Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz - Elisheva Baumgarten Jewish Culture and Contexts

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fast as one component of their process of returning to Judaism.103 In addition, a narrative in one thirteenth-century manuscript tells of a woman and her husband who fasted before a much-feared confrontation.104 Thus fasts were undertaken for a wide variety of reasons.105

      Not only adults but also children fasted. They are explicitly mentioned with women and men in certain contexts for fasting, particularly during community-wide fasts after traumatic communal events106 and on annual fast days.107 Rashi notes that children who had reached the “age of education” (gil hinukh) should fast, recommending nine or ten years as the appropriate starting point.108 Rashi’s grandson, Jacob b. Meir (Rabbenu Tam), also addressed this subject when queried on his opinion of especially pious people109 who not only refused to feed their own young children (who were under the age of education) on Yom Kippur but who also claimed that parents who fed their young offspring on that day were transgressing the law. In his reply, Jacob b. Meir supports parents whose children ate and drank on Yom Kippur, refuting the arguments posed by the more stringent members of his community.110 thirteenth- and fourteenth-century sources acknowledge that some parents instructed their children, boys and girls, to fast from a very young age even though that practice exceeded halakhic guidelines.111 Despite assertions that such fasting was not only unnecessary but potentially dangerous for young children, an undercurrent of approval for this approach to fasting persisted.112

      While there is little need to detail men’s practice as a specific category given that the sources above feature men as the primary population that fasts, it is significant to highlight the select texts where women’s fasts are explicitly mentioned,113 many of which are listed by Bitha Har-Shefi in her research.114 Women, like men, fasted as individuals and with the community; for example, their fasts followed the annual calendar during the Ten Days of Repentance115 and the Fasts of Gedalyah and Esther.116 Admittedly, “one (ehad) [who]” is the protagonist in the stories that are regularly told of paradigmatic man.117 Yet, as mentioned earlier, this use of the masculine singular form represents the rhetorical norm, whereas women are specifically mentioned in circumstances that pertain to them exclusively118 or where a woman is the primary subject. This literary pattern is represented in the famous case of a businesswoman who asked Rashi if she were required to observe the Fast of Esther when it coincided with her work-related travel.119

      Fasting among women is notably recorded when a mother and father fasted together as part of their shared concern for their sick child or when the family was separated due to travel,120 as when

      someone departed from the city where his father and mother dwell, if his journey is considered dangerous—and his father and mother are worried about his welfare, whether or not they have elected to fast on his behalf—it is his duty to hire a messenger as soon as possible to send a letter notifying his father and mother that he is out of danger, having arrived safely to his destination, and that they should neither worry nor fast any longer.121

      What motivated these parents to fast? They were clearly moved by a desire to petition for their child’s welfare, yet they also were working from a belief that their own suffering would help secure his safe transit. Thus fasting could convey piety and supplication simultaneously. The parallel mention of the mother and father in this source signals its depiction of a standard practice.

      In the rulings attributed to Peretz b. Elijah (Rabbenu Peretz, d. 1297), one source discusses whether it is permissible to commit oneself to a fast and then postpone it. This sage was asked: “About a woman who said, ‘I will fast today.’ Can she delay it to the morrow for her sister?”122 He responded that although one may defer a fast, it was unwarranted in this situation. Notwithstanding the vagueness of this case—it is not clear whether the woman sought to postpone her fast because of her sister or if she was in fact fasting on her sister’s behalf—this text offers no indication that a woman fasting was considered exceptional. The relationship between accepted practice and exceptional piety is imprecise in these cases, for these fasts were part of the established routine, yet I would suggest that frequency and intensity rather than the observance of fasting per se was what had social and religious significance.

      The writings of Meir b. Barukh of Rothenburg are replete with references to fasting, including men and women who committed themselves to Monday and Thursday fasts and then wished to delay or cancel their vows.123 Meir of Rothenburg tells of a woman who planned to fast on Mondays and Thursdays, but she was unsure of the procedures involved.124 His response too was gender neutral.

      Mordekhai b. Hillel (1250–1298) relates the case of a woman who was allowed to pause between two fast days rather than fast consecutively. She had fasted on the Sabbath on account of a bad dream. Typically she would have been expected to fast on the following day (Sunday) to atone for fasting on the Sabbath; however, she could not. Thus Asher recalled precedents from similar cases: “Samuel of Bamberg allowed a woman to fast on the Sabbath on account of a dream. But she was not able to fast for two days in a row, so he allowed her to fast on two separate days of the week, neither being the Sabbath. And Eliezer of Metz also ruled the same way.”125

      Gender plays no apparent role in this case. This woman could not fast as planned, so she sought rabbinic guidance to resolve her dilemma, no more and no less.126 In other instances, fasting among women became a subject of halakhic discussion when conditions unique to women—be they biological or social—were at the heart of the queries being raised. From the Talmud onward, halakhic texts exempt pregnant, post-partum, and nursing women from fasting on Yom Kippur.127 This explicit release implies that women were otherwise expected to fast as members of the community. A responsum by Haim Paltiel (thirteenth century) illustrates the nexus of the quotidian nature of women’s fasts and the exceptions that may arise. Here a woman took on the obligation to fast, then immediately discovered that she was pregnant. Haim was asked how she could annul her vow and he detailed the procedure for her.128 Like other medieval texts, this opinion provides a common explanation for the prohibition against fasting during pregnancy—as a potential cause of miscarriages that must be avoided.129 Unfortunately, it offers no background for the motivation behind this woman’s fast.

      Fasting, Repentance, and Atonement

      The evidence of these Jewish men and women who fasted and their motivations for fasting presented up to this point has been varied. Although fasting was commonly attributed to conspicuously pious individuals,130 I suggested the qualities that determined piety were often the degree and frequency of practice, rather than the deed being performed. Thus the stringently pious fasted alongside community members who followed more conventional approaches in accordance with the calendar cycle and personal circumstances.

      Much as fasting on Yom Kippur was seen as a form of self-denial on the path to atonement, individual fasts were also understood as a means for repentance. Numerous sources describe fasting as a substitute for the sacrifice that would have been offered during the Temple period to atone for a given sin.131 Penitential fasting was certainly not unique to medieval or Jewish culture. As noted above, fasting had already been linked to atonement in biblical and rabbinical literature. For example, a talmudic interpretation of “When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years” (Gen. 5:3) in Tractate Eruvin describes Adam fasting after being exiled from Eden: “Meir said, ‘Adam was a hasid.132 When he recognized that death was ordained as a punishment on his account, [Adam responded by] fasting, avoiding sexual relations with his wife,133 and wearing fig leaves for one hundred thirty years. That statement134 was made to offset semen that he accidentally emitted.’ ”135

      According to this passage, Adam tried to atone for having sinned—whether defined as the actions that led to his exile from Eden or the emission of semen—by fasting.136 In fact, it could be argued that repentance has been a consistent motif in Jewish fasting throughout history, in terms of individual practice and communal observance. For example, on communal fast days such as Yom Kippur, confession is a component of the public prayer service that is understood as a fulfillment of the biblical injunction to recite a personal confession (vidui). However, the concept and

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