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Joshua Holo

Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute for Religion, Los Angeles

Hebrew Astrology in Byzantine Southern Italy

I. INTRODUCTION It is a commonplace that our modern, tidy distinction between astronomy and astrology does not apply to the Middle Ages. The celestial sciences shared a great deal, not merely in the basic fact of stargazing but also in terms of methods and applications, and this broad overlap blurred the line between them. Even following the definition of Maimonides (11351204), who strongly opposed astrology and distinguished it sharply from astronomy, a certain structural similarity emerges. According to this definition, astronomy measures the movements of celestial bodies, observes their influence on the natural world (such as the tides), and calculates their cycles in relation to the passage of time. Meanwhile, judicial astrology (henceforth, simply astrology) relies on its cognate science, but additionally claims to interpret, and frequently to predict, the influence of those bodies on future events and moral

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determinations.1 On the one hand, given this complex overlap, an authors body of workor even a single work in itselffrequently defies characterization as either astrological or astronomical.2 On the other hand, as Maimonides position instantiates, certain medieval Jewish perspectives distinguished between the two forms of heavenly investigation, and treated them, accordingly, as two separate pursuits with differently defined religious and cosmic applications. To be sure, not all Jewish points of view disconnected the two sciences, but the mere fact that some did is sufficient to prove that a retrospective merging of astrology and astronomy poses the same historical and intellectual problems as does an anachronistic separation between them. In tracing the contours and problems of that distinction between the celestial sciences as it played out in certain Byzantine Jewish texts, a religious outlook takes shape as a possible explanation for the apparently paradoxical fact that the Jews were aware of the potentially occult characteristics of astrology, even as they overwhelmingly embraced its validity. Two well known, Hebrew-language, Byzantine-Jewish literary sources of tenth- and eleventh-century Southern Italy engage intensely with the celestial sciences, and they provide one possible framework for addressing this apparent paradox, in the context of a well defined period and location. Hebrew culture in Byzantine Southern Italy flourished in this period, the culmination of a shift in linguistic orientation first manifest in the increased use of Hebrew

Moses Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, tr. M. Friedlnder, 2nd ed. (New York, 1904), 16466 and idem, Epistle to Yemen and Letter on Astrology, in A Maimonides Reader, ed. I. Twersky (New York, 1972), 45354, 467. Compare to the definition of Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), 3:24, 27. Helpful commentary on Maimonides distinction by G. Freudenthal, Maimonides Stance on Astrology in Context, in Moses Maimonides, ed. F. Rosner and S. S. Kottek (Northvale, NJ and London, 1993), 7790; H. Kreisel, Maimonides Approach to Astrology (Heb.), Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, June 2229, 1993 C/2 (Jerusalem, 1994), 2532. 2 Y. T. Langermann, Some Astrological Themes in the Thought of Abraham ibn Ezra, in I. Twersky and J. Harris, eds. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra: Studies in the Writings of a Twelfth-Century Polymath (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1993), 6574; G. Freudenthal, Maimonides Stance, 7784.

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on headstones in eighth-century Apulia.3 Some of the notable compositions of tenth- and eleventh-century Byzantine Southern Italy include the Sefer Yosippon, a Hebrew abridgement of Josephus histories;4 Shabbetai Donnolos (c. 913 to c. 982) Sefer hakhmoni, a commentary on the Sefer ye!irah, which is a lateantique, mystical cosmogony based on the Hebrew alphabet;5 and the Chronicle of Ahimaaz, penned by Ahimaaz b. Paltiel in Capua in the year 1054, recounting his mythical and magical family story, which stretches back to ninth-century Oriathe hometown of Shabbetai Donnoloand which is frequently cited in the context of Byzantine-Jewish history.6 The last two works, the Sefer hakhmoni and the Chronicle, deal very explicitly with the stars, and crucially, they attribute their study to contemporary Jewish personages.7 Additionally, both texts unambiguously embrace astrology, even as

S. Simonsohn, The Hebrew Revival among Early Medieval Jews, in the Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1974), 85758; G. I. Ascoli, Iscrizioni inedite o mal note greche, latine, ebraiche di antichi sepolcri giudaci del Napolitano (Turin, 1880) (originally published in Atti del IV Congresso Internazionale degli Orientalisti tenuto a Firenze, 1878 [Florence, 1880]); and H. J. Leon, The Jews of Venusia, Jewish Quarterly Review 44 (1954), 284; R. Bonfil, Cultura ebraica e cultura cristiana in Italia meridionale,, in Tra due mondi (Naples, 1996), 1718. 4 The Josippon (Heb.), ed. D. Flusser, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1980), 2:7989 in particular for the time and place of the publication of the Yosippon. 5 Sh. Donnolo, Sefer hakhmoni [Il commento di Sabbetai Donnolo sul libro della creazione], ed. D. Castelli (Florence, 1880), in Sefer ye!irah (Jerusalem, 1965), 12148. Other notable compositions by Donnolo, Sefer ha-mirqahot, ed. S. Muntner, in Rabbi Shabbetai Donnolo (Heb.), 2 vols. (Jersusalem, 1949), 1:723; idem, Sefer mazzalot, embedded in Z. Frankel, in Der Kommentar des R. Joseph Kara zu Job, Monatsschrift fr Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 67 (185758), 273; 26062, 34850. Notable also, on the periphery of the current subject, is the eleventh-century lexicon by Nathan b. Yehiel, Arukh shalem [Aruch Completum], ed. A. Kohut (Jerusalem, 1970). 6 All references to The Chronicle of Ahimaaz, ed. and Eng. tr., M. Salzman (New York, 1924). Other important editions: Sefer Yuhasin: libro delle discendenze, introd. and It. tr., C. Colafemmina (Cassano delle Murge, 2001); Megillat Ahimaaz, ed. B. Klar, 2 nd ed. (Jerusalem, 1973). J. Starr, The Jews in the Byzantine Empire (Athens, 1939), 149, citing Donnolo, Sefer hakhmoni, 123; Sharf, Donnolo, vii. 7 In contrast, for example, to the wisdom of the stars attributed to Alexander the Great in the version of the Alexander Romance appended to the Josippon, 1:462, describing Alexander as accomplished in every science and the constellations.

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they betray a keen awareness of the problem of occult practice within Judaism. At the same time, despite their shared orientation, these texts differ markedly in their expression of two key relationships: that between astrology and the occult and that between astrology and astronomy. This stark variance between the two texts, together with the fact that they nevertheless share a fundamentally positive outlook on astrology, begs at least two questions about their ability to maintain orthodox Jewish positions and still to attribute a relatively high degree of moral and factual determinism to the stars. First, how do they reconcile astrology with Judaisms uncompromising claims to Gods omnipotence and human free will? And second, given that both texts do indeed resolve that apparent paradox in very different fashion, is there a single religious framework that we might attribute to both of them? From the starting point of some recent scholarship, a model emerges for understanding Jewish astrology in the context of ambivalence. Here, the scientific overlap between astrology, with its potential challenge to Jewish doctrine, and astronomy, which enjoyed elevated religious status as the vehicle for calendation, causes tension. The two sciences common ground defies, in technical terms, a distinction that mirrors the Jewish ideological one, and as a result, the indeterminacy of that scientific boundary tests Jewish sensibilities. The problem with this model is that, though it applies to the Sefer hakhmoni, it does not apply to the Chronicle of Ahimaaz; the former expresses tension, the latter, insouciance. A single model that comports well with the view of both texts cannot, therefore, rely on ambivalence as a defining element. If instead we redefine astrology and astronomy in terms of homily (aggadah) and law (halakhah), respectively, astrology recedes to a non-binding conceptual realm that cannot impinge on the more demanding and authoritative category of law. In fact, it turns out that both of these Southern Italian Hebrew texts invoke perhaps unconsciouslythese traditional categories of Jewish thought, and through them, they can share their embrace of astrology on terms that also allow for varied approaches to the sciences occult associations.

