Spiritual exercises in rabbinic culture

AJS Review

Volumn 27, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 203-225

  Schofer, Jonathan ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 85012534499     PISSN: 03640094     EISSN: 14754541     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0364009403000072     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. Hadot's studies of spiritual exercises run through his works, including Plotinus, or the Simplicity of Vision. Michael Chase, trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); Philosophy as a Way of Life Arnold Davidson, ed., Michael Chase, trans. (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1995), esp. pp. 81-144; and The Inner Citadel, Michael Chase, trans. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). An important predecessor is Paul Rabbow, Seelenführung: Methodik der Exerzitien in der Antike (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1954).
2. The observation that elites in Late Antiquity were particularly concerned with the self or person goes back at least to Marcel Mauss’ essay, “A Category of the Human Mind: The Notion of Person; the Notion of Self.” For a recent translation by W. D. Halls, and valuable essays critically developing Mauss’ observation, see Michael Carrithers et al., eds., The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Michel Foucault has made very strong and controversial statements concerning the “care of the self ” in Late Antiquity. For historical purposes, his research is valuable to the extent that, as Arnold Davidson writes, “the manner in which Foucault conceptualized issues showed clear resonance with” the work of historians such as Paul Veyne, Pierre Hadot, and Jean-Pierre Vernant. For Davidson's examination of Foucault in relation to these scholars, see “Ethics as Ascetics,” in J. Goldstein, ed., Foucault and the Writing of History (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1994), pp. 63-80. Foucault's key writings on the “care of the self ” are The Use of Pleasure, Robert Hurley, trans. (New York: Random House, 1985); The Care of the Self, Robert Hurley, trans. (New York: Random House, 1986), especially pp. 39-68 on the intensification of these dynamics during Late Antiquity; and Luther Martin et al., eds., Technologies of the Self (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990). Paul Veyne uses the category “care of the self ” in a section of his history of private life, The Roman Empire, Arthur Goldhammer, trans. (Cam-bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 229-232. He places this discussion within a larger section that is provocatively entitled “Tranquilizers” (pp. 207-233). Also on Roman elites, see Maude Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), esp. pp. xi, xxv. On sexual renunciation in early Christianity, see Peter Brown, The Body and Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); note Brown's comment about his debt to Foucault on pp. xvii-xviii; David Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), who draws upon Foucault in pp. 142-200. On the construction of manhood, see Virginia Burrus, “Begotten, not Made”: Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), who very explicitly responds to Brown's research; also the article on “Spiritual Direction” in G. W. Bowersock et al., eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 704-705 with references. The work of both Foucault and Brown has influenced Daniel Boyarin's studies of rabbinic Judaism, including Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993). Martha Nussbaum's important research addresses similar topics, though she makes strong distinctions between philosophical and nonphilosophical materials that Foucault does not. See The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), esp. pp. 5-6 and 353-354 on Foucault, Hadot, and Davidson.
3. These points have been explored at length in the scholarly literature. See especially Louis Finkelstein, Introduction to the Treatises Abot and Abot of Rabbi Nathan (Hebrew) (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950); Judah Goldin, Studies in Midrash and Related Literature, Barry Eichler and Jeffrey Tigay, eds., (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1988), pp. 3-117.
4. The edition I cite from is Solomon Schechter, Aboth de Rabbi Nathan, Edited from Manu scripts with an Introduction, Notes, and Appendices (Hebrew) (Vienna: 1887; reprint, New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1997). I cite from Schechter's edition by “version, chapter, page.” Thus, “A1,2” means version A, chapter 1, page 2 of Schechter's edition. “A6-7, 27-35” means version A, chapters 6-7, pages 27-35 of Schechter's edition. Readers of the printed edition can look up citations from version A by chapter. Major textual studies include Finkelstein, Introduction and “Introductory Study to Pirke Abot,” Journal of Biblical Literature 57 (1938): 13-50. A recent and crucial study is Menahem Kister, Studies in Abot de-Rabbi Nathan: Text, Redaction, and Interpretation (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Tvi, 1998). All translations of Hebrew and Aramaic texts in this article are my own. Both versions A and B of R. Nathan appear in reliable English translations: Judah Goldin, The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955); Anthony Saldarini, The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan (Abot de Rabbi Nathan) Version B (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975); Eli Coshdan hAboth d'Rabbi Nathan. In Abraham Cohen, ed., The Minor Tractates (London: Soncino Press, 1984); Jacob Neusner, The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan: An Analytical Translation and Explanation (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986). Very important studies include Judah Goldin, Studies in Midrash, pp. 3-117; Anthony Saldarini, Scholastic Rabbinism: A Literary Study of the Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982); Jacob Neusner, Judaism and Story (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Despite its size and significance, R. Nathan and The Fathers surely do not represent all of rabbinic thought. Their creators were selective and at times contentious. One way that I signal that these sources represent strands and not the totality of rabbinic views is to avoid the use of the definite article before the word “rabbis”; I examine what (certain) rabbis state, but not what (all of) “the rabbis” believed.
