Some Jewish Rushdies

by Eliezer Segal

News Item: February 1989 — The Iranian Muslim religious leadership declares its determination to assassinate British author Salman Rushdie for allegedly blaspheming the prophet Muhammad in his book The Satanic Verses. Rushdie begins a period of prolonged concealment.

Aside from the shock it has evoked among Westerners, the controversy surrounding the Ayatollah Khomeini’s threats against Salman Rushdie has also tended to evoke a certain condescending smugness among members of other religions, as if to say “We are above such narrow-minded intolerance.”

From the perspective of Jewish history I cannot think of a precedent for an author being put to death for his writings. Though blasphemy is undoubtedly a capital crime in Jewish law, as with other categories of capital offences the procedure was defined so narrowly as to make it virtually impossible to implement. The sort of in absentia sentence declared by Khomeini could not have been passed by a Jewish court.

Furthermore, Jews have tended to approach the heroes of their past with considerably more familiarity than is considered acceptable by Muslims. Traditional Midrashic literature has not refrained from criticizing biblical figures; and the sort of fun-poking that we encourage on Purim seems very alien to the straight-faced fundamentalism that characterizes the Islamic response.

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Extraneous Works

Nonetheless, the notion of a banned book is not alien to Jewish tradition. In the course of our history, a variety of books have been declared religiously or morally unacceptable, and either forbidden for reading or consigned to destruction. The list is a fascinating one.

Talmudic literature speaks of a category of “extraneous” books (sefarim hitzoniyim), warning that those who read them will forfeit thereby their place in the World to Come. As an example of such “extraneous” works reference is made to the Book of Ben Sirah, a work composed in Hebrew around 180 B.C.E., very similar in spirit to the biblical Book of Proverbs.

In fact, the work is cited with some frequency in the Talmud, and it is hard to discern anything objectionable in it. Surprisingly, the same talmudic passage that bans Ben Sirah declares that the works of Homer, in spite of their obvious pagan character, may be read for pleasure.

The Book of Ben Sirah has been preserved in Greek translation (usually called Ecclesiasticus). It was Solomon Schechter’s identification in 1896 of a manuscript fragment from Egypt as part of the Hebrew original of Ben Sirah that inspired him to recover the remains of the famous Cairo Genizah (a centuries-old repository of discarded Hebrew writings), one of the major landmarks in modern Jewish scholarship. Since then the Dead Sea Scrolls have furnished us with additional portions of this banned Hebrew masterpiece.Among the earliest works to be condemned by Jewish law were Christian scriptures, including the New Testament itself. Thus, the sages of Yavneh (around 90 C.E.) discuss the proper fate of the Gilyonim (“blank sheets”) a derisive word-play on Evangelion: Should they be burned in their entirety, or ought the sacred names of God be removed beforehand? All the authorities are in agreement that the books themselves are to be destroyed.

As we move into the Middle Ages, we find that among the more distinguished Jewish authors of banned books was the great 12th century rabbi and philosopher, Moses Maimonides. Many of his contemporaries, especially in France, felt that his interpretation of Judaism in accordance with Aristotelian philosophy was too radical, and threatened to undermine traditional belief. Maimonides’ opponents in France denounced the Guide to the Perplexed to the Church, which ordered copies to be burned in the public squares of Paris in 1233.

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Poetic Works Forbidden 

The reasons for banning a book were not confined to theological difficulties. Moral concerns also came into play.

For example, in describing the sort of reading that is appropriate for the Sabbath, the Shulhan Aruch forbids Jews to read the works of “Immanuel.” The personage in question is not identified by the standard commentators, but is well known to students of Hebrew literature. He is indeed one of the most colourful Jewish figures of the Italian Renaissance, the poet Immanuel of Rome (1261-1330).

Immanuel, a contemporary of Dante, was a typical sort of bohemian poet, wandering about the Italian towns looking for part-time work (often as a synagogue secretary) or–better still–for generous patrons.

He was responsible for introducing the sonnet form into Hebrew poetry. He composed his own Hebrew tour of Heaven and Hell in the style of Dante’s Divine Comedy. He also appears to have penned the earliest version of the Yigdal, the rhymed version of Maimonides’ Thirteen Articles of Creed that has become one of the favourite hymns of the synagogue.

In a manner typical of his age, Immanuel had no qualms about mixing the sacred with the extremely profane. Much of his poetic output is downright lewd, going on, at sometimes tedious length, about his erotic conquests and graphic appreciations of female anatomy. In one sonnet he muses that, given the choice, he would prefer to be sent to Hell, because that is where all the beautiful women are to be found.

As noted, Jewish law as codified in the Shulchan Aruch has forbidden the reading of Immanuel’s verse. The fact that such a prohibition was felt necessary does of course testify to Immanuel’s popularity as reading material for leisurely Shabbat afternoons. To the best of my awareness however, no Jewish religious authority went so far as to order Immanuel’s assassination.

Cultures and traditions are normally judged by the literary works that they have produced and honoured. Nonetheless, it is not entirely inappropriate to characterize them also by those works which they have banned and condemned.

My email address is: [email protected]

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Endings and Beginnings

by Eliezer Segal

In February [1989], I reached a landmark of sorts in my Jewish life— completed study of the entire Babylonian Talmud, a project that took me about six years.

Having done so, I have been giving some thought to how this task has affected me personally, and about the strange love affair between the Jewish people and this strangest of literary creations.

I don’t recall exactly when I first decided to make the commitment to make it through the Bavli. I had in the past taken on some similar obligations. One year it involved reading through the whole of Rashi’s classic commentary on the Torah, subsequently graduating to the more expansive one of R. Bahya. More recently, I had made it through the Mishnah (using the readable modern Israeli explanation by Pinhas Kahati). The Babylonian Talmud seemed inevitable.

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“Daf Yomi”

About sixty years ago R. Meir Shapira of Lublin, one of the leading Orthodox communal activists of his generation, originated the idea of having the whole Jewish world simultaneously studying one leaf of the Talmud every day. At that rate the entire work could be completed in approximately seven years.

For reasons no longer clear to me, I developed my own accelerated schedule, according to which I would add an extra folio on Shabbat, the holidays and the days preceding them.

Owing to limitations of intellect and time, I restricted myself to the “basic” level embodied in Rashi’s standard commentary. I am utterly dumbfounded at minds that are able, when studying at such a pace, to delve further into the infinitely profound strata of understanding that the Talmud does contain.

I did not follow the “official” schedule of the Daily Talmud Page (Daf Yomi) that has become so popular among every-broadening circles in the Jewish religious world. I allowed myself to follow my own interests as the spirit moved me, or as appropriately portable versions came to hand.

This last remark may sound strange, but it should be noted that the luxurious folio volumes with gold-leaf bindings that we usually associate with Talmuds are not very convenient for day-to-day use demanded by my lifestyle. I don’t know if anyone has yet tried to study the effects of photo-offset miniaturization on the study habits of Jews, but I would venture to estimate that there has been an appreciable increase in the hours devoted to traditional religious study now that versions of the classical texts are available that can be read, albeit with considerable eye-strain, on buses, under one’s work desk or at odd moments of leisure.

