Spanish Semiology

By: Jonathan Seidel 

Synthetic orality and the disposition of responsa

Jackson and Reichman’s semiotics locates a deeper meaning behind the written text. Faur argues oral law is sensus communis. Similar to the former scholars there is a commonly accepted understanding. This has been projected in much of the early religious literature. Yet, this model has ruptured since the middle ages. Today, the black letter law takes precedence. People uphold rules by their semantic phrasing. The irony is the hypocrisy maintained between the exegetical law of antiquity and the simple interpretation of modernity. 

Oral discourse is akin to the preacher. The poetic majesty is filled with imagery and value elongating the narrative as a bedtime story. Writing down an oral message re-contextualises the text for fluid fixed grammar in the analytic rendition. The fading of memory forces a communal attention to the oral story and an educational haul of persistence that encourages communication and dialogue. Due to its consistent overtones, it becomes ingrained as a fundamental factor. The orality is a part of the people as they live the narrational law. There is no objective measure in the abstract as it is the subjective transmission that holds power of legitimatisation. There is a presence that concerns the real life situations in the routine expression that words cannot conceive. The situational positioning elastically applies to a textual-less capability.

The inter and intra biblical exegesis is marked by semiology. Talion law is compensation due to its common understanding. The people did not legislate by codified law but by cultural practice. Another example is carrying on shabbat. The textual affinities between Jeremiah, Nehemiah and Mishnah ground a common understanding of the law. Each narrative progresses restrictions to the law. Semiology here is evolution not veiled knowledge.  

The semiology is predisposed by semantic phraseology; the oral basis for the written textuality. It is more inclusive than what is subsumed by the textual literation. Codexes cannot cover every basis so words are utilised as symbols for a deeper layer. This can usually be noticed by synchronic similarity. If a different case demonstrates more leeway by analogy the former case can be resolved with more flexibility. The reason for the rigidity is due to simplistic formulation. Yet its intertextual congruency furthers elaborative assessment. The language constitutes a typical case that promotes abnormalities in the purview. 

The rabbinic mode of peshat and derash were identical and different at the same time. The hermeneutics are parcel of the identical matter. That they seem exegetical need not infer bifurcation. The dichotomy is evident in our sensibilities from ashkenazi formulation. Rashi was the first to do so which followed with his grandson Rashbam and the Tosafist school. Though Ibn Ezra is a strong supporter of peshat, only homiletical readings were personalised, not legal writings. His commentary is riddled with Rashi quotations and he lived in ashkenazi territory for the latter years of his life. The medieval emergence of peshat as its own animal was concocted to respond to the prevailing issues. This also spawned the peshat influence into the sephardi world of Nahmanides school following Rosh, Ritva and Rashba. 

In opposition to the dichotomous creation, the Spanish world followed the geonim with Saadia, Samuel ben Hofni and Ibn Janah of the Andalusian school. The Spanish were upholding their predecessors methods. Their openness to philosophical indulgence is indebted to the karaites and muslims. Yet, their continuance of the talmudic scholars maintained a rabbinic model of peshat. Maimonides as well posited a peshat-based model that persisted the old. He coined them, transmitted interpretations. Peshat is a divine-oriented project that differs from the rest of the sephardi world. Yet this variance was only the beginning of the Maimonidean differential. 

The divergence also spread to their legal culture. The peshat identity follows a Tosafist revolutionary model. Tosafists abstained from philosophy and concentrated on Torah study. Though the french rabbis did not engage in tradition philosophy, their dialectical analysis was its own form of theoretical abstractions. They just applied their philosophy to canonical works. They wrote commentaries instead of codes. The commentaries motivated a furthering of the peshat. Its isolation was to uncover a deeper layer of text for philosophical interpretation. This flooded into their legal writings as commentaries in their hermeneutic form became responsa. Notably in their own oral format. The Tosafist enterprise reversed the geonic mantra and posited a new model that flourished into the sephardic world. The commentaries and responsa of Nahmanides and his students demonstrate this connection. Yet, they went further by associating kabbalah as an art of itself opposing to rationalism. The derash aspect synthesised the commentary matter as the philosophical layer. Ironically using the derash as aid to legal conclusions. 

