Jewish Culture and Creativity: Essays in Honor of Professor Michael Fishbane on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday 9798887193076

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Jewish Culture and Creativity Essays in Honor of Professor Michael Fishbane on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday

Jewish Culture and Creativity Essays in Honor of Professor Michael Fishbane on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday

E di ted by Eitan P. F ishbane & Elis h a Rus s - Fis h ban e

BOSTON 2023

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023945515 Copyright © 2023, Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved ISBN 9798887193069 (hardback) ISBN 9798887193076 (ebook PDF) ISBN 9798887193083 (ePub) Book design by Lapiz Digital Services. Cover design by Ivan Grave. On the cover: A page from Rothschild Mahzor, MS 8892 folio 128v, The JTS Library’s Special Collections. Reproduced by permission. Published by Academic Studies Press 1577 Beacon Street Brookline, MA 02446, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

Contents

Preface Eitan P. Fishbane and Elisha Russ-Fishbane 1. The Spiritual Vocation of a Teacher: A Meditation Michael Fishbane

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1

Bible and History of Interpretation 2. Monotheism and Anthropopathism in Hosea 11: Divine Personhood vs. Immutability in Biblical Theology Benjamin Sommer 3. Before Eilu va’eilu: The Pentateuchal Anthology and Tolerance of Difference Elsie R. Stern 4. The Isaiah Bulla, Jeremiah the Priest/Prophet, and Reinterpreting the Prophet (nby’) in the Persian Scribal Community William Schniedewind

7 22

36

Classical Rabbinic Literature 5. Eden Lost and Regained: Mythmaking in Midrash Deborah Green 6. Gehinnom’s Punishments in Classical Rabbinic Literature Dov Weiss 7. Problematizing the Midrashic Book in an Imperial Landscape Natalie B. Dohrmann 8. Substitutes for Sacrifice, Community Stewardship, and Rabbinic Paideia: Tractates Tithes and Second Tithe of the Mishnah Jonathan Schofer 9. Thinking Gender through Grammar: BT Qiddushin, 2a–3b Jane L. Kanarek

55 77 91

108 123

Medieval and Early Modern Religious Thought and Literature 10. Exegetical Palimpsests: The Eros and Mythos of Poetic Intertextuality Laura S. Lieber

139

vi

Jew ish Culture and Creativ ity

11. Beyond “Intention” in Ibn Paquda’s Duties of the Hearts” Omer Michaelis 12. Songs to the Soul in Medieval Hebrew Poetry Elisha Russ-Fishbane 13. Pronouncing Words, Creating Worlds: Form and Matter in Joseph Giqatilla’s Hermeneutics Tzvi Schoenberg 14. The Power of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Power: Physiognomy and the Masters of Secrets in the Zohar Ellen Haskell 15. Mystical Autobiography in Sixteenth-Century Kabbalah Eitan P. Fishbane

154 167

182

196 211

Modern Religious Thought and Literature 16. Child Mind in H.asidic Spirituality Sam S. B. Shonkoff 17. These Gates Open to the Longings of the Heart Ora Wiskind 18. Emotion, Autonomy, and the Mind in the Piaseczner Rebbe James Jacobson-Maisels 19. “An Upside Down World”: The Concept of America in H.aredi Theology Nathaniel Deutsch 20. Five Dimensions of Dignity: Jonathan Sacks on Judaism and the Human Condition Dov Lerner 21. The Forgetting of Isaac David N. Gottlieb 22. Pedagogies of PaRDeS: Michael Fishbane’s Jewish Hermeneutical Theology as a Vision of Contemporary Spiritual Education Daniel Marom 23. Encounters across the Ages at the Edge of Childhood: Learning from “Modern Jewish Thought” Rebecca Schorsch 24. Strategic Discretion: Game Theory Models for Interactions of Transgender Jews and Their Orthodox Rabbis Hillel Gray Bibliography of the Writings of Professor Michael Fishbane General Index Index of Sources

233 249 264 278

294 309

323

338

354 369 385 396

Preface

Many scholars are honored with a celebratory volume in their honor; few receive this honor twice over. In our humble opinion, our father, Michael Fishbane, is most worthy of a second volume and much more to honor what has been (and which we pray will continue to be) a truly extraordinary career. Fourteen years ago, our father was the recipient of his first Festschrift, a volume edited by two former students, Deborah Green and Laura Lieber. The present volume is therefore the second Festschrift to honor our father’s legacy, and yet it differs from its predecessor in two important respects. The first volume honored our father as an outstanding scholar and appropriately included contributions from senior colleagues in the field, only three of whom studied directly with our father. This volume, for its part, seeks to celebrate his remarkable legacy as a teacher and mentor, and the wide-ranging scholarship that has emerged from his mentoring. As a result, it solicited articles from former doctoral students and a few individuals who studied with him in less formal settings. In recognition of our father’s unique contributions as a teacher, scholar, and theologian both in academia and in the broader community, its contributions consist of traditional scholarship as well as some modern applications by student practitioners whose work has been profoundly impacted by the teaching and writings of our father. As a scholar who has spent his entire career in university life and leadership, our father has always been something of an anomaly in the world of academia.

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Preface

In the example he set for exacting standards both in writing and in the classroom and in his visionary role as builder of an academic program of Jewish studies at the University of Chicago, our father has earned the reputation of a consummate scholar. And yet, in at least three ways, his proclivities have always been more capacious than the institutions he inhabited. First, in a world of ever-increasing specialization, his scholarly interests have been far too broad for any single field of study, shifting and expanding considerably over the course of his career—from Bible to Midrash to Kabbalah to Piyyut to Jewish thought and theology—each one not replacing the other but encompassing and enhancing one another in the process. This is a broad vision and practice of Jewish Studies and scholarship as a vocation that our father learned and consciously adapted from his own formative teachers at Brandeis University—particularly Professors Nahum Glatzer, Alexander Altmann, and Nahum Sarna. In turn, this Festschrift spans multiple disciplines, from Bible and biblical exegesis to rabbinic tradition to medieval, early modern, and modern Jewish thought and literature. The scope of this volume captures but a glimpse of our father’s capaciousness not only as a scholar but as a mentor of students across many disciplines. Second, despite the often introverted demands of university life, our father’s scholarly vision has frequently led him beyond the halls of academia. His insatiable drive to teach led him to connect to students and readers across diverse backgrounds and commitments. In addition to his purely academic writings, he invested much effort to reach a broader public and have a meaningful impact on individuals and communities beyond the university. He used the medium of biblical commentary to stimulate his fellow Jews with innovative volumes on the Haftarot and Song of Songs, whose glosses are both historically grounded and oriented to the quest for religious meaning in the modern reader, works which also deeply reflect our father’s own spiritual and theological creativity, his powerful insight in contributing to contemporary Jewish thought. And his two volumes of contemplative Jewish theology, aimed at an intellectually sophisticated yet disenchanted postmodern society, have ignited a dynamic discussion on the cultivation of the inner life. Their considerable impact both within and beyond the Jewish community continues to take shape as of this publication. His dual commitment to academia and the public is well represented in the contributions included in this volume. Finally, despite the professional and hierarchical role of scholarly mentorship, his dedication to the full scope of his students’ lives is too sincere and personal to be purely academic. Each and every one of his doctoral students knows the depths of his care and the lengths to which he is prepared to go to help them reach their own potential. And each of them can give many anecdotes of how

 Preface

they were personally touched by the kindness and devotion of their mentor. Our father was and continues to be invested in their total growth as human beings in and out of the classroom. The result of this fierce devotion to his students is that the affection is mutual. The articles in this volume are a beautiful witness to this reciprocal care. Each expression of affection and gratitude in the articles that follow reflect the unique relationship our father cultivated with his dear students over the years. As each of us has grown in our own developments as scholars and teachers, we are deeply aware of the tremendous debt that we owe to our father (together with our brilliant and caring mother!) in our respective formations as academics, as Jews, and as human beings. We are blessed as sons to have been nourished from the well of wisdom and learning in our father as well as from an overflowing well of love. As each of us has grown and learned to fly in our own ways, we have both been sustained by our father’s guidance and devotion through the years— the learning he shared with us, the support he provided as we found our own footing, and the generosity of spirit to allow us the strength and independence to become scholars and teachers in our own unique ways. Eighty is a birthday imbued with reverence in the Jewish tradition; it is known as the age of gevurot, of strength, an age that already shines with the blessings of a long life. In the spirit of how our father has found both scholarly and personal meaning in the Jewish mystical tradition, it is also the mystery of seventy plus ten. Seventy faces of Torah that reflect a life filled with learning, manifold creativity, and teaching, imbued with the vitality of the ten rivers of divine light, the ten dimensions of divine Oneness. According to the kabbalists, these ten sefirot, found in God as in the human being, are first and foremost flooded with the light of rah.amim, of love, compassion, and empathy. The gevurot that are attained at eighty are simultaneously softened with the love of a compassionate and caring heart. The age of gevurot for our father is a state of strength and fullness that shines with the gentle and loving light of rah.amim and h.esed, a life experience of balance, energy, and health that we pray will continue for many years to come. As both his sons and his students, not only in our areas of research but also in the school of life and character, it is a privilege to wish our father great pride and satisfaction, nah.at ruah., at the many students he has raised and nurtured—the scholarship and teaching that has been a defining feature of his life for more than fifty years. May blessing and joy only increase. —Eitan P. Fishbane and Elisha Russ-Fishbane

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The Spiritual Vocation of a Teacher: A Meditation Michael Fishbane

The soul of a teacher stands at the nexus of many voices and faces—of teachers past, and their gifts of instruction and guidance; and of students past and present, whose faces and voices are etched in memory and mind. True teachers are the embodiments or living bearers of tradition, personalizing the primacy of texts and their vitality across the generations. A teacher is responsible to this legacy of learning—witness to records of cultural continuities, revisions and reformulations, and diverse mentalities and beliefs. Cultural legacies reach backward and forward, as interpreters of texts try to link the past and present with hermeneutical dexterity, sometimes in full view and at other times with diverse strategies of concealment. Being aware of this vital cultural process at the conjunction of diverse generations instills the teacher with humility. Being an active link in the chain of culture is a great responsibility, underscored by the privilege of helping others to become new links and transmitters. This is a sacred task. Students are the soul-root of cultural continuity; and their voice is the modality of its sustenance and spiritual vigor. My teachers exemplified the ideal of knowledge as service. They received it from their teachers and passed it on to me. It has been my ideal as well—held and given in trust. Teachers and students are interlinked by shared responsibility and purpose: to receive, interpret, and transmit the archive of tradition, each in their own way, through individual or shared sensibilities.

2

Michael Fishbane

How does one begin? We begin with the great mystery of how language creates meaning. Sharing that wonder is the beginning of true learning—and our grave hermeneutical responsibility. A teacher can inaugurate students into the wonder of making meaning: the way sense is forged by words, expressed in voices, and formulated in texts—deriving, first and foremost, from responses to the mystery of existence itself; but also in response to all the challenges and stimulations of historical existence. Texts are records of primary experience, cultural form, and the bounty of expression. Teachers have the pivotal privilege of mediating the responsible reception of these documents, exemplifying the patience and care required for their explication by later generations of scholars, who engage the world with a different mentality or mind-set. For that reason, the mysteries of language must be joined to the sober sophistication of philology. The original horizon of our texts has long receded, and when we face them again in our lived present, even with the tools of linguistic competence, we easily meld their meanings with our own. The struggle for responsible exegesis is ongoing, and may be exemplified in the classroom, where possibilities and their implications can be analyzed, and the moral duty of scholarship (to give voice to a text on its own terms, as much as possible) is actualized. I have tried to serve this spiritual goal, and, in the process, to help students find their own unique voice as interpreters, conscious of the implications of reading and the inviolable otherness of the text. Study begins with finding a generative question, and then entering the circle of interpretation with an exegetical assertiveness tempered by humility in the face of textual resistance. It continues with the creative capacity of recalibrating new questions, guided by the perceived intentions of a text, despite its ambiguities and gaps—the speedbumps that slow the unimpeded imagination. The meaning of our questions becomes clear in the process of interpretation; for at the outset they are mere stimulants and of often inchoate value. Hearing the shaping power of a question, and then being able to utilize its force, is a learned skill conveyed by a teacher who is reciprocally influenced by a student’s queries. One of my teachers once conveyed the traditional adage that we have two hands—to keep the finger of one on the text, and that of the other on a commentary. I would add, in the light of the preceding observation, that we also have two eyes—so that both the text and one’s students can be kept in view, simultaneously. A teacher must therefore be bifocal, and in the process is a living bond between the generations. This is central to the spiritual vocation of the teacher. If I have served this ideal, my students have found their voice, their questions, and their place in the continuity of culture. Scholarly responsibility is ethical and much more: it is ultimately soul-shaping, for giver and receiver alike.

T h e S p i r i t u a l V o c a t i o n o f a Te a c h e r : A M e d i t a t i o n

I  would like to underscore this last assertion. A teacher truly becomes a teacher through the receptivity and response of students—and a student may be profoundly impacted in turn. In the process, a teacher assesses and generates new questions, shaped by the context and presence of those being addressed, alert to their spirit and temperament. Slowly new meanings are formed. Writing these words, my memory carries me back to two decisive occasions—one, when I had fallen into silence after a personal loss, and one dear teacher brought me back to a reengagement with the material studied through a focused dialogical back and forth; the second occurred when I too eagerly asserted my knowledge and failed to perceive the deeper issues of a text, and therefore required the prodding voice of another dear teacher for corrective guidance. Both learning moments are indelible. We thus become persons and scholars interactively—teacher and student together; and our souls are conjointly cultivated through the silent and voiced relationships we have with the shared words of a text, through attentive conversation and question and answer. The class setting is a sacred site. It embodies the purposes of culture long before scholarship takes on its diverse forms, precisely because the classroom facilitates the dialogical and ethical dimension of making meaning through proper regard for the otherness of fellow students and a text, and of commitments to a common task. Helping others to realize this ideal of shared study has been a central goal of my life as a teacher. It involves both giving and letting go. Having given what I  could over these many years, I  have watched with quiet joy as students have found their singular path as scholars and teachers—each one in their own way, each one with their unique proclivities and gifts. Letting go means knowing when to pull aside so that there is space for each person to nurture their own talents, in their own special and distinctive way. I  have been a teacher for a half-century, beginning when I  was still a student under the tutelage of my own teachers. I, too, had to find my voice and my purpose; and over the years you, my students, each so dear to me for all the conversations shared in class and private study (not to mention all the exchanges brimming with the aims of education and life), have shaped my vision of what I wanted and needed to do to realize the ideal of knowledge as service. Your questions and concerns have explicitly and implicitly influenced the choice of the subjects I taught, the methods cultivated, and the values to be actualized. And so I thank you, each and all—most especially for the blessing of your engaged presence over these years, and for the gifts of your lifework, symbolized by your contribution to this volume, which has grown out of our scholarly venture together. The editorial initiative of this book, by my beloved

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Michael Fishbane

sons, Eitan and Elisha, is another great blessing that has come to me. As my first and devoted students, they have repeatedly helped shape my voice and activity as a teacher. It has been a loving and lifelong enterprise. You, dear students, have further cultivated this process, and for all this and more I am deeply grateful. Together, we now share a living nexus of past, present, and future. —Michael Fishbane

BIBLE AND HISTORY OF I N T E R P R E TAT I O N

2

Monotheism and Anthropopathism in Hosea 11: Divine Personhood vs. Immutability in Biblical Theology Benjamin D. Sommer ''‫''יקר וגדולה למרדכי‬ Biblical authors confront a basic problem as they attempt to describe their God. The inescapable humanity of their language and experience limits their ability to portray or imagine a nonhuman being. Yet they emphasize the uniqueness, and consequently the otherness, of YHWH. As a result, biblical authors—and their successors in the monotheistic traditions of the West—describe God in ways that disclose similarities between humans and God even as they stress differences between them. These authors attribute human emotions and commitments to God, but they insist nevertheless that God is really not like a human at all.1 The tension inherent in this project becomes acute in a passage that asserts God’s uniqueness, Hosea 11, and in the traditions of exegesis based on that passage. But the meaning and form of the passage are challenging. It will be worthwhile, then, to examine the passage within the context of Hosea’s thought, 1 For a deft summary of this “root tension in the nature of YHWH,” see Yochanan Muffs, The Personhood of God: Biblical Theology, Human Faith and the Divine Image (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2005), 55. On interaction between the finitude of our language and experience and our aspiration to approach the infinite, see Michael Fishbane, Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 201–6.

8

B enjam i n D. So m m er

and then to assay the passage’s approach to divine attributes—in particular, anger, love, and mutability. As in much of Hosea, the text of our chapter is difficult. It may have been written in a northern Israelite dialect we understand imperfectly, and—perhaps for that reason—it may have become garbled in transmission. But it has suffered even more at the hands of scholars quick to emend to a Hebrew that seems more familiar, often on the basis of the Septuagint. In fact, a careful examination suggests that little emendation is necessary, especially in the consonantal text. In what follows, I  do not present a text-critical study of the chapter, but in the footnotes I explain reasoning behind important aspects of my construals, especially those not found in standard commentaries and philological works. I present the text in Hebrew and my translation, inserting vocalization wherever the text I propose differs from the Masoretic Text (MT), and inserting a blank space where we can detect a break between stanzas. ‫וממצרים קראתי לבני‬ ‫כן הלכו מפנָי‬ ‫ולפסילים יקטרון‬ ‫ָו ֶא ָקּחֵם על זרועתָ י‬ ‫כי רפאתים‬ ‫בעבתות אהבה‬ ‫כמרימי על על לחיהם‬ ‫) לוֹ‬5( ‫אוכיל‬

‫כי נער ישראל ואהבהו‬ ‫ְכּקָראִי להם‬ ‫הֵם לבעלים יזבחו‬ ‫ואנכי תרגלתי לאפרים‬ ‫ולא ידעו‬ ‫בחבלי אדם אמשכם‬ ‫ואהיה להם‬ ‫ָואֵט אליו‬

) 1( )2( )3( )4(

‫ואשור הוא מלכו   כי מאנו לשוב‬ ‫וכלתה בדיו      ואכְלה ממעצותיהם‬ ‫ואל ע ֹל יקראהו יחד  לא ירוֹמָם‬

‫ישוב אל ארץ מצרים‬ ‫וחלה חרב בעריו‬ ‫ועמי תלואים למשובתי‬

) 6( )7(

‫אמגנך ישראל‬ ‫אשימך כצבאים‬ ‫יחד נכמרו נחומי‬ ‫לא אשוב לשחת אפרים‬ ‫ולא איש‬ ‫ולא אבוא בעיר‬ ‫כאריה ישאג‬ ‫ויחרדו בנים מים‬ ‫וכיונה מארץ אשור  והושבתים על בתיהם‬

‫איך אתנך אפרים‬ ‫איך אתנך כאדמה‬ ‫נהפך עלי לבי‬ ‫לא אעשה חרון אפי‬ ‫כי א–ל אנכי‬ ‫בקרבך קדוש‬ ‫אחרי ה' ילכו‬ ‫כי הוא ישאג‬ ‫יחרדו כצפור ממצרים‬

)8( )9( )10(

'‫נאם ה‬



)11(

Monotheism and Anthropopathism in Hosea 11

[1] When Israel was young, I loved him, And from Egypt I called for My son. [2] The more I called them, The more they went away from Me. They sacrificed to baal-gods, And burned offerings to idols. [3] Yet it was I who guided Ephraim, Taking them in My arms. But they failed to understand That I remitted the punishment they deserved. [4] I led them with humane ropes, With cords of love. And I seemed to them Like those who put a yoke on their cheek, Even though I turned to him And gave [5] him food. He will return to the land of Egypt, And Assyria will be his king. For they refused to return. [6] And a sword will whirl in his cities, And destroy his gates, And consume because of his schemes. [7] And My people will be devastated for turning away from Me, And together they will call him to the yoke; He will not rise up. [8] How could I give you up, O Ephraim, Or surrender you, O Israel? How could I destroy you like Admah, Or make you like Zeboiim? My heart is overturned against Me, Even as regret overwhelms Me! [9] I shall not perform My fiery anger, I shall not destroy Ephraim again. For I am a god And not a man, A Holy One in your midst, And I shall not come in anger.

9

10

B enjam i n D. So m m er

[10] They will follow YHWH, Who will roar like a lion. When He roars, [His] children will tremble in the west, [11] They will come trembling from Egypt, And like a dove from Assyria, And I shall allow them to dwell in their houses. A pronouncement of YHWH. The first stanza of this poem consists entirely of two-part lines; the second, of three-part lines; the third, of two-part lines, with a final three-part line that signals the end of the poem.2 As we move through the poem, YHWH describes disappointment and anger at Israel’s failure to acknowledge His beneficence to them. The tone is surprising; God displays not righteous fury but a very human distress over rejection by a loved one to whom He had given so much and for whom He still retains, beneath the anger, a wounded love.3 Hosea is concerned here not only with his own era but also with Israel’s “youth”—the time of the exodus and the travels through the Sinai wilderness.4 Hosea’s God remembers that youth with mixed emotions. He loved Israel when Israel was young,5 but the nation failed to return that love. Even when they should have been punished, God remitted the punishment (v. 3).6 Yet they continued to abandon Him. Israel’s past behavior serves, alas, as a model for 2 Robert Gordis, “Psalm 9–10: A Textual and Exegetical Study,” Jewish Quarterly Review  48 (1957):  119 n. 32, notes that three-part lines often close a poem or stanza that otherwise consists of two-part lines. Cf. Wilfred G. E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to Its Techniques (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1984), 168–74, who makes the same claim about the role of what he calls the orphan line—which is identical to what I call the third part of a three-part line. 3 Israel’s inability to recognize God’s succor is a favorite theme of Hosea’s. See 2:10, 6:4, 13:4–6. 4 Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea, trans. G. Stansell (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), 199, denies that this passage is concerned with the period of wandering in the wilderness, but several motifs allude to this theme. Verse 2 recalls the sins committed in the desert, which Hosea mentions in 9:10. That Hosea links the exodus and wandering themes is clear from 13:4–6. There, as in this passage, the prophet stresses that God fed Israel in the desert; there, as here, Israel grew haughty and abandoned God. On Hosea’s familiarity with exodus typology, see Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon, 1985), 360–61. 5 On the connection of the verb ‫ אהב‬to the exodus-wandering tradition, see Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Advocacy, Dispute (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 415. 6 On my translation of ‫ רפאתיו‬there as “remitted the punishment they deserved,” see Shawn Zelig Aster and Abraham Jacob Berkovitz, “Akkadian Bulluţu and Hebrew ‫רפא‬: Pardon and Loyalty in Hosea and in Neo-Assyrian Political Texts,” Hebrew Studies 59 (2018): 149–71.

Monotheism and Anthropopathism in Hosea 11

present conduct. Therefore, the tropes of tenderness at the beginning of the unit, where Israel is compared to a child, give way to negative figures in verse 4: Israel, like a dumb animal, needs to be led, though even then God turns7 to Israel to feed it.8 The underlying motif of the exodus, however, continues: Israel as child was called out of Egypt by its divine parent;9 Israel as animal was fed by God in the desert. In the second stanza, God’s love-cum-sadness gives way to anger, and God describes the fate awaiting the ungrateful people. Like the first stanza, the second stanza alludes to the exodus and desert wanderings, this time to describe the future rather than the past. Shortly after the Israelites went out of slavery, they wanted to return to Egypt (see Ex. 14:11–12, Num. 14:1–4). Our passage announces that now they will see this wish fulfilled, when they go back to Egypt as prisoners or refugees. Israel refused to return (‫ )שוב‬to God (v. 5) and instead committed apostasy (‫משובה‬, v. 7); now the nation will return (‫ )שוב‬to Egypt and the slavery it coveted (v. 5).10 God seemed to Israel like those who put him

7 Instead of MT’s ‫וְַאט‬, I read ‫ ָואֵט‬, a first-person waw-consecutive qal from ‫נט''ה‬. Understanding the letters ‫ אט‬as conveying a verb rather than the adverb ‫ אַט‬preserves a pattern found throughout the stanza: each part of the two-part lines has its own verb and constitutes a distinct clause. 8 The word ‫ אוכיל‬is first-person hiphil prefix indicating repeated action in the past; God turned to Israel at the exodus and fed them in the desert and thereafter. 9 Interpreters generally speak of Hosea 11 as portraying YHWH as Israel’s father; see, for example, Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2 vols.; trans. D. M. G. Stalker (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1962–65),  2:181; Brueggemann, Theology,  246–48; most recently, Yisca Zimran, “The Prevalence and Purpose of the ‘Assyria-Egypt’ Motif in the Book of Hosea,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 46 (2021): 14. But the roles in Hosea 11 are not gender-specific, and it is possible that some of them, such as feeding, were more frequently maternal than paternal. Helen Schüngel-Straumann, “Gott als Mutter in Hos 11,” Theologische Quartalschrift 166 (1987): 119–34, argues that the chapter portrays God as mother. SchüngelStraumann maintains (128–131) that 9bα denies not God’s human-ness but God’s maleness, and that God’s decision in the chapter to prioritize a relationship over divine pride or prerogatives are typically feminine. At the very least, Schüngel-Straumann’s analysis shows that the presentation of God in this text need not be read as exclusively paternal. 10 I read the beginning of the line as ‫ ;ישוב אל ארץ מצרים ואשור הוא מלכו‬the word written as ‫לא‬ (to be read ‫ )לו‬belongs to the end of the previous statement, “I turned toward him and I fed him.” Thus, the new stanza that begins with this poetic line describes punishment. One might object that verse 5, unlike most pericopes prophesying punishment, does not begin with ‫על כן‬ or a similar rhetorical marker. But the next verse is unquestionably a description of the doom, and it is not introduced by any form critical marker either. Either way, then, this poem contains a prediction of punishment without any of the usual markers. Such markers are less common in Hosea than they are in other prophets. The beginning of this line resembles Hosea in 9:3; see also 8:13. Cf. Ephraim’s desire to rely on Assyria and Egypt (7:11, 12:2); that desire is ironically fulfilled in our verse, in 9:3, and in 8:13.

11

12

B enjam i n D. So m m er

under a yoke,11 though in fact God was feeding Israel (v. 4). Having rejected God to accept unreliable Egyptian and Assyrian aid, the nation will lose God’s protection; it will experience invasion, followed by exile in Egypt and Assyria (vv. 5–6). The nation will wear a real yoke rather than a mistakenly imagined one, as verse 7 makes clear in its description of Israel’s subjugation to the foreign empires.12 In this stanza God experiences the most human of emotions: love which has turned to bitter disappointment and then to anger. But as in Jeremiah 2:2, God cannot forget the love He felt when Israel was young. As we enter the third stanza, God asks Himself how He could destroy His people. He then announces that He will not in fact destroy Israel in spite of

11 The words ‫ ואהיה להם כמרימי על על לחיהם‬must mean that the Israelites perceive God as hurting them. The phrase ‫ הרים על‬appears only here, making it difficult to be sure whether it means to take a yoke off (as Radak and Gustav Dalmann, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, 4 vols. [Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1928–42], 2:99–100, understand it) or to put one on. However, ‫נשא על‬ (Lam. 3:27) means to put one on, and ‫( על עלה עליה‬Num. 19:2) describes an animal upon which a yoke has been put. Both phrases, like this passage’s phrase, ‫הרים על‬, refer to upward movement, which makes it probable that all three describe putting a yoke on. The words ,‫סור‬ ‫פרק‬, and ‫ שבר‬are the Hebrew verbs for taking a yoke off. Here as elsewhere in Hosea God complains that the people perceived Him negatively when they should have recognized His kindness. Cf. 5:12–4. 12 MT reads ‫ ְואֶל־עַל יִק ְָראֻהוּ יַחַד ֹלא י ְרוֹמֵם‬. These few words are riddled with difficulties. ‫ עַל‬is not a noun and should not be the object of a preposition; the meaning of ‫ יחד‬in this context requires elucidation; and ‫ירוֹמֵם‬, which should mean, “he will exalt,” is problematic, because neither the subject nor the object of this transitive verb is specified. There are several ways of dealing with the first problem. Ibn Ezra and Radak maintain that ‫ על‬is equivalent to ‫ עליון‬and thus an epithet of YHWH. They suggest that various prophets (whom they found in verse 2) are the unnamed subject of the verb here. But no such epithet is known, and recourse to unidentified prophets as the verb’s subject is unlikely. Francis Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Hosea: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 586–87, suggests that ‫ על‬may be the name of another god, otherwise unattested in Israelite or ancient Near Eastern literature, to whom the people are called, which would mesh well with verse 2 if there were in fact a god with this name. Wolff suggests reading ‫ואל בעל יקראו‬ ‫“—הוא יחד לא י ְרימֵם‬They call to Ba’al, but he will not raise them up.” This is a very attractive understanding, since it fits well with verses 2–3. But what is the sense of ‫ יחד‬here? A further possibility is to vocalize ‫ על‬as ‫ע ֹל‬, as do Targum, Aquila, Symmachus, and Vulgate (as well as Arnold Ehrlich, Randglossen zur hebräischen Bibel [Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1908–14], ad loc., whose far-reaching emendation of whole the line is unlikely). If we read the pôlāl ‫“( ירומָם‬to be lifted, to get up”) rather than the MT’s pôlēl (“to lift up, to exalt”), we may translate, “And together (‫ )יחד‬they will call him to the yoke, and he will not get up.” The word “they” refers to Egypt and Assyria, who enslave the Israelites exiled to those lands. This understanding finds support in Deuteronomy 28, which has many points of contact with Hosea 11 (see vv. 48, 66). The inability to get up is a frequent prophetic trope in descriptions of punishment (see Am. 5:2, Jer. 25: 27, and so forth). This reading leaves the consonantal text untouched, allows us to retain a normal meaning for ‫יחד‬, and does not require us to import into this verse gods or epithets whose existence is dubious.

Monotheism and Anthropopathism in Hosea 11

His anger. The passage ends with God’s promise to redeem Israel by bringing it back from exile. Biblical theologians have been wont to read the question in verse 8 (“How could I give you up, O Ephraim . . .”) in light of the rejection of anthropomorphism in verse 9 (“For I am a god, and not a man”).13 As a result, some see these verses as a statement of God’s constancy. Ludwig Koehler writes, “In Hosea God calls Himself the Holy One because He is the Lord of His own will who does not execute the fierceness of His anger and does not return to destroy Ephraim. That He is holy here means that in His decision He is independent and free.”14 For Koehler, the passage demonstrates that in the Old Testament “God is free of considerations and conditions, . . . master of His own will, of His feelings, even of His wrath . . .”; a similar reading occurs in more recent work by Eckard Otto.15 Ancient and medieval interpreters also read verse 8 as an assertion of the immutability of YHWH’s will. Targum renders: “I shall not perform My strong anger; My word will not destroy the house of Israel again, for I am God, and My word stands forever; My actions are not like those of the offspring of flesh who live on the earth.” Radak, in the second of two readings he suggests, imports into our verse the notion of ‫ברית אבות‬, the covenant between God and the patriarchs, while denying that God changes His mind. Rather than taking the word ‫שוב‬ adverbially in verse 9 (“I will not destroy Ephraim again”), Radak reads it as a verb meaning “go back on”: Its meaning may be like that of the verse, “God is not a man who disappoints (‫ )ויכזב‬or a human who changes his mind (‫”)ויתנחם‬ (Num. 23:19). God said: Since I have promised their fathers to treat them and their descendants well, I shall not go back (‫)אשוב‬ on My promise, even though they have sinned before Me. Rather, I shall discipline them but not destroy them utterly. 13 Alternatively, we might render: “For I am God, not a man.” For an especially useful discussion of what is at issue in this line, see Samuel Balentine, The Lure of Transcendence and the Audacity of Prayer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 18–26. The line’s attempt to reject anthropomorphism is clear either way. 14 Ludwig Koehler, Old Testament Theology, trans. A. S. Todd (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957), 52. 15 Koehler, Old Testament Theology,  52. Eckart Otto, Theologische Ethik des Alten Testaments (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1994), 111, maintains that Hosea 11 affirms divine freedom in contrast to human subjection to emotional constraints. For Otto, the key contrast in Hosea 11 sets human nature against divine nature; the former is prone to give precedence to anger, while the latter prioritizes love. A similar idea lies behind Heschel’s distinction between passion (which God does not have) and pathos (with which God abounds). See Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets, 2 vols. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962), 2:2.

13

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Rashi presents a similar reading of the words ‫ לא אשוב‬by adding an object to that verb as he paraphrases: “I shall not go back on the good word (‫לא אשוב‬ ‫ )מדברי הטוב‬I spoke; I do not reject them or loath them so that I should destroy Ephraim.” As Radak’s comment suggests, the notion that these verses demonstrate the immutability of God depends on other occurrences of vocabulary found in verses 8–9. The ‫“( לא איש‬not a man”) formula occurs alongside the root ‫ נח''ם‬in two other verses asserting that God differs from man because God does not change His mind. The first is Numbers 23:19, where the prophet Balaam states, “God is not a man who disappoints or a human who changes his mind (‫)יתנחם‬. Has He ever ordained something and not fulfilled it? Has He spoken and not brought to fruition?” The second is 1 Samuel 15:29, where the prophet Samuel proclaims, “The eternal one of Israel does not lie or change His mind (‫)ינּחם‬, for He is not a human, that He should change His mind (‫)להנּחם‬.” Influenced by these verses, Targum, Radak, Rashi, and Koehler see Hosea 11:8 as an affirmation of God’s control over His own immutable will. But these interpreters fail to notice that Hosea 11:8 uses the language it shares with Numbers 23 and 1 Samuel 15 in a different way. As the verse continues, Hosea contends that God does change His mind.16 The verse reads: ‫נהפך‬ ‫עלי לבי יחד נכמרו נחומי‬. A careful examination of this concatenation of difficult words shows that Hosea rejects rather than repeats the position articulated by Balaam and Samuel. The words ‫ נהפך לב על‬have several meanings. Several times in the Bible the phrase ‫ נהפך לב‬means to change one’s mind, to regret a decision already made. For example, in Exodus 14:5, Pharaoh rues having set the Israelites free: “The king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, and his mind and that of his courtiers changed in regard to (‫ )ויּ ֵ ָהפֵך לבב פרעה ועבדיו אל‬the people, and they said, ‘What have we done by letting Israel go free?’”17 The phrase ‫ נהפך לב‬can denote deep inner anguish or pain, as in Lamentations 1:20: “I am in pain; my stomach is churning; my heart turns over within me (‫)נהפךלבי בקרבי‬.” Further, the verb ‫ נהפך‬with the preposition ‫ על‬suggests a sudden onset of pain that triggers a subsequent action in 1 Samuel 4:19. There, Phineas’s pregnant wife hears of the

16 As J. Gerald Janzen, “Metaphor and Reality in Hosea 11,” Semeia 24 (1982): 7–44, shows, verse 8’s question is no mere rhetorical one. It is an existential one, a question through which God suggests to Himself that He might become something different from what He has been until now. Balentine, Lure, 24, notes that “the interrogative ‫ איך‬in Hosea 11:8 (2x) connotes self-accusation. The verb ‫‘( הפך‬turn over, overthrow’) signals that God’s heart is at war with itself.” Similarly, Otto, Theologische Ethik, 110, emphasizes God’s internal conflict. 17 The same sense of the phrase ‫ הפך לב‬occurs in the qal in Psalms 105:25.

Monotheism and Anthropopathism in Hosea 11

Israelite’s defeat, her husband’s death, and the loss of the ark, whereupon “she bent over and gave birth, for the pangs overpowered her (‫)נהפכו עליה צריה‬.” The combination of ‫ נהפך‬with ‫ על‬may imply conflict in light of the adversarial sense of ‫על‬.18 All these senses occur here: the verse describes inner anguish and conflict, which result in a sudden change of heart.19 The phrase ‫ נהפך עלי לבי‬may be translated, “I have changed my mind,” but also, “My heart/will is overturned against me.” The last words of verse 8 (‫ )יחד נכמרו נחומי‬also assert that God, compelled by deep emotion, reverses His plans. The noun ‫ נחומי‬denotes regret over a course of action. (It is related to the verbs whose connection to God Balaam and Samuel deny in Numbers 23:19 and 1 Samuel 15:29.) The presence of the noun ‫נחומי‬, like the phrase ‫נהפך לב‬, indicates that this verse affirms precisely what Targum, Radak, Rashi, and Koehler attempt to deny. YHWH does, in fact, change His mind. (This noun can also means “mercy”—see Isa. 57:18 and Zech. 1:13—and surely Hosea intends the audience to pick up on this meaning as well.) Moreover, the verb ‫ נכמרו‬suggests that God is not entirely in control of Himself. This basic meaning of this word is “to grow hot, ripe, or tender.”20 The word appears in a similar phrase in Genesis 43:30, which describes Joseph as he is overcome by emotion so that he has to rush away to cry in private. Thus, the phrase ‫יחד נכמרו נחומי‬ indicates, “at the same time, my regret (and mercy) overcame me.”21 God seems subject to His own passions in this verse, a state of affairs opposing the notion that our verse proclaims divine immutability. The idea that YHWH can change His mind is hardly limited to this passage in the Hebrew Bible. One need read no further than Genesis 6:7 to read that God says of humanity, “I regret (‫ )נחמתי‬that I made them.” Jeremiah 18:7ff. asserts that God will change His mind if humans’ actions warrant it. The same message stands at the heart of the Book of Jonah. In all these cases, God changes in reaction to human conduct, altering plans in order to reward the penitent or punish sinners. In other cases God refrains from acting on His anger due to His

18 See Wolff, Hosea, 201. He further points out this sense of conflict within God in 6:4. 19 The term ‫ נהפך‬also hints at the idea of “destruction,” as in Jonah 3:4. The qal has this sense as well (see Gen. 19:21 and 29). This is precisely what will not happen, in the end, to Ephraim; rather than the people being ‫ נהפך‬in the sense of destroyed, or in the sense of changing themselves for the better, God’s intention is ‫ נהפך‬so that the people are saved. 20 Balentine, Lure, 18, notes the pointed contrast between God’s “burning compassion” in the phrase ‫ נכמרו נחומי‬in verse 8 with God’s “burning anger” (‫ )חרון אפי‬in verse 9. 21 The word ‫ יחד‬here means “at once, at the same time.” See J. C. de Moor, “Lexical Remarks Concerning Yah. ad and Yah.daw,” Vetus Testamentum 7 (1957): 354–55. It often connects two verbs that refer to the same action or event (see, for example, Ps. 35:26, 40:15; Isa. 41:23, 42:14, 45:8). In these cases it might be translated “in the same way, similarly.”

15

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duty towards the descendants of the patriarchs. But Hosea’s God changes His mind for a very different reason, as we shall see. Even if chapter 11 does not claim that YHWH’s will is unchanging, verse 9 declares that God differs from humanity in some way. Unlike a human, the verse asserts, God does not allow Himself to be carried away by anger.22 He claims that because He is a god, His mercy must outweigh His wrath. Readers of the Book of Hosea and biblical theologians have largely taken His assertion of uniqueness at face value. Ibn Ezra, for example, paraphrases, “I am capable of holding back anger.” Radak suggests the same reading: “For I am slow to anger and not like a human who is unable to hold back his anger and treats his enemy according to his anger and his fury.” Modern biblical theologians follow suit. When Walther Eichrodt discusses divine love and anger and the preponderance of the former, he cites Hosea 11:9, adding, There can be no playing down the annihilating power of holiness, and the intensity of the threat of judgment in Hosea can hardly be exaggerated. Nevertheless, in the end, it is the incomprehensible creative power of love which marks out YHWH as the wholly “other,” the one whose nature is in complete contrast to that of the created cosmos.23 Similarly, A. J. Heschel cites this verse to show that, for all His pathos, God is not really subject to anger in the same way He is involved in human events and emotions such as sorrow, love, and joy: The anger of the Lord is a tragic necessity . . . It is not an emotion He delights in, but an emotion He deplores . . . The state of wrath is distasteful to God . . . The intention of [Hosea 11:9] is to elucidate the nature of divine anger. Just as God is absolutely different from man, so is divine anger different from human anger. The Lord must punish, but He will not destroy, for He is

22 Koehler, Old Testament Theology, 52, hints at this reading when he says that the verse shows God to be “free of considerations and conditions, . . . master of His own will, of His feelings, even of His wrath . . .” Cf. Otto, Theologische Ethik, 111. 23 Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, 2 vols., trans. J. A. Baker (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961–67), 1:281. On verse 9 as proclaiming “the absolute difference of the divine being with respect to the created world,” see further Walther Eichrodt, “‘The Holy One in Your Midst’: The Theology of Hosea,” trans. Lloyd Gaston, Interpretation 15 (1961): 273.

Monotheism and Anthropopathism in Hosea 11

the master of His anger, in control of His anger, “for I am God and not man.”24 Thus, for Heschel, God’s anger “is an expression of His concern,” “not an antithesis of love, but its counterpart, a help to justice as demanded by true love.” Divine anger is “suspended love, mercy withheld . . . Anger prompted by love is an interlude. It is as if compassion were waiting to resume.”25 Similarly, Yochanan Muffs understands verse 9 as proclaiming that God renounces anger altogether: A new consciousness is here born in the mind of God. He reviews His previous behavior, and it is as if He says to Himself: “All those methods of self-restraint [found in biblical passages in which God announces He will limit His anger but not foreswear it altogether, such as Psalms 78:38] are noble in man but are not sufficient for God. It is fitting for God to give up this human pettiness of vengeance no matter how restrained and controlled.” God simply decides not to get angry.26 The same view of Hosea 11:9 appears in the work of my teacher, Michael Fishbane, the honoree of our Festschrift: “When God says through the prophet Hosea that ‘I am God and not a man,’ . . . being God . . . means, as God Himself says, ‘I will not act on My wrath.’ . . . Control of anger is thus a decisive difference between ‘God and . . . man,’ and in this divine attribute later psalmists put their trust.”27 The view represented by Ibn Ezra, Radak, Eichrodt, Heschel, Muffs, and Fishbane is consistent with what Hosea (or God as a character in the Book of Hosea) wants to say: that God is ultimately different from humans in His control of emotion, specifically anger.28 But is this claim consistent with the rhetoric 24 Heschel, Prophets, 2:74. Cf. ibid., 2:66: “The All-wise and Almighty may change a word that He proclaims. Man has the power to modify His design. Jeremiah had to be taught that God is greater than His decisions. The anger of the Lord is instrumental, hypothetical, conditional, and subject to His will.” Here he again cites Hosea 11:9 along with Isaiah 48:9. 25 Heschel, Prophets, 2:76–77. 26 Yochanan Muffs, Love and Joy: Law, Language and Religion in Ancient Israel (New York and Cambridge, MA: The Jewish Theological Seminary and Harvard University Press, 1992), 43. 27 Michael Fishbane, The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1998), 94. 28 Balentine, Lure, 24 n. 29, notes the prevalence of this reading among the Church Fathers. Ibid., 23–24 he also notes the limitation of the reading, which fails “to explain why God should be indecisive about how to deal with Israel . . . or why God experiences such a tumult of conflicting emotions.”

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of God’s statement? Is it consistent with the portrayal of God throughout the Book of Hosea, which, as Samuel Balentine puts it, presents “a prime example of what is overall a positive embrace of YHWH’s fundamental humanness.”29 To be sure, the passage portrays God as overcoming His human passions so that He redeems His people.30 But even that overcoming is all-too human, God’s protestation in verse 9 notwithstanding: for the concept of a love which is transformed to anger but remains love nonetheless originates in the sphere of relations between parent and child or lovers.31 The deepest animosities result not from mere opposition between people, from the state of being enemies, but from love gone awry. In such a situation, the love is not gone. It lingers, causing pain. That lingering, especially in the relation of parent to estranged child that Hosea assumes here, prevents the termination of the relationship. The love is now transformed into anger or even hatred. At the same time, because the people in such a relationship (especially the parent) refuse to admit its closure, they often hope for its renewal in a more positive form. God’s attitude can be described in precisely these terms. God does not quash His anger here for reasons of justice. The people have not repented (“for they refused to repent,” v. 5), and in any event such repentance as they might eventually display cannot not be taken terribly seriously, given their fickle nature. Thus human activity has not called forth God’s decision to avert wrath as a matter of fairness or covenantal fidelity.32 In contrast to what occurs in Exodus 32:13 or what is promised in Leviticus 26:34, the covenant between YHWH and the patriarchs plays no role in convincing God to disregard His plan to destroy the people. The passage does not allude to any promises made to the people or their forebears.33 Indeed, Hosea lacks any positive recollection of the patriarchs, and the book never refers to duty that God has towards the people.34 Neither considerations of equity to a reformed people nor obligations to which

29 Ibid., 23. 30 For a sensitive treatment of this theme in Pentateuchal sources, see Ariel Seri-Levi, “Divine Anger and Its Appeasement in the Pentateuch and Its Sources” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 2020). 31 In addition, our chapter evinces God’s doubt about His own course of action, another surprise to those who assume God’s ways invariably differ from humanity’s. On prophetic ascription of doubt to God, see von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2:63. 32 Contrary to Brueggemann, Theology, 298–302, who discusses our passage as an example of pathos in the context of covenant, maintaining that “the theme of covenant is transposed into a practice of pathos” (298). 33 Radak’s claim to the contrary notwithstanding. 34 Hosea’s only references to the patriarchs occur in 12:3f. and 12:13f., and these are hardly positive. On the gap between the recollections of the patriarchs that dominate Pentateuchal traditions and those in Hosea, see Muffs, Love, 81.

Monotheism and Anthropopathism in Hosea 11

God committed Himself in the past affect God’s behavior here. God changes His mind for personal reasons—precisely the reasons that compel a parent to reconcile with a child even when the child does not desire, much less deserve, pardon.35 God’s anger in the Hosea passage is not merely purposeful or didactic anger, Heschel’s “suspended love.” Rather, it is wounded love. The model of wounded love transformed to pained indignation helps explain the fury of God’s actions against Israel, which go beyond the didactic: God has in mind the utter destruction of Israel, as the comparison to Admah and Zeboiim (cities associated with Sodom and Gomorrah) in verse 8 makes clear. The extraordinary fury that nearly leads to the Israel’s destruction also underlies passages like Hosea 13:7–8. There, too, the description of God’s ferocity immediately follows God’s recollection of His parental care for Israel in the desert. This model of wounded parental love explains why the anger is not permanent. God forswears His anger not because it is the nature of divinity to do so nor because He upholds obligations incurred in the past, but because He is compelled by His own desire to love. Heschel comes very close to realizing this when he compares God’s anger to that of parents and says, The situation of parents in relation to their children may be described as one of spiritual dependence: parents are in misery when unable to love. As a rule, the parent is more fully conscious of the meaning of this dependence than the child, and the parent’s pain in hurting is deeper than the child’s pain in being hurt.36 In what follows, however, Heschel shies away from the implication of this comparison. But a close reading of Hosea makes clear that this sort of painful relationship, rather than a relationship based on justice or obligation, at times underlies the feelings of God towards Israel. God forgives Israel in Hosea 11 for His own reasons, to meet His own needs. Contrary to the claims made by Heschel and Koehler, then, God is controlled by emotion here. His fury ceases not because He controls His will but because love overwhelms Him.

35 This theme also appears in Jeremiah 31:18–20, which uses vocabulary found in our passage (‫ מעי‬,‫ נח''ם‬,‫ )שוב‬to announce that God loves His child Israel too much to go through with the entire punishment Israel deserves. 36 Heschel, Prophets, 2:74. On the tension between God’s parental love and anger in Hosea 11, see also Brueggemann, Theology, 246 and 247.

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If that is so, then the passage describes God in terms as deeply human as possible—even as it attempts to repudiate any comparison between God and humanity. The crucial statement of God in vv. 8-9 at once opposes and exemplifies anthropopathism. These lines embody the conflict between a view of God that stresses His human side and one that denies it, between affirming God’s need for humanity and positing God’s self-sufficiency. Hosea 11 discloses the extent to which Israel’s God is, despite His objection to the contrary, a very human figure. More than most descriptions of divine love and anger in the Bible, this passage evinces Israel’s anthropopathic conception of God. And yet it also reveals the discomfort that such a conception generated.37 It is useful to compare Hosea and Deutero-Isaiah’s portrayals of God in this regard, because both assert the difference between God and humanity even as both repeatedly use comparisons with humans to describe God. As Marc Brettler has shown, Deutero-Isaiah repeatedly applies incompatible similes and metaphors to YHWH in the course of a single passage.38 The self-contradictions in these figures of speech allow their subject (God) to go beyond the vehicles (various human figures) through which the prophet attempts to describe God. Deutero-Isaiah employs incompatible figures of speech that render God at once a king, a warrior, a father, a mother, and a lover to show that YHWH is more than a king, warrior, father, mother, or lover. These clashing comparisons illustrate Deutero-Isaiah’s central theological claim, enunciated explicitly at Isaiah 40:25: God is incomparable. (We might add to Brettler’s observation that precisely the same rhetorical strategy appears in the familiar medieval hymn from the school of the Ḥasidei Ashkenaz known variously as ‫אנעים‬ ‫ זמירות‬and ‫ ;שיר הכבוד‬the opening lines of this hymn lay out this strategy explicitly, while the remainder of the hymn employs that strategy.) In Hosea 11, however, the psychological acuity of the description of God undermines rather than reinforces the prophet’s claim about God’s uniqueness. The passage under discussion, then, shows the extent to which Hosea’s God really does resemble a person. It demonstrates how difficult it was for Hosea, as for most monotheists,

37 Thus this passage is an especially fine instance of Brueggemann’s assertion (in Theology, 268): “The substance of Israel’s testimony concerning Yahweh, I propose, yields a Character who has a profound disjunction at the core of the Subject’s life. This disjunction, moreover, is the engine that drives Israel’s testimony; it is the splendor of Israel’s odd faith and the source of the deep vexation that marks Israel’s life.” 38 Marc Zvi Brettler, “Incompatible Metaphors for Yhwh in Isaiah 40–66,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 78 (1998): 97–120. For a similar approach, see Schüngel-Straumann, “Gott als Mutter,” 133.

Monotheism and Anthropopathism in Hosea 11

to avoid the implications of his own language. At the same time, this passage underscores how deeply Hosea was committed to the personhood of God. Yochanan Muffs teaches us that, contrary to Maimonides’s assertions, God’s personhood rather that God’s perfection is the essence of biblical monotheism. The biblical God can never be immutable, because the biblical God is, above all, a God who enters into relationship. Human beings are ever-changing and inconsistent, and consequently any being who is in relationship with human beings must change as well. In contrast, Muffs maintains (following Yehezkel Kaufmann) that for paganism, “nature is the ultimate reality, [and] its essence is constancy, its adherence to eternal, inherent laws . . . The genius of Israel’s religion as opposed to the others is its focus on the idea of the personhood of God.”39 It follows from this conceptualization of paganism that Maimonides is the most pagan of all Jewish thinkers, while Heschel and Buber are the most monotheistic.40 The feature of Hosea 11:8–9 I have discussed, then, carries weighty implications. The assertions of God’s constancy found in the statements of Balaam and Samuel lead to one sort of theology. That theology reaches is apex in Maimonides, and also in the kabbalistic idea of the ‫אין סוף‬, whose essence is its unreachability. Hosea 11, with its characteristically human self-contradiction stated by a surprisingly human God, leads to the classical Rabbis, to Heschel, and the sefirot whose essence lies in their dynamism and their ability to be in relationship.41 That Hosea 11 contradicts itself cannot be denied. But for Hosea, and for theologians like Heschel and Muffs, some contradictions are worth embracing.

39 See Muffs, Personhood, passim; the quotations are from 20 and 23. 40 This form of paganism is even more prominent in Spinoza. Precisely those aspects of biblical and rabbinic literature that most vexed Maimonides express a revolutionary negation of paganism as Kaufmann and Muffs understand it. On the origins of Muffs’s views in his synthesis of Heschel and Kaufmann, see Personhood, 83–85; and see further my remarks in “Reclaiming the Bible as a Jewish Book: The Legacy of Three Conservative Scholars (Yochanan Muffs, Moshe Greenberg, and Jacob Milgrom),” Zeramim: An Online Journal of Applied Jewish Thought 1, no. 3 (2017): 7–8. On the distinction between the surface personalism of polytheistic deities and the deep personalism of the biblical God, see Michael Fishbane, Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 5 and 32, and Fishbane, Exegetical Imagination, 93–94. 41 On the Zohar and the sefirot, as “the culmination of biblical personalism,” see Muffs, Personhood, 88. See further Fishbane, Exegetical Imagination, 99–101.

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Before Eilu va’eilu: The Pentateuchal Anthology and Tolerance of Difference Elsie R. Stern

It is an honor to be included in this Festschrift for Michael Fishbane. I have many memories from my years as Buzzy’s student and mentee at the University of Chicago Divinity School. I remember sitting around various seminar tables reading the Bible and Midrash with forays into mystical texts. I remember sitting with my comrades as we worked our way through Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (which we called “the big blue book”). I remember how Buzzy taught us, by his example, to be deeply sensitive literary readers of ancient Jewish texts and I  remember the delight he took in cross-disciplinary conversations and collaborations in which the act of bringing divergent materials into conversation led to new and rich insights about the texts and their communities of readers. In retrospect, though, I was most influenced by the Buzzy’s intermingling of deeply erudite scholarship and his moral and religious commitments. This nexus is obvious in his works of explicit theology and especially in Sacred Attunement, where he draws on decades of deep engagement with philosophy and Jewish texts to demonstrate how we might “become theological beings, even from within our mortal naturalness.”1 This intermingling was evident earlier as well. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel is an eminently academic book—full of meticulous readings of biblical texts. At the same time, it is a deeply Jewish book—one that locates the roots of later 1 Michael Fishbane, Sacred Attunement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 14.

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Jewish hermeneutical convictions and reading strategies in the period of biblical composition.2 It is also evident in his Jewish Publication Society commentary on the Haftarot in which scholarly comments on the literary features and historical contexts of the haftarah texts dwell side-by-side with insights into how the texts can serve contemporary spiritual growth and meaning-making.3 Through his scholarship and his teaching, Buzzy showed me how academic scholarship can not only deepen and sharpen our understanding and analysis of ancient texts, but also how academically informed understandings of those texts can contribute to contemporary meaning-making and constructive theological work. For the past fifteen years, I have had the good fortune to serve on the faculty of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College—a seminary in which our pedagogy is founded on the very premise that Buzzy modeled for me when I was a graduate student. Our program is grounded in the conviction that academically informed and historically contextualized understandings of Jewish canonical texts are resources rabbis use to help the people they serve make meaning, connect to the holy, and engage in positive social change. Thus, the RRC classroom has been, for me, a laboratory to explore the potential contemporary relevance and constructive potential of scholarly insights into the Hebrew Bible. In this essay, I  will share how attention to the anthological nature of the Pentateuch and reflection on its redactional strategies can be resources to counter contemporary obstacles to productive conversations across difference. For people reading this volume in the early 2020s, the contemporary challenges to conversations across difference require little elaboration. While feminist scholars have borne witness to a dominant “culture of argument” and polarization of discourse since at least the 1990s, the pervasiveness of polarization, discursive silos, intolerance of difference and demonization of the other has increased precipitously in the past several years.4 The focus on anthology and anthological redactional strategies requires more explanation. This focus is grounded in a fundamental similarity between textual anthology and human community. An anthology is “a collection of sources . . . collected according to some criterion, such as quality, genre, place, or time.”5 In other

2 Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). 3 Michael Fishbane, JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2002). 4 Deborah Tannen, The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue (New York: Random House, 1998). 5 Eliezer Segal, “Anthological Dimensions of the Babylonian Talmud,” in The Anthology in Jewish Literature, ed. David Stern (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 95.

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words, anthology is a genre constructed at the intersection of difference and coherence. The existence of an anthology asserts that its diverse, constituent sources belong to a single, coherent category. Within this overarching definition, anthology is a diverse literary category. As David Stern notes in the introduction to The Anthology in Jewish Literature, anthologies differ in their modes of selection, literary organization, and redaction.6 Taken together, these different approaches to selection, organization, and redaction represent different strategies for navigating the dynamics of coherence and difference that are core to the genre. Like anthologies, communities are aggregates of discrete and differentiated humans about whom we posit elements of coherence. The elements of coherence vary from one community or social formation to another: the  category of “Philadelphians” is constituted through shared geography; the category of “Americans” through shared geography and/or citizenship; the category of a synagogue community by shared membership status and financial and experiential participation; and the “queer community” through shared experience and self-identification. Needless to say, there is a vast social-science literature on the nature, formation, and dynamics of communities that I will not venture into here. It suffices to say that the centripetal forces of differentiation and the centrifugal forces of coherence are always in dynamic relationship and that we are living in a moment where the centripetal forces are dominant.7

Difference and Coherence in the Pentateuch In recent years, the concept of “coherence” has gained traction in biblical scholarship.8 The term, which derives from the fields of cognitive psychology and

6 David Stern, “The Anthology in Jewish Literature: An Introduction,” in The Anthology in Jewish Literature, ed. David Stern (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 4. 7 I borrow the language of “centripetal” and centrifugal” forces in the context of anthology from fellow Fishbane student, Benjamin Sommer, “Book or Anthology: The Pentateuch as Jewish Scripture,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, ed. J. Gertz et al. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 1091–2. 8 Joel S. Baden, “Why Is the Pentateuch Unreadable?—Or, Why Are We Doing This Anyway?,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, ed. J. Gertz et  al. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 243–252; Marc Z. Brettler, “Coherence of Ancient Texts,” in Gazing on the Deep: Ancient Near Eastern and Other Studies in Honor of Tzvi Abusch, ed. J. Stackert et  al. (Bethesda: CDL Press, 2010), 411–9; Jeffrey Stackert, “Pentateuchal Coherence and the Science of Reading,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, ed. J. Gertz et al. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 253–68.

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linguistics, “refers to a reader’s attainment of meaningful relations . . . between the constituents of single and adjacent sentences. . . up to and including [at] the level of an entire text.”9 Many cognitive experiments have tested how much (and what types) of dissonance need to be present to cause a “contradiction effect,” which triggers “the reader’s measurable recognition of inconsistencies in characterization, causality, or other details in a text, either at a local or global level.”10 Studies have also tested what sorts of commonalities or organizing strategies promote perceptions of coherence. A fundamental finding of these cognitive studies is that humans demonstrate “a natural bias toward finding coherence in a text.”11 We can tolerate a relatively high degree of dissonance before the perception of coherence is disrupted and we unconsciously perform a series of cognitive tasks that allow us to make sense out of divergent inputs. Jeffrey Stackert illustrates this point with the “Moses Illusion” experiment, which is well known in the field of cognitive psychology and is remarkably appropriate for discussions of biblical coherence. When asked “How many animals did Moses bring onto the ark?” test subjects “regularly fail to detect the distortion.”12 This experiment demonstrates how readers and listeners will often make sense of utterances that are, actually nonsensical. The prevalence of coherent readings of the Pentateuchal anthology provides rather stunning evidence for this preference for coherence. Despite its radically divergent contents—in terms of genre, linguistic style, and ideology—most modern readers who encounter the Pentateuch outside of academically informed settings (Wellhausen and Spinoza are notable exceptions), experience it as a basically coherent text. The cognitive bias for coherence, buttressed by cultural supports for the coherence of the Pentateuch, suppress readers’ awareness of the degree of large-scale divergence present in the collection.13 While careful readers are likely to notice local dissonances such as the discrepancy in the number of animals Noah (not Moses) brought on to the ark, they are less likely to independently notice the radically divergent theologies of

  9 Stackert, “Pentateuchal Coherence,” 254–5. 10 Ibid., 255. 11 Ibid., 259. 12 Ibid., 258. 13 Within Jewish culture, the cultural construction and performance of Torah set expectations of coherence. Nomenclature (the Torah), material format (scroll, book or discrete section of a larger Bible), performance (sequential recitation in the synagogue), as well as theological signification, precondition Jewish readers to expect the Torah to be coherent. This expectation, in turn, buttresses the likelihood that readers will read the anthology as coherent, despite significant differences in the texts. A different set of discursive, material, ritual, and hermeneutical practices buttress coherent readings of the Christian Bible.

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priestly and non-priestly texts. Careful readers often harmonize the large-scale divergences in language, genre, and ideological perspective that inform scholarly reconstructions of the composition and redaction of the Pentateuch. As a result, even readers who have internalized the assertion that “Judaism values multiple perspectives” are surprised at the degree of divergence among, for example, the theologies implicit in texts identified in source critical scholarship as J, P, and D.

Centering Anthology as a Pedagogical Practice For many years, the structure of my Biblical Civilization (Intro. to the Bible) course followed the canonical order of the Bible. Several years ago, as part of a larger curricular revision, I  restructured the course around the idea of anthology. In this model, each unit explores different Pentateuchal and wider biblical perspectives on themes that will become central to later Judaism (God, Israel, Torah/Law). This restructuring disrupts the tendency toward coherence that the canonical order of the Pentateuch engenders and refocuses students’ attention on the diversity of perspectives present in the Pentateuchal anthology. In reflecting on the effect of this structure on students’ rabbinic and Jewish formation, it is clear that internalization of the fundamentally anthological nature of the Torah leads students to understand ideological diversity as a foundational and constitutive element of Judaism that is “baked in” to Judaism’s earliest foundational text. For students whose understandings of Jewish ideological pluralism have been shaped by the model of the Talmud and ideas of rabbinic pluralism, encountering the Torah as anthology can be particularly useful.14 While the Talmud demonstrates divergence of opinion among members of the rabbinic movement, this diversity exists within the larger ideological and generic homogeneity of that movement and its surviving literature.15 While there are certainly limits to ideological diversity in the Hebrew Bible, the anthology includes more widely divergent perspectives on foundational religious and ideological issues than the Talmud. In addition, the halakhic discourse of the Talmud is fundamentally dialectical. In a typical halakhic sugya, divergent dicta are set up in (apparent) conflict with one another and this initial assertion of conflict catalyzes the series of discursive moves that 14 Yehuda Kurtzer, “What Happened to Jewish Pluralism,” Sources, Spring 2021, https://www. sourcesjournal.org/articles/what-happened-tojewish-pluralism, notes that the centrality of the Talmud to contemporary Jewish pluralism discourse and projects began in the 1980s. 15 Daniel Boyarin, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 140–46.

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makes up the body of the sugya. Even as this discourse usually drives toward the reduction or elimination of the initial conflict, it is structured dialectically as the articulation and interrogation of successive challenges and rebuttals. The Pentateuchal anthology provides an alternative, non-dialectical treatment of diverse materials. In the Pentateuch, the differences between divergent perspectives are neither explicitly problematized nor interrogated.16 Consequently, the Pentateuch provides an alternative, authoritative Jewish textual model for navigating difference. In the years in which my class has included meta-reflection on this anthological phenomenon, students have reported that ongoing engagement with Torah as anthology fosters a mimetic discourse “around the table” in which divergent perspectives are expressed in non-dialectal ways. Focusing on anthology inspires students to talk to one another more anthologically. In addition, historically contextualized treatment of the Pentateuchal anthology necessarily makes visible the “anthological” nature of the Israelite/ Judean polity. Attention to the anthological nature of the Torah shines a light on the diverse populations (northern and southern, pre-exilic and post-exilic, priestly and non-priestly) within which the different sources originated. Thus, attention to the anthological nature of Torah provides a reminder of the diversity of the collective out of which Judaism emerged and stands as a reminder of the possibility of incorporating significant differences of perspective into the communal canon. Attention to the sociological context of divergent sources also draws attention to the limiting nature of anthology. In discussing “what made it in,” we necessarily discuss “what was left out.” Exploration of dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in the canon and the implications for our understanding of its socio-historical context provides a powerful case study for future rabbis as they anticipate how they will lead communities in navigating the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that are an inevitable element of communal life. While consistent attention to the anthological nature of the Torah helps to authenticate and normalize diversity and divergence within Jewish community and draw attention to the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that are inherent in the construction and maintenance of community, the redactional strategies that foster coherence provide material for navigating difference and divergence in ways that foster empathy and curiosity rather than dialectic debate.

16 As Michael Fishbane demonstrated so compellingly in Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, differences among divergent sources are certainly negotiated and navigated through successive layers of revision and redaction. However, unlike in the Talmud, divergent texts are not presented as conflicting texts within the Pentateuchal anthology.

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Ancestral Stories: At the Nexus of Narrative and Genealogy Chronological narrative is one of the most powerful centrifugal structures supporting coherent readings of the Pentateuch.17 The Pentateuch contains numerous traditions that were originally distinct from one another and would be in tension or conflict if presented as simultaneous versions or perspectives. Examples, ranging from the specific to the more global, include a) the three wife-sister episodes (Gen. 12:10–20, 20:1–18, and 26:6–11); b) cases in which ancestors in Genesis perform actions that the legal codes in Exodus, Leviticus, and/or Deuteronomy forbid; c) the divergent portrayals of Egypt in Genesis and Exodus; and d) divergent representatives of Israel’s God and its relationship to Israel in sources attributed to J, P, and D. It would be impossible, for instance, to make sense of a story in which Abraham went down, simultaneously, to Gerar and to Egypt.18 Nor would it be possible to maintain that Egypt was, simultaneously, a place of prosperity and protection for the Israelites and a place of bondage and oppression. The insertion of these divergent traditions at different points in a chronological narrative allow for a coherent, non-contradictory reading. As readers (and as humans) we understand that the passage of time and divergent historical contexts make many forms of difference coherent. Characters act differently as they grow and change and as they respond to different historical circumstances. Similarly, significant changes in behavior, identity, or relationship can be made coherent by watershed changes in historical or narrative context. The wife-sister episodes and divergent portrayals of Egypt provide examples. When presented at two different moments in a chronological narrative, the wife-sister episodes can be read coherently as different (albeit, strikingly similar) episodes in the lives of Abram/Abraham, Sarai/Sarah, Isaac, and Rebecca. This divergence in the representation of Egypt is made coherent by the notice, “a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph” (Ex. 1:8). This verse serves as a narrative “game-changer” that allows readers to 17 Brettler, “The ‘Coherence’ of Ancient Texts.” While the redactors of the Pentateuch used chronological narrative as a device to organize and arrange divergent materials, some groups of early Jewish readers, did not actualize this strategy as a primary means for creating coherence. For discussion of this dynamic in Second Temple literature, tannaitic Midrash, and rabbinic hermeneutics more generally, see Jeffrey Stackert, “Before and after Scripture: Narrative Chronology in the Revision of Torah Texts,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 4 (2013): 168–84; Natalie B. Dohrmann, “Means and End(ing)s: Nomos Versus Narrative in Early Rabbinic Exegesis,” Critical Analysis of the Law 3, no. 1 (2016): 30–49; Sommer, “Book or Anthology,” 1091–108. 18 Admittedly, the Genesis version of the flood story does contain this degree of contradiction.

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understand the two representations of Egypt coherently. The kings who knew of Joseph treated the Israelites with respect and the Israelites prospered under their patronage.19 The behavioral and discursive analogue to chronological narrative is historical contextualization. While the importance of historical contextualization for deep understanding may be obvious to academic readers, the historicizing of ideas and opinions is rare in agonistic conversations over hot-button issues. When adherents of particular positions can see themselves and their interlocutors as historical actors, who are shaped by, and respond to, discrete historical events and circumstances, the espoused positions cease to be reflections solely of moral or logical absolutes and come to be historically contingent. This allows interlocutors to see ideological difference as a result of historical context, and not frame it solely through the perspective of moral judgment. In Genesis, the trope of kinship also functions as a powerful centrifugal force. It has long been noted that the Abraham stories and the Jacob stories in Genesis were originally distinct traditions originating, respectively, in the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. While biblical scholars differ on the dating and details of the process, there is consensus that the blocks of tradition were eventually combined by the Judean scribes responsible for the book of Genesis.20 The creation of a composite genealogy in which originally distinct progenitors, Abraham and Jacob, are recast as grandfather and grandson in a single line of genealogical descent, allows for the coherent integration of previously distinct tribal origin stories. The genealogical structure expands to reflect a combined Israelite/Judean polity. Like the centering of anthology, attention to the malleability of genealogy and its expansionist, inclusivist potential provides a validating and authenticating model for inclusive visions of Jewish peoplehood in contemporary times.21 Especially for patrilineal Jews and Jews by choice, traditional genealogical/matrilineal understandings of Jewishness as well as invocations of a “family” trope that center ethnic and ancestral elements of Judaism, can be alienating. Recognition of the constructed and constructive

19 Konrad Schmid, “Exodus in the Pentateuch,” in The Book of Exodus: Composition, Reception and Interpretation, ed. Thomas Dozeman et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 41–5. 20 David Carr, The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 473–5. 21 For discussions of the anthropological functions of kinship tropes as they relate to Genesis, see Daniel Fleming, The Legacy of Israel in Judah’s Bible: History, Politics and the Reinscribing of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 72–4; Ronald Hendel, Remembering Abraham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 33–7; Amanda Mbuvi, Belonging in Genesis: Biblical Israel and the Politics of Identity Formation (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2016), 43–47.

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nature of the foundational “Jewish” genealogy allows and encourages readers to explore the contemporary potential of kinship tropes to support changing and expanding understandings of Jewish peoplehood. In Genesis, the genre of the family story demonstrates the centrifugal power of the genealogical and narrative tropes. As mentioned above, the Genesis ancestors enact practices that are emphatically forbidden in legal and exhortational texts elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Oft-cited examples include: a) the ownership and valuing of teraphim—divine icons (Gen. 30:19–27) and b) the construction and sanctification of regional shrines and altars (for example, Gen. 28:10–32). In these texts, venerated ancestors defy the principles of centralized, aniconic worship that are central to the Deuteronomic theology. For many readers, both traditional and modern, the narrative chronology of the Pentateuch allows for a coherent reading of the portrayal of ancestral practices alongside prohibitions and polemics against them within the Pentateuchal anthology.22 Since the prohibition against iconic worship is instituted at Sinai, the use of icons in the pre-Sinaitic era is legitimate. Since the mandate regarding centralized worship only takes effect once worship is established in the “the site that YHWH, your God will choose” (Deut. 12:4), establishment of local shrines before the establishment of the Jerusalem shrine is legitimate. In the cases of iconic worship and local shrines, the covenant at Sinai and the establishment of the Jerusalem cult serve as narrative watersheds that allow a distinction between the past legitimacy and present prohibition of the practices in question. A historical-critical reading of these divergent depictions of these worship practices complicates this narrative logic. Both archaeological and literary evidence attest to ongoing worship at sites outside of Jerusalem (including Bethel, whose myth of origin is articulated in Genesis 28:10–32) through much of the pre-exilic period, and to the use of icons in Israelite worship up to, if not after, the exilic period. This evidence attests that worship at local shrines and use of images in worship were longstanding ritual practices within Israelite and Judean religion. While these practices are emphatically prohibited for audiences of the redacted Pentateuch, the ancestor stories provide the opportunity for engagement with accounts of these practices that is free from the moral judgment of Deuteronomy. In the pedagogical context, the genre of family story can perform a similar function. It can provide an opportunity to explore empathetically practices or perspectives that, in the contemporary landscape, elicit strong moral judgment. During my fifteen years of teaching at RRC, I  have witnessed a change in some students’ understandings of, and attitudes toward, invocations 22 For a discussion of Jubilees as a counter-example, see Stackert, “Before and after Scripture,” 171.

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of Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement. When I began teaching, this involvement was a source of pride for students who, like the baby boomer generation that preceded them, found invocations of the biblical dictum “you shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex. 22:20) to be a resonant and positive statement of communal identity and values and a goad to social justice work. In recent years, claims that racial justice is a longstanding Jewish core value and that past Jewish experiences of oppression catalyze racial justice work sometimes elicit frustration and disdain. This reaction is prevalent among white students who are grappling with their racial identity and the role of Jews and Jewish community in the perpetuation of racial oppression in the United States. As part of a unit on the deployments of the Exodus myth in the biblical anthology, I ask my students to interview three Jews about the role of the Exodus myth in their Jewish identity and experience. Many students who are the children of a Jewish parent or parents choose to interview a parent or other older relative. Many of these relatives reflect on the centrality of the “you were strangers in the land of Egypt” paradigm to their self-understanding and talk about the ways in which they have tried to “give back” or “pay it forward” by participating in ongoing civil rights activism. They express in personal narrative terms the very convictions that, in more abstract terms, generate responses of frustration and disdain. In reflecting on these interviews, students will often share that they gained greater empathy for that perspective. The ancestral story does not cause them to abandon their critique of a Jewish narrative that emphasizes antisemitism and romanticizes Jewish allyship in the fight against racism, but it does give them greater compassion for personal expressions of this perspective and allows them to engage with that narrative with greater generosity. A similar phenomenon occurred in a class about Judaism and race in the United States taught by Dr. Aurora Levins Morales. In this class, Morales deployed a strategy that she has deployed in multiple settings where she has facilitated learning about Jews and race. The class was structured around paired research projects—one was an academic research project related to the topic of the class, the other was a family history project, which explored the role of the research issue in the history of the students’ families. In this context, the family history strand of the project often either served to illuminate the nuances of historical circumstances that were obscured in the academic literature or complicated ideologically inflected narratives held by the students at the beginning of the course. It also helped students gain greater empathy and reduce judgment of family members whose behaviors didn’t align with students’ contemporary moral judgments.

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Deuteronomic Rhetoric and Contemporary Discourse One of the most transparent redactional seams between largely divergent Pentateuchal units occurs between Genesis-Numbers and Deuteronomy. The discrete nature of Deuteronomy has been recognized since the beginnings of source criticism. Most contemporary scholars agree that, in its final form, the book is largely a product of exilic and/or post-exilic authorship and redaction. An exploration of the dynamics of difference and coherence that define Deuteronomy’s place in the Pentateuch is particularly germane to this essay because, of all the Pentateuchal books, Deuteronomy most resembles contemporary public discourse. It is intensely binary, highly judgmental, and advocates for the extermination of the demonized other. It also shares contemporary discourse’s moral urgency and drive toward action. Compared to the narratives, lists, and other law codes of the Pentateuch, it is rhetorically “hot”—resembling the homiletical intensity of the prophets more than the laconic style of the narratives and legal dicta of the other books of the Pentateuch. In my experience, readers’ bias toward coherence does not blunt their awareness of the divergences between Deuteronomy and the rest of the Pentateuch. Readers notice the differences between the historical retrospective in Deuteronomy 2–4 and the accounts of the same episodes in Exodus and Numbers, and they notice the difference between Deuteronomy’s exhortational rhetoric and the more straightforward tone of the other Pentateuchal books. Readers’ ability to construct a coherent reading of Deuteronomy’s divergences is supported by both the narrative structure of the Pentateuch and the presentation of Deuteronomy as Moses’s address to the Israelites. Deuteronomy is presented narratively as the words of a particular (highly authoritative) character, Moses, at a particular moment in time. For contemporary readers, this nexus of narrative and subjective specificity allows for a coherent reading of Deuteronomy alongside Genesis-Numbers. Many readers notice that Numbers and Deuteronomy offer different reasons for God’s refusal to allow Moses to enter the land of Canaan. In Numbers 20:12, after Moses strikes the rock to bring forth water for the Israelites, “YHWH said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm my sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land I  have given them.’” In Deuteronomy 1:37, Moses blames the refusal on the Israelites’ behavior in the episode of the spies. “Because of you YHWH was incensed with me too, and He said: You shall not enter it either.” Many readers invoke the subjectivity of Moses’s first-person account to create a coherent reading of these divergent texts. Readers will often ascribe “Moses’s

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version” in Deuteronomy 1:37 to the character’s drive for self-justification. When “Moses” tells the story, he puts the blame on the Israelites instead of himself. Similarly, readers will make sense of Deuteronomy’s distinctive exhortational register by ascribing it to Moses’s own sense of urgency. He knows he will not enter the land of Canaan with the people and he desperately wants them to heed his blueprint for survival, prosperity, and blessing because he will not be there to guide them. This literary form of coherence-making is useful in the contemporary context. It invites readers to notice when we “sound like Moses” and to reflect on the feelings and circumstances that are leading us toward this rhetorical pitch. In addition, historical-critical reflection on Deuteronomy’s violent xenophobia and monotheistic exclusivity provides an opportunity to develop greater self-awareness and greater empathy in the context of contemporary agonistic discourse. I begin a class session on the rhetoric of Deuteronomy by asking students to describe the rhetorical tone of Deut. 6–11. Students quickly generate a list of adjectives that includes: judgmental, angry, dehumanizing, urgent, passionate, and so forth. I then ask, “When do you (or people you have observed) talk like Deuteronomy?” Answers usually include: when I am angry, scared, threatened, vulnerable, frustrated, powerless, and so on. This exercise primes students to understand Deuteronomy more empathetically as a text that reflects and responds to the sixth-century BCE Judean experiences of war, destruction, and exile that provide the historical context for (at least) the final stages of the book’s redaction.23 This does not mean that they accept or embrace all of the central tenets of its ideology—most students remain deeply troubled by the violent exclusivism of Deuteronomy and the impact of that perspective on later Jewish theology, culture, and politics. However, the exercise does give students a more empathetic understanding of the roots of this perspective.24 Meta-reflection on the encounter with Deuteronomy gives students practice in recognizing and having empathy for potential catalysts of Deuteronomy-style

23 This exercise is informed by trauma theory and aligns with trauma-informed readings of Deuteronomy. In some contexts, explicit reference to a trauma-informed framing is useful and provides language to describe the dynamics of the text and extend students’ understanding to other contexts. In other contexts, explicit reference to trauma theory can manifest as jargon and can impede full participation in the conversation. See William Morrow,  “Deuteronomy 7 in Post-Colonial Perspective,” in Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts, ed. Brad E. Kelle et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 275–93, and sources cited there. 24 Awareness of the historical context of the composition of Deuteronomy—in which there were no Canaanites—also helps students to further nuance their understanding of the book’s rhetorical tone.

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discourse in contemporary arenas without feeling pressured into assuming a relativist stance toward the perspectives being expressed.

Moving beyond the Classroom: Torah Performance and Communal Leadership In this essay, I  have described how attention to, and meta-reflection on, the anthological dynamics of Torah can normalize persistent ideological diversity as a foundational element of Judaism and provide an anthological alternative to dialectic and agonistic approaches to difference. I  have also described how creative redeployment of Pentateuchal redaction strategies can “soften” conflictual discourse and foster greater empathy and curiosity in the face of difference. However, my experience only attests to the success of these strategies in the limited settings of rabbinical education and avocational adult education. Especially in the rabbinical school context, the likelihood of success is bolstered by the nature of our student body. Like all of us, RRC students participate in dominant patterns of discourse. In addition, activist students, who envision social justice work as core to their rabbinates, are also invested in dialectic and persuasion as crucial to social change. However, as future Reconstructionist rabbis, our students are invested in sustainable Jewish communities, the flourishing of Jewish diversity, and interpersonal relationships that are defined by compassion and respect. Thus, they are quite open to the shifts in understanding and behavior that I hope to cultivate. Nevertheless, I hope that the strategies that I have developed in the context of the rabbinical school classroom will serve as resources for Jewish communal leaders (and my former and current students in particular) as they work to increase curiosity, compassion, and tolerance in landscapes of difference. While these rabbis and communal professionals are best situated to experiment with how to revise and redeploy these strategies in communal settings, there are concepts of Torah performance that may provide helpful direction. While this essay has focused on the effects of redactional strategies on readers of the canonical Pentateuch, the experience of “reading the Torah” in its canonical order is a relatively recent one. For most of Jewish history, from antiquity through the modern period, Jews have encountered Torah in mediated, excerpted, and non-sequential forms. This is true even of the lectionary cycle, in which the sequential recitation of the Torah is interrupted by the reading of the haftarot—the prophetic lectionary readings that are paired with the weekly Torah readings. While the Pentateuchal redactional strategies testify to

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changing understandings of the Israelite/Judean polity and its mythic history, it is likely that these new understandings were communicated and canonized through repeated oral, ritual and liturgical performance. For example, while the final form of Genesis testifies to the integration of Israelite and Judean ancestral traditions, it is unlikely that ancient Judeans heard the book recited “cover to cover.” Rather, it is more likely that the repetition of genealogical formulae like “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” contributed to the internalization and adoption of the revised genealogical self-understanding. Similarly, liturgical texts, like Deuteronomy 26:5–10 that concatenate references to “Genesis” ancestors with the Exodus would have helped to reinforce a narrative that included both blocks of tradition. This awareness of the transformative power of performance leads to the questions: How do we create discursive “anthologies” that mirror Torah by providing space for storytelling, norm setting, and moral exhortation in ways that preserve the distinctiveness of these forms of discourse but allow them to inform one another? How do we use the Pentateuchal narrative to inspire the articulation of a contemporary American Jewish story that incorporates historically contextualized articulations of divergent experiences and perspectives? How can the ancestral stories in Genesis inspire opportunities for telling and retelling divergent “family” stories in ways that foster a sense of shared investment and ownership? As my students explore these questions in the classroom and in their rabbinic work, they are showing what it means to be “grandstudents” of Michael Fishbane.

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The Isaiah Bulla, Jeremiah the Priest/Prophet, and Reinterpreting the Prophet (nby’) in the Persian Scribal Community William Schniedewind The “prophet” Amos claims, “I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet” (7:14).1 That seems like a disingenuous claim given that the book of Amos is included in the biblical canon of the prophets. In the context of Amos 7, Amos apparently sees the title “prophet” (nāb-î’) and “son of a prophet” as institutional titles related to the royal shrine. This is quite a different understanding than one has in the call of Jeremiah where God appoints the prophet even before his birth ( Jer. 1:5). How do we account for these radically different conceptions of the prophetic title? The recently excavated seal impression of Isaiah from Jerusalem provides clues to the interpretative history of the biblical title, “prophet” (nāb-î’). The title nāb-î’ was a loanword into Hebrew. The most striking evidence for this comes from the narrative in 1 Samuel 9. In the story of Saul’s search for the family donkeys, Saul goes to consult a “seer.” Then the narrator informs the reader, “Formerly in Israel, anyone who went to inquire of God would say, ‘Come, let us go to the ro’eh,’ because today one called a nābî’ was formerly called

1 Since I wrote my dissertation on prophets in the book of Chronicles for Professor Fishbane, I am honored to offer this essay as a tribute to his wide-ranging scholarship and teaching.

The Isaiah Bul la , Jeremiah the Pr iest/Prophet , and R einter preting the Prophet

a ro’eh” (v. 9). This editorial note makes it clear that nāb-î’ was a new term, a loanword, that was intended to replace older terms. The origin of the term nāb-î’ is enigmatic, but most scholars trace it back to the Akkadian participle nābû, “the one who is named by God.”2 A few second-millennium Akkadian texts contain references to the “prophet” as a title, including the following reference at Mari, “I assembled the prophets of Hana (LÚna-bi-iMEŠ ša ha-naMEŠ),” and a few fragmentary texts from Emar ˘ ˘ that mention “prophets” (MEŠ.LÚna-bi-i).3 On this basis, Daniel Fleming suggested that the Hebrew term originated in the West Semitic title for cultic professionals.4 While this may be the case, it seems too distant of a vector of transmission. If the Hebrew nāb-î’ came from the Akkadian term nābû, then we should expect the form **nōbē, reflecting the Canaanite shift.5 In addition, later Akkadian loses the aleph, so that loanwords that retain the aleph have to be very early.6 But if nāb-î’ were such an old loanword, then there would be no need for the comment in 1 Samuel 9:9. Thus, nāb-î’ looks like a later loanword into Judean Hebrew. A vector of transmission for nāb-î’ into Biblical Hebrew would most likely be Aramaic. Many Akkadian loanwords came into Hebrew through Aramaic.7 If nābî’ came into Hebrew through Aramaic, this would have happened after the

2 See, for example, Daniel Fleming, “The Etymological Origins of the Hebrew nāb-î’: The One Who Invokes God,” CBQ 55 (1993): 217–24. 3 See Daniel Fleming, “Nābû and Menabbiātu: Two New Syrian Religious Personnel,” JAOS 113 (1993): 175–83. John Huehnergard accepts that the Akkadian term nabû is cognate with Hebrew nāb-î’, but questions connecting nāb-î’ with the Syrian cultic personnel. See Huehnergard, “On the Etymology and Meaning of Hebrew nābî’,” EI 26 (1999), 88*–93*. 4 Fleming, “Etymological Origins of the Hebrew nābî’,” 218. 5 Huehnergard, “On the Etymology and Meaning of Hebrew nābî’,” 89*. On the Canaanite shift, see Benjamin Suchard, The Development of Biblical Hebrew Vowels (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 51–84. 6 Stephen Kaufman, Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (Chicago: University of Chicago Pres, 1974), 28; Paul V. Mankowski, Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 70. Christopher Rollston appeals to the Old Babylonian spelling to insist that the Hebrew nāb-î’ had to be spelled with an aleph, “The Yeša‘yah[û] (‘Isaiah’) Bulla and the Putative Connection with the Biblical Prophet: A Case Study in Proposography and the Necessity of Methodological Caution,” in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of P. Kyle McCarter Jr., ed. Christopher Rollston et al. (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2022), 418, n. 27. 7 William Morrow questions the direct access to cuneiform for most cultural borrowing and suggests a “common cultural foundation.” See William Morrow, “Resistance and Hybridity in Late Bronze Age Canaan,” Revue Biblique (2008): 321–339. The mediation for this would be Aramaic, which Assyria used for its administration in the West; see Hayim Tadmor, “On the Role of Aramaic in the Assyrian Empire,” in Near Eastern Studies Dedicated to H.I.H. Prince Takahito Mikaso on the Occasion of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, ed. H. Mori et al. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowtiz, 1991), 419–26.

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Canaanite shift had taken place, and this explains why nāb-î’ retains the long a vowel. The title nāb-î’ does not appear in Old Aramaic, but it is quite common in later Aramaic dialects. The omission of the aleph is understandable since later Akkadian did not have an aleph in its writing system.8 The spelling of nby in Biblical Aramaic is instructive here. An Aramaic passage from Ezra 5:1–2 shows confusion about the correct spelling as evidenced by the qere-ketiv. The variation includes both the normal Aramaic spelling for the title in the qere, ‫נבי‬, and the Biblical Hebrew spelling as ‫ נביא‬in the ketiv. The Dead Sea Scrolls also contain this variability in spelling. The normal spelling for the title in Qumran Hebrew follows the Biblical Hebrew, ‫נביא‬, but there are also five examples of the spelling ‫נבי‬, among the Qumran Hebrew manuscripts, in both non-biblical and biblical manuscripts (see 4Q175 5, 7; 1Q4 frag. 7–8:3, frag. 9:3; 1QIsa 22:8). If the vector of transmission for the Biblical Hebrew nāb-î’ was Aramaic, then the spelling nby is not surprising.9 This suggests that nby and nb’ could be spelling variations for this loanword. Spelling variation for loanwords like nāb-î’ can be illustrated by examining the Hebrew personal name Iddo. In an Old Aramaic stele of Zakkur, king of Hamath and Lu’ath (KAI 202A:12), there are two titles related to a prophetic office, h.zyn (seers) and ‘ddn (soothsayers). The latter word was used as the personal name of a prophet, Oded (2 Chr. 15:1 and 8; 2 Chr. 28:9—spelled both ‘wdd and ‘dd). A shortened form, Iddo, with the second dalet represented by a dagesh in Masoretic vocalization, is used as a personal name for several biblical prophets (for example, Zech. 1:1–2; 1 Chr. 6:6; 2 Chr. 12:15 and 13:22). The variations in the Masoretic spelling of Iddo illustrate the addition of an aleph in later spelling. For example, in Zech. 1:1, we find “Iddo (‘dw), the prophet,” but in verse 7 we find Iddo (‘dw’) written with an aleph. This one example illustrates the general variability in spelling the name Iddo in biblical texts.10 The point here is simply that there is a historical dimension to the development of these titles as well as to their spelling.

8 Mankowski explains this “since no aleph could be heard in the Akkadian word there is no reason for it to appear in Hebrew” (Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew, 80). Mankowski notes the variability of spelling of Akkadian loanwords with Hebrew sometimes adding an aleph where there is no aleph in Akkadian (104–6), and where the Akkadian aleph was retained in pronunciation, it is sometimes represented by a h. in Hebrew spelling (89–90). 9 Rollston appeals to the Old Babylonian spelling to insist that the Hebrew had to be spelled with an aleph, “The Yeša‘yah[û] (‘Isaiah’) Bulla,” 418, n. 27. However, the aleph is lost in Akkadian after the Old Babylonian period. Thus, the quiescence of the aleph is not just a Second Temple phenomenon, particularly for a loanword that derives from Akkadian. 10 Iddo is spelled without the aleph in Zech. 1:1; 1 Chr. 6:6; 2 Chr. 12:15 and 13:22; 2 Chr. 9:20, and with an aleph in Zech. 1:7; 1 Kgs 4:14; Ezr. 5:1; 6:14; Neh. 12:4 and 16.

The Isaiah Bul la , Jeremiah the Pr iest/Prophet , and R einter preting the Prophet

The title “prophet” apparently appears one other time in an inscription from Lachish.11 In “the Letter of the Literate Soldier” (Lachish 3), we read (ll. 19–21), And a letter of Tobiah, servant of the king, which came to Shallum, son of Yada‘, from the prophet (hnb’) saying, “Beware your serva has sent it to my lord.” This letter has its own problems with spelling and grammar, which reflect some deficiencies in the scribal training of its author that was in fact one of the subjects of the letter.12 For example, in this passage the expression “your servant” is misspelled as ‘bk, omitting the dalet. Such idiosyncrasies complicate the use of this text for understanding Hebrew grammar and spelling. In this section, the soldierscribe spells “prophet” with an aleph instead of a yod—nb’. The spelling with aleph foreshadows the later full spelling of the word as nby’ used in the Masoretic text. 1 Samuel 9:9 begs a diachronic question about the title nāb-î’ for “prophet.” When was this note about nāb-î’ added to the text? The note begins with its own diachronic reflection, “Formerly in Israel.” This is a striking way to alert the audience about a social, political, or religious change in terminology.13 One of the most sustained uses of the term “prophet” as well as “the sons of prophets” is in the Elijah-Elisha narratives (1 Kgs 17–2 Kgs 9). The expression “the sons of the prophets” appears in six separate stories in the Elijah-Elisha stories (1 Kgs 20:35; 2 Kgs 2:3, 5, 7, and 15; 2 Kgs 4:1 and 38; 2 Kgs 5:22; 2 Kgs 6:1; and 2 Kgs 9:1). Moreover, it appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, apart from Amos’s denial of the moniker “son of a prophet.” The concept seems to be particularly associated with social structures in the northern kingdom and fits into the anthropological framework of “communities of practice”—that is, guilds that develop out of apprenticeship learning.14 This model can be justified

11 The term nāb-î’ “prophet” has been reconstructed in other broken texts such as Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Lachish 16, but the readings are problematic; see Abigail Zammit, “The Lachish Letters: A Reappraisal of the Ostraca Discovered in 1935 and 1938 at Tell ed-Duweir, volume 1” (PhD diss., University of Oxford, Oxford, 2016), 272–3; Andre Lemaire, “Remarques sur les inscriptions phéniciennes de Kuntillet ‘Ajrud,” Sem 55 (2013): 93. 12 See William Schniedewind, “Sociolinguistic Reflections on the Letter of a ‘Literate’ Soldier (Lachish 3),” ZAW 13 (2000): 157–67, and Zammit, “The Lachish Letters,” 113–32. 13 The use of ‫ לפנים‬to add a comment appears several times in the latest redactional layer of the DtrH; see Terry Fenton, “Deuteronomic Advocacy of the nābi’: 1 Samuel IX 9 and Questions of Israelite Prophecy,” VT 47 (1997): 38–9. 14 See Jean Lave and Étienne Wegner, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), and Étienne Wegner-Tayner, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

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by the title “apprentice (na‘ar) of the prophet,” given to one of the sons of the prophets who is commissioned to anoint Jehu as king (1 Kgs 9:1–4): The prophet Elisha summoned a man from the sons of the prophets and said to him, “Gird your loins, take this flask of oil with you, and go to Ramoth Gilead.2 When you get there, look for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. Go to him, get him away from his companions and take him into an inner room.3  Then take the flask and pour the oil on his head and declare, ‘This is what the  Lord  says: I  anoint you king over Israel.’ Then open the door and run; don’t delay!” 4 So the apprentice (na‘ar) of the prophet went to Ramoth Gilead. 1

The prophetic apprentice (na‘ar) is one of sons of the prophets whom Elisha anoints to be part of a political coup. The use of na‘ar as a title here recalls that the title n‘r is also used in seals and administrative inscriptions, for example, “Eliakim, Apprentice of Yokan” and lists of “apprentices” in the Arad ostraca.15 The prophetic title is not based on an ad hoc divine calling as we learn in story of Elijah passing the title to his apprentice, Elisha, in 2 Kings 2. The term “apprentice” (na‘ar) also comes together with “the sons of the prophets” in other Elijah-Elisha narratives as well. For example, Elisha’s servant Gehazi is called the na‘ar of Elisha (see 2 Kgs 5:20), but he is certainly not a youth. He has his own agency and status. The term “apprentice” in fact seems to be an alternate way of referring to “the sons of the prophets”; for example, we read in 2 Kings 5:22 about “two na‘ar from the sons of the prophets.” 1 Samuel 9:9 understands nāb-î’ as a new word, but seeks to redefine the term. This will allow the scribal community to more broadly apply it in postexilic compilation and editing of texts. One clue to the redefinition of the title “prophet” (nāb-î’) is found in the long and short versions of the Book of Jeremiah.16 A striking difference between the short and long versions of Jeremiah is the consistent description of Jeremiah with the title, “prophet,” in the longer 15 See Arad 15:4; Arad 100:1 and 2 in Yohanan Aharoni, Arad Inscriptions ( Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981). See Nahman Avigad, West Semitic Stamp Seals ( Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1997), no. 663; also note seal nos. 24, 25, and 26. The title na‘ar is also found on a seal impression from the recent salvage excavation at Beth-Shemesh. 16 Scholars have long recognized two books of Jeremiahs—a “long” version most closely associated with the Masoretic text and a “short” version best known from the Septuagint but also attested in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls. See Emanuel Tov, “The Last Stage of the Literary History of the Book of Jeremiah,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Book of Jeremiah, ed. E. Silver and L. Stulman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 129–47; and Matthieu Richelle,

The Isaiah Bul la , Jeremiah the Pr iest/Prophet , and R einter preting the Prophet

Masoretic version. The long Jeremiah adds the title “the prophet” twenty-seven times where it is missing in the short version.17 In other words, the long version transforms Jeremiah into “the prophet” through its editing. Here are a couple of examples: Short Jeremiah (LXX—NETS) 26:13 What the Lord spoke by the hand of Jeremiah . . .

Long Jeremiah (MT—NRSV) 46:13 The word that the Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about . . .

35:5–6 And Jeremiah said to Hananiah in the sight of all the people and in the sight of the priests who stood in the house of the Lord, and Jeremiah said, “Truly, thus may the Lord do . . .

28:5 Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the LORD;6 and the prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the LORD do so . . .

From this consistent titling of Jeremiah, it becomes clear that the priest Jeremiah has been systematically redefined into the prophet Jeremiah in the long proto-Masoretic version of Jeremiah. This titling of Jeremiah as “the prophet” creates an unresolved tension in the Book of Jeremiah.18 In the early core stories, Jeremiah is repeatedly critical of the “prophets.” Jeremiah’s general critique of prophets is typified by the speech in 14:14, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name; I did not send them.” The Book of Jeremiah (both long and short) typically pairs the prophets and priests together, and the two groups are

“Jeremiah and Baruch,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint, ed. Alison Salvesen and Timothy Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 259–74. 17 This was noticed by Emanuel Tov and developed by Francolino Gonçalves. See Tov, “The Literary History of Jeremiah in the Light of Its Textual History,” in Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism, ed. Jeffrey Tigay (Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 228; Gonçalves, “Jérémie le Prophète dans le TM et les LXX de son livre,” in Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez, ed. Anthony Hilhorst, Émile Puech, and Eibert Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 380–3. Gonçalves refers to this as the nebiisation of Jeremiah (“Jérémie le Prophète,” 384). 18 Gonçalves also argues that “the tenor of the polemic against the prophets of his time excludes the possibility that he was one of them” (“Jérémie le Prophète,” 383–4).

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invariably the subject of pointed critique.19 More importantly, they are often grouped with “officials” pointing to the fact that the prophets were understood as related to formal social institutions in late monarchic Judah. So, for example, Jeremiah 32:32 lists “their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets.” This grouping of prophets with other officials also fits nicely with the episode in Amos. Ironically, the proto-Masoretic labelling of Jeremiah as “the prophet” places him among a group that is consistently criticized in the book. The redefinition of “prophet” in the editing of the book of Jeremiah begins with his call in the introduction (1:5).20 The introduction of Jeremiah as a prophet from birth fits with the special interest in the title shown in the proto-MT retitling of Jeremiah, and it accords with the special editorial interest shown by the defining comment in 1 Samuel 9:9.

The Seal Impression of Isaiah, a Prophet of Jerusalem Potential inscriptional evidence for the prophetic title appeared with Eilat Mazar’s publication of a seal impression excavated in Jerusalem near the Temple Mount. Mazar suggests that the seal belonged to “Isaiah, (the) prophet.” If this is the correct reading, it adds important data to the discussion of the biblical title nāb-î’. Unfortunately, the seal impression is broken, and a recent essay by Christopher Rollston challenges Mazar’s reading.21 However, a holistic reading of this seal impression, together with two related seal impressions excavated at Lachish, will support the reading of the title “prophet” and “son of a prophet” and shed further light on the history of the biblical title. One significant lacuna in Rollston’s critique of the Isaiah seal impression is the discussion of archaeological contexts. It is indeed unfortunate that we emphasize the importance of excavated finds (as opposed to antiquities market purchases) and then fail to consider the archaeological context in our interpretations. The advantage of excavated finds over the antiquities market is not just that it puts to rest questions about forgeries. Archaeological context provides the historical context for understanding an artifact.

19 MT Jer. 2:26, 4:9, 6:13, 8:1 and 10, 13:13, 14:18, 18:18, 23:11 and 33, 26:7, 11, and 16; 29:1, and 32:32. 20 See the discussion of revision through introduction by Sara Milstein, Tracking the Master Scribe: Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 21 See Rollston, “The Yeša‘yah[û] (‘Isaiah’) Bulla,” 414–8.

The Isaiah Bul la , Jeremiah the Pr iest/Prophet , and R einter preting the Prophet

The “Isaiah” seal impression was excavated by Eilat Mazar in the Ophel area of Jerusalem. Since the seal impression is broken, there has naturally been some scholarly discussion about whether it belonged to the famous Isaiah of Jerusalem, the prophet and contemporary of Hezekiah, the king of Judah. In this respect, it was a stroke of fate (or coincidence) that the Isaiah seal impression was found about ten feet away from a seal impression of “Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, king of Jerusalem.”22 But, actually, this happy coincidence reflects the general archaeological context of the Ophel, which housed administrative buildings as well as the royal palace.23 The Isaiah impression was one among thirty-four seal impressions, which can be dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. The collection is quite interesting. In addition to the Isaiah Bulla and one belonging to “Hezekiah the king,” another fragmentary impression has part of a two-winged scarab (that is, the royal insignia), but it is distinct from the Hezekiah seal impression. It would have belonged to a son or a servant of King Hezekiah,24 but the identity of the owner is not as important as the use of the royal insignia that further informs the archaeological context of the group. The group also included seven “son of Bes” seal impressions.25 These impressions come from five different seals representing five individuals. Each of the seals had three registers laid out as follows: “Belonging to PN, son of PN, son of Bes.” This group of seal impressions also points to the familial relationships that were important to government administration. Eilat Mazar also had a role in publishing the earlier excavations of Benjamin Mazar in the area of the Ophel. These excavations contain a fragmentary Hebrew inscription that I would read as lśr h’w[s˛r], “belonging to the royal treasurer” (compare Jer. 38:11).26 The inscription adds further evidence for a government administrative complex in this area. None of this should be that surprising since

22 See Eilat Mazar, The Ophel Excavations to the South of the Temple Mount, 2009–2013. Final Reports, vol. 2 ( Jerusalem: Shoham, 2018), 247–80. Rollston cites Mazar’s semi-popular Biblical Archaeology Review article as the editio princeps, but this official publication (which I will cite here as the editio princeps) was published at the same time as the popular article. Surprisingly, Rollston does not cite this publication for the Isaiah seal impression. 23 See E. Mazar and B. Mazar, eds., Excavations in the South of the Temple Mount, the Ophel of Biblical Jerusalem ( Jerusalem: IES, 1989); and Mazar, Ophel Excavations, 175–85. 24 Mazar does not offer a reconstruction for seal impression no. B21, but the royal insignia is clear (Ophel Excavations, 273–4). Line 2 is the end of a theophoric name, and I suggest reconstructing it as [l-PN]/{winged scarab}/[‘bd (or, bn) h. zqy]hw/[mlk yhd]h, “[belonging to PN, servant/son of Hezek]iah, [king of Juda]h.” 25 Mazar, Ophel Excavations, 256–63. 26 Mazar and Mazar prefer reconstructing as lśr h’w[pym], “belonging to the chief baker,” see Excavations in the South of the Temple Mount, 45.

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these artifacts were excavated in the “Ophel”—a well-known administrative area of Jerusalem just south of the Temple area (see 1 Kgs 7:1–12). In sum, the overall archaeological context and geographical location of the Isaiah Bulla indicate that it was part of a royal and administrative sector of ancient Jerusalem. With this context, I turn to the interpretation of the Isaiah seal impression. The seal impression is broken on the top and partially effaced on the bottom left, and this requires some discussion (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Seal Impression of “Isaiah, Prophet” (drawing by author) I would read the seal impression (B12) as follows: Register 1 Register 2 Register 3

IMAGE grazing doe [partially broken] lyš‘yh[w] Belonging to Isaiah, nby[ ] “Prophet”

The image of the grazing doe is broken, but the reconstruction is based on other seals (including one in this group from Mazar [B17]) and not controversial. The second line appears to be missing only the last letter of the theophoric ending -yhw, which is standard and not controversial. I have sketched the two faded lines of the seal’s outline based on the geometry that shows that would have been room for the final letter of Isaiah’s (Masoretic vocalization, Yesha‘yahu) name.27 In the editio princeps Mazar states, “The name Yesha‘ayahu

27 Rollston makes a point of preferring the biblical vocalization for the names in his article, but it should be acknowledged that this vocalization is not part of the inscriptional record, see “The Yeša‘yah[û] (‘Isaiah’) Bulla,” 410, n. 3. For convenience, I prefer the traditional translation of the name.

The Isaiah Bul la , Jeremiah the Pr iest/Prophet , and R einter preting the Prophet

was very common and appears on thirty seals and bullae.”28 In point of fact, however, this observation is based almost entirely on items purchased on the antiquities market. Were many people named “Isaiah” in the late eighth century? Based on the excavated inscriptional record, no. The name does become somewhat popular in post-exilic texts and genealogical lists (for example, Ezr. 8:7, 19; Neh. 11:7; 1 Chr. 3:21, 25:3 and 15, 26:25),29 but this is hardly surprising. It reflects the prominence of the historical prophet Isaiah and the book of Isaiah in post-exilic tradition. Before Eilat Mazar’s excavations, the name “Isaiah” (Hebrew, yš‘yhw) had never appeared in an excavated inscription.30 Let the import of that sink in. As a control, I  examined the many seal impressions excavated in the City of David by Yigal Shiloh. There are 85 readable full and partial names on fortyfive published seal impressions, and the name Isaiah never appears in any of these seals. Yair Shoham observes, “The most popular name is ‘Elishama,’ which appears four times. ‘Azaryahu, Hosha‘yahu, and Shema‘yahu appear three times each.”31 These all might be considered popular or common names. Isaiah was not. On the basis of this controlled excavation, one must conclude that the name Isaiah was not especially common in the late Iron Age. Christopher Rollston points out several Hebrew names that could be formed on the root yš‘, “to save.”32 For example, in the City of David excavations that I used as my control group, Hosha‘yahu (or, Hoshaiah), was a popular name. The

28 Mazar, Ophel Excavations, 264. Rollston discusses the supposed commonness of this name and the root at length in “The Yeša‘yah[û] (‘Isaiah’) Bulla,” 414–416. Rollston contends that Mazar does not discuss the popularity of Isaiah as a name, but she does in the actual editio princeps (not the popular article). 29 See Rollston for an exhaustive citation of the later genealogical lists, “The Yeša‘yah[û] (‘Isaiah’) Bulla,” 415. 30 Rollston cites the Ophel jar inscription published by Yonatan Nadelman as an example of the name Isaiah found in an excavation, but it is problematic. Nadelman corrected the inscription to read yš‘hw. It is not a reconstruction as Rollston suggests in his transcription, yš‘[y] hw. A scribe initially carved the letters, š‘hw into the clay of an unfired storage jar. Then, after the jar was fired, the letters ly were chiseled onto the jar as a prefix “on a slightly different axis,” giving the inscription, lyš‘hw. To get the name “Isaiah,” Nadelman inserted a missing yod, but this doesn’t explain the two-part inscribing and chiseling of the inscription. In short, the insertion of a missing letter, the assumption that the scribe misspelled the name Isaiah, and the two parts of the inscription make the reading Isaiah uncertain; see Yonatan Nadelman, “Hebrew Inscriptions, Seal Impressions, and Markings of the Iron Age II,” in Excavations in the South of the Temple Mount, the Ophel of Biblical Jerusalem ( Jerusalem: IES, 1989), ed. E. Mazar and B. Mazar, 129, and Rollston, “The Yeša‘yah[û] (‘Isaiah’) Bulla,” 417. 31 See Shoham, “Hebrew Bullae,” in Excavations in the City of David 1978–1985 Directed by Yigal Shiloh, ed. Donald Ariel ( Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology Hebrew University, 2000), 51. 32 Rollston, “The Yeša‘yah[û] (‘Isaiah’) Bulla,” 414–6.

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name Hosea as well as variants like Hoshaiah are well known in the inscriptional record as personal names. Names like Joshua,33 Mesha, and even Jesus were formed on the same root. There is no doubt the Hebrew root yš‘ was a common enough, but just because two names are formed on the same root does not mean both names are common. The use of the Hiphil conjugation to form the names Hosea and Hoshaiah reflects its use in the idiom “deliver (us),” which uses the Hiphil conjugation (which appears 157 times in the Hebrew Bible). But the Qal verbal form is never used. This explains why we find Hwš‘yhw (“Yahweh delivers”) as a common personal name in the inscriptional record, but not Yš‘yhw, which had to be formed with a noun “YHWH is help.” Actually, all three common names in the City of David example—‘Azaryahu (“Yahweh helped”), Hosha‘yahu (“Yahweh delivered”), and Shema‘yahu (“Yahweh listened”)— reflect aspects of divine deliverance. In other words, the concept is popular, but the name Isaiah was not for understandable linguistic reasons. Rollston also appeals to biblical genealogical lists to argue for the commonness of names formed on the yš‘ root. But most of this evidence comes from the post-exilic period and muddles the matter. The book of the prophet Isaiah became an important work in the exilic and post-exilic periods. It was redacted, edited, and copied. The prophet Isaiah had become an important figure so this hardly speaks to the popularity of Isaiah as a personal name in the Iron Age. By misrepresenting the popularity of Isaiah as a personal name in the Iron Age, Rollston can contend that there were many people in Jerusalem with the name Isaiah in the late eighth century, and the Isaiah seal impression might have belonged to any number of people. But there simply weren’t a lot of Isaiahs running around Jerusalem in the late eighth century BCE, and certainly not a lot working in the administrative quarter of Jerusalem in the late eighth century BCE. I would argue, maybe just one. The rarity of the name “Isaiah” in excavated inscriptions makes it all the more remarkable that the name actually appears twice in the small cache of seal impressions excavated in the Ophel by Eilat Mazar. A seal impression (B9) that reads l‘dyhw/ yš‘yhw, “Belonging to ‘Adiyahu, (son of) Isaiah,” is the second uncontested mention of name “Isaiah” from an excavated inscription.34 Who

33 The name ywyš‘, “Yawyasha‘,” which prefixes the theophoric appears twice in the Samaria Ostraca (36:3, 113:1), if we follow Ivan Kaufman’s readings. See Ivan Kaufman, “The Samaria Ostraca: A Study in Ancient Hebrew Paleography” (PhD diss., Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1966), 143. 34 Mazar, Ophel Excavations, 263–4 (B9). Since Rollston does not cite Mazar’s editio princeps where this seal impression was published, he does not include it on his list of the root yš‘ in epigraphic finds. See Rollston, “The Yeša‘yah[û] (‘Isaiah’) Bulla,” 416–7.

