Whatever Happened to Bruria Rav Meir's Wife?

 

When I was a teenager, I came across a very strange Rashi in Mesactas Avoda Zara (18b). My Yeshivah wasn't learning this Mesachta but to make some side pocket money, I tutored a kid from a different Yeshiva that was learning Avoda Zara as a project for his Bar-Mitzvah. 

This was before Artscroll, before google and Wikipedia, so to understand the text of the gemarrah I had to learn every single Rashi coupled with the Jastrow dictionary which was a monumental task in itself.

Today I attended a daf yoimi shiur by a very famous "maggid shiur" and I noticed that not only didn't he read even one single Rashi but never even quoted him. I understand that for the sake of brevity and time constraints, the maggid shiur must summarize instead of really delving into the nuances of every Rashi, though the shiur is given to retirees who have nothing better to do for the entire day.

At any rate the gemarrah relates that R' Meir was being pursued by the Romans so he ran to Babylonia for safety. The gemarrah goes on to give two reasons why R' Meir had to flee, one because of the reason I just gave, that the Romans were after him, but then the gemarrah gives another reason without any explanation, assuming that we in the year 2022 would know what the gemarrah is referring to, and that is that he had to flee because of "the incident with Bruriah."

Woe! Hold on just one minute! 

What "incident with Bruriah?"

Just that you know, Bruriah was R' Meir' wife and was a scholar in her own right, in fact the gemarrah throughout shas derives certain halachos from what either Bruriah said or did..

Bruriah's father was the holy Tannah Chanania ben Tradyon who was murdered with his wife by the Romans, for the sole reason that he was learning Torah, he was one of the Asarei Ha'rugei Malchus. 

So, to find out what happened, I went to my trusty friend, Rashi!

שפעם אחת ליגלגה על שאמרו חכמים נשים דעתן קלות הן עלייהו ואמר לה חייך סופך להודות לדבריהם וצוה לאחד מתלמידיו לנסותה לדבר עבירה והפציר בה ימים רבים עד שנתרצית וכשנודע לה חנקה עצמה וערק רבי מאיר מחמת כסופא

"Bruria once mocked the saying of Chazal, that stated "women's minds are easily swayed." R' Meir told her "By your life, you will come to agree to this adage." R' Meir then went to one of his students and asked him to try to seduce his wife, Bruria. The student tried and persisted for many days until she finally caved in and consented. When Bruria subsequently discovered that she was set up by her husband, she strangled herself, and so R' Meir fled to Bavel due to his shame"

Wow! What a story! What am I to do now? How am I going to tell this to my student that I was tutoring? I decided to ignore the Rashi and continue without elaborating just like the gemarrah itself did. 

But it continued to bother me, and so I searched in Tosfos... nada!

I looked in the back at the commentary of Maharsha who would jump on a story like this and perhaps give us a plausible explanation, zero! I couldn't find a source or an explanation for this bizarre and crazy story.

 To even think that the Holy Tanna R' Meir would set up his wife to do an act of adultery? What about the student who set her up? What kind of low life was he? Finally, how would Bruriah herself be so stupid as to destroy herself and her entire family? And wouldn't such a story make waves with the rishonim or achronim? Why did Rashi even write this? What about Loshon Hara? What would the "to'eles" be?

Every time I would come across Bruriah in shas, I got a very queasy feeling, I couldn't get that Rashi out of my mind. I couldn't unsee that Rashi, which I so desperately wanted.

A few months ago, at a book sale in Yerushalyim, I came across a book titled " Studies in Halakah and Rabbinic History" by Rabbi Eitam Henkin. Rabbi Henkin was the grandchild of the great posek, Rav Eliyahu Henkin z"l. This book was written in Hebrew and translated into English.

Rabbi Henkin and his wife were brutally murdered when terrorists attacked their car on Chol HaMoed Succos in 2015, Rav Henkin was only 31 at the time of his death but had authored over 50 articles and four sefarim.

In this particular book published posthumously in 2021, he has 22 different essays on 22 different interesting subjects, one of them he tackles is as he calls it "The Mysterious Bruriah Episode."

Rav Henkin hy"d in his essay, finds two references from Rishonim where the Bruria Episode is in fact mentioned, with Rashi's version.

 The first one he found is in a Sefer called Menoras HaMa'or written by R' Yitzchok Abohav in the first part of the 14th century, and the second reference he found was in the Shaalos Utshuvois of the Maharil. 

At the end of the day, Rav Henkin hy"d postulates that Rashi did  NOT write it and that it was in inserted by a student of Rashi. 

Either way, we are still left with the proverbial Elephant in the room, What is, in fact, the Bruria Episode mentioned in the gemarrah?

R' Yehuda bar Kalonymos of Speyer, a rishon, who lived in the generation after Rashi and authored the Sefer "Genealogy of the Tanna'im and Amora'im" which systematically presents the life and works of the Talmudic Sages, has an entry that is devoted to none other than Bruriah, detailing her halachic actions. At the end of this entry, he refers to our gemarrah in Avoda Zara and the way he learns this gemarrah, the story of the "Bruriah episode" is contained in the gemarrah itself. 

Remember that R' Yehuda bar Kalonymous had a gemarrah that didn't have Rashi on the page but in a separate sefer. 

The gemarrah Avoda Zara 18a (just one side back) in fact brings a Bruriah episode but not the Rashi version. 

The gemarrah relates that Bruriah had a sister who was captured by the Romans and forced into prostitution and Bruriah asked her husband to bail her out. R' Meir went into the brothel and bribed some guards and got her out. The guard is then interrogated and reveals R' Meir's bribes to the Romans. They search and find R' Meir but he is saved by miraculous intervention. This is the "Bruriah episode." that the gemarrah is referring to. 

R' Meir was forced to flee far away to Babylonia not so much because of the bribe but because people saw R' Meir go into the brothel and of course rumors began to sprout like rabbits and so he fled and in fact took Bruria, alive and well with him. In fact, we find stories about Bruriah while she was living in Bavel.

Read R' Henkin's book to get a deeper and more extensive explanation.

After I finished writing this post, I mentioned this story and Rav Henkin's take on it to a learned friend and he told me that Tablet Magazine in fact published this essay of Rav Henkin in their magazine just a couple of days ago. 

I still recommend you go out and buy the book.

But I will give you the link. here! to Tablet!