Lore and Order: Enlisting Rabbinic Epistemology

Abstract

This chapter explores the diverse manifestations of lists in rabbinic texts of late antiquity and their complex strategies of structuring, producing, and conveying knowledge through lists. The discussion is embedded within a broader perspective on lists as didactic and epistemic tools within ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. I argue that lists play an important role in the production of knowledge in premodern Jewish culture. The following examples aim to demonstrate that in Talmudic medical discourse, in legal prescriptions, in exegetical and in ethical midrashic texts, lists function as a versatile “epistemic form.” Lists shaped the rabbinic collections of law and lore that functioned simultaneously as cultural inventories, store houses of knowledge, and practical reference works. They thus facilitate the transfer of knowledge of the world and of the body into the world of the rabbinic study house and eventually into the quasi-canonical Talmudic corpus, an encyclopedic body of knowledge.

Most probably, all of us like a good list.¹ Lists condense information and make us feel organized and in control. Some might describe life as a chain of incidental happenings, and lists help to structure and tame the oftentimes disempowering sensation of chaos which follows in its wake. Studies have pointed out that it is precisely the ubiquity of and our familiarity with enumerations or lists that make them almost disappear from our minds as an actual discursive strategy, literary form, and cultural practice.² Most scholarship, even on premodern lists, tends to focus almost exclusively on the pragmatic aspects. Lucie Doležalová has pointed out that the list

is most frequently a tool – a table of contents, dictionary, phone book, etc. One does not read but only uses a list: one looks up the relevant information in it, but usually does not need to deal with it as a whole – and is happy about this fact. (Doležalová 2009a, 1)

While this observation might apply to the already very elaborate forms of lists mentioned in this quote, lists, throughout history, were often conceptualized or perceived as more coherent entities with complex literary and epistemic dimensions. In the case of rabbinic and other premodern lists, this includes the production of ad hoc lists as notes or lists as an addendum to a copied text. Eva von Contzen has pointed out the manifold affordances of the list.³ The list’s great functional potential is worth bearing in mind when analyzing how enumerations that are passed on through time are expanded, shortened, or otherwise altered. The following discussion addresses the problem that lists do not usually supply any further explanations as to their theoretical underpinnings. The singularized items which they are composed of are not contextually embedded and thus they tend to be elliptic. However, as such, they are open to (re)interpretation. They invite future reutilizations and transformations that alter or add structure, contents, and commentaries (Mainberger 2003, 20).

This chapter will explore the manifold manifestations of lists in rabbinic texts of late antiquity and the strategies of structuring, producing, and conveying knowledge through lists. Those traditions form the basis of and remain important sources for Jewish religious ideas and practices even today. The discussion is embedded within a broader perspective on (the scholarship of) lists as didactic and epistemic tools within ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. I argue that lists play an important role in the production of knowledge in premodern Jewish history. The following examples aim at demonstrating that in Talmudic medical discourse, legal prescriptions, exegetical or ethical midrashic texts lists function as versatile “epistemic forms.” The main bi-partite section presents different interrelated figurations of lists. First, many rabbinic texts feature different kinds of simple lists or enumerations. Second, one may find more complex versions of such enumerations as compound or growing lists featuring interdependent sequences that complement and cross-reference each other.⁴ I will focus on sample texts from two different realms: (a) the Talmudic discourse on illness and health that utilizes lists (recipes, preventive advice, therapeutic instruction) in ways similar to other ancient medical traditions; (b) midrashic works with exegetical, homiletical, and ethical interest.

Lists in the Making: From Ancient Practice to Modern Theory?

With a rather derogatory attitude, cultures of the Ancient Near East were primarily conceived by early scholars through the paradigm of a “science of lists” (Listenwissenschaft). The term expresses the extent to which “Eastern” knowledge systems were regarded as inferior to Western “Science” (with a capitalized S), which built upon the theoretical discourse of Greco-Roman traditions.⁵ Such assumptions about the “Oriental mind” as structurally incapable of abstract, theoretical scientific thinking have long been dismissed in favor of a more nuanced study of the historical and cultural factors in the production of knowledge.⁶ Accordingly, scientific thought is a socially embedded cultural practice of generating, ordering, and transmitting knowledge about and within the (empirical) world. The lack of an explicit concept of “science” (and related issues) or a fully fledged theoretical or epistemological discourse should not be taken as a proof for the historical absence of any systematic thinking in our sources. Rather, in several ancient traditions (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Jewish) first- and second-order procedures of knowledge production (like sequencing, hierarchization, comparison, binary and oppositional thinking, abstraction, synthesis, and generalization), which often underlay the extant discourse, but rarely were addressed openly, are embodied and can be studied in lists.⁷

