Rabbinic Texts Research Articles

Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135–700 CE by Eyal Ben-Eliyahu, Yehudah Cohn, and Fergus Millar (review)

Reviewed by: Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135–700 CE by Eyal Ben-Eliyahu, Yehudah Cohn, and Fergus Millar Ra‘anan Boustan and Henry Gruber Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135–700 ce Eyal Ben-Eliyahu, Yehudah Cohn, and Fergus Millar Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2012. Pp. xxv + 162. ISBN 0197265227. This accessible and well-structured handbook aims to guide the classically trained historian through the wealth of Jewish literature from Late Antiquity that scholars working primarily in Greek and Latin often overlook. The Handbook was designed to serve as a companion to the volume of state-of-the-field essays that emerged from a conference held at the British Academy in 2008 on “Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine.” The origins in the British Academy conference are still visible in its overriding emphasis on rabbinic literature. This is unfortunate because, while the book presents itself as a comprehensive guide to the full range of sources produced by and for Jews in the period from 135–700 ce, it largely neglects the abundant materials that elucidate Jewish life in Late Antiquity outside the orbit of the rabbinic movement. The Handbook is divided into three main sections: prefatory materials, a historical introduction, and eight thematically organized body chapters. The third section, which forms the book’s core, details the range of surviving Jewish literary materials from Late Antiquity and the available scholarly resources for accessing them. The book concludes with a rather sparse two-page subject index. In a foreword, the distinguished scholar of ancient Judaism, Philip Alexander, frames the book as a less specialist alternative to Gunter Stemberger’s still fundamental Introduction to the Talmud and Mishnah (Edinburgh, 1996). The prefatory section also provides a handy guide to the online collections of text-editions, manuscripts, reference works, and bibliographies currently available to scholars interested in Jewish literature from late antiquity. This section is capped by a convenient glossary of Hebrew and Aramaic technical terms that would otherwise puzzle the intended reader. The introduction lays out the historical contexts within which the major works of late antique Jewish literature were produced. This literature was composed in Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic and derives almost exclusively from Roman Palestine and Sasanian Iraq. The authors observe the curious fact that the Jewish communities of the western Mediterranean did not produce an indigenous literature—or, if they did, it was not transmitted through recognizably Jewish channels. Moreover, the rabbis, for their part, studiously avoided Greek genres and forms, such as biography or historical writing, despite the high degree of Hellenization within rabbinic circles. Thus, virtually no Jewish work in Greek, from either Palestine or the Diaspora, survives from Late [End Page 360] Antiquity. The authors speculate that this lacuna resulted from a conscious decision on the part of Jewish scholars and writers to avoid Greek language and forms precisely in the period that saw the rapprochement between Christianity and the Roman Empire—and with it the successful absorption of much of the “pagan” classical tradition within Christian literary culture. The authors treat in more cursory fashion the less well documented and still poorly understood contexts of Jewish literary production in the Sasanian Empire, perhaps missing an opportunity to capture adequately the recent and exciting advances in this wing of the field. In addition, the authors note that rabbinic literature does not survive in manuscripts from Late Antiquity but is mediated almost exclusively through the scribal activity of medieval copyists, thereby raising the specter of pervasive anachronism. But, pointing to what they view as positive inscriptional evidence for rabbinic activity and authority as well as the historically accurate use of place names in rabbinic sources, they argue that rabbinic literature does indeed date from and reflect the social and political realities of the late antique world. The authors leave open the question of whether these sources originally took a written or oral form. While brief mention is made of the distinctive formal conventions of rabbinic writings, the Handbook does not aim to provide sustained guidance regarding the interpretative challenges presented by this literature. Rather, the user must—and should...

(Shibutz) as a Conciliatory Rhetorical Style in Nachmanides’ “Letter to the French Rabbis”

ABSTRACTCombining Zeno’s rhetorics of the open hand and closed fist, Nachmanides addressed the heirs of Rashi to defend Maimonides. Polemical letters were a vehicle for this controversy, and a major example is his “Letter to the French Rabbis.” Using cleverly organized arguments and a brilliantly learned style of allusion to Biblical and rabbinic texts, called “shibutz,” Nachmanides influenced his addressees to mitigate a herem (ban) against students of Maimonides. Nachmanides sought to unify the warring factions rather than to achieve victory for either side, and his densely packed allusions to texts all the combatants revered comprise common ground for reconciliation.

