Sifra

Sifra is the Midrash halakha to the Book of Leviticus. It is frequently quoted in the Talmud and the study of it followed that of the Mishnah. Like Leviticus itself, the midrash is occasionally called Torat Kohanim, and in two passages Sifra debbe Rav.

Authorship
Maimonides, in the introduction to his Yad ha-Ḥazaḳah, and others have declared that the title Sifra debbe Rav indicates Abba Arikha is the author. I.H. Weiss attempts to support this. His proofs are not conclusive, though neither are the opposing arguments of Friedmann, who tries to show that the expression Sifra debbe Rav does not refer to the midrash under discussion.

Malbim wrote in the introduction to his Sifra edition that Hiyya bar Abba was the redactor of the Sifra. There are no less than 39 passages in Jerusalem Talmud and the midrashim in which expositions found also in the Sifra are quoted in the name of Ḥiyya, and the fact that no tannaim after Judah ha-Nasi are mentioned in the Sifra supports the view that the book was composed during the time of that scholar. If Ḥiyya was its author, the title Sifra debbe Rav is to be explained as indicating that Sifra was among the midrashim accepted by his school and which came into general use.

The Present Text
The Sifra was divided, according to an old arrangement, into 9 "dibburim" and 80 "parashiyyot" or smaller sections. As it exists today it is divided into 14 larger sections and again into smaller peraḳim, parashiyyot, and mishnayot. As the commentators point out, it varies frequently from the Sifra which the Talmudic authors knew; furthermore, entire passages known to the authors of the Babylonian Talmud are missing in the present Sifra, and, on the other hand, there are probably passages in the present Sifra which were not known to the Babylonian Talmud.

The Sifra frequently agrees with the Judean rather than with the Babylonian tradition; and Tosefta, Sheḳ. 1:7 likewise agrees with the Sifra. In the few cases where the agreement is with the Babylonian Talmud, it must not be assumed that the text of the Sifra was emended in agreement with the Babylonian Talmud, but that it represents the original version. The Babylonian Talmud, as compared with Yerushalmi, cites Sifra less accurately, sometimes abbreviating and sometimes amplifying it. The Babylonian Talmud occasionally makes use, in reference to the Sifra, of the rule "mi she-shanah zu lo shanah zu" (i.e., the assigning of different parts of one halakah to different authorities), but unnecessarily, since it is possible to harmonize the apparently conflicting sentences and thereby show that they may be assigned to the same authority.

Many errors have crept into the text through the practice of repeating one and the same midrash in similar passages.

Editions
The Sifra is usually still cited according to the Weiss edition of 1862.

The editions of the Sifra are as follows: Venice, 1545; with commentary by RABaD, Constantinople, 1552; with Ḳorban Aharon, Venice, 1609; with the same commentary, Dessau, 1742; with commentary by J.L. Rapoport, Wilna, 1845; with commentary by Judah Jehiel, Lemberg, 1848; with commentary by Malbim (Meir Loeb b. Yehiel Michael), Bucharest, 1860; with commentary by RABaD and Massoret ha-Talmud by I. H. Weiss, Vienna, 1862 (Reprint New York: Om Publishing Company 1946); with commentary by Samson of Sens and notes by MaHRID, Warsaw, 1866. A Latin translation is given in Biagio Ugolini, Thesaurus, xiv.

Other editions include:
 * Sifra d'vei rav. Edited by Meir Friedmann (Meir Ish Shalom). Breslau 1915.
 * Sifra or Torat Kohanim. Edited by Finkelstein, Louis and Morris Lutzki . New York: JTS, 1956. (Facsimile edition of Codex Assemani 66 of the Vatican Library)
 * Sifra on Leviticus I-V. Edited by Louis Finkelstein. New York: JTS 1989–1990.
 * Sifra: An Analytical Translation I-III. Translated by Jacob Neusner. Atlanta: Scholars Press 1988.
 * Sifra on Leviticus, with traditional commentaries and variant readings. Edited by Abraham Shoshanah. Cleveland and Jerusalem 1991 onwards.