Lists as artifacts—on a clay tablet, in a scroll, codex, or written on a napkin—constitute the material embodiment of epistemic conventions within a certain culture and time at a specific locality. The deployment of lists for the production of knowledge and its didactic imparting becomes a part of the represented items, since the form has an impact on the cognitive act itself.⁸ The specific blending of form and content as well as language and discursive framing played a crucial role for the creation and transmission of knowledge in Jewish traditions and their dynamic exchanges with other cultures.⁹ Ancient scientific usage of lists was often intertwined with scribal education and the field of exegesis and interpretation, that is, the core expertise of the rabbinic sages.¹⁰ From ancient times onward, lists had a decidedly epistemological function: they created and (re)presented patterns or concepts that guided the cognitive processes of their authors and their audience.¹¹ However, due to the dearth of sources (for triangulation), the inquiry into the function(s) of lists within their contexts or the scientific concepts underlying specific lists is often a difficult, if not impossible task.

In the following, I will explore how lists display a rather stable enumerative form across different times and cultures whose flexible and hybrid nature allowed for various adaptations to specific purposes and contexts.¹² While Belknap’s broad and inclusive understanding of lists as a “block of information that is composed of a set of members”¹³ is certainly applicable to rabbinic texts, a typographical or medial definition of lists as an entity using columns or rows would be rather inexpedient for the material at hand. Although rabbinic lists are thus represented in modern-day scholarly editions for analytical purposes, this is not what they looked like in the manuscripts or the most common earlier prints. Be that as it may, I will use the term list in the sense of a flexible enumerative format.¹⁴ Besides preliminary studies by Wünsche and Towner, Roy Shasha’s first form-critical study of lists as a literary device in early rabbinic traditions (Mishnah) describes a textual unit featuring a caption with a deictic (“these are they”/we-ʾilu hen) and/or a numerical reference (“Three things do/are X”) to items following within the list.¹⁵ Lists can be simple or compound, combining several lists or addressing more than one topic.¹⁶ Lists may serve to introduce a particular topic (agenda) at the beginning of a chapter. Some lists may be comparative or contrastive, while others connect heterogeneous items under one rubric.¹⁷ Moreover, the density and brevity of lists help to create coherent units for transferring knowledge, since they function not only as a literary device but also form an effective tool for instruction and information storage (see Cancik-Kirschbaum 2010, 2012).

Introduction to Rabbinic Sources: Background, Dating, and Characteristics

Diverse forms of lists and approaches to list-making served as discursive and epistemic tools in Jewish traditions that were composed in Hebrew and Aramaic throughout late antiquity and early medieval times, roughly from the first to the tenth century. One strand of rabbinic tradition, namely Halakha (lit. “way of life”), developed a set of religious normative rules and related (theological) issues that strove to include almost every realm of life—from rituals, liturgy, or festivals to agriculture, business ethics, and even medical topics. This corpus includes the early Mishnah (m.) and its companion, the Tosefta (t.), from circa third-century Palestine. Two later Talmudic traditions commented and elaborated upon those earlier texts, often adding new material from their respective cultural background: the Palestinian/Jerusalem Talmud (y.), from the sixth century; and the Babylonian Talmud (b.), a vast tradition compiled between the sixth and the eighth centuries in the region of today’s Iraq. This body of texts is accompanied by other works subsumed under the label midrash, mainly from Palestine, which can be described as “exegetical literature” in the broadest sense of the term. These texts include exegetical and homiletical examinations of the Hebrew Bible and also feature ethical teachings.¹⁸

