SOME ABBREVIATIONS UNRECOGNIZED OR MISUNDERSTOOD IN THE TEXT OF THE JERUSALEM TALMUD BY PROFESSOR LOUIS GINZBERG Reprinted by courtesy of the General Publication Committee of the Students' Annual of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America New York, 1914 Page 140, line z, snouia read: nabenm. Note 8 should read: Lichtenberg. Note 11, last line, should read: Azkari. Page 141, lines 6 and 10; page 142, lines 2 and 4, should read: JO'D Line 13 should read: Nrvniso Note 12 should read: Comp. note 3. Page 142, line 3, should read: 19 ^ ]2='i; n'DT=l"' Line 19 should read: explain that difficult. Page 143, line 12, should read: may ' .i"a Page 145, note 31, line 3, should read: Yebamoth (instead of Y.). Line 10 should read: n:n( } Note 33, line 11, should read: Nissim. Page 148, line 2, should read: OODD Page 150, note 47, line 8, should read: Septuagint. SOME ABBREVIATIONS UNRECOGNIZED OR MISUNDERSTOOD IN THE TEXT OF THE JERUSALEM TALMUD BY PROFESSOR LOUIS GINZBERG Reprinted by courtesy of tbe General Publication Committee or the Students Annual or the Jewish Theological Seminary or America New York, 1914 SOME ABBREVIATIONS, UNRECOGNIZED OR MISUNDERSTOOD, IN THE TEXT OF THE JERUSALEM TALMUD BY PllOF. LOUIS GlNZBEKG THE numerous abbreviations in Rabbinic literature are ver- itable pitfalls laid for the student by the scribe. In most cases, however, they are not of a very dangerous nature. The student who is at home in this literature will not be easily caught by them. If he is master of his subject he will be able to tell by the context whether the abbreviation 3"n stands for NHJ "in "one goat" or for !nj D3H "great scholar," and there is hardly any fear that he would read the abbreviation 3"3 as 12 ^3 "universal genius," where it is meant to stand for ip'JD 1B13 "atheist." Paradoxically as it may sound, it is nevertheless true that the scribe who discarded abbreviations caused more difficulties than he who made free use of them. In their attempt to improve upon the text before them, the scribes tried to explain the abbreviations by writing them out in full, but as penmanship is rarely combined with learning, they very often failed miserably. Many a corrupt text is the result of this kind of "scribal criticism," and the less authoritative a book was, the more was its text exposed to the whims of the scribe. The Babylonian Talmud, being the sole source of Rabbinic law and the standard work of study, was carefully watched over by the scholars, and its text is therefore comparatively free from scribal emendations, while the Jerusalem Talmud and the Midrashim, which never were considered authoritative works, and the study of which was limited to a few specialists, suffered greatly at the hands of the scribe. The great acumen and vast erudition of the commentators of the Yerushalmi were not infrequently a hindrance to them, since by these qualities they were tempted to retain the most absurd errors committed by the scribe. In the following I give a few interesting examples of unrecog- nized or misunderstood abbreviations in the Yerushalmi which I 138 ABBREVIATIONS IN THE JERUSALEM TALMUD 139 hope will bring home to the student the great importance of textual criticism. The fact established in this investigation that the Yeru- shalmi, or at least some versions of it, 1 made use of mnemonic signs D^D'D will help to reconstrue many a corrupt passage in that text. I. Yerushalmi Berakot v; 9a, contains a number of stories whose purport it is to teach the truth 2 that holy and saintly men are recognized as such by the "features of their faces." Among others we read the following narrative : pni? 'DK .fira ^xcn in jinon ( 3 po^oxa p!>oo nn jrur .njnf> u^V r* ( 4 nnan -IK-ID i^ax po If we disregard the word njn? this passage does not offer any difficulty whatsoever; it tells the following story: "Rabbi Yanai and R. Jonathan were walking in the street; a man saw them and greeted them with the words: "Peace unto you, masters." 