For my part, I find myself overwhelmed by the geographical associations that are evoked by totally unrelated debates on abstruse topics in Jewish religious law. One tractate conjures up associations with the Shi’ite village in Lebanon where I studied it during my Israeli army reserve duty; another page I plodded through while waiting in a queue at Disneyland; still another I read just before my first job interview at the University of Calgary. I imagine that these personal associations will be forever attached to their respective sugyas (topics).

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Why the Talmud?

At some level of consciousness, I was constantly coming back to a basic question: Of all the great classics of Jewish religious literature, how did it happen that the Babylonian Talmud, a technical work of esoteric and often irrelevant legal argumentation, became the most popular text among such broad segments of the Jewish masses (often to the consternation of leading rabbis of the time)?

The conventional answers, that point out the religious motivation underlying Talmud study, don’t seem to hold water. There are any number of Jewish classics, from the Bible to the products of the 19th Century Musar (moralistic) movement, that offer much more immediate religious inspiration and fulfilment.

Nor is the Talmud a real guide to day-to-day practice. Talmudic reasoning thrives on unlikely theoretical possibilities, and I doubt that more than 10 percent of it relates directly to any problems likely to be encountered by normal people.

Contrary to widespread opinion, while the Talmud is a work about law, it is not a book of laws. If you really want to know what to do, ask your Rabbi or look it up in a code of Jewish law like the Shulchan Aruch. Frankly, I am repeatedly amazed at how little my Talmudic study has equipped me to actually decide practical questions of Jewish law.

Quite the contrary, the Talmud goes out of its way not to offer direct answers. One of its basic premises is that two or more mutually contradictory positions can both be defended. Also, that no proof–even of a view that you know to be correct–is to be accepted unless it does actually prove what it’s supposed to.

Someone who has been brought up on this kind of intellectual diet will not easily be taken in by the various simplistic and fundamentalist ideologies that are constantly being thrown at us. This would appear to be a basic value of Jewish education: that it is more important to teach people how to think than to give them set and facile answers. That is what Talmud is about.

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Talmud as Sport

But there is much more, much more than I can hope to get into within the space limitations of this article. Let me at least raise one point that I do not feel has been emphasized sufficiently. I will illustrate it with an example.

About a dozen years ago, when Israeli television still had a sense of humour, there was a very funny satirical program called Nikku’i Rosh–Head-Cleaning.

One episode was built on the premise (then considered fanciful) of what would happen if the religious political parties had control of television. Alongside black-coated versions of various detective thrillers and situation comedies, the producers presented their version of what the sport broadcasts would look like. They brought the viewers into a yeshiva where a group of Talmud students were arguing back and forth, metaphorically thrusting forth with proof-texts and defending with logical counter-argument.

It turned out that the author of that segment, a well-known left-wing activist, was in fact a yeshiva graduate. He had really caught the point. Historically speaking, talmudic study has been the national sport of the Jewish people!

The modes of argumentation are exciting and challenging in a way that non-initiates cannot really appreciate. Yes, the secret is out. The reason Jews have been studying Talmud for so many generations is not only because of religious commitment, not out of idealism, but-because it’s fun!

The Talmud leagues are now accepting rookies. Try a few innings; it can be contagious.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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Judaism and Ecology

by Eliezer Segal

As spring struggles to assert itself in Alberta I am reminded of the charming blessing ordained by Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, to be recited upon viewing the seasonal blossoming of the trees:

Blessed are you, our God, King of the Universe, who has left his world lacking in nothing, and has created in it goodly creatures and fine trees to give pleasure to humans.

Nature exists, according to this b’racha, “to give pleasure to humans.” On the surface, this would seem to be a fairly innocuous and inoffensive perception. However it takes on a more problematic dimension for me when viewed in the light of a recent conversation I had.

One of my students at the University of Calgary approached me some weeks ago visibly concerned over a passage in the Torah.

In the original Hebrew, she asked me, what is the force of the divine order issued to the first man and women in Genesis 1:28, “…replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creeps on the earth.”

Are the King James-ish “subdue” and “have dominion” stronger than the intention of the original text?

Though I anticipated the reasons for her discomfort, I had little consolation to offer on that particular point. Indeed, the Hebrew roots are considerably more uncompromising than the English, carrying connotations of military conquest and subjugation, even (at least in modern Hebrew) tyranny.

This passage has not been very popular with environmentalists, who have frequently blamed our current environmental plight on such scriptural passages which they feel arrogantly relegate nature to a role of a plaything to be exploited for the fulfilment of human need or greed.

I recognized that my student, in this instance, was seeking a way of deflecting some of the blame. Restricting myself to the immediate question, I was unable to supply one.

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A Different Reality

It could be argued that biblical monotheism saw itself consciously opposed to any theology that overly glorified Nature. The essence of pagan religion was usually in the way that it deified natural forces. The vilified cults of Ba’al, Ashtoret and their companions were probably more in tune with the rhythms of nature; by contrast the Israelite deity was a God of history and morality, who occupied a place above the natural processes.

Having said this, I cannot help but feel that I failed to give my student a sufficiently rounded picture of what is, after all, a complex issue.

Central to any assessment is the recognition that, however wise and relevant our ancient sources are, at times they reflect a reality that is fundamentally different from our own. Here too we should take care not to lose our historical perspective.Our forefathers were an agricultural folk. So if we do accept as a fact that Judaism is consistent in placing human interests above the natural world and in urging the exploitation of nature for human convenience, this should by no means necessitate a negligent attitude towards either the environment or natural resources. The desire to keep the world clean and fruitful is justified by the most selfish of interests: you cannot exploit what is no longer around.

More importantly, even if one should have wished to ruin the ecological balance, pre-industrial technology simply did not have the means to produce such destruction. Until the present century not even the most perverted of intentions would have succeeded in destroying the ozone layer, saturating our food with harmful chemicals or polluting the Alaskan coastline. The kinds of issues that we associate with environmentalist policies were quite unimaginable two hundred years ago.

Nevertheless without a great deal of ideological fanfare, Jewish tradition has generally approached these questions with characteristic practicality, often impelled by a hard-headed self-interest.

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A Practical Approach

To take a well-known example, Deuteronomy 20:19 orders the conquering Israelite armies, when besieging Canaanite cities, not to needlessly destroy the fruit trees from which they will later have to eat. Out of this practical advice the Talmudic Rabbis elaborated the prohibition of bal tash-hit which extends the ban on wastefulness to include other foodstuffs, clothing, fuel and water, or any other useful resource.

This utilitarian approach to environmental care was particularly pronounced in the area of “urban planning.” For instance, the Torah orders that the cities of the Levites be surrounded by park areas as well as agricultural lands.

The medieval Spanish Sefer Ha-Hinnuch asserts that the biblical provisions for Levitical cities are to be regarded as a divinely sanctioned ideal. Accordingly the Mishnah insisted that recreational parkland is essential for the “quality of life,” and laid down as law that areas that had been designated for parks could not be utilized neither for residential construction or cultivation. Rashi observes that the aesthetic quality of a city demands the allotment of open recreational areas.