Although rabbinic traditions commonly ascribe certain teachings to named sages, this polyphonic concert of rabbinic voices appears in texts with an anonymous and collective authorship. These teachings are thought to have been transmitted orally or else as written notes over quite a long time before they were compiled in written collections. This supposed orality of earlier rabbinic traditions ties in well with theoretical considerations regarding the form of the list. While some scholars see list-making primarily as a writing practice, media scholar Liam Cole Young has compellingly emphasized that the list “challenges the common assumptions about a dichotomy between oralityand literacy/writing” because it occupies “a liminal or interstitial space between oralityand literacy; ‘savage’ and ‘domestic’; ‘primitive’ and ‘advanced’” (Young 2013a, 501–502). Since lists were inherent parts of the curriculum learned by heart, at least in Babylonia, rabbinic list-making may have emerged as a mnemonic device that builds a bridge between the oral and written traditions. Some contents or additions to compound lists were probably added at a later point, when rabbinic teachings already circulated for some time in writing.

Lists in Ancient Jewish Texts

Before discussing the sample texts, a brief historical contextualization of rabbinic list-making seems in place. Already the Hebrew Bible features genealogies, lists of kings and priests, lists on places (“itinerary of biblical stories”), or about ritual procedures or objects.¹⁹ Prescriptive lists figure also prominently as ordering devices in biblical (Decalogue) and later Jewish law. Enumerations of converts from different ethnic backgrounds who, to varying degrees, are permitted to intermarry with Israelites exemplify the list’s political or religious power of inclusion and exclusion. Detailed lists of items within the biblical dietary laws—specific types of beasts, wild animals, fowl or fish and plants, fruits or trees—did not only have a prescriptive purpose; they were also crucial for the ongoing formation of identity. Moreover, these lists demonstrate the terseness and specificity of the form. Devoid of further explanations regarding their items, these lists pose a challenge during their history of reception/transmission. Post-biblical traditions (e.g., texts from Qumran) and especially the Talmudic refinements of biblical law struggled with many of these names, yet oftentimes found creative solutions. Talmudic authors between the West (Syria-Palestine) and the East (Babylonia) had to translate and actualize transmitted lists according to their contemporaneous and regional contexts (specific plant life, animals, etc.).

Lists were also used to convey ethical ideas and knowledge about the order of the world in Wisdom traditions like Ecclesiastes (Qohelet), Proverbs or Sirach/Ben Sira, which were appropriated by later rabbinic ethical texts (Avot, Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, Derekh Eretz etc.).²⁰ In the post-Talmudic, early Islamic period, one may observe an increased interest in and the frequent deployment of lists. Some texts, like Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer (“Chapters of R. Eliezer”/ henceforth: PRE) or Seder Eliyahu Zuta (“The Minor Order of Elijah”/henceforth: SEZ), feature thematic lists on key concepts such as charity (PRE 33/SEZ 1 and 5), repentance (PRE 43), or righteousness (SEZ 1 and 3). In particular, PRE utilizes lists and enumerations as compositional patterns for chapters and the whole work, thereby restructuring biblical chronology according to lists about the seven days of creation, ten things created at twilight, or ten descents of the divine presence.²¹ Moreover, in PRE lists connect between biblical traditions, Jewish religious custom, and scientific knowledge of different sorts (astrology, cosmology, etc.).²²

Of special importance are the so-called Ma’asseh-Torah traditions.²³ For the first time, these texts accumulated and (re)arranged lists and other material from earlier rabbinic traditions into thematic clusters of lists.²⁴ The increased interest in condensing information about various fields of knowledge in lists which are combined in one work appears to have been triggered by the “beginning of Hebrew scientific literature” (Langermann 2002) in post-Talmudic Jewish texts as well as by both the penchant for florilegia or compendia and a broader model of education/learning (Arabic: adab/أدب) in early medieval (Byzantine) Christian and Islamic cultures.²⁵

Recipes and Rules for a Healthy Lifestyle in Lists

As mentioned before, lists served as stock formats within ancient Jewish traditions. Moreover, lists played an important role in various ancient medical traditions (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greco-Roman) as an aid in therapeutic instruction, advice on dieita (“healthy lifestyle”), diagnosis, and prognosis.²⁶ Enumerations take center stage in pharmaceutic works and in recipes. They work as aide-mémoires for the practitioner or as handy forms to distribute and transmit pertinent knowledge through prescription-formulas to non-experts or later recipients. In rabbinic medical discourse, as in other traditions, recipes and their lists were altered, expanded, or shortened, while sometimes a piece of empirical evidence was added by way of an anecdote or a statement (efficacy label).²⁷

