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Hello, welcome to the New Books in Jewish Studies podcast. I'm your host Ari Barblette. I am honored and blessed to be in dialogue today with Dr. Barak Cohen.
He is a senior lecturer of Talmudic Literature at Bari Lan University. We are here today to discuss his book, The Legal Methodology of Late Nahard Day and Sages in Sesamean, Babylonia, published by Real Publishers 2011. Barak, it's an honor to be in dialogue with you today. It's nice to be here.
Thanks for inviting me. Thank you. How can you kindly tell us about yourself? Where did your enthusiasm for the study of Talmud come from?
Where did you grow up? How did your interest in the study of Talmud lead you to this topic? Were there any formative events in your life that led you to this field and to this particular area of research? During the 90s, I learned at Yashiba bin Akkia by K'Pahlo.
And then after finishing my high school, I went straight into K.B.Y. And then I came over to Bari Lan University. My original plan was to study medicine. And I used to volunteer on the intensive care units in McEntavita, Don, in Israel.
And while studying at Bari Lan University for my first degree, I had a very, very interesting and great Talmud Khasham professor of Talmudic Literature. His name was Professor Mirus Singh Haftbiel from the U.S. And when I studied in his classes, which were then compulsory courses, it was so interesting that I couldn't put it this way. I knew that this would be the field that I wanted to do the rest of my life.
And he never left me. He did everything he could in order to have me as a master student for my thesis. And then he was my advisor for my PhD studies and so on. And this is how I got here.
What are the primary themes in this book? What message does this book convey? The book itself is trying to analyze the way the rabbis in ancient inlaid antiquity, how they thought, how they ruled, and how they interpreted earlier sources. That's the main idea of the entire book.
What would you like this nurse to get out of our dialogue today? I want them to try and understand how important it is to understand the way the sages in latentiquity ruled in daily life. Because you know that nowadays, the Talmud is the Babylonian Talmud. Mainly the Babylonian Talmud is considered as a canonical text.
This is the basis for many of the postchyl-hah, many rulers in Middle Ages and even nowadays. Many, many rabbis in their drakshot, public ceremonies and so on, use the Talmud and the Talmudic literature in general to explain many theological opinions, many theological rule, halakic rulings and so on. And they use the Talmud to apply it to daily life. How reliable are the traditions pertaining to the rabbis that you examined in this book?
What debates about their reliability exist? How do you ascertain their reliability as a researcher and a scholar? There are many, many scholars who are very skeptical about the reliability of the traditions in the Babylonian Talmud. What's the meaning of being skeptical?
The meaning of this is the question whether if we have for instance a tradition attributed to one of the sages in the Vilonia or in Eratzislav in Palestine, are they indeed reliable? Could we count on them as reliable sources or stories about the sages? Did they really say what was attributed to them? More and more scholars or studies in recent years indeed show us that one should be indeed skeptical about many of the traditions.
However, one should never generalize and say that the entire Talmud is a late editorial work and the traditions were attributed in a fictional way to earlier sages. In other words, many studies show in recent years that indeed many or I wouldn't say most of them, but many of them are indeed reliable sources and we can count on these sources as reliable and attributed to the name of the sages in Palestine or in Babylonian. How has your own thinking changed and evolved? How has this book been received by different audiences?
Because in modern, you know that in modern research that we believe that the scientific study of the Talmud, when we try to understand the sages and what they said in the world of the sages, one should be interpreted according to its historical context and not according to the late reasoning of each rabbi. One should not interpret the Talmud from a late period to the earlier period. This allows us to understand the basis of many controversies in the Talmud itself. In other words, many scholars now days, specifically from the late five or six years, understood that in order to interpret a specific ruling or interpretation of an amoah, you must go back and try to analyze the reasoning by understanding his legal methodologies.
This allows us to interpret any specific case attributed to that sages based on his own way of thinking and reasoning in many, many Babylonians, Sukiyot and their palels also in the Palestinian Talmud. This is the way I believe we should interpret the Talmud itself. And many scholars such as Professor Robert Brodick from Hebrew University who has published a book on Tractic Kittubot just two, three months ago quotes this book and even argues that the next stage of Talmudic research must be based on the legal analysis of the legal methodology of the Babylonian amoah. For the benefit of our listeners who might not have background in Talmud, can you explain the meanings of the terms Tanayim, Amorayim, Savorayim and Stamayim?
