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A Sage Story as Dramatized Biblical Exegesis

Adiel Kadari Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Abstract

In the study of rabbinic legend there is a widely accepted generic distinction between those legends that expand on biblical stories (exegetical narratives) and those that feature the sages of the Mishnah and the Talmud (sage stories). This article questions the absolute nature of this generic distinction by examining the circumstances that shaped the development of a sage story that appears in the midrashic collection Leviticus Rabbah and its parallels. I seek to demonstrate that occasionally stories about the sages emerge from the exegesis of biblical verses. My article demonstrates how a verse from Psalms takes on the shape of a story, which serves to solve a linguistic problem in the verse. This example sheds new light on the relationship between exegetical narratives and sage stories, and suggests that we view them as part of the same broader creative intellectual context.

Keywords midrash – Leviticus Rabbah – sage stories – biblical exegesis – rabbinic Judaism

The story of Rabbi Yannai and the peddler, which appears in Leviticus Rabba 16:2, has been the subject of a range of studies from various perspectives: There are those who read it as a tale of confrontation expressing social and moral criticism of a sage who condescends to a simple man,1 and those who view it as a window into the economic activity of peddlers in the Land of Israel in Rabbi

1 A. Shinan, ‘Rabbi Yannai, the Peddler, and the Well-Dressed Man’ (in Hebrew), Criticism and Interpretation 30 (1994) 15–23; O. Yisraeli, ‘A Talebearer in Your Nation: On Multiple Meanings in the Story of Rabbi Yannai and the Peddler’ (in Hebrew), Sifrut Aggadah 2 (2004) 95–105.

Yannai’s time,2 and still others who seek to use it to derive geographic conclu- sions about the location of the settlement of Akhbara, where Rabbi Yannai lived.3 But it seems to me that one major question remains unanswered, namely how the story came about in the first place. Sage stories generally pres- ent themselves to the reader as completed works and do not reveal anything about the circumstances of their inception. In this paper I seek to argue that this is a unique example in which the story itself lays bare to the reader aspects of its own origin and development that generally remain concealed. In light of the fact that this story has been subject to various literary analyses, I will not offer one of my own, but will focus on aspects relating to the circumstances under which the story initially came about.4

There is a story of a peddler who used to go around the towns in the vicinity of Sepphoris crying out: Who wishes to buy the elixir of life? Come and taste! He entered Akhbara and came close to the house of Rabbi Yannai. Rabbi Yannai was sitting and expounding in his room, and he heard him call out: Who wishes to buy the elixir of life? Rabbi Yannai looked out and said to him: Come here and sell it to me. He said to him: Neither you nor people like you require that which I have to sell. Rabbi Yannai pressed him. The peddler went up to him and brought out the

2 Z. Safrai, ‘The Village During the Period of the Mishnah and the Talmud,’ M. Stern, ed., Nation and History: The Ancient Period and the Middle Ages (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem 1983) 188–189; D. Adan-Bayewitz, ‘The Itinerant Peddler in Roman Palestine,’ in N. Gross, ed., Jews in Economic Life (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem 1985) 79–80, and see n. 41. 3 On the location of Rabbi Yannai’s study house in Akhbara in the upper Galilee, see A. Oppenheimer, ‘Those of the House of Rabbi Yannai’ (in Hebrew), Studies in the History of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel 4 (1978) 137 n. 1 and references; S.S. Miller, Sages and Commoners in Late Antique ʾErez Yisrael (Tübingen 2006) 46 n. 44. Based on the portrayal of the peddler as one who ‘would frequent the cities close to Sepphoris’ in some of the versions of our story, it seems that this settlement was located in the lower Galilee, near Sepphoris. See Oppenheimer’s remarks in ‘House of Rabbi Yannai,’ 140 n. 24; Safrai, ‘Village,’ 188–189; Adan-Bayewitz, ‘Itinerant Peddler,’ 79–80, n. 41; Shinan, ‘Rabbi Yannai,’ 17 n. 12. Rosenfeld proposes that the settlement of Akhbara was indeed next to Sepphoris, and raises the possibility of the existence of two settlements with the same name. See B. Rosenfeld, ‘Akhbara: Priestly Settlement Adjacent to Sepphoris’ (in Hebrew), Israel—People and Land 7–8 (1990–1993) 127–132. 4 The version of the story presented is taken from M. Margulies’s edition (Midrash Ṿa-yiḳra rabbah: yotse la-or ʿal pi kitvei-yad u-seridei ha-genizah [Jerusalem 1953–1960]) 349–350. I noted only those textual variations relevant to my analysis. For a comprehensive presentation of textual variants see the section on textual variants there. For an updated synoptic presentation of the various textual variants, see H. Milikowsky, http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/midrash/VR.

