jack

We actually READ the book of Judith for Hannukah. I will attempt to summarise.

Nebuchadnezzar is the autocratic emperor of Assyria and (realistically) rules a vast swathe of territory and (unrealistically) thinks that he is almost a god. This isn't THE Nebuchadnezzar, not any of the other Nebuchadnezzars either. Stories of the time apparently just slap the Nebuchadnezzar label on rulers who are going to be bad news, reflecting that the people who wrote the stories which we're reading were first, people in Jerusalem conquered by Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar and deported back to Babylon, then their descendants who later returned to Israel. Fictional Nebuchadnezzar has a massive beef with Some Ruler who doesn't really come into the story after the first chapter.

There is detail about Some Ruler's fortified cities (wall width, size of stones, gate size, number of towers), which having recently read https://acoup.blog/2021/10/29/collections-fortification-part-i-the-besiegers-playbook/ was pretty interesting from a historical-strategic perspective. A wall like that shuts off raids from any any army less professional and determined that what the emperor of Assyria can muster.

Narrator: This is what a walled city protects against, and this is what it doesn't.

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This all alludes to the more genuinely historical invasion by the Greek Seleucids repelled by the Maccabees, so it is celebrated in Hannukah, along with the later tradition that one of the things Judith specifically plied Holofernes with was good cheese.

In Parts I and II (see https://jack.dreamwidth.org/tag/boyarin-apocalypse), we saw Elisha Ben Abuya aka "Aher, the Other rabbi" get shunned for believing something heretical to ardent monotheists. The story describes four great rabbis entering a metaphorical "garden" and him seeing seeing Metatron giving orders from a golden throne, and crying "God?", and then legions of angels drag Metatron away to be whipped him for temerity. But why are they punishing Metatron here?

This was some sort of dualistic or binitarian belief, but what? This was central to the point Daniel Boyarin was making in these lectures. He's showing that despite quite a lot of strands of Jewish mysticism having no written records from about 300BCE to 200CE, they didn't vanish during this time but were probably actually common but disapproved of. This is an extended swipe at another unparalleled biblical scholar, Peter Schafer, who wrote books about ways Christianity did influence Judaism.

At some point Schafer described one of Boyarin's books using the "what is good is not new and what is new is not good" quip. Another time, he says "some scholars" believe Christianity didn't influence Judaism at all, but gives an example of a book by Boyarin. Boyarin angrily retorts Shafer his putting words in his mouth, he's saying THIS PARTICULAR story with the garden was an influence of a different tradition, not Christianity, and gave this fascinating lecture series to explain why in extreme detail.

Boyarin takes a number of specific examples that appear in the Talmud. For instance, the garden story was supposed to be a warning "IF YOU KNOW HOW TO GO TO HEAVEN DON'T WRITE IT DOWN THE KNOWLEDGE IS TOO MUCH FOR MOST PEOPLE" but the rabbis of a few hundred years later helpfully go into a lot of specific detail, including specific steps Rabbi Akiva supposedly undertook and the substances of seven onion-layers of heaven he travelled through.

Boyarin compares these to similar stories recorded earlier (e.g. 1 Enoch where Enoch travels to heaven in a similar way and is taken up as an angel taught great mysteries about everything) and later (e.g. 3 Enoch where someone else travels to heaven and meets Enoch-now-Metatron who complains about getting whipped for it, but gives him important visions), and demonstrates that these probably all influenced each other, as opposed to the ideas being re-imported from Christianity or another source. Conversely there's a story in Daniel about a great king and Someone sitting on a great throne and Daniel getting important visions, in both Jewish and Christian tradition, but this seems to be a slightly different version of the story emphasising who is in heaven and how they rule, not a human becoming an angel and getting whipped for going too far.

These likely relate to a much earlier story. The Sumerian King List records a sequence of kings stretching back before a Great Flood, and the seventh antediluvian king has a series of legends about being taken up into heaven, being allowed to run humanity and making a golden age, and then screwing it all up by being worshipped too much for his own sake and cast down again. Legends about a junior divine being who had been, or became, human, or who got too big for his boots and had to be cast down float about since then. The Sumerian religion at the time was later reformed by Zoroaster as Zoroastrinism.

This seems to be the earlier point of the Enoch-Metatron stories. The bible only says Enoch (seventh generation patriach) went off with God instead of dying. But this is back when the idea was that heaven was for angels and dead people went to some sort of underworld, so it may reflect the "went to heaven and was taught all the mysteries and became an angel" story recorded later. Then some Jewish people happily bought into the "Metatron rules on some days when God is busy doing accounts" plan whether or not Metatron had been Enoch. Others told them off with the "Yes, and he was PUNISHED FOR IT" bit of the Enoch/Metatron story. This is why Metatron's punishment for what Aher said seems to come out of nowhere.

