Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on November 16, 2014

There's More Than One Way To Become a Rabbinic Sage

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Artists Rendering of Rabbi Tarfons Mind: It was said in the Talmud that the rabbi was a heap of walnuts.

Forward reader David Wexler calls my attention to an article in the October 10 issue of this newspaper about Greg Wall, a saxophone-playing, shofar-blowing, Talmud-teaching rabbi from Norfolk, Connecticut. In addition to being a Talmud khokhem, or smart man, the articles author, Jon Kalish, wrote, Wall knows a mainsail from a jib, having taught at sailing schools in New York and New Jersey.

Whats wrong with this? Two things. To begin with, the Yiddish expression is not Talmud khokhem but talmid kokhem (with the stress on the words first syllables), from the Hebrew talmid akham (with the stress on the last syllables). And second, the expression does not mean a smart man. It means, literally, a pupil [talmid] of a rabbinical scholar [ akham], and it denotes a learned Jew, someone who is such a scholar himself.

Kalish shouldnt be overly blamed for his mistake, because apart from the Talmud/talmid confusion its a common one, sometimes made even by people who know Yiddish or Hebrew, though not Jewish tradition, well. Its an understandable one, too, since if you take Hebrew akham to be an adjective meaning smart or wise, which is what it generally is, talmid akham would translate as a smart [or wise] pupil. However, in this expression akham is not an adjective but a noun, the giveaway being the expressions plural form. If talmid akham meant a wise pupil, the plural would be talmidim akhamim, wise pupils. But in fact its talmidey akhamim, a genitive construction that would normally, in contemporary Hebrew, mean pupils of the wise. Yet in the language of the Talmud and subsequent rabbinic literature, the noun akham, as we have said, most often refers not just to anyone who is wise, but specifically to a rabbinic sage.

The distinction in the Talmud between a rav or rabbi and a akham is one of degrees of knowledge. Although every akham is a rav, not every rav is a akham. Thus, a passage in the tractate of Gittin says that the late second- and early third-century rabbi Isi ben Yehuda ranked the sages [ akhamim] as follows: Rabbi Meir was a sage [ akham] and a Torah scribe. Rabbi Yehuda was a sage when he wished to be. Rabbi Tarfon was a heap of walnuts. Rabbi Yishmael was a store stocked with everything. Rabbi Akiva was a secret treasure. Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri was a peddlers box. Rabbi Elazar ben AzarIiah was a spice box. All these akhamim, in other words, were more than ordinary rabbis, but not all were on the same level. Rabbi Yehuda was not consistently reliable in his opinions; Rabbi Tarfon was not well organized (ask for his opinion on something, and everything tumbled out like a pile of nuts when one is removed); Rabbi Yishmael could answer any question put to him; Rabbi Akiva knew even more but did not easily reveal it, etc.

Originally posted here:

At Least Six Degrees of Wisdom and Nuttiness

Category: Talmud
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