Meat-Eating and Jewish Identity: Ritualization of the Priestly "Torah of Beast and Fowl" (Lev 11:46) in Rabbinic Judaism and Medieval Kabbalah Author(s): Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus Source: AJS Review, Vol. 24, No. 2 (1999), pp. 227-262 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1486754 . Accessed: 11/02/2015 16:03

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This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MEAT-EATINGAND JEWISHIDENTITY: RITUALIZATIONOF THE PRIESTLY"TORAH OF BEAST AND FOWL"(LEV 11:46) IN RABBINICJUDAISM AND MEDIEVALKABBALAH by JONATHANBRUMBERG-KRAUS

In a fascinatingchapter dealing with the "natureof eating"in Shulhan shel Arba, a short thirteenth-centurymanual on rabbiniceating rituals,R. Bahyab. Asher suggests that Torahscholars alone are fit to eat meat,based on the followingpassage from the Talmud:"it is forbiddenfor an ignoramus [am ha-aretz]to eat meat, as it is written, 'This is the torahof beast and fowl' (Lev 11:46); for all who engage in Torah,it is permittedto eat the flesh of beast and fowl. But for all who do not engage in Torah,it is not permittedto eat beast and fowl."' This passage raises many questions, especiallyfor a vegetarian!First, why would an intellectualor spiritualelite use meat-eatingas a way to distinguishitself from the masses? The field of comparativereligions offers many counter-examplesto this tendency:the vegetariandiet of the HinduBrahmin caste, of Buddhistpriests and nuns, the ancientPythagoreans, the Neoplatonistregimen advocated by Porphyryin On Abstinence,or even contemporaryeco-theologians, animal rights activists, and feminist vegetarianslike Carol Adams.2Moreover, the mind/bodydualism

1. b.Pesah 49b, quoted by Bahya, Shulhanshel Arba, from Kitve RabenuBahya (Kad ha-kemah,Shulhan shel Arba,Pirke Avot),ed. CharlesB. Chavel(Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1969), p. 496. 2. See Colin Spencer,The Heretics Feast: A Historyof Vegetarianism(Hanover, N.H.: UniversityPress of New England, 1995); Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A FeministVegetarian Critical Theory (New York:Continuum, 1990).

AJSReview 24/2 (1999):227-262 227

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of Westernphilosophical and religious traditionsof asceticism tends to reinforce the idea that vegetarianismand fasting are closer to the ideal of intellectualperfection than slavery to our so-called animal cravingsto eat flesh. Giving up meat for Lent or sustainingoneself miraculouslyon the breadand wine of the eucharisticelements, as is reportedabout some medieval female mystics, reflects this tendency in the Christiantradition, though vegetariantraditions are relativelyrare in Judaism.3On the other hand,the medievalsources composed by the circle of late-thirteenth-century Spanishkabbalists that we are about to discuss acknowledgethat at first view the Torah'scommandments to eat meat are problematic,and demand an explanation.Joseph Gikatilla, Bahya's contemporary, suggests that killing animalsfor food seems to contradictGod's justice.4 Bahya himself points out

3. On attitudestoward vegetarianismin the early Christianchurch, see Diane Bazell, "StrifeAmong the Table-Fellows:Conflicting Attitudes of Early and Medieval Christians TowardEating Meat," Journal of theAmerican Academy of Religion65 (1997): 73-99. Bazell pointsout a basic tensionin earlyChristianity between the pro-vegetarianinfluences of Greek philosophicalasceticism and the nonvegetarianimpulse to be indiscriminateabout one's diet, i.e., have no qualms about eating nonkoshermeat, or meat sacrificedto idols, in orderto distinguishChristianity from Judaism(p. 85). See also VeronikaGrimm, From Feasting to Fasting, the Evolutionof a Sin: Attitudesto Food in Late Antiquity(New York:Routledge, 1996), pp. 103-105. On the medievalaccounts of miraculoussustenance on the elementsof communion,see CarolWalker Bynum, Holy Feast andHoly Fast: TheReligious Significance of Food to MedievalWomen (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1987), esp. pp. 130-135. On Judaism'spredominately pro-meat-eating, anti-vegetarian tendency, see Grimm,From Feasting to Fasting, pp. 16-17, 27. Vegetarianismhas experienceda revivalamong twentieth-century Jews, for example,Rav AbrahamIsaac Kook, the first chief rabbiof Israel,Isaac Bashevis Singer,and Rabbi ArthurGreen; and there is a Jewish VegetarianSociety that publishesa PassoverHaggadah for a meatless seder, TheHaggadah of the LiberatedLamb. While for Rav Kook and I. B. Singer,vegetarianism was a privatediscipline, Green, in SeekMy Face, SpeakMy Name:A ContemporaryJewish Theology(Northvale, N.J.: J. Aronson,1992), pp. 87-89, and the Jewish VegetarianSociety advocatevegetarianism as a normfor otherJews. Thoughinfluenced by contemporaryanimal rights and ecologicalawareness, they root their vegetarianismin some of earliertraditional Jewish sources we aregoing to discussbelow. See also Art Waskow,Down to EarthJudaism: Food, Money,Sex and the Restof Life (New York: WilliamMorrow, 1995), pp. 135-136. 4. Joseph Gikatilla,Shaare Orah, ed. Joseph Ben Shlomo (Jerusalem:Mossad Bialik, 1981),II, 11-12: And now I have a greatkey to openthis matter.What did the Lord(may He be blessed) see to commandin the Torahthe slaughterof animalsfor humanbeings to eat? For is it not written,"The Lord is good to all, and His mercyextends to all His works"[Ps 145:9]?And if He acts mercifully,why did He commandthat beasts be slaughteredfor humanbeings to eat;where is the mercyin that?But the secretis in the beginningof the

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thatmeat-eating is God'sconcession to humanity's animal desires in our fallen state;Adam and Eve did not eat meatin Eden.5And in the world-to-come, therighteous will feastonly on "litefood," i.e., light"food"-"fine and pure foodscreated from the supernallight."6 Both introduce the "torahof beast

verse, which said, "theLord is good to all," good in fact, and accordingly"His mercy extendsto all his works." Duringthe work of creation,an agreement was reached with the cow to be slaughtered, and she said, "Good."And what was her reason?Since the cow had no highersoul to conceive of the work of HaShemand His powers,the Lord(may He be blessed),when He was creatingthe world,told all the beaststo standbefore Him, andHe said, "Ifyou consentto be slaughtered,and to have humanbeings eat you, thenyou will ascendfrom the statusof a beastthat knows nothing to the statusof a humanbeing who knowsand recognizesthe Lord(may He be blessed)."And the beastsreplied, "Good. His mercies are on us." Whenevera humanbeing eats a portionof the portionsof a beast, it turns into a portionof the humanbeing. Herethe beast is transformedinto a person,and her slaughteris an act of mercy,for she leaves the torahof beastsand entersinto the torah of humanbeings. Death is life for it, in thatit ascendsto the degreeof angels-and this is the secretof "Manand beastthe Lordwill save"[Ps 36:8]. If you really reflecton the secret of slaughteringanimals, then everythingcomes fromthe side of His mercyand love for all His creatures.And thusreflect on the reason why ourrabbis said in tractatePesahim of the Talmud,"It is forbiddenfor an amha-aretz to eat meat."For it was not commandedin the Torahto slaughtera beast unless one knows the "torahof beasts, wild animals,and fowl." And whoeverengages in Torah is permittedto eat meat. Thus an am ha-aretzdoes not eat meat becausehe is like a beastwithout a soul, andhe is not commandedto slaughtera beastonly so thatanother "beast"can eat it, but rather,if so, it [the beast] becomes like carrionand prey [i.e., forbidden,of a lower,"unfit" status]. 5. Bahya, Shulhanshel Arba, p. 496: "Considerwell that humanbeings' food ought to have been only plantsfrom the earth,such as grainproduce and fruit,not animals... but at the time when all flesh ruinedits way and all animalsdeserved annihilation, they were saved only by the merit of Noah, to whom animalswere them permitted[to be eaten]just like the greengrasses" (an allusionto Gen 9:3: "Everyliving creatureshall be yoursfor food, like the greengrasses, I am now giving you everything").Bahya has a very clearlyarticulated sense of a fall of humanityin Eden,even if it soundsalmost like Christianoriginal sin. He refersto the rabbinictraditions of Adam'sloss of stature,and describesthe post-Edenichuman condition thus,"all the childrenof Adam,the childrenof the man of sin, we areall stained,and oursoul sickened [gam benei 'adam gam benei 'ish 'avon kulanu nikhtam ve-nafshenu davah ]," p. 459. 6. Bahya, Shulhan shel Arba, p. 501 (ha-ma 'akhlim ha-dakim ve-ha-zakhim shenivre 'u min ha- 'orha- 'elyon).I owe this metaphorto AndreaLieber, whose aptlytitled unpublished paper, "TastesGreat, Less Filling,"deals in detailwith Jewishand paralleltraditions of nourishment throughthe sense of sight.

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and fowl" baraitafrom the Talmudto justify Judaism'sslaughter of animals for food. Second, why does engagementin Torahper se qualify someoneto kill animals to eat their meat? Perhapsit is the way for Jews to assert their distinctivegroup identityvis-a-vis non-Jews.The possession of the Torah revealedto Moses at MountSinai is whatdistinguishes Jews fromnon-Jews, and their observanceof the Jewish dietarylaws regardingfit and unfitmeat is the visible, publicembodiment of this distinctively"Jewish" Torah. Bahya offers this argument,suggesting that the Torahis a sort of "regimenof the pleasures"(dat sha'ashu'im),a remedyfor Adam's sin that the Jews alone possess.7

However, we are distinguished by our regimen of the pleasures from the nations who err,rebel and sin. Forwe foundour Rock in the desertin the landof souls, andthere He set forus a tableagainst the nations,and thus David, peace on him,said, "Set before me a tableagainst my enemies"[Ps 23:5].

Moreover,Bahya polemicizes against those who eat withoutany thought, as mindlesslyas animals.

It is well knownof the majorityof the childrenof Adam,that their hearts areasleep and slumber, they eat withthe blood, they spill blood themselves.

7. The expressiondat sha'ashu'imis difficultto translate,though Chavel in his notes to Shulhanshel Arba, p. 459, understandsit as an allusion to Ps. 119:92 (lulei toratekha sha 'ashu'iy,"Would that your torahwere my pleasure")and means the "Torahwhich is called 'pleasure."'I agree with Chavelthat Bahya understands dat as a synonymfor the Torah.But Bahyadraws on dat's otherspecific connotations: law, rule, or decree.I suspectthat Bahya has in mindan analogyto a monasticrule, or manual,for the moralinstructions for princesof the typethat began to proliferatein medievalEurope, or to the adabmanuals of etiquettein Muslim culture.Bahya views the Torahas a kindof manualof conduct,a sefer ha-hanhagah,which has clearaffinities to this genreof ethicalliterature. In otherwords, he projectsthe genreof his own Shulhanshel Arba onto the Torah.For a discussionof this genreand its relationshipto other medievalChristian and Muslim ethical manuals, see Ze'ev Gries,Sifrut ha-hanhagot: toldoteha u-mekomahbe-haye haside R. Yisra'el Ba 'al Shem-Tov(Tel Aviv: MossadBialik, 1989), pp. 4-11, esp. 5-8. See also the discussionof medievalMuslim cooking and table etiquette literature in JackGoody, Cooking, Cuisine, and Class:A Studyin ComparativeSociology (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity, 1982), pp. 127-133. ThoughGoody does not discussJewish literature, his point that literaryelaborations of cooking and table mannerslegitimate upper classes is relevantto our discussionof diet and class distinctionbetween the talmideihakhamim and the ammeiha-aretz.