5 They replied, "We have not even the looks of Haberim (fellows) ." The man in the street only by glancing at the Rabbis knew that he has great men before him. They, however, as truly great men, humbly 1 MS. Genizah and MS. Rome do not read the mnemonic sign in Berak. V, 9b; compare below paragraph I. 1 This view is based on Deut. xxviii, 10, "and all people shall see that Thou art called by the name of the Lord." MS. Rome in my Yerushalmi Fragments, p. 350, has JWDN3, Yalkut Shimeoni ibid, p. 322 NB1BDJO, while MS. Genizah ibid, p. 17 and Ibn Gama in his Addenda to Aruk (edited by Buber in Graetz-Jubelschrift, p. 28, read pBDJO, which, however, is not crrooW but a copist's error for pBDlO^'BnBDNa ''streets." Buber did not notice that the alphabetical order of Ibn Gamas book makes this emendation necessary. All these readings go to show that paSox of the printed text of the Yer. is only orthographically different from ptaiDNj "streets" ( Yer. Yebam XII, 2d : ]B1DN ) , if one does not prefer to correct it in J'BIDX as MS. R. has it. Musafias derivation of 1'oSoN from Latin Saltus "forest" is impossible for more than one reason, while Serillos emendation ( ? ) pD^BX = KaraXvo-L? is unnecessary and im- probable. 4 Yalkut 1. c. and Ibn Gama 1. c. read mnan, and it is this faulty reading which R. Elazar Azkari, in his commentary ad loc. tries in vain to explain. 6 Kai, also spelled n'31, is rarely though regularly used as plural of toi, "master," the form commonly used is N"32l in the sense of teacher or master. 2092475 140 STUDENTS' ANNUAL remarked that they ought not to have been taken even for Haberini 6 (fellows), still less for Eabbaya 7 (masters). The words of Nachmanides, W*?V PK nmn mm "6'SK ...neon 'nick &6, "I have not acquired wisdom ... we do not possess the qualifica- tion of a Haber," 8 go undoubtedly back to our passage and show how this great Talmudist understood it. Estori Parhi in his work rnBI insn xilv, 410 ed pr. = 611 ed. Luncz quotes our Yeru- shalmi passage as follows: 9 '31 ^ pp Jirw ^ f^ ro^n mm, "I do not possess the qualification of a Haber and you call me Babbi." It is true neither Nachmanides nor Estori Parhi read njn!> at the end of our passage, agreeing therein with MS. Genizah and MS. Borne in my Yerushalmi Fragments, pp. 17 and 350 respective- ly, and have therefore no difficulty in explaining it correctly. 10 But it is a methodological error of the commentators 11 to distort the obvious meaning of a passage on account of one obscure word. Yet it Ed. pr. nvi3n=nn3n of MS. Genizah and MS. Rome. The abstract nnan stands here as in many other places for the concrete inn. In the phil- osophical terminology iNin is "quality" and Milan iKin might be translated as "the quality of a Haber." I do not believe, however that this use of Win is older than the Arabic period; Sectaries ed. Schechter 14, 11 Tiro is "according to his order" and not "corresponding to his quality." 7 The Haber is far below the Rabbi ; comp. Kid. 33 b. where DDn='31 is described as superior to the Haber. 8 Comp. II Som. vii, 19, DINS! filtfi, "manner of man." The quotation is from Nahmanides' famous letter published in the collection niKJp A*i2K ed. Lichtenstein 8a. ' There can be no doubt that the author refers to our passage, although his reading of the same is different from ours. It seems that he read as follows: nbv rvb 'ON in rvnon pe&DMa ^ao mn [?p3V 12] nain "i ,n "h jnp pnNi a \> nnsn min iS'BN 'DK .'m ~]h. It is, however, possible that the last four words are not those of the Yer. but of Estori Parhi. 10 Nor has it Serillo, but with this author we are never sure whether we have before us an emendation or a different reading. 11 It would be useless to quote all "the explanations" given by the commentators; but it is worth while mentioning that the one found in the so-called critical commentary by Luncz is the most ridiculous of all. By the way, neither Ratner nor Luncz refer to the readings of the Yer. found in Nachmanides, Parhi, Azkara and Yalkut. ABBREVIATIONS IN THE JERUSALEM TALMUD 141 would be equally uncritical to ignore njn?, which is found not only in the first edition of the Yerushalmi but also in Yalkut Shimeoni and was read also by Ibn Gama. 12 The puzzling njrp can easily be explained, if we read with ed. Amsterdam 13 and E. Samuel Yafeh Ashkenazi 14 njnf> and take it as mnemonic sign pD to indicate the names of the authorities mentioned in the following paragraph of the Yerushalmi. The same contains stories out of the lives of K. Lakish, E. Yudan and E. Elazar, which illustrate their great devotion to study. 