The Isaiah Bul la , Jeremiah the Pr iest/Prophet , and R einter preting the Prophet

is this ‘Adiyahu and what is his relationship with the Isaiah of the other seal? As I pointed out with regard to the group of seven “son of Bes” seal impressions, familial relationships are represented in this cache reflecting the familial nature of professions with fathers training sons as well as apprentices. This opens up the possibility that the seal actually belonged to Isaiah’s son. The name of the seal’s owner—‘Adiyahu (‘dyhw)—is quite revealing. It can be etymologically related to the name Iddo (BH, ‘dw) discussed earlier. In this respect, the name ‘dyhw could just as easily be translated as ‘Iddoyahu.35 ‘Adiyahu’s name (that is, ‘Iddoyahu) would then be related to the prophetic profession. This makes the relationship between the Isaiah seal impression and the ‘Adiyahu seal impression even more interesting. Given the fact that the name Isaiah has not appeared elsewhere in an excavated inscription, the most plausible explanation is that the seal of ‘Adiyahu (‘Iddoyahu) belonged to the son of the very Isaiah known from the other seal impression. In this interpretation, the prophet Isaiah has appropriately given his son a name related to the prophetic profession. This interpretation should remind us of the story in Isaiah 7, where Isaiah takes son to meet the King Ahaz and give him counsel, as well as the story in Isaiah 8, where Isaiah’s students (v. 16), whom he also refers to as “the children that Yahweh has given me” (v. 18), are instructed to collect Isaiah’s teachings. Eilat Mazar’s reconstruction and translation of the third line of the Isaiah seal impression as nby[’] “prophet” has generated the most debate.36 Mazar argues that there is room for an additional letter and suggests adding the letter aleph, which gives the traditional Biblical Hebrew spelling. But there is some debate about whether there is room at the end of the third register for an additional letter.37 As my drawing illustrates, I think that this reading is possible, but I do not think it is necessary. To begin with, the letters in the third register, particularly the nun and beth are clearly much larger compared to the letters in register two. In order to fit in an aleph, Mazar draws the aleph slightly smaller. This interpretation seems unlikely because this impression comes from a well-executed, professionally engraved seal. By using larger letters in the third register, the engraver looks to be filling space knowing that the register would only have three letters. In short, the design

35 The name ‘Adiyahu appears once in the Hebrew Bible (2 Chr. 23:1), and the Syriac version there transcribes it as the name Iddo. The name ‘Adiyahu also appears in Arad 58:1. There are also other alternatives for the etymology of the name ‘Adiyahu, but none are compelling. The LXX spells the name Iddo as Αδδω reflecting both the doubling of the dalet as well as the interchangeability of the a and i in the transcription of the name. 36 I do not discuss the definite article here since it is unnecessary. It is unnecessary as Mazar herself acknowledges. See Mazar, Ophel Excavations, 181–2. 37 I am particularly indebted to Anat Mendel-Geberovich for discussing this problem with me.

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and execution of the seal makes it look like the engraver did not intend to add a fourth letter to this line even though there was some room. Mazar was apparently troubled by this reading because the normal Biblical Hebrew spelling of the word “prophet” requires an aleph. However, as I pointed out above, the Aramaic spelling for “prophet” is simply nby, and Biblical Hebrew nāb-î’ was a loanword that likely came through Aramaic as a vector of transmission. In other words, nby could have been a perfectly acceptable spelling for the title “prophet” in Iron Age Judah. The spelling in the third register turns our attention to comparative inscriptional evidence for the term nby. There are five seals and seal impressions published in West Semitic Stamp Seals with the word nby that Nahman Avigad read as the personal name “Nobai.” Three of these artifacts come from the antiquities market,38 but two were excavated at Lachish.39 Nobai would be an unusual Hebrew name, and meaning of the root is unclear. There was a town called Nob (nb), just north of Jerusalem (see 1 Sam. 21:1; Isa. 10:32; Neh. 11:32); and, for this reason, Avigad initially proposed that it could be read as a gentilic, that is, “the Nobite.” There is an apparent example of this name in a genealogical list in Nehemiah 10, but the Hebrew text (v. 20 [Eng. v. 19]) is garbled (with the qere/ketiv suggesting both nwby and nyby) and variants in Hebrew manuscripts suggest that later scribes did not recognize nwby as a personal name.40 In short, Nehemiah hardly provides convincing evidence that this was an acceptable Hebrew name. Yohanan Aharoni’s original publication of the seal impressions proposed a solution. He suggested reading the final line as nby[’] “prophet.” He reconstructed the two seals (Lachish 6 and 7) as follows: lyrmyhw “Belonging to Jeremiah, bn ˛spnyhw son of Zephaniah, bn nby[’] son of nby[’?]” 38 Avigad, West Semitic Stamp Seals, nos. 227, 379, and 693. 39 Yohanan Aharoni, “Trial Excavations in the ‘Solar Shrine’ at Lachish. Preliminary Report,” IEJ 18 (1968): 167 (nos. 6–7); Aharoni, Lachish V (Tel Aviv, 1975), 19–22 (nos. 6–7). Shmuel Ah.ituv discusses this name in light of the unprovenanced seals, but also concludes that “nby remains unexplained.” See his “Review: West Semitic Seals. Eighth–Sixth Centuries B.C.E.,” IEJ 53 (2003): 252. These are revisited by Anat Mendel-Geberovich et  al., “The Lachish Inscriptions from Yohanan Aharoni’s Excavations Reread” [in Hebrew], in From Sha‘ar ha-Golan to Shaaraim: Essays in Honor of Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, ed. Saar Ganor et al. ( Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2016), 111*–33*. There is an additional antiquities market seal with the reading nby published by Robert Deutsch, Biblical Period Epigraphy: The Josef Chaim Kaufman Collection, vol. 2 ( Jerusalem: Graphit Press, 2011), 17–8 (no. 434). 40 The previous name in Nehemiah’s list is Anathoth, which is also the name of Jeremiah’s hometown near the town of Nob, and the scribes may have been reading nwby as a gentilic.

The Isaiah Bul la , Jeremiah the Pr iest/Prophet , and R einter preting the Prophet

He argues that “the combination ‫ נבי‬would be surprising as a personal name” and for the reason he notes that there is room for one more letter and conjectures that “‫‘ נביא‬prophet’ was intended, as a designation of the man’s profession.”41 The title “Son of a Prophet” in the Lachish seal impressions would then inform our reading of biblical titles like Amos 7:14, where Amos claims not to be a “son of a prophet,” as well as the Elijah-Elisha narratives, where a prophetic community called “the sons of the prophets” is repeatedly mentioned. Aharoni was correct that there is room for an additional letter on the two seal impressions excavated at Lachish. Unfortunately, no aleph is visible, even with reflective technology imaging of the seal impressions.42 Based on my examination of the bullae, I transcribe it as follows: Register 1 Register 2 Register 3

lyrmyhw bn zpnyhw bn nby

“Belonging to Jeremiah, son of Zephaniah, son of a prophet”

I retain Aharoni’s interpretation, but not his reconstruction. It is not necessary to reconstruct a final aleph to support Aharoni’s interpretation. First of all, this seal was unusual in having three inscribed registers. Almost all Hebrew seals had only two registers with personal names. The third register is exceptional. We can recall the seals belonging to Tobshallum.43 In two of his seals, there were just two registers with personal names: “Tobshallum, son of Zakar.” In his third seal, he had an extra register engraved that added his title, hrp’ (“the physician”). To add a third register, there should be some special reason. Perhaps the grandfather was a person of prominence, or one could add a title as we have for Tobshallum. In addition, if we understand biblical nāb-î’ as an old prophetic title mediated through Aramaic, then nby would be an acceptable spelling. Moreover, these impressions did not come from a well-planned and executed seal. There are uneven lines, variation in letter shapes and orientations, and inconsistent spacing. The quality of the design and execution indicates someone of secondary stature. This is another reason to retain Aharoni’s reading of the third register as a title, “son of a prophet.” The seal owner was not the prophet, but the apprentice of a prophet—that is, a person of secondary status.

41 Aharoni, “Trial Excavations in the ‘Solar Shrine’ at Lachish,” 167; Aharoni, Lachish V, 21–2 (nos. 6–7). 42 My thanks to Anat Mendel-Geberovich for her insights into the reading of these seal impressions. See Anat Mendel-Geberovich et al., “The Lachish Inscriptions,” 117. 43 Shoham, “Hebrew Bullae,” 34–6.

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Reading bn nby as the title gathers further support from the archaeological context. Lachish seal impressions 6 and 7 were discovered in a jar with seventeen bullae in an area that Aharoni calls, “A Chancellery from the End of the Judean Monarchy.”44 Aharoni points out that another seal impression found in this group belonged to a royal official, “Shebaniah, [son/servant] of the king.”45 Other items excavated in the same locus included inscribed shekel weights and an administrative list (Lachish 22).46 In other words, the archaeological context of the Lachish bn nby seal impressions comes from a royal or administrative context. This is strikingly similar to the archaeological context of the Isaiah seal impression from Jerusalem. The standard reference work, West Semitic Stamp Seals, published these Lachish bullae as a personal name, nby = “Nobai,” without reference to Aharoni’s original suggestion as “son of a prophet.” In this case, the antiquities market seems to have influenced the development of scholarly interpretation. As it happened, two years after Aharoni’s original publication, a seal was purchased on the antiquities market with the reading lš‘np//bn nby, “Belonging to Ši‘ap, son of nby.”47 The sudden appearance of this seal on the antiquities market is just a bit too convenient. Avigad then used this seal object to justify his dismissal Aharoni’s reading of bn nby[’] as “son of the prophet” on the excavated seal impressions from Lachish.48 In his initial publication, he suggested reading nby as a gentilic, but scholars pointed out that there are no examples of gentilics on seals,49 so Avigad later modified his reading. After another seal was purchased on the antiquities market with the inscription lmhsyhw//nby, Avigad translated it as “belonging to Mah.seyahu//(son of) Nobai.”50 Of course, Aharoni had 44 Aharoni, “Trial Excavations in the ‘Solar Shrine’ at Lachish,” 164. 45 Yohanan Aharoni, Lachish V, 21 (no. 5); Avigad, West Semitic Stamp Seals, no. 405. 46 Published in Aharoni, Lachish V, 22–4. For an updated edition of Lachish 22 with excellent photos and drawings, see Zammit, Lachish Letters, 2:49–50. 47 Nahman Avigad, “New Names on Hebrew Seals” [in Hebrew], EI 12 (1975): 71; also see Avigad, West Semitic Stamp Seals, no. 379. 48 Avigad, “New Names on Hebrew Seals,” 71. As is pointed out by A. Vaughn and C. Dobler, the omission of the word bn makes seal no. 227 especially suspect as a forgery. See “A Provenance Study of Hebrew Seals and Seal Impressions: A Statistical Analysis,” in I Will Speak the Riddle of Ancient Times—Archaeological and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Aren Maeir and Pierre de Miroschedji (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 757–71. A close inspection of provenanced Hebrew seals and impressions indicates that bn (“son of ”) is usually included (seventy-two percent) and omitted only when there is no space. 49 Alan Millard, “Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals: A Review Article,” IEJ 51 (2001): 11. 50 Avigad, West Semitic Stamp Seals, no. 227. It is worth pointing out that nby always appears in the final register, that is, where it can be a title; whereas, if nby appeared in the first register is would be unlikely as a title.

The Isaiah Bul la , Jeremiah the Pr iest/Prophet , and R einter preting the Prophet

already considered this in his original publication, and Nobai is still a strange and otherwise unprecedented personal name. One important component of the Lachish seal impressions is the use of bn “son of.” This word is missing from Isaiah seal impression. The question is why. If we read nby in the third register of the Isaiah seal as a personal name, then bn (“son of ”) should be there. To be sure, the word bn is sometimes omitted in seals. But the reason for this omission is primarily lack of space. For example, in West Semitic Stamp Seals, I counted only four of forty-four seal impressions with three letter names in the last register that omit the word bn.51 In other words, over ninety percent of seals with three letter personal names include the word bn. The Isaiah Bulla is a nicely designed and executed seal impression. The engraver used enlarged letters to fill space in the third register, and bn was intentionally omitted even though there is ample room. I would argue that bn is missing because Isaiah was not the “son of a prophet.” He was the prophet. In sum, there are compelling and sober reasons to read the Isaiah Bulla from Jerusalem as “Belonging to Isaiah, Prophet.” To begin with, Isaiah was an uncommon name. Moreover, the seal of Isaiah is expertly designed and engraved. The owner was an important figure in eighth-century Jerusalem. The seal also omitted the word bn; most likely, this was because nby was Isaiah’s title, not his father. To find this unusual name in an eighth-century archaeological administrative context adjacent to a seal impression belonging to Hezekiah is more than a coincidence. These inscriptions require a broad contextual reading that takes into account archaeological contexts, historical Hebrew grammar, and the semantic development of the ancient title “prophet” in the Hebrew Bible. This reading of nby also gives more context to the title nāb-î’ in the story of Amos 7 as well as the editorial note in 1 Samuel 9:9. The broad application of the title nāb-î’ in editing of biblical literature almost certainly began with elevation and prominence of one of the most prominent figures who had this title in ancient Judah—Isaiah of Jerusalem. The rise to prominence of Isaiah and the literature associated with him is particularly evident in the repeated and complex editing of the book of Isaiah during the

51 I also looked at more recent publications of seals and seal impressions not included in West Semitic Stamp Seals, and they do not materially change this observation. Thanks to Anat Mendel-Geberovitch for making available to me her forthcoming article, “Judaean Glyptic Finds: An Updated Corpus and a Revision of Their Paleography.” I did not count the seals in West Semitic Stamp Seals because most of them are from the antiquities market and include many possible forgeries.

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exilic and post-exilic periods.52 Editorial processes that expand the use of the title “prophet” can be seen elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible when figures such as Abraham, Moses, and Aaron become “prophets” as well (such as Gen. 20:7; Ex. 7:1; Num. 11:29; Deut. 18:15), but the most revealing editorial evidence comes from the proto-MT addition of “the prophet” as a title for Jeremiah. This undoubtedly reflects the development of nāb-î’ in the later editing and compilation of the Hebrew Bible. The proto-Masoretic Jeremiah can be correlated with the Deuteronomic comment in 1 Samuel 9:9. Formerly, they used different terms for “prophet,” but later scribes applied this term to figures who they believed spoke the word of God.

52 See, for example, H. G. M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in Composition and Redaction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); J. Stromberg, Isaiah after Exile: The Author of Third Isaiah as Reader and Redactor of the Book (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Nathan Mastnjak, “The Book of Isaiah and the Anthological Genre,” HS 61 (2020): 49–72.

CLASSICAL RABBINIC L I T E R AT U R E

5

Eden Lost and Regained: Mythmaking in Midrash1 Deborah Green

Midrashic interpretation of Genesis 3, Adam and Eve’s sin and banishment from the Garden of Eden, runs in two general directions. In one stream of tradition, the rabbis of the tannaitic, amoraic, and later periods quite naturally focus on the narrative of the first couple: How is it that the serpent came to speak to Eve rather than Adam, why does Eve tell the serpent that she can’t touch the tree, what kind of fruit did the couple eat? However, another strand of interpretation underscores the relationship between the Shekhinah (the indwelling of the divine) and the garden.2 Its focus is on the sin of Adam and Eve eating the fruit as the cause for the Shekhinah’s ascent into heaven. Once there, the indwelling of the divine does not begin to return to earth until Abraham arrives on the scene. After Abraham, the Shekhinah continues its descent in stages and fully returns

1 I want to thank Professors Eitan Fishbane and Elisha Russ-Fishbane for including me in this volume. I can never return in kind to Professor Fishbane, the elder, everything he has done for me over the years. Professor, this meager and humble attempt to let you know how much I learned from you and how deeply I appreciate you is a “mere drop in the ocean” compared to your knowledge, wisdom, patience, and kindness. 2 The Shekhinah is the “indwelling” or hypostasis of God on earth. In these midrashim, the Shekhinah is another name for God and is gendered masculine when verbs appear alongside the name. This is unlike the feminine character it is ascribed in later mystical literature. See Ellen D. Haskel, Suckling at My Mother’s Breasts: The Image of a Nursing God in Jewish Mysticism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012), 1–3.

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to earth when Moses finishes construction of the Tabernacle. Most often, the ascents and descents comprise seven stages each way.3 Within these two categories we find the repetition and development of several subthemes, interpretive elements, biblical verses, and key words; in only one source, Genesis Rabbah (GenRab), do the two main categories come together. Although the interpretations that invoke the Shekhinah’s ascent and return appear more often than the Adam, Eve, and snake midrashim, both categories are also part of a rabbinic theology expressed in story; that is, myth, as Michael Fishbane defines it:4 We shall understand the word “Myth” to refer to (sacred and authoritative) accounts of the deeds and personalities of the gods and heroes during the formative events of primordial times, or during the subsequent historical interventions or actions of these figures which are constitutive for the founding of a given culture and its rituals.5 The Shekhinah episodes recount the actions of the divine in the primordial accounts of the earth as well as in the early history of the people Israel. Even more so, as described by Fishbane, one of the constitutive elements of these rabbinic myths is the relationship Israel has with God. This relationship is not unidirectional. Human righteousness, as defined by following the mitzvot, as well as the sins the people commit can have a direct effect on God. The divine may have a personal or internal reaction, may respond with an outer reaction toward the people, or, as in the case of the Shekhinah, change location (from heaven toward earth or vice versa). The mythic core of the midrashim on the Shekhinah begin with the assumption that the Garden of Eden is God’s royal garden. After the first couple eat from the tree of knowledge, they become aware that God is present and they act: “They heard the sound of God Yahweh pacing in the garden in the breeze of the day, and the man and his woman hid themselves on account of God Yahweh being in the midst of the tree[s] of the garden” (Gen. 3:8). In most sources, the verse serves as a subtle prooftext in two ways. It demonstrates that Eden is God’s garden because the divine walks in it, and 3 See Michael Fishbane, Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 158; and J. Theodor and Ch. Albeck, eds., Midrash Bereshit Rabba ( Jerusalem: Shalem Books, 1996), 176. 4 I discuss the interpretations that focus on Adam and Eve in a separate work. 5 Fishbane, Biblical Myth, 11.

Eden Lost and Regained: My thmaking in Midrash

the verse claims that Adam and Eve have done something so heinous that they must hide themselves. In these sources God seems to be present on earth, in Eden, or specifically in the Garden of Eden, until the encounter with Adam and Eve and their banishment. At that time, the Shekhinah ascends to the first level of heaven. In the two recensions of Avot d’Rabbi Natan (ARNA, ARNB) and in Pirke d’Rabbi Eliezer (PRE), however, the Shekhinah descends at the time of Genesis 3:8—first to “pace in the garden” and then to speak with Adam and Eve about what they have done. The garden image from Genesis 2–3 is itself important to the mythic cycle of the Shekhinah and its dwelling on earth. Often in the rabbinic sources, the Garden of Eden is intertwined with the garden imagery in Song of Songs 4:16–5:1. As we will see, the rabbis employ the garden images to hearken back toward Eden as God’s garden and to the Tabernacle as the place where God dwelled on earth. As a result, inhabitation of the Tabernacle by the divine signifies “reinhabitation” of Eden—or conceivably, the Tabernacle as a new Eden.6 Such an understanding also construes the covenant and adherence to the law as the means by which the righteous can access Paradise after death; not the direct subject of this essay, but one that is part of a larger study on gardens and their representation in Jewish literature from the biblical to the talmudic periods.7

The Dates of the Sources Relative to Topics In order to trace the appearance of the two myths, I  categorized the key midrashim and built a chart so that the key themes are available for comparison (see Table). The reader will note that I have placed the broad themes, elements, and, in some cases, quoted verses in the far left column. I tried to order the midrashim chronologically, although this is a difficult task.

6 The first link is that of wisdom and the tree of life in Proverbs 3 and 8. The second link connects the Torah and mitzvot as sources of wisdom. From there, the sages join the tree of life with the Torah and the Shekhinah with divine wisdom. On early allegorical readings of the tree of life as Torah, see Menachem Kister, “Allegorical Interpretations of Biblical Narratives in Rabbinic Literature, Philo, and Origen: Some Case Studies,” in New Approaches to the Study of Biblical Interpretation in Judaism of the Second Temple Period and in Early Christianity, ed. Gary Anderson et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 154–60. 7 See 3 Enoch. The idea of the righteous attaining Paradise is subtle in early midrash, growing ever more explicit in the medieval period. See Michael Fishbane, The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994), 57–60, 71–3; Fishbane, Biblical Myth, 219.

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Theme/Element Shekhinah 1. Descends at time of Genesis (Gen. 3:8) 2. Ascends at time of Genesis (Gen. 3:8) 3. Ascends and descends seven realms 4. Descends at time the Tabernacle is built 5. Numbers 7:1 6. Psalms 37:29 7. Song of Songs 4:16a: ‫עורי צפון‬ 8. Song of Songs 4:16b: ‫יבוא דודי לגנו‬ 9. Song of Songs 5:1a:‫באתי לגני‬ 10. Parables: a) King and new palace b) King angry with queen c) Queen asks for a new thing

Eden Lost and Regained: Themes and Elements Table Seder Olam X X X

GenRab X X

X X

X X

X X

X X X

X X X X

X X

X X X X X X X X

SongRab

X

PRK X X X X X

ARN B X

X*

PRE

X X X

ARN A X

58 Deborah Green

Tanh.uma

Sources Seder Olam Rabbah 7:2 (~100–200 CE) Genesis Rabbah 3:9 and 19:7–8, 22:5, 34:9 (~400–600 CE) Pesiqta d’Rab Kahana, pisqa 1 (~400–800 CE) Tanh.uma, Piqudei 6, Naso 16 and 20 (~300–800 CE) Song of Songs Rabbah 4:16–5:1 (~600–700 CE) Avot d’Rabbi Natan A 1 and 34 (~200–900 CE)

1. Gezeirah 2. Reason snake goes to Eve 3. “If the Snake hadn’t been cursed” 4. Snake touches tree 5. Snake touches Eve 6. Tree(s) talk(s) 7. Snake slanders God 8. Eve knows Adam lied; Adam was a “bad rabbi” 9. Eve convinces Adam 10. Parables a) Man marries proselyte b) Jug of scorpions 11. Adam lasts twelve hours

Adam, Eve, and the Snake

X

X X X X X

X X X

X X X

X X X

*Term for God is “blessed one” rather than Shekhinah. ** Eve sees the angel of death coming toward her.

Avot d’Rabbi Natan B 1 and 37 (~200–900 CE) Pirke d’Rabbi Eliezer 11:7, 12, 13, and 14 (~700–900 CE)

X

X X X X

X X X X

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Eden Lost and Regained: My thmaking in Midrash

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I  believe that the final redaction of texts occurs quite late in many cases and extant manuscripts often date to the medieval period. Nevertheless, it is likely that attestation for many midrashim is much earlier than textual emergence or redaction.8 The first column identifies the themes in Seder Olam Rabbah (Seder Olam) thought to date to approximately 160 CE. GenRab most likely emerged in the fifth century CE and received textual editing in the sixth century CE. That said, it is also apparent that several of the midrashim in GenRab were transmitted for several generations prior to the fifth century. Similar to GenRab, Pesiqta d’Rab Kahana (PRK) dates to approximately the fifth or sixth century, but it also demonstrates later material. As a result, many scholars date PRK to the eighth century CE. The piska (section) in question in this study is the first chapter and shows strong affinity with the GenRab passage. While Tanh.uma, the next midrashic text in the chart is very difficult to date, the midrashim under investigation are based on Naso and Pequdei, and share many attributes of Seder Olam, GenRab, and PRK. Song of Songs Rabbah (SongRab) also contains many commonalities with those midrashim already listed. ARNA and ARNB are a conundrum in terms of date. Some scholars have argued for an early date of the third to fourth century CE, while others consider the final redaction to have put a strong enough stamp on the midrash so that a terminus ante quem of the ninth century CE is more appropriate.9 I have included PRE, which also has a fairly late date of the ninth century CE, simply to indicate its affinity with the ARN material in its focus on Adam, Eve, and the snake rather than the Shekhinah. While I have not yet examined the PRE passages in detail, these last three works appear to align better with each other and GenRab than they do with the other midrash collections. The reader will note, however, that by the fifth or sixth century CE, both of the rabbinic myths that take place in Eden are already sufficiently known to be included in GenRab.

8 For example, many, if not most, tradents in ARN were tannaitic rabbis. The table, however, identifies the midrashic sources in an order that makes the most sense for the theoretical dates of redaction or textual emergence of entire works—rather than for the particular midrashim in question. 9 See Jonathan W. Schofer, The Making of a Sage: A Study in Rabbinic Ethics (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 26–9; and Menahem Kister, Studies in Avot de-Rabbi Nathan: Text, Redaction and Interpretation ( Jerusalem: Hebrew University Department of Talmud and Yad Yizhak Ben-Zvi, 1998), v–vi and viii.

Eden Lost and Regained: My thmaking in Midrash

The Shekhinah in Paradise: Constituent Parts of the Mythic Cycle At first blush, it may seem odd that, when reference to Eden and the narrative of Adam and Eve make an appearance in midrash, the focus is often on the Shekhinah rather than on the first couple. Four of the texts have no interest in the first couple or the serpent at all. Their focus with respect to Genesis 3 is entirely on the Shekhinah. And, although ARNA, ARNB, PRE, and GenRab discuss the Adam and Eve narrative in detail, the texts also mention the Shekhinah in the context of Genesis 3.10 That said, ARNA and ARNB have their own take on the Shekhinah material and seem to have little to nothing in common thematically with the other midrashim. If Avot d’Rabbi Natan and PRE cite Genesis 3 with respect to the descent of the Shekhinah, almost all the other midrashim focus on ascent of the divine at the time of the sin. In this respect, GenRab is thematically much closer to the other midrashim and aligns thoroughly with PRK and SongRab with which it shares all three of its Shekhinah themes as well as the prooftext from Psalms 37:29.11 The dominant themes of the Shekhinah-focused midrashim are as follows: • •

• •

a general discussion of or assumption about the ascent of the Shekhinah at the time of Genesis 3:8; the ascent of the Shekhinah through seven firmaments or realms of heaven and the descent of the Shekhinah to earth by the same seven realms; the descent of the Shekhinah at the time Moses completes the Tabernacle (the most common theme shared among five of the midrashim); the use of Song of Songs 4:16b and 5:1a to describe the Tabernacle, investiture of the priests, and the first sacrifice. These verses are found in four of the five sources.

As the oldest source we have, Seder Olam 7:2 can serve as a base text for our analysis of the other midrashim even though it is missing some key elements of the mythic structure. It has four points of intersection with its comparator texts: 10 PRE uses the term “blessed one” in place of Shekhinah (chapter 14). In all three cases, the midrashim give lists of descents of the Shekhinah in scripture, beginning with the sin of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. 11 “The righteous shall inherit the land, and they shall dwell forever upon it.” See also Fishbane, Biblical Myth, 239.

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descent of the Shekhinah at the time of the Tabernacle and the three quotes from Song of Songs 4:16–5:1. The specific interpretations though, are somewhat different. For example, the later texts point to the Shekhinah’s descent at the time of the erection of the Tabernacle as a return to its original place in the lower realms. Seder Olam, however, claims the erection of the Tabernacle as the first time the Shekhinah descended and dwelled among Israel, given that it is missing the seven realms of ascent and descent material. The theme of “first occurrences” appears at the outset of chapter 7:1 with exegesis on Exodus 40:1–4, “Yahweh spoke to Moses, ‘On the first day of the first month you will erect the Tabernacle12 and the Tent of Meeting. . . .’” The midrash describes the setting up of the Tabernacle and the rites associated with the ordination of the priests and their first offerings by drawing on verses from Exodus and Leviticus.13 The next set of “firsts” occurs in the next section of the midrash, 7:2, based on Numbers 7:12, “And it was, the one who brought near his offering on the first day was Nah.shon, son of Amminadab,14 of the tribe of Judah.” This verse refers to the participation on the part of the tribal heads in dedication of the Tabernacle. God instructs Moses that “one chieftain (nasi) each day” should bring his offering as a dedication of the altar (Num. 7:11): On the same day the chiefs began to offer, “And it was, the one who brought near his offering on the first day . . . .” (Num. 7:12). It was the first of the creation of the world.15 It was the first of the chiefs.16 First of the forbidden animals. The first of dwelling in Israel,17 as it said, “And I will dwell (shakhanti) in the midst of my people Israel and I will be their God” (Ex. 29:45).18

12 Lit. “dwelling” (mishkan). 13 Ex. 29:32 and Lev. 8:35—9:1. 14 Septuagint, Syriac, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan have ἄρχων/‫נָשיא‬. 15 On rabbinic opinions on the dates of dedication of the Tabernacle, the first sacrifices, and the dates of the tribal heads bringing sacrifices (the first versus the eighth or ninth of Nissan, and so forth) as well as notes on the “first of the creation of the world” (also in Leviticus Rabbah 29:1 and BT Rosh ha-Shanah 10b–11a), see Chaim Milikowsky, Seder Olam: Critical Edition, Commentary, and Introduction ( Jerusalem: Yad Yizhak Ben-Zvi, 2013), 2:140. 16 Or, “princes.” 17 Milikowsky notes that some manuscripts include reference to the Shekhinah (such as “The first that the Shekhinah dwelled in Israel”), Seder Olam, 1:43. 18 Seder Olam 7:2, ibid., 1:242–3.

Eden Lost and Regained: My thmaking in Midrash

According to Seder Olam, the building and dedication of the Tabernacle is the first occurrence of God coming to dwell among people—specifically the Israelites.19 The midrash continues with other “firsts”; among them the priesthood, the ordination period, the slaughtering of sacrifices, the eating of sacrificial meat, and the fire coming down from God to consume the sacrifices.20 The sacrificial system prompts the next cycle of Shekhinah references by quoting Song of Songs 4:16, “Arise north [wind] and come south [wind], blow upon my garden; its spices will flow. Let my lover come to his garden, and eat his excellent fruit.” The verse from the Song of Songs is the voice of the young woman.21 In the preceding verses the young man described her as a locked and sealed garden, whose alluring aroma of spicy delights floats out to him. In the current verse, she responds with the invitation to enter “her garden”—an allusion to her body and making love. Seder Olam connects the types of offerings at the Tabernacle with Song of Songs 4:16: On the same day he said: “Arise north [wind] and come . . .” (Song 4:16). “Arise north [wind],” this is the ‘olah [whole burnt offering] that is slaughtered on the north [side]. “And come south [wind],” these are the shelamim [peace or well-being offerings] that are slaughtered on the south [side]. “Blow upon my garden,” this is the Tent of Meeting. “Its spices will flow,” this is the incense of the spices. “Let my lover come into his garden,” this is the Shekhinah. “And eat his excellent fruit,” these are the sacrifices.22 In this metaphorical assignment of sacrificial elements, Israel takes on the role of the young woman who asks the winds to blow upon her garden.23 Israel performs the sacrifices, aligned with the winds, and asks God to enter the garden (that is, the Tent of Meeting). The reference to the lover in the Song is 19 Ibid., 2:141. 20 The fire reference draws on Leviticus 9:24 as a prooftext. 21 Contra Fishbane, who reads 4:16a as the young man speaking and 4:16b as the young woman. Michael Fishbane, The JPS Bible Commentary: Song of Songs (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2014), 128. 22 Seder Olam 7:2. GenRab 22:5 and 34:9 quote Song of Songs 4:16a in relation to Cain’s sacrifice and Noah’s sacrifice. 23 Because the entire midrash hinges on the directions enumerated by God to Moses regarding the consecration of the Tabernacle, the voice could also be that of Moses.

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clearly masculine in this case (“come into his garden”); hence, the Shekhinah is gendered masculine as well.24 The connection of the garden of the Song with the Tent of Meeting and the dwelling place of God on earth is clear in this midrash. In later midrashim, the connection strengthens and includes God’s garden, or Eden. The next midrash draws on Song of Songs 5:1 in which the male lover responds to the woman, “I came into my garden, my sister, bride; I gathered my myrrh with my spice. I ate my honeycomb with my honey; I drank my wine with my milk. Eat, friends, drink, and become drunk with love.” The lover attests to the intimacy having already occurred with his female companion, his “sister” and “bride.” And he describes her again as a garden full of spices—which he has now enjoyed. The end of the verse may be construed in English as either that the friends should become drunk with love or that the lovers should simply become drunk. Although the former meaning is the more common translation, the midrash interprets the latter as it atomizes the verse: “I came into my garden, my sister, bride . . .” (Song 5:1), this is the eighth day. “I gathered my myrrh with my spice,” this is the incense and frankincense and the frankincense of the meal offerings. “I ate my honeycomb with my honey,” these are the limbs of the ‘olah and the most holy sacrifices. “Eat friends,” this is Moses and Aaron and Miriam. 25 “Drink, become drunk lovers,” this is the congregation of Israel.”26 Again, the midrash layers metaphors from the Song to describe the investiture of the priests (requirement of eight days), the incense, the frankincense that is included with the meal offerings, and the sacrifices. All these are similar to the previous quotes with a slightly different focus on how the sacrifices are described. The key difference is the reference to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam as the “friends” from the biblical text, here partaking in the sacrificial meal, and

24 Unlike some later mystical texts. 25 The reference to Miriam stands out because she does not appear in the Biblical references to the building of the Tabernacle, the finishing of the same, or the days of investiture and dedication. Milikowsky notes that two manuscripts of Seder Olam omit Miriam and that the parallels in SongRab and Numbers Rabbah also lack reference to Miriam. Likewise, he points out that in all the other manuscripts of Seder Olam—approximately eighteen others—there is a reference to Miriam. Milikowsky surmises that this reference is not an error “corrected” by later parallel sources but rather part of the original reading. Milikowsky, Seder Olam, 2:143. 26 Seder Olam 7:2.

Eden Lost and Regained: My thmaking in Midrash

the reference to Israel as the lovers who get drunk (ostensibly also partaking in the meal).27

Mythic Embellishments of the Shekhinah Cycle Seder Olam represents the earliest extant midrash on the Shekhinah’s descent and dwelling on earth; thus, it presents the earliest elements of the mythic cycle about the relationship between the Shekhinah and Israel. The later sources build on the key elements of Seder Olam, but they also demonstrate a significant creative force and development of their own. In addition to narrating the events of the Shekhinah coming to earth and dwelling in the Tabernacle, the later midrashim cite different biblical quotes for the lemma and prooftext verses,28 reference the ascension of the divine at the time of Adam and Eve and the ascent and descent of the Shekhinah through seven realms of heaven, and employ interpretations on the Song verses that diverge from Seder Olam. While Seder Olam draws on Numbers 7:12 for its lemma, three of the other texts (PRK, Tanh.uma, and SongRab) draw on Numbers 7:1: “And it was, on the day that Moses finished erecting the Tabernacle, he anointed it and consecrated it and all of its utensils, and the altar and all of its utensils—he anointed them and consecrated them.” The scene of Numbers 7 opens with the completion of the Tabernacle and the first steps that Moses undertakes to ensure that the Tabernacle, the altar, and all the accoutrements will be holy.29 In SongRab, the text employs this verse from Numbers along with Psalms 37:29 and Song of Songs 5:1 (“I came into my garden, my sister, bride . . .”) to expand on the relationship between humans and the divine. As in Seder Olam, the interpretation understands “garden” and “Tabernacle” to be one in the same, the place of God’s dwelling on earth: Moses arose and brought it (the Shekhinah) down to earth. Rabbi Yitzh.ak said: As it is written: “. . . The righteous will inherit 27 Although the young woman is depicted as the garden in the Song, and midrashic sources regularly depict the young woman as Israel, in this midrash the garden is the Tent of Meeting—the place where God resides on earth and interacts with Israel. 28 A lemma is the biblical verse, phrase, or word that the rabbis seek to interpret. A prooftext is a biblical verse that a rabbi may cite to validate the interpretation. 29 Of note, the term “to anoint” employs a special root (m.sh.h..) to denote the anointing of things or people (high priest and king) chosen by God or set aside (sanctified) for the deity. The ingredients and instructions for the oil Moses uses in this Numbers passage is specified in Exodus 30:22–32.

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the earth and dwell (ve-yishkenu) upon it forever” (Ps. 37:29). What will the wicked do? They will be suspended30 in the air, because they did not cause the Shekhinah to dwell upon the earth. But the righteous caused the Shekhinah to dwell upon the earth. What is the source? “The righteous will inherit the earth and dwell (ve-yishkenu) upon it forever.” They caused the Shekhinah to dwell (yashkinu) upon it; “. . . He dwells forever, and Holy is His name ([On] high and [in] holiness I dwell—with the crushed and humble of spirit—reviving those of humble spirit and reviving those of fallen heart)” (Isa. 57:15). When did the Shekhinah minister upon it [earth]? It was on the day that the Tabernacle was erected, as it is said: “And it was on the day that Moses finished establishing the Tabernacle and he anointed it and consecrated it . . . (Num. 7:1).”31 The section of midrash before this one focuses on the men who brought the Shekhinah down toward earth. Moses completes this task by finishing the building of the Tabernacle (Num. 7:1). This snippet of midrash employs various forms of the root sh.k.n, “dwell,” six times. And this count does not include the term Shekhinah or the noun mishkan, the word for Tabernacle. However, both these words also derive from the sh.k.n root. It is difficult to know whether the rabbis have the same connection in mind that we see in Seder Olam. In that midrash, Ex. 29:45 (“I will dwell in the midst of my people”) supplies a direct connection between the Tabernacle and the Shekhinah “dwelling” in it. GenRab, PRK, and SongRab pull from that idea and then push it in a new direction by means of Rabbi Yitzh.ak’s prooftext, Psalm 37:29. The midrash asks us to read yashkinu, “will cause to dwell,” rather than yishkenu, “will dwell,” and it draws out the participants to include “the righteous” in addition to Moses.32 More important for this discussion is the notion that Moses and the righteous are able to effect the Shekhinah’s descent toward earth and inhabitation on it. They are able to bring about the Shekhinah’s actions. The wicked in this example do not cause the Shekhinah to withdraw from the earth;33 rather, they themselves are left hanging in the air by their own inability to achieve righteousness. The 30 Or, “hang.” 31 SongRab 5:1. 32 See Fishbane, Biblical Myth, 239, n. 156. 33 Ibid., 238.

Eden Lost and Regained: My thmaking in Midrash

Shekhinah, therefore, does not dwell among the wicked. Or rather, they do not dwell with the Shekhinah. The midrash identifies a spatial interpretation as well. The Shekhinah comes down (or is brought down) to earth. The righteous inherit the earth. The wicked, however, hang in the air. The midrash indicates that “being grounded,” both literally and metaphorically through righteousness, constitutes connection with the divine. Therefore, with respect to these positive and negative valences, the Shekhinah of SongRab does not inhabit the Tabernacle for all of Israel as we saw in Seder Olam; rather, it depicts the wicked as removed from the divine. The later midrashim also interpret two key phrases from the Song of Songs differently than Seder Olam. As we saw in Seder Olam, the first part of 4:16b (“Let my lover come into his garden”) connotes the Shekhinah as lover and the garden as Tabernacle. PRK, Tanh.uma, and SongRab, however, all have a discussion on the bride and groom: “Let my lover come into his garden . . .” (Song 4:16). R. Yoh.anan said: The Torah teaches you that it is the way of the land that the bridegroom will not enter the bridal chamber until the bride gives him permission. How do we know?34 Because it says, “Let my lover come into his garden . . .” (Song 4:16). “I came into my garden . . .” (Song 5:1) R. Menah.em, the son-in-law of R. Eleazar b. Abuna, said in the name of R. Simeon b. Yosenah: I came to the garden (ha-gan) is not written here; rather, “I came to my garden (ganni)”—to my bridal chamber (ginnuni).35 The rabbis read gan, or garden, as ginnuni, or bridal chamber.36 The midrashim explain that it is proper for the groom to wait until the bride invites him to enter the bridal chamber. Therefore, the bride, Israel, invites the Shekhinah, the groom, into the Tabernacle through the verse, “Let my lover come into his garden.” Likewise, as demonstrated in the earlier SongRab passage, these midrashim draw a connection between the first part of Song of Songs 5:1a, “I came into my garden, my sister, bride” and the word “finishing”, or kallot, in Numbers 7:1, “And it was, on the day that Moses finished (kallot) erecting the Tabernacle.” Here, kallot forms a bridge to kallah (“bride”), just as gani (“my 34 Lit. “what is the sense?” 35 SongRab 4:16–5:1 36 Tanh.uma, Naso 20:1; SongRab 4:16 and 5:1; PRK 1:1. See also Fishbane, Biblical Myth, 176.

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garden”), is taken to mean ginnuni (“my bridal chamber”). This is in line with the prophetic proposition of Israel becoming the bride of God on the day she accepted the covenant.37 As a result, we see the marriage imagery in midrashim connected to the Sinaitic event as well as in midrashim such as these connected to the establishment of the Tabernacle, its priesthood, and its rituals. Although Seder Olam also focuses on the establishment of the Tabernacle, and it, too, uses Song of Songs 4:16 and 5:1 to achieve its interpretation of the resident Shekhinah, it employs Numbers 7:12 for its lemma. As a result, it does not make the kallah and kallot connection between the Song and Numbers 7:1. In fact, Seder Olam presents a theme that seems to disappear in the other, later sources. Reading kallah from the Song of Songs only as “to finish”—that is, according to the text in Numbers 7:12—rather than as “bride,” it seeks to answer “when did the Shekhinah enter the Tabernacle?” On the eighth day of the consecratory period. In comparison to Seder Olam, which describes the completion of the Tabernacle as the first time the Shekhinah dwells on earth, all four of the other complete Shekhinah sources (GenRab, PRK, Tanh.uma, and SongRab) consider that the Shekhinah ascended into heaven at the time of the sin of Adam and Eve and returned to earth at the time of the Tabernacle.38 Three of the midrashim (PRK, Tanḥuma and SongRab) employ Genesis 3:8 as a prooftext, while GenRab cites the verse as the lemma: “And they heard the voice of the God Yahweh walking back and forth39 in the garden in the breeze of the day, and the man and his wife hid from before God Yahweh in the midst of the tree[s] of the garden.” In the biblical scene, Adam and Eve have eaten from the tree of knowledge. They realize that they are naked and sew coverings for themselves. The tension builds as they hear God walking around in the garden, and they become frightened. The midrash contends: “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking back and forth in the garden in the breeze of the day.” (Gen. 3:8) . . . R. Abba bar Kahana said, “Walking” (mehalekh) is not written

37 See, for example, Hosea 2; Ezekiel 16 and 23. 38 Although GenRab 19:7 interprets Genesis 3:8 along with the other later midrashim, putting the Shekhinah’s first ascent at the time of Adam and Eve’s sin, I should add that GenRab 3:9 repeats the cycle of firsts found in Seder Olam 7:2. Therefore, GenRab includes a portion of the Seder Olam midrash, albeit truncated, in which the Shekhinah first dwelled on earth at the time of the Tabernacle, and it aligns with the other midrashim more expansively on the Shekhinah beginning on earth and arising into heaven because of Adam and Eve’s sin. 39 “Walking about.”

Eden Lost and Regained: My thmaking in Midrash

here, rather mithalekh: jumping and ascending. Originally the Shekhinah was in the lower realms. When the first man sinned, it removed itself to the first firmament.40 In each of these midrashim, mithalekh (“to travel” or “to walk back and forth”) is understood as “jump and arise” or “jump and remove.” A careful reading of Seder Olam suggests that the Tabernacle completion was not only the first time that the Shekhinah dwelled among Israel, but the first time that it dwelled on earth. The Genesis quote does not appear in Seder Olam and the key words that appear in the other Shekhinah midrashim that indicate an original dwelling on earth are missing. These words include ‘ikar, in a discussion about the “original” place of the Shekhinah before it withdrew from Eden; meqappez. ve-‘oleh or kafes. ve-saleq (“jump and ascend” or “jump and remove”); nistalqah, that the Shekhinah “withdrew” itself; or ba-tah.tonim, that it had dwelled, as it were, “in the lower realms” on earth. All four of the later texts have some permutation of these words, while Seder Olam has none of them. In the four parallel sources, the sin of Adam and Eve precipitates the Shekhinah’s leap or withdrawal to the first realm of heaven. Six more wicked people and generations come along, and the Shekhinah continues to rise: When Cain sinned, it withdrew itself to the second firmament. The generation of Enosh, to the third. The generation of the flood, to the fourth. The generation of the dispersion, to the fifth. The Sodomites, to the sixth. The Egyptians in the days of Abraham, to the seventh.41 The midrash follows the primeval and early Abrahamic events in Genesis, adding to the mythic cycle of alienation and provision apparent in Genesis 1–11. The new trope is a gyre built around sin—alienation—divine withdrawal. In this cycle, the Shekhinah is not withdrawn by Adam, Cain, and the rest, but withdraws itself from the earth. And they do not “hang in air” as do the wicked.

40 GenRab 19:7. 41 GenRab 19:7. SongRab 5:1 includes the verbs missing in GenRab and has slight changes in wording: “Enosh sinned, it removed itself to the third firmament. The generation of the flood sinned, it removed itself to the fourth firmament. The generation of the tower sinned, it removed itself to the fifth firmament. The people of Sodom sinned, it removed itself to the sixth firmament. The Egyptians sinned in the days of Abraham, it removed itself to the seventh firmament.”

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In the next part of the midrash, seven righteous men come along and bring the Shekhinah down toward earth: But against this, seven righteous men arose. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kohath, Amram, and Moses. And they brought it to the earth. Abraham from the seventh to the sixth. Isaac brought [it] down from the sixth to the fifth. Jacob brought [it] down from the fifth to the fourth. Levi brought [it] down from the fourth to the third. Kohath brought [it] down from the third to the second. Amram brought [it] down from the second to the first. Moses brought it below. R. Isaac said: It is written, “And the righteous will inherit the land and will dwell upon it forever” (Ps. 37:29). And what do the wicked do—they fly in the air?! Rather, the wicked do not cause the Shekhinah to dwell on the land.42 The seven righteous men follow a direct paternal line from Abraham to Moses. Each brings the Shekhinah down toward earth. As in the similar passage from SongRab 5:1, the righteous have a direct effect on the spatial relationship of the Shekhinah toward earth. Moses brings the Shekhinah down from the first firmament to dwell on earth—ostensibly by completing the Tabernacle. The depiction of the wicked in GenRab is similar to SongRab. In the latter, we saw that the wicked “hang” in the air; in GenRab they “fly.” Again, the wicked are ungrounded, landless, rootless, and therefore cannot dwell with the Shekhinah. I want to emphasize that all of these midrashim either state outright or hint at the Shekhinah’s inhabitation of the Tabernacle as a return to Eden. For example, Tanh.uma, Naso 20 expresses this directly. The section begins by employing Numbers 7:1 (“And it was on the day that Moses finished”) and proceeds with an atomization of Song of Songs 4:16 on the sacrifices and the permission the bride affords the groom to enter the bridal chamber. The midrashic cycle moves on to Song of Songs 5:1 (“I came into my garden”) and again interprets this as God coming to dwell in the Tabernacle. The passage continues: Another interpretation: “I came to my garden . . .” (Song 5:1). R. Simeon ben Asini said, I  came to the garden is not written here. Rather, I came to my garden—the same garden from which I removed myself (nistalakti). As it is said: “And they heard the 42 GenRab 19:7; and see Theodor and Albeck, Midrash Bereshit Rabba, 177.

Eden Lost and Regained: My thmaking in Midrash

voice of God Yahweh walking back and forth in the garden . . .” (Gen. 3:8).43 R. Simeon b. Asini states the obvious: that “my garden” (gani) is God’s garden in Eden, the Shekhinah’s abode, and the place where the divine dwells with humans before the sin of Adam and Eve. “My bridal chamber” (ginnuni) is the Tabernacle, wherein God dwells with Israel. As the Shekhinah descends and dwells in the Tabernacle, it has returned to Eden. And, in this sense, the righteous again dwell in Eden, as a paradise regained. The Tabernacle scene serves as a counterpoint to the Eden narrative. In Eden, the sin that Adam and Eve commit causes expulsion to both parties. God expels the first couple, and the sin of the couple triggers a self-imposed exile on the part of the Shekhinah. Space and movement are juxtaposed. The couple leaves the garden laterally and involuntarily, while the Shekhinah moves vertically and of its own volition. The establishment of the covenant and the Tabernacle itself create a space where humans enter, the Shekhinah descends and enters, and the two are united again in Eden.

The Case of the Strange Parable Two midrashim comment on Song of Songs 5:1 with a parable. These are PRK and SongRab. Tanh.uma has a similar parable, which may help to explain the other two. Let us begin with PRK, as it is likely the earliest extant form of the parable. PRK’s focus is on holidays and celebrations. Although it is likely that PRK originally began with Rosh ha-Shanah, some manuscripts and the Mandelbaum edition—the source for the translation below—begin with H.anukkah. H.anukkah celebrates rededication of the Temple, so it is not surprising that the lemma for the midrash refers back to the first dedication of the Tabernacle through use of Song 5:144: “I came to my garden my sister, bride . . .” (Song 5:1). R. Azariyah said in the name of R. Simeon: [This can be] compared to a king

43 Tanh.uma, Naso 20. 44 See Marc Hirshman’s discussion on the references to God’s heavenly council and his subsequent dwelling on earth in “Yearning for Intimacy: Pesikta d’Rav Kahana and the Temple,” in Scriptural Exegesis: The Shapes of Culture and Religious Imagination: Essays in Honour of Michael Fishbane, ed. Deborah A. Green and Laura S. Lieber (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 135–45.

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who was angry at the queen and banished her and sent her out from his palace. After a time, he sought for her return. She said: “Let the king make something new for me and [then] he can have me return.” Thus, in the past, The Holy One blessed be He was receiving offerings from on high, as it is written: “Yahweh smelled the soothing odor [and Yahweh said in his heart, ‘I will not again curse the earth on account of the evil tendency of the heart of man from his youth; and I will not again cut off every living thing as I did’]” (Gen. 8:21). Now He accepts them from below: “I came into my garden, my sister, bride . . .” (Song 5:1).45 PRK and Songs Rabbah depict a mashal in which a king banishes the queen from his palace because he is not happy with her.46 After a while, he wishes to be reconciled to her and sends for her. She, however, refuses to return and sends back a message, “Let the king make something new for me and I will return.” The nimshal, or explanation of the parable, asserts that God used to receive sacrifices in heaven, but now, with the dedication of the Tabernacle, God receives them on earth. The nimshal uses two prooftexts for its reasoning. The first is from Genesis 8:21, in which God smells the sacrifice Noah offers after the flood. The second leads back to the lemma, Song of Songs 5:1 (“I came to my garden, my sister, bride”). The nimshal by itself seems to make sense. The rabbis connect Genesis 8:21 with God’s presence in heaven; for example, sitting on his magisterial throne with the lesser gods surrounding him and praising him in heaven (as in Psalm 29 at the time of the flood or Psalm 89, which also invokes God’s power over water).47 When Moses finishes the Tabernacle, God dwells within it—on earth. One should note that Song of Songs 5:1 is so entwined with the other Tabernacle midrashim that further comment or atomization of the verse is unnecessary. The quotes in the nimshal also invoke two well-known promises from God and the latter’s involvement with humanity and Israel in particular. 45 PRK 1, in Pesikta de Rav Kahana according to an Oxford Manuscript with Variants from All Known Manuscripts and Genizoth Fragments and Parallel Passages, ed. Bernard Mandelbaum (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1987), 1:1. 46 The mashal is the comparison or “story” part of the parable. In Midrash, this is most commonly a short narrative about a king. The king usually represents God. On mashal as illustration and as rhetorical narrative, see David Stern, “The Rabbinic Parable and the Narrative of Interpretation,” in The Midrashic Imagination: Jewish Exegesis, Thought, and History, ed. Michael Fishbane (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 80–1, 82–3. 47 On the “council,” see Hirshman, “Yearning for Intimacy,” 136–7.

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In the Noah episode, God promises never again to flood the earth or wipe out humanity and other living creatures. We already know that at the dedication of the Tabernacle, or “coming into the garden,” God intends to dwell with Israel forever. Spatially, Noah’s sacrifice moves upward toward heaven in order for the divine to smell it; at the dedication of the Tabernacle the sacrifices also rise, but the divine experiences them with the people on earth. On the surface, the mashal and the nimshal do not connect. The king (God) becomes angry with the queen (Israel). This makes sense within the frame of the mashal: God was angry with humans, only to reconcile at the building of the Tabernacle. If that is the case, however, why does the mashal say that the king banished the queen? Should it not be that the king leaves the palace altogether? All the midrashim, save Seder Olam, view the Shekhinah as withdrawing itself into heaven at the time of Adam and Eve’s sin; therefore, the king in the mashal should leave. And, if the king seeks to reconcile with the queen, should she not build something new for him, as the Israelites and Moses build the Tabernacle? The answer to this conundrum lies in a similar parable that points to an entirely different nimshal. Tanḥuma, Piqudei 6, begins as follows: “These are the precepts of the Tabernacle; the Tabernacle of testimony…”—testimony to all entering the world that He forgave them for the making of the golden calf. To what may the matter be compared? To a king who marries a woman—he loves her. He becomes angry with her and walks [out]. Her neighbors were saying: “Repent48 or your husband will not return to you.” [After some] days, he came and entered. He stood in the palace, and he ate and drank with her. Still her neighbors did not believe that the king had become reconciled with her. Immediately they saw the smoke49 of the spices going up from the house. All knew that he had become reconciled with her. As in the first parable from PRK, the king is angry with his wife. Here, however, he leaves the palace and then returns. This scenario appears to be more in line with the concept of the Shekhinah withdrawing to heaven and returning to dwell

48 Lit., “Turn. . . .” 49 Lit., “the scent of the spices.” The problem is that the midrash combines “seeing” the “smoke” with “smelling the scent.”

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on earth at the time of the Tabernacle. This parable from Tanh.uma, however, is based on the episode of the golden calf as stated at the start of the midrash. In addition, we do not see a solution to the problem in PRK of the queen requesting something new. Part of our answer lies in the nimshal to the Tanh.uma parable. The nimshal reaffirms that God was angry with Israel over the golden calf. After forty days, the nations said that God would never be reconciled with Israel. Moses pleads with God for mercy, and God pardons the people. Moses then asks, “Who will make it known to the nations?” God replies that the people should make a tabernacle. After the nations see the smoke of the incense sacrifice rising up in a column from the Tabernacle, they know that God has reconciled with Israel.50 The nimshal does not completely answer the problem in PRK, in which the queen asks for something new, but it does point in that direction. The queen needs validation and proof that the king is reconciled, so she asks the king to make something new. In the nimshal in the Tanh.uma piece, Moses seems worried about what the “neighbors” are saying. In reply, God gives him and Israel something new: the command to build the Tabernacle.

Conclusion At the core of the parables above is the concept of the pair, God and Israel, returning to each other—becoming reconciled as they were at the giving of the Torah or in the paradise lost of Eden. In each case, the mythic cycle carries beyond the parable to the identification of the Tabernacle as God’s dwelling place on earth. The rabbis identify the Tabernacle with God’s royal palace and garden in Eden, wherein he walks in the afternoon. The Tabernacle is something new and the relationship between humans and the Shekhinah is new and different as well. Now Israel enters the king’s palace, and the righteous cause the Shekhinah to dwell in the Tabernacle. In causing the Shekhinah to dwell on earth, the righteous also become “grounded”—over and against the wicked who hang in the air. They, like Moses, have power in bringing the Shekhinah down to earth and communing with the divine. Almost all of these midrashim incorporate the mythic structure of the Shekhinah jumping and ascending into heaven at the

50 The text of the midrash again connects “seeing” with the “scent.” Other translators say that the other nations experience the scent. I prefer the “seeing” metaphor because I do not understand how the nations would be able to smell the incense.

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time of Genesis 3, Adam and Eve’s sin. And almost all of these midrashim carry forward the myth of the Shekhinah being drawn down to earth by the righteous at the time of the building of the Tabernacle. Where do the Shekhinah and righteous dwell together? In the Tabernacle, the bridal chamber, the garden: the restoration of an earthly Eden.

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Bibliography Fishbane, Michael. The JPS Bible Commentary: Song of Songs. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2014. ———. Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. ——— . The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994. Haskel, Ellen D. Suckling at My Mother’s Breasts: The Image of a Nursing God in Jewish Mysticism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012. Hirshman, Marc. “Yearning for Intimacy: Pesikta d’Rav Kahana and the Temple.” In Scriptural Exegesis: The Shapes of Culture and Religious Imagination: Essays in Honour of Michael Fishbane, edited by Deborah A. Green Laura S. Lieber. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Kister, Menachem. “Allegorical Interpretations of Biblical Narratives in Rabbinic Literature, Philo, and Origen: Some Case Studies.” In New Approaches to the Study of Biblical Interpretation in Judaism of the Second Temple Period and in Early Christianity, edited by Gary Anderson, Ruth Clements, and David Satran, Leiden: Brill, 2013. ——— . Studies in Avot de-Rabbi Nathan: Text, Redaction and Interpretation. Jerusalem: Hebrew University and Yad Yizhak Ben-Zvi, 1998. Milikowsky, Chaim. Seder Olam: Critical Edition, Commentary, and Introduction. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Yad Yizhak Ben-Zvi, 2013. Pesikta de Rav Kahana according to an Oxford Manuscript with Variants from All Known Manuscripts and Genizoth Fragments and Parallel Passages. Edited by Bernard Mandelbaum. 2nd ed. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1987. Schofer, Jonathan W. The Making of a Sage: A Study in Rabbinic Ethics. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. Stern, David. “The Rabbinic Parable and the Narrative of Interpretation.” In The Midrashic Imagination: Jewish Exegesis, Thought, and History, edited by Michael Fishbane. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Theodor, J., and Ch. Albeck, eds. Midrash Bereshit Rabba. Jerusalem: Shalem Books, 1996.

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Gehinnom’s Punishments in Classical Rabbinic Literature* Dov Weiss** Jewish studies scholars have paid scant attention to late antique rabbinic conceptions of Gehinnom (hell).1 This lack of scholarly interest in Gehinnom should not be surprising as scholars of rabbinic texts have tended to focus on issues of law or literary form and not on theology, as indeed this material has often been dismissed



* In the early 2000s, I  was at a crossroads. Orthodox Judaism no longer spoke to me and I  did not want to be a rabbi anymore. I  was lost both theologically and professionally. My sense of despair, however, evaporated—and even turned to optimism and a feeling of belonging—when, in 2004, upon entering the University of Chicago Divinity School, I met Prof. Fishbane. He lovingly and refreshingly taught me to read ancient Jewish texts critically and non-dogmatically, with integrity and honesty, and without sacrificing my moral compass. In the process, he not only revived—even elevated—my love of classical Jewish texts and the Jewish tradition, but he also tenderly guided me along a new professional track in the highly competitive academic world. For this and so much more, I will forever be grateful. ** Unless otherwise noted, rabbinic texts mentioned in this article rely on the best manuscripts as selected by Historical Dictionary Project of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, https:// maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/Pages/PMain.aspx. Many of the Greek texts in this essay are taken from Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/access.php. PL and PG refer, respectively, to Migne’s Patrologia Latina and Patrologia Graeca. 1 Apart from Samuel Fox, Hell in Jewish Literature (Northbrook, IL: Whitehall Co., 1972), which simply organized some of the relevant primary texts into topics, without providing historical context, there has never been a monograph exclusively about hell in rabbinic Judaism. The following articles are especially helpful on the topic: Saul Lieberman, “Some Aspects of After Life in Early Rabbinic Literature,” in Harry Austryn Wolfson Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday ( Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1965), 495–532; idem, Texts and Studies (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1974), 29–51; Chaim Milikowsky, “Gehinnom and the Sinners of Israel According to ‘Seder Olam,’” Tarbiz 55 (1985/6): 311–43.

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as strange, wild, or even childish. But, as Prof. Fishbane has taught us, we need to engage with all aspects of rabbinic theology as they reveal so much about ancient Jewish society. This essay will examine how the rabbis of late antiquity imagined the mechanics of Gehinnom (hell) and the application of its punishments. It will seek to answer the following questions: In the rabbinic view, with what instruments of pain were the inhabitants of Gehinnom punished? Were these infernal instruments the same as, or distinctive, from our everyday instruments of torture? If so, how? Second, who administered Gehinnom’s tortures: God or various angelic intermediaries? If the latter, were these angels depicted as good or evil celestial entities? Finally, did the rabbis always imagine Gehinnom’s punishments as physical in nature, or did they, at times, embark on a bold psychological hermeneutic, regarding Gehinnom’s punishments as simply emotional pain and turmoil, but not actual physical pain? Certainly, the latter would be the approach adopted by some medieval Jewish rationalists, but do we already get this interpretive move earlier in the midrashic tradition? To highlight the distinctiveness of the classical rabbinic approach to afterlife punishments, this essay will compare the midrashic material to treatments of hell found in early Christian infernology.2 Using this comparative lens and by answering these three questions, the essay will show how early Jewish conceptions of Gehinnom could shed light on broader rabbinic themes related to metaphysics, ontology, and hermeneutics.

Instrument #1: Fire Tannaitic sources (ca. third century CE) depict fire as the primary punishment meted out in Gehinnom. The strong link between hell and fire in early rabbinic literature should not be surprising because, as John Collins has noted, some Jews—already in the Second Temple period—conceived of hell as a “fiery place of punishment” (and Judaism was the first religious culture to do so).3 The focus on fire makes the Jewish (and later Christian) view of hell unique, as neither the Greeks nor the Iranians placed fire at the center of their infernology.4 The term “Gehinnom” derives, of course, from the biblical Valley of Hinnom where idolatrous Israelite kings and commoners burnt their children to Molech (2 Chr. 2 For a comprehensive overview of early Christian views on Hell, see Brian E. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 3 John J. Collins, “The Afterlife in Apocalyptic Literature,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity, ed. Jacob Neusner and Alan J. Avery-Peck (Boston, MA: Brill, 2000), 123 (emphasis mine). 4 See Alan E. Bernstein, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993); Michael Stausberg, “Hell in Zoroastrian History,” Numen 56 (2009).

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28:3, 33:6). Rhetorically, the prophet Isaiah inverses the earlier Hinnom imagery wherein idolaters did the act of burning. The prophet now announces that God— and not the idolaters—would do the burning in the Valley. In this case, God would use the Valley’s fire to destroy the idolatrous Assyrians, the arch enemies of Israel (Isa. 30:33).5 The Deutero-Isaiah prophet (Isa. 66:24) also envisions God in the Eschaton eradicating both Israelite and non-Israelite idolaters in the Valley of Hinnom via fire. For late Second Temple and rabbinic Jews, however, the close connection between long-lasting punishments and fire arises not only because of the aforementioned Valley of Hinnom imageries, but also because God’s retributive power in the Hebrew Bible—even outside the above-mentioned Valley of Hinnom contexts—is often expressed through God burning His victims.6 Informed by these sorts of biblical passages, late Second Temple and early rabbinic Jews who believed in afterlife punishments—with Philo and Josephus being the notable exceptions—describe fire as God’s primary afterlife punitive tool. Both BT Berakhot 5:31 and BT Sanhedrin 13:5 derive the nature of Gehinnom’s punishment from Isaiah 66:24, which describes the Valley of Hinnom’s fire as unquenchable. Earlier in BT Sanhedrin (13:3–4), two other prooftexts for Gehinnom’s fire that have no connection with the Valley of Hinnom are employed. The first is from Zechariah 13:9, where God tells the sixth-century BCE prophet that a third of the Judeans would be purified by fire (BT Sanhedrin 13:3). The second prooftext for Gehinnom’s fire draws on Malachi 3:19–21, where this prophet predicts that the “sun of righteousness” will burn wicked Judeans to ashes on the “day of the Lord” (BT Sanhedrin 13:4). Despite the lack of reference to the Valley of Hinnom, the rabbis reinterpreted these latter two fiery prophetic scenes as alluding to Gehinnom’s fires. The lethal power of fire in these three exilic prophetic contexts (Zechariah, Malachi, and Deutero-Isaiah) does not emanate from God’s own raging anger, as the Bible often expresses elsewhere. They thus serve as models for the typical rabbinic view that Gehinnom’s fire does not emanate directly from God but, like natural fire, is wholly independent of the divine. Simply put, for the rabbis, Gehinnom’s fire is not God’s fire.7 Other rabbinic scriptural prooftexts for Gehinnom’s fire, however, do not fit as easily with this view. Consider Isaiah

5 Likewise, in Jeremiah 19:4–11 (and cf. Jer. 7:30–34), God promises to turn this Valley of Hinnom into a cemetery for those whom God had killed (albeit not through fire, but through battle (v. 7) and famine (v. 9). 6 See, for example, Ps. 18:9; 2 Sam. 22:9; Lev. 10:2; Num. 11:1; Deut. 9:4; Deut. 32:22; Zeph. 3:8, 1:14, 1:18, 1:4; Jer. 4:4, 7:20, 15:14, 17:4. 7 For one possible exception, see Sifrei Deuteronomy 320. Note that BT Pesah.im 54a labels Gehinnom’s fire as “God’s fire” but only in the sense that it is distinct from everyday fire.

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30:33, where the prophet declares that the fiery punishment meted out against the Assyrian king arises from God’s own breath: “The burning place [in the Valley of Hinnom] (‫ )תופת‬has long been prepared. It has been made deep and wide for the King. The firewood is piled high on it. The Lord’s breath ('‫)נשמת ה‬, like a stream flowing with brimstone, will ignite it (Isa. 30:33).” Here, the Valley’s fire is said to be kindled from God’s very breath (cf. Isa. 66:24). Remarkably, but somewhat expectedly, when citing Isaiah 30:33 as scriptural support for Gehinnom’s fire, the tannaitic Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael engages in an audacious interpretive move when it ignores God’s personal and direct role as kindler of Hinnom’s fire. Without explanation, the Mekhilta simply reads Isaiah 30:33 through the lens of an earlier Isaiah passage (27:8b), which assimilates God’s personal “fierce blast” with nature’s “east wind.”8 The rabbis, who ontologically disentangle God from Gehinnom’s fire, also had to contend with Jeremiah 23:19 and 20. In context, Jeremiah is brought into the “council of the Lord” (23:18) to witness God’s raging wrath (‫ )חמה‬transform into a storm (‫ )סער‬that “will burst upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of His mind ( Jer. 23: 19, 20).” Uncomfortable with scripture’s linking of God’s anger and the fiery storm, BT H.agigah 13b draws on prior Jewish mystical traditions to detach God from the lethal fire by ignoring scripture’s plain sense. Instead, the Bavli has Gehinnom’s fire [= biblical “storm”] derive not from God’s wrath but from the sweat of angels (‫)מזיעתן של חיות‬. The rabbinic trend to dislodge Gehinnom’s fire from God’s wrath has little to do with anthropomorphic discomfort. Instead, it reflects a broader and innovative Jewish paradigm for divine retribution that already begins in the Second Temple period. In the Hebrew Bible, an angry and jealous God punishes directly, personally, and at times capriciously. The retribution is uncalculated and typically unmediated. By contrast, the rabbis often transform the biblical punitive model by mediating and systematizing the process. Not only does the tormenting fire not emerge from God directly, but now even the criteria and determination as to who gets punished and rewarded is predetermined. Consider BT Sanhedrin 13:4, which has a formal judgement scene wherein society is divided into three stable categories: the completely wicked, the completely righteous, and those in between. Each group gets what they deserve, yet God’s name and role are nowhere mentioned. Or take JT Qiddushin, which posits an even more objective punitive standard than BT Sanhedrin.9 Here,

8 For personifications of east wind, see Job 27:21, 22. 9 JT Qiddushin 1:8 (61d). See also JT Peah 1:1 (16b).

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society is divided between two groups: those with more merits than sins and those with more sins than demerits. According to the Yerushalmi, the decision of who is to be punished or saved is detached from a subjective determination by the Judge: judgement is now decided through weights and scales. In other words, the punitive process has been highly mechanized as non-sentient instruments dictate who is punished and rewarded. The rabbinic tradition that God created Gehinnom on the second day of creation as a primordial, structural, and stable space for divine punishment,10 as well as the rabbinic shift from the punitive divine fire of scripture to the non-divine fire of Gehinnom also reflect this turn towards greater systemization and objectivity. These automated aspects of Gehinnom emerge most clearly when Palestinian rabbis describe sinners as “inheriting” (‫ )יורש‬Gehinnom.11 Like the laws of inheritance, no subjective determination by God is required to label someone destined for afterlife punishment. It happens on its own. If Gehinnom’s fire is an independent creation of God, and does not emanate from God, it ought to be asked whether, for the rabbis, Gehinnom’s fire corresponds to our everyday natural fire or whether the rabbis saw Gehinnom’s fire as radically different from ours (even if not divine). This question, and others like it, concerning the nature of hell’s fire stands at the center of early Christian infernology. In the early Latin West, Tertullian (late second-century Carthage) emphasizes the paradoxical nature of the tormenting fire by noting how, unlike everyday fire, hell’s fire (ignem gehennae) miraculously burns sinners without consuming them.12 For Tertullian, hell’s torturous fire produces an “eternal killing” (aeternitatem occisionis) that is more “formidable than merely a human murder which is only temporal.”13 In line with Tertullian, the Roman lawyer Minucius Felix labelled hell’s fire an “intelligent fire” (sapiens ignis) because it is able, at once, to “burn limbs and restore them.”14 In the early fourth century, Lactantius (a Berber convert to Christianity) refers to hell’s fires not by using Minucius’s “intelligent fire” phrase but—more ambitiously—as a “divine fire” [divinus ignis] that has, unlike “our fire,” unique characteristics: “it flourishes without nourishment . . . , has [no] smoke mixed with it . . . , for it is not urged upwards by any force as our fire . . . , [and it] burn[s] the

10 Genesis Rabbah 4:6. 11 See, for example, M Avot 1:5, 5:19; JT Qiddushin 1:8 (61d); and JT Peah 1:1 (16b). 12 De Carnis Resurrectione, ch. 35, in PL Migne, 2:0845A. For an English translation, see Ante-Nicene Christian Library, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Sir Donaldson (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), 3:570. 13 Ibid. 14 Octavius, ch. 35, in PL Migne, 3:0348B; and Ante-Nicene Christian Library, 4:195.

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wicked and form[s] them again.”15 Early Greek-speaking Christian theologians in Alexandria used distinctive labels to describe hell’s fire. In Stromata (7:6), Clement of Alexandria (second century) describes, albeit in his typical cryptic fashion, Gehenna’s fires as having the ability to “sanctif[y] . . . sinful souls.” This is not our everyday “vulgar fire” (πῦρ . . . βάναυσον) which is “all-devouring,” says Clement, but the “fire of . . . wisdom” (πῦρ . . . φρόνιμον), which “pervades the soul.”16 While it is unclear what Clement meant by “fire of wisdom,” Origen of Alexandria’s employment of a similar phrase is unambiguous. Origen uses “intelligent fire” (ignis . . . sapiens) to highlight the healing power of hell’s flames as it judiciously consumes only the evil aspects of humanity but preserves its good aspects.17 Origen, however, does not downplay the pain that this healing exacts. In his Homilies to Jeremiah (20), he claims that, unlike our everyday fire which can be endured, hell’s fire—like the violent fire that overcame Jeremiah through the word of the Lord (20:8–9)—is an “imperceptible fire” (πυρὸς  οὐκ  αἰσθητοῦ) because it punishes a person with pains that the sinner “cannot bear.”18 Origen admonishes his audience to accept the bearable flames of martyrdom in this world over the unbearable flames of hell in the next. Similarly, in his Homilies to Exodus (13), he reminds his audience that the afterlife fires will probably not produce the sorts of benefits normally associated with fire. He suggests that, contra “this-age fire” (ignis . . . in hoc saeculo), which burns and also gives light, the “future-age fire” (ignis . . . in futuro) of hell will probably burn but not produce light.19 In contrast to early Christian theologians, the rabbis have little interest in investigating the nature of Gehinnom’s fire. The only sustained rabbinic discussion on the topic, and its relation to everyday fire, is found in BT Pesah.im 54a. Drawing on earlier traditions, the Bavli claims that Gehinnom’s fire was created on day two of creation (cf. BT Berakhot 5:31), whereas our everyday fire

15 Divinarum Institutionum (21), in PL Migne, 6:0802A; and Ante-Nicene Christian Library, 7:217. 16 Clemens Alexandrinus, ed. Otto Stählin et al. (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1970), 3:3–102; and Ante-Nicene Christian Library, 2:532. 17 PG Migne 13:670. Origen’s Homilies to Ezekiel survive in a Latin translation by Jerome. For an English translation, see Origen: Homilies 1–14 on Ezekiel, ed. Thomas P. Scheck (New York: Newman Press, 2010). 18 Origene, Homelies sur Jeremie, ed. Pierre Nautin (Paris: Cerf, 1977), vol. 2, sec. 8, l. 57. For an English translation, see Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah and 1 Kings 28, trans. John Clark Smith (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 239. 19 PG Migne 12:392; and Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, tr. Ronald E. Heine (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 382.

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was created only after day seven (based on amoraic sources20). Thus, although Gehinnom’s fire is distinct from non-Gehinnom fire, it is only so regarding the time of its creation. Notably, the Talmud does not present any contrasts in the essential nature of these different fires. A similarly unsatisfying Talmudic passage—as it relates to the nature of Gehinnom’s fire—can be found in a cryptic passage (BT Berakhot 57b) that everyday fire makes up only one-sixtieth of Gehinnom’s fire. The passage leaves open the tantalizing question of what makes up the substance of Gehinnom’s other fifty-nine parts.21 I would argue that the lack of rabbinic interest in the essence of Gehinnom’s fire is one instance of a larger phenomenon in rabbinic infernology: the rabbis do not focus on the “what” of hell, as early Christian thinkers do, but on the “who” of hell, namely who among the living will or will not be effected by the fires of hell.22

Instrument #2: Snow/Ice A new description of Gehinnom’s tortures emerges when we turn to amoraic sources. Both the Jerusalem Talmud and the Pesikta de-Rav Kahana (edited in ca. fifth-century CE Palestine) associate Hezekiah (third-century Palestine) with an exegetical tradition that, besides fire, has snow as Gehinnom’s primary punitive tool. The Jerusalem Talmud states: Rav Judah said in the name of Hezekiah and Rabbi [Rabbi Judah the Prince]: God judges the wicked in Gehinnom for twelve months. At the outset . . . , He hangs them in fire (‫)אור‬, and they say, “woe, woe!!” (‫)הוי הוי‬. Then He hangs them in snow (‫)שלג‬, and they say “oh, oh!” (‫)ווי ווי‬. What is the scriptural basis for this statement? “He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog” (Ps. 40:3). What is the meaning of “miry bog” (‫ ?)מטיט היון‬A place in which they say “oh” (‫)הוי‬.23 20 See Genesis Rabbah 11:2 and JT Berakhot 8:5. 21 See BT Bava Mez. ia 85b, which downplays the uniqueness of Gehinnom’s fire. Rav Yosef, a fourth-century Babylonian rabbi, would test his own immunity from Gehinnom’s fires by sitting, every thirty days, in a random fiery oven. According to the Bavli, for a long time Rav Yosef ’s plans succeed as he leaves the oven unscathed, before his legs are burned because the rabbis decide to place an “evil eye” on him. 22 On this difference, see Peter Schäfer, Studien zur Geschichte und Theologie des Rabbinischen Judentums (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 264–71. 23 JT Sanhedrin 10:2 (29b), and see Genesis Rabbah 28:9.

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After citing Rabbi Akiva’s view (M Eduyot 10:2) that “God punishes the wicked in Gehinnom for twelve months,” Hezekiah and Rabbi further describe the torments: Initially, God places the wicked in fire where the wicked cry out in pain with shrieks of “hoy” (‫)הוי‬. After suffering for some undisclosed time, God places them in snow where they shriek again in pain, yelling “voy” (‫)ווי‬. For scriptural support, Rav Judah cites Psalm 40:3, where the Psalmist declares that God rescued him from “the desolate pit of the miry bog (‫)טיט היון‬.” Picking up on the redundancy of the two words “miry (‫ ”)היון‬and “bog (‫)טיט‬,” Rav Judah states that the word ha-yaven, which normally means “miry,” in this instance should not be translated at all but broken down into its component sounds. Thus, HYV[N] should now be understood as the sounds of H[o]Y and V[o] Y emerging from the wicked, who lie in fire and snow in the “desolate pit” of Gehinnom. Where did Hezekiah and the amoraic Palestinian sages get the idea of snow and fire as alternating afterlife punishments? None of the scriptural prooftexts adduced by the above amoraic passages appear in punitive contexts. Their exegetical hooks are counter-intuitive and forced. Undoubtedly, the image of snow in hell must have been part of the broader cultural landscape, but from where exactly? The closest parallel to Hezekiah’s alternating snow and fire can be found in a Greco-Roman source. In his Divine Vengeance, Plutarch has Thespesius, during his journey through hell, witness three lakes, “one of boiling gold, another of lead, exceeding cold, and third of iron, which was very scaly and rugged.”24 Next to them, daemons “use tongs to raise and lower souls” from one lake to the next. The strong affinities between Plutarch’s and Hezekiah’s descriptions are obvious. Like in Hezekiah’s teaching, Plutarch has sinners first burn in smoldering heat, then placed in freezing cold. In both portrayals, the most painful moments occur in the moments of transition from one state to the other. Hezekiah’s innovation of alternating heat and cold, unattested in earlier tannaitic traditions, owes its debt to Greco-Roman culture and not any prior Jewish or contemporaneous Christian tradition. This might explain why Hezekiah’s teaching, despite receiving significant traction in later Palestinian midrashim, is not cited in the Babylonian Talmud.

24 Plutarch, Moralia, ed. Phillip De Lacy and Benedict Einarson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), 2:294–295. For English translation, see Plutarch, Plutarch’s Morals, ed. William W. Goodwin (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; and Cambridge. Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874), De sera numinis vindicta 22.http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc= Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0302%3Asection%3D22.

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God as Gehinnom’s Tormentor Notwithstanding the parallels between Hezekiah’s and Plutarch’s infernology, we should not overlook their crucial difference: Whereas Hezekiah has God Himself administer hell’s tortures, Plutarch imagines the daemons doing the gods’ dirty work. This is a central distinguishing characteristic of early rabbinic infernology: the insistence that God, not angels or demons, are responsible for administering hell’s tortures. Not surprisingly, when the post-rabbinic cosmological treatise, Seder Rabbah di-Bereshit, otherwise titled Ma‘aseh Bereshit, cites Hezekiah’s alternating fire-snow tradition, it makes one crucial revision: “And every day the Angel of Death [‫ ]מלאך המות‬goes down and burdens them from hail to fire and from fire to hail, like a shepherd who burdens the sheep to go from hill to hill, as it says (Ps. 49:15): ‘like sheep they are appointed to She’ol.’”25 With a new prooftext from Psalm 49:15, Seder Rabbah di-Bereshit rejects the standard rabbinic approach by envisioning the Angel of Death, not God, as moving the sinners from snow to fire and back.26 Besides the amoraic traditions associated with Hezekiah, in which God places sinners in snow and fire, the rabbinic view that God directly administers hell’s torments is vividly described in the post-amoraic work of Midrash Tanh.uma: The Holy One, as it were, cried out against those who speak slander: “Who will rise for me against the wicked (Ps. 94:16)? Who can stand (‫ )יכול לעמוד‬against them? And who will stand (‫ )ומי יעמוד‬against them? Gehinnom? And [then] Gehinnom cries out: I am also unable to stand against them. The Holy One said: I [will come at them] from above and you [Gehinnom] from below. I will hurl arrows from above and you will turn on them with burning coals from below, as it says, “A warrior’s sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree” (Ps. 120:4).27 Placing the phrase, “Who will rise for me against the wicked?” (Ps. 94:16) into the mouth of God, the Tanh.uma, remarkably, has God lament that He alone 25 Ma‘aseh Bereshit, MS British Library 736. 26 Those fated for hell, like the sheep of Psalms 49:15, wander from place to place. For more on Ma‘aseh Bereshit, see Peter Schaefer, “In Heaven as It Is in Hell: The Cosmology of Seder Rabbah Di-Bereshit,” in Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions, ed. Raʻanan S. Boustan and Annette Yoshiko Reed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 233–74. 27 Tanh.uma (Buber), mez.ora, no. 5.

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cannot overcome the power of slanderers. According to the straightforward sense of Psalms 94:16, it is the psalmist, not God, who seeks help in overcoming the powers of evil. Daringly, the Tanh.uma transforms the subject of this exigent plea for assistance from a human being to God. Thus Tanh.uma now has God wonder if a personified Gehinnom can overcome the power of the slanderers. Sadly, Gehinnom responds that she, too, cannot defeat those who spread gossip. Just when all hope seems lost, God proposes a solution: He and Gehinnom will join in a “tag team” to overcome these evildoers: God will shoot arrows at the slanderers “from above,” while Gehinnom will place fiery coals on the slanderers “from below.” In early Jewish and Christian sources, the image of God Himself applying hell’s punishments is unique. Second Temple and early Christian literature have angels, demons, or Satan tasked with this function. Even in early mystical Jewish literature, this role is given to angels. For instance, 3 Enoch has the archangel Metatron (formerly Enoch) tell Rabbi Ishmael that the angel Za’aphiel (literally “the wrath of God” [‫ )]זעף אל‬has been “appointed to bring down the souls of the wicked from the presence of the Holy One, blessed be he . . . to Sheol, to punish them with fire in Gehinnom, with rods of burning coal.”28 By contrast, the rabbis have God, not angels (even good ones!), supervising, or administering punishments in, Gehinnom. I would argue that this theological insistence derives from a rabbinic hesitancy to give any impression that Gehinnom lies beyond God’s direct reach. Having God intimately and directly mete out Gehinnom’s torments prevents any semblance of an ontological dualism wherein the Netherworld could be conceived as being part of a non-Godly domain, even an evil one. In contrast to the rabbis, late antique Christian depictions of hell more readily accept that hell represents the realm of the non-godly, or even demonic. For example, the Egyptian monk Pachomius (292–348, Egypt) expresses horror when witnessing, during his tour of hell, “merciless,” and “frightening” agents of God jubilantly torturing hell’s inmates.29 Pachomius adds that these “torturing angels . . . torment harsher when sinners beg for mercy.”30 In similar fashion, Basil of Caesarea (330–379) labels hell’s “horrible” (φοβεροί) tormenting angels, who emanate “flashing fire from their eyes and breathing fire because of the bitterness of their wills” (πικρίαν τῆς προαιρέσεως) as “haters

28 3 Enoch 44:3. 29 Armand Veilleux, The Life of Saint Pachomius and His Disciples (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1980), 114. 30 Ibid., 115.

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of humanity” (μισάνθρωπον).31 Whereas these formulations imply that hell’s rulers are malevolent beings, Synesius’s (373–414, North Africa) is explicit. In a letter encouraging his friend, Joannes, who had been accused of murder, to give himself up to earthly authorities rather than to keep hiding, Synesius admonishes Joannes to “pay the penalty [for murder] as quickly as possible [in this world], and at the hands of men, rather than at [the hands] of demons (δαίμοσι) [in the next].”32 Remarkably, for Synesius, wicked demons are not only tortured in Hell, but they are also the torturers. With these types of descriptions, it is likely that, at least by the fourth century, many Christian thinkers regarded hell as embodying the realm of evil, a place where God and goodness do not exist. In this dualistic vision, God rules the world even as an evil entity rules hell. We can highlight early Christianity’s “demonization” of hell by noting that when Christian authors mythologize Hell as a sentient being, they typically position it as God’s enemy, not partner (as in the Tanh.uma). For instance, the Gospel of Nicodemus (fifth century) not only describes Satan as the “Prince of Tartarus,” and hell’s tormentors as “legions of the devils,” but also, crucially, personifies hell as Jesus’s veritable enemy.33 As Christ, the “King of Glory,” descends to rescue hell’s inhabitants, hell beckons Satan: “if thou be a mighty man of war, fight thou against the King of Glory [= Jesus]” (emphasis mine).34 Likewise, in Ephrem’s Nisibene hymns, which often contains dramatic dialogues between various biblical characters, hell (sh’eol) mourns Jesus’s descent as Jesus forces hell to release (lit. to give birth to) her inhabitants.35 Even more strikingly, Romanus the Melodist (sixth century) lyrically depicts Christ as crucifying hell below the earth the moment Christ himself is crucified on earth. Forced to expunge its inhabitants because of its crucifixion, hell laments (just prior to disgorgement): “Who has fixed a nail in my heart? A wooden lance has

31 PG Migne 29:372:10. For English translation, see: Basil, Exegetic Homilies, trans. Agnes Clare Way (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 263. 32 See Epistle 44 in PG Migne 66: 1369. For English translation, see Synesius, Letter 044, Livius. org, https://www.livius.org/sources/content/synesius/synesius-letter-044/. 33 See Georgia Frank, “Christ’s Descent to the Underworld in Ancient Ritual and Legend,” in Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity, ed. Robert J. Daly (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 217–8. 34 Gospel of Nicodemus (also known as Acts of Pilate), Latin version A, Part II: 5 (21). English taken from M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1924), 132. 35 Ephrem, Nisibene Hymns 37. English translation: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), 13:198. See Georgia Frank, “Death in the Flesh: Picturing Death’s Body and Abode in Late Antiquity,” in Looking Beyond: Visions, Dreams, and Insights in Medieval Art & History, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton, NJ: Penn State University Press, 2010), 63–5.

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suddenly pierced me, and I am being torn apart. My insides are in pain, my belly in agony.”36 In many ways, this late antique Christian demonization of hell perpetuates the depiction of hell in earlier Jewish apocalypses, in which Hell’s tormentors are “terrifying,” and “merciless” (cf. Testament of Abraham and 2 Enoch) or as “angels of Satan” (Testament of Asher).37 Other early Jewish works have hell’s fire named the “fire of Azazel” (Apocalypse of Abraham) or have hell itself associated with an evil sea monster (3 Baruch). 38 Unlike the earlier apocalyptic material, the rabbinic dismissal of Gehinnom as a prison for demonic beings fits well with the broader rabbinic penchant to downplay demons, evil angels, and Satan.39

Gehinnom’s Materiality Portrayals of Gehinnom’s tortures in rabbinic literature generally accentuate the physical pains endured by Gehinnom’s inmates, but not the attendant psychological pains. There are, however, a couple of exceptions. Leviticus Rabbah 32:1 (ca. fifth century, Palestine) attributes the following teaching to Rabbi Nehemiah (second century, Palestine): “at the time when the wicked ascend from Gehinnom and see the righteous sitting peacefully, their soul is crushed (‫)מתמעכת‬.” The emotional pain here is jealousy as the wicked compare their own fate with those of the righteous. Or consider BT Eruvin 19a, where the wicked are depicted as crying and lamenting their evil ways as they cry out: “Lord of the universe, You have judged well (‫ )יפה דנת‬. . . and correctly established Gehinnom for the wicked.” This passage implies that the wicked grieving and are ashamed of their wicked deeds as they experience intense feelings of remorse. Crucially, although these two rabbinic texts mark the emotional pains

36 Kontakia 38:1. Translation taken from Ephrem Lash, ed., St. Romanos the Melodist, Kontakia: On the Life of Christ (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 155–6. For discussion of this passage, see Frank, “Christ’s Descent,” 223. 37 Testament of Abraham (version A) 12:1 and 2; 2 Enoch 2:10; Testament of Asher 6:4–6. 38 Apocalypse of Abraham 14; and see G. H. Box, The Apocalypse of Abraham (New York: Macmillan Company, 1919), chapter 14, n. 8; 3 Baruch 4:3, 5:1–3. 39 See Annette Yoshiko Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 136–7; Sara Ronis, “Space, Place, and the Race for Power: Rabbis, Demons and the Construction of Babylonia,” Harvard Theological Review 110 (2017): 588–603; Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Demonic Desires: Yetzer Hara and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).

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of jealousy and remorse experienced by hell’s inmates, they also accentuate the physicality and materiality of Gehinnom’s fire and torture. Besides these two rabbinic passages, the Talmud and Midrash evince little reflection on the emotional torments experienced in Gehinnom. By stark contrast, early Christian literature contains an abundance of it. The rabbis never posit that Gehinnom’s physical torments themselves should be reread as allegories or symbols for psychological tortures. Some third and fourth century Christian theologians, by contrast, beginning with Origen of Alexandria (185–253),40 do just that as they daringly reinterpret hell’s “fire” itself as the pain one feels after death when regretting past sins. For these interpreters, this torturous remorse haunts the wicked forever. Notably, Ambrose of Milan (340–397) in his Commentary to Luke, adopts a comprehensive allegorical interpretation of hell: all of its torments—fire, worms, darkness, gnashing of teeth, and so forth—are reinterpreted as emotional or psychological pains.41 In this reading, Ambrose explicitly rejects a literal and material understanding of hell’s punishments! He insists that there is no actual place of darkness: “We are not speaking, either, of a material grounding of teeth, nor of a material fire burning forever (neque ignis aliquis perpetuus flammarum corporalium) nor of a material worm.” For Ambrose, hell’s darkness should be understood as the state of living without Christ or “God’s commandments (mandata Dei).”42 Echoing Origen, Ambrose depicts hell’s fires as representing, metaphorically, that which is produced by a person’s deep sorrow over his or her own transgression; the undying worm symbolizes the irrational sins which eat away at the “conscience;” and, finally, hell’s “gnashing of the teeth” signifies the anger (irascatur) experienced by the formerly wicked when they realize that they repented (poeniteat) too late. The kind of comprehensive psychological reinterpretation of Gehinnom as offered by Ambrose (and other Christian theologians) never appears in classical rabbinic sources. The contrast between the rabbinic and patristic focus (or lack of focus) on the emotional or internal sufferings in hell can be explained by several factors. First, the difference reflects the rabbinic disinterest in the nature of hell. The rabbis are more interested in answering the question of who goes to hell, rather than the question of what hell is. They expend little energy in developing hell’s physical or psychological tortures. This divergence reflects a rabbinic aversion to allegory and philosophy. Unlike many early Christian exegetes, who echo Philo’s 40 See Peri Archon 2:10:4, PG Migne 11. 41 See Ambrose’s Commentary to Luke (7: 204—205), PG Migne 15:1754b. English translation taken from Commentary of St. Ambrose on the Gospel According to Saint Luke, ed. Ide Ni Riain (Dublin: Haleyon Press, 2001), 256–7. 42 Ibid.

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hermeneutical posture to read scripture spiritually rather than carnally, the rabbis almost never adopt that interpretive mode. I would contend that reading physical torments as representing loftier emotional or psychological pains aligns more naturally with such a philosophical hermeneutic. All this is not to say that the rabbis have no interest in the inner experience of people. As Joshua Levinson and, more recently Ayelet Libson have shown, the rabbis—in contrast to the biblical authors—have a heightened interest in a person’s inner psychological world.43 Markedly, however, such a rabbinic interest in the emotional internal life of the individual is notably absent in their infernological writings.

Summary This essay highlights three distinctive features of early rabbinic conceptions of Gehinnom. First, I showed that the rabbis expend little energy in probing the essence of hell’s torments (whether fire or snow). I argue that the rabbis are not essentialist metaphysicians interested in discovering the reality of netherworldly punishments for its own sake (as the Church Fathers generally were) but rather instrumental metaphysicians who leverage the reality of Gehinnom and its mechanics to express their own this-worldly values and concerns. Second, although the rabbis detach God’s self from God’s implements of torture, they envision God directly administering Gehinnom’s torments. I argue that, by doing so, the rabbis unwaveringly insist that the Netherworld be viewed as the domain of God and God’s goodness. This belief contrasts markedly with early Christian authors, who tend to have merciless or even explicitly “evil” angels mete out hell’s torture. This difference reflects a growing early Christian tendency to regard hell not merely as place of afterlife torture but as embodying the realm of evil. Finally, this essay notes that the Origenist Christian hermeneutic tendency to allegorize hell’s punishments as emotional or psychological tortures has no analogues in the early rabbinic tradition. Taken together, and synthesizing these features, the midrashic and talmudic depictions of Gehinnom’s punishments reveal a rabbinic disinterest in metaphysics (for its own sake), a rejection of ontological dualism, and a dismissal of an allegorizing hermeneutic.

43 Joshua Levinson, “From Narrative Practice to Cultural Poetics: Literary Anthropology and the Rabbinic Sense of the Self,” in Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters, ed. Maren Niehoff (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 345–67; Ayelet Hoffmann Libson, Law and Self-Knowledge in the Talmud (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 29–63. See, however, Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “The Mishnaic Mental Revolution: A Reassessment,” Journal of Jewish Studies 66 (2015): 36–58.

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Problematizing the Midrashic Book in an Imperial Landscape Natalie B. Dohrmann

Unlike most scholars of rabbinics, I  encountered my first rabbinic text as a relative adult, coming from a background of contemporary literary theory. To my eyes, the tannaitic corpus, Midrash especially, was a strange and difficult literature, even in the landscape of other imperial exegetical literatures. Despite the obvious obstacles that belatedness put in my path to joining the guild, Michael Fishbane (generously) told me my alienation was an opportunity, and encouraged me to hold onto it even as I  became increasingly at home in the sources. Strangeness exists in the eye of the beholder, of course, and what I saw in the halakhic midrashim as an eruptive and destabilizing formalized formlessness is quite differently seen by insiders; the extent that tannaitic literature might feel, or be, historically atypical is occluded the more so by its normalizing mediation by post-tannaitic rabbinic literatures and paideia. Scholarship on early tannaitic Midrash is grounded in literary methodology—philology, source and text criticism, and explication du texte. As the genre is at once parabiblical (ostensibly “about” the ancient source) and stubbornly ahistorical in its concerns, any assessment of historical, political, ethical, philosophical, even anthropological questions must proceed by way of subtle interpretation. In my first Midrash seminar at the University of Chicago, Michael Fishbane taught us that a critical opening step in understanding Midrash was determining the correct unit of analysis. Where does the derash begin and end? What parts of the cited lemma and prooftexts are important, and how much of the uncited material extending invisibly on either side of it is relevant? What other textual complexes are being called into play—that is, what

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is the intertextual florilegium necessary for understand the midrashic passage at hand? This effort is vital, for, among other reasons, the scholar is dealing with a text that is elliptical, allusive, and pastiched; it relies on the biblical corpus as an armature, while only capriciously respecting—and more often undermining— the Bible’s own internal textual structure. In addition, midrashic units no less than biblical verses not infrequently travel across the corpus, reappearing in new sites carrying shreds of their other contextual meanings with them. For outsiders to the field, these preparatory tasks may sound rather odd. A scholar of Horace does not need to figure out where the ode starts or stops the historian can see where Tacitus begins his Agricola and where it ends. Even in cases of spotty preservation, one often knows what the lost works were (think of the many missing volumes of Livy’s History of Rome or the shards preserved by Alexander Polyhistor). Of course, many ancient texts are fragmentary, layered, and misattributed—the tannaitic corpus is not then wholly unique in requiring one to determine a text’s boundaries. Even so, the scholar of tannaitic Midrash faces a steeper climb than those of Roman imperial literatures because the corpus lacks two stabilizing foundations that so often sanction literary analysis in the first place—the author and the work.1 In this short essay I  will first underscore some of the ways the idea of the “work”2 and the “author”3 are productively ill-fitting categories to apply to the

1 In addition to Fishbane’s own oeuvre modeling the inseparability of literary and conceptual formation, two exemplary formal studies sharpen this paper’s particular foci: Martin S. Jaffee, “Rabbinic Authorship as a Collective Enterprise,” and the sources cited there, in The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud, ed. Jaffee and C. Fonrobert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 17–37 (on the author); and Günter Stemberger, “The Redaction and Transmission of Sifra,” in Melekhet Machshevet: Studies in the Redaction and Development of Talmudic Literature, ed. A. Amit and A. Shemesh (Hebrew; Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2011), *51–*67 (on the work). 2 See Peter Schäfer, “Research into Rabbinic Literature: An Attempt to Define the Status Quaestionis,” JJS 37 (1986): 139–52; and cf. the overviews in “Handling Rabbinic Texts,” in H. L. Strack and G. Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), 51–61; and Menahem Kahana, “The Halakhic Midrashim,” in The Literature of the Sages: Second Part, ed. S. Safrai et al. (Assen: Van Gorcum, 2006), 3–105.  3 There is a small and important library devoted to rabbinic anonymity and authorlessness; however, the Babylonian Talmud has been the main beneficiary of most of this thinking, with key focus on the stam and the sugya (see, among others, the works of Shamma Friedman, Moulie Vidas, Daniel Boyarin, Jeffrey Rubenstein, and Richard Kalmin). As such, many of its findings are immaterial to the tannaitic phenomenon—about which little has been written— because it focuses its attention on, and draws it conclusions from, what is already a mature discursive tradition of anonymity. One would not, after all, expect the reception apparatus developed to explain James Joyce to suffice to understand Samuel Richardson. Steven D. Fraade says rightly that tannaitic discursive choices “should not be inferred from [. . .] later talmudic texts.” (Fraade, “Anonymity and Redaction in Legal Midrash: A Preliminary Probe,”

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halakhic midrashim.4 (For the purposes of this essay I  am using the words “work” and “book” as more or less interchangeable ideas to indicate a closed piece of literature comprehensible both in its generic and particular parameters as unified.) I  will then suggest that the elusive absence of both—which is essential to the generic and discursive habits of the tanna’im—is indeed strange, and not just to one neophyte student, but is a phenomenon that is meaningfully discordant when set within the book culture of the early Roman Empire no less than the pre-rabbinic Jewish library. What was gained by their avoidance? I will suggest three external contexts that help illuminate the ways that the midrashic commitment to authorlessness and formal fluidity “does something real and interesting for the text”5 that serves the aims of the movement: expertise, imperial power, and the claims of the Jewish past. I can hear Fishbane howling in dismay already . . . don’t leave the texts so fast! While one may decry the tyranny of historical context and object that rabbinic literature cannot and should not be reduced to something that (simply) reacts to external forces, I can only say that my observations below are meant solely to suggest ways that the fuller literary context of the Roman east, from which the midrashim emerged, may add to an understanding gleaned from nuanced internalist analysis of the sources in their own terms.

I. As a cognate to the complex implications of the “author,” I want to pause on the elusive midrashic “book,” and to do so I return to the task of determining the unit of analysis. In that first Midrash seminar, once we determined just what unit of text we were studying, the methodology we brought to bear was a sort of rigorous New Critical approach—relying on the internal cues of the text, its “structure, its architecture, its intrinsic form, and the play off its internal relationships.”6 Though this approach does not require an author idea, it does

in Melekhet Machshevet: Studies in the Redaction and Development of Talmudic Literature, ed. A. Amit and A. Shemesh (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2011), *9–*10). 4 This essay is indebted to the vast and sophisticated scholarship on midrashic literature as such, beginning from Michael Fishbane himself. I  have chosen here just to dwell on one formal aspect of the material and its potential implications. (Mishnah as literature poses some similar and some very different questions as to the meaning of its formal attributes.) 5 Tom Geue, Author Unknown: The Power of Anonymity in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 6. 6 Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?,” in Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, ed. J. B. Faubion, trans. R. Hurley et al. (New York: The New Press, 1998), 207. Geue observes more

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require a finite textual object of study. In his famous 1979 essay “What Is an Author?,”7 however, Foucault cautions that any easy severing “author” from “work,” is chimerical, given that the work itself as an idea that depends on the same sorts of assumptions that undergird the author idea: coherence, authorization, the containment of meaning. Thinking about rabbinic authorlessness, I suggest, must be imbricated with reflections on the rabbinic “work” itself.8 Yet is the Mekhilta, after all, a “work”? To what extent can we call Sifra, for example, a “book”? Schäfer’s influential prolegomena in the topic makes clear the instability of any rabbinic work.9 Not one of the halakhic midrashim is clearly or definitively demarcated. Each “work”’s transmission history is checkered and gapped, the redactional history mostly conjectural, the manuscripts late, and the basic content of each of them is on some level fluid. Some exist nowhere but in scholarly reconstructions. Without a theory of the midrashic text as a work, what indeed are we reading, and what sort of close reading can be tolerated?10 A premise of this sort of exegesis is the bounded and closed nature of the work, a security the extant corpus fails to provide. Even if source critics could confidently isolate one historically or philologically coherent “layer,” what would it mean to interpret its meaning outside of its redacted context?11 But while all scholars of this material know that the linguistic particularity and precise extent of the halakhic midrashim are still largely unknown in historical and text-critical terms, the hermeneutical fragility this imparts has not to my knowledge been fully theorized or digested. Which is to say, the work of text criticism, which marks the inconsistencies, breaks, and redaction history of the sources has not appreciably altered the work of literary and conceptual analysis. Despite the lack of clarity concerning its edges, the halakhic midrashim are commonly read as intentional documents, legible as compositions. In fact, there seems to be an implicit practical consensus across a range of studies of rabbinic Judaism that, over the course of the early era of the rabbinic movement, a set of midrashim were produced and that these texts that can be called by name/s, characterized, read closely, cited, even dated

generally that anonymity “grants to texts the jolting New Critical fiction that they are nothing more than the texts themselves, primed for intimate readerly encounter.” Author Unknown, 15. 7 Foucault, “What Is an Author?” 205–22. 8 Foucault’s comment that “a theory of the work does not exist” (“What Is an Author?” 207–8), inspired this essay’s preliminary gesture toward a theory of the tannaitic work. 9 Schäfer, “Research”; and Peter Schäfer, “Once Again the Status Quaestionis of Research in Rabbinic Literature: An Answer to Chaim Milikowsky,” JJS 40 (1989): 89–94; cf. caveats in Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 52, 61. 10 Schäfer, “Research,” 145, and notes there. 11 For some subtle reflection on this see Fraade, “Anonymity,” *9–*29.

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without reference to these macro-formal concerns (this returns us again to the customary attention to smaller literary units, whose interpreted meaning may blur into characterizations of the Midrash as a book). Jacob Neusner committed to the largest scale theory of the work, the book, but his conclusions about the programmatic coherence of the discrete halakhic midrashim did not bear scrutiny.12 Smaller units however are clearly careful compositions. Beyond the lemma or dictum, it appears from preliminary studies that in some cases the most coherent medial form is the midrashic tractate13, though scholars focus far more often on individual pericopes and extrapolate from there to the book or to tannaitic thought generally, skipping the tractate altogether. Additional factors complicate the idea of the midrashic work: for one, aside from the lack of authorial attribution, it’s long frustrated scholars that there are no introductory or paratextual frames to guide us—common components of a wide range of contemporary literatures of the age as well as Jewish literatures of the Second Temple period. The lack of such paratexts is consistent with Midrash’s reticence to discuss its own origins, intent, patronage, parameters, production, circulation, and storage as a work14—all topics of pointed concern to a host of other literate elites and genres, pagan and Christian, in the early empire, from mystics to poets to sermonizers, jurists, exegetes, philosophers, and historians. A second factor is the Bible itself. Plain lemmatic commentary seems a common substrate of tannaitic Midrash, and yet, even given the fragmentary nature of the evidence, it seems that no halakhic midrashic work comments on a biblical book from start to finish. In other words, even the biblical books themselves, which might conceivably give coherent contour to the midrashic work, fail to help. Indeed, as Fishbane taught, the tanna’im are actively re/ defining the contours of the Bible itself, creating a coherent (and book-blurring) textual-canonical world via prooftexting.15 Perhaps an alternative direction is the literariness of the “school.” To the extent that midrashic materials can meaningfully sustain close reading by scholars, it

12 Schäfer, “Research,” 140–1, 146–8. 13 For case studies on the midrashic chapter or tractate, see, for example, Stemberger’s “The Redaction and Transmission of Sifra,” or Judah Goldin, The Song at the Sea (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971). 14 Jaffee, “Rabbinic Authorship,” 20. 15 This observation by Fishbane, made in class many years ago, inspired my essay, “Jewish Books and Roman Readers: Censorship, Authorship, and the Rabbinic Library,” in Reconsidering Roman Power: Roman, Greek, Jewish and Christian Perceptions and Reactions, ed. K. Berthelot (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2020), 357–80, many of whose thoughts are extended in this essay.

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seems that the container of meaning and thus of texts themselves, is perhaps more usefully circumscribed by the school than the work.16 The possibility of subsuming a discrete text to the parameters of a school is itself a rather distinct secondary effect of authorlessness—in his monograph on imperial Roman authorship, Tom Geue observes that similar anonymous texts may appear to be conjoined in ways authored texts would not.17 Even so, the findings of YadinIsrael and Landes18 and their predecessors helpfully expand our notion of the impact of collective theological and scriptural priorities and discursive habits across texts, suggesting that the halakhic midrashic “work” stretches between pericope and school (thought of here now as a Foucauldian oeuvre), more than between the discrete midrashic text and the biblical book. However, this does not encompass the aggadic material, which has its own forms of composition and coherence that are only loosely anchored to the school. The final factor complicating our apprehension of the Midrash text as a work is its much-discussed anthological nature. Just as the midrashic work is a moving target, so too is the “author”—and these phenomena are intimately interrelated. The standard approach to the question of rabbinic authorship homes in on the redactor. Scholars routinely, often unconsciously, resolve at some level the unidentified redactors’ “identity” in the sense of their historical position, methods, intention, and/or voice, hypothesizing when a redactor is creating out of whole cloth, or, more commonly, when and how they are using inherited traditions, and how those traditions are changed by their artful juxtaposition, careful rewording, and the significant omission or addition.19 In sum, the boundaries of the midrashic work are nowhere firmly fixed. While in many other ancient literatures the text under analysis is clear—there a tragedy, here a treatise, or a letter, or a gospel—for the rabbis, one is rarely sure exactly what the literary unit actually is to begin with. All to say that what rates as a meaningful “work” is most often determined by recourse to the argument for, or presumption of, the constructed coherence of a source’s meaning, whose boundaries are determined by philology, genre, context, or thematic consistency. Without the demands made implicitly by an author/work, the reader not only 16 Fraade, “Anonymity,” *16. 17 See Geue, Author Unknown, 15. Would an Akiban school appear as such if we knew the names of discrete authors of the texts subsumed to it, along with their biographies? 18 Azzan Yadin, Scripture as Logos: Rabbi Ishmael and the Origins of Midrash (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Azzan Yadin-Israel, Scripture and Tradition: Rabbi Akiva and the Triumph of Midrash (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); and Isaac Landes, “The Role of the Patriarch in the Creation and Dissemination of Early Rabbinic Literature,” unpublished conference paper, AJS 2021. 19 Fraade, “Anonymity,” *24; and the growing bookshelf on the stam.

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must, but also has the easy freedom to, determine the edges of the any given text unit, ad hoc and ad locum. The “author” in this sense emerges from the text, he is “in front” of it—a fiction produced secondarily by attention to it—and is not, in a more common-sense mode, the unified driving force “behind” the text. A notion of editorial authorship will always sit in a dynamic tension with the “authorial” intention of the anthology’s constitutive parts. Whole literary complexes routinely travel from work to work, reused like spolia, in a range of new contexts. Any such anthology may be read as a sort of mise en abyme, rendering a dynamic struggle between layers that may as easily amplify as undermine one another. The final redactor then is a sort of temporary victor in the control of the text’s meaning, or maybe more accurately is a manager of a sometimes-unruly assemblage. In part as a response to this turbulent textual reality, some scholars have found post-structuralism and reader response theories useful for the apprehension of Midrash, seeing how rabbinic literature seems to be already deconstructed— the jagged prose, the eschewal of authorship, the intertextuality, wordplay, inversions, individual and collective meanings, the oral and the written all make up the textual surface of the literature. This kind of thinking is adopted by Jaffee in his essay on the topic, saying “rabbinic compositional style within conventions of anthology points to a literary culture in which the minds and intentions of authors are displaced by the interpretive experiments that emerge among people engaged in mutual discourse over shared texts.”20 As a way to overcome the difficult mismatch between new critical methodologies and open texts, Jaffee translates a Foucauldian idea of writing, écriture to the rabbis: “referring only to itself, but without being restricted to the confines of its own interiority, writing [écriture] is identified with its own unfolded exteriority.”21 Foucault goes on, “the point is not to manifest or exalt the act of writing, or pin a subject within language; it is rather a question of creating a space into which the writing subject constantly disappears.”22 For Jaffee, that writing subject is the “audience” which must mean the rabbis both within and without the text, and presumably also includes the scholar. All of this leaves one in a rather perplexing position. Halakhic midrashim possess definitive articulable and unique literary attributes, a recognizable program of themes and conceptual priorities, made up from a range of demonstrably intentional literary “compositions” of various sizes. Though

20 Jaffee, “Rabbinic Authorship,” 35. 21 Foucault, “What Is an Author?,” 206. 22 Ibid.

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the works are not normally cited as such in the Talmud, individual dicta are commonly replicated verbatim, indicating a certain level of fixity. In short, halakhic Midrash has many of the markers of a library in a familiar sense. Much harder to determine with clarity is the stability of the larger forms preserved, transmitted, and cited in later materials.23 They comprise “writing,” to be sure, and, lacking author and any easy sense of being bounded “works,” the earliest midrashim are in some essential ways difficult to define as books. Jaffee addresses this dissonance directly: “Rabbinic anthologies cannot be interpreted as analogs to authored works. They are not subtle attempts to convey a larger concept or argument to a reader.”24 He theorizes that Midrash repels its readers by design, representing less a fixed or bounded object of study than a catalyst or reactive agent whose own substance is secondary to its ability to perpetuate its discursive and dialectical forms.25 It is a set of texts given shape and meaning by the audience-cum-author. Fraade also tackles the friability of the midrashic “work,” subsuming it to an idea of a dynamic communal process of meaning-making: “It is, presumably, from the collective revelatory selfunderstanding of the community [. . .] that [the tanna’im] derive their authority, thereby rendering unnecessary individual authorship, whether historical or pseudepigraphic.”26 Similarly to Jaffee, Fraade describes the polyvocal halakhic sources as a “pedagogical medium” which guides the rabbis into Torah using “a rhetoric of multiple interpretations” to stimulate the integration of the novice into its discursive world.27 As with Jaffee, the “work” is somehow defined by its ability to efface itself in the process of being encountered, and so paradoxically, a midrashic work is successful to the extent that it ceases to be one. What other “literature” operates in this way with these apparent internal paradoxes, at this scale, in this time period, and this geography?28 The halakhic

23 Schäfer, “Research.” 24 Jaffee, “Rabbinic Authorship,” 35. 25 Ibid. 26 Fraade, “Anonymity,” *13. 27 Ibid., *24. 28 Fraade points to other “unattributed but collective writings” (ibid., *12). In all cases the function of anonymous authorship—which, contra Fraade, I think should not be attributed to its being “unnecessary” but to its adding something substantive to the literary presentation— deserve individual attention. The works that seem less relevant to my question are those that demonstrate a singular voice (for example, pesharim) and those with manifest generic cohesion and clearly understandable textual boundaries; texts whose genres and boundaries are clear and meaningful (such as Maccabees, the Damascus Document, and the Community Rule). See Fraade, “Anonymity,” *12–*13; Kahana, “Halakhic Midrashim,” 6–11 on the many differences between the halakhic midrashim and their closest congeners among the Dead Sea Scrolls. But see Schäfer, “Research,” 149, and sources in n. 43 there on Hekhalot parallels.

