In his classic History of the Printing of
the Talmud (Ma'amar Al Hadpasat HaTalmud), Raphael Rabbinovicz
writes:
The holy Talmud,
the base and source of Jewish religious and national life-how numerous
were its enemies and detractors! As was the fate of those who lived
by it and devoted their lives to it, so was its fate. Already in the
year 1239 Pope Gregory IX ordered the burning of the Talmud, and hundreds,
nay thousands of volumes were put to the torch in France and Italy.
In June 1242, twenty-four wagon loads of Talmudic tomes
were publicly burned in Paris by the official executioner. Rabbi Meir
of Rothenburg compared this conflagration to the burning of the Jerusalem
Temple, in an elegy which has been incorporated in the Tishah
B'Av (the holy day commemorating the destruction of the Temple)
liturgy, Sha-ali Serufah, "Oh, inquire, thou consumed
by flames . . ." Popes-Innocent IV, Alexander IV, John XXII, Alexander
V-issued condemnations; monarchs-Louis IX of France and his successors
Philip III and IV-ordered confiscations; and following the Council of
Basle, Pope Eugenius IV issued a bull prohibiting the study of the Talmud.
Fraught with danger and beset with difficulties though it was, study
of the Talmud proceeded nonetheless, because without it Jews were convinced
that Jewish life could not continue. But the condemnations and confiscations
took their toll; very few Talmudic manuscripts have survived, and only
one of the entire Talmud, the Munich manuscript of 1342.
What is the Talmud that it aroused such enmity and
opposition?
The Talmud is the extraordinary compendium of law and
lore of rabbinic Judaism, comprising
both the Mishnah and the Gemara.
Side by side with the Written
Law of the Bible, over
time there developed the Oral
Law, which expanded upon the ordinances of the Pentateuch. This
Oral Law was handed down from master to disciple, studied in Jewish
academies of learning, and applied by Jewish courts of law. The period
of national and spiritual crisis which followed the unsuccessful Jewish rebellions against Rome in 68 and 135 CE persuaded Judah
ha Nasi, head of the Jewish community in Palestine at the turn of
the third century, to compile, systematize, and reduce the Oral Law,
which had come down by word of mouth, into writing. This collection
of laws, legal opinions, decisions, and comments upon them is known
as the Mishnah. it is less a code than a report on prevailing law and
custom, and a digest of legal opinions which invite further study and
discussion.
Study and discussion of the Mishnah in the centuries
following were carried on in academies and applied in courts in Palestine
and Babylonia. The summary and digest of this scholarly activity is
called the Gemara. Not at all dry-as-dust legal argumentation, it reports
on the exciting application of law to life, recording the disputations
which grew out of diverse traditions and differing opinions. Here and
there it is interlaced with a parable, a legend, or just a good story
to make a point. The Mishnah plus the Gemara constitutes the Talmud.
The Mishnah is in Hebrew,
the language of the Bible and of worship and scholarly discourse in
late antiquity; the Gemara is in Aramaic, the language of common discourse
of that time. There are two versions of the Talmud. The first, edited
circa 325 CE, contains the discussions in Palestinian schools and courts
and is called the Jerusalemite or Palestinian. The Babylonian, edited
a century and half later, is the compendium of scholarly legal discussions
carried on in the academies and courts of that Jewish community. Like
the Mishnah, the Gemara is not a code of law (an organized body of legal
decisions), but the raw material for establishing codes-the source for
discussion, refinement, and application.
The spirit of the Talmudic process is expressed in
a tale in tractate Baba Meziah. Rabbi Eliezer, a proponent
of unchanging tradition--"a well-lined cistern that doesn't lose
a drop," as his teacher characterized him--was engaged in a legal
disputation with his colleagues. "He brought all the reasons in
the world," but the majority would not accept his view. Said Rabbi
Eliezer, "If the law is as I hold it to be, let this tree prove
it," and the tree uprooted itself a hundred amma, but
they said, "Proof cannot be brought from a tree." Rabbi Eliezer
persisted, saying, "Let these waters determine it," and the
waters began to flow backwards, but his colleagues responded that waters
cannot determine the law. Once again Rabbi Eliezer tried, asking the
walls of the study house to support him. They began to totter, whereupon
the spokesman for the majority, Rabbi Joshua, admonished them, "when
rabbis are engaged in legal discussion what right have ye to interfere!"
So the walls did not fall in respect for Rabbi Joshua, nor did they
return to their upright position, in respect for Rabbi Eliezer-and "they
remain thus to this day!" But Rabbi Eliezer would not surrender
and cried out: "Let Heaven decide." A voice was heard from
Heaven saying: "Why do ye dispute with Rabbi Eliezer; the law is
always as he says it to be." Whereupon Rabbi Joshua arose and proclaimed,
quoting Scripture, "It is not in Heaven!" Rabbi Jeremiah explained,
"The Law was given at Sinai and we no longer give heed to heavenly
voices, for in that Law it is stated: 'One follows the majority."'
God's truth, divine law, is not determined by miracles or heavenly voices,
but by the collegium of rabbis, men learned in the law, committed to
the law and expert in its application to the life of the pious community.
Such an attitude alone, negating the authority of the
miraculous and heavenly voices, would have been sufficient to make the
Talmud anathema to medieval churchmen, devoted as they were to the miraculous
and to the divine reordering of the validity of the law But there was
more, of course. The Talmud is so vast a work, containing such a variety
of views and assertions, that one can find statements that are extravagant,
hyperbolic, even theologically outrageous, if taken literally.