Rivka Ulmer's Egyptian Cultural Icons in Midrash

Abstract

RIVKA ULMER'S EGYPTIAN CULTURAL ICONS IN MIDRASH is culmination of over a hundred years of research in midrash, Egyptology, and study of place in rabbinic imagination. Although this subject is addressed in earlier studies by such luminaries as Bernard Heller and Saul Lieberman,1 Ulmer's book is first and most comprehensive study of its kind. From perspective of breadth and depth of material covered in this book, as well as Ulmer's ability to address scholarly reception and reconfiguration of this material, we owe Ulmer a tremendous debt for her insightful and encyclopedic treatment of material-and yet, this landmark book is also more than it seems.On surface, Egyptian Icons in Midrash appears to be a comprehensive survey of Egyptology and rabbinics. At outset, Ulmer states her primary goal is to bring these two fields into conversation; Egyptology-here identified with contemporary assessments of Egypt's own internal representations of its culture, (1), is used to illuminate other field, rabbinics- and to locate the of Egyptian textual icons in rabbinic (2). In spirit of this earlier scholarship, therefore, this book indicates there are several instances in which midrash reflects genuine traditions drawn from ancient Egypt, and memory of Egypt in rabbinic texts can be recognized and confirmed through a comparison of traditions in both fields. Placing rabbinics in light of Egyptology highlights there are mementos of Egypt exist in rabbinic literature, and can be recovered.Nevertheless, Ulmer's book also presents a potent challenge to our understanding of hermeneutical principals guided rabbis' reception, adoption, and reconfiguration of Egypt. Almost in contrast, Ulmer's work represents a more radical departure from traditional understandings of this earlier scholarship, as she also wishes to represent rabbinic relationship with Egypt as a process of hermeneutical transformation. Drawing on philosophers such as Theodor Adorno and Ernst Cassirer-most explicitly in chapter five-Ulmer also argues any mention of events, artifacts or imagery related to Egypt is subject to rabbinic reconfiguration in accordance with rabbis' own ideological and theological objectives. Consequently, this book not only represents a recovery of parallels between midrash and Egyptology, but also a more bold attempt to characterize way rabbis adopt and transform mementos of Egypt.The bridge between Egypt's own internal representations of its and this hermeneutical transformation are embodied in principal idea informs work, cultural icon. The cultural icon links which is immediately recognizable as belonging to a specific with that which reflects conflicts and contradictions of its reception or visualization by other cultures. (215) Thus Ulmer asserts very often construct of Egypt in rabbinic texts remarkably coincides with what we presently know about Ancient Egyptian religion, (9) and yet these are also reshaped and manipulated for their own ideological purposes. It is Ulmer's theoretical perspective on two faces of icon-its essence relative to Egyptology and inversion of Egypt which characterizes rabbis' hermeneutical transformation, I found most compelling and challenging in this work, and is principal subject of present review.The purpose and presence of Egyptian icons in midrash largely determine range of topics are addressed in this book. As she enumerates a range of examples which characterize rabbinic ideological transformation, Ulmer argues purpose of rabbis' discussion of Egypt is a function of Jewish self-definition and identity. Egypt, and fragments of its culture found in rabbinic literature, exists so as to hasten expression of rabbis' opposition to them, as well as to contemporaries who represent a similar form of otherness, such as Rome. …