The Talmud (4 page)

Traumatic social and political conditions make it difficult to preserve oral traditions. People move around, communication becomes difficult, things get forgotten or misrepresented. At the same time the Vineyard had expanded far beyond its original borders, it had spawned a generation of major scholars, who were now dotted all over the country, teaching when they could but mainly in hiding from the Romans. The sheer volume of material that had been taught since the opening of the Vineyard, and the difficult conditions under which it was now being disseminated meant that the oral tradition was tottering.

The rabbis began to realize that they would need to commit their teachings to writing. If they didn’t, the teachings would be lost. So gradually, written codifications of the Oral Law began to emerge.

We don’t know who started the process of writing down the Oral Law. One theory is that its recording began on the day that Eleazar ben Azariah was appointed as head of the Academy, in place of the hereditary leader Rabban Gamaliel II, the great-grandson of Hillel and grandson of Paul’s teacher Gamaliel
I.
11

Gamaliel had inherited the title of
Nasi
from his father. Literally meaning ‘prince’, the
Nasi
was the leader of the rabbinic community. Hillel had been the first
Nasi
, the title was granted to him in recognition of his scholarship. The title was hereditary, which reflected the fact that the
Nasi
could trace his descent back to King David, but although he was called a prince, and had formal contacts with the Roman authorities, he didn’t have a royal lifestyle in the sense we would think of it today.

Gamaliel II was a severe, but probably quite insecure leader. Like many weak men he tried to impose his will even at times when it would have been politic
for him to hold back. He often found himself in conflict with the other senior rabbis, notably Rabbi Joshua. On one notable occasion he publicly humiliated Joshua by ordering him to remain on his feet whilst he sat and taught. The other rabbis, who’d had enough of his autocratic behaviour took the unprecedented decision to depose him, and appointed Eleazar ben Azariah in his place.
12

On the day that Eleazar was appointed, according the Talmudic account, the gates of the academy were thrown open and up to 700 new students, who had not matched up to Gamaliel’s strict admission criteria, were admitted. Any law about which there was a doubt was apparently discussed on that day, clarified and codified in a collection known as Eduyyot, or Testimonies.

Eduyyot, which was later absorbed into the Mishnah, contains a vast number of laws, and it is probably an exaggeration to say that that they were all clarified on one day. But the deposing of Rabban Gamaliel II towards the end of the first century seems to have heralded a sea change which not only expanded the Academy but also began the process of crystallizing and recording legal decisions.

Gamaliel’s office was held in high respect by the scholars. They did not want to depose him permanently. But he could not be reinstated until he apologized to Rabbi Joshua. This he agreed to do.

As he entered Joshua’s hovel – no more than a simple clay brick structure with an earthen floor and timber strewn roof, he saw that the walls were black. ‘It seems to me,’ said Gamaliel, ‘that you are a charcoal burner.’ Joshua, no doubt raising his eyes to heaven replied, ‘Alas for the generation of which you are the leader, seeing that you know nothing of the troubles of the scholars, their struggles to support and sustain themselves.’
13

Even after he had apologized it wasn’t easy to restore Gamaliel to his office. Many of the scholars objected, not just because they didn’t want Gamaliel back but also because of the slight they thought this would cast on Eleazar ben Azariah, who had succeeded him. It fell to a younger colleague, Rabbi Akiva to propose a solution through which they would share the office.

Akiva is the best known and most highly regarded of all the rabbis. Legends and stories about him abound. Unfortunately this makes it hard to know his true life history, which is concealed somewhere beneath layers of folklore and fable.

