293) A TOSAFIST PERSPECTIVE – ‘WE HAVE BOOKS, WE DON’T NEED TEACHERS OR PERMISSION TO TEACH’:
Sunday, 6 September 2020
INTRODUCTION:
Around the thirteenth century, while most of Europe was becoming comfortingly institutionalised in their communal structures, a number of Tosafists were proclaiming the right to remain independent and autonymous both in their institutions and also in their thinking.
In this article, based extensively on the research of Rabbi Professor Ephraim Kanarfogel[1], we will examine the processes involved in establishing an academy in Ashkenaz (northern France and Germany) during the Tosafist period (c. 1100-1300) with an emphasis on how some rabbis were determined to remain unconstrained by the establishment.
Before we examine the protocols of opening up an academy in Tosafist Ashkenaz, let us first turn westwards and look at Spain during that same time period.
SPAIN:
In Spain, it was the leading scholars who – in principle – were in charge of granting permission for an academy to open and operate. Once the scholars approved of the candidates to run the yeshivot, it was up to the individual communities to appoint a particular Rosh Yeshiva and pay him. In Spain, the various communities always appointed and paid the approved candidates for their institutions, whether teachers or communal rabbis.[2]
But this was not the case in northern France and Germany.
ASHKENAZ – NORTHERN FRANCE AND GERMANY:
In Ashkenaz, the Tosafist academies were run independently as small and private institutions. Very often the school was in the actual home of the Rosh Yeshiva who had established it in the first place.
As a sign of independence, it was named after the Rosh Yeshiva and not after the town or city in which it operated. But this independence came at a price – the teachers were not paid and the students received no stipends.
Kanarfogel writes:
“Unlike Spanish Jewish society, Ashkenazic Jewry believed, as a matter of religious principle, that it was inappropriate to offer any direct financial support to its scholars.”[3]
He points out that, in northern France, this was not a uniquely Jewish state of affairs as similar practices were found in the Cathedral schools, which were also named after their teachers and not the towns.
In both Jewish and Christian communities, the institution had no real energy of its own – as modern universities like Harvard and Oxford, for example, do – but the personality of the individual teacher was the only determining factor to draw the student.
In both Jewish and Christian circles, the student referred to the teacher under whom he studied, and not the place where he studied. This is evidenced by the fact that when the teacher died or moved on, the academies simply closed down.
Then things began to change as a more top-heavy and bureaucratic system developed.
From around 1200, Christian schools required accreditation through a licentia docendi in order to operate and some of the earlier autonomy was lost due to the institutionalisation of teaching.
Similarly in Jewish communities, the semicha or ordination compliance was required before a school could open. Slowly the teachers lost their independence and certainly by the fifteenth century, Ashkenaz had a well established and an institutionalised structure in their Torah academies.
There is some debate as to exactly when the shift from independence to the institutionalisation of schools began in Ashkenaz, but clearly, some Tosafists were intent on perpetuating their autonomy for as long as possible.
What follows are three examples of Tosafists who held out for as long as they could, in an attempt at maintaining their independence:
1) R. SHMUEL AND HIS BROTHER R. MOSHE OF EVREUX:
In a text ascribed to the thirteenth century Tosafist brothers R. Shmuel and R. Moshe of Evreux[4], in Normandy – northern France – it is evident that academies in that region opened without permission and the teachers sometimes openly went against the rulings of their rabbis.
‘WE HAVE BOOKS, WE DON’T NEED TEACHERS OR PERMISSION TO TEACH’:
The Tosafist brothers of Evreux wrote that it was no longer necessary for students to uphold the views of their teachers. This was because teachers were no longer the only source of the law. They now lived in an era where books and texts abounded and were thus not beholden to their rabbis as the sole purveyors of Torah knowledge:
“For the Talmudic texts, the commentaries, the novellae, the [halakhic] compositions, they are the teachers of men. And all [is determined] by one’s perspicacity [discernment].
Thus, it was usual in their locale (be-‘iram) that a student opened his own study hall…without concern for [the Talmudic dictum that] ‘one who decides a matter of law in his teacher’s presence is punishable by death’.
Similarly, the student, by means of superior reasoning, could contradict his teacher[‘s ruling].”[5]
Kanarfogel explains this interesting Tosafist text as follows:
“The brothers maintained that due to the vicissitudes of time, written sources had replaced human instructors as the most effective teachers. As such, there was no longer a concept of rabbo muvhhaq (one’s major teacher) for whom deep respect or honour had to be shown….
A student was no longer required to seek his teacher’s approval in order to decide matters of law in his presence or to open an academy in his town.”
From Kotzk Blog, here.