The Grantville Gazette Volumn VI

by Eric Flint

  The laws of kashrus generally place no restrictions on whole fruits and vegetables, but there are very strong prohibitions about drinking wine (or other grape products) that have been made with the intent that it be used by idolaters. This prohibition dates back to the times of the cult of Bacchus, but the use of wine as a Christian sacrament guaranteed the extension of this prohibition to the present day. Because of this, Jews generally have used kosher wines, that is, wines made by Jews. Kosher wine could be made by the individual homeowner, starting with whole grapes or raisins. However, there were many kosher winemakers in Europe; the great Torah commentator Rashi supported himself as a winemaker, and the better kosher wines were shipped over fairly long distances.

  The laws of kashrus also forbid the eating of bread baked by a non-Jew, and they forbid cooking over a fire lit by a non-Jew. The concern about bread is that the bread may have been baked using lard or non-kosher tallow and that the oven itself may have been non-kosher because of contamination with food residues from non-kosher cooking. While anyone can bake bread at home, home ovens were still uncommon in the seventeenth century, so most communities relied on Jewish bakers or communal ovens. It was not uncommon for the communal ovens to be part of the synagogue complex.

  The torah scroll required for a public worship service and the smaller scrolls enclosed in mezuzot and tefillin, to be discussed in a moment, were all required to be handwritten on parchment prepared from the skin of a kosher animal, usually calfskin velum. Every Jewish community of any significant size would have a sofer, a scribe trained in the copying of these texts. The sofer was generally a yeshivah graduate, and his practical training included the making of pens, ink, parchment and hide glue, as well as the copying of texts. With the advent of printing, it is highly likely that the first typesetters and proofreaders involved with Hebrew printing were soferim. A Jewish marriage contract, a ketubah, generally required the services of a sofer, as did divorce papers.

  Every Jew is commanded "to write these words on the doorposts of your house" (Deuteronomy 11:21), and this commandment has been taken almost literally since biblical times by affixing a small handwritten parchment scroll containing Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21 to the doorpost of the entrance to a Jewish house. The case containing this scroll is called a mezuzah, and the most visible sign that a house is occupied by Jews is generally the presence of a mezuzah on the doorpost. On passing through a door marked by a mezuzah, essentially all seventeenth-century Jews would give it a symbolic kiss, touching it with their fingers and kissing their fingertips.

  As mentioned previously, all Jewish men would wear some form of talus, or prayer shawl during daily morning prayers. In addition, essentially all adult Jewish men of the seventeenth century would wear tefillin on weekdays but not on Shabbos or the festivals. Some writers prefer to translate the word tefillin as phylacteries; the latter is technically an English word, but it is so rare that there is no good reason to prefer it to the Hebrew.

  Tefillin are cubical leather cases containing small parchment scrolls with the texts of Exodus 13:1-10, 11-16, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, and 11:13-21, in fulfillment of the commandment to "Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a frontlet between your eyes." The tefillin worn on the forehead is held on by a leather strap with a complex quatrefoil knot at the back, while the tefillin worn on the upper arm is held in place by a long leather strap that is wound around the arm, hand and fingers in a complex way.

  The Synagogue and Jewish Community

  By the middle ages, all Jewish communities in Europe had fairly well-defined communal structures. Communities were generally led by an elected council, and the head of this council, the Parnas, could properly be called the president of the community. Under Jewish law, the community was responsible for providing schools, a synagogue, a cemetery, a burial society, a bath house or mikvah, and financial support for widows and orphans. Ovens were also frequently constructed by the community since it was difficult for individual families to afford the large brick ovens of the pre-modern era. The community had the legal mandate under Jewish law to tax its members to support these institutions. These obligations were reinforced by the Christian authorities, who frequently demanded that the Jewish community administer the Jew taxes and provide for the Jewish poor so that they would never burden Christian charities.

  As a result of all of this, synagogue buildings frequently served many purposes beyond worship. They provided classroom and meeting space, and they frequently incorporated community facilities such as a mikvah or bath house and ovens. Backing the oven up against the wall of the mikvah was a good idea in areas where the winters were cold! Some mikvos even appear to have had Roman style hypocaust heating systems. Given that the Jewish community in the Rhineland dates back to Roman times, this should not be surprising, but of course, each time a community was expelled or slaughtered, such complexities tended to be simplified or lost.

  Because ten adult men (age 13 or older) were required for a full religious service, the presence of a synagogue in a town generally implied the presence of around ten families. Similarly, two synagogues implied the presence of around twenty, although unless there was an ideological or liturgical dispute, it would usually take a much larger population before a second synagogue was founded. The Christian authorities generally regulated the foundation of synagogues, but where there was no legally constituted synagogue, congregations frequently met in private homes.

  The sanctuary of the synagogue or schul would always contain an ark, or cabinet along the eastern wall to hold the Torah scrolls. The ark would have both a cloth curtain and a wooden door, so you must open both to expose the Torah. When these are open, tradition demanded that the congregation stand as they would in the presence of royalty because the Torah is the word of God. It takes a Torah scroll to hold a full service, but a synagogue would hope to own at least two because many services had readings from different parts of the Torah that would require long pauses to wind and rewind the scroll if there was only one. The larger wealthier synagogues of the seventeenth century usually had many Torah scrolls.

