Category Archives: Readings

English, Piyut, Readings

Tu Bishvat as Judgement Day in a Poem by Aharon Mirsky

The cover of Mirsky's book, which was published in 1999 by Bizaron Books

Tu Bishvat (the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shvat), which is celebrated today, is also known as the New Year of the Trees. This festive date appears for the first time in tractate Rosh Hashana (The New Year) of the Mishna. The Mishna refers to four New Years:

The four new years are: On the first of Nisan, the new year for the kings and for the festivals; On the first of Elul, the new year for the tithing of animals… On the first of Tishrei, the new year for years, for the Sabbatical years and for the Jubilee years and for the planting and for the vegetables. On the first of Shevat, the new year for the trees, these are the words of the House of Shammai; The House of Hillel says, on the fifteenth thereof.

As can be seen there was a dispute between בית שמאי (House/School of Shammai) and בית הלל (House/School of Hillel) concerning the exact date of the new year of the trees. Ultimately (and not surprisingly) the date was set according to the latter. In practice, Tu Bishvat remained a marginal date in the Jewish calendar throughout the Middle Ages. It became gradually more prominent from the beginning of the early modern period, especially in mystical circles and reached its heyday in modern Israel, where it is celebrated widely and quite lavishly.

This post is dedicated to an interesting and charming children’s poem by the late Aharon Mirsky (1914-2001), a prominent piyyut scholar and poet. I bring here a photocopy of the original publication, which is accompanied by drawings by Yehudit Ben-Yosef:

It would be superfluous to provide here a full English translation of the poem but I would like to touch upon its main themes. Mirsky takes here quite seriously the notion of the new year of the trees and compares it to Rosh Hashana, the celebration of the New Year at the beginning of the Jewish High holidays. Since Rosh Hashana is considered to be the judgment day for all human beings, so – according to Mirsky – Tu Bishvat must be the judgment day of the trees and plants. But what does this mean? Mirsky draws here on the famous late antique piyyut for Rosh Hashana (and subsequently Yom Kippur) –           ונתנה תוקף קדושת היום (and we shall proclaim the greatness of the day). A famous line in the piyyut reads: בראש השנה יכתבון / וביום צום כיפור יחתמון (On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed), namely that the people’s judgement will begin on Rosh Hashana and end on Yom Kippur. Similarly, according to Mirsky, the trees and flowers in the garden will be judged.

Then Mirsky draws on another famous part of the piyyut in which the poet enumerates those who will die during the coming year: …מי יחיה ומי ימות / מי בקיצו ומי לא בקיצו / מי במים ומי באש / מי בחרב ומי בחיה (Who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast…). This terrifying litany (which also stands behind Leonard Cohen‘s Who by Fire) is echoed in Mirsky’s poem as well, for example: מי עוד יוסיף לפרוח כאן  / ומי גזעו יקמול (who will continue to grow here / who his trunk will wither); מי יטרף בידי עלעול / בבוא ימי הסתיו (who will be devoured by stormy wind [עלעול] in the autumn).

This playful children song does not seem to call for an extension of Jewish theology to the realm of flora but it does bring together brilliantly ancient piyyut and modern Hebrew poetry. I have no doubt that many kindergarten and elementary school teachers could use it in class in order to develop discussions concerning Tu Bishvat in particular and enviormental issues in general.

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English, Readings

One pesuk, two pesuk, three pesukim more…- Guest Post by Michael Satlow

In the Babylonian Talmud, authority comes in variety of flavors.  Sometimes a tradition, heard from and cited in the name of a teacher, carries the day.  At other times, logic wins.  The behavior of a rabbi, the opinion of an expert, or the common practice of a community sometimes drive a discussion about law or ethics.  But the trump, as anyone who has spent any time with the Bavli knows, is the Bible, especially the Torah.  While it is certainly true that rabbis often turn and twist biblical verses as origami masters might, it is always better to have a verse on one’s side.

How, though, did the rabbis of late antiquity “know” the Bible?  Did they have the whole thing memorized?  Did they consult scrolls?  Did their versions look like ours?  Did they gravitate toward certain verses or sections, or steer clear of others?  If so, why?

