REVIEW: Studies in Rabbinic Narratives
Studies in Rabbinic Narratives, Volume 2, edited by Jeffrey L. Rubinstein (Brown Judaic Studies, 2025), 371 pp.
Like everything else, academic disciplines have trends. Five years ago, Geoffrey Hartman and Jeffrey L. Rubenstein edited a volume titled The Aggada of the Bavli in its Cultural World which focused on the Zoroastrian and Persian background of Talmudic stories. Last Spring, Rubenstein edited Studies in Rabbinic Narratives Volume 2 and the focus, as we shall see, has shifted. This collection of eleven essays makes a significant contribution to aggadic study.
Several essays break down a sharp binary between halakha and aaggada. Mira Beth Wasserman argues that two Talmudic tales distinguishing between shemata and aggada (Sota 40a; Bava Kamma 60b) actually differentiate between innovative ideas and citing traditions, rather than between legal and non-legal material. Essays by Matthew Goldstone, Lynn Kaye, and Chaya T. Halberstam all explore literary elements in legal narrative. While a reader might think that legal stories are only about conveying the law, these writers find other elements as well. (My review here will not address Gila Fine’s essay as I have reviewed her work elsewhere.)
Goldstone’s essay builds upon E.M. Forester’s famous distinction between flat and round characters. He shows how legal narrative can flatten characters or help bring them alive in three-dimensions. Abaye curses others a good deal. On the one hand, this could reduce that Amora to a single character trait. On the other hand, the fact that this phrase is only applied to Abaye may make him a more idiosyncratic and interesting character.
Another recurring theme is analysis of story cycles that looks at extended aggadic passages and not only at individual stories. Rubenstein interprets a series of tales about the Angel of Death (Moed Katan 28a), Jenny Labendz analyzes a long aggadic section about the messiah (Sanhedrin 96b–99a), Avi M. Miller discusses two aggadot about the death of Rabbi (Ketubot 103–104; Yerushalmi Ketubot 12:3), and Aviva Richman tackles an aggadic section about Yom Kippur (Yoma 76b–77a). Each claims to find a motif running through the extended text. As an aside, I will mention an intriguing idea of Rubenstein that the aggada about death never mentions the malakh ha-mavet by name, reflecting a fear that mere invocation may brign about his fatal presence (Potterheads will recall “He Who Shall Not Be Named”).
According to Labendz, a theme of the paradox of contradictory impulses runs through the long messiah discussion. We discuss when the redeemer will come but also incline not to engage in such speculation. We eagerly anticipate the messianic era and simultaneously carry anxiety for its arrival. It is a good essay with some questionable examples. Her paradoxes include the fact that the Sages and even Elijah the Prophet, who represent knowledge, are clueless when it comes to the messiah’s advent. I counter that knowledgeable people hitting the limits of their understanding is no paradox; being learned does not mean one knows everything—perhaps that is the point of this aggada.
In contrast, Shlomo Zuckier and Admiel Kosman choose to focus on a single story extracted from a larger canvas. Kosman analyzes a story about R. Amram’s sexual temptation without discussing surrounding stories about the challenges of the libido (Kiddushin 81a). Similarly, Zuckier interprets a story about Ketiah bar Shalom, a Roman official who saves the Jews, without addressing a larger framework of Roman-Jewish relations, but locates a consistent motif in his chosen single story (Avoda Zara 10b); it continuously refers to the relationship between parts and the whole. The emperor fears being called a “cut off empire,” circumcision is cutting off a piece to achieve completion, and Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s tearful declaration, “There is one who acquires his share in the World-to-Come in one moment, and there is one who acquires his share in the World-to-Come only after many years of toil,” which speaks of part of life standing in for the whole. Zuckier adds a clever point about the hero’s name: The Romans had their Pax Romana, or “Roman Peace,” the two-century period of imperial stability and prosperity; Ketiah (“cutting”) refers to the Jewish act of circumcision, something the character performs on himself. Thus, his name, Ketiah bar Shalom, means a Jewish spirit emerging from the Roman world.
While it does not connect with his central theme, Zuckier could have discussed Rabbi’s intriguing statement about those who acquire a share in the World-to-Come in an instant. Why did this thought inspire tears? Rabbi may be sad about himself, frustrated that what took him a lifetime was accomplished by another in but a moment. Conversely, Maharsha explains that Rabbi cried for Ketiah thinking it tragic that a person of such character was killed before a lifetime of achievement.
Kosman’s essay stands out since it is the only one that significantly utilizes traditional rabbinic commentary and the broad world of Western thought. Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and others who help us understand both literature and the human condition provide helpful insight and terminology. Likewise, I have argued several times that academics would benefit from looking at Maharsha, Maharal, and others. While I appreciate Kosman’s methodology, nevertheless, I have some hesitations about his interpretation. He suggests that R. Amram begins the story as someone who upholds standards out of fear of “what will they say.” After he is sexually tempted, he learns to act motivated by the authenticity of his private conscience. R. Amram calls out “there is fire in Amram’s house” so that the rabbis will come to his door, preventing him from approaching the women in his attic, indicating a willingness to undergo public shame in order to avoid sinning. That is why he refers to himself as “plain” Amram and not Amram Hasida; titles revolve around public recognition. Kosman raises an important idea but he does not root it in the text; I see no textual support for his presentation of R. Amram’s initial attitude.
