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| Rabbi Professor Yaakov Elman (1943-2018) who specialised in Talmudo-Iranica. |
Babylonian Influences on the Talmud Bavli. Part V.
INTRODUCTION:
Rabbi Professor Yaakov Elman (1943-2018) of Yeshiva University was a pioneer in the research
of Babylonian (i.e., Iranian/Sasanian/Persian/Zoroastrian)[1] influence on, and context to
the Babylonian Talmud.
In this article
(part 5 in the series) we will continue to look at some of this Babylonian context
and culture which is critical for an understanding of the milieu in which the
Babylonian Talmud was developed. I have drawn from the research of Rabbi Yaakov
Elman’s student, Professor Shai Secunda, a graduate of Yeshiva Ner Yisrael in
Baltimore and now a highly respected academic.[2]
THE CONTEXT
BEHIND THE TEXT:
Secunda writes about his teacher Rabbi Elman:
“[S]ince the turn of the
century Yaakov Elman has been instrumental in establishing an important
subfield of Jewish studies that has come to be known as Talmudo-Iranica. Elman
has produced cutting-edge research that hones in on the Talmud’s Iranian
context, and he has encouraged Talmudists to study Iranian languages (mainly
Middle Persian) and forge contacts with Iranists so that they might read the
Babylonian Talmud contextually...”
This understanding of general Babylonian culture and
language is important because:
“...when it comes to research
on rabbinic law and its interaction with Zoroastrian ritual...laws are studied
against specific Zoroastrian parallels in order to account for their
development.”
HOW THE ZOROASTRIANS READ THEIR TEXTS:
Bear in mind that Zoroastrianism, the religion of the
Babylonians, is considered to be a very ancient form of monotheism with many
beliefs compatible with Judaism. Babylonian Jews were more comfortable with the
neighbouring religion of Zoroastrianism than with Paganism, Christianity and later
Islam.
In Sasanian Iran, however, scriptures were not the Bible or Tanach
but instead the Avesta.
Around the year 200 CE, with the emergence of the Babylonian
Talmud, Zoroastrian hermeneutics or scriptural interpretation had already been
ongoing for some centuries by elite Babylonian scholars.
Many would not expect to find detailed parallels and similar
styles in Avestan hermeneutic (i.e., interpretive[3])
literature and learning methodologies to that of the Babylonian Talmud. Yet, as
we shall see, many ideas and even institutionalized methodologies of study and
belief often overlapped rather overtly.
We know that Halachic
concepts were first part of an oral tradition before they became crystallized
in written form during (or after – see When was the
Talmud Written Down? ) Talmudic
times.
Secunda explains that
the Avesta also started out as an oral tradition:
“The Avesta was transmitted orally from the moment of its inception in
two basic modes: the first, prior to crystallization, consisted of a series of
‘recomposed performances’ by avestan poets, and the second, following
crystallization, employed a rigid technology of memorization and transmission.”
These two Avestan
transmission processes took place through the medium of two different
languages, Old Avestan and Young Avestan.
In Judaism the oral
transmission took place through the use of Hebrew (up to and including Mishnaic
times, 0-200 CE) and then transitioned to Aramaic, the language spoken in
Babylonia (during Gemara or Talmudic times, 200-500 CE). Often, in the
Talmud, a phrase from the older Hebrew Mishnaic version is used as a
starting point for lengthy Halachic discussion and inquiry.
In Avestan hermeneutics
we see a similar process where an Old Avestan text is used as a basis for
interpretation, re-interpretation and elucidation in Young Avestan texts.
THE VIDEVDAD:
The Avesta had
sections dealing with ritual purity called the Videvdad. This is paralleled in the Talmud with
sections also dealing with purity.
R. Elman reminds us of the Babylonian Talmud’s teaching that
according to R. Zeira, the:
“daughters of Israel had undertaken
to be so strict with themselves as to wait for seven [clean] days...[although
biblically they are required only to separate for seven days from the onset of
menstruation].”[4]
Also:
“It is clear
from Niddah (fol. 66a) that this stringency was a popular practice
and not a rabbinic prohibition, probably in response to a ‘holier than thou’
attitude perceived by the populace as emanating from their Persian neighbors.
It seems that Babylonian Jewish women had internalized their Zoroastrian
neighbors’ critique of Rabbinic Judaism’s relatively ‘easy-going’ ways in this
regard...” [5]
According to this, stringencies in the Jewish laws of
menstrual impurity resulted in longer periods of abstinence, and it was all
based on not wishing to appear as being ‘less holy’ than their Babylonian
counterparts:
“This
indicates just how much the values of the surrounding culture had been
internalised into the Jewish value system.”[6]
TEXTUAL EXPANSIONS:
Additionally, Young
Avestan texts also introduced a form of interpretative textual expansion
similar to what was known to Judaism as Midrash. In this style of
hermeneutics, the basic text was often elaborated and expounded upon beyond
recognition.
THE HERBEDESTAN:
A Young Avestan work
known as the Herbedestan deals with religious learning and discusses
matters such as what type of teacher one should pursue, how far one should
travel to find such a teacher, and what type of student a teacher may accept.
