Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz. Elisheva Baumgarten
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for repentance, I would argue that this practice had strong currency outside their circle. Moreover, although the Confessor-Sage uniquely featured in the writings by Judah the Pious on repentance was soon replaced by personal confession, many thirteenth- and fourteenth-century responsa mention transgressors who sought rabbinic counsel on how to repent for their actions. While these sources do not describe formal confessions, in some cases it seems that the authority being asked for advice was expected to treat that discussion of sin confidentially.189
Eleazar’s composition Hilkhot Teshuvah was frequently copied in late medieval and early modern Europe, albeit in different formats, yielding distinct versions of the treatise that were copied and disseminated well into the early modern period.190 Eleazar’s writings on repentance reached northern France through Isaac b. Joseph of Corbeil who, as noted above, was known for his stringent fasting.191 Isaac incorporated ideas from Hilkhot Teshuvah into his popular handbook of customs that have been described as “semi-ritual practices,” Sefer Amudei Golah (known more widely as Sefer Mitzvot Katan). This guide was composed for men and women in a style that aims at the less educated reader and attests to the prominence of these practices during the late thirteenth century.
Isaac’s Sefer Mitzvot Katan features notions from Maimonides’s Hilkhot Teshuvah and quotations from Moses b. Jacob of Coucy’s Sefer Mitzvot Gadol. However, Isaac supplements those teachings with verbatim selections from Eleazar’s Hilkhot Teshuvah, with a recapitulation of his four categories of repentance.192 Isaac explains:
The order of repentance is thus: In the case of a public sin, one should request forgiveness publicly. In the case of a private sin, one should request forgiveness from his Creator (lit., “between himself and his Creator,” meaning privately). There are four kinds of repentance: teshuvat hagader, teshuvat hakatuv, teshuvat hamishkal, and teshuvat haharatah. Repentance is so great and exalted that it reaches the holy throne (kise hakavod), as it is written: “Return O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have fallen on account of your sin” (Hosea 14:1).193
In his commentary on Sefer Mitzvot Katan, Peretz b. Elijah explains each category in greater detail, quoting examples from Eleazar’s work. This supports the claim that French rabbinical scholars in Corbeil were well versed in the penitential system promoted by the German scholars. Ephraim Kanarfogel has suggested that the rabbis of Evreux—the center of learning where Isaac studied—were similarly conversant with these texts.194 The main contribution found in the northern French sources on repentance is the distinction drawn between two types of confession, for public offenses and for private deeds. While Sefer Mitzvot Katan does not describe how such confessions should be conducted, other contemporaneous sources detail that these rituals entailed fasting, along with charity and prayer.195
Northern French halakhic compendia discuss fasting in many contexts. For instance, Peretz criticizes those who fasted in response to the death of a family member, scolding anyone whose abstinence was prompted by circumstances unrelated to repentance.196 Peretz summarizes his position by stating: “Regarding one whose mourning incorporates fasting to atone for his sins, it has been written: ‘I note how they fare and will heal them: I will guide them and mete out solace to them and to the mourners among them’ [Is. 57:18].”197 This discussion suggests that some mourners fasted as a means of expressing grief rather than as a way to better their own souls, a practice that contradicts the commonly endorsed motivations for fasting. Peretz also reprimanded anyone whose fast caused bodily harm.198
Twelfth- and thirteenth-century halakhic compendia and biblical commentaries from northern France describe men and women performing penitential fasts that corroborate those prescribed by halakhic authorities such as Isaac of Corbeil and Peretz.199 So, too, a Tosafist commentary on Tractate Avodah Zarah mentions a man who fasted often, without reference to anything else about him.200 The widespread practice of fasting on Mondays and Thursdays is assumed in another text where Peretz is asked whether a community member who does not observe that pattern of fasts could be called to the Torah; Peretz concludes that this synagogue honor may be bestowed on the condition that the individual in question promises to make up for his missed fasts.201 In the fourteenth century, Jacob b. Asher (son of Rosh, 1269–1343) remarked that fasting on Mondays and Thursdays was customary for German and northern French Jews, in contrast to the Jews of Spain who only practiced communal fasts that were part of the annual calendar.202
Penitential fasts are also mentioned in commentaries on Genesis. By way of illustration, when discussing Reuben’s role in selling Joseph, the medieval commentators follow a late antique midrash when they explain that Reuben was absent when Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites because he was fasting for his sin with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. Reuben is literally described as “fasting and wearing his sackcloth.”203 This midrashic explanation is recounted in medieval commentaries from Germany and France.204
Although books such as Sefer Rokeah and Sefer Mitzvot Katan were written with the aim of equipping individuals to determine their repentant actions independently, rabbis were still consulted for guidance on how to atone. Such queries were so common that rabbis are known to have developed standard responses, as witnessed in responsa that prescribe repentant behavior after specific sins. Desecration of the Sabbath is a recurrent topic in the penitential literature by Judah and Eleazar as well as in writings by other thirteenth-century halakhic authorities. For example, relating to behavior required when a fire broke out and was then extinguished on the Sabbath, Isaac b. Moses discusses whether repentance and fasting are required, since putting out a fire constitutes a desecration of the Sabbath. According to Jewish law, this action is permissible if it saved lives, but it is considered a violation of the Sabbath if lives were not at risk, as Isaac explained:
[In a case] when Jews extinguished a fire (on the Sabbath) where it was unclear whether lives were endangered.205 [Those who put the fire out] need not fast or give charity because of their deed, for they were acting with [divine] permission. Even if they wanted to give charity on that account, the court does not permit it, for if they did, in the future they might not respond to fires [or other dangers] in the same way. Some say they should fast because of this [deed], and in the event of another fire, they would instruct them to extinguish it and then fast … but as I have said, in my eyes the law should instruct that even if they wish to fast because of this [deed], they should be dissuaded from doing so lest they abstain from extinguishing a second fire (in the future).206
Here it seems that community members wanted to fast after having put out a fire on the Sabbath, whereas their rabbis ruled this fast unnecessary, lest this expression of repentance deter Jews from extinguishing future fires on the Sabbath.
Fasting as a means to seek atonement after violating the Sabbath is also mentioned in other sources.207 Samson b. Tzadok reports that Meir of Rothenburg instructed anyone who inadvertently desecrated the Sabbath to fast:
He says: One who unintentionally desecrated the Sabbath by bringing an object into the public [realm],208 by manipulating fire or in whatever manner should give five hallische dinars to charity to receive atonement … and it would also be appropriate if he fasted on Mondays and Thursdays, as is customary throughout the world to fast on the morrow of the Sabbath (Sunday) for desecrating the Sabbath.209
This instruction for repentance is outstanding for its exactitude in specifying the exact monetary sum to be contributed, and for its reference to these actions as standard practice, “as is customary throughout the world.”
Another case of repentance for desecrating the Sabbath is addressed in a responsum attributed to Samuel b. Isaac (late thirteenth century):210
Once a woman was riding with a certain Jewish man through the city of Barby on a Friday.211 This Jewish woman could not remain in that city for the Sabbath because she feared that if her presence were known, non-Jews would seize her. So she rode on to Zerbst. It became dark on the way, but they rode on to that city even though they were desecrating the Sabbath. I asked my teacher, Samuel b. Isaac, to give her instructions [on how to repent]. He replied that they