It's a Roman … it's a Persian … it's Rabbi Meir!: Secret Identities and the Rabbinic Self in the Babylonian Talmud

What kinds of leaders were the late antique Babylonian rabbis? What kinds of heroes did they think they were? This paper explores Talmudic narratives about heroic rabbis using insights from modern superhero studies. What does it mean to see the Babylonian rabbis as superheroes? According to Peter Coogan's popular definition, a superhero is

A heroic character with a selfless, pro-social mission; with superpowers—extraordinary abilities, advanced technology, or highly developed physical, mental, or mystical skills; who has a superhero identity embodied in a codename and iconic costume, which typically express his¹ biography, character, powers or origin (transformation from ordinary person to superhero); and who is generally distinct, i.e. can be distinguished from characters of related genres (fantasy, science fiction, detective, etc.) by a preponderance of generic conventions. Often superheroes have dual identities, the ordinary one of which is usually a closely guarded secret.²

Though Coogan ignores the gender diversity inherent in the modern world of superheroes, he notes a range of commonalities across superheroes that shape what it means to be a superhero. But there are actually two kinds of superheroes.³ There are figures like Batman—Batman's true identity is the all-too-human Bruce Wayne, an identity that he hides when he puts on his Batman costume and gets in the Batmobile to save Gotham City. An ordinary human making himself extraordinary through a costume. Then there are figures like Superman. Superman really is Kal-El, the alien child from Krypton who has extraordinary powers here on Earth. Superman hides this identity when he dresses up as Clark Kent to earn a paycheck and date Lois Lane. He is an extraordinary being disguising himself as ordinary. Yet both types of superhero are selfless, exceptional, have multiple identities, and exist in particular literary contexts.

Indeed, superheroes' commonalities move beyond the surface. As Jeph Loeb and Tom Morris have noted, "The stories of these characters embody our deepest hopes and fears, as well as our highest aspirations, and … can help us deal with our worst nightmares. They chart out questions we'll all have to face in the future. And they shed new light on our present condition."⁴ Superheroes function in similar ways in our collective imagination, reflecting a particular imagined past as they also shape the range of futures that are possible.

When we think of the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud, we do not tend to think of them as masked men in tights, flying about ancient Babylonian cities. And indeed, they were not superheroes in the modern sense. But the rabbis did think of themselves as exceptional, as heroes, and even as superheroes relative to ordinary people with their ordinary abilities. Their actions entailed developed physical and mystical skills, self-sacrifice, pro-social agendas, and special titles ("rabbi"), though spandex had not yet been invented. And as superheroes, they took their self-imposed responsibility for the Jewish people seriously. Their stories also served to model one way to live in a complex and often hostile world in which few had political and economic power. They offered one vision of the Jewish past and present that had the potential to shape a rabbinic future.

The rabbis of Late Antiquity lived in two geographic regions, at the whims of two major forces: the Sasanian Empire and the Roman Empire. The land of Israel was part of the Roman Empire, which was at times hostile to its religious minorities. Babylonia was a part of the Sasanian Empire, which largely had a policy of toleration of religious minorities. And yet, even in Sasanian Babylonia, the rabbis were aware that they were at the mercy of mercurial kings and administrators.⁵ In a world in which imperial policies were set by a dynastic ruler, the rabbis of both regions were very aware that each ruler brought the potential for radically new and destructive policies. The rabbis had many ways of mediating this danger: prayer, bribery, respect, and subterfuge. To achieve their aims—like all superheroes—the rabbis...