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Hebrew Union College Annual3101 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45220

Nine at OnceA Study in the Mutability of Textual Traditions

Binyamin KatzoffBar-Ilan University

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Contents 1 The Ruse of Zelophehad’s Daughters DavidH.Aaron, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

39 Nine at OnceA Study in the Mutability of Textual Traditions

BinyaminKatzoff, Bar-Ilan University

63 “You Have Skirted This Hill Long Enough”The Tension between Rhetoric and History in a Byzantine Piyyut

LauraS.Lieber, Duke University

115 “Who Can Recount the Mighty Acts of the Lord?”Cosmology and Authority in Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer 1–3

AnnetteYoshikoReed, University of Pennsylvania

143 “But It Seems to Me ; . . . but I Say”Later Additions to Rashbam’s Torah Commentary

JonathanJacobs, Bar-Ilan University

173 The “Ten Questions” of Eliezer Eilburg JosephM.Davis, Gratz College, Philadelphia

a rtsalMogrth? imogrthwrdmhoaiwrdmhMogrth

ArnonAtzmon, Bar-Ilan University

ak hrothnwmNiblM”bmrlhnwmhworipNibigwomhlociphoNoimhtjiw,itklhhrmoxhPqih

YuvalSinai, Netanya Academic College

jl MinorxahtorodbdomlthtonwrptorpslwMiinongsoMiirojrMiniipamqi’ciibolostloksamhmgdh

LubaR.Charlap, Lifshitz Academic College of Education, Jerusalem

39

20120412.1-huca80

Nine at OnceA Study in the Mutability of Textual Traditions

Binyamin KatzoffBar-Ilan University

The halakhah concerning one who heard a single shofar blast from each of nine persons, all at once, appears in three works — Tosefta, Babylonian Talmud, and Hala-khot Pesuqot. These works report traditions that are contrary both with respect to their content and with respect to their stated source. Furthermore, for each of these compositions there are substantial variations among its own textual witnesses. From the reconstruction here proposed of the original readings respectively of the Talmud and of Halakhot Pesuqot, there appear to have been two independent traditions — one of the talmudic manuscripts, the other of the Tosefta and Halakhot Pesuqot.

Applying the analysis of Yaakov Sussmann — distinguishing between two recen-sions of the Talmud, that of the early geonim, and that of the talmudic manuscripts and rishonim — we can discern in the material concerning the nine shofar blasts two separate stages in the formation of the Talmud. The traditions of the Tosefta and Hala-khot Pesuqot are accordingly the earlier ones ; those of the talmudic manuscripts rep-resent the efforts of later transmitters who collected disparate yet similar halakhot, examining the relationship between them as they combined them into single liter-ary units. If correct, the reconstruction of this pericope sheds desired light on the early, obscure period in the literary development of the Talmud.

The paths by which talmudic traditions passed over time, first by oral and then by written transmission, from their origins to the careful attention of both tra-ditional and critical scholars are complex and intricate.1 In protean fashion

1 On the transmission of the Mishnah, see Jacob Nahum Epstein, hnwmh xsonl aobm (2nd ed.; Jerusa-lem : Magnes, 1964) 673–706 ; Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (2nd ed.; New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962) 83–99 = larwi Crab tonooio Minooi (Jerusalem : Bialik Institute, 1984) 213–24 (Heb.); Avraham Rosenthal, “hnwmh tsrig trosml,” in Shamma Friedman, ed., Saul Lieberman Memorial Volume (New York, Jerusalem : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1993) 29–47 ; Yaakov Sussmann, “d"oi lw ocoq lw oxok :hemwmk hjowp ’hp lebw hrot‘,” Me˙qerei Talmud 3 (2005) (= Yaakov Sussmann and David Rosenthal, eds., Talmudic Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Ephraim E. Urbach) 209–384. On the transmission of the Tosefta see Jacob Nahum Epstein, Introduction to Tannaitic Literature : Mishna, Tosephta and Halakhic Midrashim (Jerusalem : Magnes, 1957) 246 (Heb.); Saul Lieberman, Tosefeth Rishonim (4 vols.; Jerusalem : Mossad Harav Kook, 1939) 4 : 12 (Heb.); Yaakov Elman, “Orality and Trans-mission of Tosefta Pisha in Talmudic Literature,” in Harry Fox and Tirzah Meacham, eds., Intro-ducing Tosefta : Textual, Intratextual, and Intertextual Studies (Hoboken : Ktav, 1999) 123–80. On the transmission of the Babylonian Talmud see Jacob Nahum Epstein, Introduction to Amoraitic Literature (Jerusalem : Magnes, 1962) 140–41 (Heb.); Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal, “The History of the Text and Problems of Redaction in the Study of the Babylonian Talmud,” TarbiΩ 57 (1988)

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traditions took on diverse forms in the various instructional and literary contexts in which they were incorporated, forms often influenced one by the other, but most of all by the Babylonian Talmud.2 Examination of text-witnesses of particular works often reveals a multiplicity of traditions. Texts, attributions, and contents change from witness to witness, occasionally reflecting relation-ships with similar traditions in other works, where too there may be significant textual variance.3 A study of the textual variants of each work separately followed by a comparison with the traditions in other works makes it possible to discern the unique character of each tradition, clarifies the relationships among them, and often provides an opening to the understanding of their genesis.

Such is the case in the subject of the present study, on the rules applying to a person who heard simultaneously nine sounds of the shofar blown by nine dif-ferent people. (I use ‘sound’ to represent the Hebrew loq, referring to each set of teqi2ah [one long blast], shevarim [three medium blasts], and teru2ah [nine short blasts, in the currently accepted practice].) The rule presented in some

7–8 (Heb.); Robert Brody, “idomlth jsqjho Minoagh torps,” Me˙qerei Talmud : Talmudic Studies 1 (1990) 237–303 ; Yaakov Sussmann, “Niqizn imlworil bowo,” Me˙qerei Talmud : Talmudic Studies 1 (1990) 110 and n. 207 ; Avraham Rosenthal, “hwemo hklh :inism hroto hp lebw hrot,” Me˙qerei Talmud 2 (1993) (= Moshe Bar-Asher and David Rosenthal, eds., Talmudic Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal) 479 n. 9 ; Shamma Friedman, “On the Ori-gin of Textual Variants in the Babylonian Talmud,” Sidra 7 (1991) 67–77 (Heb.). On the transmis-sion of the Talmud of the Land of Israel see Moshe Assis, “A Fragment of Yerushalmi Sanhedrin,” TarbiΩ 46 (1977) 38 (Heb.); Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal, Yerushalmi Neziqin (Jerusalem : Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1983) 12–13 (Heb.); Leib Moscovitz, “Sugiot Mu˙lafot in the Talmud Yerushalmi,” TarbiΩ 60 (1991) 59–61 (Heb.); Leib Moscovitz, “Parallel Sugiot and the Text-Tradition of the Yerushalmi,” TarbiΩ 60 (1991) 540–41 (Heb.).

2 Yaakov Sussmann, “The ‘Boundaries of Eretz-Israel,’” TarbiΩ 45 (1976) 226–27 (Heb.); Sussmann, “Niqizn imlworil bowo,” 90–92 ; Mena˙em Kahana, “Genesis Rabba MS Vatican 60 and its Parallels,” in Mordechai Akiva Friedman and Myron B. Lerner, eds., Studies in the Aggadic Midrashim in Mem-ory of Zvi Meir Rabinowitz (Te’udah 11) (Tel-Aviv : Tel-Aviv Univ., 1996) 17 (Heb.).

3 Characterization of such variants has been a central concern of modern talmudic scholarship, particularly in light of the distinctions made by Jacob Nahum Epstein between “toaxson ipolix (Varianten)”— variations between manuscripts of a particular fixed-text work, presumably caused by errors in transmission, oral or written, for example, various manuscripts of the Mishnah — and “tonowl ipolix or ‘torxa Minp’ (Versionen)”— variations in a single tradition as presented in separate works, presumably the result of deliberate changes, reworking of content, for example, a baraita reported differently in the Bavli and in the Yerushalmi — for which see Epstein, aobm

hnwmh xsonl, 1, and a third intermediary category, “toasrig ipolix”— variations between man-uscripts of a single work whose text was not yet fixed, changes peculiar to oral transmission of works — for which see Epstein, Amoraitic Literature, 140–41. In addition to the works cited above in n. 1, see Yoav Rosenthal, “b"e–a"e bm toeobw ilbb lw 'oipne‘o 'oirqie‘,” Me˙qerei Talmud 2 (1993) 517–25 ; Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel, Chapters in the History of the Jewish Book : Scholars and their Annotations (Ramat-Gan : Bar-Ilan Univ. Press, 1996) 77–79 (Heb.); Adiel Schremer, “Be-tween Text Transmission and Text Redaction : Fragments of a Different Recension of TB Mo’ed Qatan from the Genizah,” TarbiΩ 61 (1992) 375–99 (Heb.).

2

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manuscripts of the Tosefta is contrary to that in a baraita reported in most textual witnesses of the Bavli, but consistent with other witnesses of the Bavli, which in turn may have been indirectly influenced, perhaps at a relatively late stage, by the Tosefta. Yet another tradition, concerning both the origin of the rule and its content, is found in Halakhot Pesuqot and in other geonic works, whose manuscripts too display varying halakhic stands, which relate in one way or another to the various talmudic traditions in the manuscripts. I will ar-gue that what we have before us are two distinct traditions, one in the manu-scripts of the Bavli, the other in the Tosefta and the geonic literature. These two traditions did influence each other, and their interplay discloses the process by which the traditions were formed and the paths by which they were transmit-ted and incorporated in the various works in which they appear.

