Conjectural Emendations

Ground Control to Rabbeinu Tam

My article in the Jewish Link this past Shabbos focused on the following ideas:

1. Rabbeinu Tam famously is against changing the Talmudic text to make things work, and wrote Sefer HaYashar to defend the traditional girsa

2. Rabbi Yossi beRabbi Chanina (henceforth RYbRC), who is generally assumed to be a third-generation Amora. So when the original text questions whether he really maintains two positions attributed to him (no Biblical requirement to shecht birds, chullin in the azara is non-Biblical) by citing a brayta which suggests otherwise, this is difficult to reconcile.

3. So some baalei Tosafot emend the text so that he is holding like a Tanna of similar name, Rabbi Yossi beRabbi Yehuda, and then change the brayta so that it is Rabbi Yossi beRabbi Yehuda.

4. Rabbeinu Tam instead suggests there were two rabbinic figures by this name. The latter one was ordained by Rabbi Yochanan (in Sanhedrin), while the former one in our sugya was earlier and could appear in a brayta.

5. Rabbeinu Tam’s evidence was that in our sugya, Reish Lakish cites RYbRC, but (in my terms) a second-generation Amora shouldn’t cite a third-generation Amora.

6. This shocked me because our sugya has the opposite, RYbRC citing Reish Lakish.

7. But then I found manuscripts which have the reverse. This is annoying, if the contrary evidence disappears because it cuts against common assumptions.

8. Also interesting is that Rabbeinu Tam says it is Reish Lakish mishum RYbRC. As I’ve laid out in the past, mishum, on behalf of, often is used when crossing into Tannaitic or quasi-Tannaitic territory.

   The Meaning of Mishum

9. Overall, I like Rabbeinu Tam’s idea here. That there is manuscript evidence to support Reish Lakish citing RYbRC, and manuscript evidence of the original girsa without introduction of another Tanna.

10. Finally, once I knew to look for an earlier figure by this name, and a specific kind of aggadic statement, I found one in Berachot, where Rabbi Yochanan cites him and he cites the Tanna Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov.

Here are some manuscripts that support these ideas:

^^ This is the fragment that essentially has the original text described by Rabbeinu Tam, with kasavar, that RYbRC holds himself, rather than holding like Rabbi Yossi beRabbi Yehuda, and then the question, and brayta, with RYbRC.

^^ This is where we see Reish Lakish citing RYbRC, rather than the reverse that we have in other / printed texts.