  The Torah scroll was handwritten on parchment, and it was wound around two posts, called the eitz chiam or trees of life. No other Jewish scroll was ever wound on two posts. The complete Torah scroll was big, with pages about two feet tall sewn side by side, with text written in columns about eighteen inches tall by six inches wide. Posts and all, a Torah scroll weighs ten to fifteen pounds, depending on how thin the parchment was scraped. Lighter scrolls on thin parchment with smaller lettering would cost more than big scrolls on thick parchment with big lettering. When stored in the Ark, Torah scrolls are always stored vertically, resting on their eitz chiam and leaning back against the back of the ark.

  Torah scrolls were dressed differently in the Sephardic and Ashkenazic world, but the Amsterdam Sephardic world followed Ashkenazic customs. Sephardic scrolls were typically permanently bound into a wooden clamshell case with a silver cover. These cases are cylindrical, and when opened, they expose just enough of the scroll to be read. Ashkenazic scrolls were dressed in a cloth cover, typically the most expensive cloth available, with lots of fine embroidery, and then armed with a breastplate and crown. The crown, if there is just one, would look like what you expect a king to wear. If there were two, they would be called rimonim, and would be tall and narrow, sometimes resembling gothic spires, with one set over each of the eitz chiam. The armament for a Torah scroll would typically weigh several pounds, and it would be made of silver as befits royalty. The fact that the Frankfurt Jewish community had to sell its synagogue silver in the winter of 1631-32 is evidence of how desperate that community was, since this is close to the last thing a community would sell off in hard times.

  Synagogues of the seventeenth century were generally built in the round, with a central reading table large enough to unroll the Torah scroll for reading and still have space for several open books on each side. This was necessary because, during the Torah reading, the
reading table needed to accommodate not only the reader and the person called up for the honor of saying the blessing over the reading, but also two checkers who follow along in their printed copy of the text and correct the reader when he makes mistakes. The reading table sits on a raised platform in the center of the room, called the bimah, and it faces the ark. In the seventeenth century, it was very rare to put the bimah anywhere but the center of the room.

  During the Torah reading, everyone would typically sit facing the Bimah, and many would follow along with the reading if they had a copy of the Chumash, the printed text of the Torah. Except during a few special prayers, notably the standing prayer or Amidah, it was not unusual to find quiet conversations while the service was in progress. During the Amidah, everyone was expected to stand and face east.

  With extremely rare exceptions, women and men never prayed together in the seventeenth century. The Talmud states that the voice of a woman is indecent, and where some interpreters held that this applied broadly, it was generally agreed that this applied in the context of prayer. A notable exception to this rule is that after successfully giving birth, a woman was required to stand before the congregation to say a thanksgiving blessing. What would become a standard synagogue layout, with women's galleries above the main level, was developed in Amsterdam around 1639. Prior to this, for many centuries, many synagogues had included a women's gallery off to the side or in back. The minimum separation between the women's gallery and the main sanctuary was a railing, but many synagogues had lattices. Technically, women had no obligation to pray in the synagogue, but there is ample evidence that many did.

  Jewish Religious Practice

  In general, observant Jews would pray three times a day; in Jewish communities of the seventeenth century, one of the jobs of the synagogue shamus (sometimes translated as sexton or beadle) was to bang on shutters in the morning in order to rouse his congregation for morning prayers. The longest prayer of the day was the morning prayer, which was traditionally said before breakfast and could take an hour. There were traditional short forms of this prayer that could be said if work was pressing, and in a real pinch, it could be reduced to just the Shema, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4). There was a strong emphasis on saying the morning prayers with the congregation if at all possible. The Shema was also said in the evening, and traditionally, Jews hoped that the Shema would be on their lips as their last breath.

  The afternoon prayer had to be said before sunset, and the evening prayer had to be said after sunset. When these were said communally, particularly in the winter, they were frequently said in quick sequence, one after the other at sunset.

  A central element of all three daily prayers was the Amidah or standing prayer, a sequence of bruchas or blessings said while standing. In the morning and afternoon prayers, the tradition for communal worship was to recite the Amidah privately, silently, in a whisper or in a quiet voice, and then have the chazzan, the cantor, chant it aloud when everyone had finished their private recitation. As a general rule, when a Jew heard someone say a blessing, he was required to respond Amen, or Omain, as an Ashkenazi Jew would likely have pronounced it. It follows that the congregation would respond with an Amen after each of the blessings in the Amidah. The evening Amidah was said privately, without a cantoral repetition. During the Amidah in particular, but while standing at prayer in general, Jews traditionally sway back and forth. This practice is ancient and well documented in medieval sources.

  All services contained psalms. One psalm in particular is said as part of every service, Ashrei, which is Psalm 145 expanded with a few borrowed verses of other psalms. The preliminary segment of the morning service included a block of psalms ending with Psalm 150 before the introduction to the Borochu, the call to worship.