This work emphasises
the importance of memorizing the liturgical texts and teaches that it is a sin
to not study when one is able to; and so is forgetting the literature which one
has studied. These ideas and values are paralleled in Talmudic literature as
well.
THE TANNA AND THE MAGUS[7]
TEACH BUT DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:
There is a fascinating Talmudic
text which compares the Tanna (a term which in this case refers to Amoraic reciters of Mishaniac material) to Zoroastrian magi (priests and
scholars):
“[Just as Magi] murmur their teachings yet do not understand them – so too
the Tanna teaches (the Mishna) but does not know what he is saying.”[8]
This implies that that
in both literatures some teachers were so concerned with the transmission of the
texts that they simply repeated them without necessarily understanding them.
SERVING THE SAGES:
The students of the
Zoroastrian scholars would follow their teachers around continually and serve
and observe them.
There is a parallel
Talmudic text which states:
“Who is a conniving wicked person (rasha arum)?... Ulla says: Someone
who read (the Torah) and learned (the Mishna) but did not serve Torah scholars.“[9]
COMMENTARY
STRUCTURE:
The Avesta came with
the Zand which was a commentary and explanation of the primary Avestan
text. The Zand served three purposes: a) to act as a translation of the
Old Avesta into the Young Avesta (or Middle Persian) language, b) to serve as a commentary, and c) to
include legal derivations from the text.
The Zand would
identify difficulties in the Avesta and then as Secunda says:
“...cite debates between authorities about related matters in collections
of teachings”
This is again very
similar in style to the debates in the Babylonian Talmud. Hence, the Zand - also
composed during Sasanian times - corresponds to the methodology of Talmudic literature
of the same time period.
MOVING THEIR HEADS
RYTHMICALLY:
A Zoroastrian text
speaks about students who would move their heads rhythmically back and forth
while studying these texts and commentaries. This practice, as we know, is also
well-entrenched within Judaism.
MAGI AND RABBIS
DEBATING WITH HERETICS:
Sasanian Iran had some
intense battles over the correct interpretation of the Avesta. This threatened
the existing power structures and divided the Babylonian public into orthodox
believers and heretics. Certain factions were creating new interpretations
(i.e., new Zands) of the Avesta.
In some cases these new
commentaries or Zands were so controversial that the magi[10]
or Zoroastrian priests were requested to keep the Zands away from the public.
WHO OWNS THE PSHAT?
The interpretive
battles often rose over the ‘exact’, ‘simple’ or ‘plain’ meaning of the primary
source. The various sides of believers and heretics each claimed to know with
definity the true meaning and intent of the original source. Opposing camps emerged with the ‘orthodox’
Zoroastrians on the one side and ‘renegade exegetes’ on the other.
Amazingly, the
Babylonian Talmud records a similar struggle and there is some considerable
literature involving rabbinic sages debating with Jewish heretics or minim
over Biblical interpretation and its correct pshat or exact meaning.
OMNISIGNIFICANCE:
Secunda draws our
attention to the fascinating idea that it was primarily Zoroastrian magi and
Jewish rabbis who believed in the ‘omnisignificance’[11]
of their primary texts.
Omnisignificance means
that everything is contained and alluded to within the wording of the primary
text, whether the Torah or, in the case of Zoroastrians, the Avesta. This
allows for multiple authoritative interpretations of the original wording
because the entire universe is said to be contained within them. The text is not
just words but becomes infinitely dense with meaning and significance. Words
are no longer a part of writing style and certainly aren’t used by chance.
This omnisignificance allows
for legal interpretative positions to be taken based on deductions from the
minutia of words and letters.
Secunda writes:
“Other interpretative communities [besides those of the rabbis and
Zoroastrians] employed various hermeneutical tools when interpreting texts that
they perceived as sacred and thus semiotically [defined as the interpretation
of words] [12]
dense. Yet most of these did not go the way of halakhic midrash and the Zand.”
Thus the rabbis and magi
were unique in their use of the principle of omnisignificance when it came to their
primary sacred texts.
THE REACH OF
OMNISIGNIFICANCE:
Rabbi Yaakov Elman (the
pioneer of Babylonian studies with the intent to understand the context of the
Babylonian Talmud) wrote that the term ‘omnisignificance’ is essentially only a
marker for an exegetical programme that remained a goal but was never actually
realized.
If I understand Elman
correctly, he is saying that the notion of omnisignificance remains essentially
an idea that lends great importance to the meaning of words in primary texts,
but is impossible to actually implement practically. Consider, for example, sections of primary Torah
text where entire paragraphs describing journeys or events are often repeated
at great length – yet the commentaries are silent on the omnisignificance of
these repeated sections.
They may explain why, in principle, it was necessary
for the text to repeat itself - but remain silent on the exact details of every
nuance of every detail of every repetition. In other words, one word, sentence
or paragraph can be exploited interpretatively but it is difficult to do so the
second time to a similar extent in the verbatim replication. This can be seen
by just paging through a Chumash.
Wherever there is a repetition, sometimes even pages long, the
commentary section is very much reduced.
THE CAVEAT:
This
general notion of omnisignificance, however, brings with it an important historical
caveat or proviso.
