Talmud Commentary: Bavli 5/5. bSukkah 56a (mSukkah 5:8)

@General observations

The Mishnah describes the distribution of the show-bread among the incoming and outgoing courses of priests. Baked in a special way, from dough that did not rise, twelve such loaves of bread were placed in two groups of six on the table in the Temple. Every Shabbat the bread was changed and the old bread was distributed among the priests. However, a priestly course named Bilgah was punished and did not receive a share of the bread. Moreover, the ring that the course of Bilgah was supposed to use to hold the neck of the animal that was to be sacrificed was made immoveable and unserviceable. Likewise the alcove in which they were supposed to store their knives was blocked up.

The Mishnah does not explain why the course of Bilgah was penalized. The gemara, citing a baraita, offers two explanations: 1) the daughter of Bilgah became an apostate because she married a Greek officer, and subsequently desecrated the Temple; or 2) since the priests of the course of Bilgah did not like the work in the Temple, they did not come on Shabbat to take their turn and relieve the previous course.

Variations on this story in the Tosefta and Yerushalmi may offer some insights into this unusual explanation. The description of Miriam’s actions in the Bavli (“she kicked the altar with her sandal”) is more extreme than the parallel Yerushalmi and Tosefta. Citing three references,[1] Lieberman explains that such an expression is used in the Bavli for punishments involving disgrace.[2] He claims that the Greeks would strike a child with a sandal in order to discipline him. Hence, the Talmud apparently wished to say that Miriam bat Bilgah was attempting to “educate” the altar, which represented God, just as one chastises a child. The present tense of the verb used by Miriam bat Bilgah in the Bavli is also more powerful and expresses greater anguish than the past tense used in the Yerushalmi and Tosefta. The above changes, as well as the conclusion, demonstrate that the Babylonian editor attempted to amplify the sin of Miriam bat Bilgah in order to connect it with the special punishment allotted to the priestly course of Bilgah.

The gemara’s discussion of the baraita reinforces the feeling that the author of the sugya intentionally changed the text in order to justify and explain the perplexing mishnah.[3] The gemara does not accept the baraita’s justification of the punishment for the course of Bilgah and asks: “It is well according to him who stated that his course was dilatory in coming, since for this reason the whole course might well be penalized. But according to him who stated that it was Miriam bat Bilgah who converted, do we penalize a father on account of his daughter?” In response, Abbayye cites a popular adage, intimating that since children are like their parents (both father and mother), Miriam bat Bilgah’s parents were probably also apostates. Nevertheless, the gemara asserts that even if her parents were sinners, this does not justify punishing the entire priestly course. Abbayye retorts, again with a popular saying: “Woe to the wicked, woe to his neighbor. It is well to the righteous and well to his neighbor,” relating to the punishment of the entire course of Bilgah and contradicting the last part of the baraita which explains how its neighbor was blessed. In the last section of the baraita we are informed how Bilgah’s neighboring priestly course actually benefited from the former’s disgrace.

We can distinguish two strata in the sugya: Abbayye’s statements and those of the stama. The gemara attempts to understand why and how Abbayye connected the ancient tradition concerning Miriam bat Bilgah with the punishment of the priestly course of Bilgah. Lieberman writes that Miriam bat Bilgah committed two grave sins – she married a Greek officer and she desecrated the altar. The sages were unsure as to which sin engendered this severe punishment.[4]

Contemporary scholars of Second Temple history assume that the tradition handed down to the sages refers to events in Jerusalem during the epoch of Antiochus IV Epiphanus. In 171 BCE a certain Jew named Menelaus offered Antiochus IV a high bribe in order to depose Jason as high-priest and appoint him instead. Menelaus subsequently plundered Temple vessels in order to pay this bribe. Confrontations between Menelaus and Jason over the high-priesthood, along with actions by Antiochus, led to a Jewish uprising. Thus, the ensuing Maccabean revolt was directed not only against the Seleucid king Antiochus IV but also against his trustworthy advisor, Menelaus. II Maccabees, which relates this phenomenon, describes Menelaus not as a priest at all, but as a commoner of the tribe of Benjamin. However, a rogue tradition, preserved only in the Latin translation of II Maccabees, describes him as being a descendent of the tribe of Bilga. Based on the principle of lectio difficilior, it may be assumed that Menelaus was a priest – albeit of the priestly course of Bilgah.[5]