(Shibutz) as a Conciliatory Rhetorical Style in Nachmanides’ “Letter to the French Rabbis”

Combining Zeno’s rhetorics of the open hand and closed fist, Nachmanides addressed the heirs of Rashi to defend Maimonides. Polemical letters were a vehicle for this controversy, and a major example is his “Letter to the French Rabbis.” Using cleverly organized arguments and a brilliantly learned style of allusion to Biblical and rabbinic texts, called “shibutz,” Nachmanides influenced his addressees to mitigate a herem (ban) against students of Maimonides. Nachmanides sought to unify the warring factions rather than to achieve victory for either side, and his densely packed allusions to texts all the combatants revered comprise common ground for reconciliation.

Was Professor Saul Lieberman “Orthodox” or “Conservative”?

Was Professor Saul Lieberman “Orthodox” or “Conservative”?1 David Golinkin (bio) Saul Lieberman (1898–1983) is universally regarded by Talmud scholars as the foremost talmudist of his generation, and some regard him as one of the foremost talmudist of all times. Immanuel Low wrote to him in Hebrew in 1938: “In the depth of your articles there are many sparks of the spirit of the Gaon of Vilna.” E. S. Rosenthal wrote in Hebrew in 1963: “... until we can almost say about him: there was no king like him before him, according to his custom and his method.” Jacob Neusner, who later attacked Lieberman after Lieberman had panned Neusner’s Yerushalmi translation, wrote to Lieberman on December 10, 1981: “I am enjoying Hayerushalmi Kifshuto so much, that I wanted to tell you so.... It reminds me of why I have long ago concluded you are the greatest exegete of rabbinic texts of the twentieth century and among the true greats among the ones I have studied and used—of all times.” Yitzḥak Rafael wrote in Hebrew in 1983: “I am not authorized nor do I dare assert that Professor Rabbi Saul Lieberman z”l was the greatest Talmud scholar in recent generations, but it seems that no one would attempt to dispute this assertion.” David Weiss Halivni wrote in 1986: “Professor Lieberman was not only a yaḥid b’doro, unique in his generation, but a yaḥid b’dorotav, unique in all generations.” Elijah Schochet wrote in 1988: “Rabbeinu Eliyahu, the Gaon of Vilna, was born on the first day of [End Page 13] Pesaḥ, 1720. Rabbeinu Shaul, our own Gaon, was laid to rest on the eve of Pesaḥ, 1983. Between them, there was no other like Saul Lieberman.”2 Finally, in 2002, Israel Ta-Shema recounted an amazing story that took place in 1981, in which he asked Professor Lieberman a riddle about the Yerushalmi. Ta-Shema had heard the riddle from Rabbi Shlomo Goren in 1961 and since then had been unable to find the answer. Professor Lieberman spent about three minutes in silence, during which he opened one volume of the Yerushalmi and closed it. Finally he returned to the bookshelf, pulled out Yerushalmi Sotah 2:1, and showed Ta-Shema the correct answer. Lieberman later explained to Ta-Shema that “in my youth, I would have answered immediately that the answer is not in the Yerushalmi at all. But now that I am old, I do not rely on my memory, which is already weakened; and therefore I decided to flip through all the pages of the Yerushalmi in my mind, in order to make certain that it is not found in any place. And when I arrived at chapter 2 of Sotah, I found the place and showed you.” Ta-Shema concluded the story: “I had the merit over the course of the years to be a frequent visitor to the houses of quite a few of the greatest talmidei ḥakhamim [scholars] of the generation and among the beki’im [those who possess encyclopedic knowledge] in their generation ... but [bekiut] of such magnitude I have never seen, not before and not after, and the memory of that Shabbat has not departed from me until today.”3 [End Page 14] In addition to his amazing memory and breadth of knowledge, Lieberman was one of the most prolific Talmud scholars of all times. He published 225 books and articles, for a total of approximately 11,500 pages—devoted, for the most part, to the explication of rabbinic texts.4 Finally, he published books and articles related to almost every area of Jewish studies, including Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, Bavli, ancient piyyut, Hellenism, Greek, Latin, and medieval rabbinic literature.5 Therefore, it is not surprising that over eighty books and articles have been devoted to Lieberman and his œuvre between 1948 and 2008.6 Indeed, three entire books have been published about Lieberman since 2002.7 This essay will respond to the most recent monograph, Marc Shapiro’s [End Page 15] Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox.8 Professor Shapiro has shown in his writings that he is adept at archival research.9...

