1. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, Parah ‘adumah, pis. 4:2, to Numbers 19:2 (ed. Mandelbaum, 1:56). All translations of rabbinic texts are my own.

2. Cicero, , Orator, trans. Hubbell, H. M., Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), xiv.46Google Scholar.

3. Lieberman, Saul, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1942), 66–67Google Scholar.

4. See Morgan, Teresa, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 190–239Google Scholar. Rhetorical training could be found in pagan Sophistic schools throughout the Roman Empire from antiquity until the third century CE, when very similar training became dominant in Christian schools. Jews also participated and even excelled in this training. Caecilius of Calacte, who is identified as Jewish, was an important rhetorician in Rome during the reign of Augustus; see Roberts, W. Rhys, “Caecilius of Calacte,” American Journal of Philology 18, no. 3 (1897): 302CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kennedy, George A., Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Traditions from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 149Google Scholar, writes, “Rhetorical schools were common in the Hellenized cities of the East” in the first century CE. Conley, Thomas, “Philo's Rhetoric: Argumentation and Style,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II, 21/1, ed. Temporini, H. and Haase, W. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984), 343–71Google Scholar, analyzes Philo's use of rhetorical devices. Paul's letters exhibit elements of classical arrangement and other techniques of rhetorical reasoning; see Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, 149–51; and Nanos, Mark, ed., The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002)Google Scholar, chaps. 1–11. Other books of the New Testament similarly “employ some features of classical rhetoric” for the benefit of their Greek audience, “many of whom were familiar with public address in Greek or had been educated in Greek schools” (Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, 143). See also Kennedy, George A., A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 258–59Google Scholar; and, more extensively, Kinneavy, James, Greek Rhetorical Origins of Christian Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 57–100Google Scholar.

Getting closer to the period of the Yerushalmi, the tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia Suda (Z 169) mentions the sophist Zosimus “of Gaza or Ascalon,” who lived “in the time of the emperor Anastasius.” See Kennedy, George A., Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 169–77Google Scholar; and Heath, Malcolm, “Theon and the History of the Progymnasmata,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 43, no. 2 (2002–2003): 150 n. 57Google Scholar. Cribiore, Raffaelia, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 76–77Google Scholar, lists centers of rhetorical study at Caesarea, “which compensated sophists lavishly,” at Elusa in the Negev and in Gaza. All of these centers were active during the fourth century, when the Yerushalmi was being redacted. Geiger, Yosef, “No'amim Yevanim be-Eres Yisrael,” Cathedra 66 (1992): 47–56Google Scholar and references at n. 3, further documents the activity of the Second Sophistic in Palestine. See also note 16 herein.

5. The following survey focuses specifically on aspects of the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition in the Talmud. Also relevant to a wider discussion, of course, are the thousands of Greek loan words and phrases incorporated into rabbinic Aramaic and Hebrew, and the many folktales, mythologies, and philosophical ideas known from classical literature that are found in rabbinic texts. See Fischel, Henry, ed., Essays in Greco-Roman and Related Talmudic Literature (New York: Ktav, 1977)Google Scholar, xiii–lxxii; and Hezser, Catherine, “Interfaces between Rabbinic Literature and Graeco-Roman Philosophy,” in The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture II, ed. Schäfer, Peter (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 161–87Google Scholar.

6. Fischel, Henry, “Studies in Cynicism and the Ancient Near East: The Transformation of a ‘Chria’,” in Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Edwin Ramsdell Goodenough, ed. Neusner, Jacob (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 372–411Google Scholar; idem, “Story and History: Observations on Greco-Roman Rhetoric and Pharisaism,” in Essays in Greco-Roman and Related Talmudic Literature, 443–72; and idem, Rabbinic Literature and Greco-Roman Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1973). See also Hezser, Catherine, “Die Verwendung der hellenistischen Gattung Chrie in frühen Christentum und Judentum,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 27 (1996): 371–439CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Interfaces,” 167–70, and references there; and Tropper, Amram, Wisdom, Politics, and Historiography: Tractate Avot in the Context of the Graeco-Roman Near East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 182–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the use of chreiai within succession lists.

7. Yassif, Eli, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning, trans. Teitelbaum, Jacqueline (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 120–32, 191–209Google Scholar. See also Schwarzbaum, Haim, “Talmudic–Midrashic Affinities of Some Aesopic Fables,” in Essays in Greco-Roman and Related Talmudic Literature, ed. Fischel, Henry (New York: Ktav, 1977), 443–72Google Scholar.

8. Daube, David, “Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric,” Hebrew Union College Annual 22 (1949)Google Scholar; idem, “Alexandrian Methods of Interpretation and the Rabbis,” in Essays in Greco-Roman and Related Talmudic Literature, 165–82; and Lieberman, Saul, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1962), 47–82Google Scholar. See also Visotzky, Burton, “Midrash, Christian Exegesis, and Hellenistic Hermeneutics,” in Current Trends in the Study of Midrash, ed. Bakhos, Carol (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 111–31Google Scholar. Unlike the foregoing authors, who locate aspects of rabbinic hermeneutics in classical rhetoric, Schwarz, Adolf, Der Hermeneutische Syllogismus in der Talmudischen Litteratur, Ein Beitrag Zur Geschichte Der Logik Im Morgenlande (Karlsruhe, 1901)Google Scholar, finds the background for the qal va-ḥomer in the logical syllogism. See, however, Jacobs, Louis, Studies in Talmudic Logic and Methodology (London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1961), 3–15Google Scholar, who rejects the similarity to the syllogism.