15 If the scribes would have marked HJTP as a pD there would not have been much difficulty to explain it. 16 '? stands for K^P? ; 'T for H 1 ' ; "9 for "ifV^K and 'n for MH "studying" (the phrase used of these three scholars is po Kn'Visa 'JHD "very studious"), but through negligence or ignorance the strokes over njn? marking it as a mnemonic sign dropped out and the commentators spend their acumen in explaining a copyist's error. II. Peah iv, 18b : 'i pnr "n war ITJ^K D; Comp. Sanh. 6b: B>"niD, where 'D='DV /1=1Ty t ?K 'O=TND and 'B^jntPin'- Prefixes are often disregarded in the p'D and therefore in our passage 'n=unD. 17 The Talmud mentions explicitly only three older Amoraim, R. Elazar, R. Yohanan and R. Joshua b. Levi, because the later authorities, R. Jeremiah and R. Yose, reflect the opinion of the former ones, which they try to explain. 142 STUDENTS' ANTSTUAL are : E. Elazar, E. Johanan, E. Joshua ben Levi, E. Jeremiah and E. Yose. 18 The pD is to be read as follows: in&N='i>; pnv = 'n; TDT = 1"" ;( 19 hi>) P = '2 and 'V='DV. It is very probable that the use of ( 20 war6 as pD was suggested by the subject matter dealt with by these Amoraim who dispute the principle l*V 3 n i> rot DIN It would, however, be uncritical to accept the reading of MS. Eome as the correct one and in this way ignore the difficulty caused by 20 wan^. It can be easily shown that the reading of MS. Eome is only an emendation and, clever as it is, it does not represent the original text. 21 It reads mr DIN -ITJJ!> Vpa NTJN "i jnenrp ,11 pnr "11 n?vi? *an Now, the phrase of the legal principle discussed in our passage occurs three times here and once in Baba Mezia, II, 8a, but in all these places it reads HN^Xa 1T3r6 JlDT DIN and not war6 nN'a nat DIN as MS. Rome has it. We see by it that this reading cannot be the original one, and is only an attempt to expain that difficut VTir6 by adding the words njnfloa naT DTK before it, but it betrays itself as an emendation by its phraseology which is not that of the Yerushalmi. 22 III. Pesahim. IV, 30c = Taanit IV, 67d: njmNi D'W frx. I have already in another "In Peah our texts read mv "\, but in the parallel passage Maaser Sheni, v. 56c, the correct reading rt'QT '1 is found. The Palestinians, R. Jonah and R. Yose, are often mentioned together and the scribes read therefore the abbreviation <"i as nai' '1 instead of rpDli "i, although in our passage, not the Palestinian R. Yose is referred to but his Babylonian namesake, the colleague of R. Jeremiah, comp. Shabbat I, 3a, and Pes. II, 28c. It is quite probable that this p'D is intended to call attention to the difference between Peah and Maas. Sh. concerning the names of these Amoraim. 19 It is not always the name of the author that is represented in a JO'D, sometimes the author's father takes his place; comp. B. Batra 74b: D"JT where 's=h* "i. 20 1 think that the correct reading of the ]'D is '1'nnS, the last letter stands for Nis^ b tt rfoj ^Kit^a r&u rmw "3 r^nii p torr fcnv n'jn D^-m wia* .rpax rrn mj Mat? For the correct understanding of this extremely difficult passage " Comp. my note in Ratner's 'vwi JTS MilK Pesahim, p. 55. **It is not quite clear whether the delegation of the priests is referred to or that of the three estates, Priests, Levites and Israelites. 35 One understands now the relation between the two parts of the Baraita. Jerusalem was represented by a complete delegation 11DJ7, while the next largest city of Palestine, Jericho, only by a half of an moj?. This, the Baraita remarks, was done not because the population of Jericho was not large enough, but to emphasize the superiority of Jerusalem over all other cities. I venture to suggest that the Baraita, Babli Taanit, 27a, is essentially identical with our Baraita in Yer. and read originally as follows : What the Baraita wanted to say was that half of a division came from Jericho. Later, however sn was taken to mean a half of the twenty-four nnoya, and the text was therefore changed to '*N3 nnntro l"3 inn'3 3"l, or as the Talmud has it inT3 pa a"'- "The letters when used as numbers are not written out in full. "It is poor Hebrew but good Aramaic to say liny 'X instead of ' liny, and considering the fact that the authors of the Talmud spoke Aramaic, there is the possibility that the Baraita originally read .ubvrm liny 'N ["noyj 1*3 144 STUDENTS' ANNUAL which the commentators 28 failed to grasp, we refer to the follow- ing Tannaitic Derashot. Sifre Deut. 240 has the following remark on the Biblical verse Deut. xxii, 21: i> !