Between the human and the holy: The construction of Talmudic theology in Massekhet Ta anit

Between the Human and the Holy: The Construction of Talmudic Theology in Massekhet Tacanit by Julia Watts Belser

B.A. (Cornell University) 1999

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Joint Doctor of Philosophy with the Graduate Theological Union in Jewish Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley

Committee in charge: Professor Daniel Boyarin, Chair

Professor Joshua Holo Professor Jesus Rodriguez-Velasco

Spring 2008

UMI Number: 3331531

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Abstract Between the Human and the Holy: The Construction of Talmudic Theology in Massekhet Tacanit by Julia Watts Belser Doctor of Philosophy in Jewish Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Daniel Boyarin, Chair

Massekhet Tacanit, a tractate of the Babylonian Talmud that addresses fasts in response to drought among rabbinic Jewish communities in late antiquity, envisions rainfall as a tangible manifestation of divine blessing and a key signifier of the relationship between God and Israel. Alongside a literary, folkloristic, and cultural analysis of the contents of the massekhet, I show how the unique form of the massekhet allows the Stam to set conflicted aggadic narratives and halachic legal discussions into dialogue, fashioning them into a dialectical whole. My analysis of Massekhet Ta'anit moves beyond the individual sugya and reads the tractate as a

1

carefully crafted text whose dialogical form allows its creators to express a polyphonous, mulitvalent theology—and grapple with cultural questions in a way that resists unitary resolutions to complex cultural tensions. My reading of Massekhet Ta'anit analyzes the symbolic power of the rain and the fast, showing how the fast turns the vulnerable body into an instrument for crying out to God. The text crystallizes this discourse of human-holy relationship through the provocative activism and celebrated intimacy of certain "beloved sons" able to summon forth rain. While some later rabbis still access these realms of charismatic power, the massekhet highlights the limits of rabbinic power and prowess in contrast to the illustrious heroes of old. By courting deliberate confusions between human and divine fathers, the massekhet simultaneously questions and sacralizes the power of human word, prayer and deed. By exposing a profound tension between the revealed and the concealed, the sage's capacity to interpret the signs of the natural world becomes both essential and elusive. By rupturing presumed relationships between human merit and divine reward, suffering, poverty, and miracle become complex signs that resist a single, unitary meaning. In each case, Massekhet Tacanit reveals a selfinterrogating discourse that expresses the prowess and the powerlessness of its

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protagonists—giving voice to both the yearnings and the misgivings of the rabbis who crafted its complex polyphony.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Engaging Massekhet Tacanit: Treating the Tractate as a Whole

1

Chapter 2

Crying Out for Rain: The Symbolic Significance of Rain in

44

Massekhet Tacanit

Chapter 3

The Body as Instrument: The Craft of Fasting In Massekhet

71

Tacanit

Chapter 4

Honi the Circle Maker and Other Beloved Sons: Memory, Power,

97

And Rain-Making Among Massekhet Tacanit's Holy Men

Chapter 5

Confusing the Human and Heavenly Fathers: Textual Grappling

138

With Human Power and Limits in Massekhet Tacanit

Chapter 6

Blessing Hidden from the Eye: Navigating the Concealed and the

184

Revealed in Massekhet Tacanit

Chapter 7

The Contours of Scarcity and Abundance: Complex Meanings

224

And Gendered Contestations of Merit, Miracle, & Poverty

Conclusion

The Construction of Talmudic Theology in Massekhet Tacanit i

273

Acknowledgements

This dissertation has been a labor of love and profound learning. With deepest gratitude, I thank the teachers who have made this work possible. Daniel Boyarin opened for me the riches of Talmud. His generous commentary and careful reading of my work has proven invaluable, and his example has raised up for me the power of querying and queering this sacred text. Joshua Holo, now at Hebrew Union College, first woke my passion for Hebrew texts and taught me to love the language from the inside. His unfailing mentorship, support, and encouragement have guided me throughout my program. I am grateful for the challenges he set me, for his confidence that I would rise toward them, and for his counsel in times of need. My thanks and admiration goes to Alan Dundes, z"l, a consummate teacher and a passionate advocate for folklore scholarship, to whom I hope this work brings honor. My teachers of Talmud at the Academy for Jewish Religion CA, Rabbi Daniel Bouskila and Rabbi Eli Shochet, taught me the skills to engage the text in a way that remained alive to its sacredness and alert to its beauty. My thanks also to Naomi Seidman, for her generous support throughout my program, her great interest in my

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own work, and for the stunning example of her own scholarship; to Jesus RodnguezVelasco, for his insights into pre-modern genre and literary theory, and for his willingness to step into the sea of Talmud; and to Dina Stein, now at Haifa University, whose incisive scholarship and deep questions shaped so profoundly my own approach to rabbinic texts. Deep appreciation goes to Sandy Richmond, Jewish Studies Program Analyst, who provided invaluable assistance in managing all matters bureaucratic, shepherded all my paperwork and petitions, and stood always at the ready with a smile and a willing ear. My thanks also to Maureen Maloney, Assistant Dean of the Graduate Theological Union, for her perpetually open door and her great commitment to the Joint Doctoral Program. I offer my immense gratitude to the flinders and administrators of the Berkeley Fellowship, whose generous support made it feasible for me to undertake doctoral study and whose kindness allowed me to devote my full attention to my studies. My thanks also to the generosity of the Newhall Teaching and Research Fellowship funders, who afforded me the opportunity to develop my work on Jewish Magic and teach a graduate seminar on the topic, and to Deena Aranoff for her gracious

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mentorship. Thanks also to the Jewish Studies Program and Religious Studies Department at UC Davis, particularly Diane Wolf and Naomi Janowitz, for affording me the opportunity to teach and lecture in such a congenial environment, and to my students at both institutions for their compelling questions and insights. Finally, my thanks to the friends and family who have offered support, laughter, and glorious distraction along the way, most particularly to Ruth Haber, for friendship, good counsel, and havruta; to Luke Dzmura, for lovely Berkeley dinners and able research assistance; to my parents, for their love and encouragement; to Sofia Betancourt, for moral support and grace along a wondrous path; to Devorah Greenstein, for being present at every turn, despite the distance. With love and deepest gratitude, to Josh. And with praise, l'Rahamana.

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Chapter 1 Engaging Massekhet Tacanit: Treating the Tractate as a Whole

Since Abraham Weiss's pioneering work in the literary development and formal characteristics of the Talmud, most modern critical talmudic scholarship has treated the sugya as the foundational unit of talmudic structure and analysis. Weiss defined the sugya as an independent talmudic discussion that uses a combination of logic and Torah or another traditional source to clarify a problem.1 Whether articulated as "an independent unit" or as a "building block" of talmudic reasoning, the sugya is commonly conceptualized as a discrete form, a relatively self-contained exposition of talmudic thought.2 While close readings of particular sugyot can and do

1

Abraham Weiss, Studies in the Literature oftheAmoraim.

[Hebrew] (New York, 1962) For a useful

overview and assessment of Weiss's approach and contribution, see Meyer Feldblum, "The Talmud: Abraham Weiss's Views," in Essential Papers on the Talmud, ed. Michael Chernick. (New York: New York University Press, 1994), 89. First published in Meyer S. Feldblum, Abraham Weiss Jubilee Volume. (New York: Yeshiva University, 1964) 2

Commonly juxtaposed against the unruly form of the Talmud as a whole, the sugya is generally

treated as a welcome source of relative order and form. In David Goodblatt's review of Weiss's work, he stresses Weiss's interest in "what he considers to be the literary genres par excellence of the Amoraim, the memra and the sugya. These two, he believes, are the main literary vehicles used by the Amoraim as well as the building blocks of the Talmud." David Goodblatt, "Abraham Weiss: The Search for Literary Forms," in The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud, ed. Jacob Neusner. (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 95. Louis Jacobs describes it as "a complete unit of the talmudic debate or discussion, a sustained talmudic argument in its entirety." Louis Jacobs, Studies in Talmudic Logic and Methodology. (London: Vallentine, Mitchell and Company, 1961), ix.

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offer the scholar a valuable vantage point for talmudic analysis, the emphasis on the sugya as the cornerstone of talmudic thinking often fails to allow for the complex interplay of theme and meaning that occurs between sugyot. Though the sugya brings talmudic dialectic into sharp focus, Talmud's dialectical style is not simply an internal characteristic within discrete halakhic argument. Dialectical engagement exists between halakhic and aggadic passages; it also creates complex dialogues between aggadic narratives and between halakhic sugyot. My analysis of Massekhet Tacanit moves beyond the individual sugya and reads the tractate as a carefully crafted text whose dialogical form allows its creators to express a polyphonous, mulitvalent theology—and grapple with cultural questions in a way that resists unitary resolutions to complex cultural tensions. The identity of the "authors" who crafted Massekhet Tacanit a massekhet remains veiled, and scholars continue to debate the nature and timing of talmudic redaction. Without staking a claim regarding a particular theory of the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud or situating its timing beyond late rabbinic Babylonia, I will refer to the implied authorial voice behind the creation of the final form of Massekhet Tacanit as the Stam—a term

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that denotes the late, anonymous voice whose commentary stitches together the diverse tradents of the massekhet. Through a folkloristic perspective that emphasizes the potential for dialogues within texts, I argue that—at least within Massekhet Tacanit—the unique nature of the massekhet allows the Stam to craft conflicted aggadic narratives and halakhic legal discussions into a dialectical whole. Through this larger dialectic, the Stam wrestles with deep tensions that animate the entire tractate—tensions that rarely find explicit expression, but which nonetheless serve as central, organizing forces in the literary work. The process of making manifest these deeper questions around which the text itself is structured often destabilizes the apparent "moral" of individual tales and teachings. But instead of "telling truth" through distinct, self-contained assertions, I argue that talmudic meaning emerges out of complex juxtapositions—that rabbinic identity and theology crafts itself through ambiguous, multi-voiced and largely unresolved dialogues that echo through the text. Massekhet Tacanit—the tractate on fasts, primarily fasts in response to drought—envisions rainfall as a tangible manifestation of divine blessing. According to the worldview of the massekhet, harmonious relationship between God and Israel is

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key to ensuring rain—and thus safeguarding communal life and providing earthly abundance. The tractate turns much of its attention to moments of crisis: to the times when the earth cries out for rain and the Jewish community strives to mend its relationship with God. It addresses issues ranging from proper mention of rain in prayer, the timing and procedure for fasting, to the laws of particular fast days, as well as an extended series of narratives concerning miracles and the actions of wonderworking sages. Over the course of the tractate, Massekhet Tacanit grapples with profound uncertainty about human power and its limits—about individual or communal ability to interpret divine reality and relate to God in a manner that yields blessed, lifesustaining rain. Through masterful dialectic that extends beyond individual discussions and juxtaposes entire sugyot in creative tension, the Stam expresses an emergent, often conflicted theological vision. By exposing profound incongruity between outer appearance and inner reality—between the concealed and the revealed—the sage's capacity to interpret the signs of the natural world becomes both essential and elusive. By rupturing presumed relationships between moral action and divine reward, the massekhet turns human experiences of suffering, poverty,

4

abundance, and miracle into complex, ambiguous signs that resist a single, unitary meaning. By probing the wonders and discontents of rabbinic miracle-workers, the Stam courts dangerous confusions between human and divine agency in order to simultaneously question and sacralize the power of human word, prayer and deed.

Talmudic Redaction and the Voice of the Stam Modern critical scholarship commonly characterizes the talmudic literary corpus as the product of anonymous redactors working primarily in the fifth and sixth centuries who crafted the unattributed sections of the Talmud and stitched diverse, often fragmented traditions and teachings into coherent sugyot. The scholarly engagement with questions of talmudic redaction began in the early twentieth century, as Julius Kaplan and Abraham Weiss both challenged the classic notion of Rav Ashi as the late Amoraic compiler of the Talmud.3 In his 1933 Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, Julius Kaplan proposed a Saboraic theory of talmudic redaction, suggesting that review and editing of the talmudic corpus occurred between the close of the

3

Noah Aminoah, review of The Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, by Richard Kalmin, Jewish

Quarterly Review 84:2/3 (October 1993 - January 1994): 283-4.

5

Amoraic period and before the rise of the Babylonian Gaonim.4 Kaplan's theory emphasized the substantive contributions of the redactors, emphasizing their role as active participants and not simply as recorders or purveyors of static traditions.5 While Abraham Weiss likewise rejected Rav 3Ashi as editor, Weiss called attention to distinct layers and literary forms within the talmudic text, an assessment that led him to theorize the continuous development and redaction of talmudic discourse throughout the Amoraic period and into the Gaonic era.6 In contrast to earlier theories that emphasized the ongoing nature of talmudic redaction, David Weiss Halivni's source-critical approach argues that the Talmud as literary product can be traced to the post-Amoraic efforts of anonymous redactors he calls the Stammaim. Positioning the Stammaitic project as a massive constructive and reconstructive effort, Halivni maintains that the Stammaim reclaimed, complemented, and integrated diverse Amoraic materials—much of which had been forgotten or

4

The Amoraic period begins in the generation following the redaction of the Mishnah and is generally

regarded to conclude with the death of Rav 5Ashi in 427 CE. Under the influence of Rashi and Rambam, scholars prior to the twentieth century took for granted Rav 'Ashi's unique role as the final editor of the Talmud. Richard Kalmin, Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud: Amoraic or Saboraic? (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1989. 5

Jacobs, Studies in Talmudic Logic, 54.

6

Shamai Kanter, "Abraham Weiss: Source Criticism." In The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud,

ed. Jacob Neusner. (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 91.

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become decontextualized during its oral circulation.7 The Stammaim strove to incorporate orphaned Amoraic teachings into their emerging commentary and emphasized the reconstruction of the legal reasoning behind the teachings. The primacy they afforded to the logic and biblical reasoning behind the law embedded Amoraic teachings in "a matrix of discursive material" that emphasize a dialogic legal process as central to rabbinic identity.8 Halivni argues that while the Talmud incorporates teachings and traditions from earlier periods, the Stammaim alone crafted the distinct, dialectical reasoning so characteristic of talmudic discourse.9 While I avoid aligning my work with a particular theory of talmudic redaction, my premise that the massekhet as whole can be read as a literary product is fundamentally indebted to the idea of a concentrated, purposeful period of textual

7

Halivni writes, "The luxurious and flowing texture of the Talmud is the achievement of the

Stammaim; prior to them there were only short dialogues and comments strung along the Mishnah and Braithoth. The Stammaim created the sugya, a semi-independent, sustained, multi-tiered 'give and take.' They redacted the Gemara from incomplete and truncate traditions." David Weiss Halivni, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), 79. 8

Halivni contrasts the Mishnah's apodictic legal form that eschewed biblical or logical justifications

with earlier Jewish traditions tendency toward biblically and logically justified law. Distinct from the Amoraic disinterest in logical reasoning for legal decisions, Halivni regards the Stammaim as sharp advocates of justified law. 9

Halivni's talmudic studies have concentrated primarily on illuminating logically-forced explanations in

halakhic sugyot. Halivni's methodological discussions first appeared in his introductions to Sources and Traditions, his multi-volume source-critical analysis of Seder Nashim. For an introduction to three of these volumes, see Jacob Neusner, ed, The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud. (Leiden: Brill, 1970)

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redaction that might be more accurately described as a kind of "authorship." Assessing prevailing views on the process of talmudic redaction, Eliezer Segal writes: In most instances, modern Rabbinic scholarship regards that process of assembling traditions as a creative one: the selected sources and traditions were not only gathered together.. .not merely juxtaposed to one another in order to elicit new associative meanings; but it would appear that the redactors took a more dynamic role in rewording the received traditions, or in deconstructing them and reassembling them into original literary creations.10 This focus on the literary activity of late redactors should not obviate the creativity of earlier generations, nor preclude the presence of significant editorial activity prior to the work of the final redactors. In contrast to Jacob Neusner's radical skepticism regarding the reliability and attribution of Amoraic dicta, Segal and others argue for a nuanced vision of creative and editorial activity throughout the Amoraic period— culminating in an intense period of creative redaction by the Stammaim.11 While redactors often took considerable liberties with received material, it is also important not to overstate their authorial autonomy. As Richard Kalmin describes, "later generations were often constrained by the editorial decisions of earlier generations to

10

Eliezer Segal, "Anthological Dimensions of the Babylonian Talmud," in The Anthology in Jewish

Literature, ed. David Stern. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 84. 11

Segal, "Anthological Dimensions of the Babylonian Talmud," 83. For Neusner's view, see Jacob

Neusner, The Documentary Foundation of Rabbinic Culture. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995)

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preserve and transmit traditional material, despite its lack of conformity to their own standards."12 In my own work, I assume that the Amoraic period saw important literary development within the emerging talmudic corpus, but I focus my primary attention on the massekhet as a literary whole. In David Kraemer's Reading the Rabbis, he posits a literary lens as the method of reading best suited to drawing forth a depth and range of meaning from the talmudic text in its final composition.13 While the close readings of Kraemer and other talmudic literary critics are primarily focused around the individual sugya, similar interests guide my own approach to the masekhet as a whole. I suggest that the redactors' exquisite combination of fidelity and creativity reveals a complex, multivocal engagement with past and present that becomes possible through the unique form of the massekhet. By addressing the literary dynamics of the masekhet's final form, I focus on a particular moment in talmudic creativity—one in

12

Richard Kalmin, "The Formation and Character of the Babylonian Talmud," in The Cambridge

History of Judaism, ed. Steven Katz. Vol. 4. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006) Kalmin states that "without question, later generations handle some sources with great restraint and other sources with great flexibility, although at present we lack the tools to explain precisely why they sometimes do the former and other times the latter." (846) 13

David Kraemer, Reading the Rabbis: The Talmud as Literature. (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1996) Cf. his introduction and final chapter.

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which we can observe a particular literary construction and expression of talmudic theology.

Toward Rabbinic Cultural Studies: Reading Talmudic Aggadah Interpreting the theological thematics and literary coherence of Massekhet Ta'anit requires the reader to approach the aggadah as a critical and subtle vehicle for expressing talmudic thought. Since the nineteenth century Wissenschaft school relegated aggadah to the sidelines of scholarship, the aggadah has often been treated as secondary to the primary talmudic discourse expressed through halakhah. Wissenschaft scholarship gave pride of place to the historical enterprise and commonly regarded aggadic narratives as legendary, "folkloristic" texts that had no value for reconstructing the events of the talmudic past.14 Methodologically, scholars often strove to strip away the legendary material in order to reveal the "historical kernel"—discarding layers of text in order to extract the presumed historical circumstances from which the legend arose. "This historical method," Alon Goshen-

14

Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 31.

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Gottstein critiques, "leads to partial acceptance of the text, while rejecting the legendary accretions to the historical facts as being insignificant."15 In several key studies that rejected this approach and its assumptions, Jacob Neusner demonstrated that different traditions and variants in various rabbinic sources could contradict each other irreconcilably, without supplying scholars any clear clues for choosing between variants when determining historical validity. Neusner showed that the later versions of stories and legends were not independent historical testimonies, but that the stories were changed, expanded, and combined with other legendary materials during the process of oral transmission.16 Assessing Neusner's methodological contributions, Seth Schwartz writes, "It was Neusner who first argued consistently that rabbinic documents were not simply repositories of tradition but careful selections of material, shaped by the interests, including the self-interest, of tradents and redactors. In his view the documents did not simply reflect reality but constituted attempts to construct it; that is, they are statements of ideology."17 Beyond the methodological flaws inherent in the search for historical kernels that lie beneath

15

Alon Goshen-Gottstein, The Sinner and the Amnesiac: The Rabbinic Invention ofElisha ben Abuya and Eleazar ben Arach. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 9.

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legendary materials, contemporary scholars also critique its tendency to strip away the most interesting elements of texts in order to "reveal" a paucity of potential facts.18 Drawing upon the methodological resources of cultural poetics—a broader formulation of the new historicism school—Daniel Boyarin proposes a study of rabbinic texts as products and processes of cultural creation. Eschewing both the practice of viewing biographical legends as encoded truths that can provide background for legal opinions or historical events and other scholars' insistence that the aggadah can be read "autonomously" as a self-contained literature, Boyarin argues that "both the halakhah and the aggadah represent attempts to work out the same cultural, political, social, ideological, and religious problems."19 Boyarin aims to read the texts with an eye toward "the motives for the construction of a narrative," a

16

See discussion in Jeffery Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture.

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 4ff; Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200B.CE. to 640 CE. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) and Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 49ff. 17

Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 8.

18

Arguing for a reading of rabbinic texts as a testimony to rabbinic cultural history, Boyarin critiques

the search for a historical kernel with a poignant question: "What sort of historical work can we do if the kernel of truth proves so dry and fruitless?" Boyarin, Border Lines, 47. 19

Daniel Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture. (Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1993), 15.

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narrative that testifies to "the political context of its telling or retelling."20 Describing a similar approach to rabbinic biography, Goshen-Gottstein suggests that the questions we ask of texts have shifted from a focus on the external historical facts to which a text bears witness, toward texts as a window to a historical and ideological process that expresses itself through narrative. Instead of viewing rabbinic biography as testimony to the actual life circumstances of a particular sage, Boyarin and GoshenGottstein approach biographical figures as symbolic characters through which later generations expressed particular ideologies.21 While neither scholar denies the possibility that the texts might provide historical testimony to the sage's actual life, they suggest that the texts' fruitfulness lies in their testimony to the cultural practices and processes of later generations who told and retold these stories. In this way, the stories of sages become a witness to the complicated aims and ideologies of tellers,

20

Boyarin, Border Lines, 47.

21

Goshen-Gottstein writes, "The study of R. Eleazar ben Arach will suggest that most of the traditions

relating to him were formulated as part of an ideology that favors one form of Torah study over another. These formulations have little to do with the sage's life, which because of its symbolic value in the broader question of methods of Torah study is told in a progressively peculiar manner. But through the ideological basis of the texts lessen their reliability as history, it does not invalidate their historical witness for ancient Judaism. On the contrary, this analysis allows us to uncover an ideological struggle, which stems from a significant phenomenological variation within rabbinic culture." Goshen-Gottstein, The Sinner and the Amnesiac, 9.

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transmitters, and redactors who pass on and reformulate the tales within rabbinic cultures and literatures in order to construct and interpret their past and present. Though much contemporary scholarship on talmudic redaction has focused upon the construction of halakhic sugyot, this approach suggests that it is precisely the combination and interweaving of halakhah and aggadah that promises the richest insight into the cultural history of the talmudic redactors. In his Talmudic Stories, Jeffrey Rubenstein argues that the redactors reworked the stories they incorporated into the Talmud and maintains that "it is untenable to claim that the process of redaction did not affect the text of the stories to any significant degree, that rabbinic stories were originally told in another setting, perhaps orally in the rabbinic academy, and later were incorporated into talmudic passages without change."22 Against a perception of talmudic aggadah as "closed and self-contained texts," Rubenstein reads talmudic stories in relation to halakhic discourse and, in particular, to the halakhot that form their immediate literary context.23 Through close readings of several narratives, Rubenstein points to evidence of significant revision and reworking of the sources by

Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, 14. Ibid., 15.

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the Stammaitic redactors and argues that the narratives reveal important themes and concerns present in late Babylonian rabbinic culture.24 The question of Stammaitic literary activity has prompted debate over the degree to which the redactors should be considered as "authors" in their own right.25 In his Structure and Form in the Babylonian Talmud, Louis Jacobs urges scholars to "see the Stammaim as far more than mere editors of earlier material. They were, in fact, creative authors who shaped the material they had to provide the new literary form evident in the passages we have examine and, indeed, on practically every page of the Babylonian Talmud."26 In contrast, Richard Kalmin argues against attributing "authorship" to the talmudic redactors. "If the anonymous editors authored the Talmud's greatest stories," Kalmin asks, "why do the overwhelmingly prosaic, legal preoccupations of these commentators throughout the Talmud reveal them to be the

24

In The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud, Rubenstein expands upon his discussion of these themes

and reads narrative sources of the Bavli as critical sources for the understanding of rabbinic culture in the late Babylonian period. Jeffrey Rubenstein, The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) 25

Joshua Holo notes that the designation of the editor's or redactor's role as "authorial" or "editorial"

does not materially impinge on our ability to identify the creative aspect of his work. However, as the discussion below will reveal, the distinction between "redactors" and "authors" has often been construed as minimizing the creativity of "mere" redactors, while ascribing creativity to those regarded as authors. 26

Louis Jacobs, Structure and Form in the Babylonian Talmud. (New York: Cambridge University

Press, 1991), 105.

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very antithesis of deft storytellers and imaginative artists. The anonymous editors of the Talmud are very unlikely candidates for authorship of the Talmud's brilliantly artistic, dramatically gripping, and ethically and theologically ambiguous narratives."27 Certainly, the talmudic redactors were hardly the first to have shaped these stories. Shamma Friedman maintains that aggadic narratives were sites of authorial and editorial creativity throughout much of rabbinic period. Friedman regards parallel versions of narratives as evidence of earlier editorial intervention, particularly when narratives show explicit linguistic and plot-based repetitions, but involve different personalities. Since this "doubling" often occurs between the Bavli and the Yerushalmi, which precedes the anonymous stratum of the Bavli, Friedman concludes that "creative editorial reworking is part and parcel of talmudic literature throughout most of its stages. Rather than viewing the earlier stages as verbatim reports and assigning all intervention to the anonymous stratum of the Bavli, one can discern the marks of literary creativity throughout the corpus."28

27

Kalmin, "The Formation and Character of the Babylonian Talmud," 846.

28

Shamma Friedman, "A Good Story Deserves Retelling—The Unfolding of the Akiva Legend." JSIS

3 (2004), 62.

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Friedman's work calls attention to the ideological significance of the construction and reshaping of the aggadah, revealing how narrative traditions provide a vehicle for earlier and later redactors to articulate their values and address cultural problems. Examining the development and shaping of the famous legend of Rabbi Akiva and his wife Rachel in the Babylonian Talmud, Friedman maintains, for example, that the talmudic editors intentionally describe Rabbi cAkiva's twelve year absence from his wife as an explicit corrective for another sage's moral flaws with regard to his own wife. Several midrashic and talmudic sources describe how Hanania b. Hakhinai stayed in Bnei Brak for 13 years without any communication with his wife.29 When his wife finally succeeded in bringing Hanania home, she died from shock—an ending Friedman suggests is "too tragic to remain in this form." While later redactors bring the wronged wife back to life at the end of the tale, Friedman maintains that this literary resurrection "is insufficient to remove the residual disappointment regarding Hanania b. Hakhinai's morally flawed conduct." Instead, Friedman argues that the tellers interject Rabbi cAkiva's meritorious twelve year absence from his wife into the Bavli account as an explicit corrective to Hanania's

29

Leviticus Rabba, bKetubot 62b, etc. Cited in Friedman, "A Good Story Deserves Retelling—The

Unfolding of the Akiva Legend."

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ethical failures. Not only does cAkiva's wife accept her husband's absence and encourage it, she even sends him back for another twelve years.30 Rather than viewing this process as an "embellishment" upon a historical tradition or preexisting narrative, Friedman argues that this radical reworking of motifs is akin to original narrative composition and a mark of the author's creative artistry. "The cAkiva legend in the Bavli," he maintains, "was composed by a skilled literary artist, woven from brief and isolated components into a polished and seamless creation."31 Through this act of literary artistry, the redactors of the talmudic narrative bring the cAkiva traditions to bear on a cultural problem: the conflicting loyalties of marriage and Torah study. Through careful construction of narrative that draws upon and redeploys existing traditions and symbols into a new form, the aggadah allows the redactors to address— and perhaps ameliorate—the apparent problems of the past and to refashion the moral, practical, and theological images bequeathed to the present by their predecessors.

Ibid., 80-81. Ibid., 89.

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Talmudic Textuality & Dialogical Theology Early scholarship on the nature of rabbinic conceptual and theological thinking often wrestled with the question of rabbinic belief through a lens shaped by the assumptions of Christian systematic theology. Solomon Schechter's classic 1909 Aspects of Rabbinic Theology asserts that "any attempt at an orderly and complete system of rabbinic theology is an impossible task."32 For Schechter, the rabbis' lack of interest in the project of systematic theology on the Christian model confirms the power of rabbinic religiosity. "With God as a reality, Revelation as a fact, the Torah as a rule of life, and the hope of Redemption as a most vivid expectation," Schechter writes, "they felt no need for formulating their dogmas into a creed."33 Asserting that rabbinic theology was held by its adherents without explicit self-awareness, Schechter maintains that "what they had of theology, they enunciated spasmodically or 'by impulses'... But impulses are uncertain, incoherent, and even contradictory, and thus

32

Solomon Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology: Major Concepts of the Talmud. (New York: Macmillan Company, 1909; reprint, New York: Schocken Books, 1961), 16. (page citations are to the reprint edition). 33

Ibid., 12. The idea that Judaism in late antiquity had no need to formulate doctrine or take a stand on matters of philosophy and belief has been refuted by contemporary scholarship. For a recent example, see Boyarin, Border Lines.

19

not always trustworthy."34 Decades later, Ephraim Urbach's monumental The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs strives for a more comprehensive picture of rabbinic beliefs than Schechter thought attainable but still emphasizes the episodic nature of the Rabbis' exposition of theological concepts. Urbach concludes, "Common to all the sources is the fact that none of them provides systematic treatment of the subject of beliefs and conceptions, and there are almost no continuous discourses dealing with a single theme. In most instances, we have to integrate and arrange the scattered material into one unit of thought."35 In the work of Max Kadushin, however, the disunifed character of rabbinic literature emerges as a foundational, positive attribute of rabbinic thought and textuality. Kadushin understands the coherence of rabbinic thought to be organic in nature, expressed through a "non-hierarchical, pattern-like coherence of the concepts it employs."36 Kadushin maintains that abstract concepts such as malkhut shamayim or midat rahammim serve as the conceptual building blocks of rabbinic thought. For Kadushin, the rabbinic value system articulates itself through a dynamic process, in 34

Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology, 12.

35

Ephraim Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. Israel Abrahams. (Magnes Press,

1975; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 4. (page citations are to the 1987 edition) 36

Max Kadushin, A Conceptual Approach to theMekilta. (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary,

1969), 17.

20

which each individual concept is free to combine with any other concept within the system.37 Particular concepts acquire their meaning and significance by "interweaving with other concepts of the pattern so that the meaning of that concept keeps growing richer the more it interweaves with the other concepts. The meaning of each concept thus depends upon the pattern of concepts as a whole."38 Kadushin's assessment of the interrelated character of rabbinic concepts offers a valuable framework for approaching rabbinic literature. Yet, though he perceives profound mutual interaction between rabbinic concepts and values, Kadushin's framework emphasizes a kind of harmonious conceptual interweaving—a smoothness of thought that obscures the conflicted, multivalent nature of rabbinic discourse. This question of internal coherence and conceptual harmony also emerges in the debate over Jacob Neusner's documentary approach to rabbinic literature, which treats different rabbinic documents as distinct, self-contained sources for rabbinic intellectual history and metaphysics. Neusner's methodological approach to rabbinic theology and philosophy commonly regards these documents as comprehensive texts whose inclusions and absences can testify conclusively—and exhaustively—to their

37

Ibid., 24.

38

Ibid., 18.

21

redactors' worldview. Stressing the intellectual coherence of rabbinic texts, Neusner finds in them "one whole Torah...facing the world with a single cogent address."39 Scholars have roundly critiqued Neusner's tendency to treat the Mishnah and other rabbinic documents as self-contained units of metaphysical philosophy.40 Yaakov Elman argues that Neusner and scholars who follow his approach miscast the Mishnah or similar rabbinic texts as "a theological Summa" and then draw inaccurate conclusions about the redactors' principles and theologies based upon that premise.41 Yaakov Elman's own inquiry into talmudic theologies explores the Stam's approach to a classic problem of theodicy—the suffering of the righteous. Elman calls attention to the ways the Babylonian redactors challenged and reinterpreted earlier sources and traditions in order to break the previously accepted link between suffering and sin.42 By comparing parallel traditions in the Palestinian sources, Elman identifies a number of sugyot whose Babylonian versions stress "a certain Babylonian consensus

39

Jacob Neusner, The Oral Torah: The Sacred Books of Judaism. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), xiii.

40

For a trenchant critique, see E. P. Sanders, "Jacob Neusner and the Philosophy of the Mishnah," in

Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah: Five Studies. (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990), 309-331, especially 314. 41

Yaakov Elman, "How Should a Talmudic Intellectual History Be Written? A Response to David

Kraemer's 'Responses.'" The Jewish Quarterly Review, (Jan-April 1999), 365. 42

Yaakov Elman, "Righteousness as its own Reward: An Inquiry into the Theologies of the Stam."

PAAJR59(1991), 36.

22

which... is in stark contrast to that of roughly contemporaneous Palestinian sources."43 While Elman focuses upon the "consensus which developed under the influence of teachings consistently attributed to Rava," he nevertheless maintains that the Stam never develop this theological idea to its "fulfillment in a conscious redactional synthesis."44 In Elman's view, the Bavli's theological innovation regarding the disconnection of sin and suffering crystallizes through a distinct theological voice attributed to Rava, but does not represent a sustained, systematic theological argument. Though the Stam supports Rava's theological premise at various turns, they do not conclusively adopt Rava's position—instead presenting a number of independent explanations of the problem of theodicy without overt synthesis.45

43

Ibid., 66.

44

Ibid., 67.

45

David Kraemer argues that while Elman's article claims to be focusing upon the "final compositional

hand of the Babylonian Talmud," Elman actually focuses primarily upon teachings attributed to Rava and argues that the "ideological revolution recorded in the Bavli was actually a product of these fourthcentury sages." Following Jacob Neusner's critique of the historicity of rabbinic attributions, Kraemer also maintains that efforts to date this theological emergence to Rava and his generation is methodologically flawed. David Kraemer, Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 10-11. On rabbinic attributions, see Jacob Neusner Reading and Believing: Ancient Judaism and Contemporary Gullibility. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 119-26; and William Scott Green, "What's in a Name? The Problematic of Talmudic 'Biography,'" in Approaches to Ancient Judaism: Theory and Practice, ed. W. S. Green (Missoula, Missouri: Scholars Press, 1978)

23

This lack of overt synthesis presents a critical methodological dilemma for investigating the theological and cultural meanings expressed within talmudic literature. David Kraemer's The Meanings of Death in Rabbinic Judaism approaches the study of rabbinic beliefs through a synthetic reading of ritual and literature organized around a broad theme. Investigating what he aptly calls "the nexus of practice and belief," Kraemer considers the testimony of both aggadic narratives and halakhic discourse to search out the cultural meanings surrounding death and death rituals in rabbinic thought.46 Acknowledging that much rabbinic discussion regarding the meaning of death remains implicit or implied, Kraemer maintains that "through careful interpretation of its teachings and practices relating to death, we may discover some of the most fundamental beliefs of any religion."47 This search for deeper meaning evokes the insights of Emmanuel Levinas, whose talmudic readings emphasize the search for fundamental principles encoded within and subtlety expressed through the text. "When discussing the right to eat or not to eat an egg hatched on a holy day or payments owed for damages caused by a wild ox," Levinas

Kraemer, The Meanings of Death in Rabbinic Judaism, 13. Ibid., 3.

24

writes, "the sages of the Talmud are discussing neither an egg nor an ox, but are arguing about fundamental ideas without appearing to do so."48 In this spirit, my reading of Massekhet Tacanit aims to search out fundamental ideas that animate the tractate and give it coherent form. I assume that, in addition to its interest in elucidating the Mishnah and developing a halakhic discourse in dynamic relation with past traditions, the massekhet also expresses itself in the realm of symbolic and religious meaning; that its complex textuality crafts an interlinked tapestry of law and lore to discuss matters of profound theological and cultural concern. In keeping with Kraemer, Elman and others' attention to the multivocality of the talmudic text, my own reading of Massekhet Tacanit emphasizes its literary integrity without expecting—or forcing—the text to speak in a single voice. In contrast to Neusner's emphasis on philosophical uniformity, I am particularly interested in looking for the fissures and cracks in apparent theological systems, for

48

Describing his approach to reading Talmud, Levinas sees Talmud as a process of "intellectual

struggle and courageous opening unto even the most irritating questions. The commentator must carve out a path toward them without letting himself be deceived by what appear to be Byzantine discussions. In fact, these discussions conceal an extreme attention to the Real. The pages of the Talmud, mischievous, laconic in their ironic or dry formulations, but in love with the possible, register an oral tradition and a teaching which came to be written down accidentally. It is important to bring them back to their life of dialogue or polemic in which multiple, though not arbitrary, meanings arise and buzz in each saying." Emmanuel Levinas, Nine Talmudic Readings. Annette Aronowicz, trans. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 4-5.

25

the places where Neusner's "single cogent address" collides with itself. Instead of envisioning a text that strives for and values a unitary theological voice, I argue that talmudic discourse expresses itself through a multivocal, dialogic theology that overtly grapples with itself over matters of cultural meaning and ultimate concern. As with the oft-noted dialectic of its halakhic discourse, Talmud hones the conflicted strands of theological argumentation and cultural tensions, leaving its ultimate questions to echo without resolution at the center of its text.

Context, Genre, & Dialogues: Folkloristic Perspectives on Rabbinic Literature Contemporary folklore scholarship provides key methodological tools and perspectives that underlie my approach to talmudic literature. In contrast to the nineteenth and early twentieth century romantic identification of folklore with the stories, legends, songs, and practices of rural and pre-literate peoples, contemporary folklore scholarship situates folklore within social groups of all kinds. In his 1977 landmark essay, "Who Are the Folk?," Alan Dundes challenged the notion that folklore was only found among the European peasantry, insisting that folklore occurred among any and all social groups who share common traditions. Rather than

26

the last remnants and vestiges of a dying world, folklore is alive and well in contemporary life. Dundes argues that the creation and transmission of folklore helps groups articulate and preserve their sense of identity. Folklore provides "a socially sanctioned framework for the expression of critical anxiety-producing problems, as well as a cherished artistic vehicle for communicating ethos and worldview."49 Though Dundes' own orientation was primarily directed toward contemporary folklore, Dundes' insights help challenge the once-sharp dichotomy between elite and popular culture—a split that scholars of Judaism envisioned between the rabbis and "the folk."50 This division reified folklore as an identifiable object—"superstitions," tales, beliefs, and practices—which could be isolated from the intellectual and religious purity of the rabbinic ideal. Typified in classic works on rabbinic theology such as Ephraim Urbach's The Sages, this approach positioned the beliefs and practices of "the people" as theologically problematic elements which the rabbis

49

Alan Dundes, "Who Are the Folk?" in Interpreting Folklore. (Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 1980). Quote appears on page 9. 50

Though I focus on this dichotomy as it appears in Jewish scholarship, it is important to note the

ubiquity of this split in early folklore scholarship in more general terms. The split has been reified both by scholars who regard the folk as a dangerous, potentially corrupting influence and a more romantic inclination to see folk literature as preserving a vital force of popular consciousness. The Brothers Grimm, for example, distinguished between elite culture and the folk literature that gave expression to the spirit of the people. Dina Stein, Maxims, Magic, Myth: A Folkloristic Perspective ofPirkei deRabbi Eliezer. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2004), 9.

27

attempted to combat, correct, or subvert—but with which they were often forced to reconcile. Scholarly perceptions of the gulf between rabbis and folk allowed for a kind of apologetics whereby concepts and practices that challenged scholars' own ideals of rabbinic thought could be pressed upon an unruly, corrupting folk.51 Folklorists themselves often contribute to this dichotomized vision. Dina Stein draws attention to the way in which identifying certain discrete textual narratives and cultural products as "folklore" tends to marginalize them and their presumed creators, separating them from the remainder of rabbinic culture. By identifying "folk" narratives within rabbinic literature and conceptualizing these as distinct "other" voices with which the rabbis were in conflict, folklore scholarship has often

51

Urbach, The Sages. Urbach writes, "The aim of our work is to give an epitome of the beliefs and

concepts of the Sages as the history of a struggle to instill religious and ethical ideals into the every-day life of the community and the individual..." (17) In his chapter on magic and miracle, Urbach begins by bringing several rabbinic statements against magic, which he reads to represent a flat condemnation of sorcery and which he contrasts with the beliefs of the folk: "But this was not the accepted view among the broad masses of people, and hence the prolonged debates and discussions on these questions. Magical practices and sorcery were widespread in the ancient world in the areas where the Sages lived, that is, throughout the Orient." (98) Later, he concludes that "In actuality, even the Sages of the Talmud and Midrash—despite their fundamental recognition that there is none besides God and that consequently witchcraft does not exist—could not ignore the facts, to wit, that broad masses of the people believed in and made use of these practices. They sought to find a compromise, in accordance with the reaching of R. Eliezer b. Jacob [who glosses the commandment against practicing divination by suggesting a distinction between divination and "signs."] (101)

28

perpetuated a discrete—and fraught—divide between elite and popular culture.52 The discourse of folklore's otherness vis-a-vis the rabbinic elite perpetuates a kind of cultural exoticism in which the artifacts of "the folk" become a showcase for what rabbinic theology is not, a cultural spectacle that can draw our fascinated gaze, all the while reinforcing concepts of rabbinic purity and authority. Despite pervasive assumptions of a conflict-model that sets folk and rabbinic voices in opposition, a significant counter trend in contemporary folkloristics understands folk narrative as central to rabbinic discourse. Galit Hasan-Rokem affirms the possibility of identifying distinct folkloric materials within the rabbinic corpus, but considers them to be essential elements for understanding rabbinic thought.53 She argues that the full extent of rabbinic reality cannot be conveyed solely through the discourse of the academy, but must include the languages of "the home and the lane, the fence and the cracks." Just as "the cultural universe of the Rabbinic texts cannot be exhausted by taking into account only scholarly discourse," HasanRokem argues, so it cannot be fully encompassed "by allowing only for an orderly

52

Stein, Maxims, Magic, Myth, 1 Iff. Dina Stein, '"Let the People Go:' On the Use of 'Folk' and

'Folklore' in the Reconstruction of Rabbinic Culture." Unpublished manuscript. 53

Galit Hasan-Rokem, Tales of the Neighborhood: Jewish Narrative Dialogues in Late Antiquity.

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 21.

29

universe hierarchically designed by a dominant God."54 In Hasan-Rokem's work, folklore becomes a vehicle for examining the ambiguities and complexities of rabbinic experience—and a means of communicating those ambiguities in social relationships. Following Hasan-Rokem's assessment of the folktale's narrative voice as one that can subvert dominant rabbinic theologies, I pay particular attention to the power of story to express a world-view and ethical sense that is powerfully out of step with prevailing concepts of order, theology, and principle. In keeping with Dina Stein emphasis on folkloristic perspectives as a method of reading, I use folklore as a theoretical lens for examining the cultural production and significance of a wide range of texts, practices, and performances.55

Context & Communication: Approaching Folklore as Performed Art This emphasis on folklore as a communicative performance represents a critical conceptual shift in the modern discipline. Moving away from the idea of an "object" as the basis of folklore, contemporary folklore scholarship understands

54

Hasan-Rokem, Tales of the Neighborhood, 26.

55

Stein, '"Let the People Go:'

30

folklore as an expressive process.56 In "Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context," Dan Ben-Amos argues against a false dichotomy of process and product—instead defining folklore as artistic communication in small groups. "The telling," Ben-Amos writes, "is the tale; therefore the narrator, his story, and his audience are all related to each other as components of a single continuum, which is the communicative event."57 A hallmark of what Richard Dorson describes as the 'contextual school,' this theoretical approach maintains that the act of "doing" folklore indelibly shapes its very nature.58 There is no piece of folklore separate from its communication, from its ongoing creation or recreation in the milieu of a performance situation. The power of context is manifest both in the particular telling situation that characterizes a certain moment of 'doing' folklore and a larger cultural context that gives force and form to folklore as a cultural activity. In Competence in Performance, 56

Richard Bauman characterizes the "most comprehensive" of these concerns as "a full-scale and

highly self-conscious reorientation from the traditional focus upon folklore as 'item'—the things of folklore—to a conceptualization of folklore as "event—the doing of folklore. In particular, there is an emphasis upon performance as an organizing principle that comprehends within a single conceptual framework artistic act, expressive form, and esthetic response, and that does so in terms of locally defined, culture-specific categories and contexts." Richard Bauman, Introduction to Toward New Perspectives in Folklore, Americo Paredes and Richard Bauman, eds. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972), xi. 57

Dan Ben-Amos, "Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context." Journal of American Folklore 84:331

(1971), 10. 58

Richard Dorson, "Concepts of Folklore and Folklife Studies," in Folklore and Folklife. (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1970), 45.

31

Charles Briggs emphasizes that folkloric performances are not simple repetitions of time-worn traditions. Effective performance requires artistry, creativity, and interpretation from tellers. Tellers draw upon traditional material and shape it in such a way so that it effectively comments upon and interprets present reality.59 In his analysis of telling situations, Briggs shows how skilled performers solicit cues from their audience in order to shape the telling: gauging facial expressions, asking explicit questions, and soliciting back-channel cues. A competent performer makes use of audience feedback in order to shape the performance—thus crafting the performance to "fit" the moment and the audience.60 Even more significantly, Briggs asserts that folklore performances have a social purpose, that folklore performances have functional significance for tellers and audience alike. Removed from the actual situational context that provokes their performance, a piece of folklore is stripped of its sense. Proverbs, for example, are successful to the extent that they inject meaning into a situation and affect a rapprochement between past and present. Shorn of the features that link it to tradition

59

Charles Briggs, Competence in Performance: The Creativity of Tradition in Mexicano Verbal Art. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 6-7. 60 Ibid., 81,96-97.

