By “gnostic,” people mean salvific knowledge, transitive, transformative learning, joining the two quite distinct categories of intellect and personal salvation or regeneration.5 In the successor-system, knowledge more than merely informs, it saves. And knowledge that saves is gnostic. What happens to me in Torah-study in the theory of the religious successor-system that does not happen to me in Torah-study in the theory of the initial, philosophical system is that I am changed in my very being. This transformation of the one who knows is not alone as to knowledge and understanding (let alone mere information), nor even as to virtue and taxic status, but as to what the knower is. I become something different from, better and more holy than, what I was before I knew, and whether the complement is “the mysteries” or “the Torah [as taught by sages]” makes no material difference.
The conception of the Torah as transformative contains another important trait we call gnostic. It is the power to do things I could not do before I had attained knowledge in the correct way. The marks of the transformation emerge in the supernatural power that I have by reason of my (new) knowledge, learning in the Torah. That is what I mean by the new learning and what justifies the classification of Torah-learning as gnostic. For when (mere) knowledge so transforms the knower that he or she is deemed changed, then that knowledge may be called gnostic.
That jarring juxtaposition, identifying ignorance (not knowing a given fact) with the personal condition of unregeneracy, knowledge with supernatural standing and, hence, also power—that juxtaposition relates what need not, and commonly is not, correlated: the moral or existential condition of the person and the level of intellectual enlightenment of that same person. Certainly the framers of the Mishnah did not imagine that such a correlation could be made, nor did their heirs for quite some time. But in the successor-system, a principal point of integration of what philosophy had deemed distinct was between knowledge and one’s condition or classification as to supernatural things. Knowledge of the Torah, quite specifically, changed a person and made him (never her) simply different from what he had been before or without that same knowledge: physically weaker, but also strengthened by power that we might call magical, but that they called supernatural. Before proceeding, let me give a good example of what I mean by knowledge of Torah represented as transformative and salvific.
I can point to a story that explicitly states the proposition that the obeying the Torah, with obedience founded on one’s own knowledge thereof, constitutes a source of salvation. In this story we shall see that because people observed the rules of the Torah, they expected to be saved. And if they did not observe, they accepted their punishment. So the Torah now stands for something more than revelation and life of study, and (it goes without saying) the sage now appears as a holy, not merely a learned, man. This is because his knowledge of the Torah has transformed him. Accordingly, we deal with a category of stories and sayings about the Torah entirely different from what has gone before. We find at Y. Taanit 3:8 one among numerous examples in which the symbol of the Torah and knowledge of the Torah bear salvific consequence, a claim never set forth in behalf of knowledge, let alone knowledge of the Torah, in the Mishnah:6
[II A] |
As to Levi ben Sisi: troops came to his town. He took a scroll of the Torah and went up to the roof and said, “Lord of the ages! If a single word of this scroll of the Torah has been nullified [in our town], let them come up against us, and if not, let them go their way.” |
[B] |
Forthwith people went looking for the troops but did not find them [because they had gone their way]. |
[C] |
A disciple of his did the same thing, and his hand withered, but the troops went their way. |
[D] |
A disciple of his disciple did the same thing. His hand did not wither, but they also did not go their way. |
[E] |
This illustrates the following apophthegm: You can’t insult an idiot, and dead skin does not feel the scalpel. |
What is interesting here is how taxa into which the word Torah previously fell have been absorbed and superseded in a new taxon. The Torah is an object: “He took a scroll. . . .” It also constitutes God’s revelation to Israel: “If a single word. . . .” The outcome of the revelation is to form an ongoing way of life, embodied in the sage himself: “A disciple of his did the same thing. . . .” The sage plays an intimate part in the supernatural event: “His hand withered. . . .” Here the Torah is a source of salvation. How so? The Torah stands for, or constitutes, the way in which the people Israel saves itself from marauders. This straightforward sense of salvation will not have surprised the author of Deuteronomy. But in our documents, there is more to the relationship of the Torah to salvation than mere obedience to its rules.
For now we discern an approach to the mere learning of the Torah—as distinct from obedience to its rules—that promises not merely intellectual enlightenment but personal renewal or transfiguration or some other far-reaching change. And since that view presents a gnostic7 reading of learning, in the successor-system we confront a Torah, knowledge of which not merely informs or presents right rules of conduct, but which transforms, regenerates, saves.8 In that context and by these definitions, the theory of the Torah and of Torah-study set forth in the successor-documents promises a fully-realized transformation to those who study and therefore know the Torah. They gained not merely intellectual enlightenment but supernatural power and standing. In this context, that encompassed such salvation as would take place prior to the end of time. The new learning defined as the consequence of Torah-study imputed by the Talmud of the Land of Israel, Genesis Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, and Pesiqta deRab Kahana—but not by the Mishnah and its companions, tractate Abot and the Tosefta—changes not merely the mind but the moral and salvific condition of the one who engages in that learning.
That conception would have surprised the philosophers represented by the Mishnah.9 For if we ask ourselves, where in the Mishnah do we find promises of transformation of the person effected through study of the Torah? these, we recall full well,10 concern only the issue of one’s status in the hierarchical order of being, but not one’s very character and essence. Quite to the contrary, as to the Mishnah’s generative concerns on taxonomy, knowledge of the Torah changed nothing; the mamzer who mastered the Torah remained in the caste of the mamzer, so that, while if he lost his ass along with others, his would be returned first, still, he could not marry the daughter of a priest or even an Israelite. That means the transformation in no way affected the being of the man, but only his virtue. True, we find at M. Hagigah 2:1 statements that have suggested to some11 knowledge possessed traits of an other-than-wholly secular character, in that correct knowledge required attention to status (sage) and also the source and character of learning (“understands of his own knowledge,” whatever that means):
MISHNAH-TRACTATE HAGIGAH 2:1
A. |
They do not expound upon the laws of prohibited relationships [Lev. 18] before three persons, the works of creation [Gen. 13] before two, or the Chariot [Ezek. 1] before one, |
B. |
unless he was a sage and understands of his own knowledge. |
C. |
Whoever reflects upon four things would have been better off had he not been born: |
D. |
what is above, what is below, what is before, and what is beyond. |
E. |
And whoever has no concern for the glory of his Maker would have been better off had he not been born. |
These sentences have been quite plausibly interpreted to refer to personal, not merely intellectual, change effected by knowledge, hence to a gnostic reading of learning.
