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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

BEETLE



English equivalent in A. V. for the

Hebrew "hargol"

(Lev. xi. 22; R. V. "cricket"). It is here mentioned as a kind of locust, together

with '"arbeh," "sal'am," and "hagab."

According

Talmud

to the

the hargol has a tail, and a hump on its head. In Shab. vi. 10 it is stated that a hargol's egg is hung on the ear as a cure for earache. It is impossible to say now with which of the known species of Beetle the hargol is to be identified but

has nothing in common with the ordinary Beetle (compare Dillmann on Lev. xi. 22). See Locusts. J- JKI. Be.

it

BEGGING AND BEGGARS made ample

Although it has



provision for the relief of the poor, the

Mosaic legislation does not contain any prescription with regard to beggars nor has the Biblical Hebrew a specific term for professional beggary, the nearest expression being " to ask [or seek] bread " and " to wander" (see below). Wherever the Bible commends charity, or even " gifts " to the needy (Esther ix. 22), it does not mean such as are urged by an intruding or supplicating mendicant, but such charitable deeds as are practised spontaneously by the giver whenever there is a need for them. Thus the Bible praises a worthy woman with the words "She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy " (Prov. xxxi. 20; compare Deut. xv. 7; Isa. lviii. 7). This omission of all care for beggars wandering from door to door is not without reason, but lies in the very nature of the Mosaic law. The distribu;

—

tion of the Holy Land among all the children of Israel in equal parts corresponding to the number of the memto the Bible, bers of eacli family the manifold provisions for the relief of families or individuals impoverished by misfortune or disease the strict prohibition of every kind of usury; the cancellation of all debts in the sabbatical year the restoration of all the destitute landowners to their former estate at the recurrence of the jubilee year; and, finally, the provision that a poor Hebrew who sold himself to his wealthier brother should serve him until the jubilee only, without becoming deprived of his citizenship, and that his master was forbidden to treat him as a slave (Lev. xxv. 39 et all these laws, as far as actually practised, seg.) must have rendered the existence of beggars quite

Unknown





—

impossible.

In somewhat later times, however, with the development of larger cities, begging seems to have been known to the Jews, either as occurring among them

This may be inor among neighboring nations. ferred from Ps. cix. 10, where the children of the wicked are cursed with beggary in contradistinction to the children of the righteous, who will never have to seek bread (Ps. xxxvii. 25 for the Hebrew

expression corresponding to " begging, " compare Ps. lix.

10

and

cix. 10).

The first clear denunciation of beggary and almstaking is found in Ecclus. (Sirach) xl. 28-30, where the Hebrew word for " begging " (according to the edition of Cowley and Neubauer, Oxford, 1897) is as in Ps. cix. 10 (compare Ecclus. [Sirach] xxix. 23 etseq.). Here, as well as in Tobit, and especially in the New

Beet

Begging

Testament, where beggars are frequently mentioned (Mark x. 46; John ix. 8; Acts iii. 2, 3), the word iltrifioa'wri has already assumed the In the specialized sense of alms given to begApocrypha ging poor (Tobit iv. 7, 11, 16, 17 xii. 8and N. T. 11; Ecclus. [Sirach] iii. 14, 30, 33; vii.

10-12; xvi. 14; xxix. 11-13; xxxi. 11 2-4; Luke xi. 41; xii. 33; Acts ix. 36; x. 2, 4, 31; xxiv. 17). The existence of house-to-house begging in Mishnaic and Talmudic times may be inferred from Peah

Matt.

viii.

vi.

7



Shab.

1,

1.

151ft

compare Targ. Esth. and Sifre, Deut. 116.



Meg. 15* (with

this

passage

Ket. xiii. 3 B. B. 9a By these passages, however, it can not be decided with certainty whether there were only itinerant mendicants, or also resident beggars. The expression used in Peah viii. 7, " 'ani ha'ober mi-makom le-makom," probably alludes to the first class, while the other terms, "mahazir 'al bapetahim " and the Aramaic " ahadore appitha " may include both classes. Women did not ix. 14)





Women Did

beg from house to house. The support of a needy woman was, therefore, thought preferable to that of a needy man (Hor. iii. 7; Maimonides, " Yad," Mattenot 'Aniyim, viii. 15; Shulhan 'Aruk, Yoreh De'ah, Professional beggars were a despised class; 251, 8). and it was forbidden to support them from the general charity fund with more than small alms (B. B. 9a; see Rashi on the passage; Yoreh De'ah, 250, 3, and the annotations of Shabbethai Cohen, acccrding to which private benefactors may also observe the same rule). But it was also forbidden to drive a beggar away without giving him any alms (B. B. I.e. Yad ha-Hazakah, I.e. vii. 7). Non-Jewish beggars were also recommended for support with food

Not Beg.



[iii.] 4; Yad ha-HazaYoreh De'ah, 251, 1, gloss); but Jews were prohibited from receiving alms publicly from non-Jews, unless they were in danger of life

and garments

(Tosef., Git. v.

kah,

7;

I.e.

vii.

Yad ha-Hazakah, I.e. viii. 9; is also made to a class mendicants who feigned diseases or

(Sanh. 26S, see Rashi;

Yoreh De'ah,

254,

1).

Allusion

of professional deformities in order to attract the sympathetic noSuch beggars were looked upon tice of passers-by. with contempt and aversion (Peah viii. 9; Tosef., Peah, iv. 14; Yer. Peah vii. 21J; Ket. 68<r). Among the Samaritans there were many professional beggars, and the Midrash (Lev. R. v. 8 Midr. Teh. xix.) describes in a very amusing way the methods of these Samaritan mendicants. To what extent begging was practised among the Jews of post-Talmudic times up to the eleventh century, is a question which can not be decided with certainty, since Hebrew sources of this period of Jewish history are very PostTalmudic scanty. Judging from the undoubted fact that one of the chief forms that Times.

Jewish charity assumed was to discountenance begging from door to door, it is almost certain that before the period of the ghetto, and especially in smaller towns, there were no Jewish beggars at all (Abrahams, "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages," p. 309, Philadelphia, 1896). The fact that the Jews formed distinct communities in the midst of contemptuously indifferent or