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II. THE TECHNICAL PROBLEM OF FUZZY BORDERS Not surprisingly, astronomy and astrology exhibit what Shlomo Sela has termed, in other Jewish medieval contexts, fuzzy borders. Sela traces the contours of this relationship in the theory and practice of the celestial sciences, by illustrating with technical precision how astronomy and astrology were variously paired and distinguished in Jewish medieval texts, depending on scientific context and convention.8 The Hebrew language captures this complexity, as a partial sampling of medieval usage demonstrates. Some words apply primarily to one science or the other, while other words belong to both but with varying application among authors. Hebrew expresses astronomical methods mostly in terms of calculation ("eshbon).9 Meanwhile, words linked with interpretation tend to refer to astrological methods; for example, one understands (mevin) the hidden message of the stars.10 The act of observation ("azot), logically common to both undertakings, appears in Abraham bar Hiyyas work in association with the order, measure, and reckoning of celestial motions, that is, astronomy, while for Maimonides, the term has the distinctly negative overtones of pseudo-science.11 A related verb, habit, to see, similarly refers, in the Chronicle, to earthly predictions based on celestial observation.12 Hebrew terms for the scientists themselves and the celestial bodies they studied also pose similar difficulties. Most pithily, Maimonides use of the Talmudic word i!#agnin (pl. i!#agninin) embodies the simultaneity of the overlap of, and distinction
8

S. Sela, The Fuzzy Borders between Astronomy and Astrology in the Thought and Work of Three Twelfth-Century Jewish Intellectuals, Aleph 1 (2000), 80, 94 100. 9 Ahimaaz, 11 (Heb.); Starr, Jews, 20809. Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, ed. T. Preisler (Jerusalem, 1985), Laws of the New Moon, 17:24. 10 Ahimaaz, 16 (Heb.); K. von Stuckrad, Jewish and Christian Astrology in Late Antiquity, Numen 47 (2000), 6, argues that the sense of astrology is its determination of the quality of time, as well as its correspondences to this world. 11 Sela, Fuzzy Borders, 90, citing Abraham bar Hiyya, Sefer surat ha-are!, 45; S. Stroumsa, Ravings: Maimonides Concept of Pseudo-Science, Aleph 1 (2000), 146, 163. 12 Ahimaaz, 16 (Heb.).

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between, astronomers and astrologers. In his exposition of the laws of calendation, Maimonides uses this term to refer to those whose calculations confirm the calendrical cycle as observed in the phases of the Moon; here, the judgment of the i!#agninins study is clearly positive. But he also connects the i!#agninin to those who attribute propitiousness to certain times, and in this case, Maimonides unambiguously disparages them as celestial diviners ("ovrei shamayyim).13 Also multivalent, words that denote the celestial bodies and their groupings may additionally connote the power they exert over this world.14 Such is the case with the word mazzal (pl. mazzalot), which may mean either star or constellation, and kokhav, which includes the concepts of both star and planet.15 At the lexical level, therefore, Hebrew offers ample opportunity for confusion between the sciences, but also real opportunity for distinction between them. The latter is particularly true when the terms are contextualized, at which point even the only-partial specificity of the vocabulary may legitimately justify a functional distinction between the two sciences, despite the obligatory commonality of the sciences themselves and of the words that represent them.16 Selas apt concept of fuzzy borders therefore helps to concretize the problem of understanding astrology in a Jewish context, and it also leaves room for another, complementary view of the problem. Unlike natural astrology, which, as per Isidore of Seville, is simply occupied with sublunar bodies in the same fashion that supralunar bodies fall to astronomy, judicial astrology relates to astronomy on entirely other terms.17 Judicial astrology is, by its very definition, a composite science, one that necessarily relies on raw astronomical data, and then proceeds from that data to offer an earthly
13

Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of the New Moon, 2:4, as against Laws on Idolatry, 11:910; Sela, Fuzzy Borders, 6780. 14 Donnolo, Sefer hakhmoni, 123a-b; Maimonides, Guide, 164; W. M. Feldman, Rabbinical Mathematics and Astronomy, 3rd ed. (New York, 1978), 79. 15 Maimonides, Guide, 168. 16 Feldman, Rabbinical Mathematics, 6379, provides a list of the zodiacal signs, as does Donnolo, Sefer hakhmoni, 141a-b. The opposite contexts of these texts render the distinction clear. 17 Cf. Isidore, Etymologiae, 3:27, where he defines two categories, astronomy and astrology, the latter itself being made up of two components, the natural and the judicial, the latter necessarily building on what we would today call astronomy.

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interpretation. From the point of view of judicial astrology, any distinction between itself and astronomy belies their logical identity. Conversely, astronomy limits itself to the science of observation and calculation, and eschews the type and degree of interpretation that characterizes astrology. On its own terms, astronomy occupies a distinct place, without any reference to astrology and not serving as its handmaiden, at which point we can fairly speak of it as a distinct undertaking. There is, therefore, in addition to fuzzy borders, a prevailing asymmetry between the celestial sciences that only further complicates their relationship in technical terms. So it is fitting that Byzantine-Jewish texts from Southern Italy should offer a comparably complicated ideological relationship to the sciences. III. THE IDEOLOGICAL PROBLEM ASTROLOGY AND THE OCCULT
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Andrew Sharf, in his major work on Byzantine-Jewish astrology, imputes to the Jews the following ideological distinction between the two sciences: astronomy was mandated by God, and astrology was simply another foreign import with which the Jews had to find a modus vivendi.18 In other words, the ubiquity of astrology overwhelmed Jewish qualms about it, which were based on its implications of an intermediary power in the universe, especially in terms of moral predetermination and free will.19 Though decades prior to Selas technical argument, Sharfs exposition nevertheless echoes it from an ideological perspective. As per Sela, the boundary between the sciences, though discernible, suffers from a notable lack of definition, which ultimately bespeaks underlying technical similarity. In corresponding fashion, ideological rejection, which necessarily distilled the judicial astrology out from astronomy, merely responded to overwhelming Jewish acceptance of both
18

A. Sharf, The Universe of Shabbetai Donnolo (New York, 1976), 1617; idem, Shabbetai Donnolo as Byzantine Jewish Figure, in Jews and Other Minorities in Byzantium (Ramat-Gan, 1995), 17172. 19 A. Marx, The Correspondence between the Rabbis of Southern France and Maimonides about Astrology, Hebrew Union College Annual 3 (1926), 35458. To a lesser degree, about the prediction of events, as Saadia disparages in H. BenShammai, Saadias Introduction to Daniel, Aleph 4 (2004), 7074.

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sciences, which conflated or married them as natural truths of a larger system.20 In short, Sharfs description of ambivalence largely depends on the tense simultaneity of two of astrologys qualities: 1) its association with meritorious astronomy and implied dissociation from the occult, and 2) its distinction from astronomy and concomitant association with the occult. In general terms, it is not at all clear that astrology necessarily falls under the heading occult from the Jewish perspective, though it undoubtedly may. Consequently, the underlying uncertainty of astrologys occult status opens up the possibility for conflation between it and, as Sharf points out, unimpeachable astronomy. The astrologers claim that the stars and planets affect us at a spiritual and moral level by its very nature flirts with the occult, if we understand occult as embracing two defining elements: esotericism and a challenge to traditional Jewish doctrine of Gods omnipotence (by virtue of the apparently competing power of astral determinism).21 Nevertheless, this flirtation represents a threata potentialitythat may or may not be realized, so that the occult status of astrology defies easy determination.22 Supporting the argument of ambivalence, a brief survey of sources on the subject concludes that the Jewish legal position regarding astrology, from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages, was inconclusive.23 Even Maimonides halakhic expression against astrology may be read as
20

On the distinction between astronomy and astrology, for the purposes of condemning the latter, the newly published commentary on Daniel by Saadia Gaon, edited by Ben-Shammai, Saadias Introduction to Daniel, 2122, 6870; also of note, ibid., n. 47, is Qirqisanis distinction between astronomy and astrology, for the same purposes. 21 E. Urbach, The Sages (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1979), 27778; Sela, Queries, 89190. 22 Kreisel, Maimonides Approach, 29. 23 See the concise survey by Y. Schwartz, Jewish Implications of Astrology, Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society 16 (1988), 623. Also, examples from Abraham ibn Ezra in R. Jospe, The Torah and Astrology According to Abraham Ibn Ezra, Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, June 2229, 1993 C/2 (Jerusalem, 1994), 1724; not to mention the concerns of the Provenal rabbis, and their citation of the Geonim Sherira and Hai, in S. Sela, Queries on Astrology Sent from Southern France to Maimonides, Critical Edition of the Hebrew Text, Translation, and Commentary, Aleph 4 (2004), 99101.