For me, these questions arose quite incidentally about a year ago in the context of an informal Talmud reading group.  I figured that at least the empirical questions were easy to answer.  Somebody, somewhere, must have compiled a list of the biblical verses in the Talmud and counted them up in various ways.

If such a study exists, though, I still cannot locate it.  There are tools that indicate where in the Talmud a particular verse is discussed, but no charts, tables, and graphs that I could find helped very much when it came to quantifying the Talmud’s use of the Bible.  So as a side project I began to assemble the data.

This turned into a more involved undertaking than I anticipated, but it is very close to completion.  My crack research team – my son Dani Satlow and Elijah Petzold, a very talented Brown undergraduate – has now logged every biblical verse cited in the Bavli in a spreadsheet.  The method for doing this was not perfect: we went copied the indices of each of the tractates published in the Schottenstein edition of the Talmud.  We corrected obvious errors (mainly typos) as we went, but I suspect that the indices contain additional mistakes that are now incorporated into our spreadsheet (while undoubtedly introducing new ones of our own).  Nevertheless, given the mainly quantitative goals of the project and the large numbers present, these errors should not significantly distort the results.

My next step is to figure out good ways to use this data (which I will make freely accessible, probably by the end of the semester), and here I welcome your advice.  The three top questions on my list are:

  • What is the most commonly cited verse in the Talmud?
  • Are there verses, chapters, or books that the Talmud never cites?
  • What is the density of biblical citations per tractate?

What would you like to know?

I generated the above image using Wordle, with random text from the beginning of the Talmud.  Wordle might itself be useful for research; perhaps a future post on that.

Michael Satlow is a professor of religious studies and Judaic studies at Brown University and has been a mentor and sounding-board for the New Talmud Blog from the beginning.  This post was crossposted from his own blog, Then and Now.

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English, Piyut, Readings

Hanukkah and Piyyut (Part 3)

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Ner Israel (The candle of Israel) - Selected texts of Rav Hai Gaon by the 19th century Hamagid of Koznitz

The third and last (albeit slightly belated) installment of the series on Hanukkah and Piyyut (Part 1, Part 2).

In the days of the Geonim (i.e., the Babylonian sages that followed the rabbis of the Talmud), individuals and communities sent to these rabbinic authorities halakhic queries and other questions concerning Jewish life. The replies of the Geonim were preserved in what is known as the Responsa literature. One of the most prominent sages of that period was Rav Hai Gaon, who headed the Pumbedita Yeshiva during the early 11th century. In one of his replies we read:

And concerning your question about the Hanukkot (Heb. inaugurations); we have heard about them in the Haggadah and the payytanim enumerated seven of them: the inauguration of heaven and earth after the six days of creation, and the inauguration of the alter in the days of Moses, and the inauguration by David… and the inauguration in the days of Solomon, and the inauguration in the days of Ezra, and the inauguration in the days of Matityahu son of Yohanan – these are six, and the seventh will take place in the future (i.e., with the coming of the Messiah)”. But those who count the one who built a new house, how can they know how many there were? But it must be said that the inauguration of a new house is called like a Mitzvah (= a religious law), and its name is celebration of the house, and it is not one of the public Hanukkot. And the inauguration of the idol, how come [one associates the inauguration] of Avodah Zara (=idol worship) with that of the house of the Lord that hopefully will be built in our days, amen.

There are several intriguing elements in this reply; first, it is curious that someone addressed Rav Hai with a question concerning the proper count of the Hanukkot. Usually, the Geonim received questions concerning laws and related religious practices. We learn then, that for some, the proper count of the seven inaugurations was meaningful. In fact, from the reply by Rav Hai we learn that it was a matter of dispute, a point to which I shall come back to shortly. Second, we should pay attention to the list itself; it consists of several “historical” Hanukkot: that of the Tabernacle (the altar in the days of Moses), of Solomon’s (first) temple, of the second temple in the days of Ezra, and finally the one in the days of the Maccabees. To this list of four Hanukkot Rav Hai adds one by David, based on Psalms 30:1 “A Psalm of David, A Song at the dedication of the Temple,” and a metaphorical one – the creation of the universe. Finally, Rav Hai mentions the seventh Hanukkah of the future (third) temple. After Rav Hai concludes the list we encounter the third intriguing fact. It turns out that Rav Hai is familiar with an alternative count that adds ‘the building of a new house’; truly, it is not quite clear what Rav Hai means here, and his explanation is even vaguer. At any rate, we realize now that the question concerning the proper count was in place. The last sentence of the response probably contains the most intriguing detail; it seems that Hai Gaon had heard of a custom to count among the seven Hanukkot an inauguration of some sort of a idol-worshiping place. Who might be the person or community that would do that? Some sort of a Christian sect? Karaites? Other non-rabbinic Jews? Muslims? I must admit that in this regard we are in the dark.

