Saul Lieberman (1898-1983), also known as The Gra"sh (Gaon Rabbeinu Shaul), was a rabbi and a scholar of Talmud. He served as Professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary for over 40 years, and was for many years, head of the Harry Fischel Institute in Israel and also president of the American Academy for Jewish Research. He was an honorary member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In 1971 he was awarded the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies and in 1976 he received the Harvey Prize of the Haifa Technion. For the town in Italy, see Rabbi, Italy. ... A scholar is either a student or someone who has achieved a mastery of some academic discipline, perhaps receiving financial support through a scholarship. ... The first page of the Vilna Edition of the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berachot, folio 2a. ... The Harry Fischel Institute for Talmudic Research (Machon Harry Fischel) is a Yeshiva in Jerusalem focusing primarily on the training of dayanim (religious court judges). ... The Academy of the Hebrew Language (האקדמיה ללשון העברית) is the Supreme Foundation for the Science of the Hebrew Language, that was founded by the Israeli Government in 1953. ... The House of the Academy, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, based in Jerusalem, was set up in 1961 by the State of Israel to foster contact between scholars from the sciences and humanities in Israel, to advise the government on research projects of national importance, and to promote excellence. ... The Israel Prize is the most prestigious award handed out by the State of Israel. ... Hebrew חֵיפָה Arabic حَيْفَا Founded in 3rd century CE Government City District Haifa Population 267,000 1,039,000 (metropolitan area) Jurisdiction 63,666 dunams (63. ... The Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (הטכניון - מכון טכנולוגי לישראל) is a university in Haifa, Israel. ...

Biography

Born in Motol (now Motal'), near Pinsk, Belarus (then Russian empire), he studied at the Orthodox yeshivot of Malch and Slobodka. While studying at the Slabodka Yeshiva, he befriended Rabbi Yitzchak Ruderman and Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner, both of whom would become leaders of great Rabbinical seminaries in America. In the 1920s he attended the University of Kiev, and, following a short stay in Palestine, continued his studies in France. In 1928 he settled in Jerusalem. He studied talmudic philology and Greek language and literature at the Hebrew University, where he was appointed lecturer in Talmud in 1931. He also taught at the Mizrachi Teachers Seminary and from 1935 was dean of the Harry Fischel Institute for Talmudic Research in Jerusalem. Motol (Motele, in Yiddish) was a Shtetl located about 20 miles west of Pinsk on the Yasolda River. ... Motal (Russian: Motol, Yiddish: Motele) was a Shtetl located about 20 miles west of Pinsk on the Yasolda River. ... For other uses, see Pinsk (disambiguation). ... The Alter surrounded by students in Hebron. ... Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman (1901-1987) was a prominent Talmudic scholar and Rabbi who founded and served as Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Ner Israel in Baltimore. ... Yitzchok (Isaac) Hutner (1906 - 1980) was an Orthodox rabbi born in Warsaw, Poland, to a family with both Ger Hasidim and non-Hasidic Lithuanian Jews in their origins. ... Shevchenko Kyiv University in Kyiv is the largest and most important university of Ukraine. ... The Holy Land or Palestine Showing not only the Old Kingdoms of Judea and Israel but also the 12 Tribes Distinctly, and Confirming Even the Diversity of the Locations of their Ancient Positions and Doing So as the Holy Scriptures Indicate, a geographic map from the studio of Tobiae Conradi... For other uses, see Jerusalem (disambiguation). ... The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים) is one of Israels biggest and most important institutes of higher learning and research. ... Lecturer is a term of academic rank. ... The Harry Fischel Institute for Talmudic Research (Machon Harry Fischel) is a Yeshiva in Jerusalem focusing primarily on the training of dayanim (religious court judges). ...

