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Reconsidering Roman power

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Katell Berthelot

The impact of Roman power upon Judaism

Roman power through Rabbinic eyes: tragedy or comedy?

Christine Hayes

Résumé

This paper considers the impact of Roman power on the rabbinic perception of history. It argues that while many rabbis continued to view history as a divine comedy arcing towards a happy ending, some suspected that they were players in a dark tragedy. This tragic view, prompted by the encounter with Roman brutality, finds expression in Elisha ben Abuyah’s declaration that there is no moral order to the universe and no resurrection of the dead (p. Ḥag 2:1); in the ministering angels’ outrage over the execution of R. Akiva (b. Ber 61b); in God’s response to the same outrage expressed by Moses (b. Men 29b); and in Rav’s view of the ultimate fate of Rome and Persia (b. Yoma 10a). Interpreted through the lens of the ancient fraternal rivalry between Jacob and Esau, Roman power awakened a deep-seated fear that Esau’s alienated birthright was being restored at Jacob’s expense. Rabbinic anxiety over the identity of the chosen son and the blurred moral distinction between these twinned peoples, is featured in two eschatological fantasies: one in which God behaves like a cruel Roman tyrant (b. AvodZar 2a-3b) and another in which David – that most Roman of Israelite kings – is elevated, against all moral logic, over the pious heroes of old (b. Pes 119a).

Entrées d'index

Texte intégral

Introduction

  • 1 To cite just a few of the dozens of occasions on which the epithet "wicked kingdom" is applied to (...)

1It is widely assumed that the political and material success of Rome – the quintessentially "wicked kingdom"1 – did not destroy rabbinic confidence in two related principles: (a) the existence of a moral order and (b) the perception of history as a divine comedy arcing towards a happy ending, if not in this world then in the eschaton. This confident perspective is exemplified by R. Akiva in a passage from a 3rd century Palestinian biblical commentary, Sifre to Deuteronomy. Four rabbis come to the Temple Mount and see a fox emerging from the ruins. Three weep but R. Akiva laughs.

Sifre Deuteronomy 43
Another time, they [R. Gamliel, R. Elazar b. Azariah, R. Joshua, and R. Akiva] were going up to Jerusalem. When they reached Mount Scopus, they rent their clothes. When they came to the Temple Mount and saw a fox running out of the (ruined) building of the Holy of Holies they [the three companions of R. Akiva] began to weep, while R. Akiva laughed. They said to him, "Akiva, you always astonish us – we are weeping, yet you laugh!" He replied, "Why are you weeping?" They said to him, "Should we not weep when a fox emerges from the place of which it is written ‘And the commoner that encroaches shall be put to death’ (Num 1:51)? This is indeed how the verse, ‘Because of this our hearts are sick, because of these our eyes are dimmed: Because of Mount Zion, which lies desolate; foxes prowl over it’ (Lam 5:17-18), has been fulfilled for us." He said to them, "This is precisely why I laughed, for it is said, ‘And call reliable witnesses, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Yeberechiah, to witness for me’ (Isa 8:2). Now what is the connection between Uriah and Zechariah? Uriah said, ‘Zion shall be plowed as a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins, and the Temple Mount a shrine in the woods’ (Jer 26:18). What did Zechariah say? ‘Thus said the Lord of Hosts: There shall yet be old men and women in the squares of Jerusalem,’ etc. (Zech 8:4). Said God, ‘These are My two witnesses’ – if the words of Uriah are fulfilled, so will the words of Zechariah be fulfilled; if the words of Uriah are annulled, so will the words of Zechariah be annulled. I rejoice that the words of Uriah have been fulfilled, [because this means that] in the end the words of Zechariah will be fulfilled" (לסוף שדברי זכריה עתידים לבוא). They said to him "Akiva you have comforted us".

2R. Akiva laughs at the destruction inflicted by Roman power because he views it as but one tragic episode in a larger divine comedy that will end well ("in the end the words of Zechariah will be fulfilled"). But is this the only account of history’s arc that we find in rabbinic texts? What about his fellow rabbis who, upon witnessing the same tragic scene, begin to weep? Are they merely a literary foil for R. Akiva? Or has the brutal Roman regime placed a permanent dent in the plotline of history in their eyes, forcing it downward towards an ultimately tragic conclusion? That is the question to be explored in this paper: What impact did Roman power have on the rabbinic perception of history? Did the rabbis continue to view history as a divine comedy arcing towards a happy ending, or did some suspect that they were players in a dark tragedy?

This is Torah and this is its reward?

  • 2 Frye 1963, p. 25.
  • 3 For a full discussion of the characteristic features of "comedy" as opposed to "tragedy" and their (...)

3Before proceeding any further, a word on terminology is in order. As defined by Northrop Frye, comedy is distinguished at the most basic level by its U-shaped plot line.2 An initially harmonious, integrated situation is disrupted by actions and events that can range from mildly troubling to profoundly tragic, but then the plot line suddenly turns upward towards reintegration and a happy ending. By contrast, the plotline in tragedy – despite moments of comic relief – follows a steady downward progression ending with a fallen hero, disintegration, alienation and even death.3 Thus the patriarchal narrative running from Genesis 12-50, for example, may be described as a divine comedy – beginning in relative harmony and ending in re-integration despite such suspenseful, dark, and tragic episodes as the expulsion of Ishmael, the near slaughter of Isaac, the rape of Dinah, the plot against Joseph, and more.

  • 4 Hadas-Lebel 1984, p. 370.
  • 5 For the idea of Rome as a "symbolic power" that "would continue to design the experience of the Jew (...)

4In Genesis 25, God had promised that the elder (Esau) would serve the younger (Jacob). And yet it was Esau, understood by the rabbis as Rome, who had triumphed in the world, amassing material wealth and power, and ruling by the sword.4 The Romans had destroyed the Temple, burned the sanctuary, brutally put down the Bar Kokhba rebellion, and sent Jews into exile. What, then, of the divine promise that the elder brother would serve the younger? Had Roman power exposed this promise and, indeed, the very idea of a moral order, as a lie? This problem gripped not only those Jews with a first-hand experience of subjugation to Roman rule in Palestine, but also Babylonian rabbis who observed it from a safer distance. The problem of Roman power did not stop at the borders of the empire.5

5Of course, the problem of evil triumphant was not new, and biblical tradition had already developed responses to its version of the problem, following the destruction of the first temple by the Babylonians. According to one well-known explanation, the Babylonians were the instrument of God’s divine plan, proof of his power rather than the opposite. Summoning them from the ends of the earth to punish and purify his sinful people, God demonstrated his control of universal history; in due time, he would restore Israel and wreak vengeance on those he had previously used as his disciplining rod. We are all players, then, in a divine comedy.

  • 6 Hadas-Lebel 1984, p. 374.
  • 7 Ibid., p. 391.

6In their quest to justify Roman power, many Second Temple Jewish texts and rabbinic sources adopt and modify this biblical trope. Like the earthly dominance enjoyed by the Babylonians in their day, Rome’s temporal power is seen as part of a divine plan. In the Qumran pesharim, for example, the Romans are depicted as divine agents punishing the wicked in Israel. But increasingly, the happy ending of this divinely orchestrated story is deferred to the next world. Mireille Hadas-Lebel points to 4 Ezra for the view, symbolically expressed, that although Rome reigns in this world, Israel’s hope lies in the imminent arrival of the world to come when "Jacob" will finally reign (6:8-10).6 Reading the birth story in Genesis 25 as an indication that Esau would hold power first, rabbinic sources likewise conceded political sovereignty to Rome in this world, while looking to the eschatological future as the time when Rome would be avenged by the divine sword and Israel would reign supreme.7

  • 8 Ibid., p. 385.
  • 9 Ibid., p. 369.
  • 10 Hoffman, 1971, passim.
  • 11 Hadas-Lebel, 1984, p. 387.

7Hadas-Lebel is representative of a broad scholarly consensus when she asserts that for the rabbis, the supremacy of Rome could not be attributed to divine caprice.8 It had to have moral justification which explains the utter vilification of Esau in rabbinic midrash.9 This vilification was facilitated by an abundance of post-exilic biblical prophecies directed against Edom as the most hated people and symbol of absolute evil.10 According to Hadas-Lebel, the rabbis’ unfailing faith in divine providence made no allowance for anything other than a happy ending,11 when the wicked Esau/Edom/Rome would receive his just deserts.

8But is this indeed the case? Sifre Deuteronomy 43 presents a more tragic view in the weeping lament of R. Akiva’s interlocutors. This tragic view of history becomes explicit in the following story from the Palestinian Talmud (or Yerushalmi). In p. Ḥagigah 2:1, 77b-c the murderous devastation wrought by Rome is witnessed by one Elisha ben Abuyah, and his reaction is precisely the opposite of R. Akiva’s.

  • 12 Following the Leiden manuscript.
  • 13 The phrase in brackets, which appears in the Venice printed edition, is a marginal gloss in the Lei (...)

p. Ḥagigah 2:1, 77b-c12
Some say [his apostasy happened] because he saw the tongue of R. Yehuda the Baker dripping blood in the mouth of a dog. He said, "This is Torah and this is its reward? This is the tongue that used to bring forth fitting words of Torah? This is the tongue that labored in Torah all its days? [This is Torah and this is its reward?]13 It seems that there is no giving of reward and there is no resurrection of the dead."

