The steady development of the theme of "The Tanna and the Dead Man" in Hebrew and Yiddish literature during thirteen centuries, its diffusion among both the Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewish communities, and its diverse generic manifestations - all attest to the strong impact made by this legend on the narrative consciousness of the Jewish people.
This paper traces the origin of the series in early Jewish sources, and follows its thematic development along the axes of constancy and change.
The basic plot of the narrative exemplifies the talmudic principle that a son confers privileges on his father. Having been taught by a sage. the orphaned son of the sinner utters the Blessing of the Lord ("Barkhu et ha-Shem ha-Mevorakh" amid the congregation, thus redeeming his father from the tortures of Hell.
Throughout the thematic versions, this basic plot is subject to significant telos shifts resulting from historio-cultural developments and cultural interaction. While. initially, the Blessing of the Lord encapsulates the father's obligation to teach Torah to his son (thus sanctifying and publicizing the name of God), the Vitry version combines this blessing with the mourner's Kaddish prayer as a spiritually ,and psychologically uplifting acknowledgment of the rightness of divine judgement. Later folkloric versions are marked by reductive tendencies That envision the Kaddish prayer as basically instrumental in freeing the sinner from the tortures of hell.
The narrative processes of replacement and condensation also produced variations as to the nature of the father's sin. the sage's name, the place where he meets the dead man, and the sinner's punishment.
The dynamics of these narrative processes are manifested in the broad distribution of the theme along such genres as midrashic stories halachic expositions, didactic-moralistic texts, liturgical pieces. kabbalistic and Hasidic works, and folk tales.

(Criticism and Interpretation, 30 (1994), pp. 41-63)

In this paper the theme of "He Who Prays for the Rains" is examined as a test case of the changes and transformations occurring in a given theme throughout the various historical-geographical phases of its development.
Two representative versions serve as the focal point of the study. The first is found in Y.S. Parhi's Oseh Phele (Livorno, 1870), a Jewish-Oriental collection of narratives. The second appears in A.Y. Soibelman's Sippurei Zaddikim he-Hadash (Pietrkow. 1903), a collection of Hasidic tales.
The paper dwells on the differences between these two versions as manifested at the level of the literary material, the level of function, and the level of the ideational message, Accordingly, the discussion goes beyond the strict analysis of poetics to consider the referential presence of the underlying Jewish sources.
In conclusion, it is established that: (1) Although both versions are permeated by an element of mysticism, the Jewish Oriental one somewhat externalizes it (by placing the hero in a public arena where his prayer assumes an openly declarative character), whereas the Hasidic version internalizes it (by confining the hero to the personal arena, where his words sound like an intimate prayer); (2) Inasmuch as it elaborates on the ancient fableau, the Jewish-Oriental version still retains the sequential order of the episodes, along with its paratactic character. Conversely, the Hasidic version, which introduces into the narrative description the special interaction between the zaddik and the hero, constructs two intertwined plots, thus producing a hypotactic effect. (3) The theme as a whole has a somewhat anti-establishment undertone. It transforms the common man into a cultural hero who personifies the prescribed virtues of innocence and integrity.

(Criticism and Interpretation, 30 (1994), pp. 65-97)

This paper examines the short story "Lehem u-Mayim" (Bread and Water) by Joshua Barzilai-Eisenstadt (1908) from the point of view of the series "Seven Good Years".
Ostensibly this story establishes a dialogue with Y.L. Peretz's "Hapikadon" (The Deposit) or, more precisely, with the earlier Yiddish version of the same story, titled "Zibn Gute Johr" (Seven Good Years). Yet a thematological reconstruction of the entire series, which consists of twenty-one successive versions, suggests that the dialogue encompasses other versions of the series, in particular the original one, found in the Midrash of Ruth Zuta.
The ensuing discussion places the story within the context of these versions referring also to the thematic influence of Jewish literary materials, while nonetheless acknowledging its particular cultural meanings as derived from the contemporary frame of mind of the Hebrew pioneers.
In short, this paper not only elucidates the poetic craft of the story in question, but also sheds light on the dynamics of Jewish culture as it evolved down the ages: a Jewish folktale steadily unfolding throughout the dispersions of the Jews in the course of over a thousand years is carried on in the Hebrew literature emerging in the Land of Israel.