Okay, let's begin with the Tanayim. Tanayim are sages who lived mainly in Palestine between the destruction of the Second Temple period, meaning the year 70 AD to the year 200 or 220 in Palestine. We know of certain very, very few Tanayim or sages who lived during this Tanayim period in Babylonia as well. But I would say it is a very, very difficult topic and we still are not sure how many Tanayim or active during the Tanayim period in Babylonia, that's a very, very difficult topic.
In any case, 8thana is mainly from Palestine and we, and they are sages who lived between 70 and 200 or 220, the days of the reduction of the Mishnah by Rabidah the Prince. Amoray is a sages who lived in Palestine or in Babylonia, but after the death, one generation after the death of Rabidudadah the Prince in Palestine, between let's say 230 AD to the year in Palestine to the year of 400, were a bit earlier, maybe 370, 400 and in Babylonia the Amoray period ends in the year 500, Saboin or Saboin, our sages who lived in Babylonia after the Amoray period, mainly from the year 500 to 590, maybe even 6 hadn't and according to other views in the Gyeonic period, according to testimonies from the Gyeonic, it might be that they lived even to the very, very close to the year 700 in Babylonia. So these are the main terms dealing with the sages themselves, Tanaim and then we have Amoray. Mishnah is the legal text, redacted by Abidudadah the Prince, before he's dead in about 200 and the Baritot, meaning outside traditions, the traditions that were left outside the Mishnah during the reductional process by Abidudadah the Prince, were all collected by his students and that's the reason and they were all collected to the Tosefta.
Tosefta is additional kinetic traditions to the Mishnah in very, very basic terms. So we know what is the Mishnah, the legal text, redacted by Abidudadah the Prince and then we know that the Tosefta is also the meaning which has in it the main traditions, legal traditions outside the Mishnah left by Abidudadah the Prince and Baritah meaning bar and outside tradition left outside by Abidudadah. Can you tell us about the history of scholarship on this topic? Many scholars, such as Salomon Fu from the end of the 19th century in Berlin in his book, The Judin in Babylonia in German and scholars such as Meirotov Yudilovitch and Zev Yavitz and many, many other scholars thought that since Nihalidah was a very, very ancient town, since we know the existence of Jewish communities in the city of Nihalidah, northern part of Babylonia, Iraq, nowadays Iraq, since we know of the existence of Jewish communities in the end of the second temple period, so many scholars thought or believed that Nihalidah has many, many Jewish ancient traditions from earlier times and therefore I took this as a test case, I tried to analyze the main legal traditions attributed to sages in Nihalidah and I went and tried to look for earlier traditions attributed to the sages and to my surprise I was really amazed to find out that many of these traditions have no earlier roots in Babylonia or in Palestine, many of them were created by Babylonian sages during the fourth and beginning of fifth centuries and this shows us how the Halah was developing from Tamayitik, Palestinian Halah to Babylonian Halah, also I should add that many of these traditions, Halahic traditions, were also created in the Sassanian-Ralia meaning that many of these traditions, rulings and legal rulings and interpretations were based on the legal Sassanian system in Babylonia and not on earlier Jewish roots or on Palestinian roots in Palestine, this was already mentioned by Professor Yaakov Elgom is many, many of these studies dealing with the comparative research of Sassanian and Jewish law in the Tanyudic period.
How does contemporary scholarship on legal realism in the field of law factor into your analysis? In what ways do the figures that you examine in this book complement such perspectives? In what ways do the sages that you analyze in this book contradict or challenge or complement legal realism as it is understood in contemporary studies in legal theory? I'll give you an example.
We know of a very, very interesting sage, very bold personality. His name of this, this sage's name was Amema and he lived from the end of the fourth century and he died in the beginning of the fifth century. I would say that analysis of his entire copies of traditions in the Babylonian Talmud, more than 200 traditions, shows us at this stage that this sage legal reasoning, legal interpretations and so on is what we know of legal realism in legal philosophy. And you know that many, many scholars, many rabbis nowadays keep claiming that the halacha never changes.
In other words, the halacha mentioned in the Bible or in the Mishnah, the Hanaytic literature and so on, never changes according to the reality of different realities in different times. And when you analyze Amema's traditions, you see exactly the opposite. You see how many of the laws were rejected by Amema and they were adopted to change in daily life. In many cases, for instance, he either rejected explicitly the halacha in the Mishnah because he claimed that this specific halacha should be applied only in Palestine in the Talahitek period, but in Babylonian reality, it should be changed.