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Likean ox eatingstraw they eat theirbread, and their souls are wasted and devastated,full of the wineof lustand empty of the wineof intellect.Their drunkenexcess turns against them, hard in pursuitof tangiblepleasures, far fromthe way of truth.How many are those who servetheir senses, to fulfill theirdesire, who gatherto draintheir cups to pleasetheir gullet! And how few arethe elitewho eat to sustaintheir body for their Creator's sake! There are some,witless and ignorant, the shiftyman, who enjoywithout blessing, neglectblessings. There are some fools who spitthe goodof the worldinto theirvessels; the light of theircalm will flashaway like lightning, they forget thepoint when they eat at their tables, if theydrink from their bowl. But unique is theone who fears and delights in theLord even over a dinnerof vegetables.8

However,it is not so clearhere that Bahya means that only non-Jewslack "the way of truth,"i.e., the Torah.If the expressions"children of Adam"and "they eat with blood"imply non-Jews,the otherphrases: "like an ox eatingstraw," souls "wastedand devastated," "drunken excess turnsagainst them," "witless andignorant, the shiftyman" are all allusionsto scripturalpassages critical of Israeliteswho strayfrom the Lordin pursuitof sensuality.'Moreover, while the use of the intellectdistinguishes the elite fromthe witless in this passage, meat-eatingdoes not. Those who "eatwith the blood"are meat-eaters, while the uniqueone "whofears and delights in the Lord"does so even over a meal of vegetables! So Bahya must have in mind more than self-differentiation from Gentiles when he cites the baraitaon the "torahof beast and fowl." Bahya asserts an internaldistinction between Jews who eat mindfully(the "elite" benei 'aliyah) and those who do not, who in his interpretationof the baraitaare labeled"disciples of the sages"and "ignoramuses,"talmidei hakhamimand ammeiha-aretz. This raisesother questions. Why shouldR. Bahyadraw for his thirteenth- century audience an anachronisticdistinction between talmideihakhamim and ammeiha-aretz ? These labelsderive from a specificsocial situation,the rabbinicperiod of Jabnehand Usha, afterthe destructionof the Templein 70, in the secondand third centuries C.E.10 Nor is the historyand definition of these

8. Bahya,Shulhan shel Arba,p. 460. 9. Chavel,Shulhan shel Arba, p. 460, in his notes suggeststhat Bahya alludes here to Is 11:7,Na 2:11, Hos 4:18, Ezek45:20, Prv 15:28. 10. As AharonOppenheimer, The 'AmHa-aretz: A Studyin theSocial History of theJewish People in the Hellenistic-RomanPeriod (Leiden:E. J. Brill, 1977),p. 175, suggestsregarding the traditionin its earliercontext as a baraitain b.Pesah49b.

This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 232 JONATHANBRUMBERG-KRAUS termssimple. The ammeiha-aretz/talmidei hakhamim distinction in b.Pesah. 49b's baraitaon Lev. 11:46 representsa shift of terminologyfrom earlier tannaitictraditions about the haverim("colleagues") vs. the ammeiha-aretz (lit., "peoplesof the land").In the earlier,pre-Yavnean tannaitic traditions of the Mishnahand Tosefta, haverim (and ne-emanim ["faithful" or "trustworthy ones"]),not hakhamim("sages") or talmideihakhamim ("disciples of sages"), were the self-designationsof membersof voluntaryassociations primarily composedof non-priestswho were scrupulousabout priestly tithes and the conditions of purity in which they preparedtheir food. They called Jews who did not follow theirrules ammeiha-aretz. The haverimwere probably the Phariseesof the New Testamentand Josephus,who soughtto heighten Jewishnational identity under Roman rule by intensifyingthe norms of Jewish behavior.In particularthey adaptedthe priestlystandards of purity,and tithed food for nonpriests,to encourage"lay" Israelites to participatein theirtable fellowshippractices, as if they were priests.In otherwords, the fellowship practicesof the haverim/Phariseeswere a strategyof ritualized"street theater" intendedto win Jewish convertsto their way of practice."In contrast,we have later traditionsopposing the hakhahimor talmideihakhamim to the ammeiha-aretz that stress the former'scommitment to Torahstudy in the Bet Midrashto the latter'signorance and neglect of it.12 The baraitacontaining our traditionin b.Pesah 49b belongs to this stage in the development.If the pre-70 haverim/Phariseeswere membersof associationsthat gathered for table fellowship following priestlike standardsof ritual observance, the post-70 talmidei hakhamimgathered in associationsfor the study of Torah.'3Consequently, the definitionof theiropponents, the ammeiha-aretz, changed from those who did not observe priestliketable-fellowship rules to those who did not study Torah.When modem scholarsaptly distinguish these two types of am ha-aretzas ammeiha-aretz le-mitzvot ("with respect to the commandments")and ammei ha-aretz le-Torah("with respect to Torahlearning"), they underlinethe conceptualshift fromTorah understood

11. JonathanBrumberg-Kraus, "Were the Phariseesa ConversionistSect?" The Making of Proselytes.Jewish Missionary Activity in the Hellenisticand RomanWorlds, ed. A. J. Levine and R. Pervo(Scholars Press, forthcoming). 12. Oppenheimer,'Am Ha-aretz, p. 170. The tannaiticsources themselves recognize this distinction,for examplem. Dem 2:3 regardingwhat is excludedfrom the definitionof a haver. However,in later strataof the Talmudand in the DerekhEretz literature the terminological distinctionbetween haver and hakham/talmid hakham is blurred. 13. Ibid.,p. 171.

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as ritualizedpractice-the haver/Pharisee'simitation of priestlyrules, and Torahas study in the Bet Midrashand personifiedby the sage, the talmid hakham.'4There is some overlapof usage in talmudicliterature, as haverim are sometimescalled hakhamim,and the "disciplesof the sages,"who did, after all, adopt the languageand traditionsof the haverim,still considered sharedeating rituals a partof the social cementthat bound their Torah-study groupstogether. Thus, it is not surprisingthat b.Pesah 49b is concernedwith what talmideihakhamim and ammeiha-aretz eat. What is surprisingis theirunprecedented prohibition of an am ha-aretz fromeating meat. Is it the rhetoricof "classwar" between wealthy, aristocratic meat-eatingintellectuals and poor boors whose diets are by necessityrestricted to grainsand greens?"'That is possible for the originalrabbinic dictum in the BabylonianTalmud. It is less likely in Bahya's medieval use of the tradition,if YitzhakBaer is rightthat Spanish kabbalists tended to side with, or at least identify their class interestswith, the poorerJews, over against the wealthy,assimilationist, aristocratic court Jews who were partialto the secularizingtendencies of Arabic cultureand Maimonideanrationalism.16 Moreover,it is not the explanationBahya himself gives for the "class" distinction,nor does his languagereflect a preoccupationwith the conflict betweenrich and poor Jews as pronouncedas his teacherJonah Gerondi's, or of the anonymousauthor of the Raya Mehemnasections of the Zohar. Rather,Bahya resorts to a quasi-physiologicaltheory of reincarnationto explainthe tradition.Namely, only intelligentpeople, that is, peopleengaged in Torah,have the potentialto transform(by eating)the "animalsoul"'7 of

14. Ibid., pp. 67 ff. Adolf Buchlercoined the terms,but Oppenheimerand othersdispute which historicalsocial stratathey accuratelydescribe (p. 5). However,even if coinedlater, the termsaccurately describe an implicitdistinction that the talmudicsources themselves recognize (p. 67). 15. Goody,Cooking, Cuisine, and Class,p. 123, suggeststhat class conflictsoften underlie gastronomicpreferences for meat ("high")vs. vegetable-based("low") cuisines, referring to Islamictexts as examples. 16. YitzhakBaer, "Ha-Reka' Ha-Histori shel Raya Mehemna,"Zion, n.s. 5, no. 1 (1939): 1-44; idem,A Historyof theJews in ChristianSpain (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1961-66), 1:270-277. 17. Nefeshha-tnuah, literally, "mobile soul." In Bahya'spsychology, there are three levels of soul:the "vegetativesoul" (nefesh tzomahat) characteristic of plants,the "mobilesoul" (nefesh ha-tnuah)characteristic of animals,and the "intellectualsoul" (nefeshsekhlit) characteristic of humanand angelicbeings. Only humanbeings have all three.See below,my discussionof Bahya,Shulhan shel Arba,p. 496, and n. 72.

This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 234 JONATHANBRUMBERG-KRAUS meat into an intelligentsoul; an am ha-aretzcannot do this, and so should avoid meat. It is as if Torahlearning were a sort of cosmic digestive aid which by definitionthe am ha-aretz lacks, either because of diminished mental capacityor inclination.Finally, the conspicuousabsence of women in this gastronomictheory of metempsychosissuggests anotherquestion: did Bahya's interpretationof the traditionserve to reinforcethe privileged social status of educatedJewish males? Not only were thirteenth-century Jewish women for the most part excluded from kabbalisticor talmudic Torahstudy, the prerequisitefor eating meat, but they were theoretically unnecessaryfor this metaphysicalprocess of rebirth.In otherwords, male Torahscholars could effectively reincarnate souls without having them reborn throughwomen. This kabbalisticapproach to meat-eating,especially with its extensive use of sacrificiallanguage and images seems to supportthe late Nancy Jay's anthropologicalthesis that sacrificeis a "remedyfor man having been born of women."'"That is to say, men use the blood and flesh of sharedmeat sacrificesto fostermyths of communalorigins and bonds that root group identity in institutionscontrolled by males, ratherthan in who one's motheris. Israelitepriests were defined,differentiated, and elevated from otherIsraelites as much by what they ate as by who theirfathers were (muchless theirmothers, since the priesthoodwas transferredpatrilineally). SubsequentPharisaic, talmudic, and kabbalisticinterpretations only further eroded the significanceof a priesthoodbased on birth. They replacedit with a "priesthood"based on sharedintensified eating normsand/or Torah knowledgeacquired from one's teachers.Bahya does not seem to imagine, or even discuss, women as participantsin gastronomicmetempsychosis. Moreover,with a few exceptions,wouldn't women be equivalentto ammei ha-aratzim,"beasts" who do not engagein the intellectualdiscipline of Torah study?Indeed, feminist vegetarians like CarolAdams criticize the tendency of "patriarchal"meat-eating culture to objectifythe womenit subordinatesas animals,as cuts of beef.19Unfortunately for this aspectof the theory,the texts do not supportit. Bahya could have identifiedthe ammeiha-aretz/"beasts" explicitlyas women, but he does not. Even b.Pesah49b comparesprimarily male ammei ha-aretzto beasts fit for slaughter,as cuts of meat and fish. On the otherhand, the Talmudimplies that marryinga female am ha-aretz

18. Jay,Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity (Chicago: Universityof ChicagoPress, 1992),p. xxiii. 19. Adams,Sexual Politics of Meat,pp. 48-62.

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is tantamountto bestiality.20So even if feminist theories of sacrificeand meat-eatingshed some light on our texts, they do not fully explainthem. We will returnto the feminist and otherpossible explanationsfor Bahya's interpretationof this meat-eatingtradition in the Talmudat the conclusionof our paper. But fornow, all this talkof talmideihakhamim, ammei ha-aretz, intelligent souls, mealsof supernallight, and "remedies for being born of women"seems a ratherlong way fromthe originalmeaning of the verse "thisis the torahof beastand fowl"! After all, it is basicallythe biblicalPriestly writer's summary of the dietaryrestrictions all Israeliteswere supposedto follow, analogousto the summarystatements of nine otherunits of priestlyinstructions.21 There are clearly several differentunderstandings of preciselywhat the "torahof beast and fowl" is and how its Jewishinterpreters relate to it over time. The biblical, rabbinic,and medievalkabbalistic traditions of "the torah of beast and fowl" representthe successive developmentsof different"on- tologies"of Torah,to use a termfrom recentscholarship on the comparative study of scripture.22"Torah" has become a symbolicmarker for the type of knowledgethat defines Jewish social identityand power relationsbetween differenttypes of Jews (priestsand ordinaryIsraelites, talmidei hakhamim and ammei ha-aretz,maskilim ["enlightened ones"] and ammei ha-aretz), between Jews and non-Jews, and between Jews and God. Also, William Grahamhas stressedthat "scripture"asa cross-culturalcategory of religious

20. b.Pesah49b: ". .. but he [a talmidhakham] should not marrythe daughterof an am ha-aretz,for they are detestableand theirwives are vermin,and of theirdaughters it is said, 'Cursedbe he who lies with any kindof beast [behemah][Deut 27:21]."' 21. Jacob Milgrom,Leviticus 1-16, Anchor Bible (New York:Doubleday, 1991), pp. 382-383. 22. For generalstudies, see MiriamLevering, ed., RethinkingScripture: Essays from a ComparativePerspective (Albany: State University of New YorkPress, 1989); Wilfred Cantrell Smith, WhatIs Scripture?A ComparativeApproach (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); WilliamA. Graham,Beyond the WrittenWord: Oral Aspectsof Scripturein the Historyof Religion (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1987); and JeffreyTimm, ed., Textsin Context:Traditional Hermeneutics in SouthAsia (Albany:State University of New YorkPress, 1992). For studies of Torahfrom this comparativeperspective, see BarbaraHoldrege, Veda and Torah:Transcending the Textualityof Scripture(Albany: State Universityof New York Press, 1996); MartinS. Jaffee, "A RabbinicOntology of the Writtenand SpokenWord: On Discipleship,Transformative Knowledge, and the Living Testsof OralTorah" (Paper read at the AmericanAcademy of ReligionConsultation on the ComparativeStudy of Hinduismsand Judaisms,November 1996).

