Academic Advantage?

 

By: Jonathan Seidel

Tosfot reimagined in academia

The academic side of of learning Talmud has reformed the old models of the French. Brisk is most indentured to Nahmanides’ school of conceptualism. While reinvigorating the style of Tosfot it takes a divergent route. While Tosfot harmonizes synchronically, academia harmonizes diachronically. The shift to socio-historical reconstruction associates the cultural relativity of the time. Yet doing so not only challenges the historical timeline but also disrupts the traditional frame on its reflective axis. 

Critical scholarship comes in different shapes and sizes. Its original pull was historical dating. Lining rabbinic events with worldly affairs. Trying to pinpoint the Jewish text and/or event with the time it is associating. This is still common practice today. Yet such scholarship can weave into denial or discrimination. Did these events actually happen? Is there any truth to this? The goal of philology is to ascribe a text to a sociocultural faculty. Marching the text and its interpretation to the past. This type of memory game inevitably leads to a great deal of speculation but provides ample evidence and inspiration. As this course passed from the biblical era to the Talmudic era more extensive deliberation was exhausted. Delineating the genuine markers from the afforded text. The text is a definitive check box to the idealized notions of the time. The text’s characters and setting are classified by their intent and reception. Only unlike the Iliad, the Talmud is more accepted as factual. 

The alignment between history and text deepen into conjecture. Portraying a certain Sage in a specific light based on some of his rulings or depicting the character of the lifestyle based on variables enumerated. The issue isn’t what is said but how what is said is applied. What does said text say about the person or the place. The problem is evidently that a few lines of law intertwined with brief narration cannot assume the reality of one’s life. Estimating is one thing but many claims are taken as accurate measures. While the probability it may be high it is still a possibility not a certainty. Apparent scholarship is taken at face value instead of further scrutiny. What can be said is of the text itself. Implying or ascribing from outside is a fair guessing game but not one that should be taken with a grain of salt. 

Diachronic measures are not evil nor misguided but they are overestimated. For the comparative unity, it is quite conservative in relation. Interaction is near definite but the quality and the magnitude is ever so questionable. Thus the crux of such a debate is whether the critical scholar is genuine in his formulation or whether he is mistaken. The academic perceives his version as the who truth absent any limitations and biases. Adding in necessary factors ignored in the classical tradition. The classical tradition has an identifiable positivist exclusivist agenda while the academic exposed the overflowing baggage hidden in the garage. Such audacity and so much so arrogance truly belittles genuine research. The academic on his pedestal predicts his victory over the classical tradition. He has exposed the cover up but in reality has only made head scratching accusations. Blending a variety of disciplines to truly perplex any reader. The linguistic utilized is so complex that it shields the very ignorance spouted. 

Do critical scholars have a point? Indeed. They are not idiots nor fools but their reliance on their craft is prideful at the least and greedy at most. A desire for clarity transforms into far fetched theories with little basis. Doing their best to connect spiderwebs woven by different spiders reattached to assume a mock style prototype. Assumptions made generations later of a time period foreign. It isn’t more access that necessarily clarifies the past but more so convinces the scholar he has cleared the way for truth. The presence of literacy climaxes with insinuations and retroactive interpretations. Blinding oneself to the cultural identity but assuming the modern voice on the ancient text. Interpreting a layered text with a literal reading. Incorporating mediums to behoove the readership. Connecting dots that do not exist. The classical tradition having passed down text linearly is confronted with a usurper. An insult of conservatism and archaic motioning. Instead these disciplines will yield the most promising result. It is still unclear how.

While at times the attitude is greatly important, the hostility from onlookers more so such monism though quite frequently shrewd elitism clouds much of the favourable elements. There is good work enlightening tradition revealing the gold beneath the crevasses. Antagonism only breeds further division and self aggrandizement. It undermines pure spirituality and genuine divine will. It is with great angst that such formidable techniques were not ushered in the premodern day. Nevertheless their delayed showing is not evident of its devilish magnitude. It is parcel of a growing enchantment with tradition. It is logic suffused to include further external variables. It orders the societal framework of old under a new rubric. It a theoretical discipline that is merely providing an outlook of the rabbinic genesis. Fascinating the depth of context to the given debate. Where was R Yochanon and what did he do. It is not mere logic but a fiction. A portrait of the Sages on a canvass rather than the incomprehensible depictions in our minds. A humane but yet respectful photograph coloring in the details from the novel. 