He was very, very bold in his not only his personality, but also in his legal rulings and many, many rabbis, the music interpreters, such as Rabbi Mein Ha'amayiri in his book, Bechtabh Hrilah and so on, were astonished by these rulings because the Mein Ha'amayiri claims that if you do so, if you go according to Amema's rulings, the Mishnah or the earlier halacha has no meaning because according to Amema, according to his interpretations, many of these world rulings are not relevant to daily life in his specific time. And when you compare it to nowadays, orthodox rabbis, you see that orthodox legal rulings by famous rabbis, I'm not sure that they're correct by saying that halacha is never subject to change, but I don't think this is indeed the case. The more you learn about the Talmud, which is the basic for Jewish life. Nowadays, you see how the halacha was very different from what we know of or from what the rabbis nowadays in contemporary society, or orthodox rabbis, how they interpret the Talmud and the halacha.
Where was Ne'har De'al located? Can you describe its social and physical geography? Can you describe the history of its destruction? Ne'har De'al was situated in the northern part of Elakh on the Irafrat River and it was about between 20 to 30 kilometers south of the great city of Pumbadita.
Pumbadita is very close to the city, the great Muslim Shi'ite city nowadays, which is known as Al-Faluja, very, very big city. And Ne'har De'a is identified with a small village known as nowadays as Tal Nihal. This is based on professor Aaron Oppenheimer's book, Jewish Babylonia in the Talmudic period. He does the geography of the entire cities in Babylonia and this is according to his specific identification.
Now Ne'har De'a was a very, as I mentioned before, Ne'har De'a was a very Asian Jewish city and is known already by Josephus, mentioned by Josephus, as the city that the Jews used to donate. They have a shackle to the second, the yearly donation to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. In later periods, we know that Rabiaqiva visited the city of Ne'har De'a in order to inter- inter-curate the year. I am sure that Gabiaqiva did not immigrate to Ne'har De'a for 10 Jewish people who lived there.
It's probably, I guess, that Ne'har De'a was a heavy, very Jewish community and that's one of the reasons why Rabiaqiva visited the city in order to make sure that the intercalation of the year was indeed subject to the authority of the Palestinian sages of that time. And we have more, but that's a very, very long story. We have more traditions about Ne'har De'a during the Tal-Nihidic period. You described the destruction of Ne'har De'a in his historical context.
Yes, Ne'har De'a was distracted in the city in the year 259 AD according to the Onik traditions, which are considered to be very, very reliable based on Professor Yashayel Gaffney from Hebrew University and Professor Robert Brody also from Hebrew University. And we indeed know that from archaeological evidence that indeed a figure named Papa Bar-Natsu, which is also mentioned by Géonique, by Raph Shilhagown, is famous in the 10th century. This collaborates also the archaeological evidence of a figure named Papa Bar-Natsu, on Netsel, who distracted with the Romans the Jewish city of Ne'har De'a. But more than that is very, very difficult to say, because we hardly have any outside evidence about the city of Ne'har De'a or Pumbadita in that period of time.
What can students of other fields in law and legal theory learn from your book? What can students of Islamic law, critical legal studies, or American constitutional law, for example, learn from Tal-Nurik debates? Many of the findings of legal philosophers dealing with legal philosophy nowadays could be traced. Many of their conclusions about legal analogies, legal inference, Hasekim inference, inference could be traced back more than a thousand five years ago.
For instance, legal analogies, many many scholars nowadays try to analyze different kinds of legal analogies in contemporary law. But in one of my studies published by Dimey Sahel, Faculty of Law in Tel Aviv University, I tried to show, argue, that many of the legal analogies in contemporary law, mainly in the United States, has earlier roots, mainly from the Talmud itself, because the Talmud has, if you analyze legal analogies in the Babylonian Talmud, you may find that there are many kinds of legal analogies and inferences in the Babylonian Talmud itself, and many of them are very, very similar to what we find nowadays in legal philosophies. And I think that the more you get to know the Talmud itself, its way of thinking, so the easier it will be for legal scholars to understand how they functioned in nation societies. What does your book teach us about the nature and character of Halakhic decision making, and the system of Halakhic decision making that existed among the back of the Babylonian sages?
