Tzvi Novick
Biographic Data
| ID | 3958118 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tzvi Novick |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tzvi |
| FAMILY NAME | Novick |
| SIGNATURE | NOVICK T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Notre Dame |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8813-1352 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Covenant and Community in Early Rabbinic Literature
This article concerns the role of covenant in early rabbinic literature in relation to biblical and especially Second Temple-era predecessors. The first part establishes that the Qumran sectarians and earlier circles were drawn to the concept of covenant because it represented, especially through the mechanism of covenant renewal, a powerful tool for defining and supporting group identity. The second part shows that for the rabbis, the importance…
The Rabbinic Courtroom Oath in Its Roman Context
In this article the argument is made that the rabbinic courtroom oath reflects the influence of Roman law. Despite substantial differences, the rabbinic courtroom oath, like its Roman counterpart, represents, in part, a product of negotiation between the litigants – owed by one party to another; capable of modification at the parties’ discretion, and even of forgiveness; comparable to the litigant-driven process of judicial selection – and an arb…
Wealth, Poverty, and Charity in Jewish Antiquity
The Faces of Torah
Poverty and Halakhic Agency
The dynamic of charity works to figure the poor as outsider, both to the circle of donors, and, more fundamentally, to the sphere of agency. The current article examines ways in which the halakhic system, as constructed in rabbinic Palestine of the classical period, mitigates this dynamic, both by highlighting aspects of agency at work in the very act of receiving and consuming charity, and, at greater length, by collecting and analyzing cases in…
Let Me Flee for Help . . . Israel as “I” and the Teqi‘ot of Yose ben Yose
The representation of Israel in the first-person singular (as an “I”) occurs sporadically in early liturgical poetry. This article examines the unusually complex use of this technique in the teqi‘ot liturgy of Yose b. Yose. Close analysis of Yose’s teqi‘ot situates his use of the collective first-person singular at the nexus of an array of performative elements, i.e., elements that construct the poems as performances, situated in space and time, …
Like an Expert Sharecropper”
The formulation and application of rabbinic Halakhah often depends on the determination of facts that belong, to one degree or another, to the province of professional experts. The resulting structural tension is analogous to that posed by the prominence of the expert witness in the modern American court, or the active role of private industry in administrative law. This article examines the relationship in the classical rabbinic corpus from Pale…
Between First-Century Apocalyptic and Seventh-Century Liturgy
The relationship between two first- or second-century C.E. Jewish apocalypses, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch , is complex, and remains unresolved. It is well known that elements of both works occur, predicated of Jeremiah, in a singular rabbinic text, Pesiqta Rabbati 26. In this paper, I argue that analysis of the development of the traditions underlying 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch must take more serious account of two pararabbinic texts, a pair of laments by the …
Liturgy and Law
The article considers how Yannai, a liturgical poet of ca. 6th c. CE Byzantine Palestine, integrates legal material into his poems (qedushta'ot). The first and longer part of the article focuses on Yannai's use of rabbinic sources, and in particular, the ways in which he situates the Mishnah in relationship to Scripture. The second part of the article focuses on Yannai's approaches to Pentateuchal readings that center on law
Greenblatt and the Blatt
Greenblatt and the Blatt: New Perspectives on the Nature and Reception of the Bavli Tzvi Novick Barry Scott Wimpfheimer. Narrating the Law: A Poetics of Talmudic Legal Stories. Divinations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Pp. 239. Talya Fishman. Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. “Wh…
Who resembles you? But they resemble you
Yannai, one of the most influential and prolific liturgical poets in Jewish Palestine in the Byzantine period, frequently introduces negative terms to express God's transcendence, especially in his silluq poems. The current article collects and analyses cases in which such celebrations of God's transcendence are checked or qualified by reference to the people of Israel, whom Yannai describes in similarly apophatic terms. I contextualize this theo…
Charity and Reciprocity
In his recent book, Seth Schwartz explores “[t]he tension between egalitarian solidarity and competitive reciprocity” in the late Second Temple period and in rabbinic Judaism. 1 As Schwartz's characterization of reciprocity implies, it stands at odds with egalitarianism because exchange, outside the boundaries of the market, is ordinarily structured by asymmetry, and thus by the hierarchical relationships of patronage and dependence. 2 For Schwar…
