Q&A: Tavra (Amoraim in the Land of Israel)
Tavra (Amoraim in the Land of Israel)
Question
While studying the memorial volume for the Ritva, I saw that he already attributes to Maimonides the idea that it is better to tolerate strained language than strained content. From there I was led to search in the Talmud for tavra (“the one who taught this did not teach that”) to see whether there are cases there with forced alternatives in terms of content, and that is why they strained the language so much. So I noticed a somewhat interesting phenomenon.
There are 8 instances of tavra in the Talmud, and all of them are only from amoraim who were in the Land of Israel (some of them went down to Babylonia or came up from Babylonia), namely: Shmuel (1), Rabbi Yohanan (1), Rabbi Elazar (4), Rabbi Yirmiyah (1), Rabbi Zeira (1). And in all those places there are rebuttals in the Talmud (from Babylonian amoraim) that reconcile the Mishnah according to a single tanna: Rabbah (1), Rava (5), Rav Pappa (2; in one of them Rabbah appears as well), Rav Ashi (1).
To really think about this properly one would have to get into the actual passages and so on, and that is heavy going. But I’m asking more generally whether this seems to you like a phenomenon that is worth digging into at all — for example, to look for other techniques that prefer strained language over strained content, whether explicit in distinctive terminology or hidden, and to see which amoraim use them and what else characterizes them. And from the standpoint of the Land of Israel/Babylonia divide, to examine it statistically in an orderly way. Or does it seem to you — even from a bird’s-eye view and so on — like a mere coincidence that only amoraim who were in the Land of Israel used this problematic technique (despite the fact that there is another resolution, as the Talmud gives there in all those places)?
Answer
It is definitely an interesting phenomenon. Many people speak about the differences between the Land of Israel and Babylonia, and even in the words of the Sages it is implied that the Jerusalem Talmud likes simplicity, whereas the Babylonian Talmud mixes things together and complicates them. If Talmudic research interests you, then this is certainly a substantial topic to sink your teeth into. Personally, it does not seem all that interesting to me.
Talmudic research interests me to read, but not to do 🙂 And that too only on condition that one actually finds something. But I am interested in guessing what the a priori directions might be, etc., and doing the initial check in order to get an impression of the more striking points.
[I thought of developing it, for example, along the lines of what people say starting with the Maharshal — that there is a difference between Tosafot and the Geonim-Rif-Maimonides in their harmonistic view of the Talmud. One could parallel the relation of natural continuity between the Geonim and the Talmud to the relation of natural continuity between the early generations of amoraim in the Land of Israel and the Mishnah. And roughly speaking one could parallel the relation of natural continuity between Tosafot and the Talmud to the relation of natural continuity between the later generations of Babylonian amoraim and the Mishnah. Then perhaps it would turn out that this relation is also reflected in the willingness to say tavra — the Geonim do it relatively easily, while Tosafot work very hard to avoid it.]