>K-iB*3 nbi nnt?y <3 fjKI^ TfkvQ f>3 *6 nfclU inb n*y and commenting upon the Biblical words fTON JV3 nns the Midrash Tannaim, p. 141, remarks : .Dr6*iJe> D^ITJ INI Dr6 nosr .13*70 mran rp3 rr-3 TTIJM By comparing the Tannaitic statements with our passage of the Yerushalmi, one cannot fail to see their identity. The first Derashah explains Deut. xxii, 21, fo"W53 fto nnt!>J? 3 as meaning "She disgraced Israel" and not "She committed a disgrace in Israel." The immoral virgin disgraces IT 29 ) PWJ not only herself but the entire nation, or, as Sifre has it, "All the virgins of Israel." The second Derashah. gives the reason for the law to have the execution of the immoral virgin take place at the door of her father's house. The parents, the Rabbis s&j, are partly responsible for the conduct of their children, and therefore must share the disgrace brought by the tatter's crimes; in the words of the Yerushalmi: "Let the wicked children which they have brought up come that the parents and the children be disgraced together." Were it not for the unintelligible K2E? the commentators would not have gone astray, as the text of the Yerushalmi is quite clear even without help from the parallel passages in the Tannaitic sources to which we have referred above. It is again a misunderstood abbreviation which caused all the difficulty. The Derashah of the Yerushalmi 30 n*3K IV3 is found also in Babli Keiubot 45a, and there a Baraita by Shila is given as the source. The full name of this Amora, by which he is always called in the Yerushalmi is 28 Rabbi Moses Margalit goes even so far as to try to connect this passage of the Yer. with the preceding one! A very clever but of course entirely untenable explanation of xatP by R. Saul Katzenellenbogen is found in R. Hirsch Katzenellenbogen's work cfny m2'r)3, page 120 of the second edition. K. reads Nae> S*nt8=3j3jv, not noticing, however, that hi "entire Jacob" is absurd! 29 The piel Saa "to disgrace" is biblical. 80 In Sifre and Babli, this Derashah is given in connection with the words JV3 nne, while in Yer. it is attached to !T2N fi'3 nwtS. The differ- ence, however, is of no importance. Comp. also Sifre D. 235. ABBREVIATIONS IN THE JERUSALEM TALMUD 145 13 sl ) rtTV. Now we have the solution for the puzzling in our passage. Yerushalmi 32 as well as Babli have the same source for the Derashah 'TUX rpa, a Baraita hy Shila bar Abina or, as his name is here abbreviated, K"2B> = xrax 12 r&V- V. Sanhedrin 1, 19a : ns rwoo nnxi "mx ^a ( Tn ruwjna /iai nrn mi^ 1123 ip^ni rim . . . ""SOT p pnr "i p:o v"rc6n This passage most important for the history of ordination became corrupted in a very early date on account of a misunderstood abbre- viation. Maimonides 33 Yad, Sanhedrin IV, 5, reproduces this 81 The data concerning Shila given by the chronographers are confused. He was a "pupil-colleague" isn ToSn of Rab. We find him, therefore, acting independently (Y 121a) of this leader of Babylonian Jewry in the first half of the third century and at the same time transmitting his teachings (Ab. Z. 22b and also 15a, according to the correct reading of MS. M). He is very probably ilentical with xh'V '1 Berakot, Babli 49b, Yer. IV, 8c. His death seems to have taken place shortly after that of ,-Rab; (247) comp. Nid. 36b. Shilas Baraitas (collected or transmitted by him?) are quoted in Babli as xS't? sn (Yebam. 24a; Ket. 44b), while in Yer. they are introduced as ns'3X 13 N f ? 