(head of the academy) in Baghdad who penned a number of epistles to Jewish communities in Iraq, Persia, and Syria between 1184 and 1207.19 Several of the letters concern a certain Zekhariah Ben Barkhael, a native of Aleppo who wrote to Ben ‘Eli in his youth, studied with him in Baghdad, and ultimately became the sage’s successor. In 1190, Ben Barkhael was appointed av bet din (head of court) and dispatched to communities in Iraq and Syria. His responsibilities included the rendering of judgments, gathering funds, and the appointment of “scribes, cantors, prayer leaders, and community heads.” Throughout the letters, Ben Barkhael is presented as an extension of and proxy for the rosh yeshivah himself, a “limb of the body,” as Ben ‘Eli calls him in one instance.20 Jews should pay homage to the av bet din much as they would to the rosh yeshivah himself; yet Ben ‘Eli is also careful to safeguard his own rank by describing Ben Barkhael’s status as derivative and a matter of investiture.
The epistles’ aim was to establish the new av bet din’s, and hence the rosh yeshivah’s, authority and legitimacy in satellite communities. To this end, they recount at length Ben Barkhael’s praiseworthy qualities and request that certain rituals be observed concerning his public appearances, including his verbal “magnification” (Heb., giddul). The epistles thus refer to ceremonies of power that have already taken place, convey the appointee’s praiseworthy qualities through writing, and call for further rituals to be observed in the future. In one of the Hebrew letters, after enumerating Ben Barkhael’s merits, Ben ‘Eli writes:
When we saw these precious and honored characteristics in him, including fear of God, love of the commandments, and intelligence and knowledge, we laid hands upon him (samakhnuhu) as av bet din of the yeshivah and gave him authority to judge, teach, and permit firstborn animals (for slaughter) (cf. b. Sanhedrin 5a), to explicate the Torah in public, to set the pericopes, and to appoint the translator. Before he expounds, “Hear what he holds!”21 should be said and after he expounds his name should be mentioned in the qadish…. It is incumbent upon the communities, may they be blessed, when they hear that he is approaching, that they go out to greet him and come before him with cordiality so that he may enter a multitude (‘am rav) with glory. When he comes to the synagogue, they must call before him and he must sit in glory on a splendid seat and comely couches with a cushion behind him, as is appropriate for av bet dins. He also possesses a signet ring to sign documents, rulings, and epistles that are appropriate for him to sign.22
The “laying of hands” is a gesture of investiture from one of higher authority to one of lower authority (based on Moses’ investiture of Joshua in Dt 34:9), while the signet ring is a standard emblem of political authority throughout Near Eastern cultures.23 Many of the points in this letter are reiterated in a second epistle, now in Judeo-Arabic with Hebrew phrases interspersed. The rosh yeshivah writes that “his presence among you is in place of our presence” and continues (Hebrew in italics): “We conferred distinction upon him, selected him and made it incumbent to treat him with honor and respect. We elevated his station and gave him the title (talqībuna) av bet din of the yeshivah.24 It is incumbent upon the communities of our brethren, may they be blessed, that, when they hear of his arrival and his appearance before them, they gather to meet him with rejoicing and gladness, exuberance, joy, respect, magnification (i‘ẓām), abundant offering, and reverence and that his seat be made beautiful.”
This text also goes on to mention rituals associated with Ben Barkhael’s teaching, pronouncing his name in the qadish, the signet ring, and his right to make appointments. Ben ‘Eli concludes, lending authority to the appointee while claiming his own jurisdiction: “His speech is our speech and his command is our command. He who brings him near brings us near and he who distances him distances us.”25
“Magnification” and “reverence” undoubtedly involved praise of some sort, though it is difficult to know whether this included the formal presentation of panegyric. Ben ‘Eli certainly saw the enumeration of the judge’s virtues a requisite purpose of his letter and recognized that the verbal pronouncement of Ben Barkhael’s greatness was essential to constituting his aura of authority and ultimately his effective leadership. Ben ‘Eli recognized that dominion was built of praise.
Epistolary Panegyric in the East
In comparison with our knowledge of the oral performance of Jewish panegyric in the Islamic East, our knowledge of the place of panegyric in epistolary exchange is quite extensive. As suggested above and exemplified by the poem that opened this chapter, many panegyric texts functioned essentially as letters or as part of a correspondence in which a poem accompanied a letter proper, itself often written in rhymed prose with extensive literary effects. Hai Gaon’s poem to Rav Yehudah was intended for a dual purpose: to function as a letter (in response to another letter) while allowing—indeed, mandating—broader circulation and oral performance.
Over the course of the century prior to Hai’s correspondence with Rav Yehudah, Jewish letter writing had undergone a revolution, owed to Jewish knowledge of Arabic epistolary practices and the expanded functions of correspondence in the organization of the Jewish world. Letters were written for any number of reasons: to update a loved one on one’s state, to inform a business partner on dealings, to initiate a relationship with someone of higher or lower rank, to ask for or offer a legal opinion, to request money or favors of a recipient, or to offer gratitude for a previous kindness. Most of these epistolary registers would be expected to include praise for their addressees, which could be as simple as a few well-chosen terms of address or as extensive as a rhymed, metered poem spanning hundreds of verses.26
Modern readers have sometimes been struck, even puzzled, by the amount of panegyric contained within Jewish letter writing. In fact, some letters seem to be little more than a long series of praises, especially striking since paper was sufficiently precious that letter writers covered every speck of available space, including the margins, with ink. Jacob Mann refers to one Geniza document (TS Loan 203.2), a letter by Sherirah Gaon of Pumbedita to Ya‘aqov b. Nissim of Qairawan, as “the end of a letter consisting merely of verbiage.”27 Yet these documents provide us with an intimate glimpse into the inner logic of medieval Jewish culture, for their rhetoric bespeaks some of its most fundamental conceptions of leadership, friendship, and interpersonal connection.
There has not yet been a comprehensive treatment of Jewish letter writing based on Geniza materials and in light of Arabic epistolary practices that takes into account the full range of stylistic differences across period, location, and social rank, though there have been various localized treatments.28 Goitein, of course, discussed (especially merchant) Jewish letter writing at many points in A Mediterranean Society, and Assaf, already in the early twentieth century, pointed out that epistles of the Baghdad academy from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries followed a standard form that included long sections of praises and blessings at the beginning and end.29 Structural and rhetorical analyses of all types of Jewish letter writing preserved in the Geniza remains an important topic for research, but here I wish only to emphasize praise as a pervasive aspect; it is exchanged among people of all ranks and, especially in the case of more powerful figures, played a constitutive role in the establishment of political legitimacy. In the section below, I present a general overview of Jewish letter writing in the Islamic Mediterranean, including the nodes at which praise was integrated, and argue further for narrowing the presumed gap between written and oral elements of panegyric performance.
On the Art of Medieval Jewish Letter Writing
Jewish letter writing can be dated prior to the geonic period; there are several references to the sending of letters in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Est 3:13, 8:10), and Jewish letters survive from Late Antiquity (obvious examples include the Bar Kokhba letters and the Pauline epistles, though there are others). Jewish letters by nasis are attested in Late Antiquity through references in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds as well as
