Who is Tzimzima HaMalka (Shabbat, samech gimmel, amud aleph), the Persian queen?

kol tuv, Reuven Yaakov HaLevi

The tradition quoted by Rehavah in the name of R Yehudah on top of Shab 63a regarding the cinnamon trees (?) used in the Temple, and that were destroyed when the Temple was destroyed, ends by saying that a small bit remains in the "bei giza [so the mss] de-tsimtsimaei malketa."

(a) The Arukh, Rashi and others take the word before malketa as a proper name, assuming a Sassanid (? Parthian? Roman?) queen by the name of Tsimtsimaei [Artscroll and Steinsaltz translate accordingly]. R. ZH Chajes suggests possibly Zenobia of Palmyra (ca 270 CE), referred to in Yerushalmi Terumot 46b (clmn. 252 in the Akademya's ed). [For biography of her, see the entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica or in wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenobia ]

This would make some sense in the passage inasmuch as 1) R Yehudah lived in the time of her reign so could theoretically be transmitting some sort of authentic tradition from the palace archives. She might have overtaken the archives from the Roman ones from 70 CE when she overruled Jerusalem 2) Palmyra was a spice trade center so that a spice used in the ketoret ritual would very much be desired to be kept as a memorial etc.

However, the issue is whether the form of the name as it appears now in the Talmud (mss evidence is virtually identical) could have been so corrupted from the expected spelling of Zenobia as to appear in its current form and whether the name indeed corresponds to that queen.

(b) On the other hand, (a view in the Maharsha and) M. Jastrow takes the word not as a proper name but something like "rarities/curiosites" etc. [And Soncino and Neusner translate accordingly] Prof. M. Sokoloff, another contemporary linguist, is uncertain of its derivation and meaning but probably leans against a personal name as well. And in fact, the Munich 95 ms of the Bavli has the phrase as "de-tsimtsemaei DE-malketa" which probably reflects the tradition of assuming it is NOT a proper name. (Of course, the other mss do not have the second de- so it is unclear how much one can make of that form). The issue, then, is which "queen's XXX archives" does the tradition refer to? (and what exactly is XXX ["tsimtsimaei"]?)

And, more significantly, does the historical possibility here trump linguistic expertise or vice versa?

Now, assuming the answer to this question is at all recoverable for us today, before ruling out Zenobia completely, one would probably have to check the Roman histories, since she ultimately ended up as a Roman captive.

But the person most likely to be able to "pasken" in this case is Prof Daniel Sperber of Bar Ilan who lives in Jerusalem. I will try to get in touch with him.

Kol tuv,

Bi-derishat shelom Tsiyon u-venotehah uve-tsipiyah li-teshu`ah me-et Mena.hem Tsiyon u-Voneh Yerushalayim

Yisrael Dubitsky

Librarian, J.T.S., N.Y.C.