Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/hbr.2023.a912663
Philip Hollander
of Hebrew literature in the Russian Empire. Transcending the pragmatic definition of value, both artistically and philosophically, the poet’s primary concern became not what was useful but rather what was beautiful and meaningful to the human experience, as expressed through the eyes of the Hebrew writer, (Zilbergerts, 124).
{"title":"Our New Literature – Continuation or Revolution?","authors":"Philip Hollander","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2023.a912663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2023.a912663","url":null,"abstract":"of Hebrew literature in the Russian Empire. Transcending the pragmatic definition of value, both artistically and philosophically, the poet’s primary concern became not what was useful but rather what was beautiful and meaningful to the human experience, as expressed through the eyes of the Hebrew writer, (Zilbergerts, 124).","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"33 9 1","pages":"279 - 288"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139211295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/hbr.2023.a912650
Jonathan Homrighausen
Abstract:Like the Torah scroll, the Esther scroll in Jewish life serves as not only a technology of text, but a symbolically charged ritual object for the liturgical theater of Purim ritual. This paper argues that in late antique Purim liturgy, the symbolic act of unrolling the scroll for the megillah reading hints at God's presence in the Book of Esther itself. Three clusters of evidence support this thesis. First, rabbinic texts describing liturgy assign symbolic value to the act of unrolling and rolling up scrolls. Second, the rabbis' choice to call Esther a 'megillah' allows them to midrashically conflate the megillat Esther with heavenly books described in Ezekiel, Malachi, Zechariah, and Jeremiah, thus making Esther into a book of life or book of fate. Third, synagogue liturgy connects the megillah with pivotal moments of writing, reading, and unveiling in the Book of Esther itself. The act of unrolling and reading the Book of Esther at Purim thus ritualizes a deeper metaphor: unrolling the scroll is unveiling God's hidden presence.
{"title":"Unrolling the Scroll, Revealing God: Esther Scrolls as Symbols and Ritual Objects","authors":"Jonathan Homrighausen","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2023.a912650","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2023.a912650","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Like the Torah scroll, the Esther scroll in Jewish life serves as not only a technology of text, but a symbolically charged ritual object for the liturgical theater of Purim ritual. This paper argues that in late antique Purim liturgy, the symbolic act of unrolling the scroll for the megillah reading hints at God's presence in the Book of Esther itself. Three clusters of evidence support this thesis. First, rabbinic texts describing liturgy assign symbolic value to the act of unrolling and rolling up scrolls. Second, the rabbis' choice to call Esther a 'megillah' allows them to midrashically conflate the megillat Esther with heavenly books described in Ezekiel, Malachi, Zechariah, and Jeremiah, thus making Esther into a book of life or book of fate. Third, synagogue liturgy connects the megillah with pivotal moments of writing, reading, and unveiling in the Book of Esther itself. The act of unrolling and reading the Book of Esther at Purim thus ritualizes a deeper metaphor: unrolling the scroll is unveiling God's hidden presence.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"14 1","pages":"57 - 81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139210672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/hbr.2023.a912662
Karen Grumberg
{"title":"\"I Want to Live in an in-Between Jerusalem\": Poetics as Ethical Imperative","authors":"Karen Grumberg","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2023.a912662","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2023.a912662","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":"269 - 277"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139210556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/hbr.2023.a912648
R. Wollenberg
Abstract:Late antique rabbinic Judaism famously left no manuscript traces. Without material evidence regarding early rabbinic practices of reading and writing, scholars have struggled to close the theoretical gap between the physical remnants of epigraphic and ritual writing from Jewish communities in this period and the portraits of reading and writing preserved in medieval manuscripts of late antique rabbinic literature. Yet, Karen Stern has observed that virtually all of the methods adopted to date ultimately privilege rabbinic writings by treating them as the hermeneutical frame through which the material evidence is interpreted. This article asks if we can reverse that hermeneutic hierarchy by (re)reading the literary tradition in light of the insights brought to us by the traces of material writing from the period. As a case study, this article takes the material evidence that visitors to the Dura Europos synagogue engaged with the prepared pictorial texts and architectural spaces of the synagogue in deeply interactive ways – rubbing and touching images and even emending and adding their own words and images to those in the prepared environment. When we reconsider early rabbinic traditions in light of this popular interactive disposition towards text and image, it emerges that many early rabbinic thinkers likewise approached written and pictorial texts as inherently contingent products that invited the continued intervention of other human hands. Moreover, one discovers that many rabbinic texts theorized this interactive relationship as a manifestation of a fundamental continuity and permeability between text and the material world.