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Book of Psalms and showed him the verse, ‘Who is the man who desires life, who loves days, that he may see goodness?’ (Ps. 34:13). What is written immediately thereafter? ‘Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it’ (Ps. 34:14–15).5 Rabbi Yannai said: All my life I have been reading this passage,6 but I did not know how to expound it7 until this peddler came and informed me.8 (LevR 16:2)

This is the story of an encounter between a sage and a peddler. In the first part of the story, each is busy with his own affairs: the peddler advertises his wares, and the sage sits and learns. This leads to an encounter between the two, in which Rabbi Yannai is surprised to discover that contrary to his prior assumptions, the peddler does not seek to sell ordinary wares, but rather to teach him Torah and impart a moral lesson. At the end of the story Rabbi Yannai explicitly lays bare the role reversal that takes place in this scene, in which the sage is not the one who teaches, but the one who is taught. The verse that the peddler presents to Rabbi Yannai is Psalms 34:13: ‘Who is the man who desires life, who loves days, that he may see goodness?’ Rabbi Yannai declares, ‘All my life I have been reading this passage, but I did not know how to expound it.’ Rabbi Yannai’s admission is surprising, because the content of the verse seems very easy to comprehend. The moral and educational message of guarding against the harmful effects of language is transparent, and it certainly does not require tremendous sophistication to elucidate, and so why did Rabbi Yannai require the assistance of the peddler? And why was it

:an additional sentence appears: ‘Rabbi Yannai said )ולפ) In some of the textual variations 5 Even Solomon declared, “Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity” (Prov. 21:23),’ which appears after the end of the story in other variants. I agree with Margulies (p. 350, note to l. 5) that this is an error, and that the verse from Proverbs and of the [צרעת] guard against leprosy—[צרות] its exegesis, ‘Keep themselves from calamity soul’ was originally appended after the conclusion of the story as part of the editorial activity that incorporated this story into the proem introduced by a verse about leprosy, ‘This shall be the law of the leper’ (Lev. 14:2). ’.read: ‘All my life I have been distressed about this verse (אב) Some of the textual variants 6 from the word for truth and directness, but ,קשוט read (כק) Some of the textual variants 7 generally translated as expound. The latter variant serves as a literal echo of ,פשוט most read the beginning of the story, where Rabbi Yannai was sitting and expounding. This is also the opinion of Shinan, ‘Rabbi Yannai,’ 19, n. 19 and Yisraeli, ‘A Talebearer in Your Nation,’ 102 n. 23. 8 The Margulies edition reads, ‘and informed him,’ but it seems that the preferable version is .(טכק) and informed me,’ as per some of the textual variants‘

Downloadedzutot from Brill.com09/29/2021 14 (2017) 6-18 07:13:55AM via free access A Sage Story as Dramatized Biblical Exegesis 9 specifically the peddler who succeeded in laying bare the meaning of the verse, while the prominent sage Rabbi Yannai failed?9 It seems to me that the answer to this question requires a closer examination of the term invoked in Rabbi Yannai’s declaration, ‘All my life I have been reading this passage, but I did not know how to expound it.’ The root of the word appears at the beginning and end of the story. The first part of ,פשט ,expound (הוה יתיב ופשיט) ’the story reads that Rabbi Yannai was ‘sitting and expounding .(היכן הוא פשוט) ’and the end reads that he ‘did not know how to expound it There is no doubt that an understanding of the precise meaning of this verb is crucial to our understanding of the story framed by the two appearances of this term. The most commonly accepted explanation is that Rabbi Yannai was busy explaining the straightforward meaning of biblical texts.10 But the ‘straightforward’ meaning of this verse seems, as I have noted, clear and transparent, and it does not entail exegetical sophistication; and so it is not clear why Rabbi Yannai said that he did not know ‘how to expound it.’ It seems, then, in this story needs to be examined in light פשט that the meaning of the root of what we know about the meaning of this root in rabbinic literature more generally. This matter is discussed at length in the scholarly literature about the history of the methodology of biblical exegesis and the development of exegetical ter- minology. Scholars who dealt with the history of the terms ‘peshat’ and ‘derash’ pointed out that the use of the term ‘peshat’ in rabbinic literature differs from its usage in medieval and modern exegetical literature, and that the dichot- omy between ‘peshat’ and ‘derash’ as contrasting exegetical modes was a later historical development.11 In this context scholars sought to clarify the meaning of ‘peshat’ in the world of the sages. Towards this end, they examined the