Secunda
explains that based on a study of earlier rabbinic sources:
“[O]mnisignificant legal exegesis is very much present
in Palestinian [not Babylonian!][13]
rabbinic texts prior to the intense encounter between Jews and Zorosatrians
that took place in Mesopotamia.”
In other words, this
concept of omnisignificance already existed amongst the earlier rabbis of Eretz
Yisrael before they went into exile in Babylonia. Thus one cannot say that
magi or the Babylonian interpretative culture influenced rabbinic culture when
it came to ascribing omnisignificance to Jewish sacred texts.
This is a fascinating
point because it shows that the reality on the ground in Babylonia during
Talmudic times was one of give and take. Both Jewish and Zoroastrian intellectual
communities had an influence on each other and at times borrowed certain
cultural authorities from each other.
Although it is possible that both cultures simply and naturally subscribed
to the atypical idea of omnisignificance (and that it is nothing more than
coincidence) it seems more likely that this is an example of rabbinic influence
on Zoroastrianism.
This is especially so
because the belief in the omnisignificant value of the Avesta only came to
Babylonian society during the late Sasanian period, which corresponds directly
to the Talmudic period. The rabbis, however, were discussing omnisignificance
centuries earlier.
Interestingly, Yaakov
Elman points out that Rava (or Abba ben Yosef bar Chama, 280-352 CE) a key
figure at the confluence of Babylonian and rabbinic cultures, was particularly
concerned about ‘managing’[14]
this growing trend of placing too much weight on the principle of
omnisignificance.
Secunda concludes:
“What this means in the current discussion is that the fact that
omnisignificant modes of reading were an important aspect of Sasanian reading
strategies is significant for appreciating their resonance in the Bavli.”
In other words, Secunda
(if I understand him correctly) is saying that yes, the Palestinian rabbis were
the first to discuss omnisignificance and may have influenced the Babylonians
in this regard. But once it became a popular Babylonian concept it became even
more popular within Judaism, to the extent that Rava had to ‘manage’ the
overuse of this concept.
Either way, the mutual influence
and re-influence of hermeneutical enterprises between Babylonian magi and
Talmudic rabbis remains a fascinating avenue for further exploration.
After all, the Bavli
is called the Babylonian Talmud.
ANALYSIS:
The academic and even
religious culture of Babylonia played no small part in the shaping and
development of the Babylonian Talmud. The two literary cultures were strongly
intermeshed to the extent that sometimes we are not sure just who was
influencing who. It is possible that rabbis contributed and introduced the
notion of omnisignificance to the Sasanian worldview. And, in turn, the vibrant
hierarchies of demonology and angelology were certainly a strong Babylonian
influence on the Bavli.
The Talmud Bavli has indeed
become the very symbol of religious Judaism.
We have even developed a proudly yet known to be incorrect style of
reading Talmudic Aramaic, which is called ‘yeshivishe shprach’ or yeshiva
language.
Yet there have always
been those like Rambam who considered studying the Babylonian Talmud - which
has become a staple of the Torah world - to be unnecessary in the aftermath of his
Mishna Torah (the Halachic summary of the Bavli which excludes
much of the cultural Babylonian content).
Other rabbis emphasised
the study of the Yerushalmi, or Jerusalem Talmud over the Bavli,
and this has gained traction within some factions in modern Israel today.
Some rabbis like Rav
Kook even developed quite outspoken opposition positions to the central role
the Babylonian Talmud played within Judaism. Some of these views can be seen in
Rav Kook on: What if I Don’t Like Studying Gemara?
But - at the end of the
day - the mainstream view is very much centred around and defined almost
exclusively by the Babylonian Talmud.
FURTHER READING:
[1]
Iran (Babylonia) was under Sasanian rule around the time of the development of
the Babylonian Talmud. The Sasanian Empire was the last Persian dynasty to rule
before the arrival of Islam. The main religion was Zoroastrianism. Hence, the
terms Babylonian /Iranian/ Persian/ Sasanian/Mesopotamian and Zoroastrian will
be used interchangeably in this article.
[2]
Shai Secunda, Rabbinic and Zoroastrian Hermeneutics; Background and Prospects.
[3]
Hermeneutics is defined as the interpretive literature and commentary based on a
primary scriptural text.
[4] Berachot 31a, Megilla 28b and
Nidda 66a.
[5] See: Young Rabbis and all about Olives
by Professor Marc B. Shapiro of The Seforim Blog, where he quotes R. Elman as
sourced from Encyclopedia Iranica (RABBINIC LITERATURE and MIDDLE PERSIAN TEXTS).
[7] Magus
(Zoroastrian priest) is singular for magi.
[8]
Sotah 22a.
[9]
Sotah 21b and 22a.
[10] Magi
(Zoroastrian priests) is the plural form of magus (one priest).
[11] A
term coined by James Kugel.
[12]
Parentheses mine.
[13]
Parenthesis mine.
[14]
Rava debated Abaye on many Halachic issues and the law follows Rava over Abaye
in all but six cases. One of the reasons why Rava’s opinion is usually adhered
to is because he was more practical that Abaye, his more theoretical opponent.
