ABSTRACT
Rabbi Judah’s writings are peppered with narratives, short and long. This is most evident in his summa, Sefer Hasidim, a work he composed for the religious guidance of his followers. It contains almost two thousand thematically arranged passages of biblical commentary, rabbinic homily, and exemplary tales. To Rabbi Judah and his medieval audience, communication with spirits of the dead, visions, and dreams of divine import were reality, not fantasy. To a modern reader, in contrast, they are fantasies in a twofold sense: first, they run counter to our sense of reality; second, even the religious and literary universe reflected in these narratives is, for us, a creation of the imagination.
