Jews vs Zombies (9 page)

Raba said in the name of R. Huna, in the name of Rav, in the name of Rabbi
²⁴
, regarding this tradition, that, when the Holy One revives the dead through justice and mercy at His will, they are to be regarded as alive, as it is written, ‘
THEIR LEAVES NEVER WITHER
’, but if they arise through other means, they are not to be regarded as alive, as it is written, ‘
THEY BEAR THEIR FRUIT IN SEASON
’. R. Abye objected and said, what then is the law concerning them? If a priest or Nazirite comes into contact with them, shall he be regarded as unclean and obliged to bring a guilt-offering? Yes. But R. Abye further objected, we have received in the name of Eleazar Ben Arach
²⁵
, if one revives the dead to teach, he arises with both the good inclination and the evil inclination.
²⁶
If he [the person arisen from the dead] is a priest, will he make himself unclean? And if so, what will a guilt-offering avail him?
²⁷
The question stands.

Rava then asked Raba: how is it with R. Zeira? Must your house guest observe a period of mourning for himself? Raba had once invited R. Zeira to a Purim feast, and, becoming drunk, had risen up and slaughtered him. The next morning, he prayed for mercy and R. Zeira was restored to life.
²⁸
Raba said: in the case of R. Zeira, [he has arisen with only] the good inclination! R. Abye however said: was it not [through] the Divine will [that R. Zeira returned to life]? Raba said: I have taught my nephew [R. Abye] to eat bread, but he will not eat cake.
²⁹

A heretic came to R. Meir and said: a plague has come upon the Romans in Caesarea. One bites the other to feast on his flesh, and each one who is devoured and dies, then rises up again and pursues the next, as a wild animal. Meir said: has something then changed?
³⁰
Upon returning home however, he said to Bruria, this is related to the matter of R. Eliezar.

R. Shimon ben Gamaliel called together the men of the Academy. R. Phineas said, ‘The kings of the earth set themselves against the
LORD
³¹
’. R. Shimon ben Gamaliel however responded, ‘Let all who take refuge in you rejoice’
³²
– all who take refuge in you, not all who honour you. From this we learn that also the wicked must be protected in time of general calamity. Others say, not until they repent, as it is written, ‘for you are my refuge; into your hand I commit my spirit’
³³
; that is, only when they are sufficiently contrite.

While they were thus engaged, a great number of those [of whom it was said, it arises from the ground] ‘
OUT OF ITS PROPER TIME
’, approached the Academy to pursue [the people there]. R. Jose said, ‘if your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat’
³⁴
, and cast loaves before them, but they did not eat. R. Judah then said, ‘at twilight you shall eat meat’
³⁵
, and he cast a hen before them. The pursuers devoured the hen. Then R. Nehemiah cast two ducks before them, and they devoured the ducks. Then R. Phineas cast three ewes before them, and they devoured the ewes. Then R. Nathan cast four goats before them, and they devoured the goats. Then R. Yochanan cast five calves before them, and they devoured the calves. He said, ‘They slice meat on the right, but are still hungry, and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied.’
³⁶

Then R. Shimon ben Gamaliel cast six bulls before them, and they devoured the bulls. R. Phineas said, ‘When they had eaten them, no one would have known that they had eaten them, for they were still as ugly as at the beginning.’
³⁷
R. Judah said: May we also awaken!
³⁸
Then R. Judah cast seven oxen before them, and they devoured the oxen. Then R. Meir cast eight elephants before them, and they devoured the elephants. Then R. Shimon bar Yochai brought a Leviathan from the sea, and they devoured the Leviathan. At once they became so rotund that their bellies were like the wheels of a chariot, and the men of the Academy rolled them into the sea.

R. Eliezar ben Hyrcanus meanwhile entered the house of Acher to pursue him. Because Acher was unable to escape, he said: my master, I have a question about the [ritual purity of] ovens. Although R. Eliezar was compromised in his faculties, the matter interested him greatly, and so he ceased [to pursue].

Acher said: consider an oven like that of Aknai
³⁹
which, in the year of the Destruction of the Temple, was used on the first day of Passover to store unleavened bread that had previously been wrapped in a cloth that was stained with the menstrual blood of the oven’s owner
⁴⁰
, and the owner then purified only the parts that had been touched by the unleavened bread.

Now, consider that the mother of the owner was a proselyte; however, the rabbinical court which converted her had said: we will allow you to convert only under the condition that your parentage is pure.
⁴¹
But the proselyte’s father had been a Jew who was conceived after his own father had given his mother a bill of divorce about which he said: this paper belongs to me, except under the condition that the Temple will be destroyed, God forbid, and that on the first day of the festival of Passover of that year, we will have a great-granddaughter who, G-d forbid, will own an impure oven, in which case this paper belongs to you.
⁴²
In such a case, is the oven pure or impure?

R. Eliezar said: it is pure! And with that he returned to dust.

Rava asked Raba: who is more to be praised, R. Meir, because he warned the Academy, or R. Shimon bar Yochai, because he brought the Leviathan? R. Abye objected: but perhaps Acher is to be praised, for his task was the greater?
⁴³
Raba answered: R. Eliezar ben Hyrcanus is to be praised. At his second death, he remembered the Temple and turned towards Jerusalem, as we learned:
IF IT FACES TO THE EAST.

1
Psalm 1:3.

2
Psalm 1:4.

3
The crops arising out of season.

4
But on his departure, surely all business has been completed. The crops facing west accompany the setting sun’s departure, while those facing east greet the rising sun. It is no longer clear how the Talmudic sages determined which way crops were facing. Rashi regards the direction in which most of the grain’s tassels were pointing as determinative, while Rambam interprets the phrase to allude to the orientation of the leaves.