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the exception that proves the rule of acceptance.24 In this vein, it is particularly telling that the letter from the Provenal sages to Maimonides, which inspired his famous reply known as the Letter on Astrology, inquired about the legitimacy of astrology in terms of the reliability of its information. The French sages apparently took for granted that no legally binding prohibition pre-empted their question.25 In parallel fashion, other speculative realms exhibit similar indeterminacy in Judaism. Even magic, broadly conceived of as the invocation of supernatural forces, falls under the occult only sometimes. Many forms of mystical theurgy and wonderworking walk a fine line between the occult and the orthodox, insofar as they appear to call on competing deities and forces, but claim to rely only on God. Depending on his orientation, a given Jewish authority may view such magic with horror or approval. The Chronicle, for example, condemns transfiguration and resurrection, but it embraces magical travel and astrology.26 Admittedly, at least in Jewish circles, astrology was occasionally guiltyor perceived to be guiltyof association with those less ambiguous activities of the occult such as the invocation of the divine Name for personal
24

Maimonides, Sefer ha-mi!vot, ed. T. Preisler (Jerusalem, 1985), no. 32, where astrology is defined as the ascription of propitiousness to a given day or hour. 25 Sela, Queries, 12223, If there is foolishness in our questions and the conclusion of our utterances is silliness, though the sages consider, pp. 22425, Maimonides awaited-for response to be authoritative, as halakhah given to Moses on Sinai, and they recognize serious halakhic considerations in the orbit of astrology, such as the fear of saying a prayer in vain, 10305. But, though these problems derive from astrology, they do not necessarily inhere in it. 26 Ahimaaz, 6566 (Eng.), 45 (Heb.), on the sin of magical resurrection, as well as the generally positive quality of Aaron, who made use of his wonderworking wisdom, to do very difficult and astonishing things; 75, 77, on the acceptable use of the Divine name for magical travel; G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1961), chap. 4; M. Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven and London, 1988), chaps. 78; M. D. Swartz, Scholastic Magic (Princeton, 1996), 1822. R. Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven and London, 1998), 144, cites a famous reference by Hay Gaon, the leader of Baghdadi Jewry in the first half of the eleventh century, to the credulity of Byzantine Jewry in matters magical. Maimonides is unequivocal in his condemnation of judicial astrology in his Guide for the Perplexed, 333; Mishneh Torah, Laws on Idolatry, 11:910; and his famous Letter on Astrology, 46373.

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gain, certain types of healing, divining, necromancy, etc. 27 Additionally, astrology relied heavily on pagan sciences and implied some powerful intermediary between God and man, which required careful rationalization.28 Astrologers thus inspired some weighty theological challenges, most notably those of Maimonides and Saadia Gaon (882942). But it is worth noting that they only rarely faced a definitive accusation of illegality.29 The key legal issue, Star-worship, an unambiguous contravention of basic Jewish law, lurks behind astrology; scholarly arguments, including protestations both against and in favour of astrology, frequently betray an appreciation of this peril. But the mere fact of astrologys generalized acceptance indicates that it passed muster among the majority of Jews; it appears to fill some, but not all, of the criteria for occult status in terms of theology.30

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Mishneh Torah, Laws on Idolatry, 11:910. Magic and astrology frequently went hand-in-hand; see R. Barkai, Significado de las aportaciones de los judos en el terreno de la medicina, la astrologa y la magia, in A. Senz-Badillos, ed. Judos entre arabes y cristianos (Cordova, 2000), 8485. Byzantine Jewish magic, moreoversuch as we can discern itfits at least two of the three components of magic, as defined for Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages by Swartz, Scholastic Magic, 20. Medieval interpreters of the Talmud, Pesahim 113b, translated Chaldeans as either necromancers or astrologers. 28 The very pointed effort to distinguish oneself from the idolatrous astrologers of the pagan past reflects the consciousness of the connection; see Barkai, Significado, 82. 29 Maimonides famous polemical letter presents a rationalistic argument against the folly of astrology and the halakhic problem it raises. See Freudenthal, Maimonides Stance, 87 and R. Lerner, Maimonides Letter on Astrology, History of Religions 8/2 (1968), 147. Halevis Kuzari, 1.79, does invoke heresy in relation to astrologys association with divination, as does Bahya ibn Paquda, The Book of Direction in the Duties of the Heart, tr. M. Mansoor (London, 1973), 282 84. Interestingly, Mansoor notes that the section on astrology occurs only in the original Arabic, and is absent in all the mss of the Hebrew version by Ibn Tibbon. In contrast, Saadia, in his Introduction to Daniel, see Ben-Shammai, Saadias Introduction to Daniel, 2728, restricts himself to the rationalistic charge and remains silent on the halakhah, as does Maimonides in other contexts. 30 None captures the fine line between astrologys orthodoxy and heresy better than Jehudah Halevi, The Kuzari, tr. N. D. Korobkin (Northvale, NJ and Jerusalem, 1998), 1.7879, where celestial speculation contributes to a matrix of ideas that are both the root of faith and the root of heresy. If its source is divine revelation, celestial calculations are acceptable; otherwise, they are erroneous. Cf. C. Sirat, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1985), 127.

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Equally weak is the sense of esotericism that surrounds astrology. The persistent popularity of astrology among both the educated and uneducated classes implies a certain degree of public access that somewhat vitiates the notion of esotericismeven if the specific skill-set of celestial interpretation was not available to all (as a probable etymology of the word i!#agnin implies).31 Similarly, the thriving of astrology under the noses, as it were, of religious officialdom indicates that its audience was indeed a public one. In all, judicial astrology seems to hover somewhere on the line of the occult, perhaps straddling orthodoxy and heterodoxy, esotericism and public access; and this ambiguity seems to have undermined a clear-cut distinction between it and astronomy, thereby smoothing the way, at least in some measure, for its broad acceptance. This background evidence of ambiguity supports Sharfs inference of ambivalence in the aggregate, but individual opinions may evince no ambivalence whatsoever. In the present examples, the Sefer hakhmoni and the Chronicle of Ahimaaz, ambivalence in the former contrasts with unburdened credence in the latter. Donnolo, for his part, propounds astrological study, even as he both betrays an awareness of Jewish rejectionism and, further, obliges himself to offer an apology. In contrast, the Chronicle pointedly differentiates between astrology and unacceptably occult practices. Donnolo reveals his quandary in at least two interesting ways, both of them within the larger context of the foreign origins of the astral sciences, including both astronomy and astrology. First, in his introduction, Donnolo acknowledges the dubiousness of astrology from the Jewish perspective, using the concept of foreignness as code for idolatry:
A few Jewish sages were wont to dismiss the books by Jewish authors on the constellations as without substance, because [these sages] did not understand them. They argued that the books dealing with the wisdom of the stars and constellations are the province of the gentiles, and that these books were not written in accord with the worldview of Jewish literature.32

31

S. Sela, Queries,,133, ! "#$%&'(), citing J. Levy, Wrterbuch ber die Talmudim und Midraschim (Darmstadt, 1963), 1:118, I*+agninin. 32 Donnolo, Sefer hakhmoni, 123b.

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As if buying in to this view, Donnolo gives up on those incredulous Jewish sages, but remains determined to learn, to travel and to seek out the wisdom of the Greeks and that of the Muslims, and the wisdom of the Babylonians and Indians. In other words, Donnolo acknowledges that Jewish intellectuals viewed astrology with suspicion; and more than that, he hints that he, too, originally accepted the fact of astrologys associations with idolatrous peoples, Muslims notwithstanding.33 In his second expression of ambivalence, Donnolo goes to great lengths to correct this perception of astrology as a foreign science. His method is simply to preempt this ideological challenge, by reversing the common wisdom regarding astrologys origins. In the course of his studies abroad, Donnolo recounts that he
discovered that those [foreign books] were congruent, in every matter concerning the astral sciences, with the books of the Jews. Furthermore, I realized from these books that all science of the stars and constellations is based on the Baraita of Samuel the Interpreter, and even the books of the gentiles agree with it. Samuel, however, purposely obfuscated in his book; so after I finished copying the books, I travelled the world in search of gentile sages, knowledgeable in the science of the stars and constellations, in order to learn from them. Eventually I found among them one Babylonian sage by the name of Bagdash, all of whose wisdom jibed with the Baraita of Samuel, with all of the books of Israel and with the books of the Greeks and the Macedonians. But [in contrast to the Baraita of Samuel,] the wisdom of this sage [i.e., Bagdash] was clear and accessible in the extreme.34

33 34

Ibid. Ibid. This baraita, or rabbinic tradition extraneous to the canonical Mishnah, is attributed to Mar Samuel (c. 177257), student of Judah the Prince (who compiled the Mishnah, c. 220), leading light of the Babylonian academy of Nehardea and eminent legist and astronomer. The Baraita of Samuel is briefly quoted by Sharf, Universe, 185, from edition in J. D. Eisenstein, O !ar midrashim (New York, 1915), 54247. I infer purposely from the gist of the sentence, which implies that Samuel was being coy in the sensitive matter of mysteries.