9. Cohen, Boaz, “Letter and Spirit in Jewish and Roman Law,” in Essays in Greco-Roman and Related Talmudic Literature, ed. Fischel, Henry (New York: Ktav, 1977), 138–64Google Scholar.

10. Neusner, Jacob, Jerusalem and Athens: The Congruity of Talmudic and Classical Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1997)Google Scholar. See Neusner's bibliography on page 156 for other works of his relating to this topic. Neusner, however, turns toward analytic dialectics, syllogism, and modes of scientific inquiry, rather than the rhetorical mode of dialectics, the enthymeme, and modes of persuasive argumentation, which form the basis of my approach in this article. See also Cohen, Richard, “The Relationship between Topic, Rhetoric and Logic: Analysis of a Syllogistic Passage in the Yerushalmi,” in Judaic and Christian Interpretation of Texts: Contents and Contexts, ed. Neusner, Jacob (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987), 87–125Google Scholar; Lightstone, Jack N., The Rhetoric of the Babylonian Talmud: Its Social Meaning and Context (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; and idem, “Mishnah's Rhetoric: Other Material Artifacts of Late-Roman Galilee and the Social Formation of the Early Rabbinic Guild,” in Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity, ed. Stephen G. Wilson and Michel Desjardins (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000), 474–502. Cohen and Lightstone argue that rabbinic literature evinces a rhetoric of its own, but one that is not significantly related to Greco-Roman rhetorical modes.

Other rhetorical readings of rabbinic texts, also not directly dependent on Greco-Roman models, can be found in Kraemer, David, “Composition and Meaning in the Bavli,” Prooftexts 8, no. 3 (1988): 271–91Google Scholar; idem, “Rhetoric of Failed Refutation in the Bavli,” Shofar 10, no. 2 (1992): 73–85; Rovner, Jay, “Rhetorical Strategy and Dialectical Necessity in the Babylonian Talmud: The Case of Kiddushin 34a–35a,” Hebrew Union College Annual 65 (1994): 177–231Google Scholar; Satlow, Michael, “Rhetoric and Assumptions: Romans and Rabbis on Sex,” in Jews in a Graeco-Roman World, ed. Goodman, Martin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 135–44Google Scholar; and Richard Hidary, Dispute for the Sake of Heaven: Legal Pluralism in the Talmud (Providence, RI: Brown University, forthcoming), chaps. 1, 2, 4, and 6, to name just a few. See, on the other hand, Vernon Robbins's rhetorical analysis of M. Gittin 1:1–2:2 in Lightstone, The Rhetoric of the Babylonian Talmud, 201–13, who does base his analysis on classical canons.

11. Avery-Peck, Alan, “Rhetorical Argumentation in Early Rabbinic Pronouncement Stories,” in The Rhetoric of Pronouncement, ed. Robbins, Vernon (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1994), 49–69Google Scholar.

12. Naeh, Shlomo, “On Structures of Memory and the Forms of Text in Rabbinic Literature,” Mehqere Talmud 3, no. 2 (2005): 543–89Google Scholar (Hebrew). See also Faur, Jose, Golden Doves with Silver Dots: Semiotics and Textuality in Rabbinic Tradition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 89Google Scholar.

13. Jaffee, Martin, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism 200 BCE–400 CE (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 128–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, “The Oral-Cultural Context of the Talmud Yerushalmi: Greco-Roman Rhetorical Paideia, Discipleship, and the Concept of Oral Torah,” in The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture I, ed. Peter Schäfer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 27–61.

14. Lieberman, Saul, Texts and Studies (New York: Ktav, 1974), 228Google Scholar. Lieberman, ibid., 227, suggests that the rabbis' knowledge of gentile law and legal progymnasmata came from the rabbis' proximity to the famous law school in Beirut.

15. Citations of these works are from the following editions: Aristotle, , On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civil Discourse, trans. Kennedy, George A. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Cicero, , On Invention, trans. Hubbell, H. M., Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949)Google Scholar; Quintilian, , Institutes of Oratory: or, Education of an Orator in Twelve Books, trans. Watson, John Selby (London: George Bell & Sons, 1892)Google Scholar; Ad Herennium, trans. Harry Caplan, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954); and Kennedy, George A., Invention and Method: Two Rhetorical Treatises from the Hermogenic Corpus (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005)Google Scholar.

16. As a matter of pure speculation, I venture that a member of the Patriarchal house who studied in a school of rhetoric during the fourth century could have composed this sugya, perhaps in order to clear the name of Rabban Gamaliel and thereby improve the reputation of the Patriarchal dynasty. The Talmud reports that many students in the Patriarchal house studied Greek wisdom; see B. Soṭah 49b = B. Bava Kama 83a (and cf. Y. Shabbat 6:1 [7d], which only mentions Greek language but not wisdom). In fact, a letter from Libanius to a Jewish Patriarch written in 393 CE informs us that the son of at least one Jewish Patriarch in the late fourth century studied rhetoric at the famous school of Libanius in Antioch. See Meeks, Wayne and Wilken, Robert, Jews and Christians in Antioch in the First Four Centuries of the Common Era (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1978), 62Google Scholar; and Visotzky, “Midrash,” 120–21. See, however, Cribiore, The School of Libanius, 76, 321, who doubts that this letter is addressed to the Patriarch. Another possibility is that the provenance of this sugya is from Caesarea, which was an important center of rhetoric, and whose rabbis contributed significantly to the Yerushalmi. See Lieberman, Saul, The Talmud of Caesarea (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1968) (Hebrew)Google Scholar.

