7
(Re)producing Men
Constructing the Rabbinic Male Body
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 | Said Rabbi Yohanan, ''Rabbi Ishma'el the son of Yose's member was like a wineskin of nine kav; Rabbi El'azar the son of Rabbi Shim'on's member was like a wineskin of seven kav.'' Rav Papa said, "Rabbi Yohanan's member was like a wineskin of three kav." And there are those who say: like a wineskin of five kav. Rav Papa himself had a member which was like the baskets of Hipparenum.
(
Babylonian Talmud
Baba Metsia 84a)
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A learned discussion of traditions comparing the size of the penis of our hero with that of others of the Holy Rabbis is not something we expect to find in the Talmud.
2
In this chapter, we will be reading an extended narrative text that is entirely focused on the construction of maleness, and an anxious construction it is. Enormous phalli, particularly on clerics, inevitably remind one of Rabelais,
3
suggesting that our text is part of the grotesque tradition, associated so strongly by Bakhtin with cultural issues centering on procreation (Bakhtin 1984)and indeed, investigation of the text shows that the thematics of the material body, the body
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| | 1. This passage, as well as all of the text here, is translated from the best manuscript of this section of the Talmud, Hamburg 19.
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| | 2. It is so unexpected that nearly all commentators quite "interpret" it out of existence. The Aramaic word '
evreh
means exactly "member" and can refer, just as in English, to various parts of the body. Accordingly, some interpreters claim that the reference here is to the innards, while others say it is to arms or legs. However, as in English, the word when unqualified otherwise commonly means
membrum virile
. As we shall see, this interpretation is the one strongly suggested by the context. As a hedge, however, let me say that even should my interpretation of this word be less certain than I think it to be, my argument in this chapter would not be appreciably weakened, because there is enough left in the text to support the overall reading.
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| | 3. Apparently not so inevitably, since an anonymous reader remarked that he or she found nothing of the grotesque in this text at all!
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