Rabbinic Literature Research Articles

Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature by Max K. Strassfeld (review)

Reviewed by: Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature by Max K. Strassfeld Jordan D. Rosenblum Max K. Strassfeld. Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature. Oakland: University of California Press, 2022. 248 pp. Hardcover $95.00. ebook $95.00. ISBN-13: 9780520382053 In the past few decades, scholarship on rabbinic literature has benefited from the inclusion of more diverse voices and perspectives. This diversity—which is reflected both in the embodied humans who study these texts and traditions and in the inclusion of theories and methods from various other fields and disciplines—has allowed for new, dynamic, and impactful developments in the field. Max K. Strassfeld’s Trans Talmud adds to the emerging—and necessary—growth in diverse perspectives and voices in scholarship on rabbinics. Strassfeld draws on theories and methods from both trans and intersex history, as well as disability studies, in order to (re-)read rabbinic texts, and vice-versa. This dual reading, wherein rabbinics scholars learn from the theories and methods of trans, intersex, and disability studies, and scholars of trans, intersex, and disability studies learn from rabbinic texts, is a key feature of his book. Strassfeld (successfully, in my opinion) attempts to initiate a dialog and thus, in order to do so, makes sure to introduce texts and theories from various disciplines to the other. He does an excellent job of not [End Page 263] presuming knowledge of either ancient texts or modern theories on the part of the reader, and introduces them equally well to his various audiences. At the same time, Strassfeld is aware of the modern, embodied implications of both his scholarship and the world in which it is written. He un-apologetically speaks to his “trancestors” (see 195–196). Yet, he uses a deft touch to impart nuance to activism. For example, while acknowledging the subversive (and yet constructive) potential of a particular rabbinic text, he also cautions “I have no wish to buy queer subversion using androgynes as currency” (80). On several occasions, Strassfeld is explicit about his struggle to balance what can be competing goals of historical and activist scholarship. On numerous occasions, Strassfeld “embrace[s] a ‘bad’ or literal reading strategy” (165; also see e.g., 188) in order to trans a rabbinic text (more on the term “trans” below). These moments are often when Strassfeld makes his most important contributions. My one small criticism is that this is a missed opportunity. Strassfeld’s “bad” readings are in line with traditional practice for the text—that is to argue for a literal reading to advance a new reading is, after all, very rabbinic. Therefore, more focus might have been put on how his readings conform with conventional Talmudic and Midrashic exposition. That is, his most subversive readings are much more in line with rabbinic practice than might be at first apparent. In my opinion, reframing them in this way increases his contribution. Strassfeld’s “bad” readings are part of his strategy to “trans” rabbinic texts. For example, he notes: “I will embrace anachronism as part of embracing a ‘bad/trans’ reading strategy designed to acknowledge the particular ontologies that govern contemporary trans and intersex politics” (7). Strassfeld argues that transing rabbinic texts leads to readings that both elucidate the past and offer opportunities for the present (and future). One instance in which this strategy is especially effective is in Chapter 4 (“Transing the Eunuch: Kosher and Damaged Masculinity”), wherein he argues that “transing eunuchs and androgynes can mean noticing the ways in which they carry special burdens in rabbinic sources” (135). In this case, these burdens focus around “procreative failures” (135). This chapter is a good example of where Strassfeld takes texts often studied and offers insights that will benefit both scholars of rabbinic literature and modern trans, intersex, and disability studies. Strassfeld’s Trans Talmud is well written. In particular, he does a good job of not assuming knowledge on the part of the reader. As such, he defines key words and concepts both in the text and in footnotes clearly and succinctly. Trans Talmud is written both for scholars of rabbinic literature and those not familiar with the texts and history and therefore would...

Edward Reichman, The Anatomy of Jewish Law: A Fresh Dissection of the Relationship Between Medicine, Medical History & Rabbinic Literature

Edward Reichman, The Anatomy of Jewish Law: A Fresh Dissection of the Relationship Between Medicine, Medical History & Rabbinic Literature

The Words of the Righteous: The Death of Text and the Eternity of Stone

Abstract: This essay examines examples of the Oral Torah as a concrete, material phenomenon in late ancient rabbinic sources. The oral nature of oral Torah, both as an ideology and as a description of rabbinic textual practices, can elide some of the more evocative discussions of the nature of oral Torah. Previous discussions, such as Wollenberg (2019), have shown that the nature of the written Torah was often understood as unstable, changing, and mutable. This essay explores the other side of that equation, exploring discussions of oral Text as concrete, enduring, and unchanging. Two main examples are studied: the first from a passage in the Palestinian Talmud, and the second in a passage from the Babylonian Talmud. The Palestinian Talmud draws a dense network of connections between Torah scrolls, oral teachings, rabbinic sages, and the imagery of death and memorialization. The Babylonian Talmud similarly extends the value of rabbinic oral teaching into the World to Come, showing that while the associations between teaching, death, and eternal life manifest differently, they are still present in different rabbinic contexts. Taken together, these inscriptions of a concrete and material Oral Torah are fully realized in the body of the rabbinic sage. Other scholars have also shown that rabbinic sages become an embodiment of Torah: this essay examines the nature of rabbinic Torah, as discussed in rabbinic literature, to understand how that embodiment comes about.

Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism: Studies in Law, Philosophy, Pietism and Kabbalah ed. by Jeremy P. Brown and Marc Herman

Reviewed by: Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism: Studies in Law, Philosophy, Pietism and Kabbalah ed. by Jeremy P. Brown and Marc Herman Dana Fishkin jeremy p. brown and marc herman (eds.),Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism: Studies in Law, Philosophy, Pietism and Kabbalah (Études sur le judaïsme médiéval 86; Leiden: Brill, 2021), Pp. vii + 300. $188. This collection on the commandments in medieval Jewish thought brings together a wide range of scholars and topics, reinforcing the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to Jewish studies. The enumeration and rationalization of the commandments emerged from the realms of medieval philosophical and mystical thinking, and this book demonstrates how fundamental those approaches were to various medieval thinkers for concepts as well as imagery and terminology. Often, as revealed by several chapters, one’s approach to the commandments served as a gauge of sorts, signaling one’s ideological, cultural, or intellectual affinities. In “Dê Maḥsoro as the Key to Jewish Almsgiving: A Maimonidean Interpretive Innovation and Its Legal Afterlife to the Fifteenth Century” (pp. 27–44), Alyssa M. Gray traces the commandment of almsgiving, alongside its evolving interpretation, from the rabbinic to the early modern periods. Rabbinic interpretations of “Dê Maḥsoro,” a shorthand reference to the biblical verse (Num 15:8) that orders Israelites to furnish an impoverished person with enough to satisfy his lack, identified concrete and specific acts of charity. Gray demonstrates how Maimonides transformed this concretized concept into a general commandment encompassing all types of charity. However, Gray shows that the Maimonidean reappraisal was not adopted until the fourteenth century when Iberian and Ashkenazic cultural sensibilities became enmeshed. Also indicating engagement between the Ashkenazic and Iberian worlds, according to Ephraim Kanarfogel, the Ashkenazic rationalization of commandments is examined in “Ṭaʿame ha- miṣvot in Medieval Ashkenaz” (pp. 177–90). This important historiographical corrective examines three groups of scholars whose engagement in the rationalization of the commandments signals exposure to Iberian rationalism. Anti-Christian polemicists and exegetes who authored biblical commentaries according to the literal sense (pashtanim) rationalized certain commandments in accordance with natural logic. The robust rationalizations of the mystically inclined German Pietists, however, highlighted their two-tiered [End Page 173] approach, in which mystical adepts and common folk each grasped different reasons for commandments. Similarly, a two-tiered social structure highlighted by the rationalization of the commandments, is also explored by Elisha Russ-Fishbane in “Pietism in the Law and the Law of Pietism: From Moses to Abraham Maimonides” (pp. 191–207). Russ-Fishbane demonstrates Abraham’s nuanced view of the pietistic ideal, founded upon key elements of the Maimonidean approach to law and supererogatory ethic, but reinforcing Sufi mystical ideals. Albert Dov Friedberg, too, examines Maimonidean notions of Pietism in “Maimonides’s Long Journey from Greek to Jewish Ethics” (pp. 97–117). He compares two Maimonidean works on ethics, the Eight Chapters and the laws concerning character traits (Hilkhot De’ot) from Mishneh Torah, to posit a noticeable revision of Maimonides’s position on ethics. In his commentary on Mishnah Avot, known as the Eight Chapters, Maimonides promotes the mean between two extremes as leading to perfect morality. Yet, as Friedberg notes, the Aristotelian stance expressed by Maimonides contradicts the valorization of supererogatory behavior found in rabbinic literature. Inferring Maimonides’s intellectual maturation, Friedberg claims that Maimonides elevates the commandment to imitate God into an independent one expressing rabbinic valorization of Pietism. Using a creative angle through which to appreciate the impact of Maimonides on the enumeration and rationalization of the commandments, Marc Herman’s “Early Evaluation of Maimonides’s Enumeration of the Commandments against the Background of the Eastern Maimonidean Controversy” (pp. 83–96) examines the exchange between a reputed “anti-Maimonidean” Daniel ben Saadia and Abraham Maimonides. Herman’s focus on the congenial exchange between Daniel and Abraham Maimonides leads him to problematize the controversial nature of the Maimonidean controversy in the East, and to conclude that, despite being a student of an anti-Maimonidean scholar, Daniel nevertheless adopted Maimonidean linguistic and conceptual elements in his own approach to Ṭaʿame ha-miṣvot. Guadalupe González Diéguez’s “The Reasons for the Commandments in Isaac...