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midrashim are enigmatic indeed. In the next section I will move from literary methodology as a way to help make sense of the formal absence of author and work to more social historical responses.

II. The scholarship that has so usefully disaggregated the idea of the author into instead an “author-function,” has been salutary in the field of authored ancient literatures adjacent to the tanna’im—whether pseudonymous or not.29 Authorial attribution was a pervasive literary habit among Romans, Christians, and non-rabbinic Jews. Though its function must be nuanced for different cases, in general a named author provides the illusion of a singular creator who guarantees a work’s contents, contains its meaning, is witness to its reliability and significance; the “author” identifies a work’s congeners, and is implicated in and of value to notions of paideia and social status; it greases the machinery of the circulation of books and ideas, of social hierarchy, and is enmeshed with institutions and technes of memory/preservation. The deconstruction of the author idea has granted access as well to the author’s less palatable effects, such the reification of social inequalities, and the occlusion of, among other things, the many forms of invisible labor that go into literary production. We may postulate that for the producers of halakhic Midrash, a commensurate level of cultural effort must have been exerted to eliminate the author from, and resist the closure of, the work as was exerted in sustaining these same ideas among their neighbors.

29 To mention but a few: Joseph A. Howley’s work on the work of slaves underlying Roman “authorship”, Scott McGill, Plagiarism in Latin Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Irene Peirano, “Ille ego qui quondam: On Authorial (An)onymity,” in The Author’s Voice in Classical and Late Antiquity, ed. A. Marmodoro and J. Hill (Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online, 2014), 251–85; Hindy Najman and Irene Peirano, “Pseudepigraphy as an Interpretative Construct,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Fifty Years of the Pseudepigrapha Section at the SBL, ed. M. Henze and L. Ingeborg Lied (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2019), 203–30; Annette Reed, Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020); the essays in A. J. Berkovitz and Mark L. Letteney, eds., Rethinking “Authority” in Late Antiquity (New York: Routledge, 2018); Karen L. King, “‘What Is an Author?’: Ancient Author-Function in the Apocryphon of John and the Apocalypse of John,” in Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus Adherents, ed. W. E. Arnal et  al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 15–42; Jeremiah Coogan, “Early Christian Negotiations of Gospel Authorship: Textual Multiplicity and Authorial Fiction,” in Authorial Fictions and Attributions in the Ancient Mediterranean, ed. C. Bonar and J. Lindenlaub (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming).

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Given the heightened performance of literacy among Roman elites,30 it is noteworthy that authorship is not part of the tannaitic performance of prestige, authenticity, or inspiration. The rabbis as non-author composing non-books sits in marked contrast to the common image of the Roman scholar at his desk with his rolls, the signed epistle, the hyper book-centrism of early Christians, or to the many writing-characters of the Second Temple library whose authority is fully entangled with book production and transmission (in addition to writing angels, think of Ezra, Enoch, Baruch, Moses, Abraham, Noah, and Aaron). In the character of the rabbi we encounter an authority, yes, but never an author (even of oral compositions). Still, for the most part, discussions of rabbinic authorial habits have hewn closely to the rabbinic corpus. Given the ubiquity of “author” and “book” in the world from which the tanna’im emerge, it behooves us to look outside as well. To resist such a pervasive norm meant sacrificing a considerable aid guiding audiences to meaning. Midrash’s hazy bookishness and anonymity means that the functions provided by the author and the work would have to be otherwise compensated for. In short, if the tanna’im invested such effort and continued to do so, as they apparently did—why? And what did they get for their pains in return? Asked differently: Why would an ancient Roman author want to be anonymous? [. . .] The whole system of recitation and circulation militated against it. Also, the way texts were curated and preserved was so deeply allergic to anonymity, so invested in nominal authority, that a text without a name tag would have been the fastest route to the dustbin.31 Geue’s book goes on to document both the ascendance of the author idea in imperial Rome in the aftermath of Augustus—aka, the tannaitic era—and

30 For some scope, see Elaine Fantham, Roman Literary Culture (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Alan Bowman and Greg Woolf, eds., Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). And see Catherine Hezser, “Rabbis as Intellectuals in the Context of Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Christian Scholasticism,” in Scholastic Culture in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras, ed. S. A. Adams (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 169–85. 31 Geue, Author Unknown, 6.

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to chronicle how in that context anonymity effected an arsenal of social and political effects. How does this horizon inform an understanding of the halakhic midrashim? In the remainder of my essay, I will situate this performance of authorial absence and literary fluidity in a landscape of three external arenas: empire, expertise, and the claims of the Jewish past.

A. Empire Rabbis mistrust individual authority,32 seeing in it nothing but political danger (the messianic agitator, the tyrant, the schismatic, the charismatic rival)—preferring the stability of collective authority.33 This may help explain why we do not see bylines. Given the literary world they inhabit (one they share with Origen, Justin Martyr, and the librarian Pamphilus34—Ulpian, Gaius, and Pomponius), one must read anonymity, alongside the rabbis’ wellknown refusal to grant standing to outside books, and the pretense that they never wrote (or read anything but Torah, on which more below), as deliberate postures—like not having a smartphone in 2023. Though the tanna’im are no less prolific than their literate neighbors, these moves together communicate a refusal to acknowledge the fact of their own participation in the literary culture of Roman Palestine. The early rabbis reject the prestige accruable through bibliophilic postures and announce in theory (if not in practice) their rejection of the culture of Roman and Christian35 elites who perform their status through the conspicuous writing, reading, collecting, and sharing of (authored) books. As “control of the written word is identified with the growing consolidation and expansion of state and imperial power,”36 they adopt instead a stance of evasion.

32 Be it of king, prophet, rabbi—even Moses gets cut to size. 33 See, for example, Shaye Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish Sectarianism,” Hebrew Union College Annual 55 (1984): 27–53; David Flatto, The Crown and the Courts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020). 34 John S. Kloppenborg, “Literate Media in Early Christ Groups: The Creation of a Christian Book Culture,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 22, no. 1 (2104): 27; Bowman and Woolf, Literacy. 35 See, for example, Kloppenborg, “Literate Media,” 21–59; or Anthony Grafton and Megan Hale Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008). 36 See Joseph A. Howley, “Book-Burning and the Uses of Writing in Ancient Rome,” Journal of Roman Studies 107 (2017): 214, n. 4, and the literature cited there.

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The image of the imperial library illuminates the rabbinic project by contrast. The great classical libraries (including the one in Caesarea) were part of the infrastructure of imperialism in general, as Woolf describes them, in the business of “plunder and accumulation.”37 The rabbis symbolically demolish the imperial library, disavowing the catalogs there and refusing to be catalogued. They in turn present their readers with a library of only a few dozen volumes of the Torah, texts that without their mediation are rendered, from a rabbinic perspective, likewise inaccessible to Roman eyes. In this context the elusive edges of the work and its lack of a catalog-able author (in concert with oral circulation) become part of a network of rabbinic cultural evasions which make the rabbinic project unseeable from the imperial center. What seem odd lacunae in the literature are constructive components of a project of communal creation—not only defining the Jewish community from within but protecting it from the brutality of the imperial gaze from without. Rabbis—unlike say Josephus or Philo—have no interest in being read by Romans.38 Perhaps being consigned to the Roman “dustbin” exactly suited them. By pulling themselves to the side of elite literary culture, moreover, the rabbis quiet the cacophonous claims of a world filled by books. They are undoubtedly a product of a book world but build genres that resist being cited in turn, and thus refuted, collected, legislated, or repurposed. In short, to being metabolized by others.

B. Expertise A second avenue worth exploring focuses on the rabbi himself. The appearance of the named rabbi is a remarkably new way for the Jewish Torah expert to manifest himself, a dramatic change from the Second Temple scribe-scholar who commonly tucked his work behind pseudonyms or worked anonymously. Despite the novelty of the appearance of named living personages, the tanna is a liminal figure in authorial terms: in the sources he is never anything but a character who serves a variety of literary ends—neither named as an author nor

37 Jason König, Katerina Oikonomopoulou, and Greg Woolf, eds., Ancient Libraries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 38 This comes at the position from another angle, of one expressed by Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “Is the Mishnah a Roman Composition?,” in The Faces of Torah: Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade, ed. C. Hayes et  al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), 487–508, and Dohrmann, “Jewish Books and Roman Readers,” 357–80.

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anywhere depicted as one.39 Yet the presumption is that the rabbis-as-character has interests consonant with the compilations which were written, we assume, by real rabbis.40 Fraade thinks the use of tradents is how the anonymous collective text signals its particularly rabbinic authorship without overshadowing the collective.41 So even as the rabbi steps into the light as a character with a singular voice, the rabbinic author/narrator remains cagey and elusive. Within Roman Palestine, the rabbi conforms to a recognizable type: the expert. Expertise in a range of arenas—from medicine to war, mathematics to architecture—was a mechanism by which people asserted their social position and gained cultural prestige. Hezser, Lapin, and others draw our attention to the ways with which the rabbis rhetorically justify their own claims to communal authority upon their mastery of the complexities of the law.42 Jason König, in his work on this topic, writes: the competitive quality of ancient Greek and Roman scientific discourse [broadly conceived . . .], was formed in a world without formal scientific or educational qualifications. That situation meant that ancient experts had to work much harder than their modern counterparts to convince their audiences and potential clients and students, by rhetorical means, of their competence, and so tended to reach for self-assertive and ostentatiously innovative first-person personas.43 A lack of institutional accreditation was a reality for the rabbis no less than for Galen.44 The authority of the expert must therefore be attended to rhetorically— 39 Fraade, “Anonymity,” *16–*19. 40 The extent to which the rabbi is understood internally to be an author has been discussed in the context of the Babylonian Talmud. See Sacha Stern, “Attribution and Authorship in the Babylonian Talmud,” JJS 45 (1994): 28–51; and idem, “The Concept of Authorship”; and, more recently, Eliyahu Rosenfeld “It’s All in the Name: Understanding Anonymity in the Babylonian Talmud’s Legal Discussions,” AJS Review (forthcoming 2023). 41 Fraade, “Anonymity,” *24. 42 Hayim Lapin, Rabbis as Romans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Catherine Hezser, “Roman Law and Rabbinic Legal Composition,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud, ed. Jaffee and C. Fonrobert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 144–164; Yair Furstenberg, “Imperialism and the Creation of Local Law,” in Legal Engagement, ed. K. Berthelot et al. (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2021), 271–300. 43 Jason König, “Self-Assertion and Its Alternatives in Ancient Scientific and Technical Writing,” in Authority and Expertise in Ancient Scientific Culture, ed J. König and G. Woolf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 1–2. 44 For the rabbi as legal expert in particular, a lack of a law school degree is compounded by an absence of courts and institutions of enforcement.

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meaning that assertions of authority are built into the transmission of knowledge itself.45 While many ancient experts in the Roman world expressed themselves with first-person braggadocio, this was just one stratagem relevant to a particular set of literary and social conventions. For other kind of experts, König says, self-effacement, not self-assertion, was the more effective authorizing tool. Some mathematicians, for example, felt human authors detracted from the dominance of logic and so produced anonymous texts; a philosopher like Cicero used dialogue to cloak the workings of their guiding hand, and many Christians struck an overt stance of humility toward tradition.46 (All three of these priorities are present to varying degrees in the rabbis as well.) While an author may attest to the reliability or truth of a text in some situations, for others, like Foucault’s scientists, “membership in a systematic ensemble [. . .] stood as their guarantee.”47 In this sense, rabbis demonstrate their expertise through depictions of their exegetical bravura, while at the same time the expert himself is muted as social authority by his subsumption into the literary collective. Under the aegis of the anonymous ensemble, knowledge is produced and rhetorically consecrated, while avoiding the political and social threats to the fragile tannaitic collective posed by overly powerful individuals.48

C. The Jewish Past A third realm where the literary particularity of tannaitic Midrash may be profitably contextualized is in relationship to the non-rabbinic Jewish literary inheritance. I  have written elsewhere on how rabbinic citation practices and the deployment of oral and written media collude to erase the Jewish books that preceded them as books.49 Of the available literary inheritance the pagans and Jews produced from the Second Temple period, the tanna’im acknowledge (almost) solely the books of Scripture. This may make sense regarding non-Jewish sources, however, the apparent tannaitic disavowal of virtually all other Jewish 45 Harry Collins and Robert Evans, Rethinking Expertise (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 46 König, “Self-Assertion,” 9; König also points helpfully to the comparative work of Lloyd and Sivin, The Way of the World: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). 47 Foucault, “What Is an Author?,” 215. 48 See my “Pax Tannaitica: Roman War and Provincial Sovereigntism,” in Unrest in the Roman Empire: A Discursive History, ed. Lisa Eberle and Myles Lavan (forthcoming). 49 Dohrmann, “Jewish Books and Roman Readers.”

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literatures is worth pausing on. With vanishingly rare exceptions, these early rabbis refuse to acknowledge any written work beyond the Bible (as they defined it).50 By contrast, real and imagined books, tablets, and scrolls are prominent and pervasive symbolic features of the Second Temple religious imagination— signifying revelation, authenticity, gnosis, guaranteeing transmission and authority. A major part of this non-rabbinic Jewish library is attributed to an author—such as an angel or past hero—and/or presumed to be bounded, a clear “work.”51 Halakhic Midrash’s irregular formal coherence distinguishes it starkly from the revealed and potent “book” (or scroll) metaphorics and author ideologies preceding them. But Midrash does more than disavow this sprawling Jewish library, it expunges it. Partnering with Midrash’s refusal of authorship this clearing-of-the-shelves communicates a severing of the tannaitic project from the proximate Jewish past. If the tanna’im wanted to marginalize the volatile Second Temple era together with its several unpalatable ideas, the form that the halakhic midrashim take would prove a distinct aid in accomplishing it.52 For one, it bundles all manner of thought and topics into a parabiblical exegesis. Their commitment to the exegetical and legal present tense means that, for them, historical time vanishes along with it the centuries separating the present from the Bible. Rabbinic reader and Bible pleat together in Midrash, and the intervening epoch with its rebellions, apocalypses, and messiahs, its Hasmoneans and Herodians, can barely find room to breathe. Without state backing, no single author, or even collection of named authors, could accomplish such a massive restructuring of the past.53 A rhetoric of

50 And this is true of the Mishnah as well; it is not an epiphenomenon of commentary. As is widely noted, Ben Sira is the exception, as well as cautious reference to “outside books.” 51 But Midrash obviously also confounds the bookish self-fashioning of Josephus and Philo, who imitated Roman and Hellenistic performances and modalities of authorship. See Maren Niehoff, Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), 25–46; Dohrmann, “Jewish Books and Roman Readers,” 417–22; Steve Mason, “Josephus’ Autobiography,” in A Companion to Josephus in His World, ed. H. H. Chapman and Z. Rodgers (Chichester: Wiley, 2016), 59–74. 52 I  have not addressed the Mishnah here, which while similarly anonymous, swerves rather starkly on the question of the book. Its apparent emergence as a “work” requires and indeed has attracted its own substantial scholarship. Between the Sifra and Halivni, to name two of its close readers, there is a sense that the Mishnah discomfited many rabbis. It is possible that their dis-ease reacts not just to the Mishnah’s lack of biblical deference, but to its divergent formalization as a book—books are what “they” do, not us. But that is another paper. Cf. Stemberger, “The Redaction and Transmission of Sifra”; David Weiss Halivni, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986). 53 That Augustus effected a similarly sweeping rehistoricization of the Roman past preceding his own reign invites a second look in this context.

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collective authorship, however, communicates the will of a “systematic ensemble.” The violence this aggregated voice has effected on the Jewish memory of the pre-rabbinic era and its sources can still be felt. ( Just ask a traditional Jew to tell you what they’ve read, nay, heard of, from the Second Temple library.) And yet in the end, the rabbis’ dramatic alteration of the Jewish past can be traced to no “author”—as if the erasure transcended agency altogether.

Conclusion In post-Augustan Rome, midrashic literature stands out for its distinctive literary form. If the author idea served to stabilize meaning, social structure, and truth, must we not theorize that the choice to remove the author idea in that historical horizon carries with it an intersecting if competing set of social ideas and aims? Should we not assume that the rabbis invested similar work in the prevention of authors and in loosening the contours of the literary work? Attribution was part of tannaitic culture and the ones around them, but the rabbis contain it. All to what end? Tom Geue complains that scholars often read Roman graffiti as if it represented the unmediated vox populi.54 Why, he wonders, should any individual graffito tell us anything about the Roman common man? Anonymity (and a little literary snobbery) catalyzes this misprision. Drawing on the easy scholarly slippage between the single unauthored utterance and a projected collective, Geue turns to Suetonius who, in his Lives of the Caesars, shows the outsized impact of unattributed gossip on the author of all authors: the emperor himself. In the Roman literary-political economy, the seditious anonymous pamphlet represents that which is unmasterable by the princeps.55 If from one angle the anonymous text is stripped of its auctoritas, from the other “the masterless text brims with dangerous revolutionary potential.”56 In taking seriously the unattributed literatures of the empire, Geue traces the counter implications not only of the imperial valuation of authorship but of the scholarly obsession in classical philology to assign names to sources.57 He posits that anonymity is not always an accident of transmission but was often an intentional and effective literary strategy; while there are many risks to being 54 Geue, Author Unknown, 15. 55 Ibid., 31–52. 56 Candida Moss, response to Tom Geue, Author Unknown, unpublished remarks. 57 A gesture mirrored in the search for the midrashic urtext, see Schäfer’s response to Milikowsky in “Once Again.”

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sine auctore—no fame, no immortality, social and political oblivion—there are benefits as well; and by choosing to hide the author’s name, a text accrues other powers. Unanchored from a particular context, the content of an anonymous text can thus potentially transcend the limitations of time, space, and the fallible individual in the eyes of its readers; such a text can just as easily speak for everyone as for no one, conjuring a sense of political or theological universality. As a result, the relatability of the anonymous everyman may not just ventriloquize but generate a collective. In short, anonymity in the Roman context was a doublesided phenomenon, in which the dangers of oblivion could be countered by the freedom to express unpopular or politically dangerous ideas, and sometimes even achieve transcendence. No word, gesture, genre, or habit can have meaning outside of context. Despite other parallels it may share with antecedent forms and mentalités, the unattributed quasi-fixity of the halakhic midrashim represents a deeply original literary phenomenon in its time. In a world for which the author and the book are foundational, Midrash’s striking discounting of the book idea—in form and content—gains power (and meaning) by contrast.

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Substitutes for Sacrifice, Community Stewardship, and Rabbinic Paideia: Tractates Tithes and Second Tithe of the Mishnah Jonathan Schofer

The rabbinic laws of tithes have fallen between several current lines of scholarly interest: in charity or almsgiving,1 in the social practices of food consumption including the laws of kashrut,2 and in the rituals of fasting and related narratives.3 Perhaps since tithing is neither as close to contemporary 1 Yael Wilfand, Poverty, Charity, and the Image of the Poor in Rabbinic Texts from the Land of Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014); Gregg Gardner, The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Alyssa Gray, Charity in Rabbinic Judaism: Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness (New York: Routledge, 2019). 2 Jordan Rosenblum, Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); idem, The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 3 David Levine, Communal Fasts and Rabbinic Sermons: Theory and Practice in the Talmudic Period [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2001); Jonathan Schofer, Confronting Vulnerability: The Body and the Divine in Rabbinic Ethics (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2010), esp. 11–12 and 109–39; Julia Watts Belser, Power, Ethics, and Ecology in Late Antiquity: Rabbinic Responses to Drought and Disaster (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

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interests as charity and dietary prescriptions, nor as enticing as the glimpse that stories of fasting provide into late ancient performances of atonement in the face of disaster (and their related supernatural claims), our understanding of rabbinic transformations of biblical tithing practices remains defined by the analyses of important monographs from several decades ago by Martin Jaffee and Peter Haas.4 In this paper, I  argue that we can reconfigure this understanding to clarify and better understand the theological as well as social significance in rabbinic laws of tithing through three concepts articulated by Michael Fishbane: substitutes for sacrifice, community stewardship, and rabbinic paideia. The laws of the Mishnah addressing tithes (M Ma‘aserot) and second tithe (M Ma‘asar sheni), in turn, provide a cultural example for showing how the dramatic concerns of substitutes for sacrifice and the everyday needs of community stewardship and education, can be linked. Jaffee’s monograph, Mishnah’s Theology of Tithing, centers on Mishnah tractate Tithes and characterizes the text as follows: Tractate Maaserot (Tithes) defines the class of produce which is subject to Scripture’s diverse agricultural taxes, and determines when payment of these taxes is due. It thus amplifies, in rather predictable ways, those aspects of Scripture which are likely to interest Israelites concerned with the proper tithing of their food. That is, the tractate tells its audience what to tithe, and stipulates when they must remove the offerings from food they wish to eat. . . . Tractate Maaserot is primarily interested in the concerns of the common Israelites who want to eat their food. The tractate’s questions, accordingly, reflect those concerns. That is: When, in the course of a crop’s growth, may it be used to satisfy the obligation of the tithe? When, further, in the course of the harvest of the crop, must tithes actually be paid?5 This opening summary is quite helpful, and from here Jaffee notes that untithed produce presents a distinct problem for the Mishnah: “Untithed produce . . . is subject to a special set of rules which take account of its ambiguous character,”

4 Peter J. Haas, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Agriculture: Tractate Maasar Sheni (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1980); Martin S. Jaffee, Mishnah’s Theology of Tithing: A Study of Tractate Maaserot (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983). 5 Jaffee, Mishnah’s Theology of Tithing, 1.

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which is neither sacred food for the priests, nor able to be used as profane or common food.6 He then builds a theological analysis stating that the core problem “is to determine, and then to adjudicate, the respective claims of man and God to the produce of the land of Israel,” and what is at stake is “the relationship of Israel to the Lord of its ancestral land.”7 This level of considering the laws of Tithes and Second Tithe can be given a clearer and deeper analysis that draws from the three concepts formulated in Fishbane’s work. The Pentateuchal laws prescribing tithes (especially Numbers 18:21–24, as will be discussed below) emphasize that the need for tithes emerges from the need to support a class of people to specialize in the work of sacrifice, and to be responsible for it. The rabbinic adaptation and continuation of the laws of tithing found in the Mishnah, then, are parts of a broader rabbinic response to the end of Temple worship with the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in 70 CE. Fishbane notes the “enormous” Jewish concern with the transfiguration of sacrifice, both “given the continuity (with one brief gap) of ancient Temple sacrifice for a full millennium . . . ; and second, given the exegetical and theological discussions on every conceivable and inconceivable aspect of these rites ever since.” Given these two observations, he writes that we might consider either “the broad question of how ancient Judaism reinvented itself after the loss of the Temple service and its fundamental rituals of atonement, expiation, and communion,” or “the specific issue of the sages recast these efficacious acts of divine-human reparation into new acts and concepts.”8 The mishnaic laws of Tithes and Second Tithe provide a middle level of consideration, which is more specific than the general transformation of Judaism to continue without a Temple, but not concerned with the specific act of sacrifice than with the reformulation of key social standards and their related demands as well as communal contributions. These demands and contributions can be specified with respect to both the broad outreach of rabbis to Jews beyond their circles, and the transmission of their knowledge and values across generations from teacher to student. For the outreach beyond rabbinic disciple circles, a notable aspect of the laws of tithing is a fundamental concern with the community generated by the practice of tithing, rather than attention to the recipients of tithes. In his theological writing, Fishbane observes that the “theological self ” has an aspect of “communal

6 Ibid., 2. 7 Ibid., 4–5. 8 Michael Fishbane, The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 123.

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stewardship” that “moves beyond singularity and partnership and directs the individual to the community.” The individual must cultivate, among ideals and values, “knowledge” of one’s neighbor, “a certain balance between persons,” and awareness of “the various ways one may do and hear justly in this world.”9 For the transmission of knowledge and values from teacher to student, the laws of tithing have a remarkable degree of detail regarding the details of individual crops, the ways they are processed for consumption, and the timing of tithes—a degree of detail that puts a great demand on the student of the rabbinic sages to understand agricultural practices. This detail gives concreteness to what Fishbane, in a study of an aggadic compilation of exegetical traditions in Song of Songs Rabbah, calls “rabbinic paideia,” or the gathering of traditions “to shape character and inculcate values.” In one of his concrete textual analyses, he observes that Song of Songs Rabbah includes “a myth of revelation” that “the entirety of Tradition is prefigured (or encoded) within the words of the Decalogue.”10 In the Mishnah tractates Tithes and Second Tithe, we see the great extent to which the “entirety of tradition” as transmitted from teacher to student over generations includes radical elaboration of biblical prescriptions to demand that the student learn the specifics of crop after crop for their specific needs concerning tithes.

Biblical Sources for Mishnaic Laws in Tractates Tithes and Second Tithe In a broader and more pervasive sense, perhaps, than the explicit use of Midrash within the Mishnah,11 the Mishnah builds from its scripture through its overall interests and focus. As is well-known, the formal terminology and the subject matter of the Mishnah, including in this case the word “tithe” and the practice of adding one-fifth to the tithe if currency is substituted for produce and livestock,

9 Idem, Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008), 149–51. 10 Michael Fishbane, “Anthological Midrash and Cultural Paideia: The Case of Songs Rabba 1.2,” in Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century, ed. Peter Ochs and Nancy Levene (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 33, 35, and 45; also Martin Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE–400 CE (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 69; and Elizabeth Shanks Alexander, Gender and Timebound Commandments in Judaism, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 8–9, fn. 18. 11 Alexander Samely, Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

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emerges from the laws set out by the prophecies attributed to Moses in the Bible. Examination of this relation between Mishnah and scripture can identify the elements of biblical laws concerning tithes that are presumed, emphasized, and elaborated by rabbinic law. The mishnaic laws in tractates Tithes and Second Tithe build from vocabulary and procedures that are spelled out in passages within the biblical books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The word “tithe” (ma‘asar) of course means literally “one-tenth” and is based on the Hebrew root for “ten” (‘.s.r.). Leviticus 27:30–3 underscores the holiness of tithes. Here, tithes are “Holy to YHWH,” and specifically tithes are one-tenth of produce from “seed of the land,” “fruit of the tree,” and also a shepherd’s livestock. Redeeming the produce by paying currency adds one-fifth (one-fifth of the original one-tenth is added, or two percent in addition to the original ten percent), which makes for a twelvepercent tax: And every tithe of the land, from the seed of the land, from the fruit of the tree, it is for YHWH, Holy to YHWH. If a person truly redeems [by payment] from his tithe, he adds upon it one fifth of it. And every tithe of cattle and sheep, all that crosses under the shepherd’s implement, the tenth will be holy to YHWH. Let him not seek to distinguish between good and bad, and let him not exchange it; if he truly exchanged it, then it and its substitute will be holy, it may not be redeemed. (Lev. 27:30–33) Perhaps most notable in the biblical passage is the emphasis that the shepherd should not attempt to choose good or bad cattle or sheep for the tithe, and a person’s attempts to exchange and substitute are strongly discouraged. The Mishnah will expand this focus on preventing a focus on distinguishing select individual items when choosing (for the Mishnah, a key case concerns whether one selects individual items of fruit or vegetables, or instead buys by the unit of weight). Like the Bible, the Mishnah appears to prefer direct tithing of fruit, vegetables, and livestock rather than monetary payment or redemption, though currency can be used with the added one-fifth. In the Book of Numbers, the laws of Moses emphasize that the purpose of tithes is to support the Levites for their specialized work at the Temple, so that others do not risk mistakes in the sacred matters of sacrifice. The other Israelites may inherit land but cannot carry out work at the Temple, while the Levites have the tithes as their inheritance:

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And for the descendants of Levi, behold I have given each tithe in Israel as an inheritance, in return for their work that they work, their work of the Tent of the Meeting. No more descendants of Israel will come close to the Tent of the Meeting, to raise up sin to die. And the Levite will work his work of the Tent of the Meeting, and they will be responsible for it, a statute forever for your generations, and among the descendants of Israel they will not inherit inheritance. For I have given to the Levites as an inheritance the tithe of the descendants of Israel that they set aside as a contribution to YHWH; because of this I said to them, amidst the descendants of Israel, they will not inherit an inheritance. (Num. 18:21–24) The mishnaic laws of tractates Tithes and Second Tithe show strikingly little explicit discussion of this topic. We might wonder, given the context of late second- and early third-century CE Judaism, who might make use of tithes, and what are the relations between Levites and rabbis? Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, what purpose exists for the work of the Levites, which the biblical figure of Moses names repeatedly as “the work of the Tent of the Meeting”? The Mishnah in tractates Tithes and Second Tithe does not answer these questions. Rather, the Mishnah seems to presume that tithing is important, and that its role is to specify, further than Scripture does, how to carry out the process of separating tithes from food to be consumed, both in the process of harvesting and in the market, and its significance for relations with others who do or do not carry out the tithes. The Book of Deuteronomy presents a different facet of tithing, a process in which the Israelite is to travel to the Temple of YHWH with the tithe, or with money as an alternative option, and there have reverence as well as rejoicing for the deity: You shall truly tithe all of the yield of your seed that comes out of the field year by year. And you shall eat before YHWH your God in a place, which He chooses [in order] to establish His name there, a tithe of your corn, your new wine, and your fresh oil, and the first-born of your cattle and sheep, in order that you learn to have awe for YHWH your God every day. And if the distance is too long, for you cannot carry it, for the place, which YHWH your God will choose, to place His name there, is far from you, for YHWH your God blesses you,

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then you will pay it in money, and you shall secure the money in your hand, and you will go to the place that YHWH your God shall choose, and you will pay the money for anything that is desirable to you, for cattle, and for sheep, and for wine, and for intoxicating drink, and for all that your life requests, and you will eat there before YHWH your God, and you will rejoice, you and your house. And the Levite that is in your gates, do not forsake him, for he does not have a portion and inheritance with you. At the end of three years, you will bring out every tithe of your yield, in that year, and leave it in your gates. And the Levite shall come, because he does not have a portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, and the orphan, and the widow, which are in your gates, and they will eat and be satisfied, so that YHWH your God will bless you, in each act of your hand that you enact. (Deut. 14:22–29; see also Deut. 26:12–15) This set of issues, articulated in Deuteronomy 14:22–29, becomes for the Mishnah the base of legal discussions in tractate Second Tithe. The Mishnah elaborates further, for its audience, specific laws delineating the process of either bringing what Moses’s prophetic laws specify as “your corn, your new wine, and your fresh oil, and the first-born of your cattle and sheep,” or the option that “you will pay it in money,” so “you will pay the money for anything that is desirable to you, for cattle, and for sheep, and for wine, and for intoxicating drink, and for all that your life requests.” The Mishnah is very concerned to specify the relation between the produce and livestock brought as tithes, and ordinary food, and to specify the process of bringing money as a payment. The Mishnah does not discuss the status of the Temple in the late second and early third centuries CE, or the city of Jerusalem, or the political question of where Jews could carry out festive activities “to have awe for YHWH” and to “rejoice.”

Foundational Laws Framing Food and Tithes According to the Anonymous Voice of the Mishnah Emerging from and directed toward a social world following the destruction of the Second Temple, and following the end of sacrificial practices, the laws in M Ma‘aserot and M Ma‘asar sheini set out the standards for separating out, based

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on prescriptions in Mosaic law of the Pentateuch, one-tenth of one’s produce and livestock for the Levites. The laws address cases such as harvesting, drying fruit after a harvest, and buying food at a market. This study does not attempt a comprehensive picture of tannaitic legal discussion on the topics, but rather aims to show the degree of clarity, coverage, and complexity in the canonical legal formulations gathered in the Mishnah—as a distinctive element in rabbinic communal stewardship and paideia.12 The Mishnah’s anonymous voice presents key and foundational elements of the laws regarding tithing in the opening chapter of tractate Tithes. The Mishnah opens by specifying what is bound by tithing in tractate Tithes 1:1, and the focus is food. The biblical phrasing such as, “seed of the land” and “fruit of the tree” (Lev. 27:30–33) is specified as food, which is guarded as private as opposed to public or wild, and which is grown from the land: They said a rule regarding tithes: All that is food, and guarded, and its growth is from the land, is bound regarding tithes. And they said another rule: All that its beginning is food, and its end is food, even if he guards it to heap up food, is bound [regarding tithes], small and large; and all that, it is not the case that its beginning is food, but its end is food, is not bound [regarding tithes] until it is made food. (M Ma‘aserot 1:1)13 Food from agricultural production and livestock fall under the realm of this specification. And materials that might be made into food but also might be made into something else, once their “end is food,” are also bound by the process of tithing. The Mishnah also specifies the “harvesting time” for tithes for specific agricultural products, which is the stage in the process of growth, ripening, and processing at which tithes are to be separated. The Mishnah appears to be particularly interested in identifying a key point when persons begin to handle or manage, not only grow and pick, the object. Trimming, piling up, evening out

12 Foundational observations for this analysis are in the introductions and notes to Six Orders of the Mishnah [in Hebrew], ed. Hanoch Albeck ( Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik; and Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1973); for the mishnaic tractates Tithes and Second Tithe, translations are based on the text of Albeck’s edition; and for the Tosefta of these tractates, on The Tosefta, According to Codex Vienna, with Variants from Codex Erfurt, Geniza Mss. and Editio Princeps (Venice 1521) [in Hebrew], ed. Saul Lieberman, 2nd rev. ed., vol. 1 ( Jerusalem: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992). 13 The Tosefta preserves similar phrasing in T Ma‘aserot 1:1.

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a pile, sifting all might mark such a key point, depending on the food. Rabbinic paideia demands this attention to detail, and this strong level of connection between the rabbinic house of study and agricultural processes, from students of the sages: What is their harvesting time for tithes? The cucumbers and the gourds, [the harvesting time for tithes is] from the time that they trim [them]; and if it is not the case that they trim [them, then the harvesting time for tithes is] from the time that they make stand a pile. (M Ma‘aserot 1:5; the Mishnah continues with more specifications.) The dried pomegranates and the raisins, and the carob-pods, [the harvesting time for tithes is] from the time that they make stand a pile. The onions, [the harvesting time for tithes is] from the time that he strips [them for storage], and if it is not the case that he strips [them for storage, the harvesting time for tithes is] from the time that they make stand a pile. The grain, [the harvesting time for tithes is] from the time that he gives a pile an even shape, and if it is not the case that he gives a pile an even shape, [the harvesting time for tithes is] from the time that he makes stand a pile. The pulse [of legumes, perhaps], [the harvesting time for tithes is] from the time that he sifts [them], and if it is not the case that he sifts [them, the harvesting time for tithes is] until he gives a pile an even shape. (M Ma‘aserot 1:6; the Mishnah continues with more specifications) The Mishnah’s concern to cover many or all aspects of food production is evident here, even in this selection from the lists in tractate Tithes 1:5–6. Detailed elaboration of the timing for cucumbers and gourds, dried pomegranates, raisins, carob-pods, onions, grain, and pulse of legumes shows that the legal consideration of food for taxation through tithing takes on the particulars of the agricultural processing of numerous food items. The Mishnah emphasizes the importance to its audience of learning the detailed features of each crop and the procedures of handling the crop between harvest and market, as a prerequisite for being able to address the laws of tithing. The Mishnah here teaches both a concrete standard—each food has a distinct “harvesting time” for tithes marked not by a month in the calendar but by a stage in its handling—and also that the standard

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leads to many variations, which the student of the Mishnah must learn one by one.14 The communal stewardship prescribed in the laws of tithing is elaborated in a strong form in Mishnah tractate Tithes 5:3, where sellers are cautioned to be careful regarding those who are not “trustworthy regarding the tithes”: A person should not sell his fruit from the time that the season of tithes has arrived to one who is not trustworthy regarding the tithes, and not in the Sabbatical year to one who is suspected of [ignoring the laws of] the Sabbatical year, and if they [the fruits] are the first in ripening, he takes the first fruits and sells the remainder. (M Ma‘aserot 5:3) The observance of tithing here becomes a component in transactions regarding food. Those who are observant of mishnaic practice here are encouraged to engage in transaction with others who are similarly observant.15 The opening chapter of tractate Second Tithe in the Mishnah also specifies the language of the Bible to address the range of possible uses one may devote to produce, livestock, and currency. The Book of Deuteronomy emphasizes pilgrimage and eating in a sacred manner before a temple: “you shall eat before YHWH your God,” or “you will pay it in money,” and if you pay it in money, “you will pay the money for anything that is desirable to you . . . and you will eat there before YHWH your God, and you will rejoice” (Deut. 14:22–29). The Mishnah in tractate Second Tithe 1:1 names and prohibits alternative uses that one might consider for the food or money: Second Tithe: One does not sell it, and one does not pledge it, and one does not barter it, and do not weigh [something] in correspondence with it, and a person should not say to his fellow in Jerusalem: “Here is wine, and give me oil,” and thus the

14 Jaffee writes that this list is among those that “are so integral to the redactional plan of the tractate that the very conception of the list appears to go hand in hand with the compilation of the tractate. In such cases, it is clearly impossible to pursue a hypothetical oral history prior to when the transmitted list was deemed to cohere with some larger and more ambitious literary project” (Torah in the Mouth, 106). 15 A discussion of amoraic traditions concerning one who is “trustworthy” regarding tithes, centered on the Palestinian Talmud, JT Ta‘anit 1:4 (64b–c), appears in Schofer, Confronting Vulnerability, 122–125.

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remainder of all the fruit, but they give a free donation one to another. (M Ma‘asar sheni 1:1) The Mishnah emphasizes the importance of the second tithe being a free donation or gift, as the core development of the biblical prescription. The Mishnah is aware of other ways that produce and money might be used, such as sales and barter, and clarifies for its audience that they are not acceptable for this purpose.16 The mishnaic laws regarding tithing, then, in these core formulations circumscribe food production and sales with the prescription that being part of the communal relations of those observing the Mishnah itself, as normative for Jewish practice, entails tithing food grown from the land by persons. Rabbinic students need to learn that tithing must be carried out at the appropriate time, a distinct stage for each food product, in each case. Also, second tithe as a “free donation” is to be protected and separated from ordinary transactions. In this way, the Mishnah defines food to be eaten as food treated within observance of these laws, and generating distinct communal relations, with more implications elaborated in the two tractates.

Complex Cases Regarding Tithing: Examples Centered upon Figs One component of the rabbinic paideia in the laws of tithing is the consideration of cases. These cases might be from real life or might be thought-experiments abstracted from everyday life to convey or clarify a point, and the Mishnah does not clarify which is which. The Mishnah repeatedly sets out formulations of “if . . . then . . .” clauses, and functionally equivalent formulations with variations in wording, to examine situations in which the outcome of its legal prescriptions may need to be named.17 For tithing, Mishnah tractate Tithes shows a repeated consideration of the growth, harvesting, drying, and consuming of figs as an example. I do not know that figs here are to be thought exceptional, but rather perhaps both complex enough in their production, and ordinary enough, that the multiple examples are (pun intended) fruitful. A selection from the Mishnah’s 16 Further discussion of this Mishnah and parallels in the Tosefta appears in Haas, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Agriculture, 15–18. 17 On the Mishnah’s use of cases, and “if . . . then . . .” formulations in the Mishnah, see Elizabeth Shanks Alexander, Transmitting Mishnah: The Shaping Influence of Oral Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 123–49.

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usage of cases from fig production, sales, and consumption reveals the extensive and minute pervasiveness of tithing, and particularly trustworthiness regarding tithing, in the legal framing of one’s own food. A potentially ambiguous situation for tithes might be a person in a market who, whether as a sample of his produce or for some other purpose, offers produce for free. Does a recipient of this free offer have to tithe produce received? The Mishnah might seem overly stringent if the laws emphasize a need to tithe every small and ambiguous bite of food, yet the Mishnah appears to want to address potential loopholes or ambiguities where people might be confused or tempted to manipulate the process: If there were a passer-by in a market, and he said, “Take for yourself figs,” they eat, and they are exempt from obligation. Therefore, if they brought into their houses, they truly make them legally fit [by giving the priestly dues]. (M Ma‘aserot 2:1; the Mishnah continues with another case.) The mishnaic solution to the “passer-by in a market” who offers free figs is to say that observance of the laws of tithing accepts that figs offered freely in the market, whether as a sample or for some other purpose, can be eaten there. If the recipients bring the produce home, though, then tithing is required. Perhaps the point is that a free tasting in the market is part of the overall process of choosing produce and shopping, and the overall process of selling and marketing, but free produce brought home differs and needs to have tithes separated out. A second ambiguous case concerns a buyer who “selects” specific items of produce in the market, in contrast with buying by quantity from the seller without such selection (note that Leviticus 27:30–33, discussed above, emphasizes that one should not “distinguish between good and bad” in giving tithes). A person who purchases produce without selecting his own both can purchase more produce for a given amount of currency, and is exempt from obligation however he consumes the fruit: The one who says to his fellow, “Here is this isar [a unit of currency] for ten figs, that I will select for myself,” he selects, and he eats. [The one who says to his fellow, “Here is this isar] for a cluster of grapes, that I will select for myself,” he picks grapes [from the hanging cluster], and he eats. [The one who says to his fellow, “Here is this isar] for a pomegranate, that I will select for myself,” he splits [the pomegranate], and he eats. [The one who

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says to his fellow, “Here is this isar] for a melon, that I will pick for myself,” he cuts [slices of melons and salts them], and he eats. But if he said to him, [“Here is this isar] for these twenty figs, [or] for these two clusters of grapes, [or] for these two pomegranates, [or] for these two melons,” he eats according to his way, and he is exempt from obligation [regarding tithes], because he acquired what is fixed in the soil. (M Ma‘aserot 2:6) In this case, a person who chooses to “select for myself ” produce purchases only half the amount of someone who does not: one isar purchases ten figs if the buyer selects for himself, or twenty if he does not. In addition, and perhaps more importantly for the Mishnah, the purchaser who buys without selecting for himself “eats according to his way, and he is exempt from obligation” regarding tithes. In other words, the Mishnah adds legal incentive to the recognized financial incentive not to “select” produce but to buy according to quantity. Two other ambiguous cases regarding figs, presented alongside each other at the opening of chapter three of Mishnah tractate Tithes, address the question of eating figs while picking figs in a field, or cutting, drying, and storing them in a courtyard. These passages show again a strong degree that the concerns of communal stewardship and rabbinic paideia, originating in the rabbinic study house, demand extensive consideration of those beyond, including working conditions. If individual persons, or workers hired by a person, or a person’s children, eat figs during harvesting or during their drying and storage, are the figs consumed to be bound by tithes? In part, a principle appears similar to the one used in the two cases concerning the market quoted above: People may eat and be exempt from obligation if they are in the field or courtyard, but are not to take figs home. The Mishnah raises an additional issue, however. If the owner of the field or the courtyard provides workers with meals—in the terms of the Mishnah, if they have meals “on him”—the law sets limits on the food that may be eaten while remaining exempt from tithes: The one who brings figs past his courtyard to cut, dry, and store: his children and the children of his house eat and are exempt from obligation [regarding tithes]; the workers who are with him, in the time that they do not have meals on him, they eat and are exempt from obligation [regarding tithes], but if they have meals on him, behold, these do not eat. (M Ma‘aserot 3:1)18 18 Somewhat similar cases appear in T Ma‘aserot 2:8–9.

Subst itutes for Sacr i f ice, Communit y Steward ship, and R abb inic Paideia

The one who sends out workers to the field, in the time that they do not have meals on him: they eat and are exempt from obligation [regarding tithes]; and if they have meals on him, they eat one by one from the fig tree, but not from the basket, and not from the large vessel, and not from the store of fruits. (M Ma‘aserot 3:2) The field appears to inspire more flexibility regarding eating figs while working than does the courtyard: In the field, even workers who have meals provided by the employer can “eat one by one from the fig tree” without being obligated for tithes. For both field and courtyard, workers who do not have meals provided by the employer “eat” figs during the harvesting “and are exempt from obligation.” The Mishnah’s pedagogical use of cases, and “if . . . then . . .” clauses, appears frequently in tractate Tithes and addresses situations in which loopholes and manipulation of the law might appear. The marketplace might be a place of ambiguity for the laws regarding tithing if “a passer-by” offers food for free, or if a purchaser chooses to pay extra for produce and “selects” for himself the items, picking through the piles and bunches. The field and courtyard, where food is harvested and processed, might raise ambiguity regarding those who want or need to eat while working. The Mishnah could become overbearing if mishnaic law insisted upon tithing every single element, and at the same time, mishnaic law aims to close off potential manipulation by providing reasonably consistent decisions regarding obligations to tithe in specific situations, while also adapting to the particulars of each case.

Conclusion The end of sacrificial practice brought by the destruction of the Second Temple could have brought the end of tithing as well as Jewish consideration of the relevant laws. The Mishnah’s laws of Tithes and Second Tithe, however, elaborate and expand the Pentateuchal prescriptions, but often in directions that might be surprising at first encounter. The Mishnah does not dwell on the holiness of tithes, or what support of the Levites would mean in its own time. The mishnaic law focuses upon what a rabbinic student needs to know and address regarding a Jew who carries out tithing: the labor in harvesting and processing food, the manner of purchasing and selling food in a marketplace, and the relations between food, currency, and the free donations of the second tithe. Communal stewardship means that a student of the sages has to learn the details of crops

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and their production and the basic standards for trustworthiness regarding tithes as a foundation for communal relations themselves. Rabbinic paideia, in these two tractates, addresses labor as well as consumption, pilgrimage as well as everyday life. Pervading all of these concerns is an ongoing attempt to maintain integrity and prevent manipulation of the laws themselves. By specifying Jaffee’s earlier theological considerations of tithing with Fishbane’s concepts of substitutes for sacrifice, communal stewardship, and rabbinic paideia, we can identify the striking forms of cultural continuation and rejuvenation brought by the Mishnah’s laws of tithes.

9

Thinking Gender through Grammar: BT Qiddushin 2a–3b Jane L. Kanarek

Recent scholarship on the formation of early Christianity has revealed grammar as a significant site of cultural construction.1 Likewise, work on the development of the discipline of Arabic grammar has shown the ways in which it became a philosophical and scientific form central to Islamic culture.2 Literary works of tenth- and eleventh-century Jewry, embedded within the Islamic empire and Islamic cultural milieu, evinced a similar interest in the study of Hebrew grammar. Works such as Saadia Gaon’s ’Egron and Kitab Usful al-Shi‘r al-‘Ibrani (The Book of the Roots of Hebrew Poetics) show tenth- to eleventh-century Jews expressing their cultural concerns, Rabbanite and Karaite, through the intellectual domain of grammar.3 The Babylonian Talmud’s interest in grammar has been less examined.

1 Catherine M. Chin, Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). Chin argues that from the fourth to sixth centuries, the rise of formal grammatical study and “the conventions of the discipline of grammar transformed linguistic work into incipient religious practice.” Ibid., 2. 2 See, for example, Mustafa Shah, “Classical Islamic Discourse on the Origins of Language: Cultural Memory and the Defense of Orthodoxy,” Numen 58, no. 2–3 (2011): 314–43, in particular 328–34. Shah points out the ways in which Arabic grammarians participated in the theological debate about the origins of language, whether primordially divine or evolved through common convention. 3 For an overview of Saadia Gaon’s work in linguistics and a bibliography on the ’Egron, see Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New

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Yet, some late Bavli sugyot, often termed saboraic,4 demonstrate a particular interest in structuring its dialectic around linguistic questions. Most prominent among these passages are a series of fully developed and longer sugyot redacted at the beginning of tractates or talmudic chapters.5 Building on and modifying Abraham Weiss’s description of these late sugyot as opening,6 Charlotte Fonrobert has proposed that we should rather view them as “introductory,” that is as framing devices that introduce a tractate’s “conceptual or intellectual underpinnings.”7 This article examines the saboraic sugya first identified by Sherira Gaon, BT Qiddushin 2a–3b, as such a framing device.8 I argue that this sugya’s discussions about grammar are best understood as summarizing and foreshadowing the debates in the first chapter of tractate Qiddushin about betrothal by means of money. Further, I contend that BT Qiddushin utilizes linguistic and grammatical questions as a way of struggling with implicit ethical questions around M Qiddushin 1:1, that is, the ways in which a man’s betrothal of a woman can be compared to the acquisition of a field as well as the extent of, and limits to, female agency. In BT Qiddushin 2a–3b, grammar becomes the cultural medium through which the Bavli inducts us into the tractate and its larger questions about gender and personhood, in this case the nature of male and female and the extent to which a man’s acquisition of a woman as a wife may be compared to the acquisition of a field as property.9

Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 317–27. On grammar as a science among tenth- to sixteenth-century Jews (Rabbanite and Karaite), see Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, “The Science of Language Among Medieval Jews,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, ed. Gad Freudenthal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 359–424. 4 For a summary of the debates surrounding the relationship between the redaction of the Bavli’s anonymous material and the rabbis known as Savoraim, see Richard Kalmin, “The Formation and Character of the Babylonian Talmud,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, ed. Steven T. Katz (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 842. 5 These sugyot include the opening passages of BT Berakhot, Yoma, Ḥagigah Yevamot, Nedarim, Qiddushin, and Me‘ilah. Avraham Weiss, Ha-Yez.irah shel ha-Sabora’im (H.elkam be-Yez.irat ha-Talmud) ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1953), 12. Of these sugyot, BT Berakhot, Yevamot, Nedarim, and Qiddushin most extensively interrogate the language of their respective opening mishnayot. 6 Weiss, Ha-Yez.irah shel ha-Sabora’im, 10. 7 Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, “The Place of Shabbat: On the Architecture of the Opening Sugya of Tractate Eruvin (2a–3a),” in Strength to Strength: Essays in Appreciation of Shaye Cohen, ed. Michael L. Satlow (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2018), 437–39 and 454. 8 B. M. Lewin, ed., Igeret Rav Sherira Gaon ( Jerusalem: Makor, 1971), 71. Although the entire sugya functions as a framing device, this article will only explicate a key section, 2a–2b. I plan to explicate the remainder of the sugya in future articles. 9 In this, I disagree with Yaakov Elman’s argument that saboraic sugyot, “are irrelevant to the halakhic and aggadic processes that characterize the rest of the Bavli” and that this sugya’s

Thinking Gender through Grammar

As Gail Labovitz comments, M Qiddushin 1:1, “not only applies language most commonly used for commercial transactions to the realm of marriage, but also situates the acquisition of a woman as a wife in the context of a series of mishnayot detailing the acquisition of other people and things an Israelite householder may own.”10 Thus, it is not only this mishnah’s choice of the root q.n.y. (acquire) to describe the legal act of betrothal11 that raises questions about personhood but also its topical grouping along with mishnayot that describe, respectively, how one acquires (q.n.y.) Israelite and Canaanite slaves, big and small animals, and moveable and immovable property (M Qiddushin 1:2–5). The inclusion of three mechanisms for acquiring land—money, document, and h.azaqah (presumptive ownership)—may be viewed as mapping onto the three methods for acquiring a woman—money, document, and sexual intercourse— with sexual intercourse and h.azaqah understood as parallel mechanisms of acquisition.12 Although the Bavli does not explicitly make or problematize this comparison between acquisition of a wife and acquisition of land, the comparison and its problematics implicitly run beneath the opening sugya. As analysis of the word derekh does not have halakhic or aggadic implications. Elman flags the literary differences between saboraic sugyot and the rest of the Bavli in order to consider whether these sugyot were produced by or put together for a different cultural world. While I agree that these sugyot are likely a product of a different period than the rest of the Bavli and are useful for investigating the late Babylonian cultural world, I still see their concerns as generated not only by cultural context but also internally by the text of the Bavli itself. In other words, grammar can reflect the cultural world of the sugya’s redactors through the way in which the editor reads the tractate itself. See Yaakov Elman, “The World of the ‘Sabboraim’: Cultural Aspects of Post-Redactional Additions to the Bavli,” in Creation and Composition: The Contribution of the Bavli Redactors (Stammaim) to the Aggada, ed. Jeffrey Rubenstein (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 383–415, esp. 384. 10 Gail Labovitz, Marriage and Metaphor: Constructions of Gender in Rabbinic Literature (Lantham: Lexington Books, 2009), 29–30. On the scholarly division of the first chapter of M Qiddushin into two halves (1:1–6 and 1:7–9), with the first half known as “the chapter of acquisitions” and the second as “the chapter of obligations,” see J. N. Epstein, Introduction to Tannaitic Literature: Mishna, Tosefta and Halakhic Midrashim [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1957), 52–53. See also Natan Margalit, “Priestly Men and Invisible Women: Male Appropriation of the Feminine and the Exemption of Women From Positive Time-Bound Commandments,” AJS Review 28, no. 2 (2004): 306–9; Noam Zohar, Be-Sod ha-Yez.irah shel Sifrut H.azal: Ha’Arikhah ke-Mafteah. le-Mashma‘ut ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007), 18–32. Margalit divides the chapters slightly differently, viewing M Qiddushin 1:6 as the linchpin between the two halves. 11 Rabbinic marriage has two stages. In the first stage erusin or qiddushin (betrothal), the woman is forbidden to have sexual relations with all men, including her husband. The second stage, nisu’in (marriage), permits the couple, inter alia, to have sexual intercourse with one another. 12 As the methods for acquiring a Canaanite slave are identical to those for acquiring land, it is also possible to draw a parallel between the acquisition/betrothal of a woman and the acquisition/purchase of a slave. However, since BT Qiddushin does not explicitly or implicitly draw this parallel, I have not highlighted it.

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the Bavli interrogates M Qiddushin 1:1’s language, it proposes possibilities for female agency that undercut—but do not overturn—the comparison between betrothal and land acquisition. As we will see, a man’s betrothal of a woman is both like and not like purchasing a field.13

Subjects, Verbs, and Nouns: Is a Woman Like a Field? Analytical questions about subjects, verbs, and nouns structure this sugya’s interrogation of M Qiddushin 1:1. These questions are the mode through which this sugya’s redactors instruct us how to conceptualize M Qiddushin 1:1 and, in addition, they preview how the redactors conceptualize the Bavli sugyot to come. The first part of this opening sugya examines verb and subject (q.n.y. and ’ishah), and the latter nouns (shalosh [“three”] and derekh [“ways”]).14 The former focuses on the betrothal/field equation, while the latter, on the nature of male and female (although, of course, these two are intertwined with one another).15 Both explicate the first clause of this mishnah: “A woman is acquired in three ways (ha'ishah niknet be-shalosh derakhim).” Through the Bavli’s assumption that mishnaic language-choice is not happenstance but intentional, it simultaneously connects a man’s betrothal of a woman to commercial

13 Gail Labovitz’s work on marriage and metaphor has been key to my conceptualization of this point. Drawing on the theoretical work of Paul Ricoeur, George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson, Labovitz writes, “Repeatedly, creatively, and fully in keeping with the cognitive importance of metaphor, the rabbis construct a woman wife who is not, and yet is (like) property.” Labovitz, Marriage and Metaphor, 251. 14 MS Kaufmann: sheloshah; MS Parma: shalosh. The editors of this opening sugya clearly do not have the version of MS Kaufmann. I have used the terminology “latter” instead of end because the latter part of the sugya can be divided into multiple subunits. 15 The sugya also implicitly recognizes the limits of the male-female binary through using the noun derekh to interrogate the etrog and the koi, where their hybridity straddles categories of, respectively, trees and vegetables and wild animals and domesticated animals. Building on the fact that the central discussion of the androgyne in early rabbinic literature (T Bikkurim 2:1–2) pairs the androgyne with the koi and that the first chapter of M Qiddushin situates the male acquisition of animals in the context of the acquisition of women and slaves, Max Strassfeld convincingly argues that “the figure of the hybrid animal perches precisely on these interstices [of domestication as a mode of acquisition that is also gendered and sexualized].” Max K. Strassfeld, Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature (Oakland: University of California Press, 2022), 71. Although Strassfeld does not discuss this portion of the Qiddushin sugya in his discussion of the koi, his work lays the foundation for further interrogation of this portion of the sugya. On the koi and the androgyne, see ibid., 55–88. On the rabbinic deconstruction of boundaries, see Sarra Lev, “Inside/Outside: The Rabbinic Negotiation of Binaries. BT Me‘ilah 15b–16a,” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues 28 (2015): 106–19.

Thinking Gender through Grammar

transactions and problematizes that connection. Thus, BT Qiddushin 2a begins by posing a question about language, one whose answer links betrothal to other commercial transactions: 1A. A woman is acquired (ha’ishah niknet).16 1B. What difference does it make here that it [M Qiddushin 1:1] teaches, “a woman is acquired (ha’ishah niknet),” and that there it [M Qiddushin 2:1] teaches, “a man sanctifies/makes holy (ha’ish mekadesh)?”17 1C. Because it wants to teach, “money.”18 As M Qiddushin had two different verbs available to it, both of which refer to betrothal (q.n.y. and q.d.sh.), its choice of one over the other (q.n.y. instead of q.d.sh.) foregrounds money (or a monetary equivalent) thus highlighting the similarity between betrothal and other commercial acquisitions rather than between betrothal and holiness. While the Bavli’s opening question about verb choice connected betrothal with other commercial transactions, its next question about biblical prooftexts links betrothal to a specific type of commercial transaction, the purchase of a field. As in the previous section, the sugya’s use of the hermeneutical technique of gezerah shavah (connecting multiple verses through the appearance of a common word or phrase) should also be understood through the lens of grammar.19 Indeed, Saul Lieberman compared the rabbinic gezerah shavah to a technical term used by Greek rhetors, syncrisis.20 In presenting two different scriptural possibilities for the mishnah’s ruling, the first from the story of the patriarch Abraham’s purchase of a burial place for his wife Sarah and the second from the prophet Jeremiah’s messianic vision of Israel’s return to their land,

16 As is common in Hebrew of all periods, M Qiddushin 1:1 uses the noun with the definite article to refer to a general category. In keeping with English conventions to indicate a general category, I have translated ha-ishah as “a woman.” 17 The translation of q.d.sh. as “sanctify” is meant both to distinguish this root from the root q.n.y. as well as to indicate its connection with the larger concept of sanctification/holiness within rabbinic culture. 18 My translation follows the printed Vilna edition. Relevant manuscript differences are in the notes. MS Vatican 111: “because it wants to teach the final clause (seifa’), ‘money.’” 19 On the gezerah shavah, see Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine; Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1994), 58–62; Azzan YadinIsrael, Scripture as Logos: Rabbi Ishmael and the Origins of Midrash (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 82–3. 20 Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine, 59.

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the Bavli renders explicit the implicit comparison that M Qiddushin 1:1 draws between a man’s betrothal of a woman and a man’s purchase of a field. 2A. And money, from where is our [prooftext]?21 2B. It is derived from a comparison of the words, “taking (qih.ah),” “taking (qih.ah)” from the field of Ephron. 2C. It is written here: “When a man takes a woman (ki yiqah. ’ish ’ishah)” (Deuteronomy 24:1), and it is written there, “I gave the money for the field, take it from me (natati qesef ha-sadeh qah. mimeni)” (Genesis 23:13). And “taking” is called “acquisition”22 as it is written, “The field that Abraham acquired (ha-sadeh asher qanah avraham)” (Genesis 25:10). 2D. Or alternatively, “Fields will be acquired with money (sadot ba-qesef yiqnu)” ( Jeremiah 32:44). 2E. [Therefore] it [M Qiddushin 1:1] teaches a woman is acquired. The former [2B–2C] connects Deuteronomy 24:1, a central biblical verse for rabbinic marriage law, with Abraham’s stated desire to purchase the field of Makhpelah with money (Genesis 23:13), to his eventual acquisition of that field (Genesis 25:10).23 The latter tradition [2D] cites only one verse, Jeremiah 32:44, a verse clearly stating that money acquires, and that money acquires fields.24 Although both exegetical traditions connect betrothal with the purchase of fields, they do so in different ways. The Abraham tradition does so in the context of marriage (albeit after Sarah’s death). That is, the Genesis verses may be understood

21 For a detailed discussion of the cultural significance of the phrase “From where is this derived” and its variations, see Jay M. Harris, How Do We Know This?: Midrash and the Fragmentation of Modern Judaism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). 22 MS Vatican 111: “and that ‘taking’ is called qinyan, from where do we derive this (menalan)?” 23 The Bavli builds the gezerah shavah through first connecting the root y.q.h. in Deuteronomy 24:1 with its appearance in Genesis 23:13, a verse that also utilizes the words “money” (qesef) and “field” (sadeh). The third verse, Genesis 25:10, retells Abraham’s purchase of the cave, similarly utilizing the word “field” and describing the transaction with the root q.n.y. This final stage enables the equation of acquisition with “taking,” money, and marriage. Rashi (s.v. mishum de-qebaye and ve-qesef minalan) implicitly recognizes that this gezerah shavah is a later construction, drawing its component parts from BT Qiddushin 3b and 4b. 24 The language of the Bavli is ambiguous as to whether Jeremiah 32:44 is meant to stand independently (perhaps in connection with Deuteronomy 24:1) or as an alternative to Genesis 25:10, the last verse in the original three-stage gezerah shavah. Tosafot (s.v. i nami sadot ba-qesef yiqnu) implies the latter reading. I lean towards the former. First, BT Qiddushin 26a cites the Amora H. izkiyah as quoting Jeremiah 32:44 as a prooftext for the purchase of land with money. Second, the two Genesis verses comprise one narrative unit and the Jeremiah verse a separate one.

Thinking Gender through Grammar

not only as justifying betrothal through money, but also as connecting that legal procedure to the foundational narrative of the first Jewish marriage between the first two Jews (Abraham and Sarah). The Jeremiah verse, on the other hand, while similarly used to justify betrothal through money, is instead part of a larger national narrative of betrayal and return. While such a narrative may be understood in the context of the prophetic paradigm of Israel’s troubled marriage to God,25 the chosen verse nevertheless does not clearly reference marriage. Instead, in connecting the purchase of fields directly to money, it renders a man’s betrothal of a woman as identical to a man’s purchase of a field.26 Indeed, BT Qiddushin 26a cites this same verse from Jeremiah as a prooftext for the acquisition of land through money.27 The next section of this sugya moves away from the field and stresses the woman’s similarity to another type of property: heqdesh (property dedicated to the Temple/God whose use is forbidden except for its designated purpose). Again, interrogating verbs, the Bavli explains the use of the root q.n.y. in M Qiddushin 1:1 and the use of the root q.d.sh. in M Qiddushin 2:1—both of which indicate betrothal—as not quite synonymous: 3A. But let it teach there [M Qiddushin 2:1], “The man acquires!” 3B. At the outset it [M Qiddushin 1:1] teaches biblical language, and finally it [M Qiddushin 2:1] teaches rabbinic language. 3C. What is rabbinic language? 3D. That he forbids her to everyone like property that is dedicated to the Temple (heqdesh). Q.n.y. reflects biblical usage, while q.d.sh. rabbinic. On the one hand, scholars (and rabbis) have argued that the Mishnah’s use of the root q.d.sh. elevates a woman’s betrothal to a “holy” act. On the other hand, as scholars (and rabbis) have also noted, the comparison of betrothal to heqdesh frames the husband as

25 See Michael A. Fishbane, “Accusations of Adultery: A Study of Law and Scribal Practice in Numbers 5:11–31,” Hebrew Union College Annual 45 (1974): 39–45. 26 Although women can own land under rabbinic law, in this sugya the parallel is between male owners. 27 Compare BT Qiddushin 9a, where this verse is used to distinguish the way in which a document affects acquisition in commercial transactions (the seller writes the document) versus in qiddushin transactions (the purchaser/husband writes the document). See also BT Bava Batra 28b and 160a–b. The former cites Jeremiah 32:44 as part of a proof that the establishment of presumptive ownership of land requires three years of residency on that land. The latter cites Jeremiah 32:44 as proof for two different types of written legal documents (get pashut and get mekushar). BT Gittin 36a cites the second half of Jeremiah 32:44 (“and deeds written and sealed”) as part of a discussion about the necessity of witnesses to sign a divorce document.

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God and the woman, once again, as passive property.28 Although I lean towards the second explanation, what is most essential here for my argument is that the Bavli makes its point through grammar and, specifically, through an analysis of verbs. In contrast, when the Bavli analyses the mishnah’s use of the woman as grammatical subject, it begins to undercut the way in which it has positioned her as a largely passive object to be acquired, much like a field. Much as the man is the subject of M Qiddushin 2:1 (ha’ish meqadesh), the Bavli proposes—and then rejects—the idea that he may similarly be at the beginning of M Qiddushin 1:1: 4A. But let it teach here [M Qiddushin 1:1], “The man acquires!” 4B. [M Qiddushin 1:1 does not do so] because it wants to teach the final clause [of M Qiddushin 1:1], “And she acquires herself (qonah et ‘az.mah)”29—by herself, [and therefore] it also teaches the first clause [of M Qiddushin 1:1] by herself [that is, with the woman as the subject]. The final clause of M Qiddushin 1:1 mentions two ways through which a woman may exit a marriage, divorce document or death of her husband. In the words of the mishnah, “she acquires herself,” and, according to the Bavli, this act of subjectivity drives M Qiddushin 1:1’s decision to make the woman the subject in its opening phrase. Additionally, while the next section of the sugya ostensibly proposes a way in which this mishnah might have inscribed the male as subject, the Bavli’s answer not only reinforces the woman’s subjectivity but adds an element unmentioned in M Qiddushin 1:1, that is the necessity of a woman’s consent for a betrothal to be legally valid. 5A. But let it [M Qiddushin 1:1] teach, “The man acquires and causes her to acquire!” 5B. [M Qiddushin 1:1 does not do so] because there is [the case of] the death of the husband where he does not cause acquisition. From the heavens it is that she acquires herself.

28 See the extensive discussion of this section of the sugya, including previous scholarship, in Labovitz, Marriage and Metaphor, 63–95. 29 MS Munich 95, Oxford Opp. 248 (367), Vatican 111 do not include the clause “and she acquires herself.” Like the Vilna edition, the Venice print (1520) does include this clarifying phrase.

Thinking Gender through Grammar

5C. And if you want, say: If [the mishnah] had taught,30 “he acquires,” I would have said even against her will. [Therefore] it [M Qiddushin 1:1] teaches, “a woman is acquired [to indicate] that with her consent—yes [she is acquired]; without her consent—no [she is not acquired]. The Bavli’s first answer [5B] emphasizes the way in which the man is not consistently the agent when it comes to a woman’s exiting a marriage. If she exits due to his death, her acquisition of herself should be attributed to heaven. The second answer, though, reads the Mishnah’s language to teach a more extensive principle: M Qiddushin 1:1 chooses to state the woman as subject in order to instruct us about a particular detail of betrothal law, the necessity for a woman’s consent.31 This point in the sugya marks the conclusion of the Bavli’s analysis of the first two words of M Qiddushin 1:1. Through its assumption of the Mishnah’s conscious word choice, the Bavli has simultaneously made explicit this mishnah’s linking of betrothal with land purchase and contested the female passivity this implies. Indeed, a man’s betrothal of a woman is done with money much as he would purchase a field; yet, unlike a field, she may refuse that betrothal. Of course, the question of whether a woman possessed the agency or ability to reject betrothal is complex, particularly within the Bavli’s ancient context.32 However, the Bavli does imagine the possibility of her refusal and even instantiate it in later sugyot. For example, BT Qiddushin 8b imagines a woman rejecting betrothal by throwing the betrothal object into an ocean or a fire or instructing the man to give it to a dog or a poor person.33 BT Qiddushin 11a declares that 30 MS Munich 95, Oxford Opp. 248 (367): “concerning qiddushin.” 31 It is possible that these two answers, the first that deemphasizes female agency (she exits the marriage only due to the husband’s death) and the second that emphasizes female agency (her consent) are connected to the two exegetical possibilities the Bavli offers as prooftexts for betrothal by money. The prooftext that utilizes Jeremiah 32:44 and emphasizes the similarity of betrothal to purchase of a field would correspond to the first answer; the prooftext that utilizes the Genesis verses and contextualizes betrothal law within Abraham’s and Sarah’s marriage would correspond with the second answer. 32 From our contemporary vantage point, it may appear obvious that ancient women did not have the agency to reject betrothal. Yet, accepting that perspective too quickly runs the risk of whitewashing the differences between past and present patriarchal societies. For the moment, I wish to leave the historical question unanswered and encounter those sugyot that do imagine female agency. 33 The sugya is composed of a series of baraitot, which the anonymous editorial voice interrogates. Only two of the six baraitot are found in the Tosefta (T Qiddushin 2:8), leading me to believe that the others are likely creations of the Bavli. See also BT Qiddushin 13a where the Bavli again proposes that a woman’s throwing away an object indicates her refusal of betrothal.

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the daughters of R. Yannai would only betroth themselves for a large amount of money (a tarqevah of dinar coins). Equally striking are those sugyot that depict women as consumers and owners in commercial transactions. Rather than being acquired like a field, the Bavli portrays these women attempting to acquire objects themselves or to sell objects to other people. BT Qiddushin 9a presents us with three short amoraic vignettes in which a woman tries to acquire, respectively, a necklace, a cup of wine, and two dates and to whom a man presents an offer of betrothal in exchange for giving her the object. Although in each case the Bavli’s editorial voice rules that the woman is not betrothed, effectively eliding whether the woman wants to accept betrothal from this man in return for the requested object, these vignettes nevertheless undercut overly simplistic comparisons of women to fields.34 Instead of being acquired by a man, these three women attempt to acquire other material objects; they are consumers who ask for what they want.35 Yet another amoraic vignette on BT Qiddushin 13a depicts a woman as a merchant who sells belts. When a man snatches one of these belts from her, she demands it back. And when he refuses to return it unless she becomes betrothed to him, she takes back the belt without speaking. Rav Nahman’s justification for his ruling that this woman is not betrothed recognizes her status as property owner. The woman might have said to the man, “Yes, I took it, and I took my [property].” Like the short stories on BT Qiddushin 9a, we cannot ascertain with certainty the meaning of this woman’s silence (although it is likely that she means to refuse the betrothal offer).36 This moment of legal ventriloquism, an instance of “male commentators voicing the thoughts of ‘women,’”37 has replaced the woman’s action with male legal decision. Nevertheless, this portrait of a merchant-woman who sells, speaks, and takes back what is hers, is quite different from what the Mishnah might have led us to expect. Not only are these two sugyot consonant with the introductory sugya’s ruling that betrothal 34 On the elision of women’s desires by rabbinic authority and their resistance to that elision in the case of menstrual blood, see Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity: Rabbinic and Christian Reconstructions of Biblical Gender (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 103–27. 35 For a fuller reading of this sugya see my article, Jane L. Kanarek, “A Woman Walks Into a Bar: Betrothal Stories in Bavli Kiddushin,” in H . iddushim: Celebrating Hebrew College’s Centennial, ed. Michael Fishbane, Arthur Green, and Jonathan D. Sarna (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2022), 157–69. 36 Indeed, the continuation of this sugya goes on to interrogate the meaning of her silence, which can be read to reinscribe her lack of agency. 37 I  borrow the phrase “legal ventriloquism” from Aryeh Cohen. See Aryeh Cohen, “This Patriarchy Which is Not One: The Ideology of Marriage in Rashi and Tosafot,” Hebrew Union College Annual 70 (1999): 127.

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necessitates a woman’s consent38 but, in addition, through their portrayal of women as people who acquire and cause others to acquire, they function as countertraditions to the metaphor of woman as field.39

The Making of Woman and Man through Grammar The Bavli’s rendering of the legal success of male betrothal dependent on the woman’s consent complicates the distinction between male role and female. Yet, as the opening sugya blurs this particular binary, it simultaneously uses grammar to construct the nature of male and female as essentially different, a process that we may understand as an attempt to contain those sugyot that open a possibility for (some) female agency in betrothal law. Through interrogating M Qiddushin 1:1’s use of both the feminine form of the noun “three” rather than the masculine (shalosh vs. sheloshah) and the noun “way” rather than the noun “matter” (derekh vs. davar), the Bavli essentializes what it means to be male or female. Again, the Bavli ascribes intentionality to the mishnah’s word-choice. The Mishnah utilizes the feminine form for three rather than the masculine to accord with same phrase’s use of the grammatically feminine word “way”: 6A. And why did the tanna single out and teach, “three (shalosh; feminine)” [in M Qiddushin 1:1]?! 6B. Let it teach, “three (sheloshah; masculine)”!

38 For other sugyot that point towards a woman’s subjectivity, see, for example, BT Qiddushin 5b and 6a. BT Qiddushin 5b cites a toseftan baraita (T Qiddushin 1:1) declaring that, in order the woman to be betrothed, a man must both give the woman the money (or its equivalent) and say specific words that indicate betrothal. If a woman gives the money (or its equivalent) and speaks, she is not betrothed. In its analysis of the baraita, the Bavli presents the possibility that if the man were to give the object and the woman speak, she might perhaps be betrothed (sefeka’ hi ve-h.ayashinan mide-rabanan). The possibility of a woman’s speech, and thus her greater subjectivity, effecting qiddushin does not appear in the Mishnah or in the Tosefta and is the Bavli’s innovation. BT Qiddushin 6a examines a range of possible languages that a man may utilize (along with giving money or its equivalent) to effect qiddushin. As it analyzes these languages, it makes clear that the woman must understand that the context in which the man states these languages is one of betrothal. In addition, the language must clearly indicate the man’s intention of betrothal (rather than hiring the woman as a laborer). 39 On the idea of the counter-tradition in biblical texts, that is, the desire to give voice to antipatriarchal elements in the text, see Ilana Pardes, Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 144.

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6C. Because it wanted to teach, “way (derekh),” and we find that “ways” is grammatically feminine, as it is written, “And you shall make known to them the way that they shall go” (’et ha-derekh yelekhu vah)” (Exodus 18:20). In substantiating this claim with a biblical prooftext where the word “way” appears in its feminine form the Bavli grounds mishnaic grammar in its foundational text. Of course, in biblical Hebrew, as in mishnaic, certain words may appear in either masculine or feminine form,40 a fact that the Bavli recognizes through offering a counter-prooftext in which the word “way” appears in its masculine form: “In one way (derekh eh.ad) they will go out before you and in seven ways (shivah derakhim) they will flee before you” (Deuteronomy 28:7). The Bavli’s resolution of the contradiction between these two verses turns on gendering Torah as feminine and war as masculine: 7A. The verses are not difficult for one another. 7B. Here [Exodus 18:20] is referring to the Torah, and the Torah is described in feminine grammar.41 As it is written, “The teaching (torah) of God is perfect (temimah), renewing life” (Psalms 19:8). Therefore, it [Exodus 18:20] wrote it [“way”] with feminine grammar. 7C. There [Deuteronomy 28:7] is referring to war. Since the way of a man is to make war and it is not the way of a woman to make war, it [Deuteronomy 28:7] wrote it [“way”] using masculine grammar. Exodus 18:20 and Deuteronomy 28:7 gender “way” as, respectively, female and male to instruct its readers about two central cultural components, Torah and war. The Bavli’s conceptualization of Torah, an entity to be studied and transmitted primarily by men,42 as female is not unique. Yet through grounding

40 In citing M Zavim 2:2, this portion of the sugya additionally points to the use of derekh as masculine in rabbinic Hebrew. The Bavli resolves the contradiction between the female derekh in M Qiddushin 1:1 and masculine derekh in M Zavim 2:2 through differentiating between legal applicability. M Qiddushin refers to a woman’s acquisition, and therefore it genders “ways” as feminine. M Zavim 2:2 refers to a man’s being checked to ascertain why he had an untimely seminal emission, and therefore it genders “ways” as masculine. In other words, subjectivity determines grammar. 41 MS Oxford Opp. 248 (367): “masculine feminine grammar” (lashon zakhar neqevah). 42 Of course, the study and transmission of Torah was not the sole provenance of men. As feminist scholarship has demonstrated, women also shaped rabbinic culture through the

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the mishnah’s use of the feminine “way” in Torah study, the Bavli parallels male acquisition of a woman to male acquisition of Torah. War, however, is an action done by men to and with other men.43 In this opening sugya, grammar is meant to instruct us about the ways in which male and female are intertwined with the compositional fabric of the universe. Indeed, as the sugya continues to interrogate M Qiddushin’s use of the word “way,” proposing that it might have instead chosen to use the word “matter” (davar),44 it returns to the creation story and the Torah’s first marriage: 8A. And if you want, say: this [mishnah] is according to whom? 8B. It is R. Shimon, as it is taught in a baraita: R. Shimon says, Why does the Torah say, “When a man takes a woman” (Deuteronomy 24:1) and does not say, “When a woman is taken to a man?”45 Because it is the way of a man to search after a woman and it is not the way of a woman to search after a man. A parable: A man who lost an object, who searches for whom? The owner of the lost object searches after his object. Through explaining that the mishnah’s use of the word “way” reflects the opinion of R. Shimon and in citing a baraita in his name, this Bavli sugya makes explicit an ideology of marriage as due to male initiative. That is, “a woman is acquired” only because a man chooses to betroth (or acquire) her. Further, in accord with Rashi, we may understand the parable of a man searching after a lost object as alluding to the tale of the creation of the first woman from Adam’s rib.46 As other Bavli tractates articulate the principle “more than a man wants to marry,

transmission and reception of Torah. The bibliography is extensive. For one recent example, see Sarit Kattan Gribetz, “Consuming Texts: Women as Recipients and Transmitters of Ancient Texts,” in Rethinking “Authority” in Late Antiquity: Authorship, Law, and Transmission in Jewish and Christian Tradition, ed. A. J. Berkovitz and Mark Letteney (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), 178–206. 43 On the rabbinic replacement of physical war with the war of Torah study as crucial to rabbinic constructions of masculinity, see Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 127–50. 44 The sugya’s interrogation of the use of derekh rather than davar also results in the idea that marriage’s purpose is licit sexual intercourse, a section of the sugya I do not analyze in this article. On the sexual contract, patriarchy, and marriage, see Cohen, “Patriarchy Which is Not One,” 120–21. For an analysis of Rashi and Tosafot’s differing explications of the conclusion of the saboraic sugya, see ibid., 124–27. 45 MS Vatican 111 does not include the words: “and does not say, “When a woman is taken to a man?” 46 See Rashi, s.v. ‘aveidah.

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a woman wants to be married,”47 we should not take this ideology for granted. Here, grammatical analysis results in a declaration that, through marriage, a man acquires what was always his and that it is his natural “way” to do so.48

Conclusion This article has argued that we should view the analysis of mishnaic grammar in which the opening sugya of BT Qiddushin engages not as happenstance but as yet another way that the Bavli constructs its cultural universe. Through the mechanism of grammar, this saboraic sugya both contests the mishnah’s implicit comparison between a man’s betrothal of a woman and his purchase of land while simultaneously reinscribing male authority over female. In the process, befitting its later composition, this opening sugya foreshadows other sugyot in the first chapter of BT Qiddushin. The close reading of biblical and midrashic language to obtain a window into biblical and rabbinic cultures is a hallmark of Michael Fishbane’s teaching and scholarship. My hope is that this article can foster a similar conversation about the Bavli’s opening sugyot and the role of grammar in constructing talmudic culture.

47 BT Gittin 49b, Ketubot 86a, Yevamot 113a. On this phrase and its interpretation by Rashi and Tosafot, see Cohen, “Patriarchy Which is Not One,” 111–15. 48 The parable likely also alludes to the laws concerning lost objects. See, for example, M Bava Mez.ia 2:1–11.

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Exegetical Palimpsests: The Eros and Mythos of Poetic Intertextuality Laura S. Lieber

The words we read and words we write never say exactly what we mean. The people we love are never just as we desire them. The two symbola never perfectly match. Eros is in between. —Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet

The Torah ranks among the most quoted, and quotable, works of world literature—so much so that writings descended from and indebted to the Torah continually reinscribe and redivinize scriptural words, whether through quotation, allusion, adaptation, or even subversion. This process of interpretation is, as Michael Fishbane has noted, how biblical religion renews itself.1 Scripture is not only read, but reread and recontextualized, and it thus accrues an everexpanding and continually deepening potentiality of resonances. Words, read in one context, can be lifted up and embedded in new frames; at such moments, they not only acquire new meanings but carry with them the overdetermined significance of earlier understandings. Old interpretations are not discarded but layered within, and whether they remain latent or become activated depends as much on the reader or hearer as any individual writer.

1 Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 19.

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Since the 1980s, intertextuality—the use of scripture to explicate scripture— has been recognized as a definitive characteristic of rabbinic exegesis and the classical Jewish exegetical imagination. Phrases unlock other phrases, and sacred words encode within themselves new revelations; new insights manifest not in the form of heavenly voices but through bold readings of words already given. The rabbis signaled their own amazement with statements such as, “If it is possible to say such a thing” (kivyakhol) and “had it not been written, it could not be said!” (ilmalei katuv i-efshar le’omero).2 Midrash came to be seen as a quintessentially intertextual mode of interpretation, one with roots firmly within the biblical text itself. Scripture reads itself, and in turn that shapes how Scripture is read. And yet, the simplicity of scriptural chemistry—the reaction of reading two verses against each other, to observe what insight sparks forth— belies its subtlety. Intertextuality not only functions in varied ways in different genres (poetry and prose), themselves composed for diverse settings (homilies and liturgies); intertextuality can clarify, or it can obscure, even as it can dispel mysteries or reveal them. Midrash remains the most familiar form of rabbinic biblical exegesis, and the rabbis reflect most fully on their own interpretive project in the context of aggadic writings—using key words and phrases to indicate how, precisely, they are reading.3 In this essay, however, I wish to call attention to a different locus of rabbinic intertextuality: liturgical poetry (piyyut). Where midrashic exegetes walk their readers through their interpretive process and articulate their interpretation, liturgical poets work in a fashion that resembles the creation of mosaics as much as it does the explication of text. Poets lift words and phrases from scripture, chosen as much for their form and their sound as their meaning,

2 On the first locution and its theological-exegetical significance, see Michael Fishbane, “Appendix Two: The Term kivyakhol and Its Uses,” in his Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 325–404; on the second, see Moshe Halbertal, “If the Text Had Not Been Written, It Could Not be Said,” trans. R. Neis and P. Bessemer, in Scriptural Exegesis: The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination: Essays in Honour of Michael Fishbane, ed. Deborah A. Green and Laura S. Lieber (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 146–62. 3 Among the most enduring and formative modern works examining the role of intertextuality as a generative literary phenomenon in rabbinic literature are Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel; Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990); and Steven Fraade, From Tradition to Commentary: Torah and Its Interpretation in the Midrash Sifre to Deuteronomy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991). More recently, see Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg, The Lost Torah: How the Rabbis Solved their Problem with the Bible (Princeton: Princeton University Press, forthcoming 2023).

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and embed them in a new context; like tesserae in synagogue mosaics, the words sparkle as much as they speak.

It Is Not in Heaven In order to examine some of the functions and aesthetics of intertextuality in classical Jewish hymnography, it will be useful to focus on a single composition, one that embellishes a passage with its own distinct intertextual history. In this case, I have chosen a poem by the eighth-century CE poet known as Yehudah, composed for the Sabbath when the Torah reading began with Deuteronomy 30:11. I chose this poem because the lectionary verses that are quoted (Deut. 30:11–12) are themselves famous for their aggadic significance, as the words used by the sages to argue against granting halakhic authority to a heavenly voice in the episode known as “the Oven of Aknai” (BT Bava Mez.ia, 59b; see also JT Mo‘ed Qatan 3:1, 81c–d). The talmudic narrative, in which the sages disregard a series of miracles and, ultimately, a divine voice, in their vote against a colleague (Rabbi Eliezer) concerning the suitability of a specific style of oven construction, depicts the rabbis as quoting Scripture—Deuteronomy 30:12 and, subsequently, Exodus 23:2—in their denial of the authority of what would functionally be a new revelation.4 For all its philosophical and theological complexity, this rabbinic legend clearly articulates the primacy of scripture—its words constitute the rules by which even the deity must abide—even as it offers boldly subversive exegesis in its manipulation of the quotation from Exodus 23:2, presented as if it said “After the majority must you incline” when the verse, in context, states the opposite.5 The quotation from Deuteronomy 30:12—“it

4 For analyses of the Oven of Aknai story, see, among other works, Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 34–63; Moshe Simon-Shoshan, “The Oven of Hakhinai: The Yerushalmi’s Accounts of the Banning of R. Eliezer,” Journal of Jewish Studies 71, no. 1 (2020): 25–52; Tzvi Novick, “A Lot of Learning Is a Dangerous Thing: On the Structure of Rabbinic Expertise in the Bavli,” HUCA 78 (2007): 91–107; Gabriel Levy, “Rabbinic Philosophy of Language: Not in Heaven,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 18, no. 2 (2010): 167–202; Menachem Fisch, “Deciding by Argument versus Proving by Miracle: The Myth-History of Talmudic Judaism’s Coming of Age,” Toronto Journal of Theology 33, no. 1 (2017): 103–27; Devora Baum, “Textuality,” in The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Jewish Cultures, ed. Laurence Roth and Nadia Valman (London: Routledge, 2014), 139–50. 5 Exodus 23:2 states, “You shall not incline after the majority to do evil.” The rabbis here implicitly read it with an addendum, as if it continued, “. . . but You shall incline after the majority to do good.” For this interpretation, see Mekhilta Kaspa 2 (H-R, 323). As David Kraemer notes, this verse in the talmudic context is read “out of context and in patent disregard

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[the Torah] is not in the heavens”—affirms the authority of human interpreters of the text, even when human understandings of scripture seem to run counter to the divine Author’s intent. Communal wisdom trumps individual insight. When God gave the Torah to humans, God ceded the power of creating meaning to them, as well. Scripture is here read against its predominant grain in order to construct a streamlined exegetical process. The account of the Oven of Aknai does not appear outside the Talmud in the classical rabbinic literary corpus, poetry or prose; nor does the talmudic reading of Deuteronomy 30:11–12 occur elsewhere with that specific understanding of exegetical authority being invested in the human community of interpretation. The poet known as Yehudah, however, touches on related themes in his qedushta for Deuteronomy 30:11; in this composition, he holds in tension the ideas about revelation implicit in the talmudic account, that the Torah is both accessible and remote, understandable and obscure.6 In general, the qedushta’ot of Yehudah employ more citations from scripture than those of his predecessor, Yannai; in addition to the typical intertextuality of piyyutim, Yehudah’s works can often by identified through their distinctive use of quotation at the end of every stanza (as well as his signature, embedded as an acrostic in the third unit).7 An examination of this specific qedushta serves to illustrate the variety of intertextualities, and interpretations, that render piyyutim in general such an aesthetically rich and intellectually creative art form—entrancing works of literary accomplishment as well as scholarly learning.

Eros of Ambivalence Yehudah’s qedushta embellishing the Torah portion that begins with Deuteronomy 30:11 focuses, at least initially, on the nature of Torah and its

of its simple meaning” (The Mind of the Talmud: An Intellectual History of the Bavli [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990], 122). 6 A qedushta is a poem that embellishes the first three benedictions of the Sabbath or Festival Amidah: the Avot blessing (praising the God of the ancestors), the Gevurot blessing (praising God’s power, as demonstrated through His power to grant life even to the dead), and the Qedushah (praising God for God’s holiness, as attested to by the angels in Isaiah 6:3 and Ezekiel 3:12). The name qedushta derives from the piyyut’s focus on the third blessing. 7 As Wout van Bekkum notes, “Yehudah follows the conventions of the classical model [of the qedushta], but adds his personal characteristics in strophic patterns and in acrostics, in fixed opening words and most of all in the use of scriptural verse conclusions for every strophe . . .” (“The Qedushta’ot of Yehudah according to Genizah Manuscripts,” PhD diss. [University of Groningen, Groningen, 1988], 56).

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accessibility.8 And yet, through a network of intertextual references, Yehudah subtly complicates and eventually explicitly subverts this simple reading of the lemma. A linear analysis of the composition, which replicates the experience of hearing the composition in real time in the synagogue, will demonstrate this thematic-exegetic arc and its implicit, ultimately generative tensions. It does so in part by exploiting the experience of unresolved desire of eros: the promise of understanding the Torah is tantalizingly close but never consummated.

The Poem’s Prologue: Unit One The first unit of the poem, which introduces the first verse of the Torah reading (Deut. 30:11) and concludes with the first blessing of the Amidah (“. . . shield [magen] of Abraham”), foregrounds these generative tensions.9 I  present a

8 Yehudah’s community read the Torah according to the so-called triennial calendar, in which the complete Torah was read, in order, over the course of three to three and a half years; this is distinct from the Babylonian annual calendar, which is now universally in use. E. Fleischer has argued that the triennial cycle supplanted a native Palestinian annual lectionary; see his articles “Inquiries Concerning the Triennial Cycle of Torah Reading in Eretz Yisrael” [in Hebrew], HUCA 62 (1991): 43–61; and “The Annual and Triennial Torah Reading Cycles in the Early Synagogue” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 61, no. 1 (2003): 25–43. Fleischer’s argument was provocative. Indeed, Fleischer and Shlomo Naeh engaged in a running dispute in the pages of Tarbiz; see S. Naeh, “The Torah Reading Cycle” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 61, no. 2 (2003): 167–87; and “On the Septennial Cycle of the Torah Reading in Early Palestine” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 74, no. 1 (2005): 43–75. Naeh argues that the three-and-a-half year cycle was orchestrated so that every second cycle coordinated with the sabbatical year, with the Torah completed during Sukkot of the Sabbatical year. For an analysis and summary of the Fleischer-Naeh controversy in English, see Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 2nd rev. ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 537–8. In all likelihood, the lectionaries of individual communities varied and, while there may have been attempts to standardize or coordinate them, local differences were probably common. The modern “triennial” calendar employed in some Conservative movement synagogues is, in fact, a variant of the Babylonian annual cycle and not related to the Palestinian calendar. For a discussion of the modern “triennial” cycle and its relationship to historical precedents, see the following Rabbinical Assembly responsa on the topic: Richard Eisenberg, “A Complete Triennial System for Reading the Torah,” https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/ files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/19861990/eisenberg_triennial.pdf; Elliot N. Dorff, “Annual and Triennial Systems for Reading the Torah,” https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/ default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/19861990/dorff_reading.pdf; and Lionel E. Moses, “Is there an Authentic Triennial Cycle of Torah Readings?,” https://www.rabbinicalassembly. org/sites/default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/19861990/moses_triennial.pdf. 9 The Hebrew text of this piyyut is available online, via the Ma’agarim database, https:// maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il; and in print, in van Bekkum, The Qedushta’ot of Yehudah, 319–26 and 468–79 (notes). Translations are all original to this essay.

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translation of this textual unit in full, with the alphabetic acrostic from alef to lamed, indicated: ‫ א‬You appointed the one who would lead every generation10 ‫ ב‬To codify that which is exquisitely plainspoken11 to Your people, ‫ ג‬To habituate their mouths to Your greatness, ‫“ ד‬A word He commanded to a thousand generations” (Ps. 105:8). ‫ ה‬She is not too baffling for those who are beloved ‫ ו‬And she is known as “the beloved doe” (Prov. 5:19): ‫ ז‬This is the Torah in which there are inscribed and written ‫“ ח‬Good laws and commandments” (Neh. 9:13). ‫ ט‬ ‫ י‬ ‫ כ‬ ‫ ל‬

The length of days are well-ordered in her right hand,12 explicitly, And wealth and honor designated in her left; Every keeper of her commandments shall be enriched, Learn this commandment, namely: As it is written: “Indeed, this Torah which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach” (Deut. 30:11); And it is said: “One who keeps the commandment shall not know any evil, and a wise mind discerns that there is a time of judgment” (Eccl. 8:5); And it is said: “Moses charged us with the Torah as the heritage of the congregation of Jacob” (Deut. 33:4); And it is said: “I have seen that all things have their limit, but Your commandment is broad beyond measure” (Ps. 119:96); And it is said: “The precepts of the Eternal are just, rejoicing the heart; the Torah of the Eternal is lucid, brightening the eyes” (Ps. 19:9).

10 That is, Moses, who remains a leader of the people down to the present, through his mediation of God’s Torah to Israel. The term “Moses, our rabbi” (Moshe rabbeinu) attests to his enduring leadership. 11 Torah (Deut. 27:8). 12 From Prov. 3:16.

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It brightens the eyes (Ps. 19:9) Of a people beautiful and radiant13 To protect the scattered sheep ( Jer. 50:17) Through the righteousness of the father to whom He said, “Fear not” (Gen. 15:1). Blessed are You . . . Shield of Abraham

Rhetorically, the poet here speaks directly to God about both the Torah and the people. The quotation from Deuteronomy 30:11 can be heard, in this framing, as God’s response to the poet: the poet has made assertions about the Torah’s lucidity and potency, and God affirms—“indeed (ki)!”—all that he has said. Passages from throughout scripture, from allusive phrases to full-verse quotations, texture the unit. Most obvious are the quotations that follow the body of the unit; as a genre, qedushta’ot always feature anthologies of verses after each of the first three units, so the presence of quotations is typical. The first verse quoted, prefaced by “as it is written,” is Deuteronomy 30:11, the first verse of the weekly portion. The verses that follow (all prefaced by “and as it is said”) have in common the word “commandment” (miz.vah) or the root z. .v.y (command), which connects the verses to each other verbally as well as thematically. The verses that close out each of the first two strophes are unusual (largely distinctive to Yehudah), and it bears noting that these partial-verse quotations anticipate the emphasis on the term miz.vah. Were we to read only these longer quotations, the poem would have a largely “legal” focus, on Torah as commandment: a good law, and accessible, but with little emphasis on its importance beyond its divine source. Dotted throughout the poem’s three strophes are phrases easily traced back to biblical sources, and these allusions and quotations add spark and liveliness to the theme of the unit. The Torah is “exquisitely plainspoken” (line 2, from Deut. 27:8, where the phrase describes the words of the Torah), a “beloved doe” (line 6, from Prov. 5:19, where it describes the wife of one’s youth), and holds within her power both length of life and public esteem (lines 9–10, from Prov. 3:16, which describes the value of wisdom, understood as Torah), rewards for those who keep and honor her. Only the description of the Torah as “not too baffling” (line 5) draws on the language of the Torah portion, while the reference to the Torah as that which “brightens the eyes” (line 18) transitions from the final intertext (Ps. 19:9) quoted after the body of the verse. The people, likewise, are described in terms taken from the biblical text, both as “beautiful 13 From Song 6:10.

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and radiant” (line 19, in terms used to describe the female lover in Song 6:10) and “scattered sheep” (line 20, quoting the description of Israel in Jer. 50:17). These fleeting descriptors imbue the opening of the composition with a frisson of eroticism and desire—the Torah is desirable, as are the people, who are also in need—and they texture the imagery of the poem with vivid details that, when taken together, render the commandment not only important but dramatically compelling. Torah is desirable, and within reach. Her proximity is tangible.

The Inner Workings: Units Two through Six Even a superficial analysis of the complete composition exceeds the scope of this essay, but this opening unit establishes key themes that recur throughout the work: the Torah is both desirable and available, giving life and imbuing life with meaning. And yet the poet also alludes to the drama and enigmatic nature of the revelation. He notes in unit two that the Torah was called “the captive of heaven” (line 10, from Ps. 68:19) but nonetheless it no longer resides in heaven (line 12, quoting and transitioning to the second verse of the Torah portion, Deut. 30:12). Yehudah here gestures toward traditions that record how God gave the Torah to Moses over heavenly objections14 but without actually elaborating on his understanding of what transpired; the intervening line, which describes Torah’s value as “purer and more treasured than pearls” (lines 11, a synthesis of Psalms 19:8 and Proverbs 3:15) suggests that perhaps she was stolen away, or eloped. Indeed, Yehudah consistently amplifies the gendered eroticism of his text, weaving together phrases from biblical Wisdom literature in order to suggest— but rarely explicitly state—the nature of the mutually interdependent and reciprocal relationships among God, Torah, and Israel. We see an example of this subtlety in unit three, where the penultimate stanza (lines 9–12) states: He explained her contents15 to the one beautiful as Tirz.ah (Song 6:4), One who would be mighty in deed and great in insight,16

14 For a summary of this topic, see Joseph P. Schultz, “Angelic Opposition to the Ascension of Moses and the Revelation of the Law,” JQR 61, no. 4 (1971): 282–307; and, more recently, the discussion in Mika Ahuvia, On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2021), especially 182–5. 15 Lit., “utterance, word.” 16 Jer. 32:19.

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Day and night expounding her metaphors.17 “A virtuous woman—who can find her?” (Prov. 31:10). Israel is here described as “beautiful as Tirz.ah” (that is, as the female beloved in the Song of Songs), who gains and demonstrates wisdom by expounding the Torah’s mysteries; she who is mysterious is de-mystified, and love is consummated. The example of the metaphor (hameliz.ah) that follows is, however, comes not from an obviously enigmatic passage or an explicit parable, but from Proverbs 31:10 (the quotation that rounds out the stanza), which describes the ideal wife. The poem, even as it asserts the lucidity and accessibility of Torah, here introduces a sense of mystery, one that is itself unsettled: is the enigma the identity of “the virtuous woman,” where one goes to find her, or the nature of a good marriage? Is “woman” here meant literally, or is it a cryptic reference to Torah, the desired and desirable feminine figure of the poem? The words of the stanza are simple and direct, but potentially subvert the overt meaning of the composition, and the Torah portion it embellishes. While the poet introduces the image of searching—where can a virtuous woman (however she is identified) be found?—in unit three, in unit four he introduces the idea of a kind of hierarchy of favor: that is, many may seek wisdom/Torah, but only some will find her, and only some among those will understand her. He states this mostly clearly in the third stanza (lines 9–12), which states: To appoint over you men both wise and perceptive (Deut. 1:13), With wisdom they perceive, and they are faithful, To scrutinize impure and pure, in their forty-nine sources. “And now, this command is incumbent upon you, O priests” (Mal. 2:1). In these lines, Yehudah alludes to the existence of specialists: those who are both wise and perceptive, and deep with learning as well as piety—in short, those who have acquired intimacy with Torah. By referring to these sages as “priests” by means of the concluding verse (Mal. 2:1), he essentially transforms these insightful scholars into a kind of elite; given the overall conceptual world of the poem, Yannai does not refer to inherited leadership but those who have acquired

17 See Prov. 1:6.

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intimacy with Torah.18 The reference to “forty-nine sources”19 (line 11), in turn, immediately invokes the world of rabbinic exegesis—not the simple learning of the Torah’s words but its more deeply concealed truths. In unit five, Yehudah returns to the motif of searching for wisdom that he introduced in unit three and valorizes in unit four. Unit five depicts Moses as searching for wisdom, specifically for the Torah; and the poet, taking Deuteronomy 30:12–13 not as rhetorical questions but as actual questions posed by Moses, depicts him as inquiring of the heavens, the deeps, and the sea whether they know where insight, understanding, and God’s commandments can be found. The poet does not rehearse the moment when Moses finds the Torah, but he does follow the search narrative with this observation (lines 13–16): The appearance of “this one”—compared with gold and sparkling crystal—is distinguished,20 Her teachings are as difficult to acquire as gold, and as easy to lose as loose crystals. If you abandon her for days, she will abandon you for years, and not abide in your heart, For “her measure is longer than the earth and her span broader than the sea” ( Job 11:9). The verse that ends this stanza suggests that the Torah cannot be found in the sea or upon the earth (or, by implication, in the heavens) because it exceeds any such confinement or restraint. The Torah depicted here is not the accessible and approachable wisdom of the earlier stanzas; it is rare and evasive, elusive and transient. She repays neglect with abandonment, for her expansiveness means she has no need to remain with one who does not treasure her. And yet,

18 For the generalized “priests,” see Exodus 19:6. Also relevant here is Michael Swartz, “Sage, Priest and Poet” in Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue, ed. Steven Fine (New York: Routledge, 1999), 101–17. 19 See Song of Songs Rabbah 2:4; M Soferim 16:6; and BT Eruvin 13b; the number forty-nine derives from the value of the phrase “and his banner (ve-diglo)” in Song of Songs 2:4. The tradition in Song of Songs Rabbah states, “The congregation of Israel said: The Holy Blessed One brought me to a large wine cellar, that is Sinai. He gave me there the Torah, which is expounded with forty-nine approaches for purity and with forty-nine approaches for impurity, the numerical value of ‘his banner (ve-diglo)’ (Song 2:4). I accepted it with great love, as it is stated: “And his banner over me is love.” 20 “This one” refers to Torah (for example, Deut. 4:44); the phrase “gold and crystal” comes from Job 28:17.

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while this might be the Torah’s intrinsic nature, when God gave the Torah to Israel, it seems that God transformed or tamed her; God made Torah potentially acquirable. We see this in unit five, which concludes by telling us (lines 21–24): Written in seventy languages, and well-glossed, Called by seventy names within the text,21 Explained to the one chosen from among seventy, with regard to impure and pure, “The precepts of the Eternal are just, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Eternal is lucid” (Ps. 19:9). Her teachings, once difficult to acquire, are now “well-glossed” (me-vo’arah, line 21) and “explained” (pet.urah, line 23) and, in the words of Psalm 19:9, a source of joy to the heart, and lucid (line 24). Unit six expands on this transformation of the Torah into something accessible, likewise by using the Torah’s own language to affirm its lucidity. Each strophe of this unit concludes with a quotation from the opening words of a verse, in order, from the Torah portion, and thus it reinscribes the thematic concern of the lection. If we read stanzas two and four (lines 13–16) together, we can see how unit six articulates and maintains the tensions implicit in the composition as a whole: Stanza Two (lines 5–8) Great is the statute that was spoken And its explanation, taught with total love, The precision of keeping its rulings: “It is not in the heavens, that one should say” (Deut. 30:12). Stanza Four (lines 13–16) This One,22 clothed in glory and majesty,23 He multiplied the words of Torah so very greatly, He gave you good laws, unshakeable,24 “For the word is very close to you” (Deut. 30:14).

21 Lit., “in speech, utterance.” 22 God, as in Ex. 15:2, “This is my God.” 23 Ps. 104:1. 24 Neh. 9:13, “You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke to them from heaven; You gave them right rules and true teachings, good laws and commandments” (NJPS).

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Stanza two stresses the importance of the Torah, and of keepings its rulings precisely—a commandment given not as onerous but out of love, and one well within reach, as the prooftext from Deuteronomy 30:12 affirms. Stanza four similarly asserts the goodness and importance of the Torah, but notes as well that God “multiplied (giddel) the words of Torah so very greatly (le-me’od me’od).” The final line, a quotation from Deuteronomy 30:14, restates the proximity—but not the simplicity—of Torah. Intimacy here indicates an ability to appreciate and accept complexity, not escape it. The juxtaposition of love and complexity in these two stanzas suggests that Yehudah here is articulating a kind of deeper truth: familiarity and proximity do not resolve difficulties, and may even intensify them. The presence of Torah in the midst of the people—in their mouths and hearts—reassures of revelation’s presence and accessibility but should not be mistaken for ease or simplicity. If anything it may mean a greater understanding of the limits of understanding, and an intensification of desire because of proximity that still defies resolution. The Torah is so close and yet still, in some crucial way, so mysterious.

A Fraught Finale: Unit Seven Rather than resolve any of these tensions as the poem concludes, Yehudah articulates them more fully in the qedushta’s final lines. Unit seven, the final unit of the composition, is written in the poet’s own voice (the first-person singular), and it is a self-reflective meditation on not only Torah but prayer. It opens with a petition for the Torah not to contract itself, but to expand (be-harh.ivi), with the intertext from Psalm 19:9 suggesting that such expansion will make the clarity of the commandments clearer. But the complexities of revelation dominate the final stanzas of the unit and thus the qedushta as a whole; stanzas eight through eleven (lines 15–2225) state: ‫ ס‬

She was arranged ‫ ע‬ by the humble one, who descended with (her) interpretation:26 “Her paths are paths of pleasantness” (Prov. 3:7).

25 The first line of each strophe embeds two letters of an alphabetical acrostic, which the layout here attempts to make legible. 26 That is, Moses (“the humble one”) arranged the Torah into the weekly portions (sedarim), and brought down from Sinai not only the Written Torah (which is read in the synagogue) but also the Oral Torah (“her interpretations”).

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‫ פ‬

Those who burst forth ‫ צ‬ with her song shall I gladden with exuberance: “To understand parable and metaphor” (Prov. 1:6). ‫ ק‬

Embedded within her secret meanings ‫ ר‬ By the Exalted One— “All this did I test with wisdom” (Eccl. 7:23a)—

‫ ש‬

To serve her as much as to study her, ‫ ת‬Shall you love, He uttered to the nation that held Him fast, Understanding what he said: “I said, ‘I will be wise,’ but it was far off ” (Eccl. 7:23b).

The poet here describes revelation as not only containing the Written Torah, but the Oral—its words but also its interpretations (line 15). This multiplicity is not burdensome but joyful, “paths of pleasantness” (Prov. 3:7, quoted in line 16) that gladden those who sing her words (line 17). The verse quotation that follows this reference to joyful singing does not reinforce that simple concept, however, but rather states, “To understand parable (mashal) and metaphor (meliz.ah)” (Prov. 1:6). Figurative language manifests the fecundity, the riotous and dynamic joyfulness, of Scripture itself. Clarity exists in delightful tension with riotous abundance. And it bears noting that as this poem ends, mystery and uncertainty dominate; the poet boldly subverts any confidence offered by the Torah portion itself. Immediately after the quotation from Proverbs 1:6 that speaks of parables and metaphors, the poet describes the content of the Torah as replete with “secret meanings” (qinyeney ta‘alumah), encoded there by God in order to test her students. After emphasizing the cryptic nature of the Torah’s contents in the penultimate stanza of the composition, Yehudah then concludes his work on an almost entirely unexpected note: first he stresses the importance of obedience over understanding—albeit motivated by love—and then he selects the second half of Ecclesiastes 7:23 as the quotation to finish both the unit and the qedushta as a whole. This verse states “All this I tried by means of wisdom; I said, I will be wise, but it [wisdom] was far off.” As is commonplace in rabbinic readings of wisdom literature, “wisdom” here should be understood as Torah, meaning that the speaker of the final line of the poem—the would-be sage and lover of Torah—assured of Torah’s proximity and accessibility in Deuteronomy 30:11–12, now finds Torah to be remote and mysterious.

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The final lines of this qedushta appear to undermine the simple message of the Torah portion. Where Deuteronomy 30:11–12 asserts that the Torah is not far off, and not too baffling, Ecclesiastes 7:23 seems to state the opposite: wisdom is inaccessible and unachievable, no matter how diligently desired. Even Solomon, the putative author of Ecclesiastes, experienced defeat at the hands of Torah. What hope could there be for the populace addressed by Moses, and their descendants now in the synagogue, in the present day?

Analysis and Conclusion The arc of Yehudah’s qedushta embellishing Deuteronomy 30:11 moves from a stress on the universal accessibility and comprehensibility of Torah to an emphasis on its mysterious complexities and elusiveness. Read broadly, the poem derives its narrative energy from the juxtaposition of Deuteronomy 30:11, which describes the Torah as within reach, and Ecclesiastes 7:23, in which wisdom is “far off.” The poet affirms the importance of God’s granting of the Torah to Israel: revelation opens up the possibility of understanding as well as pious obedience. But in contrast to the simple sense of Deuteronomy 30:11, the poet does not equate access with ability or intimacy with insight. The Torah’s intrinsic value does not derive from its comprehensibility, but its presence, and perhaps from the opportunity to comprehend it—the effort more than the accomplishment. While Deuteronomy 30:11–12 may not seem like a particularly evocative phrase when read in isolation, its implications for the nature of revelation proved fruitful. The rhetorical force of both the talmudic account of Aknai’s Oven and Yehudah’s qedushta on Deuteronomy 30:1 derive from the power of intertextuality. In the talmudic legend, the quotations from Deuteronomy 30:11–12 and Exodus 23:2 are read together—Exodus 23:2 can be seen as the “case” illustrating the principle asserted in Deuteronomy 30—in order to subvert certain logical assumptions a reader might have about sources of authority. The text itself asserts textual supremacy. In the liturgical poem, the author achieves something just as subtle, and equally subversive, using the same Deuteronomy text, read along with a diversity of intertexts; instead of uncovering a rational or pragmatic philosophical view, however, Yehudah uses scripture to mystify scripture rather than to demystify its processes. Where the talmudic Oven of Aknai legend uses the phrase, “It is not in the heavens” (Deuteronomy 30:12) to exert a procedural-hermeneutical claim, that even God must abide by the rules of the written text, Yehudah’s point here is more subtly made, and less resolved.

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Yehudah uses scriptural quotations not to resolve textual ambiguities but to articulate them. And yet he does not do so to devalue scripture or undermine its authority; he does so in a fashion that amplifies its appeal—its eroticism. In keeping with the rhetorical conventions of piyyut, Yehudah does not “teach” his reading of scripture, but draws his community into the process of piecing together the Torah’s meaning, by juxtaposing phrases in contexts in which their meaning may be uncertain or their significance unstated. The piyyutim do not merely admonish listeners to study Torah and to muse over its complexities; works such as this text compel them to, in order to discern the layers of meaning in the poem as well as its scriptural substrate. And in doing so, Yehudah’s qedushta can be seen as kindling desire in those who hear it, sparking a yearning to be among those who do not merely possess Torah but understand it. The poem reads Deuteronomy 30:11–12 not as a guarantee of access but as a promise of potential, conjuring a space in which the possible acquisition of wisdom leads to desire. Eros occupies that space between biblical verses that defies resolution—consummation—but compels pursuit. Rabbinic literature, by its very nature, shimmers with a sense of allusiveness and allusion; it is textured by quotations, both explicit and implied, and each word or phrase pulls in its wake an entire history of interpretation. When these resonant quotations are in turn juxtaposed with each other, over centuries and millennia, the matrix of latent meanings multiplies, to the point where every pair of words can strike the imagination as a palimpsest to be deciphered. If this is true of midrashic prose, where the putative goal is pedagogical transparency, then it is all the more true of payyetanic poetry, where the numinous context of synagogue worship imbues the works with a sense of meaningfulness and potential beyond the obvious. The sanctuary is a place where, as on Sinai, heaven and earth continue to meet, and where the erotic promise of individual experience intersects with the more certain confidence of collective memory. The insights revealed by textual juxtaposition, by showing rather than saying, and suggesting rather than explaining, lay some of the burden of explication on the community rather than the poet, who is a performer rather than a pedagogue. But as a reward for their efforts, the poets offered their communities an opportunity to participate in the transformative endeavor of reading—and by reading well, to gain some experience of, if not insight into, the divine.