The ancient Rabbis were well aware that in order to make life livable for the citizens of a town, restrictions must be placed upon the types of industries that are allowed to be set up there. Some of the clauses in Mishnah Baba Batra have a distinctly modern ring to them:

A permanent threshing floor must be distanced at least fifty cubits from a town (to prevent damage from the chaff in the air)…. Carcasses, graves and tanneries must be distanced from the town at least fifty cubits (because of their foul and unhealthy smells). A tannery can only be set up to the east of a town (since in Israel the wind blows almost exclusively from the west)…

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Causing Harm

Talmudic literature over the generations has dealt in great detail with such actual problems as air pollution, often in the form of harm caused by smoke drifting from one person’s property into his neighbour’s. It has done this in general without much theologizing, but as an extension of the basic laws of damages–nobody has the right to cause unnecessary harm or discomfort to his neighbour’s person or property.

There are, of course, instances where acts do not necessarily bother specific contemporary individuals, but are judged to threaten the long-term health of the environment or resource supplies. I am not aware of such issues being raised in rabbinic literature (probably because they did not exist before recent times), though I am confident that the Rabbis would have dealt with them by extending the above principles to include long-range as well as immediate damage.

In general, Jewish tradition seems quite aware of our dependence on our natural environment, and has set down concrete measures for ensuring its physical continuity as well as its quality. All this was done in the consciousness that God did indeed create in his world “goodly creatures and fine trees to give pleasure to humans.”

Let’s go out and appreciate the creation, and ensure that it will continue to be around to give us pleasure.

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First Publication: 

• The Jewish Star, May 26 1989.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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Jesus on My Mind

by Eliezer Segal

As a staff member of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Calgary, my duties include the teaching of introductory courses in “Western Religions,” including Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Coming to North America with a specialized Israel training in Jewish Studies, I was at first quite daunted by the prospect of having to teach Christianity to classes that consisted largely of Christians. In a reputed “Bible belt” like Alberta I anticipated some friction with fundamentalist students, and I recall assuring my first class that since I could not expect to avoid offending somebody, I would at least try to offend everybody in equal proportions.

In researching the material for my courses I became more and more overwhelmed by the feeling that as a Jew I had a different perspective on the text than was standard in the Christian world. I felt that these records were largely internal Jewish documents, saturated in the realities of first-century Eretz Israel and full of allusions to a variety of political, religious and halakhic questions.

The subjects are familiar to those who have been brought up in the literature and lifestyles of Talmudic Judaism. But could they possibly mean anything significant to someone from outside the fold of traditional Judaism?

Closely related to these thoughts was the conviction that Jesus was after all a Jew, no less so than any of the other assorted Jewish sectarians, reformers and revivalists who proliferated during the Second Temple era, and had relatively little connection with the religion that was to build up around him.

I was aware that the above approach, which draws a sharp division between the actual teachings of Jesus and the religion called Christianity, is fairly conventional in historical studies of early Christianity, which have long distinguished between “the historical Jesus” and “the Christ of faith.” I was, however, unsure to what extent such a perspective had filtered down to the level of the undergraduate classroom.

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Sharing a Jewish View

In the three years that have elapsed since those initial hesitations I have come to realize that much of what I had thought was a peculiarly Jewish slant on Christian history has come to be part of the standard presentation current in universities and liberal seminaries.

Christians have also become very sensitive to several points that have given offence to Jews. Thus, it is now common to find non-Jewish writers employing the neutral dating system B.C.E. / C.E. (Common Era / Before Common Era), rather than the theologically loaded B.C. / A.D., which translate respectively as as “before the messiah” and “year of our Lord,” and presuppose the messiah-ship and divinity of Jesus.

Our Bible is also referred to in these circles as the “Hebrew Bible,” or even “Tanakh,” rather than as “Old Testament,” which implies the existence of a superseding “new” testament.

On a more substantive level, the first generations of Jewish Christians are depicted as a “Jesus movement” within Judaism, rather than as a distinct religion. A possible indication of this tendency to distinguish between the teachings of Jesus and the religion of Christianity is to be found in the fact that textbooks on Christianity rarely devote more than three pages to Jesus’ life or teachings. Christian scholars have been taking the trouble to study the classics of rabbinic literature in order to understand Jesus against the background of his contemporary Jewish society.In general, then, Christian scholarship has been very careful to dissociate itself from the more glaring anti-Jewish versions of Jesus’ life. The most virulent attacks, they argue, should be seen as reflections of the intense rivalries between Jew and Christian in the generations following Jesus’ time when the Gospels were being composed. The Gospel of John, perhaps the most vocally anti-Jewish work in the New Testament, is sometimes regarded as an embarrassment to liberal Christians, and we rarely hear them making sweeping references to “the Jews” as a monolithic entity.

Ironically, in trying to minimize the differences between Jesus and his Pharisaic contemporaries it is not uncommon for scholars to veer to the other extreme. Having combed talmudic literature and discovered hundreds of rabbinic parallels to Jesus’ teachings, scholars find themselves at a loss to discern any significant difference between the two. If Jesus was really so much like the Pharisees then why the big fuss about him?

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The “Poor Carpenter” 

In spite of this general willingness to discard traditional anti-Semitic stereotyping, there are a number of details that have attached themselves to Jesus’ biography, which make assumptions about Jews and Judaism that are much more subtle, though no less disturbing. In some cases, we have become so accustomed to these details, that they strike us as perfectly innocent–until we see the uses to which they are put (as I have learned from listening to my students and reading their essays).

For example, who is not familiar with the description of Jesus as “a poor carpenter?” Taken by itself this assertion sounds perfectly obvious and harmless. Beneath the surface however lurk some troubling implications.

The first problem that comes to mind is that the New Testament itself does not indicate anywhere that Jesus was regarded as poor. In the context of Galilean Jewish society at his time–a community composed largely of small olive and grape farmers and seasonal field workers–a carpenter would have been considered a very comfortable and mobile profession.

The fact that such an unfounded “aggadic” detail is added to the traditional Christian perception of their founder need not trouble us of itself. It certainly is in keeping with other documented aspects of Jesus’ teaching which emphasize his appeal to the lower classes and social outcasts.

But here too we must recognize that, from the perspective of Jewish society, “outcasts” were not necessarily poor. Quite the contrary, Jesus seems to have been antagonizing his contemporaries largely because of his over-familiarity with the wealthy tax farmers (“publicans”), Jewish collaborators with the Roman occupiers who became rich off the sufferings of their countrymen.

Jesus’ alleged poverty takes on more disturbing overtones when used in such contexts as, “the learned Jewish scribes did not wish to listen to the preaching of this poor carpenter from Galilee.” The implication is clearly that a Pharisaic scholar could not have been a carpenter, poor or otherwise.

Aside from the fact that this is simply untrue–the Jewish sages at this period in history were normally craftsmen and field workers, and Jewish law then prohibited accepting payment for religious instruction–one wonders what the authors of such statements imagined that the Pharisees did do for their livings.

