Bo - Chaos in Cappadocia

B"H

Full text here. Although again, it's not going to help much ;-)

1) Midrash Tanchuma Bo, Chapter 4

רבי אבא בר כהנא אמר, חשך ואפלה שמשו במצרים. אבל תוהו ובוהו לא שמשו בעולם הזה ולא עתידין לשמש. והיכן עתידין לשמש. בכרך גדול שבקפוטקייא, שנאמר, ונטה עליה קו תהו ואבני בהו

For those of you who were expecting a nice wee dvar Torah this week, I'm sorry. That was the plan, until I re-read one of this week's midrashim with my chevruta K.C. (thank you!) and came across something very odd indeed. So, instead I'm taking you on an Indiana-Jonesque romp through the backwaters of Talmudic-era history/geography and online reference materials before admitting that, no, I still can't work out what on earth this midrash means (although as you can see I have some ideas of my own...).

The fourth chapter of the Midrash Tanchuma on Bo divides into two halves which, as we shall see, may or may not relate to each other. The first half compares the order of the Ten Plagues in Egypt to both the tactics used by a king to subdue a rebellious province (keep this in mind) and, neged k'neged midda, the different tasks for which the Egyptians enslaved B'nei Israel. The second half of the midrash then uses various apocalyptic-sounding prooftexts from the Nevi'im to demonstrate how G-d will also bring all of the Ten Plagues used in Egypt against Edom - which, as mentioned in previous posts, is usually a coded reference to the Roman Empire in Talmudic/midrashic literature.

However, in the middle of what is essentially an anti-Roman rant is a cryptic statement by Rabbi Abba bar Kahana (see source 1 above):

'Darkness and total darkness were operative [shimshu] in Egypt, but the emptiness and desolation [tochu v'vochu] will not be operative in this world or in the future [lo shimshu...v'lo atidin l'shamesh]. Where will they become operative [atidin l'shamesh]? In the metropolis of Kaputkaya [bich'rach gadol sheb'Kaputkya], as it is stated 'He will draw a line of emptiness [tochu] and weights of nothingness [vochu] against it' (Yeshayahu 34:11)'.

The transliterations above have been added for a few reasons. Firstly, I'm not entirely sure what 'shimshu' and its variants actually mean or that 'operative' is the most helpful or accurate translation (any better suggestions? I've already tried Jastrow...). Secondly, the words 'tochu v'vochu' used here are important to note, as they refer directly back to the primordial chaos which existed at the start of Bereishit before G-d even created light. The implication here is that both the midrash and its prooftext from Yeshayahu are describing something even worse than the plague of darkness which G-d sent upon Egypt - nothing less than utter destruction and devastation.

But the biggest mystery (to me, at least) is this - what or where is this large city of 'Kaputkaya'? To the lay reader, it does not immediately appear to bear any relationship to Edom/Rome (which is what this midrash is focused on, after all). Then there is the oddity of its name - it sounds very much like a non-Hebrew placename, yet the midrash refers to it as if it would be well-known to the contemporary reader, even if not to us today.

Furthermore, why is there any need to mention this place Kaputkaya at all? After all, the Yeshayahu prooftext cited by Rabbi Abba bar Kahana forms part of a prophecy explicitly describing G-d's destruction of Edom, so this should be enough in itself to set up the parallel between darkness/Egypt and destruction/Edom - indeed, the midrash does exactly that several lines later by referring back to the same prooftext to show darkness being brought upon both Egypt and Edom.

Back to our chevruta session this week. When we both got stuck on 'Kaputkaya' as a placename, my chevruta googled it on her phone. Typically, Google decided to change it to 'Kapukaya', for which all that came up were websites advertising car rentals and holidays in Turkey. So we concluded Kaputkaya (or somewhere sounding very similar) might be a real place, but as we still hadn't a clue why some random Turkish town or region might be in our midrash we simply moved on.

However, it still niggled me enough that when I next had some spare time I tried googling 'Kaputkaya' again, this time exactly as it is spelt in the midrash translation above. This time, instead of holidays in Turkey I got a smattering of English footnotes to the Talmud/Mishnayot - namely Bava Batra 58b (something being 'inscribed on the entrance to Kaputkiya, a district in Asia Minor') and Ketubot 10 (a dispute about which currency a man divorcing his wife is obligated to pay her in where they were married and/or got divorced in either Eretz Yisrael or Kaputkaya).

So far, so good. Clearly this is a place known at the time of the Talmud. It even seems to be a place where Jews have settled, as evidenced by the discussion in Ketubot above about the divorcing couple. However, while a location in Turkey also seems to fit it still seems a little vague, especially given the midrash referring to 'the large city' of Kaputkaya.