Gathered in one paragraph toward the end of Tosefta Rosh Hashanah are several rules concerning the blowing of the shofar. One of these, appearing in only some of the manuscripts of the Tosefta, addresses the matter of a person who heard the sounding of the shofar from nine different people all at once. The rule may have originated in the context of the practice at Yavneh of indi-viduals blowing the shofar each for himself. As the practice fell into disuse, the rule, in its divergent forms, was transmitted as a merely theoretical halakhah, unencumbered by a tradition of liturgical practice familiar to the tradents. The relationship between the various halakhic traditions on the subject can thus be examined on purely textual grounds.4 There are five direct textual witnesses

3

4 The most direct evidence for the practice is the statement of R. Yitz˙ak b. Yosef in b.Roš Haš. 30a, “At Yavneh, when the representative of the congregation [robic xilw = prayer leader] finished the shofar blowing, no one could hear anything because of the din of individuals blowing the sho-far.” This is the plain meaning of the view R. Gamliel disputes at m.Roš Haš. 4.9, “As the represen-tative of the congregation is obligated, so is every individual obligated. R. Gamliel says the rep-resentative of the congregation fulfills the obligation of the many.” See Hanoch Albeck, Shishah sidrei mishnah (6 vols.; Jerusalem : Bialik Institute, 1952) 6 : 491 (Heb.); Joseph Tabory, Jewish Fes-tivals in the Time of the Mishnah and Talmud (Jerusalem : Magnes, 2000) 246 (Heb.). (Cf. t.Roš Haš. 2.18 [Saul Lieberman, ed., Tosefta Mo2ed (New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of Amer-ica, 1962) 321] and b.Roš Haš. 34b–35a, where the dispute is made to concern the amidah prayer rather than the shofar sounds.) See now the full discussion in Mordechai A. Friedman, “The Sec-ond One Orders the Blowing,” Sidra 24–25 (2010) 369–85, at 376–81 (Heb.). The decision by R. Yo˙anan in favor of R. Gamliel reported in both talmudim (b.Roš Haš. 34b, y.Roš Haš. 4.10 59d = y.Ber. 4.6 8c) may well refer to this issue (especially in the version of the Yerushalmi —“R. Huna Rabbah of Tsippori said in the name of R. Yo˙anan, the halakhah is according to R. Gamliel con-cerning those teqi2ot”), and may be the cause of the disappearance of the custom of individu-als blowing shofar. The curious action of R. Óisda reported in the Yerushalmi may also be a re-sult of R. Yo˙anan’s decision. (The forced interpretations which have been given to that episode are unnecessary. See Louis Ginzberg, A Commentary on the Palestinian Talmud [4 vols.; New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1941] 3 : 441–43.) There are no later surviving ref-erences to this practice, which apparently fell into desuetude. The geonim gave the matter an en-tirely different interpretation. See, for example, Shaare Teshubah : Responsa of the Geonim, with

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for this passage in the Tosefta, separated into two distinct groups by significant textual variations : The first group comprises MS Vienna (o), MS Erfurt (a), and Bologna fragment 14 of the European Genizah (b); the second comprises MS London (l) and the editio princeps (d).5 The text is as follows :

Tosefta Rosh Hashanah 2.15 :6

Text found in all witnesses, dlbao § Text found only in MSS oab

wlw wlw lw wlw toeiqt rds

The order of blowing is three (series) of three (sounds) each.7

1

2 toeort wlwo toeiqt ww

Six teqi2ot and three teru2ot.

3 8toeort wlwo toeiqt ww emw

aci dxak Mda inb hewtm

If one heard six teqi2ot and three teru2ot from nine persons at once he has fulfilled his obligation.

4

notes by R. David Luria and annotations by Wolf Leiter (Pittsburg-New York : Feldheim, 1946. Includes reprint of edition of Leipzig, 1858) 65.

5 For a description of the Tosefta manuscripts see Saul Lieberman, ed., Tosefta Zera2im (New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1955) pp. bi–z; Lieberman, Tosefta Mo2ed (New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962) p. h; Lieberman, Tosefta Kifshuta (10 vols.; New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1955–88) 3 : di–gi (henceforth : Lieberman, TK). Li-eberman called attention several times to a familial relation between MS Vienna and the printed editions. MS Erfurt differs from them ; MS London is closer to MS Erfurt. See Tosefta Zera2im, p. bi ; TK, 1 : ji; Tosefta Mo2ed, p. h ; TK, 3 : gi. See also Shamma Friedman, Tosefta Atiqta : Pesa˙ Rishon (Ramat-Gan : Bar-Ilan Univ. Press, 2002) 79–87 (Heb.). In our case, however, exceptionally, the printed editions differ from MS Vienna, and MS London differs from MS Erfurt. For a de-scription of the Genizah fragment see Mauro Perani and Günter Stemberger, “Nuova Luce sulla Tradizione Manoscritta della Tosefta : I Fragmenti Rinvenuti a Bologna,” Henoch 16 (1994) 227–52.

6 Lieberman, Tosefta Mo2ed, 319, lines 80–87. In the presentation of the texts of the Tosefta and Bavli only such differences as are relevant to the present discussion are noted.

7 The sentence is a quotation from m.Roš Haš. 4.9. (In dl the quotation continues with the next sentence, tobbi wlwk heort roeiw toeort wlwk heiqt roeiw, “The length of a teqi2ah is that of three teru2ot ; the length of a teru2ah is that of three yabavot.”) The phenomenon was, famously, noted by Rabbenu Tam, “It is the practice of the Tosefta in a thousand places to quote a bit of Mishnah as a mnemonic.” See Saul Lieberman, “Supplement to the Tosephta,” in Moses S. Zuck-ermandel, ed., Tosephta (Jerusalem : Wahrmann, 1970) (repr. of Tashlum Tosefta [Jerusalem : Bam-berger & Wahrmann, 1937]) 21 (Heb.); Lieberman, TK, 1 : 22 ; Rosenthal, “hnwmh tsrig trosml,” 40–42 ; Friedman, Tosefta Atiqta, 21–46.

8 In MS a the words toeort…emw are missing, apparently omitted because of homoioteleuton. Lieberman, TK, 5 : 1057.

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Text found in all witnesses, dlbao § Text found only in MSS oab

toeort wlwo toeiqt ww emw

Moih lk olipa Nigorisb olipa

aci olok

If one heard six teqi2ot and three teru2ot even at intervals through-

out the day he has fulfilled his obligation.

4

olipa hzm heorto hzm heiqt emw

aci olok Moih lk olipa Nigorisb

If one heard a teqi2ah from one person and a teru2ah from another

even at intervals throughout the day he has fulfilled his obligation.9

5

Two sections of the baraita — the specification of the sounds as six teqi2ot and three teru2ot (section 2), and the rule that one who heard the sounds from nine persons at once has fulfilled his obligation (section 3) — are found only in man-uscripts o, a, and b, and not in l and d. The quality of each manuscript respec-tively does not in and of itself help tip the scales in favor of the one version or the other, for these lines are found in the main representatives of each of the two main manuscript branches, MS Erfurt and MS Vienna, as well as in the Bologna fragment 14, considered by some scholars to be relatively reliable.10 On the other hand, they are absent in MS London, which Lieberman asserted was gener-ally of high quality.11 A determination on the originality of one of the versions12 will, then, have to come from a consideration of the content of halakhah itself.

5

9 In MS o this line is found at the end of the passage, in slightly different language (see Tosefta, ed. Lieberman, Tosefta Mo2ed, 320, lines 86–87 ; and the emendation, not imperative, following other manuscripts, Lieberman, TK, 5 : 1061), after the rule, found in all other manuscripts as well (for the variant in MS Erfurt see Lieberman, TK, 5 : 1059–61), that one who blew a teqi2ah and a teru2ah in one breath did not fulfill his obligation. See further, n. 18 below.

10 Perani, “Nuova Luce,” believes that Bologna fg. 14 preserves an early version of the Tosefta, occa-sionally older that that in MS Vienna. MS Erfurt, in contrast, is considered by many scholars to be derivative and interpolated, see Lieberman, TK, vol. 3 : jn ; Lieberman, Tosefeth Rishonim, 4 : gi–bi; Saul Lieberman, deom rds hjowpk atpsotl tomlwho Minoqit srjnoq (New York : Jewish Theolog-ical Seminary of America, 1962) 3 ; Yaakov Sussmann, “The Ashkenazi Yerushalmi MS — ‘Sefer Yerushalmi,’” TarbiΩ 65 (1996) 61 n. 166 (Heb.); Yaakov Sussmann, “Talmudic Remnants in the ‘Eu-ropean Genizah,’” in Avraham David and Joseph Tabory, The Italian Genizah (Jerusalem : Orhot, 1998) pp. s–jn (Heb.); Friedman, Tosefta Atiqta, 79–86.

11 Lieberman, Tosefta Mo2ed, p. h ; Lieberman, TK, 3 : gi. 12 This may not be achievable, given the possibility that we have in fact varying early traditions,

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The wording of the baraita is not smooth. In all witnesses section 5 repeats what was said in section 4, that separation of the sounds by intervals does not inval-idate the sounds.13 The version in o, a, and b suffers from the additional repeti-tion of the itemization of “six teqi2ot and three teru2ot” found in all witnesses in section 4.14 Clearly the baraita in the Tosefta is a composite of several inde-pendently couched halakhot, with partially overlapping content.15 The redac-tor of the baraita in the Tosefta who collected these halakhot performed in this case only “light editing.” At least in some of the parts he left the halakhot in their original form without adapting their language to the larger literary context in which they became embedded.16

Scrutiny of the halakhic content of the baraita reveals a further difficulty which arises from reading the baraita in MSS bao as a single literary unit. There it is stated that if one heard nine sounds from nine different people all at once he has fulfilled his obligation (section 3). Once that is said there is no need to add — what is found in all witnesses — that it is satisfactory if one heard a teqi2ah from one person and a teru2ah from another (section 5), for the principle that

6

and perhaps even that there is no one “original version.” See Saul Lieberman, review of Sifre (ed. Finkelstein), Kiryat Sefer 14 (1938) 324–25 (Heb.); Lieberman, Tosefeth Rishonim, 4 : oj–bi ; Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal, “hromh,” PAAJR 31 (1963) 62–63 ; Chaim Milikowsky, “Seder Olam : A Rab-binic Chronography” (Ph.D. diss.; New Haven : Yale Univ., 1981) 128–32 ; Adiel Schremer, “The Text-Tradition of the Tosefta : A Preliminary Study in the Footsteps of Saul Lieberman,” JSIJ 1 (2002) 36 n. 133 (Heb.), http ://www.biu.ac.il/JS/JSIJ/1–2002/Schremer.pdf, Sept. 1, 2011.

