Wimpfheimer_ Is it not so.pdf

70 ❙ Barry Wimpfheimer
failed to take all the evidence into account. The change in actual facts cannot undo
that error or its resultant shame. Nevertheless, the narrator reinterprets the initial
facts to salvage Rava. The narrator's reinterpretation does not help the story's
historical shamed RavaÐit protects Rava's myth. Rava's clairvoyanceÐhis ability
to adjudicate the correct ruling despite the de®ciency in factual presentationÐis
retroactively determined. The appeal to reality is convincing not because it undoes
the courtroom mistake, but because the reader believes in divine correction. The
appeal to reality reinforces the notion that God does not allow for the miscarriage of
justice.
The story of the unerring ``Donkey of Pineas ben Ya¥ir''⁷⁴ is often invoked in
the Talmud as a means of challenging historical accounts of rabbinic sin by
appealing to divine justice. ``If God does not allow disaster to befall the animals of
righteous people, how much more so to the righteous ones themselves?'' The force
of this questionÐof faith itselfÐgenerates the retelling of these narratives of
violation.⁷⁵
Rava's own situation recalls this example not only structurallyÐthrough the
presence of the animal in Mar v. Bei ¼ozaiÐbut also conceptually. Rava's
downfallÐhis juridical blunderÐis wrought not upon his donkey but upon him
because of a mule. The narrator, as a reader, realizes the resonance of the situation
and the implications for Rava. If God does not allow calamity to befall the donkey
of Pineas ben Ya¥ir, how can God allow Rava to err while judging the case of Mar's
mule? The scenario is characteristically reinterpreted with Rava divining the correct
ruling for incorrect facts.
Rava's shame is a moment in which the text becomes extraordinary, saying
more than it needs to or should. It is a literary moment whose resonance attracts a
reader. The narrator's reinterpretation of this recently minted story evidences the
trap that literature embodies, powerfully forcing writer to become reader, and as
reader to rewrite the story yet again. Our narrator captures Rava in a moment of
clairvoyant knowledge. He prophesied, yet knew not what he prophesied. Rava has
knowledge, but does not know what he knowsÐhe has knowledge that he does not
master.⁷⁶ The notion of knowledge not in possession of itself captures the essence of
literature's epistemological claim. Literature, like Rava, knows without an awareness
of what it knows. This knowledge, unaware, allows literature to resonate andÐ