Misunderstood Hero

 

By: Jonathan Seidel

The Andalusian codes and the Spanish codes: 

Maimonides was lambasted for his failure to quote his predecessors and to not bring other sources. In contrast to the Talmudic format, the only opinion relevant was Maimonides. His code his rules. Yet this style is unique differing from Tur, SA and successors. 

Maimonides receives a lot of flack for trying to replace to the Talmud. His code of law was a complete alternative to the Talmudic corpus. How dare Maimonides challenge the Talmudic Sages. Yet such a position is untenable. Maimonides only respected the Talmud. For him, the only true authority rested in the Talmud. His version was not a replacement but his rendition for contemporary law. He didn’t quote others because they were irrelevant. This was his code. His deductions and his positions. He did seem to tamper with the Talmudic text. The need to quote others was not highly prevalent in his day. Rabbinic literature is riddled with dialogical election. Both the Mishnah and the Gemara quote a variety of opinions. Sometimes they do so. Not every debate in the Mishnah nor the Gemara is a disagreement. At times it is a different angle. The misinterpretation of Beit Hilllel and Beit Shammai going at it. It occurred and there is disagreement but it is parcel of legislation. To read Gemara as a horizontal deliberation is to misread the compendium’s telos. 

There are sections famous for the back and forward debate. The study hall riveting with fiery debate. R Eliezer miraculously reshaping the study hall and R Joshua saying it is not in heaven. R Gamliel and R Joshua on Yom Kippur and Tanna Kamma and R Yehuda on prayer times. These disagreements are paraded as the bread and butter of Talmudic lore. The Talmud is all about disagreement and choice. Yet this is but a factor of the Gemara. People will have differing opinions. It is inevitable. It is recorded as a separate tradition. The Gemara records it for purposes of compilation. They are both anthologies more than law codes. The law code presents the opinion of the author rather than a compilation of possibilities. A myriad of plausible answers does not provide the law. It merely avoids answering but replacing an answer with several solutions. The code is a guided solution. What is the law, here it is. Straightforward and direct. Maimonides wasn’t writing an anthology but was rather instituting the practices he believed were correct. Pulling from the source material he derived the law. At times in his personification, but his legal analysis.

Yet unlike the French folk, Maimonides did not deviate from the Talmudic prose. He didn’t undermine the generational transmission. He preferred the way of the Talmud, not the newly concocted way. Maimonides may not have quoted but he followed the literary style of his predecessors. The sages stuck to their traditions and to its wording. They focused on the oral nature. The text as it is expounded by a post-Talmudic authority. Maimonides modeled his Mishneh Torah after the Mishnah. Just as Rebbe mimicked the biblical text so did Maimonides. The linguistic idolization starkly contrasts with the French style. With small modifications usually for coherence , Maimonides is quick to establish the adequate formalization. Those who desire to challenge Maimonides do so by falsely discrediting his Mishnaic style. The difference between the two was not compilation style but rather a similarity of interpretation. The French style seeks to exploit Maimonides by demonstrating his divergence from the Talmudic style. Yet in doing so they fail to accurately critique him. Instead of arguing the mishnaic style is archaic they decry it as non-existent. 

In its own irony, the maimonidean code is a replica of the Mishnah. A remedy of Rebbe’s initial program. A marshalled attempt to solve to the same issue. Rebbe had disobedience so did Maimonides. Not only was it topographically adjacent but nearly syntactically identical. The only difference being Maimonides more clear phraseology than the Mishnah. The Mishnaic anthology is riddled with incomplete vague points. Maimonides clarified the syntactical arrangement with a few extra identifying words. It is here that the French rabbis mistook Maimonids. He is formulating a code. Unlike the Mishnah it is clear and lucid. Therefore it must be a final attempt to override the talmudic law. Such a disservice to the talmud is a heretical attempt. Yet Maimonides was nowhere near the first to write a halakhic code. Not only did Rif do so before him but the geonim of Yehudai and Amram also did half a century earlier. The Tosafists revered the Geonim at times but blatantly disregarded their works. They found rabbinic powers that worked for their cause but not the rest of the custom-based identity. The ironic insult is that they relied upon the few and far between statements by late stage declining apparent leadership remaining.

These newly defenders of the talmud not only usurped the geonim when it served their cause. When the geonim innovated past the talmudic threshold. Simultaneously corralling the cons of the geonic era. The compromising positions of karaite polemics and fearful disavowal. The rabbinic genie of the geonic era was present but scarce. Takkanot were rare. Yet the French and new Spanish rabbis afterward used it as a stepping stone to impart their own ideas. They lambasted Maimonides for not quoting but their quoting was for their own extensions. Though they also at times would defend their customs against the talmud. Even the polemicists were hypocrites at times. Maimonides was in a precarious position. He was the last heir of the Andalusian tradition. His halakhic code was a result of his heritage dating back to the early geonim. His ashkenazi counterparts were not incorrect about some of the Sage-centred ideals but no context nor small sample size was acknowledged. Then again it is important to note the geonic era was six hundred years which is sufficient time for all types of alterations whether temporary or permanent to occur. Interestingly, why there were attempts of Sage-centred policy and power but the most consistent theme was custom and halakhic codes. 

