Saul Lieberman
Encyclopedia
Saul Lieberman also known as Rabbi Shaul Lieberman or The Gra"sh (Gaon Rabbeinu Shaul), was a rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

 and a scholar of Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

. He served as Professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Jewish Theological Seminary of America
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism, and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies.JTS operates five schools: Albert A...

 (JTSA) for over 40 years, and for many years was head of the Harry Fischel Institute in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 and also president of the American Academy for Jewish Research.

Biography

Born in Motal, near Pinsk
Pinsk
Pinsk , a town in Belarus, in the Polesia region, traversed by the river Pripyat, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers. The region was known as the Marsh of Pinsk. It is a fertile agricultural center. It lies south-west of Minsk. The population is about 130,000...

, Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

 (then Russian empire), he studied at the Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

 Yeshivot of Malch and Slobodka. While studying at the Slobodka Yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...

, 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
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

, continued his studies in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan 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
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...

 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.

In 1940 he was invited both by Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner to teach in the Orthodox Yeshiva Chaim Berlin
Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin
Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin or Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin, is a Haredi Lithuanian-type yeshiva located in Brooklyn, New York. Established in 1904 as Yeshiva Tiferes Bachurim, it is the oldest yeshiva in Kings County...

, and by the JTSA to serve as professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of Palestinian literature and institutions. Lieberman chose the offer by the JTSA. Lieberman's decision was motivated by a desire to "train American Jews to make a commitment to study and observe the mitzvot." {Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox} In Chaim Dalfin’s Conversations with the Rebbe (LA: JEC, 1996), pp. 54–63, Prof. Haim Dimitrovsky relates that when he was newly hired at JTSA, he asked Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn
Menachem Mendel Schneersohn
Menachem Mendel Schneersohn also known as the Tzemach Tzedek was an Orthodox rabbi and the third Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch chasidic movement.-Biography:...

 of Lubavitch whether he should remain in the Seminary, and the response was "as long as Lieberman is there." In 1949 he was appointed dean
Dean (education)
In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...

, and in 1958 rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

, of the Seminary's rabbinical school.

Awards and honours

  • In 1957, Lieberman was awarded the Bialik Prize
    Bialik Prize
    The Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Hayyim Nahman Bialik. There are two separate prizes, one specifically for "Literature", which is in the field of fiction,...

     for Jewish thought.
  • In 1971, he was awarded the Israel Prize
    Israel Prize
    The Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...

     for Jewish Studies.
  • In 1976, he received the Harvey Prize
    Harvey Prize
    The Harvey Prize is awarded by the Technion in Haifa, Israel. It is awarded in different disciplines of Science, Technology, Human Health, and Contributions to Peace in the Middle East. Two awards - each of $75,000 - are given away annually...

     of the Haifa
    Haifa
    Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...

     Technion.


He was an honorary member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language
Academy of the Hebrew Language
The Academy of the Hebrew Language was established by the Israeli government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on the Hebrew language."-History:...

, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

, and a fellow of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
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. It comprises...

.

Work

In 1929 Lieberman published Al ha-Yerushalmi, in which he suggested ways of emending corruptions in the text of the Jerusalem Talmud
Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud, talmud meaning "instruction", "learning", , is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the 2nd-century Mishnah which was compiled in the Land of Israel during the 4th-5th century. The voluminous text is also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud de-Eretz Yisrael...

 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.

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
Tosefta
The Tosefta is a compilation of the Jewish oral law from the period of the Mishnah.-Overview:...

, on which no commentaries had been composed by the earlier authorities and to whose elucidation only few scholars had devoted themselves in later generations.

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 (currently this work is available in two volumes). He also published Tashlum Tosefta, an introductory chapter to the second edition of M. S. Zuckermandel's Tosefta
Tosefta
The Tosefta is a compilation of the Jewish oral law from the period of the Mishnah.-Overview:...

 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 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 1973, ten volumes of the new edition were published, representing the text and the commentaries on the entire orders of Zera'im, Mo'ed and Nashim. Furthermore, in 1988, three volumes were published posthumously on the order of Nezikin, including tractates Bava Kama, Bava Metziah, and Bava Basrah. The entire set was republished in the 1990s in thirteen volumes, and again in 2001 in twelve volumes.

In Sifrei Zuta (1968), Lieberman advanced the view that this halakhic Midrash was in all likelihood finally edited by Bar Kappara in Lydda.

