From martyr to mystic: 'The Story of the Ten Martyrs', 'Hekhalot Rabbati', and the making of 'Merkavah mysticism' (Palestine)

This dissertation traces the textual development of Hekbalot Rabbati (“The Greater [Book of Celestial] Palaces”), one of the central documents of the early Jewish mystical and magical corpus known as Hekhalot literature. Because of the predominantly ritual-liturgical character of this literature, the inclusion within Hekhalot Rabbati (Synopse §§107–121, §198) of a version of the post-talmudic anthology The Story of the Ten Martyrs (produced in Byzantine Palestine, circa seventh century CE) represents a puzzling anomaly and, therefore, helps clarify both the literary history of this composition and its relationship to other spheres of Jewish literary culture.; I show that Hekhalot Rabbati fashions a myth of origins for Jewish mystical practice from the literary framework of the anthology, but at the same time departs radically from the generic conventions of post-talmudic martyrological literature. Thus, according to its highly adapted form of the martyrology, the rabbinic martyrs miraculously escape execution, while the Roman Emperor is put to death in their place, leading to the immediate destruction of Rome. Hekhalot Rabbati not only renders redundant the notion of atoning self-sacrifice that is the key to Israel's future redemption in the martyrology, but also ascribes to the Hekhalot visionary ( yored la-merkavah) the intercessory function of the martyr—here achieved bloodlessly through heavenly ascent and liturgical performance. This sophisticated act of literary appropriation reflects the wider ideological project of Hekbalot Rabbati, which portrays the yordei la-merkavah as a special class of ritual experts whose power and authority derive from esoteric knowledge and practice. In parsing the complex relationship between these works, I illuminate how the figures of the martyr and the mystic came to play parallel, yet competing, roles within the highly influential conceptions of history that were bequeathed to medieval Jewish communities by late antique Judaism.