Introduction
This anonymous document appears as an addendum to a manuscript containing a halakhic compilation from the final third of the 17th century, written in the Reggio area. A closer look at how this compilation was created and edited – surviving in several versions that reflect different stages of development – could shed light on broader questions concerning rabbinic culture and shifting intellectual paradigms. It also connects to several of the innovative elements in this specific text. Although that broader inquiry lies beyond the scope of this discussion, I suggest that the text was likely authored by the compiler of the manuscript’s main halakhic collection, probably R. Immanuel Sonnino (d. 1707), a schoolteacher (melamed tinokot) in Reggio. The manuscript in which this ruling appears is likely the earliest version of the compilation, dating from the 1660s–1680s.
The text addresses the consumption of cheese produced by non-Jews – a practice observed among Italian Jews despite rabbinic prohibitions. Since the medieval period, Italian Jewish communities were known for their relative leniency on this issue, a fact often cited when authorities sought to impose more stringent rulings. The present text reflects another such attempt, with the author seeking to reinforce it through additional halakhic support.
This document reflects more than a typical case of rabbinic intervention in popular leniency. Although it appears at first (and perhaps even second) glance to be a classic halakhic discussion, a closer reading reveals that the author draws on recently developed intellectual paradigms and practical tools designed to navigate halakhic uncertainty – particularly the proliferation of disagreements among post-Talmudic authorities – and to facilitate legal determination. These simplified methods, which had emerged only a few years earlier, result in avoiding complex Talmudic argumentation in favor of more accessible reasoning and standardized principles.
This shift raises broader questions about the simplification and standardization of halakhic discourse, its implications, and the possibilities such paradigms enable. Especially pertinent in our case is how these tools affect rabbinic authority and who is positioned to use them. How did the abstraction of legal argument affect who could participate in halakhic discourse? How did the “neutralization” of discourse help overcome entrenched customs? And what does this reveal about the evolving dynamics of rabbinic and communal authority?
This text also highlights the links between these intellectual arenas and the contexts of food and its cultural weight. What made food so symbolically and institutionally charged, and why did it emerge as a key arena for negotiating religious norms and authority in early modern Jewish communities? And further: what are the possibilities – and limits – of the reasoning and methods employed here to defuse the cultural tensions surrounding food and foodways?
Suggested further reading:
David Malkiel, “Gentile Wine and Italian Exceptionalism,” Journal of Jewish Studies 68 (2017): 346–368.
Michela Andreatta, “The Taste of Conviviality: A Poem on Food by Leon Modena,” Jewish Quarterly Review 105, no. 4 (2015): 456–481.