If this assumption is correct, the traumatic events of this era, which involved religious persecution and the transformation of the Temple into a cultic site of idol worship, undoubtedly engendered animosity towards Menelaus and the entire course of Bilgah. This hostility may have influenced the literary tradition concerning Miriam bat Bilgah.

@Feminist observations

The baraitot in the Tosefta and the Talmud attribute two sins to Miriam bat Bilgah: 1) She became an apostate, or adopted Hellenism, and married a Greek officer; 2) She desecrated the altar through acts and words. There is a certain contradiction between these two sins – although she renounced her people when she became an apostate and married the Greek officer, when the Greeks conquer the Temple she berates God for not defending His people.

The fact that Miriam bat Bilgah’s complaint in the Tosefta and the Yerushalmi is worded in the past tense may indicate that this is not understood as an appeal to God (as in the Bavli) but rather as an expression of her disappointment in Him for abandoning His people. In any case, her words and acts express a strong emotional involvement in her people’s fate, which is difficult to fathom since she had joined Hellenistic society.[1]

I have already suggested that Miriam bat Bilgah is a metaphor for the actions of the apostatized High Priest Menelaus. If this is true, then how was the figure of this high-priest transformed into the figure of a woman? Martin Hengel resolved this issue by assuming that rabbinic literature tended to attribute sins involving disgrace committed by men to women, and brings the case of Miriam bat Bilgah as an example for this.[2] Michael Satlow suggests that the sages understood the punishment of the course of Bilgah in the Mishnah as connected to intermarriage.[3] And indeed, Miriam is described as marrying a Greek officer. I believe, however, that this proposition should be rejected, as intermarriage is not the only and perhaps not even the main topic of this tradition. Satlow’s explanation completely fails to account for Miriam’s powerful complaint against the God of Israel.

My own feminist perspective is that the creators of this story may have chosen a feminine image to represent Menelaus due to his contradictory actions, which they viewed as typical of female behavior. They viewed women’s actions as, on the one hand, pragmatic and manipulative, and on the other, emotional and leading to a total loss of control. Thus, Miriam’s contradictory acts would hint at Menelaus’ deeds. Miriam’s abandonment of her religion and intermarriage with a Greek officer was a pragmatic act (like Menelaus’ bribe to the king, and his cooperation in the Hellenization of Jerusalem society) while her protest against God’s unjust acts towards His people represented an emotional outburst (like Menelaus sticking to his Jewish office of the high-priesthood). Women, not men, are, in the eyes of the rabbis, guilty of such internal contradictions.

ALEXANDER, Elizabeth S., “Art, Argument, and Ambiguity in the Talmud: Conflicting Conceptions of the Evil Impulse in b. Sukkah 51b-52a,” Hebrew Union College Annual 73 (2002) 97-132.

BAKER, CYNTHIA M., “The Queen, the Apostate, and the Women Between: (Dis)Placment of Women in Tosefta Sukkah,” in Tal Ilan, Tamara Or, Dorothea Salzer, Christiane Steuer and Irina Wandrey (eds.), A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud: Introduction and Studies, Tübingen 2007, 169-181.

BOYARIN, DANIEL, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture, Berkeley 1993.

COHEN, NAOMI G., “The Theological Stratum in the Martha b. Boethus Tradition: An Explication of the Text in Gittin 56a,” Harvard Theological Review 69 (1976) 187-196.

EFRON, JOSHUA, Studies on the Hasmonean Period, Leiden 1987.