This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 236 JONATHANBRUMBERG-KRAUS experienceis a "relationalconcept.'23 What makes something"Scripture," whatmakes something Torah, is not only its content,but what people do with it, how they treatit. In light of these ideas, I will examine the differentinterpretations of Lev 11:46's "torahof beast and fowl," to show how earlierrabbinic and latermedieval kabbalistic literature treat the relativeimportance of the study of Torahversus its ritualenactment differently. Rabbinic literature tends to subordinateritual practice, especially that associatedwith the priestsin the time of the Temple,to the studyof suchpractices in the Torah.While at first the Pharisees/haverimattempted to transferthe theurgicefficacy of priestly eating "torot"to Jewish lay people, the later post-Yavneangenerations of rabbisturned the languageof priestlysacrificial eating into a metaphorfor rabbinicstudy of Torah.Rabbinic ideology came to view the studyof Torah as a replacementfor the priestly "torot"of sacrificeand puritythat could no longer be practicedbecause of the destructionof the Temple.There are numerousexpressions of this idea throughoutrabbinic literature. Particularly to the point is this traditionfrom b.Menahot 110:

"Thisis thetorah of theolah [burnt offering], the minhah [grain offering], the hattat[sin offering], the asham [guilt offering], etc." Whoever engages in the studyof theTorah portion on olahis as if he sacrificedan olah, the portion on minhah,as if he sacrificeda minhah,the portionon hattat,as if he sacrificeda hattat ...24

Or we have the relatedidea articulatedin m.Avot 3:3, that Torahstudy at ordinarymeals makesthem like priestlysacrifices, and meals withoutTorah talk are like sacrilege:

R. Simeonsaid, "Three who have eaten at one table and have not said words of Torahover it, it is as if theyhave eaten from sacrifices of thedead [mi-zivkhey metim].... Butif threehave eaten at onetable and have spoken over it words of Torah,it as if theyhave eaten from the table of God,as it is written(Ezek. 41:22), "Andhe toldme: This is thetable that stands before the Lord."

23. WilliamA. Graham,s.v. "Scripture,"inThe Encyclopedia ofReligion, ed. MirceaEliade (New York:Macmillan, 1986), 13:134. 24. b.Menahot110. R. Bahya,Biur al Ha-Torah(ed. Chavel),p. 433, bringsthis tradition in his commentto Lev 7:37, but not to suggest that Torahstudy supplantssacrificial eating altogether,as I arguelater.

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This formulationsuggests that engagementof scholarsin Torahstudy, not their eating per se, is what makes their gatheringequivalent to the biblical priests'sacrificial rituals. Medievalrabbinic ethical literature, informed by kabbalah,tends to restore the theurgicpriestly dimension to the meal ritualsof rabbinicscholars. The Zohar and R. Bahya's ideal religious type-the maskilim("enlightened ones"), onto whom they projectthe rabbinictraditions about the talmidei hakhamim-act more like prieststhan like "purescholars." Their eating as well as theirstudy has a theurgicworld-regenerating function.25 R. Bahyaand the circle of Spanishzoharic kabbalists suggest that eating not only conforms to the commandmentsof Scripturepermitting or prohibitingspecific food (like Lev. 11:46).Eating also ritualizesnonlegal Torah like "Theyenvisioned God and ate and drank"(Ex 24:11), "My sacrifice,My breadto My fire, my pleasing odor"(Nu 28:2), "Bless the Lord my soul, all my being His holy name"(Ps 103:1);or "Bothhuman being and beast,YHWH will save" (Ps 36:8).26 In other words, regardlessof whetherthese passages in their originalcontext were intendedliterally, the kabbalisticethicists read them as metaphoricalreferents to theirsystem of sefirotand theory of metempsychosis. But beyond that, those who know the "secretsof the Torah"view not only the Torah'sexplicit mitzvot of eating,but also these otherscriptural verses as prescriptionsto enactritually the same extratextualcosmic dramaof "raising souls."27Shulhan shel Arba and similarmanuals provide rabbinic scholars with a "script"for embodyingTorah, or put differently,transform Torah verses into "ritualizedmetaphors."28

25. E.g., Bahya,Shulhan shel Arba,p. 496; Joel Hecker,"Each Man Ate an Angel'sMeal: Eatingand Embodimentin the Zohar"(Ph.D. diss., New YorkUniversity, 1996; Ann Arbor, Mich.:University Microfilms, 1996), pp. 224-296, esp. 273-279; andalso PinchasGiller, The EnlightenedWill Shine: Symbolization and Theurgyin the LaterStrata of the Zohar(Albany: StateUniversity of New YorkPress, 1993). 26. See Bahya,Shulhan shel Arba, p. 492, for the ritualizationof the metaphorsof Nu 28:2 and Ps. 103:1(and below, for my translationof the passage),and of Ps 36:8, JosephGikatilla, ShaareOrah, II, 11. 27. The relationshipof this cosmic dramato these nonlegal Torahverses is basically analogousto VictorTurner's "Social Dramas and StoriesAbout Them," Critical Inquiry, 1980, pp. 141-168. See the next note. 28. See IvanG. Marcus,The Rituals ofChildhood: Jewish Acculturation in Medieval Europe (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1996),p. 6, for the applicationof the anthropologistJames Fernandez'sconcept of "ritualizationof metaphors"to othermedieval Jewish eating rituals. Particularlyapt is Marcus'srecognition of this processas an impulsetoward ritual innovations.

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In short,medieval rabbinic ethical literature tends to "reritualize"Torah, whichhad been "deritualized"by the earlierrabbinic equation/replacement of priestlyavodah with Torah study.29 We can observe the effectof thisprocess by examiningthe differentways biblical,rabbinic, and medieval mystical/ethical interpretersview three crucial componentsof the traditionassociating the dietary guidelines for talmidei hakhamimand ammei ha-aretz with the scripturalprooftext of Lev 11:46. First, how does each of the interpreters understandthe term"torah" in general,and its narrowerspecification "torah of beast and fowl"? Second, how does each understandthe natureof the conflictbetween talmidei hakhamim and ammeiha-aretz? Finally, how does eachunderstand the meaningof eatingmeat, lit., "eatingbeast meat" (le 'ekhol basar behemah)?An analysisof these interpretationswill show thatrabbinic interpretationstend to makethe idealrabbinic type behave less like a biblical priest,while the latermedieval kabbalistic and ethical interpretationsmake him behave more like a priest. How does one behave like a priest?Jacob Milgromsuggests Deut. 33:10 as a concise definitionof the biblicalpriests' function:"They shall teachyour laws to Jacoband your instructions to Israel, they shall offer the incense in Your nostrils and burntofferings on Your altar."'"They areboth to teachGod's laws andritual requirements (toratekha le-yisrael)and to give God sacrificesto savor,either directly, in the smokeof the incenseor olot thatGod smells,or as God'sagents, by eatingtheir priestly portions(and in effect sharinga meal with God). Rabbinicinterpretations tend to split these functions,emphasizing the former,the teaching,over the latter,theurgic cooking and eating. Medieval commentators, such as R. Bahya

29. WhatI meanby ritualizationis the tendencyof interpretationsto stressthe extratextual performanceof the ritualsdescribed in the texts, or the social dramas"behind" the texts, of which the texts themselves are consciously understoodas a performance.Conversely, deritualizationwould be the tendencyto play down the actualperformance of the specific ritualsdescribed in the text; in effect, to turn the prescriptiveinto the descriptive,or the imperativeinto the indicative.In additionto IvanMarcus's approach, I also havein mindVictor Turner,"Social Dramas and StoriesAbout Them," who views textsthat describe rituals as parts of an extratextualritual process-"scripts" of social dramas.I have also been influencedby BaruchBokser's idea thatritualization can be an editorialphenomenon, the way thatone text interpretsactions described in anothertext, as in the tendencyof the Babylonianand Palestinian Talmudsto augmentM.Pesah 10's accountof the sederrituals by giving symbolicexplanations for propsand actions that the Mishnahtreats more or less as accidents."Ritualizing the Seder," Journalof the AmericanAcademy of Religion56 (1988):443-471. 30. Milgrom,Leviticus, p. 52.

This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MEAT-EATINGAND JEWISHIDENTITY 239 and the otherSpanish kabbalists, tend to reunitethese two functions.31I will demonstratethis by examiningthe treatmentof Lev 11:46first in the Bible, and then in rabbinicand medieval kabbalistic texts.

"Torahof Beast and Fowl " in the Bible

Thereis a distinctiveinterpretation of "Torah"and meat-eating expressed by the Priestlyredactor of Leviticuslong before rabbinicinterpreters asso- ciated Lev 11:46 with their categoriesof talmidhakham and am ha-aretz. "Torah"in Leviticusrefers to instructionsabout sacrifices and purity either for priestsor for instructionsby prieststo ordinaryIsraelites on how to be holy (as per the recurrentwarrant for the command"You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy").32Moreover, the basic structureof Leviticusconsists of "manualsof practice"addressed to the priesthoodin chapters1-16, and then priestlyteachings addressed to Israelites,the so-calledHoliness Code, chapters17-27. In the firstpart, torot appears to be Leviticus'own termfor its priestly manualsof practice.In chapters1-16 there are ten torot: five torot of sacrifice:"this is the torahof the burntoffering [olah]" (6:2); "this is the torahof the grainoffering [minhah]" (6:7); "thisis the torahof the sin offering[hattat]" (6:18); "this is the torahof the guiltoffering [asham]" (7:1); ". .. the sacrificeof the well-being offerings [zevah ha-shlemim]"(7:11); and five torot of impurity:"this is the torahof beast and fowl" (11:46);".. . of her who bears a child [ha-yoledet]" (12:7); ". .. of an eruptive affection [nega' tzara 'at]" (13:59, 14:54-57); ". . . of the leper [metzora1" (14:2, 32); and ". . . of him who has a discharge [ha-zav]" (15:32). Thus, the "torah of beast and fowl" in Lev 11:46 falls underthe categoryof instructionsfor priestsregarding the purityof animals.However, if this is so, this torahin chapter11 seems anomalous.It is the only one of the ten torotthat is neither about priests nor addressedprimarily to priests. These dietaryrestrictions are intendedfor all Israelites,and accordinglyare addressedspecifically to them. Halpernsuggests that the dietaryrules were originallypart of the

31. JacobNeusner, The Way of Torah:An Introductionto Judaism,4th ed. (Belmont,Calif.: Wadsworth,1988), p. 35, similarlyargues that differenttypes of Judaismin historycan be distinguishedfrom one anotherby theirparticular way of bondingthese two generativesymbols of priestly altar and scribal scroll, and a third, messianic/nationalistwreath in a coherent religioussystem. 32. BaruchHalpern, Leviticus (NJPS), pp. xi-xii.