13 With the possible exception of MS Vienna, whose reading is somewhat different and not per-fectly clear. See above, n. 9. Lieberman suggests that the statement in section 5 may add to sec-tion 4 that intervals do not invalidate the sounds even if the sounds are produced by separate individuals. However, even so — and that is doubtful — section 5 would be sufficient on its own ; section 4 would still be superfluous.

14 In MSS bo the added detail appears in both sections 2 and 3 ; in MS a in section 2 only. See above, n. 8. 15 On various collections of halakhot incorporated into the Tosefta, see Epstein, Tannaitic Litera-

ture, 242–48 ; Hanoch Albeck, domltl Nsxio atpsotbo atiirbb Mirqxm (Jerusalem : Mossad Harav Kook, 1943/44. Repr. 1969) 65–88 ; Abraham Goldberg, Tosefta Bava Kamma : A Structural and Analytic Commentary With a Mishna-Tosefta Synopsis (Jerusalem : Magnes, 2001) 32–34 (Heb.).

16 Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew (8 vols.; New York : Yo-selof, 1960) 1 : 59 (Heb.); Nathan Braverman, “Concerning the Language of the Mishnah and the Tosephta,” Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies : Jerusalem, August 4–12, 1985 (Jerusalem : World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986) D.1 (Hebrew and Jewish Languages. Other Lan-guages) 31–38 (Heb.); Nathan Braverman, Particles and Adverbs in Tannaitic Hebrew (Mishnah and Tosefta) (Ph.D. diss.; Hebrew Univ. 1995) 9 (Heb.): “R. Judah redacted the Mishnah from var-ious sources, and in doing so he edited both the language and the style to achieve uniformity of language and style. On the other hand, the redactor of the Tosefta also collected material from various sources, but incorporated it in the Tosefta more or less in its original form ; hence the language and style of the Tosefta are less uniform than those of the Mishnah” (my translation). Shamma Friedman, “Mishna-Tosefta Parallels (Shabbat 13,14),” Bar-Ilan : Studies in Judaica and the Humanities 26–27 (1995) 288 (Heb.); Friedman, Tosefta Atiqta, 71–73 ; Judith Hauptman, Rereading the Mishnah : A New Approach to Ancient Jewish Texts (Tübingen : Mohr Siebeck, 2005) 21 n. 75.

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the sounds need not come from a single shofar blower has already been stated. Section 5 is superfluous and adds needless verbosity and complication.17 This difficulty, of course, arises only in MSS bao, which include the rule that if one heard nine sounds simultaneously he has fulfilled his obligation (section 3). Indeed, it may well be this very difficulty which caused the omission of the sec-tion in the other textual witnesses.18

However, it must be emphasized that the difficulty arising in the MSS bao from the insertion of the rule in section 3 is the result of the editing process. Af-ter all, both rules — one allowing simultaneity, the other allowing a plurality of blowers — rest, at least in part, on the same halakhic principle. It is only when they are juxtaposed and read together as a continuous text in which the reader expects to find an inner logic that one part makes the other otiose.19 Now, the Tosefta is not a work by a single author who composed and worded each of its halakhot and worked out the relation between them. It is rather a composite of halakhot from various sources. The language of this very passage, as we have seen, illustrates the “light editing” applied to the materials and the failure to adapt them to their new literary context.20 If we would disassemble the baraita into its component parts and read each part independently, each part would be perfectly comprehensible and free of internal difficulty.

A partial parallel to the baraita in the Tosefta is found in the Bavli, a baraita also comprising several halakhot on the blowing of the shofar, quoted by way of support for a statement of Rabbi Yo˙anan.21 For this passage of the Bavli there are seven manuscripts :

7

17 It can even be argued that a tradent who stated the rule that one who heard a teqi2ah from one person and a teru2ah from another has fulfilled his obligation (section 5), would hold that one would not satisfy his obligation if he heard the sounds simultaneously, for otherwise there would be no reason for the repetition. This is implied in the emendation proposed by Rashi, for which see below. See also Shibolei Haleqet (Venice : Bomberg, 1546) 10.99 43c, http ://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx ?req=11889&pgnum=85 , Sept. 1, 2011; Lieberman, TK, 3 : 1057. Cf. Lieberman’s suggestion that the halakhah on hearing a teqi2ah from one person and a teru2ah from another (section 5) is stated only for its ending, “even at intervals.” This does not seem to be the plain meaning of the section, for it would require olipa to be at the beginning of the sentence.

18 See n. 65, below. Lieberman proposed that the halakhah that hearing the sounds from different persons is satisfactory refers to the halakhah, which precedes it immediately in MS Vienna, that one who blew the sounds in one breath did not fulfill his obligation. In that context the point would be that though hearing one’s own blowing multiple sounds in one breath is unsatisfactory, hearing in one breath other persons’ sounds is satisfactory. Though the interpretation is not im-perative, it may well be that the change of order in MS Vienna reflects an attempt to avoid the halakhic difficulty discussed here.

19 The juxtaposition may in fact indicate disaccord of the two halakhot. See above, n. 17. 20 See above, nn. 15 and 16. 21 On the relation of baraitot in the Tosefta to their parallels in the talmudim, see Epstein, Tannaitic

Literature (above, n. 1) 246 ; Benjamin de Vries, “The Early Form of Certain Halakhot,” TarbiΩ 25

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1. A Yemenite manuscript, JTS Rab. 108 (EMC 319) (t) 2. Munich MS 140 (b) 3. JTS Rab. 1608 (ENA 850) (s) 4. London MS British Library Harl. 5508, Margoliouth Cat. 400 (l), and its

corrector (l*) 5. Oxford Bodleian MS Opp. Add. fol. 23 (a) 6. Vatican MS 134 (o) 7. Munich MS 95 (m)

There are also two Genizah fragments :

1. OXF-BOD Heb b. 10/15 (g1) 2. TS f1(1).50 (g2) (The agreement of the two Genizah fragments is signified g.)

Three early printed editions have been examined as well :

1. Gershom Soncino (Pesaro, between 1511 and 1519) 2. Daniel Bomberg, Venice, 1521 3. Cracow B, 1603

The uniform reading of these early editions (r"d) differs from later printings such as the Vilna edition (o"d). (The agreement of all printed editions is signi-fied d.)22 There are substantial differences in the readings of the various textual witnesses of the Bavli, apparently reflecting the uncertainties in the text of the baraita in the Tosefta.

8

(1956) 371 (Heb.); Mena˙em Moreshet, “New and Revived Verbs in the Baraytot of the Babylo-nian Talmud,” in Ezekiel Y. Kutscher, ed., Archive of the New Dictionary of Rabbinical Literature I (Ramat-Gan : Bar-Ilan Univ. Press, 1972) 117–62 (Heb.); Moreshet, “The Language of the Baray-tot in the T.B. is not Mhe1,” in Ezekiel Y. Kutscher, Saul Lieberman, and Mena˙em Zevi Kaddari, eds., Henoch Yalon Memorial Volume (Ramat-Gan : Bar-Ilan Univ. Press, 1974) (Heb.); Moreshet,

“Further Studies of the Language of the Hebrew Baraytot in the Babylonian and Palestinian Tal-mudim,” in Mena˙em Zevi Kaddari, ed., Archive of the New Dictionary of Rabbinical Literature II (Ramat-Gan : Bar-Ilan Univ. Press, 1974) 31–43 (Heb.); Elman, “Orality,” 167–80 ; Shamma Y. Fried-man, “atpsotb Nhitolibqml Nsxio ilbbh domltb totiirb,” in Daniel Boyarin, et al., eds., Atara L’Haim : Studies in the Talmud and Medieval Rabbinic Literature in Honor of Professor Zalman Dimitrovsky (Jerusalem : Magnes, 2000) 163–201 ; Binyamin Katzoff, “The Relationship Between the Baraitot in the Tosefta and Their Talmudic Parallels : The Evidence of Tractate Berachot,” HUCA 75 (2004) pp. dk–a (Heb.).

22 For a detailed account of the manuscripts and printed editions of Bavli Rosh Hashanah, see Da-vid Golinkin, “Rosh Hashanah Chapter IV of the Babylonian Talmud (Part 2). A Critical Edi-tion and Commentary” (Ph.D. diss.; New York : The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1988) pp. n–oj (Heb.) and the copious references to earlier literature cited there ; Avram Weiss, “The Text of Chapter III of Tractate Rosh Hashana in the Babylonian Talmud : A Synoptic Edi-tion with an Introduction” (M.A. diss.; Ramat-Gan : Bar-Ilan Univ., 2004) 10–31 (Heb.); Eliezer Segal, The Textual Traditions of Tractate Megillah in the Babylonian Talmud (Ph.D. Diss.; Jeru-salem : Hebrew Univ., 1981) 108–12, 214–15 (Heb.). For an account of the Genizah fragments, see David Golinkin, Ginzei Rosh Hashanah. Manuscript Fragments of Bavli Rosh Hashanah from the

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Bavli Rosh Hashanah 34a–b :

§ Text found in all witnesses dgmoalsbt

1 aci Moib toew ewtb toeiqt ewt emw Nnxoi r"a

Rabbi Yo˙anan said : If one heard nine teqi2ot at nine separate times during the day he has fulfilled his obligation.

2 23aci Moib toew ewtb toeiqt ewt emw ikh imn aint

It is taught similarly in a baraita : If one heard nine teqi2ot at nine separate times during the day he has fulfilled his obligation.

o"dgmabt r"d l os

3 Mda inb hewtm 24aci al dxak

From nine per-sons at once, he has not fulfilled his obligation.

Mda inb hewtm

dxak

From nine per-sons at once,

Mda inb hewtm 25aci dxak

From nine per-sons at once, he has fulfilled his obligation.

Mda inb hewtm

aci dxak

From nine per-sons at once, he has fulfilled his obligation.

4 hzm heiqt 26aci hzm heorto

A teqi2ah from one and a teru2ah from another — he has fulfilled his obligation.

hzm heiqt

aci hzm heorto

A teqi2ah from one and a teru2ah from another — he has fulfilled his obligation.

hzm heiqt

aci hzm heorto

A teqi2ah from one and a teru2ah from another — he has fulfilled his obligation.