But they then do not impute to Torah-study as a general classification of intellectual activity the potentiality of (dangerous) change in one’s own being. They speak of only specific topics and texts. The statements before us identify a very few specific passages and do not contain the conception that studying the Torah in general constitutes a transformative and salvific action. Their specificity may justify spelling the adjective Gnostic, but not gnostic.12 At best, therefore, we may say that, within the compilation of the authorship of the Mishnah, we find in nuce the possibility of a gnostic approach to knowledge; but that very representation, unrealized in context, hardly extends to the entirety of learning in the Torah and indeed by its formulation precludes such a general approach to the act of intellect performed upon the Torah.
A somewhat protracted survey of the Mishnah’s and tractate Abot’s theory of what happens to me because I study the Torah that will not happen to me if I do not readies us to see what is fresh and unprecedented in the representation of the same matter in the successor-documents.13 When we come to tractate Abot, a generation beyond the Mishnah, we find heavy emphasis upon the importance of correlating one’s actions with one’s knowledge. A variety of sayings insist that if one knows the Torah but does not act in accord with its teachings, one gains nothing. One must change one’s life to conform with one’s knowledge of the Torah. That point of insistence, of course, invites as its next, small step, the doctrine that knowing the Torah changes one in being and essence, not only intellectually, by reason of illumination, but taxically, by reason of transformation. But the gnostic Torah, which would treat knowing the Torah on its own as a medium for one’s transformation from merely natural to supernatural character,14 would be some time in coming and would make its appearance only in the successor-system. A survey of tractate-Abot yields no such conception, but only the point that knowledge must be confirmed in deeds, a conception of moral but not existential weight, as in the following saying in Abot:
TRACTATE ABOT 1:17
A. Simeon his son says, “Not the learning is the main thing but the doing. And whoever talks too much causes sin.”
True, the statement that if one keeps his eye on three things, he will not sin, can yield the conception that knowledge bears salvific consequence. But that does not speak of a personal transformation in one’s status and condition. The knowledge that saves me from sin is instrumental, not transformative:
“Know what is above you: (1) An eye which sees, and (2) an ear which hears, and (3) all your actions are written down in a book.”
The same conception, that knowledge is essential to attitudes that bring salvation, is stated in the following:
A. |
Aqabiah b. Mehalalel says, “Reflect upon three things and you will not fall into the clutches of transgression: |
B. |
“Know (1) from whence you come, (2) whither you are going, and (3) before whom you are going to have to give a full account [of yourself]. |
C. |
“From whence do you come? From a putrid drop. |
D. |
“Whither are you going? To a place of dust, worms, and maggots. |
E. |
“And before whom are you going to give a full account of Yourself? Before the King of kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be he.” |
We have not strayed far from the notion that knowledge of the Torah promises a good reward here and after death because it keeps me from sin, that is to say, the position, vis à vis studying a trade, of Nehorai. Here again, what I get for knowing treats knowledge as necessary in an instrumental sense; it yields a given goal, it does not effect a desired transformation. A promise that in context is quite consistent is that, if I study the Torah, I encounter God:
TRACTATE ABOT 3:2
C. |
R. Hananiah b. Teradion says, “[If] two sit together and between them do not pass teachings of Torah, lo, this is a seat of the scornful. . . . |
E. |
“Two who are sitting, and words of Torah do pass between them—the Presence is with them, as it is said, ‘Then they that feared the Lord spoke with one another, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord and gave thought to His name’ (Mal. 3:16).” |
G. |
I know that this applies to two. |
H. |
How do I know that even if a single person sits and works on Torah, the Holy One, blessed be he, sets aside a reward for him? As it is said, ‘Let him sit alone and keep silent, because he has laid it upon him’ (Lam. 3:28).” |
TRACTATE ABOT 3:6
A. |
R. Halafta of Kefar Hananiah says, “Among ten who sit and work hard on Torah the Presence comes to rest, |
B. |
“as it is said, ‘God stands in the congregation of God’ (Ps. 82:1). |
C. |
“And how do we know that the same is so even of five? For it is said, And he has founded his group upon the earth (Am. 9:6). |
D. |
“And how do we know that this is so even of three? Since it is said, ‘And he judges among the judges’ (Ps. 82:1). |
E. |
“And how do we know that this is so even of two? Because it is said, Then they that feared the Lord spoke with one another, and the Lord hearkened and heard (Mal. 3:16). |
F. |
“And how do we know that this is so even of one? ‘Since it is said, In every place where I record my name I will come to you and I will bless you’ (Ex. 20:24).” |
“Knowing God” or bringing God into one’s study circle certainly represent desirable goals of illumination. But these do not encompass the transformative experience promised the one who knows—as we shall see—by the gnostic theory of the Torah. Why not? Because even though God has joined my study-circle and brought the divine presence to rest among the disciples, we still do not then claim supernatural powers as the consequence; in neither the Mishnah nor the Tosefta nor Abot do we find the claim that the disciple of the sage by reason of his learning does miracles.15
The contrast between getting a good name for oneself and getting the world to come, in the following saying, also is not quite to the point:
“[If] one has gotten a good name, he has gotten it for himself. [If] he has gotten teachings of Torah, he has gotten himself life eternal.”
Here we speak of repute, a form of virtue, but not wonder-working. The same point as Simeon’s, above, moreover comes to the fore in the following:
A variety of sayings, indeed, explicitly identify not Torah-learning but other virtues as primary, and furthermore scarcely concede to Torah-learning transformative, let alone salvific, power:
TRACTATE ABOT 4:13
C. R. Simeon says, “There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of sovereignty.
D. “But the crown of a good name is best of them all.”
TRACTATE ABOT 4:17
A. He would say, “Better is a single moment spent in penitence and good deeds in this world than the whole of the world to come.
B. “And better is a single moment of inner peace in the world to come than the whole of a lifetime spent in this world.”
These and similar sayings attest to a variety of modes of human regeneration, none of them connected with Torah-learning in particular.