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Donnolo argues that the real roots of astrology lay close to the bosom of Israel, and he thereby attempts to reassure his readership that there is nothing about which to feel ambivalent. If astrology lost to the Jews as part of the punishment of their exileappears pagan, it is only because nobody in his generation had apprehended the Jewish Baraita of Samuel as the root of all astral science.35 So Donnolo defends his research, but in presenting this apology he both confirms the prior problem of suspicion among his coreligionists and seems to fear the same attitude among his readership. As such, Donnolos introduction to his patently astrological commentary on the Sefer ye!irah confirms Sharfs overall impression of Jewish ambivalence towards to the topic. The Chronicle of Ahimaaz also muses on destiny and the stars, and also embraces astrology, but, unlike the Sefer hakhmoni, the Chronicle evinces no tension whatsoever with the occult. Quite the contrary, it differentiates astrology from other, more explicitly occult pursuits, which the Chronicle openly criticizes. For instance, whereas Paltiel, a master of astrology, earns accolades for his astrological acuity, other figures are chastised for their magical indiscretions.36 An accursed sorceress who turned a boy into a mule is called a wicked woman. In another example, a young man who cheated death by manipulation of the divine Name is required to confess his sin upon succumbing to death.37 Hananel, one of the storys other heroes, also missteps in this regard; he preserves a bodyaccidentally revivifying itby placing the divine Name under the corpses tongue. An angel comes in a dream to condemn Hananels action, asking why do you vex the Lord God?38 In its attitude toward these occult sciences, the Chronicle does not present a fine, porous line between them and astrology. Rather, it seems to confer legitimacy on astrology in direct measure

35

Donnolo, Sefer mazzalot, in Frankel, 6:273; partially repr. and tr. in Sharf, Donnolo, 45, 184. 36 Ahimaaz, 16 (Heb.), 88 (Eng.): !"#$% &'(" )("#*(*#. See below for fuller exposition of Paltiels astrology, p. 310, n. 56. Salzman, in his intro. to Ahimaaz, 21, refers to Paltiel as so exceptionally favored, that his is the most conspicuous figure in the chronicle. 37 Ibid., 35 (Heb.), 6466 (Eng.). 38 Ibid., 10 (Heb.), 77 (Eng.).

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to its condemnation of unauthorized magic, implying a firm and unambiguous boundary between astrology and the occult. In brief, even though both Donnolo and the Chronicle remove astrology from the realm of the occult, they do so in very different ways. The former is subject to considerable ideological tension, while the latter accepts astrology without reservation. In order to dissociate astrology from the occult and neutralize its ideological threat, the Chronicle does not acknowledge the connection, whereas the Sefer hakhmoni faces it and defangs it. In these different approaches to the difficulty raised by astrology, the two texts do not adequately corroborate the general impression of religious ambivalence; they place, rather, ambivalence side-by-side with more nave acceptance. IV. THE IDEOLOGICAL PROBLEM ASTROLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
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Just as Sefer hakhmoni and the Chronicle of Ahimaaz relate astrology to the occult on the basis of very different assumptions, so too, do they relate astrology to astronomy. Donnolo implicitly links astronomy with astrology, but the Chronicle clearly differentiates between prognostication and calculation, even though they both relate to the stars and both predict, in effect, future events. In their incongruity on this topic, Sefer hakhmoni and the Chronicle of Ahimaaz again provide very dissimilar models for absorbing and neutralizing astrologys inherent ideological difficulties. Much of Donnolos work functions in the overlapping sphere that occupies both astrology and astronomy; most notably, perhaps, he relates the so-called dragon, i.e., the path between the lunar nodes, to moral values. Donnolo explains that
when God created the firmament above us, which is divided into seven firmaments, he also created the dragon from water and fire, in the form of a great monster like a great curved serpent, and he extended it through the fourth celestial level, which is the middle firmamentand all the stars, luminescent bodies and constellations are fixed in it. Indeed, it is

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appointed king over all of these [bodies], to guide them, in goodness and evil.39

Donnolos work interweaves observation with interpretation of the celestial bodies effects on matters of moral concern. Building on these premises, Donnolo produces an entire cosmology in which the stars correlate to the human character and body.40 This correspondence, in turn, justifies Donnolos claims to zodiacal melothesia, according to which the movements of these celestial bodies ultimately govern human physical and spiritual affairs.41 Donnolos system depends on a daring interpretation of Scripture, by means of which he establishes that there are divine, disembodied forces that complement physical ones. Both sets of forces administer the human condition, in that the divine force ultimately moves us while the physical forces constitute the stuff of our existence. Accordingly, our physicality distinguishes us from God, while our higher spiritual and moral plane (in diminutive measure as compared to Gods) distinguishes us from the beasts.42 Thus framed, Donnolos cosmology affirms orthodox Jewish monotheism, but cannot avoid walking the tightrope between heresy and orthodoxy in regard to the potential problem of dualism.43 His scriptural basis for this cosmology (Genesis 1:26, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness) does not shy away from that dualism, but seemingly pushes the envelope even further. Donnolo clarifies:
Donnolo, Sefer hakhmoni, 146a; cf. above, p. 303, n. 35. For a partial parallel in Midrash, in which homologies relate natural phenomena, including celestial ones, to the human body, see The Fathers according to Rabbi Nathan, tr. J. Neusner (Atlanta, 1986), 18990; Hebrew version: Avot deRabbi Nathan, ed. S. Z. Schechter (Vienna, 1887), chap. 31, 9192. 41 For a full exposition of Donnolos homology, see A. Sharf, Notes on a section from Shabbetai Donnolos Sefer hakhmoni (Heb.), in Jews and Other Minorities in Byzantium (Ramat-Gan, 1995), 1934. 42 Donnolo, Sefer hakhmoni , 125a-126b, 127b. 43 Sharf, Donnolo, 7393; Genesis Rabbah, 8:3, explicitly addresses the capacity of the biblical passage, Let us make man in our image and likeness, to inspire heretical dualism: R. Samuel bar Nahman [handed down the following tradition] in the name of R. Yonatan: in the course of Moses writing the Torah, he was writing each days act [of Creation]. When he arrived at the verse And God said Let us make man, he said, Master of the Universe, why are giving the heretics an opportunity to argue?
39 40

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Here is the explanation for the verse, Let us make man in our image. After God created the entire universe, the supernal heavens, the angels, all the ministers of His glory, the land, the firmament, the waters, the trees, the grasses, the lights, the stars, the fish, the sea monsters, the fowl, and the animals that creep in the waters[etc.], He took counsel with His holy spirit to create man, who would be the appointed guardian and lord over all the creaturesto rule over the world, to reign and oversee all of created heaven and earth, and to praise Him. So, He said to His [newly-created] universe, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. In My image and in your image, after My likeness and after yours.44

In this extraordinary argument, Donnolo claims that the created universe joined God as partner in the creation of human beings, with each partner defining one component of our nature and abilities. God, the initiator and senior collaborator in the project of mans creation, defines our position in the universe:
Just as God is superior to and rules over man and the entire universe above and below, so too shall man do, as long as he follows his Creators will. Thus, for example, to our master Moses, peace be upon him, the Blessed Creator said regarding the [Golden] Calf, Allow me, and I will destroy [the Children of Israel].45

By invoking the divine aspect of our constitution, Donnolo illustrates two critical aspects of the divine-human relationship. First, he explains that human propagation into perpetuity is dependent on conformity to Gods will. Our success in living up to the standard of the divine within us can be measured in terms of our ability to use the evil inclination to transform those things normally generated by it into [acts characterized by] the fear of God, without sin or offense.46 When we do so, we act as the deputies of God, which is the second characteristic of the relationship as Donnolo sees it. Quoting Deut. 9:14, Donnolo argues that God needed to confer with Moses before destroying the
44 45

Donnolo, Sefer hakhmoni, 126b. Ibid. 46 Ibid., 127b, 129a.