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Holiness Code addressedto Israelites,but that the Priestlyredactor moved it so as to "redefine"the guidelinesstressing Israel's holiness into a "torah of purity,a manualof proceduresfor priests."33The purposeof the "torah of beast and fowl, and every living thing which moves in the water or swarms on the earth"(11:46) is to "distinguishbetween the uncleanand clean, betweenthe living thingsthat may be eatenand the living thingsthat may not be eaten"(11:47). Making such distinctionsis preciselythe function assignedspecifically to priests,as statedin 10:10;"For you [thepriests] must distinguishbetween the sacred and profane,and between the uncleanand clean."34However, if the "this"of "thisis the torahof beastand fowl"refers to the verses immediatelypreceding it, then the "torahof beast and fowl" would be amongthe instructionsaddressed to the Israelitesas a whole (and not just the priests):"to sanctifyyourselves and be holy, for I am holy" and "not to make yourselves unclean throughany swarmingthing that moves uponthe earth.For I the Lordam He who raisedyou up [ha-ma'aleh 'etkhem] fromEgypt to be your God;you shallbe holy for I am holy"(Lev 11:44-45). In otherwords, the "torahof beast and fowl" is an instructionintended for both priests and Israelites.There is no intentionhere to establisha double standardfor priestsand Israelites'diets, as our rabbinictradition establishes for the talmidhakham versus the am ha-aretz.35If anything,it is intendedto distinguishIsraelites from non-Israelites (the Israelitesare made holy, that is, madeseparate from others, just as God is separate,when God "raised them up out of Egypt").Though the othertorot stress the distinctionsbetween priests and Israelites,the dietaryrules here blur their distinctive vocations. In short, the torotof Leviticuswere not an esotericpriestly lore to be hiddenfrom lay people. Indeed,what distinguishedIsraelite priests from their ancientNear Easterncounterparts was theirpublic teaching of theirpriestly lore.36 So the "torah"of Lev 11:46 is (1) a body of learning(about purity); (2) mitzvot to be performed(eating clean vs. uncleanmeat); and (3) knowledgeshared betweenthe priestlyelite andregular "lay" Israelites (not esotericlore). Finally, let me sketch out why I think P singles out the flesh of ani- mals-meat-as opposed to other edible foods (grains,fruits, vegetables)

33. Ibid.,p. xvii. 34. Ibid. 35. Obviously,there are otherplaces in Leviticuswhere this is the intention,i.e., in the passages describingthe priestly gift portionsof sacrifices,and the prohibitionof ordinary Israelitesfrom eating them. 36. Milgrom,Leviticus, pp. 52-53.

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as that which is to be eaten in a discriminatingmanner.37" Echoes of the languageof Genesis 1 in Lev 11 suggest that these dietaryrestrictions are intendedas ritualizedmnemonic devices for maintainingthe distinctionsat the basis of God's creationof the world.38Since the first humanbeing and indeedall animals("every living thing on the land and every flying thing in the sky, and every crawlingthing in the waterwhich has the breathof life [nefesh]in it" are permittedto eat from all the seed-bearinggrasses (grains and vegetables) and fruit-bearingtrees (Gen 1:29-30), discriminationwas not necessaryfor eating. Any living thing could eat any plant food. Only after humanity'sexpulsion from Eden, when God grantshuman beings the concession to eat meat (Gen 9:3-4), does one have to begin to distinguish betweenfit and unfit food. In this case, only the flesh of animalswhose life force, or "breathof life" as the New Revised StandardVersion of the Bible translatesnefesh, has been removedfrom it, thatis, in P's view, its blood, is meat fit to eat (Gen 9:4).39Making distinctions between clean and unclean animals is an extension of the basic principlethat making distinctionsin creationis what God does, and whatpeople in imitationof God shoulddo.40 Moreover,the repetitionof the Leitwortnefesh seems to suggestit has special

37. Grimm,From Feasting to Fasting,p. 16, suggeststhat the restrictionsin Leviticuson animalsfit to eat, andparticularly the extensiveenumeration of animalswhich areunfit to eat, "ratherthan addressing a largelyvegetarian society ... confronta humansociety that ... would eat just aboutanything that moved." She questionsthe assumptionthat meat was infrequently eaten, only on sacrificialoccasions, in the ancientNear East. Moreover,she claims that the preoccupationof Leviticuswith clean and uncleananimals was the precedentfor laterJewish tendenciesaway fromvegetarianism. If Grimmis correctthat everybody was "eatinganything thatmoved," the Israeliteswould have been eatingless meatthan their neighbors, since fewer animalsare permittedto them to eat. Thus,pace Grimm,it is arguablethat the narrowingof meatoptions in Leviticusput Israelite religion and later Judaism on a continuumtending toward vegetarianism. 38. Gen 1:20-21, 24-25: i.e.,yishretzu ha-mayim sheretz nefesh hayah ve-'of ye 'ofef... kol nefeshha-hayah ha-romeset asher shirtzu ha-mayim leminehem ve-'et kol 'of... totzeha-'aretz nefesh hayahleminah behemah va-remes ve-hayto 'eretzleminah ... va-ya'as elohimet hayat ha-'aretzleminah ve 'et ha-behemahleminah ve- 'et kol remesha-'adamah leminehu. 39. In biblical Hebrewnefesh, lit. "throat,"usually translated as some sort of life force, or even "self' or "person"depending on the context, does not have the connotationof an immaterialsoul or spiritthat it developsin laterrabbinic Hebrew under the influenceof Greek thought.Gen 9:4, You shall not eat flesh with its life [nefesh],that is, its blood,"equates nefesh with blood. 40. "Let us createhuman being in Our image accordingto our likeness"(Gen 1:26 ff.); "Youshall makeyourselves holy andbe holy becauseI am holy"(Lev 11:44).

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meaningin P's rationalefor eating distinctions.The vital forces [nefashot] of some animalsrender Israelite human nefashot unclean, as expressedin Lev 11:43-44: "do not defile nafshotekhemwith them . . . do not make nafshotekhemunclean with every swarmingthing that creepson the earth," for "this is the torahof... every nefesh of animalsthat creep in the water and every nefesh which swarmson the land"(Lev 11:46).The nefashotof animalscan make the nefashotof humanbeings uncleanor unholy in two ways: (1) eating any animal,clean or unclean,with its nefesh/bloodstill in it, and(2) certainanimals by definitionare unclean,whether you eat themor not, or touch them,or touchthings that they touch,etc.41 Plants, in P's view, do not have nefashot(but contrastthis view with latermedieval kabbalistic views of the soul/nefesh),so only meat is potentiallyproblematic in this regard.42The rabbinicinterpretations of 11:46that we are aboutto discussin the next section seem to affirmthis perspective,but are so preoccupiedwith establishingscholastic rabbinic authority over priestlyauthority that it drops into the background,a latentidea to be picked up and emphasizedlater by medievalkabbalistic interpreters.

41. Indeed,the rabbinicinterpretation of Lev 11:46in b.Zevah69a drawssimilar conclu- sions, but I thinkit is thepeshat too. It is apparentthat the whole subsystemof clean/unclean distinctionsis groundedupon only those creatureswhich have or have had blood or a nefesh in them. Vegetableand nonorganicitems are never the sourcesof uncleanness,but are only secondarycarriers of uncleannessthat originatesfrom corpses,birth-related blood, seminal emissions,unclean animals, etc.; i.e., frombeings composedof flesh and blood. But purityis only one of two basic subsystemsof distinctionsthat are to be madefor priestsand Israelites acting like priests.The second system is that of offeringsand portionsof offeringsset aside for God and the priestsvs. those that are not; e.g., tithes. While includingportions of meat sacrifices,this system is especiallyconcerned with vegetableproduce, especially in the later elaborationof tithingrules by the Pharisees.In the New Testament'spolemical enumeration of the Pharisees'picky dietaryrestrictions, "For you tithe mint, and rue, and herbsof all kinds" (Lk 11:42),"You tithe mint, and dill, and cumin"(Mt 23:23), meatis significantlyabsent. My pointis thatwhile makingdistinctions is crucialto the vocationof priests(and priest imitators), only distinctionsbetween clean andunclean, i.e., the systemof purities,in effect require,or at leastpresuppose, a meat-eatingdiet. 42. See. for example,the medievaltripartite psychology of animal,vegetative, and in- tellectualsouls discussedin Bahya, "Ta'anit,"Kad Ha-Kemah,in KitveRabbenu Bahya, ed. C. Chavel, p. 441. The repetitionof nefesh in the treatmentin Leviticusof restrictionson meat-eatingcertainly lent itself easily to the theoryof reincarnationof souls thatthe medieval kabbalistslater attached to it.

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RabbinicInterpretations of "theTorah of Beast and Fowl"

The most obvious innovationin rabbinicinterpretations of "thetorah of beast and fowl" (Lev 11:46)is its use as a prooftextfor whatthe am ha-aretz and the talmid hakhammay and may not eat--namely, meat. However,it is not the only tack that rabbinicinterpreters take, as a brief comparison between b. Pesahim49b, and b. Menahot 110a (and paralleltraditions in Sifra)will show. The prohibitionof an am ha-aretzfrom eating meat in b. Pesah. 49b, which uses Lev 11:46 as its prooftext,clearly refers to an am ha-aretzle-torah: "it is forbiddenfor an am ha-aretzto eat meat, as it is written,'This is the torahof beast and fowl' (Lev 11:46);for all who engage in Torah,it is permittedto eat the flesh of beastand fowl. But for all who do not engage in Torah,it is not permittedto eat beast and fowl." The phrase "torahof beastand fowl" has a doublemeaning here. On the one hand,"torah of beast and fowl" refers to the prohibitionof beast-meatto one class of people, and its permissionto others.On the otherhand, "torah of the beast" seems to refer to the am ha-aretzhimself. That is, the torahis that the am ha-aretzis a beast. This is apparentfrom the contextin whichit occursin b.Pesah49b, as one amonga list of baraitotof nastythings talmideihakhamim have to say about ammei ha-aretz.Immediately preceding our baraitais a quotationof Deut 27:21: "Cursedbe he who lies with any kind of beast [behemah],"which functionsboth as a prooftextfor the secondof two baraitotforbidding a man to marryhis son to the daughterof an am ha-aretzand as the associative verbal link to our baraita,which uses the word "beast"(behemah) three times.43The effect of this whole list of anti-am ha-aretztraditions here is to suggest that the am ha-aretzand his offspringare beasts fit neitherto eat nor to sleep with. The passage emphasizesthis in several ways. In the firstbaraita forbidding marriage to the daughterof an am ha-aretz,the unfit brideis comparedto inedibleberries grafted to edible grapes.In the second, marriageto her is equatedwith sex with a beast.

Ourrabbis taught, a manshould always sell what he hasand marry the daughter of a talmidhakham, for if he dies or goes into exile he is assuredthat his

43. Some printededitions of the Talmudplace a fourthbehemah in parenthesesafter am haaretz asur le- 'ekholbasar, but it seems clearthat this a latereditorial addition, and does not appearin R. Bahya'squotation of the baraita.

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childrenwill be talmideihakhamim, and he shouldnot marrythe daughterof an am ha-aretz,for if he dies and goes into exile, his childrenwill be ammei ha-aretz.... But he should not marrythe daughterof an am ha-aretz.This may be comparedto bunchesof grapescombined with the berriesof a thorn bush,which is a repulsiveand unacceptable thing. Our rabbis taught, a man should always sell all he has and marrythe daughterof a talmidhakham . . . but he shouldnot marrythe daughterof an am ha-aretz,for they are detestableand theirwives are vermin,and of their daughtersit is said,"'Cursed be he who lies with any kindof beast[behemah]" [Deut 27:21]. It was taught,Rabbi said, it is forbiddenfor an am ha-aretzto eat meat,as it is written,"This is the torahof beastand fowl" (Lev 11:46);for all who engage in Torah,it is permittedto eat the flesh of beastand fowl. But for all who do not engagein Torah,it is not permittedto eat beastand fowl.

Immediately following are some vicious traditions that compare the killing of ammei ha-aretz to the ritual slaughter of beasts, or to profane slaughter,or to filleting a fish!

R. Eleazarsaid, An am ha-aretzmay be stabbedeven on Yom Kippurwhich falls on a Sabbath.His pupils said to him, Master,say rather,may be ritually slaughtered.He replied,the latterrequires a benediction,the formerdoes not. . .. R. Samuelb. Nahmanisaid in the nameof R. Yohanan,One may tearan am ha-aretzlike a fish. Said R. Samuelb. Isaac,[That is], along his back ...