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
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...

 on the Jerusalem Talmud in a similar vein as the Rif
Isaac Alfasi
for other Al-Fasi's see Al-Fasi disambiguationIsaac ben Jacob Alfasi ha-Cohen - also known as the Alfasi or by his Hebrew acronym Rif , was a Talmudist and posek...

 is to the Babylonian 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.

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
Mishneh Torah
The Mishneh Torah subtitled Sefer Yad ha-Hazaka is a code of Jewish religious law authored by Maimonides , one of history's foremost rabbis...

 (vol. 1, 1964), and as an editor of the Judaica series of Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, where he worked closely with Herbert Danby
Herbert Danby
Herbert Danby was an Anglican priest and writer who played a central role in the change of attitudes toward Judaism in the first half of the twentieth century.- Education :...

, 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 by Ramón Martí
Ramón Martí
Ramón Martí was a 13th century Catalan Dominican friar and theologian. He is remembered for his polemic work Pugio Fidei . In 1250 he was one of eight friars appointed to make a study of oriental languages with the purpose of carrying on a mission to Jews and Moors. He worked in Spain as a...

, 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
Jacob Neusner
Jacob Neusner is an American academic scholar of Judaism who lives in Rhinebeck, New York.-Biography:Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Neusner was educated at Harvard University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America , the University of Oxford, and Columbia University.Neusner is often celebrated...

, a leading scholar of the history of rabbinic Judaism, criticized the bulk of Lieberman's work as idiosyncratic
Idiosyncrasy
An idiosyncrasy is an unusual feature of a person . The term is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity. A synonym may be .-Etymology:...

 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. Meir Bar Ilan, Lieberman's nephew, accused Neusner of being biased against Lieberman, due to "a personal issue."

Personal Paradox

Perhaps because he was so deeply involved in the Seminary, Lieberman was often accused (esp. post-mortem) of being on the very right wing of Conservative Judaism. Personally fully observant of Halacha, 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 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.

Marriages

Lieberman was married for several years to the daughter of Laizer Rabinowitz, rabbi of Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...

. After her death, he married Judith Berlin
Judith Lieberman
Judith Lieberman, , wife of Jewish religious scholar Saul Lieberman, daughter of Rabbi Meir Berlin , leader of the Mizrachi...

 (August 14, 1904–1978), who was a daughter of Orthodox Rabbi Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan), leader of the Mizrachi (Religious Zionism)
Mizrachi (Religious Zionism)
The Mizrachi is the name of the religious Zionist organization founded in 1902 in Vilnius at a world conference of religious Zionists called by Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines. Bnei Akiva, which was founded in 1929, is the youth movement associated with Mizrachi...

 movement. Judith Lieberman 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
Shulamith School for Girls
Shulamith School for Girls is a centrist Modern Orthodox Jewish, at one time Middle States accredited school currently located in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, New York, in the building that originally housed...

 in New York, the first Jewish day school for girls in North America. Among her publications were Robert Browning and Hebraism
Hebraism
Hebraism is the identification of a usage, trait, or characteristic of the Hebrew language. By successive extension it is sometimes applied to the Jewish people, their faith, national ideology, or culture.- Idiomatic Hebrew :...

 (1934), and an autobiographical chapter which was included in Thirteen Americans, Their Spiritual Autobiographies (1953), edited by Louis Finkelstein.

The Liebermans had no children.

See also

  • List of Bialik Prize recipients
    Bialik Prize
    The Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Hayyim Nahman Bialik. There are two separate prizes, one specifically for "Literature", which is in the field of fiction,...

  • List of Israel Prize recipients

Sources

  • Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox. Marc B. Shapiro. University of Scranton Press
    University of Scranton Press
    The University of Scranton Press is the university press of the University of Scranton, headquartered on its campus in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The Press published more than 200 books and other publications between 1988 and 2010...

    . 2006. ISBN 1589661230
  • Saul Lieberman: the man and his work / Elijah J. Schochet and Solomon Spiro. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America
    Jewish Theological Seminary of America
    The Jewish Theological Seminary of America is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism, and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies.JTS operates five schools: Albert A...

    , 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
    The Jewish Week
    The Jewish Week is an independent weekly newspaper serving the Jewish community of the metropolitan New York City area. The Jewish Week covers news relating to the Jewish community in NYC and has world-wide distribution.-Editorial staff:...

    May 8, 1997, page 28.
  • Jacob Neusner
    Jacob Neusner
    Jacob Neusner is an American academic scholar of Judaism who lives in Rhinebeck, New York.-Biography:Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Neusner was educated at Harvard University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America , the University of Oxford, and Columbia University.Neusner is often celebrated...

    , 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.

External links

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