From my own experiences with students, I have often discovered that beneath such innocent-sounding sentences is likely to be lurking a classic medieval anti-Semitic stereotype. The Pharisees, according to the unarticulated presumptions of otherwise well-meaning Christians, must have been wealthy bankers, business executives, or (Lord preserve us!) university professors!

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Pioneer Feminist?

A similar cliché that I have been encountering quite frequently (and not only from students) has it that “The Pharisees were shocked that Jesus spent so much time in the company of women.” Once again the implication is that “real” Jews were hostile to women and that Jesus thereby takes on the appearance of a pioneer feminist.

Here again the least of the difficulties with this thesis is the fact that it is not supported by any New Testament sources. Christian scripture is not reticent about listing Jewish objections to Jesus, and had this been an issue it would undoubtedly have been mentioned somewhere.

It is evident that what we have here is another instance of twisting the evidence in order to present Judaism in a disadvantageous light. The truth is of course that neither Jesus nor the Pharisees seem to present a very consistent picture as regards their attitudes to women. In either case one can easily produce texts or interpretations to support both sexist and egalitarian readings.

The above instances should alert us to how deep and complex are the roots of Christian anti-Semitism–and I do not wish to imply by any means that equivalent factors do not colour our own attitudes towards Christianity. Even with the most sincere of intentions, and even with the progress which has been made, it will prove very difficult to eradicate the unconscious strata of anti-Jewish feeling that have grown up over the centuries.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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The Day of Judgement

by Eliezer Segal

The portrayal of Rosh Hashanah as a “Day of Judgement” dominates the liturgy and customs of the holiday season. As the tradition perceives it, between the New Year and the Day of Atonement God sits in judgement over all mankind to determine our fates for the coming year.

This symbolism is drawn upon to great effect by the authors of the piyyutim, the liturgical poems composed to enhance the statutory prayers of the season. The Jewish people, alongside the rest of humanity, are depicted as standing in a divine court-room, pleading for mercy.

If judged according to the merits of our case, we all deserve punishment. Our only hope is to persuade God to suspend the laws, or to remind him of outstanding favours owed to our forefathers.

In describing the atmosphere of the court, the rabbis and poets based themselves upon settings that were familiar to them. The court-room is of course a well-trodden venue of Talmudic Judaism and provides a wealth of details that can be elaborated in sermons and piyyutim.

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No Lawyers 

It is therefore most surprising to find that the court scenes that appear so prominently in rabbinic midrash and prayers as models for God’s judgment of mankind are, for the most part (for reasons that are not entirely evident to me), not Jewish courts at all, but Hellenistic and Roman ones.

This fact becomes clear when we look at some of the procedural terms that are mentioned. In many of the texts, we read of debates between a sanegor and a kategor–a prosecuting and defending attorney. These are none other than the synegoros and kategoros of the Hellenistic judicial system.

In our sources the position of kategor is often filled by angels, who are believed to hold a mild grudge against the Jews for usurping Gods special favours. The job of sanegor is likely to be held by the Hebrew Patriarchs, by personified representations of the “Congregation of Israel,” by a person’s virtuous deeds, etc.

Thus, in a well-known talmudic discussion, the rabbis explain why a shofar cannot be fashioned from a cow’s horn because “the kategor cannot serve as sanegor;” that is to say, the cow’s horn, which holds incriminating associations with the Israelites’ worship of the Golden Calf, cannot properly perform its designated function of arguing the Jews’ case before the divine tribunal.

Actually, the traditional Jewish court does not permit the use of lawyers at all (though the office of “rabbinic pleader” has developed in recent years in Israel). The talmudic sources, which were familiar with the Roman court system and its susceptibility to persuasion by mellifluous rhetoric, warned the Rabbis, “Do not act like the professional pleaders” (orkhei hadayyanim). It was the judge’s job to get at the truth, without its being packaged by a professional.Nevertheless, one of the favourite High Holy Days hymns uses the same expression to designate God himself as El Orekh Din–the God who presides over judgement.

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Military Metaphors

The Mishnah also resorts to imagery taken from Roman military life when it compares God’s judgement of humankind to a commander reviewing his troops: “All the denizens of the world pass before him like a numeron (regiment).”

The terminology, taken from the vocabulary of the Roman legions, was unfamiliar to some of the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud, who took it to refer to a flock of sheep being counted by the shepherd. In this version, it entered the haunting poetry of the “Untanneh Tokef” prayer.

A conventional sign of a victorious soldier was his return bearing in his hand a baian, a palm-frond. The midrash saw in this Roman custom a fitting analogy to the Jewish taking of the lulav on Sukkot, a few days after the judgement of Yom Kippur: 

Consider two parties who go to trial before a king, and no one but the king himself knows which was declared victorious. In the end, it is evident that the one who emerges holding the baian was the victor.

Another version of this passage uses the metaphor of a triumphant chariot-racer being decorated with a wreath. So too, Sukkot is a celebration of our favourable judgement on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

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Justice and Mercy

By building upon the imagery of the Roman judicial system the midrash was able to contrast imperfect human justice with the ideal of God’s judgement.

On the one hand, unlike a mortal judge, God is not subject to error, corruption or bribery. But on the other hand, unlike most worldly judges, God’s justice has the advantage of being tempered by compassion. The human being can implore God not to decree according to the standard of law, but to temper his decision with the measure of mercy.

In later midrashim the qualities of divine justice and mercy were no longer depicted as merely ways in which God judged His creatures, but were transformed into personalities in their own right, fulfilling the roles of kategor and sanegor in the celestial court, supplying God respectively with reasons for condemning or acquitting His creatures.

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God on Trial

A feature which has typified Jews’ relationships to God from as far back as Abraham and Moses is that God can be argued with and persuaded to change his mind.

The selichot petitionary prayers recited at this time of year, in addition to expressing a contrite recognition of our sinfulness and powerlessness before God’s will, are often characterized by an aggressive “bargaining” posture. The authors “remind” God of the suffering to which we have been subjected and of the merits earned by our righteous ancestors, and ask that these factors be counted to our credit.

This pious familiarity before God, who is perceived not only as a judge but also as a patient and forgiving father, was taken to extremes by the famous Hasidic master Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev.

Known as the “Sanegor of Israel” for his insistence on always seeing his fellow Jews in a favourable light, Levi Yitzhak is said to have challenged God one Rosh Hashanah to a lawsuit–a din Torah. God, he argued, had no right to prolong Israel’s exile when other more sinful nations were allowed to live in peace and prosperity.

A grim variation on this story is recounted by Elie Wiesel in his Holocaust memoir Night, and later formed the basis for his play “The Trial of God.” On Rosh Hashanah, from the depths of their sorrow and despair, the inmates of Auschwitz called God to judgement and condemned him for allowing such evil and suffering in His world.

Both stories, that of Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev and that of the Auschwitz inmates, end in the same way. After declaring God’s guilt the accusers rise to recite the Kaddish–the proclamation of God’s sovereignty over the universe.

The point is a profound one: For the Jew, it is possible to argue against God, but not to live without him.

