[Avodah] Eretz Yisrael and the Roots of Ashkenaz

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 10:10:50AM +0200, R Arie Folger wrote on
the thread titled "Text for Bittul Chametz":
:                               ...The prayers, at least in Ashkenaz,
: are very much influenced by teh sources of Ashkenaz, which is much
: more Eretz Yisrael than Bavel. In reality, in Ashkenaz, we don't
: pasken like the Bavli, but like Minhag Ashkenaz, which is rooted in
: the Yerushalmi, the Pessikta and other such works, as Rabbenu Tam and
: Rabbenu Yitz'haq Or Zarua' wrote. So in the liturgy, for instance the
: Haggadah, Yerushalmi Aramaic might dominate occasionally.

: However, as the Bavli became the dominant learning text (and
: Ashkenazim like the Ba'alei haTossafot began reinterpreting the Bavli
: occasionally to make it confirm to Ashkenaz, which could then claim to
: be rooted in the Bavli, too), the poskim would naturally rather quote
: it.

This is something RRW would bring up with some frequency. And RAF also
cited Ta-Shema's "Minhag Ashkenaz haQadmon" in the past.
http://aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=A#ASHKENAZIM%20AND%20SEPHARDIM

The depiction of the Baalei haTosafos is not one I would embrace, though.
You make it sound like they set out to fit the Bavli to Ashkenaz. I would
have instead suggested that they had a tendency to assume the absence of
a machloqes. Given the belief that the Bavli has importance just because
it is Chazal's final work and halakhah kebasrai, and the belief that
minhag Ashkenaz can't be entirely wrong this stance is natural.

Related to the question of how strongly this minimalist stance toward
such machloqesin is justified would be the issue of how well R' Ashi,
Ravina and the savoraim had access to the Y-mi. Not just the mesorah
that the Y-mi is a snapshot of, or cross-fertilization by Amoraim who
traveled between EY and Bavel, but the work iself.

The primary "project" of Tosafos is to make the gemara internally
consistent. I don't have a source for that, but it seems to me to
be self-evident to even a beginner -- the overwhelming majority of
Tosfoses are about finding a peshat that is consistent with what the
gemara says elsewhere. Not about questioning the naive peshat solely
because it is at odds with our practice.

Now if you add to that an approach that assumes a minimum of machloqesin
between the Bavli and the sources of Ashkenazi pesaq, and it is
unsurprising that Tosafos will often end up using Askenazi practice as
the "kasuv hashelishi yachria beineihem".

That's very different than saying they set out to align Minhag Ashkenaz
and shas as a project in and of itself. There are very few examples of
that across the entire corpus, not enough to call that a primary theme.
I can think of:
    1- mayim acharonim,
    2- not learning shelish bemiqra ushelish bemishnah,
    3- clapping on Shabbos,

and where Tosafos explicitly tell you "anu somekhin al sefarim chitzonim
umeinichin gemara shelanu" (to quote the first example), ie that they
couldn't resolve the sources:

    4- taking the tzitzis off the talisos of meisim (Pesachim 40b "aval
       asahu")

    5- our haftarah for RC Av that falls out on Shabbos (ibid)

    6- our qula (hil' tereifah) WRT counting scabs on lungs (Chullin 46b
       "Hainu Ribisayhu", although I'm looking at the end on 47a)

    7- quoting Rashi, we rely on Rabbeinu Gershom and R' Qlonimus ish Romi
       on assuring the results of melakhah on YT rishon the entire YT
       sheini shel galios rather than the gemara's bikhdei sheya'asu
       (Beitza 24b)

Last, I am being careful in calling Ashk a mix of EY and Bavel -- or perhaps
more precisely Roman and Persian Empires -- rather than emphasizing the
EY component. While the latter is more natural when speaking of breaks with
the pesaq in the Bavli and thus only looking at the differences from Bavel,
I do not think Sepharad's connection to Bavel is any weaker than Ashkenaz's.

Syrians, who are Edot haMizrach but from the Roman Empire (and genetics
confirms that they are closer to Ashk than other Seph and EH), would be
an interesting test case.

Rabbeinu Gershom Meor haGoah is said (Maharshal, Chida and others)
to have studied under R' Hai Gaon, thus linking him to Bavel. (Even
if this link turns out to be mythical, it still shows enough consistency
of concepts between the geonim and RGMH to make the claim plausible.)

OTOH, the Rambam's mesorah from R' Hai Gaon is via:
    R' Yaaqov ben Nissim and R' Chushiel
    Rabbeinu Nissim Gaon (R' Yaaqov's son -- not a "gaon" in the
    Babylonian academy sense of the word) and Rabbeinu Chananel
    (of Rome, with some connection to Tunisia)
    R' Yitzchaq al-Fasi (of Fes, "the Rif")
    R' Yosef ibn Migash ("the Ri miGash")
    R' Maimon
    R' Moshe ben Maimon

If you consider how often the Rambam and the Rif disagree, that chain
doesn't anchor him to Bavel any more than the Ashkenazim are.

For that matter, the Rambam wrote a Rif-like work on the Y-mi -- "Hilkhos
haYerushalmi" (a fragment of which was found published by Leiberman in
1947). And it seems that he held like named shitos in the Y-mi over the
stam Bavli.

The Kesef Mishnah shares Tos' stance about assuming a lack of machloqesin
(Hil Geirushin 13:18), saying that even a dochaq peshat is more likely
than assuming an argument between the Y-mi and Bavli. And it's Rabbeinu
Chananel, the Rashba, the Ritva, etc... who we see quoting the Y-mi far
far more often than the Ashkenazim.

So, overstating the matter as though we were speaking of clean lines
rather than vague tendencies can be misleading. Again, natural when the
topic is explaining the cases where the Bavli and Ashk differ, so that the
entire scope of the conversation is one where the tendency is confirmed.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 11th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        1 week and 4 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Netzach sheb'Gevurah: What is imposing about
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            strict justice?