Now, as a matter of fact, in the successor-documents, a quite different theory of Torah-learning predominates. It is the simple fact that knowledge of the Torah changes the one who knows. He becomes physically weaker,16 but gains, in compensation, supernatural powers. The legitimating power of the Torah and study thereof imputed in the pages of the Talmud of the Land of Israel is explicit: knowledge of the Torah changes a man into a sage and also saves Israel. The Torah then involves not mere knowledge, e.g., correct information, valid generalization, but gnosis: saving knowledge.17
To the rabbis the principal salvific deed was to “study Torah,” by which they meant memorizing Torah sayings by constant repetition, and, as the Talmud itself amply testifies, (for some sages) profound analytic inquiry into the meaning of those sayings. This act of “study of Torah” imparted supernatural power. For example, by repeating words of Torah, the sage could ward off the angel of death and accomplish other kinds of miracles as well. So Torah formulas served as incantations. Mastery of Torah transformed the man who engaged in Torah learning into a supernatural figure, able to do things ordinary folk could not do. In the nature of things, the category of “Torah” was vastly expanded so that the symbol of Torah, a Torah scroll, could be compared to a man of Torah, namely, a rabbi. Since what made a man into a sage or a disciple of a sage or a rabbi was studying the Torah through discipleship, what is at stake in the symbolic transfer is quite obvious.
The Torah is then identified with and personified by the sage; so he is changed because of what he knows. That is a material and palpable claim, not a mere mode of ascription of great sanctity, lacking any concrete consequence, the vastly expanded definition of the symbol of “Torah.” The claim that a sage (or, disciple of a sage) himself was equivalent to a scroll of the Torah forms a material, legal comparison, not merely a symbolic metaphor.
Y. MOED QATAN 3:7.X
A. He who sees a disciple of a sage who has died is as if he sees a scroll of the Torah that has been burned.
Y. MOED QATAN 3:1.XI.
I. R. Jacob bar Abayye in the name of R. Aha: “An elder who forgot his learning because of some accident which happened to him—they treat him with the sanctity owed to an ark [of the Torah].”
In both instances actual behavior was affected. That view is expressed in stories indicating the belief that while a sage is repeating Torah sayings, the angel of death cannot approach him.
Y. MOED QATAN 3:5.XXI
F. [Proving that while one is studying Torah, the angel of death cannot touch a person, the following is told:] A disciple of R. Hisda fell sick. He sent two disciples to him, so that they would repeat Mishnah-traditions with him. [The angel of death] turned himself before them into the figure of a snake, and they stopped repeating traditions, and [the sick man] died.
G. A disciple of Bar Pedaiah fell ill. He sent to him two disciples to repeat Mishnah-traditions with him. [The angel of death] turned himself before them into a kind of star, and they stopped repeating Mishnah-traditions, and he died.
Repeating Mishnah traditions thus warded off death. It is hardly surprising that stories were told about wonders associated with the deaths of various rabbis. These validated the claim of supernatural power imputed to the rabbis. A repertoire of such stories includes two sorts.
First, there is a list of supernatural occurrences accompanying sages’ deaths, and, second, we have a claim of specific miracles that were done by Heaven when a great sage died. The former are as in the following.
Y. ABODAH ZARAH 3:1.II
A. |
When R. Aha died, a star appeared at noon. |
B. |
When R. Hanah died, the statues bowed down. |
C. |
When R. Yohanan died, the icons bowed down. |
D. |
They said that [this was to indicate] there were no icons like him [so beautiful as Yohanan himself]. |
E. |
When R. Hanina of Bet Hauran died, the Sea of Tiberias split open. |
F. |
They said that [this was to commemorate the miracle that took place] when he went up to intercalate the year, and the sea split open before him. |
G. |
When R. Hoshaiah died, the palm of Tiberias fell down. |
H. |
When R. Isaac b. Elisheb died, seventy [infirm] thresholds of houses in Galilee were shaken down. |
I. |
They said that [this was to commemorate the fact that] they [were shaky and] had depended on his merit [for the miracle that permitted them to continue to stand]. |
J. |
When R. Samuel bar R. Isaac died, cedars of the land of Israel were uprooted. |
K. |
They said that [this was to take note of the fact that] he would take branch [of a cedar] and [dance, so] praising a bride [at her wedding, and thereby giving her happiness]. |
L. |
The rabbis would ridicule them [for lowering himself by doing so]. Said to them R. Zeira, “Leave him be. Does the old man not know what he is doing?” |
M. |
When he died, a flame came forth from heaven and intervened between his bier and the congregation. For three hours there were voices and thunderings in the world: “Come and see what a sprig of cedar has done for this old man!” |
N. |
[Further] an echo came forth and said, “Woe that Samuel b. R. R. Isaac has died, the doer of merciful deeds.” |
O. |
When R. Yosa bar Halputa died, the gutters ran with blood in Laodicea. |
P. |
They said [that the reason was] that he had given his life for the rite of circumcision. |
Q. |
When R. Abbahu died, the pillars of Caesarea wept. |
R. |
The [gentiles] said [that the reason was] that [the pillars] were celebrating. The Israelites said to them, “And do those who are distant [such as yourselves] know why those who are near [we ourselves] are raising a cry?” |
Y. ABODAH ZARAH 3:1.II
BB. One of the members of the patriarchate died, and the [burial] cave folded over [and received the bier], so endangering the lives [of those who had come to bury him]. R. Yosé went up and took leave [of the deceased], saying “Happy is a man who has left this world in peace.”
CC. When R. Yosa died, the castle of Tiberias collapsed, and members of the patriarchate were rejoicing. R. Zeira said to them, “There is no similarity [between this case and the miracle described at BB]. The peoples’ lives were endangered, here no one’s life was endangered. In that case, no pagan worship was removed, while here, an idol was uprooted [so, consequently, the event described in BB was not a miracle, while the event described here was a miracle and a sign of divine favor].”
What is important in the foregoing anthology is the linkage between the holy deeds of the sage and the miracles done at their demise. The sages’ merit, attained through study of Torah or through acts of saintliness and humility was demonstrated for all to see. So the sage was not merely a master of Torah. But his mastery of Torah laid the foundations for all the other things he was: he was changed into something other than what he had been before he studied the Torah, and all else follows.
Second, specific miracles, as distinct from natural wonders, were related with regard to the death of the Patriarch.