ויש אומ' ע"י שראה לשונו של רבי יהודה הנחתום נתון בפי הכלב שותת דם אמר זו תורה וזו שכרה זהו הלשון שהיה
מוציא דברי תורה כתיקנן זה הוא הלשון שהיה יגיע בתורה כל ימיו זו תורה וזו שכרה דומה שאין מתן שכר ואין תחיית המתים

9The murder of R. Yehudah the Baker at the hands of the Romans elicits from Elisha b. Abuyah not mere weeping, but a moral outrage worthy of Job: such Torah, such piety, such obedience to the will of God, and this is the reward he receives – to be dismembered and to have his tongued carried by dogs through the ruins of Jerusalem? But Elisha does not merely articulate the moral challenge; he draws what appears to him to be the only logical conclusion: the death of the righteous is proof that there is no moral order and no happy ending. Sifre Deuteronomy 43’s dueling perspectives of history as divine comedy (R. Akiva) or tragedy (his weeping interlocutors) is here recast in explicitly moral terms – is there a moral order that will guarantee a happy ending, or is there none, in which case we live in a random and fundamentally tragic universe?

10There are only two other occurrences of the phrase "This is Torah and this is its reward?" (zo Torah vezo sekharah?!) in all of classical rabbinic literature and both are in the Babylonian Talmud (or Bavli). It is surely significant that in all three occurrences of the phrase, the context is a face to face encounter with Roman power in its most violent and brutal form: the murder of the righteous. In the Yerushalmi, the phrase is applied by Elisha ben Abuyah to the death of R. Yehudah the Baker as we have just seen; in the Bavli the phrase is twice applied to the death of R. Akiva.

  • 14 Following ms. Oxford Bodleian, Opp. Add. Fol 23 and ms. Paris 671.4.
  • 15 Ms. Munich and the printed edition add here: "they were combing his flesh with iron combs".
  • 16 The following lines appear in the printed edition, but are not attested in any manuscripts: "A heav (...)

b. Berakhot 61b14
I. When R. Akiva was taken out for execution, it was the hour for the recital of the shema [prayer], and15 he focused his mind on accepting upon himself the kingship of heaven [i.e., the recitation of the shema]. His disciples said to him, "Our teacher, even to this point?!" He said to them, "All my days I have been expounding this verse, ‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,’ [as]: even if they take your soul. Now that I have the opportunity, shall I not fulfill it?"
He did not finish saying it until his soul departed on the word ead ["one," which is the final word of the shema].16
II. The ministering angels said before the Holy One, blessed be He: "This is Torah and this is its reward? [He should have been] ‘of those that die by Your hand, O Lord’" (Ps 17:14) [i.e., he should have experienced a gentle death].
He replied to them: "Their portion is in life" (ibid.).

A heavenly voice went forth and proclaimed, "Happy are you, R. Akiva, that you are destined for the life of the world to come."

אמרו כשהוציאו את ר' עקיבא להריגה זמן קרית שמע היה והיה מכוון דעתו שיקבל עול מלכות שמים באהבה אמרו לו תלמידיו רבינו עד כאן אמר להם כל ימי הייתי דורש את המקרא הזה ואהבת את י"י אלהיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך אפילו נוטלין את נשמתך ועכשיו שבא לידי לא אקיימנו אמרו לא הספיק לגמור את הדבר עד שיצתה נשמתו באחד אמרו מלאכי השרת לפני הקב"ה רבונו של עולם זו תורה וזו שכרה (תהלים יז, יד) ממתים ידך י"י ממתים וגו' אמר להם חלקם בחיים יצתה בת קול ואמרה אשריך ר"ע שאתה מזומן לחיי העולם הבא

  • 17 For a brilliant and thorough analysis of the Bavli storyteller’s mobilization of an array of earlie (...)

11B. Berakhot 61b contains the Bavli’s version of the martyrdom of R. Akiva. The story has been analyzed by many scholars from a variety of angles and there is no need to duplicate their findings here.17 Our focus is on the reaction of those astonished by the morally incongruous picture of piety extinguished by depravity, and on how the story, in representing that reaction, borrows from and adapts the Yerushalmi’s story of Elisha ben Abuyah.

  • 18 See previous note.
  • 19 On two other occasions in the Bavli (b. Sanhedrin 101a and b. Avodah Zarah 20a), R. Akiva laughs in (...)
  • 20 Mandel 2014, p. 318, 334.
  • 21 Ibid., p. 346-348.
  • 22 Tropper 2011, p. 131-132.

12As demonstrated by both Mandel and Tropper,18 the Bavli’s story of the martyrdom of R. Akiva is a creative reworking and recombination of earlier Palestinian materials. Part I is comparable to the story in the Yerushalmi but with significant modifications. In the Yerushalmi’s tale, as in the story of the fox among the ruins, R. Akiva is a gelastic hero: he laughs in the face of the devastation wrought by Roman power (including now his own death).19 While others witnessing the same scene see only tragedy, he is convinced that he is participating in a divine comedy with a happy ending. The Bavli’s storyteller, however, wipes the smile off Akiva’s face. This erasure contributes to the tale’s transformation from a political drama in which R. Akiva’s laughter is wielded as a weapon against his ruthless tormentor20 into a martyrological tale in which R. Akiva models a devout and passionate love for God. Completing the transformation is Part II, which depicts a heavenly dialogue about the pious rabbi’s death and raises explicitly the problem of theodicy. As Mandel21 and Tropper22 have both shown, Part II consists of a pastiche of motifs and phrases found elsewhere in rabbinic literature. Most important for our purposes, the tragic instinct of Elisha ben Abuyah in p. Ḥagigah 2:1, 77b-c is spliced into the story of Akiva’s martyrdom, and this time the rhetorical question – "this is Torah and this is its reward?" – is not the private rumination of a heretic. It is an accusation posed directly to God by no less than the ministering angels: this is how you run things, God? It’s outrageous! Great Torah should bring equally great reward, and instead we find torture and death! Where is the moral order?

  • 23 Kraemer 1995, p. 170-171.

13In p. Ḥagigah 2:1, 77b-c, Elisha himself answers this question in a tragic manner: there is no moral order and no resurrection of the dead. As David Kraemer has argued,23 the author of the story inoculates himself against the danger inherent in expressing such an idea by relegating it to the arch heretic Elisha, and the view attains no outside confirmation by any reputable character. By contrast, the Bavli’s story provides an answer to the question that rescues a happy ending. Using a phrase found also in b. Ta’anit 29a, b. Avodah Zarah 17a, and b. Ketubbot 103b, God responds to the angels’ accusation by reassuring them that R. Akiva is destined for a place in the world-to-come. Our happy ending remains intact and like R. Akiva’s interlocutors in the story of the fox among the ruins, we are comforted.

14The tannaitic debate over history as divine comedy or tragedy (implied in Sifre Deuteronomy 43) and the heretic’s rumination that the lack of a moral order gives history its tragic cast (explicit in p. Ḥagigah 2:1, 77b-c), has been transferred to the heavens. Now it is the angels who upon witnessing Roman cruelty demand to know: is there a moral order that will lead to a happy ending, or is there not, in which case we live in a random and tragic universe? Put into the mouths of those loyal servants, the ministering angels, the charge of amoral governance in the face of Rome’s destructive power, gains some traction. To be sure, the charge is here refuted by God – the happy ending is preserved by being deferred to the next world. But in a third text, the charge of amoral governance is not refuted and we are not comforted.

15The third and final passage to employ the accusatory question "this is Torah and this is its reward?" depicts Moses’ visit to the schoolhouse of R. Akiva – another well-known and often analyzed story. Dazzled by R. Akiva’s exegetical pyrotechnics, Moses wonders why God has chosen to give the Torah through him instead of R. Akiva. In a coda, Moses asks God to show him Akiva’s reward.

  • 24 Following ms. Paris AIU H147A.

b. Menaḥot 29b24
…Thereupon he returned to the Holy one, Blessed be He and said to Him, "Lord of the Universe, you have such a man and you are giving the Torah by me?!" He replied, "Be silent, for so it occurred to me [lit., that’s what popped into my mind]."
[Moses] said to him, "Lord of the Universe, you have shown me his Torah, now show me his reward." He replied to him, "Turn around." And Moses saw them weighing out R. Akiva’s flesh in the market place. Moses said to Him, "Lord of the Universe, that was his Torah and this is his reward!?" And He replied, "Be silent, for so it occurred to me."

חזר ובא לפני הק' אמ' לפניו רבונו של עולם יש לך אדם כזה ואתה נותן תורה על ידי א' לו שתוק כך במחשבה לפני א' לפניו רבונו של עולם הראיתני תורתו הראיני שכרו אמ' לו חזור לאחורך חזר לאחוריו ראה ששוקלין בשרו במקולין אמ׳ לפניו רבונו של עולם זו תורה וזו שכרה א' לו שתוק כך עלתה במחשבה לפני

  • 25 Tropper 2011, p. 132-133 discusses the relationship of p. Ḥagigah 2:1, 77b-c to b. Menaḥot 29b and (...)

16When God shows him R. Akiva’s flesh being weighed in the marketplace, Moses reacts exactly as the angels reacted upon seeing the execution of Akiva and as Elisha reacted upon seeing the tongue of a Torah scholar being carried through the streets by a dog: "This is Torah and this is its reward?" Unlike Elisha, Moses does not answer his own question. Like the angels, he awaits God’s response. Astonishingly, however, God does not give to Moses the answer he gave to the angels when answering precisely the same question on precisely the same occasion, the martyrdom of R. Akiva. When the angels raised the moral problem in Berakhot, God offered assurance of a happy ending. But this time his answer veers towards the tragic answer of Elisha ben Abuyah: "Be silent, for so it occurred to me!" No questions, Moses. That’s just how it is.25

  • 26 Kraemer 1995, p. 169-171, provides an excellent discussion of these sources in the general context (...)