5. The Mishnah was completed in the early third century in Roman Palestine, though The Fathers was likely reworked and edited over a much longer period. One sign that it is a late addition to the Mishnah is that different manuscripts contain the text in different parts of the canon. On the tractate, see M. B. Lerner, “The Tractate Avot,” in Shmuel Safrai, ed., The Literature of the Sages (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), pp. 263-281. For over a century, scholars have discussed the complex editing of R. Nathan; the most thorough treatment of this point is in Kister, Studies.
6. Saldarini's arguments for the scholastic nature of R. Nathan run through Scholastic Rabbinism, but see especially pp. 79-92 and pp. 135-142; I quote from p. 82; also see Michael Swartz, “Scholasticism and the Study of Judaism,” in José Ignacio Cabezón ed., Scholasticism: Cross-Cultural and Comparative Perspectives (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998), pp. 91-114; note that Swartz draws on Saldarini, Scholastic. On the term “disciple circle” in contrast with “school,” see David Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), pp. 267-285. Catherine Hezser, in a summary of her analysis of whether the rabbinic movement was institutionalized, writes, “Study houses in tannaitic and amoraic Palestine were not rabbinic academies in the sense of schools with a fixed curriculum, appointed officials, and a succession of teachers. They were convenient places where some rabbis and others occasionally went to occupy themselves with Scripture.” See The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), p. 226 and generally pp. 184-227. On education in second century CE Galilee, see Martin Goodman, State and Society in Roman Galilee, AD 132-212 (Totawa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1983), pp. 71-81. Various individual comparisons between rabbinic and philosophical sources appear in Judah Goldin's essays on The Fathers and R. Nathan; see his Studies in Midrash. Henry Fischel has argued that the stories of Hillel, including those in R. Nathan, have strong resonance with Greek tales of sagely virtue (chreia). See H. Fishel, “Story and History,” in H. Fischel, ed., Essays in Greco-Roman and Related Talmudic Literature (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1977), pp. 443-472. For a comparison of a maxim in R. Nathan to Stoic rhetoric, see Henry Fischel, Rabbinic Literature and Greco-Roman Philosophy (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), pp. 70-73 and notes. On the genealogical list, see E. Bickerman, “La Chaîne de la Tradition Pharisienne,” Revue Biblique LX (1952). Reprinted in Studies in Jewish and Christian History, Vol. 2 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980), pp. 256-269. On the trope of the “fence” in Jewish, Greek, and Latin literature, see Siegfried Stein, “The Concept of the ‘Fence’: Observations on its Origin and Development,” in S. Stein and R. Loewe, eds., Studies in Jewish Religious and Intellectual History: Presented to Alexander Altmann on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1979), pp. 301-329. On the general issue of Hellenism and the rabbis, see Peter Schäfer and Catherine Hezser, eds., The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), esp. vol. 1, pp. 14-16; Martin Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism 200 BCE-400 CE (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 126-152; and Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine / Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1994). On problems in the contemporary use of the term “hellenization,” see Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 22-25. Also, on reading rabbinic literature as evidence of a multi-lingual context, see Steven D. Fraade, “Rabbinic Views on the Practice of Targum, and Multilingualism in the Jewish Galilee of the Third-Sixth Centuries,” in Lee I. Levine, ed., The Galilee in Late Antiquity (New York and Jerusalem: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), pp. 253-286.
7. G. W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), pp. 71-82; A recent encyclopedic work on Late Antiquity sets the endpoint at 800 CE; see Bowersock et al., Late Antiquity.
8. See Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, pp. 162-163; David Stern, “The Captive Woman: Hellenization, Greco-Roman Erotic Narrative, and Rabbinic Literature,” Poetics Today 19/1 (1998): pp. 104-105. For an important approach to comparative study through analogy, examining cases with no historical or geographical connection, see Yearley, Mencius and Aquinas (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990).
9. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, pp. 82-83, 107.
