphazardly away from the ostensible subject of the tractate or chapter-heading. Its mastery demanded prodigious powers of memory from its early students - and this,, indeed, was the deliberate intention of its authors.
THEY DID NOT AIM to provide a cut-and-dried code of the Oral Law. To have done that, they believed, would have been to condemn it to stagnation.
ACCORDING TO TRADITION
(see Maimonedes: Introduction), the Oral Law received by Nfoses and handed down through the generations of Judges, Kings, Prophetis and Heads of the Sanhedrin. It was strictly forbidden, throughout the period of more than a milleniumj to publish any of it in writing, though the leaders of each generation would make their own private notes. After the destruction of the Temple, (70 c.e.) and the subsequent wars and dispersions, the Oral Law, "began to be forgotten" and Rabbi Judah the Prince (2nd century c.e.) wrote the Mishna as a brief, systematic account of it. Some.300 years later, theGemara (Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds) were compiled.
NEITHER the Mishna nor the Gemara were intended as the definitive or exhaustive "last word." The Mishna was written in cursory style, replete with incoherence's and inconsistencies, patently mnemonic rather than encyclopaedic. The Gemara consists of selected discussions. Usually abridged by the author-editors, of the Mishnaic texts by the rabbis of the intervening generations. It is plainly designed to encourage further discussion by its readers, even of questions on which it unequivocally states the law - the 'halacha.'
By the time Maimonedes made his attempt at a "last word" codification, seven hundred years of Talmud study had elapsed, and
had produced an impressive body of Talmudic literature - in the form of commentaries, novellae, and responsa. Maimonedes' Code, the "Mishna Tprah" was absorbed into the body of literature. It was never accepted as the "last word." the final arbiter, the substitute for the sources themselves and their esoteric commentaries, which Maimonedes had intended. The less ambitious "Tur" and "Shulkhan Aruch," written later, became the accepted handbooks of the practical 'halacha,' while Maimonedes' work joined the select list of venerated sourcebooks.
THE GROWING BODYofpost-Talmudic literature had an almost paradoxical effect on the study of Talmud. On the one hand, by authoritatively explaining the Mishna and Gemara texts, the post-Talmudic writers 'limited' the scope of ingenuity and creativity which the individual student might apply to the texts themselves. On the other hand, many post-Talmudic works became accepted, studied and themselves commentated upon , 'expanding the general total of Talmudic knowledge. Their bulk posed new burdens on the student's memory, their insights enlightened his perception, their often terse style and half-veiled allusions taxed his understanding, the differences between them constantly challenged his faculty for casuistry and reconciliation.
One faculty which the student was traditionally to avoid exercising, if at all possible, was the critical faculty. Neither the Talmudic texts themselves nor the works of the 'ga'onim' (6th to 10th centuries) and 'rishonim-(10th to 15th centuiries) were open to direct refutation, under the traditional system of Talniud study. Even the *aharonim' (latter-day writers) had to be treated with respect though a measure of discernment is acceptable.
"IF THE EARLER generations were like angels - then we are like men: if they were like men -then we are like donkeys." This Talmudic aphorism expresses the veneration in which the'amoraim' (the rabbis of the Gemara) held the 'tannaim' (the Mishna scholar). The same rule governs post-Talmudic-literature with its severely chronological system of authority. But as the generations of rabbis waned in greatness, they waxed ever more prolific in literary output. The ranks of the 'aharonim' are legion. They produced thousands of published works, many of them multi-volume efforts; thousands more are still in mauscript, and more
RABBI YOSEF BUXBAUM, (left), foundeir and director of the Jerdsa-lem Institute of Talmudic Research, and Rabbi Eliezer Goldsclimidt, editor-in-chief.
thousands were probably lost through the centuries and in the Holocaust.
It is still too early to assess the calaclysmic effort of the Holocaust on Talmudic scholarship. The epoch of the 'ahar-onim' was not totally extinguished. Monumental works of original scholarship are still being produced - .such as Rabbi Yehezkel Abramski's monumental "Hazon Yehezkel" in Israel and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's "Iggrot Moshe" in the U.S. Numerous lesser works still roll off the presses each year. Yesh-ivot with famous names like Slobodka, Ponevezh and Telz have been transplanted from the ashes of Jewish. Europe and carefully nurtured to new vigor in Israel and the U.S. The studies and the lifestyle seem the same. And yet the unspoken, reluctantly unrecognized, perception is that a new age has dawned, that time and circumstance, now call for a new form of scholarship.