The list structure in recipes often follows a rather simple scheme: the indication (i.e., disease), a list of ingredients or materia medica (“healing substances”), steps for preparation and/or application, and, sometimes, alternative therapies. However, lists should not be perceived only as an accumulation of the single items contained in it; rather, lists can intersect, accumulate, and form sequences. In general, medical or recipe lists tend to appear in clusters of lists. Sometimes two or more lists are contiguous or exhibit a close textual and/or thematical proximity. Often such lists show a high degree of either coherence or contrast as in the following brief example from the Babylonian Talmud that contains advice on health regimens. The text is embedded in a longer discussion, mostly in Hebrew, deploying lists of three, five, six, or ten items. Those lists deal with positive and negative signs in dreams or with things that are beneficial or harmful for the human body and mind:

Three things enter the body without benefiting it: gwdgdnywt/גוגגדניות (a fruit/plant), kphnywt/כפניות (spadix of palms?), and pgy tmrh/פגי תמרה (unripe dates?).²⁸

Three things benefit the body without entering / being absorbed by it: washing, anointing, and usage [of one’s bed] (tashmish = intercourse). (Babylonian Talmud, b. Berakhot 57b, in Hebrew)²⁹

The connection between these lists is twofold: first, both are introduced by the same numerical value (three); second, using an antithetical rhetoric they refer to specific items that interact with one’s body in opposing ways. The marked action of “entering the body” is clearly derived from the process of ingestion or consumption. The items are plants or fruits which grant no particular benefit or pleasure to one’s body. The second list, by contrast, focuses on bodily activities that improve the body’s constitution from the outside without entering into it. The antithesis is developed along two dichotomies: internal/food for consumption versus external/treatment, care, or action in relation to one’s body.

One may note that, in this case, the introductory phrases with their numerical value (deixis) strongly resemble the enigmatic and learned questions that are abundant in the common ancient genre of “questions/riddles in a contest of wisdom.”³⁰ Complying with the standard feature of brevity, the two lists do not provide any explanation whatsoever—neither why these particular items were subsumed under these inverse categories, nor what their (non-)beneficial qualities are. The recipients of these lapidary enumerations must either receive this message without further questioning or be familiar with knowledge from other sources. This might point to a certain degree of acquaintance with non-rabbinic expertise in the field of dietetics and personal health, which was an especially thriving genre in Greco-Roman cultures.³¹ However, background information on the issues at hand might be gleaned also from other teachings dispersed throughout various Talmudic traditions. For instance, various types and parts of dates as well as the plant(s) gwdgdnywt/gdgdnywt figure frequently in Talmudic recipes and dietetic advice.³²

Similarly, beneficial behaviors or practices (nutrition, toilet habits, bathing, anointing, or massaging)³³ are discussed extensively in rabbinic texts, often deploying lists as part of the discourse. Thus, a bath house is included in b. Sanhedrin 17b in a list of the absolutely necessary “infrastructure” in a dwelling place for rabbinic scholars—apart from a doctor, bloodletter, or a public privy. Sexuality, an important subfield within physical well-being, is understood as an integral part of divine creation whose importance for the individual (intimacy, companionship) and the collective (procreation) is highlighted. The sexual impulse and various social conventions and practices with regard to sexuality were discussed in rabbinic traditions mostly in a positive way, while also creating religious and cultural boundaries.³⁴ The positive attitude toward sexual relations is stressed also through a list that is added to our enumerative pair: “Three things are a reflection of the world-to-come; and these are they: Sabbath, sun and usage (tashmish/תשמיש), i.e. sex.” Accordingly, sexual activity (“usage”) is likened to savoring a small bit of the eternal gratification expected for an eschatological or otherworldly state.³⁵

Accumulation, Structure, and Orderly Sequence

The following list on sexual practices and the perils of pregnancy discusses the impact of external factors on the conception and gestation of the baby in the mother’s womb. Also, it is embedded in a lengthy discussion about actions (e.g., intercourse) and products that are deemed bad for breastmilk, that is, harmful for the nursed infant. In a typically associative manner the Talmudic text in b. Ketubbot 60b-61a adds in Aramaic:

• 1-A Woman who has intercourse in a [public] mill will have epileptic children.³⁶

• 2-[A woman] who has intercourse on the ground will have children with dislocated legs.