(Criticism and Interpretation, 30 (1994), pp. 99-120)

The thematic series of "The Weasel and the Welt" consists of approximately forty know n versions. This paper is primarily concerned with the narrative developments of the series in tile 19th century and in the Literature of the Enlightenment.
Since its first appearance in the Babylonian Talmud (Ta'anit 8a), the story went through numerous transformations in the oral and written tradition. Crossing geographical and mental boundaries, it moved from the Land of Israel to Babylon and thence to the Jewish communities in France, Amsterdam. Padua and Livorno; to Yemen, to Western and Eastern Europe: Vienna, Vilna, Warsaw, Lvov and Moscow; to the United States, and then back again to thc Land of Israel.
On the whole, until the Enlightenment, miscellaneous versions and adaptations of this story were interpolated in Midrashim, in the Responsa, and in various anthologies. Thenceforward, this narrative appears by itself as a poem, a romance, or a play.
In the literature of the Enlightenment alone, the theme of "The Weasel and the Well" is manifested in fifteen separate works, thus signifying a broad cultural phenomenon.
An examination of the typical features of the Enlightenment versions elicits the predominant telos of personal acquaintance prior to commitment and institutionalized relationship even when this acquaintance is a matter of some condition, such as: "If I bring you up, you must marry me". The interpersonal relationships between the sexes are marked by tolerance and openness, as are those between fathers and sons.
The paper demonstrates that the Enlightenment versions went through extreme structural and poetic changes while still retaining the vigor and freshness of the original story.

(Criticism and Interpretation, 30 (1994), pp. 121-155)

This paper illustrates how the thematological methodology of homogeneous series, initially designed to deal with narrative prose, is equally applicable in the analysis of poetry. Three related poems are presented as a case in point. Listed in chronological order, they are: "Der Teppich", by symbolist poet Stefan George (in Der Teppich des Lebens,1899: "Ein alter Tibettepich", by Else Lasker-Schüler (first published in Meine Wunder, 1911); and "Sheti'ach Mavet" (Tapestry of Death) by Nathan Zach (in Hard to Remember, 1984).
These metaphorically loaded poems are subjected to an analysis that revolves around the key term "configuration", which signifies a formative state of motifs in transition from the level of the material to the level of literary functions (motifemes).
A comparison of these poems on the basis of the dominant configuration in each yields two folkloristic channels of narrative symbolism: spinning the thread of life and human destiny (AaTh 410), which is associated with birth and death; and weaving (AaTh 949; AaTh 888), which is associated with love, rescue from death, and the restoration to life.
in Zach's poem these cultural residues, which were accessible to him through German poetry, are worked out in explicit and direct reference to Lasker-Schüler's poem, and through implicit reference to George's poem (both of which elaborate on the weaving metaphor alone). The end result is a blending of the two narrative series into a single metaphoric configuration that combines spinning (death) and weaving (life and love).
In sum, the analysis of Zach's poem demonstrates: (I) the permeation of thematic narrative series into poetry; (2) the fashioning of a novel configuration by combining opposite motifs, derived from different narrative series (spinning, weaving), and rendering them in a unique lyrical form.

(Criticism and Interpretation, 30 (1994), pp. 197-217)

At the core of this article is a close analysis of Story No. 187 in the Basel Mayse Bukh of 1602, popularly known as "Elchanan the Jewish Pope". The story tells of a Christian maid who kidnaps Elchanan, son of Rabbi Simon the Great, and hands him over to monastic teacher. The latter give him a sound Christian education and he becomes a priest, later a monk, then a cardinal and finally the Pope. However, he knows he is Jewish. One day he summons his father, reveals himself to him and after sharply criticizing the Christian faith, he leaps from a tower and becomes a martyr. The tale is closely related to the international motif index AaTh 671 ('A Boy Pope' or 'The Three Languages'). A comparison of the Jewish story with the version in Christian folklore tells us a great deal about the specific intentions of the Mayse Bukh story. Outstanding in the Jewish version is the exposition where we learn that the father possessed a wonder mirror, one which in this instance, however, did not reflect light and did not help him find his son. This surely hints at the limitations of the father's magical power, and also at the inner contradictions in Ashkenazic Jewish culture - magical wisdom versus the values of traditional scholarship.