At this point, I’m sure many of you may be asking- “but what does Piyyut have to do with all of this?!” Well, as far as we know, the tradition of the seven Hanukkot emerged from the poetry of our beloved Elazar Birabi Qilir of seventh century Palestine! In several of his piyyutim for Hanukka the Qiliri elaborates quite lavishly on the seven Hanukkot. The typology of the seven inauguration makes perfect sense; it brings together six occurrences in the past, in which a sacred place was either created or rebuilt and it connects the past with the messianic hope for the completion of the series in the world to come. The inclusion of the Hanukkah of the Maccabees among these Hanukkot fits perfectly into the liturgy of the feast of Hanukkah. It is worthwhile mentioning that the list of seven Hanukkot appears also in the ninth century Pesiqta Rabbati. Interestingly enough, the list in this Midrash differs from the list known from the piyyutim of the Qiliri. Perhaps even more revealing is the fact that the list brought by Rav Hai is similar to that of the Qiliri. It would seem then, that the case of the seven Hanukkot is yet another example of the rich and complex relationships within the polysystem of Hebrew literature in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

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English, Piyut, Readings

Hanukkah and Piyyut (Part 2)

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The world as a tabernacle according to an illuminated manuscript of Cosmas Indicopleustes' Christian Topography

In the first part of this series I discussed an intriguing “historical” tradition in a piyyut by Elazar Birabi Qilir. In this second part I turn to an interesting juxtaposition of the cosmos and the Tabernacle in another piyyut for Hanukkah by the Qiliri.

The interrelation between the cosmos and the Tabernacle is hinted already in the Hebrew Bible, and it became a central theme in Jewish thought of the first century of the Common Era in the writings of Philo and Josephus. Philo, as expected, offers an allegoric interpretation in which various elements of the Tabernacle correspond to parts of the cosmos. In classical rabbinic literature the relation between the Tabernacle and the cosmos is hardly mentioned but in contemporaneous payytanic literature it is widespread. It is attested in a piyyut for Hanukkah by Yannai (6th century) and more elaborately in the following Hanukkah piyyut by Elazar Birabi Qiliri (7th century):

בזה נתחדש עולם / ובזה בוסס והוכן עולם / כי כנגד יצירת עולם / הוכן אוהל בעולם / מכוונים בו כל מפעלות עולם… שבעת עננים מול שבעת מעונים / מנורת המאור מול שמש ומאור / שבעת הנרות מול שבעה אורות / קרסים וענובים מול כוכבים…

In this the world was renewed / And in that the world was established /For against the creation of the world / A tent was prepared in the world / In it are reflected the elements of the world… Seven clouds corresponding to seven skies / The bright lampstand corresponding to the sun (and moon) / The seven candles corresponding to seven stars / Clasps and loops corresponding to the stars…

The basic premise of the section is that without the Tabernacle the creation is not complete, or, in other words, that the construction of the Tabernacle is the final stage of creation. This idea is expressed in a very clear fashion in midrash Pesiqtah de Rav Kahana (5th/6th century), which indicates that “until the Tabernacle was set up, the earth was unstable. After the Tabernacle was set up, the earth became stable.”(1:4) The specific details of the comparison between the cosmos and the Tabernacle (included here only in part) are similar to many found in Philo, Josephus, in a few rabbinic sources and also in the piyyut by Yannai. It is crucial, though, to stress that the comprehensive list appears for the first time ever in this poem by the Qiliri. Interestingly enough, a similar list is known from the medieval Midrash Numbers Rabbah that is associated with Moshe Hadarshan  (Heb. “Moses the Preacher”), the eleventh-century composer and compiler of midrashic literature. This specific piyyut by the Qiliri was known in the days of Moshe Hadarshan and it probably influenced this medieval midrashic composition.

