Saul Lieberman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1898-05-28)May 28, 1898 Motal, Russian Empire |
| Died | March 23, 1983(1983-03-23) (aged 84) |
| Occupation(s) | rabbi and scholar |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Kiev Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Talmudic studies |
| Institutions | Jewish Theological Seminary of America Harry Fischel Institute for Talmudic Research American Academy for Jewish Research |
| Main interests | Tosefta |
| Notable works | Sifrei Zuta |
Saul Lieberman (Hebrew:שאול ליברמן; May 28, 1898 – March 23, 1983), also known as Rabbi Shaul Lieberman or, among some of his students, theGra״sh (GaonRabbeinuShaul), was arabbi and aTalmudic scholar. He served as Professor of Talmud at theJewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA) for over 40 years, and for many years wasdean of theHarry Fischel Institute for Talmudic Research inIsrael and also president of theAmerican Academy for Jewish Research.
Born inMotal, nearPinsk in theRussian Empire (nowBelarus), he studied at theOrthodoxyeshivot of Malch,Slobodka, andNovardok, where, at age 18, he received hissemikha (rabbinicordination).[1] While studying at the Slobodka yeshiva, he befriendedYaakov Yitzchok Ruderman andYitzchak Hutner, both of whom would become leaders of great seminaries in America.
In the 1920s, he attended the Kiev Gymnasium andUniversity of Kiev. Following a short stay inPalestine, he continued his studies inFrance. In 1928, he settled inJerusalem. He studied Talmudicphilology and Greek language and literature at theHebrew University of Jerusalem.
After completing hismaster's degree at Hebrew University, he was appointedlecturer there in Talmud in 1931 or 1932. The position was terminated in 1937 due to poor enrollment.[1] He also taught at theMizrachi Teachers Seminary, and from 1935 was dean of theHarry Fischel Institute for Talmudic Research in Jerusalem.
In 1940, he was invited both by RabbiYitzchak Hutner to teach in the Orthodox YeshivaChaim Berlin, and by theJewish Theological Seminary of America to serve asprofessor of Hellenism and Jewish literature. Lieberman chose the offer by JTS. Lieberman's decision was motivated by a desire to "train American Jews to make a commitment to study and observe the mitzvot."[2] In Chaim Dalfin'sConversations with the Rebbe (LA: JEC, 1996), pp. 54–63, Prof.Haim Dimitrovski relates that when he was newly hired at JTSA, he asked RabbiMenachem Mendel Schneerson ofLubavitch whether he should remain in the Seminary, and the response was "as long as Lieberman is there." In 1949, he was appointeddean, and in 1958rector, of the Seminary's rabbinical school.
Lieberman died on March 23, 1983, while flying to Jerusalem forPassover.[3][4]
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In 1929, Lieberman publishedAl ha-Yerushalmi, in which he suggested ways of emending corruptions in the text of theJerusalem Talmud and offered variant readings to the text of the tractate ofSotah. This was followed by: a series of text studies of the Jerusalem Talmud, which appeared inTarbiz; byTalmudah shel Keisaryah (1931), in which he expressed the view that the first three tractates of the orderNezikin in the Jerusalem Talmud had been compiled in Caesarea about the middle of the fourth century C.E.; and byHa-Yerushalmi ki-Feshuto (1934), a commentary on the treatisesShabbat,Eruvin, andPesahim of the Jerusalem Talmud (this was the first volume of a series that was never finished). His preoccupation with the Jerusalem Talmud impressed him with the necessity of clarifying the text of thetannaitic sources (rabbis of the first two centuries of the common era), especially that of theTosefta, on which no commentaries had been composed by the earlier authorities (Rishonim), and to whose elucidation few scholars had devoted themselves in later generations.
He published the four-volumeTosefeth Rishonim, a commentary on the entire Tosefta with textual corrections based on manuscripts, early printings, and quotations found in early authorities.[5] He also publishedTashlum Tosefta, an introductory chapter to the second edition ofM. S. Zuckermandel's Tosefta edition (1937), dealing with quotations from the Tosefta by early authorities that are not found in the text.
Years later, Lieberman returned to the systematic elucidation of the Tosefta. He undertook the publication of the Tosefta text, based on manuscripts and accompanied by brief explanatory notes, and of an extensive commentary calledTosefta ki-Fshuṭah. The latter combined philological research and historical observations with a discussion of the entire talmudic and rabbinic literature in which the relevant Tosefta text is either commented upon or quoted. Between 1955 and 1973, ten volumes of the new edition were published, representing the text and the commentaries on the entire orders ofZera'im,Mo'ed andNashim. Furthermore, in 1988, three volumes were published posthumously on the order of Nezikin, including tractatesBava Kama,Bava Metzia, andBava Basra. The entire set was republished in the 1990s in thirteen volumes, and again in 2001 in twelve volumes.