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Israelites for the sin of the Golden Calf. In the end, God deferred to Moses, not only in asking him beforehand but also in subsequently honouring His prophets preference to preserve the Israelites. God respects, in effect, the extension of His own authority that He delegated to us. The health of that relationship relies, however, on our success in living up to Gods aspirations for us. The correlation between the human body and the universe that created it accounts for our physical and mental makeup and, by extension, whether or not we live up to those expectations. Accordingly,
God made for [man] a spherical head, like the firmament of heaven that is above the firmament of this world. He gave him the upper palate above the mouth, in which the teeth and jaw are planted, in the likeness of the firmament of this world, above us. And just as He separates this firmament that is above us between watersbetween the upper waters and the lower watersso too, does the upper palate of the mouth separate between the humour of the head and that of the upper digestive tract, called the stomach. Similarly, just as God rested His holy presence in the upper heavens, which covered the waters, as it says in Scripture, He who roofed the waters with His rafters (Ps. 104:3), so too, He placed the animated soul, knowledge, and discernment in the membrane of the brain, which is wrapped around the brain and its humour. This is evident, because if the brain is ruptured, a person will die immediately, for there resides the life-force. [Further,] just as God placed the two lightsin the heavenly firmament, so too, he put two eyes in mans head. The right eye is like the Sun and the left resembles the Moon. And just as God made the celestial dragon in the universe and stretched it out over the firmament, from east to west, from end to end, as well as the stars and the constellations and everything in the universe that is branching from it, so too, He made the spinal cord inside the vertebrae, extending from the brain to the pelvis.47

Here, it is the microcosmic analogy of the physical universe to man that accounts for the relationship of celestial bodies to our own, which shapes the power of those bodies over us.48 This power, in
47 48

Ibid., 127b; Sharf, Donnolo, 55, 17072. Donnolo, Sefer hakhmoni, 127a-b, 129b. From 129b: Just as the universe is full of Gods glory, as it is written (Jer. 23:24), Man cannot hide among secrets,

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the form of the celestial dragon, reigns in the universe like a king on his throne, and below it, a descending hierarchy rules over the two bodies of light, the five planets, and over every deed in the universe, both good and bad.49 Thence, each part of the body, as well as our appetites and inclinations, reflects the motions and qualities of celestial bodies.50 So it is that, by dint of its participation in our creation, the physical or celestial universe exerts significant power over uson the face of it a rather audacious reading of the creation of man and one that seamlessly interlaces the observational and the interpretational, like the warp and weft on the weavers beam.51 In very different fashion, the Chronicle of Ahimaaz treats judicial astrology and astronomy as separate undertakings, with different methods, purposes and results. Equally as bold as Donnolo in many respects, the eleventh-century Chronicle presents side-by-side portraits of the astronomer and astrologer for ready contrast. Although the Chronicle, from the social-historical point of view, poses many challenges inherent to its legendary content, from the perspective of cultural history it provides an unselfconscious account of this distinction between the celestial sciences.52 Two relatives, protagonists of the Chronicle, play the all-butunrelated roles of seer and scientist. The elder of the two, Hananel, was the second son of the family patriarch, Amittai, and lived in the latter half of the ninth century. He, like his brothers, looms large in the Chronicle as a pious wonderworker and learned mystic. One
without My seeing him, says the Lord; Do I not fill both heaven and earth? says the Lord. Thus is the living spirit of man, which is like a microcosm, from his feet to his head, from end to end, to the tips of his fingers and toes. Though this appears to be a spiritual comparison, it is in fact a physical comparison of the universe to man, insofar as both are analogously filled with Gods glory. Cf. Sharf, Donnolo, 31, 52. 49 Donnolo, Sefer hakhmoni, 147b. 50 Ibid., 147a. 51 Ibid., 146a, 147b, referring to I Sam. 17:7; Sharf, Donnolo, 183. 52 Historical analysis of the mythological aspect of the Chronicle by R. Bonfil, Mito, retorica, storia: saggio sul rotolo di Ahimaaz, in Tra due mondi (Naples, 1996), 12133; and idem, Can Medieval Storytelling Help Understanding Midrash? The Story of Paltiel: a Preliminary Study on History and Midrash, in The Midrashic Imagination, ed. M. Fishbane (Albany, 1993), 22854.

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story, however, ignores the mystical and presents, rather, a very this-worldly picture of astronomical calculation. In an encounter with the local archbishop, Hananel finds himself in a
discussion of the calculations that were prescribed for determining the appearance of the new Moon. On the morrow of that very day there was to be a new Moon, which according to Israels custom, was to be held sacred. [The archbishop] asked [Hananel] in how many hours the new Moon would appear. R. Hananel answered by naming a certain hour, but he was mistaken. The archbishop disputed his opinion and said, If that is your calculation on the appearance of the Moon, you are not skilled in calculation. R. Hananel had not given thought to the time of the appearance of the new Moon, but the archbishop had calculated it and knew; he had cast his net for R. Hananel, and would have caught him in his snare had not the God of his salvation come to his aid.

Still unaware of his error, Hananel takes the archbishop up on a bet, according to which he agrees to apostatize if proven wrong. Then, Hananel goes home, where
he went over his calculation and found his error, by which he had failed in his reckoning. As the time of waxing approachedhe called, in distress and tears, upon Him that hears the supplications of His beloved, O God, Ruler of the universe, nothing is hidden from You. I have not been presumptuous, but have innocently erred and committed folly. Forgive my error and pardon my wrongdoing.53

God obligingly intervenes to save Hananel, by shifting the Moons phase to vindicate his erroneous calculation and to confute the archbishops correct one. Gods intervention notwithstanding, this anecdote deals in objective, astronomical reality that respects neither religion nor man, nor does it presume to impinge on matters of moral or spiritual orientation. Hananels astronomical problem differs fundamentally from that which his descendant later faces. Unlike Hananel, who is described as a legal expert as well as a mystic, his great-grandson Paltiel
53

Ahimaaz, 7880, 94 (Eng.); 1112, 1920 (Heb.), where he feels that the scholars should not defer to him.

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engages in lexicallyand narrativelymarked astrology, and bears the soubriquet understander of mysteries, without corresponding, explicitly rabbinic credentials.54 In fact he seems to enjoy a position of privilege expressly distinct from that of the scholars. As his story develops, Paltiels astrological prowess, like the astronomical skill of his great-grandfather Hananel, comes out in relation to a nonJewish leader.55 In the mid-tenth century of the Chronicles reckoning, al-Muizz, the future caliph of Fatimid Egypt, invades Southern Italy, including Oria. There he encounters the Chronicles protagonists, and Paltiel, prominent among them, rises to a position of trust in al-Muizzs entourage. Now the conquerors advisor, Paltiel takes an evening stroll with his master, and gazing at the stars they see
the commanders star consume three stars, not all at one time, but in succession. And al-Muizz said to [Paltiel], What meaning do you find in that? R. Paltiel answered, Give your interpretation first. The commander replied, The stars represent the three cities Tarentum, Otranto and Bari, that I am to conquer. R. Paltiel then said, Not that, my lord; I see something greater; the first star meansSicily, the secondAfrica, and the third, Babylonia. Al-Muizz at once embraced him and kissed him, took off his ring and gave it to him, and took an oath saying, If your words come true, you shall be master of my house and have authority over my kingdom.56

When al-Muizz dies after realizing the prophecy, Paltiel stays on as vizier to the new caliph, and together they repeat the evening stroll:
R. Paltiel and the king were walking in the open and they saw three bright stars disappear; in an instant their light had vanished. R. Paltiel said, The stars that have been eclipsed represent three kings who will die this year; and they will soon Ahimaaz, 62 (Eng.); 3, 20 (Heb.): +('(, !"#-S. Benin, Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Byzantine Italy, in Judaism and Islam, Boundaries, Communications, and Interactions: Essays in Honor of William M . Brinner, ed. B. Hary, et al. (Leiden and Boston, 2000), 3031. 55 For the considerations of the family tree, see the most recent translation and historical interpretation of Paltiel and al-Muizz in C. Colafemminas introduction to Sefer yuhasin: libro delle discendenze, 3138. 56 Ahimaaz, 8889 (Eng.); 1617 (Heb.).
54

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be taken off. The first king is John the Greek, the second, the king of Baghdad, in the north, then the king hastening to interrupt him said, You are the third, the king of the south, but [Paltiel] replied to the king, No, my lord, for I am a Jew; the third is the king of Spain. But the king said, You are in truth the third as I say. Sure enough, in that year Paltiel died.57

The patently astrological nature of these accounts requires only brief comment.58 From the point of view of narrative, the indeterminacy of interpretation comes through in clear distinction from the natural fixedness of Hananels astronomical calculation. Al-Muizzs deputizing of Paltiel is conditional, pending the realization of the latters prediction. Similarly, the narrator does not telegraph Paltiels death as predetermined truth in the same way that he categorically defines Hananels calculation as error. The protagonists discover the truth and error of Paltiels respective prophesies at the same time as the reader does, whereas Hananels mistake constitutes a narrative fact of the story, established before it even dawns on Hananel himself. The Chronicle grants that the stars have real power, no doubt, but humans interact with that power on terms unrelated to those that govern astronomical calculation. Taking the Sefer hakhmoni and the Chronicle of Ahimaaz with their very different understandings of astrologys connections to astronomy and the occult, the thesis of fuzzy borders proves too limited. The Sefer hakhmoni works within an astrological set of assumptions that directly and seamlessly relies on astronomy; the Chronicle of Ahimaaz only implicitly recognizes the overlap, and at every turn treats the two sciences as utterly separate undertakings. In parallel fashion, the Sefer hakhmoni engages in astrology with religious ambivalence towards its occult associationsperhaps even revealing the authors own misgivings. Meanwhile, the Chronicle casts no occult shadow on the science of astrology
57 58

Ibid., 9697 (Eng.); 21 (Heb.). On the lexical indicators, in the first case the Chronicle uses hibit, and the

second h!ozim, both referring to visual perception, and both subject to contextual interpretation as regards either astronomy or astrology. For comparison to other usage, see S. Stroumsa, Ravings, 146, 163, in the context of Maimonides; for Abraham bar Hiyyas use of the second word in the astronomical sense, see above, n. 11.