May all our judgements during the coming year be favourable ones.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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“In Seventh Heaven“

by Eliezer Segal

In a recent session of CBC radio’s popular morning “Eye-Opener” program, a caller asked a “good question” about the origins of the English expression “seventh heaven.”

The answer that was given referred the listener to the popular Muslim conception of Paradise, which is divided into several celestial levels, awarded according to the degree of righteousness achieved during one’s mortal lifetime.

That may very well be the channel through which the expression reached English. It should, however, be noted that the concept preceded by many centuries the rise of Islam, and has deep roots in Jewish tradition.

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The Seven Heavens

Some of the Rabbis of the Talmud had very precise ideas about the structure of the upper regions. They were presumably influenced by the fact that the Hebrew word for “heavens” or “sky” appears only in a plural form: shamayim, implying a multiplicity of heavens. Given the special role of the number seven in the Bible, it was natural that this number should also determine the arrangement of the heavens.

The Jewish sages had no trouble finding distinct functions for each of the seven levels. The heavens, mysterious as they are, affect us in many aspects of our daily life, as well as having important religious associations.

Thus, according to one quaint itemization, one heaven is required simply to screen off the light at night-time, another to store the rain and snow, and still another to house the planets. Others have more religious uses, accommodating the souls of the righteous and the unborn, as well as various levels of angels, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and the throne of God.

According to one legend, the Israelites who assembled at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah were treated to a glimpse of all seven heavens opened up above them.

The Jewish mystical tradition, as it is revealed to us in texts dating from just after the Talmudic period, turned the concept of seven heavenly levels into a key focus of its speculations. According to their imagery these heavens are actually palaces–“heikhalot“–and the task of the mystic is to ascend as high as he can until he reaches the highest level, where he will be vouchsafed a peek at the throne of God.

In this conception of multi-layered palaces the Jewish mystics were influenced by the verse in the Song of Songs (1:4); “The King [i.e. God] has brought me into his chambers,” a verse which had already been interpreted allegorically by Rabbi Akiva, the most renowned Talmudic mystic.

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The Mystical Ascent

The rules of the mystical ascent into the Heikhalot are quite complex and (as I have had confirmed by my family’s 11-year-old expert on the subject) remarkably similar to those of a video arcade game. Throughout his ascent, the mystic is being opposed by hostile angels who stand guard at every gate on the way. The opposition becomes more powerful as the levels get higher.If the mystic knows the names of the angelic guards he will be granted magical powers over them. Most important, he must collect “seals” inscribed with secret names of God, which will earn him permission to proceed still farther. He is constantly being put to tests, and a terrible fate awaits the one who fails such a test. If he does succeed in his mission he will be allowed to address questions or inquiries to the Almighty himself.

This type of mysticism also passed into Christianity. The late Gershom Scholem, the leading historian of Jewish mysticism, calls our attention to the testimony of Paul, who describes (2 Corinthians 12:2-4) how he himself had experienced a similar mystical ascent: “Whether in the body or out of it, I do not know–God knows.” Paul was caught up as far as “the third heaven,” where he “heard words so secret that human lips may not repeat them.”

Scholem argues that such climbs through the different levels of heaven were probably common among Jews of the time. 

The “third heaven” seems to have been a common stopping-point in the journey, and is mentioned in some Jewish works of the period. The Talmud relates how a group of Rabbis discoursed so impressively about Ezekiel’s mysterious vision of the heavenly chariot, that a heavenly voice was prompted to announce: “A place is prepared to you, and a table is set for you–you and your students are admitted to the third level.”

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Clash With Science

As Jewish thinkers became more familiar with science and astronomy the enumeration of seven heavens became problematic. 

According to the medieval theory there were at least ten “heavens”–concentric spheres each one containing a heavenly body (the seven known planets, the sun and moon, as well as the outer sphere housing the stars). These heavenly bodies were believed to be “separate intelligences,” incorporeal beings of pure thought, who were identified with the angels of the traditional religions.

Maimonides, in his Guide of the Perplexed (composed around 1190), tried to reconcile the apparent discrepancy between the Talmudic description and the science of his day. While asserting that the number seven could if necessary be justified on scientific grounds (since some levels are grouped together), Maimonides argues that the Rabbinic tradition should not be taken literally, but as an allegory about God’s guidance of the universe.

Though in a manner very different from the mystics, Maimonides also believed that human beings should strive to experience the higher spiritual levels of the various heavens. To the extent that an individual is capable of contemplating pure, eternal, abstract truth, he can “plug in” to the lowest of the separate intelligences. For the philosopher, such knowledge becomes the ultimate purpose of religious life.

The determination to ascend through the seven heavens has remained alive in more recent times.

The founder of the Hasidic movement, Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem-Tov, describes in a letter to his brother-in-law how, between 1746 and 1749, he engaged in a number of mystical ascents, including one where he rose higher than ever before to confront the Messiah himself, who answered various questions for him, and provided him with secret charms to facilitate future celestial visits.

Like Jewish mystics from earliest times, the Ba’al Shem-Tov used his heavenly ascent as an opportunity to ask for Heavenly intercession to ward off impending disasters that were threatening the Jews.

The expression “being in seventh heaven” is thus an extremely ancient one in Judaism. Its rich associations make it difficult for me to use the phrase glibly according to its current vernacular usage, as a mere superlative for extreme happiness.

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My email address is: [email protected]

The Meaning of Shokeling

by Eliezer Segal

The picture of a Jew swaying to and fro in prayer or religious study is one that I have long been inclined to explain on “practical” grounds. During lengthy periods of standing, it saves wear and tear on the feet. It also enhances one’s concentration. As you focus upon the book before your eyes, it is the rest of your surroundings that appear to be swaying in a vague blur, and hence you are less likely to be distracted by the temptations of the environment.

I am not aware of a fully appropriate English word to designate the action. Nor, for that matter, can I think of a Hebrew word that adequately captures the swaying motion of Jewish prayer.

It is to Yiddish that we must turn to get the precise verb, to shokel. This fact would seem to indicate that the practice has a particular association with the Eastern European milieu, and conjures up images of the Hasidic shtiebelach of Poland and Russia.

In truth however, the picture of the Jew swaying in prayer is one that has a long history throughout the Jewish world, and has often been noted by outsiders as a peculiarity of Jewish worship.

Most Talmudic sources actually seem to recommend standing straight and still while praying. These sources emphasize that one’s concentration during prayer should be absolute. From Ezekiel’s description of the angels of the divine chariot standing “with legs straight” (Ezek. 1:7), the Talmudic rabbis learned that one should hold one’s feet rigidly together during prayer.

Jewish law tended to discourage excesses of bowing and prostration, and took care to define those points in the service when bowing is allowed.

It is related nonetheless that Rabbi Akiva, when praying privately, would be left in one corner and be found later in another, because of his constant bowing and prostrations.

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The Kuzari

By the beginning of the Middle Ages the Jews of Arabia were already notorious for their shokeling–to the extent that an old Arabic poem uses it as an image to describe the swaying of a camel.

