The Talmud is one of the richest and most complicated works of literature the world has ever known. Since being composed around 1500 years ago it has inspired not only religious reverence but significant intellectual engagement. In this course learners will be introduced to the unique characteristics of this text and the challenges that inhere in studying it while studying a chapter of the Talmud. Students of the course can expect to develop an appreciation for how the Talmud works and why it continues to inspire religious and intellectual devotion. They will be challenged to employ critical reading skills and to analyze legal and historical concepts.
Video 21 Legal Narrative
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From the course by Northwestern University
The Talmud: A Methodological Introduction
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Narrative and History
The Talmud contains many stories that feature historical figures from the rabbinic period. In this module we will demonstrate the difficulty of reading these stories as history and model the use of literary tools for reading such materials.
Meet the Instructors
Barry Scott WimpfheimerAssociate Professor
Religious Studies
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For almost as long as the Talmud has been read, readers have considered the Talmud
to contain two different types of text, legal text and non-legal text.
The legal text are called Halakhah and the non-legal texts are called Aggadah.
Because so many of the non-legal texts in the Talmud are stories about the rabbis,
over time, the term Aggadah developed a secondary definition, a story.
The division between Halakhah and
Aggadah came to signify a division between Talmudic law and Talmudic stories.
In 2011, I published a book narrating the law
that takes aim at the distinction between Halakhah and Aggadah.
I believe that the distinction between Halakhah and Aggadah is not so much
a distinction between essential features of certain Talmudic texts but is more
significantly an important distinction in the way in which we read a text.
Legal texts are read as precepts that establish normative precedent.
Stories are read as biography, history, folklore or inspiration but
not as establishing normative precedent.
Against these typical modes of reading,
I have suggested that it can be fruitful to incorporate stories, particularly those
with explicit legal content into analytical Talmudic legal discussions.
In order to do so though, one has to change the way one thinks about law.
Instead of imagining law as a set of rules on the books, one needs to consider law
as a flexible language spoken with some degree of diversity by those fluent in it.
The Talmudic discussion of Edim Zomemim contains a fascinating legal story
that needs literary attention.
The legal story in our text is really two stories in one.
The story of the legal case, and a story of the scholarly discussion of the case.
Scene one opens with a conversation between two
early Palestinian Resh Laqish and Rabbi Elazar.
They are discussing a case in which a women in a civil suit
provides a series of supporting witnesses for her side.
There was a certain woman who brought witnesses but they were found to be lying.
She brought more witnesses but they were found to be lying.
She went and brought a last set of witnesses who were not found to be lying.
Resh Laqish suggests to Rabbi Elazar that this last set of witnesses should not be
accepted.
Resh Laquish said, she is now legally established as a liar.
In other words, the first two sets of lying witnesses establish a legal pattern
strong enough to create the presumption that she is a woman who brings
lying witnesses.
Thus, any new witnesses would automatically be disqualified as false.
Rabbi Elazar disagrees,
saying, if she is established as a liar, who established all of Israel as liars?
Scene two opens with an actual version of this case materializing before
three rabbis.
Resh Laqish, Rabbi Elazar and their teacher Rabbi Yohanan,
the leading rabbi of the Palestinian Talmud.
Resh Laqush, again, suggests that the women's lack of credibility should create
a pattern and establish all subsequent witnesses as liars.
This time, Rabbi Yohanan responds saying,
if she is established as a liar, who established all of Israel as liars?
Hearing their teacher use the same language as Rabbi Elazar had used
privately to him, Resh Laqish infers that Rabbi Elazar had heard this position from
their teacher and neglected earlier to cite the manner in Rabbi Yohanan's name.
Turning on his colleague, Resh Laqish gives him the evil eye and says you heard
this from the iron smith's son, a nickname for Rabbi Yohanan, and did not cite him?
When stories such as this one appear in Talmudic legal context and
have significant legal content,
they are not ignored by legal interpreters either in the Talmud or after.