Parchment Skins and Human Skins: Some Thoughts on the Permeability of Text and Material Environment in Late Antique Jewish Reading Cultures

Abstract: Late antique rabbinic Judaism famously left no manuscript traces. Without material evidence regarding early rabbinic practices of reading and writing, scholars have struggled to close the theoretical gap between the physical remnants of epigraphic and ritual writing from Jewish communities in this period and the portraits of reading and writing preserved in medieval manuscripts of late antique rabbinic literature. Yet, Karen Stern has observed that virtually all of the methods adopted to date ultimately privilege rabbinic writings by treating them as the hermeneutical frame through which the material evidence is interpreted. This article asks if we can reverse that hermeneutic hierarchy by (re)reading the literary tradition in light of the insights brought to us by the traces of material writing from the period. As a case study, this article takes the material evidence that visitors to the Dura Europos synagogue engaged with the prepared pictorial texts and architectural spaces of the synagogue in deeply interactive ways – rubbing and touching images and even emending and adding their own words and images to those in the prepared environment. When we reconsider early rabbinic traditions in light of this popular interactive disposition towards text and image, it emerges that many early rabbinic thinkers likewise approached written and pictorial texts as inherently contingent products that invited the continued intervention of other human hands. Moreover, one discovers that many rabbinic texts theorized this interactive relationship as a manifestation of a fundamental continuity and permeability between text and the material world.

From Samaritans to Cutheans: The Status of the Samaritans in Classical Rabbinic Literature

From Samaritans to Cutheans: The Status of the Samaritans in Classical Rabbinic Literature

Gabriella Gelardini. Deciphering the Worlds of Hebrews: Collected Essays

Gabriella Gelardini. <i>Deciphering the Worlds of Hebrews: Collected Essays</i>

Priestly Garments as Atoning Agents in Amoraic Literature

The garments worn by the priests in the Temple not only present a stark image of “glory and splendor” (Exod 28:2) but present an accompanying theology, as well. This paper will focus on one theological strand—the idea that the priestly garments atone—in classical Judaism. It will demonstrate that, while the biblical account of priestly garments sees them largely as functional or as serving primarily in non-expiatory roles, late classical rabbinic (i.e., Amoraic) literature features an extensive tradition that these garments serve to atone for a variety of sins. This paper traces several versions of that tradition in exploring the expansive account of atonement found in these rabbinic texts and contextualizing that within other developments in classical Judaism and rabbinic literature.

The Golden Rule and Ancient Jewish Biblical Exegesis: The Pluriformity of a Tradition

Abstract The present article is an integrative study of rabbinic sources in tandem with gospel pericopes, Pauline passages, and a passage of the Duae viae (included in the Didache). I contend that all these sources are variants of a Jewish tradition composed of two elements: (a) a maxim—the golden rule—or an equivalent biblical verse, Lev 19:18b; (b) an assertion that this maxim or verse summarizes the torah, or is the core of the whole torah (the difference in Hebrew is between kǝlāl, “rule,” and kōl, “whole”). The wording of these variants cuts across the putative division between the various corpora. Observing the pluriformity of this tradition is important for the study of both the New Testament and rabbinic literature, the focus of the present article. This study demonstrates that early phraseology may be preserved in late rabbinic texts, which thus problematizes the “synoptic problem” of rabbinic literature (and, mutatis mutandis, of the gospels). Similar wording should not blur different contents; affinities should not obscure inherent dynamics. The potential for a radical interpretation of the formulation that “the whole torah” is encapsulated in one verse or maxim has not been realized in rabbinic literature; the radical potential of the formulation was realized and developed by Paul in Gal 5:14.

The Alfaẓ al-Mishnah Commentary by R. Saadiah Gaon

Abstract This article presents a commentary on the Mishna composed by R. Saadiah Gaon, who served as head of the Sura yeshivah in Baghdad at the beginning of the 10th century. The commentary is a Hebrew-Arabic glossary defining difficult words in the Mishnah. The commentary is well referenced in writings from early periods, and a large portion of the manuscript was recently identified in the Cairo Genizah. I present a number of proofs that R. Saadiah Gaon authored the commentary and show that many adaptions were made to this commentary in several manuscripts. This unpublished commentary is the earliest systematic commentary on rabbinic literature.