Y. KETUBOT 12:3.IV
E. |
R. Nathan in the name of R. Mana: “There were miracles done that day. It was the eve of the Sabbath, and all the villagers assembled to make a lamentation for him. They put down the bier eighteen times en route to burial to mourn him, and they accompanied him down to Bet Shearim. The daylight was protracted until each one of them had reached his home [in time for the Sabbath] and had time to fill up a jug of water and light the Sabbath lamp. When the sun set, the cock crowed, and the people began to be troubled, saying, ‘Perhaps we have violated the Sabbath.’ |
F. |
“But an echo came to them, ‘Whoever did not refrain from participation in the lamentations for Rabbi may be given the good news that he is going to enjoy a portion in the world to come |
G. |
“‘except for the launderer [who used to come to Rabbi day by day, but did not bother to participate in his funeral].’ When he heard this, he went up to the roof and threw himself down and died. Then an echo went forth and said, ‘Even the laundryman [will enjoy the life of the world to come].’” |
Y. KETUBOT 12:3.VII
That the sage was different from ordinary men seems to me well established. But in context that claim was not surprising; holy men in general were deemed supernatural. What makes this claim distinctive in the present system is not only that it is unprecedented in its canonical context, but also that it is a claim of supernatural power gained specifically through the autocephalous act of undertaking to study the Torah.
The Torah, of course, in context was deemed true, and that explained why rabbis were shown more effective than other magicians, specifically in those very same settings in which, all parties conceded, other wonder-workers, as much as rabbis, were able to perform magical deeds. What is important in the following is the fact that in a direct contest between a rabbi and another sort of magician, an Israelite heretic, the rabbi was shown to enjoy superior magical power.
Y. SANHEDRIN 7:12.III
These long extracts leave no doubt that the Talmud imputed to Israel’s sages precisely the powers generally assigned to magicians. The sage did precisely what the magician did, only he did it better. When the magician then pretended to do what Moses had done, it was his end. The story about Joshua’s magic in Rome is similar, in its explicit reference to sympathetic magic, K-L. The result was the discovery that the childless man had been subject to a spell.
There can be no doubt that distinctions between magic and supernatural power meant nothing to the Talmud’s storytellers. The clerks were not merely holy men; they were a particular kind of holy men. In consequence of the belief that rabbis had magical powers, it was quite natural to impute to rabbis the ability both to bless those who favored them and to curse those who did not.
Thus far I have shown only that sages studied the Torah and also that sages through study of the Torah gained supernatural standing (e.g., when they were buried) and power, which they imputed to their knowledge of the Torah. What I have yet to demonstrate is that knowledge of the Torah itself changed the sage in such a way that he not only could manipulate the supernatural power inhering in the Torah but also could himself join in the processes of forming the Torah. For I have alleged that the man himself was transformed through Torah-study. And what I have already offered in evidence demands an explanation of how that transformation took place. For the allegation that knowledge in particular changes the person can itself refer to a merely instrumental power: if I know thus and so, I can do such and such. At stake in the gnostic Torah was much, much more.
Specifically, if I know the Torah, I can join in the making of the Torah, and that claim in my behalf as a sage forms solid evidence of the allegation that studying the Torah not only endows one with power but actually changes the man from what he had been into something else. He had been ordinary, now he is not merely powerful but holy. And his holiness is shown by the fact that, just as we study the Torah in its written and oral forms, so we may study the Torah in its quotidian form: the sage himself, his gestures, his actions then forming precedents valid within the practice of the Torah itself. And when I allege that because I have studied the Torah, I am changed so that I can now join in the process of revealing the Torah, studying the Torah provides a gnostic experience of transformation, regeneration, and salvation. Accordingly, I have now to demonstrate that the supernatural status accorded to the person of the sage endowed his deeds with normative, therefore revelatory power.
What the sage did had the status of law; the sage was the model of the law, thus having been changed, transformed, regenerated, saved, turned by studying the Torah into the human embodiment of the Torah. That gnostic view of Torah-study as transformative and salvific—now without explicit appeal to deeds in conformity to the law, though surely that is taken for granted—accounts for the position that the sage was a holy man. For what made the sage distinctive was his combination of this-worldly authority and power and otherworldly influence. The clerk in the court and the holy man on the rooftop praying for rain or calling Heaven to defend the city against marauders, in the Yerushalmi’s view were one and the same. The tight union between salvation and law, the magical power of the sage and his lawgiving authority, was effected through the integrative act of studying the Torah. And that power of integration accounts for the successor-system’s insistence that if the sage exercised supernatural power as a kind of living Torah, his very deeds served to reveal law, as much as his word expressed revelation.
The capacity of the sage himself to participate in the process of revelation is illustrated in two types of materials. First of all, tales told about rabbis’ behavior on specific occasions immediately are translated into rules for the entire community to keep. Accordingly, he was a source not merely of good example but of prescriptive law. Here is a humble and mundane case of how that view came to expression.
Y. ABODAH ZARAH 5:4:III
X. R. Aha went to Emmaus, and he ate dumpling [prepared by Samaritans].
Y. R. Jeremiah ate leavened bread prepared by them.
Z. R. Hezekiah ate their locusts prepared by them.
AA. R. Abbahu prohibited Israelite use of wine prepared by them.
These reports of what rabbis had done enjoyed the same authority, as statements of the law on eating what Samaritans cooked, as did citations of traditions in the names of the great authorities of old or of the day. What someone did served as a norm, if the person was a sage of sufficient standing.
Far more common in the Talmud are instances in which the deed of a rabbi is adduced as an authoritative precedent for the law under discussion. It was everywhere taken for granted that what a rabbi did, he did because of his mastery of the law. Even though a formulation of the law was not in hand, a tale about what a rabbi actually did constituted adequate evidence on how to formulate the law itself. So from the practice of an authority, a law might be framed quite independent of the person of the sage. The sage then functioned as a lawgiver, like Moses. Among a great many instances of that mode of generating law are the following.
Y. ABODAH ZARAH 3:11.II
A. Gamaliel Zuga was walking along, leaning on the shoulder of R. Simeon b. Laqish. They came across an image.
B. He said to him, “What is the law as to passing before it?”
C. He said to him, “Pass before it, but close [your] eyes.”
D. R. Isaac was walking along, leaning on the shoulder of R. Yohanan. They came across an idol before the council building.
