Free Carnal Isræl: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture by Daniel Boyarin

she has given me permission, I will go back." He went for another twelve years. He came with twenty-four thousand pairs of disciples. Everyone came out to receive him, and she also came out to meet him. That rogue said to her, "Where do you think you are going?" She said, "'The righteous man senses the need of his pet' [Prov. 12:10]." 8 She came to show herself to him. The Rabbis were pushing her aside. He said to them, "Leave her be. That which is mine and that which is yours is really hers!" Kalba Savua' went and asked to be relieved of his vow, and he was released. In six ways Rabbi Akiva became wealthy from the property of Kalba Savua'.
(Babylonian Talmud Nedarim 50a)
This text may be seen to show several of the generic characteristics of romance. We have the topoi of the marriage for love obstructed by societal strictures and parental opposition, the triumph of the young lovers who resist the thwarting of their desires, and their eventual vindication even in the eyes of the original opponent of their love. Even so, it is impossible, of course, to read the story as either a representation of actual
7. A particularly precious sort of tiara.
8. "Pet" is not a literal translation, as pethood is an institution specific to modern culture. However, this translation comes closest to conveying the connotations of the relation between a shepherd and sheep in the pastoral Jewish culture, including the erotic overtones thereof. For the erotic associations of pet-keeping, see Shell 1985. "Beast" would be a more strict rendering, but would be misleading in its connotation. The use of this verse implies the solicitous (patronizing) care of a superior in the hierarchy for an inferior, not an ascription of bestiality. Thus, for example, it is used in Tanhuma on Noah 7, paragraph 1, to refer to the fact that God knew that Noah was righteous from among all of the human beings who existed then. I shall further develop these points in my reading of the story below.

 
< previous page
page_137
next page >

< previous page
page_138
next page >
Page 138
historical-biographical reality or a literary version of a "kernel" of biographical truth. 9 However, it is not just a romance either, not just a fictional tale about made-up characters, but a highly charged story about a central culture hero. Why is this story told about Rabbi Akiva? What is the cultural work that is done by making the hero of the "romance" specifically a great scholar and martyr and more specifically Rabbi Akiva? To attempt an answer to these questions, let us have a look at some rabbinic discursive practices that can be made to inform our reading of the biographical narrative, and especially the genre of halakhic (ritual legal) controversy.
Halakha
Which Precedes: Marriage or Torah?
The first halakhic text that seems relevant for the narrative of Rabbi Akiva's romance is the discussion in Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 29b of the appropriate timing for marriage; the question is which comes first, study or marriage:
The sages have taught: On studying Torah and marrying a woman? He should study Torah and then marry, but if he cannot manage without a wife, he should marry and then study Torah. Said Rav Yehudah that Shmuel said, "The halakha is that he should marry and then study Torah." Rabbi Yohanan said, "A millstone around his neck and he will study Torah!?" And they do not disagree; that is for us and that is for them .
First of all, some simple commentary. The text begins with a baraita that is, an early Palestinian halakhic traditionwhich in the absence of a contraverting text from the same period is normally halakhically authoritative. Despite this theoretically definitive statement, the later Babylonian authority Shmuel is reported as having held that the young scholar should marry and then study Torah. His equally authoritative Palestinian counterpart and contemporary, Rabbi Yohanan, holds the opposite view,
9. The historical reading is problematic, that is, beyond the