Rabbi Akiva recalls that before he was a talmid hakham, when he was an am ha-aretz, he used to say, "If ever someone let me at a talmid hakham, I would bite him like an ass." Against his students' suggestion that he bit them like a dog, Rabbi Akiva insisted that he bit them like an ass, because an ass "bites and breaks a bone, while [a dog] bites but does not break a bone." Furthermore,the ammei ha-aretz are beasts not only because of what and how they eat, but also because of how they have sex, as R. Meir makes explicit in the baraita immediately following Rabbi Akiva's statement:

R. Meir used to say, Whoevermarries his daughterto an am ha-aretzis as if he boundand laid herbefore a lion, forjust as a lion tearsand eats without any shame,so an am ha-aretzhits andhas intercoursewithout any shame.44

44. b.Pesah 49b.

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On the otherhand, Torah, unlike the daughtersand sons of ammeiha-aretz is a good thing to be "marriedto"--metaphorically, since the Torah,according to R. Hiyya, is like one's fiancee (me'orasah). Literally, too, if one follows the advice of the initialbaraitot to marryone's daughterto a talmidhakham, the embodimentof Torah.45 So what are we to make of this set of analogiesthat stress the beastliness of the am ha-aretz and the "attractiveness"of the talmid hakham?First, the text points to the am ha-aretz'scrude and shamelessappetites as the distinguishingcharacteristics of his beastliness.R. Akiva,when he was an am ha-aretz,couldn't even tell the differencebetween food anda Torahsage, as his bone-breakingass-bites demonstrate. Secondly, the am ha-aretz'ssexual appetitesare no better;he violentlyrips intohis spouselike a lion rippinginto his freshlyslain prey,to eat it. In contrast,the talmidhakham is refinedand civilized.He knows the differencebetween ritual slaughter and slaughterthat does not requirea blessing,to fillet a fish firstrather than shove it whole into his mouth. Ironicallythe talmideihakhamim seem to advocatethe murder of ammei ha-aretzby means of this civilizing knowledge.This brings me to my thirdpoint, that the whole passage in b.Pesahim49b has the flavor of rhetoricalhyperbole, and is not meantto condonemurder. Rabbis Akiva, Eleazar,Samuel b. Nahmani,and Samuelb. Isaac seem more interestedin name-callingthan actualmurder: ammei ha-aretz are beasts,dogs, donkeys, andravenous lions. However,it is not by chancethat these baraitot label their nemeses"beasts." Two thingsdistinguish beasts from human beings here: (1) beastsare potential food, people arenot, and(2) peoplehave knowledge,that is, Torah,and beasts do not. Torahand edibility are what distinguishmen from"beasts." That is probablywhy R. Judahforbids ammei ha-aretz to eat meat.If you don't know the differencebetween meat and a person(as Akiva the donkey/amha-aretz didn't, as the lion/amha-aretz, who behavesthe same way with his meatas with his mate,doesn't), then maybe you hadbetter stick to vegetables.Meat-eating should reinforce the superiorityof the dinerover his dinner.A man withoutTorah is no betterthan a beast;therefore, "for all who do not engage in Torah,it is not permittedto eat beastand fowl."46

45. As R. Hiyya taught,"All who engage in Torahin frontof an am ha-aretz,it as if they cohabitedwith his betrothedin his presence.. , for it is said, 'Moses commandedus a Torah, as a possession[morashah] for the assemblyof Jacob.'Do not readmorashah but me orasah, betrothed"(b.Pesah 49b). 46. In fact,this is how R. IsaiahHorowitz understands this baraitain ShnayLuhot Ha-Brit, albeit probablythrough the kabbalisticlens of R. Bahya'sinterpretation: "Everything that is

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The "Torahof beast and fowl" baraita,along with even the harshest anti-amha-aretz baraitot from b.Pesah 49b, arethus the "propaganda"of the new class of sages emergingfrom the periodof Yavneh,who "plac[ed]Torah and its study at the centerof the religious-nationallife of the people."47As AharonOppenheimer suggests, the Torah-centeredideology of the talmidei hakhamimwas intended,on the one hand, to bolster their credentialsfor leadership,and, on the other,to fill the vacuumcreated by the destructionof the SecondTemple and the abolitionof its ritual. Accordingly,the severity of thestatements against the ammei ha-aretz is. . to be regardedas beingin the natureof propagandain favourof studying theTorah. It is veryprobable that one of themeans of propagatingthe study of theTorah and of seeingthat every Jew acquired a knowledgeof andeducated his [sic] childrenin it, was throughthe severecondemnation and vigorous disapprovalof anyonewho failedto participatein advancingthe study of the Torah.48

Hence, laterhalakhic commentators do not view the prohibitionof meat to the am ha-aretz as halakhah,but ratheras a rule of derekheretz ("good manners"),or a derogatorycomment about ammei ha-aretz,i.e., that the rules of kashrutfor beef and chicken,slaughter, salting, etc., are so complex that an am ha-aretzwould be betteroff avoidingmeat altogetherunless he deferredto the supervisionof a Torahscholar.49 However, they preserveits propagandisticpro-talmid hakham intent.

createdlongs and yearnsto go up to a level greaterthan it until it goes up to the level of an angel. And when a personeats an animalthe flesh of the animalis changedinto the flesh of a humanbeing. Thus an am ha'aretz is forbiddento eat meat.(b. Pesah.49b) Alas for the flesh becauseof flesh. For an am ha 'aretzis [madeout of] the materialof a beastlike the beastthat is eaten.But when a personwho has intellectand eats an animal,the animalmerits to be raised into humanflesh. After thatthe humanlevel [itself] goes up due to the intellectand soul that the Holy One Blessed be He placedin it." Sha'arHa-Othiyot 4, DerekhEretz (3). 47. Oppenheimer,Am Ha-aretz, p. 184. 48. Ibid. 49. So Ozar Ha-Geonim,ad loc.: "These are not statementsof halakhicprohibition or permissionby which one could say this is or is not halakhah.Rather they are statementsof recommendation,rules of derekheretz, and the expressionof contemptfor ammeiha-aretz." In generalthe halakhiccommentators on this baraitastress that it is the am ha-aretz'signorance of the "torah"of kashrut-the slaughterand preparationof beasts and fowl---thatmakes it inadvisablefor them to eatmeat if notunder the supervisionof talmideihakhamim. For example,

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Even other rabbinic traditions that interpret "torah of beast and fowl" without any reference to ammei ha-aretz still function as pro-talmid hakham rhetoric. For example, Sifra to Lev 11:46 and its parallels in the Talmud interpret "torah of beast and fowl" as a type of legal inference by analogy. "Torah" here means the Oral Torah, whether of the tannaitic traditions of purity already assumed in Sifra's formulation or the explicit logical analogy attributedto the text of Lev 11:46. Sifra asks,

By whattorah is a beastequated with a fowl?A beastmakes something unclean by carryingand contact,while a fowl does not make somethingunclean by carryingand contact.The fowl [meat]makes something unclean when it is in a throat,the beast [meat]does not makeit uncleanwhen it is in a throat.So by what torahis a beast equatedwith a fowl, and fowl to beast?It is here to tell you thatjust as a beastmust be rituallyslaughtered [to be eaten],so a fowl must be rituallyslaughtered [to be eaten].You might supposethat just as a beast is [madeclean] becausetwo [organsin the throathave been severed],so a fowl because the two [organs]or the greaterpart of the two [have been severed]. But Scriptureteaches [i.e., limits the inference],saying "this." R. Eleazarsaid, By what torahis a beast equatedwith a fowl, and fowl to beast?It is here to tell you thatthe fowl is madekosher by slaughteringit fromthe neck, and the beast is made kosherby slaughteringit from the neck. You might think that just as a fowl is pinchedfrom the shoulders,so a beast is pinchedfrom the shoulders.But Scriptureteaches "its head" [Lev 5:9], the headof the fowl from its shoulders,and not the headof a beast fromits shoulders.50

Sifra makes it clear elsewhere that it understandsthe use of the term "torah" in Leviticus as referring to the dual Torah of the rabbis, in a comment to Lev 7:3, the summary of the sacrifices:

the RI"Non R. Isaacal-Fasi cites R. SheriraGaon and R. Isaacthe Barceloni:"Too bad for the am ha-aretz,who sometimeshas beastsand fowl, butbecause of his am ha-aretz-ness,does not knowhow to slaughteror examinethem, so it is forbiddento eat fromthem"; the Meiri:"an am ha-aretzwhere there is no one [sage] greaterthan him, it is forbiddenfor him to eat meat,for manydoubts may ariseover the slaughter,and its corpse,and the meat'ssalting, and its mixture with otherfoods, and he does not know";or R. Solomonben Adret(R. Bahya'steacher): "Of beastand fowl thereare manyrules, and whoever does not engagein Torahcannot distinguish betweenprohibited and permitted, whereas for fish he can easilydistinguish between prohibited and permitted,he can tell by the scales by himself(cited in M. Kasher,Torah Shelemah, vol. 28, p. 242). 50. Sifrato Lev 11:46,par. b.Hull 27b, b.Zevah69a.

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Andthe torot.It teachesthat two torotwere given to Israelat MountSinai, one writtenand one oral.R. Akivasaid, Two torot to Israel?Does it not say thatmany torot were given to Israel?This is thetorah of theolah. This is the torahof the minhah.This is the torahof the asham.This is the torahof the zevahshlemim. This is the torahof a manwho diedin a tent.... Thetorah was given-its halakhot,its specifics,and its explanationsby Moseson Mount Sinai.s5

The "torahof beast and fowl" would be just one more rabbinicexample of how the Oral Torahis a necessarycomplement to the WrittenTorah. The Torahmakes "beastand fowl" analogous,but only the Oral Torahexplains precisely what the analogy is, giving us the torah'shalakhot, specifics, and explanations. In summary,the rabbinictraditions of the "torahof beast and fowl" referto a kind of knowledge,whether ritualized in the halakhotof kashrutor expressedas hyperbolicrhetoric, which distinguished the talmideihakhamim, the ideal rabbinictype, from ordinaryJews expectedeither to aspireto their statusor to servethem. Martin Jaffee's discussion of Torahas "transformative knowledge"is particularlyhelpful for explainingthis phenomenon.52Trans- formativeknowledge is the type of knowledgecommunicated in the social system of the "discipleshipcommunity" which transformsthe subordinate disciple into a master,a memberof the leadershipclass. Torah(the dual Oral and WrittenTorah of rabbinicJudaism) is the knowledgethat has the powerto transforman am ha-aretzwho bites people(and not just any people but the mastersthemselves!) to the bone like a donkeyinto a RabbiAkiva. The rhetoricof b.Pesah49b is full of metaphorsof transformation--eating and marriageespecially. Both are ways of "becomingone flesh"with their objects,but in this passage,marriage is the more effectivemeans. Marriage to Torah,whether as a metaphorfor studyof Torahor the literalmarriage of one's childrento the embodimentof Torah,the talmidhakham, raises, that is, transforms,one's own or one's children'sstatus from disciple to master.On the other hand, biting one's masteronly confirmsone's subhuman,beastly status,and the marriageof one's daughterto an am ha-aretz/beastwho does not know Torahlowers her status and condemnsher childrento "beast" status.The "torahof beast and fowl" in the rabbinictexts is transformative

51. SifraBehukotai 8:13. 52. MartinS. Jaffee,"A RabbinicOntology."

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knowledge. The "torahof beast and fowl" is what, in effect, convertsthe beast Akiva into the disciple,and eventuallyinto the master,Rabbi Akiva. It changeshis way of seeing things. In contrast,the "torahof beast and fowl" in Leviticus (along with its other torot) is what MartinJaffee would call "formativeknowledge"--the "knowledge expected of functionalparticipants in a religioustradition or culture... the knowledgethat shapesthe cultural and autobiographicalidentity of the knower."53"Thus, the "torahof beast and fowl" in Leviticus (11:46) is part and parcel of the knowledgethat "you shall make yourselves holy and be holy because I [YHWHyour God] am holy ... because I YHWHraised you up fromEgypt to be your God"(Lev 11:44-45). The differencein functionbetween the torotof Leviticusand of the rabbinictexts is like the differencebetween the processesof socialization and conversion,respectively. But it is also importantto point out thatit was the torotof the priestsand theirsacrifices, not the master/disciplerelationship, that the Bible proffersas the basis of Israelitecultural identity. The rabbis'interpretations wrench these holinessand purityrules out of the priestlysacrificial system by castingthem almost entirely in the language and institutionsof their own rabbinicconcerns, namely, the master/disciple relationship.The master/disciplerelationship tends to supplanteven family and kinshipties as the primary"affective relationship" in Judaism.54In the language of the culturalanthropology of honor and shame, the "acquired honor"of Torahlearning has replacedthe "ascribedhonor" of familylineage as the primarycriteria for leadershipand social statusin the rabbinicsystem."5 In this context, the dietaryrules are to foster distinctionsbetween talmidei hakhamimand ammei ha-aretzrather than between priests, Israelites,and non-Israelites(familial, ethnic, hereditarystatuses). Sacred study replaces sacred eating, sacred teachers supplantpriestly officiantsat sacrifices;by playingdown the blood ties reinforcedby the sacrificialsharing of meat,the rabbislegitimate their new Torahlearning-based authority. Consequently, the writtenpriestly torot of Leviticusrequire rabbinic Oral Torah for clarification,

53. Ibid.,p. 7. 54. Ibid.,p. 6. 55. My thanksto StanleyStowers for pointingout the relevanceof this distinctionwhen I presentedan earlierversion of this paperto the BrownUniversity Seminar on Mediterranean Religionsin Antiquity.For a clearexposition of this theoryand its applicationto first-century Judaism,see BruceMalina, The New TestamentWorld: Insights From Cultural Anthropology, rev. ed. (Louisville,Ky.: Westminster/JohnKnox, 1993),pp. 28-62, esp. 33-34.

