Chasidei Ashkenaz: The Rhineland Pietistic Movement

🏰 Following the harrowing events of the Crusades, rebounding Rhineland Jewish communities nurtured a small but influential pietistic movement that created a unique ethical and mystical literature.

This is not the famed Parma manuscript of Sefer Chasidim, since its holding institution does not permit reproduction (you can see it digitized here.) This manuscript is Municipal Library of Nimes, France Ms. Séguier 26, likely the earliest manuscript of Sefer Chasidim, dating as early as the thirteenth century. It belongs to the “Bologna group” of manuscripts on which, see below.

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In this Issue:

• The Rise of Chasidei Ashkenaz

• The Thought of CHasidei Ashkenaz

• Sefer Chasidim

• Reads and Resources

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Following the intense anti-Jewish violence of the First Crusade, which decimated the oldest Ashkenazi communities in the Rhineland Valley of Germany, the center of Torah learning in Ashkenaz shifted to the communities of northern France. It was there and then that the school of Rashi, led by his grandsons and students, flourished, producing the large-scale, many-handed dialectical commentary on the Talmud known as the Tosafot (“Additions,” almost certainly, to Rashi’s own commentary on the Bavli). Meanwhile in Germany, the Jewish communities of southern German cities, such as Regensburg and Erfurt, developed, and the old Rhineland communities slowly began regenerating. One of the most distinctive post-First Crusade developments was the rise of a small, elite, but influential pietistic movement among German Jews known as the Chasidei Ashkenaz.

The Rise of Chasidei Ashkenaz

The Chasidei Ashkenaz movement draws upon central figures, key events, and core ideas that characterized Ashkenazi Jewish life, while also continuing and adapting ancient mystical traditions. At the center of the movement was the famed founding family of Ashkenaz, the Kalonymos clan. R. Shmuel ben Kalonymos he-Chasid (“the Pious”) of Speyer was one of the early leaders of the movement in the latter half of the twelfth century, his family having left Mainz for Speyer after the violence of 1096. R. Shmuel’s son, R. Yehuda he-Chasid (d. 1217), became the most prominently identified member of the pietist movement, and his relative and student, R. Eleazar bar Yehuda of Worms, the author of the halachic work the Rokeach, was influential in nurturing students and inculcating them into the movement’s values. Among R. Eleazar bar Yehuda’s students were R. Avraham bar Azriel of Bohemia, the author of the massive and important piyut commentary Arugat ha-Bosem, and R. Yitzchak ben Moshe of Vienna, author of the halachic compendium Or Zarua. These students also studied with the Tosafists, meaning that there were significant links between the two great intellectual enterprises of France and Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

It is R. Eleazar bar Yehuda of Worms who gives us the most complete lineage and history we have of the Kalonymos family, as I noted in the newsletter devoted, in part, to the family. In a passage found in manuscript R. Eleazar records:

וקבלו סוד תקון התפלות ושאר סודות רב מרב עד אבן אהרן בנו של ר’ שמואל הנשיא אשר עלה מבבל משום מעשה שהיה והוכרך לילך נע ונד בארץ ובאו בארץ לומברדיאה בעיר אחת ששמה לוקא

They all received the secret of the correct version of the prayers, one teacher from his teacher, up to Abu Aharon, the son of Rabbi Shmuel ha-Nasi, who came from Babylonia because of an event that happened there, and had to wander from place to place in the land, until he came to the country of Lombardy, to a city named Lucca…

BNF Ms. heb. 772, f. 60a

This intellectual lineage places the Kalonymos family’s origin in Italy and connects them explicitly with Babylonian traditions. In fact, we see both early Italian Jewish and Babylonian thought cited by the Chasidei Ashkenaz, as well as the claim that esoteric traditions reached them from the old eastern center via Italy. An Italian influence, from Byzantine south Italy, is R. Shabbetai Donnolo (913-c. 982), a physician who authored medical works alongside a commentary on the mystical Sefer ha-Yetzira, a core text for the Rhineland pietists. R. Saadia Gaon, a Babylonian gaon originally from Egypt, was another pervasive influence upon Chasidei Ashkenaz.