17. Although the history of rhetoric covers many centuries and dozens of writers and handbooks, certain fundamental principles and tools remain fairly constant. The rhetorical model of the Attic orators and Aristotle remains the basis for Roman rhetoric in Latin as well as that of the Second Sophistic and its renaissance in the fourth century, even if some local variations occur in various periods and geographies. See Corbett, Edward and Connors, Robert, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 493Google Scholar; and Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors, 52–103. This makes it difficult to pinpoint a single author as particularly influential during the rabbinic period. While Libanius may be closest to the rabbis in time and space, and may even have corresponded with the Patriarch (see note 16), we have no rhetorical treatise by him on the order of that of Aristotle or Cicero. The progymnasmata of Libanius and Aphthonius, his student, discuss various elements of declamation but do not mention the arrangement of elements in a full speech, even though Libanius clearly utilized such arrangement in his own orations. That the rhetorical model described by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian continued to thrive in later centuries in the East is evident from various later Greek handbooks that summarize their system. See George A. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric, 208–29; and Dilts, Mervin R. and Kennedy, George A., Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises from the Roman Empire: Introduction, Text and Translation of the Arts of Rhetoric Attributed to Anonymous Segeurianus and to Apsines of Gadara (Leiden: Brill, 1997)Google Scholar. Most significant in this regard is On Invention, attributed to Hermogenes but probably written in the third or fourth century; see Kennedy, Invention and Method, xvi. Therefore, I have utilized all of the classical authors whose aggregate teachings best approximate the common rhetorical culture of late antiquity.

18. See Fischel, “Story and History,” 449 n. 31, for a similar approach.

19. Because I have no access to the prehistory of this sugya, I cannot tell whether it was originally composed with its current structure or whether later redactors reworked an earlier proto-sugya into its current format. I will use the term “redactors” throughout this article to be safe. I also do not know whether it was put together by one person or by a group; I use the plural here only out of convention.

20. See M. Berakhot 2:5; M. Beẓah 2:6; M. Sukkah 2:5; T. Berakhot 4:15; T. Beẓah 2:12; and T. Shabbat 1:22.

21. See M. Berakhot 1:1 and note 41 herein. All of these narratives are collected and analyzed in Wacholder, Ben Zion, “Sippure Rabban Gamaliel ba-Mishna uba-Tosefta,” World Congress of Jewish Studies 4, no. 1 (1967), 143–44Google Scholar; Kanter, Shamai, Rabban Gamaliel II: The Legal Traditions (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), 238–42, 246–51Google Scholar; Kohat, Hanah, “Ben ‘aristoqratyah le-demoqratyah—Rabban Gamaliel ve-Rabbi Yehoshua,” in Sefer yeshurun, ed. Shashar, Michael (Jerusalem: Shashar Publishing, 1999), 213–28Google Scholar; Neusner, Jacob, “From Biography to Theology: Gamaliel and the Patriarchate,” Review of Rabbinic Judaism 7 (2004), 52–97Google Scholar; and Siverstev, Alexei, Households, Sects, and the Origins of Rabbinic Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 218–31Google Scholar. Rabban Gamaliel is also portrayed as feeling himself above the rules regarding learning Greek studies (B. Soṭah 49b). Cf. M. ‘Avodah Zarah 3:4 and Yadin, Azzan, “Rabban Gamliel, Aphrodite's Bath, and the Question of Pagan Monotheism,” Jewish Quarterly Review 96, no. 2 (2006): 149–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Similarly, Rabban Gamaliel I is portrayed as maintaining special halakhic privilege in the Temple; see M. Shekalim 3:3 and 6:1.

22. I make no claim here concerning the historical role of Rabban Gamaliel of Yavneh as patriarch. My goal is to analyze how the Talmud represents and remembers Rabban Gamaliel; for this context, his purported role as patriarch is significant. On the history of the patriarchate in general, see Goodman, Martin, State and Society in Roman Galilee, A.D. 132–212 (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1983)Google Scholar, 111f.; idem, “The Roman State and the Jewish Patriarch in the Third Century,” in The Galilee in Late Antiquity, ed. Lee Levine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1994), 107–19; Cohen, Shaye, “Patriarchs and Scholarchs,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 48 (1981), 57–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levine, Lee, The Rabbinic Class of Roman Palestine in Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, 1989), 134–91Google Scholar; idem, “The Status of the Patriarch in the Third and Fourth Centuries: Sources and Methodology,” Journal of Jewish Studies 47, no. 1 (1996), 1–32; Schwartz, Seth, “The Patriarchs and the Diaspora,” Journal of Jewish Studies 51, no. 2 (2000): 208–318Google Scholar; idem, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 103–28, and references there at 111 n. 20; Heger, Paul, The Pluralistic Halakhah: Legal Innovations in the Late Second Commonwealth and Rabbinic Periods (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), 289–309Google Scholar; and Goodblatt, David, “The End of Sectarianism and the Patriarchs,” in For Uriel: Studies in the History of Israel in Antiquity Presented to Professor Uriel Rappaport, ed. Mor, M. et al. (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2005), 32Google Scholar.

23. See M. Rosh Hashanah 2:8–9; Y. Berakhot 4:1 (7c–d) = Y. Ta'anit 4:1 (67d); B. Berakhot 27b–28a; and B. Bekhorot 36a.

24. For similar portrayals, see Ginzberg, Louis, A Commentary on the Palestinian Talmud, 4 vols. (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1941), 91Google Scholar; Stern, David, “Midrash and Hermeneutics: Polysemy vs. Indeterminacy,” in Midrash and Theory: Ancient Jewish Exegesis and Contemporary Literary Studies (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 34Google Scholar; and Heger, Pluralistic Halakhah, 309–34. For a different view of Rabban Gamaliel, see Goodblatt, “End of Sectarianism,” 32–36, who bases his stance on historical assumptions and trends rather than rabbinic texts.

