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Aug. 24th, 2012 09:53 amOne of the things I've been really struggling with on this Daf Yomi project is how much time to spend on attribution.
Atrribution is super-important to the Talmud. The vast, vast majority of the time, when a ruling is given, it's given in someone's name. "Rabbi Akiva taught ..." or "Rabbi Yehuda taught..." or "Rabba used to say..." or often the more circuitous "Rabbi Yochanan taught in the name of Rabbi Yehuda."
There are a lot of reasons for this. One is that attribution can tell a story. Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai ran competing schools during the Tannaic period and often disagreed. We almost always rule according to Rabbi Hillel, but seeing attribution to Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai is a signal that this is a debate that actually happened, as opposed to the other kind of attributive conflict, when a Rabbi of a later generation disagrees with a Rabbi of an earlier generation. We interpret those differently- in general, Rabbis of a later generation can't overrule Rabbis of an earlier generation, unless they can prove that they're not actually overruling the previous generation's ruling, but rather drawing a different distinction.
Another is that this was an oral tradition before it was a written tradition, and attribution assures us that the tradition was kept alive, that these interpretations of laws were not just made up out of nowhere. Just as citing sources in an academic paper or work of journalism is a safeguard on the quality and integrity of the research, attribution in the Talmud is a safeguard on the integrity of the tradition. And the Talmud is just as honest when there are holes in that integrity. If the Talmud isn't sure who said something, it'll list both conflicting attributions, or say "this is hearsay, but..." And often the Rabbis of the Talmud will present laws as "A Rabbi visited Israel and saw that they were doing the law in this way and reported back." From exile in Babylonia, this kind of intelligence was central.
A third reason is to teach us about these Rabbis. The Talmud isn't just a book of laws. It's also a history book, a record of the history of these people in this time, how they lived their lives and what they aspired to. Whenever they get a chance, the Talmud gives us the favorite maxims of these Rabbis, stories of their wives, stories of their children. When I learned a few years ago that Rabban Gamliel the Elder is claimed as a Catholic saint, it hurt deep in my heart because I know him so well and most Catholics don't know who he is. I request Talmud RPF for PurimGifts because the Talmud is full of amazing character drama, like the relationship between Rabbi Meir and his wife Beruriah that inspired![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
daegaer last year.
There are lots of other things that attribution does. But as I said, I struggle with how much time to spend on it. Daf Yomi is difficult because these texts are so dense and so well-studied that to completely cover a page of Talmud takes a lot of time. This is opposed to the goal of getting a page done every day. If I spend time on attribution, on picking apart why each Rabbi said what they did, what their historical context was, what the redactors of the Talmud were saying with their juxtapositions, I will gain a lot of insight, but that will mean time not spent gathering the insight from the main legal arguments in the text, and those also demand a lot of time and attention to grasp.
It's a balance to reach. It takes seven and a half years to finish shas at the breakneck pace of a daf a day. That's thousands of pages. And the reason it's as short as it is is because the Rabbis took every shortcut imaginable in cramming as much density of ideas into the book. The Talmud is full of cryptic abbreviations, coded allusions, polysemy and hidden stories. Its attributions are one of the keys to those puzzles, but on the other hand at one level the Talmud is functionally a book of laws and getting too deep into those puzzles can be just a distraction.
I'm 22 pages in and at this point I have a couple of general thoughts. One is that part of me is dumbfounded that I've sustained it this far. I've occasionally had to do two pages in a day to catch up for a missed day, but mostly I've been disciplined. The other is that seven years is a really long time. But the third thought is that I'm really glad that I'm doing this, and I'm really glad that I've been writing these blog posts because I feel like they're helping me think things out, and I hope that other people are learning from or enjoying these posts as well.
Atrribution is super-important to the Talmud. The vast, vast majority of the time, when a ruling is given, it's given in someone's name. "Rabbi Akiva taught ..." or "Rabbi Yehuda taught..." or "Rabba used to say..." or often the more circuitous "Rabbi Yochanan taught in the name of Rabbi Yehuda."
There are a lot of reasons for this. One is that attribution can tell a story. Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai ran competing schools during the Tannaic period and often disagreed. We almost always rule according to Rabbi Hillel, but seeing attribution to Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai is a signal that this is a debate that actually happened, as opposed to the other kind of attributive conflict, when a Rabbi of a later generation disagrees with a Rabbi of an earlier generation. We interpret those differently- in general, Rabbis of a later generation can't overrule Rabbis of an earlier generation, unless they can prove that they're not actually overruling the previous generation's ruling, but rather drawing a different distinction.
Another is that this was an oral tradition before it was a written tradition, and attribution assures us that the tradition was kept alive, that these interpretations of laws were not just made up out of nowhere. Just as citing sources in an academic paper or work of journalism is a safeguard on the quality and integrity of the research, attribution in the Talmud is a safeguard on the integrity of the tradition. And the Talmud is just as honest when there are holes in that integrity. If the Talmud isn't sure who said something, it'll list both conflicting attributions, or say "this is hearsay, but..." And often the Rabbis of the Talmud will present laws as "A Rabbi visited Israel and saw that they were doing the law in this way and reported back." From exile in Babylonia, this kind of intelligence was central.
A third reason is to teach us about these Rabbis. The Talmud isn't just a book of laws. It's also a history book, a record of the history of these people in this time, how they lived their lives and what they aspired to. Whenever they get a chance, the Talmud gives us the favorite maxims of these Rabbis, stories of their wives, stories of their children. When I learned a few years ago that Rabban Gamliel the Elder is claimed as a Catholic saint, it hurt deep in my heart because I know him so well and most Catholics don't know who he is. I request Talmud RPF for PurimGifts because the Talmud is full of amazing character drama, like the relationship between Rabbi Meir and his wife Beruriah that inspired
daegaer last year.There are lots of other things that attribution does. But as I said, I struggle with how much time to spend on it. Daf Yomi is difficult because these texts are so dense and so well-studied that to completely cover a page of Talmud takes a lot of time. This is opposed to the goal of getting a page done every day. If I spend time on attribution, on picking apart why each Rabbi said what they did, what their historical context was, what the redactors of the Talmud were saying with their juxtapositions, I will gain a lot of insight, but that will mean time not spent gathering the insight from the main legal arguments in the text, and those also demand a lot of time and attention to grasp.
It's a balance to reach. It takes seven and a half years to finish shas at the breakneck pace of a daf a day. That's thousands of pages. And the reason it's as short as it is is because the Rabbis took every shortcut imaginable in cramming as much density of ideas into the book. The Talmud is full of cryptic abbreviations, coded allusions, polysemy and hidden stories. Its attributions are one of the keys to those puzzles, but on the other hand at one level the Talmud is functionally a book of laws and getting too deep into those puzzles can be just a distraction.
I'm 22 pages in and at this point I have a couple of general thoughts. One is that part of me is dumbfounded that I've sustained it this far. I've occasionally had to do two pages in a day to catch up for a missed day, but mostly I've been disciplined. The other is that seven years is a really long time. But the third thought is that I'm really glad that I'm doing this, and I'm really glad that I've been writing these blog posts because I feel like they're helping me think things out, and I hope that other people are learning from or enjoying these posts as well.