INTRODUCTION to the 2003 Edition

INTRODUCTION to the 2003 Edition n 1898 a young scholar named Louis Ginz- Ginzberg called such stories “legends” and I berg published the first in a series of articles sought in his articles to recover the remains of on the Aggadah in the Church Fathers and in the what he believed were some of the earliest exist- apocryphal literature.1 The word “aggadah*”— ing aggadot. These, he argued, had been para- literally, “narrative” or “what is transmitted doxically preserved only in the books of the through telling”—is a technical term in classical Apocrypha, the earliest postbiblical writings, Jewish literature for the nonlegal traditions of the and in the writings of the early Church Fathers. Rabbis who lived in Roman Palestine and Baby- Now such a scholarly task would seem easy lonia in the first six centuries of the Common enough if these ancient authors had referred to Era. These traditions are preserved in both the them as Jewish aggadot; but they did not. So Talmud and the various collections of Midrash, Ginzberg hunted them down with the assiduity or Rabbinic biblical interpretation. Ginzberg and ingenuity of a tireless Sherlock Holmes. himself was mainly interested in aggadot about The articles, that resulted, as one later scholar biblical characters—stories famous in Jewish tra- noted, were in fact close to revolutionary and dition but not found in the Bible, like the story signaled an entirely new approach to the study of that Abraham was the first monotheist and that ancient Rabbinic lore. They were also the germ he had deduced the existence of one God by de- of this book, Legends of the Jews, arguably the sin- stroying his father’s idols, or the tale about Moses, gle most important contribution to the study of who, before returning to Egypt to lead the Israel- Rabbinic Aggadah in the modern period. ites, had first been general, then king of the Ethi- At the time he published his first articles, opians and had married their queen. Louis Ginzberg was twenty-five years old. Born in Kovno, Lithuania, in 1873, Ginzberg was the * “Aggadah” is the Aramaic form of the Hebrew direct descendant of several distinguished rab- “Haggadah.” Ginzberg himself tended to use the latter, but bis, including on his mother's side, the brother for purposes of consistency (because the Aramaic form is of the Gaon of Vilna (1720–97). Recognized as the more common one in use today) and clarity (to avoid a prodigy, even as a child, Ginzberg studied in any confusion with the Passover Haggadah) I have consis- tently used Aggadah and changed all instances of Hag- the great Lithuanian yeshivot of Telz and Slo- gadah to Aggadah. bodka. After his father moved the family to THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS Amsterdam for business reasons, Ginzberg was pages) to be submitted in 1903. The book, sent to Germany to continue his rabbinical however, quickly exceeded its original plan; and studies and receive a secular education. At age in 1903, Ginzberg submitted not a completed twenty-one, he enrolled in the University of book but a reconceived plan for the work-in- Strassburg, where he studied Semitic languages progress. Eventually, the project grew to nearly and literature with the great Orientalist The- ten times its originally planned size—into four odore Noeldeke and completed his doctorate at large volumes, plus two dense volumes of foot- the University of Heidelberg in 1898. (His dis- notes printed in a minuscule font size and one sertation was “The Aggadah in the Church Fa- index volume of 612 pages alone. The first vol- thers and in the Apocryphal Literature.”) ume of Legends of the Jews appeared in 1909; the In 1899, persuaded that he would never re- next three in 1910, 1911, and 1913, respective- ceive a university position in Germany because ly. The two volumes of notes were published in he was Jewish, Ginzberg emigrated to the Unit- 1925 and 1928. The index (written on more ed States on the promise of a teaching position than seventy thousand note cards by Boaz Co- at Hebrew Union College. The job, however, hen, Ginzberg’s student and later an eminent was retracted even before he arrived, supposedly scholar of ancient Jewish law in his own right) because word had reached the school that the was completed in 1931; but because of lack of young European scholar was an adherent of money, it was not published until 1938.2 Ginz- modern biblical criticism! Pressed for a liveli- berg, to be sure, was not working all those years hood, Ginzberg found employment writing for full time on Legends. In 1902, he had been ap- The Jewish Encyclopaedia, for which, over several pointed professor of Talmud in the newly reor- years, he wrote more than four hundred articles, ganized Jewish Theological Seminary, where he some of which continue to be read today as ex- remained as its outstanding scholarly personali- emplary