25. Text follows MS Kaufman.

26. MSS Kaufman, Parma, Geniza TS E 2.3 and 2.4, and Bavli MS Paris read מותרין. Geniza TS E 2.2 reads חייבין, which is changed to מותרין in the margin. The Mishnah in the Bavli printed edition and MSS Munich and Florence read חייבין. See Ginzberg, Commentary, 1:92 n. 11.

27. That is, priests who had been impure and had to bathe and wait until dark to become pure in order to eat from their priestly gifts of produce.

28. The Mishnah continues with another sentence that essentially eliminates the controversy between Rabban Gamaliel and the sages by explaining that the sages actually agree with Rabban Gamaliel that one may recite even until dawn from Torah law, but that the sages encourage people to recite before midnight as a safeguard. As we will see, however, the Yerushalmi assumes that the sages invalidate recitation of shema‘ after midnight, even from Torah law. The Yerushalmi's redactors either did not have this gloss, or they interpreted it differently and assumed that Rabban Gamaliel did oppose the sages; therefore, it makes its own attempt at reconciling Rabban Gamaliel with the sages. See Richard Hidary, “Tolerance for Diversity of Halakhic Practice in the Talmuds” (PhD diss., New York University, 2008), 262–65.

29. Boldface text indicates a tannaitic source. The alphabetic section headings indicated in square brackets will be further explicated in the rhetorical analysis.

30. MS Leiden and printed editions read חייבין. See, however, note 26 herein.

31. This line is missing in printed editions because of homoioteleuton. The base text of MS Leiden does have this line for R. Akiba and R. Shimon but omits it for R. Meir. An attempt is made to correct this between the lines, which results in the text found in the printed editions.

32. See T. Shabbat 12:12; B. Shabbat 134a.

33. M. ‘Ohalot 2:6; cf. T. ‘Eduyot 1:7.

34. The basket was placed in the open air courtyard where there was no roof to create a problem of ohel. However, see the commentary of R. Eleazar Azikri (Safed, 1533–1600), Perush mi-ba'al sefer ḥaredim, s.v. והניחוהו (printed in standard editions of the Yerushalmi), who says it was hung inside the synagogue so that nobody would touch it and thereby cause impurity according to all opinions. See also Lieberman, Saul, Tosefeth rishonim (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1999), 3:102Google Scholar.

35. T. ‘Ohalot 4:2; B. Nazir 52a–b.

36. Cabbages do not generally grow ownerless in the wild. Therefore, even R. Shimon bar Yoḥai prohibits picking them during the seventh year.

37. M. Shevi'it 9:1.

38. Following Geniza and Y. Shevi'it 9:1 (38d). See Ginzberg, Louis, Yerushalmi Fragments from the Genizah, vol. 1, Text with Various Readings from the Editio Princeps (Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1909), 2Google Scholar, line 8. MS Leiden here reads עבד עובדא instead of עבר.

39. Following Geniza, which has 'א, MS Leiden reads, אמרי. See also Ginzberg, Commentary, 1:90, regarding the placement of this verb.

40. Ecclesiastes 10:8. This verse is used in a similar sense of threatening those who disobey the rabbis in, among others, T. Ḥullin 2:23; Avot de-Rabbi Natan B:3 (ed. Schechter, 14); B. Shabbat 110a; and, most explicitly, Y. Berakhot 1:4 (3b) (= Y. Sanhedrin 11:4 [30a]), which reads,

41. Y. Pesaḥim 7:2 (34b) asks a similar question about M. Pesaḥim 7:2, רבן גמליאל חלוק על חכמים ועושה הלכה כיוצא בו—Does Rabban Gamaliel disagree with the sages and practices halakha accordingly?” Similarly, Y. Beẓah 3:2 (62a) comments on Rabban Gamaliel's alleged nonconformity in M. Beẓah 3:2. Similar phrases also appear at Y. ‘Avodah Zarah 3:10 (43b) and Y. Demai 3:3 (23c). Also relevant is Y. Pesaḥim 4:1 (30d), which assumes that Beth Shammai did not practice its own opinion but rather agreed that halakhah follows Beth Hillel. The combination of these texts shows a consistent tendency by at least some redactors of the Yerushalmi to read uniformity into the past. See Hidary, Dispute for the Sake of Heaven, chaps. 4 and 5.

42. See the following note.

43. This source appears in T. Shabbat 12:12 and B. Shabbat 134a in a significantly different version from that in the Yerushalmi. The Tosefta version simply quotes R. Meir saying that one may mix them on the Sabbath, but it is more ambiguous about whether that was only his theoretical opinion or whether he also put it into practice. The end of the Tosefta adds that R. Meir would never contradict his colleagues, implying that R. Meir did not permit it to others either.