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whatsoever. In sum, if the common geographical, linguistic, chronological and religious origins of both texts justifies a search for some shared sensibility regarding ASTROLOGY AND ASTRONOMY, WE MUST LOOK ELSEWHERE FOR IT . V. HALAKHAH AND AGGADAH We can only surmise a religious worldview that accounts at once for the divergent attitudes of the two texts and their shared conclusion in favour of astrology. Still, within that limitation, we might imagine a radical conceptual break between the celestial sciences, instead of attributing religious ambivalence to astrology as a function of scientifically fuzzy borders between it and astronomy. Such a break may be drawn along lines that correspond to the border between two deeply engrained modes of Jewish thought known as halakhah (pl. halakhot; binding legal norms of behaviour and ritual) and aggadah (pl. aggadot; non-binding, non-legal, speculative or homiletical interpretations and literature). Such a heuristic redraws and solidifies the border between the sciences, because it is unconcerned with the technical and ideological manifestations of ambiguity and ambivalence. Halakhah, as correlated to astronomy, is concerned only with calculation as the tool for the measurement of time; aggadah embraces everything else, including not only astrology but also astronomy that feeds into it (as opposed astronomy that serves the calculation of time). The merit of this halakhah-aggadah heuristic is that it provides a plausible model, in which both the Chronicles unburdened embrace of, and the Sefer hakhmonis ambivalent accession to, astrology make sense. This, because in either case, astrology-asaggadah allows significant theological latitude without encroaching on the halakhic demands of astronomy.59

59

A. Rosenak, Aggadah and Halakhah (Heb.), in A Quest for Halakha, ed. A. Barholz (Jerusalem, 2003), 28694; L. Silberman, Aggadah and Halakhah, in The Life of the Covenant, ed. J. Edelheit (Chicago, 1986), 22334; Y. Nafha, On Halakhah and Aggadah (Heb.), Derekh ephratah 3 (1993), 183203; Z. Kagan, Halakhah and Aggadah: The Paradoxical Connection (Heb.), Mehkere mishpat 18 (2002), 21318.

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Halakhah and aggadah, though frequently associated with particular genres of literature, also function as primordial epistemological orders of relevance. In this hierarchy, halakhah reigns unchallenged; it is the this-worldly enactment of divine Law in all its possible permutations, applicable to every eventuality in life, including, for example: diet, worship, sexual relations, ethical behaviour, and the religious calendar. As Jacob Neusner puts it, I assign priority to the Halakhah for the same reason everyone else who has ever studied Rabbinic Judaism does. The Halakhah defines the practice of the faith, the norms of conduct, and these bear the message, the professions, of the faith as well, embodying belief in concrete behaviour.60 It spells out, in other words, the Jews specific contractual obligations in their unique covenant with God. Halakhah, therefore, by its very nature enjoys immediate and compelling relevance, not only as a system of religious values but also as a guide for daily life; and among the various realms of halakhah, none touched upon the lives of individuals and communities in the Middle Ages more directly and universally than the measurement of time. In serving this halakhic function as the metronome of Jewish time, with its myriad implications for social organization, the calendar embodied the social and spiritual function of halakhah as a compulsory code of life. Many of the divine Commandments are time-bound, in particular the celebration of the Sabbath and holidays; their proper observance entails not only detailed ritual, but also dietary restrictions, such as the Yom Kippur fast and abstinence from leaven on Passover. Additionally, work and travel are strictly forbidden on holidays, a fact that directly governed commercial and communal interaction. In addition to these underlying the social and legal concerns, the Pentateuch, beginning with Creation, clearly describes the calendar as the existential rhythm of the cosmos, which lends time a numinous quality. For all these reasons, the calendar eventually inspired a desire for uniformity among the Jewish people, to which they responded in the ninth century and definitively in the tenth, with the development of a standardized calendarone which pre-

60

J. Neusner, Major Trends in Formative Judaism, Fourth Series, CategoryFormation, Literature and Philosophy (Lanham, MD, 2002), 66.

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empted regional halakhic diversity that applied to other matters of similarly quotidian bearing.61 Jewish leadership, during a long and complicated process, gradually replaced direct lunar observation with astronomical calculation, for the purpose of determining the lunar cycles and intercalating them with the solar cycles.62 In this way, since the fourth century C.E., astronomy played an increasing, if controversial, role in predetermining the Jewish lunisolar year.63 And though the precise mathematical formulae and the applications remained in flux for some centuries, the principal of calculation based on astronomy prevailed.64 The final stage of standardization took the form of a fierce dispute between Saadia Gaon, the pre-eminent Iraqi authority, and Aaron ben Meir, his Palestinian counterpart, ultimately settling in favour of the former.65 The bone of contention, i.e., the determination of the length of the year A.M. 4682 (C.E. 921 922), utterly presumed both the common principles of astronomical calculation and the fact of their applicability as Law to the entire
61

S. Stern, Calendar and Community (Oxford, 2001), 23241. E.g., one of the most glaring aspects of halakhic diversity, the question of polygyny came to the fore as a legal matter around the turn of the first millennium in the Rhineland but not in Muslim lands. In custom, European Jewry had abandoned polygyny some time prior, but de jure, only in that period did R. Gershom, Light of the Exile, outlaw it; L. Finkelstein, Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages (New York, 1924; repr. 1964), 2036. 62 Stern, Calendar, 24175. 63 S. Gandz, Studies in Hebrew Astronomy and Mathematics (New York, 1970), 74, dates the shift to calculation to 359, according to a reference by medieval Hebrew astronomer Abraham b. Hiyya, Sefer ha-ibbur, 3:7. Stern, Calendar, 139 54; idem, Fictitious Calendars: Early Rabbinic Notions of Time, Astronomy and Reality, Jewish Quarterly Review 87 (1996), 10329, examines the dissonance between empirically erroneous calculations and the assumptions and claims that they reflected reality, demonstrating the difficulties of the undertaking and the gradual process of codification into the Middle Ages. 64 For the Talmudic evolution of the calendar, see Feldman, Rabbinical Mathematics, 178210; the Babylonian Talmud itself reflects the problems of jibing the computed with the observed lunar phases in one of its most famous passages, Rosh Hashanah 24a-25b. Most importantly, S. Stern, Calendar, 98, 170 75, 254. 65 H. Malter, Saadia Gaon (Philadelphia, 1921), 6988; Stern, Calendar, 26468; M. D. Cassuto, About What Did Saadia Gaon and b. Meir Dispute?(Heb.), in Rav Saadia Gaon, ed. J. L. Fishman (Jerusalem, 1943), 33364.