By the 11th century the practice of shokeling had come to be regarded as an identifying mark among the Jews of Muslim Spain.

Thus, we find a reference to it in one of the theological classics of the time, Rabbi Judah Halevi’s Kuzari. This famous work took the form of a philosophical dialogue between a rabbi and the king of the Khazars, a Mongol kingdom in Russia whose leaders had adopted Judaism in the 8th century.

The Kuzari, presenting a fictionalized account of the arguments which ultimately persuaded the king to accept Judaism, focuses on a variety of sober topics in the areas of philosophy, science, Torah, Hebrew language and Jewish history. Amidst all this serious theology, the Khazar king cannot resist asking his Jewish teacher why Jews move to and fro when reading the Bible.

The Rabbi begins by offering a conventionally held view: “it is said that it is done in order to arouse natural heat.”

He then proceeds to suggest his own theory: Originally, there were not enough books to go around, and ten or more individuals would have to share a single text. Each would have to bend down towards the book in order to have his turn at reading, then stand back to let others have a peek. “This resulted in a continual bending and sitting up… Then it became a habit through constant seeing, observing and imitating, which is in man’s nature.”A similar theory, current in contemporary Israeli “folklore,” explains that Yemenite Jews are often able to read books from unusual angles as a result of the dearth of books in the “old country.” Several students would have to sit around a single rare volume, each one observing it from a different direction. The story does indeed have a ring of plausibility.

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Igniting the Soul

The phenomenon of shokeling during religious study was conspicuous enough to be addressed by the Zohar, the classic of Jewish mysticism composed in 13th century Spain. The hero of the book, Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai, is asked by his students why it is only the Jews who move back and forth when learning Torah.

Rabbi Simeon begins his beautiful reply by observing that the soul of a Jew derives mystically from the Celestial Torah. Thus, through hearing a word of Torah the soul is immediately ignited like the wick of a lamp, as it is joined with its supernal source.

By swaying during Torah study, the Jew’s body is actually quivering to the flame-like rhythm of his soul. No other people, says Rabbi Simeon, possesses such a mystical connection to the divine Torah.

Christian observers were also aware of the Jewish proclivity towards shokeling. An interesting testimony to this fact can be found in the margins of a 13th century Latin manuscript of the Histories of Peter Comestor, a popular medieval retelling of biblical history.

The marginal glosses in question were composed by one Abbas (i.e. Abbot) Johannes de Brach, a figure who demonstrates an impressive expertise in Jewish as well as Christian and Greek scholarship, including a measure of familiarity with the Hebrew language.

When he reaches the description of the revelation at Mount Sinai, and to the verse (Exodus 19:18), “And the whole mount quaked terribly,” Abbot Johannes makes the following observation, “Thence it is that the Jews still quake at their prayer, representing the quaking at the mount.”

The remark sounds uncannily like a typical Jewish Midrash, though I am not aware of any Jewish source that presents such an explanation.

A very similar interpretation however is found in an almost contemporary Spanish Jewish commentary, that of R. Jacob ben Asher, known as the Ba’al Ha-Turim. Rabbi Jacob links the custom to a verse a few lines earlier in Exodus (19:16) “And all the people that were in the camp trembled.”

It is obvious, in any case, that the Jews in 13th century Europe were known for their shokeling during prayer.

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Call for Decorum

By the time we get to the 19th century the emancipated and religiously enlightened Jews of Germany have little sympathy for the traditional swaying during religious services. Shokeling is grouped with other traditional practices which are regarded as violations of the solemnity and decorum appropriate to a place of worship.

A very articulate call for religious reform, composed by Eliezer Liebermann in Dessau 1818, contrasts the typical Jewish service with that of the non-Jew: “Why should we not draw a lesson from the people among whom we live? Look at the Gentiles and see how they stand in awe and reverence and with good manners in their house of prayer. No one utters a word, no one moves a limb…”

It is perhaps significant that, according to an uncorroborated report by the historian Heinrich Graetz, Liebermann eventually converted to Catholicism.

This insistence on standing still during the service was justified by the Reformers on grounds of promoting respect and orderliness in a house of worship. Over the last two centuries it came to be linked with a number of related changes in the structure of the synagogue service.

Thus, for example, we now find a widespread use of professional cantors, rather than lay prayer leaders. The bimah is moved from the middle of the sanctuary to a stage-like structure at its front. The cantors begin to turn towards the congregants, instead of leading them by facing in the same direction.

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Congregation as Audience

All these changes, which became particularly widespread in North American Judaism, have legitimate historical precedents or aesthetic justifications. Taken together, however, they produced a common outcome: to place the congregation in the role of an “audience,” passively observing as someone else conducts the service for them.

Sociologists and historians of modern Judaism have generally understood this phenomenon as a recognition of the fact that significant proportions of the American communities are no longer knowledgeable enough to participate actively in the services. This fact serves at once to reflect and promote alienation from the community.

In fact one recent sociological study of American synagogue life found that careful observation of different patterns of shokeling reveals some remarkable differences between different groups within the Jewish community. One can note distinct variations between the swayings of men and women, modern and traditional orthodox, and even between parents and their yeshivah-educated children. 

Perhaps the humble, much maligned act of shokeling, wherein individual Jews, moving their bodies to a private rhythm as they commune with their Creator, is the ultimate act of protest against being relegated to religious passivity. As recognized by Jew and Gentile alike over the ages, it represents something that is integral and unique to traditional Jewish religious life.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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January 1st

by Eliezer Segal

All Jews living in the Christian culture of western society must have felt the discomfort that comes with standing on the sidelines while our neighbours celebrate their holidays at this time of year. Most of us are diligent about respectfully disassociating ourselves from the obvious religious implications of Christmas.

The “civil” New Year, on the other hand, appears to be another matter altogether. This is a day that does not have any denominational message, a mere symbolic commemoration of the start of a new year in the calendar that we all use in our day-to-day lives.

When we look back to the talmudic sources we find that our ancient rabbis make explicit reference to New Years, whereas the celebration of Christmas was, as far as I know, quite unknown to them.

The passages in question speak of the Roman festival of the “Kalends,” that is, the Kalendae Januariae (etymologically related to our English word “calendar”), which was celebrated as the New Year in Roman times. The day is mentioned in the Mishnah (Avodah Zarah 1:3) as part of a list of various Roman festivities on which Jews are required to avoid doing business with the pagans so as not to add to the worshipper’s pleasure or appear to be showing honour to their idols.

Though they were aware that these festivals were being observed throughout the Roman world, the talmudic sages were not always clear about their purposes and origins. They offered some interesting suggestions about how the Kalends came to be and why it was celebrated in the way it was.

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Adam’s Celebration

One assumption that the rabbis frequently held was that pagan religion was somehow a corruption of authentic biblical traditions which had become misunderstood with the passage of time. Accordingly the Talmud would look for precedents for the respective holidays in the actions of the ancestors of these nations, including figures such as Esau (he was, according to rabbinic tradition, the progenitor of the Romans) or Adam, the father of all mankind.

