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The Metamorphosis of Narrative Traditions: Two Stories from Sixteenth-Century Safed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2009

Aryeh Wineman
Aryeh Wineman
Affiliation:
Troy, N.Y.
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Extract

A storehouse of narratives can be found within the literature which emerged from and gave expression to the spiritual developments in sixteenth-century Safed. These include legends, moral tales and exempla, anecdotes, and parables which can be garnered from the volumes of the kabbalistic ethical works and other literature of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early eighteenth centuries. In this study we shall seek to explore two such narratives of that period, stories which, while quite different from one another in character, both draw upon much earlier narrative traditions which have been subtly but radically remolded. The immediate aim of tracing the prehistory of these two stories and their routes of metamorphosis and of comparing the Safed stories with the sources which lie behind them is to clarify the literary and historical significance of the two narratives in the precise form which they acquired in the Safed experience. On a broader scale, such exploration might serve to exemplify the transformation of narrative traditions under the impact of a worldview and a cultural-spiritual milieu.

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Articles
Information
AJS Review , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Fall 1985 , pp. 165 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 1985

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References

1. Scholem, Gershom, Kabbalah(Jerusalem, 1974), p. 97.Google Scholar

2. benjudahmakhir, Moses, Seder ha-Yom(Slavita, 1793), p. 22a.Google Scholar

3. Midrash Tanhumaed. Buber, Solomon (New York, 1946), p. 136, #42.Google Scholar

4. Moses, Gaster, Sefer ha-Ma'asiyot(Leipzig and London, 1924), p. 121, #336.Google Scholar

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7. In a study of the writings of Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Pinhas Lachower (Al Gevul ha-Yashan ve-he-Ifadash[Jerusalem, 1951], pp. 45–49) discussed this parable from the Zohar, which he considered to be the source of the parable appearing in Seder ha- Yomand Ifemdat Yamim.He did not, however, relate the latter source to the midrashic excerpt found in the Tanhumamanuscript except to mention in a footnote that such a source exists without identifying it; nor did he compare the zoharic parable with the later parable, which is best understood as a transformation of the older midrashic legend under the impact of the zoharic parable.

8. Seder ha-Yomp. 21b.

9. The parable is found in Hemdat Yamim(Venice, 1763), pt. 3 (Mo'adim)pp. 51a-b. On Hemdat Yamimsee Abraham Yaari, Ta'alumat Sefer(Jerusalem, 1954); Gershom Scholem, “Ve-ha-Ta'alumah be-Eineha Omedet,” Behinot be-Vikkoret uva-Sifrut8 (Jerusalem, 1955): 79–95; Isaiah Tishby, Netivei Emunah u-Minut(Ramat-Gan, 1964), pp.108–168.

10. Note Maimonides, Moreh Nevukhim1:33, 2:48. Also the introduction to Saadiah's Emunot ve-De'ot.

11. A somewhat similar suggestion is made by Joseph Dan (Ha-Sippur ha-Ivri bi-Mei ha-Beinayim[Jerusalem 1974], p. 28) in reference to the philosophical parable in medieval Jewish literature.

12. This is true in a general, not a total sense, as the more advanced levels of kabbalistic teaching were still reserved for the inner circles of students; speaking more broadly, however, in this later period Kabbalah is intended for and accessible to the community as a whole.

13. Charles, R.H., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament(Oxford, 1913), 2:561.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., p. 603.

15. A connection between the fourth vision from IV Ezra and the later midrashic literature appears in that the bereaved woman in IV Ezra is said to be mourning the death of her only son, who died on the morning of his wedding day. In certain midrashic sources (Eikhah Rabbahproem 24; Eikhah Zutasecond version, #20, ed. Solomon Buber [Berlin, 1894], p. 144), God, similarly, is said to liken His situation at the destruction of Jerusalem to that of a father whose only son died beneath the wedding canopy. It would seem that both IV Ezra and those later midrashic sources ultimately draw upon an earlier shared tradition.

16. Eikhah Rabbahproem 24 and parallels. Whereas modern biblical scholarship understands the passage in Jer. 31:14–16 as referring specifically to the tribes of the northern kingdom who were exiled at an earlier period, the midrashic sources make no such distinction and interpret the passage in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem and the beginning of the Babylonian Exile.

17. Pesikta Rabbati26:7.

18. Seder Megillal Eikhah u-Tefillat Leil Tishah be-Av u-Kinnot ke-Minhag Ashkenazim u-Polin(Mantua, 1720), p. 22; Anthologia Hebraicaed. H. Brody (Leipzig, 1922), p. 44; translation by Nina Davis in Jewish Quarterly Reviewo.s. 9 (1897): 291–293. Listed in Israel Davidson, Thesaurus of Medieval Hebrew Poetry(New York, 1924–33), vol. 1, #2108.