In the Bavli version, Abaye asks Rav Yosef why M. Shabbat 19:2 prohibits preparing a wine-and-oil salve for a baby after circumcision on the Sabbath, considering that R. Meir permitted preparing the same formula for a sick person. B. Shabbat 134a reads,

The Bavli here quotes the version of this source as it is found in the Tosefta but manages to interpret it such that it reaches the same conclusion as the Yerushalmi version. The Tosefta says only that R. Meir conformed and gives no explicit indication about what he taught others. Yet the Bavli, through a midrashic derivation, uses this source as a proof that R. Meir ruled leniently for others. The Bavli thus ignores R. Meir's own confession of conformity and instead focuses on what he allegedly taught others. Conversely, the Yerushalmi ignores the report that R. Meir permitted it to others and focuses only on R. Meir's conformity. In an ironic case of role reversal, the Yerushalmi version of the Tosefta would fit better into the Bavli sugya, and the Bavli's version is better suited to the Yerushalmi! That each Talmud nevertheless uses the Tosefta to prove opposite conclusions reveals that each sugya is motivated not by the Tosefta, which contains both conformity and diversity, but rather by the redactors’ preconceived notions. The Yerushalmi seeks to prove that all Tannaim conformed to the majority opinion, while the Bavli assumes that R. Meir must have allowed others to practice his opinion. Both sugyot find what they are looking for in this Tosefta.

While one could suggest that the original Yerushalmi sugya had a version of the R. Meir story similar to that in the Tosefta and the Bavli and that the words “Even though I am lenient for others” were added by a later copyist on the basis of the Bavli's interpretation, I find this extremely unlikely, for three reasons: (1) The language used by the Bavli to say that R. Meir permitted it to others bears no resemblance to that in the Yerushalmi; (2) the Yerushalmi also includes מתיר היה ר’ מאיר, which has no parallel in the Bavli; (3) if this copyist were sophisticated enough to insert the Bavli's interpretation so smoothly in two places in the Yerushalmi baraita’, then he would have known better than to change the Yerushalmi's baraita’ in such a way that destroyed the Yerushalmi's entire proof.

44. R. Eleazar Azikri (1533–1600), Perush mi-ba'al sefer ḥaredim, s.v. וכבר חלה, appropriately asks,

Azikri answers that R. Meir did not actually permit others to rely on his leniency, but also did not protest if they did so because it involved a matter of health. This, however, does not fit well with the words of the baraita’, which suggest that R. Meir did permit it for others outright.

45. Ginzberg here distinguishes between a sage's children, who are extensions of himself, and his students, who are not. However, B. Pesaḥim 51a–b, discussed later, suggests that the sage's immediate circle of students are also extensions of himself, but perhaps only when in their master's presence. See also Hidary, “Tolerance for Diversity,” 152–53.

46. See Ginzberg, Commentary, 1:81–86. This explanation is part of Ginzberg's more general thesis that during the tannaitic period, the rabbis had not yet voted on most matters and so individual rabbis would regularly teach others according to their own opinion even against the majority. Even during this period, however, Tannaim would usually be stringent upon themselves in order not to personally offend their colleagues. This context can help explain the double standard adopted by R. Meir. However, Ginzberg's general thesis has little foundation.

47. See further in note 65 herein.

48. It is noteworthy that the rabbis did not assume that R. Akiba would concede and therefore thought that they had to outvote him. It is also possible, however, that they were simply asking him respectfully to concede, which he does.

49. The Tosefta also appears in B. Nazir 52b.

50. MS Vienna reads אחר, but the first printed edition, which I have followed here, reads אחד‎.

51. Based on MS Vienna. The manuscript reads אינו in the second-to-last word, which I have emended to איני based on the first edition. B. Nazir 52b also reads איני in all witnesses.

52. Perush mi-ba'al sefer ḥaredim, s.v. הואיל. Ginzberg, Commentary, 1:88–89, follows this interpretation.

53. R. Yehudah's statement comes before the story and uses the story as proof. R. Shimon's comes after the story, which may suggest that he denies that the story ever happened. Azikri's only counterargument is that R. Shimon must have accepted this “famous” story. See also Lieberman, Tosefeth rishonim, 3:102.

54. The Tosefta as we have it was not used by the Yerushalmi. On the relationship between tannaitic statements found in the Tosefta and the Talmuds, see Katzoff, Binyamin, “The Relationship between the Baraitot in the Tosefta and Their Talmudic Parallels: The Evidence of Tractate Berakhot,” Hebrew Union College Annual 75 (2004): 1–24Google Scholar (Hebrew).

55. Albeck, Hanoch, Introduction to the Mishna (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1959), 92Google Scholar (Hebrew).

56. Otherwise, R. Akiba should have voted according to his own opinion and then let the vote decide the outcome. He should have conformed to the majority only after he lost the vote, as is recommended in M. Sanhedrin 3:7. See Ginzberg, Commentary, 1:88, who incorrectly applies M. Sanhedrin 3:7 to the deliberation of the judges when the vote is taken, even though the Mishnah explicitly says, “When one of the judges leaves” the deliberation.

57. I thank Michal Bar-Asher Siegal for this insight.

58. Ginzberg, ibid., asks this question and concludes that the Yerushalmi only compares one aspect of the cases even though they are fundamentally different. Ginzberg, 91, is forced to say that “the cases of R. Akiba and R. Shimon were only cited here as a mere example since they also were particular to honor their colleagues, but the main question to Rabban Gamaliel is from R. Meir.”

59. The order of the stories is reversed in Bereshit Rabba, Va-yishlaḥ, par. 79:6, to Genesis 38:18 (ed. Theodor-Albeck, 2:945).

60. See more on this story in Rubenstein, Jeffrey, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 121fGoogle Scholar.

61. The Bavli subsequently cites a baraita stating that R. Shimon bar Yoḥai prohibits aftergrowth of all vegetation except the cabbage, which is the opposite of M. Shevi'it 9:1. The Bavli story about R. Shimon bar Yoḥai eating the cabbage concurs with the Bavli baraita. See Tosafot to B. Nazir 51a, s.v. כל.

