enjoyed almost all the rights of majority long before the day of his being
“The Son of the Law.” The condition of the novice is hardly
distinguishable from that of the initiated priest. The Talmud, the Gaonim,
and even R. Isaac Alfasi and Maimonides knew neither the term “The Son of
the Law” (in our sense of the word) nor any ceremony connected with it.
There is only one slight reference to such an institution, recorded in the
Tractate _Sopherim_, with the quotation of which I shall conclude this
paper. We read there: “In Jerusalem there was the godly custom to initiate
the children at the _beginning_ of the thirteenth year by fasting the
whole Day of Atonement. During this year they took the boy to the priests
and learned men that they might bless him, and pray for him that God might
think him worthy of a life devoted to the study of the Torah and pious
works.” For, this author says, “they were beautiful, and their lives
harmonious and their hearts directed to God.”
XIII. WOMAN IN TEMPLE AND SYNAGOGUE
The learned Woman has always been a favourite subject with Jewish
students; and her intellectual capabilities have been fully vindicated in
many an essay and even fair‐sized book. Less attention, however, has been
paid to woman’s claims as a devotional being whom the Temple, and
afterwards the Synagogue, more or less recognised. At least it is not
known to me that any attempt has been made to give, even in outline, the
history of woman’s relation to public worship. It is needless to say that
the present sketch, which is meant to supply this want in some measure,
lays no claim to completeness; but I venture to hope that it will help to
direct the attention of the friends of research to the matter, and that it
may induce others to deal more fully with the subject and do it the
justice it deserves.
The earliest allusion to women’s participation in _public_ worship, is
that in Exodus xxxviii. 8, to the women who assembled to minister at the
door of the “tent of meeting,” of whose mirrors the lavers of brass were
made (cf. 1 Sam. ii. 22). Philo, who is not exactly enamoured of the
emancipation of women, and seeks to confine them to the “small state,” is
here full of their praise. “For,” he says, “though no one enjoined them to
do so, they of their own spontaneous zeal and earnestness contributed the
mirrors with which they had been accustomed to deck and set off their
beauty, as the most becoming first‐fruits of their modesty, and of the
purity of their married life, and, as one may say, of the beauty of their
souls.” In another passage Philo describes the Jewish women as “competing
with the men themselves in piety, having determined to enter upon a
glorious contest, and to the utmost extent of their power to exert
themselves so as not to fall short of their holiness.”
It is, however, very difficult to ascertain in what this ministry of women
consisted. The Hebrew term “Zobeoth”(264) would suggest the thought of a
species of religious Amazons, who formed a guard of honour round the
Sanctuary. Some commentators think that the ministry consisted in
performing religious dances accompanied by various instruments. The
Septuagint again speaks “of the women who fasted by the doors of the
Tabernacle.” But most of the old Jewish expositors, as well as Onkelos,
conceive that the women went to the tent of meeting to pray. Ibn Ezra
offers the interesting remark, “And behold, there were women in Israel
serving the Lord, who left the vanities of this world, and not being
desirous of beautifying themselves any longer, made of their mirrors a
free offering, and came to the tabernacle every day to pray and to listen
there to the words of the commandments.” When we find that in 1 Sam. i.
12, “Hannah continued to pray before the Lord,” she was only doing there
what many of her sisters did before and after her. We may also judge that
it was from the number of these noble women, who made religion the aim of
their lives, that the “twenty‐two” heroines and prophetesses sprang who
form part of the glory of Jewish history. Sometimes it even happened that
their husbands derived their religious inspiration from them. Thus the
husband of the prophetess Deborah is said to have been an unlettered man.
But his wife made him carry to the Sanctuary the candles which she herself
had prepared, this being the way in which she encouraged him to seek
communion with the righteous.