{"title":"Parchment Skins and Human Skins: Some Thoughts on the Permeability of Text and Material Environment in Late Antique Jewish Reading Cultures","authors":"R. Wollenberg","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2023.a912648","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2023.a912648","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Late antique rabbinic Judaism famously left no manuscript traces. Without material evidence regarding early rabbinic practices of reading and writing, scholars have struggled to close the theoretical gap between the physical remnants of epigraphic and ritual writing from Jewish communities in this period and the portraits of reading and writing preserved in medieval manuscripts of late antique rabbinic literature. Yet, Karen Stern has observed that virtually all of the methods adopted to date ultimately privilege rabbinic writings by treating them as the hermeneutical frame through which the material evidence is interpreted. This article asks if we can reverse that hermeneutic hierarchy by (re)reading the literary tradition in light of the insights brought to us by the traces of material writing from the period. As a case study, this article takes the material evidence that visitors to the Dura Europos synagogue engaged with the prepared pictorial texts and architectural spaces of the synagogue in deeply interactive ways – rubbing and touching images and even emending and adding their own words and images to those in the prepared environment. When we reconsider early rabbinic traditions in light of this popular interactive disposition towards text and image, it emerges that many early rabbinic thinkers likewise approached written and pictorial texts as inherently contingent products that invited the continued intervention of other human hands. Moreover, one discovers that many rabbinic texts theorized this interactive relationship as a manifestation of a fundamental continuity and permeability between text and the material world.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"11 - 30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139210444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/hbr.2023.a912649
Daniel Picus
Abstract:This essay examines examples of the Oral Torah as a concrete, material phenomenon in late ancient rabbinic sources. The oral nature of oral Torah, both as an ideology and as a description of rabbinic textual practices, can elide some of the more evocative discussions of the nature of oral Torah. Previous discussions, such as Wollenberg (2019), have shown that the nature of the written Torah was often understood as unstable, changing, and mutable. This essay explores the other side of that equation, exploring discussions of oral Text as concrete, enduring, and unchanging. Two main examples are studied: the first from a passage in the Palestinian Talmud, and the second in a passage from the Babylonian Talmud. The Palestinian Talmud draws a dense network of connections between Torah scrolls, oral teachings, rabbinic sages, and the imagery of death and memorialization. The Babylonian Talmud similarly extends the value of rabbinic oral teaching into the World to Come, showing that while the associations between teaching, death, and eternal life manifest differently, they are still present in different rabbinic contexts. Taken together, these inscriptions of a concrete and material Oral Torah are fully realized in the body of the rabbinic sage. Other scholars have also shown that rabbinic sages become an embodiment of Torah: this essay examines the nature of rabbinic Torah, as discussed in rabbinic literature, to understand how that embodiment comes about.