32

andto a contemporary interaction, a proverb has no rhetorical force. Outside of the situational context that calls it into being, a proverb is—as one of his informants remarks—"just words," and not a proverb at all. A proverb cannot exist without the particular situation in which it is told.61 Briggs and others emphasize a performance analysis that affirms the artistry of the individual teller and attends to the formative role that situational context has in shaping and making meaning.

Orality within Literature: The Dialogic Quality of Talmudic Discourse In light of the profound insights of the contextual school and the growing analysis of folklore as performance, Jewish folklorists have become particularly interested in the oral features of rabbinic literature. Though an emphasis on orality has been a long-standing feature in scholarly definitions of folklore, the effort to conjure a speaking tongue from the midst of a written page has become particularly acute for "textually-based" Jewish folklorists. Milman Parry and Albert Lord's research on the oral composition of epic poetry and their ensuing oral-formulaic theory

Ibid., 3.

33

has proven foundational for scholarship on the oral nature of rabbinic composition.62 Martin Jaffee's work on rabbinic oral tradition emphasizes the interrelationship of oral and written narrative forms within a culture that prized oral recitation and performance. "In such settings," Jaffee argues, "the expression of communal literary tradition in writing does not necessarily establish a radical discontinuity from the orally rooted tradition. Rather, the written form enters the life of the oral tradition, each register of tradition modulating the other in diverse ways."63 He emphasizes the ways in which written versions of an oral tradition have been imprinted by their origins, preserving the marks of performance on the page.64 Beyond the memory of orality encoded within text, Mikhail Bakhtin's theoretical insights have drawn attention to the dialogical nature of text itself. Bakhtin

62

The foundational work on the subject is The Singer of Tales, which emerged out of Lord's 1949

doctoral dissertation that examined the fieldwork data he and Milman Parry collected in from epic singers in Yugoslavia. Albert Bates Lord, The Singer of Tales. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960) 63

Martin Jaffee, "The Oral-Cultural Context of the Talmud Yerushalmi," in Transmitting Jewish

Tradition, ed. Yaakov Elman and Israel Gershoni. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 26 64

Jaffee also describes the self-consciousness of orality in rabbinic literature that comes about through

the simultaneous existence and mutual interaction of oral and written forms. "Oral tradition exists, that is, as an unperceived reality, calling no particular attention to itself until, because of whatever social factors might have led to the transmission of oral literature in written form, the tradition finds itself reproduced as written text. It discovers its 'orality' as it were, by gazing at its face in the mirror of the written text." Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism 200 BCE 400 CE. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 6.

34

understands the word as actively and consciously engaged with a larger field of constant conversation. He writes: The word in living conversation is directly, blatantly, oriented toward a future answer-word: it provokes an answer, anticipates it and structures itself in the answer's direction. Forming itself in an atmosphere of the already spoken, the word is at the same time determined by that which has not yet been said, but which is needed and in fact anticipated by the answering word.65 Bakhtin's image of the provocative word also suggests a cacophonous, mutuallyresponsive interplay of voices within an individual narrative. Through this multiplicity of speech, the word provokes an answer from its fellows within the framework of single text. Daniel Boyarin highlights the presence of such dialogues across a single text as one of three potential modes of intertextuality in narrative. He argues that all texts are intertextual in the sense that they are formed out of conscious and unconscious citations of previous discourse; that conscious and unconscious cultural codes constrain the production of new texts and their basic assumptions about reality; and that some texts may also be dialogical—"contesting their own assertions as an

65

M.M. Bakhtin, "Discourse in the Novel," in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 280.

35

essential part of the structure of their discourse."66 In his reading of the Mekhilta, Boyarin demonstrates that the midrash is self-consciously responding to the presence of profound ambiguity in the biblical narrative. "While each of the readers it presents work in their readings toward reduction of the ambiguity," Boyarin argues that "the cumulative effect of the midrash as compiled is to focus on the ambiguity and the possibilities for making meaning out of it."67 Following this insight, I suggest that the form and discursive structure of the masekhet likewise call attention to ambiguity and draw forth possibilities of rendering it meaningful. This dialogic quality represents one of the fundamental features of the masekhet as a literary genre.

Framing Texts: Genre Theory & Talmudic Literature From the earliest emergence of folklore as a discipline to the diversity of its contemporary scholarly articulations, genre has provided a critical lens for reflecting upon the nature of folklore as object and as process. In his introduction to Folklore 66

For Boyarin, the Bible stands as the prototypical example of a text in conversation with itself.

Accordingly, Boyarin understands midrash as a dialogical and dialectical process of reading and interpreting that continues the interpretive approaches within the Bible itself. The midrash interprets "the very fractured and unsystematic surface of the biblical text" that encodes and manifests biblical intertextuality. Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 15. 67

Ibid., 58.

36

Genres, Dan Ben-Amos notes the significance of genre as an organizational principle—whether in the work of the earliest collectors or in the creation of contemporary university curricula on folklore.68 Genre, as a list of "types" of folklore, animated early approaches to folklore. William Thorns' classic articulation of folklore as a field of study relied in large part on his enumeration of genres.69 Yet contemporary folklore theory has increasingly noted the danger of "traditional" conceptions of genre for their tendency to reify intellectual categories of the scholar and to obscure native categories. In his astute consideration of historical and emerging trends in genre scholarship, Ben Amos articulates a distinction between analytic and ethnic genres, a distinction that provides a platform for formulating the interrelationship between these two modes of approaching genre. The analytic approach, which consists of scholarly efforts to define genre beyond the confines of a particular folk group, concerns itself with classification and provides essential resources for cross-cultural comparison. As an expression of ethnic categories, however, genre is a key, organic and internally defined part of the culturally-

68

Dan Ben-Amos, ed. Folklore Genres. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976), x-xiii. William Thorns, "Folk-Lore and the Origin of the Word," in InternationalFolkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore, ed. Alan Dundes. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999), 9-14. 69

37

conditioned latticework a speaker must navigate in order to communicate meaningfully. For Ben-Amos and others, ethnic genres provide a cultural framework that allows speakers to communicate successfully within their group, just as it shapes the way in which an audience hears, understands, and interprets communication.™ Genre provides the grammar of a culture's communication system. Making explicit the system of genres within a cultural system can illuminate the oft-unspoken framework for ordering and understanding a culture's perceptions of knowledge, truth, meaning. In his essay "Generic Distinctions in the Aggadah," Ben-Amos reconstructs the genre categories within the aggadah through an analysis of explicit categories mentioned within the sources—such as those mentioned in the Talmud as the types of knowledge R. Yohanan possessed—as well as certain categories implicit in the material. Rabbinic Jewish narratives make use of explicit generic markings such as the distinctive hainu d&amrei ^anshei, "this is what the people say," to frame a proverb or mashal lemah hadavar domeh, "a parable: to what does this compare?" to signal the presence of a parable. In addition to identifying these explicit categories, Ben-Amos maintains that one can deduce ethnic genres implicit in the text, through

70

Dan Ben-Amos, "Analytic Categories and Ethnic Genres," in Folklore Genres. (Austin: University of

Texas Press, 1976), 215.

38

structural similarities, thematic coherence, and the presence of key characters who signal a certain kind of narrative.71 By drawing attention to the orderliness of certain elements of talmudic narrative, genre analysis can make visible the patterns and forms within talmudic literature and provide a meaningful apparatus for analyzing the component parts of the text. A focus on genre within the talmudic corpus, however, can obscure the larger question of talmudic genre, simply envisioning Talmud as a repository for distinct component genres. In his essay on the anthological dimensions of the Babylonian Talmud, Eliezer Segal has demonstrated that anthology can function as a meaningful genre lens for viewing Talmud. Segal examines the three primary genre assertions made regarding Talmud as a whole: Talmud as commentary, as legal literature, and as anthology. Talmud has undeniable features of commentary and of legal literature. The frame of the Mishnah provides a basic structure and limits—to a certain degree— the form and nature of the material discussed. Viewed as legal literature, its logical argumentation and halakhic dialectic can be seen as a well-crafted expression of 71

In certain cases, Ben-Amos finds a link between distinct narrative forms and particular characters,

such as the tales of the benevolent miracle workers who figure centrally in aggadic legends, but who are largely outside the generic boundaries of halakhic discourse or other narrative types. Dan Ben-Amos, "Generic Distinctions in the Aggadah," in Studies in Jewish Folklore, ed. Frank Talmage. (Cambridge: Association for Jewish Studies, 1980), 52.

39

profound cultural values. Yet Segal argues that Talmud may be best examined using an anthological model. "Since all works in the Rabbinic corpus present themselves to us as collections of opinions and dicta ascribed to several generations of Rabbis," Segal asserts, "it follows that the redactors of each of these works were acting as anthologists when they assembled the particular traditions that were to be included in a given compendium."72 Segal regards such anthological work as a creative process, emphasizing the dynamic and constructive elements of the redactors' role. He stresses the presence of large portions of material within the Talmud that did not originate through Mishnah study and suggests that much of this material—including much aggadic midrash—was originally developed and arranged elsewhere, only to be incorporated into the Talmud at a late stage of its development. While the anthological model accounts for significant characteristics of the Talmud's form and highlights important aspects of talmudic structure, it primarily envisions the Talmud itself as a frame for constituent traditions. In my own work, I suggest that Talmud is not simply a container that holds material, but that the complex, unruly form of the masekhet constitutes a functional, culturally-significant

72

Segal, "Anthological Dimensions of the Babylonian Talmud," 84.

40

genre in its own right. Scholars have not yet considered the significance of talmud as genre—the way the genre functions and the specific communication it makes possible. Discussing the problems of categorizing Talmud in genre terms, David Kraemer approaches genre as a hermeneutical key for readers—as a question of determining the best lens through which to read the text. He distinguishes between genres by means of comparison with other texts and suggests that Talmud constitutes a genre of two examples: the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds. Thus, he concludes, "we have merely formulated a great tautology (the Talmud is talmud.) It may indeed be the case that the two Talmuds constitute their own genre. But, by itself, this observation advances us very little."73 Approached through the lens of contemporary genre theory, however, Kraemer's great tautology can launch a fruitful inquiry. Instead of viewing the whole Babylonian Talmud as the basic form of the genre, I suggest the massekhet may be seen as the primary generic unit through which Talmud expresses itself. If genre is not simply a means of classifying, but a distinct mode of communication, then investigating the massekhet as a genre allows us to consider the particular discourse a

73

David Kraemer, Reading the Rabbis, 7-8.

41

massekhet enables, the relations it establishes between performers/texts and audience/readers, and the ways in which it poses and responds to cultural questions and realities. While substantiating this conception of the massekhet as a genre is beyond the scope of this dissertation, I aim to apply this lens to Massekhet Tacanit and thereby raise questions of how a particular massekhet functions, how it accomplishes and enables its cultural work. A massekhet, I suggest, expresses itself through a dialectic that extends beyond individual halakhic sugyot. The aggadah operates as a constituent and essential expression of the massekhet's discourse. A massekhet forms itself through intricate relations between halakhah and aggadah; it cannot live on law alone. The massekhet uses a complex, multivocal narrative form to grapple with profound cultural issues and deep questions about human relationships with the world and with the divine. Halakhah emerges as response to these problems—as a quintessential and fundamental rabbinic expression of these questions and demands. Working out the intricacies of halakhah and clarifying its implementation can and does become a talmudic subject in its own right. We can rightly claim that talmudic discourse is about the development and right expression of law; but to assert that talmudic

42

discourse is only about halakhic explication fails to account for the full texture of the text.74 Instead, the masekhet's dialectical engagement of halakhic and aggadic discourse allows it to craft both law and lore into a dialogic form that can raise profound questions of meaning and metaphysics. This complex, multivocal form of the massekhet allows the Stam to grapple adroitly with the complexities of profound cultural tensions, in a manner that steadfastly refrains from resolving those tensions into a single, unitary voice.

74

Comparing his literary reading with the halakhic lens through which Talmud is often seen, Kraemer

writes, "the point of reading the Talmud as halakha is to extract the established law from the Talmud's deliberations." What he finds most striking about such a reading is the degree to which "most of the deliberation we examined is irrelevant for purposes of the halakha and therefore provokes no comment." This reading, he argues, even renders much of the halakhic discourse irrelevant, as the Gemara includes extensive failed proofs and more than one successful one. In Kraemer's reading, "all of these halakhically irrelevant details have a point. Since in reading the Talmud as literature we need not assume that halakha is the central purpose of any given text, we are free to imagine a wide variety of possible meanings and purposes." Kraemer, Reading the Rabbis, 144-5.

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Chapter 2

Crying Out for Rain: The Symbolic Significance of Rain in Massekhet Tacanit

Massekhet Tacanit asserts a deep connection between the natural world, human action, and the providence of God. Particularly in ancient Palestine, where a single season's rainfall provides the necessary rain for the entire year's sowing and harvest, the start of the annual rains marked an essential turning point for the community.75 Beyond the inherent danger of delayed or absent rains in a climate that depends so heavily upon seasonal rainfall for sustenance in the year to come, Massekhet Tacanit establishes rain as a potent symbol of abundance and divine generosity. In the 75

Efraim Orni and Elisha Efrat, Geography of Israel. (Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific

Translations, 2nd edition, 1966), 111-15. Orni and Efrat note that almost 70% of Israel's annual rainfall occurs between November and February. (114) In Babylonia, the geography is significantly different and the region was not as dependent upon rain for survival. J. Newman, The Agricultural Life of the Jews in Babylonia Between the Years 200 CE and 500 CE. (London: Oxford University Press, 1932) Newman notes, "Lying between the two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, intersected by numerous smaller rivers and innumerable canals, the chief of which stretched across the whole country from one of the great rivers to the other, and possessing in addition a great number of lakes and ponds, the country was abundantly supplied with water sufficient to give the necessary moisture to the soil independently of the rainfall." (17) Massekhet Tacanit reflects this abundance with a remark from Rav: "Babylonia is rich, because the harvest is gathered even when the rain does not fall." (bTacanit 10a) In sharp contrast, floods were a more common danger in Babylonia than drought. Despite mishnaic prohibitions against praying for the rain to cease, Tacanit also suggests that Babylonian communities informed their brethren in Palestine during times of excessive rain and beseeched their prayers. (bTa'anit 22b)

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conceptual world of the massekhet, rain represents and reflects an ongoing engagement between the Holy and the human. Massekhet Tacanit regards rain as a restorative, life-giving shower of God's presence, a tangible manifestation of the connection between creation and Creator. When rain is delayed or withheld, it signals a breach in that relationship, a breach that threatens the continuity of life itself. The talmudic conception of rain as a manifestation of divine bounty and a visible expression of the relationship between God and Israel rests upon the biblical motif of rain as gift and drought as punishment, a motif that the massekhet refracts through rabbinic exegesis into a polysemous symbol of divine bounty and danger, a symbol that encodes and expresses the intricacies of relationship between God and Israel. Victor Turner's theory of the symbol provides a useful theoretical lens for analyzing the meanings and functions of rain in Massekhet Tacanit.76 Turner understands the symbol as a means of representation that relies upon a complex set of associations that allow for many meanings (signata). Turner emphasizes the multivocality, the ambiguity, and the polarity of core symbols within a cultural system,

76

For an excellent overview of Turner's ritual studies and his approach to the symbol, see: Mathieu

Deflem, "Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner's Processual Symbolic Analysis." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30 (1991): 1-25.

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and argues that it is precisely these properties which give symbols their cultural power.77 In Massekhet Tacanit, the rain symbol condenses a great number of meanings into the single, tangible event of rainfall: drawing together associations of creation,78 life,79 salvation,80 resurrection,81 and abundance,82 with images of divine generosity and

77

Turner suggests a distinction between symbols and signs in terms of their respective methods of

signification, the relationship between the signifier (the outward form) and the signified (the meaning, sense, connotation, or signata). Symbol relies on some kind of likeness between signifier and signified, between the symbol and that which it evokes. Victor Turner, "Symbolic Studies," Annual Review of Anthropology 4, (1975): 145-161, 151-2. See also: Victor Turner, Tie Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. (Chicago: Aldine, 1969). Also useful for thinking about the definition of symbol is Peter Struck's definition of a symbol as a "representational mechanism that renders transcendent realities into tangible form." Peter Struck, "Symbol and Symbolism," in Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 13, 2nd edition, ed. Lindsay Jones, 8906-8915. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2005), 8906. 78

Massekhet Tacanit links rain to creation through the Stam's inquiry about the meaning of the phrase

"gevurotgeshamim," the powers of rain. In response, the sages bring a series of prooftexts to indicate the linkage between rain and gevurah that emphasize God's creative power. (bTacanit 2a) R. Hama ben Hanina describes the day of rain as a day as great as the creation of the heaven and the earth. (bTacanit 7b) The explicit link between the day of rain and the day of creation occurs again in the dispute between R. 'Eli'ezer and R. Yohanan over the source of the rain, in which the later maintains that the earth is watered by the heavenly waters above the firmament, while the first sage maintains that the world drinks from the waters of the ocean, which return to the earth as rain. (bTacanit 9b-10a) 79

In Massekhet Ta'anit's version of the "midrash of the three keys," for example, R. Yohanan describes

rain as one of the three keys that the Holy does not entrust to an agent, along with the key of childbearing and the key of resurrection. All three share a fundamental capacity to give life, a power that can be expressed by God alone. God's rain brings life and revives it. (bTacanit 2a-2b) 80

The connection between rain and salvation appears explicitly in a teaching by Rabbi 'Osh'aya on

bTacanit 7b. I will discuss this section later in the chapter. 81

The massekhet also draws extensive parallels between rain and resurrection, suggesting that the two

blessings are recited together because they are of equal significance (bTacanit 7a). Like the resurrection of the dead, rain brings back life to the desiccated earth. The massekhet's discussion regarding a baraita that attributes Rabbi 5Elicezer's timing for the recitation of gevurot geshamim to the waving of the lulav also draws on the link between resurrection and rainfall. (bTa'anit 2b) When Rabbi 3Elicezer is challenged by Rabbi Yehoshua regarding the recitation of rain during Sukkot, when rain is a bad sign, 'Eli'ezer responds: "I did not say to ask, but rather to mention and just as the revival of the dead is

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the gift of Torah. By linking diverse theological concepts with rain, the massekhet brings together a rich field of associations that inform and intensify the "natural" significance of rain. In a clear expression of polarity, the rain symbol also encodes the possibility of drought—and thereby brings into the symbolic field the danger of divine absence, punishment, disaster, and death. As Brigitte Kern-Ulmer has argued, rain in rabbinic literature evolves from an agricultural phenomenon into an escatalogical symbol that represents a fundamental expression of divine promise.83 As a symbol, rain makes tangible divine presence— and makes visible and manifest otherwise inexpressible qualities of the Holy. For the sages, rain symbolizes God's ongoing creation and sustaining power in the world. Yet mentioned all the year and not just in the time of its (eventual) occurrence, so too we mention the powers of rain all year and not just in their time." This premise is ultimately refuted because of a distinction between rain and resurrection. Resurrection, the Stam asserts, could occur at any time and be a blessing, but benevolent rain can only come at certain times. Brigitte Kern-Ulmer notes a parallel link between rain and resurrection in bBrakhot 33a, where Rav explains the insertion of gevurot geshamim into the second blessing "because it was put on a level with the resurrection of the dead." (57) Brigitte Kern-Ulmer, "Consistency and Change in Rabbinic Literature as Reflected in the Terms 'Rain' and 'Dew.'" Journal for the Study of Judaism in thePersian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 26 (1995) : 55-75. 82

Kern-Ulmer suggests that while rain was not perceived as a means of accomplishing resurrection

itself, God's rain would "alleviate human suffering by using its redemptive power to create an extremely fertile Land of Israel." Kern-Ulmer, "Consistency and Change in Rabbinic Literature," 65. An image of this remarkably fertile land projected backwards onto an idyllic past appears on bTacanit 23a, where the Gemara describes wheat kernels the size of kidneys, barley the size of olive pits, and lentils the size of gold coins that grew during the days of Shim'on ben Shetah, a few samples of which the sages have preserved in order to demonstrate to future generations "how much loss sin causes." 83

Kern-Ulmer, "Consistency and Change in Rabbinic Literature," 55-75.

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scholarly interpretation often argues that biblical and rabbinic literatures craft a polemical disjuncture between God and nature, distinguishing divine power from natural forces and thus situating the Hebrew God as opposed to nature.84 With regard to Massekhet Tacanit, this chapter suggests that the perceived conflict between the rabbis and the "vestiges" of paganism has obscured the degree which Massekhet Tacanit uses the rain symbol as a means of representing the divine presence. In contrast to Kern-Ulmer's reading, in which the assocation of rain with divine power (gevurah) represents God's power over a distinct and subject "natural" world, I argue that the world-view of Massekhet Tacanit figures rain as an expression of God's power—but not an imposition of divine will upon a radically other "nature." A motif of divine triumph over nature is implicit in Kern-Ulmer's reading of rain, particularly in her assessment of the liturgical phrase praising God as the one who causes rain to fall and wind to blow. This phrase is inserted into the second blessing of the Amidah, 84

In a classic articulation of this concept, Nahum Sarna situates the Hebrew Bible's Genesis account as

"part of the biblical polemic against paganism" that "asserts that God is outside the realm of nature, which is wholly subservient to Him." Nahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis: The World of the Bible in the Light of History. (New York: Schocken Books, 1966; reprint, 1970), 3. Treating this conflict in midrashic literature, Daniel Boyarin argues that the Mekhilta "enacts in very important ways the conflict in Jewish culture between its pagan past and its monotheistic present" and that the midrash "makes manifest the hidden dimensions of that mythic intertext by gathering together these fragments of allusion [to an earlier mythology] and figural language and reinscribing them into narratives." Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990; reprint, 1994), 94.

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a blessing which speaks of divine power—particularly divine power to resurrect the dead. "It is implicit in the second benediction," Kern-Ulmer writes, "that God in His goodness and in His compassion has the power to obstruct the seemingly disastrous course of nature. God has the power to force the course of nature into its opposite direction, that of a healing, redemptive character."85 Yet Massekhet Tacanit does not envision God as a controlling force who exercises authority over an external "nature." The massekhet does not figure God and nature as distinct, conflicting entities. Rain is not a "natural" phenomenon disconnected from the divine that comes in its own time, but a gift of God that is granted or withheld according to God's will.86 Rain as symbol and realia speaks of creation, drawing the eye back to the Creator.87 In Massekhet Tacanit, the rain symbol allows the sages to reflect upon God's power as in a tangible form. Extending this

85

Brigitte Kern-Ulmer, "Consistency and Change in Rabbinic Literature," 56.

86

The expression of divine will inherent in the biblical (and later rabbinic) conception of rainfall or

drought appears, for example, in Deuteronomy 11:14:1 will give (natati) rain to your land; and then Deuteronomy 11:17: He will shut up the heavens (cazar et hashamayim). 87

Emphasizing the close relationship between creation and Creator in biblical thought, Gene Tucker

critiques the tendency for interpreters to read the Hebrew Bible as "suspicious" of nature, a view commonly justified by appeal to "ancient Israel's tensions with the religions of its neighbors and its resistance to connecting natural forces or features with deities." (3) He concludes with an emphasis on the theocentric nature of biblical thought, which—despite extensive natural imagery—speaks not of "nature," but of creation. (17) Gene Tucker, "Rain on a Land Where No One Lives: The Hebrew Bible and the Environment." Journal of BiblicalLiterature 116:1 (1997): 3-17.

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aspect of rain symbolism, the massekhet deploys rabbinic exegesis to craft rain as sign shaped by human choices and actions, as a manifest reflection of relationship between God and Israel. As it navigates the topography of abundance and the perilous landscape of drought, Massekhet Tacanit figures the rain as a symbolic representation of relations between the human and the holy, emphasizing the power of the human community to disambiguate the multivalent meaning of rain and thereby make manifest either disaster or blessing.

The Meaning of Rain: The Moral Significance of Natural Signs From the first, Massekhet Tacanit underscores the significance of rain as a theological symbol with an explicit moral meaning that reflects the current status of relationship between God and Israel. Massekhet Tacanit opens with a question regarding the appropriate time to begin liturgical recitation of gevurot geshamim, the liturgical phrase that praises God's power of rain: Mishnah: From when do they mention the powers of rain? Rabbi 3Elicezer said: From the first day of Sukkot. Rabbi Yehoshua said: From the last day of Sukkot. Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: Since rains are nothing but a sign of curse on Sukkot, why would he mention? Rabbi 3Elicezer said to him: I did not say to ask, only to mention: He who causes the wind to blow and the rain to

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fall in its season. He said to him: If that is so, then one should always mention... Gemara: Where does the Reciter [of this mishnah] stand when he recites, "From where?" The Reciter stands here, where it is taught: "They mention the powers of rain with the resurrection of the dead and ask [for rain] with the blessing of years and make a separation [between Shabbat and the rest of the week in the blessing that begins] the one who grants wisdom." (bBrakhot 33a) Then he recites, "From when do they mention the powers of rain?" Then let him teach it there [in Massekhet Brakhot]! What is the reason that he has left it until here? Rather the Reciter comes up out of Rosh Hashanah [the massekhet immediately prior to Tacanit], which teaches "and on Sukkot they are judged regarding water." (bRosh Hashanah 16a)88 At a certain contested moment, rabbinic practice calls for the praying community to insert an evocation of God's power to bring rain and wind into the Amidah, the central prayer in rabbinic liturgical practice. In discussing the significance of this mishnaic statement, the Gemara rejects a reading centered solely on liturgical propriety and instead situates the practice of reciting gevurot geshamim as an expression of the relationship between the human and the holy, a relationship mediated through and played out upon the natural world. The first question the Gemara asks of the Mishnah is a contextual inquiry. "Where does the Reciter (Tanna) stand," the Gemara inquires, "when he teaches from

bTacanit 2a.

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whenTm Though the Mishnah begins with an assertion that the recitation praising God's power of rain is an obligation, the talmudic inquirer seeks to establish the grounds of this assumption. Where, the Gemara inquires, have we learned that a person must acknowledge God's rain-power? In answer, the Stam raises a potential context from Mishnah Brakhot, which discusses the proper location of gevurot geshamim and similar insertions within the Amidah. However, it rejects the reasonable assumption that Mishnah Tacanit 1:1 emerges out of this literary context. If the Reciter's question of when had arisen from that place, the Stam objects that he should have taught it near its original context. Instead, the Stam discards Massekhet Brakhot as the proper frame for this discussion and asserts that the Mishnah's frame of reference for this particular teaching follows from the end of the preceding massekhet, which teaches "and on Sukkot, they are judged regarding water."90 Through explicit selection of this context, the Stam is not only addressing the obvious question of literary context, but also establishing the rain as a moral sign. The Stam rejects Massekhet Brakhot as an appropriate frame, despite its obvious connections to 89

bTacanit 2a.

90

bTacanit 2a, referencing bRosh Hashanah 16a.

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bTacanit 6b. Later in the page, the massekhet also brings another teaching on this theme from Rabbi

'Abahu, who says: "From when do they bless the rains? Once the groom has come forth toward the bride."

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liturgical practice, in favor of Massekhet Sukkah, with its interest in judgment by means of water. In doing so, they begin to lay a foundation for articulating the moral significance of rain, figuring rain as a central part of the ongoing narrative of divine judgment and mercy vis-a-vis humanity that becomes played out through the natural world. The massekhet's assessment of rain as a sign of divine judgment and generosity becomes comprehensible only within a larger cultural narrative, a narrative in which the rain symbol reflects the nature of relationship between God and Israel. In the Gemara's application of the Sukkot passage to Mishnah Tacanit, rain appears as a medium through which that relationship might be measured. In a later teaching, BT Massekhet Tacanit figures the rain as an explicit expression of the relationship between heaven and earth. On Tacanit 6b, the Stam inquires: Why is rainfall called revicahl Rabbi 3Abahu said: Revi(ah because it is that which copulates (rovea) with the soil, like this [statement] of Rav Yehudah. For Rav Yehudah said: Rain is the husband of the earth, as it is said: For Just as the rain falls and the snow comes from the heavens and does not return there, but that it waters the earth and causes it (her) to give birth and blossom. (Isaiah 55:10)91 Rabbi 5Abahu and Rav Yehudah understand rainfall as an erotic encounter between heaven and earth. Rav Yehudah describes the rain as the earth's husband, reading the 53

rain via a sexual metaphor whereby the earth bears fruit as a result of the rain's entry into her furrows.92 Here, the rain symbol provides concrete manifestation of this essential, but intangible relationship—and asserts that this sacred relationship provides the critical nourishment necessary for life. The moral significance of rain in Massekhet Tacanit operates not only through the frame of divine mercy and judgment, but also through symbolic representation of sexual relationship—whereby the meeting of rain and soil becomes kin to a marriage of heaven and earth. When set into the larger cultural frame, the resonance of the marriage symbolism superimposes biblical and rabbinic metaphors of a marriage between God and Israel onto the relations between heaven and earth. But like biblical imaginings of sexual relations between God and Israel, the relationship is not always marked by tranquility. Just as the bond between God and Israel can be threatened by

92

Raphael Patai reads this passage as referring to the commingling of upper and lower waters, with the

upper waters understood as male and the lower waters as female. Patai understands the rabbinic conception as one in which male waters come down from heaven to the earth, which opens to receive them. "The rain itself is explained mythologically: the waters weep on account of the separation of the upper male waters from the lower female waters, which was accomplished by God in the days of Creation." (261) Raphael Patai, "The 'Control of Rain' in Ancient Palestine: A Study in Comparative Religion." Hebrew Union College Annual 14 (1939) : 251-286. See also: Raphael Patai, The Water: A Study in Palestinology and Palestinian Folk Lore [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1936), 139ff.

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the shortcomings of the human partner, so human transgressions can throw this relationship—the eros of earth and sky—into profound disorder.

Bounty and Danger: Polarity in the Rain Symbol Massekhet Tacanit intensifies the moral power of the rain symbol through statements that juxtapose the beneficent significance of rain with the deadly meaning of its lack: Rabbi Hama bar Hanina said: The day of rain is as great as the day when the heavens and earth were created, as it is written: Rain down, oh heavens, from above and let the skies drip down righteousness! Let the earth open up and bear the fruit of salvation, and let righteousness sprout up together: I, God, created it. (Isaiah 45:8) It does not say I created them [the heavens and the earth], but rather, I created it [the rain.] Rabbi 5Oshcaya said: Great is the day of rain, for even salvation becomes fruitful and multiplies on it, as it is said: Let the earth open up and bear the fruit of salvation. Rabbi Tanhum bar HaniPai said: The rain does not fall unless the transgressions of Israel have been forgiven, as it is written: God, you favor your land. You turned the captivity of Jacob. You forgive the transgressions of your people; you pardon all their sins. (Psalm 85:2-3) Zeiri of Dahabat said to Rabina: You teach it from there, and we teach it from here: You hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants and your people Israel, for you teach them the good way in which they should go and give rain to your land which you gave to your people for an inheritance. (I Kings 8:36) Rabbi Tanhum son of Rabbi Hiya of Kefar cAko said: The rain is not withheld unless the enemies of Israel [a euphemism that means Israel itself] are 55

condemned to destruction, as it is written: Drought and heat steal the waters of snow and She 'ol those who have sinned. (Job 24:19) Zeciri of Dahabat said to Rabina: You teach it from there, and we teach it from here: He will shut up the heavens and there will not be rain [... and you will soon perish.] (Deut. 11:17)93 In this passage, Rabbi Hanina bar Hama's opening exegesis aligns with the massekhet's association of rain and creation.94 Rabbi 5Oshcaya builds upon Hanina's verse, turning the fruitfulness of rain into a sign of salvation. For Rabbi 3Oshcaya, the rain's promise is clear: on the day of rain, even salvation becomes more abundant. The natural phenomenon of rain manifests and multiplies a metaphysical gift from God. Rabbi Tanhum bar HanhVi's exegesis continues the link between rain and divine bounty, but introduces a conditional element. For Tanhum bar Hanila'i, rain cannot come unless forgiveness has been granted. Unspoken but present in his teaching is the flip side of grace: that the absence of rain bespeaks a lack of forgiveness. In the exegesis that follows, the massekhet makes explicit the unspoken threat in Tanhum bar Hanila3i's teaching, when Tanhum bar Hiya states that rain is not

93

bTacanit 7b. The massekhet goes on to enumerate several additional reasons that rain is withheld,

generally specifying that each particular transgression that is the sole reason for which rain is denied. 94

When I am referring to particular tradents in the massekhet, I take attributions at face value and treat

Hanina bar Hama or other sages as the "speakers" of particular dicta. I am neither making a claim about the opinions, beliefs, and theologies of particular rabbinic sages, nor about the reliability of rabbinic attributions in general. It should be clear that my argument in no way rests on the problematic identification of these particular teachings with certain named sages, but that I refer to them via their attributions for ease of reference.

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withheld unless God intends destruction for Israel. Through these interlaced exegetical statements, the massekhet challenges the initial benevolence of rain and highlights the instability of its blessing. Rain encodes all that is good—concentrating salvation, forgiveness, and creation in a single symbol. But rain's intense goodness demands an equal intensification of its absence. If rain brings the divine essence into and onto the earth itself, then drought strips God from the land and all that lives upon it.

Through literary patterning that couples exaggerated goodness with intense destruction, the massekhet develops rain and drought as polarized experiences of salvation and destruction, turning physical reality into a theological symbol. The massekhet articulates this tension of abundance and famine, presence and absence in a pair of stories brought to "explain" biblical verses that strain the sages' credulity: And he will cause rain to fall for you, early rain (moreh) and late rain (malqosh) in the first [month = Nisan.] (Joel 2:23)95 Rav Nahman said to Rabbi Yizhaq: Early rain in Nisan? Early rain is in Marheshvan, as it is taught: Early rain in Marheshvan and late rain in Nisan. He said to him: So

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1 have translated the verse in accordance with rabbinic exegesis, in order to clarify how the story verifies the historicity of the verse for the sages. Kern-Ulmer notes that rabbinic exegesis commonly understands Joel 2:23 to reflect "future joy that will transpire in the world to come," in which "grain and fruit will ripen rapidly as it did during the time of Joel." Kern-Ulmer, "Consistency and Change in Rabbinic Literature," 64.

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said Rabbi Yohanan: In the days of Joel ben Petu'el, this verse was fulfilled, as it is written: What the grub left, the locust devoured... (Joel 1:4) They said that in that year, 3Adar went forth and there was no rain. The first rainfall occurred on the first of Nisan. The prophet said to Israel, "Go forth and plant seeds." They said to him: "Shall one who has a kavoi wheat or two kav of barley eat it and live or should he plant it and die?" He said to them: "Even so, go and plant." They went and they planted and a miracle was done for them and it was revealed to them what was in the walls and what was in the crevices and what was in the holes of ants. They went forth and they planted on the second, third and fourth day. The second rainfall descended for them on the fifth day of Nisan. They offered up the comer on the sixteenth day of Nisan. They found that produce which required six months to grow grew in eleven days, and they found that the comer which was offered from produce of six months was offered from produce of eleven days. Regarding this generation it says: The ones who sow with tears will gather with joy. The one who goes along his way weeping bearing the seed, he will come back in joy bringing his sheaves. (Psalm 126:5-6) What is the one who goes along his way weeping bearing the seed? Rav said: The ox, when he was on his way planting, he was weeping and when he was returning, he was eating the shoots from the furrows. What is he will come back in joy bringing his sheaves? Rav Hisda said (and some say it was taught in a baraita): In that year, the stalk was one hand-span and the ear was two. Rav Nahman said to Rabbi Yizhaq: What is it that is written: For God called for a famine and it came upon the earth for seven years. (2 Kings 8:1) In those seven years, what did the people eat? He said to him: This is what Rabbi Yohanan said: In the first year they ate what was in the houses. In the second, what was in the fields and vineyards. In the third, they ate the flesh of pure animals. In the fourth, they ate the flesh of impure animals. In the fifth, the flesh of abominations and slithering creatures. In the sixth, they ate the flesh

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of their sons and their daughters. In the seventh, they ate the flesh of their own arms to fulfill that which is said: Each ate the flesh of his arm. (Isaiah 9:19)96 The first verse Rav Nahman brings to Rabbi Yizhaq suggests to the sage that the early and late rains both come in Nisan, effectively meaning that a drought had been in effect since the fall and no rain came until the spring—when the year's full rainfall came in a single month. Rabbi Yizhaq responds to Rav Nahman's uncertainty with a teaching from Rabbi Yohanan and a story that describes the miraculous rains that occurred for the community of Joel ben Petu'el. Significantly, the story begins with a sharp dichotomy between life and death—with the people charging the prophet that his instruction to plant their sole remaining stores will cause them to die. After they plant—and place their trust in the prophetic word—a miracle reveals hidden stores that had been rucked away by the mice and the ants. After four days of planting, the second rainfall came. Eleven days later, the miraculous rain ensures that the people have a crop from which to harvest the comer offering. This is no ordinary rain, but a tangible sign of God's bounty. Rav's exegesis of the verse from Psalms underscores the point. Through an emphasis on incredible signs of bounty, the Gemara rejects the produce as a natural 96

bTacanit 5a.

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outgrowth of rain. By describing the despair of the ox as he goes forth to plant and his joy at returning while feasting on the tender shoots that grew up in his wake, the massekhet reveals God's creative power in the sudden bounty of the earth. The speedy shoots and the tremendous size of the crops manifest the divine presence in the rain itself, as it brings miraculous abundance to the earth and all who dwell upon it. In a sharp reversal, the story that follows reveals the depths of depravity to which a community can be brought when God withholds that abundance. For seven years, the afflicted community of Rabbi Yizhaq's second tale suffered famine. The tale describes a descent into abject inhumanity: they began with humane, sanctified eating in the first year and then turned to eating that strips the land of produce and permitted animals in the second and third years. Their eating became destructive, but it remained technically permissible—until the fourth and fifth years, where they consumed the flesh of prohibited animals and reptiles. In the sixth year, they ate up their own future, sating themselves on the flesh of their children. In the seventh year, they consumed their very selves. Reading the two tales together, we understand that God withheld from them the rain that could have—in but a moment—restored them to life. At any point, divine blessing might have arrested their devolution. As the years

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of drought pressed upon them, the absence of rain stripped away the sanctity of their eating, leaving them absent of holiness. They consumed their own humanity for want of God's rain.

Drinking from God's Waters: The Ambivalent Readings of Rain Massekhet Tacanit draws a rich associative complex between rain and Torah, tangible manifestations of God's graciousness and bounty upon which the human community literally depend for survival. But the massekhet also grapples with the shadow side of beneficence: the lived reality that divine abundance cannot be assured and might be withdrawn at any moment. Massekhet Tacanit commonly reads rain as a gift akin to the giving of Torah, lending added significance to the well-known rabbinic metaphor between water and Torah.97 An illustrative moment occurs when the massekhet offers an etymology for drizzle (curphi'Ia). Drawing upon Raba's 97

The equation of Torah and water is common in rabbinic literature. In Daniel Boyarin's analysis of the

Mekhilta, he demonstrates how the symbolism of water as Torah yields a multivalent midrashic reading of the Israelites' inability to find water, their arrival at Mara, and the turning of the bitter waters into sweet in Exodus 15:22-26. Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading ofMidrash, 60-66. In Michael Fishbane's article "Well of Living Waters," he analyzes the biblical motif of the well in biblical, Second Temple, and rabbinic literature and emphasizes its connection with themes of divine wisdom and Torah. Michael Fishbane, "The Well of Living Water: A Biblical Motif and Its Ancient Transformations," in Sha'arei Talmon: Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon, ed. Michael Fishbane and Emanuel Tov, 3-16. (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1992)

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description of a drizzle as beneficial even for seed under a clod of earth, Rav Mesharshaya derives the word from a phrase that means, "Wake up (curuJ, you cracks {phili}." Thereafter, Raba interprets the image of rain penetrating hard earth to nurture a seed as a process by which a young scholar becomes nourished by Torah. "Raba said: A young scholar is like a seed under a clod of earth, that grows quickly once it sprouts."98 The godly rain of Torah seeps into the scholar and waters him, so that he sprouts like a seed. A passage in Ta'anit 6a that derives the etymology for yoreh (early rain) from moreh (to teach) underscores this conceptual link between rain and Torah. Drawing upon the rabbinic conception of God as teacher and God's teaching as the ultimate (and perhaps only) referent of moreh, the idea of rain as a teacher turns the natural phenomenon into a didactic encounter between God and the people: The Rabbis taught: Yoreh because it teaches (moreh) the created ones to plaster their roofs and gather their produce and to take care of all their needs. Another thing: Because it saturates (meraveh) the earth and causes the depths to drink, as it is written: Saturating its furrows and pressing down its ridges, with showers you soften it and its sprouting you bless. (Psalms 65:11) Another thing: Yoreh because it falls (yored) in pleasantness and does not fall in anger. Or, there is no yoreh except to cast off the fruits and to wash away 98

bTacanit 3b-4a.

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the seeds and wash away the leaves. Scripture says: Malqosh: Just as malqosh is for a blessing, so yoreh is for a blessing. Or, there is no malqosh except to ruin houses and to break the trees and to bring up the locusts, as Scripture says: Just as yoreh is for a blessing, so malqosh is for a blessing. From where do we know the essence of yoreW. As it is written: Oh children ofZion, be glad and rejoice in Yah your God for he gave to you rain (moreh) in generosity and he rains for you the early rain (yoreh) and the late rain (malqosh) at the first (Joel 2:21). Just as Torah serves as the vessel through which God teaches the people, this baraiyta figures the rain as the means through which his creatures learn. Yoreh, the Gemara explains, is so called because it teaches God's creations." But while the passage begins and ends with an affirmation of the beneficent nature of early and late rains, the central section introduces a series of doubts that disturb the reading of rain as blessing. When the passage introduces an interpretation of yoreh that attributes destructive malice to the early rains, the Gemara retorts by asserting an interpretive equivalence between yoreh and malqosh. But that very statement of equivalence provokes a question about the nature of malqosh, yielding an assessment of late rains as a source of violent ruin. Finally, the Gemara resolves the 99

In commenting upon this passage, Rashi interprets the abrupt shift in the connotation of rain

introduced through the phrase "Or, there is no yoreh except..." as an invocation of the divine promise in Deuteronomy 11, which he glosses as "If you hearken to my command, [I will give rain to your land in its time]... but if not, I will give rain to your land for ill." Rashi, bTacanit 6a. In contrast to the biblical verse, which juxtaposes rain for obedience and shut heavens for failure to heed the divine commands, Rashi suggests that the rain itself changes from blessing to curse.

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question through exegesis that reveals both yoreh and malqosh to be for a blessing. Despite the formal resolution, the interpretive turns have introduced an element of danger into the reading of rain—a potential for destruction that haunts each invocation of blessing. The massekhet's connection between rain and Torah intensifies the dual nature of the rain sign, which encompasses the potential for both tremendous blessing and grave destruction. Drawing upon the biblical metaphor of Torah that drips down like rain, the massekhet emphasizes the symbolic equivalence of the blessings of rain and the blessing of God's teachings: Rav Yehudah said: The day of rain is as great as the day on which the Torah was given to Israel, as it is said: My teaching shall drip down like rain. (Deut. 32:2) There is no teaching except Torah, as it is said: For good teaching I have given you; do not forsake my Torah. (Proverbs 4:2) Raba said: It is greater than the day on which the Torah was given, as it is written: My teaching shall drip down like rain. Which is compared to which? Is the small compared to the great or the great to the small? One would say, the small is compared to the great [and since the verse compares "teaching" to "rain, teaching = Torah must be "the small" compared to "the great" rain.]100 The day of rain—already associated with Sukkot through the recitation of gevurot geshamim—is here made kin in significance to the day of receiving Torah, and in the

bTacanit 7a.

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tradition of one sage, is actually the greater beneficence. Yet the connection between rain and Torah transcends the great day and also serves as a symbolic guide for the everyday process of sacred study. The Gemara continues: Raba points out a contradiction: It is written: My teaching will drip down as rain and it is written: my word will distill as dew. (Deut. 32:2) How so? If the scholar is fitting, it will distill upon him as dew and if not, it will drop upon him like rain. It was taught: Rabbi Ban3ah used to say: One who occupies himself with Torah for its own sake, his Torah will be for him an elixir of life, as it is written: She is a tree of life for all who grasp her (Proverbs 3:18) and it says: Healing it will be to your body (Proverbs 3:8) and it says: And they are life to all who find them. (Proverbs 4:22) But one who occupies himself with Torah not for its own sake, it will be for him an elixir of death, as it is written: My teaching will drip (ya 'arofj down like rain. (Deut. 32:2) and there is no dripping (arifah) except for killing, as it is said: They break the neck (arm) of the calf. (Deut. 21:4) Rabbi Yermiyah said to Rabbi Zera: Master, come teach me. He said to him: My heart is weak and I cannot do it. Then say to me, Master, a word of aggadah. He said to him: So said Rabbi Yohanan: It is written: For a person is a tree of the field (Deut. 20:19) Is a person a tree of the field? Rather, it says preceding it: For from them you may eat and you shall not cut them down. It comes to say to you: if a scholar is fitting, from him you may eat and you shall not cut him down and if not, you shall destroy and cut him down. Rabbi Hanina bar Papa pointed out a contradiction: It is written: Bring water to the one that is thirsty (Isaiah 21:14) and it is written: All those who thirst, come to water. (Isaiah 55:1) If a scholar is fitting, bring to him water. If not, let him come to water.

