A Kohlhammer translation (with commentary) of Tosefta tractates in MOED.

• Author: Goldberg, Abraham
• Position: Hebrew rabbinic literature

This translation of, and accompanying commentary on, three consecutive medium-sized tractates of the Second Order of the Tosefta-Moed ("Festivals") is a welcome attempt to offer an interested audience a prime text of Tannaitic literature. The Tosefta ranks second in importance to the Mishna in the wide range of Talmudic literature. Yet, while translations and commentary to the Mishna abound, the Tosefta has had relatively few (not even in Hebrew), even though the Tosefta parallels and extends the Mishna and is a work at least twice as large as the Mishna. Commentaries on the Mishna were written in almost every age and period over the greatest part of the past millennium. In contrast, those on the Tosefta can be counted on one hand. It is only in our time that the Tosefta has come into its own with the truly monumental edition of text (five volumes) and commentary (ten volumes) on more than half of the Tosefta by the late Saul Lieberman. Yet when one considers that in Lieberman's more youthful work Tosefet Rishonim (4 vols., Jerusalem: Bamberger and Vahrman, 1937-39) there is a two-volume commentary to the Sixth Order Toharoth, one may safely maintain that he has left us with full commentary to more than two-thirds of the Tosefta. It is still tragic, however, that this unrivaled critical scholar did not live to complete the task that would have been the crowning achievement of a lifetime of intense literary activity.

The present Kohlhammer volume is the most recent in a project begun more than sixty years ago but, due to the condition of the times, continued only haphazardly. Begun in 1933, it was perforce discontinued in 1937 and resumed only in 1945. The driving and guiding force for most of this period has been Karl Heinrich Rengstorf. It was originally intended to be a simultaneous project in which teams of scholars would work on diverse tractates of separate Orders. As of now, however, only relatively few tractates have been published for most of the Orders. They are: Yevamot (with Hebrew text and variants appended), 1953; Berakhot-Pea (with Hebrew text), 1957; Demai-Shevi'it, 1971; Sanhedrin-Makkot, 1976. The one exception to this seemingly haphazard arrangement is the Sixth Order, Toharot. From the very beginning of the project, concentration was on this Order. It is the largest of the Orders and certainly the most difficult. Three volumes of text and translation and a fourth of the Hebrew text appeared in the 1960s: Kelim Baba Kamma-Negaim (1960); Para-Mikvaot (1965); Toharot-Uksin (1967); Hebrew text with variants (1967).

The present volume, like the two previous ones, does not have an appended Hebrew text. Indeed, this is hardly necessary, for the translation by Bornhauser and Mayer depends upon the readily available M. S. Zuckermandel edition of the Erfurt manuscript (but not upon the manuscript itself, as we shall explain below). Moreover, there is the Tosefta text edition of Lieberman based upon the superior Vienna manuscript, with full variants and complete parallel indications. As far as the earlier volumes of the project are concerned, however, there was reason for appending the Hebrew text, especially with regard to the complete Sixth Order Toharot. For Lieberman's Tosefta (both text and commentary) does not reach past the "Three Gates" of the Fourth Order, nor does the Erfurt manuscript go past the beginning of the Fifth Order. Necessarily, and even luckily, the Hebrew text appended to Toharot is that of the Vienna manuscript. It may be worth noting that to this day we still do not have a printed text of the Vienna manuscript to Toharot other than that of the Rengstorf project. (For fuller information on these matters, see my chapter on the Tosefta in The Literature of the Sages, ed. S. Safrai [Assen: Van Gorcum, 1987], especially pp. 298-301).

Nor should the isolated tractates which have so far appeared in the project be considered a "haphazard" selection. The aim of the project from the very beginning was to concentrate on preparing representative tractates from all the Orders. And it has indeed come close to achievement, for there are tractates to all the Orders except to the Fifth - Kodashim. The present volume under review, containing three middle volumes of the Second Order, is a fair representation of the Order. Together, these isolated tractates give us a wide panorama of the Tosefta. Future volumes will help round out the picture.

The three tractates treated in the present volume are not only representative, but are also closely related. The middle tractate, "Yom Toy," deals with generalities which govern all the different Festival Days. The first, "Sukkah," deals with the particulars of the Festival of Tabernacles, while the last, "Rosh Hashanah," particularizes the various aspects of the New Year celebration.

It is relevant to ask if this translation and commentary to the Tosefta text serves any wider purpose. Are there any underlying considerations that give impetus to what is taken up in the commentary? The volume has no introduction to explain the goal and application of the translation and commentary. Nor is there any definition of the reading audience this edition aims to reach. Yet a close reading of the present volume nevertheless tells us much about the purpose of this work.

I have little doubt that this volume, although generally of good critical quality, is meant to be a popular work, aiming primarily at a non-Hebrew-reading audience, one that has either a prime or even tangential interest in rabbinic literature. This essentially popular commentary, therefore, does not match the manifold contributions of the Lieberman commentary which, because it encompasses the entire range of Tannaitic and Amoraic interpretation, as well as Hellenistic background, is obviously on a different level. For the most part, in this work discussion or even acknowledgment of different interpretations to a particular Tosefta pericope is lacking. All this could detract from the very purpose of the undertaking. In fact, however, the commentary makes mention of Lieberman, often giving his assessment of a given text. Moreover, use is made of Lieberman's critical apparatus of variants and parallels.

Yet, since the Kohlhammer commentary is aimed at a specific audience, there are features that cannot be found in Lieberman's commentary. Coming a generation after Lieberman's effort, the Kohlhammer...