Between an oral sermon and a written commentary: A consideration of rabbi joseph ben shoshan's polemic in his avot commentary

Rabbi Joseph ben Shoshan lived in fourteenth-century Toledo. His Hebrew commentary to tractate Avot has rarely been studied, but there is solid evidence for it stemming, at least in part, from oral sermons. This paper identifi es the evidence, analyzes it, and focuses specifi cally on several of his polemics with the "wouldbe philosophers". This term refers to the antinomian neo-Platonists, whose stance threatened not only the leadership and authority of the Jewish community, but its very existence. The article employs a multi-disciplinary interpretation of the text -linguistic, literary and ideological- situating it in its historical context.