Synagogues in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods: Archaeological Finds, New Methods, New Theories and The Synagogue in Ancient Palestine: Current Issues and Emerging Trends

Synagogues in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods: Archaeological Finds, New Methods, New Theories and The Synagogue in Ancient Palestine: Current Issues and Emerging Trends

The Reception of the Bible in Geonic Literature

AbstractThis article surveys the reception of the Bible in rabbinic literature during the period from the close of the Talmud until the rise of Rashi and the medieval commentators who followed him – from approximately 650 to 1050 CE. It considers works of midrash and mysticism, as well as works of individual Geonim. The article charts the eclipse of biblical authority in the period, and its reemergence in Europe at the end of the Geonic era.

‘From Where Are These Words?’ The Reception of the Bible in the Babylonian Talmud

AbstractThis article addresses the paradox of the Bible’s reception in the Babylonian Talmud: that despite the Bible’s centrality to many of the discussions and stories in the Talmud, the Talmud ultimately recontextualizes the Bible by creating a new version of the Jewish study canon. It argues that this paradox cannot be understood without recognizing that there are essentially two different concepts of the Bible held by the late rabbis; that is, a material Bible and a memorized Bible. The Bible makes an appearance in the Talmud as a physical object or set of objects, composed of words on parchment, and consisting of a specific collection of works, which are accorded special status. However, the Bible as a memorized study text plays a different role in Talmudic hermeneutics, in which the redactors of the Talmud present the Bible in atomized form as one of many sources that are all subject to the same type of discussion and interpretation. By analyzing the complexity of the Bible’s role in the Talmud, this article stakes a middle ground between the argument that the Talmud and other works of rabbinic literature are in some fundamental sense part of a continuous line of revision and commentary that dates back to the earliest forms of inner-biblical exegesis; and, on the other hand, the position that the rabbis either are uninterested in or represent an active rupture from modes of reading the Bible.

The Birth of Doubt: Confronting Uncertainty in Early Rabbinic Literature by Moshe Halbertal

The Birth of Doubt: Confronting Uncertainty in Early Rabbinic Literature by Moshe Halbertal

Through the Prism of Wisdom: Elijah the Prophet as a Bearer of Wisdom in Rabbinic Literature, written by Hilla N. Alouf-Aboody

Through the Prism of Wisdom: Elijah the Prophet as a Bearer of Wisdom in Rabbinic Literature, written by Hilla N. Alouf-Aboody

Rabbanite Views and Rabbinic Literature in Judeo-Persian Karaite Exegesis

This article discusses the outlook of Judeo-Persian Karaite authors on Rabbanite law and rabbinic literature based on an exegetical corpus written in Early Judeo-Persian from the eleventh century, which mostly remains in manuscript form. A close examination of this corpus demonstrates the authors’ complex attitude towards their contemporary Rabbanites and early Jewish literature. By relying on the teachings of the Karaite community of Jerusalem (the “Mourners of Zion”), the corpus’ authors criticize certain Rabbanite views and concepts, while still accepting other parts of the rabbinic tradition which did not challenge their ideology. In so doing, the authors establish themselves as part of the Karaite exegetical tradition, and, more broadly, of the Jewish intellectual world.

Reading Talmudic Sources as Arguments: The Case of Water Used by a Baker

Abstract By discussing a short sugya, this paper demonstrates how to read the components of a typical Talmudic discussion – Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi and Bavli – as arguments. In contrast to widely used academic approaches, I show that it is possible to ascribe disagreement to parallel sources without passing judgment either on their chronological order or on whether one of the sources is a direct response to the other. The appendix offers a new theoretical model for approaching the synoptic problem in rabbinic literature.

The Scapegoat Ritual: Between Biblical and Tannaitic Law

Abstract In Leviticus 16, Aaron is commanded to bring a bull to atone for himself and his household (v. 3) along with two goats to atone for the children of Israel (v. 5). He sprinkles the blood of the bull and one of the goats in different places in the Temple and sends the second goat, the scapegoat, to “ʾAzazel to the desert.” The biblical scapegoat ritual is discussed extensively in the research community, mainly due to its similarity to ancient pagan rituals. Here, I present the interpretation of the early rabbis, which states that atonement is attained not by sending the goat away but through the confession performed on it. I also discuss the novelty introduced in the early rabbinic literature, concerning the disposition of the goat: thrown off the cliff and not just sent to the desert.