17This is the only time in rabbinic literature that this exact phrase "for so it occurred to me" (kakh altah bamashavah lefanay) occurs as first-person speech attributed to God and it implies a whim, a caprice, a random or arbitrary thought. We find two instances of the closely related phrase, "so it occurred to the Holy One, Blessed be He" (kakh alah beda‘ato shel haQadosh barukh hu), in two narrative texts – Genesis Rabbah 44 and Pesikta Rabbati 21. In these cases, too, the larger context concerns God’s governance of history; specifically, his seemingly arbitrary election of Israel and rejection of the other nations is deemed arbitrary rather than rationally or morally motivated. Thus, the phrase "Be silent, for so it occurred to me" in b. Menaḥot 29b denies a moral order and hints at the random and arbitrary nature of Rome’s cruel dominion over Israel, of power’s triumph over piety. Presented as the marginal view of a heretic in the Yerushalmi, this tragic perspective on history is echoed by the ministering angels in b. Berakhot 61b and finally endorsed by God himself in b. Menaḥot 29b.26

Rome, the spoiler

18This triad of themes regarding Roman power – that it defies moral logic, that it undermines belief in a happy ending, and that it suggests an arbitrary or capricious god – can be seen in a passage (or sugya) in b. Yoma 10a.

  • 27 A Palestinian rabbinic tradition that some scholars trace to the Second Temple period, for which se (...)

19In the first part of the sugya, the view that Persia will ultimately conquer Rome27 is stated in the name of two early Palestinian amoraim. One provides Scriptural proof. The second asserts Persia’s defeat of Rome as a matter of moral logic: the Persians defeated the nation that destroyed the first temple (the Babylonians); all the more so will they defeat the nation that destroyed the temple which the Persians themselves built – the second temple. In other words, Persia will prevail over Rome because the Persians have the double merit not only of having punished an earlier temple destroyer but also of having built the second temple. According to the moral logic of the divine comedy of history, it is inevitable that the wicked Romans should fall to the more virtuous Persians.

20An alternative view is then advanced by Rav: no, it is Persia that, against all moral logic, will fall to Rome.

  • 28 Following the printed edition in order to highlight editorial insertions in the discussion to follo (...)

b. Yoma 10a28
R. Joshua b. Levi in the name of Rabbi said: Rome is destined to fall into the hand of Persia, as it is said…

Rabbah b. Bar Ḥana in the name of R. Yoḥanan, on the authority of R. Judah b. Ila'i, said: Rome is destined to fall into the hands of Persia, and it follows a fortiori: If in the case of the first temple, which the sons of Shem [Israel] built and the Chaldeans destroyed, the Chaldeans fell into the hands of the Persians, then how much more should it be, in the case of the second temple which the Persians built and the Romans destroyed, that the Romans should fall into the hands of the Persians.
Rab said: Persia will fall into the hands of Rome. Thereupon R. Kahana and R. Assi asked of Rab: [Shall] the builders fall into the hands of the destroyers? — He said to them: Yes, it is a decree of the King (גזירת מלך)…

אמר רבה בר בר חנה אמר רבי יוחנן משום ר 'יהודה בר אלעאי עתידה רומי שתפול ביד פרס קל וחומר ומה מקדש ראשון שבנאוהו בני שם והחריבוהו כשדיים נפלו כשדיים ביד פרסיים מקדש שני שבנאוהו פרסיים והחריבוהו רומיים אינו דין שיפלו רומיים ביד פרסיים אמר רב עתידה פרס שתפול ביד רומי אמרו ליה רב כהנא ורב אסי לרב בנויי ביד סתורי אמר להו אין גזירת מלך היא

  • 29 Gezerot, decrees or edicts, are associated with God in two ways in the midrash. The Torah itself (o (...)

21Rav’s view defies the moral logic asserted in the first part of the sugya and is immediately contested on those grounds – will those who built the second temple (the Persians) fall to those who destroyed it (the Romans)? The question is reminiscent of zo torah vezo sekharah? Rav’s answer, simple and to the point, upsets our expectations – yes, in fact, victory will go to the morally undeserving and it is a decree of the king (gezerat hamelekh), a phrase used in rabbinic literature to describe laws or rulings that have no rational or moral explanation. Such rulings are brute facts, expressions of a sovereign will or whim.29

22Rav’s amoral position is unsettling and in the remainder of the sugya, the sugya’s editor attempts to preserve history’s happy ending by providing the missing moral explanation for Rav’s unexpected assertion that Rome will defeat Persia.

b. Yoma 10a (cont.)
Others say (ika de’amri): He replied to them: They too are guilty for they destroyed the synagogues.

איכא דאמרי אמר (ליה) אינהו נמי הא קא סתרי בי כנישתא

23A Persian defeat at the hands of wicked Rome requires that the Persians be guilty of some sin that requires punishment. In line with this thinking, an anonymous tradition (introduced by ika de’amri) proposes that the Persians destroyed synagogues, justifying their fall to Rome.

  • 30 See below for evidence that this baraita has been modified and crafted for this occasion. For the p (...)

24A "baraita"30 is then introduced as confirmation of Rav’s view and the two different explanations of his view provided thus far:

b. Yoma 10a (cont.)
It has also been taught (tanya nami haki) in accordance with this: Persia will fall into the hands of Rome, first because they destroyed the synagogues, [i.e., for a moral reason] and then because it is the King’s decree that the builders fall into the hands of the destroyers. [i.e., for no moral reason].

תניא נמי הכי עתידה פרס שתפול ביד רומי חדא דסתרי בי כנישתא ועוד גזירת מלך הוא שיפלו בונין ביד סותרין

  • 31 Kalmin 2006.
  • 32 Gross 2017.
  • 33 For these conclusions, see Gross 2017, p. 141-147.

25The baraita is a complete contradiction, asserting both that there is a moral logic driving Persia’s fall (Persia destroyed synagogues) and that there is none (it is an arbitrary divine decree). The logical and textual difficulties apparent in this "rescue" effort have been addressed by Richard Kalmin31 and, more recently, in a dissertation by Simcha Gross,32 who refines Kalmin’s analysis and provides additional support for his claims. To summarize their conclusions33: (1) nowhere else in rabbinic literature is a gezerah, or decree, provided with a moral rationale. On the contrary, the designation gezerah is understood to cancel any attempt to provide a rationale. Thus, there is prima facie reason to suspect that the moral rationale introduced by ika de’amri is non-original; (2) the very phrase ika de’amri which introduces the moral explanation for Persia’s defeat by Rome is a well-known marker of a secondary insertion and indeed the line is missing in a JTS manuscript, as pointed out already by Kalmin. Of course, even if we eliminate the ika de’amri statement as a late insertion, the moral explanation appears in the supporting baraita. However, (3) the moral explanation in the baraita is in Aramaic while the rest of the baraita is in Hebrew, a clear indication that the moral explanation is an interpolation into the baraita; (4) this supposition is supported by the fact that in many manuscripts, the baraita appears without this Aramaic interpolation. The original form of the baraita was therefore: "It has also been taught in accordance with this [Rav’s view]: Persia will fall into the hands of Rome because it is the King's decree that the builders fall into the hands of the destroyers." Thus, in its uninterpolated form, the baraita doubles down on Rav’s negation of a moral logic in the destiny of nations. Rome will defeat Persia not in fulfillment of a moral plan but quite the opposite – because it is the will and whim of God that the more virtuous nation will fall to the less virtuous nation. We might just as well say "So it occurred to the Holy One, Blessed be he."

26Why was the moral rationale inserted into the baraita? Because, like the incredulous R. Kahana and R. Assi, a later Babylonian editor was disturbed by Rav’s tragic and amoral perception of history. In Rav’s view, Rome will not get her comeuppance from Persia; history is devoid of moral order. We are like Habakkuk’s fishes in the sea, arbitrarily caught in the nets of history. And so, the editor attempts to bend the arc of history towards a happy ending, resulting in a nonsensical, internally conflicted, sugya.

b. Avodah Zarah 2a-3b and b. Pesaḥim 119b: From divine comedy to moral tragedy

  • 34 Rubenstein 1996, p. 1-37 [= idem 2003, p. 212-242.]
  • 35 Wasserman 2017.

27The dialogical interplay of comic and tragic visions evident in the traditions examined above and within b. Yoma 10a reaches a peak in b. Avodah Zarah 2-3b. This eschatological drama has been analyzed by Jeffrey Rubenstein34 and more recently by Mira Wasserman.35 We will focus on relevant portions of this lengthy sugya, and adopt Rubenstein’s helpful separation of the core narrative from editorial glosses. In the text cited below, these anonymous editorial interventions (henceforth the stam) are underlined.

  • 36 The latter being one of the two places where the phrase כך עלה בדעתו של הקב"ה ("so it occurred to (...)

28The core narrative incorporates and embellishes earlier Palestinian elements (Sifre Deuteronomy 343 and Pesikta Rabbatti 2136) that represent the divine dispensation and overall course of history as arbitrary, subject to the will and whim of the deity. However, the Bavli’s frequent editorial glosses and interpolations into this core narrative, like the interpolation just analyzed in b. Yoma 10a, resist this tragic vision, asserting a moral order in the universe and an appropriately happy ending in the eschaton. Ultimately, however, this optimistic vision fails to convince.

  • 37 Rubenstein 2003, p. 223.
  • 38 v. 9: "Let them bring their witnesses that they may be justified (veyitsdaku)."

29A full understanding of the text, requires a consideration of its exegetical base. The exegetical frame for this dramatic narrative, centers on two biblical passages: Isaiah 43 and Psalm 2. What has not been noticed is that these two biblical texts themselves contain very different visions of the final defeat of the nations, setting up the dialogical tension that characterizes the Bavli’s sugya as a whole. In Isaiah 43, the nations and their gods confront Israel and her god in a courtroom trial37 to determine who worships the true god. Israel presents arguments and summons witnesses to justify38 her commitment to God (the chief evidence being his saving acts and moral orchestration of history) and to justify God’s commitment to Israel who is singled out and praised for knowing, believing and understanding that God is the only god before whom no god was created and after whom none will be (תֵּדְעוּ וְתַאֲמִינוּ לִי וְתָבִינוּ, כִּי-אֲנִי הוּא–לְפָנַי לֹא-נוֹצַר אֵל וְאַחֲרַי לֹא יִהְיֶה). The course of history – the initial election and final elevation of Israel – is therefore rational and fully justified.