(Chuliot, 3 (1996), pp. 33-57)

"Rabbi Amram's Coffin" is a story found in the Old Yiddish Mayse Bukh (first edition Basel, 1602). The present thematological study examines this relatively rare attempt to judaize a Christian story of the death of St. Amram, a semi-historical 7th-century figure who was tortured to death and buried in Regensburg; a church was erected over his grave. The Jewish variant relates a similar tale of Rabbi Amram of Cologne who asked to be interred in Worms and a boat magically carried his body to Mainz (in another variant: to Regensburg) and the Christians built a church over his grave. The Jews of the city stole the corpse and buried it according to Jewish law. This tradition of conflict between Christianity and Judaism over ownership of a holy place and over hagiographic legend also inspired Yosef Opatoshu's Eyn tog in Regensburg ('A Day in Regensburg') (1933), a novel which expresses contemporary facets of an age-old struggle between conflicting cultures.

(Chuliot, 4 (1997), pp. 121-140)

Ninth- and tenth-century versions of the midrasbic (homiletic) tale on the tempting of Mattiah b. Heresh, a Tanna who resided in Rome after the proscriptions of Hadrian, describe the exemplary figure of a sage with a glowing countenance who totally abstained from any contact with women and spent entire days in study and good deeds. The devil, who envied Mattiah, appeared before him in the guise of a beautiful woman and tried to tempt him. Fearing lest tie should succumb to temptation, the Tanna pierced out his eyes with a red-hot nail. The Lord rewarded him for successfully standing to the test by healing his blindness and freeing him from the bonds of all evil impulses.
Greco-Roman and Christian mythological motifs point to this story as being "foreign" to early midrashic literature, In fact, the way in which later versions were adapted, in the fifteenth and sinteenth centuries (especially in early Yiddish), seems to reflect a tendency to "adopt" this story and incorporate it anew into the moral social ethos of Jewish society, This clash between the anti-mythological religious telos and the social telos shaped the modern versions of the story in the works of M.J. Berdyczewski, B. Krupnik and S.Y. Agnon. From this tension between the two we may be enlightened as to how modern Jewish life relates to the early midrashic literature, and how it was absorbed into Hebrew literature throughout the ages.

(Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore, 19-20 (1998), pp. 345-363)

This paper explores the transformations of the motifeme 'Pearl inside a snake's mouth' as it is shifted from one cultural universe to another. The pearl itself is a universal symbol of light or enlightenment In the given configuration, it is the snake that acquires different connotations in the different cultures.
The gnostic 'Hymn of the Pearl' (first century) tells how the release of a pearl from a snake's captivity results in the enlightenment of reason. The gnostic religion spread its influence over large geographic areas, and its rich imagery became an important source of inspiration for both folklore and literature. Several hundred years later a passage appears in the Midrash (the Tanhumah and Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliezer), describing Jonah inside a fish with a pearl shedding light all around him. The text is fairly close to the gnostic hymn in that the pearl symbolizes light in the midst of dark isolation from God. The early Christians interpreted Jonah's situation inside and outside the fish as analogous to being in and out of Satan's captivity, and therefore as a typological model of baptism and spiritual redemption.
In contrast with Judeo-Christian culture, which fights the snake, far-Eastern culture is at peace with the snake/dragon. This is illustrated by a Chinese tale about Chi Liang, minister of the kingdom, who cured a wounded snake; the grateful snake gave him a pearl in return. The pearl is so bright that when installed in the emperor's palace, darkness disappeared, and night turned to day. This tale suggests the comple- mentary nature of the pearl and the snake. The latter is portrayed as a beneficent donor, the blessed source of energy.
In mediaeval European folklore the snake is guardian of a treasure; it either helps discover the treasure or must be forced to surrender it. These folklore elements are reminiscent of man's desperate struggle for survival against the destructive yet awe-inspiring forces of nature.
Bialik's 'Legend of Three and Four', Version 2, marks yet another phase in the development of the given motifeme. Here aquatic symbolism is closely connected with the pearl and the snake. The pearl is associated with the beloved woman emerging from the sea and she, in turn, is reminiscent of Aphrodite rising from the depths (Hesiod's Theogony), later to be identified with the pearl and pictured with her feet resting on a shell (so beautifully captured in Boticelli's painting). As to the snake in this story, like its far-Eastern counterpart, it is definitely a positive figure, although its import is not spiritual but bio-erotic.
The paper concludes with the broad implications of these specific developments for a combined study of folklore and literature.

(Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore, 13-14 (1992), pp. 181-203)