The Early Boundaries of Jewish Studies

Marc Zvi Brettler examines the way the Bible is taught in Introduction to Judaism courses, and suggests that presenting the Bible in its final form as background for the development of Judaism is insufficient. Many aspects of modern Judaism are not scripturally based; moreover, Jewish scripture developed and evolved over time: canon formation was a process. Thus, teaching Judaism as if today's Bible always existed, was always authoritative, and was the only canon that existed is historically inaccurate. Among other advantages, a historical-critical approach assists students in understanding rabbinic texts, which become easier if students realize that the Torah is not a single, unified text, but a polyphonic one. The academic teaching of religion involves, or at least includes, teaching texts in their historical contexts, and each text should be open to all questions. Brettler also argues for the place of the New Testament in Introduction courses.

Samuel Krauss and the early study of the physical world of the rabbis in Roman Palestine

Samuel Krauss and his early-twentieth-century work Talmudische Archäologie gradually became the cornerstone of any research into the relationship between rabbinic texts and archaeology. Today, many consider him the founding father of the new field known as the Material Culture of Ancient Judaism. The current study investigates the development of Krauss’s scholarly life, clarifying the various factors that prompted his interest in bringing rabbinic texts into conversation with physical remains, as well as reconstructing the intellectual milieu that shaped his research and methodology. In the process it also aims to dispel some of the inaccuracies that have become associated with Krauss over the years.

Training Clinical Skills in Pairs

To the Editor—Tolsgaard et al. have reported their small but remarkably well-executed randomized study demonstrating that when clinical skills training was done in pairs (“dyad-practice”), the students were able to achieve significantly higher performance scores than students who encountered their four simulated patients’ scenarios alone.1 The principle behind these impressive results has been known for centuries by Jewish scholars, who have been using a system of studying in pairs for the study of the ‘Talmud’, the immense volumes of Rabbinical texts which form one of the most ancient and essential core writings of Judaism. The many complex intricate discussions between sages of the most correct interpretation of a rule under different conditions and their logical arguments are sometimes very hard to follow and understand. Rabbinical students of the ‘Talmud’ used to study in pairs, called ‘Havruta’, or ‘Chavruta’ from ‘haver’, (a friend) spending countless hours together in the study of the ‘Talmud’ since the time of its inception in Jerusalem and the diaspora in Babylon in the era of the Roman Empire. This method is still going on today in ‘Yeshivot’ (academies for the advanced learning of Jewish writings) worldwide and the interaction between two learners constitutes the accepted ‘best’ way to analyze, understand and memorize complex issues.2 Thus, I was not surprised to find that this time-tested method works for medical education too.

