Rabbinic Legal Loopholes: Formalism, Equity and Subjectivity Elana Stein Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 © 2014 Elana Stein All rights reserved ABSTRACT Rabbinic Legal Loopholes: Formalism, Equity and Subjectivity Elana Stein Rabbinic law is particularly well known for its use of legal dodges and technical circumventions. This dissertation focuses on three main questions about such loopholes: 1) Why is rabbinic law so replete with them? 2) Are they always permitted, and if not, what are the parameters of their use? 3) What does the use of legal loopholes reveal about rabbinic views of the relationship between intention and action? We attempt to answer these questions by analyzing a particular subset of rabbinic legal loopholes known as ha‘arama (cunning). Tracing the history and use of ha‘arama from tannaitic to amoraic sources, this work places rabbinic legal loopholes in context of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern worldviews, Greco-Roman perspectives, and later contemporaneous Zoroastrian approaches. Working with both tannaitic and amoraic materials, with Palestinian and Babylonian sources, we observe a progression within rabbinic thinking on this front: from rigid legal formalism to a concern for the inner spirit of the law, and from emphasis on the inner spirit of the law to an interest in the inner spirit of the individual legal agent. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 DISSERTATION SUMMARY ......................................................................................................................... 1 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................................. 6 Legal Fictions vs. Legal Loopholes .................................................................................................. 7 Legal Theory .......................................................................................................................................... 11 Intention .................................................................................................................................................. 14 CHAPTER 1 - BIBLICAL LOOPHOLES AND THEIR (NON-)IMPACT ON RABBINIC THINKING 16 LEGAL LOOPHOLES IN JEWISH LAW ...................................................................................................... 17 ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN CONTEXT ...................................................................................................... 20 BIBLICAL LOOPHOLES ............................................................................................................................ 22 Judges 19-21:Benjamin seizing wives ........................................................................................ 23 I Kings 2: Solomon and Shim‘ei...................................................................................................... 28 Joshua 9: Gibeonite Treaty .............................................................................................................. 31 Exodus 2: The Story of the Exodus................................................................................................ 34 Numbers 27, 36: The Daughters of Zelophehad ..................................................................... 36 Genesis 30: Jacob’s Sheep ................................................................................................................. 41 Genesis 38: Judah and Tamar ......................................................................................................... 43 Genesis 20: She is my sister .............................................................................................................. 47 Exodus 2: Baby Moses on the Nile................................................................................................. 49 Imagined Biblical Loopholes .......................................................................................................... 52 Summary ................................................................................................................................................. 57 A SOCIETY GOVERNED BY FORMALISM ................................................................................................. 58 WISDOM LITERATURE AND HA‘ARAMA ............................................................................................... 62 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 2 - HA‘ARAMA AND EQUITY ........................................................................................ 68 HA‘ARAMA IN TANNAITIC LITERATURE ........................................................................................... 73 Ma‘aser Sheni ........................................................................................................................................ 74 Bekhor ...................................................................................................................................................... 79 The Cunning Serpent .......................................................................................................................... 85 tShabbat 14:6 – Saving Bread on the Sabbath ....................................................................... 88 tBeṣa 3:2 – Parent-Child Animal Pair ......................................................................................... 89 Rejecting Ha‘arama: tBM 4:2 - Usury ......................................................................................... 90 Mishnah vs. Tosefta............................................................................................................................. 93 HA‘ARAMA IN THE PALESTINIAN TALMUD (PT) ............................................................................... 94 Suspicion of Ha‘arama............................................................................................... 96 Parameters of Ha‘arama ............................................................................................................... 107 Ha‘arama as Widespread Problem ........................................................................................... 110 LOOPHOLES AND FRAUS LEGI: GRECO-ROMAN CONTEXT ................................................................ 112 Greek Rhetoric ................................................................................................................................... 118 i R. Hoshaya ........................................................................................................................................... 131 HA‘ARAMA IN THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD ........................................................................ 133 Parameters ............................................................................................................... 133 No Suspicion of Ha‘arama ............................................................................................................ 138 LEGAL THEORY .................................................................................................................................... 140 Realism and Formalism ........................................................................................... 141 Natural Law: A Dworkinian Model ........................................................................................... 147 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................ 150 CHAPTER 3 - HA‘ARAMA AND THE INTERNAL SELF .................................................. 152 HA‘ARAMA OF INTENTION ............................................................................................................... 152 tBeṣa 3:2 – Parent-Child Animal Pair ...................................................................................... 154 Living in a Social World; Marit ‘Ayin ....................................................................................... 162 Intention: Organic or Constructed? .......................................................................................... 165 Unity in Superficiality……………………………………………………………………………………...170 Other Examples………………………………………………………………………………………………..171 Hybrid Case ......................................................................................................................................... 179 Ritual Purity and Ha‘arama .................................................................................... 184 Problematizing a Neat Dichotomy ............................................................................................ 200 CHAPTER 4 – THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD AND INTERIORITY ........................... 201 PARALLEL SUGYOT .............................................................................................................................. 201 LANGUAGE ........................................................................................................................................... 207 OPTICS .................................................................................................................................................. 218 EDITORIAL CHANGES