19. Tanna de-vei Eliyahu(Jerusalem, 1959), Eliyahu Rabbahvol. 2, chap. 30, p. 442.

20. Berakhot3a; Eikhah Rabbahproems 24 and 25; Tanna de-vei Eliyahu, Eliyahu Rabbahchap. 30; Peter Kuhn, Gottes Trauer und Klage in der rabbinischen Oberlieferung(Leiden, 1978).

21. Zohar, pt. 1, p. 203a. Translation by Sperling, H. and Simon, M., The Zohar(London, 1937), vol. 2, p. 271. Note also Zohar, pt. 3, p. 20b.Google Scholar

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23. Zohar, pt. 3, p. 187a.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., p. 20b.

25. Not to be confused with the earlier Abraham ben Eliezer ha-Levi, a native of Spain who died in Jerusalem about 1530.

26. Zevi ben Aaron Samuel Koidonower, Kav ha-Yashar(Frankfurt am Main, 1705), chap. 93; Shivhei ha-Ariincluded in Meir Benayahu, Sefer Toledot ha-Ari(Jerusalem, 1967), pp. 228–230; Hemdat Yamim(Venice, 1763), vol. 2 (Rosh Hodesh)p. 4a.

27. Sefer ha-Hezyonot,ed. Eshkoli, A.Z. (Jerusalem, 1954), p. 130.Google Scholar

28. Yaari, Abraham, Iggerot Erez Yisrael(Ramat-Gan, 1971), pp. 205–206.Google Scholar

29. Sefer Toledot ha-Aripp. 228–230.

30. benjacobjelhananbacharach, Naphtali, Emek ha-Melekh(Amsterdam, 1648), p. 109b.Google Scholar

31. Kav ha-Yasharchap. 93.

32. Meir Poppers, Or ha-Yashar(Amsterdam, 1709), Amud ha-Avodahchap. 11, p. 7b.

33. Hemdat Yamimvol. 2, p. 4a.

34. The legend, in its various forms, reflects the opinion found several times in midrashic sources, among contrary opinions, that even with the destruction of the Temple, the Shekhinah never left the site of the Western Wall. See Midrash Tehillimon Ps. 11:3 (ed. S. Buber [Vilna, 1891], pp. 99–100) and Shemot Rabbah2:2; also Urbach, Hazalp. 44. The same view appears several times in Moses Alshekh's commentary on Lamentations 1:1–2.

35. Thompson, Motif IndexD. 1855.

36. NoteWerblowsky, R.J.Z., Joseph Karo, Lawyer and Mystic(Oxford, 1962), pp. 265–268. The version of the legend in Emek ha-Melekhexplains the twenty-two years as relating to “the Shekhinah who is the Oral Torah which is constructed of twenty-two letters.”Google Scholar

37. Scholem, Gershom, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism(New York, 1946), p. 249.Google Scholar

38. Hippolyte, Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints(New York, 1962).Google Scholar

39. Hemdat Yamimvol. 2, p. 4a.

40. On the background of the Midnight Vigil, see Ira Robinson, “Messianic Prayer Vigils in Jerusalem in the Early Sixteenth Century,” Jewish Quarterly Review72, no. 1 (July 1981): 32–42.

41. Kav ha-Yasharchap. 93. The same legend in slightly different form appears in Ifemdal Yatnimvol. 2, p. 4a, in the context of a discussion of the vigil observed on the day of fasting and reflection which precedes the appearance of the new moon. That ascetic rite establishes a connection between the blemish in the moon's light, the days of darkness preceding the reappearance of the moon, and the Exile of the Shekhinah. The rite, as described in Hemdat Yamimis a distinctively Sabbatean ritual (Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism[London, 1965], pp. 152–153; also Behinot be-Vikkoret u-ve-Sifrutvol. 8 [Jerusalem, 1955], pp. 15–16), and while it is not explicitly mentioned in the legend of Rabbi Abraham ben Eliezer Berukhim in that source, the description of the rite in the textual context of the legend has the effect of providing a sanction for the later Sabbatean rite in the practice of the generation of the Ari and of Rabbi Abraham ha-Levi Berukhim.

42. Kav ha-Yasharchap. 93; Shivhei ha-Ariin Sefer Toledot ha-Arip. 228.

43. Sefer Toledot ha-Aripp. 155, 164, 189, 258. This study reflects, in part, research conducted at Oxford and Jerusalem during the summer of 1983 with the assistance of a research stipend awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

44. Hemdat Yamimvol. 2, p. 4a.

45. Emek ha-Melekhthird introduction, chap. 7, p. 13a; Hemdat Yamimvol. 1 (Shabbat), pp. 40a, 81a; Ma'asei Nissim(Constantinople, 1720), p. 8a; Sefer Toledot ha-Aripp. 168–169.