What is Good, and What God Demands
Drawing on the tools of philology, linguistics, and ethics, this book exposes a rich array of intersections among competing rhetorics of normativity in the earliest stratum (tannaitic) of rabbinic literature
Tradition and Truth
This article examines aspects of "scholastic" ethics in tannaitic literature, in particular, the notion that one who is engaged in legal discussion should readily admit ignorance, and should concede to the truth. While centering on mAvot 5.7, the article traces developments in the representation of these principles through a wide variety of tannaitic texts
The 'For I Say' Presumption
This essay examines a category of fictional legal presumptions in tannaitic literature signalled by the formula רמוא ינאש, 'for I say'. After establishing the basic features of this category, I demonstrate, through comparison with other 'artificial' uses of the first person in tannaitic law, that 'for I say' presumptions highlight, in particularly dramatic fashion, assertions of agency on the part of tannaitic lawmakers. An appendix addresses the…
Law and Loss
The episode of the wood-gatherer ( ) in Num 15:32–36 is concisely narrated. The Israelites, in the wilderness, catch a man gathering wood on the Sabbath. They convey him to Moses and the congregation, evidently for judgment, but they cannot determine what his fate should be. A watch is therefore set over him until the matter can be clarified. Then God, presumably in response to an inquiry by Moses, informs him that the prisoner is to be stoned. T…
The Borer Court
Crafting Legal Language
Using the insights of neo-Gricean pragmatics, this paper analyzes the phrase four or five, with the meaning "a few," in the Mishnah and the Tosefta. The different usages of the phrase in the two corpora support the view that the Mishnah is a more carefully crafted corpus, and more self-consciously directed toward application, than the Tosefta
Metaphorical Law in Pseudo-Jonathan and the Case for Targumic Midrash
Targum as a literary genre is subject to a unique set of constraints. This article studies how these constraints impact the exegetical practices of the targumim. The data set upon which the study draws is comprised of cases in which Pseudo-Jonathan renders biblical laws both literally and metaphorically. This data set is itself of interest, since such cases have not heretofore been examined as a group
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Metaphorical Law in Pseudo-Jonathan and the Case for Targumic Midrash
Targum as a literary genre is subject to a unique set of constraints. This article studies how these constraints impact the exegetical practices of the targumim. The data set upon which the study draws is comprised of cases in which Pseudo-Jonathan renders biblical laws both literally and metaphorically. This data set is itself of interest, since such cases have not heretofore been examined as a group
Law and Loss
The episode of the wood-gatherer ( ) in Num 15:32–36 is concisely narrated. The Israelites, in the wilderness, catch a man gathering wood on the Sabbath. They convey him to Moses and the congregation, evidently for judgment, but they cannot determine what his fate should be. A watch is therefore set over him until the matter can be clarified. Then God, presumably in response to an inquiry by Moses, informs him that the prisoner is to be stoned. T…
The Borer Court
Crafting Legal Language
Using the insights of neo-Gricean pragmatics, this paper analyzes the phrase four or five, with the meaning "a few," in the Mishnah and the Tosefta. The different usages of the phrase in the two corpora support the view that the Mishnah is a more carefully crafted corpus, and more self-consciously directed toward application, than the Tosefta
What is Good, and What God Demands
Drawing on the tools of philology, linguistics, and ethics, this book exposes a rich array of intersections among competing rhetorics of normativity in the earliest stratum (tannaitic) of rabbinic literature
Tradition and Truth
This article examines aspects of "scholastic" ethics in tannaitic literature, in particular, the notion that one who is engaged in legal discussion should readily admit ignorance, and should concede to the truth. While centering on mAvot 5.7, the article traces developments in the representation of these principles through a wide variety of tannaitic texts
The 'For I Say' Presumption
This essay examines a category of fictional legal presumptions in tannaitic literature signalled by the formula רמוא ינאש, 'for I say'. After establishing the basic features of this category, I demonstrate, through comparison with other 'artificial' uses of the first person in tannaitic law, that 'for I say' presumptions highlight, in particularly dramatic fashion, assertions of agency on the part of tannaitic lawmakers. An appendix addresses the…
Charity and Reciprocity
