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Heaven and Hell: Babylonia and the Land of Israel in the Bavli

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Heaven and Hell: Babylonia and the Land of Israel in the Bavli Heaven and Hell: Babylonia and the Land of Israel in the Bavli Tal Ilan The Land of Babylon takes up an important historical and theological position within the Hebrew Bible. Historically, it is the land of Nebu chadnezzar, the wicked king, who destroys Jerusalem and exiles the Judeans (see e.g. 2Kgs 25:1– 21). Theologically, this king is the tool in the hand of God with which to punish his people for disobeying him (Jer 27). Theologically, the Babylonian captivity ended with the fall of Babylon in the hands of the Persians and their king, Cyrus, whom Deutero-Isaiah labels Messiah (Isa 45:1–7), and with his decree, allowing and urging the Judeans to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple (Ezra 1:1–6). This king too is a tool in the hand of God—a tool signifying his forgiveness. Historically, of course, some Jews took the opportunity to return to the Land of Israel (e.g. Ezra 2), but the vast majority probably did not, essen- tially creating the existential reality of Judaism from then on—namely, that of a dispersed nation. The creation of two commentaries on the Mishnah, one in Babylonia and one in the Land of Israel, is a logical conclusion of this historical development. Quite a different question is how Jewish sages in these two lands handled the theological question of Babylonia in the ancient Jewish Scriptures and in their present day. It is the working hypothesis of the present paper that people still living in Babylonia as a result of the Babylonian exile could not treat that land in the same disinterested, academic manner in which their compatriots in the Land of Israel did.1 I will examine this issue with the help of several discussions that appear in Palestinian and in Babylonian sources refer- ring to the same tannaitic texts, with the hope of demonstrating how these amoraic centers tackled differently the thorny questions of Babylonian wick- edness and perfidiousness. Let us begin with a mishnaic text. In mBer 9:1 we read: “Whoever observes a place in which miracles were performed for our forefathers says: Blessed be He who performed miracles for our forefathers in this place.” Both talmudim use this passage as a pretext for the discussion of a large number of miracles 1 And see on this primarily: I. Gafni, “Expression and Types of ‘Local Patriotism’ among the Jews of Sasanian Babylonia,” Irano-Judaica 2 (1990) 63–71; idem, “How Babylonia Became ‘Zion’: Shifting Identities in Late Antiquity,” in: L. I. Levine and D. R. Schwartz (eds.), Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern (Tübingen 2009) 333–48. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004�773��_�07 babylonia and the land of israel in the bavli 159 that, when observed, should be blessed, and a large number of places where blessing should be pronounced. The Yerushalmi discussion includes Babylonia in this instance: Whoever sees Babylonia should bless five blessings: 1. Seeing the Euphrates one should say: Blessed is He who created the beginning. 2. Seeing Markulis one says: Blessed be He who is patient. 3. Seeing the House of Nebuchadnezzar, one says: Blessed is He who destroyed the house of that wicked [man]. 4. Whoever sees the fiery furnace [into which Daniel’s companions were thrown] and the lions’ den [into which Daniel himself was hurled], says: Blessed is He who performed miracles for our forefa- thers in this place. 5. Seeing a place from which earth is removed, one says: Blessed is He who says and does, blessed be He who decrees and fulfills. 6. Seeing Babylon, one says: “And I shall sweep it with the broom of destruction” (Isa 14:23) (yBer 9:1, 12d). Let us first note what the Yerushalmi is doing here. It begins by stating that Babylon merits five blessings. The third and fourth blessings refer the reader directly to biblical events where Babylonians had inflicted suffering on Jews and were duly punished for it. Their punishment should be seen as the mira- cles which should, according to Mishnah Berakhot, be blessed: These are the ruined house of the wicked Nebuchadnezzar, and the places where Daniel and his companions suffered persecution in Babylonia (cf. Dan 3:19–27; 6:17–25).2 According to this tradition, these places are still visible. The second and fifth blessings are less conspicuously biblical, or Babylonian. The Mishnah describes Markulis as some form of idolatry represented by heaps of stones (mAZ 4:1) in Palestine, and this is usually associated with some form of worship of the Greek god Hermes, whose Latin name was Mercury, which could have been (intentionally or unintentionally) distorted.3 Yet here, the Yerushalmi ties the 2 On the realia behind these terms see A. Oppenheimer, Babylonia Judaica in the Talmudic Period (Wiesbaden 1983) 52–60. On Babylon in ruins see specifically pp. 53–54. On visits of Jews to the location where the lions’ den of Daniel was located, according to Muslim sources, see p. 59, n. 41. 3 On Markulis see I. Pintel-Ginsberg, “‘Throwing a Stone at Markulis’: Symbolizing the ‘Other’ in a Jewish Cultural Context,” in: J. Dan (ed.), Gershom Scholem (1897–1982): In Memoriam, vol. 2 (Jerusalem 2007) 455–68 [Hebrew]..
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