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Rav 3Aha bar Rav Hanina pointed out a contradiction: It is written: Let your springs gush forth outside (Proverbs 5:16) and it is written: They shall be for you alone (Proverbs 5:17). If a scholar is fitting, let your springs gush forth outside and if not, they shall be for you alone. Rabbi Hanina bar 5Idi said: Why are the words of Torah compared to water, as it is written: Bring water to the one that is thirsty. To say to you that just as water leaves a high place and goes to a low place, so words of Torah leave one who is arrogant and go to one who is humble.101 Throughout this passage, the Gemara understands water to signify and represent Torah—figuring a scholar's teachings as water and reading thirst as a desire for Torah. But in each case, the metaphor cuts in two directions. Though rain is predominantly understood as a blessing, the massekhet repeatedly weaves in a countervoice that brings out the dangerous, potentially deadly power of rain. Raba's teaching juxtaposes rain and dew as diverse expressions of God's teaching. While a fitting scholar receives Torah through a distillation process as gentle as the emergence of dew, Raba's teaching exposes potential violence in the promise of falling rain. Through Raba's exegesis, the verse which Rav Yehudah initially read as an unambiguous equation of beneficent rain and blessed Torah now contains a still veiled threat. The massekhet makes that threat explicit through Rabbi

101

bTacanit 7a.

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Ban3ah's reading of Torah's two faces: the teaching is an elixir of life and a powerful source of healing—but it can also be poison. The saw (elixir) that is Torah must be disambiguated by the scholar—its shifting valence of life or death determined by his own character. The last portion of Rabbi Banyan's teaching derives the potentially murderous nature of Torah through the same verse that began Rav Yehudah's affirmation of the greatness of both rain and Torah. The rainfall, which had been for blessing and for life, becomes associated with the ritual killing of the calf whose neck is broken to deter blood guilt. The instability and shifting nature of rain and Torah are paralleled in the next three teachings by pairing water imagery with the duality ascribed to the scholar. The scholar's two potential manifestations—as one who is fitting or as one who is not— serve to resolve the apparent contradictions of scripture itself. The contradictions that the sages find in the text actually reflect diverse expressions of human nature. By virtue of its encounter with (potentially) flawed human beings, the water (like the rain) becomes transformed from an expression of pure benevolence into an ambiguous gift. Through repeated acknowledgements of dangers lurking in the blessing of rain and the constricted access to life-giving water, the passage constructs an ambivalent reading of

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rain. The dominant reading of rain as blessing that signifies divine generosity and represents a tangible kind of Torah is stalked by a persistent acknowledgement of rain as a powerful and potentially dangerous force. Yet instead of leaving the valence of rain in the hands of the Holy, the massekhet sources the power to make meaning out of rain in the human realm. The scholar's nature determines whether the elixir of his Torah will be poison or healing, whether rain will come to him as a source of life or a source of death. So too, the massekhet invests the human community with the ritual and social power to bespeak the rains and call forth divine blessing.

Conclusions: The Rain Symbol in Massekhet Tacanit The rain symbol allows Massekhet Tacanit to gather together a great number of theological conceptions and transcendent references and condense them into the single, tangible realia of rainfall. Without doubt, the realia of rain holds a central place in the lives of the Palestinian and Babylonian Jews who crafted these traditions. Yet within the massekhet, rain is more than a physical experience. The rain symbol evokes God's power of creation and the ongoing creative presence of God that sustains the world and all life. The rain symbol bespeaks God's power to give life in this world and in

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other worlds, conveying the promise of earthly bounty, future resurrection, and miraculous abundance. The rain symbol encompasses a profound polarity—encoding both bounty and drought, blessing and disaster, life and death. Through hyperbolic expressions of rain's goodness, the massekhet also illuminates the depths of anguish occasioned by its absence. By stitching together traditions of biblical exegesis that draw out different meanings of rain and then interweaving them through the polyphonous form of the massekhet, the Stam crafts a rain symbol that contains all these voices. The multivocality of the massekhet's rain symbol turns rain into a sign with many referents—and through the rain symbol, each of those referents come to speak of the others. Elusive, intangible yearnings for God, salvation, resurrection, and miraculous abundance in a transformed world find expression via a yearning for tangible, earthly rain—a rain in which clusters this rich association of sacred meanings. Yet the yearning for rain which stands at the massekhet's core is haunted by the possibility of absence. Mishnah Tacanit opens by fixing public expression of praise for God's powers of rain, but turns almost immediately to the public articulation of rain's absence. In Victor Turner's analysis of the symbol, he emphasizes that

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symbols are vehicles for cultural action and argues that symbols cannot be understood without analyzing their presence in ritual or performance contexts.102 But in Massekhet Tacanit, it is precisely the absence of rain that becomes the culturally significant motor for public ritual and social performance. The rain symbol lies at the heart of the massekhet, figured both through its centrality and its absence. The need to summon forth rain—the act of calling down this symbol of bounty, blessing, and danger—drives the massekhet's literary expression. Around the central symbol of the rain, Massekhet Tacanit articulates two primary centers of ritual or social action: the collective fasts of the gathered community and the charismatic leadership of the individual holy man and miracle worker. The massekhet forges a dialectic whereby the private intimacy of the sage is nourished by and nourishes the broader community, whose fasting prayers summons an absent God in the midst of the suffering communal body.

102

Reflecting on Victor Turner's concept of the symbol, Peter Struck emphasizes Turner's sense of the

integration between symbol and ritual studies. "Particular symbols can be understood, he argued, only by setting them in their wide "action-field context," considering their immediate role in ritual, and observing the particular patterns of behavior associated with them." Peter Struck, "Symbol and Symbolism," 8911. Stephen Wieting concurs, suggesting that "the distinctive approach of Turner is that ritual symbols are always examined and interpreted in terms of contextual setting and in terms of the evocative power." Stephen G. Wieting, "Myth and Symbol Analysis of Claude Levi-Strauss and Victor Turner." Social Compass 19 (1972) : 139-154, 146.

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Chapter 3 The Body as Instrument: The Craft of Fasting in Massekhet Tacanit

Massekhet Tacanit situates fasting as the quintessential collective response to drought, the communal ritual action that will articulate the critical absence of rain with all its physical and symbolic meaning—and strive to summon it forth.103 Scholars of ancient Jewish fasting practices have emphasized the diversity of fasting modalities— including fasting that serves as a preparation for mystical, ritual, or magical practice, fasting for purposes of atonement, and fasting as an expression of mourning.104

103

Drought is not the only occasion for collective fasting in Massekhet Tacanit; see the third chapter of

the Mishnah for discussion of other communal calamities in which fasting is appropriate. But drought is the paradigmatic reason for a collective fast, the root experience of communal disaster that frames the way of thinking about other calamities that might come upon a community. My treatment of fasting in Massekhet Tacanit will focus exclusively on rain-fasts, which occupy the great majority of the massekhet's attention. While similar dynamics are present in fasting practices related to other disasters, the absent rain symbol that drives the ritual action of the rain fast becomes extended to encompass a different kind of social trouble and its solution. 104

S. Lowy cites four different motivations for fasting in the Talmudic world, including fasting for

purposes of atonement, mourning, purification, and as a means of increasing magical power and causing visions and dreams. (19) S. Lowy, "The Motivation of Fasting in Talmudic Literature," The Journal of Jewish Studies 9:1-2 (1958) : 19-38. H. A. Brongers surveys biblical and early rabbinic fasting practices and lists seven types of Jewish fasting practices. H. A. Brongers, "Fasting in Israel in Biblical and Post-Biblical Times," in Instruction and Interpretation: Studies in Hebrew Language, Palestinian Archaeology and Biblical Exegesis. The Joint British-Dutch Old Testament Conference. (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 3. Greenup likewise concludes "that fasts were either public or private; that their causes and purposes were not always the same; that the connection between penitence, mourning customs and fasting was close..." Albert William Greenup, "Fasts and Fasting," in Essays Presented to J. H. Hertz, I Epstein, E. Levine, and C. Roth, eds. (London: Edward Goldston, 1942), 206.

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Instead of examining the rain fast as part of a larger tapestry of Jewish fasting practice, my approach to the fasting practice narrated in Massekhet Tacanit follows Victor Turner's insights regarding the inseparable connection between symbol and ritual action—that symbols can only be read through their articulation and social expression. The practices of communal fasting in Massekhet Tacanit represent one pole of social expression for the rain symbol; the other pole finds its expression in the narratives of individual miracle workers and charismatic holy men. The symbolic meaning of rain becomes a social force through these ritual acts and narrative practices, through the stories that surround the diverse means of calling forth divine bounty and bringing down rain. Through the juxtaposition of these two modalities of sacred activism for the sake of rain, Massekhet Tacanit creates the textual ground for profound theological questions about the power of the community and the singular intimacy of the charismatic sage, the power and limits of human agency and action, as well as the relationship between human and holy suffering and desire. This chapter offers a close reading of texts describing ritual fasting in Massekhet Tacanit, highlighting the way in which the ritualized vulnerability of the collective fasting body becomes an instrument for effecting profound reconciliation.

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Critiquing a tendency to read late antique fasting practice as a means of "silencing" or transcending the body, I argue that the fasting body narrated by Massekhet Tacanit is actively engaged in crying out to God—enabling the very ritual discourse that allows a community to respond to crisis.105 Following Michel Foucault's concept of early Christian asceticism as a means of transforming the self, I read the rain fasts as a potent use of an intentionally disabled body to accentuate and transform crisis by intensifying the body's capacity for crying out, thereby summoning forth a divine answer. Yet Foucault and other scholars of late antique asceticism tend to approach fasting practice from an individualperspective, which contrasts with the significance of fasting as a collective practice in Massekhet Tacanit. In order to examine the communal experience of fasting articulated in Massekhet Tacanit, I draw upon scholarship from social anthropology on the creation of ritual communitas, reading fasting as a ritual of intensification that facilitates the communal response to crisis and allows the fasting community to reshape its relationship with the sacred.

This analysis parallels, in some way, Virginia Burrus's assertion that the gender and sexuality of the subjects of early Christian hagiography are not "neutralized (as is frequently claimed) but rather intensified." Virginia Burrus, The Sex Lives of Saints: An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 13.

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Fasting Practice in Massekhet Tacanit In Massekhet Tacanit, fasting provides a ritual means of articulating and responding to crisis—a crisis that bespeaks not only the absence of rain, but the denial of God's benevolent presence. The first chapter of Mishnah Tacanit describes the series of fasts undertaken in a drought: If the seventeenth of Marheshvan arrives and the rain does not fall, individuals (yahidim) undertake three fasts. They eat and they drink when it is dark and they are permitted work and bathing and anointing and wearing shoes and sexual relations. If Rosh Hodesh Kislev arrives and the rain does not fall, the court (beit din) decrees three fasts upon the community (alhazibur). They eat and they drink when it is dark and they are permitted work and bathing and anointing and wearing shoes and sexual relations. If these pass and they are not answered, the court decrees three additional fasts upon the community. They eat and they drink while it is still day and they are forbidden work and bathing and anointing and wearing shoes and sexual relations, and they lock the bathhouses. If these pass and they are not answered, the court decrees upon them another seven, which are thirteen fasts for the community. These are greater than the first, for upon them they sound the shofar and lock the stores—and on the second day they turn [open] just before dark and on the fifth day they are permitted on account of the honor of Shabbat. If these pass and they are not answered, they decrease business and building and planting and betrothals and marriages and greetings between a person and his fellow, like people who are rebuked by God. Individuals go back and continue to fast until Nisan goes forth. If Nisan goes forth and the rain does 74

not come, it is a sign of curse, as it is said: Is not the wheat harvest todayl (1 Samuel 12:17)106 The Mishnah describes fasting as a personal and ultimately communal practice undertaken in the absence of timely seasonal rain. The procedure for intensifying the fast involves three factors: the increasing length of the fast itself, the increasing strictures upon other prohibited activities, and the increase of people affected by the fast. The first fast is a fast undertaken by elite individuals; fasting is only imposed upon the community if these fasts pass without rain. Both are partial fasts, with eating and drinking permitted during the night and then ceasing during the day. As the drought progresses, the ensuing fasts are accompanied by additional prohibitions that limit other behaviors in which fasters can engage. In David Levine's analysis of fasting in mishnaic, toseftan, and talmudic treatments of Massekhet Tacanit, he emphasizes that fasts fall within one of two halakhic paradigms: the ta'anit yahid (individual fast) and the tacanit zibur (communal fast). Somewhat paradoxically, given their names, Levine demonstrates that these categories have nothing to do with the 106

mTa'anit 1:4-7. The biblical verse refers to the sign of rain that Samuel invokes in order to reveal to

the people that they have done wrong in asking for a king. Samuel says: "Now stand by and see the marvelous thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. It is the season of the wheat harvest [when thunderstorms do not occur in Israel.] I will pray to the Lord and He will send thunder and rain; then you will take thought and realize what a wicked thing you did in the sight of the Lord when you asked for a king." (1 Samuel 16-17, JPS translation)

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number or nature of people engaged in the fast, but in the associated prohibitions that fasters assume. The tacanityahid'is a more lenient fast, in which people can still eat and drink prior to the morning of the fast day and in which bathing, work, anointing, wearing shoes, and sexual relations remain permitted. The tacanitziburrepresents the more stringent fast in which eating and drinking cease on the eve of the fast day and fasters undertake additional restrictions in their activity. Both of these two types of fasts can be undertaken by a single person or a group. An individual, Levine stresses, can undertake a tacanitzibur, while the court can impose upon a community the strictures of a ta'anityahid. When the court does impose a fast, the massekhet refers to that fast (whether a tacanit zibur ox a tacanityahid) as a tacanit al hazibur, a fast decreed upon the community.107 Massekhet Tacanit draws upon two halakhic models of fasting to construct the rain fast: Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, and Tisha b'Av, the day of mourning for the destruction of the Temple and other calamities. The prohibitions associated with 107

David Levine, Communal Fasts and Rabbinic Sermons: Theory and Practice in the Talmudic Period.

[Hebrew], (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hamneuchad, 2001), 44-6. Regarding the individual assumption of a communal fast, Levine cites Ta'anit 13b, which discusses the difference between an individual who takes upon himself a tacanit yahid and an individual who takes upon himself a ta'anit zibur. (46) Regarding the first fasts imposed on the community if no rain has come by Rosh Hodesh Kislev, Mishnah Tacanit 1:5 offers a trenchant example of the communal imposition of a tacanit yahid, fasting without the more stringent prohibitions that mark a tacanitzibur.

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the tacanit zibur, the first communal rain fasts—restrictions upon work, bathing, anointing, wearing shoes, and sexual relations—are parallel to those observed on Yom Kippur.108 With the exception of work, these prohibitions also apply to the fast of Tisha b'Av. Yet Massekhet Tacanit makes a significant distinction between a ta'anit zibur and the fast of Tisha b'Av. A statement attributed to Rafram bar Papa describes the tacanit zibur as a fast undertaken "on account of [preventing] pleasure" (mishum tacanug), while the fast of Tisha b'Av is "on account of mourning" (mishum

}

evel).m

The Mishnah and Gemara both understand rain fasting as part of a practice that invites tsacar and eschews tacanug. Discussing the mishnaic prohibitions, for example, the Gemara asks why work is included in the list of proscribed activities. "It is fitting that all these actions [be forbidden]," the anonymous voice notes, "since they bring pleasure (tacanug), but work is suffering (tsacar)l"m Why, the text wonders, should work be prohibited on a day intended to prevent pleasure? The massekhet answers that work must be prohibited in order to allow everyone to gather for the fast ritual—

108

The most significant parallel occurs between Mishnah Tacanit 1:4 and Mishnah Yoma 8:1. Levine

also notes that this connection is reinforced explicitly by the Yerushalmi, which states that one who works during a ta'anit zibur is like one who works on Yom Kippur. yTacanit 1:6 64a. David Levine, Communal Fasts and Rabbinic Sermons, 56. 109

bTa c anitl3a.

110

bTa'anit 12b.

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to hear the exhortation of the elders and spend the entire day in study, prayer, and repentance.111 The prohibition of work makes it possible for the community to devote the entirety of their day to the task. The fast, these sources suggest, involves an acceptance—indeed an invitation— of suffering, often understood as essential to the process of atonement.112 In his recent study of rabbinic asceticism, Eliezer Diamond emphasizes this model of fasting as a means of suffering in order to bring about atonement. He argues that "fasting became a richly multivalent symbol, serving both to mourn the loss of the sacrificial cult and to achieve by other means the atonement it had offered."113 Contrasting Jewish asceticism with Christian embrace of self-denial as a spiritual practice, Diamond argues that in rabbinic consciousness, "self-denial is often a symptom of one's frailty and sinfulness and the dystopian state of Jewish existence... Asceticism—fasting, in particular—becomes both a means of expressing the degradation of exile and an

111

bTa'anit 12b.

112

David Kraemer suggests that "in biblical and post-biblical Jewish practice, fasting is primarily an

expression of self-affliction intended to effect atonement.. .But it would also be a mistake to restrict our understanding of fasting to this connotation alone. Fasting was also seen, quite simply as an act of piety or holiness." David Kraemer, The Meanings of Death in Rabbinic Judaism. (New York: Routledge, 2000), 18. Chapter 7 will consider in greater depth the meanings associated with suffering in Massekhet Tacanit. 113

Eliezer Diamond, Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture. (New

York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 133-4.

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instrument aimed at ending it."114 Yet this model of fasting as suffering designed to effect atonement does not fully capture the import or function of the rain fasts depicted in Massekhet Tacanit.115 While Massekhet Tacanit never explicitly disassociates fasting and suffering, the text does create a distinction between "a fast" and "mere affliction of the soul." Explaining how the partial fasts of priests of the guard do not violate Rav Hisda's statement that "a fast upon which the sun did not set does not deserve the name of a fast," the Gemara argues that the fast of the guards was not a fast at all, but only something undertaken to afflict their souls.116 This distinction suggests that while a fast does involve suffering, its character and significance nevertheless extend beyond self-affliction. The rain fasts of Massekhet Tacanit set the self into profound relationship.117 This relational aspect of fasting helps make coherent the kinship the massekhet suggests between fasting and mourning. Despite the formally distinguishing the rain 114

Diamond, Holy Men and Hunger Artists, 134.

115

Indeed, Diamond rarely discusses sources from Massekhet Tacanit in his work.

116

bTacanit 12a. The same argument is used to nullify a tradition brought by R. 3Elecazar b. Zadoq

regarding a partial fast undertaken on a holiday. 117

In her survey of rabbinic fasting, Veronika Grimm suggests that feasting and fasting serve as a

means of communication between the human community and the deity. She concludes, "Both eating with gratitude for God's bounty and fasting with a contrite heart thus became a code of communication between God and humankind, symbols in a language that communicated to God the people's acceptance of His rule and their need for his mercy." Veronika Grimm, From Feasting to Fasting, The Evolution of a Sin: Attitudes to Food in Late Antiquity. (New York: Routledge, 1996), 32.

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fast from the fasts of mourning, the association with mourning continues to color the procedure for communal fasting. Massekhet Tacanit uses the example of the mourner as a halakhic paradigm for deriving prohibitions surrounding the fast, particularly the discussion that derives whether or not a faster can wash in hot or cold water in relation to the (im)permissibility of washing during mourning.118 An evocation of collective mourning also shapes the progression and intensification of fasting strictures. In the first set of rain fasts, the behavioral limitations primarily constrain essentially private activities. The final set of fasts, however, constrain and diminish the relations of communal life. "Like a people rebuked by God," the community holds itself back from commerce, building, and planting. They limit betrothals and marriages, just as they refrain from greeting each other. These strictures are akin to prohibitions against public celebration during times associated with mourning, such as the ban on weddings during the season of the comer after the destruction of the Temple. Though fasts undertaken by mourners were common in biblical times, rabbinic practice does not mandate actual fasting for the period of personal mourning and

bTacanit 13 a.

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actively requires mourners to eat.119 Rather, the link between fasting and mourning in Massekhet Tacanit functions on the symbolic-conceptual realm, where fasting and mourning practices represent similar existential reality.120 Reflecting on the meaning of prohibitions associated with mourning practices, David Kraemer suggests that "the rituals of the mourner more mark the rupture between the mourner and society—or the condition of the repentant seeking to gain atonement—than they do the presumed sadness of the one who has experienced a loss."121 In the tacanit zibur, however, the rupture of which Kraemer speaks does not occur between an individual mourner and society, but between the community and the Holy. By articulating and intensifying

119

Eliezer Diamond describes fasting in response to a death as commonplace in biblical times, and

suggests that it fell into disuse during the Second Temple period. Diamond, Holy Men and Hunger Artists, 98. On later rabbinic understandings of eating as an essential part of mourning, see David Kraemer's discussion of the special blessings of consolation recited for mourners after a meal in the house of mourning. Kraemer, The Meanings of Death in Rabbinic Judaism, 127-132. For a detailed discussion of ancient Israelite mourning rites, see Saul M. Olyan, Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) 120

According to Kraemer, "The partial overlap of fasting and mourning customs suggests at least a

partial theological association as well. If, as the Mishnah proposes, cessation of rain should be understood as a divine rebuke, then we might imagine the loss of a loved one as a sort of divine rebuke, at least in the minds of the rabbinic authors. If we recognize that all suffering is, for these authors, probably God's punishment, then we may readily understand such an interpretation of the suffering caused by the loss of a loved one." Kraemer, The Meanings of Death in Rabbinic Judaism, 33. While Kraemer focuses on drawing out how our understanding of fasting may inform the theological character of mourning, I suggest that experience of mourning may also shape the significance of fasting. 121

Kramer, The Meanings of Death in Rabbinic Judaism, 43.

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this experience of rupture, the communal fast strives to repair that dislocation and refashion the relationship between the people and God.

The Body as Instrument: The Fast as a Practice of Embodied Outcry In Massekhet Tacanit, the fast becomes a means for expressing a complex set of messages both within the human community and before God. Through the ritual practice of public fasting, the body becomes fashioned into an instrument for articulating human need—and a foundational source of the community's own power to actualize restitution. At the peak of the process of communal fasting, Mishnah Tacanit 2:1-2 describes the ritual practice for the tacanit zibur: The order of the fast, what is it? They take out the ark to the open place of town and they put ashes upon the ark and on the head of the Nasi (chief communal authority) and on the head of the 3Av Beit Din (the head of the court). Each and everyone one present takes some and puts it on his head. The eldest among them says before them words of admonition: Brothers, it is not said of the people of Nineveh that God saw their sackcloth, but rather: God saw their deeds, that they turned fiom their evil ways (Jonah 3:10) and in the received tradition (the Prophets) it says: Tear your hearts and not your clothes. (Joel 2:13) When they stand in prayer, an elder descends before the ark [to lead the prayer] who is experienced, who has children and whose house is empty, in

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order that his heart may be whole in prayer and he says before them 24 blessings, the 18 daily blessings and he adds to them another six.122 The Mishnah describes the communal fast as a ritual in three parts—the transfer of the ark containing Torah scrolls from the synagogue to the town square, the placement of ashes, and the words of admonition. The text also enumerates an additional set of blessings offered during prayer, linking the extraordinary ritual practice surrounding the fast with an intensified prayer practice during the normative communal rituals of daily prayer. This link between fasting and prayer exemplifies the massekhet's understanding of the fast as a means of religious discourse, a bodily practice that expresses their need before God. Scholars have often treated fasting as part of a broad constellation of practices designed to deny, silence, or transcend the body.123 Yet the fast narrated in Massekhet

122

Mishnah Tacanit 2:1-2. David Levine emphasizes that the Mishnah's description should not be taken

as a depiction of a historical event, or of a practice as it occurred. He points to the anachronistic character of the Mishnah's use of the term nasi, as well as the incongruity of depicting the Nasi and the ^Av Beit Din at a (or every) local, rural ritual; had such esteemed figures been present, he argues that the ritual would have been centralized in Jerusalem. Levine, Communal Fasts and Rabbinic Sermons, 68-9. 123

Geoffrey Gait Harpham, who regards asceticism as a fundamental social impulse that is structured

and expressed differently by diverse cultures, understands the essential element of asceticism as a discipline of self-denial. Geoffrey Gait Harpham, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) Similarly, Walter Kaelber describes religious asceticism as "a voluntary, sustained, and at least partially systematic program of self-discipline and self-denial in which immediate, sensual or profane gratifications are renounced in order to attain a higher spiritual

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Tacanit does just the opposite. It fashions a speakingbody, a body that calls out for response. Massekhet Tacanit articulates fasting as a ritualized means of crying out to God, crafting a body that is more able to communicate with God.124 This reading follows the analysis of Michel Foucault, who has described early Christian ascetic practices as "technologies of the self and demonstrated how asceticism serves the practitioner as a means of remaking the self.125 Similarly, Richard Valantasis

state or a more thorough absorption in the sacred." Walter O. Kaelber, "Asceticism," in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 1:441; quoted in Elizabeth Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 14-5. In his study of second Temple Jewish asceticism, Lawrence Wills focuses on denial of the body as the key element of ascetic practice. Reading asceticism as a practice of self-abnegation and self-transformation, Wills suggests that diverse acts of renunciation "can be seen as ascetic if they involve silencing the demands of the body and questioning or even condemning the self as it stands." Lawrence M. Wills, "Ascetic Theology Before Asceticism? Jewish Narratives and the Decentering of the Self." Journal of'the American Academy of Religion 74:4 (2006) : 902-925; 903-4. 124

Throughout this chapter, I focus on the ritual practice of fasting in response to drought as articulated

in Massekhet Tacanit. I do not mean to suggest that all rabbinic fasting functions in this manner or that Massekhet Tacanit intends to make a "statement" regarding fasting in general. Nor is it my aim to argue for a particular definition of asceticism or to take a stand on whether or not the fasting practice described in Massekhet Tacanit should be classified as ascetic. Rather, I aim to highlight a difference between the rain fasts in Massekhet Tacanit and a tendency among scholars to read late antique Jewish and Christian asceticism as practices of bodily denial and bodily "silence." By describing a strand of scholarship that reads asceticism in terms of bodily denial, I do not intend to eclipse the work of scholars who have argued against—or worked to nuance—concepts of asceticism as bodily denial. Susan Harvey's study of Syriac Christian asceticism, for example, argues that the martyr passion texts provide "a commentary on the meaning of asceticism: suffering, or hatred of the body, is neither the goal nor the purpose, but devotion of the whole self is." Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John ofEphesus and The Lives of the Eastern Saints. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 12. 125

Michel Foucault, "Technologies of the Self," in L.H. Martin, H. Gutman, and Hutton eds.

Technologies of the Self. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 16-49; 18.

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understands asceticism as a process by which a person intentionally crafts a new self for a re-envisioned world. "Through ritual, new social relations, different articulations of self and body, and through a variety of psychological transformations," Valantasis argues, "the ascetic learns to live within another world."126 Following Foucault and Valantasis, I suggest that in Massekhet Tacanit, the fast allows individual practitioners to articulate their bodily experience and use it to refashion the relationship between self and God so they can live into a transformed world. Fasting offers the community a means of speaking with the body—in a language that crosses the bounds of heaven and earth. Through extensive use of the verb canah (to answer), Mishnah Tacanit frames the communal fast as a practice that summons forth divine reply. Mishnah 2:4 lists the "seals" that conclude each of the additional blessings recited during a tacanitzibur, a series that is saturated with the verb canah. Upon the first [blessing], [the prayer leader] says: The one who answered Abraham upon Mt. Moriah, may he answer you all and hear the voice of your cries on this day. Blessed be you God, the redeemer of Israel. Upon the second, he says: The one who answered our ancestors at the Sea of Reeds, may he answer you all and hear the voice of your cries on this day. Blessed be you

126

Richard Valantasis, "A Theory of the Social Function of Asceticism," in Asceticism, eds. Vincent L.

Wimbush and Richard Valantasis, 544-552. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955), 550.

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God, the rememberer of the forgotten. Upon the third, he says: The one who answered Joshua at Gilgal, may he answer you all and hear the voice of your cries on this day. Blessed be you God, the hearer of the call of the shofar. Upon the fourth, he says: The one who answered Samuel at Mizpah, may he answer you all and hear the voice of your cries on this day. Blessed be you God, the hearer of cries. Upon the fifth, he says: The one who answered Elijah at Mt. Carmel, may he answer you all and hear the voice of your cries on this day. Blessed be you God, the hearer of prayer. Upon the sixth, he says: The one who answered Jonah from the bowels of the fish, may he answer you all and hear the voice of your cries on this day. Blessed be you God, who answers in times of trouble. Upon the seventh, he says: The one who answered David and Solomon his son in Jerusalem, may he answer you all and hear the voice of your cries on this day. Blessed be you God, who has compassion upon the earth. This tight repetition of answer-language appears in the framework of an additional series of prayers that structure and shape the communal fasting ritual, intensifying and setting it apart from other prayer services. 127 Yet the use of answer pleas is not limited to liturgical settings. Extensive use of canah also appears in contexts that are bound more specifically to the fast, suggesting that the fast—and not simply the prayer—is a practice that calls out for divine response.

127

A similar litany is evoked in 4 Ezra, when the Apocalyptist responds to an angel who informs him that the righteous will not be able to intercede for divine mercy on behalf of sinners. Based on the similarities in these two passages, Daniel Boyarin suggests that the texts are alluding literarily to a liturgical form for penitential prayer that was currently being practiced. Daniel Boyarin, "Penitential Liturgy in 4 Ezra," Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 3 (1972), 31.

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In the first chapter, Mishnah Tacanit signals the intensification of fasting and an eventual resignation through strategic use of canah. The key shift in the Mishnah's language occurs after the first set of communal fasts. The first two fasts are introduced with patterned language: If a certain date arrives {higiac...) and the rain has not fallen (veloyordugeshamini), then a certain fast is undertaken. The Mishnah's language depersonalizes the process. Time passes as it always does, and the lack of rain carries no specific moral valence. After the first communal fasts, however, the language of the Mishnah shifts: If these fasts pass (cavru }eilu) and they are not answered {velo nacanu), then the community undertakes certain actions. The ta'anitzibur is a practice that seeks to summon a responsive God from the silence of the heavens. If repeated fasts are not answered, the community must regard itself like those rebuked by God. After the expressive language used to describe the fervor of the final communal fasts, the Mishnah situates the return to private fasting as diminished coda. The Mishnah no longer suggests that these fasts represent answerable discourse. The final phrase echoes the beginning of the Mishnah's discussion of fasting: If Nisan arrives and the rains do not fall, then the withheld rain is a sign of curse. The agency crafted through the progression of collective fasts gives

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way to a more passive, private fasting—and the power to draw forth an answer has passed out of the community's hands. The communal experience of ritual fasting lies at the heart of Massekhet Tacanit's narration of the rain fast. Victor Turner's theoretical work on ritual characterizes this type of ritual performance as a "ritual of affliction," a communal ritual that navigates a collective response to social crisis. During rituals of affliction, as well as rites of passage and other liminal ritual moments, Turner suggests that ritual process yields a kind of communitas, a feeling of intense camaraderie and connection among participants that simultaneously enacts and inverts the main principles of social order.,28 Turner's description of traits characteristic of rituals that yield such communitas sheds light upon several key features of the ta canit zibur described in Massekhet Tacanit: the creation of distinct, bounded ritual space through the transfer of 128

Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. (Chicago: Aldine, 1969) See also:

Mathieu Deflem, "Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner's Processual Symbolic Analysis." Journal for the Scientific Study of'Religion 30:1 (1991) :l-25, 8. Turner's principles and theoretical approaches have led other anthropologists to analyze ritual and response in times of crisis and disaster, as means of illuminating the intensely communal experience of social crisis. In analyzing the disaster communitas shaped the narratives and experiences of survivors of the 1997 Red River Flood, Linda Jencson describes how the experience of suffering and hardship for the sake of the common good left participants with "an expanded sense of self.. .embedded in a strong sense of community." (48) Linda Jencson, "Disastrous Rites: Liminality and Communitas in a Flood Crisis." Anthropology and Humanism 26:1 (2001): 46-58.

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the ark to the "open place" of town and the emphasis on work prohibitions that allow the community to gather for prayer and exhortation; the elimination of ordinary life activities through a series of increasingly prohibited activities during the course of the fasts; a potential destabilization of social hierarchy through more intense ritual humiliation of elders and community officials, the explicit appeal to sacred history through a series of blessings that link the gathered community with major figures in sacred Jewish history who called out to God and were answered; and the voluntary acceptance of bodily pain and suffering—in order to mobilize the power of the social body to articulate crisis and transform it for the common good.129 The power of fasting remains an open question—a question that opens into a larger inquiry about the power of the human individual or community to exercise sacred power or influence the divine.130 Though the Mishnah situates the tacanit zibur as a strong practice that can invest the community with significant agency, its own paradigmatic words of admonition undercut the power of the fast. Mishnah Tacanit evokes the fast observed by the community of Nineveh in the book of Jonah—but through the use of a verse interpreted to rejectthe idea that fasting itself yields

129 130

For Turner's schema, see Turner, The Ritual Process, 106-7. See Chapter 5 for a deeper treatment of this theme.

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forgiveness. The Mishnah's elder opens with a hypothetical verse that envisions God "seeing" the communal fast and restoring the community to favor, which he then juxtaposes with the actual biblical verse that emphasizes that God sees the community's deeds and through those deeds, knows their repentance. By crafting a contrast between the fast and the actual deeds of repair in the midst of a passage that mandates the practice of communal fasting, the Mishnah situates the fast as a necessary but insufficient condition for the process of restitution.131 Part of the power of fasting, according to Massekhet Tacanit, lies precisely in the intense insufficiency of the ritual action. As an expression of the breach between the human and the Holy, the fast aspires to communicate before God the community's awareness of its own lack. Through public fasting, the community acknowledges the public nature of its shame and draws that shame into its very body. In a moment reminiscent of Victor Turner's analysis of communitas, the fast itself threatens—and may shatter—the usual hierarchy of the community. Commenting on the Mishnah's

131

The dichotomy between fasting and deeds is further emphasized by the Gemara's discussion of this passage, in which the sages interpret the verse cited by the Mishnah's elder to emphasize the importance of restitution through deeds and bring additional teachings that emphasize the uselessness of confession without changing's one behavior. bTacanit 16a.

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description of the communal fast ritual, the Gemara questions the position of the Nasi and the DAv Beit Din: On the head of the Nasi and the head of the A v Beit Din. Then each and every one takes and puts it on his head. Isn't there a [contradicting] tradition [about whether this constitutes sign of greatness or a sign of degradation]: Rabbi said: In matters of greatness, one starts from the greatest; but in matters of degradation, one starts from the least. In matters of greatness, one starts from the greatest, as it is written: Moses spoke to Aaron and to ^Ele'azar and to 'Itmarhis son (Leviticus 10:6). In matters of degradation, one starts from the least, for the snake was cursed first and after that Eve and after that Adam. [So if the ashes are a sign of degradation, then the Nasi and the 3Av Beit Din should be anointed last. Not so!] For us also it is a matter of importance [and a sign of greatness] for them, for we say to them: you are important—[and so you will be the ones] to pray for us. And each and every one takes andputs it upon his head. The Nasi and the 3Av Beit Din, let them also take some themselves and put it on their heads. What is the difference that another person takes and places it on them? Rabbi 3Aba from Caesarea said: Because being shamed at one's own hand is not like being shamed by others. Where do they place it? Rabbi Yizhaq said: In the place of the tefilin, as it is written: To provide for the mourners ofZion, to give them a garland (pacar = tefilin) instead of ashes. (Isaiah 61:3)132 The passage wrestles with the question of whether communal luminaries have been singled out for shame or for merit. The implicit assumption at the beginning of our text reads the mishnaic practice of anointing heads with ashes as a humbling act. The 132

bTacanit 15b-16a. Regarding the rabbinic use of the biblical verse, Malter notes that, "the word

pa'ar, garland, is taken by the Talmud (Berakhot 11a) in explanation of Ezekiel 24:17 as referring to the phylacteries (tefiliri), which are here contrasted with ashes." (109) Henry Malter, The Treatise Tacanit of the Babylonian Talmud. [English edition] (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1928)

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Gemara challenges the Mishnah's presentation of this practice by citing a baraita that suggests that "matters of degradation" begin not with the most illustrious members of the community, but the least. Rather than challenge the relative worth of community members, the resolution turns the ash-anointing into a sign of greatness, rather than shame—a means by which the community announces the Nasi and the 3Av Beit Din as chosen communal representatives whose social status imbues them with particularly potent prayer. While the anonymous resolution stands without further comment, the teaching attributed to Rabbi 'Aba of Caesarea mitigates its conclusion. If the Nasi and the 5Av Beit Din have been singled out for greatness, their greatness lies perversely in the depth of their humiliation—their willingness to be shamed at the hand of another, and thus shoulder deeper humiliation in the public eye. The massekhet's next passages further underscores the power of the public eye to drive the fruitful humiliation of the fast: Why do they go forth to the open place of the town?ni Rabbi Hiya bar 3Aba said: To say: We cried out in hiddenness and we were not answered. Let us shame ourselves in public. Reish Lakish said: We exiled ourselves and our exile atones for us. What is the difference between [these two interpretations]? 133

This text follows immediately after the preceding quote in several manuscripts, though the Vilna edition includes an additional phrase, likely a mnemonic, that Malter brackets. Henry Malter, The Treatise Ta'anit of the Babylonian Talmud. [Hebrew critical edition] (New York: The American Academy for Jewish Research, 1930), 57.

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There is a difference between them [in a case] when they exile themselves from one synagogue and go to another, [in which case the community has "exiled" themselves, but not been "shamed in public."] Why do they take the ark into the open place of the town? Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: To say: We had a vessel that was hidden and it has been exposed/shamed (nitbazeh) by our transgressions.134 This passage provides a concise articulation of the relationship between the revealed and the concealed—a thematic motif that recurs throughout Massekhet Tacanit.135 If the practice of bringing the ark into the open place symbolically brings the transgressions of the community out of hiding and into the public eye, the Gemara cites three different interpretations of its functional significance. For Rabbi Hiya bar 3

Aba, this transfer intensifies communal shame. Bringing forth the ark is actually a

process of acknowledging that the "hidden" cries of the community have gone unanswered and must be intensified through public acknowledgement—and public humiliation. For Reish Lakish, the movement of the ark constitutes an intentional process of exile. The significance of the transfer lies not in the removal of the ark itself, but in the removal of the community from its customary communal house—and

134

bTacanit 16a. The verb nitbazeh can mean 'to be exposed' or 'to be shamed,' and both connotations

seem relevant in this case. Through the multivalency of this verb, the text underscores the critical link between exposure and shame. 135

See Chapter 6 for further discussion of this theme.

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into the open space of the town. For Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, the transfer is about the shame that accrues to the ark itself. Because of communal failing and sin, the Torah has been forced out of her private space. Torah has been shamed by the transgressions of the community. Though the shame to Torah is intensified by bringing the ark into plain view, the humiliation itself came about not through the ritual transfer, but through communal sin. Carrying the ark out into the public square enacts, symbolizes, and gives voice to a shame that already adheres to the scrolls. The treatment of the scrolls itself is perhaps the most condensed moment of ritual expression and intention: Why do they put ashes upon the Torah scroll? Rabbi Yehudah ben Pazi said: As if to say: / will be with him in trouble. (Psalm 9:15) Reish Lakish said: In all their troubles he was troubled. (Isaiah 63:9) Rabbi Zeira said: When I saw that they were putting ashes upon the Torah scroll, my whole body trembled.136 Massekhet Tacanit's description of anointing the ark with ashes effects a ritual kinship between the fasting body and the Torah scroll, read here as the body of God. The ashes forge a link between the suffering community and the suffering God.137 The

I36

bTacanit 16a.

137

Lowy maintains that the Mishnah retains a "symbolic remnant" of an earlier, widespread practice in

which public fasting takes on symbols of both mourning and repentance. He suggests that "this custom, which goes back to biblical ways of mourning, played a notable part in the public fast of ancient times

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ritual brings divine physicality into the midst of the fasting public—bringing the Holy presence into the center of the communal experience of physical weakness and vulnerability. The fast situates the humiliated and weakened communal body as a profound vehicle for restitution and repair. By invoking and intensifying the experience of suffering through their own bodies, the community fashions the vulnerable body into an instrument of crying out—and then uses the body to align themselves with a suffering God who likewise yearns for reconciliation.138 Rabbinic rain fasts represent a potent practice of using an intentionally disabled body to accentuate and transform human suffering. The body becomes a physical site for expressing the cosmic and moral breach signified by lack of rain. The fasting body articulates drought as a spiritual condition, a problem that human ritual action can mitigate and to which divine mercy can respond. The practice of fasting turns an experience of physical weakness into profound source of sacred power, asserting that the vulnerability of the

both amongst Jews and their neighbors." S. Lowy, "The Motivation of Fasting in Talmudic Literature," 27-8. 138

This reading of the power of the fasting body parallels, in some ways, the work of Caroline Walker

Bynum, who emphasizes that the ascetic practices of medieval women were not about escaping physicality but turning their physicality into a means of coming closer to Christ. Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 294-6.

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body has a unique power to call out to God—restoring harmonious relations between the human and the holy, between the heavens and the earth.

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Chapter 4

Honi the Circle Maker and Other Beloved Sons: Memory, Power, and Rain-Making Among Massekhet Tacanit's Holy Men

The symbol of rain lies at the heart Massekhet Tacanit, evoking a cluster of core theological and cultural issues that drive the massekhet's literary explorations. In the massekhet, the potency of the rain symbol becomes actualized as a social force through two distinct modes of action—first, through the communal, ritual practice of fasting discussed in chapter three; and second, through the narrative exploits of charismatic holy men and miracle workers who could summon forth rain by virtue of their particular connection with God. Within the world of Massekhet Tacanit, the narrated ritual practice of the public fast explored in the last chapter serves as a tool by which the community can transform the weakened, vulnerable body of the fasting public into a tool for crying out to God. Interlaced with this complex language of the communal body, the massekhet also draws forth narratives of intensely particular bodies of charismatic holy men—celebrated figures whose flesh houses a particularly potent intersection of human and holy power.

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The third chapter of Massekhet Tacanit represents one of the most extensive collections of miracle narratives in rabbinic Jewish literature. Weaving together tales of well-known wonder-workers such as Honi the Circle Maker and Hanina ben Dosa with narratives about miracles and wondrous occurrences in the lives of revered rabbinic sages such as Rabbi Yohanan or Rabbi cAqiva, the massekhet houses a stunning collection of wonder tales. These narratives condense and thematize three key theological questions that form the backbone of the massekhet's structure, each of which will be examined in a later chapter: the issue of human power and its limits (Chapter 5), the relationship between the revealed and the concealed (Chapter 6), and the proper interpretation of disaster and abundance, as it relates to human merit, divine favor, and the experience of suffering (Chapter 7). Though Massekhet Tacanit includes many stories of charismatic holy men and miracle workers involved in a variety of situations, this chapter centers around a close reading of rain miracle narratives in order to illuminate the complexities of power, memory, and rabbinic identity articulated in the charismatic tales. The charismatic narratives of Massekhet Tacanit emerge as part of a cultural milieu in which the marvelous tales of holy men provide potent opportunities to

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express both religiosity and philosophical stature. While scholars have more commonly associated the tales of charismatic Jewish wonder-workers with the stories of Jesus and considered them as part of the dialogues between emerging Jewish and Christian identities, Greco-Roman philosophical schools also represent a central player in these cultural conversations.139 And though the narratives of Jewish charismatics and holy sages certainly engage with emergent Christian narratives, both sets of narratives express shared cultural values of late antiquity and refract those concepts through their own particularities to craft and express their own distinctive identities. 139

Amy-Jill Levine's introduction to The Historical Jesus in Context offers a concise review of

historical Jesus scholarship, including the growing post-war interest in "recontextualizing" Jesus and the Jesus narratives within Galilean Jewish society. Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison Jr., and John Dominic Crossan, eds. The Historical Jesus in Context. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006) While the scholarship in this field is too extensive to detail here, a landmark work is Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels. (London: Fontana/Collins, 1973) More recently, see: Michael Mach, "Jesus' Miracles in Context." In The Beginnings of Christianity, ed. Jack Pastor and Menachem Mor, 173-201. (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2005); Charles H Talbert, "Miraculous Conceptions and Births in Mediterranean Antiquity." In The Historical Jesus in Context, ed. Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison Jr., and John Dominic Crossan, 79-86. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006); and Eric Eve, The Jewish Context of Jesus' Miracles. (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002) Particularly relevant for my own work is Antoinette Clark Wire's recent book, which includes Jesus narratives in her analysis of Jewish storytelling, with a substantial focus on such charismatic figures in her section treating "Tales of Wondrous Provision." Regarding the significance of reading the early Jesus narratives in this context, Wire writes, "By locating certain stories about Jesus among other Jewish stories told by the same group or groups, a broader context is provided for considering the concerns and hopes of those who told Jesus' story. This in turn has the potential of reorienting the study of earliest Christianity from exclusive focus on the urban writers of letters and gospels in the second half of the century, toward the tellers of the first decades who shaped the tradition in the settlements, towns, and cities of the eastern Mediterranean." (21-22) Antoinette Clark Wire, Holy Lives, Holy Deaths: A Close Hearing of Early Jewish Storytellers. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002)

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Drawing upon folklorist Carl von Sydow's concept of the oikotype, a variation upon a common tale type that is particular to a certain region or cultural group, this chapter will explore the rabbinic oikotype of the charismatic rain bringer.140 In a world that was telling the stories of holy men with increasing boldness, the rabbinic versions of such wonder-working tales that appear in Massekhet Tacanit use the figure of the "beloved son" to intensify the massekhet's images of divine responsitivity, to heighten the call-and-response discourse of the fasting community via the intimate dialogue between holy man and God, as well as to craft a self-interrogating discourse that underscores the limits of rabbinic power and prowess, in contrast to the illustrious heroes of old.

