Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz. Elisheva Baumgarten
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consecutively. Rather, they should fast on Mondays and Thursdays each week—except on the New Moon and other festivals—until they reached [a total of] forty days. This is sufficient since they were coerced.212
Here a woman and her male travel companion sought counsel on how to atone for their transgression, indicating their awareness that repentance was needed. Samuel required identical actions for the man and the woman.
In another source, Isaac b. Moses discusses improper conduct regarding Sabbath candles, a desecration that specifically pertains to women. He mentions women who fasted if they had touched the wax of a Sabbath candle during the Sabbath, to repent for their violation of that holy day.213 A century later, Jacob Moellin (Maharil) was asked how his niece should atone for having forgotten to light the Sabbath candles one Friday evening. He responded: “[On every Sabbath eve] for the rest of her life, she should assiduously add one candle beyond her customary number.214 When her fast occurs (ukeshe’era ta’anitah), she should be sure to confess this sin. [Furthermore,] if she wishes to obligate herself [to] fasts and to torment herself in order be granted atonement, may she be blessed.”215 This responsum integrates individual confession, as promoted by Eleazar of Worms, with normative fasting. Maharil’s words suggest that Jewish women and men would customarily adopt additional fasts and other “torments” as components of repentance.
In a responsum of a case that occurred in London, Jacob b. Judah Hazan (thirteenth century) relates the case of a woman who sought guidance from Menahem on how to repent after having committed adultery. She was told that her husband must divorce her, but that she should not receive her ketubbah; however, we have no record of penitent actions that Menahem might have recommended.216 In a different angle on marital strife, Haim Barukh is said to have instructed a woman who had angered her husband to fast for three days.217
Another category of responsa relates to women who fasted following what might be termed “crib death.” These rabbinic opinions—with many attributed to Meir b. Barukh of Rothenburg and his colleagues—were published in 2012 by Simcha Emanuel. In these cases, after it was discovered that an infant had died in its parents’ bed, the rabbis prescribed deeds of repentance based on the talmudic punishments for an intentional killing. Although these medieval texts sometimes cite ge’onic rulings as precedents for their recommendations, there is no extant evidence of such penitent behavior from that era. Here is one response attributed to Meir himself:
Maharam (Meir b. Barukh of Rothenburg) was asked about [the case of] a woman who lay on her son, causing his death: How she should repent? He required her to fast for a full year, without eating meat or drinking wine218 with the exception of Sabbaths, festivals, the New Moon, Hanukkah and Purim, when [not only] should she refrain from fasting but she should eat meat and drink wine. For those holidays and New Moons and Hanukkah and Purim that she does not fast, she should fast on the same number of additional days until she has completed a 365-day fast. From that point onward, she should fast every second week—[that is to say] on a Monday-Thursday-Monday cycle every other week—as her strength allows, though she may eat meat and drink wine. When she is pregnant or nursing, she should not fast. And she should be cautious for the remainder of her days, that her son will never lie with her again.219
This case offers a vivid depiction of what constituted penitent behavior and a careful calculation of the fast days required to complete a full course of repentance.
A second responsum, attributed to Elhanan b. Samuel from Magdeburg (late thirteenth century),220 provides further data on how these fasts were calculated. Elhanan also recommends fifty-two weeks of Monday and Thursday fasts. Knowing that some of those days would coincide with holidays, he explains:
And all the Mondays and Thursdays that she does not fast, she must make up for during the next year. It is recommended that she have a small piece of wood (tablet/stick) that she would mark on each Monday and Thursday when she does not fast until the end of the year, when she should total up the marks. With another piece of wood [as a measure], she should make up for that number of missed Monday and Thursday fasts. Each time she fasts [during that second year], she should mark the [second piece of] wood until it has same number of markings that appear on the first piece of wood.221
Elhanan also clarifies his instruction against drinking wine: “Since we drink thick ale, she should not drink thick ale but thin ale instead and she should wash but twice a month.” Unique among responsa, this passage reveals an otherwise unknown element of medieval material culture—marking wood as a way to calculate time.
More moderate forms of repentant behavior have been attributed to Haim Paltiel, who recommended that pregnant women should not fast, lest their actions induce a miscarriage. He allows three options for fasting: three consecutive days and nights, forty uninterrupted days, or on Mondays and Thursdays for one year. In addition, he recommends giving charity.222
Our third and final example on this subject comes from an anonymous rabbi who raises an important proviso, noting that only healthy women who were neither pregnant nor nursing are qualified to fast: “Only if her husband wishes her to fast. If she is young and she is unaccustomed to fasting, let her fast on Mondays and Thursdays until she fulfills [the equivalent of] a yearlong fast.”223 These instructions suggest that young mothers,224 as opposed to older women, may not have been accustomed to fasting.225
Married women who wronged their husbands might have been advised to fast as a means of repentance; however, these women still needed their husbands’ permission to take on any vow, even for a fast of this nature. This provision is evident in the anonymous responsum cited above, which specifies “and only if her husband wishes her to fast.”226 This stipulation originates in the Bible: “If a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out everything that his crossed his lips.”227 The passage continues by listing three categories of women and their relative levels of agency when making vows: if a woman is unmarried, her father has the power to absolve her vows; if she is married, her husband can nullify her vows; a widow or divorced woman may bind herself without a man’s consent. As the biblical text states:
Each and every vow and sworn obligation of self-denial may be upheld or annulled by her husband. If her husband offers no objection from one day to the next, he has upheld all of the vows and obligations that she has assumed; he has upheld them by offering no objection when he learned about them. However, if he annuls them after [the day] he finds out [about her vows and obligations], he shall bear her guilt.228
The vows of self-denial described here are categorized in the Mishnah and Talmud as “vows that torment the soul” (nidrei inui nefesh) and include fasting, abstaining from sexual relations, refraining from wearing brightly colored clothing, and other behaviors considered normative on fast days and in times of danger.229 In a ruling attributed to Peretz, such an incident is discussed:
[In the case of] a woman who vowed not to eat on a particular day whose husband did not annul her vow, rather he traveled to another city and, before his departure, he warned her not to fast, but without naming a specific day. Since her husband demonstrated that he did not wish her to fast, the rabbis may permit her (to annul her vow) without her husband [being present]. But had he not revealed (his opinion), I doubt that her vow could be annulled without her husband [being present].230
This passage does not reveal the motivation for this woman’s fast, but this was certainly not the first time she made such a vow.231 It is obvious that her husband had been trying to prevent her from this practice, exercising his prerogative based on the biblical passage above. Once again we see that the community was generally aware of who was fasting and, moreover, that their actions could be considered disruptive.
If we compare this documentation of women who fasted often to descriptions of their male counterparts, gendered qualifications begin to emerge. The Tosafist commentary on Tractate Avodah Zarah recounts:
A question232 came before Rabbenu Tam about one who fasted many times without declaring his fasts in advance. Rabbenu Tam determined that he did not “lose” his