studies of their subjects. Two years lat- ty for the next fifty years, training some 650 er, however, the Encyclopaedia found itself in its rabbis and scholars and serving as the major in- own financial difficulties, and Ginzberg, out of tellectual force in the American Conservative work, considered returning to Europe. At the movement. By the time the index appeared in eleventh hour, however, Ginzberg was “rescued” 1938, he had also published eight other scholar- by Sulzberger. Judge Mayer Sulzberger of Phila- ly books, including seminal monographs on the delphia, one of the leading figures in American Palestinian Talmud, genizah documents, and Jewry at the time. Sulzberger had met Ginzberg Geonic literature, not to mention countless arti- socially and, loath to see any young Jewish schol- cles, responsa, and essays, both learned and ar leave the country, he suggested that Ginzberg popular. write a small popular volume on Jewish legends Legends of the Jews was originally written in for The Jewish Publication Society for the sum German, presumably because Ginzberg did not of one thousand dollars. Ginzberg agreed; and in feel comfortable enough in his newly adopted 1901, he signed a contract for the book. language (although he later became a stylist of The original terms of the agreement—pre- no small measure in English). The first two vol- served in a letter written to Ginzberg by Henri- umes were translated into a felicitous English by etta Szold, secretary of the Society—were that Henrietta Szold who, despite her official title of he produce a manuscript of “approximately one secretary of the Society, was actually its chief ed- hundred thousand words” (about 300 printed itor, manager, and main translator as well.3 By Introduction to the 2003 Edition now, the story of the unhappy romance that en- and events, and reproduce them with the great- sued between its author and translator has be- est attainable completeness and accuracy.”4 In- come part of the history of the work. Fifteen deed, not only was it an attempt to collect all years older than Ginzberg, Szold, who was for- Jewish legends, as the complete work with the ty-five and unmarried, first met the young Eu- two volumes of notes coalesced, it also became ropean professor in 1903 and instantly became the first comprehensive and critical attempt to enamored of him, turning her work on the analyze the legends and trace their development translation into a labor of love. Ginzberg at first and place in both Jewish tradition and world responded reluctantly to her interest; but over folklore. time, particularly after the death of his father in To appreciate the scope of Ginzberg’s 1907, when he found himself desperately in achievement, it is necessary to understand the need of companionship, the two developed nature of the “original sources” containing the what he called “an extraordinary friendship.” Jewish legends. Indeed, the title itself—Legends Their relationship came to an end only when, in of the Jews rather than “Legends of the Rab- 1908, after returning from a trip to Europe, he bis”—was a deliberate choice on Ginzberg’s abruptly announced his engagement to a young part, because he believed that Jewish legend— woman he had met abroad. Heartbroken, Szold Aggadah—was both earlier and greater than nearly suffered a nervous breakdown; she what was represented in Rabbinic literature. Al- begged off from completing the translation of though Ginzberg always gave pride of place to Legends and, ultimately, left The Jewish Publica- the Rabbinic sources, namely, the Talmud and tion Society to avoid having to deal with Ginz- midrashic collections, he argued that Aggadah berg. This was, however, a kind of happy both antedated the period of Rabbinic Judaism accident, because Szold was then able to devote (which, speaking from a critical historian’s per- all her energies to Zionist activities and the spective, begins only after the destruction of the founding of Hadassah—a fortunate casualty, as Temple in 70 C.E.) and left its traces far beyond it were, of Legends. In turn, the translation of the confines of the literature that the Rabbis the remaining volumes was taken over by a themselves produced. For Ginzberg, the real needy graduate student named Paul Radin, who origins of Aggadah lay in early postbibical litera- later went on to become one of America’s most ture, particularly in the works known as the important anthropologists. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, which were The romance behind the work notwith- composed in the last centuries before the turn of standing, Legends underwent a radical change the common era and the first centuries after- in the course of its writing. The original con- ward. With titles such as the Book of Enoch (an ception, as proposed by Mayer Sulzberger, was obscure figure mentioned in Gen.

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