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166 Asceticism Ascetics

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

In all forms of religion at a certain stage of development, do not spring from the notion of the sinfulness of the natural instincts and of life. Nor is the sacrificial scheme in of any way connected with Asceticism. "the Flesh.. The idea of privation is foreign to it. If the offering was a gift to the Deity and as such entailed upon the offerer the parting with something of value, the expectation which animated him was invariably that of receiving rich return. But whatever theory must be accepted in explanation of the various rites of mutilation, and of the sacrificial ritual, certain it is that Judaism from the beginning set its face most sternly against the one, and materially restricted the other. Mutilations for whatever purpose and of whatever character were absolutely prohibited. Funeral horrors and superstitions were not tolerated. The Levitical

Torture

code restricted sacrifices to one place. The priests only were entrusted with the office at the altar. And, if the Prophets are the truest expounders of the ideals and ideas of the religion of Israel, even the sacrificial and sacerdotal system, with its implications of extraordinary and precautionary cleanliness and physical abstemiousness, was of little vital moment. Fasting, which plays so essential a part in the practises of ascetics, found official recognition only in the development of the Day of Atonement. The Prophets, again, had little patience with fasting. There are some obscure allusions to fast days of popular observance but the Prophets of exilic and postexilic days insist on the futility of this custom. Isaiah (lviii.), while appealing for a broader charity and deeper sense of justice, maintains that these, and not fasting, are the expression of a will sanctiIt is characteristic of the attitude of fied unto God. later Judaism that this very chapter has been assigned for the Haftarah for the Day of Atonement, the one penitential fast-day of the synagogue.

Nevertheless, fasting among the Jews was reThe Book of sorted to in times of great distress. Esther, of late date, illustrates this Fasting, for the period included in the Biblical canon. Rabbinical sources prove the growing tendency to abstain from drink and food whenever memories of disaster marked the days of the synagogal calendar, or instant danger threatened In the scheme of the synagogue the community. the one fast-day of the Bible received no iess

than twenty-two as companions (compare Fasting). Still, it ma}- be doubted whether this multiplication of fast-daj's can be taken as a sign of an increased tendency to Asceticism. Probably the theory of Robertson Smith ("The Religion of the Semites," p. 413) still holds good to a large extent in explanation of many of the fast-observances of later Judaism, as undoubtedly it does for the voluntary and occasional fast-days mentioned in the historical books of the Bible; namely, that Oriental fasting is merely a preparation for the eating of the sacrificial meal. The rabbinical injunction, not to eat too late a meal on the eve of the Sabbath-day, so as to enjoy all the more that of the Sabbath, tends to corroborate Perhaps this also underlies the rabthe theory. binical report that

some examples of rabbinical

166

piety fasted every Friday (in preparation for the Sabbath). Among the Rabbis some are mentioned as great and Rabbi Zeira especially is rememconsistent fasters. bered for his fondness of this form of piety. Yet to make of him an ascetic would transcend the bounds of truth. He fasted that he might forget his Babylonian method of teaching before emigrating to PalesThe story continues tine (B. M. 85m).

Ascetics that he abstained from drink and food in Talmud, for the period of one hundred days, in order that hell-fire might later have no power over him. Simon ben Yohai is depicted as an ascetic in the traditions preserved in rabbinical literature. But exposed to persecutions under the Hadrian regime, and often in danger of his life, his whole mind was of an exceptionally somber turn for a Jewish teacher. Moreover, his ascetic practises were not inspired by a consciousness of the futility of this life and its sinfulness, but by the anxiety to fulfil to the letter the Law, to ponder on the Torah day and night. He begrudged .the hours necessary for the care of the body as so many precious moments stolen from the study of the holy Law. He envied the generation of the desert who had been fed on heavenly manna, and were thus absolved from the care for their daily bread an echo of this sentiment may be detected in the petition of Jesus for daily bread (on Simon b. Yohai, see Bacher, " Ag. Tan." ii. 70-149). Still, with all these seeming leanings to ascetic conduct, these rabbis did not encourage individual fasting. The community in distress did indeed proclaim a public fast; and it was the duty of the loyal member to participate. For he who would not share in the distress would have no part in the consolation of the people (Ta'an. 11«). The habitual faster was called a sinner (ib.). This judgment was enforced by an appeal to the Biblical text in connection with the "Nazir's" (Nazarite's) expiatory sacrifice (Num. vi. 11). Rabbi Zeira would not permit his disciples to indulge in extraordinary practises of self-restraint, if they presumed thereby to reflect on the piety of others saner than they. The title applied to such an adept at saintly practises is characteristically deprecatory for his attitude of mind: his conduct is declared to smack of conceit, if not of hypocrisy (Yer. Ber. ii. 5d). The attempt has been made to explain the Biblical Nazarites as forerunners of monastic orders addicted to the practise of ascetic discipline. Pentateuchal legislation concerning them shows them to have been merely tolerated. Modern criticism explains their peculiarities as arising from motives other than those that determine the conduct of ascetics. The Biblical Nazirs, forerunners of the Nebi'im (Prophets), were protestants against the adoption of the customs and the religious rites of the Canaanites. In their dress and mode of life they emphasized their loyalty to Yhwh, enthroned on the desert mountain. Wine and the crown of hair were sacred to the gods of the land. Their very appearance emphasized their rejection of the new deities. And in later days the number of those that took the Nazarite vow was exceedingly small. One is inclined to the opinion that no case occurred in which the Pentateuchal pro;

visions

became

effective.