Text found in all witnesses dgmoalsbt

5 olok Moih lk olipao Nigorisb olipao

Even at intervals, and even throughout the day.27

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Cairo Genizah (New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2000) 8–13, 18–22 (Heb.). 23 MS a lacks the single word aci ; MS t lacks the words aci Moib toew ewtb. These appear to be

accidental omissions (in the case of t perhaps by homoioarkton). 24 The words aci al are bracketed in o"d to indicate that they are an addition to the text of r"d. 25 In MS l the reading is aci hzxa hzb ipa dxak Mda inb hewtm. The corrector *l deleted the

words hzxa hzb ipa by drawing a line through them. Presumably this was done by comparison with another manuscript and not as a deliberate change in the content.

26 In 1gaml and in the corrections of b the words hz rxa hzb are found, with some variation, per-haps as a gloss on hzm heorto hzm heiqt.

27 In MS m this sentence is preceded by the repetition of the condition, inb hewtm toeiqt ewt emw

hz rxa hzb Mda. In MSS moa*lb the word aci is added at the end.

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In all textual witnesses the sugya opens with a statement attributed to R. Yo˙anan that a person who heard nine teqi2ot at nine separate times dur-ing the day has fulfilled his obligation (section 1). Again in all textual witnesses, this is followed, as often in the Bavli, by a baraita in support of that statement in nearly identical words (section 2).28 The baraita continues with the two hala-khot (Bavli sections 3 and 4) in the passage of the Tosefta quoted above (Tosefta sections 3 and 5). Here, however, we find substantial differences among the vari-ous textual witnesses of the Bavli. These differences, I maintain, reflect attempts to deal with the difficulties, discussed above, arising from reading the two hala-khot, on simultaneity and on plurality of blowers, in the composite baraita of the Tosefta as a single cohesive literary unit.

The textual witnesses of the Bavli present two opposite solutions to these dif-ficulties. In one solution, that of the majority of witnesses (o"dgmabt), the two halakhot are set out continuously, but the halakhic content differs from that of the Tosefta. In these Bavli witnesses the person who heard nine sounds from nine blowers at once did not fulfill his obligation, contrary to the tradition in some of the Tosefta witnesses that in such a case he did fulfill his obligation. In the other solution, found in MSS os, the passage includes the rule on the per-missibility of simultaneity, as in some of the Tosefta witnesses, but not the rule permitting the plurality of blowers, since the latter rule is implied by the for-mer. The early printed editions, r"d, read in section 3 neither aci, “has fulfilled his obligation,” nor aci al, “has not fulfilled his obligation.” They thus run the two sections together into a single halakhah stating that one who heard from nine persons at once has fulfilled his obligation, as in MSS os. Only MS l re-ports both that the one who heard from nine persons at once has fulfilled his obligation, and that one who heard the sounds from different persons blowing has fulfilled his obligation, even though the second halakhah is superfluous.29

In the case of the Bavli manuscripts there are external grounds, provenance and general quality, which attest to the reliability of the reading found in the

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28 On the relationship between the baraita and the statement of R. Yo˙anan, see Noah Aminoah, The Redaction of the Tractates Betza, Rosh-hashana and Ta’anith in the Babilonian [sic] Talmud (Tel-Aviv : Tel-Aviv Univ., 1986) 165–66 (Heb.); Judith Hauptman, Development of the Talmudic Sugya : Relationship Between Tannaitic and Amoraic Sources (Lanham : Univ. Press of America, 1988) 5. See further below, n. 60.

29 This may reflect a less exacting reading of the baraita in the Tosefta. See above, n. 14. There is a certain parallelism in the literary phenomena and the halakhic stances in the text witnesses of the Bavli and the Tosefta respectively. In each of the two works some of the text witnesses include in the baraita both halakhot (Tosefta : bao ; Bavli : dgmalbt) and some include only one (Tosefta : dl ; Bavli : os). Similarly (though with opposite correlation) in each of the two works some of the text witnesses include an explicit statement that one who heard nine sounds from nine persons simultaneously has fulfilled his obligation (Tosefta : bao ; Bavli : ols) and some state the opposite, explicitly (Bavli : o"dgmabt) or implicitly (Tosefta : dl).

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majority of textual witnesses. The reading aci al, “he has not fulfilled his obligation,” is found in MS t, which Golinkin considers the most accurate of the manuscripts of tractate Rosh Hashanah,30 in two relatively early eastern Genizah fragments, in the Sephardic MSS ab, and Ashkenazic MS m. The reading aci, “he has fulfilled his obligation,” is found only in the Sephardic MS s and the Ashke-nazic MSS lo. Moreover, the emendation proposed by Rashi in his commentary makes it possible, as I will presently show, to distinguish with a high degree of probability between an original Bavli text on the one hand and a later, interpo-lated text on the other.31 His emendation should be examined with the follow-ing questions in mind :32 What was the reading Rashi rejected ? Is his proposed

11

30 Golinkin, Ginzei Rosh Hashanah, pp. k–ji. Cf. Weiss, “Chapter III of Tractate Rosh Hashana,” 113–16. On the Yemenite manuscripts, see Rosenthal, “History of the Text,” 28–30 ; Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal, letter published in Shelomo Morag, Babylonian Aramaic (1988) 55–56 n. 11 (Heb.); Se-gal, Textual Traditions of Tractate Megillah, 27–87 ; Eliezer Segal, “The Textual Tradition of Ms. Columbia University to TB Megillah,” TarbiΩ 53 (1984) 51–59 (Heb.); Mordechai Sabato, Yemenite Manuscript of Tractate Sanhedrin and its Place in the Text Tradition (Jerusalem : Hebrew Univ. and Yad Ben-Zvi, 1998) 333–43 (Heb.); Mordechai Sabato, “xson ipneo di–ibtk :Nirdhns ilbb,” Issues in Talmudic Research : Conference Commemorating the Fifth Anniversary of the Passing of Ephraim E. Urbach, 2 December 1996 (Jerusalem : Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2001) 80–99 ; Mordechai Sabato, “On the Chronological Order of the Textual Witnesses of the Babylonian Talmud,” Sidra 21 (2005–6) 145–53 (Heb.); Cf. Stephen G. Wald, BT Pesahim III : Critical Edition with Comprehensive Commentary (New York and Jerusalem : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2000) 345–46 (Heb.); Aaron Amit, “Mixsp ilbb lw xsonh trosmb Miinmith dih ibtk,” HUCA 73 (2002) pp. ge–al ; Aaron Amit, “R. Hananel’s Reading in Bavli Pesa˙im,” Sidra 21 (2005–6) 133–44 (Heb.).

31 Vered Noam, “Early Version Traditions in Rashi’s Emendations of the Talmud,” Sidra 17 (2001–2) 110 (Heb.), put it well : “A fundamental principle of talmudic philology is the distinction between the secondary, revised French/Ashkenazi versions of the Bavli on the one hand, ‘which spread throughout Jewry largely because of the authority of Rashi,’ and, on the other hand, the Sepah-rdic/Oriental tradition, presumed to be reliable.” The internal quotation is from Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal, “?otoxa Nb Mg hiix 'r ixa Nb br” in Saul Lieberman, et al., eds., Henoch Yalon Jubilee Volume (Jerusalem : Kiryat Sefer, 1963) 286 ; Segal, Textual Traditions of Tractate Megillah, 127 n. 1. Although many aspects of Rashi’s commentary to the Talmud have been studied fully — see Yonah Frenkel, Rashi’s Methodology in his Exegesis of the Babylonian Talmud (Jerusalem : Magnes, 1975) (Heb.); Avraham Grossman, The Early Sages of France : Their Lives, Leadership and Works (Jeru-salem : Magnes, 1995) 215–36 (Heb.); Israel M. Ta-Shma, The Talmudic Commentary in Europe and North Africa : Literary History. Part One : 1000–1200 (Jerusalem : Magnes, 2000) 40–56 (Heb.) and in the extensive literature cited there — the question of the relationship of talmudic versions in Rashi’s commentary and emendations to the versions in the manuscripts and quotations in the rishonim still awaits systematic and comprehensive treatment. See Segal, Textual Traditions of Tractate Megillah, 127–212 ; Shamma Friedman, Talmud Arukh, BT Bava MeΩi‘a VI. Vol. II : Ha-Nusa˙ (Jerusalem : Jewish Theological Seminary of America 1996) 48 (Heb.); Sabato, Yemenite Manuscript of Tractate Sanhedrin, 109–50.

32 Cf. the research goals set by Segal, Textual Traditions of Tractate Megillah, 129 ; Sabato, Yemenite Manuscript of Tractate Sanhedrin, 229 ; Noam, “Early Version Traditions,” 112.

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emendation the product of his reasoning or a decision in favor of the reading of some manuscript he had at hand ? 33 How do the textual witnesses reflect the influence of Rashi’s emendation on the textual tradition ? 34

Rashi s.v. aci al dxak Mda inb hewtm :35

1. .Mirpsb botkw hm ipl hworip Kk ,iemtwm al ilq irt

Two voices cannot be heard at once. This is the meaning of the passage according to what is written in the books.

2. ikho ,(a"e zk h"r) iemtwm irbg irtm ilq irt anmiqoa ahd ,aih atlm oalo

lk olipao ,Nigorisb olipao ,aci dxak Mda inb hewtm :atpsotb hl Nnisrg

.olok Moih

However, that is not correct, for we have it established that two voices from two persons can be heard (b.Roš Haš. 27a). The reading we have of this pas-sage in the Tosefta is : “(If one heard the sounds) from nine persons at once he has fulfilled his obligation, even at intervals, and even throughout the day.”

12

33 Modern scholars recognize both as sources for Rashi’s emendations, but differ on the weight to be assigned to each. Surveys : Segal, Textual Traditions of Tractate Megillah, 129 ; Ta-Shma, Tal-mudic Commentary in Europe, 46–48 ; Noam, “Early Version Traditions,” 112–16.