Finally, I would like to mention a similar Syriac liturgical poem by Narsai of Nisibis, the fifth century celebrated poet of the Church of the East. In his “piyyut” Narsai elaborates also on the correspondence between the cosmos and the Tabernacle:

A second creation did the Creator create through Moses / that man learn that it is He who created the creation in the beginning… Corresponding to the inhabited world, the Tabernacle was extended to the four corners / and it was disposed according to the disposition of the months of the year… As a symbol of the luminaries was the candelabrum looking at them with its flames / and they towards it as seedlings in the direction of the sun…

(Trans. Judith Frishman)

Narsai bases his poem on a longstanding exegetical tradition within Syriac Christianity, and narrates for his audience the many resemblances between the cosmos and the Tabernacle, which also represents the Church. In the sixth century, Jacob of Serugh, another prominent Syriac poet, elaborated further on the consequences of the cosmos-Tabernacle relationships.

Indeed, the relations between Jewish and Christian liturgical poetry have become a hot issue among scholars recently and I promise to enlarge upon it in the blog in the near future. Until then, don’t forget to look for the third and final part of this Talmud Blog series on Hanukkah and Piyyut.

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Hanukkah and Piyyut (Part 1)

A tenth century illuminated manuscript of the first book of Maccabees; Leiden University Library

Hanukkah begins today and since I have been working for some years now on Hebrew liturgical poems for this feast, I thought it would be nice to share with the readers of the Talmud Blog some interesting bits and pieces of these verse compositions. Here is the first installment.

Late antique piyyutim for Passover elaborate on the Exodus, those for Shavuoth on the giving of the Torah at Sinai, those for Purim on the story of Esther and Mordecai, and those for Hanukkah… on the inauguration of the Tabernacle! Neither the Maccabees, nor the Seleucians are mentioned; rather, one finds lengthy descriptions of the desert dwelling and the sacrifices that were brought on the occasion of its inauguration.

Why is this so? Simply put, the piyyutim follow the liturgy, and since the reading of the Torah during Hanukkah focuses on the inauguration of the Tabernacle as narrated in the book of Numbers, the poets followed that lead. It is no coincidence, of course, that this biblical episode is read at the synagogue. In the absence of a canonical book that relates the Hasmonean revolt, the rabbis and the payytanim chose the closest biblical episode to the historical event that they could find. Indeed, once the so-called Scroll of Antiochus (מגילת אנטיוכוס) was introduced to Jewish culture in the early Gaonic period, the piyyutim were filled with “historical” description of the battles of the Hasmonean agains Antiochus Epiphanies.

But at least in once case we find a payytan from late antique Palestine who sought to (re)collect some “historical” data concerning the Maccabees, and this payytan is no other than the by-now Talmud Blog favorite, Elazar Birabi Qilir. Here is one interesting and somewhat amusing example of what the Qiliri came up with. In one place he writes:

קינאו חמישה / להקים דת חמישה / כממים נימשה // רצו עד מודעית / יוונים שם להבעית / על נקמת שביעית

The five [sons of Matityahu] were zealous / and sustained the law of the five [books] / like the one whom from the water was drawn [=Moses] // They ran all the way to Modi’in / in order to terrify the Greeks / and to take revenge of the seventh [land (= Israel)]

But why does the Qiliri indicate that the Maccabees had to run all the way to Modi’in, the place in which one of the major battles against the Seleucians took place? This mystery is solved in the next couplet:

ארבעת ראשי נמר / ריצצו פרחי אימר / בגזירת שומר // לבשר בחוצות יבנית / כי קיצצה חנית / כל לשון יוונית

The flowers of Immer / smashed the four headed tiger [=the Greeks] / by the decree of the Guard [=God] // To announce in the streets of Yavnit / that the spear chopped / every Greek tongue

According to the Qilir, the Maccabees were part of the priestly division called Immer that dwelled in a village called Yavnit (יבנית). Already in the Bible the Israelite priests were said to be divided into twenty four divisions, Immer being one of them. Interestingly, according to Josephus (and other historical sources) the Maccabees belonged, in fact, to the Yehoyariv order that was located in Judaea. But as was mentioned above the order of Immer dwelled in the Galilee. So now we can begin to appreciate the finesse of the Qiliri: the name of the village is pronounced almost the same as the Hebrew adjective for Greek (יוונית), and the Qiliri brilliantly plays on this similarity in the last verse quoted above. But this complicates things for the Qiliri, geographically-wise. If the Maccabees dwelled in the Galilee surely they had to rush all the way to Modi’in, which is located in Judaea, and of course soon thereafter to rush back north in order to bring back the happy news to their Galilean hometown.

