Association for Jewish studies 2004-28(2)

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Front Matter Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004) Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131520 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

VOLUME28, NUMBER 2

NOVEMBER,2004

REV

IE

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AJS THE

JOURNAL

OF

THE

ASSOCIATION

FOR

JEWISH

STUDIES

AJS Review ASSOCIATION

FOR JEWISH

STUDIES

NEW YORK, NEW YORK EDITORS Hillel J. Kieval, WashingtonUniversityin St. Louis MartinS. Jaffee, Universityof Washington,Seattle EDITORIAL BOARD

Michael Alexander,Universityof Oklahoma YaakovElman,YeshivaUniversity TalyaFishman,Universityof Pennsylvania Susan Niditch, AmherstCollege Derek Penslar,Universityof Toronto ChavaWeissler,Lehigh University EDITOR BOOKREVIEW JeffreyRubenstein,New YorkUniversity MANAGING EDITOR

SarahMassey The AJS Review (ISSN 0364-0094) is publishedtwice annually by the Association for Jewish Studies Manuscriptsfor considerationshould be sent to AJS Review c/o Prof. Hillel J. Kieval, WashingtonUniversityin St. Louis, Busch Hall 15, Box 1121, One BrookingsDrive, St. Louis, MO. 63130. Books for review shouldbe sent to Prof. JeffreyRubenstein,New YorkUniversity,53 WashingtonSquareSouth, Room 100, New York,NY 10012. ? 2004 by the Association for Jewish Studies Publishing, Subscription, andAdvertising Offices: CambridgeUniversityPress, 40 West 20th Street,New York,NY 10011, U.S.A.; or CambridgeUniversityPress, The Edinburgh Building, ShaftesburyRoad,CambridgeCB2 2RU, England. Annual subscriptionrates for Volume 29, 2005: Institutionsprint and online ?75/$119; institutions online only ?63/$99; institutions print only ?68/$105; single part ?36/$56, payablein advanceor on receipt of invoice; institutionalcheck or creditcard only. Special ratesexist for membersof the Association for Jewish Studies;membershipinformationcan be found at http://www.brandeis.edu/ajs. AJSReviewand all otherCambridgeJournalscan be found at http://journals.cambridge.org/ Photocopying Information (for users in the U.S.A.): The Item-Fee Code for this publication (0364-0094/04 $12.00) indicates that copying for internal or personal use beyond thatpermittedby Sec. 107 or 108 of the U.S. CopyrightLaw is authorizedfor users duly registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) TransactionalReporting Service, providedthat the appropriateremittanceof $12.00 per article is paid directlyto: CCC, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers,MA 01923. U.S.A. Specific writtenpermissionmust be obtained for all other copying; contact the nearest CambridgeUniversity Press office. Postmaster:Send address changes in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico to: AJSReview, JournalsDept., CambridgeUniversityPress, 100 BrookHill Drive,WestNyack, NY 109942113, U.S.A. Sendaddresschangeselsewhereto:AJSReview,JournalsDept.,CambridgeUniversityPress,The EdinburghBuilding,ShaftesburyRoad,CambridgeCB2 2RU,England.

AJS

Review

THE JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR JEWISH STUDIES

NOVEMBER2004

VOLUME28, NUMBER2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Hillel J. Kieval and Martin S. Jaffee A Word from the Editors....................

...........................................

............................215

ARTICLES

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern The Masterof an Evil Name: Hillel BaCalShem and His Sefer ha-heshek .................217 Rachel Feldhay Brenner The Artist as a Motherand the Birth of TerribleBeauty in the Post-HolocaustWorld: RuthAlmog's TheInnerLake........................................249 William Kolbrener "Chiseledfrom all Sides":Hermeneuticsand Dispute in the RabbinicTradition..........273 Natan Margalit PriestlyMen and InvisibleWomen:Male Appropriationof the Feminineand the Exemptionof Womenfrom PositiveTime-BoundCommandments.............................297 Sharon Faye Koren KabbalisticPhysiology: Isaac the Blind, Nahmanides,and Moses de Leon on .................317 Menstruation ........................................ ......................................... REVIEW ESSAY

James T. Robinson Three Recent Books on IsaacAbarbanel/Abravanel (1437-1508/9) ...........................341 BOOKREVIEWS BIBLICAL STUDIES

Robert T. Anderson and Terry Giles. TheKeepers:An Introductionto the History and Cultureof the Samaritans REINHARD PLUMMER ...................................................

......................

351

RABBINIC PERIOD

Judith R. Baskin. MidrashicWomen:Formationsof the Femininein RabbinicLiterature GARYG. PORTON ..............................................................352 Michael L. Satlow. Jewish Marriage in Antiquity TALILAN....................................................... Alexander Samely. TheRabbinicInterpretationof Scripturein Mishnah MICHAEL CHERNICK .............................................356

....354

MEDIEVAL

Josef W. Meri. The Cult of SaintsAmongMuslimsand Jews in MedievalSyria HARVEYE. GOLDBERG......................................

.................360

..............

James Arthur Diamond. Maimonidesand the Hermeneuticsof Concealment: Deciphering Scriptureand Midrashin The Guide of the Perplexed Menachem Lorberbaum. Politics and the Limitsof Law: Secularizingthe Political in MedievalJewish Thought ALFREDIVRY........................ ..... .................................. ................ ....... 361 Jose Luis Lacave. MedievalKetubotfrom Sefarad YOSEF RIVLIN ...................................

..... .............................364

Lawrence Fine. Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos:Isaac Luria and His KabbalisticFellowship SH AUL MAGID

367

............................................................................................................

Susan L. Einbinder. BeautifulDeath: Jewish Poetryand Martyrdomin Medieval France SHMUEL SHEPKARU..............................

.................

................

371

MODERN

David Rechter. TheJews of Viennaand the First WorldWar Marsha L. Rozenblit. ReconstructingNational Identity:TheJews of HabsburgAustria During WorldWarI HARRIETPASSFRIEDENREICH .. ..................... 373 .......................................

Yosef Salmon. Religion and Zionism:First Encounters JODYMYERS .................................................................................376

Ruth Gay. SafeAmong The Germans:LiberatedJews After WorldWarTwo Zeev Mankowitz. Life Between Memoryand Hope: TheSurvivorsof the Holocaust in Occupied Germany G. DANIELCOHEN.................................................................

....................378

Alexander B. Rossino. Hitler StrikesPoland: Blitzkrieg,Ideology, andAtrocity DAVIDENGEL ..................................

...........

.....

...............

.....................381

Haim Hazan. SimulatedDreams: Israeli Youthand VirtualZionism 383

TAMAR RAPOPORT.....................................................

Esther Schely-Newman. Our Lives are but Stories: Narrativesof Tunisian-Israeli Women SUSAN SERED ............................................................

.................

Lois C. Dubin. ThePort Jews of HabsburgTrieste: AbsolutistPolitics and EnlightenmentCulture JAYR. BERKOVITZ .................... ..................................................................................

386

387

Michael L. Morgan. BeyondAuschwitz:Post-HolocaustJewish Thoughtin America MARTINKAVKA ................................................................

.....................391

Aaron L. Mackler. Introductionto Jewish and CatholicBioethics: A Comparative Analysis Louis E. NEWMAN.....................................

..............

....................394

Burke O. Long. Imaginingthe Holy Land:Maps, Models, and Fantasy Travels Rehav Rubin ...................................................395 Ruth Katz. "TheLachmannProblem":An Unsung Chapterin Comparative Musicology David M. Schiller. Bloch, Schoenberg& Bernstein:AssimilatingJewish Music Marsha Bryan Edelman. DiscoveringJewish Music M. COHEN................................................. JUDAH ................

398

Itzik N. Gottesman. Defining the YiddishNation: TheJewish Folkloristsof Poland KENFRIEDEN .......................................................................403 Leslie Stein. TheHope Fulfilled: TheRise of ModernIsrael ERANKAPLAN .........................405 ......................... ..... Shimon Redlich. TogetherandApart in Brzezany:Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, 1919-1945. Rosa Lehman. SymbiosisandAmbivalence:Poles and Jews in a Small Galician Town RACHEL MANEKIN..................................... ................... ................ Zafrira Lidovsky Cohen. Loosen the Fettersof thy Tongue,Woman:ThePoetry and Poetics ofYona Wallach ALICIA OSTRIKER ........................................... ...................410 HEBREW ARTICLE

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406

A Word from the Editors Author(s): Hillel J. Kieval and Martin S. Jaffee Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), p. 215 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131521 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review 28:2 (2004), 215-216

A WORD FROM THE EDITORS Withthis issue, we launchourjoint editorshipof the AJS Review.It is therefore an appropriatemomentto sharewith our readersour hopes and expectations for the intellectualdirectionof thejournal.Some of what follows has alreadybeen articulatedin a statement published in the AJS Perspectives (Spring/Summer, 2003) shortly after we assumed our tasks. We feel it bears repeatinghere for the sake of those who may not have seen the originalarticle. Webelieve thatwe have inheriteda healthyand importantjournalin the field of Jewish Studies, which, like the AJS itself, has made every effort to reflect the diversity of scholarshippracticedamong its members.We hope that the journal will continue to attractcontributionsfrom the various disciplinaryperspectives broughtto bearin the Academyon the materialsof Jewishhistory and culture.We look forward,moreover,to receiving submissions from colleagues with interests in Jewish Studies thatmight not have been representedbefore, as well as from individuals beyond the field of Jewish Studies who might now find in ourjournal food for thoughtwith regardto their own areasof study. Given the above-mentionedgoals, we recognize that we have staked out a specifically interdisciplinaryframeworkas the guiding principleof thejournal. In has long been this, of course, there is nothing revolutionary."Interdisciplinarity" a buzzwordof the Academy. So let us try here to clarify what interdisciplinarity might mean in the pages of the AJS Review. First, we encourage submissions in traditionalfields of Jewish inquirythat employ and contributeto a varietyof disciplinaryparadigmswithin the humanitiesand social sciences. Thus, for example, sociologists should feel free to be sociologists ratherthan anthropologists;but we will look for sociological work that is framed in such a way as to invite inquiry from other disciplinaryperspectives.We will also, however,value explicit efforts to integratea varietyof disciplines into a single project.Second,we are interested in researchthatexpandsthe frameworkof Jewish Studiesinto new areas,or broadens the awarenessof datarelevantto the study of the Jewish experiencein its various contexts and social settings. In view of our interdisciplinaryconcerns, we also hope to be attentiveto emerging debates and discussions that are currentlyknown to specialists, but which deserve broaderattentionbecause of their implications for other areas of Jewish Studies scholarship.Accordingly,we hope from time to time to devote entire issues of the journal to introducingkey argumentsand lines of researchthat are changingthe shape of their fields and have the potentialto reshapediscourses in other fields as well. In conclusion, we look forwardto this opportunityto stimulate and help shape one of the truly distinguishedacademictraditionsof the modernUniversity-the study of Jewish civilization in all of its historical,geographical,and culturalbreadth. HJK and MSJ 215

The Master of an Evil Name: Hillel Ba'al Shem and His "Sefer ḥa-heshek" Author(s): Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 217-248 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131522 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review 28:2 (2004), 217-248

THE MASTER OFAN EVIL NAME: HILLEL BACALSHEMAND HIS SEFER HA-IHESHEK

by Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern

I. INTRODUCTION:THE MANUSCRIPT

Back in 1993, as senior librarianat the VernadskyLibraryin Kiev, Ukraine, in chargeof cataloguinga newly uncoveredJudaicacollection, I came acrossan enigmatic manuscriptentitledSefer ha-heshek.It did not matchthe bulk of the Judaica holdings.' Nor did it fit in Abraham Harkavy'scollection of medieval manuscripts.2It was too Ashkenazic for AbrahamFirkovich'sKaraitepapers,3and too

I am gratefulto ArthurGreen and JonathanSarna,who have readpreviousdraftsof this paper and generouslysharedwith me theircriticism.I am especially gratefulto Ze'ev Gries and Moshe Rosman, whose invaluablecommentshelped me to improvethe final draft. 1. On the fascinatingfate and composition of this collection, see ZacharyBaker,"Historyof the Jewish Collections at the VernadskyLibraryin Kiev,"Shofar 10 no. 4 (1992): 31-48; Binyamin Lukin, "Archiveof the Historicaland EthnographicSociety. History and PresentCondition,"Jews in Eastern Europe, 1 no. 20 (Jerusalem, 1993): 45-61; YohananPetrovsky,"Zapisnyeknigi evreiskikh obshchestv na Ukraine. Iz arkhivaA. Ia. Garkavi,"Novyi Krug 2 (Kiev, 1992): 274-288; Nikolai Senchenko and Irina Sergeeva, "Jewish Scholarly Institutionsand LibraryCollections in Kiev after 1917: A Brief HistoricalSketch,"SovietJewishAffairs2 (1991): 45-50; Mykola Senchenkoand Iryna Serheeva,"Zistorii formuvanniakolektsiievreiskoiiliteraturyTsentral'noiNaukovoiBibliotekyim. Vernads'kohoAkademiiNaukURSR,"Svit. ChasopysNarodnohoRukhuUkrainy2-3 (1991): 64-67. The only in-depthdescriptionof the collection, togetherwith a preliminarylist of some two hundred manuscripts,is given in Dov Walfish, "'Osef ha-sefarimve-kitvei ha-yad be-sifriyat vernadskybekiev,"Mada'ei ha-yahadut34 (1994): 68-86. 2. AbrahamHarkavy(Abram lakovlevich Garkavi, 1835-1919), the founder of Russian Judaica and Hebraica,was in chargeof the Departmentof OrientalManuscriptsat the St. PetersburgImperialLibrary,responsiblefor cataloguingandacquisitions.A followerof Wissenschaftdes Judentums, Harkavyoverlookedkabbalisticworks,concentratingchiefly on Spanish-Jewishliteratureof the Golden Age. On Harkavy'smanuscriptcollection, see YohananPetrovsky,"The Lost Chapterof Russian Judaica:AbrahamHarkavy'sMSS in The VernadskyLibrarycollection,"Jews and Slavs 5 (Jerusalem: HebrewUniversity,1996), 157-168. 3. AbrahamFirkovich(1786-1874), a Karaitecommunalleader,traveler,sui generis historian of Karaismand authorof the most well-knownninteenth-centurymanuscriptforgeries,amasseda significant collection of Genizah fragmentsand Karaitemanuscripts,which he sold shortly before his deathto the St. PetersburgImperialLibrary.See V L. Vikhnovich,KaraimAvraamFirkovich:evreiskie rukopisi,istoriia,puteshestviia (St. Petersburg:"Peterburgskoevostokovedenie,"1997).

217

YohananPetrovsky-Shtern early for most of S. Ansky's nineteenth-centuryfolkloric materials.4The manuscripthad a wooden cover, separatefrom the text, with a copper monogramSefer ha-heshekin Hebrew (hereafter-SH). SH's title appearsrandomlyas a running head; the authoroccasionally refers to the title of the manuscript.5Primarilybecause of its size-411 folios, 23 of them blank, some 760 filled pages altogether-and due to its magical contents, I discarded any attempts to identify the manuscriptas a version of the well-known Sefer ha-heshek,a twenty-or-so-page kabbalistic treatise on the names of the archangel Metatronattributedto Isaac Luria.6Also, since the manuscriptis not a commentaryon the book of Isaiah or Proverbs,it could neitherbe Solomon Duran'snor Solomon ha-Levi'sHeshekshelomoh.7 The manuscriptis stronglyreminiscentof a lost Yiddish book on practical Kabbalahand folk medicine entitled Sefer heshek, apparentlywritten at the beginning of the eighteenth centuryby the doctor Wolf Binyamin ben Zevi Hirsch from Posen, who studiedmedicineat the Universityof Frankfurtam Oderandpurportedlypublishedhis composition in 1727 in Hanau.8Like the Hanaubook, the newly discoveredSH drewheavily frompopularKabbalahand folk medicine.Yet, unlike the Hanauone, it was Hebrew,notYiddish;it claimed a differentauthorship (not Wolf Binyamin);it was composed in East Europeand not in Germany;and it seemed much more complex than its Hanau prototype.In addition,nobody has seen the Hanaubook since the early eighteenthcentury,9if indeed it ever existed as a book. Shatzky,who himself never saw the HanauSH, which is not listed eitherin the Friedberg,Benjacob,orVinogradcatalogues,reconstructedits contents throughobliquereferencesto its sourcesmentionedin Steinschneider,who did not see the book either.Thoughit is possible thatthe newly discoveredSH in terms of its title and genre is somehow relatedto the lost Yiddishmedical tractate,the com4. SemionAnsky (ShloymeZanvlRapoport,1863-1920), a Russian-JewishandYiddishwriter, populist,Kulturtreger,and ethnographer,amassed severalhundredJudaicamanuscriptsduringhis expeditionto the Pale of Jewish Settlementin Russia between 1911 and 1914. OnAnsky'sexpeditionand the materialshe collected, see V Lukin,"Otnarodnichestvak narodu(S. A. Ansky-etnografvostochnoevropeiskogo evreistva),"in Trudypo iudaike: istoriia i etnografiia 3, ed. Dmitrii Eliashevich (St. Petersburg:Peterburgskiievreiskii universitet, 1993), 125-161; Aleksandr Kantsedikas and Irina Sergeeva,Albomkhudozhestvennoistariny SemionaAn-skogo(Moscow and Jerusalem:Mosty kul'tury-Gesharim,2001); Rivka Gonen, ed., Ba-hazarahla-'ayarah.Ansky ve-ha-mishlahatha-etnografit ha-yehudit 1912-1914 (Jerusalem: Museon Israel, 1994); Avram Rekhtman, Yidisheetnografie un folklor: zikhroynesvegn der etnografisherekspeditsie,angefirtfun Sh. Ansky(Buenos-Aires:Yidishe wisnshaftlekherinstitut, 1958). See also the forthcomingcollection of articles Between TwoWorlds: Anskyand Russian-JewishCulture,ed. GabriellaSafranand Steven Zipperstein(Stanford:Stanford UniversityPress, 2005). 5. VernadskyNational Libraryof Ukraine,OrientaliaDepartment,JudaicaManuscriptcollection, Sefer ha-heshek,[OR. 178], f. 14b, 18b-19a, 28b-29a. 6. 1 used the Lemberg reprint(1865) of the first Yizhak Meir Epshtein edition (Jerusalem, 1865). Because of the size of the manuscriptI also ruledout the possibilityof identifyingSH as Yohanan Aliman'sSefer sha'ar ha-heshek(Livorno, 1690). 7. Firstpublicationcorrespondingly-Venice, 1588, and Saloniki, 1600. 8. Jacob Shatzky,"Seferheshek:a farfalnrefu'oh-bukhin yiddish fun 18tnyorhundertun zayn mekhaber,"YIVOBleter 4 (1932): 223-235. 9. Ibid., 223.

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The Masterof an Evil Name parisonbetween an unknownmanuscriptand an unseen book will hardlybe helpful. This SH is an in quarto manuscriptwrittenon a plain paperwithout watermarks.It has a leatherspine and no back cover.The worn, greasy edges of the paper signify thatthe manuscripthad been not only in use, but in intensive use. The author'sconsistentyet awkwardearly-eighteenth-century Ashkenazicsemicursive different from the rabbinic script, script,' along with his occasioncontemporary al Hebrewmisspellings, is telling. " Apparently,he was not a learnedrabbiandnot a rabbinicalscholar (talmid hakham), although he had access to an amazingly broadgamutof books both knownand unknownto us. The name of the authorHillel Ba'al Shem-appears throughoutthe manuscript.12The dates scatteredin the text did not go beyond 1739 or 1740. Accordingto the qualityof the paper,the ink, and the script,SH was writtenmost likely ca. 1740-1741, since at thattime a regularconsumerpurchasedpaperin orderto use it, not stock it, and the last date mentioned in SH is 1739/1740. The manuscriptis complete. It opens with the words "Andthese are 32 rules against 32 paths of wisdom""3and ends with the words "these are the words of Hillel."14Hillel wrote mostly in Hebrew,rarelyin Yiddish, inserting clumsy Slavic (Polish and Ukrainian)incantations,which he transliteratedin Hebrewcharacters.In addition,Hillel illuminatedhis manuscript with some ninety drawingsof kabbalisticamulets and anthropomorphicand traditionalJewishsymbols, as well as diagrams,tables,and series of magical signs.'5 Some of them were copies from contemporarybooks on practicalKabbalahalreadypublished,whereasotherswere unique.16 10. Forthe mid-eighteenth-centurycalligraphy,see the facsimile reproductionfrom the manuscriptwrittenby one of the colleagues of the Besht: Dov Baermi-Mezrich,Magid devaravle-yaakov, ed. AvrahamYizhak Kahn (Jerusalem:Yeshivattoldot aharon, 1971), 6 (unpaginated).See also later eighteenth-centurycalligraphyin the YehoshuaMondshinefaximile edition of the Habadcopy of "In Praise of the Besht"by Dov Baer ben Samuelof Linits:Shivheiha-besht:faksimil mi-ktavha-yad hayehidi ha-noda' lanu ve-shinuyeinushavleumat nusah ha-defus: be-zerufve-nispahim(Jerusalem:Y. Mondshine,1982). Cf. handwrittenlate-eighteenth-centurydocumentsandlettersby LevyYizhakfrom Berdichev in Kedushatlevy ha-shalem (Jerusalem:Zeev Derbarimdiker,1978), 576, 578, 580 (unpaginated);the handwrittencommentaryon the Zohar (parashatShelah) by Vilna Gaon, in Yeshayahu Vinograd,'Ozarsifrei hagr "a (Jerusalem:KerenEliyahu,2003), 357. 11. AlthoughSH was writtenby one and the same person, it containeda numberof pages by a differenthand.Apparently,the authorcommissioned them to a professionalTorahscroll scribe; see f. 239b-251a. 12. SH, f. lb, 162b, 206a, 216b, 329a, 355b, 389a. 13. SH, f. lb. Hillel is using a popularkabbalisticmetaphorof 32 paths of wisdom that dates back to Sefer Yezirah1:1, Zohar, "Terumah,"106; Pardes rimonim,sha'ar 12: 2. It was also known to the kabbalistsof hug ha- iyun, see MarkVerman,TheBooks of Contemplation:MedievalJewish Mystical Sources (Albany: State Universityof New YorkPress, 1992), 45 n. 43, 52, 71 n. 103, 75 n. 122, 152. 14. Apparentlya concluding talmudiccliche [ad kan divrei Hillel]. SH, f. 389a. 15. See, for example,SH, f. 17b, 18a,34b, 35a, 37b-38a, 47b, 85b, 89a, 96a, 112a- 113b, 156b, 204b-205b. The most amazingare the anthropomorphicamuletsthat establishthe links between kabbalistic abbreviationsand members of the humanbody; see f. 215b and 217b. The amulets and diagrams that appearin SH as well as the linguistic strategiesof Hillel will be discussed elsewhere. 16. Forthe comprehensivelist of the Judaicamuletsthat includes the list of specific kabbalis-

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern Moshe Rosman, who saw SH (and encouragedme to write this essay) has dubbedit "themost extensiveexpositionof ba'al shem techniquesand experiences that I know of."17It is common knowledge that ba'al shem stands for "masterof the Names of God," or, as Gershon Hundert suggested, "Manipulatorsof the Name,"18 and signifies a Jewish magicianor healer,engaged in practicalKabbalah and able to use his mystical knowledge and theurgicalpowers to produceprotecting amulets that neutralize evil and restore psychological and social order among the healer'sclientele.19The term became particularlypopularafter Israel ben Eliezer (ca. 1700-1760) adoptedthe name of Ba'al Shem Tov (the Besht), the Master of a Good Name, and eventuallycame to be seen as the founderof modem Hasidism.A numberof books illustratingpracticesof ba'alei shem were published before and afterSH was written,yet SH exceeds all of them in terms of the 20 historical,social, cultural,andtheologicaldatait contains. Moreastonishingwas tic abbreviations,see Eli Davis and David Frenkel, Ha-kameya' ha-'ivri (Jerusalem: Makhon lemada'ei ha-yahadut,1995). 17. Moshe Rosman, Founderof Hasidism:A Questfor Historical Bacal Shem Tov(Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1996), 217-218 n. 19. 18. GershonDavid Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuaniain the EighteenthCentury:A Genealogy of Modernity(Berkeley and Los Angeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 2004), 142. 19. Forthe analysisof intellectualandtheological aspectsof ba'alei shem, see ImmanuelEtkes, "Magiyahu-vaCaleishem be-yamav shel ha-besht,"in Bacal ha-shem: ha-besht-magiyah, mistikah, hanhagah (Jerusalem:MerkazZalman Shazar,2000), 15-53; idem, "Mekomamshel ha-magiyahuva alei ha-shem ba-hevrahha-ashkenazitbe-mifneh ha-me'ot ha-yud-zayin-ha-yud-het," Zion 60 (1995): 69-104. Forthe analysis of the genre of the books ascribedto variousba'alei shem, see Hagit Matras,"Sifrei segulot u-refu'ot be-civrit:tekhanimu-mekorotal pi ha-sefarimha-rishonimasher yazu la-'orbe-'eropahbe-reshitha-me'ahha-18" (Ph.D. diss., HebrewUniversityof Jerusalem,1997); GedalyahNigal focused on the folkloric aspect of the writings by ba'alei shem in his Magic, Mysticism, and Hasidism (Northvale,NJ and London:J. Aronson, 1994); Michal Oron analyzedthe sabbatean context of one of the most prominent ba'alei shem in her "Dr. Samuel Falk and the Eibeschuetz-EmdenControversy,"in Mysticism,Magic and Kabbalahin AshkenaziJudaism:International Symposiumheld in FrankfurtA.M. 1991, ed. Karl Grrzingerand Joseph Dan (Berlin and New York:Walterde Gruyter,1995), 242-256. Oronalso publishedimportantdocumentson and of the BaSalShem fromLondon.These include letters,descriptionof theirbooks, ethical wills, and diaries. See Michal Oron,Mi- "bacalshed" le- "ba'alshem: "shmuelfalk, "ha-ba'alshem mi-london"(Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2002). Ze'ev Gries contextualizedpopularKabbalahbooks writtenby East European ba'alei shem integratingthem into the genre of regimenvitae (conduct)literaturethatregulateseveryday behavioralpatterns,prescribesattitudesand remedies, and establishes links betweenthe tradition and popularcustoms. Gries also connectedthe popularizationof practicalKabbalahwith the rise of interest in hermeneuticstudies and medicine triggeredby the Florentinerenaissanceneoplatonicacademy. See Ze'ev Gries, Sifrutha-hanhagot:toldotehau-mekomahbe-hayei hasidei r.yisra el ba'al shem tov (Jerusalem:Mosad Bialik, 1990). For the most convincing socioculturaltypology of the ba'alei shem in the context of social anthropology,see Rosman,FounderofHasidism, 13-19. Forthe recent standardsummaryof the ba'alei shem and the books they produced,see Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania, 142-153. Cf.: EncyclopediaJudaica (Jerusalem: Encyclopedia Judaica, 1972), s.v. "Bacalei shem"; JoshuaTrachtenberg,Jewish Magic and Superstition:A Study in Folk Religion (ClevelandPhiladelphia:Jewish PublicationSociety, 1939). 20. Cf.: Razi'el ha-mal 'akh (Amsterdam,1701), Shem tov katan (Sulzbach, 1706), Sefer kar1709), MifWalot'elokim (Z6tkiew, 1710, 1724 and 1725), Toldot'adam (Z6lkiew, nayim (SZ6kiew, 1720), Keren'or (Z6lkiew, 1721), Zevahpesah (Z6tkiew,1722), Divrei hakhamim(Z6tkiew,1725). For the pioneering analysis of the genre of practical Kabbalahbooks, see Hagit Matras,"Sifrei segulot

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The Master of an Evil Name thatHillel Ba'al Shem, unlike otherba'alei shem knownto date, coincided in time and space with the Besht: they traveledthroughcontiguousareas(Hillel in Volhynia and the Besht in Podol), and sometimes almostthe same areas(Rovno district in Podol), and did so almost at the same time. Thus, the portrayalof Hillel Ba'al Shem against the backdropof early-eighteenth-centuryEast Europeanitinerant healers, the comparisonand the differentiationbetween the kabbalisticpractices of Hillel Ba'al Shem and those of the Ba'al Shem Tov,and a discussion of the relationsbetweenHillel andhis own clientele arein order.Methodologically,this paper representsa slow readingof this eighteenth-centuryKabbalahmanuscriptfrom the vantagepoint of the history of culturewith special emphasison the behavioral patternsof a ba'al shem vis-a-vis a Jewish community.This paper echoes the recent appeals to "reconsiderthe meaning of the ba'al shem traditionin the developmentof early Hasidism"21and to reassess such pivotal facets of the premodern East Europeanculturalhistory as its popularkabbalisticsubculture.22 II. HILLEL'S CURRICULUM VITAE SH, our only source on Hillel, is a complex document.In it, first and foremost, Hillel is tryingto demonstratehis expertisein practicalKabbalah.He spends hundredsof pages discussing how to use holy names (shemot ha-kedushah)and impurenames (shemot ha-tum'ah)in orderto stop epidemics (14a, 20a); treat a sick child (23b); preventepilepsy, dizziness, craziness, headache, and night fear (24a-b, 159b, 279b); treat fever, wounds, pollution, diarrhea,insomnia and bad smell from the mouth (117a, 145b, 254a, 255b, 260a-b, 295a,); expel evil forces from the house (31b, 296b-297b); protecta feeding (32a-b, 267a); cure a barren woman(166a, 178a-b), regulatemenstruation(168b- 169a,262b-264b) andheartbeating (274b-275a, 278a); preventevil forces from harminga newly born child (270a);keep healthydietarylaws (107b); stop girls' hairfromgrowing(145b); protect an individual and his habitatfrom an evil eye (156b, 293b, 385b), thieves (174a-b), fire (188b), bandits(293b), Lilith (329b); identify a thief throughtalking to a homunculusin a bottle (163a-164a); and other things indispensablein u-refuotbe-civrit"(Ph.D.diss.,HebrewUniversity,Jerusalem,1997) andHavivaPedaya,"Le-hitpathuto shel ha-degemha-hevrati-dati-kalkali ba-hasidut:ha-pidyon,ha-havurah,veha-caliyahle-regel,"in Dat ve-kalkalah:yahasei gomlin, ed. MenahemBen-Sasson (Jerusalem:ZalmanShazar,1995), 311- 373. Most recentdiscoveriescorroboratethe fact thatSH occupies a unique place among seventeenth-and eighteenth-centuryEast Europeanwritings on practicalKabbalah.Thus, for instance, in 1996, Moshe Rosenfeld from Jerusalem(the authorof a numberof book catalogueson early Hebrewprint)briefly introduced me to an untitled manuscript apparentlywritten by the ba'al shem from Tomashpol (Ukraine).The size of the manuscriptdid not exceed 80 pages. Its content to some extent resembled the content of SH. However,unlike the often used SH, the clean white paperand the overall physical conditionof that manuscript(especially edges and cornersof the pages), testified to its rareuse by the owner or its readers.In addition,the amountof practicalKabbalahinformationincludedin the manuscriptof the ba'al shem fromTomashpolfalls short in comparisonwith SH. 21. KarlGrrzinger,"TsadikandBa'al Shem in EastEuropeanHasidism,"Polin 15 (2002): 162. 22. Moshe Rosman, "A Prolegomenonto the Study of Jewish CulturalHistory,"JSIJ (Jewish Studies, an InternetJournal) [Bar-IlanUniversity] 1 (2002): 126. See http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/JSIJ/ 1-2002/Rosman.pdf (accessed 11/7/04).

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Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern practicallife. Also, Hillel shows his profoundknowledgeof chiromancyandmetoposcopy (70b-73a, 200b-201a); exorcism (192b, 197a-198b); witchcraft(194a197b);originsof evil (302b-3 10a);levitation(312a); andhoroscopy(247b-251 a). Provinghe is a pious and observantJew,Hillel demonstrateshis knowledgeof major kabbalisticconcepts, which he consistentlytries to connect to variousJewish practices such as daily prayer(168b), confessional prayer(169b), healing prayer (347b-348a), bed-time prayer(369b-370a), philanthropy(150a), family purity (174a-b), observing Shabbatlaws (305a), celebratingsecondaryholidays such as Hanukah(247b-250a), giving oaths (314b) and Torahstudy (181a, 184b, 186a187b). Particularlysignificant is that in SH Hillel provides-though not abundantly and not consistently-the details of his life, his career and its ups and downs, his modusoperandi,his connectionsto the worldof rabbisand doctors,his attitudesto colleagues, his feedback to the popularizationof Kabbalahand kabbalistic bookprint,his personalmodus vivendi, and the attitudeof his contemporariestowardhim. What follows is a tentativereconstructionof Hillel's life based on data scatteredthroughoutthe manuscript. Slavic wordsin his lexicon23as well as Yiddishpermeatedwith Slavicisms24 would suggest thatperhapsthe authorof SH was bornin Easternor CentralPoland. Since he startedto be active as a practicalkabbalistand a healeraroundthe 1730s, I assume he was either five to ten years older or youngerthan the Besht, born ca. 1700, or was of his age and was bornmost likely between 1690 and 1705. SH contains no referenceto his birthplaceor to the name of his father.Given Hillel's attemptto tell his own life story and demonstratehis masteryof kabbalisticarts,his reticencein regardto his origins is noteworthy.PerhapsHillel was tryingto, as Oscar Wilde put it, "revealthe artand conceal the artist."Apparently,Hillel had good reasons to do this. Perhapsat the end of the 1720s and in the early 1730s, when he began his careeras a professionalhealer,magician, and Kabbalist,Hillel called himself the Ba'al Shem,the Masterof Name (I doubthe neededthe name,indicativeof his profession, before that time). Apparentlyhe came from a lower-middle-classPolishJewish family unable to provide him with full-time rabbinic education. Unlike the famous Jewish doctor and kabbalistTobiasha-Cohen(ca. 1652-1729)25 and the scions of prominentPolish Jewish families,26Hillel did not study medicine at 23. He refersto Slavic, mostly to Ukrainianand Polish, to describeherbs(polnytablan,7a; majevy borsch, 9a; krapiva, 147a; gorchitsa, 182a), birds or reptiles (voroni, 22b; piavke, 147b; zozuli, 204a). He also uses lengthy Polish-Ukrainianincantationstranscribedin Hebrew letters, see 362a364b. See, for instance,the following incantationin Polish (I retainHebrew spelling): Zive boze, pomozni,pomohi ten ohon ohniski i otruski,od silaiu, od glovi, ochi i od beloho kosti, od chervonikrev (Living God, [my Helper],help [to take out] that poisoning fire of fires, out of [his/her] strength,out of [his/her] head, out of [his/her] eyes and white bones, 368a-369a). 24. See his Yiddishamuletsand "dialogues"with the dybbuks,166a-168b, 139b-241a, 349a-b. 25. See AbrahamLevinson, Tuvyahha-rofe've-sifro 'macasehtuvyah'(Berlin: Rimon, 1924). 26. See "LekarzeZydowscy w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej,"in Zydzi w Polsce odrodzonej:dziatalnoki spoleczna,gospodarscza,odwiatowai kulturalna,ed. IgnaciusSchiperet al., 2 vols. (Warsaw: "Zydziw Polsce odrodzonej,"1932-33), 2:289-303.

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The Masterof an Evil Name the University of Padua or in one of the German universities.Yet, avid for the knowledge of medicine, he apprenticed with various professional doctors in Poland.Among his teachersHillel refersonce to Dr. Simhah,27twice to the great sage and doctorRabbiYadakovZilon [Zahalon],28and more than a dozen times to Isaac Fortis,"the great Rabbiand a great sage in all the countriesof Poland."29 AbrahamIsaac Fortis (dubbed also Hazak), a professional doctor from an Italianand Polish family of doctorsand rabbis,probablystudiedat the University of Mantua.30He also spent some time learningKabbalahunderthe famousMoshe Zakut(1620-1697).31 He returnedto Polandin the last decade of the seventeenth century,settled first in Lw6w and later in Rzesz6w, and establishedhimself as a court doctor to two of the five wealthiest Polish noble families, Lubomirskiand Potocki. Between 1726 and 1730 he held a position of the highest prestige when electedparnas at the Councilof the FourLands.32Hillel claimed he had learntunder Fortis,consulted his books and manuscripts,and copied Fortis'samulets and remedies.33He learnedfromFortisrules of hygiene, bothpersonalandpublic,particularlyimportantin the context of the late 1730s epidemic of cholera in Podo27. SimhahMenahemben YohananBarukhde Yona(knownas Emanuelde Jona, d. 1702)-a court doctor of the king Jan III Sobieski. Between 1664 and 1668, he studiedmedicine at the University of Padua,lived in Z61kiewand Lw6w, and helped to solve communaldisputes.He was accused of allegedly poisoning Jan III, but was found not guilty. His name, as well as remedies and amulets ascribed to him, are mentioned in a numberof practicalKabbalahbooks, including Ma'aseh tuvyah, Toldot'adam,Mif'alot 'elokimand Zevahpesah. See, for example, Mif alot 'elokim, simanim 9, 51, 52, 169, 297, 337, 346, 410, and 416. On Dr. Simhah,see Salomon Buber,Kiryahnisgavah (Cracow, 1903), 76; Schiper, Zydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej,298-299; Natan Mikhael Gelber, "Toldotyehudei Natan MikhaelGelberand IsraelBen-Shem (Jeruzolkiv,"in Seferzolkiv [Z•lkiew]: kiryahnisgavah, salem; enziklopediyahshel galuyot, 1969), 43-45. 28. Most probablyDr. Ya'akovZahalon, a Jewish physician and rabbi from Rome, graduate from the University of Rome, and the authorof an importantseventeenth-centurypopular Hebrew "handbookfor medical treatment"'Ozarha-hayim(Venice, 1683). On Zahalon,see David Ruderman, Science, Medicine,and Jewish Culturein EarlyModernEurope.Spiegel Lecturesin EuropeanJewish History (TelAviv:Tel Aviv University,1987), 9, 15, and the bibliographyhe assembledon p. 28 n. 20; idem, "Medicineand Scientific Thought:The Worldof Tobias Cohen,"in TheJews of Early Modern Venice,ed. Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid (Baltimoreand London:Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 194-98; idem, Jewish Thoughtand Scientific Discovery in Early ModernEurope(New Haven and London:Yale UniversityPress, 1995), 232-235 and bibliographyon p. 232 n. 10. Significantly,"Dr.YaCakov Zahalon],is also mentionedin Zevahpesah [3b]. Forthe referencesto Zevahpesah I used the only extantcopy of this book at the rarebook Judaicadivision of New YorkPublicLibrary. I am gratefulto Dr. LeonardGold for his assistance. 29. SH, f. 12b, 13b, 25a, 46a, 183b.Hillel says, for example:segulah mi-rofemumhehha-nikra ha-ravr.yizhakfortis, 46a; od kibaltimin rofe hazak, 183b. 30. Moshe Rosman, TheLord'Jews:Magnate-Jewishrelationsin the Polish-LithuanianCommonwealthduring the Eighteenth Century(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press for Harvard UkrainianResearch Institute, 1990), 148 and bibliographyhe assembled in n. 20; Schiper, Zydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej,299-300. 31. See EncyclopediaJudaica, s.v. "I[srael]Ha[lpern]." 32. Ibid. 33. Hillel was not uniquein the reverentattitudeto Fortis.Forotherreferencesto Fortis'sremedies and amulets, see Mif ~alot'elokim,siman 379; Toldot'adam,siman 101.

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern lia.34Medicalreferencesin SH, which exceed medicalreferencesin books by other ba'alei shem, substantiateHillel's claim that he was an expert healer.35 Hillel seems to be familiarnot only with kabbalistictexts and manuscripts but also with the pietistic rites of the kabbalists,perhapseven with Italiankabbalists.36While describingtikkunleyl shabbat,a midnightpietistic liturgycanonized by Lurianickabbalists,he mentions it as part of "the customs of my friends in Venice and Prague"and urgesothersto follow it.37However,unlikethe case of his medical contacts,he mentionsno names of his friends-in-Kabbalah. This is yet anothermysteriouspatternof Hillel's writings. It appearsas if he wantedto conceal theirnames.The 1720s were the years of a fierce battleagainstcrypto-sabbateans from Altona to Pragueand Z61kiew.38As a numberof scholarshave demonstrated, sometimesit was not feasibleto drawthe line separatingregularkabbalistsfrom Was Hillel hinting at his proximityto the sublime mystical crypto-sabbateans.39 34. Recommendationson public hygiene appearin SH on f. 13a-15b, 20a-22b. See the story aboutthe 1654 (in fact, 1656-see Ruderman,Jewish Thoughtand ScientificDiscovery,232) epidemic in Rome which Hillel ascribedto Fortis,SH, f. 12b. Some primaryknowledgeof medical Latin,which Hillel demonstrates,may also have come from Fortis. 35. Forexample, when Hillel discusses differentways of preparingamuletsor herbalremedies to treatmelancholy(marahshehorah)he says thathe learnedthis is from "professionaldoctors in the countryof Poland,"6a-b; when he explains what should be done to a sick person,he recommendsenema with milk and sugarand makes a double referenceto Doctor Simhahand DoctorZilon [Zahalon], 23b; he claims he learnedfrom Doctor Fortishow to protecthumanbody fromevil spirits,25a; he says that Doctor Zalnik (?) taught him what measuresto take in orderto completely recover after having drunka poison (sam mavet), 108a. 36. In the second half of the seventeenthcentury,Italybecame a paramountEuropeancenterof Kabbalahlearning.It suffices to mention Moshe Zakutand his circle. For an analysis of ItalianKabbalah, see Moshe Idel, "MajorCurrentsin Italian Kabbalahbetween 1560-1660," Italia Judaica II (1986): 243-262; RobertBonfil, Rabbisand Jewish Communitiesin Renaissance Italy (Oxford University Press for the LittmanLibrary,1990), 280-298; idem., "Changein the CulturalPatternsof a Jewish Society in Crisis;ItalianJewryat the close of the sixteenthcentury,"JewishHistory2-3 (1988): 11-30; Moshe Halamish,"cOdle-toldot ha-pulmusal ha-kabalahbe-Italiyahbe-reshitha-me'ahha17,"Peterburgskiievreiskii universitet,9 vol. 3 (1986): 101-106. 37. SH, f. 187a.The questionof whetherHillel was in directcontactwith Italian(Venician)kabbalists must be left open due to the thin evidence. 38. ElishevaCarlebach,ThePursuitofHeresy: RabbiMoshe Hagiz and the SabbatianControversies (New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1990), 172-185; Gelber,"Toldotyehudei zolkiv,"96104; Geshom Scholem.SabbataiSevi: TheMysticalMessiah,1626-1676 (Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1973), 78-85; Moshe Arie Perlmuter,Ha-ravyehonatan eybeschuezve-yahasole-shabta'ut (Jerusalem:Schocken PublishingHouse, 1947), 26-29, 42-49; YehudaLiebes, "Ketavimhadashim be-kabalahshabta'itmi-hugo shel r. yehonataneybeschuez,"in JerusalemStudies in Jewish Thought, ed. Yosef Dan (Jerusalem:HebrewUniversityof Jerusalem,1986), 141-349. Fora broadercontext of the crypto-Sabbateanism,see MortimerJ. Cohen, Jacob Emden:a man of controversy(Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1937) and JacobSchacter,"Historyand Memoryof Self: the Autobiographyof Rabbi Jacob Emden,"in Jewish Historyand Jewish Memory:Essays in Honor ofYosefHayimYerushalmi, ed. ElishevaCarlebachet al. (Waltham,MA: BrandeisUniversityPress, 1998),428-452. A useful summary is to be found in Michal Galas, "Sabbateanismin the Seventeenth-CenturyPolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth:A Review of Sources,"in TheSabbatianMovementand Its Aftermath:Messianism, Sabbatianismand Frankism,ed. RachelElior(Jerusalem:The Instituteof Jewish Studies,HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem,2001), 2:51-63. 39. Carlebach,Pursuitof Heresy, 11, 171-172.

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The Masterof an Evil Name knowledgewhile simultaneouslyhiding his personalrelationswith those who balanced on the brinkof heresy? Be this as it may, before Hillel became a practicing ba'al shem, he traveledthroughBohemia, Romania,and Bukovina.He claims to have visited Tiraspol,40Vissa,41and Rozhnu.42He recollects his sporadicmeetings with an anonymouskabbalistfrom Rozhnu and claims he studiedthe manuscriptsof a certainEfraim,a renownedpreacher(maggidmesharim)andprominent kabbalistfromVissa (Bessarabia).43 Hirshfrom MezeHillel was lucky to landunderthe wings of his tutor, the head of the rabrich (MiqdzyrzecPodliaski).44RabbiZevi Hirsch (d. 1724), Z.evi binicalcourtin Mezerich,could boastan impressivepedigreeandlearning.He was the son of R. Alexanderand the grandsonof Zevi Hirsch,the head of the rabbinic court in the same locality, who is mentionedin seventeenth-centuryresponseand who himself is the authorof the volume of responsaTorathayim(Lublin,1708 and 1724); R. Zevi Hirsch was also the son-in-law of Rabbi Mordekhay,the head of the rabbiniccourt in Brisk (Brest of Lithuania)and the fatherof Mordekhayand Avishal,who eventuallybecame rabbisof Lissa andFrankfurt,respectively.45Hillel assertsthathe spenta certainperiodof time underZevi Hirschcopyinghis manuscripts, talking to him, and learning from him the secrets of amulets and holy names.46Hillel's assertionis revealingfrom two perspectives.First,even if he did not mention how long he stayed in Mezerich,the mere fact that he studiedunder such an authorityas Zevi Hirsch-in additionto Fortis-testifies to his thorough 40. Southeastfrom Jassy (Bessarabia),nowadaysin Moldova, 188b. 41. Jassy District (Bessarabia),now in Moldova, 189a. 42. Bukovina,now in Ukraine, 189a. 43. Perhapsthe travelsof Hillel BacalShem were partof a largerphenomenonof Jewish wandererssalientamong East EuropeanJews in the late-seventeenth-century and first half of the eighteenth of Jews in Lithuaniathat the council Gries to the records of references Ze'ev century. brings important specified types of beggars and vagabondswho were a burdenfor the Jewish communities in eastern Poland(Pinkas medinatlita, p. 33 sect. 130, p. 38 sect. 164, p. 53 sect. 250; p. 76 sect. 378; p. 133 sect. 559; p. 144 sect. 596). Depicting itinerantJews, Gries includes in his list regularbeggarsas well as sabbateanand hasidic preachersand "prophets,"regularvagabondteachers,fundraisersfor EretsYisrael, preachersof penitence (rebukers,mokhihim),and exorcists. See his review essay of Marc Saperstein, Jewish Preaching 1200-1800, An Anthology(New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1989), in TheJournal ofJewish Thoughtand Philosophy4 no. 1 (1994): 113-122, esp. 117-119. 44. Hillel identifies him as ha-rav ha-gadol he-hasid ha-mefursamu-mekubalkavod moreynu ve-rabeinuzevi hirsh ben ha-rayvha-gadol moreynuha-rayvavram hu avrahamav bet din be kehillah kedoshah mezirich be-medinatpodlasye ha-samukhbrisk de-lita ve-kehillah kedoshah tiktin ve-hu hatanmi-ravha-gadol de-briskkavod moreynuha-rayvmordekhay.Hillel claims thatRabbiZevi Hirsch was the highest authorityin both revealedand esoteric law in the whole Podlasiearea.In addition,Hillel refersto him as often as to Fortis.See, for example, SH, f 63b, 107a, 174a, 358a-b. Hillel is accurate even in the way he refers to R. Zevi Hirsch'sfather,R. Abraham,the authorof Torathayim:the latter signed his endorsementof 'Olat yizhak (Frankfurta/Main, 1692) with the following formula: avram hu avraham.See Meir Edelboym, Di yidn-shtot Mezrich (Buenos-Aires: Mezricher-lanslaytfaraynin Argentina,1957), 295. 45. For the discussion of R. Zevi Hirsch(Junior,Hillel's mentor)pedigree, see Edelboym,Di yidn-shtotArgentina,294-297. 46. Hillel repeatedlycites his learningunderRabbiZevi Hirsh:"AndI stayedwith him and in my thirstI drankthe wordsof the greatRabbiuntil I understoodlittle by little the smallerface [of God] (mi-z'eyr"anpin)of his sacredwritings and copied them."SH, f. 118a.

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern preparationfor his career.Second, Hillel's claim that he had copied amulets and remedies from Zevi Hirsch implies that practicalKabbalahhad alreadybecome part and parcel of general Jewish culture-even prominentrabbiswere engaged in it, to say nothing of itineranthealers, well-established doctors, and ba'alei shem.47 Thus, with medicaland kabbalisticexperiencesgained underFortisandZevi Hirsch, in the 1730s Hillel took to the road. FromMezerich he moved to Podolia andVolynia,and,at the end of the 1730s, to Lithuania.48It was in Galicia andVolhynia thathe startedhis careerof a ba'al shem. In 1731 he performedan exorcism in the town of Shinove(Pol.: Sieniawa,nearPrzemys'l).49Between 1731 and 1733 he was active as ba'al shem in Olik (Olyka), and in 1733 he came to Ostrah(Ostr6g) and laterto Tutchin.50 During his trip to the north,Hillel came to Shklov.51 In 1739 he reachedKeidan.52Apparently,at that time he was marriedand had at least two daughters.53Between 1739 and 1741 he moved westward,headingprobably to Posen (Poznani),where he startedwriting his manuscript,which, he believed, would change his life for the better.54 BAcALSHEMANDTHEJEWISHCOMMUNITY III. HILLEL The beginning of Hillel's careerwas promising. He visited importantJewish communitiesin Volyniaand Podoliaandwas commissionedas bacalshem. His success in Ostrah,the third place he visited in his itinerary,was pivotal. In the 1730s, Ostrahwas an importantprivatePolishtown. It boasteda huge Polishpalace and fortress,one of the busiest annual fairs in Poland,a beautiful,big sixteenthcentury,fortress-shapedsynagogue, more than 20 smallersynagogues and prayer houses, and illustriousrabbis, some of them descendantsof the disciples of Maharal(RabbiYehudahL6we ben Bezalel of Prague, 1525-1609).55 Hillel came to 47. Thus SH provides additionalsupportto the argumentthatby the 1720s Kabbalahcaptured minds of East EuropeanJews, see Etkes, Bacal ha-shem, chap. 1; Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania, chap. 6; Rosman, Founderof Hasidism, chap. 1. On the spreadof practicalKabbalahin East Europe see Ze'ev Gries's"He-catakatve-hadpasatsifrei kabbalahke-makorle-limudah,"Mahanayim6 (1994): 204-211. 48. SH, f. 35b, 125a-127a. 49. Galicia/Red Ruthenia,now in EasternPoland. 50. All three localities were in the same Rovno districtof Podolia and some of them were repeatedlymentionedin the stories about Bacal Shem Tov collected in Shivheiha-besht. See, for example, stories nos. 26, 59 and 67 for Ostrah(Ostrog)and 204 for Olyka. 51. SH, f. 209b. 52. SH, f. 35b; Pol.: Kiejdany,near Kovno, Lithuania. 53. See Hillel's complaintsof his bad luck in the family context, SH, f. 74b. 54. This assumptionis based on Hillel's attemptsto please GermanJews (yehudei Ashkenaz) at the expense of Polish Jews (yehudeiPolin). Hillel refersto the formeras to his potentialreadersand, he hopes, his futureemployers:"AsI have observedin differentcommunitiesin Poland,Podol, andVolhyn, they [the Jews] prayin theirhouses of learning(batei midrash)in such a loose way,thatonly some of them will go to Paradise.It is because of that [loose prayer]thatthe Redemptionis not coming. However, I praise the [Jews in the] countriesof Ashkenaz, let them see the Redemption!"SH, f 80a. 55. YitzhakAlperowitz and Hayyim Finkel, eds., Sefer ostrah, volin: mazevetzikaronle-kehilah kedoshah(TelAviv: 'Irgunyozei ostrahbe-yisra'el, 1987), 37-38, 58-59.

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The Masterof an Evil Name the town of Ostrahand stayed at the home of the rabbiof the kloyz,who was the son of the chief rabbiof the town. EitherHillel could not prove his pedigree and learningand was not allowed into the kloyz, an elitist prayerhouse of East European kabbalists,or the kloyzdid not fit Hillel's immediateinterests.56At any rate, Hillel spent two or three days in a special room of the local bet midrash.Indeed, he learnedthattherewas an incidentin the community-a womanhad an evil spirit (dybbuk)who refused to leave her body-and he waited until the elders of the city commissionedhim to performthe exorcism.Apparently,therewas some consternationamong the elders, who were eitherreluctantto rely on the powers of an itinerantba'al shem or mistrustedHillel personally,or both.This is how Hillel describes the episode: Oneeveningtheevil spirit[ruah]sentforthehonorable man,theformerbeadle [shamash]of the Rabbi,a greathasidandthe KabbalistNaftaliKohen himthathe shouldimmediThespiritinstructed Zedek,of blessedmemory.57 "He Shem,whohadjustcometo theircommunity. atelyfindRebHillelBaCal [RebHillelBaCal Shem]willputanendto mydayswiththehelpof holynames in thesynagogue.Hemightbe ableto finda kindof remedyforme."Andthat man[thebeadle]didnotwantto listento thespiritandstartedto talkin public. Later,thedemontoldthebeadlefromthebodyof thewoman:"Ifyoudo notgo to theBaCal Shem,youwillbe sorry,forit will definitelybe toolate."58 From this episode one may learn, first, that Hillel was not a famous bacal shem. Second,he did his best to provehe was well known-if not among local Jews, than at least among the otherworldlyinhabitants.Hillel used the dybbuk,a representative of the evil powers,to establishhis reputation.Third,local dwellerstreatedHillel harshly despite his desire to help them.59They mistrustedHillel and in all likelihood mocked him in public-hence the reluctanceof the beadle to resortto Hillel's help. The case Hillel encounteredin Ostrahwas not an easy one.60The confes56. In connectionto the individualmystics activebefore the Ba'al ShemTov,Hundertmentions that "[i]n some towns, there were groups of Hasidim who prayed separatelyin their own kloyzen ("prayerrooms"),or study halls, and were thoughtto benefit the communitythat supportedthem by their special ties to Heaven."See Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania,120 and referenceshe brings in n. 5. The importanceof the kloyz (and not bet midrash)as the center of study of East Europeankabbalists before the Besht has been in the focus of JosephWeiss's fundamentalessay, "A Circle of Pneumatics in Pre-Hasidism,"in Studies in East EuropeanJewish Mysticismand Hasidism (London and Portland:The LittmanLibraryof Jewish Civilization, 1997), 27-42. 57. To some extent the details providedin the text corroboratethe veracity of the whole story. The late Naftali Cohen Zedek, mentioned by Hillel Ba al Shem, was most likely Rabbi Naftali ben Yizhak Kaz, the head of the rabbinicalcourt and the chief rabbiof the province.After Ostrahhe held the position of a chief rabbiin Posen and Frankfurtam Main. He passed away in Turkeywhile traveling to the Landof Israel. See Sefer ostrah, 38. 58. SH, 126a. 59. Hillel thus describesthe treatmenthe receivedin Ostrah:"Theybroughtme [by force] from the ritualbath before the morningprayer,""they opened their mouths againstme.. ." SH, f. 126a-b. 60. My analysis of the socio-psychological reality of exorcism is based on the methodology

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Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern sion obtained from the woman/dybbukunderthe threatof excommunicationrevealed that a certainJew took a non-Jewishconcubine and had childrenwith her. For unknownreasons he was later involved in a murdercase. Jews tried to arrest and prosecutehim but he convertedto Greek Orthodoxy(be-'emunatyavan) and circumventedpunishment.Finally,he died a terribledeath. Since he was possibly not buriedproperly(a posthumouspunishmentfor a criminaland an apostate),after severalyears he apparentlybecame an evil spirit(ruah). He settled in a tree in Ostrah,not far from the town's big synagogue, waiting for a victim.61Once on Shabbat,when a pregnantwoman was sitting underthe tree inhabitedby the spirit, the latterenteredher body throughherrighteye, thusbecoming a dybbuk.62She lost sight in thateye. The same night the dybbuktorturedthe woman'shusbanduntil he died. Soon the womangave birthto a babygirl. Althoughthe girl was healthy, the dybbukspentsome seven yearswithinthe woman'sbody,growing strongerand causing her bitter sufferingsuntil she became completely blind. At this point the communitydecided to search for a remedy. Furtherdetails of the story make us think that Hillel uses "evil spirit"(he avoids the word "dybbuk")as a substitutefor the issues of promiscuityand heterodoxy.A certainwoman from Ostrahhad intimaterelationswith a convertoutside her wedlock. Her lover killed her Jewish husband but did not harm the daughter.Blindnesswas eithermetaphorical(she was the only one who did not understandthe resultsof her sickness) or real, inflicted by the harshtreatmentof the Jewish woman by the convert. Perhapsthe implicationsof heterodoxymade Hillel subsequentlytransferthe exorcismto outsidethe centerof the town.63The proxelaboratedby MarionGibson in "Witchcrafttrials-how to read them"and "Deconstructinggeneric stories,"in Reading Witchcraft:Stories of EarlyEuropeanWitches(Londonand New York:Routledge, 1999), 50-109. It is also supportedby ChristineWorobec'sstatementthat certaintypes of possession "representa socially understoodillness as opposed to a medical disease,"see ChristineD. Worobec, Possessed: Women,Witches,and Demons in Imperial Russia (DeKalb: NorthernIllinois University Press, 2001), 17. My approachfinds supportalso in YoramBilu's statement:"The validationof the moral ascendancyof religious leadersthroughthe dybbukidiom contributedto social control ... The exorcisticritualconstituteda conservativemechanismthatfacilitatedthe perpetuationof the traditional status hierarchyin the community."See YoramBilu, "The Taming of the Deviants and Beyond: An Analysis of DybbukPossession and Excorcismin Judaism,"in SpiritPosession in Judaism:Cases and Contextfrom the MiddleAges to the Present, ed. MattGoldish (Detroit:WayneStateUniversityPress, 2003), 64. 61. The motif of an evil spiritor a spiritof a deceased person sitting on a tree and addressing the vagabondsappearsalreadyin Sefer hasidim. See JehudaWistinetzkiand Jacob Freimann,ed., Sefer hasidim(Frankfurta/M: WarhmannVerlag, 1924), 37 (siman 35); this book is based on ParmaMS. Cf. Reuven Margalioted., Sefer hasidim (Jerusalem:Mosad ha-Ray Kook, 1957), 176-178 (siman 170); this is based on Bologna MS. 62. According to the evidence meticulouslycollected by Nigal, evil spirits and dibbukimprefer to enter homes either throughdoors not protectedby mezuzotor throughany part of the body of a sick person, in particularpregnantwomen. Fora comprehensivelist of the "preferredentrances"of the dibbukim,see GedalyaNigal, Sipurei 'dibbuk'be-sifrutyisrael (Jerusalem:Reuven Mas, 1983), 2628. 63. On a very similarcase involving a Jewish woman and her husband,Jan Serafinowicz,who converted to Catholicism after being attended to by a ba'al shem, see Meir Balaban, Le-toldot ha-

tenu'ahha-frankit(Tel Aviv: Devir, 1934), 57-58. On Serafinowicz, see Shimon Dubnow,History of

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The Masterof an Evil Name imity of the "enemiesof Israel"and of the "impureplace"-oblique referencesto the nearbychurch-prevented Hillel fromfully applyinghis powers.64In addition, the local priests perhapswere awareof the incidentand tried to resolve it by converting the woman.65Very likely the exorcism led to confessions offensive to Christianity,and Hillel decided to transferthe operationelsewhere to avoid publicity. On the otherhand,exorcism led to confessions on the partof the womanthat were offensive to the Jewish communityat large. Nobody liked the fact that Hillel made the OstrahJews wash their dirty laundryin public.66 Hillel portraysthe exorcism in great detail. If SH presents it accurately,at least in regardto Hillel's modusoperandi,one featureof Hillel's practicesbecomes particularlysalient. It was the dybbukthat instructedHillel aboutthe methods of exorcism, its time and place, the preparationit required,and its possible outcome.67The dybbukallegedly told Hillel to bring seven Torahscrolls and seven pristineboys ("who have not sinned").He advised Hillel to take the boys, before the procedure,to the ritualbath and to the morningprayer.He purportedlyindicated that Hillel should go to the town of Tutchin,not far from Ostrah(samukh le-kik ostrah),andfinish the ceremonythere.Finally,the dybbukencouragedHillel: "Andyou, Rabbi, should not be scaredand do not run away from me."68In terms of endorsementof his activities, Hillel briefly mentions the amulets of R. Zevi HirschbenAvraham,whichhe used forthe exorcism,yet, when it cameto the procedureitself, his only spiritualinstructor-his personalmaggid-was the dybbuk.69 the Jews in Russia and Poland (Philadelphia:Jewish PublicationSociety, 1916-1920), 1:173; Israel Halpern,ed., Pinkas va'ad 'arb'a 'arazot(Jerusalem:Mosad Bialik, 1948) p. 265 par. 549; Hundert, Jews in Poland-Lithuania,75 and 141; Rosman,Lords'Jews, 206-207. 64. Hillel resortedto the dybbuk' assistanceto explain the reason for his own weakness:"You arethe Rabbiwho has been acting for alreadysix days.Youhavepronouncedoaths againstme andhave tried to exorcise me using holy names. However,althoughyou did not manage to do anything(shum pe'ulah) againstme, you have somewhatweakenedthe wicked forces which surroundmy soul, and you have harmedmy members,sinews, and bones. However,this is not the rightplace thatallows applying the holy names, because the strongholdof evil stands next to-distinguish!-the holy synagogue. If you like to accomplishyour work, you should bettertry a differentplace"SH, f. 125a. 65. The woman/dybbukwarnedHillel aboutthe possible impactof local priests:"Thesearethe priestswho give theirbad advice thatthey derivefromthe powersof theirtradition.Theiradvice comes from theirmouths [in the form of] fire and flames, and theirwordsare not true.They will surrenderto you, if God wants it" SH, 125b. Like ba'alei shem, both Easternand WesternChristianChurchesresorted to exorcism as to an effective ecclesiastical ritual aimed at obtaining confession. See Stuart Clark, Thinkingwith Demons: The Idea of Witchcraftin Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 428-434; Worobec,Possessed, 23-25, 45-48. 66. Hillel discoveredoutrageousand by no means flatteringfacts about the community:"And he [the evil spirit]revealedpubliclyhorribleand nasty things which had happenedin thattown among the Jews.And the Jews understoodthatthe birdfromheavenraisedits voice, the time hadcome, and the end of all ends. All the secretsbecame knowndue to the powers of heavenlyand earthlyoaths.All the secrets impossibleto convey here thathappenedin thattown were finally disclosed"SH, f. 127a. 67. In addition,Hillel a priori relinquishedany responsibilityfor the operationandburdensthe dybbukwith it: "Theonly thing which I do not know is whetherI will leave her body without her soul or with it,"confesses the dybbuk.SH, f. 127a. 68. SH, f. 125b. 69. On the dichotomydybbuk-maggid,see the groundbreakingarticlebyYoramBilu, "Dybbuk

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern Due to the "instructions"of the dybbuk,who wantedthe ba'al shem to banishhim, Hillel was a success, and socio-psychologicalorderwas restored: I pronounced onegreatoathandone greatpetitionin thepresenceof tenappropriate Elul,5493[1733],thespirit peopleandtheTorahscrolls.Thursday, leftthebodyof thatwomanthroughthelittletoeof herleftleg fromunderher littlenailso thatsomebloodcameoutof hertoe.70Afterthatshebeganseeinga littlebitandshestartedgoingto thesynagogue,to thecemetery,andto all otherplacesas shefoundfit. However,shecouldnotsee atallthroughthe onlyeyeby whichthespirithadenteredherbody.71 The Ostrahcase suggests a clear-cutpatternof relationsbetween the bacal shem, the communal(kehillah) authority,the ordinaryJews of the town, and the spirit.The ba'al shem performedexorcism in the atmosphereof public contempt. Although mistreatedby the inhabitantsof the town, Hillel was still respectedby the kahal. He dependedcompletelyon the decision of the local authority.He started to operateonly when he obtainedthe official consent of the kahal elders.72The difference in attitudesto Hillel Ba'al Shem manifeststhe interestsof the communal leaderswho employedthe ba'al shem as an instrumentto strengthentheirpower. While the kahalused Hillel to instill fear of promiscuityand restoresocial and psychological orderin the community,Hillel used the dybbukto instructhis audience and instill some awe toward,if not belief in, the ba'al shem's magic. As we will see, this pragmaticusage of the dybbukfor self-promotionwas not atypical for Hillel's modusoperandi. Paradoxically,the only creaturein SH that acknowledgedthe wisdom and high statusof Hillel Ba'al Shem was the evil spirit,Hillel's alter ego.73The Ostrah dybbuknot only "helped"Hillel to understandthe situationin the communitybut

and Maggid:TwoCulturalPatternsof Altered Consciousnessin Judaism,"AJSReview21 no. 2 (1996): 341-366. 70. In this case Hillel Bacal Shem closely follows the advise of Haim Vital who in his Shacar ruah ha-kadesh in the name of Isaac Luriastronglyrecommendedthat practicalkabbalistsmake the evil spirit leave humanbody througha toe so that it does not harmthe body. Eventually,the little toe on the left foot became a "classical"place for the exit of an evil spirit. Fora comprehensivelist of the "preferredexits" of the dibbukim,see Nigal, Sipurei 'dibbuk'be-sifrutyisrael, 54-60. 71. SH, f. 127a. 72. "Andthat man [beadle] went to the parnas ha-hodesh and relatedto him the words of the spirit.And theparnas ha-hodesh sent the beadle for me and asked me on behalf of the whole community to do some good for that woman,"SH, f. 126b. Generally,the Jewish communityof Ostrah(Ostrog) is mentionedseveraltimes in Shivheiha-besht.Forinstance,in story no. 26, a certaindoctorfrom this town is referredto as a staunchopponentof the Besht who mocks his magic powers. Similarly,in SH the holy communityof Ostrahdoes not seem very hospitableto Hillel Ba'al Shem.They also mock him. They openly mistrusthim while he is workingout ways to banish the dybbuk.They startto hate him even more so when the communitylearnsa lot of nasty and revealingthings aboutitself duringthe exorcism. The general commotion caused by Hillel Ba'al Shem in the communityis also quite obvious. Cf. Bilu, "Tamingof the Deviants,"55-59. 73. SH, f. 125a.

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The Master of an Evil Name also taughtthe Jews how to behaveand serve God.74Hillel'sassumptionis clear:if the communitydid not trustHillel BacalShem,let themlistento a dybbuk.Inthe Ostrahepisode only the dybbuk,the spiritof a deadJewishconvert,addressedHillel as here to discuss the reliabilityof the evidence of early"ha-rav"It is inappropriate eighteenth-centurydemons,yet SH clearlyindicatesthattherewas nobodyelse who respected Hillel: after the dybbuk"revelations"and successful exorcism, Hillel seems to have been left alone. Had therebeen some benign arrangementbetween him and the local kahal, Hillel, who looked for a stableposition in a community, would have mentionedit. His reticenceimplies that,again,he was doomedto loneliness, solitude,and wandering.Indeed,to make evil powershis only advocatewas Hillel's clever ploy in the face of his situation.But the magicianwho was at home with dybbuksandevil powerswas balancingon the brinkof the permitted.Hillel did not realizehe was causinghis own failure-which was aroundthe corner.

IV BAcAL

SHEM AMONG HIS COLLEAGUES

Three factors caused Hillel's downfall: first, competition in the marketof East EuropeanitinerantKabbalists;second, the rise of publicationsof practical Kabbalahbooks; and third,the crisis of the profession of ba'alei shem. His personal failures,which causedhis distressand depression,were simply the resultsof these overarchingreasons.75 Hillel suffered mostly because of his colleagues, pseudo-ba'alei shem, alleged impostors,troublemakers,and unscrupulouscompetitors,who exacerbated the constraintsin the marketof practicalKabbalah.Hillel depictedthem as "robbers" and "false hasidim" (hasidim shakranim)who sacrilegiously introduced themselves as experiencedkabbaliststo the communalleadership.76Hillel complained thatthey neverused Kabbalahfor its own sake (li-shemah);whateverthey did, they did only for money.They obtainedfalsified endorsementsfrom insignificant rabbisand producedbogus miracles that had nothing to do with the honest opera sacra of a genuine ba'al shem.77They caused skepticism among Jews towards amulets and holy names and subsequentlytowardsall those healers who earnedtheirliving honestly.78As a result,when a realba'al shem arrivedin a community and provided valid endorsementsfrom renownedrabbis, nobody would trust him.79Therefore, from Hillel's vantage point, it was absolutely pivotal to 74. "Theonly thing I would tell you-through my stories and the deeds of my wicked handsis thatpeople should learn from me and throughme how to serve the blessed Name,"SH, f. 125b. 75. Hillel complains:"I shouldnot say morein the time of my distressanddistressof my daughters, yet I failed and got up and not let my foes rejoice over me [Ps. 30]. I failed several times in several nasty places involved with evil forces ." See SH, f. 74b. ... 76. SH, f. 319b. 77. ForHillel's repeatedcomplaintsof pseudo-ba'alei-shem,see SH, f. 95a, 172b, 276b-277a, 321b. 78. SH, f. 299b-300a. 79. Kahanaprovidesa numberof cases provingthatat the beginningof the eighteenthcentury the itinerantba'alei shem or practicalkabbalistswere often identified with and treatedas crypto-sabbateans. See David Kahana, Toldotha-mekubalim,ha-shabta'imve-ha-hasidim (Odessa: Moriyah, 1914), 18- 19. Kahanaseems to follow Ya akov Emden'ssharpcriticismof ba'alei shem, most of whom

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern distinguishbetween a real bacal shem and a charlatan.Hillel suggested that the community should investigate, if not interrogate,any ba'al shem to verify his knowledge of Kabbalahbooks, his understandingof holy names, his haskamot (whetherthey were writtenby ordinaryor well-knownrabbis),and finally,his personal behavior(how he prays,fasts, performsritualablutions,etc.).80 Hillel was deeplyconcernedthatcharlatanshadunderminedthe trustof common folk in the magic of the ba'al shem. Skepticismand disbelief of the ordinary Jews towardsthe kabbalists,accordingto Hillel'sobliquereferences,had sabbatean implications.Hillel illustratedthe spiritualdamagecaused by itinerantsabbateans through a peculiar incident that happenedin the county of Pokutain Bukovina Provincein the town of Tismenits(Tysmienica),some 70 miles west of Chernovitz: A wickedmanwhowasa scribeandrenownedKabbalist cameintotown.He for there several until house of thegreathasidand weeks he entered the stayed Kabbalist YosefHols,of blessedmemory,whopassedawayleavingbehinda kosherandsacredTorahscroll.Theabovemanwentto [RabbiHols's]widow to [inspect]thescrollandfoundit perfect.Laterhe forgeda cut(hakikah)[in thescroll]anddemonstrated it in public.Thenhedemonstrated themistakeof the[late]Rabbito themostillustrious in the town. The next nightRabpeople bi [Hols]appeared[to someone]in a dreamandrevealedeverythingthatthis scribehadcommitted, includingthetime,thebook,thechapter,andthecolumnin whichthescribehadmadehis forgery,prohibiting himto disclosethis to the scribe.Soon afterwards information the scribesteppedon a slippery path.He wasbanishedandwentto anothercountry,to LittlePoland.81 In this peculiarepisode, a scribe andkabbalistwhose reputationwas in good standingabusedthe credibilityof the community.He insertedcertainmisspellings into a Torahscroll with the aim of denigratingthe formerspiritualauthority.The forgery was not a simple misspelling (hisaron or yeter); otherwise it would have been easy to correct.The scribedemonstratedthe mistakein public because it was impossibleto correctit accordingto Judaicscriballaws (hilkhotSTAM).82Forreasons of self-censorship,Hillel preferredto make oblique allusions withoutactually spelling out the "mistake."But in the context of early-eighteenth-centuryEast Emden, by no means unbiased,identified as sabbateans.See, for example, the treatmentof Eliyahu Ulianov, Shmuel Essingen, and Moshe Pragerin Ya'akovEmdenSefer hit'abkut28; idem. Torathakin'aot 118-119. However,Scholem convincinglyproves the sabbateanorigin of these practicalhealers, see GershomScholem, Mehkarimu-mekorotle-toldotha-shabta'ut,ed. YehudaLiebes (Jerusalem: ZalmanShazar,1994), 110-111. However,assessing the spreadof pietisticdoctrinesandmysticalideas in eighteenth-centuryPoland,Hundertnotes that some of the pietists "wereundoubtedlyalso adherents of Shabbateanism,but others were not."He also arguesthat the borderseparatingold-style (preBeshtian) pietists and crypto-sabbateanswas blurred.See Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania,121122, 152. 80. SH, f. 173a. 81. SH, f. 94b. 82. See KuntresMishnat sofrim on Mishnah Berurah, 36 and Mishnah Berurah on Shulhan ;Arukh'OrakhHayim 32:20. On the scribal laws related to mistakes in the Torahscroll, see Yizhak ShteinerandYizhakGoldshtein,Dinei sefer torahshe-nimzahbo taut (Jerusalem:OT, 1984).

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The Masterof an Evil Name Europeancrypto-Sabbateanisman uncorrectable"mistake"implied perhapsone and the same notorioustrick:The followers of SabbataiTsevi, scribes in the first place, were known to insert the name of the pseudo-Messiahinsteadof the tetragrammatoninto sifrei STAM-phylacteries, mezuzas, and Torahscrolls. One may want to compareHillel's descriptionwith the following testimony of Rabbi Moshe Hagiz, Hillel's contemporary,known as a persecutorof cryptosabbateanspar excellence. The text is taken from his Gebiat 'edut, translatedby Elisheva Carlebach: InPolandonewitnesstestifiedto a different of thesacred:R. sortof profanation Nathan,headof thestudyhall,hada Torahscrollfromwhichthenameof God wasomitted.Instead,he inscribed Zebi.Therewereapthenameof Sabbatai of Zholkiew who of R. souls knew this, amongthem, proximately fifty Hayyim andtheydidthesamewithphylacteries. Whentheyinvestigated them,he tearfullyconfessed;whenit wasall foundto be true,theyburnedthescrollandthe Thecommunal scribehadcontaminated manypeoplewiththese phylacteries. him and the and communal leaders phylacteries, whippedhim... 83 exposed ApparentlyMoshe Hagiz and Hillel Ba'al Shem depict identical behavioralpatterns, which Hagiz tracedto crypto-sabbateansand Hillel to false bacaleishem. It would be temptingto reinterpretHillel's referencesto the predominanceof charlatansamong Jewish East Europeanhealersin the context of the crypto-sabbatean schism.84This might be particularlyimportantin view of the parallelHillel traced between pseudo-magiciansand the dybbuks.As if sharing common knowledge, sometimes the contemporaryJewish community did perceive crypto-sabbateans as possessed by dybbuks.85In this context, the rapidexplosion of the population of itinerantba'alei shem was perhapsa responsenot only to the growing number of those possessed by dybbuksand needing exorcism, but also to the expansionof crypto-Sabbateanisminto Poland and the necessity to identify, neutralize,or excommunicatethe harbingersof heresy.86 83. Carlebach,Pursuit of Heresy, 184-5; Zvi Mark,"Dybbukand Devekut in the Shivhe haBesht:Towarda Phenomenologyof Madnessin EarlyHasidism,"in SpiritPosession in Judaism: Cases and Contextfromthe MiddleAges to the Present, ed. MattGoldish (Detroit:WayneStateUniversity Press, 2003), 274-280. 84. Cf. Scholem'sportrayalof SabbataiRafaelfromMistra(Misithra)the first to combinepractical Kabbalahwith sabbateanpropaganda.Scholem, SabbataiSevi, 783-789. 85. Bilu, "DybbukandMaggid,"352, Scholem,SabbataiSevi, 606; cf. literaryreflectionof this parallelin Isaac Bashevis Singer,Satan in Goray,Trans.Jacob Sloan (New York:Avon Books, 1955), chap. 13. Forthe analysis of sabbateanunderpinningsin Singer'snovel, see Bezalel Naor,Post Sabbatian Sabbatianism:Study of an UndergroundMessianic Movement(Spring Valley,NY: Orot, 1999), 98-103; for more literaryvariationson this topic, see RobertAlter,After the Tradition(New York:E. P. Dutton, 1969), 61-75. 86. In the sixteenthandseventeenthcenturies,ProtestantsandCatholicsalso identifiedheretics as demons or possessed; see Clark, Thinkingwith Demons, 387-88, 534-37, and esp. 385-88. One may see obliqueevidence of this parallelin the reversetakingplace in WesternEuropein the eighteenth century,when, due to growing religious tolerance,the numberof witch-huntingcases radicallydiminished. See MarijkeGijswijt-Hofstra,Brian Levack, and Roy Porter,Witchcraftand Magic in Europe:

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern Hillel was not unawareof the righteoushealers among his colleagues. He describesthem with one of his favoritewords,zanua' (modest), which in SH indicates the highest level of spiritual purity and personal righteousness."7Only zanuaC,a modest person, is able to produce a truly effective amulet (kameyac mumheh).88Among the real wonder-workersHillel mentions a numberof righteous magicians89such as Eli[yahu] Bacal Shem,90Joel Bacal Shem,91Naftali Kaz,92RabbiYekovsky[possibly Jenowski] BaCalShem,93Perez Bacal Shem,94 The Eighteenthand Nineteenth Centuries(London:Athlone Press, 1997), 42. On the other hand, in eighteenth-centuryRussia, due to the Nikon schism and persecutionsof the Old Believers (perceived as witches), witch-huntingcases were on the rise, especially between 1690 and 1739. See, for example, the fundamentalresearchby AleksandrLavrov,Koldovstvoi religiia v Rossii, 1700-1740 (Moscow: Drevlekhranilishche,2000), 347-354. 87. In Judaictraditionthe usage of the notionzanua' is inseparablefrom the secretknowledge. The twelve-letterName of God, for example, was transmittedby the sages to zenudimshe-bi-kehunah, that is, the "discrete(modest) among the priests."Also, the secret forty-two-letterName of God, according to R. Yehudaha-Nasi, was transmittedonly to a "discrete(modest) one:" ein mosrim oto ela le-mi she zanua'. See B. Kiddushin71a. 88. SH, f. 153a. Razi'el ha-mal'akhmakesthe same claim and uses the same word,zanuad.See Sefer Razi'el ha-mal'akh,8a and 33a (Medzhybozh, 1819). 89. Firstfour ba'alei shem-SH, f. 277a; second two-SH, f. 155a. 90. EliyahubarAaronYehudaMehalem(b . 1550), the headof the rabbiniccourtin Chelm, studied in Lublinat the yeshivah of R. Shlomoh Luria.See Etkes, Ba'al ha-shem, 18 and 33. In SH Hillel reproducesin greaterdetail one of the famous stories about EliyahuBacal Shem that appearedalso in Toldot'adam, siman 86. Cf. SH, f. 44b. 91. Joel ben Uri Heilperin(Hilpern)fromZamogc,the famousba'al shem and grandsonof Joel bar IzhakAyzik Heilperin,Bacal Shem from Zamoic (ca. 1690-ca. 1755), was one of the most wellknown practicalkabbalistsof his time. He endorsedand penned a numberof famous books on practical Kabbalah,amongthemZevahpesah (1722), Mif ~alot'elokim(1710), and Toldot'adam(1720). See a detaileddiscussion of him in Moshe Hillel, Ba'alei shem (Jerusalem:MakhonBney Issakhar,1993), 54-64, 90-179; Etkes, Bacal ha-shem,41-50; Matras,"Sifrei segulot,"141-143; and Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania,150-152. On the importanceof practicalKabbalahbooks in the developmentof be-hasidut,"in Zadikve-cedah, early Hasidism, see HavivaPedaya,"Ha-degemha-hevrati-dati-kalkali ed. David Assaf (Jerusalem:MerkazZalmanShazar,2001), 434-397, esp. 364-366. 92. RabbiNaftalibenYizhakha-Kohen(Kaz) fromPosen (Pozna, 1649-1719), one of the leading authoritiesin practicalKabbalah,was known for his wonderfulamuletsand successful exorcisms. He endorsedmanybooks on practicalKabbalah,includingMif 'alot 'elokim(sometimes even ascribed to him-see, for example, Lembergedition, 1872). He personallyknew the famous bacalshem Binyamin Beinish of Krotoszynand endorsedhis Amtahatbinyamin(Wilhelmsdorf, 1716). See the discussion in Matras,"Sifrei segulot,"n. 11 on pp. 2-3 of the supplementbetween pages 141-142. On Katz see GedalyahNigal, " Al rav naftali kaz mi-pozna,"Sinai 92 (1983): 91-94; Ariel Bar-Levav, "Ha-mavetbe-'olamo shel ha-mekubalnaftali ha-kohenkaz" (Ph.D., Hebrew University,Jerusalem, 1990); YehudaLiebes, "A Profile of R. Naphtali Katz FromFrankfurtand His AttitudeTowardsSabbateanism,"in Gr6zingerand Dan, Mysticism,Magic and Kabbalahin AshkenaziJudaism, 208-222 and Rachel Elior, "R. NathanAdler and the FrankfurtPietists:Pietist Groupsin East and CentralEurope duringthe EighteenthCentury,"in Jiidische Kulturin Frankfurtam Main von den Anfdingenbiz zur Gegenwart,ed. Karl-ErichGr6zinger(Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz,1997), 135-177. 93. Most likely Yacakovben Moshe Kaz fromYanov(Pol.: Jan6w,therefore,Yanovski),the authorof Minhatyaakov solet (Wilhelmsdorf,1731), the book on practicalKabbalah,amuletsand remedies. See Etkes,Ba'al ha-shem,43, 46 n. 83. Yacakovb. Moshe'sbook was endorsedby Joel Bacal Shem from Zamod, see Moshe Hillel, Ba'alei shem, 164. 94. I was not able to identify him.