It was upon trying a few alternative spellings (possibly 'Kaputkiya') that I finally got somewhere with this blog,* which not only explains that 'Kaputkaya' is in fact the Turkish region of Cappadocia but very helpfully goes through a list of Talmudic and Midrashic references to this place, including some of those mentioned above (although, sadly, not our particular Midrash Tanchuma on Bo) . Most importantly, it points out that in the region of Cappadocia there was a city known as Caesarea/Caesarea-Mazaca, which at the time of the Talmud had to be distinguished from the Caesarea we are familiar with in Eretz Yisrael. 

Hmmm. Could this Caesarea be the 'ch'rach gadol' [fortified city/metropolis] of Kaputkaya' referred to in our midrash? It would certainly be a good candidate, and the Roman name might also explain why it is being brought into a midrash about Edom.

Well, after searching around a little I found this online Jewish Encyclopedia article about Cappadocia, which mentions not only that Caeserea-Mazaca was the capital of Cappadocia but also that according to the Talmud (Moed Katan 26a), during a war with the Romans, the Persian king Saphor I besieged the city and massacred 12,000 Jews.

While I'm now going out on a limb here, I would venture that this helps our midrash make more sense. What if Rabbi Abba's statement about 'tochu v'vochu' and this important city of Kaputkaya is referring not to the future destruction of Edom but to an event which had already occurred (and relatively recently by Talmudic/midrashic standards)? This would explain why it is being mentioned here - presumably the midrash's original audience would have 'got' the reference at once as a specific sign of Edom/Rome's future downfall. 



But there's a problem. The massacre mentioned above is not only of Romans, but specifically of Jews! Furthermore, the midrash's references to the primordial chaos of 'tochu v'vochu' and the wider Yeshayahu prooftext implies that this devastation was/is to be even worse than the plague of darkness experienced by the Egyptians. While we may be able to understand the Rabbis of the Talmud wishing a worse fate upon the Romans than upon the Egyptians, it is a different matter to find this in reference to the destruction of what was, apparently, a thriving Diaspora Jewish community.

And there's more. If we actually look up the Gemara itself in Mo'ed Katan which mentions this massacre (see the 5th paragraph of p102 in this translation), we can see the Babylonian sage Shmuel's reaction being used as a precedent for one not tearing one's clothes on hearing bad news, despite the number of Jewish deaths involved in this case. While the Gemara's first explanation is that one should not tear one's clothes unless 'the misfortune involves the larger part of the Community', rather surprisingly it also then comments that in this case the Jews of Caeserea-Mazaca had 'brought it on themselves' while King Saphor was essentially blameless for their deaths.

If we bear in mind that the Rabbis of the Talmud were based in King Saphor's territory while Caeserea-Mazaca was in the Roman Empire, then it is perhaps understandable why Shmuel and the Babylonian community would not conspicuously mourn what was a great victory for the king against the Romans. Not only would this be going against the public mood, but as we have seen the Rabbis themselves were hardly the greatest fans of the Romans.

What is more disturbing here is the Gemara's implication that the massacred Jews of this Cappadocian city were not worthy of being mourned publicly because, somehow, they deserved their own destruction. Perhaps the Jews of Cappadocia were pro-Roman, and therefore seen as traitors by communities in Babylon and elsewhere. Perhaps there were even early Jewish-Christians around who would have been seen as heretics and therefore deserving of their fate. However, I for one still find it disturbing to see one group of Jews publicly stating that a sizeable group of fellow Jews had brought their deaths upon themselves and therefore refusing to mourn for them.

Which brings me to my problem - if we link our midrash above on 'Kapatkaya' to the 3rd-century siege of Caeserea-Mazaca in which a large number of Jews were massacred, how do we interpret the midrash's use of Yeshayahu 34:11 and the phrase 'tochu v'vochu' as a metaphor for this destruction? Is the midrash simply concerned with the destruction of Edom/Rome without worrying about the Jewish deaths involved? Is it following the Talmud's example and condemning the 'Romanised' Jews of the region to share the fate of the Romans themselves? Or is there in fact an underlying sense of horror at the massacre of this Jewish community which the Babylonian Rabbis, being on the 'other side' of the Persian-Roman wars, cannot openly express but nevertheless feel?

I honestly cannot make up my mind on this one. If you want to have a shot (or indeed have any comments on this area of Jewish history), please do.

Shabbat shalom

RPT

P.S One reason behind my hesitancy is that I usually like reading sources in the original - preferably in a book - rather than through translations/other random sources on the Internet. In this case I've had little choice but to rely on the latter, but if anyone who is more knowledgeable or has access to original texts wants to chip in, please do.

*I am well aware that the linked post actually forms part of a flame war between two sides of the 'who wrote the Zohar' divide. While it makes for interesting reading in its own right, I have no intention of getting into the topic here simply because it doesn't really bother me, and those who know me well enough can already guess what I'd say if pushed for an opinion ;-). Besides, it seems a little pointless to start commenting on Person A demolishing the argument that Person B is using to demolish the argument that Person C is using to disprove Person D's claim that Person E was really the author of the Zohar...