Robert Goldenberg, ‘The Sabbath-Law of Rabbi Meir’

Originally published in Journal of Jewish Studies 31:1.

Robert Goldenberg. The Sabbath-Law of Rabbi Meir (Brown Judaic Studies 6). Scholars Press, Missoula. 1978. ix, 297 pp. $9.00 (members $6.00).

Dr. Goldenberg, following the form-critical methodology pioneered by his teacher, Jacob Neusner, examines 76 separate texts from Mishnah, Tosefta and the two Talmuds, each in some way linking the second century Tanna, Rabbi Meir, with the Sabbath. Goldenberg observes that he limited his sample to the Sabbath-law because he anticipated that a thematic focus of this sort would provide an amount of material appropriate to the project at hand. It may be questioned whether such an arbitrary selection of material is really most advantageous, especially since in some of the instances the association with the Sabbath is tenuous, e.g., in the first instance examined, where the discussion is about tithing when the tithes cannot be separated at the time one desires to eat of the produce. Such an occasion would, indeed, be on the Sabbath, when the separation of tithes is forbidden, but, as Goldenberg notes, it can also be where containers are not available into which the tithes can be placed. Goldenberg himself adds (p. 207): ‘If this study began by looking for Meir and his connection with Sabbath-law, it will therefore have to conclude it looking for something else. Meir is hardly present here at all; the Sabbath law is all there is to work with’.

This ‘something else’ of which Goldenberg speaks is his solid contribution to Talmudic studies. He raises in a fresh and convincing way questions of the greatest import that are hardly ever discussed outside the Neusner circle. When we read, for instance, that Rabbi Meir says this or that, who is it that states Rabbi Meir said it? Are the words attributed to Rabbi Meir thought of as his actual words or are they a paraphrase of his opinions? In either case is the claim that Rabbi Meir ‘said’ it reliable and what are the techniques to be used for discovering this? And what of the problems of transmission, e.g., the conflicting attributions in different sources dealing with the same topic and the correctness of the texts as we now have them? Goldenberg’s painstaking investigation will place all students of the Talmudic literature in his debt even if they will take issue with some of his particular interpretations such as his understanding (p.23) of the ruling attributed to the anonymous Sages that one may not go out, even on weekdays, wearing a locust’s egg or a fox’s tooth because to do this is to follow ‘the ways of the Amorites’. His explanation that these practices are tinged with idolatry and must be avoided even at the cost of life is quite impossible. Nowhere in the Talmudic literature is it ever suggested that the prohibition of darkhey ha-‘emori falls under the heading of idolatry to avoid which martyrdom is demanded. The reference is surely to attempted cures by these means by a sick person who is not dangerously ill so that the question of danger to life does not arise.

Leo Baeck College, London

Louts Jacobs