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Beyond “Intention” in Ibn Paquda’s Duties of the Hearts Omer Michaelis

To Michael Fishbane, teacher and yedid nefesh

The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Hearts, written by Bah.ya ibn Paquda— the eleventh-century Andalusī author known also by the epithet ha-dayyan (the judge)—is one of the most radical attempts made by a Jewish author to tilt the balance of religious life toward the human interior realm.1 He performs the essential part of this transformation by recalibrating the fundamental concept of religious commandment or duty—fard. in Arabic—and by establishing a framework of duties that are imposed upon the heart and are to be executed “everywhere and at all times, at every hour and every minute and every state.”2 The very appearance of the compound “duties of the hearts” (Ar. farā’id. al-qulūb) 1 See Georges Vajda, La théologie ascétique de Bahya Ibn Paquda (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1947), esp. 7. On the internalization of religious forms of life in the context of Islam, see Sara Sviri, “Spiritual Trends in Pre-Kabbalistic Judeo-Spanish Literature: The Cases of Bah.ya ibn Paqūda and Judah Halevi,” Donaire 6 (1996): 78–84. 2 Bah.ya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda, The Book of Directions to the Duties of the Heart, trans. Menahem Mansoor (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004), 91 (henceforth Duties of the Hearts, translation revised, here and below). For the Judeo-Arabic original, see Kitāb al-Hidāya ilā Farā’id. al-Qulūb, ed. Yosef Qāfih. ( Jerusalem, 1973), 22 (henceforth al-Hidāya). On the concept of inner commandments, see Omer Michaelis, Interiority & Law: Bah.ya Ibn Paqūdā and the Concept of Inner Commandments (forthcoming); idem, “Duties and Supererogatory Acts in Bah.ya ibn Paqūda’s Duties of the Hearts” [in Hebrew], Jewish Law Annual 31 (2022): 141–8.

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in the context of Jewish religiosity, and even more so the development of this category into a comprehensive grammar of obligatory inner activity, are major innovations proposed by Bah.ya.3 Yet these innovations are not presented as such. They are interlinked, in dialectical relations and through processes of adoption and transformation, endorsement and distancing, to concepts drawn from Jewish sources that preceded Bah.ya, be they biblical, rabbinic, or geonic.4 One of the cases that is most interesting and complex in this regard—for reasons that will be presented briefly—is that of the concept of “intention” (Heb. kavvanah; Ar. niyya, qas.d), which was relatively widely discussed in talmudic literature and received further attention in geonic times.5 The concept of “intention,” with its special emphasis on the human interiority and because of the way it was put to use as a link between the realm of halakha and the mental sphere, offered a potential path for Bah.ya to present an intra-Jewish precedent for his innovations regarding the internalization of religious duties. And indeed, this concept appears at various points in Bah.ya’s work and takes on several meanings in the course of the author’s exploration of the character of the religious act and the nature of duty. The first mentions of “intention” can already

3 On the origin of the Arabic compound farā’id. al-qulūb, see Amos Goldreich, “Possible Arabic Sources for the Distinction between ‘Duties of the Heart’ and ‘Duties of the Limbs’” [in Hebrew], Te’uda 6 (1988): 179–208. 4 See Omer Michaelis, “Fashioning the ‘Inner’ (bāţin) in Bah.ya ibn Paqūda’s Duties of the Hearts,” Harvard Theological Review (forthcoming); also see idem, “Psalms and ‘ilm al-bāt.in in Bah.ya ibn Paquda’s Duties of the Hearts” [in Hebrew], Jewish Studies (forthcoming). 5 The concept of “intention” in rabbinic literature was subject to numerous studies. For a recent survey, see Shana Strauch Schick, Intention in Talmudic Law: Between Thought and Deed (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 4–7. On “intention” in Samuel ben H.ofni, see David Sklare, Samuel ben H.ofni Gaon and His Cultural World (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 62 and 208–9. On the emergence of the concept of “intention” in Islam in relation to Jewish sources, see Arent J. Wensink, “De Intentie in Recht, Ethiek en Mystiek der Semietische Volken,” in his Semietische studien (Leiden: Brill, 1941), 61–89. On “intention” in Islamic law, see Paul R. Powers, Intent in Islamic Law: Motive and Meaning in Medieval Sunnī Fiqh (Leiden: Brill, 2006), esp. 1–95. On “intention” in zuhd literature and in early Islamic mysticism, see Josef van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Hārit al-Muhāsibī: Anhand von Übersetzungen aus seinen Schriften dargestelt und erläutert (Bonn: Orientalisches Seminar der Universität Bonn, 1961), 144–9; Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, trans. Benjamin Clark (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 128. The concept of “intention” in the Duties of the Hearts was analyzed in two comparative studies by Hanna Kasher, “On the Relationship between Intention and Action in the Thought of Bahya Ibn Pakuda and Maimonides,” in ‘Al Pi Ha-Be’er: Studies in Jewish Philosophy and in Halakhic Thought Presented to Gerald Blidstein, ed. Uri Ehrlich et al. (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2008), 255–67; and idem, “A Hypothetical Dialogue between Judah Halevi and Bah.yā ibn Paqūda,” in Studies in Arabic and Islamic Culture II, ed. Binyamin Abrahamov (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2006), 57–86. My own analysis and, more importantly, my conclusions differ from those reached by Kasher, as will be explained briefly.

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be found in the introduction to the book, in the context of Bah.ya’s discussion of the different modes by which one can become aware of the existence of the “duties of the hearts”—namely, by way of rational inference; by way of “the written,” that is, Scripture; and by way of the “transmitted,” meaning rabbinic literature. Referring to rabbinic literature, Bah.ya draws a link between the category of the “duties of the hearts” and the concept of “intention”: Having verified the existence of the duties of the heart in the book of God, as well as by rational inference, I turned to examine the matter in the tradition of our ancient sages. In their sayings, I  found it to be even more obvious and distinct than in the scriptures, or through the use of the intellect [. . .] [for instance, in their general saying] “He who brings substantial [sacrifice] and he who brings meager [sacrifice] have equal merit as long as he directs his heart (Heb. sheyekhavven libbo) toward Heaven (BT Berakhot 5b, 17a; BT Menah.ot 110a).6 [. . .] This leads us to the conclusion that what determines the punishment is the participation of both heart and body in the act—the heart [participates in the act] by the intention (qas.d) and the body in carrying out [the act]. [. . .] Since, now, the foundation and the pillar of action is the intention of the heart and [human] inwardness, the knowledge of the duties of the heart should come before and stand above the knowledge of the duties of the members.7 Bah.ya states his main point right in the opening sentence of this passage: through the words of the sages one can, according to him, confirm both the existence and the superior rank of the “duties of the hearts,” the essential category he introduces in his work. The importance of referring to the corpus of rabbinic literature, in this case, lies in the legitimization that such an act can confer. Even if the specific compound, “duties of the hearts,” is absent from rabbinic literature, Bah.ya presents other precedents from within this corpus: themes, dicta, and sayings that bear a certain resemblance to the idea of the “duties of the hearts.” It is in this particular context that Bah.ya sees the concept of “intention”

6 The rabbinic dictum is missing from both Judah ibn Tibbon’s translation and from Abraham S. Yahuda’s edition of the work, but I did not find it missing in any Judeo-Arabic manuscript of the work available to me. 7 Duties of the Hearts, 90–1; al-Hidāya, 20–1.

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as central. In addition, he infers two further points from the rabbinic dictum. First, that the participation of the heart is a vital and inseparable part of any conduct that is halakhically binding. The “inner” element is necessary because one is commanded not only to physically perform the duty but also to precede it by inwardly determining to perform the act as a religious duty. From this Bah.ya induces the second principle, namely, the preeminence of the heart over the members, and the dependency of the latter on the former. An elaboration of this idea, including a clearer analytic explication, is presented in the “Gate of Reliance upon God,” in what amounts to one of the most significant discussions of “intention” in Bah.ya’s book. The appearance of the discussion in this particular chapter is neither accidental nor arbitrary. In the framework of this chapter, which for the most part is concerned with human dependency upon God—that is, with the cultivation of an ethos of reliance on divine guidance and the curtailment of one’s sense of control over one’s destiny in this world – obeying God is actually presented, in some of its aspects, as an exception.8 For it is precisely with regard to obeying God, according to Bah.ya, that one does possess some control, as duly noted by Binyamin Abrahamov: “Bah.ya excludes both intention and determination from being divine decrees.”9 In other words, one has to choose to obey God, and in this matter one must not trust in divine guidance or consider it a divine preordination. This is explicitly stated by Bah.ya: Whoever relies on God in his choice of obeying Him, saying to himself, “I shall not choose, nor intend to do anything in obedience to God until He chooses for me what is most suitable for me [that is, entails reward],” diverges from the way of truth and wanders from the right path. For God has already ordered us to choose the works of obedience, to try to perform them with purposeful determination and pure intention.10 This determination takes place in the heart. It is dependent upon human resolution and constitutes the basis of obedience to God. What role, if any, does reliance upon God play in relation to human obedience? According to Bah.ya, 8 On the term “reliance” (Ar. tawakkul) in Islamic zuhd and early S.ūfīsm, see Benedikt Reinert, Die Lehre vom tawakkul in der klassischen Sufik (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968). 9 Bah.yā ibn Paqūda, The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart, Hebrew translation and notes by Binyamin Abrahamov (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2019), 178, n. 81 (henceforth Duties [Abrahamov]). Cf. Vajda, La théologie ascétique, 79–80. 10 Duties of the Hearts, 255; al-Hidāya, 222.

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reliance upon God in this regard entails trusting that one will be provided with the necessary conditions for bringing one’s decision to obey God to fruition. This, argues Bah.ya, is because “God has entrusted us with the choice of obeying Him or rebelling against Him . . . But He did not entrust us with the execution of the works of obedience and disobedience except by means which are external to us, sometimes present and sometimes lacking.”11 We can thus see that Bah.ya’s discussion is centered on the question of the role and character of reliance— which is the overarching topic of this gate—in relation to the specific issue of obedience to God. His main interests in this passage are: (a) to pick out the exact component that entails reliance upon God in what he considers to be not just an act but a process of obedience; and (b) to determine with regard to the other components that they do not involve reliance upon God. The aforementioned components are presented by Bah.ya in an analytic fashion in the following assertion: The acts of obedience and disobedience cannot be performed by man unless three conditions are fulfilled: The first condition is that he choose obedience to God in his heart and intention (niyya). The second condition is that he make a purposeful determination (qas.d) to carry out the action he has chosen. The third condition is that he endeavour to execute that action and bring it into actuality with his bodily members.12 This passage also makes it possible to point out the exact meaning, or, more precisely, meanings, that Bah.ya attributes to the concept of “intention,” based on the two Arabic terms used to refer to it: niyya in the first clause; qas.d in the second. According to the first clause, as Hannah Kasher has argued, there is some correspondence between the concept of “intention” and the concept of “inwardness” (d.amīr). Here, intention signifies not an action but a locus in which an action takes place. It has to do with the basic, indefinite decision one makes to obey God, even before this decision involves the execution of any particular act. This decision to obey also touches upon the question of one’s grounds and motives for action. As Bah.ya emphasizes in numerous cases, an act that is 11 Ibid. Also stated explicitly in the following passage: “It is proper for us to rely on God concerning the execution of the works of obedience, when we have already chosen to do them with a pure intention, purposeful determination, and a heart devoted solely to God and His honor” (Duties of the Hearts, 256; al-Hidāya, 224). 12 Duties of the Hearts, 255; al-Hidāya, 222.

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identified by an outside observer as the performance of a religious duty can in fact be the outcome of different motivations.13 It can indeed be an act done for the sake of heaven, but it can also be a mere public display of reverence; it can express a consciousness of one’s essential subordination to God, but can also be an action done in anticipation of future reward. The decision to obey guarantees that the human motives when carrying out an obligatory deed will be pure. The second clause adds an element that was not part of the first. Apart from the basic decision to obey God, intention—referred to in this case by the Arabic term qas.d—also signifies the determination to carry out a specific act. Indeed, it appears that the act—any act—becomes individuated as a religious duty through the intention to execute it as such. The person ready—in a general sense—to obey God decides at a certain moment to carry out a specific action (and not any other one), and to do it, as implied by the first clause, as an act dedicated to the purpose of obeying God (and not for any other purpose). Then, beyond the stages defined by Bah.ya through his use of the two terms that designate intention, there is the execution of the specific, intended act, and this is referred to in the third clause. The execution does not take place by the sheer existence of intention, but rather is a distinct, postintentional event, which in this case is attributed to the manifest bodily members that carry out one’s intention. Taken together, then, the first two clauses represent a certain signification of the term “intention,” namely, intending as resolution. It takes place in one’s inner sphere, which is also referred to by the concept of “intention,” and functions as a stage that precedes the execution of an act. An additional meaning of the concept of “intention” is presented by Bah.ya in several other discussions, and it pertains to the purity of the act in the course of its execution. The problem Bah.ya tackles here stems from the fact that an act performed as a duty can be performed entirely out of a concentration on fulfilling it as a gesture of obedience to God, in a kind of withdrawal from one’s habitual patterns of worldly activities and from one’s immediate surroundings, but it can also be performed distractedly, mechanically and as part of one’s routine. Alternatively, in the course of performing any dutiful action, its purposefulness can decline or change, and instead of being a gesture intended for God alone it may become intermingled with worldly affairs and earthly motivations. Thus, for instance, Bah.ya notes that “It may happen that one will start a work of obedience to God, and finish it preoccupied with his own different matters

13 See, for instance, Duties of the Hearts, 183, 197, 253, 257, 289; respectively, al-Hidāya, 136, 154, 220, 225, 262, and numerous other occurrences.

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of this world.”14 The main problem in this case is not a lack of resolution to perform the deed – an issue related to intention in its first signification—but negligence in the course of performing the act. Intention in this case is an internal component that accompanies an act as it is performed, and guarantees the sustained focus on God in the course of its performance. This is the sense Bah.ya attributes in one of the subsections of the “Gate of Self-Accounting” to the rabbinic dictum “miz.vot require intent.”15 In his discussion, Bah.ya not only refers to this dictum but also addresses the contrasting dictum, namely (in Bah.ya’s slight paraphrase): “miz.vot do not require an intention of the heart.”16 According to Bah.ya, the idea that there are commandments that do not require intention is relevant only to intention in its second meaning, that is, as an inner component that accompanies an action while it is performed. To define which duties are exempt from the requirement to accompany them with intention in their execution, Bah.ya creates a new distinction. This distinction is different from the stable distinction that was presented in the introduction to the work and to which Bah.ya remained committed throughout the book, namely that between the duties of the members—duties performed by one’s external members—and the duties of the hearts—duties performed by the inner “member,” which is the heart, and that take place exclusively between the human and God. Between these two categories Bah.ya inserts a third one into his discussion: “duties of the hearts with the bodies together,” which refers to a set of duties some of which were explicitly defined in the introduction as clearcut duties of the members. These duties—of which the first to be mentioned is prayer—and maybe even this in-between category are mentioned here for a specific reason: they are the special subset of duties of the members that, when performed with one’s external members, must be accompanied by intention in the mentioned, namely, with an internal component that dedicates the act to God throughout the performance of the act. The rest of the duties of the members, argues Bah.ya, do not require

14 Duties of the Hearts, 292; al-Hidāya, 261. 15 BT Berakhot 13a, Eruvin 95b, Pesah.im 114b. Bah.ya quotes this dictum in its Hebrew original; see Duties of the Hearts, 364; al-Hidāya, 342–3. 16 See Duties of the Hearts, 364; al-Hidāya, 342. Bah.ya presents a Hebrew formulation that differs slightly from the Talmudic formulation: “miz.vot do not require an intention” ( JT Berakhot 5a, BT Pesah.im 114b, Rosh ha-Shanah 28a. However, the compound “intention of the heart” (kavvanat leiv) is not Bah.ya’s own innovation but is mentioned in numerous cases in the Bavli and the Yerushalmi, as well as in works from the geonic period. It is also used by Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Prayer and Priestly Blessing 4:15. On commandments that require intention and commandments that do not require intention, see also Samuel ben H.ofni’s discussion in his Book of Commandments in Sklare, Samuel ben H.ofni Gaon, 207–9.

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such an internal component. However, as Kasher has correctly clarified, this does not mean that the latter duties are exempt from “intention” in the first sense—an inner resolution to obey God by performing a specific duty, which in this discussion is described by Bah.ya as “intending God at the beginning of the act.”17 Intention in this sense applies to all religious duties, including the ones referred to here as “duties of the members alone.” The significant challenge that Bah.ya faces here, according to Kasher, is the problem posed to him by the rabbinic tradition that opted to “limit the scope of ‘intention,’” and the solution involved finding the interpretative path that would allow Bah.ya to “enhance the applicability of ‘intention.’”18 Kasher understands this move as an expansion of the scope of “intention” in Bah.ya’s account so that it applies to all religious activity instead of only part of it. She sees this as an effort, which she finds in a different form also in Maimonides, “to bridge the gap between halakha, which reduces the obligatory requirement of intention, and their [Bah.ya’s and Maimonides’] conception of intention as the core of religious activity.”19 Kasher’s argument identifies “intention” as a major factor in the way religiosity is fashioned in the Duties of the Hearts and regards Bah.ya’s interpretative efforts as designed to maximize its role in religious activities, as part of what she terms “his spiritual approach.”20 In what follows, I  wish to propose a different argument, indeed almost the opposite one. It is true that “intention” is a valuable concept in Bah.ya’s discourse, not least because it is part of a whole array of concepts that address the “inner” sphere—a locus of religious activity that Bah.ya wishes to focus upon and to emphasize its importance. Moreover, “intention” is important also because it is part of the legacy handed down by rabbinic discourses—in other words, it is a traditional resource that can be used to bestow an intra-Jewish character upon the type of religiosity Bah.ya advances in his work. Still, the overall significance of the term “intention” in his book is limited, and not pivotal. Why is this so? The first thing to note is that Bah.ya only very rarely discusses the importance and status of “intention” throughout his work, and when he does address this concept, as in the few abovementioned cases, he does so briefly. The first time he does it is in the introduction, as part of his search for rabbinic precedents that can indicate the centrality of the “duties of the hearts.”

17 Duties of the Hearts 364; al-Hidāya, 342. 18 The limitation of the scope of “intention” in rabbinic literature is mentioned in Kasher, “On the Relationship,” 256; On the enhancement of the applicability of “intention” by Bah.ya, see ibid., 267. In both cases, the translation is mine. 19 Ibid., 256. 20 Kasher, “A Hypothetical Dialogue,” 66.

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The second time is in the “Gate of Reliance upon God” (where Bah.ya defines “intention” as resolution), as part of his discussion of the role of human choice in obeying God and his exclusion of the determination to obey from the obligation to rely on God. The third time is in the “Gate of Self-Accounting,” in a discussion in which Bah.ya highlights the obligation—which does not apply to all duties— to accompany the bodily execution of the dutiful act with an inner component of dedication to God. Intention, therefore, is dealt with only laconically and in a limited fashion, a state of affairs that does not comply with the assumption that it carries a central role in the work. Indeed, the essential concepts of the work, either those that are employed in the titles of the ten gates or other concepts that undergird Bah.ya’s system of thought, such as intellect, duty and reward, are subjected to far more extensive elucidations. This raises the question of why it is that Bah.ya does not treat “intention” as a core concept in his thinking. An examination of the totality of Bah.ya’s thought and an analysis of a few instances in which he states the purpose of writing his work provide a possible answer. We have seen that Bah.ya defines “intention” in one of two senses—either as a general resolution to obey God, joined with a determination to perform a specific deed, or as an inner component of dedication during the execution of the act. According to these two definitions, “intention” is the interface, or the intermediate element, which ties the inner sphere with activities that do not necessarily belong to the human interiority and that in many cases are in fact carried out precisely by the external members. This takes place either as an inner phase that precedes the execution of any dutiful act (a duty of the heart, a duty of the heart with the body, or a duty of the members), or as an inner component that guarantees the compatibility of the inner and the outer. Intention, then, entails the participation of the heart in that which is not exclusive to the heart but rather may be embodied by the other members. Here it should also be mentioned that the concept of “intention” is paradigmatically linked with the duty of prayer both in rabbinic literature and in numerous sources in the medieval Islamic context.21 As such, it touches mainly on the interface between the inner and the outer. In fact, Bah.ya’s discussion of 21 On intention and prayer in rabbinic literature see Hyman G. Enelow, “Kawwana: the Struggle for Inwardness in Judaism,” in Studies in Jewish Literature in Honor of Kaufmann Kohler (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1913), 84–8; George F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era The Age of the Tannaim, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 2:223–5; Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. Israel Abrahams ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975), 397; Tzvee Zahavy, Studies in Jewish Prayer (Lanham: University Press of America, 1990), 39–40, 111–9; Elliot R. Wolfson, “Iconic Visualization and the Imaginal Body of God: The Role of Intention in the Rabbinic Conception of Prayer,” Modern Theology 12, no. 2 (1996): 139, reprinted in Elliot R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking, ed. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson

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“intention” in the “Gate of Self-Accounting,” too, is mostly concerned with the matter of prayer, proposing the argument that the execution of prayer demands the integration of both inner and outer spheres, in the joining of the heart and the other organs, for “words are a matter of the tongue, but meaning is a matter of the heart. The words are like the body of the prayer, but the meaning is like its spirit.”22 When performing such a duty, which Bah.ya defines here using the intermediate category of “duties of the heart with the body,” one must make sure that the heart constantly complies with the members, for “When a man prays [only with] his tongue, his heart preoccupied with something other than the meaning of the prayer, then his prayer is like a body without spirit, or a husk without contents, for only his body is present and his heart is absent from his prayer.”23 The focus in this case is on intention as the element that brings together one’s interiority with one’s bodily activities. However, as Bah.ya states explicitly, the main purpose of his work is not to focus on the interface between the inner and outer spheres, or on duties that bring together inner and outer elements. Instead, he seeks to focus on the inner in a more radical fashion by emancipating it from the outer and shaping it as an independent realm of religious activity, defined as obligatory. This type of activity does not involve the outer realm in any way and does not require the participation of any member other than the heart.24 It is referred to by Bah.ya as the “duties of the hearts only” (or in the rest of the work, simply as “duties of the hearts”).25 It is of this category, and it alone, that Bah.ya says, “the explanation of

and Aaron W. Hughes (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 101. On intention and prayer in medieval Muslim law see Powers, Intent in Islamic Law, 26–8, and the references ibid. 22 Duties of the Hearts, 365; al-Hidāya, 343. For the Islamic sources of this saying, and its other occurrences in Jewish works see Duties [Abrahamov], 265, n. 20. Interestingly, in his introduction, Bah.ya refers to prayer as a duty of the members, not mentioning the participation of the heart; see Duties of the Hearts, 89; al-Hidāya, 19. In contrast with the explicit saying in Sifrei Deuteronomy 41: “It is written ‘with all your heart’ (Deut. 11:13). Now: Is there ‘service’ [avodah] in the heart? What, then, is the intent of ‘and to serve him with all your heart’? Prayer,” Bah.ya does not consider prayer as a duty of the heart; cf. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Prayer and Priestly Blessing 1:1. 23 Duties of the Hearts, 365; al-Hidāya, 343. 24 As paradigmatically asserted by Bah.ya in the introduction: “Man is composed of a soul and a body—both are God’s graces given to us, one exterior (z.āhir), one interior (bāţin). Accordingly, we are obliged to obey God both outwardly and inwardly. Outward obedience in the duties of the members [. . .] all of which can be wholly performed by man’s outer senses. Inward obedience, however, is the duties of the hearts [. . .] performed by inner convictions (al-i‘tiqād) and [the] inward realm (al-d.amīr) and not by our external bodily members” (Duties of the Hearts, 89; al-Hidāya, 19). 25 Duties of the Hearts, 364; al-Hidāya, 342.

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which [the duties of the hearts only] is our purpose in this book.”26 Centering on the duties of the hearts only, that is, on a specific set of commandments—such as accounting for one’s soul, repentance, observation of God’s graces—that has no “external” counterpart at all, forces Bah.ya to go beyond the interface between the inner and the outer, beyond the participation of the heart in any external deed, and to concentrate on the nature of an exclusively inner activity.27 To do so, he has to avoid a situation in which the reader will firmly identify the concept of “duties of the heart” with that of “intention,” in any of the senses described above. Such an identification would not only fail to contribute to the clarification of the idea of the “duties of the heart,” but would also obscure from the reader— because of the semantic charge the notion of intention has accumulated in the history of its usage and carries in contemporary sources as well as in Bah.ya’s own work—precisely the domain that Bah.ya seeks to highlight. In other words, unlike the concept of “intention,” which focuses on the interface between inner and outer or on the preliminary stages leading up to an act, Bah.ya forges a path into a field of activity that is entirely inner. Fashioning this realm of radical interiority, clarifying its nature, establishing and maintaining the distinction between it and other domains of action – these are the central challenges he faces in writing his work. With regard to the acts that take place in the inner sphere, the acute question is not whether they are performed with or with no intention, but how to define, indeed to establish, the inner realm as a domain of activity that is considered obligatory. Moreover, in more than one place Bah.ya seems to insist that when it comes to the inner duties, the existence of intention is taken for granted. Unlike acts executed by the members, in which it is possible for the heart to fail to join the external organs, acts performed inwardly demand the engagement and tenacity of the heart. They do not require an inner “component” because they are entirely inner to begin with, as Bah.ya remarks. They are, by definition, acts done intentionally (in both senses), even if it is still possible to intensify their intention in correspondence to the degree of purity the heart attains. In addition, the dutiful activity that takes place in the heart alone is never suspected of being contaminated by ulterior motives of the sort that may tarnish any external act. Acts performed by the external members require intention to assure that their performance, from its inception, will be one of obedience, and not an action done to achieve some other goal, such as

26 Ibid. 27 On the idea of “acts” taking place in the heart, as a distinct but analogous category to the “acts” of the external members, see Michaelis, Interiority & Law.

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praise, honor, or the like. By contrast, the inner activity is performed—here too, by definition—in a domain that is in principle not visible to any observer but God. As such, the performance of any “duty of the heart” can only be done as an act of obedience, and there is no need to purify it of the hypocrisy that may mar acts of the external members.28 This is asserted explicitly by Bah.ya in the following passage: As to the acts which, once undertaken, are made perfect only by their pure devotion to God . . . , they consist of all the duties done by the bodily members, duties which might be meant for somebody other than God, if the intention (qas.d) of their author is to boast before others, out of a desire for their honor and praise. The duties of the heart, on the other hand, can involve no hypocrisy, no love of honor and praise on the part of their author, for no one knows he is performing them. Their author intends solely to their overseer, namely, God alone.29 The dedication of the act to God is unquestionable in the performance of a duty of the heart, and it requires no cleansing of ulterior motives.30 However, it is important to emphasize that intending God is not the same as performing a duty of the heart. The inner act necessarily involves intention, but intention is not the inner act itself. Intention is not a crucial factor in determining the inner 28 On intention and purification in Bah.ya, see also Vajda, La théologie ascétique, 86, n. 2. As noted by Powers, the origin of the prevailing interlinking of intention (niyya) and purification (ikhlās.) may very well be the jurisprudential necessity to base the idea that “intention” is an essential element of worship on a Qur’ānic prooftext, even though the concept of “intention” is not mentioned in the Qur’ān; see Powers, Intent in Islamic Law, 83–5, and the references ibid. An author not mentioned by Powers, but possibly relevant with regards to Bah.ya, is Ibn al-Mubārak (d. 797), whose works circulated in al-Andalus. One of the gates of his Kitāb al-Zuhd is titled Purification and Intention; see Ibn al-Mubārak, Kitāb al-Zuhd (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1986), 1:61. On the circulation of Ibn al-Mubārak’s Kitāb al-Zuhd in al-Andalus, see Juan M. Vizcaíno, “Las obras de Zuhd en Al-Andalus,” Al-Qanţara 12, no. 2 (1991): 428. 29 Duties of the Hearts, 274; al-Hidāya, 242–3. Cf. Duties of the Hearts, 297; al-Hidāya, 271. 30 Exceptional in this regard is the motive of seeking reward in the hereafter for the fulfillment of the duties of the hearts. In various passages throughout the work, Bah.ya considers the fulfillment of a duty for the sake of gaining reward in the hereafter as a well worth motive (see, for instance, Duties of the Hearts, 425; al-Hidāya, 408). However, Bah.ya repeatedly quotes the rabbinic dictum: “Do not be like servants who serve the master in the expectation of receiving a reward, but be like servants who serve the master without the expectation of receiving a reward, and let the fear of Heaven be upon you” (M Avot 1:3), and especially see the reference to this saying in relation to the lower rank of those who seek reward in either this world or the world to come, Duties of the Hearts, 197; al-Hidāya, 154.

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activity, rather it exists inevitably, in such a way that makes it possible not to discuss it at all. This brings into focus a critical aspect not only of Bah.ya’s handling of the concept of “intention” but also more generally of his utilization of conceptual and discursive resources from his authoritative tradition. Bah.ya’s attempt to fashion a mode of religiosity that gravitates so forcefully toward the inner sphere and that is addressed to a Jewish audience created an inner tension. On the one hand, it committed him to establishing the principles of his work on the basis of sources and terms that were canonized by the tradition he deems authoritative. This commitment requires the maximal mobilization of possible sources, and the assimilation of terms that are rooted in tradition into a new system of thought that he has constructed. On the other hand, he had to be cautious lest these concepts – because of the accumulated meaning they have received – overshadow the essential innovation he aspired to instill into Jewish religious life, or dim his explicit wish to establish a system of internal duties. Thus, in his attempt not only to emphasize the necessity of correspondence between the inner and the outer, but also to emancipate the inner as a domain of religious duty, Bah.ya had to go beyond the concept of intention.

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Songs to the Soul in Medieval Hebrew Poetry Elisha Russ-Fishbane

Medieval Hebrew poetry of the soul transformed the language of Jewish spiritual longing from the outside in. Alongside the collective voice of the community of Israel, the poets of the medieval Hebrew renaissance gave expression to a new language of inner devotion. Much of this literary artistry was focused on the inner drama of the soul caught between worldly entrapment and divine transcendence. Yet at the heart of this devotional poetry lies a paradox. Just as the individual soul begins to assert itself as the locus of spiritual striving, poets appear to destabilize the soul’s identity by fracturing the self in two. At times the soul was the subject of experience, at others the object of address. Yet in both instances, the soul was cast as a transient alien residing within, destined to return whence it came. This essay explores the identity of the soul and its relation to the self in medieval Hebrew poetry by examining not songs of the soul but songs to the soul and what they teach us about the entanglement of poetry and philosophy in this period. It is gratefully dedicated to my father and teacher, Michael Fishbane, who first introduced me to the world of Hebrew poetry and its language of inner devotion.1

1 As the pandemic entered its second year in the spring of 2021, I had the pleasure of welcoming my father in my graduate seminar on medieval Hebrew poetry at NYU. The conversations we shared both in and out of class helped shape many of the ideas expressed here, even as their limitations are entirely my own. I wish to thank Jonathan Decter, whose insights and suggestions on a draft of this essay contributed in important ways to the final version.

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The new poetry to the soul, like many other creative devices of the medieval poets, was a deliberate echo of biblical models. The term commonly translated as soul (nefesh) has a different range of connotations in the biblical context than it later assumed in rabbinic and medieval Jewish literature. In two consecutive psalms, the biblical poet exclaims on no less than five occasions (Ps. 103:1, 2, and 22; 104:1 and 35): “Bless God, O my nefesh!” In the first of these, the exclamation is just the beginning of an apostrophe spanning the first five verses, in which the poet repeatedly addressed the nefesh in the second person feminine as if it were an autonomous entity.2 As George Savran has argued, the address to the nefesh in biblical poetry conveys a different attitude to the self, depending on the context. On one hand, he suggests that the apostrophe “is a reflection of [an] inward turn in the most positive sense, where the term nefesh indicates the whole person, including the physical body. The psalmist engages his entire being in this moment of praise, the address to the nefesh indicating the fullest expression of self.”3 Other examples of this motif reinforce this impression, even as the psalmist slides between first, second, and third person speech. On the other hand, Savran discovered a more discordant note in the dialogical poetry of lament (mostly in Psalms, but also in Lamentations), in which the dialogue between poet and nefesh conveys “a divided self,” torn between mourning and consolation with no immediate resolution. “On the one hand, the voice I have identified as the psalmist maintains its hope in God . . . The nefesh embodies the other part of the poet’s identity, that aspect of the self that refuses to be comforted . . .”4 As we turn to creative adaptations of the biblical motif by medieval Hebrew poets, the relationship between self and soul again demands our attention. According to Adena Tanenbaum, “the exhortation to the soul . . . enables the speaker to distance himself from his soul and admonish her as though she were an autonomous entity. Yet the fundamental identity between soul and self is preserved. The impulse to define the self in terms of the soul derives from Neoplatonic thought, whose exponents maintained that the soul is that which makes man ‘what he is.’”5 Tanenbaum is correct to point to the Neoplatonic

2 The original verses read as follows: ‫ הסלח לכל עונכי‬.‫ ברכי נפשי את ה’ ואל תשכחי כל גמוליו‬.‫לדוד  ברכי נפשי את ה’ וכל קרבי את שם קדשו‬ .‫ המשביע בטוב עדיך תתחדש כנשר נעוריכי‬.‫ הגואל משחת חייכי המעטרכי חסד ורחמים‬.‫הרפא לכל תחלואיכי‬ 3 See George Savran, “Turning Inward: Addressing the Nefesh in Biblical Poetry,” in Ve-’Ed Ya‘aleh (Gen 2: 6): Essays in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Edward L. Greenstein (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2021), 2:874. For biblical scholarship on the term nefesh, see ibid., n. 3. 4 Ibid., 876, 879–80. 5 See Adena Tanenbaum, The Contemplative Soul: Hebrew Poetry and Philosophical Theory in Medieval Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 92.

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background to the poetry under investigation, yet I  believe it is precisely the Neoplatonic substratum that often supports a disjointed view of the self in these poems. To borrow Savran’s language, the apostrophe to the soul captures a divided self, not as a mere literary device but as an assertion of its true nature.6 The first Hebrew poet to revive the biblical address to the soul was Saadia Gaon in a piyyut for the day of atonement, and it is with him that we begin. Although Saadia was not the first medieval poet to experiment with poetry to the soul, his composition served as the primary stimulus for later Andalusian poets, who proceeded to take it in new directions.7 I suggest that the explosion of Andalusian Hebrew poetry of the soul, with its many novel forms and devices, proliferated in part thanks to the poetry to the soul. The latter provided the conceptual framework for the divided self and the literary artifice by which the worshiper became conscious of the divine reality residing within and its existential struggle with the embodied self. How each poet dramatized this spiritual tension and its theological implications gave rise to newer and bolder metaphors for the human-divine nexus that were impossible to achieve in prose. As such, poetry stood at the delicate axis between philosophical theory and devotional experience.

6 For a discussion of the later doctrine of the soul as the essence of the “actual person” over against the body and in various bodily incarnations in sixteenth-century Kabbalah, see Eitan P. Fishbane, “A Chariot for the Shekhinah: Identity and the Ideal Life in Sixteenth‐Century Kabbalah,” Journal of Religious Ethics 37 (2009): 385–418; and idem, “Reincarnation and Personal Identity in R. Hayyim Vital’s Sha‘ar ha-Gilgulim,” in Reincarnation in Jewish Mysticism: From the Middle Ages to the Modern Period, ed. Andrea Gondos et al. (Albany: State University of New York Press, forthcoming). 7 As several scholars have noted, both pre-Islamic and ascetic Muslim verse (known as zuhdiyyāt, best exemplified by Abū’l-‘Atāhīyah, d. 825/6) also experimented with apostrophes to the soul, in which the term nafs, like its Hebrew counterpart, also contained the double valence of “self ” and “soul.” See Geert Jan van Gelder, “The Abstracted Self in Arabic Poetry,” Journal of Arabic Literature 14 (1983): 22–30; The Diwan of Isma’il ibn al-Qasim ibn Suwaid ibn Kaisan, called Abu’l ‘Atahiya, ed. and trans. Arthur Wormhoudt (Oskaloosa: William Penn College, 1981), no. 5, l. 3, no. 58, l. 3, and no. 85, l. 1; and Andras Hamori, “Ascetic Poetry (zuhdiyyāt),” in Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, Abbasid Belles-Lettres, ed. Julia Ashtiany et  al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 265–74. In Hebrew verse, Nisi al-Nahwandi, an older contemporary, also composed poetry of admonishment (tokheh.ah) addressed to the soul and may have preceded Saadia. See H.aim Schirmann, New Hebrew Poems from the Genizah [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1966), 26; and Yosef Tobi, “R. Saadia Gaon and Arabic Poetry: Philosophical Culture, Philosophical Poetry” [in Hebrew], Pe‘amim 54 (1993): 35–6. For a late tenth-century Hebrew address to the soul by Sa‘īd b. Bābshād in the manner of contemporary zuhdiyyāt, see Yosef Tobi, “Body And Soul in Spanish Hebrew Poetry against the Background of Muslim-Arabic Culture,” in his Between Hebrew and Arabic Poetry: Studies in Spanish Medieval Hebrew Poetry (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 301–2.

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The Divided Self: Saadia Gaon’s “Bless, My Soul” Thanks to the work of Menahem Zulay and Yosef Tobi, scholars now acknowledge Saadia Gaon’s crowning achievements not only in the fields of Jewish thought, translation, law, and polemics, but also in Hebrew poetry, both liturgical and non-liturgical.8 In his poetic oeuvre, Saadia straddled the worlds of classical piyyut and innovative techniques that would later reemerge in the works of his Iberian successors.9 One example of this poetic synthesis is a long devotional poem in ten parts directed to the soul, Barekhi nafshi, intended as a qerovah for Yom Kippur.10 According to Tobi, the ten sections of the piece may be divided into three thematic units: the soul as microcosm (part 1), the grandeur of God (part 2), and the world as macrocosm (parts 3–10).11 The poem is constructed as a rahit prompted by the first four verses of Psalm 104, with each section structured around the opening phrases of the psalm in succession.12 The first section hinges on the opening words of the poem (“Bless, my soul”) arranged according to alphabetical couplets (aa, bb, and so forth), with the first line of each beginning with barekhi (“bless”), followed by epithets of the soul, and the second beginning with et (direct object marker), followed by epithets of God. The effect of this tight poetic structure is a formal and thematic parallelism between the soul and God, reinforced by the mirroring of female and male verbs or modifiers. But, in keeping with both the rabbinic conception of the soul and the penitential spirit of Yom Kippur, the parallelism cuts two ways. The first half of this section (ll. 1–20) highlights the nobility of the soul, while the second half (ll. 21–44) underscores its fragility. By structuring 8 For Saadia’s poetic repertoire and vision in general, see Menahem Zulay, Ha-Askolah ha-Payyetanit shel Rav Se‘adyah Ga’on ( Jerusalem: Schocken Institute, 1964); and Yosef Tobi, “Piyyuţe Rav Seʻadyah Ga’on: Mahadurah Madaʻit (shel ha-Yoz.rot) u-Mavo Kelali li-Yez.irato” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1982), and cf. Ezra Fleischer, Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages [in Hebrew] ( Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1975), 324–7; idem, “The Place of R. Saadia Gaon in the History of Hebrew Poetry” [in Hebrew], Pe‘amim 54 (1993): 4–17; Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 323–9; and idem, Sa’adyah Gaon (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2016), 97–117. 9 See Tobi, “Sa’adiah Gaon, Poet-Paytan: Connecting the Link between the Ancient Piyyut and Hebrew Arabicised Poetry in Spain,” in Israel and Ishmael: Studies in Muslim-Jewish Relations, ed. Tudor Parfitt (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 59–77. 10 The piyyut was published by Zulay, Ha-Askolah, 111–1, and discussed by him, 99–7; and by Tobi, “Piyyuţe Rav Seʻadyah Ga’on,” 110–7. 11 See Tobi, “R. Saadia Gaon and Arabic Poetry,” 35. 12 On the rahit, a series of refrains constructed along a progression of letters, words, or verses, see Fleischer, Hebrew Liturgical Poetry, 170–71.

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the piyyut in this way, Saadia affirmed the soul’s exalted essence while also creating a dramatic portrait of the soul in crisis: entrapped by the body, tainted by sin, and crying out for divine succor. By appealing directly to the soul, the worshiper is forced to confront the disconnect between the ideal nature and actual state of his soul, and by extension to acknowledge the urgency of the task of self-examination and restoration on the day of atonement. Each line of Saadia’s piyyut is rich in allusions: biblical and rabbinic, to be sure, but also self-referential, hinting at passages in his own writings (exegetical and theological) that provide the linguistic or conceptual key to unlock the meaning of a given phrase. In order to illustrate Saadia’s primary purpose in this section of the piyyut, I will limit my translations and comments to a brief selection of verses, a small taste of the poetic artistry and conceptual depth of the work. Bless, noble and mighty, glorify and continually praise The Noble and Mighty, high and exalted, dwelling on high . . . Bless, you who fill the entire body, whose corruption cannot reach you,13 The One who fills heaven and earth, neither of which encompasses Him. Bless and bow, you who sees all without being seen and corrupted, The Ancient One, who sees all without being seen and exposed. Bless, sustainer of every limb, providing for their every need from delectable nutriment, The Sustainer of all living souls, providing the proper amount for each and every one. Bless, my life, who bears the body’s burden, The Life of the worlds, who bears all, citadel and support. Bless, pure of every filth and clean without recourse to water, The Pure One, who brooks no blandishment or base spirit.

13 The term for corruption (‫ )התלהם‬is based on Proverbs 18:8 (‫)כמתלהמים‬, which Saadia understood in terms of damage inflicted on others. See Mishle im Targum u-Ferush ha-Ga’on Rabbenu Se‘adyah ben Yosef Fayyumi zt”l (Jerusalem: Mekhon Mishnat ha-Rambam, 1994), 130.

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Bless, unique one, with no rival in any of the limbs, The Unique One, singular and solitary, with no other, no equal or kin.14 Picking up where the biblical psalmist left off, Saadia turned an ancient poetic device into a meditation on the meaning and mission of the soul itself. Each couplet, in rhythmic succession, turns the focus of the worshiper from the national destiny at the heart of communal prayer to the inner drama of the human soul, the focus of the liturgical cycle of the days of awe. The soul is presented in sharp contrast to the body, although the entanglement of the two and the challenge the body poses to the soul’s mission is the subject of the next part of the piyyut. In this sense, Saadia’s address to the soul continues the process of splintering the self that Savran discovered in biblical poetry, but with broader implications. Rather than merely attesting to different voices in the self, our piyyut confronts the worshiper with a bifurcated sense of self, with its physical and spiritual components divided against themselves. At the same time, it is precisely the divided self that provides the piyyut with a profound sense of optimism. As Saadia put it in his Book of Beliefs and Opinions, the task of a piyyut for the day of atonement is to rouse worshipers to repentance by focusing on the fragility and ephemerality of human life. “A person must recall his poor state, his toil, weariness, weakness, and death… For this reason, the sages established the practice of reciting poems on these themes on the day of atonement. . . .”15 In his own piyyut of admonishment (tokheh.ah) composed for the day of atonement, Saadia did just that.16 Designed for the same day and for a similar purpose, Saadia’s “Bless, my soul” shares a sense of existential urgency, but in place of dire warnings it conveys profound optimism in the exalted state of the soul, despite its entanglement in the body. It celebrates the divine majesty

14 Zulay, Ha-Askolah, 111–2. . . .‫ברכי אברת ואמצת ושימי כבוד והללי לעד \ את אביר ואמיץ רם ונשא שוכן עד‬ .‫ברכי הממלאה את כל הגוף ובך יעמוד מהתלהם \ את המלא שמים וארץ ולא יכלכלוהו כהם וכהם‬ .‫הרואה את הכל והיא לא תֵ ראה ותנזף \ את ותיק הרואֶה את הכל והוא לא י ֵראה ולא ישזף‬ ‫ברכי והשתחוי‬ ‫ׇ‬ .‫ברכי זנה את כל אבר ואבר מדשן המאכל כדי ספקו \ את זן נפשות כל החיים כל אחד ואחד להטריפו לחם חוקו‬ .‫ברכי חייתי הסובלת את כל הגולם לטעון \ את חי העולמים הסובל כל והוא המשגב והמשעון‬ .‫ברכי טהורה מכל טנף ונקייה מכל רחיצה \ אין טהור אין לפניו חנופה ולא רוח שמצה‬ .‫ברכי יחידה ואין שני כמותך בכל האברים \ את אחד יחיד ומיוחד ואין עוד ואין לו שני ולא חברים‬ 15 Saadia Gaon, Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 5:5. See Saadia Gaon, Sefer ha-Nivh.ar ba-Emunot uva-Deʻot, ed. Yosef Qafih. (Kiryat Ono: Mekhon Mosheh, 2007), 183. 16 See “If according to your choosing” (‫)אם לפי בחרך‬, in Siddur R. Saadja Gaon, ed. Israel Davidson et al. ( Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 2000), 403–9; and Zulay, Ha-Askolah, 65–77; and cf. Tobi, “Piyyuţe Rav Seʻadyah Ga’on,” 32–40.

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by discovering what is majestic in the human soul, reminding the worshiper of the divine image residing within the fragile human frame. But if Saadia accentuated the dignity of the soul as mirror of the divine, he studiously avoided blurring the boundaries between creation and Creator. It is on this point that Saadia’s poetry dovetails with his philosophy. In order to appreciate the philosophical position he advanced in the poem, it is important to first draw attention to his sophisticated integration of structural parallelism and rabbinic parallelism. Saadia designed each couplet to accentuate the many parallels between the soul and its Creator, punctuated by the barekhi-et structure. The inspiration for this paradigm were not the medieval philosophers but the classical sages: Concerning what did David mention “Bless, my soul” five times .  .  ? Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, fills the entire world, so does the soul fill the entire body. Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, sees without being seen, so does the soul see without being seen. Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, sustains the entire world, so does the soul sustain the entire body. Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is pure, so is the soul pure. Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is hidden away, so is the soul hidden away. Let the one who has these five attributes come and give praise to the One who has these five attributes.17 Saadia utilized this talmudic homily as the blueprint for his “Bless, my soul,” down to the final injunction that the soul is uniquely suited to praise God. It is with this parallelism in mind that we can begin to assess Saadia’s philosophical argument in the poem. In his view, shared characteristics should not be confused with shared essence. It is only when we preserve the metaphysical boundaries between divinity and humanity that we can properly speak of a creature praising and blessing its Creator.18 It is here that he positioned himself in opposition to the Neoplatonic view of the soul as an emanation from the divine, the Soul of souls. In his Book of Beliefs and Opinions, he dismissed the Neoplatonic view that the soul was created out of the very essence of the Creator, to which it is destined to return after death.19 To the contrary, “it is clear 17 BT Berakhot 10a. 18 The grammatical underpinning of each couplet (subject-object) serves to reinforce the deeper theological import of the parallelism. 19 Saadia Gaon, Book of Beliefs and Opinions, esp., 1:3 and 6:8. See, respectively, Saadia Gaon, Sefer ha-Nivh.ar, 49 and 214.

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that the soul was created, just as all of creation was originated [ex nihilo], for it is false [to assert] that anything is eternal other than God.”20 Saadia’s rejection of the Neoplatonic doctrine of the transcendent soul is reinforced in the poem not only in his creative use of parallel structure, but in his use of mirror imagery to depict the created soul as the inverse of the divine Creator. Consider the second couplet of the piyyut: Bless, creature, you whose days are limited and whose moments are fixed, The Creator and Fashioner of all, with no limit or number to His days.21 Students of Kalam will recognize in Saadia’s insistence on creatio ex nihilo the core Mu‘tazilite doctrine that nothing is eternal but God and that even His attributes are created.22 Despite the fact that it did not exactly fit into the overarching schema of the piyyut, Saadia inserted this couplet in order to remove any ambiguity that the soul, addressed here in the second person, might be a celestial entity independent of the autonomous self. The soul may be noble, powerful, and pure, but it is also created, occupying the same position of humility and dependence as every other creature before its Creator.23 In Saadia’s hands, devotional poetry became a powerful ally of religious philosophy.

The Divine Self: Andalusian Hebrew Poems to the Soul If modern scholars have begun to acknowledge the literary and thematic significance of Saadia’s “Bless, my soul,” its medieval reception was more immediate and sustained. For one thing, no fewer than thirty-nine (fragmentary)

20 Saadia Gaon, Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 6:3 and 6:2. See, respectively, Saadia Gaon, Sefer ha-Nivh.ar, 199 and 197. Cf. also Zulay, Ha-Askolah, 101. 21 Zulay, Ha-Askolah, 111, ll. 3–4. .‫ברכי ברואה וקץ לימיך ועתים מזומנים \ את בורא הכל ויוצרו ואין לו תכלית ולא מספר שנים‬ 22 On the early Mu‘tazilite rejection of the eternity of divine attributes, see Albert Nader, Le systeme philosophique des Mu‘tazila (Beirut: Éditions Les Lettres orientales, 1956), 49–50. On the Mu‘tazilite doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, its roots and influence, see Peter Adamson, “Al-Kindī and the Mu‘tazila: Divine Attributes, Creation and Freedom,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 13 (2003): 57–66. 23 Saadia was just as insistent that the soul retains its independent status after death, rather than return to its divine source. Cf. Saadia Gaon, Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 6:7. See Saadia Gaon, Sefer ha-Nivh.ar, 212–3, reinforced in his tokheh.a (‫ )אם לפי בחרך‬in Siddur R. Saadja Gaon, 407–8, ll. 65–72. In our piyyut, he inverted the Neoplatonic view of the soul’s return to God after death by asserting the soul’s return to God while alive through repentance, the central drama of the day of atonement. See Zulay, Ha-Askolah, 113–4, ll. 39–40.

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copies of the poem have survived in various Genizah collections.24 And the impact of the novel form inspired several Andalusian Hebrew poets, some of whom adopted a similar template and others who developed new techniques with which to address the soul. But formal continuity did not always translate into conceptual continuity. All of the Andalusian poets who made use of the “Bless, my soul” motif took it in directions that Saadia had clearly imagined yet studiously avoided. Each of them adopted the Neoplatonic doctrine of emanation as the basis for the divine-human nexus, further deepening the alienation of the divine soul from the human subject. The first to follow in Saadia’s lead, Bah.ya ibn Paquda, was primarily known not as a paytan but as a moralist and theologian. The piyyut in question was included by the author himself at the end of his Book of Guidance to the Duties of the Heart.25 In the final chapter, Bah.ya endorsed the practice of supererogatory fasting during the day and prayers at night, recommending two of his own compositions for use during nighttime devotions. The first was intended as an admonition to the soul to turn to God in devotion: “I have composed a solemn work in the Hebrew language, called a tokheh.ah, that seeks to admonish and reprove the soul, urging and prodding it to prayer.”26 Bah.ya’s adoption of the tokheh.ah, traditionally recited on the day of atonement, for daily (or nightly) recitation is of special significance. His prayer was intended not for everyone at any time, but for the most committed devotee at the height of spiritual attainment. What the ordinary tokheh.ah elicited from worshipers on the day of atonement, the special tokheh.ah demanded of pietists at any time of day or night. The opening verses of Bah.ya’s prayer admonish the soul to awaken and call to mind its true nature. “Bless God, O my soul—all my being, His holy name” (Ps. 103:1). O my soul, stride mightily and bless your Rock! Compose a hymn in His presence and pour out your speech before Him. Awake from your slumber and recognize your own abode— Where you came from and where you are going . . . You were fashioned from the source of knowledge, taken from the font of wisdom. 24 See ibid., 108–10. 25 See Bah.ya ibn Paquda, Sefer Torat Ḥovot ha-Levavot, ed. Yosef Qafih. ( Jerusalem: n.p., 2001), 432–4, also printed by Yedidyah Peles, “Bahya ben Yosef ibn Baquda: Liturgical Poems” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 1977), 78–83. 26 Sefer Torat Ḥovot ha-Levavot, ed. Qafih., 424.

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You were brought from a holy place, from a city of the mighty— From God, from the heavens!27 In the spirit of Saadia’s piyyut, Bah.ya’s prayer aimed to rouse the soul from its worldly slumber in order to see itself as it truly is. But if Saadia depicted the soul as God-like in relation to the body, Bah.ya addressed the soul as godly in nature, extracted from a celestial source and, if true to itself, destined to return to the divine quarry from which it was hewn. In each case, the intended context for the poem’s recitation reinforces the underlying drama at the heart of the poem. Saadia’s piyyut invokes the soul’s return in terms of repentance from sin, while Bah.ya’s prayer speaks of the soul’s return to its divine source. The Neoplatonic anthropology that Saadia rejected in favor of strict separation between Creator and created reemerged as a driving motif of Bah.ya’s poem, soon to become the prevailing approach among medieval Jewish thinkers and poets alike, prior to the resurgence of Aristotelianism. The poet chides the soul not to forget “where you came from and where you are going.” In case there was any ambiguity as to the soul’s true identity, the answer comes in short order, “from God, from the heavens!” Bah.ya’s poem to the soul is one of the earliest attempts to bridge the worlds of Neoplatonic philosophy and devotional poetry. His contemporary, Solomon ibn Gabirol, did so on a far grander scale in his Keter Malkhut, composed for private recitation on the day of atonement, but also in many smaller compositions.28 In most of these, including Keter Malkhut, Ibn Gabirol wrote of the soul in a Neoplatonic vein, echoing themes he developed at greater length in his Fons Vitae.29 In some of his short liturgical proems (reshuyot), we find stirring evocations of the divine soul dwelling within.30 And, although he did not adopt ‘Bless, my soul’ as a mode of address, several of his piyyutim for the

27 Ibid., 432, and Peles, “Bahya ben Yosef ibn Baquda,” 78, ll. 1–9, 19–23. \ ‫ עז תדרכי \ וצורך ברכי \ וחין לפניו ערכי \ ושיחה שפכי‬,‫ברכי נפשי את ה' וכל קרבי את שם קדשו! \ נפשי‬ ‫ כי ממקור בינה קֺרצת \ וממעין חכמה‬. . . ‫והתעוררי משנתכי \ והתבונני מקומכי \ אי מזה באת ואנה תלכי‬ !‫לֻקחת \ וממקום קדוש הובאת \ ומעיר גבורים הוצאת \ מאת יי מן השמים‬ 28 Adena Tanenbaum began her study of Andalusian Hebrew poets in The Contemplative Soul (Leiden: Brill, 2002) with Ibn Gabirol (including a chapter on Keter Malkhut), followed by Moses ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Ezra, and Judah Halevi, with additional attention to postAndalusian Hebrew poets. We may now add Bah.ya ibn Paquda to the list of poet-theologians, although his compositions were less contemplative than devotional. 29 For the journey of the soul in his larger works, see Solomon ibn Gabirol, A Crown for the King, ed. and trans. David Slavitt (New York: Oxford University Press), 65, 77; and Fons Vitae, 1:2–5 and 3:56–7. 30 See, for example, Shire ha-Qodesh le-Rabbi Shelomoh ibn Gabirol: ʻAl pi Kitve Yad u-Defusim, ed. Dov Yarden ( Jerusalem: n.p., 1977–1980), 1:461–2, no. 135 (esp. l. 5).

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day of atonement apostrophize and admonish the soul, bridging the liturgical focus of Saadia with the Neoplatonic drama of Bah.ya.31 We possess interesting testimony to the effect that the “Bless, my soul” motif not only enjoyed currency among the Andalusian paytanim but was recognized as a poetic genre in and of itself. In a fascinating Judeo-Arabic treatise on the soul from the eleventh or twelfth century, Ma‘ānī al-nafs (Matters of the soul), which long passed under the name of Bah.ya ibn Paquda, the author explained that he determined to write the work after first trying his hand at Hebrew love poetry directed to the soul: “Since God granted me the facility to compose a song and praise to Him in the manner of ‘Bless God, O my soul’ [and] in the style of love poetry (ghazal), in accordance with both law and tradition. . . .”32 The author argued that the soul preexisted the body as a divine emanation, passing through the celestial spheres before its encasement in the material world. Although his “Bless, my soul” does not survive, his brief description suggests that it was composed as a song of praise and love of God directed at the soul. Like Ibn Paquda and Ibn Gabirol, the author of Ma‘ānī al-nafs believed that the human being was a composite of celestial and earthly elements that maintain a tenuous coexistence. Only the soul, the divine emanation within, was fit to offer praise and adoration worthy of the Creator. At the apex of the Andalusian Hebrew renaissance in the twelfth century, two poets stand out for their sustained use of apostrophe to the soul, including compositions in the ‘Bless, my soul’ genre: Judah Halevi and Abraham ibn Ezra. As both Raymond Scheindlin and Adena Tanenbaum have shown, Halevi’s poetry of the soul and his engagement with Neoplatonic philosophy are best understood in relation to the work of Ibn Gabirol.33 While the latter’s verse exudes a confidence in the soul’s innate ability to connect with its Creator, Halevi’s devotional poetry is filled with a powerful longing for the divine presence, pivoting between witness and absence of the divine. But even if he placed a greater emphasis on the current worldly abode of the soul in his Kuzari, Halevi was fundamentally aligned with the general

31 See, for example, ibid., 1:289–93, nos. 87–88; and several piyyutim for other occasions, ibid., 2:333–4, no. 102; 2:537–8, no. 193; and 2:543–6, no. 197 (discussed by Tanenbaum in The Contemplative Soul, ch. 3 and 8, respectively). 32 Pseudo-Bah.ya, Kitâb ma‘ânî al-nafs: Buch vom Wesen der Seele, ed. Ignaz Goldziher (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1907), 2. For arguments against the attribution of this work to Bah.ya ibn Paquda, see Goldziher’s notes, ibid., 5–9; and Isaac Husik, A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916), 106. 33 See Raymond Scheindlin, “The Relation between the Speaker and God in the Reshuyot of Ibn Gabirol and Judah Halevi: Contrasting Approaches” [in Hebrew], Mesoret ha-Piyyut 1 (1997): 61–82; and Tanenbaum, The Contemplative Soul, 174–94.

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Neoplatonic anthropology and privileged the soul’s celestial origins in his devotional verse. His parley with Ibn Gabirol can be found in several short reshuyot (as shown by Scheindlin) and in two pieces beginning “Return, O soul, to your resting place” (‫)שובי נפשי למנוחייכי‬, a deliberate echo and inversion of Ibn Gabirol’s work by the same name (as shown by Tanenbaum).34 But it is in two “Bless, my soul” compositions where Halevi positioned himself in dialogue not only with other poets in the Neoplatonic mold but with Saadia as the initiator of the genre. Like Saadia, Halevi designated both of these compositions for the day of atonement. A few selections from Halevi’s poems will underscore his own approach and his implicit response to both Saadia and Ibn Gabirol. Bless God, O my soul, and do not forget all His kindness, Recall that you were taken from a sacred source, brought from a pure quarry . . . Do not let the plagued body’s guiles deceive you, Leave it before it leaves you, scorn it before it scorns you . . . What attraction could it hold for you? Do you not know that tomorrow it will hasten away and return to its original dust— While you will return to God who gave you . . . ? Look to the Rock from which you were hewn, the precious form from which you were taken! Raise up your eyes and turn your head to the pure lamp that is in God’s presence, From whose light you shine and toward whose presence you radiate . . . Sanctify yourself, be cleansed from impurity, flee from death, depart from shadows, And draw forth from the source of life and font of salvation!35

34 See Judah Halevi, Shire ha-Qodesh le-Rabbi Yehudah Halevi, ed. Dov Yarden ( Jerusalem, n.p., 1978–86), 2:372–3, no. 153, and 3, 714–5, no. 295. 35 Halevi, Shire ha-Qodesh, ed. Yarden, 1:142–4, ll. 1–2, 6–9, 20–22, and 26–27. ‫ ואל‬. . . ‫ זכרי כי ממקום קדוש הוציאך ומגזרת טֺהר המציאך‬.‫ברכי נפשי את יי ואל תשכחי כל גמוליו‬ ‫ ומה לך אחריו נמשכת? הלא תדעי כי‬.‫ עזביהו טרם יעזבך והכלימהו טרם יכלימך‬,‫יפתוך יצרי הגוף הנגוף‬ ‫ ? הביטי אל צור‬. . . ‫ ואת תשובי אל האלהים אשר נתנך‬,‫למחר הוא נחפז ללכת וישֺב אל עפרו כשהיה‬ ‫ שאי עיניך והסבי פניך אל המנורה הטהורה אשר‬,‫אשר ממנו חֻצבת ואל הגִזרה הפניניה אשר ממנה לֻקחת‬ ‫ צאי‬,‫ ברחי מן המות‬,‫ והתקדשי והטהרי מטֻמאתך‬. . . ‫לפני יי אשר ממאורה תאירי ועל עבר פניה תזהירי‬ .‫ ושאבי ממקור החיים וממעיני הישועה‬,‫מן הצלמות‬

Songs to the Soul in Medieval Hebrew Poetr y

Both Saadia and Halevi constructed their piyyutim as the voice of the worshiper turning inward, rousing the soul to recall its true nature and cast off its worldly fetters. Both portray a stark divide between body and soul, in which the soul is uniquely poised to bless its Creator as a singular reflection of the divine in this world. But from the first lines it is clear that Halevi’s conception of the soul was deeply anchored in the dominant Neoplatonic philosophy of his contemporaries. Each new metaphor of the soul’s origins (“taken from a sacred source, brought from a pure quarry . . . , the Rock from which you were hewn”) serves as a concrete reminder that the soul is not of this world and is not at home in the human frame in which it presently resides. The images of divine light and spiritual illumination capture this same division but with a new metaphor. Not only does the soul derive its light from the divine radiance, it only shines when facing and reflecting that original light. These motifs reemerge in Halevi’s other “Bless, my soul,” whose structural parallels with Saadia’s piyyut only serve to reinforce the differences between them. If Saadia portrayed the soul as created in the image of God yet wholly other than the Creator, Halevi’s imagery casts the soul as an extension of the divine, more akin to Creator than to creation. A few lines from the poem convey Halevi’s subtle departure from Saadia’s script. Bless God, O my soul! Bless, emanated from the spirit of holiness, the name of the Mighty, majestic in holiness . . . Bless, pure one, drawn from pure waters, the name of One who chooses you to walk before Him . . . Bless, clear one, shining through the body’s darkness, the name of the Radiance of the world, terrible and awesome . . .36 All indications point to the prominence and versatility of the new poetry to the soul from the origins of the Hebrew literary renaissance in Iraq through its apex in Iberia. To take one final example, Abraham Ibn Ezra (Halevi’s contemporary) composed numerous piyyutim with the direct mode of address, many of which make powerful use of the Neoplatonic motif of the celestial soul,

36 Ibid., 67–73, ll. 0–2 (sic), 4–5, and 19–20. ‫ את שם‬,‫ ברכי מנחלי בֺר נמשכת‬. . . ‫ את שם אדיר נאדר בקֺדש‬,‫ ברכי אצולה מרוח הקֺדש‬.‫ברכי נפשי את יי‬ . . .‫ את שם זֺהר העולם איֺם ונורא‬,‫ ברכי זכה בעד מחשכי הגוף מאירה‬. . . ‫בוחרך לפניו ללכת‬ Halevi returned to the light metaphor toward the end of the poem when he declared that human souls were forged out of the original light of creation (ibid., 73, l. 66): “He established souls with the first light . . .” (‫) הראשון תִ כן נשמות עם האור‬

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including one that adopted the “Bless, my soul” device as a reshut for barekhu.37 In one of Ibn Ezra’s most succinct and powerful examples of this motif, there is a strong indication that he was aware of Halevi’s “Bless, my soul” couplet and composed a poem in dialogue with the latter.38 As we have seen, Saadia emphasized the createdness of the soul and the otherness of the Creator, while Halevi amplified the soul’s celestial nature and kinship with the divine. In his own version, Ibn Ezra turned the theological disparity between his predecessors into a dynamic synthesis by juxtaposing Saadia’s created soul (‫ )ברואה‬with Halevi’s emanated soul (‫ )אצולה‬in the opening two verses. Did Ibn Ezra attempt to resolve the paradox of the divided self or was the juxtaposition designed to leave the mystery of the soul’s dual nature unresolved? If we read his poetry in light of his biblical exegesis, we might say that Ibn Ezra intended a resolution by means of a realignment. In his comment on Genesis 1:1, Ibn Ezra argued that the root b.r.’ does not in fact connote creatio ex nihilo, as “most commentators have said” (following Saadia), but separation of one thing from another. “Its meaning,” he proposed, “is ‘to set apart and set a defined boundary,’ and the enlightened will understand” (‫וטעמו לגזור ולשום גבול‬ ‫)נגזר והמשכיל יבין‬.39 According to his preferred reading of the term, a clear allusion to the Neoplatonic process of emanation, Ibn Ezra’s juxtaposion of ‫ ברואה‬and ‫ אצולה‬in his poem may have been a deliberate attempt to bring Saadia into closer alignment with Halevi by reading one verb (b.r.’) in light of the other (a.z..l).40 At the same time, by placing the biblical term for creation after the philosophical term for emanation, he seems to suggest that philosophical truths constitute an essential prelude to a proper understanding of the enigmatic language of prophecy. Ibn Ezra’s evocative verses, which bridge Saadia and

37 See The Religious Poems of Abraham ibn Ezra [in Hebrew], ed. Yisrael Levin ( Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1975–80), 1:37–8, no. 14 (“Bless, my soul”), 1:48–9, no. 25, and esp. 1:54–5, no. 31, 1:85–7, no. 48, and 1:434–8, no. 227 (some of the most vivid apostrophes to the soul in a Neoplatonic key), 2:113–5, no. 284.4. Other evocative poems on the divine indwelling in the soul were constructed in the third person, for example, 1:69–71, no. 40, and 1:88–89, no. 49 (discussed by Tanenbaum in The Contemplative Soul, ch. 6). 38 Given that the two poets were contemporaries, it is entirely possible that Ibn Ezra’s poem preceded Halevi. Yet since Halevi’s resounding address to the emanated soul stands in sharp contrast to Saadia’s call to the created soul, Ibn Ezra’s juxtaposition of the two appears to be a deliberate attempt to synthesis these dueling accounts, perhaps even intended to tone down the full force of Halevi’s Neoplatonic version. 39 See Abraham ibn Ezra, Mikra’ot Gedolot ha-Keter, ed. Menachem Cohen (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1997), 1:2 (right column). 40 I thank Jonathan Decter, for pointing me to Ibn Ezra’s reading of b.r.’ as a clue to interpreting this poem.

Songs to the Soul in Medieval Hebrew Poetr y

Halevi’s language while subtly reinforcing the Neoplatonic account of the origins of the soul, provide a fitting coda to this study. Emanated from the source of life, shining, Brought into being from a sacred place, pure— Created from the formless, unique, More precious than wisdom and honor . . .41

41 Ibid., 1:55, ll. 1–2. . . . ‫ ומחכמה ומכבוד יקרה‬,‫ ברואה מבלי תבנית יחידה‬.‫ גזורה ממקום קֺדש טהורה‬,‫אצולה ממקור חיים מאירה‬ While it is possible to read ‫ מבלי תבנית‬as “without form” rather than “from the formless,” I understand the force of the -‫ מ‬as parallel to ‫ ממקור חיים‬and ‫ ממקום קדש‬in the preceding line.

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Pronouncing Words, Creating Worlds: Matter and Form in Joseph Giqatilla’s Hermeneutics∗ Tzvi Schoenberg

The legacy of a scholar and a teacher whose thought informed the minds of many, the work of Michel Fishbane can and should be considered as multidimensional, extending the limits of narrow disciplines while integrating distinct perspectives into complex systems of thought. Yet, if one is to choose an adjective that fits Fishbane’s work, the term “hermeneutical” would seem appropriate. As a scholar of textual traditions, Fishbane has encompassed the literary wealth of spiritual traditions, reconstructing the complex procedures of hermeneutical creativity. As a Jewish theologian, Fishbane has taught us to cultivate the hermeneutic sensibility in response to the text and, more fundamentally, as an awareness that guides our theological and ethical quest. Complicating the relationships between these two perspectives of his work, Fishbane constructed a critical view of theology as a hermeneutical way of being. For the purpose of the present study, I  want to draw attention to two corresponding dimensions that prescribe this hermeneutical theology. On the

I want to thank Dr. Ori Werdiger and Mr. Avraham Zaks for reading an earlier version of this article, and Dr. Amichai Amit and Dr. Antonio Vargas for their helpful remarks.

∗

P r o n o u n c i n g Wo r d s , C r e a t i n g Wo r l d s

one hand, theology is motivated by a longing to a transcendence that is prior to the categories of thought and speech and, accordingly, indefinite. On the other hand, this longing is indispensably hermeneutical, in the sense that it begins with and works through the factual experiences that constitute our world. As the theological quest refines, the indefinite longing to the transcendent is revealed in the matrix of signs that constitute our definite world, thereby informing our perception thereof and ethical response thereto. In the spirit of Maimonidean theology, perhaps the paradigmatic hermeneuticist in medieval Jewish thought, we may frame these two poles of hermeneutical theology in terms of form and matter. While the quest of the transcendent is indefinite, it essentially reinforms the matter of factual experience, opening these experiences beyond their immediate and accustomed meanings. Continuing this spirit, in the present study I intend to explicate the principles of matter and form in the writings of the thirteenth-century Castilian thinker Joseph Giqatilla, specifically in connection with his hermeneutics. Giqatilla’s account of language is premised on a Jewish-traditional proposition that Hebrew is endowed with ontological qualities, and this study examines how this proposition is conceptualized in hermeneutical terms. The working assumption of my discussion is that hermeneutic models work against specific epistemes, and that an analysis of their function entails consideration of the conceptual framework in which they are developed. As for many thinkers in the Middle Ages, the concepts of matter and form were pivotal for Giqatilla’s thought and they accordingly framed his discussion on language. In his early thinking, these principles were framed by reference to Maimonides. I begin with several expressions from Giqatilla’s early works that articulate the connection between language and matter and form. I then turn to a brief discussion of Maimonides’s treatment of matter and form in connection with language. This sets the framework against which Giqatilla’s expressions about language can be better situated, focusing on the prime constituents of Hebrew linguistic activity—consonants and vowels. In Giqatilla’s treatment, consonants and vowels are considered to reflect cosmic order, elaborating on the traditional proposition of creation in speech.1 While the constituents of Hebrew are clearly discussed in cosmological terms, Giqatilla makes a specific claim about the divine creative power of Hebrew. This claim, which concern the formation of concepts through words, is facilitated through an adaptation of Maimonides’

1 See the important remarks in Eliot Wolfson, “Letter Symbolism and Merkavah Imagery in the Zohar,” in ‘Alei Shefer: Studies in the Literature of Jewish Thought, ed. Moshe Ḥallamish (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1990), 208*–9*.

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account. Concluding with the question of scriptural hermeneutics, I  suggest two models that are identified in Giqatilla’s work, one of which will be discussed in comparison to Maimonides.

Giqatilla’s Hermeneutics: Maimonidean Overtones Maimonides’s approach to scriptural hermeneutics left a clear mark on subsequent speculations on the nature of language, specifically in thirteenthcentury Jewish thought.2 A particular instance of this is noticeable in the early works of Joseph Giqatilla, whose writings were pivotal for the development of kabbalistic thought. Giqatilla’s early relationship to Maimonides was noted by several scholars, who have taken preliminary steps toward an explanation.3 In what follows, I  intend to elucidate this relationship in connection with Giqatilla’s hermeneutics, developed in two of Giqatilla’s early works form the 1270s: Sefer ha-Niqqud,4 early form, and his seminal Ginat Egoz, particularly in its third part.5 In these works, Giqatilla maintains the terms murgash and muskal

2 Cf. Irene Zweip, Mother of Reason and Revelation: A Short History of Medieval Jewish Linguistic Thought (Amsterdam, J. C. Gieben: 1997), 49, 107–9, 171–2, and passim. 3 See Shlomo Blickstein, “Between Philosophy and Mysticism: A Study of the Philosophical Qabbalistic Writings of Yosef Gikatila” (PhD diss., New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1983), 46–50; Yosef Giqatilla, Sefer ha-Niqqud: Flavius Mithridates Latin Translation, the Hebrew Text, and an English Version, ed. Annet Martini (Turin: Aragno, 2010), 130–62 (henceforth SN); Avishai Bar-Asher, “The Punctiform Deity: Theological Debates among the Masters of Niqqud in the Works of Joseph Gikatilla’s ‘Disciples,’” Kabbalah 53 (2022): 105. For a general discussion of Giqatilla’s hermeneutics, see Elke Morlok, Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla’s Hermeneutics (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). Cf. her discussion on language, ibid., 172–188. 4 Reference will be made to the short version, printed in SN, 1*–85*. For a discussion of the longer version, see Bar-Asher, Punctiform, 103–4. 5 Yosef Giqatilla, Ginat Egoz ( Jerusalem: Yeshivat ha-H.ayim veha-Shalom, 1989) (henceforth GE). The proximity of Sefer ha-Niqqud to part three of Ginat Egoz, with respect to Maimonidean terminology, is not by chance, and it further supports their editorial relationship, as suggested by several scholars. For a critical assessment of this editorial prelateship, see Bar-Asher, Punctiform, 105, n. 5. The delineation of the present study to the early writings assumes the general classification of Giqatilla’s thought into two phases, the so-called “early” and “late.” Cf. Blickstein, “Between Philosophy and Mysticism,” 1–2 and 21–31. However, Giqatilla’s engagement with Maimonides reflects this shift in gradual terms; as Giqatilla’s thought developed, his reliance on Maimonides gradually faded. This gradual phase is expressed in the reconsideration of the principles of matter and form, which consequently reframes Giqatilla’s hermeneutical model. An interesting moment in this process is formulated in the Treatise on the Essence of the Torah, misattributed to Nah.manides and arguably composed by Giqatilla. Kitvei Ramban, ed. Ḥayim Chavel ( Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1964), 2:465–70. I intend to elaborate on this shift in a separate study.

P r o n o u n c i n g Wo r d s , C r e a t i n g Wo r l d s

as constituting an ontology that operates on two levels. These two levels can be generally rendered in terms of ‘sensory’ and ‘intelligible’, respectively, but they also prescribe the function of scriptural hermeneutics, namely, to disclose the muskal (intelligible) enveloped in the murgash (sensory): “Indeed, in the Account of Creation you will encounter the literal sense [that relates] the sensory, [but] know that it stands against the intelligible secrets.”6 The tension between murgash and muskal figures throughout Giqatilla’s writings,7 and, in his glosses on Maimonides’s Guide of the Perplexed, he further constructs their complex relationship through the parabolic model of apples of gold in settings of silver,8 referring to the perceptible and intelligible, respectively.9 Elsewhere in Ginat Egoz, Giqatilla frames the relationship between the sensible and the intelligible in the image of the palace (hekhal): “In the nut garden [are the] murgash and muskal, and the sensory (hergesh) is the palace of its intelligible (muskhalo).”10 These expressions are indicative of Giqatilla’s reflections on the nature of language and hermeneutics, but they also draw attention to Maimonidean concepts and terminology that are prevalent throughout his early works. Given these considerations, we should expect Giqatilla to follow Maimonides’s account of language—which he does, but not without complication. To get a better sense of this relationship, I shall first draw some general lines of Maimonides’s conceptual framework of language.

6 GE, 243–4. On the offset between murgsah and muskal in the writings of Giqatilla, see Asi Farber-Ginat, “A New Fragment from R. Joseph Gikatilla’s Preface to Ginat Egoz,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 1 (1981): 166, n. 2. On the term murgash in medieval Hebrew philosophy, see Jacob Klatzkin, An Anthology of Hebrew Philosophy Culled from Manuscripts and Printed Works, vol. 1 (Berlin: Eschkol, 1926), 212–3. 7 See Ithamar Gruenwald, Tarbiz.  36 (1966): 76–84. 8 Prov. 25:11. 9 Yosef Giqatilla, “Be’urim le-Sefer Moreh Nevukhim la-Rambam,” in Isaac Abrabanel, Ketavim al-Machshevet Yisrael, vol. 3 ( Jerusalem, 1967), fol. 20c (henceforth Glosses). On the reference to this verse in parabolic models in the Middle Ages, see Frank Talmage, Apples of Gold in Settings of Silver, ed. Barry Walfish (Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1999), 108–151. Cf. Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shmuel ibn Tibbon ( Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 2001), Introduction, 4–5. Henceforth, references to the Guide will be made to Shmuel ibn Tibbon’s translation, which, upon comparison, seems present in Giqatilla’s allusions to the Guide. On Giqatilla’s reservations about Yehuda al-Harizi’s translation, see Giqatilla, Glosses, fol. 19a–b. 10 Giqatilla, fragment published by Farber-Ginat, “A New Fragment from R. Joseph Gikatilla’s Preface to Ginat Egoz,” 166 (fol. 3b), and cf. Maimonides, Guide, 579 (III:51). On the palace image in medieval Jewish literature, and its Maimonidean background, see Talmage, Apples of Gold, 111–3.

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The Matter and Form of Language: Conceptual Considerations Maimonides’s exegetical project of scriptural language accords with the conceptual framework developed in his Guide of the Perplexed, which consists of the interplay between the principles of matter and form.11 This interplay is essential for human condition, whose engagement with sensory experiences is not without reference to intelligible principles. Working with this premise, Maimonides aimed to establish scriptural language as the ideal medium for construing factual experiences in the form of intelligible and metaphysical principles. Scriptural language relates ordinary facts, which, if construed correctly, direct us to metaphysical truths.12 Maimonides’s hermeneutical program is demonstrated in the structure of the first part of the Guide, constituted by two consecutive discussions about scriptural language. These discussions have been commonly termed “lexicographical” and “philosophical,” respectively identified with chapters 1–49 and 50–72 of part one.13 The first discussion elucidates the possible meaning of scriptural terms and determining their meanings when describing God’s actions.14 The second discussion, which famously deals with God’s negative attributes, is effectively a philosophical reflection on the nature of language. It draws its limits with respect to both divine truths and the principles that govern cosmic order.15 While the successive discussions address distinct issues, philological exegesis and philosophy of language, they are also complementary. The so-called philosophical chapters establish the guiding principle for construing scriptural terms in a manner 11 For a general review of Maimonides’s approach to Hebrew language, see Bernard Septimus, “Maimonides on Language,” in The Culture of Spanish Jewry: Proceedings of the First International Congress, ed. Aviva Doron (Tel Aviv: Levinsky College of Education, 1994), 35–54; Menachem Kellner, “Maimonides on the ‘Normality’ of Hebrew,” in Judaism and Modernity: The Religious Philosophy of David Hartman, ed. Jonathan Malino (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 413–44; and Aviram Ravitsky, “Maimonides’ Theory of Language: Philosophy and Halakhah,” Tarbiz. 76 (2007): 185–231. 12 Cf. Maimonides, Guide, 101–9 (I:33 and I:34). 13 On the division of these chapters into “lexicographical” and “philosophical,” see Arthur Hyman, “Maimonides on Religious Language,” in Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical Studies, ed. Joel Kraemer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 175–91. 14 Cf. Maimonides, Guide, Introduction, 5–6. 15 The distinction between the two areas of knowledge, metaphysica generalis and metaphysica specialis, is suggested in Maimonides’s Treatise on the Art of Logic (trans. Ibn Tibbon), ch. 14. The nature of metaphysical knowledge and its limits has been a debated question among Maimonidean scholars, many of whom responded to Shlomo Pines’s skeptical approach. For a critical assessment of this debate, see Joseph Stern, The Matter and Form of Maimonides’ Guide (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 132–90.

P r o n o u n c i n g Wo r d s , C r e a t i n g Wo r l d s

that connotes a meaning that is appropriate to metaphysical principles, that is, God’s actions. The relationship between the two discussions complicates the apophatic function of the negative attributes, to which much attention has been drawn.16 These attributes formulate the unbridgeable gap between God’s simple existence and the existence of all contingent beings.17 But they also operate as guiding principles for construing scriptural expressions in a way that extends their denotative meaning, thereby revealing God’s action in the world.18 The picture that emerges from these brief remarks can be viewed from the perspective of matter and form. In several places, Maimonides addresses language as an activity that is essentially both material (consisting of physical utterances or relating factual experiences) and mental (consisting of concepts). These two dimensions constitute the respective levels of “external” and “internal” speech, which, on a basic level, formulate the relationship between utterances

16 Literature on the apophatic function of the negative attributes is vast. The following sources are pertinent to my discussion: Harry Wolfson, “Maimonides on Negative Attribute,” in Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Alexander Marx (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945), 180–215; Ehud Benor, “Meaning and Reference in Maimonides’ Negative Theology,” Harvard Theological Review 88 (1995): 339–60; Herbert Davidson, “Maimonides on Divine Attributes as Equivocal Terms,” in Tribute to Michael: Studies in Jewish and Muslim Thought Presented to Professor Michael Schwarz, ed. Sara Klein-Braslavy et al. (Tel Aviv: Tel-Aviv University Press, 2009), 37*–51*; Menachem Lorberbaum, Dazzled by Beauty: Theology as Poetics in Hispanic Jewish Culture ( Jerusaelm: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2011), 94–6, 107–13. 17 See Maimonides, Guide I:59. Harry Wolfson’s tautological formulation demonstrates the apophatic rendition of essential propositions about God: God is (x), which is to say He is not (-x), consequently amounting to the proposition “God—in the affirmative sense—simply is.” (Cf. Wolfson, “Negative Attribute,” 180.) 18 The negative attributes “conduct the mind toward the outmost reach that man may attain in the apprehension of God” (Maimonides, Guide, 115 [I:58]). For example, the fact that “knowledge” is negatively attributed to God can be construed in two ways. As an essential attribute, it annuls attempted propositions about God’s essence; by construing “knowledge” as a negative attribute we are simply stating that God is not not-knowledgeable. But as a principle of cosmic governance, the negative attribution of “knowledge” is not apophatic. Rather, it establishes the criteria by which God’s relationship to the world, qua Creator, can be construed in language. Thus, the idea of cosmic governess is articulated in biblical descriptions of God’s knowledge, expressed in ordinary terms, and the interpretation of these expressions is guided by the notion that, contrary to human knowledge, God’s knowledge of the world operates as a causal principle. This guiding notion is formulated as a negative attribute. Consequently, the further we use this criterion, the more elucidative the literary descriptions become. The suggestion to address Maimonides’s doctrine of negative attributes as dealing with the principles of cosmic order was made by Wolfson through his notion of the third adjacent. See Wolfson, “Negative Attribute,” 181. This notion was further developed in Davidson, “Equivocal Terms.” My suggested treatment of the divine attributes is largely in line with their treatment.

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and concepts.19 Take the word “cat.” This word refers, on the external level, to the sensible properties that pertain to a particular cat. But on the internal level, the word is really the full concept, “cat,” unqualified by the physical utterance. Here the conceptual framework of matter and form is exercised. The transition from the sensory perception of an object to an apprehension of its form is accomplished in language, when words denote according to their internal level. Conversely, inasmuch as words are not yet actualized in their form, they remain in the external level of physical utterance.20 This is a general scheme of ordinary language. In the case of scriptural expressions, however, the relationship between “external” and “internal” levels of speech is more complicated. The form is not simply the conceptual meaning that the word denotes. Guide I:65 discusses the biblical verb “to speak,” which, in the context of human activity described in scripture, means both mental apprehension of metaphysical truths, and articulation in physical utterances.21 The relationship between these two cognates is not explicit, but it can be considered by comparing Guide I:65 to Guide II:33. Whereas Guide I:65 focuses on the first cognate, thereby addressing Moses’s apprehension, Guide II:33 connects this apprehension to scriptural language, which is framed as the rendition of metaphysical truths in articulated sound.22 The two senses of the verb “to speak” thus appear to reflect the two levels of language, “internal” and “external.” Yet, in the context of scriptural language, the relationship between these levels, further qualified by the respective terms bāţin and z.āhir,23 calls for procedures that are hermeneutic in principle. In these 19 See Maimonides, Logic, ch. 14. On al-Fārābī’s distinction between “external” and “internal” language, see Angela Jaffray, “At the Threshold of Philosophy: A Study of al-Fārābī’s Introductory Works on Logic” (PhD diss., Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 2000), 112–5, 158 ff. On al-Fārābī’s contribution to Maimonides’s theory of language, see Joseph Stern, “Meaning and Language,” in The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy, vol. 1, ed. S. Nadler and T. M. Rudavsky (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 236–44. Cf. also the intriguing discussion in Alfred Ivry, “The Logical and Scientific Premises of Maimonides’ Thought,” in Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism: Alexander Altmann Memorial Volume, ed. Alfred L. Ivry et  al. (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 79–85. See also Zweip, Mother of Reason, 41–2. 20 On whether concepts, according to Maimonides, can be fully embodied in linguistic matter, see Ivry, “Premises,” 80. 21 Maimonides, Guide, 135–7 (I:65). Maimonides connects mental representation with divine volition when considering the interpretive possibilities of the term “speech” when assigned to God. In this way, Maimonides construes the term “speech” as encapsulating the cosmogenic principles of divine intellect and will. On the relationship between Maimonides and Saadia Gaon in this regard, see Aviezer Ravitzky, “The Hypostasis of Supreme Wisdom” [in Hebrew], Italia 3 (1982): 19. 22 Maimonides, Guide, 321 (II:33). 23 On z. āhir and bāţin in Maimonides’s works, see Stern, Matter and Form, 18–46. On Maimonides’s hermeneutical procedure of ta’wīl, see Mordechai Z. Cohen, Opening the Gates

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procedures, scriptural expressions disclose a meaning that is deeper than the concepts that the words denote. This observation draws our perspective of Maimonides’s account of hermeneutics, to which I shall return later, but it also sets the conceptual framework against which I will now turn to Giqatilla.

The Matter of the Letters, the Form of the Vowels: Maimonides Appropriated Giqatilla’s approach to Hebrew reflects an ontological position that assigns its phonetic elements creative qualities.24 While this sentiment is evident throughout his works, its specific formulation appears convoluted. More fundamentally, the connection that Maimonides draws between matter and spoken language resurfaces in Giqatilla’s discussion on prophecy, where the linguistic constraint of the divine attributes reflects the limitation of human apprehension which is bound to matter.25 At the same time, the adaptation of the terms “form” and “matter” for the analysis of language is framed by an analogy that challenges the respective disjunction between mental concepts and physical utterances. In this analogy, the relationship between Hebrew words and concepts is intricate: “One cannot enter the muskalot, which is the secret of the vowel-point, but through the murgashot, [that is,] the letters.”26 Language is here discussed from the perspective matter and form, echoing Maimonides’ approach, but with a substantial alteration. These principles are not construed in terms of a relationship between utterances and concepts but reflect the primary constituents of spoken language itself. Now, we seem to have a fair understanding when concepts are considered the linguistic form of material utterances, as the concepts define their use, but how we are to construe the relationship between letters and vowels as respectively analogous to sensory matter and intelligible form? This peculiar analogy dislocates the utterance from its distinct position, as phonetic matter that embodies the form of a concept, which further begs the question: The idea that the concept corresponds to the intelligible form of an object seems comprehensible, but how is this correspondence relocated to the vowel? We shall remain with these questions as we turn to another section in Ginat of Interpretation: Maimonides’ Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic-Andalusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu (Brill: Leiden, 2011), 185–239. 24 Cf. references in n. 3. 25 GE, 423–425. 26 GE, 422. Cf. GE, 425, 432.

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Egoz, where we witness Giqatilla’s ambivalent engagement with Maimonides. Guide II:8 introduces the notion of cosmic music, the pleasant sounds that the Pythagoreans believed to have been produced by the motion of the orbs. Maimonides’s take on this issue is unclear, to say the least,27 and Giqatilla takes the liberty to settle the ambiguity: “Our great master Rabbi Moses ben Maimon elaborated upon this in his Guide. I have noticed that he agrees with the opinion of the philosophers who say that the orbs have sounds that are pleasant, awesome, and mighty.”28 While this assertion reflects an interpretative manipulation of the Guide, it also gives us a cue for explicating the analogy between vowels and form. The relationship of the vowels and the orbs stems from the broader characterization of the vowels in terms of motion. In Arabic and Hebrew linguistic thought, the vowel is often distinguished as a principle of phonetic motion that unites the consonants in a singular word.29 The vowel further operates as an abstract element that activates the meaningful pronunciation of the consonants. On this account, a structural distinction is drawn in Semitic languages between the consonants of a word, which carry its semantic load, and the element that moves and activates their pronunciation.30 These linguistic formulations reached Giqatilla—probably through Abraham ibn Ezra (twelfth century) and by way of Isaac ibn Latif (thirteenth century)31—who further substantiated the function of the vowel.32 The conceptual framework of Giqatilla’s early thought

27 On this question, see Ofer Elior, “‘The Conclusion Whose Demonstration Is Correct Is Believed’: Maimonides on the Possibility of Celestial Sounds, According to Three Medieval Interpreters,” Revue des Études Juives 172 (2013): 283–303. 28 GE, 436; cf. SN, 30. 29 The characterization of the vowels as motion is prevalent in Arabic and Hebrew discussions, as indicated in the twofold meaning in both tenu’ah (Heb.) and h.araka (Ar.). See C. H. M. Versteegh, Greek Elements in Arabic Linguistic Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 19–37; and Ilan Eldar, Hebrew Language Study in the Middle Ages: Texts and Studies ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 2016), 143–6. 30 See C. H. M. Versteegh, Landmarks in Linguistic Thought, vol. 3 (New York: Routledge, 1997), 19 and 82. 31 On Giqatilla and Ibn Ezra, see SN, 64–65, and passim. For preliminary remarks on Giqatilla’s relationship to Ibn Latif, see Blickstein, “Between Philosophy and Mysticism,” 26–27. Their relationship is more substantial than has been assumed, as Ibn Latif was an important source for Giqatilla’s linguistic speculation. This is indicated in their conceptual and terminological affinity, as I hope to show in a separate study. 32 Ibn Ezra’s linguistic discussions are an important source for the substantial function of the vowels. See Abraham ibn Ezra, Sefer S.ah.ot, ed. M. Goodman ( Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 2016), 51–3. Another important source is Halevi’s proposition in the Kuzari: “The vowels are the pneumata for which the consonants are bodies” (Yehuda Halevi, Kuzari, ed. Hartwig Hirschfeld [Leipzig: Schulze 1887], 230–1). This formula later became idiomatic in Jewish linguistic thought and was mediated in kabbalistic sources from the thirteenth century

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denies the possibility of formless matter.33 Applied to language, this means that the consonants necessarily exist through the vowels, in the act of pronunciation: “[T]he letters have no existence without the five vowels that put them into motion.”34 This idea, which prima facie reflects a common philosophical sensibility about spoken language, leads to our preliminary inference about the identity of vowels as form: Without their motion the letters are áphona, to use the Aristotelian term that Ginat Egoz and other Hebrew sources rendered as ilmot, that is, “mutes.”35 Our next step is to elucidate the analogy between Hebrew vowels and muskalot. What does Giqatilla mean by muskalot and how this term is qualified in reference to the Hebrew vowel? Does it follow that the meaning of the word is somehow related to its vowel? Let us first unpack the general characterization of vowels as motion. Here, “motion” can be understood in the narrow sense of a pronounceable consonant,36 and as the integration of consonants into a syllable. Insofar as the phonetic elements per se are meaningless sounds, the integrating vowel qualifies as motion in terms of phonetic form only, but not semantic.37 Rather, the concept is the semantic form of an utterance, in the sense that the utterance is actual when the concept is grasped.38 The nature of language in general thus seems in line with Maimonides’s account. Things are different with respect to Hebrew. Here we must stress the distinguishing character of Hebrew, which consists of its creative force. Like many earlier accounts, Giqatilla took quite literally the traditional proposition of creation in speech,39 and, continuing through the Bahir. Accordingly, these sources designate the vowels as neshama, as opposed to the term z.ura used by Giqatilla. See Sefer ha-Bahir, ed. Reuven Margolies ( Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1951), 51. These terminological choices disclose distinct philosophical sentiments, as I hope to demonstrate in a separate study. On the genealogy of Halevi’s formula in Arabic and Hebrew linguistic thought, see Jonathan Howard, “The Points in the Letters: Greek Philosophy in the Service of Medieval Jewish Linguistics,” Hebrew Union College Annual Volume 89 (2018): 261–96. 33 See also his commentary on Genesis, MS New York JTS 2156, fol. 41a. 34 GE, 413. Cf. SN, 13* 35 GE, 316–7; Aristotle, Poet. 1456 b 24–30. See Averroes, Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics, trans. Charles Butterworth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 117–8; Versrteegh, Greek Elements, 20–21. For a linguistic-philosophical analysis of áphona in Plato, see Gilbert Ryle, “Letters and Syllables in Plato,” The Philosophical Review 69 (1960): 434–5. On the characterization of the consonants as ilmot, see David Kaufmann, Geschichte der Attributenlehre in der Jüdischen Religionsphilosophie des Mittelalters von Saadja bis Maimûni (Gotha: F. A. Perthes, 1877), 173, n. 128. 36 See Ryle, “Letters and Syllables,” 433–4. 37 See Tzvetan Todorov, Theories of the Symbol (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 16–86. 38 Glosses, fol. 28d. 39 For a general overview on the kinship between Hebrew and reality in Hebrew linguistic thought, see Kellner, “Maimonides on the ‘Normality’ of Hebrew.”

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the speculative developments of this proposition,40 he considered the specific forms of the Hebrew letters—graphic and phonetic—an expression of their intrinsic semantic and ontological power.41 The idea that the letters are elements with intrinsic power should not be entirely surprising. Non-conventionalist ideals of language have often led to a characterization of consonants as cosmic building blocks, thereby venturing a speculative take on the formal distinction between letters and vowels. Specific phonetic elements are intrinsically meaningful and through their manifold combinations a cosmos is ordered. This linguistic ideal is reworked by Giqatilla through the prism of matter and form. Giqatilla identifies the material consonants as elements (yesodot, stoicheia) whose meaningful potentiality is activated through the vowel, thereby actualizing them as their form.42 Giqatilla further stresses his point by alluding to a rabbinic characterization of the Hebrew letters as the keli by which the world was created.43 In the context of Ginat Egoz, keli can be construed as either “instrument” or “vessel,” and Giqatilla reflects on the first cognate to draw the ontological process. In addition to earlier characterizations of the consonants as kelim,44 Giqatilla develops this identity by considering the letters as instruments in the sense that their activation, through combinatorial arrangements, forms the essences (tekhunot45) of all things. These essences are 40 For a comprehensive study of the traditional proposition and its developments in late antiquity, see Tzahi Weiss, Letters by Which Heaven and Earth Were Created ( Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2015), 84–135. The characterization of the phonetic elements as building blocks of the cosmic order has been speculated in various traditions, also in connection with the twofold meaning of the Greek stoicheion. See Juan Acevedo, Alphanumeric Cosmology from Greek into Arabic: The Idea of Stoicheia through the Medieval Mediterranean (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 25–33, and passim. 41 Speculations on the phonetic and graphic form of the Hebrew letters were widespread in Giqatilla’s spiritual environment. See Wolfson, “Letter Symbolism,” 197*–8*. 42 On the natural relationship between phonology and cosmology in Arabic linguistic thought, see Jaffray, “al-Fārābī,” 217–24. Such natural relationships figure in several linguistic traditions in late antiquity. For a comprehensive discussion of these accounts, see Acevedo, Alphanumeric Cosmology, 1–36, esp. 28. 43 Possibly alluding to Genesis Rabbah 1:1, Guide I:64 identifies God’s speech, or word, as an instrument for divine will; both Ibn Tibbon and al-Ḥarizi use the Hebrew term keli. On this term in medieval philosophical Hebrew, see Klatzkin, Anthology, vol. 2, 88–89. Throughout his early writings, Giqatilla uses the term keli in connection with matter (hergesh). Cf. Glosses, 24d; GE, 22–23. 44 Dunash ben Tamim, for example, distinguishes the consonants (“the firm letters”) as kelim, insofar as they involve the use of keli ha-dibbur, the articulators. See Dunash ben Tamim, Commentary on Sefer Yetsirah, ed. Menashe Grossberg (London: Rabinowitch Press, 1902), 48. 45 In medieval philosophical Hebrew, tekhunah is an equivocal term that also means the essential form of things. See Klatzkin, Anthology, vol. 4, 191–5, and cf. Giqatilla’s Commentary on Genesis, fol. 41a–43a.

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now carried as concepts in specific words; a picture that is expressed through the second cognate of keli.46 The vowel is thus the principle that combines the consonants, and thereby actualizes their intrinsic semantic power.

The Task of Hermeneutics: Allegorical or Creative? There remains one last step in our explication of the vowel as form of the letters. The vowel-muskal analogy, indicated above, implies that the vowel does not merely assemble the consonants, which returns us to the questions posed above: How should we qualify the term muskal when referred to the vowel? To address this question, I  will first recapitulate Maimonides’s approach and draw some hermeneutical implications. Maimonides assumes that language, conventional in principle, move us from the sensory to the intelligible; a transition marked by the “external” and “internal” distinction. Recall the equivocity of the biblical verb “to speak,” which can mean representation of metaphysical truths or articulation through speech. Guide I:65 addresses the theological implications of God’s speech to Moses, and it accordingly focuses on the first sense of the equivocal “speech,” that is, representation of metaphysical truths. This raises the question about the relationship between articulated language and apprehension of metaphysical truths.47 Clearly, the idea that, in scriptural expressions, the “external” and “internal” distinction carries a function that is categorically different than in ordinary language assumes a hermeneutical process that does not seek to decode an ultimate and definitive meaning. The hermeneutical process of scriptural language adds a performative dimension, which complicates the binary distinction that scholarship on Maimonides tends to follow. This distinction centers around the question of whether, for Maimonides, the sanctity of Hebrew reflects a quality that is intrinsic to the physical letters and words, a view that is emphatically denied by readers of Maimonides. Conversely, Maimonides is believed to assume a social-conventional sense of sanctity, qualified by the construction of physical utterances and the concepts that they denote.48 While this issue is too complex to be addresses here, I want to point out that the analysis of language, in the context of scripture, as a hermeneutical procedure challenges the binary approach to the sanctity of Hebrew. Hebrew

46 GE, 377; cf. GE, 22, 133. 47 On the question whether the knowledge of Moses consisted of pure form, unmediated by imagination, see Ivry, “Premises,” 86–88. 48 Cf. reference in n. 12.

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is not essentially different from all languages, but its qualities allow for the hermeneutic activity that is necessary for approximating metaphysical truths, and its sanctity lies in this activity. Let us now turn to Giqatilla. Giqatilla works with a Maimonidean framework, but he reformulates the principles of matter and form in order to substantiate the ontological characterization of Hebrew. Unlike his later theosophical thinking,49 in his early writings Giqatilla maintains that words carry specific meanings.50 Insofar as Hebrew words are an actualization of the power that already exists in the linguistic elements, concepts are causally depended on them. The adaptation of the conceptual framework allows Giqatilla to rework a familiar typology in Jewish tradition that designates Hebrew as the protolanguage from which all other languages, seventy in number, branched out.51 Viewed from the perspective of matter and form, the distinction can be formulized as follows. Languages in general are conventional insofar as concepts are not essentially constituted by the physical act of speech. Words and phrases approximate the essences of things, through denotation, but without reaching their principle of existence; a state that is qualified by the adjective h.iz.onit (“external”).52 By contrast, in Hebrew, speech does not denote concepts but constitutes them. These observations are helpful for understanding the vowel-muskal analogy. The idea that Hebrew differs from all languages, in that it constitutes concepts and thereby things, is premised on a general view that the intelligible forms are subjugated to a spontaneity that is linguistic in principle.53 Recall the image 49 Cf. n. 5. 50 See GE, 377. 51 Cf. Weiss, Letters, 95–96, and cited references. On the medieval reception of this typology, see Zweip, Mother of Reason 162–92; Kellner, “Maimonides on the ‘Normality’ of Hebrew,” 425. For Giqatilla’s account, see Glosses, 20c. See his discussion on Babel and the scatter of languages in Yosef Giqatilla, Sha‘arei Z.edek (Krakow: Fischer, 1881), fol. 1a. Cf. the discussion in Morlok, Gikatilla’s Hermeneutics, 174–5. For an instance of this typology in Giqatilla’s contemporaries, see Moshe Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 9–28. 52 See GE, 344: “The philosophers surround the sphere but are unable to attain the point.” 53 Giqatilla makes a familiar gesture of modifying metaphysical systems by subjugating the universal intellect to a “first cause” that is prior to the intellect. The identity of this cause, discussed also in the longer version of the so-called Theology of Aristotle, was further speculated in various schools throughout the Middle Ages. Giqatilla seems to reflect a specific linguistic tradition that has likely reached him through Isaac ibn Latif. In writings associated with Giqatilla, and in Castilian kabbalah in general, specific vowels were designated as the initiating movement of linguistic spontaneity. For a recent comprehensive discussion of the identity of these vowels in Giqatilla’s writings, see Bar-Asher, Punctiform, 127–32. On linguistic spontaneity as a metaphysical principle in Andalusian thought, see Sarah Stroumsa and Sara Sviri, “The Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra and his Epistle on Contemplation,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 36 (2009): 208–9.

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of cosmic motion and celestial sound, which opened my discussion on the vowels. While Giqatilla uses this image to recruit Maimonides to the naturalist view of language,54 the relation between locative motion and voice is really an outcome of a more radical connection between motion and Hebrew language. While earlier accounts drew the analogy between phonetic and cosmic genres of motion,55 Giqatilla reframes the motion of the vowel in metaphysical terms. The vowel reflects metaphysical motion in the sense of bringing something into existence.56 Here Giqatilla’s generally Aristotelian approach becomes more complex. The vowel represents linguistic spontaneity and, as such, it is the form of the consonants that are linguistically inferior; they are elements of qualified meaning. But in Giqatilla’s account of creation, the vowel is also the source of the consonants. I  opened with the suggestion that hermeneutical models reify distinct conceptual frameworks and we got a sense of how this is demonstrated in our discussion of vowels. Giqatilla’s adaptation of matter and form reframes the Maimonidean perspective of hermeneutics. The hermeneutical aim is not some extra-linguistic metaphysical principle, as is the case for Maimonides, but rather the divine linguistic act that is prior to the concept and is, effectively, its metaphysical premise. Inasmuch as this creative act is exercised through the consonants that carry the semantic power of an ordered cosmos, the hermeneutic process that begins with Hebrew expressions leads to a contemplation on the vowel. Our observation follows a set of questions about the implications of Giqatilla’s hermeneutics. These questions concern the participation of human speech in a process that is fundamentally ontological, as well as the normative and ethical significance of this participation with respect to Hebrew. Such questions, which extend the scope of the present study, touch on important dimensions in Giqatilla’s thinking and were further developed as his thought unfolded. Concomitantly, my intention in this paper has been to set a preliminary framework through which these questions can be further considered as one turns to a closer engagement with Giqatilla’s rich literary work.

54 However, see his critique of Maimonides’s conventional view in Glosses, 27d. 55 Cf. Ibn Ezra, Sefer S.ah.ot, 3–4. 56 Cf. GE, 157.

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The Power of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Power: Physiognomy and the Masters of Secrets in the Zohar * Ellen Haskell

During Sefer ha-Zohar’s main period of composition in late thirteenth-century Castille, Europeans of all backgrounds became increasingly fascinated with physiognomy and its use for diagnosing personal character, spiritual status, and medical condition.1 Physiognomic works rooted in ancient Hellenistic culture, such as the Secretum secretorum, passed through Arabic literature into European languages, becoming integrated into the curricula of science and natural philosophy by the thirteenth century’s second half.2 This new intellectual * For Michael Fishbane, who ignited my own exegetical imagination. 1 For a selection of overviews with references on zoharic provenance, see Arthur Green, A Guide to the Zohar (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 162–8; Nathan Wolski, “Moses de Leon and Midrash ha-Ne‘elam: On the Beginnings of the Zohar,” Kabbalah 34 (2016): 27–116; Eitan P. Fishbane, The Art of Mystical Narrative: A Poetics of the Zohar (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 38–50, 54, 184, 336–7, 415. 2 Irven Resnick, Marks of Distinction: Christian Perceptions of Jews in the High Middle Ages (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 16–17; Steven J. Williams, The Secret of Secrets: The Scholarly Career of a Pseudo-Aristotelian Text in the Latin Middle Ages (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2003), 5; Joseph Ziegler, “On the Various Faces

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trend came into contact with the long history of Jewish physiognomy, which encompassed techniques known to the Qumran sect, the Merkavah mystics, the Geonim, the H.asidei Ashkenaz, and Catalonian kabbalists such as Nah.manides.3 While non-Jewish physiognomic literature often fashioned itself as a “mirror for princes”—a field of political knowledge for rulers selecting advisors—or a tool for evaluating and teaching morality, Judaism’s most important use for such face and body reading historically was to select persons for admission into esoteric groups.4 Inheriting both Jewish and non-Jewish materials, the kabbalists who wrote the Zohar’s main body of texts developed their own physiognomic traditions. Zoharic physiognomy, like other zoharic thought, is innovative and polyvalent, incorporating contemplative, diagnostic, disciplinary, prophetic, and therapeutic aspects. The therapeutic aspect, which seeks “to give remedy to humans and to heal their souls” (Zohar 2:78a), is most frequently lauded by scholars, both for its novel approach to repentance and for its connection to later Lurianic practice.5 Yet the Zohar continues to embrace physiognomy’s traditional usage for esoteric selection. Fascinating as the less traditional approaches may be, the information contained in the Zohar’s physiognomic selection material offers valuable insight into Castilian kabbalistic practice, culture, and spirituality. This aspect of the Zohar has been little studied—scholars who address physiognomy at all prefer to focus on the more inspiring material connecting physiognomy and redemptive spiritual instruction.6 However, the literature of esoteric selection, while less original in purpose, is still a novel formulation that fits coherently into the zoharic worldview, reinforcing core aspects of kabbalistic theology

of Physiognomy as a Prognostic Art in the Middle Ages,” in Unveiling the Hidden—Anticipating the Future: Divinatory Practices Among Jews between Qumran and the Modern Period, ed. Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas and Dorien Gieseler Greenbaum (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 285. 3 This list is partial. See Irmi Dubrau, “Physiognomy Among Medieval Jews,” in Prognostication in the Medieval World: A Handbook, vol. 2, ed. Matthias Heiduk, Klaus Herbers, and HansChristian Lehner (Boston: Walter De Gruyter, 2021), 908–14; Ron Margolin, “Physiognomy and Chiromancy: From Prediction and Diagnosis to Healing and Human Correction (Zohar 2, 70a–18a; Tiqqunei Zohar, tiqqun 70),” in Prognostication in the Medieval World: A Handbook, vol. 2, ed. Matthias Heiduk, Klaus Herbers, and Hans-Christian Lehner (Boston: Walter De Gruyter, 2021), 915–24; Yehuda Liebes, “Physiognomy in Kabbalah” [in Hebrew], Pe’amim 104 (2005): 21–40. 4 See Ziegler, “On the Various Faces,” 292; Liebes, “Physiognomy,” 30; Margolin, “Physiognomy and Chiromancy,” 915–24; Ithamar Gruenwald, “Further Jewish Physiognomic and Chiromantic Fragments,” Tarbiz. 40 (1970/1): 305–6. 5 My Zohar translations are based on the 2007–18 Zohar Education Project, Inc. Aramaic text established as a critical edition by Daniel Matt and published on the website of Stanford University Press, https://www.sup.org/zohar/?d=Aramaic%20Texts&f=index. 6 See Margolin, “Physiognomy and Chiromancy”; Liebes, “Physiognomy in Kabbalah.”