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The Masterof an Evil Name and Heshel Ba'al Shem.95The conductof these ba'alei shem seems to correspond to Hillel's high standardsof personalpurityand asceticism establishedin SH. Hillel did not hesitate to copy from their books and reproducetheir amulets.To use his own parlance,these wonder-workersand experts in practicalKabbalahwere true hasidim-in contrast with the false hasidim, charlatans,and fake ba'alei shem. However,even these righteousbaCaleishem troubledHillel. Theirimmaculate conductnotwithstanding,Hillel felt deeply hurtby the fact thatthey began to publicize secret mystical knowledge and put theirbooks on practicalKabbalahto press. There is nothing else in SH thattroubleshim as much as the publicationof books of ba'alei shem.96 A number of prominent eighteenth-centuryrabbis, among them Yonatan EybeschuetzandYa'akovEmden,did not welcome the disseminationof books on practicalKabbalahand opposed the whole idea of their publication.97It does not seem strangethat Hillel Ba'al Shem was also unhappy,even deeply depressed,because of theirpublication.Hillel's own reasons,however,were differentfromthose ofYaCakovEmden. First,being published,esoteric secrets lost their secrecy; anyone was able to copy an amulet from a newly publishedkabbalisticbook and use it at his own discretion.Second,publishedbooks nullified the importanceof Hillel's knowledge of the secret techniques he used to write and apply the amulets. Third,Hillel cites an authoritativewarningagainstpublishingbooks on Kabbalah: Mystical books should not be published,and if published,should not be used for the sacredwork of a ba'al shem.98Hence, Hillel's indignation: In ourgeneration, manybookswithholynamesandamulets,all of themsecret,werepublished.Do not use them-not in this worldnor in the world to come, for they helpthe wicked.Someonepurchasesa book for himself 95. It is tempting to identify Heshel Bacal Shem from SH with Heschel Zoref, a crypto-sabbatean,whom Gershom Scholem identified with RabbiAdam, the mystical teacherof the Besht. See In Praise of the BacalShem TowvTheEarliest Collection of Legends about the Founderof Hasidism, trans.and ed. Dan Ben-Amos and JeromeMintz (Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 1970), 1518, 31-32; the discussion of RabbiAdam as Heschel Zoref in GershomScholem, "Ha-naviha-shabtayi r.heshel zoref-r. 'adambacalshem,"in his Mehkereishabtaut,ed. YehudaLiebes (Jerusalem:Am Coved,1991), 579-599; for criticismof Scholem'sidentificationsee Moshe Hillel, Ba'alei shem, 305316. Rosmanrejects Scholem's identificationand stronglysupportsthe viewpoint of Chone Shmeruk, who identified RabbiAdam as the legendarylate-sixteenth-centuryfigure from Prague,rejectingthus any connectionbetween him and Heshel Zoref. See Rosman,FounderofHasidism, 144-145. Forbetter understandingof Hillel Ba'al Shem it is importantthat despite his sabbateanreputation,Heschel Zoref was toleratedby such kabbalistsas Zevi Hirsch Kaidanover,see Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania, 125. 96. Fora list of books on practicalKabbalahprintedin Z61kiew,see YeshayahuVinograd,'Ozar ha-sefer ha-civri.2 vols. (Jerusalem:ha-makhonle-bibliografiamemuhshevet,1993), 2:306-308. 97. Moshe Idel, Hasidism:BetweenEcstasy and Magic (Albany:State Universityof New York Press, 1995), 34, 36. 98. Hillel constantlyreiterateshis criticism:"I have found in severalbooks of great Kabbalists of previousgenerationswho warnedagainst the usage of mystical books,"SH, f. 172a-b. And again, "Ina couple of smallbooks publishedin Zholkvathey issued severalamulets(segulot) andlots of names (shemot) yet everythingwas printedwithout any sense (bli ta am); one should not rely on them,"SH, f. 188a.

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern [such as] Toldot,99Zevah pesah,'00 and Po'el gevurot'0' printedin Zholkva

[Z6lkiew].Thesebooksneverrevealsecretsbut only confusepeople.One shouldrevealsecretsonlyto themodest(zanua').102 Accordingto Hillel, the unscrupulousnessof certainba'alei shem is the most important reason against the publication of books on practical Kabbalah.Printed books foundtheirway easily into the handsof impostorswho did not behavethemselves in accordwith the pietistic requirements,thus obtainingan easy opportunity to cheat.103That is why, claims Hillel, the publicationof practicalKabbalah books has corruptedhis generation.104In addition,Hillel stresses the intellectual problem:The recipientsof the newly publishedKabbalahbooks do not understand the intrinsicmechanisms of the amulets and do not know how to produce new amuletson the basis of the publishedones. Indeed,implies Hillel Ba'al Shem, the printedKabbalahkills while the oral revives. Further,in orderto understandhow to use a handwrittenor publishedamulet,whatits connectionwith the Torahis, and in what cases it might be effective, one needs Hillel's oral explanationor clarification. Ultimately,Hillel is tryingex postfacto to win a lost battle:He fights against publicationof practical Kabbalahbooks and democratizationof the kabbalistic knowledge since real knowledge for him is oral, elitist, and manuscript-based.'05 99. Toldot'adam(Z6?kiew,1720). 100. Z61kiew,1722. 101. There was no such book published in Z61kiewor elsewhere. Most likely, Hillel refers to Mif'alot 'elokim(i6lkiew, 1710 and 1724), but confuses the title. 102. SH, f. 172a. 103. books on practicalKabbalahwere printedin pocket-size format.Zevahpesah inSZ6kiew dicates this characteristicon its title page. The publicationof small-size books allowed Z61kiew,first, to producea cheapproductand reachout to a wider Jewishaudience,and,second, to put to press more books thanthe maximum700 annualkuntrasim(in this case, book copies), permittedto Z6lkiewprinting press by the Council of FourLandsas a result of the fierce competitionbetween Lublin,Z61kiew, and Cracowprintingpresses at the very end of the seventeenthcentury.Forthe decisions of the Council, see Shlomo Buber,Kiryahnisgavah:hi ha-cirZolkiv(Cracow:Bi-defuso shelY. Fisher,1903), 104105. For a brief history of the Z61kiewprintingpress, see Meir Balaban,"Batei defus yehudiim bezolkiv,"in Gelber and Ben-Shem, Sefer zolkiv, 215-224; Haim Dov Friedberg,Toldotha-defus bepolanyah (Tel Aviv: Barukh Fridberg,1950), 62-68; Israel Halpern, Yehudimve-yahadutbe-mizrah eropa: mehkarimbe-toldotehem(Jerusalem:Magness, 1968), 83-84. 104. "In our generationeveryone buys a book Toldot'adam for himself. The book, which is a waste of ink andpaper,everyonebuys very cheap and becomes ba'al shemot.Yet,those who buy it, do not know anythingaboutthis world and about the world to come. They even do not behave according to the good behaviordescribedin that small book Toldot'adam."SH, f. 155a-b. 105. Mention should be made of the similaritybetween Hillel's, JonathanEybeschuetz's,and Jacob Emden'scriticismof the publicizingof the Kabbalahbooks, see Idel, Hasidism, 35-36. On the dichotomy"booksvs. manuscripts"in the context of a demonopolizationof the elitist knowledge and democratizationprocess in East EuropeanJewish culture, see ElchananReiner,"TheAshkenaziel1ite at the Beginningof the ModernEra:Manuscriptversus PrintedBook,"Polin 10 (1997): 85-94; Moshe Rosman,"Le-toldotavshel makorhistori,"Zion 58 (1993): 175-214. Forthe more generaldiscussion of "manuscriptvs. printedbook dichotomy,"see Ze'ev Gries, Ha-Sefer ke-sokhentarbut:ba-shanim 460-660 (1700-1900) (TelAviv:ha-kibbutsha-meuhad,2002), 12-13 and bibliographyhe assembles in notes 5 and 6.

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The Master of an Evil Name Not only do books deny his manuscript;they rejectthe indispensabilityof Hillel's personalinvolvementimplied in SH.'06 The impactof the false and genuine ba'alei shem on Hillel's careerwas that rank-and-fileJews became skepticalaboutthe magicalpowersof all healers.Common disbelief in the ba'al shem contradictedthe very core of the healing process, which, accordingto Hillel, requiredstrongbelief in the magical powersof the baCalshem. Even a professionallymade amuletwould not operateif one did not believe in it, argues Hillel.107 Hillel provides dreadful stories that illuminate the fatality of such disbelief. In one case, which took place in Keidan, Lithuania,in 1739, a womanrefusedto follow the advice of her relativesto get ridof the amulet. She kept it and managedto save herself from the evil Lilith.'08Her husbandtook his amuletoff, but Hillel does not sharewith his readerwhathappenednext. In another case, which took place in Wilkowysk, Grodno Province, the dybbukhad been banishedfrom a body of a woman,yet, because she had takenher protecting amuletfrom her neck and allowed skepticalrelativesto open it, the spiritreturned and destroyedall the efforts of the ba'al shem.109It is very likely that one or both of these episodes depict the failures of Hillel. The chronologicaljuxtapositionof Hillel's failureswith the beginningof his workon the SHmanuscript(around1739) makes one surmisethatHillel decided to restorehis reputationdemonstratingthat he is a knowledgeable,well-connected, reputed,and pious ba'al shem. His socioeconomic position was precarious.Hillel consideredwriting a book as his last chance. Hillel makes it clearthaton severaloccasions his performanceas ba'al shem was a complete failure.011As the resultof his failurehe was eitherbanishedfrom a numberof localities or put undertemporaryherem.It is evident, however,that he could not continuepracticingas ba'al shem."' He had lost his reputation.Hillel's attemptto assimilate with scribes, preachers,slaughterers-"secondary intelligentsia"-and to establishhimself as a healer and kabbalist,that is to say, an 106. "People bought [printedbooks on practicalKabbalah- YPS] so that they came into the hands of riff raff who don't know or understandany book or wisdom; only whateveris in these little books. They don't know how things occur, and they don't even performa properpracticeas it is prescribed. Obviously,they don't know the origins or functions of the names, for they do not have the slightest knowledge even of the exoteric partof the holy Torah."SH, f. 119b. 107. SH, f. 277a. 108. Perhapsthe origin of this amulet is to be found among the popularmedievaltales of Ben Sira that connect the destructivefunctions of Lilith to the circumstancesof the creation of the first woman and thatrequirefrom a healer responsiblefor writingthe amuletspecial spiritualand physical qualities.See EliYassif,Sipureiben sira be-yemeiha-beynayim(Jerusalem:MagnesPress, 1985), 231234. 109. SH, f. 34b, 54b-55a. This episode happenedafter the 1725 incidentwhen an amulet on a womanwas discoveredcontainingsabbateansymbols purportedlywrittenby R. Eybeschuetz.The similarityof these episodes suggests thatthe Jewish communitymistrustedthe productionof baCaleishem on the groundsof their alleged involvementin heresy. See Perlmuter,Ha-ravyehonatan eybeschuez, 37-42; Scholem, Mehkereyshabta'ut,228-230, 707-733. 110. SH, f. 74b. 111. "Theonly thing I am seeking is a nice place to which I could come and regainmy profession."See SH, f. 74b.

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern "official"ba'al shem in a particularJewish locality ended up in fiasco.112Perhaps Hillel expected that his manuscript,SH, would prove that he was a great healer, thathe was awareof new developmentsin practicalKabbalahand deservedbetter treatment.Hence, he conceived SH as an encyclopedia of practicalKabbalahin generaland as his expandedresum6in particular." Due to this twofold purpose, SH combined the vademecumof a practicalkabbalistand a personalconfession. V. HILLEL'S VADEMECUM

Following the tradition of Sefer ha-zohar and Razi'el ha-mal'akh,Hillel claims thatSH is a holy book.114He identifies two reasonsfor this. First,SH comprises a wealth of holy names, quotations from sacred kabbalistic sources, and amulets-in fact, SH itself may be regardedas a talisman,the holiness and effectiveness of which is undeniable.Second,Hillel arguesthat essentiallySH is much older than any printedbook on practicalKabbalah.He claims that all the printed books had been merely copied from SH, which remainedunknown until Hillel Ba'al Shem obtainedthe privilege to disclose it. However,Hillel did not have a maggid-a mystical teacher;a double, like Yosef Karo'smaggid mesharim"115 to secretly convey to him the contents of the book. Insteadof cleaving to esoteric celestial wisdom through the maggid, Hillel reaches out to it through pseudoepigrapicmediators--secret kabbalisticbooks and teachings.116 Twolegends cover the origins of SH. Accordingto the first, Ashmodai,king of demons, revealedsecret knowledgeto King Solomon, who recordedit, titled it SH, and hid it in the WesternWall of the Temple."7 It was uncoveredin the times 112. It was Yosef Weiss who put forwardand elaboratedthe concept of "secondaryintelligentsia"(he called it ha-nodedet,vagabond;me-madregahshniyah, second-rank,and ha-bilti-rashmit, non-official) that comprisedwanderingethical teachers,preachers,healers, etc. and that socially cemented the rising hasidic movement. See his "Reshit zemihatahshel ha-derekhha-hasidit,"Zion 16 (1951): 49-56. Forthe critiqueof Weiss, see Haim Lieberman,Ohel rahe"I(New York:H. Lieberman, 1980), 3-5. 113. Hillel perceives his writing of SH as a pious act and his perceptionresemblesthe attitude to writing among hasidei ashkenaz. See Colette Siratet al., La conception du livre chez les pietistes ashkenazesau moyenage (Genbve:Droz, 1996), 144. 114. "Seferha-kadoshha-zeh,"SH, f 194a, 314a, and throughout.Cf. "ba-seferha-kadoshhazeh," "mi-hokhmatha-sefer ha-kadoshha-zeh,"reiteratedten times at the beginning of Sefer razi'el (Amsterdam,1701), f. 3a-4b. On traditionof a sacredbook in the EuropeanJewish pietistic tradition, see Sirat,La conceptiondu livre, 37-63. 115. See R. J. Zwi Werblowsky,Joseph Karo:Lawyerand Mystic (London:OxfordUniversity Press, 1962). 116. In additionto pseudoepigraphicsources, SH containsreferencesto such well-knownkabbalisticsourcesas Seferyeszirah(34b, 318a);SodotofNachmanides( 15b,32a-b); Seferha-zohar( 171a, 187a-Pekudei; 302a, 302b, 303b, 305b, 306b-Bereshit); Tikkuneizohar (84a); Lurianic Kabbalah (14a, 16b, 23b, 30a, 70ff); Natan Neta Hannover'sLurianicsiddurSha arei zion (73b, 186a-187b); Sefer ha-pardes(20a);'Emekha-melekh(20a); Ma'aseh'elokim(35b); Sefer razi'el [ha-mal'akh](62b, 117a); Toldot'adam(74b, 105b, 155a-b); Korbanshabat (327a); Zevahpesah (both 172a). 117. SH, f. 117b-119b. Apparentlythe literaryroots of this legend date back to the encounter between King Solomon and Ashmodai, King of Demons, whom Solomon captured,incarcerated,and made reveal the secrets of shamir, a wondrousworm instrumentalin cutting the stones indispensable for the buildingof the Temple,depicted in B. Gittin.However,the idea of a secret book is absentfrom

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The Master of an Evil Name of the Sanhedrinand transferredthroughgenerationsuntil it came into the hands of Hillel. Accordingto the second legend,Hillel himself discovered"theold book SH" and drew heavily from it.11isYet, Hillel's legend is not consistent:In a number of places, for example, Hillel notes SH and the writings of his mentorTsevi Hirschas two differenttexts, whereaselsewherehe claims thatSH was eitherwritten by Zevi Hirschor belonged to him."•19By the same token Hillel also attributes SHto his friendRabbiEfraimfromVissa.120EvidentlyHillel does not have a clearcut version of his own versus the esoteric tradition.Intellectuallyhe is too shy. In a similar situation,the Besht also maintainsthat he was in possession of unique manuscripts-in his case, of an enigmaticRabbiAdam Ba'al Shem. However,the Besht takes the decisive step towardsspiritualappropriationof his mystical manuscript. He claims that besides him and the Patriarchsperhapsnobody else ever knew the contentsof the manuscript:"Theywere in the handsof Abrahamthe Patriarch,may he rest in piece, and in the hands of Joshua,the son of Nun, but I do not know who are the others."'21Hillel Ba'al Shem would not dare make such a bold statement.Direct connection to the secret celestial library(Liebes) is something he cannotafford.The gravityof his magic groundedhim.'22 SH depicts a world split into two parts. Living beings inhabitits first part; spiritual powers inhabit the second. Each part is divided into two subsequent realms.This world,ha-'olam ha-zeh, has a borderseparatingJews from gentiles. The other world is split into the realm of holy names and angels, shemot hakedushah,and evil names and powers,shemotha-tum'ah.Each of these four parts has a pronouncedhierarchyof values and is integralper se. That is why SH starts with the extensive explanationof this parallelism: Andhereare32 rulesthatmatch32 pathsof wisdomas frontandback.As theyoperate,thankGod,in theupper[spheres]-we will be ableto operatein thelowerones.As therearetenevil sephirotmatchingtenholysephirot,there areholynamesandtherearefoulnames,therearecelestialangelsandthere areangelsof theearth(mal'akhey de-'ara).123 this source. See B. Gittin68a-b. It appearsonly in Sefer which lists fourbooks thatSolomon ha-zohar, received from Ashmodai, namely: the book containingmagical material,the book of the wisdom of Solomon, the book on physiognomy,and the book on the knowledge of precious stones. See Sefer hazohar 3:194b, 3:193b, 2:70a, 1:225b.Formore detail, see Louis Ginzberg,TheLegendsof the Jews, 6 vols. (Philadelphia:The Jewish PublicationSociety of America, 1968), 6:301-302 n. 93. 118. SH, f. 90a. 119. Forexample, he says "ThusI heardfrom the greatrabbiand he showedto me in his book Sefer ha-heshekand I copied severalpages."SH, f. 173b. 120. Forexample, Hillel recollects seeing an amulet in the book "Seferha-heshek[written]by the great rabbi,renownedhasid and kabbalistEfraim,maggid mesharimfrom Vissa." 121. Shivhei ha-besht, no. 187. See Ben-Amos and Mintz, In Praise of the Ba'al Shem Tov, 196-97. 122. It is interestingto compareHillel's manipulationswith the holy names and the interpretation of magic/mysticalin Yosef Karo:"Thedifferencebetween legitimateand illegitimateuse of Holy Names is thereforenot of pure (spiritual)versus selfish (magical) intentions..,. but between formulae of ascent and formulaeof descent."See Werblowsky,Joseph Karo, 73. 123. SH, f. Ib.

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Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern The same reflectioncharacterizesbothrealms:Tenheavenlyemanationsarerepeated in ten impureemanations,whereasthe angelsof heavensarenegativelyparalleled by the angels of earth.All elementsoppose each otherand mirroreach other.Holy sefirahketer(the Crown)is paralleledby an abominablesefirahkaret(literally"cut off by God");good angelKatriel(literally"theCrownedLord")is overshadowedby a corruptangel Kartiel(the DestroyedLord).124However,the dividingbordersbetween them are not impenetrable.A Jew can become an apostate;a demon can appearto the Jews disguisedas a scribeor even as a ba'al shem;good angels become evil as a resultof a mere change of the orderof lettersin theirnames. SH is full of antithesesand,to use the parlanceof RomanJacobson,negativeparallelism.125 The permeabilityof the antitheticalrealms representsa constant threatto simple folk. As in the case of Macbeth'switches, it is difficult, if at all possible, to distinguishbetweenfairandfoul in Hillel's shamanicbeliefs. The threatof an eruption of evil powersinto the mattersof this world makes life dangerousand people suspicious. Hence, the importanceof the ba'al shem. He functions as a mediator between the four realms. He controls them semiotically throughtheir signs and names.He knowshow to differentiatebetweenthemandhow to transformthe powers of one into the powersof another.Finally,the ba'al shem reestablishesthe balance between them. Who, if not the bacalshem, is able to identify evil powers in the guise of a kabbalistor a scribe?And who can exorcise these powers,if not the ba'al shem? In the languageof social anthropology,SH introducesthe ba'al shem as a shamanwith a pronouncedmediatoryfunctionto restorecosmic, theological, societal, and psychological order.126Thus, the ultimategoal of SH, informingits style and genre, is to clarify to a reader-whether communalauthorityor wealthy protector-the indispensabilityof the ba'al shem.Tojustify his mission, Hillel depicts the complexity and dangerof the spiritualworlds. According to Hillel, sitra' 'ahra' (the evil power) and its wicked heirs, the demons, areubiquitous.127The numberof amuletsprescribedin SH testifies to the astonishingability of sitra' 'ahrato adaptto any environment.128 To keep it under 124. SH, f. 298a. In the traditionalkabbalistictexts, Katriel(Akhtariel)is partof the celestial dichotomyKatriel/Metatron,and not of the ManicheandichotomyKatriel/Kartiel.See the discussion in ArthurGreen,Keter:the Crownof God in EarlyJewish Mysticism(Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1997), 62-65. 125. See RomanJacobson,Selected Works(The Hague:Mouton, 1979), 5:311-312. 126. Rosmanwas the first to insightfullyplace ba'alei shem in the contextof shamanism,which he explainedin the terms of MirceaEliade'ssocial anthropologyand which has become standardsince his 1996 book on the historicalBesht. See Rosman,FounderofHasidism, 13-15, 17-19. 127. Demons follow the commandmentto multiply much betterthan do humanbeings (83b). They are not afraidof and cannotbe stoppedby sifrei STAM(94b). Neither the great rabbinicauthority such as the head of a rabbinicalcourt and roshyeshivah, nor the learningfervorof the lomdimcan stop them (107a). They prefernewly built houses (293b). A special prayeris requiredto preventtheir appearance(46b-47a). If the prayerdoes not help, special secret names have to be pronouncedto banish the evil (341b). Sometimes damnationis requiredto put evil undercontrol (344b). 128. Hillel prescribesprotectiveamuletsthatshouldbe placedon the frontdoor(since a mezuza would not help, 188a,297b), abovethe threshold(103b), andovereach of the doorsof the house (297a), and still additionalamuletsare requiredagainstfire (188b, 317a), thieves (156b, 173b), evil eye (41b), demons (291a), evildoers (194b-195a), and dybbuks(198b, 132b-135a).

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The Master of an Evil Name control,Hillel extensively employs the names of abomination(shemotha-tum'ah) thatcoverin SH a separatechapter;he even establishesan immediatedialoguewith evil powers.129Hillel not only designs amuletsagainstthe powersof kelipah(here: evil), but also makes kelipahinstrumentalin achieving practicalpurposes.SH includes amuletsthatallow observingevil powersin corpore(316a). It offersamulets that disable people (195b), induce sleep (196a), interruptrest (212b, 293b), bring evil powersinto a house (196b), preventsuccessful copulationbetween a husband and a wife (197b), and revive the dead in a dream(310a). It also offers effective imprecationsagainst enemies. SH offers one of these curses among its amendments to the Eighteen Benedictionsprayer,including it, quite surprisingly,in the petition of health and recovery(refa'eni): to thewordsof theHoly Maythenameof PlonibenPlonibecursedaccording the be due the to blessed to One, he, permission fight Christians.130Godof Yisrael,maythesonsof thismanbecomeorphansandhis wife a widowand recordedinthisTorahbefallhim.Forhe mayallthediseasesandpunishments is thetrustworthy andmercifulKing....'31 ThereforeSH is not only a kabbalisticbook but also a witchcraftprimer.It is obsessed with kelipot, forces of evil, and it seems not to be interestedin nezozot,divine sparks.Hillel is readyto use his magic to protectan individualor individuals from evil, but he is not readyto uplift an individualor individualsresortingto his mystical worldview.To paraphraseMoshe Idel, SH oscillates between mysticism and magic, but gravitatestowardsmagic.132Hence SH sharplycontrastswith the bulk of CentralEuropeanbooks of practicalKabbalahand resembles East European ones such as Zevah pesah, Toldot'adamor Mifadalot'elokim.Yet its unparalleled necromanticnuances, absent in Zevah pesah or Mifacalot'elokim,firmly place the book in the context of eighteenth-centuryPolish and Russiankoldovstvo (witchcraft).The significant amountof Slavic wordsand entirepassages of Slav129. Hillel appliesthe "namesof abomination"extensively (9a, 33b, 58b-59a, 60b-62a, 11la, 354a, 380b-381b). He interactswith the dybbuks(125a-127b, 135b-138b, 235a, 238a, 239b). In his interactionswith evil powers, Hillel was not particularlyinnovative:evil names appearedin the kabbalistic literaturelong before the spreadof LurianicKabbalah.Writtenca. 1488 and 1504 in Morocco, Sefer ha-meshivcontaineddescriptionsof evil names (shemotha-tumah),demonologicreferences, as well as descriptionof methodsto neutralizeevil power.See GershomScholem, "Le-ma'aser yosef della reina,"Meassefziyon 5 (1933): 126-127; idem., "Le-ma'asehr' yosefdella reina,"in Studies in Jewish Religious and IntellectualHistory,PresentedtoAlexanderAltmannon the Occasion of His SeventiethBirthday,ed. Siegfried Stein, RaphaelLoewe (University:Universityof AlabamaPress; London: Instituteof Jewish Studies, 1979), 101-109. 130. Tentative translationof two consecutive abbreviations:RF'EL [rashutpituah 'emz'ey lahimah]YHN"H [Yeshuaha-Notsri(ha-mekulal?)]. 131. SH, f. 68a. 132. Idel discusses differencesandsimilaritybetweenmysticalandmagic elementsin Hasidism and arguesthatmystical-magicmodel is prevalentin the entirecorpusof the hasidic literature.See Idel, Hasidism, 82-112. ForHillel, however,magical and mystical are two poles of the dichotomythatcannot be synthesized: Mysticism is a privilege of a kabbalist,whereas magic is for the popular consumption.

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern ic incantationsand imprecationsin SH, to be discussed elsewhere, testify to the fundamental commonality between the practices and worldview of a Slavic znakhar' (herbalhealer)and a Jewish ba'al shem.133

ID VI. HILLEL'S Who was Hillel Bacal Shem? Obviously,he was not a charlatanwho cynically exploitedandpreyedon the most paganprejudicesof simple folk, like ba'alei shem depictedby JoshuaTrachtenberg.134 Suffice to mentionthat the ba'al shem and large segmentsof the communitysharedthe same values and beliefs. Nor was Hillel a halakhic authority,a rabbinicscholar, or a rabbi, as those ba aley shem portrayedby ImmanuelEtkes.135 Rather,Hillel's worldviewand his tragic fate resemble those itinerantbacalei shem, vagabond shamans, members of the communal "secondaryintelligentsia"and practicalkabbalists,thirsty for some social leadershipand a permanentposition in the community,as describedby Gedalyah Nigal,136Michal Oron,'37 and Moshe Rosman.138Hillel could do nothing but dream of the status of Rabbi JonathanEybeschuetzor Joel Heilperin-junior.The former practiced the art of ba'al shem and occupied the lucrativeposition of a town rabbiin Prague,and the latterwas a community-sponsoredpracticalkabbalist in Zamos~. Hillel could not claim, like the charismaticand very authoritative Naftali Kaz from Pozna, that he personally had met the Angel of Death; he did not have the necessary positive charismato counterbalancethis encounter. Rather,Hillel must be comparedto BinyaminBeinish from Krotoszyn:both Hillel and BinyaminBeinish complainedof the vicissitudes of an itinerantlife; they both were self-taught kabbalistswho knew Lurianicsources and the Zohar,but both failed to establishthemselves in the community.Indeed,strikingstylistic and 133. This commonalityis manifestedin the significance for both the Slavic znakhar'and the Jewish ba'al shem alike of the phenomenaof "popularreligion,"that is, magical manuscriptscombin" and "Trebnik ing prayersandhealingremedies(Rus.: "Travnik "), blackmagic, andthe unityof prayer and incantation.See Lavrov,Koldovstvoi religiia v Rossii, 75 ff., 92-93, 127. I use here the Slavic notion znakharonly to give an additionalEast Europeanflavorto Moshe Rosman'sshrewddefinition of the ba'al shem as shaman. See Rosman,Founderof Hasidism, 13-19. 134. Trachtenberg,Jewish Magic and Superstition,79, 144, 196, 200. 135. ImmanuelEtkes, "Mekomamshel ha-magiyahu-va'alei ha-shembe-hevrahha-ashkenazit be-mifneh ha-me'otha-yud-zayin-ha-yud-het," Zion LX (1995): 87-89. 136. Nigal, Magic, Mysticism,and Hasidism, 10-12. Nigal highlightsthe dualisticfunctionof a ba'al shem: "twopersonalitiesare capableof dwelling within the same person:the personalityof the Rav-Philosopher-Leader(and even posek) and the personalityof a wonder-workingba'al-shem.Apparently,no one in that period thoughtthat these two personalitieswere in any way contradictory;to the contrary,all believed that they could exist harmoniouslywithin the same person,"ibid., 20-21. 137. In her article on RabbiSamuel Falkknown as BacalShem from London,Oronaccurately highlights the ba'al shem's constant strive for social leadershipand his desire to use his magic practices with the aim of establishing himself socially. See Michal Oron, "Dr. Samuel Falk and the Eibeschuetz-EmdenControversy,"242-245. Also see Oron, Mi- "ba'alshed " le- "ba'alshem." 138. Rosmandefines the commondenominatorofbaalei shem as their"abilityto employ magical techniquesfor manipulatingthe nameor namesof God to achievepracticaleffects in everydaylife" and of their practiceof "whatwas termed practicalkabbalah."Rosman demonstratesthe presence of ba'alei shem at various levels of society. See Rosman,FounderofHasidism, 13-15, 17-19.

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The Master of an Evil Name thematicparallelsexist betweenBinyaminBeinish'sSefershem tov katanand Hillel's Sefer ha-heshekthatdeserve separatediscussion. On the otherhand,although he was not a town rabbi, Hillel resembles Hirsh Franklfrom Shwabach(16621740). Like Frankl,Hillel sufferedfrompersecutionsandwas deprivedof the right to operateas ba'al shem. Frankl'sbook did not survive persecution,yet from its German renderingit is obvious that both Hillel and Frankl shared Manichean worldviews,were at home with evil powers,and were inclined to black magic and witchcraft.139Ultimately,Hillel resemblesIsraelben Eliezer,the Besht, beforethe latter settled down ca. 1740 in Miqdzyboz as a kahal-supportedmystic and magician.140Hillel and Israel Besht both were itineranthealers and practicalkabbalists, neitherwas a rabbinicfigure, andboth were looking for a tenuredposition. We will speculatelaterwhetherthe differencesbetweenthem stemmedonly from the fact thatone (the Besht) was more successful in the communalmarketthanthe other (Hillel). Like most of the East Europeankabbalists,referredto in SH as hasidim,Hillel Ba'al Shem was a classical pre-Beshtianhasid. He belonged to the generation of late- seventeenth and early-eighteenth-centurymystics, who, as Gershom Scholem indicates, combined learningKabbalahand practicingasceticism. Neither the Kuty kabbalisticcircle nor the kloiz of Brody were mentionedin SH, yet Hillel's rigorousbehavioralrequirementsseem to correspondfully with the patterns of personalconductadoptedby hasidimin Kuty,Brody,and othergroups of EastEuropeanpietists.141 Moreover,SHmay be used as a sourcefor the pre-Beshtian Hasidism that provides detailed descriptions of hasidic mystical practices (hanhagot).142Hillel reiteratesthat ritual purity (tevilah, tefilah ve-taharah) is indispensablefor a kabbalistengaged in holy work. Hillel meticulouslydescribes when it is forbiddenor allowed to write amulets. He introduceshis peculiarcalendarof "clean"and "unclean"days for those who are"modest."He designs a special calendarfor oaths and damnations.He stresses that a person cannotbe a true healer, ba'al shem, unless he is a true kabbalist,ba'al sod.143 According to Hillel's rites, a healer should pray with profound kavanah, alone, not necessarily with a quorum.144 A week of abstinence and daily ritual 139. GedalyahNigal, Ba'al-shem le-ma'asar'olam: Goralo ha-tragi shel ha-rav hirshfrankl (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1993), 11-16. Mention should be made of the dramaticdifference between Hillel's Manicheanusage of the evil powers and the idea of the transcendedevil in LurianicKabbalah.See IsaiahTishby,Toratha-racve-ha-kelipahbe-kabalatha-'ari (Jerusalem:Mifal ha-shikhpul,1962). 140. Rosman,FounderofHasidism, 63-82, 159-170. 141. See YaakovHisday,"Eved ha-shem-be-doram shel avot ha-hasidut,"Zion 47 (1982): 253-292; Hundert,Jews in Poland-Lithuania,119-142; JosephWeiss, "Pneumaticsin Pre-Hasidism," 27-42; Rivka Shatz Uffenheimer,Hasidism as Mysticism:QuietisticElementsin EighteenthCentury Hasidic Thought(Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press; Jerusalem:The Magnes Press, 1993), 111143; AbrahamJ. Heshcel, TheCircle of the Baal Shem Tov:Studies in Hasidism, ed. Samuel Dressner (Chicago and London:Universityof Chicago Press, 1985), esp. 4-14, 45-56, 113-151. 142. For an in-depthdiscussion of the books on hasidic behavioralpatterns,see Gries, Sifrut ha-hanhagot.

143. SH, f. 2a, 105b, 153a, 154a, 314b. 144. SH, f. 62b. Cf. the personalconduct of the Besht who was reportedto pray in the loneli-

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern ablutionsare requiredfor particularamulets.Writingthe amuletrequirespietistic conduct and a tranquilenvironment.The kabbalistshould preparean amulet in a clean room. He must be alone in this room. He should write an amulet on a fine parchment.There shouldbe nobody else in the house: no rituallyuncleanwomen, no charlatanssuspectedof makingforgeries,and,amazingly,no repentantsinners, ba'alei teshuvah.145Indeed,deliberateself-restraintfrom physical pleasures, the applicationof kavvanotand fastingbeforeandafterthe performancemakeHillel's conduct particularlyclose to the membersof the pneumaticcircles, predecessors of the BeshtianHasidism.'46However,in vain would one look in SH for such notions of the Beshtian Hasidism as devekut.147Nor does SH requireconcentration on the letters of the amulets.148 Nor does one find in SH-except in traditional formulaicstatements-an indicationof its author'sstrong concern with communal redemption.Divine sparkshave no place in the darkrealms of SH-perhaps this is one of the reasons that in SH there are no traces of a joyous spiritualityso characteristicof BeshtianHasidism. VII. CONCLUSIONS Hillel was both a typical and an atypical ba'al shem. He was deeply immersed in a Manicheanuniverseinhabitedby powerfuldemons, evil spirits,dybbuks, and devils.'49 In his mind, these powers were ubiquitous, as in the Weltanschauungof the famous kabbalist Shimshon of Ostropolie (d. 1648), to whom Hillel refers,and in his nephewYaCakov ben Pesah'sZevah (26lkiew, pesah.

ness of the Carpathianwoods. See Shivhei ha-besht, stories nos. 8 and 9; Ben-Amos and Mintz, In Praise of the Ba'al Shem Tov,18-23. 145. SH, f. 154a, 226b-227a, 331b. Hillel interpretsliterallythe famous statement"inthe place of the ba'alei teshuvah the righteouszaddikimare not able to stand."His interpretationfollows R. Yohananand not R. Avahu,see Berakhot34b and Rashi ad loc. Interestinglyenough, as in a numberof othercases, here, too, Hillel seems to be arguingagainstcrypto-sabbateanreadingof classical sources, in this case, of the gemara. See, for instance, the sabbateaninterpretationof Berakhot34b that emphasizes the superiorityof a ba'al teshuvahover zaddikgamur,in Naor,Post SabbatianSabbatianism, 22-25. However,in othercases Hillel inclines towardsabbateanideas. Thus, for instance,he resortsto a sabbateaninterpretationof the planet Saturn,which for the sixteenth-centurykabbalistsymbolized six profanedays of the week and not Shabbatbut for ShabbetaiTsevi and his followers came to symbolize Shabbatand JubileeYear.See Elliot K. Ginsburg,TheShabbatin the Classical Kabbalah(State University of New YorkPress, 1989), 198 and 240-241; Moshe Idel, Messianic Mystics (Yale:Yale University,1998), 192-196; Scholem, SabbataiSevi, 430. At this point I thinkthe questionof Hillel's inconsistentcrypto-Sabbateanismhas to be left open. 146. The Besht was also stringentaboutrules of writingamulets.Cf. Shivheiha-besht,no. 187; Ben-Amos and Mintz,In Praise of the Ba'al Shem Tov,196-197. 147. On the importanceof devekutin Hasidism, see GershomScholem, "Devekutas Communion with God,"in TheMessianicIdea in Judaism(New York:SchockenBooks, 1971), 186-191, 206211. 148. On the importanceof contemplativeandecstaticpracticesin Hasidism,see Idel,Hasidism, 45 and 75. 149. It will be fruitfulto compare(and differentiate)the worldviewof Hillel and that of AbrahamYagel(1552-ca. 1623), an Italian-Jewishdoctor,magician,andkabbalistwho resortedto the work of Aristotle to prove the physical reality of demons. See David B. Ruderman,Kabbalah,Magic, and Science (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1988), 43-58.

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The Masterof an Evil Name 1722), which Hillel often quotes.'50Hillel's familiaritywith and closeness to this world informsthe second meaningof his title thatI propose:the Masterof an Evil Name. Hillel starts with making a dybbukhis only respectableinterlocutorand ends by makingevil powerspredominantin his thinking.Hillel says, for instance, thatany operation(pe'ulah)thatresemblesa burntoffering(ketoret)shouldbe forbidden because burntofferings nurturedemons; any imitationof the burntoffering will benefit evil powers.'5' To be on the safe side, one should not disturbevil, Hillel seems to argue. But should evil appear,Hillel's knowledge of how to control its advancewould be crucial. Again, the contrastwith the Besht is illuminating.Havingbeen rebukedfor smokinghis pipe, the Besht is reportedto haverepliedthatwhile smokinghe thinks about the incense (ketoret)in the Temple.Througha kavanahmechanismhe spiritualizesa suspicioushabit,imagininghimself serving God in the Templeand thus achieving a higher status of devekut(cleaving to God).152 Besht came to be perceived as a pietist who mysticallytransformsevil, elevating humansouls trapped in it. 53In contrast,Hillel eitherengages with evil or keeps it at bay,but always is bound by evil names or an Evil Name, with which he magisteriallyoperatesand, perhaps,whose victim he becomes.154 150. On Shimshon and his worldview,see YehudaLiebes, "Halom u-mezi'ut: le-demuto shel ha-kadoshha-mekubalr. shimshonmi-ostropolye,"Tarbiz52 (1982): 83-109. See SH, f. 42b. 151. SH, f. 229a. A particularpredispositionof demons to the smell of incense is mentionedin variousJewish sources. For instance, in a Yiddish text on Yosef de la Reyna writtenin Amsterdamby crypto-SabbatianLeib ben Ozer Rosenkrantz(d. 1727), the incense is depictedas a powerfulremedy thathelps demonsto acquireadditionalpower,breakthe chainsthatbindthem,andliberatethemselves. See Zalman Rubashov(Shazar), "Ma'asehr. yosef de la reyna be-masoretha-shabtait,"in Eder hayekar:divreisifrutu-mehkarmukdashimle-shmuelaba gorodetsky,ed. EmanuelBin-Gorion(TelAviv: Devir, 1947), 110-114. An episode in Sefer ha-zohar, ParashatTerumahdepicts burntofferings, the smell of which helps demons to cause nocturnalpollutionto men. Althoughthe Zoharicmotif does not emphasize the direct impact of the incense on demons, it is functionallyclose to the incense/demon motif since it demonstratesthe ability of evil angels to nurturethemselves from the smell of the offerings (korbanot).See Zohar 2:130a. 152. Forthe Beshtianconcept of the spiritualmeaningand theurgicalpowerof burntofferings, see the discussion in Rosman,FounderofHasidism, I11. Sabbatiansconsideredsmoking tobacco one of the ways to neutralizeevil powers.This behavioralpatternwas later inheritedby the Hasidim,who consideredsmoking the way to substituteincense offerings in the Temple.Mitnagdim,authorsof antihasidic writings such as Zamirarizim and Sheverposhim, were quick to depict and mock this hasidic custom. For a comprehensivelist of sources on tobacco smoking among sabbatiansand hasidim, see Gries, Sifrutha-hanhagot,205 n. 109. Louis Jacobs, however,considers smoking tobacco "peripheral" for the hasidim, see his "Tobaccoand the Hasidim,"Polin 11 (1998): 25-30. 153. See, e.g., the story about the Besht uplifting the soul of a man turnedinto a frog for disobeying Jewish legal practicesand trappedby Satan,see Ben-Amos and Mintz, In Praise of the Bacal ShemTov,par. 12, p. 24-26; also see a story aboutthe Besht neutralizingevil and upliftingthe soul of a divorcedand "loose" woman ready to convertout of Judaism,ibid., 245-247 par.238. It is significant thatthe Besht made an attempt(thoughunsuccessful)to make a tikkun(correction)and uplift the sparkof ShabbetaiTsevi, see ibid., par.66, p. 86-87. 154. As far as the furtherdevelopmentof Hillel's healing methods and the usage of the "holy and impurenames"(shemotha-kedushahandshemot ha-tum'ah),the eighteenth-centuryhasidic literaturemoved far away from "magic"to "mysticism,"insisting on the predominanceof spiritualrather

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern Hillel's life story and his book furnisha numberof tricky questions. If one takes into considerationthe crypto-sabbateanovertonesof the notion "modest"in eighteenth-centuryEast Europe, one might ask whether Hillel was only a preBeshtianHasid,zanuac,or also a repentantcrypto-sabbatean.155 Hillel mentionsa numberof times thathe is "repenting."His repentance,teshuvah,could have been the confession not only of a ba'al shem who has had some spectacularfailuresbut also of a crypto-sabbateantrying to come to grips with the Jewish community.156 Indeed, for the purpose of exorcising dybbuks,that is to say, schismatics, there was nobody betterthan a formercrypto-sabbatean:he knew the disease and was able to take care of it. Fromthis vantagepoint it wouldbe temptingto reassess the early-eighteenth-centurydybbuksas schismatics and to reconsiderexorcisms in the Polish-Jewishcommunityin the context of the communalstruggle againstthe crypto-sabbateanheresy and its ramifications.Forexample, before he left for the Landof Israel,R. Naftali Kaz from Posen, namedin SH amongprominentba'alei shem, was reportedto have met the Angel of Death in the disguise of a beggar.157 But it is well-known that the "Angel of Death,"Mal'akh ha-mavet, was the euphemism for the notorioussabbateanHayyim Malakhused in all the bans of excommunicationspronounced,repeated,and enforced in Centraland East Europe againsthim and his followers.158 Was R. Naftali Kaz using the languagethat was transparentfor his contemporariesbutobscureonly for us? WhenZ61kiew,this uncrowned capital of the crypto-sabbateans,startedan unparalleledpublicationof books by ba'alei shem, was thatan attemptto combatthe heresy or to disseminate it? At any rate, these speculationsare particularlypivotal in view of the dramatic than naturaltypes of medicine. Forexample, analyzingthe Degel mahanehefraimby Moshe Ephraim of Sudylk6w,the grandsonof the Besht, Alan Brill observes that"Incontrastto bacaleishem literature, the Degel does not discuss demons or naturalcures. Instead,the spiritualstatusof the zaddik is based on his connectionto the inner light of the Torahand his sense of the Divine vitality within objects that cures and gives powerover nature."See Brill's"The SpiritualWorldof the Masterof Awe: Divine, Vitality, Theosis, and Healing in Degel MahanehEphraim,"Jewish Studies Quarterly8 (2001): 27-65; the quotationis on p. 31. 155. While I leave this questionopen, I need to mentionthat one does not find in SH traces of a propheticfervor,which, accordingto the recent research,was pivotal for the sabbateans.See Matt Goldish, TheSabbateanProphets(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 2004). 156. This is not to rule out the possibility of placing Hillel's teshuvahin the context of pietistic practicesthat were establishedby hasidei ashkenazand subsequentlyinformedmuch of pre-Beshtian hasidic rites. Cf. Yosef Dan, HasidutAshkenaz(TelAviv: Misradha-bitahon,1992), 72-76. On the decisive impact of hasidei ashkenazon the formationof the religious values of the early Polish-Jewish communities,see IsraelTa-Shma,"Onthe Historyof the Jews in Twelfth-ThirteenthCenturyPoland," Polin 10 (1997): 287-317. 157. Nigal, "RavNaftali Kaz,"92. 158. On Haim Malakh, see Gershom Scholem, "Berukhiyahrosh ha-shabtaimbe saloniki," Zion 6 (1941):119-147, esp. 123-24; idem., "Iggeretme'et rabiHayimMalakh,"Zion 11 (1946): 168174; idem., "Le movementsabbataisteen Pologne,"Revieude I'histoiredes religions 143 (153): 209220; idem., "Malakh,Hayim,"Ha-entsiklopedyahha-ivrit(JerusalemandTelAviv: Hevrahle-hotsa'at entsiklopedyot,1963), 23:524-525; EncyclopediaJudaica, s.v. "Malakh,Hayimben Solomon";Gershom Scholem, Mehkarimu-mekorotle-toldot ha-shabtautve-gilguleyah(Jerusalem:Mosad Bialik, 1974), 100-109. Also, see Jan Dokt6r,Sladami Mesjasza-Apostaty.Zydowskieruchymesjanhskiew XVIIi XVIIIwieku(Wroclaw:Leopoldinum,1998), 70-71, 113-114.

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The Master of an Evil Name demographicincreaseof ba'alei shem in East Europeat the turnof the eighteenth century-and their abrupt decrease at the end of the eighteenth century. One should not forget that it was an abundance,and not scarcity,of various types of ba'alei shem that irritatedthe authorof Sefer ha-heshekand made his ordealsbitter. Hillel could have been irritatedand even intimidatedbecause he constantly felt the pressurefromanothertype of his competitors,the so-calledfeldshers(originally,formerbarbershiredby the armyto attendto the woundedsoldiers andprovide primarymedical assistance,who at a later stage became paramedics).These semiprofessionaldoctors "withbelow universitylevel education"rapidlygrew in numbersin the late-seventeenthand early-eighteenthcenturies.Perhapssome of them turnedto privatepracticein Easternand CentralPolandas soon as they left Jan Sobieski's army,which boasted quite a numberof Jewishfeldshers. Others could have migratedwestwardfrom Russia and left-bankUkraine,where, in the 1710s, Peterthe Greatestablishedat least fifty militarygarrisonhospitals staffed withfeldshers as well as special institutionsfor trainingthem. Finally,some doctors could come from Germanlands where Jews, startingfrom 1721, were granted the right to study medicine at universities. 59 Hillel was one of the last early-modernitinerantkabbalistsinvolved,to use Moshe Idel's parlance,in magic and mysticism; as such he was challenged from the one side by the rapidprofessionalizationof the field of popularKabbalahand from the otherby the rising professionalizationof popularmedicine. Feldshers and doctors, and, late in the eighteenthcentury,new Beshtian Hasidim were slowly but steadily pushing oldfashionedhealers such as Hillel out of the East Europeanmarketplaceby making them altogetherredundant. Anotherreasonthatcaused so manygrievancesto Hillel was perhapsthe fact that Hillel was not a learnedTalmudicscholar (talmid hakham).Hillel does not seem to have received a consistent rabbinic(yeshivah) education.He could hardly compete with rabbis and scholars who, in addition to their main occupation, practicedas exorcists and healers.160Fromthis viewpoint, Hillel's failureobliquely explains the success of the Besht, who was no talmid hakhameither.Yet the Besht, despite the attemptsof the editorsof Shivheiha-Beshtto emphasizehis divinely inspiredknowledge and diminishhis reputationas a rabbinicscholar,managed to set and accomplisha task the tracesof which we do not find in SH. In his letterthe Besht wrote to GershonKutover,his brother-in-law,the Besht attempted synthesizingmidrashicreferences,Kabbalah,popularJudaicbeliefs, theurgy,and magic in the frameworkof a mystically shapedpropheticvision. We are not able to look at the prose writtenby the Besht or at the letters composed by Hillel, but 159. See EdwardKossoy and AbrahamOhry, The Feldshers: Medical, Sociological and HistoricalAspects of Practitionersof Medicine with Below UniversityLevel Education(Jerusalem:Magness Press, 1992), 68-71, 135-36, 144-45; JohnM. Efron,Medicineand the GermanJews: a History (New Haven, CT:Yale UniversityPress, 2001), 60-61. 160. In his review of Rosman'sbook on the Baal Shem Tov,Gries mentionedthatthe statusof talmidhakhamwas pivotal for a practicingba'al shem eager to sell his amulets and healing remedies to his clientele. See his "Demutoha-historitshel-ha-besht:bein sakinha-minatehimshel ha-historiyon le-makheloshel hokerha-sifrut,"Kabbalah5 (2000): 423.

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YohananPetrovsky-Shtern in comparisonwith the somewhatclumsy and sometimes not very articulateHillel, one may want to observe thatfrom a literaryperspectivethe Besht is more talented: he does look like a talmid hakhamwho is proficient in classical Hebrew sources and who masteredthe style of a rabbinicepistle. Finally,in the vein of a purespeculation,let us considerdifferencesbetween Hillel Ba'al Shem and the Ba'al Shem Tov.Unlike Hillel, Israelben Eliezer "was a ba'al shem parexcellence, offering the promiseof collective securityfor the entire House of Israel and not just magical defense for individualsor his own community."161 Perhapsdue to this strongcommitmentto the mystical,communal,and salvific-which we do not find in SH-Israel ben Eliezer became a charismatic personality,a sedentaryba'al shem supportedby the community,and eventually, in the hasidic memory,the founderof the movement.This appraisalof the Besht has been furthersubstantiatedby the careerof Hillel, who apparentlynever tried to transformmagic, failed to establishhimself in a Jewishcommunity,andfell into oblivion. YohananPetrovsky-Shtern, NorthwesternUniversity Evanston,Illinois

161. Rosman,Founderof Hasidism, 181. Rosman is right arguingthat "[t]his was apparently one of the featuresof his activity that singled him out as a ba'al shem par excellence."Also see idem, "InnovativeTradition:Jewish Culturein the Polish-LithuanianCommonwealth,"in Culturesof the Jews: A New History, ed. David Biale (New York:Schocken Books, 2002), 551.

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The Artist as a Mother and the Birth of Terrible Beauty in the Post-Holocaust World: Ruth Almog's "The Inner Lake" Author(s): Rachel Feldhay Brenner Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 249-271 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131523 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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AJS Review 28:2 (2004), 249-271

THE ARTISTAS A MOTHERANDTHE BIRTH OF TERRIBLEBEAUTYIN THE POST-HOLOCAUST WORLD: RUTH ALMOG'S THEINNERLAKE*

by Rachel Feldhay Brenner I havethe feeling "Whydidyou becomemy friend?"I askher."Sometimes thatyoureallyhateme." "Ineeda mother,especiallya Jewishmother,andthispartsuitsyouquite well ... Butsincewe aretalkingaboutit, whydidyou becomemy friend?" "Becauseyou addsomefreshnessto my life, you fill it withyourstormy mothmoods,I amholdingon to youryouthand,as youhavesaid,apparently erhoodis mydestiny." "SoI amyourbaby." "Ina way." andherprotagonist -The narrator-writer in Ha-cagamha-penimi(The InnerLake)'

In her path-breakingstudy of Israeli women's fiction, Yael Feldmanconcludes her analysis of RuthAlmog's Roots ofAir (1987) with an insightfulobservation. In this major work, Feldman claims, Almog trespassed into the male writers'territoryand became the first among Israeliwoman writersto producean autobiographicalfiction of the "portraitof an artistas a young girl."2Feldmanconcludes that, once the stage of "therapeutic"self-examination,which encompasses "boththe oedipal fixation andthe daughter-motheridentification,"has been completed, "Almoghas now embracedthe motherin herself."3Indeed,Feldmanidentifies the next stage in Almog's artistic evolution in her collection of stories, *Thisarticleis partof a book on RuthAlmog'sfiction, whichwill appearin the seriesMigdarim [Genders]of Ha-Kibuzha-me'uhad,edited by Prof. HannahNaveh. I would like to thankthe International ResearchInstituteon Jewish Women/BrandeisUniversityfor its supportof this study. 1. RuthAlmog, Ha-'agamha-penimi(TheInnerLake)(TelAviv: Ha-Kibuzha-me'uhad,2000), 79. Here afterIL. All quotationsare taken from this text; paginationfollows citation.All translations are mine. 2. It is importantto mention here Amalia Cahana-Karmon's1966 short story "Ne'ima Sasson kotevet shirim"("Ne'ima Sasson Writes Poems")as early precursorof the "portraitof the artist as a young girl."The story can be found in English translationin the collection Ribcage: Israeli Women's Fiction, A HadassahAnthology,ed. Carol Diament and Lily Ratok (New York:Hadassah, 1994), 4871. 3. YaelS. Feldman,No Roomof TheirOwn:Genderand Nationin Israeli Womens Fiction (New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1999), 223.

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Rachel Feldhay Brenner ArtisticMending(1993), suggesting thatnow the story of anotherhas become the focus of Almog's artisticconcern. InArtisticMendingthe writerturnsher "motherly"attentionto life stories of children,mainly second-generationHolocaustsurvivors, seeking ways to understand,but also "mend"the damagingeffects of the tragic historicallegacy. Yet,Almog who, since the beginning of her artisticcareerin 1969 with the collection of stories TheNightlyCharitiesofMargaritahas provedone of the most complex and innovativeIsraeliwriters,seems to shift fromthe orientationofArtistic Mending in her recent, and, so far, latest, work, The Inner Lake (2000). This work of fiction, arguablyone of the most challenging in Israeli literature,abandons the causal, teleological story line thatcharacterizesboth Roots ofAir and the stories in ArtisticMending.Almog did not make the interpretivetask of TheInner Lake easy. In an interview,she claimed to have discardedthe plot: "Theplot does not interestme. By its very naturethe realisticgenre, which is saturatedwith plot, distractsand entertainsand its shallowness diminishesthe richness of the human being." She admits to having constructeda text that defies the normativedefinition of the novel: "I call my new book a 'hibur' ('connection'),4because 'hu hibur shel' ('it is a connection of') poetry and prose, fiction and reality, myths and mythologicalcharacters,lots of nature,especially swans and peacocks."5 Does The Inner Lake reflect the author'sconceptualizationof the text as hibur? Or, to recall D. H. Lawrence'famous dictum "Nevertrust the artist,trust the tale,"should we treatthe author'sdescriptionof her work as a randomcollection of various materialswith a measure of skepticism?At first sight, the constructionof the book reaffirmsthe absenceof the plot and reinforcesthe notion of an encyclopediccollection.The structureof TheInnerLakeis symmetrical;it consists of two main sections entitled "The Notebook of the Swan"and "The Notebook of the Peacock,"each of which contains seventy-one numberedsegments. The segments, which deal with swans and peacocks, are presented as separate, completeepisodes.Thereis no "nature,"thatis, no descriptionsof the birdsin their naturalhabitat,but, rather,scientific informationon the birds, the history of ornithology, and the portrayalsof swans and peacocks in literature,especially in myth. The narratorhas indefatigablycollected stories of swans and peacocks in Greekand Romanmythologies,in Irish,Scandinavian,and Europeanlegends, and in the studies of medieval Christianand Moslem ornithologists,as well as in the theology of the little-knownYazidicommunityin Iraq. The book concludes with an Addendum,which containsclarificationof the externalmaterialsincorporatedinto the book and additionaldocumentationabout swans and peacocks. The Addendumalso explains some of the myths used in the text, and includes Almog's brief acknowledgmentof the people "who helped me 4. Hibur also means "addition,""linkage,""connection,"as well as an essay, anda piece of creative writing. The most common usage of mehaber,which we shall encounterin a moment, are, according to Milon Even Shoshan, "author,"or "composer." 5. RuthAlmog in interviewwithYehudaKoren,"'Anilo makirah'anashimme'usharim"(I don't know happypeople), Yediot'aharonot(Feb.11, 2000): 26. Translationfromthe Hebrewmine.

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Ruth Almog's The Inner Lake to compose (be-hibur) this book"6 (IL 140-2, my emphasis). The Addendum, which begins with the informationthatthe poems includedin the book were either translatedor written by ha-mehaberet(the author), makes an explicit autobiographicalconnectionbetween "me,"the authorwho wrote the Addendum,and the the writerof the book, who appearsas first-personnarrator.The blending of the boundariesbetweenthe fictional text andthe externaltext is reinforcedby the cross acknowledgementof Professor Liebes's contributionof information about the Yazidicult, in the Addendumand in the text. The first-personnarrator'smention of the professoras "an importantscholarof religion"also refers the readerto the Addendumto seek more informationabout Liebes's contribution(IL 107). This identificationof the authoroutside the fictional text with the narrator,who is also, as we shall see in moment, the writerof this fiction is only one of the examples7 thathighlightthe autobiographicalcomponentin the text. We recall Feldman'sobservationthat with Roots of Air, Almog has completed the self-portraitof her emotional growth as daughterand moved on to "motherly"writing, which expresses concern with the other.Are we then to deduce that in The Inner Lake Almog returnsto the genre of autobiographicalfiction, or, rather,that the autobiographicalcomponents,which blur the factual and the fictional, are partof the literaryexperimentof the hibur? I arguethat the use of the autobiographical"I"to removethe boundariesbetween imaginationand reality, betweennarratorand author,signals a particularconceptionof this autobiographicalfiction. As I propose to show, this autobiographicalfiction investigates the constructof the authorin the post-Holocaustera. TheInnerLakereversesthe acceptednotion of autobiographyas the life stoof its author.Rather,it examines the relationshipbetween the artistand her art. ry More specifically, the text explores the process of becoming a matureartist, or, metaphoricallyspeaking, a process gives birthto the mother in the artist.Rather thanwritingabouthow she writes, or how she has shapedher vision, Almog shows how her art, or, more specifically, the powers of her artistic imaginationhave shaped her as a matureartist.This particularapproachto autobiographicalselfanalysis reflects an understandingthat artisticmaturitysignifies the readinessof the artistto submit to the creativeprocess. In today'sworld,compliancewith the call of creativityis by no means easy. In view of the recenthistoryof horror,it signifies a fearfulconfrontationwith sufferingand evil. Paradoxically,a degree of authorialempowermentderives from the recog6. The constructbe-hiburfollowed by the object sefer zeh (this book) takes the meaningof the process of compositionthatproducedthe book. 7. Such as, for instance,the epigraphfrom a poem by ElizabethBishop, to which the narrator refers several times in the text (we shall discuss the thematic importanceof this "combination"later on). Anotherexample of the autobiographicalaspect of the text is the omission to name the first-person narrator.Her namelessness leads to an understandingthat she is the same person who wrote the Addendum.The authorof theAddendum,which is not signed, identifies herselfas mehaberet("theauthor"),whose name, RuthAlmog appearson the cover. Perhapsthe most telling evidence of the autobiographicalcomponent is the fact that the narrator,the fictional writer of The Inner Lake calls her book a hibur(IL 16).

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Rachel FeldhayBrenner nition of the limitationsof the artist in the age that experiencedthe horrorof the Holocaust.It is the recognitionthather aestheticdesire for an unperturbed,remote world of eternalbeauty and tranquility,which transcendstime, must coexist with the ethical issues of the world of here and now, a world that has experiencedthe collapse of all moral values. The concern about the world signals the birth of the motherin the artist.The maturityof the artistemerges in the recognitionof the omnipresenceof evil, and at the same time in the desireto fend off its expansion.The aspirationto create beauty not only as an expression of the aesthetic, but also as an affirmationof ethical values, marksartisticmaturityin the age of terror. TheInnerLakepresentsthe artisticprocess as an ongoing collision of forces, which constantlypulls the artist in opposite directions.The ideal of eternal,perfect beauty collides with the imperfectionsof this world. "My life story,"the narratortells us, "oscillates between the swan and the peacock" (IL 18). On the one hand,the temptationof withdrawalinto the cold spheresof purityand innocence, as representedby the swan and its deathsong, is irresistible;on the otherhand,the attractionand the sinfulness of the world,as representedby the peacock in the arrogantdisplayof its colorfultail, claim involvement.While the formerlures her to the spheresof the nonhumanbeauty of tranquilityand repose, the latterdemands her engagementwith the humanworld,whose beautyhas been marredby a history of violence and terror. The white swan, "sails gracefully in silence"; it is pure and vulnerable,and it is only when its sinuous, slim, delicate neck is brokenthat "it utters ... a magnificent and raresong."In contrast,the peacock cannot sing. Its voice is ugly and wicked. Nonetheless "the bird'sspectacularplumage and his emeraldeyes know aboutthe world and bewitch it when it spreadshis tail and displays it in its rahav [hubris]and in its desire"(IL 16). As the narratorsees it, each bird is a workof art, and also a creativeartist.The dazzling white beautyof the gracefullysailing swan and the stunningcolorful display of the peacock's tail evoke equally magnificent visualizations of the birds. At the same time, the swan's death song and the peacock's act of seductionidentify the birdsas accomplishedartists.The swan transforms its agony into a lamentation,and the innocentbeauty of its song transcends death.The peacock is a deceiver and a performingartist;the boastful show of its tail seduces the world and celebrateslife. The swan and the peacock are presented as emblems;the former is an emblem of an art of impassionatepurity,while the latteris an emblem of an art passionatelyengaged in life. As we shall see in the following discussion, even though the narratorwould preferto be a "swanartist," that is, the poet of the eternalswan song, the aspect of the "peacockartist"of seductive earthybeauty and life experience cannot be left out; in fact, it is an integral and vital motive in the formationof the matureartist. The magnetic attractionto tranquilbeauty is signaled in the choice of the epigraphto the book. These are the opening lines from ElizabethBishop's "The ImaginaryIceberg:" We'dratherhavetheicebergthanthe ship, Althoughit meanttheendof travel. Althoughit stoodstock-stilllikecloudyrock 252

RuthAlmog's TheInner Lake Andall thesea weremovingmarble. We'dratherhavetheicebergthantheship.8 Bishop does not remainoutside the text; she is the narrator's"mostbeloved poet" (IL 25), and halfwaythroughthe Notebook of the Swan, we find a directreference to the imaginaryiceberg. Here the narratoragrees with Bishop's final affirmation that "Icebergsbehoove the soul" (IL 43). Let us note the following lines that provide an explication: "(both being self-made from elements least visible)/to see them so: fleshed, fair, erected indivisible."The association of the iceberg and the soul elucidatesthe common aspects of abstractionand detachment,of invisibility and indivisibilitythat connect the iceberg and the soul. Yet, in the final segment of the Notebook of the Peacock, which concludes the book, the narratorchanges her mind: Whatis seekingthesoulthatwandersfromportto port?Evenatnightwillthe peacockshakeits tailandscream. .. andlikea flamewill its colorsdaze... Andtheiceberg-cuts itsfacetsfromwithin-dangerous,powerfulandtransparent.Butsometimeswe'dratherhavetheshipandthereforegood-bye,we say,good-bye,farewell(IL139myemphasis). The preferencefor the iceberg is no longer absolute.As the ship sails from port to port, and the peacock dazzles with its colors and screams in its ugly voice, there emergesthe consciousness of an engagementwith the world.Whatdeterminesthe ship as an option?The answeris suggestedin the descriptionof the iceberg,which, like a diamond,"cutsits facets fromwithin."This qualityof self-makingand selfcontainmentis reinforcedby the lines that follow in the original version: "Like jewelry from a grave/it saves itself perpetuallyand adorns/only itself."We recall that,as the title of Bishop'spoem tells us, the iceberg is imaginary.The artisthas, therefore,fallen underthe spell of an imaginedobject, which not only is powerful and menacing,but also completely self-absorbed,as it createsand recreatesitself, for its own sake, in perpetualnarcissisticself-admiration.The image of the grave alludes to the lifeless quality of this self-adornment.The iceberg'sbeauty is enclosed withinitself, andit can mirroronly itself.9By admittingthatthe ship "sometimes"may be preferredoverthe iceberg,the narratorreneges on the desire for the self-sufficient, self-containedsoul, removedfrom the troublesof the world. This is not the first time that the importanceof the ship is recognized.The choice of the ship overthe iceberghas been mademuch earlierand in a muchmore decisive way by anothervoice. It is the voice of a characterthatthe narratorintroduces along with herself in the beginningof the book:"Iam a bird-watcherby profession and so is Metuka,my protagonistof many names" (IL 9, my emphasis). 8. ElizabethBishop, TheCompletePoems (New York:Farrar,Strausand Giroux, 1969), 4. My emphasis. 9. Interestinginterpretationsthat inspiredmy readingof Bishop'spoems can be found in Anne Colwell, Inscrutable Houses: Metaphors of the Body in the Poems of Elizabeth Bishop (Tuscaloosa:

Universityof AlabamaPress, 1997), and Susan McCabe,ElizabethBishop: Her Poetics of Loss (University Park:PennsylvaniaState UniversityPress, 1994).

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Rachel Feldhay Brenner The othernames of the protagonistare Glyceraand Dolce, and I shall discuss the meaning of the triple naming in a moment. Now I focus on Glycera,who represents the most prominentaspect in this composite constructof the protagonist. The narrator'sclaim to her protagonistis short-lived.Though conceived in the narrator'simagination,the protagonistquicklyassertsher independence,when she decisively rejectsBishop'spoem. The protagonist,who hasjust made an independentdecision to change her name from Metukato Glycera,declaresthat she is not at the "theend ofjourney, but at its beginning,"and she states,"I came here to watch the ship, not the iceberg"(IL 25). Glycera'srejection of the iceberg foreshadowsherwillfulness.Againstthe narrator'sdesire for the iceberg,Glycerapulls in the opposite direction,towardpassionateand tragic involvementwith life. The opposition is already signaled in the visual aspect, which contraststhe solitary, transparent,and immobile icebergwith Glycera,a wanderer,whose skin is the color of honey, whose hair is flaming red, and who always dresses in red. She is an airhostess who travels the world, and an experiencedwoman who has had many lovers. Glycera'sconstant wanderingsassociate thereforewith an unending sea voyage, andher fiery hair,extravagantappearance,andunpredictablebehaviorrecall the earthypeacock, which bewitches the world with its daringcolors, audacity, sensuality,and life experience. While the epigraphfrom Bishop shows the remote, pristine, self-contained solitude of the iceberg and its refractionin the image of the swan, the excerpt I have chosen as the epigraphto this essay reveals Glycera's"peacock"characteristics, which point to intense involvementwith the "ship"of life. Glycerabewitches the narratorwith her unpredictability,her vitality, and her neediness, seducing her into "adopting"Glyceraas her "baby."Glycera'sperceptionof the narratoras her mothercannotbe over estimated.I have alreadyarguedthat TheInnerLake is an explorationof the motherin the artist,thatis, of an artistmatureenough to recognize and to submit to the forces of her imagination.The fact that it is the protagonist that ventures the definition of her ties with the narratoras motherdaughterrelationshipattests to the protagonist'sautonomyin the text, and, at the same time, to her need to affiliate with the narrator.And the fact thatthe narrator endorses her protagonist'sperceptionas her mother communicatesnot only the narrator'srecognitionof her affiliation with her protagonist,but also the extent of powerthatthe imaginaryprotagonistwields over her creator.The mother-daughter relationshipindicates a turbulentkinshipof the artistand her creation. This powerof the protagonistis furtheraccentuatedby her claim of the narratoras her Jewish mother.Since Glycera's"biography"will show in a moment that the protagonistnever had a Jewish mother,this deliberatechoice of a Jewish parentdemonstratesthe wish to replot the story of her life. I do not use the term "plot"inadvertently;as we recall,Almog rejectsthe plot, which, as she sees it, diminishes the richnessof the humanbeing. Nonetheless, I arguethat,thoughoften enigmatic,sinuous,andcertainlynonconformist,Glycera'stragiclife storyweaves its way among the myths and stories about swans and peacocks. Glycera'sstory, a bizarreconfigurationof mystery,romanticlove, and picaresquetravelogue,tells the story of a child of the Holocaust generation.It is a life story shapedand consumedby an obsession with the tormentedJewish-Ger254

Ruth Almog's The Inner Lake man symbiosis thatthe tragedyof the parentsbequeathedto the children.Glycera is the daughterof AlbertCohen, a Greeksurvivorof the Holocaustwho lost all his family,and of Hiltrud,a Germanwoman,whose father,a Nazi, conductedmedical experimentson Jews. Hiltrud,who wishes for tikkun(mending),persuadesCohen to marryher and move to Israel.Cohen calls theirdaughterGlyceraafter a Greek girl he loved as a boy. Upon his returnfrom the concentrationcamp, he found out thatthe girl had been killed duringthe war in an air raid. Cohen is a sailor,and he takes Glyceraon his ship to his Greekisland,where he shows her thathe is bereft of the family childhood home and tells her aboutthe dead Glycera. Hiltruddies, andGlyceragoes to hermaternalgrandmother,who has neverforgivenHiltrudand who hates Glycera.Glyceradoes not know that her Nazi grandfatherlives in hiding. Meanwhile,she meets Joachim.Joachimis the son of a Jewishwomanwho is a survivorof the Holocaustand who marrieda formerNazi guardin Matthausen, the camp where Glycera's father was imprisoned. Joachim's mother dies, bequeathingto Joachimher last wish, which commandshim to avenge Nazi crimes. To fulfill his mother'swish, Joachimorganizesa gang to huntNazis and gets implicated in terroristactivities. He knows who Glycera is and suspects that she knows her grandfather'swhereabouts, but when they meet, they fall in love. Joachimwishes to abandonhis mission of a Nazi avenger,because he loves Glycera and wants to build his life with her, but he is trappedin his terroristenvironment. Joachimis constantlyaway on his clandestinemissions, and Glycera, who thinks that she saw him on a tall ship, constantlyfollows him from port to port, though she does not trust him; as it turns out in their final and tragic encounter, Glyceradid not even disclose her name to him. Glycerarefuses to live in Israelbecause she cannotaccept its bloodshed,war,and violence. Every time she lands in Israel, she is subjectto a terroristattack.Yet, Germanyis hostile and full of antiSemitic hatred.When Glyceradiscoversthat her grandfatheris alive, she decides to complete the tikkunthat her motherwished for by exposing the Nazi, the embodiment of evil, to the world. She forces the narrator,who is petrified with fear and who vehemently opposes Glycera'splan, to come with her and witness the event in orderto tell it to the world.The momentthe terrifiednarratorandthe frantic Glycera finally confront the grandfather,Joachim and his gang burst on the scene and gun down both the old Nazi and Glycera,while the narrator,speechless with terror,watches the carnage. Even though short and certainlyincomplete,this "biographic"synopsis reveals the contrastingaspects of hatredand love, mistrustand loyalty,murderand rebirth,revenge and the overridingintentionof tikkun.Interestingly,similarcharacteristicsarise in the mythsthatthe motherlynarratorconstantlytells Glycerain a futile attemptto distracther daughterfromexcessive preoccupationwith evil. At a certainpoint, after hearingthe myth about lo, the heifer; Zeus, her treacherous lover;Hera,thejealous andvengeful wife; Argos, the guardianof a thousandeyes; Hermes, the slayerof Argos; and the peacock who inheritedArgos'seyes, Glycera observes to the narrator,"Love,jealousy,revenge,murder,tikkun.That'sthe whole story ... ."The narratoragrees thatthereis "awfulthinness"in the myths, and explains, "Thatis why variationswere created,to create some diversity,which will rescue us from this boredom ...." (IL 83). 255

Rachel Feldhay Brenner This short exchange implies a distinction,which illuminatesthe irreconcilable discrepancybetween the myth and the post-Holocauststory.It is the component of tikkunthat Glyceranotes in the mythicalpatternthathighlightsthe failure of tikkunin the world afterthe Holocaust.Glycera'sstory is, in essence, the story aboutthe failureto redeemthe worldthatexperiencedthe catastrophe.As already noted, her story ends in violent death. Joachim fulfils his mother'sinjunctionof tikkunandkills the Nazi, but, at the sametime, he kills Glycera,who has been striving to complete her mother'stikkun.As the guilty and the innocentdie together, the attemptat tikkunturnsinto a parody,or, rather,into a travesty,of redemption. Ratherthan mending the post-Holocaustworld,the pursuitof justice contributes to the perpetuationof evil. The failureof tikkunin the story of the post-Holocaustgenerationdirectsus to the myth and itsfulfilled promise of tikkun.Whereshould we look for redemption in a mythicalstory,which, almost by definition, representsa worldmoved by betrayal,revenge, rape, unbridledpassions, and capriciouskillings?As the narrator suggests,the redeemingaspectof the mythicalstory emergesin its "variations" and "diversity."A myth can be told in many ways; it may convey many messages, and,while the basic plot is "thin,"that is, repetitive,its variabilityoffers a wealth of perspectives. Rescuing us from monotony,the variationsalso save the story from the finality of a single tragic ending. The certaintyof yet anotherversion of the myth,which promisesa differentending, defuses the sense of the tragic.At the same time, it infuses the hopefulness of the never-exhaustedpossibility of an alternative.In the realm of the myth, nothing is irreversible,while every transgression is redeemable. RobertoCalassocorroboratesthis perceptionwhen he defines mythsas "stories with variants."Calasso makes the distinctionbetweenthe novel andthe myth. He claims that, unlike the charactersin the novels "who never go beyond a single gesture ... mythical figures live many lives, die many deaths .... But in these lives and deaths all the others are present,and we can hear their echo."' In contrastwith the determinismof the teleological plot, the variantsof the mythvalidate the hypotheticalspeculation:"Whatif?" It is a question that legitimizes optional story lines. Thus,unlike the plot, which evolves towardthe finality of the telos, the myth always remains open to new possibilities. "Myths,"Calasso tells us, "are made up of actions that include their opposites within themselves. The hero kills the monster,but even as he does so we perceive thatthe opposite is also true:The monsterkills the hero. The hero carriesoff the princess, yet . .. we perceive that the opposite is also true:The hero deserts the princess. How can we be sure?The variantstell us.""11 The characterscan thus transformfrom virtuous figures into villains, from pursuedinto pursuers,from victims into victimizers, and vice versa. Ironically,the constantin the myth is the variabilityof its metamorphoses. The Notebook of the Peacock in Almog's hibur illustrates the metamorphoses of the peacock in myth, legend, history, and theology of various cultures 10. RobertoCalasso, TheMarriageofCadmus and Harmony,trans.Tim Parks(New York:Vintage Books, 1994), 281, 22. 11. Calasso, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, 280-81.

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Ruth Almog's The Inner Lake and traditions.The beauty of the peacock's colors delineates, metaphorically,the spectrumdefined by the poles of virtue and sanctityand of sinfulness and evil. In Romanmythology,the peacock was sanctified to Hera/Juno,and the artistsin the Roman Empireused the peacock as a decorativemotif (IL 114). In early Christianity,the peacock was considereda sacredbird whose flesh never putrefies (IL 11). Thatis why it became the symbol of immortality.Furthermore,in early Christianity the regrowthof its feathersevery spring made the peacock the symbol of the resurrectionof the dead (IL 114).12 The peacock is mentionedin the Jewish tradition,especially in the midrash. The bird was consideredpure for sacrifice. At the same time, a legend tells that the peacock was one of the sinful creaturesin the Flood generation.In othertraditions, the peacock assumes even more sinister dimensions. In the Moslem legends the peacock is identified with Satanand with the snake. He is blamedfor the OriginalSin and for the expulsion from Eden (IL 114). Similarcharacteristicsare attributedto the peacock by the Yazidis, a small religious communityof Kurdish descent.13 The Yazidisbelieve in the existence of evil that comes from God, who is distantand whose name cannot be pronounced.They also believe that Satanis all-powerful. Satan is a fallen angel whom God restoredto his formerglory. He representsconstant danger and therefore needs to be appeased and treatedwith deepest respect (IL 120-1). In the Yazidi tradition,it is forbiddento pronounce Satan'sname, and so the peacock has become the representationof Satan,and "is known as the seducer,Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness,the strong,the wicked, the enemy"(IL 128). TheYazidiscall SatanMelek Taus,that is, "PeacockAngel." The most reveredobject of the Yazidiworship is the statue of a peacock, named Ancient Peacock. The name and the image of the peacock is the symbol of their religion (IL 120-1). The Yazidi worship of the peacock communicatesa peculiarmessage. The peacock serves a resemblance,an "approximation"of Satan, as Satanhimself is too fearfuland dangerousto be directlyapproached.As a replacementand,at the same time, displacementof Satan,PeacockAngel does not signify the disappearance of the demonic forces in the world. On the contrary,the worshipof the peacock is a manifestationof the hauntingconsciousnessof the powersof destruction, as well as it is a precautionnot to provokethese powersat any cost. Fromthis perspective, it is possible to see in theYazidivariationof the peacock story an implied rationalefor the componentof variationsin the myth at large. In light of the Yazidi theology of evil, the variantsof the story, which defuse the sense of finality, demonstratean evasive attitudetowardevil. As Calasso indicates,the mythsmend each otherthroughtransformationsof theircharactersfromvillains to virtuoushe12. Jung tells us that the peacock is "an old emblem of rebirthand resurrection,"while "[in] alchemythe peacock is synonymouswith the Phoenix."C. G. Jung, TheArchetypeand the Collective Unconscious(Princeton:Hollingen Series, 1990), 375. 13. According to the entry on the Yazidis in AvrahamSela, ed., Political Encyclopediaof the Middle East (New York:Continuum,1999), the Yazidislive in northernIraq,Syria and the trans-Caucasianrepublics.TheirreligioncomprisesSabean,Muslim,Christian,Zoroastrian,andpaganelements. TheYazidis,who do not believe in evil, sin, andthe devil, are wronglydescribedas Devil-Worshippers

(800). 257

Rachel FeldhayBrenner roes and vice versa. The consistent indeterminacyof the myth protects from the terrifyingencounterwith evil. The protagonist,however,adamantlyrefuses to listen to the advice that her "Jewishmother"wishes to impart.Even the positive variantsof the peacock myth fail to change Glycera'snihilistic perspective.When she tells Glycera about the peacock's"hiddenthirdeye,"which "allows humanbeings to look inwardas well as envision eternity"and about"apeacock feather,"which signifies eternallife (IL 106), the narratorevokes a fearful,enragedrejectionof the peacock'sassociations with inner life and eternal life intendedto defuse the fear of death. "To look inward,"Glyceraexclaims, "I know there is nothing there! It is empty! And if there is somethingI don't need for sure, it's a peacock feather.Eternallife! Indeed,who needs life!" (IL 107). Glycera'ssense of emptiness reflects her mood of desperation and hopelessness, which indicatesher death wish. Glycera communicates her despair through constant repetition of a text, which depictsthe inherentand irredeemableevil of humannature.In hermeetings with the narrator,she obsessively quotes from Saul Tchemichowski'spoem, "The Ballad of the Wolf."A great Hebrewpoet, Tchernichowskiwrote "The Ballad of the Wolf" in 1942, at the time of the Holocaust.To highlightthe history of Jewish suffering,the poet returnsto the persecutionsof the Jews in Germantowns by the Crusaders.The poem startswith the lines that Glyceracompulsively14recites: A regimentof Crusaders travels fromtownto town: inAachen, Theyslaughtered will they slaughterinTreves. Theywill continueto slaughter: andthebellwill ring, Together theywill sharetheloot: thepiousandthemob.15 The poem presentsa tragicallyironic illustrationof the motto homo homini lupus est ("manis a wolf to man").After having slaughteredthe Jews, the Crusadersleft the burialof the terriblyinjured,dying victims to the inhabitantsof the city. The Christiansarebusy prayingand,at the same time, looting the propertyof the Jews. Ironically,it was the wolf that compassionatelykilled the victims of the slaughter,thus relieving them from horribleagony. RabbiJospha,one of the victims, bestowed a blessing on the wolf: Its seed will not disappearuntil all human beings havebecome wolves, andpresumablyare as righteousas the wolf which redeemed him from his suffering.Ironically,as the poem concludes, these days the blessing has been fulfilled, as humanbeings have indeed turnedinto a species of wolfish predators,while the species of the compassionatewolf had long become extinct. 14. The excerpt fromTchernichowski'spoem appearson pages 78, 100, 108, 116, 129. 15. Saul Tchernichowski,Mivhar(Selection) (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1964), 93-97. Translationfrom the Hebrewmine.

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Ruth Almog's The Inner Lake Glycera'sobsessive dwelling on this hopeless, nihilistic image of the world terrifies her creator.The narratorfinds it difficult to deal with her protagonist, whose despairturnedher into "anempty woman, a bundle of rattlingbones,"who is unableto "sense anything,"and who "feels like a dead person"(IL 24). Her fear of Glycera'sdespairoften makes her ignoreGlycera'scalls and lettersandengages her even more deeply in the comforting stories of swans and peacocks. Yet, the "Jewish mother" cannot stay away for long from her difficult and demanding "daughter"who "entersher [night]dreams"and who invadesher daydreaming(IL 129). The tormentedrelationshipwith Glyceraraises the questionwhy this insubordinate,depressed and depressing protagonist,a protagonistobsessed with the darkestperiodof Jewishhistory,was admittedto a story,which fromthe outsethas declaredits preferencefor a life of serene contemplation.Why should the narrator disruptthe serenityof the iceberg fantasyas well as her innocuousoccupation as a bird-watcherwith a turbulentand ineluctablylost battle to mend the postHolocaustworld? Ourinitial premisethatthe maturityof the artistis forged in her submission to the demandsof artelucidatesGlycera'sdisturbingpresencein the narrator'stext. Glycera'svoice of terrorantagonizesthe artist;her tone of despairchallenges authorialcontrolby signalingthe incompletenessof the worldof serene icebergsand comforting myths. Glycera'sappearancepresents the authorwith a dilemma:To silence her voice would have amountedto deliberatelyexcising an aspect of creativity;to let her enterthe text would expose the narrator'svulnerabilityin face of her unpredictableprotagonist,who is consumedby pain and fear.In fact, the narratoradmits to having tried to eliminate this frighteningpresence. Quite graphically, she describes her violent attemptsto eradicatethe voice that clamors to be heard. "The truth is," she confesses, "that I killed her; I killed her many times. Every time that she spreadsher wings to fly, I beat her up. I breakher wings" (IL 11). Ironically,havingkilled her "winged-self"anddrownedit in her"innerlake" (IL 12), the narratorbecomes a bird-watcher,a passive observer and collector, ratherthan a creator.She loses access to "the golden box," which lies underthe "coppermountain"in "the inner lake." In the box, "the seven little birds of her soul" (IL 9), which are also "thetruth"of "all her poems,"(IL 11) are buried.The loss of the creativetruthturnsher into a make-believeartist.As long as the "golden box,"the soul of her creativity,remainsout of her reach, she "walksbarefoot," "stealsanythingshe can put her handson,"and "pretendsto be alive"(IL 11). Not only is "stealing"from others an undignified practicefor a writer;but, more importantly,it also signifies the end of creativity.Having "killed"the call of art, all she can do is produce a hibur of entries, information,and myths. To restorecreativity, it is necessary to renege on resistanceand to overcomethe fear of the unknown. Only throughcourageousself-exposureto the unpredictablecan the artist give birthto the story that demandsto be born. Indeed,the desireto enterthe fearfulworldof creativityprovesstrongerthan the fear that this desire has evoked. Eventually,the narratormust face her denied yearning:

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Rachel FeldhayBrenner I wishto holdon to freedom.I wantto do all I want,unconditionally, beyond all conventions, whileonlyone,fullof rahav[hubris] againstall conventions, need guides me, the need most sinful of all, the needfor a terrible beauty to be born ... I know thatthis rahavmightbringgravepunishmentupon me, but

I alsoknowthatwithoutit, nothingcounts(IL19-20 myemphasis).