30The second biblical passage at the heart of this narrative is Psalm 2, which presents a very different picture of the confrontation between God and the nations. Here the nations rebel against God and his anointed (v. 1-2), seeking to break their bonds and cords (v. 3). Their futile effort prompts God’s mocking laughter (v. 4) and angry rebuke (v. 5). The psalmist then reports the bald decree, or oq (v. 7) that God said to Israel: "You are my son. Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for a possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall smash them like a potter’s vessel" (v. 7-9). There is no rational argument as there is in Isa 43: no moral justification of the election of Israel because of her comprehension of and faith in the one god and no witnesses to the truth of this god by reference to his saving actions throughout history. The election of Israel is arbitrary and the nations are subdued by a naked assertion of power.

31The selection of these two biblical texts as the basis for b. Avodah Zarah’s eschatological tale generates a conflicted sugya. Their competing visions of the course of history and its eschatological fulfillment establish a dialectical tension that courses through the entire sugya and prompts our rabbinic authors to take sides. The editorial glosses favor the vision presented in Isaiah 43 in which the arc of history is that of a morally ordered divine comedy. Despite episodes of tragedy and the earthly success of evil kingdoms, in the final days the plot line will turn upwards, the wicked will be defeated and the righteous will prevail. By contrast, the core narrative without the editorial glosses allows greater room for the vision presented in Psalm 2 in which the arc of history is more complexly construed. Certainly, the core narrative justifies God’s choice of Israel by presenting evidence of her fidelity to the Torah as in Isaiah 43. Nevertheless, in its final stage, the core narrative raises Psalm 2’s specter of God’s arbitrary and mocking rejection of the nations, an image that undercuts the sense of a morally justified happy ending.

  • 39 Only the most relevant sections of this lengthy sugya are presented in full.
  • 40 An allusion perhaps to R. Akiva who, in the scene leading to his martyrdom, is described as occupy (...)
  • 41 Although Gen 25:23 is cited merely as proof for the meaning of the Hebrew term ‘am, it evokes the (...)

b. Avodah Zarah 2a-3b39
R. Ḥanina bar Papa, and some say R. Simlai, expounded:
In the world to come, the Holy One, blessed be He, will bring a Torah scroll and set it in his lap, and say: "Let everyone who occupied himself with this come and take his reward."40 Straightaway the nations of the world assemble and come in confusion, as it says, "All the nations assemble as one, the peoples gather" (Isa 43:9). God says to them: "Do not enter before me in confusion. Rather each nation should enter with its scribes," as it says, "the peoples gather" (Isa 43:9), and "people" means a kingdom, as it says "One people shall be mightier than the other" (Gen 25:23)…41
Straightaway the Kingdom of Rome enters first.
For what reason? Because they are the most important. And how do we know that they are the most important? It is written…
The Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: "With what have you busied yourselves?" They say to him: "Master of the universe. We established many marketplaces. We built many bathhouses. We accumulated much gold and silver. And we only did all this so that Israel could busy themselves with Torah." The Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: "Everything you made was done exclusively for yourselves. You made marketplaces so that you could place prostitutes there, bathhouses to make yourselves beautiful. Gold and silver are mine, as it says, ‘Silver is mine and gold is mine’ (Ḥag 2:8). Are there none among you who speak ‘this’ [i.e. Torah]? as it says, ‘Who among you declared this?’ (Isa 43:9), and ‘this’ refers to Torah, as it says, ‘This is the Torah which Moses brought’" (Deut 4:44). Straightaway they depart from Him dejectedly.
The kingdom of Persia enters after it… [and its similar arguments fail].
And after the kingdom of Rome entered and gained nothing, why does it [Persia] approach? It reasons:"They [Rome] destroyed the Temple whereas we built it."

32God’s demeanor in this opening scene is imperious. He sits like an emperor on his throne summoning members of the court to advocate for themselves in order to receive their due reward, and summarily dismissing those whose arguments fail. The only two nations whose arguments are presented in full are Rome and Persia. While the core narrative treats them in much the same way – they make similar arguments and are similarly dismissed – an editorial gloss suggests that the moral equivalence is false. Asking why Persia bothered to present its case in such strikingly similar terms as Rome, when it saw that Rome’s case had failed, the anonymous editor surmises that Persia was aware of its stronger claim to moral virtue. Employing the same a fortiori argument that was inserted by an editor in b. Yoma 10a, Persia reasons that as the builder of the Temple, she will surely merit divine consideration where Rome, the destroyer of the Temple, did not. But, the idea of differential treatment of Persia on the basis of her relatively better moral standing, never gets off the ground in this sugya, raising the first inkling of doubt about the morality of the proceedings. The story continues:

The same thing [occurs] with each and every nation…
They say to him: "Master of the Universe, did we ever accept it [the Torah] and then not fulfill it [like Israel]?"
… they say to him: "Did you ever suspend a mountain over us like a vault as you did to Israel and we did not accept it? For it is written, ‘They took their places at the base of the mountain’ (Exod 19:17), and Rav Avdimi bar Hama from Haifa said: This teaches that God suspended a mountain like a vault over Israel and said, ‘if you receive the Torah – fine. If not, your graves will be right here.’"
He says to them: "Let us hear of the things that have happened" (Isa 43:9). Those seven commandments that you did accept – when did you fulfill them?…"
Mar b. Ravina said, "It means that even though they fulfill them, they receive no reward for it."
Is this so? Have we not learned: R. Meir used to say, "From where do we know that even a Gentile who busies himself with Torah is equal to the high priest? It teaches, ‘[you shall keep my laws and rules] by the pursuit of which man shall live’ (Lev 18:5). It does not say ‘Priests, Levites and Israelites’ but rather ‘man.’ This teaches that even a Gentile who occupies himself with Torah is like a high priest."
Rather, they do not receive a reward equal to one who is commanded and fulfills, but equal to one who is not commanded and fulfills. For R.
anina said, "Greater is one who is commanded and fulfills than one who is not commanded and fulfills."
They say to him: "Master of the Universe, Israel, who accepted it [the Torah] – when did they fulfill it?"
[God advances witnesses to attest to Israel’s fidelity to Torah. All that remains then is the question of giving the nations one last chance to prove themselves.]

33In this exchange, the nations dispute God’s justice, asserting that he unfairly rewards Israel who, despite accepting the commandments, did not fulfill them. The editorial gloss strengthens the nations’ case – even if Israel did fulfill the commandments, the stam notes, we have a tradition that they did so under duress and not by free choice. What merit is there in that? This criticism that the game is rigged in Israel’s favor and God’s favoritism is unjustified stands unanswered. Instead, God counters that the nations failed to fulfill the few commandments that were given to them. But here too, the editorial gloss swings things in favor of the nations, citing a tradition that acknowledges the possibility of Gentiles occupying themselves with Torah and earning reward. Finally, the nations demand proof that Israel did fulfill the Torah and God obliges with a cavalcade of witnesses drawn from among the nations themselves. The nations are then left with one last resort – they ask for one more chance.

They say to him: "Give it to us anew, and we will do it." He says to them: "Complete idiots! He who prepared on the eve of the Sabbath will eat on the Sabbath. But he who did not prepare on the eve of the Sabbath – how will he eat on the Sabbath? Nevertheless, I have a simple precept which is called ‘sukkah.’ Go and do it."
How can you say this? Did not R. Yehoshua b. Levi say: "What is the meaning of
‘The laws and the rules which I charge you this day’ (Deut 7:11). To do them this day, and not to do them another day. This day to do them, but not this day to receive reward [for them]." [So how can they perform the obligation of sukkah outside of its time and furthermore, how can they hope to receive an immediate reward for it?]
Because the Holy One does not act the tyrant with his creatures. And why is it called a "simple precept"? Because it is inexpensive.

  • 42 Rubenstein 2003, p. 232.

34As Rubenstein notes,42 God again appears in the role of the powerful judge, whose patience with the idiotic claims of those pleading their case before him has reached its end. Nevertheless, he offers a final and ostensibly easy opportunity for the nations to prove their worth. Show me that you can fulfill one simple commandment: construct and dwell in a sukkah for seven days.

  • 43 From Greek tyrannis or tyrannia and Latin tyrannis, the term here refers to the cruel and unjust u (...)

35At this point the editorial voice intervenes in what will soon be revealed as a pre-emptive strike. Despite the fact that the commandment to dwell in a sukkah must be performed at a specific time and despite the fact that even then its reward does not follow immediately (details that alert us to the possibility that God’s offer is not sincere), God decides to give the nations this chance. Why does he break his own rule about the observance of commandments at the proper time to extend them this opportunity? The stam answers that it is because he does not act despotically – literally, act the tyrant (ba betirunia43) – with his creatures. But the stam, it turns out, protests too much, for God is indeed toying with the nations, as is soon revealed.

The Holy One, blessed be He, makes the sun blaze upon them as in the summer season. Straightaway each and every one kicks his sukkah and departs, as it says, "Let us break the cords of their yokes" (Ps 2:3).
Blaze! You said that
God does not act the tyrant with his creatures!
– Because for Israel too, sometimes the cycle of Tammuz (i.e., summer) extends until the sixteenth [of Tishrei] and they suffer [from the heat].
– But did not Rava say: "One who experiences discomfort is exempt from [dwelling in] the
sukkah?"
– Granted he is exempt from the
sukkah, but does he kick it?

  • 44 Wasserman 2017, p. 42.