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and perpetuating the kabbalistic social group of masters and disciples. While the authors of this literature may not have intended to reflect on theological and social constructions of the body, writings about embodiment demonstrate perceptions about bodies in the cultures from which they emerge.7 In this sense, the Zohar’s physiognomic literature of selection grants entry into a practical method for constructing kabbalistic society that, on the one hand, emphasizes desired group values and, on the other hand, provides an embodied experience that reinforces key aspects of kabbalistic theology, including its focus on scriptural interpretation, its creative tension between revealing and concealment, and its emphasis on cosmic dynamism.8 Zoharic physiognomy illuminates a selfreinforcing system of examination and participation in which the wise identify the wise, masters of secrets identify those capable of secrecy, and the concealed spirit reveals itself to the moralizing gaze of an esoteric brotherhood intent on what Joel Hecker describes as “encouraging and, when necessary, coercing standards of piety.”9 In interpreting the face physiognomically, the kabbalists are engaging in an act of self-construction in which the exegetical and the social are deeply intertwined. This literature of esoteric selection is found mainly in the Zohar’s commentary on parshat Yitro.10 The material, which gives directions for interpreting facial features, hair, and hands, frames and legitimizes itself with two biblical prooftexts. Like earlier Jewish literature, including the Hakkarat Panim le-Rabbi Ishmael and the Geniza text Zeh Sefer Toledot Adam—which may or may not be the same as the work of that title mentioned in a Geonic responsa that refers to physiognomy—it scripturally grounds physiognomy in Genesis 5:1.11 “‘This is the book of the generations (toledot) of Adam’

7 Eli Yassif, “The Body Never Lies: The Body in Medieval Jewish Folk Narratives,” in People of the Body: Jews and Judaism from an Embodied Perspective, ed. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 215; Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (New York: Routledge Classics, 2002), 142. 8 On the exegetical construction of reality, see Michael Fishbane, The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 4. 9 Joel Hecker, “The Face of Shame: The Site and Sight of Rebuke (Tazri’a 45b–47a),” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 23 (2010): 30–31. 10 I exclude for space limitations Raza de-Razin and other physiognomic material outside the Zohar’s main body. See Daniel C. Matt, trans., The Zohar: Pritzker Edition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 4:393, n. 76. 11 See Margolin, “Physiognomy and Chiromancy,” 917; Reimund Leicht and Joseph Yahalom, “Sefer Zeh Sefer Toledot Adam: An Unknown Esoteric Midrash on Genesis 5:1 from the Geonic Period,” Ginzei Qedem 4 (2008): 9–82; James R. Davila, Descenders to the Chariot: The People Behind the Hekhalot Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 60–62, esp. 61, n. 18; Mladen Popovic, Reading the Human Body: Physiognomics and Astrology in the Dead Sea Scrolls and

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(Genesis 5:1): For features—in the secrets of human features—reveal those generations of humans . . . In hair, in forehead, in eyes, in face, in lips, in ears, and in lines of hands. By these seven are humans revealed” (Zohar 2:70b). Physiognomic texts take the biblical word “generations” to mean either marks generated on the human body or even the nature and character of human beings—the human story developed and illustrated through embodiment. The final prooftext, which is the Genesis 18 tale of Jethro directing Moses to select advisors, permits the Zohar to innovate a physiognomic connection to Moses himself—though the text reassures its readers that Moses selected through the Holy Spirit, while others must use physiognomic analysis for similar goals.12 This prooftext links kabbalistic selection to the broader medieval “mirror for princes” physiognomic genre—a zoharic innovation connected to the work’s medieval context. “And you shall behold (teh.ezeh) from all the people, men of valor who fear God—men of truth who hate unjust gain” (Exodus 18:21):13 . . . “and you shall choose (tivh.ar)” is not written, but rather “and you shall behold”—according to the vision of the eyes. In what manner? In human features, in these six aspects that you have spoken of—and all in this verse. “And you shall behold”—one, in the hair—“from all the people”—in the forehead, two—“men of valor”—three, in the face—“who fear God”—four, in the eyes—“men of truth”—in the lips, five—“hating unjust gain”—in the hands, in their lines, six.14 For these are signs for revealing through them those men upon whom the spirit of wisdom rests. (Zohar 2:78a)15 Between these framing texts, the Zohar reinforces its theological priorities and reveals its selection criteria. While this material’s role in selecting kabbalists is not explicitly stated, Yehuda Liebes makes a strong argument connecting the Zohar’s model of Moses selecting advisors to Rabbi Shimon bar Yoh.ai’s Hellenistic-Early Roman Period Judaism, ed. Florentino García Martínez, Peter W. Flint, and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 277. 12 Raza de-Razin 2:72b claims Moses did use physiognomy. 13 “Behold” follows Daniel Matt. Matt, The Zohar, 4:419. 14 The Genesis 5 gloss mentions seven aspects. The Exodus 18 gloss leaves out ears. 15 This connection to Exodus 18 is found only in the Zohar and Bah.ya ben Asher, who was familiar with, or even a composer of, zoharic literature. See Ziegler, “On the Various Faces,” 258–9; Yehuda Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, trans. Arnold Schwartz, Stephanie Nakache, and Penina Peli (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 90–3.

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physiognomically choosing the kabbalistic companions, linking that selection process to the zoharic authors’ own practice.16 This idea follows from Liebes’s earlier compelling thesis that the zoharic companions represent the work’s authorial fellowship.17 Perhaps the most important aspect of the kabbalistic worldview emphasized in the Zohar’s physiognomy is that of interpretation as a comprehensive approach to reality—both to the daily reality of human faces and bodies, and to the more hidden reality of the divine realm. Such reflection was rooted in the medieval macrocosmic mode of inquiry that assumed greater and smaller aspects of creation revealed knowledge about each other. The zoharic kabbalists unified this view through scriptural interpretation, producing what Michael Fishbane describes as “the exegetical construction of reality and the transformation of the culture into the images produced by that exegesis.”18 Fishbane observes that in Judaism everything is filtered through the linguistic prism of Scripture and its interpretation.19 Here, the kabbalists construct a hermeneutically defined embodiment that understands their own physical forms as texts to be read and interpreted as “the book of the generations of Adam”—a text that itself is scripturally defined. This connection to textual interpretation extends to the human spirit as well. For features of the face are not those external markings, but rather in the marking of inner secrets. For features of the face are changed by the features of markings of the concealed face of the spirit that dwells within. And from within that spirit are seen externally features of the face that are comprehended by those wise ones. . . . There is a spirit in a human in which secrets of letters are engraved, and all those letters are concealed within that spirit. And according to the face, markings of those letters arise in the face. . . . so the face appears with engraved features, according to the moment of vision, and not enduring, except for those masters of wisdom who do identify them enduringly and do not forget. (Zohar 2:73b)

16 Liebes, “Physiognomy,” 28. 17 Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, 85–138. 18 Fishbane, The Exegetical Imagination, 3–4. 19 Michael Fishbane, Fragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), Kindle edition, xv.

The Power of Inter pretation and the Inter pretation of Power

Here, it is not just the person’s bodily form that is scripturally inflected, but also the spirit, which is adorned and shaped by letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the building blocks of Scripture. This scriptural spirit provides textual access to the wise capable of comprehending and remembering its letters. In this way, the Zohar textually defines both external and internal features, opening them to the exegetical skill of the trained interpreter—the master of wisdom. Such interior markings express not only the letters of Scripture, but further reflect scriptural imagery, integrating them with the sacred text through multiple modalities. In a section on esoteric physiognomy—about which, more below— the Zohar announces: Face of human, face of lion, face of ox, face of eagle. And the spirit makes a figure of all of them externally, according to the moment, because all that is from the side of spirit projects outside and appears and is hidden. And all these features appear inscribed in the figure of letters, even though they are hidden. These four features appear according to the moment to those masters of eyes that know secrets of wisdom, for looking at them. (Zohar 2:73b–74a) It is not just spiritual letters, but likeness to the h.ayyot of Ezekiel 1 one that defines humans in ways accessible to the “masters of eyes that know secrets of wisdom”—those with sanctioned, developed inner sight and interpretive skill. The Zohar evinces ambiguity when interpreting letters and images. Though letters appear to the master’s gaze, images from Torah texts also are present. A description of the most ideal type of person proceeds from the imagery of Ezekiel 1 through streaks on the face that in turn imply a word—without looking explicitly like the word itself—to a connection between the word and Torah. When a person goes on the way of righteousness, those who know the secret of their master look at him. Because that spirit that is within is properly perfected in him and projects externally a figure of all. And that figure is the figure of a human, and it is a figure more perfect than all figures. And this is the figure that passes according to the moment before the eyes of the wise of heart. This one, when they look at his external face—that face that is established before the eyes of the heart—they love it. Four signs of letters are in it. One streak projects gradually from the right side, and one streak that includes two others

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that are joined with it from the left side. And these four signs are four letters that are called “testimony” (‘edut) . . . And this is the secret that is written: “A testimony He put on Joseph” (Psalms 81:6). (Zohar 2:74a) The textual blending in this passage is reminiscent of midrash, with the body included in the interpretive process. Imagery proceeds to letters proceeds to textual citation, all focused topically on identifying and loving the righteous. The body is subsumed seamlessly into the interpretive worldview, integrating into the broader exegetical endeavor of the kabbalists’ “hermeneutical theology”— to use Michael Fishbane’s phrase.20 This interpretable body revealed through zoharic physiognomy is related to, but different from, the phenomenon Elliot Wolfson describes as “the onto-graphic inscripting of flesh into word and the consequent conversion of the carnal body into the ethereal, luminous body that is the letter, hyper-literally, the name that is the Torah.”21 Ultimately, the Hebrew letters may comprise the ground of being for the human body and the rest of creation, but zoharic physiognomy directs its attention toward the scripturally defined body as a text for interpretation, rather than toward the body’s conversion into letters of divine light. The Zohar’s construction of exegetical embodiment reinforces more ideas central to its theology, weaving physiognomic selection deeply into its worldview. These ideas include the inherent dynamism of the divine world—and so of reality as a whole—and the tension between revealing and concealment central to kabbalistic cosmology. Moshe Idel notes that in theosophicaltheurgical Kabbalah, “bodies were understood in their dynamic dimension, just as the divine realm was conceived not just as a frozen scheme of divine powers, but as a dynamic realm where the processes are as important as the divine manifestations.”22 In this manner, Zohar 2:76b explains that “according to a person’s behavior, so lines [on the hands] change from time to time,” tying physical transformation to the spiritually transformative power of repentance. Faces also are conceived as dynamic entities, “changed by the features of the concealed face of the spirit that dwells within” (Zohar 2:73b). Marks on the face “project” or “sink away” according to spiritual state (Zohar 2:74b–75a), just as

20 Fishbane, Fragile Finitude, xiv. 21 Elliot Wolfson, “The Body in the Text: A Kabbalistic Theory of Embodiment,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 95 no. 3 (2005): 481. 22 Moshe Idel, “On the Performing Body in the Theosophical-Theurgical Kabbalah: Some Preliminary Remarks,” in The Jewish Body: Corporeality, Society, and Identity in the Renaissance and Early Modern Period, ed. Maria Diemling and Giuseppe Veltri (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 270.

The Power of Inter pretation and the Inter pretation of Power

furrows on the forehead may be visible for interpretation only “at the time that he speaks” (Zohar 2:71b), faces may flush with blood or blanch with shame (Zohar 2:74b), and lines on the fingers may be read differently depending on whether the hand “is folded . . . or is extended” (Zohar 2:76b). Face and body shift kaleidoscopically depending on spiritual and emotional state, expressing the sefirotic realm’s shifting dynamics, of which the human body is a reflection. Similarly, zoharic physiognomy reinforces the kabbalistic dynamic of revealing and concealment; its physiognomy is both exoteric and esoteric. Human bodies, like Scripture itself, express revealed and concealed modes of textuality. Revealed features such as hair, forehead, eyes, face, lips, and lines of palms are available to the exoteric interpretive gaze. This is similar to the physiognomy common in broader medieval culture and is theoretically available for learning through instructive literature—though such instructions are neither comprehensive nor systematized, and would be difficult to employ without additional explanation.23 If a person whose hair is “very smooth and hanging down . . . is good for partnership . . . his deeds are proper and not proper,” while a person with a “delicate, round forehead . . . is wise in that for which he strives,” and a person with “yellowish-green eyes” has “madness in him . . . he is not fit for secrets of Torah . . . since he self-aggrandizes with them” (Zohar 2:70b–73a), then how is the reader to interpret a person with smooth hair, a delicate forehead, and yellowish-green eyes together? No instructions are provided.24 Yet the external body’s form remains available for observation and interpretation. The body, and particularly the face, is open to the gaze of skilled physiognomists, called the “masters of qualities” (Zohar 2:71b). Even such exoteric physiognomy reveals the concealed. In the firmament that covers all, marks are marked, to show and to make known . . . concealed matters and secrets. And those are marks of stars and constellations that are marked and imparted in that firmament that covers externally. So too skin that covers a human externally is a firmament that covers all with marks and lines in it. And those are the stars and constellations of that skin . . . stars and constellations to be gazed upon by the wise of heart, looking at them to know. (Zohar 2:76a)

23 Parshat Yitro’s physiognomic guidance also differs from that of Raza de-Razin, though the two appear side by side in printed editions of the Zohar. 24 See Tamsyn Barton, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine under the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994), 110–11.

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The ability to read esoteric physiognomy, however, is not available to everyone, and cannot be learned merely from instructional literature. It is available instead to the gaze of the kabbalists—called “masters of inner wisdom,” “masters of wisdom,” “masters of eyes,” “those who know the secret of their Master,” “the wise of heart,” and simply “the wise” (Zohar 2:73b–76a). “Features of . . . the concealed face of the spirit that dwells within . . . are comprehended by those wise ones” (Zohar 2:73b). It is the kabbalistic masters who perceive the figures of Ezekiel’s h.ayyot in moments of spiritual insight, whether in a loving response to the person whose spiritual features display the “figure of a human” or by perceiving that in the repentant sinner’s visage “a good spirit remains to dwell upon him and to skim away the previous filth that was in him, and projects externally in the gaze of the eyes according to the moment an image of a mighty lion. Or, at the moment of seeing him, that vision causes a mighty lion to pass through his heart” (Zohar 2:74b). Either the kabbalist perceives a lion through the features of the man, or a lion passes within the interior vision in the heart of the kabbalist himself. The Zohar sanctions both experiences as guidelines for esoteric physiognomic encounters. Similarly, the kabbalists perceive “letters that are engraved on his face and that project in agitation . . . when he settles and becomes habituated to the ways of righteousness, they sink away” (Zohar 2:74b). Such esoteric physiognomic perception, which again reflects facial and cosmic dynamism, also comes with its own technical instructions: Looking at the face in the secrets that we have said, when it shines and is established without anger. And this is the secret of “the astrologers, the stargazers” (Isaiah 47:13). At the time that anger rules over a person, another judgment is delivered to know . . . But looking at the face is on the path of righteousness, at the time when a face shines and a person is established in his stance, and those markings and all that is looked at are able to be judged more certainly, even though in everything, all the wise can look. (Zohar 2:76a) The Zohar relates that esoteric physiognomy is best performed in moments of calm, not those of anger—though for the wise such moments can be informative as well. This concealed aspect of Jewish physiognomy often has been termed intuitive and connected to prophecy.25 To an extent, integrating the technical with the intuitive is characteristic of the physiognomic discipline. As Patrizia Magli notes, 25 See Margolin, “Physiognomy and Chiromancy,” 917; Liebes, “Physiognomy,” 25.

The Power of Inter pretation and the Inter pretation of Power

Physiognomic perception is a form of daily knowledge . . . It is based on subtleties which are hard to formalize, at times even untranslatable into words. The face of those near us presents itself as the space upon which it is possible to perceive infinitesimal traces which, in turn, sometimes allow us to glean a deeper reality, one hidden to most eyes . . . It is that type of knowledge without origin, memory or history, of which literary culture continues to attempt precise verbal formulation.26 In this sense, physiognomy is always already both exoteric and esoteric, an interior, subjective practice that has been externalized in literatures that cannot help but fail to recreate its interior movements. However, the Zohar accesses this characteristic of the discipline to reinforce the dynamic of revealing and concealment central to the kabbalistic worldview, creating a coherent cosmology of which the embodied human is a part. Being revealed as worthy to access and interpret the concealed is part of becoming a kabbalist. In this context, esoteric physiognomy is not merely intuitive, but is a learned practice integrated into the body of kabbalistic knowledge–an intellectual skill acquired and practiced by the wise, and one directed toward identifying and producing future kabbalists. That is why esoteric physiognomy’s interior vision is also a matter of instruction in the Zohar’s parshat Yitro. Further, both exoteric and esoteric physiognomy are essential to identifying those with potential for esoteric secrets, and thus an integral part of producing kabbalists through kabbalistic discipleship. Zoharic physiognomy thus supports, naturalizes, and perpetuates the kabbalistic exegetical worldview, while further contributing to the production of more kabbalists, who in turn continue to develop and participate in that worldview. While parshat Yitro’s physiognomy naturalizes the zoharic kabbalists’ spiritual perspective by constructing a hermeneuticized body that reinforces core concerns of kabbalistic theology, it also reveals traits the kabbalists found most desirable among their mystical companions. Castilian and Catalonian Jews living during the Zohar’s main composition period formed fellowships directed toward study, repentance, asceticism, and charitable works in response to heightened tension with the dominant religion.27 The Zohar’s literary companions and their

26 Patrizia Magli, “The Face and the Soul,” in Fragments for a History of the Human Body: Part Two, ed. Michael Feher, Ramona Naddaff, and Nadia Tazi (New York: Zone, 1989), 89. 27 Hartley Lachter, “Spreading Secrets: Kabbalah and Esotericism in Isaac ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-kadmoni,” Jewish Quarterly Review 100, no. 1 (2020): 123; Yom Tov Assis, The Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry: Community and Society in the Crown of Aragon, 1213–1327 (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1997), 325.

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teachings, themselves representative of the fellowship that composed the work, similarly endeavored to create a society that Ronit Meroz has described as one in which “each and every member is spiritually dependent on the other.”28 Joel Hecker has expressed the zoharic fellowship’s self-construction as the “desire for a panopticon in which not only God, full of eyes, is watching, but others too—the pious and the wicked.”29 Such a panopticon, like physiognomy itself, is functionally polyvalent and incorporates aspects of instruction, reform, supervision, and confinement.30 The physiognomic gaze, particularly when applied to the face and its features, which the text assumes are available for public view and not able to be hidden, becomes a kabbalistic form of moral examination and regulation.31 Michel Foucault describes ritualized examination as “a normalizing gaze, a surveillance that makes it possible to qualify, to classify and to punish. It establishes over individuals a visibility through which one differentiates them and judges them.”32 This is precisely the function of parashat Yitro’s physiognomic observation and interpretation—a tool of assessment and hierarchy developed and applied within a group scrupulously concerned with its own morality, which it theologically believed to have cosmic import. As with the features themselves, the text does not conceive the moral state as static and unified, but as dynamic and fluctuating. Zohar 2:70b–71b describes a man “whose deeds are proper and not proper,” a man who “feels ashamed for deeds that are proper and fitting . . . but he does not do . . . when old . . . his deeds are fitting,” and another who is “agitated in spirit” but “compassionate to all.” Other qualities with which parshat Yitro’s physiognomic examination is concerned further define issues important to the zoharic kabbalists. Three main focal points emerge from the text’s diagnostics: capacity for success in Torah, capacity for secrets—and if such capacity is present what type of secrets—and success in partnership or relation with others, especially as it relates to Torah study. Not every description of the face and its features evaluates these qualities, but many do.33 Zohar 2:70b–72a offers a sampling of these concerns with the following assessments:

28 Ronit Meroz, “The Path of Silence: An Unknown Story from a Zohar Manuscript,” European Journal of Jewish Studies 1, no. 2 (2008): 335. 29 Joel Hecker, “The Face of Shame: The Site and Sight of Rebuke (Tazri‘a 45b–47a),” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 23 (2010): 53. 30 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, 2nd ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 205. 31 See Hecker, “The Face of Shame,” 35. 32 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 184. 33 These qualities are less emphasized in the palmistry section, which is more concerned with repentance.

The Power of Inter pretation and the Inter pretation of Power

Hair that is very smooth and hanging down: he is good for partnership and benefit is found with him, but by himself it is not so.34 He is a master of secrets—of those supernal secrets. For lesser secrets he is not established . . . And if it is hanging down and not smooth: in matters of heaven one who approaches him will succeed. Supernal secrets will not be revealed to him, but he is good for guarding lesser secrets . . . Black hair that is not shiny . . . This one is for partnership and to strive with for a short time but not for a long time, for he will think thoughts . . . This one will succeed in Torah if he strives after Her, and others will succeed with him. He does not keep a secret for a long time . . . A forehead that is delicate and pointed, not round . . . Do not seek to associate with this one except for a short time . . . All that he does and thinks is for his own profit . . . He is not a master of secrets at all. This is he: “One who goes gossiping reveals a secret” (Proverbs 11:13) . . . Three upper, large folds on his forehead at the time that he speaks . . . Every person who strives with him in Torah succeeds, more than in other matters of the world . . . In judgement he does not succeed . . . compassion is his side. The physiognomic descriptions here also are textualized, with each person located “in the secret” of one or more letters from the phrase zeh sefer (“this is the book”) from Genesis 5:1. However, these letters are not part of the visual evaluation, and their applications to the descriptions are obscure beyond linking faces with the scriptural prooftext upon which physiognomy is founded.35 Letter-connections aside, these qualities of capacity for secrets, success in Torah, and success in partnership with others—especially for Torah-related endeavors—are critical parts of the kabbalistic selection and discipleship process. Such assessments are important for group integrity on several different levels. First, they connect the kabbalists to traditional Jewish physiognomy.36 Classical rabbinic texts such as BT H. agigah 13a–14a concerned themselves with the question of qualifications for receiving esoteric Torah knowledge—in the Zohar’s particular terminology, who is or is not a “master of secrets”—and it is this same talmudic source text that prompted Sherira and Hai Gaon’s

34 “Partnership” is shutaf, implying a working relationship, not a marital partnership. 35 Even Daniel Matt’s detailed Pritzker Zohar commentary offers few suggestions for these connections. See Matt, The Zohar, 4:396–397, nn. 92 and 95–96. 36 I am not claiming continuity of method, but continuity of interest.

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assertion that the ancient sages knew and transmitted physiognomy, employing it to define who was worthy of secret knowledge.37 It is not difficult to imagine that in a time of religious oppression and danger from the dominant Christian majority, the capacity for secrets might be a desirable quality in a practical sense as well—particularly since anti-Christian arguments are important to zoharic literature.38 Someone who “is not a master of secrets . . . ‘who goes gossiping’ . . . and he does not think of his words at all” (Zohar 2:71b) disqualifies themself in multiple ways. One who “is a master of secrets in a matter that is secret until he hears that secret in another place. When he hears it, he reveals everything, and there is not a secret with him at all” (Zohar 2:73a) is also problematic. This dual purpose may explain the Zohar’s focus on the language of secrecy, which does not appear common in prior Jewish physiognomic literature.39 Success in Torah also is critical to kabbalistic self-construction, with its theological, spiritual, and aesthetic reliance on scriptural interpretation. Torah engagement is of interest to other Jewish physiognomic works, as in the fragmentary Geniza text published by Ithamar Gruenwald.40 In that setting, however, Torah study is presented as part of the texture and timing of a person’s life—when they will begin to study and how fast they will learn—and is included with predictive details concerning marriage and children. The Zohar’s concern with success in Torah is connected less to such biographical details and more to the concerns of a brotherhood centered on a theosophical practice that included developing novel interpretations of Torah. Reflecting upon and disclosing Torah secrets is a central and emotionally charged activity in the zoharic narrative, implying that a similar approach was true for its authors.41 This exegetical focus is related to the interpretive theological perspective that led the kabbalists to emphasize the interpretive nature of their own bodies. The kabbalistic discipleship system and its cosmology are self-reinforcing. Finally, success in partnership and in Torah study with others speaks to the nature of the zoharic circle and its interpretive endeavors connected to the spiritual fellowship that was part of medieval Iberian Jewish culture.

37 Margolin, “Physiognomy and Chiromancy,” 9–16; Gershom Scholem, “Physiognomy and Chiromancy” [in Hebrew], in Sheidim, Ruh.ot u-Neshamot, ed. Esther Liebes ( Jerusalem: Mekhon Ben-Z. vi le-H. eqer Qehilot Yisrael ba-Mizrah., 2004), 246. 38 See Ellen Haskell, Mystical Resistance: Uncovering the Zohar’s Conversations with Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 39 This observation is based on a general overview of sources. More detailed study remains to be done. 40 Gruenwald, “Further Jewish Physiognomic and Chiromantic Fragments,” 301–19. 41 See Eitan P. Fishbane, “Tears of Disclosure: The Role of Weeping in Zoharic Narrative,” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 11 no. 1 (2002): 25–47.

The Power of Inter pretation and the Inter pretation of Power

While there is a beautiful coherence to physiognomy as an embodied interpretive act that brings the human being into alignment with scriptural interpretation’s centrality in Kabbalah, the principles of kabbalistic theology, and the society of the zoharic kabbalists, the practice also bears morally precarious potential. Roy Rappaport notes that establishing “the conceptual cleavages dividing or fragmenting the world . . . in the flesh” along with “the dangers and antagonisms they entail” can be destructive.42 Physiognomics is a persuasive art that moves people through hierarchical cultural space according to the interpreter’s subjective viewpoint–and this is particularly true when esoteric physiognomy is paired with the more usual exoteric skillset accessible through broader literature.43 Physiognomic readings, when deployed by those with power and authority, can become coercive, oppressive, or even ruinous. As Tamsyn Barton notes, “Power cannot be divorced from any communication that presents itself as the truth.”44 James Fernandez elaborates, “In the privacy of our experience we are usually not sure who we really are. A metaphor thrust upon us often enough as a model can become compelling.”45 The zoharic authorship seems aware of some of these dangers. Beyond parshat Yitro the work interrogates physiognomy’s potential for unethical deployment through narrative episodes that problematize the practice: “If he has had this mark since childhood, what sexual sin can be found in him?” (Zohar 3:75b).46 Other passages reflect on physiognomy gone awry or seem intended to guide their physiognomic subjects toward spiritual healing and renewal. In conclusion, zoharic physiognomy is not only selective, but is also constructive. Physiognomy is a self-reinforcing regulatory mechanism for the Castilian kabbalists who wrote the Zohar. Its practice inscribes the body with meaning in ways that highlight core aspects of kabbalistic spirituality, including the centrality of scriptural interpretation, the creative tension between revealing and concealment, and the principle of cosmic dynamism. Additionally, physiognomy regulates the kabbalistic system of behavior, discipleship, and training. The authority, observation, and discipline that define the physiognomic endeavor shape the kabbalistic brotherhood and its concerns, modeling and

42 Roy A. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning , and Religion (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1979), 137. 43 Barton, Power and Knowledge, 128–30. 44 Ibid., 20. 45 James Fernandez, Persuasions and Performances: The Play of Tropes in Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 20. 46 See Ellen Haskell, “Countenancing God: Facial Revelation and Physiognomy in Sefer ha-Zohar,” Journal of Religion 101, no. 2 (2021): 151–82; Hecker, “The Face of Shame,” 29–67.

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constructing a social group that integrates with and perpetuates the kabbalistic worldview. In striving to fashion a self-regulating spiritual group, physiognomic analysis is one technique by which the Castilian kabbalists made known their ideals, created hierarchies, and inscribed social and religious priorities onto their own bodies. These social messages are both applied and internalized through physiognomy, its claims, and its examinations. Interrogating the physiognomic gaze and its authoritative deployment by the kabbalistic master reveals new insights regarding the zoharic kabbalists’ ideal selves within their group of companions.

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Mystical Autobiography in Sixteenth-Century Kabbalah Eitan P. Fishbane I am grateful to offer this essay as a gift to my father on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, ‫שיבדל לחיים ארוכים‬. As an article that delves into the ways in which some major kabbalists of times past sought to understand and write about the meaning of their lives—its spiritual purpose—I feel it is connected in a deep way with the loving, self-reflective, spiritually and ethically mindful ways in which my father has lived, and continues to live, his own life; one that has been filled with meaning, creativity, mentoring, spiritual practice, integrity, and above all, love. May he continue to be an extraordinary model to us all for many years to come.

Critical Considerations The renaissance of kabbalistic creativity in sixteenth-century Z.efat saw a marked emphasis on the nature and meaning of personal identity and selfhood. From an extensive development of mystical ethics and the cultivation of ideal personhood to reflection on soul, body, and reincarnation, the kabbalistic masters of this time and place were particularly taken with the question of individual status and self-transformation.1 Life-writing was also a major genre that was cultivated 1 The rise of concern with individual identity and the dialectic of interiority and exteriority has, among other things, been linked by some scholars to the legacy of hybrid converso identities. See Shaul Magid, From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 75–110, and nn. 258–75. Also see the reflections on inward spirituality and hybrid identity as related to the Spanish marrano phenomenon in Yirmiyahu Yovel, The Other Within: The Marranos—Split

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by these mystics—a macro-form that may be divided into hagiography, on the one hand,2 and autobiography, or auto-graphy—self-writing—on the other. In the critical and theoretical literature on this subject, it has often been asserted— somewhat dubiously, I contend—that true autobiography does not arise until the work of Jean Jacques Rousseau, out of the conviction that Rousseau enacted a literary revolution of sorts in “desacralizing” autobiography, or the classic religious confessional, a genre so clearly present in earlier Christian and other religious literatures.3 This was most famously manifest in the Confessions of Augustine (and others have noted the obviously intentional contrast performed by Rousseau in also calling his book Confessions, in a self-conscious turn toward the putatively secular character of modernity), but also in a wide variety of medieval and early modern religious works, among them the sixteenth-century writings of St. Theresa of Avila (1515–1582), the medieval Sufi thinker Ruzbihan Baqli (1128–1209),4 as well as in several important Jewish texts from the thirteenth century that I mention below, some of which have been studied by previous scholars.5 The reason Rousseau’s book was such a watershed moment, so the argument goes, a model that created autobiography as a genre as distinct from the religious confessional, is that while writers like Augustine directed their literary rhetoric to Divinity, works from Rousseau onward were directed in address and purpose toward the human self apart from a religious confessional before God. As J. H.

2

3 4 5

Identity and Emerging Modernity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), especially 227–86. Jonathan Garb has also underscored this characteristic of early modern and modern Kabbalah, particularly as reflected in its new directions and creativity in sixteenth-century Z.efat. See Jonathan Garb, A History of Kabbalah: From the Early Modern Period to the Present Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), particularly 6–8, 64–6; and relatively extensively throughout; idem, Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). On this genre in sixteenth-century Z.efat, see Eitan Fishbane, “Perceptions of Greatness: Constructions of the Holy Man in Shivh.ei ha-Ari,” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 27 (2012): 195–221. Also see Patrick B. Koch, “Of Stinging Nettles and Stones: The Use of Hagiography in Early Modern Kabbalah and Pietism,” Jewish Quarterly Review 109 (2019): 534–66. For an important consideration of this genre not long after the period studied in this paper, see Jonatan Meir, “Sabbatian Hagiography and Jewish Polemical Literature,” El Prezente: Journal for Sephardic Studies 12–13 (2018–2019): 228–41. See the remarks on this point in Marcus Moseley, Being for Myself Alone: Origins of Jewish Autobiography (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), 6. See Rūzbihān Baqlī, The Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master, trans. Carl W. Ernst (Chapel Hill, NC: Parvardigar Press, 1997); Carl W. Ernst, Ruzbihan Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism (London: Routledge, 1996), 80–110. See Moshe Idel, Natan Ben Sa’adya Harar—Le Porte della Giuistizia, Sha’arei Sedeq (Alephi: Milan, 2001).

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Chajes notes,6 this was the core claim advanced extensively by Marcus Moseley with regard to Jewish autobiographical texts as well.7 As Moseley formulates the quandary from his perspective, grounded in the critical framing of Philippe Lejeune: To speak of “autobiography” before Rousseau, without conceding that this term is used as a heuristic device, is to fall prey to what Lejeune terms the “retrospective illusion,” or “the illusion of eternity,” an illusion, writes Lejeune, that “corresponds to the most spontaneous historical operation, which makes us constantly redistribute the elements of the past depending upon our present categories.”8 Nevertheless, as Chajes himself also notes, Moseley’s argument, which postulates a putatively unique post-Rousseau Jewish autobiographical literature,9 does not resolve the question of how indeed we are to understand the examples of Jewish testimonial life-writing that do exist, particularly in the kabbalistic context and quite apart from, indeed centuries prior to, Rousseau; how we look at their phenomenology as literary genre and the expression of the inner life of their authors. I suggest that the genre-critical claim put forward by scholars such as Lejeune, Moseley, and others10 does not sufficiently illuminate the religious works of life-writing, indeed, autobiography (regardless of when this term was coined and for what purpose;11 the same could be said of any number of modern

6 J. H. Chajes, “Accounting for the Self: Preliminary Generic-Historical Reflections on Early Modern Jewish Egodocuments,” Jewish Quarterly Review 95, no. 1 (2005): 1–2. 7 See Moseley, Being for Myself Alone, 1–36. 8 Ibid., 12. 9 See the foundational work on modern Hebrew autobiography by my late lamented colleague at JTS: Alan Mintz, “Banished from Their Father’s Table”: Loss of Faith and Hebrew Autobiography (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); and Michael Stanislawski, Autobiographical Jews: Essays in Jewish Self-Fashioning (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012). 10 See Philippe Lejeune, On Autobiography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989); idem, On Diary (Manoa: University of Hawaii Press, 2009), ed. Jeremy D. Popkin and Julie Rak, trans. Katherine Durnin. These selected essays are drawn from Lejeune’s many French works on the subject. The critical literature on this subject is rather voluminous, and this is not the place to account for it in its fullness, but two important monograph-length studies worth mentioning in this context include Karl J. Weintraub, The Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance in Autobiography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); and James Olney, Memory and Narrative: The Weave of Life-Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 11 See the observation in Ernst, Ruzbihan Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism, 80.

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critical categories, including the very term mysticism),12 to be found extensively in early modern literature long before Rousseau, and indeed hundreds of years before that in the thirteenth century and beyond.13 The writings I shall address are from the Jewish mystical tradition, but I see no sensible criterion for why the great many existing spiritual life narratives and confessionals from other religious traditions (be they Christian, Islamic, or otherwise) ought to be excluded from the broader, if multiform, genre of autobiography simply because they are not consistent with such criteria of desacralization, greater concern with childhood formation, and indeed the role of a secular modernism. The fact that the term “autobiography” appears to have been innovated by Rousseau in the Confessions strikes me as a rhetorical matter of little significance for our purposes—and, of more import, the formative impact that Rousseau’s paradigm of life-writing had upon subsequent modern writers need not be decisive in adapting the critical genre lexicon for prominent cases in the centuries before Rousseau. In other words, I am less tethered to the rigidity with which we call the Z.efat writings “autobiography,” “peri-autography,” “self-writing,” or life-writing. Perhaps this falls under the heuristic caveat posited by Moseley in the passage quoted above. The writings I shall consider in this essay are, from the point of view of genre, narrative attempts (albeit relatively fragmentary) to take account of the significance and nuance of various happenings in the life of the subject, a sense of purpose and even destiny, introspection upon the emotions and psychological struggles that were inextricable parts of a life guided by kabbalistic symbolism, belief, and self-understanding. I  contend that it is fair and useful to call this mode of writing, this genre, “life-writing,” “writing the self,” “autography” and, yes, “autobiography” as well. To respond to the claim made by Lejeune and reinforced by Moseley that such an approach falls “prey to . . . the ‘retrospective illusion’” in which we “constantly redistribute the elements of the past depending upon our present categories,” I  argue that all critical study of religion and literature (among other disciplines) is shaped by the ways in which we as scholars are impacted by time-bound methodologies and frameworks that are reflected in certain terms and categories of analysis. While this may be an inevitability of our exile from any pure objectivity,14 it does not, I contend, translate into a freewheeling

12 See the important study on this topic by Leigh Eric Schmidt, “The Making of Modern ‘Mysticism,’” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 71, no. 2 (2003): 273–302. 13 See the relevant essays in Ronald Bedford, Lloyd Davis, and Philippa Kelly, eds., Early Modern Autobiography: Theories, Genres, Practices (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006). 14 See Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

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ahistoricity, but rather the useful and illuminating adaptation of modern and contemporary critical rhetoric to interpret and typologize the phenomena and literary corpora of the past. As I shall demonstrate, numerous kabbalists were concerned with their own sense of personal destiny, the arc of their lives from birth to adulthood (though it is true that it is adulthood, not childhood—the latter being a defining feature of autobiographies from Rousseau onward—which is the overwhelming focus of this autobiographical writing),15 the inner sea of their emotions, mind, and self-perception, among a range of other issues. Some of these autographic documents are more fragmentary than others, but we hardly need to use Rousseau’s approach as the defining feature of the genre; it is one prominent, if pivotal, example of a broader genre with multiple subsets.16 It is noteworthy that, while much attention has been devoted to the phenomenon of autobiography in modern Jewish literature, the existence of substantial autobiographical material within premodern kabbalistic corpora has been almost entirely overlooked by the distinguished scholars of Jewish literature and history who have probed the genre and its antecedents. While the relevant works of Leon de Modena, Glikl of Hameln, and, to a lesser extent, Avraham Yagel, have received repeated attention as literary harbingers of the supposedly distinctively modern phenomenon of autobiography, the kabbalistic evidence has been all but ignored by these scholars.17 As Chajes also notes, this generic dilemma is made all the more stark by the following pronouncement of Gershom Scholem, which has become, like many of Scholem’s assessments, axiomatic in the study of religion in general and the

15 For a discussion of the foreshadowing of childhood in hagiographical life-narratives, see Fishbane, “Perceptions of Greatness,” 200–3 and 210–4. As I note there, this phenomenon is also reflected abundantly in sources from a variety of other religious traditions. For such comparative discussions and specific references, see idem, 195–7, 202–3, 212, and 220–1. 16 On the question of genre as it pertains to these mystical sources, see Moshe Idel, preface to Jewish Mystical Autobiographies: Book of Visions and Book of Secrets, ed. and trans. Morris Faierstein (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999); Morris Faierstein, Introduction to Jewish Mystical Autobiographies, ed. and trans. Morris Faierstein (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999); Chajes, “Accounting for the Self,” 1–15; Yehudah Mirsky, Towards the Mystical Experience of Modernity: The Making of Rav Kook, 1865–1904 (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2021), 25–27. 17 This is not, however, to diminish the importance on its own terms of scholarship on the autobiographical creativity of these major figures. See Mark R. Cohen, ed. and trans., The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena’s Life of Judah (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), a rich volume that includes contributions by Cohen, Theodore K. Rabb, Howard E. Adelman, Natalie Zemon Davis, and Benjamin C. I. Ravid. Also significant to note here is David Ruderman, A Valley of Vision: The Heavenly Journey of Abraham Ben Hananiah Yagel (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990).

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study of Judaism in particular. Scholem’s words on the subject are a significant starting point for the texts I shall study here, particularly insofar as my thesis contrasts sharply with Scholem’s foundational argument. If you compare the writings of Jewish mystics with the mystical literature of other religions you will notice a considerable difference. . . . It is well known that the autobiographies of great mystics, who have tried to give an account of their inner experiences in a direct and personal manner, are the glory of mystical literature. . . . The Kabbalists, however, are no friends of mystical autobiography. They aim at describing the realm of Divinity and the other objects of the contemplation in an impersonal way, by burning, as it were, their ships behind them. They glory in objective description and are deeply averse to letting their own personalities intrude into the picture. . . . It is as though they were hampered by a sense of shame. Documents of an intimate and personal nature are not entirely lacking, but it is characteristic that they are to be found almost wholly in manuscripts which the kabbalists themselves would hardly have allowed to be printed. . . . It is obvious that the absence of the autobiographical element is a serious obstacle to any psychological understanding of Jewish mysticism as the psychology of mysticism has to rely primarily on the study of such autobiographical material.18 To be sure, Scholem did acknowledge that a few such autobiographical documents do exist in kabbalistic literature, but their existence is dismissed as texts that the kabbalists themselves were ashamed of and would certainly have avoided promoting through publication. While it is indisputably true that such first-person testimonials are a relative rarity in Jewish mystical literature, it is likewise true that we can identify a striking cluster of such texts, particularly in the creative landscape of sixteenth-century Z.efat, where a broader interest in the nature of the mystic as person and individual developed significantly.19 Even more

18 Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1946), 15–16. 19 This argument lies at the center of a current book project of mine, tentatively titled Self and Identity in Sixteenth-Century Kabbalah, an inquiry in which I explore the question of selfhood in this time and place from several different angles, among them: 1) personal identity as defined through the nature of the soul and its lengthy journey of reincarnation and rebirth in relation to embodiment; 2) ethics (kabbalistic musar) and the path of moral-spiritual

Mystical Autobiography in Sixteenth-Centur y Kabbalah

to the point, it is my contention that the autobiographical mystical texts produced both in this period and in the thirteenth-century reveal a strong sense of self and life-purpose in a mystical key. And, while shame and the anxiety of self-worth certainly does appear as a prominent theme in the sources from sixteenth-century Z.efat, it is not in the sense that Scholem asserts in the passage cited above. It was not so much a matter of shame regarding the disclosure of mystical experiences as such, but rather shame (most prominently in the case of R. Yosef Karo discussed in detail below) as to the struggle experienced by the mystic to live up to his constructed sense of the ideal ascetic pietist and mystical devotee. This was often bound up in an explicit sense of unworthiness and the mystic’s inability to transcend the perceived weaknesses of physical temptation and desire (specifically with regard to drink, food, and sleep in the case of Karo— bodily needs that were understood to be impediments to the mystic’s desire to stay awake during the night to receive heavenly revelations from his angelic/ divine tutor).20 Further in contrast to Scholem’s claim that the kabbalists were “no friends of mystical autobiography,” insofar as they sought to suppress and even erase the significance of their own individual selves in the exposition of mystical wisdom, the mystic is simultaneously the receiver of exalted wisdom and—as stated by the spirit that possesses Karo—considered by the Heavenly Academy to be a supreme luminary and a giant of erudition. As we shall see below, Scholem’s claim is markedly at odds with the pervasive sense of grandiosity, mystical greatness, and messianism that is on vivid display in major kabbalistic autobiographical texts such as Karo’s Maggid Meisharim and (which I will discuss in a separate study) R. H. ayyim Vital’s Sefer ha-H.ezyonot.21 *** self-transformation; 3) emotion, mind, and mystical devotion; 4) life-writing through autobiography and hagiography (the hyperbolic life of the holy man as perceived by his disciples). 20 Regarding this tension, the anxiety toward the body and desire in such mystical practice, compare the remarks in Elliot R. Wolfson, “Ascesis, Hypernomianism, and the Excess of Lack: Semiotic Transfiguration of the Somatic,” in Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism, ed. Jeremy P. Brown and Marc Herman (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021), 229–81. 21 Another important autobiographical text from this period is Shelomoh Molkho’s Sefer H.ayat Qaneh. It is highly probable that Karo’s repeatedly stated yearnings to die in martyrdom were substantially influenced by the death of Molkho by burning at the stake, bound up in Molkho’s messianic self-perception. See Matt Goldish, “Mystical Messianism: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment,” in Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah: New Insights and Scholarship, ed. Frederick E. Greenspahn (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 122–3; Rachel Elior, “Messianic Expectations and Spiritualization of Religious Life in the Sixteenth Century,” Revue des Etudes juives 145, nos. 1–2 (1986): 35–49. Cf. Mor Altshuler, “Rabbi Joseph Karo as the Founder of the First Kabbalistic Circle in Salonica,” Études balkaniques 3 (2018): 457–81.

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In what follows, I  probe the ways in which self-conscious and introspective narration reveals fundamental attitudes toward mystically inflected personhood—articulations of meaning and purpose in the kabbalist’s life. Among other motifs, I will devote special attention to the representation of emotion in these narratives of self-awareness. At the outset of this analysis—a methodological fusion of literary morphology and the phenomenology of religious experience—I should note that the autobiographical endeavor is certainly also to be found in sources of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century provenance, hundreds of years before the more widespread practice among the Z. efat kabbalists. I have already studied this endeavor in some detail in my monograph on Isaac of Akko, especially in regard to the highly testimonial Oz.ar Ḥayyim,22 and Moshe Idel has examined it in his research on Sefer Sha‘arei Z. edeq, attributing the authorship of this book to one Natan ben Sa‘adya Harar, a likely student of Abraham Abulafia and possible associate of Isaac of Akko.23 The richness of mystical experience and autobiographical self-reflection in Sha‘arei Z.edeq has already been treated in some detail by previous scholars; it is also important to note that Abulafia himself authored autobiographical works that ought to be studied as literary documents of their own. What is more, the use of the first-person testimonial voice as a device of literary opening was quite common among medieval Jewish authors, including prominent thirteenthcentury kabbalists, especially in the construction of authorial purpose. Here I  am thinking of the opening lines of Moshe de Leon’s Mishqan ha-‘Eidut and Sheqel ha-Qodesh, Yosef Giqatilla’s Sha‘arei Orah, and Bah.ya ben Asher’s Peirush ‘al ha-Torah, to name but a few. This abbreviated writing of the self, while seemingly ancillary to the larger purpose of the author’s composition, is nevertheless an integral and revealing piece of literary self-consciousness among kabbalists. Despite Scholem’s remarks, there have already been meaningful advances in charting and understanding this genre of Jewish mystical literature—including the studies of Werblowsky, Idel, Oron, Pachter, Faierstein, Chajes, and Altshuler, among others—and I will engage with this research in due course. Notable examples of the autobiographical genre among the sixteenth-century

22 See Eitan P. Fishbane, As Light Before Dawn: The Inner World of a Medieval Kabbalist (Stanford University Press, 2009), 94–122. 23 See Idel, Natan Ben Sa’adya Harar—Le Porte della Giuistizia, Sha’arei Sedeq. For manifestations of the phenomenon in the orbit of the H. asidei Ashkenaz, see Ephraim Kanarfogel, “Dreams as Determinant of Jewish Law and Practice in Northern Europe during the High Middle Ages,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History. Festschrift in Honor of Robert Chazan, ed. D. Engel, L. H. Schiffman, and E. R. Wolfson (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 111–43.

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kabbalists include Yosef Karo’s Sefer Maggid Meisharim, Moshe Cordovero’s Sefer Geirushin, Elazar Azikri’s Milei de-Shemaya, and H.ayyim Vital’s Sefer ha-H.ezyonot—and it is to Karo and Cordovero that I shall turn to now in pursuit of a preliminary phenomenology of kabbalistic self-reflection and a morphology of Jewish mystical autobiographical literature. Here I will focus on elements of affect, voice, self-perception, and religious experience. I  shall address the following features as they intersect with one another in these works: (1) representations of self-worth, whether in terms of grandiosity and insecurity; (2) anxieties toward physicality; (3) otherworldly, paranormal, visionary mystical experience; (4) the play of time—memory, narration of the present, hope; (5) the construction of discipleship, reverence for the teacher, relationship to the paradigmatic past; (6) drama, performativity, and symbolic action; (7) self-conscious writing and authorial purpose.

R. Yosef Karo I  begin with the writing of Yosef Karo, one of the more senior figures of the Z.efat (and, before that, Salonica) circles, a fascinating personality who bridged two radically divergent modes of thinking and creativity—the monumental halakhic Beit Yosef and the culture-shaping Shulh.an Arukh, on the one hand, and the autobiographical record (Sefer Maggid Meisharim) of his nightly revelations by way of angelic possession—as a vocal conduit for the personified Heavenly Mishnah—on the other.24 To be sure, the persona of Karo, and especially the dynamic between his halakhic and kabbalistic concerns, has been studied by others scholars—Werblowsky, Altshuler, and Kahana in particular.25 I will focus

24 As is well known, the state of ecstatic possession and mystical revelation experienced by Karo was witnessed first-hand by his disciples as most famously recorded in the account written by R. Shelomoh Alqabez. about the Tiqun Leil Shavuot practiced by Karo and his circle in Salonica in the 1530s. See the introduction to Karo, Maggid Meisharim (Amsterdam, 1704); Louis Jacobs, Jewish Mystical Testimonies (New York: Schocken Books, 1977), 122–30; Lawrence Fine, “Benevolent Spirit Possession in Sixteenth-Century Safed” in Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Matt Goldish (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 108. 25 See R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, Joseph Karo: Lawyer and Mystic (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1977), originally published in 1962; Rachel Elior, “R. Joseph Karo and R. Israel Ba‘al Shem Tov: Mystical Metamorphosis, Kabbalistic Inspiration and Spiritual Internalization” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 65, no. 4 (1996), 672–80; Mor Altshuler, The Life of Rabbi Yosef Karo [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2016); Maoz Kahana, “A Universe Made of Words: Bibliography and Utopia in the Halakhic Project of Rabbi Yosef Karo” [in Hebrew], Shenaton ha-Mishpat ha-Ivri 30 (2020): 79–127.

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on select elements of Karo’s autobiographical self-consciousness, particularly its affective dimensions. Through its diary-style recording of specific dates, Maggid Meisharim locates the speaker in the flow of time—a feature that heightens the sense of individuality and lived reality as communicated to the reader. The status of personal identity emerges through the complex interplay between Karo’s self-image as an unpossessed ego, on the one hand (that is, when the Maggid Mishnah is not speaking through him), wherein the emotions and introspections manifest notable self-criticism, insecurity, and anxiety—and the eruption of the supernatural voice as quietistic possession, a kind of alter-ego, through which the strikingly polar opposite of grandiosity and self-exaltation is articulated, on the other (combined, nevertheless, with ongoing rebuke and criticism by the Maggid). Which of these self-manifestations is most true to the identity of Yosef Karo? The very fact of his confessional narration displays a meta-awareness of his possession by the angelic/divine hypostasis of the Mishnah (which also appears to be understood as the voice of the Shekhinah), one in which he reveals a belief in his own messianic or epochal significance, represented in one bold passage as a saint-sage who will stand at the head of a new Sanhedrin of students—a self-perception of the merging of his seemingly disparate halakhic and kabbalistic identities. It is worth underscoring the fact that Mishnah-recitation is the vehicle of ecstatic transformation;26 that paradigmatic ancient code of law ultimately disclosing kabbalistic mysteries all the while that Karo was at work on his own magisterial non-kabbalistic code of law, the Shulh.an Arukh—distilled down for broader use from the voluminous Beit Yosef. As he was simultaneously at work on an exoteric law code in the daytime, Karo engaged at night with that same foundational law code (the Mishnah) as both a means to attain ecstaticrevelatory consciousness and as a hypostatic heavenly entity that was the font of mystical wisdom. Strikingly, these two dimensions were sometimes conflated when Karo received particular halakhic rulings from his heavenly Maggid. Although many such halakhic decisions were dismissed on the basis of the principle of sources and their established legitimacy in Jewish law (aliba de-hilkhata),27 these moments of heavenly transmission do seem to have had a

26 See Lawrence Fine, “Recitation of Mishnah as a Vehicle for Mystical Inspiration: A Contemplative Technique Taught by Hayyim Vital,” Revue des Etudes Juives Paris 141 (1982): 183–99. 27 On this term, see, for example, J. David Bleich: Where Halakhah and Philosophy Meet, ed. Aaron W. Hughes and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015), 27. Also see Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods

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significant impact on Karo’s conception of the cosmic meaning of his endeavor and individual purpose.28 What is more, the very act of Karo’s engagement in nigleh, in exoteric—primarily halakhic—study and work, is framed as filled with supernal divine purpose. Consider the following important passage from Sefer Maggid Meisharim that illuminates this matter: If you act in this way, abandoning the pleasures of the body (‫)ואי כדין תעביד למשבק עדוני גופא‬, making your heart and mind a perennial dwelling for Torah )‫ולמיהוי לבך ומחשבתך קינא‬ ‫ )דאורייתא תדיר‬and not ceasing from its contemplation for even a moment (‫)ולא תפסוק מהרהורא דילה אפילו רגעא חדא‬, then the Holy Blessed One will delight with you (‫)קוב”ה ישתעשע בך‬. You should also perpetually be engaged with halakhic rulings (pesaq), Gemara, Kabbalah, Mishnah, Tosefot, and Rashi as you do. For you combine and interweave them one with the other (‫ )דאת מחבר לון ומשלב יתהון דא עם דא‬and insert the hooks into the loops (‫)ומעייל את הקרסים בלולאות‬. By the merit of this, the Holy Blessed One will love you. At the hour in which you rise to pray and recite—at the [same] time that [the Holy One] delights with the righteous in the Garden of Eden, that is, at midnight— He also delights in you and sends forth onto you the thread of grace (‫ובעדנא דאת קם למצלי ולמקרי בעדנא דאיהו משתעשע עם‬ ‫צדיקייא בג"ע דהיינו בפלגות ליליא בך נמי משתעשע וממשיך עליך חוטא‬ ‫)דחסדא‬.29 As we observe in several passages cited in this essay, the imperative of Karo the kabbalist keeping his mind focused on Torah in a constant way (“not ceasing from its contemplation for even a moment”) is central to the message of the heavenly Maggid and therefore to Karo’s realization of his ideal self and conduct. Notably, this passage includes the value and urgency of also perennially engaging in study and creativity of exoteric subjects (pesaq [halakhic rulings], Gemara, Mishnah, Tosafot, Rashi) in addition to his required engagement with Kabbalah and the mystical secrets revealed to him by the

(Ramat Gan and Baltimore: Bar Ilan University Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 624. 28 I thank Ariel Mayse for his insights into this matter (and other very helpful comments) while reviewing this paper and for pointing me to the important source cited below. 29 Maggid Meisharim, parashat Va-Yakhel (Petaḥ Tikvah, 1990), 193. All subsequent page references are to this edition.

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Maggid by virtue of his diligent and ecstatic recitation of mishnayot.30 All of this—combined with a highly ascetic approach of physical self-denial toward the pleasures of the body—will ultimately be rewarded by God through the thread of grace (‫)חוטא דחסדא‬, a receipt of energy in which Karo participates in and receives the emanatory overflow from the playful delight that the Holy One engages in with the righteous in the supernal Garden of Eden (‫)משתעשע עם צדיקיא בג"ע דהיינו בפלגות ליליא בך נמי משתעשע‬. Though I cannot delve into this here, it also important to note—particularly regarding the dialectic of esoteric and exoteric study exemplified in this text—that this passage culminates several paragraphs later with the Maggid also encouraging Karo to engage in pilpulistic study as he has been doing, particularly with regard to the writings of Maimonides, which apparently pleases the spirit-soul of Maimonides in the Heavenly Academy (‫ועסוק תמיד בתורה כי מה שפלפלת אתמול על הרמב"ם ז"ל ב' הדברים אמת הם והרמב"ם‬ ‫)שמח בך על שירדת לסוף דעתו וגם שמח עליך שאתה תמיד מביא דעתו ומפלפל בו‬. The anxieties expressed by Karo’s unpossessed self—centering upon the perceived obstacles of physicality—his struggle to resist sleep and thereby attain greater nocturnal visitations from the heavenly Mishnah; the manner in which ascetic renunciations are understood to facilitate spiritual accomplishment. In Karo’s formulation: I ate and drank a tiny amount, and I recited mishnayot at the beginning of the night. [Then] I slept until the light of day; I awoke and the sun shone on the land, and I [felt] very sorry [and regretful] as I said, “How did I not awaken while it was still night so that the Speech could come upon me as usual?!” (‫ונצטערתי מאד באמרי איך‬ ‫)לא קמתי בעוד לילה כדי שיבא אלי הדבור כמנהג‬.31

30 On this dialectical interplay of Halakhah and Kabbalah as it relates to Karo—including ways in which kabbalistically based practice rooted in the Zohar was used by Karo in his Beit Yosef, and, to a lesser extent, in the Shulh.an Arukh—see Moshe H. allamish, “The Kabbalah in the Halakhic Rulings of R. Yosef Karo” [in Hebrew], in his Kabbalah: In Liturgy, Halakhah, and Customs (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2000), 161–79; Jacob Katz, “Post-Zoharic Relations Between Halakhah and Kabbalah,” in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Bernard Dov Cooperman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 283–307, esp. 301–4; Israel Ta-Shma, “Rabbi Joseph Karo: Between Spain and Germany,” Tarbiz. 59 (1989): 153–70. Cf. Boaz Huss, “Sefer ha-Zohar as a Canonical, Sacred and Holy Text: Changing Perspectives of the Book of Splendor between the Thirteenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 7, no. 2 (1998): 278–9. 31 Maggid Meisharim, 8.

Mystical Autobiography in Sixteenth-Centur y Kabbalah

And then again elsewhere in the diary:32 I ate a lot and drank wine, and afterwards I drank too much water, and I was not able to recite [or “study”] mishnayot at the beginning of the night. After I slept, I arose and drank a lot of water again. I recited [mishnayot], but I was feeling a heaviness in my head as though I had not slept (‫והייתי מרגיש כובד בראשי‬ ‫)כאילו לא ישנתי‬. I returned to sleep and awoke close to the light of day, and I thought that I had forgotten to remember [to recite the mishnayot] this time [as I usually recite them] (‫כפעם בפעם‬ ‫)נשכחתי כי וחשבתי מלהפקיד‬. These instances of self-doubt and anxieties related to physicality and sleep are followed by Karo’s employment of the Mishnah-recitation technique that is so typical of his mystical practice—a method that leads directly to his recurrent experience of automatic speech, becoming a passive conduit for the heavenly revelation: “Despite all of this, I began to study mishnayot. I recited five verses, and while I  was reciting the mishnayot, a voice knocked within my mouth, singing on its own; it began and said. . . .”33 The tenor of this self-criticism and anxiety toward physicality is then continued through the voice of the Maggid, albeit tempered with rhetoric of high praise. Though this is presented as an alternation between Karo’s “own” voice and that of the heavenly voice that he believes to speak through him, the psychologist of religion may certainly read this rhetoric—indeed the whole premise of the ecstatic possessed speech of Sefer Maggid Meisharim as a whole, along with the Shavuot event witnessed by Alqabez.—as the complex and even tormented tumult of Yosef Karo’s inner life, his identity split into these two personalities, one of which, in the form of the Maggid, delivers both self-criticism and selfperceptions of greatness and grandiosity in the frame of a divine voice believed to be speaking through Karo the man in a different, ecstatically possessed, tone. Recent studies have examined spirit possession in Jewish and non-Jewish mysticism, including through the lens of the psychology and anthropology of religion.34 Such cases of mystical possession and split personality may or may not be psychiatric conditions or disorders as they are often pathologized in modern medicine, and such attempts at historical pathology are notoriously

32 Ibid., 34–35. 33 Ibid. 34 See below, notes 35–36.

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problematic.35 It is just as reasonable to assume that certain altered states of consciousness may have been produced by a combination of intensive meditative practices; a quietistic state of mystical experience in which the practitioner feels overtaken by a higher power, a mode of consciousness and sensation in which an individual experiences the self transformed into a passive conduit for divine energies. This may also be further shaped by extreme sleep deprivation and fasting (which was Karo’s practice), or, in some cases, by the use of hallucinogenic substances.36 In a passage immediately preceding this one, Karo also spoke in his own voice, albeit reporting as paraphrase on the guidance and exhortations of the Maggid:37 Light unto the Sabbath, the eighth day of H.eshvan. “God is with you . . .” He [the Maggid] warned me regarding the [need] to

35 See the pertinent remarks by Yoram Bilu in his “Dybbuk, Aslai, Zar: The Cultural Distinctiveness and Historical Situatedness of Possession Illnesses in Three Jewish Milieus,” in Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Matt Goldish (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 348–50. As Bilu puts the matter: “Again, culture-sensitive anthropologists criticize this pathological view of possession as reductive. . . . They alert us to other meanings of possession, which transcend the pathological model and the relative deprivation view attached to it. . . . Rather than a symbolic expression of an unconscious conflict, the internal dialogue with the spirits . . . may be viewed as facilitating the growth of the self and the dialogue with otherness” (ibid., 348). 36 On the nexus between ecstatic mysticism, spirit possession, psychiatry, and the psychology of religion as it sheds light on this phenomenon, see Lucy Huskinson, “Analytical Psychology and Spirit Possession: Towards a Non-Pathological Diagnosis of Spirit Possession,” in Spirit Possession and Trance: New Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Bettina E. Schmidt and Lucy Huskinson (London: Continuum Books, 2010), 71–96. For a historical phenomenology of spirit possession in the history of the Jewish experience, see Matt Goldish’s preface to Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Matt Goldish (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 11–19. The study of this phenomenon in the broader history of religions is extensive. For a notable example among many, see I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession (London and New York: Routledge, 2002). With special regard to the potential correlation between sleep deprivation and ecstatic mystical experiences, see Michael Winkelman, “The Integrative Mode of Consciousness: Evolutionary Origins of Ecstasy,” in Ekstasen: Kontexte–Formen–Wirkungen, ed. Torsten Passie (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2013), 67–83; Shahar Arzy and Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: A Neurocognitive Approach to Mystical Experiences (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 94–97. Arzy and Idel’s Kabbalah deals in important depth with trance and spirit possession as it illuminates the nexus between neuroscience and the phenomenology of Jewish mysticism. See especially Arzy and Idel, Kabbalah, 85–112. On the likely use of what we now call entheogenic substances in early modern times, see Benjamin Breen, “The Failed Globalization of Psychedelic Drugs in the Early Modern World,” The Historical Journal 65, no. 1 (2022): 12–29, esp. 13. 37 Maggid Meisharim, 33.

Mystical Autobiography in Sixteenth-Centur y Kabbalah

be thinking about the Mishnah always, and he admonished me against talking too much (‫הזהירני על הרהור במשנה תמיד ויסרני‬ ‫)מלהרבות דיבור‬. And also [against] listening to words of jest and thinking about other matters during the time of prayer (‫גם לשמוע מילי דבדיחותא ומלהרהר בדברים אחרים בעת‬ ‫)התפילה‬. For Samael and the Snake are chasing after you in these thoughts (‫)רדפין אבתרך בהני הרהורין‬, and you can burn them up in the straw (qash) of the recitation of the Shema (q“sh = qeriat Shema) [‫ ]בקש דק“ש‬and in the fire of the breath that goes forth from your mouth (‫ !)ובאשא דהבל דנפיק מגו פומך‬And he [the Maggid] rebuked me (‫ )הוכיחני‬that I was not writing down everything that they [members of the celestial Academy] were saying to me [via the Maggid]. Were I to write [all of these things down], they would reveal wondrous secrets to me (‫ואם הייתי כותבו היו‬ ‫)מגלים לי רזים נפלאים‬. In this wonderful play on ‫ק“ש‬, q”sh, as ‫קריאת שמע‬, the recitation of the Shema holds the power to burn up the wayward thoughts engendered by the act of “listening to words of jest” and “thinking about other matters during the time of prayer.” These potentially sinful thoughts draw the chase of the ferocious demons, Samael and the Snake, but the devotee holds the power to burn up these demonic forces with the igniting power of the “straw” of concentrated prayer, the qash (‫)קש‬, combined with “the fire of the breath that goes forth from your mouth.” The spiritual adept is engaged in a battle against the dark forces of the demonic that lead him toward temptation and sin through the wayward acts of not thinking about the Mishnah, extraneous talking, and humorous and other distractions during prayer. For Karo, there is a grave tension between the lightness and temptations of this-worldliness and the ultimate goal of attaching oneself to the supernal light of Divinity. The demonic persona of Samael is always trying to lead the devotee astray, chasing with alacrity after these potentially sinful thoughts and behaviors, evoking a mythic fear that the demonic forces may penetrate one’s thoughts in order to cause sin. The central pillar of pietistic guidance is a training of the mind, in this case by anchoring devotional focus on the Mishnah and its heavenly mystical dimensions as communion with Divinity, and as a method of protecting the vulnerable human mind from being led astray into sin.38

38 This particular battle for the supplicant may be compared with related passages in Maggid Meisharim, 33 and 145.

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The voice of the Maggid then continues: God is with you in all [paths] that you walk, and all that you have done and will do God brings success to your hands. Just bind yourself to me (‫)רק כי תדבק בי‬, to fear of me, to my Torah, and to my mishnayot—not as you have done on this night. For even though you have sanctified yourself in your eating and drinking, you have still slept the sleep of a lazy person (‫שאע"פ שקדשת עצמך‬ ‫ מכל מקום ישנת שנת עצל‬,‫ )במאכלך ובמשתיך‬. . . and you did not arise to recite the mishnayot in the manner of your good practice (‫)ולא קמת לקרות המשניות כמנהגך הטוב‬. Because of this it [would have been] appropriate to leave and abandon you after you gave strength to Samael (‫ועלזה היה ראוי לעזבך ולנטשך אחרי שנתת תוקף‬ ‫ )לסמאל‬and the Snake and the evil urge through your sleep, in that you slept until the light of day. But because of the merit of the six orders of the Mishnah that you know by heart, and by the merit of those afflictions and mortifications (‫ )בזכות אותם הענויים והסגופים‬that you performed in the preceding days, and that now too you hold fast to them, they have agreed in the Supernal Academy that I return to speak with you (‫)הסכימו בישיבה של מעלה שאחזור לדבר עמך כבראשונה‬, and that I not leave and abandon you, and so have I done, as you see in this moment that I am speaking to you in the manner in which a person would speak to his fellow (‫שאני מדבר אתך כאשר‬ ‫)ידבר אישאל רעהו‬, and your eyes can see that for several generations no person has attained this great level except for the select elite (‫ועיניך הם הרואות שבכמה דורות לא השיג אדםלזאת‬ ‫)המעלה הגדולה כי אם יחידי סגולה‬. Therefore, my son, heed my voice, that which I am commanding you, that you perpetually engage [in the study of] my Torah day and night without cessation, and do not think about any matter from [among] the matters of the world (‫ולא‬ ‫—)תהרהר בשום דבר מדברי העולם‬only [contemplate] matters of Torah, fear of me (yir’ati), and my mishnayot. After this I slept for something like half an hour, and I awoke regretful as I remarked on how the [heavenly] speech had stopped because I had slept. I then recited mishnayot and the voice of my Beloved knocked mouth (‫באמרי איך נפסק הדבור בסבת שישנתי וקריתי משניות‬ ‫)וקול דודי דופק בפי ואחר זה ישנתי כמו חצי שעה והקצתי מצטער‬ ‫ )וקול דודי דופק בפי‬saying: “You should know that the Holy One

Mystical Autobiography in Sixteenth-Centur y Kabbalah

blessed be He and the whole Heavenly Academy send you [wishes of] peace.”39 Despite criticism that Karo receives from the heavenly voice—one that again focuses first on his failures to fulfill the necessary ascetic prerequisites in order to be worthy of the transcendent revelatory event, he is ultimately granted permission to receive the heavenly speech on the strength of his prior record in ascetic practice and his interconnected attachment to and erudition in learning Mishnah. Giving into the weakness of physical desire as it is presented by the Maggid, one that is the direct cause of ceasing the all-important recitation of the Mishnah, not only distances the devotee from divine connection and revelation, but it has the inverse effect of bestowing energy on the demonic forces of the cosmos—those elements that thrive on human weakness and the temptations of physical activities (indulgences, he would say) like sleep.40 Particularly noteworthy in this passage is the Maggid’s exhortation that Karo maintains an unbroken constancy in his study and recitation of the Mishnah, his study of the mystical Torah taught to him by this heavenly being. Only matters of Torah, awe or fear of the Maggid, and the mishnayot should occupy the mind the practitioner—certainly not “any matter from [among] the matters of the world.” There is a rigorous regulation of thought and practice that is central to the instruction that Karo receives from the heavenly domain; it is one that hinges on focusing the mind on spiritual subjects and sacred texts as well as engaging in an intense ascetic subjugation of physical desire and worldly distraction. The ecstatic state of possessed speech—one in which he, Karo, is so intermingled in unity with his divine Beloved that she knocks on the door of his throat, his vocal chords, in overt reference to the rhetoric of the Song of Songs (2:8, 5:2)—is the mystical culmination of ascetic practice and an idealized heavenly overflow onto the practitioner. Such moments further underscore the tumultuous dialectic between a sense of unworthiness and proclamations of grandiose praise. In regard to literary manifestations of autobiographical self-awareness, we may highlight Karo’s depiction of himself, his shortcomings, and his transition to ecstatic consciousness and speech: “After this I slept for something like half an hour, and I  awoke regretful as I  remarked on how the [heavenly] speech

39 Maggid Meisharim, 8. 40 See reference to and discussion of this piece of text in Lawrence Fine, “Purifying the Body in the Name of the Soul: The Problem of the Body in Sixteenth-Century Kabbalah,” in People of the Body: Jews and Judaism from an Embodied Perspective, ed. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 126. Also see Werblowsky, Joseph Karo: Lawyer and Mystic, 155–9; and Altshuler, The Life of Rabbi Yosef Karo, 113–4.

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had stopped because I had slept. I then recited mishnayot and the voice of my Beloved knocked in my mouth.” Emotion and its expression are here dominated by a sense of regret, a feeling tied directly to awareness of his having fallen prey to the powers of physicality and the need for sleep, which Karo perceives as an inherent impediment to the perennial and exalted goal of reciting and studying mishnayot as a mechanism for the attainment of an ecstatic transcendent consciousness, one in which the heavenly force from above, likely a manifestation of the Shekhinah, takes possession of his voice, emerging through the vessel of the mystic’s self. After he has awakened from his unwanted sleep and recitation of mishnayot, Karo reports feeling the ecstatic heavenly voice rise within him, ultimately overtaking his own physical vocality: “and the voice of my Beloved knocked in my mouth.”

Rabbi Moshe Cordovero In the writings of R. Moshe Cordovero, specifically in his Sefer Geirushin, other aspects of autobiographical representation come to the fore. In many respects inspired by the narrated peregrinations of Rabbi Shimon bar Yoh.ai and his disciples in the pages of the Zohar, Cordovero’s little volume records the brief and episodic processes by which the author walked by foot through the villages and ancient graves of the Galilee with his master, Rabbi Shelomoh Alqabez., where they happened upon new kabbalistic insights and esoteric readings of Scripture—a somewhat theatrical reflection on the nature and stimuli of mystical creativity. The autobiographical self-consciousness at play in this work turns on Cordovero’s overt belief that he and his teacher were engaged in a practice of empathic participation in the suffering and wandering exile of Shekhinah, a performative and highly embodied technique that also involved a deep sense of temporal transcendence (even amidst the palpable spatiality of the Galilean wanderings) in his alignment and identification with paradigmatic mystical stages of old. To consider one such remarkable and representative example, Cordovero recalls a journey with his teacher in which they prostrated themselves upon the graves of Rabbi Shimon and his son Rabbi Elazar of zoharic fame.41 This 41 The phenomenon of communing with the dead through veneration of their gravesites has been discussed by several scholars. Some key examples include: Boaz Huss, “The Cult of the Graves of the Z.addiqim in Safed Kabbalah” [in Hebrew], Mah.anayim 14 (2004): 123–34; J. H. Chajes, Between Worlds: Dyybuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 33; Lawrence Fine, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the

Mystical Autobiography in Sixteenth-Centur y Kabbalah

moment of grave prostration, which was relatively commonplace among Z.efat kabbalists, leads to a remarkable moment of self-identification with the divine sefirot—a psychologization that we also observe in Cordovero’s other classic, Tomer Devorah. Gazing upon his physical position between the two graves, Cordovero interprets his location and speech as embodying the sefirah Tif’eret, harmonizing between Rabbi Shimon as the left side and Gevurah, and Rabbi Elazar as the right side, H.esed. In Cordovero’s words: I saw fit to balance between them (‫ )ראיתי להכריע ביניהם‬with words of Torah, which is Tif ’eret, who balances. And despite the fact that I am not worthy that they be crowned upon me (‫)ואע"פ שאיני ראוי לשהם יתעטרו בי‬, due to the bad [nature] of my sins, nevertheless they may be crowned through words of Torah, for words of Torah do not acquire impurity. . . .42 In speaking words of mystical Torah, the kabbalist here is the self-conscious embodiment of the sefirah Tif’eret, who imagines his place in the flow of time, a deep alignment with the revered masters of old. A sense of personal unworthiness is articulated here by Cordovero, as we observed in the case of Karo. Nevertheless, the kabbalist rises to the challenge of stepping into the breach between the spiritual presence in death of these two zoharic characters— personae who function as markers for different elements of the Divine in the form of their grave locations. The choreography of Cordovero’s spatial location between these two revered graves, followed by his communion with their spirits, culminates in the mystic viewing himself as the physical embodiment of the supernal divine dimension of balance and confluence. In speaking words of Torah, Cordovero temporarily transcends his sense of unworthiness, insofar as Tif’eret is symbolized by the Torah and therefore may legitimately and purely rest upon the sacred words spoken by Cordovero himself. This is despite Cordovero’s stated sense that his all-too-human sinful past must disqualify him from serving as a physical conduit for the metaphysical heavenly energies of Tif’eret as it balances the poles of H.esed and Din represented by the graves (and their attendant spirit presences) of R. Elazar and R. Shimon, respectively.

Cosmos: Isaac Luria and His Kabbalistic Fellowship (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 59–65, 259–299; Jonathan Garb, “The Cult of the Saints in Lurianic Kabbalah,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 98, no. 2 (2008): 211–23. 42 This idea and expression is talmudic in origin. See BT Berakhot 22a.

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Insofar as this scene may be parsed as an instance of the mystical autobiographical genre, we observe in Cordovero a simultaneous questioning of his own worthiness and a sense of grand mystical purpose—one in which he as a kabbalist intentionally channels the energies of the divine sefirot in a highly embodied and earthly moment; here he as a still-living kabbalist becomes unified with the spirit presences of paradigmatic kabbalists of old, and that as a triad they (R. Shimon, R. Elazar, and Cordovero himself) are transformed into conduits for the upper emanating dimensions of Divinity. In his earthly speech of Torah-words at the gravesites, Cordovero understands himself to be the vessel for a this-worldly crowning of Tif’eret—supernal God made immanent and manifest in this mundane realm and upon a mortal body elevated to spiritual worthiness and purity through spoken words of Torah.

Conclusion In these reflections on the confessional works of R. Yosef Karo and R. Moshe Cordovero, I have sought to portrait the genre of mystical autobiography as a literary dynamic, a form of expression through which matters of identity and self-perception, particularly the anxieties of self-worth and physicality are disclosed, a mode of creativity in which diverse states of mystical consciousness and experience are formulated and interpreted by the kabbalists who underwent such ecstatic and otherworldly conditions of mind and sensation. This is just a glimpse into the variegated terrain of kabbalistic autobiography in this period and beyond—a genre that documents key dimensions of the inner life, contemplative-revelatory experience, and notions of personal identity and selfhood through the distinctive modality of the confessional voice.

MODERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND L I T E R AT U R E

16

Child Mind in H.asidic Spirituality Sam S. B. Shonkoff Ah, but I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now. —Bob Dylan1 I am very old, and I am still completely infantile. I have not yet begun to live at all, and I am nonetheless very old. —Nah.man of Bratzlav2

Reflecting on Michael Fishbane’s eightieth birthday while also caring for my firstborn baby, I  am struck in new ways by my teacher’s meditations on “natality.” For Fishbane, natality is “the spring of beginnings that comes with a reborn mindfulness,” and he casts it as key for a contemporary theological breakthrough.3 Admittedly, he is not speaking literally about infants—at least not in any simple sense. Indeed, he adapts the term “natality” from Hannah Arendt, for whom it represented the possibility of free, spontaneous action despite the dominating superstructures of society.4 And yet, for Fishbane, 1 Bob Dylan, “My Back Pages,” Another Side of Bob Dylan (Columbia Records, 1964), track 8. I thank Daniel Boyarin for bringing these lyrics to my attention. 2 Nah.man of Bratzlav, “The Seven Beggars,” in his Sipurei Ma‘asiyot (Beitar ‘Ilit: Makhon Even Shetiyah, 2001), 360–1. All translations are my own, unless cited otherwise. 3 Michael Fishbane, Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), ix–x. 4 See ibid., 213f.

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neonatal experience is more than metaphor. A central pillar of his theology is that moments of preverbal immediacy remind us just how heavily mediated our everyday cognition is. “Simply think of the primordial processes each childhood repeats,” he marvels. “The whir of noise and the blur of shapes are sensate, eerie elements from the very start, and are only gradually routinized into sensible patterns by the touch of parental care and the wave tones of intimate sounds.”5 That “whir” and “blur” of childlike sensation stir us to see that we are always already interpreting an ineffable vastness. For Fishbane, this insight should be primary for, and in dialectical tension with, theological expression.6 In contrast, the normative texts of Jewish tradition tend to portray young children as not-yet-adults, if the sources speak about them at all. There are expressions of excitement for them to grow up and perform actions of Torah study, marriage, and righteous deeds, but one is hard-pressed to find classical sources that draw inspiration from young children themselves as they are. Deena Aranoff argues persuasively that lived realities of childhood and childrearing (mothering, in particular) are often between the lines of texts, as it were, metaphorically appropriated into the foundations of rabbinic theology and practice—but these remain overwhelmingly implicit.7 Early H. asidism broke from this trend in significant ways. According to various teachings and testimonies, the movement’s generator, the Ba‘al Shem Tov (Besht), rebelled against soulless study and unfeeling intellectualism.8 In contrast to the

5 Ibid., 16. 6 For more detailed discussion of these foundations of Fishbane’s theology, see my “Michael Fishbane: An Intellectual Portrait,” in Michael Fishbane: Jewish Hermeneutical Theology, Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers, ed. Aaron W. Hughes and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 33–40. For echoes of natality in Fishbane’s more recent writings, see Michael Fishbane, Fragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), 108–9. 7 See Deena Aranoff, “Mother’s Milk: Child-Rearing and the Production of Jewish Culture,” Journal of Jewish Identities 12, no. 1 (2019): 1–17; idem, “The Biblical Root ‘mn: Retrieval of a Term and Its Household Context,” in Mothers in the Jewish Cultural Imagination, ed. Marjorie Lehman, Jane L. Kanarek, and Simon J. Bronner (Liverpool: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2017), 327–41. 8 For a well-known narrative representation of this value, see where the Besht repeatedly frustrates the Maggid of Mezritsch’s efforts to extract intellectual disquisitions from him, responding rather with seemingly mundane anecdotes about interactions with commoners, and then finally critiques the Maggid’s mode of study as “without soul.” Aaron of Apta, Keter Shem Tov (Zholkva, 1794/5), fols. 30a–30b. As Moshe Idel explains, “The difference between the Besht and the Great Maggid was, it seems, not a matter of knowledge of the topics dealt with . . . or their ability to read the text, but the special way it had to be recited; a text should be studied not only for the sake of its content but for the experience it is able to induce.” Moshe Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 172.

C h i l d M i n d i n H. a s i d i c S p i r i t u a l i t y

scholarly ideals of eighteenth-century Ashkenazi Jewish culture, he intimated that obsession with esoterica can thwart spiritual connection. Indeed, for the Besht, neither textual knowledge nor basic literacy are necessary preconditions for the joy and trembling of spiritual connection.9 As Gershom Scholem notes about devequt (flushness with God), the pinnacle of spiritual consciousness in H. asidism, “thought is transformed into emotion” and it is wholly “de-intellectualized.”10 The Besht’s celebration of the “simple person” (tam) is a much discussed expression of this perspective. A rather overlooked image, though, is that of the child. This article explores expressions of “child mind” in early h.asidic spirituality. In truth, much like the contemporaneous romanticization of children in Romantic literature, the theological sources we will examine say more about adults than they do about actual children.11 Ultimately, “child mind” is a decidedly grownup affair. Thus, as Carolyn Steedman notes, “It is helpful to make an analytic separation between real children, living in the time and space of particular societies, and the ideational and figurative force of their existence.”12 The former always inform the latter, of course, but we will focus specifically on how adult H. asidim envisaged childlikeness. Thus, for our purposes, child mind refers precisely to the textures of children’s (including babies’) inner experiences, as imagined by adults in their own personal quests for meaning. A common ideal in this vein is a sort of beginner’s mind, where everything is new. However, as we shall see, h.asidic ruminations expand far beyond this frame. It is worth emphasizing that most of these diverge quite self-consciously from assertions 9 The Besht’s (alleged) celebrations of spiritual simplicity connect to various aspects of his general approach, including (1) his democratization of the historically elitist concept of devequt; (2) his shift from the elaborate system of Lurianic kavanot to more affective-ecstatic notions of kavanah; (3) his emphasis on letters, as opposed to words, in prayer and study; and (4) his self-image as a leader of the entire Jewish people. See, inter alia, Gershom Scholem, “Devekut, or Communion with God,” in his The Messianic Idea in Judaism, trans. Michael Meyer (New York: Schocken, 1995), 203–27; Rachel Elior, The Mystical Origins of Hasidism (Liverpool: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008), 78–84; Immanuel Etkes, The Besht: Magician, Mystic, and Leader (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2012), 106–10, 129–31; Joseph Weiss, Studies in East European Jewish Mysticism and Hasidism, ed. David Goldstein (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1997), 56–61, 95–105; Tsippi Kauffman, Be-Khol Derakhekha Da‘eihu: Tefisat ha-Elohut ve-ha-‘Avodah be-Gashmiyut be-Reishit ha-H.asidut (Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2009), 399–407; David Biale et al., Hasidism: A New History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 55–7. 10 Scholem, “Devekut, or Communion with God,” 218. 11 Questions of how these related shifts in Romanticism and H. asidism may have been genealogically or structurally correlated are beyond the scope of this article. That said, their intriguing simultaneity should add to the growing discussion of H. asidism as a modern movement. 12 Carolyn Steedman, Strange Dislocations: Childhood and the Idea of Human Interiority, 1780–1930 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 5.

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about literal age, instead using language of developmental phases to represent different psychological-spiritual states. It is also crucial to flag from the outset that early h.asidic writings on child mind are exclusively from male perspectives, given the patriarchal structures of that movement.13 Undoubtedly, their reflections—as well as my own analyses thereof in this article—would be far richer if women’s voices had been heeded and recorded. Allusions to child mind appear in the earliest strata of h.asidic spirituality. When the Besht found himself spiritually constricted or directionless, he would infuse his prayer practice with a sense of infancy in order to recenter. Ya‘aqov Yosef of Polnoye, whose writings offer crucial windows into his thought, related, “I heard from my teacher [the Besht] that after Rabbi Neh.unyah ben ha-Qanah14 mastered all the [kabbalistic] intentions (kavanot), he would pray like a day-old infant.”15 The Besht himself emulated this practice, which for him meant “connecting himself to the letters” of liturgy and thereby praying “from within the script itself like a day-old infant.”16 In contrast to earlier kabbalistic techniques of prayer, based on intricate permutations of letters and theosophical secrets, the Besht promoted a less cerebral approach wherein practitioners direct their attention quite sensorially to the black letters themselves. This essential practice was not an intellectual-conceptual endeavor so much as a visual-affective experience.17 It demanded a relinquishment of cleverness in order to behold the letters with total absorption—like a baby who does not even seek to decipher those shapes. And given the Besht’s description of Neh.unyah ben ha-Qanah’s trajectory, such immediacy should be understood as a highly advanced form of prayer. However, child mind served as an ideal for the Besht’s vision of spiritual life more broadly. Commenting on the biblical verse “Do not cast me off at the time of old age (ziqnah)” (Psalm 71:9), he highlighted the hazards of

13 See Ada Rapoport-Albert, “On Women in Hasidism: S. A. Horodetsky and the Maid of Ludmir Tradition,” in her Hasidic Studies: Essays in History and Gender (Liverpool: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2018), 318–67; Marcin Wodzinski, “Women and Hasidism: A ‘Non-Sectarian’ Perspective,” Jewish History 27, nos. 2–4 (2013): 399–434. 14 Neh.unyah ben ha-Qanah was a Tanna of the second century. Medieval Kabbalists pseudepigraphically attributed to him Sefer ha-Bahir and the prayer Ana be-Koah.. 15 Ya‘aqov Yosef of Polnoye, Ketonet Pasim (Lvov, 1866), Balaq, 43a. 16 Ibid., 43b. 17 See Moshe Idel, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 183–4; Gershom Scholem, “Devekut, or Communion with God,” in his The Messianic Idea in Judaism, trans. Michael Meyer (New York: Schocken, 1995), 215; Joseph Weiss, “Torah Study in Early Hasidism,” Studies in East European Jewish Mysticism and Hasidism, ed. David Goldstein (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1997), 60–61; Louis Jacobs, “Aspects of Scholem’s Study of Hasidism,” in Gershom Scholem, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House, 1987), 186–87.

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“oldness” as a spiritual state. According to the Maggid of Mezritsh, the Besht warned specifically about times when “your limbs feel heavy as if you are an old man.” For the Maggid, this pertains not to literal age but rather to a mode of consciousness—namely, when you are preoccupied with earthliness (that is, materiality), as opposed to the more “subtle and animate” elements of being.18 The antidote to this oldness is to connect oneself to the lightest element of all, fire. This will enable you to pray with youthful “fieriness” (hitlahavut).19 The Besht’s grandson Moshe H. ayyim Efrayim of Sudilkov expanded upon his grandfather’s interpretation of Psalm 71:9 in a different register: One who believes in God can pray every day. For if you believe that God always renews the works of creation every day, and each day is a new creation and all the worlds are created anew, then you [feel the] need to pray and give praise and gratitude to the One who created everything and, indeed, created you to pray for your soul, for the souls of your wife and children, for prosperity and wellbeing. If you do not trust with full faith that the blessed Holy One renews the works of creation every day, then prayer and the commandments become to you like an old, habitual thing, and you will get bored saying a few words day after day. This is what my master, my ancestor, my elder [the Besht] said about the verse “Do not cast me off at the time of old age” (Ps. 71:9). He interpreted it to mean that the thing grows old to you. Just as old age causes weakness throughout a person’s limbs due to the diminishing of their strength, fluids, and blood circulation that enliven the human being, so too in spirituality: an old, timeworn thing has no great pleasure or vitality. It is entirely different for something that is new.20 According to Moshe H. ayyim Efrayim, “old age” is boredom and uninspired action. Youthfulness, in contrast, is attunement to novelty. In Moshe H. ayyim Efrayim’s experience, one’s concept of creation is key. If you see creation as a

18 For insights into both the social and intellectual valences of “oldness” in earlier Jewish discourse, see Elisha Russ-Fishbane, Ageing in Medieval Jewish Culture (Liverpool: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2022). This book is exemplary for future scholarship on ageing in modern Jewish contexts, including H. asidism. 19 Dov Ber of Mezritsh, Or ha-’Emet (Zhitomir, 1900), ‘Eqev, 16b–17a. 20 Moshe H. ayyim Efrayim of Sudilkov, Degel Mah.aneh Efrayim (Satmar, 1941), ‘Eqev, 85a.

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past event, then the world appears as essentially fixed and unchanging, and your prayer will feel like antiquated tradition. However, if creation is always unfurling anew, then so too is your whole life, and prayerful words will roll off your tongue. “Do not cast me off at the time of old age” is a call for youthful spirit. More than an allusion to any particular prayer technique, this is an all-encompassing principle for spiritual existence. Moshe H. ayyim Efrayim seems to imply that just as the world is always changing, so too should the mental-emotional textures of your practice. His contemporary Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir, a student of the Maggid of Mezritsh, affirmed this quite audaciously: Every Jew is obligated to seek [God’s] oneness and unity, without ever letting their soul go limp for even a moment. This is the whole of human life, the very purpose of creation. And yet, we lack the breadth of mind needed to know and understand how to rouse our spirits in each and every moment. We see from our own experience that sometimes you can serve God in a particular way, but as time passes this approach falls into oldness—its time has passed and it is not as important and beloved as it once was. [Thus] the Besht used to say what we now say: “Do not cast us off at the time of old age” (Ps. 71:9). . . . He interpreted this to mean, “May time not cast you into oldness.” For sometimes a person’s practice falls into oldness due to the passage of time.21

For Ze’ev Wolf, a living practice must be ever-growing without growing old—in other words, it must be repeatedly reborn. This is not to say that one should literally deviate from the traditional commandments. Rather, one must constantly seek new ways of enacting them. Indeed, it is not the law itself that deteriorates but one’s relation to it. Whereas Moshe H. ayyim Efrayim had emphasized this in term of the protean nature of creation, Ze’ev Wolf conveys it in terms of the fluctuating faces of God: “May your youth be renewed like that of the eagle” (Ps. 103:5). Our sages were roused to comment that the eagle sheds its feathers [lit. wings] every thousand years and renews its youth,

21 Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir, Or ha-Me’ir (Korez., 1798), Yitro, 53a–b.

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etc.22 “Feathers” indicate a sort of garment. It is well known that all of our devotion, including the actual commandments, is nothing other than a garment. . . . A person of true insight knows that even the different appearances in which God’s face is “garbed” for the sake of human worship all lead to the same place, indicating His blessed oneness. It is for our sake that the Creator appears in such varied garments, so that each living person may constantly awaken the inner heart to ever new dimensions. When the dimension in which you now serve falls into oldness for you, switch it for another kind of garment—this will grant you new insight.23 Wakeful practitioners let God be unknown. Beyond illusions of familiarity and mastery swirl ever-unprecedented whirls of world, revelation, and life. Openness to this radical mutability renews the spiritual state called youthfulness. You will be like the “eagle” (or phoenix) who sustains that ceaseless dialectic of growing and shedding, growing and shedding, “returning to his youth as he grows old.”24 Conversely, if you wrap yourself in blankets of certainty, then you descend into oldness. Both Moshe H. ayyim Efrayim and Ze’ev Wolf, two peers in a most formative phase of H. asidism, shared this perspective on child mind and rooted it in the teachings of the Besht. The Besht’s great-grandson (and Moshe H. ayyim Efrayim’s nephew) Nah.man of Bratzlav formulated the matter in bold terms: “It is not good to be old, whether you are an old z.addiq or an old H. asid. Oldness is not good, for you must renew yourself every day and begin anew in every moment.”25 Nah.man introduced astonishing new perspectives on child mind. A most provocative example is an anecdote from his journey to the Land of Israel, wherein he literally behaved like a child in the streets of Istanbul.26 However, let us focus primarily on Nah.man’s 22 See Rashi on Ps. 103:5. For a correlated tradition about the “phoenix” (h.ol), see Genesis Rabbah 19:5. Cf. Radak’s commentary on Isaiah 40:31. 23 Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir, Or ha-Me’ir, 53a–b, translated in Ariel Evan Mayse and Sam Berrin Shonkoff, eds., Hasidism: Writings on Devotion, Community, and Life in the Modern World (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2020), 42–43. 24 Rashi on Ps. 103:5. 25 Natan Sternhartz, Sih.ot ha-RaN ( Jerusalem, 1994), 65–66 (§51). 26 Natan Sternhartz, Shivh.ei ha-RaN (Beitar ‘Ilit: Makhon Even Shetiyah, 2009), 36–37 (§12); idem, H.ayyei MoHaRaN (Lviv, 1874), vol. 1, §11, 21b. On the theological significance of this childishness, see Zvi Mark, Mist.iqah ve-Shiga‘on bi-Yez.irat R. Nah.man mi-Breslov (Tel Aviv: ‘Am ‘Oved, 2003), 304–6. On such youthful, mischievous “games” in H. asidism more broadly, see David Assaf, “‘A girl! He ought to be whipped’: The Hasid as Homo Ludens,” Polin Studies in Polish Jewry 33, no. 1 (2021): 51–75.

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narration of child mind in his tale “The Seven Beggars,” which he began telling in spring 1810, just months before he died.27 The key moment is a monologue by the first beggar, who is blind. It takes place, strangely enough, at the wedding of two “children.” After the bride and groom cry out in their longing to see the blind man who had helped them when they were lost in the forest, he arrives and offers them a “sermon-gift” (droshe geshank): May you live a long life like me! You think that I am blind? I am not blind at all. It is just that all the world’s time doesn’t amount to even a blink of an eye for me (therefore, he seems like a blind man because he never looks upon the world at all, since all the world’s time doesn’t amount to even a blink of an eye for him, and thus neither looking nor seeing in this world pertained to him at all). I am very old, but I am still completely infantile.28 I have not yet started to live at all, but I am nonetheless very old. And it is not only I myself who says this; I have a confirmation of it from the great eagle.29 The blind man then proceeds to tell a story that elucidates his paradoxical selfdescription. In this tale within a tale, a shipwrecked group alights upon a tower that sustains them with bountiful goods. One day, they decide to share their very earliest memories, and the oldest among them are invited to speak first. The oldest person hints in symbolic terms that he remembers the cutting of his umbilical cord, and the sages there affirm, “This is indeed a very old story.” However, as the speakers descend in age, their memories (always garbed in symbolic language involving fruit) prove ever more primordial. The second oldest one hints that he remembers being in the womb; the third oldest remembers the moment of conception; the fourth oldest remembers the orgasm before fertilization; the fifth oldest remembers when the semen was still in the brain;30 and the next three speakers remember increasingly subtle forms of “soul” (nefesh, ruah., and neshamah). Finally, the blind beggar, who was then only a baby (tinoq), says 27 Nah.man of Bratzlav, Sipurei Ma‘asiyot, 349–443. On the timing of this tale, see Natan Sternhartz, Yemei MaHaRNaT (Beitar ‘Ilit: Makhon Even Shetiyah, 2009), 73 (§42). 28 My translation “infantile” is based on the Hebrew term, yaniq. The Yiddish word used is yung (“young,” “child”). However, as we shall see, the degree of youngness here literally cannot be overstated. Moreover, a different term is used in this story to describe the “children” getting married (banim in Hebrew, kinder in Yiddish), so my translation preserves this distinction. 29 Nah.man of Bratzlav, Sipurei Ma‘asiyot, 359–61. 30 This draws upon Galen’s second-century claim that semen originates in the brain, an idea that remained common for well over a millennium.

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that he recalls all of these phenomena but also remembers “nothing at all”—the infinite Nothing prior to being. Thus, the infant is the eldest elder.31 Following this climax, an eagle swoops in and confirms that the baby “is truly the oldest of all.”32 At the end of this tale within the tale, the eagle says to him, “You are like me, since you are very old but still completely infantile, and you have not yet started to live at all, but you are nonetheless very old.”33 On one level, this convergence of oldness and infancy reflects kabbalistic dynamics.34 The nine individuals who share their memories represent different stations in the chain of being, from absolute transcendence to the onset of corporeality. In sefirotic terms, this chain extends from the “nothing” of Keter through the connective “umbilical cord” of Yesod. In Lurianic terms, it reaches from the divine countenance known variously as the “Long-Faced One,” “Holy Ancient One,” and “Elder (of Elders)” through the lower countenance called the “Short-Faced One,” the child aspect of God where consciousness (moh.in) is continually reborn through processes of “pregnancy,” “nursing,” and “weaning.”35 In this genealogy of being, what is closer to nothing is older, and what is closer to corporeality is younger. At the same time, though, all of these spheres and faces are interfused in divine oneness: Infancy is the downstream swelling of ancestral vapors, emanating from the elder of all elders. The blind beggar, likely a reflection of Nah.man himself,36 encompasses this whole cascade and is, therefore, both “very old” and “completely infantile.” He is mirrored as well in that ageless eagle whom we met earlier in Ze’ev Wolf ’s teaching, whose youth is constantly pluming across the millennia. Nah.man’s primary disciple and scribe, Natan Sternhartz of Nemirov, hailed his rebbe’s “Seven Beggars” story as “the most awesome and greatest tale of all.”37 He was especially taken with the blind beggar and wrote a lengthy, forty-five-section sermon on his paradoxical mode of being.38 In doing so, he penned the most in-depth and multifaceted meditation on child mind in h.asidic

31 For the symbolic expressions of the memories and the eagle’s allegorical interpretations thereof, see Sipurei Ma‘asiyot, 364–69, 371–72. 32 Ibid., 371. 33 Ibid., 373. 34 See Natan Sternhartz, Liqutei Halakhot ( Jerusalem: Makhon Or la-Yesharim, 2018), vol. 2: ’Orah. H.ayyim, hilkhot tefilin, halakhah 5, 105–280. This sermon will be cited hereafter as LH. 35 On these parz.ufim, see Lawrence Fine, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and His Kabbalistic Fellowship (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 139–41. 36 See Ora Wiskind-Elper, Tradition and Fantasy in the Tales of Reb Nahman of Bratslav (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 270, n. 52. 37 Sternhartz, Yemei MaHaRNaT, 71 (§40). 38 LH, 105–280. On this source as a “sermon” (drush), see ibid., 278.

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literature. It is no coincidence that this comes in the form of a treatise on tefilin (phylacteries). For Natan, the blind beggar’s image of constant rebirth alludes to the continual reproduction of consciousness (moh.in) within/from God, and, following Lurianic traditions, he suggests that placing tefilin on one’s head opens channels from pre-conscious headwaters above to the reborn mind below.39 At the same time, the straps hanging from those tefilin, dangling down to the navel, correspond to the umbilical cord, whose severance marks the beginning of life. For Natan, then, donning tefilin is a daily dawning of vitality at all levels of being. The blind beggar, who spans all stages from fertile transcendence through fleshly existence, is the archetype of this process. “The essence of the tefilin’s illumination that extends upon us through the straps emerges from the consciousness (moah.) of the elder who remembers all of this. For it is from him that you receive the power to renew your vitality in every moment, as if today you are born, your umbilical cord is being cut, and you are beginning your life.”40 For Natan, this cosmic-ritual efflorescence is also to be integrated psychologically into everyday life—and here is where his perspective on child mind streams forth most robustly, drawing selectively upon Nah.man’s writings while interweaving them with earlier h.asidic formulations in his own hermeneutical tapestry. Let us examine the core contours. First and foremost, for Natan, childlike consciousness has a quality that, following Shunryū Suzuki, we might call “beginner’s mind.”41 Of course, this echoes sentiments we saw earlier in the thought of Moshe H. ayyim Efrayim and Ze’ev Wolf. Natan locates this at the very heart of Nah.man’s way. Regarding the central subject of this sermon—the blind beggar’s blessing for “long life” in the form of being both old and infantile—Natan writes, “Behold the essential meaning of these matters in the form of an anecdote: It is what I saw and heard various times from the mouth of our Rebbe himself, that he lived a new vitality in every moment. As I heard from him several times, ‘Today I lived a life that is like no life I have ever lived before.’”42 In part, Natan explains, Nah.man’s capacity to perpetually begin living was rooted in his recognition that our inner lives are always changing. “Life” proves to be a blunt term that masks multiplicity:

39 Associations between the tefilin of the head and the upper sefirot of divine mind appear as well in earlier Kabbalistic sources. See, for example, Ezra ben Shlomo of Gerona, Peirush ‘al Shir ha-Shirim (Altona, 1764), fol. 10a; Azriel of Gerona, Peirush ha-Agadot, ed. Isaiah Tishby ( Jerusalem: Meqitsei Nirdamim, 1945), 4–5. 40 LH, 166. 41 Shunryū Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, ed. Trudy Dixon (New York: Walker, 1970). 42 LH, 118. Cf. Sternhartz, H.ayyei MoHaRaN, vol. 1, 2a, 3b.

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[Nah.man] spoke extensively about the phenomenon that all the world simply calls “life,” etc., even though there are many types of lives of distress, [let alone types of life in general,] etc. . . .43 In truth, the essence of “life” is a long, real life, in the sense of the blind man’s aforementioned “long life.” He lived a long, real life and thus prided himself in being very old and still very infantile and not yet having started to live at all.44 Attention to the kaleidoscopic quality of experience reveals that so-called “life” is a profoundly unstable category. This defamiliarization, in turn, nourishes the possibility of a “long, real life”—“long” because it is always beginning and thus infused with eternity, and “real” because it is actually how things are. For Natan, this “long life” exudes an ever-embryonic vitality, resistant to linguistic domestication. As Lulu Miller writes in relation to her baby’s entrance into speech, “unlabeled things gnaw and tug at you with more vigor, their parts and powers somehow more alive when they are left to roam wild, outside of the confines of our words. With the name comes a kind of dormancy. The name, in this metaphor, is a trap. It’s the lid on the jar that extinguishes the firefly.”45 Long, real life is what glows in the rawness of what happens, ever unknown. Moreover, for Natan, it is not only personal experience but also the universe itself that morphs in every moment. Indeed, this is the doctrine of creation, and here we hear reverberations of Moshe H.ayyim Efrayim’s commentary. According to Natan: In truth, given the renewal of the works of creation every day, even one who is a very great z. addiq, who has grappled and labored many years with divine worship, has still nevertheless not begun at all. For the blessed One makes new things in each moment. As it is written, “In His goodness, he is always every day renewing the works of creation.”46 No day resembles any other, for the blessed One innovates wondrous novelties in every moment and hour.47

43 Cf. Sternhartz, H.ayyei MoHaRaN, vol. 2, 12b. 44 LH, 118–19. 45 Lulu Miller, “The Eleventh Word,” Paris Review (October 5, 2020), https://www.theparisreview. org/blog/2020/10/05/the-eleventh-word/. 46 From the first blessing before the Shema, recited in the daily morning liturgy. 47 LH, 122–23. On the ever-changing nature of the cosmos, see H.ayyim Vital, ‘Eiz. H.ayyim, 1:5.

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The world is neither static object nor mechanistic “nature.” It is, rather, the fluidity of divine unfolding.48 Nothing is ever actually “old.” Things only appear that way through old lenses. Indeed, for Natan, the epitome of oldness is to “deny the renewal of the world,” to see it “as if, perish the thought, this material world is already worn and old.”49 The elixir is expanded attention, the brighteyed vision of new life. In fact, doctrines of creation aside, the world truly is always changing, and developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik observes that young children are exceptionally attuned to this flux. Adults simply stop noticing. On a chemical level, babies’ brains do not yet produce the neurotransmitters that inhibit attention—so much so that it requires higher doses of anesthetics to sedate infants than adults.50 Of course, adults develop superior abilities to focus, but this comes at a price. Gopnik suggests that our concentrated attention functions like a “spotlight,” illuminating just enough world for the task at hand while casting darkness over everything else. A now classic study demonstrated that adults who are instructed to track a mildly complex sequence in a video will literally not notice a guy in a gorilla suit strutting across the screen.51 Such “inattentional blindness” is unimaginable to children. If adult consciousness is like a spotlight, Gopnik explains, then children’s attention is like a lantern, whereby “they seem to be vividly experiencing everything at once.”52 In this respect, “It’s plausible that babies are actually aware of much more, much more intensely, than we are.”53 Intriguingly, however, Gopnik proposes that certain kinds of activities and experiences, from exotic travel to Zen meditation, can grant glimpses into the lantern attention of child mind.54 Indeed, “Lantern consciousness—that vivid panoramic illumination of the everyday—is often one part of some kinds of religious or aesthetic experience.”55

48 On the distinction between “nature” (tev‘a) and “world” (‘olam) in Nah.man’s thought, see Shaul Magid, “Nature, Exile, and Disability in R. Nahman of Bratslav’s ‘The Tale of the Seven Beggars, ’ ” in his Piety and Rebellion: Essays in H.asidism (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2019), 106–138. 49 LH, 218–19. 50 Alison Gopnik, The Philosophical Baby (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009), 119–20. 51 Daniel J. Simons and Chrisopther F. Chabris, “Gorillas in Our Midst: Sustained Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events,” Perception 28, no. 9 (1999): 1059–74. Cf. Gopnik, Philosophical Baby, 112–3. 52 Gopnik, Philosophical Baby, 125. See also her related distinction between “exploring” and “exploiting” in her The Gardener and Carpenter (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009), 30–5. 53 Gopnik, Philosophical Baby, 125. 54 Ibid., 126–32. 55 Ibid., 129.

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In a vastly different cultural context, early h.asidic sages also sensed that adults can access aspects of child mind. For Natan, this demands radical acts of letting go. One must emulate the eagle, whose youthfulness returns through shedding: “the more he ages, the more he renews his vitality and the more he begins living anew in each moment.”56 In human life, this involves a sort of forgetting. “To begin anew in every moment with a new practice,” Natan writes, “You must completely forget all the practice that you have performed until now and begin anew right now.”57 Put differently, “In every moment and in every hour, you must remind yourself of the blessed One and completely forget what happened in the past. Really begin anew, starting now, as much as you can.”58 Although the blind beggar proved to “remember” more than anyone else in the tower when he added that he remembers “nothing at all,” Natan insists that we “cannot actually conceive of this consciousness as ‘memory’ at all. It is higher than memory, the root of memory, subsumed in Infinity.”59 Remembering that which is prior to the past is itself a powerful forgetting, whereby one remembers what is eternally present, here and now. Such letting go must also take place in the realm of knowledge. Natan instructs his readers to make themselves like blank parchment, “actual processed skin,” ready to absorb the ink of new wisdom. Like the transformation of animal hide into Torah scrolls, “Peel away and dry out all your knowledge, your reasoning, and your tortuousness of heart that was in your consciousness, intellect, and awareness until now. Just prepare your awareness, your strength, and your entire body to receive.”60 This striking image echoes the mishnaic comparison of childhood learning to “ink written on new paper,”61 yet in this h.asidic context childhood is not an age but a way. For Natan, the supreme model of this intellectual emptying is Rebbe Nah.man, who told his h.asidim repeatedly over the years, “I know nothing.” In Natan’s interpretation, “The principle is that he never remained at one stage but rather moved fluidly from stage to stage, to ever higher and loftier levels. Even when he attained what he attained, etc., his awareness would not freeze there.”62

56 LH, 124. 57 LH, 123. 58 LH, 128. 59 LH, 116. 60 LH, 239. 61 M Avot 4:20. Cf. Nah.man of Bratzlav, Liqutei MoHaRaN ( Jerusalem: Makhon Nah.alat Z. evi, 2015), part 1, 918–19 (§192). 62 LH, 119–20. On Nah.man’s “I know nothing,” see also Sternhartz, H.ayyei MoHaRaN, vol. 2, 9b; idem, Shivh.ei ha-RaN, 76 (§33); idem, Yemei MaHaRNaT, §§44, 51, 76, 83–84. See also Mark, Mist.iqah ve-Shiga’on, 306–8.

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This is how “one merits to begin divine service anew in every moment,” Natan emphasizes, “so it will not fall into the oldness of the Other Side—so your worship will not grow old for you, perish the thought.”63 Instead of the oldness of the demonic “Other Side,” which tempts us to see ourselves as finished and fixed, one ought to seek the “holy oldness” of the eagle, the blind beggar, and the long-faced Elder of elders, whose oldness is suffused with infancy. Of course, these kabbalistic allusions to the transcendent Wellspring of consciousness should remind us that Natan’s concept of childlikeness is far weirder than just beginner’s mind.64 While his sermon speaks a great deal about what it means for a person to stay fresh and awake in this world, he is also clearly gesturing beyond the “person” and “this world.” After all, let us recall that the blind beggar himself said, “I am not blind at all. It’s just that all the world’s time doesn’t amount to even a blink of an eye for me.” And while this character may correspond to the flesh-and-blood person Rebbe Nah.man, their inner lives pulse beyond mundane reality, according to Bratzlav H.asidism. In Natan’s words, the blind beggar “is the root of everything and higher than everything,” for he “is subsumed in [divine] Infinity, which is prior to everything, where the world doesn’t amount to even a blink of an eye.”65 From this supernal vantage point, child mind is intensely mystical. This would seem to take us far afield from Gopnik’s depiction of what it is like to be a baby. Indeed, she notes explicitly that the lantern consciousness of young children “seems unlike the kinds of mystical experience in which the external world seems to disappear altogether.”66 However, I  wonder if the difference between mystical and infantile experiences is truly so clear. After all, Gopnik herself observes that babies lack a sense of “self,” even to the point that their memories are not experienced as “mine.”67 “Indeed,” she acknowledges, “one of the insights of the insight-meditation tradition is supposed to be precisely that

63 LH, 120. 64 I use the term “weird” here in line with a growing number of scholars and scientists who employ the term to denote phenomena that defy or destabilize our conventional explanatory models or epistemological frameworks. In the pithy formulation of Graham Harman, “Reality itself is weird because reality itself is incommensurable with any attempt to represent or measure it.” Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (Winchester: Zero Books, 2012), 51. See also Eileen A. Joy, “Weird Reading,” Speculations: A Journal of Speculative Realism 4 (2013): 29–30; David E. Presti, “An Expanded Conception of Mind,” in Mind Beyond Brain: Buddhism, Science, and the Paranormal (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), ed. David Presti, 122–37; Erik Davis, High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2019), 1–17. 65 LH, 243, 211. See also Sippurei Ma‘asiyot, 372. 66 Gopnik, Philosophical Baby, 130. 67 Ibid., 133–63, 196–97.

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there is no ‘I.’ Whether or not this is true for adults, it does seem plausible that it is true for very young children.”68 Furthermore, in recent years, Gopnik has compared child mind to adult activities that are far wonkier than international travel and Zen meditation: “when adults dream or have psychedelic experiences, their brains are functioning more like children’s brains. It appears that the experience of babies and young children is more like dreaming or tripping than like our usual grown-up consciousness.” In short, “Being a baby may be both stranger and more intense than we think.”69 Of course, it is ultimately impossible for adults to know what it is like to be a baby—that experience is more ineffable than the most mystical or psychedelic experiences. However, theosophical symbolism aside, the phenomenological textures of Natan’s depiction of child mind, in all its nonlinear self-transcendence, are perhaps more true-to-life than they may seem. In any case, one thing that we can confidently say about babies and young children is that they are “uniquely dependent on adults.”70 This points us, in fact, to a final aspect of child mind in Natan’s thought, which is also perhaps the most obvious one of all in H.asidism: being like a child of the rebbe. Despite neo-h.asidic efforts to soften hierarchies between sages and their disciples, one can hardly overstate the gravity and grandeur of rebbes in h.asidic spirituality. Followers are indeed childlike in their presence, swaddled in the enormity of their master’s wisdom, power, and love. Natan recalls how, when he became Nah.man’s disciple, “He grasped my hand and drew me close in his great compassion, and he carried me like a nurse carries a baby.”71 Years later, after Nah.man had chastised him, Natan describes how Nah.man then “returned and drew me very close like a father delights in his son.”72 To characterize the

68 Ibid., 156. 69 Alison Gopnik, “For Babies, Is Life a Trip?,” Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2018, https://www. proquest.com/newspapers/review-mind-matter-babies-is-life-trip/docview/2072633469/ se-2?accountid=14496. See also Gopnik’s comments in the recorded panel discussion “Revealing the Mind: The Promise of Psychedelics,” World Science Festival, NYU Skirball Center, May 30, 2019, accessed October 31, 2022, https://www.worldsciencefestival.com/ videos/revealing-mind-promise-psychedelics/. 70 Gopnik, Philosophical Baby, 10. 71 Sternhartz, Yemei MaHaRNaT, 7. Cf. Numbers 11:12. On Rebbe Nah.man as a nursing mother, see Nah.man of Bratzlav, Liqutei MoHaRaN, 65–66 (§4:8). See also Arthur Green, Tormented Master: The Life and Spiritual Quest of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (Woodstock: Jewish Lights, 2004), 155; Mendel Piekarz, H.asidut Breslov ( Jerusalem: Bialik, 1972), 77, 138f; Nathaniel Deutsch, “Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav: The Zaddik as Androgyne,” in God’s Voice from the Void: Old and New Studies in Bratslav Hasidism, ed. Shaul Magid (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), 193–215. 72 Sternhartz, Yemei MaHaRNaT, 10.

