Language:
English
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2021) 27–44
Keywords:
Maimonides, Moses,
;
Bible. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Charity Religious aspects
;
Judaism
;
Charity laws and legislation (Jewish law) Early works to 1800
Abstract:
Deuteronomy 15:8 dictates “Rather, you must open your hand and lend him sufficient for his lack that he is lacking (dê maḥsoro asher yeḥsar lo). The second- and third-century CE rabbis interpret this command rather narrowly, and it appears marginal to late antique Jewish notions of almsgiving. Maimonides (1138–1204) is the first jurist to interpret this scriptural language in a way that casts it as the underlying principle of the Jewish law and practice of almsgiving. Maimonides’s interpretive innovation is almost entirely neglected by thirteenth-century Ashkenazic scholars. The thirteenth-century Spanish scholars Naḥmanides, Shlomo Ibn Adret, and the unknown author of Sefer ha-Ḥinnukh refer to Maimonides’s understanding of dê maḥsoro, but their mentions of it demonstrate its marginality to Jewish legal and ethical discourse of the period. By contrast, the Spanish jurist Jacob ben Asher (fourteenth century) makes dê maḥsoro central to his understanding of Jewish charity in his systematic law code Arbaʿah ṭurim, and Israel Ibn al-Naqāwa does the same in his contemporaneous work of religious edification Menorat ha-maʾor. The growing popularity of the Arbaʿah ṭurim in the fifteenth century and its blending of Ashkenazic and Sefardic legal cultures account for the heightened importance of dê maḥsoro in Ashkenazic legal writing beginning in the fifteenth century and continuing into the sixteenth century.
DOI:
10.1163/9789004460942_003
URL:
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