The geonic school culminating in Maimonides sought rationalism as separate from the exegetical system. Biblical exegesis was a personal adventure that Saadia Maimonides and even Ibn Ezra conceded. The tradition was continued through and through but the philosophical side was its deeper understanding. Derash is never used for halakha. In order to cement this he codified his work. This may follow Rif’s reasoning as well. In order to maintain the proper order from disarray, codexes were a necessary reminder. The Tosafist model did not prevent sephardi codification by Nahmanides. Crescas also influenced by Nahmanides school of elitism wrote a code but for scholars not laymen. Baal HaTurim though ashkenazi moved to Spain and wrote a code for the ailing population. His book combined both sephardi and ashkenazi factors but given its geography and heritage it was a sephardi cake with ashkenazi icing. 

This is all to insinuate that codes and commentaries are not too different. Rashi elaborates on laws for exceptions but Maimonides quotes them verbatim. Yet, knowing Maimonides’ intent the semantic is not the law. In writing his own responsa differing from his code signify the code as a compilation not a literal pragmatic course of action. Codes are not entirely idealistic, they do have refer to applied-law but it does seem that the application of codified law has dramatically risen in the past five hundred years. Maimonides may have been the first code but it was later codified works that became stagnate and compressively applicable, most notably in the Shulchan Aruch. It is this shift away from the sensus comminus that funnelled statuary legal reflection and diminished oral law retention.

The Tosafist textualisation briefed in short spurts of the oral ballad. The studious scholars attempting to rectify contradictory passages bemoaned the oral fluidity passed down. Even if the Talmud had been corrupted by textualisation, the Tosafist model was feeding into the problem instead of voiding it, remaining tied to the orality behind the text. Solving the puzzle would promote a singular validated path dismissing individuality as it compels a potentially standard case without any opening for exceptions. Rashi does demonstrate an extension to the law but it’s about estimation, salvaging the old while the Spanish were fluidly continuing the old. The canonisation posed the ability to derive and innovate diverting from the oral continuity. Additionally, to maintain a source of orality, varied customs emerged, many authoritative. These customs were either forced orality or a natural consequence that blurred the written-oral border. 

Textualisation came at a cost. It was not so simple that the text says therefore we do. The text was the genus that spawned interpretation taught by the elite. An archaic text required new readings that forced resolutions into a narrow funnel. The hermeneutic built of the words themselves. The commentaries were limited in scope of deduction. Debate was far more common. The mimetic ideology preserved the methods that organically developed opposed to the text which was more an anthology than a code. Orality is a communitarian proposal that lives by a cohesive fabric one originating in parental education. 

The codexes and other rabbinic writing were pragmatic not functional. Rashi’s glosses are presented as the translation of the talmudic text, yet its semantic pole erases any proper evaluation. Tosafot’s dialectical analysis provides a larger synchronic motif. Yet in its goal of resolving contradictions voided the oral transmission to human logic. The shortcomings of translation, written appropriation and analytical digest reverberate a staunch divergence from the common knowledge.                          

The anti-maimonidean mindset usurped Maimonides rationalism. Though his halakhic culture did retain prowess in certain areas. Codification persisted and his philosophical exegesis made its way into Provence. Tur wrote his codex for the Spanish, while Crescas and Meiri kept to his philosophy. Maimonideanism was a philosophical legacy that passed on yet rarely recognised until recently. The esoteric frame of the anti-maimonideans and their subsequent responsa literature spawned by Tosafist philosophy hailed supreme. Commentaries were the mainstream while codexes became periodic. Esoteric writing became pronounced and the derash aspect cultivated a spiritual divide between scholar and laymen. The esoteric markers flourished into the late Middle Ages with Lurianic Kabbalah and the Shulchan Aruch. 