CONSTRUCTIVE THEOLOGY, BIOETHICS, AND BODILY EXISTENCE

“Imaginative construction” captured the methodological orientation of Gordon D. Kaufman (1925–2011), who in later work used the word “mystery” when speaking of the ultimate. Among his books are An Essay on Theological Method (1975) and In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (1993). He published in Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science (1992, 2001, 2003a, b, 2005, 2007), and has been remembered here before (Drees 2012). In this issue of Zygon, Myriam Renaud considers the earlier work of Kaufman. Jerome Soneson and Patrick Woolley pay attention to method and epistemology. Thomas James analyzes his work as an “ecological theocentrism,” while Karl Peters takes Kaufman as a partner for his articulation of Christian naturalism. These papers come from a symposium at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in November 2012 in Chicago. Islam and Biomedical Ethics was the topic of a conference in Doha, Qatar, in June 2012, organized by Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar, along with the Qatar National Research Fund and its Faculty of Islamic Studies, and Leiden University. The importance of family and genealogy shows in articles on paternity (Ayman Shabana) and womb transplants (Amel Alghrani). Mohammed Ghaly analyzes the role of experts in the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Efficacy in the community requires more than conveying information, as shown here using the examples of organ donation (Shoaib Rasheed and Aasim Padela) and vaccines (Padela). Henk ten Have places Islamic bioethics in the context of global bioethics, alongside issues of social justice and economic power. I discuss Islamic bioethics as “religion and science.” To my surprise, Zygon had more contributions relating Islam to bioethics than on another facet of “Islam and science,” though we have covered this broader topic too, for example, with responses to Islam's Quantum Question (Bagir 2012; Brooke 2012; Dajani 2012; Guessoum 2011, 2012; Hameed 2012). In Ghaly's opening paper for this section, he explores and explains the rise of Islamic bioethics in recent years. “Religion and Embodied Cognition” is the topic of the third section in this issue, with papers from a meeting of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) in Loccum, Germany, in September 2012. I could say “we are bodies, and we have minds” but it would be equally true to say “we are minds, and have bodies.”11 The expressions were inspired by a discussion on IRAS-net, a forum of members of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science; the discussion on the forum was triggered by a contribution in the New York Times of May 6, 2013, “I Am Not My Body,” by Brian Jay Stanley. The priority of the mental corresponds to our experiences as selves. Bodily existence has primacy in our actions. The coexistence of these perspectives brings with it a reductionist-holist view of human nature (see Allen 2013; McMullin 2013). The opening paper by Fraser Watts argues that such a holistic understanding of human nature can be appreciated within religious perspectives. John Teske brings the reader up to date on the science. Daniel Weiss shows nondualism in rabbinic texts in Judaism, thereby arguing for a resonance between these views and science. Léon Turner considers ideas on the concrete individual, as all personhood is shaped by relations and contexts. Warren Brown and Kevin Reimer explore character formation (and virtue) as shaped by engagement with real, bodily others—his example being the work of the communities of l'Arche (the Ark). The three thematic sections in this issue represent broader issues of method, ethics, and anthropology. In the December issue, we will continue with a rich offering of individual papers.

EMBODIED COGNITION IN CLASSICAL RABBINIC LITERATURE

AbstractChallenging earlier cognitivist approaches, recent theories of embodied cognition argue that the human mind and its functions are best understood as intimately bound up with the human body and its physiological dimensions. Some scholars have suggested that such theories, in departing from some core assumptions of the Western philosophical tradition, display significant similarities to certain non‐Western traditions of thought, such as Buddhism. This essay extends such parallels to the Jewish tradition and argues that, in particular, classical rabbinic thought presents a profoundly nondualistic account of the body–soul relation in its connection to cognition, action, and embodiment. Classical rabbinic texts therefore model the possibility of engaging with ‘Western’ conceptions such as God and the soul, while doing so in a manner that resonates strongly with many aspects of contemporary scientific theories. Thus, beyond their value as historical documents, insight into the texts and concepts of classical rabbinic Judaism can contribute to the further development of new theories of intellect and cognition.

Lots of Strange Bedfellows: Toward a Plausible Translation for “Purim”

T he Book of Esther famously describes the process by which Haman selected the date for implementation of his genocidal designs against the Jewish people: “A process of sortilege (pur)—that is, divination through the casting of lots—was conducted for Haman, so as to identify the most auspicious of all the days and all the months of the year, continuing all the way through the twelfth month, the month of Adar.”1 The import of this divination process is made explicit later in the biblical book: “For Haman, son of Hammedata the Agagite, persecutor of the Jews, had plotted the destruction of the Jews. He conducted a process of sortilege (pur)—that is, divination through the casting of lots—determining when best to attack and destroy them. . . . It is for this reason that these days are called ‘Purim’—in reference to the sortilege (pur).”2 Thus Purim is widely and familiarly known as “The Feast of Lots.” Evidence of the dubious quality of the etymological link between Purim and pur is inherent in the biblical text. Anticipating that the reader will be otherwise unfamiliar with the term, the Book of Esther twice finds it necessary to provide a more common synonym for pur—that is, goral. If the weak, purported etymology provided for Purim in Esther is less than persuasive, what exactly are the purim to which the name of the feast refers? The Aramaic word purya, in addition to signifying the festival observed on the fourteenth of Adar, appears in a number of rabbinic texts ostensibly

A Classical Ethical Problem in Ancient Philosophy and Rabbinic Thought: The Case of the Shipwrecked