34 Rashi’s grandson Rabbenu Tam insisted that “If Rabbenu Shelomo (Rashi) would make an emen-dation he would record it only in his commentary, never in the book itself. It was those who drank of his waters who corrected books according to the emendations suggested in his com-mentaries, which he never dared do in his lifetime”; Shimeon Shelomo Schlesinger, ed., :rwih rps Miwodx (Jerusalem : Kiryat Sefer, 1959) 9. The extent of the phenomenon of emending talmudic texts in his day is reflected in his harsh criticism of the correctors : “For our sins, emenders of books of the Talmud have proliferated, and no one cares” (§602 p. 355); “It is ignorant and fool-ish to change the reading of a text. We would be led to change ‘impure’ to ‘pure’ and ‘forbidden’ to ‘permitted’” (Ephraim Zalman Margolioth and Ferdinand Rosenthal, eds., tolaw :rwih rps

tobowto [Berlin : Itzkowsky, 1898] §46 p. 86). 35 This is the reading found in all manuscripts of Rashi’s commentary — MS JTS Rab. 840, MS Parma,

MS Cambridge Add. 494, and MS Munich 216 — as well as in the printed editions. For an account of the manuscripts of Rashi on tractate Rosh Hashanah and their relationships see Aaron Ahrend,

“Studies on the Text Witnesses of Rashi’s Commentary on Tractate Rosh Hashana,” Sidra 20 (2005) 5–10 (Heb.). This also appears to be the text of Rashi before the many rishonim who addressed the passage, with the one exception of the Ritva (R. Yom Tov b. Abraham Ishbili). The commen-tary he ascribes to Rashi is apparently not the one which we have as Rashi. (The commentary the Ritva refers to may not have contained the third section of the text quoted in the following.) For the various versions of Rashi’s commentary, see Jacob Nahum Epstein, “The Commentaries of R. Jehuda ben Nathan and the Commentaries of Worms (Conclusion),” TarbiΩ 4 (1933) 189–92 (Heb.); Frenkel, Rashi’s Methodology, 1–15 ; Shamma Friedman, “Rashi’s Talmudic Commentaries and the Nature of Their Revisions and Recensions,” in Zvi Arie Steinfeld, ed., Rashi Studies (Ra-mat-Gan : Bar-Ilan Univ., 1993) 147–68 (Heb.); Grossman, Early Sages of France, 223–30 ; Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary in Europe, 50–53 ; Aaron Ahrend, Rashi’s Commentary on Tractate Me-gillah : Its Text and Character accompanied by a Sample Chapter (Ph.D. diss.; Ramat-Gan : Bar-Ilan Univ., 1995) 19–20 (Heb.); Aaron Ahrend, Rashi’s Commentary on Tractate Megilla (Jerusa-lem : Mekitzei Nirdamim, 2008) 39–40.

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3. aoh ikh—hl Nnisrg iao ,awir oniihd—aci hzm heorto hzm heiqt Nnisrg alo

olipao ,aci hzm heorto hzm heiqt dxak Mda inb hewtm :Nnisrgd

.'ok Nigorisb

We should not read : “(If one heard) a teqi2ah from one and a teru2ah from another he has fulfilled his obligation,” for that is the same as the first section. If we do read it we should read it as follows : “From nine persons at once, a teqi2ah from one and a teru2ah from another — he has fulfilled his obliga-tion, even at intervals etc.”

In section 1 Rashi provides a rationale for the ruling in the baraita — that two voices at once cannot be heard. This can only be a rationale for the ruling that if one heard nine sounds of the shofar from nine persons simultaneously he has not fulfilled his obligation, as in the reading of most of our manuscripts.36 Rashi also states explicitly that that is the reading in the copies of the Talmud he has. His proposed reading, therefore, is not a preference for the reading of some manuscript at his disposal, but rather his own emendation.37 In section 2 Rashi disputes the ruling of the baraita as it is in the Talmud at his disposal, on two grounds. First is the conclusion of the sugya at 27a, according to which two voices can be heard when the hearer is eager to do so, as is the case with the sounds of the shofar.38 The second is that the reading of the talmudic text he has contradicts the halakhah in the Tosefta, which he quotes in a reading close to that of the Tosefta MSS bao.

On these two grounds Rashi proposes in section 3 of his commentary a com-pound emendation of the baraita in the Bavli. First, the reading in section 3 of the Bavli is to be : “(If one heard the sounds) from nine persons at once he has fulfilled his obligation.” Next, since this makes the next sentence in the baraita,

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36 aci al is the reading also of the lemma, which may also have been written by Rashi himself. See Israel M. Ta-Shma, “Rashi’s Talmudic Commentary on the Alfasi and R. Asher,” in Steinfeld, Rashi Studies, 214 (Heb.); Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary in Europe, 41–42 ; Ahrend, “Text Witnesses of Rashi’s Commentary,” 83–86 ; Grossman, Early Sages of France, 219. Where, however, the lemma differs from a reading attested by the commentary itself the latter should be preferred. Copyists were liable to adapt the reading of the lemma to that of the text before them or to the emenda-tion proposed in the commentary, neither of which is necessarily identical to the text on which Rashi was commenting.

37 See the discussion of another instance, and comparison to the present one, in Chaim Milikowsky, “Kima and the Flood in Seder ‘Olam and B.T. Rosh Ha-Shana : Stellar Time-Reckoning and Ura-nography in Rabbinic Literature,” PAAJR 50 (1983) 122 n. 52 ; and David Henshke, “Leavened Bread (HameΩ) Belonging to a Gentile : A Chapter in the History of the Halakha,” in Yair Hoffman, ed., Studies in Judaica (Te’udah 16–17) (Tel-Aviv : Tel-Aviv Univ., 2001) 170–73 (Heb.).

38 The technique of interpreting a present sugya in light of the conclusion of a sugya elsewhere, characteristic of Tosafot, is not at all common in Rashi’s commentary to the Talmud, which is generally closely bound within the borders of the present sugya. Frenkel, Rashi’s Methodology, 202–3 ; Grossman, Early Sages of France, 219 ; Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary in Europe, 48–49. See further below, n. 58.

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“(If one heard) a teqi2ah from one and a teru2ah from another he has fulfilled his obligation,” superfluous, Rashi suggests two further alternative emenda-tions, both leading to the same halakhic result. The one is to delete the super-fluous sentence from the baraita. The other is to read neither aci, “he has ful-filled his obligation,” nor aci al, “he has not fulfilled his obligation,” in part 3 of the Bavli, and to construe the phrase a “teqi2ah from one and a teru2ah from another” in part 4 as being in apposition to “sounds” implied in part 3. The point is thus made that the hearer fulfilled his obligation not only if the nine persons each blew a full set of nine sounds, but even if each of the nine per-sons blew only one sound.

Rashi’s emendation was rejected by many rishonim, led by the Tosafists on this passage (s.v. aci al dxak Mda inb hewtm). They counter Rashi’s first ar-gument by saying that the comparison between our sugya and that at 27a is in-apt, for in the case of the shofar blasts it is not sufficient for a person merely to hear nine sounds, but he must hear them in a particular order, which is not preserved when the sounds are heard all at once.39 In their view the reading of the Bavli, aci al, must be preserved. The Tosafists on this passage do not ad-dress Rashi’s argument from the reading of the Tosefta, but their position on the issue is fairly well represented by the words of Rabbenu Tam in his intro-duction to Sefer Hayashar : “Furthermore I publicly announce and ordain that no one should emend texts (of the Talmud) on the basis of the Tosefta and bara-itot, for even concerning baraitot quoted in the Talmud we must sometimes re-join that the baraita was not known to him.” 40

Inspection of the textual witnesses of the Bavli in light of Rashi’s emendation and Tosafot’s rejection of it allow a reasonably accurate account of the history of the text. The original text of the talmudic passage was undoubtedly hewtm

aci al dxak Mda inb, “From nine persons at once, he has not fulfilled his ob-ligation,” as is reported in most witnesses (o"dgmabt), including the Yemenite manuscript (t), which Golinkin considers the most accurate of the manuscripts of Rosh Hashanah, and two relatively early oriental Genizah fragments.41 This reading is confirmed by all the rishonim, who assert that this is the reading in all the manuscripts they had. In contrast, several witnesses can be identified with certainty as having been influenced by Rashi’s emendation, having the

14

39 Similarly R. Moses b. Nahman (Ramban), R. Yom Tov b. Abraham Ishbili (Ritva), R. Nissim Gerondi (Ran), R. Yehonatan of Lunel, R. Isaac b. Moses (Riaz), R. Asher b. Ye˙iel (Rosh). Other arguments in R. Solomon b. Adret (Rashba), R. Isaiah b. Mali di Trani (Pisqei Rid), R. Mena˙em Meiri, and others.

40 Schlesinger, Sefer Hayashar : Óidushim, 10. So explicitly concerning our passage in the Bavli to conform to the Tosefta, in Rabbenu Manoa˙ on Rambam (Moses b. Maimon; Maimonides), Hil-khot Shofar, 3.6.

41 See above, nn. 22 and 30.

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reading aci dxak Mda inb hewtm, “From nine persons at once, he has fulfilled his obligation.” MSS os delete the phrase aci hzm heorto hzm heiqt, “a teqi2ah from one and a teru2ah from another, he has fulfilled his obligation,” following the first alternative emendation in Rashi’s section 3 ; the early printed editions (r"d) delete only aci after dxak Mda inb hewtm, following the second alter-native emendation. MS l reflects a partial acceptance of Rashi’s emendation — al is absent from the phrase aci dxak Mda inb hewtm, in accordance with the first part of Rashi’s emendation, but the rest of the baraita remains unchanged. Later printed editions of the Talmud preserve the original reading, apparently on the authority of Tosafot and the rishonim.42

Having determined the original readings of the baraita in the Bavli, we are faced with a direct contradiction between the halakhah of the Tosefta, in some of its witnesses, that a person who heard nine shofar sounds from nine different people has fulfilled his obligation, and the halakhah of the Bavli, in