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z.addiq as simply a “teacher” or “guide” is misleading. Terms like “axis mundi” and “incarnation” come closer to capturing the rebbe’s sublimity, somewhere between personhood and divinity.73 But nothing is more evocative, perhaps, than the word “parent,” when perceived through infantile eyes. This was one aspect of child mind that Natan never gave up. He was the most likely successor when Nah.man died, but he remained insistent that he was no rebbe. Rather, he remained as devoted as ever to Nah.man and, moreover, textualized his presence for posterity. And yet, here is the rub: While the H.asid is the child of the z.addiq, as it were, the true “z.addiq of the generation” is the most infantile of all, constantly newborn and thus defying the very forces of mortality, even in death.74 For Natan, Rebbe Nah.man himself will not return, but his eternally natal soul will crown again with the birth of the Messiah, whose future is perpetually present, incubating in God’s supertemporal secret, “I have given birth to you today” (Ps. 2:7).75

73 See Arthur Green, “The Z.addiq as Axis Mundi in Later Judaism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 45, no. 3 (1977): 327–47; Shaul Magid, Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015). 74 Cf. Fishbane’s personal formulation: “The call of God (through all expressions of reality) may everywhere break the veil of our daily stupor, and then natality overcomes mortality. This is an ecstatic transcendence of mortality in a (specific) fullness of time, without denying the finality of death and dying.” Sacred Attunement, xiii. 75 See LH, 154–155. Cf. Nah.man of Bratzlav, Liqutei MoHaRaN, part 2, 1256–57 (§61).

17

These Gates Open to the Longings of the Heart Ora Wiskind

Over his rich lifetime of writing, teaching, contemplating, and learning, Michael Fishbane has entrusted the world with countless gifts. Now, the sages have taught that gifts, received, invest us with light. Traces of luminosity, beyond one’s own knowing, may reveal something of the riches that have been granted. And so they urge us to recognize that the moment of giving and of receiving must be communicated, acknowledged, valued.1 I would like to write here about some of the ways these gifts have come to inhabit my thoughts and to inform my readings. While never a formal student of his in my academic training, for many years I was a “listener,” silently learning from his written work. Our first personal encounter was in the roles of author and editor, when he graciously enabled the publication of my first book, on the tales of R. Nah.man of Bratzlav. His work reemerged much later, for me, as I sought better to understand the interface between scriptural exegesis, culture and hermeneutics; many of his insights have informed my study of h.asidic commentary on the Torah. Finally, the opportunity to meet face-to-face came at a scholars’ seminar in Jerusalem; more conversations after that, at conferences in Krakow, one in Boston, an ongoing exchange of writing and ideas have enabled

1 After BT Beiz.ah 17a: “Said Rabbi H.ama in the name of Rabbi H.anina: When one gives a gift to a friend, there is no need to inform him, as it is written, ‘Moshe did not know that his face was radiant’ (Exodus 34: 29). . . . Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: One who gives bread to a child must inform his mother. How so? . . . Leave some traces of the gift upon the child, so that his mother will know that it was given to him.” Compare Tosafot, BT Shabbat 10b.

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the blossoming of a talmid-h.aver relationship in the Talmudic sense. He has been a mentor and become a companion, and a model for deep spiritual writing marked by emotion, inwardness, and attunement that remains, at the same time, intellectually circumspect. In the midst of his scholarly life, Fishbane came to realize that if an authentic encounter with the foundational sources of Jewish tradition is to take place, “there is no choice but to speak personally.” That choice, he confessed, “is reinforced by my deep conviction that genuine questions are those that seize us and from which there can be no honest evasion.”2 Today, a short third of a century later, the ethical exigency of those questions resounds ever more surely. As he describes the essence of his latest masterwork: “I address the ‘mystery of God’ from the perspective of human finitude and the longing for sense and meaning.”3  There, with emotionally charged phrasing borrowed from the biblical account of Creation (Gen. 1:2), he evokes a primary existential and philosophical state of disorientation, uncertainty, not-knowing. It is named tohu-bohu (often translated as “unformed and void”). Over many pages, he models a mode of hermeneutical engagement by which that void can refigure as a locus of transformation. Blank, mute emptiness (tohu-bohu)—of the world, of the soul—might be reheard, in a redemptive moment, as a silent summons to seek out the indwelling presence of the divine—because, paradoxically, He is concealed there (bo-hu), right in the midst of it. Such redemptive moments are spurred by bewilderment, nonunderstanding (tohe);4 they then come into being through acts of interpretation. Crucially, though, hearing and heeding the summons depends on one’s spiritual readiness, on a “primordial longing and desire” to be addressed.5 Questions thus voice the heart’s desire; they drive on the search.  His writing, along with our personal interactions and the affirmation and encouragement he has given me, have illuminated my own project: to reach a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the religiosity of h.asidic thought and its relevance for contemporary spiritual seekers. More and more, I am trying to express what he has called a “softer understanding” of what is taking place in the inner life. I want to sense and to voice a level of intimacy within the sources I read, to develop 2 Michael Fishbane, “The Notion of a Sacred Text,” in his The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 121. 3 “The Wisdom of Human Finitude: A Response,” Marginalia Review of Books, Fragile Finitude: A Forum, March 11, 2022, https://themarginaliareview.com/fragile-finitude-a-forum. 4 This hermeneutical play builds upon the opening homily of Sefer Me’or Einayyim of R. Menah.em Nah.um Twersky of Chernobyl on parshat Bereshit. 5 Michael Fishbane, Fragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), xiv, 32–42, 117–8; 125; midrashic and kabbalistic sources from which this reading stems are noted ibid., 160–61.

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a hermeneutic of intimacy. To that end, the mode of questioning that guides me is quite different from the hard theological questions that often drive on research in H.asidism. It differs, too, from the positivistic discourse common to the academy and its style, and from the neo-h.asidic vector, with its own agenda. I am trying to develop another mode of discourse, one that combines academic rigor with authentic spiritual search, and one that strikes a balance between literary and religious consciousness without falling into sentimentality. I wish to set out larger questions, to open the hermeneutical process so that it becomes a spiritual process—resonant to others who seek a theologically based understanding, in and through the reading of life and texts. In all this, Fishbane’s oeuvre continue to be a guiding force. Writing this essay, then, has placed me in a rhetorically complex situation. I am keenly aware of the importance of dialogue and relation for any true moment of communication. Indeed, Franz Rosenzweig has taught us well that it is only through encounter—with the face of the other before me—that meaning can be created, that something new might come into being. And so in the following pages I turn to address you—Michael, my teacher, colleague and friend.

Embodied Images Not long ago, in response to my musings about imminent writing projects, you wrote that someday we will have to discuss the theme of “longing,” which, as you also noted, is a core element in your theology. This was a moving discovery. Because the theme of “longing” has been there for years, quietly, in the shadows of my own mind—waiting, perhaps, for the present moment. And so this essay is an opening of that conversation with you. I will explore the theme of longing as it takes form in the teachings of the Izbica-Radzyn h.asidic masters. Indeed, “longing” is an exceptionally cogent theme, woven all through their Torah and deeply rooted in their theology. I will present some short selections from their many teachings that address desire, yearning, lack, and hope, and consider their place in the spiritual world of this h.asidic school in particular.6 I will also try to suggest the importance of these ideas for a contemporary theology, or for

6 The chosen term here is “spirituality,” which implies something less authoritative, institutional and dogmatic than “religion.” Spirituality in a general sense places notions of “longing” or “yearning” as central values: longing for connection, for deep meaning, for a sense of power and significance, and for a realization of one’s place in the world. My readings here are influenced by many thinkers, among them: Rainer Maria Rilke, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, and Gaston Bachelard. Due to the nature of this essay and its context in the present volume, I have refrained from extensive academic-style citation of them.

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spiritual seekers and learners of many persuasions. Finally, I offer a reading of these h.asidic teachings as part of the gift you have given me that has enabled me to think about and write about the deepest things that concern me now. First, let me briefly situate Izbica-Radzyn H.asidism in a wider historical and ideological context. The founder of the dynasty, R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica (1800–1854), author of the book Mei ha-Shiloah., was a preeminent disciple of R. Simh.ah Bunim of Przysucha (1765–1827), a most innovative thinker and central player in forging a radically novel direction for H.asidism in Poland in the first decades of the nineteenth century. A new theological and philosophical vocabulary evolved in the Przysucha school, one that sought to address the most pressing concerns of contemporary Jewish religious life and the complex challenges of modernity. The teachings developed by its masters manifest new interest in psychological and existential facets of spirituality and showcase innovative dialogical modes of inquiry. Particularly striking are the innovative hermeneutical aspects of their teachings: that is, the creative ways in which these h.asidic masters read the Torah through the prisms of self and world.7 I  begin, then, with one of the most beautiful  derashot  (homilies) I  know. Its author is Rabbi Ya‘aqov Leiner of Izbica-Radzyn (1828–1878), son of R. Mordechai Yosef, in his work Beit Ya‘aqov. The biblical context of this commentary is set out in Deuteronomy (31:10–12). The event that those verses describe, which is to take place at the Temple in Jerusalem once every seven years during the festival of Sukkot, is called Hakhel. So the h.asidic masters teach: Everyone has come—men, women, children. The adults, who understand such things, have been drawn to this holy place, hoping to see and to be seen in the light of God’s countenance. But the children, in their innocence, why are they here? Children, most literally, are born of desire. Children embody their parents’ hunger and their longing—for one another, for a precious, fleeting moment of wholeness, for life beyond themselves. The children are here, now, to win recompense to those who have brought them.8 Perhaps their presence may somehow heal that raw, primal, endless human thirst of wanting. Refigured, repaired, desire and yearning become a powerful force: it is the 7 On Przysucha, with reference to relevant scholarship, see my discussions in Hasidic Commentary on the Torah (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2018), 70–93; “Hermeneutics and H.asidic Thought: The Izbica-Radzyn Reading of the Joseph Stories” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz. 80, no. 4 ( July–September 2012): 595–622. 8 After BT H.agigah 3a.

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force that drives on every spiritual quest. For in truth, the heart’s passionate longing can propel one farther and higher than anything that can be attained by manifest actions. The Book of Zohar explains this. On the verse, “‘You, God, rule the swelling of the sea; when its waves surge, ata teshabeh.em’ (Psalms 89:10)—You break them, and that is their praise.”9 For water symbolizes desire. Ocean waves roil and swell; those “lower waters” long to rise. And although they cannot, for their place is here below, and not in the clouds above—still, the waves surge upward with restless, endless ardor, only to crash down ever again, broken into spray—and that is their greatest praise. For God is the source of all longing. The “lower waters,” that is, every human soul that yearns to see and know and near a place it can never reach—still and all, that longing that knows no bounds is what makes a life worthy of being lived.10 The central image in this passage—the “lower waters”—is a trope that embodies longing. To understand it more fully, we turn, first of all, to its origins in earlier Jewish sources. The world came into being, the sages teach, in a primordial watery totality—ha-kol mayim be-mayim. But then “God separated between water and water . . . between the waters to be above the firmament and the waters below” (Gen. 1:7). On this moment of differentiation, “R. Berekhiya taught: The ‘lower waters’ parted, weeping, from the ‘upper waters.’”11 In kabbalistic teaching, these lower waters are referred to as mayin nuqvin (literally, “feminine waters”).12 The seas, the rivers, and the subterranean chambers in the earth, all these watery places of our world are, essentially, the feminine component of an original plurality. In the midrash, they are separated in tears. Gathered in, held between shores, banks, and within caverns, the “feminine waters” embody both a continual awareness of distance and an undying hope to draw closer to their source, to return to their original place above. In that sense, the feminine waters signify a dynamic principle: the striving to be otherwise at the root of all being. In R. Ya‘aqov’s commentary, as in mystical teaching as a whole, this powerful

9 Zohar 1:69b. On the verse: ‫ׁש ְּבחֵם‬ ַ ְ‫אַּתָ ה מֹוׁשֵל ְּבגֵאּות ַהּי ָם ּבְׂשֹוא גַּלָיו אַּתָ ה ת‬. 10 This citation is a free translation with some interpretative expansions of Beit Ya‘aqov 4, Vayelekh ( Jerusalem 1976), 118, citing Mei ha-Shiloah. 1, Vayelekh (Bnei Brak, 1991), 198. Hebrew texts of the selections cited in this essay appear at the end. 11 Genesis Rabbah 5:4. 12 For example, Zohar 1:18a; Tiqqunei Zohar 75b. Note, though, that the gender differentiation appears already in the midrash (for example, Genesis Rabbah 13:13).

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image is abstracted. The feminine waters designate an emotional state that is perceived as manifest in every facet of existence. Relatedness, then, begins with desire and is realized with desire.13 And so, those waves—their whole being is in the mounting, crashing, humble ingathering, rising again. They know no weariness and no despair; they cannot rest. Again and again they cast themselves into the unknown, endlessly hoping to reach beyond themselves. Metonymically, the waves are we humans in this world, pining beyond our mortal vision for a glimpse of eternity. I  turn now to a second powerful teaching that has also long haunted my thoughts.

Worlds of Longing The holy Name Shaddai—‫ שדי‬contains all the goodness that will ever be. So the Mishnah teaches (Ukz.in 3:12) “In the future, the Holy One, blessed be He, will give every righteous person 310 worlds, as it is written, ‘To bequeath sustenance (yeish—‫)שי‬ to those who love Me, and I will fill their treasuries (Proverbs 8:21).14 Now, the letter shin—‫ ש‬represents the largest entity that human beings can comprehend; for taf—‫ת‬, the letter after it, symbolizes the World to Come, wholly concealed from the human mind.15 . . . And so, in the future, God shall repay us for our untold suffering in this world. With boundless kindness, He will recompense our labors—visibly, recognizably, beyond all doubt. … Now, the letter yod—‫ י‬in the Name Shaddai alludes to the power of giving.16 . . . Finally, the letter dalet—‫ ד‬in that Name symbolizes 400 worlds of longing (’almin de-kisufin), as the Zohar teaches.17 . . . Dalet—all that we, impoverished (dal), yearn for (nikhsaf) our whole lives, all that remains incomprehensible, 13 See also my discussion in Wisdom of the Heart: The Teachings of Rabbi Ya’akov of Izbica-Radzyn (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2010), 118–23. 14 The numerical value of yeish (‫ )יש‬is 310, implying that God will grant the righteous a full measure of blessing. 15 Cf. Mei ha-Shiloah. 1, Noah.. The numerical value of shin is 300; of taf—400. 16 Yod—the sefirah H.okhmah, first letter of YHVH; also resembling the word yad—literally, “hand.” It is “a metaphor for concrete beneficence and a metonym for providential acts— divine and human.” Cf. Fishbane, Fragile Finitude, 91. 17 Cf. Zohar 1:123b (Tosefta); Zohar 3:288a.

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utterly beyond our grasp. . . . Four hundred worlds of longing— because in the coming future, God alone can, and will, grant pure goodness within the very things that once caused us such suffering. The endless desire and yearning of every heart—those same vessels of emptiness will brim full with light and holiness.18 An emblematic figure, as compelling as it is elusive. Those disembodied “worlds of longing” beyond number seem to signify something of such intensity that no words can contain, something infinitely greater, mightier than anything merely mortal. The motif of desire (h.esheq) here is a critical element as well. Both of them—desire and yearning—are embedded in the lived reality of spiritual need, a distressing sense of lack, of blank, mute non-understanding. Michael, this passage corresponds with your own program. As you write, “Rooted in our natural limitations and the inherent mysteries of wisdom, the quest is founded on lack and humility. Theology begins with spiritual longing and the confession of need. We confront our finitude at last.”19 For R. Ya‘aqov, all this is bound up with the untold suffering that scars human existence as a whole, and Jewish history in particular. The paradoxical truth, secreted beyond belief ’s furthest horizon, is that empty vessels, most of all, signify the promise of fulfillment. In effect, this bold refiguring of suffering—of the Jewish nation and of every embodied soul throughout history—threads through Izbica-Radzyn teachings as a whole. So, in a radical rereading of God’s biblical covenant with Abraham (Gen. 17:8), the masters teach: “I shall give the land you sojourn in (erez. megurekha) to you and to your offspring after you.” That is, in that place where you were in fear (magor) and anxiety, in suffering and constriction while in this world—there, in the future, in measure with all that, God will grant goodness for all one’s labor.20 To recognize the correspondence between the “place of suffering” and its final healing in “goodness,” between vessels aching with emptiness and their ultimate, shining fullness—this is crucial in a psychological as well as existential sense. Notably, the intimacy of direct speech in the verse (“I shall give . . . you”) conveys 18 Beit Ya‘aqov 1, H.ayyei Sarah 31, p. 195. 19 Fishbane, Fragile Finitude, xiv. 20 Beit Ya‘aqov 1, H.ayyei Sarah 31, p. 195. The experience of “sojourning” for a fleeting lifetime in this world is hinted, on this reading, in the word megurekha, which evokes the association of fear, or magor. See also Wiskind, Wisdom of the Heart, 191–2.

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a tone of caring, of regard. Revoiced and refigured in R. Ya‘aqov’s visionary reading, those words of Scripture describe a primary experience of being seen. In the seeing, lifetimes and centuries of incommunicable pain are acknowledged and, at last, healed. It is a consolatory and profoundly empowering moment. Returning now to the passage above, we see that the full import of this Divine promise is bound up with the holy Name Shaddai. In midrashic and kabbalistic thought, Shaddai comprehends two seemingly opposite modalities of God’s interaction with the world: containment and limitation on one hand, and flowing benevolence on the other.21 R. Ya‘aqov draws on that compound symbolism. He deconstructs the Name Shaddai, probes its letters one by one to unlock their secrets. Finally, drawing everything together, we learn that Shaddai describes a dynamic, mutual relationship of giving and receiving, withholding and desiring that is at the core of all being. This teaching, then, seeks to invest the pure, all-encompassing emotion called “longing” with reason and purpose: to face it humbly, honestly and so, perhaps, somehow to redeem it and unleash its power.

“In the Cranny of the Rock” The Bible and Midrash are charged with metaphors that arouse us to the beauty and mystery of the world. They recall the promise of moments of illumination awaiting those who hope for them. “Longing for meaning,” we engage with those tropes; perhaps our efforts to interpret them will open us to a moment of revelation, confined though we are by the “finite refractions of our human spirit.”22 The h.asidic masters of Izbica-Radzyn speak often of this tension between limited human capacities of cognitive vision and the reality of God’s presence, profoundly concealed in the everyday world.

21 In the midrashic imagination, God identifies Himself, so to speak, as Shaddai in the act of Creation: “It is I  who told My world, [you have expanded] Enough! (she-‘amarti le-‘olami dai).” BT H.agigah 12a. The kabbalists link the Name Shaddai with the concept of z.imz.um, or divine “contraction.” In another teaching, R. Yaakov notes that “Shaddai alludes to the breasts (shaddaim). For they contain and limit the mother’s giving, that it may come down through fine apertures without harming the infant. In the same manner, God gives all goodness in the world in the name Shaddai, as the verse says, ‘Blessings of the breast and womb’ (Gen. 49:25). All this, too, comes gradually, to enable finding the strength to receive it.” Beit Ya‘aqov 1, Vayeh.i, 1. See also Wiskind, Wisdom of the Heart, 150–5. 22 Michael Fishbane, “Modern Jewish Theology and Traditional Hermeneutics,” in Michael Fishbane: Jewish Hermeneutical Theology, ed. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015), 70–71; Fishbane, Fragile Finitude, 35.

These Gates Open to the Longings of the Heart

The following two passages explore that tension through a famous poetic image, one that R. Ya‘aqov revisits many times in his commentary on the Torah. It evokes the experience of two biblical figures—Moshe and Eliyahu—who witnessed a foundational moment of caesura, a rupture in the façade of this world of appearances.23 His gloss of the biblical and midrashic sources is unexpected. Yet beyond their hermeneutical import, these teachings urge those who listen to cultivate a willing heart, to know that such a moment can happen, even to us. Facing the totality of God’s blinding presence, nothing else can exist. And so the Talmud says (BT Megillah 19b): “In the cave in which Moshe and Eliyahu stood [when God’s glory was revealed to them], had there been left open a crack as wide as the eye of a needle, they would have been unable to endure the brilliance of God’s light.”24 But, still, a crack did remain: it was no wider than the point of a fine needle—a sliver of an opening, a window of light (neqev h.alon orah). Had any more of that great radiance penetrated, the fissure in the darkness of this world would have been rejoined, sewn up together again with endless Divine brilliance. But then nothing new could ever have come into being; the created world would have ceased to exist.25 And so we must understand that the pinpoint of light that pierced through the cave’s darkness was smaller than the eye of a needle. Still, though, it is wide enough to enable every person who seeks God to find Him, even in this shadowy, corporeal world. For all darkness is nonetheless illuminated, faintly, through that fissure.26

23 On “caesural moments,” see Michael Fishbane, Sacred Attunement (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 22–32, 82, 129, 34, 109; Sam Berrin Shonkoff, “Michael Fishbane: An Intellectual Portrait,” in Michael Fishbane: Jewish Hermeneutical Theology, ed. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015), 34–36. 24 The verses: “And it shall come to pass, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock” (Ex. 33:22): “And he came there to a cave . . . and, behold, the Lord passed by” (1 Kgs 19:9–11), as it is written: “For no one shall see Me and live” (Ex. 33:20). 25 Beit Ya‘aqov 1, Bereshit, 6. 26 Beit Ya‘aqov 1, Vayeh.i, 8. I have translated primary sources in keeping with R. Ya‘aqov’s unusual reading. The imagery in these two passages seems to be inspired by this revelatory insight set out in the kabbalistic work Eiz. H.ayyim (both cite the same opening verse). “Know that ‘The Lord is sun and shield . . .’ (Ps. 84:12). Just as sunlight is blinding, and the only way to contemplate it is indirectly—through a window or screen, or from a distance or thorough a small crack—so too in the world of emanations. . . .” Sha‘ar ha-Kelalim., ch. 1.

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This passage calls its listeners to recognize the contingency of seeing. Barriers of all sorts (here, the massive stony cave wall) block the way between us and the infinity of the Divine. Yet those countless, obtuse impediments, screens, walls, veils, “garments” of existence—in truth, they have a double dimension. While they obscure and conceal, they concurrently, paradoxically, also reveal God’s indwelling presence in the world. The Hebrew term masakh that R. Ya‘aqov uses here comprehends all of the synonyms that I have offered. Masakh (perhaps most literally, “screen”) is a dense yet permeable entity that divides and separates even as it connects “inside” with “outside.” In R. Ya‘aqov’s theological consciousness, the barrier-screen-masakh, along with the holes that are part of its texture, is thus a central element in God’s plan for the world. Set up to obscure the full brilliance of Divine Being, the masakh casts a shadow over all of creation. Uncertainty, doubt, disbelief, despair will spawn in the ensuing darkness. At times it seems thickly impenetrable. But then there are the “openings”—right there in the screen itself. Maybe no larger than a pinpoint, but still, through those gaps a thin ray of light might, all the same, penetrate, maybe even illuminate reality. A crucial element in all this, once again, is the force of human striving to find an opening for divine presence. There is one final facet of “longing” that I must address. In many and diverse contexts, the h.asidic masters of Izbica-Radzyn speak of the fundamental reciprocity of that desire for connection, and seek to awaken their listeners to a higher dimension of consciousness. An enigmatic phrase voiced by the biblical Job threads as a leitmotif in these teachings. On their reading, that verse evokes a vital mode of spiritual attunement: a waiting in readiness, wholly present, alive to hear and to heed God’s life-call.

Out of the Depths “Call, and I  will answer; may You desire the work of Your hands” ( Job 14:15). “Call”—for God summons us. What is this calling? The Holy One plants hope and yearning in every heart. Afterwards, each of us must strive to make that calling known, to enable ourselves—your handiwork—to come into being. For God longs for our response, that our human efforts may be called our own.27 27 Beit Ya‘aqov ha-Kolel, Bereshit, 1.

These Gates Open to the Longings of the Heart

“Call.” God’s calling fills the soul with desire. And desire is the root source of all goodness in the world; it contains all possible goodness, for desire arouses and reveals everything else. Thus, every human effort in search of holiness is in response to the calling. So the Book of Zohar teaches: “How can we know that God wants a person, that God desires to dwell within them? When we see one who passionately seeks the Holy blessed One, laboring with all their heart and soul and might to draw ever closer to God—then we know that the divine Presence dwells within them.”28 In other words, if you long to know what God thinks of you, look within yourself. Examine your spiritual efforts, your heart’s secret striving for holiness. If you are trying with all your might to come closer to the Divine—then know that God has found you worthy. For the calling reverberates within you.29 These teachings resonate deeply with your own theology, Michael. You have described it as “a theology of call and response, of attentiveness and responsibility” in which the foundational moments of creation, revelation and redemption are subtly interwoven. Indeed, the Izbica-Radzyn h.asidic masters sought, through their creative reimagining of motifs and images in Jewish sources, to express, teach, and model that mode of being “alert and alive in a religious sense” that is at the heart of your project as well.30 Their teachings—in rhetorical tone, in hermeneutical artistry, in thematic content—are themselves a quiet summons to hear that infinitely voiced calling. At the same time, they describe while evoking the spiritual attitude called “longing” that empowers a worthy response.

28 Zohar 2:128b. This reading stems from the verse that introduces the elaborate description of the offerings brought to construct the Tabernacle: “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart so moves them” (Ex. 25:2). On the Zohar’s reading, the verse means: “Accept the offering of every individual within whose heart God’s presence dwells . . . from each one whom God desires.” 29 Beit Ya‘aqov 3, Vayiqra, 3. Compare this portrait: “Moses then hears a calling out of the depths. Now all is voice, addressed to himself alone; he is called by name, for only he is spoke to. . . . This call is a call of destiny and demand.” Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 52–53. 30 In these lines, I draw on Michael Fishbane, “The Wisdom of Human Finitude: A Response,” Marginalia Review of Books, Fragile Finitude: A Forum (March 11, 2022). “The call and the response” is a cogent motif in Fishbane, Fragile Finitude especially (for example, xvii; 24, 37–8, 41–2, 125, 135–6); and in Fishbane, Sacred Attunement (52–3, 200).

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Concluding Thoughts As you have opened yourself more and more to expressing and conveying your theological legacy in the most immediate, existential way, your voice in Fragile Finitude—once again like Franz Rosenzweig’s—is now often incantatory and epiphanic and oracular. It emerges from a deep well of personal, almost mystical experience. The waters of that well are so very intimate that even as you reveal, you still must also conceal nearly as much, holding hard to that complex and sophisticated intellect that has won you such renown. I  admire you for the effort, and for the rare depth of your mind and soul. This volume celebrates your reaching the eightieth year of being in this world. What, then, is the secret of that “power”—gevurah—that the sages (M. Avot 5:21) associated with this portentous event, one’s eightieth birthday? Well, as we know, desire and longing are the source of all life renewal and the root cause of continual spiritual growth. So the rabbis said: “The chambers [of the Temple] that were built on common ground but were open toward holy ground—their inner spaces were deemed holy.”31 And Rabbi Ya‘aqov adds: “For the opening is the main thing. And desire is the opening for everything.”32 Your writings of many decades truly embody that mode of engagement— charged full with desire but, equally, with patience and the quiet belief that hidden realms might still reveal their secrets. So have you taught us: “Canonical sources are sealed when the interpreter does not know that these gates open to the longings of their heart. But they may speak when one seeks God in scriptural images with religious integrity and devotion.” A compassionate and gentle listener—to texts as to others—your own presence inspires and mirrors divinity. And so your work restores the inner wisdom that may guide us, as well, in that endeavor. With blessings  for all the new fruits of desire and longing that are slowly ripening, to flower in the next years of your life, in health and love and wholeness.

31 M Ma‘asar Sheini 3:8. 32 Beit Ya‘aqov 2, Terumah, 16.

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‫‪These Gates Open to the Longings of the Heart‬‬

‫‪Hebrew Sources‬‬ ‫מי השילוח ח"א‪ ,‬וילך‬ ‫ע"ז נתנה פרשת הקהל כדאיתא בגמ' וטף למה באו כדי ליתן שכר למביאיהן היינו‬ ‫שע"י התשוקה שבאביו ואמו שיכנסו ד"ת באזני התינוק אף שאינו יודע מאומה כאמו של‬ ‫ר' יהושע בר חנינא כדאיתא בגמ' עי"ז יתוקן באדם אף המדות שנטבעו בו מבטן אמו‪,‬‬ ‫והתשוקה הזאת נקראת שימושה של תורה שהיא גדולה מלמודה שעי"ז יכול לרפאות את‬ ‫הקודם‪ ,‬והיינו למביאהן שגם אביו ואמו יתוקנו ג"כ‪ .‬וע"ז יתואר ר"י בר חנינא במעלות‬ ‫אשרי יולדתו לפי שהוא תיקון את הקודם היינו תשוקת אביו ואמו שהי' להם בשעת זווג‬ ‫וממילא הי' נקי אגב אמו‪ ,‬וכאשר ראה מרע"ה את זאת אז נתמלא בשמחה‪.‬‬ ‫בית יעקב הכולל‪ ,‬וילך‬ ‫הנה הפרשה הזאת היתה שייכת למלך‪ .‬כי באמת טף למה באין כדי ליתן שכר‬ ‫למביאיהן (חגיגה ג ע"א)‪ .‬וכמבואר במי השלוח‪ .‬כי זהו לרפאות החסרון בשורש‪ .‬כי על‬ ‫ידי חשק ותשוקה יוכל האדם להגיע למקום שאין המעשה מגיע‪ .‬והנה המלך אינו צריך‬ ‫לשום פעולה וגדר רק חשק נמצא בו‪ .‬ולכן יכול לרפאות חסרון התולדה שעל זה רומז טף‪.‬‬ ‫כמו שמבואר בזה"ק (נח סט ע"ב) בשוא גליו אתה תשבחם כו'‪ .‬שבחא הוא לון‪ .‬כי מים‬ ‫מכונה לחשק‪ .‬והנה מים התחתונים ירצו לעלות‪ .‬ואף על פי שאין זה מקומם מכל‬ ‫מקום שבחא הוא לון‪ .‬כי החשק הוא רק מהשי"ת‪ .‬ואף מים התחתונים היינו שהאדם‬ ‫כוסף במקום שאינו חלקו‪ .‬מכל מקום זהו שבחו שיקנה מה על ידי זה‪.‬‬ ‫בית יעקב‪ ,‬חיי שרה לא‬ ‫כדאיתא במסכת עוקצין (פ"ג) עתיד הקב"ה להנחיל לכל צדיק וצדיק שלש מאות ועשר‬ ‫עולמות שנאמר להנחיל אוהבי י"ש‪ .‬והוא שאות ש' מורה על מספר הריבוי היותר גדול‬ ‫מכל האל"ף בי"ת‪ ,‬כי ת' שאחר השי"ן רומז לעוה"ב‪ ,‬כדאיתא ג"כ במי השלוח (ח"א פ' נח‬ ‫ד"ה אלה) והש' מורה שלעתיד אחר שישלמו הבירורין‪ ,‬יתן הש"י לישראל את כל הטובות‬ ‫שצמצמו את עצמם בהם בעוה"ז יתן להם אז בטובת עין בהתפיסה שלהם‪ ,‬שיקרא על שם‬ ‫יגיע כפיהם‪ .‬וכענין דכתיב (לך יז) לתת לך את ארץ מגוריך‪ ,‬היינו במקום שהיית במגור‬ ‫ופחד בסבלנות וצמצומים בעוה"ז‪ ,‬יתן לו השי"ת אז הטובה באשר הוא עמל‪.‬‬ ‫וכן איתא בזוה"ק (ויקהל רד ע"א) שאות ש' רומז לתלת קוין‪ ,‬היינו כל התפשטות‬ ‫הבריאה שהקב"ה חילק מעשיו ומלך עליהם‪ . . . .‬ואות י' מורה על חכמה עלאה הנמשך‬ ‫וכדאיתא בזוה"ק ומרמז על כח הנתינה‪ ,‬כי אות י' הוא האות הראשון מהשם יקו"ק‪ ,‬שהוא‬ ‫המהוה כל‪ .‬ואות ד' מורה על ארבע מאות עלמין דכסופין שמובא בתוספתא (חיי קכג‬ ‫ע"ב)‪ .‬אכן לזה לא יגיע האדם בכח עבודותיו‪ ,‬רק הוא תוספתו של הקב"ה המרובה על‬ ‫העיקר שהשי"ת יתן טובה לאדם באותו הלבוש עצמו שסבל בו עד שהאדם עצמו יראה‬ ‫זאת בתפיסתו אז‪ .‬אבל אדם מצדו אין לו שום טעימה מזו הטובה שיבא רצון וחשק בלבו‬ ‫להתפלל עליה כי כל הטובות מעוה"ז הם מה ששייף השי"ת לאדם מאותו המין‪ ,‬שבעוה"ז‬ ‫הוא הטובה מכוסה בלבוש ההיפך ועי"ז ששייפין לו מאותו המין יש לו‬ ‫הרגשה מעט מהטוב הצפון‪.‬‬

‫‪Ora Wiskind‬‬

‫בית יעקב‪ ,‬בראשית ו‬ ‫בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ‪ .‬זה שאמר הכתוב (תהלים פד) כי שמש‬ ‫ומגן ה' אלקים חן וכבוד יתן ה' לא ימנע טוב להולכים בתמים‪ ,‬איתא בזוה"ק פקודי (רכד‬ ‫ע"ב) ‪ . . .‬ושמש ומגן דא איהו רזא דשמא שלים‪ .‬חן וכבוד יתן ה' למהוי כלא רזא חדא‪.‬‬ ‫שמש הוא שם הוי"ה הנקרא שמש‪ ,‬ומצד זה השם לא היה יכול להתהוות שום התהוות‬ ‫בריאה בעולם‪ ,‬כי הכל היה נכלל באורו הגדול יתברך‪ .‬כי כשיתראה אור זה בעולם‬ ‫יתראה שאין מציאות בעולם רק השי"ת לבדו‪ .‬וכדאיתא בגמרא (מגילה יט ע"ב) אלמלא‬ ‫נשתייר במערה שעמד בה משה ואליהו כמלא נקב מחט סדקית לא היו יכולים לעמוד מפני‬ ‫האורה‪ .‬נקב מחט סדקית היינו נקב חלון אורה‪ ,‬שע"י אור זה יוכל להתחבר הסדק היינו‬ ‫ההסתר שיש בין העולם לאור השי"ת אז היו רואים שאין שום התחדשות בבריאה‪ .‬כי רק‬ ‫השי"ת הוא אחד ואין שום דבר בעולם זולת הוא לבדו‪.‬‬ ‫בית יעקב‪ ,‬ויחי ח‬ ‫ועל זה אמרו ז"ל (מגילה יט ע"ב) אלמלי נשתייר במערה שעמד בה משה ואליהו‬ ‫כמלא נקב מחט סדקית לא היו יכולין לעמוד מפני האורה שנאמר כי לא יראני האדם וחי‪,‬‬ ‫ומשה ואליהו הם מבחר היצורים ומכל מקום אם היו פותחין להם מעט יותר לא היו יכולין‬ ‫לעמוד ‪ . . .‬אכן נקב פחות מנקב מחט סדקית נשתייר שלא נאמר כחודה של מחט שהוא‬ ‫קטן מנקב המחט מוכח שפחות מעט ממלא מחט סדקית נשתייר כדי שיהיה בכח לכל מי‬ ‫שהוא לחלקו ית' להכיר את האור אף בעולם הזה עם הגוף דרך זה הנקב‪ .‬ועל זה כתיב‬ ‫(משלי כא) ירא את ה' בני ומלך‪ ,‬היינו שילך תמיד בגודל היראה ושיהיה הויה להגוף גם‬ ‫כן וזה פי' ומלך שיתגלה לאדם בחינת מלכות שמים שיהיה הויה וקיום גם‬ ‫להגוף וזהו מעשה ידי להתפאר‪.‬‬ ‫בית יעקב הכולל בראשית ד"ה בראשית [א[‬ ‫בראשית ברא ‪ . . .‬ויהי אור‪ .‬זש"ה תקרא ואנכי אענך למעשה ידיך תכסף (איוב יד‪,‬‬ ‫טו)‪ .‬תקרא היינו השי"ת קורא את האדם‪ .‬ומה היא הקריאה הוא שהשי"ת נותן קווי וציפוי‬ ‫בלבו‪ .‬ואח"כ האדם יפרסם זאת הקריאה‪ .‬והוא כדי שיבא למעשה ידיך תכסף‪ .‬הוא שיקרא‬ ‫מעשה ידיו של האדם‪ .‬כי הקריאה בפנימית הלב אינו ניכר בהאדם‪ .‬וידמה כי כל בני‬ ‫האדם הם בשוה‪ .‬ולמה אדם פועל ועבד את ה' יותר מחבירו‪ .‬על ידי זה נקרה מעשה ידיו‪.‬‬ ‫בית יעקב ויקרא ג‬ ‫ידיך תכסף (איוב יד‪ ,‬טו)‪ .‬תקרא היינו שהשי"ת נותן קריאה לאדם ופועלת בו טהרה‬ ‫וגם חשק‪ . . . .‬וחשק היינו שהקריאה פועל עוד זאת באדם שיכנס בלבו חשק לקבל צווי‬ ‫השי"ת‪ . . . .‬ואנכי אענך היינו שהאדם מצדו צריך להתפשט הקריאה כי השי"ת קורא‬ ‫קריאה כוללת והאדם צריך להתפשט אותה וכדאיתא בזה"ק (תרומה קכח ע"ב) מנא‬ ‫ידעינן דקב"ה אתרעי ביה בב"נ ושוי מדורי' ביה כד חמינן דרעותא דההוא ב"נ למרדף‬ ‫ולאשתדלא ‪ . . .‬אבתריה דקב"ה בלביה ובנפשיה וברעותיה ודאי תמן ידעינן דשריא ביה‬ ‫שכינתא‪ .‬היינו אם ירצה אדם לידע מה נחשב אצלו ית' לידע בנפשיה כמה הוא משתדל‬ ‫מצדו לדבקה בו ית' אם הוא משתדל בכל לבו נפשו ומאודו מזה מוכח גודל חשיבותו אצל‬ ‫השי"ת הקריאה פועלת בו ביותר‪ . . . .‬שהעיקר הוא הכלל שהוא הקריאה שהשי"ת קורא‬

‫‪262‬‬

‫‪263‬‬

‫‪These Gates Open to the Longings of the Heart‬‬

‫לאדם כי השתדלות האדם הוא מכח הקריאה של השי"ת ואם נחשב זה האדם ביותר אצלו‬ ‫ית' אז שפועלת בלב האדם הכל ואידך פירושא הוא [שבת לא ע"א] שהם רק פרטים על‬ ‫‪.‬הקריאה‬ ‫בית יעקב תרומה טז‬ ‫כדאיתא (מעשר שני פ"ג מ"ח) לשכות הבנויות בחול ופתוחות לקודש תוכן קודש‪.‬‬ ‫דהפתח הוא העיקר והרצון הוא הפתח של כל דבר‪ .‬ומי שיש לו רצון לד"ת‪ ,‬שלו הם‪. . . .‬‬ ‫ובאמת אין [למלאכים] שייכות לד"ת מאחר שאין בהם תשוקה ולמלאות חסרונם כדאיתא‬ ‫)שבת פח ע"ב) ועיקר הדברי תורה שייך לישראל מאחר שיש להם תשוקה‪.‬‬

18

Emotion, Autonomy, and the Mind in the Piaseczner Rebbe James Jacobson-Maisels

In much of Western thought, emotions or passions are seen to be at war with rationality and autonomy.1 Other parts of the Western tradition such as Augustine and Aquinas maintain this dichotomy with regard to the passions while affirming the relationship between what they call affections and the mind.2 Yet a third minority aspect of the western tradition affirms emotion as part of what it essentially means to be human and sometimes as conducive to human wisdom.3 The Jewish tradition also divided emotional life into the virtuous and the misguided, championing certain emotions as supportive of study and understanding and others as destructive.4 Early H.asidism followed and accentuated this trend, stressing the importance of cultivating spiritually

1 See the excellent summary of approaches to emotion in J. R. Averill and L. Sundararajan, “Passion and Qing: Intellectual Histories of Emotion, West and East,” in Psychological Concepts an International Historical Perspective, ed. Kurt Pawlik and Gery d’Ydewalle (New York: Psychology Press, 2006), 101–39. 2 Thomas Dixon, From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 3 Averill and Sundararajan, “Passion and Qing,” 109. 4 See the summary of Jewish attitudes towards emotion in Joel Gereboff, “Judaism,” in Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion, ed. John Corrigan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 95–110. For one example of the relationship between emotion and Torah study see Daniel Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), 134–66.

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beneficial dispositions such as love (ahavah), awe (yir’ah) and joy (simh.ah),5 while at the same time teaching the importance of a radical equanimity born of indifference to matters of the world.6 Emotions then both supported and opposed knowledge and the rationally directed will. R. Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, the Piaseczner rebbe, is a late h.asidic master who, like the third position mentioned above, radicalizes early H.asidism’s generally affirmative stance to human emotion, arguing that the emotions, when related to mindfully, are not only not in opposition to rationality and autonomy but part and parcel of their genuine experience and function. He does this not by affirming only particular virtuous emotions or a subcategory such as the affections but as seeing emotionality more broadly, the ability to fully feel one’s emotions in a balanced way, as essential to rationality and autonomy. Born in 1889, R. Shapira was a Polish h.asidic master who was an extraordinary teacher, leader, and innovator. He is perhaps most famous for his spiritual leadership during the Holocaust in the Warsaw Ghetto and the sermons he gave during the war, which were published posthumously.7 This paper presents R. Shapira’s position on emotion and the mind as an important episode in the history of emotion, the mind and religion in the west by describing the relationship he depicts between emotions, the mind, rationality, and autonomy. It demonstrates how a particular late h.asidic master builds on, challenges, and radicalizes the earlier h.asidic and Jewish tradition to provide a view of emotion, the mind, and the will that can contribute to understandings of these categories in religious thought and philosophy more broadly.

5 On joy, see Michael Fishbane, “Joy and Jewish Spirituality,” in his The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 168–72; Michael Fishbane, “The Mystery of Dance according to Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav” in his The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 173–86; Azriel Shohet, “On Joy in H.asidism” [in Hebrew], Z.ion 16 (1951): 30–43. On hitlahavut see Louis Jacobs, Hasidic Prayer (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), 93; Louis Jacobs, trans. and ed., Tract on Ecstasy: Dobh Baer of Lubavitch (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006), 1; Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1946), 347–8; and Moshe Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 1. 6 On equanimity in H.asidism see Z.ava’at ha-Rivash, trans. J. Immanuel Schochet (Brooklyn: Kehot, 1998), no. 2; and Rivka Schatz-Uffenheimer, Hasidism as Mysticism: Quietistic Elements in Eighteenth-Century Hasidic Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 81–85. 7 For more biographical information see Nehemia Polen, The Holy Fire (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1994), 1–14; and Ron Wacks, The Flame (Lahavat) of the Holy Fire: Perspectives on the Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapiro of Piaczna [in Hebrew] (Alon Shevut: Tevunot, 2010), 21–23.

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I. Emotion, Spiritual Autonomy, Self-Control and Cultivation A. Rule of the Soul While the experience of emotions, such as anger, seemingly making off with our self-control and balance is commonplace, R. Shapira maintains that emotions are in fact crucial to self-control and self-cultivation. This is particularly true of emotional self-control, the ability to cultivate certain emotions and not be swamped by others. Like the early h.asidic masters, R. Shapira is interested in what he calls the “rule of the soul,” the ability to cultivate emotional states and not be at the whim of every passing emotion. Through this cultivation of an autonomous emotionality one is able to achieve a state of presence whereby, through joy, “the body does not rule over and weigh down [the soul] . . . , [but] rather the soul rules over and raises it.”8 Joy has achieved autonomy for the soul. What is new in R. Shapira is that it is neither indifference nor intellect nor will that are the key to this autonomy, but rather embodied emotion itself. As Shapira explains, “it is difficult to rule over ourselves with thought and will alone if our bodies do not become emotional with holy feelings at the time when we wish to be emotional.”9 The key to self-control and so 8 Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, Derekh ha-Melekh ( Jerusalem: Va‘ad H.asidei Piaseczno [Committee of Piaseczno H.asidim], 1995), 343. While the language here can seem dualistic and anticorporeal, R. Shapira in fact understands the body as fundamentally divine. However, he claims that standard, yet incorrect, dualistic understandings of the body can make corporeality impact us negatively in actuality. The raising of which he speaks is the shift in consciousness whereby one recognizes the fundamentally divine non-dualistic nature of the body. See, for instance, Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, in his Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, Mevo ha-She‘arim (L’H.ovat ha-Avreikhim), Z.av ve-Zeruz ( Jerusalem: Va‘ad H.asidei Piaseczno, 2001), 101; idem, Mevo ha-She‘arim, in his Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, Mevo ha-She‘arim (L’H.ovat ha-Avreikhim), Z.av ve-Zeruz ( Jerusalem: Va‘ad H.asidei Piaseczno, 2001), 175–7. I hope to discuss his view on this more fully elsewhere. 9 Shapira, Hahsharat ha-Avreikhim, 5. It is not clear whether “holy” modifies feelings, and indicates that only feelings that are holy will serve this purpose, or whether it is simply a way of referring to emotions in general given R. Shapira’s broader claim, which we do not have the space for here, that emotions themselves are inherently divine expressions of the soul. The first position would mean that we could understand R. Shapira as parallel to Christian thinkers, such as Aquinas, who distinguish between (holy) affections and (profane) passions. The second position would provide a more radical place for feelings themselves as crucial to will and autonomy and would imply that will and intellect are inherently lacking without them. Even in the second position it might be recognized that certain specific emotions, such as anger for R. Shapira, might be counterproductive to such rule of the soul, but that even other

E m o t i o n , A u t o n o m y, a n d t h e M i n d i n t h e P i a s e c z n e r R e b b e

self-cultivation is the ability to become emotional at will, to cultivate and awaken emotion in the self. Indeed, “it is totally impossible for a person to guard himself with his mind alone. If he does not enter himself and his emotions into holiness and leaves them in corporeality, he will remain like a dog or mouse.”10 It is precisely working with one’s emotions that frees one from one’s bestial nature.11 The intellect is not only not up to the task but the mind, sans appropriate emotion, is itself animalistic. It is not cold reason and iron will that can rule the self then, but the softened heart filled with joy, love, and sorrow.12

seemingly vicious emotions, such as improper desire, might be beneficial when related to in the correct way. This does seem to be his understanding of some of these “negative” emotions and their productive place in spiritual life in other texts such as Shapira, Mevo ha-She‘arim, 218–9; idem, Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, 117, 129–30; Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, H.ovat ha-Talmidim (Tel Aviv: Va‘ad H.asidei Piaseczno, n.d.), 36, 94–96. However, as we will see shortly, it is also true that mindful awareness of these negative emotions causes them to fade and be replaced by positive, or perhaps holy, emotions. 10 Shapira, Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, 23. 11 Augustine’s and more so Aquinas’s identification of the will, higher appetites and affections similarly indicates that for them the affections were a type of “emotion,” which aided one in overcoming one’s bestial nature. Dixon, From Passions to Emotions, 22, 36, 46–47. However, the purely intellectual and volitional way in which the affections are described (in line with the Stoic view of passions as judgments) at times makes one wonder whether they include the kinds of felt experiential elements that contemporaries and R. Shapira associate with the emotions but these thinkers seemed to associate more with the passions. They seem too cool to fit into common human experience of what we colloquially call emotions. For instance, St. Thomas Aquinas, describes the distinction thus “The words ‘love’, ‘desire’ and so on are used in two senses. Sometimes they mean passions, with some arousal in the soul. This is what the words are generally taken to mean, and such passions exist solely at the level of sense appetite. But they can be used to denote simple attraction, without passion or perturbation of the soul, and such acts are acts of will. And in this sense the words apply to angels and to God.” Summa Theologiae, ia. 82, 5 ad 1, brought in Dixon, From Passions to Emotions, 26. Here the affections lack any “passion or perturbation of the soul.” R. Shapira’s examples, on the other hand, clearly show the passionate, felt nature of these emotional experiences. In this way, we might not think that the Christian affections, as Dixon describes them, deserve to properly be called emotions—in our contemporary sense—at all, and that this tradition is in fact deeply at odds with what R. Shapira is teaching. This is no doubt connected to the fact that Augustine and Aquinas yet maintain an important distinction between soul and body (Dixon, From Passions to Emotions, 29) while R. Shapira works to erase that distinction and celebrate the divinity of the passionate, perturbed, feeling body. See, for instance, Shapira, Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, 136–8. 12 This claim of the mind’s irrationality without emotion, the felt experience of an emotion, does not seem to have widespread parallels in earlier thinkers. Dixon, From Passions to Emotions, 109, for instance, in his extensive review of Christian-European thought on emotion, does not bring examples of this position, and Averill and Sundararajan in their sweeping history of emotion in the West and east bring only one example of such a position in Desiderius Erasmus (Averill and Sundararajan, “Passion and Qing,” 109).

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In this way, emotion is the true but gentle master. Ultimately, in R. Shapira’s language, it is the warm, soft, wet, and expansive emotions, which enable the correct ordering of the self, not the cold, hard, dry, and narrow intellect.13 It is passion which passion can overcome. Even if one is not able to overcome the negative thought or desire, emotionality allows one to notice its arising and “like a sick person who recognizes his sickness” to seek help.14 That is, even when positive emotion does not overcome negative emotion it allows knowledge and awareness of it. This is both the crucial first step in the rule of the soul and evidence of emotion’s connection to the mind and awareness. Similarly, it is the cultivation of emotion that is necessary to subdue emotion itself. Without the schooling-through-cultivation of one’s emotions, it is “his self and his feelings that rule over his mind.”15 The goal is not for the mind to rule the emotions or the emotions to rule the mind but that rather through the cultivation of emotionality and consciousness, both mind and emotion will be liberated by the rule of the soul. Emotion, then, is essential to self-control and so to self-cultivation. In contrast to some earlier thinkers, it is emotion that makes equanimity possible and emotion that allows the correct ordering of the self. Without it, the practitioner is at the mercy of his baser natures. One achieves autonomy not by the abandoning or subduing of emotion through repression, indifference or equanimity but through its very cultivation.

13 The contrast of these two sets of terms and their association with different aspects of the self can be seen throughout R. Shapira’s writings, such as in Shapira, Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, 20–21, 25, 40, 44, 47, 98, 105; Shapira, H.ovat ha-Talmidim, 86–90; Shapira, Z.av ve-Zeruz, sec. 3; Shapira, Derekh ha-Melekh, 36, 45, 53, 95, 181, 209, 217–8, 291–2, 296, 366, 395; Shapira, Mevo ha-She‘arim, 173, 210–1, 227, 312; Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, Eish Qodesh ( Jerusalem: Va‘ad H.asidei Piaseczno, 1960), 96, 103, 144; and Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, Benei Mah.shavah Tovah ( Jerusalem: Va‘ad H.asidei Piaseczno, 1989), 20, 24, 31–32, 44. 14 Shapira, Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, 25. 15 Ibid., 23. The key here seems to be on the danger of the self for R. Shapira, as for the h.asidic tradition in general, and “his” emotions, that is, the self-directed emotions as R. Shapira describes them elsewhere. In this sense, R. Shapira’s distinction between “passions” and “affections”, as in the Christian tradition, might be a distinction between self-emotions and emotions that are not self-entangled or perhaps even the same emotion in its self-entangled and non-self-entangled form. However, a complicating factor is R. Shapira’s insistence that even self-entangled emotions such as selfish desire can, when related to properly, be access points for holiness and should not be repressed but rather utilized, without being succumbed to in their current form. See, for instance, Shapira, Mevo ha-She‘arim, 23. Perhaps it is most accurate to say that R. Shapira encourages the positive relationship to all emotions so that one is never lost in self-entangled emotion but, whether through engagement with selfentangled emotion or other forms of emotion, emerges into a healthy balanced autonomous emotionality.

E m o t i o n , A u t o n o m y, a n d t h e M i n d i n t h e P i a s e c z n e r R e b b e

Ecstasy and Autonomy Intensive emotional experiences, rather than being especially threatening to self-control, are actually particularly helpful in achieving autonomy and the rule of the soul for R. Shapira. Here we see R. Shapira drawing on the connection between hitlahavut (enthusiasm) and equanimity in earlier H.asidism while expanding and transforming that tradition. In early H.asidism hitlahavut and equanimity are held together by the h.asidic masters teaching hitlahavut for God and equanimity towards matters of the world.16 R. Shapira transforms that tradition through creating a different connection between enthusiasm and emotional autonomy. He explains: Any person who, when something distressing comes to him, is concerned and has a hard time rejoicing then, and who, when something joyful comes to him, is joyful and has a hard time being concerned now . . . is just a guest house for the thoughts of the world that pass on through and come and go with him. And the essence of the person is absent. . . . At first there were bad visitors and now good ones, depending on the world and the day. And where are you (ayeka), where are you yourself? If the person is present in his house and in himself then joy will not drive him crazy and worry will not compel him so much. But for a person to be present with himself and not be an entrance way trampled by the events and ideas of the world that come into him, he . . . must awaken in himself the fiery enthusiasm (hitlahavut) and ecstasy (hitpa‘alut) of holiness. It is known to all that the matter of fiery enthusiasm and ecstasy is impossible to understand through the intellect without the Israelite having felt them himself.17 Without the felt experience of passion, enthusiasm and ecstasy the Israelite is nothing more than a way station for thoughts and emotions. With the felt experience of these intensive states, however, one is literally able to find one’s “home” and oneself. One is able to discover where and what one is and to no longer be at the mercy of every passing thought and emotion.

16 See Z.ava’at ha-Rivash, §2 for a clear example of this. 17 Shapira, Derekh ha-Melekh, 357–8.

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Enthusiasm and ecstasy are precisely grounding and centering, making one “at home.” Rather than being the goal of practice, as sometimes seems to be the case in early H. asidism, they are modes of emotional experience, which enables the practitioner to more fully open to and be in control of his emotions more generally. Equanimity is then the product of ecstasy and ecstasy is in service of balanced open emotionality. Yet equanimity here is not a stance of indifference. The joy and worry are not eliminated, rather they “will not compel him so much.” Rather than being grounded in indifference to the world and resulting in an absence of emotional connection to the mundane, equanimity here enables the experience of emotion without that emotion being overwhelming or controlling. The metaphor of home as a place of stability and safety is a crucial one in this passage and contrasts itself to the unstable guesthouse, which lacks permanence and any independent nature, being constantly redefined by the guests who grace its walls. In parallel, the person absent his essence is a lost wanderer, unsure of who, where or what he is. Yet the one who has found himself through finding his passion has found a steadiness, essence, and ipseity from which to relate to himself and the world. Once more at home, he can now act, think, and feel from the stability, insight, and clarity of his true nature rather than being blown hither and thither by the vagaries of the world. It is through the intensity of fervor, enthusiasm, and ecstasy then that this stability and groundedness is achieved. Ecstasy and equanimity mutually support each other and both are part of the broader context of emotionality. Early H. asidism, R. Shapira, and Western tradition of emotion agree on the danger of being trampled by emotions of the world. Early H.asidism, in part, instructs one to leave the house, abandoning all connection to the mundane concerns of the world and becoming indifferent to it.18 Aspects of the Western tradition counsel the same.19 R. Shapira, on the other hand, encourages one to take one’s seat in the house, present with but no longer at the mercy of the passing emotions, feeling them fully without being controlled by them. He presents neither a negation of emotion, a romantic abandonment to emotion, nor a rejection of the worldly and its concomitant emotions (passions) but

18 On the other hand, the tradition of worship in corporeality teaches a deep engagement with the mundane world. For the best description of this approach in H.asidism see Tsippi Kauffman, In All Your Ways Know Him: The Concept of God and Worship in Corporeality at the Beginnings of H.asidism [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2009). However, no work has been done on emotion, equanimity, and worship in corporeality and how these various states and h. asidic teachings are related. 19 Dixon, From Passions to Emotions, 29, 43–45.

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rather a different relationship to the emotions, fostered by intense emotion itself, which allows the practitioner to be with emotions and feel them fully, without being at their mercy.

II. Mindfulness and Emotion A. Mindfulness and the Cultivation of Emotionality The use of mindfulness or awareness with emotional states is perhaps the primary technique taught by R. Shapira to allow emotions to be seen, emerge, and grow without overwhelming the practitioner.20 It is a primary example of how the mind and emotion each, properly utilized, support and contain each other. While not an aspect of normative nomian Jewish practice, it can yet be incorporated into every kind practice and action and is seen by R. Shapira as often crucial to the performance of the commandments. By mindfulness I intend the technical meaning it has acquired in the previous decades with the introduction of Buddhist meditation practice to the west and the secularization of mindfulness in psychology and elsewhere: balanced, non-judgmental, non-analytical attention, a kind of pure seeing. As we will see, R. Shapira’s terminology, especially his combination of terms of awareness or consciousness with terms of perception, such as seeing, and the clear non-discursive, nonanalytical nature of this awareness makes the contemporary term mindfulness a felicitous translation of the process and activity he describes.21 The initial way in which mindfulness aids the cultivation of emotion is that it allows the practitioner to “catch” the passing flow of emotions that would otherwise pass unnoticed. As R. Shapira teaches, “Therefore, when you feel a holy emotionality do not search out images and parables rather pause and contemplate your holy emotionality and continue to awaken.”22 When some emotion starts to emerge, the practitioner is instructed not to leap from the experience itself to visions or peak experiences that may arise, but rather to turn his attention to the mundane emotion itself and through this contemplation to awaken. 20 Shapira, Benei Mah.shavah Tovah, 23. 21 See a related discussion in Ora Wiskind, “Hasidism in Dialogue with Modernity: Rabbi Kalonymus Shapira’s Derekh ha-Melekh,” in Hasidism, Suffering, and Renewal: The Prewar and Holocaust Legacy of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, eds. Don Seeman, Daniel Reiser, and Ariel Evan Mayse (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2022), 153–78. 22 Shapira, Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, 73.

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Once again, we see the strong break between R. Shapira’s relationship to emotion and the ecstatic based relationship of his predecessors. Indeed, this cultivation of careful awareness of emotional states is extended to every moment of life and emotional experience, no matter how slight. As R. Shapira says, “one should not let even a sigh escape his notice.”23 There is no emotion unworthy of the attention of awareness for every emotion carries the possibility of awakening. Indeed, this turning itself, this bringing of awareness to the mundane experience of emotion, is itself the visions and divine revelation that the practitioner seeks: If you contemplate and gaze at all the feelings that pass within you, that is to say, that you look in the face of all the supernal angels, levels, and aspects that pass through your heart and soul, this will already be enough for you to ascend and become a spiritual person and possessor of a pure consciousness (mah.shavah tehorah).24 Here the feelings themselves are the “supernal angels, levels, and aspects.” There is no second step process, nothing to achieve beyond the experience of the emotion, no ecstasy that awaits. Rather, turning mindfully to the emotion itself is the awakening. A developed consciousness also creates the proper conditions for the arising of emotion itself, “every man of Israel is emotional by nature and his soul is constantly being active and emotional by itself. The lack is in our awareness (mah.shavateinu), which is not strong and holy enough to be a platform for our emotionality.”25 Here it is the lack of the platform of a developed consciousness that prevents the natural emotionality of the person from emerging. With that platform, emotions can then come forth, held by the open, grounding, truthful quality of awareness. Beyond noticing that which arises and providing a stable platform on which emotions can express themselves, awareness can also uncover emotions that are drowned out and hidden, whether by the distractions we turn to in order to escape our emotions, what R. Shapira calls the drums of Molekh, or what he characterizes as the toxic experiences of anti-emotions such as depression and the heart-dullness it produces.26

23 Shapira, Benei Mah.shavah Tovah, 24. 24 Shapira, Benei Mah.shavah Tovah, 30. 25 Shapira, Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, 105. 26 Shapira, Benei Mah.shavah Tovah, 12–13, 27.

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The person who pays attention (notein lev) to the fact that God is within him and hidden from him, then even if this hiddenness with regards to him is, God forbid, due to a dulled heart and lowliness, in any case when he gazes (mistakeil) upon this a great deal, a pain will be awakened in his heart and he will cry out due to this. Then, finally, the gates of his heart will open for him and the light of God will appear upon him. . . . But one from whom the hidden is hidden (ha-hester nistar), whose mind is torn and entangled in foolishness and does not pay attention to that which is hidden from him, does not cry out, does not pay attention, and does not open the gates of his heart, God forbid, will be punished. Therefore “and I will surely hide (hester astir)” (Deut. 31:18) is the punishment, that, God forbid, the hidden will be hidden, that he will not see that it is hidden from him.27 Though the divine within may be hidden due to a dulled heart or lowliness, the practitioner must only turn his attention to this dullness or lowliness itself for the pain and divine light concealed within to come forth. It is the application of mindfulness itself that allows the hidden emotion to emerge. Mindfulness reveals that which is hidden, silencing, in its very application, the drums of Molekh. The process of applying mindfulness to this dullness is a difficult one. The first element to emerge in response to mindfulness is pain. It is only once the pain is experienced and embraced that the “gate of his heart” can open. Yet, ultimately, this bringing awareness to the dullness itself removes the numbness and so discloses both the pain and light that are buried beneath. This seeing and disclosure is itself the revelation of divinity and divine light. Mindfulness here is then the revelation of that which is unconscious through the application of awareness to that which obscures the hidden material. In this sense mindfulness is not only a seeing of what is present but a giving birth to emotions that are hidden. As R. Shapira teaches: Know how to look (le-histakeil). Concerning everything that occurs within you and without know how to look. And this looking (histaklut) is not a mere seeing (re’iyah) of something but a kind of birth by which one births and brings forth something to gaze (le-histakeil) upon it. We bring forth and birth the form 27 Shapira, Derekh ha-Melekh, 209.

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of the thing until there will be a form that we can gaze upon. And one who feels some emotion must look, that is to say bring forth its form and gaze at the form of the emotion. It is not only small emotions that pass through him and are lost through the inability to look. Rather, complete mitzvot pass in the same way they came. He feels something inside himself and is unable to concentrate, describe, and know what he is feeling. . . . Therefore we adjure you: teach yourself to look! Be a person who seeks out God in every place. . . . Where will you find Him? In you and in all your surroundings.28 Through cultivating one’s awareness, one’s ability to genuinely see, one gives birth to the object itself. That is, the gaze of mindfulness is not simply a passive reception but an active bringing forth of that which is hidden or in potential in the object of attention. Here this is described as the bringing forth of the form of the object that itself becomes an object of contemplation. The form, the inner core and nature of the object, can only be seen by the bringing of attention to the object, such as the emotion, as it manifests. Gazing upon the emotion itself is what allows it to reveal its true nature, its hidden core. Ultimately, this gazing allows the practitioner to not just see the true nature of what she gazes upon but, through the cultivation of this ability, the genuine divine nature of everything she encounters. Teaching oneself to see is teaching oneself to see God for R. Shapira.29 One can then not help but find the Divine “in you and in all your surroundings.” Mindfulness is then key to the full experience of emotion. It allows the practitioner to notice and awaken to the emotions within him, it creates the proper conditions for emotions to arise, it uncovers hidden emotions by directing the practitioner to turn mindfulness to their conscious manifestations such as the dullness that hides them, it gives birth to the full and unseen emotional content of phenomenon held in awareness and it does so at any moment whether mundane or extraordinary. In all these ways, mindfulness, and the mind in general, is not in tension with emotion but rather is crucial to the full achievement of emotionality, the balanced awakened coming forth of emotion.

28 Shapira, Benei Mah.shavah Tovah, 27–28. 29 See Wiskind, “Hasidism in Dialogue with Modernity.”

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B. Mindfulness and Emotional Autonomy Mindfulness, awareness or a developed consciousness, then makes possible the emotional autonomy and rootedness that is part and parcel of emotionality for the Piaseczner. As we can recall from our discussion of emotional autonomy, the key element was being “found in one’s house’’ so that the emotions that arise do not trample the practitioner.30 Mindfulness is precisely this ability to be rooted and stable in the midst of arising emotions. Neither repression nor flooding is necessary. Rather, one can maintain a balanced open awareness of the emotion itself, the felt experience of the emotion, without being trapped in the emotion, its specific objects and the associated judgments. Developed awareness gives the emotion free reign without giving the emotion control over the practitioner. More particularly, mindfulness can act to calm and liberate the practitioner from damaging or toxic emotions. R. Shapira explains how the gazing upon the emotional state itself can calm and release that emotion: Gaze inward, listening and attentive person, and see that it is a human law, if you engage (yetapeil) in any of the sensations that rustle in your soul whether a sensation of imagination, will or feeling, love, fear or other qualities, including if he is engaging with his consciousness, if his consciousness is engaging in the sensation, then through this engagement (tipul) the sensation becomes more active, stronger and agitated. And if consciousness does not engage in the sensation but rather upon (odot) the sensation, upon the imagination, upon the will or upon love and fear etc., then on the contrary through the engagement of consciousness upon it the sensation will fade and even cease completely. And not engagement alone, but rather also the gazing (histaklut) itself by which a person gazes in his awareness on some sensation that is within him, even on his thoughts, the thought or sensation is dimmed.31

30 Shapira, Derekh ha-Melekh, 357–8. 31 Shapira, Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, 119–20. The translation of odot as “upon,” rather than “about” is necessitated by the broader context of the text and is R. Shapira’s terminological innovation in Hebrew for describing the third-party perspective of mindfulness, the observation odot/of one’s own experience, such as thought, rather than being trapped in the stream of thought itself.

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Here, creating a new language to express his insight, R. Shapira describes how a third party perspective on one’s own experience in the operation of mindfulness can serve to enable the weakening or cessation of that experience. The key distinction in R. Shapira’s description is between the engagement of consciousness in the sensation and the gazing of consciousness upon the sensation. If fear arises in the practitioner, she can engage in the fear itself, thinking about the fear and the object of fear, trembling in her body and in general being swept up in the experience of fear. This will, unsurprisingly, have the effect of augmenting the fear. On the other hand, the practitioner can gaze upon the fear, observing the thoughts of fear rather than thinking them, observing the sensations of fear rather than simply experiencing them. This alternate type of engagement with her experience, disengaging as it does from the very motor of the experience itself, the thoughts and ideations that fuel it, allows the sensation to fade and even dissipate. This witness consciousness, as is clear from the above text, applies to all sorts of sensations, impetuses, and actions. For instance, in the case of desire, Start to observe your desires. . . . Gaze upon it and repeat these words once or twice etc., and see and be amazed how, with the help of God, your desire will weaken and even dissolve completely. Thus you shall do in matters of eating and thus you shall do in your other desires. Even in speech concerning some matter, even if [speaking of it] is permissible and not a sin, but it is better not to say it, yet in any case you are drawn to say it, observe yourself and your excitation in this manner.32 Gazing upon one’s desire, at times with the addition of words that help challenge the desire itself (through challenging one’s belief in the desire and one’s selfperception), allows the desire to fade and to refrain from manifesting in actions such as inappropriate speech. Yet how are we to reconcile this image of mindfulness as leading to cessation with the image of mindfulness above as giving birth to emotion? One is tempted to simply see them as different kinds of attention and consciousness, perhaps one from a third-party perspective and the other from a first-person perspective. Yet the use of the term gazing (histaklut) and its various forms in both contexts indicates that in both instances we are speaking of a kind of deep looking at the

32 Shapira, Hakhsharat ha-Avreikhim, 122–3.

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object of investigation, a witnessing of one’s own experience, leading in one case to birth and the other to death. One possibility, not fully articulated by R. Shapira himself, is to distinguish between beneficial and harmful sensations. That is, in the texts cited above, it is harmful sensations such as desire for excessive food or inappropriate speech, which weaken when they are observed. Beneficial sensations, on the other hand, such as the suppressed emotions, which are the very matter of the soul, are born and flourish when they are gazed upon. Such a claim makes sense on R. Shapira’s view when we recall that these beneficial sensations, such as suppressed emotions, are also, for him, hidden truths, while the harmful sensations, such as desire, anger and depression, are false shells (kelipot) that cover and conceal the truth. When understood in this way these two diametrically opposed effects of mindfulness can be understood as one. When clear seeing is brought to the truth it allows the truth to escape the bonds of illusion and grow and flourish. When clear seeing is brought to falsehood it penetrates the mist of falsehood and allows it to dissipate, making space for the truth to emerge. Mindfulness does not then have two effects, but one. Mindfulness fosters truth. From whatever perspective this activity is described, the movement itself is one, the emergence of truth from the mists of falsehood. In addition to being crucial to the fostering of emotional openness, or indeed as a very part of it, mindfulness is also key to emotional autonomy. Through mindful gazing on objects they weaken and fade, preventing damaging and toxic emotions from overwhelming the practitioner. Mindfulness allows the truth to emerge while dispelling illusion. Mindfulness and the mind are then key to both emotional cultivation, full feeling, and emotional autonomy. R. Shapira presents a fascinating and challenging view of the relationship of emotion and mind. Eschewing earlier antagonisms between heart and mind or rationality and passion, he sees these two facets of the human being as in fact inextricably intertwined and mutually supporting. In so doing, he opens new ways for us to think about the place and interaction of emotion, mind and religion in the h.asidic tradition, Judaism, and more broadly.

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“An Upside Down World”: The Concept of America in H.aredi Theology* Nathaniel Deutsch

Long before Yiddish-speaking immigrants began referring to the United States as the goldene medine (golden country), Jewish thinkers were grappling with the concept of America. By the nineteenth century, these thinkers included leaders of both the h.asidic and misnagdic (or Lithuanian yeshivah) movements in Eastern Europe. Far from a land of opportunity or even a kind of second Promised Land, as some Reform rabbis argued in the same period, h.asidic and misnagdic leaders characterized America as a treifene medine (unkosher country) whose very soil could spiritually contaminate pious Jews. For this reason, they actively discouraged their followers from emigrating to the United States and, when they did, frequently questioned the halakhic legitimacy of marriages, divorces, and other Jewish legal proceedings that took place in the country. Yet, in the wake of the Holocaust, some of the most important h.aredi communities that survived the catastrophe and settled in the United States radically revised their conception of America. Now, they claimed, it was precisely the lowly spiritual nature of the land that gave America a special place in an unfolding theological drama that would culminate with the arrival of the messiah. Rather than a place to be avoided at all costs, America was reconceptualized as the final “exile” or golus In honor of my teacher, Professor Michael Fishbane, whose mastery of sources from the Hebrew Bible to H.asidism so inspired me as a student all those years ago.

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of the Jewish people, a proverbial “land not sown” ( Jeremiah 2:2), that would need to be purified and elevated by the presence of z.addiqim (holy men) and their righteous communities, in order for the geulah (final redemption) to occur. As with other developments within the h.aredi movement, the radical revision of America’s status reflected a combination of older Jewish theological beliefs, especially kabbalistic traditions, along with an equally powerful pragmatism. This transformation of America into a key eschatological site represented a return of sorts to much earlier Jewish speculation, as Jonathan Sarna has written, “The spread of Jews to the New World was associated, as early as the seventeenth century, with the hope of messianic redemption.”1 The central figure in this earlier speculation was Menasseh ben Israel (b. 1604), who was born to a converso family in Portugal and immigrated as a youth to Amsterdam, where he reembraced Judaism and went on to become a rabbi for the city’s important Sephardi community, as well as a much sought-after interlocutor for contemporary Christian scholars throughout Western Europe. These scholars included prominent British millenarians who had come to believe that Native Americans were members of the Lost Tribes of Israel whose “discovery” was an important sign of the End Days. Asked to weigh in on the subject, Menasseh ben Israel authored his most famous work, Miqveh Yisrael (The hope of Israel), in which he conjectured that some but not all indigenous people in the Americas were, indeed, descendants of the Lost Tribes. Moreover, he claimed, their presence combined with the recent establishment of synagogues by Sephardi settlers in the Western hemisphere, represented an important stage in the prophesied scattering of the Jews to the “ends of the Earth” that would precede their ingathering during the messianic era, as indicated by biblical verses in Deuteronomy, Daniel, and Isaiah.2 The following centuries witnessed the slow growth of Jewish communities in the Americas, including in what would eventually become the United States. That country’s Jewish population only began to increase significantly in the wake of the failed European Revolutions of 1848. Among the Jewish immigrants who arrived from the German-speaking lands of Central Europe were both Orthodox and Reform rabbis, whose views on their newly adopted country diverged dramatically. In a pioneering essay, Arthur Hertzberg documented the gloomy attitudes towards America of this first generation of

1 Jonathan Sarna, “The Mystical World of Colonial American Jews,” in Mediating Modernity; Challenges and Trends in the Jewish Encounter with the Modern World. Essays in Honor of Michael A. Meyer, ed. Lauren Strauss and Michael Brenner (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008), 186. 2 See Steven Nadler, Menasseh ben Israel: Rabbi of Amsterdam (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018).

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transplanted Orthodox rabbis. One such figure, Abraham Rice, wrote forlornly to a friend in Germany in 1849, “I dwell in darkness without a teacher or companion. . . . The religious life in this land is on the lowest level; most people eat forbidden food and desecrate the Sabbath in public. . . . I wonder whether it is even permissible for a Jew to live in this land.”3 Yet in marked contrast to their Orthodox contemporaries, prominent Reform rabbis such as Mayer Wise (1819–1900) and David Einhorn (1809–1879) viewed the United States as a place of unique spiritual opportunity, as Arnold Eisen has written, “In America, Jews could believe they had found a new Zion, and Reform rabbis were fond of saying so. America was the ideal stage on which the mission to humanity could convincingly be proclaimed and publicly enacted.”4 Indeed, far more than any country in Europe, America came to represent the end of exile for many Reform Jews and, therefore, an alternative model to traditional Jewish messianism.5 If America had become a new Promised Land in the theological geography of the Reform movement, it would occupy a far different role in the spiritual worldview of the h.asidic and misnagdic leaders who established the h.aredi movement at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. As immigration to the United States from Eastern Europe increased from a swell into a massive wave beginning in the 1880s, these leaders intensified their criticism of what they condemned as an olam hafukh (upside-down world), where the spiritual and communal values of the alte heym or “old country”

3 Arthur Hertzberg, “‘Treifene Medina’: Learned Opposition to Emigration to the United States,” in Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies ( Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1984), 5, quoting from Leon Jick, The Americanization of the Synagogue, 1820–1870 (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1976), 73. 4 Arnold Eisen, The Chosen People in America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 20. By way of explanation, Eisen writes, ibid., 51–52: “The [Reform] rabbis took the promise and promises of the American beloved seriously, accepting America’s vision of itself as its true nature, believing that America would gather in the exiles of Europe and bless them with justice and opportunity, and seeing in America’s claim to election a direct reflection of their own. . . . if all Jews loved America, Reform Jews loved it the most religiously, or at least professed their adoration most fervently.” 5 Ibid., 40: “Two related motifs strengthened the bond between Judaism and America as well. The first was the consistent denial by all but the Orthodox that the concept of exile (galut) had any relevance to the position of American Jewry.” On the broader conception of America as a kind of promised land for Jews, see Hasia Diner, Lower East Side Memories: A Jewish Place in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 23: “The idea of America as the newest promised land and, as such, the sacralization of America, suffused American Jewish culture.”

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were inverted.6 Thus, for example, Mah.ziqei ha-Dat, the first h.aredi newspaper, published an article in February 1889 imploring its readers—mainly H.asidim in the Austro-Hungarian region of Galicia—not to immigrate to “America . . . a land of freedom . . . lies and vain dreams, which promise gain only to those who transgress the laws of the faith.”7 Most famously, Rabbi Israel Meir ha-Kohen, known popularly as the H.afeiz. H.ayyim, and the spiritual leader of religious Jews in Lita (the Yiddish name for a region that historically comprised what is now Lithuania, as well as parts of Belarus, Poland, and Latvia), implored his followers in 1893: “Whoever wanted to have true merit before the Lord should strengthen himself and not live in those far off lands [that is, America].”8 Despite such attempts by members of the rabbinic elite in Eastern Europe to stem the flow of immigrants, by the time the United States Congress passed the draconian Immigration Act in 1924, more than two million Jews had arrived in the country from the region. As Menachem Blondheim demonstrated in a series of studies focusing on the production and characteristics of seforim (traditional Jewish books), including responsa literature, published during the first few decades of the twentieth century, America was slowly but surely developing its own independent h.aredi institutions and leadership. Like a disproportionate number of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in general during this period, most of the rabbinic leaders who settled in the United States were originally from the territories that comprised Lita, with a significant number from Poland. A comparatively smaller number of immigrants also arrived from southern Ukraine, eastern Hungary, and other areas that were heavily h.asidic and some minor h.asidic rebbes settled in both the United States and Canada before World War II, as Ira Robinson and Steven Lapidus have documented. Nevertheless, the most important leaders of the h.asidic movement steadfastly remained in Eastern Europe and viewed immigration negatively, though they continued to communicate with their H.asidim in America—for example, via responsa— and, in the case of the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, even toured the country in the early 1930s. The rise of Nazism and the subsequent Holocaust of the Jews of Europe dramatically transformed the relationship of h.aredi Jews to America. During and after the war, h.aredi members of the shearis ha-pleita, or “surviving

6 On the image of America as a world turned upside down, see Menachem Blondheim, “Ha-Rabanut ha-Ortodoqsit Megalah et Amerika: Ha-Geografia shel ha-Ruah. be-Tiqshoret shel Mitvim,” in Be-Iqvot Kolumbus: Yehudim ba-Amerika, 1492–1992, ed. Miriam EliavFeldon ( Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar le-Toldot Yisrael, 1996). 7 Hertzberg, “‘Treifene Medina,’” 16–17, quoting Mah.ziqei ha-Dat, February 8, 1889. 8 Ibid., 20, quoting Israel Meir ha-Kohen, Nidh.ei Yisrael (Warsaw, 1893), epilogue.

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remnant,” of Eastern European Jewry arrived in the United States and settled especially in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Borough Park, where, in the following years, they pioneered a gradual but profound process of neighborhood transformation that has since become known as “H.aredization” or hith.ardut in Hebrew. For decades prior to the Holocaust, many H.aredim had refused to immigrate to the United States because the country not only made possible, but even encouraged, the wholescale assimilation of Jewish immigrants and their children. Now, they found themselves in a postwar American environment that vigorously promoted consumer culture—which h.aredi leaders condemned as luksus or “luxury”— including via the powerful and newly ubiquitous medium of television, which the same leaders prohibited their followers from watching. Rather than conforming to the narrow sartorial, linguistic, and behavioral norms of 1950s America, H.aredim doubled-down on their differences by insisting that community members use Yiddish, dress in a distinctive manner, and continue to practice their traditional minhagim or “customs.” Just as importantly, H.aredim also developed a new theological approach to America. This approach reflected a pragmatic response to the fact that they were now living in the very country that they had long criticized from a distance as an off-limits treifene medine. Faced with this new reality, H.aredim attempted to make meaning of the catastrophe in Europe that had brought them to America’s shores and provide a theological explanation for why they were now establishing communities within the country’s borders and not settling in Palestine or, after 1948, the newly created state of Israel. Even beyond an explanation, however, the new theological narrative that H.aredim created around America would help to inspire community members to both withstand the enormous societal pressures to assimilate and, at the same time, provide them with a deep sense of mission as they worked to create enclaves in their adopted Brooklyn neighborhoods. Seen from this perspective, the theological reevaluation of America is part of a broader pattern of pragmatism that has characterized the h.aredi movement from its very beginnings, even as the ideological rejection of change—exemplified by Rabbi Moshe Sofer’s famous battle-cry he-h.adash asur min ha-torah or “the new is forbidden by the Torah”—has remained intact. Seen from another perspective, the theological reevaluation of America by H.aredim from a variety of backgrounds represented continuity with much older, as well as more recent, Jewish beliefs regarding exile and redemption. H.aredim drew on these beliefs in order to create a new narrative concerning the crucial eschatological role of America. In so doing, they were engaging in what I would argue is a defining feature of the movement and an important reason for its

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success, namely, the creative ability to derive new solutions to contemporary challenges from within the tradition itself, or, as one Satmar H.asid once told the author, to “change without changing.” Jews had long conceived of the exile as punishment and its sufferings as “messianic birth pangs” but in the sixteenth century, Shalom Rosenberg has demonstrated, they also came to regard it through other, equally powerful lenses, including what he calls “the theory of mission . . . the dispersion of the Jewish people has enabled them to become a guide and teacher to humanity as a whole,” and “the theory of ‘tikkun’: The Jewish people in its dispersion serves a mystical function in raising up the scattered sparks and thereby bringing salvation to the world.”9 Together, he argues, these views encouraged the new “conception [that] the Jewish people represents the instrument of a grander program, the aim of which is to correct a catastrophe exceeding the narrow bounds of Jewish history.”10 Mendel Piekarz, in turn, argued that beginning in the nineteenth century and intensifying during the interwar period, the leaders of the most important h.asidic groups in Poland—Bobov, Belz, Alexander, Ger, and others—embraced a position that he described as “reconciliation with the exile and emphasizing its advantages” and that Benjamin Brown later called, in an obituary of Piekarz, “the sanctification of Galut (exile).”11 While drawing on older kabbalistic traditions, this h.asidic valorization of the exile as a site of unique spiritual opportunity also came to include a rejection of claims made by Zionists, and, in particular, the concept known as shelilat ha-galut or the “negation of the exile.” The rebbes of Bobov in Galicia were among the most passionate opponents of Zionism and defenders of golus in the first few decades of the twentieth century. Regarding the first Bobover rebbe, Shlomo Halberstam (1847–1905), Piekarz wrote, “To those rabbis inclined to adopt the Zionist idea, Rabbi Shlomo of Bobov reminded them that the exile was a greenhouse for the growth of the spiritual flow (ha-shefa ha-ruh.ani) that is unique to [the people of] Israel: ‘For the life force of the people of Israel and

9 Shalom Rosenberg, “Exile and Redemption in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century: Contending Conceptions,” in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Bernard Dov Cooperman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 399–400. 10 Ibid., 400. 11 See chapter 8 of Mendel Piekarz, H.asidut Polin bein Shetei ha-Milh.amot u-vi-Gezeirot 700–705 [1939–1945] (ha-Sho’ah) ( Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1990), 205–31; Benjamin Brown, “Hasidism without Romanticism: Mendel Piekarz’s Path in the Study of Hasidism,” Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry 27 (2015): 452.

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its eternal character are revealed precisely in its dispersion; they are its strength and they are its wonders.’”12 In a related vein, Motti Inbari has argued that two camps emerged within the Orthodox world in the first few decades of the twentieth century regarding the messianic significance of contemporary historical developments, including the rise of Zionism and the sharp increase in antisemitic persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe. The first camp comprised “optimists” who “explained that the rise of Jewish nationalism represented the ‘first pangs of redemption,’ that is, the beginning of the messianic process,” even as they rejected the ideological foundations of secular Zionism.13 By contrast, the second camp were “pessimists for whom the ‘pangs of the messiah’—the spiritual decline of the present—were foreboding. . . . [and] the period of the ‘ikvata de-meshih.a (the footsteps of the messiah) as marked by severe material and spiritual hardship.”14 Nevertheless, like their more optimistic counterparts, even the pessimists—which included a wide range of h.aredi leaders from both Litvish and h.asidic backgrounds— embraced an “acute messianism,” and believed that they were living in an era of “imminent redemption.”15 As Zev Eleff has noted, this messianic message was brought to America on the eve of World War II by Rabbi Elh.anan Wasserman, a disciple of the H.afez. H.ayyim, who toured Jewish communities in the country in the late 1930s and published a work devoted to the topic, Iqveta de-Meshih.a (The footsteps of the Messiah).16 This was the immediate context preceding the Holocaust and, soon after, the creation of the state of Israel. In their wake, all h.aredi thinkers had to grapple with the theological significance of these momentous events and make sense of them given their views regarding the exile and redemption. As we have seen, those H.aredim who settled in the United States were faced with an additional theological challenge: how to justify living in a country that they had declared off-limits only a few years earlier, especially when it was now possible to settle in the land of Israel—even if they continued to reject Zionism and the legitimacy of the Israeli state. In the following pages, I will illustrate how members of the

12 Piekarz, H.asidut Polin, 227, quoting from Elimelech Eliezer Ehrenberg, Sefer Arzei Levanon ( Jerusalem: Hamu”l, 1967/68), 95–96. 13 Motti Inbari, “Messianic Expectations in Hungarian Orthodox Theology before and during the Second World War: A Comparative Study,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 107, no. 4 (Fall 2017): 511. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., 512. 16 Zev Eleff, “Rabbi Hayim of Volozhin, Rabbi Aharon Kotler, and the Remaking of an American Jewish Prophecy,” American Jewish Archives Journal 72, nos. 1–2 (2020): 98; Elh.anan Wasserman, Iqveta de-Meshih.a (Tel Aviv: Z.e’irei Agudat Yisrael, 1961).

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yeshivish community in the United States, as well as what would become the two largest h.asidic communities in the country during the postwar period—Satmar and Lubavitch—all responded to this challenge by claiming that America was their destiny and that their settlement in the country constituted a spiritual mission of the highest order. Indeed, members of all these communities would even assert that their respective founders had predicted that pious Jews would one day be forced to relocate from Eastern Europe to the United States. At the outset, it is important to emphasize that this h.aredi reevaluation of America did not involve a fundamental shift in their longstanding conception of the country as a spiritually impure or dangerous place. On the contrary, it is precisely among those H.aredim who argued that America would now play a key role in an unfolding eschatological drama that we find the most profound theological critique of the country. Whereas earlier h.aredi criticism focused on the crass materialism of American society, the laxity in observance among its Jewish population, or the “upside-down” nature of its Jewish communal structure in which ignoramuses could rise to positions of authority while Torah scholars were treated with disrespect, postwar h.asidic sources, in particular, drew on Lurianic kabbalistic traditions regarding the “uplifting of divine sparks” to argue that America was not only the last but also the lowest of exiles that would have to be redeemed before the arrival of the messiah. At the same time, h.aredi communities also came to appreciate the religious freedom and relatively low level of antisemitism in the United States, factors that inspired them to label the country a malkhus shel h.esed or “kingdom of grace.” In the postwar period, therefore, America came to be seen as the final, lowest exile but one that sometimes seemed so convivial to Jews that leaders from across the h.aredi world often had to remind their followers that they were still, indeed, living in golus. During the interwar period, h.aredi rabbis from Eastern Europe had benefitted from a clause in the immigration legislation passed in 1921 that allowed members of the clergy—as well as professional actors, singers, artists, nurses, professors, and other categories of professionals—to bypass immigration quotas and settle in the United States. Most of the rabbis who did so, despite the ongoing protestations of many h.aredi leaders that America should be avoided at all costs, were from Lita, including Moshe Soloveitchik (1929), Yaakov Ruderman (1930), Yitzh.aq Hutner (1931), Joseph Soloveitchik (1932), Moshe Feinstein (1937), Yaakov Kaminetzky (1937), and, soon after the outbreak of World War II, Aharon Kotler (1940).17 It is not surprising, therefore, that a

17 Jonathan Sarna and Zev Eleff, “The Immigration Clause that Transformed Orthodox Judaism in the United States,” American Jewish History 101 ( July 2017): 376.

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member of this transplanted Litvish (Lithuanian) rabbinic circle would publish what appears to be the first printed account of a European rabbinic leader—in this case, H.ayyim of Volozhin—prophesying that America would one day play a key eschatological role. Zev Eleff identified this account, published in 1937 by Rabbi Moshe Yoshor, a disciple of the H.afeiz. H.ayyim, as the first published version of a story that would be repeated frequently in subsequent decades by major figures within the yeshivah movement in the United States, including members of the Soloveitchik family and Rabbi Aharon Kotler. Regarding the creation of this literary-oral tradition, Eleff observed “Eventually, the legend emerged as the foundational myth for the so-called yeshivah world, the Orthodox Right in the United States. By myth, I  do not mean to pass judgement on whether Rabbi Hayim revealed such a prophecy in his lifetime. Rather I aim to highlight how this brief story supplied a ‘usable past’ for this Orthodox Jewish group.” In the face of longstanding opposition from rabbinic leaders like his own teacher, the H.afeiz. H.ayyim, Yoshor’s account provided a theological explanation or, even more strongly, justification, for the immigration of pious members of the Litvish community—himself included—to the United States, or as he put it (in Eleff ’s translation): It is regrettable that some of the great leaders refrained from legitimizing what Rabbi Hayim of Volozhin had predicted over a century ago: that America would become the center of Judaism and the Torah would find in America its host, the last stop along the ten exiles, according to the tradition. After it had already passed through these nations: Babylon, Africa, Egypt, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Poland, and Lithuania—America will be the last Torah center [before the Messiah]. By attributing this tradition to Rabbi H.ayyim of Volozhin, who, in 1802, founded the first modern yeshivah in Volozhin that would serve as the model for other yeshivot throughout Lita, Yoshor was legitimating the nascent Litvish h.aredi community in the United States in a powerful way. Textually, the account draws on a talmudic tradition that following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the “Shekhinah [Divine Presence] traveled ten journeys . . . and corresponding to them the Sanhedrin was exiled” (BT Rosh ha-Shanah 31a), except here the emphasis is on the exile of the Torah, befitting the emphasis on learning within the yeshivah movement. It is also possible that Yoshor may have been influenced by the Russian Jewish historian Simon Dubnow’s

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historiographical theory that Jews had established a succession of autonomous centers over the past two thousand years of exile, shifting from the land of Israel to Babylonia, Spain, Germany, Poland, Russia, and, finally, to two newly emerging centers in Palestine and America, respectively.18 As the story was told and retold by members of the Litvish community in the United States, they emphasized that Rabbi H.ayyim of Volozhin shed tears as he contemplated the terrible spiritual dangers that pious Jews would one day encounter in America. Over time, Eleff argued, the messianic dimension of the myth was downplayed and the focus shifted from America as a site of opportunity, despite its dangers, to nostalgia for an idealized past in Eastern Europe that was destroyed during the Holocaust or what he calls the “Europeanization of Rabbi Hayim’s Prophecy.”19 Nevertheless, as recently as 1989, when Rabbi Mordechai Gifter, then the rosh yeshivah (dean) of the Telz yeshivah in Cleveland, related the tale, its messianic character remained intact: I  keep telling this story: Reb Chaim Volozhiner once burst out crying: “The last station for Torah before the coming of Moshiach [messiah] will be the United States of America.” One of his great disciples asked him: “So why does the Rebbe cry? What is there to cry about?” His answer: “I see how bitter it will be to create this last station.” No one understood what he was talking about. When Hitler came along, we began to understand what Reb Chaim Volozhiner had in mind.20 Like their counterparts in the yeshivah world, the two largest h.asidic communities in the United States also produced a “usable past” that enabled them to make sense of their sojourn in America in eschatological terms. Before exploring these cases, however, it is important to mention another clearly related literary tradition that was included in a hagiographical book on H.ayyim of Sanz (1793–1876)—or the Divrei H.ayyim, as he was popularly known—that was published in Israel in 1976 by David Yosef Weisberg, a member of the Sanz h.asidic community there. Although it was not produced in the United States, this account offers up a similar “foundational myth” for the Bobov h.asidic community, which initially settled in Crown Heights following the Holocaust 18 See Koppel Pinson, ed., Nationalism and History: Essays on Old and New Judaism by Simon Dubnow (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia), 1958. 19 Eleff, “Rabbi Hayim of Volozhin,” 110. 20 Mordechai Gifter lecture at Oheb Zedek-Taylor Road Synagogue, October 1989, as quoted in Eleff, “Rabbi Hayim of Volozhin,” 113.

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and then decamped in the late 1960s to Borough Park, where they became one of the most dominant groups within the neighborhood. Like a number of other h.asidic dynasties, Bobov traces its lineage to H.ayyim of Sanz, whom Weisberg describes as predicting the final exile in America in terms strikingly reminiscent of the tradition associated with H.ayyim of Volozhin: The holy rabbi, the Rebbe Sinai, the Admor of Zmigród [1870– 1941], may the memory of the righteous be a blessing, related that once his holy grandfather, the Divrei H.ayyim, was standing during the qiddush [blessing of the wine] on the night of the holy Sabbath and he took the cup in his holy hand and became engrossed in deep meditation for a long time. He returned the cup to the table and remained lost in thought. Afterward, he opened his holy mouth and began to contemplate all of the periods of exile that the Jewish people had suffered until he arrived at the Spanish exile and said: “Now the years of the Spanish exile have come to an end and the years of the American exile are beginning and from the American exile will arrive the messiah . . .” And the rabbi of Zmigród concluded this matter and it was forgotten by the H.asidim and they did not speak of it at all.21 After Bobov abandoned its base in Crown Heights in 1968, the only h.asidic group left in the neighborhood was H.abad-Lubavitch, whose leaders had arrived from Europe in the early 1940s. Soon after, H.abad began to circulate a theological explanation for why their community and, indeed, so many Jews, in general, had settled in the United States. Like other h.aredi groups, members of H.abad drew inspiration from a story regarding the founder of their movement, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (1745–1813), who, they claimed, had foreseen the decisive eschatological role that America would eventually play. Eli Rubin, in particular, has explored the long history of this source within H.abad circles and its subsequent transformation into what might be termed a “usable past.”22 21 Yosef David Weisberg, Rabeinu ha-Qadosh mi-Z.anz: Ba’al “Divrei H.ayyim,” vol. 1 ( Jerusalem: Mifal Keset Shelomoh, 1976), 165–66. Hertzberg, “‘Treifene Medina,’” 28, n. 107, mentions this source. 22 Regarding Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s 1802 discourse, Eli Rubin (“Did Chabad’s Founder Envision an American Future?,” https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/5152145/jewish/ Did-Chabads-Founder-Envision-an-American-Future.htm) writes: “Retrospectively, this is revealed to be extraordinarily prescient. While Eastern Europe would remain the center of Jewish life for another one hundred and fifty years. . . . Between 1880 and 1924 some two million Eastern European Jews settled in the United States, and in the aftermath of

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As Rubin has documented, Rabbi Yosef Yitzh.aq Schneersohn (1880–1951), the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe also known as Rayaz., provided an eschatological interpretation of the source in a letter from 1933 to his son-in-law and future successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. First published in 1948, this interpretation would henceforth serve as the basis for H.abad’s theological understanding of America. In short, Rayaz. argued that although the Torah was revealed at Mt. Sinai in the “upper half of the globe,” its final revelation will take place in the “lower half of the globe,” that is, in the hemisphere where America is located, but only by means of mesirat nefesh or great commitment and effort. In the following decades, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson would build on his father-in-law’s teaching and transform America into the geographical and spiritual locus of his movement’s messianic mission.23 Just as the Shekhinah had experienced ten exiles according to the Talmud, Schneerson asserted in a discourse on 5 Tammuz ( July 8), 1989, that Lubavitch had experienced ten exiles and the final (most difficult) exile was coming to the exile of America. . . . [T]he arrival in the lower half of the globe was an exile within an exile—after all the exiles that Lubavitch experienced [from Lubavitch to Rostov, from Rostov to the exile in Petersburg, from Petersburg to the exile in Latvia, from Latvia to the exile in Poland, and from Poland, and so on to the exile of America] and it . . . is precisely there that the intension of the (giving) of the Torah is fulfilled, that it should arrive down below and make a dwelling for the divine in the lower realms.24 On another occasion, Schneerson explained,

the Holocaust it would emerge as the world’s largest center of Jewish life.” Also see Philip Wexler and Eli Rubin, “‘The Lower Half of the Globe’: Kabbalah and Social Analysis in the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Vision for Judaism’s American Era,” in Kabbalah in America: Ancient Lore in the New World, ed. Brian Ogren (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 292–315. 23 See, for example, “Matan Torah Comes to America: A Fabrengen,” May 25, 2021, https:// anash.org/matan-torah-comes-to-america/: “America, especially 80 years ago, was not only distant from Yiddishkeit due to its location. America had a unique kelipa; the state of Yiddishkeit was far worse than in the old country. So, the chiddush of our generation is that we, in the final stage before Moshiach, bring the Shechina into the lower hemisphere, both in concept and in location.” Also see Shalom Shapira, “Hofkhim et kadur ha-arez.,” Yediot America, January 7, 2016, https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4822831,00.html. 24 Qovez. Khaf H.et Sivan—Yovel Shanim (Brooklyn: Kehot Publication Society), 57 and 62, brackets in original. This work was published in 1991 in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson and his wife Chaya Mushka in the United States.

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According to the well-known principle of “descent for the sake of ascent,” since the migration to the lower half of the globe, “the exile to America,” constituted a very great descent . . . it is understood that the intention and telos therein is the ascent that it thereby achieved, culminating in incomparable ascent . . . to the point that the lower half of the globe has become the source for the dissemination of Torah and of Judaism, and the dissemination of the [h.asidic] wellsprings to the outside world, including the upper half of the globe.25 On multiple occasions, Schneerson emphasized that the influence of golus Amerika (the American exile) would even extend to the new nation state of Israel, despite its own claims to centrality. In 1951, for example, Schneerson told the sociologist Gershon (George) Kranzler, “American Jewry must recognize this sacred historical mission that Divine Providence has entrusted to it at this critical moment of our struggle for survival. . . . We must lead the smaller Jewish communities in other countries and continents, even in the land of Israel, which must lean heavily on American support for its economic and spiritual survival.”26 H.abad’s assertion of the special role of America supports Adam Ferziger’s broader argument that on multiple levels the evolution of Chabad into a global phenomenon can be understood as a creative counterresponse to the advent of the State of Israel. Not only did the rise of Schneerson to the helm in 1951 practically parallel the establishment of the State of Israel, much of his revolutionary approach may be seen as aimed at providing a spiritual alternative to the focus on territorial sovereignty and the secular redemptive possibilities that it naturally inspires.27

25 Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Liqutei Sih.ot, vol. 33 (Brooklyn: Kehot Publication Society, 1999), 275–8, as quoted in Wexler and Rubin, “‘The Lower Half of the Globe,’” 296–7. 26 Kfar Chabad Magazine 1406 (2012): 28–29, as quoted in Wexler and Rubin, “‘The Lower Half of the Globe,’” 297–8. The interview first appeared in Orthodox Jewish Life (September– October 1951). It was also reprinted in Yiddish (without attribution), in “Lubavitcher Rebbe: Mission of American Jewry is to Strengthen Yiddishkayt Everywhere, Including in Israel,” chapter 4 of Ascher Penn, Yidishkayt in Amerike (New York: Shulsinger Bros. Linotyping & Publishing Co., 1958), 64–6. 27 Adam Ferziger, “Israelization and Lived Religion: Conflicting Accounts of Contemporary Judaism,” Contemporary Jewry 40 (2020): 420.

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Rather than embracing “territorial sovereignty,” Schneerson argued that the history of the Jews in exile was marked by the creation of multiple “spiritual centers,” with America leading the way in the current moment. Schneerson’s formulation closely resembled—and may have been indebted to—Simon Dubnow’s historiographical theory, including the latter’s prescient assertion that “Our strength is great in this respect that in our war for liberation we have two positions, one in Europe and one in America. If Esau will fall upon one position we will receive him properly, but in the event of the worst possible extremity the second position will be left for Jacob and ‘the remnant camp will be able to escape.’”28 Similarly, in his 1951 interview with Kranzler, Schneerson declared: It is a mistake if we conceive of the worldwide dispersion of the Jewish people in exile as a catastrophe. As a matter of fact, this very lack of concentration of the remnants of our nation was the source for our salvation throughout the centuries of persecution and pogroms. Hitler was the greatest threat to our national survival because the largest concentration of the masses of Eastern and Central European Jewry had come into his evil grasp. On the other hand, however, concentration of large groups of our people in one country has been the means of creating the spiritual centers from which the rest of the Jewish colonies could draw their inspiration, leadership and material replenishment. Our history in exile is an unbroken chain of the emergence and disappearance of such centers in country after country, and from one corner of the earth to the next. As the Jewish sun set in one land, it had already begun to rise in another. . . . Now that the great centers of Eastern Europe have been destroyed by Fascism and Communism, America has become the focus and fountainhead of Jewish survival. Providence has prepared a new home for Torah and Yiddishkeit in this country, while the flames devoured the bastions of the strongest and most impregnable Jewish fortresses on the other side of the ocean.29

28 Simon Dubnow, Pinqas ha-Medinah (Berlin: Ayanot, 1925), xi, as quoted in Koppel Pinson, “The National Theories of Simon Dubnow,” Jewish Social Studies 10, no. 4 (October 1948): 348. 29 Wexler and Rubin, “‘The Lower Half of the Globe,’” 297–8.

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During the same postwar period that H.abad-Lubavitch was establishing Crown Heights as the center of its global mission, a few miles away in the North Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg, the Satmar h.asidic community was creating its own alternative to the state of Israel. The differences between H.abad and Satmar have often been emphasized, in part due to the heated, sometimes violent encounters between members of the two communities in the 1970s and 1980s. And yet, both groups understood America as the final exile where their respective leaders would help to usher in the messianic era. Like the other groups we have examined, Satmar, too, produced its own version of a “foundational myth,” in which the community’s founder and longtime leader, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum (1887–1979) is said to have anticipated his eventual journey to the United States when he was still in Hungary. “When I was a small child,” Teitelbaum recalled, “only a small child, I dreamed I was in America.”30 And, in another dream, Teitelbaum’s dead father, Rabbi H.ananyah Yom Tov Lipa Teitelbaum (1836–1904), informed him, “the time will come that you will need to travel to America.”31 It is important to stress that Satmar’s famously strident anti-Zionism can only be fully understood in light of its concomitant valorization of the exile. In Va-Yoel Moshe, Yoel Teitelbaum’s magnum opus, he depicted the exile in kabbalistic terms as a necessary and still uncompleted stage of existence that would culminate in the final redemption: “He (Adam) was exiled due to his sin but he also came to this world on a mission from God in order to repair the world. . . . We are also emissaries from the Holy One blessed be He to every place that we arrive outside of the land of Israel to repair these places according to the knowledge of the Creator.”32 The special role of America in this ongoing mission was explicated by Shlomo Yaakov Gelbman, a Satmar H.asid and historian of the community, who wrote, “the final exile before the redemption will be in the country of America. . . . the people of Israel have already suffered many exiles, and now the exile of America has arrived and from there they will receive the face of the messiah.”33

30 This tradition appears in a number of places, including, Sefer Z.adiq ke-Tamar Nifla’ot Maharit, part 3 (Brooklyn, S. Eisner, 1985), 17. For another discussion of the sources in this section, see Nathaniel Deutsch and Michael Casper, A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021), 24–29. 31 See, for example, Yoel Teitelbaum, Sefer Divrei Yoel: Mikhtavim, vol. 1 (Brooklyn, 1980), 107. 32 Yoel Teitelbaum, Va-Yoel Moshe (Brooklyn, 1961), 318, n. 112. 33 Shlomo Gelbman, Rez.on Z.adiq (Monroe, NY, 1998), 6. See also ibid., 7: “The Torah was exiled from place to place and before the coming of the messiah the Torah will arrive in America and from there the Jews will go on to receive the face of the messiah.”

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Similar to the other h.aredi sources we have examined, Gelbman situated America at the very end of Jewish—and world—history, a perspective from which the final redemption could be seen on the horizon: After the decree of exile and the children of Israel were compelled to be scattered among the lands of the gentiles . . . and so they wandered from Babylonia, to Spain, to France, to Germany, to Poland, until the days of the holy Besht [the founder of H.asidism] and his disciples. Now God . . . sent to America the Satmarer Rebbe, may his memory be for a blessing, and placed in his hands, thank God, the responsibility to purify the atmosphere, something that no one was able to do until now.34 Before Satmar arrived in the country, America represented a kind of spiritual nadir, a land full of danger and impurity for pious Jews but also, for that very reason, a place of profound spiritual opportunity: In our lowly generation, the Holy One Blessed be He planted our rabbi, may his memory be for a blessing, to purify spiritually this hard place, the soil of America, and prepare it as an appropriate place for tens of thousands of Jews in the final exile. And thus divine providence brought our holy rabbi to America so that through the might of his holiness he would make known His blessed divinity in this “land not sown.”35

34 Ibid., 2–3. 35 Ibid., 7. Here Gelbman is quoting from Jeremiah 2:2, “Go proclaim to Jerusalem: Thus said the Lord, ‘I accounted to your favor the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride. How you followed Me in the midbar [‘desert’ or ‘wilderness’] in a land not sown.” ( Jewish Publication Society translation). See also ibid., 9, “When the Torah was exiled from Europe to the United States, our rabbi established his holy tabernacle in the neighborhood of Williamsburg in the city of Brooklyn.”

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Five Dimensions of Dignity: Jonathan Sacks on Judaism and the Human Condition Dov Lerner

Introduction “The ultimate value we should be concerned to maximize is human dignity— the dignity of all human beings, equally, as children of the creative, redeeming God.”1 This sentence constitutes a central tenet and recurrent sentiment at the core of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s thought.2 Though his Dignity of Difference was the most controversial of his published works,3 and thus likely the most wellknown, in many ways it is not the dignity of difference but the difference of dignity that sits at the heart of his outlook. 1 Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations [New Revised Edition] (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2003), 195. 2 Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948–2020)—referred to going forward simply as Rabbi Sacks—was a world-renowned writer, speaker, broadcaster, and religious leader, whose life is the subject of a forthcoming biography by Professor Leslie Wagner in cooperation with Rabbi Sacks’s estate and the Rabbi Sacks Legacy Trust. 3 See Terri Judd, “Chief Rabbi Recants after ‘Heresy’ Claim,” The Independent (Independent Digital News and Media), September 26, 2002, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ home-news/chief-rabbi-recants-after-heresy-claim-178257.html, accessed July 6, 2022, and Stephen Bates, “Chief Rabbi Accused of Heresy over Book,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media), October 25, 2002, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/oct/26/religion. books, accessed July 6, 2022.

F i v e D i m e n s i o n s o f D i g n i t y : Jo n a t h a n S a c k s o n J u d a i s m a n d t h e H u m a n C o n d i t i o n

In almost every one of his more than thirty-five books, he stresses that the very notion of human dignity is a legacy of the revolution launched by early monotheists and cemented by revelation at Sinai—and not only that it can be traced to those moments,4 but that it is revelation’s most consequential bequest. In one instance he writes: “The discovery of human dignity is perhaps the single most transformative idea given to the world by Abrahamic monotheism,” and in another he says: To put it simply: by discovering God, our ancestors discovered man. For the first time a momentous concept began to take shape: the concept of the human person—every human person—as a being of unique dignity. It is not too much to say that in the words “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” were born all the great ethical and political concepts that have shaped Western civilization for the past thousand years . . .5 Defining ‘dignity’ can be complicated—as David Novak, among others, has pointed out in his essay “On Human Dignity”6—but for Rabbi Sacks it seems relatively simple, as he sees dignity as intimately tied to the feeling of freedom: [D]ignity is based on human freedom. From the outset, the Hebrew Bible speaks of a free God, not constrained by nature, who, creating man in his own image, grants him that same freedom, commanding him, not programming him, to do good. The entire biblical project, from beginning to end, is about how to honor that freedom in personal relationships, families, communities, and nations. Biblical morality is the morality of 4 See Sacks, Future Tense: Jews, Judaism, and Israel in the Twenty-First Century (United States:  Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group,  2012), 251: “The human person as such has inalienable dignity. Here is the birth of the biblical revolution, which did not materialize in the West until the seventeenth century with the articulation of the concept of human rights, meaning the rights we bear simply because we are human.” And, “No faith has endowed the human person with more dignity, seeing us all, whatever our faith or lack of it, as the image and likeness of God.” See also Jonathan Sacks, A Letter in the Scroll: Understanding Our Jewish Identity and Exploring the Legacy of the World’s Oldest Religion (New York: Free Press, 2000), 75: “Judaism was the first religion to insist upon the dignity of the person,” and ibid., 219: “It would be hard to find another people who, over time, have endowed the human individual with more dignity and responsibility.” 5 Sacks, The Power of Ideas: Words of Faith and Wisdom (London: John Murray Press, 2021). 6 Published in both The Quest for a Common Humanity: Human Dignity and Otherness in the Religious Traditions of the Mediterranean, ed. Katell Berthelot and Matthias Morgenstern (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2011), 271–88, and in David Novak: Natural Law and Revealed Torah, ed. Aaron W. Hughes and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 71–88.

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freedom, its politics are the politics of freedom, and its theology is the theology of freedom.7 So, it seems, for Rabbi Sacks, the foundation of human dignity is freedom; in fact, not two pages later he writes: “Life is choice. In that fact lies our dignity.”8 Elsewhere, in the same vein, he says, “We have dignity because we can choose,”9 and, “We reach our full dignity as human beings when our behavior flows from our own decisions rather than from threats of external force.”10 However, full dignity goes beyond freedom in the abstract, and resides in the concrete freedom to impact the material world: “God . . . gave man the intelligence to control nature. Therein lies his dignity.”11 Freedom, for Rabbi Sacks, is not simply a right to a response, but the presence of a responsibility where human beings are cast “as subjects not objects, the authors of our deeds and of our lives.”12 Dignity is more than the ability to form an autonomous attitude, but is intertwined inexorably with tangible activity—as he puts it: “each of us is a moral agent, and in this lies our unique dignity as human beings.”13 Following this, one can see how certain instantiations of political institutions can start to threaten human dignity if freedom—of any kind—is curtailed; and one can see how a spirit of scientific determinism can strip in theory what politics can steal in practice. As Rabbi Sacks notes, in reaction to the rise of a secular reductionism, “science must be accompanied by another voice”14—because, in his words: [I]f freedom is an illusion, then so is the human dignity based on that freedom. Science cannot but deconsecrate the human person, thereby opening the gate to a possible desecration.15

7 Sacks, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning  (London:  Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011), 124. 8 Ibid., 126. 9 Sacks, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times (London: Basic Books, 2020), 231. 10 Sacks, Faith in the Future (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997), 34. For Rabbi Sacks, this conviction emerges primarily in the realm of politics, where he suggests that “Judaism itself is predicated on the dignity of dissent,” see his Future Tense, 200. 11 Sacks, Faith in the Future, 213. 12 Dignity of Difference, 78. 13 Sacks, Letter in a Scroll, 227. 14 Sacks, The Great Partnership, 127. 15 Ibid., 124.

