Intention in Talmudic Law

Between Thought and Deed

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In Intention in Talmudic Law: Between Thought and Deed, Shana Strauch Schick offers the first comprehensive history of intention in classical Jewish law (1st-6th centuries CE). Through close readings of rabbinic texts and explorations of contemporaneous legal-religious traditions, Strauch Schick constructs an intellectual history that reveals remarkable consistency within the rulings of particular sages, locales, and schools of thought. The book carefully traces developments across generations and among groups of rabbis, uncovering competing lineages of evolving legal and religious thought, and demonstrating how intention gradually became a nuanced, differentially applied concept across a wide array of legal realms.
Copyright Year:
2021
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978-90-04-43304-5
Publication:
29 Jun 2021
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978-90-04-43303-8
Publication:
01 Jul 2021
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Shana Strauch Schick is a Leon Charney fellow at Yeshiva University’s Center for Israel Studies and teaches in the United States and Israel. Her recent articles have appeared in AJS Review and Nashim. She received her Ph.D. in 2011 from Yeshiva University.
"Strauch Schick demonstrates profound expertise in textual criticism and manuscript traditions, and using these skills, offers a positivist reconstruction of the development of rabbinic concepts of intention. Strauch Schick’s work is characterized by her extremely careful readings of complicated legal texts. It is worth repeating this last point – these rabbinic texts are complicated; understanding them requires profound experience with rabbinic thinking as well as deep familiarity with modern legal categories. In this short but dense book, Strauch Schick expertly analyzes these rabbinic texts and brings legal theory to bear in understanding what the rabbis are doing."
- Sara Ronis, in Hebrew Studies 63 (2022).

"Schick’s work is an important contribution to the intellectual history of the talmudic period no less than to the study of the talmudic text itself. Her research is not only rich in demonstrating the value of redaction criticism for identifying the various strata of material in a text that has undergone a complicated editorial process, but it is successful in arranging those strata to tell a coherent story of legal and literary development within the edifice of rabbinic literature. By considering the broader intellectual contexts in which this development took place, she is able to make a case for influence which—while more speculative than demonstrative—is nonetheless compelling, shedding explanatory light on the rise of legal intention in the Babylonian Talmud."
- Phillip I. Lieberman, in Journal for the Study of Judaism 54 (2023).

"This very question is the subject of the technical but fascinating book, Intention in Talmudic Law by Shana Strauch Schick. (...) the Talmud rarely presents theories and general rules, preferring instead to teach through sample cases, debates, and never-ending argumentation. This results in a sprawling network of many opposing opinions and interpretations scattered over multiple works, time periods, and contexts. Yet, Schick successfully manages to organize this mass of material and chart the development of halakha on this topic from Tannaitic, to early Amoraic, to late Amoraic understandings, while also carefully distinguishing between the Sages in Israel from those in Babylonia."
- Richard Hidary, in Tradition 55:1 (2023).

"What the present work contributes is greater sensitivity to historical and cultural issues: we learn how various, mainly Babylonian, Amoraim extended the concept of intention, and we enquire whether and to what extent teachings of the Babylonian Amoraim relate to developments in Roman law, Sasanian law and other facets of contemporary culture. (...) this is a well-structured and clearly argued work which draws on the best of modern scholarship not only in its analysis of foundational rabbinic texts but also in assessing the development of rabbinic law within the context of the Greco-Roman and Iranian worlds."
- Norman Solomon, in Journal of Jewish Studies vol. LXXIII, No. 2 (2022).
Preface

Introduction
1 Summary of Findings
2 Previous Scholarship and Methodology
3 Methodological Concerns
4 Historical Context of the Bavli: Hellenistic, Christian, Zoroastrian
5 Outline of Chapters
6 A Note on Gender Pronouns

