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The Virgin Mary, Miriam, and Jewish Reactions to Marian Devotion in the High Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2013

Ephraim Shoham-Steiner
Ephraim Shoham-Steiner*
Affiliation:
Department of Jewish History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be'er Sheva, Israel
*
shohamst@bgu.ac.il
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Extract

While discussing the rites and customs of burial and mourning in his book Tashbeẓ katan, the early fourteenth-century Rabbi Shimshon ben Ẓadok made the following remark:

And the fact that we spill the water [that was in the presence of the dead man] outside [after the death] is because that when Miriam died the well ceased. For it is written: ‘And there was no water for the congregation [‘eda] since it was for her merit that the well traveled [with the Israelites] and we allude to it that he [the deceased] is a great man and he is worthy that water would cease on his behalf.

Type
Research Article
Information
AJS Review , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , April 2013 , pp. 75 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2013 

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References

1. On Rabbi Meir's life story see: Agus, I. A., Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg: His Life and His Works as Sources for the Religious, Legal, and Social History of the Jews of Germany in the Thirteenth Century, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1947)Google Scholar. More recently: J.Yuval, I., “Meir ben Baruch aus Rothenburg (um 1200–1293), ‘suprimus magister’”, in Geschichte und Kultur der Juden in Bayern, eds. Treml, M. and Weigand, W. (Lebensläufe, Munich: K.G. Saur, 1988), 21–24Google Scholar.; R. Shimshon ben Ẓadok custom manual, was compiled during his master's incarceration 1286–1293 (and no later than the early years of the fourteenth century) and combined quotes rulings and customs attributed to the author's mentor.

2. Shimshon ben Ẓadok, Sefer tashbeẓ katan, Lemberg 1858 (= Tashbeẓ) para. 447. מה שאנו שופכין המים לחוץ. כשמתה מרים הנביאה פסק הבאר דכתיב: "ולא היה מים לעדה" שבזכותה היה הבאר הולך. ואנו מרמזין לזה שהוא גדול ובדין הוא שיפסקו המים בשבילו. For early scholarly discussions of this custom see: Bender, A. P., “Beliefs, Rites and Customs of the Jews connected with Death Burial and Mourning,” JQR 6–7 (1894–1895)Google Scholar, especially Jewish Quarterly Review 7, 101–118.

3. Yalkut Shimoni, Ḥukat par. 76. The compiler of the YS drew on מדרש פטירת אהרון the midrash “The passing of Aaron”; see Jellinek, Adolph, Bet ha-midrash Erster Theil, (Jerusalem: Wahrman Books 1967), 91–95Google Scholar.

4. The belief in a connection between a dead person's thirst and the lack of water in the underworld can be traced back to ancient Greece, where liquid libations for the dead were sometimes viewed as their food or drink. Some Jewish traditions dating from late antiquity allude to this notion and relate to the sufferings of the wicked in the underworld to the lack of the liquid of life, colored by the terrible heat and thirst in Gehena. See Lieberman, Saul, “Al ḥataim ve-'onsham,” in Shaul Lieberman: meḥkarim be-torat ereẓ-yisrael, ed. Rosenthal, David (Jerusalem: Magnes 1991), 70–89Google Scholar. On the ancient Greek ritual of making liquid libations for the dead see Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, trans. Raffan, John (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 70–73Google Scholar.

5. The ethical will attributed to Rabbi Judah b. Shmuel (“the Pious”) of Regensburg (d. 1217) is a thirteenth-century tractate that was eventually paired up with Judah's more commonly known ethical work “The Book of the Pious” (Sefer Ḥasidim). On R. Judah's ethical will see Shvat, A. I., “Ẓava'at Rabbi Yehudah ha-ḥasid: hem nikhtav ‘avur ha-ẓibur ha-raḥav oh le-zar'oh,” Sinai 133 (2004): 199–227Google Scholar. And more recently, Kahana, Maoz, “Mekorot ha-ei'edah u-temurot ha-zeman: ẓava'at R. Yehudah ha-Ḥasid ba-’et ha-ḥadashah” in Semikhut ruḥanit: ma'avkim ‘al koaḥ tarbuti be-hagot ha-yehudit, eds. Kreisel, Ḥaim et al. , (Beersheba: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev & Mosad Bialik Press, 2010), 233–262Google Scholar.

6. As stated above the exemplum appears in the addenda to the “The Ethical Will of R. Judah the Pious”) printed in Margaliyot, R., Sefer Ḥasidim (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1957) 32, § 4 (Hebrew)Google Scholar.