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But despite all this emphasis on choice, dignity seems to go a little deeper than simply serving as a synonym for freedom. Elsewhere, Rabbi Sacks suggests that it is tied not to any form of political liberty or conceptual theology but to a sense of personal inimitability—in his words: Our very dignity as persons is rooted in the fact that none of us—not even genetically identical twins—is exactly like any other.16 Freedom in all its forms, it seems, is only a single dimension—even if it is a central dimension—of the dignity that Rabbi Sacks sees us as called on to recognize and maximize, which requires us to further analyze its nature. If we are to combat threats to human dignity and heed an imperative to amplify or deepen that dignity, we need to know what exactly it means—and it seems, to me at least, that Rabbi Sacks offers us the chance to do precisely that in a series of chapters dealing with ethics in his seminal work, To Heal a Fractured World. *** To Heal a Fractured World is a work devoted to delineating and exploring the norms of a social order that “by honoring human dignity, becomes a home for [God’s] presence.”17 Following an introductory set of essays defending Judaism from the Marxist critique of religion, the book is divided into three parts, the first of which describes five of what Rabbi Sacks identifies as “Judaism’s key concepts of social ethics”18—z.edaqah, h.esed, qiddush hashem, tiqun ’olam, and ’areivut (which translate, roughly, as charity, kindness, sanctification of God’s name, improvement of the world, and bondedness). Collectively, these ethics speak to a range of economic, sociological, psychological, pedagogical, and political means for shaping others’ realities and—for Rabbi Sacks—emerge from rabbinic traditions’ keen appreciation of the meaning beneath biblical themes. And it seems to me that beneath these five key concepts, lie five corresponding needs at the core of the human condition that Rabbi Sacks sees Jewish tradition summoning its adherents to attend to and defend, and those needs are: independence, identity, faith, hope, and solidarity. The result of these chapters

16 The Dignity of Difference, 47. 17 Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility  (London:  Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007), 12. 18 Ibid., 14.

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is thus a pentangular conception of human dignity, which goes beyond the need to feel the freedom of choice and weaves its way into a series of feelings that find fullest expression in a more complex sense of self. We will outline each ethic with its corresponding need, and describe how they each combine to produce five dimensions of human dignity, starting with z.edaqah.

Capital and Independence Though z.edaqah is often rendered into English as ‘charity,’ Rabbi Sacks suggests that before an analysis of the ethic can commence, we need to return to the Hebrew term for a more accurate translation—which, for him, involves an amalgamation of two different, sometimes assumed to be mutually exclusive, concepts in the West: charity and justice. He spends a number of pages describing how acts of charity and justice seem to oppose each other—with the former defined as voluntary, a result of volitional generosity, and the latter as compulsory, a result of an objective and impartial equity. And through distinguishing between notions of material ‘possession’ and ‘ownership’—noting that, in his view, Judaism refuses to recognize absolute human ‘ownership’—he concludes that the closest equivalent concept in the West for z.edaqah is not ‘charity’ but ‘social-justice.’ In his words: In Judaism, because we are not owners of our property but guardians on God’s behalf, we are bound by the conditions of trusteeship, one of which is that we share part of what we have with others in need. What would be regarded as charity in other legal systems is, in Judaism, a strict requirement of the law and can, if necessary, be enforced by the courts.19 And based on this biblical vision of our material custodial position, Rabbi Sacks underscores that the scope of justice reaches far beyond the courts; for him, Judaism sees justice as broader than impartial treatment before the law, what he calls “retributive justice,” and applies to the structures of social order, what he calls “distributive justice,” as well. In his words: One can imagine a society which fastidiously observes the rule of law, and yet contains so much inequality that wealth is 19 Ibid., 32.

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concentrated into the hands of the few, and many are left without the most basic requirements of a dignified existence . . . There must be justice not only in how the law is applied, but also in how the means of existence . . . are distributed. That is tzedakah. It may sound like Rabbi Sacks sees Judaism as straightforwardly endorsing the equal distribution of wealth, but reading on it becomes clear that, for him, what is key for a just society is not the division of wealth per se but the equal distribution of human dignity. He goes to great pains to show how the rabbinic sages saw this value beneath the biblical regulations in an agricultural context and harnessed its values for a world with a different kind of economy—identifying three ways in which it is clear that the spirit and rules around z.edaqah are attuned more to each citizen’s respective dignity than their net-worth. First, he notes—citing several passages of midrash, which describe the agony of indigence—that the sages refused to romanticize destitution. Second, returning to the theme of his introductory essay refuting the Marxist critique of religion, he notes that the sages refused to see poverty, writ large, as inevitable or as an expression of providence—which would cast charity as an act of defiance against heaven, even heresy. In his words: “Judaism rejects the almost universal belief in antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages that hierarchy and divisions of class are written into the structure of society.”20 Third—and most centrally— the sages constructed a system of rules that exhibits an acute sensitivity to the psychology of poverty, in which “protecting dignity and avoiding humiliation were systematic elements of rabbinical law.”21 He notes the parameters around burial and public celebrations, the conventions around labor conditions and market regulations, and the law that even a person dependent on other’s resources must support the poor themselves. He says, in sum: Judaism represents a highly distinctive approach to the idea of equality, namely that it is best served not by equality of income or wealth, nor even opportunity. Nor is it sufficient that we each have equal standing before God at times of prayer, and before the law in cases of dispute. A society must ensure equal dignity . . . to each of its members.22

20 Ibid., 36. 21 Ibid., 38. 22 Ibid., 39.

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For Rabbi Sacks, in the context of the West, z.edaqah is a unique concept rooted in a revolutionary notion of material responsibility, carrying the central aim of looking beneath the issues of economic need and “restoring dignity and independence”23 to each citizen. The first dimension of human dignity is thus indeed tied to the feeling of freedom—the freedom to control one’s material destiny and contribute to the flourishing of society—and it can be maximized by means of financial capital, where the distribution of wealth is less about access to resources itself and more concerned with each citizen’s sense of independence.24 In fact, in The Dignity of Difference, a work more concerned with questions pertaining to modern markets and geopolitics, Rabbi Sacks explicitly notes that revelation does not concern itself with questions of concrete economic policies but with larger human values that ought to inform those in the business of legislating such policies, most fundamentally: “economic systems are to be judged by their impact on human dignity.”25 And on that basis he extends the vision beneath the ethic of z.edaqah to the collective plane, suggesting that, for example, foreign aid should be less focused on levelling global GDP and “the aim should be to restore dignity and independence to nations as well as individuals.”26 The first dimension of human dignity, for Rabbi Sacks, thus arises from a common need at the very core of the human condition, the need to feel a sense of control; and that need translates into his first ethic of Jewish responsibility— the responsibility to distribute capital as a means to imbue one’s peers with a sense of material independence.

Attention and Identity Rabbi Sacks opens his next chapter, “Love as Deed,” with an anecdote from Stephen Carter’s childhood,27 in which he describes the kindness of a stranger who gave him food upon moving into a new neighborhood. But what is key about that kindness, is that Carter did not need the food—it was not a want of material resources, or fiscal independence, that haunted him; it was the lack of

23 Ibid., 41. 24 See Sacks, Letter in a Scroll, 126: “The Judaic vision aims at a society in which there is equal access to dignity.” 25 Sacks, The Dignity of Difference, 17. 26 Ibid., 123. 27 Also cited in Stephen L. Carter, Civility (New York: HarperCollins, 1998).

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attention. And thus, Rabbi Sacks defines h.esed, his second ethic of responsibility, in a way that pertains to a different human need, which in turn we can be read as representing a second dimension of human dignity: the need for a sense of personal identity. If z.edaqah is about giving money to others to augment their independence, h.esed is about giving attention to others to deepen their identity. In Rabbi Sacks’s words: Tzedakah is a gift or loan of money, hessed is a gift of the person. It costs less and more: less because its gestures often cost little or nothing, more because it takes time and attention, existential generosity, the gift of self to self . . . There is something incomplete within the self that seeks completion in an other . . . Hessed is the redemption of solitude, the bridge we build across the ontological abyss between I and Thou.28 Traditionally, or at least colloquially, h.esed is understood to be a broad concept that includes z.edaqah, a catch-all term for generosity—but here Rabbi Sacks attunes us to the idea that h.esed is distinct from z.edaqah not only in its scope, but in its character; it is not simply a thinner or more inclusive notion, but an ethic that deals with a completely different means for a wholly different ends—with vast consequences for its practitioner. In his words: [Tzedakah] is and must be impersonal . . . The beauty of justice is that it belongs to a world of order constructed out of universal rules through which each of us stands equally before the law. Hessed, by contrast, is intrinsically personal. We cannot care for the sick, bring comfort to the distressed, or welcome a visitor impersonally. If we do so, it merely shows that we have not understood what these activities are. Justice demands disengagement . . . Hessed is an act of engagement. Justice is best administered without emotion. Hessed exists only in virtue of emotion, empathy, and sympathy . . .29 As Rabbi Sacks goes on to note, Jewish tradition considers anonymity a virtue in the context of z.edaqah, but anonymity undermines the power and

28 Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, 46. 29 Ibid., 51.

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defeats the purpose of h.esed—they are both part of the larger web of an ethics of responsibility but seek to address different needs and thus reflect different dimensions of human dignity. Though acts of both h.esed and z.edaqah seek to deepen the dignity of the human other, in many ways h.esed is the opposite of z.edaqah—the latter seeks to sever bonds of dependency, while the former seeks to build them; the latter seeks to shield their recipient with a cloak of invisibility, while the former aims to help the recipient feel seen. In his Dignity of Difference—addressing exactly how recognizing difference endows us all with dignity, Rabbi Sacks hints at our need for identity, saying that “Our very dignity as persons is rooted in the fact that none of us—not even genetically identical twins—is exactly like any other.”30 Dignity, as a concept, transcends the feeling of freedom or a sense of agency, and speaks to our need to feel singular and seen for who we are. In some ways, it echoes Rabbi Sacks’s claim that “Jews, though they lacked all else, never ceased to value education as a sacred task, endowing the individual with dignity and depth.”31 Imbuing others with that depth, for Rabbi Sacks, is what constitutes h.esed; it is an ethic that in fact impedes our feeling of independence for the sake of developing a sense of personal identity.

Demonstration and Meaning The following chapter, “Sanctifying the Name,” begins with an exchange between Rabbi Sacks and a lawyer who expressed misgivings about following a vocation in which he felt God to be remote: “I cannot see how, doing what I do, I  am performing a religious act.”32 Rabbi Sacks responded by suggesting that there is an ethic of responsibility—a ‘religious’ summons—that applies all the time, and in every context, no matter one’s vocation. That ethic is called qiddush hashem, ‘sanctifying the name,’ and the human need that it seeks to relieve is the hunger for meaning. The third dimension of human dignity that arises out of Rabbi Sacks’s ethics thus goes beyond the relatively terrestrial senses of independence and identity and reflects a more existential yearning. Where z.edaqah utilizes money to foster a feeling freedom, and h.esed uses attention to bolster a sense of self, qiddush hashem involves sharing no less than a life lived inspired by faith to attune an

30 Sacks, The Dignity of Difference, 47. See above, p. 297. 31 Sacks, Letter in a Scroll, 228. 32 Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, 59.

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observer to the effects of that faith. In Rabbi Sacks’ words: “What we are and do inevitably color people’s perception of faith and God, and to be a positive role-model is an essential element of Judaism. That is something we do or fail to do all the time.”33 In this chapter Rabbi Sacks transplants the practice of sanctifying God’s name from what we might call the interdimensional realm—in which a solitary soul reaches out to God—to the interpersonal realm of social-responsibility. For him, it is not an ethic primarily directed at heaven, but at humanity; it is not a demonstration of faith to prove a point to God, but an act of devotion to stir observers on earth. Rabbi Sacks outlines four disparate ways in which sanctifying God’s name appears across the canon of traditional Jewish texts—the demarcation of sacred space, the perception of God’s reputation, the practice of martyrdom, and exemplary public behavior—and suggests that their common thread lies at the center of the Jewish calling to draw others’ attention to heaven for the purpose of opening their minds to monotheistic faith, and thus bequeathing them the feeling of meaning that such faith implies. This is how Rabbi Sacks put it: The concept of ‘sanctifying the name’ introduces into ethics a simple but surprising principle. We are God’s ambassadors on Earth. The way we live affects how others see him . . . If we live well, becoming a blessing to others, we become witnesses to the transformative power of the divine presence . . . That is why ‘sanctifying the name’ is a metaprinciple of Judaism.34 There is a common misconception that Judaism is a non-proselytizing faith— and while it is true that, on the whole, Judaism does not charge its adherents to recruit more Jews,35 it is entirely the case that Judaism charges its adherents to, in some ways, disseminate faith in its deity. And, for Rabbi Sacks, this charge is not to quench God’s thirst for attention, but to invest human beings with a sense of meaning—as he details at great length in his book on science and religion, The Great Partnership.36

33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., 67. 35 For at least one of the rabbinic sages engaged in the theodicy of Jewish dispersion, recruiting more Jews is the very purpose of the diaspora (see BT Pesaḥim 87b, where Rabbi Elazar says “God dispersed Israel among the nations of the world only for the sake of increasing the number of converts”). 36 See especially chapters 4 (“Finding God”) and 14 (“Why God?”).

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Where the first two dimensions of human dignity speak to feelings of material independence and a sense of identity, this third component deepens the previous two by framing them within the context of existential meaning—where the money that I possess, and the attention that I receive, carries more significance when I  am moved by the example of a God-driven morality on display. To perform a qiddush hashem is, for Rabbi Sacks, “to bring God’s presence into the world by making others aware that God’s word sanctifies life.” 37 The third dimension of dignity is thus the feeling of a faith-inspired cosmic meaning.

Creed and Hope Rabbi Sacks’s next chapter, “Mending the World,” entails a shift from a more action oriented ethics—involving the gifting of money or attention or one’s example—to the dissemination of a particular creed and, by implication, the impact that its teaching can have on the dignity of the listener. For Rabbi Sacks, there seems to be a latent need in each human being to feel not only agency and identity and meaning, but the ability to move history forward—to feel a sense that we are not tragic figures trapped on a plane of shifting sand where the impact of our behavior dissipates over time without a trace, but in possession of an agency and an identity whose meaning deepens with the belief that we can shape the future. In short, Rabbi Sacks depicts the Jewish view of dignity as including the ability for each human being to feel ‘hope.’ And though Sacks does admit that this ethic is the least tangible—what he calls “the least halakhic”38—he roots its truth deep in Jewish tradition. In fact, in his Future Tense, he considers the idea of ‘hope’ to be the most central contribution of Jewish tradition to what he calls the human conversation. Overviewing what he sees as four pivotal innovations of Jewish thought—in theology, history, literature, and eschatology—he claims that “Jews gave the world . . . the idea of hope.”39 He notes, back in “Mending the World,” how the belief in an eventual redemption is embedded in Jewish tradition, both implicitly and explicitly, all across scripture and rabbinic tradition, but that the belief leaves, what he calls, “one of the most significant lacunae in Jewish thought”—how that eventual redemption is to come about. And as a result of this “gap in the basic structure

37 Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, 68. 38 Ibid., 72. 39 Sacks, Future Tense, 245.

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of Jewish thought,”40 sages through the ages have embraced mutually exclusive political ideologies in the name of that deep seated messianic hope. To both fill this gap and build his suggestion into his ethics of responsibility, Rabbi Sacks draws on the mystical theory of Lurianic Kabbalah, which he sees as injecting the eschatological project with a stable combination of human agency and patience. From this perspective, each religious deed functions as a concrete step toward the end of suffering, amounting to “a redemption of small steps, act by act, day by day”.41 And though Lurianic mysticism is concerned with curing a “metaphysical fracture, not poverty or disease,” sees as a metaphor for his brand of what we might call ‘terrestrial mysticism,’ in which every act of social care incrementally effects the eventual redemption—and teaching that creed bequeaths the pupil more than just agency, identity, and meaning, but the sense that: Our acts make a difference. They restore a lost order. They rescue fragments of divine light. They mend damage done by the evil men—even the imperfections that are part of creation itself . . . Out of broken fragments, it shapes a mosaic of hope . . .42 And this mosaic of hope “bestows religious dignity on those . . . who work to eliminate the evils of the world . . . an act at a time, a life at a time.”43

Citizenship and Solidarity In the last of the chapters that we are reading as comprising Rabbi Sacks’s five dimensions of dignity—“Like a Single Soul”—the focus moves beyond the self and to the assumption that we all share a deep need for a collective identity, and that Jewish tradition includes an ethic that summons its adherents to foster that identity in others. Rabbi Sacks outlines the “bond of collective responsibility”44 that many students of Judaism are familiar with, but adds that the history of the idea’s emergence is less well known. He describes the crises that resulted in an era of diaspora at the turn of first century—the destruction of the Second Temple 40 Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, 77. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid., 78. 43 Ibid., 82. 44 Ibid., 85.

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in Jerusalem and displacement of the Jewish population—and argues that in a “stunning leap of imagination,”45 the rabbinic sages “saved the Jewish people.”46 Just as the sages had adapted the biblical values around his first dimension of dignity—adjusting agricultural regulations to monetary policies that would maximize a needy individual’s independence—they saw the biblical text’s evident and unequivocal insistence that the Israelites share not only a common destiny but a bond of collective responsibility, and adapted it for an age where Jews no longer shared a body politic or even proximity. Rabbi Sacks notes the radical innovation of this national definition: No other nation had ever constituted itself in such a way. Lacking all the normal prerequisites of nationhood—territory, proximity, sovereignty—Jews remained even in exile a people, the world’s first global people, a ‘virtual’ community in the modern sense of a community constituted not in space but in the mind, held together by the invisible filaments of collective belonging, shared fate, and mutual responsibility.47 Part of the human enterprise, in Rabbi Sacks reading of Jewish tradition, is fostering a sense of collective identity—ideally as part of a physical polity with borders and laws and courts to enforce them, but virtually if need be. Collective responsibility, it would seem, is more than a matter of social expedience or keeping the peace, but a means of deepening our dignity and achieving a fuller humanity with a sense of existential solidarity. And this solidarity goes deeper than the bond produced by acts of h.esed, which is secondary to the aspiration of using that attention to bequeath the recipient a sense of identity. The meeting of minds or the linking of lives in moments of h.esed are personal but ephemeral and fleeting, all in service to the needs of the beneficiary; but in the context of this fifth dimension of human dignity, the sense of solidarity is perpetual and permanent, perhaps supra-personal. In The Dignity of Difference, Sacks writes:

Good deeds, caring relationships, a willingness to make sacrifices for values one did not construct oneself, belonging to

45 Ibid. 46 Ibid., 93. 47 Ibid., 92.

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a community dedicated to the pursuit of ideals. These are the values that give continuity and dignity to a life.48 For Rabbi Sacks, life is given dignity by—among other things—a sense of belonging to a community. To feel not only evanescent presences that produce a sense of identity through instances of authentic connection, but a stable, unwavering, imperishable bond within a group relieves each human being of the acute loneliness that can haunt anyone, even one enveloped in attention. In sum, this last dimension of dignity involves maximizing each person’s sense that they are part of a larger story—that no matter how independent they may be, they are never ever alone.

Conclusion We began this exploration by noting that dignity is the key for Rabbi Sacks’s vision of the moral enterprise—and that, for him, Jewish tradition summons its adherents to both maximize the dignity of others and inspire others to adopt the same aspiration, “moving us forward in the long, hard journey to universal human dignity.”49 Defining dignity, as Rabbi Sacks understood it, then become our quest, as the concept seems to operate differently in different contexts. Looking at five of the first chapters of To Heal a Fractured World, we have suggested that dignity, for Rabbi Sacks, can be seen as having five distinct dimensions aligned with five needs at the core of the human condition, which Jewish tradition impels its adherents to relieve through a series of five discrete ethical gestures under the respective umbrellas of: z.edaqah, h.esed, qiddush hashem, tiqqun ’olam, and ’areivut. By means of money, attention, example, creed, and citizenship, we can all deepen the dignity of fellow human beings by maximizing their sense of independence, personal identity, faith, hope, and solidarity. Rabbi Sacks once wrote of Judaism that “no faith has endowed the human person with more dignity,”50 and here we have attempted to unpack the components of that dignity which he identifies as “Jewry’s greatest contribution to the moral vocabulary of humankind.”51 With a blend of extreme freedom

48 Sacks, The Dignity of Difference, 81. 49 Ibid., 141. 50 Sacks, Future Tense, 251. 51 Ibid., 176.

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and enduring belonging, Rabbi Sacks calibrates the discordant forces of independence and reliance in a way that balances conflicting human needs and gives room for both a sense of private and messianic power, and the blessing of personal, cosmic, and collective company. The complexity of the human person comes to the fore as we outline a dignity that requires more than a single law but a system of ethical norms that drives each of us to give others space while embracing them. And it is this delicate balance which defined Dr. Michael Fishbane’s role as my guide and advisor. Not only has Dr. Fishbane’s work attuned us all to the depth and layers of human experience, harnessing exegetical sensitivities for the purpose of extending our sympathies, but his example bequeaths us the dignity of a deepened faith in humanity. At every stage of my studies, he gave me space while embracing me, he empowered me to pursue my research but remained ever present as a support and mentor. I am filled with gratitude for all his care and conclude this essay with a simple prayer: May you be blessed with many, many more years of good health and happiness, and may we all continue to be blessed by the fruits of your labor.

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The Forgetting of Isaac David N. Gottlieb The introduction (or, as some would describe it, intrusion) of personal reflection into scholarship—the abandonment by some of the ideal of objectivity in light of the relentless subjectivity and the epistemological fracturing of postmodern life— is a development not welcomed by all, and one that, if not engaged in with the proper care, would fail to do sufficient honor to the scholar, teacher, and mentor this volume celebrates.1 Nonetheless, Michael Fishbane’s conception of “bimodal consciousness” must here extend from the scholarly to the personal and back again. My scholarly focus has centered on the story of the Aqedah, the Binding of Isaac (Gen. 22:1–19), and on its formative influence on Jewish memory, but the mode of scholarly research and reflection is newly accompanied—contested by, compared to, refracted through—a violent physical assault I suffered in September 2021. That experience introduced a new and more visceral appreciation for Isaac’s narrative, and for memory as a very narrow bridge between trauma and recovery. It also made possible the practical application of insights from Michael Fishbane’s theology to the manifold challenges of physical, psychological, and spiritual recovery. As he notes, “[i]dolatry enters the psychic hollows opened by unnerving or new experience. When known reality or expected knowledge is delayed, formulations retained from prior strata of one’s life reemerge to allay

1 Ali Lara et al., “Affect and Subjectivity,” Subjectivity 10 (2017): 30–43. As the authors note, “[t]he concept of subjectivity has been tremendously important for the development of the social sciences and humanities since the second half of the twentieth century” (ibid., 30). The affective turn in scholarship involves not only “affecting subjectivity through an attention to matter, the non-conscious, and identity” writ large, but the scholar’s own subjectivity in developing a work of scholarship. This phenomenon is concisely indicated in the name of the journal cited here, which is a successor to The International Journal of Critical Psychology.

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anxiety.”2 The geological imagery of the psychic hollows and strata of experience caused me to square my own trauma with a reevaluation of my own theological habits and assumptions. The shock—the suddenness and randomness of the attack, and the unpredictable, almost random return of its sensations and related emotions over an extended period of time—threw me into a new encounter with Isaac, initiating an exploration of his post-Aqedah identity: an individual scarred but whole, possessed of agency but deeply attuned to the divine, and a figure who both tends to his father’s legacy and models a “mindful forgetting.” Although Isaac embraces the lifeways and follows the pathways of his father, he himself is in a sense forgotten, his narrative and his nature overwhelmed by the slaughter to which he was nearly submitted. I will here attempt a bimodal focus, applying Fishbane’s theological insights to the character of Isaac, and to personal experience, in ways that, it is hoped, will illuminate both. Memory can be said to overcome rupture through transformative repetition. The mimetic transformation of terror through reexperience woven with temporal distance and interpretive difference emerges as a strategy for covenant living directly from Isaac’s own larger narrative. The story of his life after the Aqedah is part of a chain of repetitions in the actions and life patterns of patriarchal narratives.3 The themes of deception, devotion, and humility combine with the embodied acts of pastoral and agricultural endeavor sustained by the digging of wells. This is related to the motif of the carving of stone as a means of unearthing the flow of divine compassion, and human-divine interdependence, so vividly depicted in Fishbane’s theology. In both the digging of wells and the carving of stone, bimodal expressions and interpretations of mutual obligation and care form a theologically coherent response to the experience of trauma. The mimetically transformed memory of trauma, reinterpreted through repetition, inculcates mindful forgetting. Isaac demonstrates mastery of this bimodal memory form. Forgetting as defined here is not the Bible’s forgetting—not the blotting out of Amalek—nor even the obverse of memory, as Yerushalmi defines it.4 It is, instead, an “acting out and working through” that is a sustained attempt to transform, over a lifetime and through generations, the physiological and psychological effects of the personal, cultural, and transgenerational experience

2 Michael Fishbane, Fragile Finitude (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), 115. 3 See Shaul Bar, The Passive Patriarch (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2020), 92–97. 4 Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1982), 5 and 108. Yerushalmi says “a people ‘forgets’ when the generation that now possesses the past does not convey it to the next, or when the latter rejects what it receives and does not pass it onward, which is to say the same thing” (ibid., 109).

The Forgetting of Isaac

of trauma.5 One example of this form of forgetting is the reading of the Aqedah in the daily liturgy: it is precisely through commemorative repetition that the Aqedah is mimetically transformed in the mind of the reader and reciter. Isaac’s binding is at once immortalized and routinized: enshrined in memory, implanted in consciousness, and thereby deprived of its hypnotic and traumatic power. The task of forgetting is never complete, but neither is one free to desist from it. The Aqedah remains a rupture, across which the canvas of traditional prayer is stretched. It is only through regular encounter that its terrifying and inscrutable power can be metabolized. This is to make the claim that, in an era suffering from a surfeit of data, there must be, contra Ricoeur, an art of forgetting, in which the wound becomes the furrow, and the rupture becomes the mouth of the well.6 Isaac’s life after the Aqedah, confined to roughly two chapters in biblical text, outlines the contours and demonstrates the power of just this kind of mindful forgetting. The mature Isaac is a person of power and plenty who makes peace with his adversaries, enabling him to draw plenty from the land with singular success. Crucially, this occurs on land once inhabited by his father Abraham. The mature Isaac, too, often dismissed as a shattered shell of a man, or as “the passive patriarch,” is himself the object of cultural forgetting, other than for what his experience has made possible for the Jewish people as a whole. Isaac prays to and is responded to by God, and, with his estranged brother Ishmael, he provides a proper burial for Abraham, their progenitor and the man who gave them each a lasting scar. As long as he remains in the land once inhabited by his father, he is assured of God’s beneficence (Gen. 26:3–5). His fate is an extension of his father’s, a fact of which God reminds him. To live within the confines of God’s blessing, then, Isaac must both remember and forget. In this most elemental of challenges, he is a singular success, a model for expressing love, promoting peace, and living in harmony with the created world. As patriarch, person, and human palimpsest, Isaac exists as one eternally bound within a narrative “where the elemental depths come to some

5 Dominick LaCapra, Writing History, Writing Trauma (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 23. 6 Although he never concisely defines what he means by forgetting, David Rieff suggests that only individuals remember; that collective memory is a political and social conceit; and that, while an individual cannot choose to forget, societies cannot choose to remember. What is suggested here, on the other hand, is that the choice to remember or forget, taken individually or collectively, can never be wholly successful but can be salutary in the way it shapes the experience and interpretation of what comes next. See David Rieff, In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 54–59.

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phenomenal perception.”7 Once tied upon this altar of imperiled existence, Isaac cannot escape it. The revealed heights and depths are part of his eternal present; his binding is an archetypal and transformative caesura in the ongoing flow of covenanted experience.

Rupture and Forgetting The increasingly well-documented relationship between trauma and memory, both individual and collective, begins with an inciting incident from which there results a cascading series of durable changes.8 From a social-theoretical perspective, the rupture is, by its very nature, a caesura—a sudden upheaval, an interruption to and separation from the customary and expected. William Sewell defines rupture as “a surprising break from routine practice,” resulting in “sequences of occurrences” that in turn lead to “transformation of [social] structures.”9 The rupture itself is not the crisis, but rather the inciting incident initiating the surprising break that then cascades into enduring and unpredictable change. This cascade of changes constitutes the crisis. A rupture stands out from the grain of common experience, rising above the smooth surface of expectations to alert one to the contingency of existence, and the upsurge of violence and injustice that can transform not merely individual but entire cultural orientations. A trauma reorients present experience around a past rupture—it is the caesura that inserts itself in every strophe of lived experience.10 Ruptures that force enduring change require some form of commemoration: a fixed moment on the calendar, a sacred space in individual or collective 7 Michael Fishbane, Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 34. 8 See William H. Sewell Jr., “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution at the Bastille,” Theory and Society 25, no. 6 (1996): 841–81. In the considerable literature on memory and trauma, the works that have been most extensively consulted for this paper include LaCapra, Writing History; Terrence Des Pres, The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976); and Cathy Carruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, repr. 2016). 9 Sewell, “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures,” 843. 10 “The traumatic moment becomes encoded in an abnormal form of memory, which breaks spontaneously into consciousness, both as flashbacks during waking states and as traumatic nightmares during sleep. Small, seemingly insignificant reminders can also evoke these memories, which often return with all the vividness and emotional force of the original event. Thus, even normally safe environments may come to feel dangerous, for the survivor can never be assured that she will not encounter some reminder of the trauma.” Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 37.

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memory, and a ritual of reenactment or reinterpretation. Yet precisely the act of repetition instantiates a form of forgetting, which begins with a routinization of the rupture and continues through the repetition of its commemorative ritual, and the infusion of meaning not into the rupture being commemorated, but into the commemoration itself. “The memorial becomes an aid to amnesia; the means stultify the end.”11 However, the form of forgetting articulated here, as enacted by Isaac, is salutary: intentional, theologically coherent, and culturally (re)constructive.12 The Aqedah, which emerges from a narrative motif found across cultures in the Ancient Near East, can be understood both as one person’s shattering experience and as a transcultural, transtemporal exercise in absorbing, commemorating, and forgetting traumatic experience. Forgetting here is fundamental to the healing process, a process that continues as the individual and her culture mutually and independently absorb new ruptures and contextualize them with new interpretations of the archetypal rupture. This pattern, as noted previously, both heightens and normalizes that archetype: after all, “one finds, in this world, a play of repetitions without original, where each variation is equally an original because it is equally a copy.”13 To forget precisely as a dialectical engagement with remembering recognizes and utilizes memory’s interpretive and repetitive characteristics to turn ruptures into mimetic acts of creation. In Isaac’s case, his near death at the hands of his father, and their enduring separation, is counteracted in the acts Isaac undertakes as a person harmonized with the natural world, who unblocks the flows of divine beneficence, here in the form of the wells dug by Abraham and blocked by his adversaries. The unstopping of wells is a spiritual and psychological as well as a physical process, beginning with newly dug wells, given anew their original names, and ending in a process of “strife” and “contention” and finally in “spaciousness”— the names Isaac gives to the wells he himself has discovered, the first two of which the Philistines contest, the last of which allows for a capacious new form of being (Gen. 26:17–22). In a Jungian paradigm, the digging of old wells is a burrowing into the collective unconscious and freeing the blocked flow of authentic being. In terms of the personal unconscious, however, the unstopped well can be understood as the act of claiming as one’s own the experiences,

11 Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979; repr. Boston: Shambhala, 2003), xi. 12 Avishai Margalit insists that forgetting cannot be an intentional act, but also that, like memory, it is an intention rather than a conclusion. See Margalit, The Ethics of Memory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 183–209. 13 Catherine Pickstock, Repetition and Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 33.

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orientations, and sufferings both imposed and inherited—the shadow whose exposure to light initiates the act of individuation.14

The Aqedah as Foundation Stone of Interpretive Autonomy The binding of Isaac story is that rupture, that rending of lived reality that demonstrates both the unfathomability of the divine and the power of interpretation to modulate its more violent effects. From this perspective, the Aqedah may be considered that rupture on which the radical interpretive creativity of rabbinic Judaism is constructed.15 Although it tells the story of a surprising break from the routine practice of the sacrifice of the firstborn, introducing a wound that leaves a scar in the patriarchal line of descent (even while allowing it to continue), the substitution of the ram for the favored son introduces the possibility that interpretive substitution in the act of sacrifice is a, perhaps even the divinely desired outcome. This act of hermeneutical substitution provides not only enduring atonement but enduring interpretive freedom. The backward glance at the things (or words) that commence the Aqedah narrative does not explicitly identify causality: that is, we are not told that God tested Abraham because of what came previously. Rather, it calls upon the reader simply to remember the site and the sequence of events—that time and space are the two sides of the rock into which rupture is carved, for it was after certain things were done (or said) that this story, this journey, took place at just this location. These initial words alert us to the “twofold dimension in reality”: the carving of a new tablet of being, graven into consciousness with the words “God tried Abraham” (Gen. 22:1).16

14 Carl G. Jung, The Integration of the Personality, trans. Stanley Dell (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1939). 15 See my Second Slayings: The Binding of Isaac and the Formation of Jewish Memory (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2019). Of the many works that affirm this view, the most notable are Omri Boehm, The Binding of Isaac: A Religious Model of Disobedience (New York: T&T Clark International, 2007); Aaron Koller, Unbinding Isaac: The Significance of the Akedah for Modern Jewish Thought (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press / Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2020); and Tika Frymer-Kensky, “Akeda: A View from the Bible,” in Beginning Anew: A Woman’s Companion to the High Holy Days, ed. Gail Twersky Reimer and Judith A. Kates (New York: Touchstone and Simon & Schuster, 1997). 16 Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 19.

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Reading to Forget The reader engages in numerous acts of substitution in the act of reading the narrative. As offeror, victim, and substitute, the reader accumulates interpretations: Abraham does what he must or what he believes he must; Isaac either cooperates or is naively innocent; the ram is placed in the thicket by God, having been fashioned during the original acts of Creation for just this purpose (M Avot 5:6), or is determined by Abraham and Abraham alone to be an acceptable substitute for his beloved son. Isaac’s submission to his fate—seen variously as unwitting or ennobled, naive or heroic—has been elevated as a metonym for martyrdom, the template for the heroism of the murdered millions of the Holocaust, and the self-sacrifice of the young women and men lost in battle in the Israeli War of Independence and in subsequent, less mythologized military conflicts. It has also been used to protest these same calls to duty. The resonances of the Aqedah, or the many martyrdoms resulting from its most severe interpretations, may live on in epigenetic traces and relived traumas.17 In Abraham’s substitution of the ram for Isaac, however, we see the redemptive force of a hermeneutical approach to rupture. That approach requires interpreting one’s way out of crisis. In Isaac’s life beyond the Aqedah, we have something more sustained and more complex: the purposeful forgetting that serves not as memory’s opposite but as its obverse. Here, the “forgetting of Isaac” indicates multiple un-memories: Isaac’s own lifelong challenge to overcome trauma and strife, to be sure, but also Jewish liturgy’s structured “forgetting” of the Aqedah, that is, its normalization through daily repetition; and third, how Isaac, the “forgotten patriarch,” more opaque and less heroic than either his father or his younger son, must be brought forward as a model of human integrity and recovery from the extremes of experience. Like the reader and her multiple perspectives, Isaac is neither entirely bound to nor freed from the narrative of victimhood. He must dig his way out.

17 See, for example, Eric J. Nestler, “Transgenerational Epigenetic Contributions to Stress Responses: Fact or Fiction?,” PLoS Biology14, no. 3 (2016), https://journals.plos.org/ plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002426. On the influence of the Aqedah on Israeli national identity, see esp. Yael S. Feldman, Glory and Agony: Isaac’s Sacrifice and National Narrative (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010).

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A Theological Orientation toward Mindful Forgetting Bringing Michael Fishbane’s hermeneutical theology to bear on Isaac’s life after the Aqedah, we can arrive at new perspectives—on the Aqedah narrative, on the power and significance of Isaac’s arc thereafter—to appreciate anew that form of forgetting that completes memory’s sacred tasks. Isaac models “a new mindfulness” by living at the “crossing point” of the everyday and elemental aspects of lived experience, punctuated as such points are by the “radical opening of awareness.”18 The radical opening must be scraped, cut, carved, channeled out of experience, so that in the future it may be read, interpreted, remembered, and mindfully forgotten. Isaac’s form of mindful forgetting is digging: a burrowing into hidden strata to find sacred sustenance, a hollowing out of space to permit a new flow. The act itself is mimetic: in Isaac’s case, a re-digging of his father’s wells (Gen. 26:15–22) can be said to be like a reconciliation of paternal and filial energies, through which Isaac develops and deploys the capacity for deriving new strengths from old sources. Settling into his father’s territory, but as a peacemaker and agriculturalist with a talent for finding water, Isaac both duplicates and transforms his father’s legacy, and his own in the process. Grievously wounded by his father on the altar, and circumcised at the age of eight days, Isaac is that figure whose doubled experience—marked by a cluster of repetitions in the Aqedah text—can be likened to the tablets carved by God (Ex. 32:15–16).19 As Fishbane notes, the texts on the two sides of these tablets interpenetrate each other to form an organic yet inexplicable whole: “[S]aid R. Ḥisdai, the great miracle of the tablets is that though the chiseling on the one side bore through to the other, and the same letter incisions were perceived differently from each side, both halves comprised the unified teaching of the Ten Commandments.”20 Isaac’s two sides—the shattered and the whole, the masculine and the feminine, the rememberer and the forgetter—interpenetrate and depend upon one another. The necessary and unitary completion of the carved tablet of consciousness is comprised of opposites that mutually sustain and complete each other, while nonetheless retaining a functional autonomy. In what way do these symbolic acts and similes suggest forgetting rather than remembering or forgiving? In their very bimodality, the digging and carving associated here with Isaac represent human openness to live on the terrain of the scar, and to work toward making whole, through purposeful repetition and

18 Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 33. 19 See, for example, Bereshit Rabbati 22:8, ed. Albeck, 90. 20 Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 182–83.

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reformulation, what can never be made whole. Isaac must remember where the wells of his father’s time are located. Even his father’s attempt at sacred murder becomes backgrounded. Forgiveness, for which, according to Jankélévitch, there must be “an event,” a “relation to an Other,” and a “gratuitous gift,” becomes both more possible and less relevant as Isaac’s retracing of Abraham’s patterns continues: the event is ever-present, as is the Other who initiated it. The gratuitous gift is the renewed flow of plenty that Isaac experiences.21 To this it might be added that Isaac encompasses, elevates, and integrates the feminine aspects of the human persona in this seemingly all-male drama. Indeed, Sarah Coakley takes this bivalence to its logical conclusion, identifying Isaac as an “honorary woman”: “Only Isaac,” she avers, “can represent the position of the modern and postmodern feminist woman, who, no longer and inevitably tied to the home (like Sarah), yet thrust into the world of patriarchy in a position of relative powerlessness . . . is yet further endangered by the false logic of a distorted, patriarchal sacrifice.”22

Isaac as Point of Crossing Like the carved tablets of Sinai, Isaac is a crossing point of the human and divine, of remembering and forgetting: legible from two whole, distinct, yet interdependent perspectives. The distinguishing features of one side of his bivalent being serve to complete and render comprehensible his other side as well. Isaac—as acted upon, delivered up, grievously harmed (even, in some versions of the ancient myth, slain), miraculously healed—exists forevermore at the electrified intersection of the alive and not-alive, the Schrödinger’s cat of the canon. He has glimpsed “aught grounded in naught; that is, a sense that the all-unfolding reality and being of existence, whose source is God, is ultimately effaced in the depths of God’s Godhood.”23 The “crossing” that occurs in the Aqedah is that of the very Aught and Naught of human and divine being and beyond-being. God periodically reaches across

21 See Russell Ford, “The Problem of Forgiveness: Jankélévitch, Deleuze, and Spinoza,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy 31, no. 3 (2017): 413. 22 Sarah Coakley, “In Defense of Sacrifice: Gender, Selfhood, and the Binding of Isaac,” in Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion, ed. Linda Martín Alcoff and John D. Caputo (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 24. 23 Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 36.

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this primordial vacuum to radically reorient the human-divine relationship.24 The rupture is the beginning of the remaking. From the very first words—“After these things,” or possibly “After these words” (Gen. 22:1)—we are made to understand that “the sense of rupture is all, and it seems as if primordial energies have burst from the depths and ripped the veil normally stretched over things.”25 On the altar at Moriah, we have not only an axis mundi but an axis temporis, a crossing point upon which all of space and time is concentrated into one act of near-murder, redeemed by one act of interpretation: Abraham’s substitution of the ram for his son. For some—perhaps for Isaac himself—the sense of Geworfenheit never ends. One midrashic theme depicts him as having been killed and resurrected with heavenly dew—upon which his father, duty bound to complete the commanded act, attempts to kill him again, thereby eliciting the second half of the double angelic call, “Abraham! Abraham!” (Gen. 22:11).26 On a psychological level, we can understand this as highlighting one aspect of a trauma: its repetitive resurfacing. Isaac, having once been killed, or nearly so, is always in danger of finding himself on the altar again, the knife poised above him. From a social-theoretical perspective, Isaac’s signal contribution is not as a victim but as a repairer of rupture, a rebuilder. Isaac’s capacity for emunah, for faithfulness—to his father’s sense of sanctified place, his mother’s capacity for love, and his own fidelity to his family and his God—turns his crossing point from a lifelong habit of mimetic repetition (one possible response to trauma)

24 See David Weiss Halivni, Breaking the Tablets: Jewish Theology After the Shoah (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 33. Halivni provides a kabbalistic interpretation in which the regeneration of the contraction of divine will, during which humanity is “brought to the summit of its moral freedom, to be exercised for good or evil—from the point at which there is only a minimal [amount] of intervention from Above, until the divine has reequalized the normal balance between humanity’s bounded freedom and the absolute freedom of God.” 25 Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 19. 26 Positioned almost exactly in the center of the nineteen verses of the Aqedah, the double call can be considered as not only an expression of urgency to get Abraham to desist from the slaughter (Pesiqta Rabbati 40), but an indication of the “twofold semantic aspect of the biblical text,” per Omri Boehm (The Binding of Isaac). Ibn Caspi holds that there are two levels to the Aqedah, one for simpler people, and a higher one for the “treasured individual.” This double axis, reflecting that the human being contains a spark of divinity but is made from dust and ashes, may require two angelic calls, one to reach each level of human consciousness. Further, Abraham, reflecting these divisions, has been placed by God at the axis of radical devotion and ethical revulsion. Indeed, this theme of duality, and the radical interpretive autonomy that springs from Abraham’s (unbidden) substitution of the ram for Isaac, will be reflected in the dynamic tension between the positive and negative commandments carved on the two sides of the tablets received at Sinai.

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into a model of resourcefulness and resilience.27 He is, in this respect, too, carved through on both sides: marked by near-martyrdom, but also inscribed for the blessing of numerous descendants (Gen. 26:3–5), and possessed of the ability to engage memory’s alternate mode, forgetting. This mindful forgetting is not an erasure: it is, rather, a form of transformation through interpretation, part of an endless process of interpreting experience. On Isaac, the texts of both judgment and mercy, the elemental and the everyday, are inscribed. The traumatized and the resilient aspects of his persona and his experience do not negate or contradict each other, but each serves to make the other more legible. Isaac’s forgetting is a form of self-recovery and self-removal.28 Less distinct a character than either Abraham or Jacob, he is invoked for what was done to him rather than the means by which and the extent to which he overcame it. This form of “the forgetting of Isaac” suggests that a new remembering of Isaac must begin here, with the carving of his two aspects, and with the redigging of his father’s wells. This approach may suggest a new “ethic of forgetting,” in which forgetting, like memory, is active, embodied, purposeful, and never complete. It begins with an act of hollowing out.

Rupture, Remembering, and Excavating In Genesis Rabbah 63:5, we read, regarding Isaac’s plea for Rebecca, of Isaac’s remarkable faculty for effectuating a carving away that permits new life, new flow. “Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren, and the Lord responded to his plea” (Gen. 25:21). Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish: R. Yohanan said that he poured out prayers in plenitude. Resh Lakish said he overturned the decree [of her infertility] on account of this . . . [like] a pitchfork that overturns a heap of grain. “On behalf of his wife” [or “opposite

27 The literature on trauma and repetition is vast and can be traced back to Freud’s work on sexual trauma and neurosis. See, for example, Paul L. Russell, MD, “Trauma, Repetition, and Affect,” Contemporary Psychoanalysis 42, no. 4 (2006): 601–20; Hildegard Adler, “Recall and Repetition of a Severe Childhood Trauma,” trans. D. Abbott, International Journal of Psychoanalysis 76, no. 5 (1995): 927–43. 28 Paul Ricoeur’s exploration of memory and forgiveness opens the possibility of such a mindful, constructive forgetting: “Could forgetting then no longer be in every respect an enemy of memory, and could memory have to negotiate with forgetting, groping to find the right measure in its balance with forgetting”? Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 413.

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his wife”]: This teaches that Isaac was bowed down here and [Rebekah] was bowed down there. And he said, “Master of the Universe, all the children you give me will be from this righteous woman.” So, too, she said thus: “All of the children that you in the future give to me will be from this righteous man . . .” Rabbi Yudan said in the name of R. Shimon b. Lakish, “She did not have the hollow of the womb. And the Holy One, Blessed Be He, scooped it out and created the hollow of the womb.”29 The midrash concludes with a mashal, a parable that speaks to the essence of Isaac’s lifelong process of spiritual excavation: “R. Levi said: This is likened to the son of kings who was tunneling to his father to take a liter of gold, and his father was tunneling from inside while the son was tunneling from outside.” The mutual hollowing out pursued by father and son, so that a precious possession may be transferred, summons a host of images: of God and Isaac both effectuating Rebecca”s pregnancy; of Abraham and Isaac working mutually toward the bestowal of inheritance and legacy; even, it may be said, of the scholar and his student. Here, too, one may perceive Isaac as the Great Excavator, whose pleas (‫)יעתר‬, like a pitchfork (‫)עתר‬, overturn the decree of the Creator of space and spaciousness and enable Isaac to build great wealth (‫עשר‬/‫)עתר‬. The one who can dig, carve, and overturn inherits a hidden bounty.

The Altar of Experience On the altar of experience, the Binding of Isaac becomes a “binding of oneself to all the specific names and contexts in our world, disclosed in the vastness of God’s effectivity, insofar as we can be aware of it.”30 This may mean that torah kelulah (the entirety of Torah) encompasses the Torah of being bound—confined, against one’s will, offered up, despite one’s resistance; rendered less than whole, despite the wholeness of experience—as well as being freed. In other words, to be human is to be bound: to others, to one’s geworfen self (with all its attributes and limitations), and to suffering, an ineluctable element of living. The essential experience of violence, of violation, under the sign of covenant living, is that of being carved. One is, in multiple senses, rendered. The handing over, the sense of the delivery of a verdict or sentence; the yielding, the melting

29 I am grateful to Rabbi Mordechai Silverstein for assisting me with this translation. 30 Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 73.

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down, rends the uniform surface of experience. An apophatic experience of alienation from the divine makes urgent the task of constructing a new hermeneutical basis for living. There can of course be no return to its previous, Edenic evenness. The crossing point of the experience of violence not only binds but blinds: the realms of heaven and earth grind together, leaving the crushed and the carved—new shards and pools of experience, new texts carved through both sides of human consciousness.31 In more-concrete terms, to watch one’s own blood pooling beneath one brings heaven and earth together with a percussive shriek. There is no substitute: one’s full, embodied self is the offering. The memory is carved in, and the battle for balance with forgetting is engaged, even before the ambulance arrives. Forgetting, like healing, nonetheless exists under the sign of the scar. The task of hermeneutical reorientation begins with the encounter with healers: the horror of onlookers making plain the damage done, even before one’s nerves can begin to exclaim. It continues as one sits in the emergency room, surrounded by others who have been offered up on the altar of experience. Upon almost everyone, the psychic wound is already beginning to scar over. The eyes radiate recognition, communicate pain and compassion. The attempt to square experience with ideals, and memories with events, is taken up. Eventually, the roaring tunnel of the CT scanner births one back into the experience of assault, and coughs one up on the shore of the industrial indifference of mechanized healing. The next day—or the day after, perhaps? One can no longer be sure, as time lunges backwards at irregular intervals—the sewing back together of one’s eyelid causes one to momentarily forget the chorus of other afflictions: the howling of orbital fractures, the contusions, and black eyes, and the suddenly resurgent sound of blows resonating inside one’s skull, are all drowned out by the gentle, carving whisper of the thread piercing and being pulled through one’s own flesh. And now one must unstop the wells and dig toward the Other. Nothing is left but to harmonize the stitching back together of one’s own flesh with the archetypal text of violence and recovery. Every trauma is a breaking open, but just here theological insight, too, can help reset the bones. One cannot be spirited off to heaven to recover, but one can nonetheless reorient oneself through the “[c]anonical memories [that] condition cultural identity through their ongoing

31 Isaac’s blindness late in life is said by the rabbis to have been caused by angelic tears falling into his eyes as he lay on the altar. See, for example, Genesis Rabbah 56:5 and 65:10; Rashi on Gen. 27:1.

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ritual enactments.”32 Carved in both blessing and suffering, the victim must repeatedly ask: What am I bidden to remember, and what to forget? The choice one has is all in the hollowing out of space (in which healing, prayer, reflection, fury, and forgetting take place), the parsing of commandments carved into two sides of the stone of experience. In Fishbane’s formulation, one must enter a modality of mental mimesis in which the individual reformulates an earlier event that comes to mind, intentionally or otherwise. This act might even be deemed an archaeology of experience—both because it retrieves prior strata of memory and because it sorts these deposits into a new order. What, then, is the situation when memories derive from ancient historical narratives—stylized and embedded in literary cycles, and mediated by later historical experiences? The challenge is how to appropriate these accounts for one’s personal development and spiritual life.33 For this endeavor, Isaac is always already burrowing toward the wounded, hollowing out space for new life, new interpretations; like a pitchfork, turning over grains of experience to reveal new points of crossing. Just as “the axial point is both within and without”, so Isaac, the human tablet of remembering and forgetting, can ever serve as a psychological and cultural crossing point; as both sides of the tablets from Sinai constitute an “interpenetration of realities,” Isaac models the interpenetration of remembering and forgetting.34 This lesson, drawn from Michael Fishbane’s theology, scholarship, and teaching, is etched into my work, and my recovery.

32 Fishbane, Fragile Finitude, 107. 33 Ibid., 108. 34 Ibid., 122, 136.

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Pedagogies of PaRDeS: Michael Fishbane’s Jewish Hermeneutical Theology as a Vision of Contemporary Spiritual Education Daniel Marom

In 1925, Martin Buber addressed the Third International Educational Conference of the New Education Fellowship (NEF) at the University of Heidelberg. The NEF was founded in 1921 by educators dedicated to the ideals of progressive education. Although it embraced a wide range of philosophies, its central focus was on civic and economic advancement through emphases on “child-centered education, social reform through education, democracy, world citizenship, international understanding and the promulgation of world peace.”1 NEF organized its international conferences around themes on its agenda. They drew large audiences of professionals, administrators, and academics working in education and lay people who had an interest in changing education worldwide in line with NEF values. The topic chosen for the 1927 conference was “The Development of the Creative Powers of the Child.”

1 The NEF continues today as the World Education Fellowship and its website provides a short description of its history, https://wef-international.org/about.

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Buber’s I and Thou had just been published and its main argument entered the heterogeneous discourse of the NEF. Consequently, it made sense that when it decided to convene its third conference in Heidelberg, not far from Buber’s home at the time in Heppenheim, he was invited to contribute.2 Buber delivered his address in German. Surprisingly, right from the very opening, he warned his audience that he had problems with the conference topic. In what followed, he deeply criticized the ideal of child-centeredness and its corresponding emphasis on the development of that child’s creative powers. Keeping with his dialogical philosophy, he saw danger in focusing on the learner as an “originator.” Buber’s concern was that the overemphasis on the learner’s internally developed creativity would be at the expense of his or her capacity to receive and benefit from inputs from the external world. In addition, he was concerned that such learning would generate “a new human most painful solitariness which would be the most painful of all.”3 All in all, he believed that the focus on unleashing the child’s creative powers would disempower the child being able to make deeper connections and engage in authentic mutual relations with others and with the world at large: The child, in putting things together, learns much that he can learn in no other way. In making some thing he gets to know its possibility, its origin and structure and connections, in a way that he cannot learn by observation. But there is something else that is not learned in this way, and that is the viaticum of life. The being of the world as an object is learned from within, but not its being a subject, its saying of I and Thou. What teaches us the saying of Thou is not the originative instinct but the instinct for communion [my emphasis—DM]. This instinct is something greater than the believers in the “libido” realize: it is the longing for the world to become present to us as a person, which goes out to us as we to it, which chooses and recognizes us as we do it, which is confirmed in us as we in it.4 Almost a hundred years later, Buber’s criticism resounds more powerfully than when he originally voiced it. As modern and post-modern trends emphasize the individual’s construction of self and his or her choice of “lifestyle,” societies and 2 Kevin J. Brehony, “A New Education for a New Era: The Contribution of the Conferences of the New Education Fellowship to the Disciplinary Field of Education, 1921–1938,” Paedagogica Historica 40(2004): 5–6, 733–55. 3 Martin Buber, “Education,” in his Between Man and Man (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 87. 4 Ibid., 87–8.

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communities that seek to transmit their spiritual and cultural traditions have increasingly lost their capacity to do so in educational interactions.5 Popular constructivist approaches to teaching and learning based exclusively on cognitive learning science have exacerbated this dynamic by narrowing education to a rational-technological activity aimed at enhancing learners’ economic and social standing. And demands made by technological advancement and digital culture on learners have so deeply impinged on their capacities to live a life of dialogue and communion that their very ability to participate in conversation and feel empathy towards others has significantly eroded.6 In reaction to these developments, societies and communities often find themselves adopting a defensive apologetic educational approach that imposes reified versions of their spiritual and cultural traditions on their learners from the earliest ages, obliging them to uncritically adopt faith-assumptions and group allegiances. This is an approach that is equally in danger of undermining a learner’s being in the world as a subject. Paradoxically, it can also estrange learners from the very society or community that seeks their affirmation and belonging. In these conditions, even a powerful rearticulation of Buber’s critique in contemporary voice is insufficient. What is required is no less than for societies and communities to engage in a profound revision of their spiritual and cultural traditions in terms that restore their primal depth and breadth far beyond what is currently offered by systems of schooling, lower and higher. Correspondingly, they must develop pedagogical modes through which they can lovingly and honestly transmit these substantive and significant spiritual and cultural resources to learners as viable compelling resources for meaningful living.7 Michael Fishbane’s theological ideas provide the basis for the development of such an endeavor. First articulated in Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology and further refined and extended in Fragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical

5 See, for example, Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1991). 6 See, for example, Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic Books, 2011); and idem, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age (New York: Penguin Books, 2015). 7 I have made this argument in “Who’s Afraid of Horace Kallen: Cultural Pluralism and Jewish Education,” Studies in Jewish Education 12 (2008/2009): 283–337, esp. 320–8. See also Anthony S. Bryk et  al., Catholic Schools and the Common Good (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

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Theology,8 these ideas offer Jewish educators aims, content, and means to draw upon Jewish tradition in bolstering and galvanizing contemporary learners’ spiritual and cultural growth and capacities for dialogue and communion. I daresay that to the degree that Jewish education can adopt and employ these ideas, it might serve as an inspiration and model not only for other societies and communities that seek to offer learners the spiritual and cultural wealth and wisdom of their traditions, but for education at large.9 While Fishbane’s offering is inspired, among others, by Buber’s ideas and critiques, he goes beyond Buber in emphasizing language itself as the framework within spiritual and cultural growth can be nurtured in our time. His emphasis on this most fundamental aspect of human existence is in keeping with his larger effort to articulate a living and honest theology that can speak to us in our in a postmodern world by grounding it in the inescapable concrete realities of our everyday lives. If, as he puts it, to be meaningful today theology must concentrate on “paying closest attention to the concrete realities of our lives” and “rethinking how we constitute our daily existence through thought or action”10—then focusing on language is foundational. To be sure, as Fishbane himself claims, spirituality is generated in a sphere of primal human experience that precedes and transcends language. By way of extension, this claim precludes and absolves any educational undertaking from aiming to form ex nihilo the spiritual lives of learners. Education will never be capable of more than encouraging and equipping learners to transform their perception of elementariness as derived from caesural experiences of rupture and revision11 into a sustained way of life and thought12 and reinforcing the continuing effort to do so with the resources of a particular spiritual or cultural tradition.13 Yet, in addressing this educational task, Fishbane appeals to a whole gamut of language experiences, including appellation, derivation of symbolic meaning, speech and speech acts, language events (including silence),

8 Michael Fishbane, Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008); and idem, Fragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021). 9 Daniel Marom, “Educational Implications of Michael Fishbane’s Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology,” Journal of Jewish Education 74 (2008): 1 and 29–51; idem, “Thoughts on Michael Fishbane’s Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology and the Education of Rabbis,” Conservative Judaism 62 (2011): 3–4 and 170–82. 10 Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 13. 11 Ibid., 18–23. 12 Ibid., 33. 13 Ibid., 39–45.

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hermeneutical interpretation and world-orientation, and meta-linguistic consciousness. I would like to focus on contributions that Fishbane’s ideas on the practice of Jewish reading can provide to spiritual education today. Though he devotes much thought to other religious practices and forms of attention, thought and living theology, Fishbane grants Jewish reading centrality in his theology and devotes the whole of his second volume to this topic. In addition, in his JPS Bible Commentary series volume on the Song of Songs, he developed an exemplar for the kind of textbook compilation that can facilitate an education in Jewish reading based on his ideas.14 Fishbane’s ideas on Jewish reading posit a shared textual canon as a basis for spiritual learning. Reading the texts in the canon makes it possible to engage in the fourfold hermeneutical methodologies of PaRDeS that he reframes and offers as theological-existential orientations to the world. These methods are peshat (plain sense, or contextual, lexical level of textual meaning), derash (exegetical sense, or rabbinic reformulation), remez (allegorical sense, or the philosophical and spiritual-ethical levels found in Scripture), and sod (mystical sense, or the supernal signs and symbols encoded within Scripture).15 The requirement of a shared cannon as a basis for reading faces considerable challenges. The politics of canonization in many modern societies have become so challenging that the capacity to base educational activities upon them has all but imploded. Moreover, given the growingly pervasive assumption that a plain sense of text exists only in the reader’s subjective understanding, the a priori suspicion of spiritual elders as aiming to narrow the learner’s world and freedom, and that learners’ capacities for engagement in spoken conversation are on the decline, it is very difficult if not impossible to engage learners in any society or community in lively discourse on the meaning of shared canonical texts with their educators and peers. It is significant that, despite these glaring difficulties, Fishbane’s emphasis on the spirituality of language actually liberates educators from the precondition of having to bring learners to erudition in the shared canon before moving on to more advanced modes of reading. Instead, it enables them to nurture learners’ spiritual lives through a panoply of modes of reading at any and every moment. To the degree that the impact of such nurturing expands and accumulates, it will bring the learner to engage in the shared canon according

14 Michael Fishbane, The JPS Bible Commentary: Song of Songs (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2015). 15 Fishbane, Fragile Finitude, 18.

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to fourfold modes of hermeneutical interpretation throughout the rest of his or her life—but that too is only a means to a greater purpose than erudition and mastery alone. Just as spiritual life as Fishbane describes it begins with primal experience beyond language and culture, so too does it play itself out in life in the world beyond them. It is true that Jewish education offers spiritual education through reading in our time a ripe point of departure by simply having in place the conditions in which educators can legitimately and freely discuss texts from a shared communal canon with their learners. Yet, educators working with Fishbane’s ideas must forfeit on literacy in the Jewish canon as the be all and end all of their teaching. They must also release their learners from the expectation that they adapt their thought and language to those of the shared canon or that they taper their behavior to specific ethical dictates or ritual behaviors presented therein. And they must also forgo on requiring learners to subjugate their “I” to the “we” of the Jewish community that seeks to engage them in learning and discussion around its canon as if their belonging was conditioned upon their doing so. Instead, a central purpose of Jewish education based on Fishbane’s hermeneutical theology is to nurture learners’ spiritual growth through the impact reading can have on their experience and use of language in deriving meaning and crafting their interactions with the world. According to Fishbane, for that purpose its working assumption must be that the four hermeneutical modes that comprise PaRDeS may make a combined and compelling impression on any reader at any given moment. Similarly, each one of these modes may independently do so with reference to any given verse, phrase or even word and then connect to the others in a non-linear path of integration and crystallization. All that is necessary to enable learners to engage in reading as a spiritual experience is their readiness to hear the voice of a text as “an invitation to read the world in a particular way.”16 Jewish educators must trust in the spiritual potential of this kind of reading without having to recruit external incentives, to enable it to make its impact on a level at which it authentically can do so. To generate such readiness, Fishbane assumes that they themselves must achieve advanced stages in the very process of learning in which they seek to engage and support their learners. They must bring themselves to the encounter with learners as “living exemplars of drawing upon cultural resources” who have already engaged themselves in the experience of reading the shared Jewish canon at all four levels of PaRDeS to the point at which they read the world via each of them. They must bring their reading with 16 Interview with Michael Fishbane in Jerusalem, April 19, 2020.

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them to their living interactions with learners and aim to serve as “midwives for cultural embeddedness.”17 In doing so, educators must not aim to serve as a replacement for the texts of the shared canon, as if learners’ clinging to their living personality—however spiritually charismatic or emblematic of the tradition it may be—is the desired outcome of spiritual reading. The role of Jewish educators as Fishbane conceives of it is to serve as conduits between the wisdom of ancestral spiritual masters who previously encountered the mysteries and challenges of existence and we who today encounter the same mysteries and challenges and seek out their meaning and implication for our lives. These educators speak in a “theological voice” by extending the invitation to learners to “come read the world” through the texts of the shared canon and to “come read the text” through their primal experiences of the world. Every living moment is an invitation to “focus consciousness on every detail” of existence and interpret it as a Torah shebe’al peh—an “oral Torah” that interprets the Torah shebi-khtav or written Torah in light of the Torah kelulah or “Teaching of All-in-All.”18 Similarly, the educator’s assumption must be that the learner is not a passive and obliged repository for authoritative interpretations leading to this or that way of believing, belonging, or behaving. “You are making the choices,” is what this educator must relate to the learner, “and you should have many different teachers offering possible interpretations for you to choose from.”19 What the tradition offers is one particular path to the universal realm of spirituality. All paths to the universal are particular; no singular path is the exclusive or the superior one. I would suggest that a ripe entry point to the hermeneutical theological world that Fishbane offers contemporary Jewish educators is remez. Remez approaches local verbal signs in scriptural texts as “hints” (the literal meaning of the Hebrew term) of eternal philosophical and spiritual truths. Here, “the task of reading is to draw the correlation between the surface level of the text (a word, a phrase, even an entire passage) and its deeper sense (an idea or a pattern of truths).”20 As such, “the exegetical mystery of remez lies in its assumption that truth lies beyond appearances, and that meaning is more than meets the eye. So viewed, truth is always a spiritual insight.”21

17 Ibid. 18 See Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 61–64. 19 See n. 16. 20 Ibid., 87. 21 Ibid.

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Importantly, Fishbane distinguishes between remez as it was played out in the medieval world and how it must be played out today. In the past, it was focused on the purification of physical desires and the training of the intellect in the service of a given set of philosophical ethical ideals. “The modus operandi was an allegorical rereading of Scripture to specify these concerns and cultivate the self (physically and cognitively) toward that end.”22 As such the hermeneutical circle of remez was a closed and self-confirming one. “One simply has to know what to look for and how.23” Fishbane argues for the lasting value of the medieval approach,24 but focusses on the articulation of a modern mode of remez in which an open universe is assumed and the search is for truths that can only be discovered through it: It requires attentiveness to the mysteries of existence, and the complex ethical issues involved. Under the impact of modern physics, we no longer feel located within a hyperstructured or closed universe, and must adjust our epistemic coordinates to the vastness of an expanding pluriverse that does not guarantee certainty of judgement. We now consider virtues in nonformal terms, as dynamic valences of the inner life, where the self is not an ideal abstraction but a concrete actor, subject to numerous intersecting realities. Hence a contemporary “hermeneutics of the self ” that uses episodes in scripture must integrate these considerations. Our canonical sources constitute an archaeology of the cultural imagination. Hermeneutics is a means for “sounding” these depths.25 This contemporary interpretative mode of remez therefore approaches every word, phrase, or passage in the shared canon as a portal to general spiritual truths rather than as funnel to specific ones. A resonance that emerges from a word, phrase, or passage in its local scriptural context hints at a meaning that applies to all time and place, thereby enabling the learner who is attuned to it to then move with it in that direction to wherever it takes him or her. By doing so, he or she will begin to discover a hidden spiritual realm that encompasses all his or her existence.

22 Fishbane, Fragile Finitude, 104–105. 23 Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 87. 24 See ibid., 87–91. 25 Fishbane, Fragile Finitude, 105.

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The pedagogy of remez focuses on the initial opening of the portals to general spiritual truths rather than on contextual meanings in the original source or cumulative and systematic expansions. Having gone through these portals, the learner may start to map the hidden spiritual realm by making connections between the various ideas and insights he or she has revealed. This effort can facilitate progression from remez to the other modes of interpretation that comprise PaRDeS in the continued reading of the shared texts of the canon. In a reflection on the pedagogical vision that flows from his theology, Fishbane points to the cultural Zionist poet, thinker, and educator H.aim Nah.man Bialik as a prime exemplification of the “hermeneutic self ” that his implied pedagogy seeks to cultivate—“that is, a person who lives in an interpreted world of language and its multiform cultural traditions.”26 Elsewhere, I have described Bialik’s enactment of this self by focusing on his pedagogical approach to Hebrew education at the level of the spiritual and cultural induction of early childhood learners. My description analyzes Bialik’s widely sung children’s poem Nadnedah (Teeter-Totter) as a rendering of his educational theory regarding this induction.27 Basing myself on that theory, I worked with educators in developing and launching a curricular demonstration of its contemporary application in over forty Israeli kindergartens, entitled Milat ha-Shavu‘a (Word of the week).28 I believe that this curriculum points to a possible pedagogy of remez for our time. While it is not a curriculum in Bible, Milat ha-Shavu‘a posits learning units on specific Hebrew words from the Bible as a basis upon which a spiritual affinity to the text and to the world can be cultivated in the very process of speech development in early childhood. At the same time, by virtue of the cumulative impact of learning these units, one of this curriculum’s aims is to motivate learners to positively approach continued reading of the Hebrew Bible. Inspired by the Jewish ritual of reciting and learning weekly portions of the Hebrew Bible in synagogues and homes, the curriculum extends to toddlers and preschoolers as well as their educators and parents a cultural invitation to participate in the ongoing process of reading and discussing texts in the shared

26 Fishbane first presented these ideas in the 2016 Seymour Fox Memorial Lecture at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His talk was published as Michael Fishbane, The Hermeneutic Self: A New-Old Pedagogical Vision ( Jerusalem: Melton Center, 2017). The quote is found on p. 9. 27 Daniel Marom, “Bialik on the Teeter-Totter” [in Hebrew], Dor Ledor: Studies in the History of Jewish Education in Israel and the Diaspora 52 (2017): 33–72. 28 Word of the Week: Ancient Hebrew Culture for Today’s Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers in the Spirit of the Educational Vision of Haim Nachman Bialik [in Hebrew], ed. Daniel Marom et  al. ( Jerusalem: Keter Books and Mandel Foundation-Israel, 2017).

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canon of Jewish texts as an avenue to spiritual life very much along the lines that Fishbane describes and Bialik exemplified.29 The essence of a pedagogy of remez here finds expression in the engagement of early childhood learners with individual Hebrew words as conduits to abstract general spiritual meanings rather than as socially shared pointers to visible and concrete objects.30 It is here that they begin to cultivate their higher selves through language.31 For example, in the unit on the word Shabbat, or Sabbath, the educator might ask the Hebrew-speaking children what the names of the days of the week are and, in response, they will naturally call out the Hebrew appellations, which are numeric in character (Sunday is called yom rishon or “first day,” Monday yom sheni or “second day,” and so forth). Upon moving to the last day in the week, most of the children will proclaim “Shabbat!” but others will say that it should be called yom shevi‘i, “seventh day.” The educator then engages the learners in a discussion as to what the name shabbat might signify about that day and how that signification might make it different than the other six days. Given that the Hebrew word shabbat comes from the root sh.b.t, which means “to cease from movement or action,” and given that it connects with words such as “sit” or “refrain from,” the capacity for resonance with larger ideas about the calm acknowledgement and celebration of the gift of life in the world are strong. How much more when such resonances are explored through the wealth of modern Hebrew songs and stories in which the word shabbat is central—for example, Itzchak Schweiger-Dmi’el’s classic, Hana’s Sabbath Dress, and the songs Hayom Yom Shishi (Today is Friday, tomorrow is Shabbat, attributed to Itzchak Katzenelson), and Od Me’at Yered Eleynu (Soon the good day of Sabbath will come upon us, by Shmuel Bass). In exploring these aspects of the word shabbat, the pedagogy of remez that is in effect employed by the curriculum helps learners move from sight to insight.32 When I  taught this unit, I  made use of photos of various situations—one of construction workers, another of a person walking in the park, a third of a traffic jam on the highway, and a fourth of a family in conversation as they are seated around a dinner table—and asked learners to consider which of them might fit

29 Ibid, 9–32. 30 As is explained ibid., 9–13, the approach to language education provided by this curriculum is profoundly different than that which reigns in most educational systems around the world that emphasize a language as a cognitive tool and an instrument for social enhancement. 31 Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 91. 32 Ibid., 87.

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with the word shabbat and which with its opposite yemei ha-ma‘aseh (“the days of activity”) and to try to explain why. The unit on the word shabbat includes an offering of alternative symbolic meanings of that word for early childhood educators to learn and choose from. Various pedagogical suggestions follow as to how some of them might be taught to early childhood learners in a manner that nurture their capacities to experience them in connection with their lives and to see the world through them.33 Fifteen such units comprise the curriculum and they are ordered within a larger developing narrative framework that mirrors that of the Bible, moving from “harmony” to “rupture” and then to “repair.” Thus, after the introductory unit on the word Torah (teaching), the harmony section includes units on Elohim (God), Adam (human), Shabbat, and berakhah (blessing). The rupture section then follows with units on tov ve-ra (good and evil), ayekah? (Where art thou?), ah.i (my brother), and shamayim (skies/heaven), and then comes the correction section with units on Avraham avinu (Abraham our Father), Yisrael (Israel), avadim hayinu (we were once slaves), shelah.et ‘ami (let my people go) and ‘aseret ha-dibberot (the ten commandments). The curriculum concludes with a unit on the word shalom (“peace” and “hello/farewell”), which encourages learners to continue in their learning in this mode by moving on in the future from words to phrases to sentences to chapters to weekly portions from the Hebrew Bible. For Israeli toddlers, preschoolers, and primary school learners, the resonance of this pedagogy of remez can be quite powerful because they already know some or many of the words in the curriculum from their daily speech in modern Hebrew. The surprise in discovering that embedded in words in one’s vernacular are deeper meanings hitherto unknown and unused is powerful and compelling. It often opens learners’ curiosity to similarly embed meanings in other words that they utter daily and attunes them consciously and subconsciously to the nature of language, to its elasticity and potentialities, and to the very process by which it can be generated. We found that it also generates in response a playful combination of basic questions (“Do animals speak to God?”), wild associations (“Yeah, well, I am a daughter of Adam, so don’t call me a son of Adam”), and cross-references (“Israel is my grandfather’s name and also the name of our country”) among learners that readily lend themselves to later connection with the learning of the hermeneutical modes of peshat, derash, and sod.34

33 Ibid, 31–8. 34 For a collection of such responses as well as of testimonies and appraisals of this curriculum, see “Milat ha-Shavu‘a,” Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Foundation—Israel, https://goo.gl/hF2wE1.

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As I  see it, this profound form of language experience and learning does not preclude the potential of this pedagogy of remez to generate a different but equally profound resonance for learners for whom Hebrew is not a mother tongue. Here the learning experience is one of discovery of language beyond that which is spoken, language that despite its strangeness has something new to offer the learner’s linguistic universe that can be creatively incorporated into his or her vernacular speech. It is important to take account as well that this pedagogy is employed with many learners who are not from traditional or Orthodox homes. Keeping with Bialik and Fishbanes’ emphasis on spiritual development through language that is not conditioned upon a priori adoption of religious beliefs or practices, this approach seeks to connect with learners at the level of their primal experiences of meaning-making. And yet, Milat ha-Shavu‘a found an audience among traditionalists as well. It provided them with a pedagogical avenue to help learners internalize the deeper spiritual insights of the tradition that otherwise might have been lost on them by virtue of an overriding educational emphasis on socialization. Finally, it is important to note that the success of Milat ha-Shavu‘a with toddlers and preschoolers was achieved because those who taught them had first found it meaningful for themselves as adults. I do not mean that they found it to be valuable or useful to them as educational practitioners. The professional value of this pedagogy became clear to them after they experienced its direct and immediate value for their own lives. Once they experienced this value, they became partners to creatively devising applications to early childhood learners—certainly as good or better than any that my codevelopers of the curriculum and I could offer. Moreover, among the educators we trained in this approach, several chose to develop extensions to primary and secondary school learners as well as to the broader community of parents. Fishbane’s rendering of each of the fourfold hermeneutical modes of interpretation that comprise PaRDeS moves from a focus on textual interpretation to the interpretation of life in the world beyond the text. A pedagogy of remez must therefore work at this level as well. In describing the way people orient themselves to the world through the hermeneutic mode of remez, Fishbane speaks of a “reading of existence, the signs of things and persons become hieroglyphs, sacred configurations of the vastness of divine reality.”35 To orient ourselves in this manner we must approach everything and person we encounter as a symbol for a more general meaning 35 Fishbane, Sacred Attunement, 94.

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beyond its surface and appearance, just as we did with reference to language in the texts of the shared canon. Much as was the case with every word learned in Milat ha-Shavu‘a, we must assume that each thing we encounter and each person with whom we interact is part of a larger system of meaning. There is no thing or no person that just is, no event that just happens pointlessly. Behind their visible here and now, there is a hidden teaching for us that we must actively seek out through an extra step of interpretation. “Where else might we speak of God than in such allusions in the everyday, in the marvel of appearances and their openings to the vitalities beyond?” asks Fishbane. “This is not God as God, but God as we may orient ourselves to the vastness which Divinity makes possible.”36 Fishbane warns, however, that this orientation also requires an “attitude of humility and reverence.” This is because “there is nothing more disconcerting than to see a hypothesis morph into an unexamined truth after repeated use.”37 The ethics of remez require of us to be aware of our capacity to misinterpret the deeper meaning of things and persons as mere affirmations of what we already believe to be true rather than invitations to receive the hints offered by the world outside of us as “wrought from the infinities of God’s torah kelulah and inscribed with earthly particularity, like the Written Torah.”38 To be ethically on guard we must arrive at a level of meta-linguistic selfconsciousness as we enter through the portals of remez in interpreting the world, just as the child speaking Hebrew vernacular must become aware of the constructed nature of his or her seemingly natural use of the words in Milat ha-Shavu‘a and take hold of its reigns. We must approach the meanings we derive about the divine reality as hypotheses to be verified through new evidence and revised through trial and error. How much more is such ethical care important when one translates what is learned from the insights of remez to one’s behavior in the world towards things and people. Rabbinic literature is replete with legends about those who read the world through a hermeneutic of remez and change their insights and behaviors accordingly. The canon of shared Jewish texts offers a rich reservoir of instances from the daily experiences of Biblical heroes and learned rabbis who go beyond their learning of the literature of the canon through their living experience of the hermeneutical orientation of remez as applied to things and people in the world. One legend describes the patriarch Abraham as an early childhood learner who discovers God through trial-and-error worship of the sun and the moon before finding God. Another tells about how Rabbi Akiva was inspired at forty

36 Ibid., 93. 37 Ibid., 92. 38 Ibid., 93.

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years of age to learn how to read and devote his whole life to Jewish study by contemplating a stone hollowed by running water. Another tells about a rabbi whose life is transformed by an encounter with a man he deems to be ugly and shares with him his disgust over his appearance. And another tells about a rabbi who perceives the wild laughter of his colleagues at a wedding as a forgetting of the reality of a hitherto unredeemed world.39 The depth and breadth of this literature is remarkable. It is but one example of how arts in general offer a content and theoretical groundwork for a pedagogy that aims to hone learners’ capacity to adopt and apply an orientation of remez towards the world.40 Together they all provide models and resources for educating educators and learners in that orientation. But the pedagogical moment of truth at this level of a pedagogy of remez is in the delicate interaction of the educator with learners as they try to make meaning out of a hint they received from living in the world. Here the educator’s mastery over this orientation in his or her own experience is a critical resource as is his or her attentiveness and sensitivity to the singular experience and the learner’s mode of meaning-making. A full application of a pedagogy of remez ultimately requires the capacity to generate a dialectical dynamic between its application to the world of texts and to the text of the world. When applied to textual interpretation, it must be informed by and connect with the learner’s life experience and reading of the world. When it is applied to the learner’s life, textual learning can provide a useful resource. Though each direction has its special points of departure and emphases, their greatest impact will be made when they work together. Educating Jewish educators in the pedagogy of remez is a difficult but worthy task. It will be necessary for them to first learn about it with those who can effectively serve as interlocuters between Fishbane’s theology and their professional identity and practice. They can then work together to develop creative ways of spiritually engaging their learners through their pedagogical applications and further refining them by sharing their successes and failures with each other. Such activity may also generate a useful case literature for professional educators more broadly.

39 Beit ha-Midrash, ed. Adolph Jellinek ( Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1967), 2:118–96; Avot d’Rabbi Natan 6; BT Ta‘anit 20a; BT Berakhot 31a. For English versions, see William Braude’s translation of the anthology edited by H.aim Nah.man Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravniz.ky, The Book of Legends, Sefer Ha-Aggadah: Legends from the Talmud and Midrash (New York: Schocken, 1992), 3, 232–4, 259, and 324. 40 Bialik’s Nadnedah is a prime example of music and poetry combined.

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By engaging in such work, the community of Jewish educators would enable themselves to invite their learners lovingly and honestly to engage in learning experiences that will nurture their spiritual growth and launch them on the lifelong project of theology as Fishbane describes it, continually benefitting from the pedagogies of PaRDeS in an ongoing construction of their selves in relation to their worlds. As such, they would provide a contemporary exemplar for other societies and communities of Buber’s call for education that can develop the learner’s capacity for dialogue and instinct for communion as a deeper and broader alternative to the ills of that which overemphasizes the instinct for origination. As Buber concluded at the end of his Heidelberg lecture, “Man, the creature, who forms and transforms the creation, cannot create. But he, each man, can expose himself and others to the creative Spirit.”41

41 Buber, “Education,” 103.

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Encounters across the Ages at the Edge of Childhood: Learning from “Modern Jewish Thought” Rebecca Schorsch

After eighteen years teaching biblical and rabbinic texts and Jewish thought at Rochelle Zell Jewish High School on the North Shore of Chicago, where critical thinking, religiosity, and community form the curricula and context wherein Jewish teenagers become independent thinkers and actors, it is clear to me that Jewish learning must concern human flourishing. As such, Jewish texts must speak to the heart and mind, be purposeful and demanding, and the classroom a place of care, silence, and dialogue. After eighteen years, I  continue to be enamored by the generative combination of bravado and openness of adolescence and continue to be especially intrigued and challenged by the possibilities and complexities where individuation transpires amidst the transmission of a tradition and covenantal community. I  agree with my teacher Michael Fishbane, “More than words to be ‘read’ with the eyes, [biblical] narratives must be experienced in the heart, for they are preserved as paradigmatic events of the spirit.”1 And “[t]o speak across the generations,”

1 Michael Fishbane, Fragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2021), 24.

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we must translate ancient, difficult texts into modern idiom so they may “be perceived anew, for its revelatory vice and life-directing values.”2 I have sought to cultivate belonging and questioning in classrooms where traditions are alive and contribute to students becoming themselves. Around the unwieldy, inviting seminar-style tables of windowed-room 221, teenagers on the North Shore shaped by ancient narratives and their ongoing readings become young adults. I  invite you into “The Religious Quest for Meaning in Modern and Contemporary Jewish Thought” (known as “Modern Jewish Thought,” MJT), a class “at the edge of childhood,” as one student tenderly describes it, where seniors learn to think, listen, speak, and become.  In the hope of placing you at these tables, I  share dialogues that emerge between students and the texts of their learning, with a particular focus on Abraham Joshua Heschel’s 1960s educational address “Children and Youth,” where he declares, “The most urgent task faced by American education is to destroy the myth that accumulation of wealth and the achievement of comfort are the chief vocations of man.”3 Today we are still plagued by that myth. Yale Professor Daniel Markovits, describing our moment of “the path of competitive education” where elite schools claiming to pursue justice “when their bottom lines require them to help their (overwhelmingly rich) students get ahead,” summarizes the outcomes of this educational crisis as “disenchantment over schooling,” “the soullessness of students who know education only as a means to status,” and “instrumentalism” eviscerating “once-vibrant intellectual traditions.”4 While parents do not articulate their vision of success as getting ahead, but rather, as author Emily Esfahani Smith reports, wanting for their children happiness, health, love, and giving back to society, children perceive otherwise, identifying success with good grades, college attendance, and a highpaying job.5 Before the pandemic, we already knew that teenagers feel tremendous pressure. They work hard and are exhaustingly busy. As such, the sudden gift of time afforded tragically by the pandemic was welcome—later start times for school increasing precious sleep, pass/fail grading reducing time on schoolwork, 2 Ibid., 26. 3 Abraham J. Heschel, “Children and Youth,” in his The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967), 51. 4 Daniel Markovits, “How College Became a Ruthless Competition Divorced from Learning,” The Atlantic, May 6, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ archive/2021/05/marriage-college-status-meritocracy/618795/. 5 Emily Esfahani Smith, “Teenagers are Struggling and It’s Not Just Lockdown,” The New York Times, May 4, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/opinion/coronavirus-mentalhealth-teenagers.html.

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and elimination of sports and extracurricular activities freeing up hours. My students narrated appreciating the return to activities they abandoned long ago in pursuit of achievement and college admission. For these reasons, while the cost of social isolation and loss of social activity was very difficult, national data reports that the initial release of academic pressures was a boon to mental health. But the release was short-lived, for the pandemic follows more than a decade of life lived on screens. Journalist David Leonhardt calls our attention to 2009, the beginning of a deterioration in adolescent mental health.6 With no consensus or certainty on how to explain the increased reports of sadness, loneliness, depression, and anxiety, or even that there is an increase, Leonhardt details how technology has shifted adolescent behavior with less time on in-person activities, exercise, and sleep. The positive decline in tobacco and alcohol use and pregnancies among teenagers reflects less time hanging out with friends and dating. The pandemic has exacerbated preexisting isolation, loneliness, and depression. “[T]he U.S. surgeon general,” Leonhardt reminds us, “warned of a ‘devastating’ mental health crisis among America’s youth.”7 The lessons foregrounded during the difficult months of pandemic learning mostly schooled us in familiar realities we now feel permitted to address more fully. We already knew that technology is a blessing and a curse to be used carefully and thoughtfully. We now know that online platforms facilitate invaluable access. But we know that online platforms are better at content than conversation, delivering subject knowledge more than building a community of learners. We know that remote learning erodes the relational power of body language and eye contact and eliminates the nourishing and creative necessity of silence. We know online learning is exhausting and distracting. We know, once again, that we live in a scary and fragile world and our question must be how to raise children amidst reality, to foster orientations and skills needed to struggle—and want to struggle—to repair our broken world. Reviewing how the pandemic affected student emotional wellbeing, Esfahani Smith reports that the top stressors were still grades, assessments, and college, with students at underresourced schools more likely to list additional stresses of family finances. 57% of all students said that their parents’ expectations for their performance stayed the same during the pandemic, while 34% said their expectations increased. Esfahani Smith concludes, “If we want more-resilient kids coming out of the pandemic, we need to heed a lesson of this past year—that the

6 David Leonhardt, “On the Phone, Alone,” The New York Times, May 10, 2022, https://www. nytimes.com/2022/05/10/briefing/adolescent-mental-health-crisis-us.html. 7 Ibid.

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pressure to achieve is crushing the spirits of many young people and should be dialed back.”8 If you work in a high school in affluent America, you know that the pressure to achieve threatens to crush the spirits of our young people. The teenagers I  have taught for almost two decades are mostly children of high-achieving professionals. I  have long been disheartened that privilege mostly does not lead to defying the pervasive deleterious expectations and burdens of affluence and achievement. Rochelle Zell is small, under 200 students, in a landscape of nationally ranked large suburban high schools. As a community of care in a competitive educational landscape we resist though we are far from immune. We must—and do!—deliver on college readiness and admissions, while conceiving of readiness in broader, perhaps counter-cultural ways. We aspire to educate in a community challenged by and questioning traditions; a community centering relationships between teacher and student, student and student, and students and text; a community of prayer, defined by one student (based on the thought of Arthur Green) as the language of the heart’s abundance and longing, cherished all the more when Covid strained our ability to gather and sing and mourn together. We aspire to align purpose with choices about how we teach, speak, listen, and act.  Towards the end of senior year, students read Abraham Joshua Heschel’s address before the White House Conference on Children and Youth. Together with the students, I am struck by the lasting urgency of his piece delivered over sixty years ago. Remarkably and unfortunately, Heschel seems to foretell our moment. But he offers a way out glimpsed by students in room 221. After four years considering and exploring matters other than those directly relevant to grades and standardized tests, and the liberation and anxiety that accompanies resisting the singular demands of achievement, students at Rochelle Zell understand the difficulty and necessity of Heschel’s call: “Man has to choose between awe and anxiety, between the divine and the demonic, between radical amazement and radical despair. A time without awe becomes an age of anxiety.”9 (Heschel’s jarring and distracting use of “man” is a conversation in our classroom. Students discuss how it feels to be addressed by Heschel’s gendered language, whether to disregard or substitute more inclusive words as we read and write, whether to continue reading. With old texts as our curricular sources, questions of whether and how to read are always under discussion. I invite you too to grapple with Heschel’s word choices.)

8 Esfahani Smith, “Teenagers are Struggling.” 9 Heschel, “Children,” 48.

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The challenge of his day is still ours: “[H]ow young people can be brought up with a proper sense of responsibility in an affluent society?”10 Heschel knows the distortions of wealth leading us to think the world is indebted to us, that society owes us something, causing us to ask “[w]hat will I get out of life?”11 We suppress at our peril the question “[w]hat will life, what will society get out of me?12 The fundamental educational question for Heschel is who are we and what world are we asking our children to join? Teachers, Heschel laments, ask too little of students.13 “The agony of contemporary man,” Heschel contends, “is the agony of a spiritually stunted man. The image of man is larger than the frame into which he has been compressed. In order to be human, man has to be more than a man. There is a divine stake in human existence.”14 Heschel’s high regard for humanity imagines students capable of “profundity, of sacrifice, of love, of self-denial.”15  Repeatedly, my students are struck by the contemporary aptness of Heschel’s talk. Sixty years after Heschel delivered his address, students struggling under the burdens of serving success and achievement and having glimpsed a different way are compelled by his vision and affirm his critique. Every year at the end of Modern Jewish Thought, a final assignment asks students to reflect upon their studies, what’s been powerful, lasting, meaningful, or not. Able to select the medium and the texts within and beyond our classroom, students create visual art, poetry, and write letters, journals, and essays. One student portrays Heschel’s critique of entertainment over learning:

10 Ibid., 44. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 44. 13 Ibid., 45. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid.

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As this year comes to a close, I’ve spent many hours reflecting on my educational experiences. To no fault of my teachers, the system of education fosters rote memorization over critical thinking and commodification of students through grades. However, in Modern Jewish Thought, I experienced a different kind of classroom—one that asked little of me in regards to memorization and much of me in regards to introspection and observation of the world. MJT demanded of me not that I study and take notes, but that I look beyond in all directions: both inwards and outward into the greater universe. While I recognize a class model like this is not possible in other courses, MJT has been an opportunity for growth, a time to tune out the constant hum of televisions and phones and instead focus my attention onto studies that activate my soul. Especially in this year, the year of COVID and the year of screens, MJT has been the setting for some of the deepest, realest conversations I have had. As a student with ADHD, I have often found it difficult to stay focused and on track in school. This year has only furthered my struggle, as online classes have made distractions much more readily available. Even in person, I catch myself fidgeting, doodling on pages, and zoning out. I’ve grown accustomed to the constant stimulation I receive from my phone, from my TV screen, and from the world of instant technology . . . MJT has pushed me to break the pattern of needing constant stimulation and the instant gratification of the digital world, instead showing me the beauty of silence, of thought, of listening and sharing ideas. I  may be a child of the Internet generation, a victim of a pandemic that shortened my attention span and drained my motivation, but MJT has offered a form of education that has helped me unlearn what I knew. I am beginning to unlearn that knowledge is only power, that my grades represent my intellect and self-worth, that education is something that can ever be finished. As I  stand on the brink of greater education and on the final edge of childhood, these are lessons that will guide me, philosophies that will motivate me to learn not only for my diploma’s sake. Slowly, I am freeing myself of the numbing power of entertainment and reclaiming my inner man.16 16 Students permitted their work to be published anonymously to protect their privacy.

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Heschel calls upon schools to teach “how to be a person, how to resist conformity, how to grow inwardly, how to say No to his own self. We teach him to adjust to the public; we do not teach him how to cultivate privacy.”17 Though “involved in numerous activities,” Heschel urges us not to “forget the meaning of stillness. We set a premium on togetherness; we should also acknowledge the value of solitude. Eloquence is important, but so is stillness. Skills are vital, but so is self-restraint.18 We ask a lot of our students at Rochelle Zell. We ask them to cultivate the maturity to be patient, to enter ancient languages and strange texts. We orient Jewish teenagers who easily could be in magnet public schools in Chicago and suburban high schools with rich arts and sports programs, into a world of ancient text study, pause, commitment, and sacrifice. For example, we start school with a form of morning tefilah (prayer). Students choose from a varied selection, such as a traditional service, meditation, poetry discussion, or food and environmental awareness. Sleep-deprived teenagers are asked to gather before the academic day starts, without grades or disciplinary consequences as incentive. Conversations about meaning or its absence form the backbone of our school’s approach to tefilah, discussions about the value of different spaces to orient and concern ourselves with matters other than advancement. But how to justify reflection when we could learn more math? How to justify tefilah when most of our adolescents do not readily see its value? But in tefilah teenagers emerge into adulthood practicing how to tend to self and others, how to orient towards the day ahead, how to cultivate awareness of the world, how be present as peers mourn, and how to support others’ celebrations.  Heschel characterizes the crisis of his day as spiritual: [The] denial of transcendence, validity of values, emptiness of the heart, the increased insensitivity to the imponderable quality of the spirit, the collapse of communication between the realm of tradition and the inner world of the individual. The central problem is that we do not know how to think, how to pray, how to cry, how to resist the deceptions of too many persuaders. There is no community of those who worry about integrity.19

17 Heschel, “Children,” 45. 18 Ibid., 46. 19 Heschel, “Children,” 39.

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“Talent, knowledge, success are important to human existence,” but Heschel warns that “talent without dedication, knowledge without reverence, success without humility may end in futility. Important is the premise that a life unexamined is not worth living yet it is just as vital to realize that life without commitment to what is greater than life is not worth living.”20 Every year we conduct exit interviews with graduating seniors. Among many moving reflections, I share two student stories. In a junior Bible class, a student spoke of her time silently reading the first eleven chapters of Genesis in Hebrew. Reading slowly over two days, she felt as though she had never read the text before. She loved the quiet, uncurated encounter with text, the careful attention to original language, the open-ended, loosely structured time to read and think, a rarity in her busy life, transforming the noise of a high school classroom into sounds more typical of sacred space. Another student spoke of her work with her learning partner (h.avruta) responding to a question they posed for themselves on motherhood in the Genesis narratives. Poring over commentaries, outlining charts, culling sources, she spoke of the messy array of traditional and modern interpretive possibilities literally surrounding them and their excitement to creatively and carefully shape the exegetical abundance into meaningful interpretations. These students expressed the joys of swimming in sources, lost in reading and thinking, the pleasures of immersion in silence, dialogue, and relationship with text and one another.   Heschel writes, “There is no sense of responsibility without reverence for the sublime in human existence, without a sense of dignity, without loyalty to a heritage, without an awareness of the transcendence of living. Self-respect is the fruit of discipline, the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say No to oneself.”21 School is not the primary locus of education for Heschel. Education begins in the home and transpires way beyond formal schooling. Home is where children’s innate inclination towards amazement is first expressed, sparked, and cultivated. In the home, Jewish practices and holidays can bind us to our past and one another through meals and conversation. In the home, children can learn to pause to recite daily words of appreciation and gratitude. In the home, twenty-five hours a week can be dedicated to Shabbat, famously labeled by Heschel a palace in time whose traditional furnishings are not computer screens, whose concerns are not monetary, and whose preoccupation is not productivity. In the home, children can learn practices that foster attention to

20 Ibid., 47–48. 21 Ibid., 47.

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matters of significance: connection, wonder, and gratitude. For Heschel, the Jewish home can spark our significance as human beings.  Heschel laments, “Home, inwardness, friendship, conversation are becoming obsolete. We have no friends; we have business associates. Conversation is disappearing; watching television substitutes for the expression of ideas.”22 Because his conditions are ours, for me, Heschel’s home models learning classrooms. We have instrumentalized everything such that “usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief and only purpose of man in the universe.” The effect is a changed anthropology: We “become primarily a tool-making animal, and the world is now a gigantic tool-box for the satisfaction of . . . needs.”23 The effect we now call a climate crisis. Were it not for the reference to television these words could have been written recently. With hundreds of friends on Facebook and ubiquitous social media isolating them as much as connecting, the students I teach know the complex ways technology both alienates and creates access. Heschel urges education to shift from socializing children into the norms of society to raising children able to challenge the norms as necessary: “Time has come to revise the notion of adjustment to society as the preoccupation of the educational process. . . . Together with adjustment to society we must cultivate a sense for injustice, impatience with vulgarity, a capacity for moral indignation, a will to readjust society itself when it becomes complacent and corrupt.”24 This is perhaps one of Heschel’s greatest challenges to us: To be adjusted is a kind of moral indifference. “No one with a sensitive conscience can feel well adjusted to a self-indulgent society which is indifferent to the misery of millions of people . . . squandering the material resources of the world on luxuries . . . where more than a billion people go hungry every night?”25 One senior drew a picture for his final Modern Jewish Thought reflection of ten slats of a ladder held together loosely by chains on the sides of each plank, his version of the kabbalistic sefirot (emanations). He attached an artist statement:  At the end of the piece, the final link is blank. This emptiness depicts [Heschel’s] passage: ‘Suppressed is the question: What will life, what will society get out of me?’ The chain is unfinished. Modern Jewish Thought, and the sometimes difficult process of

22 Ibid., 40. 23 Ibid., 41. 24 Ibid., 49. 25 Ibid., 50–51.

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observation and both inner and outer reflection is unremitting. In the artwork, the sequence ends with the Blank Space. The Awe. The open territory for one to roam and fill with new observations and discoveries. Heschel poses a rather frightening question, regarding [a] most horrifying and unknown topic . . . : the future. Where will this chain go? Should it end, or should it be continued? What wisdom can I carry into this Blank Space? The [question] haunts me . . . as I embark on the next chapter of my life. What will society get out of me? . . . Throughout this course, I  have learned two major pieces of information about Judaism and Theology. The first is that believing in God or worshipping God can be a personal event which translates to the second piece of information, which is the worship of God within a community. In my artwork, [I portray] everything [stemming] from God. Similarly, as I live my life as a Jewish man, most of my values are induced by God and Judaism. . . . I have learned how to branch outward using these principles and use Jewish lessons to help society. These can be encounters between only two people, but also national issues such as racism. I have learned that Jewish principles play a larger role in my life than I previously thought, and I hope to continue to carry out these mitzvot as I continue my journey. Heschel knows the excruciating dimensions of the human condition. Heschel thinks, “We have denied our young people the knowledge of the dark side of life . . . that life includes hardships, illness, grief, even agony . . . They do not feel morally challenged, they do not feel called upon. The young person of today is pampered. In moments of crisis . . . he breaks down easily under hardship.”26 Esfahani Smith underscores how the pandemic reminds us of the importance of cultivating resilience in our teenagers and highlights the importance of psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s idea of “tragic optimism”— the capacity to maintain hope and find meaning in life despite its inescapable loss, to combine honest reflection and the search for the good amidst suffering.27 Through literature, such as the Hebrew Bible’s book of Job, students study an

26 Ibid., 43. 27 Emily Esfahani Smith, “On Coronavirus Lockdown? Look for Meaning, Not Happiness,” The New York Times, April 7, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/opinion/coronavirusmental-health.html.

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endlessly and differently interpreted depiction of devastating human suffering. We study this challenging text within the context of traditional and modern interpretations. As well, Job grounds the study of Holocaust theology, asking students to consider whether we think differently about human suffering in light of particular and modern catastrophes? Job’s difficult wisdom is grappled with in this senior’s reflection, a letter to her parents: As I have endured the difficulties and the pleasantries of being a high school student, the person I started as four years ago cannot compare to the person writing this letter to you today. Through this journey of learning to deal with the struggles of adolescence...I have gained what made me who I am today. Through classes like Modern Jewish Thought and the difficulties I have endured, I was able to learn about myself. I was able to learn how to think, and how to express myself in a world full of conformity and sameness. Wise people such as Abraham Joshua Heschel, David Foster Wallace, and commentaries on the book of Job, have forced me to deal with [challenging] questions . . . [T]hrough their writing . . . I have come to understand the significance of self-awareness as a key to facing adversity. . . . While there may be a universal rulebook on how to function in society when life goes as planned, there is no universal rulebook  on how to  overcome  adversity  when  life  challenges us. With Job, for example, a moral and normal man endures the challenges and the unfairness that life poses. While his friends are the ones that tell him how he had had to sin in order [to be] suffering, Job cannot bear to see that as the truth. Even though everyone around Job tells him how he has to accept the tragedies that God has commanded him, he does not conform to their narrow thinking. Rather, Job challenges God and requests God to meet him in court. When God takes Job up on his offer and shows Job his insignificance and even his significance in this world, Job is able to overcome his inner turmoil and finally see clearly where he believes in God through his own lenses. In an event where the one suffering, Job, could either conform to the societal beliefs or give up on God completely, he does neither. He stays true to himself by living and enduring the uncomfortableness of being distressed and unsure in his own life. This ability to know yourself and be aware of your surroundings well enough to climb out of the many ditches of life, I believe this is the key . . . As a

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person who has fallen into many ditches throughout my short life, I have learned that the more that I grow and am in touch with my own emotions and my own strengths and weaknesses, the more efficient and wise I become at helping myself deal with . . . miseries. The way to get to know more about yourself has to stem from education. Not education of learning how to make more money, or gain more power, as David Foster Wallace says in his Kenyon commencement speech, on the contrary, “. . . being educated, and understanding how to think . . . is . . . the real value of real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness.” Sadly . . . the world . . . exacerbates that value of power, money, and selfishness . . . So how did I do it? How did I gain the ability to appreciate my individuality and work through adversities . . . ? Well, what I can say for sure is that having the opportunity to study these [texts] about existential concerns and issues, as well as enduring many challenges has taught me so much about myself. . . . In conclusion, every overcoming of adversity and deep enrichment [through real learning] gets us closer to becoming our true selves and closer to divinity. So, thank you ‫[ אמא‬Mom] and ‫[ אבא‬Dad] for the opportunities you have given me to expand my understanding about the world and myself and I hope to continue to do so as I transition into adulthood. 

Students contend with a multitude of understandings and depictions of divinity. For Heschel, drawing close to divinity confers an anthropology where man is a partner, not a sovereign, that life is a trust, not a property .  .  .  To be witness to the holy, to give testimony to the grandeur of honesty, to the glory of righteousness, to the holiness of truth, to the marvel and mystery of being alive. We have all caught a glimpse of the mystery of the world. We have all experienced the wonder of love, the glory of compassion. To be human is to celebrate a greatness which surpasses the self. There is a cry for justice which only man must answer. There is a need for acts of compassion that only man must satisfy.28 28 Heschel, “Children,” 49.

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Brilliantly, Heschel concludes by anticipating objections to his educational vision as impractical. What is the concrete and practical consequence of the change of attitude I am pleading for? But first I must propose a revision of the term “practical.” The term “practical” is usually associated with activities capable of being described in terms of charts and statistics. I should like to stress that acts that occur within the inner life of man, a thought, a moment of sensitivity, a moment of stillness and self-examination, the acquisition of a spiritual insight, this is supremely practical.29 Listen to one more student’s reading of the book of Job within Modern Jewish Thought: “YOLO” is the term my peers and I use to express the statement, “You only live once.” This is indeed true; however, it’s odd. We make such an effort to create the most fulfilling life for ourselves as possible, but in the grand scheme, we live an average of 79 years, as less than a speck, on an earth which is surrounded by planets, galaxies, and black holes. I feel the pressures of my smallness constantly. I am just one in a number of millions. In the small time I have, why does it matter that I put a comma in the correct place? Why should I turn my homework in? When taking an approach to life, we could take the road of, “Eh, it will be over soon, why work so hard on it?” If I went down this crazy hole and continued my rant, I would be in bed all day, unproductively watching tv, because sometimes man-made society caves in on me . . .We are basically zilch, yet we are so much. . . . Although we benefited from the extremely helpful efforts of Rochelle Zell and our families, this year could have easily pushed us to stop working hard. . . . We have had the option to become indifferent this year. Indifferent to the families and minorities struggling during these Covid times, and the BLM movement. So, why keep going? Why keep pushing ourselves to be our best? We keep going because we have a responsibility to recognize the abundant world we live in and also acknowledge the weakened 29 Ibid., 50.

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parts of our society by racism and our lack of focus on the special parts of humanity. Buildings, smoke pollution, pipes, and chimneys are my view when I wake up in the morning. Society has mechanized an earth that was once filled only with streams, trees, and animals. . . . Life, no matter how small, has so much goodness to offer but we have put aside the richness of life to make sure we . . . check off every little thing on our [to do] lists. In the book of Job, G-d expresses the intention He put into every detail when creating the earth. After a treacherous journey, Job is able to accept his own smallness by understanding the world’s enormity. . . . Job is capable and encouraged to live a deeper life, to pay attention to what G-d worked so hard to establish. Before his realization, Job “was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil” ( Job 1:1) He completed his days by checking off boxes [so] he could squeeze by G-d and prevent harm to his fortune. He wasn’t enjoying the true abundance of life. Like Job, we cannot understand the rationale for our smallness, but instead gain appreciation for what we have been given to reach new understanding. Right now, we are living a life like Job prior to his confrontation with G-d. We are unable to recognize the sublime of humanity. We worry about our grades and our preparation for the academics and social scene of college; however, there is deeper meaning and potential in this world and in school that we have the ability to achieve. Heschel promotes true respect and worship towards learning and our inner significance and discovery. We must access the profound abundance of life. It should be filled with traveling, exploration, and exposure. Our homes should be filled with gratefulness, care, and reverence. Mental health is more important than grades. The purpose of life is to learn and to better extend ourselves towards the promises of our 79 year life. A factor of developing a respect towards the world is our understanding of our inner self. The class Modern Jewish Thought does a most respectable job of venturing beyond the classroom. We read into the depths of human society and how we can act meaningfully. This helps students deepen their connection to the world, G-d, ourselves, and others . . . Heschel writes, “In several ways man is set apart from all beings created in six days. The Bible does not say, God created the plant or the animal; it says, God created different

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kinds of plants, different kinds of animals (Gen. 1:11, 12, and 21–25). In striking contrast, it does not say, God created different kinds of man, men of different colors and races; it proclaims, God created one single man. From one single man, all men are descended. To think of man in terms of white, black, or yellow is more than an error.”30 . . . MJT has enriched my understanding of self, Jewish religion, and social responsibility . . . and given me an increased recognition of who I am as a young Jewish woman in a massive planet. Despite my smallness, I  have a voice, and I intend on using that voice to teach reverence and appreciation for the world we live in. We all have a responsibility to point out and speak up about racism, antisemitism, food insecurity, and beyond. We cannot stand to be indifferent to the hurting. The Jewish leaders we have read have pushed me to gain appreciation for what I have yet to understand as my responsibility. . . . To integrate essential life elements of experiential learning, developing oneself, and preventing indifference, I  am taking a gap year in Israel. . . . I hope to . . . meet people of varying races, religions, and social classes. My learning will launch my ongoing growth as a person, a Jew, and an activist. Jewish learning concerned with human flourishing requires us to challenge ourselves with complex, multifaceted demanding texts and traditions, which, as Heschel says, “endeavor to develop an aptitude and personal responsibility . . . a reverence for . . . universality, justice and compassion.”31 I launch Modern Jewish Thought with four short texts with which I begin to elicit student thought and spark curiosity about new ways to imagine what they might learn from studying religion and theology, categories themselves in need of unpacking and critique. Here is the passage from Michael Fishbane: A central task of theology is to bring its ideas and values into the everyday life, where they may be enacted and put to the test. Without this dimension theology is a mere cluster of speculative abstractions and traditional assertions—of cognitive or 30 Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Religion and Race,” in his The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967), 86–87. 31 Heschel, “Children,” 50. Compare this with Carol Ingall’s notion of “teaching for transcendence” in religious education. See Carol K. Ingall, “Pendulum Politics: The Changing Contexts of Jewish Moral Education,” Journal of Jewish Education 68, no. 1 (2002): 13–20.

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conceptual value at best; but with it, theology assumes a concrete immediacy, and thought and life may be variously integrated. Considered this way, religion is the gravitational settling of thought into behavior; and concomitantly, it is the nexus where physicality becomes spirit, infusing the forms of worldliness with transcendent dimensions.32 Fishbane’s sophisticated understanding excites and challenges students beginning their senior year in high school, and sets the intellectual bar high as they embark on their final quest for meaning as children on the edge of adulthood.

I end here with one final student voice, a wooden sculpture carved with Martin Buber’s words from I and Thou, chosen to name what emerged from time to time in room 221. Where the ineffable is a question and will is strengthened, where classrooms are spaces of silence and connection, where critical, purposeful, demanding thought prepares us for the world through maladjustment to its ills, becoming ourselves may mean surpassing ourselves, and coming to understand may lead to the question what will life get of me? 

32 Michael Fishbane, Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008), 108.

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Strategic Discretion: Game Theory Models for Interactions of Transgender Jews and Their Orthodox Rabbis Hillel Gray

Back in 1972, a group of Jewish feminists struggled for space and named their manifesto Ezrat Nashim.1 The title refers to the women’s side of a mechitza, the partition in a gendered synagogue space. In recent years, the mechitza has come to symbolize the quandary of transgender Jews.2 The mechitza poses a physical challenge, too, for trans people who are often barred in Orthodox Judaisms from the side that fits their gender expression. Orthodox halakhic opinions tend to outlaw, regulate, and sometimes demonize transgender Jews, especially those who have had bottom surgery and/or hormonal transition, though this

1 “Ezrat Nashim Presents Manifesto for Women’s Equality to Conservative Rabbis,” Jewish Women’s Archive, accessed June 19, 2023, https://jwa.org/thisweek/mar/14/1972/ezrat-­nashim. 2 See Noach Dzmura, “Introduction: The Literal and Metaphorical Mechitza,” in Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community, ed. Dzmura (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2010), xiii—­x xix; and Beth Orens, “Crossing the Mechitza,” in Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community, ed. Dzmura (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2010), 43–­47. Cf. Nicole A. Thalheimer, “Is the Mechitza Permeable? An Exploratory Study on Navigating Jewish and Transgender Identities” (PhD diss., Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Chicago, 2015).

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discourse is shifting.3 But the devil is in the details. How have published legal pronouncements trickled down to the lived religion of trans Orthodox Jews? Despite anti-­trans halakhic norms, some transgender Jews desire an Orthodox Jewish life.4 For them, Orthodox halakhah is contested publicly and behind the scenes, and it leaves room for judicial discretion by local Orthodox rabbis (LORs). How do rabbis and trans people navigate this difficult terrain, with its uneven power structure? How do rabbis and trans constituents interpret Jewish law in practice? How much leeway or accommodation do they carve out together? How transparent are they with each other? As I  learn about their disclosures and discomforts, this essay reflects my effort to describe and explain what I call transrabbinic interactions. To study such private interactions, I  interviewed a few anonymous trans Jews and the Orthodox rabbis they have encountered. I aim for a nonjudgmental attunement to their experiences (as our honoree might say).5 To be sure, Orthodox attitudes and conversations around transgender issues are shaped by external social forces. In the United States, Christian conservatives have organized an anti-­ trans media and political campaign.6 This campaign has permeated Orthodox communities, where trans people already faced opposition, scarce resources, and stigmatization. This deeply ideological conflict makes salient my turn here to game theory. For this essay, I borrow game theory vocabulary and concepts to redescribe transrabbinic interactions. Game theory could function as a non-­partisan 3 Hillel Gray, “The Transitioning of Jewish Biomedical Law: Rhetorical and Practical Shifts in Halakhic Discourse on Sex-­Change Surgery,” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues 29 (2015): 81–­107. 4 There is sparse academic work on the experiences of gender non-­conforming Orthodox Jews. See Oriol Poveda, “According to Whose Will: The Entanglements of Gender & Religion in the Lives of Transgender Jews with an Orthodox Background” (PhD diss., University of Uppsala, Uppsala, 2017); Oriol Poveda, “Negotiating Gendered Religious Practices among Transgender Jews with an Orthodox Jewish Background: Summary of Findings,” in Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism, ed. Alan Slomowitz and Alison Feit (New York: Routledge, 2019), 183–­205. On trans Jews, see S. J. Crasnow, “From the Gay Synagogue to the Queer Shtetl: Normativity, Innovation, and Utopian Imagining in the Lived Religion of Queer and Transgender Jews” (PhD diss., University of California, Riverside, 2017). For first-­person accounts and advocacy, the most prominent Orthodox author is Beth Orens, starting with “Beth’s Blog: I Wasn’t Actually Going to Do This,” August 1, 2006, http://brachao.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-­wasnt-­actually-­going-­to-­do-­this.html. 5 One gift that Michael Fishbane gave me was encouragement to open up difficult conversations. I  move in Orthodox Jewish circles, where I  sometimes hear anti-­trans attitudes, as well as queer normative Jewish spaces, such as Havurat Shalom. I interviewed (2010–­13) six trans persons and four Orthodox rabbis, and I have had various informal conversations as well. 6 Adam Nagourney and Jeremy W. Peters, “How a Campaign against Transgender Rights Mobilized Conservatives,” The New York Times, April 16, 2023.