The story found in Sifra Behar 5.3 and in the Babylonian Talmud, Baba Meṣi'a 62a, about two persons traveling in a desert and having a quantity of water that allows only one of them to reach civilization and survive, is well known and frequently referred to in books and articles dealing with Jewish ethics. The rabbinic texts raise the question: Should the travelers share the water and die together, or should the person who owns the water drink it in order to survive? This story reminds one of the case of the two shipwrecked men who grasp a plank that can bear the weight of only one person and therefore enables only one of them to reach the coast, a case referred to in philosophical texts from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The similarities between the issues dealt with in the rabbinic texts and the Greco-Roman ones have indeed been noticed by several scholars working on rabbinic literature (whereas specialists of ancient philosophy generally ignore them). However, a systematic comparative analysis of the rabbinic tradition and the philosophical texts has not been undertaken so far, nor have previous studies paid much attention to the issues at stake within the Greco-Roman texts themselves, to their inner logic and relationships with one another.

Sacrifice, Scripture, and Substitution: Readings in Ancient Judaism and Christianity. Edited by ANN W. ASTELL and SANDOR GOODHART.

Astell and Goodhart hope to redress the lack of ‘serious engagement’ with René Girard by biblical scholars and cultural anthropologists (p. 19). The introduction is long-winded and dense, but most of the articles are readable and could be used in seminary classes. The book is divided into ‘Sacrifice’, comprising an interview with Girard and eight articles, and ‘Scripture’, comprising twelve articles that test Girardian theory against particular biblical texts. The Girard interview will help newcomers get the basics of his theory, but does not seem to say anything new. Girard continues to make a totalizing claim for his theory, stating ‘there is no great scientific discovery that is not systematic. Only systematic thinking works’ (p. 58). The eight articles that follow deal with aspects of sacrifice or Eucharist, but have little to do with Girardian theory. The article by Ryba offers some useful discussion of substitution and equivalency, but then bogs down in dense mathematical formulae for sacrificial exchange. Ryba draws on multiple theories of sacrifice, without sufficient distinction: the animal is a substitute for the human (p. 90), is a meal shared with God (p. 94); the blood is purificatory … or apotropaic (p. 95) … or (in the Eucharist) metamorphic (p. 98). Fishbane’s article covers rabbinic texts where repentance or Torah study act ‘as if (ke-’ilu)’ one had offered sacrifices (pp. 121–6), even atoning for sins that sacrifices could not (p. 135).

Hanukkah and the Testimony of Jesus' Works (John 10:22—39)

This study offers a new proposal concerning the importance of the Hanukkah setting of Jesus’ discourse in John 10:22–39 by arguing that the discourse’s focus on Jesus’ works suits the festival of Hanukkah because of a tendency to associate Hanukkah with miracles and the use of miracles to justify its observance. The first section surveys previous proposals for Hanukkah imagery in 10:22–39, noting their shortcomings and the lack of consensus concerning the connection between the content and occasion of Jesus’ discourse. This lack of consensus stands in stark contrast to the almost universally recognized links between the content and occasion of Jesus’ discourse on the "bread of life" at Passover (ch. 6) and his discourse on "living water" at Tabernacles (chs. 7–8), and it raises the question of whether there is an undetected link in 10:22–39. The second section examines discussions of Hanukkah in Second Temple and rabbinic texts, detecting a connection between Hanukkah and miracles in texts that are both chronologically earlier and later than the Gospel of John. The third section discusses how this association between Hanukkah and miracles illuminates the discourse in 10:22–39 and offers other implications for the study of the Gospel of John.

Hanukkah and the Testimony of Jesus' Works (John 10:22-39)

This study offers a new proposal concerning the importance of the Hanukkah setting of Jesus' discourse in John 10:22-39 by arguing that the discourse's focus on Jesus' works suits the festival of Hanukkah because of a tendency to associate Hanukkah with miracles and the use of miracles to justify its observance. The first section surveys previous proposals for Hanukkah imagery in 10:22-39, noting their shortcomings and the lack of consensus concerning the connection between the content and occasion of Jesus' discourse. This lack of consensus stands in stark contrast to the almost universally recognized links between the content and occasion of Jesus' discourse on the bread of life at Passover (ch. 6) and his discourse on living water at Tabernacles (chs. 7-8), and it raises the question of whether there is an undetected link in 10:22-39. The second section examines discussions of Hanukkah in Second Temple and rabbinic texts, detecting a connection between Hanukkah and miracles in texts that are both chronologically earlier and later than the Gospel of John. The third section discusses how this association between Hanukkah and miracles illuminates the discourse in 10:22-39 and offers other implications for the study of the Gospel of John.