9 See Yisraeli, ‘A Talebearer in Your Nation,’ 103, and his references in n. 20–21. It seems that this difficulty led Margulies to explain that the peddler’s contribution consisted solely of directing Rabbi Yannai’s attention to the verse, ‘since he did not pay attention to it, and only when the peddler pointed it out to him did he pay attention to it’ (p. 351, notes and glosses on line 1). 10 This is the explanation of Rabbi Yissachar ben Rabbi Naftali Katz, the author of the Matanot kehuna: ‘He was sitting and busying himself with the straightforward meanings of the biblical text, and reviewing them.’ Moshe Aryeh Mirkin explains, ‘He was busy with the straightforward meanings of biblical texts, or was busy with the straightforward meaning of laws’ (Leviticus Rabba, commentary by M.A. Mirkin [in Hebrew] [Tel Aviv 1961] vol. 1, 179). 11 See B.Z. Bacher, Erkhei midrash (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv 1923) 269 n. 3; S. Kamin, Rashi’s Exegetical Categorization in Respect to the Distinction Between Peshat and Derash (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem 1986) 32–48, and the references below.

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-in the context of study or exegesis, includ פשט various appearances of the root ing the phrases which I am translating as ‘the straightforward meaning of the and ‘the biblical text never loses its straightforward 12 )פשוטיה דקרייא) ’verse Sarah Kamin proposed that the term 13.(אין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו) ’meaning ‘peshat’ comes from the words ‘pshita’ (unfurling) or ‘prisa’ (laying out) and showed that it refers to the biblical text itself.14 David Weiss Halivni claimed that the meaning of the term is sequence and continuity, and the ‘peshat’ of refers to its context.15 Moshe Ahrend furthered this (פשוטיה דקרייא( a verse line of thinking and proposed that ‘the straightforward meaning of the text’ ,(פשטיה דנהרא) ’comes from the phrase ‘the flow of the river (פשוטיה דקרייא) with the biblical text analogized to a river whose waters flow: ‘The place where the biblical text goes and flows . . . is none other than the text spread out before the reader, spread out before him like an unfurled epistle.’16 Along with this, he suggests a broader definition than that of Halivni, according to which, ‘Peshat does not refer specifically to the literary context of the verse, but rather to the entire flow of the text, that is, to those words specifically under discussion, and also to those that precede and follow it, and to its thematic context.’17 David Henshke further extended the limits of the rabbinic concept of ‘peshat’ and proposed that, ‘Peshat is the composite of phenomena bound up in the text spread out before us in the real, physical sense: the way it is worded, its order, its context, and all that flows from it—all of which is prior to any methods of exegesis.’18 It is against this backdrop that we can explain Rabbi Yannai’s exegetical distress in our story. The content of the verse in Psalms is clear: one who seeks life should guard against improper use of language, act with moral uprightness,

and in ,פשוטיה דקרייא In sources from the Land of Israel this phrase is written as 12 .פשטיה דקרא Babylonian sources as 13 See the references in notes 15–19 below. 14 Kamin, Rashi’s Exegetical Categorization, 31. 15 Halivni interprets the phrase ‘the biblical text never loses its straightforward meaning’ as the stipulation that the text may not be truncated. See D. Halivni, ‘Who Was the First One to Use the Phrase “No Text Can be Deprived of Its Peshat”?’ (in Hebrew) Sidra 3 (1987) 43, and at length in his book D. Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash: Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis (New York/Oxford 1991) 52–76. 16 M. Ahrend, ‘The Concept “Peshuto Shellamiqra” in the Making,’ in S. Japhet, ed., The Bible in the Light of Its Interpreters: Sarah Kamin Memorial Volume (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem 1994) 241. 17 Ahrend, ‘ “Peshuto Shellamiqra” ’, 242. 18 D. Henshke, ‘Two Subjects Typifying the Tannaitic Halakhic Midrash’ (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 65 (1996) 435.

