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A Dokumentum Hasznсlatсval Elfogadom Az A PDF fájlok elektronikusan kereshetőek. A dokumentum használatával elfogadom az Europeana felhasználói szabályzatát. n,,~w,n,:nwn Studi es in Responsa Literature MTA Iudaisztikai Kutatócsoport ÉRTESíTŐ Szerkeszti Komoróczy Géza 2011. 181 július n,,~tV'm:mvn STUDIES IN RESPONSA LITERATURE n"KW' n':J,wn Studies in Responsa Literature Edited by VIKTÓRIA BÁNYAI and SZONJA RÁHEL KOMORÓCZY Center ofjewísh Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Budapest- 2011 © 2011 by Center of)ewish Studies, Institute for Minority Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences www.hebraisztika.hu • www.mtaki.hu © Viktória Bányai, Kinga Frojimovics, Yehuda Friedlander, Géza Komoróczy, Szonja Ráhel Komoróczy, Judit Kónya, Tamás Turán, Dóra Zsom © English translation: Szonja Ráhel Komoróczy (Chapter 3), Ágnes Vázsonyi (Chapters 7-8) Copy-editor of the English text: David Robert Evans Typography and cover design: Anikó Környei and Éva Szalai Cover illustration: S. Kohn, Talmudists. Postcard, c. 1910 (Hungaríanjewísh Archives) Set in typefaces Cronos, Frank Ruehl and Gentium Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 7 1. Terse Analogical Reasoning in Responsa Literature: Four Medieval Examples • Tamás Turán 11 2. Wine Produced and Handled by Converts: The Rulings of the Ribash, the Tashbeẓ and the Rashbash • Dóra Zsom 47 3. Fight for a Dowry in Buda, 1686: A Responsum from the Reverse • Géza Komoróczy 79 4. The Responsa of Ezekiel Landau as Source Material for the History of Hungarian Jewry • Viktória Bányai 95 5. Language Assimilation and Dissimilation in the Works of R. Hillel Lichtenstein • Szonja Ráhel Komoróczy 107 6. Halakhah and Micro-History: Anti-Jewish Legislation in Hungary (1938–1944) as Refl ected in the Responsa Literature • Judit Kónya 123 7. Rescuing Jews during the Holocaust with the Help of Aryan Papers: A Rabbinic Perspective • Yehuda Friedlander 135 8. Memorial Books and Responsa Literature: Merging Genres in Rabbinic Literature in the Aftermath of the Holocaust • Kinga Frojimovics 159 CONTRIBUTORS 171 Introduction The present volume was conceived in 2006 at the Center of Jewish Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Our Center focuses on research in Jewish culture, history and tradition, particularly with respect to the history of Jews in Hungary. The Center was founded by Professor Géza Komoróczy in 1987 at the initiative of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Academy. This was followed in 1988 by the establishment of Jewish Studies as a university major at Eötvös Loránd University. Ever since, the Center has been physically based at the University, and research fellows of the Center have been involved in teaching as well. Responsa literature has always been a central element in the research of the fellows of our Center, and close reading and study of responsa has been part of the curriculum at our university program—especially since Hungarian rabbis have excelled in this genre. While responsa literature is studied mostly by rabbis and scholars of halakhah, our interest lies in the study of the historical, cultural and literary aspects of responsa sources. As the result of both the research of our fellows and the coursework of our advanced students at the University, the last couple of years have seen the publication of several volumes, in Hungarian, on aspects of the history of Jews in Hungary, based on, or making extensive use of, responsa literature. The fi rst major book in this series was a collection of historical sources on Hungarian history and the history of Jews in Hungary from the beginnings to 1686, compiled, edited, translated and analyzed by professors Shlomo J. Spitzer of Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, and Géza Komoróczy, the founder of both our Center and the Department of Jewish Studies.1 A compilation 1 Shlomo J. Spitzer–Komoróczy Géza, Héber kútforrások Magyarország és a magyarországi zsidóság történetéhez a kezdetektől 1686-ig (Hungaria Judaica, 16; Budapest: MTA Judaisztikai Kutatócsoport–Osiris Kiadó, 2003). 7 of four responsa by the Ḥatam Sofer (Moses Schreiber, 1762–1839), rabbi of Pressburg (Pozsony, Bratislava), edited by our fellow Tamás Turán, is the result of university seminars held on the topic of responsa literature, and contains translations and analyses by our (by now: former) students.2 And the most recent such volume is a collection of responsa by Ezekiel Landau (1713–1793), compiled, translated and analyzed by the present director of the Center, Viktória Bányai.3 In 2006, after the publication of the fi rst volume mentioned above, in the last phases of the publication of the second, and with several other ongoing research projects in the fi eld, the Center decided to bring together scholars connected to us with former and current students who work with responsa literature, and to provide everyone with an opportunity to present their research, to talk about matters of research methodology and diffi culties, and to discuss paths of further research. As part of this project, the Center organized a conference entitled “Studies in Responsa Literature” in late October 2006. All