Heinrich Graetz - History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)

The eight sons of Asheri, his relatives, who had emigrated with him from Germany to Toledo, together with his numerous grandsons, dominated Spanish Judaism from this time onwards. They introduced a one-sided Talmudical method of instruction deeply tinged with a gloomy, ascetic view of religion. The most famous of the sons of Asheri were Jacob (Baal ha-Turim) and Jehuda, both intensely religious, and of unselfish, self-sacrificing dispositions; they were, however, limited to a very narrow range of ideas. Both were as learned in the Talmud as they were ignorant in other subjects, and possessed every quality calculated to bring the decay of religion into accord with the increasing sufferings of the Jews in this third home of their race.

Jacob ben Asheri (born about 1280, died 1340) was visited by bitter misfortunes. His life was one chain of sufferings and privations; but he bore all with patience, without murmur or complaint. Although his father, Asheri, had brought much wealth with him to Spain, and had always been in good circumstances, yet his son, Jacob, had to suffer the bitterest pangs of poverty. Nevertheless, he received no salary as a rabbi: in fact, he does not appear to have filled that post at any time. As with all the family of Asheri, both sons and grandsons, the Talmud constituted his exclusive interest in life; but he displayed more erudition than originality. His sole merit consists in the fact that he brought the chaos of Talmudical learning into definite order, and satisfied the need of the time for a complete code of laws for religious practice.

Owing to his German origin and to his residence in Spain, Jacob Asheri became familiar with the productions of the different schools and authorities in their minutest details. He was thus well suited to control this chaotic mass and reduce it to order. On the basis of the labors of all his predecessors in this field, especially of Maimuni, Jacob compiled a second religious code (in four parts, Turim, shortened to Tur, about 1340). This work treated solely of religious practice, that is, of the ritual, moral, marriage and civil laws. He omitted all such things as had fallen into disuse since the destruction of the Temple and because of altered circumstances. With the composition of this work, a new phase in the inner development of Judaism may be said to begin.

Jacob's code forms part of a graduated scale, by means of which it can be ascertained to how low a level official Judaism had sunk since the time of Maimuni. In Maimuni's compilation thought is paramount; every ritual practice, of whatever kind, whether good or bad, is brought into connection with the essence of religion. In Jacob's code, on the other hand, thought or reasoning is renounced. Religious scrupulousness, which had taken so firm a hold of the German Jewish congregations, inspires the laws, and imposes the utmost stringency and mortifications. Maimuni, in accepting religious precepts as obligatory, was guided entirely by the Talmud, and but seldom included the decisions of the Geonim as invested with authority. Asheri's son, on the contrary, admitted into his digest of religious laws everything that any pious or ultra-pious man had decided upon either out of scrupulosity or as a result of learned exposition. In his code, the precepts declared to be binding by rabbinical authorities far outnumbered those of Talmudic origin. One might almost say that in Jacob Asheri's hands, Talmudical Judaism was transformed into Rabbinism. He even included some of the follies of the Kabbala in his religious digest.

Jacob's code is essentially different from that of Maimuni, not only in contents, but also in form. The style and the language do not manifest the conciseness and lucidity of Maimuni's. Notwithstanding this, his code soon met with universal acceptance, because it corresponded to a want of the times, and presented, in a synoptical form, all the ordinances relating to the ritual, to marriage, and civil laws binding on the adherents of Judaism in exile under the rule of various nations. Rabbis and judges accepted it as the criterion for practical decisions, and even preferred it to Maimuni's work. A few of the rabbis of that age refused to forego their independence, and continued to pronounce decisions arrived at by original inquiry, and therefore paid little heed to the new religious code. The great majority of them, on the other hand, not only in Spain, but also in Germany, were delighted to possess a handy book of laws systematically presenting everything worth knowing, making deep, penetrative research superfluous, and taxing the memory more than the understanding. Thus Jacob's Tur became the indispensable manual for the knowledge of Judaism, as understood by the rabbis, for a period of four centuries, till a new one was accepted which far surpassed the old.

His brother, Jehuda Asheri, was on a par with Jacob in erudition and virtue, but did not possess similar power of reducing chaos to order. He was born about 1284, and died in 1349. After the death of his father, the community of Toledo elected him as Asheri's successor in the rabbinate of the Spanish capital. He performed the functions of his office with extraordinary scrupulousness, without respect of persons, and was able to call the whole community to witness that he had never been guilty of the slightest trespass. When Jehuda Asheri, on account of some small quarrel with his congregation, resolved to take up his abode in Seville, the entire community unanimously begged of him to remain in their midst, and doubled his salary. In spite of this show of affection, he did not feel comfortable in Spain, and in his will he is said to have advised his five sons to emigrate to Germany, the original home of his family. The persecution of the German Jews, during the year of the epidemic pestilence, probably taught them that it was preferable to dwell in Spain. By reason of his position in the most important of the congregations and of his comprehensive rabbinical learning, Jehuda Asheri was regarded as the highest authority of his age, and was preferred even to his brother Jacob.

Seeing that even the study of the Talmud, so zealously pursued in Spain, had fallen into this state of stagnation and lassitude, the other branches of science could not complain that they made no progress, or were not attentively cultivated. The study of the Bible, Hebrew grammar, and exegesis were entirely neglected; we can recall hardly a single writer who earnestly occupied himself with these subjects. Owing to the energetic zeal of Abba-Mari, the interdict of Ben Adret, and the pronounced aversion of Asheri, reasoning had fallen into disrepute and decay. The truly orthodox shunned contact with philosophy as the direct route to heresy and infidelity, and pseudo-pious people behaved in a yet more prudish fashion towards it. It required courage to engage in a study inviting contempt and accusations of heresy. The Kabbala, too, had done its work, in dimming the eyes of men by its illusions. There were but few representatives of a philosophical conception of Judaism in those days; these were Isaac Pulgar, of Avila, David Ibn-Albilla of Portugal, and Joseph Kaspi of Argentière, in southern France.

Levi ben Gerson, or Leon de Bagnols, was more renowned and more talented than any of these. He was also called Leo the Hebrew, but more usually by his literary name Gersonides (born 1288, died about 1345). He belonged to a family of scholars, and among his ancestors he reckoned that Levi of Villefranche who had indirectly caused the prohibition of scientific study. In spite of the interdict of Ben Adret forbidding the instruction of youths in science, Gersonides was initiated into it at a very early age, and before he had reached his thirtieth year he was at work at a comprehensive and profound work upon philosophy. Gersonides was gifted with a versatile and profound intellect, and averse to all superficiality and incompleteness. In astronomy he corrected his predecessors, and made such accurate observations that specialists based their calculations upon them. He invented an instrument by means of which observations of the heavens could be made more certain. This discovery filled him with such ecstasy that he composed a Hebrew poem, a kind of riddle, upon it, though he was an unpoetical man, and had his head filled with dry calculations and logical conclusions. He also wrote works upon the science of medicine, and discovered new remedies. At the same time he was held in very high repute by his contemporaries as a profound Talmudist, and inspired by his love for systematic arrangement, wrote a methodology of the Mishna.