Downloadedzutot from Brill.com09/29/2021 14 (2017) 6-18 07:13:55AM via free access A Sage Story as Dramatized Biblical Exegesis 11 avoid evil and do good. The difficulty is bound up not in the meaning of the verse but in its language. The rhetorical question, ‘Who is the man who desires life’ is phrased in third person, whereas the charge to ‘keep your tongue from evil (. . .)’ is in the second person.19 The natural continuity of the biblical text is disrupted, and its straightforward meaning is not clear, that is to say, it is not heading straight forward, and it is hard to know where it is going.20 In light of this fact, we must ask the question: If this is indeed the exegetical problem that prevented Rabbi Yannai from understanding the verse correctly, then what did the peddler contribute to his understanding of the verse? Is it possible that before the peddler opened his book of Psalms, Rabbi Yannai did not know that the continuation of the verse ‘Who is the man who desires life’ was ‘Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies’?21 How was the exegetical problem resolved by means of the peddler’s words? It seems that the peddler’s contribution was inherently bound up in his behavior as peddler, one who walked around hawking his wares: ‘Who wishes to buy the elixir of life?’ This cry is none other than a paraphrase of the first half of the verse, ‘Who is the man who desires life (. . .).’ Reading this verse as a peddler’s cry helps resolve the exegetical and linguistic problem, because it transforms the verse from Psalms from a linear text to an enacted scene. His question—his declaration, ‘Who is the man who desires life?’—is answered by the potential

19 A comparison to similar verses in terms of structure and content further emphasizes the problematic language of this verse. The rhetorical question, ‘Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?’ (Ps. 24:3) is met with the response, ‘The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god’ (Ps. 23:4). And the question, ‘Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?’ (Ps. 15:1) is met with the response, ‘The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart’ (Ps. 15:2). In both of these instances the rhetorical question phrased in the third person is also answered in the third person. The expectation is that the question ‘Who is the man who desires life,’ too, would be answered in a similar manner. 20 This is consistent with Halivni’s explanation of the term peshat, though it does not contradict other suggestions offered above, including Kamin’s proposal that peshat refers to the text itself as a literary unit, or Ahrend’s depiction of peshat as the flow of the text, or Henshke’s broader definition. 21 This sense of surprise already appears in the Tanchuma, spoken by the students of Rabbi Yannai: ‘His students said to him: Rabbi, you didn’t know this verse? He said to them: Yes, but this one came and clarified it for me’ (Tanchuma Metzora 5, S. Buber edition [Vilna 1913] 46).

zutot 14 (2017) 6-18 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:13:55AM via free access 12 Kadari customer’s interest. When the customer turns to the peddler, he responds in second person: ‘Keep your tongue from evil (. . .)’22 A similar reading of the story of Rabbi Yannai and the peddler was proposed in the 16th century by Rabbi Moshe Alshich in his commentary on Psalms. He writes as follows:

And behold in the midrash (LevR 16:2) it is said: There is a story of a peddler who used to go around the towns in the vicinity of Sepphoris crying out: Who wishes to buy the elixir of life? Who wishes to buy the elixir of life? And all would flock to him, and he would open the book and show them the verse, ‘Keep your tongue from evil,’ etc. ‘Rabbi Yannai said: All my life I have been reading this passage, but I did not know how to expound it until this peddler came . . .’ This is the essence of the story. But this is inexplicable, for what new insight did the peddler provide that Rabbi Yannai did not know? Did he forget the verse? What was it that distressed him until that day? And furthermore, the peddler did not inter- pret anything in the verse, but just showed it to him, and told him that he didn’t need it whatsoever! There is no doubt that what was distress- ing him was that he saw that the verse ‘Who is the man who desires life’ was [in third person and] not a direct address, while the verse ‘Keep your tongue from evil’ was a direct address [in second person]. But in light of the peddler who would call out ‘Who wants the elixir of life’ and tell everyone who came to ask for it, ‘Keep your tongue from evil,’ he under- stood that this is what David did—he would cry out, ‘Who is the man