1 E' 'an and it is always R. Zeira who refers to them. (Gittin IX, 50b, Sanhed. VIII, 20a, Makkot II, 31d, and Gittin II, 44b, where MS. Genizah in Yer. Fragments reads nS 1 B> 13 fJ33 instead of n^3N 12 nS'BO- Rabbi Shila, who was the head of the Baby- lonian Academy no C1 at the time of Rab's return from Palestine, is of course not to be confounded with Shila b. Abbina. On the other hand it is quite probable that R. Shila mentioned in Tosefta Ber. II, 10, Mekilta j?Di I. 46b and Mek R. Simon S. 75 is no other than the Babylonian nno B"1 and it is rather astonishing that Halevy (n'3lB>Xin niin II, 224) did not notice it. 82 Here, as in many other places of the Yerush. only the name of the author is used to introduce his statement without adding IDK or 'an, which is always the case in Babli. 88 The rest of this paragraph contains many difficulties but it would lead us too far away from our subject to discuss them here. It may be said, however, that Buchler Synedrion, p. 163, errs when he believes that by reading in Yer. p n'3 3K instead of p n'3 we are in a position to make Maimonides' view agree with that of the Yer. The main difficulty is with the statement '131 INB> bm for which neither Yer. nor Babli can be cited as sources. R. D. B. Z. in his commentary ad loc., who was the first to suggest the reading p n'3 3K in the Yer. calls also attention to the fact that his reading does not dispose of all the difficulties offered by Maimonides. The famous MS. Trivulzio of Maimonides' Yad has not the clause 'i3i N,T vhv, comp. niin nawo ...nixnow "I3tr, Frankfurt, 1889, R. Nis- Gerundi to Sanhedrin 5a, as well as Albarceloni nilBBTi 'D p. 133, 134 and R. Hananel to Sanh. 15a, quote our passage of the Yer. in different readings, but none of them agrees with that read by Maimonides. 146 STUDENTS' ANNUAL statement of the Yerushalmi as follows : IBDJtP > rrn HDDJ DIK N.T K^P irpnm jptn ^n^> 1123 ip$>n D'oam , '131 K'twn jmtsna N!>X. One is at first inclined to assume that Maimonides had no other reading in Yerushalmi than ours; the words |pTn 7?r\~> are only paraphrasing HTH JV3.7 of the Yeru- shalmi. But it is hardly conceivable that this great master of thought and style would have hit upon such a poor paraphrase of the Talmudic text. The prerogative of the ordination was not invested with the patriarchate before the time of R. Simon Ben Gamaliel II, about two centuries after Hillel, and it would be worse than poor style to describe this prerogative as one granted to Hillel. There can be no doubt therefore that Maimonides had in his text of the Yerushalmi something about Hillel, and it is pretty safe to maintain that he read ^n rpai> instead of HTH JV37. The dif- ference between Maimonides' text of the Yerushalmi and ours is based upon the different reading of the abbreviation n"27, as it might stand as well for P/n rp37 as for ntn JV3.7. Maimonides, as a great stylist, only changed hbn iva!> to ??n, because the former expression usually described the school of Hillel and not his family. There can be no doubt, however, that Maimonides' text of the Yerushalmi was corrupt as the expression ntn JV3 or his Aramaic equivalent KJV3 pnn is used in many other places to describe the patriarchate (comp. Yarushalmi Ketubot I, 25a: p \> 84 ) nTn n ^ P' rhv nvnPD 'rm D'JpT, Sanhedrin I, 19d : JT^T Nrr:i pnm ; and similarly Babli Yoma 78a nt ^ IJpTO n^yf> according to the correct explanation by Rashi). Another faulty reading of this abbreviation is N'twn nu? as R. Nissim Gerundi has it in his com- mentary on Sanhedrin 5a, which is probably influenced by Babli Yoma 78a: ns'tw ^ Dn^ tmn HT in. Albarceloni in his p. 133 JTnt3B>n ISO agrees with the reading of our text. VI. Sanhedrin I, I9b: '131 rrrpm nenna D^ann^o no. The text of this passage cannot be correct. We know that cross exami- nation of witnesses nTpm Win is not limited 35 to cases involving 84 So in ed. pr. in the later editions "corrected" to ]H M'sS. 35 Comp. Sank. IV. 1. It is true the rigid form of cross-examination in money matters was abolished at the end of the Tannaitic period (Sanh. 2b; 32a), but our passage deals with the old Biblical law and all agree that m'pm ntP'Tia ni3i 'an niin 121. ABBREVIATIONS IN THE JERUSALEM TALMUD 147 capital punishment niB>QJ *n and there is no sense in the state- ment that the witnesses