1 From Tannaitic to Early Amoraic Law: Contrasting Systems of Tort Law in the Yerushalmi and Bavli
1 Overview of Tort Law in Tannaitic Sources
2 M. Bava Qama 2:6: “A Person Is Always Forewarned”
 2.1 Yerushalmi: R. Isaac on the Necessity of Fault
 2.2 Bavli: Strict Liability
3 M. Bava Qama. 3:1: Exemption for Accidental Damages
 3.1 Yerushalmi - Rav, Samuel and R. El’azar: Liability Determined by Fault
 3.2 Bavli - Rav, Samuel and R. Yohanan: Strict Liability
 3.3 Bavli and Yerushalmi: Identical Traditions, Divergent Rulings
4 Contextualizing Tort Liability in the Yerushalmi
5 Contextualizing Tort Liability in the Bavli

2 The Third Generation of Babylonian Amoraim: A Period of Transition
1 Overview: The Emergence of Competing Schools of Thought in Pumbedita and Mahoza
2 Pumbedita: Negligence and Deliberate Action in the Rulings of Rabbah
 2.1 B. Bava Qama 26b-27a: Strict Liability and Negligence
 2.2 B. Bava Qama 56a: Liability for Negligence
 2.3 B. Bava Qama 28b-29b: Intent to Act
3 Mahoza: Negligence and Purposeful Action
 3.1 R. Nahman: Purpose Defines the Prohibition
 3.2 Mitasseq and Melakhah She- eina Tzerikha Le-gufa: Exemptions in the Laws of Shabbat
 3.3 R. Hisda: Intention in the Fulfillment of Religious Precepts
4 Summary

3 The Fourth Generation of Babylonian Amoraim: A Period of Innovation
1 Overview
2 Pumbedita: Abaye
 2.1 Challenge to Rabbah’s Strict Liability
 2.2 Challenges Regarding the Laws of the Sabbath
3 Mahoza: Rava
 3.1 Tort Law
  3.1.1 B. Bava Qama 27b: Rights of Pedestrians
  3.1.2 B. Bava Metzia 96b: Borrower’s Rights
  3.1.3 B. Bava Metzia 83a: Borrower’s Oath
  3.1.4 B. Bava Qama 62a: Guarding a Golden Dinar
 3.2 Religious Law: Intention in the Laws of Sabbath
4 Rava in Contrast to Abaye in Religious Law
 4.1 B. Sanhedrin 61b: Idol Worship Out of Love and Fear
 4.2 B. Sanhedrin 74a-b: Martyrdom
 4.3 B. Shabbat 72b-73a: Davar She-ein Mitkavvein
 4.4 B. Menahot 64a: Action versus Intention
5 Rava’s Emphasis on Intention: Precedents and Parallels
 5.1 Land of Israel Precedents
 5.2 Parallels in Zoroastrian Literature
6 Rava’s Jurisprudence and Aristotelian Corrective Justice
 6.1 Aristotle on Corrective Justice
 6.2 Parallels with Rava
 6.3 Reading Aristotle in Mahoza?

4 Mitzvot Ein Tzerikhot Kavvanah: Divorcing Ritual Performance from Intention
1 Overview: A Radical Change in Ritual Law
2 The Development of Mitzvot Ein Tzerikhot Kavvanah
 2.1 The Mishnaic View: Shema, Shofar, Megillah
 2.2 Early Amoraic Views: Accidental Immersion
 2.3 Rava’s View
3 Rava’s Ruling in Context
 3.1 The Bavli Context: Intent in Tort Law and Religious Violations
 3.2 Cultural Context: Zoroastrian and Monastic Texts
4 Summary

5 Views in the Bavli after Rava
1 Overview: The Late Amoraim and the Bavli’s Redactors
2 Rava’s Students
 2.1 Continuity
 2.2 Innovation: Manslaughter
3 The Redactors
 3.1 Intent to Derive Benefit/Pleasure: Davar She-ein Mitkavvein and Hana’at Atzmo
4 Summary

Conclusion: Intentionality in Rabbinic Law in Historical and Cultural Perspective
1 Transitions from Subjective to Objective Standards in Legal Thought
2 The “Evolution” of Legal Systems
3 Intention and the Self
4 Intention, Argumentation, and Conceptualization

Bibliography
Index

This book would be of interest to academics in the fields of Talmud, Jewish law and thought, and to laypeople interested in Talmud study and the development of rabbinic law.
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