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187 "We

humiliation, as if to say, are before thee as fishes " (Gen. xviii. 27; Job xlii. 6), or it is to bring

before

am

Ashes

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

187

God

the

memory

of

Abraham, who

but dust and ashes" (Gen.

said,

"I

mem-

xviii. 27), or the

ory of the offering of Isaac, whose Ashes, according to the rabbinical opinion, lay piled up before God upon the altar as if he had actually been sacrificed as a holocaust (Ta'an. 16a; Yer. Ta'an. ii., beginning; Gen. R. I.e.). It is difficult to say whether the remark of Tos. Ta'an. 156, 16a, that the Ashes to be used in such cases should be of incinerated human beings, rests on tradition or on imagination. Ashes, as a symbol of mourning, were also sprinkled upon the bridegroom during the wedding ceremony, in order to remind him, at the height of his felicity, of the destruction of Jerusalem (B. B. 606). This custom is even to-day observed among some of the orthodox. In memory of the same national disaster the Jews also ate bread sprinkled with Ashes at the last meal before the fast-day of the Ninth of Ab (Yer. Ta'an. iv. 69c Lam. R. to iii. 16 Shulhan 'Aruk, Orah Hayyim, 552, 6 gloss). Raba says that if sifted Ashes are strewn round the bed, the footprints of night-demons can be observed in them in the morning (Ber. 6a). Unworthy disciples are called " white pitchers full of ashes

{ib. 28a).

L. G.

sr.

j.

ASHI A

— K.

born celebrated Babylonian amora 352 died 427 reestablished the academy at Sura, and was the first editor of the Babylonian Talmud. According to a tradition preserved in the academies <Kid. 726), Ashi was born in the same year that Raba, the great teacher of Mahuza, died, and he was the first teacher of any importance in the Babylonian Simai, Ashi's father, colleges after Raba's death. was a rich and learned man, a student of the college at Naresh, near Sura, which was directed by Papa, Raba's disciple. Ashi's teacher was Kahana, a







of the same college, who afterward became president of the academy at Pumbedita. While still young Ashi became the head of the

member

Sura Academy, his great learning being acknowledged by the older teachers. It had been closed since Hisda's death (309), but under Ashi it regained importance. His commanding personalstanding and wealth are sufficiently indicated by the saying then current, that since the days of Judah I., the Patriarch, "learning and social distinction were never so united in one person as in all its old

ity, his scholarly

Ashi" (Sanh.

Indeed, Ashi was the

36a).

man

des-

tined to undertake a task similar to that which fell The latter compiled and to the lot of Judah I. edited the Mishkaii Ashi made it the labor of his the name of life to collect after critical scrutiny, under "Gemara," those explanations of the Mishnah that

in the Babylonian academies since the days of Rab, together with all the discussions connected with them, and all the halakic and

had been handed down

haggadic material treated in the schools. Conjointly with his disciples and the scholars who " gathered in Sura for the " Kallah or semi-annual The college-conference, he completed this task. kindly attitude of King Yezdegerd I., as well his as the devoted and respectful recognition of

Ashi

authority by the academies of Nehardea and Pumbedita, greatly favored the undertaking. A particularly important element in Ashi's Compiles success was the length of his tenure of office as head of the Sura Academy, the

Gemara.

which must have lasted fifty-twoyears, but which tradition, probably for the sake of round numbers, has exaggerated into sixty. According to the same tradition, these sixty years are said to have been so symmetrically apportioned that each treatise required six months for the study of its Mishnah and the redaction of the traditional expositions of the same (Gemara), thus aggregating thirty years for the sixty treatises. The same process was then repeated for thirty years more, at the end of which period the work was considered complete. The artificiality and unreality of this legendary account are made clear by the facts that the treatises are of different degrees of length and Varying difficulty, and that a large number of Accounts them possess no Gemara whatever. Probably all that is historical in this of His statement is that Ashi actually revised Work. the work twice— a fact that is mentioned in the Talmud (B. B. 1576). Beyond this, the Talmud itself contains not the slightest intimation of the activity which Ashi and his school exercised Even the in this field for more than half a century.

question as to whether this editorial work was written down, and thus, whether the putting of the Babylonian Talmud into writing took place under Ashi or not, can not be answered from any statement in the Talmud. It is nevertheless probable that the fixation of the text of so comprehensive a literary work could not have been accomplished without the aid of writing. The work begun by Ashi was continued by the two succeeding generations, and completed by Rabina, another president of the college To the work as the lastin Sura, who died in 499. left it, only slight additions were made by the Saboraim. To one of these additions— that to an ancient utterance concerning the " Book of Adam, the first man"— the statement is appended (B. M. 86a), " Ashi and Rabina are the last representatives of independent decision [horaah]," an evident reference to the work of these two in editing the Babylonian Talmud, which as an object of study and a

named

fountainhead of practical "decision" was to have the same importance for the coming generations as the Mishnah had had for the Amoraim. Ashi not only elevated Sura till it became the intellectual center of the Babylonian Jews, but contributed to its material grandeur also. Restored He rebuilt Rab's academy and the Sura's Im- synagogue connected with it sparing portance. no expense, and personally superintending their reconstruction (Shab. As a direct result of Ashi's renown, the exil11a). arch came annually to Sura in the month after the

New-Year

to receive the respects of the assembled

representatives congregations.

of the

Babylonian academies and

To such

a degree of splendor did

atthese festivities and other conventions in Sura that some of tain, that Ashi expressed his surprise to the Gentile residents of Sura were not tempted

accept Judaism (Ber.

176).