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42 The influence of the emendation on the textual witnesses in our case may profitably be compared to the relationship in other tractates between Rashi’s readings and the manuscripts. Rashi’s in-fluence on the early printed editions is to be expected, and has been noted by several scholars. See Segal, Textual Traditions of Tractate Megillah, 210–11. Sabato, Yemenite Manuscript of Trac-tate Sanhedrin, 277, noted an 84% correspondence between the readings of Rashi and of the early printed editions in the ten first chapters of tractate Sanhedrin. Noam, “Early Version Traditions,” 136, found a 92% correspondence in tractate Sukkah. The close association of MS Vatican 134 with Rashi in some tractates has been noted. See Segal, Textual Traditions of Tractate Megillah, 210–11 ; Golinkin, “Rosh Hashanah Chapter IV,” p. dm. Noam, “Early Version Traditions,” 136, found a 48% correspondence in tractate Sukkah. Rashi’s influence is less expected on the readings of MS London. According to Segal, Textual Traditions of Tractate Megillah, 210–11, MS London pre-serves in tractate Megillah a French/Ashkenazic textual tradition earlier than Rashi ; according to Golinkin, “Rosh Hashanah Chapter IV,” p. dl, in parts of tractate Rosh Hashanah it represents a Sefaradic version which drew on oriental versions. Yet there too Noam, “Early Version Tra-ditions,” 136, found a 58% correspondence in tractate Sukkah. Interestingly, in our passage MS London absorbed Rashi’s emendation only very partially. The substance of the accepted emen-dation is halakhically significant, but palaeographically it is slight. The most surprising finding is the influence of Rashi on Ms JTS Rab. 1608. Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal, “xsp tksm tkirel

ilbbb Nowar” (Ph.D. diss.: Jerusalem : Hebrew Univ., 1959) 1–3, had concluded that for tractate Pesa˙im that manuscript was not influenced by the readings of French and Ashkenazic rabbis. Golinkin, “Rosh Hashanah Chapter IV,” p. l, determined that for parts of tractate Rosh Hasha-nah its version is typically Sefardic, uninfluenced by rabbis of France and Ashkenaz. Milikowsky,

“Kima and the Flood,” 123 n. 52, found no influence of Rashi on that manuscript ; Weiss, “Chap-ter III of Tractate Rosh Hashana,” 119, found that though it contains many secondary readings, its version in the third chapter of Rosh Hashanah is close to that of the geonim and the Genizah. For that manuscript too Noam, “Early Version Traditions,” 136, finds a 56% correspondence in tractate Sukkah. Under her hypothesis Rashi’s emendation in our passage could be taken to re-flect an early alternative textual tradition. That, however, is not the case here. Rashi and the ris-honim who dispute him all acknowledge explicitly that the received text is not that of Rashi’s emendation. Furthermore, Rashi himself details his grounds for the emendation clearly, and all the grounds are external to the sugya in the Bavli.

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its original form, that such a person has not fulfilled his obligation. Such contradictions are frequent in talmudic literature and do not usually war-rant particular attention. In this case, however, the source and history of the disaccord may be illuminated by readings of the text found in geonic literature.

The great importance of talmudic readings reported in geonic literature43 and of their collation with the Bavli manuscripts is well recognized. After all, the vast majority of talmudic manuscripts at our disposal were written centuries after the redaction, or at least after the first redaction, of the Talmud, whereas the geonic works were composed much closer to that redaction, both in time and in place. Geonic sources, then, should be searched for reliable textual tra-ditions of the Talmud,44 especially in cases such as ours where the talmudic manuscripts display conflicting halakhic traditions as well as a process of revision and emendation.45

In the section on Rosh Hashanah in Halakhot Pesuqot, the first halakhic work composed after the Talmud Bavli,46 there are many halakhot concerning

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43 It goes without saying that one cannot speak of a single “geonic version” uniform throughout ge-onic literature, for, as will be shown presently, there were textual variants among the geonim them-selves. Indeed, the onset of at least some of the textual variants in talmudic manuscripts can be located in the geonic yeshivot of Babylonia. See Brody, “idomlth jsqjho Minoagh torps,” 237–40.

44 See for example, Ramban, “Discourse for Rosh Hashana”: Minoaghw ,Mtode lbql onl wi onixrk le

'Ninowo Nibwoi iwa br lw oask leo otbiwibo ,iaroma Nnbrm iarobs Nnbro ,Niarobs Nnbrm oaro olbq “We must perforce accept their testimony, for the geonim received the tradition and observed it from the saboraim rabbis. The saboraim rabbis observed it from the amoraim. They taught in the academy and occupied the chair of Rav Ashi and they prayed in his synagogue.” Charles B. Chavel, ed., Nmxn Nb hwm onibr ibtk (2 vols.; Jerusalem : Mossad Harav Kook, 1963) 1 : xmr ; Charles B. Chavel, trans., Ramban : Writings and Discourses (2 vols.; New York : Shilo, 1978) 1 : 341–42. By contrast, the versions of the manuscripts are often suspected by the rishonim as having “gone under the pen of the correctors of books.” See for example, Ritva to Sukkah 18a. See further Ja-cob Nahum Epstein, “oikrco idomlth edmh,” in Jacob Nahum Epstein, Studies in Talmudic Liter-ature and Semitic Languages, trans. Ziporah Epstein, ed. Ezra Zion Melamed (3 vols. in 4 ; Jeru-salem : Magnes, 1983) 2 : 1, 18 ; Jacob Nahum Epstein, “Remainders of the She’ilthoth. I. The Ox-ford Fragments,” TarbiΩ 6 (1935) 460 (Heb.); and the comprehensive discussion in Brody, “torps

idomlth jsqjho Minoagh,” 237–40. For a survey of research on this question and full bibliogra-phy see Uziel Fuchs, The Role of the Geonim in the Textual Transmission of the Babylonian Tal-mud (Ph.D. diss.: Jerusalem : Hebrew Univ. 2003) 12–25 (Heb.).

45 Segal, Textual Traditions of Tractate Megillah, 51–52. 46 On the questions relating to the identity, time and place of the author, see Jacob Nahum Epstein,

“Minoagh worip Molwt,” TarbiΩ 16 (1945) 81 ; Solomon David Sassoon, ed., Sefer Halakhot Pesuqot (Jerusalem : Mekitzei Nirdamim, 1950) 9–11 (Heb.); Simha Assaf, htorpso Minoagh tpoqt (Jeru-salem : Mossad Harav Kook, 1955) pp. jsq–zsq ; Samuel Morell, “i"k toqosp toklh sxi roribl

tolodg toklhl Noww,” HUCA 46 (1975) 510–32 ; Neil Danzig, Introduction to Halakhot Pesuqot (New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1993) 109–24 (Heb.); Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven : Yale Univ. Press, 1998) 217–21 ; Robert Brody, “Research on the Halakhot Literature of the Geonic Period,” TarbiΩ

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the blowing of the shofar, drawn largely from the third and fourth chapters of Bavli Tractate Rosh Hashanah.47

Halakhot Pesuqot, MS Sassoon 263 :48

dxak Mda inb hewtm ,aci Moib toew ewtb toeiqt ewt emw :Nnxoi 'r rma

emwd aoho ilim inho .olok Moih lk olipao Nigoris olipao hz rxa hzb olpao ,aci

.aci al ohnin aboix inb oald Njqo hjow wrxm hwam emw lba aboix rbd Namm

Rabbi Yo˙anan said : If one heard nine teqi2ot at nine separate times dur-ing the day he has fulfilled his obligation. From nine persons at once, he has fulfilled his obligation. Even one after the other, even at intervals, and even throughout the day. This is so only if he heard (the teqi2ot) from one who is obligated ; if, however he heard (the teqi2ot) from a woman, a deaf or insane person, or a minor, who are not obligated, he has not fulfilled his obligation.

In this reading of Halakhot Pesuqot in the Sassoon manuscript a person who heard nine sounds from nine persons simultaneously has fulfilled his obligation. However, in a Genizah fragment of this work, T-S F2.1.34, the reading is aci al,

“he has not fulfilled his obligation.” 49 Confusion is increased by the single manu-script of Hilkhot Re’u, the Hebrew translation and revision of Halakhot Pesuqot,50 where the scribe clearly wrote aci al, but a stroke above the l may indicate the erasure of al. Schlossberg, in his edition of Hilkhot Re’u, printed aci ;51

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64 (1995) 142–47 (Heb.); Robert Brody, Readings in Geonic Literature (Tel-Aviv : Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1998) 113–15 (Heb.).

47 In the section on Rosh Hashanah, as in the rest of Sefer Halakhot Pesuqot, the main source for ha-lakhah is the Talmud Bavli, to which post-talmudic traditions and other sources were added as well — see Binyamin Katzoff, “The Tannaitic Sources in Halakhot Pesuqot,” Shenaton Ha-Mishpat Ha-Ivri : Annual of the Institute for Research in Jewish Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 25 (2008) 199–216 (Heb.). However, the order of the chapters and of the material within the chap-ters, in the section on Rosh Hashanah as in the rest of the work, is independent of the order in the Bavli. See Samuel Morell, “inroc xotin :toqosp toklh rps lw oitoroqm,” PAAJR 49 (1982) 45–60 ; Danzig, Introduction, 171–73 ; Brody, Geonim, 218. The order of the material is clearly the re-sult of redactional activity (see below, n. 55), and is preserved in later geonic works.

48 So reproduced in Sassoon, Halakhot Pesuqot, p. k, line 25. 49 Danzig, Introduction, 520. 50 Hilkhot Re’u is the Hebrew translation of a version of Halakhot Pesuqot somewhat different from

that in MS Sassoon, and itself reflects a certain amount of reworking of the material it translates. See Samuel Morell, oar toklh rps le rqxm (Ph.D. diss.: New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1966) 14–27 (Heb.); Shraga Abramson, “tolodgo toqosp toklhbw hdino tdloi toklihl,” in Shlomo Pines, ed., Mirqxm Cboq :l"z Nmdirp bqeil Norkz rps (Jerusalem : Hebrew Univ., 1974) 50 ; Danzig, Introduction, 58–61 ; Brody, Geonim, 221–22. In the halakhot under discussion the text of Hilkhot Re’u is basically that of Halakhot Pesuqot.