I would say I would summarize the entire book in one or two sentences, short sentences. I would say that the law in Sassanian Babylonia depends more on the sages themselves and their own reasoning, more than on earlier traditions. In other words, don't quote me, don't quote Mishnah, don't quote the Barayta or earlier tenitic traditions or even local customs, as the basis for law, because what really matters and what's crucial is the way how the rabbi, the head of the academy or Yeshivani, rule, how he interpreted and applied the law in his own town. This is, I would say, one of the basic conclusions of the entire, and this has to do with the realism we just spoke about, because Jewish society was based more on the way the rabbis thought and rule than on earlier traditions, and this has to do with the legal realism nowadays.
How were the decisions of the authorities examined in this book enforced? Who enforced them? What were the limits of the enforcement of the positions taken by the sages in Babylonia? In Sassanian Babylonia, many of the rabbis saw themselves entitled to interpret earlier traditions in very forced way, and their students could ask them why are they interpreting the Mishnah or the Barayta or the biblical verse in forced way.
But the end of the day, they never changed it. Why? Because the sage himself was considered as the authority, as the most important authority of law, and the way he interpreted the law and applied it to daily life. This is exactly what was important.
So in other words, you never needed someone to enforce the law, because Roshishiva is considered as the most important authority of law, and he created either Nuhalah or interpreted the earlier traditions in the way he saw it should be interpreted. And this is exactly how the law was applied and created in Sassanian Babylons. What does your book teach us about the nature, character, and theory of arguments and argumentation? First of all, many of the arguments are very different from one sage to the other sage.
One sage, one sage's argument would be Palestinian traditions. It was influenced by Palestinian traditions. And in every case, the first question he asked himself is what did Rabihyohran and Tiberia, or what did Rabihyoh show up in the Lord, South and part of Israel, of Palestine? What did he say on this topic?
If he had his own opinion, so he himself, the Babylonian sage, so himself as subject to their authority. Another sage who disagrees with him. In many cases, would base his ruling on his own reason. A third case or sage would base himself on a local custom or on Sassanian law, legal system or legal traditions.
Every Amorah, when you analyze their systematically or their literary contribution to the Talmud, you could see that every Amorah who has his own reasoning, his own basis for law. And in many cases, you could explain the many, many controversies between different colleagues in the Babylonian Talmud. For instance, between Ravnish and Hwein, they have hundreds of disagreements between them in the Babylonian or in the Palestinian Talmud. There are many, many disagreements between Abhayyah and Rava in the Babylonian Talmud.
What is the basis? I believe that when you have so many controversies, systematic controversies between Babylonian and Amorah, it probably comes from a different background, different way of thinking, different methodology and so on. And we have very interesting studies dealing and analyzing these controversies. For instance, Professor David Henshe, in one of his famous articles in Talbis, during the 80s, I believe it was 81 or 82, he tried to show that in tens of examples of controversies between Abhayyah and Rava.
They originate in their attitude towards the Mishnah as a legal authority. Abhayyah did not see the Mishnah as a legal source for daily life in every topic, legal topic. And in many cases, even amended the Mishnah in order to apply. The Mishnah to daily life in Sassanian Babylon in Rama's legal system or legal thinking, the Mishnah is the source for every halah.
And you study or learn new halahhot even from the style and wordings of the Mishnah. He applied the Mishnah or he saw the Mishnah as Rabiyyah, so exactly the Torah. You learn new traditions or halakic traditions from each and every word. You don't have extra wordings in the Mishnah.
Every word has a meaning and you must learn new halahhot from this wording. So you can see that by learning the different styles of the Amo'in, different methodologies, you can explain in a systematic way the basis for many other controversies. Can you describe any by graphical information that is known about the figures you examine in this book? What historical details and agate details exist about the specific sages?
In modern research, one should differentiate between agate material and legal material in the Babylonian tunnel. In other words, agate material might be a very, very problematic. They might be very problematic traditions and unreliable. They were probably aided in the post-tamuic period and therefore, one should be very cautious in applying biography information from agate material to their daily life.