E. He said to him, “What is the law as to passing before it?”
F. He said to him, “Pass before it, but close [your] eyes.”
G. R. Jacob bar Idi was walking along, leaning upon R. Joshua b. Levi. They came across a procession in which an idol was carried. He said to him, “Nahum, the most holy man, passed before this idol, and will you not pass by it? Pass before it but close your eyes.”
Y. ABODAH ZARAH 2:2.III
FF. R. Aha had chills and fever. [They brought him] a medicinal drink prepared from the phallus of Dionysian revelers. But he would not drink it. They brought it to R. Jonah, and he did drink it. Said R. Mana, “Now if R. Jonah, the patriarch, had known what it was, he would never have drunk it.”
GG. Said R. Huna, “That is to say, ‘They do not accept healing from something that derives from an act of fornication.’”
What is important is GG, the restatement of the story in the form of a fixed rule, hence as a law. The example of a rabbi served to teach how one should live a truly holy life. The requirements went far beyond the measure of the law, extending to refraining from deeds of a most commonplace sort. The example of rabbinical virtue, moreover, was adduced explicitly to account for the supernatural or magical power of a rabbi. There was no doubt, in people’s imagination, therefore, that the reason rabbis could do the amazing things people said they did was that they embodied the law and exercised its supernatural or magical power. The correlation between learning and teaching, on the one side, and supernatural power or recognition, on the other, is explicit in the following.
Y. KETUBOT 12:3.VII
A. R. Yosa fasted eighty fasts in order to see R. Hiyya the Elder [in a dream]. He finally saw him, and his hands trembled and his eyes grew dim.
B. Now if you say that R. Yosa was an unimportant man, [and so was unworthy of such a vision, that is not the case]. For a weaver came before R. Yohanan. He said to him, “I saw in my dream that the heaven fell, and one of your disciples was holding it up.”
C. He said to him, “Will you know him [when you see him]?”
D. He said to him, “When I see him, I shall know him.” Than all of his disciples passed before him, and he recognized R. Yosa.
E. R. Simeon b. Laqish fasted three hundred fasts in order to have a vision of R. Hiyya the Elder, but he did not see him.
F. Finally he began to be distressed about the matter. He said, “Did he labor in learning of Torah more than I?”
G. They said to him, “He brought Torah to the people of Israel to a greater extent than you have, and not only so, but he even went into exile [to teach on a wider front].”
H. He said to them, “And did I not go into exile too?”
I. They said to him, “You went into exile only to learn, but he went into exile to teach others.”
This story shows that the storyteller regarded as a fact of life the correlation between mastery of Torah sayings and supernatural power—visions of the deceased, in this case. That is why Simeon b. Laqish complained, E-F, that he had learned as much Torah as the other, and so had every right to be able to conjure the dead. The greater supernatural power of the other then was explained in terms of the latter’s superior service to “Torah.” The upshot is that the sage was changed by Torah learning and could save Israel through Torah.
Scripture, of course, by this time did not exhaust the content of God’s revelation to Moses at Sinai. In the pages of the Yerushalmi the conception comes to expression that the Torah encompassed not only revelation formulated and transmitted in writing, but also revelation formulated and transmitted orally. And this oral part of the Torah gained priority, simply because knowledge of the oral Torah—at this point, the Mishnah and some unspecified traditions of scribes alongside—characterized sages alone and marked them as distinctive in context. That is why, for all their veneration of Scripture and its (rabbinical) heroes, the Talmud’s authorities still regarded knowledge of the Mishnah as more important than knowledge of Scripture, citing biblical proof texts in support of that proposition.
The relative value of learning in various collections of Torah teachings is worked out in the following extended unit of discourse.
Y. HORAYOT 3:5.III
D. This is what has been said: The Mishnah takes precedence over Scripture.
E. And the following supports this tradition:
F. For R. Simeon b. Yohai taught, “He who takes up studies in Scripture—it is a good quality that is no good quality.”
G. Rabbis treat Scripture as equivalent to the Mishnah . . .
W. R. Aha interpreted the following verse: “‘A just balance and scales are the Lord’s; all the weights in the bag are his work’ (Prov. 16:110).
X. “‘A balance’—this refers to Scripture.
Y. “‘Scales’ refers to the Mishnah.
Z. “‘Just’ refers to the Talmud.
AA. “‘Are the Lord’s’ refers to the Supplement [Tosefta].
BB. “‘All the weights in the bag are his work’—all of them take their reward from one bag.”
CC. R. Abba bar Kahana went to a certain place. He found R. Levi sitting and interpreting the following verse: “‘A man to whom God gives wealth, possession, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them’ (Qoh. 6:2).
DD. “‘Wealth’—this refers to Scripture.
EE. “‘Possessions’—these are the laws.
FF. “‘Honor’ - this is the Supplement.”
Christians as much as Jews, ordinary folk as much as sages, knew Scripture. So striking is one point not to be missed in the statement at hand. Given that Torah is the source of supernatural power and salvation, what part of Torah is the source of supernatural power and salvation, what part of Torah is to enjoy precedence? It quite obviously will be the Mishnah and its associated bodies of discussion, that is, the component of Torah in the hands of Israel, and Israel’s sages, alone. Assigning to knowledge of Mishnah precedence over knowledge of Scripture therefore serves to declare that those who master Mishnah possess a power to attain salvation greater than those who know (merely) Scripture. That I take to be the deeper sense of D-F.
The contrary view, G, W-BB, should not be missed. Both parties of course must be right. No one could really maintain that knowledge of the Scripture was secondary to knowledge of the Mishnah. Nor would any sage concur that knowledge of Scripture alone sufficed. So the sense of the passage allows for two correct, if distinct, positions to be juxtaposed. For our purpose the fundamental assertion of the identity of Scripture learning and Mishnah learning with “Torah” is the main thing.
When we speak of the gnostic Torah, marking the new learning that promised not merely illumination of an intellectual order but salvation that was both personal and national, it is to this union of written and oral Torah that we refer: that was the gnostic, the salvific Torah.
Precisely how did sages explain the transformation effected by study of the Torah? It was by appeal to the character of the saints of Scripture. Seeing Scripture in their own model, they took the position that the Torah of old, its supernatural power and salvific promise, in their own day continued to endure among themselves. By studying the Torah, they turned themselves into the model of those sages whose holy deeds the Torah recorded: Moses, David and Isaiah being called rabbis, for instance. In consequence, the promise of salvation contained in every line of Scripture was to be kept in every deed of learning and obedience to the law effected under their auspices. Learning in the Torah was salvific because it turned ordinary men into saints in the model of the saints of the Torah.
