Letter from Lhasa, number 146. (Neusner 2004b): Understanding the Talmud
by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi
Neusner, J., Understanding the Talmud. A Dialogic Approach, Ktav Publishing House, Jersey City, NJ, USA, 2004.
(Neusner 2004b).
Jacob Neusner
We are here in the field of the oral law. The written law is Torah. The oral law was finally written down. The Talmud, actually the Babylonian [Bavli] Talmud alias Bavli, is a commentary to the Mishnah. The Mishnah is a collection of rabbinic traditions written down at the beginning of the III century CE.
The effort of (Neusner 2004b) is to present the Talmud as a coherent and complete treatise of Jewish law. Surely, reflecting on the Talmud is an intellectual exercise to be performed studying the Talmud in Hebrew.
“The Talmud, a.k.a., the Gemara, is a protracted, analytical explanation and expansion of the Mishnah. (...) The Talmud is composed of two elements, therefore: a passage of the Mishnah, followed by a long discussion of that Mishnah-passage. Hence, the Talmud is (1) the Mishnah and (2) the Gemara, the Talmudic commentary to, explanation of, the Mishnah. (...) In general, the Mishnah is written in declarative and flowing Hebrew, the Gemara or Talmud in allusive, abbreviated, and elliptical Aramaic; the law is given in straight-forward sentences, the analysis of the law in the form of brief notes, by which, with experience and great commentaries to the Talmud, we reconstruct the analytical thought-problems set forth by the geniuses of the Talmud proper.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 42)
There is a key element of this dualism, element which is not only stylistic: “For the Mishnah “layer” has been shown to be uniform, while the Talmud “layer” is not demonstrably so.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 43).
“The Mishnah permits us at the outset to gain perspective on the character of the Talmud. For the Mishnah does exhibit a remarkable unity of literary and redactional traits. By the standard the Talmud presents none. The Mishnah’s sentences are patterned and uniform and set forth in groups of three or five. The Mishnah’s sentences use recurrent clichés, fixed expressions to signal the traits of argument at hand, but the Talmud’s sentences and paragraphs follow no disciplined protocol of the kind that governs in the Mishnah.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 44).
From that, it is easily deduced that: “[...] in the end the sages who formulated the Mishnah did the work together in a single, if indeterminate, span of time, not over long centuries and isolated from one another. The Talmud exhibits different traits, which then suggest a different formative history altogether.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 46).
“When we master Talmudic modes of learning, we acquaint our minds with a way of asking questions, a way of analyzing, a way of searching. The Mishnah speaks thoughtfully about the world. Talmud teaches us how to think about the Mishnah and about the world. The Mishnah searches out the reason and the order of the world. Talmud makes explicit the mode of reasonable thinking. The Mishnah is substance, Talmud is method. The Mishnah is what we do and say. The Talmud is how we think about what we do and say.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 59)
“Judaism is called “a legalistic religion,” meaning, it is a religion that teaches norms of behavior and belief. And so it is – and so is every religion that regards the community as critical, the conduct of life together as consequential. Only religions that people invent for themselves, one by one, as modes of entirely private and personal conviction, may describe themselves as no legalistic.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 138)
“The Talmud of Babylonia from the moment of its closure at about 600 C.E. [=A.D.] served as the textbook of Judaism and for Judaism today continues to provide the final and authoritative statement of the Torah revealed by God to Moses at Sinai.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 165)
“The power of the Talmud lies in its translation into concrete and everyday matters of the two most powerful intellectual components of Western civilization from its roots to our own time, science and philosophy, specifically,
“[1] Aristotle’s principles of knowledge and
“[2] Socrates’ (Plato’s) principles of rational inquiry and argument.”
(Neusner 2004b, p. 165)
“A single document, the Talmud of Babylonia, - that is to say, the Mishnah, a philosophical law code that reached closure at ca. 200 C.E., as read by the Gemara, a commentary to thirty-seven of the sixty-three tractates of that code, compiled in Babylonia, reaching closure by ca. 600 C.E., - from ancient times to the present day has served as the medium of instruction for all literate Jews, teaching, by example alone, the craft of clear thinking, compelling argument, correct rhetoric.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 200)
“Take the Mishnah, for instance, which, people generally suppose, gained its privilege by reason of its sponsor (supposedly: author), Judah the Patriarch. The Mishnah, however it originated, is alleged to have enjoyed the sponsorship of the governor of the Jews of the Land of Israel (a.k.a. Palestine) with Roman support. The same document, it appears from the Talmud, likewise was treated as authoritative by the governor of the Jews of the Babylonian satrapy of the Iranian empire, the exilarch.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 219). “The Gemara put forth for holy Israel a source of reasoned community that for all time would make of holy Israel a preserve of contentious argument in a world of inarticulate force. Its dialectics civilized Israel, the holy community and, the theologians would add, Israel then conformed to the model and the image of the God who created all being through reasoned speech. And that is why the Talmud won.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 223).
With this rhetorical claim, the book reaches its end.
Neusner, J., Understanding the Talmud. A Dialogic Approach, Ktav Publishing House, Jersey City, NJ, USA, 2004.
