Tosefta

The Routledge Dictionary of Judaism

(Hebrew: “supplement”) A Rabbinic supplement to, commentary on, and amplification of the MISHNAH. Compiled at the beginning of the fourth century C.E., the Tosefta, like the Mishnah, contains material presumably preserved from the preceding centuries. But since the Tosefta is understood within the circles of traditional Judaism to contain materials excluded from the Mishnah itself, it does not have a significant place in the determination of Jewish law. Within classical Judaism, it accordingly has been the least studied legal document of early Rabbinic Judaism.

Four times larger than the document it amplifies, the Tosefta is wholly depending upon the Mishnah for its rhetoric, topical program, and logic of coherent discourse. It has no structure of its own but most commonly cites and glosses a passage of the Mishnah, not differentiating its forms and wording of sentences from those of the cited passage. Only seldom—for somewhat under a sixth of the whole of its vol-ume—does the Tosefta present a statement that may be interpreted entirely independently of the Mishnah’s counterpart (if any). The Tosefta covers nearly the whole of the Mishnah’s program but has none of its own.

While the Tosefta serves as the Mishnah’s first commentary, first amplification, and first extension, this does not mean it is a very accessible document.

The opposite is the case, and the reason derives from the Tosefta’s very character as a document of mediation, expansion, and extension of another piece of writing. The Tosefta makes sense only in relationship to the Mishnah. That is so not only for its program and order, which are defined by the Mishnah, but also for its individual compositions. Each completed unit of thought of the Tosefta is to be understood in relationship with the Mishnah: is it a citation of and commentary to the Mishnah passage that forms its counterpart? Is the passage fully to be comprehended on its own or only in relationship to a counterpart passage of the Mishnah? Or is the passage freestanding? The answers to these three questions define the first step in making any sense at all of a passage of the Tosefta.

The Tosefta stands, almost in its entirety, within the circle of the Mishnah’s interests, only rarely asking questions about topics omitted altogether by the Mishnah’s authors, always following the topical decisions on what to discuss as laid down by the founders of the whole. One cannot write about the Tosefta’s theology or law as though these constitute a system susceptible of description and interpretation independent of the Mishnah’s system. At the same time, the exegetes of the Mishnah, in the Tosefta, and in the two Talmuds, stand apart from, and later than, the authors of the Mishnah itself. Accordingly, the exegetes systematically say whatever they wish to say by attaching their ideas to a document earlier than their own, and by making the principal document say what they wish to contribute. The system of expressing ideas through reframing those of predecessors preserves the continuity of tradition and establishes a deep stability and order upon the culture framed by that tradition.