Rabbinic hermeneutics, Torah and the problem of Emmanuel Levinas’ jewish particularism

In this paper, the constituents of the rabbinic hermeneutical approach to the Bible, which were important to Emmanuel Lévinas, are analysed through the theory of intertextuality. These constituents are the basic premise of priority of the text (Torah) and of the necessity of its interpretation by the interpretive community. The rabbinic notion of Torah as an Ur-text thus avoids logocentrism as well as the classical opposition Mythos / Logos in terms of the opposition Fiction / Truth. The concept of Mythos as a creation of imagination (as a metaphor or Story) that reveals the particularities enables one to involve it in the “universalizing” philosophical discourseas successfully as Greek myths were incorporated in the discourses of Ancient Greek philosophers. The author of this paper emphasizes that the “particularity” of Lévinas consists in the fact that his preferred “myths” in his Talmudic lectures and Judaic reflexions are driven from another source. Intellectual activity in Judaism as a “foundation of spiritual life” is based on hermeneutics which emphasizes the intellectual activity of the reader and presupposes the necessary polyphony of the “multiplicity of persons” with individual particular perspectives. The paper maintains that Lévinas, while discussing this hermeneutics (performing refined universalizations from these particularities), engages himself in the dialogue with the text, and this engagement can be seen as the hermeneutics of the reader whose particularity and historical context matters as well. For Lévinas, this hermeneutics allows him to use classical rabbinic texts, primarily the Talmud, as a potential source of concrete images for his philosophical thought, with the discussions of Talmudic sages serving as a guidance which may indicate the possible vectors of the meaning. Thus, the paper concludes that in the perspective of the theory of intertextuality, Lévinas is involved by these texts in the Jewish intertextuality, and this makes him part of the history of the Jewish Thought.

Rabbinic Narrative: Documentary Perspectives on the Authentic Narrative in Lamentations Rabbah

Abstract Classification of its narratives reveals Lamentations Rabbah’s preferences as to narrative types and their functions. On the foundation of this knowledge we can correlate Rabbinic narratives with the boundaries defined by particular documents and, ultimately, are able, on the foundations of literary evidence, to describe the Rabbinic structure and system. Understanding the way the documentary evidence took shape and how it accomplished its compilers’ goals is required for that description. If we do not know whether or how narratives fit into the canonical constructions of Rabbinic Judaism in its formative age and normative statement, we cannot account for important data of that Judaism. The result of this study is to show that narratives, no less than expository, exegetical, and analytical writing, form part of the documentary self-definition of the Rabbinic canonical writings. Through the study of Lamentations Rabbah (referred to also as Lamentations Rabbati) in particular, it advances our ability to evaluate how a rhetorical form as represented in one document compares or contrasts with that form as it is used in other discrete rabbinic texts.

Between First-Century Apocalyptic and Seventh-Century Liturgy: On 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and Qillir

Abstract The relationship between two first- or second-century C.E. Jewish apocalypses, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, is complex, and remains unresolved. It is well known that elements of both works occur, predicated of Jeremiah, in a singular rabbinic text, Pesiqta Rabbati 26. In this paper, I argue that analysis of the development of the traditions underlying 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch must take more serious account of two pararabbinic texts, a pair of laments by the seventh-century Byzantine poet Qillir.

Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson, Levinas and Medieval Literature: The “Difficult Reading” of English and Rabbinic TextsLevinas and Medieval Literature: The “Difficult Reading” of English and Rabbinic Texts. Edited by Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Pp. x+374.

<i>Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson</i>, Levinas and Medieval Literature: The “Difficult Reading” of English and Rabbinic Texts<i>Levinas and Medieval Literature: The “Difficult Reading” of English and Rabbinic Texts</i>. Edited by Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Pp. x+374.