62. See Ben-Menahem, Hanina, Judicial Deviation in Talmudic Law (New York: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1991), 89Google Scholar.

63. Tosafot to B. Pesaḥim 51b, s.v., אני. Ginzberg, Commentary, 1:90, does not accept the resolution of Tosafot because when read back into the Yerushalmi sugya, it suggests that Rabban Gamaliel should have treated his sons like amei ha'areṣ. Instead, he explains that the Yerushalmi simply was not aware of the Bavli story. I think, however, that Tosafot's interpretation is evident from a literary reading of the Yerushalmi story even independent of the need to reconcile it with the Bavli.

64. Ashkenazi, Duberush, Sha'are Yerushalmi (Warsaw: Drukerni N. Schriftgisser, 1866)Google Scholar, 2b, in fact, takes the position that the Yerushalmi did not know of the Bavli story. He takes this point of view in order to resolve the difficulty that the Bavli story would pose to the Yerushalmi argument.

65. See 'Gunzberg, Aryeh Leib, Sha'agat aryeh (New York: Israel Wolf, 1958)Google Scholar, siman 4, p. 11, who writes,

Cf. note 58 herein. These comments indicate how problematic the proofs are in this sugya.

66. See note 41 herein.

67. Cicero, On Invention, I.9.

68. Ibid., I.19. Aristotle, On Rhetoric, III.13–19, discusses these parts in more or less the same way. See also Ad Herennium, 3.16–18. On Invention, attributed to Hermogenes, discusses the following parts of the oration: prooemion (equivalent to Cicero's exordium), prokatastasis (introduces the narration), diēgēsis (narration), prokataskeuē (partition), kataskeuē (proof), and epilogos (peroration).

69. While typical examples of ancient orations are much longer and more elaborate than this Yerushalmi sugya, the sugya may be only an outline of what would be a much longer lecture if presented to an audience. On the relationship between literary versions of rabbinic texts and their performance, see Heinemann, Joseph, “The Proem in the Aggadic Midrashim—A Form Critical Study,” Scripta Hierosolymitana (1971), 100–22Google Scholar. In the case of the proem, however, the literary versions seem to be longer and more complex than their performative versions.

70. Cicero, On Invention, I.20. This may explain why Rabbah regularly began his lectures with words of humor (B. Shabbat 30b = B. Pesaḥim 117a). See further on the rhetorical value of humor in Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, VI.3.

71. See Aristotle, On Rhetoric, I.3; and Cicero, On Invention, I.7.

72. Aristotle, On Rhetoric, III.16.11.

73. Cicero, On Invention, I.31. Ad Herennium, I.x.17, calls this section “division.” Aristotle, On Rhetoric, III.13.1–2, calls this section a “prothesis” and considers it an essential part of a speech: “There are two parts to a speech; for it is necessary [first] to state the subject with which it is concerned and [then] to demonstrate the argument. It is ineffective after stating something not to demonstrate it and to demonstrate without a first statement; for one demonstrating demonstrates something, and one making a preliminary statement says it first for the sake of demonstrating it. Of these parts, the first is the statement [prothesis], the other the proof [pistis].”

74. Cicero, On Invention, I.32.

75. Ibid., I.32–33.

76. Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, 4.5.9–12. In the last case, Cicero explicitly states that he will address three issues.

77. Ad Herennium, I.x.17.

78. Kennedy, Invention and Method, 64–65.

79. Tripartite sugyot are common in both Talmuds, as shown by Friedman, Shamma, “Some Structural Patterns of Talmudic Sugyot,” Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies 3 (1977): 391–96Google Scholar (Hebrew); and Rubenstein, Jeffrey, “Some Structural Patterns of Yerushalmi Sugyot,” in The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture III, ed. Schäfer, Peter (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002)Google Scholar. The context of classical rhetoric may help explain why tripartite structures are so prevalent.

80. As we have seen, R. Meir's case could be used to show that he did not follow the majority since he was lenient for others. If we assume that the Yerushalmi's redactors also knew of the story at B. Pesaḥim 51a–b, then that, too, would prove the opposite view of diversity of halakhic practice. If so, by citing these stories and providing alternative interpretations for them, the sugya ends up refuting these potentially opposing sources. Therefore, to some degree, the sugya accomplishes both confirmation and refutation at the same time. In fact, the redactors may have chosen some rather controversial cases, instead of clear-cut stories of conformity such as M. Rosh Hashanah 2:9, precisely in order to refute them and take them off the table.

81. These three examples do not actually prove anything about Rabban Gamaliel's conduct or attitude because they are examples from other occurrences that bear no relation to the story under discussion. This, however, is typical of the argument by example. As Corbett and Connors, Classical Rhetoric, 62, write, “An argument by example does not really prove anything, for like the rhetorical enthymeme, the example leads, most of the time, to a mere probability. But because a probability is what usually happens or what is believed to happen, the example has persuasive value.” On the rhetorical power of rabbinic stories as legal precedents, see Simon-Shoshan, Moshe, “Halakhic Mimesis: Rhetorical and Redactional Strategies in Tannaitic Narrative,” Dine Israel 24 (2007): 101–23Google Scholar.

82. Aristotle, On Rhetoric, 3.17.5.

83. Ad Herennium, III.x.18; see, similarly, Cicero, Orator, xv.50.

84. Aristotle, On Rhetoric, III.19.3–4; see also Cicero, On Invention, I.98.

85. See Perelman, Chaim, The Realm of Rhetoric, trans. Kluback, William (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, 1982), 146–52Google Scholar.

86. Sloane, Thomas, On the Contrary: The Protocol of Traditional Rhetoric (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 11Google Scholar.