This proclamationof creativefreedom signifies a radicalshift in the narrator's orientation.The language and, in particular,the choice of references, communicatethe extent of the transformation.The intertextof the "terriblebeauty"in Yeats's"Easter,1916,"and the intratextof the twice repeatedhighly literaryterm rahav,used previously,as we recall, to describethe peacock'sarrogance,markthe change.These referencessignify an expandingperspectivefrom the "beyondlife" beauty of the swan to the earthy,devious, arrogant,sinfully beautifulpeacock.16 The "terriblebeauty"in "Easter,1916"is bornout of the violence of the Irish uprising against England,which broughtabout an extraordinarychange in ordinary, even vulgar human beings. The beauty of their self-sacrifice for the Irish cause transformedthe rebels into nationalheroes for "nowand in time to be."And yet, the terrorof theirheroismraises doubtsaboutthe choice they made.Wastheir single-minded,deeply emotional resolve worth the bloodshed and violence that cost them their lives? While admiringthe courage of the dead heroes, the poet 16. In orderto appreciatefully the courageto respondto the story of the Holocaust,we need to recall the narrator'spreferenceof the swan in her referenceto Yeats.The narratorwould ratherher life story gravitatedtowardsthe story of the swan, its grace, and its deathsong. "Forme,"she declares,"the swan is the most beautifulof birds"(IL 16). "Andbeauty,"she adds,"is beyond life" (IL 19). This wish for immortalityemerges in the narrator'sallusion to the "great Irish poet," whose poem "The Wild Swans at Coole" is "a lamentationon the disappearanceof the swans"in the Irish legend of Caer (IL 32). (The narrator'sunequivocaladmirationfor the swan emerges, perhapsmost prominently,in her fascinationwith the Irishlegend of CaerOrmaith,the "swan-lass,"who, at certaintimes, ascends from the world of deathonly to disappearonce again behindthe gates of the underworld.Referencesto this myth appearon pages 27-29, 32, 132, and 136). Indeed,Yeats'poem commemoratesthe eternal beauty of the swans, while deploringhis old age and the inexorablyapproachingdeath: But now they drift on the still water, Mysterious,beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake'sedge or pool Delight man'seyes when I awakesome day To find they have flown away? (W B. Yeats,"TheWild Swans at Coole,"in TheCollected WorksofW B. Yeats,Vol. I [New York:Scribner, 1997], 131.) The disappearanceof the swans, which have flown away to an undisclosed destination, signifies, in effect, the poet's departurefrom the world of the living. The legendary swans live forever,whereastheir humanadmirersage and pass away.We note, however,that, the poem inspired by the swans is the poet's swan song, a work of art, which will not pass away.In his art, the poet immortalizesnot only the transcendentbeautyof the swans, "thosebrilliantcreatures,"but also, "the autumn beauty" of fading life. In "The Wild Swans at Coole," Yeats immortalizes what Jefferson Holdridgecalls "the tragic calm with which he must learn to build his soul in preparationfor death." (Jefferson Holdridge, Those Mingled Seas: The Poetry of WB. Yeats,The Beautiful and the Sublime [Dublin:UniversityCollege Dublin Press, 2000], 92.)

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Ruth Almog's The Inner Lake struggleswith pervasivedoubt,"Wasit needless deathafterall?"" "Easter,1916" is reflexivein its skepticismaboutthe meaningof the artit has produced.The poem is dismayedat its hubrisof having createdan art thatdeclaresbeautifulthe poetic search for humankind'sbeauty in the terrorof violent death. Yeats'smisgivings aboutthe aestheticof the representationof terrorcharacterize what JeffersonHoldridgein his study of Yeatscalls the "modernsublime." It is, as the critic claims, the impossibilityof a harmoniousresolutionin the violent realityof the modernworld.Modernhistory,its bloody revolutions,wars, and social upheavals, fissured the Romantic Weltanschauung,which perceived the beautifulas a symbol of achievableharmonioustotality,or oneness,with the world. Holdridge considersYeats'sphrase "terriblebeauty""indicativeof how sublime events distort or redefine the harmoniousbasis of the beautiful."'8The growing discrepancybetween the aestheticof artisticcreationand the deteriorationof ethical values reflects the disintegrationof the modem world,in which, in Yeats'famous words, the centercannothold. Holridge'sexplicationof the oxymoron,"terriblebeauty,"in terms of the irrevocablebreakupof values in the modernworldelucidatesthe predicamentof the narratorin TheInner Lake.The intentionto representthe "terriblebeauty"of the sublime in our day and age verges on rahav.The search for beauty in a world affected by, or, rather,infected with, the horrorof the Holocaust amountsto an act of hubris.Consequently,the audacityto granther protagonistthe freedom to express her emptiness,despair,and deathwish forebodesthe tragic fall of the artist. To forestall the collapse, the narratorevokes the other aspects of her protagonist "of many names";these are the aspects of Metukaand Dolce. The energy of the formerand the goodness of the latterintendto mitigate Glycera'sdeath wish. Metukarepresentsthe rebellious,combative,physicallypowerfulrefraction of the protagonist. She associates with the narrator'srecollection of a seventhgrade fellow student,who was a Holocaustrefugee. The narratorremembersthat Metuka,who marriedat fifteen, was big and wild, herblue eyes gleaming. She was involved in fights. The narratorand her classmates,who used to mock and intimidate other refugee girls, were afraidof Metukaand kept their distance from her (IL 22-3). Metuka,who escaped the deathof a Holocaustvictim in Europe,refusedto become a victim in her homeland.Her self-defense against school bullies and her early marriageattestto her physical and sexual prowess,which counteractthe image of the despised, weak strangerthat the peer community impressed on the refugee children.Now, envisaged as a protagonist-"I am a bird-watcherand so is Metuka,my protagonistof many names"-Metuka refuses the passive role of a bird-watcheras an imitationof the bird-watchernarrator.In fact, she joins forces with Glycera,and the two become indistinguishable.Her rebelliousrefusalto defer to hercreatorforebodesdestruction:"Listen,"Metukatells the narrator,"Iwarn you, freedom will crush you, it will disintegrateeverything,it will blur the contours;no image will emerge, no picture,no character,no story"(IL 20). Metuka's 17. Yeats,"Easter1916,"in Collected Works,182-184. 18. Holdridge, ThoseMingled Seas, 2, 3.

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Rachel Feldhay Brenner threatelucidatesthe ironicpredicamentof the artist.Whereasthe narrator'sfear of artistic freedom forebodes the destructionof the artist,the challenge of creative freedom threatensno less a calamity.Finally given the liberty to speak, Metuka has gained the powerto destroythe story,which writes her into existence;thus she intendsto destroynot only herself,but also her maker,the artist.Her ominous prediction of emptiness, shapelessness, and chaos forebodes a definitive victory of the terribleover the beautiful. Ironically,in searchfor a source of hope, the narratorturnsto the tragic story of Dolce. The story reaches us in the lamentof R. Eliezer ben Judahof Worms for his wife, Dolce, who, togetherwith her two daughters,was murderedby the Crusaders.Writtenin the MiddleAges, at the time of terriblepersecutions,the eulogy counteractsthe message of "TheBallad of the Wolf,"writtenin the twentieth century in the midst of the most terriblepersecutionof all. As we learn from the "Ballad,"the history of eight hundredyears between the two texts, which culmithatreaffirmed natedin the terrorof the Holocaust,has erasedthe Weltanschauung faith and love at the terribletime of the Crusades. Eliezer's lament draws upon the famous praise of the woman of valor in Proverbs31. The eulogy portraysDolce as a pious, virtuous,andcharitablewoman. She stitched about forty Torah scrolls, she washed the dead and sewed their shrouds, she sang Sabbathhymns sweetly, and apparentlyshe was a successful merchant(IL 130).19 Significantly,the eulogy does not dwell on Dolce's tragic death,but, rather,on her meritoriouslife. Unlike the graphicdepictionsof terrible sufferingand death in Tchernichowski'spoem, the horrorof Dolce's murderis attenuatedby an idealized portrayalof a woman of good deeds, totally devoted to her husband,her children, and the community at large. The composition of the lamentexpressesnot only her husband'slove, but also the desire to keep her memory alive for her contemporariesas well as for posterity.To reaffirmthe continuing relevance of the tradition,the lament resortsto the biblical text. The biblical model of the woman of valor not only enhances the virtues and the honor of the victim; the referenceto the scripturesalso bringsconsolationto the mourninghusband and the communityat large. Producedunderthe terribleduress of persecutions and out of grief for the loss of materfamilias, the lament seeks reassurance in the biblical foundationsof Jewish family tradition.In this sense, therefore,the eulogy representstikkun;it tells the listenersthatthe mendingof the world lies in the continuationof the Jewish way of life, which adheresto the eternallessons of the Bible. The juxtapositionof Eliezer's lament and "The Ballad of the Wolf" makes clear that the example of Dolce cannot offer a solace of tikkunto the post-Holocaust protagonist.The redeemingpowers of the reaffirmationof the traditionin Dolce's eulogy arisesfroma cleardistinctionbetweengood andbad,sin andvirtue. This distinctioncommunicatesthe unshakenconviction that, despite, or perhaps because of, the terribleoutburstof evil, the concept of goodness, and especially, good deeds, has remainedvalid and indispensableto the society. In contrast,as 19. See JudithBaskin,"JewishWomenin the MiddleAges," inJewish Womenin HistoricalPerspective, ed. JudithBaskin (Detroit:WayneUniversityPress, 1991), 106. Also see 113 n. 45.

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Ruth Almog's The Inner Lake "TheBallad"shows, in today'sworld,where even the "good"wolf has become extinct, all restraintson evil have been removed.Protectivebarriersof traditionare no longer valid in the historicalreality of the Holocaust,whose terrorhas permeated the world at large. The evil of the perpetratorsaffected the victims. Consequently,the parental experienceof evil shapedthe legacy of the post-Holocaustchildren,both German and Jewish.As the tragic story of Glycera and Joachimshows, the childrenhave become heirs to a legacy that will eventuallydestroythem. To gain a more comprehensive understandingof the problem of the children facing the legacy of parentalgeneration,I turn to Almog's first novel, Be-'erezgezerah (Exile), published in 1971. Already at this early stage of her writing career,Almog examined the impactof evil on children,both Jewishand German,born afterthe Holocaust. Here it is importantto note that the theme of difficult relationshipswith parents who experiencedthe Holocaust emerged even before in Almog's writing. In her first collection of shortstories (1969), Hasdei ha-laila shel Margarita(TheNightly CharitiesofMargarita), Almog drawson her own difficult personalexperience as a child of Germanrefugees. In Exile, Margarita,the Jewish protagonist-narratormeets the charactersof Marianneand Bastian, the children of an old and unrepentantNazi general. The burdenof their Nazi heritagehas irreparablydamagedthe psyche of the siblings, infusing a sense of identity,which robbedthem of normal lives. Marianne'sselfloathing, which results in self-abuse, leads to a psychosomatic sickness and attempts of suicide. Bastian maintains his sanity by adopting the attitude of an objectivephilosopher,andbecomes relentlesslyjudgmentalof others.This attitude distanceshim from humanity;he admitsto Margaritahis inabilityto love even his own sister.20 Margarita,whose parents'andespecially her father'slegacy of the Holocaust made her sick, feels strongaffinity with the Germansiblings. Marianna'shopeless desire to discardthe burdenof the heritagethat her fatherimposed on her makes Margaritasee their common unhappiness,an understanding,which generatethe feeling of closeness, "Atthis momentI understoodclearlythe meaningof my love for her, such instantlove."2'An even greatersense of closeness emerges when she realizes thatBastian'sinabilityto love is the resultof his brutalmistreatmentat the hands of his father.Longing for the days of Hitler'sglory, which he wishes to restore (E 125), the Nazi generalwished to raise Bastianas a soldierto continuethe military traditionof his aristocraticfamily. When Bastian refuses to comply, the fathertreatshim with terriblecruelty.Bastian'smisfortuneremindsMargaritaof her disastrousrelationshipwith her father.A fugitivefrompre-HolocaustGermany 20. I would like to drawattentionto Alan L. BergerandNaomi Berger,Second GenerationVoices: Reflectionsby Childrenof Holocaust Survivorsand Perpetrators(New York:SyracuseUniversity Press, 2001). Especially relevantto our discussion are the parts"Confrontinga RepressedPast"and "Is Dialogue Possible?"which raise the issue of the responses to the childrenof Nazis to the family history.To a remarkableextent, the autobiographicalstories and testimonies corroborateAlmog's literaryrepresentationsof the second generationGermans. 21. RuthAlmog, Exile (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1971), 161. Henceforthpage numberwill appear in the text precededby E. Translationsfrom the Hebrewmine.

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Rachel Feldhay Brenner who lost everything,Margarita'sfatherdemandsthatshe get marriedandhavechildren in orderto ensure the continuityof the family.When she refuses to comply, he becomes ruthless,treatsher with great cruelty,and eventuallydisowns her. The similaritiesbetween Margaritaand Bastian'srelationshipswith theirfathersbring fortha new understanding."Itoccurredto me,"Margaritathinks,"that the connectionbetweenmyself and Bastian... an unspokenagreement,a connection between a Jewess and a German... was somethingfundamental,something that emerges between people when divisions collapse" (E 137). The abuse of the childrenon both sides for not fulfilling the expectationsto rebuildthatwhich they did not destroygives Margaritaanother,even more radical,insight:"It occurredto me how ridiculousis our division of the world into the accused and the accusers, into the victims and the murderers"(E 132). Margarita'srecollectionof her cruel father,which emerges when facing Bastian,the victim of his despotic father,has createda categoryof victims andvictimizersgroundedin differentiationsotherthan religion,ethnicity,or history.Margarita'snew perspectivehighlightsthe deleterious impactof fathers,who, it must be emphasized,underdiametricallyopposed (victim as opposedto victimizer)circumstances,weretouchedandtransformedby evil. Crueltyvitiates the perpetrator;but it touches and transformsthe afflicted as well, and the corruptingpermutationsof evil damagethe lives of the children. This brief referenceto Exile, a novel I discuss in more detailelsewhere,22directs our attentionto the impactof evil uponthe family nucleus.While in Exile the childrenpay a terribleprice for theirrefusalto comply with parentalwishes, in The InnerLakethey pay equallydearlyfor theiradherenceto parentallegacies. The obsessive desire to live up to parentalexpectationsdeprivesthe childrenof the sense of identity,which would allow a measureof independence.WhenJoachimdeclares his love for Glycera,he claims that, because of their mixed, German(Nazi)-Jewish parentage,their marriage"will be a great victory" (IL 123). He can see the world only throughthe prism of the mission of tikkunthat his motherimposed on him; it is a mission that determineshis life of crime and terror.Joachim'sinability to extricate himself from his terroristidentity representsa terribleparody of tikkunin the post-Holocaustworld. Glycera, who "neverreally understoodwho she was" (IL 31), finds herself in an even more complex predicament.While she declares to be looking for the man she claims to love, but whom she nevertrusts,she even more franticallyseeks an answerto the hauntingquestionof her identity.The obsessive recitationof "The Ballad of the Wolf" indicatesGlycera'simpossible split identity:Wereher ancestors the persecutorsof the Jews in this Germantown, or rather,their,Jewish victims? The burden of the mixed parentageis furtheraggravatedby her parents' legacies, which, quite literally,designatedher personas an embodimentof tikkun. On the one hand,Glycera incarnatesher mother'sattemptat expiation for her father'slife as a Nazi. On the otherhand,namedafterthe first Glycera,she becomes, in a sense, the reincarnationof her father'sdead lover. 22. An essay on Exile will be incorporatedin the book on Almog. The main points of this essay were presentedin a paperdeliveredat the NationalAssociation of Professorsof Hebrew(NAPH) conference in 2002.

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Ruth Almog's The Inner Lake The traumaticlegacies of the childrenattestto the transformationof parental attitudesof the Holocaust generation.Ratherthanprotection,unconditionallove, and good prospectsfor the future,the parentsgive theirchildrenthe task of mending their pasts. In this sense, the childrenare preventedfrom writing, so to speak, theirown life stories.To elucidatethis point, it is interestingto note SlavojZizek's observationthatwe first constructour life stories and then live them out; that is to say, the true action comes before the actual performance.Zilek contends that "when we intervene in the world througha particularact . . . the real act is of a strictly symbolic nature,it consists in the very mode in which we structurethe world,our perceptionof it in advance ... the real act thusprecedes the (particular-factual) activity."23FollowingZi'ek's observation,it is commonplaceto argue that,undernormalcircumstances,the mode of the perceptionof the worldthatprecedes the concreteact is shaped,at least to an extent,by externalfactors,which include parentalinfluence.Life perceptionevolves andchanges overtime, due to the environmentand its many stimulations.Thus, the modes of perceptionperchance shift and change, determiningnew kinds of interventionwith the world. In contrast,Glyceraand Joachim'slife stories were predetermined,even before they were born.There is no option to modify the modes of perception.Literally, theirraison d 'tre is to bearthe consequencesof acts they did not commit, to make up for suffering they did not undergo, and to replace losses that were not theirs. In sum, they were predestinedto bring a catharticresolutionto the historical tragedyin which they had no share. The sameness of their raison d 'tre elucidates Glycera's identification of Joachim as her twin. Joachim, she claims, is her twin not only because of their common German-Jewishheritage;the connectionis even deeper,because, as she claims, they both have "the same problemthatnobody understands,which can be summed up in three words-the problem of the perennial escape [becayathaberihahha-matmedet]"(IL 35). The statementis puzzling.As alreadynoted,it is the aspectof chase andpursuit that seem to govern both Glyceraand Joachim'slife stories. What is then the hauntingspecterthatthey havebeen foreverrunningawayfrom?In a way,it is possible to claim that both characterstry unsuccessfully to escape the mode of perception into which they were locked. This perception,which decreed Joachimas a hunterand Glyceraas a wanderer,preventedthem from creatingtheir own perception of the world. On this level, theirobsessive pursuit,which comes to its end with Glycera'sdeath, indicates their failure to set themselves free from the roles that they were assigned. At a deeper level, however,it is possible to see Joachimand Glycera'spersistentpursuitof othersas an escape from a truththat is even more traumaticthan the legacy neither can abandon.Even harderthan a life of constant restlessness would be the realizationof parentalbetrayal.To stop running, the protagonists would need to acknowledgethatthey serve as instrumentsof theirparents'obsessive need to settle accountswith history.Fromthis perspective,it is possible to un23. SlavojZifek, TheSublimeObjectof Ideology (London:Verso, 1989), 215-216. (Emphasis in the text.)

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Rachel FeldhayBrenner derstandthe narrativeelementof the perennialescape, which in turnstructuresthe life of perennialpursuit:The realizationof having been born to performa task, ratherthan to be loved, is too devastatingto be consciously confronted.Consequently,the defense mechanism,which protectsthe childrenfrom such traumatic realization,locks them in the fate of pursuers.At one point, Glyceratriesto change her identity as a wandererby renamingherself Calypso, after the mythical goddess, and like Calypso, the ruler and dweller of an island, where she concealed Odysseus, establish a permanenthome with her lover; Joachimmakes desperate efforts to change his identity as a Nazi hunter and quit the gang to marry his beloved. These desires notwithstanding,the commitmentto their missions always prevails,and the escape from the pain of parentallovelessness continuesuntil the tragic denouement. The absenceof the parentshighlightsthe children'sfixation on parentallegaWe note that neitherthe death of the mothers,nor the disappearanceof the facy. thers ends the chase-escape patterns.In particular,the story of Glycera'sfather underlinesthe tragic dimensions of this commitmentto the legacy that spells the disintegrationof humanistvalues. The name of Glycera'sfather,Albert Cohen, evokes anotherAlbert Cohen, the great Jewish-French-Swisswriterof Greek origin. The association highlights, by contrast,the horrific legacy of emptiness and deaththatAlbertCohen,the characterin TheInnerLake,bequeathedto his daughter. The writerAlbert Cohenwas born on the Greekislandof Corfuin 1895 and died in Geneva in 1981. He witnessed the Holocaust from the shores of England. Cohen, who was deeply affectedby anti-Semitismas a child, and who, despite his love for European,especially French,culture,always felt an outsideron account of his Jewish origins,believed in the special mission of the Jew.As one of his critics maintains:"Ledestinjuif de Cohen est donc un destin dupoete, porteur de la douloureusecondition humaine."24Indeed,in his work, Cohen fulfilled the destiny of the Jew as a poetic caretakerof the humancondition. In the aftermathof the Holocaust, Cohen producedhis masterpiece,Belle du Seigneur (1968). The plot of the novel takes place in the 1930s. Cohen'sJewish protagonist,Solal, is a symbolic figure of a self-appointedMessiah who strivesto redeemthe world. He has a global vision of reconciliationof Jews and non-Jews,of East and West, and of the differencesthat divide humankind.Solal's attemptsat tikkunend in failure. However,even as he fails, he still clings to the hope for humanityand to his faith in love and in humankind.The beliefs of his hero reflect Cohen'sconvictions. Indeed, in his contemplativework, O VousFreres Humains, published soon after Belle du Seigneur, in 1972, Cohen reaffirmedhis belief in human fellowship: "Pourmoi qui vis avec ma mort depuis mon enfance,je sais que 1'amourand sa soeur cadette la bonte sont les seules importances.Mais commentlefaire croire a mesfreres humains?0 vous,freres humains,connaissezlajoie de nepas hair."25 24. D. R. Goiten-Galperin,Visagede Mon Peuple:Essai surAlbertCohen(Paris:LibrairieA.G. Nizet, 1982), 21. "Cohen'sJewish destiny is that of a poet, who takes upon himself the pain of the human condition."(My translationfrom the French.) 25. AlbertCohen, O Vous,FreresHumains(Paris:Gallimard,1972), 22. "I who have lived with

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Ruth Almog's The Inner Lake The recognitionof the ultimatevalue of love andgoodness would,in Cohen'sopinion, resolve the problemof hatred.Cohen thus reaffirmsthe humanisttenet that each humanbeing has the potentialof becoming an ethical humanbeing. Because of his people's long history of suffering,it is the responsibilityof the Jewish poet to teach this truthto humanity. Cohen'sinherentlyhumanisticview of the worldexplainswhy he situateshis novel in the pre-Holocaustworld.As David Cowardmaintainsin his introduction to Belle du Seigneur, "hadhe [Cohen] extended the time-scale, it seems reasonable to think that the horrorsof the Holocaust could not have been kept at arm's length in quite the same way and that Cohen's generous, conciliatory humanism would then have been harderto sustain."26The fictional story of Albert Cohen in The Inner Lake seems to corroborateCoward'sastute observation. Indeed, the tenets of humanismhave become meaningless for the Albert Cohen who did experience the horrorof concentrationcamps and who lost everything:his family, the girl he loved,his home, andhis family'sproperty.Unlike Cohenthe writer,who continuesto deliver a message of hope to hisfreres humains,Cohen, the character, cannotmaintainany hope for the future.A victim of the Holocaust,for whom his native island became a ghost island,Cohen "turnedinto a grave"(IL 30). Despite the appearanceof normality,and the attemptto establish a family, his soul has become a memorialto the deathof all those he loved and who loved him. Unlike the Cohen who, in his fiction, leaves his readerswith the legacy of trustthat humanenesswill prevail,the legacy thatthe fictional Cohen leaves his daughteris a story of deathand despair. The legacy of deathanddespairextendsto the generationof the childrenand destroysit. It is in this sense of the encompassingand perpetuatingimpactof evil that we can understandthe narrator'sobservation,"As far as I know,the philosophersof the second half of the twentiethcenturydid not deal with the issue of evil, though, as I see it, evil is the fundamentalexperienceof those born in this century" (IL 122). The detrimentaleffects of pervasiveevil raise the questionof the aesthetic of the sublime. Can there be any beauty born in a world, which resonates with terror?Is it still possible to reviveany of the humanisticvalues in a world imbued with the consciousness of evil? Is thereany hope for tikkun?With reference to such questions, Jean-FrangoisLyotardpostulates that in the postmodernage, which has "givenus as much terroras we can take,"the beautyof wholeness is no longer possible. The postmodernaesthetic of the sublime, Lyotardargues, "puts forwardthe unpresentablein the presentationitself.., it denies itself the solace of good forms, the consensus of the taste ... it searchesfor new presentations,not in orderto enjoy them but in orderto imparta strongersense of the unpresentable."27 I argue that The Inner Lake presents an alternativeto Lyotard'sposition. deathsince childhood,I know thatlove and heryoungersister,goodness, are the only importantthings. But how shall I make my fellow-brothersbelieve it? ... O, my fellow-brothers,recognizethejoy of not hating."(My translationfrom the French.) 26. David Coward,"Introductionto Albert Cohen,"in Belle du Seigneur, trans.David Coward (London:Viking, 1995), xvi. 27. Jean-FrancoisLyotard,The PostmodernCondition:A Report on Knowledge,trans. Geoff Benningtonand BrianMassumi(Minneapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1993), 81.

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Rachel Feldhay Brenner Ratherthan searchingfor new presentationsof the unpresentable,the text seeks new presentationsto defend itself against the terrorof the unpresentable,which threatensto collapse all forms of representation.The sublime of violence and destruction,or "the fundamentalexperience of evil" has invadedour world as well as our selves; thoughunpresentable,this pervasive,ominouspresenceof senseless terrorcannotbe denied. Senselessness signifies the disintegrationof the story and thereforethe end of the art of telling. In other words, a representationof senselessness is bound to become senseless. Consideredfrom this point of view, Lyotard'ssearchfor presentation,which "denies itself the solace of good forms, the consensus of the taste, and enjoyment,"spells senselessness, which forebodesdisintegrationof literaryforms and consequentlyextinctionof the literarytradition. Obviously,the text of The Inner Lake acknowledges the portentsof terror with regardsto art.At the same time, it seeks new forms, not in orderto "putforwardthe unpresentable," but, rather,in ordertofend offits invadingpresence.This the reflects approach position of a matureartist,one who is conscious of the defensive position of art in this day and age. The consciousness of the encroaching unpresentablegives birth to the mother in the artist, who, while recognizing the terror,which truncatesthe story, nonetheless insists on protectingthe fragments. To deter the unpresentable,she invokes old forms to forge them as means of resistance againstthe menace of formlessness. We could claim thatthe fabricof TheInnerLake implies the threatof chaos. The randomnessof the hiburreflectsthe disintegrationof literaryconventions.The loose collage of fictional and nonfictionalmaterialscommunicatesthe breakupof the acceptedliteraryforms.The writer'sabdicationof the traditionalrole of the author as teller of stories, deviser of causal plots, and constructorof plausiblecharacters forebodes chaotic formlessness. The danger of the decomposition of the centerlesstext is furtheraugmentedby the blurredboundariesof the authorial"I" and the fictional "I." The motif of the iceberg, and,more specifically, the wish to "have"the icerather thanthe ship, illustratesthe desire to exit the fearfulworld of anarchy berg, and chaos. The perfectionof the swan underlinesthe desire to returnto the age of innocence and purity.But the historicalreality of terrorwould allow neithera retreatinto the atemporalmagnificence of the icebergnor identificationwith the innocent beautyof the swan. Rather,it engages the artistin a battle,which portends the victory of evil. Indeed,the portentactualizes in Glycera'stragic and horrible death,whichjoins her with her Nazi grandfatherand thus symbolicallytaintslove with evil. It wouldappearthatthe deathof the protagonistsignifies the artist'sfailure to forestallthe terrorof the unpresentable.The "Jewishmother"has failed to protect her "daughter."Neither the myth of the peacock and its featherof eternal life, nor the lamentover Dolce, the eulogized woman valor,could defuse despair. The stories failed to providea viable alternativeto the unpresentable,which would prevent,as Glycera'sdeathproves, the victory of evil over love. Yet, since the episode of Glycera'sterribleend is not the end of the story,the victory of evil has not yet been determined.The progressionbeyond the death scene implies resistanceto an end of senseless violence and meaningless silence.

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Ruth Almog's The Inner Lake To assess the significationof this resistancein termsof the developmentof the mature artist,I returnonce again to Exile. Like Glycera in TheInnerLake, Margarita dies a violent death. Having returnedto Germany,to her father'shome village, she evokes the rage of the villagers.To escape theirassault,she jumps to her death fromthe attic of her father'shouse, her last wordsbeing, "I crawledto the entrance and collapsed on the thresholduntil morning"(E 189).28In the morning, she is found dead.Like Glycera,who is destroyedbecause of her desireto expose the old Nazi and thus symbolically disempowerthe forces of evil, Margarita'sdesire to confrontthe villagers with their anti-Semitichatredends in her violent death. Though the stories of the two protagonistsreveal correspondences,their forms differ.Let us recall thatMargaritais the protagonist/first-personnarratorof her autobiographicalstory.Her death is, therefore,the deathof the double "I,"the "I"of the narrator,which is also the "I"of the protagonist.Since the teller dies with her character,the "double"death pronouncesnot only the end of the story, but also the impossibility of a futurestory. Margaritaand her story thereforedie in an outburstof primitive,senseless violence, followed by the silence of unutterable terror. Unutterableterroris also the first reactionof the narratorto Glycera'sviolent death. "I opened my mouth,"she tells us, "butno sound came out" (IL 134). Significantly,the sound does come out in the following segment, and the fact that the narratorcontinues the story draws the distinctionbetween the person of the narrator,who survives, and thatof the protagonist,who does not. This distinction emerges clearly in the opening sentence of the segment, which follows the death scene, "Thus,Metukaand I," the narratorobserves, "havecompleted our mythical sea voyage, and we find ourselves in the startingpoint"(IL 134). The specification"Metukaand I,"as well as the pronoun"we,"indicatesthat the "I"of the narratordoes not merge with the personaof the protagonist.At this point it is importantto recall that, as I have shown in the beginning of this essay, the "I"of the narratordoes merge with the "I"of the author,ha-mehaberet("the author")of this hibur. The fact that the narratoris the creatorof the protagonist and, at the same time, an autobiographicalrefractionof the authorreemphasizes the fictionality of this fiction. Paradoxically,the intentionalemphasis on fictionality reaffirmsthe role of the storytellerin the age of the unpresentable.The insistence on suspending belief that is, the exposure of the process of makingthe storyprovesthe possibility of creativitydespite the menace of terror.We have noted the dead end of the story in Exile. Margarita,the daughterwho struggles with her father,loses herself in her story, having failed to maintaindistance from her creation. She dies, and the story ends with her death. In contrastwith the irrevocable finality in Exile, the motherin the artistin TheInner Lake allows her story to lead her towarddestructionwhile remainingconscious that "Thevoyage never ends. Even before the end, the story startsanew"(IL 125). The story never ends, because anotherversion, or the "opposite,"as Calasso taughtus, is an integralpartof the story.Thus, immediatelyafterthe episode of 28. A referenceto the deathof the Levite'sconcubine in Judges 19.

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Rachel FeldhayBrenner the protagonist'sviolent death,the narratorregainscontroloverher story.She ushers her protagonistto the worldof myth,where deathis neverfinal. The peacock's feather,which the narratorgives herprotagonist,promisesher eternallife (IL 134). Anotherversionresolves the problemof the protagonist'sancestry.Identifyingherself with the Jewish tradition,as representedby Dolce, the Jewish woman of valor, the protagonistenters a "small,old graveyard"where "ancienttrees cast deep shadow"and "deep grass hides ancient tombstones."There, she lies on the grass and closes her eyes (IL 127). It seems thatshe has finally foundpeace of mind and soul. The thirdversion, however,indicatesthatthe consciousness of terrorcannot be eliminatedor suppressedby resortingto the old traditionsof storytelling.On the contrary,the hope for tikkun,howeverpartialandimperfect,is predicatedupon the acknowledgmentof the presence of evil. Thus, paradoxically,to be rescued from complete fragmentationand formlessness, the story must recognize the terror which forebodes its ending. The red flower that the narratorplaces on Glycera's grave represents such recognition. The mother in the artist remembers Glycera'sdespairand her sense of emptiness, and feels as if "she had been violently torn out of my heartand left it hollow" (IL 128). The recognitionof despair gives birth to terribleemptiness. Unlike the Yazidi worshippers,who succeed in evading direct confrontationwith Satan,the narratorcan no longer evade the encounter.The "fundamentalexperience of evil" in the twentiethcenturyhas created a sense of irretrievableloss and disconsolatedespondency. The concrete, physical sense of hollowness cannot be ignored,but the responsibilityof the motherin the artistis to outweighthe birthof terribleemptiness with the birthof terriblebeauty.Indeedin a magnificenttableau(IL 135-6), which incorporatesbeautyandterror,the narratorkisses herbaby,Caer,the mythicalIrish "swan-lass,"who arises once a year from the land of the dead. Now the narrator has been transformedfor a momentinto the queen mother,who, as the legend has it, gave birthto Caerby swallowing a butterfly.As the queen mother,the narrator finds herself in the position of giving birthto a new myth. In this myth, Caercalls her "mommy"twice, first showing her "a womantrampledin her blood,"and second, pointing to Aphrodite'schariot,harnessedto swans, which traversesthe sky. The cosmic image, which associates Aphrodite,the goddess of love with the perfect beauty of the swan, must, from now on, coexist with the consciousness of the death of love, as representedby the terribleimage of Glyceralying in blood. Indeed,it is the precariousbalanceof terrorand beautythatinformsthe stothat must continuein the age that has alreadyseen the destructionof all forms ry and values. Thus the swans line togetherwith the peacocks on the shore of the inner lake, watching"the seven little birds,"which representthe freedomto create. The birdsareunderconstantthreatfromthe "hunter,who lies in wait.""Ifthe birds die," the narratorknows, "the woman will die" (IL 138-9). In the age of terror, creationof beauty has become a dangerousundertaking.But it would be equally dangerousto renouncebeauty.Against the notion thatdismisses solace, taste, and pleasurein today'sart, TheInnerLakearguesfor the continuinglegitimacyandviability of solace, taste, and pleasurein the reality of senseless evil. In a world that

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Ruth Almog's The Inner Lake has eliminatedthe hope for tikkun,the consciousness of traditionsgroundedin the certaintyof redemptionrepresentsthe only possibility of preventingevil from its ultimatevictory of formlessness. Rachel FeldhayBrenner Universityof Wisconsin-Madison Madison,Wisconsin

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"Chiseled from All Sides": Hermeneutics and Dispute in the Rabbinic Tradition Author(s): William Kolbrener Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 273-295 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131524 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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AJS Review 28:2 (2004), 273-295

"CHISELEDFROM ALL SIDES":HERMENEUTICS AND DISPUTE IN THE RABBINICTRADITION

by William Kolbrener*

Among contemporaryliterarytheorists-and in the humanitiesin generaltheological approaches toward interpretationhave been dismissed in favor of hermeneuticmodels committedto the contingency,partiality,andhistoricityof all interpretativepractice.Against the grain of this tendency,which tends to dismiss all vestiges of theology frompostmodernhabitsof readingand interpretation,critics like Daniel Boyarinand David Stern,have, overthe past decades, attemptedto recoverthe distinctlyJewish modes and discoursesof readingand interpretation. In the process, they have, as Boyarinhimself underlines,introduceda specifically Jewishmode of reading-that of midrash-into the literarytheoreticalcanon.1 Such a task was beset by obstacles from the outset: not only the pervasive prejudicesamong scholars ("religious conviction,"Stanley Fish quotes Mill apbut also the scholarlyrefusalto recogprovingly,requires"narrow-mindedness"), nize an autonomousset of Jewish hermeneuticand epistemologicalparadigms.2 "The liberalterm 'Judaeo-Christian,' as Boyarinhas remarked,"marksa suppression of thatwhich is distinctlyJewish."It "means'Christian,"'Boyarincontinues, and by not acknowledgingas much, the term rendersthe "suppressionof Jewish discourses even more complete." In retrospect, the rehabilitationof midrash throughoutthe eighties can be seen to parallelthe New Historicistmoment in literary studies, which similarly entailed the archaeologyof suppresseddiscourses and knowledges.3 *The researchfor this projecthas been generouslysupportedby the IsraelScience Foundation. I would also like to acknowledgethe guidance and assistanceof Rachmiel Daykin, MenachemFisch, Susan Handelman,Michael Kramer,and JeffreyPerl. 1. Daniel Boyarin,Intertextualityand the Reading of Midrash(Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press, 1990), xi; David Stem, Parablesin Midrash:Narrativeand Exegesis in RabbinicLiterature (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1991), 1. 2. Stanley Fish, "WhyWe Can'tAll JustGet Along,"First Things60 (February1996): 23. 3. Boyarin,Intertextualityand the Reading ofMidrash, xi. Otherimportantworks on midrash and literatureinclude Steven Fraade,From Traditionto Commentary:Torahand Interpretationin the MidrashSifreto Deuteronomy(Albany:StateUniversityof New York,1991); SusanHandelman,Slay-

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William Kolbrener For Geoffrey Hartman,whose Midrash and Literature(with Sanford Bumarked the formal entry of midrashinto literarystudies, the suppressionof dick) rabbinicdiscoursesremainsembeddedin a very specific history,of which his own work becomes a belated part: Mymotivesin studyingMidrasharenotpure.I ama raiderof thelostarklookItis notforthesakeof heavenI studybutto bringbackvoices ingfortreasure. andtypesof interpretations of whichthatarkis as full as Noah'swas with andhowpublicigbeasts.I cannotforgethowthesewritingswereslandered, noranceabettedsuchslanderin theNaziera. As a "raiderof the lost ark,"Hartmanseeks to penetratebeneaththe surfaceof"ignorance"and"prejudice"and,in this "age of restitutions,"to participatein the rescue of Jewishexegesis fromNazi "slander."Againstthe attributionof "a crass and stubborn literalism" to Jewish tradition, Hartman celebrates the "interpretive bounty of a text" for which midrashbecomes a symbol. The promiseof this "interpretivebounty"has broughtmidrash(and its close cousin, aggadah) into the precinctsof literarycriticism.Thoughthe "Naziera"and the "impactof the hurban"are never far from Hartman'smind,he also calls attention to the "shift in contemporaryintellectuallife from identity-philosophies to theoriesof differencebasedon an appreciationof the intertextualcharacterof writing."4Midrashbecomes, for Hartman,both an example and symbol for this kind of writing, made possible-after Auschwitz-because of its avoidance of conceptual monovocality and its embrace of "difference."Indeed, with its obvious concern for "polyphony"and "intertextuality," midrash gained currency with a generationof literarycritics schooled on the Derrideandiffirance. In Hartmanand Budick's introduction to their 1986 volume, they find connections between midrashand the notion of literature,which, by the mid-eighties, had reached its ascendancy: Whatwe areconcernedwiththroughout this volumeis a varietyof "open" modesof interpretation, thatis experienced a life in literature or in scripture as in the shuttlespacebetweenthe text.Abidingin the sameintermediary spaceis a wholeuniverseof allusivetextuality. . . whichlatelygoes by the name intertextuality.5

The Derridean echoes are unmistakable,as the authors continue, celebrating midrash'sproductionof "a continuumof intertextualsupplements,"which are ofers of Moses: TheEmergenceofRabbinicInterpretationin ModernLiteraryTheor' (Albany:StateUniJournalof Religion 74 (1994): versityof New York,1983); GeoffreyHartman,"Midrashas Literature," 338-355; Emmanuel Levinas, Nine TalmudicReadings (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990); GeoffreyHartmanand SanfordBudick,ed. Midrashand Literature(New Haven,CT:YaleUniversity Press, 1986); Marc-Alain Ouaknin, The Burnt Book: Reading the Talmud(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995); David Stern, Midrashand Theory:Ancient Jewish Exegesis and ContemporaryLiteraryStudies (Evanston,IL:NorthwesternUniversityPress, 1996). 4. Hartman,"Midrashas Literature," Journal of Religion 74 (1994): 338, 342. 5. Hartmanand Budick, Midrashand Literature,xi.

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Hermeneuticsand Dispute in the RabbinicTradition fered"ina spiritof highly seriousplay."6Hartmanwould furtherelaboratethe connection between midrashand the Derrideanmoment in his 1994 piece, when he pronounced(if perhapsa bit belatedly),"Asknot what deconstructionmay do for Midrash,ask what Midrashmay do for deconstruction."7 Though not as a battle cry, Betty Roitman,in Midrashand Literature,pursues a similar argumentwhen she asserts "the mobility and indeterminacyof midrash. .. explainsits attractivenessto present-daytheoreticianswho understand midrashin a way that feeds their faith in an infinite unfolding of textual signification."MyrnaSolotorevskyechoes: "Theconceptof the inherentpolysemy of the literarytext which nullifies the possibility of a univocalinterpretationis one of the arch principlesof midrash."The "infinite unfolding of textual signification"and the "inherentpolysemy of the literarytext,"for both Roitmanand Solotorevsky, demonstratethe perceivedconjunctionbetweenmidrashicmethodologyand literary theory in the eighties.8 To assimilate rabbinicthoughtto a poststructuralistepistemology of difference, however, has raised its own problems, even-or perhaps especially-for those scholars who have expressed the greatest affinity to midrashic literary method.9Forwhile midrashmay be celebrated,halakhah,thatis, Jewish law,is eitherignoredor condemnedas midrash'sinferiorhandmaid.10Whatconstitutesthis so-called inferiorityis what Roitman,for example, calls, Jewish law's supposition of a "standardof truth"-both in the "metaphysicaland logical sense"-of the terms.1'The invocation,however,of an ostensiblymetaphysical-or even Platonically informed-realm of Jewish law (halakhah), against the polysemy of midrash, unnecessarily bifurcates rabbinic thought. Indeed, the assertion that 6. See also in this light Susan Handelman,"'Everythingis in It': RabbinicInterpretationand ModernLiteraryTheory,"Judaism35 (1986): 429-440, and her "Fragmentsof the Rock: Contemporary LiteraryTheory and the Study of Rabbinic Texts-A Response to David Stern,"Prooftexts 5 (1985): 75-95, where she arguesthat"midrashtakes delight in preciselythose aspects of languageto which poststructuralistcriticismhas alertedus,"renderingthe text "a field of play." 7. Hartman,"Midrashas Literature,"354. 8. Betty Roitman,"SacredLanguageandOpenText"in Hartmanand Budick,Midrashand Literature, 159; Myrna Solotorevsky,"The Model of Midrashand Borges's InterpretativeTales and Essays" in Hartmanand Budick, Midrashand Literature,255. 9. For the problemsof employing poststructuralisttheory as a lens for understandingthe rabbis, see David Stern'sreview of Susan Handelman'sSlayers, "Moses-cide:MidrashandContemporary LiteraryCriticism,"Prooftexts4 (1984): 193-213, as well as the subsequentexchange of letters in Prooftexts5 (1985): 75-103. 10. David Stern has remarked,("LiteraryCriticismor LiteraryHomilies?: Susan Handelman and the ContemporaryStudy of Midrash,"Prooftexts5 [1985]), thatin "historicalfact,"midrash"has been the neglected stepchildof rabbinicliterature,ignored and subordinatedto the more practicalserious rigors of halakhah"(97). In contemporaryliterarycircles, however,this hierarchyhas been reversed. 11. Roitman,"SacredLanguage,"159;see also EdithWyschograd,"Trendsin PostmodernJewish Philosophy,"Soundings 76 (1994), who writes that since "law is governedby an arche outside of itself,"rabbiniclegal exegesis is "Platonic"(159). See in the Soundingsvolume Jose Faur,"The Limits of ReaderlyCollusion in RabbinicTradition,"which contraststhe interpretivefreedomof midrash with the limitationsimposed by the Law (153-161).

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William Kolbrener midrashis "dialogic"andhalakhah"absolutist"is to get both of themwrong. Such categorizations are informed by western-indeed ultimately Platonic-categories, which make relativismand absolutismthe only possible options. That the theoreticalstarting-pointfor recent considerationsof rabbinichermeneuticshas been French poststructuralistthought has helped sustain the impression that midrashicmethod does, in fact, provide a precedentfor a postmodernistepistemological relativism.The startingpoint, however,for this study is different:not in Frenchpoststructuralismbut, rather,in the empirical and hermeneutictraditions of Britainand Germany,respectively.To attemptan understandingof rabbinicinterpretationand a notion of interpretativedisagreementthat skirts between the poles of relativism and absolute truth, I turn towardsthe hermeneuticsof Hans Georg Gadamerand to QuentinSkinner'smethod of intentionalistaction. On the surface,Skinnerand Gadamermay seem like an unlikely-if not an impossible-pairing. Skinner'smeticulousfocus upon intentionwould seem to be irreconcilablewith the Gadamerianinsistenceuponhermeneuticcontextsor "interpretivehorizons,"as he calls them, in which readingsof texts are engendered,if not produced.Put simply,Gadamerianhermeneuticswould seem to lead to an interpretive relativism(and has been attackedfor engenderinganarchyin interpretation), while Skinnerianintentionalismwould seem to be foundedupon a hopeless idealism about recoveringthe intentionsthat are meant to inform a text.12Rendering Gadamerschematically(as has been inevitablythe case in contemporaryrepresentations of his method)would have him celebratingthe paradigms,models, or subjective frameworksthatproducethe interpretationof texts;whereasSkinnerwould be seen to emphasizethe objectivelyidentifiableintentionsthatunderliethe writing of a text. Such simplificationsmay have an heuristicfunction,but in theirsimplicity they turn Skinnerand Gadamerinto antagonistswhen in fact there are manyandI will argue,significant-points of agreement.Such agreement,put simply,begins in theircommon acknowledgementof the failureof a theoryof interpretation thatdependsuniquelyuponeithersubjectiveparadigmsor objectiveintentions. To be sure, interpretivemodels thatpresupposesuch a dichotomywill necessarilyproducethe options of eithera subjectiverelativismleading to anarchyor, by contrast,an objective absolutismturninginto a kind of essentialism.A recent scholarlysymposiumon counter-transference attemptedto show the problemsinherentin maintainingrigiddistinctionsbetweensubjectivityandobjectivityin psychoanalysis.'3 Articulating the hermeneutics of the rabbinic discourse of the Talmuddemandsa similar attempt,for neithersubjectiveapproaches,which celebrate the "polyphony"of a Jewish tradition,nor objective approaches,which lamentthe essentializingnarrownessof a Jewish legal theology, will do justice to 12. Forthe attackon Gadamerian"anarchy"in interpretation,see E. D. Hirsch, Validityin Interpretation(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1967), 231; for attacks upon Skinnerianintentionalism, see the essays collected in JamesTully,ed., Meaningand Context:QuentinSkinnerand his Critics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), esp articles by Keith Grahamand John Keane, which both invoke the name of Gadamer;see also John Hall, "IlliberalLiberalism,"British Journal of Sociology 31 (1980): 297-299. 13. Forthe beginningof the symposium,see AntonO. KrisandStevenH. Cooper,"Objectivityand CommonKnowledge4 (1995): 174-196. Subjectivityin Psychoanalysis:A HistoryandIntroduction,"

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Hermeneutics and Dispute in the Rabbinic Tradition conceptionsof rabbinicinterpretation.14 Independently,neitherthe simplified version of Gadamernor Skinnercan providean adequatemodel for approachingthe hermeneutics of the Jewish Oral Law. From the bridge between Gadamerian hermeneuticsand Skinnerianintentionalism,however,and fromtheircommon acknowledgementof the reciprocalrelationshipbetween subject and object, there emerges a methodologycapableof doing some justice to the hermeneuticprinciples thatunderlieTalmudicdiscourse.Fromthis point of view, rabbinichermeneutics will reveal itself to entail an accommodationof difference unlike the one implicit in most versions of poststructuralistargument. The rabbinicaccommodationof difference, while entertainingan unfathomable complexity,necessitateswhat Daniel Boyarinhas called "pilpul"(or what he understandsas the dialectical "logic of commentary").'5In anotherregister,it entails a version of Adorno'sfractured"totality,"which maintainsitself, entailing the possibility of the relationshipbetween particulars,even in their "diffuse, divergent,and contradictorycondition."•6That is to say,the rabbinicconception of differencedoes not engenderthe consequencesof postmodernrelativism-rhetorical andpolitical models of conversationsbased upon incommensurabilityandanimus or what Alasdair MacIntyre simply calls "shrillness."'7Rather, rabbinic models of differenceallow for a conceptionof disputewhich courtsneitherthe extremeof unmediateddifference(and relativism)nor authoritarianunivocality(and absolute truth).As a consequence, an accommodationof difference emerges unlike those availablewithin the conceptualcategoriesof the West. BETWEEN ABSOLUTE TRUTH AND RELATIVISM

To suggest the commensurabilityof Gadamerianhermeneuticswith Skinnerian intentionalism,however,raises problems-primarily from Skinner'sown attacksupon Gadamer,dating back to the mid-eighties. In his introductionto the Returnof GrandTheory,Skinnerlamentsthat"Gadamerhas cast doubton whether we can ever hope to reachthe traditionalgoal of interpretation,thatof graspingan alien action, utteranceor text 'objectively' in its own terms."Because Gadamer had underminedthe possibility of renderingthe intentionsof a text "objectively," Skinnerwarnedthatit would be just a "shortstep to the anarchisticconclusionthat we oughtnot to thinkof interpretationas a methodof attainingtruthsat all."'8Here Skinnerhimself invokesthe dichotomydescribedabove, arguingexplicitly for ob14. See R. Joseph Soloveitchik, The Halakhic Mind:An Essay on Jewish Traditionand Modern Thought(London:Seth Press, 1986), which sought the reconciliationof the opposing methodologies of the Newtonianscientist andnineteenth-centuryhumanistin the figure of the quantumscientist. See also William Kolbrener,"Towardsa Genuine Jewish Philosophy:Halakhic Mind'sNew Philosophy of Religion,"Tradition1996 (30): 21-43. 15. Daniel Boyarin,"Pilpul:The Logic of Commentary,"Dor le-dor 3 (1986): 1-25. 16. Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory,trans. C. Lerhardt,eds. GretalAdorno and Rolf Tiedemann(New York:Routledge & K. Paul, 1984), 13-14. 17. Alasdir MacIntyre,After Virtue:A Studyin Moral Theory(Notre Dame, IN: Universityof Notre Dame Press, 1981), 8. 18. QuentinSkinner,ed., TheReturnof GrandTheoryin the HumanSciences (New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1990), 7.

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WilliamKolbrener jectivity in interpretationagainst the subjective-indeed, anarchic-excesses of Gadamerianhermeneutics. Skinner'sown method-emerging from the twin strandsof Austinian language philosophy and the historicaltraditionsof Collingwood and Butterfieldalways emphasizesthe importanceof reconstructingauthorialintentions.Before, however, his methodological protest against the avatarsof the "GrandTheory," Skinnerhad otherinterpretivemodels in his sights-particularly those of the New Criticism.19Writingin 1972 againstWimsatt'snew criticalrejectionof intention, Skinnerfashioned a methodthat would shift emphasis "off the idea of the text as an autonomousobject" and towardan understandingof the text that would take into account what he would call "intentionalistaction."20Skinner,rejectingNew Criticalprinciples,would turnto the "ideaof the text as an object linkedto its creator,and thus on to the discussion of what its creatormay have been doing in creating it." Skinner would thus emphasize not only intention, but also Austin's "central insight" about the performative nature of language, distilled in the Wittgensteinianinsight that, as Skinnerquotes him, "wordsare also deeds."This is to say,Skinner'sintentionalismentailsa focus not on the text in itself, but, rather, on what he terms, following Austin, the "particularforce with which a given utterance ... may have been issued on a particularoccasion."Skinnerthus invokes discursive contexts-or Wittgensteinian"languagegames"-as a means for reconstructing the intentions of particulartexts, or, as Skinner following Austin would have them, texts as performativeutterances.Althoughacknowledgingthat it is impossible "to step into the shoes of past agents,"and "still less into their minds,"Skinnernonethelessholds out the hope of the recoveryof the "intentions with which their utteranceswere issued, and hence what they meant by them."21 Against this hope, Skinner'scritics have regularlyinvoked Gadamer.John Keane, for example, rejects Skinner's"dusty antiquarianism"and his "old-fashioned positivism."Since language is always situatedand interpretersalways bear the unavoidablemark of Gadamerian"prejudice,"Keane argues, interpretations are not discovered,but producedas a function of present concerns.There are, in any event, "no selfless researchers,"as Skinneris meant to presuppose,who are "detachedfrom their object."Similarly,Nancy Streuver,citing David Hull, finds Skinner's"preoccupationwith anachronism"a "fussy minor therapy,"rejecting both his interpretivemodel and what she sees as his relegationof past texts to the "statusof antiques.""Presentism,"that is, the taking into account of the interpretive schemes, paradigms,and prejudiceswielded by the contemporarysubjectenHere again, counteringa text, is a "necessaryelement in good historiography."22 19. See also Skinner's"A Reply to My Critics"in Tully,Meaning in Context,esp 276-281. 20. See Skinner's"Motives, intentions,and the interpretationof texts" in Tully,Meaning and Context,68-78, and esp 70-72 and 233-34. 21. Tully,Meaningand Context,260, 279. Skinner'scritiqueof Wimsattmay seem, atthis point, both datedandirrelevant.Forhis confrontationwith a triumvirateof morecontemporaryfigures (Barth, Foucault,and Derrida),see 272-281. 22. Nancy S. Streuver, Theory as Practice: Ethical Inquiry in the Renaissance (Chicago: Uni-

versity of Chicago Press, 1992), x.

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Hermeneutics and Dispute in the Rabbinic Tradition authorialintentionis rejectedas a chimera,with textual meanings understoodas the resultof the Gadamerianproductiveact of interpretation. Notwithstandingthe conflict emerging between the avatarsof Skinnerian and Gadameriancamps, there is a case to be made, nonetheless, for methodological affinities between the two thinkers.To be sure, a full reconciliationof Skinnerian intentionalismand Gadamerianhermeneuticswould be impossible: their own agendas are very much informedby the particularcontexts-historical and philosophical respectively-in which they were nourished.Yet notwithstanding the explicit attackof the GrandTheoryvolume, Skinnerhas shown himself to be moving in the direction of some kind of a rapprochementwith Gadamerian hermeneutics.Skinner,it should be noted, almost always refrainsin his more recent work from a head-on attackon Gadamer,more usually arguingagainstthose who invokeGadamer'sname.23Indeed,in the 1988 Meaningand Contextvolume, Skinner,citing Kuhn,acknowledgesthat "wheneverwe reportour beliefs, we inevitablyemploy some classificatory scheme"with the resultthatnone of these different schemes can "ever be uncontentiouslyemployed to report undisputable facts."This is not to deny,however,Skinnercontinues,"thatthereareundisputable facts to be reported."24Different conceptual schemes, however,Skinnerhimself acknowledges,will come to reveal differentaspects of the world.25 Skinneris even more explicit aboutthe reciprocalrelationshipbetween subjective and objectiveconstraintsin interpretationwhen he claims, in the same volume, that historians"inevitablyapproachthe past in the light of contemporary paradigmsandpresuppositions,the influenceof which may easily serve to mislead us at every turn."Yet he continues,"I have also concededthatthe enterpriseof recoveringthe kinds of intentionsin which I am interestedrequiresa level of historical awarenessand sheer eruditionthat few of us can aspire to reach."Skinner's insistenceuponthe roleof "contemporary mayhave paradigmsandpresuppositions" been implicitin his earlierwork;the acknowledgementof thatrole in the response to his critics shows Skinnerdemonstratingan awareness-indeed, incorporatingthe Gadameriancritiqueinto his own methodology.Of course, even the acknowledgementhere is balancedby the everpresentSkinnerianemphasison the importance of eruditionand the knowledge of discourses:very simply, to know what Hobbes,or Locke, or Miltonmight have been doing, one has to know,Skinneradmonishes, a very greatdeal. (CertainlySkinnerwould be right to point to the way the invocationof new criticalmethodin the sixties,as well as Gadamerian hermeneutics in the eighties, may not have been felicitous for the actualjob of writinghisto23. For a notableexception, see Tully,Meaning and Context,338, n. 172. 24. Tully,Meaning and Context,257. Foran earlieracknowledgmentof the influence of Kuhn on the CambridgeSchool, see J. G. A. Pocock, Virtue,Commerce,and History: Essays on Political Thoughtand History,Chieflyin the EighteenthCentury(NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1985), 3, 61. 25. Skinner'srecent Visionof Politics (New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 2002) also asserts an affinity with Gadamer:Gadamer'sarguments,writes Skinner,embody "a salutaryreminder aboutthe need to be awareof our inevitabletendencytowardsprejudgmentand the fitting of evidence into pre-existingpatternsof interpretationand explanation"(15).

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William Kolbrener ry).26Notwithstandingthe acknowledgmentof the role for subjectiveelementsin interpretation,Skinner'semphasisremainson the recoveryof authorialintentions. Gadamer'shermeneuticmodel, by contrast,would seem to rule out any possibility of an interpretivemodel based upon objective coordinates and founded upon intention.Indeed,in his attemptto undercutthe claims of a nineteenth-century "objectivist"epistemology, Gadamerassociates the notion that "we must transposeourselves into the spirit of the age" with what he calls the "naive assumption"of an earlierpositivist historicism.The "importantthing"to recognize, for Gadamer,is that "temporaldistance"provides the "positive and productive conditionenablingunderstanding."ForGadamer,thereareno unhistorical,thatis, unsituated,interpretations.The "hermeneuticalsituation,"irreduciblyhistorical,is not only constitutiveof the text, but also constitutiveof "whatseems to us worth inquiringaboutand what will appearas an object of investigation."But what follows from Gadamer'sanalysis of the constitutiveact of understandingand from the appreciationof the "finitudeof our historicalexistence"is the particularlydisturbingconsequence to which Skinnerhimself had pointed:"thatthere is something absurdaboutthe whole idea of a uniquecorrect interpretation."27 Gadamer'sassertionthatthe inescapablehistoricityof interpretationrenders "absurd"the very notion of "correctinterpretation" would seem to leave him open to the very claims of anarchisticinterpretationwhich Skinnerhad leveled at him, andto make theirreconciliation,on any level, impossible.Yet,just as Skinner'sapparentlyobjectivist emphasis on intention is qualified by his concession to the more subjectivistrealm of "paradigms"and "presuppositions,"so Gadamer'sapparentlysubjectivistemphasison the constitutiveaspect of the hermeneuticsituation is qualified by his acknowledgementof the demandsexertedby the object of interpretation.Gadamer thus qualifies his argument about the absurdity of a "uniquecorrect interpretation,"by asserting that interpretationdoes not simply emerge as a functionof the "meresubjectivevarietyof conceptions"of the interpreter,but of the "work'sown possibilities of being."Here, significantly,the "subjective varietyof conceptions"is limited by the "variety"of "aspects"located by Gadamerin the work itself Further,Gadamerwarns, seeming almost to migrate into the Skinnerianposition, if "one regardsthe variationspossible in the presentationas free and arbitrary," then "one fails to appreciatethe obligatoriness"of the All "subjectivevariations,"Gadamercontinues are object under interpretation.28 "subjectto the supreme criterionof 'right' representation."Although Gadamer's insistence on rightrepresentationacknowledgesthe impossibilityof attainingunmediatedaccess to the text (or what Skinnercalls more prosaically"steppinginto the author'sshoes"), he does, however,maintaina belief in the "truemeaning of the object."As an interpreterof texts, Gadamerargues, one should "be awareof one's own bias, so thatthe text can presentitself in all its othernessandthus assert 26. Tully,Meaning and Context,257, 281. 27. Hans George Gadamer,Truthand Method, 2nd revised ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimerand Donald G. Marshall(New York:Crossroads,1993), 297, 300, 120. 28. For Hirsch'sextended critiqueof Truthand Method, see "AppendixII" in Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation,245-264.

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Hermeneutics and Dispute in the Rabbinic Tradition its own truthagainst one's own fore-meaning."That is, Gadamer'smuch-vaunted "methodologicallyconscious understanding"only makes prejudices"conscious," so "as to check them and thus acquirerightunderstandingsfrom the things themselves." Notwithstandingthe primaryrole of the interpreterand his prejudices, Gadamer'sexplicit goal is that we may be "able to open ourselves to the superior claim the text makes."29 Gadamer's language-inherited from the traditions of German philosophy-certainly entails differentcommitmentsand emphasesthan Skinner'sown empiricalintentionalism.Yet both thinkersgesture towardsthe very extreme that their own thought is alleged to oppose, if not renderimpossible. What Gadamer and Skinnerboth seem to recognize, and what gets lost in the polemical attacks putforwardby some of theirfollowers,is thateven the hermeneutistGadamerturns to the constraintsimposed by the object itself, while the intentionalistSkinneracknowledges the power of the paradigmsand schemes that interpretersemploy. Away from the scene of polemical appropriationand debate, there emerges some common groundaboutthe natureof the interpretiveenterprisebased on both subject and objective frames of reference. From them emerges a hermeneutic,removed from the binary between the relative and the absolute, suitable for encounteringthe hermeneuticuniverseof the Talmud.Foronce the polemical debate shifts awayfromthe obsessive invocationof subjectivityon the one hand(and the anarchyit is meantto entail), and objectivityon the other(andthe naive idealism it is said to presuppose),an opening emerges for an articulationof rabbinic hermeneutics.30 THE TEMPTATIONOF TRANSCENDENCE

"Philosophy,"Wittgensteinwrote, "oughtreallyto be writtenonly as aform of poetry."31 In many ways, classical rabbinic meditations on questions of hermeneutics, epistemology, and even metaphysics are written in poetic-certainly nonphilosophical-form. In the Talmud,as Adin Steinsaltz has remarked, "thereis a deliberateevasion of abstractthinkingbased on abstractconcepts."32 The midrashic or aggadic-that is, the narrative-treatment of philosophical problemsserves as a way of avoiding,if not resisting,the abstractconcepts of philosophy.In rabbinicdiscourses,metadiscussionsupon the natureof interpretation are almost always renderedthroughmidrash.Only the language of explanatory commentary,we shall see, requiresthe use of a language of dualism, which the narrativeregistersof midrashand aggadah managethemselves to avoid. One such talmudicnarrativeinvolves the legal disputebetween two rabbis; 29. Gadamer,Truthand Method, 118, 298, 269; emphasisadded. 30. Alan Sokal's attack upon the humanitiesthat emerged from the Social Textcontroversy hinged largely upon his attributionof a simplistic notion of "subjectivism"to all avatarsof humanist method againstthe ostensibleobjectivityof the sciences. One might arguethatneithermodel, by itself, is appropriateeither for the humanitiesor the sciences. 31. LudwigWittgenstein,Cultureand Value,trans.PeterWinch (Oxford:B. Blackwell, 1980), 24e. 32. Handelman,Slayers, 61.

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WilliamKolbrener as the often-cited story goes (B. Bava Mezica59b), in the midst of the dispute, a voice-a bat kol-went out from the heavens,proclaimingthatthe law was to be determinedin accord with one of the disputants.33Withinthe context of the narrative,the heavenly voice is itself rejected (along with a numberof supernatural events which had proceeded),with RabbiYehoshuaciting a verse from the Torah as a means of supportingthe rejectionof the divine intercession.In a commentary of the Gaonicperiod,Nissim ben Jacobben Nissim Ibn Shahin(RabbenuNissim) explains that: theintention of the"batkol"[thevoicefromheaven]wasonlytotesttheSages intheirhandsandthe thetradition [tosee]if theywouldorwouldnotabandon said,"it[theTorah] teachingintheirmouths.Andthisis whatRabbiYehoshua is notinheaven"-meaning,theTorahof Godis perfect,andhasalreadybeen givento us at Sinai(M.Berakhot19b). The episode, as RabbenuNissim explains, not only thematizes the post-Sinaitic priorityof humaninterpretationover divine command,but also enacts the temptation of transcendence-that is, the temptationof aspiringtowardsa grasp of the absolute.RabbiYehoshua'scitationof a verse fromthe Torahnot only providesthe relevantproof text, but also enacts a process of interpretationthat is alreadyoutside of the scope of furtherdivine intervention.The narrative-in RabbenuNissim's understanding-rejects the appeal to the absolute, asserting, after the moment at Sinai, the priorityof interpretation. The rejectionof divine interventionand the concomitantembraceof interpretationentails, correspondingly,a rejectionof the possibility of what Gadamer calls "a uniquecorrectinterpretation." The emphasison multiplicityin interpretation is manifested in a series of midrashicnarrativesrelated in tractateTemurah (1 5a- 16a). Centeringaroundthe deathof Moses, in these midrashicaccounts,the relationshipbetween the loss of access to the absolute and the emergence of interpretivemultiplicity is elaborated:"RavYehudahsaid in the name of Shmuel: Threethousandlaws were forgottenduringthe periodof mourningfor Moses ... ." The death of Moses, and the loss of his privilegedaccess to God, entails a loss of the law as well. The narrative,however,continues:"Afterthe death of Moses, if those [rabbis]who pronounced[ritually]unclean were in the majority,they declaredthe object impure,and if those who pronounced[ritually]purewere in the majority,they declared it clean." Lacking the clarity of insight available to the prophetMoses, the interpretiveprocesses of the rabbis (after the propheticmo33. Forthe most salient discussions of the episode, see Boyarin,Intertextualityand the Reading of Midrash,34. MenachemFisch, however,takes exception to a Boyarin'sreading,which, Fisch claims, goes to "the point of interpretiveanarchy"(Menachem Fisch, Rational Rabbis: Science and TalmudicCulture[Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 1997], 85). Forothertreatmentsof this narrative, see Michael Rosensweig, "EluVa-EluDivre Elokim Hayim:HalakhicPluralismand Theories of Controversy,"Tradition26 (1992): 4-23; Eli Turkel,"TheNatureand Limitationsof RabbinicAuthority,"Tradition27 (1993): 80-99; ShalomCarmy,"Pluralismand the Categoryof the Ethical,"Tradition 30 (1996): 145-163; and Avi Sagi, "'Both are the Wordsof the Living God': A Typological Analysis of HalakhicPluralism,"HUCA 65 (1994): 105-136.

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Hermeneutics and Dispute in the Rabbinic Tradition ment) are governed by the apparentlydemocraticprinciplewherebythe legal decision is determinedby a majority.Importantly,whereasfor Moses, the law would have been transparent(and the object eitherpure or impure),for the rabbis,it becomes a subject for debate. Such dispute, however,is itself sanctionedby the divine, as the heavenly voice affirms, after a three-year-longdispute between the schools of Hillel and Shammai,"theseand these are the wordsof the Living God" (B. 'Eruvin 13b). Against the ideal world figured in the propheticexperiencethathas passed, the rabbisthemselves inhabita realm governedby loss, disagreement,and multiplicity.34Yet, as a later legal commentatorexplains in the introductionto his collection, Kezot ha-hoshen, the status of Torah is not compromised through its immersion in dispute and multiplicity, and in fact only emerges through the processes of interpretation,"theTorahwas not given to ministeringangels; it was given to man with a humanmind. He gave us the Torah,"the Kezotcontinues, "in conformityto the ability of the humanmindto decide, in accordancewith the conclusions of the humanmind."In what from a Westernphilosophicalperspective would amountto the overturningof the hierarchiesrepresentedin Plato's"divided line,"in which the contingentis dismissedin favorof the ideal of transcendence, the Kezot affirms, "Let the truthemerge from the earth;the truthbe as the sages decide with the humanmind."35 Yet the very allusion to Plato (even in the suggested reversalof his model) does not do justice to rabbinicconceptions of interpretation.Forthe legal principle, "these and these are the words of the Living God,"which the preceding accounts exemplify, cannot be usefully compared to simple western versions of relativism.Althoughit maybe true,as Rambanwrotein his introductionto the Talmud, Milhemetha-shem, that "thereare no absolute proofs in disagreements"in the Talmud,this is not to reject the notion of truthor validity in interpretationaltogether.36Forthe principle"these and these,"which licenses the validity (if not, to risk a term,the truth)of differentperspectives,is affirmednot only on whatwe might call subjectivistgrounds,but objectivistones as well: opposingrabbinicinterpretationsall representconcreteembodimentsof the Torah. Of course, such a principle, when seen philosophically,runs right into the Aristotelianprincipleof noncontradiction:the subject of the dispute between le34. Formore on the principlesof loss andmourningin rabbinichermeneutics,see WilliamKolbrener,"Hermeneuticsof Mourning:MultiplicityandAuthorityin Jewish Law,"CollegeLiterature30, 4 (2003): 114-139. 35. The "dividedline" in Book VI of TheRepublichad diminishedthe ontological validity of the phenomenal(in relationto the noumenalforms or ideas); the rejectionof poetry in Book X echoes the allegory of the divided line by placing imaginationand poetic representationon both the lowest ontological and epistemological levels. As Plato's Socrates claims, the "artof representationis ... a long way removed from truth,and it is able to reproduceeverything because it has little grasp over anything,and that little is of a mere phenomenalappearance"(Plato, Republic, ed. Henry Desmond PritchardLee [London:Penguin, 1987], 364). Aryeh Lev Yosef Ha Cohen, Kezot ha- hoshen (Jerusalem, 1972), 3. 36. Ramban,Introductionto Milhemetin tractateM. Berakhot(precedingthe commentaryof R. Alfasi).

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William Kolbrener gal adversariesrevolved,moreoften thannot, uponquestionsof permittedandprohibitedbehavior-questions which would hardlyseem to allow for disagreement, let alone outrightcontradiction.Which is to say, how can the separatedeterminations that an act is "permitted"on the one hand or "forbidden"on the other both representthe truth.How can they both be the "wordsof the Living God"?So ask the Ba'alei ha-tosafot and Ritba (R. YomTov ibn Asevilli), who would elaborate theirquestion(perhapsinstigatedby an awarenessof the Aristoteliancategoriesof scholastic philosophy): Therabbisof Franceaskedhowis it possiblethattheyareboththewordsof andthisone [saysit is] the livingGod,[when]thisone [saysit is] prohibited to And when Moses went answered: up theAboveto receive permitted? they theTorah,it was shownto himon everymatterforty-ninewaysto prohibit, andforty-ninewaysto permit.And[Moses]askedtheHolyOneBlessed-beHe aboutthis,andHe saidthatthis will be passedto the Sagesof Israelof andit will be decidedaccordingto them.37 everygeneration, Ritba understandsthat a multiplicity of different legal perspectives were themselves already implicit in the original revelationto Moses at Sinai. Thus the appearanceof various opinions-even on the same matter-does not compromise the objectivistcriteriaof the Torah.The judgmentsthat emerge in particularsituations, though contradictory,are nonetheless both "the words of the living God." The Torahitself, and the experienceof Sinai, accordingto Ritba, is the guarantor of truthin multiplicity. While Ritba emphasizes such a multiplicitygroundedin the experience at Sinai itself, latercommentatorswould turntowardsthe role of the interpreter.Indeed the principlearticulatedin tractateNiddah (20b)-"a judge can only decide by what appearsto his eyes"-provides a Talmudicprecedentfor this subjectivist criterion.Seeming to transformthis principleinto a broaderinterpretiveprinciple, Maharshal(R. Solomon ben Yehiel writes, in apparentdisagreementwith Ritba, that differencesbetween the sages emergednot because of the multiplicityinherent in revelation,but, rather,because each of the sages "perceivedthe Torahfrom his own perspective in accordancewith his intellectual capacity as well as the statureand uniquecharacterof his particularsoul."38Fromthe perspectiveof Maharshal,differenceof perception-purely subjectivecriteria-constitutes an integral part of the Sinaitic revelation. Maharshal'sprinciples certainly do not compromisehis commitmentto Law (as his commentaryon the Shulhan cArukh avows), which atteststo the necessity of an objectivecomponentunderlyingan interpretiveapproachthat emphasizesthe subjective. Ritbaand Maharshal,therefore,arenot so much disagreeingas they areproviding differentperspectiveson the principle"theseandthese arethe wordsof the Living God" (their dispute would, in fact, come underthe aegis of the very principle they are coming to explain). Indeed,Ritba himself hints at the corollaryin37. Yom-Tov benAvraham Ishbilli,Hidusheiha-Ritba"alha-shas(Jerusalem,1974),3:107. toYamShelShlomo,BavaKama. 38. Introduction

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Hermeneutics and Dispute in the Rabbinic Tradition terpretationof Maharshalwhen he asserts that, in additionto the explanationthat he had alreadyoffered,and "accordingto the ways of truth"(in all likelihooda reference to the Zohar),there is yet another"hiddenexplanationof the matter."For certainlyRitbahimself would have to providesome account-touching upon subjectivist criteria-which would explainthe emergenceof the differentperspectives in differenthistoricalperiods. The commentariesof Ritba and Maharshalare already,in their response to the question of Tosefot, inflected (thoughnot explicitly) with binaryphilosophicalcategories:Ritbaemphasizingobjectivity,Maharshal subjectivity.Though even here the distinctionsdo not emerge out of a desire for mutualexclusion, but only as a matterof emphasis. In the event, no such philosophical distinctions are present in the midrashicnarrativesthemselves, which meditateon problemsof interpretationwithouteliciting these distinctionsthatare, in fact, a functionof commentary. Thatthe divine and human,and hence subjectiveand objective,are mutually implicatedreceives furtherexplicit articulationin the account in tractateGittin centeringon anotherrabbinicdisagreement.After describingthe disputebetween R. Avitarand R. Yochanan(on the correctinterpretationof an episode in Judges), the gemara (6b) provides an account of R. Avitar'sencounter with Elijah the Prophet,"R.Avitarwent andfound Elijahthe Prophetandasked,'Whatis the Holy One Blessed-be-He doing now?' The Prophetanswered:'He is busy with the dispute between R. Yonatanand R. Avitar,'and he is saying the following, 'So says my son Yonatan,so says my son Avitar."'The midrashdemonstratesboth divine assent to the notion of multiplicity in interpretation,and to the way in which the divine and humanremainentangled.The precise natureof this dynamic,however, remainshere ambivalent,and is again only fully broughtout in the writings of later commentators.The twentieth-centurycommentaryof R. Chaim Friedlanderin Siftei hayim explains by comparingthe two talmudic disputantsto Moses at the time of the revelationat Sinai: ThuswhenR. AvitarandR.YonatanstudiedTorah,thiswastheTorahwhich wasgivenat Sinai,andjustas on MountSinai,theHolyOneplacedthewords of Torahin themouthof Moses,so atthetimeof theirstudying,theydidnot saytheirownwords,buttheWordsof theLivingGod.39 By referringback to the Sinaitic moment,Siftei hayimemphasizesthe precedence of the divine and groundsthe differences in opinions between R. Yonatanand R. Avitarin the originalexperienceof revelation(much like Ritbahad done in his account of "these and these").Nefesh ha-hayim,the work of R. Hayimof Volozhin, providesthe complementaryexplanationin which not objective, but, rather,subjective, variablesseem to be most prominent,"Becauseof the fact that R. Yonatan and R. Avitarwere studyingTorah,so the Holy One repeatedtheir words in their entirety."40 In this perhapsmore strikingrendering,interpretationitself seems to take 39. R. ChaimFriedlander,Siftei hayim(Benai Brak, 1996), Mocadim,v. iii, 171. 40. R. ChaimVolozhin,Nefesh ha-hayimayim(Jerusalem, 1989), 217.

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William Kolbrener precedence,with God authorizinginterpretivemultiplicityas he repeatsandtherefore validatesthe disputeonly afterthe fact. In the version of the Nefesh ha-hayim, unlike that of Siftei hayim,emphasis is placed not upon God and Sinai, but upon the presentrealityin which disputeis engendered.Focusingon one of the accounts of the narrative(which equally accommodatesboth renderings)might lead to a simplified version of a rabbinicinterpretivemodel-as being determineduniquely by eithersubjectiveor objectiveconstraints.41But again,the two commentaries presupposeone another:following the patternof RitbaandMaharshalbeforethem, the latercommentaries,in my reading,come to extrapolatethe opposingemphases implicit in the midrashicnarrative,which are themselves both "wordsof the Living God." Rabbinic interpretationis simultaneouslylinked to Sinai and the authority that it accords and to a creative present in which new meanings are produced.Laterrenderingsof the narrative,which in some sense are alreadyresponding,if only implicitly,to the Aristoteliandemandsof noncontradiction,provide necessarilysimplified accountsof the nonphilosophicalregistersof midrash, or what we might call, following Wittgenstein,rabbinic"poetry."In such poetry, the divinely sanctionedmultiplicityof "theseand these"emergesbetween the extremesof whatwe call in ourimpoverishedphilosophicallanguagesthe twin poles of the subjectiveand the objective. Between these poles emerges both a notion of truth,as well as a conception of disagreement,which defy Westerncritical conceptions. To explore these notions-and the attitudesupon which they are presupposed and which they engender-we turnnow to the languages of halakhah, seen from a perspective informed by both Gadamerianhermeneuticsand Skinnerianintentionalism. ANDINTERPRETIVE CHARITY DISAGREEMENT, DITCHES, Any discussion of rabbinicmeditationson interpretationmust turnto a discussion of rabbinicinterpretationin action. Indeed,by looking at a particularexample of rabbinicdisagreement,we can see the way in which the more generalhermeneutic principles discussed above lead to a very particularrabbinicattitudetowards the natureand conduct of disputes.ThatTorahis only manifestedthroughinter41. MenachemFisch, though not relying upon the distinctionbetween subjectivityand objectivity, nonetheless bifurcatestalmudicthought into what he calls "traditionalist"and "antitraditionalist" voices. For Fisch, the antitraditionalistvoice, according to his reading "camouflaged"in the BabylonianTalmud,emphasizes"criticalappraisal"and "skepticism"(roughlycorrespondingto what I havebeen referringto as subjectivetendencies)ratherthanthe traditionalist"unquestionedreception" of "inheritedteachings"(correspondingto the objectivetendenciesin the heuristicof this study;Fisch, Rabbis,xix-xx). Fisch'sbifurcationof what seems to him contradictory,andthereforenecessarilyindependent,approacheswithin the Talmudmay derive from his Popperianbiases and his more general inclinationsas an analyticalphilosophernot to entertaincontradiction.My own sympathies-informed by the sense that Talmudicdiscourses refuse the dichotomies of Westernphilosophy-lie more with MenachemFisch'slate father,HaroldFisch, who sees not contradictionbetween opposing voices, but, rather,paradoxas a means of Talmudicargumentand expression (see HaroldFisch, Be-seter 'elyon: paradoks u-setirahbi-mekorotha-yahadut[RamatGan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2001], especially chap. 10, 124-133). A full response,however,to MenachemFisch'scomplex and sometimesprovocative argumentsgoes well beyond the scope of the currentessay.

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Hermeneutics and Dispute in the Rabbinic Tradition pretation(throughwhatwe might call subjectiveelaborationsof an objectivetruth) will, by necessity, entail the applicationof what Moshe Halbertalcalls, following WillardQuine, the "principleof charity."Such a principle,as Halbertalexplains, entails adoptinga stance such that"a speaker'swordswill make sense andthe sentence that he utters can have meaning."This principlehas a special place in rabbinic hermeneutics,not only in the context, as Halbertalis concernedto show, of the interpretationof the canonical texts of the writtenTorah,but in the realm of disputeswithin the context of the OralLaw itself.42 Forin as much as the Torahcan only be revealedthroughinterpretation,and such interpretationnecessarilyentails multiplicity,the persistentattributionof incoherenceor falsehoodto one's opponents(the rejectionof difference)amountsto a rejectionof the Torahitself. To be sure, the Talmuditself provides,among other things, a vast collection of disputes.These disputesremainunresolvedin the sense that, in most cases, disagreementpersists;yet nonetheless supremehermeneutic effort is exertedto maintainthe coherence of the competingperspectivesin such disputes.Not only does this entail a practicalacknowledgmentof the necessity for multiplicityin the realm of the Law itself, but it also demandsa constantapplication of the Quineanlaw of charity.Forto reject one's opponentout of hand-that is, to assume the incoherenceof one's interlocutor-entails, again, a rejectionof the processes thatmake up Torah.To rejecta subjectivity-which is genuinelyengaged with Torah(that is, engaged in learningTorahfor its own sake, or li-shema)-is to reject Torahitself.43 Thus, to see halakhic discourse as celebrating either an unboundedpolysemy (as has been claimed of midrash),or, on the other hand,a Platonic standardof absolutetruth,is to fail to see the distinctiveconception of rabbinicdisagreement,and rabbinictruth. In this reading,rabbinicinterpretationalwaysbegins with an extremeversion of the Skinnerianmodel, which is to say thatrabbinicinterpretersexertan extraordinaryeffort in understandingthe intentionsof the texts that precedethem. In the case of the Talmuditself, this entailsthe effortsof Amoraim(200 to 600 CE) to understandthe utterancesof their predecessors,the Tannaim(200 BCE to 200 CE). Briefly, the utterancesof the Tannaim("those who teach")form the basis of the OralLaw or Mishnahwhich, once a strictlyoraltradition,was codified by R. YehudahHa-Nasiat the end of the tannaiticperiod.The tannaiticutterancesof the Mishnah providethe basis for all laterarticulationsof the law, and are authoritativefor all futuregenerations.Amoraim(literally"thosewho say")derivelegal principles and concepts from the earliertannaiticsources (never,however,contestingthe authorityof those sources);indeed,the articulationof such principlesalmost always depends upon both acknowledgmentand incorporationof those earlier texts.44 42. Moshe Halbertal,People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1997), 27 and ff. The principleis codified, in a mishnahin PirkeiAvot, not only in relationshipto texts, but as a more general behavioralpractice.The mishnahenjoins to "Judge every person in the directionof their benefit"-that is, to attributeboth coherence and goodness to their actions in the absence of unavoidablycompelling evidence to the contrary. 43. Formore on the principleof Torahli-shema, see Volozhin,Nefesh ha-hayim,235. 44. Fora detailedscholarlyintroductionto the subject,see HermannLeberechtStrackandGiinter Stembeger,Introductionto the Talmudand Midrash(Edinburgh:T&T ClarkInternational,1991).