The lucid detail harmonized into the ancients is a dignified step towards proper reconciliation. Dissenters are wrong to shun explication in the face of amazement. They weren’t angelic and walked the same streets as us moderns. It is only a testament to their greatness and their connection to us. Applying the standards derived from archeology to note the type of lives they may have lived. The families they had, the houses they lived, the food they ate with the money they received for the work they completed. All is illuminated in light of their era. A note or extension analysing the tools to measure. What exactly the Sages are referring to. An illustrated novel coordinating those factors for a fuller picture. History excites and fascinates rather than obstructing and demeaning. Quite the picture of R Yochanon and Reish Lakish studying together or Abaye and Rava duking it out in the Study Hall. Even more so the allegories of their adventures whether for better or for worse. The triumph of R Yehoshua or his humiliation. Is famed declaration of Torah is not in Heaven or his public embarrassment on Yom Kippur. These images float in our minds but without any further notations. The stories are mere narratives without any color or context to conceptualize better. 

With a picture, the Sages are presented in their glory and humanity. Yet it reaches a point of exploitation. Inserting premiere techniques to avail the truth of old. It isn’t about illuminating the picture but rather disorienting the picture. Defining the pieces rather than demeaning them. A translation to a fuller depiction of the Sages’ realia. When the techniques are used to discredit and defy the dominant narrative it becomes the will of devilish dissenters. The devilish side is not product of disgraceful conduct or even insulting behavior. It is a hijacking of classical understandings for apparent superior interpretations. The issue isn’t whether these are proposed but that they are offered as the better option. Over a thousand years of commentary and through inverted means they have claimed the truth. Positing suspicious logic and unflattering poetry to reconcile said texts. Interpretations that are diluted by inorganic means. This is not to say that Ashkenazi logic of even the Sephardi logic is by any means performative in its non-classical means but it does parlay a substance beyond the status quo. Even applying Aristotelian or Kantian logic while presumably dissimilar to the commentarial  strata. Critical scholarship may be defined as a logical paradigm but unlike its predecessors, it plays with different variables. It stretches beyond the text for its own comprehension in light of external sources. 

While an entire discipline ought not to be disparaged for actions of the few and potentially far between, it is something to take notice. This is not because critical scholarship has an agenda in rebuking tradition and undermining its tenants. Quite often it is with deep reverence and utmost passion for heritage. The issue is the scholarship on issues outside the text. Not only do they pull from external sources but focus on extending parameters. It isn’t about commentary but criticism. A debate in countering rather than advancing. The agenda for a wider picture is infected with menacing opposition. Dismissing narratives and figures as illusionary and fraudulent. Insinuating calculations by virtue of basic literary mistranslations. Judgment as the core of validated proof. Triangulating a synoptic association to navigate the textual indifference to the inquiries posed. The text is but a baseline to bemoan and belie the integrity of the textual framework. This is not to insult those professionals but to recognize their tools and inventory. To recognize their agenda and speculation. 

As a criticism rather a commentary (not necessarily negative but literarily wise), it speaks as a system of analysis without consulting the history of tradition. The generational linkage is but a waste. Preconceptions are imposed on the text instead of its own voice shouting to the reader. This doesn’t mean everyone must learn biyun as bikiyot is an acceptable method of study. Rather it’s the methodology that slithers into its modern corpus standing tall as a revolutionary and therefore pivotal model. Such arrogance leads to forced conclusions. Little evidence and all the accusations. The more timid style remains close with its archetypical harmonization. It doesn’t seek to dilute the addictive methods of yore. Harmonizing texts in different languages or harmonizing texts with history and archeology. While plausible results at times there is such a certainty that it derides its own viability and authenticity. As a criticism it may look like branching out Tosfot but it is sneakier. It doesn’t care for the internal library but rather for its own testimony. A way of reconciliation that stretches the bounds of traditional scholarship. 

This doesn’t deny its truth. Maimonides and Tosfot may have been influenced by their surrounding cultures. There is some shared legal methodology. More so many traditionalists are too closed minded while academics too liberal. Tools to understand the text for all sorts of reasons benefit the nation and the veracity of the text. It is the reliance on these assertions even if genuine that not only distort the internal matrix but also corrupt the sensitivity to tradition. Maimonides and Tosfot both assumed models shared by their coreligionists but they certainly didn’t copy nor derive. It was accepting an idea. The derivation is firstly from the text and secondly from history. Many a time it is a pattern from a calculated assumption. Did Tosfot use logic because they didn’t understand the text or they were being innovative? Was their geography or culture so foreign or confused? A better solution is that their choice of model was unique even from Rabad himself. It may have been language and it may have been culture but it is not definite unless there is a collaborating text. The proposal is speculation via logical deduction. This is beyond the text and tradition. Interesting but lacking any pragmatic function. The text is of no relevance. 

There thus stands a separation between critical scholarship and commentary. Yet this does not mean that critical scholarship offers no remedy nor that it is the solution. Much of scholarship deals with the modern spiritual components hyper-focusing on allegories, themes, philosophy and history. Neither of which is instrumental to the law or even the standard page of the Talmud.