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Analogies of Violence in Rabbanic Literature

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Analogies of Violence in Rabbanic Literature ANALOGIES OF VIOLENCE IN RABBINIC LITERATURE MikaAhuvia The so-called chapter on the wayward son (hen sorer u-moreh) is a foundational and popular text for study in rabbinic schools of learning, wherein the ancient rabbis grappled with a severe bib­ lical law that punished the willfully disobedient son with death (b. Sanhedrin 68b-75a). The discussion touches on many social issues, but the topics of gender and sexuality tend to be neglected in these institutional settings due to their uncomfortable misogy­ nistic undertones. A feminist analysis attuned to philological, his­ torical, and Talmudic research highlights the misinterpretations that result from neglecting direct engagement with these aspects of the text. This article unpacks the logical shortcuts that the rab­ bis have used to describe gender relations in one particular unit, but in doing so highlights the significance of analogical thinking in rabbinic literature more broadly. The rabbis have employed violent analogies as shortcuts to describe gender relations, and, unexposed, they continue shaping the imagination of readers and students today. Keywords: Esther, magic, rape, Sanhedrin, Talmud In the pages of the Babylonian Talmud commenting on the last mishnah of chapter 8 of tractate Sanhedrin, we find the generations of rabbis debating ethical issues related to parents and children, violence and its prevention, mar­ tyrdom and the sanctity of life, individuals and society, and lastly and indirectly, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion34.2 (2018), 59--74 Copyright© 2018The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion,Inc. • doi: 10.2979/jfemistudreli.34.2.06 -59- 60 Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 34.2 male and female relations. 1 Perhaps because of its misogynistic undercurrents, the last topic tends to be neglected, accepted as either an uncomfortable aspect of the ancient rabbinic heritage belonging to a larger Mediterranean context or a phenomenon too well-known to require comment. In this article, I argue that precisely those moments in the text that seem at once all too familiar and too uncomfortable demand closer scrutiny.2 The last ruling of Mishnah Sanhedrin chapter 8 states, "these are the ones who are saved at the cost of their life: the one pursuing his fellow to kill him, and [pursuing] after the male and after the engaged maiden [to rape them]; but he that is pursuing a beast, or profaning the Sabbath, or committing idolatry­ they may not be saved [from transgression] at the cost of their lives." In other words, if a person sees a man in the act of attempting to kill or rape a male or an engaged female, then that person may kill the transgressor in order to stop him from committing these crimes (and thus save the offender or potential victim from the consequence of the crime). 3 By inference from Deut 22:25, the rabbis added the crime of the rape of any male and placed it on par with murder. I focus on their treatment of the engaged maiden in this sugya (textual unit of study), which brings issues of gender and sexuality to the foreground. In three developments in the Babylonian Talmud, troublingly violent analytical shortcuts are used that merit closer attention: the first analogizes a potential murderer with a potential rape victim, the second analogizes Queen Esther's conduct to the ground of the earth, and the third analogizes male desire with the thirst for stolen waters. In the process of unpacking how these analogies describe gender relations, significant literary and historical ramifications come I thank the anonymous reviewers for their insights, encouragement, and detailed feedback. 1 The main topic of this chapter is the so-called waywardson (hen sorer u-moreh), a devel­ opment of Deut 21:18's severe laws about willfully disobedient sons. These minors are so defiant of their parents and resistant to discipline that the community condemns them to death. The biblical law justifies this practice by stating, "1bus you will sweep out evil from your midst: all Israel will hear and be afraid." Modem biblical commentators suggest reading this in light of the Decalogue's requirement to honor parents. In what follows, I discuss the end of this chapter, which transitions to broader issues of culpability. 2 !shay Rosen-Zvi rightly points out that the study of misogyny in some ancient Jewish texts tends to be trivialized. As he points out, taking this misogyny for granted obscures the opportunity to study its mechanics and the fact that it is not a uniform phenomenon ("Bilhah the Temptress: The Testamentof Reuben and 'The Birth of Sexuality,'"Jewish QuarterlyReview 96, no. 1 [Winter 2006]: 65-94, esp. 6fK>7). 