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3 Rethinking the Image of the Talmud 83 Judaism’s textual practices are ontologically and historically at the heart of Jewish identity. Jacob ibn H . abib, who thought about this “textual fabric”1 in terms of the Jews’ development of an ongoing interpretive relationship with the Talmud, employed a textual strategy that reshaped the image of the Talmud. He made a conscious effort to design his collection of aggadah, the En Yaaqov, so that it would resemble the Talmudic corpora, the Bavli and the Yerushalmi. As every anthological act is ideologically charged, it is necessary to consider what ibn H . abib’s chosen editorial form and his decisions regarding the organization of the material at hand mean.2 More than what ibn H . abib said in his own commentary on the aggadic material, it is important to think about what he “did” when he undertook the project of compiling the En Yaaqov.3 The process of anthologizing material, even when the act seems merely archival, as in the case of the En Yaaqov, is a powerful instrument of communication. The Jewish anthology as a form and a genre is every bit a reflection of the Jewish imagination. It is one way of making a statement about the meaning and shape of Jewishness.4 Ibn H . abib’s anthology of Talmudic aggadah was born out of ibn H . abib’s desire to reshape Jewish identity through the lens of the Talmud. Ibn H . abib’s efforts represent a personal critique of the intellectual culture that was nurtured during the fifteenth century in Spain and then reconstituted in the Ottoman empire following the expulsion. Such a critique was leveled against many aspects of late-medieval Spanish Jewish culture with respect to its relationship to the Talmud, including the pronounced 01 Text.indd 83 10/19/11 10:13 AM 84 C H A P T E r 3 interest taken in the study of legal code literature in the Jewish academies that pushed Talmudic aggadah to the periphery; the widespread attention given to establishing a set of Jewish dogma or Jewish self-definition that took place outside the context of formal Talmud study; the emergence of a philosophical curriculum that was not centered around the Talmud; and the proliferation of the Talmud methodology of Isaac Canpanton, which was not easily applicable to the study of Talmudic aggadah. At its core, ibn H . abib’s critique emerged from an understanding of Judaism as fundamentally Talmud-centered and from the idea that the Talmud is a self-contained work.5 discomforted by the characterization of the Talmud as a “book of law” rather than as a “book of faith” and by the fact that other disciplines outside of the Talmud, such as philosophy and Kabbalah, had become significant sources of Jewish spirituality, ibn H . abib strove to renegotiate the boundaries of what counted as formal Talmud study. In so doing, he entered into a longstanding debate over the degree to which the curriculum of Jewish study should be Talmud-focused and argued against its openness to other disciplines. This chapter is devoted to the significance of the relationship of the En Yaaqov to the Talmud and the nature of its critique. A Talmud Lookalike The collection that bears the closest resemblance to the En Yaaqov is Haggadot Hatalmud, a compilation of Talmudic aggadah published in Constantinople in 1511. In his introduction to the En Yaaqov, ibn H . abib bemoans the appearance of this earlier collection just as he begins his own work on the En Yaaqov. Yet despite the fact that many were willing to pay high prices to obtain Haggadot Hatalmud, ibn H . abib points to the need for a far more extensive, better collection. Haggadot Hatalmud had not achieved the goals for aggadah that ibn H . abib desired; thus he set out to distinguish his collection from this earlier effort. By attaching the aggadot to several running commentaries, including his own, he fulfilled the promise of the aggadot in the name of producing a more comprehensive collection of Talmudic aggadah than Haggadot Hatalmud. Although this earlier work contained a pithy, rashi-like commentary, its brevity and the fact that its Talmudic text and commentary were difficult to distinguish from each other (both appeared in the same rashi script) made it no model for ibn H . abib. In his mind aggadic commentary was to serve a far larger goal than that of mere clarification; it was to convey a theological agenda. Central to...

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