Maimonides was not inventing something new but rather continuing a tradition of the past. What is incredible is what is generally taken for granted. It is something only realised through Tanakh and Mishnah. Maimonides' hermeneutics are similar to the Mishnah. The Mishnah wishes to show the law of carrying on Shabbat so it quotes the language in Jeremiah without citing it. If Maimonides wishes to show the law of carrying on Shabbat he quotes the Gemara without citing it. Both codexes made a few clarifying words but they basically pull the language rather than adding a clause for citation. This is in contrast to midrashic and talmudic styles that use special terms to denote citations. While not entirely following the talmudic strain exactly, the dialectical pull is talmudic. The talmudic editor, comments on the Mishnah by analysing various braitot to reach a conclusion. Tosfot analyse various gemaras to reach a conclusion. The dialectical process works if the entirety of the talmud is a unified corpus. The Mishnah is like Tanakh but the midrashim aren’t and the Tosefta presumably is a commentary on the Mishnah so it isn’t either. Still the talmud isn’t the midrash and if it is a fully edited code then it is a united corpus of law. 

The one big issue with this theory is that the geonim did not see the talmud is this way. They saw the Mishnah this way and even amoriam didn’t usurp the Mishnah. If it was a unified measure then it cannot be objected to nor debated. The French thinkers challenged the geonim on this. On the one hand they stipulated their own rabbinic innovative powers from cases of geonim and also rejected the geonic model of talmudic authority. It is possible to see the Talmud this way. It may not be a way of understanding for the past half millennium but nonetheless plausible. It also makes sense when the leaders of this new community are not heirs to the Babylonian heritage. Andalusia did differ from their predecessors but not as far as France did. France did have those traditions. They couldn’t read the Arabic so they had to live with what they had. This is not a measure of juvenile christianisation but rather geographical reality. They didn’t have a Shumuel Hanagid or a Rif. They had Torah scholars in a strange land with a strange language. One that heavily differed from their ancestral one. At least Arabic was written in the same direction and had some similarities. Not the same for French Jews. With little custom and little direct influence, they were forced to improvise. Quoting geonim assisted in legitimising ideas. They needed to base their heritage on something, nothing better than the scholars themselves. 

Like Ezra who innovated when he returned to land to see unlawful behaviour, the French rabbis allowed themselves authority to deal with the issues. The prevailing symptoms of novelty and isolation. They had no foundation. So they turned to the Talmud as a bedrock of identity. The recognised the ill of some of their customs and brushed them aside. Instead hyper focusing on the Talmudic frame. Any contrary geonic law would be ignored. The Talmud was the final law. Without a linguistic transmission, they played with concepts. These extensions were clarifications of the law. Beginning with the text itself to clarify the symmetry. Does this translation make sense in light of the suyga or in light of other sugyas. This is not the model of Andalusia and Maimonides. This kind of theoretical thinking exists in a society bereft of knowledge. Guessing at the text. This word seems to mean this because of these words around it. Or this law only makes sense in this way since this law over there says this that sounds contradictory. The text was the foundation but foreign. This is not the case for Maimonides. Trace the talmud alongside a Mishnah Torah and the words will nearly match up. Maimonides doesn’t seek explanation because it was evident to the reader. Maimonides wasn’t translating but modifying for simplicity. 

Rif removed the shakla vetarya to pronounce a simplistic guide to observance. The goal wasn’t theoretical study. The goal wasn’t uncovering something novel but rather signalling the law. Rif and Maimonides like Yehuda and Amram before them were about practical law. The code is a sign system. A symbol that represents the vast emphasis of the law and its deliberation which would in effect be a mental talmud on the talmud. The talmud is the centrepiece that arrives at the final law not the start to then lead on a wild goose chase for the true law. The talmud says the halakha is like R Yossi so it is like R Yossi. There is no more niche. Maimonides codifies the law and the law is. This doesn’t mean that the practice was exactly as Maimonides or Rif left it. The copied line is a sign to the sugya. Here is the topic and where the talmud stands and the oral community knows the custom is like this. The code is a classifying system not a step by step guide to practical action. Maimonides code is like the Mishnah through and through. The Mishnah didn’t add in all the details and neither does Tanakh. Thus Maimonides code follows the same logic. Here is the general idea of the concept and under the most basic of cases the action is such but with other variables present the law may shift. 

The conceptual focus denies the linguistic cohesion. It isn’t about the texts argumentation but its final decision. In this sense, Maimonides commentary on the Mishnah makes more sense than a commentary on the Gemara. His talmudic commentary exists. It is called the Mishneh Torah. The legal code is the talmud modified without the explicit augmentation. It is unnecessary as the law is final. The French didn’t accept that. They placed the talmud as the constitutional matrix and yet found faint ways to decipher deeper law. The final law is an illusion since it doesn’t square with this law over there. Yet if this is the case when doesn’t the talmud bring it up. There are cases where the talmud mentions cases later on but for Tosfot to do it implies that Chazal didn’t see it as a united corpus. It is clear the Mishnah was because of its linguistic arrangement rather than final decisions in the shakla vetarya. Maimonides accepts the final law and codifies it. Sometimes he disagrees but he doesn’t try to scholastically jumble different tractates. Tosfot tries to harmonise various final laws. Again it is unclear why this is necessary as Chazal do not do this except for braitot not gemarot. While the French can argue that they are continuing the legacy, if the talmudic constitution is final then doing so is undermining the authority of the Talmud.

This latter point may further demonstrate their willingness to amend the text. The talmud is closed but at the same time open for the Sages of each generation to make changes. Maimonides wasn’t against innovation but against implied derivation. The French project makes sense historically but at times seems counterintuitive to the esteem granted to the talmud and transmission. While Tosfot won out and their methods appealed to ever extremes it is wondrous that their inception challenged Chazal’s motives. While today such theoretical investigation is harmonisation rather than innovation. The loss of the linguist and emphasis on conceptualism deeply betrays the Andalusian heritage and foolishly assaults Maimonides.