7. Tashbeẓ para. 442.

8. A brief summary of these traditions can be found in the recently published Sefer ha-kushiyot, see Stahl, Jacob Yisrael, ed., Sefer ha-kushiyot (Jerusalem: Stahl, 2007), 193–194, § 259Google Scholar. The rationalization for the custom discussed may be found in halakhic literature as well, as in Rabbi Isaac ben Moses of Vienna's thirteenth-century book Or Zaru'a; see: Yiẓḥak b. Moshe of Vienna, Sefer Or-Zaru'a, 2 vols (Zhytomyr 1862), vol.1 Hilkhot Pesaḥ § 240. See also, Pines, Eliyahu Dov, Piskei Rabenu Yeḥ’iel mi-Paris (Jerusalem: Machon Yerushalayim, 1973) 37 §67Google Scholar. There were of course other dangers associated with water, most importantly the Talmudic tradition that continued to prevail especially among woman regarding the dangers of the Tekufa. See Baumgarten, Elisheva, “‘Remember that Glorious Girl’: Jephthah's Daughter in Medieval Jewish Culture,” Jewish Quarterly Review 97 (2007): 180–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and for a more recent discussion see Carlebach, Elisheva, Palaces of Time: Jewish Calendar and Culture in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Harvard University Press, 2011), 160–188Google Scholar.

9. Pelikan, Jaroslav, Mary through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 28Google Scholar.

10. Sapir-Abulafia, Anna, “Christian Imagery of Jews in the Twelfth Century: A Look at Odo of Cambrai and Guibert of Nogent,” in Christians and Jews in Dispute: Dispositional Literature and the Rise of Anti-Judaism in the West (c.1000–1150), ed. Sapir-Abulafia, Anna (Brookfield, VT and Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998), 383–391Google Scholar.

11. Rubenstein, Jay, Guibert of Nogent: Portrait of a Medieval Mind (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), 39–44Google Scholar.

12. Yuval, Israel, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 195, n. 129Google Scholar.

13. Rubin, Miri, Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 329–330, 426–437Google Scholar.

14. Judith Gale Kreiger, “Pablo de Santa Maria: His Epoch, Life and Hebrew and Spanish Literature Productions” (PhD diss., University of California, 1988).

15. The context of this verse, not explicit in the text, is telling. The full verse (Deut. 31:16) deals with one who goes astray and follows the foreign idols of the land instead of following the true God of the Hebrews. The word referring to “going astray” is vezanah, which may also mean: “was tempted in a sexually promiscuous fashion,” using the same Hebrew root as that used for a whore (zonah). This is a covert way of making a very rude statement about both Jesus and Mary.

16. Steinschneider, Moritz, “Miscellen,” Hebräische Bibliographie 14 (1874), 131–132Google Scholar; Malter, Henry, “Dreams as a Cause of Literary Composition,” in Studies in Jewish Literature in Honor of Professor Kaufman Kohler, eds. Philipson, David, et al. (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1913), 201–202Google Scholar. Jacob, Rabbi of Marvége, She'ilot u-teshuvot min ha-shamayim, ed. Margulies, Reuven (Lwów: H. Margulies, 1929), 21, n. 4Google Scholar. Wolfson, Elliot R., “Textual Flesh, Incarnation, and the Imaginal Body: Abraham Abulafia's Polemic with Christianity,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History: Festschrift in Honor of Robert Chazan, eds. Angel, David, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 189–226CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the Abulafia quote see Abulafia, Abraham, Mafteaḥ ha-ḥokhmot, ed. Gross, Avraham (Jerusalem: Amnon Gross, 2001), 125Google Scholar.

17. Yuval, Two Nations, 190–204.

18. Elliot Wolfson, Venturing Beyond: Law Morality and Kabbalistic Mysticism (Oxford University Press: Oxford 2006), 17–128, esp. 93. See also Green, Arthur, “Shekhihah, The Virgin Mary and the Song of Songs,” AJS Review 26 (2002): 1–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schäfer, Peter, The Mirror of his Beauty: Feminine Images of God from the Bible to the Early Kabbalah (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 197–209Google Scholar. The rise of the cult of the Virgin Mary is also reflected in the number of church dedications and rededications to her name in the late 12th and early 13th centuries; see also Marks, Richard, Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (Phoenix Mill Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2004) 38–63Google Scholar.

19. Marcus, Ivan, Rituals of Childhood: Acculturation in Medieval Europe (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 90–100Google Scholar. Israel Yuval suggests in a similar fashion that the use of the words: Moshav Yekaro (the seat of his homage) in the prayer Alenu le-shabeaḥ should be read as a Jewish mirror image of the role of the Virgin Mary as ‘sedes sapientae’ (seat of wisdom) see Yuval, Two Nations, 200–201 and n.129; see also Baumgarten, Elisheva, Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005), 113–116Google Scholar.

