Socratic Torah

Jenny R. Labendz investigates rabbinic self-perception and self-fashioning within the non-Jewish social and intellectual world of antique Palestine, showing how the rabbis drew on Hellenistic and Roman concepts for Torah study and answering a fundamental question: was rabbinic participation in Greco-Roman society a begrudging concession or a principled choice? As Labendz demonstrates, Torah study was an intellectual arena in which rabbis were extremely unlikely to look beyond their private domain. Yet despite the highly internal and self-referential nature of rabbinic Torah study, some rabbis believed that the involvement of non-Jews in rabbinic intellectual culture enriched the rabbis' own learning and teaching. Labendz identifies a sub-genre of rabbinic texts that she terms <"Socratic Torah,>" which portrays rabbis engaging in productive dialogue with non-Jews about biblical and rabbinic law and narrative. In these texts, rabbinic epistemology expands to include reliance not only upon Scripture and rabbinic tradition, but upon intuitions and life experiences common to Jews and non-Jews. While most scholarly readings of rabbinic dialogues with non-Jews have focused on the polemical, hostile, or anxiety-ridden nature of the interactions, Socratic Torah reveals that the presence of non-Jews was at times a welcome opportunity for the rabbis to think and speak differently about Torah. Labendz contextualizes her explication of Socratic Torah within rabbinic literature at large, including other passages and statements about non-Jews as well as general intellectual trends in rabbinic literature, and also within cognate literatures, including Plato's dialogues, Jewish texts of the Second Temple period, and the New Testament. While she focuses on non-Jews in the Palestinian Talmud and midrashim, the book includes chapters on the Babylonian Talmud and on the liminal figures of minim and Matrona. The passages that make up the sub-genre of Socratic Torah serve as the entryway for a much broader understanding of rabbinic literature and rabbinic intellectual culture. "A committed, contemporary reading of a distinct subset of rabbinic dialogue...Jenny Labendz's firstling presents us with many intriguing perspectives...Through successive close readings of a small set of texts, she manages to open up a remarkable room for discussion." --Marginalia"Labendz' argument is fascinating- it echoes the endeavors of advocates of Jewish universalism, eager to defend the cosmopolitan essence of Jewish culture... With this work, Labendz certainly points to new directions in framing otherness through the ages, in a Jewish key." --Center for Jewish Lawand Contemporary Culture"Jenny Labendz does a marvelous job of illuminating narratives of dialogues between ancient rabbinic sages and their Greco-Roman counterparts. Of particular reward are her explorations of the relation of these dialogues to those centered on Socrates in the writings of Plato, uncovering thereby the epistemological foundations of these dialogues and their pedagogic function. She provides precious insights into early rabbinic Judaism's view of non-Jews and non-Rabbis as participants in the production, communication, and consumption of 'rabbinic knowledge.'"--Steven D. Fraade, Mark Taper Professor of the History of Judaism, Yale University"Jenny Labendz examines a fascinating sub-genre of rabbinic literature, in which a rabbi and a non-Jew enter into a dialogue, what she calls Socratic Torah. The rabbi appeals to the experience of the non-Jew in responding to his questions, then teaches him some truth about God, Israel, or scripture. According to much prior scholarship, these stories are rife with rabbinic anxiety about non-Jewish political, cultural, and religious dominance. Labendz shows how Socratic Torah reveals a rabbinic movement confident in its truths and traditions and curious about others. Labendz's reading of these texts is careful and subtle, and her comparison between rabbinics and Socratic dialogue creative and engaging. Her approach enableACKNOWLEDGMENTS ; EDITIONS OF RABBINIC TEXTS ; INTRODUCTION ; CHAPTER 1 PLATONIC AND RABBINIC DIALOGUES COMPARED ; CHAPTER 2 THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF SOCRATIC TORAH ; CHAPTER 3 RABBINIC BOUNDARIES EXPANDED ; CHAPTER 4 SOCRATIC TORAH CONTESTED ; CHAPTER 5 MULTIPLE AUDIENCES, MULTIPLE DISCOURSES ; CHAPTER 6 THE WISDOM OF NON-JEWS AND ITS RELEVANCE TO TORAH ; CHAPTER 7 RABBIS AND NON-RABBIS: MINIM AND MATRONA ; CHAPTER 8 RABBIS AND NON-JEWS IN THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD ; CONCLUSION ; BIBLIOGRAPHY