{"title":"The Words of the Righteous: The Death of Text and the Eternity of Stone","authors":"Daniel Picus","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2023.a912649","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2023.a912649","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay examines examples of the Oral Torah as a concrete, material phenomenon in late ancient rabbinic sources. The oral nature of oral Torah, both as an ideology and as a description of rabbinic textual practices, can elide some of the more evocative discussions of the nature of oral Torah. Previous discussions, such as Wollenberg (2019), have shown that the nature of the written Torah was often understood as unstable, changing, and mutable. This essay explores the other side of that equation, exploring discussions of oral Text as concrete, enduring, and unchanging. Two main examples are studied: the first from a passage in the Palestinian Talmud, and the second in a passage from the Babylonian Talmud. The Palestinian Talmud draws a dense network of connections between Torah scrolls, oral teachings, rabbinic sages, and the imagery of death and memorialization. The Babylonian Talmud similarly extends the value of rabbinic oral teaching into the World to Come, showing that while the associations between teaching, death, and eternal life manifest differently, they are still present in different rabbinic contexts. Taken together, these inscriptions of a concrete and material Oral Torah are fully realized in the body of the rabbinic sage. Other scholars have also shown that rabbinic sages become an embodiment of Torah: this essay examines the nature of rabbinic Torah, as discussed in rabbinic literature, to understand how that embodiment comes about.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"31 - 55"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139211025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/hbr.2023.a912652
Laura Suzanne Lieber
Abstract:In this essay, the text of Megillat Ahimaatz offers a window into compositional conventions, particularly around liturgy, as well as understandings of writing at a pivotal moment, and in a pivotal location: southern Italy (Apulia) in during the 9th–11th centuries. Both writing technologies and ritual performances (liturgical and magical) occupy prominent places in Megillat Ahimaatz, and the text seems to reflect a moment of great cognizance concerning the significance of writing and performative power and praxis, particularly among Jews but also in other communities, as well, as viewed through Jewish eyes. In this essay, I will (1) outline the text's general interest in writing, writers, performers, and performance, after which I will (2) present the specific varieties of writing and performance that occur in Megillat Ahimaatz. Finally, I will (3) examine the scroll's specific vocabulary for writing (texts and practices) and similarly, I will consider the way liturgical performance is described. These elements – narrative and lexical – when read together offer a window into at least one writer's understanding of his tradition at a pivotal crossroads in Jewish literary and liturgical history.
{"title":"Power and Praxis: Writing and Performance in Megillat Ahimaatz","authors":"Laura Suzanne Lieber","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2023.a912652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2023.a912652","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In this essay, the text of Megillat Ahimaatz offers a window into compositional conventions, particularly around liturgy, as well as understandings of writing at a pivotal moment, and in a pivotal location: southern Italy (Apulia) in during the 9th–11th centuries. Both writing technologies and ritual performances (liturgical and magical) occupy prominent places in Megillat Ahimaatz, and the text seems to reflect a moment of great cognizance concerning the significance of writing and performative power and praxis, particularly among Jews but also in other communities, as well, as viewed through Jewish eyes. In this essay, I will (1) outline the text's general interest in writing, writers, performers, and performance, after which I will (2) present the specific varieties of writing and performance that occur in Megillat Ahimaatz. Finally, I will (3) examine the scroll's specific vocabulary for writing (texts and practices) and similarly, I will consider the way liturgical performance is described. These elements – narrative and lexical – when read together offer a window into at least one writer's understanding of his tradition at a pivotal crossroads in Jewish literary and liturgical history.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"236 1","pages":"111 - 131"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139213324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-29DOI: 10.1353/hbr.2023.a912653
Robert Coleman
Abstract:Fresh analysis of familiar texts has the potential to yield intriguing results. Discourse analysis of Psalm 89 serves as a case in point. Since few scholars have analyzed Psalm 89 using discourse analysis, this article aims to fill a gap in the literature on Psalm 89 by closely analyzing the discourse structure of the final form of the Hebrew text. Moreover, based on the discourse analysis, this article draws attention to the movements of the psalm and to the neglected role of Psalm 89:53 in the rhetoric of the final form of the psalm. The structure of the final form of Psalm 89 suggests that YHWH deserves praise despite his apparent violation of the Davidic covenant.
{"title":"Structure as a Clue to Rhetoric: Discourse Analysis of Psalm 89:1–53","authors":"Robert Coleman","doi":"10.1353/hbr.2023.a912653","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hbr.2023.a912653","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Fresh analysis of familiar texts has the potential to yield intriguing results. Discourse analysis of Psalm 89 serves as a case in point. Since few scholars have analyzed Psalm 89 using discourse analysis, this article aims to fill a gap in the literature on Psalm 89 by closely analyzing the discourse structure of the final form of the Hebrew text. Moreover, based on the discourse analysis, this article draws attention to the movements of the psalm and to the neglected role of Psalm 89:53 in the rhetoric of the final form of the psalm. The structure of the final form of Psalm 89 suggests that YHWH deserves praise despite his apparent violation of the Davidic covenant.","PeriodicalId":35110,"journal":{"name":"Hebrew Studies","volume":"19 1","pages":"133 - 149"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139214752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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