• 3-[A woman] who treads on donkey’s blood will have children with scrapings (a skin disease?).

• 4-[A woman] who eats mustard [seed] will have gluttonous children.

• 5-[A woman] who eats cress will have blear-eyed children.

• 6-[A woman] who eats [fish] brine will have children with sparkling eyes.

• 7-[A woman] who eats clay will have ugly children.

• 8-[A woman] who drinks ‘beer’ will have dark-skinned children.

• 9-[A woman] who eats meat and drinks wine will have healthy children.

• 10-[A woman] who eats eggs will have children with big eyes.

• 11-[A woman] who eats fish will have graceful children.

• 12-[A woman] who eats parsley will have bright children.

• 13-[A woman] who eats coriander will have fleshy children.

• 14-[A woman] who eats etrog will have fragrant children.

This list supplements the preceding discussion focused on breastfeeding with other factors that affect the future child’s character or bodily constitution. Instead of a caption this list features recurring conditional or propositional statements (protasis-apodosis) with a strict if-then logic introduced by “a woman who [does X],” thus focusing on the future mother’s responsibility. The 14 items—another instance of abundance or accumulation—form three distinct areas of impact: the sexual act (1 and 2), contact with specific substances (3), eating, and drinking (4–14). So, the majority of the list items is concerned with nutrition, which is also the most important branch of ancient medical tradition.

The first two strands (sexual conduct/contact) may seem odd to a modern reader and burdened with moralizing implications or, probably, ideas of ritual impurity.³⁷ However, the same concept is corroborated in another Talmudic tractate (b. Nedarim 20a) by a Hebrew teaching in list-form about the impact of conception on fetal development:

R. Yoḥanan b. Dahavai said: “The ministering angels told me four things:

• 1) People are born lame because they (their parents) ‘turned their table’ (i.e., practiced some other position / sort of cohabitation).

• 2) [People are born] mute, because they kiss ‘that place’ (i.e., the sexual organs).

• 3) [People are born] deaf, because they talk [lewdly] during sex.

• 4) [People are born] blind, because they look at ‘that place’ (i.e., the sexual organs).”

The transmitter of this teaching, an early rabbinic scholar from Palestine, refers to a superhuman, angelic source of his surplus knowledge. This list specifies the exact bodily reciprocity between supposedly improper sexual conduct of various kinds (practice, speech, vision) and the resulting congenital disabilities. Accordingly, muteness is caused, for instance, by practicing oral sex. One has to add that the majority opinion in the Talmud does not grant R. Yoḥanan’s report any legal status, that is, no prohibition of said sexual practices, but they also do not reject his moralizing claims about their consequences.³⁸ In general, such a connection between non-normative behavior producing (anatomically or mentally) non-normative offspring is based on ancient ideas of teratology. This branch of knowledge was concerned mainly with exploring the teratogenic causes of “wondrous births” and congenital disorders. In Jewish traditions, non-normative bodies were categorized and discussed in lists.³⁹ Simultaneously, a discourse on the dichotomy of (ritual) un/fitness often excluded a person from many basic religious commandments and social practices (prayer, rituals, sacrifice, marriage, etc.) that defined the Jewish community.⁴⁰

The ideas underlying the list above have many parallels in ancient concepts of gestation and pregnancy as attested in various medical and other texts. Many authors (Plato, Aristotle, Hippocratic texts, Pliny the Elder, Soranus, etc.) agree that the unborn child, “planted” into the woman’s womb, depends on the mother’s nutrition, while being endangered by her unhealthy actions and conditions. In addition, not only physiological factors but even certain sensations affecting the mother during conception or pregnancy will shape the physical appearance, mental faculties, and character of the fetus.⁴¹

Yet, when one ignores the strict mechanical causality, the general idea that the actual behavior and especially the nutrition of the mother may benefit or harm the child sounds not at all alien to modern ears. Anyone acquainted with pregnancy advice literature might also notice that these books eagerly make use of lists as a format for conveying their message. The emphasis on the mother’s behavior and thus her responsibility seems rather familiar and indeed has a long history.⁴²