The language in which the husband of the “Great Woman” of Shunem addresses
his wife: “Wherefore wilt thou go to him” (the prophet)? “it is neither
New Moon nor Sabbath” (2 Kings iv. 23), proves that on Festivals and
Sabbaths the women used to attend some kind of worship, performed by the
prophet, though we cannot say in what this worship consisted. The New Moon
was especially a woman’s holiday, and was so observed even in the Middle
Ages, for the women refrained from doing work on that day. The explanation
given by the Rabbis is that when the men broke off their golden earrings
to supply material for the golden calf, the women refused to contribute
their trinkets, for which good behaviour a special day of repose was
granted to them. Some Cabbalists even maintain that the original
worshippers of the golden calf continue to exist on earth, their souls
having successively migrated into various bodies, while their punishment
consists in this, that they are ruled over by their wives. Rather
interesting as well as complimentary to women is the remark which the
Rabbis made with regard to the “Great Woman.” As will be remembered, it is
_she_ who says, “I perceive that this (Elisha) is a holy man of God” (2
Kings iv. 19). In allusion to this verse the Talmud says: “From this fact
we may infer that woman is quicker in recognising the worth of a stranger
than man.”
The great woman, or women, continued to pray and to join in the public
worship also after the destruction of the first Temple. Thus Esther is
reported by tradition to have addressed God in a long extempore prayer
before she presented herself before the throne of Ahasuerus to plead her
people’s cause; and women were always enjoined to attend the reading of
the Book of Esther. When Ezra read the Law for the first time, he did so
in the presence of the men and the women (Neh. viii. 3). In the Book of
the Maccabees we read of “The women girt with sackcloth ... and the
maidens that ran to the gates.... And all holding their hands towards
heaven made supplication.” In the Judith legend, mention is also made of
“Every man and woman ... who fell before the Temple, and spread out their
sackcloth before the face of the Lord ... and cried before the God of
Israel.” In the second Temple, the women, as is well known, possessed a
court reserved for their exclusive use. There the great illuminations and
rejoicings on the evening of the Feast of Tabernacles used to be held. On
this occasion, however, the women were confined to galleries specially
erected for them. It was also in this Women’s Hall that the great public
reading of certain portions of the Law by the king, once in seven years,
used to take place, and women had also to attend at the function. On the
other hand, it is hardly necessary to say that women were excluded from
performing any important service in the Temple. If we were to trust a
certain passage in the “Chapters of R. Eliezer,” we might perhaps conclude
that during the first Temple, the wives of the Levites formed a part of
the choir, but the meaning of the passage is too obscure and doubtful for
us to be justified in basing on it so important an inference. Nor can the
three hundred maidens who were employed for the weaving of the curtains in
the Temple, be looked upon as having stood in closer connection with the
Temple, or as having formed an order of women‐priests or girl‐devotees (as
one might wrongly be induced to think by certain passages in Apocryphal
writings of the New Testament). But on the other hand, it is not
improbable that their frequent contact with the Sanctuary of the nation
produced in them that religious enthusiasm and zeal which may account for
the heroic death which—according to the legend—they sought and found after
the destruction of the Temple. It is to be remarked that, according to the
law, women were even exempted from putting their hands on the head of the
victim, which formed an important item in the sacrificial worship. It is,
however, stated by an eye‐witness, that the authorities permitted them to
perform this ceremony if they desired to do so, and that their reason for
this concession was “to give calmness of the spirit, or satisfaction, to
women.”
Still greater, perhaps, was “the calmness of spirit” given to women in the
synagogue. We find in ancient epitaphs that such titles of honour were
conferred upon them as “Mistress of the Synagogue,” and “Mother of the
Synagogue,” and, though they held no actual office in the Synagogue, it is
not improbable that they acquired these titles by meritorious work
connected with a religious institution, viz.: Charity. There was, indeed,
a tendency to exclude women from the synagogue at certain seasons, but
almost all the authorities protest against it, many of them declaring such
a notion to be quite un‐Jewish. Some Jewish scholars even think that the
ancient synagogues knew of no partition for women. I am rather inclined to
think that the synagogue took for its model the arrangements in the
Temple, and thus confined women to a place of their own. But, whether they
sat side by side with the men or occupied a special portion of the
edifice, there can be no doubt that the Jewish women were great synagogue‐
goers. To give only one instance. One Rabbi asks another: Given the case
that the members of the synagogue are all descendants of Aaron, to whom
then would they impart their blessing? The answer is, to the women who are
there.