The book also features other standard academic approaches such as comparing variant versions of stories. Richman suggests that the Bavli (Yoma 76b–77a) presents a frighteningly nightmarish view of Yom Kippur whereas these themes disappear in the parallel Vayikra Rabba (26:8). According to Miller, the Yerushalmi attempts to counter Christian claims to the Holy Land but the Bavli does not.
Miller asserts that the Bavli prefers R. Hanina over R. Hiyya due to the former’s analytical Talmudic prowess. Here is the relevant text in which the Gemara tries to explain why Rabbi picked R. Hanina over R. Hiyya to head the academy:
Rabbi Hiyya was occupied with the performance of mitzvot and Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi thought: I will not hold him back. And this is the background to an exchange that took place when Rabbi Hanina and Rabbi Hiyya argued. Rabbi Hanina said to Rabbi Hiyya: You are arguing with me? If, Heaven forfend, the Torah would be forgotten from the Jewish people, I would restore it through my analyses. Rabbi Hiyya said to Rabbi Hanina: I am working to ensure that the Torah will not be forgotten from the Jewish people. For I bring flax and I plant it, and I then weave nets from the flax fibers. I then go out and trap deer, and I feed the meat to orphans, and I form scrolls from the skins of the deer. And I go to a town that has no teachers of children in it and I write the five books of the Torah for five children. And I teach the six orders of the Mishna to six children. To each and every one of these children I say: Teach your order to your friends. And this is what Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi referred to when he said: How great are the actions of Hiyya (Ketubot 103b).
It seems clear that R. Hiyya was actually the optimum choice but Rabbi did not want to interrupt his crucial enterprise on behalf of preserving the Torah. The verbal sparring also favors R. Hiyya. Although it is more dramatic to restore equilibrium after things fall apart; it is more helpful to quietly and consistently prevent things from deteriorating. Someone who convinces other snot to text while driving can save more lives than the best ambulance driver who arrives after the crash. Here, some rabbinic commentaries could have enhanced Miller’s analysis. Those writers ask why Rabbi preferred R. Hiyya seeing as how R. Hanina seems to have been the analytic master capable of delivering the mist profound lecture. Keeping the discussion in the intellectual realm, Pnei Yehoshua suggests that R. Hanina was more analytical but R. Hiyya was more erudite, a “Sinai” more than “one who uproots mountains.” Bringing in a moral component, Hatam Sofer explains that R. Hiyya had a more outstanding character and that matters more than R. Hanina’s reasoning prowess. This emerges from the dialogue between them since R. Hanina expresses a bit of arrogance. Conversely, a scholar who travels from town to town teaching children exhibits great dedication and humility. I hasten to add that this criticism is peripheral to the thesis of Miller’s highly innovative essay but it illustrates the value of later rabbinic voices.
Finally, we turn to Halberstam’s essay. She contends that three Talmudic legal narratives are “incoherent” and “nonsensical” and that this conveys the shortcomings of purely legalistic thinking. One involves a ruling of R. Yohanan in which he advises relatives to turn their medical expenses for a step-mother into a fixed cost so that it can be subtracted from her ketubah rather than them bearing the expense (Ketubot 52b). He subsequently doubted the appropriateness of a judge acting like a lawyer in offering such advice. The Gemara explains that giving the advice was motivated by the ethical principle “do not hide yourself from your own flesh” (Isaiah 58:7). Halberstam suggests:
It comes as a bit of a shock—where we expect the invocation of a legal principle or analogical reasoning, we get instead a very personal inner monologue even when R. Yohanan’s thoughts shift away from Isaiah’s exhortations they shift to considerations of the judge’s own social status and not to the litigants (285).
Several Talmudic texts talk of the shortcomings of purely legal reasoning and the need to bring in an ethical component (e,g, Bava Metzia 83a). One source even faults excessive legality as causing Jerusalem’s destruction (Bava Metzia 30b). R. Yohanan’s basing a ruling on a prophetic call for ethics is not at all shocking.
Halberstam also discusses a case in which a ruling depends on whether or not a litigant seizes the item, known as tefisa (Ketubot 64a). According to her reading, this reflects a noninterventionist stance indicating the limitations of the law. She may be fully correct but this ruling is hardly unique (cf. Bava Metzia 6b; Ketubot 41b and 20a with Rashi). If so, the particular episode under discussion does not stand out in any way.
The academic world can contribute a good deal to traditional learning, in particular by offering a more methodological reading rather than advancing ad hoc interpretations. This volume shows the value in treating legal stories as narrative and in reading individual aggadot as part of a larger whole.
Yitzchak Blau, Rosh Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusalem’s Old City, is an Associate Editor of TRADITION.