History 282

Medieval

Intellectual & Spiritual

Trends

Two Worlds

• Babylonian via North Africa to Spain

• Palestinian via Italy to Central Europe and later to the East

• Overlap

Jewish & Outside Cultures

• Islamic world– High cultural level in the cities– Elements of openness under the impact of

philosophy– Language is shared; cultural competition

• Moses ibn Ezra in southern Spain (d. 1138?)

Jewish & Outside Cultures (2)

• Christian world– General level is lower until 12th/13th

century– Culture is clerical– Language is Latin

Jews and the Outside

• Both opportunity and challenge

• Translation

• Role as intermediary

Islamic world

• Polemic against Christianity and Islam force Jews towards “rationalism”

• Access to Arabic translations of Greek philosophical classics

• Saadia 882–942: – First autonomous system since Philo– Sefer Emunot ve-Deot (Beliefs & Opinions)– Both reason and faith are in text– Commandments: intellectual and authoritarian

Grammar and Language

• Importance of grammar – Menahem ibn Saruk– Dunash ibn Labrat

• Jewish poetry – Piyut and secular (Samuel ibn Naghrela)– Moses ibn Ezra (theoretical treatis)– Judah ha-Levi (1086–1145)– Makama (Judah al-Harizi) (1165-1234)

The Mirror

• Into my eyes he lovingly looked, My arms about his neck were twined, And in the mirror of my eyes, What but his image did he find?

• Upon my dark-hued eyes he pressed His lips with breath of passion rare. The rogue! 'Twas not my eyes he kissed; He kissed his picture mirrored there.

• Judah ha-levi

My Heart is in the East

• My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west. How can I find savor in food? How shall it be sweet to me? How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in Arab chains?

• A light thing would it seem to me to leave all the good things of Spain - Seeing how precious in mine eyes to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.

Al-Harizi

• Maqama

• Competition with Al-Hariri (Mahbarot Iti’el) leads to independent production (Takhkemoni)

Moses Maimonides

• 1135-1204• Cordoba, Spain to Fostat, Egypt• Systematization of Halakha

– Mishneh Torah (significance of the title)• Systematization of halakha• Integration of intellectualist elements

– Moreh Nevukhim (Guide to the Perplexed)• Audience

• Challenge to Isolationist Thinking • Parable of the Palace

Ashkenazi Europe

• Definition• Transfer of culture via Italy

– Kalonymids

• Development of Learning– RaSHI (Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac) 1040-

1105– Parshandata; cumulative– Teacher in a book

Tosafists

• Jacob b. Meir (Rabenu Tam) c. 1100-1171

• System of jurisprudence

Hasidut Ashkenaz

• Mystical traditions

• Small number of families (elitist)

• Emphasis on morality

Exegesis

• Drash vs Pshat blurred

• Literary approach

• Rationalist vs non-Rationalist is a question of aims

Abraham Ibn Ezra

• I. Truth is the center; commentary is the circumference

• II. Truth is the center and they imagine they’re there (Karaites)

• III. Path of darkness (mystical; non-rational)• IV. Near the Center; Midrash taken literally• V. grammar-based; rational; traditional

Nahmanides

• Polemic relation with Rashi and Ibn Ezra

• Adds kabbala

Isaac Abravanel

• Intellectual investigation is serious business; dangerous

• Aristotelian justification for messianic speculation

Zohar

• Moses de Leon

• Rejects the literal

Collapse of the Medieval

• Challenges from the outside– World created by invasions and rigidly split

by religious affiliation will be disrupted by invasion (Berbers into Spain 11th & 12th cen.; Christian crusaders from late 11th cent. In Spain and the East) [as well as Mongols; Turks; etc.]

– Demographic pressures; migrations; as well as natural growth; Black Death

Collapse of the Medieval

• Challenges from Within– Urban growth challenges Jews’ place

• Shift to moneylending

– Religious Reform -- institutional and doctrinal

Expulsions

• Migration patterns to the north and east• Accelerated by expulsions; England

1290; France 1304+; Spain 1492• Forced conversions -- S. Italy, Aragon,

Castille, Portugal• Social-economic and religious factors;

greater emphasis on homogeneity

Invention of New Centers

• Poland

• Ottoman Turkey (fall of Istanbul 1453; Salonika 1478)

• Opens the way to Land of Israel– Safed

• New larger, multi-ethnic communities; new forms of organization

Conversos

• Mass conversions in Spain from 1391

• Purity of blood 1455 Toledo

• Inquisition 1478 – State, not Papal– Portuguese 1536– Irrelevant to Jews

• Problem for Spain

Returning Jews

• Are they Jewish?– Requirement ot convert

• Bring new ideas and relativist approach– Amsterdam: Orobio di Castro, Uriel d’Acosta,

Benedict Spinoza, – Venice: Samuel Aboab– Boundaries are tenuous; concepts are mixed (e.g.

circumcision and baptism)

Messianic Reaction

• Ottoman success seems to point to messianic era

• Religious excitement in Safed (Smicha)

• New forms of Kabbalistic thought– Isaac Luria (ARI)

Sabbetai Zevi

• Greatest messianic movement in Jewish history

• Informed by kabbalistic ideology; redemption through sin (Scholem)

• Zevi’s conversion 1666 & its aftermath– Survival groups– Question kehila authority?

• Did this lead to modernity? Tune in…