That fact helps us to understand the constant citation of Scripture in the context of sages’ rulings and doings. It was not to establish authority alone. Rather, it was to identify what was happening just then with what had happened long ago. The purpose was not merely to demonstrate and authenticate the bona fide character of a new figure of salvation, but to show the continuity of the salvific process, a process then that relied for its persistence upon learning in particular. The act of study of the Torah, in the system before us, had to be endowed with gnostic status, supernatural power to save, because the act of learning formed the medium for the transmission of not merely the lessons, but the supernatural power, of old. The Torah presented not merely rules but examples of holiness, and salvation lay in sanctification: “Today, if you repent,” that is, conform now, as not before: accept transformation, regeneration, salvation.
It followed that the pattern and promise of salvation contained therein lay within their way of life: studying the Torah in discipleship. That is the meaning of the explicit reading of the present into the past—the implicit arrogation of the hope of the past to the salvific heroes of the present: themselves. To state matters simply, if David, King of Israel, was like a rabbi today, then a rabbi today would be the figure of the son of David who was to come as King of Israel. It is not surprising, therefore, that among the many biblical heroes whom the Talmudic rabbis treated as sages, principal and foremost was David himself, now made into a messianic rabbi or a rabbinical Messiah. He was the sage of the Torah, the avatar and model for the sages of their own time. That view was made explicit, both specifically and in general terms. If a rabbi was jealous to have his traditions cited in his own name, it was because that was David’s explicit view as well. In more general terms, both David and Moses are represented as students of Torah, just like the disciples and sages of the current time. We recall how David is represented as a devoted student of the Torah. Here is one re-presentation of a biblical story in the mode of an academic tale:
Y. SANHEDRIN 2:6.IV
Y. SHEQALIM 2:4.V.
O. |
David himself prayed for mercy for himself, as it is said, “Let me dwell in thy tent for ever! Oh to be safe under the shelter of thy wings, selah” (Ps. 61:4). |
P. |
And did it enter David’s mind that he would live for ever? |
Q. |
But this is what David said before the Holy One, blessed be he, “Lord of the world, may I have the merit that my words will be stated in synagogues and schoolhouses.” |
R. |
Simeon b. Nazira in the name of R. Isaac said, “Every disciple in whose name people cite a teaching of law in this world—his lips murmur with him in the grave, as it is said, ‘Your kisses are like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips of those that sleep’ (Song 7:9). |
S. |
“Just as in the case of a mass of grapes, once a person puts his finger in it, forthwith even his lips begin to smack, so the lips of the righteous, when someone cites a teaching of law in their names—their lips murmur with them in the grave.” |
David as a model of the disciple of the sage is represented in the following for the virtue of conscious and zealous Torah-study:
Y. BERAKHOT 1:1 (TRANS. BY TZVEE ZAHAVY).XII.
O. |
“I will awake the dawn” (Ps. 5:7, 8)—I will awaken the dawn; the dawn will not awaken me. |
P. |
David’s [evil] impulse tried to seduce him [to sin]. And it would say to him, “David. It is the custom of kings that awakens them. And you say, I will awake the dawn. It is the custom of kings that they sleep until the third hour [of the day]. And you say, At midnight I rise.” And [David] used to say [in reply], “[I rise early] because of thy righteous ordinances (Ps. 119:62).” |
Q. |
And what would David do? R. Phineas in the name of R. Eleazar b. R. Menahem [said], “[He used to take a harp and lyre and set them at his bedside. And he would rise at midnight and play them so that the associates of Torah should hear. And what would the associates of Torah say? ‘If David involves himself with Torah, how much more so should we.’ We find that all of Israel was involved in Torah [study] on account of David.” |
This extract has shown us how the Talmud’s authorities readily saw their concerns in biblical statements attributed to David. “Water” meant “a teaching of Torah.” “Three mighty men” were of course judges. At issue was whether or not the decision was to be stated in David’s own name—and so removed from the authoritative consensus of sages. David exhibits precisely those concerns for the preservation of his views in his name that, in earlier sections, we saw attributed to rabbis. All of this, as we have noted, fully reveals the rabbis’ deeper convictions when we remember that David, the rabbi, also was in everyone’s mind David, the Messiah.
Enough has been set forth to suggest that I mean to represent the gnostic Torah as the centerpiece of the successor-system. But our evidence suggests precisely the opposite, for, as a matter of fact, even the stories contained in the Talmud of the Land of Israel in which the priority and sanctity of the sage’s knowledge of the Torah form the focus of discourse prevent me from doing so. Time and again, knowledge of the Torah forms a way-station on a path to a more distant, more central goal: attaining zekhut, which, readers recall, I have translated as “the heritage of virtue and its consequent entitlements.” Torah-study is one means of attaining access to that heritage, of gaining zekhut. There are other equally suitable means, and, not only so, but the merit gained by Torah-study is no different from the merit gained by acts of supererogatory grace. Since, in the successor-system, it is points of integration, not of differentiation, that guide us to the systemic problematic, we must take seriously the contingent status, the standing of a dependent variable, accorded to Torah-study in such stories as the following:
Y. TAANIT 3:11.IV
C. |
There was a house that was about to collapse over there [in Babylonia], and Rab set one of his disciples in the house, until they had cleared out everything from the house. When the disciple left the house, the house collapsed. |
D. |
And there are those who say that it was R. Adda bar Ahwah. |
E. |
Sages sent and said to him, “What sort of good deeds are to your credit [that you have that much merit]?” |
F. |
He said to them, “In my whole life no man ever got to the synagogue in the morning before I did. I never left anybody there when I went out. I never walked four cubits without speaking words of Torah. Nor did I ever mention teachings of Torah in an inappropriate setting. I never laid out a bed and slept for a regular period of time. I never took great strides among the associates. I never called my fellow by a nickname. I never rejoiced in the embarrassment of my fellow. I never cursed my fellow when I was lying by myself in bed. I never walked over in the marketplace to someone who owed me money. |
G. |
“In my entire life I never lost my temper in my household.” |
H. |
This was meant to carry out that which is stated as follows: “I will give heed to the way that is blameless. Oh when wilt thou come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house” (Ps. 101:2). |
What I find striking in this story is that mastery of the Torah is only one means of attaining the zekhut that had enabled the sage to keep the house from collapsing. And Torah-study is not the primary means of attaining zekhut. The question at E provides the key, together with its answer at F. For what the sage did to gain such remarkable zekhut is not to master such-and-so many tractates of the Mishnah. It was rather acts of courtesy, consideration, gentility, restraint. These produced zekhut, all of them acts of self-abnegation or the avoidance of power over others and the submission to the will and the requirement of self-esteem of others. Torah-study is simply an item on a list of actions or attitudes that generate zekhut.
