Power and the People: Lay People's Voices in Ancient Jewish Adjudication

FAIN: FEL-288736-23

Lynn Kaye
Brandeis University (Waltham, MA 02453-2728)

Research and writing towards a book on interactions between judges and lay advocates in the Babylonian Talmud (6th century CE).

This project establishes the cross-cultural significance of narratives depicting exchanges between lay people and judges in the Babylonian Talmud, the foundation of Jewish law (6th c. CE). Adjudication narratives, ubiquitous in the Talmud, typically comprise only case details and the verdict. However, some interactions between petitioner and judge brim with drama, evoking the human stakes of court cases. The purpose of these details and their impact on the law is yet unexamined. Reading the stories both from literary critical, and comparative legal perspectives, foregrounds the creativity of lay people, and their subtle subversions of authority. The project has implications beyond Jewish studies. The roles of religious courts in the Roman and Persian empires are germane to studies of legal pluralism, classical studies, Christian history, and comparative religion. Exposing the dynamics between experts and lay people enriches the study of gender, narrative, and power in the humanities.

Associated Products

Beyond Precedent: Functions of Adjudication Narratives in the Bavli (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Beyond Precedent: Functions of Adjudication Narratives in the Bavli
Author: Lynn Kaye
Abstract: Adjudication narratives, Bavli case stories depicting a rabbi ruling on a case for someone, have typically been overlooked for literary analysis because of their brevity and formulaic style. Moreover, scholars have assumed that their presence in the Talmudic sugya was justified by their relevance to the law, as precedent, counterproof, or some other direct connection to the rule at issue. Yet in the corpus of Bavli stories, there are sufficient examples that deviate from a bare form, which connote, for example potent emotions, or other dramatic features. Scholars have assumed that adjudication narratives are cited because of their relevance to the rule under discussion. Catherine Heszer concluded that the case story form in the Yerushalmi had been formulated with legal relevance in mind. Eleazar Segal concluded similarly about narratives in Bavli Bavot. But something is missing from this justification for the inclusion of adjudication narratives in sugyot. The narratives that deviate from the typical form by adding people’s reactions, or other aspects that are not necessary to illustrate a rule, teach more than the rule. In a presentation entitled “What is the Talmud,” last year, Daniel Boyarin argued that the Talmud’s goal is to teach its students to think. In addition to any topical relevance, the role of the exceptional adjudication narratives, I will show through examples, is to help judges learn how to listen effectively. The apparently extraneous details teach potential jurists about the real stakes of legal cases: their impact on people’s lives.
Date: 08-19-2024
Conference Name: Jewish Law Association Conference

Virtues and Dispositions of Rabbinic Judges: A View from Talmudic Texts and their Reception in the Medieval and Modern Periods: “Learning to Listen: Functions of Formally-Exceptional Adjudication Narratives in the Bavli” (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Virtues and Dispositions of Rabbinic Judges: A View from Talmudic Texts and their Reception in the Medieval and Modern Periods: “Learning to Listen: Functions of Formally-Exceptional Adjudication Narratives in the Bavli”
Author: Lynn Kaye
Abstract: I organized a panel and gave a paper. Panel abstract: The panel examines how rabbinic authors in the late antique, medieval, and modern periods have conceived, and attempted to produce ideal judges of rabbinic law. One criterion for becoming a rabbinic judge was sufficient knowledge of sacred texts and oral traditions. Yet since late antiquity, rabbinic texts have also developed and debated just judicial administrative procedures. This panel convenes a scholarly discussion of materials 1500 years of rabbinic history, drawing upon scholarship of adjudication narratives in the Babylonian Talmud, Medieval judge handbooks and the modern thought of Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Paper abstract: Adjudication narratives, Bavli case stories depicting a rabbi ruling on a case for someone, have typically been overlooked for literary analysis because of their brevity and formulaic style. Moreover, scholars have assumed that their presence in the Talmudic sugya was justified by their relevance to the law, as precedent, counterproof, or some other direct connection to the rule at issue. Yet in the corpus of Bavli stories, there are sufficient examples that deviate from a bare form, and which portray potent emotions, or other dramatic features, and which forefront the interactions between judges and parties to disputes. Many scholars have assumed that adjudication narratives are cited because of their relevance to the rule under discussion. I will argue that in addition to any topical relevance, the role of the formally-deviant adjudication narratives, is to help judges learn how to listen effectively, and that this is a key disposition that adjudication narratives may be helping to cultivate among judges. Current scholarship on the psychological effects of narratives on inter-personal interactions helps to support this theory.
Date: 12-19-2024
Primary URL: http://https://associationforjewishstudies.org/docs/default-source/conference-files/2024-conference/2024-ajs-conference-program-as-of-december-6-2024.pdf?Status=Master&sfvrsn=dba45b85_8
Primary URL Description: Conference program (p. 37 for my panel).

The Troy and Pearl Feibel Lecture on Judaism and Law: Stories from Court: Lay People's Power in the Talmud (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: The Troy and Pearl Feibel Lecture on Judaism and Law: Stories from Court: Lay People's Power in the Talmud
Abstract: I gave an annual endowed lecture at the Ohio State University about my fellowship work: The 33rd Annual Pearl and Troy Feibel Lecture on Judaism and Law will feature Lynn Kaye, Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature and Thought at Brandeis University, presenting "Stories from Court: Lay People's Power in the Talmud." A dessert reception will follow. The Talmud, a foundational text for Jewish law, completed by c. 650 CE in what is now Iraq, recounts thousands of case stories. In a few hundred, lay people make their voices heard in court, using a variety of tactics and arguments when they appear before rabbi-judges. While the Sasanian empire had a legal apparatus, the Jewish population seems to have had self-governing opportunities, with courts of arbitration. This lecture will tell some of these stories, of men and women, some good, some bad, some knowledgeable, some lucky, and explain what purpose these stories serve in an ancient corpus of law. The topics range from disputes over claiming abandoned land, to arguments over inheritance, from tricky divorces, to compensation for assaults, injury, and theft. The stories dramatize how ordinary people navigate the unfamiliar terrain of law courts, as they try to find justice.
Author: Lynn Kaye
Date: 03-23-2025
Location: Columbus Ohio, Jewish Community Center
Primary URL: http://https://meltoncenter.osu.edu/events/stories-court-lay-peoples-power-talmud
Primary URL Description: Listing from the Melton Center for Jewish Studies at the Ohio State University.
Secondary URL: http://https://www.columbusjewishnews.com/news/briefs/annual-feibel-lecture-to-feature-kaye-march-23/article_eb1aa9f6-036e-11f0-99de-6bc1bf8fc6ec.html
Secondary URL Description: Article in local newspaper about the event.

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