Much more can be said about these verses (and those of you who read modern Hebrew can read this Ha’aretz article on this piyyut by Joseph Yahalom) but let me conclude with the following quote from Aristotle’s Poetics, part four:

It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen, what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity. The poet and the historian differ not by writing in verse or in prose. The work of Herodotus might be put into verse, and it would still be a species of history, with meter no less than without it. The true difference is that one relates what has happened, the other what may happen. Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.

So who do you prefer – Josephus or Elazar Birabi Qilir?

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English, Guest Posts, Readings

Medicine and the Redaction of the Talmud- Guest Post by Michael Satlow

Ancient forms of pain "relief".

One of The Talmud Blog’s goals is to create a forum for scholarly discussion. This guest post by Michael Satlow is an attempt to start a conversation. Readers are invited to engage in it by writing in the comments section below.

Have gum disease? Boils? Abscesses? Anal  sores? An ear ache? A swollen eye? Insect stings? Check out the Bavli for a remedy.

The Babylonian Talmud is full of medical advice. Enough advice, in fact, for Julius Preuss to fill a fat tome entitled Biblisch-Talmudische Medizin that he published in 1911 (translated by Fred Rosner as Biblical and Talmudic Medicine. Rosner has several other books on the topic as well). The advice frequently strikes us as suspect. Is it really true that burning a century old reed tube (hardly easy to come by as it is) filled with salt in one’s ear is the best and most efficient cure? Where can I get the fat of a goat that has never given birth? Will my insurance cover it?

Joking aside, I recently stumbled on one of the longer extended discussions of medicine in the Bavli, at Avodah Zarah 28a–29a (where all the examples cited above can be found). The passage is as fascinating as it is tedious, and despite Preuss’s magnum opus – itself also both fascinating and tedious – I am sure that there is much more scholarly work to be done on this passage and those like it. Where did they get this information? What was their understanding of medicine? What did they do when the cures failed to work?

On this reading of the passage, though, I was struck by a much more technical and abstruse question: How can it be reconciled with contemporary theories of the redaction of the Talmud? Nearly all scholars today agree that there was at least one – and perhaps more – stages of redaction of the Bavli. The redactors, the theory goes, worked from collections of tannatic and amoraic sayings, the latter usually conveyed in pithy sentences.  The redactor(s) pieced these sayings together and connected them with the distinctive argumentative style known as stam. These redactors, the stammaim, added additional material as well, such as aggadah.

My question, in short, was how such a theory – and especially the theory of transmission – can account for a passage such as Avodah Zarah 28a-29a. Many of the cures are attributed to amoraim, predominantly Babylonian. Were these cures transmitted along with the amora’s short statements, to be reconstituted by a redactor in the form of this sugya? If so, what would these (hypothetical) transmission booklets have looked like?

To further complicate matters, there are two traditions in the sugya that record an amora saying, “I did all [of these cures], and I wasn’t healed until a certain merchant told me….”  In the first case, Abaye seems to respond to cures reported in the names of Rav Aha the son of Rava and Mar bar Rav Ashi. In the second, Rav Pappa seems to respond to cures reported by Rav Aha the son of Rava (again) and Rav Ashi. Could Rav Pappa really be responding to Rav Ashi? The same literary form of the two comments suggests the work of a redactor, but how extensive was the intervention?

How might we explain the redaction history of the passage?

Michael Satlow is a professor of religious studies and Judaic studies at Brown University. In addition to writing for his own blog, Then and Now, Prof. Satlow is an adviser to The Talmud Blog. 