Here, in a moral setting, we find the politics replicated: the form of power that the system promises derives from the rejection of power that the world recognizes—legitimate violence replaced by legitimation of the absence of the power to commit violence or of the failure to commit violence. And, when we ask, whence that sort of power? the answer lies in the gaining of zekhut in a variety of ways, not in the acquisition of zekhut through the study of the Torah solely or even primarily. But, we note, the story at hand speaks of a sage in particular. He has gained zekhut by not acting the way sages are commonly assumed to behave but in a humble way.
In context of this story, zekhut then may prove a virtue dependent upon the situation of the Torah and its study, in consequence of which we should have to impute to the gnostic Torah systemic priority, indeed centrality, finding in the new learning the key to the successor-system as a whole. But that is, in fact, not so. At hand is not a religious system in which the transformation of the individual through salvific knowledge provides the compelling answer to the question of personal salvation. A different question stands at center-stage, and a different answer altogether defines the dramatic tension of the theatrical globe. At stake, as we shall now see, is a public and a national question, one concerning Israel’s history and destiny, to which the individual and his salvation, while important, are distinctly subordinated. Not Torah-study, which may generate zekhut, but zekhut itself defines what is at issue, the generative problematic of the system, and only when we grasp the answer provided by zekhut shall we reach a definition of the question that precipitated the systemic construction and the formation of its categories, principal and contingent alike.18
The importance of the gnostic Torah in no way diminishes when we recognize the subordinate position of the Torah in the successor-system. For the upshot remains systemically indicative. In unifying the distinct categories of learning and not deeds or virtue but one’s personal condition in the supernatural world, the recasting of the category of the world-view from an intellectual and even a moral to a salvific and a supernatural indicator, encompassing data not formerly noted or even assembled at all, shows the successor-system’s novel power of integration. If Torah-study changes me not only in my knowledge or even virtue but my relationship to Heaven, endowing me with the supernatural power, then the system as a whole signals a union of Heaven and earth that was formerly unimagined. What I know concerns not only earth but Heaven, the power that knowledge brings governs in both realms.
Study of the Torah changed the one who studied because through it he entered into the mind of God, learning how God’s mind worked when God formed the Torah, written and oral alike and (in the explicit view of Genesis Rabbah 1:1) consulted the Torah in created the world. And there, in the intellect of God, in their judgment humanity gained access to the only means of uniting intellect with existential condition as to salvation. The Mishnah had set forth the rules that governed the natural world in relationship to Heaven. But knowledge of the Torah now joined the one world, known through nature, with the other world, the world of supernature, where, in the end, intellect merely served in the quest for salvation. Through Torah-study sages claimed for themselves a place in that very process of thought that had given birth to nature; but it was a supernatural process, and knowledge of that process on its own terms would transform and, in the nature of things, save. That explains the integrative power of imputing supernatural power to learning. And, now that we realize what was at stake in the gnostic Torah, we understand the full gravity of the simple statement that the system’s orbit encircled not the Torah but zekhut.
1I refer to my Rabbinic Political Theory: Religion and Politics in the Mishnah (Chicago, 1991: The University of Chicago Press), briefly summarized in Chapter Three.
2For, after all, the problematic of the Mishnah’s politics is the principle of differentiation among legitimate political agencies, first between Heaven’s and humanity’s, second, among the three political institutions of the Mishnah’s “Israel.”
3That the system neglected woman altogether, except as a subordinated outcaste, achieving caste-status only through the father at first, and then the husband, served the systemic purpose. By the theory proposed here, however, woman (nearly) as much as man should form a systemic actor, since while for hierarchical purposes, woman can be treated as collective and abnormal, for the work of integration, woman, as much as man, will exhibit the besought unities. In stories cited in Chapters Seven and Eight we note a number of points at which a woman is a principal figure, either counseling the right response to a dilemma, or forming a major actor in a tale. But these are only preliminary observations, and a study of the comparison between the role and representation of woman in the various documents of the unfolding canon will show whether my guess on the systemic difference, and my implicit explanation of that difference, make sense when tested against evidence. In my The Place of the So-called Tannaitic Midrashim. Methodological Experiments in the Intellectual Situation of Documents, with special reference to Mekhilta Attributed to R. Ishmael, Sifra, Sifré to Numbers, and Sifré to Deuteronomy, I shall begin part of this inquiry.
4In Chapter Eight, Notes, 2 and 4, I expand on why “merit” is precisely the wrong translation of the word zekhut. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a more totally inept and inaccurate translation of zekhut than the word merit. Stated simply, in its earliest contextual definition zekhut is contrasted with sin and forms the mirror-image of sin. Just as sin cannot be inherited but must be done by one’s own intentionality and action, so, by exact contrast, zekhut can be inherited, and may be attained not by one’s own intentionality and action but by some other person, whether one’s ancestor or an influential person in one’s own community. Since “merit” must beer the sense of “just desserts, based on one’s own deeds,” as in, “he merited an award because of his accomplishments,” zekhut cannot be accurately represented in English by the word merit. But there is more to the inaccuracy of “merit” than merely the unmerited character of the entitlement for which zekhut stands. We return to this matter when it forms a critical problem in systemic description and analysis.
5I of course bypass the word, Gnostic, with a capital G, bearing quite specific meanings in the study of late antiquity. A variety of meanings circulate, attached to various writings. What the common adjective, gnostic, with the denotative adjective, Gnostic, have in common is that the latter falls into the class of the former: saving knowledge.
6Not even at M. Hag. 2:2!
7Resorting to the adjective “Faustian” while defensible seems to me less exact.