InSifrei Zuta (1968), Lieberman advanced the view that thishalakhic Midrash was in all likelihood finally edited byBar Kappara inLydda.
Other books of his wereSheki'in (1939), on Jewish legends,customs, and literary sources found in Karaite and Christian polemical writings, andMidreshei Teiman (1940), wherein he showed that the Yemenite Midrashim had preserved exegetical material which had been deliberately omitted by the rabbis. He edited a variant version of MidrashDebarim Rabbah (1940, 19652).[6] In his view that version had been current among Sephardi Jewry, while the standard text had been that of Ashkenazi Jewry. In 1947 he publishedHilkhot ha-Yerushalmi which he identified as a fragment of a work byMaimonides on the Jerusalem Talmud in a similar vein as theRif is to the Babylonian Talmud. Lieberman also edited the hitherto unpublished Tosefta commentaryHasdei David byDavid Pardo on the orderTohorot; the first part of this work appeared in 1970.
His two English volumes,Greek in Jewish Palestine (1942) andHellenism in Jewish Palestine (1950), which also appeared in a Hebrew translation, illustrate the influence ofHellenistic culture on Jewish Palestine in the first centuries C.E.[7]
A number of his works have appeared in new and revised editions. Lieberman served as editor in chief of a new critical edition of Maimonides'Mishneh Torah (vol. 1, 1964), and as an editor of the Judaica series ofYale University, where he worked closely withHerbert Danby, the Anglican scholar of the Mishnah. He also edited several scholarly miscellanies. He contributed numerous studies to scholarly publications as well as notes to books of fellow scholars. In these he dwelt on various aspects of the world of ideas of the rabbis, shed light on events in the talmudic period, and elucidated scores of obscure words and expressions of talmudic and midrashic literature.
He also published a heretofore unknown Midrashic work that he painstakingly pieced together by deriving its text from an anti-Jewish polemic written byRaymond Martini, and various published lectures of Medieval Rabbis. Lieberman's work was published while he headed Machon Harry Fishel.
Jacob Neusner, a leading scholar of the history of rabbinic Judaism, criticized the bulk of Lieberman's work asidiosyncratic in that it lacked a valid methodology and was prone to other serious shortcomings (see Sources below). However, ten years earlier, in an article published shortly after his death, Lieberman strongly criticized Neusner's lack of scholarship in the latter's translation of three tractates of the Yerushalmi.[3] Meir Bar-Ilan, Lieberman's nephew, accused Neusner of being biased against Lieberman due to "a personal issue".[8]
Perhaps because he was so deeply involved in the Seminary, Lieberman was often accused (especially posthumously) of being on the very right wing of Conservative Judaism. Personally fully observant ofHalakha, he would not pray in a synagogue which did not have separate seating for men and women. Lieberman insisted that all services at the Seminary's Stein Hall, where he prayed daily, have amechitza even though most Conservative synagogues did not. Additionally, Lieberman saw that the seminary synagogue where he prayed used an Orthodoxsiddur rather than one produced by the Rabbinical Assembly.[9][better source needed]
The Lieberman clause is a clause included in aketubah (Jewish wedding document), created by and named after Saul Lieberman, that stipulates thatdivorce will be adjudicated by a modernbet din (rabbinic court) in order to prevent the problem of theagunah, a woman not allowed to remarry religiously because she had never been granted a religious divorce. It was first introduced in the 1950s byrabbis inJudaism'sConservative movement.
Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz was his first cousin.Chaim Kanievsky andJoseph B. Soloveitchik were both his first cousins once removed.[1]
Lieberman married Rachel Rabinowitz in 1922. She was the daughter of Laizer Rabinowitz, the rabbi ofMinsk,[10] and granddaughter of Yerucham Yehuda Leib Perelmann. They moved toMandatory Palestine in 1927, but she died three years later, in 1930.[1]
Lieberman studied at Hebrew University and received a Master's in Talmudic andancient Palestinian studies.
He remarried in 1932, toJudith Lieberman, a daughter ofMeir Bar-Ilan, leader of theMizrachi (religious Zionism) movement; granddaughter ofNaftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin; and niece ofBaruch Epstein.[1] Judith Lieberman studied at Hunter College and then at Columbia University under Professor Moses Hadas and Professor Muzzey. From 1941, she served as Hebrew principal and then as dean of Hebrew studies of OrthodoxShulamith School for Girls in New York, the first Jewish day school for girls in North America. Among her publications wereRobert Browning andHebraism (1934), and an autobiographical chapter which was included inThirteen Americans, Their Spiritual Autobiographies (1953), edited byLouis Finkelstein.
The Liebermans had no children.[11]
He was an honorary member of theAcademy of the Hebrew Language, a fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of theIsrael Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