22 An example of this exegetical technique used with reference to a verse from Psalms appears in the Mekhilta, in a passage that refers to the description of the splitting of the Sea of Reeds in Ps. 114:3–5: ‘The sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back . . . Why was it, O sea, that you fled, O Jordan, that you turned back.’ The shift from third to second person becomes clear in the context of a dramatic dialogue between Moses and the sea: ‘The sea began to flee, as it is written, “The sea looked and fled.” Moses said to it: “All day I have been talking to you in the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, and you would not listen, and now, ‘Why was it, O sea, that you fled?’ ” ’ (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael, Vayehi 4, Horovitz- Rabin edition [Jerusalem 1997] 103). Also see J. Fraenkel, The Ways of the Aggada and the Midrash (in Hebrew) (Givatayim 1991) 339–340, which points to an additional exegetical problem that this dialogue resolves. As with verses from Psalms, verses from the Song of Songs, too, were interpreted by the sages as a dramatic poem in which various speakers took part. See T. Kadari, ‘ “Friends Hearken to Your Voice”: Rabbinic Interpretations of the Song of Songs,’ in K. Smelik and K. Vermeulen, eds., Approaches to Literary Readings of Ancient Jewish Writings (Leiden/Boston 2014) 188–191. Also see the references to Hanan Mazeh’s work, notes 39–41 below.

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who desires life,’ and when someone would come before him he would say to him that he desires life, and would speak directly to him and tell him ‘Keep your tongue,’ etc.23

According to Moshe Alshich, Rabbi Yannai did not need the peddler to teach him what was explicitly written in the verse. Rather, the new exegetical insight he gleaned sprang from the process he himself underwent when he reacted to the peddler’s call, an exchange that illustrates and dramatizes the solution to the exegetical disparity between the two parts of the verse. The resolution to this disparity is achieved by means of the potential customer’s turn to the peddler advertising his wares, and this turn leads to the peddler’s shift from speaking in third person to speaking in second. Based on this reading of the story I wish to go one step further and propose that the resolution to the disparity in the sequence of biblical verses is not just a felicitous byproduct of the tale, but in fact gave rise to the figure of the peddler who is featured in it, and in essence gave rise to the entire tale. The exegetical trouble that stemmed from the disparity within the biblical verses is resolved by means of their performance, which adds a dramatic dimension to the verses, and which developed into a full story that provides a narrative framework to this dramatization. Support for this conjecture may be found in the history of the various iterations of this story. The Babylonian Talmud relates a similar story about a different sage:

Rabbi Alexandri called out: Who wants life? Who wants life? All the people came and gathered around him, saying to him: Give us life! He said to them: ‘Who is the man who desires life . . . Keep your tongue from evil.’24

In the Babylonian version of this story, the sage plays the role of the peddler. It is he who carries out a pedagogical exercise, capturing the attention of passersby who ask him to give them life. In response to their request, he refers them to the verse ‘Keep your tongue from evil,’ etc. This may be a further

23 The commentary of Moshe Alshich on Psalms 34:12–15, The Book of Psalms with the Wonderful Commentary Romemut El, The Books of Our Rabbi Moshe Alshich on the Prophets and Writings (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem 2008) 145. In the 17th century a similar reading was suggested by Vidal ben Yizchak Tzarfati in his commentary Imrei Yosher to LevR 16:2 (Y.B. Tzarfati, Midrash Rabba on the Five Books of Moses [Jerusalem 1994] 24b); and in the 19th century by Hanoch Zundel in his commentary on Midrash Rabba entitled Anaf Yosef. 24 bAvZa 19b.

zutot 14 (2017) 6-18 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:13:55AM via free access 14 Kadari development of the version from the Land of Israel. In the Babylonian version, the social import of the story is diminished, as it no longer conveys the important lesson that a leading sage, too, can learn something from a simple peddler.25 What is retained in the Babylonian version, along with the element of surprise of those who seek to buy an elixir of life and discover that they are being sold a moral message, is the dramatic reading of the verse ‘Who is the man,’ like the cry of a peddler hawking his wares. This element is also preserved in a later version of the story that appears in the midrash on Psalms:

