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168 Ascetics

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Aschenburg

the whole year with the exception of the holy days and the eve of the Atonement Day (Pes. 686). For the sake of communing with the upper Mysticism world, the lower one was despised by and the elect few who preserved the traAsceticism. dition of the gnosis and the apocalyptic mysteries. So did the followers of Obadiah Abu-Isa, the Isawites, and of Judah Yudghan, the Yudghanites, at the close of the

seventh century and at the beginning of the eighth, the forerunners of the Karaites, and many prominent Karaites themselves lead ascetic lives; abstaining from meat and wine, and spending much of their time in meditation and devotion, partly in order to obtain a deeper knowledge of the Scriptures, partly as mourners over Jerusalem (see Shahrastani, "Book of Religions and Philosophical Sects," Haarbriicker's translation, i. 254-257; Gratz, "Gesch. der Juden," iii. 417 et acq., 446 et seq. Jost, " Gesch. des Judenthums," ii. 350 et seq.; Abele.Zion and

Karaites).

To some extent, therefore, all the mystics of the Middle Ages were Ascetics, assuming or accepting for themselves the title of "Nazarites," or being called by their contemporaries " saints." This is especially true of Abraham b. David of Posquieres and his circle in the thirteenth century,

whose

relation to

the beginnings of the Cabala can hardly be denied. Further, the currents of thought which, emanating from India, created Suflsm in Persian and Mohammedan circles in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, exerted considerable influence upon Jewish thinkers, as may be learned from Bahya, whose ethical system, "Hobot ha-Lebabot, " oscillates between asceticism and Jewish optimism, with a decided leaning to the former. Even such thinkers as opposed the ascetic view could not extricate themselves entirely from the meshes of Neoplatonic mysticism, which beheld in the flesh or in matter the source of

Abraham

evil.

Thus Abraham ben Hjyya

ben

strongly refutes the Neoplatonic conHiyya on ception of evil as being identical with Asceticism, matter, and maintains against Bahya that indulgence in fasting and other modes of penitence is not meritorious, since only he who is ruled by his lower desires may resort to asceticism as the means of curbing his passion and disciplining his soul, whereas the really good should confine himself to such modes of abstinence as are Nevertheless, Abraham b. prescribed by the Law. Hiyya claims a higher rank for the saint who, secluded from the world, leads a life altogether conHe goes even so far secrated to the service of God. as to advocate the state of celibacy in such cases referring to the example of Moses who had to abandon intercourse with his wife when receiving the laws on Sinai to the majority of the prophets (who were, as he thinks, unmarried), and to Ben

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'Azzai (according to Yeb. 63b). Like Bahya, he considers that the ascetic, while leading a purer and holier life, requires less legal restraint (see his "Hegyon ha-Nefesh," ed. Reifman, 16a, 32a, 37a; Rosin, "Ethik des Maimonides," pp. 15, 16; Glidemann, in "Monatsschrift," 1900, pp. 196-216). Of Asher, the son of Meshullam b. Jacob in Lunel,

168

Benjamin of Tudela ("Travels," ed. Asher, 3b) rehe was an ascetic (" parush ") who did not attend to any worldly business, but studied day and night, kept fasts, and never ate meat. His brother Jacob bore the title of Nazarite, having also been an ascetic abstaining from wine (see Zunz's note in Asher's "Benjamin of Tudela," lates as eye-witness that

ii.

11,

12;

"Gesch. der Juden,"

Gratz,

vi.

240,

241).

Also the whole family of Judah, the " hasid " of Regensburg, of the twelfth century, his father, Samuel, and his grandfather, Kalonymus of Speier, grandson of Eliezer the Great of Worms, seem to have been a family of Ascetics (see Michael, " Or ha-

Hayyim," Nos. 433, 990, 1174, 1200). The subsequent development and growth of

the

Cabala produced other forms of asceticism. In fact, the Hasid and the Zanua' of the medieval apocalyptic literature being a survival of Essenism, ablutions and fasting were resorted to by the adepts of the Cabala as means of attaining communion with the upper world. Some of these Hasidim would spend the whole week without or with interrupin fasttion, according to their physical endurance ing, rendering only the Sabbath a day of comfort and joy (see Hasidism). The object of their penitences and fastings was to bring about the time of divine favor, the Messianic era. Every Messianic movement had therefore Ascetics as leaders, such as were the Shabbethaians (see Gratz, "Gesch. der Juden," iii. 307) and others (see Abraham b. Samuel Cohen op Lask). Others would refrain from eating animal food 'eber min ha-Hay and, like the Buddhists or the Pythagoreans of old, live on vege-

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tarian diet. The same is related the Dosithean sect.

by Epiphanius

of

Against all these ascetic views and tendencies Maimonides raised his powerful voice and his sober view maintained the upper hand. He Maiadmits the wholesome influence on

monides on Fasting',

those needing much discipline of the soul of fasting and vigils, of sexual and

social abstemiousness, the self-torture of the hermit, and of the penitent who dwells in deserts and uses only coarse haircloth for the covering of his flesh but he declares the constant use of what can at best be only a remedial measure in abnormal and unsound conditions of life to be a great folly and injurious extravagance.

etc.



Maimonides, while adopting the Aristotelian of the golden middle way in all things, finds in the various restrictions of the dietary and marriage laws of the Torah a legislative system of training the people to a sobriety which makes superfluous such asceticism as the monks and the saints of other nations indulge in nay, sinful indeed, according

maxim



the rabbinical interpretation of Num. vi. 11, which says that the priest shall " make an atonement for him [the Nazir] for that he has sinned against the person [in making his vow of abstinence]" (see to

Ned. 10a; Maimonides, " Yad," De'ot, iii. 1, vi. 1). Jewish hermits, living in a state of celibacy and devoting themselves to meditation, are still found among the Falashas. They claim that Aaron the high priest was the first Nazarite who from the time of his consecration separated from his wife to live