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specification,and application, and it is enoughto studythe priestly torot rather thando them.

MedievalKabbalistic Transformations of the "Torahof Beast and Fowl"

Theethical literature emerging from thirteenth-century Spanish kabbalistic circles reverses the trend. Being engaged in Torahdoes not replace the sacrificesin the "as if' or "insteadof' ways of the Talmudand Midrash Halakhah;it becomes the means of makingsacrifices. There are two ways thatTorah study becomes a meansof sacrifice.One is thatthrough the study of the mystical secretsof the Torah,one can cause the Divine Presence,the Shekhinah,to be drawndown to this world, even as the sacrificescaused the Divine Glory (Kavod HaShem)to hover over the altarin the sanctuary (Mishkan)and give somethingback above, like the "pleasingodor" (reah nihoah).This is particularlycharacteristic of the zoharicliterature. R. Bahya, in his popularethical manual, Shulhan shel Arba,suggests that both studying the "secretsof the Torah"and actuallyeating food (as the priestsdid) draw the Shekhinahdown and replenishthe cosmic powersabove. It is precisely in this sense thatthe am ha-aretzwho does not engagein Torah,i.e., does not know the mysteriesof the Torah,cannot raise the soul energiescontained in animalmeat, while the talmidhakham, that is, the maskil("enlightened one"), who does know them, can. Both the zoharic literatureand R. Bahya rely heavily on the biblicalpriestly language of sacrificeto describethe "secrets of the Torah,"especially the idea that the korban("sacrifice," but literally, "thatwhich is broughtnear") draws the sacrificer,the sacrificialvictim, and the sacrificee,God, closer together.It is a metaphorfor the unitingof the differentsefirot together. Let me brieflysketch out the theoryunderlying R. Bahya'sinterpretation of our Lev 11:46 tradition.In R. Bahya'stheory of digestion,the spiritand body are inseparablyentwined.

Andalready you know that the soul does not exist in thebody and its activities arenot manifestunless the bodyeats. And from this understandthe matter of the sacrificeswhich are the hiddenthings of the Torah,about which it is written:"to My [offeringby] fire,my pleasingodor" [Nu 28:2]. The power of thehigher soul increases and is addedto by thefire offerings in theeating

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of the sacrifices,and so our rabbissaid;56 "My sacrifice, My bread,to My [offeringby] fire."It couldsay just "Mybread," but Scripture adds, "to My [offeringby] fire";to Myfire you give it. Thisis becauseof theconnection of the soulto its attributes.The powers of the soulare connected to thepowers of the body.And understand the versethat "the favorite of the StrongOne" [Ps. 103:1,i.e., David]mentions: "My soul, bless YHWH; all thatis insideme [bless]His holy name." The invisible unites with the invisible, the visible with thevisible. And understand this that the powers of thesoul are not visible and areactualized only through the body. If so, thebody is a greatnecessity for the publicrevelation of thequality of thesoul and its perfection."

Thus,physical eating fuses spiritualand physical powers."5 R. Bahyaderives the Hebrewverb for "eating,",,,. fromthe verbfor "finishing,destroying," (whichI translatehere as "toannihilate"). In other words, he suggeststhat eating,,r,5. transforms something into nothing,or perhapssomehow "completes" it. Eating is a process where matteris transformedinto spirit. Just as the stomach converts food matter into "invisible"powers that energize the various limbs and organsof the body, so the right sort of eater transforms the spiritualenergies that exist in the physical matterof food in potential. Propereating/eaters "consume" the matterholding these energies--makeit as nothing--likhlot them, activate them so that they can energize higher beings in their new "form."It is also not unlike what fire does to matter when it consumesit, turningdense solid tangiblematerial into smoke.59You can see and smell smoke, but you cannothold it or touch it; it is both like andunlike something transformed into "nothing."Hence R. Bahyacompared eatingto the effect of the sacrificialfires on the foods placedand burnedon

56. Song of Songs Zuta,though in R. Bahya'sown paraphrasedversion (as per Chavel's note). 57. Shulhanshel Arba,p. 492. 58. R. Bahya's interpretationof the sacrifices-"the hiddenthings of the Torah"--seems to come fromkabbalah of the Zohar.See esp. Zoharto ParashatTzav (Raya Mehemna) 33a-b, ed. Margoliot,vol. 3, pp. 65-66. 59. The IggeretHa-Kodesh, a kabbalisticmanual of sexual etiquettefalsely attributedto Nahmanides,but neverthelessfrom the same circle of Spanishkabbalists as Bahya,states this explicitly.Gregory Spinner, in his "Sexualand DietaryRestrictions in the IggeretHakodesh" (Paperdelivered at the Hinduismsand JudaismsConsultation Panel on "Problematizingthe Categoryof Asceticism:The Domestic Arena,"American Academy of Religion/Societyfor Biblical LiteratureNational Meeting, New Orleans,1996), p. 11, called my attentionto this reference.

This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 252 JONATHANBRUMBERG-KRAUS the priestly altar. However, for this "consumption" to happen, proper eaters must be eating food appropriateto them. Thus, it is to explain God's concession to humanity to eat meat after the Flood in addition to the vegetarian diet permitted to them before it, that R. Bahya draws upon and interprets our rabbinic tradition that forbids meat to the am ha-aretz, but permits it to the talmid hakham.60Here the talmid hakham's Torah-learninggives him the ability to "burn/consume"food into a more spiritual, refined substance (note especially. R. Bahya's choice of the verb kilah and its cognates to describe this process, and to make it analogous to another Being's "eating":

At the time when all flesh went bad, and all animalsdeserved annihilation [kaliyah-from Whom?!]and would not have been saved were it not for the merit of Noah, it was permittedto eat them [i.e., the meat of animals],just as the greens and grasses had been before. At that time the animalsoul [lit. "mobilesoul"] was permittedto wait upon the intellectualsoul, who waited upon the Creator.And if so, this is not to demeanthe animalsoul, but rather a markof respect,status, and merit,and accordinglyour sages taught,"It is forbiddenfor an am ha-aretzto eat meat,as it is written,'This is the Torahof the beast and fowl' [Lev 11:46].All who engagein Torahare permittedto eat the meat of beastsand fowl, andall who do not engagein Torahare forbidden to eat beast and fowl."6'The explanationof this amongthe enlightenedis that when we set aside a soul for a soul, this is nothingother than the mobile soul that we annihilate[me-kalim] for the intellectualsoul. But becauseone is an am ha-aretzand has no intellectualsoul, you have it thathe is forbiddento eat meat, since [in him] we have nothingto set aside and annihilate[le-kalot] the animalsoul, since he is someonewho has no intellectualsoul, and understand this.62

The eating of the talmid hakham is more God-like because it parallels the God's "annihilation"of animals both in the Flood and, as we shall see, in the animal sacrifices. Thus, what the talmid hakham has that the am ha-aretz lacks is the "fire" of the intellect lit by the "light" of Torah. That enables him to "cook" denser, meatier food/soul substances into refined, intellectual/spiritual "soul"--real

60. b.Pesah49b. 61. b.Pesah49b. 62. Shulhanshel Arba,p. 496.

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"soul food." Then, not only the table of the talmidhakham, but the talmid hakhamhimself becomes the altar,or even the ishi, the sacredfire upon it, in which the good of this world is "broughtnear" (hukrav) and "consumed" as olot (lit., "thingsthat go up") up to the upperworld. Here we have a notion of eating quite similarto the Zohar'sthat is latersystematized as the "raisingof holy sparks."63Moreover, some foods-finer foods, like chicken or grains-are more easily transmuted,"raised," since they have souls that are less earthbound(birds fly in the air, plantsgrow upward),than those of beaststhat tread on the landwith cloven hooves, i.e., red meat.64 What I inferredfrom R. Bahya is made explicit in the Zohar,namely, the idea that scholars,who know the secrets of the Torah,when they eat, are like the priests' sacrificialfires that transformthe animal food into divine offerings.These ideas are stressedin the Zohar,especially in Raya Mehemna.65R. Bahyaprobably learned these traditions from the kabbalistsof its circle,66though the Zoharnever specifically refers to the talmudictradition "am ha-aretz asur le-ekhol basar ..." with its prooftext from Lev 11:46.67 However,in additionto Bahya,Joseph Gikatilla, Joseph of Hamadan,Joseph ben ShalomAshkenazi, and the authorof SeferHa-Kanah cite it and give it a kabbalisticinterpretation, though without the emphasison the symbolism of the sacrifices.68R. Bahya, however, seems to emphasizethe sacrificial

63. See esp. Louis Jacobs,"The Uplifting of Sparksin LaterJewish Mysticism," in Jewish Spirituality:From the Bible to theMiddle Ages, ed. ArthurGreen (New York:Crossroad, 1987), 2:115-116, 117-119, and the 18th-19thHasidic sources cited therein.Jacobs views this as a Hasidicinnovation, the doctrineof avodahbe-gashmiyut ("divine worship through the use of materialthings"), to be contrastedwith the more "ascetical"tendencies of Lurianickabbalah stressingabstinence from sensual pleasures, fasting, and generally negative toward the body.As we can see, EasternEuropean Hasidic avodah be-gashmiyut is morelikely a revivalof earlier views such as those of R. Bahya'sShulhan shel Arbathan an unprecedentedinnovation. 64. Shulhanshel Arba,p. 496. 65. See the excellentstudy by Joel Hecker,Each Man Ate an Angel'sMeal.

66. "My korban,my bread,my fire" (R. Isaac), cited in EfraimGottlieb, Ha-Kabalah be-khitveRabenu Bahya ben Asher(Jerusalem: Be-siyuah Reshut ha-mehkar shel Universitat; Tel-Aviv:Hotsaat Kiryat Sefer, 1970); ZoharIII, 252-253 (RayaMehemna); "Zaddik knows his beast,"Zohar III, 33b. 67. Hecker,Each Man Ate an Meal, p. 310, remarkson this "notablelacuna" in Angels the Zohar'sinterpretation of eating,especially in light of its frequentdiscussion in the Spanish Zohariccircle. See the texts cited in the followingnote. 68. Gikatilla,Shaare Orah, II, 12; Josephof Hamadan,Sefer Tashaq,ed. JeremyZwelling (Ph.D. diss., BrandeisUniversity, 1975), p. 92; idem, Sefer Ta'ameiHa-Mitzvot, pt. 1, ed.