‘I will keep a curb upon my mouth’ (Psalms 39:2). Is there such a thing as a curb for a man’s mouth? The verse rather means, I shall keep silent and not occupy myself with idle words but only with words of Torah. So too it is said, ‘A wholesome tongue is a tree of life’ (Psalms 15:4), that is, Torah. From this you learn that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the Torah to the children of Israel that they should not busy themselves with idle words, nor be busy with evil tongues. So the Psalms says, ‘I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue.’ So too it is written, ‘You shall speak them’ (Deuteronomy 6:7)—that is, you shall speak words of Torah, not slander, nor idle words. Likewise David asked: Who wishes to have life in the world to come? They said to him: No man can have it. David said: But it can be had, and at a low price, as it is written, ‘Who is the man who desires life?’ (Psalms 34:13), meaning, who wants life in the world to come? They said to him: But how can one have such a life? David said: ‘Keep your tongue from evil’ (Psalms 34:14), that is, from slander, of which it is said, ‘Stilled by the lying lips which speak against the righteous’ (Psalms 31:19), lips which prevent them from saying, ‘O how abundant is Your goodness, which You have laid up for them who fear You’ (Psalms 31:20).26

Here the context is different, but the dialogical element is preserved. King David is depicted as a peddler who cries, ‘Who desires life?’ and those who hear him respond doubtfully, ‘No man can have it.’ The people relate to King David, the author of Psalms, as a peddler, supporting my contention that the text itself ‘invites’ this kind of reading.

25 As O. Yisraeli proposed, ‘A Talebearer in Your Nation,’ 97 n. 6, in the name of Menachem Katz. 26 The Midrash on Psalms, Psalm 39, S. Buber edition (Vilna 1891) 256; trans. W.G. Braude (New Haven 1959) 431.

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It seems, then, that the figure of the peddler in the story in Leviticus Rabba grew out of a dramatic reading of the verse from Psalms. The story was created in an exegetical context out of a sensitivity to the disparities in the biblical text. This reading was preserved in the various incarnations of the story,27 including those whose narrative framework differed from that of the story in Leviticus Rabba.28 In the scholarly field of aggadic literature there is increasing interest in the inception and development of sage stories. This interest is clearly evidenced in Amram Tropper’s book Like Clay in the Hands of the Potter: Sage Stories in Rabbinic Literature,29 which, as he writes in his introduction, ‘seeks to lay bare

27 It is worth pointing out the positive view of the figure of the peddler that is preserved in the various manifestations of this story, particularly in light of the negative image of peddlers elsewhere in rabbinic literature. The peddler is listed among those whose profes- sions are regarded as inferior (bKid 82a) and as one who is suspected of behaving inap- propriately with women (bYev 24b), and the verse ‘Do not go about spreading slander -among your people’ (Lev. 19:16) is interpreted as referring to the figure of the ped (רכיל) Do not be like that peddler who carries the words (also: things) of this one‘ :(רוכל) dler to that one, and the words of that one to this one’ (yPeah 1:1 [16a]), see Adan-Bayewitz, ‘Itinerant Peddler,’ 81–84; Shinan, ‘Rabbi Yannai,’ 17; Yisraeli, ‘A Talebearer in Your Nation,’ 98; Adan-Bayewitz notes that in our story it is specifically the peddler, whose name is associated with spreading slander, who explains to Rabbi Yannai the meaning of the verse ‘Keep your tongue from evil’ (‘Itinerant Peddler,’ 84). Alongside the negative image of the profession of the peddler, rabbinic literature also at times reflects a more positive outlook, and invokes the image of the peddler among those figures who are connected with Torah study, as in our story. It is related that Rabbi Yehuda the Patriarch referred to Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya as a ‘peddler’s basket’ comparing Rabbi Elazar’s abil- ity to teach different fields of Torah knowledge in accordance with the needs of his students to the array of wares that a peddler supplies to his customers (Avot deRabbi Natan, version A, ch. 18, Schechter edition [New York/Jerusalem 1997] 66–67). The Jerusalem Talmud cites a story about Rabbi Yohanan the Cobbler who passed before the prison where Rabbi Akiva was incarcerated, and while pretending to be a peddler hawking his wares, he smuggled a halakhic question to Rabbi Akiva (yYev 12:1 [12d]). These sources are cited in Adan-Bayewitz’s ‘Itinerant Peddler,’ 72–73. 28 It may also have given rise to the story in LevR 9;3 in which Rabbi Yannai fails to guard his tongue from evil. Alternatively, that story—in which Rabbi Yannai is faulted for his improper speech—may have been the reason that our story was told of Rabbi Yannai specifically. 29 A. Tropper, Like Clay in the Hands of the Potter: Sage Stories in Rabbinic Literature (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem 2011).

