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Review Essay the Tannaitic Synagogue Revisited REVIEW ESSAY THE TANNAITIC SYNAGOGUE REVISITED Mayer Gruber Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Professor Neusner has demonstrated that in the world that the Mishnah seeks to create, the synagogue plays a very minor role. 1 Moreover, he shows that when the synagogue is mentioned in the laws of Mishnah and Tosefta, primarily in Tractate Megillah, 2 the synagogue is almost exclusively identi ed as a place where Scripture is read. In addition, Professor Neusner shows that the location of laws pertaining to synagogues in Tractate Megillah suggests that the paradigm for the reading of Scripture in the synagogue is the read- ing of the Scroll of Esther on the Festival of Purim. It is this essen- tial feature of the festival of Purim that provides the framework for legislating a) the cycle of reading from the Torah for the various festivals and for four special Sabbaths, which are associated with Purim, the arrival of the spring New Year on rst of Nisan, and the 1 This article is revised and expanded from my earlier publication, “Neusner’s Tannaitic Synagogue in the Light of Philology and Archaeology: Response to Jacob Neusner, ‘The Synagogue in Law,’” in Jacob Neusner and James F. Strange, eds., Religious Texts and Material Contexts (Lanham, 2001), pp. 175-181. I wish to express my deep appreciation to Professor Neusner, Professor Jodi Magness, and to Dr. Yulia Ustinova for their counsel and encouragement with respect to various aspects of the research that went into this paper. 2 Of the sixteen references to the bet ha-kenesset in the Mishnah (M. Ber. 7:3; M. Bik. 1:4; M. Suk. 3:13; M. R.H. 3:7 [twice]; M. Meg. 3:1 [4 references]; 3:2; 3:3; M. Ned. 5:5; 9:2 [twice]; M. Sheb. 4:10; M. Neg. 13:12), six of these are found in M. Meg. 3. The thirty-nine references to the synagogue in the Tosefta are: T. Ber. 2:4; T. Ter. 1:10; T. Ma. 2:20; T. Bik. 2:8; T. Shab. 16:22; T. Pis. 10:8; T. Kip. 3:18; T. Suk. 2:10 [twice]; 4:5; T. R.H. 2:7 [3 references]; T. Ta. 2:4; T. Meg. 2:3, 5, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18; 3:12, 13, 22; 3:12, 13, 22; 4:6, 13; T. Sot. 6:3; T. B.Q. 11:3 [3 references]; T. B.M. 11:23; T. B.B. 8:14; T. Ah. 4:2; T. Neg. 6:3; 7:11; T. Toh. 8:10. References to tractates of the Tosefta included in Saul Lieberman, The Tosefta (New York, 1955-1988) refer to the chapter and subdivisions in that edi- tion; references to the other tractates follow Moses Samuel Zuckermandel, The Tosefta (2d ed.; Jerusalem, 1937). Consequently, references found in Chaim Josua Kasowski, Thesaurus Thosephtae (Jerusalem, 1933-1961), that are not supported by the Vienna MS. of the Tosefta as published by Lieberman are not mentioned in this article. ©Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002 Review of Rabbinic Judaism 5.1 114 mayer gruber celebration of Passover (M. Meg. 3) and b) the cycle of readings from the eight Prophetic Books that are read at the conclusion (Heb., Haftarah) of the reading from the Torah on those Sabbath and fes- tival mornings (T. Meg. 3). Professor Neusner also points out that the Mishnah and Tosefta frequently refer to another sacred space for public cultic activity apart from the not yet rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, namely, the town square. 3 3 Jacob Neusner, “The Synagogue in Law: What the Texts Lead us to Expect to Find,” in Neusner and Strange, op. cit., pp. 151-173. Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven and London, 2000), pp. 34-39, argues that contrary to the widely-held view that the ceremonial reading of Scripture in the synagogue was a substitute for Temple worship, the reading of the Torah in the synagogue evolved from the earlier reading of Scripture at the city gate. Interestingly, James F. Strange, in the oral version of his paper, “The Archaeology of Religion at Capernaum, Synagogue and Church,” presented at the February 2000 conference Religious Texts and Material Contexts at the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida, pointed out that it was the apocryphal First Esdras 9:41 that transferred the Torah-reading ceremony of Neh. 8 from the square in front of the Water Gate to the court of the Temple. Concerning the second cent. B.C.E. dating of the extant Greek version of First Esdras see Ziporah Talshir, I Esdras: From Origin to Translation , Septuagint & Cognate Studies, vol. 47 (Atlanta, 1999), pp. 247-268. What Neusner suggests is something altogether di Verent from the usual perceptions of the synagogue as having developed from some earlier insti- tution of Scripture reading. He suggests that the reading of Scripture as described in Mishnah-Tosefta Megillah represents a wholly new religious ceremony that evolved neither from the ceremonies of the City Gate or the Temple. What I suggest is that, while this may be correct historically, the Mishnah, in its inimitable way, tells us something else. By its very precise use of the terms kenesset, bet ha-kenesset, hazzan ha-kenesset , and rosh ha-kenesset in its description of a virtual reality concerning the world of the restored Temple described in the present tense, the Mishnah tells us that there is an entity called kenesset,“assembly called together for the reading of Scripture as a cultic act,” presided over by o Ycials in the following hierarchical order 1) hazzan ha-kenesset , “oYcial of the assembly called together for the reading of Scripture as a cultic act” and 2) rosh ha-kenesset , “head of the assembly called together for the reading of Scripture as a cultic act.” Because kenesset,“assembly,” refers to a group of people rather than to an institution with a building, Mishnah- Tosefta can refer to the activities of such a group taking place in three distinct locations: 1) the Temple Court (M. Yom. 7:1; M. Sot. 7:7-8); 2) the town square (T. Ta. 1:13 informs us that it is hazzan ha-kenesset who would command the priests to sound the shofar at the end of each of seven of the twenty-four blessings of the expanded Amidah recited on seven fasts proclaimed in the case of a prolonged drought; M. Ta. 2 either takes for granted this function of the hazzan ha-kenesset or is unaware of his intrusion into the religious activities that take place in the town square and that are presided over by the nasi, which is to say the head of the Jews in the Roman Empire, who under Roman law held the o Yce of patriarch [see Theodotian Code 16:8]); 3) bet ha-kenesset , a building meant to house the Scripture- reading assembly. The Mishnah’s paradigmatic example of a Scripture-reading assem- bly that does not take place in the Temple Court is the reading of the Scroll of Esther on the Festival of Purim, which takes place just before the spring equinox, at the end of the rainy season in the land of Israel, where the Mishnah and Tosefta.
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