3 Traditional Jewish interpreters are divided on whether it is the transgressor's soul that may be saved at the cost of his life (Rashi's interpretation) or the victims that are saved at the cost of the transgressor's life (Meiri's and Maimonides' interpretation). For the sake of simplicity, I follow the former here. The Mishnah's formulation assumes that all the mentioned activities are capital offenses but that only the first three categories-potential manslaughter and potential coerced sex of a male or an engaged female-require the intervention of bystanders to save the transgressor's soul. The rest of the offenses (bestiality, violating Sabbath prohibition, or idolatry) are left to a court and/or God for punishment. Ahuvia: Analogies of Violence in Rabbinic Literature 61 to light. A feminist analysis of these texts foregrounds not only the gap in logic between contemporary readers' and the ancient sages' ways of thinking but also the all too pernicious ways in which modem stereotypes can collaborate with ancient social constructions and thus inadvertently naturalize them. Recent contributions to the study of the Talmud and the history of religion and gender guide my analysis and provide fresh insight to a much-discussed sugya.4 Though normative Jews have received the Talmud as unified and authoritative whole, Talmudic scholars distinguish earlier and later strata of the Talmud and their insights.5 They have pointed out that the so-called stammaitic layer has its own unique concerns and anxieties, particularly on the topic of women and sexuality. While women were always excluded from the rabbinic enterprise and study house, the latest stratum of the Talmud nevertheless reflects a nascent preoccupation with sexual matters, which (perhaps ironically) serves to make women's sexuality and agency more invisible.6 The stammaitic framing and additions have important implications for a full understanding of this sugya.1 Previous general treatments of gender in rabbinic literature have inves­ tigated the topic through either legal or narrative materials. The work of Rachel Biale, Judith Hauptman, and Judith Romney Wegner on rabbinic hal­ akah related to gender and women exemplifies the former while that of Judith Baskin, Shulamit Valier, and Tai Ilan on midrash and Talmudic stories (aggadah) exemplifies the latter. 8 Recently, in the pages of this journal, Julia Watts-Belser 4 Sarra Lev's "Teaching Rabbinics as an Ethical Endeavor and Teaching Ethics as a Rabbinical Endeavor," in Tum It and Tum It Again: Studies in the Teachingand Leaming of ClassicalJewish Texts(Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2013) was veiy helpful to me in the early stages of conceptualizing this article. 5 Shamma Friedman, "Pereq ha'isha rabba babavli," in Meliqarim umeqorot, ed. H. Dimitrovksi (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1977); and Jeffrey Rubenstein, "Criteria of Stammaitic lntetvention in Aggada," in Creationand Composition:The Contributionof the Bavli Redactors(Stammaim) to the Aggada,ed. Jeffrey Rubenstein (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). 6 Ishay Rosen-Zvi, DemonicDesires: "Yetzer Hara" and the Problemof Evil in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). 7 Most recently, Christiane Tzuberi examined this part of Sanhedrin from a source-critical and feminist perspective, exploring questions related to transgression and death and the figure of Esther, in particular ("Rescue from Transgression through Death; Rescue from Death through Transgression," in Rabbinic Traditionsbetween Palestine and Babylonia, ed. Ronit Nikolsky and Tal Ilan [Boston: Brill, 2014], 133-46). Tzuberi places Esther at the center of her study and argues that the anonymous editors of this sugya subtly, but consciously wove in a counternarrative about martyrdom that defies rabbinic insistence that one should die rather than transgress in public; in Tzuberi's reading, Esther publicly transgresses rather than choosing death. My analysis happens to look at the same two passages that she examines, but I reach diametrically opposed conclusions. 8 Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law: An Exploration of Womens Issues in Halakhic Sources(New York: Schocken, 1984); Judith Hauptmann, Rereadingthe Rabbis:A Woman's Voice (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998); Judith Romney Wegner, Chattel or Person?The Status of Women in the Mishnah (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Judith Baskin, Midrashic Women: 62 Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 34.2 delved into the narratives of rape in midrashim on the temple destruction in light of postcolonial discourse. 9 Building on their work, I examine the intersec­ tion of narrative and legal sources in this one delimited section of the Talmud. In the second part of this essay, comparison with a Jewish-Aramaic magical text shows the road not taken in terms of linguistic possibilities and serves as a reminder of the contested context of the rabbinic enterprise. Maiden as Murderer (b. Sanh. 73b-7 4a) The commentary on the last Mishnah of Sanhedrin 8 begins by questioning the basis for intervening and killing a pursuer on behalf of a potential victim. First, the rabbis bring biblical proof texts to bear (Lev 19:16 and Deut 22:26), then they propose the relevant principle of hermeneutic (kal vahomer or a for­ tiori), and finally, they cite the authority of R.
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