Maimonides, in the introduction to hisYad ha-Ḥazaḳah, and others[3] have declared that the titleSifra debbe Rav indicatesAbba Arikha is the author.I.H. Weiss attempts to support this.[4] His proofs are not conclusive, though neither are the opposing arguments of Friedmann,[5] who tries to show that the expressionSifra debbe Rav does not refer to the midrash under discussion.[6]
Malbim wrote in the introduction to his Sifra edition thatHiyya bar Abba was the redactor of theSifra. There are no less than 39 passages inJerusalem Talmud and the midrashim in which expositions found also in theSifra are quoted in the name of Ḥiyya,[7] and the fact that notannaim afterJudah ha-Nasi are mentioned in theSifra supports the view that the book was composed during the time of that scholar. If Ḥiyya was its author, the titleSifra debbe Rav is to be explained as indicating that Sifra was among the midrashim accepted by his school and which came into general use.
Traces of R.Judah bar Ilai's influence are less evident. The fact that the views expressed in some "setamot" agree with R. Judah's views[8] has little significance. Such seṭamot may be opposed by others that contradict R. Judah's views.[9][6]
All this, however, is no reason for attacking the above-mentioned assumption that the Sifra in its principal parts is a midrash of R. Judah's.Hoffmann remarks[10] not incorrectly that Sifra Nedabah 4:12 agrees with the views ofR. Eliezer,[11] whose decision R. Judah frequently accepts as handed down by his own father,R. Ila'i, a pupil of R. Eliezer.[12] Similarly, Sifra,Emor, 17:4 et seq. agrees with R. Eliezer's view.[13] Aside from R. Judah's midrash,R. Ḥiyya may have used also R. Simeon's midrash,[14] although some of the passages mentioned there[15] seem to prove little. More doubtful is the relation toR. Ishmael's midrash; and in this connection must be considered the question whether the citation of certain explanations of Leviticus introduced by the formula תנא דבי ר"י and actually found in Sifra is not in part due to confusion.[16][6]
But toR. Ishmael's school undoubtedly belong the later additions to "'Arayot," which (according toḤag. 1:1 andYer. 1b) were not publicly taught inR. Akiva's school; i.e., Aḥare, 13:3-15; Ḳedoshim, 9:1-7, 11:14,[17] and finally, of course, the so-calledBaraita de-Rabbi Yishma'el (beginning). The so-called "Mekilta de-Millu'im" or "Aggadat Millu'im" toLeviticus 8:1-10 is similarly to be distinguished from the remainder of the Sifra. It exists in two recensions, of which the second, covering mishnayot 14-16 and 29-end, is cited byRashi as "Baraita ha-Nosefet 'al Torat Kohanim she-Lanu." Thetannaim quoted most frequently in Sifra are R. Akiva and his pupils, alsoR. Eliezer, R. Ishmael,R. Jose ha-Gelili,Rebbi, and less oftenR. Jose bar Judah,R. Eleazar bar R. Simeon, andR. Simeon b. Eleazar.[6]
The Sifra was divided, according to an old arrangement, into 9 "dibburim"[18] and 80 "parashiyyot" or smaller sections. As it exists today it is divided into 14 larger sections and again into smaller peraḳim, parashiyyot, and mishnayot. As the commentators point out, it varies frequently from the Sifra which theTalmudic authors knew;[19] furthermore, entire passages known to the authors of theBabylonian Talmud[20] are missing in the present Sifra, and, on the other hand, there are probably passages in the present Sifra which were not known to the Babylonian Talmud.[21][6]
