"Disgust, Ethics and Etiquette in the Rabbinic Tractates Derek Eres Rabbah and Zuta," Materia Giudaica 23 (2018) 67-75 (original) (raw)
Since William I. Miller’s Anatomy of disgust, the emotion of revulsion has drawn increasing at- tention in the humanities. However, theoretical models on disgust have been applied only sporadically to Jewish studies and, specifically, to rabbinic literature. A particularly intriguing and productive case- study is constituted by the tractates Derek Erex Rabbah and Derek Erex Zuta. Two late compilations included among the Minor Tractates of the Babylonian Talmud (8th-10th century), Derek Erex Rabbah and Zuta deal with ethics and etiquette. The phrase derek eres can be translated as good manners, courtesy and indicates the set of behavioral features that most immediately distinguishes the member of the rabbinic elite as an educated man. Instructions in the Derek Erex corpus cover every aspect of everyday life – from table to toilet, from school to market. More or less explicitly, this normative structu- re refers to the concept of disgust in a wide range of semantic nuances, such as physical repulsion, social inappropriateness, and moral reproach. In the light of the extant inquiries on disgust, the rabbinic texts suggest three thematic directions: (1) etiqutte and oral incorporation, based on Derek Erex Rabbah 9,1, where table manners find their raison d’être in a combination of hygienic considerations and personal issues connected with individual sensibility; (2) good and bad taste, on Derek Erex Zuta 6,1, where the usage of the adjective meguneh (revolting or reprehensible) reveals the continuity between corporeal perceptions and moral/social rebuke; (3) body management and ethics of caducity, on Derek Erex Rab- bah 3,3, depicting a grotesque portrait of human condition through the symbolic connection between physiological functions and distance from divinity. As an anthological collection of materials dedicated to quotidian behavior, the Derek Erex corpus represents a productive starting point for the exploration of the idea of disgust in Jewish medieval literature.