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鵻 83 鵼 Chapter 4 鵻 Rabbinic Legacy: Background and Parameters 鵼 W hile Saul Hakohen saw in ‘Aខ teret zeqenim an attempt to “return the crown” to figures of biblical antiquity, Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano saw in it an egregiously public and brazen affront to midrashic authority. The fury of Elijah’s assault notwithstanding, Abarbanel evinces little sense that his dissent from midrash in his first work is unusual (even as he grants implicitly that it does require some explanation). Just what, then, was Abarbanel’s attitude towards those whom Elijah dubs “the aggadists”? The question requires immediate delimitation: Abarbanel accepted without qualification rabbinic authority as regards legal midrash. As a Rabbanite Jew, he held that, for purposes of practice, rabbinic “oral law (torah she-be‘al peh)” was the authentic elaboration of the Torah’s “written law.” The result of Karaite deviation from “the words of the true tradition and words of the Mishnaic sages, blessed be the One who chose them and their teaching (mishnatam),”1 could only be, insisted Abarbanel—joining a long line of gaonic and Spanish Rabbanite writers—falsification of the divine will.2 Left to his own devices, Abarbanel could show considerable independence in his handling of midrash halakhah, at times evincing a tendency (found among some predecessors as well) to establish the contextual sense of biblical law even where this contradicted midrashic interpretation.3 With respect to practical norms, however, midrashic interpretation was the unimpeachable guide.4 Far more variegated and ambivalent than his relationship to legal midrash was Abarbanel’s encounter with rabbinic dicta offering clarifications of Scripture ’s nonlegal parts and with rabbinic sayings (homilies, stories, theological speculations, ethical ideas, historical reconstructions) that stood wholly independent of Scripture.5 To assess this encounter, an outline of earlier figures, ideas, methods, and movements that shaped posttalmudic discussion of the rich and (for some) problematic nonlegal rabbinic legacy will prove helpful. The task is twofold: to provide some sense of the theories and practices of Abar- 84 鵼 Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward Tradition banel’s gaonic and medieval forerunners and to suggest some of the diverse settings (e.g., sermons, interreligious disputations) and literary contexts (e.g., biblical commentary, pro- or antiphilosophic tracts) in which nonlegal rabbinic dicta could variously emerge as sources of stimulation, contention, or embarrassment . With such points of reference in hand, it will be possible to situate in their multiple religious and historical contexts Abarbanel’s attitudes towards and procedures with respect to nonlegal rabbinic discourse, as they appear in his biblical commentaries and his commentary on rabbinic messianic sayings. Rabbinic nonlegal discourse generated two basic sorts of quandaries in gaonic , medieval, and early modern times.6 Biblical exegetes, especially those seeking to render Scripture’s “contextual sense (peshaខ t),”7 found that much midrashic interpretation did not accord with the expositions that their independent analyses of Scripture yielded. They confronted polarities such as midrash versus grammar or midrash versus context. Theologians grappled with different issues. To them, nonlegal rabbinic sayings could seem trivial, unscientific , even opposed to what they took to be cardinal Jewish teachings. They confronted polarities like aggadah versus rationality, aggadah versus the natural order, aggadah versus refined spirituality. As often as not, the spheres of exegesis and theology overlapped. In such cases, depending on its reader’s religious sensibilities and the “hermeneutic circle” in which he moved, a given midrash might at once raise both vexing conceptual and exegetical issues. In the late gaonic period, the rise of Jewish rationalism and persistence of various intra- and interreligious controversies provided the main external frames within which Rabbanite authorities considered nonlegal rabbinic dicta. Seen in terms of newly emergent Jewish engagements with Greco-Arabic philosophy and with Muslim theological streams informed by it, rabbinic sayings could seem irrational and even heretical. As a result, Karaite and Muslim scholars gleefully summoned the seemingly bizarre passages with which rabbinic lore was replete, adducing anthropomorphic aggadot, for example, to depict the talmudic authorities to whom Rabbanites were allegiant as fools, blasphemers , or both.8 Reacting to such indictments and ridicule—and, to be sure, reflecting their own individual religious sensibilities—the Geonim Sherira, Hayya, and Samuel ben Hofni advanced variously formulated claims that “one does not rely on the aggadah.”9 Specifying further, Sherira opined that midrashim were “conjectures ” (’umdana’) while Hayya affirmed that they were “not like authentic tradition.” Samuel ben Hofni limned the distinction between halakhah and aggadah with startling frankness when he compared the former to “fine flour” and the...

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