The Humanity of the Talmud: Reading for Ethics in Bavli ʿAvoda Zara

Description

In this dissertation, I argue that there is an ethical dimension to the Babylonian Talmud, and that literary analysis is the approach best suited to uncover it. Paying special attention to the discursive forms of the Talmud, I show how juxtapositions of narrative and legal dialectics cooperate in generating the Talmud's distinctive ethics, which I characterize as an attentiveness to the “exceptional particulars” of life. To demonstrate the features and rewards of a literary approach, I offer a sustained reading of a single tractate from the Babylonian Talmud, ʿAvoda Zara (AZ). AZ and other talmudic discussions about non-Jews offer a rich resource for considerations of ethics because they are centrally concerned with constituting social relationships and with examining aspects of human experience that exceed the domain of Jewish law. AZ investigates what distinguishes Jews from non-Jews, what Jews and non- Jews share in common, and what it means to be a human being. I read AZ as a cohesive literary work unified by the overarching project of examining the place of humanity in the cosmos. The talmudic materials are organized as a journey down the cosmic chain of being, from the supernal realm of souls and spirit, to the material world of embodied, animal existence, to the inanimate domain of physical objects. In tracing this descent, I discover in AZ the outlines of a rabbinic anthropology that affirms the common humanity of Jews and non-Jews, and highlights the role of Jewish law in constituting Jewish difference. As I make my way through AZ, I bring the talmudic text into dialogue with critical insights and issues from philosophy and literary theory. Pointing to ways that the editors of AZ engage the philosophic currents of their time, I challenge the prevailing characterization of the Bavli editors as inwardly focused. Even more important, I explore how AZ engages the critical questions of our time-- questions of identity and alterity, of universalism and particularism, of justice and community. Spring 2014......Page 2 Acknowledgements......Page 8 Preface......Page 10 A Note on Sources, Usage, and Transliteration......Page 12 Is the Talmud Ethical?......Page 14 Two Readings of Rabbinic Double Talk (Baba Kama 113a-b)......Page 15 Is There Ethics in the Talmud? Two Modern Views......Page 21 Defining Ethics......Page 24 The Seven Commandments of the Children of Noah (Excerpts from Sanhedrin 56a-57b)......Page 27 On The Horns of a Dilemma (Baba Kama 38a)......Page 38 Gentiles in the Talmud: A Short, Selective Reception History of The Talmud's Most Troubling Texts, Told Backwards......Page 45 Chapter II: The Sense of A Beginning......Page 54 Storytelling in Lifney ʾEydeyhem......Page 55 Beginning with the End (AZ 2a-3b)......Page 59 A Story of Adam (AZ 8a)......Page 63 Literary Approaches to the Bavli: Between Bialik and Bakhtin......Page 65 Adam, Inside-Out and Upside-Down (AZ 11b)......Page 74 The Martyrdom of Rabbi Hanina ben Tradyon (AZ 18a)......Page 80 Ketiʿa bar Shalom Crosses Over (AZ 10b)......Page 86 Broken Spirit, Breaking Wind: Elazar ben Dordya (AZ 17a)......Page 88 Narrative Ethics (The Moral of the Stories)......Page 93 Thinking with Animals......Page 96 Creeping Suspicions (Mishna AZ 2:1)......Page 97 The Opening Sugya (AZ 22b)......Page 100 Jews, Gentiles, and other Animals......Page 111 The Opening Sugya and the Rest of the Chapter......Page 118 Widows and Wives in Relation to the Covenant (AZ 27a, 30a, 39a)......Page 121 Animal Husbands (AZ 36b)......Page 128 Mixed Drinks and Metaphors......Page 133 Mishna ʿAvoda Zara: What the Tannaim Say (and Don't Say) about Gentile Wine......Page 134 Gentile Wine in the Bavli......Page 140 Ben Dama's Snakebites (AZ 27b)24......Page 141 The Prohibition on Gentile Wine: “From Where Do We Get This?” (AZ 29b)......Page 144 Section II: Snakes......Page 149 Legal Reasoning and the “Rule of Exposure” (AZ 30a)......Page 150 Literary Analysis: How is a Gentile Like a Snake?......Page 155 Disclosures (AZ 35a)......Page 158 Keeping Secrets (AZ 36b)......Page 161 Why So Secret?......Page 170 Digestif......Page 171 The Bavli's Rag and Bone Shop......Page 173 Object Lessons......Page 176 Idolatry from the Bible to the Mishna......Page 180 Idolatry in the Babylonian Context......Page 188 The Bavli Puts the Pieces Together (AZ 41b-42b)......Page 189 Theseus's Ship Sails the Sea of Talmud......Page 194 A Theory of Representation in the Bavli (AZ 42b-43b)......Page 199 Dialogues with Non-Jews (AZ 44b and 54b-55a)......Page 206 Closing a Circle......Page 212 Changing Views on the ʿAm Ha-ʾaretz: From Other Jews to Jewish Others......Page 217 The Narcissism of Small Differences (AZ 59a and AZ 70b)......Page 221 The Last Word (AZ 76b)......Page 228 Selected Bibliography......Page 233