Following this premise, for example, the Talmud records that the Egyptians’ cult of Serapis had originated in their veneration of Joseph. Another source relates how the Egyptians had come to worship the ibis birds because Moses had used them in his military campaigns against the Ethiopians. Many similar instances of this phenomenon could easily be adduced.

A comparable approach was used by the prominent third-century Babylonian teacher Rav to explain the origin of the Roman New Year. According to Rav’s account it was Adam, the first man, who had instituted the Kalends.Since in the very first year of his life he had no way of knowing the cyclical seasonal changes that occur in the lengths of the days, Adam became very disturbed when the first winter began to approach and he saw that the days were getting shorter and the nights longer. He began to fear that the day was being consumed by a cosmic serpent, and that the pattern would persist indefinitely until daylight disappeared altogether.

This dread continued to trouble Adam until the arrival of the winter solstice, when the pattern began to reverse itself and the days began to lengthen. At this point, relates Rav, Adam–in an allusion to what would become known as the Kalends–exclaimed Kalon dio, a Greek phrase which has been construed by assorted modern scholars as meaning, “Praise be to God,” “Beautiful day” or “May the sun set well.”

From that day onward, the Talmud concludes, the day of the solstice has been observed by Adam’s descendants, thought the original reason may have been garbled in the transmission.

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A Mythological Motif

Another noted talmudic Rabbi, Yohanan, proposed a different explanation of the origin of the Kalends. According to this version the story has nothing to do with biblical history, but goes back to a heroic exploit in Roman history.

Once, during a war between Rome and Egypt, the two sides, recognizing the futility of continued combat, decided to award the victory to whichever general would agree to sacrifice his life by falling on his sword. The Roman general, an old man named Januarius, was persuaded to pay the ultimate price when he was assured that his twelve sons would be honoured with noble titles as dukes, hyparchs and generals. After he had performed the heroic deed, they renamed the day in his honour “the Kalendes of Januarius.”

It would appear the Rabbi Yohanan has interpreted the New Year Festival as a purely national holiday without any objectionable religious connotations. A closer look at the story however reveals some clearly mythological motifs.

For example, the twelve sons bear a suspicious resemblance to the twelve months of the year that are being renewed at this point in time.

The general Januarius reminds us of the two-faced Roman divinity Janus who is actually being honoured on this day and who gives his name to the first month.

According to some scholars Janus was originally worshipped by the Etruscans as a god of Light and Day–a connection which fits in very nicely with Rav’s legend of Adam and the shortening days. As a two-faced deity, Janus was believed to look simultaneously at the past and the future, and hence he was selected as the appropriate god for the new year.

Though a similar account of a King Janus is recorded in a later Christian source, that story is certainly not referring to an actual historical event. Some scholars have explained that underlying Rabbi Yohanan’s account is an old myth about how the ancient god Janus, the father of Time, died to make room for his twelve sons, the twelve months.

Presupposed by all these Talmudic explanations is the firm conviction that January 1st is not merely a Roman civil holiday, but a pagan religious celebration.

By participating in its festivities, Jews would be showing honour to idols and to their most hated enemy, the “Kingdom of Wickedness,” Rome.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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The Shabbes Goy

by Eliezer Segal

A popular perception that is encouraged by modern apologists for traditional Judaism as well as by its opponents portrays Jewish religious law, halakha, as a static corpus that has remained unchanged through the vicissitudes of history.

For anyone who has a closer familiarity with Jewish sources it is clear that this has never been the case.

The halakha, as the principal expression of Jewish religiosity throughout our history, has served as a means by which Jews have interacted, as individuals and as a community, with the realities of life. Halakha does indeed have a history, which is integral to any complete understanding of the Jewish past.

No one has succeeded as well in chronicling the story of Jewish law as Prof. Jacob Katz of Jerusalem. His life’s work, which has earned him the prestigious Israel Prize for Jewish History, has taken him through the dry-looking tomes of talmudic commentaries, Jewish law codes and rabbinic responsa, in order to unearth new insights into the religious and social history of the Jewish people.

What distinguishes Katz’s research is the broad variety of perspectives which he brings to bear on the material. He does not confine himself to explaining the legal argumentation. He also interprets it from the context of religious and intellectual history, and as an indication of the workings of Jewish society and economics through the ages.

The current study shows Katz at his finest.

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No Benefit

The Yiddish phrase chosen for the title of his book is in itself a reflection of the problematic nature of its topic.

The rich Hebrew-Aramaic lexicon of Jewish legal discourse does not have a term to designate the phenomenon under discussion: the employing of non-Jews to perform tasks that a Jew himself cannot perform because of the Sabbath or other ritual restrictions. Although modern Hebrew has coined a phrase, Goy shel Shabbat, used as the title of the Hebrew original of this book, that expression is simply a translation of the Yiddish term.

The fact is that Jewish law, as reflected in the Talmud, is quite clear on the point that, just as a Jew is forbidden himself to perform acts of labour on the Sabbath, so is he prohibited from benefiting from work that is done for his sake by a Gentile.

Though the prohibition was generally regarded as being of a somewhat lower degree of stringency (of rabbinic rather than biblical origin) and it is subject to some exceptions–in emergencies, for the performance of important religious precepts, in certain types of partnership or contract relationships–is was nonetheless a fact of Talmudic law.Popular practice tended to regard the restrictions from a different perspective. The common people tended to view the Sabbath in a narrow, ritualistic sense, as a set of “taboos” that only affect the behaviour of individuals, but do not prevent Jews from benefiting from actions that are performed for them by Gentiles.

To Curb or To Cope

The greater part of Katz’s study focuses on the medieval and modern communities of central and eastern Europe. More than their Sephardic counterparts, the Ashkenazic rabbis attached considerable weight to the established customs of their communities, even when the prevalent practice seemed to conflict with the Talmud.

The rabbis would often propose bold re-interpretations of the relevant talmudic passages, seeking to expand the options for permissive rulings. For example, Rabbi Jacob Tam, always a halakhic maverick, argued that the very act of earning a living is in itself a religious mitzvah that can serve as grounds for bending the restrictions.

Much of the book consists of meticulous descriptions of the ways in which halachic scholars coped with the popular tendency to employ Gentiles to do jobs that they themselves could not do.

In some instances this involved straightforward prohibitions. More often, the rabbi would suggest an alternative way of making the situation more acceptable, often through the use of legal fictions such as a formal sale of a business along the lines of the practice used for leaven on Passover.

In most of the cases, it seems that the rabbis were looking for ways to grant retroactive sanction to practices that they could not curb. One of the most commonly repeated phrases in the book is the talmudic dictum, “Better that they should sin inadvertently than by intention,” a testimony to the resigned frustration felt by halakhic authorities unable to make their communities conform to the real demands of Jewish law.

The important questions debated by the rabbis relate, for the most part, to economic rather than domestic life. Jews would find themselves involved in businesses that had to remain open on Saturday, either because they were contracted to the government or because the employees were Christian and the five-day work week was yet undreamed of.