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English, Piyut, Readings

A Sign of Confusion? The Hometown of Elazar Birabi Qilir

Archeological sites in Israel feature signs that explain the findings and elaborate on their historical context. Many of these signs quote texts that are relevant to the site in most cases from the Bible and rabbinic literature. To my joy, while hiking in the ancient synagogue at Arbel in the Galilee last week, I came across the following sign that quotes from a liturgical poem by Elazar Birabi Qilir, one of the prominent payytanim of the late ancient school of Hebrew liturgical poetry.

The first thing that drew my attention was the partial defacement of the sign; while I could not explain the erasure of the ר from the word הקליר, the damage to the acronym לסה”נ (literally, according to the Christian calendar) suggests that someone thought that it is improper to mention the Christian calendar in the context of an ancient synagogue. Such a purist practice is not unusual in some nationalistic circles, which reminded me the outrageous phenomenon of defacing Arabic names from street and highways signs around the country (but this is a matter for another post on another blog).

But then I noticed another thing; according to the sign the Qiliri was a resident of Tiberias in the seventh century. That the Qiliri lived during the seventh century can be deduced with reasonable certainty from his mention of the Muslim conquest of Palestine in that century. However the only clue we have concerning his hometown is the ambiguous mention of קרית ספר in the acrostic of several of his poems. קרית ספר, to be sure, is mentioned in the Bible (Joshua 15:15) as the ancient name of דביר in the southern part of the country (not to be confused with the modern ultra orthodox west-bank settlement מודיעין עילית, also known as קרית ספר). At any rate scholars agree that קרית ספר is a generic name for a central Jewish town in late antique Palestine. It is true that Tiberias falls under that category but other places qualify as well – most notably Sepphoris – and in fact it was suggested by several scholars (including the late Ezra Fleischer) that the latter was the hometown of the Qiliri.  It was a real pleasure to find a mention of the Qiliri at this ancient synagogue but it would have been nicer if the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority would be more modest in its attempts to revive the past.

Did you come across similar inaccuracies in other archeological sites? Tell us about it…

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Sins Without Borders

The confession of sins is a key feature in the classical Jewish process of atonement in general and in the Yom Kippur liturgy in particular. The obligation to confess during Yom Kippur appears already in the Tosefta (Kippurim 4:14) where we also find, in the words of Rabbi Yehuda son of Patera, that one has to specify each individual sin. Rabbi Aqiva disagrees with that opinion but R. Yehudah’s opinion was codified and made part of the liturgy. See for example the following passage from Maimonides’ Mishne Torah, Hilkhot Teshuva:

How does one confess? He says: ‘Please God! I have intentionally sinned, I have sinned out of lust and emotion, and I have sinned unintentionally. I have done such-and-such and I regret it, and I am ashamed of my deeds, and I shall never return to such a deed.’ That is the essence of confession, and all who are frequent in confessing and take great value in this matter, indeed is praiseworthy (chapter 1).

The list of sins that appears in almost every medieval prayer books consists of forty four sins, two for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Every line opens with the formula על חטא שחטאנו לפניך (for a sin that we have sinned before you) followed by the individual sin. The list had become so standard that it can be hardly regarded as authentic or personal in any way. Interestingly in a few medieval manuscripts we find unique lists of sins. Many of the sins in such lists are quite obvious, such as בביטול תורה (in not studying Torah) or בחילול שבת (profaning the Sabbath). However frequently we find very innovative sins such as בגילוח זקן and בגידול בלורית (shaving the beard and growing forelock) or בחימוד בגדים and בחימוד נשים (desire for cloths and desire for women).  Below is a list of the most unusual sins I found in these sources: ביין נסך (in non kosher wine), בהילוך על גבי עשבים בשבת (in walking on grass on the Sabbath), בהריגת בריה בשבת (in killing a creature [e.g., insect] on a Sabbath), בלימוד שלא לשמה (in studying the Torah not for its own sake), בקטטה בבית (in a quarrel at home), בתפלה שלא בכוונה (in prayer without the proper intention),  בתרדמה בבית התפלה (in falling asleep in synagogue), בצער בעלי חיים (in causing animals to suffer), בתשמיש (in having sex), לגרום רעה בזרעינו (in wrongdoing with our sperm), בפנות לאלילים (in worshiping idols) and בעובדינו בקרוב להם (in worshiping near them). Such lists of sins are not only very interesting but also very useful for socio-historical studies that seek to explore the everyday practices and beliefs of medieval Jewish societies, a task that I hope to embark on in the near future.