36God sabotages the nations’ attempt to prove themselves and, as Wasserman notes,44 the story descends into slapstick with the discomfited nations kicking their sukkahs in frustration. The stam, wanting to preserve its morally ordered universe and happy ending, protests: didn’t we just conclude that God does not act the tyrant with his creatures? Yet here he deliberately sabotages them! The response – that sometimes Israel too is afflicted by heat when trying to fulfill the commandment of the sukkah – is a weak one and hardly justifies or even explains God’s malicious treatment of the nations. Even the stam recognizes that the response is weak; after all, one is exempt from the commandment if fulfilling it causes suffering! True, the stam responds, but one should at least leave the sukkah without kicking it down.

37The stam here is guilty of overreach. If at the end of the day, the nations are rejected because they express frustration when God deliberately provokes them, then the thesis that God acts despotically is not negated but confirmed. The concluding moment in the narrative tilts its plot line even more decisively in the direction of the tragic and amoral universe we have seen hints of in earlier texts.

  • 45 Rubenstein’s translation omits "at them" but the prepositional phrase is found in the JTS and Muni (...)

The Holy One, blessed be He, sits and laughs at them,45 as it says, "He who sits in heaven laughs" (Ps 2:4)…

38This is not a joyful laughter as indicated by the verse upon which it relies, where the word “laugh” stands in parallel with the word “mock” (he who sits in heaven laughs, my Lord mocks them). This is the malicious, mocking laughter of a tyrant who deploys his power arbitrarily to torture his subjects and takes delight in humiliating those weaker than himself in order to bring them to heel. Right on cue, the sugya registers its objection.

R. Isaac remarked that there is no laughter for the Holy One, blessed be He, except on that day. But is there not, indeed? Didn’t Rav Judah say in the name of Rav: "The day consists of twelve hours; during the first three hours the Holy One, blessed be He, is occupying Himself with the Torah, during the second three He sits in judgment on the whole world, and when He sees that the world is so guilty as to deserve destruction, He transfers Himself from the seat of justice to the seat of mercy; during the third quarter, He is feeding the whole world, from the horned buffalo to the brood of vermin; during the fourth quarter He is sporting with the leviathan, as it is said, ‘There is leviathan, whom You have formed to play [ts..q] with’? (Ps 104:26)."
R. Naḥman b. Isaac said: "Yes, He plays/laughs
with His creatures, but does not laugh at His creatures except on that day."
R. Aba said to R. Naḥman b. Isaac: "Since the day of the destruction of the temple, there is no laughter for the Holy One, blessed be He…"

39The stam’s objection begins with a tradition by R. Isaac that immediately limits God’s malicious laughter to this one circumstance – laughter is unknown to God except at the final defeat of the nations in the eschaton. R. Isaac’s assertion is contested – haven’t we learned that God sports (same root: ts..q) with Leviathan? Yes, but as R. Naḥman b. Isaac points out, these are two different kinds of laughter. God plays and laughs with his creatures but – with this one limited exception – he does not laugh at them. In other words, he does not generally laugh in a menacing and immoral way at his creatures’ expense.

  • 46 Wasserman 2017, p. 40.

40It is clear that the editor does not like the image of a mocking God and an amoral universe found in the core narrative (and, for that matter, in Psalm 2) and works to counter it. Pace Rubenstein, this complex narrative delivers no single unequivocal message. As has been so deftly argued by Wasserman46:

[Avodah Zarah] does not speak with one voice in its judgments about Gentiles, or about anything else for that matter. The opening story’s prosecution of the nations is interrogated, challenged, and subverted in multiple ways, not just in the material that follows after the presentation of this extended courtroom narrative, but also in the frequent disruptions spliced into the telling of the story itself.

41As we have seen, the core narrative’s stark binary division of humanity along ethnic lines is resisted by editorial insertions that create a truly dialogical tension that subverts the main thrust of the narrative: perhaps some gentile nations, like the Persians, are more meritorious than others and should not be summarily dismissed; perhaps Israel accepted the Torah only under duress; perhaps gentiles can occupy themselves with Torah and when they do they are equal to the best in Israel; perhaps God’s treatment of the gentiles is arbitrary and imperious, even immoral and deliberately prejudicial. All of these doubts and questions embedded in the editorial comments, accompany us through the story and predispose us to recoil at God’s last, and apparently only, laugh of derision.

  • 47 See also Psalm 37:13, 59:9, or wisdom mocking the wicked and foolish in Prov 1:26.

42But why should the editor be so disturbed by this laughter? There is biblical precedent for God’s mocking derision at the defeat of the wicked, beginning with Ps 2 itself.47 I submit that the aversion of some rabbis to God’s amoral and despotic laughter may be illuminated by a quick survey of Roman attitudes to laughter and power, specifically the power of the tyrant with which God is explicitly associated in our story via the phrase ba betirunia ("acts like a tyrant").

  • 48 Beard 2014, p. 6.
  • 49 Beard 2014, p. 132.
  • 50 Beard 2014, p. 129.

43In her study of Roman laughter, Mary Beard notes that while Roman texts contain many examples of laughter as an act of subversion or resistance to the emperor’s tyranny, they also contain examples of laughter as the weapon of the ruling power.48 Of particular interest is the role that laughter plays in the biographies of emperors. According to Beard, referring to the Augustan History: "Laughter features as one diagnostic of the emperor’s mad villainy or perverse extravagance in the biography of the third–century CE emperor Elagabalus".49 He used laughter to humiliate and to terrorize: It was reported in his fantastical biography, that when his friends became drunk, Elagabalus would lock them up and send in tame lions, leopards and bears, which would cause some to die of fright upon waking. Beard writes, "A chilling consequence of Roman autocracy is imagined here as the capacity of the tyrant to make his jokes come (horribly and unexpectedly) true: the tigers and so on were harmless, but the guests died anyway."50 She continues:

  • 51 Beard 2014, p. 130.

Some of the associations between autocrat and laughter are easily predictable. The basic Roman rule… was that good and wise rulers made jokes in a benevolent way, never used laughter to humiliate, and tolerated wisecracks at their own expense. Bad rulers and tyrants, on the other hand, would violently suppress even the most innocent banter while using laughter and joking as weapons against their enemies. Anecdotes about imperial laughter illustrate these axioms time and again. Whether they are literally true or not we cannot tell, and the fact that there are examples of jokes apparently migrating from one prominent jokester to another… strongly suggests that we are dealing with cultural stereotypes or traditional details rather than facts. But they point to the bigger truth—a political lesson as much as an urban myth—that laughter helped to characterize both good and bad rulers.51

  • 52 Beard 2014.

44Thus, a king’s civilitas (which Beard defines as that ideal quality of treating one’s people as fellow citizens rather than subjects52) was demonstrated by his ability to joke like an ordinary person and to tolerate well jokes at his own expense, traits attributed to Augustus who accepted jokes about his paternity with a good humor. By contrast,

  • 53 One is reminded of Philo’s account of his experience as a member of the Jewish legation to the Rom (...)
  • 54 Beard 2014, p. 132.

“Bad” emperors too were revealed by their particular style of laughing and joking. Ancient discussions of the imperial “monsters”—from Caligula through Domitian to Elagabalus—repeatedly use laughter, and the transgression of its codes and conventions, to define and calibrate different forms of cruelty and excess, the very opposites of civilitas.53
…Commodus’ biographer in the Augustan History nicely observes that “he was also deadly in his jokes”…before telling the nasty story of how the emperor put a starling on the head of a man who had a few white hairs among the black. The bird pecked at the white hairs, thinking they were worms, causing the man’s scalp to fester—and presumably killing him in the end.
The story echoes a theme prominent in the life of Elagabulus: that the jokes of an autocrat can be literally murderous.54

  • 55 I take this phrase from Halliwell 2008, p. 81 who applies it to the laughter of the Greek gods as (...)
  • 56 Beard 2014, p. 136.

45There is only one other narrative in the Babylonian Talmud in which God laughs. It is the famous story of the oven of Akhnai, when R. Joshua asserts the power of humans to interpret Scripture free of divine control. God laughs with the laughter of civilitas, enjoying a joke at his own expense and delighting in his own defeat, like a parent delighting in the escapades of his precocious children. But in the disturbing eschatological scene in b. Avodah Zarah, God laughs with the laughter of the tyrant – a laughter beyond morality,55 a laughter that the story’s editors have difficulty squaring with the god they believe they know. According to Beard, "laughter marked the limit of the tyrant’s civility and could show him up for what he was: a tyrant".56 In our sugya’s fantasy of God’s final triumph over Rome and all the nations in the eschaton, God’s laughter marks the limit of his civility and shows him for what he is: a tyrant, not so different from the cruel and sadistic tyrants he defeats! And the stam squirms.

46It is not only God, however, who risks being tragically transformed – or deformed – by the confrontation with Roman power. Israel faces the same danger, as we see in the following description of the eschatological banquet.

  • 57 Following ms. Vatican 134, a 13th-century Italo-Ashkenazic manuscript. For an assessment of the co (...)

b. Pesaḥim 119b57
R. ‘Avira lectured, sometimes stating it in the name of R. Ammi and sometimes in the name of R. Assi: "What is meant by: ‘And the child grew, and was weaned and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned’ (Gen 21:8)? What is meant by ‘on the day that Isaac was weaned [be-yom higgamel et Yitsaq]’? In the future, the Holy One, blessed be He, will make a great banquet for the righteous on the day of the rewarding of Isaac [= be-yom higgamel et Yitsaq], i.e., on the day that he rewards the seed of Isaac with His loving mercy. After they have eaten and drunk, they will offer the cup of blessing [over which the blessing for food is recited] to our father Abraham to recite the blessing, and say ‘Bless’ but he will say to them, ‘I cannot recite the blessing, because Ishmael issued from me.’ They will give it to Isaac and he will say ‘I cannot recite the blessing because Esau issued from me.’ They will give it to Jacob and he will say ‘I cannot recite the blessing because I married two sisters during [both] their lifetimes, which in the future the Torah would prohibit to me. They will say to Moses, ‘Take it and recite the blessing.’ He [Moses] will say ‘I cannot recite the blessing, because I did not merit to enter the land of Israel either in life or in death.’ They will say to Joshua, ‘Take it and recite the blessing.’ He [Joshua] will say ‘I cannot recite the blessing because I was not privileged to have a son,’ for it is written, ‘Nun his son, Joshua his son’ [1 Chr 7:27; the absence of a reference to a child beyond Joshua implies there was no issue beyond him]. They will say to David, ‘Take it and recite the blessing.’ He [David] will say ‘I will recite the blessing, and it is fitting for me to recite the blessing, as it is said, ‘I will lift up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord’ (Ps 116:13)."

