Israel Ta-Shma

Ta-Shma was born in Tel Aviv in 1936 to a Religious Zionist family.[1] He attended the Histradut Ha-Haredim elementary school in Tel Aviv from 1942 to 1949 and Yeshivat ha-Yishuv he-Ḥadash, a yeshiva high school in the same city, from 1950 to 1953.[2] From 1954 to 1957 he studied at Hebron Yeshiva in Jerusalem, where he received rabbinic ordination from Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog.[2]

After military service from 1957 to 1959, Ta-Shma studied Talmud and classical studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[2] He earned his bachelor's degree in 1964 and his master's degree in Talmud in 1969, followed by a doctorate at Bar-Ilan University in 1973 under the supervision of Y. D. Gilat.[2] His dissertation examined the life and literary work of Rabbenu Zerahiah ha-Levi and the history of halakhah in twelfth-century Provence; the dissertation catalog record is dated 1974 and lists 178 pages of main text together with a bibliography.[3]

Ta-Shma taught in Bar-Ilan University's Talmud Department before moving to the Hebrew University in 1981.[1] At the Hebrew University, he became a senior lecturer in 1981, associate professor in 1983, and full professor in 1991; he retired from teaching and became professor emeritus in 1999.[2] Alongside his university work, he directed the Institute for Hebrew Manuscript Microfilming in Jerusalem from 1981 to 1999, advancing its photographing and cataloging of manuscripts across numerous fields of Jewish studies.[2] He also served as academic secretary of Mekiẓe Nirdamim, an organization that publishes Jewish scholarship from manuscripts.[1]

His principal research concerned European rabbinic literature and the development of halakhah between 1000 and 1500.[2] Its geographical scope encompassed Ashkenaz, Spain, Provence, Italy, England, and Byzantium, with attention to relationships among different centers and periods.[2] He examined halakhah in connection with literature, custom, religious practice, and everyday life, against the background of contemporary Christian culture.[2] Manuscript research formed the basis of his academic work, bringing unpublished textual evidence into dialogue with printed rabbinic literature.[1][2]

Ta-Shma spent approximately eighteen years with the Hebrew Encyclopedia.[1] He served as secretary and associate editor for Jewish studies.[2] His responsibilities included selecting contributors, adapting their submissions to the encyclopedia's scope, and writing articles when the editorial board could not accept the contributions available to it.[2] He founded Alei Sefer, a journal devoted to Hebrew books, and edited its first ten volumes; he also belonged to the editorial board of Tarbiz from 1992 to 1996.[2] In 1973, he prepared Mordechai Margaliot's posthumous Laws of the Land of Israel from the Genizah for publication from the author's papers; Yehuda Felix supplied the introduction, supplements, and notes to its section on seeds.[4]

His doctoral research developed into R. Zerahiah ha-Levi, Baal ha-Maor, and His Circle, published by Mossad Harav Kook in Jerusalem in 1992.[5] The book studied the history of rabbinic literature in Provence.[5] His other publications included studies of Moses ha-Darshan, early Ashkenazic prayer, and halakhah and custom in Ashkenaz between 1000 and 1350.[1] Ritual, Custom and Reality in Franco-Germany, 1000–1350 appeared through the Magnes Press in Jerusalem in 1996.[6]

In Early Ashkenazic Custom, published by the Magnes Press, Ta-Shma investigated the historical formation of custom, its direct and indirect sources, and its relationship to halakhah.[7] The study considered the influence of the Land of Israel, opposition to custom, and the diversity of customary practices.[7] Nineteen further chapters examined practices in synagogue, festival, and family life, drawing on Talmudic sources and medieval rabbinic literature in both printed and manuscript form.[7] These practices were also compared with the halakhic literature of Spanish academies.[7]

His history of Talmudic commentary in Europe and North Africa systematically surveyed surviving works from North Africa and Spain, France and Ashkenaz, Italy, and Provence through the fourteenth century.[8] The work traced regional chronologies, compared Western and North African–Spanish interpretive schools, and examined Western Europe's transition from oral to written culture.[8] Its catalog record lists three volumes, including sections covering 1000–1200 and 1200–1400.[8] A related article examined the reception of the works of Rif, Rabbenu Hananel, and Halakhot Gedolot in eleventh- and twelfth-century France and Ashkenaz.[9]

In The Revealed in the Hidden: On Halakhic Elements in the Zohar, Ta-Shma isolated halakhic material embedded within the work's predominantly mystical narrative in order to examine its traditions and sources.[2] He concluded that the Zohar, composed in late-thirteenth-century Spain, reflected deep Ashkenazic influence.[2] His research identified a Spanish halakhic setting alongside dependence on French Jewish customs and liturgical rites.[10] His work on prayer also included identifying a French version of Aleinu preserved in a twelfth-century English manuscript, containing a passage about those who “bow to vanity and emptiness” and “pray to a god who cannot save,” followed by bodily terms.[11]

Ta-Shma published more than 150 articles and co-edited numerous collections.[1] His publications included the 1997 essay “Halakhah and Reality—The Tosafist Experience,” while a collection of his articles on medieval rabbinic literature, edited by Y. Hovav, appeared in 2004.[1][12] His Hebrew article “Holy Men Do Not Defile—Law and Ideology” appeared in the first volume of JSIJ in 2002.[13]

Ta-Shma received the Yaakov Herzog Prize in 1964, the Bialik Prize in 2002, and both the Prime Minister's EMET Prize and the Israel Prize for Talmud research in 2003.[1][2] His scholarly contribution extended from studies of individual authors and regional traditions to the manuscript infrastructure supporting Jewish studies research.[2] At the Institute for Hebrew Manuscript Microfilming, his work expanded the photographing and cataloging of manuscripts and strengthened the institute's role as a research resource.[2]

A Jewish Review of Books essay published in Winter 2014 emphasized his importance for understanding minhag, or custom, in premodern Ashkenazic life.[14] It quoted his description of custom's role as being “to guide the individual in all the details and forms of his every day activities,” and argued that inherited communal practices could be accorded authority equal or even superior to law.[14] As an illustration of that authority, the essay recounted a warning tale in which a prayer leader substituted a different liturgical poem for the customary one and died within thirty days.[14] The same essay discussed Ta-Shma's finding that Spanish Kabbalists, under Ashkenazic influence, offered mystical explanations of customs as well as biblical and rabbinic laws, placing this research alongside Franz Rosenzweig's treatment of law and custom.[14]

His scholarship also remained a point of reference in discussions of Talmudic interpretation and Tosafist learning.[12][15] An article in Ḥakirah cited pages 22–25 of the introduction to his 1999 Ha-Sifrut ha-Parshanit la-Talmud as a methodical discussion of the interpreter's tasks, including explaining terms, tracing a sugya's argument, and understanding its conclusions.[15] In another Ḥakirah article, Aryeh Leibowitz reported that Ta-Shma and Ephraim Kanarfogel had presented evidence of German Pietistic influence on the Evreux academy's Tosafot, curriculum, and compositions.[12]

A memorial collection devoted to Professor Israel Moshe Ta-Shma brought together scholarship on prayer, custom, halakhah, book history, and biblical and Talmudic interpretation.[16] Its geographical range included Babylonia, Provence, the Land of Israel, Byzantium, France, and Ashkenaz, reflecting the breadth of the research with which its contributors engaged.[16] The collection's second volume included a bibliography of his work compiled by Pinchas Roth.[16]