What these readers generally do is flatten the story into its propositional content.
In this case, one would imagine the story as a typical legal debate.
Resh Laqish believes you establish a pattern after one brings two sets of false
witnesses, and
Rabbi Yohanan and Rabbi Elazar believe that you cannot establish such a pattern.
This kind of flattened reading is actually presumed in the continuation of
the Talmud's text,
when the Talmud tries to map this argument onto the argument of the Mishna.
The Stam attempts to connect Resh Laquish's idea of a pattern
with Rabbi Juda's notion of a conspiracy.
The Stam suggests that a majority of you, of the unnamed Rabbis in the Mishna,
which states that you can execute one set of false witnesses after another
connects with the view that refuses to create a legal presumption
based on a pattern of false witnesses.
The Talmud, as it so often does, rejects this mapping as imprecise.
But the attempt at mapping demonstrates the way in which
a reader can flatten the story so that it is just a different way
of communicating a debate about legal matters.
In order to read such a story without flattening it,
one has to attend to certain features that make a story a story.
Stories involve different characters who change over time and
dramatically interact with one another.
A more character focused reading could center on the woman bringing
the witnesses, on Resh Laqish or on Rabbi Elazar.
Consider the woman bringing the witnesses.
One of the interesting features of the story is gender.
Is the fact that she is female relevant.?
It might be relevant in a number of ways.
First, women can not be witnesses in rabbinic law.
They are not the judges in rabbinic courts.
Might it be the case that Resh Laqish is quick to establish a pattern of lying
because women are culturally suspect?
Second, the flip side of this argument is that the female heroes of the Bible
routinely use ruses or tricks to effectuate their goals
because more direct avenues are unavailable to them.
Is the woman in this story, in fact, manipulating the witnesses, or
is the notion of female trickster hood fueling Resh Laqish's conspiracy theory?
Third, there is something uncanny about the central line in the story.
If she is established, is all of Israel established?
On a basic level, the line reminds Resh Laqish that rabbinic law does not consider
the witnesses as having been brought by the litigants.
They are independent agents and
cannot be established as part of a litigant base pattern.
But rhetorically, this line feels as though it is saying much more.
By contrasting the lying female protagonist with the male members of all
of Israel that can expect to testify in court,
is the text not indicating the gendered notions of power and
control are what motivates Rabbi Yohanan's rejection of the pattern?
What would happen if the litigant was a man, and particularly, a powerful man?
Now let's shift to a focus on the rabbis, one of the standard narrative tropes of
Talmudic stories about rabbis is their competitiveness.
The rabbis vie with fellow students and
even their teachers to be seen as the leading figure.
In the initial encounter between the two rabbis,
it is Rabbi Elazar who has the last word.
The line, if she is established, is all of Israel established, is a winning argument
but it is also hyperbolic and diminishing of Resh Laqish's stature.
It is dismissive and makes Resh Laqish look silly.
Which explains why Resh Laqish uses the subsequent discovery of Rabbi Yohanan as
the source as an opportunity to put Rabbi Elazar in his place.
It is true that the rabbis generally cite their sources and
there are hyperbolic statements in support of citation.
But the plagiarism accusation is also an opportunity for
Resh Laqish to restore his place as the more distinguished senior student.
Having seen that a literary lens adds texture and
depth to the story, we can reflect on the content.
The story is about credibility, about a woman with no credibility as a witness
because of her gender, potentially losing credibility as a litigant.
The very character who had rejected this attack on credibility and
restored credibility to all of Israel, at least the males, is himself not credible.
There is a bitter irony to this aspect of the story and
it leaves the reader unsure of the story's message.
Stories like this present ideas in the Talmud in an all ready undermined form.
Some people may find this aspect of Talmudic composition confusing or strange.
But there is something wonderful and
realistic about undermining one's ideals with the realities of political and
social life, even as these ideals are being presented.
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