Many writers have brought biblical stories to life in works of historical fiction, but few have turned an imaginative eye upon the tales of the sages of the Talmud. (Milton Steinberg’s classic As a Driven Leaf, portraying the life of Elisha ben Abuya, comes to mind as an exception.) Now, Ruth Calderon, who famously taught Talmud at the Knesset (of which she is a member), has taken nuggets of aggadata scattered throughout the Gemara and rabbinic literature and breathed fresh life into them, using the tools of literature and scholarship.
She has chosen seventeen terse but dramatic Talmudic tales and expanded and reimagined them, often from the perspectives of the women who are described therein but remain voiceless. She delves into the thoughts of the sota—or, actually, the sister of a sota who goes in her stead—as she enacts the biblical ritual of drinking the bitter waters (according to Midrash Tanhuma, Naso 6). She evokes the feelings of the anonymous wife of Rav Rehumi, left alone while her husband studies in Mahoza, as she awaits his return, which fails to materialize; her single tear causes him to fall through a roof and die. Calderon notes that Rehumi means “love” in Aramaic and “can be interpreted as either ‘loving’ or ‘beloved,’” and it is his nameless wife who makes him “beloved”—yet he fails to recognize what love is. She describes the inner dialogue of the “bride for one night” mentioned in B. Yoma 18b—not quite a prostitute, but a substitute wife who allows a traveling rabbi to function as a tourist with all the comforts of home.
In retelling the story of Homa, the wife of Abaye, who appears before Rava asking for her ketuba money, Calderon explores the tensions and inevitable rivalry between the closeness of two study partners and the intimacy of a marital couple. She sees the subtext of the story in B. Ketubot 65a, observed from the point of view of the woman, as being, “It should be clear which of the two of us was closer to Abaye.” Suddenly, a story that seemed to be about ketuba money ignites with the sparks of relational jealousy. A different kind of triangle of two scholars and a woman is spelled out in Bava Metzia 84a in the story of Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish, whose wife is Rabbi Yohanan’s sister. When the two men, teacher and student, have a falling out that turns deadly, the wife rushes to the study house to plead for their reconciliation, lest she become a widow. Again, the woman’s perspective receives fuller and more empathetic treatment than in the original.
In story after story, Calderon sensitively fleshes out the emotions that lie below the sparse text of the Talmud. She not only portrays feelings, but also captures and elaborates on the details of daily life. In her literary retelling, we smell the aromas of the marketplace, envision the majesty of the study house, and feel the warmth of a family hearth. In fact, the book’s title in the Hebrew was Hashuk, Habayit, Halev (the marketplace, the home, the heart), and each of these environs is fully explored.
Calderon, who has a doctorate in Talmud from the Hebrew University, brings both critical, historical perspectives and artistic creativity to her retellings. Sometimes the two methodologies are slightly at odds, as the emotional insights draw upon modern sensibilities, whereas the historical background illuminates our distance from the sources. Overall, however, the two approaches are complementary and make for a satisfying sense of finally “getting it” for texts such as the Beruria temptation episode, with which many of us are already familiar.
This is a book that will delight both the talmudists and the feminists among us.