Perhaps the most unusual sin, or at the very least the most awkward formulation, I came across is found in a prayer book according to the Fez (a city in Morocco) rite, in which the confession open with the following sin על חטא שחטאנו לפניך באהבת אדם (for a sin that we have sinned before you in the love of a person). Suggestions for what that sin might be would be greatly appreciated.

And an easy fast (צום קל) for those observing.

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Total Disaster

The word אסון is quite rare in the Hebrew Bible. It appears in Genesis 42:38 and 44:19, where it refers to Jacob’s fear of Benjamin’s death. It also appears in the oft-quoted and frequently debated law of the two fighting men who hurt a pregnant woman in Exodus 21:22-23. Neither locus is very good for explaining what the word means exactly, apart from something bad. To make matters worse, in Exodus – the only legal context in which the word appears– the Septuagint goes uncharacteristically off-script and does not translate the term but rather the sentiment of the law. (In Genesis it translates malakisthênai, which probably means “to succumb [to death]; cf. Xenophon Cyropaideia 2.3.3).

In their distress, dictionaries also include several references to Hebrew Ben Sirah: these are supposed to help, since they are in Hebrew, and they are also translated into Greek and Syriac. The Septuagint of Sirach sometimes translates אסון as thanatos, death, but in one place (34:22-23/LXX 31:22-23) the meaning in Ben Sirah is more general:

[…] בכל מעשיך היה צנוע. וכל אסון לא יגע בך.

Be modest in all your doings/and no אסון will touch you

The Septuagint here translates אסון as arrôstêma, a sicknes or illness, and not simply “death”. This is related to the meaning that survived in modern Hebrew, “disaster.” The Biblical meaning of the word – in Genesis and Exodus – is still unclear.

The verse from Ben Sirah, however, had an interesting afterlife in the Palestinian version of the grace after meals. In a geniza fragment (T-S NS 122.39, no picture on Friedberg), we find a rhyme:

ורצון תעטרינו. ומזון תשבעינו. ואסון העביר מקרבינו.

כי אתה הוא יוצרינו וזונינו וזן את הכל.

Crown us with your benevolence, and satiate us with food, and remove אסון from us

For you are our creator and our feeder, and feeder of all [things].

The choice of the word אסון is interesting. The word rarely appears in the Talmuds, and when it does it is quoted from scripture, mostly Exodus. Additionally, here אסון does not seem to mean “death”, rather something more general, an antonym of רצון. And why choose אסון for the grace after meals? Why not something that rhymes just the same and makes more sense in context, like רזון or חרון?

The wording of the blessing is best explained by the immediate context of the word in Ben Sirah; the verse immediately following is

טוב על לחם תברך שפה. עדות טובו נאמנה.

Good (LXX: clearly, lampron) bless bread with lips/the testimony of his good faith.

The verse on “modesty” is in fact a heading for a list of instructions on how to eat and how to bless, and is situated after a segment called מוסר יין ולחם, The Teaching of Wine and Bread. The composer of this blessing knew Ben Sirah, and read וכל אסון לא יגע בך in the context of the blessing for food.

This snippet of Ben Sirah joins other prayers which are based on or influenced by Ben Sirah, such as מראה כהן, said at the end of the Ashkenazi Avoda Service on the day of Atonement, based on Ben Sirah 51, שבח אבות עולם.  Perhaps the entire Avoda Service itself is also based on the same chapter in many ways, but that is for another time and another post.

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English, Readings, Recent Publications

New Iranica Antiqua and a Hebrew Inscription on Ahura Mazda’s Tunic

For Talmudists interested in the Bavli’s Sasanian context, a new edition of Iranica Antiqua is always a reason to celebrate. Volume 46 (2011) has just been published, and it does not disappoint. It contains a slew of interesting articles on Sasanian Iran, including:

Maciej Grabowski, “Ardašīr’s Struggle against the Parthians: Towards a Reinterpretation of the Fīrūzābād I Relief”