Halahhot and terminology is more historical and therefore when you build a biography of the Babylonian Amo'in, the first thing you need to do is base yourself on legal traditions attributed to the sages and not agate material, which could be very, very problematic. Historically, now in many cases, we don't have too much. First of all, it should be noted that none of the rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud, even in general, have about them outside sources, sources outside the Babylonian tunnel. Extra sources from the Babylonian Talmud.
So our basic or the most important source is the Babylonian Talmud itself. And therefore, we apply and study the sages based on the Babylonian Talmud and the Palestinian. If they have any Palestinian traditions, parallels in the Yom Shand in the Bible. Now the sages I have analyzed in the book are of Diminihar of Svidinihar, of Diminihar of Diminihar, we have like 50 traditions about it, Amnema, 200 traditions, but all other traditions about different sages are very, very, and it's very, very hard to build a biography base on this material.
I can say that based on the legal material attributed to Amnema, the Babylonian Talmud, we get to see that he was a very, very bold figure. And in many cases, he rejected Tana Eitikalah in the Mjnaum in the Baidot, even rejected Hala'a in the Bible itself, or even rejected the Hala'a in his local town itself. And he says that explicitly. And this shows us the connection or the linkage between the sages personality or bold personality and his literary contribution to the Babylonian Talmud.
But I would say this is one of the greatest figures in the end who lived in the end of the Babylonian Talmudic period, the Babylonian Talmudic period. And he was the teacher of Raghavashi, who is known to be one of the reductors of the Babylonian Talmud. What social and political issues were the sages that you examined in this book, coping with in their specific context? How does this background inform their perspectives and their methodology?
From a political point of view, I would say that Amnema was a very authoritative Hala'a speaking, authoritative figure, not only on Raghavashi, but also on the Exilak known as Huna-Bh'natan. Huna-Bh'natan was probably the Exilak of his time. And we know about the different connections or the connections between Huna-Bh'natan and the Sasanian king in that in the fifth century. Based on the stories that Amnema told Amnema and the way Amnema interprets these stories in that time.
But it's very hard to say because the amount of information we have on the political situation in Babylonia of that time is very, very limited. And I would say that, except for that specific information, we don't know too much about these figures. I would say that the more you study on Amnema, those leakerings, you get to know more about Raghavashi's leaker rulings and traditions in the Babylonian Talmud, or as the reductor of the Babylonian Talmud. But that's basically what we know about their political and social information about the Talmud.
I would also say that Amnema was also very sensitive to social aspects, legal aspects, in the Babylonian Talmud. As I mentioned before, Amnema was willing to reject many of the Raghav in the Mishnah or B'ritoth, or even in the B'ibh'n in a lenient way in order to apply it in a better form in Mahosa, in the Sasanian capital for Jewish people, in the Sasanian capital, or in Nairadiah. He was very bold in that respect. But this is what we know from social and political background of that of that time.
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The book that's my book analyzes mainly, Alaric, legal traditions. In my book, I hardly deal with analysis of Agadica material. But the latest scholar who dealt with the linkage between Halakha and Agadha was Professor William Bakher, who died in 1914 in Budapest. He dealt with the linkage and the connection between Halakha and Agadha, legal methodology, and the way the same rabbis applied the Agadha in Sasanian babbilonia.
And he found his first and last scholar to find such a linkage between the way the sages interpret biblical in Halakha and the way the same scholars also interpreted the midrashin or the tannatic, the Agadha and biblical verses in the Agadha in the Agadha material. But as far as I know, no one has dealt with this issue or topic since the beginning of the 19th century. Are there any references to the sages you examined in this book? In the Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud?
If yes, what are the similarities and differences between the Ruchalni and the Babbili? If not, why are certain figures absent from the Ruchalni? Can you compare and contrast references to any of the figures in the Babylonian Talmud that you examined here to what they are depicted as saying in the Jerusalem Talmud? Okay, the Babylonian sages that I deal with in this specific book are not mentioned in the Palestinian Talmud.
Why? Because the Palestinian period, the Amawaiq period in Palestine ends, as I mentioned before, in the year 350, 370 AD, and so on. But these sages, their contribution and chronological period, begin exactly at the end of the 4th century and during the beginning of the 5th century. In other words, the reason they are not mentioned in the Palestinian Talmud is simply attributed to the to that chronological riff.