The mode of commentaries on the codes demonstrates a sense of divergence and disagreement. The codifier is not the last word on the law. He is the compiler not the judge. The semiotic vibe comes not from the codifiers themselves but from their successors. Those who differed from the mainstream. Semiology is behind the black letter law. Yet, this semiology is mishandled by the diversity. The commentaries at hand reflect varied customs and positions. For example: the Rema’s additions are not a common background but the ashkenazi counterpart to Karo’s sephardi deductions. Direct contradiction is not a semiotic outlook but a difference of opinion. Yet, commentaries demonstrating exegesis explaining the code is semiology not alternative opinions. In this case Rema is the same semantic strand to Karo’s version. 

There is a loss of sensus communis in the halakhic world. The Geonic-Andalusian model of peshat to link the semiology halted in the wake of the Maimonidean controversy. Rashi’s commentary pronounced the semiology while Maimonides continued to hide the semiology behind the semantic phrasing ensuring its perfection. The commentators are more elaboration than unveiling. Meaning, the idea of a communal background found in biblical law can be monitored in rabbinic law as well. This is also magnified in Maimonides and his successors. What went wrong was the oral rupture. Despite the lack communal agreement the customised culture maintains the oral prognosis. 

Semiology is consistent with orality. The French peshat chose to textualise and thus turn the oral law into written commentary. The Spanish peshat maintained the peshat of old by underlying the orality behind their statements. So when the Mishnah makes a definite rule and Rashi comments with an exception he is writing guessed previous orality, when Maimonides copies the Mishnaic text he is concealing the orality. The mode of commentaries following the French movement staled oral tradition by textualising the Talmud as the sole written text. This shift differed from the common legal model of the Spanish even if they were building codexes since their goal was not mono-textualisation but safety educational compilations. The latter’s written records and access to extra-halakhic material was mitigated by their behaviour toward the text. The codexes were linked in a chain to the Talmud as an oral guide to applied law. With an eye to the text as the authority presented statuary canonisation to the text. This did not necessarily stagnate the law but it did bring about a break in the mental law. Commentaries persisted but many narrow monistic perspectives of law emerged. 

Commentaries are guess work and subjective scholarly analysis. Tosafot's disagreement with Rashi's position reflects an ongoing personalised pursuit to uncover the truth. The imperfect textualised Talmud is resolved by innovative procedure and exegetical novelties. They saw themselves as discretionary judges to amend and interpret the text. They were akin to the supreme court justices. Their textualisation their deductions. They were not the last scholars to return to the talmud and reinterpret. Anti-codifiers like the Gra were talmudic legalists. Aruch HaShulchan viewed the talmud as the foundation to derive. French jewry sought to plant new seeds embarking on a literacy path severed from the oral transmission.      

The current trajectory in orthodox and liberal circles is a formalist model with a logical methodology. This does not mitigate the judicial excellence of past scholars. Despite textualisation many authorities demonstrated creative gymnastics through analogical reasoning maintaining a foothold in the oral camp. Still, it was this commitment to writing that publicised the oral as written unveiling its face and exposing its worth. The orality is the hidden gem that enables the semiology to further advance. It is the culture’s mental note not the public’s museum.   

Literacy encompassed a wide range as the anti-maimonideans triumphed and the printing press invented. The Talmud was the immutable centrepiece to derive from. This textualisation promoted Maimonides’ codex to a legal code to comment as well as subsequent codes including the Tur and Shulchan Aruch. The latter attained talmudic status as its successor to derive from even if unintentional from the author. The mimetic shift to text returned and then shifted again, oscillating repeatedly. Customs became the newfound orality subjective in their varied constructions. Marked by their circumstances and exposures. The oral rupture in medieval ashkenaz fuelled a new orality that attempts to return to the semiotic nature but is eventually slighted by its inventiveness. It may be a part of an elongated tradition but emergence in the intermediate phase only gives it finite time. Had the rupture not occurred or Maimonidean-Anadulusion school victorious the oral longevity would organically collect new customs with infinite trajectory.