domains bring those classes themselves and the whole idea of classification under question.”15 Riddles may be viewed as ambiguous elements that threaten the integrity of the system—as an aggressive form of discourse, a view that explains the ritual restrictions placed on it. Not surprisingly, as anthropological studies have shown, the boundaries of riddling games are marked and defined.16 Yet riddles also demonstrate the flexibility of a cultural system that has the ability to mediate between diverse, and even opposed, categories. Accordingly, riddles can create new categories in which to place the things to which the images refer—the solutions to the riddles—classifying them according to salient attributes that nevertheless might not previously have been seen as possible criteria for categorization.17 Since the ability to create categories is central to the cognitive aspects of adaptive learning, riddles are paradigmatic examples of the process by which this ability is acquired.18 In a similar fashion, it can be argued that riddles offer a concrete demonstration of the various ways in which things in the phenomenal world interrelate. In this, the riddle may be viewed as encapsulating the notion of culture as a unity of the diverse.19 A complementary view is that the riddle channels energy. That energy, which could be potentially harmful for the community and its values, finds its expression in a non-damaging, and even psychologically supportive, form. The riddle creates a world of conflict that is resolved within the framework of a game. The solution leaves unresolved, once the game is over, the actual social, cultural, and existential conflicts external to the riddle game.20
As I mentioned earlier, the mixing of categories that riddles entail explains their subversive, nonconformative, and aggressive qualities. Yet, like the carnival, these very same qualities enable riddles to function as an outlet and diversion for these destructive forces, thus supporting the authority of the culture that produces them. Even so, for its poser, the riddle is unequivocally aggressive—he (or, as in the present case, she) gains power by sowing confusion while making use of the wit proper to this form. This aspect should not be overlooked in the analysis of riddles embedded in a riddling situation, where a riddler and an addressee are explicitly mentioned. In this case, the riddle is not directed at the readers, and they are not required to solve it. Rather, the riddle is embedded in another discourse, in a plot. It is a riddling tale. And the fact that the riddling situation is surrounded by a different form of discourse bears, as we shall see, other implications.
In ancient and modern cultures, both Jewish and non-Jewish, riddling is often associated with wedding rituals. A riddle in the midrashic discourse may thus evoke matrimony, intensifying a story’s erotic subtext—as is the case in the midrash about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.21 Why are riddles associated with weddings? It could be because the form itself is erotic: “It is structured to bring the separated together, to connect the disconnected.”22 From a more socially pragmatic perspective, riddles are presented at weddings, which join a couple and the members of their families. Posed, as they are, within the clear boundaries of a riddling game, they thus offer relief from the tensions that underlie the situation: the psychological, cultural, and economic tensions between the families, as well as the erotic tension between the couple.23 Furthermore, weddings are the expression par excellence of kinship laws, laws that serve as the founding categories of social organization. Since riddles may imply that any act of categorization is arbitrary, the analogy between the riddle and the wedding framework in which it is performed suggests that kinship laws are arbitrary, too, just like other forms of social categorization. Hence the riddle provides an outlet for defiance of the very foundations of culture (kinship laws) but also mediates between this defiance and the forms of actual social organization.
Akin to the riddle, though different, is the wisdom question. Its solution is based on prior knowledge of the subject or of scripture.24 Wisdom questions, too, are not prevalent in the Jewish tradition prior to Midrash Mishle. It is, however, worth mentioning the few instances in which they appear, which constitute an additional possible model for our midrashic text.
The Babylonian Talmud tells us of Rabbi Yehoshuʿa’s confrontation with sixty citizens of Athens, in which he offered irrefutable answers to their questions (bBekhorot 8b). In another place in the Talmud (bTamid 72b), we learn of a similar confrontation of wisdom questions between Alexander the Great and the elders of the Negev.25 From a synchronic perspective, the organizing pattern of Pseudo–Ben Sira (roughly a contemporary of our text) is that of wisdom questions. The situation in which a man stands before a ruler and answers his questions is a predominant literary format in Arabic (and other Eastern) literature of the time. One such example occurs in the eleventh chapter of the fable cycle Kalila and Dimna, where a dialogue between a king and one of his sages advances the plot. The Kalila and Dimna cycle was translated from Pahlavi into Arabic in the eighth century (and into Persian in the tenth) and was known among the Jews.26 It seems, therefore, that we cannot rule out the possibility that this Eastern dialogical fabula-model influenced the riddle dialogue in Midrash Mishle.27
The Co-Texts
The Biblical Story
The story in Midrash Mishle is an elaboration of the biblical story, where we are told of the Queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon (1 Kings 10:1–13; 2 Chron. 9:1–12).28 The biblical story is obscure. The biblical text specifies a reason for the queen’s visit: “to test [Solomon] with riddles”; but the questions are not given in the Bible. What the Bible does provide is a detailed description of the wealth and grandeur of the two sovereigns and of the gifts that they exchange. This detailed catalog of riches, combined with the terse description of the actual meeting, produces a curious distribution of information regarding the facts of the visit. We are told that the queen “came to test him with [riddles]…. When she came to Solomon, she asked him all that she had in mind. Solomon had answers for all her questions” (1 Kings 10:1–3). After seeing Solomon’s wisdom, wealth, power, and the high regard in which he is held, the Bible says that “she was left breathless” (10:5). Something happened there, but what?
The midrashic story seeks to answer this question by filling in the gaps that are typical of biblical poetics.29 For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that the story lies at a juncture between two central themes in the Bible’s account of Solomon’s character. On the one hand, he is portrayed as the wisest of men;30 on the other hand, the Bible emphasizes Solomon’s fascination with foreign women. The price paid for this transgression was heavy: his kingdom was split, and his heirs ruled only Judah.
The Queen of Sheba is a foreign woman who comes to test Solomon’s wisdom. In this respect, the biblical episode in 1 Kings 10 presents Solomon as a wise man but also as one who is able to resist and overcome a foreign woman. The biblical narrative provides erotic hints in the description of the encounter (“she came to prove him … she came to Jerusalem … she came to Solomon”): the verb “to come” (ב-ו-א) frequently bears sexual connotations in the Bible.31 The narrative even creates a pseudo-matrimonial background by elaborating on the exchanged gifts as if they were a dowry, and possibly through the association between riddles and wedding ritual. It is therefore impossible, as the midrashic reading points out, to overlook the erotic tensions that arise in the story itself. Nor can one ignore the tensions underlined by the position of this episode in the sequence of events that outline Solomon’s character. Our story appears at a critical turning point of his biography. He has already attained an international reputation as a wise and powerful king, and he stands on the verge of his descent into pagan worship, succumbing to his foreign wives.
The biblical story is a necessary co-text for understanding the text in Midrash Mishle. It leads to an understanding of the riddling situation and of the riddles themselves, in view of the two central themes dominant in Solomon’s character: he is the wisest of men; yet he is a man (male) of notorious weaknesses. In addition, this co-text exposes the Queen of Sheba’s double role: she is a foreign potentate but also a foreign woman and thus, by implication, a potential future bride.32 The story in Midrash Mishle ends with the queen’s blessings, with her acknowledgment of Solomon’s greatness, and, above all, with her recognition of his God, Who made him king. The midrashic story omits the exchange of gifts. This omission may be explained in various ways: the gifts could be associated with