zutot 14 (2017) 6-18 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:13:55AM via free access 16 Kadari the literary raw materials available to the authors and editors of rabbinic literature when they created their stories—the clay in the hands of the potter.’30 Another trend in the study of aggadic literature is an interest in the relationship between the literary and exegetical dimensions of these texts. Jonah Fraenkel pointed out the centrality of the phenomenon of incorporating biblical verses into aggadic narratives. He wrote, ‘The extent to which the incor- poration of a verse and the midrash on it into the aggadic story is a fixed and essential property of these stories is evidenced not just by the dozens of stories in which the heroes invoke verses and their exegesis as part of their activity, but also by the many verses that conclude these stories, preceded by the phrase, ‘as it is written,’ or ‘as per,’ or ‘and he recited about him this text’ (or ‘this verse’) (. . .).’31 He goes on to say, ‘Even though it is correct that there are many sage stories that do not include biblical verses, this phenomenon is so widespread and at times (. . .) it is so crucial to understanding the story and its heroes, that we can say that the use of biblical exegesis as part of the story is an essential aspect of our understanding of it.’32 In an article devoted to ‘The Role of Biblical Verses Spoken by Sages,’ Fraenkel demonstrated how ‘the hero himself lays bare the religious-moral logic of the plot, and this revelation becomes part of the plot.’33 It seems that the story of Rabbi Yannai and the peddler serves as an additional example of this literary feature. The story’s plot hinges on the transformation that the hero undergoes from at first failing to understand the verse (or, more precisely, failing to understand that the words of the peddler are essentially a paraphrase of the verse), to ultimately gaining an understanding of the simple meaning of this verse. The exegetical process that Rabbi Yannai experiences when he acquires this understanding is part of the plot of the story.

30 Topper, Like Clay, 11. Tropper references earlier studies that converted the traditional historical question, ‘What historical event is depicted in this story?’ into the literary question, ‘What sources contributed to the shaping of this story?’ (21 n. 32). Foremost among them is the work of S. Friedman, ‘The Historical Aggadah in the Babylonian Talmud’ (in Hebrew), in S. Friedman, ed., Saul Lieberman Memorial Volume (New York/ Jerusalem 1993) 119–164. Also see Friedman’s ‘Dama ben Netina: The Historical Figure: An Episode in the Study of Talmudic Aggadah’ (in Hebrew), in J. Levinson, Y. Elbaum, and G. Hazan-Rokem, eds., Higayon le-Yonah: New Aspects in the Study of Midrash, Aggadah and in Honor of Professor Yonah Fraenkel (Jerusalem 2006) 130–183; and others. 31 Fraenkel, The Ways of the Aggada and the Midrash, 249. 32 Fraenkel, The Ways of the Aggada and the Midrash, 251. 33 J. Fraenkel, The Aggadic Story: Harmony of Form and Content (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv 2001) 205.

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Azarya Beitner develops and expands upon Fraenkel’s words in his discussion of the ‘connections between sages stories and the Bible’ in a sub-chapter of his book.34 He challenges the distinction between midrash and story as two separate literary phenomena,35 and elsewhere proposes a sub-genre of ‘ser- which feature a sage expounding on a biblical ,(סיפורי דרשות) ’mon stories verse before an audience.36 Joshua Levinson proposes viewing the genre of the exegetical narrative as a dramatic reading of biblical stories. Following Ofra Meir’s assertion that ‘the exegetical story belongs to two genres—it is both exegesis and story,’37 Levinson argues that the central feature of the exegetical story is ‘a combination of two types of discourse—story and exegesis. Exegesis is a reading that gives new meaning to the verse, and the story dramatizes this meaning.’38 The term ‘exegetical narrative’ is reserved for those stories that elaborate on biblical tales, whose heroes are therefore biblical heroes. But it seems that we can expand the insight that the story is a dramatization of a verse and apply it also, in some cases, to sage stories, whose heroes—albeit not biblical characters—are primarily preoccupied with interpreting biblical verses, an activity that serves as the foundation for these tales.39 Hanan Mazeh recently dealt at length with the exegetical technique of the division of the parts of the verse into words attributed to various speakers or into addresses to various audiences. He collected and analyzed examples of exegeses that divide a verse, or a sequence of verses, among various speakers