87. See, e.g., Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors, 101–105.

88. Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, xii.2.25; cf. x.1.22–23. See also Cattani, Adelino, “Subjectivist and Objectivist Interpretations of Controversy-based Thought,” in Controversies and Subjectivity, ed. Barrotta, Pierluigi and Dascak, Marcelo (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 2005), 185–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89. Y. Sanhedrin 4:1 (22a); see further discussion of this statement later.

90. B. Sanhedrin 17a.

91. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 63, elaborates,

In quoting this one Latin phrase, Lieberman connects the rabbinic enterprise with the essence of the rhetorical enterprise. See also Reuven Kimelman, “Rabbi Yohanan of Tiberias: Aspects of the Social and Religious History of Third Century Palestine” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1977), 72.

92. Cicero, De Oratore, i.34.158–59, similarly writes, “We must argue every question on both sides, and bring out on every topic whatever points can be deemed plausible.” See also B. Eruvin 13b and other related rabbinic statements cited by Dorhman, Natalie, “Reading as Rhetoric in Halakhic Texts,” in Of Scribes and Sages: Early Jewish Interpretation and Transmission of Scripture, ed. Evans, Craig (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), 91 n. 3Google Scholar.

93. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 34.

94. See note 43 herein.

95. Cicero, On Invention, II.116. Modern writers recognize not only the ambiguity of given texts but even the indeterminacy built into all language. Perelman, The Realm of Rhetoric, 43–44, writes,

96. Cicero, On Invention, II.142.

97. See note 80 herein.

98. I reject the possibility that the redactors were not at all aware of alternate sources or readings and created the most impartial argument they could based on their monolithic understanding of the sources they had. Regarding the Rabban Gamaliel story of M. Berakhot 1:1, for example, the question of the sugya reveals an awareness that one reading of the story can find in it nonuniformity of practice. The two explanations at the end of the sugya are clearly deliberate and conscious rereadings. Rather, I assume that the redactors were in command of their sources and were able to lay out a range of interpretive possibilities for them. My question is only whether they thought that their interpretive decisions accurately reflected the thrust of these sources or were simply apologetic or creative uses of them.

99. This is similar to the reworking of narrative sources performed by the Bavli's redactors. See Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, 15–21. While Rubenstein attributes this activity to the Babylonian Stammaim, similar activity may be found in the Yerushalmi as well, even if much less frequently. Rubenstein, ibid., 92, points to Y. Ḥagigah 2:1 (77b–c) as “among the most artful and complex of all rabbinic stories.” In the area of non-narrative sugyot, the sugya analyzed in this paper may be among the most carefully structured and rhetorically conscious of all rabbinic compositions.

100. See Hidary, “Tolerance for Diversity,” 448–65.

101. The Yerushalmi similarly reads uniformity of practice into the past regarding disputes between the Houses of Shammai and Hillel; see Hidary, “Tolerance for Diversity,” 69–70, 211–15.

102. This hermeneutical stance accords with what Quine, W. V. O., Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960), 58–59Google Scholar, calls the principle of charitable reading. See further discussion on this concept in Dworkin, Ronald, Law's Empire (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1986), 53Google Scholar; and Halbertal, Moshe, People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 27–32Google Scholar.

The following quotation from Martin Heidegger describes accurately the interpretive mode of our sugya's redactors:

The “being in the world” of the redactors necessitated halakhic uniformity, and so any texts on this subject would be understood in that light. It was inconceivable to them that the past could be otherwise, and so readings that from our perspective may seem forced were for them much less problematic than overturning their most basic assumptions.

A similar idea is developed in the analysis by Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method (London: Continuum, 2004), 336Google Scholar, of “historically effected consciousness [that] is at work in all hermeneutical activity.” Gadamer points out the connection between his project and that of classical rhetoric (18). Halbertal, Moshe, Interpretive Revolutions in the Making: Values as Interpretive Considerations in Midrashei Halakhah (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1999), 193–95Google Scholar (Hebrew), applies Gadamer's description of the hermeneutical enterprise to midrashic readings of certain biblical passages in which the rabbis radically reinterpret these biblical laws to conform to moral principles. This paper follows a similar methodology. While Halbertal deals with how the Midrash interprets biblical verses in light of moral considerations, this paper deals with how the Yerushalmi redactors interpret tannaitic sources in light of social/political considerations. Halbertal, 197–203, concludes that the rabbis may have shared some of the interpretive methods described by Gadamer and other similar theorists; however, their motivations and underlying assumptions for doing so were very different from those of these postmodern writers. He is led to this conclusion based, in part, on the divinity of the biblical texts, a consideration that is less significant in amoraic interpretations of tannaitic texts.

103. It is possible, for example, that the original compiler of this sugya was working within the first possibility, but that later students then understood it according to the second.

104. It is my hope that future research will find more such examples, but searches based on keywords such as “והן אשכחן” have not produced anything similar to this sugya. The repetition and elaboration required by the full rhetorical form such as that found in this sugya are rather uncharacteristic of the staccato rhythm of the Yerushalmi. It is possible that many sugyot were once structured in this way but have been abbreviated over the course of transmission. Therefore, although the kind of full-blown structure found here may not be common, we should look for more abbreviated forms or variations on the standard form in other sugyot. This may require a comprehensive form criticism of the Yerushalmi. See Bokser, Baruch, “Talmudic Form Criticism,” in Essential Papers on the Talmud, ed. Chernick, Michael (New York: New York University Press, 1994)Google Scholar. Based on the findings of this article, such a project will need to incorporate comparisons to Greco-Roman rhetorical forms.