against a vicious animal which had killed a person must be cross-examined as if they would testify in a case involving capital punishment. Tosefta Sanhedrin III, 2, and Mekilta K. Simon, p. 132 read .TTnil n^pDl D^JJl niTD no instead of rrvpm nB>mi and this is intelligible. According to the Halakah (Mishnah Sanhedrin VI, 4; Talmud 45, and Mekilta Bahodesh III 64a = Mekilta R. Simon, p. 97), the pushing down from a certain height n"m proceeds the stoning proper and it is said here concerning the stoning of animals that it is likewise to be proceeded by pushing it down. The abbreviation H"m = 'm was read by some scribe as standing for ae ) nTpro ntJ^TT and to this error the reading of our Yerushalmi owes its existence. VI. Sanhedrin IV, 22b : T TOIK '""> ...nwOD 'JH }H^ p'tw f>3n ^D3 J"l ppnpm The medieval authorities considered only the Halakic difficulty contained in the second statement of R. Judah and tried to explain it away. Comp. for instance, R. Moses of Coucy 37 in his legal compendium i>n3 mD 1DD Prohibition 148. But it is hardly conceivable that the Baraita dealing with the qualifications of judges would in the very same breath give the law concerning the use of wine touched by idolaters. 38 The only plaus- ible solution of these difficulties is that the original reading was J"'l which, however, on account of the great similarity between the two letters ?O^ and JU, was misread as J" s l and then explained as *pJ pi. R. Judah, dealing with the qualifications of Judges, remarked that as soon as one has reached the age of majority 3"^ he is qualified to act as judge, and we do not take the trouble 88 It is quite possible that the faulty reading ni'pm Wfn goes back to the abbreviation p"ona = p6'j5Dl n"im of Tosefta and Mekilta. 37 Comp. ntPQ '3B ad loc. who refers to this passage in the j"OD. 88 According to the traditional interpretation -pa J is here used in the sense of 02" nno. since nobody would maintain that the prohibition against the use of wine used as libation to an idol is not to be observed rigidly. It is, however, very doubtful whether the old sources ever used the term ]D3 p instead of 03" cno; comp. wn 1BD ed. Vienna p. 39a and K. Nissim Gerundi in his commentary to Alfasi, Abodah Z. V. 8 If the context would permit the reading -p3 ]"=D'3D3 J M the most natural explanation of it would be: "wine used in the temple for libations." The Halakah main- tains that the Am-ha-Arez is to be trusted concerning the purity of D'3D3 )" (Hag. Ill, 4) and to this R. Judah might have referred. 148 STUDENTS' ANNUAL PplplD p to find out whether he has reached his physical maturity D'JOD although the same is an indispensable condition for complete majority. The assumption is that ordinarily one at the age of thirteen has reached his physical maturity. Yerushalmi Berakot VII, 17b, the phrase pps pplpio pK is used in the very same sense as 3"^ ppnpio pN in our passage. VIII. Berakot I, 3a : '131 ^SN D'HOB n^3N p JV^ Xiin '31 lOK This passage is of special interest for the history of the Yerushalmi text, as it contains two readings of an abbreviation, a correct one and a faulty one, following upon each other. R. Huna remarks that the words D^fiDS JiruN do not belong in the Mishna, other- wise the same would contradict itself since, according to its state- ment at the end of Pesachim, it is a biblical commandment to eat the Paschal lamb before midnight, while in Berakot it would number the Paschal lamb under those sacrifices which, according to biblical law might be eaten the whole night. There can be no doubt that this is the only permissible 39 explanation of R. Huna's statement, and the Gaon, with proper critical insight, reads therefor D^HDS n^3K p Jvi> but without giving us any explanation how came into the text. The answer to this question is very simple. The abbreviation 'BK was erroneously read by some scribe as *) l^BK, while another more learned one saw that in this passage it stands for DTID3 rp'3N and both readings came into our text. Although the text of the Yerushalmi suffered most at the hands of the scribes, other works did not escape them entirely. Even the Mishnah is not free from misunderstood