Conversely, if Jesus or the Holy Spirit has any relationship to this story, they don't have any of those bits, so the bit with Metatron being seen by the Rabbis going into the garden derives from earlier Jewish tradition, not a denouncement of contemporary Christianity. And so (says Boyarin), Boyarin's long detailed lecture series is correct and Shafer's throw-away snarky footnote is wrong.

In the Talmud there's a famous story about four Rabbis who enter a fine garden. The word is "Pardes" which literally means orchard, but is a distant cousin of the word paradise. To no-one's surprise this turns out to be (spoilers!) a metaphor for heaven or divine knowledge which is Making a Point. In fact, I think the whole story is recorded not for its own sake but as a supporting example to a general prohibition, if you meditate and study so hard you gain divine insight that gives you miraculous powers, only share the knowledge with sober-minded over-40s of good character, in case someone is a bit reckless and heat-visions an entire landscape or designs a robot that runs amok and destroys Prague, or whatever.

You will also be shocked, shocked, to learn that when reach these heights of divine knowledge, three of them act incautiously and get comeuppance for it, and R Akiva is sensible about it and gets out safely and becomes One of the Most Famous Rabbis in the Talmud ever.

According to later versions of the story, the first rabbi, Ben Azzai saw God and died. In the earliest version is just says he went into the garden and "glimpsed and died", and what exactly he glimpsed was something only contained in oral versions of the story. The real life Ben Azzai was another Talmud Rabbi famous for all sorts of things, although apparently he did die young-ish and never officially got recognised as a rabbi in his lifetime.

The second, Ben Zoma, looked around and saw too much, but not so much that he died, and went mad. The original cliff notes version quotes a bit of the bible about not eating too much honey here, so something like, he didn't know what was too much. Apparently he also died without becoming a Rabbi but was famous for his learning anyway.

The third "trampled the stalks" which is bad in a field, and super super bad to do in heaven. The expanded version says he saw God and Metatron and said, "oh look, there's two Gods!?" and caused a holy hullabaloo across all of heaven, and got kicked out. And in real life, he abandoned being a great famous Rabbi and became a super super heretic, and went around gratuitously sinning all over the place -- or perhaps, adopted ideas of a different sect of Judaism that the people writing this down wanted to tell everyone how BAD it was. His name as Elisha ben Abuya, but he's known as "Acher" which means "The Other" all through the talmud where's an example of what absolutely not to do.

And Akiva entered the garden peacefully, did no harm, and left again safely. The Talmud usually likes Akiva.

Next time we'll talk about Acher's heresy in a lot more detail. Also (spoilers) the angels drag Metatron from his throne and whip him with thousands and thousands of fiery whips (yes, really) which may give some satisfaction to those of you who read Good Omens.

Traditional Jewish prayer for after going to the toilet

So if you don't already know, the most interesting thing about it is that there IS one. It talks about how we're grateful for the orifices and sphincters because we couldn't live without it.

Lots of people have an instinct that it's not really appropriate to mix defecation and prayer. And there's some of that in Judaism, eg. you're not supposed to pray on a toilet. But a big part of his talk was quoting bits of talmud about toilets, to illustrate, there's nothing _bad_ about it, it's like things like sex (and maybe surgery?) which are great and good topics for prayer, even if you're not supposed to mix the two.

Although he never explicitly SAID that distinction. I think it might have been helpful if he had, rather than just giving pro-toilet examples without explaining the distinction explicitly. (I got a lot of this from hatam_soferet's comments on liv's post.)

The overall thesis

I felt like I was missing background here, like there was some cultural disconnect. His overall thesis was related to the fact the prayer refers to god as roughly "throne of glory" and also (?) uses "throne" in reference to the toilet. And there's most probably SOME connection implied there.

But he seemed to imply it was more than that. Which seemed very odd, like, the rest of the talk made the point that it was ok to pray about bodily functions as much as anything else. But (I don't know, but I got the impression that?) it's really shocking to imply God might do _anything_ physical, even eat -- and I didn't get the impression that defection was so much MORE holy it was ok to talk about God doing it.

But I was clearly missing something, like he didn't EXPECT to prove that thesis. He just wanted to advance it. And I guess that's partly him, and partly a tradition of commentary? After all, most talks don't have a thesis they even pretend to prove. But partly, I'm frustrated because if someone SAYS they're going to prove something, I'm not used to the idea I'm not supposed to believe them.

And partly I'm frustrated because I'm really interested in this sort of cross-cultural meta-conventions about study and prayer, but people rarely *talk* about them, even though it might be something Rafi could do very well.

Teaching

In fact, I get the impression he's rushed off his feet delivering these popular talmud sessions. He always encourages people to participate with ideas and interpretations (less so this time, but more in other sessions I've been in), how you're supposed to when studying something. But a few things made me realise he maybe usually lacks time or preparation to really *engage* with any of those comments, except by plowing ahead with his thesis. So he's still a really good popular educator, but I'm sometimes left not sure what I'm missing.