Narrating the Holy Man: Pagan, Christian, and Rabbinic Tellings The miracle narratives and stories of holy men that abound in Massekhet Tacanit emerged amidst a broader social context rife with the telling of similar tales— whether the biographies of intensely divinized Pagan philosophers such as Pythagoras and Iamblichus, the narratives of Jesus and their diverse expressions in the

140

Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, "Folktale Studies and Philology: Some Points of View" (1948), In The

Study of Folklore, ed. Alan Dundes, 219-242. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1965)

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crystallizing Christian movement, or the tales of desert holy men like Simeon the Stylite, whose intense imitation of Christ led them to charismatic sainthood. In Biography in Late Antiquity: a Quest for the Holy Man, Patricia Cox examines how the crafting of a life story allowed the biographer to capture and express a unique and elusive quality of soul that became embodied in the life of a holy man. By the first century of the common era, philosophers acted not only as established leaders of particular schools, but also as roving preachers and magician-prophets—any of which could be endowed with sufficient prestige that their followers might claim extraordinary abilities on their behalf. Quoting Porphyry, Cox argues that the true sage of late antiquity is divine: a spiritual healer, a moral guide, and a mirror of God. The neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus, for example, whose concepts of theurgy were key to the development and crystallization of the Pagan concept of personal holiness, appears in legend and biography as a spiritual father able to perceive others' thoughts, summon spirits, and soar into the air.141 Garth Fowden characterizes Iamblichus' theurgy, this process of a

141

Eunapius describes Iamblichus as a consummate philosopher "with easy access to the ears of the

gods," recounting legends that attest to Iamblichus' foreknowledge and particular virtuosity during prayer. His disciples charge Iamblichus with hiding himself away from them and then giving himself over to devotions, to such a degree "that when you pray to the gods you soar aloft from the earth more

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human mystic-philosopher becoming possessed by or filled with the gods, as one of the most distinctive characteristics of the Pagan holy man. Transported into the life of the gods and filled with holy power, the holy man was able to purify his soul and become raised up into union with the divine.142 In Iamblichus' philosophy, miracles occur precisely out of this conjunction of the human and the holy. In De Mysteriis, Iamblichus writes, "Being benevolent and gracious, the Gods, whose will is to be regarded as free, make their light shine forth to the theurgists, by 'calling upwards their souls toward them and by granting them the union with themselves."'143 Like the divine philosopher of late antique Paganism, the Christian holy man is also articulated as a human able to participate in a more profound way in the life of holiness.144 In Peter Brown's paradigmatic assessment, the late antique holy man is

than ten cubits to all appearance, that your body and your garments change to a beautiful golden hue." Philostratus and Eunapius: The Lives of the Sophists, with an English translation by Wilmer Cave Wright. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1921), 363-5. 142

Garth Fowden, "The Pagan Holy Man in Late Antique Society," The Journal of Hellenic Studies,

Vol. 102 (1982), 37. 143

Hans Lewy. Chaldean Oracles and Theurgy: Mysticism, Magic, and Platonism in the Later Roman

Empire, (Le Caire: L'Institute Francais d'Archeologie Orientale, 1956), 467-8. 144

Comparing the social situation of holy Roman philosophers with Christian monks and saints, Robert

Kirschner argues that "the Egyptian monk and the Syrian saint stretched the pagan conception of holiness beyond its limits: the philosopher's renunciation of social ambition was transformed into the ascetic's renunciation of society itself; the philosopher's physical austerities were transformed into the ascetic's unremitting mortifications; the philosopher's knowledge of demons was transformed into the

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"an 'icon' who brought the holy into the world, a hinge person mediating between God and man."145 Brown suggests that in the late Roman east, the divine comes to earth not through relics and bishops or even emperors, but through the charismatic holy man. Despite the discourse of ascetic isolation surrounding these figures, Brown emphasizes the degree to which the charismatic saint plays an integral social role as patron and mediator.146 Both the philosopher and the saint encompass a life of intense holiness—and an intensely public life.147 As Patricia Cox has argued, the "holiness" of these figures becomes a significant social factor in late antique life. "The idea of the holy man," Cox concludes, "became at least as important as the men themselves, for their existence (or, perhaps, their reputations) attested to the gods' concern for the

ascetic's war upon them." Robert Kirschner, "The Vocation of Holiness in Late Antiquity." Vigiliae Christianae3S (1984), 109. 145

John Howe, "Revisiting the Holy Man: Review Article," Catholic Historical Review86:4 (2000),

641. 146

Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity." In Society and the Holy

in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 103-152. 147

Though Brown's arguments regarding the social function of the Christian holy man are more well

known, he also argued that the Pagan philosophers participated actively in public life as "holy men." The philosophers, Brown suggests, "summed up in their persons the 'core' of a cultural and religious tradition," internalizing and representing the pinnacle of a learning and life that marked the epitome of Roman cultural values. While this life was marked by renunciation and shaped by ascetic withdrawal, it also endowed them with an authority that thrust them into the center of public and political life. Peter Brown, "The Philosopher and Society in Late Antiquity." The Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture. The Graduate Theological Union and the University of California Berkeley. Edward C Hobbs and Wilhelm Wuellner, eds. Vol. 34. December 1978; 3.

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welfare of humankind."148 Tracing the emergence of the holy man as a cultural phenomenon, Cox demonstrates the widespread allegiance of late antique Christians and Pagans alike to "the new holy personality cult."149 The visibility of holiness—the fact that holy men are observed and narrated— plays a central role in understanding the cultural significance of these figures.150 In the case of both the divine philosopher and the charismatic saint, Robert Kirschner emphasizes the importance of the observer's gaze in constructing the holy man.151 Recent assessments of Brown's scholarship have likewise turned attention to the hagiographical construction of the holy man. Through this lens, the power of the author, along with the "fully textual persona" of the saint, comes to center stage.152 In Susanna Elm's assessment, the late Roman Empire represents an era marked by

148

Patricia Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity: a Quest for the Holy Man. (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1983), 19. 149

Though Cox does not discuss Jews in her work, I maintain that rabbinic Jews were similarly

interested in this "holy biography cult" and actively participated in the crafting and performance of these narratives. Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity, 20. 150

Graham Anderson emphasizes the degree to which "action" and "display" are also intertwined in the

lives and narratives of late antique holy men. Graham Anderson, Sage, Saint and Sophist: Holy Men and Their Associates in the Early Roman Empire. (New York: Routledge, 1994), 112. 151

Kirschner, "The Vocation of Holiness in Late Antiquity," 114.

152

Susanna Elm, "Introduction," Charisma and Society: The 25h Anniversary of'Peter Brown's

Analysis of the Late Antique Holy Man. Conference Held at the University of California at Berkeley, March 13-16, 1997. eds. Susanna Elm and Naomi Janowitz, Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998) : 343-539; 349. See also Howe, "Revisiting the Holy Man," 641.

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increasing authorship and the development of new literary genres that "elaborated new notions of sanctity and charisma. It was the period in which models of martyrdom and confessional sainthood emerged." Through this abundance of hagiographical texts and miracle stories, the authors of this emerging culture of charisma reveal to their fellows the processes by which "humans could fashion themselves into saints."153 Though few tellers and listeners would themselves aspire to become the subjects of such narratives, the practice of storytelling invites the community at large into the construction and production of human holiness—into the crafting of holy men.

Approaching Rabbinic Legends Charismatic figures in rabbinic literature have attracted considerable attention among scholars of early Jewish piety and society, particularly in terms of their implications for issues of Jewish identity, belief and practice during the Second Temple period and the rabbinic era. Examining the narratives of Honi, Hanina, and other charismatics, many scholars have found in these legends evidence of a conflict between "the rabbis" and "popular miracle-workers." In a classic articulation of this

153

Susanna Elm, "Introduction," Charisma and Society, 349.

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conflict, David Flusser speaks of an "inevitable tension between charismatic miracles... and institutional Judaism."154 In his treatment of Palestinian holy men, William Scott Green likewise argues that the practice and piety manifest by these charismatics lives in profound tension with that of the emerging rabbinic movement. "As the new masters of holiness," Green writes, "the rabbis claimed for themselves and their piety, the religious authority which once had belonged to the priests and the cult. Consequently, any Jew who claimed access to God outside the new rabbinic structure would have seemed to them suspect. Charismatic figures who professed supernatural powers—magicians, wonder-workers or 'prophets'—naturally would have presented a challenge to the emerging rabbinic piety and claims to authority."155 Many scholars have responded to the apparent tension between the rabbinic movement and these charismatics via attempts to recontextualize or minimize the presumably problematic theological or practical implications of these charismatic narratives. In this regard, Judah Goldin's treatment of Honi's activity focuses on a typical concern—distinguishing between magic and prayer, often in a way that settles

154

David Flusser, Jesus. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), 56.

135

William Scott Green, "Palestinian Holy Men: Charismatic Leadership and Rabbinic Tradition."

Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welti (1979) 628-47.

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the Jewish figure safely on the side of piety. After suggesting that the Honi legend represents a Jewish version of an actual historical circle-scribing episode that occurred in a dispute between Antiochus IV and the Roman consul Popillius,156 Goldin concludes that "regardless, then, of what the act of circle-drawing came to mean to post-talmudic writers in medieval times, in the story of Honi there is no trace of thaumaturgy." Recalling Josephus' description of Honi as "a righteous man and beloved of God," Goldin reflects that this description portrays him accurately, "as he was thought of by the earliest generations," and therefore as a man who was "worthy of having a miracle performed for his sake."157 Goldin's discourse establishes a pious purity for Honi, situating him as a hero rebuked by the sages for potential arrogance against heaven, but ultimately affirmed as a righteous man and not a magician, one who mobilizes his "demanding prayer" on behalf of those in need. While Goldin argues for Honi's righteousness according to rabbinic standards, Eli Yassif reads these legends as direct reflections of conflict between rabbis and "the folk" and finds in them actual critiques of rabbinic practice. Yassif asserts that these

15S

Judah Goldin, "On Honi the Circle-Maker: A Demanding Prayer," The Harvard Theological Review,

Vol. 56 No. 3 (July 1963), 235. Goldin references the testimony of Livy in Ab Urbe Condita, xlv. 12 157

Ibid., 237.

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narratives of "folk saints" expose tensions between the rabbinic elite and the pious miracle worker, arguing that the presence of this genre contains actual folk protest against rabbinic values or behavior. Analysis of these narratives, Yassif suggests, can illuminate the often muted voice of the folk in critiquing the haughtiness or pretensions of Torah scholars as opposed to ethically-centered miracle workers who emphasize the value of good deeds.158 Yassif s reading removes this tension from the worldview of the rabbis themselves, suggesting that that the rabbis incorporated these stories for other purposes and were not threatened by (or failed to consider) the narratives' critical messages. In contrast, Sean Freyne's analysis of the Hanina narratives takes seriously the deliberate deployment of such narratives by the rabbis—arguing that the rabbis used legends of Hanina and similar figures for particular political, social, and religious ends. Freyne traces how rabbinic responses to Hanina and similar figures shifted over time and examines the evolution of Hanina's image through the rabbinic sources.159 William Scott Green suggests that the rabbinic movement intentionally sought to

158

Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 115-117. 159 Sean Freyne, "The Charismatic." In Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Profiles and Paradigms, ed. John J. Collins and George W.E. Nickelsburg, 223-258. (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980)

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defang their rivals through a process of rabbinization, in which they retrojected rabbinic identity and values upon these Second Temple charismatics through their retellings of their legends.160 In his study of the rabbinization process, Richard Kalmin has drawn attention to the way in which the rabbinization of Honi, Hanina, and Jesus reaches its height in the Babylonian Talmudic sources. While their rabbinization is already discernable in early Palestinian sources, the Babylonian sources represent a more thorough and substantive revision of their characters. Kalmin argues that "only the Babylonian Talmud, for example, depicts these men engaging in the study of Torah, the height of human endeavor according to the rabbinic system of values."161 Through this textual refashioning, the heroic figures of the past become mobilized for rabbinic ends—and their legends support the premise that the prominent figures of the past (and the future) have all been within the rabbinic fold. Jacob Neusner's study of rabbinic wonder-working takes a different tack, emphasizing the rabbi as charismatic, as an authority figure and holy man invested with sacred power—extending this ideal to encompass rabbis who are not commonly

160

Green, "Palestinian Holy Men," 641.

161

Richard Kalmin, "Christians and Heretics in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity," The Harvard

Theological Review %1:2 (April 1994), 258.

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classed as charismatics.162 In Neusner's assessment, the rabbinic sources are not a self-conscious effort to tame problematic narratives or " Judaize" popular practices and values.163 Instead, Neusner argues that the rabbi as holy man is articulated as the model fulfillment of rabbinic social ideals, the pinnacle of normative patterns of holiness toward which all Jews should aspire. "The rabbi," Neusner writes, "both presented himself as and was widely believed to be a holy man, whose charisma weighed at least as heavily as his learning, and whose learning to begin with encompassed far more than a mere collection of ancient traditions of Scriptural exegesis."164 The rabbis' Torah was a body of theurgical learning, "exceptionally influential in heaven and earth," that fueled their power and facilitated their particular prowess. Through their possession of Torah and its ongoing actualization through

162

Jacob Neusner, "Rabbi and Magus in Third-Century Sasanian Babylonia." History of Religions 6:2

(Nov. 1966), 170. See also Jacob Neusner, The Wonder-Working Lawyers of Talmudic Babylonia. (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1987), 46-70. Elsewhere, however, Neusner reads the mishnaic story of Honi as expressing a "tension between rabbi and holy man." Jacob Neusner, Neusner on Judaism, Volume 1: History. (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), 252. 163

Neusner, The Wonder-Working Lawyers, 68.

164

Ibid., 47-8. For a more recent discussion of the idea that talmudic texts present this "spiritual

virtuosity" as an attainable goal for those within rabbinic social circles, see David Levine, "Holy Men and Rabbis in Talmudic Antiquity," in Joshua Schwartz and Marcel Poorthuis. Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity. (New York: Brill, 2004), 52.

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sacred study, the rabbis had access to a source of physical, worldly, and supernatural power.165 Historical-critical Jesus scholarship has also turned its attention toward Jewish charismatics, in order to better contextualize Jesus within the framework of early Jewish society and the broader culture sphere of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean.166 Within this framework, Geza Vermes's Jesus the Jew argues for strong cultural resonances between Jesus and the "Jewish saint" Hanina ben Dosa. Vermes demonstrates that the charismatic holy figure existed within the Judaism of Jesus' era and argues that, similar to the Christian Gospels' portrayal of Jesus, these holy men also derive their supernatural abilities "not from secret powers, but from immediate contact with God."167 Though supporting Vermes's general premise, Alan Avery-Peck emphasizes the challenges of using rabbinic sources as historical evidence for the Jesus period and argues that the Talmudic materials related to Second Temple figures

165

Neusner, The Wonder-Working Lawyers, 63.

166

Wendy Cotter, Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity. (London: Routledge, 1999); Howard Clark Kee,

Miracle in the Early Christian World: A Study in Sociohistorical Method. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); Harold Remus, Pagan-Christian Conflict over Miracle in the Second Century, Patristic Monograph Series 10 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1983); Gerd Theissen, The Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983); Graham Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 54. (Tubingen: JCB Mohr, 1993) 167

Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 69.

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are ultimately more revealing about their later redactors' thought world than about the heroes they purport to describe.168 Avery-Peck and others have called attention to rabbinic ambivalence about wonder-workers, suggesting that these narratives reveal considerable disquiet about the place of miracles in rabbinic theology and practice.169 Despite the tensions surrounding miracles in rabbinic thought, Albert Baumgarten's study of rabbinic attitudes toward miracles in halakhah argues against the general scholarly consensus that the rabbis dismissed miracles and miraculous proofs entirely in halakhic thought. Instead, Baumgarten shows that at certain points, a variety of sages did use miracle stories in support of halakhic positions or included the miraculous as a factor in halakhic reasoning.170 Taking seriously both Avery-Peck and

168

Alan J. Avery-Peck, "The Galilean Charismatic and Rabbinic Piety: The Holy Man in the Talmudic

Literature." In The Historical Jesus in Context, ed. Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison, Jr., and John Dominic Crossan, 149-165. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006) 169

Alexander Guttmann argues that the sages rejected miracles as a determining factor in halakhic

argumentation, a point of practice he suggests is particularly important for the rabbis because of the significance of miracles in Christian discourse. Alexander Guttmann, "The Significance of Miracles for Talmudic Judaism," HUCA, 20 (1947) Geza Vermes paints sharp distinctions between charismatic Jewish miracle workers and rabbinic Judaism on account of the emergence of halakhah as a primary rabbinic value and process. "Since halakhah became the cornerstone of rabbinic Judaism," he writes, "it is not surprising that, despite their popular religious appeal, Jesus, Hanina and the others, were slowly but surely squeezed out beyond the pale of true respectability." Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 82. 170

Albert Baumgarten, "Miracles and Halakah in Rabbinic Judaism." Jewish Quarterly Review 73:3

(January 1983) : 238-253. Baumgarten points to the tale of R. Eliezer and the Carob Tree in b. Baba Metzia as a particularly influential for modern scholarly opinions regarding the rabbinic approach to miracles as proof for halakhic positions. Baumgarten, however, analyzes several other talmudic

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Baumgarten's conclusions regarding rabbinic attitudes toward miracles, I suggest that within Massekhet Tacanit, rabbinic narrative makes deliberate use of miracle tales and recognizes the miraculous as a sign of sacred experience, while at the same time expressing considerable anxiety about the meaning of miracles and the power of miracle workers.

Honi the Circle-Maker: Rabbinic Narratives of Charismatic Rain-Making In the previous chapter, I argued that the massekhet's textual construction of the rain fast allows for the articulation of deep relationship between the human community and the holy. The narratives of charismatic rain-makers craft the image of the "beloved son" as a paragon of that community, intensifying the quality of divine responsivity. They crystallize the discourse of human-holy relationships into a language of particular relations: the provocative activism of certain favored sons who can call forth an extraordinary kind of sustenance and responsiveness from their God. Yet while these rabbinic versions of charismatic rain-making narratives celebrate a fruitful relationship between the holy and the human as actualized through the

narratives that show rabbis deploying or responding to miracles within the context of halakhic reasoning.

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charismatic's heroics, Massekhet Tacanit sets the narratives in conversation with the normative halakhic framework in a way that also highlights disjunctures between charismatic piety and halakhic religious expression. In contrast to scholarly approaches that externalize these narratives as an essentially or initially non-rabbinic discourse situated within rabbinic literature, my approach assumes that these narratives, which likely circulated in a variety of forms and contexts, represent a kind of rabbinic authorship—an intentional use of and engagement with charismatic narratives by and for rabbinic audiences. By articulating charismatic rain-making as a religious modality that belongs to an illustrious, but no longer entirely accessible past, Massekhet Tacanit's charismatic narratives express an intensity of later rabbinic desire for intimacy with the divine, coupled with an awareness of the limits of their lived ability to encompass such closeness. Honi the Circle Maker serves as a paradigmatic model of charismatic piety turned toward rain-making, whose treatment in rabbinic literature exemplifies the simultaneous rabbinic attraction and distance. Honi's exploits were narrated in a

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variety of contexts and forms, both within the Talmudic corpus and outside of it.171 Mishnah Tacanit 3:8 tells the story of Honi thus: Regarding all trouble—let it not come upon the community—they sound the shofar, except for excessive rain. An account: They said to Honi the Circle Maker, "Pray, and the rain will fall." He said to them: "Go and take in your Passover ovens, lest they become soft." He prayed, but the rain did not fall. He scribed a circle and stood within it. He said before Him: Lord of the world, your children turn their faces to me, for I am like a member of your household [ben bayit] before you. I swear by your great name that I will not move from here until you have compassion upon your children. It began to drizzle. He said to Him, "Not for this did I ask, but for a rain that would nourish the wells, the ditches, and the caves." It began to rain vehemently. He said to Him, "Not for this did I ask, but for rain for the sake of blessing and generosity."

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Honi's classic rain-making narrative appears in Mishnah Tacanit; an extended variant of that

narrative, together with another tale of Honi and then several tales of his descendants, appear in the Gemara. This chapter will focus on the Mishnah's version of Honi; in the following chapter, I will treat the talmudic version of Honi's rain-making, along with the tales of his descendants as a way to examine rabbinic grappling with the nature and limits of human power vis-a-vis the sacred. Honi appears briefly in several other Talmudic contexts, most notably in bBrakhot 19a, where his behavior is cited as an example of arrogance toward heaven, and in pTacanit 66d, where Jose bar Abin accuses Honi's prayer of lacking appropriate humility. David Daube, "Enfant Terrible." Harvard TheologicalReview68:3/'4 (1975), 371-2. A contrasting assessment appears in Genesis Rabbah 13:7, which states that "No man has existed comparable to Elijah and Honi the Circle Drawer, causing mankind to serve God." Vermes notes that certain manuscripts mention only Honi in this tradition. Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 72, n.54. Outside of rabbinic contexts, Josephus describes a rain-miracle performed by Onias, who is often identified as Honi, and also describes his death at the hands of a mob when he refused to pray for their success in a civil war. Josephus writes, "One spring in the latter half of the month Adar, some time after the death of Salome Alexandra (76-67 BC), "there was a certain Onias, who, being a righteous man and dear to God,... in a rainless period prayed to God to end the drought, and God...heard his prayer and sent rain..." Antiquities, XIV 22 (Loeb, VII, 459 f. R. Marcus's trans.) Cited in Goldin, "On Honi the Circle-Maker," 233.

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It rained as was fitting, until all the people ascended to the Temple Mount on account of the rain and said to him, "Teacher, just as you have prayed for rain to fall, now pray that it will cease." He said to them, "Thus I have received: that one does not pray regarding an excess of good. He said to them, "Go and see if the Stone of Tocim has been rubbed out." Shimon ben Shetah sent to Honi: If you were not Honi, I would decree the ban against you. But what shall I do with you, for you beg persistently [mithatef12 to God and he does your will like a son who begs persistently to his father, and he does his will. Regarding you the verse says: Your father and mother shall be glad, the one who birthedyou will rejoice (Proverbs 23:25). The narrative presents Honi the Circle Maker as God's beloved son,173 a man whose words and actions have a profound effect on God—and successfully bring about restorative rain and divine compassion for the human community. The willingness of the sage to come before God and issue challenge to injustice or call attention to absence provides a prime manifestation of this intimate relationship.174 Honi, the

172

Acknowledging traditional commentary that rejects a translation of this verb as "to sin," David

Daube argues for an interpretation of Honi's behavior as akin to a petulant child, rebuked by Shimon ben Shetah for whining and begging favors of God. Daube, "Enfant Terrible," 373-4. 173

Though this chapter focuses on Honi as a paradigmatic example of the beloved son, Massekhet c

Ta anit narrates a great number of beloved sons. Hanina ben Dosa, another favored son, expresses the characteristic intimacy of beloved son before God in his rain-prayer on the road—a narrative that will be discussed in Chapter 7. (bTa'anit 24b.) 174

Naqdimon ben Gurion, who pleads with God in the temple to bring rain on time lest he have to pay

back a human noble for the loan of twelve wells, reflects a similar moment of intimacy and boldness. His prayer succeeds and brings rain, but the noble maintains that the rain fell after the sun set and thus Naqdimon still owes him for the water. Naqdimon reenters the temple and tells God, "I know You have love for your creation," on the basis of Naqdimon's powerful assertion of God's own nature, the sun pierces through the clouds. Interestingly, the non-Jew acknowledges in both cases (even before the

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beloved son, comes before God to issue complaint. He comes before God on behalf of a community that looks to him, because God has tfo^provided for them. When Honi's prayers fail to bring the rain, he scribes his circle and vows to stand before God until the rain comes. But the mere presence of rain is not enough. Honi twice rejects the rain that has been offered until he wrests from God a rain of blessing and generosity, a rain that will sustain and restore the earth. Within the later context of the Bavli, this narrative of Honi as "beloved son" intensifies the relational discourse that the talmudic massekhet has constructed around communal fasting, sharpening the call-and-response engagement between God and community that marked the collective fasting body and transferring it onto the particular body of the charismatic holy man. Through this transfer, the massekhet intensifies the relationship into a profound intimacy that crafts the holy man into a member of the divine family. Through the Mishnah's refracted gaze, Honi appears as a "ben bayit," one who is like a son of God's own household. The phrase is set into Honi's own mouth and is deployed as his way of announcing himself before the divine

reappearance of the sun) that God would only trouble the world so on the Jew's account - thus affirming the unique relationship between Naqdimon and his God while nevertheless mocking Naqdimon for his faith that the rain will come in time. (Tacanit 19b-20a)

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presence. But in the Mishnah's eyes, the description of Honi as ben bayit comes not from his own self-understanding, but from the community's perception of him as a man who possesses a level of closeness to God to which they cannot themselves aspire. The community at large aims to access God on the coattails of Honi's familial connection. The Mishnah activates the image of Honi as divine son again at the close of the narrative, via the critique of Shimon ben Shetah and the sage's deployment of Proverbs 23:25. Though Shimon wants to decree a rabbinic ban against Honi, Shimon's desire is blocked by the shield of the Father—who shelters His son in ways the sage can neither deny nor entirely countenance. Through Shimon's application of the biblical verse that identifies Honi with the son over whom the (heavenly) parents rejoice, the Mishnah reinforces the image of Honi as a son whose relationship with God thwarts the application of human justice and renders Shimon's social power inert. Honi's "begging"—no matter how scorned by Shimon—calls forth the Father's response. The narratives of charismatic rain-making intensify the call-and-response discourse of the fasting community and transform the mute dialogues of the fasting body into an intimate, verbal dialogue between the holy man and God. Adolf Buchler

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takes Honi's three statements as evidence of an impious willingness to make demands of God and suggests that God's lack of compliance with Honi's original prayer represents divine reproach against "his immodest demeanor."175 Yet a folkloristic approach to the tale sees in this narrative repetition the creation of necessary drama, a crafting of character that places Honi firmly on the side of the righteous. The narrative situates Honi as the daring hero who wrests from a more powerful adversary concessions vital to the survival of the community. Yet the carefully structured intimacy between Honi and God allows the listener to see the "adversary" Himself through the lens of the beloved son: as a powerful figure who can be moved to compassion through the intercession of his favored children. The dialogue between Honi and God, articulated through Honi's words and God's diverse manifestations of rain, finally resolves itself into an expression of benevolent, life-giving blessing. Not unlike the sparring conversations of the study house, in which argument becomes an

175

Adolf Buchler, Types of Jewish-Palestinian Piety from 70 B.C.E. to 70 C.E,: The Ancient Pious Men. Reprint of 1922 edition. (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1968), 248. In this reading, Buchler chides Honi for an arrogant overconfidence, symbolized by his ready of acceptance of the intercessory role and his demand that the people take in their Passover ovens prior to the start of his prayer. (246) In Buchler's view, the rabbis—given voice through the figure of Shimon ben Shetah— resent Honi's confidence and likewise reproach him for his actions. In contrast to Buchler, my reading suggests that the text reflects greater rabbinic empathy for Honi's actions, expressed through God's ultimate affirmation of Honi over and against Shimon. Despite the harshness of Shimon's critique, his social and ideological power is explicitly undercut by the textual relationship between God and Honi.

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expression of intimate engagement and sacred concern, the Honi narrative recounts an argument with heaven, for the sake of heaven. Gifted with the capacity for charismatic argument, the rabbinic "favored son" expresses his particular intimacy with God through righteous dispute, thereby transferring the rabbinic ideal of antagonistic and intimate relations with text and havruta onto the beloved son's relationship with his God.

Honi and the Rabbis: The Honi Narrative as Rabbinic Discourse Previous scholarship has been largely inclined to read the encounter between Shimon and Honi as evidence of a conflict between two distinct groups in Second Temple Jewish society or as a representation of a conflict between rabbinic and pietist modes of religiosity in the mishnaic and talmudic periods. Read in this way, Honi is projected out of the rabbinic fold and cast as the Other to whom rabbinic theology and practice must respond. Yet the mishnaic account of Honi the Circle Maker situates Honi within rabbinic discourse and embeds the narrative itself within a halakhic context that is essential to its rhetorical force. Despite the tendency to excerpt Honi's tale from its mishnaic context or to regard it as a "popular" story, the narrative as it

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appears in the Mishnah makes explicit allusion to the larger mishnaic frame and, in this form, represents a thoroughly rabbinized discourse.176 The mishnaic account of Honi's rain-making appears in a chapter that details the diverse crises and situations during which a community must sound the shofar immediately and not lead up to it through the elaborate fasting procedure described in the first chapter of Mishnah Tacanit. Already contextualized by the Mishnah's focus on communal crisis, the beginning of the mishnaic Honi narrative emphasizes the seriousness of the community's need, while vesting profound confidence in their chosen savior. Honi's first action—calling the community to take in their Passover ovens—establishes not only the man's confidence in his own powers, but also situates the community on the verge of absolute disaster.177 The reference to Passover fixes our narrative at the pinnacle of the Mishnah's own calendar of despair, establishing the drought as one that has persisted throughout the entire season. According to the 176

1 am not arguing that the Honi narrative emerged first in rabbinic circles or that Honi tales were

exclusively rabbinic. Rather, I object to approaches that split the story from the rest of the rabbinic corpus and regard it as a "popular" or "folk" narrative - that is, a narrative not really belonging to the Rabbis. Instead, I suggest that the version of the Honi narrative that appears in the Mishnah represents a rabbinic version of a legend that circulated widely, in a variety of forms, and which could be shaped by its tellers for diverse aims. On the flexibility of early Jewish storytelling and the adaptability of narratives to a variety of contexts and cultural purposes, see Wire, Holy Lives, Holy Deaths. 177

Antoinette Clark Wire emphasizes the significance of this confidence as a "characteristic of

[wondrous] provision stories," which also appears in the traditions about Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus. Wire, Holy Lives, Holy Deaths, 126.

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rubric of Mishnah 1:7, the community that pleads for Honi's help is "like a people rebuked by God," on the brink of a "sign of curse." When Honi's prayer yields no rain, he scribes a circle, stands within it, and then addresses God directly. As he takes his stand and swears his vow to stay until he has wrested from God a rain of blessing, Honi's words hearken back to the Mishnah's halakhic discussion of the conditions that legitimate an immediate shofar blast and fast. At the sight of a drizzle of rain that God produced in response to his first plea, Honi asks for a rain that would nourish the "wells, ditches, and caves," a statement that echoes the Mishnah itself: This order of fasts [described in Mishnah 1-2], one says at [a drought during the usual time of] the first rain. But for seedlings that change, they sound the shofar regarding them immediately; likewise if rain ceases between rainfalls for forty days, because this is a plague of drought.

If it rains for the seedlings, but it does not rain for the trees; for the trees and not for the seedlings; for these and those, but not for the wells, the ditches, and the caves, they sound the shofar regarding them immediately.178

Mishnah Tacanit 3:1-2.

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The Mishnah's version of Honi's prayer links the charismatic prayer with the Mishnah's graduated calendar of drought severity, crafting a narrative whose urgency (on the Mishnah's own terms) reinforces the appropriateness of the holy man's efforts to wrest blessed rain from the very hand of God—and perhaps even justifies his demands. The content of the Honi tale reveals a certain lack of interest in the halakhic principles of the Mishnah; it makes no mention of fasting, for example, despite the Mishnah's assessment of fasting as the paradigmatic action of a community in need of rain. Even though the Honi tale does not depict the sounding of the shofar or other communal actions that characterize the Mishnah's description of what a community should do during a brutal drought, the narrative functions as a means of legitimating the hitherto unsupported mishnaic premise that a community can act (by sounding the shofar and fasting immediately) regarding any sort of trouble—except for lack of rain. Right before the Mishnah narrates the Honi tale, it begins with a halakhic assertion: "Regarding all trouble—let it not come upon the community—they sound the shofar, except for excessive rain." It is this statement that occasions this particular telling of the Honi account within the Mishnah. The mishnaic version of the Honi story depicts

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a communal leader who refuses pray for an end to the rain, despite the community's plea, thereby substantiating the Mishnah's halakhic claim. The entire episode regarding Honi's refusal to pray for the rain to stop is told in a particularly rabbinic idiom. When the community asks Honi to pray for an end to the rain, Honi answers by sending them forth to see that the world has not been washed away—with a common rabbinic refrain, "Go and look..." Moreover, the narrative has Honi "receive" his teaching in quintessential rabbinic fashion—and deploys it as his reasoning for (not) responding to the community's need. In the Mishnah's telling, Honi's actions appear as a proof of an otherwise unattested halakhic statement, a teaching-by-example deployed through the medium of the tale. Far from being an incidental inclusion, a narrative included for purposes other than "true" rabbinic expression, the Honi narrative is essential to mishnaic expression and told here in a distinctly mishnaic voice.

Constructing the Bygone Age: Negotiating the Rabbinic Memory Through the tellings of particularly rabbinic versions of the Honi narratives, BT Massekhet Tacanit uses the Honi narrative as a means of expressing rabbinic

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uncertainties about different possibilities of power and intimacy available to them and the heroes of their own collective memory. The talmudic massekhet constructs Honi as a figure of the illustrious past—one whose power and piety becomes articulated as a part of the rabbinic heritage, but whose particular intimacy seems inaccessible to the rabbis of a later age.179 Galit Hasan-Rokem's study of the miracles tales of Hanina ben Dosa in Massekhet Tacanit shows how the redactors craft a tannaitic frame around his miraculous deeds, constructing them as wonders of the past to which they cannot themselves aspire.180 In the Bavli, Honi's actions are similarly articulated as legendary deeds distant from the present day, a temporal perspective reinforced by the aggadic narrative that follows the talmudic tale of Honi's rain miracle. Immediately after the talmudic version of the Honi narrative, the Bavli narrates another Honi tale in which the charismatic sleeps for seventy years and wakes to find himself in a changed world: 179

The degree of retrospective vision present in the massekhet's narration of charismatic stories

suggests that an impetus to construct or reconstruct a vision of the past may be a critical element in the development of holy biography. Morton Smith's analysis of tannaitic miracle narratives demonstrates, for example, that the Tannaim told very few stories of miracle workers among their own ranks. Morton Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels. (JBLMS 6; Philadelphia: Society for Biblical Literature, 1951), 81-84. While this tannaitic reticence has often been taken as an attempt to avoid mixing miracles and rabbinic authority, the relative silence of the Tannaim about contemporary miracle workers and charismatics may instead reflect a pattern of story telling possibility seen also in Massekhet Tacanit—that the narration of holy men in our sources reaches its height when refracted through the lens of the past. 180

Galit Hasan-Rokem, "Did the Rabbis Recognize the Category of Folk Narrative?" Paper delivered

at "Folklore in Jewish Traditions: A Symposium" at University of California, Berkeley, April 9, 2006.

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Rabbi Yohanan said: All of his days, this righteous man [Honi] was disturbed by this verse: A song of ascents: When God brought back those that returned to Zion, we were like dreamers. (Psalm 126:1) He said: Seventy years were like a dream? One day, he was going on his way and he saw a certain man who was planting a carob tree.181 He said to him: Now, a carob does not bear fruit for seventy years. Does it seem to you that you will live for seventy years to eat from it? He said to him: I found a world with carob trees in it. Just as my fathers planted for me, so I will plant for my children. He sat and ate his meal. Sleep came upon him and he slept. A mound of earth came up around him and hid him from the eye. He slept seventy years. When he arose, he saw a man who was harvesting carob from the same carob tree and eating it. He said to him: Do you know the one who planted this carob? He said to him: The father of my father. He said: Certainly seventy years were like a dream! He saw that his donkey had given forth herds and herds. He went to his house and he said to them: The son of Honi the Circle Maker, is he still living? They said to him: Not his son, but the son of his son is. He said to them: I am he. They did not believe him. He went to the Beit Midrash and he listened to the rabbis as they said: Our learnings now are as clear (nehirim) as those of the days of Honi the Circle Maker, for when he would come to the Beit Midrash, all the difficulties that the rabbis had—he would resolve them. He said to them: I am he. They did not believe him and they did not treat him with respect, as he had wished. He prayed and his soul left him. Raba said: This is what the people say: Either companionship (havruta) or death.182 This rabbinic version of this oft-told tale—in which a man sleeps for generations and wakes to find himself in a different world—situates the story as the eventual resolution 181

The Vilna edition has: "Is there anyone that sleeps seventy years in a dream?" My translation uses

Malter's critical text. Henry Matter, The Treatise Tacanit of the Babylonian Talmud. [Hebrew critical edition] (New York: The American Academy for Jewish Research, 1930) 182

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of Honi's lifelong trouble with a verse. Here, Honi is imagined as a rabbi par excellence, so troubled by questions of proper interpretation that his perplexity over a single verse of Torah brings about a miraculous intervention that clarifies the possibility of passing seventy years in the span of a single dream. Yet Honi's dream awakens him into a changed world, a world which no longer has a place for him. He experiences, in Galit Hasan-Rokem's words, "utter estrangement."183 Though the tale allows Honi to hear the rabbis of the new age praise his power to resolve contradictions in the study house and enlighten the rabbis of his earlier time, he has no access to the study house in his new incarnation. Awoken into a new generation, Honi has no havruta'. The absence renders him powerless; he wills himself to death for lack of companionship. He comes back—out of his time—and cannot live. Both in his own home and in the study house, Honi's assertion of his own identity is disbelieved. He passes unrecognized. The age into which he appears has lost not only its ability to partner him, but its very ability to see him.

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Hasan-Rokem includes the Honi text among other rabbinic and Mediterranean tales in her study of a Leviticus Rabbah narrative that opens with the same motif of an old man planting trees, asked by Hadrian whether he expected to live long enough to eat of his own tree. Galit Hasan-Rokem, Tales of the Neighborhood: Jewish Narrative Dialogues in Late Antiquity. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 110.

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Massekhet Tacanit grapples with this sense of loss, showing a profound awareness of the differences between contemporary rabbinic power and the power of charismatics like Honi. While Honi's rabbinization allows the Stam to bring his charismatic power under the rubric of rabbinic authority and concepts of piety, the text still holds Honi separate from the "real" rabbis of their day by a gulf of time, place, and intimacy with God. Through a series of explicit failure tales, in which fasting and prayer fail to bring rain, the Stam grapples openly with the reality that the rabbis cannot do what Honi does: R. Yehudah the Nasi decreed a fast. He prayed, but the rain did not come. He said: How different is Samuel the Ramatite from Yehudah son of GamlPel! Woe to us, the generation that has been struck so. Woe to us, in whose days such a thing arises. His spirits fell and the rain came.184 Here, the talmudic narrative frames R. Yehudah's original failure through words that juxtapose the illustrious rabbi whose fast and prayers failed to bring rain with the biblical prophet Samuel, who brought rain without recourse to a fast at all.185 R. Yehudah's original failure, coupled with the rain that comes once Yehudah's spirits

184

bTacanit 24a.

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1 Samuel 12:16-18. The biblical passage describes Samuel as bringing rain through prayer alone:

"Now stand by and see the marvelous thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. It is the season of the wheat harvest. I will pray to the Lord and He will send thunder and rain... Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day..."

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have fallen, suggests a humbling of rabbinic pride and a self-conscious awareness of the limits of rabbinic prowess. Where Honi might have come before God with full confidence and transformed his first failure into a stirring success that confirmed his intimate relationship with the Holy, R. Yehudah must give up his pride and slough away his self in order to bring about rain. Shortly thereafter, the massekhet continues with another tale that echoes the same opening, relating a failure tale from a later generation: The House of the Nasi decreed a fast. They prayed, but the rain did not come. 3

Oshcaya the Younger from Habraya5 recited to them: "And so, if an

inadvertent error is committed in the eyes of the community... " (Numbers 15:24) A parable: Like a bride—as long as her eyes are beautiful, the rest of her body need not be checked. If her eyes are not beautiful, the rest of her body must be checked. [The Nasi's] servants came and threw a cord around his neck and gave him trouble. The people of the place said to them: Leave him be. This one also gave us trouble, but when we saw that all his words were for the sake of heaven, we did not say anything to him at all.186 Here, the muted critique of rabbinic pride present in the first tale gains explicit voice through 3Oshcaya's rebuke of the patriarchal house. Yet unlike R. Yehudah, who interpreted his own failure as a self-critique, took it to heart, and so transformed his self in order to bring rain, the Nasi of the second tale strives to silence the messenger

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and never internalizes the message. The tales that follow take up the theme of rainfall for the sake of merit—though not on the basis of rabbinic merit, but upon the charitable deeds of two men who have been distanced from the rabbinic community: Rabbi decreed a fast and Tlfa—or some say, R. 3Ilfei—came down [to the reader's desk to lead the community in prayer.] He said: "He causes the wind to blow," and a wind came forth; he said: "He causes the rain to fall," and the rain fell. He said to him: What do you do? He said to him: I live in a remote, poor district and I provide [wine for] kiddush and havdalah, to allow the community to fulfill its obligations. Rav happened upon a certain place and decreed a fast. The prayer leader came down [to the reader's desk to lead the community in prayer.] He said: "He causes the wind to blow," and a wind came forth; he said: "He causes the rain to fall," and the rain fell. He said to him: What do you do? He said to him: I teach young children and I teach the sons of the poor like the sons of the rich and all who are not able [to pay], I take nothing from him. I have a pond of fish, and each child who is stubborn, I give fish to tempt and persuade him until he comes and studies." Rav Nahman decreed a fast. He prayed, but the rain did not come. He said: Take Nahman and cast him from the wall, down to the ground. His spirits fell and the rain came.187 The presence of rain in the first two tales comes not on behalf of Rabbi or Rav, not because of the distinguished leaders of the community, but through the piety of the prayer leaders. The repeated question—what do you do?—echoes the impotence of

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the querying rabbi, as much a question of how do you make rain as how do you spend your time. 3Ilfa, the successful rain-bringer of the first tale, appeared earlier in the massekhet as the boyhood companion of the illustrious R. Yohanan, in a story that recounts dramatically how 'Ufa was not crowned head of the rabbinic academy.188 The anonymous teacher of the second tale likewise turns rabbinic hierarchy on its head, as a humble teacher of tots produces the rain that the learned rabbi cannot bring. In both tales, the rabbis must stand by as witnesses to watch their own inability to bring rain reflected in effective piety of their own contemporaries. The final account offers a vivid awareness of the humiliation of the rabbi, through Rav Nahman's willingness to be dashed to death for the sake of rain and the ironic coming of rain as fulfillment of his own despair. The next narrative brings rabbinic awareness of history and memory back to center stage, evoking an explicit comparison between the 4th generation Babylonian Amora Raba and Rav Yehudah, a Babylonian Amora of the 2nd generation: Raba decreed a fast. He prayed, but the rain did not come. They said to him: But Rav Yehudah decreed a fast and the rain came. He said to them: What shall I do? If it is on account of study of the oral traditions, we are superior to them. During the years of Rav Yehudah, all study was in [the order of] 188

bTacanit 21a.

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Neziqin, while we study more. And when Rav Yehudah reached "A woman was pressing greens in a pot... "(Mishnah Teharot 2:1) or some say: "Olives which were pressed in their leaves... "(Mishnah cUqsim 2:1), he said: Here I see something like that of Rav and Shmu'el. But we study cUqsim through [the teachings of] thirteen schools. Yet when Rav Yehudah but took off one of his shoes, rain would come—while we cry out the whole day and no one takes notice of us. If it is on account of our actions, if there is anyone who has seen something, let him say. Rather, what shall the leaders of a generation do, if their generation is not found pleasing?189 In the wake of Raba's unsuccessful fast, Raba's community throws up the example of his ancestor, contrasting Rav Yehudah's successful efforts with Raba's own failure. Raba counters the community's charge with a response that highlights his own powerlessness to change the situation. Raba surrenders the idea of causative power, admitting that the leaders of a generation have no ability to change God's inscrutable assessment of the people of this age. The lack of rain cannot be explained by their deeds, nor by their failure to pursue the path of Torah. In a striking self-critique of the very practices and ideals that define Babylonian rabbinic culture, their exemplary Torah has little apparent effect. Despite their greater facility with the traditions whose study should—according to normative rabbinic values—gain for them merit and bring about God's pleasure, they cannot acquire rain for themselves. By contrast, Raba

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depicts Rav Yehudah's study of the law as a clumsy, rudimentary practice, yet the sage remembers him as a man able to bring rain by dint of unlacing a single shoe in preparation for the fast. Massekhet Tacanit highlights the tension by narrating immediately afterward a tale of Rav Yehudah that narrates the very power that eluded Raba. Raba remembers him as "clumsy" with Torah, but powerful in matters of rain; Rav Yehudah's mere unlacing of a shoe could bring about the rain that Raba's fast failed to summon: Rav Yehudah saw two men being reckless with bread. He said: Learn from this that there is abundance in the world. He cast his eye and there was famine. The rabbis said to Rav Kahana, the son of Rav Nahunya5, his disciple: Sir, come before him to convince him to go out to the market. He did so and Rav Yehudah went out to the market. He saw a crowd and said: What is it? They said to him: The residue of ground dates! He said: Learn from this that there is a famine in the world. He said to his disciple: Take off my shoes. He took off one of his shoes. As he was going to take off the other, Elijah appeared to him. He said to him—if you take off the other, you will destroy the world.190 The tale depicts Rav Yehudah as a sage with a wondrous capacity to punish via drought and restore via rain. At the outset of the tale, Rav Yehudah rebukes the people for treating food wastefully, for scorning the goodness of the land. With a single intentional glance, Rav Yehudah plunges the world into disastrous famine. The bTacanit 24b.