In his recent book, Seth Schwartz explores “[t]he tension between egalitarian solidarity and competitive reciprocity” in the late Second Temple period and in rabbinic Judaism. 1 As Schwartz's characterization of reciprocity implies, it stands at odds with egalitarianism because exchange, outside the boundaries of the market, is ordinarily structured by asymmetry, and thus by the hierarchical relationships of patronage and dependence. 2 For Schwar…
Who resembles you? But they resemble you
Yannai, one of the most influential and prolific liturgical poets in Jewish Palestine in the Byzantine period, frequently introduces negative terms to express God's transcendence, especially in his silluq poems. The current article collects and analyses cases in which such celebrations of God's transcendence are checked or qualified by reference to the people of Israel, whom Yannai describes in similarly apophatic terms. I contextualize this theo…
Between First-Century Apocalyptic and Seventh-Century Liturgy
The relationship between two first- or second-century C.E. Jewish apocalypses, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch , is complex, and remains unresolved. It is well known that elements of both works occur, predicated of Jeremiah, in a singular rabbinic text, Pesiqta Rabbati 26. In this paper, I argue that analysis of the development of the traditions underlying 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch must take more serious account of two pararabbinic texts, a pair of laments by the …
Liturgy and Law
The article considers how Yannai, a liturgical poet of ca. 6th c. CE Byzantine Palestine, integrates legal material into his poems (qedushta'ot). The first and longer part of the article focuses on Yannai's use of rabbinic sources, and in particular, the ways in which he situates the Mishnah in relationship to Scripture. The second part of the article focuses on Yannai's approaches to Pentateuchal readings that center on law
Greenblatt and the Blatt
Greenblatt and the Blatt: New Perspectives on the Nature and Reception of the Bavli Tzvi Novick Barry Scott Wimpfheimer. Narrating the Law: A Poetics of Talmudic Legal Stories. Divinations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Pp. 239. Talya Fishman. Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures. Jewish Culture and Contexts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. “Wh…
Poverty and Halakhic Agency
The dynamic of charity works to figure the poor as outsider, both to the circle of donors, and, more fundamentally, to the sphere of agency. The current article examines ways in which the halakhic system, as constructed in rabbinic Palestine of the classical period, mitigates this dynamic, both by highlighting aspects of agency at work in the very act of receiving and consuming charity, and, at greater length, by collecting and analyzing cases in…
Let Me Flee for Help . . . Israel as “I” and the Teqi‘ot of Yose ben Yose
The representation of Israel in the first-person singular (as an “I”) occurs sporadically in early liturgical poetry. This article examines the unusually complex use of this technique in the teqi‘ot liturgy of Yose b. Yose. Close analysis of Yose’s teqi‘ot situates his use of the collective first-person singular at the nexus of an array of performative elements, i.e., elements that construct the poems as performances, situated in space and time, …
Like an Expert Sharecropper”
The formulation and application of rabbinic Halakhah often depends on the determination of facts that belong, to one degree or another, to the province of professional experts. The resulting structural tension is analogous to that posed by the prominence of the expert witness in the modern American court, or the active role of private industry in administrative law. This article examines the relationship in the classical rabbinic corpus from Pale…
The Faces of Torah
The Rabbinic Courtroom Oath in Its Roman Context
In this article the argument is made that the rabbinic courtroom oath reflects the influence of Roman law. Despite substantial differences, the rabbinic courtroom oath, like its Roman counterpart, represents, in part, a product of negotiation between the litigants – owed by one party to another; capable of modification at the parties’ discretion, and even of forgiveness; comparable to the litigant-driven process of judicial selection – and an arb…
Wealth, Poverty, and Charity in Jewish Antiquity
Covenant and Community in Early Rabbinic Literature
This article concerns the role of covenant in early rabbinic literature in relation to biblical and especially Second Temple-era predecessors. The first part establishes that the Qumran sectarians and earlier circles were drawn to the concept of covenant because it represented, especially through the mechanism of covenant renewal, a powerful tool for defining and supporting group identity. The second part shows that for the rabbis, the importance…
Philosophy (15 works) · Law (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (11 works) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Theology (10 works) · History (9 works) · Art (7 works) · Judaism (7 works)