The proposed reinterpretation of the Fīrūzābād I relief is based on the assumption that we deal with a particular iconographic synopsis of the events that occurred during Ardašīr’s war against the Arsacids (c. 220-228). The concept of iconographic summary of several historical events may be traced back to the Achaemenid period (Bīsotūn relief), and may also be observed in the triumph reliefs of Šāpur I. It is thus suggested that each of the three equestrian combat scenes depicted on the Fīrūzābād I relief recalls one of three major stages of Ardašīr’s struggle against the Parthians. Information from textual sources combined with iconographic observations permit to develop a hypothesis concerning the identity of some of the depicted personages, and thus to reveal proper historical context of each scene. New terminus post quem for the Fīrūzābād I relief is also proposed, this being the year 228 which most probably marks the end of the last phase of the war.

Brucno Overlaet, “Ardashir II or Shapur III? Reflections on the Identity of a King in the Smaller Grotto at Taq-i Bustan,”

Two Sasanian kings are depicted on the back wall of the smaller grotto at Taq-i Bustan near Kermanshah (Iran). They are identified by inscriptions as Shapur II (309-379 A.D.) and his son Shapur III (383-388 A.D.). However, the details of the crowns and the design of the relief oppose this idea. It makes it likely that the figure identified as Shapur III is in fact Ardashir II (379-383 A.D.), the immediate successor and (half)brother of Shapur II. It is suggested that the identifying texts were added when Shapur III came to power.

Jamsheed K. Choksy, “Friends and Friendships in Iranian Society: Human and Immortal”

Constructs, permutations, functions, and bases of friends and friendships in society and sociopolitical hierarchies are analyzed within the context of religiosity in Iran and Iranian regions of Central Asia.

Michael B. Charles, “The Sassanian ‘Immortals”

The Sassanian Persians are generally regarded as having maintained an elite cavalry unit called the ‘Immortals’, the formation of which was inspired by Achaemenian practice, thereby demonstrating continuity between the two dynasties, as per the general scholarly view. This article assembles all the pertinent evidential material from the Greco-Roman sources in order to present a comprehensive critique of this position. It emerges that references to Sassanian Immortals in sources emanating from the Mediterranean world may owe more to classicizing fancy than to historical reality, and particularly a desire to approximate late-antique wars against Persia with those waged by the West against Achaemenian kings.

Bruno Overlaet, “Hidden in Plain Sight: The Hebrew Inscription on Ardashir I’s Rock Relief at Naqsh-i Rustam,”

The relief of Ardashir I at Naqsh-i Rustam is the first Sasanian investiture scene with the two protagonists on horseback. They are identified by a prominent trilingual inscription on the horses as Ardashir I and Ahura Mazda. A Hebrew inscription remained unobserved since the 19th century, however. It is chiselled on the folds of Ahura Mazda’s tunic.

The final article in particular caught my eye. Who might have written a Hebrew inscription hiding in on the folds of Ahura Mazda’s tunic at Naqsh i Rustam? Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find that the piece contains no readings of the Hebrew inscription in question. In fact, aside from a clear photograph on the final page, the article reads more like a notice than a work of actual scholarship.

I contacted Shaul Shaked Schwarzmann University Professor emeritus here at the Hebrew University, who was kind enought to relay the following, tentative remarks:

1. A faint inscription above the main one. I am indicating doubtful readings by parentheses, and editorial supplements by square brackets.

(בניה) שמואל הכהן
[ב]רו(ך)

2.

(חש?) רברבה חסן בן חסן בן (ס)הל באלחסן מזאר
שנת
אלשג סמן
טוב
מן חלון

The date 1303 is naturally Seleucid, i.e. 992 CE. The translation of inscription 2 is:

… (?) … Hasan son of Hasan son of Sahl Bu-l-Hasan, visit
of the year
1303. Good
Omen.
From Hulwan.

The beginning of the inscription is hard to make out, and I doubt whether רברבה is the correct reading. An alternative reading of the beginning of this inscription could be:

הזר ברכה (Persian-Hebrew:) A thousand blessings.

The trouble is that the last one letter looks distinctly like bet.

The two inscriptions could have been engraved at the same time, probably by two different hands. These are obviously inscriptions of the type of “Jimmy was here”. With luck we may be able to identify one of these two persons. The date is perfectly compatible with the Islamic-period names and, I believe, with the shape of the script.

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