"OURS IS THE encyclopaedia-era," says Rabbi Yosef Buxbaum, founder and director of The Jerusalem Institute of Talmudic Research (Machon Yer-ushalayim). Founded soon after the Six Day War, his Institute has embarked on a mind-bogging enterprise: to collate from published books and manuscripts the entire extant body "of post-Talmudic literature and to present it systematically and succinctly as a comprehensive accompaniment to the Talmudic texts. He has called the enterprise "Otzar Mefarshei Hatalmud" - Treasury of Talmudic Commentators.
The third volume-on Tractate Makkot (which mainly deals with criminal law and the law of evidence) - was published recently. The previous two covered the first part of Bava Metzia (law of property), and two more on Bava Metzia are being drafted at the Institute's head-offices in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter. At the Tel Aviv branch, another team of young..scholars is working on the Tractate Sukka.
HE WILL HAZARD no projected completion date, noting only that it took 20 scholars two years to complete the volume on Makkot (24 pages of Talmud text), that the Institute has 50 full-time staff members working on the "Otzar" enterprise.
It is a life's work and Buxbaum, a man of means whose father was a leading lawyer and Jerusalem deputy mayor, is devoting his life to it. A scholar himself and alumnus of the country's top yeshivot, Buxbaum directs the Institute's academic programs as, well as the fund-raising. Government ministries, the Jerusalem Municipality and Tel Aviv Religious Council, scholarly foundations and some private individuals contribute to the annual budget of close to $250,000.
. Buxbaum has succeeded in recruiting a galaxie of leading lights in the Talmudical-rabbinical field.as patrons or active participants in the Jerusalem Institute. The president is Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner, a venerable sage who recently moved from America to Israel. The board comprises ex-Chief Rabbi Unter-man, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Jerusalem hal-achic expert Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, and Supreme Rabbinical Court member Rabbi Bezalel Zolti.
As editor-in-chief Buxbaum has recentiy enlisted a ranking Talmudist, Rabbi Eliezer Gold-schmidt, also a Supreme Court member, * with Rabbi Yitzhak Kolitz, a top *dayan' irt Tel Aviv, heading the Institute's Tel Aviv section.
(Continued on Page 10) See: JERUSALEM TALMUD INSTITUTE
JERUSALEM—Few things are sadder for a religious Jew to watch than a synagogue that closes its doors after the evening prayers one day and never reopens -with ntost of its congregatnts having died or fled their decaying neighborhood.
It happened three years ago in the Arverne section of the Rockaway in New York - now a dreary slum of caravans and run-down shanties - that hummed for decades with Jewish life and activity.
But the trustees of Knesses Israel, the Orthodox synagogue that closed, decided against building yet another resplendent edifice of stained glass and gold leaf in a better New York suburb. Instead, they sold their old building and gave the proceeds to good causes -with nearly $200,000 going to construct a new synagogue in Jerusalem.
"Hatzvi Yisrael," a synagogue whose Hebrew name comes frofn the first two words of David's lament for the slain Jonathan
and Saul, has been, since 1967, a one-room congregation in the Talbieh quarter's Rehov Hovevei Zion. With its majestic hand-carved, 250-year-old ark from the Italian town of Bussetto (the' birth place of Verdi) and antique wooden pews, it became the honie of several local 'miiQranim' (quorums of praying Jews).
Another group of Jerusalem-ites - among them a large minority of young people^ professionals or English-speaking immigrants - who had no permanent place to pray in the neighborhood, dreamed of biuld-ing two more floors over "Hatzvi Yisrael."
The PEF-Israel Endowment Funds, Inc., a New York-based organization that serves as a conduit for donations to projects in Israel, made the *shidduch' between the Arverne synagogue trustees and the group who wanted to build.
Added to the money they had already collected from other (.Continued on Page 10) See: NEW YORK SHUL
RAV TZVI MILLSTONE, new Rosh Yeshlva at Yeshiva Ohr Hamidbar In Phoenix, Arizona, explaining a difficalt point to some of the Talmidlm. The Institution recentiy opened a Bals Medresh, which Is headed by Rav Millstone.
The "Otzar" has so far averaged 20 of its pages for each page of Talmud. But many tractates are less commented upon than Bava Metzia and Makkot, and Buxbaum estimates the completed "Otzar" on the Babylonian Talmud will comprise som^ 55 volumes. He has already set his sights on the Jerusalem Talmud too.
''HATZVI YISRAEL" synagogue fai Talbieh quarter of Jerasalem.
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