Teaching Aggadah , Tel-Aviv: the Mofet Institution, 2012

In a study I wrote on Imago Dei-the idea that man was created in the image of God-in early rabbinic literature, I noted that scholars tended to limit the scope of the tannaitic conception of Imago Dei to the realms of morality and halakhah. Nonetheless, scrutiny of references to Imago Dei in midrashic and talmudic literature indicates that the idea also extended to that part of talmudic literature that does not directly affect halakhic matters-namely, aggadah. The aggadic elaboration of Imago Dei is suffused with theological and theosophical significance. Moreover , a deeper look at the halakhic sources reveals that they are similarly suffused with these aspects. Talmudic literature presents a multifaceted conception of Imago Dei comprising anthropological, ethical, and political foundations, all reflected in both halakhah and aggadah. The variegated aspects of the idea are seamlessly interwoven, all deriving from their common theosophical core. This need not surprise us, as the conception of Imago Dei, in its most fundamental sense, is rooted first and foremost in "divine matters" (to use Maimonides' formulation). One of the conclusions of that study was that, at least with respect to the subject of Imago Dei, halakhah and aggadah are inseparably intertwined throughout talmudic literature.

The Lehrhaus, 2025

This article explores a pattern found predominantly in historical aggadot of the Babylonian Talmud, which are patterned after stories in Tanakh. The talmudic authors source and subvert these Biblical tropes in complex and surprising ways.

Revue des études juives, 2024

The characters of Abraham and Sarah are central to the rhetoric of the opponents of philosophy in the controversy that led to R. Solomon ben Adret’s famous 1305 ban. The hylomorphic interpretation of these characters actually derives from the alle- gorical interpretation of a Talmudic aggadah (BT Bava Batra 58a). This study reviews the interpretation of this aggadah by four Provençal and Spanish disciples of Maimonides who were active between the beginning of the thirteenth and the end of the fourteenth centuries – Moses Ibn Tibbon, Levi ben Abraham of Villefranche, Jedaiah Bedersi (ha-Penini) and Shem Tov Ibn Shaprut. It reveals the dynamics at work in the constitution of a post-Maimonidian allegorical exegetical tradition such as the authors mutual influencing each another and an ambivalent relationship with Christian exegesis. The need to respond to polemical uses of aggadic texts by Chris- tian authorities is often the reason given for violating Maimonides’ prohibition on explaining the allegorical meaning of aggadot. At the same time, both opponents and defenders of philosophy emphasize the proximity of philosophical-allegorical exegesis to Christian figurative exegesis.

Ajs Review-the Journal of The Association for Jewish Studies, 2006

The 1980's saw the introduction of postmodern literary theory into the field of rabbinic literature, in particular into the study of midrash, which now began to be explored as anticipating or aligning with many of the claims of modern literary theorists. This new interest intersected oddly at times with the prevailing historicist mode of inquiry, as, for many scholars, the notion of textual indeterminacy supported the idea of the interpreter of the text as essentially an "eisegete" who reads the text from his own, historically embedded perspective, rather than as an exegete, who at least attempts to find out what the text "really means." Thus, scholars who embraced this new perspective often rejected an inquiry into midrash as biblical interpretation in the classical sense of the word. "No one believes anymore," someone pointed out to me after a session on midrash in a conference in the mid-80's, "that texts have meaning."