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William Kolbrener That is to say thatAmoraim,who build their own diverse systems of halakhahin what has come to be known as the gemara (that is, "learning"or Talmud), inevitablydebatethe meaningof tannaiticsources as they arguefor the authorityof theirown halakhicprinciplesand interpretivesystems.Any amoraicstatementthat is contradictedby a precedingtannaiticstatementis, by definition, subjectto rejection. Yet, amoraicstatementsthat, on the surface,may seem to be contradicted by earliertannaiticutterancesare in point of fact almost never rejected.45Talmudic invocations of alternativeconceptual and interpretiveschemes become the means by which the apparentlyincoherentutterancebecomes coherent and understandable.This entails the applicationof somethingresemblingthe "principle of charity,"and will lead us, as we shall see, on a path from the Skinnerianemphasis on intentionto the Gadamerianemphasis on interpretivehorizons. Such a path can only be traced,however,throughturningour attentionto a brief account of the intricaciesof a particularrabbinicdispute.Grantingrabbiniclegal argument such attentionis not for the sake of finding explicit metadiscussionson the nature of interpretation.Unlike midrash,the legal discussions of the Talmuddo not openly meditateon the natureof interpretation;but in the very forms and attitudesof legal argumentemerge more clearly the natureand demandsof rabbinicdispute. The first mishnah in the second chapterof tractateBava batra(17a) deals with the limitationsimposed upon a landowner'suse of his own propertybecause of damagethatmay be incurredto a neighbor'sproperty.The mishnahbegins with the precautionsthat a propertyowner must take, including the requirementthat when digging a ditch, he must distance it from the wall of his neighbor'sditch by a distance, in the gemara'smeasurement,of three arms-breadths.As mentioned, the mishnah' proclamationsare non-negotiablefor futuregenerations;what remains, however,is the extrapolationof principlesfromthe mishnahitself into other contextsandcases. The gemaratakesup the case of one who wantsto dig a ditch nearthe boundaryof his own property:can he do so if his neighborhas not yet dug on his own property?On this question,the mishnahdoes not offer any explicit ruling. Thus, for the Amoraim, the question becomes a matterof dispute-that is, does the Torahpermit someone to initiate digging on the edge of his propertyor not? That is, does one have to take into account the possible futureactions of a neighbor when digging on one's own property?In the ensuing debate between Amoraim,Abayerules thatone may place the ditchnearthe boundary,while Rava, by contrast,rules that one may not, and should distance his ditch appropriately. Both of theseAmoraim,however,mustclaim thattheirrulingis in consonancewith the intentionof the authorof the mishnah.The gemaragoes on to test these amoraic utterancesto show their adherenceto this tannaiticantecedentof the mishnah, as well as all the other tannaiticsources that reflect on the issue. In fact, in this case, this mishnahitself would seem to accommodateboththe perspectivesof Rava and Abaye; the questions on their respective perspectivesemerge most strongly from othertannaiticsources.46 45. There are exceptions, however,in which refutationsinvolve final rejectionsof certainTalmudic opinions; see for example, B. 'Eruvin 16b. 46. In the continuationof the gemara,however,Abaye'sruling is questionedfromthe language of the mishnahitself.

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Hermeneutics and Dispute in the Rabbinic Tradition Ourunderstandingof the amoraicdiscussion is complicatedby the fact that the dispute itself exists in two versions in the gemara(the significance of which will be discussed later).We shall only focus upon the second of these two versions, and the way in which, in this context, the gemaraitself strugglesto justify the positions adoptedby RavaandAbayeagainstthe possible attacksfromothertannaitic texts. In this, the second accountof the disagreementbetweenRavaandAbaye,the two Amoraimare said to agree in the case of landwhere it is not customaryto dig ditches. This is to say, even Rava will agree with Abaye, in this set of cases, that one can approachthe very boundaryof one's propertyand dig. Even before the gemara'saccountof the disagreementbegins, the point of disputeis narrowedto a very particularset of cases. Indeed, rabbinicmethodology almost always maximizes areas of agreement.In this instance, the gemaraconstructsthe amoraicargument in such a manner as to show that the only place where the Amoraim disagree is on land where people are accustomedto dig ditches (in the otherversion, the disputeconcerns land where people do not habituallydig). Here Ravaagainst the more lenient ruling of Abaye-will insist upon the distancing of the ditch from the boundaryto safeguardagainstthe possible damagingof neighboring property,especially since it is customaryto dig on such property. The gemaraproceeds by citing early tannaiticsources as a means of interrogating,if not openly questioning,the positions of RavaandAbaye.As partof the process,the gemarainvokesa mishnah-and a tannaiticdisputebetweenthe Sages and R. Yose-which would seem to renderincoherentboth the positions of Rava andAbaye. Forthe earlierdisputebetweenthe Sages and R. Yose (renderedin full in the same tractate,25b), thoughnot on the questionof the digging of ditches, implies principlesaboutdamagesthatexplicitlycontradictthe rulingsof the laterdisputants.To Abaye'sclaim that it is permissibleto dig near a boundary,the gemara brings the opinion of the Sages, who arguethat one must distance a tree twentyfive cubits from the ditch of a neighborlest its roots damage the ditch. (R. Yose, by contrast,whose position will be elaboratedmore fully below, articulatesthe seemingly more lenient position that licenses propertyownersto use theirland as they see fit.) Here begins the Skinneriananalysis of tannaitic intentions, as the gemarainvokes the utteranceof the Sages as a means of renderingAbaye'sposition incoherent:how can Abaye maintain the permissibility of digging near a boundarywhen we see that the Sages articulateda principlewhich offers protection against actions taken on adjoining properties?That is to say, from the perspective of the questionerin the gemara(likely sharingor, at least adopting,the assumptionsof Rava,andcoming on behalfof his perspective),the intentionof the Sages was surely and clearly to preventactivity that would cause damage to adjoining property.47Abaye, whose own utterance,by definition, needs to be consistent with the "language-game"in which the Sages participate,seems insteadto have articulateda position thatopenly contradictstheirposition. Yet, ratherthan rejectAbaye's opinion as ridiculous,non-normative,or in47. It should be noted, that although the gemara presents a whole series of explicit attacks againstboth RavaandAbaye, the specific languageof the gemarahere rendersthe questionsonly implicitly.

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William Kolbrener coherent,the gemaragoes on to elaboratea context in which Abaye makes sense. Against the previous attackof the gemarabroughtimplicitly in Rava'sname, the defenders of Abaye (here the anonymousgemara) goes on to elicit what Abaye would maintainarethe real intentionsof the Sages in theirargumentwith R. Yose, and thus to refine our sense of Abaye'sintentions-in his argumentwith Ravaas well. The Sages, Abaye would argue,did not intendto limit all forms of potentially damaging activity; their intentionswere, in fact, much more specific. The questioner,the defendersof Abayewould argue,did not understandthe precise nature of the Sages' conversationwith their interlocutor,and thus failed to understand their true intentions. While it is true that the Sages had required the distancingof the tree, they had only made such a demandin a case wheretherehad been a preexistentditch. In the presentcase, however,of the amoraicdiscussion of the question of digging on boundaries,there is no ditch in the neighboringproperty, and thereforeAbaye's ruling is not only correct, but in accordancewith the very opinion which was meantto contradicthim (as well as what we shall discover to be the apparentlymore libertarianopinion of R. Yose). Havingre-elaborated the parametersof the Sages disputewith R. Yose, Abaye'sopinion emerges as coherent-consistent with the views of all the relevanttannaiticantecedents. The defense of Abaye representsa characteristicset of Talmudicmoves. As is well known, expressions such as "Rathersay" [i.e., "this is what the text really means"],"Thisis what is meant,"and "Withwhat are we really dealing?"abound throughoutthe gemara,as the intentionsof tannaitictexts are reevaluatedand reformulatedin the process of defendingthe integrityand coherenceof lateramoraic statements. If, as Wittgenstein puts it, the "sign (the sentence) gets its significance from the system of signs, from the languageto which it belongs,"48 then the tannaitic"sign"gets its significance first from the languageto which it belongs, that of the Mishnah.This "language,"however,initially defined in terms of a synchronicrelationship,itself is explained,refined, and recreatedin the different languages of individualAmoraim.In our discussion, at the point of the attack leveled againstAbaye, with its assumptionsaboutthe natureof the intentions of the Sages, Abaye'sperspectiveseems hopeless. The shift of perspective,however, which entails a reconsiderationof the intentionsbehind the utteranceof the Sages, revealsthe coherence-if not the actualcomplexity-ofAbaye's utterance, as the Sages utteranceis reconfiguredwithin the context of Abaye'sperspective. RatherthanrejectAbaye'sutteranceas incoherent,the gemaraelicits the intentions of the antecedenttannaitictext (the Sages restrictthe placementof a hazardonly where the object liable to be damagedis alreadypresent)by re-elaboratingthe real context for theirutterance.The resultof this reframingof contexts is to show how the Sages themselves would not argue against, but, in fact, would countenance Abaye's legal ruling. In the continuationof the gemara,it is Rava'sposition that comes underattack: While Rava had ruled that one who wants to dig a ditch must distance from a propertyboundary,R. Yose had argued,against the Sages, that "justas this one digs within his own property,so this one plantswithin his own property."Herethe 48. Ludwig Wittgenstein,TheBlue and BrownBooks (Oxford:Blackwell, 1958), 5.

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Hermeneuticsand Dispute in the RabbinicTradition question,informednow by the perspectiveof Abaye, sees the intentionsof R.Yose quiteclearly:one is not requiredto distancepotentialharmfulagentsfroma boundary (there is no prohibitionagainst plantinga tree even where it is liable to damage the pit of one's neighbor).It is, in fact, incumbentupon the threatenedparty to protecthis property.Again, fromthe perspectiveelaboratedin the question,just as we saw in the case of Abaye, the very integrityof Rava'sstatementseems to be contradictedby the preexistentutteranceof R. Yose. Ravamight, we would speculate, accede to the question and fall back on to the opinion of the Sages (whose emphasis on precautionarydistancingwould seem to providean obvious support for his position). But the gemaradoes not even attemptthis as a last resort:for the workingassumptionof the gemarais thatthe opinions of the Amoraimshould be accommodatedwith all previous tannaitic statements,and that some context be constructedwhich would allow for the coherence of Rava'sstatement,according to not only the perspectiveof the Sages, but even from the perspectiveof R. Yose as well. This is not only to maximize agreement(such that Rava will have to be consistent with both the Sages and R. Yose) but to resist interpretiveframeworks which would bifurcatethe tradition(andthe Torahitself) with R. Yose andAbaye on one side and the Sages and Rava on the other (with the both sides remaining opaque-if not incoherent-to one another).Althoughtheremaybe disagreement registeredin the words of the Tannaim,the later interpretiveefforts of Amoraim are meantto maximize the points of agreementwith all precedenttannaitictexts. In the event, in defense of Rava,the gemaraonce again shifts conceptualperspectives and finds a new way of understandingthe intentionsbehind the statement of R. Yose; R. Yose, the gemaraargues, intendedonly a limited application of his less interventionistprinciple.Rava'sruling, this new perspectivereveals, is actually in accord with R. Yose, who would have distinguishedbetween the case of plantinga treewherethe potentiallydamagingroots arenot yet in existence, and the presentcase, where the digging of a ditch weakensthe surroundingland,rendering it unsuitablefor furtherditches.That is, accordingto R. Yose, one need not anticipatefuturedamages,butone must,of course,guardagainstthe damagingconsequencesof presentactions.Underthe pressureof the questionof the gemara,not only R. Yose'sintentionscome more clearlyinto focus, but also, as a directconsequence, Rava'sown. Whereasat the beginningof the discussion, Rava'sstatement, like thatof Abaye, seemed to have meritedoutrightrejection,by the end of the discussion, his statementseems not only coherent,but importantlyin accordwith all tannaiticpredecessors-even with the opinion of R. Yose, which on the surface seemed to directlycontradictRava'sposition.In both cases, the shift in the analysis of the intentionsof antecedenttexts is motivatedby the need to mountan appropriate defense for the position underattack.These defenses, importantly,can only be justified in the gemarathroughelaboratingdiscursivecontextsresponsiveto the actual language-that is intention-of the texts themselves.Neither the defense of Ravanor that of Abaye would have been successful had the wordsof the Tannaim been unableto accommodatethe interpretations thatthe gemaraproposes. The process, briefly consideredhere, of the reconciliationof the utterances of Amoraimagainstthe attacksimplicit in tannaitictexts was informedby a Skinnerianconceptionofintention-elaborated throughthe constructionof contexts.Yet, 291

WilliamKolbrener the process also necessarilyentails a rejectionof a simplified versionof Skinner's methodology.Tobe sure,the gemaraconstantlyoperatesaccordingto Skinneriancriteriain tryingto drawout the parametersof tannaitic(andeven amoraic)disputeslike the one we have examinedbetween R. Yose and the Sages (as well as that of Abaye and Ravathemselves).Only an intentionalanalysis-and the attemptedrecovery of the discursivecontextfor theirargument-would adequatelyrevealwhat the Sages intendedin theirruling,and what R. Yose'swas doing in his responseto theirstatement.Yet,even in oursimplifiedrenditionof a smallsectionof the gemara, we have seen the way in which the discursivecontextsof the argumentbetween R. Yose andthe Sages undergotransformation, as do, inevitably,the intentionsthatinform their utterances.For,at this point in our simple analysisof the text, we have identifiedtwo versionsof the disputebetweenR. Yoseandthe Sages;theirargument takes on a differentaspectas the gemaramoves fromthe perspectivethatinformed the questionagainstAbayeto the one thatinformedthe answerofferedin his defense (or, more simply,from the perspectiveof Ravato Abaye).The shiftingof perspectives-informed by the everpresentrabbinicinvocationof the principleof charitydemandsa move from a simple and monovocalview of intentionto one wherethe intentionsof individualagentstransmuteandmultiply.Thatis to say,whatcould be termeda kind of Skinnerianattentionto intentionand languagegames may indeed be an indispensablemeansfor understandingrabbinicdisputes-provided thatsuch attentionalso accommodatesthe proliferationof frameworksand contextsthat alThe framesprovidedby differentinterpretive ways attendsrabbinicinterpretation. contextsforthe verysame discussionprovide,in ourreadingof the gemara,two versions of the intentionsof both the Sages and R. Yosef. This is both to affirmthe Gadameriannotionthatinterpretationis the means "thework explicates itself.., in the varietyof its aspects,"as well as, of which by Skinner's concession thatthe existence of differentclassificatory schemes course, the compromises very notion of"undisputablefacts."Which is to say,the constant demandfor the shiftingof perspectivesin gemararequiresnot only a single analysis of a discursivecontext or languagegame, but also the analysis of thatlanguage game frommanydifferentperspectives.What,for example,R.Yosewas doing with his responseto the Sages will dependon the perspectiveone has:Abaye'sor Rava's. Further,it is not only the versions of the dispute between R. Yose and the Sages thatmultiply,but also in ourdiscussion,the versions of the disputebetweenAbaye and Rava themselves as the gemara,as mentioned,reportstwo separateaccounts of their argument.In the account we have passed over (whereinthe dispute concerns landwherepeople do not habituallydig), the contextof Rava'sdisagreement withAbaye(andthe intentionsthatinformtheirstatements)will be completelydifferent,as will, undoubtedly,the argumentsof R. Yose and the Sages, whose opinions their argumentsmust continue to accommodate.What Gadamerrefers to as interpretivehorizons(andalso as the meaningsengendered)only continueto multiply as the argumentsof the gemaraitself are constructed,in latergenerations,in the works of medieval exegetes. All of these commentaries,however,only claim their authoritythrougheliciting the intentionsof the texts they explain:the multiplicity of interpretivehorizonsreveals the fecundityof the words of the Tannaim, which lend themselves to so many diverse-sometimes even contradictory-ex292

Hermeneutics and Dispute in the Rabbinic Tradition planationsthatare,nonetheless,all grantedthe statusof Torah.Which is to say,the words of the Sages and R. Yose, by the lights of both Rava and Abaye, are the "wordsof the Living God."To rejectthe perspectiveof eitherone is not merely to reject a single opinion, but to put an end to the everproliferatingtruthsof Torah. Thereis then no distinctionbetweenTorahand the individualswho disseminateit, provided-and this is a largeproviso-as Nefesh ha- hayiminsists, thatthose who are engaged with Torahdo so for its own sake and not for self-aggrandizement.49 Subjectiveconstraints,as Gadamerconstantlyemphasizes,areindispensableto the productionof Torah;but they are only productivein so far that they remainfaithful, in the Skinneriansense, to the intentionsthat informthe texts themselves. "FROM EVERYSIDE"

In tractateNedarim (38a), the gemaraexplains that while Torahwas given to all of Israel, originally,pilpul-what Boyarincalls the "logic of commentary," or simply,dialectic-was given first to Moses, andthenbestowedby him onto further generations.Pilpul, as the early modem commentator,R. Bezalel Ashkenazi explains,entails understandinga matter"incisivelyand with insight ... like a person who is exacting in his halakhahand chisels it from every side to clarify it."50 or "logic-chopTalmudicdialectic,often referredto pejorativelyas "hair-splitting" an from all issue possible perspectives-chiseling ping,"similarlyrequiresseeing it from all sides. Pilpul, thatindispensablepartof the interpretiveprocesses of the Talmud,requiresthe dialectical awarenessof the multiple hermeneuticperspectives thatreveal the intentionsof antecedenttexts in their fullness. Pilpul, then, is a kind of antidotefor the monovocalthinkingwhich seeks to embraceone side of a dispute at the expense of another,without, however,entailing a rejectionof the notion of truthaltogether.To be sure, Jewish behaviorallife is governedby legal decisions which establishnormativecommunalbehaviorin no uncertainterms,but the realmof study is characterizedby the need for a cognitive openness which appreciates-indeed, demands-the truthof Torahin its many-faceteddiversity.51 To put it in othervery differentterms,the studyof Torahentails trainingthe mind to see the famous picture of Wittgenstein'sPhilosophical Investigationsas both a rabbitand a duck (Figure 1). Fromthis point of view, the study of Torahbecomes an exercise in attemptingto inhabitperspectivesthatmay not, at first, seem accessible. As BernardWilliams writes in the Wittgensteinianframework,mental efforts may allow "those who had one picture ... to see the point ... of another picture,and also perhaps... to understandwhy those who had it, did so."52Limud 49. As the Nefesh ha-hayimputs it, "Atevery momentthata person is workingand cleaving to the words of the Torahin the appropriatefashion, the Wordsrejoice as if they were given from Sinai" (225). In philosophicalterms, only when subjectand object merge is trueTorahproduced. 50. Betzalel Ashkenazi,Shita Mekubzet,tractateNedarim(Jerusalem, 1997), 154. 51. For furtherdiscussions of the "openness"of Talmudicdialectic, see Ouaknin,BurntBook, 159-163, and David Kraemer,TheMindofThe Talmud:an intellectualhistoryof the Bavli (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1990), 99-138. 52. BernardWilliams,"Wittgensteinand Idealism"in UnderstandingWittgenstein,ed. George Vesey (Ithaca,NY: Cornell UniversityPress, 1974), 87.

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Figure 1. Torah-the studyofTorah-thus presupposesan interpretivecharitywhichstrives to elicit the coherence of differingperspectives,and in fact, as much as possible, to inhabitthese differingperspectives.Such a process of study,in fact, mirrorsthe amoraicconsiderationof earliertannaitictexts;just as the gemaraattemptsto reconcile amoraicstatementswith all preexistenttannaiticstatements,so the study of Torahremainsa process which attemptsto come to terms with (and elicit the coherence of) all previousutterancesin the tradition.ForAmoraim(like those, perhaps,confrontedin the Wittgensteiniancase with the pictureof the "duck/rabbit"), though wielding differentinterpretiveparadigms,are simply eliciting aspects implicit in the workitself. (It shouldbe added,however,that"theseandthese" is also an exclusive principle:"theseand these,"but not those. Thatis to say that some interpretationssimply did not fall underthe validatingaegis of the divine precept. Though this may also be consistent with the principles implicit in the Wittgensteiniananalysisof the "duck/rabbit": we only need imagineourresponseto someone who, looking at the picture,claimed to see, for example, a pig.) Seeing the Torahin its multiplicityprovidesan antidoteto the attitudeembodied in the Biblical figure of Korah,who as Rashi explains (following Targum Onkelos), "separatedhimself from the rest of the communityin orderto maintain dispute"(Numbers 16.1). Korah,becomes the paradigmin the traditionfor a kind of dispute,not pursuedfor the "sakeof Heaven,"but based insteadupon the pursuit of self-interestand self-aggrandizement(M. Avot 5.17). Counteringthis model standthe argumentsof both Hillel and Shammai,which, pursuedfor "the sake of Heaven,"are of "lastingworth."Such disputesare of lasting worthnot because they are resolved, but precisely because they remain unresolved.As Maharalof Pragueexplains in his commentaryon this mishnah (5.17), the disputes of Hillel and Shammaiwere actually"belovedby God,"for bothparticipantssoughtto elaboratethe truthsimplicit in Torah:their own conceptualmodels, though leading to contradictoryinterpretations,would bring out truthsimplicit in the Torahitself.53 The acknowledgmentof the possibility of truth-claimsoccupying a space between relativismand absolutismand unconstrainedby simplistic models of interpretationtied to either subjectiveor objective coordinates(in this account, associated with the extremes of Gadamerian and Skinnerian perspectives respectively)does not lead, in the Talmud,to the end of disputes. It does, however, lead to the end of animus and the spirit of rejectionismthat informs disputes modeled afterthe separatismof Korah.Against Korah,Beit Hillel themselves be294

Hermeneutics and Dispute in the Rabbinic Tradition come the figures for a principlenot of a mere (liberal)tolerationof difference,but of interpretiveempathy,as well. For,as the midrashgoes, in theirdisputewith Beit Shammai,they merited"to have the law establishedaccordingto their view" because, as the gemara explains, they, "were easy and forbearing,and they would study their own rulings and those of Beit Shammai,and would even mention the actions of Beit Shammaibefore their own" (B. 'Eruvin 13b). Beit Hillel thus becomes a model for an interpretivecharitythat explicitly.embraces,understands, andrehearsesthe perspectiveof theiradversaries-even in theirrejectionof it. For althoughBeit Shammai,to Beit Hillel, representsan adversary,their arguments, also pursuedfor the sake of Heaven, and thus also "belovedby God,"need not be merelytoleratedandrespected,but also understood.Forfromthe utteranceswhich emerge fromboth Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai,not despite of, butratherbecause of their subjectivelimitations,emerges the objective truthof Torah,the words of the Living God. William Kolbrener Bar Ilan University RamatGan, Israel

53. YehudahLoew, Derech ha-hayim(Tel Aviv:YadMorechai, 1975), 604.

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Priestly Men and Invisible Women: Male Appropriation of the Feminine and the Exemption of Women from Positive Time-Bound Commandments Author(s): Natan Margalit Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 297-316 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131525 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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AJS Review 28:2 (2004), 297-316

PRIESTLYMEN AND INVISIBLEWOMEN: MALE APPROPRIATIONOF THE FEMININE ANDTHE EXEMPTIONOF WOMEN FROM POSITIVETIME-BOUNDCOMMANDMENTS

by Natan Margalit

In this paperI will examine the rabbinicexemptionof women from the obV nt ligation to perform any "positive time-boundcommandment"(pTrnwrma are it in women as This states that Kiddushin 1:7. rule M. exempt appears nra), fromthe obligationto performthose commandments,such as, for example, sitting in a Sukkahon the Feast of Tabernacles,or saying the kri'at shemca,the declaration of God's Oneness, morning and evening, in which the requirementfor the mandatedaction comes aboutwith the arrivalof a specific time. I offer this analysis of a particularrabbinicruling, in its literarycontext in the Mishnah,as a case study in what I claim to be a majorcomponentof the rabbinicdiscourse of gender:the male appropriationof the "feminine"into theirown identities,and the resultantexclusion of women from those areasof appropriation.In this paperI will employ a literary/anthropologicalapproachto readingthe Mishnah,which I believe is very useful in uncoveringsuch underlyingculturalpatternswithin its succinct, legal writing style.1 1. A literaryapproachto rabbinictexts has become increasinglyimportantin recent yearsand an importantbody of work is being established in this area.YonahFraenkel'swork on rabbinicaggadah has been foundationalfor my work, especially in his emphasis on chiastic structures(see, e.g., YonahFraenkel,Darkhei ha-aggadah ve ha-midrash[Tel Aviv:YadL'Talmud,1991]). Of course, my teacher,Daniel Boyarin, has been a major influence. His insistence on seeing the text as a part of an entire culturaldiscourse has helped me to connect the literarywith the anthropologicalsides of my work. See especially his Intertextualityand the Reading of Midrash(Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press, 1990) and Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in TalmudicCulture(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Excellent reviews of literaryapproachesto rabbinicwritings, as well as important original contributions,may be found in Aryeh Cohen, RereadingTalmud:Gender,Law and the Poetics ofSugyot (Atlanta,GA: Scholars Press, 1998), and David Kraemer,Reading the Rabbis: The Talmudas Literature(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 1996), as well as in JeffreyRubenstein,Talmudic Stories: NarrativeArt, Composition,and Culture(Baltimore:John Hopkins UniversityPress, 1999). Jacob Neusner first suggested in the 1970s that anthropologymay be the best lens throughwhich to view the Mishnah,with its "religionof pots and pans"and emphasis on structuralmodes of organizing material,and this has been a fruitful insight indeed. See his Method and Meaning in AncientJu-

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Natan Margalit In suggesting that the male appropriationof the feminine and the resultant exclusion of women fromthose areasof appropriationis a majorcomponentof the rabbinicdiscourse of gender,the work of Daniel Boyarinhas been a majorinfluence. In an article entitled "JewishMasochism:Couvade, Castrationand Rabbis in Pain,"Boyarin discusses couvade, the male imitationof pregnancy,as an importantfactor in gender formationwhich has been much ignored. In discussing couvade he writes: of thesephenomena havebeenofferedin the Althoughvariousexplanations the one thatseemsmostplausibleis thattheseritesreflectan unliterature, derlyingmaleanxietyaboutandenvyof thefemalebodyandits overwhelming plenitudevis-a-vis the miserablylackingmale body, which cannot becomepregnant, widemenstruate, givebirth,orlactate.Thegeographically spreadnatureof couvade,alongwithotherrelatedpractices,suchas maleimitationof menstruation, suggeststhepossibilitythatmaleenvyof the female in a of enormousexplanatory bodyis, fact, psychicuniversal,one,moreover, power.2 I wish to take up Boyarin'ssuggestionthatthe idea of male envy of feminine reproductivecapacities has enormous explanatorypower, specifically in underdaism, Brown Judaic Series Vol. 10 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979), 34-35. See also William Scott Green, "Readingthe Writing of Rabbinism:Towardan Interpretationof Rabbinic Literature," Journal of the AmericanAcademy of Religion 51, no. 2 (1983): 191-206. I claim, however, that Neusner,by not engaging in close readingsof the text, has not fully exploited his own insight into the anthropologicalmodes of thought in the Mishnah(see Shaye J. D. Cohen, "JacobNeusner, Mishnah and Counter-Rabbinics,"ConservativeJudaism 37 (1983): 48-63, as well as Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, 5, and A. Cohen, RereadingTalmud,43-69, all of whom have discussed Neusner'stheoretical opposition to close literaryreadingsof these texts). Fora fuller discussion of my own approachto combining literaryand anthropologicalanalysis of the Mishnah see Natan Margalit,"Life Containing Texts:The Discourse of Genderin the Mishnah,a Literary/anthropologicalAnalysis"(Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2000) and Natan Margalit,"Not by Her Mouth Do We Live: A Literary/anthropologicalReading of Gender in Mishnah Ketubbot,Chapter 1,"Prooftexts20, no. 1 (2000): 61-86. I would be remiss if I did not mention that I was first inspired to look more deeply into the meanings and modes of thought in the Mishnahoutside of the purely academic framework, in what might be called the "nontraditional/traditional" yeshivot located in the Katamonand Baka sections of Jerusalem during the 1980s and early 1990s. These include the Pardes Institute, Beit MidrashElul, andYakarLearningCommunity.Dov Berkowitzwas especially influentialin these settings with his intuitivecombinationof traditionalapproachesand his acute literarysensitivity.Avraham Walfish, who was on the faculty of Pardeswith Berkowitz in the 1980s, went on to study with Yonah Fraenkelat Hebrew University and wrote "Tofa'ot sifrutiot ba-mishnahu-mashma'utanhaCarikhatit veha-ra'ayonit"(Master'sThesis, HebrewUniversity, 1994) as well as to publish articles in the journal of Mishnahstudy that he founded,Netu'im. See especially his master'sthesis, pages 3560, for his analysisof the first chapterof M. Kiddushin.In yet anotherreadingtradition,Moshe Kline's highly formalistic approachto the Mishnah, which he traces to the Maharaland kabbalisticreading strategies,is also often useful and provocative.See Moshe Kline, TheStructuredMishnah (Mishnah ki-darkah),http://www.chaver.com/Mishnah/TheMishnah.htm. 2. Daniel Boyarin, "JewishMasochism: Couvade, Castrationand Rabbis in Pain,"American Imago 51, no. 1 (1994): 3.

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Priestly Men and Invisible Women standingthe classic texts and institutionsof Judaism.As the title of his articles indicates, Boyarinhas concentratedon the theme of masochism, the pain of childbirth,andthe feminized,nonaggressiverabbinicmale. I wish to exploremale envy of the feminine power of birth,not specifically focusing on the pain of birth,but, rather,on the powerfulidea of generation,of bringinglife into the world.This study of the exclusion of women from positive time-boundcommandmentsis one exampleof this phenomenon,which I suggest runsthroughmuch of biblical andrabbinic cultures. Couvade,or as Boyarinpoints out, a general envy of the feminine capacity for birth,has not been often presentedas an explanationfor ancientIsraeliteor rabbinic phenomena.Bettelheim'sSymbolicWoundson couvadeand circumcisionhas been provocativebut has not generateda traditionof scholarshipon Jewishsources in its wake.3Exceptionsto this rule includeAlan Dundes, who has offered an explanation of the creation stories in Genesis in terms of couvade,4 Ilana Pardes, whose workhas shed light on many of the femininemotifs in the male texts of the Bible,5 and Nancy Jay,in her book, ThroughoutYourGenerationsForever,where she discusses a theoryof biblical (amongother)sacrifice as male cooptationof the feminine power of birth.6 HowardEilberg-Schwartz'sbook, God's Phallus, discusses a theory of Israelite religion in which the males were placed in a feminine position vis-a-vis God, but he focuses almost exclusively on (hetero)sexuality,and thus on "thecontradictionsinherent in men's relationshipwith a God who is explicitly male."' Thus, althoughEilberg-Schwartzdeals in depthwith the feminizationof Israelite and rabbinicJewish males, he does not concentrateon the factorof male envy of women'sreproductivecapacities. I arguethatthis greatlyweakensthe explanatory power of his thesis. It does not take into account the centralityof fertility and birthas metaphorsin Israeliteculture,nor does it take into accountthe possibility of feminine aspects of God. Furthermore,anthropologicalevidence suggests, as Boyarinpoints out, that the male envy of feminine powers of birth is very widespread,perhapsuniversal. In this regardthe work of SarahCaldwell on the cult of Kali in contemporary Kerala,India, has been extremelyenlightening.The parallelsof male feminization and female exclusion are all the more strikingbecause Kali is a female deity, ruling out the theory of male feminizationas a heterosexualgambit. In her 1999 book, Oh TerrifyingMother:Sexuality,Violenceand Worshipof the Goddess 3. BrunoBettelheim,SymbolicWounds(New York:Collier, 1962). 4. Alan Dundes, "Couvade in Genesis," in Folklore Research Center Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1983), 35-54. 5. IlanaPardes,Countertraditionsin the Bible:A FeministApproach(Cambridge,MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1992); IlanaPardes, TheBiographyofAncient Israel (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 2000). 6. Nancy Jay,ThroughoutYourGenerationsForever:Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1992). 7. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz,

(Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 1.

Gods

Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism

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Natan Margalit Kali, Caldwelldescribesthe mutiyetturitual/performancesof Kerala,in Southern India.' The mutiyettuare ritualsentirelyperformedby men, in which the prominent feature is the main male performer'simpersonationof the female goddess Kali. Caldwellnotes: hereexploresthejunctureof psychoerotic andsocio-politMy interpretation ical powerunderthe guiseof ritualpower,andthe waysthatmalesmystify theseto the detrimentof women.The supernatural Saktiof the goddessbecomesthepropertyof males,whotherebycompensate fortheirenvyandfear of themother'ssexual,procreative this body.By coopting powerin transvestite possessionperformance, malesreclaimthe enviedfeminineprocreative powerwithintheirownbodies,whiledenyingactualsocial,sexual,andpoliticalpowerto women.9 Male appropriationof a feminine power of birthtogetherwith exclusion of women has been noted in many cultures.' An interestingexample of work in this areaincludes thatof FromaZeitlin. In Zeitlin's 1996 book, Playing the Other,and especially in the chapterbearingthe same title, she studies this incorporationand exclusion as it is found in ancient Greek theater.She notes that this chapter"reviews the phenomenonof women'spuzzlingpredominancein the theaterand speculates on the uses that feminine interventionand characterizationmight serve in this all-male theater,in which male actors by convention are necessarily called upon to impersonatewomen."'' As an ancientMediterraneanexample,the Greek theateris relativelyclose to the biblical and rabbinicculturalworldswe are examining. Thereare interestingsimilaritiesin thatboth the rabbisand the playwrights are attemptingto constructautonomousmale identities,and at the same time both needed to incorporatethe feminine within thatmale identity.'2 8. SarahCaldwell, Oh, TerrifyingMother:Sexuality,Violenceand the Worshipof the Goddess Kali (Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress, 1999). 9. Ibid, 189. 10. See, for example (out of many that could be cited): Rita Gross, "Menstruationand Childbirth as Ritual and Religious ExperienceAmong Native Australians,"in UnspokenWorlds:Women's Religious Lives in Non-WesternCultures,ed. Nancy Falk and Rita Gross (San Francisco:Harperand Row, 1980), 277-92; GilbertH. Herdt,"SambiaNosebleeding Rites and Male Proximityto Women," Ethos 10, no. 3 (1982): 263; Jean S. La Fontaine,Initiation (Manchester,UK: ManchesterUniversity Press, 1986);Ian Hogbin, TheIsland of MenstruatingMen: Religion in Wogeo,New Guinea(Scranton, PA:Chandler,1970). 11. FromaZeitlin, Playing the Other(Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1996), 14. 12. Herexamples arerich andvaried,andpointespecially to the way thattheaterinitiatedmales into male identityparadoxicallyby expandingthatidentityto includeaspects associatedwith the feminine. On the subjectof women'srole in the tragedies,she writes,"Womancomes equippedwith a 'natural'awarenessof the complexitiesthatmen would resist, if they could. Situatedin hermore restrictive and sedentaryposition in the world,she is permitted,even asked,to reflect more deeply, like Phaedra, on the paradoxesof herself. Throughthese she can come closer to understandingthe paradoxesof the world that she, much betterthan men, seems to know is subject to irreconcilableconflict, subject as well to time, flux, and change (the very themes, I might add,ofAjax's great deceptive speech). Hence the final paradoxmay be that theateruses the feminine for the purposes of imagining a fuller model for the masculine self, and 'playing the other' opens that self to those often bannedemotions of fear

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Priestly Men and Invisible Women

The exemptionof women frompositive time-boundcommandmentsappears in the Mishnah,M. Kiddushin1:7.13 Thereare severalreasonsthat it is important to explore this particularrule. First,this exemptionhas been very far-reachingin its effect on the religious lives of Jewish women and men. This is because, even thougha womanmay voluntarilychoose to performa ritualact, because she is not obligated as a man is she cannot fulfill the obligation on behalf of a man, therefore women have been excluded from leadershiproles that involve doing an act on behalf of the community. The rule also poses intriguingtextual and religious questions.For example, Judith Hauptmanhas pointed out that the category "positive time-bound commandment"only comes into being for the purposeof excluding women. It is not a category of commandmentsthat appearsin any context otherthan that of gender. What was the reason for the creationof this category?Furthermore,as the BabylonianTalmud'sdiscussionof this issue (B. Kiddushin34a-35a) makesclear,there are as many exceptions to this rule as there are cases that follow it.14So, we may ask, what purposedoes this rule serve? Whatgood is it to the rabbiswho wrote it into the Mishnahand invokedit throughoutthe centuries? The Talmudicsources do not offer any explicit explanationor reasoningbehindthis rule.The first recordedrationalesaremedieval,such as thatof JacobAnatoli (thirteenthcentury),who suggestedthatthis would make it easier for the wife to attendto the husband'sneeds,15 and the fourteenth-centuryscholar David b. Joshua'Abudarham,who explainedthat this rule was needed so that the woman would not be put in the position of havingto fulfill the contradictorydemandsof two masters:God andherhusband.16 The generalideathatthis rule freesthe woman to her primaryrole as responsiblefor the domestic realm has remaineda popular explanationto this day." Anothercontemporaryexplanationhas it thatwomen are excludedfrompositive time-boundcommandmentsbecause women are on a higher spiritualplane thanmen, and thereforedo not need these extracommandments. In her book Rereadingthe Rabbis,•8JudithHauptmanhas made a very useand pity."Zeitlin, Playing the Other, 363. See also Margalit,"Life ContainingTexts,"79-80, for a fuller comparisonof Zeitlin'sexamples to the case of the rabbisof the Mishnah. 13. The other places within tannaiticliteraturewhere this rule appearsare Mekhiltade-rabbi ShimonbarYohaion Exodus 13:9, and Sifrei Beshallah 115, as well as in the Tosefta,Kiddushin1:10 and Sukkah2:5. 14. Foran excellent, detailedanalysis of the Talmudicsugya see Jay Rovner,"RhetoricalStrategy and Dialectical Necessity in the BabylonianTalmud:The Case of Kiddushin34a-35a," HUCA 65 (1994): 177-231. Foran analysisthatfocuses on the problematicstatusof this rule even within the Talmud'sown system, see Kraemer,Reading the Rabbis,95-108. 15. JacobAnatoli, Malmadha-talmidim,ParashatLekh Lekha,Lik ed., no. 15;TalyaFishman, "A KabbalisticPerspectiveon GenderSpecific Commandments:On the Interplayof Symbols and Society" AJS Review 17, no. 2 (1992): 199-247, esp. 209 n. 44. 16. Sefer 'Abudarham,1340. 17. See, for example, Saul Berman,"The Statusof Womenin HalakhicJudaism,"in TheJewish Woman,ed. ElizabethKolton(New York:Schocken, 1976), 114-28. 18. JudithHauptman,Rereadingthe Rabbis:A Woman'sVoice(Boulder,CO: Westview Press, 1998).

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Natan Margalit ful analysis of the questions surroundingthis rule, and,though she reaches different conclusions, some of her observationsare very suggestive for my argument.I will thereforestartfrom her discussion. She takes the standthat one of the underlying reasons for the exemption of women from time-boundpositive commandments is their lower social status.19She points out that the two currentlypopular apologetic approachesto understandingthis rule, mentioned previously,are not convincing.In regardto the line of argumentthatholds thatwomen areexemptbecause of their heavierdomestic burden,she notes that at the time of the Mishnah bothmen andwomen had very heavy workloads.If they were not wealthy,both the man and the woman in a household would have many essential chores to fulfill, and if they could affordservants,then both would have more free time. Also, she notes, at the time of the Mishnah,women lived with the husband'sfamily,so there wouldhavebeen otherwomen aroundto help. Further,manymitzvot,such as hearing the shofar blast on Rosh Hashanah,take very little time. She concludes that "the most pointed critiqueof the domestic theory of exemptionis that one of the most time-consumingof all mitzvot,prayer-the set of eighteenpetitionaryblessings that had to be recited twice or even three times daily-is obligatorynot just upon men but also upon women (M. Berakhot3:3)!"20 Hauptmancriticizes the other currenttheory-that women have a different nature,a higher level of spiritualitywhich does not requirethem to performthese commandments-as not backed up by any textual evidence whatsoever.Further, she points out that this theory is contradictedby the many religious rituals(even time-bound,positive commandmentssuch as grace after meals and daily prayer) that women were obligatedto perform. Rather,Hauptmanputs forth the theory thatsocial statusis the primaryunderlyingfactor in this distinction.She writes: TheTalmudmentionsthephrase"positivetime-bound" or"non-time-bound" mitzvotonlyinconnection to women.Thatis, thisdistinction wascreatedsolebetweenwomen'sritualobligationsand ly forthe purposeof distinguishing herexemptions. Itwasnota categorythathadanyotheruse.Formen,whoare obligatedto performall positivemitzvot,thereis no significanceto thisdistinction... Butsincethisdistinctionwas devisedonlyto createa category fromwhichwomenareexempt,thereasonfortheexemptionhasto lie in the meaningof thephraseitself,namely,thatthesearethekeymitzvotof marking Jewishtime.It is notthattheytaketime. Womenwereexemptedfromtheessentialritualactsof Judaism,those thatyearin andyearout markJewishtime,in orderto restricttheirperformanceto men,to headsof households; onlypeopleof thehighestsocialstanding,accordingto therabbis,doesGodconsidermostfit to honoror worship 19. As opposed to the idea that women are not completely free to serve God because they are underlegal obligationto serve theirhusbands.This clearly,of course, is relatedto the questionof lower social status,but is not identical. I will not be dealing with this rationalein this paper,although it clearly needs to be approached.I do not believe thatthe existence of this rationaletakes awayfrom the explanationthat I offer in the case of the questionof lower social status. 20. Hauptman,Rereadingthe Rabbis, 225.

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PriestlyMen and InvisibleWomen Him in this important is reminiscentof way.Thishierarchical arrangement of social individuals the kohanim, Templeprotocol.Only highest standing,as evidencedbytheirmorestringentrulesformarriage, ritualpurity,andphysiThepointis cal fitness(Leviticus21), couldserveas Templefunctionaries. thatthosewho serveGodmustthemselvesbe especiallyworthy.In rabbinic forthetime-bound societythismeantthatonlymaleswerefittingcandidates the form of ritual act.21 commandments, positive highest Hauptmanmakes the importantobservationthat it is the regular,ritualnature of these commandmentsthat distinguishesthem from other,non-time-bound commandments.I believe this is the key point, not because I accepther conclusion that social statusis the underlyingfactor,but because it specifically indicatesthat it is the priestly, ritual commandmentsthat men designated as exclusively male territory.I argue that the priestly role is the primarylocus of male incorporation of the feminine. She is makingthe importantpoint of how the rabbinicmales followed in the priestly mold. In the above quotation,Hauptmancomparesthe situationof the regularritual commandmentsto the Temple protocol and the greater obligations of the priests. However,I would arguethat it is precisely here that her theory of higher social standing breaks down. The significance of the priesthood in considering gender configurationsis not simply their high social status (and I am not arguing againstthathigh status,or women'slow status),but, rather,their emphasison genealogy and on the body, and, ironically,their particularrelationshipto the feminine. It is precisely the priestlycharacterof the rabbinicmales, with its interesting, rich arrayof culturalassociations and history,that engendersthis culturallysignificant and anomalousprohibition-not the one-dimensionalscale of social status. An example of the complexity involved in the status of the priesthood is clearly seen in the last categorythat Hauptmanmentions:the physical fitness requiredof the priests. Ratherthan provingthat the priests had a high social status, this concern with the blemish-freebody connects the priests with those of lower social status,even with the nonhumanmembersof the Israeliteworld:the sacrificial animals.The biblical text itself makes a point of this comparison.In Leviticus 21 it is stated that a priest must be physically unblemished,and twelve specific physical blemishes thatdisqualifya priestfrom service in the sanctuaryare listed. In a clear literaryparallel, Leviticus 22 lists twelve similar blemishes that disqualify sacrificial animals! Jacob Milgrom has cogently shown that this literary parallelismis an intentionalpart of the editing of Leviticus.22While it might be arguedthatsacrificialanimalsindeedpossess a high social statusin a certainsense, this clearly is a differentsense thanthe one Hauptmanis discussing. Furthermore,and more directly addressingmy argumentfor parallels between priestsand women, it states in the Mishnahitself (M. Ketubot7:7) that"any blemish which disqualifies a priest (from service in the sanctuary)also disquali21. Ibid,227. 22. Jacob Milgrom,AnchorBible Leviticus 17-22 (New York:Doubleday,2000), 1836-40.

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Natan Margalit fies a women (from receiving a ketubbahpayment if her husbandarbitrarilydivorces her)." Both these examples make it clear that the requirementthat the priests' bodies be unblemishedis not an indicationof high (or low) social status. Rather,the common factorhere is the religious importanceaccordedto the body. I suggest elsewhere that the bodies of priests symbolically representthe wholeness and integrityof the Israelitenation, and in a parallelmanner,married women's bodies representthe wholeness and integrityof the family. Drawingon MaryDouglas'stheoryof "naturalsymbols,"I claim thatthe bodies of women and priestsareutilized as importantculturalremindersof the importanceplaced on the wholeness and integrityof the social categories,the family,and the nation.Along these same lines I have exploredthe parallelsin the biblicaltexts betweenmarried women andpriestsin termsof the symbolismand laws surroundinghairandclothing.23Both marriedwomen and priests are requiredto keep theirhair covered(or at least bound).The operativeword connecting them is paruah (nrun)-wild or untamed-which is a forbiddenstate for the priestly head and a disgracefulstate for the married woman's. The power that is associated with both women and priests,especiallythe powerof giving life, is also somethingthatneededto be controlled.Thatthis controlandorderlinessbecame associatedwith life and wildness and disorderwith deathis seen in the fact thatthe symbol of mourningis the tearPriests ing the clothes andlettingone'shairgrow wild (again,the sameword, •,rn). are specifically prohibitedfrom engaging in these acts of mourning,they must remain intactrepresentations(embodiments)of the life of the community. I claim that these parallelsin body symbolism and control reflect an incorporationon the partof the male priests of symbols of the feminine as part of their priestly role. This may be tracedto the priests' role in the Temple,which itself is figured feminineas the receptacleof God's(male) presencein earthandwithinthe Israelite nation.As the protectedcentral enclosure within the Temple, contained within the walls of Jerusalem,containedwithin the land of Israel (see M. Kelim 1:6-9), as the womb of the nation,fertilityflowed from the Holy of Holies.24The Holy of Holies was the erotic center, as is hinted by RabbiAkiva's equating the erotic Song of Songs with the Holy of Holies. RabbiAkiva is quoted as saying, "Allthe books of the HebrewScripturesareholy,but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies" (M. Yad'aim3:5). On one level this simply means that it is more holy thanthe otherbooks, but it also hints to the place knownas the Holy of Holies, the innerchamberof the Temple.The implied meaning, then, is that the eroticism of the Song of Songs is to be equatedwith this place, the Holy of Holies; the meeting place of God and his beloved People. This eroticism is seen more graphically in the descriptionin B. Yoma54a of the cherubimon the arkin the Holy of Holies. There the Talmuddescribes how, on festival days, the cherubimwere revealedto the public. If the Jewishpeople were doing God'swill the cherubimwouldbe seen 23. Natan Margalit,"Hairin TaNaKh:The Symbolism of Genderand Control,"Journal of the Association of GraduateStudentsin Near Eastern Studies 5, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 43-52; Margalit, "Life ContainingTexts,"209, 290. 24. See e.g. B. Sota 48a., which states thatwhen the Templewas destroyednot only was fertility lessened, but also the pleasurein sex left the world.

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Priestly Men and Invisible Women in sexual embrace, if not, they were turnedaway from one another.The laws of modesty,specifically prohibitionson staringandon touch, which were appliedlater to women, closely parallelthose that we find in the biblical text applied to the temple and the tabernacle.25 On a more basic level, the priests were a genealogical clan. It is they who championedso stronglythe principlesof genealogy,which became centralin biblical and then rabbinicJudaism.Infantcircumcision,endogamy,pronatalism-all can be tracedback to the priests and their concern for orderlyreproduction.The role of physical reproductionwas of paramountimportanceto this priestly clan, and it affectedthe deepest characterof the Judaismthatwould follow it. This concern with reproductionon the partof a patrilinealclan, and the resultingincorporationby males of feminine traits,is clearlycapturedin the famousgenealogies of the Genesis narratives,which are attributedto the priestly writers.According to these lists, all the "begetting"is done by males, withoutmentioningthe partplayed by any females. Here, Nancy Jay'sabove-mentionedtheory is important:biblical sacrifice was a means of transferringthe symbolism of blood and birth from the female to the male sphereand for the males to claim the genealogical links of filiation as their own.26 Thus, I arguethatit is not the higheror lowerstatusof men and women that evokes the new category of "positive time-bound commandments"from which women are excluded. Rather,it is precisely in the much more specific categoryof males as "priestly"conveyersof the covenant.As priestlymen, markingthe sacred calendarof Jewish time, they participatein the incorporationof the feminine, and thus continuethe exclusion of women from "priestly"roles, such as markingritual time. Hauptmancorrectly,I believe, places the emphasis not on the time it takes to performthe action, but on the fact that these are the ritual actions that define Jewish time. In the post-Temple,rabbinicera of Judaism,the sacred space of the Temple was replacedby the increasedemphasis on sacred time. The priestly duties of honoringGod shifted from the realm of priests in the Templeto the male householdersin the field of time. An example of this shift from space to time, and fromprieststo male householders,may be illustratedin the very first mishnahof the entiremishnaiccorpus. It states there (M. Berakhot 1:1), "Fromwhat time may one say the shemcain the evening? From the time that the priests enter (the Temple) to eat their priestsofferings."Thispassage looks innocentenough.However,the choice of "thepriests enteringthe Templeto eat theirpriests-offerings"as a markerof time is not an expected one. The usual markerfor nightfallwould be simply "whenthe starscome out"(t0a3 n nKx). Froma literaryperspective,the choice of the priests entering the Templeas a markerof time serves to connect the recital of the shemcaback to the Temple,and to facilitatethe transitionthatthis mishnahis recording/creating. The recitalof the shemcais one of the centralpartsof the liturgy,which will come to replacethe sacrificial system as the focus of Jewishworship.Thatthe editor of 25. I thankAvrahamWalfish for pointingthis out to me. 26. Jay,ThroughoutYourGenerationsForever,94-111.

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Natan Margalit the Mishnahchose to place the emphasis on its timing and to juxtapose this with the spatialdescriptionof the priests enteringto eat theirpriests-dueenacts an elegant shift in modalities. By invokingthe earlierfocus of religious life, the priests in the Temple,the editor facilitates a smooth transitionfrom priestlyTemplecult to the new religious patternof householdersmarkingsacredtime throughliturgy. While this mishnahdoes not emphasizethe maleness of the householders,others make this assumptionclear.A mishnahin the same tractate(M. Berakhot3:3) explicitly exempts women from the time-boundrecital of the shemca(invoking, at least accordingto the Talmud'sexplanation,our rule of women's exemptionfrom positive time-boundcommandments).Thus, time has become the arenafor priestly action, now takenon by the male householders. III M. Kiddushin1:7, FeminizedPriests, Priestly Men In orderto build my claim that the males imagined in the Mishnahwere acting in the model of the priests, and that this priestly role was borrowedfrom the symbolism of the feminine, we will now turnto the Mishnahitself and to a bit of its context.The passage in which the exemptionof women from positive time-bound commandmentsappearsis the 7th mishnahin the first chapterof the M. Kiddushin (Betrothals)in the Mishnah'sOrderof Women.Thereis much to be said aboutthe placementof this mishnahin this particularcontext. In fact, I considerit impossible to really understandthe meaning of a mishnahoutside of its literarycontext within a chapterand tractateof the Mishnahas a whole. Elsewhere,I have made a detailed studyof the literarystructureof this chapterof the Mishnah.27Here I will discuss it only briefly. The chapterin which this mishnahappearsmay be divided into two halves. Scholarshaveshownthatthis chapterwas craftedfromtwo previouslyexisting collections of mishnayot.28The first half has been called the "chapterof acquisitions" because it deals with the betrothal(acquisition)of a womanby a man. It then goes on to deal with other examples of acquisitions:slaves, animals,and land. Clearly this is a very problematiccollection of laws from a feminist point of view. It can be shown that in the first half of the chapter,the mishnayotare arrangedin a chiastic structure,which focuses attentionon a parallelbetweenwomanandland.This is not a surprisinganalogy,as the connectionbetween women and land is a common one not only in the ancientJewish contextbut also in the ancientMiddle East and in otherparts of the world.29The basic structureis best seen througha chart of the methods of acquisition:

27. Margalit,"Life ContainingTexts,"125-216. 28. See J. N. Epstein,Mav'o le-nusah ha-mishnah(TelAviv: Dvir, 1964), 51-53; andAvraham Weiss, Al Hamishnah(TelAviv: Bar Ilan Press, 1956), 81. 29. See, e.g., Carol Delaney, The Seed and the Soil: Gender and Cosmology in Turkish Village

Society (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1991).

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Priestly Men and Invisible Women A (m. 1) women money,document,sexualintercourse B (m. 2) Hebrewslave money,document C (m. 3) Canaanite slave money,document,usucaption B1 (m.4) animals pulling,lifting,passing Al (m. 5) land money,document,usucaption This literarystructureis as subtleand intriguingas its message is problematic (notto say offensive)fromtoday'sperspective.The firstthreemishnayotareclearly a subsectionand a minichiasmus.They all deal with the acquisitionof people, however,A and C (women and Canaaniteslaves) list a method of acquisitionnot sharedby the Hebrewslave.The analogybetweensexualintercourseandusucaption (acquisitionthroughparadigmaticusage) is clear,and clearlydamningin termsof the rabbis'view of womenand marriage.In the fourthmishnahwe are movedfrom thehumanto the nonhuman,and"money,document,intercourse/usucaption" arereplaced by "moving,lifting, etc."But the three familiarmethodsreturnin the fifth mishnah,drawingattentionto the analogybetweenthe beginningandthe end. Several scholarshave notedthe descendingorderof this list and attemptedto explainit in those terms.30The issue of autonomyor mobility certainlyseems to go in descendingorderin these five mishnayot.However,the signs of chiasmusare clearly evident in the special statusaccordedto land,and thus we find a patternwhich is very characteristicof the Mishnah'schiastic structures:progression(or in this case digression)coupled with return.The ending is both like and unlike the beginning. In simplestterms, I claim thatthis structurepresentsan ideology of acquisitionthatplacesthe permanentandthe fruitfulabovethe transientandthe casual.That women in marriagearethe most autonomousin this list is not to be forgotten-this distinctionwas also importantto therabbis.However,in thisstructuretherabbiswere emphasizingthe value they placedon women in commonwith land-as partnersin theirmost permanent,socially(religiously)sanctioned,intense,fruitfulrelationship. An analysisof these methodsof acquisition,anda surveyof the generalanalbetween women and land,reveala hierarchyof values in the types of acquisiogy tion. It is useful in this analysis to draw on the anthropologicalliteratureon gift exchange.The gift, as opposed to a commodity,carriesan emotionalcharge.It is even eroticin the sense of its symbolismof drawingthe partnersin exchangecloser together.The gift is tied to the identitiesof the giverandthe receiver,andit is a public, communalfact, takingon the auraof the religious/communalties of society.31 Commodities,on the otherhand,are seen as representingunattached,private,egotistical interactions.The commodityis not closely associatedwith identityor reli30. Noam Zohar,"Women,Men and Religious Status:Decipheringa Chapterin Mishnah,"in Approachesto AncientJudaism:New Series, Volume5, Historical, Literary,and Religious Studies,ed. HerbertBasser and Simcha Fishbane(Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993), 33-54; AvrahamWeiss, "Le-hekerha sifruti shel ha mishnah,"Hebrew Union CollegeAnnual 16 (1941): 1-33. 3 1. See Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Formsand Functions of Exchange in ArchaicStudies, trans. IanCunnison(New York:W.W.Norton, 1967); Lewis Hyde, TheGift:Imaginationand the EroticLife of Property(New York:Vintage Books, 1979); and Annette B. Weiner,InalienablePossessions: The Paradoxof Keeping WhileGiving (Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1992) as basic introductions to the large anthropologicalliteratureon gift exchange.

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Natan Margalit gious/social meanings.Those "acquisitions,"like women and land,which are seen to be permanent,to enhancethe man'sidentity,andto involvestrongemotionalties, are valuedabovethose, such as the Hebrewslaves (B) and animals,(Bi) which are relativelyimpermanentand do not involve emotionalattachmentor religious,public significance. In other words, those that have the characterof short-termcommodity are devalued,while those with the characterof gift are more highly valued accordingto this structure.Thus,the characterof acquisitionof women in marriage that is being advancedin this "chapterof acquisitions"is one of the gift, in which emotional,religiousvalueis placedon permanenceandan almostnatural,inevitable relationship.Forourpurposes,this qualityof relationshipwill be importantas it sets the stageforthe relationshipthatmen wish to establishbetweenthemselvesandGod throughthe mitzvot. Although the focus of those mishnayot seems to be on items (including women)thatareacquired,an analysisof its genderimplicationsshows thatit serves to reinforce/createthe gender role of men as autonomoussubjects. Men are the free subjects,those who acquire,as opposed to those who are acquired.32My abbreviateddiscussion of the first set of mishnayotprovidesa preludeto our primary focus, which is the second collection. It is importantfor us to note, however,this first collection's establishmentof the parallelismbetween women and land. This is an example of the ubiquitoussymbolism in rabbinictexts of the importanceof the feminine powers of fertility and its importancein the male identity.The male needs to acquire a woman and land in order to guaranteethe continuity of his household,his name, and his legacy. This is one form of "incorporation"of the feminine:owning and controllingit. The second half of the chapterhas been labeled the "chapterof commandments"because it deals with differencesin obligations in commandments;sometimes, as in our mishnah,the obligationsvary accordingto one's sex. The focus is still, not surprisingly,on the men (who, afterall, arethe main subjects,writers,editors, and audienceof the Mishnah).More surprisingly,however,the focus on the commandmentsturnsthe tables such that the men, throughtheir performanceof the commandments,are the ones being acquired-by God. That is, they are in the feminine position vis-d-vis God. The implications of "acquisition"noted in the first half of the chapter,focusing on the aspects of permanence,emotional ties, public, religious meaning, and natural,inevitableconnection are clearly desirable in the relationshipto God. The male Jew's relationshipto God throughthe commandmentsis presentedas the mirrorimage of thatrelationshipbetweenmen and women.The emphasisin both cases is on the closeness, the permanence,the fruitfulness, andthe natural/inevitablequalityof the relationship.This analysisis in no way meant to be an apology for the inequalitiesfrom which Jewish women have sufferedas a result of the framingof marriageas her "acquisition"by the man. It is an attemptto understandthese mishnayotin termsof theirparticulargenderdiscourse of male incorporationof the feminine. 32. For an example of this dynamic from ancient Greek theater,see Virginia Wohl, Intimate Commerce:Exchange, Gender,and Subjectivityin GreekTragedy(Austin: Universityof Texas Press, 1998).

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Priestly Men and Invisible Women As in the first collection, thereis a clear chiastic structureto the second collection of mishnayotas well. This is best seen in the first words of each mishnah: A m. 6 kolha-na'aseh B m. 7 kolmizvah C m. 8 ha-semikhot B1 m. 9 kol mizvah Al

m. 10 kol ha-'oseh

On the level of the wordsthemselves,thereis a chiastic structurein the framof ing B and B 1 with identicalopening phrasekol mizvah(every commandment). The outer frame,A, Al, is likewise identicalexcept that there is an elegant reversal of the verb from passive to active, suggesting closure of the literary unit, "every(thing)thatis done [or made] ... every(one)thatdoes."33An analysisof the content of this group of mishnayotwould reveal that there is a progressivemovement towardsthe end of the chapterin which the commandmentshave more of the characterof an emotionalattachment,and a natural,inevitableconnection.The final mishnahin the chapteris the mitzvahof learningTorah.This is a commandment that, in the rabbis'eyes, is in a category by itself. It is the basis for a close and sometimeseven eroticattachmentbetweenthe male Jew and God (throughthe Torah).34The themes of fruitfulnessand permanenceare emphasizedby weaving the idea of land once again into the text. (The artfulediting of this chapteris again revealedby the parallelsbetween the structureof the first and second collections: A, B, C = human;B1, Al = land, in both.) I will returnto some of the structures of the chapter,but in orderto progressin my argument,we will need to focus on the 7th mishnah, and the exemption of women from positive time-bound commandments. Mishnah7 incumbent on thefatherconcerningtheson:menareobAnycommandment onthechildren incumbent ligatedandwomenareexempt.Anycommandment both males females are and concerning parents: obligated.Anypositivetimeboundcommandment: menareobligatedandwomenareexempt.Anypositive commandment which is not time-bound:both men and womenare whethertime-boundor not timeobligated.Any negativecommandment, bound:bothmenandwomenareobligated,except(thatmenareobligatedin) notcuttingthebeard,notcuttingthecornersof one'sheadhair,and(inthecase of priests)notbecomingimpurewithdeathimpurity. As is clearly seen, this mishnahdeals with the differences in obligations in commandmentsbetweenmen and women.The first partof the mishnahdeals with 33. Meir Paran,Darkhei ha-signon ha-kohani ba-torah (Jerusalem:Magnes, 1989) uses the term "closing deviations"in relationto the biblical priestlywritings. 34. See the chapter"Lustingafter Learning"in Boyarin,Carnal Israel, 134-66.

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Natan Margalit commandmentsconcerning parentsand children, the second part deals with the categoriesof positive and negativecommandments,with the additionalcriteriaof time-boundor non time-bound. MiriamPeskowitzhas pointed out that it is importantthat the work of gender role creation,performance,and reiterationis done in a concealed way.35The goal is to make the gender distinctions,(including the inequalities)seem natural and unremarkable.This raises a question about this mishnah.There must be another kind of work being done here, one in which the Rabbis felt the need to explicitly discuss the male/female dichotomy. I suggest that the first statementof the mishnahgives us the hint as to why the rabbis are explicit here in their gender distinctions. "Any commandmentincumbenton the fatherconcerningthe son: men are obligatedand women are exempt."This is, on first brush,a surprisingstatement:In those obligationsof parents to children,men are obligatedand women are not. Is child rearingan exclusively male duty in the eyes of the Mishnah?Clearlynot. However,I would claim thatthe subjectof the first half of this mishnahtouches one of those areas,which is so feminine in its connotationsfor the rabbisthatthey have to explicitly say thatit is not. The raising of children, in other words, is an area where the males were specifically drawingon a feminine imagery and claiming it for themselves. The Tosefta(a parallelrabbinicsource from approximatelythe same period as the Mishnah, often seen as commenting on or filling gaps in the Mishnah) specifically poses the questionsthatnaturallyarise from the first statementof our mishnah:What does it mean that the obligations of the parents to child are incumbenton the fatherand not the mother?The answerof the Toseftais thatthe father is obligated in circumcising (the male), redeeming him (from the priest), teachinghim Torahand a craft,finding him a wife, and some say, teachinghim to swim.36Thus, the Mishnahis not interestedin the day-to-daynurturing,the feeding and clothing of the child,but, rather,it is concernedwith what LawrenceHoffman has labeled the "covenantalobligations."'37 These covenantalobligationsare those thatthe fathermust undertakein orderto continuehis line. Whatis interesting aboutthese obligationsis thatthey are not only personalbut religious as well. They are covenantalin thatthese are the obligationsthat directlyhelp to carrythe covenantbetween God and the Jewish people into the next generation-through the male line. Thus, it is importantto understand,it is not only in the domestic area of raisingchildren,but also in the deepersense of reproductionin generalthat the first half of this mishnahis "feminine."In orderto continuethe male line, the men need to appropriatethe symbols of birth.Following the priestly genealogists who 35. Miriam Peskowitz, Spinning Fantasies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). She writes:"Thisbook is about how the early rabbisused fantasiesaboutspinningand the spinningof fantasyto makegenderinto sense ... In understandingandproducingtheirculturalworldthroughthese things-and of course in combinationwith many otherthings-social meaningsof genderwere naturalized,made to seem familiar,commonplace,natural,expected,and very, very ordinary"(24). 36. Saul Lieberman,ToseftaNashim (New York:JewishTheological Seminary,1995), 279. 37. Lawrence Hoffman, Covenant of Blood (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 80-81.

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Priestly Men and Invisible Women createdmiraculouslymale-only lines of reproduction,the rabbishavethe symbols of continuityexclusively in the provinceof the males. Here we can begin to make a connection between the Rabbinicmales, the feminine symbolism of birth, and the patrilinealcaste which made up the priesthood. While the later two (or three, if one counts swimming) on the list may be seen in a practicalsense as facilitatingthe young males' continuinghis life andline into anothergeneration,the first three-circumcision, redeeming the firstborn, and teaching the male child Torah-are intimatelyconnected to the priestly ritual. The biblical texts where these appeartie them togetherand, like our mishnah, explicitly highlight exclusive maleness while drawing on underlying feminine symbolism. The common scripturalcontextfor these commandmentsis the exodus from Egypt. This is not the place to go into a detailed explication of the gender symbolism of the exodus, but the symbolism of birthis quite evident:the blood of the Passoveron the doorpostsof the house, like the birthpassageway,symbolic of the blood of birth; God's saving the Israelites, giving them life, taking them out throughthe birthcanal of the sea; and many otherexamples-all point to the underlyingmythic symbolism of birthsurroundingthe exodus story.38 The connection of these covenantalcommandmentsto the exodus is most clearly seen in the redemptionof the firstborn,which appearsin Exodus 13:1116 and is linked with the slaying of the first born Egyptians.39The place of circumcision in this nexus is seen most clearly in the puzzling passage in Exodus 4:24-26 in which God attacksMoses, who is savedby Zipporah,who circumcises theirson and throwsthe bloody foreskinat Moses' feet. It shouldbe noted thatimmediately before this passage (in verses 22, 23) is the first time that God names Israel"myfirst-bornson."Thus,the parallelis establishedbetweenGod'sfirstborn son who is saved,and Egypt'sfirstbornsons, who are killed. Moses' dangerin the face of a destroyingGod and the apotropaicrite of circumcisionis set up as a microcosm of the nation of Israel'sdangerfrom the Destroyer(God) and the saving power of the blood of the Passoveron the doorposts in the nationalexodus. The life-giving powerof women, seen in Zipporahhere, and in the midwives, Miriam, and Pharaoh'sdaughterin the nationalexodus, is also quite clearly an underlying theme of the exodus. The covenantalcommandmentof teachingone's son Torahmay at first seem out of place among classic priestly commandmentssuch as circumcisionand re38. Foran excellent discussion of this symbolism see the chapter"Imaginingthe Birthof a Nation" in Pardes,BiographyofAncient Israel, 16-39. 39. "Andwhen the Lord has broughtyou into the land of the Canaanites,as He swore to you andto yourfathers,andhas given it to you, you shall set apartforthe Lordevery first issue of the womb: every male firstling that your cattle drop shall be the Lord's.But every firstling ass you shall redeem with a sheep; if you do not redeem it, you must breakits neck. And you must redeem every first-born male among your children.And when, in time to come, your son asks you, saying, 'What does this mean?'you shall say to him, 'It was with a mightyhandthatthe Lordbroughtus out of Egypt,the house of bondage.When Pharaohstubbornlyrefusedto let us go, the Lordslew every first-bornin the landof Egypt, the first-bornof both man and beast. ThereforeI sacrifice to the Lordevery first male issue of the womb, but redeemevery first-bornamong my sons.'"

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Natan Margalit demptionof the firstborn.However,teaching is an integralpart of the memorialization of the exodus as describedin Exodus 13:13-14: andyoumustredeemeveryfirst-bornmaleamongyourchildren.Andwhen, in timeto come,yoursonasksyou,saying,'Whatdoesthismean?'youshall say to him,'It waswitha mightyhand... theLordsleweveryfirst-bornin the landof Egypt,the first-born of bothmanandbeast.ThereforeI sacrifice to the Lordeveryfirstmaleissueof thewomb,butredeemeveryfirst-born amongmysons." Even thoughwe may thinkof the intellectualactivity of teachingTorahas the polar opposite of priestlyritual,here it is revealedto be partof the male/priestlyrites of continuity.40In a mythical,only partiallyconcealed birth,the male God gives life to the line of Israel,and the rites of redemptionof the firstbornmale, circumcision, and teaching Torahall commemoratethat male birth and set the tone for the priesthood,which coopts the feminine powerof birth.The rabbinicmales will follow in the footsteps of theirpriestlypredecessors. To returnnow to the structureof the chapter,looking at the next mishnah, 1:8, we see a clear continuationof the theme of priestlyobligations. Mishnah8 Layingthehands(on a sacrificialanimal),waving(a portionof theanimal), presenting (theanimalto thealtar),pickingout(mealto offeron altar)offersacingincense,killinga sacrificialbird,collecting(bloodfroma slaughtered rificialanimal)sprinkling(bloodon the altar)arepracticedby menandare notpracticedby women.ExceptfortheSuspected Adulteress(withher)meal offeringandthe(female)Nazirite,whowave(a portionof theanimal). Here thereare obviouslypriestlyduties, and it is interestingto note thathere there is not simply an exemption from obligation;the phrase "arepracticedby" implies that there is a prohibition of women performingthese duties. This is the center of the chiasmus and the apex of the distinctions between men and women in terms of commandments.The fact that the focus is directly on the priestly duties strengthensmy point that the previous mishnahwas also dealing with males as quasipriests.In fact, there is a literarytransition(as is common in the Mishnah) between mishnah 7 and mishnah 8. The ending of mishnah 7 lists the exceptions to the rule that in negative commandmentsboth men and women are obligated.These are the prohibitionsagainst shavingthe beard,cuttingthe side of the head, and coming in contact with a corpse. These are listed as "male"commandments,but in fact there are relevantonly to the priests in the last case, and in the formertwo cases, shavingthe beardandthe sides of the head,areclear cases 40. For an excellent discussion of the connection between circumcisionand teaching see Harvey Goldberg,"Cambridgein the Landof Canaan:Descent, Alliance, Circumcisionand Instructionin the Bible,"JANES24 (1996): 9-34.

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Priestly Men and Invisible Women of biblical priestly obligationswhich then were laterinterpretedas binding on the male householders. As noted earlier,the second collection parallelsthe structureof the first collection in that the first three mishnayotdeal with humanrelations,while the last two deal with land or objects connected to land. Thus, the comparisonsbetween men and women end in mishnah8, and we move to mishnah9, which deals with the comparisonbetween obligations inside the land of Israel and outside. The phrasenoheg ("is practiced")is continuedfrom the previousmishnah.I would argue that this term implies a more natural,almost inevitableconnectionthan does the wordoseh ("he does"), which is more volunteeristic. The last mishnah combines this theme of land with the introductionof the study of Torah. Mishnah 10 Whoeverperformsone mitzvah:goodis doneforhimandhe is givenlength of daysandhe inheritstheland.Andwhoeverdoesnotperformonemitzvah: andhe doesnotingoodis notdoneforhim,andhisdaysarenotlengthened, heritthe land.Andwhoever(studies)neitherScriptures norMishnah,nora craft:thispersonis notwithincivil society.Abouttheone whograspsall of these,Scriptures says,"Thethreefoldropeis notquicklybroken." This mishnahdepartsfrom the rest of the chapterin discussing not the details of the commandmentsthemselves, but, rather,the rewardsfor performing them. Many of the themes of the chapterare woven into this last mishnah and I will not be able here to discuss them all. Clearly,the theme of land is important, not simply as a locus for doing commandments(as in mishnah 9), but as the reward,the place where one may happilylive out one's life and achieve fulfillment. The first part of the mishnah lists three rewardsfor doing "one mitzvah":wellbeing, length of days, and inheritingthe land. These are very plausiblyconnected to the original topic of this chapter-marriage and family-and thus returnsto and reinforces the theme of the first half of the chapter:marriage,fertility,and land.The rewardof "inheritthe land"wouldbe practicallyachievedby havingchildren who continue the family's presence on the land. The first reward,"wellbeing" ( 15pa'sn,literally"good is done to him")may be relatedto the statement in B. Yevamot62b thata man who has no wife has no goodness (" n'tu"). "Length of days"may be seen as a bridge between the goodness, which the man finds in his own lifetime, and the thirditem, "inheritthe land,"which has the implication of passing it on to one's progeny. Literarily,mishnah10 refersus back to marriageandthe first mishnahof the chapterin its emphasison the numberthree.The three ways in which a woman is acquiredmentionedin the first mishnahof the chapterare hereparallelednot only by the directmentionof "Thethreefoldrope,"but also by the threerewards(goodness, length of days, land) and the three obligations (Scriptures,Mishnah,craft). The argumentthatthis is a purposefuldevice is strengthenedby the absence of the numberthree in the body of the chapter.It appearsonly at the beginning and the end. 313

Natan Margalit The ending of the chapterrefers to land in the mention of someone being a~1'rn p•, translatedhere as "partof civil society" but having the implicationof a society settled on the land. The wordinghere is perhapsreminiscentof the verse in Isaiah45:18, "The Creatorof heaven who alone is God, who formed the earth and made it, who alone establishedit, He did not create it a waste, but formed it for habitation which is the rabbinicsource text for the command(nx;•i nmwtu)," ment of "be fruitful and multiply."41 The verb lashevet ("for habitation")is reflected in its noun form, ha-yishuv("settlement").The "one mitzvah"mentioned may itself be hintingto this very commandment.The term "one mitzvah"is by no means clear. It has been interpretedto refer to the one commandmentthat a man does over and above the amountof his sins, thus resultingin a reward.But in the context of this chapter,with its focus on marriageand the creationof family, it is plausiblethat"one mitzvah"refersto the first mitzvahmentionedin the Torah:be fruitfuland multiply.42 The commandmentto studyTorahis here not seen so much as an obligation, but,rather,as somethingthatbringsrewards,muchas the firststatementof this mishnah describesrewardsfor doing "onecommandment." It is a commandmentthatresults in one beingpartof society or a contributingmemberof the settlingof the land. The languageused is similarto thatused in the previousmishnahin that it does not describethe studyof Torahas a commandmentor even as an actionto be performed, but, rather,as a stateto be "in.""Whoeverhas Scriptures,Mishnah,a craft"would perhapsbe a bettertranslation.This again reinforcesthe idea thatthese commandmentsarenot incidentalperformances;rather,they aremoreakinto statesof being, permanentattributes.The value, as in marriage,is not in the quick enjoymentof a reward,but in the stable,long lastingconnectioncreatedby being "in"Torah. Thus, in the last mishnah,the two halves of the chaptercome together.The male's performanceof the commandments,his fulfilling his obligations,createsa connectionbetween him and God; he becomes God's acquisition,and the resultis that the rewardsof the first half-continuing in the land,children,and all fulfillments of marriage-are achieved.The man who fulfills commandmentsis fruitful, rewardedwith goodness, and is plantedin the land.The acquisitionof a wife describedin the first half of the chapteris partof the rewardfor the male being in the feminine position vis-a-vis God in the second half of the chapter. CONCLUSION

I have examinedthe rule that women are exempt from positive time-bound commandmentsas it appearsin the Mishnah,M. Kiddushin1:7. I have arguedthat 41. See M. Gittin4:5, M. Eduyot 1:13, Bereshit 19:5, 20:8, and Bamidbar12:4 for the use of this verse as a proof text for the commandmentto be fruitful and multiply. It is interestingthat this verse, which includes the context of settling the land,is more often used than the seemingly more obvious commandin Genesis 1. This strengthensthe connectionbetween humanfertility and the whole context of humansociety settling on fertile land. 42. See YehudaShaviv,"Kiddushinperek rishon:seder ve-tavnit,"Netuim 3 (May 1996): 5455, who also makes this point, andAvrahamWeiss, "Sedermishnahkiddushin,"Kovetztorahshe b'al pe (1968): 16-23, who notes the general comparisonbetween this mishnahand the first mishnahof the chapter.

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Priestly Men and Invisible Women the basis for this rule can be found in the idea thatmales, especially in the priestly role, are incorporatingthe feminine into themselves and thereforefeel a need to exclude actual women from those rituals and performanceswhich most closely embody the feminine for the males. In examiningthis mishnahit has been useful to explore some of the biblical texts thatstandin the backgroundof this idea. I examinedthe dependenceof the biblicalpriestson the symbolism of the feminine in their emphasis on genealogy and circumcisionas a kind of male birth.This was played out in the story of the exodus and in the commandmentsthat stem from it such as redeemingthe firstborn.These depend on a similar incorporationof the symbolismof birthby the male priesthood.I arguedthatrabbinicmales continued this priestly role in many ways, and with that continued in the cooptation of the feminine. It has also been importantto examine the literarycontext of the mishnahitself. This context suggests a structurein which males acquirefeminine powerspecifically of birth,life, and continuityin the land throughacquiringa wife-in the first half of the chapter,but, more importantlyfor my argument,performcommandmentsthat put the males themselves in the feminine position as being the "possession"of God, permanentlyand naturallyconnected to God, in the second half of the chapter.This connection throughthe performanceof commandments, we learnin the end, resultsin the rewardof all those gifts of the "feminine":goodness, length of days, and permanencein the land throughchildren. The rule that states that women are exempt from positive time-boundcommandments,then, must be seen in the context of a wider phenomenonof men excluding women precisely when the men are attempting to incorporate into themselves those qualitiesthatthey perceive as feminine. The implications of these findings are potentially wide-ranging. I would ventureto propose that the recognitionof the envy and the desire to incorporate the feminineon the partof the males makes for a more subtleunderstandingof the exclusion of women throughoutmuch of Jewish history. Studies of the extreme exclusion of women from aspects of Judaism,such as LawrenceHoffman's study of circumcision (which has been noted here), or those of Elliot Wolfson in Kabbalah,43in which there is a clear, scholarlydeterminationto look at gender inequalityin Judaismstraighton, without flinching or apologetics, are indeed important,but they may tell only part of the story.My researchandthe workof SaraCaldwellandotherswouldput such exclusions in perspective, remindingus of the feminine which is very much present in the very exclusion itself. I am quick to emphasize that I do not agree with apologists who downplay the exclusion of women, claimingthatJudaismhas alwayscelebratedthe feminine and so forth. We cannot pretendthat the exclusion did not (and does not) exist, even if we find that there is more to say about it. Rather,noting the hidden feminine behind the exclusion may open some doors to understandingthat reappearance of the feminine in Judaism.An example of this reappearanceof the feminine 43. See, for example, Elliot Wolfson,Circlein the Square:Studiesin the Use of Genderin Kabbalistic Symbolism(Albany:State Universityof New YorkPress, 1995).

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Natan Margalit may be found in the work of ChavaWeissler in her study of women's spirituality in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and especially in her investigation of women'sSabbathcandle lightingon the model of the High Priest.44She explicates women'stekhines,Yiddishpetitionaryprayers,basedon kabbalistictexts thatplace women lighting candles before the Sabbathin the model of the High Priestlighting the menorahin the Temple.Kabbalistically,just as the High Priest unites upper and lowerworldsby his act in the Temple,so does the women in herhome. The fact that the analogy between women and the High Priestreemergesin laterJewish culture(this time, however,with women reclaimingthe role of "highpriestess," as it were) lends supportto my claim thatthe role of the priest(especially the High Priest) drew from the beginning on feminine imagery.I suggest that the connection between women and high priests is not a chance textual connection,but has deep roots. This example may lead us in the directionof uncoveringmore of the underlyingfeminine in Judaism,not to claim apologeticallythat there was never exclusion, but to uncoverwhat has been hidden,but is still not lost. Natan Margalit ReconstructionistRabbinicalCollege Wyncote,Pennsylvania

44. ChavaWeissler,"WomanAs High Priest:A KabbalisticPrayerin Yiddishfor LightingSabbath Candles,"in Essential Papers on Kabbalah,ed. LawrenceFine (New York:New YorkUniversity Press, 1995), 525-46.

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Kabbalistic Physiology: Isaac the Blind, Nahmanides, and Moses de Leon on Menstruation Author(s): Sharon Faye Koren Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 317-339 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131526 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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AJS Review 28:2 (2004), 317-339 KABBALISTIC PHYSIOLOGY:

ISAACTHE BLIND, NAHMANIDES,AND MOSES DE LEON ON MENSTRUATION

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SharonFayeKoren Science and faith were inextricablyintertwinedin the Latin Middle Ages.1 Clerics would attendto both spiritualand physical needs because the need to care for the body coincided with the need to care for the soul.2 Until the rise of universities in the twelfth century,monasterieswere the centersof scientific knowledge. And, even afterthe professionalizationof medicinein the thirteenthcentury,Christian physicians continuedto look to the Bible, in additionto their license, as the source of their authority.3Indeed,many Christianphysicians who received medical degrees went on to pursuehigherdegrees in theology.4It is thereforenot surprising that several Christiantheologians used medical theories in the service of theology.5 This nexus between science and faith was not limited to Christianity.Although Jews were excluded from universities, some aspiring Jewish physicians 1. On the intersectionof science and religion among Jews, see Tsvi Langerman,"Acceptance and Devaluation:Nahmanides'AttitudetowardScience,"Journal ofJewish Thoughtand Philosophy 1 (1992): 223-245; David Ruderman,Jewish Thoughtand Scientific Discovery (New Haven, CT:Yale UniversityPress, 1995); idem, Kabbalah,Magic, and Science: The CulturalUniverse of a SixteenthCenturyJewish Physician (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1988). Among Christians,see PeterBiller and Joseph Ziegler,Religion and Medicine in the MiddleAges (Rochester,NY: YorkMedieval Press, 2001); Joseph Ziegler, Medicine and Religion c. 1300: The Case ofArnau de Villanova, (New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1998); GuenterRisse, MendingBodies, Saving Souls: A History of Hospitals (New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1999). 2. Courtenay,"Curersof Body and Soul: Medical Doctors as Theologians," in Biller and Ziegler,Religion and Medicine in the MiddleAges, 69-75. 3. The most popularsource of medical authorityin the Bible was Ecclesiastes 38:1-15. See Ziegler'sdiscussion in Biller and Ziegler, Religion and Medicine in the MiddleAges, 5. 4. Courtenay,"Curersof Body and Soul,"69-75. 5. One of the best examplesof the fusion of medicine andtheology is thatof Arnauof Villanova, who pursueddual careersin medicine and theology for twenty years (Ziegler, Medicine and Religion c. 1300; Michael R. McVaugh,"Momentsof Inflection:The Careersof Arnaude Villanova,"in Biller and Ziegler,Religion and Medicine in the MiddleAges, 47-68). On PeterLombard'suse of medicine in his Sentences, see Biller, "An Inquiryinto the Origins of the Idea of 'Sex Ratio,"' in The Worksof Jacques LeGoffand the Challenge of Medieval History, ed. Miri Rubin(Rochester,NY: Boydell and Brewster, 1977), 27-52; On Hildegardof Bingen, see Jacquart,"Hildegardet la physiologie de son temps,"in HildegardofBingen: TheContextofHer ThoughtandArt(London:WarburgInstitute,1998), 121-134.