8Obviously, this “gnostic” is with a small g; I in no way mean to identify the Torah of the successor-Judaism with the Gnostic systems, Christian, Judaic, and pagan, of which we have knowledge in the same time and place, as well as earlier and later. My supposition is that, in any religious system, the intellectual component by the nature of the systemic setting is going to bear the same transformative and salvific valence as I show here pertained to the Torah. The counterparts in other religions, which impute to knowledge of the correct sort in the proper manner salvific power, are numerous. That seems to me to justify treating “gnostic” as a generic classification for religious knowledge. But is there religious knowledge that is not gnostic, but merely (for one example) validating or qualifying? Indeed, there is a great deal of such knowledge, and the Mishnah’s conception of knowing, as set forth in the apologetic of tractate Abot, is exactly of that kind. There, as we shall see, studying the Torah brings God’s presence to join those who repeat Torah-words, whether one or many. But there is no consequent claim that the Torah-words’ repetition has changed those who have said them, only that God has joined their study-circle. And that claim is of a considerably different kind from the one we shall see in numerous stories of the correlation between knowing the Torah and supernatural power.
9And hardly them alone. For the prevailing philosophical traditions the consequence of enlightenment in intellect cannot be said to have encompassed personal salvation (let alone national salvation, such as, in the Yerushalmi, was covered as well). Virtue depended upon right thinking, e.g., knowing what is the good, the true, and the beautiful. But the consequence of that knowledge did not commonly yield supernatural power in the philosophical systems of Greco-Roman antiquity. And, along these same lines, knowledge of the Torah served, e.g., the Israelite priesthood as a medium of validation, in that through knowledge they knew how to do their job, but it was a job that they got by reason of genealogy, not knowledge, as Mishnah-tractate Yoma 1:3 has already reminded us. So too, the Israelite scribal profession identified knowledge of the Torah as the foundation of their professional qualification.
10E.g., Mishnah-tractate Horayot 3:3-6, given above.
11It is conventional to read the following as “Gnostic,” for instance, note Gershom G Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (N.Y., 1960: Jewish Theological Seminary of America). Taking the attributions at face value, moreover, various scholars, typified by Scholem, have forthwith assigned to “Judaism,” or to “the rabbis” a fully-realized Gnostic experience. But if they had not decided in advance that these sayings had to mean what they suppose they mean, the proponents of such views about the condition of “Judaism” in the first century will have had to consider a variety of meanings and alternatives, including the one that we simply do not know what is going on in these statements.
12And here, in the received scholarly tradition in all languages Gnostic with a capital G is routinely given. But that seems to me to read into the passage much that is not explicit and need not be present at all; still, I admit, I do not claim to understand the passage at all, nor those in proximity in the Tosefta.
13Without a full review of the sayings on the relationship of learning to one’s personal condition as to salvation, what is fully new in the later documents will not be discerned. The nuances of language here do matter, especially since the received reading of the sayings surveyed in the following paragraphs imposes upon them the supernatural valence accorded only in the later writings to Torah-knowledge or Torah-study. Here the master of Torah-learning is saved only by what he does in consequence of what he knows, or by matching what he knows with what he does. Knowing by itself does not save, though it can effect attitudes that will affect one’s actions in one way rather than in some other, and right action will then yield salvation. Not only so, but Torah-study will draw God’s presence among those who study, but that does not yield the claim either that the sages are changed or that they thereby gain supernatural power. None of the indicators of the gnostic Torah occur, but only by the following survey will readers appreciate how much has been read into the sayings adduced in behalf of the contrary view.
14lndeed, the emphasis on the importance of correlating learning and deed and on the priority of deed seems to me to deny that very correlation of learning with transformation. Merely knowing is insufficient. But to a gnostic theory of knowledge, merely knowing itself saves. So I suppose proponents of the theory of a Gnostic Judaism of the first and second centuries will adduce these statements as evidence of not Gnostic Judaism but a reaction against Gnostic Judaism. But the evidence once more would then be asked to bear too heavy a burden of interpretation.
15The contrary view, that the one who does miracles is not necessarily a disciple of a sage, though he may be a holy man, is presented at Mishna-tractate Taanit 3:8 with reference to Honi, for one instance. What is important to my argument is simply that no one correlates Torah-learning with wonder-working. Whether or not the component of the canon represented by the Mishnah and its associated writings favors wonder-working or opposes it, fears it or admires it, is not at stake here. What concerns me is the working of the categories, and the process of category-formation adumbrated by the correlation of distinct categories simply has not taken place by the end of the formation of the Mishnah’s component of the canon of the dual Torah.
16As we noted in Chapter Two.
17One important qualification is required. Knowledge is not the only medium of salvation. Salvation, as before, derives from keeping the law of the Torah. Keeping the law in the right way is the way to bring the Messiah, the son of David. This is stated by Levi, as follows.” If Israel would keep a single Sabbath in the proper way, forthwith the son of David would come” (Y. Taanit 1:1.IX.X, cited above). But the issue of not doing but (mere) knowing, of salvation through study of the Torah, is distinct.
18Until this inquiry I had always taken for granted that the center of the Judaism of the dual Torah was located in the theory of the Torah as the critical symbol of the whole, a position conveyed by the title of my textbook, The Way of Torah. An Introduction to Judaism (Encino, 1970: Dickenson Publishing Co. Second printing, 1971. Third printing, 1971. Second edition, revised, 1973. Third printing, 1976. Third edition, thoroughly revised, Belmont: 1979: Wadsworth Publishing Co. Third printing, 1980. Fourth printing, 1982. Fifth printing, 1983. Sixth printing, 1985. Seventh printing, 1986. Fourth edition, completely revised and rewritten: 1988. Second printing: 1988. Third printing, 1989. Fifth edition planned: 1992). But as we see in the next chapter, Torah is contingent and instrumental, zekhut is uncontingent and the system’s sole (so it appears at this moment) independent variable. And yet, it seems to me clear, the symbol of Torah does remain the center and heart of the Judaism that emerged from late antiquity. What this impression suggests to me is that in the third stage in the formation of the Judaism of the dual Torah, attested by the Bavli and associated Midrash-compilations, I should find zekhut a not-central, but now-contingent variable, replaced by Torah as the independent variable and court of final appeal. Whether that will be the case I cannot now predict.