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Yaakov Elman: Iran, the Magi, and the Jews

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Chautauqua Institution

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Partner:: Chautauqua Institution
Location:: Hall of Philosophy
Chautauqua, NY
Event Date:: 08.02.11
Speaker:: Yaakov Elman
Tags:: jewish; jews; Islam; iran; israel

Summary: Emily Perper | Staff Writer

“As a historian, there is no history without texts, without some kind of data. … Otherwise, history is just what contemporaries remember,” Yaakov Elman said.

Elman is a professor of Judaic studies at Yeshiva University and an associate at the Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies. His lecture at 2 p.m. Tuesday in the Hall of Philosophy was called “Geopolitics and Tolerance: Iran, the Magi and Jews.”

Elman’s research disproved the opinion that the Jews in Babylonia, or southern Iraq, were intellectually and physically separated from the dominant culture. Babylonia was a cosmopolitan center; its citizens took care to preserve intellectual history, like the Sumerian language.

“History extends as far as our text extends,” Elman said.

Throughout his presentation, he referenced a number of respected ancient rabbis and Jewish scholars.

Elman used part of Isaiah 43:6, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth,” to demonstrate the careful attention given to texts. In context, the sons and daughters represent two different groups of Jews, those living under Babylonian rule and those living under Roman rule.

In Babylonian Jewish culture, sons were comfortable in the homes of both their mothers and their wives, but daughters were uncomfortable in the homes of their mothers-in-law, where they were treated like servants or second-class citizens. Therefore, the Jews living in Babylon recognized their good fortune as “sons” and lamented the plight of the “daughters” in the Roman Empire.

The Jews in Babylon existed under Persian rule for approximately 1,200 years during the Sassanian period. Any Talmudic references to Persian law are referring to Sassanian law.

The empire was religiously diverse, including Jews, Hindus, Nazarenes and Manicheans, among other groups. After his assertion of power in 539 B.C., Cyrus the Great gave all uprooted immigrants, including the Jews, the opportunity to return to their homelands. At one point, the empire was the largest in the world.

By the time of the Sassanian era, however, Egypt was no longer an ally of the empire, and the Roman Empire proved to be a competitor in terms of size and strength. Egypt instead provided a great deal of material to the Roman Empire, as opposed to a country like Iran, of which only 15 percent is agricultural. Babylonia was the “breadbasket” of the Sassanian Empire. However, it was poorly protected and at risk for Roman invasion.

The Jews were a significant minority in an important province. The Persian kings then worked to pacify their Jewish populations as a security initiative; they didn’t want the Jews to side with the Romans should they manage to invade.

Stories written by Jews in sources like the Talmud offer a favorable impression of Persian rule; the civil government protected them.

“I am not saying that these are literally true stories,” Elman said. “It doesn’t matter. These are the stories the Jews told about their kings, about the Persian kings; so therefore, you have a really good idea of what they felt about them.”

Jews adopted some aspects of the dominant culture; they spoke the Middle Persian language, for instance. Their belief system was influenced somewhat by Zoroastrianism, the dominant religion in Persia.

“Rabbis had to respond to challenges from their laity and from other religions,” Elman said. “This was a period, a time and a place, in which pretty much everybody talked to everybody.

“This was an open society,” Elman continued, explaining that religious leaders might not have liked the acceptance prescribed by community norms but tolerated it nonetheless, engaging in debate with Zoroastrians and Manicheans alike.

“What’s the lesson for us for today? Not to rely on ideals,” Elman said. “You’ve got to rely on practicality. You’ve got to make it worthwhile for people to be tolerant.”

Chapters

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01 hr 14 min 59 sec

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01.: Introduction

01 min 38 sec

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02.: Lecture

55 min 35 sec

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03.: Question and Answer

17 min 46 sec

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Previous FORAtv comments:

theknopfknows

Posted: 12.21.11, 05:31 PM

FANTASTIC I PULLED OUT OF MY LIBRARY THE GEMARA THIS HAS MOTIVATED ME TO READ TO STUDY TALMUD ONCE MORE THANK YOU. ALSO READ "THE ZEND AVESTA-1880" written by James Darmesteter-Oxford University Press. to understand Zoroastrian Religion Customs. Another is WRITTEN BY ERVAD SHERIARJI DADABHAI BHARUCHA "Zoroastrian Religion and Customs 1971