abbreviations, especially the first and the last Orders, the study of which was rather neglected. IX. Mishnah Demai, II, 3 : JV33 swDtwi ,.,i3n nrr6 v*?y $>3pDn tjmcn. The traditional explanation of the Mishnah is that the Am-ha-Arez who wants to become a Haber must take upon himself, among other duties, also that of "serving in the house of study." w To maintain, as some of the commentators do, that according to the Yer. the last Mishnah in Pesahim speaks of the Rabbinical prohibition against the eating of the Paschal lamb after midnight is quite impossible. If this were the case R. Huna would argue against himself, since our Mishnah deals with sacrifices which, according to Rabbinical law, are not to be eaten after midnight, and we would expect to have the Paschal lamb numbered among them. * Ed. Amsterdam has in our passage 'BK= ABBREVIATIONS IN THE JERUSALEM TALMUD 149 According to the commentators, "Serving in the house of study" ia as much as associate with the scholars and try to learn the Torah from them. Now, it cannot be denied that the Eabbis attached great importance to the personal intercourse with scholars, and some among them actually maintained 41 that "he who has studied the Bible and the Mishnah but did not attend a scholar is to be regarded as an Am-ha-Arez." But the terms used for the prac- tical study of the Torah is D^oan 'Tc6n E>ne>D or mm *>V HBnDP but never Bmon rp33 WQW as in our Mishnah, which could have only one meaning, and that is attending as a servant in the house of study. Yet, nobody would seriously maintain that to become a Haber one must act as a servant some time in the Beth-ha-Midrash ! Furthermore, the commentators did not notice that as the text reads now it would imply that the Am-ha-Arez must take upon himself the obligation not to serve in the Beth-ha-Midrash. The entire paragraph of the Mishnah is introduced by the particle vb which grammatically includes also the clause tJmon rp22 K'OJJ'DI, otherwise the Mishnah would have said 42 K>D&J>D NiTen, that one might be able to distinguish between the negative and positive parts of its statement. There can therefore be no doubt that Emon JV3 is out of place here. One would be inclined to read the abbreviation "n3 as D!Jn JV3, "tax office," which would give it an excellent 43 sense, as the Haber must under no circumstances become a publican. The Mishnah would then contain the statement that one desirous to become a Haber is to take upon himself the obligation never to assist the publicans in their work. But K'OB'D is not the word 44 one expects in connection with D3DH TV3, and besides this, one looks in this passage for something about impurity as supplement to KDD'D *rr N$>1. A 1^3. "attendant in a bath" 45 is, according "Comp. Berakot 47b. **Tosefta Demai II, 2, in enumerating the duties of the Haber has correctly nbv before the negative and HR'tin before the positive. "Compare Tosefta Demai III 4, Bekorot 3 la and Yer. Demai III 23a. 44 If we read D31DH there would be no objection to the use of the word PODl, but then we would expect D31D VQVIl instead of D3ian fi'23 B>OtPDl. 45 Here as in many other places the Greek ^SoXaveus, 1*73 is used and it would be in harmony with the puristic tendency of the Mishnah to have for it the Hebrew: mon IVM VQVQ1. 150 STUDENTS' ANNUAL to Kiddushin 82a, excluded from holding certain offices on account of his despised occupation, 46 and it would not be entirely improb- able that a pmon JT33 >&? could not become a Hdber. How- ever, this assumption is not very likely. I think, therefore, that O"H3 is to be read as * 7 J nNDIon rp3, which occurs also in another part of the Mishnah, comp. Nid. vii, 4. The main obligation which the Hdber took upon himself was to keep away from any contact with impurity, 48 and the Mishnah mentions here the two principal forms of it, that caused by a dead body 49 and that caused by women during a certain period. The candidate for nnin was therefore to promise not to attend on anybody in rtNDion JV2, as it would be extremely difficult for him to keep pure in such a place. 60 The * As the words of the Baraita ntn nj? 1J3DJ? indicate this profession was despised on account of moral reasons. 41 Whether mNQlon or rnNOOfi is to be read is doubtful ; at all events it refers to the room occupied by women during the time of menstruation. The Falashas have still to-day a separate house not room! for the use of impure women, which they call M erg em biet; comp. Faitlovich, Quer durch Abessinien, p. 152. Dr. Slousch informed me that the same is the case among the Jews in Tripolis, Africa. Comp. also Nachmanides in his commentary to Gen. xxxi, 35. It is not out of place here to call atten- tion to the fact that the Septuagints translates ma by a"T and B>"K") would have prevented him from this error. The Mishnah, as these authorities point out, speaks of the impurity of the garments of the Am-ha-arez but not of that of his body, and therefore can only refer to a Haber who is not a priest, since a priest becomes impure by touching the body of the Am-Tia-Arez; comp. Tos&fot Hagigah 19b; catchword HJO and sio DV niDDVi to Hag. II, 6. "Biichler 1. c. failed to see that D'na 1 ? NDoSi in our Mishnah is not to be taken in an absolute sense; in case of a msa no or n3ilp HNDiB even the Haber is to defile himself. At least this is the view of Rabbi Judah, who speaks here of D'naS KOO^l in connection with the Haber; comp. Semahot iv, 9. Biichler refers to this passage, but as he made use of the faulty text of the editions, he reads jnt?irp 'i instead of mirv '1 as the MS. has it; compare Ebel Rabbathi ed. Klotz p. 58. Another error of Biichler is it to maintain that it was Akiba who declared the prohibition against defilement suspended in case of nisa no, while his teacher R. Eliezer, as well as the latter's colleagues refer to it; comp. Semahot iv, 26. "The place itself is not impure (comp. Nid. 1. c.) ABBREVIATIONS IN THE JERUSALEM TALMUD 151 scribes were familiar with the abbreviation Q"rt3 = tJTTDn IV3 and put it 51 therefore in our text instead of nKDIBn JT3, for which it stands. 52 X. Mishnah Shebiit IX, 3 : "O\ ^33 p^ix irrp nviK 'ji no no^i The attempts 53 made by modem commentators to explain this Mishnah are as successful as that of the ancient ones ; the Mishnah is still unexplained. But if we read pt? instead of liTB> there is no difficulty whatever with our text. The Mishnah asks the reason why each of the three divisions of the Holy Land is sub- divided in three districts with reference to the law of the sabbatical year. The answer it gives is "Because they (the animals of the field) eat in each district till the very last food is gone." The assumption is that mountain animals do not migrate to the valley and vice versa so long as they find something to eat where they are accustomed to live. Now, according to the Halakah, the time for the removal of the fruit of the sabatical year "rtJO from the houses beginrwhen the animals have ceased to look for their food in the fields. Granted the above mentioned supposition concerning the mode of life of the animals, the reason given in the Mishnah for subdividing each division of the Holy Land in mountain, valley and low land, is quite an intelligible one. Our text in'B> is due to a misunderstood abbreviation; a scribe read 'nB> as instead of jnB>, for which it was intended. 61 Berakot, 47b, makes the assumption very probable that the Amoraim did not read cmon jva, otherwise they certainly would have referred to our Mishnah as support, for the view of ann who maintain that one who does not attend "at a scholar" it is an Mam-ha-Ares. 52 Another possible explanation of our Mishnah is that it speaks of a nntrnn n3=0"w concerning which comp. Tosefta Demai III, 6-7. It would not be impossible that according to the Mishnah, a Haber ought not to be a waiter at a festival of Am-Ha-Arez, that he may not forget himself and partake of their food. Of course the Mishnah could not have spoken of nnwan JV2 without describing it as psn OJ> bv nritPBH JVa, but it is possible that our present text was changed after o"na was understood to stand for trnon rva. "A house of study of the Am-ha-Arez," is nonsensical and there was nothing left than to eliminate pun DJ? bv from the Mishnah. "There are more than ten different explanations of our Mishnah! A 000132357