Rabbinic texts and the history of late-Roman Palestine. Edited by Martin Goodman and Philip Alexander. (Proceedings of the British Academy, 165.) Pp. xv+419. Oxford: Oxford University Press (for the British Academy), 2010. £70. 978 0 19 726474 4p; 0068 1202

Rabbinic texts and the history of late-Roman Palestine. Edited by Martin Goodman and Philip Alexander. (Proceedings of the British Academy, 165.) Pp. xv+419. Oxford: Oxford University Press (for the British Academy), 2010. £70. 978 0 19 726474 4p; 0068 1202 - Volume 63 Issue 3

Confronting Vulnerability: The Body and the Divine in Rabbinic Ethics (review)

Reviewed by: Confronting Vulnerability: The Body and the Divine in Rabbinic Ethics Michael L. Satlow Confronting Vulnerability: The Body and the Divine in Rabbinic Ethics, by Jonathan Wyn Schofer. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2010. 218 pp. $40.00. Confronting Vulnerability is an important and original monograph. Like Schofer's first book, The Making of a Sage: A Study in Rabbinic Ethics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), this book deals with ancient rabbinic "virtue ethics," to use a modern term. Unlike the earlier book, however, this one focuses exclusively on rabbinic discussions of "vulnerability," usually physical (e.g., sickness and old age) but also more widely construed to include environmental dangers (e.g., drought). Schofer essentially sets out to address three issues in this book: How do the ancient rabbis (ca. 70-1000 CE) understand human frailty and vulnerability? How do these rabbis rhetorically deploy these discussions in their larger project of character formation? And how can these ancient texts contribute to the modern study of virtue ethics? The book has five substantive chapters: Aging and Death; Elimination; Early Death; Drought; and Life Cycles. The titles of three of the chapters are self-explanatory. "Elimination" deals with bodily excretion (a notable difference, according to the rabbis, between humans and angels) and "Life Cycles" with how the rabbis categorize the stages of life. The structure of each of these chapters is similar. After briefly contextualizing the problem, Schofer cites and analyzes a few relevant rabbinic texts. These rabbinic texts date from Late Antiquity through the early Middle Ages (with some being impossible to date with much precision), and Schofer is properly careful to claim that these texts are not necessarily exemplary of some general view of the rabbis. Schofer's book is notably original in two respects. First is the subject matter itself. It is the only study known to me that makes vulnerability in these texts visible; after reading Confronting Vulnerability I will never read these ancient texts and those like them in the same way. Schofer's application to these texts of questions drawn from the field of modern ethics succeeds in making fresh insights. Schofer's second original contribution is his approach. The study of "rabbinic ethics" is notoriously difficult; he has a very good discussion of these problems in his introduction. How might one apply a category that is largely foreign to the rabbis—ethics—to this set of ancient texts? The additional challenge for scholars is to avoid claiming grand theories of what the rabbis "think" from short, isolated rabbinic statements. Schofer is well aware of both problems and avoids them by focusing on local analyses of individual texts that cumulatively build into a larger argument. While that larger argument sometimes gets buried under the extensive text analyses (which at times does not contribute directly to the argument), [End Page 170] it is relatively straightforward: In these texts the rabbis directly confronted vulnerability and human frailty rather than making it invisible. One of the primary ways that they did this was by using images of vulnerability pedagogically to instill moral values. Explicit and graphic depictions of old age and decrepitude, for example, help the rabbinic sage to focus on proper conduct and ultimate goals. It is this approach to vulnerability (rather than the particular moral values themselves) that can contribute to modern ethical study. The rabbis in these passages "push their audience to confront weakness, and they appeal to authoritative figures of rabbinic culture . . . to uphold distinct actions and character states. Their goal is to form individuals and communities that can act effectively in a dangerous world" (p. 3). The most successful chapter is the first, on "Aging and Death." Here Schofer discusses a series of texts that instruct students to always stay aware of their own human vulnerability. "The pedagogical aim of the material is to juxtapose corporeal vulnerability with the powers of divine action in order to inspire behavior in accord with rabbinic ideals" (p. 43). As in his first book, Schofer here successfully emphasizes the ways in which rabbinic texts are rhetorically shaped in order to further the character formation of their audiences. The emphasis here and throughout the book...