Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg | New York University (original) (raw)

Papers by Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg

Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 21, 2024

Chidushim, 2023

This article addresses the problematic case of a firstborn calf, traditionally given to the desce... more This article addresses the problematic case of a firstborn calf, traditionally given to the descendants of the priestly class (kohanim) in Temple times. Post-Temple, these firstlings could not be slaughtered, rendering them a burden rather than a gift. In fifteenth-century Ashkenaz, firstlings of questionable status were sometimes given to a kohen, who was usually unhappy with this "gift." R. Moellin was asked to find a solution regarding such an undesirable present. The questioner added that another kohen was recently threatened by the authorities with a fine for neglecting a calf that he had received. The local rabbi appealed to R. Moellin for his halakhic expertise, but also mentioned appealing to the authorities with hopes of an exemption. Finally, he mentioned that the situation with such firstling gifts was out of control, and that there were more such cases in Swabia than anywhere else. The current article investigates this intriguing complaint by studying local laws regarding cattle in fifteenth-century Swabia and their intersection with economic realities, public resource management, and Jewish law and custom. The case of the firstlings is an example of two disparate legal systems, local German municipal law and Halakha, their representatives, rabbis and city functionaries, and the ways they all interact. The case reveals a shared basis of life and law for Jews and Christians, as well as its limits.

When Jews Argue: Between the University and the Bet Midrash, 2023

We often think of the historical approach as the ultimate critical outlook. But this is only true... more We often think of the historical approach as the ultimate critical outlook. But this is only true of certain kinds of historicism. There are different ways in which scholars have embraced historical perspectives that were compatible with devotionist outlooks.
This chapter presents one such example in the responsa (rabbinic answers to concrete questions of Jewish religious law) of Rabbi Yair Ḥayim Bacharach, who lived in the German lands 1638–1702. One of R. Bachrach's responsa exhibits his approach to the Zohar. While R. Bacharach wholeheartedly considers the work sacred, he nevertheless recognizes and engages with its historical context. R. Bacharach's approach suggests an early modern historical attitude that need not be opposed to a devotionist stance. This attitude is then compared to the tools employed by early modern humanists and antiquarians, which were similarly critical yet not necessarily opposed to devotionism.
The chapter suggests that our assumptions about the incompatibility of historical criticism and devotion stem from a very specific school of nineteenth-century historicism. These early modern models present a different way.

Print and the Codification of Jewish Law

For the online resource: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/rrorw/?context=rrorw This chapter discusse... more For the online resource: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/rrorw/?context=rrorw This chapter discusses the printing of Jewish law codes in the early modern period. Jewish religious law, or halakha, has been transmitted in different textual formats for millennia. These texts have been organised in a variety of ways. Codes typically summarise large fields of law in a general manner while focusing on legal conclusions, and imply some degree of legal authority. There have been numerous projects seeking to organise halakhic knowledge in different forms throughout the ages, some through interpretation and explanation, others through organisation of various forms; summarising sources, ordering legal material, structuring them in an accessible scheme, and determining the final law. Some of these codifications faced intense criticism for implicitly or explicitly according themselves too high a degree of authority. Print-technology enhanced many of the code's authoritative characteristics, especially where order and structure were concerned. Moreover, the printing press rendered such codes easier to circulate to broader audiences. In the mid-sixteenth century, Shulḥan Arukh ('Set, or Ordered Table'), a code written by Yosef Karo, was printed. This was an updated, well-structured, general code of halakha, soon to be enhanced by Moshe Isserles' glosses, which made the code useful for an unprecedentedly wide geographical spectrum of Jewish observance. Although this code encountered serious opposition, it soon became one of the most popular halakhic codes of all time. It was created explicitly for print, and the work's printed state to some extent enhanced its codificatory authority.

AJS Review, 2021

Naharaim - Zeitschrift für deutsch-jüdische Literatur und Kulturgeschichte, 2008

Harvard Theological Review, 2022

Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697–1779) was an important rabbi and scholar in the area of Hamburg. One of h... more Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697–1779) was an important rabbi and scholar in the area of Hamburg. One of his works, Mitpaḥat Sefarim (“Book Cloth,” Altona, 1768), is a critique of the Zohar (“Book of Splendor”), a canonical Jewish mystical text attributed to the ancient scholar Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai (ca. 2nd cent. CE). In Mitpaḥat Sefarim, Emden casts doubt upon the Zohar’s provenance, authorship, and age. This critique has led some to identify Emden with the early beginnings of the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, as an opponent of mysticism. However, Emden took mystical sources very seriously, both in the spiritual realm, and, as this article shows, even in his writings on religious law. This article examines the perceived contradiction in Emden’s thinking, and proposes a view of Emden as an early modern printer and critic with a unique perspective, rather than a confused precursor of modern ideas.

Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance World, 2022

For the online resource: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/rrorw/?context=rrorw This chapter discuss... more For the online resource:
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/rrorw/?context=rrorw

This chapter discusses the printing of Jewish law codes in the early modern period. Jewish religious law, or halakha, has been transmitted in different textual formats for millennia. These texts have been organised in a variety of ways. Codes typically summarise large fields of law in a general manner while focusing on legal conclusions, and imply some degree of legal authority. There have been numerous projects seeking to organise halakhic knowledge in different forms throughout the ages, some through interpretation and explanation, others through organisation of various forms; summarising sources, ordering legal material, structuring them in an accessible scheme, and determining the final law. Some of these codifications faced intense criticism for implicitly or explicitly according themselves too high a degree of authority. Print-technology enhanced many of the code's authoritative characteristics, especially where order and structure were concerned. Moreover, the printing press rendered such codes easier to circulate to broader audiences. In the mid-sixteenth century, Shulḥan Arukh ('Set, or Ordered Table'), a code written by Yosef Karo, was printed. This was an updated, well-structured, general code of halakha, soon to be enhanced by Moshe Isserles' glosses, which made the code useful for an unprecedentedly wide geographical spectrum of Jewish observance. Although this code encountered serious opposition, it soon became one of the most popular halakhic codes of all time. It was created explicitly for print, and the work's printed state to some extent enhanced its codificatory authority.

Villanova law review, 2020

I thank Chaim for having invited me to participate.

Journal of the History of Ideas, 2021

Abstract:The Talmud states: “God precedes afflictions with their remedy.” But what if that remedy... more Abstract:The Talmud states: “God precedes afflictions with their remedy.” But what if that remedy exacerbates the affliction? Early modern Jewish culture faced precisely this dilemma: A growing scholarly anxiety—transmitting and mastering crucial legal texts—was preceded by its solution, print. Print, however, simultaneously exacerbated the affliction. My article analyzes this dynamic's development in Jewish scholarly culture around the printing of rabbinic responsa in the mid-sixteenth century. Across early modern Europe, scholars grappled with simultaneously promising and overwhelming prospects of expanding textual corpora. This study illuminates shared dynamics of early modern knowledge, suggesting new approaches to print culture.

Critical Inquiry, 2021

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Journal of Law, Religion and State

This article studies the fate of a contradiction between practice and prescriptive text in 16th-c... more This article studies the fate of a contradiction between practice and prescriptive text in 16th-century Ashkenaz. The practice was fleeing a plagued city, which contradicted a Talmudic passage requiring self-isolation at home when plague strikes. The emergence of this contradiction as a halakhic problem and its various forms of resolution are analyzed as a case study for the development of halakhic literature in early modern Ashkenaz. The Talmudic text was not considered a challenge to the accepted practice prior to the early modern period. The conflict between practice and Talmud gradually emerged as a halakhic problem in 15th-century rabbinic sources. These sources mixed legal and non-legal material, leaving the status of this contradiction ambiguous. The 16th century saw a variety of solutions to the problem in different halakhic writings, each with their own dynamics, type of authority, possibilities, and limitations. This variety reflects the crystallization of separate genres ...

94–Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg and Joseph Leo Koerner Iconoclash in Northern Italy circa 1500 This ar... more 94–Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg and Joseph Leo Koerner
Iconoclash in Northern Italy circa 1500
This article draws together two works created in late fifteenth-century Mantua. Although radically different in kind, they were borne from the same acts of violence: Andrea Mantegna’s Madonna of Victory and a responsum about Jewish religious law by Rabbi Joseph Colon. Mantegna’s altarpiece, painted to commemorate the bloody battle of Fornova as a Gonzaga victory, was paid for by Daniele Norsa; Norsa, a Jewish banker, was accused of destroying a prior Christian icon and ordered to finance the new altarpiece as reparations for this crime, under threat of death. Colon’s responsum addressed the permissibility of creating a Christian image under duress—idolatry being one of the sins for which a Jew must sacrifice their life rather than transgressing. We explore the remarkable artistry and distinct craft practiced by the painter and the rabbi—image making in the one case, legal reasoning in the other—as modes of describing, interpreting, and creating reality. Both works address problems of religion and idolatry, faith and coercion, victory and violence, and triumph and lament. Together they reveal the dynamics of a fascinating iconoclash, a conflict of culture waged over the struggle between making and breaking images.

The coronavirus creates an unse ling tunnel in time between 21st-century New York and the world o... more The coronavirus creates an unse ling tunnel in time between 21st-century New York and the world of 16th-century rabbis

This article examines early modern learning through Ashkenazic responsa. Beyond explicit evidence... more This article examines early modern learning through Ashkenazic responsa. Beyond explicit evidence from published responsa collections, implicit insights dwell in what these publications lack. These missing features shed light on sixteenth-century scholarly practices. The works' organizational inconsistencies must be understood in context of learned archives. Such an adjustment offers a corrective to the regnant narrative, which views the introduction of print as a sharp rupture from earlier modes of transmission. This article suggests instead that the culture of printed books coexisted with older approaches, and that print was complemented by more disorderly and unconstrained forms of transmission. Comparing rabbinic "paperware" with contemporaneous humanist practices highlights the rabbi's working papers, focusing on a culture's dynamic activity rather than its stable output. This shift in perspective allows us to see rabbinic writings not merely as a collection of books but as a mode of scholarship. BOOKS OF RESPONSA Literary products from the past do not always conform to contemporary notions of genre, and actual published works may look nothing like the books we would have imagined based on idealized definitions. This very shortcoming, however, can yield a fuller understanding of the historical significance of these texts. The present article examines one such genre and its less-than-perfect finished products in the early modern period. Responsa, or she'elot u-teshuvot (ShUT), are rabbinic discussions (literally, questions and answers) of Jewish religious law (Halakhah). They typically take the form of letters prompted by specific situations such as marriage and divorce, holiday liturgy, dietary laws, or complex financial issues. Given both its ubiquity throughout the history of Halakhah, from talmudic times to the present, and its straightforward origin-a rabbi replying in writing to questions posed in letters-it is tempting to consider the genre as a self-evident, distinct, and consistent category of halakhic writing. Menachem Elon, for instance, offers this definition: "The term 'responsa' includes all of the recorded rulings and decisions rendered by the halakhic authorities in response to questions submitted in writing." 1 Comparing responsa to common law, Elon calls them

What is Yerushalmi Shekalim Doing in the Babylonian Talmud? thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/what-is-y... more What is Yerushalmi Shekalim Doing in the Babylonian Talmud? thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/what-is-yerushalmi-shekalim-doing-in-the-babylonian-talmud Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg Those participating in the daily Talmud learning of the Daf Yomi cycle are in for a disorienting couple of weeks. On Monday, March 22, Tractate Pesahim will conclude, and the following day, Daf Yomi learners around the world will turn to a new tractate. The next tractate in line, the fourth in the Seder-or order-of Moed, which centers on the Jewish time-cycle, is Tractate Shekalim, about the annual half-shekel that every male Jew would contribute to the communal treasury. As the Daf Yomi learners will soon realize, tractate Shekalim is a little different. Alephs are dropped, turning words such as "amar" ("he said") into "mar," usually a honorific preceding someone's name. Instead of the usual chains of transmission, mentioning rabbi so-and-so who said to rabbi so-and-so, who learned it from yet another rabbi; the reader is greeted simply by lists of names. It all feels foreign compared to the fare that the Daf Yomi student is used to.

[fcT1,P1='C'] HAIM Saiman modestly classifies his book, Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law, as an... more [fcT1,P1='C'] HAIM Saiman modestly classifies his book, Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law, as an introduction to halakhah for law students. Whereas it does introduce key ideas about halakhah in a highly accessible manner, the book clearly accomplishes more; it offers a distinct point of view on the nature and role of halakhah. Saiman describes halakhah as constantly engaging with two poles: the legal/regulatory on the one hand, and the philosophical/ethical, on the other. In an immensely insightful manner, he shows how both poles are equally present in every halakhic iteration. At times, however, this approach encounters problems. The following pages point out some of the implications and complications of Saiman's bipolar model of halakhah. First, I reflect upon the dialectical model and its explanatory power. Subsequently, I consider the risk of this ever-intensifying duality's collapsing into circularity. I then discuss two important contributions of the book-Saiman's interpretative effort and his historical insights. Finally, I suggest that the two interlock in Saiman's concluding reflections, which interpret the meaning of halakhah in the current historical moment while relinquishing, to some extent, his own insistence on the perfect equality of both poles. 1 I. Halakhah: Dialectics and Apologetics 1 This essay is based on a talk I presented at a conference in honor of the publication of Chaim Saiman's book, Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law (2018) at the annual Shachoy Symposium at Villanova University on February 15, 2019. I thank Chaim for having invited me to participate.