The Sifra frequently agrees with the Judean rather than with the Babylonian tradition;[22] andTosefta,Sheḳ. 1:7 likewise agrees with the Sifra. In the few cases where the agreement is with the Babylonian Talmud,[23] it must not be assumed that the text of the Sifra was emended in agreement with the Babylonian Talmud, but that it represents the original version.[24] The Babylonian Talmud, as compared withYerushalmi, cites Sifra less accurately, sometimes abbreviating and sometimes amplifying it.[25] The Babylonian Talmud occasionally makes use, in reference to the Sifra, of the rule "mi she-shanah zu lo shanah zu" (i.e., the assigning of different parts of onehalakah to different authorities),[26] but unnecessarily, since it is possible to harmonize the apparently conflicting sentences and thereby show that they may be assigned to the same authority.[6]
Many errors have crept into the text through the practice of repeating one and the same midrash in similar passages.[27][6]
The editions of the Sifra are as follows:Venice, 1545; with commentary byRABaD,Constantinople, 1552; withḲorban Aharon, Venice, 1609; with the same commentary,Dessau, 1742; with commentary byJ.L. Rapoport,Wilna, 1845; with commentary byJudah Jehiel,Lemberg, 1848; with commentary byMalbim (Meir Loeb b. Yehiel Michael),Bucharest, 1860; with commentary by RABaD andMassoret ha-Talmud byI. H. Weiss,Vienna, 1862[28] (Reprint New York: Om Publishing Company 1946); with commentary bySamson of Sens and notes byMaHRID,Warsaw, 1866. A Latin translation is given inBiagio Ugolini,Thesaurus, xiv.[6]
Sifra or Torat Kohanim. Edited by Finkelstein, Louis and Morris Lutzki . New York: JTS, 1956. (Facsimile edition of Codex Assemani 66 of the Vatican Library)
Sifra on Leviticus I-V. Edited by Louis Finkelstein. New York: JTS 1989–1990.
Sifra: An Analytical Translation I-III. Translated by Jacob Neusner. Atlanta: Scholars Press 1988.
Sifra on Leviticus, with traditional commentaries and variant readings. Edited by Abraham Shoshanah. Cleveland and Jerusalem 1991 onwards.
^Compare the list inD. Hoffmann,Zur Einleitung die Halachischen Midraschim, p. 22, to whichYer.Shab. 2d andKet. 28d must be added, according to Levy inEin Wort, etc., p. 1, note 1
^e.g., Sifra Aḥarei 5 (beginning), compared withMenahot 27b; Sifra Kedoshim 8:1, withYeb. 46a (whereR. Simeon furthermore seems to have read ר"י in theSifre) and Sifra Kedoshim 7:3, withToseftaḲid. 1:4
^e.g., Sifra, Neg. 2:1, compared with R. Judah in Neg. 2:1; Sifra, Neg. 10:8, compared with R. Judah, Neg. 10:10; comp. alsoTosafot Niddah 28b, s.v. הא מזכר.
^As, e.g., the comparison of Sifra, Nedabah, 6:9 with Sifre,Deut. 78; Sifra, Nega'im, 1:9-10 with Sifre, Deut. 218; Sifra,Beḥuḳḳotai, 8:2 with Sifre, Deut. 124
^Compare Hoffmann, l.c.; Levy, l.c. p. 28, note 2, and the interesting remark fromAzulai quoted there.
^Sifra,Emor, 7:2 as compared with Menahot 73b; similarly Tosefta,Ker. 2:16
^e.g., in Sifra,Ḳedoshim, 8:1 מאתכם is not a later emendation for מאתן according toYeb. 47a, asI.H. Weiss (ad loc.) assumes, but represents rather the original reading.
^e.g.,Ḳid. 57b, which is the amplification of Sifra Nedabah 17:8;Sheb. 26b, which is a shortened (and therefore unintelligible) version of SifraḤobah 9:2; andZeb. 93b, which is to be compared with Sifra,Ẓaw, 6:6
^e.g., Sifra to 5:3 and 22:5 (comp. Weiss,Einleitung, etc., p. v., note 1, though the passage quoted by Weiss does not belong here; comp.Giṭ. 49b) לשנא אחרינא is found in Sifra,Nega'im, 2:10.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Bacher, Wilhelm; Horovitz, S. (1901–1906)."SIFRA". InSinger, Isidore; et al. (eds.).The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. RetrievedJan 17, 2017.Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography: