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The Figure of
Rabbi Ishmael in the Hekhalot Literature
and in
Jewish
Martyrology
as
Competing
Models of Heavenly Ascent
by
Ra‘anan
Abusch, Princeton University
2001
Society for Biblical Literature: Session S17-21: "Angelology and
the Heavenly World"
Introduction
Embedded in
the Hebrew martyrological anthology "The Story of the Ten
Martyrs" (10Mart), one of the most widely disseminated
narratives of early medieval Hebrew literature, is a
little-known tale that recounts the special circumstances
surrounding R. Ishmael’s miraculous birth. Within the context of
the martyrology, this narrative unit functions as an explanation
for R. Ishmael’s seminal role in the unfolding crisis faced by
the Jewish people as well as in their ultimate redemption from
Roman rule. Despite being set during the "Hadrianic
persecutions" of the 2
nd century CE, the martyrology as a fully formed
literary composition dates to the post-Talmudic period (6th-9th centuries). Weaving together into a unified tale the
pre-existing martyrological material found scattered throughout
the Talmudim and the corpus of Amoraic midrashim, it situates
the deaths of the ten sages within a polemical, even
eschatological, framework. The unity of the narrative is largely
achieved through its incorporation of the hagiographical life of
R. Ishmael, from his miraculous birth to the ultimate use of the
skin of his face as a relic in a ritual intended to bring about
the fall of Rome. It is his angelic paternity and the resultant
power and beauty that anchor the main components of his vita.
This
martyrology, and in particular its material concerning R.
Ishmael and his ascent to heaven, shares a wide range of themes
and concerns with the earliest corpus of Jewish "mystical"
writings, known as the Hekhalot literature. Indeed, the
assimilation of sections of this martyrological material within
the Hekhalot work known as Hekhalot Rabbati has not been
sufficiently appreciated as a possible window onto the textual
development and ideological orientation of this body of esoteric
literature, especially since the version of the martyrology it
presents differs in striking ways from the martyrological
traditions on which it draws. In fact, in a total reversal of
the genre’s expected outcome, it is the Roman persecutor who
dies in place of the Jewish sages in an almost farcical case of
mistaken identities.
Despite this
inversion, the presence of martyrological material has prompted
Joseph Dan to suggest that late Jewish martyrology emerged from
the circles that produced the mystical Hekhalot corpus. In Dan’s
view, this version of the martyrological narrative provided its
transmitters an opportunity to formulate a
secret history (trtsn
hyrw+ syh),
a self-conscious account that fashions a narrative of
persecution and redemption into a foundation myth for the
dissemination of ecstatic practice and esoteric knowledge.
Although Dan’s work remains suggestive, Gottfried Reeg has
demonstrated in his immaculate textual edition of "The Story of
the Ten Martyrs" that the Italian manuscript family so central
to Dan’s interpretation is one of the latest versions of the
narrative, rather than the earliest. He demonstrates
convincingly that the Hekhalot material found in these
manuscripts can best be explained as interpolations, noting that
most versions of the story contain only a very limited amount of
Hekhalot material. Reeg, however, overstates his finding when he
claims that the narrative differences between the Martyr-narrative of Hekhalot Rabbati and "The Story
of the Ten Martyrs" necessitate that we draw a firm boundary
between these traditions. The two Geniza fragments of Hekhalot Rabbati containing this martyrological material
[T.-S. K 21.95.K and T.-S. K 21.95.M], both dated to the first
half of the 11th century, already attest to the
inclusion and adaptation of this material long before its
transmission to the Jewish communities of Europe in the high
Middle Ages.
In fact, the
complicated textual and thematic interdependence of these works
highlights the contested nature of their representations of
their common central protagonist, R. Ishmael. In the dominant
tradition of the Hekhalot literature, Rabbi Ishmael serves as
the proto-type of the aspiring mystical initiate. He is
portrayed throughout the Hekhalot corpus as the favored
disciple of the great master of secret lore, Rabbi Nehuniah ben
Haqanah, who transmits to him esoteric knowledge. The use in
this literature of the genre of the how-to manual serves to
enhance the importance of this model of the master-disciple
relationship. These instructional passages, often embedded in a
narrative framework, offer the reader a carefully constructed
account of proper preparation and technique as well as of what
the adept should expect to see in the heavenly sphere above.
Indeed, according to this model of transmission, anyone who
possesses the magical names of God and his angels and has
learned to prepare properly for the ritual of ascent may make
use of this powerful knowledge. Rabbi Ishmael, like his
colleagues in the mystical fellowship that receives instruction
from the master, gains his powers solely through the transfer of
secret learning within the human community of scholars.
By contrast,
"The Story of the Ten Martyrs" offers quite a different
explanation for R. Ishmael’s capacity to ascend to heaven. Its
inclusion of a narrative of his birth, which is nowhere present
in the Hekhalot corpus, reorients the ideological valence of
this figure. While the Hekhalot corpus portrays him gaining his
powers through a process of study, piety and ritual performance
that can be replicated by other humans, the birth-narrative of
Rabbi Ishmael asserts that Rabbi Ishmael’s election is singular
and unique. Quite simply, he is a hybrid of the divine and the
human structurally analogous to the porous cosmology he
traverses; his powers are conferred up him at conception through
an encounter between his mother and the angel Metatron, whose
physical form and beauty he inherits.
I. R. Ishmael’s Conception in
the Context of "The Story of the Ten Martyrs"
The tradition
concerning R. Ishmael’s angelic paternity and his resultant
inheritance of exceptional beauty and power is integrated into
the larger structure of the "The Story of the Ten Martyrs"
through multiple narrative cruxes. We are told that Rabbi
Ishmael is among the seven most beautiful men in history,
alongside Adam, Jacob, Joseph, Saul, Absalom and, strangely
enough, a rabbi named Abahu. Other versions narrow the list of
comparative beauties, adding: "there was no beauty (ywn/h)n)
in the world from the days of Joseph the son of Jacob until R.
Ishmael." In still other recensions, we learn that "at the hour
when they brought him to Rome all the women who gazed upon him
began to bleed because of his beauty
(wypwym Md tw(pw#
wyh)."
The narrative,
however, expands on these brief, enigmatic allusions to R.
Ishmael’s beauty when it turns to the actual martyrological
account of R. Ishmael’s death. As R. Ishmael is being brought
out for execution, the daughter of the Emperor spies him through
her window in the imperial palace and is so struck by his beauty
that she begs her father to spare his life. The Emperor tells
his daughter that he can grant any request but this. Rabbi
Ishmael must be executed. He nevertheless agrees to have the
skin of the martyr’s face preserved for her. He orders the
executioners to remove the skin of his face while he is still
alive (
yx wdw(b),
in order to fashion a "living" death mask from it. The cries
that Ishmael utters during this procedure reach up to heaven,
threatening to return the world to primordial chaos and even to
overthrow the throne of God. God reassures the angelic host,
despite their protestations at His cruelty exacted on one to
whom he has revealed the secrets of heaven (My(yqr
yzng),
that the martyr’s death will seal a contract between Him and His
people on earth: "Let him (R. Ishmael) alone (i.e., do not
intervene), so that his merit may endure for generations
(Myrwd rwdl wtwkz
dwm(t#)."
Not only will R. Ishmael receive his own just rewards in heaven,
but also his physical earthly remains, in the form of his
beautiful face, will continue to function as a talisman to
protect and ultimately to redeem the people of Israel.
Like the
relics of the Christian martyrs, the mask of R. Ishmael’s face
will continue to be used in rituals of intercession on behalf of
the faithful. According to the narrative (#5 on the handout),
the mask of Rabbi Ishmael is still preserved in the treasury at
Rome, in defiance of the forces of decay. Every 70 years the
mask is brought out of safekeeping for use in a truly bizarre
ritual. The Jews choose a healthy man and a crippled man, and
they have the healthy man ride on the back of the cripple. They
then place the skin of Ishmael’s face in the hand of the healthy
man and name the healthy man Esau, while they call the lame man
Jacob. They announce: "Woe be unto Esau when Jacob avenges the
sin of the head of Rabbi Ishmael, as it is written: ‘I will
wreak my vengeance on Edom through My people Israel.’" The
ritual thus enacts the long-held wish that Jacob avenge the
crimes of Esau, the legendary ancestor of Edom, itself
identified as Rome in Classical Rabbinic literature. (As an
aside, the relationship between this pericope and the tradition
in b Avoda Zara which it reworks—#6 on the handout—continues to
puzzle me; I am more than happy to entertain suggestions
concerning the development of this literary unit).
In addition,
the ritual use of the mask of R. Ishmael’s face makes sense in
light of the text’s theory of martyrdom as atoning sacrifice.
Chapter 20 of "The Story of the Ten Martyrs" recounts Rabbi
Ishmael’s tour of heaven under the guiding hand of Metatron.
When R. Ishmael sees an altar in heaven, he inquires of his
guide what it is that is sacrificed upon it, asking in
disbelief: "Do you have rams, cows, and sheep in heaven?" (#3 on
handout) Metatron explains that the altar is intended for the
sacrifice of the "souls of the righteous" (wyl(
Mybyrqm wn) Myqydc l# Mhytw#pn).
This relatively stable unit appears in the same location in all
ten versions of the narrative. The text here draws on themes and
even specific language found in the late Midrashic work Numbers
Rabbah 12, 12 (#4 on handout). Here we learn that Metatron
presides over the sacrifice of "the souls of the righteous to
atone for Israel in the days of their exile" in the Tabernacle
on high
(Mtwlg ymyb l)r#y
l( rpkl Myqydc l# Mhytw#pn byrqm wb#).
This tradition represents a distinct strand of thought in which
the central role of the atoning sacrifice of human victims in
the national salvation history of Israel is enacted through the
heavenly cult. It is this final piece of revealed knowledge that
seals his decision to return to earth to report to his
colleagues what he has learned, apparently now satisfied that
his death at the hands of the Roman authorities will not be in
vain. Following his death, Michael and Gabriel recite a brief
doxology in which they praise the martyr for having merited to
be offered as a sacrifice on the heavenly altar. This
sacrificial conception of martyrdom is likewise given explicit
articulation at 15.20 (versions III, VI, VII, and VIII) and
echoed by Hekhalot Rabbati (§109) in which Samael is
given permission to "destroy the ten distinguished ones of
Israel ‘every choice piece, thigh and shoulder.’" (Ezekiel 24:4)
In evoking Ezekiel’s vivid conception of divine justice meted
out to Israel for its "vile impurity," this tradition likewise
links the blood of human sacrifice to God’s cleansing punishment
of Israel.
All of these
narrative components—R. Ishmael’s beauty, the skinning of his
face during execution, and the ritual of intercession using the
mask of his face—seem to presuppose his miraculous birth and his
angelic paternity. But how do these traditions account for the
remarkable centrality of Rabbi Ishmael within the narrative
whole? All versions of the early medieval "Story of the Ten
Martyrs" agree that R. Ishmael is chosen from among the ten
sages who are threatened with execution to ascend into the
heavens in order to learn whether or not it is the will of God
that the sages sacrifice their lives as martyrs. Four of the ten
versions of this text explain this through explicit mention of
R. Ishmael’s extraordinary origins. "For what reason did Rabbi
Ishmael merit (to ascend to the heavens any time he wished)?"
The text explains (#1 on handout):
·
(The reason is) because his father was Elishah the High Priest.
He (Elishah) had no sons, since, at the moment when his wife
would give birth, the child would immediately die. His wife said
to him: "Why do those perfectly pious people have sons who are
pious like them, while we do not have even a single son who
remains alive?" He answered her: "They purify themselves by
bathing (in the ritual bath) just before they retire to bed when
they are about to have intercourse, whether or not the law
prescribes it, both they and their wives." She said: "If that is
so, then we too shall act in this way." They immediately
embraced (this practice). One time the same pious women went
down to the ritual bath and, when she emerged, she saw a pig.
She returned to the bathhouse and (again) purified herself. When
she emerged, she saw leprosy (on another person?). She thus
returned to the bathhouse forty times. After the fortieth time,
the Holy One Blessed Be He said to Metatron: "Go down and stand
before that pious woman and tell her that this very night she
will become pregnant with a son and his name will be Rabbi
Ishmael." Immediately, Metatron descended in the form of a human
being (
Md) Nb t w m d b).
He clothed (P + (tnw)
and adorned himself (wmc(
t) + y#qhw)
and stood at the opening of the bathhouse. [From this you learn
that a man must adorn himself in fine clothing and go stand
before his wife when she is emerging from the ritual bath.] She
(the pious woman) emerged (from the bath), saw (Metatron), went
home and became pregnant that very night with Rabbi Ishmael. His
form (t w m d)
was beautiful like the form (t
w m d)
of Metatron, the god-father (s
w n q y d n y s,
Greek sundia'
konoj)
of Rabbi Ishmael. And every time that Rabbi Ishmael wished to
ascend to the heavens, he would pronounce the name of God (M#h
t) rykzm hyh)
and ascend (hlw()
and Gabriel (sic) would tell him anything he wanted.
Upon
ascending, R. Ishmael encounters an angelic guide and demands to
know if the executions of the ten sages is in accordance with
the will of God and, moreover, whether the decree can be
repealed. (#2 on handout)
·
At that time Rabbi Ishmael recited the name (of God) and a storm
wind took him and lifted him up to heaven. When he ascended (hl(#
Nwykw),
Metatron, the Prince of the Countenance (Mynph
r#),
met him and asked him: "Who are you?" He answered him: "I am
Rabbi Ishmael, son of Elishah the High Priest." He said to him:
"You are the one in whom your Creator takes pride each day
saying, ‘I have a servant on earth, (a priest) like you [Metatron];
his radiance is like your radiance and his appearance is like
your appearance (
K )rmk wh)rmw K
wwyzk wwyz).’"
He answered: "I am that one." He asked him: "What is your
business in this place (hzh
Mwqmb K by+ hm)?"
It is
significant to note, that, in version I, R. Ishmael is said to
resemble God himself, rather than Metatron: "You are the Ishmael
in whom your Creator takes pride each day, since he has a
servant on earth who resembles the countenance/beauty of his own
face (wynp rtslql
hmwd#)."
The emphasis
within the birth narrative on the transmission of angelic beauty
draws together two related, but separable, strands: conception
and purity practice. Sight seems to serve as the common medium
for both. Moreover, it may allude to this mechanism when
Metatron is said to have "descended in the form (t
w m d)
of a human being" and to have "adorned" himself, thus
emphasizing the visual component of the "annunciation" scene.
Indeed, version I stresses that when the angel assumed the body
of a man, he chose to appear to the woman as her husband who had
dutifully come to meet his wife at the bath-house adorned in
finery. This minor shift seems to be an attempt to address the
central problematic posed by the narrative, that is, the nature
of the angel’s role in the conception of the child whose coming
he has heralded. In what seems to be the story’s more original
form, conception, like the impurity against which R. Ishmael’s
mother struggles, seems to be associated with the faculty of
sight. Certainly, conception need not be explained by physical
intercourse between the pious woman and her husband, or even her
amorous guardian-angel. The story here seems to draw on the
experiences of R. Yohanan, who was said to have stood outside
the women’s bathhouse so that the women would have children as
handsome as he. In order to make sense of the theory of
procreation operative in the story and its relationship to the
mother’s rigorous purity practice, it is necessary to analyze
the tale against background of the late-antique Jewish purity
traditions that lent it its distinctive literary form.
II. The Literary Form of R.
Ishmael’s Birth Narrative and the Beraita de-Niddah
Indeed, when
not found in the context of the martyrological literature, this
pericope appears in set of texts that draw upon the puzzling Baraita de-Massekhet Niddah (BdN). Scholars have long
assigned this text to the Jewish community of Byzantine
Palestine in the 6th-7th centuries.
Whether or not this text existed as a literary whole as early as
the Geonic period, the traditions attested in it do seem to
conform to earlier Palestinian practice in this period. The
relationship between the BdN and Jewish mystical
literature of Late Antiquity has long been posited. In the birth
narrative, the power of sight transmits both impurity and divine
favor. The rigorist piety adopted by husband and wife transcends
the normal strictures surrounding both menstrual and contact
impurity in conventional Jewish law. The narrative thus puts the
very act of seeing an unclean animal or an impure skin blemish
on par with the standard regulations concerning physical contact
with impurity. This same mechanism, which prompts R. Ishmael’s
mother to return repeatedly to the ritual bath, is understood to
shape the character of the child once it has been conceived. The
ethical form of the story is quite foreign to the martyrology;
its pointed encouragement and description of proper behavior and
piety more naturally conform to the Musar (ethical)
literature in which it is otherwise found.
The BdN offers us the most sustained source for understanding this
story. It presents a wide range of para-halakhic strictures that
severely limit the activities of the menstruant. Moreover,
peppered amongst the BdN’s idiosyncratic, though
influential, rulings are passages describing the impact of
visual stimuli on conception. "R. Hanina said: (If), at the time
when she immerses, she comes across (h(gpw)
a dog, if she is wise and has fear of heaven, she will not allow
her husband to have intercourse with her that night. Why? Lest
her sons be ugly and their faces resemble a dog’s, she returns
and immerses again." The passage continues to list similar cases
concerning a donkey and an ignoramus (‘am ’aretz). This tendency
to list such encounters in a series of parallel cases is a
distinctive feature of this literature, one employed in R.
Ishmael’s birth narrative to great effect.
The divine
intervention prompted by the combination of purity and piety
demonstrated by R. Ishmael’s mother is already present in the BdN. The text employs Biblical precedent as an occasion for
speculation on miraculous conception. It asserts that the
miraculous fruitfulness of each of the matriarchs, Sarah, Rachel
and Leah, should be attributed to their careful maintenance of
purity regulations. However, its account of Judges 13 emphasizes
the added element of angelic intervention. The text reports
that, despite her neighbors’ (hytwnyk#)
advice to employ a magical remedy involving the hide of an fox
(l(w# l# wrw()
as a cure for her barrenness, Manoah’s wife chooses instead
simply to continue guarding her purity: "Although they (her
neighbors) led her astray (hb
twbzkm wyh# p''()),
the Holy One blessed be He heard her voice. Immediately, an
angel appeared to her and said to her: ‘Take care not to eat any
impure thing.’ And, because she had followed the purity laws (htdn
t) hrm##),
she immediately conceived (hdqpn
dym)."
In this "annunciation" scene, her steadfast dedication to the
purity laws, coupled with her refusal to engage in magical
practice, is rewarded.
It is within
this framework that both the formal and ideological features of
R. Ishmael’s birth should be seen. The theory of the impact of
visual impressions on the fetus is assimilated into an expanded
system of purity practice, in which even visual stimuli can
transmit impurity. R. Ishmael’s mother demonstrates her piety by
embracing these strictures. In another passage in the BdN,
we are told that R. Hanina b. Haqana "was once walking on the
road and came across a woman. He covered his eyes and distanced
himself from her three paces." Like the Hekhalot literature’s
similarly named R. Nehunya b. Haqana, this figure is highly
sensitive to the most minuscule traces of menstrual impurity. As
in the birth story of R. Ishmael, here it is the power of sight
that threatens to bridge the vertiginous gap between the
physical and the immaterial. Certainly, these traditions seem to
flirt with the Byzantine Christian fascination with the power of
the visual imagination that was at the stormy center of the
"iconoclastic debates" of 7
th-9th century.
III. R. Ishmael in Hekhalot
Rabbati and the Wider Hekhalot Corpus
The apparent
affinities between the "The Story of the Ten Martyrs" and this
purity literature call attention to its cultic concerns, most
notably its interest in genealogy, priesthood, sacrifice, and,
of course, ritual purity. Whether or not it is right to see the
martyred R. Ishmael as a continuing locus for priestly
traditions, the contrast with the figure of R. Ishmael in the
Hekhalot corpus remains striking. In the martyrological material
incorporated into Hekhalot Rabbati, R. Ishmael seems to
stand for a radically different type of power, which is anchored
in knowledge transmitted strictly within the community of
scholars. In this aborted martyrology, in which the persecuting
Emperor dies in place of the martyr who in turn wreaks havoc on
the imperial household, the function of martyrdom as a means of
intercession is displaced. The highly evocative inversion of
identity and genre within the narrative representation of
ritualized death must be understood within its wider textual and
discursive context. Indeed, the themes of communal repentance
and redemption, unusual within the liturgical material contained
in much of the Hekhalot corpus, are central to the macroform
Hekhalot Rabbati. The hymn contained in §147 asserts: "Beloved
are the repentants (hbw#
t yl(b),
for repentance (hbw#
t)
reaches and goes up to the throne of glory." The subsequent hymn
addresses even more explicitly the intercessory role of heavenly
ascent and the exalted status and essential function of the
mystic. "The repentants are greater than the ministering angels,
for at the hour when Israel went into exile there spoke Metatron,
Mikha’el, and Gavri’el: What does he do? Immediately they laid
their hands upon their heads, cried with a loud voice and said:
Who will ascend to the height of heights and cry before him who
spoke, and the world was, so that he abandons his wrath and
takes pity on his sons." (§148) In
Hekhalot Rabbati, the "mystic" does not have to die in
order to intercede on behalf of the community.
This man of
power is exemplified by the figure describes in the gedullah-hymns
at the beginning of Hekhalot Rabbati, who draws his
legitimate power directly from the throne of God’s glory. Even
more striking is the juxtaposition within Hekhalot Rabbati of the inverted martyr-narrative and the Havura-report (§§198-267), itself an account of the dissemination of esoteric
knowledge and praxis to the inner-circle of adepts, many of whom
are drawn from canonical lists of martyrs in "The Story of the
Ten Martrys." The Hekhalot version of the martyr-narrative is
ignorant of the possibility that Rabbi Ishmael’s powers are
unprecedented and unrepeatable. It seems to me that the
martyrological literature and the atypical Hekhalot material
found in Hekhalot Rabbati were engaged in a process of mutual
influence and perhaps even polemic, as they passed along common
lines of transmission. Drawing too sharp a distinction between
the various corpora does not account for the clear
inter-penetration of common literary traditions. Instead, by
focusing more narrowly on specific configurations of this shared
literary material, we can discern a complicated process of
creative literary expansion, which gave expression to competing
strategies to incorporate Late Antique mystical practice into
the historical narratives of Jewish communities of the early
Middle Age
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