When the Rabbi Weeps: On Reading Gender in Talmudic Aggadah

Abstract

One of the most famous aggadot in talmudic literature, and probably the most discussed in talmudic and general Jewish scholarship,1 is the story of the Oven of Akhnai. Both the Palestinian Talmud (Mo'ed katan 3:1, 81c-d) and the Babylonian Talmud (Baba metzia 58b-59b) provide versions of it, embedded in different contexts. In the Babylonian Talmud's version, on which this paper will focus, the story is attached to a mishnah2 in which Rabbi Eliezer disagrees with the sages about the capacity of a certain oven to render items ritually impure or not. Interestingly, the talmudic story focuses on the manner in which the discussion between them is carried out rather than on the question of the halakhic nature of the oven itself. Not only is the ultimate reason for the mishnaic disagreement obscured; even the question of why the talmudic story-tellers attach the story to this mishnaic disagreement rather than to any other mishnaic disagreement between Rabbi Eliezer and the sages remains unanswered.3 Thus, Rabbi Eliezer invokes miracles to support his opinion a jumping carob tree, backward-flowing water, the inclining walls of the beit midrash4 in which the Talmud locates the discussion, and finally a voice from heaven, proofs that end up being rejected by his rabbinic colleagues. Meanwhile, the substance of Rabbi Eliezer's opinion is rendered completely irrelevant. The discussion ends with the seeming victory of the sages. This victory provides them with a conceptual basis for their hermeneutic and legal authority, culled midrashically from biblical verses: it is not in heaven (Deut. 30:12) turning the Torah into the referent of the biblical phrase; and incline after the majority (Ex. 23:2) in halakhic decision-making.5 The talmudic editors6 then seal the argumentary victory of the sages, not