Cross-Over Diseases and Constructions of Difference: Pigs and Pandemics in Jewish Sources

Abstract Concerns about zoonotic diseases and efforts to differentiate between groups intertwine at the intersection of critical animal studies, biomobility and epidemic discourses, and religious studies. Using the case in rabbinic literature of pandemics moving from pigs to humans, this study unfolds in historical stages. Period I, “Flesh” (3rd C to 12th C), considers the issues at hand: a pandemic, pigs, the question of what to do and why. Period II, “Metaphor” (12th C to 16th C), turns pigs into metaphors for sociopolitical concerns, to make strong distinctions between sets of humans. Period III, “Science” (16th C to 20th C), argues that evidence should help inform decisions of what to do in the face of a zoonotic pandemic. The conclusion, “Directions,” considers first the possibility of reverse-zoonosis, of human infecting animals, before offering reflections for several fields of study.

Figureless Art: Anti-Figural Trends in Jewish Art During the Late Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods by Noa Yuval-Hacham

Reviewed by: Figureless Art: Anti-Figural Trends in Jewish Art During the Late Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods by Noa Yuval-Hacham Oz Avraham Tamir Figureless Art: Anti-Figural Trends in Jewish Art During the Late Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods Noa Yuval-Hacham Magnes Press: Jerusalem, 2021. Pp. 381. ISBN: 978-965-7776-58-2 Noa Yuval-Hacham's book explores a subject that has, up to this point, not been systematically analyzed, namely aniconism and iconoclasm in the Jewish art of Late Antiquity. Apart from the critical importance of this topic to any examination of Late Antiquity, the book also stands out for its judicious methodological decision to cross-reference the literary sources with material culture. This book, which is based on Yuval-Hacham's doctoral dissertation, deals with changes in the attitude of Jewish society towards figurative art during the late Byzantine and early Muslim periods. Tolerance of figurative decorations declined sharply during this period, and the once-widespread use of figurative symbols ceased to be commonplace in synagogue art. In each of the book's two parts, the author discusses one of two parallel phenomena: aniconism, the avoidance of figurative images, and iconoclasm, the destruction of existing figures. In each part, the author covers the topic from several different angles, including material culture, rabbinic literature, and the context provided by nearby cultures, namely Samaritans, Christians, and Muslims. The book's first chapter analyzes the artistic findings from several synagogues, thus showing the decline in the use of figurative images. Yuval-Hacham discusses the different ways in which the trend toward aniconism was implemented—from less frequent use of figurative images to the elimination of these images—to suggest that these approaches are indicative of the diversity of Jewish society. Since there is no surviving textual-historical documentation of most of the Jewish communities of the period, material evidence is our only source of information about their way of life. In the second chapter, the author examines Jewish written sources to determine whether echoes of the aniconic trend can be found. Her conclusion is that although certain tannaitic, [End Page 555] amoraic, and post-Talmudic sources oppose the use of figurative images, they are few and far between, and no significant evolution appears to have emerged over different eras. Yuval-Hacham wisely notes that Jewish society was comprised of various streams, and it is quite possible that the synagogue communities were not rabbinic. The third chapter takes an intercultural approach by comparing trends in aniconism between Jews and Samaritans, based on the supposition that the Samaritans' avoidance of figurative art can be linked to the emergence of aniconism in Jewish art in the late Byzantine period. Material evidence reveals not only that the Samaritans did not combine human and animal figures, but that there are artistic and theological similarities between the Samaritans and the Jews. On the basis of this evidence, Yuval-Hacham suggests that the Samaritans played an important role in the aniconization of Jewish society. This conclusion may be somewhat overblown. The connection is certainly possible, but her claim of a transition of aniconic ideology from Second Temple Jewry to the Samaritans, and at the end of the Byzantine period from the Samaritans to the Jews, is insufficiently substantiated. The fourth chapter, which begins the second part of the book, focuses on the vandalism of figurative images in synagogues. Yuval-Hacham describes the material findings and presents the people responsible for the destruction and their roles, as well as the eras, causes, and circumstances of the destruction. She proposes that the vandals were members of Jewish groups who deliberately intended to modify the visual space of the synagogue, rather than external vandals. Most acts of vandalism occurred in rural synagogues in eastern Palestine, since many synagogues in other regions had already been abandoned before the iconoclastic trend. This chronological analysis may account for the difference between the extensive damage to stone reliefs and the merely sporadic damage to mosaics; many mosaics were damaged or left untended well before the emergence of iconoclasm. At the same time, the author stresses the halakhic difference between sculpture, which is three-dimensional, and painting or mosaics...