  After each section of each service, some version of the Kaddish would be said. This prayer is in Aramaic, not Hebrew, and there is the short or half Kaddish, the long Kaddish, and the mourner's Kaddish. The Sephardic community has a slightly different version of the long Kaddish than the Ashkenazic, and some Jews speculate that the Lord's Prayer of the Christian world began as yet another version of the Kaddish. The mourner's Kaddish, it should be noted, is said by those who have lost a spouse, parent, child or teacher in the past year, or on the yartzeit (anniversary) of the death. All other Kaddishes would be said by the Chazzan. Different communities had their own traditons about standing or sitting, but in general, in the seventeenth centuries, most communities would stand during the Kaddishes.

  Every Jew had the legal right to stop the service in the synagogue immediately before the Torah reading in order to present a grievance and demand justice. While this right was never widely exercised, it provided an important check against injustices being perpetrated by the community leadership.

  Readings from the Torah Scroll would be included in the morning and afternoon services on Shabbos, the Sabbath or Saturday, as well as on Mondays and Thursdays, but only when a minyan of ten men is present. The readings are traditionally chanted to a rather complex trope, so the practice has long been to have a expert in Torah trope do the readings. Because the Torah scroll contains no vowels, it is also traditional to have two others at the bimah (lectern) to check the reading and offer corrections to any error. During the reading, members of the congregation are called up to the Torah, nominally to read their portion, but in fact, merely to say the blessings before and after their portion while the reader does the actual work. The Shabbos morning reading is the longest, broken into eight sections, while the other readings are shorter, with only three. After the Shabbos morning Torah reading, the final person called up reads the Haftorah, a selection from the prophets selected to complement the Torah reading. By the seventeenth century, the Haftorah readings and the text used by the checkers would both come from printed copies of the Chumash, not from scrolls.

  As a rule, was is not possible to conduct a full worship service without a minyan, a quorum of ten men over age 13. If a minyan was not present, the Chazzan could not repeat the Amidah, the Kaddishes could not be said, and the Torah and Haftorah could not be chanted. These parts of the service were simply omitted, both in the synagogue, if less than ten were present, and in private prayer. If ten men were present, whether or not they were in a synagogue, these parts of the service would become obligatory, although if there was no Torah scroll available, obviously it could not be read.

  A rabbi was not required for the conduct of any Jewish worship service. Any knowledgeable Jew could lead services. Of course, as the most knowledgeable member of the community, the rabbi was likely to be called on to lead services. Synagogue services in the seventeenth century rarely contained anything resembling a sermon. In general, public preaching was dangerous because an attempt to explain the Torah in a context where a Christian might be listening could contradict some biblical interpretation of the Church, bringing down the wrath of the Christian authorities on the Jews.

  Whether in public or private, the worship service was supposed to be read and not recited from memory. Every observant Jew hoped to own a copy of the Siddur, or prayerbook, along with a Chumash, an annotated copy of the Torah. Typically, many students would complete their own handwritten copy of the Siddur as part of their schoolwork in premodern times, but by the seventeenth century, printed prayerbooks were common. The standard printed form of the Chumash in the seventeenth century included Rashi's commentary along with the Aramaic translation of Onkelos; some editions of the Chumash and Siddur were available that offered Judische Deutsch translations as well.

  After the Shabbos evening service Friday night, the men would go home to their families for dinner. The women of the household were responsible for having the table ready, with specially baked bread, known as challah, and wine and candles. All cooking was required to be completed and the candles lit about half an hour before sundown, although food could remain in a warm oven or over a banked fire for as long as needed.

  Both the Shab
bos evening and morning services would end with making kiddush, that is, the chazzan or some member of the congregation would say bruchas over wine and then over the bread. These were said for the benefit of travelers who might be staying and eating in the synagogue, which sometimes served as a community guesthouse. Outsiders may think these bruchas are blessing the wine and bread, but they do not bless the food, they give thanks for it. In some cases, kiddush was expanded into a full meal in the synagogue.

  The home was also an important center of Jewish worship. Before eating a meal, it was traditional to say a very brief brucha for the food being eaten. On Shabbat, kiddush was said, even if the men had already said it in the synagogue. The birkas or grace after meals is much longer and in the Ashkenazic world; it was generally read from a bentscher, a small book of prayers for the table, and chanted to a rollicking melody that invites a family sing-along.

  In general, the Ashkenazic community had the most developed musical system, while the Ashkenazic stereotype of the Sephardic community was that their melodies for prayer and Torah trope were loud and toneless. Like other stereotypes, this is not entirely fair, but the greatest Sephardic melodies are reserved for hymns and nonliturgical music. Where the Ashkenazic worship service centered on the solo performance of the cantor, with congregational responses, the Sephardic service was more likely to include congregational singing. Some tunes span the Sephardic-Ashkenazic gap and probably date back to the Roman era and possibly before that; these include some of the melodies for the Kaddish and the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-21), as well as the basic melodic framework of the Torah trope.