However, since then, I have dealt with the legal methodologies of other Babylonian Amawaiq, such as Shmuel and so on. And I found that there is a huge correlation between the legal rulings of these specific Amawaiq and their material and the halakh material attributed to them in the Palestinian Talmud. This shows us, this is one of the reasons I believe that these attributions are indeed reliable, historically speaking. Why?
Because if they indeed went through a reductional process or even invented an attribute to these Amawaiq by a very late editor who lived during the 607 centuries in Babylonia, how would you explain this correlation between the traditions attributed, for instance, to Shmuel in the Babylonian Talmud, his system, style and methodology and Shmuel's literature in the Palestinian Talmud. I just want to remind you that Shmuel is mentioned hundreds of times in the Palestinian Talmud. And when you analyze his contribution in the Babylonian Talmud and his contribution in the Palestinian Talmud, you find a very serious correlation between the entire legal system attributed to Shmuel. This is one of the reasons it cannot be, in my opinion, an enveriable sources are invented by a late editor of the Babylonian Talmud.
Why? Because I just want to remind you again that the Palestinian Talmud ends at the end of the 4th century and it cannot be invented by someone who lived in the 6 or 7 centuries in Babylonia. In other words, it's not fictional. Shmuel is indeed his legal system, isn't it basically reliable?
What does your book teach us about the socio-historical evolution of the Talmud? We get to see from recent studies that the Talmud itself was composed from different literary layers and not by one editor who lived during the 6th or 7th centuries. And I'll explain why, because we see that the Talmud itself was, first of all, the different terms and legal methodology in many cases, they developed during the ages a specific term, has a specific meaning in a certain generation, but in later generations that term expanded its meaning. And I see no reason why a late editor who lived during the 6 or 7 centuries would create such a phenomenon in the Babylonian Talmud other than a natural, like in our language, natural development of the language and the Talmudic terms.
But not only that, we know that specific terms are attributed to specific generations in Babylonia. And these terms do not exist in later generations, only in specific generations, but later generations don't use that specific word for that meaning they change the term to a different term or different amoic wordings in the Talmud. And this also provides us with a general picture of how the Talmud was created later after later during the Talmudic period. This is the testimony of Raph Shulilh Gao about the composition of the Babylonian Talmud.
And this is also collaborated by the different studies by Professor Abraham Vise during the 60s, 70s and 80s, and also by Professor Raph Shulil and Professor Richard Kalmin who dealt with the terminology and its development during the ages. In what ways, if any, does your personal identity and life context give you unique insights as you examine the texts and sages that you study in this book? What does it mean to you to study the Talmud as an Israeli in the 21st century? First of all, I would say that learning Talmud in such a way brings you to be very, very critical about Jewish traditions in general.
Why? Because when you get to know the sages, there were ways of rulings. In a different way, you get a different picture from the way the sages in Middle Ages, Harishonim and Hounim interpret the Babylonian Talmud. And you may, you are able, you have a tool in which you are able to analyze and study the Talmud independently from the Persianate interpretive traditions of the rabbis in Middle Ages and in modern times, from the different way of analyzing the tradition.
And this makes you very, very critical. Many Talmudic days, or I would say students who study the Yashifot in Israel and so on, when they come over to our department, many of it influences the way of thinking and studying the Talmud. And unfortunately, a few of them, my students, even became non-religious during the years. Why?
Because when you study the Talmud, in this critical way, this is one of the reasons why you become very critical about Judaism in general. I would say that also, by analyzing the Talmud, you have a new way of interpreting the Talmud. And this itself creates a new scientific way of interpreting the Talmud as a research method. And it's a new way of understanding the Talmud, but not only that, you get to know more about the sages of their historical background, their legal rulings, the different terminology of the Talmud.
And many of my students who are also rabbis in different academies in Israel are enriched by this information. And they keep telling me all the time how they never studied in such a way in the Yashivat. And all of a sudden, they get to understand, in a new way, what is the different meanings of similar terms in the Talmud, the historical background, the study school, the Yashivat, and the different terms of the way the rabbis used to study in the Yashivat. And so on page 167, there is a passage where you quote Israeli High Court Justice Aharan Barak's words in the context of interpreting the jurisprudence of rabbis of Yitzhah, you quote Aharan Barak to the effect that quote unquote, a word in a statute is a creature of its environment.
Its character is a function of its context. What are the interconnections between this perspective of Chief Justice, and rabbis of Yitzhah, world view? Aharan Barak published a very, very important book and in called Interpretation in Law. And he tries to analyze the different interpretations and applications of the law by judges in contemporary legal systems in Israel.
