Rabbah Bar Bar Hana - Fantastic Adventures

Fantastic Adventures

The other group of the narratives of Rabbah bar bar Hana includes his fantastic adventures on the sea and in the desert. In these stories one of the most conspicuous figures is the Arab who was the guide of Rabbah and his companions on their journey through the desert. This Arab knew the route so well that he could tell from the odor of the sand when a spring was near. The travelers passed through the desert in which the children of Israel wandered for forty years, and the Arab showed Mount Sinai to Rabbah, who heard the voice of God speaking from the mountain and regretting Israel's exile. The Arab likewise pointed out the place where Korah and his followers had been swallowed by the earth, and from the smoking abyss Rabbah heard the words, "Moses is truth and his teachings are truth, but we are liars". He was shown the gigantic bodies of the Israelites who had died in the desert, lying face upward, and the place where heaven and earth almost touched, so that he could watch the rotation of the heavenly spheres around the earth in twenty-four hours.

Rabbah's stories of his adventures on the sea resemble tales of other navigators concerning the immense size of various marine animals. As an example the following one may be cited: "Once, while on a ship, we came to a gigantic fish at rest, which we supposed to be an island, since there was sand on its back, in which grass was growing. We therefore landed, made a fire, and cooked our meal. But when the fish felt the heat he rolled over, and we would have drowned had not the ship been near". Here the resemblance to the later voyage of Sinbad the Sailor is obvious. Rabbah himself tells how his tales were received. In regard to two of them his colleagues remarked, "All Rabbahs are asses and all bar bar Hanas fools". Rabbah's stories have called forth an entire literature; in addition to the numerous commentaries on the aggadahic portions of the Talmud that dwell by preference on these accounts, more than twenty essays interpreting and annotating them have appeared in various periodicals.