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SharonFaye Koren studied medicine unofficially with members of the medical faculty and others studiedprivately.6Just as many Christianphysicianswere also theologians,many Jewish doctorswere also Rabbis,7and as such could employ scientific theories in supportof theological and legal arguments.In fact, Kabbalahemerges contemporaneouslywith the rediscoveryof Galen andAristotle in the LatinWest,and some thirteenth-centurykabbalistsendeavoredto discern divine secrets with the aid of this new knowledge. There is, however,no such thing as knowledge in the abstract.Michel Foucault has taughtus thatno knowledgeexists outside of the confines of a given culturalcontext.8And the inequalityof the sexes in medievalculture9expresseditself in medievalmen'smedical andtheological conceptionsof women.10The mystical rationalesfor the laws of the menstruatingwomanare a case in point. In Leviticus, menstruantswere deemed rituallyimpurefor cultic practice(15:19) and prohibited to their husbandsin a catalog of forbiddensexual relations(20:18). After the 6. Joseph Shatzmiller,Jews, Medicine,and MedievalSociety (Berkeley:Universityof California Press, 1994), 22-35, 39-55. 7. Ibid., 140. 8. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge,ed. and trans. Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980); idem, History of Sexuality,VolumeOne: An Introduction,trans. R. Hurly (New York: PantheonBooks, 1985). 9. A lengthydiscussion on the statusof women in medieval society is beyond the scope of this paper.I will thereforetake the inferiorstatus of women as a given and refer the readerinstead to the vast literatureon the subject. See, inter alia, James A. Brundage,Law`Sex, and ChristianSociety in MedievalEurope(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1987); Angela Lucas, Womenin the Middle Ages (New York:Saint Martin'sPress, 1983); Penny Shine Gold, TheLady and the Virgin(Chicago: ChicagoUniversityPress, 1985);DavidHerlihy,MedievalHouseholds(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1985); ShulamitShachar,TheFourthEstate, trans.ChayaGalai (Londonand New York: Methuen, 1983); Martha C. Howell, Women,Production, and Patriarchy in Late Medieval Cities (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1986). On the statusof medievalJewish women, see, interalia, JudithBaskin,"JewishWomenin the MiddleAges," in Jewish Womenin HistoricalPerspective,ed. Judith Baskin (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991); AvrahamGrossman,Hasidot u-mordot (Jerusalem:MerkazZalman Shazar,2001). 10. See for example, VernBullough, "MedievalMedical and Scientific Views of Women,"Viator 4 (1973): 485-501; CharlesWood,"TheDoctor'sDilemma:Sin, Salvation,andthe MenstrualCycle in Medieval Thought,"Speculum 56 (1981): 710-727. Writing women, by contrast, presented themselves in a far more positive light. Consider,for example, the way in which Hildegardof Bingen describes female physiology.See Hildegardof Bingen, Cause et Cure,CC 78,8-79,3 and CC 102,20110,37, in HildegardofBingen on NaturalPhilosophyand Medicine,trans.MagretBerger(Cambridge: D.S. Brewer,1999), 79-84; BarbaraNewman, Sister of Wisdom:St. Hildegard'sTheologyof the Feminine (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1987), 42-75, 117-148. On the intersectionbetween the statusof Jewish women and mysticaltheology, see Elliot Wolfson, Circlein the Square:Studies in the Use of Gender in KabbalisticSymbolism(New York:State Universityof New YorkPress, 1995); idem, "The Face of Jacob Inscribedon the Moon,"in The Seduction of Myth in Judaism: Challenge and Response, ed. S. Daniel Breslauer(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997); idem, "Woman-The Feminineas Otherin TheosophicalKabbalah:Some PhilosophicalObservationson the Divine Androgyne,"in TheOtherin Jewish Thoughtand History: ConstructionsofJewish Cultureand Identity,ed. LawrenceJ. Silbersteinand RobertL. Cohn (New York:New YorkUniversityPress, 1994). On the Greek example, see, G. E. R. Lloyd, Science, Folklore,and Ideology (Cambridge:Cambridge UniversityPress, 1983), 58-111, 168-200.

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Kabbalistic Physiology destructionof the Temple,sexual relationswith menstruantscontinuedto be forbidden on the basis of Leviticus 20:18. Isaac the Blind (1165-1235), one of the first kabbalistsin Provence,and Nahmanides(1194-1270), the leaderof the Jewish communityin Barcelona,both used medieval naturalphilosophy and science in the service of kabbalistictheology to explain the mystical secret inherentin this prohibition.Isaac the Blind adopts a Galenic model of menstruationto locate the menstruatingwoman within the sefirah of Judgment,the locus of evil in the sefirotic realm. Nahmanides,by contrast,uses an Aristotelianmodel with far more devastatingresults: medieval medicine, naturalphilosophy, and Kabbalahreinforce one anotherto createan image of the menstruatingwoman as the humanincarnationof the demonic other side (sitra''"ahra'). Isaac the Blind and The Origin of MenstrualBlood The Mishnah identifies five different types of impure menstrual blood. These flow from the "room,"or "fountain"(makor),terms traditionallyused for the uterus." In one of the earliestkabbalisticdiscussions of gynecology, Isaac the Blind refines this anatomicaldescription,defining the termmakoras the left section of the uterus.Accordingto this reading,impuremenstrualblood,describedby the Mishnahas coming fromthe makor,flows not fromthe entirewomb but rather from the left section alone. Isaac explains that only sinister blood is impurebecause "all things which come from the left, the side of stern Judgment,are governed by impurity,as it is written, 'from the North shall evil break loose"' (Jer. 1:14).12 The menstrualflow is thus the materialmanifestationof the powers of stern Judgment;its red hue reflects the fiery color of its source. Isaacthe Blind'stheology of menstruationdemonstratesa nexus amongkabbalistic theosophy,medicine, and naturalphilosophy.Medievalscientific attitudes towardmenstruationwere governedby ancientGreekscience andphilosophy.The low esteem in which women were held in Ancient Greece expressed itself in contemporarygynecology in a dichotomy of left and right.'3 In his article, "On the Pre-eminenceof the Right Hand,"RobertHertz explains that dualismwas essential to the social organizationof developingsocieties. "Onthe one side, thereis the pole of strength,good, and life, while on the other there is the pole of weakness and evil ... All oppositionspresentedby nature[includingthe oppositionof male 11. M. Nidah 2:5-6. 12. JoshuaIbnShue'ib,Be'ur'al perush ha-Ramban,24c; cf., ShemTov ibn Ga'on,KeterShem Tov,MS London Montefiore42b; Isaac of Acre Sefer me'iratceinayim29. Ibn Shue'ib'soften quotes Isaacthe Blind and identifies him simply as the pious Rabbi(ha-ravhe-hasid). Moshe Idel, "Wehave No KabbalisticTraditionon This,"in RabbiMoses Nahmanides:Explorationsin his Religious and Literary Virtuousity,ed. IsadoreTwersky(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1983), 55; Haviva Pedaya,"'Flaw' and 'Correction'in the Conceptof the Godhead,"Da'at 6 (1987): 189 n. 23. Formore on ibn Schue'ib, see Carmi Horowitz, TheJewish Sermon in FourteenthCenturySpain (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1989), 14-16, 159-70. 13. Leslie Dean-Jones, Women' Bodies in Classical GreekScience (Oxford:ClarendonPress; New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1994), 42-43; Lloyd,Science, Folklore,and Ideology, 59. On the status of women in Greek society, see W.K.Lacey, TheFamily in Classical Greece (Ithaca,NY: Cornell UniversityPress, 1984).

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SharonFaye Koren and female] exhibit this fundamentaldualism."'4A dichotomybetween the right and left sides of the body was a naturaloutgrowthof this worldview.The rightrepresented everythingsacred, strong, and male, while the left representedthe profane, weak, and female.'5 This assumptionwas implicit in Greekcultureandbecame the basis of Hellenistic medical conceptions of sexual differentiation.16 For example, the Hippocratic Superfetation explains that the right and left testicles emit semen independently.Semen emittedfromthe left testicle engendersfemales, and semen from the right, males. OtherHippocraticwritings suppose that sex is determined by the placementof the seed in the uterus.If seed is placed on the left side of the uterus,the child will be female;if placedon the right,the child will be male. 7 Later, Galen supplies physiological justification for Hippocrates'understandingof sexual differentiation.Hippocratesassumedthatthe humanwomb, like the wombs of othermammals,containedtwo or more pockets. Aristotlecomparedthe womb to testicles and concluded that the uterus must also be made up of two parts.'8 Galen believed thatthe chambersof the uteruscorrespondto the numberof teats. Since women have two breasts,the humanuterushas two distinctcavities, a right and a left.19 The right side of the uterus receives cleansed blood from the large blood vessels, the vena cava and the "arteryfrom the great artery,"while the left side of the uterus receives bloods that "do not startfrom the great vessels themselves, but fromthe vessels passing throughthe kidneys."Galen explainsthat"the left testis in the male andthe left uterusin the female receiveblood still uncleansed, full of residues,wateryand serous, and so it happensthatthe temperamentsof the instrumentsthemselves that receive the blood become different. Forjust as full blood is warmerthan blood full of residues, so too the instrumentson the right side, nourishedwith pureblood,become warmerthanthose on the left."20The sex of the child is thus determinedby the conditionsin which the seed grows. If a seed 14. Robert Hertz, "The Pre-eminenceof the Right Hand,"in Right and Left: Essays on Dual Symbolic Classification,ed. Rodney Needham (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1973), 9. 15. This duality continues to the modem period and has been discussed at length by scholars of genderstudies. See, interalia, Simone de Beavoir,TheSecond Sex, trans.H.M. Parshley(New York, Vintage Books, 1989), 3-38, 253-266; Susan Bordo, UnbearableWeight:Feminism,WesternCulture and the Body (Berkeley and London:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1993), 165-184; H161neCixous and CatherineClement, TheNewly Born Woman,trans.Betsy Wing (MinneapolisMN: University of MinnesotaPress, 1986), 63-132; H616neCixous, "The Laughof the Medusa,"in FeministTheory:A Reader, ed. WendyKolmarand FrancesBartkowski(MountainView, CA: Mayfield PublishingCompany, 2000), 212-218; Sherry Ortner,"Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?"in Kolmar and Bartkowski,FeministTheory,203-211. 16. G. E. R. Lloyd, "Right and Left in Greek Philosophy,"Journal of Hellenistic Studies 82 (1962): 56-66. 17. AnthonyPreus,"Galen'sCriticismof Aristotle'sConceptionTheory,"Journalof the History of Biology 10(1977): 68. On Hippocrates'use of rightand left, see MonicaGreen,"TheTransmissionof AncientTheoriesof FemalePhysiologyand Disease,"(Ph.D.diss., PrincetonUniversity,1985), 14. 18. Dean-Jones, Women'sBodies in Classical GreekScience, 66-68. 19. Green,"FemalePhysiology and Disease,"42. 20. Ibid.,43; Galen On the Usefulness 14:10:641-2; Danielle Jacquartand ClaudeThomasset, Sexualityand Medicine, trans.MatthewAdamson (Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1988), 50-51.

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KabbalisticPhysiology from the right testicle grows on the right chamberof the uterus,the embryo will be nourishedby warmblood and become male; whereas if the seed from the left testicle is implantedin the cold and wet left section, it will become female. Qualitative differencesbetween men and women, therefore,begin in utero. Males are engenderedfrom superiormaterial,in warmand dry conditions,on the highly valued right side of the uterus,while women are createdfrom residue in the cold and wet left. Women'sinferiorityis thus explainedbiologically. These Hippocraticand Galenic ideas on sexual differentiationare absent in the Talmud.2'Rather,the rabbispresentan understandingof sexual differentiation akin to that of Democrites and Aristotle. Many ancient physicians believed that both men andwomen possess generativeseed thatcombinesto createa fetus. Male seed is semen while female seed is eithermenstrualblood or the vaginalfluid emitted duringsexual arousal.22Democritesassertedthat sex is determinedby which of these seeds prevailsin the uterusaftersexual intercourse.23Aristotlemaintains Democrites'essentially"combativemodel"of sexualdifferentiation,yet denies the existence of generativefemale seed.24Semen alone generatesthe form of the fetus, whereasmenstrualblood merelyprovidesthe material.Aristotlecomparesthis process to making cheese:just as rennetcurdlesmilk to create cheese, male seed creates the child out of female matter.Thus, ratherthan attributesexual differentiationto the interactionof two types of seed, Aristotle attributesit to the kind of nourishmentavailableto the child in utero. Semen, being form, will strengthen the fetus and createa male, while menstrualblood, being material,providesnourishment sufficient only to create a female. Gender depends upon which type of nourishmentprevails. "If the male semen gains mastery,it brings [the material menstrualblood] over to itself" engenderinga male. "If it [semen] gets mastered, it changes over either into its opposite [a female] or else into extinction."25The Talmudexplainsthatifa womanemits her seed first, the child will be male, whereas if the male emits his seed first the child will be a female. Although the rabbis cite a biblical proof text as their source, they seem in fact to presenta simplified version of the Democrites and Aristotle.When the first emission of seed is overshadowedby the second, the second sex prevails.26 21. On the similaritiesbetweenHippocraticandTalmudicunderstandingsconstructionsof gender, see CharlotteFonrobert,MenstrualPurity: Rabbinic and ChristianReconstructionsof Biblical Gender (Stanford,CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 2000), 60-63. 22. Preus,"Galen'sCriticism,"84. 23. Ibid., 72-73. 24. Note that Aristotle had never dissected a cadaver and was unawareof the existence of ovaries.After Herophilusengaged in humandissection and discoveredthe ovaries,physiologists were forcedto acknowledgethe analogyof the ovariesto the testes. GalenthereforerejectedAristotle'smodel and affirmedthe existence of female seed. Ibid., 83. 25. Aristotle On the GenerationofAnimals 4:1:12-27. 26. B. Nidah 25b, 31b; see also FredRosner,"Sex Determinationin the Talmud,"in Medicine in the Bible and the Talmud(Hoboken,NJ: KTAV,1995), 173-178. Fora very differentunderstanding, see B. Gittin57a. OnAristotleandthe Rabbis,see JuliusPreuss,Biblical and TalmudicMedicine,trans. FredRosner (New York:SanhedrinPress, 1978), 389; on the influence of Greek medicine on the Talmud, see StephenNewmyer,"TalmudicMedicine and Greek Sources."Koroth9 (1985): 34-57. Note that the Talmuddoes not systematicallyfollow Aristotelianbiological theory.For example, B. Nidah

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Sharon Faye Koren Isaac the Blind uses this biological theory to interprettheosophicalmysteries. Sefer Yezirah(Book of Creation),for example, classifies the Hebrew letters 'aleph, mem, and shin as the "threemothersof the alphabet."God seals the male with the combination'emesh (wux) and the female with 'asham (twx). Commentatorsundertookto explainwhy the male is identifiedwith the combination'aleph, mem,shin and the female with the 'aleph, shin, mem,that is to say,why the inversion of the letters should determinea change in gender.Isaac the Blind finds his answerin the talmudictheory of sexual differentiation.Just as a woman'sseed is the first componentemitted in the productionof a male child, the female element 'esh (fire), associated with the letter shin, is the first element in the creationof a male, producingthe term 'asham.27Just as a man's seed is the first component emitted in the productionof a female child, the male element, mayim,associated with the lettermem, is the first element in the creationof a female, producingthe term 'emesh.28 Isaac the Blind offers anotherinterpretationof the rabbinictheory of sexual differentiationto justify the puritylaws of the parturient.He comparesthe struggle between the male and female seeds in the uterus to the conflict between Judgmentand Mercy in the sefirotic realm.When a woman emits her impurered seed first, the pure,white, male seed will prevail.White will prevailoverred,right over left, and Mercy over Judgment,and a male child will be born. Because purity triumphs,the parturientremainsimpurefor only seven days. When, however,a man's pure white seed is emitted first, it comes under the dominationof impure red female seed; here, red will prevailover white, impurityover purity,Judgment over Mercy,and a female child will be born.The parturientwill remainunderthe influence of the dominantimpureforces for fourteendays.29 The Talmudwas not Isaacthe Blind'sonly source of medical knowledge.He also drew upon contemporaryscientific theory.Though not a physician himself, Isaac the Blind lived near one of the greatestcenters of medical learning in Medieval Europe,the College of Montpelier.AlthoughJews were officially forbidden to matriculate,many Jews studied with members of the faculty independently. Moreover,his father,Abrahamben David, had writtenBa'alei ha-nefesh,a guide to propersexual behaviorinfluencedby contemporaryChristianattitudestoward sexuality.30It is thereforelikely thatIsaacwas familiarwith popularmedicalideas. 31a presentsthe Galenic idea that both men and women emit seed thatcontributeto the development of the fetus. Male seed is sperm, which generatesthe child's bone, sinews, nails, brain,and the whites of the eyes. Femaleseed is menstrualblood, which engendersskin, flesh, blood,hair,and the pupils of the eye. 27. The element fire is intrinsicto the sefirah of Judgment.Women,who are createdin Judgment, are thereforehewn from this elemental fire. Isaac of Acre Sefer me'irat'einayim 154. 28. Meir Sendor,"RabbiIsaacthe Blind'sCommentaryon SeferYetsirah"(Ph.d. diss., Harvard University, 1994), 3:142-144. 29. Ibn Shue'ib Be'ur calperush ha-Ramban24c. 30. On the curriculumat Montpelierin the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies,see Nancy Siraisi, Medievaland EarlyRenaissanceMedicine(Chicago and London:Universityof Chicago Press, 1990), 72-80. On the relationshipbetweenJewish physiciansand the College of Medicine in Montpelier,see Shatzmiller,Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society, 27-31; Louis Dulieu La medecine d Montpellier 1:86-88, 94, 187-191; Siraisi, Medieval and Early RenaissanceMedicine, 29. Fora differentunder-

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KabbalisticPhysiology Greekmedicine remainedinfluentiallong afterthe ancientperiod.After the fall of the RomanEmpire,SyrianChristiansbeganto translateGreekmedicaltexts and the Septuagint into Syriac. Expelled by the Byzantine Church, Nestorian Christiansfrom Syria found refuge in Iran,where they quickly built a school and a hospital.The Muslims who capturedPersiain 636 appreciatedthe Nestorianeffort and encouragedtranslationof Syriacmedical works into Arabic.Galen exerted greaterinfluenceon Arabicmedicine thanHippocrates,Soranus,or Aristotle.31 His gynecological theorieswere systematicallycodified in Arabicmedical treatises and latertransmittedto medievalEuropeby means of Latintranslations.32ConstantinetheAfricanwas the first to introduceGalenicgynecology to the LatinWest in his Pantegni,a translationof al Majusi'sAl Kunnasal Maliki.33By the twelfth century,Galenic gynecology was the standardin medical educationand the opposition betweenthe rightand left chambersof the uterusbecame establishedin the medieval scientific imagination.34 Since a numberof the translatorswere Jewish (the most notable being the standing,see HarryFriedenwahl,"Jewsand the Universityof Montpelier,"in TheJews and Medicine: Essays (NewYork:KTAV,1967), 241-252. On Abrahamben David'sreceptivityto Christianideas, see JeremyCohen,"Rationalesfor ConjugalSex in RABaD'sBa'alei ha-Nefesh,"Jewish History6 (1992): 65-78. 31. Monica Greenexplains that "Galen'striumphin gynecology was due in a large partnot to anythinghaving to do with gynecology per se, but ratherto his overwhelmingpreeminencein medicine in general-a preeminencewhich was itself due to the appealinglysystematicand even symmetrical form of his medical theories."Green,"FemalePhysiology and Disease,"71-2, 76. See also John Baldwin, TheLanguageof Sex (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1994). 32. For more on the transmissionof Greek medical ideas in the early Middle Ages, see Allen Whipple, TheRole of the Nestorians and Muslimsin the History of Medicine (Princeton,NJ: Princeton UniversityPress, 1967); Green,"FemalePhysiology and Disease,"73-87. To be sure,WesternEuropeans did not completely abandonthe medical sciences in the early Middle Ages. Medical works were translatedin NorthAfrica and Ravenna.Yetthe scope of these studies was more limited. Western Europeanphysiciansvalued the practicaluse of medicine over its theoreticalstudy and were therefore more attractedto Soranusthanto Galen. Only four of Galen'sworks were translatedinto Latinbefore the eleventhcenturyand only one of these, Ad Glauconem,mentionsthe uterus.Green,"FemalePhysiology and Disease," 130-173. 33. M. D. Jordan,"The Fortuneof Constantine'sPantegni,"in Constantinethe Great andAli ibn al-Abbds al Majuisi:The Pantegni and Related Texts,ed. Charles Burnettand Danielle Jacquart (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 286-302. 34. Ibid., 293; see also, Helen Lemay,ed. Women Secrets: a Translationof Pseudo-Albertus s Magnus's De Secretis Mulierumwith Commentaries(Albany: State University of New York Press, 124. This in 1992), 117, understandinggave rise to a belief a seven chambereduterus:threeon the right, three on the left, and one in the middle.The odd numberof chambersgave rise to a thirdgender possibility-the hermaphrodite.This theory is found in the Pseudo-AristotelianDe Spermate,popularin the Latin West in the twelfth century.On the developmentof this theory,see FriedolfKudlien, "The Seven Cells of the Uterus:The Doctrineand its Roots,"Bulletin of the HistoryofMedicine 39 (1965): 415-423; Siraisi,Medievaland EarlyRenaissanceMedicine,91-96. Jews were also familiarwith this theory.As early as the fourteenthcentury,the exegete David ben Yehudahhe-Hasiddescribes the seven chambersof the uterus,claiming that he learnedof the theory from an unidentifiedGa'on and ibn 'Ezra.Raza rabbah,363. On the belief in the Renaissance,see Ruderman,Kabbalah,Magic, and Science, 197 n. 21; JoshuaTrachtenberg,Jewish Magic and Superstition(New York:Atheneum, 1982), 188, 303 n. 13.

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Sharon Faye Koren Provengalphysician,Moses ben Samuel ibn Tibbon),Jewishphysicianswere certainlyfamiliarwith Galen'sbicameraltheoryof the uterus.35Indeed,we have manuscript evidence that at least three gynecological texts, includingSefer ha-'em el Galynus ("Galen'sBook on the Womb")were available in Hebrew as early as 1199.36The oppositionbetweenrightand left became so prevalentin Jewishmedicine that Maimonides, who had ridiculed Hippocrates'and Galen's belief that sexual differentiationdependson the rightor left originof generativeforces, nonetheless conceded that "male fetuses, in most cases are conceived by a woman on the right side [of the uterus] whereas the female [fetus is conceived] on the left side. The reverseof this situationonly happensexceptionally.""37 Just as Isaac the Blind used Talmudicmedicine to supporthis theosophical exegesis, he adaptedmedieval gynecological theories to fit his kabbalisticneeds. The dichotomybetweenrightandleft is ubiquitousin Kabbalah.38The left was denominatedfeminine,impure,andevil, while the rightwas denominatedmale, pure, and good. The Galenic theory of the bicameraluterus offers biological evidence for this kabbalisticprecept.Thus Isaac the Blind fuses Galen'sanatomicaltheory with talmudictraditionand restrictsthe rabbinicdefinition of the term makor,the source of impuremenstrualblood, to the left section of the uterus.The sinistersefirah of Judgment,like the left chamberof the uterus,becomes the repositoryof uncleansedimpureblood thatcontributesto the engendermentof female children. Just as the medical theory that women are producedon the left side of the uterus supportsphilosophicalconceptionsof female inferiority,the belief thatwomen and menstrualblood originatein the left chamberof the uterussupportsthe kabbalistic belief in the evil natureof the nidah.39 35. On the Jews as translatorsin medieval Europe,see Norman Roth, "JewishTranslatorsof the Courtof Alfonso X," Thought60 (1985): 439-455. On Jews as physicians,see Shatzmiller,Jews, Medicine,and MedievalSociety. On the Jewishtranslationsof the Pategniin particular,see Ron Barkai, "The Judeo-Arabicand HebrewVersionsof the Kitab Kamil a? ind'a"in Burnettand Jacquart,Constantine the GreatandAli ibn al-Abbdsal Majuisi. 36. This text is a Hebrewtranslationof the Latin,Depassionibus mulierum,version B. See Ron Barkai,A HistoryofJewish GynecologicalTextsin the MiddleAges (Leiden:E. J. Brill, 1998), 20-37, 57. 37. FredRosner, TheMedicalAphorismsofMoses Maimonides(Haifa:MaimonidesResearch Institute, 1989), 266; idem, Maimonides'Commentaryon the Aphorismsof Hippocrates(Haifa: Maimonides ResearchInstitute,1987), 146. See also, idem, Medicine in the MishnehTorahofMaimonides (New York:Ktav, 1984); Maimonides,Perush 'al 'abukrat,trans. Moshe ibn Tibbon, ed. Suessman Muntner(Jerusalem:Mossadha-RavKook, 1961), 5:48; Maimonides,PirkeiMoshe, trans.NathanhaMeati, ed. Suessman Muntner(Jerusalem:Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1992), 16:24, p. 210. Barkainotes that Maimonides, in general, "heavilyrelied on Galen's medical views when propoundinghis own." Barkai,Jewish Gynecological Texts,65. 38. GershomScholem, Originsofthe Kabbalah,trans.AllanArkush(Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1987), 148-151; Elliot Wolfson, "Left Contained in the Right: A Study of Zoharic Hermeneutics"AJS Review 11 (1986): 27-52. 39. Because the "philosophicalstakes"were so high, the belief in the existence of chambersof the uterus remainedentrenchedlong after it was disprovedby anatomicalobservationon cadavers. JacquartandThomasset,Sexualityand Medicine, 42.

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KabbalisticPhysiology Nahmanides Like Isaac the Blind, the medieval polymathNahmanides(1194-1270) incorporatescontemporarygynecological theories into his understandingof the nature of menstruants.In his commentary on the Levitical interdiction against approachingmenstruants,Nahmanidesexplains that God permits man to engage in sexual relationsfor procreativepurposesalone. A fetus can be createdonly out of pure female blood. Menstruatingwomen thereforecannotcontributeto the materialcreationof a fetus because theirblood is impure.40Indeed,"howcould menstrualblood create a fetus when it is itself a deadly poison that can kill any living being who drinksor eats it?"41Any fetus that actuallyeats menstrualpoison will die; any trace of menstrualblood in the uteruswill inflict either leprosy or boils. The Torahtherefore forbids sexual relations with menstruatingwomen because they cannotengenderhealthyoffspring.42 Nahmanidesthen shifts the emphasisof his commentaryfrom the "medical risks" of menstrualblood to the dangersof the nidah (menstruant)herself. Nahmanidesreportsthata menstruantwho gazes into a ferrousmirrorat the beginning of her flow will cause red drops, like drops of blood, to appearon the metal. "For the harmfuland evil natureof the issue producesan odor and this foul air attaches to the mirrorjust as a basilisk kills with its gaze."This evil influencemay infect a man just as it does a mirror,and contaminatehis mind and body. Nahmanides readsthis notion into his Torahcommentaryinterpretingthe Leviticalphrase"her nidah will be upon him-" as Biblical proof for menstrualcontagion.43 Nahmanidessupportshis claim on the basis of empiricalevidence, stressing that these powers are not folkloric fantasies but "actualexperiences."He considers the menstruousgaze "one of most miraculousworksin nature"44and warnsof the very real danger of menstrual pollution. In his commentary on Leviticus 20:18-If a man lies with a woman in her infirmity and uncoversher nakedness, he has laid bare her flow and she has exposed her blood flow-Nahmanides explains that the menstruatingwoman is like a fountain(makor)of blood that must not be exposed lest she spew forthherevil and destructivewaters.She is therefore taboo to "the holy seed" (Isa. 6:13) for all the days of her impurity,until she immerses herself in water,for only then will she be purified in her mind and body and become completely clean.45 Nahmanides'focus on the dangersof the menstruantin his Torahcommen40. The thirteenth-centuryphilosopher Thomas Aquinas distinguishes two types of female blood: 1) purified blood that is used to make up the embryo and 2) the waste of this blood, which is menstrualblood. JacquartandThomasset,Sexualityand Medicine, 77. 41. Withthe exception of cats: cats could resist the powersof menstrualblood and snakes. See B. Shabbat75b, B. 'Avodahzarah40b. 42. Nahmanides'commentaryto Lev. 18:19, in Perusheiha-torahle-rabbenuMoshe ben Nahman, ed. ChaimChavel (Jerusalem:Mossad ha-RavKook, 1959), 2:104-105. 43. Lev. 15:24. 44. This is a paraphraseof Job 37:16, "the wondrousworks of Him who is perfect in knowledge." 45. Nahmanides'commentaryto Lev. 18:19, 2:104-105.

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Sharon Faye Koren tary is in starkcontrastto the originalintentof the priestlywriters,who sought to distance impurityand danger from the menstruant.Leviticus 15 lists four categories of people with issue-the man with an abnormaldischarge(zav), the ejaculant,the menstruant(nidah), and the womanwith abnormaldischarge(zavah)who are barredfrom the Templecult because of the demandsof ritualpurity.The priestly authors,however,only explicitly describethe zav and the zavah as ritually impure (tam'e).This absence is not an oversight. Rather,it likely reflects the priestlyauthors'reactionto the practicesof otherNear EasternCultswho believed thatmenstruantswere dangerousbecause they were possessed by impurespirits.46 Indeed,accordingto Leviticus 15:20-25, menstrualblood contaminates,not the menstruant.She rendersimpureonly thatwhich lies beneathher-that is, objects that could become polluted by menstrualblood. Thus, in contrastto other Near Easterncultic leaders,who concentratedon exorcisingspiritsof impurityfromthe polluted, Israelitepriests distanced impurityfrom the menstruantherself to the items thatshe touched,partlyin orderto suppressthe notionthather impurityconstitutedany kind of possession or contagion.47 Nahmanides'Torahcommentaryis unusualamong his writings in its treatment of nidot. His Hilkhot nidah and his Hidushim 'al masekhetnidah show no disparagementof menstruatingwomen.48 Moreover,Nahmanides was a physician, and we know that he treated gynecological problems.49Elsewhere he describes the menstrualflow as a natural"cleansing of surpluses [of blood]" and disagrees with R. Solomon ben Isaac and Abrahamibn Ezra, who suggest that menstruationis a sickness.50 How could Nahmanides,a physician with medical 46. David Wright, TheDisposal of Impurity:EliminationRites in the Bible and in Hittite and MesopotamianLiterature(Atlanta:ScholarsPress, 1987), 248-254; YehezkelKaufmann,Religion of Israel: FromIts Beginnings to the BabylonianExile, trans.and abr.Moshe Greenburg(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). On impurityin Zoroastrianism,see Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians:Their Beliefs and Practices (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 43; JamsheedChoksy, Purity and Pollution in Zoroastrianism(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989); Emily Culpepper, "ZoroastrianMenstruationTaboos:A Woman'sStudies Perspective,"in Womenand Religion, ed. Judith Plaskowand JoanArnold Romero(Missoula, MN: The Scholar'sPress, 1974). 47. JacobMilgrom, Introductionto Leviticus1-16: A New Translationand Commentary(New York:Doubleday,1996), 44, 936. See also, Fonrobert,MenstrualPurity,40-50. 48. Menstruantswere treatedneutrallyin manyhalakhicworksof the period.See, for example, Abrahamben David Ba'alei ha-nefesh;Solomon ibn AdretHiddusheiha-Rashba'al masekhetnidah; idem Toratha-bayit. 49. On Solomon ibn Adret's description of Nahmanides'treatmentof female infertility,see Samuel Kottek,"MedicalPracticeand Jewish Law:Nahmanides'SeferToratAdam,"in Medicineand Medical Ethics in Medieval and Early ModernSpain:An InterculturalApproach,ed. Samuel S. Kottek and Luis GarciaBallester (Jerusalem:Magnes Press, 1996), 164-165; Sefer teshuvotha-Rashba ha-meyuhasotleha-Ramban127:117-118. Many Spanish physicians were interestedin gynecology. For example, Sheshetben Isaac Benveniste,the Nasi of Barcelona(d. 1209), wrote two gynecological treatises and al-Harizitranslatedthese posthumouslyas the Medicamentfor Pregnancy and Medicamentsand Confectionsfor Women'sDiseases. Nahmanides,who lived in Barcelona,may have been familiar with his work. Ron Barkai,"A Medieval HebrewTreatiseon Obstetrics,"Medical History 33 (1988): 97-98; M. Steinschneider,"Scheschet b. Benveniste,"Hebraeische Bibliografie, 73 (1873): 106-110. 50. Nahmanides'commentaryto Lev. 12:2, 2:65. Formore on ibn Ezra'sapproachto gynecol-

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Kabbalistic Physiology experience, subscribeto a notion as fanciful as the ocularpowers of the menstruant? Ratherthan dissuade Nahmanides, his scientific education was precisely what introducedhim to the concept of the menstruouseye. During the course of the thirteenthcentury,gynecological theory shifted from the Galenic traditionto the Aristotelian,with unhappyconsequencesfor the statusof women in both Jewish and Christiansociety.51Nahmanides,thirtyyears Isaac'sjunior, incorporated these new ideas into bothhis Torahcommentaryandinto his sermonToratha-shem temimahto supporthis theology.52 Aristotle believed that females were "incompletemales."53Maleness was the norm and femaleness a "lack of maleness."Men representedactive, spiritual form;womenrepresentedpassive, materialmatter.54Among ancientauthors,Aristotle alone deniedthatwomenproduceseed. Aristotlealso construedmenstruation differently.Most Greek physicians believed that menstruationhad a purgative function. Hippocrates,for example, believed that women, being spongier than men, cannot expel fluids easily and must thereforemenstruate.Men can expel wasteby othermeans.55Galensimilarlyexplainsthatmen arewarmerthanwomen and thereforebetterable to purge themselves of superfluousfluids throughphysical activity,perspiration,and excretion.Women,whose humoris cold, must menstruatein orderto excreteexcess fluid andmaintaintheirhumoralbalance.56Here, too, the menstrualflow is purgative.57Aristotle, however, takes a different apogy, see Sefer ha-nisyonot:the Book of Medical ExperiencesAttributedto AbrahamIbn Ezra, ed. and trans.J. O. Leibowitzand S. Marcus(Jerusalem:Magnes Press, HebrewUniversity, 1984), 221-257. 51. Aristotle'sbiological ideas were probablyno more sexist in conception than those of his contemporaries.No Greekphilosopherthoughtwell of women. However,the prestigeof Aristotlealso contributedto his broad influence, and his biological theories fueled antifeministargumentsin other disciplines. Forexample, in his Politics, Aristotlewrites that"therelationof male to female is naturally thatof the superiorto the inferior-of the rulingto the ruled."AristotlePolitics 1:5:1254b;Johannes Morsink,"WasAristotle'sBiology Sexist?"Journalof the HistoryofBiology 12 (1979): 84. Horowitz, on the contrary,contendsthatAristotle'sbiological and psychological ideas "arecircular,self supporting, and anti-feministto the core."MaryanneCline Horowitz,"Aristotleand Woman,"Journal of the History of Biology 9 (1976): 212. On the relationshipbetween medieval misogyny and medicine, see Bullough, "Views of Women,"485-501. Boyarinhas suggested that Maimonides'use of Aristotle's categorizationof men as form and women as matteradverselyaffectedthe statusof Jewishwomen and divergedfrom earlierrabbinictradition.Daniel Boyarin, Carnal Israel (Berkeley:Universityof California Press, 1993), 57-60. 52. Nahmanides,"The Law of the EternalGod is Perfect"in Writingsand Discourses, trans. CharlesChavel (New York,Shilo PublishingHouse, 1978). Hebrewtext "Toratha-shem temimah"in Kitvei rabenuMoshe ben Nahman,ed. ChaimChavel, (Jerusalem:Mosad ha-RavKuk, 1963), 1:167. 53. Aristotle GenerationofAnimals 728a. 54. Ibid., 729a. 55. Dean-Jones, Women'sBodies in Classical GreekScience, 55-56; Green,"FemalePhysiology and Disease," 16. 56. During gestation and lactation,these excess fluids are redirectedto nourishthe child and maintainhomeostasis. Ibid., 46. 57. Amenorrheawas thereforeconsideredvery unhealthybecause it results in the retentionof waste. Note thatAvicennadoes not believe that amenorrheais a sign of illness. Rather,he arguesthat some very strongwomen are more like men and are able to purgethemselves of excess blood through

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SharonFaye Koren proach. He understandsblood to be bodily nourishment,and deduces that blood not used as nourishmentbecomes bodily residue. Men, who are hot and dry, are able to convert this residue into a generative force, that is, semen, whereas in women, who are cold and wet, it remains"unconcocted"and must be excreted in the form of menstrualblood.58Menstrualblood is, therefore,a manifestationof female incapacity. The "menstruousgaze" that Nahmanides reportsemerges from this Aristotelian view. In Aristotle'streatiseOn Dreams, we readthat menstruationafflicts the entire female body. Because the eyes contain so many blood vessels, they are particularlysusceptible to this "feverishdisorderof the blood."Hence, a fiction about the ocular powers of the menstruant:"Justas that which is heated and becomes hot may heat somethingelse in turn,one not only sees, but the very act of seeing createsan effect."59Therefore: if a womanlooksintoa highlypolishedmirrorduringthe menstrual period, the surfaceof themirrorbecomescloudedwitha blood-redcolor(andif the mirroris a newonethestainis noteasyto remove,butif it is anoldonethere is less difficulty) . . . The reason for this is that . .. when menstruationtakes

place,as a resultof a feverishdisorderof theblood,thedifferenceof conditionin theeyes,thoughinvisibleto us, is nonethe less real;andtheeyes set upa movementin theair.Thisimpartsa certainqualityto thelayerof airextendingoverthemirror,andassimilatesit to itself;andthislayerbecomesthe surfaceof themirror.60 This fiction was a fruitfulone. Pliny,for example, claimed thatmenstruants could dull mirrors.61In the middle ages, the menstruantwas explicitly associated with the basilisk,a poisonous serpentwhose glance or breathwas believedto cause exercise, medicine, nosebleeds, or other wounds. Avicenna Liber Canonis 3:3:25, pp. 373b-373a; Lemay,introductionto Women'sSecrets, 44. For Soranuson menstruation,see Green,"FemalePhysiology and Disease,"26-31. 58. Concoctionliterallymeans cooking. It is a process of sanguificationby which food is transformed by heat into blood. Green,"FemalePhysiology and Disease,"43. 59. Aristotle On Dreams 2:459a. 60. Ibid., 2:459b-460a. Dean-Jonesbelieves that this presentationcontradictsAristotelianbiology. In On the GenerationofAnimals, Aristotle claims that menstrualblood is distinct from other bloods in the body. It is a residuethat the womb collects duringthe course of the month.Accordingly, menstrualblood would neithercause a "generaldisturbance"in the blood nor a swelling in the body. Moreover,Dean-Jonesarguesthattherewas no menstrualtaboo in classical Greeksociety. Menstruating womanwere not scornedany more than nonmenstruatingwomen. Forexample,Aristotleand Hippocratesencouragemen to have sexual intercoursewith menstruants.Dean-Jonesthereforeconcludes that this excerpt was originally a gloss in the marginsand was interpolatedinto the text in the Hellenistic period. She asserts that men introducedmenstrualtaboos in the Hellenistic period in orderto subjugatean increasinglyliberatedclass of women. Dean-Jones, Women's Bodies in Classical Greek Science, 229-230, 234, 248; see also her dissertation,"MorbidityandVitality,"(Ph. D. diss., Stanford University, 1987), 57, 59. Even thoughthe account itself may be pseudepigraphic,it exertedgreat influence on laternaturalscientists and physicianswho were convinced of its authenticity. 61. Pliny NaturalHistory 8:79-81.

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KabbalisticPhysiology death.62As the basilisk is filled with venom, the menstruantis filled with blood, and by analogy the menstruant'sblood becomes venomous. Both the basilisk and the menstruantemit theirpoison throughtheireyes andcorruptthe air.The airthen transmitsthe poison into the eyes of others. After the thirteenth-centuryrediscoveryof Aristotle in the Latin West,natural philosophers conflated the popular association of the menstruantand the basilisk with the account of the menstruantin On Dreams. AlbertusMagnus, for example, explained that because the eye is a very passive organ, menstrualflow can easily infect the eyes of a menstruantand emit a vaporthat infects everything she sees.63Associating menstruantswith basilisks, he warnshis readersto "to beware of every woman as one would avoid a venomous serpentand a horneddevil."64The Secrets of Women,a populartreatiseerroneouslyattributedto Albertus Magnus,expatiatesupon the dangersof the menstrualeye: Itshouldbe notedthatoldwomenwhostillhavetheirmonthlyflow,andsome whodonotmenstruate, poisontheeyesof childrenlyingintheircradlesbytheir womenby theflowitself,forthehuglance... Thisis causedin menstruating mors first infect the eyes, then the eyes infect the air, which infects the child.

This is the opinionof the philosopherin the book on Sleepingand Waking.65

The text goes on to associate the menstruantwith the basilisk remarkingthat menopausalwomen are particularlyvenomous because they cannot purge themselves of theirbodily toxin.66All womenaresaid to emit menstrualpoison through 62. Medieval bestiariesdrew upon the Roman and Hellenistic legends of the basilisk. On the basilisk, see PlinyNaturalHistory8:33, 57; Aelian OnAnimals2:7:97. In the 1180s, Neckhamclaimed that the basilisk was born out of a cock's egg. The egg was first formed from the waste matterof the kidneys and sexual organsand laterdeveloped in the intestineof a five- or six-year-oldmale chicken. Neckham based his understandingon Aristotle, who claimed that older roostersdevelop a substance resemblingan egg underneaththeirmidriff.This myth fosteredthe confusion between the basilisk and the cockatrice.T. H. White, ed., TheBook of Beasts (New York:Putnam, 1954), 169 n. 1; againstthis idea, AlbertusMagnus,Man and the Beasts, trans.James J. Scanlon (Binghamton,NY: Medievaland RenaissanceTextsand Studies, 1987), 293, 398. 63. On the physiological association between sexuality and eye disease, see Jacquartand Thomasset,Sexualityand Medicine, 181. 64. AlbertusMagnus Quaestiones 11:9;JacquartandThomasset,Sexualityand Medicine,7475, 206-7; Lemay,introductionto Women'sSecrets,48-49. See also, RobertGrossetesteExpositio in epistulamsancti Pauli ad Galatas 3:3:46. 65. Lemay, Women'sSecrets, 11:129. Aristotle does not mention the effect of the menstruous eye on children.On Peterof Abano'ssimilar formulation,see LynnThorndike,History of Magic and ExperimentalScience (New York:Macmillan, 1923-58), 2:901-902. 66. The text draws a furtherconnection between serpents and women: "If the hair of a menstruatingwomanbe takenand placed undera dung heap or clod of earthor wheredung was made during the winter or summerby virtue of the sun there, will be engendereda long and powerful snake." JacquartandThomasset,Sexualityand Medicine, 76. Paracelcus,the Renaissancepolymath,takes this association one step furtherand explains that menstrualblood and semen exposed togethermay give rise to the basilisk "whose poison is similar to that in the eyes or breathof a menstruatingwoman." WalterPagel,Paracelcus:an introductiontophilosophical medicinein the era ofthe Renaissance(New York:Karger,1982), 116.

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SharonFaye Koren theireyes, corruptthe air with noxious vapor,andtransmitvenom. This methodof transmissioncorrespondsto medieval notions of contagion believed to be an effect of corruptedair.Menstruationthusbecomes a communicabledisease to which the menstruantalone is invulnerable,for she, like the basilisk and othersnakes, is immune to her own poison.67Thus by the thirteenthcentury,the focus of physicians and naturalscientists has shifted from a purgativeto a polluting functionof the menstrualflow.68 This understandinginforms Nahmanides'Torahcommentary.69While the Talmudoften associates women, menstruants,and snakes70and mentionsmagical ocular powers,7' Aristotelian naturalphilosophy influenced Nahmanides commentaryon Leviticus. In his only otherdisparagementof menstruantsin his Torah commentary,he cites "ancientphilosophers"as his source for the menstruouseye. He explains that Rachel does not rise to greet her fatherLabanbecause in ancientdaysmenstruants keptthemselvesvery isolated.Theyweredescribedasniddot(thebannedones)becausetheyneitherapproached norspoke withpeople.Fortheancientsin theirwisdomknewthattheirbreathis harmful, theirgaze is injuriousandmakesa badimpression,as thephilosophers haveexplained.I will mentiontheirexperiencein thismatterin thefuture.72 Moreover,in his famous sermon,"Toratha-shem temimah,"in which he justifies the use of science for the service of Torah,Nahmanidesstates thatthe laws "prohibitingmaritalrelationswith his wife-that is, in the days of her menstruationis due to naturallaw."And,at the end of the section on menstruants,he quotes from 67. JacquartandThomasset,Sexualityand Medicine, 75, 129. This understandinggave rise to the myth of the venomous Virgin, a tale that Jacquartand Thomassetdescribe as "the literaryjustification for the fear of the poison within women's bodies."Ibid., 191-192; cf., the medieval commentaries to Lemay, Women'sSecrets, 130-131. Drawing upon Aristotle, Paracelcus explains that imaginationwas a celestial force that was able to lift man to the divine realm. Imaginationis a magnetic force that the imaginerdrawsinto himself and then impresses upon anotherperson.The female imaginationcan be transformedinto a spirit that acts by means of its materialmanifestation-menstrual blood. This menstrualspirit can cause an epidemic. Pagel, Paracelcus, 122. Thomas Liibler, known as Erastusof Baden (1523-1583) denouncedParacelcus'understandingof the powerof menstruants,explainingthat spiritscannotemerge fromthe eyes of the menstruatingwoman,nor can menstrualblood be harmfulbecause it providesthe originalmatterfor the fetus. Ibid., 316. 68. Lemay, Women's Secrets, 37. 69. Nahmanideswas familiarwith other aspects of contemporarygynecology as well. In his Torahcommentary,for example,he describesthe rabbinic,Galenic, andAristotelianperceptionsof the natureof female seed (Nahmanides'commentaryto Lev. 12:2, 2:65). 70. B. Shabbat75b, 146a;B. 'Avodah zarah22b, 40b; B. Pesahim 11la; B. Yevamot103b; cf., Isaac of Acre Sefer me'irat"einayim154. 71. Therearetwo distinctsuperstitionsknownas the evil eye: 1) the belief thatsome people are able to harmothers at a glance, and 2) the belief thatjealous demons will begrudgemen all forms of happiness.Men endeavorto protectthemselves againstthis second form by disguising good fortuneor by use of prophylacticamuletsandphrases(Trachtenberg,JewishMagic and Superstition,54-56). See also Rivka KernUlmer,"ThePowerof the Evil Eye and the Good Eye,"Judaism40 (1991): 344-353; idem, TheEvil Eye in the Bible and RabbinicLiterature(Hoboken,NJ: Ktav, 1994). 72. Nahmanides'commentaryto Gen. 31:35, 2:177.

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KabbalisticPhysiology his biblical commentaryand specifies Aristotle as the authorof the menstruous eye, stating: Thereis also a naturalmanifestation of the [harmfuleffect of menstrual blood].Aristotlehaswrittenin hisbook-and it is a trueexperience-thatif, at thebeginningof herissue,a menstruant womanwereto intentlyconcentratehergaze upona glassmirror,therewouldbe appearon the glassa red Nowif [theima dropof bloodas largeas a grainof mustard. spotresembling of will it cleaveto the the more cleaves to the how much age blood] glass, child,thepowerthereofbeingas thatof a viperwhichslaysby sight.73 Thus Nahmanides not only identifies Aristotle as his source, but, like Albertus Magnus,drawsupon medievalfolkloreto call menstrualblood a lethalpoison and comparethe gaze of the nidah to the gaze of a basilisk. This notion contributesto an etiology of leprosy.Both Jewish and Christian traditionshad long associatedmenstruationwith inflammatoryskin conditionsbut no previousJewishsourceofferedan explicit physiologicalexplanationfor thecorrelation.74Once menstrualblood is understoodto be a poison, the link becomes clear: a dose of poison will kill an embryo and the slightest trace will affect fetal development.The exteriorskin illness becomes nature'sway of riddingthe body of the dangerousblood and poison.75Moreover,medievalphysicians did not distinguishbetween leprosy and venerealdisease because leprosy was perceivedas a punishmentfor sexual excess.76 Sexual relationswith menstruants,a form of sex73. Nahmanides,"Toratha-shemtemimah,"1:167. 74. Va-Yiqrarabah (Leviticus Rabbah) 16; Ba-Midbar rabah (Numbers Rabbah)9; Beraita de-nidah 1:2;Efraimbar ShimshonPerush'al ha-torah2:19. An incorrectLatintranslationof IV Ezra producedan associationbetweenmenstruatingwomen and monstrousbirthsin the Christiantradition. The originalHebrewor Aramaicreads, "womenwill give birthto monsters"as a harbingerof the end of days. The Latin translationreads "mulieresparient menstruataemonstra,"that is, "menstruating women give birth to monsters."Thus the Council of Nicea (325 CE) warnedthat husbandswho approachtheir menstruatingwives risk elephantiasisand leprosy for themselves and their unbornchildren. On the development of the association between sexual intercourse with menstruants and monstrousbirths in the Christiantradition,see Jacquartand Thomasset,Sexualityand Medicine, 74, 89; OttaviaNiccoli, "MenstruumQuasi Monstruum,"in Sex and Genderin Historical Perspective,ed. EdwardMuir and Guido Ruggiero (Baltimoreand London:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 403 -428; PierrePayer,TheBridlingof Desire (Toronto:Universityof TorontoPress, 1993), 107-108; ClaudeThomasset, "The Natureof Women,"in TheHistory of Womenin the West:Vol.2 The Silence of the MiddleAges, ed. ChristianeKlapisch-Zuber,trans.ArthurGoldhammer(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1992), 54-58, 65-66. 75. Forexample, in his On the Miseryof the HumanCondition,InnocentIIIexplains that"conceived fetuses contractthe defect of the seed (menstrualblood), so thatlepersandelephantiacsareborn from this corruption."Innocent III De miseria condiciones humanae 1:4. Medieval physicians similarlybelieved that childrenengenderedduringmenstruationwould have red hairand subsequentlythe all of the negativequalities associatedwith thatcharactertrait.Jacquartand Thomasset,Sexualityand Medicine, 72-73. Cf., the Jewish traditionthat childrenengenderedduringmenstruationwere impudent. Michael Higger, Masekhtotkalah ve-kalah rabati (New York:De-RabbananPublishing, 1936) 16:146;Kalah rabati2:2:190-193. 76. On the physiologicalassociationbetween leprosy and venerealdisease in the MiddleAges, see StephenEll, "Blood and Sexuality in Medieval Leprosy,"Janus 71 (1984): 153-164.

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Sharon Faye Koren ual deviance,would thereforetransmit"leprosy,"that is to say,venerealdisease to the male partneras well.7 Women,by contrast,were relativelyimmuneto sexual diseases and leprosy because they were immuneto their own poison.78 The historianof science Tzvi LangermanncharacterizesNahmanides'attitude towardscience as one of both acceptanceand devaluation.He explains that scientificknowledge-definedhereas thatknowledgethatis groundedin observationof thephenomena, especiallyasthisstandsin contrastto knowledge thatis receivedthroughtheJewishtraditionor extractedfromtheverytexts of Torah-has a certainvalidity.However,empiricalstudyof the natural is inthe world,detachedfromanymetaphysical, considerations, other-worldly a not worthwhile opinionof Nahmanides, simply undertaking.79 very Why then does Nahmanidesadopt contemporarymedical and scientific conceptions of menstruantsand why do these conceptions figure only in his Torahcommentaryand in his Sermon"Toratha-shem temimah?" TheMenstruousEye and Kabbalah Nahmanidesbelieved that the Torahcontaineddivine secrets. Consequently, his Torahexegesis, ratherthanhis legal writing,became the main venue for his kabbalistic interpretations.This methodology explains his unique treatmentof menstruantsin his exegetical works. In his halakhic and medical material,Nahmanidesinterpretsmenstruationas a physicalconditionandportraysmenstruation as a naturalstateof being; in his Torahcommentaryand in his sermon,by contrast, he incorporatesAristoteliannaturalphilosophy and folklore in the service of his mystical theology to allude to the kabbalisticmystery of menstruation.80 77. Although officially forbidden,many Christiansdid engage in sexual relationswith menstruants.By the thirteenthcentury,the churchitself softened its stance. Forexample, while many Dominicans believed that marriedcouples who engaged in sexual relationsduringmenstruationsinned, they lessened the degree of sinfulness from mortalto venial (Dyan Elliot, SpiritualMarriage [Princeton: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1993], 150-151); see also Payer,TheBridling of Desire, 106. 78. Jacquartand Thomasset,Sexualityand Medicine, 186-188; for the idea in popularliterature, see Lemay, Women's Secrets, 88-89. 79. Langerman,"Acceptanceand Devaluation,"223-224; see also, Ruderman,Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery, 15, 20, 35-41. 80. Idel and Wolfson disagree on Nahmanides'hermeneuticalmethod. Idel argues that Nahmanides was a conservativekabbalistwho would refer only to received kabbalistictraditions,unlike Isaac the Blind and his Geronese students,EzraandAzriel, who incorporatedphilosophicalideas into kabbalistictraditionsand reducedtheir beliefs to writing. Nonetheless, in orderto maintainhis own traditionsin the face of the growing influence of the Geronese School, Nahmanidesinsertedsome esoteric interpretationsinto his Torahcommentary(Idel, "We have no KabbalisticTradition,"51-73; idem, "Nahmanides:Kabbalah,Halakhahand SpiritualLeadership"in Jewish Mystical Leaders and Leadership in the ThirteenthCentury,ed. Moshe Idel and MoritimerOstow [Northvale,NJ: Jason Aronson, 1998], 15-96; Abrams,"Oralityin the KabbalisticSchool of Nahmanides,"Jewish Studies Quarterly3 [1996]: 85-102). Wolfson, by contrast,believes that Nahmanideshad a more innovative approachto biblical exegesis and a defined hermeneuticalmethod (Elliot Wolfson, "'By Way of Truth,'"AJS Review 14 [1989]: 103-178).

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Kabbalistic Physiology Kabbalistsbelievedthateverythingin the terrestrialworldreflects the divine realm.Thus, the humanbeing reflected a sefirotic realm symbolically conceived of as primordialman. Studyinghumanphysiology was, therefore,a means to understandingdivine processes.8sKabbalists,moreover,were particularlyinterested in puritylaws becausephysicalpuritywas essential for mysticalpursuits.82Indeed, Nahmanides directly associates the need for menstrualseparationand mystical pursuitsin his sermon "Toratha-shem temimah,"where he immediatelyfollows his discussionof the ocularpowerof menstruantswith a discourseon "thewisdom 'that is hidden from the eyes of all living and is broaderthat the sea,'" that is, the Kabbalah.g3Moreover,in his Torahcommentary,Nahmanidesmentions the restrictionsof the Beraitade MassakhetNiddah, a spuriousToseftadocumentdated to Geonic Palestinethat enumeratedthe dangersof menstruantsand barredthem fromthe sancta.84ThusNahmanides'understandingof menstruantsis not solely a productof his adaptationof Aristoteliannaturalphilosophy.Rather,his incorporationof medieval scientific ideas dovetailson notions aboutmenstruantsalready extant in the Jewish tradition,and he uses both of these in his Torahcommentary to throwlight on the mysteryof the menstruatingwoman. Nahmanidesusually introducesa kabbalistictraditionwith the words "by way of truth."In his commentaryon Leviticus 18:19, however,he comparesthe 81. On menstruationin the divine realm,see SharonKoren,"MysticalRationalefor the Commandmentof Niddah,"in Womenand Water,ed. RahelWasserfall(HanoverandLondon:BrandeisUniversity Press, 1999), 101-121. 82. On the importanceof physical purity for medieval mystical practice, see Sharon Koren, "TheWomanfromWhom God Wanders:The Menstruantin MedievalJewish Mysticism,"(Ph.D. diss., Yale University,May 2000). 83. Job 28:21; Chavel,KitveiRamban,I:167. 84. NahmanidesCommentaryon Genesis 31:35. The Berait'ade-nidah was first publishedin Tosefta'atikata,ed. Chaim Horowitz(Frankfurt:1898). M. EvyatarMarienburghas recentlycompleted a critical edition of the text. See his "Etudessur la Beraitad'Niddah,"(Phd. diss., SorbonneUniversity, 2002). On the mystical characterof the Berait'a de-nidah and its influence on later Jewish mysticism, Koren,"The Womanfrom Whom God Wanders."On the Berait'a de-nidah and hekhalot literature,see Saul Lieberman,Shki'in, (Jerusalem:Hamburgand Wahrman,1939), 22; idem, "The Knowledge of Halakhah,"in Apocalypticand MerkavahMysticism,IthamarGruenwald(Leiden:E. J. Brill, 1980), 241; Rebecca Lesses, Ritual Practices to Gain Power (Harrisburg,PA:TrinityPress International,1998), 134-144; Michael Swartz,"'Like MinisteringAngels': Ritual and Purityin Early Jewish Mysticism and Magic,"AJS Review 19 (1994): 162-167; idem, Scholastic Magic: Ritual and Revelationin EarlyJewish Mysticism(Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1996), 164, 214-15. On the Berait'ade-nidah and the developmentof halakhah,see, interalia, Shaye Cohen, "Purityand Piety:The Separationof Menstruantsfrom the Sancta,"in Daughter of the King: Womenand the Syns agogue, ed. Susan Grossmanand Rivka Haut (Philadelphia,New York, and Jerusalem:JPS Press, "Women and the in Sacred:MenstrualPollution Judaismand Christianity,"in Women's 1992); idem, HistoryandAncientHistory, ed. SarahB. Pomeroy(ChapelHill and London:Universityof NorthCarolina Press, 1991);YedidiahDinary,"ImpurityCustomsof the MenstruateWoman"(in Hebrew), Tarbits 49 (1979-80): 302-324; idem, "The Profanationof the Holy by the MenstruantWomanand 'TaqqanatEzra"' (in Hebrew), in Mehkarimbe-sifrutha-talmudbe-lashon hazal u-ve-parshanuthamikr'a,ed. MordechaiFriedman,AvrahamTal, and GershonBrin (TelAviv:TelAviv UniversityPress, 1983); IsraelTa-Shma,"MiqdashMe'at" in Keneset Ezra, ed. ShulamitElitsur(Jerusalem,Yad ben Tsvi, 1995);JeffreyWoolf, "MedievalModels of Purityand Sanctity,"in Purityand Holiness, ed. Marcel Poorthuisand JoshuaSchwartz(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002).

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Sharon Faye Koren power of the menstruouseye to a miracle, describingit in the terms of Job 37:16 as one of the "wondrousworks" of "him who is perfect in knowledge."Nahmanides believed that miracles demonstrateddivine knowledge, providence,and creatio ex nihilo, and these he considereddivine mysteries.85Forexample, he believed thatcreationout of nothingrefersto creationfrom "ayin(nothing),the point throughwhich the sefirotic world was created.His classification of the menstruous eye as a miraclemay likewise referto a divine secret.86Moreover,Nahmanides believed that the laws of forbiddensexual relations-which include sexual relations with menstruants-were kabbalisticmysteries.87The Bible statesthat a man who has sexual relationswith a menstruatingwoman is punishedby karet,a technical termwhich literallymeans extirpation,but which the Rabbisinterpretas premature death. Kabbalists believed that the punishment refers instead to the destructionof the soul. Most of the thirty-sixtransgressionsthat carrythis penalty are sexual in nature.Because sexual misdeedsbringforthinviableoffspring,the sexualtransgressoris repaidin kind:just as he extirpatesthe life of a potentialsoul, his own soul will be extirpatedthroughkaret.88 Nahmanidesalludes to an associationbetween sexual misdeeds and karetin his Torahcommentary.Leviticus states that those who engage in forbiddensexual relationsare exiled from the land of Israel.Why sexual transgressionshouldbe punishedby exclusion from the land becomes clear when the verse is deciphered kabbalistically.Nahmanidesinterpretsthe land of Israelin two ways: literallyand kabbalisticallyas the Shekhinah.One who engages in illicit sexual activity is literally expelled from the landof Israeland symbolically from the Shekhinah.89He who engages in sexual relationswith a menstruatingwoman, the last of the catalog of illicit sexual relations,is punishedby the far more serious penalty of karet, extirpation.90Exile allows the possibility of return;karetis permanent.By analogy, we may infer that Nahmanideswould consider one who engages in sexual relationswith menstruantsas forevercut off fromcommunionwith the Shekhinah.91 TheMenstruant,Sod ha-'iburand Gilgul Laterkabbalistswere troubledby the idea that the soul, the divine element in man, could be destroyed.In orderto save the soul from complete annihilation, kabbalistsconceivedof the idea of metempsychosis(gilgul), wherebya guilty soul could transmigratethroughotherbodies as penance.92Nahmanidesalludesto this 85. David Berger,"Miraclesand the NaturalOrderin Nahmanides,"in Twersky,RabbiMoses Nahmanides, 107. 86. Ibid., 112. 87. Idel, "WehaveNo KabbalisticTradition,"52-53; Wolfson,"'By Wayof Truth,'"151-153. 88. Isaac of Acre Sefer me'irat'einayim 159. 89. Wolfson, "'By Wayof Truth,'"152. 90. Lev. 18:19. 91. This understandingforeshadowsthe more mythicpresentationin Zohar2:3b, in which one who engages in sexual relationswith a nidah causes the exile of the Shekhinah. 92. On the developmentof the idea of gilgul, see GershomScholem, "Gilgul:the Transmigration of Souls" in On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead,trans.J. Neugroschel (New York:Schocken Books, 1991), 197-250.

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Kabbalistic Physiology deepermeaningwhen he describesthe laws of incest as "one of the secrets of creationwhich is connectedto the soul and belongs to the secretof impregnation(sod ha-'ibur).'"93 The secret of impregnation( ibur) is closely relatedto the concept of transmigrationof souls (gilgul).94Whereasgilgul refers to the actual displacementof one soul to anotherbody,'ibur refersto the impregnationof one soul onto another soul.95Some kabbalistsconstruedgilgul as a form of punishmentand 'ibur as a form of reward.96For example, Joseph Hamadan,MenahemRecanati,and the anonymousauthorof the Sefer ha-kanahassert that the souls of those who transgress the laws of the 'arayot (incest) will transmigrateinto impure beasts that befit their crime. A man who has relationswith a menstruouswoman will transmigrate into a Gentile woman, one who has sexual relations while in the condition of nidah.97 The author of the Sefer ha-kanah offers an alternative and suggests that one who has sexual relations with a menstruating woman may transmigrateafter death into the body of a leper, a punishmentparticularlysuited to the crime: whena womanis a nidah,she is outsideanddistanced.Whenone hasrelationswithher,he causesall theimpurities to entertheHekhal.He will thereforereturnto earthas a leperwhosits alone,bannedlikea nidah,outsideof thecamp.Onewhotransgresses sexualrelations anyof thelawsof forbidden is liableto the punishment of karetandthe nidahcomprisesall of the'arayot.98

Beyond the purelyphysical connectionbetween the leper and the menstruantthat Nahmanideshad suggested, Sefer ha-kanahadds a more ontic relationship:Lepers and menstruantsare both banned,nidah, from the communityof the holy. A man who has sexual relationswith a menstruatingwoman may, insteadof under93. Idel, "Wehave No KabbalisticTradition,"52-53. 94. Scholem believes thatNahmanidesdid not differentiatebetweengilgul and'ibur. Idel disagrees, and arguesthat Nahmanides'comments testify to an early distinctionbetween these two concepts. Shem Tov ibn Ga'on, who wrote a supercommentaryon Nahmanides, distinguishes the sod ha-'ibur from gilgul, assuming that his teacherwould not use two independentterms synonymously. Shem Tov ibn Ga'on Keter Shem Tov487, f. 135a; Idel, "Wehave No KabbalisticTradition,"53 n. 8; Scholem, "Gilgul,"208, 222. 95. Isaac of Acre explains that "the secret of impregnation[is connected] to the secret of the soul, but the secret of transmigration[is connected] to the secret of the body."Cited in Idel, "Wehave No KabbalisticTradition,"53 n. 8. 96. On the Sabbathsoul as a rewardto the righteous,see Elliot Ginsburg,TheSabbathin Classical Kabbalah(Albany: State Universityof New YorkPress, 1989), 121-138. 97. MenahemRecanati,Perush'al ha-Torah,65b; Joseph Hamadan,Sefer ta'amei ha-mizvot, MS Jerusalem80597, f. 179a; Note that this idea is censored in Sefer ta'amei ha-mizvot,MS Oxford Michael 119, ff. 176a-178b. On the treatmentof gilgul and illicit sexual relationsin MenahemRecanati, Joseph Hamadan,and the anonymous authorof the Sefer ha-kanah,see Michal Kushnir-Oron, "Ha-peli'ahve-hakana:Yesodotha-kabbalahshe-bahem"(Ph.D.diss., HebrewUniversity,1980), 100104. 98. Sefer ha-kanah77a-b.

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Sharon Faye Koren going a gender change and becoming a menstruantin his next life, become the male equivalent-a leper. Nahmanides'Students Nahmanideshoped that his uninitiatedreaderswould be satisfied with his referencesto the Kabbalahand forbadethe uninitiatedto delve into the text'sdeeper meaning.This, of course, was an invitation.The prohibitionarousedthe curiosity of so many scholarsand laymen that it created"a majorkabbalisticactivity of interpretingthose passages on which Nahmanidesspecifically prohibitedfurther Nahmanides'own studentsheededtheirmaster'sdesires andtransspeculation."99 mittedkabbalistictraditionsonly orally.Theirstudents,in turn,however,enlarged upon Nahmanides'exegesis in writing.'00 Four students of Rabbi Solomon ibn Adret wrote supercommentarieson Nahmanides. Many other exegetes, such as Isaac of Acre, Bahyaben Asher, and MenahemRecanati,wrote biblical commentariesbased upon Nahmanides'work.All these exegetes assume thatNahmanides revealedthe "mysteryof the separationfrom the nidah"in his exegesis on Leviticus 18:19.101 The supercommentariesconvertNahmanides'referencesto naturalphilosophy into the terms of kabbalisticmyth. For example, Bahya ben Asher and Shem Tov ibn Ga'on explain that a menstruant'sgaze will not only cause blood spots to appearon a mirrorbut on other forms of polished metal such as a dagger blade. Ratherthanattributethis powerto bad air(ruahrac),as in Aristotle'stheoryof contagion, however,Bahya ben Asher and Shem Tov ibn Ga'on read ruah racmythologically as "bad spirit." They explain that evil spirits of impurity transfer menstrualimpurityfrom its origin on the divine left to terrestrialwomen by possessing women at the onset of their flow.'02These spiritsempowerthe nidah, enabling her to alter the nature of a mirror or a sword.'03 Thirteenth-century kabbaliststhus explicitly formulatethe long expurgatedbelief that spirits of impuritypossess menstruants.104 Forthe CataloniankabbalistBahya ben Asher, for instance,the issue of the 99. Abrams,"Oralityin the KabbalisticSchool of Nahmanides,"90; Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah,384-385; Wolfson, "'By Wayof Truth,"'105. 100. Nahmanides' immediate students included Solomon ibn Adret, Isaac ben Todros, and David ha-Kohen. Solomon ibn Adret's students included Shem Tov ibn Ga'on, ibn Sahula, ibn Schue'ib, and one anonymouscommentatoridentified by Idel (Abrams, "Oralityin the Kabbalistic School of Nahmanides,"96; Moshe Idel, "AnAnonymous Commentaryfrom the Circle of the Rashba,"Michael 11 [1989]: 9-21; idem, "Wehave No KabbalisticTradition,"65-66). 101. Isaac Abo'av Menoratha-ma'or 3:6; Shem Tov ibn Ga'on Keter Shem Tov42b; Isaac of Acre Sefer me'irat 'einayim29. 102. Elsewhere,Shem Tov ibn Ga'on explains that spiritsof impuritywere especially attracted to the smell of humanblood. Necromancerswould thereforeuse blood-like incense in orderto draw spiritsof impurityto earth.Shem Tov ibn Ga'on KeterShem Tov43a. 103. Bahyaben Asher'scommentaryto Lev. 18:19, in Perusheiha-torahle-rabbenuMoshe ben Nahman, edited by Chaim Chavel (Jerusalem:Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1959), 2:486-7; cf., his commentaryto Lev. 12:2, 2:472; Shem Tov ibn Ga'on KeterShem Tov42b. 104. On the developmentof this idea, see Koren,"TheWomanFromWhom God Wanders."

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Kabbalistic Physiology nidah proves her affinity to impure forces. The Mishnahdescribes impuremenstrualblood in terms of grapes and wine.105 BereshitRabbahidentifies grapes as the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: Eve sinned when she squeezed these grapes and gave them to Adam.1'06Thirteenth-centurykabbalistsassociate Eve's sin of squeezing the grapes to the flow of impureblood. They explain thatthere are two types of grapes: white grapes represent the benevolent sefirot, and red/black grapesrepresentsternJudgment.Eve sinnedby squeezingthe black/redgrapesof the left side. In so doing, she attachedherself to evil and introduceddeathand destructioninto the world.107 Her punishment,menstruation,fits her crime: Eve's blood must spill because she spilled both humanblood and the red juice of the grapes of Judgment.108 Bahya ben Asher applies this analogy to all menstruants, explainingthat: Evewaspunishedwiththebloodof menstruation becauseit hasthesameapfrom andit is discharged the the of harsh pearance[as wine, symbol Judgment] lanherwiththe sameappearance. Andthisis themysteryof the Scripture's guagewhenit describeda kindof wineintermsof blood.As it is written,"and fromthebloodof thegrapeyoudrankfoamingwine"(Deut.32:14).Andit is written,"hewasheshis garmentsin thebloodof grapes;andhisvesturein the bloodof grapes"(Gen.49:11)... Thisis thereasonthatthe sages,maytheir memorybe blessed,saidthatmanproduceswhite[seed],whilewomanprois similarwith ducesred[seed].Thesinof themother[Eve]andherdaughters respectto thewine,whichcausestheevilsof theworld. . . .09 Wine, grapes, and the color red are all symbols of sternJudgmentin nondualistic presentationsof evil. Menstrualblood is the externalmarkof women'saffinity to the sinistersefirah. Justas Judgmentis the seventhsefirah, Leviticusdeems menstruantsimpurefor seven days;''Ijust as Judgmentsecreteswine lees, womendischargemenstrualblood."I' Echoes ofNahmanides in Castile Nahmanidesand his interpretersdirectly influenced Castilian attitudestowardsmenstruants.Rationalizingthe laws of nidah in Sefer ha-Rimmon,Moses de 105. M. Nidah 2:6; 9:11. 106. Bereshit Rabbah, ed. ChanokhAlbeck (Jerusalem,WahrmanPublishers,1965), 1:13940, 174. 107. Zohar 2:192a. See also Zohar 1:36a;2:267b; 3:236a (RM); MenahemRecanati Ta'amei ha-mizvot80d; idem Perush'al ha-torah61c. 108. Jacobben SheshetSefer ha-'emunahve-ha-bitahon89; EfraimGottlieb,Ha-kabbalahbekitvei rabbenuBahya benAsher (Jerusalem:QiriyatSefer, 1970), 102. On wine as a symbol of Judgment, see Bahyaben Asher'scommentaryto Gen. 9:20, ed. Chavel, 1:123. 109. Bahya ben Asher, Be 'ur 'al ha-Torah,ed. Chaim Chavel (Jerusalem: Mossad Ha-Rav Kook, 1974), 1:186-7; see also Recanati,Sefer Ta'ameiha-mizvot81c. 110. ibn Shue'ibBe'ur calperush ha-Ramban24c. 111. Shem Tov ibn Ga'on Ketershem tov 42b; Isaac of Acre Me'irat ceinayim154; Menahem Recanati, Tahameiha-mizvot71c. Recanatialso explains that "the mysteryof the sin of menstruation is that woman squeezed the grapes"(Recanati,Perush'al ha-torah61c).