And there he claims that when you interpret a statute or a specific law, you must take into consideration the context in which this statute or law was created. In other words, when you interpret the law or statute, you must explain it based on its historical or legal context. And when you apply this, while analyzing Hausvitz interpretation to earlier Amawai or Tanayik traditions, you find something which is very similar. Hausvitz Minhadea from the city of Nairadiah, he was Amaymar al-Rabbai or teacher.
And he used, when in a time, he heard a first forced interpretation to a Tanayik or Amaw earlier Amawai-Halaqah. He used to criticize and reject this interpretation in cases where this interpretation that cannot be applied based on the meaning, the contextual meaning of that specific law. Therefore, when, for instance, with when Amaymar or some other scour, interpreted the Mishnah, and this interpretation cannot be applied or explained to the Mishnah based on its contextual meaning, he used to reject this meaning. How did he create the contextual meaning?
Because what Gavzvid Minhadea usually does is he quotes the end of that tradition in the baritat, in the paralele Tanayik traditions, in the Tosefta. And he demanded that every interpretation to Amishnah should be also logical in its contextual meaning in the Tosefta. Because as I said, we've mentioned before, the baritat are left outside, where left outside, where the Uda-Hana-C, the prince. And Gavzvid Minhadea used to quote them in order to analyze and be, and used to be very critical interpretations of different sages who did not, who could not be explained also based on the contextual meaning of the text.
What is the relevance of your book in the year 2023? In what ways, if at all? Can it speak to current issues? In what ways can it speak to contemporary Israelis?
First of all, the Talmud, we should know, it should be noted that the Talmud is a canonical text nowadays, and it has an influence on all religious fields in contemporary halaric system in all Orthodox communities. Now, the more you get to understand how the law was created in the Talmud itself, the more you get to understand how the halgeudaism was functioning in Asian societies in comparison to nowadays. And this is one of the implications I mentioned before, about being critical about Jewish traditions, because then you get to know how the law was created in contrary to nowadays. That's the first thing.
The second thing is, when you analyze the rabbi's contribution and each and every sages different contribution, different way of thinking, different world, different methods of interpretation and so on, you have a new way of a scientific understanding of the Talmud. In other words, one should not explain the Talmud based on middle age rabbis in Middle Ages literature. And in order to understand the Talmud in a better way, you must get to know their legal reasoning and legal methodology. And only by getting and only after knowing this, you may come back to this or that specific subia and interpret it in its original meaning.
So in other words, getting to know the Talmud and how the Talmud was created is the basis for Judaism nowadays. And the more you get to know about the Talmud, the more you get to know or being critical about nowadays rulings in contemporary legal system. I think that's the reason why it has its impact on Jewish Orthodox halachan nowadays. The second thing is, as I mentioned before, is the scientific study of the Babylonian Talmud.
There are many, many all kinds of equations and all kinds of problems explaining the rabbis' rulings and interpretations and so on. And by getting to know his specific legal system, this allows you to offer a new explanation for their legal methodology in rulings in the Babylonian. What does your book teach us about the relationship between social customs and halachah in the context of the sages in Babylonian communities under the Sassanian Empire? I could say this that in recent years, not specifically in the book, but in recent years, I have found something very interesting which really puzzled authority, was attributed only to specific sages in Sassanian and Babylonia.
Not every sage was considered as an authoritative source. In other words, Aliyah Rachey Yeshivot, meaning head of academy schools in time or Babylonia, were considered as authoritative source, as binding source in the eyes of later sages. In other words, if a later sage ruled or had a custom, legal custom, in his town, which contradicts earlier sages, one of the sages that I mentioned before, he was immediately refuted by one of his colleagues and asked why did he contradict the earlier sages ruling or statement before he then, if he did not have or explain his own reasoning and why he contradicted the earlier sages, Halachah, opinion was rejected, exactly like in regards to the tatnatic Palestinian al-Acha. Therefore, when he was refuted by one of his colleagues, he always tried to explain why he did so, because the situation here is very different or sometimes he would explain and say that he wasn't aware of the specific conditions before him and so on and so on, but he was never able to reject or contribute explicitly the authority of the earlier Amoraiq source.