In addition to the legal questions involved, Katz uses the halakhic materials to paint a fascinating picture of the economic activities pursued by Jews, especially in the modern era. But to this reviewer’s mind, the most interesting sections of this book are those that describe the complex considerations that guided the Orthodox leadership in the polarized Jewish communities of 19th century Russia and Hungary.

The Enlightenment and the Reform movement were making strong inroads, and the Orthodox rabbinical authorities realized that their decisions could not be made simply on the merits of the cases. A ruling that was too lenient could be viewed as a concession to the forces of change, while excessive stringency was likely to alienate those who were sympathetic to the tradition, but would find it financially onerous to close their businesses for two days a week.

The rabbis who were consulted tried first to ascertain where the questioners stood ideologically. The general tendency was to choose the stricter options, a decision which seems to contribute to the decline of Orthodoxy in these communities.

In general, this readable book can serve as a model for how the study of halakha can open a window to a dazzling variety of issues in the history of Jewish society and religion.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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A Cigarette and a Cup of Coffee

by Eliezer Segal

In reading these days about how Ottawa is adding ever-more stringent restrictions to the marketing of cigarettes in Canada, my mind tends to stray to the “good old days” of 20 or 30 years ago when people could enjoy their simple physical pleasures, before we were educated to the fact that just about everything is injurious to our health.

Traces of these changes can be discerned in traditional Jewish lifestyles as well. Judaism has generally encouraged people to enjoy the pleasures of God’s world, and it comes as no surprise that from the first discovery of tobacco, questions begin to blossom forth from the halakhic codes and responsa regarding such matters as its possible use in the havdalah ceremony at the conclusion of he sabbath, where a blessing is customarily recited over a fragrant herb or spice.

Those of us who have prayed in old-style Ashkenazic shuls will certainly have memories of the passing around of a snuff-box during the Shabbat services. Somewhat more disturbing is the widespread custom still in vogue in Hasidic circles in Israel, of encouraging young children to smoke cigarettes on Purim.

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Holy Sparks of Tobacco

The Hasidic movement has always cultivated a special attachment to the pleasures of nicotine. This is of course entirely consistent with their general philosophy of accentuating the simple joys of life, especially those that appealed to the lower classes of society. As with many other such folk practices, however, smoking came to be looked upon by Hasidism as a religious ritual in its own right, and a mystical one at that!

This point is emphasized in a recent study by the distinguished English Judaica scholar, Louis Jacobs.

In his article, Jacobs traces the mystical theme of the “uplifting of the sparks” as developed in the literature of the Kabbalah.

According to this conception, our world consists of a mixture of holy sparks scattered among profane “shells.” The goal of Jewish religious life then becomes one of elevating the hidden sparks by performing everyday activities and religious rituals in awareness of their mystical importance.

This idea was given special prominence in the doctrines of Rabbi Isaac Luria (known as the “Ari”) and the mystics of 16th-century Safed, and was inherited by the Hasidic movement in 18th century Russia and Poland.

Jacobs notes how the early Hasidim applied this mystical doctrine to the act of smoking. The Hasidic fondness for cigarettes was well-known, and became the target of criticism from their opponents, the “misnagdim“. The Hasidim justified their habit on theological grounds. Smoking was after all a way of elevating the holy sparks.

Some Hasidic masters were conscious that a special privilege that had been granted to their own generations: Tobacco had been unknown to the great “Ari” himself, “because the time had not yet come for the very subtle sparks in tobacco to be released by smoking.” But now that almost all the coarser sparks had received their restoration, God sent us tobacco so that the Hasidic masters should elevate these “new” and subtle sparks!It was told of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov, the founder of the Hasidic movement, that he once waxed enthusiastic about a student who interrupted his prayers by stooping to retrieve his fallen pipe. The Baal Shem-Tov justified this apparent breach of decorum by explaining that there are subtle souls who can only achieve their perfection through this most ethereal of substances.

The Ba’al Shem-Tov went on to compare cigarette smoke to the “sweet savour unto the Lord” exuded by the sacrifices, and to the incense that was burned in the Temple.

As Rabbi Jacobs understands this story, it alludes to the Kabbalistic belief in reincarnation. Some righteous souls cannot bear to return to earth unless they are allowed to reside in tobacco.

One wonders how many such souls continue to hover over the Calgary bingo halls.[2]

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Midnight Vigils

Another recent study attempts to trace a connection between the Jewish mystical tradition and yet another injurious habit, the drinking of coffee. The current issue of the Association for Jewish Studies Review contains a fascinating article on this theme by historian Eliott Horowitz of Beersheba.

The very origins of coffee-drinking, Horowitz notes, are rooted in mystical practices. The beverage was evidently introduced by 15th-century Muslim mystics (Sufis) in Yemen as a means for producing the wakefulness necessary for their nightly devotional exercises. In Jewish mystical circles caffeine performed a similar function.

The practice of midnight vigils in mourning for the destruction of the Temple, and in prayer for its rebuilding (known as Tikkun Hatzot), was popularised by Rabbi Isaac Luria’s circle of mystics in the second half of the 16th century. Such rituals had been known before, but only now did they achieve widespread acceptance.

Horowitz suggests that this fact should be understood in connection with another piece of information, mentioned in a responsum of Rabbi Moses di-Trani: Coffee was at this time being introduced to that part of the world, and at least one coffee-house is documented as existing in Safed by 1580, whose clients were known for staying there well into the night (though not for prayer or mystical devotion).

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The Caffeine Connection

This raises the question: Are we justified in suggesting a correlation between the two phenomena? Does the sudden increase in the popularity of the midnight vigil, a custom which had been introduced with little success centuries before, have any connection with the recent availability of coffee in Safed?

Horowitz tests this hypothesis by trying it out on another historical setting, that of 17th and 18th century Italy. Here, as distinct from Safed, there existed a strong local pietistic tradition of Shomerim la-Boker, i.e., rising before dawn for penitential prayer.

As the currents of Lurianic Kabbalah began to reach Italy from the Holy Land, devotees made efforts to introduce the Tikkun Hatzot into communities like Venice and Mantua–with no immediate success.

It was not until the mid-17th century that the Lurianic midnight vigils began to achieve widespread acceptance, at the expense of the Shomerim la-Boker societies. Over a relatively short period of time, the Mantua Shomerim la-Boker club, a venerable and once-populous organization, quietly disappeared from history for want of members. Similar patterns characterize other communities.

The reason for this change? Of course there are many considerations to be taken into account, but the introduction and spread of coffee-drinking seems to make an appearance here at the crucial time: the first coffee-house was established in Venice in 1640, but the drink remained a rare luxury there until the turn of the century. Consumption of coffee became common during the first half of the 18th century (and Jews were prominent in its commerce). Now they were able more easily than before to stay awake at night. This is precisely the time when the Tikkun Hatzot achieved dominance and the Shomerim la-Boker faded into oblivion.

No, we are not suggesting that either tobacco or coffee are habits to be encouraged by Judaism now that we are aware of their dangers to health. What we can however appreciate from the above examples is that a religion does not develop without interacting with the surrounding environment, and that Judaism has always had a special talent for discerning the religious significance of even the most profane activities.

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My email address is: [email protected]

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