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SharonFaye Koren Leon paraphrases Nahmanides' Torah commentary and then adds one significant sentence to his summary: within the laws of nidah "lies a secret. [There is] another deep issue in the mystery of the law of the nidah and the need to separate from her, and what I have said is sufficient." 12 We may infer his meaning from a similar discussion in the Zohar: Thereis no defilement in the worldgreaterthanthatof menstruation.The defilement of menstruationis more severethanany othertype of defilement.The man [who has such intercourse]becomes impurehimself, and rendersimpure all those who arenearto him. Whereverthey go they drivethe Shekhinahaway. Furthermore,he brings a grievous illness upon himself and the child that he begets, for once a man has relationswith a menstruant,the impuritytakeshold of him and remainsin every partof his body.At that moment,a spiritof impurityis cast upon the child that is begotten, and he will live all his days in a stateof defilement for his very foundationrestson a defilementthat is greater and strongerthan any other, for as soon as a man approachesa menstruant woman,the impuritytakes hold of him, as it is written,"herimpurityis communicatedto him" (Lev. 15:24).'"' For Aristotle, menstruants are contagious because they have bad air; for de Leon, menstruants are contagious because spirits of impurity possesses them. Elsewhere, the Zohar further mythologizes this understanding and refers to menstrual pollution as "the mystery of the primordial serpent.""14 Rabbi Shim'on bar Yohai explains: 115 We have learnedthat one hundredand twenty-five differenttypes of impurity descendedto the earth,which are united with the side of the powerfulserpent.Wehave learnedthattwenty-sevenof the greatestones unitewith women and cleave to them. Woe is he who approachesher at this time. Forhe who approachesa menstruantwill cause a defect above. Because throughthis sin the powerful serpent is awakened,and he casts his filth in a place that does not need it. And he unites with the female (the Shekhinah).And the hair of the male grows, andthe female is pollutedand her hairandnails grow.And at this point stern Judgmentis awakenedin this world and all are polluted. As it is written, "because he has defiled the Lord's sanctuary"(Num. 19:20). The sanctuaryof the Lord is polluted by the sins of men. We have learned that which is written,"andI will put enmity between you and the women" (Gen. 3:15). The serpentcast twenty-fourdifferenttypes of impurityinto the women when he united with her, as in the numericalequivalentof the word "anden112.MosesdeLeonSeferha-rimmon thedan344-345. NotethatwhiledeLeonacknowledges to lookin mirgerof impurewomengazingat mirrors,purifiedwomen,by contrast,areencouraged rorsin orderto enticetheirhusbandsin Zohar2:3b. 113. Zohar2:3b; IsaiahTishby,Wisdomof the Zohar:AnAnthologyof Texts,trans.DavidGold-

stein(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1989),3:1202-1203. TsioniSeferzioni47c. 114.See,interalia,ShemTovibnGa'onKetershemtov42b;Menahem discussionsof theoriginsof menstrual impuri115.Notethatoneof themostcomprehensive to noneotherthantheheroof theZohar,RabbiShim'onbarYohai. ty is attributed

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KabbalisticPhysiology arearousedaboveandbelow.Herhair mity."Twenty-four typesof [impurity] andnailsgrowand [throughthis]judgmentis awakenedin the world.And whena womanwishesto purifyherselfshemustcutthehairthathasgrown And she mustcut hernailsandall similar duringthe daysof her impurity. filth.116

Samael,the leaderof the demonic otherside (sitra''ahra')of impurity,is responsible for the one hundredand twenty-five differenttypes of humanpollution. He instills women with the twenty-fourgravestforms."7 These spiritsof impurity possess women andoccasion theirmenstrualflow."8 Menstruatingwomen thus become the terrestrialincarnationof the demonic realm. Thirteenth-centurykabbalistsdrewuponnaturalphilosophy,medievalmedicine, and folklore in orderto understandthe mysteryof the menstruatingwoman. But their scientific inquiryitself was markedby a certaingenderbias. Kabbalists demonstratedcertainculturalpredispositionsaboutwomen and when these dovetailed with the existing prejudicesagainstwomen within the medical community, it resultedin a misogyny that affected both women's healthcareand heavenly aspirations.In medievalfolklore,the menstruantis likenedto a snakefilled with venom. In CastilianKabbalah,the primordialserpentfills the menstruantwith his own venom and transformsher into a demonic force. Thus in thirteenth-centuryKabbalah,the menstruantis endowedwith not only earthlybut also supernaturalpowers. The dangers that she can pose and the means by which medieval kabbalists hoped to deterthese dangershad a profoundeffect on the image and statusof Jewish women in medieval society. SharonKoren HebrewUnion College New York,New York

116. Zohar3:79a; cf. al NakawaMenoratha-ma'or4:85. 117. Note that there are twenty-seven forms of impurityspecific to women. Samael transmits twenty-fourby means of the act of instilling.The discrepancymust be the result of an exegetical need thatthe numberof impuritiescorrespondto the numericalequivalentof the Hebrewva-'evah,which is twenty-four. lla. 118. Zohar 1:126b;2:11

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Review: Three Recent Books on Isaac Abarbanel/Abravanel (1437-1508/9) Author(s): James T. Robinson Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 341-349 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131527 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review 28:2 (2004), 341-349

REVIEW ESSAY THREE RECENT BOOKS ON ISAACABARBANEL/ ABRAVANEL(1437-1508/9)

by James T. Robinson EricLawee.IsaacAbarbanel' Stance TowardTradition:Defense, Dissent, and Dialogue. Albany: StateUniversityof New YorkPress, 2001. 320 pp. SeymourFeldman.Philosophy in a Timeof Crisis: Don Isaac Abravanel,Defender of the Faith. Londonand New York:RoutledgeCurzon,2003. 213 pp. AlfredoFabioBorodowski.IsaacAbravanelon Miracles, Creation,Prophecy,and Evil: TheTensionBetweenMedievalJewishPhilosophyand Biblical Commentary. New York:PeterLang, 2003. 241 pp. If quantityis any measureof importance,then IsaacAbarbanel/Abravanelthe fascinatingstatesmanand financier,polemicist andmessianictheorist,exegete and philosopher-theologian-has certainlyrisen very high indeed in the study of medievalJewishthought.Althoughneveran obscurefigure in modem scholarship, having alreadybeen the subjectof severalmonographsand dozens of articles,the publicationof threebooks in as manyyearsmoves him closer to his morerespected predecessors:Maimonides,Gersonides,and Crescas.Thatthereis little overlapin these new books, moreover,which approachthe extensive and diverse corpus of Abarbanel'swriting in very differentways, shows that this interestin his writings is morethana passing fad. LaweeandFeldman,in particular,not only introducethe readerto variousaspects of Abarbanel'slife and thought,but point to new areasof researchthatdeserve furtherinvestigation.Like any good scholarship,not only do they summarizeand synthesize,connectingparticulardetails to largerthemes and concerns,but they also challenge conventionalviews, forcing the readerto return to the sourcesthemselvesto look afreshat the writingsof this medievalmaster. Because these books complement each other in interestingways, and approachthe same subject from such diverse perspectives,it will be useful and instructiveto look at them together.The following review essay will summarizethe content of each book successively, examine their methods, and consider their relation to one another,focusing attentionon areas of continuityand convergence. Each book in its own way contributesto an understandingnot only of Abarbanel and his thought,but of the study of medievalJewish history,philosophy,and exegesis in general. 341

James Robinson TRADITION STANCE ISAACABARBANEL'S TOWARD Eric Lawee'sbook, a substantialrevision of his 1993 Harvarddissertation, includes also revised versions of articles that were themselves revisions of chapters in the dissertation.It is the fruitof overa decadeof research,which is reflected in its thoroughnessand depth.Attentionto detail is evidenced in the bibliography and extensive notes, as well as in the text itself, where there is great care taken in constructinga complex frameworkwithin which to work.Abarbanelis considered in relationto his predecessors,contemporaries,and followers, with sources and paralleldevelopmentsidentified and examined.This "long approach"to intellectual biography,which draws from several differentdisciplines-especially intellectual history, literaryhistory, and the history of mentalities-allows Lawee to paint a colorful portraitof a late medieval sage that pays as much attentionto the backgroundas to the primarysubject. Not only Abarbanelthe exegete emerges, but also the complicatedworkingsof the medievalmind,which searchescreatively for new ideas in the traditionalliteratureof the past. The book consists of an introductionand eight chapters.The introduction sets the scene and introducesthe readerto Abarbanelthe man and his work,highlighting the "opportunity"(to use an expression from another publication by Lawee) his writings present to the historianof Jewish culturedue to his engagement in so many differentfields and genres, and his role in and close relationto so many importanthistoricalevents. Here the readeris introducedto Lawee himself, as well, and to his method.He explains thathis goal is "religious-intellectual biography"in a very broadsense, which considershabitsof thoughtand habits of reading,religious preoccupations,rhetoricaldevices and literarytopoi, and literary tastes and sensibilities more generally,as representedin method, genre, and style. The goal, he explains, is to examine Abarbanelin relation to all his contexts-past and present, Jewish and non-Jewish, literary and exegetical, geographical,historical,and intellectual-in orderto appreciatebetterthe interplay between continuityand innovation,traditionand change. Chapter1 ("Lifeand Contexts")and Chapter2 ("WorksandTraditions")are closely relatedto each otherand make good on the introduction'spromiseof close contextualanalysis.Togetherthey presentthe life and works of Abarbanelin relation to his varioustraditionsand settings:historical,political, and geographicalin Chapter1; literaryand culturalin Chapter2. Emphasizedare the courtintriguesin Portugal,Spain, and Italy,the expulsion from Spain and explorationsof the new world,the conquestof Constantinopleand relatedChristianapocalypticism,developmentsof the Spanishand ItalianRenaissances,and the emergenceof the printing press.All of these areconsideredin relationto developmentsin Abarbanel'slife, using contemporarysources and archivalmaterialtogetherwith Abarbanel'sown autobiographicalremarks.EachofAbarbanel'swritingsarethen describedchronologically in relationto contemporarypolitical and literarytrends.Not only is each book briefly outlinedand characterized,noting bibliographicalproblemsor peculiarities, but the entire world of elite learning in which it was written is reconstructed,relatingto questionssuch as:Who was writingin thatlocationatthattime? What were the literaryand intellectualtraditionsthat were dominantat that place 342

Review Essay and thattime? How might they have influencedAbarbanel?This is the case especially with Portugal,Spain,Naples, and Corfu,while the discussion of writingsin Monopoli and Venice, in contrast,is almost exclusively literary.Perhapsevidence is lackingfor this period,or perhapsLaweeconsideredhistoricalandculturaltrends less relevantat this laterstage of Abarbanel'scareer,when he was alreadyset in his ways with respectto intellectualoutlook and literarystyle. In Chapters3 through6, Lawee shifts from the generalto the specific; from a consideration of all traditions and contexts to three in particular:the Maimonidean,the Rabbinic,andthe Humanistic.Chapter3 ("Tothe Help of the Lord Against the Mighty")focuses on one earlywork, ?Ateret zeqenim,in orderto show Abarbanel'scomplex relationto Maimonidesandhis interpreters.The explanation of one difficult passage in Exodus 24 is the point of departurein a defense of the "noblesof the childrenof Israel"againstthose exegetes who condemntheirhasty pursuitof divine wisdom. Abarbanelhere uses the languageof the Rabbisand of Maimonideshimself to justify his own departurefrom theirinterpretations,which leads him to the surprisingdefense of a traditionalistconception of prophecyby underminingthe traditionalinterpretationsof the text. Chapter4 ("RabbinicLegacy") establishes the backgroundfor Chapter5 ("TheRabbinicHermeneutic")and Chapter6 ("InSearchof Classical Jewish Eschatology").Building upon the researchof IsadoreTwerskyand Marc Saperstein, Lawee summarizesthe long traditionof interpretingrabbinicaggadot,which was developedfor polemical andapologeticreasonsandused by philosophersandkabbalists alike to teach and disseminatetheirown doctrinesand opinions.Abarbanel is then placed within this history,showing how he consciously drewfrom existing approachesto rabbinicliteraturebut innovatedin various ways. This is shown in his biblical commentaries,where, despite his stated quest for peshat, he uses midrashicdevices frequentlyand often cites midrashim,althoughmore often than not interpretingthem in light of his own political and theological interests.The relation to the traditionof perush aggadah is especially clear in Chapter6, where Lawee focuses on one book, Yeshu'otmeshiho, which consists of Abarbanel'sexplanationof rabbinictexts thatrelateto the Messiah.After surveyingall of the existing approachesto aggadah in his preface to this work, Abarbanelproceeds to chart a new course, in which the rabbinictexts will be considered on their own merit, so he claims, althoughhere as well, this quest for a new attitudeto the old still drawsfrom existing interpretations,if not in contentthen certainlyin method and approach.Abarbanel'svision of a new hermeneuticis nevercompletelyunobscuredby a constantgrapplingwith tradition. In Chapter7 ("HistoricalThinking,CriticalReading,andthe Study of Classical JewishTexts"),Laweethen shifts fromthe Jewishto the non-Jewish,to show how Abarbanel,the first Jewish exegete to evince strong interestsin history and historiography,mighthavebeen influencedby the Humanistictraditionsof the Renaissance.This Lawee illustratesthroughAbarbanel'scritical study of the biblical text, rabbinictradition,and also Christiantexts. He approachedsuch questionsas who wrote the biblical books and what exactly is the biblical chronology with greaterdeterminationand critical acumenthan his medieval predecessors,with a clear sense of documentationand historicalbias. AlthoughAbarbanel'shistorical 343

James Robinson thinkingis still far from that of AzariahDe Rossi, Lawee notes, he should nevertheless be considereda forerunnerof the Renaissanceturnto history and historiography. In order to strengthenAbarbanel'sconnection with the Renaissance, moreover,Laweealso considershis use of sources, for Abarbanelwas not only the first real Jewish critical historianbut also the first to make extensive use of Latin texts: classical, patristic,scholastic, and exegetical. In the final chapter,Chapter8 ("AbarbanelandTradition"),Laweeclassifies by way of conclusionthe differenttrendsin Abarbanel'sattitudeto tradition.Abarbanel is considereda "harvester,"collecting and buildingupon traditionin a very self-conscious way. He is a Jewish humanistof sorts, returningto the Jewish classics in a way not completely dissimilarto the Renaissanceapproachto classical GreeceandRome. Emphasizingthis creativeuse of tradition,Laweeis able to portrayAbarbanelas an originalthinkerand even a pioneer,which is contraryto the traditionalscholarlyportraitof a man of more moderateskill; a compilerand derivativethinkeror even a plagiarist. The specific traditionsconsidered by Lawee in his study of Abarbanelare many: Maimonideanand anti-Maimonidean,Rabbinicand Kabbalistic,exegetical and grammatical,scholastic and humanistic.He also touches upon variousliteraryandculturaltrendsas well, andpoints to othersthatdeserve furtherresearch, such as the traditionof allegorical exegesis. Indeed,Lawee himself is as much attuned to traditionas is his subject, always noting the biblical or rabbinicbackgroundof a turnof phraseor exegetical insight, and also recognizing the modern traditionsof scholarshipthat inform his own discourse. Thus, his discussion of the rabbinichermeneutic,for example, is informed by the categories and terminology of contemporarymidrashscholarship,while the most recent work on Renaissance Humanism,especially that of Anthony Grafton,serves as the guiding frameworkin his evaluation of Abarbanel'sRenaissance sensibilities. Lawee is very self-conscious in his own approach,setting himself squarelyin a particular traditionof intellectualhistory.The one majortraditionthathe does not approach is philosophyandthe historyof philosophy.This he leaves to the workof Seymour Feldman. PHILOSOPHY

IN A TIME OF CRISIS

The shift fromLawee'sintellectualhistoryandhistoryof mentalitiesto Feldman'shistoryof philosophyand history of ideas is sharpand decisive. It is apparent in the title itself and especially in the table of contents,which looks more like traditionaldoxographythanhistoricalinvestigationof tradition.The differencein the approachesemployedby these two scholars is also evident in their choice of sources.While Lawee focuses more on Abarbanel'sbiblical commentariesand exegetical monographs,Feldmanpays particularattentionto the systematicworksof theology or philosophy,or what he calls "philosophicaltheology."In orderto illustratefurtherthese contrastingapproachesto medievalJewish thoughtand history,Feldman'sbook will be discussed in some detail.As with Lawee,the content of the partsand chapterswill be summarizedwith a view to consideringissues of method and presentation. 344

Review Essay Philosophy in a Timeof Crisis consists of threepartsand eighteen chapters. Part 1 ("Introduction"),which includes three chapters,is introductory,providing historical and philosophical background,and surveying Abravanel's(Feldman's preferredspelling) life andwritings.The focus hereis HasdaiCrescasandhis legacy; a fuller introductionto Maimonidesand Gersonides,who are no less important for understandingAbravanel,would have been very welcome here, as well. Part2 ("IsaacAbravanel'sPhilosophyof Judaism"),which includes ten chapters, focuses on the beliefs and opinions of IsaacAbravanelin relationto the long history of philosophical discussions about these same issues, both Jewish and nonJewish. Part 3 ("JudahAbravanel-'An inheritancefor your children"'), which includes four chapters, presents the life and work of Isaac's son Judah, better known as Leone Ebreo, the authorof the popularDialogues of Love (Dialoghi d'amore).Althoughthe chaptersin this thirdpartgive an excellent brief introduction to Judah'slife and work, they serve more than anythingto provide contrast, by focusing on characteristicsof Judah'sRenaissance thought that are missing fromthe workof his father.The final chapter,Chapter18, highlightsthis contrast, using fatherand son to illustratethe complex transitionfrom medievalto Renaissance. In what follows, the focus will be on Part2, which is the longest and most detailed section of the book. It is in this second part,which is devoted to summarizing and explaining the most difficult philosophicaland theological arguments in Abravanel'scorpus, that Feldman'sidiosyncraticbrillianceshines forth. Feldmanbegins his summaryof Abravanel's"Philosophyof Judaism"with a discussion of religious belief in general (Chapter4). Focusing on the commentary on Guide 1:50 ratherthan on the dogmaticRosh 'amanah,he contrastsAbravanel'sview on this subjectwith thatof his predecessors.Unlike Maimonides,for instance, faith requires will as well as intellect, and unlike Crescas, it requires effort; like Abraham,one needs to saddle up the mule and embarkupon an active search for religious meaning. Chapter 5 then turns from belief in general to the most importantbelief of all: creation of the world. Following the order of Mif alot elohim, FeldmansummarizesAbravanel'sviews on this subject,again in relation to his predecessors.Abravanelfirst rejects the view of eternal creation (held in differentways by Averroesand Crescas), critiques the view of creation frompreexistentmatter(defendedby Gersonides),and refutesthe Aristotelianarguments for eternity,before setting forth his own defense of creation,which asserts an absolute creation from nothing by a willful God. God createdthe world and also, Abravanelmaintains,God will destroythe world,but this does not mean thattherewill not be otherworlds, as well. Here Feldmanalludes to, but unfortunately neverexpandsupon, the idea thatAbravanelheld to the possibility of a plurality of worlds. Abravanel'straditionalistdefense of creation ex nihilo is matched by his equally traditionalistdefense of miracles, which is the subject of Chapter6. The frameworkwith respectto this subjectis establishedby Maimonidesand Gersonides, who both arguedfor a very naturalconceptionof miracles.Abravanel,in contrast, draws on al-Ghazali to defend a literalist understandingof the biblical accountsof God'sdirectinvolvementin the naturalworld.He arguesthat,although 345

James Robinson logical impossibilitiescannotbe broughtaboutby God,naturalimpossibilitiescan, includingnaturalevents of abnormaldurationor unusualforce (e.g. the Flood; the plagues of hail), and directbreachesof nature,such as the stoppingof the sun for Joshuaat Gibon. Contraryto Gersonidesin particular,Abravanelrejectsthe opinion thatthe active intellect is the cause of miracles.In fact,Abravanelseems to reject the doctrineof the active intellect entirely(anotherimportantdevelopmentin the history of philosophy that Feldmanleaves unexplored).Also against Gersonides, Abravanelarguesthatthe degree of possibility in a miracle is not in any way linked to a prophet'sstatus.Althoughmiracles are divine in origin, he maintains, they are historicallydetermined:God brings abouta miraclenot due to some preexistentnecessity or propheticpowerbut, rather,in responseto the historicalneeds of the time. This philosophicaldefense of traditioncontinuesin Chapters7 ("Prophecy") and 8 ("Divine Omniscience and HumanChoice"). Drawing from the commentary on the Guide and the biblical and rabbiniccommentaries,Feldmandescribes here Abravanel'sgeneral praise of propheticknowledge before turningto his critique of Maimonidesand defense of tradition.Here again Abravanelundermines the doctrine of the active intellect in developing his own novel approachto the problemof divine communication,in which he stresses imaginationover intellect and experienceover thought.Not only does God directlyrelay informationto the prophetwithout intermediaries,but he also createsunique sense experiencesthat areavailableto everyone,an idea which Feldmancalls "perceptualprophecy."With the discussion of the antinomyof free will and divine knowledge, Feldmanthen turnsmore to problemsof logic thanto those of naturalscience and cognition.Using modernterminologyand homespunexamples, he contrastsAbravanel's"compatibilism" with Crescas' "soft determinism."Whereas Crescas believed that humanactionswere determinedwith respectto theircause but free with respectto themselves,Abravanelarguedthat they were free also with respectto theircause. To use Feldman'sexample, the philosophy professor can teach his class or go to the movies. If he is lazy, accordingto Crescas,he will go to the movies, even though he could have done otherwise if he weren't lazy. According to Abravanel,even thoughlazy by nature,the professorcan neverthelesschange or overcomehis predisposition and act contraryto his nature. In Chapters9 through 12, the final chaptersthat focus on theological doctrines, the emphasis is on eschatology.Abravanel'sviews on immortalityof the soul (Ch. 9) are discussed in relation to the medieval debates about conjunction with the active intellect. Contraryto Aristotle and the Aristotelians,Abravanelis presentedas a Platonist, on account of his belief that the soul is a separatesubstance(althoughcreated);thatthereis recollectionandreincarnation;thatfinal reward comes more throughpurifying action than perfectingthought;and that the wicked as well as the righteous survive eternally,althoughto suffer punishment ratherthan reward.The discussion of providence(Ch. 11) is likewise framedby the philosophical background,with Abravanelaligned with Halevi and Crescas and againstMaimonidesand Gersonides.Like his antiphilosophicalpredecessors, Abravanelstresses the particularover the universal:the special providenceof Israel among the nations and the unique status of the Land of Israel among geo346

Review Essay graphicalclimes. With Resurrection(Ch. 10) and Messianism(Ch. 12), however, Feldmanstressesthatthese two subjectsdo not havea truephilosophicalpedigree, and thus he treatsthem much less extensively.This, I think, is unfortunate.Resurrectionin particularis an excellent if unexploredresearchsite in the historyof philosophy, with respect to issues of generationand individuation,and Messianism plays a significant role in the history of political philosophy. Feldman'sdiscussion of philosophical-theological principles is very lively indeed. He focuses on the argumentsthemselves, uses modem terminology to framehis discussion, and inventshis own examples to help illustratethe difficult topics. In orderto emphasizethe philosophicalnatureof his subject,he discusses Abravanelnot only in relationto his historical interlocutors-Maimonides, Gersonides, and Crescas-but also in relationto the major figures in the history of philosophythatrelateto the issues of concern.Thus,Abravanelis made to rubelbows with Aristotle,Aristotelians,and anti-Aristotelians(Alexander,Themistius, Philoponus,Averroes);Plato and the Platonists (Philo, Plotinus, Porphyry,Proclus); Stoics and Epicureans;churchfathersand medievalschoolmen (Augustine, Tertullian,Boethius,Aquinas,Duns Scotus,Williamof Ockham,Nicole Oresme); and even modern authors,from Spinoza and Descartes to Hume, Kant, and even WilliamJamesand B. E Skinner.Using his broadknowledgeof the historyof philosophy, and allowing himself a great deal of historicalfreedom, Feldmanin this way manages to create an engaging introductionnot only to Abravanelbut to all the majorissues that exercisedhis interest. Despite this very open history of ideas, however, Feldmanconcludes this section of the book (Ch. 13) with a surprisingreturnto history. No matterhow much Abravanelmay seem to have access to Latin and philosophical sources, he concludes,no matterhow much some of his ideas mightresemblePlato'sand Plotinus's,Abravanelwas still very much a medieval. Here Feldmanfocuses on Abravanel's superficial knowledge of Plato, Plotinus, and Hellenistic philosophy,and his failure to show any real systematic antirationalisticphilosophy such as that which developed in the Renaissance.In light of this conclusion, more historical sensitivity would have been appropriatein the philosophical discussion; and the conclusion itself could have presenteda more thoroughjudgmentregardingAbravanel'suse of sources.Forexample,amongthe most frequentlymentionedauthors in the book is Aquinas, and yet it is never made clear what the exact relationship was between these two like-minded"defendersof the faith." ISAACABRAVANEL ONMIRACLES The books by Lawee and Feldmanare very good, and certainlymerit close reading. They also complementeach other perfectly:one could read these two books and no otherson Abravaneland have a fairly comprehensiveunderstandingof his life andthought.The samecannotbe saidaboutBorodowski,which is a very slightly revisedversion of a 1997 JewishTheological Seminarydissertation.In contrast to the books by Lawee and Feldman,this work is not writtenwell, and it lacks a sophisticatedframe of reference, whether intellectualhistory and the history of mentalitiesor the historyof philosophyand ideas. It is filled with mistakes,typos, 347

James Robinson awkwardlocutions,mistranslations,mistransliterations,poor documentation,misdocumentation,and obscure statements.The authoris clearly not a native speaker, but even when the English itself is understandable,the argumentsare not. The book is also characterizedby a general ignorance of or misuse of secondary sources. To his credit,the authorclearlyhas a love of and enthusiasmfor the subject; however,there arejust too many errorsto ignore. There is also a strangebravado aboutmakingan originalcontributionto the field withoutrecognizingthe importantworkdone by his predecessors.AlthoughI would preferto avoidmakingcomments about this book, I think it is worthwhileto summarizebriefly its contents and to remarkupon a few of its problems,particularlythose relatingto the use of secondary sources. As with the analysis of Lawee and Feldman,this, too, can be instructivewith respect to method. Although the ambitioustitle of Borodowski'sbook refers to Abravanelon miracles,creation,prophecy,and evil, the focus throughoutis on miracles.In fact, the investigationis even more narrowlydefined: Abravanel'sdiscussion of miracles in Mif alot elohim 10. Borodowski'ssubtitle("Thetension between medieval Jewish philosophy and biblical commentary")is also misleading, for the discussion throughoutis based on the systematictheological works.Withone exception, the biblical commentariesare cited as corroboratingevidence only; any "tension," in otherwords,is betweenphilosophyandscriptureratherthanphilosophyandbiblical commentary.The book itself is organized aroundthe major problems that arise in Abravanel'sdiscussion of miraclesin this last book of his theological text. These includethe following:the possible and the impossible;the naturallyimpossible and the logically impossible; miracles and creationex nihilo; miracles and the will of God; miracles and the problem of free will; the cause of miracles, whether God or the active intellect; the purpose of miracles; and miracles and prophecy. Here now are a few examples to illustrateBorodowski'suse of secondary sources. While the book is focused on Abravanel,it rightly provides extensive backgrounddiscussion of Maimonidesand Gersonides,but Borodowskidoes not allow this discussionto benefit fromthe latestscholarship.ForGersonideshe cites the fine researchof Eisen, Feldman,Kellner,and Staub, for example, but seems completely unawareof Freudenthal,Glasner,Goldstein, and Manekin.When he does use Kellner,Feldman,and others, moreover,he usually cites them for their conclusionsratherthantheirevidence;they arecited as final authoritiesratherthan as scholarswho have helped pave the way for this new investigationof the subject. Articles by Kellner and others are simply summarizedwithout adding anything new, while articles by Kreisel and Ravitzkyare sacked and plundered.Ravitzky's articleon the "anthropologicaltheoryof miracles,"which serves as the framework for Borodowski'sChapter7, is an excellent example of the latter.Here Ravitzkyis cited at the outset and frequentlyin the notes; but what isn't indicatedis the extent to which Bordowskitakes over Ravitzky'snotes sometimes whole cloth. In other words,Avicenna,al-Ghazali,IbnKhaldun,IbnEzra,IbnDaud,IbnKaspi,Narboni, Crescas, Bibago, and otherspass directlyfrom Ravitzky'snotes to Borodowski's, with little evidence of any new readingin between. 348

Review Essay Although I feel very uncomfortablehaving to identify these problems, I think it is importantto do so nonetheless,for the carefuluse of secondarysources is itself an importantpart of scholarship.Perhapsmore time in Jewish Studies oughtto be devotedto teachingnot only the close readingof primarytexts-which should alwaysbe central-but the methodswith which we studythem andthe way in which we speak about them. If the vast corpus of Abravanelis in fact an "opportunity"for gaining greater insight into medieval history and thought, then it should be exploited responsiblyand with respect, not only for Abravanelhimself but also for the centuriesof learnedattemptsto make sense of his diversewritings.

349

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Reinhard Pummer Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 351-352 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131528 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review 28:2 (2004), 351-412

BOOK REVIEWS RobertT. Andersonand TerryGiles. TheKeepers:An Introductionto the History and Cultureof the Samaritans.Peabody,MA: HendricksonPublishers,2002. 300 pp. TheKeepersis a concise and informativeintroductionto the history and religion of the Samaritans,that branchof the Israelite-Jewish religion that has enduredfrom antiquityto the presentamong a tiny minorityin Palestineand Israel. The book is writtenin an engaging style thatwill appealto a public thatwould not readspecializedworkson the subject.At the same time, the informationcontained in the work is reliableand the authorsare careful in their discussions of unsolved (and often unsolvable) issues. In an epilogue, Andersonand Giles underlinethat thereremainsa "hostof unansweredquestionsaboutthe historyand cultureof the Samaritancommunity"and that this book is "only a beginning"(p. 145). The authors'inspirationto write the book derives,at least in part,fromtheir work on the large collection of Samaritanmanuscriptsand artifactsin the Chamberlain-WarrenCollection at Michigan State University.The origins of the Collection are told in Chapter1 in an engrossingstyle worthyof a detective story that drawsthe readerfurtherand furtherinto the book. The Collection is named after the Americanmillionaireand churchmanE. K. Warren(fromThreeOakes, Michigan) andhis son-in-law,E W.Chamberlain.Warrenmet the Samaritansfor the first time in 1901 during a visit to Palestine. He later bought from them manuscripts (Pentateuchs,liturgicaltexts, and a copy of Tibatmarqe,a midrashiccomposition) and artifacts(marbleinscriptionsand a Torahscroll case) and supportedthem financially;from 1913 on he was chairmanof the SamaritanAmericanCommittee. When he died in 1919, most of the manuscriptshe had bought were sent to a museum in ThreeOakes.In 1950, when the museumclosed, they were given to Michigan State University.It was only in 1968 thatthey were rediscovered,studied,and describedby R. T. Anderson,and in 1978 Andersonpublisheda catalogue of the Collection for the use of scholars,entitledStudies in SamaritanManuscriptsand Collection(AmericanSchools of OrientalReArtifacts:TheChamberlain-Warren search,MonographSeries, 1). Afterbriefly introducingthe Samaritans,the authorsoutline in Chapter2 the variousviews on the thornyissue of the origin of the Samaritans.They rightlyemphasize that Samaritanismas a distinctreligion did not arise as a resultof the Assyrianconquestin the eighthcenturyB.C.E. Rather,the separationof Judaismand Samaritanism"developedover centuries,culminatingin a series of fateful events and decisions duringthe second centuryB.C.E."(p. 16). The other subjectstreated by the book are: Samaritanhistory accordingto the successive periods (from antiquity to the modern era, Ch. 3-7), the SamaritanPentateuch(Ch. 8), and Samaritanreligion (Ch. 9). The last chapter,Chapter10, closes the circle by returning to the Chamberlain-WarrenCollection and giving additional descriptions of its contents (some items were alreadydescribed in previous chaptersin 351

Book Reviews their historicalcontext) and,in the process, makingconnectionsto what is known about particularSamaritansmentioned in the Chamberlain-Warrenmanuscripts from other sources. Only in a few instancesone would have wished for a more nuancedor more complete treatment. Sometimes the term "Samarians,"that is, inhabitants of thatis, membersof a reSamaria,shouldhave been used ratherthan"Samaritans," ligion separatefrom Judaism.Thus it is stated:"Oppressedby Assyrians,Babylonians, and Persians,the Samaritanshad minimalresources[for temple building]" (p. 130);but Samaritansin the strictsense of the termdid not yet exist duringthese time periods,as the authorsthemselves point out in the chapterson Samaritanorigins and on the Persianperiod.In connectionwith the discussion of the numerous honorific titles employedby the Samaritansin acrosticsand bills of sale of Pentateuch manuscripts,the authorsstatethatmost of these titles haveneverbeen translated and remain "in various degrees of obscurity"(p. 114). Although they do mentiontranslationsby E. RobertsonandA. Cowley,thereis also an extensive list in R. Pummer,Samaritan Marriage Contracts and Deeds of Divorce (vol. 2, pp. 257-72). In their discussion of the question of the existence of a Samaritan temple, Andersonand Giles claim that the Delos inscriptionsfrom the third and second centuriesB.C.E. (accordingto paleographicalcriteria)speak of a "temple [on] Argarizim"(p. 129). But the inscriptionsreferto the "hallowed(consecrated) Argarizein"(eis hieron [hagion] Argarizein)ratherthan to a temple; and, in fact, on page 29 AndersonandGiles use the translation"holyArgarizein."But these are minorpoints that do not detractfrom the value of the work. In sum, the book is a welcome additionto the literatureon the religion, culand ture, history of the Samaritans;one thatmakes the subjectinterestingand accessible to a wide readership.In addition,it is beautifullyproducedandalmostfree of printingerrors.Maps; photographs;boxes in the text highlightingcertaintopics or presentingprimarytexts in English translationor excerpts from secondary sources;the renditionof inscriptionsand colophons in Hebrewand English;and a thoroughbibliographyarrangedaccordingto themes as well as an index of subjects and authorsall serve to enhance its usefulness. The work admirablyfulfills its purpose as an introductionto Samaritanismthat is readableand engaging and will be appreciatedby a broadaudience. ReinhardPummer Universityof Ottawa Ottawa,Ontario

JudithR. Baskin. MidrashicWomen:Formationsof the Femininein RabbinicLiterature.HanoverandLondon:UniversityPressof New England,2002. xii, 232 pp. Baskin'sbook shouldbe requiredreading,along with the worksof Neusner, Boyarin,Wegner,Hauptman,Brooten, and Kraemer,for those interestedin Jewish women in late antiquity.It is methodologicallysophisticated,yet not jargonis352

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Gary G. Porton Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 352-354 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131529 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews their historicalcontext) and,in the process, makingconnectionsto what is known about particularSamaritansmentioned in the Chamberlain-Warrenmanuscripts from other sources. Only in a few instancesone would have wished for a more nuancedor more complete treatment. Sometimes the term "Samarians,"that is, inhabitants of thatis, membersof a reSamaria,shouldhave been used ratherthan"Samaritans," ligion separatefrom Judaism.Thus it is stated:"Oppressedby Assyrians,Babylonians, and Persians,the Samaritanshad minimalresources[for temple building]" (p. 130);but Samaritansin the strictsense of the termdid not yet exist duringthese time periods,as the authorsthemselves point out in the chapterson Samaritanorigins and on the Persianperiod.In connectionwith the discussion of the numerous honorific titles employedby the Samaritansin acrosticsand bills of sale of Pentateuch manuscripts,the authorsstatethatmost of these titles haveneverbeen translated and remain "in various degrees of obscurity"(p. 114). Although they do mentiontranslationsby E. RobertsonandA. Cowley,thereis also an extensive list in R. Pummer,Samaritan Marriage Contracts and Deeds of Divorce (vol. 2, pp. 257-72). In their discussion of the question of the existence of a Samaritan temple, Andersonand Giles claim that the Delos inscriptionsfrom the third and second centuriesB.C.E. (accordingto paleographicalcriteria)speak of a "temple [on] Argarizim"(p. 129). But the inscriptionsreferto the "hallowed(consecrated) Argarizein"(eis hieron [hagion] Argarizein)ratherthan to a temple; and, in fact, on page 29 AndersonandGiles use the translation"holyArgarizein."But these are minorpoints that do not detractfrom the value of the work. In sum, the book is a welcome additionto the literatureon the religion, culand ture, history of the Samaritans;one thatmakes the subjectinterestingand accessible to a wide readership.In addition,it is beautifullyproducedandalmostfree of printingerrors.Maps; photographs;boxes in the text highlightingcertaintopics or presentingprimarytexts in English translationor excerpts from secondary sources;the renditionof inscriptionsand colophons in Hebrewand English;and a thoroughbibliographyarrangedaccordingto themes as well as an index of subjects and authorsall serve to enhance its usefulness. The work admirablyfulfills its purpose as an introductionto Samaritanismthat is readableand engaging and will be appreciatedby a broadaudience. ReinhardPummer Universityof Ottawa Ottawa,Ontario

JudithR. Baskin. MidrashicWomen:Formationsof the Femininein RabbinicLiterature.HanoverandLondon:UniversityPressof New England,2002. xii, 232 pp. Baskin'sbook shouldbe requiredreading,along with the worksof Neusner, Boyarin,Wegner,Hauptman,Brooten, and Kraemer,for those interestedin Jewish women in late antiquity.It is methodologicallysophisticated,yet not jargonis352

Book Reviews tic or overlydeterminedby methodor theory.Its limitationsarea resultof the characteristics of the rabbinicdocuments, notoriously difficult to use for a comprehensive study on any topic; the vastness and variety of editorial styles of the rabbiniccorpusvirtuallyassurethatone will both miss relevantdataand confront an unmanageablevarietyof opinions on any given topic. Many have demonstratedthat rabbinicJudaismis "male-centered."Baskin adroitlyarguesthatthis was the resultof a deliberatedecision by the rabbis,which led to the creationof women as "ancillarybeings" (p. 1). She demonstratesthat the rabbinic"insistenceon female alterityand marginalizationunderlies and informsmidrashictraditionsconcerningthe 'second' sex" (p. 2). Baskin selected the midrashicand aggadic texts, terms she uses interchangeably,because in her view they "frequentlypreservea more nuancedand complex view of women and their activities than the impersonaldictates of halakhicdiscourse"(p. 5), and they appear to her as "morereflective of the complexities of actual humanrelationships as they are lived, while the halakhahappearsto point towardan ideal, but not yet achieved,condition of order"(p. 7). In Chapter1, Baskin collects and analyzes an arrayof passages that place women on the edges of rabbinicculture.She addressesworksby Gruber,Neusner, and Boyarinthatexplainthis phenomenonandjuxtaposes them with the studies of Brooten and Kraemer.Baskin concludes that "in their desire to eliminatewomen from the sphere of communal authority,the rabbis were not simply sanctifying accepted traditionsand norms of life but constructinga congenial reality of their own [based on] their vision of an ideal society, believed to conform to the divine will .. ." (p. 42). This conclusion underliesthe rest of the study. Chapter2, "ConstructingEve," maintainsthat within the covenantalrelationship between God and the People Israel, women and men are treateddifferently.This disparity,Baskin argues,stems from the dissimilarways in which God createdAdam and Eve in Genesis 2. Chapter3, "Eve'sCurses,"demonstratesthat the "variousdisadvantageswhich were seen as part of the female condition ... were a consequenceof women'sinherentphysical, emotional, and intellectualdeficiencies" (p. 65). Among Baskin'smore interestinginsights is her argumentthat the three commandmentsgiven especially to women-niddah, hallah, and hadlaqah-all center on separation(p. 73). While the rabbinictraditiondoes know some exceptionallytalentedand intelligentwomen-Beruriah and Yalta, for example-"rabbinic social policy requiredthat even these extraordinarywomen be distancedfrom the actualexercise of such male prerogativesas communalstudy, public rituals,and worship,or the formationof the halakhah"(p. 87). In Chapter4, "FruitfulVines and Silent Partners,"Baskin explores the rabbinic views of marriage,the woman'srole as wife, andthe placementof the female almost solely within the domestic sphere,"wherethey could providefor theirhusbands'needs and nurturechildrenat the same time"(p. 89). Marriageis not a contractbetween equals (pp. 99-105), and rabbinicdiscussions of women'ssexuality are primarilylimited to ways of controllingit. Baskin demonstrates"a hermeneutics of suspicion informedall rabbinicruminationson their otherhalves; the supposed sexual unreliabilityof women was never forgotten"(p. 118). Chapter5 delves into the rabbinicdiscussions of the matriarchs,who were often barrenfor 353

Book Reviews a time, and these, in Baskin'swords, "suggestedthat compassionand faith should prevailover dissolving a loving marriage"if therewere no children(p. 119). However, if individualwomen might be suspect at times, Chapter6 explores the logical conclusion thatgroups of women could pose a severe threatto males andtheir centralitywithin rabbinicculture. Baskinclearlyillustratesthe rabbinicimage of womanas "other,"as less perfect/desirablethanthe male, and as a possible threatto the ideal world createdby the male imagination.Her book accordinglycontributessignificantly to the current debateon Jewish women in late antiquity,a debatein which she actively participates.At the same time, while Baskin makes a good case for the importanceof her view as the literature'sprevalentpicture,otherswill disagree. Determiningthe pervasivenessof the image she discerns throughoutthe entire rabbiniccorpus is virtually impossible, especially as Baskin's study is itself limited to the nonhalakhic sources. Even acceptingthe generalaccuracyof Baskin'sapproach,much remainsto be done. The questionof historicaldevelopmentis not asked here at all, and so we can't yet discern whetherthe rabbinicideas changed over time, developed within a document,or the like. Similarly,while Baskin hints at differencesbetween the attitudesin Babyloniaand the land of Israel,she fails to use the geographicalvariations as a startingpoint for furtheranalysis.And, the question of the attitudeof the halakhiccorpusremainscentral.Still, even as these questionsremain,we must appreciatewhat Baskin has providedus. The idea that the rabbiniccultureis male-centeredor that the rabbistreated women as "inferior,other, deficient, or whatever"is not new to anyone who has seriously dealt with the rabbiniccorpus. However,what Baskin has done that no one else has done in English is to bringtogethera vast arrayof rabbinicpassages which expressanddevelopwomen's"otherness"andto arguepersuasivelythatthis resulted from the rabbis' conscious decision. Baskin has given us an excellent study of women in rabbinicJudaismand Jewish cultureof late antiquity.Hers is a serious and well informedvoice that must be engaged in any futureconversation on this topic. Gary G. Porton Universityof Illinois Urbana-Champaign,Illinois

Michael L. Satlow.Jewish Marriage in Antiquity.Princetonand Oxford: Princeton UniversityPress, 2001. xxvi, 431 pp. This book contains a full review of Jewish marriagein antiquity,beginning with biblical injunctions, but focusing primarily on postbiblical material and specifically on rabbinicliterature.It is divided into threeparts: 1. Thinkingabout Marriage,in which Satlowdescribeshow andwhy Jewishmarriageswereplanned, 2. Marrying,in which he describesthe process of marriageitself, and 3. Staying 354

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Tal Ilan Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 354-356 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131530 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews a time, and these, in Baskin'swords, "suggestedthat compassionand faith should prevailover dissolving a loving marriage"if therewere no children(p. 119). However, if individualwomen might be suspect at times, Chapter6 explores the logical conclusion thatgroups of women could pose a severe threatto males andtheir centralitywithin rabbinicculture. Baskinclearlyillustratesthe rabbinicimage of womanas "other,"as less perfect/desirablethanthe male, and as a possible threatto the ideal world createdby the male imagination.Her book accordinglycontributessignificantly to the current debateon Jewish women in late antiquity,a debatein which she actively participates.At the same time, while Baskin makes a good case for the importanceof her view as the literature'sprevalentpicture,otherswill disagree. Determiningthe pervasivenessof the image she discerns throughoutthe entire rabbiniccorpus is virtually impossible, especially as Baskin's study is itself limited to the nonhalakhic sources. Even acceptingthe generalaccuracyof Baskin'sapproach,much remainsto be done. The questionof historicaldevelopmentis not asked here at all, and so we can't yet discern whetherthe rabbinicideas changed over time, developed within a document,or the like. Similarly,while Baskin hints at differencesbetween the attitudesin Babyloniaand the land of Israel,she fails to use the geographicalvariations as a startingpoint for furtheranalysis.And, the question of the attitudeof the halakhiccorpusremainscentral.Still, even as these questionsremain,we must appreciatewhat Baskin has providedus. The idea that the rabbiniccultureis male-centeredor that the rabbistreated women as "inferior,other, deficient, or whatever"is not new to anyone who has seriously dealt with the rabbiniccorpus. However,what Baskin has done that no one else has done in English is to bringtogethera vast arrayof rabbinicpassages which expressanddevelopwomen's"otherness"andto arguepersuasivelythatthis resulted from the rabbis' conscious decision. Baskin has given us an excellent study of women in rabbinicJudaismand Jewish cultureof late antiquity.Hers is a serious and well informedvoice that must be engaged in any futureconversation on this topic. Gary G. Porton Universityof Illinois Urbana-Champaign,Illinois

Michael L. Satlow.Jewish Marriage in Antiquity.Princetonand Oxford: Princeton UniversityPress, 2001. xxvi, 431 pp. This book contains a full review of Jewish marriagein antiquity,beginning with biblical injunctions, but focusing primarily on postbiblical material and specifically on rabbinicliterature.It is divided into threeparts: 1. Thinkingabout Marriage,in which Satlowdescribeshow andwhy Jewishmarriageswereplanned, 2. Marrying,in which he describesthe process of marriageitself, and 3. Staying 354

Book Reviews Married,in which marriedlife and its consequences are at issue. In each of these parts Satlow correctlyattemptsto drawa line between the ideals of marriageas portrayedin the sources and what actually went on, as far as these allow us a glimpse of reality. In this book Michael Satlow establishes himself as the foremost scholar of Jewish marriagein antiquity.Yet, he is clearly also interestedin the present, and he is very forthcomingaboutthis. He startshis book by statingthata "carefulstudy of the past can contribute... to the contemporarydiscussion of marriage"(p. xvi), and ends it with a long epilogue justifying the relevanceof his study for marital debateswithin Jewish society in America today (pp. 265-71). In other, less explicit terms, Satlow's work is a productof our times. His study is free from any apologetics in his descriptionof ancient Jewish marriage practices. He has no problem describingpolygyny as the maritalnorm for Jews (pp. 189-92). He elaborateson the shockingly practical, economic/contractual ratherthanromantic/sentimentalcharacterof Jewishmarriageat the time (pp. 23342). He even states, against most Jewish commentators,that "in ancient Semitic law and among Jews in the prerabbinicperiod,the rightto divorcewas bilateral:a husbandor wife could initiatea divorce"(p. 214). The otherindicationthatthis study was writtenin the 1990s is Satlow'suse of relatively new methodological presuppositions. He constantly distinguishes between rabbinic documents that date from early and late times, which do not complement one another but, rather,stand in chronological tension, and prove development or reaction ratherthan painting a stable picture of reality. Furthermore, rabbinic literaturewas composed in two very different geographical locations and under two different regimes-in Roman Palestine and in Persian (Sassanian) Babylonia. Satlow is continuously alert to this fact and would never confuse a source from one place or time with the other. All scholars of rabbinic literaturetoday take these presuppositionsfor granted,but it was not always so, and for the question of marriage,this is the first study thatconsistently adopts this approach. The distinction between Palestinianand Babylonian sources informs Satlow's most importantand consistentthesis throughoutthe book. He assertsthatalthough the Palestinianand Babylonianrabbiswere in constantdialogue with one anotheron the meaningof Jewishmarriage,in the final analysisthey endorsedtwo completely differentapproachesto the issue, drivenby the two culturesin which they lived. The Palestinianrabbis,living in the Greco-Roman world,saw the purpose of marriageas the foundingof a "household."This means thatmarriagewas inherentlygood. The Babylonianrabbis,who lived underPersian-Sassanianrule and in a Zoroastrianculture,viewed marriageas an outlet for a man'ssexual urges. It is thus fundamentallya concession. Satlow's argumentthroughoutthe book flows from this premise and one is impressedby the parallelshe bringsto support his claims, notjust fromthe well-researchedGreco-Roman culture,but also from the Sassanianworld. All this is intendedas praise for the book. My two last comments are in the form of critique.The first is the apparentmistrustof the Orientdisplayedby the author.He suggests thatas farremovedfromour maritalideals as PalestinianJew355

Book Reviews ish marriagemay appear,its Babylonianvarietyepitomizes all that we abhor.For example, Satlow discusses sayings on marriage attributedto Babylonians and to Palestinians,writing:"In Palestine, accordingto the tradition... a wife is either ... bad or ... good" but for the Babylonians"all wives to some extent are evil" (p. 9). Thus, if women, accordingto the Babylonians,areevil, then so is marriage. Wives should be treatedwith disgust and contempt.This will hardlyallow for a marriageof trust that we in the West envision. This identification of a resounding Babyloniannegation of women informs the rest of Satlow's study.I do not doubt that Satlow has indeed shown a deep culturalrift between Babylonian and Palestinianrabbis,but I suspect the languageof revulsionhe uses towardthe Babyloniancustoms stems from his modem sensibilities regardingthe Orient.Although the Greco-Romans are hardlythe Christianwest, and ZoroastrianPersia was certainlynot today's Islamic world, geographically,they did occupy respectively the same spaces that these culturesoccupy today. Satlow'spresentationof these marriagecustoms reflects our modem world in a disturbingway. I am sure the Babyloniansdeserve a more nuancedtreatmentand a less stereotypicalinterpretationthanthey received here. Finally,I want to touch on Satlow'sdifficult relationshipwith feminist studies. Althoughliving in an age when feminist studies dominatethe academicscene, and although this is Satlow's second book touching specifically on issues that involve womento a greatextent,1Satlowchooses to distancehimself fromthis discipline. This decision also reflects on the way the entirebook is composed. It begins on the very first page. There,Satlowcites a rabbinictraditionandparaphrases it with the words, "Ourdarshan clearly states that a man should marry .. ." and then stateswhy.Yet,he neverdiscusses the reasonsthatwomen shouldmarry.This attitudeis evident throughoutthe book. Here is, in my opinion, the most resounding example: Satlow interprets"rape"as a strategycouples may have adoptedto circumventparentalauthorityand marry (pp. 124-29). I find this suggestion a male fantasy that completely ignores the real dangersof rape and the extremely traumaticcharacterof biblical and postbiblicalrape laws primarilyfor the raped woman-who is now compelled to marrythe rapist. Tal Ilan The HebrewUniversity Jerusalem,Israel

Alexander Samely. The Rabbinic Interpretationof Scripture in Mishnah. New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 2001. 498 pp. AlexanderSamely, Senior Lecturerin Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Manchester University,has writtenwhat I would describe as one of the most detailed 1. His first book is Tastingthe Dish: RabbinicRhetorics of Sexuality (Atlanta:Brown Judaic Studies, 1995), 303.

356

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Michael Chernick Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 356-359 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131531 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews ish marriagemay appear,its Babylonianvarietyepitomizes all that we abhor.For example, Satlow discusses sayings on marriage attributedto Babylonians and to Palestinians,writing:"In Palestine, accordingto the tradition... a wife is either ... bad or ... good" but for the Babylonians"all wives to some extent are evil" (p. 9). Thus, if women, accordingto the Babylonians,areevil, then so is marriage. Wives should be treatedwith disgust and contempt.This will hardlyallow for a marriageof trust that we in the West envision. This identification of a resounding Babyloniannegation of women informs the rest of Satlow's study.I do not doubt that Satlow has indeed shown a deep culturalrift between Babylonian and Palestinianrabbis,but I suspect the languageof revulsionhe uses towardthe Babyloniancustoms stems from his modem sensibilities regardingthe Orient.Although the Greco-Romans are hardlythe Christianwest, and ZoroastrianPersia was certainlynot today's Islamic world, geographically,they did occupy respectively the same spaces that these culturesoccupy today. Satlow'spresentationof these marriagecustoms reflects our modem world in a disturbingway. I am sure the Babyloniansdeserve a more nuancedtreatmentand a less stereotypicalinterpretationthanthey received here. Finally,I want to touch on Satlow'sdifficult relationshipwith feminist studies. Althoughliving in an age when feminist studies dominatethe academicscene, and although this is Satlow's second book touching specifically on issues that involve womento a greatextent,1Satlowchooses to distancehimself fromthis discipline. This decision also reflects on the way the entirebook is composed. It begins on the very first page. There,Satlowcites a rabbinictraditionandparaphrases it with the words, "Ourdarshan clearly states that a man should marry .. ." and then stateswhy.Yet,he neverdiscusses the reasonsthatwomen shouldmarry.This attitudeis evident throughoutthe book. Here is, in my opinion, the most resounding example: Satlow interprets"rape"as a strategycouples may have adoptedto circumventparentalauthorityand marry (pp. 124-29). I find this suggestion a male fantasy that completely ignores the real dangersof rape and the extremely traumaticcharacterof biblical and postbiblicalrape laws primarilyfor the raped woman-who is now compelled to marrythe rapist. Tal Ilan The HebrewUniversity Jerusalem,Israel

Alexander Samely. The Rabbinic Interpretationof Scripture in Mishnah. New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 2001. 498 pp. AlexanderSamely, Senior Lecturerin Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Manchester University,has writtenwhat I would describe as one of the most detailed 1. His first book is Tastingthe Dish: RabbinicRhetorics of Sexuality (Atlanta:Brown Judaic Studies, 1995), 303.

356

Book Reviews and precise descriptionsof the Mishnah'suse of scripturalsources. His book, The RabbinicInterpretationof Scripturein the Mishnah,a fifteen-chapterworkwith a glossary of importantrabbinicand linguistic terms, two appendices,an excellent bibliography,andthoroughindices shows the workof a meticulous scholarand incisive and insightfulreaderof the Bible and mishnaic corpus. Samely'sthoroughdescriptionof the Mishnah'shermeneuticsof scriptural interpretationgeneratesa prodigiousnumberof phenomenatoo manifoldandvaried to presentindividually.This review will, therefore,confine itself to a general overview of Samely'swork. In fairness to the readersof this review and to Samely, however,I will providea digest of Chapters1-6 in orderto give some sense of what Samely has accomplished. Samely begins his work with a hermeneuticorientationand introduction. Therehe cautionsthe readeragainstapplyingthe canons of contemporaryreading of the Bible to rabbinicreading of it. While this may be obvious to those whose field of study is rabbinicliterature,this warningis importantbecause we must understandwhat rabbinicscripturalinterpretationis and is not. Namely, it is a variety of interpretation,though contemporarycritical-historical scholarshipmight consider it too distant from the "plainmeaning"of the text to qualify.Nevertheless, it is not, as some scholars of rabbinicliteraturehave claimed, some form of etymology or philology. In his introductorychapter(Ch. 1) Samelyalso speaksof "resources"of rabbinic interpretation."Resources"is a term Samely uses to describe particular hermeneuticactionsthe Mishnahuses in interpretingthe scripturaltext. He prefers this termto "methods"because "methods"implies a universalityof approach,and as his book confirms, rabbinicinterpretationis exceptionally flexible and often uses morethanone hermeneuticactionto achieve its interpretationalresults.In the following chapters,Samely cataloguesthese resourcesby type andnumber,for example,TopicO.He describesthe hermeneuticactionthata "resource"indicatesand providesa mishnaic example for it. Thus, a TopicOresourceis one in which there is a "Tacituse of a specific assumptionrooted in the Mishnaic discourse for explication of a Scripturalexpression"(p. 411). An exampleof this appearsin mBava Qama 9:11 where Numbers 5:8 is applied to a convert ratherthan to a native Israelite without kin. This interpretationdepends, as Samely points out, on the mishnaic assumptionthat the only person without kin within the Jewish community is a convertwhose legal ties to his or her biological family membersare, according to mishnaic law, sundered(p. 78). Samely ends his opening chapterwith a descriptionof the Mishnah,the point that Scripturedoes not set the orderof topics for the Mishnahnor does it appearin all mishnayot,an overview of priorscholarship on rabbinic interpretationof Scripture, and a short description of the contentsof Chapters2-14. In the interestsof brevity,I will not review all of these chapters.I will, however,review the essence of Chapters2-4. Chapter2 is of great importanceto the work. Here Samely introducesus to the linguisticsterm "co-text,"which is the environmentin which a word or phrase appears.Samelypoints out thatplacementof Scriptureinto a mishnaicco-text constantlyacts to remove (or reduce) Scripture'sambiguities(p. 32). Anotherimportant feature of Scripture'sappearancein Mishnah is that it generally does not 357

Book Reviews appearwhole. Rather,Mishnahcreates and uses segments of Scripturein its interpretations(p. 33ff). This separationof Scripturefrom its original co-text neutralizesthatco-text andopens Scriptureto almostlimitless meaning.Samelyposits thatthis may be the point whererabbinictheology and interpretationmeet:The divinely authoredtext by definition should provideinfinite meaning and,therefore, an inexhaustiblesourceof potentialinterpretations(pp. 54-55). Consequently,the meaning of Scripturein Mishnahwill ultimatelybe determinedby imposing rabbinic/mishnaic perspectiveonto the text. How this happenstakes up Chapters34. The exampleof TopicOI cited aboveprovidesa sense of Samely'spoints in these chapters. Chapter5, titled "Scripture'sWords,Mishnah'sSpeech,"describeshow the Mishnahuses Scriptureto express itself. An example of this sort of expressionoccurs when Mishnah creates terminology that depends on scripturalreferences. Thus, for example, the Mishnahspeaks of the obligationof sending awaythe dam before one takes chicks or eggs as nprhwin. This mishnaic term borrows from words used in Deuteronomy22:6-7. Thus Mishnahexpresses itself using Scripture. Samely calls these resources"USE."Samely supplies many other examples of USE resources,but, again, this review is not the place for an exhaustivetreatment of these examples. Chapter6 providesexamplesof what Samelycalls "BiblicalEventsIllustrating Normativeand DescriptiveSchemata."In cases where Mishnahuses biblical events, they often providethe basis for halakhicnorms.The mishnaicuse of these scripturaleventstendsto deemphasizesome elementsof theoriginalscripturalcontext. Mishnahthen providesnew featuresfor the event that supportits discourse. Thus, R. Yehudahuses the case of David followingAbner'sbier (2 Samuel3:31) to provethata Jewishking may leave his palaceto honorsomeone in this way (mSanhedrin2:3). The Sages, who hold thatthe king may neverleave his palace, cite the original context of the narrative(the scriptural"co-text")to refute R. Yehudah's opinion. Samelyprovidesthe name NORM for this resource(p. 149-152). I could continueto describethe essence of the variouschapters,but I believe this summaryof several chaptersgives the sense of the work.Those who are interestedin rabbinicliteraturecan easily see the value of Samely'swork as a major contributionto an aspect of the phenomenologyof the Mishnah.Yet,for all its value, Samely's work has one major shortcoming:the writing style makes for extremely difficult reading.There is a tremendousamount of technical linguistics terminologyin additionto his own specific terminologyfor the categorizationof the "resources"he identifies.Addedto this, his resourceexample,which often provides a pictureworth a thousandwords, usually follows ratherthan precedes his detailed but abstractdescription of the resource. A quote from Samely's book should give the readersof this review a sense of what might stand in the way of their easily penetratingSamely's work. Here is his definition of a "resource"he calls "Cotext5"and a citationof his discussion of its hermeneuticfunction. Cotext5:Explication of themeaningof anexpressionin the lightof thebiblical co-text,wherethe latteris linkedby cohesivesignalsor narrative connectednessbeyondtheclause. 358

Book Reviews in Theexistenceandfrequency of theCotext5resourceprovidesa perspective threeimportant respects: is veryfar It showsthatthe"atomistic" whileprominent, Cotextlapproach, that fromuniversalin Mishnaichermeneutics. indirectly (Italsodemonstrates theneutralizing resourceCotext1 is nottheresultof negligenceormisunderunlikelyin anycase.)(p. 41) standing,whichwouldbe intrinsically I have triedto be fair in selecting a representativecitationby startingat the beginning of a sectionthatdefines a resource,ratherthanstartingin mediasres. The definitionitself is ratheropaque,and when Samelyproceedsto compareCotext5with whathe describedearlieras Cotextl, he calls uponthe readerto rememberwhatthe Cotextl resourcewas like and how it was defined.True,one can turnto AppendixI for a quick reminder,but there one will find this: "Cotextl: Neutralizingthe seleadmanticeffect of the biblicalco-textat the sentence,clause, or phrase-boundary, ing to a readjustmentor, if necessary,dissolutionof grammaticaldependencies." The technical difficulty of this work raises two serious questions: 1. For whom was the book written?and 2. Do the benefits of readingthe work outweigh the difficulties of workingone's way throughthe text?Most rabbinicsscholars,for betteror worse, do not have the technical academic linguistics and literarytraining thateasily facilitateshandlingRabbinicInterpretationofScripturein theMishnah, andyet they arethe most interestedandbest-equippedaudienceto appreciate the phenomenathat Samely analyzes.Those academicsspecifically trainedin linguistics and literaryanalysis and criticism might be interestedin the phenomena that Samely describes.They,however,do not for the most parthave knowledgeof any genre of rabbinic literature,let alone the Mishnah,or much preparationfor readingit. For them, the technical halakhicissues that occupy much of the mishnaic discoursediscussed in Samely'sbook are likely to be too arcaneand legalistically orientedto manage. Samely states in his conclusion thathis work createsa type (as in the Greek usage) of analysis and descriptionthat can be used with appropriatemodification in the study of "the interpretationof Homerby the Greeks,the Muslim commentaries on the Qur'an,or the interpretationof Scriptureby the ChurchFathers... ." (p. 393). This suggests thatRabbinicInterpretationof Scripturein the Mishnahis for everyone. It appearsto me, however,that it is best suited for those with good rabbinicsand linguisticsbackgroundsor, lacking those accomplishments,considerableperseverance. In sum, Samely'sbook is a treasuretrove of analysis and cataloging of the Mishnah'sways of interpretingthe TaNaKh.Even the academicallytrainedreader, however,must be preparedto workhardto mine its gems. Michael Chernick of Religion Institute Hebrew Union College-Jewish New York,New York

359

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Harvey E. Goldberg Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 360-361 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131532 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

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Book Reviews Josef W. Meri. The Cult of Saints Among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria. Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 2002. viii, 327 pp. This book discusses cults surroundingsainted figures in Islam, and secondarilyin Judaism,frommanypoints of view. It urgesresearchersto go beyond"the traditionalmethodsof interpretingJewishand Islamictexts,"andto probethe "human dimensionof spirituality."It maintainsthatstudyingthe practices,beliefs, and idiosyncraticdeeds directedto saintedpersonages-both alive and dead-allows us to explore spiritualpaths along which we meet the poor as well as the powerful, and both the theologianand the unschooledbeliever. "Cultof saints"is a compactphrase,but each chapterunpacksone aspect of the phenomenon,pointing to its multifacetednatureand to the variationwithin it. The first chapterdiscusses how space becomes sacred.While precise origins are rarelyknown, often there is a combinationof popularattractionto a place with some strikingphysicalfeatureandthe evocationof a traditionlinkedto a text-based or historicalspiritualhero. The second chapterexplores aspects of sainthood,examining both theological notions and the associations of notions of baraka(cognate of Hebrewberakha)in social and religious contexts. In contrastto Muslims, Jews appearto have actively relatedto saints withouta doctrineof sainthood.The next and longest chapter,"Experiencingthe Holy,"discusses pilgrimagesand the ritualsembeddedwithin them. It considersthe ambivalenceinherentin practices, which implies that they are substitutesfor the obligatoryor more establishedvisits to Mecca or Jerusalem.Drawingupon ArnoldVan Gennep and VictorTurner, it documentsthe rangeof humanneeds, emotions, crises, ideas, and social stations that become engaged in pilgrim behavior.Next is a short chapteron Jewish pilgrimage. Dataon Jews appearthroughoutthe study,while this discussionexplores the overlap-or absence thereof-between Muslim and Jewish notions of ziyara (visits to a shrine).It cites materialdepictingpilgrimagesof special importanceto Jews (often simultaneouslywith their being the focus of Muslim visits), such as the tomb of Samuel near Jerusalemand of Ezekiel in southernIraq, and places where Elijah is claimed to have appearedthroughoutthe Middle East. The last chapter(excluding a brief conclusion) focuses on pilgrimage"places."It contains a typology thatorganizesthe rangeof physicalattributesof sites thathave become sanctified "rangingfrom cairns to elaboratemausoleums, tomb complexes, and domed shrines(qubba)"(p. 262). This discussion underlinesa generalpoint of the book, demonstratingboth how widespread"the"cult of saints is (I would dropthe definite article),but also how necessary it is to study the subjectin its diverseand specific manifestations. The bulk of the book deals with Muslim life and brings many extended quotes documentingthe ubiquityand significance of socioreligious relationswith saints. Like many of the topics and notions discussed,the word"saints"is used as shorthandfor a rangeof termsand concepts, which the authorlays forth,illustrating differentnuancesand contextualmeanings.As partof this approach,we learn of differenttheological stances regardingsainthoodor the practiceof ziyara. It is clear that the learnedtractsare relatingto popularreligious expressionsthat predated Islam and continuedto develop after it became hegemonic in the regions. 360

Book Reviews Different attitudesare linked to the Sunni-Shi'i divide, and the influence of Sufism is discussed.The attentionto saints among Jews (often, but not only, termed tzaddikim),serves to underlinethatone is dealing with a widespreadphenomenon which elite literaticould not eliminatefromtheirpurview.It is not clearwhy Christian groupsarenot includedin the study,particularlyas they areoccasionallymentioned and because some of the shrines are traditionallyattributedto Christian figures like St. Johnthe Baptist,known as Yahyab. Zakariya. Informationon Jews is also presentedextensively.Jews sharedsome saints conceptuallywith Muslims (Elijahis known as al-Khadir),and also visited some of the same sites (the tomb of Ezekiel in Kifl was the site of Yom Kippurworship but Muslims were not absent from the scene). The materialoften derives from existing collections. Forexamplewe areexposed to Petahiyahof Regensbergthrough ElkanAdler'svolume on travelers,and we are given an English version of partof Zvi Ilan'spublicationof a fourteenth-centuryGeniza document (caution may be in orderin some instances,e.g., on p. 243 what shouldbe Iyyaris renderedAdar). The book cites other contemporarywork, notablyby ElhananReiner,and a reference to IssacharBen-Ami recalls more recentMaghrebisaintadoration.Zvi Yehudah's historicalwork on Jewish-Muslim rivalry in relationto the Ezekiel site is overlooked,as is YoramBilu's anthropologicalinvestigationsin Israelthat reveal the multilayeredpersonalmeaningsthatare entailedin relationsto saints andbear relevanceto past eras. It is interestingto speculate (beyond the statedpurpose of the book), about what is it that awakensscholars of Judaicafrom time to time to attendto this "peripheral"topic, linkedto the geographicalspreadand location of Jews. Meri'swork suggests thatthe subjectmay not be as marginalas one thinks, but a vital dimension of religious imaginationsthat deserves furtherstudy. Harvey E. Goldberg HebrewUniversity Jerusalem,Israel

JamesArthurDiamond.Maimonidesand the Hermeneuticsof Concealment:DecipheringScriptureand Midrashin TheGuideof thePerplexed.Albany:StateUniversity of New YorkPress, 2002. x, 235 pp. MenachemLorberbaum.Politics and the LimitsofLaw: Secularizingthe Political in MedievalJewish Thought.Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 2001. xii, 216 PP. The two books before us expand the horizons of Maimonideanstudies, on the divergentplanes of literatureand politics. James Diamond's study of Maimonides' use of the Bible and midrashis a tour de force of literaryanalysis,while MenachemLorberbaumoffers in parta view of Maimonides'attitudeto political authorityof considerablerelevancetoday. The title of Diamond'sbook is very apt, in thatMaimonides'hermeneutical 361

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Alfred Ivry Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 361-364 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131533 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews Different attitudesare linked to the Sunni-Shi'i divide, and the influence of Sufism is discussed.The attentionto saints among Jews (often, but not only, termed tzaddikim),serves to underlinethatone is dealing with a widespreadphenomenon which elite literaticould not eliminatefromtheirpurview.It is not clearwhy Christian groupsarenot includedin the study,particularlyas they areoccasionallymentioned and because some of the shrines are traditionallyattributedto Christian figures like St. Johnthe Baptist,known as Yahyab. Zakariya. Informationon Jews is also presentedextensively.Jews sharedsome saints conceptuallywith Muslims (Elijahis known as al-Khadir),and also visited some of the same sites (the tomb of Ezekiel in Kifl was the site of Yom Kippurworship but Muslims were not absent from the scene). The materialoften derives from existing collections. Forexamplewe areexposed to Petahiyahof Regensbergthrough ElkanAdler'svolume on travelers,and we are given an English version of partof Zvi Ilan'spublicationof a fourteenth-centuryGeniza document (caution may be in orderin some instances,e.g., on p. 243 what shouldbe Iyyaris renderedAdar). The book cites other contemporarywork, notablyby ElhananReiner,and a reference to IssacharBen-Ami recalls more recentMaghrebisaintadoration.Zvi Yehudah's historicalwork on Jewish-Muslim rivalry in relationto the Ezekiel site is overlooked,as is YoramBilu's anthropologicalinvestigationsin Israelthat reveal the multilayeredpersonalmeaningsthatare entailedin relationsto saints andbear relevanceto past eras. It is interestingto speculate (beyond the statedpurpose of the book), about what is it that awakensscholars of Judaicafrom time to time to attendto this "peripheral"topic, linkedto the geographicalspreadand location of Jews. Meri'swork suggests thatthe subjectmay not be as marginalas one thinks, but a vital dimension of religious imaginationsthat deserves furtherstudy. Harvey E. Goldberg HebrewUniversity Jerusalem,Israel

JamesArthurDiamond.Maimonidesand the Hermeneuticsof Concealment:DecipheringScriptureand Midrashin TheGuideof thePerplexed.Albany:StateUniversity of New YorkPress, 2002. x, 235 pp. MenachemLorberbaum.Politics and the LimitsofLaw: Secularizingthe Political in MedievalJewish Thought.Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 2001. xii, 216 PP. The two books before us expand the horizons of Maimonideanstudies, on the divergentplanes of literatureand politics. James Diamond's study of Maimonides' use of the Bible and midrashis a tour de force of literaryanalysis,while MenachemLorberbaumoffers in parta view of Maimonides'attitudeto political authorityof considerablerelevancetoday. The title of Diamond'sbook is very apt, in thatMaimonides'hermeneutical 361

Book Reviews practices are often keyed towardsconcealing his true views on the natureof the Deity and His relationto the world.It does not help thatmuch to have Maimonides confess in the introductionto the Guide that he will be crafty and deceptive, for which of his often apparentlyconflicting positions is the one he really holds?The scripturaland midrashicsources that Maimonidesbrings in alleged supportof a given claim can often strengthena contraryposition, vehamevinyavin, only the wise will understand.This is the dimension of Maimonides'work, the ubiquitous presence in it of traditionalproof texts, thatJamesDiamondaddresses,andhis impressive treatmentof these sources assists in making all of us wiser. Diamondis concernedprimarilywith Maimonides'handlingof the issue of Divine Providence,and focuses primarilyon Maimonides'treatmentin Guide I:15 of the biblical tale of Jacob'sladder.The chaptersin the Guide that lead up to this, as discussed in Chapter4 of Diamond'sbook, and the "sevenunits"of images and terms associated with the ladder that constitute Chapter5, are the heart of this study. They offer a highly persuasive reading of Maimonides' utilization of sources, showing his interpretiveboldness and creativity.As Diamond remarks, "Maimonides'use of midrashcan be describedas the allegorizationof allegory" (p. 3). DiamondunderstandscorrectlythatMaimonides'view of Divine Unity precludes change and affect in God, removingHim from personalrelationshipswith mankind.Divine Providenceaccordinglyis expressedfor Maimonidesin the workings of the naturalworld,knowledge of which he regardsas equivalentto reception of thatprovidence.Diamond'sachievementlies in showing how Maimonides construesthe bible and rabbinicsources, which treatGod in personaland human terms, to supporta deistic interpretation. For all his impressive interpretationand marshallingof sources, Diamond attemptsto avoid taking sides philosophically on the many issues that are connected to this understandingof Divine Providence.He explicitly excuses himself from "enteringthe debates"over Maimonides'positions on creationand the status of ethics (pp. 98, 196). Whengiven, philosophicalexplanationsaremostlypresented summarily.His distinction, for example, on page 189, note 50, between God's relationto eternitya parte ante and a parte post requiresconsiderablequalification. This, then, is not a work of philosophicalargumentso much as it is one of literarysupportof such argument.This supportcan neverbe conclusive in its own right, though it does make a powerfulcase for believing it reveals the true Maimonides. Diamondis writingfor an educatedaudience,some of whom will wince at the uninformedtransliterationof Hebrewwordsthatappearin the book (midah for middah,r'oshfor ro'sh,malkhiyotfor malchuyot,etc.). Diamondis not an Arabist (this is particularlyevident in the mannerin which he consults only secondary texts for a particularreadingat p. 183, n. 10), and his Hebrewmay need work. He does, however,have full control of the midrashicand commentaryliteraturethat are at the heartof his book, and cracksthe code resoundingly. MenachemLorberbaumhas writtena book that"exploresthe emergenceand elaborationof the fundamentalpolitical concepts of medievalJewishthought,primarilyconceptsrelatedto political agency,political life as a distinctdomainofhu362

Book Reviews man activity,and constitutionalpolitics" (p. xi). This may come as somethingof a surpriseto those who aremore accustomedto viewing medievalJewishthoughtas opposed to such attitudes. Lorberbaum,however, establishes a significant engagement with these issues, exemplified through analysis of attitudes towards monarchyand the law. The monarchyand law in questionare Jewish,but the entailmentsof the positions taken bear upon the Jewish attitudetowardsgentile rulers and the larger non-Jewishpolity in which Jews have lived. Though Lorberbaumeschews discussing the presentpolitical situationin Israel, much of his analysis has contemporarysignificance for the crisis in the relationof politics and religion there. As Lorberbaumpoints out in his introduction,the biblical view of political rule legitimatesmonarchybut places God above the mortalsovereign as the true king of a theocraticstate.The failings of anddisappointmentswith the Hasmonean kings undoubtedlyled the rabbis to distance themselves and the law from theocraticand monarchicmodels of leadershipwhile at the same time recognizingthe practicalnecessity of accordinga king extrajuridicalstatus. MedievalJewishthinkerssharpenedthe implicitdichotomizationof rabbinic attitudestowardsthe political scope of Jewish law,acknowledgingthe authorityof extra-halakhic,or as Lorberbaumcalls them, "secular"norms.Maimonidesin the twelfthcenturyis seen as attemptingto balancecompetingnormativeand ideal attitudes towardspolitical agency, while R. Nissim Gerondi(the RaN) in the fourteenth century is presented as a culminating voice of extreme secularization, explicitly advocatinga dual legal system. Lorberbaumconsiders the views of Gerondi and his predecessors, Nahmanidesand Solomon b. AbrahamibnAdret(RaSHBA),as providingthe theoretical justification for the consolidation of a Jewish communal self-government independentof rabbinicauthority.In a final chapter,LorberbaumconsidersAbravanel's rejectionof these views and Spinoza'sextremeadoptionof them. Maimonides, Lorberbaumdemonstrates,explicitly recognizes the limitations of legal precepts,always gearedto theoreticallytypical instances,providing meansthereforeto suit the generalto the specific case. One such means is the ability of jurists to invoke "temporarydecisions,"hora'atsha'ah, wherebythe mitigating conditions of contingencycome to the fore (p. 39). Kings, too, enjoy such discretionarypowers,Maimonidesacknowledges,a view bornein uponhim by his convictions regardingthe role of monarchyin assuringa stable society. Thus the king, howeverrespectfulhe ought to be of the law and the Sanhedrin,can act outside of theirpurview when he judges it necessary. In Lorberbaum'sview, Maimonides distinguishes between commands that governritualbehaviorand those thatgoverncivil behavior,the king given latitude with the latter.This latitudeis extendedto the rightof kings to prescriberoyallaws in fiscal and othermatters,as well as in criminalcases. This establishesa dual and Lorberpotentiallycompeting legal system with that of the Sanhedrin/rabbinate, baum asserts. He regardsthis as a failing in Maimonides'political theory that is only partiallyresolved by his messianic doctrine. LorberbaumpresentsGerondiwithin the context of changinghalakhicattitudes to communallegislation in ChristianSpain in the thirteenthand fourteenth 363

Book Reviews centuries;changes that increasinglyempoweredtownspeople(benei ha-cir)to decree and enforce statutes,creating eventuallya new legal domain, that of public law (p. 95). Utilizing examples from all areas of life, Lorberbaumcontends that the kahal was treatedas a distinctlegal persona,with the rightto enactand enforce takkanot(ordinances). Lorberbaumtraces this process throughthe writings of Nachmanidesand Adret as well as Gerondi,delineatinga progressivelymore explicit division of legal authorityand political leadership.The preservationof social orderis the primary concern for these men, which under the prevailingconditions rendersthe civil and criminallaws of the Torahinoperativeand opens the door,in the name of tikkunha-medinah,to communalgovernment(p. 122). Gerondi'spolitical views are elicited from the collection of sermonsknown as Derashot ha-Ran, particularlythe eleventh sermon. Neither a kabbalistnor a philosopher,Gerondisubscribesto a traditionalreligious worldview,one that regardsGod'swill as the primarycause of all events in the universe.YetGerondi,in Lorberbaum'sopinion, also distinguishes between Torahlaw and temporal law, recognizingpolitics as an autonomousdomain of action (p. 130). Gerondi'sidealization of the sacral characterof Torahlaw is far removed from Maimonides'utilitariantreatmentof that law, and Lorberbaumregardsit as problematicfor a political philosophy.He sees Gerondi as implicitly conceding that society cannotbe runby Torahlaw. This book thuspresentstwo models of medievalJewishpoliticalthoughtthat offer precedents for distinguishingbetween theocratic and secular law. Lorberbaum writes clearly and persuasively,and one only regretsthat the second partof the book, dealing with Gerondiand his predecessors,quotes from sourcesthat are for the most part availableonly in their original Hebrew.Analysis has here preceded full translation,a task that ought to be addressedsoon. Alfred Ivry New YorkUniversity New York,New York

Jose Luis Lacave. Medieval Ketubotfrom Sefarad. Hispania Judaica 11, ed. H. Beinartet al. Jerusalem:Magnes Press, 2002. 268 pp. Professor Jose Luis Lacave collected thirty ketubot (marriage contracts) from variousmedieval Hispanickingdoms.These ketubotwere found in different librariesand archives. Most of the documentshave been publishedbefore, some of them by Lacavehimself. Threeare publishedhere for the first time. The authorexaminedthe ketubotand made a detailed comparisonbetween them. Twelve ketubotare from Catalan(most of these are from Barcelona);four arefromMajorca;nine arefromNavarre(most of these fromTudela);fourarefrom Castile;one is fromToledo.All were writtenduringthe thirteenththroughfifteenth centuries. 364

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Yosef Rivlin Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 364-367 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131534 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

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Book Reviews centuries;changes that increasinglyempoweredtownspeople(benei ha-cir)to decree and enforce statutes,creating eventuallya new legal domain, that of public law (p. 95). Utilizing examples from all areas of life, Lorberbaumcontends that the kahal was treatedas a distinctlegal persona,with the rightto enactand enforce takkanot(ordinances). Lorberbaumtraces this process throughthe writings of Nachmanidesand Adret as well as Gerondi,delineatinga progressivelymore explicit division of legal authorityand political leadership.The preservationof social orderis the primary concern for these men, which under the prevailingconditions rendersthe civil and criminallaws of the Torahinoperativeand opens the door,in the name of tikkunha-medinah,to communalgovernment(p. 122). Gerondi'spolitical views are elicited from the collection of sermonsknown as Derashot ha-Ran, particularlythe eleventh sermon. Neither a kabbalistnor a philosopher,Gerondisubscribesto a traditionalreligious worldview,one that regardsGod'swill as the primarycause of all events in the universe.YetGerondi,in Lorberbaum'sopinion, also distinguishes between Torahlaw and temporal law, recognizingpolitics as an autonomousdomain of action (p. 130). Gerondi'sidealization of the sacral characterof Torahlaw is far removed from Maimonides'utilitariantreatmentof that law, and Lorberbaumregardsit as problematicfor a political philosophy.He sees Gerondi as implicitly conceding that society cannotbe runby Torahlaw. This book thuspresentstwo models of medievalJewishpoliticalthoughtthat offer precedents for distinguishingbetween theocratic and secular law. Lorberbaum writes clearly and persuasively,and one only regretsthat the second partof the book, dealing with Gerondiand his predecessors,quotes from sourcesthat are for the most part availableonly in their original Hebrew.Analysis has here preceded full translation,a task that ought to be addressedsoon. Alfred Ivry New YorkUniversity New York,New York

Jose Luis Lacave. Medieval Ketubotfrom Sefarad. Hispania Judaica 11, ed. H. Beinartet al. Jerusalem:Magnes Press, 2002. 268 pp. Professor Jose Luis Lacave collected thirty ketubot (marriage contracts) from variousmedieval Hispanickingdoms.These ketubotwere found in different librariesand archives. Most of the documentshave been publishedbefore, some of them by Lacavehimself. Threeare publishedhere for the first time. The authorexaminedthe ketubotand made a detailed comparisonbetween them. Twelve ketubotare from Catalan(most of these are from Barcelona);four arefromMajorca;nine arefromNavarre(most of these fromTudela);fourarefrom Castile;one is fromToledo.All were writtenduringthe thirteenththroughfifteenth centuries. 364

Book Reviews In the first chapterthe authorgives a general descriptionof the documents and the texts. This descriptionincludes: the name of the library;catalogue number;date of signing of the document;size of the parchment;generalcontext;kind of script;first publication,and so forth. In the second chapterthe authordeals with the historicalbackgroundof each document.He providesdetails of the date,dowry,dowryincrement,usual gift, and the separategift. Additionalinformationis suppliedaboutthe groom and his family, the bride and her family,the witnesses, the guaranties,and thejudges. The third chapterdiscusses the structureand content of the ketubot,their decoration,andtheirpreamble.He also gives informationaboutthe formulariesof the date,the place wherethe ketubahwas signed,andotherformulariesof the Jewish contractas an acquisition,and the signaturesof the witnesses. The next chapterincludes an analysis of the dowry'spartsand a comparison between them. We also read about a unique formulathat is written on the same parchmenttogetherwith the text of the ketubah,"the receipt for the dowry."The groom acknowledgeshaving received all the money stipulatedin the dowry. The fifth chapterdeals with the conditionsof the ketubah.The chapteris divided into severalsections.The first section discusses the ketubah'sguarantee,that is, thatthe groom commits himself and his propertyto fulfill what is stipulatedin the ketubah.The next section deals with the separategift. The following section deals with the brideprice (mohar)andthe questionof whetherit is requiredby biblical sanctionor rabbinicallaw.The chapterconcludes with some otherconditions of the ketubahincludingoath, fine, trust,and others. The sixth chaptercontains a brief discussion aboutthe levirateketubah. In the last partof the book the authorbrings the text of the ketubotand displays photographsof each document. ProfessorLacave, a leading experton the materialremainsof SpanishJewhas ry, providedvery importantresearchin his book. He enrichesus with instructive informationculled from the collection of ketubot.Here are a few examples. Since the signaturesof the same witnesses appearon many documents,we can assume thatthese people wereprofessionalnotaries(p. 31). The Barcelona2 ketubah was signed in Barcelona only one year before the assault on the juderia of Barcelona(August, 1391) (p. 32). The Majorca3 ketubahwas signed six months before the assault and sacking of the Jewish quarterin this city (p. 47). The bride mentionedin the Barcelona4 ketubahdied without childrena few years after the wedding (p. 34). In many cases numerouswitnesses signed the ketubah(pp. 47, 49). The authorclaims thatthe two family namesAzafarandAmarilloare one and the same (p. 60). A grandsonof the bride'sfatherwas probablythe famous fish traderof Tudela(p. 63). One of the ketubotwas signed in the city Segurade Leon, which was a leading economic force in the provinceof Badajoz. It was probably for that reason that Isaac Abravaneltook refuge there and lived there for a while (p. 71). When one bride presentedher ketubahbefore the court, demandingher dowry,the court orderedtwo convertedJews to translateit into Castilian(p. 72). Against Maimonides'ruling(Ishut 10:14), no less thanhalf of our ketubotare dated on Friday,which was probably the day on which the rabbinical court met (pp. 77-78). The authornotes a developmentrelatedto titles of the groom. In the 365

Book Reviews thirteenthand fourteenthcenturies his name is preceded by the title "Rabbi," whereas at the end of the fifteenth centuryhe is called "the pleasantyoung man" or "the charmingyoung man" (p. 79). In one case the bride was precededby the title: "the gracious gazelle" (p. 80). The professions of the parties and their antecedents were not customarilyindicated.Only in two cases do we read that one of the parentswas a physician (p. 80). The place of residence is mentionedonly when the partieslive in differentplaces (p. 80). Like other contracts,the ketubah must conclude with the formula"andeverythingis firm and stable"(p. 81). Likewise, it includes the acquisitionformula"andwe the witnesses have received the acquisitionfrom Rabbi So-and-So"(p. 82). The authoralso analyzes the differences among the ketubotof the differentkingdoms. In the Navarreseketubotthe witnesses bringthe groom'sspeakin the first person;the female is referredto "this wife of mine" and not "thebride"as in some otherprovinces (p. 87). A very importantquestion is whether there is any connection between the amount of the dowrythatwas broughtby the brideandthe dowryincrement,which is the groom's additionalobligation;accordingto the Catalanketubot,there is (p. 91). As mentioned above, the receipt for the dowry was sometimes writtenon the same parchment as the ketubah.This was common in Cataloniabut less so in Navarre(p. 95). Also the groom waives makingany claim in the futureto any amountof the dowry (p. 97). In orderto reinforcethe guarantee,the contractmay include an endorsement of the guaranteeby a guarantor,generally,the groom's father,so that if the groom does not pay his debt, the bride can collect it from the guarantor(p. 105). In some cases the groom reinforceshis guaranteeby an oath (p. 106). One of the interestingphenomenain our collection is the separategift, an issue discussed by previousscholars.Here we can see thatthe amountof this gift is not equivalentto the whole amount of the ketubahbut only to the dowry incrementor even less (p. 205). Therewas also historicaldevelopmenthere: In our collection this gift is writtenon the same parchmentas the ketubah,in contrastto whatwas done in previous centuries. Among the additional conditions in the ketubah we find the groom'spromisenot to marryanotherwife while still marriedto the first one; not to divorce her against her will; and not to leave the place where the couple live withouther consent (p. 134). Anotherclause deals with the dowry.It states that if the wife dies without children,the husbandis obliged to returnto her family an amountequal to half of the dowry (p. 135). Only in a few regions do we find the stipulationin which the groom's brotherpromises to grant halizah to the bride should circumstancesrequiringthis arise (p. 151). At this point I would like to make some comments. 1. Generally,it would have been betterto have combinedthe two first chapters into one. 2. The authorfailed to discuss two importantpublishedketubot:one from Villa del Rey, publishedby S. Abramson,in TractateAbodah Zarah (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminaryof America, 1957), p. 132; and the Cairo Geniza documentfromValencia,publishedby E. Ashtor,Sefarad,XXIV (1964), pp. 73-74. 3. The sentence:"Awidow withoutchildren"(p. 69) is incorrect.Correctis: "A widow, whose late husbanddied withoutchildren". 366

Book Reviews 4. In connection to the ketubah,the translation"shoshbin"as "an agent"is superiorto "bestman"(p. 84). 5. "Thedowryremainsby law,the propertyof the husbandin case of divorce ." (p. 86). According to Talmudiclaw (Yebamot66b) the wife can demandthis propertyas a partof the ketubahpayment. 6. The authorwrites thatthe ketubahwas signed "betweenthe betrothaland the wedding"(p. 144), but he does not explain why.This follows the Talmudicrule (Ketubbot83a) that a husbandwho wishes to waive his rights must do so before the wedding. 7. The self-imprisonmentmentionedin some ketubot(pp. 242; 244) was not analyzedby the author.This is a very importantsubjectthatwas dealt with by RIVASH (responsumno. 484). 8. The clause aboutthe Sabbaticalyear mentionedin some ketubot(pp. 171; 174), discussed by some scholars,could be a great contributionto research. 9. Polygyny was dealt with by ProfessorM. A. Friedman.Lacavementions the subject (p. 134), but does not analyze it nor mention Friedman'sdiscussions. Finally,some technicalcomments: 1. It would have been helpful to include a map with the regions and cities mentionedin the documents. 2. There are many printingerrors,especially in the Hebrew text. I supply only a few examples: On page 87, the text should read:inn~sinnin; on page 89, the text should read: pu'wlrnm;on page 93: mnvnuan;on page 110: ps'Irn ln ' 1 "a5nx on page 111, the words: Inn -pmrn~ arenot in the rightplace; on]prt; page L1K

1p• 113, the Hebrewtext was truncated;on page 128, in the first Hebrewparagraph: n on 167: x5i-, and so forth. poln,• ,n1n•1 ,7'1nvn; page Despite these shortcomings,Lacave'sbook greatly expandsour knowledge of the Jewishmarriagecontract.This book is a very significantcontributionto the study of Jewish law,includingsuch issues as Jewish society, the Jewishfamily,the interactionbetween Jews and their surroundings,and so forth. Yosef Rivlin Bar-IlanUniversity RamatGan, Israel

LawrenceFine. Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos:Isaac Luriaand His KabbalisticFellowship. Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 2003. xiii, 480 pp. It is perhapsunorthodoxto begin a book review by citing something from the acknowledgments.In this case, however,I think it is quite apt. Describinghis early foray into the study of Jewish mysticism, Lawrence Fine writes, "It was [Alexander]Altmann who said to me, in one of the earliest conversationsI had with him after I arrivedat Brandeis,that 'nobody understandsLurianicKabbala, not even Scholem,'referring,of course to the preeminenthistorianof Jewish mysticism, Gershom Scholem."It is a comment, I imagine, that Scholem may have 367

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Shaul Magid Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 367-371 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131535 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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Book Reviews 4. In connection to the ketubah,the translation"shoshbin"as "an agent"is superiorto "bestman"(p. 84). 5. "Thedowryremainsby law,the propertyof the husbandin case of divorce ." (p. 86). According to Talmudiclaw (Yebamot66b) the wife can demandthis propertyas a partof the ketubahpayment. 6. The authorwrites thatthe ketubahwas signed "betweenthe betrothaland the wedding"(p. 144), but he does not explain why.This follows the Talmudicrule (Ketubbot83a) that a husbandwho wishes to waive his rights must do so before the wedding. 7. The self-imprisonmentmentionedin some ketubot(pp. 242; 244) was not analyzedby the author.This is a very importantsubjectthatwas dealt with by RIVASH (responsumno. 484). 8. The clause aboutthe Sabbaticalyear mentionedin some ketubot(pp. 171; 174), discussed by some scholars,could be a great contributionto research. 9. Polygyny was dealt with by ProfessorM. A. Friedman.Lacavementions the subject (p. 134), but does not analyze it nor mention Friedman'sdiscussions. Finally,some technicalcomments: 1. It would have been helpful to include a map with the regions and cities mentionedin the documents. 2. There are many printingerrors,especially in the Hebrew text. I supply only a few examples: On page 87, the text should read:inn~sinnin; on page 89, the text should read: pu'wlrnm;on page 93: mnvnuan;on page 110: ps'Irn ln ' 1 "a5nx on page 111, the words: Inn -pmrn~ arenot in the rightplace; on]prt; page L1K

1p• 113, the Hebrewtext was truncated;on page 128, in the first Hebrewparagraph: n on 167: x5i-, and so forth. poln,• ,n1n•1 ,7'1nvn; page Despite these shortcomings,Lacave'sbook greatly expandsour knowledge of the Jewishmarriagecontract.This book is a very significantcontributionto the study of Jewish law,includingsuch issues as Jewish society, the Jewishfamily,the interactionbetween Jews and their surroundings,and so forth. Yosef Rivlin Bar-IlanUniversity RamatGan, Israel

LawrenceFine. Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos:Isaac Luriaand His KabbalisticFellowship. Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 2003. xiii, 480 pp. It is perhapsunorthodoxto begin a book review by citing something from the acknowledgments.In this case, however,I think it is quite apt. Describinghis early foray into the study of Jewish mysticism, Lawrence Fine writes, "It was [Alexander]Altmann who said to me, in one of the earliest conversationsI had with him after I arrivedat Brandeis,that 'nobody understandsLurianicKabbala, not even Scholem,'referring,of course to the preeminenthistorianof Jewish mysticism, Gershom Scholem."It is a comment, I imagine, that Scholem may have 367

