Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz. Elisheva Baumgarten

      

      Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz

      JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS

      Published in association with the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania

      David B. Ruderman, Series Editor

       Advisory Board

      Richard I. Cohen

      Moshe Idel

      Alan Mintz

      Deborah Dash Moore

      Ada Rapoport-Albert

      Michael D. Swartz

      PRACTICING PIETY IN MEDIEVAL ASHKENAZ

      Men, Women, and Everyday Religious Observance

      Elisheva Baumgarten

      UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

      PHILADELPHIA

      Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the Herbert D. Katz Publications Fund of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

      Copyright © 2014 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Baumgarten, Elisheva.

      Practicing piety in medieval Ashkenaz : men, women, and everyday religious observance / Elisheva Baumgarten. — First edition.

      pages cm. — (Jewish culture and contexts)

      ISBN 978-0-8122-4640-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)

      1. Judaism—Europe—History—To 1500. 2. Jewish way of life—History—To 1500. 3. Ashkenazim—History—To 1500. 4. Hasidism, Medieval. 5. Jews—Europe—Social life and customs—To 1500. 6. Jews—France—Social life and customs—History—To 1500. 7. Jews—Germany—Social life and customs—History—To 1500. 8. Judaism—Relations—Christianity—History—To 1500. 9. Christianity and other religions—Judaism—History—To 1500. I. Title.

      BM290.B38 2014

      296.7094'0902—dc23

      2014006034

      Dedicated to the memory of our grandmothers:

      Frances Feder Karp (1906–1970)

      Ella Fischer Deutsch Williams (1909–1994)

      Sabina Baumgarten Berkowitz (1909–2004)

      Margot Darmstädter Seeligmann (1916–2010)

      CONTENTS

       Introduction

       Chapter 1. Standing Before God: Purity and Impurity in the Synagogue

       Chapter 2. Jewish Fasting and Atonement in a Christian Context

       Chapter 3. Communal Charity: Evidence from Medieval Nürnberg

       Chapter 4. Positive Time-Bound Commandments: Class, Gender, and Transformation

       Chapter 5. Conspicuous in the City: Medieval Jews in Urban Centers

       Chapter 6. Feigning Piety: Tracing Two Tales of Pious Pretenders

       Chapter 7. Practicing Piety: Social and Comparative Perspectives

       Abbreviations

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgments

Figure 1. A stork in her nest. From North French Miscellany. © The British Library Board. Ms Add. 11639, fol. 325v, detail. Northern France, late thirteenth century.

      Introduction

      R. Judah said: The hasidah is a white stork. And why is she called hasidah? Because she shows kindness (hasidut) to her companions.

      —BT Hullin 63a

      This is a white bird, cygonia,¹ and why is she called hasidah? Because she acts with kindness (hasidut) unto her friends with food.

      —Rashi, Leviticus 11:19, s.v. “hasidah”

      The talmudic passage above offers an etymological explanation of the Hebrew term for stork (hasidah) by connecting the stork’s behavior to the word hesed (kindness) and its derivative, hasidut (piety).² During the Middle Ages, the famous French commentator Rashi (Solomon b. Isaac of Troyes, d. 1105) understood the stork’s kindness through her custom of voluntarily distributing food to her friends, an act of sharing that was in no way obligatory (see Figure 1). Other commentators provided alternate interpretations for her gentle behaviors, such as allowing others to tread on her and showing mercy to her friends.³ Moving from animals to humans, the adjective hasid (pious) and the noun hasidut are used in Jewish texts since late antiquity to describe forms of religious behavior and fervor, as well as individuals known for their devotion to God.⁴

      This book presents a social history of pious practice, focusing specifically on the Jewish communities of northern France and Germany during the High Middle Ages. In Practicing Piety, I wish to revive the sense of piety implicit in Rashi’s comment and to examine pious observances in their social settings, among medieval Ashkenazic Jews and the cultural currents in which they were immersed. For the purpose of this study, I have defined the term “pious” broadly, ranging from acts that were seen as unusually devout to practices that can be seen as a dedicated fulfillment of one’s religious obligation. By focusing on social practices and the ideas they expressed, I have aimed to capture the religiosity of Jews whose modes of observance are far more accessible to us than their convictions. Throughout the book, I contend that these acts were no less critical to the development