In 1940 he was invited both by Rabbi Isaac Hutner to teach in the Orthodox Yeshiva Chaim Berlin, and by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America to serve as professor of Palestinian literature and institutions. Lieberman chose the offer by the Jewish Theological Seminary. Lieberman's decision was motivated both by a desire for an environment conducive to serious scholarship and because he hoped to "train American Jews to make a commitment to study and observe the mitzvot." {Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox} According to his disciples, when newly hired professor Haim Dimitrovsky asked Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn of Lubavitch whether he should remain in the Seminary, the response was "as long as Lieberman is there." In 1949 he was appointed dean, and in 1958 rector, of the Seminary's rabbinical school. The Jewish Theological Seminary of America The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, known in the Jewish community simply as JTS, is the academic and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism, and is the movements main rabbinical seminary. ... The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ... Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (or Menachem Mendel or Tzemach Tzedek) (1789 - 1866) was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic Judaism movement that was based in the town of Lubavitch in present-day Belarus. ... Chabad Lubavitch, also known as Lubavitch Chabad, is a large branch of Hasidic Judaism. ... In an educational setting, a dean is a person with significant authority . ... The word rector (ruler, from the Latin regere) has a number of different meanings, but all of them indicate someone who is in charge of something. ...

Work

In 1929 Lieberman published Al ha-Yerushalmi, in which he suggested ways of emending corruptions in the text of the Jerusalem Talmud and offered variant readings to the text of the tractate of Sotah. This was followed by: a series of text studies of the Jerusalem Talmud, which appeared in Tarbiz; by Talmudah shel Keisaryah (1931), in which he expressed the view that the first three tractates of the order Nezikin in the Jerusalem Talmud had been compiled in Caesarea about the middle of the fourth century C.E.; and by Ha-Yerushalmi ki-Feshuto (1934), a commentary on the treatises Shabbat, Eruvin, and Pesahim of the Jerusalem Talmud. The Jerusalem Talmud (In Hebrew Talmud Yerushalmi, in short known as the Yerushalmi), also known as the Palestinian Talmud, like its Babylonian counterpart (see Babylonian Talmud), is a collection of Rabbinic discussions elaborating on the Mishnah. ...

His preoccupation with the Jerusalem Talmud impressed him with the necessity of clarifying the text of the tannaitic sources (rabbis of the first two centuries of the common era), especially that of the Tosefta, on which no commentaries had been composed by the earlier authorities and to whose elucidation only few scholars had devoted themselves in later generations. The Tosefta is a secondary compilation of the Jewish oral law from the period of the Mishnah. ...

He published the four-volume Tosefet Rishonim, a commentary on the entire Tosefta with textual corrections based on manuscripts, early printings, and quotations found in early authorities. He also published Tashlum Tosefta, an introductory chapter to the second edition of M. S. Zuckermandel's Tosefta edition (1937), dealing with quotations from the Tosefta by early authorities that are not found in the text. The Tosefta is a secondary compilation of the Jewish oral law from the period of the Mishnah. ...

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 called Tosefta ki-Feshutah. 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 1967 ten volumes of the new edition appeared, representing the text and the commentaries on the orders of Zera'im and Mo'ed and on part of the order of Nashim.

In Sifrei Zuta (1968), Lieberman advanced the view that this halakhic Midrash was in all likelihood finally edited by Bar Kappara in Lydda. Midrash halakha was the ancient rabbinic Jewish method of verifying the traditionally received laws by identifying their sources in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), and by interpreting these passages as proofs of the laws authenticity. ...

His two English volumes, which also appeared in a Hebrew translation, Greek in Jewish Palestine (1942) and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (1950), illustrate the influence of Hellenistic culture on Jewish Palestine in the first centuries C.E.

Other books of his were Sheki'in (1939), on Jewish legends, customs, and literary sources found in Karaite and Christian polemical writings, and Midreshei 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 the Midrash Rabbah on Deuteronomy (1940, 19652). In his view that version had been current among Sephardi Jewry, while the standard text had been that of Ashkenazi Jewry. In 1947 he published Hilkhot ha-Yerushalmi which he identified as a fragment of a work by Maimonides on the Jerusalem Talmud. Lieberman also edited the hitherto unpublished Tosefta commentary Hasdei David by David Pardo on the order Tohorot. The first part of this work appeared in 1970. Commonly used image indicating one artists conception of Maimonidess appearance Maimonides (March 30, 1135 or 1138–December 13, 1204) was a Jewish rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Spain, Morocco and Egypt during the Middle Ages. ...