contributors to the present volume have participated in that conference, and most studies published here are built on papers presented there. Since then, some of the then ongoing projects have been fi nished, and some papers have become articles, chapters in books, or dissertations. Our students at the time have already fi nished, or are about to nishfi their doctoral dissertations, and have become scholars in their own right. Several of the participants have left our Center, continue their studies or have found jobs in other research institutes and universities—nonetheless, they have maintained their personal and academic ties with our Center. The present volume contains contributions on responsa literature, written by scholars related to our Center. It is interesting and special in its focus on this rich but relatively neglected branch of rabbinic literature, and especially in discussing historical, cultural, and literary aspects of responsa sources, spanning from the early Middle Ages to the Holocaust period. Not all contributors are current fellows or students of the Center, but all have at some point been, and to this day remain connected to it. And not all studies are related to Hungary, though the majority deal with responsa by Hungarian 2 Tamás Turán, ed., Moses Schreiber (a Hatam Szofer) négy responsuma, translated by Tamás Bíró, Szonja Ráhel Komoróczy, András Kövér, Tamás Visi (MTA Judaisztikai Kutatócsoport Értesítő, 17; Budapest: MTA Judaisztikai Kutatócsoport, 2006). 3 Bányai Viktória, Ezekiel Landau prágai rabbi döntvényeiből: Magyarországi adatok (Hungaria Judaica, 22; Budapest: MTA Judaisztikai Kutatócsoport, 2008). 8 rabbis, or Hungarian aspects of responsa literature. As such, this volume represents the profi le of the Center of Jewish Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in several aspects—and thus we fi nd it especially fitting that this be the Center’s fi rst publication in English. The editors would like to express their special thanks to David Robert Evans, copy-editor of the English texts, to Anikó Környei and Éva Szalai for the volume’s typography, and to Éva Szili for her invaluable administrative help. Budapest, May, 2011. Viktória Bányai – Szonja Ráhel Komoróczy Terse Analogical Reasoning in Responsa 1. Literature: Four Medieval Examples Tamás Turán INTRODUCTION Responsa of the early geonim and of many rishonim are often very brief.1 This brevity—and I mean the brevity of the argumentation in particular—is sometimes strikingly incongruent with the complexity of the issues and sources involved in the given responsum. The argument may seem to be elliptic or even cryptic, often because reference is made to Talmudic terms, concepts or principles, the relevance and applicability of which are not readily recognizable. Such diffi culties are related to one aspect of halakhic reasoning that may be broadly termed analogical. By “analogy” I mean conceptual analogy (as opposed to the scriptural-exegetical one usually called hekkesh in Talmudic terminology), and I use the term here to include also classifi catory statements, explicit or implicit.2 Analogy—along with distinction, its complementary concept in Talmudic dialectics—plays an essential role in halakhah. The transference or expansion of received legal categories and principles—which has its own Talmudic terminology and 1 Menahem Elon, Jewish Law; History, Sources, Principles, tr. by Bernard Auerbach, Melvin J. Sykes (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1994), vol. 3, pp. 1470, 1474; Shmuel Glick, Kuntres ha-teshuvot he-ḥadash. A Bibliographic Thesaurus of Responsa Literature Published from ca. 1470–2000, vol. 1 (Jerusalem–Ramat Gan: The Schocken Institute for Jewish Research of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, etc., 2006), p. 32; Shlomo Dov Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 5 (Berkeley, etc.: University of California Press, 1988), p. 486 (on Abraham, the son of Moses Maimonides). 2 See the survey of the little-studied subject of legal analogy in Talmudic literature by Leib Moscovitz, Talmudic Reasoning: From Casuistics to Conceptualization (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), pp. 228–273, and also his chapter “Classifi cation and Legal Defi nition,” pp. 98–162. 11 therefore it is often easily recognizable3—serves the respondent to put new wine to old tubs, to invest old terms with new meanings.4 Examples from responsa literature can be cited endlessly.5 Heuristically problematic analogies of the mentioned types are referred to in scholarship by terms such as “non-propositional,” “non-principled,” “fuzzy” and the like.6 These terms have a certain negative connotation and 3 See Moscovitz (previous note), pp. 235, 246–249; idem, “Legal Fictions in Rabbinic Law and Roman Law,” in Catherine Hezser, ed., Rabbinic Law in Its Roman and Near Eastern Context (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), p. 115. 4 See, for example, the interesting case studies of Samuel Morell, “The Halakhic Status of Non-Halachic Jews,” Judaism, 18 (1969), pp. 448–457, and Haym Soloveitchik, “Maimonides’ Iggeret Ha-Shemad: Law and Rhetoric,” in Leo L. Landman, ed., Rabbi Joseph H.
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