20. Kogman-Appel, Katrin, “Coping with Christian Pictorial Sources: What did Jewish Miniaturists not Paint?” Speculum 75 (2000): 816–858CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sara Offenberg, Expressions of Meeting the Challenges of the Christian Milieu in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature (PhD diss., Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2008), 36–68.

21. Kogman-Appel, Katrin, “Jewish Art and Cultural Exchange: Theoretical Perspectives,” Medieval Encounters 17 (2011): 1–26, esp. 20–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. I find the language and formulation employed by Elliot R. Wolfson in his previously mentioned article to be suggestive: “the rejection of the ‘other’ does not mean the other has no impact over the formation of one's own sense of self; on the contrary, condemnation of the other bespeaks contiguity with the other, and this is so even when the other has preached intolerance or perpetrated violence in the sociopolitical arena” (Wolfson, Venturing Beyond, 2–5).

23. Judah ben Shmuel ha-ḥasid, Sefer ha-gematriyot, 2 vols, ed. Stahl, Jacob Yisrael (Jerusalem: J. I. Stahl, 2005), 2:477Google Scholar, Parashat Beshalaḥ § 20. For the manuscript facsimile edition of BOG see: Judah ben Shmuel ha-ḥasid, Sefer ha-gematriyot, eds. Abrams, Daniel and Ta-Shma, Israel Moshe (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 1998)Google Scholar. On gematriya as hallmark of the medieval Askenazi pietistic interpretative agenda see Daniel Abrams, “Introduction to the Book of Gematriyot,” idem. Material originating from Sefer ha-gematriyot can be found in various other Ashkenazi works from the immediate Ashkenazi pietistic intellectual circle as well as from the broader Franco-German realm. Sara Offenberg has recently (2011) shown that many gimatriyot copied directly from the Sefer ha-gematriyot made their way into household cultural objects, such as the illuminated “London Miscellany” or Mikhlol London, See: Offenberg, Sara, “Crossing Over from Earth to Heaven: The Image of the Ark and the Merkavah in the North French Hebrew Miscellany” Kabbalah 26 (2012): 135–158, esp. 149Google Scholar. For the “London Miscellany” see Schonfield, Jeremy, ed., The North French Hebrew Miscellany: British Library Add. MS 11639 (London: Facsimile Editions, 2003)Google Scholar. The quotes from the Sefer ha-gematriyot appear in fol. 615v–634v.

24. See Rabbi Elazar of Worms, Perush Rokeaḥ ‘al ha-torah, 3 vols., ed. Kanevski, S. (Bnei-Brak: Y. Klugman, 1986), 1:83Google Scholar. Joseph Dan and Daniel Abrams have questioned the attribution of this commentary to Rabbi Elazar of Worms. See Dan, Joseph, “Perush ha-torah le-Rabbi Elazar mi-garmeiza mahadurat Kaniyevsky,” Kiryat Sefer 59 (1983): 644Google Scholar; Abrams, Daniel, “Introduction to Sefer Gematriyot,” in Judah ben Shmuel ha-ḥasid, Sefer ha-gematriyot, eds. Abrams, D. and Ta-Shma, I. M. (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 1998), 1, n. 5Google Scholar.

25. Pelikan, Jaroslav, Mary through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), 97Google Scholar.

26. Schaff, Peter, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing, 1888)Google Scholar.

27. Stahl, Sefer ha-gematriyot, 600 § 2. ‘eglah ‘arufah literary means “decapitated she calf.” The reference is to the ruling in Deut. 21:1–10 This rite is considered expiatory and is aimed to ritually cleanse the inhabitants of the city nearest to the deceased from being accused of accessory and or responsibility for the murder that had been committed.

28. Deuteronomy 21:7–8.

29. Stahl, Jacob Yisrael, Sefer ha-Kushiyot, Jerusalem 2007, 128 § 162Google Scholar מה שרוחצין ידיהם מפני שמיתה מכפרת. ומיתתן של צדיקים מכפרת מעגלה ערופה דגמרינן ”שם“ ”שם“ מעגלה ערופה וכתיב בעגלה ערופה (דברים כא 6)“ ירחצו את ידיהם”

30. See: Rabbi Shalom b. Issac Zekel of Neustadt, Minhagei Maharash, ed. Spitzer, S.Y. (Jerusalem: Makhon Yerushalayim, 1997 2) § 403Google Scholar. Rabbi Shalom died circa 1415. This Ruling is quoted also by R. Shalom of Neustadt's famous disciple Rabbi Jacob ben Moshe Halevi Molin (Maharil) in his authoritative and much quoted custom manual, see Rabbi Jabob b. Moshe Halevi Mulin, Sefer Ha-minhagim (Maharil), ed. Spitzer, Shlomo Yehuda (Jerusalem: Makhon Yerushalayim, 1989)Google ScholarHilkhot Semaḥot § 1. Maharil chose to quote this ruling by his teacher with regard to prayer by the sickbed of a mortally ill individual and not just any sick person.