105. Faur, Jose, The Horizontal Society: Understanding the Covenant and Alphabetic Judaism (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2008), 1:277Google Scholar. See also idem, “Retorica y hemeneutica: Vico y la tradicion Rabinica,” in Pensar para el nuevo siglo: Giambattista Vico y la cultura europea, ed. E. Hidalto-Serna (Napoli: La Citta del Sole, 2001), 928; English translation by David Ramirez is available at http://www.josefaurstudies.org/.

106. Kraemer, David, The Mind of the Talmud (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 112Google Scholar. While Kraemer writes primarily about the Bavli, he agrees that his findings are also relevant to the Yerushalmi (100).

107. See references in notes 89–90 herein.

108. Cohen, “Letter and Spirit in Jewish and Roman Law,” 161, writes, “Books on Greek rhetoric were in part handbooks on pleadings for advocates, whereas in Talmudic times, a legal representative empowered to plead in behalf of another was unknown …; hence the science of rhetoric typical of the Greeks, with its emphasis upon devices and stratagems to help the client win his case, was not developed by the rabbis.” I argue that the rabbis did develop a system of rhetoric in their own way, but toward a different goal. Many of the stratagems used by the Greeks may not have been as fully developed by the rabbis, but at least some of them were adopted and adapted by the rabbis who put them to new use.

109. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 63.

110. This was the goal of the pagan orators. For example, Gellius, Aulus, Noctes Atticae, trans. Rolfe, J. C., Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927)Google Scholar, 1.6.4, writes, “It is the orator's privilege to make statements that are untrue, daring, crafty, deceptive and sophistical, provided they have some semblance of truth and can by any artifice be made to insinuate themselves into the minds of the persons who are to be influenced.” Schulz, Fritz, Principles of Roman Law, trans. Wolff, Marguerite (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), 130Google Scholar n. 3, summarizes, “The Rhetor does not strive after truth and justice, but is concerned with the victory of his client, even when the latter has a bad case …; he may even lie, provided he is successful.”

111. The idea that by recognizing rhetorical language one can better see through it and arrive at a more objective standpoint has been suggested recently by several thinkers. Fish, Stanley, “Rhetoric,” in Rhetoric in an Antifoundational World: Language, Culture, and Pedagogy, ed. Bernard-Donals, Michael and Glejzer, Richard (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 56–58Google Scholar, summarizes this approach, which argues that “the discovery (or rediscovery) that all discourse and therefore all knowledge is rhetorical leads or should lead to the adoption of a method by which the dangers of rhetoric can be at least mitigated and perhaps extirpated…. The reasoning is that by repeatedly uncovering the historical and ideological basis of established structures (both political and cognitive), one becomes sensitized to the effects of ideology and begins to clear a space in which those effects can be combated.” In this view, the “realization of rhetoric's pervasiveness” (ibid., 56) paradoxically opens up the possibility for a more objective use of language and argumentation.

112. Y. Sanhedrin 4:1 (22a).

113. See commentary of Pene Moshe here. See also Hayes, Christine, “Legal Truth, Right Answers and Best Answers: Dworkin and the Rabbis,” Dine Israel 25 (2008): 73–121Google Scholar.

114. See the similar context for Rav's statement in B. Sanhedrin 17a. The Talmud there states that if a court votes unanimously that someone is guilty, then he is declared innocent because the unanimous decision shows that the court did not sufficiently take into account all possibilities. A thorough investigation would surely lead at least one member of the court to acquit. It is in this context that Rav requires the judges to be able to purify the reptile so that they should have the skills to find all possible arguments in favor of a defendant and therefore prevent an unjust punishment.

115. The first option puts the Yerushalmi redactors together with the Roman lawyers, who used and abused argumentation for their own benefits. For the second option, the Yerushalmi redactors recognized that their proofs are not absolute and that many sources seem to indicate pluralism; however, imbued with their overall monistic view, which they considered as truth, they waded through the various possible interpretations and arrived at what they believed were the correct readings. This methodology, of course, cuts both ways; that is, the same tools that a judge uses to reject seemingly good arguments that are actually false in order to arrive at the truth may also lead him to reject good arguments that are actually true. Nevertheless, from the perspective of the redactors, this sugya seems to be an attempt to present an honest and persuasive argument for monism.

116. This is the thrust of the work of Lieberman, Fischel, and others cited in notes 3–13 herein. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 64, for example, writes that the rabbis “would certainly not hesitate to borrow from them [the Greeks] methods and systems which they could convert into a mechanism for the clarification and definition of their own teachings.” Fischel, Henry, Rabbinic Literature and Greco-Roman Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1973)Google Scholar, xi, similarly writes, “The entire midrashic output of a specific tanna is shown to be of Greco-Roman rhetorical provenance.” These scholars are certainly careful to distinguish between Greco-Roman and rabbinic ideas when they are different. But the primary goal of their work does seem to be to show their similarities.

117. See Handelman, Susan, The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence of Rabbinic Interpretation in Modern Literary Theory (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Faur, Golden Doves; and criticism in Stern, David, “Moses-cide: Midrash and Contemporary Literary Criticism,” Prooftexts 4 (1985): 194–98Google Scholar. As Faur points out, the very distinction between philosophy and rhetoric is already traumatic, especially once the former takes hierarchical primacy over the latter. Thus, even classical rhetorical works that value the rhetorical side of the dialectic are still haunted by this “primaeval rupture” (xxvi). The lack of this split in rabbinic thought underlies what is unique to the rabbis’ organic view of language.