51 Leon Schlosberg, oar toklh oa toqosp toklh rps (Versailles : n.p., 1886) p. 19, line 33.

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Morell, in his, printed aci al.52 Despite the state of the manuscripts, it is certain, as Morell already has observed, that the original reading is aci, “he has fulfilled his obligation,” for otherwise the following sentence, “This is so only if he heard (the teqi2ot) from one who is obliged ; if, however, he heard (the te-qi2ot) from a woman, etc., he has not fulfilled his obligation” is senseless.53 The reading aci al surely is the result of the influence of the Bavli manuscripts on the copyists, or students, of Halakhot Pesuqot, who adapted it to the readings of the Talmud that they had.54

This halakhah is also quoted in a collection of halakhot on the blowing of the shofar contained in Seder Rav Amram Gaon, based no doubt on the section concerning blowing of the shofar in Halakhot Pesuqot or some similar work.55 Here too there is a similar reading :56

,aci dxak Mda inb hewtm Moib toew 'jb toeiqt 'j emw :Nnxoi 'r rma

lba .aboix rb eqoth hihiw dblbo ,olok Moih lk olipao ,Nigorisb olipao

.aci al Njqo hjowo wrxmo hwam emowh

Rabbi Yo˙anan said : If one heard nine teqi2ot at nine separate times during the day, from nine persons at once, he has fulfilled his obligation. Even at

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52 Morell, oar toklh, 94. 53 Morell, oar toklh, 100 n. 59. See also Danzig, Introduction, 82 ; Shraga Abramson, Tractate ‘Abodah

Zarah of the Babylonian Talmud : Ms. Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1957) 22 n. 1 (Heb.): “A major rule concerning quotations in this literature is that no variant found in a quotation is secure unless it arises from the material itself ; otherwise it may be the handiwork of the scribe or a case of mindless copying.” Shraga Abramson, Noag inpx Nb laomw 'rl domlth aobm (Jerusalem : Mekitzei Nirdamim, 1990) 6 (Heb.): “I have already noted the importance of checking the accuracy of quotations in the work of early authorities. A variant cannot be so considered unless it is proven to be accurate on internal con-siderations, that is — if we find that the early authority discusses the text in that particular vari-ant, then we assert that that was the reading the early authority had before him. If, however, the early authority does not treat the text with that variant, but merely quotes the Talmud with that variant, we must suspect that the variant was not before the early authority, but was result of the work of later copyists.”

54 Abramson, Tractate ‘Abodah Zarah, 234 ; Abramson, domlth aobm, 6 ; Benjamin Menashe Lewin, “hrcqo hkora hbowt,” Ginze Kedem 5 (1934) 103.

55 In the two collections the selection of halakhot is virtually identical, drawn for the most part from Bavli Rosh Hashanah, but not in the order of the Talmud : “…Kribw im” (m.Roš Haš. 4.9, quoted at 33b); “…ald amej” (34b); “ariz 'r” (28b); “…emwd aoho” (interpretative addition); “ oniaw lk

…bioxm” (m.Roš Haš. 3.8, quoted at 29a). The redactional dependence of the two, on each other or on an earlier third work drawn from the Talmud, is clear and unambiguous. For the reliance of Seder Rav Amran Gaon on sources found in Halakhot Pesuqot see Assaf, Minoagh tpoqt, p. bpq ; Danzig, Introduction, 276 and n. 18 ; Robert Brody, “The Enigma of Seder Rav ‘Amram,” in Shu-lamit Elizur, et al., eds., Knesset Ezra. Literature and Life in the Synagogue : Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer (Jerusalem : Yad Ben Zvi, 1994) 28 (Heb.).

56 Daniel Goldschmidt, ed., Noag Mrme br rds (Jerusalem : Mossad Harav Kook, 1971) §115, p. hmq. On the slight variations see n. 58, below.

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intervals, and even throughout the day, provided that the one who blew was obligated. But one who heard (the teqi2ot) from a woman, a deaf or in-sane person, or a minor has not fulfilled his obligation.

Here both text and context are unambiguous that one who heard from nine simultaneously has fulfilled his obligation,57 confirming that aci is the original reading in Halakhot Pesuqot.58

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57 Seder Rav Amram Gaon as we have it is a much revised work, containing many additions later than Rav Amram. See Jacob Nahum Epstein, “oirdsmo orodis :Mrme br rds,” in Gershom Scho-lem, ed., inoxmw n"i lw onorkzl Cboq :Minoic (Berlin : Eschkol, 1929) 122–41 ; Assaf, Minoagh tpoqt, pp. dpq–bpq ; Louis Ginzberg, “Saadia’s Siddur,” JQR 33 [1942–43] 320–24 = hdgao hklh le (Tel-Aviv 1960) 175–77 ; Louis Ginzberg, Geonica (2 vols.; New York : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1909 ; repr. New York : Hermon Press, 1968) 1 : 144–54 ; Goldschmidt, Noag Mrme br rds, 7–11, and references there ; Brody, “Enigma of Seder Rav ‘Amram,” 30–33. The passage, then, may be not of the original work but a later geonic interpolation, perhaps from a responsum of some other gaon (though halakhic passages were less subject to interpolation than liturgical passages — see Ginzberg, Geonica, 146 ; Brody, “Enigma of Seder Rav ‘Amram,” 22). Even so, the passage serves as early — for our purpose — evidence supporting the reading of the talmudic passage quoted also in Halakhot Pesuqot.

58 Further evidence for this reading is found in a brief quotation in Ma˙zor Vitry, documented also in Siddur Rashi, apparently an early edition of Ma˙zor Vitry, which was composed by R. Sim˙a of Vitry at the beginning of the twelfth century following traditions of disciples of Rashi. Israel Ta-Shma, “irjio rozxm iniine hmk le,” Alei Sefer 11 (1984) 81–89 ; Israel Ta-Shma, The Early Ashke-nazic Prayer : Literary and Historical Aspects (Jerusalem : Magnes, 2004) 15–29 (Heb.) and the lit-erature cited there. The reading in Ma˙zor Vitry (ed. Simeon Hurwitz [Nuremberg : Bulka, 1923] 355), and with slight variation in Siddur Rashi (ed. Salomon Buber [Berlin : Itzkowski, 1912] 75) is as follows : hzb olipao ,aci Mda inb hewtm ,aci Moib toew ewtb toeiqt ewt emw Nnxoi r"a

emw lba ,aoh aboix rbd Namm ohl emwd ilim inho .olok Moih lk olipao ,Nigorisb olipao ,hz rxa

qipn al ohnin aboix inb ald Njqo hjow wrx hwam ohl. This is very close to the reading of Seder Rav Amram Gaon, which is one of the main works on which the Ma˙zor Vitry is based. The for-mer, then, may be the source of the passage, as is implied by the heading (in Ma˙zor Vitry only): imrmeh dosi Kliao Nkim, “The basis of what follows is Amram”; cf. Goldschmidt, Noag Mrme br rds, 15. A close examination, however, shows that the text of Ma˙zor Vitry here is actually identical with that of Halakhot Pesuqot and not with that of SRAG. Both HP and MV, but not SRAG have the phrase hz rxa hzb olipao ; and in both works the condition that one must hear the shofar blast from a person who is himself obligated is stated in Aramaic, whereas in SRAG it is stated in Hebrew. MV, then, may have drawn the passage directly from HP, indeed one of MV ’s mi-nor sources (see Siddur Rashi [ed. Buber, XXXIII]), or, alternatively, may have drawn the pas-sage from a version of SRAG that preserved the quotation from HP with more fidelity (Cf. Gold-schmidt, Noag Mrme br rds, 16–18). In either case MV constitutes an additional witness to the dis-tinctive talmudic tradition in HP and SRAG. (In n. 38 above, I noted the exceptional character of Rashi’s emendation of the passage of the Bavli under discussion, based on the implications of a different sugya. The presence in the siddurim of Rashi’s school of a halakhah by which one who heard shofar sounds from nine persons at once did fulfill his obligation suggests that Rashi knew such a tradition as a halakhah attached to the siddur and conflicting with the halakhah in the talmudic manuscripts. His familiarity with this conflicting halakhah may have been one of his motives for departing from his usual interpretative practice. See Segal, Textual Traditions

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Besides the substantial difference in the content of the halakhah between the readings of the talmudic manuscripts and the readings of Halakhot Pesuqot and Seder Rav Amram Gaon, two further variances in the sources require notice. One is that the halakhah aci hzm heorto hzm heiqt, “a teqi2ah from one and a teru2ah from another (that is, seriatim) — he has fulfilled his obligation” is ab-sent in both Halakhot Pesuqot and Seder Rav Amram Gaon. We have already noted that this halakhah may be superfluous when the reading of the first ha-lakhah is that one who heard from nine simultaneously did fulfill his obliga-tion, as is indeed the reading in both geonic works. Second, whereas in the Bavli manuscripts the statement of R. Yo˙anan includes only the ruling on the per-son who heard nine sounds at nine different times and the baraita following it includes both that rule and the one on the person who heard nine sounds from nine persons simultaneously, in the two geonic works both rules are ascribed to R. Yo˙anan and not to a tannaitic origin.59

The longstanding problem of the ascription of a self-same halakhah once to a tanna, once to an amora, has occupied the attention of many scholars who have deliberated over various aspects of the possible explanations for the variant traditions — a tannaitic halakhah whose original ascription was lost for what-ever reason, or an amoraic halakhah which mistakenly received a tannaitic as-cription.60 The aggregate of the various proposed explanations does not pro-

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of Tractate Megillah, 130 n. 5 ; Ta-Shma, Talmudic Commentary in Europe, 43 ; Noam, “Early Version Traditions,” 116.

59 A mixed version is found in all the editions of Halakhot Gedolot, which apparently incorporated material from Halakhot Pesuqot (see Morell, “toqosp toklh sxi roribl,” 510–32 ; Danzig, Intro-duction, 193–242 ; Brody, “Research on the Halakhot Literature,” 149–50 ; 224–27 and the copious literature cited there) or perhaps from Seder Rav Amram Gaon (see Epstein, “Mrme br rds,” 127–30 ; Danzig, Introduction, 184–85): hewtm ,aci Moib toew ewtb toeiqt ewt emw Nnxoi 'r 'ma

lk olipao hz rxa hzb olipao Nigorisb olipao ,aci hzm heorto hzm heiqt ,aci al txak Mda inb

oald Njqo hjow wrxm oa hwam ohl emw lba aoh aboix rbd Namm ohl emwd ilim inho .olok Moih

qipn al ohnin aboix inb (ed. Azriel Hildesheimer [3 vols.; Jerusalem : Mekitzei Nirdamim, 1972] 1 : 308). Here all the halakhot are ascribed to R. Yo˙anan, and the condition that the shofar blasts must be sounded by a person himself obligated is found, as in HP and SRAG, but the halakhic content is that of the Bavli manuscripts, that one who heard nine sounds at once did not fulfill his obligation, and correspondingly a halakhah on one who heard the sounds in succession is found. In this case it is likely that HG reworked the passage in HP in light of the Bavli, though the possibility that these are independent conflicting traditions cannot be excluded. See Dan-zig, Introduction, 241–42 ; Brody, “Research on the Halakhot Literature,” 225. Compare another mixed version, closer to that of HP and SRAG in Sefer Rabiah (ed. Victor Aptowitzer [8 vols.; Berlin : Mekitzei Nirdamim, 1912] II §545 p. 241).