31. Aaron ben Jacob ha-kohen of Lunel, Sefer orḥot ḥayim, part 2, vol. 3, (Berlin: Ḥevrat Mekiẓe Nirdamim, 1902) 576 § 11Google Scholar. On this book see Galinsky, Judah, “Of Exile and Halakhah: Fourteenth-Century Spanish Halakhic Literature and the Works of the French Exiles Aaron Ha-kohen and Jeruḥam b. Meshulam,” Jewish History 22 (2008): 81–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although Aaron ha-Kohen's authorship is questioned, the Provançal origins of the book are not.

32. A similar idea appears in the new edition of the Tashbeẓ published recently, see Shimshon ben ẒadokSefer Tashbeẓ, ed. Engel, S. (Jerusalem: Makhon Yerushalyim, 2011) § 464Google Scholar.

33. See Yuval, Two Nations, 195, n. 129.

34. Ta-Shma, Israel Moshe, Minhag Ashkenaz ha-kadmon (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1994 2), 216.Google Scholar

35. Despres, Denis L., “Immaculate Flesh and the Social Body: Mary and the Jews,” Jewish History 12 (1998): 47–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rubin, Miri, Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Jordan, William C., “Marian Devotion and the Talmud Trial of 1240,” in Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter, (Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien Bd. 4), eds. Lewis, Bernard and Niewöhner, Friedrich (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1992), 61–76Google Scholar; Hames, Harvey, “The Limits of Conversion: Ritual Murder and the Virgin Mary in the Account of Adam of Bristol,” Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007): 43–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The conclusion from these works is that Mary's role had transformed from the enabler of safe passage from Judaism to Christianity, to that of gatekeeper preventing unwanted infiltration of Jews into Christianity.

36. See Röckelein, H., “Marienverehrung und Judenfeindlichkeit in Mittelalter und fruher Neuzeit,” in Maria in der Welt: Marinenverehrung im Kontext der Sozialgeschichte 10–18 Jahrhundert, eds. Opitz, Claudia, et al. (Zurich: Chronos, 1993), 279–307Google Scholar; Creasman, Allyson F., “The Virgin Mary Against the Jews: Anti-Jewish Polemic in the Pilgrimage to the Schöne Maria of Regensburg (1519–25),” Sixteenth Century Journal 33 (2002): 963–980CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On this matter see also Minty, Mary, “Judengasse to Christian Quarter: The Phenomenon of the Converted Synagogue in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Holy Roman Empire,” in Popular Religion in Germany and Central Europe 1400–1800, eds. Schribner, Robert and Johnson, Trevor (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), 58–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rothkrug, Lionel, “Popular Religion and Holy Shrines: Their Influence on the Origins of the German Reformation and Their Role in German Cultural Development,” in Religion and The People 800–1700, ed. Obelkevich, James (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 20–86Google Scholar, esp. 28 where Rothkrug points out that this phenomenon may date back to a time as early as the 1298 Rindfleisch riots in southern Germany.

37. Codreanu-Windauer, Silvia, “Regensburg: The Archeology of the Medieval Jewish Quarter,” in The Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages (Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries) Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at Speyer, 20–25 October 2002, ed. Cluse, Christoph (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 391–403Google Scholar, esp. 393 and fig. 43. Figure 43 shows a woodcut by Michael Ostendorfer depicting a religious procession dedicated to the Virgin passing by the decimated houses of the former Jewish quarter. The famous artist Alberecht Altdorfer had made several etchings of the former Jewish synagogue in Regensburg from that same year before it was deliberately demolished after the expulsion of the Jews from the city. Idem, 399, fig. 47.

38. Price, Merrell L., “Re-Membering the Jews: Theatrical Violence in the N-Town Marian Plays,” Comparative Drama 41 (2007–8): 439–463CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39. Despres, Denis L., “Mary of the Eucharist: Cultic Anti-Judaism in some Fourteenth-Century English Devotional Manuscripts,” in From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought, (Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien Band 11), ed. Cohen, Jeremy (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag), 375–401Google Scholar.

40. Jews were not unaware of this change, for it did not limit itself to the religious or intellectual circles within medieval European society. See John of Joinville, The Life of St. Louis, trans. Hauge, Rene, ed. de Wailly, Natalis (London and New York: Sheed &Ward, 1955), 35–36Google Scholar.

41. Schäfer, Peter, Mirror of His Beauty: Feminine Images of God from the Bible to the Early Kabbalah (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), 208Google Scholar. See also Schäfer, Peter, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton and London: Princeton University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.