In other words, out of 800 Amoraiq in the Babylonian Talmud, we know that only about 20 of were considered as al-Achaicling binding, authoritative sources in Sassanian Bobby. This shows us how along the Al-Mudic period we see how the rulings or the rules for Halachah was functioning and established during the Tal-Mudic period until the beginning of Middle Ages. What suggestions do you have for topics that students who read your book might consider examining after engaging with your study? What are some topics in Talmudic research that your book would encourage a new generation of academic Talmud scholars to pursue?
First of all, this is in this question I believe mainly during my work here at the Department of Talmud at Babylon University with my students, many of them, specifically in recent years, deal with trying to analyze controversies between Aventumuel, between Raphuna and Raphusta, Raphrisa, main rate authorities, contemporary authorities in Sassanian-Babylonian. And by doing so, they are able once, Bapam al-Achaanab al-Nakhal, first time in modern scholarship, we are able to explain and explain in a systematic way how every sage thought in a different way, and applied a different kind of methodology and why he usually disagreed so many times in the Babylonian parlors in the Palestinian. This is one field which I think is very important and there's so much work to do in the field. The second field, I would say, is Talmudic terminology.
Terminology is not just a specific letter in the term, but there's a whole way of thinking and methodology hiding behind this specific term and therefore by explaining similar terms and trying to explain why the editor of the, in this case, used a specific term and why something which seems to be very similar, similar refutation questions, question answer and so on. Why is it mentioned in a different term in the Babylonian Talmud? This also is a very important study of the Babylonian Talmud because we don't have nowadays a Milan dictionary of the terms in Babylonian, a dictionary of the Amoai terms but a dictionary of the way of thinking hidden behind these specific terms and their developments developed during the Talmudic period. This explains to us it helps us in learning the Talmud itself.
As we bear dialogue today to a close, can you tell us about the relationship between this book and your later and research scholarship? In recent years, though that I continued the research on the legal methodology and more of more more in two studies have different implications on other fields of Kallakhap. For instance, I was able to trace and analyze the question of legal pluralism in the Babylonian Talmud. In other words, by analyzing study methods and Talmudic terminology, I was able to see and I never clented.
This is one of the implications of this study is that I found that the Talmud was such a pluralistic, so pluralistic as people or Scottish scholars claim the Babylonian Talmud. For instance, as I mentioned, we have about 20 sages in Sassanian Babylonia that they were authoritative sources and one could not reject or negate later sages always saw themselves subject to their own authority and if they contradicted these traditions, they were immediately refuted by their contemplations. Therefore, I'm not so sure that the Talmud was indeed so pluralistic and tolerant towards diversity in the Babylonian Talmud. It was, but not in the way they are depicted in recent study, also say that these conclusions also showed more and more the dating of the Stammateic period, meaning the anonymous voice, anonymous literary data of the Babylonian Talmud, was seems to be poetic and not at the same time, why?
Because you see more and more that a specific term might have a different and sometimes opposite meaning in the abode and in the Stammateic period. In other words, it seems more likely that the specific term had a developed majority of the ages and until it had a new meaning or developed to an opposing meaning in the late Stratum of the Buddha. I don't believe that we use the term in an opposite way of understanding lived at the same time where the Amoane used to interpret in an opposing meaning. The loi Hollywood, it can't be that two figures lived exactly at the same time period.
This will hopefully will be in three separate studies, one in Sidra, the journal for the study of Richard, by our department, the department of Talmud, was published by the Journal of Jewish Studies, by Oxford University, 19, and a third study will be in next year by the studies quarterly by Stanford University. I believe that I prepare hundreds of subiote where you can find the different genes and different meanings of the term, sometimes opposing terms in these studies. So whoever wants to broaden and try to explain and try to understand the implications of such studies of legal methods of the Babylonian and white telechatology are obviously invited to read three of my recent studies. As we end our dialogue today, I am signing off by reminding you that I'm Ari Barblette, your host today on the New Books and Jewish Studies podcast.
I've been in dialogue with Dr. Baraka Cohen. He is a senior lecturer of Talmudic Literature at Bari Land University. We have been discussing his book, The Legal Methodology of Late Nahardian, Sages in Sassanian, Babylonia, published in Needleed in Netherlands by Brill Publishers 2011.
Thank you. Thank you very much and thanks for having us. It's my pleasure and my honor. Thank you.