Carnal Isræl: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture by Daniel Boyarin Page B
Authors: Daniel Boyarin
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the ultimate Babylonian attempt at a utopian resolution and justification for the local practice, attested to in the name of Rava, of husbands spending enormous quantities of time away from home to study Torah. It will be remembered that this practice is contrary to the express moral injunctions of both early Palestinian and Babylonian supreme authorities, who said that even with permission, husbands should not be away for more than a month at a time. 29 It stands, also, in contradiction to the view of Shmuel,
28. For a sensitive analysis of the differences between the two versions (which are irrelevant for my reading here), see Weller (1989, 10105). I find implausible, however, her assumption of a "nuclear story" that was elaborated in the two texts.
29. This contradiction was already remarked by the twelfth-century talmudic commentators, the Tosafists, who were puzzled at the fact that the Rabbis stay away from home for two or three years, in direct contradiction to the views of both Rav and Rabbi Yohanan. They reinterpret the clear meaning of the text in order to escape from this contradiction, while in my view the whole function of these stories is to neutralize Rav and Rabbi Yohanan, as explicitly noted by Rava himself, who is presented as citing the first one.
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another major Babylonian authority, to the effect that a Rabbi should sleep with his wife at least once a week. It is not surprising that, given the weight of halakhic and moral authority to be overcome, symbols with great cultural authority were necessary, and there is none greater in Jewish tradition than Rabbi Akiva. The thoroughly romantic quality of the story of his marriage to Rachel underscores dramatically how extremely disrupting the practice must have beena disruptiveness that is allowed place in all of the other stories but completely suppressed in the story of Rabbi Akiva. Twice, the story emphasizes the fact that the Rabbi had been given "permission" by his bride to be away for so long. The "solution" that the Babylonian Talmud produces is to create a system of enormous socio-cultural pressure on women to "voluntarily" renounce their rights. As we shall see below, this Babylonian innovation was vigorously contested from Palestine on near-feminist grounds. 30
Close reading of the story will show how it performs as narrative its ideological and cultural function of female subjugation and how its deployment of the romance genre is crucial as well. The key to my reading is the name, Rachel, which the tradition has universally (and with good textual warrant, as we will see) assigned to Rabbi Akiva's wife. This name, while quite common for Hebrew women, is also the usual word for ewe. 31 The entire story of the romance of Rabbi Akiva and Rachel is generated by one root metaphor: Akiva as the shepherd and Rachel as a ewe. Rabbi Akiva's relationship with his wife is figured in several ways as the relationship of a shepherd to a beloved ewe-lamb; the very site of their erotic idyll is a barn. Rachel's declaration that the "righteous [shepherd] knows the soul [desire] of his animal" is, in fact, the key moment in the story. The metaphor of male lover as shepherd and female beloved as ewe is, in fact, common in biblical discourse, used frequently as a figure for the relationship of God and Israel and appearing often in the Song of Songs. The story of Rabbi Akiva and Rachel is thus a plausible narrative development of a common biblical erotic metaphorical model.
30. That is, the opposition grows out of a representation of women's subjectivity (not that it is a presentation of actual women's subjectivity). See also below, n. 40.
31. Since Rachel's father, the quintessential fat cat, also has an emblematic name in this text, "Satisfied Dog," I do not think that reading Rachel's name as emblematic is overdrawn. Note that her name is only hinted at in the talmudic text, but so
28. For a sensitive analysis of the differences between the two versions (which are irrelevant for my reading here), see Weller (1989, 10105). I find implausible, however, her assumption of a "nuclear story" that was elaborated in the two texts.
29. This contradiction was already remarked by the twelfth-century talmudic commentators, the Tosafists, who were puzzled at the fact that the Rabbis stay away from home for two or three years, in direct contradiction to the views of both Rav and Rabbi Yohanan. They reinterpret the clear meaning of the text in order to escape from this contradiction, while in my view the whole function of these stories is to neutralize Rav and Rabbi Yohanan, as explicitly noted by Rava himself, who is presented as citing the first one.
< previous page
page_150
next page >
< previous page
page_151
next page >
Page 151
another major Babylonian authority, to the effect that a Rabbi should sleep with his wife at least once a week. It is not surprising that, given the weight of halakhic and moral authority to be overcome, symbols with great cultural authority were necessary, and there is none greater in Jewish tradition than Rabbi Akiva. The thoroughly romantic quality of the story of his marriage to Rachel underscores dramatically how extremely disrupting the practice must have beena disruptiveness that is allowed place in all of the other stories but completely suppressed in the story of Rabbi Akiva. Twice, the story emphasizes the fact that the Rabbi had been given "permission" by his bride to be away for so long. The "solution" that the Babylonian Talmud produces is to create a system of enormous socio-cultural pressure on women to "voluntarily" renounce their rights. As we shall see below, this Babylonian innovation was vigorously contested from Palestine on near-feminist grounds. 30
Close reading of the story will show how it performs as narrative its ideological and cultural function of female subjugation and how its deployment of the romance genre is crucial as well. The key to my reading is the name, Rachel, which the tradition has universally (and with good textual warrant, as we will see) assigned to Rabbi Akiva's wife. This name, while quite common for Hebrew women, is also the usual word for ewe. 31 The entire story of the romance of Rabbi Akiva and Rachel is generated by one root metaphor: Akiva as the shepherd and Rachel as a ewe. Rabbi Akiva's relationship with his wife is figured in several ways as the relationship of a shepherd to a beloved ewe-lamb; the very site of their erotic idyll is a barn. Rachel's declaration that the "righteous [shepherd] knows the soul [desire] of his animal" is, in fact, the key moment in the story. The metaphor of male lover as shepherd and female beloved as ewe is, in fact, common in biblical discourse, used frequently as a figure for the relationship of God and Israel and appearing often in the Song of Songs. The story of Rabbi Akiva and Rachel is thus a plausible narrative development of a common biblical erotic metaphorical model.
30. That is, the opposition grows out of a representation of women's subjectivity (not that it is a presentation of actual women's subjectivity). See also below, n. 40.
31. Since Rachel's father, the quintessential fat cat, also has an emblematic name in this text, "Satisfied Dog," I do not think that reading Rachel's name as emblematic is overdrawn. Note that her name is only hinted at in the talmudic text, but so
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