Of the sermon they were even more fond than their husbands. Thus one woman
was so much interested in the lectures of R. Meir, which he was in the
habit of giving every Friday evening, that she used to remain there so
long that the candles in her house burnt themselves out. Her lazy husband,
who stopped at home, so strongly resented having to wait in the dark, that
he would not permit her to cross the threshold until she gave some offence
to the preacher, which would make him sure that she would not venture to
attend his sermons again.
The prayers they said were the Eighteen Benedictions which were prescribed
by the Law. But it would seem that occasionally they offered short prayers
composed by themselves as suggested by their personal feelings and needs.
Thus, to give one instance, R. Johanan relates that one day he observed a
young girl fall on her face and pray: “Lord of the world, Thou hast
created Paradise, Thou hast created hell, Thou hast created the wicked,
Thou hast created the righteous; may it be Thy will that I may not serve
as a stumbling‐block to them.” The fine Hebrew in which the prayer is
expressed, and the notion of the responsibility of Providence for our
actions, manifest a high degree of intelligence and reflection. It would
also seem that some women went so far in their religious sensibility as to
lead a regular ascetic life, and, according to the suggestion of some
scholars, even took the vow of celibacy. Of these the Rabbis did not
approve, and stigmatised them as the “destroyers of the world.” Perhaps it
was just at this period that Judaism could not afford to give free play to
those morbid feelings, degenerating into religious hysterics, which led
some to join rival sects, and others to abandon themselves to the gross
immorality we read of in the history of the Gnostics.
The same circumstances may have been the cause of public opinion being led
to accept the view of R. Eliezer, who thought it inadvisable—it would seem
on moral grounds—to permit woman to study the Law. This opinion was
opposed to that of Ben Azzai, who considered it incumbent upon every
father to teach his daughter Torah. But justified as the advice of R.
Eliezer may have been in his own time, it was rather unfortunate that
later generations continued to take it as the guiding principle for the
education of their children. Many great women in the course of history
indeed became law‐breakers and studied Torah; but the majority were
entirely dependent on men, and became in religious matters a sort of
appendix to their husbands, who by their good actions insured salvation
also for them, and sometimes the reverse. Thus there is a story about a
woman which, put into modern language, would be to the effect that she
married a minister and copied his sermons for him; he died, and she then
married a cruel usurer, and kept his accounts for him.
The fact that women were exempted from certain affirmative laws, which
become operative only at special seasons—_e.g._, the taking of the palm
branch on the Feast of Tabernacles—must also have contributed to weaken
their position as a religious factor in Judaism. The idea that women
should vie with men in the fulfilment of every law, became even for the
Rabbis a notion connected only with the remotest past. This is the
impression one gains when reading the legend about Michal, the daughter of
Saul, putting on phylacteries, or the wife of the prophet Jonah making a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the three Festivals. It would indeed seem as if
women were led to strive for the satisfaction of their religious wants in
another direction. Yet it was said of Jewish women, “The daughters of
Israel were stringent and laid certain restrictions on themselves.” They
were also allowed to form a quorum by themselves for the purpose of saying
the Grace, but they could not be counted along with males for this end. It
was also against the early notion of the dignity of the congregation that
women should perform any public service for men.
One privilege was left to women—that of weeping. In Judges xi. 40, we read
of the daughters of Israel that went yearly to lament the daughter of
Jephthah; while in 2 Chronicles xxxv. 25, we are told how “all the singing
men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations.” Of this
privilege they were not deprived, and if they were not allowed to sing any
longer, they at least retained the right to weep as much as they pleased.
Even in later times they held a public office as mourning women at
funerals. In the Talmud fragments of compositions by women for such
occasions are to be found. Indeed, woman became in these times the type of
grief and sorrow. She cannot reason, but she feels much more deeply than
man. Here is one instance from an old legend: Jeremiah said, “When I went
up to Jerusalem (after the destruction of the Temple) I lifted my eyes and
saw there a lonely woman sitting on the top of the mountain, her dress
black, her hair dishevelled, crying, ‘Who will comfort me?’ I approached
her and spake to her, ‘If thou art a woman, speak to me. If thou art a
ghost, begone.’ She answered, ‘Dost thou not know me?... I am the Mother,
Zion.’ ”
In general, however, the principle applied to women was: The king’s
daughter _within the palace_ is all glorious (Psalm xlv. 14), but _not_
outside of it. In the face of the “Femina in ecclesia taceat,” which was
the ruling maxim with other religions, Jewish women could only feel
flattered by this polite treatment by the Rabbis, though it meant the same
thing. We must not think, however, that this prevented them from attending
the service of the synagogue. According to the Tractate _Sopherim_, even
“the little daughters of Israel were accustomed to go to the synagogue.”
