Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz. Elisheva Baumgarten

scholars Eliezer b. Joel haLevi (Ra’aviah) and his younger contemporary, Judah the Pious, also fasted for two days of Yom Kippur. Ra’aviah wrote about individuals who abstained from meat for the three-week period before the fast on the Ninth of Av, more than doubling the normative nine-day restriction.⁷⁰ We have additional evidence of leading twelfth-century rabbis in northern France who fasted regularly.⁷¹ Isaac b. Samuel of Dampierre (known as R”I, ca. 1100–ca.1178) is known to have fasted almost every Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, as well as on personally selected days;⁷² Isaac b. Joseph of Corbeil was also known for his asceticism. At critical times in the year, such as the Sabbath before Yom Kippur, some texts suggest that only prominent scholars were qualified to fast.⁷³

      These intensive fasting practices linked to the Jewish calendar—such as fasting on the Sabbath, on Rosh haShanah, on two days for Yom Kippur, throughout the Ten Days of Repentance, for the fast of the firstborn preceding Passover,⁷⁴ and during the months of Av and Elul⁷⁵—all have late antique precedents. In medieval Ashkenaz, the fasting practices that Babylonian authorities sought to curtail seem to have emerged with renewed rigor.⁷⁶ For example, Eleazar of Worms explained that fasting on Rosh haShanah was commendable since it was inappropriate to feast when the Lord’s table was empty. His comment suggests that fasts were food for God, recalling the sacrificial dimension of fasting we noted above.⁷⁷ In the late thirteenth century, Samson b. Tzadok exclaimed wistfully: “If only all of Israel would fast on Rosh haShanah!”⁷⁸ Medieval Ashkenazic rabbis were supporting practices that were commonplace in late antique Palestinian texts, even though Babylonian sources were in greater circulation in Germany and northern France.⁷⁹

      Figure 5. Prayers for Monday and Thursday fasts. © The Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University. MS. Mich. 569 (1098), fol. 49a. Siddur, thirteenth century.

      The inventory of fasts related to the annual calendar provided a baseline to which individual and ritual fasts were added. Whereas Jews in late antiquity fasted Mondays and Thursdays⁸⁰ as part of their supplication for rain, medieval European Jews in northern France and Germany modified that practice to fasting on Mondays and Thursdays during Iyar and Heshvan, which reflects the lesser dependence on seasonal rains in their locales.⁸¹ In addition, the medieval Ashkenazic pattern of fasting also included the whole month of Elul and the Ten Days of Repentance (forty consecutive days).⁸² Moreover, fasting on Mondays and Thursdays during the shovavim (designated weeks in winter) became customary in medieval Ashkenaz.⁸³ This practice was ritualized by a blessing that was recited on the Sabbath prior to a Monday-Thursday-Monday fasting series: “May the One who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, bless this community that commits itself to fasting on Mondays, Thursdays and Mondays and to attending this synagogue every morning and evening. May God (haMakom) hear their prayers, accept their fasts, and save and redeem them from all hardship and adversity together with all of Israel. Amen.”⁸⁴

      In medieval prayer books (siddurim), this prayer⁸⁵ sometimes appears with the word “individual” (yahid) as a gloss or inserted in the text, an indication that although these fasts were fixed in the calendar, they were exercised by individual choice rather than communal obligation.⁸⁶ If more than ten men fasted on a single day, the liturgy was augmented with a special Torah reading and liturgical poetry (piyyutim). The inclusion of collected liturgical poems in medieval prayer books signals that they were regularly recited.⁸⁷ Furthermore, fasting was often complemented by charitable contributions.⁸⁸

      Ominous events also prompted communal fasts. Numerous reports of responses to peril describe the entire community fasting at such times, including children and sometimes even toddlers. The following account of the Jews of Trier in 1096 serves as an example:

      And in those days, they fasted many times and abstained; they atoned and gave charity. They fasted for six weeks, day by day, from Passover until Shavuot, and every evening they scattered coins for the poor. They were taxed four times and for each libra of tax payment, they gave a denarius for protection. When that was not sufficient (payment for protection), the bribes multiplied until they had given all of their property, even the shawls⁸⁹ on their shoulders.⁹⁰

      Figure 6. List of fasts. From North French Miscellany. © The British Library Board. Ms Add. 11639, fols. 683v, 684r. Northern France, late thirteenth century.

      Other communities fasted when they were under attack and during various commemorations.⁹¹ For example, a well-known description of the Blois Affair of 1171 concludes by stating that the Jewish communities of France and the Rhine all established that day as “a day of mourning and fasting, as a result of their own desire and the instructions of our rabbi, the Ga’on, Jacob b. Meir (Rabbenu Tam, ca. 1100–1171)—who wrote books informing them that it was fitting to designate this as a fast day for our entire people, a fast that will surpass the fast of Gedalyah b. Ahikam in importance because it is a Day of Atonement.”⁹² The institution of commemorative fasts continued throughout the Middle Ages, as when the Talmud was burned and during the Black Death.⁹³

      Medieval sources also document communal fasts that were induced by concerns and sensibilities beyond the calendar cycle and imminent danger. These fasts point to motivations from self-discipline and self-torment to penance. Textual instructions for fasting illustrate the many ways to observe a fast, from not eating at all to partaking of specific foods refraining from others. Ephraim Kanarfogel has analyzed a fascinating community fast as preparation for conjuring the soul of a dead man. In response to a father who had been unable to attend the funeral of his murdered son, Rabbenu Tam and Elijah of Paris are reputed to have permitted the use of the Tetragrammaton to resurrect the image of the deceased:

      Isaac said: It happened that twenty-year-old Elijah, son of Todros, was killed in his home city. His father was away when he was buried. Upon his return, the father refused to eat or drink until the great rabbis of his time, Jacob of Ramerupt and Elijah of Paris, would allow him to conjure his son’s image by using the Divine Name…. They ultimately granted him permission to do so. He then bathed, immersed, dressed in white, and then, [along with Todros,] the entire community fasted on Thursday and went to synagogue.⁹⁴

      Here we see personal and communal fasting as preparation for summoning the dead youth’s soul. The father prepares for this ritual most intensely, by immersing then dressing in white, but the community joined him in fasting and accompanied him for the actual ceremony.

      Like their ancestors in late antiquity, medieval Jews fasted for personal reasons without community involvement.⁹⁵ In the Middle Ages, the practice of fasting after a bad dream was maintained, but with more ritual complexity: the fast was initiated by an announcement and chanting a set group of verses in the presence of three male witnesses, and while fasting the “dreamer” would refrain from grooming in the form of shaving or hairstyling.⁹⁶ This fast was thought to prevent the omens in that dream from reaching fruition.⁹⁷ Despite talmudic debates over their appropriateness and ge’onic restrictions on their applicability,⁹⁸ observance of these fasts on the Sabbath continued throughout the Middle Ages in Germany and northern France. Medieval Ashkenazic authorities tried to balance opinions that discouraged such Sabbath fasts with those that favored them: thus it became customary to nullify fearsome dreams that occurred before the Sabbath by fasting on the Sabbath and to make amends for that very fast by refraining from eating on Sunday.⁹⁹

      Fasts were also taken on to mark a wide array of personal decisions, physical transitions, and life-cycle junctures. As in late antiquity, brides and grooms fasted on the day of their wedding,¹⁰⁰ a gesture that resonated with the biblical description of Daniel’s preparation for revelation. Medieval sources mention fasting as an expression of regret after insulting a fellow community member¹⁰¹ and after drinking wine produced by non-Jews.¹⁰² As