Foreigners and Their Food: Constructing Otherness in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Law

5. “How Nice Is This Bread!”: Intersections of Talmudic Scholasticism and Foreign Food Restrictions

5 “How Nice Is This Bread!” Intersections of Talmudic Scholasticism and Foreign Food Restrictions Jewish foreign food restrictions first appear in Judean literature of the centuries following Alexander the Great’s conquest. These restrictions reflect, in part, an effort to preserve the distinctiveness of Jewish identity within the Hellenistic world by means of separating Jews from gentiles and gentile practices. The Sages inherit these rules, the underlying notion that food practices distinguish Us from Them, and the even more fundamental concept of a binary classification of humanity into Jews and non-Jews (that is, gentiles). As we observed in chapter 4, the Mishnah and the Tosefta ascribe to foreign food restrictions a very different set of enactment principles than those implicit in other sources, namely that these restrictions serve primarily as a means of preventing Jews from inadvertently consuming prohibited ingredients. When early Sages acknowledge the preparer-based nature of certain foreign food restrictions, they proceed to define the act of preparation narrowly. Tannaitic discussions of foreign food restrictions reflect the scholastic environment in which Rabbinic law evolved, an environment that fosters the development of abstract categories, nuanced distinctions, and ivory-tower aloofness both from everyday concerns and from the outside world. Because scholastic analysis involves the demarcation of numerous instances in which the food of foreigners is permitted, this analysis entails a significant side effect within the Mishnah and the Tosefta: it dilutes the effectiveness of traditional foreign food restrictions as barriers to social interaction. Scholastic interest in classification, definition, and analysis characterizes not only the early works of Rabbinic literature but the discourse of the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds as well. Many Talmudic Sages, however, also attend to the concerns regarding social interaction between Jews and gentiles that animate pre-Rabbinic 65 (and some tannaitic) texts about Jewish dietary laws. Discussions of foreign food restrictions in the Talmuds reflect a variety of ways in which these and other pragmatic concerns intersect with the scholastic mode of thinking that underpins rabbinic legal interpretation, as well as the ways in which concerns about food overlap concerns about foreigners. The scholasticism that characterizes not only Rabbinic literature but also the work of scholars within other religious traditions, we will see, can itself be used to achieve social objectives. The Talmuds contain a considerable number of passages regarding foreign food restrictions, each with its own set of intricacies and complications. Zvi Arie Steinfeld has analyzed many of these passages in a series of articles; this chapter draws on his important studies without attempting to replicate their detail.1 It begins with a brief survey of passages that pursue “ivory tower” goals of classification and legal precision with respect to foodstuffs. The chapter then turns to more sustained analysis of passages that reflect efforts to limit social intercourse with gentiles through commensality-oriented restrictions. This analysis devotes particular attention to the ways in which scholastic methods of interpreting and transmitting sources advance a social agenda. The final third of the chapter is devoted to a close reading of Talmudic texts addressing a single foreign food restriction, the prohibition of bread baked by gentiles. This case study illuminates the interplay of various pedagogical and pragmatic concerns within the scholastic environment of rabbinic academies and the Talmuds they produced. Whether oriented toward theoretical or practical matters, however, all of the authorities whose statements we will examine in this chapter regard non-Jews as indistinct and mostly nondescript. Talmudic Sages construct the otherness of gentiles in order to serve as a contrasting background against which to define Jewish identity. The Babylonian Talmud (or Bavli, redacted ca. 600) and the Palestinian Talmud (or Yerushalmi, redacted ca. 400) are works of corporate authorship that developed over centuries and that reflect tensions among a variety of opinions.2 Indeed, the TalmudsreflecttoafargreaterdegreethantheMishnahthecharacteristicofscholasticism which José Ignacio Cabezón calls “proliferativity”: “Scholastics, I maintain, opt for broader (even if inconsistent) canons and for minute and detailed forms of analysis that leave no question unanswered, no philosophical [or legal] avenue unexplored . Rather to include, even if this requires reconciling inconsistent texts or positions, than to exclude, thereby risking the loss of what might be soteriologically [or normatively] essential.”3 This “proliferativity” manifests itself within the Talmuds through dialectical argumentation, a process of question-based dispute about the merits of differing Rabbinic statements.4 Talmudic dialectic, comprising discussions structured loosely around the text of the Mishnah, is self-consciously diachronic: Sages from different places and times appear in the same passages without engaging in...