was to prevent him from thinking of another woman. That is to say, whatever the "true" meaning of Rabbi Eliezer's sexual behavior, the narrator, through the speech of Imma Shalom, inscribes it in the intimacy code. Moreover, it is consistent with at least three other moments in the text. First, the function for which the story of Rabbi Eliezer and Imma Shalom is cited is explicitly as an objection to the statement by Rabbi Yohanan the son of Dabai that a couple may not converse during intercourse.
13
The Rabbis who cited this source here understood that the conversation between Rabbi Eliezer and Imma Shalom took place during sexual intercourse. Moreover, the resolution of the apparent conflict between the texts is also highly significant. What the angels intended to forbid, according to the talmudic resolution, was speaking of other and distracting matters during the sexual act. Even the angels permit couples to speak of sexual matters, which is what Rabbi Eliezer and Imma Shalom did. According to the redactorial level of the talmudic text, then, one is permitted to speak of sex during sexual activity, as it is considered conducive to the creation of intimacy and warmth between the partners. This is, then, consistent with the stated reason for the Rabbi's behavior.
|
Let us read this story a bit more closely. It is important to know at the start that the word that Imma Shalom uses for "intercourse" is "talking." Literally, what she says to the Rabbis is, "When he talks to me, he does not talk to me at the beginning of the night, nor at the end of the night, but at midnight." I think that the linguistic echo is significant, because the story, like the entire talmudic passage, is about the
discourse
of sex, that is, at least in this case, about
talking
about sex.
14
Rabbi Yohanan ben Dabai's angelic communication has been cited as illustration of the principle that modesty is vitally important. Accordingly, the conversation that takes place between husband and wife during intercourse (which in English, too, means conversation!) is an example of immodesty according to that tradition. It is that notion that the text of Imma Shalom is motivated here to counter.
|
However, at first glance, one would think that far from countering or opposing Rabbi Yohanan ben Dabai's tradition, the story of how Rabbi Eliezer conducted his sexual life would seem to support that tradition. If
|
 | | 13. That is,
mirabile dictu
, the text is cited as a permissive one!
|
| | 14. I do not agree with David Biale (1989) who sees here a misunderstanding of the word and claims that the Talmud cites this as an objection on the basis of a literal understanding here of "talking."
|
|
|
