Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz. Elisheva Baumgarten
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religious leaders who determined the order of services and, in some cases, wrote liturgical compositions or introduced prayers to their congregations.21 These studies presuppose synagogues that were populated by Jews who shared a high degree of liturgical competence. However, as Ephraim Kanarfogel has recently suggested, it is unlikely that this standard characterized Jewish men in medieval Ashkenaz, much less their female counterparts.22
Irrespective of their literacy levels, medieval Jews seem to have attended prayer services regularly. Nevertheless, a range of factors prevented full participation in the synagogue. Simply stated, laxity may well have been the primary deterrent, a quality that is rarely mentioned in medieval sources but was probably manifest in varied if inconsistent ways.23 In stark contrast to this passive causality, excommunication constituted another cause for keeping a distance; however, permanent banishment from the community cannot be placed on a spectrum with piety except perhaps as its opposite.
Numerous explanations underlie intentional decisions to refrain from attending synagogue, among them a pious stance to avoid participation if one deemed that the rituals were not being conducted properly.24 In a unique case from the late thirteenth century, Meir b. Barukh of Rothenburg (d. 1293), in a ruling that stands out for its passion and intensity, instructs men to leave the synagogue rather than participate in circumcisions where women serve as ba’alot brit (formal participants in the circumcision ritual), bringing the infants into the sanctuary and holding them on their laps during the ceremony. Meir of Rothenburg himself enlists the language of piety in his reasoning: “Any man who fears the Lord should leave the synagogue.”25
The extreme directive conveyed in this instruction especially stands out given the absence of comparable instructions in medieval sources. For example, Sefer Hasidim mentions the possibility that a pious man might prefer to pray alone rather than in a synagogue where prayers were not being led according to his standards. In that case, Judah suggests that this pious man should pray at home before going to synagogue, but under no circumstance should he avoid participation in communal services.26 Overall, medieval Jews followed the talmudic teaching that prayers are most efficacious when recited with the community in synagogue.27
Purity and Impurity: Changing Observance
Another reason to distance oneself from the synagogue, and the main subject of this chapter, is impurity. Like all synagogues after the destruction of the Temple, the medieval synagogue was considered a mikdash me’at (a little sanctuary), less holy than the Temple but treated similarly.28 Ashkenazic ideas about the physical impurities that could render men and women temporarily disqualified from attending synagogue, and, as a result, diminish their ability to communicate with God in communal rituals, provide a window not only onto the everyday practices of medieval Jews, but also on some of their understandings of sanctity and the development of these notions over the course of the Middle Ages, especially in gendered terms.
Figure 2. A Jew praying. © Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt. Cod. Or. 13, fol. 38v. Mahzor, Germany, 1348.
Medieval conceptions of purity and impurity are rooted in precedents from the Bible and the Temple period, as first outlined in Leviticus. When the Temple was standing in Jerusalem, any man who experienced a seminal emission was prohibited from entering until he had washed.29 Similarly, any woman who was either menstruating or who held post-partum status and had not yet undergone ritual immersion was barred from bringing a sacrifice to the Temple. This requirement to perform ritual immersion before approaching the Temple applied to other individuals, due to a physical condition or recent action (e.g., lepers or anyone who had been exposed to a corpse).30 These biblical traditions and their implications are debated in rabbinic discourse; thus, ongoing engagement in these topics constitutes part of the medieval Jewish cultural and textual inheritance.
Despite their transmission in rabbinic literature, the applications of Levitical standards of purity received less attention in the medieval world than they did in antiquity. This reduced emphasis is exemplified in discussions about Takanot Ezra, a collection of statutes on central aspects of ritual life that have been attributed to Ezra the Scribe.31 The most relevant instruction for our context declares that any man who is impure due to a seminal emission should neither study Torah nor pray before having washed.32 This statute was suspended by the classical rabbis (prior to the medieval period), who reasoned that, after the Temple’s destruction, impurity had become ubiquitous since sacrifice was no longer available as a means for nullifying the effect of contact with the dead or atoning for sins; thus, this restriction had been rendered inapplicable.33 Nonetheless, from the second half of the first millennium through the Middle Ages, the question of whether men who were ritually impure must wash before entering the synagogue continued, albeit tangentially.34 However, male impurity was no longer defined by sexual relations but rather by incidental nocturnal emissions of semen (keri laylah), which could affect any man.
Most medieval halakhic authorities note that such stringencies were no longer practiced and that men who remained concerned need not worry.35 Even Judah the Pious, who frequently addresses matters of purity, devotes far more attention to instructions for avoiding nocturnal emissions than to guidance on restoring purity after they occur. For example:
Once there was a pious man (or a pietist) who would not lie in his bed on the nights when his wife was niddah [menstrually impure]; rather he would sleep sitting or reclining [in a chair], for he said, “If I lie comfortably in my bed, I would sleep too well and perhaps I might have a nocturnal emission. Rather I should sleep uncomfortably, without a pillow, so I will not see an emission.” [Sometimes] he would stand all night studying Torah.36
In this teaching from Sefer Hasidim, a man who is barred from sexual contact with his wife due to her menstrual impurity fears that he too will become ritually compromised by nocturnal emission; he thereby draws a connection between male and female states of physical impurity.37
This association reflects an imbalance that came to characterize female ritual purity, where menstrual and post-partum blood represented the exception rather than the rule in Jewish praxis. In contrast to all other causes of ritual impurity that had been observed when the Temple existed and were then suspended after its destruction,38 not only did the effect of menstruation continue to have currency, but over time this category of ritual purity became a hallmark of Jewish female identity.39 The laws of menstrual purity cover a category of practices that mainly relate to intimate relations between married couples.40 Despite its personal nature, there is evidence that medieval neighbors and fellow community members were aware of each woman’s niddah status according to her apparel since all women wore bigdei niddut, special clothes for menstruation,41 which differed from their regular attire.42 This practice is echoed in a teaching in Sefer Hasidim that, when relevant, men should emphasize their own state of purity by wearing white, following the verse “At all times your clothes should be white” (Eccles. 9:7). However, his comments suggest that this custom was limited to especially pious men.43 Later sources also discuss men wearing white as a demonstration of purity, but those instructions are often in the context of Yom Kippur, when everyone would wear white.44
Observance of the laws of menstruation had numerous public implications beyond the realm of attire, including questions regarding women’s synagogue attendance, as the quotation ascribed to Rashi above suggests. According to this source, some women absented themselves from the synagogue during their menstrual cycles because they understood that, as with the Temple, they were excluded from it during times of ritual impurity.45 In their analyses of this passage, a number of scholars have attributed this custom to an esoteric text, known as Baraita deNiddah, which was written during the early centuries of the first millennium and contains many strict regulations concerning menstruants and their impurity,46 such as “And she shall not come to the Temple” (Lev. 12:4). She is not permitted to enter places of learning or synagogues.”47 This teaching is not widely quoted. For example, sources from early medieval Babylonia discuss