The Tale of Ahiqar is an exemplary prototype of the literary category of “wisdom narrative” or “wisdom romance”. This type of work revolves around the life and adventures of a great sage; its storyline ultimately serves as a framework for the manifestations of the hero’s wisdom, which are inscribed within the narrative in the form of maxims and instructions placed on the hero’s lips, on one or another occasion of his career. In the earliest form of Ahiqar, preserved in Aramaic on a fifth century BCE papyrus, the long collection of the wise man’s sayings is appended at the end of the brief biographical narrative as a loose didactic coda. The individual items of the collection pertain to many different forms: maxims of general truth, precepts and commandments, proverbs, similes, and also small fables about personified animals or plants. No single genre dominates over the others. Thus, the transcription of Ahiqar’s sagacity provides a panorama of the multifarious forms of wisdom literature current in the ancient Near East. The wise hero himself embodies and personifies the entire canon of literary wisdom. In this respect, the original Aramaic text of Ahiqar is the heir of the age-old Mesopotamian tradition; the Sumerian “proverb collections” and their later Akkadian offshoots were similarly heterogeneous medleys, comprising all the various forms of wisdom literature, fables included. Although Ahiqar became a seminal work and exercised its influence on many subsequent wisdom narratives of the ancient and medieval world, the miscellaneous construction of its didactic part did not enjoy a notable posterity. In fact, this particular aspect was eliminated even from the subsequent transmission of Ahiqar. In the Syriac, Armenian, and other late versions of the work (apparently compiled from the fifth or sixth century CE onwards), the arrangement of the hero’s sayings is altered. The original single collection has been divided into two separate sections of didactic discourse, which are organically integrated at distinct points of the biographical storyline and are differentiated in terms of their contents and narrative function. The first series of sayings, mainly consisting of precepts about proper behaviour, is inserted shortly after the beginning of the narrative, as an illustration of the tuition offered by Ahiqar to his adopted son. The second sequence is anchored at the end of the narrative, when the ungrateful son is punished by Ahiqar for his perfidy. This group is limited to brief fables about insidious creatures and functions as a speech of accusation against the evil youth’s treachery, complementing his corporal tortures. The division and specialisation of the wisdom sections appear to have occurred early enough in the tradition of Ahiqar. A textual model with two separate sequences of sayings incorporated into the narrative is presupposed by the Greek adaptation of Ahiqar in the Life of Aesop (first or second century CE) and was perhaps also used by the author of Tobit. The reasons for this alteration of the didactic layout of Ahiqar were twofold. On one hand, in the later redactions of the work the narrative part was greatly expanded, turning from a short frame story for a collection of sayings into a fully-blown and suspenseful novelistic composition. In this new form, storytelling was the prime component and the wisdom elements became secondary. It was thus deemed necessary to subjugate the sayings to the storyline and integrate them smoothly and plausibly into the plot. On the other hand, from the Hellenistic age onwards, the fable tended towards a greater generic independence within the broader domain of wisdom literature. Specialised collections of fables were compiled and soon became the norm; the fable was thus effectively separated from the other, sententious and non-narrative forms of wisdom. In view of this literary-historical development, the old Mesopotamian tradition of multi-collective and omnifarious wisdom compilations, which had culminated with the original Ahiqar, would have been rendered obsolete.

2021

Diss. Abstract Rabbinic stories, Sephardic culture, Menorat Ha-Maor, Yitzhak Aboab, Yisrael al-Nakawa, Anthology, Aggadah and halakhah, Literary adaptation, Medieval literature, Rhymed prose, Introductions, Paratext, Cultural History, History and literature, Reception, Moral literature, Jewish folklore, Translation, Literary conventions, Babylonian Talmud, Hebrew print, Toledo, Castile

Literature of the Sages: A Re-visioning, 2022

This volume abandons the document-based approach of standard introductions and presents the major works of classical rabbinic Judaism as inter-related aggregates analyzed through three central themes. Part 1, “Intertextuality,” investigates the multi-directional relationships among rabbinic texts and between rabbinic and non-rabbinic Jewish sources. Part 2, “East and West” explores the impact on rabbinic texts of the cultures of the Hellenistic, Roman, and Christian West, and the Sasanian East. Part 3, “Halakha and Aggada,” interrogates the relationship of law and narrative in rabbinic sources. This bold volume uncovers alliances and ruptures -- textual, cultural, and generic -- obscured by document-based approaches to rabbinic literature, generating fresh insights that will reset the scholarly agenda.