  • 58 This text may be seen as an instance of spoudaiogeloion (from Greek σπουδαῖον [serious] and γελοῖο (...)

47This depiction of the eschatological feast prepared by God as a fitting reward for the righteous mixes serious and comical elements.58 At the conclusion of the feast, the righteous guests are asked in sequence to recite the blessing over the wine. Beginning with Abraham and continuing through the patriarchs, Moses, and Joshua, each guest demurs, protesting some minor disqualification. Abraham and Isaac excuse themselves on the grounds that each fathered an unworthy child (despite other worthy offspring), and Joshua on the grounds that he had no male child at all. Even the great Moses, despite a lifetime of devoted service to Israel and intimate fellowship with God, feels unworthy to offer the blessing because he did not merit to enter the land. Jacob considers himself unfit to lead the ritual blessing because he engaged in an act that, while permitted in his lifetime, would be prohibited later! The absurdity of this outbreak of hyper-scrupulous introspection and self-deprecation on the part of Israel’s greatest heroes is heightened when David, taking up the cup to bless, confidently declares that he is perfectly fit for the task! David the adulterer, whose hands are stained with the blood of Uriah, the house of Saul and all those who stood in his way, rushes in where the righteous of Israel fear to tread! What does this farcical representation of history’s grand finale signify? A brief digression will shed some light on this question.

  • 59 Hadas-Lebel 1984, p. 381-382.
  • 60 Hadas-Lebel 1984, p. 382-383.

48Hadas-Lebel notes that already in the 1st century BCE, a well-established exegetical tradition found in such Jewish sources as the Psalms of Solomon (2:1-2; 8:16-19), the third Sybilline Oracle (46-62; 175-192; 350-366; 464-469; 470-473; 520-535), and the pesharim of Qumran (1QpHab 2:12; 3:4; 4:10-12; 4:2-12; 6:3-5) attributed to Rome the following criminal traits: cupidity, cunning, debauchery, and cruelty.59 Rabbinic literature followed suit with stories that trade in the empire’s obscene accumulation of silver and gold (see b. Pesaḥim 118b, in close proximity to the eschatological story just cited), its political treachery, sexual debauchery, and murderous brutality. As noted earlier, the rabbinic demonization of Rome was often accomplished through the demonization of Esau, the symbol of Rome. Hadas-Lebel documents the charges leveled against Esau/Rome in rabbinic sources including theft (e.g. Genesis Rabbah 63:12; 65:13), hypocrisy and injustice (e.g., b. Avodah Zarah 28b; Genesis Rabbah 65:1), debauchery (e.g., b. Sanhedrin 146a; Genesis Rabbah 78:10), adultery (e.g., Genesis Rabbah 65:1) and bloodshed (e.g., b. Gittin 57b).60

  • 61 Genesis Rabbah 63:8 draws an explicit comparison between David and Esau, both of whom are describe (...)
  • 62 My reading of b. Pesaḥim 119b and, to some extent, b. Avodah Zarah 2a-3b draws inspiration from Ca (...)

49There is no character in the biblical hall of heroes who comes as close to exemplifying many of these qualities as does David. Cunning and treachery? Without a doubt. Adultery and bloodshed? Check. Of David’s deeply compromised moral character, the rabbis were aware (see for example, b. Sanhedrin 107a). So what does it mean that the rabbis imagine an eschatological feast in which the humble and pious Moses who delivered the Torah to Israel, and the faithful if slightly flawed patriarchs, take a back seat to the Machiavellian David whose litany of crimes mimics those of Rome in the rabbinic imagination?61 No less, perhaps, than the dissolution of the very boundaries of behavior and morality that served to structure rabbinic Jewish identity. In b. Pesaḥim 119b, the "happy" ending has come. Israel reigns in heaven and Rome is nowhere to be seen, but at the cost, it would seem, of Israel’s unique identity. Behind our farcical feast lies a bitter concession that while evil may be defeated by good, it is sometimes defeated by… more evil. And that is a less than happy ending.62

Jacob and Esau and the anxiety of identity

  • 63 Naiweld 2016, p. 261.
  • 64 For a discussion of this duality, see Naiweld 2016, p. 274-282.

50Ron Naiweld has observed that Rome served as "the unquestionable and eternal Other of rabbinic Judaism, a mirror image of ‘Israel’".63 There is some truth to this claim but it does not tell the whole story. The texts examined here would suggest that the opposition was an unstable one, undercut at times by an uneasy mimicry, if not identity. Thus, as Naiweld himself observes, while some Babylonian rabbinic sources depict Rome and Israel as wholly other and locked in a zero-sum power struggle (e.g., b. Megillah 6a), other Babylonian rabbinic sources depict the two as entwined, mutually dependent and even equal world powers stemming from their fraternity (b. Avodah Zarah 11a).64 For the rabbis, this fraternity, encapsulated in the symbolic reading of Jacob and Esau as Israel and Rome, generated an anxiety of identity.

  • 65 Assis 2006, p. 11.
  • 66 Several biblical texts express this view, often attributing it to the people, before refuting it. (...)
  • 67 Assis 2006, p. 14-15.

51This anxiety of identity, as refracted through the contest between Jacob and Esau, has deep roots in the biblical period. Elie Assis has argued that "the unstable relationship between Esau and Jacob and the disputes between them over the election"65 were a lens through which Israel’s conflicts with specific historical groups were interpreted, beginning with the neighboring Edomites with whom Esau is explicitly identified. Pointing to extensive biblical evidence, Assis demonstrates that many Israelites interpreted the 6th century BCE destruction and exile as an indication that God had cast off the last of the descendants of Jacob, and that Jacob was not the recipient of divine favor.66 Moreover, Edom’s participation in the destruction of Jerusalem and later colonization of the southern part of Judah were interpreted by some as an indication that God had reverted to the elder brother, choosing Esau/Edom in place of Jacob/Israel.67

52These views were vigorously attacked by several biblical prophets: despite the events of history, God had not reneged on his choice of Jacob in favor of Esau, Edom would yet be utterly destroyed and Israel restored, for God has declared "I loved Jacob but Esau I hated" (Mal 1:2-3). The virulence with which the post-destruction biblical prophets condemn Edom is unique, far outstripping the hostility directed at any other foreign power or Edom itself before the destruction. According to Assis, this prophetic invective is a function of the unique threat posed by Edom: as the first-born son of Isaac, deprived of his birthright through trickery, Esau/Edom had a legitimate claim to the status of chosen nation. Perhaps, many Israelites feared, the exile of Judah and the infiltration of Edom into the promised land signaled a divine reversal and a recognition of Esau’s prior claim. To dispel this palpable anxiety, post-destruction prophets condemned Edom with extraordinary venom and predicted the utter destruction of Edom as the precursor to the future redemption of Israel, in a zero-sum game: only one brother can be heir, only one people can be the chosen people. The biblical legacy regarding Jacob and Esau is, therefore, conflicted: certainly the two are rival nations but their rivalry is grounded in their very fraternity, their twinned identity.

  • 68 Assis 2016, p. 187.
  • 69 Assis 2016, p. 179.

53A similarly conflicted dynamic can be detected in Israel’s relationship with the next historical group to take on the mantle of Esau: Rome. If Edom functioned as a symbol of "those who seek to destroy the Jews and compete with them for the status of chosen nation"68 then it is no surprise that Rome should be identified with Esau/Edom since "the Romans posed a threat to Israel’s self-identity as the chosen nation"69 destined for glory and a happy ending. The same is true of Christians, who would likewise view themselves as chosen and would assume the mantle of Esau in the rabbinic imaginaire. Assis writes:

  • 70 Assis 2016, p. 190.

The same fear lies at the heart of Rome and Christianity’s association with the nation of Edom. Rome also perceived itself as the chosen nation, and was therefore considered a rival for Judah’s status as God’s people. Moreover, Rome destroyed the Second Temple, challenging Judah’s status as the chosen nation, so that the restoration of Judah’s pride was dependent on Rome’s downfall. The Romans’ belief in their divine election made them the perfect subjects for interpellation of the biblical hostility against Edom.
With the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the association with Edom became even more relevant. Christianity explicitly claimed that it had supplanted Judaism as the chosen religion. With its monotheistic faith rooted in the Bible, Christianity was certainly a “brother” to the Jewish religion.70

54The sources examined above suggest that the anxiety of identity engendered by Roman power was not limited to Jews living under Roman rule in the land of Israel. Interpreted through the lens of an ancient fraternal rivalry, Roman power awakened a deep-seated fear that transcended borders. Some rabbis living outside the empire – no less than some living within it – feared that Jacob’s defeat and Esau’s occupation of the land may signal a tragic reversal of the ancient bestowal of divine favor.

55As Edom, Rome, or Christianity, Esau was Jacob’s brother and other, twin and enemy. The rabbis believed that one brother was chosen, one was rejected. One was righteous, one was wicked. One’s story will end happily, one’s story will end tragically. But which one? And which one, some rabbis wondered, are we? When we look in the mirror, who do we see?