GOODBLATT, DAVID, "המקורות על ראשיתו של החינוך היהודי המאורגן בארץ- ישראל" (“The Talmudic Sources on the Origins of Organized Jewish Education”), Studies in the History of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel 5 (1980) 83-103.

HAUPTMAN, JUDITH, Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman’s Voice, Boulder CO 1998.

HAUPTMAN, JUDITH, Rereading the Mishnah: A New Approach to Ancient Jewish Texts, Tübingen 2005.

HENGEL, MARTIN, Rabbinische Legende und frühpharisdische Geschichte: Schimeon b. Schatach und die achtzig Hexen von Askalon, Heidelberg 1984.

HERR, MOSHE DAVID, "השלום בהגותם של חז"ל" (“The Concept of Shalom in Rabbinic Thought”), The President’s Class on Bible and Jewish Sources, Jerusalem 1997, 23-39.

ILAN, TAL, Mine and Yours are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature, Leiden 1997.

ILAN, TAL, Integrating Women into Second Temple History, Tübingen 1999.

ILAN, TAL, Massekhet Ta‘anit (FCBT II/9) Tübingen 2008.

KALMIN, RICHARD, “Jewish Sources on the Second Temple Period in Rabbinic Compilations of Late Antiquity,” in Peter Schäfer (ed.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture III, Tübingen 2002, 17-53.

LIEBERMAN, SHAUL, תוספתא כפשוטה: באור ארוך לתוספתא, חלק ד: סדר מועד (Tosefta kifeshutah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta, Part IV: Order Mo‘ed), New York 1992.

MEIR, OFRA, “The Story as a Hermeneutic Device,” Association of Jewish Studies Review 7-8 (1982-3), 165-208.

MORGENSTERN, MATTHEW, “A Rather Risqué Pun in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic,” in Chaim Cohen, Avigdor Hurowitz, Yochanan Muffs, Baruch J. Schwartz and Jeffery H. Tigay (eds.), Birkat Shalom: Studies in the Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature and Postbiblical Judaism Presented to Shalom Paul on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, Winona Lake IN 2008, 881-890.

NATHAN BEN YEHIEL, הערוך (Ha-Arukh), Lublin 1883.

ROSEN-ZVI, Ishay, הטקס שלא היה: מקדש, מדרש ומגדר במסכת סוטה (The Rite that was Not: Temple, Midrash and Gender in Tractate Sotah) Jerusalem 2008.

SATLOW, MICHAEL, Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality, Atlanta 1995.

SHINAN, AVIGDOR "יצר הרע ותלמידי חכמים" (“The Evil Inclination and Scholars”), in Asa Kedar (ed.), Conversations with the Evil Inclination, Tel Aviv, 2007, 48-59.

SOKOLOFF, MICHAEL, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods, Ramat Gan, Baltimore and London, 2002.

STERN, MENACHEM, "ארץ ישראל בתקופה ההלניסטית" (“Israel in the Hellenistic Period”) in Menachem Stern (ed.), The History of the Land of Israel: The Hellenistic Period and the Hasmonean State, Jerusalem 1981, 141-165.

VALLER, SHULAMIT "היצר וריסונו על פי ספרות חז"ל" (“The Sexual Impulse and its Restraint in Rabbinic Literature”), in Asa Kedar (ed.), Conversations with the Evil Inclination, Tel Aviv, 2007, 21-34.

VALLER, SHULAMIT, "מלחמה ושלום בבית על פי ספרות חז"ל" (“War and Peace in the Home according to Rabbinic Literature”), in Ariel Bar Levav and Mordechai Pachter, (eds.), Peace and War in Jewish Culture, Jerusalem 2006, 11-33.

VALLER, SHULAMIT, נשים בחברה היהודית בתקופת המשנה והתלמוד (Women in Jewish Society during the Period of the Mishnah and Talmud) Tel Aviv 2000.