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connotationsof the "torahof the beast and fowl" more than Gikatillaand Josephof Hamadan,and in this he follows the Zohar.In the Zohar,"Torah" is understoodnot only as halakhahor Oral Torah(this is a lower sort of Torah),but also as the secretsof Torah-how the Torahrefers to the system of sefirot.The secret of the biblical sacrifices(sod ha-korbanot)is one of the centralteachings of kabbalisticTorah. Namely, the sacrifices(korbanot) cause a "bringingnearer" (hakravah, from the same root as korban)of the parts of creationmade separateby the act of creation.69The am ha-aretz is at the bottom of a hierarchyof types of people and types of sacrifices with varyingdegrees of efficacy.The am ha-aretz,lacking wisdom, which is Torah,is like a beast, and fit only for beast sacrifices.In the words of Raya Mehemna,some sacrifices

arefrom those who arelike beasts;some are from those like the ministering angels,and some from those like humanbeings. For those whose deeds are likedemons, their sacrifices are allotted to demons.For those whose deeds are

MenahemMeier (Ph.D. diss., BrandeisUniversity, 1974), pp. 309-310; Sefer Ha-Kanah (Cracow,1894), pp. 66a, 119b, 129a, 131a, 132a, cited and discussedby Hecker,Each Man Ate an Angel'sMeal, p. 123, n. 74; pp. 310-311, n. 2. Theirdiscussion of the passage from b.Pesahim49b focusesmore on the competenceof the Torahscholar over the ignoramusin the delicateprocess of reincarnationinvolved in eatingmeat. In otherwords, the Torahscholar's properslaughter and eatingtransforms the animalsoul of the meat into a higher,rational soul. As Hecker(Each Man Ate an Angel'sMeal, p. 123, n. 74) paraphrasesGikatilla, "You are what eats you."While this understandingof eatingas a meansof soul reincarnationis an important presuppositionof Bahya'sview, too, the otherkabbalists mentioned in this note base the Torah scholars'superior competence to transformanimal souls on theirexpertise in the halakhotof kosherslaughter rather than on theirknowledge of the "secretof sacrifices."However, I do not want to overstatetheir differences, which are moreof emphasisthan substantive, since Bahya and his Spanishkabbalistic contemporaries all stressedthat doing the halakhahand knowing the kabbalisticintentions and reasons for the commandments(ta 'ameiha-mitzvot) was farmore efficaciousthan doing the halakhahwithout such esotericknowledge. See also Daniel Matt, "TheMystic and the Mitzwot,"in JewishSpirituality from the Bible Throughthe MiddleAges, ed. ArthurGreen (New York:Crossroad, 1988), p. 393, for furtherdiscussion of theurgiceating and metempsychosisin thirteenth-centurySpanish kabbalah. On the otherhand, Bahya seems to representa distinctivestream within this circle fromthirteenth-century Provence and Spain, beginningwith Azriel of Gerona,who authoredthe text Sod Ha-Korban,or even his teacher Isaac the Blind (from whom Bahya got the traditionabout "my korban,my bread,my fire," accordingto E. Gottlieb,Ha-Kabalah be-Khitve Rabenu Bahya (n. 49 above),and the authors of the zoharicliterature, who emphasizedthe languageof biblicalsacrifice in theirkabbalah. 69. Zohar111, 110a (Raya Mehemna).

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likeangels, their sacrifices are allotted to angels,as it is written,"My sacrifice, my bread,to my fire"(Nu 28:2);these are the sacrificesthat do not depend on beasts,for the sacrificesof beastsare of ammeiha-aretz. The sacrifices of humanbeings are prayers and good deeds. And the sacrificesof thedisciples of thesages [talmidei hakhamim], men of talent-theseare the masters of the secretsof Torah,of the hiddenmysteries, and the HolyOne, Blessed be He, goes downamong them as a resultof it, to accepttheir sacrifices. For this is "theTorah of YHWHis perfect,"the Holy Shekhinah of theten aspects. And the disciplesof therabbis [talmidei de-rabbanan], their words are like eating theremains of the grain[minhah] offerings, and there are others greater than themwhose words are like eatingthe minhah itself, and not its remains,and thereare otherswhose torah is eatingthe holy [meat]offerings [kodashim] foodof severalkinds fit forthe King, and all theminhah offerings of foodsof thesacrifices from the Holy One, Blessed be He,are to bringnear to Himall of thesethings into His house, which is the Shekhinah,and this is thecommand to "bringnear" korbanot into His chosen house.7" Hence, the Zohar, especially Raya Mehemna, carries over the rabbinic antipathytoward the am ha-aretzthat we foundin b.Pesah49b, buttransposes it into its own new schema of sacrifices."It has also been argued,by Y. Baer, that the Raya Mehemnaengages in social polemic against certain upper-classgroups hostile to the poor, with whom, he alleges, the author of Raya Mehemnaand his circle identified.72Generally the authorof Raya Mehemnacalls this groupthe erevrav ("mixedmultitudes") and occasionally ammeiha-aretz, but he also refers to good ammeiha-aretz (i.e., those who serve talmideihakham). The polemicagainst the ammeiha-aretz seems a bit artificial,not unlike what we saw in b.Pesahim.It probablywas propaganda for being a talmidhakham, that is, an "enlightenedone" (maskil) engaged in the secretsof the Torah,rather than an attackon a specificsocial class, and I thinkthe same is truefor R. Bahya'sreferences to ammeiha-aretz.73 However,more significantfor ourpurposes here is how R. Bahyaand the Zoharunderstand the earlierrabbinic convention that the rabbinicforms of

70. Zohar111, 110a (RayaMehemna). Note thatthe eatersof meat and grainofferings are of a higherrank than those comparedto eatersonly of the grainofferings or theirremains. 71. See Tishby,Wisdom of the Zohar,pp. 898 and esp. 1430-1432 for a discussionof the am ha-aretzin RayaMehemna. 72. YitzhakBaer, "Ha-Reka' Ha-Histori shel Raya Mehemna";idem, History of theJews in ChristianSpain, vol. 1. 73. Anotherpossibility is that the am ha-aretzas "beast"is not a person,but one of the threeparts of a tripartitedivision of the soul. Both the Zoharand R. Bahyainterpret the pasuk,

This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 256 JONATHANBRUMBERG-KRAUS divine service, especiallyprayer and the studyof Torah,replace the priestly sacrifices.It is not simply the substitutionof applesfor oranges,one distinct mediumof worshipfor another.The metaphorof the processof sacrificeis carriedover into this new understandingof divine service,so thatthe person learnedand engagedin Torahwhen he eats reallyis like the priestsand their families whose consumingof the sacrificesbrought their essence closer to God.Somehow, the talmidhakham's Torah learning qualifies him to transform meat and otherfoods into spiritualenergy which he sends back upward.He is an essentiallink in the processof "cosmicrecycling." The divine energy, shefa, flows down and makes this world thrive with abundantfruit and animals, which are transformed(in the past as sacrificedfood/first fruits, etc., by priests, or now as "blessed"food from the talmidhakham's table) from its materialform back to energy,and thus sent back up. In R. Bahya's view, eatingwith the "right,"that is, Torah-formed,intention helps "fuse"the spiritualand material aspects of reality.That sends them back together toward theirsource in a morerefined form, just as the firetransformed the solid flesh of the korbanotinto the upward-boundethereal smoke of the reah nihoah ("thepleasing fragrance").What we have here is a theurgicconception of eating,analogous to thatof the biblicalpriestly sacrifices, that would seem to requireeating as well as studyingand knowing the secret"torot" that make it cosmicallyeffectual. The priestshad to physicallyconsume the sacrificesto raise them to YHWH.Likewise, the talmidhakham has to eat food to raise the energy/soulin it. This kabbalisticunderstanding of the "torahof beast and fowl" ties togethermany of the strandsof the olderbiblical and rabbinic interpretations, but integratesthem in a new way. Like the biblical "torahof beast and fowl," it suggeststhat ordinary eating for Jews is analogousto priestseating theirsacrificial portions, and that one must make the properdiscriminations between types of food to "be holy as YHWH is holy." Like the rabbinic "torahof beastand fowl," it is not only a torahof whichbeasts are permitted or forbiddento eat, but also the torah that ammei ha-aretzare "beasts" themselves,and consequentlyshould or should not eat certainfoods. And like the rabbinicinterpretation, it is propagandaadvancing the claimof Torah scholarsand their disciples over nonscholarsas the Jewish authorities.But

"theZaddik knows his beast,"in this way, anduse am ha-aretzas a synonymfor "beast."See Zohar,III, 33b; R. Bahya,Kad Ha-Kemah, "Taanit."

This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MEAT-EATINGAND JEWISH IDENTITY 257 unlike the rabbinictraditions, R. Bahya's "torahof beast and fowl" does not replacethe efficaciouspriestly rituals of eatingwith the study of them. Ratherhe unites them; the talmid hakham/maskil'seating combinedwith his knowledge of the kabbalisticsecrets of the Torah,especially the secret of sacrifice,make his eating a theurgicpractice because "the powers of the soul are connected to the powers of the body."This kind of torah is no longersimply "formative"(like the torotof Leviticus)or self-transformative (like the Torah that transformedAkiva from a donkey to a rabbi), but world-transforming.It is a theurgic,almost magicalknow-how that effects the energyflow of the cosmos, indeedGod Godself. The medieval kabbalistic "torahof beastand fowl" is a kindof returnto the theurgicpractice of biblical sacrifice,where the bountifulproduce and livestock God pouredonto the world were transformedby God's surrogatestomachs, the priestsand their fires, into a reah nihoah, a pleasing odor sent back up to God. But now rabbinicand kabbalistictorah take on the role of cosmic digestive aid, the knowledge-formingintentions that transformthe eater into the vessel, the fire, "my fire,"that in turntransforms his food into God's food, "mybread," recyclingthe cosmic energies,as the priestsdid before. Now that we have seen how Bahya transformedearlier biblical and rabbinic traditionsof the "torahof beast and fowl" into a gastronomic theory of metempsychosisin the metaphoricalsacrificial fires of the Torah scholar'sstomach, the questionremains: why? Severalpossible explanations have been suggested for analogousphenomena, if not for this particular medieval Jewish traditionper se. Bahya's "torahof beast and fowl" could be an anti-Maimonideanreaction to philosophicrationalism, a means of using sacrificial language to maintainmale hierarchicalprivileges, or a means of simultaneous"inward acculturation" and self-differentiationfrom contemporaryChristianity.74 Let us examinethe meritsof each position. Bahya'sShulhan shel Arbais an exampleof the genreof ethicalliterature thatemerged in the thirteenth-centurycircle of rabbisin Gerona,which Joseph

74. Marcus,Rituals of Childhood,pp. 11-12, contrastsmodem outward acculturation, "the blurringof individualand communaltraditional Jewish identitiesand of the religious and culturalboundaries between Jews and modem societies,"to premoderninward acculturation, "when Jews . . . did not assimilate or convert to the majorityculture [and] retainedan unequivocalJewish identity."At the same time, however,"the writings of the articulatefew or the customsof the ordinarymany sometimesexpressed elements of theirJewish religious culturalidentity by internalizingand transforming various genres, motifs, term, institutions, or ritualsof the majorityculture in a polemical,parodic, or neutralizedmanner."