We do know that he was amongst the first to systematically compile and classify the Oral Law. We know this because in a small number of places the Mishnah itself quotes an earlier work which it either calls the ‘Mishnah of Rabbi Akiva’
14
or ‘The First Mishnah’.
15

Akiva is said to have started life as a shepherd, with no education. He worked for a very wealthy man and fell in love with his daughter Rachel. Her father was resolutely opposed to the match but Rachel was willing to run away with Akiva on the condition that he immediately went off to get himself an education. Akiva jumped at her suggestion and went to the Vineyard, or one of its offshoots, for twelve years. On his return he overheard an old man asking his wife how long she would endure the life of a widow. ‘If I had my way’, she replied, ‘he would stay for twelve more years.’ Akiva promptly turned around and went back. When he finally came home, according to this tale, he was accompanied by twenty four thousand students.
16

Although Akiva’s life story is cloaked by legend and hyperbole, we get a good idea of his character and intellect from his teachings and legal rulings. As his twentieth-century biographer puts it:

Akiva ranks in depth of intellect, breadth of sympathy and clarity of vision with the foremost personalities of the Hebrew tradition, Moses and Isaiah amongst the prophets, Maimonides, Crescas and Spinoza amongst the philosophers. He dominates the whole scene of Jewish history from the period of the Second Isaiah, about 540
bce
until the rise of the Spanish school of philosophers, about 1100
ce
.
17

Akiva never forgot his humble origins. Time and again his interpretation of the Oral Law reflects a concern for the poor and needy; for example, upholding the rights of impoverished farmers to inherit tiny parcels of land which his wealthier colleagues considered too small for the law to concern itself with.
18
When the Temple had stood and the Levites were unable to earn a living because of their official duties, they had been compensated by a system of tithes, each farmer giving a tenth of his crop. Now that the Temple had been destroyed
and small farmers were struggling to survive Akiva put in place measures which effectively abolished the system, obliging the Levites to become economically independent.
19
On another occasion he limited the exclusive rights of priests to eat the flesh of a first-born lamb that was unfit to be sacrificed, ruling that anyone, Israelite or not, may eat of it.
20

But he did not allow his sympathy for the poor to override his belief in the integrity of the law. When his colleague Tarfon, a wealthy olive farmer, tried to introduce a humanitarian solution to a dispute between various creditors over who could seize the land of someone who had died, Akiva protested. Tarfon had wanted to give the land to the poorest claimant. ‘No’, argued Akiva, ‘the law is not charity. The land must be given to the deceased’s heirs.’
21

In similar vein, if two people found themselves stranded in a desert with only enough water for one of them to survive, Akiva argued that they shouldn’t share it, otherwise they would just watch each other die. Saving life is important, but it is not right to sacrifice two lives when one can be saved. Nor should the owner of the water sacrifice his life for his companion. Akiva quoted Leviticus 25.36, ‘that thy brother shall live with you’
,
emphasizing the word ‘with’ to infer that in such a case your life takes precedence over your companion’s.
22

Akiva found himself caught up in the ongoing struggle against Rome. His involvement began round about the year 95
ce
when a distinguished Roman and member of the emperor’s family, Flavius Clemens, converted to Judaism. This so enraged the emperor that he planned a series of punitive measures against the Jews. Akiva joined a diplomatic mission to Rome, along with Gamaliel, Joshua and Eleazar ben Azariah, to try to assuage the emperor’s wrath.

As relations with Rome worsened, Akiva declared his support for the Jewish rebel, Shimon bar Koziba. When bar Koziba won his improbable and short-lived victory, Akiva proclaimed him to be the Messiah.
23
This was a rare lapse of judgement on Akiva’s part, as he realized when the rebel state was ultimately defeated and a period of merciless brutality, which history would name the Hadrianic Persecutions, began. The practice of the Jewish faith was banned and
Akiva, whose whole life had been dedicated to Torah study, found himself at the head of a religious resistance movement.