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rabbis prevail upon his disciple to bring Rav Yehudah out to the market, that the sage might see the dire straits of the world and thus be moved to pity. When he finds a crowd in the market, jostling for the privilege of buying the remains of pulverized dates, Rav Yehudah realizes the suffering of the people and asks his disciple to remove his shoes, presumably in preparation for a rain fast. Before Rav Yehudah can get both shoes off his feet, the prophet Elijah appears to stay his hand—lest the full preparation for a fast bring about such abundant rains that the very world be destroyed. Reminiscent of the rains brought by Honi, which led to such an excess of rain that the people beseeched the man for prayer to stop the flood, Elijah here prevents Rav Yehudah from unlacing even the second shoe—lest it bring about catastrophe through the particular efficacy of his rain-power. One of the final narratives in this section of the third chapter evokes the Honi narrative again, contrasting the intimacy of the paradigmatic beloved son with the dangers that face the later sage Raba, when he assays a rain miracle of his own: A certain man was sentenced to lashes in the court of Raba for sexual relations with a non-Jewish woman. Raba lashed him and he died. Word of it came to the house of King Shabur. He wanted to cause him trouble. 3Ifra Hurmiz, the mother of King Shabur, said to her son: Do not get yourself into a dispute with these Jews, for everything that they want from their Master, He does for them. He said to her: Like what? They pray and the rain comes. He said to her: 134

That's because it is the time of rain. Let him pray now, at the summer solstice, and let him bring rain! She sent to Raba to set his mind and pray and bring rain. He prayed and the rain did not come. He said before Him: Lord of the world, God, with our ears we have heard our fathers tell us of wondrous wonders in their days, in days past, but with our eyes we have not seen! The rain came until the rain spouts of Mahoza flowed into the Nile. His father appeared to him in a dream and said to him: Is there anyone who so troubles Heaven? Now, change your [sleeping] place. He changed his place. He found his bed incised with knives.191 Like Honi, Raba is called forth to pray for rain in a time of crisis—though Raba's crisis comes through his own hands: the deadly flogging of a man that brought the king's ire down upon him. With the aid of the king's mother, who presents the Jews as a people with a powerful ability to receive that which they ask of their God, Raba finds himself forced to call forth the rains out of season. Unlike Honi, who prayed for rain at the end of the rainy season and was thus able to draw forth a blessed rain, Raba courts the rain that the massekhet regards as cursed.192 Similarly, both Honi and Raba find their initial prayers to be in vain. Raba's words to God explicitly summons the memory of past miracles—calling God's attention to the disconnect between past and present, to the disjuncture between what the ears have heard and what the eyes have 191

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Mishnah Tacanit 1:8 uses the biblical account of Samuel—in which rain was brought as a means of

rebuking the people for their desire for a king—as evidence of the cursed nature of rain that occurs outside of its season. "If there is rainfall after the end of Nisan, it is the sign of curse, as it is said: "Is not the wheat harvest today?" (1 Samuel 12:17)

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seen. His prayer is successful and the rain flows forth with miraculous abundance. Yet in contrast to Honi, who was defended by God against the charge of Shimon ben Shetah, Raba's tale ends with censure from his father and a barely escaped death by divine rebuke. While the power (perhaps) remains, the intimacy between Honi and his God has been replaced by Raba's ruined bed, slashed by night with God's knives. The talmudic text never situates miracles or charismatic action as fundamentally beyond the capabilities of the Babylonian rabbis. As we have seen in the tale of Rav Yehudah, Massekhet Tacanit continues to present some Babylonian sages as heirs to the illustrious mantle of the holy man. Even Raba, who despaired of bringing rain with his fast, appears in the final narrative as a rain-maker whose charismatic capacity is recognized by the queen mother of Babylon. Yet the treatment of the charismatic rain-makers in the talmudic text allows the massekhet to articulate a self-critical discourse about the capabilities of late Babylonian rabbis, relative to their ancestors. Through Raba's eyes, the massekhet looks back on the past— acknowledging, with some bitterness, the charismatic capacity of Rav Yehudah despite his flawed Torah, while underscoring the dangers of Babylonian charismatic power. Where Honi's tale offered the rabbis an avenue for exploring the tensions and

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"dangers" that charismatic action presented for rabbinic authority, the danger Rav Yehudah presents has become turned outward. Only the clever action of his disciples and the prophet Elijah combined can circumvent the unguarded intentions of an inattentive sage and prevent him from destroying the world. Along with a sense of heightened danger, the talmudic narrative also underscores the fundamentally unreliability of this power, particularly in the hands of later Babylonian sages. At one turn, the celebrated Raba appears as a failed faster; at another, he calls forth sufficient rain to flood the drain-spouts of Mahoza. Yet the final victory proves hollow. Raba's "charisma" may bring about rain, but it cannot forge for him the intimacy that Honi knew. He is a miracle worker whose bed lies in shambles, having barely escaped God's punishment for his temerity. Through this juxtaposition of the more erratic and unreliable Babylonian power with the illustrious heroes of a bygone age, the talmudic narrative crafts a self-interrogating discourse that allows the massekhet to cast doubt upon the degree to which the later Babylonian sages can appropriately wield sacred power and ultimately access an intimacy with God that they celebrate in their ancestors.

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Chapter 5

Confusing the Human and Heavenly Fathers: Textual Grappling with Human Power and Limits in Massekhet Tacanit

Massekhet Tacanit grapples with profound questions about the nature of human power and its limits—about the ability of individuals and the community at large to undertake actions and relate to God in a manner that yields blessed, life-sustaining rain. After considering several textual moments that expose cultural tensions about the power of human action, this chapter reads a series of tales about charismatic rainmakers that blur expected boundaries between human and holy power. Through use of masterful dialectic that sets individual tales into complex dialogue, Massekhet Tacanit courts intentional confusions between human and divine agency in order to simultaneously question and sacralize the power of human word and deed. Beginning with a close reading of the differences between the mishnaic and talmudic narratives of Honi the Circle Maker, this chapter shows how the talmudic version of the Honi tale intensifies his role as the "beloved son" who partakes of rare intimacy with his heavenly father—and inverts the usual expectations of sacred power,

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figuring Honi as the active agent whose word brings rain and whose oath carries a moral force that God Himself must placate. In the narratives that follow, Massekhet Tacanit elaborates these inversions through a series of deliberate confusions between human and heavenly fathers. Through the figure of Hanin Hanehba, Honi's grandson, the massekhet makes explicit children's mistaken perceptions of a human father as the one who brings rain. The same confusion appears in a riddling tale where 'Abba Hilqiah attempts to veil his piety and that of his wife from the gaze of rabbis who attribute the miracle to the man rather than to God. Through the tales of the late Palestinian rabbi Yosi of Yodqarat, the massekhet fashions a sage whose words carry a God-like power of creation. A counterpoint to Honi's status as the beloved son who challenges God for the communal good, Yosi's assumption of divine power destroys his family. By pushing the possibilities of human power to its theological limits, Massekhet Tacanit crafts a literary space for dreaming the possibility of human power—and grappling with its uncertainties. As the tale sequence bridges the gulf between past and present, it brings contemporary or near-contemporary rabbis into the orbit of this powerful speech and deed. Building on the fourth chapter's analysis of the massekhet's self-critical

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discourse regarding the capacity of late Babylonian sages to safely access charismatic power, I show how this narrative sequence raises similar questions about late Palestinian sages in contrast to the early charismatics. Though the beginning of the narrative articulates the complex "belovedness" of the early Palestinian charismatics, the unfolding text expresses a deepening ambivalence about charismatic power, depicting even more starkly the consequences of this power in the lives of late Palestinian Amoraim and raising profound questions about the ability of those later generations to actualize the intimacy which once linked certain celebrated sons with their God.

Magic or Religion?: Rejecting the Dichotomy Many narratives in which questions of human power surface include practices commonly described as magical: Honi's circle scribing, the son who beseeches his father's spirit for rescue from the grave, or the rabbinic sage who curses his son to early death and turns his daughter to dust. Yet other narratives relate these questions through practices commonly defined as religious: the liturgical recitation of God's power to bring rain, the practice of fasting, and Torah study. As the literature attests,

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the case for the religiosity or magical nature of such practices can and has been extensively disputed.193 Following a number of scholars who have worked to nuance or argue against the sharp oppositions often painted between magic and religion, I suggest that the rigid application of these analytic categories distorts the practices as narrated in Massekhet Tacanit and obscures the deeper question posed by all of these practices—namely, what these diverse practices suggest about the degree of power and agency humans can muster vis-a-vis the sacred and how the discussion of these practices construct the nature of human and holy relationships. The history of the scholarly study of magic has been long bedeviled by efforts to bound and distinguish "magical" phenomenon from a range of practices that the

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The question of whether Honi's actions are "magical" has received considerable explicit attention in

the literature. Judah Goldin, for example, argued for a magical explanation for Honi's circle in his 1955 work, following in the footsteps of Joshua Trachtenberg, who describes the circle as an "ancient and universal magical symbol" used to protect the magician during the invocation of demons (121), Samuel Draiches, who describes Honi's actions as "a curious blend of pure monotheistic belief and faith in the efficacy of magic" (33) and Ludwig Blau. In a later article, Goldin disagrees with his own earlier conclusions. "It has been customary to explain the strange act of Honi's circle-drawing as a magical act by means of which the magician cut out for himself, as it were, a precinct over which demonic spirits could have no influence, and in 1955 I too adopted this explanation." Instead, Goldin links Honi's circle to a parallel with a historical occurrence and takes pains to discuss him as a "miracle worker." See further discussion in chapter 4. Ludwig Blau, Das Altjiidische Zauberwesen. (Berlin: Verlag von Louis Lamm, 1914); Samuel Draiches, Babylonian Oil Magic in the Talmud and in the Later Jewish Literature. (London, 1913); Judah Goldin, "On Honi the Circle-Maker: A Demanding Prayer," The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 56 No. 3 (July 1963) : 233-237; Judah Goldin, The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955); Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion. (New York: Behrman's Jewish Book House, 1939)

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theoretician considers arguably similar, but necessarily different. Growing awareness of the limitations of "magic" as a category and its extensive polemical use in history and scholarship have led a number of scholars to suggest that the term is not useful for scholarly categorization.194 As Karen Jolly has argued, magic functions as term for referencing a "a wide array of beliefs and practices, ranging from astrology and alchemy, charms and amulets, to sorcery and necromancy, trickery and entertainment."195 Instead of delineating to a fixed set of practices, the term magic generally functions as a polemical category applied in relation to another normative category, an acceptable way of knowing or practicing. In Jolly's view, only the

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Rebecca Lesses's scholarship on Jewish magic has emphasized a similar polemical use of magic on

the part of the rabbis to distinguish and demonize the powers of others - particularly women. She asserts that "rabbinic writings do not call what the rabbis do sorcery or magic. If [the sages] perform actions that look like magic, they only demonstrate the powers they have gained through their purity and devotion to Torah." Rebecca Lesses, "Exe(o)rcising Power: Women as Sorceresses, Exorcists, and Demonesses in Babylonian Jewish Society of Late Antiquity." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69:2. (June 2001), 353. See also the introduction of Naomi Janowitz's recent book for a concise and cogent discussion of the flaws of magic as a scholarly category and its problematic history. Naomi Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Christians, and Jews. (New York: Routledge, 2001), 1-8. 195

Karen Jolly, "Medieval Magic: Definitions, Beliefs, and Practices." In Witchcraft and Magic in

Europe in the Middle Ages, Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark, eds. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 3.

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coherence of the normative category which magic seems to oppose holds this diverse group of excluded, "magical" practices together.196 For James Frazer and other early theoreticians, science provided the normative category against which magic could be defined and understood. While Frazer acknowledged certain exceptional cases in which magic assumes "the operation of spirits" and attempts "to win their favor by prayer and sacrifice," his work argues that magic is ultimately in accord with the principles of science. The basic principles of magic represent, in Frazer's opinion, a kind of primitive assumption that nature operates according to laws that the magician can manipulate. Magic, in Frazer's assessment, represents scientific error—a mistaken set of assumptions about the laws through which the world works.197 Dina Stein has emphasized the parallels between Frazier's analysis of magic and Wissenschaft-era scholars of Judaism who regarded the "magical" elements of

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Ibid., 4. "'Discussing the basic principles under which magic operates, Frazer writes, "Its fundamental conception is identical with that of modern science.. .The fatal flaw of magic lies not in its general assumption of a sequence of events determined by law, but in its total misconception of the nature of the particular laws which govern that sequence." James Frazier, The Golden Bough. Abridged 1922 Edition. (New York: Penguin Press, 1998)

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Jewish tradition as "irrational" and primitive.198 For many of these scholars, however, magic was less a failure of science, but a kind of "false" religious thought and practice that threatened to sully the purity of Jewish monotheism.199 More recent scholarship has called attention to the significance of magic as a conceptual category within rabbinic texts. Jacob Neusner, for example, argues that distinctions made in Jewish sources between magic and miracle can be important for understanding the history of Jewish thought and religiosity. He argues that the distinction that Jewish texts make between magic and miracle "derives from and marks the distinction between Israel and the nations," a distinction that flows from knowledge of Torah—or lack thereof.200 While this idea of an essential distinction between magic and religion has exercised a profound hold on scholarly orientations toward magic, it fails to capture the complexity of the narrative sources or the ambiguities of actual practice.201 In her

198

Dina Stein, Maxims, Magic, Myth. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 2004), 170-171;

175-176. 199

Stein discusses, in particular, the work of Ephraim Urbach, as well as drawing attention to the

tendency of scholars like Eli Yassif to ascribe "magic" to the realm of folk practice, distinct from the province of rabbinic Judaism. Stem, Maxims, Magic, Myth. [Hebrew], 176-8. For further discussion of this issue, see Chapter 1. 200

Jacob Neusner, "Science and Magic, Miracle and Magic in Formative Judaism: The System and the

Difference." In Religion, Science, and Magic: In Concert and in Conflict. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, Paul Virgil McCracken Flesher, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 67. 201

In Evelyn Underbill's classic definition of mysticism, for example, the distinction between magic and

mysticism is based upon the magicians' efforts to influence and control reality to serve their own

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reassessment of magic within rabbinic literature, Dina Stein emphasizes the fallacy of the diametric opposition oft-constructed between magic and religion. Describing the two terms tefilah [prayer] and lahash [whisper/charm], she points out that the scholarship has generally ascribed the first to the realm of religion and not perceived it as a threat to Judaism's monotheistic character, while the second is associated with the realm of magic. "Yet the distinction between the two," she argues, "is undermined by the textual evidence: the language of prayer includes 'magical' utterances, while the witnesses that reflect actual magical practice, such as the Babylonian incantation bowls and Palestinian amulets, contain much language recognizable from the realm of liturgical prayer."202

desires, in contrast to the mystics' orientation toward the goal of mystical union or action in service of the divine. Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness. (New York: Dutton, 1911); In his philosophical analysis of Jewish mysticism, Elliot Wolfson acknowledges that it can be "extremely hard to draw the line between mysticism and magic within Jewish sources." Wolfson suggests that "one may legitimately distinguish mysticism from magic on the basis of the stated goals of a given source, but one must at the same time recognize the conceptual underpinnings shared by both enterprises." (454-5) Elliot Wolfson, "Jewish Mysticism: A Philosophical Approach," in History of Jewish Philosophy, eds. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. (New York: Routledge, 1997) Karen Jolly traces much of this preoccupation with an essentialist difference between magic and religion to the discourse of medieval Christian clerics, who articulated a dichotomy between magic and religion that aligned the magical with demonic and heretical sources of

power, in contrast to miraculous and divine power bestowed by God. She argues that in medieval theory and rhetoric, "a sharp line existed between magic as illusions of the devil and the very real, divine power exhibited in the Eucharist and in miracles performed by saints." Jolly, "Medieval Magic," 6. 202

Stein, Maxims, Magic, Myth. [Hebrew], 179.

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The talmudic corpus itself reflects the profound complexity of magical practice in late antiquity. In her assessment of the ambiguous representations of magic in the Babylonian Talmud, Kimberly Stratton emphasizes that claims of magical prowess by the rabbis could function to bolster their authority and support the premise of rabbinic superiority—at the same time as the rabbis simultaneously used "magic" as a negative category in order to demonize and undercut perceived threats to rabbinic power.203 While Stratton identifies many sugyot that depict rabbinic involvement with "magic"—and express considerable anxiety and ambivalence regarding that involvement—she concludes that the rabbinic narratives originating in Babylonia are more likely to "depict rabbis as powerful, even superior magicians," while the Palestinian sources (including some in the Bavli that retain their original orientation) are inclined to condemn "magic" and regard it as the practice of a dangerous Other.204 Within the realm of Babylonian rabbinic piety, Stratton argues for a concept of

203

Kimberly Stratton, "Imagining Power: Magic, Miracle, and the Social Context of Rabbinic Self-

Representation." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 73:2 (June 2005), 363, 369. 204

Stratton, "Imagining Power," 377. As examples of this Babylonian tendency to represent rabbis in

positive terms by appeal to a "magical" prowess, Stratton cites a variety of narratives, including Rav Hisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna protecting themselves with a "spell" against the magical attack of an anonymous woman (bHullin 105b), Rav Hanina and Rav 3Oshcaya creating a calf (bSanhedrin 67b), and Amemar relating an spell useful for countering women who practice magic (bPesahim 110a).

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"magical" prowess that is deeply intertwined with Torah knowledge and the ability to access sacred power.205 These profound interconnections between "magic" and "prayer" occupy a central place within Massekhet Tacanit. Consider the liturgical formula whose proper recitation serves as the subject of Mishnah Tacanit 1:1: From when shall one mention the powers of rain? R. 'Elfezer says: From the first day of the Festival [Sukkot]. R. Yehoshuac says: From the last day of the Festival. R. Yehoshua said: Since rain is nothing but a sign of curse on the festival, why would he mention it? R. 3Elicezer said to him: I didn't say he should ask, but that he should mention 'the One who causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall in its time.' R. Yehoshua said to him: If so, then one should always mention! In this Mishnah, Yehoshua and 5Elicezer debate the proper time to begin recitation of a liturgical phrase affirming God's powers of rain, gevurot geshamim. R. Yehoshua's objection to R. 3Elicezer's claim that one should begin mentioning the rain power during Sukkot stems from the fact that rain is not desirable during the holiday itself, for it diminishes one's joy in the mizvah of dwelling in the sukkah and is, in R. Yehoshua's analysis, an actual sign of curse. R. Yehoshua may simply object to the practice of thanking God for rain that is not presently desirable, arguing instead that

205

Ibid., 385-6.

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one should wait to express gratitude for the rain until it is actually perceived as a blessing. Yet R. 3Elicezer's response, in which he distinguishes between "asking" and "mentioning," suggests that the argument between the sages involves a deeper dispute about the power of language and the recitation itself, about whether the recitation of God's power to bring rain during the prayer service consists of an actual request for rain or merely an affirmation of God's ability to bring rain. Read in this light, R. 3

Elicezer distinguishes between the mere "mention" of God's power and the act of

"asking" for rain—suggesting that the prayer leader is not seeking rain, but only speaking of it. R. Yehoshua's retort mocks R. 3Elicezer's mere "mentioning" and suggests that if the words are simply praise and have no power to bring rain, a person might well "mention" God's power to bring rain all year long. The talmudic interpretation ultimately affirms R. 3Elicezer's position vis-a-vis mentioning and dispenses with R. Yehoshua's idea of mentioning all year long by virtue of the fact that rainfall is mentioned in a certain season because rain is a blessing only at a particular time of year. Yet the Bavli's interpretation of the Mishnah and its deployment of the Mishnah's phrase in explicit performative settings underscores the

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latent power of human speech—suggesting that speaking of God's power to bring rain can actually cause rain to fall.206 Over the course of the massekhet the obligation liturgically to praise God's power to bring rain becomes transformed into a site for articulating a more potent kind of speech, in which human words mirror God's own power to speak creation into existence.207 The third chapter of Massekhet Tacanit discusses number of examples that substantiate the principle that merit is responsible for bringing rains—a concept that itself asserts a certain degree of causality between human action and divine reaction.208 Near the conclusion of the chapter, the massekhet narrates a number of counter-cases that problematize this principle, and then asks: "If it is like the assertion of Shmu'el Haqatan [who argued that the coming of the rains has no relation to congregational merit], "how will the merit of a congregation be made evident? It will be made evident through one who says, He causes the wind to blow and the wind

206

bTa'anit 2b. The link between language and creation roots itself in Genesis 1, where—to borrow the felicitous phrase of Michael Fishbane—"a world is worded forth." (4) Michael Fishbane, Text and Texture: Close Readings of Selected Biblical Texts. (New York: Schocken Books, 1979) 208 The question of the relationship between merit and abundance will be discussed further in chapter 7. 207

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blows and He causes the rain to fall and the rain comes.209 The liturgical speech of the first mishnah appears here as potent, performative speech—a mode of speech commonly associated with magical and mystical traditions.210 Rather than argue for an essential difference between these two kinds of speech and attempting to correlate that distinction with some kind of categorical difference between magical and religious action, I find it more fruitful to consider all these narrative articulations of religio-magical practice as part of a single spectrum of human action vis-a-vis the sacred.211 As the analytic categories themselves become more transparently flawed tools for grappling with the complexity of the narrated practices, this chapter reframes the question to focus on how different practices

209

bTa'anit 25b. The same motif of a reader who speaks and causes the wind to blow and the rain to

come appears in bTacanit 24a, discussed in chapter 4. 210

Joseph Dan emphasizes the significance of language in the Jewish understanding of creation, which

is a key to understanding the power of words in Jewish mystical and magical traditions. He maintains, for example, that the Divine utterance to create light is not a semantic one whose purpose was to express meaning, but that "the very utterance was the deed, the cause of the emergence of light. Its semantic interpretation came later. It is the human conclusion that if the sound yehi or makes light, then it must carry the meaning, 'Let there be light.'" (10) Joseph Dan, ed. The Heart and the Fountain: An Anthology of Jewish Mystical Experiences. (Oxford University Press: New York, 2002) For a theoretical, linguistic discussion of performative speech, see J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962.) 211

Dina Stein's work on magical elements of Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer takes a similar approach. Stein

proposes an operative definition of magic that extends to encompass a wide range of phenomena and pays particular attention to the conceptual underpinnings of a magical worldview present in the text. She discusses the significance and prominence of linguistic magic, which so permeates Jewish religiosity. Stein, Maxims, Magic, Myth. [Hebrew], 173-175; 183-4; 187-8.

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articulate the relationship between humans and the sacred, how they conceive of human power and autonomy, and how they structure the relationship between the human practitioner, the community at large, and the divine. The legends of charismatic miracle workers narrated in Massekhet Tacanit offer a useful vantage point for exposing cultural tensions about the nature and limits of human power and agency. Linda Degh and Andrew Vazsonyi's work on the legend as a genre has emphasized the ways in which legend tales call forth a response regarding what the audience believes. But rather than a simplistic assertion that legends narrate a culture's beliefs, they argue that legend performances become sites of constructing variable responses regarding the believability of the legend as narrated.212 In contrast to William Bascom's classic definition of a legend as a narrative of the recent past that is believed by its tellers and its audience, Degh and Vazsonyi's analysis reveals that legends can be met with varying degrees of belief, uncertainty, disbelief, or even hostility.213 While Degh and Vazsonyi challenge the construction of a certain attitude of belief as defining the genre of legend, they maintain that the issue of belief remains

212

Linda Degh and Andrew Vazsonyi, "Legend and Belief," in Folklore Genres, ed. Dan Ben Amos. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976) 213 William Bascom, "The Forms of Folklore: Prose Narratives." The Journal of American Folklore 78:307. (January 1965): 3-20.

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at the legend's heart. A legend, they maintain, is a narrative that claims to have been believed by someone, somewhere, at sometime. The legend calls upon its transmitters and receivers to take a stand in terms of belief, to make a comment regarding whether they believe.214 In Degh and Vazsonyi's conception of the legend genre, belief has moved from a static condition of the genre to a dynamic expression occasioned by the genre. The genre calls forth a certain field of response—a response that falls somewhere on the spectrum of belief—but allows for flexibility in the valence of that response. Drawing upon Degh and Vazsonyi's theoretical framework, this dissertation reads the legends of charismatic miracle workers as narrative sites for raising questions about believability—not only with regard to the believability of a particular legend, but with regard to larger cultural questions about the efficacy of human engagement with the sacred.

214

Degh and Vazsonyi's identification of the centrality of the nature of belief seems reminiscent of

Andre Jolles's concept of einfache formen, in which he identifies the central thematic force of cultural questions that resolve themselves into specific genres. In Jolles' work, certain genres can be seen as basic forms that emerge to address fundamental thematic questions; the legend, for example, expresses matters of the holy. In Degh and Vazsonyi's assessment of the centrality of belief, however, the question of belief moves out from the realm of 'legend as object of belief and into a realm whereby the legend performance provides an occasion for expressing belief- for expressing any variety of often conflicting belief responses. Andre Jolles, Einfache Formen. Legende, Sage, Mythe, Ratsel, Spruch, Kasus, Memorabile, Marchen, Witz. (Tubingen: M. Niemeyer, 1930)

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Sustaining the World or Collapsing God: The Radical Empowerment of Human Action Given its sustained interest in the methods and means by which the human community can bring forth rain, Massekhet Tacanit often engages the question of how human action relates to the presence or absence of rain. Most commonly, the massekhet echoes the deuteronomistic theology that associates rain with good behavior and drought with human disobedience. A series of teachings in the middle of the first chapter emphasize the concept of drought and human failing. Beginning a teaching by R. Tanhum bar R. Hiya's that rain is only withheld if Israel has been condemned to destruction, the massekhet follows with an array of teachings about the reasons for "withheld rain:" Rav Hisda's statement that rain is withheld only for neglect of offerings and tithes, R. Shimcon b. Pazi's statement that rain is withheld only on account of slander, Rav Salla's statement that rain is withheld only due to insolence, Rav Qetina's claim that rain is withheld only on account of laziness in Torah study, and R. 5 Ami's statement that rain is withheld only on account of theft.215 These discourses associate the R. Tanhum's decree of communal condemnation with specific

bTacanit 7b.

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wrongdoings, seemingly in line with the deuteronomistic premise that rain is a reward for human obedience and drought a punishment for transgression. Yet Rav Qetina's teaching introduces a strikingly different theological claim— that human failings actually diminish God: Rav Qetina said: The rains are not withheld, except on account of laziness with regard to Torah, as it is said: Through laziness, the beams [meqareh] collapse \yimak\. (Eccl. 10:18) Because of the laziness which Israel had in not studying Torah, they make (the enemy of) the Holy One blessed be He collapses [mak]. And wak can only mean impoverished, as it is said: If he is poorer [mak] than your estimate... (Lev. 27:8) And meqareh can only mean the Holy One blessed be He, as it is said: The One who sets the beams [hameqareh] in His upper waters... (Psalm 104:3) Rav Yosef said: [Learn it] from here: Now they did not see the radiant light that is in the skies, for the wind passes and clears them away (Job 37:21), for light can only mean Torah, as it is said: For a commandment is a candle and Torah is the light (Prov. 6:23) What is the radiance that is in the skies? A Reciter from the house of Rabbi Ishma°el said: Even when the skies are filled with cloudy spots216 to bring forth dew and rain, a wind comes and clears them 217

away. In R. Qetina's estimation, drought is figured not as punishment, but as a kind of divine collapse brought about by human disengagement with the sacred duties that sustain the heavens and make rainfall(translated possible.here The Jewish community's failure to study Torah Henry Malter links bahorin as white clouds) with the baharat (white "leprous" spots) 216

of Leviticus 13:24 and notes the linguistic resonance with baht (radiance). Henry Malter, The Treatise Tacanit of the Babylonian Talmud. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1928), 48. 217

bTacanit 7b.

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causes the Holy One to become weak—and human inaction has the power to bring down the beams of heaven. A similar concept recurs in the fourth chapter of Massekhet Tacanit, during the massekhet's discussion of the macamadot fasts, undertaken by the groups of Israelites who recited Torah portions relating the account of Creation concurrent with the performance of the sacrifices. In explicating the constitution and proper actions of the macamadot, the massekhet inquires as to the reasoning for their existence. Citing a story that links the macamadotas the means through which Israel will seek atonement after the destruction of the temple renders the biblical channels of atonement via sacrifice inaccessible, Rav Yacqov bar 3Aha states in the name of Rav 5Asi: "Without the macamadot, the heavens and the earth would not endure."218 Moshe Idel cites Yacqov bar DAha's remark as a notable example of rabbinic theurgy—ritual acts perceived as activities that maintain or strengthen God, as well as acts responsible for directly maintaining the continuation of the universe.219 In R. Yacqov's assessment, human ritual action sustains the heavens and the earth. The community's proper

bTacanit 27b. Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 171.

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performance of the ma camadot fasts sustains the world—and its absence threatens to plunge the entire cosmos into ruin.

Raising the Stakes: The Intensification of Charismatic Human Power in Talmudic Tale of Honi the Circle-Maker In contrast to scholarship that cordons off the "pious" miracle worker from possession of a more potent and dangerous "magical" power, this dissertation argues that issues of human power are central to the rabbinic tellings of charismatic tales. While the scholarship on these tales is commonly marked by apologetics that attest to the theological problematics of human power, the question of human agency is rarely identified as a fundamental tension in the tales themselves—an issue that tellers, redactors, and readers are working out through the medium of the tale.220 Dan BenAmos' analysis of the aggadic legend, for example, draws important attention to the basic structure that operates in rabbinic legends; unfortunately, the classification he employs effectively mutes central tensions in the texts themselves. In his discussion of benevolent miracle workers, Ben-Amos defines the miracle worker in an aggadic

220

For a discussion of the scholarly treatment of charismatic figures in rabbinic literature, see the previous chapter.

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legend as a figure who mediates "between the natural and supernatural," but argues that "it is impossible to attribute any supernatural power to the miracle-workers themselves. Their only unique capacity is the establishment of active mediation between the divine and the human, usually by means of prayer."221 In the case of Massekhet Tacanit, however, the basic categories Ben-Amos uses to define the legend genre work at odds with the worldview I see as central to the massekhet. The intrusion of the "supernatural" into a presumably neutral "natural" world belies the basic worldview of the tractate: that the crisis of drought reflects a critical absence of divine presence, (un)manifested through rain. Moreover, Ben-Amos's characterization of the miracle-worker solely as a mediator and his flat denial that this figure might possess inherent supernatural power also runs counter to the texts themselves. Honi the Circle Maker, for example, clearly does function as a mediator. He tells God explicitly that God's people turn their faces toward Honi, because Honi is like a beloved son to God. But to describe Honi as only a mediator and thereby vitiate his own power voids much of the rhetorical force of the tale. It is Honi's power and his stance vis-a-vis God that

221

Dan Ben-Amos, "Generic Distinctions in the Aggadah," in Frank Talmage, ed. Studies in Jewish

Folklore. (Cambridge: Association for Jewish Studies, 1980), 53.

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leads Shimcon ben Shetah to level a charge against him, and precisely this that makes Honi's textual embrace by God so powerful. In comparison with the mishnaic telling, the talmudic version of Honi the Circle-Maker sharpens already present questions of human power and its relationship to the Holy. The talmudic account includes five significant narrative variations that reshape the talmudic characterization of Honi and intensify the portrayal of his power vis-a-vis God: the intertext with Habakkuk that links Honi within his circle to the biblical prophet who stood against divine injustice, Honi's students' interpretation of God's rain in the midst of Honi's negotiations, the recasting of Honi's response to the community's request for a prayer to stop the rain, Shimon ben Shetah's introduction of Elijah in his rebuke to Honi, and the addition of the Sanhedrin's praise of Honi through their interpretation of Job. In the talmudic telling of this tale, Honi's stance within his circle is compared to the biblical prophet Habakkuk, a prophet who takes a stand to rebuke God for failure to act: The Rabbis taught: One time, most of 3Adar had gone forth and no rain had fallen. They sent to Honi the Circle-Maker: "Pray, and the rain will fall." He prayed, but the rain didn't fall. He scribed a circle and stood within it according

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to the way of Habakkuk the Prophet, as it is said: "Upon my guard post I will stand; I will stand ready upon my fortress..." (Hab. 2:1)222 The book of Habakkuk portrays the prophet as a righteous challenger to God. The book of Habakkuk opens with startling words of reproach, words directed not toward the nation or community in which Habakkuk prophesied, but toward a silent, indifferent God. The prophet asks: 1:2

How long, Yah? I have cried out and you do not listen.

1:3

I shout to you, 'Lawlessness!' but you give no aid. Why do you make me witness injustice and look upon misery and the devastation and violence before me; There is strife, and dispute arises.

1:4

Therefore moral order [torah] is weakened223 and justice sees no victory; For the wicked beset the righteous, therefore justice comes forth twisted.

222

bTacanit 23a.

223

1 have translated torah as moral order, in keeping with Wisdom traditions—where Torah seems to

indicate not the Mosaic law, but a concept of moral foundation and fundamental just grounding of the world. J. L. Crenshaw's definition of Wisdom as "the quest for self-understanding in terms of relationships with things, people, and the Creator," including a level that concerns itself with questions of theodicy, seems particularly helpful for perceiving Wisdom influence in Habakkuk. J.L. Crenshaw, "Method in Determining Wisdom Influence upon 'Historical' Literature." Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 88, No. 2. (Jun., 1969), pp. 129-142.

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The prophet rejects God's initial response to his rebuke—that God plans to use the ravaging army of the Chaldeans as an instrument of divine justice.224 While prophetic literature offers abundant examples of a theology in which enemy nations serve as God's agent of correction for the people, Habakkuk rejects the justice of this claim. Instead of acknowledging the appropriateness of divine chastisement, Habakkuk resolves to wait for a better reply: "Upon my guard post, I will stand I will stand ready upon my fortress; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will reply to my rebuke."225 The Talmud deploys this moment as the biblical reference point and signifier for Honi's action and challenge. Through the biblical intertext, the talmudic tellers invest Honi's tale with an echo of Habakkuk's pathos and challenge. Honi's unwavering stance within his circle comes to parallel Habakkuk's watchful stand upon his tower, with both figures poised in protest against the injustice that surrounds them. Habakkuk confronts God in the midst of a world whose torah—whose moral foundation—has been gravely threatened. Likewise, Honi comes before God in the 224

Habakkuk 1:5-1:7: "Look among the nations. Gaze and be completely astounded. For I am

fashioning a work in your days. You would not believe it were it told. For I am establishing the Chaldeans, that bitter, impetuous nation that crosses the expanse of the earth to seize territories not its own. Dread and terrible, it is. Its justice and majesty goes forth..." 225

Habakkuk 2:1.

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midst of profound disorder and potential disaster: during a drought that threatens not only people's lives, but also their understanding of divine beneficence. By aligning Honi with the prophet Habakkuk, the talmudic narrative emphasizes Honi's righteousness—garbing him as the prophet who challenges divine injustice for the sake of the community at large. "Lord of the world," Honi says, "your children turn their faces to me, for I am like a beloved son before you. I swear by your great name that I will not move from here until you have compassion upon your children."226 The invocation of Habakkuk emphasizes Honi's moral strength and positions God as his antagonist, as the figure the hero must strive to win over to the side of righteousness. Like Habakkuk, Honi challenges the righteousness of the (presumed) ultimate arbitrator of justice—fashioning his own form into a mirror that reflects back divine injustice and thereby transforms it. The talmudic version intensifies Honi's power through the dialogue with his students, who characterize the first and second rainfalls as God's effort to 'free' Honi from his oath without providing what the world needs: It began to drizzle. His students said to him: "Teacher, we look to you that we shall not die. For it seems to us that this rain has come only to free you from 226

bTacanit 23a.

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your oath." He said to Him, "Not for this did I ask, but for a rain that would nourish the wells, the ditches, and the caves." It began to rain vehemently, until each and every drop was the size of a jug's mouth, and the sages measured that not one was less than a login volume. His students said to him: "Teacher, we look to you that we shall not die. For it seems to us that this rain doesn't fall except to destroy the world." He said to Him, "Not for this did I ask, but for rain for the sake of blessing and generosity."227 In the eyes of his students, Honi becomes the force who must be placated. They impress upon him the fact that they look to him—and not to God—for rescue from death. The remarks of Honi's students also heighten the narrative tension between God and the community at large, depicting God as a figure who tries to cheat his way out of righteous critique. As divine actions draw Honi ever more deeply into the dangerous territory of his sworn vow, Honi's disciples impress upon Honi the urgency of his action—the fact that he stands alone as their rescue from a God who might well destroy them and their world. Third, the talmudic version of the Honi narrative takes an alternate narrative turn in place of the most mishnaicly significant elements—Honi's unwillingness to pray that "an excess of good" be ceased. Instead of responding to the people's plea for an end to rain with an affirmation of his received tradition that supports the

227

bTa'anit 23a. Talmudic variations from the mishnaic version appear in bold.

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mishnaic halakhic principle that one may not pray for an end to rain, the talmudic Honi accedes to the people's wish. The two narratives begin identically: It rained as was fitting, until all the people ascended to the Temple Mount on account of the rain and said to him, "Teacher, just as you have prayed for rain to fall, now pray and it will cease." He said to them, "Thus I have received: that one does not pray regarding an excess of good."228 The mishnaic version continues with Honi instructing the people to "go out and see" whether a high stone in Jerusalem has yet been rubbed to nothing by the waters, thereby presumably affirming that the world has not been submerged by flood and reassuring them that the rains will not destroy the earth. The mishnaic Honi refuses to pray for an end to the rain, thereby functioning as a clear legitimation of the Mishnah's halakhic principle. In sharp contrast, the talmudic version continues with Honi giving way to the people's request: "Nevertheless, bring me a bull for an offering." They brought him a bull and he placed his two hands upon it and he said: Lord of the world, your people Israel, who you brought forth from Egypt, cannot stand either an excess of good, nor an excess of punishment. When you are angry with them, they cannot stand. When you shower them with goodness, they cannot stand. May it be your will that the rains will cease and there be ease in the world." Immediately, the wind blew and the clouds dispersed and the sun shined, and the people went into the fields to gather mushrooms and truffles.229

bTa'anit 23 a. bTa'anit 23a.

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The talmudic Honi is willing to overrule his own received tradition in order to mediate between his people and God. Honi's words to God as he prays for the rain to stop repeat three times the idea that the people "cannot stand." The repetition emphasizes the people's dependency—but not on their Creator. Instead it is Honi who stands for them: first within the circle, to wrest rain from God's hand, then as priest, to request absolution for this breach of tradition, and finally, as the one who has the power to mitigate both the strength of God's anger and God's goodness. While the Mishnah presents Honi's request for rain as an originally salvific but ultimately imperfect solution for his community, the talmudic Honi remains responsive to the pulse of the people's need and ultimately secures "ease in the world" and celebration among the community. The talmudic version also introduces the figure of Elijah into Shimon ben Shetah's rebuke: Shimon ben Shetah sent to Honi: If you were not Honi, I would decree the ban against you, for were these years like the years of Elijah, when the heavens were opened at the hand of Elijah, the Name of heaven might have been desecrated at your hand. But what shall I do with you, for you beg to God and he does your will like a son who begs his father, and he does his will.230 230

bTacanit 23a.

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The allusion to Elijah recalls the exchange between Elijah and Ahab, in which the prophet became God's instrument for making evident divine displeasure at the idolatrous king. Elijah declared that no rain would fall—and only three years later, did God send him back to announce the coming of the rain.231 On the surface, Shimon's use of Elijah becomes an accusation against Honi, lest his actions void a divine decree. Yet the evocation of Elijah brings an ironic twist to the tale—for Elijah himself declares to Ahab, "As the Lord lives, the God of Israel before whom I stand, if there be any rain or dew in these years, it will be only at my word."232 Richard Kalmin has documented the rabbinic sources' ambivalence about Elijah's use of his own word to stop the rain and his use of drought as a weapon.233 Though Shimon charges that Honi might have desecrated the name of God, the biblical example he chooses actually suggests that Honi might have challenged the word of Elijah. In between these two powerful speakers, God's will—and God's word—seems eclipsed from the entire scene.

231

1 Kings 17:1; 1 Kings 18:1. 1 Kings 17:1. 233 Richard Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity. (New York: Routledge, 1999) 1820. 232

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Honi's radical empowerment becomes most explicit through the coda to the talmudic tale, the Sanhedrin's interpretation of Job: Rav Nahman b. Rav Hisda5 expounded: What did the men of the Sanhedrin say to Honi the Circle-Maker: You will decree and say, and it will be established for you, and upon your word, light will shine (Job 22:28) You will decree and say. You make a decree from below and the Holy One blessed be He establishes it from your word from above. And upon your word light will shiner. The generation that was in darkness, you lighten it with your prayer. When they are low, you say there is lifting up: A generation which was low, you raised up with your prayer. And those with lowered eyes, you save: A generation which was lowered by sin, you save with your prayer. He will rescue those who are not innocent: A generation that was not innocent, it was rescued with your prayer. He will rescue by innocent hands: It was rescued by the deeds of your hands in purity.234 The biblical context of these verses begins with a more conventional relationship between God and humanity: "When you see Shaddai's favor and turn your face toward your God, you shall pray and he will hear you and your vows you shall pay."235 The Sanhedrin's interpretation begins with the verses that suggest agency on the part of one who prayed and paid, inverting the usual expectations of sacred power. Through the Sanhedrin's reading of the verse, Honi becomes the active agent whose word brings rain, the one whose word effects a change on high. God responds to

bTacanit 23a. Job 22:27.

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Honi's acts, but seems to lack either the ability or the desire to respond to the people in His own right. It is Honi whose prayer saves a generation mired in sin, whose actions have the power to rescue his generation—whose word accomplishes that which was once the sole province of God.

Confusing the Fathers: The Perils of Human Power In the narratives that follow, Massekhet Tacanit elaborates the tensions around human sacred power through a series of deliberate confusions between human and heavenly fathers. After telling the two tales of Honi, the massekhet narrates the tale of Honi's grandson 'Abba Hilqiah and the two rabbis sent to convince him to bring rain. The narrative unfolds as a riddling tale, wherein we watch the rabbis search out the man they seek and observe him engaging in all manner of baffling practices: 3

Abba Hilqiah was a grandson of Honi the Circle-Maker. One time, the world

needed rain. The Rabbis sent a pair of rabbis to him, that he should pray and bring rain. They went to his house and did not find him. They went out to the field and they found that he was hoeing ground. They greeted him, but he did not greet them. At evening time, when he was gathering pieces of wood, he carried the wood on one shoulder and his cloak on another. Along the entire road, he did not wear shoes, but when he came to water, he put his shoes on. When he came to thorns and briars, he lifted up his garments. When he came to the town, his wife came out to greet him, beautifully adorned. When he came to his house, he sent her in first and he entered after. He sat down to eat 167

his meal and did not invite the rabbis to take some food. To his elder child, he gave one cake and to the younger, he gave two. The outset of the tale frames 5Abba Hilqiah as an apparent boor, a man who fails to greet his guests and treat them hospitably, while behaving in bizarre fashion with his work, his wife and his children. Yet the following turn in the tale introduces 3Abba Hilqiah's capacity for perception and his piety:

He said to his wife, "I know that the rabbis have come on account of rain. Come, let us go up to the roof and let us pray. Perhaps it will please the Holy One blessed be He and rain will come /and we will not grasp credit for ourselves./236 He stood in one corner and his wife stood in another. The clouds first came from the corner where his wife stood. Here, the talmudic narrative presents 'Abba Hilqiah and his wife praying for rain, explicitly marking their actions as designed to please God so that rain might come. The narrative reveals 3Abba Hilqiah's wife as the site of acute rain-calling, for the clouds first appear over her corner. Particularly suggestive for the issue of power is the textual addition in the Vilna edition, "and we will not grasp credit for ourselves,"

236

Maker notes that this phrase appears in the printed edition, but not in the manuscripts or in the

Menorat haMa'or, a 14th century compendium of talmudic aggadah. Malter, The Treatise Ta'anitofthe Babylonian Talmud. [Hebrew critical edition], 100.