The above enumeration is not a straightforward list of admonitions, however. Rather, the Talmudic authors included both harmful and beneficial actions—this time not in well-distinguished groups but mixed up and with a slight preponderance of positive effects. Through its conditional structure, this list does more than just itemize things under one caption. The format does not only produce topical coherence: the lists’ model of causality (if the mother does X, the child will be Y) also reflects an understanding of world coherence (sympatheia). The list points to a complex interplay between the human body, nature, and the cosmos (“creation”) at large. Similarly, rabbinic and other Jewish traditions reiterate a model of perfect correspondence between the macrocosmic dimension of God’s creation and its tool or blueprint (the Torah) and the microcosmic sphere of human experience, nature, and specifically the body.⁴³ Furthermore, prediction or prognosis seems of particular importance here, since it harbors an interest in the temporal dimension and divinatory aspects similar to those that prevailed in Greco-Roman, Mesopotamian, or Persian traditions.

Midrashic List-Making: Between Verse, Exegesis, and Ethical Discourse

In regard to exegetical and ethical discourse in rabbinic traditions (midrash), midrashic lists and those discussed before are not mutually exclusive. Moral topics are often linked to questions of a healthy way of life and deploy bodily imagery, as shall be seen in a moment.

The sample text comes from Seder Eliyahu Zuta (SEZ), a unique tradition in Hebrew from the ninth or tenth century combining discourse on moral behavior and Jewish (religious) identity. In SEZ and its sibling tradition Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER), lists are utilized as powerful discursive tools for exegetical, homiletical, and ethical purposes.⁴⁴ The following list is embedded in a chapter discussing the human origin of evil and the initial divine plan of a perfectly good and just world order.

• 1) Three things/words a man ought to meditate upon every day:

  • (a) the hour when he makes use of a privy,

  • (b) the hour when he is bled [as part of a therapy],

  • (c) the hour when he stands over a dead body.

    • a1) When he makes use of a privy, he is reminded, ‘Behold, your ways are like the ways of the beast’.

    • b1) When he is being bled, he is reminded, ‘Behold, you are [only] flesh-and-blood’.

    • c1) And when he stands over a dead body, he is reminded, ‘Behold, where you are going’.

• 2) And still, he does not return in penitence [to right conduct].

  • A) rather, he keeps saying things that are inappropriate, as it is said [in Scripture], When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord (Prov. 19:3);

  • B) and about lies [Scripture] says: Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked (Exod. 23:7);

  • C) and [about malevolence Scripture] says: Do not plot evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the LORD (Zech. 8:17).

But how?⁴⁵

• I) When a man makes himself act like a righteous man and speaks the truth, he is assigned an angel who acts towards him in the way of the righteous and speaks the truth.

• II) When a man makes himself act like a pious, being willing to suffer all, he is assigned an angel who acts towards him in the way of pious and helps the man to accept all suffering.

• III) If, on the other hand, a man makes himself act like a wicked man, deceiving and lying, he is assigned an angel who acts towards him in the way of the wicked by deceiving and lying.⁴⁶

• IV) And if a man makes himself follow a middle way, he is assigned an angel who acts towards him in the middle way.

  So, we are told by the Holy One Himself: I the Lord search the heart, I examine the minds (lit. ‘kidneys’), in order to give every person [an angel/reward] according to their ways, according to the fruit of their deeds (Jer. 17:10). (Seder Eliyahu Zuta 3)⁴⁷

This is a complex version of a compound list or an enumerative cluster that functions as an epistemological device for the ethical agenda of SEZ. Within a broader narrative and homiletical discourse, this passage deploys four deeply intertwined lists in order to stress the importance of moral mindfulness. The first double-set exemplifies how to apply techniques of consciousness or self-awareness to reach a state of humility leading to virtue.⁴⁸ It starts with a typical caption phrase that points to three occasions as opportunities to guide one’s mind and behavior. Those occasions are specified briefly in the first list. This is followed by a repetition of those occasions accompanied by the actual moral advice for each setting, which is derived from previous traditions. The contemplation focuses on human corporeality or mortality and brings one to abstain from or repent immoral actions.⁴⁹

Given the general topic of the “human origin of evil,” the text integrates the case of the inconvincible who, even after such strong admonition, keeps up his unethical behavior. This taxonomy of the wicked person (2.A–C) is amplified by the biblical proof-texts focusing on the different sins listed. The listed verses clearly show not only that the said transgressions are already discredited in Scripture, but also that divine punishment awaits those who stubbornly follow an immoral path.