When a colleague, Pappus, castigated him for teaching Torah in public, Akiva responded with a parable. He told of the fox who tried to persuade a fish that he could be saved from the fishermen’s nets if he would only come and live with him on the dry land. The fish replied that if he could not be safe in his natural environment, he would certainly not be safe in an unnatural space. ‘So it is with us’, said Akiva, ‘if we are not safe in the Torah, which is our natural condition, how can we be safe elsewhere?’
24

Shortly afterwards Akiva was captured and imprisoned by the Romans. He was put to death in the year 135
ce
, defiantly proclaiming the words of the
Shema
, the Jewish declaration of faith, whilst the Romans tore his flesh from him with iron combs.

The Mishnah

Akiva may have been dead but his reputation and authority lived on through his students. Led by his pupil Meir, they continued his work of recording the Oral Law, compiling collections of laws and arranging them in topics, almost certainly using the same arrangement that Akiva used for his earlier Mishnah.

If Meir had followed the style of the Five Books of Moses, and simply written down the laws, albeit in greater detail, the Talmud would never have been conceived. He would have created a rule book and nothing more. But it was Meir’s great genius to preserve the fluidity of the oral tradition by recording not only the official, majority rulings but also the views of those who disagreed. Today, when several judges sit together on a case it is usual for each of them to give their opinion, even if they disagree with the majority verdict. Meir’s Mishnah did the same thing, except the opinions were condensed into three or four words, not paragraphs or pages.

Meir’s was the work of a lifetime. It fell to one of his younger colleagues, a descendant of Hillel and Gamaliel to undertake the final stage in the creation of the Mishnah. Rabbi Judah the
Nasi
, often known just as Rabbi, collated and edited the Mishnahs of Akiva and Meir. He adopted a practice introduced by
Meir of using anonymous opinions to indicate his teacher’s view. Meir had expressed Akiva’s opinions anonymously, in Judah’s Mishnah the anonymous voice belonged to Meir, not Akiva. However, in most cases Judah only gave Meir’s view anonymously if it was generally accepted as the authoritative ruling. Otherwise he would state clearly that it was Meir’s opinion.

The opening chapter of Rabbi Judah’s Mishnah gives a good illustration of how this worked. The Torah had ordained that a passage known as the
Shema
, which declares God’s unity, should be read ‘when you lie down and when you rise up’. But it is also to be said ‘when you sit in your house and when you walk down the road’. Unless they had clearer guidelines as to when they should say it, people would be reciting the
Shema
all day long. The Mishnah rules that the
Shema
should be said twice a day, and wants to know how this operates in practice.

From what time can one read the
Shema
in the morning? From the time that one can distinguish between blue and white. Rabbi Eliezer said, between blue and green and until sunrise. Rabbi Joshua said until the third hour, for it is the practice of kings to arise at the third hour.
25

This passage contains three opinions. The first one ‘From the time that one can distinguish between blue and white
’
is anonymous, the others are attributed to Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua. The anonymous opinion reflects Rabbi Meir’s view, based on what he learnt from his teacher Akiva. By giving it anonymously Rabbi Judah the
Nasi
is flagging up that this is the view to follow.

When Judah finished his Mishnah, the process of recording the Oral Law was nearly at an end. The Mishnah became accepted as authentic, comprehensive and authoritative. Indeed in some circles studying Rabbi’s Mishnah was so holy a task it became an acceptable substitute for the now defunct sacrifices.
26

Although the Mishnah that has come down to us today is Rabbi Judah’s work, it contains the names of several people who lived after him.
27
It even mentions his death.
28
Clearly some editing work was done to Judah’s Mishnah,
even after he had finished. Indeed, Rabbi Hiyya, one of his pupils, is said to have had a secret scroll which contained emendations to the Mishnah.
29

The prevailing view today is that it took some time for the Mishnah to become accepted as authoritative. It seems that once the Mishnah was complete, people in different parts of the Jewish world deliberately edited the text to fit in with a tradition they believed was more authentic.
30
This explains why there is more than one version of the Mishnah (even though the differences between the versions are very slight). It was only gradually, as the authority of the Mishnah became established, that people fiddled with the text less.