This familial intellectual lineage was also augmented by eclectic sources, including pre-Crusade Ashkenazi thought and Sefardi thinkers including R. Avraham bar Chiya, R. Yehuda bar Barzillai ha-Nasi of Barcelona, and R. Avraham Ibn Ezra. It also drew upon the rabbinical mystical literature known as Heichalot literature (involving journeys through the Divine Palaces, heichalot) and Maaseh Merkava (the mystical contemplation of the Divine chariot, merkava).

It has long been debated by scholars what relationship the rise of the Chasidei Ashkenaz movement bears to the Crusade violence and to contemporary Christian pietistic movements which it resembles in some aspects. It has been suggested that the movement was a response to the extreme violence of 1096, though some scholars stress continuities to pre-Crusade Ashkenazi Jewish mores and practices. More difficult to prove are contacts between German Christian monastics and the leaders of the Ashkenazi Jewish community, and these contacts remain compelling but circumstantial.

The Thought of Chasidei Ashkenaz

One of the notable factors pointing towards the Chasidei Ashkenaz as a response to the violence of the First, Second, and Third Crusade periods is their fixation on Kiddush ha-Shem (martyrdom) and extreme practices of self-mortification, though the latter are notably absent in the first section of Sefer Chasidim as we have it today, and in many manuscripts of it. More central, however, is the Chasidei Ashkenaz’s focus on G-d’s unity and incorporeality, coupled with a development of Divine intermediaries influenced by R. Saadia Gaon’s notion of Kavod, an emenation of Divine Glory. This interest in intermediaries also led Chasidei Ashkenaz to develop a complex system of demonology and attendant magical rites to counter it. However, they maintained the immanence (presence in the world) of G-d Himself.

Piety and penitence, as conceived by the Chasidei Ashkenaz, constituted the appropriate expression of religiosity by spiritually elite individuals. Pious practices were not “extra” but required of one on a high spiritual level. Though largely concealed in their writings, there is evidence that messianic speculation, especially surrounding the year 1240 (the Anno Mundo year 5000), animated the elevated spiritual state sought by the Rhineland pietists.

Sefer Chasidim

Though many works, both esoteric and exoteric, were composed by members of Chasidei Ashkenaz, the central text of the movement is Sefer Chasidim, an ethical work that lays out proper behavior for the pious individual. It is a large work composed of simanim (passages or paragraphs) loosely arranged into machbarot (divisions, compositions). The contents of the book are at times exegetical—interpreting passages of scripture—or homiletical, but mostly prescribe certain pious behaviors to the initiate. As such, Sefer Chasidim supplies a unique and richly detailed window into elite Ashkenazi religious and social life, if not necessarily reflective of all sectors of medieval Ashkenazi culture.

Consider this colorful siman, which appears in both major editions of Sefer Chasidim:

מעשה היה והביא גוי חלוק אמר לגוי' שהיה חלוק של ישו הנוצרי ואמ' אם אינכם מאמינים תראו מה אעשה השליך החלוק באש ולא נשרף אמרו הגלחים והכומרים ליהודים הרי תדעו כי יש קדישות בחלוק אמ' החכם תנו אותו אלי ואני אראה לכם מה יש בו לקח חומץ חזק ובורית וכיבס חומץ חזק לעיניהם אמר תשליכוהו באש ותנסו והשליכוהו {בש} באש ונשרף אמרו לו מה ראית לכבסו אמ' להם מפני שהיה משוח בסלמנדרא והוצרכתי לכבס הבגד

There was a situation in which a non-Jew brought a certain cloak and said to the non-Jews that it was Jesus the Nazarene’s cloak. He said, “If you don’t believe me, look what I will do,” and he threw the cloak into the fire, and it did not burn. The shaved-headed [monks] and the priests turned to the Jews and said, “You must acknowledge that there is holiness in the cloak.” The [Jewish] scholar (chacham) said, “ Give it to me and I will demonstrate what is in it.” He took strong vinegar and soap and laundered it in strong vinegar before their eyes. He said, “Now throw it into the fire and try it.” They threw it into the fire and it burned. They asked him, “Why did you see fit to launder it?” He replied to them, “Because it was smeared with salamander, and it was necessary to launder the garment.”