In the same tractate we find it laid down as “a duty to translate for them
the portion (of the Law) of the week, and the lesson from the prophets”
into the language they understand. The “King’s daughter” occasionally
asserted her rights without undue reliance on the opinion of the
authorities. And thus being ignorant of the Hebrew language women prayed
in the vernacular, though this was at least against the letter of the law.
And many famous Rabbis of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries express
their wonder that the “custom of women praying in other (non‐Hebrew)
languages extended over the whole world.” It is noteworthy that they did
not suppress the practice, but on the contrary, they endeavoured to give
to the Law such an interpretation as would bring it into accord with the
general custom. Some even recommended it, as, for example, the author of
_The Book of the Pious_, who gives advice to women to learn the prayers in
the language familiar to them.
At about the same period a lengthy controversy was being waged by the
commentators of the Talmud and the codifiers, about woman’s partaking in
the fulfilment of the laws for special seasons, from which, as already
remarked, they were exempted. To the action itself there could not be much
objection, but the difficulty arose when women also insisted on uttering
the blessing. Now the point at issue was whether they could be permitted
to say, for instance, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, etc., who hast
sanctified us by Thy Commandments, and _hast commanded us_, concerning the
taking of the Palm branch,” since in reality the women had _not_ been
commanded to do it. To such logical and systematic minds as Maimonides and
R. Joseph Caro, the difficulty was insurmountable, and they forbade women
to use the formula; but with the less consistent majority women carried
their point. Rather interesting is the answer received by R. Jacob, of
Corbeil, with regard to this question. This Rabbi is said to have enjoyed
the mysterious power which enabled him to appeal in cases of doubt to the
celestial authorities. Before them he put also this women’s case for
decision. Judgment was communicated to him in the verse from the
Scriptures, “In all that Sarah saith unto Thee, hearken unto her voice”
(Gen. xxi. 12). Nor was it unknown for a pious Jew to compose a special
hymn for his wife’s use in honour of the Sabbath.
How long this custom of women praying in the vernacular lasted, we have no
means of ascertaining. Probably was already extinct about the end of the
fifteenth century. For R. Solomon Portaleone, who lived in the sixteenth
century, already regrets the abolition of “this beautiful and worthy
custom.” “When they prayed in the vernacular,” he says, “they understood
what they were saying, whilst now they only gabble off their prayers.” As
a sort of compromise we may regard the various “Supplications”;(265) they
form a kind of additional prayers supplementary to the ordinary liturgy,
and are written in German. Chiefly composed by women, they specially
answer the needs of the sex on various occasions. These prayers deserve a
full description by themselves, into which I cannot enter here; I should
like only to mention that in one of these collections in the British
Museum, a special supplication is added for servant‐maids, and if I am not
quite mistaken, also one for their mistresses.
It is also worth noticing that the manuals on the “Three Women’s
Commandments” (mostly composed in German, sometimes also in rhymes),
contained much more than their titles would suggest. They rather served as
headings to groups of laws, arranged under each commandment. Thus the
first (about certain laws in Lev. xii. and xv.) becomes the motto for
purity in body and soul; the second (the consecration of the first cake of
the dough) includes all matters relating to charity, in which women were
even reminded to encourage their newly married husbands not to withhold
from the poor the tithes of the bridal dowry, as well as of their future
yearly income; whilst the third (the lighting of the Sabbath lamp) becomes
the symbol for spiritual light and sweetness in every relation of human
life.