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which evinces 3Abba Hilqiah's concern that the rabbis below might view them as particularly adept at bringing about rain. When 3Abba Hilqiah and his wife return to their guests, the husband asks the rabbis a disingenuous question. The exchange that follows is charged with ironic confusions about knowing and power: He went down and said to them, "Why have you rabbis come?" The rabbis said to him, "The Rabbis sent us in order that Sir should pray and bring rain." He said to them, "Praise God who gives you no need for 3Abba Hilqiah." They said to him: "We know that the rain has come on account of Sir, but Sir, tell us about the things that astonish us!" Where before, 3Abba Hilqiah knew that the rabbis had come on account of rain, here the rabbis know that the rain has come on account of :Abba Hilqiah. Though 3Abba Hilqiah attempts to turn aside their knowledge with praise of God, the rabbis are not swayed. They are not astonished by the man who brings rain, but by the man who removes his shoes before walking home and puts them on when crossing water, by the man who removes his cloak before carrying wood on his shoulder and who lifts up his skirts before crossing brambles. They know 5Abba Hilqiah to be a rain-maker, despite his protestations to the contrary. The knowledge they lack is the interpretive key to his other actions.

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The exchange that follows establishes 3Abba Hilqiah's piety as the illuminating element that clarifies his acts and structures the social relations between rabbis and rain-maker in a way that emphasizes the hidden power of the latter. Rather than sparring over knowledge, 3Abba Hilqiah accedes to the rabbis and reveals to them the mysteries of his actions: "What is the reason that when we greeted you, Sir did not return our greeting?" He said to them, "I labor by the day, so I believed I should not interrupt [my work and thereby cheat my employer.]" "What is the reason that Sir carried the wood on one shoulder and his cloak on the other shoulder?" "My garment is loaned and for this [ = wearing] it was loaned me, but for that [ = carrying wood] it was not loaned me." "What is the reason that for the whole road, Sir did not wear shoes, but when he came to water he wore shoes?" "The whole road I could see, but in the water I could not see." "What is the reason that when Sir came to thorns and briars, he lifted his garment?" "Because this one will heal and that one will not heal." "What is the reason that when Sir's wife came out to greet him, beautifully adorned?" "So that I should not cast my eyes upon another woman." "What is the reason that she went in first and Sir went after her?" "I had not checked you [and do not know if you are trustworthy to be alone with my wife.]" "What is the reason Sir did not invite us to take some food?" "There was not enough food and I believed I should not receive gratitude from the rabbis in vain." "What is the reason Sir gave one cake to the elder and two to the younger?" "This one stays at home, and that one goes to study." Where the start of the tale presented the rabbis as wronged by the incongruous actions of 3Abba Hilqiah, the talmudic narrative structures this exchange of questions and answers to inculcate in the reader an identification with 5Abba Hilqiah's wisdom. The 170

reader comes to understand 3Abba Hilqiah's perceptions as more acute than those of the rabbis and to valorize the hidden designs of the rain-maker above the skeptical curiosity of the rabbis. 3Abba Hilqiah's first statement in his own voice—the words to his wife that invite her to the roof so that they may pray for rain without grasping credit for themselves—appears to be the crux of the narrative, the moment when the reader becomes aware of a powerful truth before the bumbling sages who should have been wise. Yet at the close of the tale, the rain-maker's wisdom is undercut by his own words. The final question the sages ask turns the tables once again: What is the reason the clouds first arrived from the corner where the wife of Sir stood? Because she is found in the house, and the benefit [of her charity] is immediate. Or: There were outlaws in our neighborhood and I prayed that they would die, but she prayed that they would be turned to good.237 Despite 5Abba Hilqiah's efforts to convince the rabbis that the rain had nothing to do with them, this final dialogue exposes a different truth. For the first time, the rabbis perceive that which should not have been obvious—the fact that it was 3Abba Hilqiah's wife who stood at the vortex of rain. Their question and its answer undermines 5Abba Hilqiah's assertion that the rain came without regard to human 237

bTacanit 23a-b.

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merit—for he clarifies that the clouds came first to his wife, on account of her more auspicious charitable actions. Merit, 'Abba Hilqiah unwittingly concedes, matters after all. The true rain-making power in the narrative belongs to the nameless wife, the one veiled so completely by the text that the subtleties of her wisdom are never interrogated or brought to light. Read against the grain, the final exchange shifts the meaning of the rain-maker's remark, "Praise God who gives you no need for 3Abba Hilqiah," from a protestation of powerlessness to an acknowledgement of alternate power. The declaration meant to attest to the power of God and distance the rainmaker from charismatic power rebounds with a different implication: God gave the rabbis no need for 'Abba Hilqiah, for God granted them the power of his wife. The next narrative makes explicit the latent problematics of the earlier narratives around the role of the charismatic rain maker and his relation to God: Hanin Hanehba [ = the hidden] was the grandson of Horn the Circle-Maker. When the world needed rain, the Rabbis would send children from the school house to him and they would tug at the corners of his cloak and say to him, "Father, Father, give us rain!" He said before Him: "Lord of the World, do it for the sake of those who do not recognize the difference between a Father who gives rain and a father who does not give rain," and the rain came. Why was he called Hanin Hanehba? Because he would hide himself while at the privy.238 238

bTacanit 23b.

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Through the figure of Hanin Hanehba, Honi's second grandson, the massekhet raises the specter of actual confusion between an earthly father and the heavenly Father who brings rain. The Rabbis, who before sent emissaries to 3Abba Hilqiah's house to beseech a rain miracle, now send children who tug at the hem of Honi's other grandson and beg him directly for rain. The uncertainty present in the 5Abba Hilqiah narrative, voiced through the rabbis who attribute the rain miracle to the man rather than to God, rejected by the sage and yet indirectly also affirmed by him, has here been transformed. The children act out of unabashed awareness that Hanin Hanehba has a certain power—and though the sage himself rejects their claim, he nevertheless uses it as the rhetorical frame for his prayer. 3Abba Hilqiah struggled unsuccessfully to hide his power and thereby avoid this moment, but Hanin Hanehba—the hidden one whose sacred power is nonetheless exposed—names the confusion outright and centers himself in the tension. Hanin Hanehba hides himself at the privy, perhaps, but not at prayer.239

In chapter 6, this dissertation will take up the role of hiddenness throughout the massekhet.

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The following narrative centers the question of rabbinic power vis-a-vis the sacred through a contrast between two types of sages—the strong ones of Israel and the pious ones of Babylonia: Rabbi Zeriqa said to Rav Safra: Come and see the difference between the strong ones of Israel [taqifei d,3arca d'l'sra^el] and the pious ones of Babylonia [hasidei bavel\. The pious ones of Babylonia—Rav Huna and Rav Hisda, who, when the world wanted for rain, would say, "Come, let us gather together and pray. Perhaps it will please the Holy One to bring rain." The strong ones of the land of Israel—like R. Yonah, the father of R. Mani, who, when the world wanted for rain, would go into his house and say to them, "Give me my sack and I will go and buy grain for [the high price of] a zuz," after which he would go and stand in deep, hidden place, covered in sack, and pray until rain came. When he came back, they said to him, "Did Sir bring anything?" He said to them, "I believed that since the rain came, the world would be at ease."240 The narrative contrasts the behavior of two Babylonian rabbis who gather the community together and pray that it be God's will for the rain to fall, with the legend of R. Yonah, a late Palestinian sage who conceals his own actions and, hidden from others' gaze, covers himself in sackcloth and brings rain. Concealment remains a significant theme in the construction of the "strong ones," whose very strength seems to require a certain obscuring of the viewer's gaze.241 On the face of it, the teaching provides a set of ethnic categories in response to the cultural conflicts spawned by

bTacanit 23b. The significance of concealment will be discussed in the following chapter.

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these questions of power, setting up a distinction between strength and piety and recalling the Babylonians as pious and the Palestinians as mighty.242 Yet the categories map inconclusively on the tales just told. 3Abba Hilqiah uses the very phrase attributed to the "pious ones of Babylon"—"perhaps it will please God"—and explicitly prays for rain to be God's will. Yet 5Abba Hilqiah behaves like one of the "strong ones of Israel," stealing away in secret to accomplish his call for rain, and is perceived as such by the rabbis who seek him out. The narrative that follows involves the son of R. Yonah, the prototypical "strong one," evoking a similar confusion of the fathers: R. Mani, his son, was harassed by the House of the Patriarch. He went and laid himself prostrate on the burial place of his father /and said to him, "Father, father, they are harassing me!"/243 One day, as they were passing by the place, the legs of their horses were held fast until they took it upon themselves not to harass him.244

242

In his discussion of folklore genres, Dan Ben-Amos has articulated a very useful distinction between

analytic and ethnic categories, in order to distinguish between scholarly categories designed for crosscultural use and the particular categories asserted by a certain source or cultural system. I am using his terms here, in order to distinguish between the ethnic (i.e., insider) distinction that this teaching attempts to create between "the pious" and "the strong." Dan Ben-Amos, "Analytical Categories and Ethnic Genres," in Folklore Genres, ed. Dan Ben-Amos. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976). 243

This phrase appears in the printed edition, but not in most manuscripts or in Matter's critical edition.

244

bTacanit 23b.

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Rather than call on the aid of his Father in heaven, R. Mani regards his earthly father as the site of salvific power and makes his father's grave the center of his prayer. In the Vilna edition, R. Mani cries out " 3Abba }Abba"—echoing the cry of the children who tugged at Hanin Hanehba^'s cloak. His prostration and his prayer has immediate effect—and his pursuers' mounts are held hostage by the father's power until their riders vow not to harm the (beloved) son. Next, the massekhet tells the tale of Izhak ben Eliashiv, who likewise uses powerful word to change reality—and protect a harassed disciple: He used to come before R. Izhaq ben 'Eliashiv [to learn]. He said to him: "The rich folks of my father-in-law's house are harassing me." He said: "Let them become poor" and they were impoverished. "Now they press me!" "Let them be rich" and they became rich. "My wife is not acceptable to me." "What is her name?" "Hannah." "May Hannah become beautiful," and Hannah became beautiful. "She lords it over me!" "May Hannah return to swarthiness," and Hannah returned to swarthiness. There were two students who used to come before R. Izhaq ben 3Eliashiv. They said to him, "Sir, pray for us that we become more wise. He said to them, "It was with me, but I have sent it from me."245 R. Izhaq ben 5Eliashiv has the power to change in-laws from rich to poor or ordinary wives into beautiful women—and back again, when the transformation brings no peace

bTa'anit 23b.

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to the man who sought his aid. Through this spare exchange, with people undergoing dramatic changes in life circumstances at the word of a sage and then reverting to their original form at his will, the massekhet exposes the dangers of this verbal power. Izhaq himself sends away his own verbal gift, perhaps after coming face to face with its inability to make his disciple happy. The power to change the world at whim—to word a new creation into being—falters before the fickleness of human desire. The pinnacle of the massekhet's exploration of power and its discontents appears in the tales of another late Palestinian sage, R. Yosi of Yodqarat. The image of R. Yosi of Yodqarat pushes the tension of human power vis-a-vis God to its ultimate limit—picturing the sage as a father who holds the power of life and death over his family, but has no compassion to temper his capacity to destroy. The massekhet introduces R. Yosi of Yodqarat obliquely, through another sage's awareness that one of Yosi's disciples has left him: R. Yosi bar 3Avin used to come before R. Yosi of Yodqarat. He left him and came before Rav lAshi. One day, he heard him repeat: "Shmu'el said: One who takes a fish from the sea on Shabbat - as soon as there is a dry spot the size of a sela\ he is liable." He said to him: "It must be between the fins." He said to him, "Do you not know, Sir, that this is a teaching of R. Yosi bar 3

Avin?" He said to him: "I am Yosi bar 3Avin." "Doesn't Sir sit before R.

Yosi of Yodqarat?" He said to him: "Yes." And what is the reason that Sir

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left him and came here?" He said to him: "A man who has no compassion for his son and his daughter should have compassion for me?"246 This narrative frames the story to come with an explicit rabbinic rebuke against the actions of R. Yosi of Yodqarat. On account of the sage's lack of compassion for his own family, the reader learns, even R. Yosi's students forsake him. Interestingly, the exchange between R. Yosi bar 3Avin and Rav 5Ashi also contrasts R. Yosi's haughtiness with R. Yosi bar 'Avin's near anonymity—a sage who is not recognized in his person, but who only becomes recognizable through his Torah. The image of R. Yosi of Yodqarat, refracted through R. Yosi bar : Avin's tale, pushes the tension of human power vis-a-vis God to its ultimate limit—picturing the sage as a tyrannical father who could shatter his family's lives at a whim: What was with his son? One day he had hired some hired laborers. It became late and he had not brought them a meal. They said to his son that they were starving. There was a fig tree. He said: "Fig tree, fig tree, give forth your fruit so my father's workers may eat!" It brought forth, and they ate. After a time, his father came and he said to them: "Do not claim that it is late, for an obligation [mizvah] occupied me until now." They said to him: "May the Merciful satisfy you just as your son has satisfied us." He said to them: "What occurred?" They said to him: "Such and such occurred." He said to his son: "You have troubled your Creator to bring forth fruit from the fig tree when it was not her time. So may you be gathered before your time."247

bTacanit 23b-24a. bTa'anit 24a.

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At the start of this tale, R. Yosi's son "speaks" a fig tree into bearing fruit in order to feed his father's ravenous laborers, making use of a potent verbal power that brings creation to fruition. Like Honi, the son's powerful words serve to protect the people from the dangerous absence and apparent indifference of the father. While R. Yosi attempts an explanation for his own delay, the enigmatic remark of the workers suggests that the explanation fails to satisfy. The laborers disregard the false words of father and rely instead upon the powerful deed of the son. Yet when R. Yosi learns what his son has done, he rebukes his son for having 'troubled his creator.' He curses the boy that just as he caused fruit to be gathered out of its season, so too he will be "gathered" by God and die before his time. R. Yosi is the human father incensed at his son's troubling of the Creator, but he reacts (almost) like the troubled Creator himself: the human father brings about his son's death at the heavenly Father's hands. The narrative about R. Yosi of Yodqarat's daughter pushes the potential identification between sage and God even further—and depicts the sage in even harsher terms: What was with his daughter? He had a beautiful daughter. One day, he saw that a certain man had made a breach in the wall and was gazing at her. He said to him, "What is it?" He said to him, "If I do not merit to take her, do I 179

not merit to look at her?" He said to her, "My daughter, you trouble His creations! Return to your dust, so that mortals do not stumble on your account."248 R. Yosi discovers that his daughter, through no apparent act of her own, has become the site of another man's illicit gaze. Rather than rebuking the one who gazes, R. Yosi turns his rage toward his daughter and tells her how much "she has troubled His creation"—an evocatively ambiguous reference in light of the narrative's image of R. Yosi as a man like unto an angry God. He tells his daughter to return to her dust, undoing the work of Creation and "unmaking" her with his words. Yosi's words reverse his daughter's creation. But rather than ruing the human act of procreation that occasioned his daughter's birth, Yosi unmakes her in a manner that centers upon the biblical act of creation—acting far beyond the realm of the human father. Finally, the narrative cluster introduces Yosi's donkey, an animal that returns to its master every day if it is laden with the precise hire—no more and no less than is due. One day, Yosi's donkey refuses to return home because someone forgot a pair of sandals upon her back: He had a certain donkey which he would hire out. They would place the hirefee upon her and she would bring it back to the house of her master. If it was 248

bTacanit 24a.

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too much for her or too little for her, she would not bring it. One day, a pair of sandals was left upon her and she would not go until they were removed from her.249 By the third stage, Yosi's donkey has become the mediator whose return to her master symbolizes Yosi's own preoccupation with precise actions and a fitting reward. The sage, in these tales, becomes the one who judges transgression and then supplies the power for supernatural punishment. A dangerous counterpoint to Honi's status as the beloved son who uses his power to challenge God for the good of the community, Yosi's power turns him into a tyrannical father who supplants God—to the ruin of his family. Through this series of narratives that push the possibilities of human power beyond their usual theological limits, Massekhet Tacanit crafts a literary space for dreaming the possibility of human power and grappling with its uncertainties. The question of human sacred power—how much control people can truly assert through ritual, observance of mizvah, powerful speech and piety over a God whose presence is so often veiled and whose works are so often obscure—lies at the heart of the massekhet. The pursuit of this deep cultural and theological question proves one of

bTa'anit 24a.

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the core literary thematics of the massekhet, surfacing again and again throughout its narratives and becoming more problematized as the massekhet proceeds. The assumption of a certain degree of human power drives the very concept of religious action, animating the concept of fasting and prayer as meaningful, potentially transformative action. But the potency of human action remains profoundly uncertain—particularly when refracted through the massekhet's discourse of the intense capability of charismatic holy men. While the tales of charismatic rain-makers push the question of human ability beyond the usual limits, the very distinctiveness of their capacity throws the relative powerlessness of ordinary humans into sharp relief and renders the charismatics as men (almost) like God. In its exposition of these charismatics, Massekhet Tacanit pursues this likeness—courting deliberate confusions: first between father and beloved son, in Honi's narrative, and then between the heavenly and human fathers, 3Abba Hilqiah, Hanin Hanehba, and the father of R. Mani. Yet as the massekhet pursues the question of human power, the nature of its inquiry shifts in a subtle but significant way. Where the first tales of Honi and his descendants centered upon potential and actual mistaken identity between fathers (and sons)—the final tales of the later Palestinian sages focus more upon the ethic of human

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power. Though Massekhet Tacanit figures these Palestinian Amoraim as still endowed with the ability to access considerable power, it casts doubt upon their capacity to use it in a way that will prove salvific for their communities. Where Honi once employed his audacious power for the sake of saving the human community from an apparently indifferent God, R. Yosi of Yodqarat possesses a power marked like God's ability to create and destroy, but uses it for the ruin of his kin. So too, R. Izhaq ben 3Eliashiv can speak people to riches and beauty, but discovers that his power carries no assurance of good. Having made plain both the potential and the pain of the Creator's power, the sage sends away his gift and embraces a more limited human agency, bridging through his very self the chasm that once stretched between holy and ordinary human.

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Chapter 6

Blessing Hidden from the Eye: Navigating the Concealed and the Revealed in Massekhet Tacanit

Over the course of Massekhet Tacanit, the talmudic narrative expresses a significant tension between the revealed and the concealed, crafting a discourse of hiddenness that allows the Stam to reflect upon the power and limits of rabbinic interpretation. The premise that drought has meaning—that the relationship between God and Israel can be manifest through rainfall and the seasonal cycle—demands a capacity to "see" God in the clouds and the dew, in the rain and the renewal of the earth. Where the second chapter examined the function of the rain symbol within Massekhet Tacanit, this chapter considers Massekhet Tacanit's portrayal of rain as a symbol within rabbinic consciousness—how rain was a sign that (properly interpreted) can bear critical witness to the community's relations with God. Beginning with several narratives that showcase rabbinic interpretation of these signs of rain, I demonstrate how Massekhet Tacanit's portrayal of rabbinic "readings" of rain emphasizes the instability at the heart of the interpretative process. Yet at the same

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time the massekhet emphasizes the challenges of reading, it also underscores the power of the interpreter—constructing the observer's gaze as a tool for (potential) transformation. In addition to readings of rain and related meteorological phenomena, the chapter turns to two particularly contested sites of meaning: the interpretation of bodies and the interpretation of blessings. Through a close reading of teachings that link blessing explicitly with hiddenness, this chapter demonstrates how concealment is central to Massekhet Tacanit's understanding of blessing. By constructing blessing as an elusive status, generally obscured from the sight of the beholder, Massekhet Tacanit articulates a critical distinction between exterior appearance and actual meaning. A similar tension underscores the massekhet's approach to the meaning of the body. Through an analysis of texts that center upon contested readings of bodies, this chapter shows how the disjunctures between the revealed and concealed meanings of a body can baffle even the rabbis. Building upon the self-critical discourse about rabbinic power and prowess discussed in the previous two chapters, I show how Massekhet Tacanit refrains from portraying the rabbis as interpreters par excellence who triumph over their non-Jewish

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counterparts and instead underscores the imperfections of rabbinic perception. As the massekhet grapples with the right interpretation of complex bodies and blessings, the massekhet continues to emphasize the performative component of acute perception— suggesting that the rare ability to glimpse the concealed allows the seer to draw forth that which he perceives, to make manifest that which has (perhaps) been hidden there all along.

Perceiving the Presence of God: Reading the Signs of Rain In his treatment of the historical development of the symbol in Greek thought, Peter Struck links its emergence with the practice of divination and omen reading, practices which assert that a natural event or "chance" occurrence, rightly interpreted, represents a "divine sign."250 Struck's analysis highlights the exclusivity that lies at the heart of a symbol's poetics. A symbol, he suggests, reveals to a few that which it

250

Struck argues that an omen requires the reader's intentional perception of certain occurrences as writ

with the "ultrasignificant language of the divine." The capacity of such an event to contain significance, Struck suggests, comes entirely from its "origin with the gods, which is by definition hidden from us. A bird might be just a bird, and a chance meeting becomes a coincidence with meaning only when a god's hand is behind it." Peter Struck, Birth of the Symbol: Ancient Readers at the Limits of their Texts. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 95.

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successfully conceals from the masses.251 In articulating prayer and fasting as methods of negotiating a relationship between God and humanity, the sages school themselves in this exclusive language of divine signs. They give profound attention to the meanings of the sky and the clouds, to the nature of rain and its significance as a kind of divine communication. Beyond the broad brush-strokes of drought and displeasure, the sages aim to probe the smallest details of rain and dew for clues to the nature and feeling of the Creator, transforming themselves into careful students of the heavens and the earth, so that they might become attentive to the intimate presence of God that its subtle signs reveal. For Massekhet Tacanit, this "reading" of rain emerges out of the biblical promise that God will grant rain in response to Israel's obedience to the commandments. Drought, on the other hand, appears within this biblical paradigm as God's intentional withholding of rain in response to human disobedience. The classic statement of this promise appears in Deuteronomy 11:13-17, which reads: If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the lord your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil—I will also provide grass in the fields for 251

Ibid., 81.

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your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill. Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For the Lord's anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord is assigning to you.252 This biblical text is part of the Shema, a series of biblical passages recited in the midst of the rabbinic prayer service every morning and every evening. In Massekhet Tacanit, the twice-daily recitation of the biblical passage, with its assertion that rain represents God's pleasure and that "shut skies" bespeak God's anger, becomes a moment for assessing the relationship between Israel and God. The sages begin by discussing whether particular types of rain obviate the threat of the biblical verse: Rav Hisda said: [When] rains fall sufficient to seal the mouth of a clay jar [with mud,] there is no [curse] He will shut. (Deut. 11:17) [}ein bahem mishum vecazar] And Rav Hisda said: [When] rains fall before [the recitation of] He will shut, there is no [curse] He will shut.253 Rav Hisda asserts that both a rainfall hearty enough to produce mud and a rain that falls before the morning recitation of the Shema, with its biblical invocation of the verse in question, represent rain that reflects God's goodwill toward Israel. By dint of

Deuteronomy 11:13-17. JPS translation. bTacanit 6b.

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their very presence, the rains deny the applicability of the verse and thereby demonstrate that God is not shutting the heavens in anger.254 3Abaye, however, disputes Rav Hisda's interpretation of the rain: 3

Abaye said: This only applies before [the recitation of] He will shut in the

evening. Before [the recitation of] He will shut in the morning, there is something to the verse [yesh bahem mishum vecazar], for Rav Shmu^el bar Rav Yizhaq said: Those clouds of the morning have no substance, as it is written, [What can I do for you Ephraim? What can I do for you JudahJ lor your kindness is like a morning cloud and like the dew so soon gone. (Hosea 6:4) 3

Abaye agrees with Rav Hisda that rain which falls in the evening, before the

recitation of the Shema and the mention of the God's threat to shut the heavens, demonstrates that the heavens have not been shut and communicates God's pleasure. But he disagrees with Rav Hisda about morning rain, citing a teaching that describes morning clouds (and the rain that comes forth from them) as insubstantial and ephemeral. These clouds, 5Abaye argues, are not significant and cannot speak to the biblical verse. Yet Rav Papa contests 3Abaye's conclusion about the significance of morning rain with a proverb: Rav Papa said to DAbaye: But don't the people say, "Rain at the opening of the gates—donkey drivers, spread out your cloths and lie down again to sleep?"

254

This interpretation follows Rashi, who glosses the talmudic phrase "they are not on account of the verse, He willshuf as "there is no curse of He will shut up the heavens" bTacanit 6b.

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This is no contradiction, for one comes from dark clouds [ceiva] and the other comes from ordinary clouds [canana].15S According to Rav Papa, popular wisdom maintains that when a donkey driver wakes to find rain in the morning, he might as well go back to sleep—apparently because early morning rain signifies a time of such abundance that people will refrain from purchasing produce at the market.256 Finally, the anonymous voice attempts to resolve the conclusion between 'Abaye's deployment of Hosea and Rav Papa's proverb by distinguishing between the clouds each describe. 'Abaye's insubstantial clouds are ordinary clouds of morning, while the clouds that bespeak abundance (and deny the possibility of the biblical curse) are unusual, dark clouds that promise heavy rains. For both Rav Hisda, 3Abaye, and presumably Rav Papa as well, the signs of rain correlate with the communal prayer service in order to create a kind of dialogue between God and community. In each of these cases, the sages assert that rain functions as an explicit sign that can reveal the relationship between Israel and God, but they disagree about the particulars of that meaning and the phenomena that reveal it. The communal recitation of the Shema reflects an acknowledgement of God's

255 256

bTa'anit 6b. bTa'anit 6b. See Rashi's commentary, regarding the interpretation of the donkey drivers.

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potential anger, while the presence of rain confirms that God has not chosen to shut the heavens and bar rain from the earth. While not an answer to prayer per se, the presence of rain in the midst of communal prayer nevertheless represents a communication from the Holy to the community at large, a witness to the present status of relations between God and Israel. As the previous passage begins to suggest, an essential feature of discourse surrounding "signs" in Massekhet Tacanit emphasizes the ambiguous quality of the observed clouds and rain—the multivalent messages that might be encoded within a single natural event. Though the Stam attempts to disambiguate the clouds and thereby preserve the accuracy of both Rav Hisda, Rav Papa and 3Abaye, they follow their (possibly) successful task with another set of puzzling signs. In this passage, the rabbis attempt to interpret an unknown word that, in its biblical context, refers to flashes of lightning or thunder: What is Godmade flashes of'lightning[hazizim] (Zech. 10:1)? Rabbi Yosi said in the name of Rabbi Hanina: To teach you that the Holy One blessed be He creates a flash of lightning for each and every righteous person. What are hazizinP. Rav Yehudah said: Porehot. What are porehot? Rav Papa5 said: Light, wispy clouds underneath thick clouds. Rabbi Yohanan said: Porehot are a sign [siman] of rain. cUlla happened upon Pumbedita and saw porehot. He

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said to them, "Come, move you things, for now rain will come." But rain did not come. He said: Just as the Babylonians are liars, so their rains lie."257 The initial query about the meaning of the biblical word hazizim leads Rabbi Yosi to a homiletic interpretation of the verse, in which God is figured as creating a haziz for each individual righteous person. Yet the first reading does not satisfy the massekhet's basic question, regarding the meaning of a haziz. Rav Yehudah glosses the word with another, to which the massekhet poses the identical question. Finally, Rav Papa connects the elusive words with the description of an actual meteorological phenomenon, which leads to the designation of these clouds as a particular "sign" of rain. Having finally established the sign and its meaning, the massekhet then recounts how the Palestinian sage cUlla travels to Babylonia and interprets these very clouds as a sign that rain is imminent. When the rain fails to materialize, cUlla slanders the Babylonians and their rains—decrying both the people and the land as fundamentally unreliable.258 While cUlla's remark seems intended to rescue his own prowess as an interpreter, his disgust also underscores the instability of rain signs. The signs of rain can be difficult to read, even for the learned. Despite the premise that the natural 257

bTacanit 9b.

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In the account that follows, cUlla buys a basket of dates at a bargain price, he once again slanders the

Babylonians for living in a land of prosperity but failing to study Torah with diligence. His vitriol is rewarded by a painful case of diarrhea, after which he retracts his words. (bTacanit 9b)

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world can and must be read for signs that signal God's presence and (dis)pleasure with the community, the rabbinic voices wrestling with the meanings of the rain and clouds come face-to-face with their inability to draw forth clear testimony from the signs before their eyes.

The Hiddenness of Blessing: Recognition as Manifestation While Massekhet Tacanit emphasizes the significance of observable signs as critical witnesses to the relational status of God and Israel, it couples its interest in these signs with a discourse of hiddenness and concealed meaning that destabilizes the nature of the observer's gaze and rejects the idea of simply "reading" the apparent meanings of the world. At the same time, the massekhet emphasizes a certain powerful perception that can draw forth and manifest an otherwise latent, hidden blessing: Rabbi Yizhaq said: Blessing is not found except in a thing which is hidden [hassamui] from the eye, as it is written, God will decree blessings upon your granary [ba}asamekha](Deut. 28:8). A Reciter from the house of Rabbi Ishma°el taught: Blessing is not found except in a thing upon which the eye does not fall, as it is written, God will decree blessings upon your granary. The Rabbis teach: One who goes to measure his grain says, "May it be Your will, God our God, to send blessing upon the works of our hands." Once he starts to measure, he says, "Blessed be the One who sends blessing upon this 193

heap." One who measures and after that blesses: that is a prayer said in vain, for blessing is not found in things which are measured or things which are counted, or things which are weighed—but in things which are hidden from the eye, as it is written, God will decree blessings upon your granary}59 Rabbi Yizhaq's interpretation of Deuteronomy 28:8 rests upon an aural association between the verb 'to hide or to conceal' and the biblical word for 'granary' or 'storehouse,' a common occasion for rabbinic homiletic interpretation. The teaching constructs the ideal figure who seeks God's blessing as one who asks for blessing when the precise amount contained within the heap of grain is still indeterminate, still yet to be revealed. This gives God an opportunity to covertly increase the store. Once the grain is measured and counted, the teaching suggests, a request for divinely sanctioned increase is no longer appropriate. The blessing articulated in this passage is not a static presence or absence inherent in the heap, the grain, or the counter himself. Rather, just as Rabbi Yizhaq taught, blessing must literally be "found"—by a convergence of human and divine action. This "blessing" upon the grain is fashioned by the interplay between the words of the counter and the biblical promise articulated by God. But blessing can only be discovered in sites that still have the potential for transformation. The 259

bTacanit 8b.

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imprecise nature of its uncounted quantity allows for a revelation of a different reality, a more bountiful measure that might have been there all along. The measuring eye, which defines precisely the amount of grain present in the storehouse, rules out the possibility of "finding" blessing. The heap can only be "prayed upon" before it is counted, before a certain kind of perception fixes its reality. God acts upon that which is not yet fixed. The potent ambiguity of the heap becomes a ground for augmenting the grain, that is, for discovering blessing. Massekhet Tacanit does not figure this transformative perception as God's alone, but articulates it as a key to rabbinic interpretative prowess. The massekhet's interpretation of Mishnah 3:3 involves a bold rereading of the meaning of a rain sign in the Mishnah, launching the rabbis into an interpretation of natural and biblical devastation that asserts a hidden blessing in the midst of apparent curse. Mishnah 3:3 continues the chapter's discussion of signs of drought and crisis sufficiently grave that a community can eschew the usual, carefully escalating procedures for fasting and begin immediately a more intense fast. One of those crises occurs when a single city receives no rain: Likewise, a city upon which the rains do not fall, as it is written: I let it rain upon one city and upon another city, I did not let it rain; one portion received 195

rain, but the portion that did not receive rain withered'(Amos 4:7); That city should fast and sound the shofar and all its surroundings should fast but not sound the shofar. R. cAqiva says: They should sound the shofar and not fast.260 In its mishnaic context, this text establishes a pattern of spotty rainfall as a crisis that requires immediate fasting. Even when neighboring cities do not suffer drought, a city that receives no rain should make an immediate response. In contrast, the talmudic discussion of this Mishnah turns the inquiry in a different direction. Glossing the opening line of the Mishnah, "Likewise, a city upon which the rains do not fall... Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: To both of them, it is for curse."261 Rav Yehudah regards the patchy pattern of rainfall described in the Mishnah as a curse intended for both cities, both the one upon which rain falls and the one which withers for lack of rain.262 Rav Yehudah's teaching turns the apparent meaning of the Mishnah on its head. What had once been a clear sign of crisis for a particular city afflicted by drought, now becomes a more existential crisis for all cities—both those who received rain and those who received none. 260

mTacanit 3:3. 261 bTacanit 20a. 262 Rashi describes the curse as too much rain for the city upon which it rain falls—thereby spoiling their produce—and drought for the city that receives no rain, so that no produce grows at all. To corroborate the teaching, he notes that the same (grammatically feminine) form of the word for cloud (cav) appears in 1 Kings 18:44 in the story of Elijah's rain miracle on Mt. Carmel, presaging a heavy downpour.

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The massekhet continues its discussion of Mishnah 3:3 with a series of teachings from Rav Yehudah in the name of Rav in which several biblical curses become sites of intended blessing. Rav Yehudah reads two verses from Lamentations, which describe the misery of ruined Jerusalem, as sites and signs—as containers—of actual blessing: Jerusalem is a menstruant [nidah] in their midst (Lam. 1:17). Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: It is for blessing, for just as a menstruant becomes permissible again, so too Jerusalem will be permissible again. She is like a widow (Lam. 1:1). Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: 'Like a widow' is for blessing. For she is not a true widow, but like a woman whose husband went to a country across the sea and intends to return to her. I have also made you despised and low [in the eyes of all the people] (Mai. 2:9). Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: It is for blessing, for they do not appoint us as high officials or officers who carry out the will of the court.263 In Rav Yehudah's teaching, the description of Jerusalem as a menstruant implies the blessing of a cyclical return to purity. Likewise the description of Jerusalem as widow is transformed from a woman suffering the death of her husband to a woman whose husband has left her but who intends to return. The promise of return in both verses turns the biblical evocation of suffering into a latent blessing. In the next verse, which sharpens the issue through its explicit description of God's power to cause suffering

bTa'anit 20a.

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for the people, Rav Yehudah also discerns God's good intentions. Rav Yehudah reads the prophetic description of a people brought low as a source of actual blessing, for a people so despised carry no responsibility for enforcing the decrees of the government or enforcing the judgment of its courts. Finally, Rav Yehudah turns to a verse of explicit curse, voiced by the prophet 'Ahiyah Hashiloni against the idolatrous king Jeroboam: And God will strike Israel, until it sways like a reed in water (I Kings 14:15). Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: It is for blessing, as Rabbi Shmu^el bar Nahmani said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: What is it that is written? Faithful are the wounds of one who loves you; deceitful are the kisses of one who hates you (Proverbs 27:6). Better the curse with which 5Ahiyah Hashiloni cursed Israel than the blessing with which the wicked Balaam blessed them. 3Ahiyah Hashiloni cursed them as a reed [qaneh]. What is a reed? That which stands in a place of water with shoots that renew themselves and many roots. Even if all the winds in the world come and blow against it, it will move back and forth with them. When the wind falls silent, the reed will stand in its place. But the wicked Balaam blessed them as a cedar, as it is said: Like cedars beside the waters (Numbers 24:6). What is a cedar? That which does not stand in a place of water, without shoots that renew themselves and without many roots. And when the winds come and blow against it, it does not move back and forth with them. So when a strong south wind blows against it, it is uprooted and turned upon its face.264 Rav Yehudah's reading of these verses reveals the "curse" and the "blessing" of each biblical figure to be opposite its apparent meaning. In the original biblical context, the bTacanit 20a.

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Israelite prophet 'Ahiyah Hashiloni delivers a harsh curse and rebuke to the wife of Jeroboam, in response to God's anger at the idolatrous king. Balaam, on the other hand, is the non-Israelite seer hired by the king of Moab to curse Israel, but who finds himself unable to utter the curse as ordered. Instead, Balaam looks out on the tents of the Israelites and affirms their glory, uttering a beautiful biblical poem of praise. The rabbinic reading is shaped by the Deuteronomistic treatment of Balaam, which excludes Moabites and Amonites from the congregation of Israel because they hired Balaam in order to curse the Israelites and concludes, "But the Lord your God refused to heed Balaam; instead the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, for the Lord your God loves you."265 David Frankel emphasizes that rabbinic literature frequently viewed Balaam's blessing as attributable to divine coercion, a forcible reworking of his original curse.266 Accordingly, in talmudic treatment in Massekhet Tacanit, Balaam's words are marked by the seer's original intention and by his social location as an enemy of Israel, revealing themselves as a curse merely masquerading as a kindness. In contrast, the harshness of the Israelite prophet 'Ahiyah

265

Deuteronomy 23:4-6. David Frankel, "The Deuteronomic Portrayal of Balaam." Vetus Testamentum 46. (January 1996), 30-1. 266

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Hashiloni reads for the rabbis as the chastisements of a friend—the one who loves you even while he wounds—and ultimately, serve as the container for true blessing.

Reading the Body: R. 'Elecazar, The Ugly Man, and the Recognition of Wisdom The blessing that concludes R. Shmu'el bar Nahmani's teaching—the blessing read into the supple reed—launches the massekhet into a related story, which also exposes a fissure between exterior appearance and interior reality.267 The narrative recounts: The Rabbis taught: An account of Rabbi 3Elecazar ben Shimcon,268 when he came from the house of his teacher at Migdal-Geder. He was riding upon a 267

In the printed Vilna edition, the narrative begins with a repetition of thefinalteaching: "The rabbis taught: a person should always be supple as a reed, not hard as a cedar." The translations in this dissertation follow Malter's critical edition and thus do not include this statement, which is missing from most manuscripts. Herzl and Balfour Hakak argue that the repetition in the printed edition functions as a bridge between Rav Yehudah's teaching and the story that follows, but is not original to the telling of the tale. For further discussion, see Herzl and Balfour Hakak, "R. 3Elecazar and the Ugly Man" [Hebrew] Sefer Zikharon: Ha-Rav Dr. Menahem Amnuel. (Ashdod, 1996), 137-140. 268 The Vilna edition has the name of the protagonist as R. 3Elecazar ben Shimcon, while all other manuscripts in Malter's critical edition have the sage's name as R. Shimcon ben 3Elecazar. Henry Malter, The Treatise Tacanit of the Babylonian Talmud. [Hebrew critical edition] (New York: The American Academy for Jewish Research, 1930), 80. Because of the prevalence of the Vilna edition and the literature on this narrative which treats R. 3Elecazar as the protagonist, I have chosen to follow the printed edition in this case. Daniel Boyarin notes a potential parallel between the action of the rabbi in this tale with R. 3Elecazar ben Shim'on in Baba Metsia 83a-85a, who has a man hanged for insulting him—likely on account of his fat body. The association between these two narratives may account for the printed edition's variant which identifies the protagonist of this tale as R. 3Elecazar. See Boyarin's discussion in Daniel Boyarin, "Literary Fat Rabbis: On the Historical Origins of the Grotesque Body." Journal of the History of Sexuality 1:4. (April 1991): 551 -5 84; and further discussion of the same

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donkey, traveling along the shore, and he was very happy for he had learned much Torah. He encountered a man who was extremely ugly. He said to him, "Empty one! [Raqah] Let not all the people of your city be ugly like you!"269 In their reading of the narrative, Herzl and Balfour Hakak emphasize the contrast between R. 5Elecazar's mental state and the expected behavior of a sage leaving the house of his teacher. They suggest that in contrast to 3Elecazar's joy and pride, we would expect a student departing his teacher's house to be humble in spirit and aware of his own lack of knowledge.270 R. 3Elecazar's pride leads him to "read" the man he meets as empty of wisdom, but significantly for our purposes, this perception comes not through observation of the man's deeds or actions, but through the interpretation of his physical body. When R. 3Elecazar insults the man he meets as a raqah, he equates the man's ugliness with worthlessness, reading his physical form as an indicator that the man is an empty fool. While 3Elecazar is filled with Torah, the man he meets appears to have nothing within him. When the man replies, his first words reveal to the reader—and the rabbi who insulted him—the impropriety of the reading:

narrative in Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct: The Rise ofHeterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), chapter 2. 269 bTa'anit 20a-b. 270 Hakak, "R. 'Ele'azar and the Ugly Man" [Hebrew], 141.

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"Go and say to the artist who made me, 'How ugly is this vessel you have made!'" When ['Ele'azar] realized that he had transgressed, he came down from his donkey and prostrated himself before him and said to him, "I humble myself [nacaaiti] before you. Forgive me." The man's retort pierces R. 3Elecazar's hauteur and undercuts his presumed wisdom. By directing 3Elecazar's complaint to God—the Artisan who crafted creation—the ugly man shows up the sage and thrusts the shame back upon the speaker. By referring to himself as a vessel, the man also establishes the distinction between form and content that 3Elecazar's insult elided. His words articulate a separation between inner substance and outer appearance, between the container and its contents. In response, the word that 3Elecazar uses for "humble myself comes from the same root as the word for fasting—a kind of voluntary afflicting of the self. As I discussed in the third chapter, many of the ritual actions surrounding this intention are marked by a desire to manifest through the body an inner awareness of disjuncture and an internal sense of shame or regret. The act of fasting, like the humbling 3Elecazar engages in here, involves a visible manifestation of an inner experience—bringing the interior out into public view. 3Elecazar's descent from his donkey and his prostration make manifest the emotional change—the recognition of his own transgression.

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Despite 3Elecazar's descent, prostration, and recognition of the wrong, the man 3

Elecazar insulted refuses to grant the sage immediate forgiveness: He said to him, "I will not forgive you until you go to the artist who made me and say to him, 'How ugly is this vessel you have made.'" He followed after him until he came to his city. When they came to his city, the people of the city came forth and they said to him, "Greetings to you, Rabbi." He said to them: "Who are you calling Rabbi?" They said to him, "To the one who follows after you." He said to them: If this is a Rabbi, let there not be more like him in Israel."271

5

Elecazar follows after the man he wronged, presumably unable (or unwilling) to speak

the required words to God. When they come to the man's city, the people greet the sage with a title of reverence—and the wronged man responds with surprise and disdain. His response highlights a second disjuncture between perception and reality. The very phrase he uses to scorn the rabbi's title is reminiscent of 3Elecazar's earlier insult—only these words strike the reader as more on the mark. The textual crowd, however, protests the charge: They said to him, "Heaven forbid! What did he do to you?" He said to them: "Such and such did he do to me." They said to him: "Nevertheless, forgive him for the man is great in Torah." He said to him: "Very well. I will forgive him, but only on condition that it not be his habit to do this." Immediately, R. 3

Elecazar entered the study house and expounded: "A person should be supple

bTa'anit 20b.

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as a reed, not hard as a cedar. Therefore the reed merits that it be used as a quill to write Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzoV212 In the dialogue that follows, the man makes 3Elecazar's insult and resulting disgrace known to the community—and the community asks for his forgiveness. What 3

Elecazar could not do before God, the man does for him before the community. The

forgiveness catapults 'Ele'azar back into the realm of wisdom—and he teaches a piece of Torah that emphasizes the strength of one who can bend. Read one way, his teaching offers an ethical maxim with a somewhat self-congratulatory note: Though he began the tale as a haughty man, he made himself like the reed who bent before the man he insulted, rather than the cedar who refused to bow. But read slant, 3Elecazar's reed could also be the overman—the wronged one who withdrew his demand that the sage insult God, who relented his first words and offered forgiveness. At the close of the tale, then, that man—that supple reed—likewise becomes an instrument of writing Torah: the empty one now revealed as full of wisdom.

bTacanit 20b.

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Brilliant Wisdom in an Ugly Vessel: The "Reliability" of the Body In Massekhet Tacanit, the interpretation of bodies serves as an important site to raise cultural and theological uncertainties regarding whether appearance can definitively bespeak meaning. In the first chapter of Massekhet Tacanit, the incongruence between inner reality and outer appearance appears via a teaching by R. 5

Oshcaya, regarding a comparison between the Torah and three substances which are

fit to drink only if they are stored in humble vessels. Rabbi 3Oshcaya's initial teaching maintains that the external container (whether a wineskin or a body) is in inverse proportion to the value of the substance within: R. 5Oshcaya said: Why are the words of Torah compared to these three drinks: to water and to wine and to milk, as it is written, Oh, all who are thirsty, go to water (Isaiah 55:1). Of wine and milk it is written, Those who have no money, let them buy and eat. Let them buy without money, wine and milk without cost (Isaiah 55:1). To say to you that just as these three drinks cannot endure except in lesser vessels, so too the words of Torah cannot endure except in one whose self is humble. In the final form of the massekhet, Rabbi 5Oshcaya's teaching abuts a story of R. Yehoshua ben Hananya and the daughter of Caesar, a narrative that Daniel Boyarin argues thematizes a cultural conflict regarding the classical principle that a beautiful body indicates a beautiful spirit:

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Thus the daughter of Caesar said to R. Yehoshua ben Hananya: "What fancy wisdom in such an ugly vessel." He said to her: "And you—the daughter of one who puts wine in vessels of clay!" She said to him: "Instead of that, in what should he put it?" He said to her: "You important folks should put it in vessels of gold and silver!" She went and she said as much to her father, who put the wine in vessels of gold and silver. The wine became sour. They said to him, "Why did you say this to us?" He said to them, "Just as she spoke to me, so I spoke to her." They said to him: "But there are beautiful learned people!" He said to them: "If they were uglier, they would be more learned."273 In Boyarin's reading of this narrative, the daughter of Caesar expresses an important Hellenistic cultural topos, the idea of the body as a reliable signifier of the soul and can be read as "an index of the state of the person."274 Boyarin maintains that while Palestinian rabbinic texts often demonstrate an acceptance of this classical principle, Babylonian rabbinic culture contested this conception of the body. "The talmudic story," Boyarin argues, "not only contests that beauty of body is an ideal and an enhancement to moral beauty and wisdom, but, indeed, goes so far as to suggest that there is a contradiction between physical and spiritual excellence."275 Through his encounter with the daughter of Caesar, R. Yehoshua reveals the vanity of the princess's interest in surface beauty. Through his own leading language,

bTa'anit 7a-b. Boyarin, "Literary Fat Rabbis," 574-6. Ibid., 576. 206

where he implies that real nobles would keep their wine in more noble vessels, Yehoshua convinces the daughter and her father to transfer their wine to a container that fits their station—and ultimately, turns it unpalatable and sour. As the tale unfolds and R. Yehoshua proves his point, we see that Caesar and his daughter resist the potential of appearance to contradict reality. As Boyarin has noted, "this tension between the body as an index of the quality of the person or not is thematized explicitly as a conflict between Jewish and Hellenistic cultures."276 Set into the broader context of Massekhet Tacanit's construction of a tension between the revealed and the concealed, the story—and the preceding teaching from R. 3Oshcaya—suggests that, alongside the misperceptions of the royal family, the rabbis themselves also fail to perceive the heart of the matter. Unlike R. 'Ele'azar, whose encounter with the ugly man revealed the body to be a fundamentally unreliable witness, Caesar and his daughter never internalize this incongruence between inner and outer reality. They protest that there are beautiful people who are also learned, to which R. Yehoshua retorts that they would have been more learned, if they were ugly. Yet R. Yehoshua's response turns the contrast between inner and outer reality into a

276

Ibid., 575.