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methodology to understand conflicts, clarify the interests of participants, and analyze strategies to attain concrete benefits. Game theory seeks to bridge sides with differing perceptions, motivations, and interests. It tackles complex interpersonal situations. While this essay is not a formal application of game theory, I  create scenarios to roughly represent three prototypes of transrabbinic encounters. In an adverse climate for trans congregants, I  will argue, both sides have intelligible reasons to not put all their cards on the table, to not disclose transgender identities, to not share their respective halakhic views and personal reactions. Even if mutual transparency would yield an outcome favored by both parties, the hostile atmosphere makes accommodation difficult and discretion a strategic necessity.

Trans Jews, Halakhic Discourse, and Discretion This essay focuses on trans Jews who seek to participate in Modern Orthodox Jewish communities in America, or with kiruv-­oriented rabbis who come out of the ḥaredi (“ultra-­Orthodox”) world. What halakhic norms govern these encounters? Orthodox rabbinic authorities forbid bottom surgery, crossdressing, and hormonal transition.7 If followed, such laws would prevent many gender transitions.8 Once a Jew undergoes transition, the surgery involved can be viewed as a past violation. However, for ongoing religious practice as Orthodox Jews, transgender individuals face two halakhic hurdles. The first hurdle is the “halakhic gender” attributed to the transgender person. There are three competing halakhic positions on gender identity: genotypic (that is, gender assigned at birth), phenotypic (that is, gender expression or presentation), and hybrid combinations. Most Orthodox authorities hold a genotypic view, which rejects the gender expression of male-­to-­female (MtF) or female-­to-­male (FtM) trans persons. A  hybrid view holds that genotypic gender is formally unchanged but it allows, or requires, conduct that fits one’s phenotypic, expressed gender in social situations.9

7 For asserted exceptions, see Gray, “The Transitioning of Jewish Biomedical Law”; and cf. Ronit Irshai, “The Construction of Gender in Halakhic Responsa by the Reform Movement: Transgender People as a Case Study,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 18 (2019): 160–­76. 8 The “perceived dissonance, if not outright antagonism, between being Orthodox and transgender” is described in Poveda, “According to Whose Will,” 85. 9 For a halakhic monograph on hybrid options, Edan Ben-­Ephraim, Sefer Dor Tahapukhot, discussed in Gray, “The Transitioning of Jewish Biomedical Law.”

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The second hurdle is that halakhic gender applies to more than a dozen vital Orthodox practices.10 These gendered practices are central to the trans experience of Orthodox Judaism, whereas exclusion or limitations detract from the spiritual and social benefits of these practices. Certain practices are guided strictly by halakhic gender—­such as counting only men in a minyan (prayer quorum). Other practices have wiggle room, such as the hybrid allowance to sit on the side of the mechitza according to one’s gender expression. Thus, the genotypic view makes it difficult, if not impossible, for trans persons to handle the gender differentiation of Orthodox life. Conversely, a phenotypic view, though uncommon, affirms gender expression and would make trans participation rather conventional.11 These are serious hurdles for trans Jews, yet not immutable “facts” of law. Jewish law deliberately opens itself to discretion, even deviation, so Orthodox life can be said to be “governed by men not law.”12 To participate in Orthodoxy, trans Jews invariably interact with rabbis. Hundreds of American Orthodox rabbis have authority to interpret and decide matters of law for congregations, school, and other institutions. In theory, LORs supposedly have discretion in their jurisdiction. But LORs do not exercise power in a vacuum. Their authority is an ideal, constrained by external pressures, to which they might gladly defer.13 As a result, both trans Jews and their LORs have rich repertoires of strategic disclosures and discretion. Notably, LORs have some latitude to craft gendered practices that align with genotypic, phenotypic, or a hybrid halakhic gender. 10 Twenty gendered practices are listed in the appendix to Gray, “The Transitioning of Jewish Biomedical Law.” The morning blessing and burial practices are among those discussed by Poveda, “According to Whose Will,” 76–­81. 11 Ysoscher Katz, “Turn It Over and Turn It Over: Halakha and the Transgender Person (Hebrew responsum),” September 2021, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z8jveJ3bcobh4NUEyz 5KCQtFMKZAaMPF/view; Beth Orens, “Judaism and Gender Issues,” in Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community, ed. Dzmura (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2010), 224–­28; Rabbi Hyim Shafner, “Orthodox Judaism and Its Transgender Members,” in Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism, ed. Alan Slomowitz and Alison Feit (New York: Routledge, 2019), 300–­9; Ronit Irshai, “Elucidating Rav Waldenberg’s Stance on Sex Reassignment Surgery: An Examination of Orthodox and Conservative Rulings Based on His Responsa,” Shenaton Mishpat ha-­Ivri 29 (2018): 123–­51; and Tzvi Sinensky, “Demystifying R. Eliezer Waldenberg on Sex Reassignment Surgery,” The Lehrhaus, November 23, 2022. A phenotypic view could be contingent on modified sexual characteristics. Note that halakhic gender also matters to persons with certain intersex conditions. See Hillel Gray, “Not Judging by Appearances: The Role of Genotype in Jewish Law on Intersex Conditions,” Shofar 30 (2012): 126–­48. 12 Hanina Ben-Menachem, Judicial Deviation in Talmudic Law: Governed by Men, Not by Rules (New York: Routledge, 2021). There are few women clergy in Orthodoxy. An ethnographic study is forthcoming by Michal Raucher. 13 Rabbis may defer to a senior halakhic decisor, mentors, colleagues, or a professional network.

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Rabbis may believe that legal exceptions are justified to accommodate mental health or preserve trans lives.14 In many cases, an LOR need not disclose his sources or reasoning, or even commit to a defined position. Thus, rabbis can traverse layers of discretion when facing the “real life test” of a trans person. For their part, transgender persons modulate self-­ disclosures with the Orthodox rabbis and communities. Of course, everyone sets boundaries, but there is more at stake for LGBTQ people. For example, trans individuals may endeavor to blend in (“passing”) to avoid exclusion and ostracism. They exercise discretion over sharing a wide range of private information that could influence a rabbi’s halakhic reasoning, such as: their trauma, mental health status or diagnosis, sexual or other private conduct regulated by halakhah, and their sense of violated dignity with a proposed accommodation. Several of my trans interviewees are knowledgeable about Jewish law and thus decide when to argue halakhah with a rabbi.

Game Theory and TransRabbinic Interactions How can we categorize transrabbinic interactions in Orthodoxy, given the diversity of each transgender person’s circumstances, the LOR’s judicial discretion, and each side’s disclosure options? In game theory, real life problems are distilled and simplified into an abstract model or game. Models help explain how people act, presumably for their own interests, whether in conflict or overt cooperation. Games are described with constrained variables, such as limits on behavior, defined motives of the players, few available decisions, and the payoffs (net utility) to players from each combination of strategic decisions. Fittingly for our purposes, games often limit communication or disclosure between agents.15 Below, I  follow the game theory convention of light-­hearted names for serious human encounters, such as war. I designed scenarios to represent typical three transrabbinic interactions: one-­time encounters, transitioning while Orthodox, and deliberately seeking a supportive rabbi.

14 See Gray, “The Transitioning of Jewish Biomedical Law.” I have heard various people talk as if such halakhic options could be taken for granted. 15 See Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 2023); Thomas C. Schelling, “The Strategy of Conflict: Prospectus for a Reorientation of Game Theory,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 2 (1958): 203–­64; and Avinash K. Dixit and Barry J. Nalebuff, The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist’s Guide to Success in Business and Life (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008).

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The Drop-­in Davener Scenario A trans person arrives to daven (pray) at a synagogue fifteen minutes before minh. ah (afternoon prayers). The LOR (local Orthodox rabbi) has no prior knowledge about this transgender person, and vice versa. He walks over to greet them. The trans person is visiting from a distant city, for a unique occasion, and hints that they do not expect to return. The rabbi intuitively senses that this person is a bit different, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. There is a break in the small talk. Decision: At this juncture, each agent decides whether to ignore their respective concern, or probe about it. Does the rabbi go chat with daveners gathering for minh. ah, ignoring his intuitive sensation, or probe to discover if this visitor is different? Does the trans Jew ignore the rabbi and go to the side of the mechitza that fits their gender expression, or probe to predict the LOR’s receptivity to trans Jews? This scenario is designed as a low stakes interaction, with closure in fifteen minutes. By letting agents speak to each other, the tension here is that each party has information to disclose: the visitor’s gender identity and the rabbi’s receptivity. It can be modeled as a simultaneous game, with “mixed motives” because the agents’ utility and self-­interest do not match. It is a (non-­zero sum) mutually contingent game because one or both agents can benefit, without an equivalent loss to the other, depending on each other’s responses. A  rational strategy is to notice or seek information to better predict the expected responses of the other player(s). How might the LOR benefit? It is fair to assume that most synagogue rabbis are motivated to avoid conflict. A  rabbi benefits slightly whenever a visitor adds to the functioning or atmosphere of minh. ah. He gains without needing to investigate the visitor. Note that an LOR may prefer to not know about any congregant’s violation of Jewish law. Consequently, most rabbis would pursue a dominant strategy to ignore any intuitive tingling about the visitor. If the visitor reciprocates, ignoring the rabbi, they both benefit. If the visitor asks a probing question, at most it would give such a rabbi a reinforced sense that a conflict was avoided. Let’s add a wrinkle. What if the rabbi is the zealous type, eager to unearth the truth? He tends to probe, diplomatically or not. A few minutes before minh. ah, such a rabbi could realize that the visitor is transgender. Granted, even the zealous rabbi knows that most visitors are cisgender, and could get offended if probed about their gender, so the LOR might resist probing.

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By probing, a zealous LOR would benefit (utility) in the scenario with the Drop-­in Davener. If he holds a genotypic view, he may feel driven to protect the community and, in his mind, the transgender sinner.16 He might gain a reputational payoff if he later shares this incident with a colleague. If he leans to a hybrid or phenotypic view, a zealous rabbi may savor the rare opportunity to show support and implement this halakhah. Regardless, by probing the Davener’s gender identity, the zealous rabbi has a higher benefit than ignoring his intuitive sensation. How might the Drop-­ in Davener benefit? From the trans person’s perspective, a one-­time synagogue visit will be beneficial, to pray with their desired religious community—­as long as their gender presentation matches enough with their side of the mechitza. By choosing not to disclose their trans identity, the Drop-­in Davener avoids creating a stir or getting shamed. Yet, what if the visitor reckons that the LOR is zealous and might probe their identity? Rather than await the rabbi’s probe, the trans person can take the bull by the horns and probe first. Game theory suggests that agents seek information to predict responses by others. A savvy Drop-­in Davener may try a “screening” question to predict how the rabbi would receive a gender identity reveal. The trans visitor must quickly gauge the chance of success. After all, couldn’t a clumsy screening question accidentally signal their gender status? At best, a supportive rabbi could express an affirmation that delights the visitor. For the Drop-­in Davener, it would be hurtful if a zealous rabbi tried to enforce a genotypic view of gender and restrict or deny their effort to join the prayers. One trans woman said she was permitted by a rabbi to attend services, but only on condition that she dress as a man. Another reported that a rabbi told her, a trans woman, that she was obligated under Jewish law to attend services as a man. Such responses could be offensive or a psychological setback, with mental health consequences, so the Drop-­In Davener may be incentivized to attempt screening as a conversational gambit during the few minutes before services. Analysis. LGBTQ and other marginalized people are said to be sensitive to social dynamics. Even if unaware of the rabbi’s intuitive sensation, the Drop-­in Davener can expect LORs to benefit from conflict avoidance. In game theory terms, the trans player is aware of the rabbi’s utility structure. Perhaps they can predict zealotry from cues, such as how the rabbi welcomed them. In this scenario, withholding information is a straightforward way for agents to benefit. If probing does uncover information (such as the transgender status or the rabbi’s receptivity), the agents enter another scenario.

16 The zealous LOR’s next step would begin a second scenario. He might accommodate the trans person under limited conditions, or not.

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In a mutually contingent game, like bargaining, the highest combined benefit comes from predictive screening or strategic signaling. The maximal outcome would pair a zealous rabbi with a phenotypic view, who speaks up despite the risk of offending a cisgender visitor. One interviewee spoke of a rabbi who introduced himself at an event as “LGBT positive,” an unmistakable signal. A skillful Drop-­in Davener would do subtle screening and avoid making such a blunt signal. The Drop-­in Davener scenario could be adjusted to evaluate different contexts: In the Mournful Davener variant, the trans person goes to the synagogue to recite the mourner’s kaddish. Kaddish is only said in communal worship, so they have more incentive to blend into the congregation. Likewise, the rabbi may benefit from giving a mourner an opportunity to say the Kaddish, a payoff regardless of halakhic gender. But there is more risk in this scenario: the trans person could be drawn into conversation about their loss and an FtM mourner might be asked to lead the service. In the Tenth Davener variant, an FtM trans person realizes they could be counted as the tenth trans person in the minyan. Such counting could be forbidden even in a hybrid approach to gender, due to halakhic strictures for communal prayer. If they are counted as if a halakhic male, the Tenth Davener risks criticism if their gender identity is discovered and, if undetected, a sense of regret or guilt. These one-­time visit scenarios show that the formal law of halakhic gender, genotypic or not, does not alone determine the practical outcome. These scenarios are distinctive because key information is held privately by both sides, probably for their mutual benefit. This contrasts with the next scenario.

The Changed Congregant Scenario A long-­ time member of an Orthodox synagogue undergoes transition. A  challenging time for many trans people, transition for Orthodox Jews may engender a break from community gatherings.17 After all, Orthodox halakhah forbids transition when aided by medical treatment.18 A gender transition can elicit support from Orthodox friends, but also trigger unwelcome inquiries

17 Poveda, “According to Whose Will,” also covers pre-­transition challenges. 18 For exceptions, see Hillel Gray, “Rabbinic and Halakhic Discourse on Sex-­Change Surgery and Gender Definition,” in Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism, ed. Alan Slomowitz and Alison Feit (New York: Routledge, 2019), 263–­99.

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and communal drama. During Changed Congregant’s absence, the LOR stuck to a policy of not discussing individual cases with the congregation. Now the Changed Congregant asks to meet to discuss conditions for their re-­entry with their gender expression. Otherwise, their future in the community is jeopardized. Decision: The LOR and Changed Congregant can agree to an arrangement, or to end (or defer) the latter’s participation in the community. In game theory, such bargaining is represented by sequential offer and response rounds. Unless a phenotypic view of halakhic gender is taken, a hybrid arrangement would enable the trans person to pray on the mechitza side for their gender expression, while restricting their social conduct, such as no shaking hands with people.19 How might the LOR benefit? At the individual level, the rabbi could benefit from any agreement that eases communal tensions and settles uncertainties with the Changed Congregant. Even with a genotypic view, the rabbi benefits if he can live with an arrangement that retains the trans person’s participation in the synagogue. However, once the Changed Congregant’s transition is known within the community, the LOR bears substantial reputational risks. His halakhic authority and leadership abilities may be at stake. Would an agreement settle questions in the minds of community members? Or would it backfire? By allowing a trans person to attend the synagogue, the rabbi could become a target for opponents within the synagogue.20 If the community is supportive, rabbinic colleagues and Orthodox Jewish media could object. If this case becomes publicized, at a time of heated trans-­related politics, could it become a litmus test for the rabbi and the Orthodox synagogue itself? For the LOR, a trans Jew’s participation could be destabilizing. How might the Changed Congregant benefit? Outcomes for the transgender Congregant may seem obvious at first glance. They lose if excluded from the community. They win if the rabbi interprets halakhah to include them with their (changed) gender expression. Yet, the terms and pathway to an agreement may be crucial. The Changed Congregant may feel vulnerable immediately after transition. They might not want to bear a rabbi’s or community’s response that is disappointing, demeaning,

19 See Poveda, “According to Whose Will,” 132. 20 On anti-­trans communal conduct, see Poveda, “According to Whose Will,” 133. Several rabbis reportedly “reversed [phenotypic gender] rulings given in private once they were forced to take a stand in public.”

Strategic Discretion

or dehumanizing. Alternatively, they may feel more confident and ready to exit social settings that are unwelcoming. Analysis. For those who proceed with bargaining, game theory points to pertinent strategies. For instance, players need disclose only information that they expect will lead the other side to make a better proposal. Thus, a rabbi can make allowances without giving the halakhic reasons. Or a trans person might not reveal their shame or anger about a compromise. Another strategy is to deliberately cut off one’s own options. For example, a rabbi could inform the Changed Congregant that he holds the genotypic view, and he has no choice but to let that determine his rulings on gendered practices. Or, to protect an accommodation from outside pressure, the rabbi can commit to not publicly discuss individual cases. Before LOR and Congregant settle on a compromise, such as limiting synagogue roles for the Congregant, each must imagine how or if the arrangement could endure. In bargaining, game theory cautions that each side eventually, and rationally, tries to gain ground beyond what they agreed. Working backwards from that expectation, each agent would weigh the risk of future retaliation before signing on.21 What else might cause these transrabbinic interactions to not reach an arrangement? One factor is that most Orthodox rabbis hold a genotypic view. This view implies a rejection of the Changed Congregant’s expressed gender. Trans interviewees reported being profoundly hurt by interactions with local rabbis. For example: One trans woman felt humiliated when a rabbi both “outed” her—both exposed her as a trans person a­ nd misgendered her as a man during a synagogue function. (“Can I help you, Sir?”) A trans woman was distressed when a rabbi, who was otherwise kind, suggested that she move to another city and live a stealth life (that is, not disclose transgender status). Another reported that a rabbi treated her as if mentally ill (“crazy”), even though this pathologizing played no role either in the rabbi’s halakhic assessment or pastoral response, such as it was. These rabbis rejected a transitioned Jew’s gender expression and said so in harsh ways. Conversely, interviewees told me of rabbis who conveyed their genotypic views in respectful ways. Communication choices, not merely halakhic position, shape the outcome of transrabbinic interactions. 21 Rabbis can retaliate at the synagogue, trans Jews can through the media. See Bernie Bellan, “An Orthodox Woman Says She Is No Longer Welcome to Pray at a New York Synagogue Because She Is Trans,” Jewish Post and News, January 11, 2023, https://jewishpostandnews. ca/uncategorized/an-­orthodox-­woman-­says-­she-­is-­no-­longer-­welcome-­to-­pray-­at-­a-­new-­ york-­synagogue-­because-­she-­is-­trans/.

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Another crucial factor in this scenario is the community’s scrutiny. Outside pressure works against the rabbi’s undisclosed or private exercise of judicial discretion. A  tacit agreement might benefit both parties, yet not resolve communal demands. The Transitioning Teen variant. I have heard about transgender adolescents who move into transition while they, and their families, belong to an Orthodox community. The LOR may be expected to address the transition itself, not just gendered religious practices. Moreover, a synagogue or religious school community could internalize the controversy (or moral panic) over transgender youth and treatment of minors for gender dysphoria. Such situations can be highly charged—­and hurtful.22 In real life, trans Jews typically exit the Orthodox community they had, if any, before transition. For this reason, transgender Jews may seek one that is more LGBT-­inclusive. 23

The Shul Shopper Scenario A trans person seeks an Orthodox community that is welcoming enough, a daunting task. They schedule a meeting with the LOR to discuss participation at his or her synagogue. Perhaps the Shul Shopper has attended services a few times already. They do not tell the LOR their gender identity in advance. Instead, they plan to disclose it during the meeting, with a backup explanation in case they abort the mission. Decision: Once the Shul Shopper discloses their transgender status, both participants enter a “bargaining” type scenario. Either can make the first offer. Note that prior strategic thinking could pave the way for this scenario.24 On the one hand, Shul Shopper withheld their gender identity. Why? By playing their cards close, they retain an ability to back away. As a screening gesture, the trans person may expect to read the rabbi’s genuine reaction to a face-­to-­face gender identity reveal. On the other hand, the LOR also made this scenario

22 See Shawn Markus Crincoli, “Religious Sex Status and the Implications for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People,” FIU Law Review 11 (2015): 137–­48; and cf. “Israeli Transgender Boy to Be Transferred out of Religious School,” The Jerusalem Post, January 24, 2023, https://www.jpost.com/israel-­news/article-­729460. 23 See Poveda, “According to Whose Will,” 131–­34; and Gray, “Rabbinic and Halakhic Discourse.” 24 Trans Jews may screen prospects through an Orthodox LGBTQ network, such as Dina’s List, http://www.starways.net/beth/dina.html, or Eshel, https://www.eshelonline.org/. This could lead to cluster effects and reduce overall screening.

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possible. Wouldn’t the rabbi have noticed a cue, that Shul Shopper gave no reason for a meeting? Maybe the rabbi is already exercising discretion by reining in his or her curiosity. How might the Shul Shopper benefit? The potential payoff would be higher than in a Drop-­in Davener scenario. The search for a moderately supportive LOR, especially outside of major urban centers, is not simple. Modern Orthodox communities actively recruit young professionals and young families, and cater to other demographics, but programming for LGBT Jews is virtually non-­existent.25 Trans Jews gain if they find a rabbi who is trustworthy, supportive, and knows how to speak with transgender people in a respectful manner.26 In Orthodoxy, laypeople are expected to seek rabbinic decisions on doubtful or atypical situations. For transgender Jews, such halakhic decisions might hinge on divulging to a rabbi private information about their body or conduct.27 Nevertheless, there are social risks for the Shul Shopper. In many locations, there are few Orthodox synagogues. Once a trans person discloses their status to a non-­receptive rabbi, even if kept fully confidential, they have relinquished their option to blend in at community events. How might the LOR benefit? For the LOR, the benefits are difficult to generalize. A rabbi may feel the reward of caring for a fellow Jew and adding a new member. Some rabbis—­indeed, those likely to be approached—­may be committed to LGBT inclusion and value the opportunity to work with the Shul Shopper. Conversely, in a political or religious climate hostile to trans people, congregational Orthodox rabbis may face risks to their professional status were they to exceed perceived halakhic norms. Rabbis can be sanctioned by colleagues informally, by professional associations (for example, The Rabbinical Council of America [RCA]), and by the rabbis who gave them rabbinic ordination. Still, there are Orthodox networks that strive to be relatively welcoming to trans persons, such as YCT.28

25 See Gray, “Rabbinic and Halakhic Discourse.” 26 For an exceptional account, see Poveda, “According to Whose Will,” 132. 27 A ḥaredi rabbi has advised trans Jews on such private matters. An anonymous discussant raised the salience of this issue. An example could be Jamie Weisbach, “Immersing in a Mikvah While Wearing a Chest Binder” (Trans Halakhah Project’s Teshuva-­Writing Collective at SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva, 2023, https://svara.org/twc/). 28 In 2022, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah started its “LGBTQ+ Community Initiatives Project” (https://yctorah.org/leading-­with-­torah-­values/lgbtq/). In 2020, Yeshiva University rejected a student LGBTQ club and announced more support for LGBT students. See Michael J. Broyde, “Religious Values in Secular Institutions?: Yeshiva University and the Future of

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Analysis: From my limited data on Shul Shopper interactions, I  got the impression that a rabbi’s halakhic views, for example, on gender, did not alone define the outcome. Indeed, some rabbis apparently consider the halakhic situation to be irrelevant. Consider those rabbis oriented to kiruv (that is, bringing Jews into Orthodox observance), who usually welcome any Jew, regardless of practice or even halakhic status as a Jew. I spoke with a kiruv rabbi who met a trans woman. During their conversation, she indicated that a senior rabbi had counseled her to sit on the women’s area of the mechitza. He invited her to a prayer service where she sat on the woman’s side. She assumed that the rabbi had accepted her phenotypic gender expression. However, the rabbi’s hospitality was not based on either the senior rabbi’s or his own view of halakhic gender. Instead, as he told me, he had not investigated the matter in Jewish law and did not know enough about her medical transition to decide. Instead, he deemed it irrelevant whether or not she sat in the women’s side because it was an informal place where, on occasion, men might sit on a couch at the back. Hence, even if her halakhic gender was male, her presence would be unremarkable and uneventful for the women on that side. Yet, at the same time, this rabbi would be reluctant to welcome her as unconditionally to a traditionalist synagogue because of the higher standards, for instance, over whose hands she might shake. This case demonstrates how transrabbinic interactions may lead to a significant benefit (or utility) to both agents, even when their unstated interpretations of halakhah are at odds. As a sequential game, the Shul Shopper outcome depends not merely on the payoff structure. Instead, game theorists see bargaining situations as hinging on each person’s predictions and expectations of the other’s responses. To this end, parties use signals, which can be indirect and discreet. For example, a rabbi reportedly responded quite late to requests by a trans person to attend services on the High Holy Days. This delay was read as a signal of the LOR’s limited receptivity. Conversely, one trans woman found herself warmly welcomed by a kiruv rabbi. He invited her to Sabbath dinner and seated her among his own daughters. She was alone in a room with the rabbi’s wife, which could have been immodest seclusion (yih.ud) had she been deemed a (genotypic) man. In the eyes of the trans woman, the rabbi placed her in these circumstances to signal his unqualified acceptance of her gender expression. The Conversion Shopper variant. A trans person seeks an Orthodox rabbi to accept them as a candidate for a conversion. If the rabbi entertains the

Religiously Affiliated (but Secularly Chartered) Higher Education in America,” Journal of Law, Religion and State 10 (2022): 53–­85.

Strategic Discretion

possibility, the parties would agree on months of Orthodox Jewish education and observance, conditions for conversion, membership of the rabbinical court, and the wording of the conversion certificate.29 Conversions are often private affairs. With a trans person’s conversion, privacy also could shield the rabbis involved, who face reputational and professional risks. In the one case shared with me, strategic non-­disclosure occurred both in conversations between the rabbi and conversion candidate, and in a conversion certificate that was composed to avoid disclosing the person’s gender. Such avoidance shielded the parties from needing to clarify the differences in their halakhic views. The Wedding Shopper variant. Several interviewees spoke of their desire for a religious marriage as part of Orthodox life. Their lack of access was felt as a deep loss. For rabbis, the halakhic situation is knotty. If a trans Jew can be assigned either genotypic or phenotypic gender, then any marital arrangement could risk getting interpreted as a forbidden same sex marriage. In 2022, one wedding was officiated in Israel by Zev Farber, a YCT-­ordained Orthodox rabbi, with a transgender bride.30 This might be the only public trans wedding, even if others have been performed discreetly.

Opening up Conversations As I  reflect on the game theory scenarios, I  take away several lessons about transrabbinic interactions. First, game theory scenarios capture but a fraction of the complexity and diversity of transrabbinic interactions, each with unique features and individuals, and are an excellent tool for deliberation.31 Second, within Orthodox interpretive worlds, rabbis and congregants are incentivized to avoid transparency, and not just on LGBT matters. A discreet pastoral approach is consistent with how many rabbis deal with congregants. They do not rebuke each congregant over every violation of the law. Nor do they enforce every norm. In an Orthodox community, I gather that gender transitions and post-­transition practices are not the most severe violations of halakhah, so

29 Circumcision may be an issue for some converts. See the 2009 CCAR responsum, “Circumcision of a Transgender Female” https://www.ccarnet.org/ccar-­responsa/nyp-­no-­5769-­6/ 30 See Judy Maltz, “Changing Attitudes? A  Trans Bride in Israel Just Got Married by an Orthodox Rabbi,”  Haaretz, September 6, 2022,  https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2022-­ 09-­06/ty-­article/.highlight/changing-­attitudes-­a-­trans-­bride-­in-­israel-­just-­got-­married-­by-­ an-­orthodox-­rabbi/. 31 I  thank Prof. Shmuel Weinberger for our extended conversations, and several anonymous discussants, while accepting responsibility for the flaws here.

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halakhic laws alone do not explain the ostracism of trans Jews or the outcomes of transrabbinic interactions. Third, rabbis and trans Jews may find utility in avoidance strategies—­ disattending genotypic demands as too onerous, too disruptive to compassionate kiruv, and too much of an affront to a person’s sense of self and dignity. I’ve observed that clarity avoided, on both sides of the aisle, can result in their mutual flourishing. There’s a kind of tacit cooperation to regard halakhah as if it is a flexible law to live by. Fourth, interviewees adapt to the ambiguity of their unresolved halakhic situation. A transgender person spoke passionately about gratitude for respectful treatment regardless of the halakhah, fear of attack regardless of the LOR’s views, coming to terms with their relationship with God, and trying not to overthink the formal exclusions they could face. Fifth, for game scenarios to have explanatory value, they should account for asymmetries between agents. There is an asymmetry in power. Rabbis have formal authority, constrained by social dynamics. Trans persons do not lack power, as when they choose to exit a scenario, advocate for halakhic positions, or move to non-­Orthodox alternatives. Moreover, there is asymmetry in the pathways of MtF women and FtM men through Orthodox terrain. For example, the hybrid view does not assign female halakhic gender to an MtF woman, though she prays on the women’s side of the mechitza. Her presence there has few legal ramifications. On the men’s side, though, cisgender men are afforded liturgical roles that may be denied an FtM man. In conclusion, I  claim that when trans Jews and Orthodox rabbis interact, they have intelligible reasons to  exercise strategic discretion and bilateral non-­ disclosure. At times, they navigate to mutual understandings, not only due to the hermeneutic creativity of rabbinic law, but because they can be understood as  “bargaining” for their vital interests—­safety, dignity, reputation, integrity, job  security, principled commitments to Orthodox Jewish life—­amid volatile, trans-­oriented pressures from Jewish communities and the broader society. Future  research could apply game theory more directly, using better empirical data and testing other social-­legal contexts facing rabbis and marginalized Jews. It is worthwhile to explore the decisions and power that transgender people and rabbis use in their interwoven religious lives. They strategize, calculate, and execute plans to live in, lead, or leave traditionalist communities. At a time when concerted efforts are made to constrict the freedoms of trans people, this work is a reminder that that trans people are not passive victims, and that even under adverse conditions, each embodies what it means to be a free subject, as they exercise their agency, rationality, and emotional intelligence.

Bibliography of the Writings of Professor Michael Fishbane Books 1. Text and Texture: Studies in Biblical Literature. New York: Schocken Books, 1979. Paperback edition, 1982. 2nd edition, 1985. Reprinted as Biblical Text and Texture: A Literary Reading of Selected Texts (Oxford: One World Publications, 1998). 2. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1985. Paperback edition, 1988, with additions. 3. Judaism: Revelation and Traditions. New York & San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987. Reprinted with minor revisions and additions in Religious Traditions of the World, edited by H. Byron Earhart, 373–483. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1993. 4. The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Paperback edition, 1992. 5. The Kiss of God: Mystical and Spiritual Death in Judaism. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994). Paperback. Czech translation, Judaismus. Zjeveni a traduce. Praha: Prostor, 1996. Italian translation, Il bacio di Dio. Florence: Giuitina, 2002. 6. The Exegetical Imagination: Jewish Thought and Theology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. Paperback edition, 1998.

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7. JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 2002. 8. Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Paperback edition, 2004. 9. Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Paperback edition, 2009. Hebrew translation, Lev Nachon. Jerusalem: Carmel Press, 2022. German translation, Einstimmung auf das Heilige: Eine jüdische Theologie. Freiburg: Herder Publishing House, 2023. 10. J PS Bible Commentary: The Song of Songs. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society of America; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. 11. M  ichael Fishbane: Jewish Hermeneutical Theology, edited by H. TiroshRothschild and A. Hughes. Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill, 2015. 12. F  ragile Finitude: A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2021. 13. B  iblical Text and Exegetical Culture, Collected Studies. Volume 1 [Ancient Near East; Hebrew Bible; Rabbinic Literature and Midrash]. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022. 14. B  iblical Text and Exegetical Culture, Collected Studies. Volume 2 [Liturgical Poetry; Medieval Thought; Hasidism; Modern Jewish Thought and Contemporary Theology]. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023. 15. P  oetics of Tradition: Formations of Midrashic Epic in Piyyut. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

Edited Books 1. Text and Responses: Studies Presented to Nahum N. Glatzer on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday by His Students, with P. Flohr. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975.

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2. Harper’s Bible Dictionary, associate editor (Old Testament). New York & San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986. 3. Sha‘arei Talmon, The Gates of Talmon: Festschrift in Honor of Shemaryahu Talmon, with E. Tov. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992. 4. The Midrashic Imagination. Studies in Jewish Exegesis. New York: SUNY Press, 1993. 5. Minh.ah le-Nah.um, Biblical and Other Studies in Honor of Nahum M. Sarna on His 70th Birthday, with M. Brettler. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. 6. Death, Ecstasy, and Otherworldly Journeys, with J. J. Collins. New York: SUNY Press, 1995. 7. The Memoirs of Nahum N. Glatzer, with J. Glatzer, introduction by M. Fishbane. Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College Press, 1997. 8. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, volume 2, with M. Saebo. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998). 9. The Jewish Study Bible, consulting editor. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 10. M  idrash Unbound. The Afterlife of a Genre, with J. Weinberg. Oxford: Littman, 2013. 11. M  artin Buber Werkausgabe, Schriften zum Judentum, volume 20, with Paul Mendes-Flohr, and joint introduction. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus, 2018. 12. M  artin Buber Werkausgabe, Schriften zur biblischen Religion, volume 13, with introduction. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus, 2019. 13. Ḥ  iddushim: Celebrating Hebrew College’s Centennial, with Arthur Green and Jonathan D. Sarna. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2022.

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Articles 1. “The Treaty-Background of Amos 1:1 and Related Matters.” Journal of Biblical Literature 89 (1970): 313–18. 2. “Jeremiah 4:23–26 and Job 3:3–13: A Recovered Use of the Creation Pattern.” Vetus Testamentum 21 (1971): 1–17. 3. “Freedom and Belonging.” In The New Jews, edited by A. Mintz and J. Sleeper, 215–22. New York: Random House, 1971. 4. “Additional Remarks on rh.myw.” Journal of Biblical Literature 91 (1972): 391–93. 5. “Varia Deuteronomica.” Zeitschrift für die Altestamentliche Wissenschaft 84 (1972): 349–52. 6. “Ezekiel 40–43: Literary and Scribal Considerations,” with S. Talmon. Tarbiz 42 (1972/73): Sugyot be-Siduram shel Pirkei Sefer Yeh.ezkel, 27–41. Revised version, “The Structuring of Biblical Books: Studies in the Book of Ezekiel,” with S. Talmon. Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute 10 (1976): 129–53. 7. “Numbers 5:11–31: A Study of Law and Scribal Practice in Israel and the Ancient Near East.” Hebrew Union College Annual 45 (1974): 25–35. 8. “Composition and Structure in the Jacob Cycle.” Journal of Jewish Studies 26 (1975): 15–38. 9. “The Teacher and the Hermeneutical Task: A Re-interpretation of Medieval Exegesis.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 43 (1975): 709–21. 10. “The Sacred Center: The Symbolic Structure of the Bible.” In Texts and Responses: Studies Presented to Nahum N. Glatzer, edited by M. Fishbane and P. Flohr, 20–48. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975. 11.  “Le-‘Inyan ha-Ot ba-Miqra” [On biblical omina]. Shnaton ha-Miqra’ [Shnaton. An annual for biblical and Ancient Near Eastern studies] 1 (1975/76): 213–34.

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12. “The Qumran pesher and Traits of Ancient Hermeneutics.” In Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies ( Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1977), volume 1, 97–114. 13. “Torah and Tradition.” In Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament, edited by D. Knight, 275–300. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1977. 14. “The Jews of Russia and Poland: Reflections of a Journey.” Midstream (August/September 1977): 41–49. 15. “Martin Buber as an Interpreter of the Bible.” Judaism: A Quarterly Journal 27, no. 2 (1978): 184–95 16. “Aspects of Jewish Magic in the Rabbinic Period.” In Solomon Goldman Lectures. Perspectives in Jewish Learning, volume 2, edited by N. Stampfer, 29–38. Chicago, IL: Spertus College Press, 1979. 17. “Revelation and Tradition: Aspects of Inner-Biblical Exegesis.” Journal of Biblical Literature 99 (1980): 343–61. 18. “Recent Work on Biblical Narrative.” Prooftexts 1 (1980): 99–104. 19. “Biblical Colophons, Textual Criticism, and Legal Analogies.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 42 (1980): 438–49. 20. “Israel and the ‘Mothers.’” In The Other Side of God, edited by Peter Berger, 28–47. New York: Doubleday, 1981. 21.  “1 Samuel 3: Historical Narrative and Narrative Poetic.” in Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives, volume 2, edited by K. R. R. Gros Louis, 191–203. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1981. 22. “Judaism.” In Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions, general editor K. Crim, 385–92. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1981.

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23. “Jewish Biblical Exegesis: Presuppositions and Principles.” In Scriptures in the Jewish and Christian Traditions, edited by F. Greenspahn, 92–110. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1982. 24. “A Thing of Shame, A Mere Belly: An Interpretation of Jeremiah 10:1–12.” In The Biblical Mosaic. Changing Perspectives, edited by R. Polzin and E. Rothman, 169–83. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1982. 25. “Torah (History and Meaning)” [in Hebrew]. In Encyclopedia Biblica [Entsiklopedia miqra’it], volume 8, 469–483. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1982. 26. “Teshuvah (‘Repentance’ in Ancient Israelite Religion)” [in Hebrew]. In Encyclopedia Biblica [Entziklopedia miqra’it], volume 8, 950–962. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1982 27. “Form and Reformulation of the Biblical Priestly Blessing.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 103 (1983): S. Kramer Festschrift, 115–21. 28. “Jewish Perspectives on Prayer and Living.” In Contemporary Spirituality: Responding to the Divine Initiative, edited by F. Eigo, 1–31. Villanova, PA: Villanova University Press, 1983. 29. “Action and Non-Action in Jewish Spirituality.” Judaism (Summer 1984): 318–29. 30. “Sin and Judgment in Ezekiel 4–24.” Interpretation 38 (1984): 131–50. 31. “Prophetic Spirituality.” In Jewish Spirituality from The Bible to the Middle Ages, edited by A. Green, volume 1, 62–81. New York: Crossroads, 1985. 32. “Through the Looking Glass: Reflections on Ezek. 43:3, Num. 12:8 and 1 Cor. 13:8.” Hebrew Annual Review 10 (1986): 63–75. 33. “Hermeneutics.” In Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, edited by A. Cohen and P. Mendes-Flohr, 353–362. New York: Scribners, 1986.

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34. “Prayer.” In Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, edited by A. Cohen and P. Mendes-Flohr, 723–730. New York: Scribners, 1986. 35. “Inner-Biblical Exegesis: Types and Strategies of Interpretation in Ancient Israel.” In Midrash and Literature, edited by G. Hartman and S. Budick, 19–37. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986. 36. “ The Academy and the Community.” Judaism 35, no. 2 (1986): 147–54. 37. “The Role of Biblical Studies within Jewish Studies.” Association for Jewish Studies Newsletter 36 (1986): 19–21. 38. “Ancient Wisdom and Modern Man.” Christian Jewish Relations 20, no. 2 (1987): 37–48. 39. “Use, Authority and Interpretation of the Mikra at Qumran.” In Compendia Rerum Judaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, Mikra, edited by M. Mulder, 339–77. Van Gorcum: Assen; Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988. 40. “The Image of the Human and the Rights of the Individual in Jewish Tradition.” In Human Rights and the World’s Religions, edited by L. Rouner, 17–32. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1988. 41. “The Biblical Dialogue of Martin Buber.” In Dialogue. The Essence of Buber, edited by J. Stampfer, volume 1, 35–50. Portland, OR: The Jewish Institute of Religion, 1988. 42. “Some Forms of Divine Appearance in Ancient Jewish Thought.” In From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding. Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, edited by J. Neusner, E. Frerichs, and N. Sarna, volume 2, 261–70. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989. 43.  “‘The Holy One Sits and Roars’: Mythopoesis and the Midrashic Imagination.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 1 (1991): 1–21.

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44. “From Scribalism to Rabbinism: Perspectives on the Emergence of Classical Judaism.” In The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East, edited by J. Gammie and L. Purdue, 439–56. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1991. 45. “The Well of Living Waters: A Biblical Motif and Its Ancient Transformations.” In Sha‘arei Talmon, The Gates of Talmon: Festschrift in Honor of Shemaryahu Talmon, edited by M. Fishbane and E. Tov, 3–16. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992. 46. “The Book of Job and Inner-Biblical Discourse.” In The Voice from the Whirlwind: Interpreting the Book of Job, edited by W. C. Gilpin and L. Perdue, 86–98. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1992. 47. “The ‘Measures’ of God’s Glory in the Ancient Midrash.” In Messiah and Christos. Studies in the Jewish Origins of Christianity; Presented to David Flusser, edited by I. Gruenwald, S. Shaked, and G. Stroumsa, 53–74. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1992. 48. “Pluralistic Elements in the Jewish Tradition.” Journal of Religious Pluralism 2 (1993): 15–28. 49. “The Aggadah: Fragments of Delight.” Review essay of The Book of Legends (Sefer Ha-Aggadah): Legends from the Talmud and Midrash, edited by H. N. Bialik and Y. H. Ravnitsky, translated by W. Braude. Prooftexts 13 (1993): 181–190. 50. “Law to Canon: Some ‘Ideal-Typical’ Stages of Development.” In Minhah le-Nahum, Biblical and Other Studies in Honor of Nahum M. Sarna on His 70th Birthday, edited by M. Brettler and M. Fishbane, 65–86. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. 51. “Response” to “Reflections on the Nature and Origins of Jewish Mysticism,” by I. Gruenwald. In Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 50 Years After, edited by J. Dan and P. Schäfer, 49–57. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1993.

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52. “The Arm of the Lord: Mythic Creativity and Exegetical Form in the Midrash.” In Language, Theology, and the Bible: Essays in Honour of James Barr, edited by S. Balentine, 271–292. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1994. 53. “The Inwardness of Joy in Jewish Spirituality.” In In Pursuit of Happiness, edited by L. Rouner, 71–88. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995. 54. “Census and Intercession in a Priestly Text (Exod. 30:11–16) and in Its Midrashic Transformation (PdRK II, 7).” In Pomegranates and Golden Bells, Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, edited by D. Wright, D. Freedman, and A. Hurvitz, 103–111. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995. 55. “The Imagination of Death in Jewish Spirituality.” In Death, Ecstasy and Otherworldly Journeys, edited by M. Fishbane and J. J. Collins, 181–208. New York: SUNY Press, 1995. 56. “Visions: The Paintings of Samuel Bak.” In BAK, Myth, Midrash and Mysticism, 2–10. Boston, MA: Pucker Art Publication, 1995. 57. Contribution to the Symposium: “What Do American Jews Believe?” Commentary 102, no. 2 (1996): 32–34. 58. “To Jump for Joy: The Rites of Dance According to R. Nahman of Bratzlav.” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6 (1997): 371–387. 59. “Justification through Living: Martin Buber’s Third Alternative.” In The Echoes of Many Texts: Reflections on Jewish and Christian Tradition. Essays in Honor of Lou H. Silberman, edited by Wm. G. Dever and J. Edward Wright, 219–230. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997. Reprinted in Martin Buber: A Contemporary Perspective, edited by P. Mendes-Flohr, 120–32. Syracuse, NY and Jerusalem: Syracuse University of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2002. 60. “Rabbinic Mythmaking and Tradition: The Great Dragon Drama in b. Baba Batra 74b–75a.” In Tehilla le-Moshe, Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor

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of Moshe Greenberg, edited by M. Cogan, B. Eichler, and J. Tigay, 273–83. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997. 61. “Orally Write Therefore Aurally Right. An Essay on Midrash.” In The Quest for Context and Meaning. Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James Sanders, edited by C. Evans and S. Talmon, 531–46. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997. 62. “Inner-biblical Exegesis.” In History of Biblical Interpretation, Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament, edited by M. Saebo, 3–19. Göttingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997. 63. “The Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem in Classical Judaism.” In No Religion is an Island. The “Nostra Aetate” Dialogues, edited by E. Bristow, 134–47 and public dialogue, 148–50. New York: Fordham University Press, 1998. 64. “The Hebrew Bible and Exegetical Tradition.” In Intertextuality in Ugarit and Israel, 15–30. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998. 65. “Midrashic Theologies of Messianic Suffering and Salvation.” In Toward the Millennium: Messianic Expectations from the Bible to Waco, edited by P. Schäfer and M. R. Cohen, 57–72. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998. 66. “Midrash and the Meaning of Scripture.” In Interpretation of the Bible, 551– 63. Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. 67. “Types of Biblical Intertextuality.” Congress Volume, International Society of Old Testament Study, 39–44. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999. 68. “Law, Story, and Interpretation: Reading Rabbinic Texts.” In The Jewish Political Tradition, volume one: Authority, edited by M. Walzer, M. Lorberbaum, and N. Zohar, xxix–lv. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. 69. “The Book of Zohar and Exegetical Spirituality.” In Mysticism and Sacred Scripture, edited by S. Katz, 101–17. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 70. “In Sight of Insight: Reflections on a Poem by H. N. Bialik.” In Religion, Fiction, and History Essays in Memory of Ioan Petra Culianu, edited by S. Antohi, volume 2, 190–197. Bucharest: Nemira, 2001.

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71. “Anthological Midrash and Cultural Paideia: The Song of Songs Rabba 1.2.” In Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century, edited by P. Ochs and N. Levene, 32–51. London: SCM Press, 2002. 72. “Toward a Jewish Theology of Nature.” In Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed World, edited by H. Tirosh-Samuelson, 17–24. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. 73. “Bible Interpretation.” In The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, edited by M. Goodman, 680–704. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 74. “The Song of Songs and Ancient Jewish Religiosity: Between Eros and History.” In Von Enoch bis Kafka. Festschrift für Karl E. Grözinger zum 60. Geburtstag, edited by M. Voigts, 69–81. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 2002. 75. “Covenantal Theonomy and the Question of Autonomous Selfhood: Three Spiritual Types.” In Die Autonome Person—Eine Europaïsche Erfindung?, edited by K.-P. Köpping, M. Welker, and R. Weil, 113–27. Munich: W. Fink, 2002. 76. “Canonical Texts, Covenantal Communities, and the Patterns of Exegetical Culture: Reflections on the Past Century.” In Covenant as Context: Essays in Honour of E. W. Nicholson, edited by A. Mayes and R. Salters, 135–61. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 77. “Min haššamayim dibbartî (‘I spoke from heaven’; Exod. 20:22).” In Festschrift for Moshe Weinfeld, edited by C. Cohen, A. Hurvitz, and S. Paul, 33–38. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004. 78. “Transcendental Consciousness and Stillness in the Mystical Theology of R. Yehudah Arieh Lieb of Gur.” In Sabbath: Idea, History, Reality, edited by G. Blidstein, 119–29. Beersheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2004. 79. “Textuality and Subsurface Traditions.” Jewish Quarterly Review 94, no. 1 (2004): 3–5.

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80. “Min ha-shamayim dibbarti: ‘I Spoke from Heaven’ (Exodus 20: 22).” In Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume. Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism, edited by C. Cohen, A. Hurvitz, and S. Paul, 33–38. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004. 81. “L’Allégorie dans la pensée juive.” In Allégorie des poètes, Allégorie des philosophes, edited by G. Dahan and R. Goulet, 91–112. Paris: Vrin, 2005. 82. “Text and Canon.” In The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics, edited by W. Schweiker, 69–77. Oxford: Blackwells, 2005. 83. “The Image of God and the Human Ideal.” In Humanity before God: Contemporary Faces of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Ethics, edited by W. Schweiker, M. Johnson, and K. Jung, 78–90. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006. 84. “Exegetical Theology and Divine Suffering in Jewish Thought.” In Maven in Blue Jeans. Studies in Honor of Zev Garber, edited by S. Jacobs, 160–171. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2009. 85. “Torah Transformed.” In Apples of God in Pictures of Silver. Honoring the Work of Leon R. Kass, edited by Y. Levin, T. Merrill, and S. Schulman, 89–100. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2010. 86. “Aspects of the Transformation of Sacrifice in Judaism.” In Sacrifice, Scripture, and Substitution: Readings in Ancient Judaism and Christianity, edited by A. Astell and S. Goodhart, 115–39. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2011. 87. “Spiritual Wounds.” In Jewish Mysticism and the Spiritual Life: Classical Texts, Contemporary Reflections, edited by L. Fine, E. Fishbane, and O. Rose, 152– 61. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 2011. 88. “Archeology and the Religious Imagination.” AJS Perspectives. The Magazine of the Association for Jewish Studies. The Religious Issue (Fall 2011): 10–11. 89. “Theologie, Einklang, und spirituelle Praxis.” Evangelische Theologie 72 (2012): 387–97.

Bi bl iography of the Wr it ings of Professor Michael Fi shbane

90.  “Mi-Midrash le-Shir: Qavvim bi-Yetzirat Epos Po’eti etzel R. Shimon ha-Gadol.” In “Ve-Zo’t li-Yehuda” Qovetz Ma’amarim ha-Muqdashim le-H.avereinu Prof. Yehuda Liebes, edited by M. Niehoff, R. Meroz, and Y. Grab, 93–100. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2012. 91. “ Ethics and Sacred Attunement.” Journal of Religion 93 (2013): 421–33. 92. “Piyyut and Midrash: Between Poetic Invention and Rabbinic Convention.” In Midrash Unbound: Transformations and Innovations, edited by M. Fishbane and J. Weinberg, 99–135. Oxford: Littman, 2013. 93. “Polysemy and Piyyut: The Poetics of a Yotzer of R. Meshullam b. Qalonymos.” In Envisioning Judaism. Studies in Honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, edited by R. Boustan, K. Hermann, R. Leicht, A. Reed, and G. Veltri, volume 2, 1091–120. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. 94.  “In Response.” Response to the symposium on “Ethics and Sacred Attunement,” by Michael Fishbane. Journal of Religion 93 (2013): 495–97. (See above, Journal Articles, no. 91). 95.  “ What Does the God of Israel Demand?” Response to “The Ten Commandments,” by Leon R. Kass. Mosaicmagazine.com. June 2013. 96. “The Bible in Jewish Mysticism.” Excursus in The Jewish Study Bible, edited by A. Berlin and M. Brettler, 2151–2167. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 97. “Biblical Hermeneutics and Philosophical Theology.” In Michael Fishbane: Jewish Hermeneutical Theology, edited by H. Tirosh-Samuelson and A. Hughes, 197–217. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015. 98. “From Midrash to Epic: The Re-shaping of Rabbinic Discourse in Piyyut.” In Fifty-Year Commemoration Volume of the Israel Academy of Sciences and the Humanities, 1–26. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and the Humanities, 2016.

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99.  “The Journals of Gabriel Marcel and Abraham I. Kook as Spiritual Exercises.” In Responsibility and the Enhancement of Life. Essays in Honor of William Schweiker, edited by G. Thomas and H. Springhart, 131–146. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanhalt, 2017. 100. “The Hermeneutical Self: A New-Old Pedagogical Vision.” The Seymour Fox Memorial Lecture, March 2016. Jerusalem: The Melton Center for Jewish Education and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2017. 101. “Plumblines in the Vastness: Measures Without Measure.” In God and the Moral Life, edited by M. Reynaud and J. Daniel, 157–70. Oxford: Routledge, 2018. 102.  “Religious Authenticity and Spiritual Resistance: Martin Buber and Biblical Hermeneutics.” In Martin Buber. His Intellectual and Scholarly Legacy, edited by Sam Berrin Shonkoff, 219–32. Leiden: Brill, 2018. 103. “‘Seeing the Voices’: Enchaining the Chains of Tradition (Reading Levinas Reading Talmud).” Levinas Studies 13 (2020): 11–26. 104. “Aging in Place.” In Torah in the Time of Plague, edited by E. Leib Stokler, 254–62. Teaneck, NJ: Ben Yehuda Press, 2021. 105. “Le Cantique des Cantiques et la théologie exégètique juive.” Communio. Revue Catholique Internationale 279 ( January/February 2022): 90–106. 106. “Spiritual Pedagogy and Rhetoric in a H.asidic Homily.” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 30, no. 1 (March 2022): Memorial Volume for Kalman Bland, 114–129. 107. “Legal Authority, Memory, and Moral Worthiness: Tosefta Pish.a 4. 13–14 and Later Rabbinic Traditions.” In Ḥiddushim: Celebrating Hebrew College’s Centennial, edited by Michael Fishbane, Arthur Green, and Jonathan D. Sarna, 184–202. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2022.

Bi bl iography of the Wr it ings of Professor Michael Fi shbane

108. “Hermeneutics and the Hasidic Homily.” In Contemporary Studies in Hasidic Homilies, edited by E. Holzer. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2023. 109. “Monotheism and Idolatry: Theological Challenges and Considerations.” In Contemporary Reflections on Idolatry, edited by A. Goshen-Gottstein. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2023. 110.  “Moral Pedagogy, Cultural Memory, and Midrashic Epic.” In Emet le-Ya’akov:Facing the Truths of History: Essays in Honor of Jacob. J. Schacter, edited by Z. Elef and S. Seidler-Feller. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2023. 111. “Sacred and Profane Mysticism: The Ontology of Language in the Poetry of Chaim Nachman Bialik.” In New Paths: Festschrift in Honor of Professor Elliot Wolfson, edited by S. Heschel, G. Dynner, et al. Purdue, IN: Purdue University Press, 2023. 112. “Scripture, Tradition, and Theology: A Passover Yotzer by R. Meir b. Yitzh.ak Shatz.” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought: Festschrift for Moshe Idel, edited by R. Margolin (Idra Press, forthcoming).

383

General Index

A

Aaron, biblical figure, 32, 52, 64, 100 Aaron of Apta, 234n8 Abba bar Kahana, rabbi, 68 Abraham (Abram/Avraham), patriarch, 28– 29, 35, 52, 55, 69–70, 88, 100, 127–29, 131n31, 143, 145, 255, 295, 311, 313–15, 317–20, 333, 335 Abrahamov, Binyamin, 157, 163n22 Abulafia, Abraham, 218 Academy of the Hebrew Language, 77 Acevedo, Juan, 192n40, 192n42 Adam, 55–57, 59–61, 65, 68–69, 71, 73, 75, 135, 198, 200, 292, 333 Adamson, Peter, 174n22 Adelman, Howard E., 215n17 Adler, Hildegard, 319n27 Admah, 9, 19 Africa, 87, 286 aggadic material, 96, 111, 124–25n9, 140–41, sее also spеcific tеxts in thе Indеx of Sourcеs Aharoni, Yohanan, 40n15, 48–50 Ahaz, king, 47 Ah.ituv, Shmuel, 48n39 Ahuvia, Mika, 146 Akiva (Akiba), rabbi, 84, 97n17, 335 Akkadian tеrms and loanwords, 37–38 Aknai’s Oven, 141–42, 152 Albeck, Hanoch, 56n3, 70n42, 115n12, 316n19 Alexander (h.asidic group in Poland), 283 Alexander, Elizabeth Shanks, 111n10, 118n17 Alexander, Lucius Cornelius, polyhistor, 92 Alexandria, 82, 89 Alqabez., Shelomoh, rabbi, 219n24, 223, 228 Altmann, Alexander, viii Altshuler, Mor, 217n21, 218–19, 227n40 Ambrose of Milan, 89

America, 278–82, 284–93 Amalek, 310 Amidah, 142n6, 143 Amminadab, 62 Amora Ḥizkiyah, 128n24 amoraic sources, 55, 83–85, 117n15, 132, sее also spеcific tеxts in thе Indеx of Sourcеs Amram, 70 Amsterdam, 279 Anathoth, 48n40 Andalusia, 154, 165n28, 169, 174–77, 194n53 Andersen, Francis, 12n12 Aqedah, 309–11, 313–17, 318n26 Aquila of Sinope, 12n12 Aquinas, Thomas, saint, 264, 266n9, 267n11 Arabic language (Ar), 123, 154–55, 156n6, 157n8, 158–59, 177, 190, 191n32, 192n42, 196 Aramaic language, 37–38, 48–49, 197n5 Aranoff, Deena, 234 Arendt, Hannah, 233 Aristotelianism, 176, 191, 195 Aristotle, philosopher, 191n35 Arzy, Shahar, 224n36 Assaf, David, 239n26 Assis, Yom Tov, 205n27 Assyria, 9–10, 11n10, 12, 37n7, 79–80 Atāhīyah, Abū al-, poet, 169n7 Augustine of Hippo, saint, 212, 264, 267n11 Augustus, Octavian, caesar, 100, 105n53, 108 Austro-Hungarian empire, 281 Averill, James R., 264n1, 264n3, 267n12 Averroes (Ibn Rushd), polymath, 191n35 Avigad, Nahman, 48, 50 Avot blessing, 142n6 Axelrod, Robert, 358n15 Azariyah, rabbi, 71

386

Jew ish Culture and Creativ ity

Azazel, 88 Azikri, Elazar ben Moshe, rabbi, 219 Azriel of Gerona, 242n39

B

Ba‘al, god, 9, 12n12 Ba‘al Shem Tov, Israel, rabbi, 234–39, 293 Babel, 194n51 Babylonia, 286–87, 293 Bachelard, Gaston, 251 Balaam, prophet, 14–15, 21 Balentine, Samuel, 13n13, 14n16, 15n20, 17n28, 18 Baqli, Rūzbihān, 212 Bar, Shaul, 310n3 Bar-Asher, Avishai, 184nn3–5, 194n53 Bar Yoh.ai, Shimon, rabbi, 71, 135, 199, 228–30 Barton, Tamsyn, 203n24, 209 Baruch, Jeremiah’s disciple, 100 Basil of Caesarea, 86 Bass, Shmuel, 332 Bates, Stephen, 294 Baum, Devora, 141n4 Bedford, Ronald, 214n13 Bekkum, Wout van, 142n7, 144n9 Belarus, 281 Bellan, Bernie, 363n21 Belser, Julia Watts, 108n3 Belz(h.asidic group in Poland), 283 Ben Abuna, Eleazar, rabbi, 67 Ben Asher, Bah.ya, 199n15, 218 Ben Avraham, Dov Ber. See Maggid of Mezritsh Ben Bābshād, Sa‘īd, 169n7 Ben Gamliel, Shimon, rabban, 249n1 Ben-Ephraim, Edan, 356n9 Ben Ḥofni, Samuel, 155n5, 160n16 Ben Isaac, Solomon (Yitzh.ak, Shlomo), rabbi. See Rashi Ben Israel, Menasseh, 279 Ben Lakish, Shimon, rabbi, 319–20 Ben Maimon, Moses, rabbi. See Maimonides Ben Nachman, Moses, rabbi. See Nah.manides Ben Sira, Shimon ben Yeshua ben Eliezer, 105n50 Ben Sherira, Hai, rabbi. See Hai Gaon Ben Shelomoh of Gerona, Ezra, 242n39 Ben Tamim, Dunash, 192n44 Ben Yosef, Saʿadiah. See Saadia Gaon Ben Yosenah, Simeon, rabbi, 67 Ben Asini, Simeon, rabbi, 70–71 Benor, Ehud, 187n16 Berekhiyah, rabbi, 253 Berkovitz, Abraham J., 10n6, 99n29

Besht. See Ba‘al Shem Tov Bethel, 30 Beth-Shemesh, 40n15 Biale, David, 235n9 Bialik, Ḥaim Nah.man, 331–32, 334, 336nn39–40 Bible, the, viii, 5, 13, 14, 20, 22, 25n13, 26, 28, 79, 92, 95, 105, 112, 117, 256, 310, 331, 333, 345, 351, sее also Hеbrеw Biblе, Pеntatеuch, sее Indеx of Sourcеs for spеcific books Bilu, Yoram, 224n35 Bleich, J. David, 220n27 Blickstein, Shlomo, 184n3, 184n5, 190n31 BLM movement, 350 Blondheim, Menachem, 281 Bobov(h.asidic group in Poland), 283, 287–88 Borough Park, 282, 288 Boehm, Omri, 314n15, 318n26 Bowman, Alan, 100n30, 101n34 Boyarin, Daniel, 26n15, 92n3, 135n43, 140n3, 233n1, 264n4 Brandeis University, viii Bratzlav, 233, 239, 245n61, 246, 247n71, 248n75, 249 Braude, William, translator, 336n39 Breen, Benjamin, 224n36 Brehony, Kevin J., 324n2 Brettler, Marc Zvi, 20, 28n17 Brody, Robert, 123n3, 170n8 Brooklyn, 282, 292, 293n35 Brown, Benjamin, 283 Broyde, Michael J., 365n28 Brueggemann, Walter, 10n5, 11n9, 18n32, 19n36, 20n37 Bryk, Anthony S., 325n7 Buber, Martin, 21, 85n27, 323–26, 337, 353 Bunim of Przysucha, Simh.ah, rabbi, 252

C

Caesarea, 86, 102 Cain, biblical figure, 63n22, 69 Canaan (Canaanites), 32–33, 125 Canaanite shift, 37–38 Canada, 281 Carruth, Cathy, 312n8 Carter, Stephen L., 300 Carthage, 81 Casper, Michael, 292 Castile, 183, 194n53, 196–97, 205, 209–10 Catalonia, 197, 205 CCAR, 367n29 Chabad. See Ḥabad Chabris, Chrisopther F., 244n51 Chajes, J. H., 213, 215, 218, 228n41

General Index

Chernobyl, 250n4 Chicago, 338, 344 Chin, Catherine M., 123n1 Church Fathers, 17n28, 90, sее also Indеx of Sourcеs Cicero, philosopher, 104 City of David, 45–46 Clement of Alexandria, 82 Cleveland, 287 Coakley, Sarah, 317 Cohen, Aryeh, 132n37, 135n44, 136n47 Cohen, Mark R., 215n17 Cohen, Menachem, 180n39 Cohen, Mordechai Z., 188n23 Cohen, Shaye, 101n33 Collins, Harry, 104n45 Collins, John J., 78 Commandment, 74, 89, 144–50, 154, 160, 164, 237–39, 271, 295. See also mitzvot (miz.vot) Communism, 291 Cordovero, Moshe, rabbi, 219, 228–30 Coogan, Jeremiah, 99n29 Crasnow S. J., 355n4 Crincoli, Shawn Markus, 364n22 Crown Heights, 282, 287–88, 292

D

Dalmann, Gustav, 12n11 Damascus Document, 98n28 Daniel, biblical figure, 279 David, king, 173 Davidson, Herbert, 187n16, 187n18 Davila, James R., 198n11 Davis, Lloyd, 214n13 Davis, Natalie Zemon, 215n17 death, 15, 57, 59, 85, 89, 128, 130–31, 172–73, 174n23, 178, 217n21, 229, 248, 277, 313 Decalogue, 111 Decter, Jonathan, 167n1, 180n40 Derash (drush), 91, 252, 327, 333. See also Sermon Deutsch, Nathaniel, 247n71, 278, 292n30 Diner, Hasia, 280n5 Dixit, Avinash K., 358n15 Dixon, Thomas, 264n2, 267nn11–12, 270n19 Dobler, Carolyn P., 50n48 Dohrmann, Natalie B., 28n17, 91, 102n38, 104n49, 105n51 Dorff, Elliot N., 143n8 Douglas, Mary, 198n7 Dubnow, Simon, 286, 291 Dubrau, Irmi, 197n3 Dylan, Bob, 233 Dzmura, Noach, 354n2

E

Eastern Europe, 278, 280–81, 284–85, 287, 288n22, 291 Eden, 55–57, 60–61, 64, 69–71, 74–75, 221–22, 321 Egypt, 9–12, 14, 28–29, 31, 69, 86, 286 Efrayim of Sudilkov, Moshe Ḥayyim, rabbi, 237 Ehrenberg, Elimelech Eliezer, 284n12 Ehrlich, Arnold, 12n12 Eichrodt, Walther, 16–17 Einhorn, David, 280 Eisen, Arnold, 280 Eisenberg, Richard, 143n8 Eldar, Ilan, 190n29 Elazar, rabbi, 228–30, 303 Eleff, Zev, 284, 286–87 Eliezer, rabbi, 57, 59, 141 Elijah (Eliyahu), biblical figure, 39–40, 49, 257 Elior, Ofer, 190n27 Elior, Rachel, 217n21, 219n25, 235n9 Elisha, 39–40, 49 Elman, Yaakov, 124–25n9 Emar, 37 Enelow, Hyman G., 162n21 Enoch, 86, 100 Enosh, 69 Ephraim, tribe, 9, 11n10, 13–14, 15n19 Ephrem the Syrian, saint, 87 Ephron, 128 Epstein Jacob Nahum, 125n10 Ernst, Carl W., 212n4, 213n11 Esau, biblical figure, 291 Eschaton, 79 Ess, Josef van, 155n5 Etkes, Immanuel, 235n9 Evans, Robert, 104n45 Eve, 55–57, 59–61, 65, 68–69, 71, 73, 75 exegesis, viii, 2, 7, 62, 94, 105 140–41, 148, 180, 186, 200, 249 Ezra, priest, 100

F

Faierstein, Morris, 215n16, 218 Facebook, 346 Fantham, Elaine, 100n30 Farabi, Abu Nasr Muhammad al-, philosopher, 188n19 Farber-Ginat, Asi, 185n6, 185n10 Farber, Zev, rabbi, 367 Fascism, 291 Feinstein, Moshe, rabbi, 285 Feldman, Yael S., 315n17 Fernandez, James, 209

387

388

Jew ish Culture and Creativ ity

Ferziger, Adam, 290 Fine, Lawrence, 219n24, 220n26, 227n40, 228n41, 241n35 Fisch, Menachem, 141n4 Fishbane, Michael, vii–ix, 1, 4, 17, 22, 24n7, 27n16, 35, 55n1, 56, 63n21, 77–78, 91, 92n1, 93, 95, 109–11, 122, 136, 139, 154, 167, 182, 196, 200, 202, 233–34, 248n74, 249–51, 259n30, 278, 308–10, 316, 322–23, 325–32, 334–38, 352–54 Fishbane, Eitan P., vii, 4, 55n1, 169n6, 196n1, 208n41, 211, 212n2, 215n15 Flatto, David, 101n33 Fleischer, Ezra, 143n8, 170n8, 170n12 Fleming, Daniel, 29n21, 37 Flood, 28n18, 69, 72–73 Fonrobert, Charlotte Elisheva, 124, 132n34 Ford, Russell, 317n21 Foucault, Michel, 93n6, 94, 96–97, 104, 206 Fox, Samuel, 77n1 Fox, Seymour, 331n26 Fraade, Steven D., 92n3, 94n11, 96n16, 96n19, 98, 103, 140n3 France, 286, 293 Frankl, Viktor, 347 Freedman, David Noel, 12n12 Freud, Sigmund, 319gh Friedman, Shamma, 92n3 Frymer-Kensky, Tika, 314n15 Furstenberg, Yair, 103n42

G

Gaius, roman jurist, 101 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 251 Galen of Pergamon, philosopher, 103, 240n30 Galicia, 281, 283 Galilee, 228 Garb, Jonathan, 212n1, 229n41 Gardner, Gregg, 108n1 Gelbman, Shlomo Yaakov, 292–93 Gelder, Geert Jan van, 169n7 Geonim, 197–98 Ger(h.asidic group in Poland), 283 Gerar, 28 Gereboff, Joel, 264n4 Germany, 280, 286–87, 293 Geue, Tom, 93nn5–6, 96, 100, 106 Giddens, Anthony, 325n5 Gifter, Mordechai, rabbi, 287 Giqatilla, Joseph, 182–85, 189–92, 194–95, 218 Glatzer, Nahum, viii Glikl of Hameln, 215 Goldish, Matt, 217n21, 224n36 Goldreich, Amos, 155n3

Gomorrah, 19 Gonçalves, Francolino, 41nn17–18 Gopnik, Alison, 244, 246–47 Gordis, Robert, 10n2 Gottlieb, David N., 309 Grafton, Anthony, 101n35 Gray, Alyssa, 108 Gray, Hillel, 354, 355n3, 356n7, 356n9, 357nn10–11, 358n14, 361n18, 364n23, 365n25 Green, Arthur, 196, 247n71, 248n73, 341 Green, Deborah, vii, 55 Goldziher, Ignaz, 177n32 Gribetz, Sarit Kattan, 135 Gruenwald, Ithamar, 197n4, 208

H

Haas, Peter J., 109, 118n16 Ḥabad, 288–90, 292 Ḥafez. Ḥayyim. See Meir Israel Ha-Kohen, rabbiHaftarot, viii, 23, 34 Hai Gaon, 207 Halakhic thought, 26, 91–101, 105–7, 124–25n9, 141, 155–57, 161, 219–21, 222n30, 241n34, 278, 304, 355, 358, 360–62, 366–68 Halbertal, Moshe, 140n2 Halberstam, Shlomo, rebbe, 283 Halevi, Judah (Yehudah), 176n28–81, 190n32, 191n32 Halivni, David Weiss, 105n52, 318n24 Ḥallamish, Moshe, 222n30 Ḥama, rabbi, 249n1 Hamath, 38 Hamori, Andras, 169n7 Hananiah, 41 Ḥanina, Sherira bar, rabbi. See Sherira Gaon Ḥanina, rabbi, 249n1 Ḥanukkah, 71 Harar, Natan ben Sa‘adya, 218 Ḥaredim, 278–82, 284–86, 288, 293, 356, 365n27 Ḥarizi, Yehudah al-, translator, 185n9, 192n43 Harman, Graham, 246n64 Harris, Jay M., 128n21 Ḥasidei Ashkenaz, 20, 197, 218n23, 235 Ḥasidism, 234–35, 237n18, 239, 246–47, 251–52, 264–65, 269–70, 293 Haskell, Ellen, 196, 208n38, 209n46 Hasmonean dynasty, 105 Havurat Shalom, community, 355n4 Ḥayyim of Sanz, rabbi, 287–88 Ḥayyim of Volozhin, rabbi, 286–88 h.azaqah, 125 Heavenly Academy, 217, 222, 227

General Index

Hebrew Bible, 15, 23, 26, 39, 46, 47n35, 51–52, 79–80, 278, 295, 331, 333, 347, sее also Biblе, Pеntatеuch, sее Indеx of Sourcеs for spеcific books Hebrew DSS, 40n16 Hebrew language, 8, 12n11, 18n30, 36–40, 43, 45–46, 48–49, 50n47, 51, 77, 108n3, 112, 115n12, 123, 125n10, 127n16, 143nn8– 9, 154n2, 155–56, 157n9, 160nn15–16, 167, 169n7, 170n8, 175, 177, 179, 180n37, 183, 185–86, 188n21, 189–95, 197n3, 201–2, 208n37, 213n9, 219n25, 222n30, 228n41, 240n28, 252n7, 253n10, 258, 261, 265n5, 265n7, 270n18, 275n31, 282, 298, 329, 331–35, 345 Biblical Hebrew, 37–38, 47–48, 134 Judean Hebrew, 37 rabbinic Hebrew, 134n40 Qumran Hebrew, 38 Hecker, Joel, 198, 206, 209n46 Heidelberg, 323–24, 337 Heppenheim, 324 Herman, Judith Lewis, 312n10 Herodian dynasty, 105 Hertzberg, Arthur, 279, 280n3, 281n7, 288n21 Heschel, Abraham Joshua, 13n15, 16–17, 19, 21, 313n11, 339, 341–42, 344–52 Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, king, 43, 51, 83–85 Hezser, Catherine, 100n30, 103 Hiphil forms, 11n8, 46 Hirshman, Marc, 71n44, 72n47 Ḥisdai, rabbi, 316 Hitler, Adolf, 287, 291 Ḥizkiyah, 128n24 Holocaust, the, 265, 278, 281–82, 284, 287, 289n22, 315, 347–48 Homily, 32, 82, 140, 173, 250n4, 252. See also Derash Horace, poet, 92 Hosea, prophet, 7, 10, 14–15, 17–18, 20–21 Howard, Jonathan, 191n32 Howley, Joseph A., 99n29, 101n36 Huehnergard, John, 37n3 Hungary, 281, 292 Husik, Isaac, 177n32 Huskinson, Lucy, 224n36 Huss, Boaz, 222n30, 228n41 Hutner, Yith.zaq, rabbi, 285 Hyman, Arthur, 186n13

I

Iberia, 170, 179, 208 Ibn al-Mubārak, ʿAbd Allāh, 165n28 Ibn Caspi, Yosef, philosopher, 318n26

Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 12n12, 16–17, 176n28, 177, 179–80, 190, 195n55 Ibn Ezra, Moses, 176n28 Ibn Gabirol, Solomon, 176–78 Ibn Latif, Isaac, 190, 194n53 Ibn Paquda, Baḥya ben Joseph, 154–66, 175–77 Ibn Rushd, Abu’l Walid Muhammad, polymath, 191n35 Ibn Tibbon, Judah, 156n6 Ibn Tibbon, Shemuel, 185n9, 186n15, 192n43 Iddo (Oded), 38, 47 Idel, Moshe, 194n51, 202, 212n5, 215n16, 218, 224n36, 234n8, 236n17, 265n5 Immigration Act, 281 Inbari, Motti, 284 Ingall, Carol K., 352 Iraq, 179 Iron Age, 45–46, 48 Irshai, Ronit, 356n7, 357n11 Isaac of Akko, 218 Isaac, patriarch, 28, 35, 70, 309–20, 321n31, 322 Isaac, rabbi, 70 Isaiah, from Jerusalem, 36, 42–48, 51, 66, 79–80 Ishmael, rabbi, 80, 86, 198 Ishmael, biblical figurе, 311 Islamic culture, 123, 154n1, 155n5, 162–63, 169n7, 214 Israel (Israelites), tribe, 8–15, 17n28, 19–21, 26–30, 32–33, 35–36, 39–40, 56, 62–65, 67–69, 71–74, 78–79, 109–10, 112–13, 125, 127, 129, 144n10, 146–47, 148n19, 149, 152, 167, 170n9, 239, 259n28, 269, 272, 279, 282–84, 287, 290, 292–93, 303n35, 306, 333 Israel (since 1948), 287, 290, 292, 331, 333, 352, 367 Istanbul, 239 Italy, 286 Ivry, Alfred L., 188nn19–20, 193n47 Izbica-Radzyn Ḥasidism, 251–52, 255–56, 258–59

J

Jacob, biblical figurе, 29, 35, 70, 144, 291, 319 Jacobs, Louis, 219n24, 236n17, 265n5 Jacobson-Maisels, James, 264 Jaffee, Martin S., 92n1, 95n14, 97–98, 103n42, 109, 111n10, 117n14, 122 Jaffray, Angela, 188n19, 192n42 Janzen, J. Gerald, 14n16 Jehu, king 40 Jerome, translator, 82n17

389

390

Jew ish Culture and Creativ ity

Jerusalem (ancient), 30, 36, 42–44, 46, 48, 50–51, 83, 114, 117, 252, 286, 293n35, 306 Jerusalem (modern), 42, 249, 328n16, 331n26 Jesus Christ, 87, 89 Jethro, 199 Jewish Women’s Archive, 354n1 Jick, Leon, 280n3 Job, 258, 347–48, 351 Johnson, Mark, 126n13 Joseph, prophet, 15, 28–29, 202 Josephus, Flavius, 79, 102, 105n51 Joyce, James, 92n3 JPS ( Jewish Publication Society), 23, 293n35, 327. See also NJPS JTS ( Jewish Theological Seminary), 191n33, 213n9 Judaism, 26–27, 29, 31, 34, 77–78, 94, 110, 113, 197, 200, 216, 277, 279, 280n5, 286, 290, 294, 295n4, 296n10, 297–99, 300n24, 303, 305, 307, 314, 347, 354, 357 Jubilees, 30n22 Judah ( Judeans), tribe, 27, 29–30, 33, 35, 37, 42–43, 48, 50–51, 62, 79 Judah, Rav, 83–84 Judah the Prince, rabbi, 83 Judd, Terri, 294n3 Jung, Carl G., 313, 314n14 Justin Martyr, 101

K

Kabbalah, viii–ix, 21 169n6, 184, 189n32, 194n53, 197–200, 202–11, 212n1, 213– 22, 224n36, 228–30, 236, 241, 242n39, 246, 250n5, 253, 256, 257n26, 279, 283, 285, 292, 305, 318n24, 346–47 Kahana, Abba bar, rabbi, 68 Kahana, Maoz, 219 Kahana, Menachem, 92n2, 98n28 KAI, 38 Kalam, 174 Kalmin, Richard, 92n3, 124n4 Kaminetzky, Yaakov, rabbi, 285 Kanarek, Jane L., 123, 132n35 Kanarfogel, Ephraim, 218 Karaite Jews, 123, 124n3 Karo, Yosef, rabbi, 217, 219–25, 227–30 Kasher, Hannah, 155n5, 158, 161 Katz, Jacob, 222n30 Katz, Ysoscher, 357n11 Katzenelson, Itzchak, 332 Kauffman, Tsippi, 235n9, 270n18 Kaufman, Ivan, 46n33 Kaufmann, Yehezkel, 21

Kellner, Menachem, 186n11, 191n39, 194n51 Kelly, Philippa, 214n13 Kenyon College, 349 Kimh.i, David, rabbi. See Radak King, Karen L., 99n29 Klatzkin, Jacob, 185n6, 192n43, 192n45 Kloppenborg, John S., 101nn34–35 Koch, Patrick B., 212 Koehler, Ludwig, 13–15, 16n22, 19 Kohath, 70 Koller, Aaron, 314n15 König, Jason, 102n37, 103–4 Kotler, Aharon, rabbi, 285–86 Kraemer, David, 141n5 Krakow, 249 Kranzler, Gershon (George), 290–91 Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, 39n11 Kurtzer, Yehuda, 26n14

L

Labovitz, Gail, 125, 126n13, 130n28 LaCapra, Dominick, 311n5, 312n8 Lachter, Hartley, 205n27 Lactantius, a Berber convert, 81 Lakoff, George, 126n13 Landes, Isaac, 96 Lapidus, Steven, 281 Lapin, Hayim, 103 Lara, Ali, 309 Latvia, 281, 289 Leicht, Reimund, 198n11 Leiner of Izbica, Mordechai Yosef, rabbi, 252 Leiner of Izbica-Radzyn, Ya‘aqov, 252–53, 255–58, 260 Lejeune, Philippe, 213–14 Leon de Modena, rabbi, 215 Leonhardt, David, 340 Lerner, Dov, 294 Letteney, Mark L., 99n29, 135n42 Lev, Sarra, 126n15 Levi, rabbi, 320 Levine, David, 108n3 Levine, Lee I., 143n8 Levinson, Joshua, 90 Levites, tribe, 70, 112–15, 121 Levy, Gabriel, 141n4 Lewis, Ioan Myrddin, 224n36 LGBTQ, 358, 360, 361, 364, 365, 367 Liadi, 288 Libson, Ayelet (Hoffmann), 90 Lieber, Laura S., vii, 13б 139 Lieberman, Saul, 77n1, 115n12, 127 Liebes, Yehuda, 197nn3–4, 197n6, 199–200, 204n25 Lithuania (Lita), 278, 281, 284–87

General Index

liturgical poetry. See Piyyut Livy, Titus, 92 Lloyd, Geoffrey, 104n46 Lorberbaum, Menachem, 187n16 Lost Tribes, 279 Lu’ath, 38 Lubavitch, 281, 285, 288–89, 292 Lurianic mysticism, 197, 235n9, 241–42, 285, 305

M

Ma’agarim database, 143n9 Maimonides, 21, 160n16, 161, 163n22, 183–95, 222 Magid, Shaul, 211n1, 244n48, 248n73 Maggid, 220–27 Maggid of Mezritch, 234n8, 237–38 Magli, Patrizia, 204, 205n26 Maḥziqei ha-Dat, newspaper, 281 Makhpelah, 128 Maltz, Judy, 367n30 Mandel Foundation, 333n34 Mandelbaum, Bernard, 71, 72n45 Mankowski, Paul V., 37n6, 38n8 Margalit, Avishai, 313n12 Margalit, Natan, 125n10 Margolin, Ron, 197nn3–4, 197n6, 198n11, 204n25, 208n37 Mari, 37 Mark, Zvi, 239n26, 245n62 Markovits, Daniel, 339 Marom, Daniel, 323, 325n9, 331n27 Marxism, 297, 299 Mason, Steve, 105n51 Massignon, Louis, 155n5 Matt, Daniel C., 197n5, 198n10, 199n13 Mayse, Ariel, 221n28, 239n23, 171n21 Mazar, Benjamin, 43–44 Mazar, Eilat, 42–48 McGill, Scott, 99n29 Meir, Jonatan, 212n2 Meir Israel Ha-Kohen, rabbi, 281, 284, 286
 Menah.em, rabbi, 67 Menah.em Nah.um Twersky of Chernobyl, rabbi, 250n4 Mendel-Geberovich, Anat, 47n37, 48n39, 49n42 Meroz, Ronit, 206 Messiah (Moshiach), 105, 248, 278, 284–88, 289n23, 292 Metatron, archangel, 86 Merkavah mysticism, 197 Michaelis, Omer, 154, 155n4, 164n27 Middle Ages, 183, 185n9, 194n53, 299 Migne, Jacques-Paul, 77n1

Milikowsky, Chaim, 62n17, 62n17, 64n25, 77n1, 106n57 Miller, Lulu, 243 Mintz, Adam, 213n9 Minucius Felix, lawyer, 81 Miriam, 64 Mirsky, Yehudah, 215n16 mitzvot (miz.vot), 56, 57n6, 145, 160, 274, 347, sее also Commandmеnt Molekh, 78, 272–73 Molkho, Shelomoh, 217n21 Morales, Aurora Levins, 31 Moriah, mountain, 318 Morlok, Elke, 184n3, 194n51 Morrow, William, 33n23, 37n7 Moseley, Marcus, 212n3, 213–14 Moses (Moshe), biblical figure, 25, 32–33, 52, 56, 61–62, 63n23, 64–67, 70, 72–74, 100, 101n32, 112–14, 144, 146, 148, 150n26, 152, 188, 193, 199, 249n1, 257, 259nn28–29 Moses, Lionel E., 143n8 Moshe de Leon, 218 Moshe Ḥayyim Efrayim of Sudilkov, rabbi, 237 Moss, Candida, 106n56 Muffs, Yochanan, 7n1, 17, 18n34, 21 Mu‘tazilite doctrine, 174

N

Nadelman, Yonatan, 45n30 Nader, Albert, 174n22 Nadler, Steven, 279 Naeh, Shlomo, 143n8 Nagourney, Adam, 355n6 Nahman, rabbi, 132 Nah.manides, 184n5, 197 Nah.man of Bratzlav, rabbi, 233, 239, 240n27, 240n29, 241–49 Nah.shon, son of Amminadab, 62 Nahwandi, Nisi al-, 169n7 Najman, Hindy, 99n29 Nalebuff, Barry J., 358n15 Native Americans, 279 Nazism, 281 Near East, 12n12, 313 Nehemiah, rabbi, 48n40, 88 Neh.unyah ben ha-Qanah, rabbi, 236 neoplatonism, 168–69, 173–81 Nestler, Eric J., 315n17 Netherworld, 86, 90 NETS, 41 Neusner, Jacob, 78n3, 95 New York, 191n33 Nicodemus, 87

391

392

Jew ish Culture and Creativ ity

Niehoff, Maren, 105n51 New Education Fellowship (NEF), 323–24 NJPS (New Jewish Publication Society of America Tanakh), 149n24. See also JPS Noah, biblical figurе, 25, 63n22, 72–73, 100, 254n15 Nob, 48 Novak, David, 295 Novick, Peter, 214n14 Novick, Tzvi, 141n4 NRSV, 41 NYU, 167n1, 247n69

O

Oded (Iddo), 38, 47 Oikonomopoulou, Katerina, 102n37 Old Babylonian spelling, 37n6, 38n9 Olney, James, 213n10 Olszowy-Schlanger, Judith, 124n3 Ophel area excavations, 43–44, 45n30, 46 Orens, Beth, 354n2, 355n4, 357 Origen of Alexandria, 82, 89–90, 101 Oron, Michal, 218 Orthodox Jews, 77, 279–80, 284, 286, 334, 354–57, 361–62, 367–68 Orthodox Jewish Life, periodical, 290n26 Otto, Eckard, 13, 14n16, 16n22

P

Pachomius, monk, 86 Pachter, Mordechai, 218 paideia, 91, 99, 108–9, 111, 115–16, 118, 120, 122 Palestine, 81, 83–84, 88, 101, 103, 143n8, 282, 287 Pamphilus of Caesarea, saint, 101 Pardes, Ilana, 133n39 PaRDeS, 323, 327–28, 331, 334, 337 Peirano, Irene, 99n29 Peles, Yedidyah, 175n25, 176n27 Penn, Ascher, 290n26 Pentateuch, 18n30, 18n34, 22–30, 32, 34–35, 110, 115, 121, sее also Biblе, Hеbrеw Biblе. For spеcific books sее Indеx of Sourcеs. pesharim, 98n28 peshat, 327, 333 Peters, Jeremy W., 355n6 Pharaoh, 14 Philistines, 313 Philo of Alexandria, 79, 89, 102, 105n51 Phineas, 14 Pickstock, Catherine, 313n13 Piekarz, Mendel, 247n71, 283, 284n12 Pines, Shlomo, 186n15 Pinson, Koppel, 287, 291n28

Piyyut, viii, 140, 142, 143n9, 153, 169–72, 174–76, 177n31, 179 Plato, philosopher, 191n35 Plutarch, Lucius Mestrius, 84–85 Pomponius, Sextus, roman jurist, 101 Poland, 252, 281, 283, 286–87, 289, 293 Polen, Nehemia, 265n7 Polnoye, 236 Popovic, Mladen, 198n11 Portugal, 279 Poveda, Oriol, 355n4, 356n8, 357n10, 361n17, 362nn19–20, 364n23, 365n26 Powers, Paul R., 155n5, 163n21, 165n28 Przysucha, 252

Q

Qal forms, 11n7, 14n17, 15n19, 46 Qumran, sect, 38, 197, for spеcific tеxts sее Indеx of Sourcеs. Qur’ān, 165n28

R

Rabb, Theodore K., 215n17 Rabbanite Jews, 123, 124n3 Rabbinic Council of America, 365 Rad, Gerhard von, 11n9, 18n31 Radak, 12nn11–12, 13–17, 18n33, 239n22 Rambam. See Maimonides Ramban. See Nah.manides Rapoport-Albert, Ada, 236n13 Rappaport, Roy A., 209 Rashi, 14–15, 128n23, 135, 136n47, 221, 239, 321n31 Raucher, Michal, 357n12 Ravid, Benjamin C. I., 215n17 Ravitsky, Aviram, 186n11 Ravitzky, Aviezer, 188n21 Ravniz.ky, Yehoshua Hana, 336n39 Rayaz.. See Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzh.aq, rabbi Rebecca, biblical figure, 28, 319–20 Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC), 23, 30, 34 Reed, Annette Yoshiko, 85n26, 88n39, 99n29 Reform movement, 278–80 Reinert, Benedikt, 157n8 Resh Lakish. See Ben Lakish, Shimon Resnick, Irven, 196n2 Rice, Abraham, 280 Richardson, Samuel, 92n3 Ricoeur, Paul, 126n13, 251n6, 311, 319n28 Rieff, David, 311n6 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 251n6 Robinson, Ira, 281 Rollston, Christopher, 37n6, 38n9, 42, 43n22, 44n27, 45–46

General Index

Roman Empire, 93, 100–102, 106 Romanus the Melodist, 87 Rosenberg, Shalom, 283 Rosenblum, Jordan, 108n2 Rosenfeld, Eliyahu, 103n40 Rosenzweig, Franz, 251, 260 Rosen-Zvi, Ishay, 88n39, 90n43, 102n38 Rostov, 289 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 212–15 Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., 92n3, 125n9, 141n4 Rubin, Eli, 288–89, 290nn25–26, 291n29 Ruderman, David, 215n17 Ruderman, Yaakov, rabbi, 285 Russell, Paul L., 319 Russ-Fishbane, Elisha, vii, 4, 55n1, 167, 237n18 Russia, 286–87 Ryle, Gilbert, 191nn35–36

S

Saadia Gaon, rabbi, 123, 169–80, 188n21 Sabbath (Shabbat), 141, 142n6, 224, 249n1, 280, 288, 332–33, 345 Sabbatical year, 117, 143n8 Sacks, Jonathan, rabbi, 294–308 Salonica, 219 Samael, demon, 225–26 Samaria Ostraca, 46n33 Samely, Alexander, 111n11 Sarah (Sarai), biblical figurе, 28, 127–29, 131n31, 255n18, 317 Sarna, Jonathan D., 279 Sarna, Nahum N., viii Satan, 86–88 Satmar Ḥasidism, 237n20, 283, 285, 292–93 Saul, biblical figurе, 36 Savoraim (Sabora’im) rabbis, 124n4 Savran, George, 168–69, 172 Schäfer, Peter, 83n22, 92n2, 94, 98n28, 106n57 Scheindlin, Raymond, 177–78 Schelling, Thomas C., 358n15 Schick, Shana Strauch, 155n5 Schirmann, Ḥaim, 169n7 Schmidt, Leigh Eric, 214n12 Schneerson, Chaya Mushka, 289n24 Schneerson, Menachem Mendel, rabbi, 289–91 Schneersohn, Yosef Yitzh.aq, rabbi, 281, 289 Schoenberg, Tzvi, 182 Schofer, Jonathan W., 60n9, 108, 117n15 Scholem, Gershom, 208n37, 215–18, 235, 236n17, 265n5 Schorsch, Rebecca, 338 Schultz, Joseph P., 146n14

Schüngel-Straumann, Helen, 11n9 Schweiger-Dmi’el, Itzchak, 332 Scripture, 104, 109, 113, 139–42, 151, 156, 200–1, 203, 228, 256, 327, 330 sefirot, ix, 21, 229–30, 242n39, 254n16, 346 Second Temple, 28n17, 38n9, 78–80, 86, 95, 100, 102, 104–6, 113–14, 121, 305. See also Temple Semitic cults, 37 Semitic languages, 190, sее also Akkadian tеrms and loanwords, Aramaic languagе, Canaanitе shift Sephardi Jews, 279 Septimus, Bernard, 186n11 sermon, 95, 240–42, 246, 265 Sewell, William H. Jr., 312 Shafner, Hyim, rabbi, 357n11 Shah, Mustafa, 123n2 Shapira of Piaseczno, Kalonymus Kalmish, rebbe, 264–77 Shapira, Shalom, 289n23 Shebaniah, 50 Shekhinah, 55–71, 68–69, 73–75, 220, 228, 286, 289 Shema, 243n46, 225 She’ol (Sheol), 85–87 Sherira Gaon, rabbi, 124, 207 Shiloh, Yigal, 45 Shlomo of Bobov, rabbi, 283 Shneur Zalman of Liadi, rabbi, 288 Shoham, Yair, 45, 49n43 Shohet, Azriel, 265n5 Shonkoff, Sam S. B., 233 Sifra, 94, 105n52 Silverstein, Mordechai, rabbi, 320n29 Simh.ah Bunim of Przysucha, rabbi, 252 Simons, Daniel J., 244n51 Simon-Shoshan, Moshe, 141n4 Sinensky, Tzvi, 357n11 synagogue, 24, 25n13, 141, 143, 150n26, 152–53, 279, 287n20, 331, 354, 359–66 Sinai, mountain, 10, 30, 68, 148n19, 149n24, 150n26, 153, 289, 295, 317, 318n26, 322 Sinai, Admor of Zmigród, rebbe, 288 Sivin, Nathan, 104n46 Sklare, David, 155n5, 160n16 Smith, Emily Esfahani, 339–40, 341n8, 347 Snake, demon, 56, 59–60, 225–26 Sodom, 19, 69 Sofer, Moshe, rabbi, 282 Sokoloff, Michael, 220n27 Solomon, king, 152 Soloveitchik, Joseph, rabbi, 285–86 Soloveitchik, Moshe, rabbi, 285–86 Sommer, Benjamin D., 7, 24n7, 28n17

393

394

Jew ish Culture and Creativ ity

Spain, 286–87, 293 Spinoza, Baruch, 21n40, 25 Stackert, Jeffrey, 24n8, 25, 28n17, 30n22 stam, 92n3, 96n19 Stanislawski, Michael, 213n9 Steedman, Carolyn, 235 Stemberger, Günter, 92nn1–2, 94n9, 95n13, 105n52 Stern, David, 24, 72n46 Stern, Elsie R., 22 Stern, Joseph, 186n15, 188n19, 188n23 Stern, Sacha, 103n40 Sternhartz of Nemirov, Natan, 239nn25–26, 240n27, 241–48 Stoicism, 267n11 St. Petersburg, 289 Strack, Hermann Leberecht, 92n2, 94n9 Strassfeld, Max K., 126n15 Stroumsa, Sarah, 194n53 Sudilkov, 237 Suetonius, Gaius, 106 Ṣūfīsm, 157n8, 212 sugya, 26–27, 92n3, 124–27, 129–36 Sukkot, festival, 143, 252 Sundararajan, Louise, 264n1, 264n3, 267n12 Suzuki, Shunryū, 242 Sviri, Sara, 154n1, 194n53 Swartz, Michael, 148n18 Symmachus, Quintus Aurelius, 12n12 Synesius, philosopher, 87 Syriac texts, 37n3, 47n35, 62n14

Thalheimer, Nicole A., 354n2 Theresa of Avila, saint, 212 Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, 77 Thespesius, 84 Tirz.ah, 146–47 Tobi, Yosef, 169n7, 170, 172n16 Tobshallum, son of Zakar, 49 Todorov, Tzvetan, 191n37 Tov, Emanuel, 40n16, 41n17 Turkle, Sherry, 325n6 Twersky of Chernobyl, Menah.em Nah.um, rabbi, 250n4

T

W

Tabernacle, 56–58, 61–63, 64n25, 65–75, 259n28, 293n35 Tacitus, Publius Cornelius, historian, 92 Talmage, Frank, 185nn9–10 Tanenbaum, Adena, 168, 176n28, 177–78, 180n37 Tanna (tanna’im), 55, 60n8, 93, 95, 98–102,, 104–5, 133, 236n14 tannaitic texts, 28n17, 78, 80, 84, 91–92, 94n8, 95, 100, 104–6, 115 Tartarus, 87 Ta-Shma, Israel, 222n30 Teitelbaum, Ḥananyah Yom Tov Lipa, rabbi, 292 Teitelbaum, Yoel, rabbi, 292 Telz, 287 Temple, 44, 71, 110, 112–14, 129, 252, 260, 286. See also Second Temple Temple Mount, 42 Ten Commandments, 316, 318n26, 322, 333. See also Commandment Tertullian, Quintus Septimius Florens, 81

U

Ukraine, 281 Ulpian, roman jurist, 101 United States, the, 31, 35, 278–82, 284–88, 289n24, 292, 293n35, 339–341, 355–56 United States Congress, the, 281 University of Chicago, the, viii, 22, 77, 92 Urbach, Ephraim E., 162n21

V

Vajda, Georges, 154n1, 157n9, 165n28 Valley of Hinnom, 78–80 Vaughn, Andrew G., 50n48 Versteegh, C. H. M., 190nn29–30 Vidas, Moulie, 92n3 Vital, Ḥayyim, rabbi, 217, 219, 243n47 Vizcaino, Juan M., 165n28 Volozhin, 286 Wacks, Ron, 265n7 Wagner, Leslie, 294 Wallace, David Foster, 348–49 War of Independence, the, 315 Warsaw Ghetto, the, 265 Wasserman, Elh.anan, rabbi, 284 Watson, Wilfred G. E., 10n2 Weinberger, Shmuel, 367n31 Weintraub, Karl J., 213n10 Weisbach, Jamie, 365n27 Weisberg, David Yosef, 287–88 Weiss, Abraham, 124 Weiss, Joseph, 235n9, 236n17 Weiss, Tzahi, 192n40, 194n51 Wellhausen, Julius, 25 Wensink, Arent J., 155n5 Werblowsky, Raphael Judah Zwi, 218–19, 227n40 Wexler, Philip, 289n22, 290nn25–26, 291n29 Wilfand, Yael, 108n1 Williams, Megan Hale, 101n35 Williams, Steven J., 196n2

General Index

Williamsburg, 282, 292, 293n35 Williamson, H. G. M., 52n52 Wise, Mayer, 280 Wiskind-Elper, Ora, 241n36, 249, 255n20, 256n21, 271n21, 274n29 Wodzinski, Marcin, 236n13 Wolff, Hans Walter, 10n4, 12n12, 15n18 Wolfson, Elliot R., 162n21, 183n1, 192n41, 202, 217n20 Wolfson, Harry, 187nn16–18 Wollenberg, Rebecca Scharbach, 140n3 Wolski, Nathan, 196n1 World Education Fellowship (WEF), 323 World War II, 265, 281, 284–85 Woolf, Greg, 100n30, 101n34, 102

Y

Ya‘aqov Yosef of Polnoye, rabbi, 236 Yadin-Israel, Azzan, 96, 127n19 Yagel, Avraham, 215 Yahalom, Joseph, 198n11 Yahuda, Abraham S., 156n6 Yale, 339 Yannai, rabbi, 132, 142, 147 Yassif, Eli, 198n7 YCT (Yeshivat Chovevei Torah), 355, 365 Yehudah, poet, 141–43, 145–48, 150–53 Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim, 310 Yeshiva University, 355n28 YHWH (Yahweh), 7, 10, 11n9, 12n12, 13, 15–16, 18, 20, 30, 32, 46–47, 56, 62, 68, 71–72, 112–14, 117

Yiddish, language, 240n28, 278, 281–82, 290n26 Yitzh.ak, rabbi, 65–66 Yoh.anan, rabbi, 67, 319 Yom Kippur, 170 Yosef, Rav, 83n21 Yosef of Polnoye, Ya‘aqov, rabbi, 236 Yoshor, Moshe, rabbi, 286 Yovel, Yirmiyahu, 211n1 Yudan, rabbi, 320

Z

Za’aphiel, angel, 86 Ẓaddiq, 239, 243, 248, 279 Zahavy, Tzvee, 162n21 Zakkur, king, 38 Zalman of Liadi, Shneur, rabbi, 288 Zeboiim, 9, 19 Ze’ev Wolf of Zhitomir, rabbi, 238, 239n23 Ẓefat, 211, 212nn1–2, 214, 216–19, 229 Zell, Rochelle, 338, 341, 344, 350 Zen, 244, 247 Ziegler, Joseph, 196n2, 197n4, 199n15 Zionism, 280, 283–84, 292, 331 Zmigród, 288 Zohar, Noam, 125n10 zoharic physiognomy, 197–98, 202–3, 205, 209 Zulay, Menahem, 170, 172n14, 172n16, 174nn20–21, 174n23 Zweip, Irene, 184n2, 188n19, 194n51

395

Index of Sources

A

Acts of Pilate, 87n34 Akkadian texts on prophеts, 37 Apocalypse of Abraham, 88 Ambrose’s Commentary to Luke, 89n41 Ante-Nicene Christian Library, 81n12, 81n14, 82nn15–16 Arad ostraca, 40, 47n35 Avot d’Rabbi Natan (ARNA, ARNB), 57–61, 336n39

B

3 Baruch, 88 Beit ha-Midrash, 336 Beit Ya‘aqov, 252, 253n10, 255n18, 255n20, 256n21, 257nn25–26, 258n27, 259n29, 260 Beit Yosef, 219–20, 222n30 Book of Directions to the Duties of the Hearts, 154–65

D

Damascus Document, 98n28 Dead Sea Scrolls, 38, 40n16, 98n28 Community Rule, 98n28 Divrei H.ayyim, 287–88

E

2 Enoch, 88 3 Enoch, 57n7, 86

G

Genizah texts, 115n12, 175, 198, 208 Gospel of Nicodemus, 87

H

Hakkarat Panim le-Rabbi Ishmael, 198 Hekhalot writings, 98n28

K

Kitāb al-Hidāya ilā Farā’id. al-Qulūb, 154–65 Kontakia, 88n36

L

Lachish letters 3 Lachish, 39 6–7 Lachish, 48 22 Lachish, 50–51

M

Ma‘aseh Bereshit, 85, sее Seder Rabbah diBereshit Maccabees, 98n28 Mei ha-Shiloah. , 252, 253n10, 254n15 Mekhilta, 80, 94, 141n5 Midrash, viii, 22, 28n17, 55–57, 60–75, 78, 84–85, 89–101, 104–7, 111, 136, 140, 153, 202, 250n5, 253, 256–57, 299, 318, 320, sее also Oral Torah, Writtеn Torah Bereshit Rabbati, 316n19 Genesis Rabbah (GenRab), 56, 58–61, 63n22, 66, 68, 69nn40–41, 70, 81n10, 83n20, 83n23, 192n43, 239n22, 253nn11–12, 319, 321n31 Leviticus Rabbah (LevRab), 62n15, 88 Numbers Rabbah (NumRab), 64n25 Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, 80, 94 Mekhilta Kaspa 2, 141n5 Pesiqta d’Rab Kahana (PRK), 58–61, 65–68, 71–74, 83 Pesiqta Rabbati, 218n26 Pirke d’Rabbi Eliezer (PRE), 57–61 Sifra, 94, 105n52 Sifre Deuteronomy, 79n7, 163n22

Index of Sources

Song of Songs Rabbah (SongRab), 58–61, 64n25, 65–68, 69n41, 70–72, 111, 148n19 Tanh.uma, 58–60, 65, 67–68, 70–71, 73–74, 85–87 Mishnah, 93n4, 105n50, 105n52, 108–22, 219, 133n38, 220–23, 225–27, 254 manuscripts and еditions MS Kaufmann, 126n14 MS Parma, 126n14 MS Munich 95, 130n29, 131n30 MS New York, 191n33 MS Oxford Opp., 248, 130n29, 131n30, 134n41 MS Vatican 111, 127n18, 128n22, 130n29, 135n45 Venice print (1520), 130n39 Vilna edition, 127n18, 130n29 tractatеs Avot, 81n11, 165n30, 245n61, 260, 315 Bava Mez.ia, 136n48 Eduyot, 84 Ma‘aserot, 108–18, 114–17, 120–21 Ma‘asar Sheni, 108–14, 115n12, 117–18, 121, 260n31 Qiddushin, 124–31, 133, 134n40, 135 Soferim, 148n19 Zavim, 134n40 Mishneh Torah, 160n16, 163n22 Laws of Prayer and Priestly Blessing, 160n16, 163n22

N

Nisibene hymns, 87

O

Oz.ar H.ayyim, 218 Oral Torah, 150n26, 151, 329

P

Patrologia Graeca (PG Migne), 77, 82n17, 82n19, 87nn31–32, 89nn40–42 Patrologia Latina (PL Migne), 77, 81nn12–14, 82n15 Peri Archon, 89n40

R

Raza de-Razin, 198n10, 199n12, 203n23

S

Samaria Ostraca, 46n33 Shulh.an Arukh, 219–20, 222n30 Seder Olam (Rabbah), 58–63, 64nn25–26, 65–69, 73

Seder Rabbah di-Bereshit, 85, sее Ma‘aseh Bereshit Sefer ha-Bahir, 191n32, 236n14 Sefer Maggid Meisharim, 217, 219–27 Maggid Meisharim, parashat Va-Yakhel, 221n29 Sefer Sha‘arei Z.edeq, 212n5, 218 Stromata, 82 Symmachus, 12n12 Syriac texts, 37n3, 47n35, 62n14

T

Talmud, 26, 27n16, 83–84, 89, 92n3, 98, 103n40, 117n15, 123–24, 141–42, 152, 155, 160n16, 173, 207, 229n42, 250, 257, 286, 289 Babylonian Talmud (Bavli), 80, 82, 83n21, 84, 92n3, 103n40, 123–36, 160n16 Zеraim Berakhot, 79, 82–83, 124n5, 156, 160n15, 173n17, 229n42, 336n39 Mo’ed Shabbat, 249n1 Eruvin, 88, 148n19, 160n15 Pesah.im, 79n7, 82, 160nn15–16, 303n35 Yoma, 124n5 Beiz.ah, 249n1 Rosh ha-Shanah, 62n15, 160n16, 286 Ta‘anit, 336n39 Megillah, 257 H.agigah, 80, 124n5, 207, 252n8, 256n21 Nashim Yevamot, 124n5, 136n47 Ketubot, 136n47 Nedarim, 124n5 Gittin, 129n27, 136n47 Qiddushin, 123–24, 125n12, 127, 128nn23–24, 129, 131–32, 133n38, 136 Nezikin Bava Mez.ia, 83n21, 141 Bava Batra, 129n27 Sanhedrin, 79–80 Qodashim Menah.ot, 156 Me‘ilah, 124n5 Jerusalem Talmud (Yerushalmi), 81, 83, 160n16, 117n15 Zеraim Berakhot, 83n20, 160n16 Peah, 80n9, 81n11

397

398

Jew ish Culture and Creativ ity

Mo‘ed Ta‘anit, 117n15 Mo‘ed Qatan, 141 Nashim Qiddushin, 80, 81n11 Nezikin Sanhedrin, 83n23 Tanach, sее also Oral Torah, Writtеn Torah books Torah, viii, 25n13, 26–27, 34–35, 57n6, 67, 74, 98, 101–2, 134–35, 139, 141–53, 184, 201–3, 206–8, 218, 221, 226–27, 229–30, 234, 245, 249, 251–52, 257, 264n4, 282, 285–87, 289–91, 292n33, 293n35, 320, 329, 333, 335 Genesis (Gen), 15, 28–30, 32, 35, 52, 55–58, 61, 68–72, 75, 128, 131n31, 145, 168n3, 180, 191n33, 192n45, 198–99, 207, 250, 253, 255, 256n21, 309, 311, 313–14, 316, 318–19, 321n31, 345, 352 Exodus (Ex), 10–11, 14, 18, 28, 31–32, 35, 52, 62, 65n29, 66, 82, 134, 141, 148n18, 149n22, 152, 199, 249n1, 257n24, 259n28, 316 Parshat Yitro, 198, 203n23, 205–6, 209, 238n21 Leviticus (Lev), 18, 28, 62–63, 79n6, 112, 115, 119 Numbers (Num), 11, 12n11, 13–15, 32, 52, 58, 62, 65–68, 70, 79n6, 110, 112–13, 247n71 Deuteronomy (Deut), 12n12, 28, 30, 32–33, 35, 52, 79nn6–7, 112–14, 117, 128, 134–35, 140n3, 141–53, 163n22, 252, 273, 279 Prophеts 1 Samuel (1 Sam), 14–15, 21, 36–37, 39–40, 42, 48, 51–52 2 Samuel (2 Sam), 79n6 1 Kings (1 Kgs), 38n10, 39–40, 44, 257n24 2 Kings (2 Kgs), 39–40 Isaiah (Isa/Is), 15, 17n24, 20, 36, 37n6, 38n9, 42–47, 48, 50–52, 66, 79–80, 142n6, 204, 239n22, 279 Deutero-Isaiah, 20, 79 Jeremiah ( Jer), 12, 15, 17n24, 19n35, 36, 40–43, 48–49, 52, 79-80, 82,

127–29, 131n31, 145–46, 279, 293n35 Ezekiel, 68n37, 82n17, 142n6, 201, 204 Hosea (Hos), 7–8, 10–21, 46, 68n37 Amos (Am), 12n12, 36, 39, 42, 49, 51 Jonah, 15 Zephaniah (Zeph), 79n6 Zechariah (Zech), 15, 38, 79 Malachi (Mal), 79, 147 Writings Psalms (Ps), 14n17, 15n21, 17, 58, 61, 65–66, 70, 72, 79n6, 83–86, 134, 144–46, 149–50, 168, 170, 175, 202, 236–38, 239n22, 239n24, 248, 253, 257n26 Proverbs (Prov), 57n6, 144–47, 150–51, 171n13, 185n8, 207, 254 Job, 80n8, 148, 258, 347–48, 350–51 Song of Songs (Song), viii, 57–58, 61–65, 67–68, 70–72, 145–47, 148n19, 227, 327 Lamentations (Lam), 12n11, 14, 168 Ecclesiastes (Eccl), 144, 151–52 Ezra (Ezr), 38, 45, 100 Nehemiah (Neh), 38n10, 45, 48, 88, 144, 149n24 1 Chronicles (1 Chr), 38, 45 2 Chronicles (2 Chr), 38, 47n35, 78 tеxts and translations of, Masoretic text (MT), 8, 11n7, 12n12, 38–39, 40n16, 41–42, 52 Septuagint (LXX), 8, 40n16, 41, 47n35, 62n14 Targum, 12n12, 13–15, 62n14 Pseudo-Jonathan, 62n14 Vulgate, 12n12 Testament of Abraham, 88 Testament of Asher, 88 Tosafot, 128n24, 135n44, 136n47, 249n1 Tosefta, 115nn12–13, 118n16, 131n33, 133n38, 254n17 Ma‘aserot, 115n13, 120n18 Bikkurim, 126n15 Qiddushin, 131n33, 133n38

W

Written Torah, 150n26, 151, 329, 335

Z

Z.ava’at ha-Rivash, 265n6, 269n16 Zohar, 21n41, 196–209, 222n30, 228, 253–54, 259 Tiqqunei Zohar, 197n3, 253n12