"Tying on Crowns" and "Ascending on High": A Re-Analysis of the Moses and Rabbi Akiva Story

• In Event: Bible and Rabbinical Literature: Textual Approaches

Abstract

A well-known story found on b. Menahot 29b describes Moses’s encounter with Rabbi Akiva and his academy. This paper questions two crucial aspects of the conventional interpretation of the story, which a wealth of prior scholarship has often taken for granted. First, when God is shown "tying on crowns to letters," does the storyteller mean to depict God as engaged in scribal activity? Through an analysis of other uses of the motif of "tying on crowns" in rabbinic literature, I show that this phrase does not refer to a physical act of scribal embellishment but is rather a metaphorical term for honoring the letters. Second, in showing Moses dumbfounded by Rabbi Akiva's lecture, does the storyteller mean to depict the distance of rabbinic interpretation from the Biblical text? Through an analysis of other depictions of Moses "ascending on High" in rabbinic literature, I show that this story most likely depicts Moses PRIOR to his receiving the Torah (along interpretive lines established by Rashi and Yaakov Elman). Therefore, the story does not depict Moses as incapable of understanding Rabbi Akiva's Torah, but rather as not yet educated in it. Far from depicting Rabbi Akiva's Torah as distant from the Biblical text, the story emphasizes its essential status as a constituent element within it.

Author

• Tzipporah Klapper, Harvard University