“Learning to Listen: Functions of Formally-Exceptional Adjudication Narratives in the Bavli”

• In Event: Virtues and Dispositions of Rabbinic Judges: A View from Talmudic Texts and their Reception in the Medieval and Modern Periods

Abstract

Adjudication narratives, brief Talmudic case stories that are so common in the Bavli as to pass almost without notice to the average reader, deserve more attention. They are distinguished from other case stories by their portrayal of a party or parties to the case appearing before a rabbinic judge and receiving a judgment, and they are very formulaic: polished to render the legal facts as evident as possible. However, upon closer examination of all the entire corpus of such narratives in the Bavli, it is clear that a significant minority of such stories diverges from the typical form. This divergence includes emotional eruptions, as well as quiet moments of personal interactions in court. This paper employs literary and legal analysis of the stories to show that adjudication narratives teach a different subject than the rule-based content illustrated in the narrative. Literary talmudic scholars have long argued that narratives can help undermine or balance the rules promulgated by a sugya, as well as support them. However, the apparently extraneous details in adjudication narratives seem to be in the service of a different type of rabbinic instruction: to help judges learn how to listen attentively. Effective listening may be a disposition that narratives would be especially useful to cultivate among judges. Current scholarship on the psychological effects of narratives on interpersonal interactions helps to support this theory.

Author

• Lynn Kaye, Brandeis University