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Jewish world; the disputants merely challenged one anothers determination of the mathematically-defined threshold of the Jewish New Year. That the prestige and power of the disputants hinged directly on this debate merely reflects its centrality for the entire Jewish world, crossing all boundaries of geography or class.66 Thus, by the tenth century, and the lifetime of Shabbetai Donnolo, astronomical calendation under girded the very functionality of Jewish life, so that, despite the patent overlap between the celestial sciences, medieval Judaism necessarily distinguished between them in terms of the indeterminacy of astrologys occult status, on the one hand, and astronomys halakhic necessity on the other.67 The legal and practical implications of astronomically based calendation find eloquent and pithy expression in the KaraiteRabbanite debate.68 The Rabbanites, the large majority of Jewry and heretofore referred to simply as Jews, constituted the mainstream of Judaism and defined themselves by their adherence to both Scripture, also called the Written Law, and Talmud, or the Oral Law. Their opponents, the Karaites, had coalesced in tenth-century Palestine into an important dissenting group that rejected the authority of the Talmud, its adherents and its masters.69 Rabbanites and Karaites recognized one another as Jews ethnically, religiously, nationally, and linguistically; but the stumbling block of differing religious authority prevented mutual acceptance in many matters of

66

Later stages only ratified the conclusions of the tenth century. The eminent twelfth-century halakhist and critic of Maimonides, Rabad of Posquires, disputed questions of astronomy, unafraid of engaging in the question of foreign (read: idolatrous) astronomy, in for the sake of establishing the law and the calendar. See the analysis of I. Twersky, Rabad of Posquires (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), 264 68. Though later, the example of Maimonides is also instructive, Sefer ha-mi!vot, positive commandment no. 153: To sanctify the months and to calculate the years and months only by the power of the rabbinical court, as Scripture says (Ex. 12:2): This month is for you the first of the months; first is it for you among the months of the year. 67 Stern, Calendar, 26468. 68 For an apt discussion, see Z. Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium (New York and Jerusalem, 1959), ch. 7. 69 See P. Birnbaum, ed., Karaite Studies (New York, 1971), esp. the repr. of the classic articles by S. Pozna, ski, The Anti-Karaite Writings of Saadiah Gaon, 89128, and The Karaite Literary Opponents of Saadiah Gaon, 129234.

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doctrine, practice and law.70 One emblematic point of dispute was the calendar. The Karaites reckoned their calendar based on direct observation of the new Moon associated with Passover and the arrival of agricultural spring in the Land of Israel, in accordance with ancient practice and the biblical text.71 Meanwhile the Rabbanites increasingly, and by the tenth century completely, relied on uniform astronomical calculation of the phases of the Moon and intercalation with the solar calendar. Various primary sources, including a Byzantine letter from the Cairo Genizah, capture the deep rift between the two factions, especially as relates to the ongoing struggle of each side to justify its own calendar.72 A Hebrew, Rabbanite missive dated to the eleventh century on paleographic grounds and attributed to Byzantium on the basis of its mention of the Byzantine coin, the hyperpyron, illustrates the practical and legal implications of this longstanding debate. In it, the unnamed author complains of Karaite politicking, pointing out that
the Karaites again fought against us last year. They desecrated the divine festivals, and celebrated the New Year in the eighth month [i.e., one month late by Rabbanite reckoning], for they had received letters from Palestine stating that the barley-ripening had not yet been seen in Nissan [the appointed month of Passover], so the Passover had to celebrated in Iyyar [the following month]. A violent enmity developed between us, and many disputes took place. The Karaites slandered [us,] the Rabbanites, and [our] congregation was fined almost one thousand dinars hyperpyra.73

70

J. Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Genizah (Leiden and New York, 1998), 47. 71 Exodus 9:31, 34:18. 72 See L. Nemoy, Karaite Anthology (New Haven, 1952), 5, 38. 73 Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter 20.4. First published by J. Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (Cincinnati, 193135), 1:51. Present translation adapted from Starr, Jews, 18284; Starr reads .""/.0"1 (YPRNYYR), which does not correspond to -./0.10&. However, close examination of the manuscript clearly reveals the letters ."0.0"1(YPARPYR), which correspond nicely with 1.$0.10.

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This fortuitous document not only captures the halakhic immediacy of the calendar, but more trenchantly, places astronomical calculation in the forefront of competing claims to orthodoxy. Echoing the irreducible demands of calendrical adherence, the Chronicle of Ahimaaz approaches physical astronomy in a way that highlights its halakhic function. Lexical and narrative elements of the story of Hananel reflect both a purely astronomical orientation and a specific set of legal associations. First of all, the language of calculation, as opposed to interpretive stargazing, is quite precise, and matches terms that appear in other texts on astronomy.74 Second, the story treats a situation in which objective knowledge is either right or wrong; that is, a natural set of truths applies to the cosmos independently of religious claims. More to the point, adherence to the natural order of time imposes particular strictures on the Jew, and indeed, the stakes are higher than at first they appear. Hananel brings the quandary of apostasy on himself, insofar as he accepts the bet, but this self-imposed peril actually sets the stage for the real crisis, namely, the commission of a sin. Hananel errs in a matter of law, and he must submit himself to Gods mercy, by means of a formal prayer, forgive my error and pardon my wrongdoing.75 Ignoring such legal concerns, astrology as described by both the Sefer hakhmoni and the Chronicle of Ahimaaz falls to the very different mode of aggadah. Aggadah constitutes an altogether looser and less authoritative category than halakhah.76 Late-antique and medieval Talmudic authorities, the primary tradents of both halakhah and aggadah, agree that no halakhah can be derived from aggadot, thereby freeing individuals to accept or reject nonhalakhic traditions as their conscience demands.77 And this freedom correlates to aggadahs great breadth; all lore that falls outside the essential and binding category of halakhah may be said to fall
74

In reference to both Maimonides and Bar Hiyya, see Sela, Fuzzy Borders, 72, 82. Specifically, Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of the New Moon, 17:24. 75 Ahimaaz, 7880 (Eng.); 1112 (Heb.). 76 J. Frenkel, Midrash and Aggadah (Heb.) (Tel-Aviv, 1996), 2122. 77 Peah 2:6, 17a; Maaser Sheni 3:9, 51a; Shabbat 16:1, 15c; Hai Gaon in B. M. Lewin, O!ar ha-Geonim (Jerusalem, 192843), 4:5960.

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under the category of aggadah.78 Aggadah is also identified, imprecisely, with the genre of late-antique, rabbinic literature known as Midrash, though Midrash in fact includes both aggadic and halakhic texts, just as aggadah also peppers the predominantly halakhic corpus of Talmud.79 More than merely a literary genre, therefore, this catch-all refers to the affective mode of Jewish thinking that is characteristic of legends, homilies, ethical lessons, parables, mysticism, etc.80 Cast thus, astrology is cordoned off and comparatively unmoored as aggadah. It cannot possibly speak to the basic and obligatory considerations of law, and cannot, therefore, inspire any responseeither positive or negativeof comparable moment.81 Aggadah certainly has the capacity to challenge and test orthodoxy by means of risky ideas, but if anything, it functions as a safe context for daring theological speculation, because once distinguished from halakhah, it cannot materially menace it. As an aggadic approach to interpreting the

78

H. L. Strack and G. Stemberger, Introduction to Talmud and Midrash (Minneapolis, 1996), 23740. 79 A typical example is Pesiqta Rabbati, ed. R. Ulmer (Atlanta, 1997), 40819, in which Creation unfolds in terms of the zodiacal year and each constellations characteristics. J. H. Charlesworth, Jewish Astrology in the Talmud, Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Early Palestinian Synagogues, Harvard Theological Review 70 (1977), 18388, describes the variety of opinions in the Talmud. This variety does not, in and of itself, correlate to either halakhah or aggadah, insofar as both leave ample room for disagreement. The difference lies in what one does with the disagreement. In matters of halakhah, one cannot simply abstain from opining; a choice must be made regarding the course of action in fulfilment of the Law. In matters of aggadah, by contrast, one may expatiate, challenge, or simply ignore. Charlesworth also briefly discusses a Shabbat 156a156b where the topic arises in typically aggadic mode. Other well known passages include Nedarim 32a and Bava Batra 16b. 80 There are points at which halakhah and aggadah seem to overlap, see D. Gordis, Scripture and Halakhah in Parallel Aggadot2, Prooftexts 5 (1985): 18391, even though the categories are generally invoked as fundamentally different. 81 Cf. Maimonides, who attacked astrology in public and halakhic contexts, in an effort to frame his argument more forcefully and perhaps to hide his secret agenda, according to Freudenthal, Maimonides Stance2, 85, 87. But, even taking his objections to astrology at face value as simple rejections of judicial astrology, they can do no more than establish astrology as a danger to halakhah or a slippery slope. Idolatry proper is not identified, wholesale and halakhically, with astrology, but it does threaten to lead to it; see Y. T. Langermann, Maimonides Repudiation of Astrology, in Maimonidean Studies (New York, 1991), 2:1289.