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diametric opposition, where ugliness lies in perfectly inverse relationship to learning. Similarly, R. 3Oshcaya's original teaching underscores the principle that a "humble" body intensifies wisdom and serves as the only fit housing for Torah. In the rabbis' reading, appearance still reveals—just not what Romans and readers expect. Neither the sages nor the Caesar prove able to acknowledge an exterior that might conceal blessing within it.

Reading the Suffering Body: The Contested Meanings of Nahum 3Ish Gamzo A similar disjunctive in perception marks the narrative of Nahum 'Ish Gamzo, in which the sage himself and his disciples read quite differently the meaning and significance of Nahum's profoundly disabled body. The Talmud initially describes Nahum through explicit physical suffering—depicting a body and being brought to the outer bounds of experience. In our initial encounter with the sage, Nahum's body is centered, constructing the whole of his textual reality. Even his bed, the site in which he lies—is assailed by ants against which the man would be helpless: They said regarding Nahum, the man of Gamzo, that he was blind in both eyes, withered in both hands, and lame in both legs, that his entire body was filled with sores, and that his bed stood in four basins of water lest the ants ascend upon it. 208

Once, he was lying in bed in a rickety house and his disciples sought to remove him from it. He said to them: "Take out the vessels and afterward, take out the bed, for the whole while that my bed is within this house, you can be assured that the house will not collapse." They took out the vessels, and afterward, they took out his bed. Immediately, the house collapsed.277 Nahum's tale appears in the midst of a series of "collapse" narratives—where we see rabbis stabilize rickety buildings and prevent houses from falling down through the power of their merit and moral force. Mentioned in the Mishnah as one of the crises for which a city may immediately fast, the text assumes that collapse is not a neutral danger that results from poor building or ordinary misfortune. Rather, collapse as read by the rabbis becomes a moral sign, a reflection of more profound instability. Collapse becomes a sign that God has torn down, an indication that the built can no longer stand. In her discussion of a similar motif in Massekhet Ketubot, Dina Stein reads a tale of a rabbi who holds up a falling house as symbolic of the larger rabbinic project. Rabbinic discourse, Stein argues, "echoes the foundational moment of its emergence."278 The rabbis are writing in the shadow of the ultimate collapse, the destruction of the Temple. Amidst this world of collapsing structures, the rabbis

277

bTacanit 21a.

278

Dina Stein, "Collapsing Structures: Rabbinic Discourse and the Destruction of the Temple."

Unpublished manuscript.

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themselves become physical embodiments of Torah—and envision themselves as the pillars of the world, able to shore up the crumbling world and keep the house from caving in. In our narrative, Nahum evokes this motif—becoming the rabbinic strongman who can sustain the rickety house. Yet the text juxtaposes his manifest power to prevent collapse and the moral strength that action implies with a body that his disciples read as marked by weakness and suffering wrought by God. The narrative continues with a telling question: "[His disciples said to him: "Teacher! Since you are a complete righteous man [zadiq gamuf\, why has all this come upon you?" He said to them: "I did it to myself. Once, I was journeying to the house of my father-in-law and I had with me three laden donkeys, one with food, one with wine, and one with all sorts of fine things. A man appeared before me and said to me: Teacher, sustain me!" I said to him: "Wait until I get down from my donkey." After I got down, I found that he had died.279 The disciples' question makes explicit their reading of Nahum's physical experience. Nahum's status as a zadiq has just been confirmed by the house which crumbled as soon as his sustaining body was withdrawn. But the disciples cannot reconcile the tension of the story—that the profoundly disabled body of their teacher, which cannot 279

bTa c anit21a.

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even slap away the ants, has the power to hold up houses. The negative moral valence that the disciples associated with Nahum's bodily loss collides with the intense sustaining power of Nahum's body. The affliction they read into their teacher's physical experience is belied by the house that does not fall. Nahum's own response constructs for the reader a recalled image of a man blessed by abundance—a man whose laden donkeys bespeak wealth and good fortune. The opening of Nahum's tale leads the reader to expect the common motif of a rich man's indifference to the plight of the poor, where God brings suffering to the wealthy and comfortable man, on account of his failure to respond to the suffering of the indigent. On first encounter, Nahum's first words, "I did it to myself seem the rueful assessment of a man who realizes his own actions or his own moral failings have brought suffering upon him. But the text sets up a disjuncture between Nahum's selfperception and the "facts" of the tale as a reader perceives it. Nahum tells his own tale according to the trope of the rich man indifferent to another's suffering. "Wait until I get down from my donkey," he says, as though this was an unconscionable delay. His narration encourages the reader to see him as a haughty man brought low by God. But he isn 't a haughty man. Nahum is a man who got down from his donkey

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immediately to answer a poor man's plea. He is the sage who stopped to sustain the starving man, who took to heart the beggar's words and internalized the moral meaning of the commonly-told tale. The presence of the reader as an intentional and significant player in the construction of narrative meaning and the "completion" of texts has been of central importance in literary theory of the past decades. Wolfgang Iser, an important theoretician of the role of the reader in creating a text, argues that readers of all texts must help create their meaning by concretizing the "blanks" in a narrative, filling in the gaps and closing the indeterminate spaces in a text.280 While Iser emphasizes that all texts have these blanks, the very ambiguity of talmudic narrative and its terse literary style allows the massekhet particular room to play with reader expectation, as different parties within the text and beyond it close these narrative "blanks" in different ways. The gaps that appear between what a reader knows and believes and what different characters see and understand allow the massekhet to explore more

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Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978) For a helpful discussion of reception theorists and Iser's work, see Robert Holub, Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction. (New York: Methuen, 1984)

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trenchantly the wisdom andfrailtiesof its protagonists, as well as the expectations and "mistakes" of its readers. In our tale, Nahum's own interpretative choices intensify when, despite the sage's (potentially) righteous action, the poor man died before him. This death might be read as a profound and ironic misfortune or even as a critique against a God who would lead a starving man to the site of his rescue only to have him drop dead on the brink of mercy. But Nahum reads this death as a condemnation of his own self: I threw myself down upon him and I said: "My eyes which did not have mercy on your eyes, may they become blind. My hands, which did not have mercy upon your hands, let them wither. My feet, which did not have mercy upon your feet, let them become lame." But my mind was not set to rest until I said, "May my entire body become covered with sores."281 Nahum paints himself as a merciless man and imposes on himself a bodily experience that visibly inscribes his perceived ethical failings. He becomes the man who cannot see suffering, the man who cannot stretch out his hand to his fellow, the man who cannot run to help another. He rues so profoundly his own inability to sustain the poor man that he speaks sores into being—marking himself as a man who knows great pain. He cures the grave turmoil of his mind through a self-imposed weakening of his

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body. The intentional disabling of his body perversely affirms his own power. Nahum has articulated his own moral force, his own righteousness through the very signs his disciples read as moral weakness. Nahum's disciples cannot encompass the gulf between their perception and Nahum's reality. Their response fails to grasp the disjuncture that lies between the apparent meaning they first saw and the inner truth the sage reveals: They said: "Woe to us that we have seen you in such straits." He said to them: "Woe to me if you had not seen me in such straits."282 Their hesitancy to have seen the sage in his distress collides with Nahum's need to be seen, with his desire to manifest the complexity of his body's testimony. When Nahum finishes his tale, his original statement has been transformed. "I did it to myself has turned from an assessment of regret in which Nahum was a rich man who cared naught for the misery of a poor man—into a claim of causative and moral power. "I did it to myself," Nahum claims, destabilizing the disciples' first assumption that God has marked his body. Instead, it is Nahum who changed his own body, who refashioned his own self. Though his disciples read that refashioning as a mark of failure or even divine disapproval, Nahum claims his remade body as a site of 282

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profound power and acute sensitivity. His body, which seemed irreconcilable with his status as righteous man, becomes the site of empathetic suffering. Nahum's body serves as the very manifestation of his righteousness—a claim that is bolstered by his ability to sustain through bodily presence and spiritual efficacy the crumbling edifice of his own house.

Performative Perception: Nahum and the Manifestation of Blessing In the second tale of Nahum 3Ish Gamzo, the performative character of Nahum's perception of reality vis-a-vis his own body is writ large via his ability to draw forth blessing from the midst of disaster. The narrative begins with an etymology of Nahum's name that underscores his ability to perceive good in all things: Why did they call him Nahum, the man of Gamzo? Because everything that happened to him, he would say, "this too (gam zo) is for the good." One time, the Rabbis wanted to send a gift to Caesar. They said, "With whom shall we send it?" "Let us send it with Nahum, the man of Gamzo, for he is learned in miracles." They sent it through him. He came to a certain inn. They arose in the night and took everything that was in the chest and replaced it with dust. When he arrived there, he unbound his chest and he saw that it was filled with dust.

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Caesar said, "The Jews are mocking me!" He gave the order to have him killed. He said, "This too is for the good."283 The narrative presents Nahum as a man "learned in miracles," able to accompany the gift of the Jews through potentially dangerous waters. When Nahum overnights at an inn and the inhabitants replace the treasure with dust, he innocently presents his gift to Caesar. Enraged by what he perceives as mockery, Caesar decrees Nahum's execution, a statement the sage meets with his characteristic affirmation that this apparently disastrous occurrence "is for the good." Nahum's assessment of the situation as marked by a good that no one else can perceive draws forth the prophet's presence. As though summoned by Nahum's words, the prophet Elijah appears: Elijah came and appeared to him like one of them. He said to him, "Perhaps this dust is part of the dust of Abraham their father, for when Abraham threw it, it became swords; straw and it became arrows, as it is written: His sword makes them like dust; his bow, the c6aiT(Isaiah 41:2). There was a certain state that they had not been able to conquer. They tested some of it against it and they conquered it. He took him to his treasury and filled his chest with precious stones and pearls and sent him back with great honor.284

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Elijah's appearance is tantalizingly ambiguous, in this tale marked by the importance of perception and appearance. Elijah appears to Caesar as one of his subjects— dressed like one of them. To Nahum (or perhaps to the talmudic storyteller), he appears transparently as the prophet who may yet draw forth rescue from disaster. Once the words of the prophet disguised as advisor have been attested and the dust revealed not as an insult but as the ultimate gift, Caesar sends Nahum back with a great treasure: When he came to that same inn, they said to him, "What did you bring to the house of the king that they treated you with such honor?" He said to them, "What I took from here, I arrived with there." So [the inhabitants of the town] also brought some of the dust [to Caesar. The Romans] tested some of it and it did not become swords and arrows. So they killed the inhabitants. When the inhabitants who tricked Nahum and defrauded him at the outset see the sage return with profound riches, they revise their original knowledge of the worthless nature of the gift in light of what they think they see. They must know that the tangible object Nahum carried to Caesar was, in spite of his intentions, worthless in a physical sense. Yet the inhabitants fail to grasp that something inherent in Nahum himself might have transformed the dust into something more. Instead, fixed on the possibility that they might have inadvertently given away dust the emperor treasured

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more than pearls and gems, they attempt to repeat Nahum's trick and find themselves facing his original punishment. Without the ability to see good in the midst of misfortune or perceive their gift as more than ordinary dust, the inhabitants cannot spare themselves from Caesar's wrath. In her Tales of the Neighborhood, Galit Hasan-Rokem analyzes a tale from Leviticus Rabba from the same family of tales, involving an old man rewarded for bringing a basket of figs to the emperor Hadrian and his neighbor who is punished for the same action. Hasan-Rokem characterizes the tale as one in which "the ingenuous individual is rewarded far beyond his expectations. When this becomes known, somebody less innocent tries to capitalize on it by mimicking the previous person's acts, but the wisdom of the emperor reveals the stratagem, and the frauds are punished and physically humiliated in public."285 The Nahum tale, however, is marked by a subtle but significant deviation. In Nahum's encounter with Caesar, Caesar himself does not function as the wise figure. He "recognizes" the bounty of Nahum's gift only when he is prodded by Elijah. Nor does he recognize the fraudulent nature of the inhabitants, until he tests their dirt and finds it does not work as promised. Instead, 285

Galit Hasan-Rokem. Tales of the Neighborhood: Jewish Narrative Dialogues in Late Antiquity. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 135.

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Nahum stands as the one who sees the greed of the inhabitants and answers them with an enigmatic response that brings them their just reward. Likewise, in his own moment before the emperor, Nahum's learning with regard to miracles allows him to recognize the potential for good in the midst of disaster—and, by virtue of acute perception, actualize it as a salvific force.

The Uncertainty of Vision: The Elusive Dew The subtlety that marks the massekhet's discussion of interior reality and concealed nature contrasted with surface perception and visible manifestation leads to considerable uncertainty about the ability of rabbinic sages and others to grasp hidden meaning present in the world around them. The massekhet raises explicit questions about the visibility of "blessing" in its discussion of whether dew requires mention in liturgical prayer, as rain does. The initial answer—that dew need not be mentioned, because unlike rain, dew can never be withheld—is challenged by the reference to the biblical Elijah's pronouncement that he would withhold both the rain and the dew as a sign of Ahab's disfavor: From where do we know that dew is not withheld? As it is written: Elijah the Tishabite, one of the residents ofGilead, said to Ahab, "As God the God of 219

Israel lives, before whom I stand, there will be no dew and rain in these years, except according to my word. " (1 Kings 17:1) And it is written, Go, appear to Ahab and I will give rain to the face of the land (1 Kings 18:1) There, dew is not spoken of. What is the reason? Because dew is never withheld! But if dew is never withheld, why did Elijah swear by it? In order to say this to you: Even the dew of blessing would also not come [during the years of drought.] So let him go back [and restore it, once the drought has lifted!] It is not a recognizable thing.286 The massekhet contrasts the first verse, in which Elijah foretells the absence of both dew and rain, with God's instruction to return to Ahab and announce the coming of rain. The text asserts that dew is not mentioned in this second verse in order to teach that dew is never withheld. But a second voice counters this assertion, asking then why Elijah mentioned the absence of dew in the first verse. The Gemara reads the contradiction in these two verses as an indication of two different types of dew—an ordinary dew which remained present throughout the drought and a dew of blessing which God withheld from Ahab. When the first speaker suggests sharply that Elijah (or God) should have mentioned the restoration of this blessed dew, the Gemara teaches that the dew of blessing "is not a recognizable thing." Elijah did not speak of the dew's restoration, the text suggests, out of anxiety that Ahab might not have noticed the absence of this intangible, blessed dew. Implicit in the discussion of 286

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Ahab's failure to notice lurks a larger potential failure of the sages as well: a feared inability to perceive that which is elusive, to note the difference between the blessed dew and the ordinary dew, even to miss the first when it is gone. In Massekhet Tacanit, the attention paid to hidden, concealed meanings suggests a profound interest in the interiority of experience. The tension between the revealed and the concealed allows the massekhet to probe the presence of a deeper blessing that might lie unnoticed in a situation that appears marked by danger or despair. It allows the text to raise questions about what the body reveals, but also what the body cannot tell: the silences and inscrutable messages, the meanings that are misperceived—sometimes with disastrous consequences. By destabilizing the apparent signs of outer blessing, the massekhet allows the reader to question apparent relationships between bounty and blessedness, between the outer experience of the world's goodness and the actual experience of connection with the Holy. Though the texts often figure the rabbis as preeminent readers of the body and the world— emphasizing the ability of certain sages to the penetrate the surface of things and perceive the reallyreal, the narratives also contain a self-interrogating discourse that

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dismantles the juxtaposition between Jew and non-Jew—between rabbinic knowledge and the knowledge of outsiders. The massekhet does not construct the rabbi as the one who knows, over and against the non-rabbinic figure who cannot or does not see the truth. The figure of the rabbi who cannot perceive the hidden truth that lies before his eyes is just as important for our narratives as the model of the rabbi who can peer beyond the lattices and glimpse a more secret terrain. Yet for those who can, for those few who recognize the hidden meanings at the heart of things and interpret the inner meaning of the signs of rain or the signs of the body, that perception also has a transformative component. Their astute perception allows the true-seeing sages to bring forth meaning through this acute vision: turning the body into a powerful, moral sign, transforming latent possibility into manifest goodness, or refashioning the marks of suffering into a site and sign of blessing. Kin to the rabbinic discourse of divine word that requires interpretation, the world at large becomes a sacred site that requires reading. Through several rabbinic and non-rabbinic figures for whom initial appearance definitively scripts inner reality and whose surface readings lead them into trouble, Massekhet Tacanit crafts a

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hermeneutical space between perception and comprehension, between the external message and the interior meaning. This gap becomes a critical site for performing interpretation and revealing ultimate meaning. Yet the massekhet does not use this site to champion the reading of the rabbis as a class, to construct an image of rabbinic interpretative excellence over and against the non-rabbinic or non-Jewish readers of the world. Instead, the rabbi who cannot (yet) read becomes an important figure in articulating the tension between the revealed and the concealed, a vital performer who illuminates both the dangers and promises of interpreting the signs of the world. Rather than envisioning interpretation as a finite, bounded task, safely entrusted to able sages who undertake it with ultimate confidence, the massekhet imagines a rabbinic class that can glimpse but not possess, a rabbinic class whose primary interpretive task might fail them at any moment. By setting the rabbi who knows alongside the rabbi still baffled by interior meaning, Massekhet Tacanit highlights the uncertainty inherent in creation's witness to intention of its Creator—figuring the sages as unfinished readers, still striving after the elusive and essential testimony of the world in which they live.

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Chapter 7

The Contours of Scarcity and Abundance: Complex Meanings and Gendered Contestations of Merit, Miracle, & Poverty

The basic theological premise of fasting as articulated in Massekhet Tacanit asserts a positive link between prosperity and divine favor. The reading of abundance as a sign of God's blessing seems implicit in the construction of rainfall as an expression of good relations between God and Israel. In a world where rain comes as a sign of God's power and presence, the flowering of the earth and the sating of human needs provides not only the tangible benefit of a full belly and a well-stocked larder, but the assurance of divine love made manifest through the bounty of the table. At several points, Massekhet Tacanit affirms this assumption—recapitulating the premise articulated both in biblical literature and earlier rabbinic texts that ethical action will lead to divine reward. Yet the massekhet also situates radical poverty as a potential marker of particular intimacy with God—through a series of tales whose protagonists reject the bounty of divine miracles and through the figure of Hanina ben

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Dosa, whose indifference to earthly provisions frees him from the vulnerable existence of the rest of the human community. Hanina's ability to be sustained almost entirely through his relationship with the Divine allows him, in the massekhet's estimation, to sustain the entire world. As Massekhet Tacanit unfolds its tales of Hanina, the charismatic's intense poverty is challenged in the intimate sphere of his family— contested by his wife, who suffers for the privation the sage seems to prize. While the previous chapter analyzed the massekhet's uncertainty regarding the capacity of rabbinic sages to perceive hidden meaning, this chapter examines a similar self-critical discourse about the reliability of rabbinic merit. At several key junctures, Massekhet Tacanit deploys women and non-rabbinic men to puncture the facile association between rabbinic status and salvific merit, as well as to trouble its own assertions regarding the "blessedness" of poverty. In his important work on suffering in rabbinic literature, David Kraemer has called attention to the particular daring of the Babylonian Talmud with regard to questions of suffering. Kraemer characterizes the Bavli as a text that affirms and recovers a full range of biblical models of suffering that were apparently rejected or deemphasized by earlier rabbinic texts—Job's questioning of God's justice, for

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example, or Ecclesiastes' sense of meaningless suffering—and expresses these theological responses in its own idiom and voice.287 Though earlier texts in the rabbinic corpus have begun wrestling with the problems of suffering, Kraemer suggests that "it is the Bavli which, characteristically, gives voice to the fullest range of explanations and responses, and allows for even the most radical expression of questioning or doubt."288 Taking issue with Jacob Neusner's claim that the Bavli speaks with a "single, uniform, consistent, monotonous voice," Kramer instead argues that the Babylonian Talmud represents "a discourse composed of multiple voices in which the multiplicity of those voices is not lost."289 Calling attention to the Babylonian Talmud's sharp juxtapositions of multiple, even opposing opinions, Kraemer concludes that "if we had to characterize the Bavli's position on these matters in 'a single voice,' we would be restricted to saying 'the Bavli deems it legitimate to respond in diverse ways to one's suffering.'"290 Building upon Kraemer's assessment, this chapter demonstrates how Massekhet Tacanit sets

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David Kraemer, Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 207. For Kraemer's discussion of the different biblical paradigms of suffering and its meanings, see his second chapter. 288 Ibid., 213. 289 Ibid., 220. 290 Ibid., 221.

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conflicting portrayals of scarcity and suffering into complex relationship and explores the particular methods by which Massekhet Tacanit accomplishes this polyphony regarding suffering, as well as the intertwined issues of merit and miracle. In Massekhet Tacanit, the Stam breaks open theological questions of suffering and meaning through provocative juxtapositions of aggadic narratives regarding scarcity and abundance, through masterful use of the massekhet's discourse of a concealed, interior truth that belies surface assumptions, and through critical use of gender and class difference to articulate the problematics of scarcity and merited miracle—as well as to expose the philosophical and psychological rifts between the massekhet's different theological voices.

Human Merit & Divine Favor: The Salvific Power of Ethical Action The idea that human actions bring about divine response underlies the very premise of fasting in Massekhet Tacanit. The concept of drought as punishment for transgression finds expression via the textual presentation of the fasting ritual, through the Mishnah's description of communal exhortation to right action and its instruction that a community whose fasts have gone unanswered should comport themselves "like

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a people rebuked by God."291 Massekhet Tacanit gives repeated and explicit voice to this theology via biblical citation and interpretation. The classic passage in Deuteronomy 11:13-17, for example, links timely rain with obedience to God's command and a "shut heaven" with idolatry and disobedience. The concept that fasting practice and human deeds have the power to ameliorate drought also underlies the deployment of Jonah 3:10 and the emphasis in the Mishnah's interpretation that God relented the harsh decree after seeing "the deeds" of the people of Nineveh, not simply their sackcloth.292 In the third chapter of Massekhet Ta'anit, this link between meritorious action and divine reward emerges as a social and spiritual force that profoundly affects individual and communal safety and well-being, beyond the realm of rain. The rabbinic conception of merit {zekhut) suggests a particular link between good deeds or personal virtue and God's reward to the righteous. Describing the concept of merit in rabbinic thought, Marmorstein writes, "Men and women can rise by positive deeds to such a height of moral beauty, virtue, and accomplishment, in spite of their natural

mTacanit 2:1; mTacanit 1:7. mTa'anit 2:1.

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shortcoming and innate faults, that they are regarded as meritorious by God."293 Marmorstein articulates zekhut as a causative element, a characteristic that explicitly influences a person's life and fortune. In contrast to sin, transgression, and guilt, zekhut is "influential in opposite directions on the life and justification of men."294 Merit brings reward, while sin causes calamity—though Marmorstein acknowledges that a strand of rabbinic theology regarded the rewards brought about by merit to be solely expressed in the world to come, rather than in the earthly realm.295 Massekhet Tacanit engages the question of merit most explicitly in the narratives of sages who prevent collapse. In the previous chapter, I examined the figure of the sustaining sage who possesses the moral force to hold up houses, through the tale of Nahum 3Ish Gamzo. By creating a distinction between "collapsing" structures and rickety houses or poorly built buildings that might reasonably fall of their own accord, the massekhet begins with a reading of the Mishnah that emphasizes the intentional, meaningful nature of collapse: Likewise, a city in which there is plague or collapse, [that same city should fast and sound the shofar, and all surrounding cities should fast and not sound the 293

A. Marmorstein, The Doctrine of Merits in Old Rabbinical Literature. (London: Jews' College, 1920; reprint, New York: Ktav, 1968), 3. Page citations are to the reprint edition. 294 Ibid., 8. 295 Ibid., 34.

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shofar...] It was taught: A collapse is spoken of, in which sound ones collapse and not rickety ones; those which are not likely to fall and not those which are liable to fall in. There are 'sound ones' and 'not likely to fall' and there are 'rickety ones' and 'likely to fall.' [All these terms] are not necessary! [Yes, they are.] For some fall because of their height or also because they were on a river bank.296 Here, the Mishnah distinguishes between ordinary collapse and a collapse that has meaning—the sort of moral collapse indicated when well-built structures nevertheless cave in. Yet just after distinguishing between rickety and sound structures, in order to assert the collapse of the latter as the calamity of which the Mishnah speaks, the Gemara presents a rabbi whose merit will ensure the soundness of a poorly crafted wall. While the Mishnah was most interested in the crisis of collapse wherein sound buildings fall, the Gemara examines the power that sustains that which is fundamentally unstable. It positions rabbinic merit as a powerful force which can rescue a rickety structure—that which might be expected to collapse at any moment: A certain rickety wall was in Nehardeca and Rav and Shmu'el would not pass by it, even though it had stood in its place for thirteen years. One day, Rav 5

Ada bar ^Ahavah happened to be there. Shmu'el said to Rav, "Sir, let us go

around." He said to him, "It isn't necessary now. Rav 3Ada bar 3Ahavah is here. His merit is great and I am not afraid."297

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Because of Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah's merit, Shmu'el feels secure in altering his customary practice of avoiding an unstable wall. He relies upon Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah's presence to prevent collapse and thereby keep him safe. Despite Shmu'el's confidence, however, Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah's power remains inconclusive. Shmu'el may attribute its failure to fall at this moment to Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah's presence, but his theology of merit cannot fully encompass the fact that the rickety wall has stood, despite apparent imminent collapse, for thirteen years. The next narrative affirms Rav 'Ada3 bar 'Ahavah's actual power to prevent collapse, but challenges the ethics of Shmu'el's decision to employ the sage as a sustaining force. The massekhet continues: Rav Huna had wine in his rickety house. He wanted to remove it. He engaged Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah in Torah discourse, while the wine was being removed. After they left, the house collapsed. Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah began trembling and became angry. He said: "Isn't this like that of Rabbi Yan'ai? As Rabbi Yan'ai said: A person should never stand in a place of danger and say 'A miracle will be done for me,' lest a miracle not be done for him. And if a miracle is done for him from his merits, Rabbi Hanin said: What is written? / am made small from all the goodness [qatonti mikol hahasidim] and from all the truth. (Genesis 32: ll) 298

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Through the character of Rav 5Ada, Massekhet Tacanit affirms the salvific power of individual merit. Rav 3Ada, the sage whose presence in the city allows Rav and Shmu'el to travel beneath a rickety wall they had previously avoided for fear of collapse, holds up dilapidated walls and houses on the strength of moral character alone. But while this second tale affirms the force of the sage, it also suggests that this merited power cannot afford reliable security. Suggesting that an intentional "use" of merit will diminish the Rav 3Ada bar 3Ahavah, this tale rebukes the sages for relying upon merit to protect them and emphasizes that one should not rely upon merit for rescue. Shaken and incensed that his own life was risked for the security of Rav Huna's wine, Rav 'Ada brings forth a teaching of R. Yan'ai that emphasizes the fundamentally unassured nature of miracle. But beyond the simple danger of "relying upon a miracle," the narrative asserts that the very experience of miracle—even on account of merit—will cost the sage dearly. Based on his interpretation of a biblical verse that suggests a person is made small'by all the kindness that God shows them, Rav Hanin suggests that having a miracle done on one's behalf actually reduces a

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person's merit in the world to come.299 Here, the massekhet implies that miracles come from a limited store, that by relying upon this miracle, Rav 'Ada has lost something—a theme it will return to in other narratives. Having raised several tensions about the moral force effected by Rav 'Ada's merits, Massekhet Tacanit then goes on to clarify the source of Rav 'Ada's spiritual power—the deeds which have granted him this capacity: What were the deeds of Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah? This is what they say: The students of Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah asked him: 'For what were your days lengthened?' He said to them: "In my days, I never lost my temper in my house, I did not step in front of one who was greater than I, I never pondered in dirty alleys, I never walked four cubits without Torah or tefillin, I did not sleep in the Beit Midrash, I did not take joy in another's misfortune, and I did not call my fellow by a nickname I gave him." And some say, "by a nickname others gave him."300 This accounting of the deeds of Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah underscores the relationship between meritorious action and with a long life. While Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah's deeds have no explicit connection to the thematic questions of poverty and abundance, the

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The verb qatontican mean both "I am small" and "I have become small." In the original biblical

context, the mem is read as a comparative, while the rabbinic reading considers it to be causitive, reflecting a diminishment in status on account of kindness. In its biblical setting, the verse appears as Jacob speaks to God: "I am unworthy of all the kindness that You have steadfastly shown your servant: with my staff alone I crossed this Jordan, now I have become two camps." (Genesis 32:11, JPS Translation) 300

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following narrative that details the meritorious deeds of Rav Huna centers the sage as an actor whose intervention attempts to rebalance the signs (and experiences) of poverty, abundance, and crumbling edifices: Raba said to Rafram bar Papa: Tell us, Sir, some of the good deeds that Rav Huna would do. He said to him: Of his youth, I don't recall. Of his elder days, I recall that on cloudy days, they carried him out in a sedan chair of gold and he would inspect the whole place. Every wall that was rickety, he would destroy it. If it was possible, the owner would (re)build it. If it was not, he would (re)build it from his own funds. Near the evening before Shabbat, he would send a representative to the market and every vegetable that was left over, he would buy it from the growers and throw it in the river. So let him give it to the poor! He said: Lest they rely upon it in the future. Let him throw it to the animals! But he maintained that food for humans was not food for animals. And to not buy it at all? It would cause their downfall [nimz}et makhshilan\ in times to come. When he had a healing remedy, he would fill a jug of water and hang it on the door-post of his house and say: "Everyone who needs, let him come and take." And there are those who say, he knew a remedy for the shibta (demon) and he would rest it upon a jug of water and hang it and say "Everyone who needs, let him use it against danger." When he was eating a meal, he would open his doors and say, "Everyone who needs, let him come and eat." [Raba] said to him, "All these I should be able to do, except for that one, because there are many soldiers in Mahoza."301 Quite like the previous text regarding Rav 'Ada bar 'Ahavah, this text seems to exemplify the link between deed and merit by detailing the particular good deeds of

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RavHuna. Yet the context of the narrative troubles that assumption. Rav Huna actually appears in the foregoing texts as the sage whose merit was insufficient to prop up his own house. When Rav Huna wanted to take his wine out of a rickety house, he had to call upon Rav 5Ada and engaging him in a disingenuous discussion of Torah while others rescued his wine. Within the narrative itself, the massekhet undercuts the meritorious nature of Rav Huna's apparent good deeds. Rafram bar Papa's description of the sage highlights his wealth, via the golden sedan chair, the willingness to underwrite the repair of crumbling walls, and the act of buying up unsold produce without consuming it. At this last turn, the anonymous voice questions the deeds of Rav Huna, problematizing the original depiction of the sage as a generous patron of the city. The image of the wealthy Rav Huna throwing away vegetables instead of offering them to the poor—or even to the animals—turns the sage, in the questioner's voice, into a man whose scruples keep him from an obvious act of charity. While the text eventually resolves Rav Huna's bizarre behavior as an act designed to insulate the poor from becoming dependent on charity, the growers from failing to bring their goods to market, and the animals from eating food not fit for them, the debate has cast a

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dubious light upon the sage's meritorious deeds. In the second part of the narrative, however, the massekhet highlights Rav Huna's generosity, as contrasted against Raba's inability to give to all who need. The thrice repeated phrase "everyone who needs let him take" depicts Rav Huna as the sage able to offer healing and food to those who lack, while Raba acknowledges his own inability to open his door and feed the hungry.

A Torah that Sustains?: Radical Poverty in Massekhet Ta'anit Despite its intense interest in the causes and consequences of drought and potential famine, Massekhet Tacanit offers surprisingly ambiguous answers about whether a meritorious life might include sustained and substantial poverty. Immediately after the account of Rav Huna's deeds, Massekhet Tacanit recounts the tale of Wa and Yohanan, two young sages who live in considerable privation: 'Ufa and Rabbi Yohanan were greatly pressed by poverty and said to each other: "Let us go and work a trade and thus fulfill through ourselves the verse: There shall be no needy in your midst. (Deut. 15:4) They went and sat underneath a certain rickety wall. As they were sharing bread, Rabbi Yohanan heard an angel who said to his companion: "Come, let us throw down the wall upon them and kill them, for they will neglect eternal life and busy themselves with the life of this hour." The other angel said: "Desist, for one of them has a fortuitous hour at hand." Rabbi Yohanan said to 3Ilfa: "Sir, did you hear 236

anything?" He said to him: "No." He said: "I learn from this that I must be the one who has a fortuitous hour at hand. I will return and go and fulfill the verse through myself: For the needy will never cease from the midst of the earth. (Deut. 15:11)302 At the outset of the narrative, W a and Yohanan's interpretation of scripture regarding their poverty sets the stage for their decision to leave a life of Torah and pursue a living in the world. They read a biblical verse as explicit instruction to leave behind the poverty of Torah study and "work a trade" so that they no longer number among the needy. Yet as they sit beneath a wall—not incidentally, this tale follows close on the heels of Rav and Shmu'ePs avoidance of the rickety wall and its renewed stability through the merit of Rav 'Ada—two angels come upon them and debate pushing the wall down on them, in punishment for abandoning their single-minded dedication to Torah. Yohanan overhears the conversation of the angels, in which an angel saves them because one of them has a propitious hour at hand. Yohanan hears, while 'Ufa fails to hear—and, as a result, he decides to pursue a life of Torah study, reinterpreting

bTacanit 21a.

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his understanding of Torah through the reading of a second biblical verse, one which suggests that a life of poverty can be in keeping with God's will.303 Yet when the men come together again at Yohanan's investiture, 'Ufa5 learns that he could have been crowned had he pursued the life of Torah: Before Tlfa came back to the city, Rabbi Yohanan was crowned by the academy. When 3Ilfa came, they said to him: "Sir, if you had sat and learned, he would not have been crowned, [but rather you.] He went and suspended himself from the mast of a ship and said, "Anyone who asks me a thing from the house of Rabbi Hiya or the house of Rabbi 3Oshcaya and I cannot clarify it from the Mishnah, I will throw myself from the mast and drown." An old man came and recited a baraita before him: "One who says, 'Give a shekel to my children per week,' and they see that the children require a sela (a coin of greater worth), they may give the children a sela. If he says, 'Do not give them more than a shekel,'' they cannot give them anything but a shekel. If he says, 'If they die, others will inherit in their place,' whether he said 'give them a shekel'ox ldo not give them more than a shekel, 'they do not give them more than a shekel." This [baraita] is in accordance with Rabbi Meir, for it is he who said, "It is a mizvah to fulfill the words of the dead [and the practice dictated by the baraita demonstrates close attention to the words of the deceased with regard to inheritance.]"304

303

David Levine regards this story as "an extreme example of the nexus of rabbis and holy men figures." He suggests that through the figure of Rabbi Yohanan, the narrative illustrates the (ideal) rabbinic life as one which requires a "unequivocal and absolute dedication to spirituality and religiosity—at the expense of integration into ordinary life," which he regards as a defining characteristic of late antique holy men and the life of spiritual virtuosity. David Levine, "Holy Men and Rabbis in Talmudic Antiquity," in Joshua Schwartz and Marcel Poorthuis. Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity. (New York: Brill, 2004), 53. 304 bTacanit21a.

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When 3Ilfa returns and is forced to confront the consequences of his choice (and interpretation of Torah), he suspends himself from the mast of a ship and challenges the onlookers that he will throw himself to his death if he cannot reconcile with the Mishnah any tradition they cite from the schools of two first generation Amoraim. By framing his challenge as a demonstration of his own learning, 'Ufa demonstrates his own refusal to accept the appropriateness of the apparent judgment against him and his life choices. He aims to demonstrate his own merit—merit that has been ironically affirmed by the words of the rest of the community. 'Ufa connects the baraita regarding inheritance to the Mishnah—though ironically, the statement of Rabbi Meir does not appear in the Mishnah at all.305 The massekhet may intend this to be read as a failure, or may have chosen these words of Rabbi Meir in order to further accentuate the symbolism of death and the power of the (rightly interpreted) word. Like the ambiguous interpretation of poverty, the people's acknowledgement that 'Ufa might have worn Rabbi Yohanan's crown endows the angels' words with retrospective uncertainty. Despite the "sign" Rabbi Yohanan perceived, the rest of the

305

Levine notes that the dictum ascribed to Rabbi Meir does not appear in the Mishnah or in the parallel version of this tale in the Palestinian Talmud, Ketubot 6:7 31a. In the Ketubot version, 'Ufa3 clarifies the traditions with an actual statement from the Mishnah. Levine, "Holy Men and Rabbis in Talmudic Antiquity," 56.

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community does not perceive his elevation to head of the academy as particular to his merits. 5Ilfa's failure to hear was not, we understand, evidence of intrinsic inner failure, nor was Yohanan's hearing a mark of basic superiority. Instead, Yohanan's rise to prominence occurred on account of an intense conjunction of his spiritual perception, his willingness to embrace a poverty that he had nearly rejected, and his capacity to reinterpret Torah in light of the hidden signs manifest through the angelic discourse. The fortuitous hour that appeared to rescue Rabbi Yohanan might actually have been intended for Wa—yet 'Ufa's failure to grasp the interpretation let the opportunity slip through his fingers. By contrast, Yohanan's reapplication of the angelic news—and the biblical verse—to his own circumstances drew him toward receiving the eventual crown. Tlfa's reaction to the news of his havruta's crowning brings the latent symbolic associations the earlier narrative forged between death and poverty to the surface. At the opening of the tale, the two young men were courting disaster by resting beneath the rickety wall, only barely being sustained by the promise of future meritorious Torah, debating whether they would be sustained more acutely through study or through labor. At the close of the narrative, 'Ufa confronts the capriciousness of the

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distinctions between them and threatens to take his own life, if he fails to demonstrate Torah wisdom. He suspends himself from the mast of a ship—hanging himself between life and death—and threatening to kill himself if he cannot demonstrate his own worthiness in the realm of Torah. Instead of contrasting himself against Rabbi Yohanan as the one who abandoned sacred study for worldly fortune, 5Ilfa attempts to articulate himself as a man who pursued both trade and Torah. His rescue comes from an old man who asks him to clarify the traditions regarding the sustenance of children, particularly whether the community may sustain the children at a rate greater than the actual words of their deceased father. The baraita asks whether a child who cannot be sustained with less might be permitted more from the father's estate, or whether sustaining the child with more coin will diminish the inheritance of others. The choice of this particular baraita—which has a certain symbolic parallel to 3

Ilfa's own life—allows the Stam to raise certain questions about the meaning of 'Ufa's

choices and circumstances. Like the children in the question at hand, 5Ilfa required greater sustenance than the heavenly Father originally allotted. If God provided the Torah-studying Yohanan and Tlfa with a mere shekel, the privation of the two young sages would make plain (at least in 'Ufa's eyes) that, as the baraita said, "the children

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require a sela" Yet the baraita itself poses a question: does W a (or the children) have the right to receive a shekel and nothing more, or might it be permissible to offer W a (or the children) a sela to meet his actual needs? In order words, was 3Ilfa's choice to leave the life of Torah and pursue "more than a shekeF an appropriate choice that fulfilled the wishes of his Father? Or was his decision to pursue a sela akin to overturning his Father's design? The circumstances of 3Ilfa's return—and the explicit crowning of Rabbi Yohanan in his stead—suggest the stricter interpretation of the case. Yet the spurious teaching of R. Meir brought as Wa's resolution of the baraita may actually affirm Wa's own choices. 5Ilfa himself underwent a (symbolic) death through his departure from the life of Torah—a death almost made tangible through the angels' near ruin of the wall. Upon hearing the news of his own unactualized potential, 3Ilfa once again faces a death—this time, more explicitly at his own hand. Yet the resolution that W a offers, by connecting the teaching with the words of Rabbi Meir, calls forth an obligation to "fulfill the words of the dead." 3Ilfa affirms the power of words spoken by the dead while he himself is on the brink of self-imposed death. Poised and ready to drown himself if his Torah goes unrecognized, Tlfa's assertion that the dead have

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powerful, significant speech that must be heeded (may) save him from an actual death and defuse the crisis. Though the massekhet leaves his fate unresolved, 'Ufa's willingness to pursue Torah in extremis—courting and this time surmounting the same fear of death or suffering that lead him to pursue a trade at the start of the tale—may now bring him back from the brink and restore him to life.

Carobs and the Golden Table: Hanina ben Dosa and his Wife on Poverty While Massekhet Tacanit presents both Yohanan and 3Ilfa as deeply concerned with poverty, the text portrays the charismatic Hanina ben Dosa with a contrasting indifference to the usual channels of human sustenance. Regarding Hanina ben Dosa, the massekhet teaches: "Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: every day, a batkol goes forth and says, 'The entire world is nourished on account of Hanina, my son; and Hanina my son—a kavof carob is enough for him from week to week."306 In his study of poverty in Greco-Roman Palestine, Gildas Hamel notes that the fruits of the wild carob tree were considered a typical poor man's food and actually used primarily as fodder for animals. The human consumption of carobs was synonymous with living

Tacanit 24b.

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in poverty. Hamel reads the rabbinic narratives of Hanina ben Dosa as well as Shimcon bar Yohai and his son, who lived for 12 years in a cave hiding from the Romans and eating carobs, to suggest that that "only extraordinary individuals could subsist on so meager a food."307 Yet while the previous teaching suggests that Hanina does not need food in an ordinary human manner, the massekhet still portrays him as a man concerned with comfort and suffering. His first appearance in Massekhet Tacanit depicts him as the consummate self-absorbed traveler, praying for a lack of rain in order to keep his own head dry: Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa was traveling on the road when the rain came. He said before Him: "Lord of the World, the whole world is at ease and Hanina suffers!" The rain ceased. When he arrived at his home, he said, "Lord of the World, the whole world is suffering and Hanina is at ease!" The rain came. Rav Yosef said, "What profit is the prayer of the high priest, on account of Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa?" It is taught: [The high priest] prayed a short prayer in the outer chamber. What did he pray? Rabin bar Rav 'Ada and Raba bar Rav 'Ada said in the name of Rav Yehudah: He said, "May it be your will, God our God, that this year be a year of heat and rain." Is heat of benefit? On the contrary, it is a disaster. Rather: If the year is hot, let there be rain and may the prayers of travelers not come before you. Rav 'Aha bar Raba concluded in the name of Rav Yehudah: "May the rulership never pass from

307

Gildas Hamel, Poverty and Charity in Roman Palestine: First Three Centuries C.E. Near Eastern Studies Vol. 23. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 16-7. The narrative of Shimon bar Yohai and his son sustained by carobs in their cave appears in bShabbat 33b.

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the house of Yehudah and may Your people Israel never need sustenance from one another, or from another nation."308 In Antoinette Clark Wire's reading of this story, she argues that the tale contrasts "all the whole world" and "Hanina," conveying the theological message that the Lord of the World will act to make even one member of the world comfortable—that the suffering of individuals matters (and will be remedied) before God. Asking why the Lord of the World would extend himself on Hanina's behalf, Wire argues—in keeping with her effort to read the stories in a more original narrative context and not in their textual setting—that "we are tempted to answer by adding something the story does not say about Hanina having special virtue or being God's favorite." She maintains that God's decision to respond to Hanina's prayer is not because he is an extraordinary individual, but because he stands in for any and every person in need.309 Yet within the larger framework of Massekhet Tacanit, the narrative takes on a different cast. While this tale does not explicitly name Hanina as a particular intimate of God, the Stam has set the story within a narrative frame that does describe Hanina

308

bTa'anit 24b Antoinette Clark Wire, Holy Lives, Holy Deaths: A Close Hearing of Early Jewish Storytellers. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 109. 309

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as God's son.310 The wider context of the massekhet, with its attention to other "beloved sons" and charismatics whose capacity to call upon divine power is figured as more potent than ordinary prayer, further emphasizes this particular capacity of Hanina. The massekhet sets this glimpse of an "ordinary" Hanina—a traveler like any other—within the context of Hanina's distinctiveness. For all his charismatic power and his ascetic depiction elsewhere, here on the road Hanina is but an ordinary traveler—insensitive to the needs of the world for the sake of his own dry head. But Hanina on the road cannot be an ordinary traveler, for his words and his prayer have the power to stop the flow of rain and imperil (or save) the entire community. In light of Hanina's request and God's answer, Rav Yosef considers the possible futility of institutional prayer, in light of the actions of travelers (or charismatics) like Hanina—a question that once again reflects uncertainty about the nature and limits of human power. The text rejects the first articulated prayer, offered by Rabin and Raba, when they suggest that the high priest would pray for heat and rain. Determining that a hot year actually constitutes a calamity, the anonymous voice

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"Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: every day, a bat kol goes forth and says, 'The entire world is nourished on account of Hanina, my son; and Hanina my son—a kavoi carob is enough for him from week to week." bTacanit 24b.