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 of Yale University, where he worked closely with Herbert Danby, the Anglican scholar of the Mishnah. He also edited several scholarly miscellanies. The Mishneh Torah or Yad ha-Chazaka is a code of Jewish law by one of the most important Jewish authorities, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides or by the Hebrew abbreviation RaMBaM (usually written Rambam in English). ... “Yale” redirects here. ... Herbert Danby (20 January 1889 - 29 March 1953) was an Anglican priest and writer who played a central role in the change of attitudes toward Judaism at the start of the twentieth century. ...

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 by Raymond Martini, and various published lectures of Medieval Rabbis. This Midrashic text was lost on account of vigorous church censorship and suppression. 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 as idiosyncratic in that it lacked a valid methodology and was prone to other serious shortcomings (see reference, below). Jacob Neusner (born July 28, 1932, Hartford, Connecticut) is an influential as well as controversial academic scholar of Judaism, and the most prolific. ... IdiosyncrasyBOOTY!!! comes from Greek ιδιοσυγκρασία a peculiar temperament, habit of body (idios ones own and sun-krasis mixture). It is defined as a structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. ...

Lieberman clause, a solution to the Agunah issue

Main article: Lieberman clause

A Lieberman clause is a clause included in a ketubah which stipulates that divorce will be adjudicated by a modern rabbinic court in order to prevent the problem of the agunah. ...

Personal Paradox

Although deeply involved in the Seminary, Lieberman often seemed to be on the very right wing of the movement. He would not pray in a synagogue with mixed pews. Lieberman insisted that all services at the Seminary have a mechitzah even though the great majority of Conservative synagogues did not. He also frowned upon egalitarian participation by women in the Seminary synagogue services even though the Conservative movement at large was moving towards that goal.

Judith Lieberman

His wife, Judith Lieberman (August 14, 1904– ), was a daughter of Orthodox Rabbi Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan), leader of the Mizrachi (Religious Zionism) movement. She studied at Hunter College and then at Columbia University under Professor Hates and Professor Muzzey. She served from 1941 first as Hebrew principal and then as dean of Hebrew studies of Orthodox Shulamith School for Girls in New York, the first Jewish day school for girls in North America. Among her publications were Robert Browning and Hebraism (1934), and an autobiographical chapter which was included in Thirteen Americans, Their Spiritual Autobiographies (1953), edited by Louis Finkelstein. Judith Lieberman, (born August 14, 1904), wife of Jewish religious scholar Saul Lieberman, daughter of Rabbi Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan), leader of the Mizrachi. ... is the 226th day of the year (227th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on a Friday (see link for calendar). ... The Mizrachi (acronym for Merkaz Ruchani or religious centre) is the name of the religious Zionist organization founded in 1902 in Vilna at a world conference of religious Zionists called by Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines. ... For a discussion of Jews as an ethnicity or ethnic group see the article on Jew. ...

The couple had no children.

References

• Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox. Marc B. Shapiro. University of Scranton Press. 2006. ISBN 1589661230
• Saul Lieberman: the man and his work / Elijah J. Schochet and Solomon Spiro. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2005.
• Saul Lieberman, Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture and The Hermeneutic Rules of the Aggadah in Hellenism in Jewish Palestine JTS, NY, 1994
• Seventy Faces Norman Lamm, Moment Vol. II, No. 6 June 1986/Sivan 5746
• Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Vol. II, p.450, 474, JTS, NY, 1997
• Article by Rabbi Emmanuel Rackman published in The Jewish Week May 8, 1997, page 28.
• Jacob Neusner, Why There Never Was a “Talmud of Caesarea.” Saul Lieberman’s Mistakes. Atlanta, 1994: Scholars Press for South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism.

The Jewish Week is an independent community weekly newspaper serving the Jewish community of the metropolitan New York City area. ... Jacob Neusner (born July 28, 1932, Hartford, Connecticut) is an influential as well as controversial academic scholar of Judaism, and the most prolific. ...

External links

• Saul Lieberman (1898-1983), Jewish Virtual Library.
• Saul Lieberman Institute for Talmudic Research
• The Lieberman Institute for Talmudic Research
• The Lieberman Talmud Database at Yale University Library