10. Philosophy as a Way of Life., Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 102.
11. Philosophy as a Way of Life., Philosophy as a Way of Life, pp. 83, 99, 183, 211.
12. See Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire, esp. pp. 13-77, 484-510. The topic of medical models and metaphors in self-formation is related to but not the same as the interrelation of ancient medicine and the care of the self. On medical texts as sources for Greek and Roman ethics, see Foucault, Use of Pleasure, pp. 97-139 and Care of the Self, pp. 99-144.
13. Solomon Schechter, who compiled the first critical edition of The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan, has made this point in elegant terms: “The occupation with the Torah was, according to the Rabbis, less calculated to produce schoolmen and jurists than saints and devout spirits.” See Aspects of Rabbinic Theology: Major Concepts of the Talmud (New York: Schocken Books [1909] 1961), p. 136. For a full study of this topic in R. Nathan, see Jonathan Schofer, The Making of a Sage (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfims, 2000).
14. Although there are no parallels made between physical exercise and engagement with Torah or the commandments, note that a narrative of Hillel in R. Nathan B cites Gen. 9:6 (which states that God made humans in the divine image) as justification for the claim that going to the Roman baths fulfills a commandment (B30,66). I discuss this passage as well as other instructions in R. Nathan concerning the body in my conference paper and article in progress, “The Body and Self-Cultivation in Abot de Rabbi Natan,” Upper Midwest Meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature, Minneapolis, 2002. Regarding medical metaphors, in other sources one well-known teaching punning on Deut. 11:8 states that Torah is a “remedy” (sam) for the yes. er, or fundamental inclinations (Siphre Deut. 45 to Deut. 11:18, Louis Finkelstein, ed., Strife on Deuteronomy (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1993); also b. Qid. 30b; b. Sukk. 52a; b. B. Bat. 16a); also see Julius Preuss, Biblical and Talmudic Medicine, Fred Rosner, trans. (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronsen, 1978), pp. 447-581. Regarding instructions for specific practices to be done at specific times, other ethical collections contain more of these than do The Fathers and R. Nathan. For example, Derekh Eretz Zut. a, and Derekh Eretz Rabbah set out guidelines for daily activities such as eating and excretion.
15. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 84; and generally pp. 84-86.
16. Philosophy as a Way of Life., Philosophy as a Way of Life, pp. 87-88 (on physics); pp. 89-93 (on Socratic dialogue); and pp. 93-101 (on training for death).
17. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7:54; following the translation in Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, pp. 84, 132.
18. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 132.
19. Schäfer, “Introduction,” in Schäfer and Hezser, The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture, 16.
20. A different but very important approach to similar issues can be seen in the broad study by Michael Satlow, “‘And on the Earth You Shall Sleep:’Talmud Torah and Rabbinic Asceticim,” Journal of Religion 83/2 (2002), pp. 204-225. He contextualizes rabbinic notions of talmud torah in relation to “the ascetic mentalité of the pan-Mediterranean.” Sara McClintock has helped me in refining this set of points.
21. The phrasing varies, but the key elements are the verb “give” (n.t.n.) and the noun “heart” (leb), including: “give. to one's heart” (noten Hel libbo), “place. upon one's heart” (noten Gal libbo), and “give one's heart to. ” (noten libbo le-). The heart is a seat of emotions and impulses, but it also has intellectual dimensions and can be rendered as “heart/mind.”
22. For a full discussion of all these variants, and speculations concerning their influences upon each other and from historical context, see Finkelstein, Introduction, pp. 64-70.
23. Goldin translates, “He who takes to heart four things will sin no more. ” (Rabbi Nathan, 93).
24. Saldarini translates, “Mark well four things and you will not fall into the clutches of sin” (Rabbi Nathan B, p. 189; he lists parallels in p. 189 n.15).
25. Herbert Danby translates, “Consider three things and thou wilt not fall into the hands of transgression. ” Herbert Danby, The Mishnah (London: Oxford University Press, [1933] 1974), p. 449; also quoted in Goldin, Rabbi Nathan, p. 236.
26. This passage has received much scholarly attention. The claim that people go “to a place of darkness and gloom” does not appear in The Fathers; on this point and generally on the textual variations, see Finkelstein, Introduction, pp. 53-55 and pp. 64-67; in English, Saldarini, Rabbi Nathan B, p. 189 n. 15. In addition to the appearances in R. Nathan A, R. Nathan B, and The Fathers, the teaching is quoted in Lev. Rab. 18:1 and Eccles. Rab. 12:1. A parallel to the material in A19,69-70 is in Der. Er. Rab. 3, though the maxim is in the name of Ben Azzai. In Kalla Rab. 6, the material of Der. Er. Rab. 3 is presented as a “mishnah,” to which there is a commentary.
27. On “worm and maggot,” see Job 25:6 and Is. 14:11. Aqabya ben Mahalalel's saying likely predates much of the other material in R. Nathan. However, in the broader intertextual contexts of both R. Nathan and The Fathers, the trope of “worms and maggots” carries an extremely strong resonance of mortality, contingency, and the limits of corporeal existence. For example, the image is used as a reason for humility: “Rabbi Levitas of Jamnia says, Be very very humble of spirit, for the end of man is a worm and of humans a maggot” (B34,74; also Fathers 4:4). “Worm and maggot” also has more negative connotations. In one case, “worm and maggot rule over him” describes one of the curses for Adam's transgression (B42,116-117). In another, a narrative about the destruction of Jerusalem, God speaks to Titus after Titus desecrates the Temple sanctuary. God insults Titus by calling him, “Evil one. Stinking secretion. Dust, worm, and maggot” (B7,21). The trope is also used to contrast humans and God in B40,111. The image of worm and maggot is often coupled with a focus on semen, excrement, and sweat. See, in addition to the insult to Titus, A19,70; B42,116. On sweat and excrement as distinctive of human embodiedness, see B34,74. Although R. Nathan contains teachings advocating care and honor of the body (such as in B30,66), the image of “worm and maggot” consistently invokes the body in body with a negative evaluation, challenging people to move out of a concern with embodied existence toward a focus on the greatness of God. On similar images in mystical sources, see Michael Swartz, Scholastic Magic: Ritual and Revelation in Early Jewish Mysticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 69, 166-170.
28. Urbach, Sages, pp. 224-225; for a full treatment of tropes for divine justice in R. Nathan, see Schofer, Making of a Sage, pp. 232-308. On anthropomorphic and other dualisms in rabbinic thought, see Nissan Rubin, “The Sages’ Conception of Body and Soul,” in S. Fishbane and J. Lightstone, eds., Essays in the Social Scientific Study of Judaism and Jewish Society (Montreal: Concordia University, 1990), pp. 47-103.
29. The commentary in R. Nathan A focuses upon Aqabya ben Mahalalel's characterization of human finitude, and we find various answers to the questions of where one comes from, where one goes, and what one will become. Finkelstein argues that the version of Aqabya ben Mahalalel's maxim in R. Nathan A is the earliest form. He holds that the other versions of the maxim (in B32,69 and Fathers 3:1), as well as the commentaries concerning the “four things,” are attempts to ensure that the saying does not conflict with rabbinic views concerning the afterlife (Introduction, pp. 64-67). Saul Lieberman argues that one of these interpretations of the “four things”-that of R. Simeon ben Eleazar-is a response to Gnostic views articulated in the Gospel of Thomas, 55; see Tosefta Kifshutah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary, [1955] 1992), pp. 1292-1293 to t. Hag. 2:5, 7; in English, Saul Lieberman, “How Much Greek in Jewish Palestine?,” in Alexander Altman, ed., Biblical and Other Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 136-137. Kister disagrees with Lieberman on this point (Studies, 107). In R. Nathan A, after the material concerning the “four things,” the commentators develop the theme of finitude through accounts of R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus upon his deathbed. This scene also teaches that one should attend to God's presence. R. Eliezer's instruction to his students concludes, “At the time when you pray, know before whom you stand to pray, for through this thing you will merit life in the world to come” (A19,70; in the parallel of Der. Er. Rab. 3, the deathbed scene names R. Eleazar ben Azariah, not R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus). See also the passage in Seder Eliyyahu Zuta that opens, “Upon three things a person must attend (mistakkel / yistakkel) every day” (Sed. El. Zut. 3; Finkelstein, p. 176). Here, the focus of attention is actions of everyday life, such as going to the bathroom, drawing blood, and standing over the dead; Sed. El. Zut. 3; Meir Friedmann, ed., Seder Eliahu Rabba and Seder Eliahu Zuta and Pseudo-Seder Eliahu Zuta (Jerusalem: Wahrmann Books, 1969), p. 176. Braude and Kapstein translate, “There are three occasions that a man ought to meditate upon every day” (Tanna Debe Eliyyahu, 375).
30. Saldarini translates R. Nathan B, “Mark well three things and you will not fall into the clutches of sin. ” (Rabbi Nathan B, p. 191-192). Danby translates The Fathers 2:1, “Consider three things. ” (Danby, Mishnah, p. 447; Goldin, Rabbi Nathan, p. 233). Finkelstein argues that this epigram is a shortened form of the one attributed to Aqabya ben Mehalalel (Introduction, pp. 66-67); Albeck makes a similar comment; Chanoch Albeck, The Six Orders of the Mishnah, vol. 4 (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, [1958] 1988), p. 495.
31. See also Gen. Rab. 1:10 to Gen. 1:1; J. Theodor and Ch. Albeck, eds., Midrash Bereshit Rabba (Jerusalem: Shalem Books, 1996), pp. 8-9 and notes. Urbach points out that in some cases, maGalah takes the place of the divine epithet Gelyon (“Most High”) (Sages, 79).
32. Other passages describe a “ledger” (A39,116-117) or a hand writing (B44,123; Fathers 3:16). These motifs appear in a number of places in the Bible. On God's eye and ear, see Ps. 34:7, 94:9; Job 34:21; on the book, Mal. 3:16 and Dan. 7:10; also Albeck, Mishnah, vol. 4, p. 357; Saldarini, Rabbi Nathan B, p. 191 n. 24.
33. Later in the collection of teachings that follow the maxim of Aqabya ben Mahalalel, the editors of R. Nathan B place two other epigrams of R. Yehudah the Patriarch. Neither of these specifies a distinct theological image: king, judge, or employer. Rather, they set out a correspondence between God and humans as willing creatures. Both prescribe intense focus on the divine will (ras. on) such that all of one's actions are in accord with God. The first maxim counsels orientation toward God's will, “Rabbi Yehudah the Patriarch says, Do His will as your will, so that He will do your will as His will. Cancel your will before His will so that He will cancel the will of others before your will” (B32,70; Fathers 2:4; the text is difficult; I follow the suggestions of Schechter in B32,71 and Saldarini, Rabbi Nathan B, p. 193). Such orientation, though, is not the most radical form of service to God, for it maintains selfcenteredness. The sage aligns his will with God's will, but he is still able to act according to his own will. A more stringent demand calls for orientation toward yet separation from the divine will. When one does God's will, recognizing that one does so only because it is God's will and not one's own, then one attains a truly God-centered consciousness. Such a position appears in the next teaching of R. Yehudah the Patriarch, which begins, “He would say, If you have done His will as your will, you have not done His will as His will. If you have done His will not as your will, you have done His will as His will. (B32,71; again following Schechter's text; see B32,70 n.26 and Saldarini, Rabbi Nathan B, p. 193). This statement is the strongest prescription in R. Nathan for a God-centered consciousness-the ideal that action should be centered upon God, not upon the desires, emotions, and motivations of the self-centered subject. Fishbane writes that this passage is a strong example of attempts within Judaism “to purify sanctioned actions from self-centeredness. ” See Michael Fishbane, “Action and Non-Action in Jewish Spirituality,” Judaism 33/3 (1984): 321. I will examine another example of such “attempts to purify sanctioned actions from self-centeredness” at length below, in the maxim of Antigonus of Sokho (A5,25-26; B10,25-26; Fathers 1:3). For other passages prescribing that one do God's will, see A30,89; A41,133; B48,133. For a contemporary discussion of whether it is a greater virtue to act well easily (as in “Do His will as your will”) or through struggle (as in, “If you have done His will not as your will. ”), see Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 91-107.
34. See the discussion of the names and sources in Finkelstein, Introduction, pp. 53, 67-70, 73, 122-124; and Saldarini, Rabbi Nathan B, p. 186 n. 39; p, 187 n. 1. See also Fathers 3:5 and Sed. El. Zut. 16 (Friedmann, appendix, 2). Schechter quotes other parallel sources in Rabbi Nathan, p. 145.
35. Saldarini translates, “He who gives his heart to words of Torah” (Rabbi Nathan B, p. 187).
36. Or, as Finkelstein suggests, “the wife of one's neighbor” (Heshet reaG). The pairing of yes.er and a wife also appears in A14,58; see also B29,59 and compare Fathers 2:9. For a talmudic example of this conjunction, see the prayer of Mar son of Ravina in b. Ber. 17a.
37. Mss. N and R attribute this to Rabbi Nehunyah ben Ha-Qanah. A parallel appears in Seder Eliyyahu Zuta. It opens: “Yet another opinion: R. Simeon ben Yohai said, Anyone who gives/places the words of Torah upon his heart (kol ha-noten dibrey torah Gal libbo) eliminates desires of transgression. ” (Sed. El. Zut. 16, Friedmann, Supplement, 2). Braude and Kapstein translate, “He who takes words of Torah to heart is relieved of anxiety about his transgression. ” (Tanna Debe Eliyyahu, p. 429).
38. Goldin translates “preoccupations” (Rabbi Nathan, 94-95). “Jastrow suggests, ‘thought, meditation, heated imagination, impure fancies’” (Dictionary, 366). P. J. Ivanhoe has helped me on this issue.
39. When I presented a version of this paper at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature (Toronto, 2002), one person raised a question concerning the relation between histakkel and noten / leb, suggesting that noten / leb may be an attempt to clarify or rework histakkel. She observed that the passages in The Fathers consistently employ histakkel, whereas those in R. Nathan A use noten / leb. In R. Nathan B we see both formulations. I am not sure that this evidence supports a claim that either is primary, though the question is certainly important and worthy of further investigation.
40. Such as the experience that R. Yohanan has when he cries upon his deathbed (A25,79). Adolph Büchler points out that in both this deathbed scene and the maxim of Aqabya ben Mahahalel, the focus is upon God's power more than upon “the method of His judgment or punishment;” Studies in Sin and Atonement in the Rabbinic Literature of the First Century (New York: Ktav Publishing House, [1927] 1967), p. 46. In the passage to which we now turn, though, this “method” is of central concern.
41. For other examples of “Woe is me,” see A12,48-49; A30,89; A32,93; B24,49-50.
42. Earlier in the same chapter, a short epigram states, “The ease of the wicked-its end is bad” (A39,117), and a passage later in the chapter, in the name of Eliezer bar Tzadoq, expresses the same point using purity motifs (A39,119); also see A25,79; B33,73; Fathers 4:15. On the topic of theodicy in rabbinic literature, see Urbach, Sages, 511-523. On the formulation, “the ease of the wicked,” note Jer. 12:1-2.
43. Schechter emends the text, “The wicked are paid as people who observed the Torah with good intention and nothing wrong is ever found with them. The righteous are given credit as people who observed the Torah with bad intention and nothing good is ever found in them” (A39,118 n.5). His emendation is probably correct, as the extant text is probably the result of a euphemistic change that softens the argument. The issues of intentionality are complex here-what does it mean, exactly, to observe the Torah with bad intention?
44. The last line of the passage is difficult. See Schechter's comments in A39,118 n.5. Kister cites this passage as an example of cases in R. Nathan for which he identifies an original reading that is not found among any of the manuscript witnesses (Studies, 42). Parallels include Siphre Deut. 307 (Finkelstein, p. 345); Gen. Rab. 33:1 (Theodore-Albeck, pp. 298-303); Lev. Rab. 27:1.
45. In B44,123, the terms are used differently. Receiving “credit” means that the rewards are loaned in this world, such that all merit is used up before one reaches the world to come. In this schema, the wicked receive credit now, in this world. See also A35,105; B27,54.
46. A parallel appears in the Mishnah, at the opening of the laws concerning the corners of agricultural fields to be left for the poor. Here, the play between agricultural produce and the “produce” of one's actions is prominent (m. PeHah 1:1). George Foot Moore comments concerning this passage, “It will be noted that all the items of this ‘capital in heaven’ are things that cannot be defined or measured by law-things that by nature are ‘committed to the heart’ of the individual;” Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, Volume Two (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, [1927] 1997), p. 92. See also Urbach, Sages, pp. 441-442. A more developed discussion of this topic appears in t. Pe Ha 1:1-4. In b. Shabb. 127a-b, an amoraic tradition expands from this tannaitic material to list six actions with “fruits” in this world and “capital” remaining in the next. This passage appears in the Morning Blessings of the prayerbook; Philip Birnbaum, Daily Prayerbook (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1995), pp. 15-16. An extended talmudic exposition, or sugya, citing and developing this material appears in b. Qidd. 39b-40a; this unit develops addresses many of the same topics as A40,119-120, and includes a parallel to a teaching in A40,120 that states, “Merit (zekhut) has capital and fruits;” also see Sed. El. Rab. 11/12 (Friedmann, 59). For another example of the figurative use of qeren, see m. B. Qam. 9:7.
47. Examples of the figurative use of “fruit” as the results of one's deed or actions appear in Is. 3:10 and Jer. 17:10; note that Is. 3:10 is cited as a prooftext for the epigram “Merit has capital and fruits” (A40,120).
48. Hebrew ha-maqom. On this epithet for God, see Urbach, Sages, 66-79. He writes that the term, literally, “place,” is “used metonymically and refers to the God who reveals Himself in whatever place He wishes; this epithet thus expresses God's nearness” (p. 72).
49. The righteous person would always assume that he has no merit accumulated, even if in fact he might. He thus maintains something analogous to a “fence” around his actions, insuring that “capital” remains for the world to come. On the trope of the fence, see A1-2,3-14; B1-3, 3-14; Fathers 1:1.
50. On Antigonus’ name and date, see Elias Bickerman, “The Maxim of Antigonus of Socho,” Harvard Theological Review, 44 (1951): 153-166. Reprinted in Bickerman, Studies in Jewish and Christian History, Vol. Two, pp. 270-289.
51. A further issue is whether Gal menat le-should be rendered “for the sake of ” or “on the condition of.” My translation follows Bickerman in depicting “slaves” who receive a “food allowance,” but Urbach in the wording “for the sake of.” See Bickerman, “Antigonus,” pp. 270-289; Urbach, Sages, pp. 402-404, 861 nn.21-23; also Goldin, Rabbi Nathan, 39; Saldarini, Rabbi Nathan B, 85; Büchler, Sin and Atonement, pp. 156-157.
52. Bickerman notes these tensions, writing, “we must remember that ebed means not only slave, but also subject, worshipper” (“Antigonus,” p. 279). A recent volume of Semeia, entitled “Slavery in Text and Interpretation,” is devoted entirely to the topic of slavery in ancient Rome, particularly in relation to early Christianity; Semeia 83/84 (1998). Also on this topic, see J. Albert Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1995); David J. Williams, Paul's Metaphors: Their Context and Character (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), pp. 111-140.
53. Here we see an example of what Fishbane calls “attempts [within Judaism] to purify sanctioned actions from self-centeredness;” “Action and Non-Action,” pp. 318-329. Bickerman interprets this passage in terms of theodicy, “you have to serve the Lord, even if he, like a heartless owner, refuses your peras, your daily bread.” He also writes that “fear of Heaven,” historically understood, means simply “piety” (and only later was interpreted in terms of contrasts between fear and love of God) (“Antigonus,” pp. 280-282). I find Bickerman's historical reconstruction persuasive, but, as I am arguing herein, I do not believe that the passage is best interpreted in terms of theodicy. For other cases of “fear of Heaven,” see A27,84-85; B34,76; Urbach, Sages, pp. 66-79. An even stronger denial of self-interest is present in a variant of the maxim preserved in ancient quotations, a geniza fragment, and B5,25. Antigonus is said to advise: “be like slaves who serve the master for the sake of not (Gal menat she-loH) receiving a reward.” (Kister, Studies, p. 127 n.59, 156 n.195; Bickerman, “Antigonus,” p. 270 n.2). In this case, the person acts before God not only without expectation of divine response, but with active rejection of the notion that God rewards right action. Action is purely and intentionally intrinsic. Bickerman claims that this reading could not be the original text (“Antigonus,” p. 289 n.76), but Kister disagrees concerning R. Nathan based on manuscript evidence (Studies, p. 156 n.195). While the dominant trend in rabbinic exegesis is to soften the maxim, a number of sources preserve this radical ethical ideal into the middle ages and beyond. See for example Rabbenu Yonah and Midrash Shemuel on Fathers 1:3, who weigh the significance of both versions. The strongest statement of the rejection of self-interest in R. Nathan is a maxim of R. Yehudah the Patriarch, preserved in R. Nathan B (B32,71), which I discussed in a footnote above.
54. R. Nathan B has a more expansive addition, which has significant text difficulties (B10,25-26; see Schechter's comments in B10,26 n.2; Saldarini, Rabbi Nathan B, 85; Kister, Studies, 128). These passages are not the only cases in which R. Nathan adds “the world to come” to an epigram found in Fathers. See for example A14,58 in comparison with Fathers 2:9 and Goldin, Studies in Midrash, pp. 68-69; and A27,84 in comparison with Fathers 2:9 and Kister, Studies, 65.
55. An additional shift may be imbedded in the difference between action “for the sake of ” a response from God (as in the short form of the maxim), and action that occurs “so that” a divine response will occur. In the first case, one is directly motivated by the payment or food allowance, while in the second, the relation between result and motivation is more ambiguous (this point was suggested by a number of faculty members at Stanford University and at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, January and February, 2000).
56. While the rabbis are not, by any means, proto-Kantians, the distinction between theoretical and practical standpoints is helpful here. From the standpoint of a person describing the world, the concept of “the world to come” implies theoretical claims about the nature of time and human life. But from the standpoint of a choosing agent, “the world to come” is a practical concept that shapes desire and motivation. On the language of “standpoints,” see Christine M. Korsgaard, “Morality as Freedom,” in Yirmiyahu Yovel, ed., Kant's Practical Philosophy Reconsidered (Boston: Kluwar Academic Publishers, 1989), pp. 23-48.
57. The general observations have been made and elaborated upon by a number of scholars, including Schechter, Aspects, p. 72; Büchler, Sin and Atonement, pp. 119-211; and Urbach, Sages, pp. 400-419. Note also Bickerman, “Antigonus,” pp. 281-282. In R. Nathan, love and fear are paralleled in A37,109; A41,133; and B45,124. See also A1,1; A6,27-28; B10,26; B11,28; Kister, Studies, pp. 140-142; Finkelstein, Introduction, pp. 29-35.
58. This text is a seventeenth-century commentary to R. Nathan A by Yom Tov ben Moses Tzahalon, who cites from R. Nathan B (Ms. Halberstam: Oxford Bodleian, Neubauer 2635). Schechter quotes the passage in A5,26 n.10; see also Finkelstein, Introduction, 32-35; Saldarini, Rabbi Nathan B, pp. 87-88 n.13.
59. The quotation in R. Nathan B differs from the Masoretic text, which reads, “I fear the Lord, God of the Heavens” (Jonah 1:9).
60. Schechter comments that the passage is “strange” (B10,16-17 n.11) as does Büchler (Sin and Atonement, p. 159 n. 2). Finkelstein attributes the emphasis on fear and awe to early Shammaitic editing of the text (Introduction, pp. 32-35). Urbach, who calls the passage a “Baraita,” writes, “its strangeness is not sufficient ground for assigning to it a late date” (Sages, p. 403, also pp. 861-862 n. 24).
61. Urbach, Sages, pp. 400-419.
62. Also see Mekh. of R. Simeon b. Yohai 20:6; Num. Rab. 22. Contrast the commentary in Siphre Deut. to Deut. 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God. ” (Siphre Deut. 32; Finkelstein, 54). The midrash upon “you shall love” upholds love over fear.
63. See Michael Fishbane, The Kiss of God (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994).
64. What historical claims, if any, can be drawn from these observations? As noted above, the relation between the compilers of The Fathers and R. Nathan and Greco-Roman schools appears not to be one of dependence or influence. Rather, as Peter Schäfer writes, the rabbis were “part of the general ‘discursive space’ of the Hellenstic culture of Palestine in Late Antiquity.” See Schäfer, “Introduction,” in Schäfer and Hezser, The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture, vol. 1, 14-16 and generally 1-23. Specifically, these sources may give evidence of shared discursive forms but not specific terms or content. Note that most of the instructions for attention that I have examined generated a complex reception by the editorial stream of R. Nathan: the maxim of Antigonus of Sokho for its strong rejection of self-interest; the maxim of Aqabya ben Mehalalel for its conception of finitude; and perhaps also the sayings of Rabbi Nehunyah ben Ha-Qanah and Rabbi Hananyah. Saul Lieberman and Elias Bickerman have examined some of this material as evidence for Hellenistic influence upon the rabbis; see Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshutah, pp. 1292-1293 to t. Hag. 2:5, 7; “How Much Greek,” pp. 136-137; Kister disagrees (Studies, 107); Bickerman, “The Maxim of Antigonus of Socho.” I am not sure what to make of these observations, but they appear to link these “exercises” with doctrines that came to be on the margins of rabbinic thought and culture.
65. Saul Lieberman makes a similar point in comparing the maxim of Aqabya ben Mahalalel with one of Seneca; “How Much Greek,” p. 136 n. 13. Urbach comments, in discussing the same maxim, “Concepts derived from foreign sources, and for which there is no Biblical authority, were bounded by the belief in reward and punishment and the postulate of free will” (Sages, 224). This contrast also appears in comparing philosophic and rabbinic orientations towards death. Hadot discusses various forms of “training for death,” ranging in time from Socrates to Plotinus, in which one contemplates a universal perspective or totality in order to transcend states of subjectivity or individuality; Philosophy as a Way of Life, pp. 93-101. Contrast the rabbinic deathbed scene of R. Yohanan ben Zakkai found in R. Nathan. The sage is overwhelmed with God's presence as king and as judge, his senses both of the divine and of his subjectivity are greatly intensified, and the result is an intense emotional expression: crying. See A25,79; Schofer, Making of a Sage, pp. 237-240, 325-326; Yonah Fränkel, Studies in the Spiritual World of the Sages (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 1981), pp. 52-56. Another point of potentially fruitful comparison is that Hadot quotes exercises aiming for “the transformation of the will so that it becomes identified with the divine will” (Philosophy as a Way of Life, p. 136). Compare teachings of R. Yehudah the Patriarch, discussed above in footnotes: “make His will as your will. ” (B32,70; Fathers 2:4).