R. Akiva follows R. Yehoshua into a bathroom and spies on him

He followed with half a dozen pieces of Talmud which supported his thesis in some way, but really, one of the most interesting aspect of the talk is just seeing them in their own right.

R. Akiva: Once I followed my teacher R Yehoshua into a bathroom and watched what he did, so I would know the most appropriate way to go to the bathroom.
Ben Azai: And "not spying on people" you didn't think you could figure out for yourself?
R. Akiva: How to go to the bathroom is part of the teachings (oral Torah?), I had to learn it!
R: Kahana: It's funny you should say that, because I hid under your bed and listened to you with your wife. You chatted and giggled like new lovers. I had to learn how to behave in the bedroom, it was part of the teachings.
R. Akiva: *with a straight face* That was highly inappropriate.

It's also followed by a passage where rabbis argue why you should wipe with the left hand. Because you eat with the right. Because you wrap tefillin with the right. Etc. I'm not sure if any of them end with the obvious answer "all of the above".

The dangers of learning from Joshua the Nazarene

Liv linked to a partial translation here: https://www.ou.org/life/torah/masechet_shevuot_13a19b/

R. Eliezer was accosted by a follower of Jesus (or, so we guess), commonly supposed to be James (?). He proposed a point of teaching, which is implicitly not traditionally correct, but R. Eliezer was amused/moved by the argument, and even though he didn't respond, came under suspicion of following the teachings of Christianity, which was illegal at the time, and temporarily arrested by the Roman authorities.

What's fascinating is that it's one of the few (possible?) mentions of Jesus in the Talmud. And it gives me dissonance, in that I know much Talmud was written down about the same time as Jesus, but they don't easily go together in my head. R. Eliezer stars in such stories as the oven of achnai, where he pursues an academic argument by making increasingly impossible miracles, culminating in being outvoted shortly after God speaks from the sky to endorse him personally. And is exiled, and loses it, and gazes on the crops and sea, which are ruined wherever he looks. It's like the time of myths. But then there's other stories like this one where he bustles around early-AD middle east going to market, administrating universities, arguing with political authorities, etc. (Right?)

And the particular point in question was, it was forbidden to use money from exploitation and vice[1] as donation to the temple (subject to a lot of details). The disciple asked if it was appropriate to use it for the high priest's privy, that already being full of uncleanliness in some sense. And this gives a very strange view of how jewish leaders at the time might have viewed christianity at the time (or the temple for that matter). Eliezer is inconvenienced by being associated with Christianity, but he doesn't recoil shouting "blashphemer, blasphemer". And the christian disciple is more persecuted, but not so much he can't stop in the middle of the market to buttonhole rabbis and have theological arguments.

It seems likely this is an implicit criticism or mocking of Jesus' followers' beliefs of the time SOMEHOW but I don't know the context to say how. I don't know if that's something Jesus' followers WOULD have had an opinion on, or if it's supposed to discredit them.

[1] The translation is fee from a prostitute, but I prefer to read that as the bad thing being betrayal of vows, exploitation, or whatever, rather than prostitution per se, anyone able to add details?

What's the story with challah?

It's surprisingly simple. The history is comparatively short, and the customs are fairly similar amongst different traditions, and it doesn't make a difference whether you're in the diaspora or in Israel.

Really?

No, that was all a lie. It all starts in ancient hebrew some time after the exodus from egypt...

Uh, actually can we skip the ancient history?

OK. Up to five hundred years ago in eastern europe...

This is skipping the history?

Yes! This is skipping thousands of years of history.

Look, can I maybe find out how challah is used nowadays.

OK.

As a non-jew, what actually is challah?

Challah is a rich bread made with egg, where the dough is plaited together. It's traditionally used as the "bread" part of jewish prayers before meals, especially on the sabbath and on a few other festivals. But it's a common jewish tradition even if you're not observant.

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I went with Liv to talk by Daniel Boyarin at Cambridge Limmud, which was an advance preview on his new book.

As I understand it, the "conventional" view of the gospel of Mark is that it's the earliest of the gospels, probably written by a non-Jew for a non-Jewish audience, and several passages are seen as supporting cases where Jesus rejected Jewish law, and as such are sometimes used as a basis for the idea that Christianity doesn't need to follow various bits of Jewish law.

However, Boyarin proposes an alternative view, that Mark probably was Jewish, but writing for a non-Jewish audience. And if Mark was someone who knew and followed usual Jewish laws in the first century CE, it suddenly a very important source about what those practices were, which is what Boyarin is really interested in. (As opposed to the current view, that if Mark were originally non-Jewish, and reporting Jewish customers second-hand mainly to say "they don't apply any more", it wouldn't tell you much about it at all.)

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