Rabbinic Fantasies: Imaginative Narratives From Classical Hebrew Literature (review)

Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 372 Reviews tions. much information, and good stories from out-of-the-way sources. But for me. the central notion of this book. that Jewish stories today evolved from the stories of the rabbis which themselves were a retelling of the stories of the Bible. is either a commonplace that needs no proof or an idea of considerable merit that needs to be explored in depth. not just stated. Schwartz has only begun to do so. Judith Hauptman Jewish Theological Seminary New York, NY 10027 juhauptman@jtsa.edu RABBINIC FANTASIES: IMAGINATIVE NARRATIVES FROM CLASSICAL HEBREW LITERATURE. David Stem and Mark J. Mirsky, eds. Yale Judaica Series. pp. ix + 364. Yale University Press. 1998. Paper, $16.00. Rabbinic Fantasies invites the reader to take a ride through the variegated terrain of classical Hebrew literature. It gives great pause to texts falling somewhat off the beaten track, the less heretofore traversed lands of medieval Hebrew (and Aramaic) literatures. The collection begins with an informative and thought provoking introduction by David Stem, one of the contributing editors. It concludes with an inspiring and beautifully woven meditation on Jewish literature by Mark J. Mirsky, the book's other contributing editor. In between the beginning and afterword, sixteen chapters spanning seventeen hundred years of Jewish literary creativity are impressively translated and mapped out for the reader, specialists and enthusiasts alike. In the introduction, Stem gives a brief outline of the vast storehouses of early Jewish narratives. He aptly describes the ways in which they were embedded in Rabbinic literature-in all its various forms-and thus to some extent. overlooked as narratives in their own right. He writes, "although narrative as a literary form pervades Jewish literature, it has generally not been recognized as such, and when it has, its status has typically suffered diminishment" (p. 5). He cautions the reader that "the line separating the religious from the secular, or the sacred from the profane, is blurred in classical and medieval Judaism" (p. 4). He further warns the contemporary reader of the dangers involved in using modem categories of literature as a means of classifying the narratives, which he calls "imaginative fictions," collected here. Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 373 Reviews These fmal two points, the relationship between the sacred and the profane and the relationship between pre-modem Jewish literature and modem literature, form the backbone of this anthology. What lies at the book's heart, however, is the claim that these "imaginative fictions" or "rabbinic fantasies" are exceptional. Granted that these texts deserve special attention, but it should also be noted that since much "fantasy" is also found in classical midrashic and talmudic writings, one may rightfully pose the question just how exceptional are these samples? The answer, I suspect, is one of degree. There is no argument that most of the medieval texts presented here are more extensive than their literary ancestors in the Talmud and Midrash; I only wish to acknowledge the relationship. Indeed, the first two chapters of Rabbinic Fantasies set out to establish precisely such a relationship. Finally, although Stern writes that these fantasies "may not possess their own continuous history," the reader is certainly encouraged by the contents of this collection-simply in that they are presented together, in chronological order-to try to compose such a history and to chart his or her own map. One may wish to draw the road as perilous, with hairpin turns and sudden steep drops, or one may draw it as a steady, slow winding but easy to follow route. Of course, one may also find himself or herself at a dead end. History, literary history, may well be in the eye of the reader. It is a credit to the editors that they understand this. Stern writes, "if the works represented in this volume do not in the end form a self-contained tradition ; if they remain a heterogeneous group, each composed within its own set of conditions, their collective totality nonetheless attests to the persistence of narrative as a modality of the Jewish imagination" (p. 28). After the introduction, when reading the selected texts, the reader enters into a world of wonder. One encounters a...