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UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Humanity of the Talmud: Reading for Ethics in Bavli 'Avoda Zara Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9x6842c5 Author Wasserman, Mira Beth Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California The Humanity of the Talmud: Reading for Ethics in Bavli ʿAvoda Zara By Mira Beth Wasserman A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Joint Doctor of Philosophy with Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley in Jewish Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Daniel Boyarin, chair Professor Chana Kronfeld Professor Naomi Seidman Professor Kenneth Bamberger Spring 2014 Abstract The Humanity of the Talmud: Reading for Ethics in Bavli ʿAvoda Zara by Mira Beth Wasserman Joint Doctor of Philosophy with Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley University of California, Berkeley Professor Daniel Boyarin, chair In this dissertation, I argue that there is an ethical dimension to the Babylonian Talmud, and that literary analysis is the approach best suited to uncover it. Paying special attention to the discursive forms of the Talmud, I show how juxtapositions of narrative and legal dialectics cooperate in generating the Talmud's distinctive ethics, which I characterize as an attentiveness to the “exceptional particulars” of life. To demonstrate the features and rewards of a literary approach, I offer a sustained reading of a single tractate from the Babylonian Talmud, ʿAvoda Zara (AZ). AZ and other talmudic discussions about non-Jews offer a rich resource for considerations of ethics because they are centrally concerned with constituting social relationships and with examining aspects of human experience that exceed the domain of Jewish law. AZ investigates what distinguishes Jews from non-Jews, what Jews and non- Jews share in common, and what it means to be a human being. I read AZ as a cohesive literary work unified by the overarching project of examining the place of humanity in the cosmos. The talmudic materials are organized as a journey down the cosmic chain of being, from the supernal realm of souls and spirit, to the material world of embodied, animal existence, to the inanimate domain of physical objects. In tracing this descent, I discover in AZ the outlines of a rabbinic anthropology that affirms the common humanity of Jews and non-Jews, and highlights the role of Jewish law in constituting Jewish difference. As I make my way through AZ, I bring the talmudic text into dialogue with critical insights and issues from philosophy and literary theory. Pointing to ways that the editors of AZ engage the philosophic currents of their time, I challenge the prevailing characterization of the Bavli editors as inwardly focused. Even more important, I explore how AZ engages the critical questions of our time-- questions of identity and alterity, of universalism and particularism, of justice and community. 1 For Steve בכל יום של חיינו יחדיו קהלת מוחק שורה מספרו. --יהודה עמיחי i Table of Contents Acknowledgements..............................................................................................................................iv Preface..................................................................................................................................................vi A Note on Sources, Usage, and Transliteration.................................................................................viii Chapter I: The Talmud Uncensored...........................................................................................................1 Is the Talmud Ethical?...........................................................................................................................1 Two Readings of Rabbinic Double Talk (Baba Kama 113a-b).............................................................2 Is There Ethics in the Talmud? Two Modern Views.............................................................................8 Defining Ethics....................................................................................................................................11 The Seven Commandments of the Children of Noah (Excerpts from Sanhedrin 56a-57b)................14 On The Horns of a Dilemma (Baba Kama 38a)..................................................................................25 Gentiles in the Talmud: A Short, Selective Reception History of The Talmud's Most Troubling Texts, Told Backwards........................................................................................................................32 Chapter II: The Sense of A Beginning ....................................................................................................41 Storytelling in Lifney ʾEydeyhem.......................................................................................................42 Beginning with the End (AZ 2a-3b)....................................................................................................46 A Story of Adam (AZ 8a)....................................................................................................................50 Literary Approaches to the Bavli: Between Bialik and Bakhtin.........................................................52 Adam, Inside-Out and Upside-Down (AZ 11b)..................................................................................61 The Martyrdom of Rabbi Hanina ben Tradyon (AZ 18a)...................................................................67 Ketiʿa bar Shalom Crosses Over (AZ 10b).........................................................................................72 Broken Spirit, Breaking Wind: Elazar ben Dordya (AZ 17a).............................................................75 Narrative Ethics (The Moral of the Stories)........................................................................................80 Chapter III: Jews, Gentiles and Other Animals.......................................................................................83 Thinking with Animals........................................................................................................................83 Creeping Suspicions (Mishna AZ 2:1)................................................................................................84 The Opening Sugya (AZ 22b).............................................................................................................87 Jews, Gentiles, and other Animals......................................................................................................98 The Opening Sugya and the Rest of the Chapter..............................................................................105 Widows and Wives in Relation to the Covenant (AZ 27a, 30a, 39a)................................................108 Animal Husbands (AZ 36b)..............................................................................................................115 Chapter IV: Leaky Vessels....................................................................................................................120 Mixed Drinks and Metaphors............................................................................................................120 Mishna ʿAvoda Zara: What the Tannaim Say (and Don't Say) about Gentile Wine.........................121 Gentile Wine in the Bavli..................................................................................................................127 Section I: Scriptural and Rabbinic Authority for Law ....................................................................128 Ben Dama's Snakebites (AZ 27b) ................................................................................................128 The Prohibition on Gentile Wine: “From Where Do We Get This?” (AZ 29b)...........................131 Section II: Snakes..............................................................................................................................136 Legal Reasoning and the “Rule of Exposure” (AZ 30a)..............................................................137 Literary Analysis: How is a Gentile Like a Snake?......................................................................142 Section III: Secrets............................................................................................................................145 Disclosures (AZ 35a)....................................................................................................................145 Keeping Secrets (AZ 36b)............................................................................................................148 Why So Secret?.............................................................................................................................157 ii Digestif..............................................................................................................................................158 Chapter V: Ethics and Objects..............................................................................................................160 The Bavli's Rag and Bone Shop........................................................................................................160 Object Lessons..................................................................................................................................164 Idolatry from the Bible to the Mishna...............................................................................................167
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