5
Deut. 14:3.

6
In a cave, by reason of Roman persecution. cf. Shabbat 33b.

7
The cucumbers that R. Eliezar ben Hyrcanus was able to summon by invoking the Divine will, cf. Sanhedrin 68a.

8
Song of Solomon 2:10.

9
R. Eliezar ben Hyrcanus had caused the death of R. Shimon ben Gamaliel’s father, after the dispute over the Aknai oven, cf. Baba Mezia 59b.

10
Psalm 27:14.

11
Lit. ‘his thoughts were eaten‘

12
Because of the dispute over honours due to the various offices of heads of the Academy, R. Shimon ben Gamliel had decreed this punishment for R. Meir, cf. Horayot 13b.

13
Psalm 17:10.

14
Numbers 26:25, cf. Sanhedrin 110. Moses approached the supporters of Korah, about which the Talmud observes, ‘This teaches that one must not be obdurate in a quarrel.‘ Bruria thus urges R. Meir to emulate Moses in pursuing reconciliation.

15
Proverbs 14:1.

16
According to Rambam, ‘the house of Israel‘ was threatened because of R. Eliezar ben Hyrcanus having arisen, and it was with this argument that Bruria sought to persuade her husband to put aside private enmity. The Wilna Gaon observed in response: every feud between scholars is a danger to the house of Israel.

17
As if the latter had been excommunicated.

18
Lit. ‘his thoughts have been eaten‘.

19
cf. the Mishnah cited in Sanhedrin 67a.

20
cf. Sanhedrin 68a, regarding the permissibility of the magical production of cucumbers solely for the purpose of research.

21
i.e., to impress R. Shimon ben Gamaliel with your learning.

22
R. Elisha ben Abuya, R. Meir’s former teacher, who had been excommunicated as a heretic, cf. Hagigah 15b.

23
Psalm 27:2.

24
Rabbi (R. Yehuda ha-Nasi), the son of R. Shimon ben Gamliel, was thus the teacher of Raba’s teacher’s teacher.

25
This may be a pseudonym or cognomen of R. Meir, used by later sages to attribute teachings to him indirectly, in deference to the decree of R. Shimon ben Gamliel forbidding rulings to be recorded in his name, cf. Erubin 13b.

26
Because he is arisen through magic, and not through the Divine will.

27
If the person is himself regarded as technically dead, but is still in possession of his faculties, he will be unable to cleanse himself of the impurity arising from contact with the dead. This presents a legal puzzle. Various Gaonim argued that if he returns to life through no fault of his own, he cannot be held liable for the impurity, but if he asks a friend to resurrect him, he is liable. Rambam regards the resurrection of R. Eliezar as metaphorical, representing the resumption of the debate over the aknai oven (cf. Baba Mezi’a 59a) at a time when it was no longer appropriate, that is, after the majority had already decided, likening stubborn debate without legal justification unto a reanimated corpse deprived of the good inclination.

28
cf. Megilla 7b.

29
R. Abye, taking Raba literally, objects that since Zeira’s resurrection was accomplished through prayer rather than magic, the problems discussed earlier do not apply. Raba responds by saying that Abye has only learned to eat bread, and not cake. According to Rashi, bread here represents serious study, while cake represents light-heartedness. According to the Tosafot, bread represents literal meanings, while cake represents the deeper metaphorical level. R. Abye has failed to apprehend that Rabba’s compliment to Zeira is figurative rather than literal. Rabba was known for employing humor as a pedagogical tool, cf. Shabbat 30b.

30
That is, this predatory behavior is typical of the Romans.

31
Psalm 2:2. In other words, we have no obligation to assist the Romans, our occupiers.

32
Psalm 5:11.

33
Psalm 31:4-5.

34
Proverbs 25:21.

35
Exodus 16:12.

36
Isaiah 18:20.

37
Genesis 41:21.

38
The passage which R. Phineas cites, in which Pharaoh recounts his dream to Joseph, is followed by, ‘Then I awoke.‘

39
An oven composed of many parts; the debate about whether the whole, or only the parts, must be purified, led to R. Eliezar’s excommunication, cf. Baba Mezia 59b.

40
Which would render the cloth, and thus the matzah, and thus the oven impure, presuming the owner of the oven is Jewish.

41
In other words, only if her immediate ancestry is free of illegitimate births; in this case, the legitimacy of her father is in question.

42
The divorce is valid only if the bill of divorce, including the paper it is written on, is given entirely to the wife. If the husband retains ownership, the divorce would be invalid, and thus the woman would be the legitimate offspring of the couple, and hence her daughter, the oven’s owner, would be Jewish. cf. Gittin 84a.

43
Because R. Eliezar was a more formidable threat than the others.

WISEMAN’S
TERROR TALES

ANNA TAMBOUR

Irving Wiseman’s uncle Leo dropped some magazines on Irving’s bed. ‘Enough dreaming,’ he said, pulling the book from his nephew’s hands and placing it on the bureau. He would have liked to toss it, but it was a book, and even more than that, a library book.

‘You gotta make a living,’ he said.

Irving sighed, but rolled over and laid the magazines out before him on his bedspread like cards in a game.

‘You got talent,’ said Leo. ‘You must have. So they’re showing it, no?’ He pointed like some professor in the movies at the middle magazine.

The right breast of the woman in the underwired but otherwise unstructured pink brassiere stared at the 17-year-old. It wasn’t just the woman’s youth that perked those breasts, Irving knew. His uncle had told him that 64% of women, once they hit the age of 20, already have bosoms that not only fail the pencil-test, but are as perky as easy-over-light fried eggs. This woman’s bazoongas were held up in their most flattering form, high as they could go. Irving didn’t know but guessed that the reason was those arms pulled up by wrists clamped into cuffs on that chain pulled over the swing-bar by the scientist’s assistant.