The final list, which has no introductory caption, characterizes four types of behavior and how angelic beings react to them: the righteous, the pious, the wicked, and the average. This list, along with its several parallels in various rabbinic texts, proves that the divine system of “reward and punishment” works, as there is a chance for every person to change one’s own ways. The reference to another proof text (Jeremiah 17:10) firmly underlines SEZ’s key concepts: human freedom of choice, divine justice, and the chance to repent. Moreover, with this verse, in particular its expression “to give every person according to their ways,” the authors refer back to the tenet preceding this list in SEZ, chapter 3: “Accordingly, humans are judged because of their ways. They are judged according to their ethical behavior (derekh eretz) in order to save them on the Day [of Judgment].”⁵⁰

Lists in SEZ function on three interconnected levels of ethical knowledge production. First, as shown above, the lists form a dense cluster that weaves together instructions on ethical mindfulness with a taxonomy of the wicked person and teachings on the divine system of “reward and punishment.” So, it provides a didactically efficient but still brief summary of ethical and theological key concepts to its audience, combined with practical advice (techniques of the self). Second, these lists function within the third chapter featuring other complex lists on human ethical traits and within the broader context of SEZ as a whole.⁵¹ Third, SEZ deploys lists as tools in order to participate in a shared discourse on a much broader scale. One may compare its discourse to similar techniques of teaching morality through lists in various (Jewish, Persian, Arabic) ethical traditions in late antiquity and early medieval times.⁵²

Conclusion: Making Lists Rabbinic—Format, Discourse, and Epistemic Values

Seizing on an already developed stock of list-making and enumeration, rabbinic authors cultivated and advanced these strategies in surprising ways that suited their discursive needs and their epistemic project. They took advantage of the fluidity and versatility that make lists powerful discursive forms. The manifold contexts of usage include, as in Seder Eliyahu, exegetical operations and narratological deployment for instruction and moral advice. Other sample texts demonstrate how rabbinic texts use lists in order to appropriate, transmit, and create medical knowledge in the form of recipes, therapeutic advice, and instructions for well-being (diet and regimen). In all cases, one notices their function as a general texturing element within a broader discourse, wherein lists work hand in hand with other literary and epistemic micro-forms (e.g., question-and-answers, exempla, dialectic speech, dialogues, parables, case-stories).

The affinity between rabbinic discourse and lists might be explained by one of their shared dimensions. As “lists function to facilitate various forms of interaction between human beings […] while also standing as a record or an index of […] this interaction,”⁵³ so do rabbinic texts, especially when concerned with normative or legal questions (Halakha). Lists form an integral part of that (late) ancient Jewish tradition, namely because they trigger a prescriptive momentum while also creating a record or index of historical or ideally imagined rabbinic (normative) culture. For instance, the rabbis adopted and created lists of items forbidden or permitted for ritual reasons such as items you may carry with you for healing purposes on Shabbat. Other texts list elements of a healthy diet or prescribe the right way to behave during conception or pregnancy. This corroborates the notion that lists are intriguing instruments of organizing and producing information, while serving also as “technologies of power” that are crucial for communities, institutions, and states to communicate and implement rules and structures (taxation, census, administration, etc.).⁵⁴

Another similarity can be adduced that connects lists with the heart of ancient rabbinic discourse. Both modern scholarship and the tradition itself have highlighted that Talmudic texts originate in an oral tradition complementing revealed Scripture. Within this context of transmitting teachings, (hybrid) lists perform the function of a structuring, mnemonic device that facilitates the study and transfer of whole chunks of tradition.⁵⁵ This holds true for pairs of opposing lists, thematically bound enumerative sequences or clusters of repetitive elements (e.g., the ethical discourse in SEZ 3).