Sefer Chasisim, Parma no. 1809

Salamander, as noted in an aggadeta in the Talmud Bavli on Chagiga 27a, was thought to be a byproduct of fire (Rashi says it is born of the light of the burning fire) and as a result, to be a fireproofing agent. Here we see on fascinating display several features of Sefer Chasidim: the way it captures contemporary realia, here, the peddling of Christian relics; the social scenes it depicts, here including Jewish-Christian dialogue; and its triumphalism in the power of the Torah. The passage, however, continues in an ethical vein, prompted by the power of the vinegar in the relic story. It muses on the way vinegar can, in combination with lime, be a strengthening agent, while in combination with lye, it is destructive. This is likened to the act of singing, which brings deserved joy to the righteous, but is spiritually destructive to the wicked: one of the examples given is that of Leviim who sing praises on behalf of evildoers (כגון לויים שמשוררים על תודה של רשעים). This in turn leads to a discussion of how using the destructive powers of vinegar with lye is a violation of bal tashchit—of negligent wastefulness—both literally, like one who wears out delicate silk clothing in the snow, and figuratively, like one who allows his body to be harmed. (This stands in contrast to some of the extreme self-abnegating practices advocated elsewhere in the text.)

A notable feature of the text is its malleability: the tendency of editors to rearrange its simanim and add to or alter its materials. In fact, Dr. Ivan G. Marcus has used Sefer Chasidim as the paradigmatic example of the mutable Ashkenazi book and its intellectual arena that supported emendation, reworking, adaptation, and heavy-handed editorial work. The cultural value placed on reworking materials in Ashkenaz meant that substantially different versions of Sefer Chasidim circulated, before being put into an editio princeps—a definitive print edition, often, as here, the first printed edition—in Bologna in 1538. (An abridged version of the 1538 print was issued, also in Bologna, in 1580.) The Bologna 1538 edition contains approximately 1,200 simanim. The important Parma manuscript (Palatina Library, Parma, Italy Cod. Parm. 3280), however, contains approximately 1,900 simanim, and a comparison of Parma to Bologna demonstrates that the manuscript(s) upon which the Bologna printed edition was based include numerous harmonizations.

In other words, the Bologna edition omits repetitions, contradictions, and other instances of what textual scholars call the lectio difficilior—the more difficult reading. Let’s say that you have two birth certificates, one in which a person’s name is spelled “Aimee” and one in which it’s spelled “Amy.” Which one is correct, if you have to make an educated guess without contextual information? “Aimee,” being the less common spelling, is unlikely to be a correction of the more common spelling, “Amy.” All the more so if the spelling is something like “Aymie.” An enterprising clerk may have “corrected” Aymie to Amy, but probably not changed Amy to Aymie. Thus, we generally prefer the more difficult reading. In the case of Sefer Chasidim, this means that the Parma text, with its many vernacular glosses (German or French written in Hebrew characters), its obvious repetitions, and generally messier text, is preferred as less reworked and “closer” to older versions of Sefer Chasidim. It’s important to note, however, that no one version of Sefer Chasidim can be said to be definitive by the nature of its composition, and more so than other medieval texts where this is nearly always a factor.

Reads and Resources

• Ephraim Kanarfogel’s “Peering Through the Lattices”: Mystical, Magical, and Pietistic Dimensions in the Tosafist Period (Wayne State University Press, 2000) is a vivid and compelling exploration of the esoteric and pietistic tendencies among the Tosafists, including those who were Chasidei Ashkenaz.

• Ivan G. Marcus’ Sefer Hasidim and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) analyzes the phenomenon of the malleable Ashkenazi book through the example of Sefer Chasidim; Joseph L. Skloot’s First Impressions: Sefer Hasidim and Early Modern Hebrew Printing (Brandeis University Press, 2023) explores another textual phenomenon relating to Sefer Chasidim, that of its important first establishment in print, in the Bologna edition.

• For Hebrew readers, PUSHD: The Princeton University Sefer Hasidim Database is an unparalleled resource for reading Sefer Chasidim. It collates the major manuscript witnesses of the particularly multifarious text of Sefer Chasidim in an accessible, dynamic online edition. (If only we had such resources for more medieval texts!)