Book Reviews even agreed with! In any case, Fine's book is an attempt,and one of the best to date, to try to make sense of the labyrinthineworld of LurianicKabbala.Scholem arguedthatLurianicmetaphysicswas a system developed as a responseto historical phenomena,that is, the Jewish expulsion from Spain, and was largely a creative interpretationof, and commentaryon, the Zohar.Neither Scholem nor his student Isaiah Tishby devoted any significant space to the historical context of LurianicKabbalaor its particularculturalmilieu, or the possibility of externalinfluences on this mystical circle. Both assumed Luriahad historiosophicand not cultural/historicconcerns. This trajectoryhas, until recently,been the accepted frameworkof Lurianicscholarship. Over the course of the past twenty years, this perspectivehas changed significantly.Among others,Fine has publishedscholarlyarticlesthatchallengedScholem's idea that Luria'scentral concern was metaphysicaland historiosophic. Throughouthis workFine arguesthatLuria,while a superbmetaphysician,was in fact focused on people, particularlyon his own circle of students,and was not the disinterested,albeit charismatic,ascetic Scholem made him out to be. Fine states his thesis clearly enough: "This book regardsLurianicKabbala as an embodied phenomenon.By this I mean primarilytwo relatedthings. First, people were at the heartof the Lurianicenterprise... Second, Luriaand his disciples were far more interestedin the life of praxis-both at the individuallevel and at the level of social community-than in speculativeor theoreticalmatters" (p. 9). This claim, which underlies the entire project, is groundbreakingbecause Scholem'sthesis, which had its own ideological foundationhaving nothing to do with Luria, has largely framed our reading of the material in question. I must briefly return,once more, to the acknowledgmentsto posit that Fine's own approachis no more objectivethan Scholem'swas. Fine states,"AsI look back, I believe my interestin studying intentionalcommunityhad something importantto do with my own experimentin communityduringthe early 1970s [referringto his time with HavuratShalomin Somerville,Massachusetts]."So, just as Luriaserved Scholem'smid-centuryZionism quite well, Luriaserves Fine's late-centuryDiaspora"JewishRenewal"approachquitewell. This is no critiquebut, in fact, a compliment-to Scholem and Fine and, I suppose, to Luria.The extent to which a thinker'swork can be employedin light of one's being-in-the-worldis a testament to the elasticityanddurabilityof its message. The impactand influenceof personal and historicalcontext is, of course, inevitableand even constructiveas long as the textualtraditionexploredis done with precision,care,andopen-mindedness.Such is the case with both scholarsmentionedhere. Since, accordingto Fine, "theperson"stands at the center of Luria'swork, it is appropriatethathe begin with the person,that is, Luriahimself. The problem with this, and perhapsthe reason no one has yet attemptedto reconstructLuria's life and personalityfrom a scholarlyperspective(hagiographiesabound,but those mostly muddythe waters),is that we know very little about his life. We know little abouthis life before coming to Safed from Egypt, and he only lived in Safed a short 18 monthsbefore dying of a plague in the summerof 1572. To confrontthis, Fine paints a fine pictureof Egypt duringthe period of Luria'syouth as the only possible way of imagining (and all we can do is imagine) what Luria'searly life 368

Book Reviews must have been like. He reproducesa few importantletters and court documents in which Luriais mentioned,giving us at least an externalsense of the person.Trying to counterScholem'scontentionthatLuriawas a manwho lived in the cosmos, Fine arguesthat, as far as we know, he was an upstandingmemberof the Jewish communityin Cairo(pp. 37-39), served on its rabbinicalcourt,and was involved in commercialtrade. My only question about these initial chaptersis that Fine sets Luriadeeply in an Islamic context but does not investigate,or even discuss, the likely Islamic influences on this thought.Thereis no entryfor "Islam"or "Muslim"in the index and most of the referencesfor "Sufism"relate to medieval predecessorsof Luria (e.g., Bahya ibn Pakuda).There is a referenceto Sufi influence on grave veneration (p. 275), but given the intellectualcontext of Luria'slife in Egypt,which Fine presentsin the first chapter,Safed'stolerantOttomancontext, and our knowledge of an existing Sufi circle in Safed connectedto IbnArabi(Safed was a fairly small communityat that time), it is surelypossible that Islamic influence spreadfarther than the particularcustom of grave veneration.While this is surely not a crucial point, I think that it would work to Fine's benefit to deepen his revision of Scholem'shistoriosophicthesis by placing Luriamore solidly in the "realworld" of cultureand ideas. In Chapter4, Fine gives us a lucid and well-informeddescriptionof Lurianic myth. His ability to clearly explain the complexity of this system without getting overly entrenchedin the never-endingdetails is a tributeto both his writing and his thinking.In some places, however,this style also results in washing over whatthis reviewerbelieves are importantpoints. Forexample, on page 144 he discusses the project of tikunthough ritual observance (mitzvot).This is central to Fine's thesis that Luria'sfocus on metaphysicsis primarilyin its service to piety. While thereare two full chaptersdevotedto tikun,the reader,especially one unfamiliarwith this worldof ideas, is left withouta theoreticaldiscussionof whattikun actually is, not as it relates to mitzvotor to prayer,but more generally;what does Luriameanby the termtikun?Thereis one paragraphthatbegins this explanation, but it does not go far enough. Fine's chapteron gilgul (the reincarnationof souls) is one of the best and most importantchaptersin the book. It places this importantyet under-explored trope as a lens throughwhich Luriacontextualizeshis own vocation and his own circle as replayingthe dramaof the near (rabbinic)and distant(biblical) past. In fact, what Fine argues, and he does so convincingly,is that the complex story of the gilgulim of biblical chaptersin the Lurianiccorpusis all, or mostly,aboutcontemporaryfigures and his belief in his circle as holding the possibility of redemption. Scholem's historiosophic thesis is significantly weakened, when the personalitiesof Luria'sdisciples become the main focus of his attentionand not simply an interestingfootnote to Lurianiccosmology.To put gilgul as the centerpiece of the Lurianicsystem, Fine redirectsour attentionaway frommythic history and towardLurianicpsychology. Thereare a few issues I would like to raise in this fine study.First,on page 188, Fine takes up the question of Luria'srelationshipto the law.This is a crucial issue, both for Fine'sthesis and for the study of LurianicKabbalamore generally. 369

Book Reviews Here Fine arguesthatwhatmay have saved Kabbalain generalfromthe dustbinof Jewish history is its "orthodoxy."He states, "Forall their novel-even radicalmythic and theological notions, the Kabbalistshad remained committed to the meticulousobservanceof the mitzvot, the preceptsor commandmentsthatconstitute the basic strictureof Jewish law."Kabbalists,he continues, could "get away with" what critics deemed "offensive and bizarre conceptions of God" because they remainedhalakhicJews. On the surface, there is little one could argue with here. We know thatKabbalistsadheredto traditionalconceptionsof halakhahand that their descendants,to this day, continue to do so. However, isn't the hypernomian turn,that is, the turntowardpiety as obligation,also deviance, especially when it determinesthat the stricterbehavior is not only recommendedbut also mandatory?Given historicalcircumstances,largelyresultingfrom the emergence of Hasidismin easternEuropeand the popularizationof Lurianiccustom through Sephardicleaderssuch as R. JosephHayyimof Baghdadand R. HayyimSofer,authorof KafHa-Hayyimon the ShulkhanArukh,traditionalJewryeast andwest has largely,albeit not totally,accepted Lurianic"custom"as normative.But one who reads Luria'sworks will notice that these behaviorsare presentedas not merely suggested stringenciesbut, in fact, obligatoryas partof the tikunto which Fine alludes in his book. So, while I agree with Fine descriptively,I thinkthatmany Kabbalists did not simply adhereto halakhah,traditionallydefined, but, particularly in the case of Luria,conflated halakhahand custom in a way that revolutionized halakhic practice.The line dividing law and piety is effaced when the pious behavioris conflatedwith "thelaw."The fact thatmost of his innovationswere stringencies (humrot)is not an adequateresponse.Arguably,takinghumrotand making them obligatoryis theoreticallyno less problematicfrom an "orthodox"perspective thanmakingobligatorynomos voluntary.I for one do not thinkLuriawas "orthodox"at all if by that we mean one who accepts the authorityof traditionas the ultimatecriteriaof religious behavior. Second, up to this point I have not touched upon the most recent thesis regardingLurianicKabbala,espoused by Moshe Idel. In numerousstudies, Idel has arguedthat Scholem'sthesis is mistakenregardingthe centralityandtrajectoryof Lurianicteaching. That is, he argues that Luria'sinfluence, both in practice and in theory,was far less than Scholem claimed,most specifically regardingSabbateanism and Hasidism, and that ecstatic influences were far more predominant. Idel's largerprojectof revising Scholem'shistory of Kabbalaviews Scholem'serror regardingLuriaas a fundamentalflaw in his historiography.On page 5, Fine cites Idel's thesis and then proceeds to question it. However,his challenge begins with the word "nevertheless,"hardly the language of critique, yet continues to makethe case for widespreadLurianicinfluence. In the footnotesto this page Fine copiously cites Idel'smajoressays where his thesis is developedwithoutany comment. If Fine adheresto Idel'sthesis regardingthe disseminationof LurianicKabbala, this is fine. However,I think Fine's underlyingthesis, and one of the things that make his book so important,is thathe offers an importantchallenge to Idel'srevision of Lurianicinfluence. That is, Fine's revision of Scholem challenges Idel's position on the marginalityof Luria,which, of course, is based on Scholem! By arguing 370

Book Reviews thatLuria'slasting contributionto Judaism,and the one he may have held in highest esteem, was not metaphysicalbut, rather,was about "devotionand practice" (includingcustom and law) (p. 5), and,as such, spreadto a much wider audience thanthe illuminati,Fine is offering his readeranotherway of assessing the significance of Luria. Physician of the Soul presentsto date one of the more comprehensivestudies of the Lurianicschool and an intriguingchallenge to Idel'srevision of Lurianic Kabbala.It shouldbe takenwith utmostseriousnessby scholarsin the field and scholars in religion. Its lucidity and accessibility make it a book for both experts and non-expertsin the study of Jewish mysticism. It will have lasting and significant impact on the study of LurianicKabbalaand its influence, and on the study of Kabbalamore generally. Shaul Magid IndianaUniversity Bloomington,Indiana

Susan L. Einbinder.BeautifulDeath: Jewish Poetry and Martyrdomin Medieval France. Princetonand Oxford:PrincetonUniversityPress, 2002. x, 219 pp. Can medieval Jewish poetry teach us history?Asked differently,can scholars drawon medieval poetry (piyyutim)to reconstructhistoricalevents? In Beautiful Death, Einbinder narrows down this matter to the case of Ashkenazic martyrologicalpoetry.To answerthis question, Einbinderhas analyzedover seventy Hebrewpoems from northernFrance,England,and Germany;they span the period following the FirstCrusade(1096), ending with the Rindfleischmassacres of 1298 in Germanyand King Philip IV's expulsion of the FrenchJews in 1306. In Einbinder'sopinion,theAshkenazicpoetryof martyrdomhas not received sufficient scholarlyattention.While historians"rarelyconsidered"these martyrological poems for their studies of "everydaylife" in northernEurope (pp. 1-2), scholars of poetry focused on the medieval Hebrewpoetry from Spain and other Muslim countries.The latterscholarsconsideredthe Ashkenazicworksto lack literarymerit (p. 6). BeautifulDeath is set to provethatAshkenazic martyrological poems constitute both an importantsource of information for historians and a beautiful literarygenre in their own right. Einbinderargues that a great deal can be learned from these poems because developments in the literaryconventions mirroralterationsin the violence towardJews and in the Jewish responses. Chapter1 offers an overviewof the role martyrologicalpoetryplayedin medieval Jewish society. After the Second Crusade,martyrologicalpoetry presented a new type of martyr(p. 18). In contrastto the indiscriminatingmassacresof 1096, the new martyrwas the victim of judicial procedures.Anotherchange emerges in the lamentsof the Frenchpoets aboutthe martyrsburnedat Blois in 1171. These laments focus solely on "anelite corps of scholar-martyrs"(p.18). The motif that runs throughfour of the eight lamentson Blois is the martyrs'incombustiblena371

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Shmuel Shepkaru Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 371-373 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131536 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

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Book Reviews thatLuria'slasting contributionto Judaism,and the one he may have held in highest esteem, was not metaphysicalbut, rather,was about "devotionand practice" (includingcustom and law) (p. 5), and,as such, spreadto a much wider audience thanthe illuminati,Fine is offering his readeranotherway of assessing the significance of Luria. Physician of the Soul presentsto date one of the more comprehensivestudies of the Lurianicschool and an intriguingchallenge to Idel'srevision of Lurianic Kabbala.It shouldbe takenwith utmostseriousnessby scholarsin the field and scholars in religion. Its lucidity and accessibility make it a book for both experts and non-expertsin the study of Jewish mysticism. It will have lasting and significant impact on the study of LurianicKabbalaand its influence, and on the study of Kabbalamore generally. Shaul Magid IndianaUniversity Bloomington,Indiana

Susan L. Einbinder.BeautifulDeath: Jewish Poetry and Martyrdomin Medieval France. Princetonand Oxford:PrincetonUniversityPress, 2002. x, 219 pp. Can medieval Jewish poetry teach us history?Asked differently,can scholars drawon medieval poetry (piyyutim)to reconstructhistoricalevents? In Beautiful Death, Einbinder narrows down this matter to the case of Ashkenazic martyrologicalpoetry.To answerthis question, Einbinderhas analyzedover seventy Hebrewpoems from northernFrance,England,and Germany;they span the period following the FirstCrusade(1096), ending with the Rindfleischmassacres of 1298 in Germanyand King Philip IV's expulsion of the FrenchJews in 1306. In Einbinder'sopinion,theAshkenazicpoetryof martyrdomhas not received sufficient scholarlyattention.While historians"rarelyconsidered"these martyrological poems for their studies of "everydaylife" in northernEurope (pp. 1-2), scholars of poetry focused on the medieval Hebrewpoetry from Spain and other Muslim countries.The latterscholarsconsideredthe Ashkenazicworksto lack literarymerit (p. 6). BeautifulDeath is set to provethatAshkenazic martyrological poems constitute both an importantsource of information for historians and a beautiful literarygenre in their own right. Einbinderargues that a great deal can be learned from these poems because developments in the literaryconventions mirroralterationsin the violence towardJews and in the Jewish responses. Chapter1 offers an overviewof the role martyrologicalpoetryplayedin medieval Jewish society. After the Second Crusade,martyrologicalpoetry presented a new type of martyr(p. 18). In contrastto the indiscriminatingmassacresof 1096, the new martyrwas the victim of judicial procedures.Anotherchange emerges in the lamentsof the Frenchpoets aboutthe martyrsburnedat Blois in 1171. These laments focus solely on "anelite corps of scholar-martyrs"(p.18). The motif that runs throughfour of the eight lamentson Blois is the martyrs'incombustiblena371

Book Reviews tures. Their public and fiery ordeal is embellished by allusions to the Sinai revelation. By the thirteencentury,the motif was replacedby Ezekiel's vision of the wheel. The shift in symbols marksa change in the methodof executionfromburning to death on wheels, and to a more personalmartyrdom(pp. 27-28; 32). Accordingto Einbinder,these poems functionedon threelevels: 1. as a form of culturalresistanceto conversionin northernFrance;2. as "texts"for the "textuallyskilled"young male studentsof the Tosafist schools, and as "performed"for a wider audience sensitive to extratextualeffects, such as music, rituals,and gesture;3. as anticonversionaryand polemical works, for conversionto Christianity temporarilyincreased(pp. 19, 38). Einbindergives two main reasons for her distinctionbetween the semiesoteric andpopularfunctionsof the Tosafists'poems. Only the sophisticatedand educatedTosafistcould readand fully understandthese poems. Illiteratewomen and even literate males would miss the full meaning of the embedded symbols. Her second reason for seeing the poems as texts for the Tosafist is their need for an "imageof rabbinicfortitude"(p. 62), since "theweakestlink in the chain of resistance [to conversion]was amongthe intellectualelite" (p. 184, and again:"young, educated Jews who were particularlysusceptible to conversionarypressures," pp. 59, 72, 133). In the chaptersthat follow, Einbinderelaborateson these argumentsto the verge of redundancy.This includes her Epilogue,which readsmore like her initial overview than as a conclusion. Her distinctionbetween the two audiences seems artificial.These poems incorporatedcontemporarymotifs alreadyknown to their Jewish and Christiancontemporaries.The poets embellishedthese popularcirculating images by biblical verses and metaphorsto the best of their literaryskills. Takefor example the motif of the Blois' martyrssinging Alenu le-shabeah in the fire. Jewish martyrologyincorporatedthe Alenu at a time Christiansclaimed to have heardtheir martyrssinging the TeDeum Laudamus. The same is true aboutthe motif of the Sinai revelation.The Latinliterature of the FirstCrusadealreadycomparedthe crusadersto the Israeliteson their way to the Holy Land,and this is how many of the participantsare said to have viewed themselves. If the relativelyless educatedChristiancrowdwas familiarwith such motifs (throughpublic preachingand art, for instance),the chances are good that the generallymore literateJewish male understoodthem as well. Jewish women, as Einbinderobserves, could become familiarwith these popularmotifs in other ways. After all, the Hebrewand the vernacularpoems owe their survival,some in the form of liturgy,to theirpopularitydue to their use of popularmotifs. Nor should we be surprisedby the featuringof the Tosafist martyrin texts written by Tosafists. In reality,Tosafists were among ordinaryJews who were made to choose betweenconversionand death.As Einbindercomments,the "'typical' Blois martyrwas not a scholar"(p. 51). The featuringof the Tosafists in several poems does not necessarily indicate, as Einbindersuggests, that the young intellectualsor the "scholar-rabbi"were the "weakestlink" in the chain of resistance to conversion.R. YomTov in Englandandthe Rosh family in Spainare a few examples thatshow thatTosafistsplayeda leading role in the martyrdomsat their communities. 372

Book Reviews Of course, historiansshould not ignore poetry.Einbinder,therefore,should be appreciatedfor giving AshkenazicJewish poetry the attentionit deserves. She managedto sort carefullythroughthese worksandto presentthem in an organized fashion. She capturedthe poems' main themes, making severaluseful comments. Historians, however, are likely to resort to speculation when no other types of sources are available.Einbinder'sdiscussion on Samson of Metz actuallydemonstratesthis point (Ch. 4). Also problematicis Chapter6, on a Jew namedJonathan. Here Einbinderrelies on polemical Latin liturgyand two early modernanti-Jewish Christianaccountsthat followed it to tell "us somethingaboutthe imaginative world of medievalJews"(p. 157, my emphasis),or whatJews may have"believed" in (p. 158). Based on Jonathan'sstory,Einbinderargues,Jews may have believed that holy books could protect them from the flames when being executed. Such polemical works should not be takenat face value. They were designed to ridicule Judaismand supporta common medievalChristianbelief thatGod would perform miracles only for Christians.For lack of historicalaccounts,this chapteris highly speculative. In short,for the historianpoetrycan complementotherhistoricaldocuments. Medieval poetry works well as a complementingsource when one is already familiar with the historicalbackgroundin which it was written.Withoutsufficient historicalaccounts, it is unlikely thatpoetry alone would enable us to reconstruct historicalevents accurately. Shmuel Shepkaru The Universityof Oklahoma Norman,Oklahoma

David Rechter.TheJews of Viennaand the First WorldWarLondon:The Littman Libraryof Jewish Civilization,2001. xiii, 218 pp. Marsha L. Rozenblit. ReconstructingNational Identity: The Jews of Habsburg AustriaDuring WorldWarI. Studies in Jewish History.New York:OxfordUniversity Press, 2001. 304 pp. Considerableattentionhas been focused on HabsburgJewry,especially the Jews of Vienna, before WorldWarI. Severalworks have also dealt with the Jews of Austriaand the other Habsburgsuccessor states duringthe interwaryears. Until now, no books have exploredin depththe experiencesof AustrianJewryduring the FirstWorldWar.This past year,however,two books, MarshaL. Rozenblit'sReconstructingNational Identity:TheJews ofHabsburgAustriaDuring WorldWarI and David Rechter'sTheJews of Viennaand the First WorldWar,appearedto fill this lacunain the scholarlyliterature.Althoughthese books cover the same period and sharemuch the same material,their scope and approachare very different. ReconstructingNational Identityis the more ambitiousand broaderof the two works. It is a very well researched,focused, and carefully thought-outstudy 373

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Harriet Pass Freidenreich Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 373-376 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131537 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews Of course, historiansshould not ignore poetry.Einbinder,therefore,should be appreciatedfor giving AshkenazicJewish poetry the attentionit deserves. She managedto sort carefullythroughthese worksandto presentthem in an organized fashion. She capturedthe poems' main themes, making severaluseful comments. Historians, however, are likely to resort to speculation when no other types of sources are available.Einbinder'sdiscussion on Samson of Metz actuallydemonstratesthis point (Ch. 4). Also problematicis Chapter6, on a Jew namedJonathan. Here Einbinderrelies on polemical Latin liturgyand two early modernanti-Jewish Christianaccountsthat followed it to tell "us somethingaboutthe imaginative world of medievalJews"(p. 157, my emphasis),or whatJews may have"believed" in (p. 158). Based on Jonathan'sstory,Einbinderargues,Jews may have believed that holy books could protect them from the flames when being executed. Such polemical works should not be takenat face value. They were designed to ridicule Judaismand supporta common medievalChristianbelief thatGod would perform miracles only for Christians.For lack of historicalaccounts,this chapteris highly speculative. In short,for the historianpoetrycan complementotherhistoricaldocuments. Medieval poetry works well as a complementingsource when one is already familiar with the historicalbackgroundin which it was written.Withoutsufficient historicalaccounts, it is unlikely thatpoetry alone would enable us to reconstruct historicalevents accurately. Shmuel Shepkaru The Universityof Oklahoma Norman,Oklahoma

David Rechter.TheJews of Viennaand the First WorldWarLondon:The Littman Libraryof Jewish Civilization,2001. xiii, 218 pp. Marsha L. Rozenblit. ReconstructingNational Identity: The Jews of Habsburg AustriaDuring WorldWarI. Studies in Jewish History.New York:OxfordUniversity Press, 2001. 304 pp. Considerableattentionhas been focused on HabsburgJewry,especially the Jews of Vienna, before WorldWarI. Severalworks have also dealt with the Jews of Austriaand the other Habsburgsuccessor states duringthe interwaryears. Until now, no books have exploredin depththe experiencesof AustrianJewryduring the FirstWorldWar.This past year,however,two books, MarshaL. Rozenblit'sReconstructingNational Identity:TheJews ofHabsburgAustriaDuring WorldWarI and David Rechter'sTheJews of Viennaand the First WorldWar,appearedto fill this lacunain the scholarlyliterature.Althoughthese books cover the same period and sharemuch the same material,their scope and approachare very different. ReconstructingNational Identityis the more ambitiousand broaderof the two works. It is a very well researched,focused, and carefully thought-outstudy 373

Book Reviews of the impactof WorldWarI on the identityof the German-speakingJews of Habsburg,Austria.Fromthe outset, the authorposits a tripartiteidentity for Austrian Jewrybefore, during,and even afterWorldWarI: They were Austrianby political loyalty; German(or Czech or Polish) by culturalaffiliation;and Jewish in an ethnic, as well as a religious, sense. It is hardto miss Rozenblit'sthesis, since she constantly reiteratesit while demonstratingand documenting it quite convincingly throughoutthe book. ReconstructingNationalIdentityeffectively combinesthe methodologiesof cultural,social, and political history in portrayinga complex Jewish society during wartime.Rozenblitutilizes a wide rangeof primaryand secondarysources,especially archivalmaterials,newspapers,letters, and memoir literature.Given the widespreadpress censorshipduringthe war,much of this primarymaterialis difficult to deal with, yet Rozenblithandlesit extremelywell. The book coversa wide geographicalrange,with its focus constantlyshiftingfromViennato Bohemia and Moravia,then to Galicia and Bukovina,while analyzingthe multipleidentities of Eastern and WesternJews, Liberals, Jewish Nationalists, and Orthodox. Some chapters also provide a thought-provokingcomparativeperspective on Jewish identities,contrastingAustrianJewryin a multinationalstatewith Frenchand German Jews on the one handand HungarianJews on the other. Rozenblit constantlyemphasizes the loyalty of HabsburgJewry to Austria and their devotionto KaiserFranzJosef. But she also stresses the fact that during WorldWarI, while fighting valiantly on behalf of their country,Jewish soldiers were also fighting on behalf of their fellow Jews in Russia. She demonstratesthat AustrianJews were much more enthusiasticabout fighting a "holy war"against Russia than serving on the Italianfront.The authordiscusses at length Jewish responses to escalatinganti-Semitismduringand immediatelyafterthe war and the disappointmentexpressedby many Jews thattheir loyalty went unrecognized. My two favoritechaptersin this book bring to life everydayactivities durwartime as seen from a Jewish perspective. In Chapter3, "Mobilizing the ing Home Front,"Rozenblitvividly portraysthe plight of Jewish refugees from Galicia and the efforts of variousJewish communities,particularlyJewish women, to help them. In Chapter4, "TheExperiencesof Jewish Soldiers,"she deals with the relationshipbetweenJewish soldierson the front,theirfamilies, andthe organized Jewish communitiesof Austria,exploringthe role of chaplainsand the provision of kosher food within the Habsburgarmy,as well as the varied Jewish identities and experiencesof soldiers from diversebackgrounds. MarshaRozenblit'smain conclusion is that the Jews of HabsburgAustria tried to maintain their tripartiteidentity during and after the war, despite the breakupof multinationalAustria-Hungaryinto multiplenation-states.Most Jews, she claims, still clung to the idea of being loyal citizens of the new states in which they lived, speakingGerman,Czech, and so forth as the case might be, but identifying themselves as Jews ratherthan as Germansor Czechs by ethnicity or nationality.This solutionworkedreasonablywell in interwarCzechoslovakia,butnot in the new Republic of Austria or elsewhere. Rozenblit argues that althoughthe overall situationchanged dramaticallyas a result of the war, Jewish identity,for the most part,did not. 374

Book Reviews David Rechter'sTheJews of Viennaand the First WorldWar,a study in the ethnopoliticsof the Jewish communityof ViennaduringWorldWarI, is a slimmer volume with a much narrowerfocus and approach.The work startedout as the author's doctoral dissertationat Hebrew University,under the supervision of Ezra Mendelsohn,JonathanFrankel,and RobertWistrich,who are among the leading authoritieson Jewish political history.This book is quite competentlyresearched and written,but it does not containa greatdeal that is reallynew to anyone familiar with AustrianJewishpolitics in the earlytwentiethcentury.It relies heavily on the archivalmaterialsat the CentralArchives for the Historyof the Jewish People in Jerusalemand the Jewish newspaperspublished in Vienna duringthe war, as well as secondarysources. This work shouldreallybe entitledJewish Politics in Viennaratherthan The Jews of Vienna,but I admitthat I alreadyusurpedthatparticulartitle for my own book, publishedby IndianaUniversityPress in 1991, before I shifted my emphasis from political to social history.Rechter'sstudy demonstratessome of the pitfalls of writinga purelypolitical historyof a Jewishcommunity,especially during wartime,without much social context.The GalicianJewish refugees who were in Vienna,but not really of Vienna,remainstatistics;Jewish soldiersarebarelymentioned,althoughthey appearon the coverphoto;mass movements-whether youth movementsor Jewish Congressmovements-are posited,but not fully documented; and since no elections or referendawere held duringthe war,the focus remains entirelyon a handfulof Jewish leaders,whetherJewishNationalist,Liberal,or Orthodox, who might, or might not, representthe views of the Jews of Vienna.While readingthis book, at times it's hardto rememberthatthere was actuallya war going on. Rechter'sstudy, which treatsVienna as the embodimentof all of Austrian Jewry,seems to miss the markon occasion andto overstateits arguments.As a minor quibble,I have to point out that,unlikehis fellow ZionistprecursorJehudaHaj Alkalaj, Zvi Hirsch Kalischerwas not born in Sarajevobut in Posen, a different borderland.Rechter ignores the involvementof Jews, especially members of the younger generation,in the AustrianSocial DemocraticPartyand often seems to exaggeratethe importanceof the Jewish Nationalistsduringand immediatelyafter the war.In his chapteron "WarringYouth,"he emphasizesthe role of Siegfried Bernfeld in the developmentof an AustrianJewish youth movementunderZionist auspices duringWorldWarI. However,Bernfeld did not remain a Zionist for very long, and neitherdid many of the youth who belonged to the organizationhe had createdbefore the war. His efforts did not lead to a strongand viable Zionist youth movementin Vienna. Before the war,some studentsat the Universityof Vienna were very active Zionists, but duringthe war,most male studentswere serving in the army;they were the real "warringyouth."After the war, more Jewish young people in Vienna became involved in socialist than in Jewish Nationalist politics. Rechtercertainlydid not supporthis assertionthatJewishpolitics during and afterthe war can be seen as a "children'scrusade"(p.101). Similarly,in the chapterhe calls "In Pursuitof Unity,"Rechterchronicles the total lack of unity amongViennese Jews duringand afterWorldWarI. Unlike the AmericanJewish Congressthatsuccessfully emergedduringthe war,the Con375

Book Reviews gress movementin Austrianever got off the ground,but insteadgot bogged down in internaldisagreementsbetween the Viennese Jewish Nationalistleader Robert Strickerandthe PragueZionist spokesmanSiegmundKaznelson.Neitherthe Liberals nor the Orthodoxever supportedthe idea of a JewishNationalist-dominated Congress. Justas the youth movementequaledBernfeld,the Congressmovement equaled Kaznelson; both attempts failed to develop into anything meaningful. Rechter,who seems to believe the rhetoricof the Jewish Nationalistpress, exaggeratesthe significance of the Jewish NationalCouncil and its temporarysuccess in implementingsome of its programimmediatelyafterthe war.His final chapter, "A Jewish Revolution"merelyprovesthatno real revolutiontook place withinthe Jewishcommunityof ViennaafterWorldWarI, despitethe revolutionaryupheaval all around. Perhapsit is unfair to compare a narrowstudy in communal politics by a morejunior scholar,based on his dissertation,with the work of a senior scholar, who createda fascinatingsynthesis within a broaderframework.MarshaRozenblit and David Rechter agree on the staunch loyalty of AustrianJewry to Franz Josef and the multinationalempireand both adopta Zionist interpretationof Jewish identityand politics in Austriaduringand afterthe war,but Rozenblit'sanalysis of the data seems more nuanced and evenhandedthan Rechter's.Instead of emphasizingthe centripetalforce of Vienna,Rozenblitcomparesthe attitudesand behaviorsof Viennese Jews with those of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia,as well as in Galicia and Bukovina.Sometimes, as Rechterwould have it, Viennese Jewish leaders, whetherLiberalsor Jewish Nationalists, were indeed the spokesmen for all of AustrianJewry duringand immediatelyafterWorldWarI, but in other instances, Rozenblitproves convincinglythat that was certainlynot the case. ReconstructingNational Identity is a path breakingstudy that makes an important contributionto our knowledge of twentieth-centuryJewish and CentralEuropean history and our understandingof WorldWarI and Jewish identity.TheJews of Vienna and the First WorldWarprovidesa more limited contributionto the existing scholarshipon Viennese JewryandJewishpolitics. Althoughit sheds light on Jewish youthmovements,as well as LiberalandJewishNationalistcommunalpolitics in wartime, Rechter'scompetent researchwill undoubtedlybe overshadowedby Rozenblit'slandmarkstudy. HarrietPass Freidenreich TempleUniversity Philadelphia,Pennsylvania

Yosef Salmon.Religion and Zionism:First Encounters.Jerusalem:Magnes Press, 2002. xxvii, 399 pp. This is a translationand slight modificationofDat ve-Ziyyonut:ImutimRishonim (1990), a Hebrew collection of articles previously published by Yosef Salmon. In this English volume, some sections of the Hebrewedition were omit376

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Jody Myers Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 376-378 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131538 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:38 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews gress movementin Austrianever got off the ground,but insteadgot bogged down in internaldisagreementsbetween the Viennese Jewish Nationalistleader Robert Strickerandthe PragueZionist spokesmanSiegmundKaznelson.Neitherthe Liberals nor the Orthodoxever supportedthe idea of a JewishNationalist-dominated Congress. Justas the youth movementequaledBernfeld,the Congressmovement equaled Kaznelson; both attempts failed to develop into anything meaningful. Rechter,who seems to believe the rhetoricof the Jewish Nationalistpress, exaggeratesthe significance of the Jewish NationalCouncil and its temporarysuccess in implementingsome of its programimmediatelyafterthe war.His final chapter, "A Jewish Revolution"merelyprovesthatno real revolutiontook place withinthe Jewishcommunityof ViennaafterWorldWarI, despitethe revolutionaryupheaval all around. Perhapsit is unfair to compare a narrowstudy in communal politics by a morejunior scholar,based on his dissertation,with the work of a senior scholar, who createda fascinatingsynthesis within a broaderframework.MarshaRozenblit and David Rechter agree on the staunch loyalty of AustrianJewry to Franz Josef and the multinationalempireand both adopta Zionist interpretationof Jewish identityand politics in Austriaduringand afterthe war,but Rozenblit'sanalysis of the data seems more nuanced and evenhandedthan Rechter's.Instead of emphasizingthe centripetalforce of Vienna,Rozenblitcomparesthe attitudesand behaviorsof Viennese Jews with those of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia,as well as in Galicia and Bukovina.Sometimes, as Rechterwould have it, Viennese Jewish leaders, whetherLiberalsor Jewish Nationalists, were indeed the spokesmen for all of AustrianJewry duringand immediatelyafterWorldWarI, but in other instances, Rozenblitproves convincinglythat that was certainlynot the case. ReconstructingNational Identity is a path breakingstudy that makes an important contributionto our knowledge of twentieth-centuryJewish and CentralEuropean history and our understandingof WorldWarI and Jewish identity.TheJews of Vienna and the First WorldWarprovidesa more limited contributionto the existing scholarshipon Viennese JewryandJewishpolitics. Althoughit sheds light on Jewish youthmovements,as well as LiberalandJewishNationalistcommunalpolitics in wartime, Rechter'scompetent researchwill undoubtedlybe overshadowedby Rozenblit'slandmarkstudy. HarrietPass Freidenreich TempleUniversity Philadelphia,Pennsylvania

Yosef Salmon.Religion and Zionism:First Encounters.Jerusalem:Magnes Press, 2002. xxvii, 399 pp. This is a translationand slight modificationofDat ve-Ziyyonut:ImutimRishonim (1990), a Hebrew collection of articles previously published by Yosef Salmon. In this English volume, some sections of the Hebrewedition were omit376

Book Reviews ted, some were altered,andtwo recentarticleswere added.The thirteenarticlesaddress the periodfrom 1818 (the writingsof HatamSofer) until 1922 (the founding of Ha-Po'elha-Mizrachi)and ask how religious Jews-especially those who were drawntowardthe hope of restoringthe Jewishpeople to Zion-dealt with the challenges presentedby the increasinglysecularJewishnationalmovement.This question is at the center of Salmon'sbody of researchon East EuropeanZionism. Salmonfixes his gaze on the elite: rabbiswho were vying with each otherto lead the Zionist movement towardtangible success without compromisingreligious ideals, religious figures who wielded influence in the Yishuv,and secularor less religious Zionist activists. He focuses on the juncturesin the history of Hibbat Zion thatrequiredpolicy decisions in which religious traditionwould be honored,transformed,or breached.Suchjunctureswere frequentduringthe 1880s and 1890s, when secularizedJews began to advocate for mass migrationto Palestine and to agitatefor educationaland culturalreformsthatwould prepareyoung Jews for a countryof theirown. Some religious leaderslooked approvinglyat the modification of religious norms-for example, the adoptionof agriculturallabor by Ashkenazic newcomers to Palestine and the concomitantdiminutionof the ideal of the Torahscholar wholly supportedby the donationsof DiasporaJews. Every compromise and acceptanceof change by HibbatZion religious leaders enabled them to keep theirhandin the directorshipof the movement,but also broughtdown upon them harsh rabbinic denunciationsand the loss of support from religious Jews. Reading Salmon'sarticles, one gets the impressionthat the disunity of the rabbinicleadership,the anti-Zionismof key rabbis,and the immense difficulty of reconciling religious traditionand nationalismled to the erosion of religious influence in the Zionistmovement.A morebalancedexaminationof the growingsecularismof Zionism would requireattentionto factorsbeyond the religious world: the Russianpolitical and legal realitiesthat affected the movement,as well as the relative importanceof its regional centers;the concerns of ordinaryHibbatZion membersand contributors;the social and economic environmentinhabitedby the settlers;the greaterorganizationalskills of secularJews;the advantagesthata secular approachconferredin directingthe transformationof the Yishuv,and so on. The narrownessof Salmon's focus could be excused, however,were it not for his neglect of basic researchconventions. He is noticeably remiss in embedding his work within existing scholarship-the studies by Jonathan Frankel, Joseph Goldstein, and Ehud Luz come to mind. In Salmon's articles, the reader learnsof the viewpointof a historicalfigure throughparaphraseandsummary,and the footnotestypically includeonly a referenceto the primarysourcematerial;the readerlacks longerquotationsfromthe originalwork,referencesto otherresearch, and solid evidence for why Salmonattributesa particularmotive for or agendabehind the individual'sstatedbeliefs. For example, Salmon propoundsthe view (in Chapters1 and 2) that Zevi HirschKalischerarrivedat his messianic ideology in reactionto the Reform movement'srejectionof messianic concepts (in Chapter3 he makes the same claim for David Gordon).He has little evidence to supportthis conclusionanddoes not mentionthe workof scholarswho show otherwise.In contrast,when Gideon Shimoni discusses Kalischer'smessianism in TheZionistIde377

Book Reviews ology (1995), he creditsSalmonfor suggestingthe influenceof Reform,as well as the opposingviewpointexpoundedin my own researchand in the groundbreaking study of Kalischerby JacobKatz.The readeris informedof the basic scholarship, the differentexplanations,and Shimoni'sperspective. Salmon also tends to be reductionist.In Chapter2, he assesses the reaction of "traditionalJewry"to Kolonisations-Vereinfuer Palaestina by surveying the opinions expressedby the editors and contributorsto the Hebrewpress (particularly Ha-Maggid, Ha-Mevasser, and Ha-Levanon). He assumes that each press representsa well-defined ideology or interestgroup, which togethercomprisethe bulk of religious Jewry.Had he consideredthe scholarshipon the Hebrewpress, he would have describeda morecomplex picture.Salmonincorporateshis own interpretationsin his summariesof editorialsand opinion pieces without designating them as such. Oddly enough, Salmon neglects to providethe readerwith tools he himself has generated.In his article (Chapter7) on the pro-HibbatZion tractShivatZiyyon, he provides some historicalbackgroundand then generalizes about the opinions expressed in the book, without referringto the new edition of Shivat Ziyyon issued in 1998, for which he wrote an introduction,notes, and indices. Despite those problems,Salmon'sarticles arousethe reader'sinterestin the subject.The most useful andoriginalmaterialin the volume deals with the last two decades of the nineteenthcentury (Chapters4-11), and these are a good starting point for furtherresearch. Jody Myers CaliforniaState University,Northridge Northridge,California

Ruth Gay. Safe Among The Germans:LiberatedJews After WorldWarTwo.New Haven,CT:Yale UniversityPress, 2002. 330 pp. Zeev Mankowitz.LifeBetweenMemoryand Hope: TheSurvivorsof the Holocaust in Occupied Germany.New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 2002. 348 pp. In the last decade or so, new researchon Jewish displaced persons in occupied Germanyhas pushed the traditionalboundaries of "Holocaust studies" (1933-1945) towardthe postwarperiod. Indeed, the displaced persons or "DP" experience-the temporary settlement in Germany of the She'erith Hapleitah ("SurvivingRemnant")from the liberationof concentrationcamps in the spring of 1945 to the late 1940s-provides importantinsights into post-HolocaustJewish life. The impact of traumaand loss, the final divorce between Jews and EastCentralEuropethroughmigrationto Israeland the New World,the rise of Zionist consciousness, the shaping of a Jewish nationalcollective in transit,the regeneration of Jewish demographyand culture in the DP camps, and the relationships between Jews and Germansin occupied Germanyare some of the many themes 378

Review: [untitled] Author(s): G. Daniel Cohen Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 378-381 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131539 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews ology (1995), he creditsSalmonfor suggestingthe influenceof Reform,as well as the opposingviewpointexpoundedin my own researchand in the groundbreaking study of Kalischerby JacobKatz.The readeris informedof the basic scholarship, the differentexplanations,and Shimoni'sperspective. Salmon also tends to be reductionist.In Chapter2, he assesses the reaction of "traditionalJewry"to Kolonisations-Vereinfuer Palaestina by surveying the opinions expressedby the editors and contributorsto the Hebrewpress (particularly Ha-Maggid, Ha-Mevasser, and Ha-Levanon). He assumes that each press representsa well-defined ideology or interestgroup, which togethercomprisethe bulk of religious Jewry.Had he consideredthe scholarshipon the Hebrewpress, he would have describeda morecomplex picture.Salmonincorporateshis own interpretationsin his summariesof editorialsand opinion pieces without designating them as such. Oddly enough, Salmon neglects to providethe readerwith tools he himself has generated.In his article (Chapter7) on the pro-HibbatZion tractShivatZiyyon, he provides some historicalbackgroundand then generalizes about the opinions expressed in the book, without referringto the new edition of Shivat Ziyyon issued in 1998, for which he wrote an introduction,notes, and indices. Despite those problems,Salmon'sarticles arousethe reader'sinterestin the subject.The most useful andoriginalmaterialin the volume deals with the last two decades of the nineteenthcentury (Chapters4-11), and these are a good starting point for furtherresearch. Jody Myers CaliforniaState University,Northridge Northridge,California

Ruth Gay. Safe Among The Germans:LiberatedJews After WorldWarTwo.New Haven,CT:Yale UniversityPress, 2002. 330 pp. Zeev Mankowitz.LifeBetweenMemoryand Hope: TheSurvivorsof the Holocaust in Occupied Germany.New York:CambridgeUniversityPress, 2002. 348 pp. In the last decade or so, new researchon Jewish displaced persons in occupied Germanyhas pushed the traditionalboundaries of "Holocaust studies" (1933-1945) towardthe postwarperiod. Indeed, the displaced persons or "DP" experience-the temporary settlement in Germany of the She'erith Hapleitah ("SurvivingRemnant")from the liberationof concentrationcamps in the spring of 1945 to the late 1940s-provides importantinsights into post-HolocaustJewish life. The impact of traumaand loss, the final divorce between Jews and EastCentralEuropethroughmigrationto Israeland the New World,the rise of Zionist consciousness, the shaping of a Jewish nationalcollective in transit,the regeneration of Jewish demographyand culture in the DP camps, and the relationships between Jews and Germansin occupied Germanyare some of the many themes 378

Book Reviews exploredby recent DP historiography-by now a subfield of postwarJewish history. Although differentin natureand scope, the two books underreview, Zeev Mankowitz'sLifeBetweenMemoryand Hope andRuthGay'sSafeAmong the Germans, both centeron the singularityof Jewishrefugee life afterthe war.A very unlikely prospectduringthe war,mass migrationof the remnantof EuropeanJewry to occupied GermanybroughtJewish life back to the Germanspace. The dramatic twist of fate provokedby V-DayturnedGermanyinto a safe sanctuaryfor 60,000 Holocaust survivors freed from the camps or converging to the American zone fromEasternEurope.All in all, 250,000 Jews, Polishin theirlargemajority,moved to Germany,illegally or semi-illegally, between 1945 and 1949. As Ruth Gay writesin her introduction,"Thedecision of EasternEuropeanJewsto settle in Germany at thattime seemed unthinkableto the rest of the world in view of the nearly realizedintentof the Nazi regime to kill every one of them."But the title of her book is somewhat misleading when applied to the postwar occupation period (1945-1949). Jews were indeed"safe"in GermanyafterMay 1945, but did not for the most partlive "amongGermans."Theirsense of safety derivedprimarilyfrom the protectiveenvironmentprovidedby the extraterritorialDP campsof the American and British zones of occupation, which separatedJews from Germansand turnedJewish victims into "victors"by association.This spatialisolation, however, was hardlyhermetic,since variousforms of interactions-black marketactivities, the enrollment of Jewish students in German universities, or the highly symbolic hiring by Jewish women of Germannannies-occurred between Holocaust survivorsand the Germanpopulation. As safe havens for survivorsand Jews fleeing the resurgenceof anti-Semitism in their "home"country (such as the Kielce pogrom of 1946), DP camps became sites of physical, cultural,and political regeneration.This episode of autonomous Jewish reconstructionhas for a long time been repressedby trauma-inspired literatureas well as by early Zionist narratives,which for differentreasons have cultivatedthe image of survivorsas passive victims denied historicalagency. In this respect, the accounts providedby Ruth Gay and Zeev Mankowitzare remindersthat mourningand powerlessnessdo not fully convey the survivorexperience in Germany.Equally importantwas the active Jewish struggle for rebirth and regeneration,both demographicand intellectual.Emblematicof the way survivors simultaneouslyaddressedpast and futureis aYiddish song composedby the Happy Boys, a Jewish music band popularin the DP camps. As Ruth Gay points out, their nostalgic Es bengt zich nuch a hajm (One Longs for Home) gradually shifts away from the past as it summonsnew beginnings:"Now one must live because the time has come!" WhereasLife BetweenMemoryand Hope is a thoroughhistoricalinvestigation based on a wide arrayof primarysources and exclusively focusing on the period 1945-1948, SafeAmong the Germansis a generaloverview of Jewish life in Germanyfrom the Holocaustto the 1990s. Historiansof the periodshould not expect to find new materialor new argumentsin RuthGay'sotherwiseelegantlywritten book. Michael Brenner, Frank Stern, and Jeffrey Herf have written more specialized historical accounts on Jews in West and East Germanysince 1945. 379

Book Reviews However,one can still enjoy Gay'sengagingnarrativeas well as her fruitfuluse of secondary sources, often giving voice to heretofore anonymous historical witnesses. Overall, Gay's aim is to highlight what she views as a success story: the reemergence,againstall odds, of Jewish life and culturein postwarGermany.The authoraptlydescribesa closing of a cycle, while carefullyrefrainingfromromanticization. She shows how "native"German Jews (amounting to only 8,000 in 1950) struggledto reconstructa post-Holocaustidentity.Departingfromtheirprewar belief in the German-Jewish symbiosis, survivorsdefined themselves more ambiguouslyas "Jewsin Germany."Upon theirreturnhome, they encounteredthe cold indifferenceof theirformerGerman"neighbors,"but also faced the ostracism of Jews in the outside world who scorned their desire to remain on the "bloodsoaked soil" of Germany.Moreover,"native"GermanJews experiencedtense relations with Jewish outsiders-the 12,000 EasternEuropeanDPs who stayed in Germanyafterthe closing of DP camps in the early 1950s. In Chapters4 and 5, the most interestingpart of the book, Ruth Gay treats anothertype of East-West divide. Followingthe end of the airliftin 1949, Jews in East and West Berlin dramaticallypartedways, and Gay offers a fascinatingaccount of the many difficulties faced by the Jewish communityin the "antifascist" GermanDemocraticRepublic.Yet a steady trickle of escapes to the FederalRepublic graduallyemptiedEast Germanyof most of its Jewish population,reduced to less than2,000 souls in 1956. Jumpingaheadto the post-reunificationera, a final chapterfocuses on "New Generationsin Germany,"on the vibrancyof Jewish culture (symbolized notably by the revival of klezmer music) and the impact of Russianimmigration.ForRuthGay,the 100,000 Jews who today live "safe among the Germans"are neithera "remnant"communitynor an anomaly,but a dynamic and legitimatecenter of Jewish life in the West. If the DP experienceis treatedby RuthGay as an introductionto the broader postwarperiod,the returnto life of Holocaust survivorsin occupied Germany is the primaryfocus of Zeev Mankowitz'sbook. This is, to date, the most comprehensive study of the She'erithHapleitah, enrichedby a thoroughexaminationof primarysources in Yiddish, such as the survivorpress. It is a story writtenfrom the perspectiveof the historicalactors("She'erithHapleitahas subjectsratherthan as objects of history")and a fine analysisof theirmotivations.The first partof the book exploresthe dual origins of the She'erithHapleitah.The SurvivingRemnant was createdbothfrom below andfrom above: it was an early attemptby survivors to organizethemselves afterthe liberationof the camps as well as a result of relief policies stressingthe necessity of assisting Holocaustsurvivorsin separateJewish camps. Mankowitz'sanalysis of the communityof survivorsrevolves arounda central question:How did they returnto life and grapple"withthe weight of the past, the strainsof the presentand the shape of a differentfuture"?Against the claims of post-Zionistwriterswho have describedsurvivorsas victims of cynical Zionist designs, Mankowitzpresentsstrongevidence of the rise of Zionist consciousness in the camps. Although competing with Bundism or OrthodoxJudaism,Zionist sentiment (as well as anti-Britishattitudes)was prevalentamong survivorseven before the arrivalof official Zionist "emissaries"in the camps. Yet the predomi380

Book Reviews nance of Zionism did not diminish the lure of America, especially after the U.S. Congress passed the DP Act in 1948. As Mankowitzshows in his discussion of SamuelGringauz,a leading figure of the LandsbergDP camp in Bavaria,Zionism could also be perceivedas a languageof rebirthanda "newhumanism,"aboveand beyond the personalduty to live in the newly createdState of Israel. The concept of "Life Reborn"was also tied to an institutionaland educational project.Mankowitzexamines the role of the CentralCommitteeof Liberated Jews in integratingJewishrepatriatesand "infiltrees"from EasternEuropeinto the She'erithHapleitah. Educationand vocationaltraining(for survivingchildren and adults alike) also played a regenerativerole in healing the "deep scars of the past left on body and soul."But the most manifestembodimentof rebirthwas demographic.As survivors rediscoveredintimacy and sexuality, an extraordinary baby boom took place in the camps: "Everythirdwoman was either pregnantor pushing a baby carriage,"noted a relief workerin 1946. This theme is currently being pushed furtherby historiansinterestedin addinga gender dimensionto the history of survivors.Reproductivepolitics could be framedas a symbolic form of "revenge"against the Germans,epitomized by the proud paradingof prams in front of Germaneyes. As Mankowitzshows in a chapteron Jewish attitudestowardGermany,violent revengeagainstGermansremainedmarginal,even if often fantasized. For survivors, settling scores was more a memory issue than it was a retributiveone. In a section on commemoration,Mankowitz describes how She'erithHapleitahorganizedpublic remembrancethroughthe creationof memorial days later amended-and appropriated?-by the specific commemorative needs of the State of Israel. Overall, this outstanding work combines intriguing questions, solid research,and moving testimonies. It restoresdignity and "life"to the history of survivors and opens up a subsequentquestion:the natureof post-HolocaustJewish resilience and its role as a core value in Israelisociety after 1948. G. Daniel Cohen Departmentof History Rice University

Alexander B. Rossino. Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg,Ideology, and Atrocity. Lawrence:Universityof Kansas Press, 2003. xv, 343 pp. Historiansof the ThirdReich have long noted that Nazi Germany'sactions on the battlefieldandoccupationpolicies were governedbothby conventionalmilitary and radical ideological considerations.Much attentionhas been devoted to the problem of separatingthe two strandsanalytically,to determiningwhich actions and policies should be labeled as primarilyone or the other and which elements within the regime thought and behaved mainly according to conventional versus ideological notions. In recent years it has become common to place German militaryoperationsbefore June 1941 underthe "conventional"rubricand to 381

Review: [untitled] Author(s): David Engel Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 381-383 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131540 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews nance of Zionism did not diminish the lure of America, especially after the U.S. Congress passed the DP Act in 1948. As Mankowitzshows in his discussion of SamuelGringauz,a leading figure of the LandsbergDP camp in Bavaria,Zionism could also be perceivedas a languageof rebirthanda "newhumanism,"aboveand beyond the personalduty to live in the newly createdState of Israel. The concept of "Life Reborn"was also tied to an institutionaland educational project.Mankowitzexamines the role of the CentralCommitteeof Liberated Jews in integratingJewishrepatriatesand "infiltrees"from EasternEuropeinto the She'erithHapleitah. Educationand vocationaltraining(for survivingchildren and adults alike) also played a regenerativerole in healing the "deep scars of the past left on body and soul."But the most manifestembodimentof rebirthwas demographic.As survivors rediscoveredintimacy and sexuality, an extraordinary baby boom took place in the camps: "Everythirdwoman was either pregnantor pushing a baby carriage,"noted a relief workerin 1946. This theme is currently being pushed furtherby historiansinterestedin addinga gender dimensionto the history of survivors.Reproductivepolitics could be framedas a symbolic form of "revenge"against the Germans,epitomized by the proud paradingof prams in front of Germaneyes. As Mankowitzshows in a chapteron Jewish attitudestowardGermany,violent revengeagainstGermansremainedmarginal,even if often fantasized. For survivors, settling scores was more a memory issue than it was a retributiveone. In a section on commemoration,Mankowitz describes how She'erithHapleitahorganizedpublic remembrancethroughthe creationof memorial days later amended-and appropriated?-by the specific commemorative needs of the State of Israel. Overall, this outstanding work combines intriguing questions, solid research,and moving testimonies. It restoresdignity and "life"to the history of survivors and opens up a subsequentquestion:the natureof post-HolocaustJewish resilience and its role as a core value in Israelisociety after 1948. G. Daniel Cohen Departmentof History Rice University

Alexander B. Rossino. Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg,Ideology, and Atrocity. Lawrence:Universityof Kansas Press, 2003. xv, 343 pp. Historiansof the ThirdReich have long noted that Nazi Germany'sactions on the battlefieldandoccupationpolicies were governedbothby conventionalmilitary and radical ideological considerations.Much attentionhas been devoted to the problem of separatingthe two strandsanalytically,to determiningwhich actions and policies should be labeled as primarilyone or the other and which elements within the regime thought and behaved mainly according to conventional versus ideological notions. In recent years it has become common to place German militaryoperationsbefore June 1941 underthe "conventional"rubricand to 381

Book Reviews date the "ideological"war from the invasionof the Soviet Union, which began in thatmonth.On the otherhand,whereasthe Germanarmywas once widely thought to have constituteda bastion of conventionalthinking even after the ideological warhad been launched,scholarshave increasinglyimplicatedit in the perpetration of ideologically rooted crimes (particularlythe murderof Jews on the eastern front). AlexanderRossino'sdetailedstudyof the Germaninvasionof Polandin September 1939 challenges the commonbelief aboutthe origin of the ideological war In his words,"the even as it reinforcesthe trendtowardimplicatingthe Wehrmacht. morallycorrosiveinfluenceof NationalSocialism ... manifesteditself in the deadly racial-political policies that the SS, police, and German army implemented againstPoland'scivilian population,both ChristianandJewish,"fromthe very outset of the Septembercampaign(p. xiii). Moreover,what Rossino representsas the unprecedentedbrutalityof thatcampaignshouldnot be understoodsimplyas a response to battlefieldexigencies madepossible by earlierGermantacticalandtechnological breakthroughsbut as a premeditated,coordinatedeffort to destroythe foundationsof Polish society and ethnicallycleanse capturedareasthatwere to be incorporatedinto the GermanLebensraum.To his mind, there is a direct link between the mannerin which Germanforces acted towardPolish Jews during the opening of WorldWarII and the systematicmass killing of Jews throughoutEuropethatfollowed the invasionof the U.S.S.R. two years later:"Thebrief warwith Polandin September1939 was the first step in the overall escalation of National Socialist racial . . policies . .. that ultimatelyresultedin genocide"(p. 235). Historiansof twentieth-centuryEuropeanJewry thus have an interest not only in this particularbook but also in the broaderhistoriographicaldiscussion of the conventionaland ideological aspects of Nazi policies. Indeed, sophisticated contemporaryJewish and Polish observers, such as Moshe Kleinbaumand Jan Karski, tended to interpretGermanactions duringthe Septembercampaignand the ensuing months in which the Germanoccupation regime took shape in conventional terms, stressing the arbitrarinessand immediate instrumentalvalue of Germanbehavior.If Rossino'sanalysisof those same actions is correct,thenthose observers were actually given ample indicationthat the Germanoccupiers were behavingnot arbitrarilybut with a clear, long-range,catastrophicideological goal in mind. His workmight thus be used in supportof theirclaims by those who take the Jewish leadership to task for not seeing the handwritingon the wall soon enough. But is Rossino's analysis correct?Much of it dependsupon public and private statementsby Hitler,Himmler,Heydrich,and othereventualarchitectsof the final solution. Rossino tends to take such statementsat face value, althoughseveral decades of historicalanalysis would suggest that such is not alwaysa reliable practice. When he infers ideological goals from actions instead of words, as he does when examiningGermanreprisalsagainstPolish insurgents,for example,he is on sounderground,but his conclusions speak mainly to Germanpolicy toward Poles, not Jews. Rossino notes correctlythat Germanforces droveJews en masse from the western Polish provinces that were to be annexed directly to the Reich and that even some Jews from the remainingPolish territorieswere pushed over 382

Book Reviews the demarcationline into the Soviet occupationzone, but these (long-known)facts do not prove that in 1939 the leaders of the ThirdReich alreadyforesaw that the entire Generalgouvernementwould eventuallybe madejudenrein, let alone that all of its Jews would be murdered.Thereis greaternovelty in the evidence he presents of Wehrmacht-SS cooperationin the persecutionand deportationof Jews duringthe first monthof the war.It may indeedbe truethat"theseeds of successful collaborationbetweenthe armyandthe SS [in the mass killing of Jews] laterin the war were sown in Polandin September1939"(p. 120), but Rossino has not shown that that futurecollaborationwas foreordained. The greatmeritof this book is thatit demonstratesthe extentto which norms of brutalitytowardoccupiedcivilian populationswere presentin the Germanarmy fromthe very outset of WorldWarII.The dataRossino has unearthedon this score may necessitaterevision of some currentopinions concerningthe decisive role of the Soviet campaignin the process of brutalization.However,it would not be wise to use this book as a basis for understandingthe origins of the final solution, let alone for evaluatingthe behaviorof Jewish leaders in Polandbefore actual mass killing began. David Engel New YorkUniversity New York,New York

Haim Hazan. SimulatedDreams: Israeli Youthand VirtualZionism. New York: BerghahnBooks, 2001. xi, 166 pp. Zionism-the Israelinationalconstitutivemyth that powerfullyshapes that country'spolitics, society, and culture-is currentlyunderattackfrom Israeli social scientists.An academic-political streamknownas post-Zionismis reexamining and questioningnearlyall of Israeli society's "sacredcows" as it exposes the coercive, silencing, and exclusionaryforce of the Zionist masternarrativeand its contributionto intenseconflicts andculturaland social distortions.This is the context in which the book at hand should be read. It critically examines the Zionist ethos from a culturalanthropologicalperspective,and explores the culturalmediums throughwhich the Zionist narrativepasses as it undergoesa process of fragmentationthroughsimulation. The book is based on the author'srereadingof his own five very different ethnographicstudiesconductedduringthe last decade.It includesa shortprologue, an introductionand a conclusion, as well as five chapters,each of which is based on researchconductedin a differentsocial-cultural arena.The first chaptercenters on the attemptsby residentsof a deprivedcommunityto cleanse it of its stigmatic label; the second deals with the delegations of youngsters sent to traverse Polandand visit its Holocaust sites; and the thirdlooks at a satiricalprogramproduced and aired duringthe first Gulf War.The fourthchapterexamines the rebellion of Tel Aviv youths as representedin a popularmovie, and the fifth discusses 383

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Tamar Rapoport Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 383-385 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131541 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews the demarcationline into the Soviet occupationzone, but these (long-known)facts do not prove that in 1939 the leaders of the ThirdReich alreadyforesaw that the entire Generalgouvernementwould eventuallybe madejudenrein, let alone that all of its Jews would be murdered.Thereis greaternovelty in the evidence he presents of Wehrmacht-SS cooperationin the persecutionand deportationof Jews duringthe first monthof the war.It may indeedbe truethat"theseeds of successful collaborationbetweenthe armyandthe SS [in the mass killing of Jews] laterin the war were sown in Polandin September1939"(p. 120), but Rossino has not shown that that futurecollaborationwas foreordained. The greatmeritof this book is thatit demonstratesthe extentto which norms of brutalitytowardoccupiedcivilian populationswere presentin the Germanarmy fromthe very outset of WorldWarII.The dataRossino has unearthedon this score may necessitaterevision of some currentopinions concerningthe decisive role of the Soviet campaignin the process of brutalization.However,it would not be wise to use this book as a basis for understandingthe origins of the final solution, let alone for evaluatingthe behaviorof Jewish leaders in Polandbefore actual mass killing began. David Engel New YorkUniversity New York,New York

Haim Hazan. SimulatedDreams: Israeli Youthand VirtualZionism. New York: BerghahnBooks, 2001. xi, 166 pp. Zionism-the Israelinationalconstitutivemyth that powerfullyshapes that country'spolitics, society, and culture-is currentlyunderattackfrom Israeli social scientists.An academic-political streamknownas post-Zionismis reexamining and questioningnearlyall of Israeli society's "sacredcows" as it exposes the coercive, silencing, and exclusionaryforce of the Zionist masternarrativeand its contributionto intenseconflicts andculturaland social distortions.This is the context in which the book at hand should be read. It critically examines the Zionist ethos from a culturalanthropologicalperspective,and explores the culturalmediums throughwhich the Zionist narrativepasses as it undergoesa process of fragmentationthroughsimulation. The book is based on the author'srereadingof his own five very different ethnographicstudiesconductedduringthe last decade.It includesa shortprologue, an introductionand a conclusion, as well as five chapters,each of which is based on researchconductedin a differentsocial-cultural arena.The first chaptercenters on the attemptsby residentsof a deprivedcommunityto cleanse it of its stigmatic label; the second deals with the delegations of youngsters sent to traverse Polandand visit its Holocaust sites; and the thirdlooks at a satiricalprogramproduced and aired duringthe first Gulf War.The fourthchapterexamines the rebellion of Tel Aviv youths as representedin a popularmovie, and the fifth discusses 383

Book Reviews the commemorationof YitzhakRabin, showing how youths staked a claim in the nationalcollective memory. The somewhatshakyrationalegiven for unitingthese separateresearchprolies in the concept of "simulation,"borrowedfrom Baudriallard,and which jects the authorextends "to denote text thatplays with representation"(p. 5). The book demonstrateshow the Zionist myth is deconstructedin differentculturalarenasin which simulationplays with and disguises reality and the myths therein. It contends thatZionism as a constitutivemyth does not appearas a culturallycoherent story because it is "shreddedinto pieces of culturalidioms, buzz words, ironical slogans and recreationalvenues"(p. 101). The central idea is that simulationsof the myth enable it to be embedded within the day-to-dayculturaltapestrywithoutbeing eradicated,thus allowing for its digestion by society at large. The idea of simulationor "simulacrum"as such is not new in culturalanalysis. Its importancehere lies in Hazan'scontentionthat the focus on fragmentsof myths and dreamsenables us to betterunderstandhow mythsreach and are absorbedby people in their everydaylife, and how myths are deconstructedthroughthe manufacturingof simulations. However,there is a dangerthat the sweeping use Hazan makes of the conof cept simulationwill blurthe distinctionbetween reality and myth.At the same time, we can ask whetherthe dominantmode by which Zionism reaches various audiences in Israel today is throughsimulation.I would argue that Zionism, nationalism, and Jewishness are still representedand communicatedas total destinations, and not, as Hazan claims, as "tourist-likenostalgic excursions"(p. 101). Further,it would have been worth asking under what conditions the simulation deconstructs,or, alternatively,strengthensthe Zionist ethos in different collectives or culturalarenas.It would seem thatthe book over-generalizeswith regard to the complex relationshipbetween reality, ethos, and simulation in different contexts. As the book's subtitle indicates, Hazan studies the literal and metaphorical ties betweenthe Zionist mythand its simulationthroughobservationsof youthand youthfulness in Israel. This contrastswith Hazan'simportantculturalanthropological work on old age, to which he devoted many years, but shows that Hazan continues to give center stage to "voices from the margins,"with the aim of understandingculturaland social phenomena. Like otherswho have studiedyouth in Israel-by and large structural-functionalist sociologists who made a significant contributionto the field in Israeland outside it'--Hazan is right in assumingthat as a nationalistsociety, Israelis highly sensitive to its childrenand is almost compulsivelypreoccupiedwith theircommitmentand willingness to take partin the nationalstruggle.He is also correctto presumethat images and expressionsof youth and youthfulnessthat are rooted in Zionism have been adoptedby other age groups in Israel. Researchon youth in Israel dwindled in the 1980s, following the strength-

1. S. N. Eisenstadt,FromGenerationto Generation(New York:FreePress, 1956); Reuven Kahane, "InformalYouthOrganization:A GeneralModel,"Sociological Inquiry45 no. 4:17-28.

384

Book Reviews ening of the post-Zionist stream and the introductionof critical and interpretive approachesto social research.The field of the anthropologyof youth came to be, and has remained,almost neglected in Israel, despite several importantworks on the subject.2In this sense, Hazan'suse of culturalanthropologicaltheory in explainingthe affinity betweenthe Zionist mythand youth cultureis most welcome. However,Hazandoes not analyticallyconjoin the anthropologyof youth and cultural anthropology.I arguethat such a union is essential for understandingyouth as a culturalcategory,the culturalpracticesof youth,andthe ways in which young people produceand negotiateculturalforms.This problemseems to stem fromthe fact thatthe five researchprojectsin the book werenot originallyintendedto study youth and youth cultures,but were made into such ex post facto. Sometimes it appearsthatthe authorhas not sufficiently consideredwhetheryouth constitutesthe context for the research,or its subject.In otherwords,it is not quite clear whether youth serves as an arenain which to demonstratehow simulationsdeconstructthe Zionist ethos, or whetherHazanis showing us how Zionism in a global, postmodern age shapes Israeliyouths. There is a furthertroublesomepoint: HazandescribesIsraeliyouth as postmodern, cosmopolitan, and postcolonial, yet does not explain what this means. Which youth is he talking about?The youths in the book have neithervoice nor face; they remainabstractand generalized.However,as in any other society, the space of young people in Israelis not monolithic,and is occupiedby variousidentities with interrelationships,not free fromconflict, based on ethnicity,gender,religion, and class. One could assume that in such a divided space, the Zionist dream is simulated in different ways. Given that research on the rifts and interrelationsbetween different groups of youths could teach us much about society in general, this point is lacking from the book. This volume is concise and condensed, and full of the latest "post" anthropologicaljargon and concepts. Because of conceptual meandering,repetitions of the same idea in different phrasings, and an assumed prior knowledge of Israeli society, it is not a very user-friendlybook. At least some of the burden of reading could have been lightened by more rigorous editing. The book is thus suited to an anthropologicalor more widely social-scientific audience, and not for a popular one. Reading the introductionthe most abstractpart of the volume-at the end would renderHazan'stheoretical argumentsand his critical, insightful observations of Israeli (Jewish) society much clearer. TamarRapoport Hebrew University Jerusalem,Israel

2. See Tamar Katriel, Communal Webs: Communication and Culture in Contemporary Israel

(Albany: State Universityof New YorkPress, 1991).

385

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Susan Sered Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 386-387 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131542 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews EstherSchely-Newman.Our Lives are but Stories: Narrativesof Tunisian-Israeli Women.Detroit,MI: WayneState UniversityPress, 2002. 232 pp. Our Lives are but Stories is a welcome and appealingadditionto the small but valuablecorpus of studies of Jewish women whose ethnic heritages,as much as their Judaism,shape their life experiences and their narrativestelling of those experiences. Joining books such as Lisa Gilad's Ginger and Salt: YemeniJewish Womenin an Israeli Town(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989); Jael Silliman's Jewish Portraits,Indian Frames: Women'sNarrativesfrom a Diaspora of Hope (Hanover,NH: UniversityPress of New England,2001); Joelle Bahloul'sLe Culte de la TableDresske: Rites et Traditionsde la TableJuiveAlgerienne (Paris:A. M. Metaili&:Diffusion, Presses universitairesde France, 1983); Rachel Simon's Change WithinTraditionAmong Jewish Womenin Libya (Seattle: University of WashingtonPress, 1992); and my own WomenAs Ritual Experts: The Religious Lives of ElderlyJewish Womenin Jerusalem(New York:OxfordUniversityPress 1992), Schely-Newman'sOurLives are but Stories makes a substantialcontribution to the study of Jewish women of Asia and NorthAfrica. Structuredaroundthe narrativesof four women, each of whom is identified by name, and with each of whom Schely-Newmanis well-acquaintedover a period of manyyears (one of the women is her mother),OurLives are But Stories follows the normative life-cycle of Tunisian-bornJewish women from childhood, throughmarriage,motherhood,immigrationto Israel,and old age. Schely-Newman notes that the storytelling style of Tunisianwomen has shifted:Whereasin Tunisiawomen'sstoriestendedto be fictional,her interviewees now tell "real"stories of theirown lives and of the lives of theirneighborsandkin. The goal of women's storytelling,however,has not changed."Thesepersonalnarrativescontinueto serve as an enculturationtool, andthoughthe narratorsaremodest in theirdemeanorandtraditionalin theirviews, theirnarrativesarenevertheless pregnantwith sexual meanings and symbolism. Within the context of changing cultures,personalnarrativescan be interpretedas subversive.The women may explicitly supportthe hegemonicalpatriarchalstructureof society, while theirstories and narrationmay at the same time challenge and even reject the same social order"(p. 18). Throughoutthe volume, Schely-Newmanemphasizes not only the content of the stories, but also their form and the contexts in which they aretold. Tunisian women's stories are not recited in the format of soliloquies or lengthy speeches, but ratherin short phrasesembeddedin conversationwith the group of listeners, who also are expected to add their own voices of assent, repetition,clarification, modification, free association, or disagreement.As such, the stories both reflect the women'scultureand create it throughthe process of dialogue. Presenting the stories in dialogue form allows Schely-Newman to avoid reifying these women, each of whom emerges as a complex characterwhose life has been made up of both grand events (such as immigration)and small events (such as baking bread). Significantly, the grand events sometimes are related through little reminisces (such as buying an outfit for one's toddler), while the seemingly small events take on great importancein, for instance,a story linking a 386

Book Reviews Sabbathbread-bakingincident to a critiqueof men whose cruelty to their wives can result in loss of life (pp. 93-94). Still, as Schely-Newmanemphasizes, "The older women do not attemptto changepowerrelationsbetweengenders or to redefine theirsphereof activity.Instead,they use narrationas a way of preservingtheir autonomyin mattersof procreation"(p. 96). And again, "Thewomen'sstories arethus not an accountof what has happened,good or bad, but a metacommenton the social order.By voicing theirconcernswomen set an example for theirdaughtersaboutways of resistance within the traditionalsetting itself" (p. 150). Ostensibly,this book is more aboutlanguageand storytellingthanan ethnographicaccountof the lives of Tunisian-Israeliwomen.As such, it shouldbe of interestto readersconcernedwith questionsof genderand narrative,as much if not more than to readers looking for information about the experiences of North AfricanJewish women. Having said that, I do feel that this volume will be of most use to readers seeking to understanda generationof Jewishwomenwhose lives havebeen framed by decadesof radicallychanginggenderroles andexpectations.Thus, I would have been interestedin hearing Schely-Newman'sthoughtson how the daughtersand granddaughtersof these women (the youngergenerationfor whom these women's stories "set an example")hear what the older women say. I also would have been interestedin Schely-Newman'sreflectionsconcerningways in which the TunisianIsraeli women not only resemble the Moroccan,Yemenite,and Kurdishwomen whose lives have been describedin the books listed in the first paragraphof this review,but also her insightsregardingways in which they may differ.The Tunisian women, for instance, went to school, unlike the women studiedby Gilad and myself. Whatdoes their (albeit sketchy) literacymean in their lives, and what does it mean in termsof theirstorytelling?TheTunisianwomen askedto see what SchelyNewman would write aboutthem. How did they respond?Did they offer a metacommentaryon her metacommentaryof their metacommentary? All in all, OurLives are but Stories is an accessible and interestingbook and should make an excellent additionto readinglists of courses on women and culture, women and narrative,gender and the life cycle, Jews of Israel or of North Africa, and Jewish women. Susan Sered HarvardUniversity Cambridge,Massachusetts

Lois C. Dubin. The Port Jews of Habsburg Trieste:Absolutist Politics and EnlightenmentCulture. StanfordStudies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford: StanfordUniversityPress, 1999. ix, 335 pp. The scope of researchdevoted to the entranceof EuropeanJews into the moderncivic realmhas expandedsteadily in the last two decades. Historianshave 387

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Jay R. Berkovitz Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 387-391 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131543 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews Sabbathbread-bakingincident to a critiqueof men whose cruelty to their wives can result in loss of life (pp. 93-94). Still, as Schely-Newmanemphasizes, "The older women do not attemptto changepowerrelationsbetweengenders or to redefine theirsphereof activity.Instead,they use narrationas a way of preservingtheir autonomyin mattersof procreation"(p. 96). And again, "Thewomen'sstories arethus not an accountof what has happened,good or bad, but a metacommenton the social order.By voicing theirconcernswomen set an example for theirdaughtersaboutways of resistance within the traditionalsetting itself" (p. 150). Ostensibly,this book is more aboutlanguageand storytellingthanan ethnographicaccountof the lives of Tunisian-Israeliwomen.As such, it shouldbe of interestto readersconcernedwith questionsof genderand narrative,as much if not more than to readers looking for information about the experiences of North AfricanJewish women. Having said that, I do feel that this volume will be of most use to readers seeking to understanda generationof Jewishwomenwhose lives havebeen framed by decadesof radicallychanginggenderroles andexpectations.Thus, I would have been interestedin hearing Schely-Newman'sthoughtson how the daughtersand granddaughtersof these women (the youngergenerationfor whom these women's stories "set an example")hear what the older women say. I also would have been interestedin Schely-Newman'sreflectionsconcerningways in which the TunisianIsraeli women not only resemble the Moroccan,Yemenite,and Kurdishwomen whose lives have been describedin the books listed in the first paragraphof this review,but also her insightsregardingways in which they may differ.The Tunisian women, for instance, went to school, unlike the women studiedby Gilad and myself. Whatdoes their (albeit sketchy) literacymean in their lives, and what does it mean in termsof theirstorytelling?TheTunisianwomen askedto see what SchelyNewman would write aboutthem. How did they respond?Did they offer a metacommentaryon her metacommentaryof their metacommentary? All in all, OurLives are but Stories is an accessible and interestingbook and should make an excellent additionto readinglists of courses on women and culture, women and narrative,gender and the life cycle, Jews of Israel or of North Africa, and Jewish women. Susan Sered HarvardUniversity Cambridge,Massachusetts

Lois C. Dubin. The Port Jews of Habsburg Trieste:Absolutist Politics and EnlightenmentCulture. StanfordStudies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford: StanfordUniversityPress, 1999. ix, 335 pp. The scope of researchdevoted to the entranceof EuropeanJews into the moderncivic realmhas expandedsteadily in the last two decades. Historianshave 387

Book Reviews turnedtheirattentionto communitiesformerlyconsideredonly marginallyimportant because of their small size, their location at the peripheryof Europe'smost significantpolitical andculturaldevelopments,or theirfailureto correspondto the models of emancipationand enlightenmentderivedfromthe historicalexperience of Frenchand GermanJews. This new direction in Jewish historicalwriting has generatedan ever-increasingbody of social-historical data and is markedby a growing emphasison regionalfactors,particularlyurban-ruraldifferences,and a new appreciationfor class andgenderas categoriesof analysis.The result-a more highly nuanced picture of modernization-has firmly discreditedthe dominant Germanocentricperspectivefavoredby previous generationsof historians.Now, thanks to the publication of Lois Dubin's outstanding book, The Port Jews of Habsburg Trieste, our understandingof the forces that shaped modern Jewish society and culturehas been advancedappreciably.Dubin has succeeded in producing a balancedreassessmentof much of the conventionalthinkingaboutperiodization,modernization,and the role of Haskalahand Emancipation. Dubin'sstudy of the north ItalianJewish communityof Trieste in the eighteenthandearlynineteenthcenturiesrestson an exhaustiveinvestigationof the political, socioeconomic, cultural,and intellectualrealms. Its primaryobjectiveis to reconstructthe complex relationshipbetween the state and the Jews. Dubin analyzes the efforts of the absolutiststate to reformthe Jews' legal and political status and carefullydemonstrateshow these developmentsandthe process of internal transformation,particularlywith respectto communalinstitutions,culturalorientation,and religious behavior,were so cruciallyintertwined.Her second goal is to relate the foregoing to the largercontext of modernJewish history.Dubin places the unique story of Trieste within a broadly conceived comparative-analytical framework;in so doing, she has broughtgreaterclarity and precision to the relationship between socioeconomic change and legal equality,and to the distinction between acculturationand ideological change. Trieste offers a splendid case study of modernization.The Jewish commuwas nity formallyconstitutedin 1746, althoughthe ghetto had been establisheda half-century earlier. Its rapid population growth-by 1818 it had become the largestreligious-ethnic minorityin the city-coincided with the dramaticexpansion of the Triesteeconomy.Encouragedto settle in Triesteto assist in the development of the free port, the Jews received economic privileges no differentfrom those enjoyed by the city's other residents.They were permittedto own real and movableproperty,and to be occupied freely in commerce,manufacturing,and artisanship.Roughlyhalf of Trieste'sJews were engaged in internationalcommerce and finance, and the most successful Jewish merchantsassumeda leading role in the city's commercialfirms. The most fascinatingaspect of Trieste, and ultimatelyits most instructive, was its multifacetedculturaland political identity.Politically,the northernAdriatic port city was underHabsburgcontrol,but culturallyit remainedItalian,a duality thatDubinhas approachedwith considerableperspicacity.By investigatingthe relationshipbetweenthe royalauthoritiesin Viennaandtheirrepresentativesin Trieste, Dubin skillfully chartsthe main policy considerationsin the absolutiststate and,more importantly,the mechanics of policymakingthroughoutthe regimes of 388

Book Reviews MariaTheresa,Joseph II, and Leopold II. Her analysis of Jewish efforts in 17791780 to reachthe executivelevel of the Borsa dei Mercanti-the tradeassociation that mediatedbetween the merchantsand the government-reveals the conflicting views of Viennese andTriestineauthorities,concernsover the growingprominence of the Jewish commercial class among the city's elite, and the limits of Vienna'spower.Viennasupportedthe Jewishargumentthatexclusion fromthe executiveboardviolatedthe principleof equalopportunityso fundamentalto the free port, and eventuallyKarlvon Zinzendorff,the governorof Trieste,was persuaded thatthe Jews could not be deprivedof this right, thoughthe majorityof Christian Borsa membersobjected. Dubin shows how this relativelysmall matterexemplified political differencesbetweenViennaandTrieste,and local Jewish-Christians tensions as well. On the basis of correspondencebetween governmentauthoritiesand the Jewish communal leadership,Dubin has masterfullyreconstructedthe intensive deliberationsconcerningthe attainmentand maintenanceof privileges contained in the Statuteof 1771, which set the stage for Joseph II's far-reachingtoleration edicts. Her discussion of Joseph'stolerationpolicy towardthe Jews is most impressive. In additionto providinga valuablecomparisonof the edicts issued separatelyfor each part of the monarchyin the 1780s, she offers importantinsights into the three-waynegotiations between the Trieste Jewish community,Zinzendorff, and the centralauthoritiesin Vienna, showing how each formulatedits positions and how the local context demandedcertainadjustmentsin the legislation. The Edicthelped createa new climate of opinion thateventuallyenabledTriestine Jews to join the executive ranksof the Borsa, and,generally,confirmedthatthese economic rights verged on political power.These and otherfacets of the legal and economic standingofTriestineJewryareall firmly groundedin extensiveresearch in the governmentand communityarchivesin Triesteand Vienna,and are consistently presentedwithin the general socioeconomic and political context. The foregoing advances, and the tensions they occasionally engendered, were characteristicof a type of communitythat Dubin has fittingly designatedas a "portJewry,"of which Amsterdam,Bordeaux,Hamburg,Livorno,and London representadditionalexamples. Shapedby state efforts to promotemaritimecommerce, such Jewish communitieswere valued for their contributionsto the common good, and they were thereforenot expectedto submitto the process of radical transformationdemandedin typical Ashkenazic settings. Owing to the religious and culturaldiversitythat was characteristicof port cities, the Jewish population encounteredless hostility than elsewhere.The notion of economic utility, imbued with the moraldimensionof virtue,made it possible for Jews to be includedin the civic realmwithoutundergoingpolitical emancipation.One may legitimatelyask whetherconditions in Trieste and other port cities were so exceptional as to render their histories inapplicableto the experiences of the vast majorityof Jews in Europe.While port Jewriesenjoyedconditionsthatdivergedfrom the modernization experiencedby more mainstreamJewish communities,their distinct stories decisively expose the inadequacyof the dominantexplanatoryparadigm.In Dubin's book this idea, though not new, receives its most thoroughsubstantiationto date. But more importantly,her detailedanalysisof the relationshipof the stateand 389

Book Reviews the Jewish community,and of the Jews' responseto their changingeconomic and political milieu, clarifies how the usual paradigmswork under diverse circumstances, and therebysheds light on the largerEuropeanpicture. By examiningthe Jewish community'sresponseto the culturalimplications of economic change in late-eighteenth-centuryTrieste and to political developments in the HabsburgEmpire,Dubin makesher most importantcontribution.Initially, she shows that the state had alreadydisplayed interestin the education of Trieste'sJewish youth a decade before Joseph II issued the Edict of Toleration. MariaTheresa'sStatuteof 1771 outlined provisions requiringthe communityto supervise the examinationof teachers and studentsand to ensure that the youth study Italianand German;in 1776 attemptswere made to extend normal schooling to Jews in Triesteand elsewhere. Seeing continuitybetweenthese tentativeefforts and the subsequentestablishmentof the Jewish community'sown normal school in 1782, Dubin turnsher attentionto the relationshipof the communityto the Berlin Haskalah.While Trieste'ssupportfor educationalreformerN. H. Wessely is well known and has been amply documented,it has never been adequately assessed. Dubinis the first to subjectthe corpusof lettersexchangedbetweencommunal leadersand Wessely,and especially the views of RabbiFormigginiand his rabbiniccolleagues, to an in-depthinvestigationthatis informedby local andHabsburgpolitics. Her analysis revealsthatalthoughtheir supportfor the inclusion of general studies in the school curriculumwas unwavering,the Triesterabbiscould not agree eitherto the attemptto delineatean autonomousrealmof humanknowledge as separatefrom Torahstudies or to any effort that might diminish the primary statusof the Torah.While their endorsementof the Haskalahwas qualified, theirdefense of moderneducationacknowledgedits undisputedeconomic and social utility,as well as its compatibilitywith the contemporaryand historicalexperiences of ItalianJewry. Dubinhas convincinglydemonstratedthatalthoughTriestineJewryemerged as an exponentof Haskalahand was viewed in centralEuropeas the embodiment of its ideals, Wessely'sTrieste supporterswere not maskilimin the conventional sense. Rather,"this was a case of convergence,not identity,and of mutuallyreinforcingbut essentiallyindependenttrends"(p. 136). InTrieste,a differentdynamic was at work. In contrastwith the situationin Ashkenazic communitiesin middle Europe,culturalopenness in Triestewas not a productof a rupturewith tradition, but was continuouswith the Italianideal of the rabbi-poet-doctorthatpersonified the much-reveredsynthesis of generalandreligious studies.Trieste'spositive selfimage and affirmationof the Renaissancemodel, togetherwith the process of acculturationthat was endemic to all port Jewries, renderedthe adoption of an ideology of culturaltransformationunnecessary.With this portrayalof the Triestine Jewishcommunity,Dubinhas takena middleposition betweenhistorianswho define modernizationin ideological terms and those who see it as the functional equivalentof acculturation. The culminationof Dubin'sefforts is her chapteron the Habsburgmarriage reforms and the challenges they posed to religious and communal autonomy.To test the reactionof Trieste'sleadershipto the stressesand strainsof modernization, she reconstructsand analyzes two cases of individualswho contested Judaism's 390

