Carnal Isræl: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (63 page)

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Authors: Daniel Boyarin

Tags: #Religion, #Judaism, #General

BOOK: Carnal Isræl: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture
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impure?" Rabbi Yohanan said, "From the time they are forged in the fire." Resh Lakish said, "From the time they are polished in the water.'' Rabbi Yohanan said, "A brigand is an expert in brigandry." He said to him, "What have you profited me? There they called me Rabbi and here they call me Rabbi!'' He became angry, and Resh Lakish became ill. His sister came to him and cried before him. She said, "Look at me!" He did not pay attention to her. "Look at the orphans!" He said to her, "Leave your orphans, I will give life" [Jer. 49:11]. "For the sake of my widowhood!" He said, "Place your widows' trust in me" [loc. cit.]. Resh Lakish died, and Rabbi Yohanan was greatly mournful over him. The Rabbis said, "What can we do to set his mind at ease? Let us bring Rabbi El'azar the son of Padat whose traditions are brilliant, and put him before him [Rabbi Yohanan]." They brought Rabbi El'azar the son of Padat and put him before him. Every point that he would make, he said, "There is a tradition which supports you." He said, "Do I need this one?! The son of Lakish used to raise twenty-four objections to every point that I made, and I used to supply twenty-four refutations, until the matter became completely clear, and all you can say is that there is a tradition which supports me?! Don't I already know that I say good things?" He used to go and cry out at the gates, "Son of Lakish, where are you?" until he became mad. The Rabbis prayed for him and he died.
And even so, Rabbi El'azar the son of Shim'on did not trust himself, perhaps God forbid, such an incident would befall him again. He accepted painful disease upon himself. In the evening, they used to fold under him sixty felt mats, and in the morning they would find under him sixty vessels full of blood and pus. His wife made him sixty kinds of relishes and he ate them. His wife would not let him go to the study-house, in order that the Rabbis would not reject him. In the evening, he said, "My brothers and companions [i.e., his pains], come!" In the morning, he said, "My brothers and companions, depart!" One day his wife heard him saying this. She said, "You bring them upon you. You have decimated the inheritance of my father's house." She rebelled and went to her family home. Sixty sailors came up from the sea and came to him carrying sixty purses and they made him sixty relishes, and he ate them. One day she said to her daughter, "Go see what your father is doing." He said to her, "Ours is greater than yours." He applied to himself the verse, "From afar she will bring her bread" [Proverbs 31:14].
One day he went to the study-house. They brought before him sixty kinds of blood, and he declared all of them pure. The Rabbis murmured
 
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about him, saying, "Is it possible that there is not even one doubtful case among those?" He said, "If I am right, let all of the children be boys, and if not, let there be one girl among them." All of them were boys. They were all named after Rabbi El'azar. Our Rabbi said, ''How much procreation did that wicked woman prevent from Israel!"
When he was dying, he said to his wife, "I know that the Rabbis are furious with me and will not take proper care of me. Let me lie in the attic and do not be afraid of me." Rabbi Shmuel the son of Rabbi Nahman said, "Rabbi Yohanan's mother told me that the wife of Rabbi El'azar the son of Rabbi Shim'on told her that 'not less than eighteen and not more than twenty-two [years] that he was in the attic, every day I went up and looked at his hair, when a hair was pulled out, blood would flow.
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One day I saw a worm coming out of his ear. I became very upset, and I had a dream in which he said to me that it is nothing, for one day he had heard a rabbinical student being slandered and had not protested as he should have.'" When a pair would come for judgment, they would stand at the door. One would say his piece and then the other would say his piece. A voice would come out of the attic and say, "I find for the plaintiff and not for the defendant." One day his wife was arguing with her neighbor. She said to her, ''May you be like your husband, who is not buried."
Some say that his father appeared to the Rabbis in a dream and said, "I have one chick that is with you, and you do not want to bring it to me."
The Rabbis went to take care of his burial, but the townspeople did not let them, because all of the time that Rabbi El'azar was lying in the attic, no wild animal came to their town. One day, it was the eve of Yom Kippur, and the people of the town were worried and they went to the grave of his father. They found a snake which was surrounding the opening of the tomb. They said, "Snake, snake, open your mouth and the son will come in unto his father."
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The snake opened for them. Our Rabbi sent to her to propose to her. She said, "A vessel which has been used for the holy, shall it be used for the profane?!"
There they say, "In the place where the master hangs his battle-ax, shall the shepherd hang his stick?!"
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He sent to her, "Indeed in Torah he was greater than me, but was he greater than me in deeds?" She sent to him, "As for Torah, I know nothing; you have told me, but as for deeds, I know, for he took upon himself suffering."
39. For hair that grows after death, see Satran (1989, 119).
40. Snakes protecting saints' tombs are a common feature of rabbinic legend.
41. The sexual imagery of both these proverbs is quite stark.
 
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As for Torah, what did he mean? When Rabban Shim'on the son of Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua the Bald used to sit on benches, Rabbi El'azar the son of Rabbi Shim'on and our Rabbi used to sit in front of them on the ground and ask and answer. And the Rabbis said, "We are drinking their water,
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and they sit on the ground!?" They built them benches and put them upon them. Rabban Shim'on ben Gamliel said, "I have one chick among you and you wish to cause him to be lost from me!"
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They moved Rabbi down again. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korha said, ''Shall he who has a father live, and he who has none shall die?!" They took Rabbi El'azar down as well. He became upset. He said, "They think we are equals. When they put him up, they put me up; when they put him down, they put me down." Until that day, when Rabbi would say something, Rabbi El'azar the son of Rabbi Shim'on used to say, "There is a tradition which supports you." From that day onward, when Rabbi said, ''This is my answer," Rabbi El'azar the son of Rabbi Shim'on said, "This is what you will answer; you have surrounded us with vain words, answers that are empty." Rabbi became upset. He came and told his father. He said, "Don't feel bad. He is a lion the son of a lion, and you are a lion the son of a fox." . . .
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Rabbi happened to come to the town of Rabbi El'azar the son of Rabbi Shim'on [after the latter's death]. He asked, "Does that righteous man have a son?" They answered, "He has a son, and any prostitute who is hired for two [coins], would pay eight for him." He brought him and ordained him "Rabbi" and gave him over to Rabbi Shim'on, the son of Issi, the son of Lakonia, the brother of his mother [to teach him Torah]. He taught him and spread a mantle over his head. Every day he would say, "I wish to return to my town." He said to him, "They call you 'sage,' and place a golden crown on your head, and call you 'Rabbi' and you say, 'I wish to return to my town'?!" He said to him, "Here is my oath that I leave that be." When he became great, he went and studied in the Yeshiva of Rabbi Shemaia. He heard his voice and said, "This one's voice is similar to the voice of Rabbi El'azar the son of Shim'on." They said to
42. A common figure for learning Torah from someone.
43. I.e., by distinguishing them as extremely talented children, you are attracting the Evil Eye to them.
44. There follow here stories about the sufferings that Rabbi took upon himself in order to "compete" for holiness with Rabbi El'azar, stories I will treat in another research project on mutilation and mortification of the flesh in Jewish culture.
 
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