As another compromise may also be considered the institution of
“Vorsugern” (woman‐reader) or the “Woilkennivdicke” (the well‐knowing one)
who reads the prayers and translates them into the vernacular for the
benefit of her less learned sisters. In Poland and in Russia, even at the
present time, such a woman‐reader is to be found in every synagogue, and
from what I have heard the institution is by no means unknown in London.
The various prayer‐books containing the Hebrew text as well as the Jewish‐
German translation, which appear in such frequent editions in Russia, are
mostly intended for the use of these praying women. Not uninteresting is
the title‐page of R. Aaron Ben Samuel’s Jewish‐German translations and
collections of prayers which appeared in the beginning of the eighteenth
century. He addressed the Jewish public in the following terms: “My dear
brethren, buy this lovely prayer‐book or wholesome tonic for body and
soul, which has never appeared in such German print since the world began;
and make your wives and children read it often, thus they will refresh
their bodies and souls, for this light will shine forth into your very
hearts. As soon as the children read it they will understand their
prayers, by which they will enjoy both this world and the world to come.”
An earlier translator of the prayer‐book addresses himself directly to the
“pious women” whom he invites to buy his book, “in which they will see
very beautiful things.” Recent centuries seem, on the whole, to have been
distinguished for the number of praying‐women they produced. The virtues
which constituted the claim of women to religious distinction were
modesty, charity, and daily attendance at the synagogue morning and
evening. In the memorial books of the time hundreds of such women are
noticed. Some used also to spin the “Fringes,” which they presented to
their friends; others fasted frequently, whilst “Old Mrs. Hechele” not
only attended the synagogue every day, and did charity to poor and rich,
but also understood the art of midwifery, which she practised in the
community without accepting payment for her services. According to R. Ch.
J. Bachrach women used also to say the “Magnified” prayer in the synagogue
when their parents left no male posterity.
In bringing to a close this very incomplete sketch, perhaps I ought to
notice the confirmation of girls introduced during this century in some
communities in Germany, which the “Reformed” Rabbis recommended, but of
which the “Orthodox” Rabbis disapproved. It would be well if in the heat
of such controversies both sides would remember the words of R. Zedekiah
b. Abraham, of Rome, who with regard to a certain difference of opinion on
some ritual question, says: “Every man receives reward from God for what
he is convinced is the right thing, if this conviction has no other motive
but the love of God.”
XIV. THE EARLIEST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN EUROPE
Roman Judaism has disappeared from our guide‐books. Civilisation has
levelled down the walls of the Ghetto, and its former inhabitants are not
any longer “a people that dwell alone.” But with this well‐deserved
destruction a good deal of the interest was also destroyed which the
traveller used to attach to “the peculiar people” enclosed in that
terrible slum of Rome.
Still, if there is anything eternal in the “eternal city,” which was
neither reconstructed by the Cæsars, nor improved upon by the Popes, it is
the little Jewish community at Rome. It has survived the former; it has
suffered for many centuries under the latter, and, partaking in the
general revival which has come upon the Italian nation, it may still be
destined for a great future. Indeed, the history of the relation of Israel
to Rome is so old that it is not lacking even in legendary elements. On
the day on which King Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh, the Rabbis
narrate, there came down the angel Gabriel. He put a reed into the sea,
which, by means of the slime that adhered to it, formed itself, in the
course of time, into a large island, on which the city of Rome was
built—an event with which the troubles of Israel began. These were the
evil consequences of the first _mésalliance_. Even more unfortunate for
Israel (and it is not impossible that this is the meaning of the legend)
were the results of that spiritual mixed marriage between Judaism and
paganism which took place at a much later period, whereat a blunt soldier,
who sympathised with neither, and “who dealt in salvation as he dealt in
provinces,” acted as best man. As a fact, the parties concerned never
understood each other properly. The declaration of love, and the final
proposal, were made in an Alexandrine jargon, strange to both, the
obscurities of which only grew with the commentaries each successive
generation added to them. Under such circumstances, a happy union was not
to be expected, and the family quarrel which fills the annals of civilised
Europe soon broke out. Judaism, more particularly Roman Judaism, witnessed
this struggle from the beginning, and its fortunes were greatly dependent
on the chance which of these two elements, the Jewish or the pagan, won
the ascendency.