Conclusion

  • 71 See Bhabha 1993, p. 86: "The authority of that mode of colonial discourse that I have called mimic (...)
  • 72 For the notion of hidden transcripts, coded critiques of power developed by subordinated groups, s (...)

56Theorists tell us that when the subjugated adopt the model of their oppressors, it is a mimicry of resistance that enables the oppressed to cope with the bitter and intractable reality of oppression.71 There is much truth to this, but surely coping strategies (and hidden transcripts72) may be cast aside when the oppressor has been vanquished and the identity and culture of the oppressed can reassert themselves. Indulging in an eschatological fantasy in which they are finally free of Rome, the rabbis might have been expected to reassert the truer power of Torah, piety and moral virtue. Often they do. And yet, in neither of the eschatological visions examined here (b. Avodah Zarah 2-3b and b. Pesaḥim 119b) do the rabbis envision the eradication of imperial immorality and the reassertion of Israelite piety, the triumph of Jacob over Esau. On the contrary, in b. Pesaḥim 119b, Jacob becomes Esau as Israel outperforms "Rome". That most Roman of Israelite kings – the adulterous and murderous David whose machinations to destroy every conceivable threat to his power rival those of many a Roman emperor – that most Roman of Israelite kings is given pride of place ahead of Moses and all the patriarchs in the final banquet. But more chillingly, in b. Avodah Zarah 2a-3b, God himself becomes the despotic tyrant whose cruel laughter – a laughter beyond morality – reverberates with that of a Commodus or an Elagabulus. In the final victory, God is indistinguishable from a Roman tyrant; Israel is indistinguishable from Rome. This is not the mimicry of resistance; it is the mimicry of hybridity, the mimicry of identity grounded in the mythic fraternity of the two nations. In the eschaton, Israel may speak with the voice of Jacob, but her hands are the hands of Esau, and for some rabbinic figures – registering their dissent in editorial glosses and subversive counter-statements – this less than happy ending threatens to convert the divine comedy of universal history into a moral tragedy.

Bibliographie

Assis 2006 = E. Assis, Why Edom? On the Hostility Towards Jacob’s Brother in Prophetic Sources, in Vetus Testamentum, 56-1, 2006, p. 1-20.

Assis 2016 = E. Assis, Identity in Conflict: The Struggle between Esau and Jacob, Edom and Israel, Winona Lake, 2016.

Beard 2014 = M. Beard, Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling and Cracking Up, Berkeley, 2014.

Bhabha 1993 = H. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London-New York, 1993.

Boyarin 1999 = D. Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism, Stanford, 1999.

Boyarin 2002 = D. Boyarin, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, Chicago, 2002.

Cohen 2017 = B. Cohen, For out of Babylonia shall come Torah and the word of the Lord from Nehar Peqod: The quest for Babylonian tannaitic traditions, Leiden, 2017.

Frankel 1981 = Y. Frankel, Iyyunim be’olamo haruḥani shel sippur haggadah, Tel Aviv, 1981.

Frye 1963 = N. Frye, Fables of Identity: Studies in Poetic Mythology, New York, 1963.

Gross 2017 = S. Gross, Empire and Neighbors: Babylonian Jewish Identity in its Local and Imperial Context, Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 2017.

Hadas-Lebel 1984 = M. Hadas-Lebel, Jacob et Esaü ou Israël et Rome dans le Talmud et le Midrash, in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, 201-4, 1984, p. 369-382.

Halliwell 2008 = S. Halliwell, Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity, Cambridge, 2008.

Hayes 1998 = C. Hayes, Displaced Self-Perceptions: The Deployment of Minim and Romans in b. Sanhedrin 90b-91a, in H. Lapin (ed.), Religious and Ethnic Communities in Later Roman Palestine, Bethesda, 1998, p. 249-289.

Hayes 2015 = C. Hayes, What’s Divine about Divine Law: Early Perspectives, Princeton, 2015.

Hoffman 1971 = Y. Hoffman, Edom as a Symbol of Evil in the Bible, in Mélanges Jacob Liver, Tel Aviv, 1971, p. 76-89 [Hebrew].

Kalmin 2006 = R. Kalmin, Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine, Oxford, 2006.

Kraemer 1995 = D. Kraemer, Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature, New York, 1995.

Labendz 2013 = J. Labendz, Socratic Torah: Non-Jews in Rabbinic Intellectual Culture, New York, 2013.

Mandel 2014 = P. Mandel, Was Rabbi Aqiva a Martyr? Palestinian and Babylonian Influences in the Development of a Legend, in T. Ilan, R. Nikolsky (eds.), Rabbinic Traditions between Palestine and Babylonia, Leiden, 2014, p. 306-53.

Naiweld 2016 = R. Naiweld, The Use of Rabbinic Traditions about Rome in the Babylonian Talmud, in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, 233-2, 2016, p. 255-85.

Rosenblum forthcoming = J. Rosenblum, Dining in(to) the Word to Come, in L. Greenspoon (ed.), This World and the World to Come, Lincoln, forthcoming.

Rubenstein 1996 = J. Rubenstein, An Eschatological Drama: Bavli Avodah Zarah 2a-3b, in AJS Review, 21, 1996, p. 1-37 [= idem, Talmudic Stories, p. 212-242].

J. Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, Baltimore, 2003.

Schwartz 2010 = S. Schwartz, ‘Rabbinic Culture’ and Roman Culture, in M. Goodman, P. Alexander (eds.), Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine, Oxford, 2010, p. 283-299.

Scott 1990 = J. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, New Haven, 1990.

Sharp 2009 = C. Sharp, Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible, Bloomington, 2009.

Tropper 2009 = A. Tropper, Le-mashmaʻut ha-bituyim ‘daita be-kaneh’ ‘le-hotzi-akha alak I ephshar’ she-bi-sifrut azal, in Neutim, 16, 2009, p. 9-31.

Tropper 2011 = A. Tropper, Ke-ḥomer be-yad ha-yotser: maʻase ḥakhamim be-sifrut Ḥazal, Jerusalem, 2011.

Wald 2000 = S. Wald, BT Pesaḥim III: Critical Edition with Comprehensive Commentary, New York, 2000.

Wasserman 2017 = M. Wasserman, Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals: The Talmud After the Humanities, Philadelphia, 2017.

Whedbee 1998 = W. Whedbee, The Bible and the Comic Vision, New York, 1998.

Zellentin 2011 = H. Zellentin, Rabbinic Parodies of Jewish and Christian Literature, Tübingen, 2011.

Notes

1 To cite just a few of the dozens of occasions on which the epithet "wicked kingdom" is applied to Rome: p. Kilayim 8:1, 31c; p. Rosh HaShanah 3:5, 59a; p. Ta’anit 4:5, 68c; Genesis Rabbah 16:4, 64:10, 65:12; Leviticus Rabbah 7:6, 13:5; b. Bava Batra 60b; b. Berakhot 61b; b. Gittin 57b; b. Sanhedrin 14a; and b. Avodah Zarah 8b.

2 Frye 1963, p. 25.

3 For a full discussion of the characteristic features of "comedy" as opposed to "tragedy" and their specific application to the Bible, see Whedbee 1998, esp. p. 1-13.

4 Hadas-Lebel 1984, p. 370.

5 For the idea of Rome as a "symbolic power" that "would continue to design the experience of the Jews" even after the fall of the empire, see Naiweld 2016, p. 257-258.

6 Hadas-Lebel 1984, p. 374.

7 Ibid., p. 391.

8 Ibid., p. 385.

9 Ibid., p. 369.

10 Hoffman, 1971, passim.

11 Hadas-Lebel, 1984, p. 387.

12 Following the Leiden manuscript.

13 The phrase in brackets, which appears in the Venice printed edition, is a marginal gloss in the Leiden ms., added by a second hand.

14 Following ms. Oxford Bodleian, Opp. Add. Fol 23 and ms. Paris 671.4.

15 Ms. Munich and the printed edition add here: "they were combing his flesh with iron combs".

16 The following lines appear in the printed edition, but are not attested in any manuscripts: "A heavenly voice went forth and proclaimed: ‘Happy are you, Akiva, that your soul has departed with the word ead !’"

17 For a brilliant and thorough analysis of the Bavli storyteller’s mobilization of an array of earlier literary sources – from broad motifs to precise turns of phrase – in order to create a martyrological tale from a tannaitic legal narrative about the silent recitation of the shema prayer, see Tropper 2011, p. 111-154. For a more limited but insightful comparison of the Bavli and Yerushalmi versions of the story, and a critique of the analysis in Boyarin 1999, see Mandel 2014, p. 306-353. The story has also been discussed in Frankel 1981, p. 49-52 and in Kraemer 1995, p. 169-172.

18 See previous note.

19 On two other occasions in the Bavli (b. Sanhedrin 101a and b. Avodah Zarah 20a), R. Akiva laughs incongruously and an explanation follows. Elsewhere he acts or speaks in a surprising way, occasioning an explanation (see, for example, m. Niddah 8:3[2]).

