When the Rabbi Weeps: On Reading Gender in Talmudic Aggadah

WHEN THE RABBI WEEPS: ON READING GENDER IN TALMUDIC AGGADAH Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert Introduction: Framing the Story One of the most famous aggadot in talmudic literature, and probably the most discussed in talmudic and general Jewish scholarship,1 is the story of the "Oven of Akhnai." Both the Palestinian Talmud (Mo'ed katan 3:1, 81c-d) and the Babylonian Talmud (Baba metzia 58b-59b) provide versions of it, embedded in different contexts. In the Babylonian Talmud's version, on which this paper will focus, the story is attached to a mishnah2 in which Rabbi Eliezer disagrees with the sages about the capacity of a certain oven to render items ritually impure or not. Interestingly, the talmudic story focuses on the manner in which the discussion between them is carried out rather than on the question of the halakhic nature of the oven itself. Not only is the ultimate reason for the mishnaic disagreement obscured; even the question of why the talmudic story-tellers attach the story to this mishnaic disagreement rather than to any other mishnaic disagreement between Rabbi Eliezer and the sages remains unanswered.3 Thus, Rabbi Eliezer invokes miracles to support his opinion - a jumping carob tree, backward-flowing water, the inclining walls of the beit midrash4 in which the Talmud locates the discussion, and finally a voice from heaven, proofs that end up being rejected by his rabbinic colleagues. Meanwhile, the substance of Rabbi Eliezer's opinion is rendered completely irrelevant. The discussion ends with the seeming victory of the sages. This victory provides them with a conceptual basis for their hermeneutic and legal authority, culled midrashically from biblical verses: "it is not in heaven" (Deut. 30:12) - turning the Torah into the referent of the biblical phrase; and "incline after the majority" (Ex. 23:2) - in halakhic decision-making.5 The talmudic editors6 then seal the argumentary victory of the sages, not 56 Nashim:A Journal ofJewish Womeni Studies and GenderIssues, no. 4. © 2001 On Reading Gender in Talmudic Aggadah only over Rabbi Eliezer but ultimately over God himself, by adding a coda in which Rabbi Natan meets Elijah the prophet, who reports that God "smiled and said, 'My sons have defeated me [nitzhuni banai], my sons have defeated me'" (BT Baba metzia 59b).7 In the continuation ofthe story Rabbi Eliezer is banned from the community of sages in the beit midrash. What has been ignored by all readings and interpretations of the story so far, even by those that have paid more careful attention to the literary context of the story in the talmudic sugya,% is the thread of gender, which the editors carefully wove into the fabric of the sugya and therefore the talmudic framing of the story. It may be objected that at least overtly the story as we have summarized it above does not seem to thematize gender at all. However, its talmudic framers repeatedly foreground issues of gender and gender relations. As we shall see, they focus on the question of verbal abuse or shaming and on the grave dangers that such an act poses to human relations, and not merely between men who are engaged in Torah learning, but specifically between husband and wife. It is here, in the realm of emotions in human relationships, that the talmudic framers invoke gender as one of the lenses through which to read the story. Thus, they provide the readers of the story itself with motifs, themes and questions which they will bring with them as they enter into the narrative world of the story and embark on the project of decoding its meaning(s). Here I follow in principle Jeffrey Rubenstein's insistence that decontextualized readings of the story will run the risk of missing important layers of meaning because they neglect the work of the editors of the story, who regarded it as part of a larger coherent whole, the sugya.9 The main purpose of this paper, therefore, is to present a reading of the story in its talmudic and larger cultural context which accounts for the gendering of the debate between Rabbi Eliezer and the sages. The goal of reading gender in talmudic aggadah here is first...