Furthermore, it has been emphasized that selection and decontextualization of the singular items are prerequisite for list-making, which is supplemented by their (re)contextualization within the lists and its broader context (Mainberger 2003, 19). Studies on rabbinic literature have likewise stressed that the rabbis built their discourse on the purposeful selection, segmentation, and atomization of biblical verses, words, or Talmudic teachings from which they developed their exegetical, homiletical, and legal thinking. These techniques were adumbrated through careful actualization, intertextual relations, and their embedding into new discursive coherencies.⁵⁶ Lists seem to chime in well with this preference. In simple or contrasting form, they enumerate diverse items connected only by their respective caption or a broader theme. Consequently, the rabbinic preference for atomization forms a solid base for the itemization in lists. In rare cases, the ancient and indeed the modern recipient is in the position to identify the particular sources of lists as well as their ways of transmission so as to better understand their (different) functions and purposes.

In most of the above examples, we could see that lists are not stand-alone elements. They are deeply embedded in discourses on moral behavior, religious law and lore, or on historical, sociological, and scientific knowledge about the world and human life in particular. These overarching themes define the various functions of rabbinic lists. Conversely, the lists themselves shape the discourse. However, lists constitute only one discursive element among others. Most lists neatly interact with other stylistic and instructional elements from rabbinic tradition such as exempla, anecdotes, parables, or dialectic reasoning. In Seder Eliyahu Zuta, we saw how lists use biblical verses or quotes from Jewish tradition, thereby drawing on the core-expertise of rabbinic sages—namely the knowledge and interpretation of Scripture and religious law.

Finally, the texts have shown that rabbis employed lists and enumerations within various and, at times, converging contexts—from recipes and health advice to exegesis and ethical formation—but to the same ends. For those small text forms do not only constitute a simple device or container for indexing and conveying already self-contained knowledge; rather, they serve as powerful cognitive tools or vehicles that offer additional epistemic value and advance the broader project of the production of rabbinic knowledge. The use of numerical list captions, guiding questions, or categories resemble core features of what Gianna Pomata designates as “epistemic genres,” where they serve as “signposts indicating direction for further observation and enquiry” (see Pomata 2014; here: 8). While facilitating the classification of phenomena, observations, or experiences, they “challenge extant knowledge formations, but also create new ones […] (which amount to new ways of seeing and doing).”⁵⁷

In his seminal study from 1977, while clearly pushing back dichotomies such as Western/Oriental or Modern/Ancient, Jack Goody emphasizes that the production of lists as a cultural practice is connected to specific “modes of thought,” which he subdivides into three types or functions. First, retrospective lists that form a kind of inventory of persons, objects, or events (e.g., lists of kings, treasures, or battles). These can store and transmit data. Second, prescriptive lists, which are mainly geared toward a particular action, event, or process (shopping lists, administration procedures, flowcharts, guest lists, etc.). Although the function of such lists is not primarily related to storage, their reception may shift them into lists of the first category (i.e., guest lists of a certain event). Third, lexical or encyclopedic lists combine a bundle of concepts or practices that may serve as a proto-dictionary/lexicon of a culture or a handbook for a certain field.⁵⁸ Rabbinic lists for the most part appear to combine all three of Goody’s functions in astonishing, multifarious, and often inextricable ways. Lists constitute epitomes of information received in a form that represents and affords order, accessibility, and usability. As such, lists helped the rabbinic authors to structure and authorize their discourse, while creating new insights, orders, and hierarchies—be it through sociological-ethical categorization of behavioral patterns and character types, lists of symptoms, or via elaborated disease taxonomies or catalogues of therapies.⁵⁹ Accordingly, lists contributed to the rabbinic project(s), primarily as collections of law and lore that functioned simultaneously as cultural inventories, store houses of knowledge, and practical reference works.⁶⁰ They thus facilitate the transfer of knowledge of the world and the body into the world of the rabbinic study house and eventually into the quasi-canonical Talmudic corpus, an encyclopedic body of knowledge. Although we know little about how rabbinic lists were used by contemporary readers, it is worth noting that early medieval traditions (e.g., the “midrash of lists”) valued Talmudic list-making as a crucial cultural practice, a means of making sense of religious lore and the order of the world.⁶¹