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Simcha Gross

@Simcha_Gross

7 Mar

In honor of the meeting between Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani in Iraq, a quick thread on a fascinating encounter in Baghdad between the head of the Babylonian Jewish academy and the Syriac Christian Catholicos almost exactly 1000 years ago.

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According to a number of sources, a rabbi from Sicily named Maṣliaḥ traveled to Baghdad to study with the head of the rabbinic academy of Pumbedita, Hai Gaon (d. 1038 CE).

This was not uncommon; Baghdad was a common site for semesters abroad for both Jews and Muslims.

2/7

The rabbinic academy disagreed about the interpretation of Psalms 141:5, which is strangely redundant.

Translated literally it would read: "let my head not refuse such head-oils," i.e. "choice/great oils."

The redundancy of head(ראש)-oil on heads (ראש) required explanation.

Read 8 tweets

Simcha Gross

@Simcha_Gross

26 Feb

The book of Esther is in many ways incongruous with other works revered by Jews.

At least three fascinating Jewish responses and strategies emerged before the common era: erasure, supplementation, and reproduction.

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[Image from the 400 year old Esther Ferrara Scroll]

In the vast collection of works known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, one work in particular is absent: the book of Esther.

While some suggest this may simply be an accident of preservation, others argue that it was absent because it clashed with the sect’s ideology.

In particular, the work lacks any reference to God, observance of ritual or law. Esther also wed a non-Jew, an egregious sin according to the sect, following works like Jubilees that declare: “It is a disgraceful thing for Israelites who give or take [in marriage] foreign women."

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Simcha Gross

@Simcha_Gross

24 Feb

The oldest depiction of the Book of Esther was discovered in the synagogue in Dura Europos, destroyed in 256 CE in the war between the Romans and the Sasanians.

The synagogue offers precious insight into the dynamics of Jewish communities on the Roman-Sasanian frontier.

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While the war led to the tragic abandonment of Dura, it also meant that the city laid untouched for millennia. The synagogue paintings were preserved precisely because the synagogue comprised part of the city wall, and it was reinforced with sand during the extended siege.

In this image of the painting program, you can see the height and position of the sand used to reinforce the wall based on what it preserved.

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Simcha Gross

@Simcha_Gross

31 Jan

As a grad student, I heard stories about Jewish candidates facing antisemitism on the job market.

This was ancient history I thought, a sign of how far things had come.

Then I was a finalist for an ancient Judaism job at a Christian denominational university.

Strap in.

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I was picked up at the airport by a professor I knew who was a visiting scholar at the university.

As he drove me to campus, he explained that he had volunteered to pick me up so as to warn me that there was no way I was getting the job... because I am Jewish.

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He explained that the "old guard" on campus would oppose my hire no matter what I did.

I was picked up by a new member of the faculty, who gave me a tour of the campus.

As we set off, she asked me: "so...did the professor who picked you up tell you anything about the job...?"
3

Read 16 tweets

Simcha Gross

@Simcha_Gross

13 Dec 20

Hanukkah is most identified with the menorah, which of course commemorates the so-called miracle of oil. Or does it...? A thread. 1/15

The earliest account of Hanukkah is 1 Maccabees. It is highly chronographical, and pretty slim on miraculous details. 2

This all changes with 2 Maccabees. Here we find all sorts of miracles, most famously the story of Heliodorus. But there’s no miracle of oil! The book ends by explaining that the festival commemorates the rededication of the temple. 3

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Simcha Gross

@Simcha_Gross

21 Oct 20

A short thread on the invocation of angels - especially Michael - in late antique incantation bowls and its afterlife in modern Jewish and Catholic liturgy. 1/7

The incantation bowls regularly invoke angels for protection. They act as both violent defenders of the client ('I will send against [you] Nuriel [and] Pagʿiel and Michael with fire') and as ratifiers of legal invocations ('Gabriel & Michael & Raphael sign this legal document').2

One of the common ways angels appear in the bowls is in the "angels all around you" motif: "Gabriel is on the right of Dudita, daughter of Duday, & her sons & her daughters, & Michael is on her left, & before her is Susiel, & behind her is Menuḥa, & above her is Šekinath-El." 3

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