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Dan claimswas composedas an anti-Maimonideanresponse to philosophical rationalism."This new formof ethicalliterature justified practice on the basis of talmudicand midrashic traditions rather than on Greekand Arabic philos- ophy,as, for example,in ethicalworks composed in eleventh-centuryMuslim Spain,like Solomonibn Gabirol'sTikkun Middot Ha-Nefesh ("Correction of the Soul's Inclinations")or Bahya ibn Pakuda'sHovot Ha-Levavot ("Duties of the Heart").76In Dan's view, anti-Maimonideanslike Nahmanidesand RabbenuJonah Gerondi (all cited extensivelyby Bahyain his commentaryto the Pentateuchas his teachers)were, as kabbalists,opposed to philosophical rationalism,especially for its "negativetheology" and its tendencyto weaken commitmentto the practiceof the commandments.77Kabbalists who believed in the doctrineof the sefirotand that Torahwas the name of God disagreed with Maimonidesthat human language is incapableof referringaccurately to God.78And indeed,the kabbalistsof Provenceand Northern Spain were quite interestedin speculatingabout the mysticalmeaning of the commandments (ta'amei ha-mitzvot).79However, wishing to keep their kabbalahesoteric, the Geronesecircle would not use it explicitlyto attackthe Maimonideans and to justify continuedpractice of the commandments,in Dan's view.80 Rather,their ethical treatisestended only to hint at kabbalisticreasons for the commandments,or in the case of JonahGerondi, the foremostauthor of ethical works in this period, did not refer to kabbalahat all.81Bahya's workmight be consideredin this light, as at least two of the fourchapters of Shulhanshel Arba (chapters1 and 3) are extensivereworkings of talmudic

75. JosephDan, "PhilosophicalEthics and the EarlyKabbalists," in JewishMysticism and JewishEthics, 2nd ed. (Northvale,N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1996), pp. 17-48. 76. Ibid.,pp. 18-19, 23-28. 77. Matt,"The Mystic and the Mitzwot,"pp. 396-367. 78. They did, however,maintain the philosophicalidea thatat the highestlevel God was unknowable,as the Ayn Sof, "InfiniteOne," but that by meansof the sefiroticemanations, God was knowableand could be named. 79. See especiallyMatt, "The Mystic and the Mitzwot." 80. They were followingthe instructionsof the letterwritten by Isaacthe Blind advising themto keep theirkabbalah esoteric, Dan, "Philosophical Ethics and the EarlyKabbalists," pp. 36-37, and see also GershomScholem, Origins of the Kabbalah,ed. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, transAllan Arkush(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1987), pp. 394-397. Jacobibn Sheshet and Asher ben David are mentionedby Dan, p. 35, as exceptionswho did cite kabbalisticexplanations in theirethical treatises. Obviously, Bahya ben Asheris an exception too. 81. Dan, "PhilosophicalEthics and the EarlyKabbalists," p. 39.

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discussionsof blessings, and of the minorrabbinic Derekh Eretz tractates. Moreover, Bahya and his fellow kabbalists' positive assessment of the sacrificesstands in diametricopposition to the explanationof the sacrificial system in Maimonides'Guide to the Perplexed,that the sacrificeswere an outdated,temporary institution provided by God to wean the Israelitesaway from idolatry.82On the otherhand, Bahya's treatise is suffusedwith explicit kabbalisticexplanations of the reasonsfor the eatingcommandments, and also has manyaffinities with the Arabic-influencedJewish philosophical literature. Bahya's introductorychapter is writtenin rhymedprose, not unlike Arabic adab manuals or maqama literature,and he presentshis second chapter, which includes the "torahof beast and fowl" tradition,as a physiological explanationof digestion, similarto ibn Gabirol'sphysiological reasons for the commandments.Dan probablyhas exaggeratedthe conflict between philosophyand kabbalah;the actual relationshipis much more complex.83 While Bahya seems to prefer mystical to philosophicalreasons for the commandmentsfor eatingmeat, it wouldbe an overstatementto describehis approachas a polemicalreaction against Maimonidean philosophy. ThatBahya's revival of sacrificiallanguage in orderto justify the restric- tion of animal flesh to Torahscholars reinforced male privilege has more to recommenditself. Nancy Jay theorizedthat animal sacrifice"identifies, legitimates,and maintains enduring structures of intergenerationalcontinuity betweenmales that transcendtheir absolutedependence on women'srepro- ductivepowers."84 One of Bahya'srare references to women, thatJews and non-Jewsalike are equally underthe "the sentenceof Eve," except for the distinctiveTorah of eating, the dietary"regimen of pleasures,""is virtually a paraphraseof Jay'sremark that sacrifice is a "remedyfor manhaving been bornof women."86Otherwise, women are conspicuously absent from Bahya's discussionof eating.This is remarkable,considering the extensivereferences and analogiesbetween eating and marriageand sex with women in Bahya's talmudicsource for the prohibitionof meat to an am ha-aretz,b.Pesah 49b. Bahya'sgastronomic theory of the reincarnationof soulscompletely sidesteps the role of childbearingwomen. Souls arereborn through the sacrificialeating

82. Maimonides,Moreh Nebukhim (Guide to the Perplexed)3:32; Matt,"The Mystic and the Mitzwot,"p. 372. 83. Scholem,Origins of the Kabbalah,pp. 404 ff. 84. Jay,Throughout Your Generations Forever, p. xxvii. 85. Bahya,Shulhan shel Arba,p. 459. 86. Jay,Throughout Your Generations Forever, p. xxiii.

This content downloaded from 131.128.70.28 on Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:03:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 260 JONATHANBRUMBERG-KRAUS of male Torahscholars, not born of women. Bahya could have mentioned metempsychosisinvolving souls born of women, a theory articulatedin IggeretHa-Kodesh, from the same circle of kabbalists.For even if this text puts most of the responsibilityfor a "good"reincarnation (a soul bornas a malechild) in the intentionof thehusband during intercourse with his wife,87it does not completelyeliminate her role in the process,as Bahya'sgastronomic metempsychosisin effect does. Similarly,Bahya's use of the term talmid hakham,"disciple of a sage,"for his ideal type, suggeststhat "real" lineage, the only inheritancethat counts, that is, Torah,is passed from teacherto student,not biologically from mother(or even father)to child. Conversely, the origin of the am ha-aretz would be literally "from the earth."The terminologyimplicitly privileges the male "cultural"formation of "disciples of sages"over the female "natural"autochthonous creation of "peoplefrom the earth."The slaughterand consumptionof animalflesh is importantto Jay'stheory because the sheddingof the blood of the sharedanimal sacrifice symbolicallysupplants the blood of childbirthas the basis for initiationinto the community.Males ratherthan femalesgive membersof the grouptheir identityand status.Jay uses as an examplethe revivalof sacrificiallanguage for the Eucharistin the RomanCatholic Church to legitimatean exclusively male priesthood.88To a certainextent, this is analogousto whatBahya does with sacrificialmetaphors. On the otherhand, Bahya's meat-eating does not legitimatea hierarchybased on biological inheritance,neither a hereditary priesthood(as in Leviticus) nor maleness per se. In principle,a woman could know Torah,could be a "discipleof a sage," even if not according to Bahya's practice.89Interestingly enough, contemporary feminist theories of vegetarianismare often based on the assumptionthat sexist meat-eating tends to equatewomen with beasts.90This equationis conspicuouslyabsent fromBahya's discussion. On the contrary,Bahya equates male ignoramuses, the ammeiha-aretz, with beasts. Lack of Torahknowledge, not genderper se, makespeople beasts, at least in Bahya'sexplicitly articulated views. Still, Jay's argumentseems at least partiallyrelevant to Bahya'suse of sacrificial languagein his theoryof gastronomicmetempsychosis.

87. Spinner,"Sexual and DietaryRestrictions in the IggeretHakodesh," p. 17. 88. Jay,Throughout Your Generations Forever, pp. 112-127. 89. See, for example,Chava Weissler's "Women in Paradise,"Tikkun 2 (April-May1987): 43-46, 117-120, who discusses the "ThreeGates Tkhine,"a later seventeenth-centurytext influencedby kabbalahwhich portrays women learning Torah in paradise. 90. I.e., Adams,Sexual Politics ofMeat.

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Finally,we havesuggested that Bahya's eating rituals were an expression of premodernJewish "inward acculturation" vis-a-vis their non-Jewish neighbors in ChristianSpain. Marcus defines inward acculturation as a processwhereby Jews "maintainedan unequivocalJewish identity"but also "sometimesex- pressed elements of their Jewish religiouscultural identity by internalizing and transformingvarious genres, motifs, term, institutions,or ritualsof the majorityculture in a polemical,parodic, or neutralizedmanner."91 The tension thatwe mentionedat the beginningof this paperbetween Bahya's statements regardingthe purposesof his eatingrituals supports this explanation.On the one hand, Bahya's "torahof beast and fowl" is the "regimenof delights," the dat sha 'ashu'im that distinguishesJews from all the other nations of the world. On the other hand he suggested that the dietary rules are a remedy for what looks a lot like original sin, suggestingthat Bahya may have contemporaryChristian ideas in mind. After all, Christianstoo were eatinga sortof sacrifice,the Eucharist,to remedytheir human condition. Ivan Marcushas arguedpersuasively that the medievalAshkenazic Jewish "ritual of childhood,"in which Jewishboys were initiated,in effect, into the Jewish communityby licking honey-coveredtablets with Torahverses on them, or cakes with Hebrewletters and verses on them, while sitting on the laps of theirteachers, was a sort of Jewishalternative to initiationinto the Christian Churchby means of communion.The eating ritualsBahya recommends in Shulhanshel Arba are probablythe expressionof a similarphenomenon, though in the context of ChristianSpain ratherthan northernEurope. In Marcus's study of Ashkenazic eating rituals, the child/initiategoes from being definedprimarily as a memberof a biological family to membership in the community.Jewish iconography represents this graphicallyin pictures of Jewishteachers replacing the parentsas the ones feedingthe child, much like Christianimages of Maryfeeding Jesus, or Jesusfeeding communicants of the Church.While in a sense, one is "born"into eithercommunity, one is not really a full memberuntil one ingests a symbolicrepresentation of the community's"root metaphor." Christians are initiatedas memberswhen they eat the Body of Christ,Jews when they eat the Torah.Moreover, this food is servednot by the biologicalparents, but by priestsor teachers,custodians of the communalinheritance. This type of rite of passagecould accountfor the tensionin Bahya'srationales for the "torahof beast and fowl" as intergroup differentiation(Jews vs. Christians)and intragroupdifferentiation (talmidei

91. Marcus, Rituals of Childhood, pp. 11-12.

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hakhamimvs. ammeiha-aretz). These eatingrituals mark the transitionfrom Jewishstatus based on one's ethnicbirthright (what anthropologists would call an "ascribedhonor") to one basedon learnedexpertise in Torah(an "acquired honor").For Jews living in ChristianSpain, being a Jew is no longera matter of purely ethnic inheritance,but has a conceptualcontent. For Bahya, the Jewish "torahof beast and fowl," the kabbalisticTorah of the sacrifices,is the concepts and intentionsthat distinguishJudaism from Christianityand its distinctive"torah of sacrifice,"the redemptivedeath and resurrectionof Christon the cross. However,these are only ideas,inherited metaphors, until they are actuallyphysically internalized in the bodies of Jews or Christians. The distinctiveeating rituals for each communityare a ritualizationof their fundamentalmetaphors, a way of incarnatingthe souls of their respective traditions.The thirteenth-centuryJewish "enlightened ones" were like priests and sacrificialfires, transforming the souls of "beasts,"that is, kosheranimal flesh,into higher souls, while at the sametime distinguishing themselves from human"beasts," that is, those who lackedthe intellectand Torah knowledge necessaryfor this process.Hence, Bahya's "torah of beastand fowl" ritualizes the original connotationsof Levitical "torah"as both priestly "teaching" about"beasts and fowl" and a "ritual"to be performedon them.But it is done metaphorically,since the performersare not hereditarypriests but talmidei hakhamim,and technicallythe "beasts"are not sacrifices.However, thanks to a kabbalistictheory of reincarnation,Bahya is able to transformthe "torah of beast and fowl" into a distinctivelyJewish form of inwardacculturation to thirteenth-centuryChristian Spain, a Jewish adaptationand alternativeto the contemporaryChristian tendencies toward incarnational theology.92 Thus, while the "torahof beastand fowl" is not a singleinitiatory rite of passagelike the ritualsof childhoodthat Ivan Marcusdiscusses, it is a system of eating rituals,of ritualizedmetaphors of Torahintended for the same purpose,to transformordinary Jewish males into embodiments,"incarnations" of Torah in a Christiansociety. WheatonCollege Norton,Mass.

92. Forthese Christiantendencies, though none of her examplesare fromSpain, see Carol WalkerBynum, "Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion," in Fragmentationand Redemption: Essays on Genderand the HumanBody in MedievalReligion (New York:Zone Books, 1992), pp. 143-148. A moreprecise account of the relationshipof Bahya'seating rituals to the specific theologicaltrends of thirteenth-centuryChristian Spain is still needed.

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