20 Mandel 2014, p. 318, 334.

21 Ibid., p. 346-348.

22 Tropper 2011, p. 131-132.

23 Kraemer 1995, p. 170-171.

24 Following ms. Paris AIU H147A.

25 Tropper 2011, p. 132-133 discusses the relationship of p. Ḥagigah 2:1, 77b-c to b. Menaḥot 29b and of both of these texts to b. Berakhot 61b. He adduces the following evidence for the claim that the martyrdom story in b. Berakhot 61b postdates and draws upon the schoolhouse story in b. Menaḥot 29b: the reference to Torah and its rewards is more integral to the story in Menaḥot (as noted already by Fraenkel 1981, p. 67); the story in Berakhot fills a gap in Menaḥot by explaining why R. Akiva’s flesh was available for sale; and it is more reasonable to suppose that Berakhot would soften the harsh ending of Menaḥot, which itself borrowed from the Yerushalmi’s story of Elisha ben Abuyah. These considerations are not immune to criticism. First, the reference to Torah and its reward is no more integral to Menaḥot than Berakhot. In Menaḥot the phrase appears in a coda (beginning with Moses’ request to be shown R. Akiva’s reward) all of which might be a later addition to the story of Moses in Akiva’s schoolhouse. Second, it is just as easy to view Menaḥot’s reference to the sale of R. Akiva’s flesh as building on the story of his flaying in Berakhot as it is to view the story of his flaying as a later attempt to explain how and why his flesh was for sale in b. Menaḥot. Third, it is not inherently more reasonable to assume that an editor would soften a harsh story than to assume that an editor would create a harsher ending to a more irenic story. Be that as it may, for our purposes, what matters is not the relative date of the two Bavli stories or the direction of dependence, but the existence of two competing visions of history: one tragic and one comic. As noted above, these two perspectives are found already in earlier Palestinian texts (Sifre Deuteronomy 43 and p. Ḥagigah 2:1, 77b-c) and, indeed, have biblical roots. In short, regardless of the relationship between these specific Bavli stories, the competing visions they express were likely synchronous.

26 Kraemer 1995, p. 169-171, provides an excellent discussion of these sources in the general context of rabbinic responses to suffering, rather than the more specific question addressed here: do these sources constitute evidence of a minority view of history as tragedy, in response to Roman power?

27 A Palestinian rabbinic tradition that some scholars trace to the Second Temple period, for which see Naiweld 2016, p. 266 n. 25.

28 Following the printed edition in order to highlight editorial insertions in the discussion to follow. This text is discussed for quite different purposes and with quite different conclusions in Naiweld 2016, p. 265-71. See also Kalmin 2006, p. 121-148, and the excellent text critical analysis in Gross 2017, p. 141-147.

29 Gezerot, decrees or edicts, are associated with God in two ways in the midrash. The Torah itself (or specific commandments; see t. Keritot 1:6) is described as the edict (usually gezerah) of God and some of the characteristic features of Roman edicts are associatively transferred to the Torah. Like the edicts of Roman magistrates and praetors, the Torah becomes effective only upon its public promulgation: "Said R. Eleazar: Even though the Torah was given as a ‘fence’ at Sinai, they [the Israelites] were not punished for [violations of] it until it was repeated in the Tent of Meeting. This may be compared to an edict (diatagma) which is written and sealed and brought into the city but the inhabitants of the city are not punished for [violations of] it until it is promulgated in the public place of the city (Leviticus Rabbah 1:10)." An early rabbinic explanation of Deut 6:4 ("Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day") states that the Torah "should not be in your eyes like an old edict which no one regards with respect, but like a new edict to which all rush" (Sifre Deuteronomy 33). God punishes those who violate his Torah as a king would punish those who violate his edicts. Thus, the destruction of the ten northern tribes for violating the Torah is likened to a king’s vengeance against the ten rebellious sons who nullified his edicts (diatagma, Exodus Rabbah 30:5). In other midrashim, the concept of an edict is rendered as gezerah and refers not to the Torah but to God’s decrees of chastisement/judgment – usually harsh. Unlike the edict that is Torah, God’s harsh decrees of judgment can be cancelled, particularly through prayer, charity and repentance (Pesikta deRav Kahana 28:3; a theme found in the Yom Kippur liturgy). In a lengthy encomium to the power of repentance (Pesikta deRav Kahana 24:11), one midrash adduces a series of biblical characters, beginning with Cain, whose repentance successfully averted the cruel decrees that had been imposed upon them by God (much to the chagrin of Adam who ruefully declares "such is the power of repentance and I knew it not!"). For a full discussion of the term "gezerah" as indicating a divine law or ruling that is arbitrary, non-rational or even irrational, see Hayes 2015, p. 253-262.

30 See below for evidence that this baraita has been modified and crafted for this occasion. For the phenomenon of "Babylonian baraitot", and the wide array of scholarly views on the subject, see Cohen 2017 and the literature cited there.

31 Kalmin 2006.

32 Gross 2017.

33 For these conclusions, see Gross 2017, p. 141-147.

34 Rubenstein 1996, p. 1-37 [= idem 2003, p. 212-242.]

35 Wasserman 2017.

36 The latter being one of the two places where the phrase כך עלה בדעתו של הקב"ה ("so it occurred to the Holy One, Blessed be He") is found in rabbinic literature.

37 Rubenstein 2003, p. 223.

38 v. 9: "Let them bring their witnesses that they may be justified (veyitsdaku)."

39 Only the most relevant sections of this lengthy sugya are presented in full.

40 An allusion perhaps to R. Akiva who, in the scene leading to his martyrdom, is described as occupying himself with (‘asaq b-) Torah (b. Berakhot 61b).

41 Although Gen 25:23 is cited merely as proof for the meaning of the Hebrew term ‘am, it evokes the fraternal struggle of Esau and Jacob – and thus Rome and Israel – which will occupy us below.

42 Rubenstein 2003, p. 232.

43 From Greek tyrannis or tyrannia and Latin tyrannis, the term here refers to the cruel and unjust use of power, or the rule of a tyrant, or absolute power.

44 Wasserman 2017, p. 42.

45 Rubenstein’s translation omits "at them" but the prepositional phrase is found in the JTS and Munich ms. againt the Paris ms. In any event both the biblical verse cited and the ensuing discussion in the sugya make it clear that the laughter is directed at the nations in a mocking fashion.

46 Wasserman 2017, p. 40.

47 See also Psalm 37:13, 59:9, or wisdom mocking the wicked and foolish in Prov 1:26.

48 Beard 2014, p. 6.

49 Beard 2014, p. 132.

50 Beard 2014, p. 129.

51 Beard 2014, p. 130.

52 Beard 2014.

53 One is reminded of Philo’s account of his experience as a member of the Jewish legation to the Roman emperor Caligula in the early 1st century CE: "Then driven along we followed him [Caligula] up and down mocked and reviled by our adversaries, as they do in the mimes at the theatres […] But after giving some of his orders about the buildings he [Caligula] put to us this grave and momentous question, ‘Why do you refuse to eat pork?’ The question was greeted by another outburst of laughter from some of our opponents because they were delighted, while with others it was a studied attempt to flatter him, intended to make the remark seem witty and sprightly […] Under such befooling and reviling we were helpless" (Embassy to Gaius 359, 361, 362, LCL). Like the Roman biographers who depict tyrants abusing their power by mocking and ridiculing those powerless to oppose them, this Jewish writer describes Caligula as deliberately making fun of his Jewish guests for their dietary laws.

54 Beard 2014, p. 132.

55 I take this phrase from Halliwell 2008, p. 81 who applies it to the laughter of the Greek gods as they mock Hephaestus on the occasion of his catching his adulteress wife, Aphrodite, in flagrante delicto.

56 Beard 2014, p. 136.

57 Following ms. Vatican 134, a 13th-century Italo-Ashkenazic manuscript. For an assessment of the conservative and "authentic" nature of this manuscript, see Wald 2000.  

58 This text may be seen as an instance of spoudaiogeloion (from Greek σπουδαῖον [serious] and γελοῖον [comical]). Recent works discussing serio-comic elements in rabbinic literature include Boyarin 2002 and Zellentin 2011.

59 Hadas-Lebel 1984, p. 381-382.

60 Hadas-Lebel 1984, p. 382-383.

61 Genesis Rabbah 63:8 draws an explicit comparison between David and Esau, both of whom are described in Scripture as admoni (a play on Edom, meaning "ruddy"). The midrash explains that Esau is described as admoni (Gen 25:25) to indicate that he was a murderer (and hence red with blood). The midrash then notes with some anxiety that David is also described as admoni (1 Sam 16:12), raising the concern that he, like Esau, is a common murderer. The midrash does not deny that David kills, but hastens to clarify that while Esau killed on his own impulse, David killed following judicial procedure. This distinction notwithstanding, the comparison is unsettling; the midrash’s highly suggestive reading raises the possibility that David, no less than Esau, is admoni in the sense that he is connected to the wicked and murderous Edom/Rome.

62 My reading of b. Pesaḥim 119b and, to some extent, b. Avodah Zarah 2a-3b draws inspiration from Carolyn Sharp’s reading of the book of Esther (Sharp 2009, p. 65-83) as an ironic tale in which Jews end up acting as their Persian overlords had planned to act. In defeating the Persians, the Jews engage in an unbridled genocidal slaughter, proving themselves as brutal and xenophobic as the ruling power. The Jews survive but at the cost of their moral integrity, alternately resisting foreignness, assimilating foreignness, and becoming hybridized, but ultimately outdoing the Persians.

63 Naiweld 2016, p. 261.

64 For a discussion of this duality, see Naiweld 2016, p. 274-282.

65 Assis 2006, p. 11.

66 Several biblical texts express this view, often attributing it to the people, before refuting it. See for example, Lamentations, Ezekiel 47, Jeremiah 33, Malachi 1, Obadiah – all discussed at length in Assis 2016.

67 Assis 2006, p. 14-15.

68 Assis 2016, p. 187.

69 Assis 2016, p. 179.

70 Assis 2016, p. 190.

71 See Bhabha 1993, p. 86: "The authority of that mode of colonial discourse that I have called mimicry is therefore stricken by indeterminacy: mimicry emerges as the representation of a difference that is itself a process of disavowal. Mimicry is, thus the sign of a double articulation; a complex strategy of reform, regulation and discipline, which ‘appropriates’ the Other as it visualizes power. Mimicry is also the sign of the inappropriate, however, a difference or recalcitrance which coheres with the dominant strategic function of colonial power, intensifies surveillance, and poses an immanent threat to both ‘normalized’ knowledges and disciplinary powers."

72 For the notion of hidden transcripts, coded critiques of power developed by subordinated groups, see Scott 1990.

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