The Lower Depths

Abstract

At the heart of Hebrew creativity in the Roman empire after the Jewish wars are brief brilliant fragments of Midrash. Midrash was to some Jews in the Roman empire not unlike jazz to American Blacks: the creativity of a minority defeated and discriminated against, bent but not broken, zealously preserving an inner cultural and religious space where it was free and imagination ruled. Midrash, unlike halakhah, openly describes the tragedies and degradations of the Jews in the years 66–138 CE. It is impossible to establish beyond doubt the degree to which these midrashim from the tannaitic era are historically accurate (see the Note on Texts, pp. 19–20). They appear in works edited or written long after the periods in which they are set. Yet there is little doubt that aggadot are based on real events. Also, it is rarely possible to prove decisively that they are apocryphal. To Goodman (1983), for example, these aggadot stand out as they ‘display a rare feel for history in what are mostly ahistorical writings [and] show remarkable acquaintance with the tactics of Roman armies in quelling revolts’ (pp. 136, 137). As literary fragments, too, they have unusual originality and power.