Book Reviews traditionallaws of marriage,one involving a fatherwho objected to the marriage of his daughteron the grounds that she was a minor accordingto Habsburglaw, and the other relatingto a requestby a kohen and a divorcee to marrycivilly. In the first case, the fathertried to evade the Jewish communityand Jewish law by petitioningthe state to annulthe marriage.Ruling thatJewish law could not override the civil law of the state, Vienna pressuredthe rabbi,Raffael Tedesco,to declare the marriageinvalid.However,the rabbi'sunwillingnessto comply with the state's demandwas strongly supportedby the community'slay leaders, and ultimately the father was forced, out of concern for his daughter'sfuture marriage prospects,to withdrawhis objectionto divorce.In the second case, the state similarlyupheldthe couple'srequestfor a civil marriageceremony,againstthe strident oppositionof communalleaders.Dubin'spainstakingdescriptionanddiscussionof these complex issues in Jewish law are first-rate,as is her analysis of what was at stake for the individualsconcerned,the community,and the state. With these detailed accounts, and the erudite explicationthat accompanies them, Dubin offers readersentree into a world that is rarelyseen from up close. An elegantly writtenwork of matureand thoroughscholarship,ThePort Jews of HabsburgTriesterepresentsa critically importantcontributionto understanding the multifacetedand multitexturedinteractionof the state and the Jewish community at the dawn of the modernera. Jay R. Berkovitz of Massachusetts at Amherst University Amherst,Massachusetts

Michael L. Morgan.BeyondAuschwitz:Post-HolocaustJewish Thoughtin America. New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 2001. xii, 288 pp. In BeyondAuschwitz,Michael Morganhas in effect woven togethertwo differentkindsof narratives.The first narrativeis utterlyordinary;thankfully,the second is utterlyextraordinary. In the ordinarynarrative,MorgantracesAmericanJewishphilosophicaland theologicalresponsesto the Holocaustfrom 1945 to the early 1980s.While the bulk of the book treatsthe work of five post-Holocaustthinkers-Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits,IrvingGreenberg,ArthurCohen, and Emil Fackenheim-Morgan insistson readingthese figures in theirpostwarAmericanJewishcontext.Morgan begins by showing how the work of HannahArendtand the writings of Elie Wiesel andPrimoLevi led Americansto be criticalof universalsandto open themselves to the uniquenessof the Shoah.He also shows how the vast majorityof early postwarAmericanJewish theology, using Buber and Rosenzweig as aids in a spiritualistgaze upward,at first ignored the particulardetails of the Shoah, enveloping them into an abstractrhetoricof "crisis."In this way,more thanotheraccounts of post-HolocaustJewish thought, BeyondAuschwitzis able to give the readera sense of the extentto whichpost-Holocausttheologybothappropriatedand 391

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Martin Kavka Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 391-393 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131544 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews traditionallaws of marriage,one involving a fatherwho objected to the marriage of his daughteron the grounds that she was a minor accordingto Habsburglaw, and the other relatingto a requestby a kohen and a divorcee to marrycivilly. In the first case, the fathertried to evade the Jewish communityand Jewish law by petitioningthe state to annulthe marriage.Ruling thatJewish law could not override the civil law of the state, Vienna pressuredthe rabbi,Raffael Tedesco,to declare the marriageinvalid.However,the rabbi'sunwillingnessto comply with the state's demandwas strongly supportedby the community'slay leaders, and ultimately the father was forced, out of concern for his daughter'sfuture marriage prospects,to withdrawhis objectionto divorce.In the second case, the state similarlyupheldthe couple'srequestfor a civil marriageceremony,againstthe strident oppositionof communalleaders.Dubin'spainstakingdescriptionanddiscussionof these complex issues in Jewish law are first-rate,as is her analysis of what was at stake for the individualsconcerned,the community,and the state. With these detailed accounts, and the erudite explicationthat accompanies them, Dubin offers readersentree into a world that is rarelyseen from up close. An elegantly writtenwork of matureand thoroughscholarship,ThePort Jews of HabsburgTriesterepresentsa critically importantcontributionto understanding the multifacetedand multitexturedinteractionof the state and the Jewish community at the dawn of the modernera. Jay R. Berkovitz of Massachusetts at Amherst University Amherst,Massachusetts

Michael L. Morgan.BeyondAuschwitz:Post-HolocaustJewish Thoughtin America. New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 2001. xii, 288 pp. In BeyondAuschwitz,Michael Morganhas in effect woven togethertwo differentkindsof narratives.The first narrativeis utterlyordinary;thankfully,the second is utterlyextraordinary. In the ordinarynarrative,MorgantracesAmericanJewishphilosophicaland theologicalresponsesto the Holocaustfrom 1945 to the early 1980s.While the bulk of the book treatsthe work of five post-Holocaustthinkers-Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits,IrvingGreenberg,ArthurCohen, and Emil Fackenheim-Morgan insistson readingthese figures in theirpostwarAmericanJewishcontext.Morgan begins by showing how the work of HannahArendtand the writings of Elie Wiesel andPrimoLevi led Americansto be criticalof universalsandto open themselves to the uniquenessof the Shoah.He also shows how the vast majorityof early postwarAmericanJewish theology, using Buber and Rosenzweig as aids in a spiritualistgaze upward,at first ignored the particulardetails of the Shoah, enveloping them into an abstractrhetoricof "crisis."In this way,more thanotheraccounts of post-HolocaustJewish thought, BeyondAuschwitzis able to give the readera sense of the extentto whichpost-Holocausttheologybothappropriatedand 391

Book Reviews interruptedthe rhetoricof AmericanJewish thoughtin the 1940s and 1950s. But while this narrativeis useful for its breadthand its abilityto clarify the often difficult argumentsof post-Holocausttheology,a readerwho knowsMorgan'sown acuity as a Jewishthinkermay wonderwhatexactlyis specificallyphilosophical in this book thatwould make it qualitativelydifferentfrom a work of intellectualhistory. The second narrativethatMorganhas offeredanswersthis question.In looking broadlyat the historyof AmericanJewishthoughtand cultureduringthis time period,Morgansucceeds in verifying the argumentof Emil Fackenheimaboutthe relationshipbetweenthoughtandhistory.As earlyas the 1961 essay "Metaphysics and Historicity,"Fackenheimhad used Hegelian and existentialistphilosophy to arguethatstatementsaboutthatwhich transcendshistoryarenot invalidatedby the doctrineof historicism.In showingthathumanexistence is committedto both naturalism and idealism, Fackenheimwarned of the pitfalls both of the thorough avoidanceof history thatwe find in Buberand Rosenzweig and of the purelynaturalistthoughtof RichardRubenstein.Throughoutthe bulk of BeyondAuschwitz, the readergets only hints that this second narrativeis the fundamentalone. Although Morganstates up frontthat his thesis is that "thenovelty and significance of post-HolocaustJewish thoughtconcernsthe relationbetweenhistory and identity and not the particulartheological resultsthatthese thinkersdevelop"(p. viii), the need to tell the ordinarynarrativeof post-HolocaustAmericanJewish thought gets somewhatin the way of this thesis. It is primarilyin Morgan'sconclusion that we get a sense that the very existence of post-HolocaustJewish thought and its strugglein thinkingputativelytimeless theologicaltruthsalongsidethe uniquehistorical event of the Shoah is evidence for the dialectical returnto history with which thinkerssuch as Andreas Huyssen and RichardRorty have characterized postmodernityand its simultaneousruptureand continuitywith the past. This means that Morganreads for the tension between transcendenceand historicitythroughout,in orderto show thatFackenheim'sconcernsarewoven into the fabricof the AmericanJewishtheological narrative.In the opening chapteron HannahArendt,Morganbracketsthe issue of whetherher analyses are correct or not. By turningto the 1960s debatesaboutEichmannin Jerusalem,Morganshows (p. 26) thatthe importanceof the work is that it "raisedto consciousness a whole set of convictions aboutuniversalprinciplesand the particularityof historicalsituation."The chapteron early postwarAmericanJewish theology treatsthe appropriationof Buberand Rosenzweig as sourcesfor the rise of the rubricof "covenant theology."Although historically situatedas a preliminaryresponse to the Shoah, Morgan(p. 57f.) judges it unsatisfyingbecause it was not dialecticalenough. If the majorityof religious Jews in the late 1940s andthe 1950s were investedin the conviction thatan individual'sidentityin covenantcan lead him or her to do andknow the good, this only occluded the issues of humanfinitude and the humancapacity for evil that Irving Kristolnotablyraised in his 1947 review of Milton Steinberg's Basic Judaism.Finally,in the chapteron religious critics of post-Holocausttheology in the 1970s, Morgandeflates most of their dismissals of history by claiming that they, too, are historicallysituatedby the rise of the New Left. These chaptersarethe most successfulin BeyondAuschwitz.In showinghow the conversationsin AmericanJewishtheologyarereallyconversationsaboutthe di392

Book Reviews alecticaltwistsandturnsof the relationshipbetweenrevelationandhistory,the reader is preparedto go alongwith MorganwhenFackenheimhimself is presentedas the culminationand synthesis of post-Holocaustthought,in his expressionof this dialectic leadingto a post-Holocaustfaith that alwaysexpressesitself in a "groping, troubledaffirmation"(p. 195). And Morganfinds dialecticaland historiciststructures throughoutthe writings of Rubenstein,Berkovits,Greenberg,and Cohen. While this meansthathe is able to readthemall with a generositythatis not always to be found in post-Holocaustthought,such generositymight appearto be grounded primarilyin their potential to verify Fackenheim'sarguments.Despite their strengths,Rubensteinis too naturalist(p. 67) and voluntaristic(p. 107); Berkovits does not notice his own perspectivalism(p. 118); Greenberg'sZionism is insufficiently theological (p. 135); and Cohen's historicismis not quite radicalenough (pp. 150-51). Morgan'scritiqueof MichaelWyschogrodis less compelling,mostly because it is primarilyan assertion(p. 204) thatWyschogrodshows "a deep resisAltance to the historicityof Jewish existence and to its hermeneuticalcharacter." have that this assertion carries out more thoughMorganmight weight pointed clearly becausethe entirestorythatMorgantells is an argumentagainstWyschogrod'sview, what is reallycalled for in settlingthe debatebetweenWyschogrodand Fackenheim is a sustainedanalysisof the differinganalysesof Heideggerfound in Fackenheim's ToMendTheWorldandWyschogrod'sTheBody of Faith. However,this is a minor cavil. Framingthe story of Americanpostwartheology as a story of the dialectic between revelationand history allows Morganto offer a philosophicalargumentas well as a historicalnarrative.Because his argument is groundedin history,and not in technical readingsof Hegel, Schelling, or Rosenzweig, it has a powerthatgives hope thatits readerswill learnwhat I believe to be its two primarylessons: First,the currentpopularityof Jewish spiritualityis now the greatestvehicle by which AmericanJews forget what the Holocaust can teach about the historical dimension of our existence. ContemporaryJews, now "beyondAuschwitz,"make leaps of faith and have a spiritualconfidence thatneitherthe fact of the Holocaust,nor philosophy,nor especially the history of American Jews' grapplingwith how to conceptualizeJudaismafter the Holocaust, can possibly justify. The second lesson comes from the decision to read Fackenheim as a postmodernthinker.For Morgan,while the Holocaust bids us to affirm objectivity,the contentof this objectivityis alwaysrevisableandup for grabs(p. 217): "alltraditionalnarrativesof Jewishlife andJewishhistorymustbe reevaluated,for any one might turnout on reflectionto be a tool of oppressionor a mediumof distortion."In this broadly pragmaticshift-one that implies that readers can and should questioneven the Zionism and the fragmentarymessianismthatwe find in ToMend The World-Morgan offers his readersa welcome pathbeyond the usual contoursof Fackenheim'sthought. MartinKavka State Florida University Tallahassee,Florida

393

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Louis E. Newman Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 394-395 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131545 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews Aaron L. Mackler.Introductionto Jewish and CatholicBioethics:A Comparative Analysis. Washington,DC: GeorgetownUniversityPress, 2003. x, 265 pp. Comparativeanalysis, especially in the field of religious studies, is widely recognizedas among the most difficult of intellectualtasks. How does one do justice to the complexity of both subjects?How does one set the terms of the comparison in a way that accuratelycapturesboth similaritiesand differences?How does one place those similaritiesand differencesin a broadercontext so thattheir significance comes to the fore?And how does one presentboth halves of the comparisonin a way thatwill be equally accessible to readerspresumedto be familiar with only one or the other?These challenges are still more formidablewhen the subjectsbeing comparedare "Jewishbioethics"and "Catholicbioethics,"each of which drawson a long ethical tradition,encompasses a wide range of views, and continues to evolve. Given the complexity of the task, it is especially gratifying to read Aaron Mackler'scomparativestudy of Jewish and Catholicbioethics. Mackler,a prominent Jewish ethicist teaching in a Catholic institution(Duquesne University), is ideally situatedto undertakethis project and he succeeds admirably.Among its manymerits,this book is extremelywell researched,clearlywritten,and,given the limitations of its scope, surprisingly comprehensive.At every point, Mackler demonstratesthe breadthof his learning,his sensitivity to the spectrumof views within each tradition,and his willingness to drawcarefully nuancedconclusions aboutboth the (largely)sharedvalues andthe (partially)divergentviews thatcharacterize contemporaryJewish and Catholicbioethics. The structureof the book is straightforward:an introductiondevoted to sharedvalues of the two traditions,two chapterson methodologyin Catholic and Jewish ethics, comparativeanalyses of five key issues (euthanasia,end-of-life treatment,abortion,in vitro fertilization,and access to health care), plus a conclusion devoted to points of convergenceand divergencebetween the traditions. Mackler'streatmentof access to health care and rationingis especially helpful, since these issues remainhigh on the public policy agendayet often receive scant attentionin the scholarlyliterature.The clarity of Mackler'spresentation,together with the very extensivebibliographyand index, will makethis book an ideal text for introductorycourses in comparativereligious ethics. Indeed, the only other roughly comparablevolume would be EdmundPellegrinoand Alan Faden'sJewish and CatholicBioethics (Washington,DC: GeorgetownUniversityPress, 1999), and that anthology offers a sampling of key essays, ratherthan a systematic and cohesive comparisonof the two traditions. Mackler's analysis highlights those basic religious and moral values that Jewish and Catholic bioethicists share-concern for humandignity, the value of life, the imitationof God, love of neighbor,divine sovereigntyand humanstewardshipof the earth, the value of healing, community,justice, and autonomywhile noting that these receive somewhatdifferentemphases and interpretations among differentthinkerswithin and across the traditions.Mackleralso notes that severalfactorsenterinto the decision-makingprocess for bothJewishandCatholic bioethicists (reason and experience, scriptureand tradition,authoritativeteach394

Book Reviews ing), while carefullydelineatingthe characteristicallydivergentmethodsemployed (mostly naturallaw and magisterialteaching for Catholics;mostly halakhahand traditionfor Jews). Settingout mattersin this way, Mackleris able to demonstrate thatthereis substantialoverlapbetweenthe views of Jewish and Catholicbioethicists on many issues, though similarviews may be justified in somewhatdifferent terms. Moreover,the spectrumof views may overlap,thoughon some issues (e.g., abortion)Catholicthinkerstend to be more conservativewhile on others(e.g., euthanasia)Jewish thinkersare overall more conservative. For all its merits, Mackler's discussion would benefit from a somewhat sharperdistinctionbetweentraditionalandcontemporaryviews of these issues. By moving ratherseamlessly between classical thinkers(e.g., Maimonidesor Aquinas) and contemporarywriters (including both traditionalistand liberal ones), Macklermakes it harderfor the readerto discern the radicallydifferentmethodological assumptions that underlie many contemporarypositions. In addition, Mackleroverlooksthe distinctivecontributionsof feminists to these discussions, which, though limited, merit special recognition.His overview of contemporary Jewishmovementsandtheirviews also inexplicablyoverlooksReconstructionism. More significantly,Macklermight have deepened his analysis of these two traditionsby focusing more explicitly on the theological categoriesthatthey share (creation,revelation,and redemption,perhaps)as well as those that figure more prominentlyin one traditionor the other (grace for Catholics;mitzvahfor Jews). Macklertouches on these mattersin his conclusion, but one senses that a more thoroughtreatmentof these theological perspectiveswould help explainthe traditions' varying attitudestowardnature,technology and the complex dialectic between passive acceptance of God's will for us and active attemptsto alter our medical conditions. This might also have helped to explain, ratherthan merely summarize,the diverse views representedwithin each tradition. But these shortcomingsdo not detractsignificantly from the value of the book. This is complex terrainindeed,and Macklerhereproveshimself a very conscientious and trustworthyguide. In providingus such a well-conceived and carefully researchedintroductionto this material,he enables us to appreciateboth the ways in which these two religious traditionsof bioethics complementone another and the ways in which both togethercan contributeto the broadersocietal discussion of these issues. Louis E. Newman CarletonCollege Northfield,Minnesota

Burke O. Long. Imagining the Holy Land. Maps, Models, and Fantasy Travels. Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 2003. xi, 258 pp. Many of the pioneers and settlers who came to America held the Bible in their right hands and were stronglyinspiredby this "Good Book."They believed 395

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Rehav Rubin Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 395-398 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131546 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews ing), while carefullydelineatingthe characteristicallydivergentmethodsemployed (mostly naturallaw and magisterialteaching for Catholics;mostly halakhahand traditionfor Jews). Settingout mattersin this way, Mackleris able to demonstrate thatthereis substantialoverlapbetweenthe views of Jewish and Catholicbioethicists on many issues, though similarviews may be justified in somewhatdifferent terms. Moreover,the spectrumof views may overlap,thoughon some issues (e.g., abortion)Catholicthinkerstend to be more conservativewhile on others(e.g., euthanasia)Jewish thinkersare overall more conservative. For all its merits, Mackler's discussion would benefit from a somewhat sharperdistinctionbetweentraditionalandcontemporaryviews of these issues. By moving ratherseamlessly between classical thinkers(e.g., Maimonidesor Aquinas) and contemporarywriters (including both traditionalistand liberal ones), Macklermakes it harderfor the readerto discern the radicallydifferentmethodological assumptions that underlie many contemporarypositions. In addition, Mackleroverlooksthe distinctivecontributionsof feminists to these discussions, which, though limited, merit special recognition.His overview of contemporary Jewishmovementsandtheirviews also inexplicablyoverlooksReconstructionism. More significantly,Macklermight have deepened his analysis of these two traditionsby focusing more explicitly on the theological categoriesthatthey share (creation,revelation,and redemption,perhaps)as well as those that figure more prominentlyin one traditionor the other (grace for Catholics;mitzvahfor Jews). Macklertouches on these mattersin his conclusion, but one senses that a more thoroughtreatmentof these theological perspectiveswould help explainthe traditions' varying attitudestowardnature,technology and the complex dialectic between passive acceptance of God's will for us and active attemptsto alter our medical conditions. This might also have helped to explain, ratherthan merely summarize,the diverse views representedwithin each tradition. But these shortcomingsdo not detractsignificantly from the value of the book. This is complex terrainindeed,and Macklerhereproveshimself a very conscientious and trustworthyguide. In providingus such a well-conceived and carefully researchedintroductionto this material,he enables us to appreciateboth the ways in which these two religious traditionsof bioethics complementone another and the ways in which both togethercan contributeto the broadersocietal discussion of these issues. Louis E. Newman CarletonCollege Northfield,Minnesota

Burke O. Long. Imagining the Holy Land. Maps, Models, and Fantasy Travels. Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 2003. xi, 258 pp. Many of the pioneers and settlers who came to America held the Bible in their right hands and were stronglyinspiredby this "Good Book."They believed 395

Book Reviews they hadcome to the "New PromisedLand,"andconsequentlygave Biblical names to the new towns and villages, as well as to theirchildren.It was, therefore,almost naturalthat the remote land in the east, known as the Holy Land, Palestine, the PromisedLand,or The Land of Israel, had, and probablystill has, a very special place in Americancultureand society. Yet, being so far away,most Americanscould not even conceive of making such a long, expensive, and dangerousjourney.Hence the geographicalimage of the Holy Land was based upon indirect media such as maps, travelers'books, paintings,models, photographs(especially stereographicones), lectures,homilies, and other sorts of media. These image-creatingmedia became highly important and influentialin Americansociety, and their story is told in this book. The heart of the book is dedicatedto several types of such image-making media, and thereforeit is in fact a book about the people and organizationsthat producedthem and promotedthem among Americans.It is a study of those promotersof images as agents of knowledge,ideas, and concepts. It describesandanalyzes their operationsand motivations,their manipulationsand ideologies, their successes and failures, and their impact in creatingthe conceptualimage, or, actually,various images, of the Holy Land within certaincircles of Americansociety. The book tells the story of those people, some of them in great detail. It seems to me that this is its main virtue. The descriptionof the large-scalemodel of Jerusalemat the St. Louis World'sFair(1904) is extremelyvivid and attractive. It is well told, depicting the atmospherewhen Madame Lydia Mameroff von FinkelsteinMountfordgave her biblical shows (pp. 56-59) and how the "Biblical strongmanSamson died from gunshot wounds"(p. 66). The same is true for the details quoted from the letters of Charles Foster Kent, describing his travels in Palestine, which included what he ate and how many mosquito bites he suffered (p. 93ff.). Many other such incidents are describedthroughoutthe book. The book is arrangedin five chapters:The first tells the historyof the Chautauquainstitutionin upstateNew York,where a large parkwas built in the shape of a three-dimensionalmap of Palestine.This parkplayed a centralpartin the famous educationalactivity thattook place there.The second chapterdescribesthe large-scalemodel of Jerusalembuilt in the St. Louis World'sFairand contrastsit with the modern"New Holy Land"in EurekaSprings,Arkansas.The thirdchapter discusses the parlortours where lectures and stereoscopic photographswere used in orderto createa "real"geographicimage of the Holy Land.The authoranalyzes in detail how this "real"image was, of course, manipulatedby the photographers,editors,and lecturersto convey their own ideas and values. The fourthchapteris entitled"Landscapeand Democracy,"but its main focus is WilliamFoxwellAlbrightandothermembersof the AmericanSchool of Oriental Research.Here the authordescribeshow "science,"that is, archaeologyand Bible studies, were also used to promotevalues and sociopolitical positions. The fifth chapteris apparentlyaboutmaps andthe powerof cartographyin image making, but it is focused on the historicalatlases of Coleman (1850) and Wrightand Filson (1945). These two atlases were distributedin large numbers,and each of them was popularfor many decades.As maps are believed by many to be "scien396

Book Reviews tific" and "objective"documents,these two atlases were powerful in promoting ideas and creatingvalue-ladenimages of the Holy Land. Although the book is very well written,and the stories of those many peoand institutions,image-makers,map-makers,model-makers,scholars,theolople gians, entrepreneursand travelersare fascinating, four shortcomings should be pointed out: 1. The book overlooksalmost everythingthat is not American,and thus discusses the Americanarenaomittingthe largercontext.Alas, the rediscoveryof the Holy Landby western civilization, especially duringthe nineteenthand twentieth centuries,was not limited to America.On the contrary,much of the importantactivity took place in Europeand in England.'This overwhelmingEuropeanactivity also had a strongimpacton the Americanactivity in numerousways. 2. Even within the American context, the book deals only with Protestant groupsand institutions.However,in some of the CatholicUniversitiesin the United Statesthere were, and still are, importantcenters for Bible andAncient Semitic languages. Moreover,in the same years that Albright and his followers were active in biblical archaeology,Nelson Glueck surveyedboth sides of the Jordan and the Negev desert. Did he, and others, have no impact in creatingand distributing alternativeimages of the Land of the Bible? Does black traditionalmusic, especially spiritualslike "Jordanriver is deep and wide / Milk and honey on the other side" not reflect a geographicconceptualimage of the "PromisedLand"? 3. The book describes and analyzes several channelsof image making like models, photography,cartography,archaeological and biblical studies, and so forth.However,it overlookssome otherchannelssuch as literatureand visual arts. MarkTwain,certainly a different voice comparedto Protestantromanticism,is mentionedonly briefly,while HermanMelville, one of the famousAmericanauthorswho traveledto Palestine,is not mentionedat all.2The same is true for painting and lithography,which were commonat the time, andhada considerablevisual impact.3 4. Finally,thereare some importantissues thatare missing even if we accept the line of discussion chosen by the author.Among the models, the complicated model of theTempleMount,builtby C. Schick andboughtby theAshmolieanMuseum in Harvardin 1904, which was probablyexhibited also in St. Louis, is not even mentioned.4The same is true for the first Americantravelerto Palestine in

1. Y. Ben-Arieh, TheRediscoveryof the Holy Landin the NineteenthCentury(Jerusalem:Karta, 1970) (Hebrew);H. Goren, "Go Viewthe Land".:GermanStudyof Palestine in the NinteenthCentury(Jerusalem:YadIzhakBen-Zvi, 1999) (Hebrew). 2. HermanMelville, Journal of a Visitto Europeand the Levant(11.10.1856-6.5.1857), edited by H.C. Horstord(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1955). See also: M. R. Konvitz,"Herman Melville in the Holy Land,"Midstream,Dec. 1979, 50-57. 3. Y. Ben Arieh,Paintingthe Holy Landin the NineteenthCentury(Jerusalem:YadIzhakBenZvi, 1997). 4. H. Gorenand R. Rubin,"ConradSchick'sModels of Jerusalemand its Monuments,"Palestine ExplorationQuarterly128 (1996): 103- 124. Therewere also othermodels of Jerusalemthatwere on exhibit in the US.

397

Book Reviews the nineteenthcentury,JohnL. Stephens,who made some interestingdiscoveries5 and for Americansettlers in Palestine,6in additionto other issues that could, and probablyshould,have been discussed in such a book. In conclusion,discussionof the process anddevelopmentof the image of the in Americansociety, and particularlythe use of "surrogatetravels,"is Land Holy very interesting,7especially in the American context where this concept is still strongand alive (as in EPCOT,in Disney World).This book would have been even betterhad it been more comprehensive. Rehav Rubin Hebrew University Jerusalem,Israel

Ruth Katz. "TheLachmannProblem":An Unsung Chapterin ComparativeMusicology. Jerusalem:The HebrewUniversityMagnesPress,2003. 415 pp. CD encl. David M. Schiller. Bloch, Schoenberg & Bernstein:AssimilatingJewish Music. New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 2003. x, 199 pp. MarshaBryan Edelman.Discovering Jewish Music. Philadelphia:Jewish Publication Society, 2003. xii, 396 pp. CD encl. Jewish music study is a loosely unified field that brings together strands fromseveralscholarlytraditions.Researcherstrainedin historicalmusicology typically use documentstudy,note analysis, and contemporaryaesthetic writings to examine how questions of "Jewishness"manifest themselves in the works of selected composers. Ethnomusicologistsfrequentlyutilize ethnographicfieldwork methods developed for studyingmusical practicesof Jewish communitieswithin a broad culturaland symbolic system. Jewish music researchersin Israel commonly focus on comparativeculturalprojects intendedto illuminate stylistic or song-basedpathwaysof transmissionfrom one age or cultureto the next. Cultural theoriststend to situatemusic as a mediumfor negotiatingthe bordersbetween Jews and other groups. And with the lay public in mind, specialists and nonspecialists alike have generatednumerouspopulartextbooksclaiming to cover "Jewish music."Each of these disciplines asks differentquestions about the natureof soundwithin Jewishcontexts;yet centralto all is the questionof how the soundit5. J. L. Stephens,Incidentsof Travelin Egypt,Arabia Petraea and the Holy Land (New York: Harper,1837). 6. Reed M. Holmes, TheForerunners(Independence,Missouri, 1981). 7. L. Vogel, "SurrogateDestinationsin America for Holy LandTravel,"in Pilgrims and Travelers to the Holy Land, ed. B. E Beau and M. Mor (Omaha, 1996), 251-267; LesterVogel, ToSee a PromisedLand,Americansand the Holy Landin the NineteenthCentury(UniversityPark:Pennsylvania State UniversityPress, 1993).

398

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Judah M. Cohen Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 398-403 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131547 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews the nineteenthcentury,JohnL. Stephens,who made some interestingdiscoveries5 and for Americansettlers in Palestine,6in additionto other issues that could, and probablyshould,have been discussed in such a book. In conclusion,discussionof the process anddevelopmentof the image of the in Americansociety, and particularlythe use of "surrogatetravels,"is Land Holy very interesting,7especially in the American context where this concept is still strongand alive (as in EPCOT,in Disney World).This book would have been even betterhad it been more comprehensive. Rehav Rubin Hebrew University Jerusalem,Israel

Ruth Katz. "TheLachmannProblem":An Unsung Chapterin ComparativeMusicology. Jerusalem:The HebrewUniversityMagnesPress,2003. 415 pp. CD encl. David M. Schiller. Bloch, Schoenberg & Bernstein:AssimilatingJewish Music. New York:OxfordUniversityPress, 2003. x, 199 pp. MarshaBryan Edelman.Discovering Jewish Music. Philadelphia:Jewish Publication Society, 2003. xii, 396 pp. CD encl. Jewish music study is a loosely unified field that brings together strands fromseveralscholarlytraditions.Researcherstrainedin historicalmusicology typically use documentstudy,note analysis, and contemporaryaesthetic writings to examine how questions of "Jewishness"manifest themselves in the works of selected composers. Ethnomusicologistsfrequentlyutilize ethnographicfieldwork methods developed for studyingmusical practicesof Jewish communitieswithin a broad culturaland symbolic system. Jewish music researchersin Israel commonly focus on comparativeculturalprojects intendedto illuminate stylistic or song-basedpathwaysof transmissionfrom one age or cultureto the next. Cultural theoriststend to situatemusic as a mediumfor negotiatingthe bordersbetween Jews and other groups. And with the lay public in mind, specialists and nonspecialists alike have generatednumerouspopulartextbooksclaiming to cover "Jewish music."Each of these disciplines asks differentquestions about the natureof soundwithin Jewishcontexts;yet centralto all is the questionof how the soundit5. J. L. Stephens,Incidentsof Travelin Egypt,Arabia Petraea and the Holy Land (New York: Harper,1837). 6. Reed M. Holmes, TheForerunners(Independence,Missouri, 1981). 7. L. Vogel, "SurrogateDestinationsin America for Holy LandTravel,"in Pilgrims and Travelers to the Holy Land, ed. B. E Beau and M. Mor (Omaha, 1996), 251-267; LesterVogel, ToSee a PromisedLand,Americansand the Holy Landin the NineteenthCentury(UniversityPark:Pennsylvania State UniversityPress, 1993).

398

Book Reviews self reflects concepts of Jewishlife-providing researcherswith a richlyevocative common groundfor substantiveand interdisciplinarystudy. In this review, I will look at books from three trajectoriesof Jewish music research:Schiller'spublication,centeredin the methods of historicalmusicology, examines key Jewish-themedworks of three majortwentieth-centurycomposers; Katz'spresentationof the letters of comparativemusicologist Robert Lachmann provides insight into the state of ethnographicmusic researchin pre-stateIsrael; and Edelman'stextbook-consciously aimed at a lay audience-aims to provide an introductionof the field. Studyingthe music of self-identifyingJewish composersprovidesresearchers with great challenges: What is significant about labeling these composers as Jewish in the first place? How do sound and identitycorrespondwith each other? What can be said about these composers' non-Jewish music? Perhapsthe most significant pitfall is the inevitableattemptto translatewrittennotes into a recipe for Jewishness (see Eric Werner'sThe Sacred Bridge [1959] and volume one of Sholom Kalib'sTheMusical Traditionof the EasternEuropeanSynagogue[2002] amongmany others).Fortunately,David Schillerhas managedto sidestepmany of these issues in his carefuland well-documentedstudyBloch, Schoenberg& Bernstein: AssimilatingJewish Music. Schiller,an Assistant Professorat the University of GeorgiaSchool of Music, uses the multifariousconceptof assimilationas the unifying factor in his analyses of Ernest Bloch's 1933 Sacred Service, Arnold Schoenberg's1946 A Survivorfrom Warsaw,and LeonardBernstein's 1963 Kaddish symphony. Fully aware of assimilation's packed nature within twentiethcenturyAmerican-Jewishdiscourse,he examinesthe meaningof each composer's attemptsto fit openly Jewish subjectmatterinto what he terms "non-Jewish"musical forms (i.e., oratorio, cantata,and symphony,respectively). For each composer, he claims, this process partookof a differentphilosophical approachand Jewish/non-Jewishworldview.AlthoughSchillerdoes not entirelyfulfill his book's promisingpremise,his workis the best I haveyet readin seeking andframingquestions of "Jewishness"in Westernconcert music. Fromthe outset, it is clear Schillerhas done his researchand developed solid analyticalchops-two factors often lacking in studies of this sort. The thoroughness of his approach,combinedwith an engaging writingstyle, leads to some marvelouslyinformedandwell-documenteddiscussionsabouteach composerand his representativework. In addition, by intelligently utilizing a wide range of thinkersto center his study-from Sergio Della Pergolato FrancoisLyotardfor theoreticalbackground,and TheodorAdorno, KurtList, Andre Ungar and others for contemporarycritical response-Schiller can engage in broaderquestions of Jewish identityand memorywhile creatinga forumfor discussion of Jewishwestern compositionaccessible to scholarsoutside the core of Jewish musicology. The most successful and best-conceived chapter of the book focuses on Bloch's Sacred Service. Schiller'saccess to Bloch's letters from the time he composed SacredService help shine new light on the composer'sreligiousoutlook and philosophy,and provideseveralvaluableand directreferencesto his compositional proceduresfor setting the service. Schiller then offers a strong sociomusical analysis of the piece, beautifullyweaving togetherphilosophical, cultural,musi399

Book Reviews cal, liturgical,and historicalsources to providefresh insights into the origins, importance,and impactof Sacred Service. Schiller'schapterson SchoenbergandBernstein,while well constructed,fall short of the standardestablishedby the Bloch chapter.This is most noticeable in the backgroundSchiller provides for each composer.As opposed to Bloch's revealing letters and deep complex of literature,the materialSchiller provides on Schoenbergand Bernsteinappearslimitedmainlyto secondaryandpublishedprimary materials.Schiller struggles to fill in Bernstein'sbackgroundin particular, often resortingto secondaryworkswrittendecades afterthe fact in orderto gauge his composition and religious philosophies. Though intelligently arranged,these sources simply cannotprovidethe same rich, convincingportraitaffordedBloch. Schiller'smusical analyses provide for interestingand worthwhilereading; at the same time, they seem overly brief-perhaps due to the raritywith which these pieces have been analyzedin the past. The author'stendency to emphasize one or two main points in each case is illuminating(particularlywith the Schoenberg case, in which he convincingly notes the connection between the use of an augmentedtriadic figure and an underlyingsubtext of divinity) but leaves many unansweredquestions, as well as a hunger for more detail and nuanceddescription. The Schoenbergand Bernsteinchaptersalso rely heavily on twelve-tonemusical analysis; althoughSchiller takes up such analyticalchallenge with aplomb, providingsolid explanationsand strongwriting,those readersnot acquaintedwith the twelve-tone system will find these passages opaque. To conclude the book, Schillercuriouslybegins by juxtaposinga numberof passages takenverbatimfromearlierin the book. One can only thinkcynicallythat Schiller compiled the startof the conclusion for those who do not read the inner chapters;for someone who has read throughthe whole book, however,they feel like a jarringrecap.Nonetheless, once throughthese pages, Schiller sails along to a briefbutthought-provokingconclusion:to Bloch, Jewishmusic hada racialquality; to Schoenberg,it was intrinsicallymodern;and to Bernstein,it was by nature postmodernand disjointed.Schiller'spresentationclearly makes these ideas worthy of consideration,and has hopefullypavedthe way for othersto continuescholarly discussion of this high caliber. Contributingsignificantlyto anotherstrandof Jewishmusic researchis Ruth Katz, ProfessorEmeritusof Musicology at HebrewUniversity.In her book "The LachmannProblem,"Katz fills in one of the most significant lacunaein the story of Jewish music research(as well as the history of ethnomusicology):the tale of RobertLachmann,comparativemusicologistand founderof what is todaythe Hebrew UniversityNational SoundArchives.Lachmannhas long been regardedas a significantbut little-knownfigure in the Jewishmusic world.Editorof the first internationaljournal of comparativemusicology, authorof the posthumousmonograph Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerba, and well-regarded authorityon Arabicmusic, Lachmandied froma long illness in 1939, cuttingshort a bloomingcareerandrelegatinghim to the shadowsof Jewishmusic history."The LachmannProblem"representsKatz's valiant (and nearly hagiographic)attempt to returnthe man to his rightfulplace in Israeliand Jewish musicology. Katz literallytells Lachmann'sstory in dramaticform. After a compulsory 400

Book Reviews introductionproviding an undistinguishedbackgroundon the rise of Nazi Germany and the creation of Hebrew University,Katz launches into the Lachmann narrativeby presentingthree"acts"and an epilogue. In each act, she reprintswhat appearto be the full (translated)texts of most of Lachmann'sextant letters from his files at HebrewUniversityandThe JewishNationalandUniversityLibrary,interspersedwith commentsmeantto providecontext.At times this techniqueworks nicely, particularlyonce Lachmannbegins to struggle for his archive'sfinancial existence at the unsympathetichands of HebrewUniversity.Yet at its worst (particularlytowardthe end), the comments become overly adulatoryand take away from the impactof the primarymaterials. Most important,however,is thatthe lettersconcerningLachmanntell their own story.Summarilydismissedas a librarianat the PrussianStateLibraryin 1933 by the Nazi regime, Lachmannsuccessfully applied for work at the HebrewUniversity in Jerusalem.Upon his arrivalfrom Berlin, however,Lachmannmet great frustrationin establishingand maintaininghis proposedArchive of OrientalMusic. Although warmly endorsedby then ChancellorJudahL. Magnes, Lachmann ultimatelyreceived little funding from the Universityand was repeatedlyrefused full affiliation with the Universityproper.The letters illuminatehis story in great detail, including the slow growth of Lachmann'sPalestinianrecordingproject, Magnes's consistent but finally fruitless support,and Hebrew University'sown hands-off (and, as intimatedby Katz, passively hostile) attitudetowardmusical studyin highereducation.ThatLachmanndied beforehe could reachstabilityrepresentsto Katz a tragedy,both for Lachmannand for the study of music in Israel. Accompanyingthe main storylineare severalotherimportantdocumentcollections. An epilogue reprintsLachmann'scorrespondencewith Americanmusicologists, including Charles Seeger and fellow expatriatesGermans Curt Sachs and George Herzog. A series of appendices illuminate other chaptersof Lachmann'slife and philosophy:importantpersonaldocumentsfrom Germany;letters to his parentsdescribingthe 1932 Cairo Conferenceon Arabic music; twelve radio talks on "OrientalMusic,"complete with a CD of what Katz believes to be the original examples; and four "Lectureson EasternMusic" deliveredto university studentsin the 1930s. Each of these additionsprovidesnew and welcome insight into Lachmann'sall-too-brieftransplantedcareer,enrichingourportraitof him and his work-and hopefully,in the process, rewritingJewish musical history. To say that Katz intendsthroughher book to restoreLachmannto the consciousness of Jewish music researchers,however, would be an understatement. Rather,the dramatizedstyle of presentation,the book's separationinto "acts,"and Katz'srepeatedreferenceto Lachmannas a "hero"in her epilogue intimatea desire to elevate Lachmannto legendarystatus. Katz'simpetusto celebratehis story andachievementsto this degree is curious,andseems unnecessaryto this reader. Perhaps,in creatingthis volume, Katz also aims to dispel doubts of Lachmann's legitimacy within a more local academiccircle. In any case, we dissipateany further oppositionto Lachmann'sstatus. A thirdprominentstrandof Jewishmusic literaturecomprisestextbooksdesigned for the general public. These works, createdwith the confidence that Jewish music holds a broadpopularappeal,have rarelybeen successful. Ratherthan 401

Book Reviews pointing out the challenges and nuances of the field, they tend to propounda mythology of Jewish music as a unified and "safe" narrative.Such remains the case with MarshaBryan Edelman'sDiscovering Jewish Music, a self-described general survey of Jewish music for nonspecialistswith a particularfocus on the twentiethcentury.Had Edelmanlimitedherselfto the last century(or even the last half century),this book might have emergedas a pleasant,light, and informative work based on personalknowledgeand engagement,perhapsappropriatefor synagogue adult educationclasses. Instead,however,Edelmanattemptsto cover the entire span of Jewish music history,with deeply flawed results. To this reviewer,the ideal popularJewish music text would presentthe currentstateof the field in accessible language.While Edelman'slanguageis certainly accessible, her presentationis far from current.Though it includes some classic sources, Edelman'slist of references seemingly ignores most of the last twenty years of Jewish music research,including majorbooks and essays by Kay Kaufman Shelemay,Edwin Seroussi, Philip Bohlman,MarkKligman,JoachimBraun, Eliyahu Schleifer, Geoffrey Goldberg,and IsraelAdler (not to mention work by earlier Israeli musicologists Hanoch Avenaryand Edith Gerson-Kiwi). Her tendency to rely selectively on older works, whose methodsand conclusions are currently under much critical scrutiny,is puzzling and frustrating,and results in a book alreadywell behind the academiccurve. Edelman'slack of secondarysources is particularlynoticeablein the book's first three and one-half chapters,which span Jewish music from biblical times to the Enlightenment.She is clearly out of her element here, summarizingthe first couple thousandyears of Jewish music history througha limp web of anecdotal evidence, overrelianceand undercontextualizationof scripturalsources, and unsupportedassertions. Subsequentchapterson the St. Petersburgfolklore society and the Yiddishtheaterare betterorganized,but rely heavily on othersources (AlbertWeisser's1954 TheModernRenaissance ofJewish Music in the formercase, and Nahma Sandrow's1977 VagabondStars in the latter)to the point that some passages have become mere thinly veiled rewordingsof their sources. Edelman'sstrongestchapterscome at the end of the book, where she deals with more recent events. Here she is on surerfooting, due perhapsto her personal involvementwith the music she covers. Depthof understanding,as elsewherein the book, is not the objective;rather,Edelmanaims mainlyto outline and illustrate significant movements, events, compositions, and artists within the context of Americanand IsraeliJewishhistory.And to hercredit,she does not end with a "decline of Jewishmusic"lamentoften self-righteouslyintonedduringdiscussions of modernJewish music "trends"(see, for example, recent works by Sholom Kalib and Joseph Levine). InsteadEdelman lets the materialspeak for itself, allowing the readerto revel in Jewish music's continuedrichnessand variety. In her attemptsto bringthe readerinto contactwith the music she describes, Edelman includes over 160 notatedmusical examples, ranging from anonymous (and undocumented)chantpatternsto samplesof full piano and vocal scores. Sixty-five of these examples also appearas shortaudio segments on the accompanying CD. In one sense, notations and their musical samples are quite helpful for readersto experiencethe music themselves-a notoriouslydifficult feat for a print 402

Book Reviews publication.Yet while the audio examples are an attractiveidea, they feel overly brief here (most are undera minute long), and seem bettersuited for accompanying a popularlecturethan immersinga new reader.Thatmanyof Edelman'ssound sources are out of print,moreover,means most listenerswill neverbe able to hear some of the music she presents in anythingbut a minimal context, which is unfortunate. The realm of Jewish music history texts is a highly variableone, with several clamoringfor attentionbut few if any that can currentlyaddressthe needs of a dedicated course in the subject. Amnon Shiloah's Jewish Musical Traditions (1992) is strong in its scholarshipand culturalfocus, but has a difficult writing style andtends to minimize the artmusic scene. PeterGradenwitz's1996 TheMusic of Israel (2nd edition)has a considerablescholarlyapparatus,but focuses mainly on Europe and Israel, eschews the role of the United States, and adheres to currentlyquestionableconcepts of what makes music "Jewish."And AbrahamZ. Idelsohn'sJewish Music in its Historical Development(1929), while still unsurpassed in its breadthandcriticalapproach,can be unwieldy,does not coverthe seventy-five years since its publication,and feels similarlydated.Withinthis context, Edelman'sbook is welcome in concept, but disappointingin execution. May the day arrivesoon when Jewishmusic pedagogypublicationscan again rise to reflect the frontlineof academicscholarship. JudahM. Cohen New YorkUniversity New York,New York

ItzikN. Gottesman.Defining the YiddishNation: TheJewishFolkloristsofPoland. Detroit:WayneState UniversityPress, 2003. xxiii, 247 pp. Itzik Gottesman'sDefining the YiddishNation will be indispensableto anyone interestedin the collection of Jewish ethnographicmaterials.Focusingon the early twentiethcentury in Poland,Gottesmandiscusses the underlyingideology, the methodology,and the practiceof folklore study. Gottesman traces Jewish folklore studies back to the influence of J. G. Herderandnineteenth-centurynationalism.He points out, however,thatwhile the "folk"in otherEuropeanculturesreferredto the peasants,"the Jews had no peasantry"(p. xiii). Moreover,Yiddishistsdid not follow the model of building a future on the distant historical past; for the most part, they were not adherentsof Zionism. They had more in common with the "diasporanationalism"of Shimon Dubnov,in whose view "theJewishdiasporawas the highest stage of development a nationcould attain"(p. xvi). Insteadof relyingon a territorialapproach,then, the Yiddish folkloristsdeveloped "a language-basednationalism"(p. xvii). Many scholarsof Judaic Studies are awareof the ethnographicexpeditions by I. L. Peretz(1890) and S. Ansky (1911-14). Gottesmanplaces these well-known instances in their broaderculturalcontext, showing the wide range of work that 403

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Ken Frieden Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 403-404 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131548 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews publication.Yet while the audio examples are an attractiveidea, they feel overly brief here (most are undera minute long), and seem bettersuited for accompanying a popularlecturethan immersinga new reader.Thatmanyof Edelman'ssound sources are out of print,moreover,means most listenerswill neverbe able to hear some of the music she presents in anythingbut a minimal context, which is unfortunate. The realm of Jewish music history texts is a highly variableone, with several clamoringfor attentionbut few if any that can currentlyaddressthe needs of a dedicated course in the subject. Amnon Shiloah's Jewish Musical Traditions (1992) is strong in its scholarshipand culturalfocus, but has a difficult writing style andtends to minimize the artmusic scene. PeterGradenwitz's1996 TheMusic of Israel (2nd edition)has a considerablescholarlyapparatus,but focuses mainly on Europe and Israel, eschews the role of the United States, and adheres to currentlyquestionableconcepts of what makes music "Jewish."And AbrahamZ. Idelsohn'sJewish Music in its Historical Development(1929), while still unsurpassed in its breadthandcriticalapproach,can be unwieldy,does not coverthe seventy-five years since its publication,and feels similarlydated.Withinthis context, Edelman'sbook is welcome in concept, but disappointingin execution. May the day arrivesoon when Jewishmusic pedagogypublicationscan again rise to reflect the frontlineof academicscholarship. JudahM. Cohen New YorkUniversity New York,New York

ItzikN. Gottesman.Defining the YiddishNation: TheJewishFolkloristsofPoland. Detroit:WayneState UniversityPress, 2003. xxiii, 247 pp. Itzik Gottesman'sDefining the YiddishNation will be indispensableto anyone interestedin the collection of Jewish ethnographicmaterials.Focusingon the early twentiethcentury in Poland,Gottesmandiscusses the underlyingideology, the methodology,and the practiceof folklore study. Gottesman traces Jewish folklore studies back to the influence of J. G. Herderandnineteenth-centurynationalism.He points out, however,thatwhile the "folk"in otherEuropeanculturesreferredto the peasants,"the Jews had no peasantry"(p. xiii). Moreover,Yiddishistsdid not follow the model of building a future on the distant historical past; for the most part, they were not adherentsof Zionism. They had more in common with the "diasporanationalism"of Shimon Dubnov,in whose view "theJewishdiasporawas the highest stage of development a nationcould attain"(p. xvi). Insteadof relyingon a territorialapproach,then, the Yiddish folkloristsdeveloped "a language-basednationalism"(p. xvii). Many scholarsof Judaic Studies are awareof the ethnographicexpeditions by I. L. Peretz(1890) and S. Ansky (1911-14). Gottesmanplaces these well-known instances in their broaderculturalcontext, showing the wide range of work that 403

Book Reviews was done by folklorists based in Warsawand Vilne. He also shows how Peretz's neo-Hasidictales and folktales-"a turningpoint in the interestin folklore by the Yiddish intelligentsia"(p. 106)-were partof a largerphenomenon. The three main sections of Defining the YiddishNation are devoted to the collectors in Warsaw,the collectorsin Vilne, andthe rise of theYIVOEthnographic Commission.The collection of folk songs takes a prominentplace, with the Warsaw group representingmore popularbooks such as those by MenakhemKipnis, and the Vilne group developing more sophisticatedscholarlymethods. Some episodes describedby Gottesmanmake clear how foreign the ethnographic enterpriseseemed to common people. Once when Shmuel Lehmanwas collecting, early in WorldWarI, he: hearda twelve-year-old girlsinga Yiddishloveballadandaskedherto singit for him.Sinceit was dark,she askedhim insidea nearbyapartment, which wasnotherhome.Whenthelandladyheardsuchwordsas "prison," shot,"and "brideandgroom,"shechasedthemout.Thegirl led himto herhome,in a broken-down building.By thetimetheyarrived,a largecrowdof grown-ups andchildrenhadgatheredto see, "somekindof fool, a nutwhohascometo writedownsongs."... Whenhe finallywasableto getupto leave,thewhole gangmockedhimwithsongandanimalsounds.(p. 26) Lehmanadmiredthe "folk"from a distance. In one of the most interesting sections of the book, Gottesman portrays ShmuelZaynvilPipe, who was an activeYIVO folklorecollector in the 1930s. His views are summedup in this passage: "if I don't collect, I feel as if something is missing .... I feel impelled to record.Why should a Yiddish word, or song or a game be lost when it can be saved?"(p. 147). Pipes also raisedworthwhilemethodological questions:Does folkloreexist only amongthe lowerclasses? Whatmakes a folk song "authentic"? This loving accountof ethnographersin EasternEuropeis tinged by melancholy.The section on Pipe, for example, ends: As Pipeprepared to returnto Sanok,in August1939,he wrote[hisbrother] of his to Oyzer plan marryNekhameEpshteynthatwinter.OnlytwomorelettersarrivedfromPipevia Romaniato his brothersin Israel.He waskilledin theGermanextermination campof Zaslaw,nearSanok,in 1943,attheageof to escape,butwouldnot leavehis parents thirty-six.He hadan opportunity (p. 157). We are left with a sense of the tragic heroism of men and women who were collecting Jewish folklore while their own destructionwas imminent. Ken Frieden SyracuseUniversity Syracuse,New York

404

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Eran Kaplan Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 405-406 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131549 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews Leslie Stein. The Hope Fulfilled: The Rise of Modern Israel. Westport, CT: Praeger,2002. xiv, 299 pp. In the prefaceto TheHope Fulfilled, a historyof the Zionist movementfrom the 1880s to 1948, Leslie Stein writes that, unlike othervoluminouspublications thathavedealtwith the historyof modernIsrael,he has attemptedto providea concise descriptionof the events that led to the foundingof the State of Israel.Focusing primarilyon the political, military,and diplomaticaspects of Zionist history, this 275-page (sans glossary and index) volume is indeed a succinct yet thorough descriptionthatgives the studentof Zionist historya soundintroductionto the origins and history of the movement. Stein's book offers a rathertraditionalaccount of Zionist history.As other histories of Zionism have done before, Stein traces both the developmentof the Yishuvin EretzYisrael and the evolution of the Zionist movement as a political body. As well, he tends to follow the conventionalperiodizationof Zionist history, beginningwith what he describesas the first nationalistwave of Jewish immigration in 1882, and then dividing Zionist history according to the different aliyot-waves of Zionist immigrationto Israel-and accordingto the changes in British attitudesvis-a-vis the Zionist project.What sets this book apartfrom other such histories of Zionism, in my mind, is the ease with which Stein'snarrative flows and the vividness with which he portrayscertaincritical events in the history of Zionism. When he describesthe first Zionist congress, for example, he provides the reader with such a rich and lively picture of the clash of characters, ideologies, and backgroundsthat the readercan clearly understandthe carnivallike atmospherethat dominatedthe event. Also in his preface, Stein claims thathis main goal was to providethe reader with a balancednarrative(p. xi). It is unclearto me what a balancedhistorical narrativeis or should be. Unlike an editorialnewspaperpage, a historical narrative is not supposedto mediatebetween conflicting sides of a political or ideological debate. Every choice that a historianmakes-which events to describe,what sources to draw on-is politically and ideologically charged; and Stein's book makes clear,not balanced,choices, which is what a historianis ultimatelyexpected to do. Stein writes the history of Zionism from the perspectiveof modernJewish history.He tracesthe emergenceof the Zionist movementto events thatshaped the lives of eastern-EuropeanJews at the end of the nineteenthcenturyand he describes the Zionist settlementof Israel from the point of view of the Jewish settlers. The Arab point of view in this narrative,however,is barely represented.(It is perfectly legitimateto write the history of Zionism from a predominantlyJewish perspectivejust as it is entirely acceptableto write the history of Palestinian nationalismfrom an Arabperspective). While Stein'schoice of perspectiveis utterlyreasonable,his choice of sources is somewhatproblematic.This book, which is based solely on secondarysources, was writtenin 2003, but it mightjust as well have been writtenin the early 1980s. The controversiesand debates launchedby the emergenceof the New IsraeliHistorians and the post-Zionist critics that have completely altered the contours of Zionist historiographyover the past two decades are all but absent from Stein's 405

Book Reviews book. It would be very difficult to justify the fact, for example,that afterthe studies of Benny Morrison the questionof the Palestinianrefugees (Morris'swork is not alluded to in this book), Stein only dedicates two paragraphsto this critical episode in the historyof the formationof the Stateof Israel.Furthermore,even the more traditionalZionisthistorianstodaywouldbe waryof the type of hagiographic prosethatSteinresortsto at times, like when he assesses the veracityof the account of YosephTrumpeldor'sfinal words:"WhetherTrumpeldoractuallyexplicitly stated that 'It is no matter;it is good to die for our country'is of no consequence;all his living actions clearlyindicatedthatthatwas, in fact, his credo"(p. 151). The post-Zionistdebates,whetherone acceptsthe post-Zionistclaims or rejects them (and thereare more indicationsthatcontemporaryIsraelihistoriansare moving awayfrom many of the post-Zionistassertions),have certainlybroadened the scope of Zionist historiography.Traditionallyalmost limited to the realm of diplomatic/militaryhistory,Zionist historiographyhas in recentyearscome to encompass more social and culturalaspects. Regretfully,social and culturalanalyses of Zionist history are mostly absent from Stein's account. For a student interestedin a lucid andengaging,yet traditional,political and diplomaticaccount of the years leading to the creationof modernIsrael, TheHope Fulfilled would be a good choice; it will not fulfill, however,the needs of a student interestedin a more contemporaryexposition of Zionist history that presentsthe Zionist experience from a more complex and multilayeredvantagepoint. EranKaplan Universityof Cincinnati Cincinnati,Ohio

Shimon Redlich. Togetherand Apart in Brzezany:Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, 1919-1945. Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 2002. xi, 202 pp. Rosa Lehman.Symbiosisand Ambivalence:Poles and Jews in a Small Galician Town.New York:BerghahnBooks, 2001. xxii, 217 pp. The books underreview deal with two towns in Galicia, territorythat was of part the HabsburgEmpirefrom 1772 until 1918. The first town, Brzezany,is located today in the Ukraine;the second, Jasliska,a small town, is now in Poland. Despite differentstartingpoints, both books attemptto solve the riddleof the past andpresentrelationsbetweenJews and theirneighbors,relationsthatarenoted for their ambivalenceand complexity. For Shimon Redlich, a historianand native of Brzezany,the returnhome is not merelypartof a largerresearchproject,but first and foremostan attemptto revive childhood memories that have long been suppressed. Redlich's book is arrangedchronologically,with each chaptercommencingwith personaland family memories,then continuingwith a descriptionof the historicalevents, and concludingwith the testimoniesof the inhabitants:Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians.In the 406

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Rachel Manekin Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 406-409 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131550 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews book. It would be very difficult to justify the fact, for example,that afterthe studies of Benny Morrison the questionof the Palestinianrefugees (Morris'swork is not alluded to in this book), Stein only dedicates two paragraphsto this critical episode in the historyof the formationof the Stateof Israel.Furthermore,even the more traditionalZionisthistorianstodaywouldbe waryof the type of hagiographic prosethatSteinresortsto at times, like when he assesses the veracityof the account of YosephTrumpeldor'sfinal words:"WhetherTrumpeldoractuallyexplicitly stated that 'It is no matter;it is good to die for our country'is of no consequence;all his living actions clearlyindicatedthatthatwas, in fact, his credo"(p. 151). The post-Zionistdebates,whetherone acceptsthe post-Zionistclaims or rejects them (and thereare more indicationsthatcontemporaryIsraelihistoriansare moving awayfrom many of the post-Zionistassertions),have certainlybroadened the scope of Zionist historiography.Traditionallyalmost limited to the realm of diplomatic/militaryhistory,Zionist historiographyhas in recentyearscome to encompass more social and culturalaspects. Regretfully,social and culturalanalyses of Zionist history are mostly absent from Stein's account. For a student interestedin a lucid andengaging,yet traditional,political and diplomaticaccount of the years leading to the creationof modernIsrael, TheHope Fulfilled would be a good choice; it will not fulfill, however,the needs of a student interestedin a more contemporaryexposition of Zionist history that presentsthe Zionist experience from a more complex and multilayeredvantagepoint. EranKaplan Universityof Cincinnati Cincinnati,Ohio

Shimon Redlich. Togetherand Apart in Brzezany:Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, 1919-1945. Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 2002. xi, 202 pp. Rosa Lehman.Symbiosisand Ambivalence:Poles and Jews in a Small Galician Town.New York:BerghahnBooks, 2001. xxii, 217 pp. The books underreview deal with two towns in Galicia, territorythat was of part the HabsburgEmpirefrom 1772 until 1918. The first town, Brzezany,is located today in the Ukraine;the second, Jasliska,a small town, is now in Poland. Despite differentstartingpoints, both books attemptto solve the riddleof the past andpresentrelationsbetweenJews and theirneighbors,relationsthatarenoted for their ambivalenceand complexity. For Shimon Redlich, a historianand native of Brzezany,the returnhome is not merelypartof a largerresearchproject,but first and foremostan attemptto revive childhood memories that have long been suppressed. Redlich's book is arrangedchronologically,with each chaptercommencingwith personaland family memories,then continuingwith a descriptionof the historicalevents, and concludingwith the testimoniesof the inhabitants:Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians.In the 406

Book Reviews relevantchapters,Redlich even makesan effortto includetestimoniesof Germans from the period of Germanoccupation,with the help of documentsfrom German archives.The story of Brzezanythat emerges from the book is in fact the story of the complex system of relationsbetween Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians,who lived side-by-side in the town. Duringthe Habsburgperiod,which appearsin the book merely as background,the members of the differentgroups lived in relative harmony, "togetherand apart,"accordingto the book's title. But relationsdeteriorated after the period of the FirstWorldWar,with the radicalizationof the different nationalistmovementsand the frequentregime changes. After the split-upof the HabsburgEmpireand the reconstitutionof an independent Poland,Brzezanybecame once again a Polish town. The WesternUkrainian Republic,which existed for eight months during 1918, fannedthe hopes for nationalindependenceamong the BrzezanyUkrainians,but these faded after the Ukrainianswere defeatedby the Poles. The failureleft indeliblemarksthat would turn to hope whenever Polandwas in dangerof being conquered.Redlich labels the period between 1919 and 1939, when Bzezany was under Polish political framework,"thegood years."The Jews who hadundergonea process of Polish acculturationduringthe last years of the HabsburgregimeattendedPolish gymnasia and maintainedfriendlyrelationswith the Poles. Although there was Polish antiSemitismduringthe period,most of the Jewish survivorswhose testimonyRedlich collected did not experience personal discriminationor resentment;on the contrary,they describetheirchildhoodin glowing terms.Religious and communallife flourished,as well as Jewish politics and culture.The middle class dressed well, spent summerson holiday,and generallylived a comfortablelife. Therewere still restrictionsin highereducationand anti-Semiticincidents,butthe atmospherewas not of catastrophe,nor could people foresee what lay in store. Relationsbetween Ukrainiansand Poles were not so bad at the outset of the Polish period,but tensions sharplyrose after the deathof Josef Pilsudskyand the radicalizationof Polish nationalism.Brzezany'sPoles rememberfondly the interwar period as one in which they constitutedthe city's elite, obtainedthe most desirablepositions, and, above all, felt pride at their nationalindependenceand the city's Polishness. Redlichwas fouryearsold whenthe Sovietsoccupiedthe city in 1931.Thetwo yearsof Sovietrule(1939-41) witnesseda reversalof fortunesforthe city'smainethnic groups.The Poles werefilled with fear,the Ukrainiansrejoicedat the prospectof an improvementin status,and the Jews were ambivalent,with the eldersapprehensive andthe communistyouthviewing the Soviettakeoveras the realizationof their dream.In the city all the Polishsymbolswere destroyed;the Sovieteducationalsystemreplacedthe Polish,the languageof instructionchanged,andSovietparadesfilled the streets.At first, new opportunitiesin the universitiesand in employmentled the Jews and Ukrainiansto be optimistic abouttheir futures.But Soviet surveillance, arrests,and exiles producedan atmosphereof fear and suspicion, and the Polish accusationof Jewish collaborationwith the Soviets fanned insecurities. With the Germanoccupation of the town (1941-1944) matterswent from badto worse for the Jews. (Redlichsurvivedthe warhidingin a Ukrainianwoman's attic.) Traumaticmemories of the Soviet occupation,bolsteredby Germanaccu407

Book Reviews sations of Jewish Bolshevism, led some Ukrainiansto carryout pogroms against Jewish targets.Polish anti-Semitismwas less prominentin this regionthanin others.The city itself became German,with Germanstreetnames. Life was betterunder GermanthanunderSoviet rule for the Poles, manyof whom were familiarwith Germanlanguage and culturefrom the period of Habsburgrule. The Ukrainians, for their part, viewed the Germansas liberatorsand hoped that Hitler would establish a free Ukraine. Both Poles andUkrainiansrelatein theirtestimoniesthatthey were awareof the mass murderscommitted against the Jews and saddened by them, but they could do little since they were occupied in their own struggle for survival.The Ukrainiantestimonies do not mention the pogroms;on the contrary,they emphasized the sympathythey felt for the Jews. Only around2% of the Jewish population of Brzezanysurvived. The next chapterdescribesthe transitionof East Galicia to Russiancontrol (1944-1945). During this period the relationsbetween Poles and Ukrainiansdeterioratedeven further,and many Poles left. The demographicsof East Galicia changed completely,with only 5% of the original inhabitantsremaining. In the last chapter of the book Redlich describes his returnto Brzezany, which he views as partof the universaltrendof returningto one'sbirthplace.Poles and Ukrainiansalso returnto visit in Brzezany,but every one returnsto his own past and memories-to his own Brzezany.Redlich'sstory is not only a historical tale and analysisof a quarter-centuryof the history of Brzezany,but an attemptto offer an explanationof the animosity between local residentswho had lived side by side in the past. It appearsthatwith the aid of the healingthathe seeks andfinds for himself, throughthe reconstructionof his childhoodmemories,he attemptsto remove a bit of the great shadowof the Holocaustfrom the history of East Europeans and to show how, once, Poles, Ukrainians,and Jews lived togetherin relative harmony.He does not withholdhis empathyfrom any group, as he describes how the fickle history of Brzezany turned its inhabitantsinto pawns of larger forces, despitethe fact thathe takes careto place the tragedyand loss thatthe Jews experiencedin its unique place. Rosa Lehman'sbook is very differentfrom Redlich's.Herchoice of Jasliska does not stem from a personalor family connection,but from her declaredaim of focusing on a small town as the subject of her research.Lehmanclaims that the studyof PolishJewryhas been basedhithertoupontheirposition in the largecities. She seeks to balance this pictureby taking the story of one small town and treating it as a case studythatwill providea broaderperspective.Lehmanemployswhat she calls "theframeworkof patron-clientrelations"to explainthe complicatedsystem of relationsbetween Poles and Jews. She realizes, of course, that the frameworkrelateshistoricallyonly to the relationsunderfeudalism,but she feels that it continuedto influencethroughthe creationof stereotypes.As a historian,I am not competent to pass judgment on the sociological or anthropologicaltheories underlyingLehman'sdecision, or on the benefit of employingtheoreticalconstructs, at least from the reader'spoint of view, to analyze fluctuatingrelations. I am likewise not competentto evaluatethe professionalethics of Lehman's decision not to disclose to her Polish intervieweesand translatorsthather main re408

Book Reviews searchinterestwas the Jewishpast of the town. Instead,she presentedherself as a sociologist interestedin the historyof the town and its families (p. 17). She writes: "The reason why I did not make the researchtopic explicit was that I expected it to be a sensitive one . . . All in all, I was positively surprisedby the enthusiasm with which the informantsengaged in storytellingabout the Jewish past of their community."Professional ethics aside, this lack of full disclosure strikes me as questionableat best. Lehmanuses a good deal of archivaldocumentationandhistoricalresearchto reconstructthe early historyof the town as well as the beginningof Jewish settlementthere.She cites statisticaldata,providesa mapof Jewishresidentialareas,and weaves togethertestimoniesand oral traditions.After this historicalreconstruction she devotesseveralchaptersto the systemof Polish-Jewishrelations,arrangingthem "EconomicRelations,""TheSocial thematically,for example,"SpatialIntegration," Boundaryand the Image of the Jew,"and so forth. She examinesthe gap between the "facts"andthe positiveand negativestereotypesheld by adultsand youths,and she showshow these "facts"andstereotypescontinuedto persistside by side. Stereotypes served,in heropinion,to protectthe ethnicboundariesbetweenJewsandPoles. An especially interestingchapteris devotedto the story of the conversionof a local Jewish woman to Catholicism,and includes an interviewwith the convert and her daughter.Although at first glance in this case it appearsthatthe lines between Jews and Poles were blurred,Lehmanconsiders the fact that these women continuedto be called "converts"a sign that the ethnic boundarieswere still intact, despite everything. Anotherchapteris devoted to the destructionof the Jewish communitynot only duringthe Germanperiod but also duringthe communistand post-communist periods, as well. As for guilt feelings and the acceptanceof responsibilityfor at least some of the horrorsof the Holocaust,Lehmanclaims, on the basis of studies that she cites, that responsibilityis understooddifferentlyin the West than in Poland(p. 184): Whereasin the Westeverybodybearsresponsibilityfor whathappened to the Jews of Europe,in Polandmoralguilt requiresa sense of direct,personal involvement.The claim seems ratherstrangeto me. There are several factual errors;for example, on page 97 we are informed thatduringtheAustrianperiod"educationwas not compulsoryandthe official language was German"whereasin fact educationhad been compulsorydejure since 1869, and Polish was an official language in Galicia since the Ausgleich of 1867. On pages 32 and 33, the first partitionof Polandis said to havetakenplace in 1773, but in footnote 20 of the same chapterthe correctdate is given--1772. To sum up: Lehmansucceeds in convincingthe readerof the ambivalentnature of the relationsbetween Jews and Poles. But her introductionof sociological and anthropologicalconstructsplaces an unnecessaryburdenon the reader. Rachel Manekin HebrewUniversity Jerusalem,Israel

409

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Alicia Ostriker Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 410-411 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131551 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews ZafriraLidovskyCohen.Loosen the Fettersof thyTongue,Woman:ThePoetryand Poetics of YonaWallach.Cincinnati:HebrewUnion College Press,2003. x, 264 pp. Thinkof the intensityand notorietyof Sylvia Plathin the English-speaking world,and multiplyit severaltimes: thatis YonaWallachfor the Hebrew-speaking worldtoday.The most passionateand flamboyantfigure in postwarliteraryIsrael, Wallachwas born on a small farmingvillage in 1944, lived there most of her life until her deathof breastcancerin 1985, and afterher deathhas become a cultural legend. In life Wallachexperimentedwith sex, drugs, and madness (she checked herself into a mentalhospital in 1964 and remainedfor three months,deliberately exploringwhat the subconsciousyielded), was a compelling live performerof her poems, and was typically surroundedby worshipfulyoungerwriters.In her art she was yet more experimental.Her poetry combines mysticism, sexuality,an ecstatic love of natureand a correspondinglypowerfulmistrustof society and its conventions,a fascinationwith languageandthe breakdownof language,an insistence on the validityof freedomand will. Steepedin biblical allusions, mythology,fairy tales, and kabbalisticimagery,she often twists and turnsher sources with playful or violent irony.Her lexicon swerves throughextremes of exaltationand crudeness. Her verse sometimes is traditionallyrhymed,more often unpredictablyand jazzily ragged,her imageryis often surreal,her narrativeselliptic, her syntax fractured-yet thrillinglyreadable. While ZafriraLidosky Cohen'sbibliographylists numerousreviews and essayson Wallach'swork, and a best-selling biography,hers is only the second fulllength book on the poet. Unlike Lily Rattok'smore exclusively feminist study, Angel of Fire, Cohen casts a wide net. Contextualizingthe poet in terms of the waves of modern Hebrewpoetry since Bialik, she gives due weight to Wallach's female forebears,especially Dalia Ravikovichand Dalia Herz, and to the themes of female struggle and sexual war that form a majorthreadof Wallach'swriting. But she also tells us thatWallachwas ravishedby WaltWhitman'sexpansivecreative energy.Ultimately,she does not see Wallachas a poet of victimizationbut as a poet of triumphantself-exploration.Again, although her study makes massive use of postmodernliterarytheory, Cohen argues that Wallachrejected the postmodernview of languageas merely socially constructed,trappingus in "petrified meanings"(p 41). For Wallach, language is potentially sacred, issuing from the depthsof the unconscious,which in an earlypoem "unfoldslike a fan"("TheUnconscious Unfolds,"quotedon p. 85). In one of her last collections, Wallachwrites, "Letthe wordsact in you/let thembe free/theywill enteryou inside/makingforms upon forms ... because they are natureand not an invention/ and not a discovery for they are yes nature"("Let the words,"quoted pp. 36-37). That words are always "pregnantwith meaning"for Wallach,"is never in doubt,"Cohen declares. Cohen rightly claims that Wallach'spoetry is layeredand often duplicitousin its meanings, showing in many cases how surface sense becomes invertedwhen we pay attentionto the allusions. In "Cornelia,"for example, a girl seems to be passively exploitedby the devil who makes her "picknettles"and then by "men"who "didto her"becauseof her"nettlerash."But Cohenpointsout thatCornelia'sname contains the root for the Hebrewkrn, "radiate,"used of Moses when he descend410

Book Reviews ed Sinai, and alludes as well to the Greek myth of Core, who became queen of Hades. Citing the one use of "nettles"in the Bible, Isaiah 55:13, "insteadof the nettle shall the myrtle tree come up,"Cohen arguesconvincinglythat we can see this poem as one that celebrates Cornelia'ssexuality and mocks both devil and "men." In anotherpoem, "Cecilia,"Cohen finds allusions to multiple biblical and talmudicsources.The ecstatic and frighteningnocturnalvision of "AndWe Were Like Lunatics"is both filled with allusions to prophecyand clairvoyanceand an account of the discovery of a divine self within. Wallach'sfamously provocative and often violent erotic fantasies, like "WhenYou Come to Sleep With Me Like God" and "Tefilim,"are at the same time meditationson politics, on spirituality, and on the possibilities of "authenticexistence"beyondthe constraintsof biology. Cohen'sclose-readingstrategiesare a powerfulaid for anyonewho hopes to probe the complexity ofYona Wallach'swork. Even where one disagrees with specific interpretations,Cohen forces the readerto think beyond the obvious. The method works less well with Wallach'slate poetry,in which the poet abandoneddramatic situations and indulged herself in ambitiously philosophical streams of consciousness that seem to defy coherentanalysis. Many of these poems are simply too long for close reading.But Cohen is surelyrightin her generalclaim thathowever nihilistic the poems may seem at first glance, their actual aim is "to destroy and recreate,wreck and establish, annihilateand reconstruct"a "transcendentreality" (p. 219). Any future critic of Yona Wallach will have to reckon with this strongly arguedbook. Alicia Ostriker RutgersUniversity New Brunswick,New Jersey

411

‫<התרחבות בהלכה כהיתוך אופקים פרשני׃ ההמתנהבין בשר לחלב כמקרה מ בחן‬PDF> Author(s): ‫<אביצר אברהם םטולמז‬PDF> Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004), pp. 1-30 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131552 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

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Back Matter Source: AJS Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Nov., 2004) Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131553 . Accessed: 20/07/2011 02:39 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONTRIBUTORS AJSReviewpublishesscholarlyarticlesandbookreviewscoveringthe field of JewishStudies.Frombiblical thejourandrabbinictextualandhistoricalstudiesto modernhistory,socialsciences,the arts,andliterature, nal welcomesarticlesof interestto bothacademicandlay audiencesaroundthe world.A substantialportion of each volumeis devotedto reviewsof the latestscholarlyJudaicaandreviewessays on currenttrendsin publishing. MANUSCRIPTSUBMISSION forconsideration shouldbe sentto Prof.HillelJ.Kieval,Washington Manuscripts UniversityinSt. Louis,Busch Hall 15, Box 1121,OneBrookingsDrive,St. Louis,MO63130. Booksforreviewshouldbe sentto Prof.JeffreyRubenstein,New YorkUniversity,53 WashingtonSquareSouth,Room 100,NewYork,NY 10012. shouldbe submittedin duplicateandshouldconformto ChicagoManualofStyle,ed. 15.Please Manuscripts includea disketteversionof the manuscript; the diskandthe hardcopyversionsshouldmatchperfectly. Theentiremanuscript(includingfootnotes)shouldbe typeddouble-spaced on 8 '/2 x 11 inchpaper,with no less than 1-inchmarginson all foursides. Manuscriptpagesshouldbe numberedconsecutively.Includethe Authorsof acceptedarticleswill be name(s)andaffiliation(s)of the author(s)at the end of the manuscript. askedto preparea final versionin thejournal'sstyle andto submitit on disktogetherwith a hardcopy version. Figures: Charts,graphs,or otherartworkmustbe drawnby a Figuresmustbe readyfor photographic reproduction. professionalartistor computergeneratedon a laserprinter,in blackink on whitepaper,andshouldremain legibleaftera 50%reduction.All labelsanddetailson figuresshouldbe clearlyprinted. CITATIONSOF TEXTS 1. Forall intentsandpurposes,AJSReviewfollowsthe documentation guidelinesas laidout in the Chicago Manual ofStyle, ed. 15.

2. All notesshouldappearas footnotes. 3. Thetitles of worksnot in Englishshouldappearin the originallanguageor in transliteration. Transliterationof Hebrewtitles:only the firstwordof the articleandpropernamesarecapitalized. 4. The shortenedversionsof editedby (ed.), translatedby (trans.),andcompiledby (comp.)arepreferred. 5. Thefactsof publicationsystem(place:publisher,date)is preferredto (place,date). 6. Whencitinga note,the pagenumbershouldbe listedfirstfollowedby n. andthenote number:20 n. 17. Some examplesfrom the ChicagoManualof Style: Books: 1.Yves Bonnefoy,New andSelectedPoems,ed. JohnNaughtonandAnthonyRudolf(Chicago:University of ChicagoPress,1995). 2. Allen Forte, The Harmonistic Organization of "The Rite of Spring" (New Haven, CT: Yale University

Press,1978). 3. William H. Keating, "Fort Dearborn and Chicago," in Prairie State: Impressions of Illinois 1673-1967,

by Travelersand OtherObservers,ed. PaulM. Angle(Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress,1967),8487. Shortforms of book: 4. SaraClarkeLippincott,"Chicago"in Angle,PrairieState,362-70. 5. Bolinger,Language,200 n. 16. Journals: 6. Christopher S. Mackay, "Lactanius and the Succession to Diocletian," Classical Philosophy 94, no. 2 (1999): 205. 7. Judith Lewis, "'Tis a Misfortune to Be a Great Ladie': Maternal Mortality in the British Aristocracy, 15581959," Journal of British Studies 37 (1998): 26-53. 8. Russell W. Belk and Janeen Arnold Costa, "The Mountain Man Myth: A Contemporary Consuming Fantasy,"Journal of Consumer Research 25, no. 3 (1998): 218-40.

Shortforms ofjournals: 9. Belk andCosta,"MountainManMyth,"220. Thesesand Dissertations(for PhD dissertationuse PhD diss.): 10. DorothyRoss, "TheIrish-Catholic Immigrant,1880-1990:A Studyin SocialMobility"(Master'sthesis, ColumbiaUniversity,n.d.), 142-55. CITATIONSOF ANCIENTTEXTS: Biblicaland ExtracanonicalTexts 1. Biblicalcitationsshouldcite thetitlein full (e.g., "Genesis")followedby chapterandverse(e.g., 1:1)followingthe JPStitlesandversification. 2. Extracanonical Jewishtexts of SecondTempleperiodshouldbe cited in accordwith TheHarperCollins Study Bible. New Revised Standard Version, Withthe Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books (1993). Alter-

as follows:II Macnativelythesetextsmaybe citedinaccordwitha specificcriticaleditionor translation, cabees 2: 19 (J. Goldstein,tr., TheAnchorBible.II Maccabees [NewYork,et al.: Doubleday,1983],p. 189). 3. DeadSea Scrollsshouldbe citedin accordwiththe titlesandidentifyingrubricof the editionspublished by the DJD series,e.g., 4Q MMT394, 3 (E. Qimronand J. Strugnell,eds., Discoveriesin theJudaean Desert X Qumran Cave 4. V Miqsat Macase Ha-Torah [Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1994], p. 47). Al-

ternativelythese texts maybe cited in accordwith a specific editionor translation,as follows:The HalakhicLetter(4Q MMT394, 3 in the editionof E Martinez,tr., TheDead Sea ScrollsTranslated:The Rapids:E.J.Brill/WilliamB. Eerdmans, QumranTextsin English,2nded. [NewYork& Cologne/Grand 1994],p. 80). 4. Greekworksof Hellenisticauthorsshouldbe citedin accordwiththemostrecentLoebeditionunlessone is not available.In thatcase, citationshouldfollow a reputablescholarlyeditionor translation. 5. New Testamentcitationsshouldfollow the conventionsof theHarperCollinsStudyBible(see above). Patristic,andotherearlyChristiancitationsshouldfollowthe conventionsof reputablescholarlyeditionsor translations. RabbinicWorks 1. Worksincludedin the mishnaiccanonshouldbe cited in accordwithstandardprintededitions,e.g., M. Berakhot1:1,M. Bezah 1:1,etc. 2. Worksin the toseftancanonshouldbe cited in accordwithstandardprintededitions,e.g., T. Berakhot 1:1,T.YomTov 1:1,etc. 3. Worksin thePalestiniantalmudiccanonshouldbe cited in accordwiththe divisionsandpaginationof the Veniceeditionandits variousreprints,e.g.,Y. Berakhot1:1(2d). 4. Worksin the Babyloniantalmudiccanonshouldbe cited in accordwiththepaginationof theVilnaedition andits variousreprints,e.g., B. Berakhot2b. 5. Midrashiccompilationsshouldbe cited,wherepossible,in accordwiththe conventionsof a well-known edition.Somemodelsfollow: * Mekhiltade-RabbiIshmael,par.B'o, to Exodus12:1(ed. Horovitz-Rabin, page p. I or corresponding of ed. Lauterbach). * Sifra,Diburade-nedavah,per 3:2,to Leviticus1:3(ed.Weiss,p. 5aorcorresponding pageof ed. Finkelsteinwhereavailable) * Sifra,Diburade-nedavah,per.3:1,to Leviticus1:2(ed.Weiss,p. 5aorcorresponding page of ed.Finkelsteinwhereavailable) * SifreiBamidbar,Nas'o,pis. 1, to Numbers5:3 (ed. Horovitz,p. 3) * SifreiDevarim,'Ekev,pis. 42, to Deuteronomy11:14(ed. Finkelstein,p. 89) * BereshitRabba,Va-yer'a, 2:480) par.48:6, to Genesis 18:1(ed.Theodore-Albeck, * VayiqraRabba,Shemini,par 12, to Leviticus10:9(ed. Margoliot,2:244) * Pesiktad'RavKahana,Parah'adumah,pis. 4:2, to Numbers19:2(ed. Margoliot,1:55) * Avotd'RabbiNatan,A:2 (ed. Schechter,p. 8) * Avotd'RabbiNatan,B:2 (ed. Schechter,p. 10) MedievalHalakhic,Mystical,and PhilosophicalWorks In citingsuchworks,authorsshouldattemptto followconventionalcitationsystems.In the firstreference to suchtexts,authorsshouldprovidefull publicationinformationaboutthe editionused.Thereafter,it is sufficientto cite the text in an abbreviated title. COPYRIGHT Submission of an article is taken to imply that it has not been previously published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. Authors must obtain written permission for material for which they do not own

the copyright.A CopyrightTransferAgreement,withcertainspecifiedrightsreservedby theauthor,mustbe signedandreturnedto the Editorsby seniorauthorsof acceptedmanuscripts, priorto publication.Thisis necessaryforthe protectionof bothauthorandtheAssociationundercopyrightlaw. HebrewTranscriptionChart HEBREW ENGLISH aleph bet b vet v gimmel g dalet d heh h vav-consonant v vav-vowel o, u z zayin het h(h with dot) tet t yod-consonant y i yod-vowel kaf k khaf kh lamed 1 mem m nun n samekh s ayin peh p feh f tsadi z (z withdot) kuf k resh r shin sh sin s t tav Vocalizationsmaybe representedby the Englishvowelsoundsa, ai, e, ei, i, o, u. CommonTermsderivedfrom Hebrewor Aramaic amoraic Amoraim tannaitic Tannaim Torah Mishnah Talmud midrash(notas title) gemara

Also: Bible biblical Rabbi(as title) rabbis rabbinic

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