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rephrases the prayer to counterbalance heat with rain and insulate the community from the prayers of selfish travelers who might pray, like Hanina, for the rain to cease. Rav 3

Aha's conclusion adds a further prayer for sustenance, that the community of Jews

enjoy enough abundance that they never need charity from one another or from another nation. Hanina himself depicts a radical fulfillment of Rav 3Aha's prayer that a Jew never need charity from another—not because he has enough food that he needs no charity, but because he has the capacity to be sustained directly by God. While Hanina ben Dosa's particular intimacy with God is structured in terms of his poverty, a poverty that allows the rest of the world to experience abundance, Hanina's "blessed" poverty is juxtaposed against the experience of his wife—a woman whose ability to manifest miracles occurs in order to overcome her poverty. The text continues with the passage quoted above, describing Hanina as a man who has barely any need for food—and whose lack of needs allow him to "nourish" the entire world: Rav Yehudah said in the name of Rav: "Each and every day, a heavenly voice {batkol) issues forth and declares^ 'The entire world is nourished by nothing except on account of my son Hanina, and a single kav of carob is enough for my son Hanina from the eve of Shabbat to the next eve of Shabbat.311

311

bTa'anit 24b.

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Yet Hanina's apparent indifference to food is not shared by his household. Instead, the absence of human nourishment is a source of shame for his wife: Every Friday, the wife of Hanina ben Dosa was accustomed to throw incense in her oven, on account of the shame [for she had nothing to bake.] She had a certain neighbor and she said, "I know that she has nothing to bake! Let me go and see what it is." Her neighbor went and saw that the oven was full of bread and the kneading board was full of dough. She said, "Hey! Bring a bread shovel, for your bread is charring!" It was taught that she actually brought a shovel to take it out, because she was learned in miracles.312 Though the text depicts Hanina himself as unconcerned with poverty, the massekhet presents his wife as a woman profoundly affected by a lack of food. Hanina's wife used to throw incense into her oven in order to produce smoke, because she was ashamed that they had nothing to eat. Interestingly, she seems to be likewise sustained by miraculous means—physically nourished by the same carobs as her husband or by the counterfeit smoke she produces in her oven. Hanina's wife is not pained by the pangs of hunger, but by the social implications of poverty—by her nosy neighbor who "knows" she has nothing to cook and intends to expose her ruse. Yet the very absence of food proves unstable, for when the neighbor appears on the scene, intending to reveal the emptiness of Hanina's wife's oven, the lack turns into

312

bTacanit 24b-25a.

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abundance. Hanina's wife reveals herself to be "learned in miracles" and prepared to accept the presence of actual food, manifest in the midst of her masquerade. Within their own spheres, when Hanina is on the road or his wife is in her kitchen, poverty serves both husband and wife as the ground of their miraculous capacity. Hanina's power has hithertofore been focused on issues other than his own poverty, while his wife's abilities have been explicitly directed toward remedying their lack. Yet when the two come together, the massekhet reverses each person's usual patterns of action. In conversation with her husband, Hanina's wife's own power to manifest miraculous food goes unactualized. Instead, she prods him to request a heavenly reprieve from their poverty: She said to her husband: "From some of the good that has been stored away for the righteous in the world to come, pray that it may be given to you immediately." He prayed and one leg of a golden table was tossed into his house. He saw in a dream that the whole world would be eating at a table of three legs and he would be eating at a table of two legs. She said to him: "Pray that it be taken back." He prayed and it was taken back. It was taught that the last miracle was greater than the first, for we learn that things may be granted, but never taken back.313 Hanina's prayer for sustenance, undertaken at his wife's behest, nets them a golden table leg from heaven. Immediately, the couple is granted a measure of good that had 313

bTacanit 25a.

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been set aside for them in the next world. Yet Hanina cannot rest easy with this gift. His dream reveals that his request in this world will unbalance their abundant table in the world to come. So his wife counsels him to request that the golden table leg be returned to its proper realm and reaffixed to their heavenly store.314 In her reading of the Hanina narratives, Galit Hasan-Rokem has emphasized how the Stam constructs Hanina's wife as a miracle worker through use of the phrase "it was taught," which allows them to introduce this image of Hanina's wife trusting her neighbor's report that her (previously non-existent) bread was actually burning. Hasan-Rokem argues that within the first part of the tale, the nature of the bread remains uncertain; it may be real bread or an illusion. Yet the teaching the Stam introduces at the close of the tale, which clarifies that Hanina's wife actually brought her shovel, the bread takes on definitive substance and Hanina's wife is singled out as a woman versed in miracles. By depicting Hanina's wife as ready to rescue the bread

314

Daniel Boyarin notes that Hanina's action here parallels the talmudic portrayal of Honi the Circle-

Maker, who ultimately accedes to the request of the people to pray that the rain (a gift of God, which turned out to be not good, after all) be taken away.

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that she should have known to be a fantasy, the Stam crafts her as a woman prepared to accept—perhaps even expect—a miracle.315 The same construction, "it was taught," recurs at the close of the narrative dialogue between Hanina and his wife, when the text once again includes an explicit discussion of the miracle at hand. Here, the phrase serves to identify the couple's answered prayer to lose their apparent good fortune as the greatest miracle in the tale. The Stam's comment attempts to disambiguate the conflicting miracles and asserts the ultimate miraculous power within the narrative to be the reinscription of the couple's poverty. Here, the Stam views their return to poverty as the most significant miracle. Despite the wife's interest in a functional oven and a full belly in this world, the Stam frames God's most bountiful gift as his willingness to refashion their heavenly table at the expense of their earthly one.

Wrestling with Poverty & the Meaning of Miracle: The Tales of Two 'Ele'azars Massekhet Tacanit's praise of Hanina's poverty, taken together with the narrative of Hanina and his wife returning their golden table leg and the tale of Rabbi 315

Galit Hasan-Rokem, "Did the Rabbis Recognize the Category of Folk Narrative?" Paper delivered at "Folklore in Jewish Traditions: A Symposium" at University of California, Berkeley, April 9,2006.

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Yohanan's reward for pursuing Torah despite its earthly privations, suggests a significant theological association between poverty and divine blessings. Yet lest a reader assume that poverty is an essential component of intimacy with God, the Stam follows the Hanina ben Dosa cycle with the tale of Rabbi 3Elecazar ben Pedat, a poor man as disgruntled with poverty as Hanina seems indifferent to it. The contrast between the two evokes other passages in Massekhet Tacanit which juxtapose the intimacy (and capability) of the early charismatic Hassidim with the diminished capacity and divine connections of the later sages. Yet this tale-sequence persists in associating both Hanina and 5Elecazar with signs of considerable divine intimacy—but attributes to the two sages dramatically different interpretations of poverty. In sharp contrast with Hanina, 3Elecazar rejects poverty as a sign of favor or blessing—and actually entertains the notion that God should destroy and recreate the world so that he have plenty: Rabbi 5Elecazar b. Pedat was greatly pressed by poverty. He had a [bloodletting] done and he had nothing to eat. He found a clove of garlic, threw it in his mouth, and fainted. Some rabbis went to visit him and they saw that he wept and he smiled and a ray of light shot out of his forehead. When he woke, they asked him: Why did you weep and why did you smile and why did a ray of light shoot out of your forehead? He said to them: "I saw the Divine Presence (shekhinah) and I said before Him: How long will I continue to live in this poverty?" He said to me: Would it please you if I destroyed the 252

world and returned and created it? Perhaps a time of abundance would fall to you, then. I said to Him: All that, and only perhaps?! Is the time I have [already] lived greater or the reverse? He said to me: The time you have lived. I said before Him: Then, I do not want it. I said before Him: In the world to come, what will You give me? He said to me: I will give you thirteen rivers of balsam oil and you will take pleasure in them. I said before Him: Is that all? He said to me: And for your fellow, what will I have if I give you everything? I said before Him: Then please give it from one who has nothing [in the world to come]. He struck me on the forehead with pleasure and said: 3Elecazar, my son, I strike you with my arrows!"316 3

Elecazar ben Pedat faints and falls asleep after undergoing medical bloodletting,

having had nothing to eat but a single clove of garlic. During his faint, he has a vision of God in which he asks the Holy One how long this life will continue to trouble him. When God asks 3Elecazar whether he wishes that God would overturn the world so that he might be born in a time of abundance, 5Elecazar expresses his shock and chagrin that, even with such a dramatic restructuring, God cannot ensure that he would live in a time of abundance. Instead, the narrative suggests that even God cannot guarantee that the righteous have sufficient food—only that "perhaps" 3Elecazar might live in a time of plenty. As a reward for not destroying the world, God grants 'Elecazar thirteen rivers of clear balsam oil in the world to come. Yet 3Elecazar is unsatisfied with this bounty and asks God for more. When God protests that He bTacanit 25a.

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would have nothing left to give his fellows, 3Elecazar maintains that God should take some from the portion of those who have no place in the world to come—certainly not the position of an ascetic! While the last phrase of the narrative is enigmatic and its meaning not entirely clear, most commentators read it as a sign of God's pleasure in being "bested" by 3Elecazar's argument.317 Through this narrative, the massekhet offers us an image of a struggling sage eventually blessed by divine bounty, but willing to grapple with God for even greater reward. Rather than accepting God's (delayed) gift with gratitude, 3Elecazar challenges the justice of his this-worldly portion and strives for greater riches in the world to come. Yet while the text raises up the image of a man who desires—and deserves—good food in this world and the next, it suggests that God's stores of abundance have their limits: that even in the world to come, bounty must be carefully apportioned, lest it run short. Through the tale of 3Elecazar ben Pedat, the Massekhet returns to two significant theological premises from the Hanina narrative—the poor man who is particularly beloved of God and the limited supply of heavenly abundance for the righteous—and twist them into a new shape. Where Hanina rejected his wife's

317

Rashi glosses the phrase a one which expresses God's delight in his servant 'Elecazar. (bTacanit

25a.)

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attempts to alleviate their poverty and even returned God's gifts, 5Elecazar contemplates destroying the entire world in order to relieve his own sufferings. Both Hanina and 3Elecazar consider a drastic intervention in the usual order of things, an intervention that Hanina actually (briefly) plays out. Both Hanina and 3Elecazar see in a dream the implications of their actions and neither like the image they behold, but for very different reasons. Hanina and his wife cannot savor their gold when they learn its cost. 5Elecazar refrains from having God destroy his world and fashioning it again—but not because of moral qualms at the destruction this might cause. Instead, ^Ele'azar stays his hand only when he learns that even a remade world might not assure him of better fortunes. The limited supply of heavenly goods proves a central motif in both tales, but while these limits lead Hanina and his wife to return to their earthly poverty, the limits offer 3Elecazar an opportunity for scheming a means of increasing his store. 5Elecazar's response to the thirteen rivers of balsam oil is juxtaposed against Hanina's very different posture vis-a-vis his table leg—yet the text presents both characters as profoundly beloved by God. Both tales reveal an unwillingness to rely upon heavenly beneficence, lest it deduct from a limited store of goodness. This hesitation to accept divine "charity"

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emerges in several other tales in Massekhet Tacanit—often via a professed distrust in miracles. If miracles draw abundance from a limited store, as Hanina ben Dosa's encounter with the table leg and 3Elecazar ben Pedat's negotiation for additional heavenly oil suggests, then receiving God's goodness in this world comes at a cost. As in R. Hanin's interpretation of Genesis 32:11, whereby Jacob became diminished by God's kindness and Rav 3Ada bar 3Ahavah accordingly lost something by receiving God's grace when his life was threatened by a rickety house that was held up by his merit, this assumption that miracles are not a "free" gift led some sages to beware of receiving divine goodness. The narrative of 3Elecazar of Bartota, a man who gave so abundantly to the officials responsible for collecting charitable donations that the charity-takers actually hid from him in the marketplace, shows a man whose impulse for giving threatens to ruin his daughter's fortunes, but who refuses to accept a similar kindness from God: 5

Elecazar of the village of Bartota—when they saw him, the zedaqah collectors used to hide from him, for he would give them everything he had. One day, he left for the market to acquire a dowry for his daughter. The zedaqah collectors saw him and hid from him, but he followed after them. He said to them: I abjure you—with what are you engaged? They said to him: With [the marriage of] an orphan boy and orphan girl. He said to them: By God! That takes precedence over my daughter. He gathered together all that he had and gave it

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to them, until all that remained to him was a single zuz. He went and bought a bit of grain with it, took it and threw it in his storehouse. His wife came and said to his daughter, "What did your father bring for you?" She said to her, "All that he brought he took to the storehouse." She went and looked in the storehouse and it was full of wheat, to the point that it pushed through the hinges of the door. When he came back from the study house, she said to him, "Come and see what your Beloved has done for you." He said to her, "By God! This shall be sacred property, and you will have no more from it than any poor person in Israel."318 When 5Elecazar encountered the charity collectors on his way to acquire a dowry for his daughter, he gave everything away in order to finance the wedding of an orphan girl and boy, asserting that the needs of those children preempted the need of his own daughter.319 >Elecazar returned with only a tiny portion of wheat, which he threw in the storehouse. At this point, the narrative introduces the voices of ^Ele'azar's wife and daughter. The spare exchange between them allows the reader to imagine the dismay of the daughter, who presumably saw her father come home with nothing more than a bit of wheat. Yet when his wife looked inside, she found the storehouse overflowing with wheat. Her gaze, following the reading I have outlined in the previous chapter, becomes an occasion for manifesting blessing. The grain, 318

Tacanit 24a. 319 Antoinette Clark Wire points out that a crisis that befalls a woman on the eve of her marriage is "a standard setting for provision legends across the Greco-Roman world." Wire, Holy Lives, Holy Deaths, 159.

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languishing uncounted in the granary, becomes multiplied by a conjunction of God's kindness and her human ability to uncover hidden bounty. Yet she never claims the bounty for her own or for her daughter. Instead, when her husband returned from the study house, she calls him to see what "his beloved" had done for him. By naming God 3Elecazar's beloved, the wife acknowledges the primacy of the relationship between sage and God in her husband's life, rather than their own marital bonds. As 3Elecazar's own behavior demonstrates, he consistently places his service to God over his service to family—standing in for God as the provider for orphans, even if it means the neglect of his own daughter. The wife's language paints a parallel between the bounty that God offered as a love-gift to her husband and the still unfulfilled dowry that her daughter must bring to her husband-to-be. The gift offered to one lover might have been used to rescue the squandered marital possibilities of the other pair. Instead, 3Elecazar once again appropriates the grain—and, in a gesture both profoundly selfish and selfless, dedicates the miraculous abundance to charity. Massekhet Tacanit depicts him as a giver who refuses accept a gift from God, the one who turns back kindness despite his own obsession with doing "kindness" for others. Despite the bounty that God provided, 3Elecazar reinscribes his wife and daughter as

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members of the "poor in Israel"—dependent upon the charity that he himself provides. In sharp contradiction to the words of Rav 3Aha b. Raba, who suggested that the high priest used to pray that the children of Israel never depend upon others for their sustenance, 'Ele'azar of Bartota* likens his own wife and daughter to beggars, dependent upon the compassionate giving of others, despite their actual ability to nourish themselves from the heavenly stores.

Making Miracle: Gender & Status in the Manifestation of Merit As we have seen, women play an important role in a number of the talmudic tales concerned with abundance and poverty. Though the majority of the miracle narratives in Massekhet Tacanit are either attributed to rabbis or to an early generation of charismatics who have been significantly rabbinized by the text, the massekhet does not present the practice of miracle as a uniformly rabbinic pursuit. At several points, the discourse of rabbinic merit and its relationship with miracle is disrupted through the introduction of women and non-rabbinic men who perform miracles in explicit competition with or contradistinction to the sages. The wife of Hanina ben Dosa, for example, appears as a miracle worker in her own right—in the midst of the a narrative

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cycle that celebrates her husband's charismatic capacity. The tale deploys gender as a significant element in the plot of the narrative, both through Hanina's wife and the neighbor woman who enters their home. At several points, the tale draws upon the motif of the "evil neighbor woman," as Galit Hasan-Rokem has emphasized, who "plays a discordant role in the relation of the couple." Hasan-Rokem has analyzed the function of this figure, a common character in European and Mediterranean folktales whose typical role is to "provoke the 'good neighbor woman' to tease her husband into some venture with the purpose of finding riches" and which indicates a traditional, "cross-cultural idiom of female bonding as a powerful ferment upsetting close social relations."320 Discussing a different rabbinic narrative, Hasan-Roken notes that "in most cases, the appearance of the female neighbor in folktales marks an antifeminist bias on a very explicit level of the narrative. As in this tale, these women peep into other people's lives, thus acquiring information that feeds their jealousy and greediness."321 In our tale, the neighbor woman does peek into the recesses of the ben Dosa couple's poverty and it is presumably her gaze which prompts the wife in her custom 320

Hasan-Rokem, Tales of the Neighborhood, 32-33.

321

Ibid., 101.

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of producing smoke from an empty oven. At the start of this tale, the nosy neighbor primarily afflicts Hanina's wife and does not seem to bother her husband. The miracle of the charring bread, produced by Hanina's wife in response to her neighbor's efforts to shame her, allows the wife to frustrate the efforts of the evil neighbor woman and should (according to the structure Hasan-Roken outlined) actually have resolved the marital tension occasioned by the couple's poverty and the shaming eyes of the other woman. Yet immediately after the miracle of the bread, the narrative recounts how Hanina's wife asked Hanina to alleviate their poverty. Here, following the trope of the disruptive neighbor woman, we see her influence disturb the apparent domestic tranquility between the husband and wife. Discounting the bread that her own miracle produced, Hanina's wife turns to her husband and asks him to pray for miraculous bounty from heaven. As is typical with this tale type, the intervention of the wife—prompted by the bad example of the nosy neighbor—turns out to be bad counsel and leads the husband down an inadvisable road. Yet our tale does not situate the wife as solely a cause of harm—for just as she prompts Hanina to pray for abundance, she also prompts him to pray for its return. In a sense, Hanina's wife orchestrates all three miracles in this

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tale: the first miracle of the bread, accomplished through her own means, and the two miracles associated with the table leg, accomplished by her husband's agency on her behalf. If the wife shares some characteristics with the stereotypical figure of the greedy woman who gives her husband poor counsel, she also countermands her own original impulse and rescues the couple from their situation. Though the first part of the tale fits with Hasan-Rokem's assessment that these stories often deride "the husband who does not maintain his dignified status in the patriarchal society and commits the fatal error of taking his wife's advice,"322 the second miracle reaffirms the wife's wisdom and portrays Hanina as a man amenable to her guidance. In addition, Hanina's wife resists characterization as solely a prod to her husband's action. She is herself a miracle worker, and unlike Hanina's dubious interventions which had to be returned to heaven lest they imperil the couple's future bounty, her miracle gained the couple actual bread, with no apparent cost. A similar privileging of non-rabbinic merit and miracle appears earlier in the third chapter, in the midst of a discussion of class status which asserts that an eminent man who is the son of an ordinary man should always come to an eminent man who is

322

Ibid., 101.

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the son of an eminent man, rather than expect his more illustriously pedigreed fellow to come to him.323 Richard Kalmin has argued that such firm class distinctions form an important cultural aspect of rabbinic Babylonia, likely emerging in relation to a Persian cultural context that emphasized more rigid, hierarchical and caste-like tendencies in society.324 Immediately following its discussion of the literal limits of social mobility, the massekhet turns to an apparently different subject: In Sura, an epidemic broke out, but in the neighborhood of Rav, there was no occurrence. They deduced from it that it was on account of Rav's merit. It appeared to them in a dream that the great merit of Rav was beyond [this matter=saving the neighborhood,] which was too slight for Rav's merit. Rather, it was on account of a certain man who lent a hoe and shovel to the cemetery. In Droqeret, there was a blaze, but in the neighborhood of Rav Huna, there was no occurrence. They deduced from it that it was on account of Rav Huna's merit. It appeared to them in a dream that the great merit of Rav Huna was beyond [this matter,] which was too slight for Rav Huna's merit. Rather, it was on account of a certain woman who used to heat her oven and lend it to her neighbors.325 In the first narrative, the Gemara records the sparing of Rav's neighborhood during an epidemic in Sura, which the inhabitants assume occurred on account of Rav's merit.

323

bTa'anit 21b. Richard Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity. (New York: Routledge, 1999), 110111. 325 bTacanit21b. 324

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Yet this narrative rejects the people's interpretation that Rav's merit has saved them from a fire, and links the saving merit to an unnamed "ordinary" man whose specific acts of meritorious generosity yield the miracle that saves the town. In the second narrative, the merit that saves is from a woman. Both counterbalance the potential reading of meritorious miracle as an elite, rabbinic occurrence—and undercut the previous claim of rabbinic genealogical status. On the surface, the narratives reproduce the social hierarchy of rabbinic Babylonia, with rabbinic merit perceived as too lofty to occupy itself with the mere rescue of a town. The vastness of Rav Huna's merit is portrayed here as "too great" to have been responsible for sparing the town. Yet despite the portrayal in these two texts, rescue from fire, famine, drought, and plague are quintessential rabbinic concerns—the subject, in fact, of Massekhet Tacanit. Over the course of the tractate, rabbinic personalities expend incredible efforts—sometimes successful and sometimes not—in order to accomplish the actions that these two plebian members of their communities managed by means of their simple merits. The two rabbinic heroes portrayed in the teachings are contrasted with two figures who are distinctly nonrabbinic: an unnamed man, unmarked by learning or kinship in the rabbinic

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community, and a woman. Particularly in a setting that has just been at pains to emphasize social distinctions and the significance of genealogical status, we would expect the rabbinic figures to emerge as the clear inheritors of protective capacity. Instead, the two sages appear either disconnected from the real needs of their purported constituents or impotent in the face of actual catastrophe—unable to apply their merit to situations of grave consequence. The unnamed woman and man allows the massekhet to question the presumed facility of rabbinic competence and articulate a self-interrogating discourse about rabbinic merit. Instead of the rabbis, these two become the momentary holy (wo)men whose ordinary actions can meet the tangible needs of their respective communities.326

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Elizabeth Clark has drawn attention to the profound absence of holy women in early Christianity who parallel the social functions of Peter Brown's "holy men" through miracles worked by their own means and via the patronage and protection of their communities. While there are a substantial number of early Christian holy women, Clark argues that their social prestige generally comesfromtheir aristocratic status prior to their assumption of a holy life and their patronage of churches and monasteries, rather than from miracles worked during their life. Clark argues that these women "occasionally elicit a miraculous event by their mere presence, but such deeds are said to occur 'not by her will or by her word,' in contrast to the intentional cures, exorcisms, and other wondrous feats worked by Brown's 'holy men.' Women may be said to have Christ 'in' them, since as baptized Christians they have 'put on Christ' (Gal 3.27), but it is not said that Christ is 'made accessible' through them, as it is for Brown's 'holy men': 'gender-bending,' although prevalent in ascetic literature, did not,

apparently, stretch this far. Thus the women whom we might have imagined as the female counterparts of Brown's 'holy men' in fact are not." In significant contrast, however, the woman of Droqeret, mentioned so briefly in bTacanit, seems to accomplish her protection of the city by dint of "her own power." Elizabeth Clark, "Holy Women, Holy Words: Early Christian Women, Social History, and the 'Linguistic Turn,'" Journal of Early Christian Studies6.3 (1998), 414-415. In their assessment of 265

The Meanings of Righteousness: The Discourse of Hiddenness in the Tale of'Abba the Bloodletter Several narratives this chapter discusses have made use of the massekhet's discourse of hiddenness in order to trouble surface expectations about abundance, miracle, and merit—whether in the manifestation of miracle via the gaze of 5Elecazar's wife or the unexpected revelation of the rescue of Sura and Droqeret. In the tale of D

Abba the Bloodletter, the centrality of these themes of concealment and hidden

knowledge allows the Stam to contrast the divine place of a non-rabbinic bloodletter against the presumed greatness of the sages, articulating merit and intimacy with God as a subtle and often unrecognized quality—a quality that can persist regardless of the outward signs of blessing: Every day, a greeting from the heavenly academy came to 3Abba the Bloodletter. To 3Abaye, every week. To Raba, every Yom Kippur. 'Abaye's spirits were fallen, on account of 3Abba the Bloodletter. They said to him: "You are not able to do as he does." What are the deeds of 5Abba the

Syrian Christian holy women, Sebastian P. Brock and Susan Ashbrook Harvey call attention to the fact that while early Christianity provided "a continual but anomalous position of authority for holy women," these women were primarily regarded as "exceptions that proved the rule on women's inferiority." Sebastian P. Brock and Susan Ashbrook Harvey, trans. Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987; reprint 1998), 23. (Page numbers are to the reprint edition.) While neither the woman of Droqeret or Hanina's wife (to consider another woman associated with miraculous action) are granted "authority" by the text, they also do not seem examples that demonstrate (other) women's inferiority.

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Bloodletter? When he did his work, he kept a separate place for men and for women. He had a garment which a woman could wear that had many slits, so that he would not gaze upon her naked body. Outside his space, he had a place where money could be put. Whoever had money could put it in, but those who did not could come without embarrassment. When he saw a person who would not be able to pay, he gave him some money and said, "Go and strengthen yourself." One day, 3Abaye sent a pair of rabbis to check him. They came to his house and he fed them and gave them drink and laid out rugs so they could sleep. The next day, they took the rugs to the market and sent for 3Abba and called to him, "Sir, what is their value?" He said such and such to them. They said to him, "Perhaps their value is more?" He said to them, "For that much, I bought them." They said to him, "What did you think of us?" He said to them, "I believed it was a matter of a mizvah of the rabbis [for which you needed money] and were ashamed to tell me. They said to him, "Take them from us, sir." He said to them, "From that moment, I dismissed them from my mind as charity." Raba's spirits were fallen, on account of 5Abaye. They said to him, "It is enough that your merit protects an entire city."327 The tale of 3Abba the Bloodletter opens with a rivalry between three men regarding their closeness to God. The great sage 3Abaye receives greetings from the Heavenly Academy every week, while the illustrious Raba receives God's greeting only once a year. But 5Abba, a humble bloodletter unknown outside of this tale, receives greetings from the Heavenly Academy every day. In Admiel Kosman's analysis, the narrative

bTacanit21b-22a.

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sets up a conflict between the heavenly and the earthly academy. The talmudic storyteller presents 'Abaye as a man insulted by God, wounded by the apparent fact that God has chosen to send him greetings only once a week. Instead of engaging in an intimate relationship with the head of the earthly academy, God chooses to conduct his daily correspondence with the unknown 'Abba the Bloodletter, a man who gives no indication that he has ever graced the rabbinic study house.328 Kosman shows how the narrative constructs the two principal characters as parallel oppositions. 'Abba the Bloodletter, the physical healer, conducts his dealings with profound humility and does everything he can to preserve the modesty of his clients and spare them physical or financial embarrassment. 'Abaye, as the head of the academy, represents the apparent pinnacle of spiritual succor, but his dealings are marked by competition and jealousy, and he acts without concern for 'Abba's privacy—even sending his disciples in an effort to expose 'Abba as a fraud or bring him to shame.329 Determined to prove 'Abba the Bloodletter unworthy of God's regard, 'Abaye sends two rabbis to investigate the man and "test" him. Though the talmudic narrator

328

Admiel Kosman, "Humility and competition in the Talmudic culture: close reading of the Talmudic story about Aba Umana," [Hebrew] in A. Sagi and N. Ilan, eds., Jewish Culture in the Eye of the Storm - A Jubilee Book in Honor of YosefAhituv. (Tel Aviv: Hakibbuz Hameuchad, 2002), 665. 329 Ibid., 664-669.

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frames his actions as a test of :Abba the Bloodletter, 5Abaye's efforts also represent an academic attempt to disprove the appropriateness of God's chosen greetings—a test, thereby, of God's righteousness. During the test, the two rabbis present themselves as 5

Abba's guests, receive food and lodging from the bloodletter, and then steal the very

rugs upon which they slept. The next day, the rabbis try to pawn them at the marketplace before the very man from whom they stole. Though they try to prompt him toward exacting a greater price, he remains steadfast. He claims their price based upon the price he paid for them, explicitly recognizing the rugs as his own. Even in the face of their crumbling facade, 5Abba the Bloodletter declines to accuse them of their very apparent deceit and refuses to take back the carpets once the ruse is revealed. Instead, when they ask him to reveal his thoughts, attempting to publicly expose the anger their actions should merit, he asserts that their nefarious actions were likely undertaken for a noble purpose. The bloodletter's own greatness becomes confirmed through his steadfast refusal to "read" the duplicity of the rabbis, crafting his own explanations that affirm their righteousness even as they prove themselves to be scoundrels.

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While the tale allows the readers the capacity to see the truth from the outset, so that we recognize the rabbis' real intentions and "know" that 3Abba the Bloodletter is making unwarranted excuses, the tale crafts an image of the righteous bloodletter as a man who both does and doesn't see the real truth behind the ruse. Though the reader might ridicule the piety (or naivete) that allows him to be deceived by the duplicity of the world, the tale confirms that his intimacy with the Heavenly Academy emerges out of that very same capacity to affirm the goodness of the world, asserting and drawing forth the true righteousness that lies beneath apparent perfidy. Where Raba was crestfallen by his apparent low ranking in the hierarchy of favor and perceives his protection of the city as a mere consolation prize,330 and where 'Abaye struggled and failed to prove himself superior to 5Abba's righteousness, 'Abba the Bloodletter shrugs off the jealous rivalries that mar the earthly academy. Without the external signs of piety or wisdom that mark both the sages, and without fanfare to mark his status, 3Abba the Bloodletter goes about his daily work with righteousness—

330

Joshua Holo notes that in notable contrast to the tales of Sura and Droqeret, here it is the rabbinic master Raba who (despite his pettiness) saves a city, while 'Abba the Bloodletter is not depicted as having this kind of "protective" merit—despite his more intimate relationship with God.

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and conducts a relationship with his God that neither of the celebrated rabbis can match. Through the tale of 'Abba the Bloodletter, Massekhet Tacanit destabilizes the apparent signs of outer blessing and question the apparent relationships between the status in the earthly world and the actual experience of connection with the divine. This provocative contestation of perceived merit and actual divine favor undergirds the tractate's profound doubts about the meaning of scarcity and the interpretation of abundance. Where the conceptual world of the communal fast seems predicated upon an equation between famine and transgression, between drought and divine displeasure, the aggadic narratives of the massekhet speak in a variety of conflicted voices about the meaning of poverty and the power of merit. While poverty may be blessed, it may also be occasion for rightly challenging God's righteousness. While miracle may be dearly sought, it may also be dangerous. And while merit might protect a sage from a crumbling wall or a falling house, it remains fundamentally unreliable. The expected signs of saintliness have come undone. Instead, the aggadic narratives depict a world where the bloodletters may be more beloved of God than the sages, where the wives might manifest the household's daily bread when their

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husbands prove indifferent to material needs, when ordinary men and women might prevent fire and plague from ravaging their cities, through simple expedient of basic human kindness.

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Conclusion: The Construction of Talmudic Theology in Massekhet Tacanit

The magnum opus of rabbinic Jewish thought, the Babylonian Talmud's unruly narrative flow and cacophonous style poses a challenge to the literary interpreter. The Talmud presents the reader with oft-unresolved rabbinic controversies regarding legal and legendary traditions, biblical exegesis and midrash, and oral teachings of the sages stitched together in a loose, associational form of often baffling organization. In order to tame the convoluted massekhet, most literary analysis of the Talmud has focused upon the sugya, a smaller, relatively self-contained unit of talmudic thought. My approach moves beyond the individual sugya and reads the entire massekhet as a complex, carefully-crafted narrative. While I assume that the final redaction of Massekhet Tacanit likely occurred during fifth and sixth century Babylonia, I leave precise questions of when redaction occurred to others. Without staking a claim in favor of a particular theory of who the redactors were or the duration of the entire redaction process, I refer to the Stam as the presumed authorial voice that lies behind the final form of the massekhet. I suggest that this Stam is not only concerned with

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halakhic argumentation, but also shaped the emerging massekhet as a literary document that engaged deep theological questions, and I turn my attention to the cultural concerns and literary craft that shape the final form of a single tractate— Massekhet Tacanit. Within its reading of Massekhet Tacanit, this dissertation focuses on two different types of questions. First, my work examines the contents of the massekhet: what rain means within the massekhet, how fasting functions within the text, and how the narrative responds to theological questions like the relationship between merit and suffering. This aspect of the dissertation pursues the meanings of theological themes, symbols and ritual acts narrated in Massekhet Tacanit, aiming to shed light upon specific cultural meanings and practices as articulated by the massekhet in late rabbinic Babylonia. Second, my work analyzes talmudic discourse, asking how the massekhet accomplishes its literary and cultural work. My first chapter sets the stage for this reading, discussing the historical development and current research in talmudic literary criticism, folklore scholarship, and genre theory which will guide my approach to Massekhet Tacanit. Through close reading of the interrelationship between different narratives and a pursuit of particular themes across different sugyotin the chapters

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that follow, I argue that, at least within Massekhet Tacanit, the unique, complex form of the Babylonian talmudic massekhet allows the Stam to construct a certain kind of theology and engage its theological questions in a certain way.

Rain, Fasting and Charisma in Massekhet Ta'anit Massekhet Tacanit, a tractate of the Babylonian Talmud that addresses fasts in response to drought among rabbinic Jewish communities in late antiquity, envisions rainfall as a tangible manifestation of divine blessing. In my second chapter, I draw upon Victor Turner's theory of the symbol to show how elusive, intangible yearnings for God, salvation, resurrection, and miraculous abundance in a transformed world find expression via a yearning for tangible, earthly rain. In a clear expression of Turner's symbolic polarity, the rain symbol also encodes the possibility of drought— bespeaking the danger of divine absence, punishment, disaster, and death. This symbolic conception of rain allows the Stam to assert a profound connection between the natural world, the human, and the Holy—a connection which turns rain into a tangible manifestation of the relationship between God and Israel. Within the

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conceptual world of the massekhet, "withheld" rain signals a breach in that relationship, a breach that threatens the continuity of life itself. Massekhet Tacanit articulates two primary centers of ritual action designed to call forth rain: the collective, communal fasts and the charismatic leadership of the individual holy man. In the third chapter, I discuss how Massekhet Tacanit articulates the rain fast as a potent sacred container for navigating the relationship between the Jewish community and God—a relationship made manifest through the intricate language of rain. Within the narrative world of Massekhet Tacanit, the fast functions as a ritual means of restoring the harmonious relationship between the God and Israel that ensures the timely, life-sustaining rain. Drawing upon Michel Foucault's reading of early Christian ascetic practices, I suggest that fasting practice in Massekhet Tacanit heightens the body's responsivity and fashions the body into an instrument that calls out to God for answer. Critiquing a reading of fasting as a means of "silencing" or transcending the body via asceticism, I suggest that fasting practice in Massekhet Tacanit makes deliberate use of the body—as a uniquely tuned instrument for crying out to God. By invoking and intensifying the experience of suffering through their

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own bodies, the community uses the vulnerable body to align themselves with a suffering God and a suffering earth that both yearn for reconciliation. Interlaced with this vulnerable and powerful communal body narrated through the ritual practice of the public fast, Massekhet Tacanit also highlights narratives of intensely particular bodies of charismatic holy men—celebrated figures whose flesh houses a potent intersection of human and holy power. My fourth chapter situates these rabbinic rain-making tales within a Christian, Pagan, and Jewish cultural milieu rife with stories of holy men. Focusing on a close reading of the mishnaic Honi narrative, I show how the figure of the "beloved son" intensifies images of divine responsivity, heightens the call-and-response discourse of the fasting community into an intimate dialogue between holy man and God, and begins to shape a selfinterrogating discourse that underscores the limits of rabbinic power and prowess, in contrast to the illustrious heroes of old. Instead of figuring these narratives as essentially non-rabbinic discourse, I argue that charismatic tales within rabbinic literature represent intentional rabbinic authorship. In their mishnaic and talmudic contexts, these narratives become sites for self-reflection about the nature of sacred power and rabbinic access to divine potency, both past and present. By articulating

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charismatic rain-making as a religious modality that belongs to an illustrious but no longer entirely accessible past—and juxtaposing those narratives with a series of tales in which later Babylonian rabbis fail to bring about rain or access charismatic power with disastrous results, Massekhet Tacanit expresses an intensity of rabbinic desire for intimacy with the divine, coupled with an awareness of the limits of the lived ability of the later Babylonian sages to fully encompass such closeness and sacred power.

Narrative Thematics & Rabbinic Self-Critique in Massekhet Ta'anit Chapters two, three, and four examine the key structural elements of the rain symbol and its two modes of expression in Massekhet Tacanit—via the communal, public fast and the particularized figure of the holy man. The next triad of chapters focuses upon an exposition of the literary thematics that give coherence to the massekhet, examining three different theological questions that engage the Stam in Massekhet Tacanit. Each of these questions engages a theological issue, "answered" in what David Kraemer has suggested is the Babylonian Talmud's characteristic style of discourse—"composed of multiple voices in which the multiplicity of those voices

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is not lost."331 In these chapters, I show how the massekhet crafts a multi-vocal response to key questions, through complex juxtapositions that set the presumed import of one narrative against another and undermine the certainty of any of its narratives. Picking up the fourth chapter's assertion that the massekhet's treatment of the charismatic rain-makers allows the text to articulate a self-critical discourse about the capabilities of later generations of rabbis, I argue that the massekhet's response to each of these theological questions raises doubts about the prowess of the Stam's contemporaries or near contemporaries. While the massekhet continues to present some later sages as accessing the realms of charismatic power, profound perception, and miraculous merit, it underscores the dangers of this enterprise and articulates its fundamental unreliability in the hands of contemporary or near-contemporary figures. In each case, my reading reveals a self-interrogating discourse within the massekhet that questions the degree to which contemporary rabbis can appropriately wield sacred power and ultimately access the intimacy with God to which they aspire. The fifth chapter pursues the complex narration of human sacred power within the massekhet and the boundaries that may or may not cordon off that human power 331

David Rraemer, Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 220.

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from the power of God. The chapter begins by critiquing the diametric opposition often constructed between the "religious" and the "magical," with the first marked as pious and the second marked as dangerous. Instead, I argue for turning our attention to the question of sacred power and the perceived efficacy of human actions that are central to "both" types of tales. While this issue surfaces in many narratives throughout Massekhet Tacanit, the fifth chapter focuses upon a close reading of a sustained section of the massekhet that traces a series of deliberate "confusions" between heavenly and human fathers. Beginning with a close reading of the differences between the mishnaic and talmudic narratives of Honi the Circle Maker, this chapter shows how the talmudic version of the Honi tale intensifies his role as the "beloved son" who partakes of rare intimacy with his heavenly father—and inverts the usual expectations of sacred power, figuring Honi as the active agent whose word brings rain and whose oath carries a moral force that God Himself must placate. In the narratives that follow, Massekhet Tacanit elaborates these inversions through a series of tales that blur the expected boundaries between the heavenly and earthly fathers. I argue that the massekhet uses these confusions to sacralize the power of human word and deed, to valorize the ancient Palestinian figures who it

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claims as rabbinic ancestors, as well as to express its disquiet with their charismatic power. As the tale sequence bridges the gulf between past and present, it brings contemporary or near-contemporary rabbis into the orbit of this powerful speech and deed—showing even more starkly the consequences of this power and exposing its dangers. While the previous chapter highlighted the dangers of later Babylonian miracle and charismatic power, this chapter traces a similar dynamic applied to the last generations of Palestinian sages. The narrative juxtapositions and contrasts allow the massekhet to simultaneously embrace and fear these confusions between Father and sons. At the same time that it allows them to express the ambiguous "belovedness" of the early charismatics, it also allows them to articulate a self-critical discourse about the capacity of later Palestinian sages to contain the power of their ancestors and actualize the intimacy which once linked certain celebrated sons with their God. The sixth chapter traces a tension between the concealed and the revealed that recurs throughout the massekhet, allowing them to frame rabbinic interpretation as an unstable but essential art that can (occasionally) access hiddenness at the heart of things. This chapter begins by examining the "reading" of rain, showing how the massekhet situates rain as a divine sign suffused with meaning that the rabbis strive to

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decode. The instability of interpreting the signs of rain recurs as the massekhet turns to the reading of blessings, highlighting the concealed blessedness that often reveals itself in the midst of an apparent curse. The massekhet emphasizes the performative component of interpretation—the power of the interpreter to transform the object of interpretation, to find blessing and thereby bring it forth. Finally, the chapter turns to the complex task of "reading" a body, through which the massekhet critiques the conception that a beautiful body provides reliable testimony regarding the moral stature of a person. Yet instead of figuring the rabbis as interpreters par excellence of these complex signs over and against non-rabbinic and non-Jewish interpreters, the massekhet exposes the frailty of rabbinic perception and situates the rabbis as unfinished readers—still striving to perfect the art of interpretation. The seventh chapter pursues the now problematized art of "reading" the significance of poverty and complicates the meanings and manifestations of merit. In this chapter, I show how the massekhet casts doubts upon the reliability of rabbinic merit and frames even its miracles as potentially dangerous. The massekhet also deploys its tensions regarding the revealed and the concealed to destabilize the very meanings of scarcity and abundance. Alongside a theological formulation that

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associates drought and privation with affliction and divine disfavor, the massekhet also articulates poverty as a potential sign of divine blessedness, figuring Hanina ben Dosa's supreme indifference to human sustenance as a kind of radical dependence upon God that allows the charismatic to access profound sacred power. Yet instead settling upon Hanina as a resolution of these theological questions, the massekhet juxtaposes the pious poor man with two later rabbinic figures (both named 3Elecazar) who reject the poverty or the divine sustenance that typify Hanina—and nevertheless still enjoy a particular intimacy with God. Finally, the chapter shows how self-critical juxtapositions between the rabbis and women and non-rabbinic men allow the massekhet to trouble facile portrayals of rabbinic merit and sacred capability. The expected marks of merit and stature no longer testify with clear or certain voice. Instead, Massekhet Tacanit reveals both the prowess and the powerlessness of its protagonists—giving voice to both the yearnings and the misgivings of the rabbis who crafted its complex polyphony.

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The Massekhet as an Instrument of Multivocal Theology Over the course of this dissertation, I have pursued a series of symbols and cultural themes across diverse sugyot, showing how the interrelationship between these different narrative elements allows Massekhet Tacanit to speak beyond the level of the sugya and engage in theological thinking and cultural expression. Without ignoring the particulars of the halakhic questions at stake in the massekhet, my mode of reading suggests that there are other problems—cultural and theological—that may not be explicitly articulated, but which nevertheless engage the critical attention of the Stam. To draw out these issues, I listen for symbolic and thematic kinships between different tales and teachings, even if they ostensibly deal with distinct subjects, as well as for interconnections between the massekhet's halakhic and aggadic discourse. I show how the Stam returns to these questions over the course of the massekhet, and I argue that the unique nature of the Bavli allows the Stam to eschew a single answer to these cultural tensions. Instead, the complex, multivocal form of the massekhet allows its artisans to craft a dialogic, dialectical theology that refuses to resolve those tensions into a single voice.

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Despite the variability of the earlier traditions and materials, the Stam could have crafted a massekhet that articulated a more singular theological answer—that made a particular theological claim or set out a stronger assertion in response to these questions. Shamma Friedman has shown, for example, how amoraic editors did, at times, change the theological import of particular aggadic narratives, how they adapted and recrafted tales in order to meet their own needs.332 Yet instead of applying these methods on a larger scale to craft the narrative traditions before them into a more unitary voice, the final form of Massekhet Tacanit manifestly does not harmonize the theological answers. On the contrary, I suggest that the form of the massekhet represents a theological resource for the Stam. The dialogical nature of a massekhet allows the Stam to juxtapose diverse and potentially discordant narratives against one another, allowing them to raise profound questions of meaning and metaphysics. It provides a forum for a more ambiguous theologizing, for a grappling with tensions that they seem unable or uninterested in "resolving." If, as David Halivni has suggested, talmudic halakhic discourse is particularly interested in articulating and preserving the process of decision-making that yields

332

Shamma Friedman, "A Good Story Deserves Retelling—The Unfolding of the Akiva Legend." JSIS 3 (2004): 55-93. 285

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333

David Weiss Halivni, Midrash, Mishnah, and Getnara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), 70ff.

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