Princeton Weekly Bulletin December 14, 998
Words of the one, words of the other
Traditional Jewish texts and reference books in the Bet Midrash
By Sally Freedman
It's 7:45 a.m., and all the chairs are taken. Around the table are professors of chemistry, economics, philosophy, physics; an editor; a business manager; an administrative assistant; and a rabbi.
"'Over and above all, there is the question of 'opening,' of life and meaning,'" says the rabbi, reading from The Burnt Book, by Marc-Alain Ouaknin. "'It is a somewhat political question, since it is the place where liberty takes root and it provides the most striking expression of the refusal of closure. The Talmud is the 'anti-ideological' discourse par excellence.'"
The rabbi looks up. "My heart beats for this," he says.
Everybody smiles. Do they all feel the same? Why else would they turn up each Tuesday morning to begin their day puzzling over arcane arguments by long-dead Jewish logicians?
Compendium of commentary
The rabbi is James Diamond, director of the Center for Jewish Life, and the room is the CJL Study Hall, the Bet Midrash. The group is studying one small section of the Talmud, a multivolume compendium of commentary on Judaic scriptures that has absorbed scholars for centuries.
This "class" is strictly noncredit for fun. It's open to anyone in the University community who cares enough to show up. Latecomers drag more chairs from the next room and squeeze them in. Eventually there are a dozen people around the table, some poring over Xeroxes of intricately arranged Hebrew characters, some contemplating paragraphs of slightly archaic English.
Diamond reads aloud from the original text of the Talmud and ad-libs a translation. The passage under discussion concerns the question of whether holy writings may be saved from a fire in a synagogue on the Sabbath. It has already been established that carrying things is a violation of the Sabbath prohibition against work. But does this apply even to holy things? Even to holy texts?
"I chose this passage," says Diamond, "because, beneath and behind the specific words of the argument, the text addresses a compelling and even modern question: what is the essence of a text? Is it the medium or the message? Is it the signifier or the signified?"
Diamond's academic background is in literature. Ordained as a rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary, he also has a PhD in comparative literature from Indiana University, and he taught modern Hebrew literature at Washington University while serving as executive director of the St. Louis Hillel.
Although he is quick to disclaim expertise as a Talmudic scholar, Diamond has studied Talmud for many years, and he knows enough to keep senior faculty members, world famous in their fields, spellbound. He also knows how to make junior administrators welcome and how to generate meaningful input from everyone.
"I have another question," someone interjects, a little apologetically.
"Another question is always good," says Diamond.
One says yes, one say no
Frozen in time on the Talmudic page is a discussion, a disagreement. Rabbi Hisda says that, in case of a fire, one should save all holy writings, even translations; Rabbi Huna says, no, one saves only holy writings in Hebrew, the "holy language." Whose opinion is authoritative? Well, both. And neither. It depends. There are many interesting aspects to consider. Such as, What is a holy writing? Is a text used in liturgy holier than a text used only for study? Is a text in translation less holy than a text in the holy language? What about a liturgical text in translation?
The class ends up trying to diagram the argument. Diamond laments the lack of a blackboard. The economics professor draws a grid on a scrap of paper and passes it around. The philosophy professor takes exception to the interpretation of Rabbi Huna's position indicated on the gridand they're back to square one. What did Rabbi Huna say, exactly? What did he mean? It depends on how you punctuate, on the antecent you posit for a certain pronoun. It all depends.
"The words of one and the words of the other are the living God," according to the Talmud. In other words, says Diamond, "Not only are differing opinions tolerated, the existence of differing opinions is crucial to the vitality of the enterprise."
As Ouaknin puts it, "The Talmudic world is bidimensional, and that is why it is profoundly anti-ideological. The Talmudistthe 'real' one -- never says 'we'; nor does he have the right to say, 'The Talmud says.' He can say: 'There is an opinion in the Talmud that says but there is also another opinion that says just the opposite.'" (As when Hisda says yes, and Huna says no.)
Snapshot of the ocean
The Talmud is like a snapshot of the ocean: a mass of movement -- a swirling surge of conversation -- preserved for subsequent observation. Before the Talmud, there was the Mishnah, a compilation of oral laws on various topics, made in the first and second centuries of the Common Era. After the Mishnah, there was the Gemara, a commentary on the Mishnah, compiled between 200 and 500 C.E.
Mishnah and Gemara together make up the Talmud. But although Gemara means "completion," the Gemara was by no means the last word. Scholars down through the centuries have continued to comment, so that printed editions of the Talmud contain not only Mishnah and Gemara, but the texts of later commentaries laid out in wide margins all around each page.
Contained within these compilations and commentaries is the raw material from which one can extract specific answers to specific questions (such as, What do you actually do when a synagogue is burning?). But the fundamental goal of the Talmud is not so much to determine those answers as to preserve the process of questioning.
In attempting to trace the convolutions of rabbinical brains, the members of the contemporary Talmud class come up with their own questions. They analyze assumptions; they assess inferences; they contest conclusions. They think. They talk. They argue.
They're part of a university. Their hearts beat for this.