34 A. Beitner, Yavneh Stories: Visiting the Sick and Consoling Mourners (in Hebrew) (Ramat Gan 2011) 22–26. 35 Beitner, Yavneh Stories, 22. 36 A. Beitner, ‘How the Midrash is Told: The Relating of the Midrash as a Literary Genre in Talmudic and Midrashic Literature’ (in Hebrew), Pathways Through Aggadah 4–5 (2001– 2002) 109–140. 37 O. Meir, The Darshanic Story in Genesis Rabba (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv 1987) 63. Meir consid- ers the story as a means of exegesis, and demonstrates how a story that is not exegetical but includes a biblical verse serves to furnish that verse with new meaning, such that ‘the story itself becomes in a sense an exegetical means’ (O. Meir, The Poetics of Rabbinic Stories [in Hebrew] [Tel Aviv 1993] 57). 38 J. Levinson, The Twice Told Tale: A Poetics of the Exegetical Narrative in Rabbinic Midrash (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem 2005) 7. 39 This suggestion is not intended to contradict the widely accepted generic distinction between aggadic stories that expand upon the biblical story on the one hand and sage stories on the other hand, but rather to blur, to some extent, the starkness of that distinction. It is in this spirit that Levinson wrote that ‘the line between the exegetical story and its non-narrative midrashic expansion is quite blurry, and just as there are stories whose plot is thin and undeveloped, there is also exegesis that borders on story (Levinson, The Twice Told Tale, 10).

zutot 14 (2017) 6-18 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:13:55AM via free access 18 Kadari so as to create a dialogue between the speakers, as well as examples in which the words of the same speaker are addressed to various audiences. Mazeh pointed to the existence of dialogical exegeses that recreate the missing side of the dialogue—complementing that side whose words are documented in writing.40 These dialogic exegeses serve, in many cases, to resolve exegetical problems.41 More notably, they serve to strengthen the dramatic element of the verses being interpreted.42 The story of Rabbi Yannai and the peddler may reflect an additional stage in the dramatization of the biblical text, since the dialogue is supplemented by the plot, and the dialogic exegesis develops into a real story. The story furnishes the exegesis with a narrative context in which the dialogic reading of biblical verses is dramatically staged. The creation of the story serves, then, as the continuation and completion of the exegetical enterprise, in which the literary figure of Rabbi Yannai, the sage who sits and expounds on biblical verses, hints, perhaps, at the actual context in which the story was crafted.43

40 H. Mazeh, ‘ʿEruvei Devarim’: Speech and Dialogue Exegesis in Rabbinic Midrash— Characteristics and Purposes (in Hebrew) (MA Thesis, Jerusalem 2013) 21. He refers to this type of exegesis as ‘telephone call exegesis’ because it is reminiscent of a situation in which a person stands next to another who is speaking on the phone and thus overhears only one side of the conversation. It seems that our story fits this model, since the verse documents only the peddler’s words, and not those of the potential customers who hearken to his cries. 41 Mazeh, ‘ʿEruvei Devarim,’ 40–41. 42 Mazeh, ‘ʿEruvei Devarim,’ 43–45. 43 By the ‘actual context in which the story was crafted,’ I am not referring to the historical occurrence of the plot events (that is, to an actual encounter between Rabbi Yannai and a specific peddler), but rather to an intellectual experience that gave rise to the creation of the story. The reading that I have proposed in this article is consistent with the scholarly approach that views rabbinic stories as literary artifacts and not as historical sources. At the same time, I am not ruling out the possibility that those plot elements that refer to the details of real life or to social relations may indeed reflect the storytellers’ world, or the world of the story’s heroes as the storyteller regards them.

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