60 Much of the discussion has focused on the instances where the two statements of halakhah are quoted in conjunction — an amoraic statement first, followed by a baraita with identical or similar language brought as support, as is the case with the presentation in our sugya of the halakhah emw

aci Moib toew ewtb toeiqt ewt. Commonly the baraita is introduced by the phrase imn aint

ikh. Some of the explanations of the phenomenon are grounded in considerations having to do

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vide an unambiguous solution for every such case. In the absence, then, of clear evidence in favor of the one ascription or the other we can do no more than point to the fact that there are two contrary traditions concerning the origin of these halakhot, in addition to the contrary traditions concerning their content.61

We have, then, the halakhah on the person who heard the shofar blasts from nine persons at once in three sources — the Tosefta, the Talmud Bavli, and Ha-lakhot Pesuqot (followed by Seder Rav Amram Gaon) — comprising contrary traditions both on the content and on the origin of the rules. In the passages of each of these three works there are variant readings within the textual wit-nesses of each work corresponding to the variants in the other works, which appear to have affected the readings in those other works.

Out of this welter of variations, after the original readings of the Bavli and of the Halakhot Pesuqot have been isolated with a high degree of probability, there emerge clearly two distinct contrary traditions. The one, found in the manuscripts of the Bavli, and presented in a baraita, determines that a per-son who heard nine blast from nine persons at once has not fulfilled his obli-gation. The other, found in Halakhot Pesuqot and the Tosefta MSS bao,62 states explicitly that such a person has fulfilled his obligation. The Tosefta witnesses dl, which do not have this statement at all, join the Halakhot Pesuqot tradition, which ascribes an amoraic origin to the rule, rather than a tannaitic origin as does the Talmud. These fundamental differences in the content and ascription of the rules between the geonic works and the manuscripts of the Talmud re-flect independent traditions of different schools.63

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with the nature of the talmudic sugya, its genesis, design and development. These considerations do not come into play when these traditions, variant in their ascriptions, are brought in separate sugyot or separate works, as is the case in the halakhah of the person who heard shofar sounds from nine persons at once. See Zacharias Frankel, imlworih aobm (Berlin : L. Lamm, 1923) 24a–b ; Abraham Weiss, Talmud in Its Development (domlth rqxl) (New York : Feldheim, 1954) 35–63 ; Epstein, Tannaitic Literature, 252–54 ; Isaac Hirsch Weiss, oiwrodo rod rod (Vienna, 1871. Repr.; Je-rusalem : Ziv, 1964) 215–16 ; Albeck, atpsotbo atiirbb Mirqxm, 130–38 ; Hauptman, Development of the Talmudic Sugya, 213–17. On variation of names between talmudic and geonic sources, see Brody, “idomlth jsqjho Minoagh torps,” 257–59, 277–88 ; Fuchs, Role of the Geonim, 187.

61 On the relationship between talmudic traditions in Halakhot Pesuqot and the Talmud as we have it, see Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal, “For the Talmudic Dictionary : Talmudica Iranica,” Irano-Judaica 1 (1982) Heb. sec.: 54–56; Samuel Morell, “tokireo torosm :toqosp toklh rpsb domlth toigos

toqolx,” HUCA 50 (1979) pp. bl–ai ; Morell, “toqosp toklh rps lw oitoroqm,” 510–32 ; and the re-sponse of Brody, “idomlth jsqjho Minoagh torps,” 292–93.

62 On the extent and significance of the phenomenon, see Katzoff, “Tannaitic Sources in Halakhot Pesuqot.”

63 Several scholars have asserted that the use of a variety of literary sources — especially when some talmudic manuscripts report a baraita in a form not found in the Tosefta and other talmudic manuscripts report a baraita with similar content exactly as found in the Tosefta — is an indica-

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Though it does not appear possible to determine where each of these contrary traditions was formed, it is important to note that they may well rep-resent different stages in the formation of the Talmud as these have been elab-orated by Yaakov Sussmann. In his view, though firm knowledge concerning the final redaction of the Talmud Bavli is lacking and clear boundaries between the last savoraim and the earliest geonim are not discernible, it is nonetheless possible to distinguish between the Talmud of the early geonim, successors of the savoraim, on the one hand and the Talmud of the manuscripts and of the rishonim on the other. The readings found in the Talmud manuscripts and in the rishonim derive from the schools of the last geonim, whose great authority made their readings dominant and suppressed alternative traditions still ex-tant in their day.64 Of course such a general analysis of a large work is not nec-essarily applicable to every passage in it, especially when the work in question is essentially a redaction compiling new and old material together, and a later work may actually contain earlier material than its predecessor does. In this case, however, it seems that the Talmud manuscripts do reflect a tradition whose lit-erary crystallization is later than the tradition found in Halakhot Pesuqot, the first post-savoraitic halakhic work.

Following this line of inquiry it seems that an analysis of the content of the traditions also reveals the relationship between them. Common to Tosefta text witnesses dl and to the tradition represented in Halakhot Pesuqot is that the two halakhot — 1. on one who hears the teqi2ah from one and the teru2ah from another successively, and 2. on one who hears nine sounds from nine persons simultaneously — are reported separately, not together in a single literary unit. Tosefta witnesses dl report only the first ; Halakhot Pesuqot reports only the sec-ond. Now, clearly the second rule — that one who heard nine sounds of the sho-far from nine persons all at once has fulfilled his obligation — whether its origin be tannaitic or amoraic, is a liberalizing expansion of the first rule — that one who heard the various sounds from different persons, but not all at once, ful-filled his obligation. Even if the two halakhot are separate in their origin, con-sidering their similarity it would be expected that some tradent along the way would collect the two into a single collection of halakhot on shofar, as indeed happened in Tosefta MSS bao.65

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tion of more than a simple variance of readings. Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal, “The Renderings of TB Tractate Temura,” TarbiΩ 58 (1989) 328–29 (Heb.); Schremer, “Text Transmission and Text Redaction,” 398–99 ; Rosenthal, “'oipne‘o 'oirqie‘,” 525.

64 Sussmann, “Niqizn imlworil bowo,” 101–9 and nn. 192, 194. See also Jacob Nahum Epstein, “Re-mainders of She’ilthoth,” TarbiΩ 4 (1935) 460–79 (Heb.); Shamma Friedman, “A Geonic Version of the Sugya : ijig il abh,” TarbiΩ 47 (1978) 20–29 (Heb.).

65 On this view the version of Tosefta MSS dl is the earlier, and that of bao reflects one of the later stages of literary collection activity which led to the halakhic tradition. By contrast, I suggested

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However, juxtaposing the two halakhot in a single literary unit caused a new problem, that the second halakhah rendered the statement of the first halakhah redundant, for if one satisfies one’s obligation with nine sounds heard from nine persons simultaneously it should go without saying that one satisfies his obli-gation by hearing the nine sounds successively. If nonetheless the two halakhot are found together in one literary unit, it could well have been argued that an emendation was required — the “restoration” of a negative al in the second ha-lakhah. The second halakhah becomes a limitation rather than an expansion of the first, with the resulting rule that nine sounds heard successively do satisfy the obligation, but heard simultaneously do not. That is exactly what is found in the baraita of the Talmud Bavli in its original reading. Thus the very process of transmission of talmudic traditions, which included the collection of related halakhot into a single literary framework with an internal, at least prima facie halakhic logic, created an alternative halakhic tradition.66 It is this latter tradi-tion that was established in the majority of Talmud Bavli manuscripts, which reflect in our case a late stage in the process of formation of talmudic tradition. The minority of manuscripts which reproduce the older tradition reflect the rather muted influence of the Tosefta and the geonic textual tradition of the Tal- mud. Ultimately this influence was entirely suppressed.

We opened this study by examining the variant readings for each of three works which provide the rules concerning a person who heard shofar sounds from nine people simultaneously, and determined, to the extent possible, the orig-inal reading in each work. We then contraposed the two basic “version” tradi-tions, the one of the majority of Bavli manuscripts, the other of the geonim and the Tosefta. Finally, we concluded that the geonim-Tosefta tradition is the ear-lier one, and that the Bavli manuscript tradition was formed by tradents in the course of collecting halakhic texts and integrating them in fresh literary frame-works. The readings of some of the Tosefta manuscripts can thus be seen as representing a middle stage, in which the disparate texts have been collected, but not yet integrated into a single halakhic unit. True, this analysis does not

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above, in the text near nn. 19 and 20, that bao contain the earlier version, and in the version of dl the parts causing difficulty were deleted, in a process not unlike that which occurred in the man-uscripts of the Bavli. How the scales will be tipped between the two approaches will depend on the estimate of the time and character of the process of formation of the various text-traditions of the Tosefta. See Katzoff, “Tannaitic Sources in Halakhot Pesuqot”; Binyamin Katzoff, “Did Rav Natronai Gaon Use the Tosefta in his Responsa?,” Alei Sefer : Studies in Bibliography and in the History of the Printed and the Digital Hebrew Book 20 (2008) 17–27 (Heb.).

66 Compare the process of formation and institutionalization of liturgy generally, and more specif-ically of the Rosh Hashana liturgy and of the blessing over the shofar, in the period of the geonim described by Lawrence A. Hoffman, The Canonization of the Synagogue Service (Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ. of Notre Dame, 1979) 90–100, 156, 160–71.

Binyamin Katzoff62

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provide an exact answer to the question of where these traditions arose, but it does shed a small light on the manner in which conflicting halakhic traditions came into being in that obscure period of the literary formation of the Talmud.

This study was presented at the fifteenth World Conference of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, August 5th, 2009. Thanks are due to the Beit Shalom Fund, Kyoto, Japan, and to the Barzilai Fund for Bibliographical Research at Bar-Ilan Univer-sity for their generous support for this research ; and to Professor Leib Mosco-vitz for his comments. The responsibility is mine alone.

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