Maimonides and the Merchants. Mark R. Cohen

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СКАЧАТЬ the structure of the halakha but embellishes it with some revealing changes in the language. “If residents of an alleyway [mavoi] hold some article of food jointly for commercial purposes [shittuf le-‘inyan seḥora], for example, having bought wine, oil, honey, or the like in partnership [shutafut], they need form no additional token joint ownership [shittuf] for the Sabbath but may rely on their commercial joint ownership [shittuf shel seḥora]. The item in which they are partners [shutafin] must be the same type and contained in one vessel, but if one of them is partner [shutaf] with one person in wine and another in oil, or in oil alone but in two separate vessels, they must prepare an additional jointly owned [shittuf] item for the Sabbath [‘eruv].”

      These alterations do not occur in any earlier reiteration of the Mishnaic ruling, including Alfasi’s a bridgment of the Talmudot occur in any earlier reiteration of the Mishnaic ruling, including Alfasi’s abridgment of the Talmud. Maimonides’ modifications, considerably elaborating on the Mishna, are steeped in significance. They demonstrate his effort to update classical rabbinic law in the light of the commercial realities of his time.

      The rabbinic term for aggregating living units (apartments or whole courtyards) is shittuf, a word that is related to shutafut, “partnership.” Maimonides, who follows the Talmudic commentary and understands the Mishna to refer to the aggregation of multiple courtyards opening onto a common alleyway, infuses the text with the meaning of commercial partnership by adding the word seḥora. He also uses the Hebrew term for commercial partnership, shutafut, to explain how the jointly owned articles of food were acquired. Along the same lines, in his Commentary on the Mishna, Maimonides defines shutaf in ‘Eruvin 6:5 as sharīk, the Arabic term for “partner,” typically applied to commercial or craft partnerships (sharika). To further strengthen the contemporary connotation, he specifies “commercial joint ownership” (shittuf shel seḥora). Finally, he amplifies the Mishna by adding “honey” to the original list, a commodity, in addition to wine and oil, in which, according to the Geniza documents, people in the Mediterranean traded.⁸

      I submit that these are not accidental or incidental modifications of the classical rabbinic text. They illustrate Maimonides’ careful choice of language, adapting an ancient halakha to fit the commercial context of the Islamic world in which he lived, a world in which partnership in business was much more common than in Talmudic times. This update, like the one in the Laws of Gifts for the Poor discussed above, is repeated by the later codifier, Jacob b. Asher (Ṭur Oraḥ Ḥayyim 366). He understood Maimonides’ intention to update the halakha and made it even more explicit: “If a householder is a commercial partner with his neighbors [shutaf ‘im shekhenav bi-sḥora], even if with one person in wine and another in oil, he does not need to create a separate ‘eruv, even if they had not formed the partnership for the sake of an ‘eruv, provided it is all in one vessel.”⁹

      3.4 Commerce and Work on the Intermediate Days of the Festival (Ḥol Ha-mo‘ed)

      An excellent example of how Maimonides builds on Gaonic and Andalusian precedents in an economic matter is to be had by considering the question of work on the intermediate days of a festival (Passover and Sukkot). This issue occupied the attention of the rabbis of the Talmudic period. The Mishna (Mo‘ed Qaṭan 2:4; Mo‘ed Qaṭan 13a in the Talmud) restricts labor on those days to certain types of religious or subsistence economic activity: “It is not permissible to buy houses, slaves, or cattle except for what is needed for the festival, or where the seller has nothing to eat.”

      Characteristically, as this and other statements show, the discussion in the Talmud assumes agricultural work (Mo‘ed Qaṭan 12a–b). Further exemplifying subsistence economic activity, it permits a lender to write a contract of debt if a needy person who lacks food asks for a loan, and it allows copying the scriptural text for phylacteries and other ritual objects and selling them if need be for one’s own livelihood (Mo‘ed Qaṭan 18b–19a). An early post-Talmudic compilation comparing Palestinian and Babylonian customs reports that Palestinian Jews did not work on the intermediate days of the festival (ḥol ha-mo‘ed), whereas those in Babylonia did.¹⁰

       3.4.1 Gaonic Background

      In the increasingly urban setting of early Islamic Iraq, as the Geonim report, most Jews no longer owned land. Archaeology confirms that this was a period of overpopulation in the agricultural lands around the capital of Baghdad and of land flight to the cities.¹¹ R. Naṭronai b. Hilai, Gaon of Sura (ca. 857/58–865/66), presumably reflecting the Babylonian custom just mentioned, extended the permission to work on the intermediate days of the festival to include poor craftsmen who had no choice but to work on those days, even if they had to work in a public place in order to be spotted by potential customers (the question posed to him concerned tailors and sandal makers).¹² Naṭronai also permitted people to engage in trade (seḥora) on the intermediate days of the festival if transacted in the privacy of their houses, since business entails only talking, and he permitted doing business openly, if necessary, to avoid a lost business opportunity. Naṭronaii cites a precedent in the same tractate of the Talmud (Mo‘ed Qaṭan 10b) that allows work on the intermediate days to prevent produce (dates) from going bad, deemed analogous to making a business deal that, if postponed, would entail economic loss—the Talmudic concept of “lost business opportunity,” praqmaṭia ovedet (from Greek pragmateia, “business dealings”) or davar ha-aved.¹³

      Elsewhere, Natronai takes cognizance of the expansion of long-distance trade in the Islamic world. He considers a situation where a caravan departs only twice a year and one of them is scheduled to leave on the intermediate days of the festival. The Gaon expands the Talmudic dispensation about copying religious texts and adds that one may write and send a letter with the caravan to accompany merchandise or to convey instructions to a business associate located in a distant city, in order to avoid financial loss or to protect the well-being of his own family.¹⁴ This allowance has all the earmarks of a concession to Jewish merchants. As the Geniza letters abundantly show, long-distance traders relied heavily upon letters reporting the activities of business associates, the progress of consignments of merchandise, and market fluctuations, and they regularly sent written instructions to partners or agents, instructing them about buying and selling and other matters vital to maximizing profits.¹⁵ One of the constant refrains in the letters of Geniza merchants is the complaint that letters have not arrived, causing anxiety. This is true of Muslim business letters as well.¹⁶

       3.4.2 Andalusian Background

      Merchant labor on the intermediate days of the festival occupies center stage in a fascinating question submitted to the Spanish legist R. Joseph ibn Migash (d. 1141), head of the yeshiva of Lucena, Spain, and teacher of Maimonides’ father. The questioner writes that he had “warned some people not to buy and sell on the [intermediate days of the] festival.” The violators complied by adhering to an even stricter standard, as prescribed by Ibn Migash in his teaching, by refraining from opening their shops or working even to avoid “lost business opportunity” or to meet the basic need for food. “Later,” the questioner writes, “some people arrived from Córdoba and ‘tore down this fence’¹⁷ by permitting buying and selling openly in the marketplaces. When I expressed my astonishment, they deferred in this matter to your excellency, may God exalt you. As a result, God’s name is being profaned in the presence of the Gentiles.”¹⁸

      Ibn Migash praises the questioner for encouraging his own townsmen to go beyond the call of religious duty by suspending their economic activities on the intermediate days of the festival. At the same time, he rules that the outsiders from Córdoba should be permitted to trade if it means avoiding lost business opportunity or hunger. He also categorically denies that he had taught that trade on those days was permissible, even in the absence of the extenuating circumstances spelled out in the Talmud.

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