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heavens, astrology opens a space for ambiguity, ambivalence and even heterodoxy. 82 In stark contrast to astronomy and the halakhic concerns that surround it, aggadah defines the astrology of Donnolo and the Chronicle alike. Donnolo is aware of the fact that his case for the collaborative generation of man at the hands of God and His created universe risks offending Judaisms core monotheistic sensibilities. So he tempers his reading with an unobjectionably orthodox exposition of Gods ultimate power and free will.83 But in any case, all of his astrological and cosmological daring never leaves the fold of the established interpretive tools of aggadah. Genesis Rabbah, a classical, verse-by-verse, aggadic reading of Genesis compiled as early as the fifth century, already addresses the same scriptural problem in similarly bold terms and by means of the same exegetical methods.84 The rabbis, the interlocutors of the text, test out various interpretations to account for the troubling plural subject of the Genesis verse, Let us make man in our image. They ask, With whom did God take counsel? R. Joshua b. Levi said, With the created heaven and earth did He take counsel. The continuing exposition then goes in a very different direction from that of Donnolo, but the exegetical infrastructure of classical rabbinic aggadah obviously underlies his own. Equally explicitly and directly aggadic is Donnolos fragmentary, largely astronomical work, Sefer mazzalot. There he explicates the motions of the Pleiades and Ursa Minor by means of a mythical reading of Genesis and the book of Job.85 Additionally, Joseph Kara, in his
82

On similar lines to those proposed by Y. T. Langermann, Acceptance and Devaluation: Nahmanides Attitude towards Science2 , Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 1/2 (2001), 22345. Rabbis variously rejected and accepted judicial astrology: Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 156a, is the classical rejection of astral powers over the Jews, Israel has no constellation, but Genesis Rabbah, 10:6 attributes to every blade of grass a constellation that empowers it to grow. 83 On Gods repositioning of the stars to call off the rains of the Biblical Flood, see Donnolo, Sefer mazzalot, 2:26162, and below, n. 85. 84 Genesis Rabbah 8:3; Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 279. 85 Donnolo, Sefer mazzalot, 7:349: When the Holy One, Blessed be He, brought forth the flood on the earth, He took two stars from the Pleiades, and the flood broke forth on the earth. When the Holy One, Blessed be He, sought to remove the waters from the face of the earth, he took two stars from Ursa Minor and he filled in the vacant spaces of the two stars in the Pleiades. For that reason, Ursa Minor

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commentary on the book of Job (the only extant source for the Sefer mazzalot) takes Donnolos astronomy in precisely this aggadic sense, and specifically quotes Genesis Rabbahin the same section of that midrash where R. Simon avers that no blade of grass exists except as under its constellationin order to interpret, together with Donnolo, the movements of the Pleiades.86 In brief, Donnolo explicitly frames his entire cosmology and judicial astrology in these standard and familiar aggadic terms, where ambivalence and theological daring can flourish, without encroaching on the fundaments of Jewish doctrine and law. The Chronicle, in similar fashion, casts Paltiel as the interpretive astrologer, whose skill profits him, but whose interpretations do not impinge on the realm of divine law.87 His endeavours as an interpreter of the heavens belong to that broad category of aggadahnot in the sense of Donnolos classical exegesis, but rather in the default sense of aggadah as all that which is not halakhah. Paltiels readings are indeterminate, and the concept of transgression, which befits the breaking of the law, does not apply to his failure. Unlike Hananels calculations, Paltiels interpretive leeway removes astrology from astronomys halakhic PURVIEW. VI. CONCLUSION If the heuristic lens of aggadah offers one model for understanding the complexity of astrologys place in both the Sefer hakhmoni and the Chronicle of Ahimaaz, it is not because aggadah and astrology are necessarily or exclusively linked. That is to say, in other contexts, legal issues do arise around the topics of prognostication and the reading of the stars, even if they do so with considerable collective ambiguity.88 Tractate Pesahim, 113b, asks: How do we
follows after the Pleiades and demands the two stars back, saying Give me my children, give me my children. The prooftext comes from Job [38:32]: Can you lead Ursa Minor with her sons? Donnolo is probably making a pun on 2/+,, which can mean Will you lead? but pointed differently, can be read as Will she [i.e., Ursa Minor] be consoled? 86 Ibid., 350, citing Genesis Rabbah, 10:5. 87 See above, p. 310. 88 J. Halbronn, Le monde juif et lastrologie (Milan, 1979), 239.

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know that one should not consult Chaldeans [i.e., necromancers or astrologers]? Because of the Biblical passage (Deut. 23:13) that states You shall be perfect with the Lord, your God. Echoing this attitude, a document from the Cairo Genizah denounces astrology in terms reminiscent of Maimonides, explicitly prohibiting the practice.89 Other considerations in the Talmud, however, enter the debate as though into an aggadic matter, with correspondingly varied opinions and without the determinative judgments of halakhah. Such is the claim of Rava, who argues that three things are dependent, not on merit but on Mazzal [zodiacal sign]: lifespan, offspring, sustenance.90 The matter is further complicated, moreover, by the fact that in the Palestinian Talmud, which historically enjoyed primacy over its Babylonian counterpart in the context of Roman Jewry, also equivocates in the matter of astrology. R. Eliezer b. Jacob grants that one should neither divine nor augur (Lev. 19, 26). And yet, even divination may convey an accurate omen, especially after three occurrences of the sign.91 This indeterminacy only grows, as the argument proceeds along a more aggadic path. The students of R. Hanina go out to cut wood, when an astrologer (i!#rologin) declares that they will not survive the excursion. It turns out that his prediction would have been realized, had the students not averted the decree by an act of charity along the way.92 In sum, if the Palestinian Talmud passes judgment on astrology, it also grants the stars poweralbeit a power subordinated to divinely inspired deeds, such as those of loving kindness. Further clouding the matter, astrology and astronomy, distinguished or elided, may serve yet other purposes in other contexts. Such is the case as argued by Josef Stern, regarding Maimonides stance on astrology. According to this view, commandments that resist a logical rationale are explained in the Guide in light of the historical context in which the Mosaic Law was legislated, the
89

Joseph b. Judah ibn Aknin, Cure of Sick Souls, in The Jew in the Medieval World, selected and tr. J. R. Marcus, revised ed. (Cincinnati, 1999), 431. 90 Moed ka+an, 28a. 91 Shabbat 6:9, 8d. 92 Ibid.

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Sabian culture centred on star-worship.93 Being the first step on the slippery slope to star-worship, judicial astrology therefore becomes a hermeneutical tool in halakhic investigation. In similarly complex fashion Maimonides, in his monumental halakhic work, the Mishneh Torah, details celestial and earthly phenomena of only peripherally halakhic interest.94 The argument, therefore, is not that aggadah necessarily defines astrology, rather that Donnolo and Ahimaaz b. Paltiel wrote as though it did. Donnolo and the Chronicle steer clear of the Talmudic ambiguities, and in marking the sciences as expressions of prevailing modes of Jewish thought, they obviate, rather than resolve, any potential tension. Their application of the line between halakhah and aggadah to the sciences does not merely cleave observation from interpretation but more pointedly between observation for the purpose of calendation and everything else. Donnolo, who engages with astronomy as a component of astrology, subsumes both of them under the Baraita of Samuel and describes the astral forces in unmistakablyeven classicaggadic terms. Meanwhile the Chronicle counterpoises fortune-telling to the astronomical calculation of the new Moon, which in turn invokes expressly legal concerns. The firm and familiar distinction between aggadic, affective and optional astrology on the one hand, and halakhic, essential and compulsory astronomical calculation on the other, not only precedes any scientific similarity, but it also preempts astrologys potentially-occult aspect from threatening orthodoxy, and thereby at least partially accounts for its general

93

J. Stern, The Fall and Rise of Myth in Ritual: Maimonides versus Nahmanides on the Huqqim, Astrology, and the War against Idolatry, The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6 (1997), 20103. 94 Even the descriptive, non-computational aspect invoked law, according to Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws on the Foundations of Torah, 3. In this halakhic work par excellence, Maimonides gives a brief outline of the physical universe. Though he attributes a quasi-angelic consciousness to the higher celestial bodies, he clearly treats the universe in a descriptive manner, without attributing any judicial power to the bodies; see Langermann, Repudiation, 93, argues that Maimonides did not intend his condensed cosmology in this section to be definitive.

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acceptance.95 In the larger, ongoing question of monotheism and its relationship to astrology, the Chronicle and the Sefer ye!irah add a rich and organically Jewish dimension when viewed in this light.

95

Thus obviating the problem, as presented by J. Charlesworth, Jewish Astrology, 199, of the polarization and irreconcilability of the positions on astrology in the Talmud.

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