From separatism to urbanism: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the origins of the rabbinic eruv

Dead Sea Discoveries

Volumn 11, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 43-71

  Fonrobert, Charlotte Elisheva ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 61949243391     PISSN: 09290761     EISSN: 15685179     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156851704323017430     Document Type: Review

References (30)

1. J.N. Epstein and others following him have argued that the two were originally one tractate, but then were divided into two, due to its length (Tannaitic Literature, 300). See, however, A. Goldberg, The Mishna Treatise Eruvin (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1986, Heb.) who argues for an original division into two tractates, IX (Eng.) and 13 (Heb.)
2. A.J. Heschel, The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951). He writes, for instance: "Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time" (8, his emphasis). Further, "the meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time," 10. Jon Schofer points out to me in oral communication that at the same time as juxtaposing space and time conceptually, Heschel thoroughly spatializes his analysis of time metaphorically
3. For a more differentiated discussion concerning second temple sources see L. Doering, Schabbat: Sabbathalacha und -praxis im antiken Judentum und Urchristentum (TSAJ 78; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), esp. 47-48
4. The Geography of Identity (ed. Patricia Yaeger; Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1996)
5. on social geography and Remapping Memory: The Politics of TimeSpace (ed. Jonathan Boyarin; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994). All of these are helpful for a reflection on the emergence of the rabbinic 'eruv
6. For a contemporary theory of neighborhood and the production of neighborhood which informs my thinking about the cultural significance of the 'eruv, see A. Appaduarai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). See especially his chapter on "The Production of Locality," 178-201
7. On the adaptation of "Israel" as a choice of self-designation in early rabbinic literature, see S. Stern, Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings (Leiden: Brill, 1994)
8. E.g. Y. Gilat, R. Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus: A Scholar Outcast (Tel Aviv: Bar Ilan University, 1984) who assumes a "general tendency to relax the prohibitions associated with the Sabbath" among the rabbinic sages, 219. Doering follows Gilat in this respect (Schabbat, 181)
9. and J.G. Greehy, "Community of Goods: Qumran and Acts," ITQ 32 (1965), 230-40
10. Later also B.J. Capper, "Erwägungen zu 1QS VI.20 und der urchristlichen Gütergemeinschaft," RevQ 12 (1986), 223-36
11. idem, "Community of Goods in the Early Jerusalem Church," in ANRW 2.26.2 (ed. W. Haase; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995), 1730-1774
12. idem, "The Palestinian Cultural Context of Earliest Christian Community of Goods," in The Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting (ed. R. Bacukham; BAFCS 4; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 323-25
13. For a summary discussion on the history of scholarship see C.M. Murphy, Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community (Leiden: Brill, 2002), especially chapter one. I thank Prof. Lawrence Schiffman for directing my attention to this important study
14. The or Sabbath limit of walking outside of a city only emerges in later legal literature, such as the Damascus Document resp. the Zadokite Fragments (CD 10:21) and tannaitic texts, based on merging the prohibition in Ex 16:29 with the limits of the levitical cities in Num. 35:2-5. See L. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran, 91-98, who also discusses Karaite halakhah
15. So already L. Finkelstein, The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of Their Faith (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1938), 3.136
16. The text is cited from J.C. Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees (CSCO 511; Louvain: Peters 1989), 326
17. Lezynsky and M.-J. Lagrange, "La secte juive de la Nouvelle Alliance au pays de Damas," RB 9 (1912), 213-10, 321-60, in response to Schechter's Zadokite fragment in 1910
18. Thus already S. Hoenig, "An Interdict Against Socializing on the Sabbath," JQR N.S. 62 (1971), 77-83 pointed out against Lezynsky's and Lagrange's earlier suggestions: "... can there be any forced wager or a compulsory erub without volition or intention?" (80). However, it should be noted that the phrase does not easily fit any of the proposed interpretations of this law. Following E. Qimron, Doering makes the explanation of the locution one of the criteria for any possible explanation of the phrase Schabbat, 170
19. and P. Alexander, "The Redaction-History of Serekh Ha-Yahad: A Proposal," 437-56
20. Charlesworth translates: "... Nor shall he have any share in the Many's property" (The Dead Sea Scrolls: Rule of the Community, [Photographic Multi-Language Edition, Philadelphia: American Interfaith Institute, 1996], 62)
21. For a description of the Rule of the Community and the induction of a novice into the community, see D. Dimant, " Qumran Sectarian Literature," Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period (ed. Michael E. Stone; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 483-551
22. Licht, The Rule Scroll, 150 n. 17
23. Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 158
24. Murphy, Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 158. Indeed, she considers the sharing of wealth as "a preeminent symbol of unity" in the Manual of Discipline
25. See S. Stern, Jewish Identity, particularly 11-13 and 127-38
26. and A. Baumgarten, "Graeco-Roman Associations," 107 with reference to 1 QS 9:19-20
27. J.N. Epstein, Introduction to the Version of the Mishnah (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1963, [Heb.]), 2.608-9
28. "New Aspects," 262 and Schabbat, 231. Doering here refers to J. Assmann's analysis of the attaching a mezuzah to the door-post (Dtn. 6:9) as indicating the importance of the boundary between inside and outside. See J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (München: Beck, 1992), 219. One may object, however, that the rabbis do not undermine this commandment at all, and therefore seem to attribute equal importance to the limits of one's own possession in this respect
29. "New Aspects," 262
30. This is not to say, however, that other legal areas can follow different patterns of relationship between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the rabbinic texts. The work of Schiffman and others has amply demonstrated the significant overlap between some of the legal traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the rabbinic corpus. See The Halakhah at Qumran and Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1994). Perhaps we could carefully advance the suggestion that some areas other than the Sabbath may, however, be less in need of rabbinicization