Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages

Elisheva Baumgarten

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780812253580, 9780812253580
• eBook ISBN: 9780812297522
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

In Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages, Elisheva Baumgarten seeks a point of entry into the everyday existence of people who did not belong to the learned elite, and who therefore left no written records of their lives. She does so by turning to the Bible as it was read, reinterpreted, and seen by the Jews of medieval Ashkenaz. In the tellings, retellings, and illustrations of biblical stories, and especially of those centered around women, Baumgarten writes, we can find explanations and validations for the practices that structured birth, marriage, and death; women's inclusion in the liturgy and synagogue; and the roles of women as community leaders, givers of charity, and keepers of the household.Each of the book's chapters concentrates on a single figure or a cluster of biblical women—Eve, the Matriarchs, Deborah, Yael, Abigail, and Jephthah's daughter—to explore aspects of the domestic and communal lives of Northern French and German Jews living among Christians in urban settings. Throughout the book more than forty vivid medieval illuminations, most reproduced in color, help convey to modern readers what medieval people could have known visually about these biblical stories. "I do not claim that the genres I analyze here—literature, art, exegesis—mirror social practice, " Baumgarten writes. "Rather, my goal is to examine how medieval Jewish engagement with the Bible offers a window onto aspects of the daily lives and cultural mentalités of Ashkenazic Jews in the High Middle Ages."In a final chapter, Baumgarten turns to the historical figure of Dulcia, a late twelfth-century woman, to ponder how our understanding of those people about whom we know relatively more can be enriched by considering the lives of those who have remained anonymous. The biblical stories through which Baumgarten reads contributed to shaping a world that is largely lost to us, and can help us, in turn, to gain access to lives of people of the past who left no written accounts of their beliefs and practices.

1 Cultural Paradigms

Blessed like Eve

And God is like the prayer leader [hazan]: Just as the prayer leader blesses the bride under the wedding canopy, so God blessed Adam and his helper [Eve].

—Margins of a fourteenth-century mahzor

[May] you [be] at peace and accompanied by the beauty of companionship

[May you know] eternal tranquility and a portal of hope

And [may (God)] plant joy and camaraderie between you

And may (God) bless you like Adam and Eve.

—Mahzor Vitry, wedding poem

A fourteenth-century commentary on the sixth wedding blessing—which expresses a desire for the couple to be granted the bliss that was given to man and woman in Eden—likens the one who recites this prayer at the ceremony to God. Just as God blessed Adam and Eve, so too the prayer leader (hazan) blesses this bride and groom under the wedding canopy. Similarly, in many medieval wedding poems, one of which is quoted in the second epigraph, Adam and Eve’s mutual happiness is recounted. This explanation underlines one medieval understanding of Adam and Eve, envisioned as having been blessed with love and companionship. As I will demonstrate in this chapter, this is but one aspect of the biblical story of creation that resonated in medieval Ashkenaz. This chapter explores how medieval Ashkenazic Jews considered Eve and called upon her in theory and in practice, building on rabbinic traditions while engaging contemporaneous challenges and concepts. I will argue that Eve was invoked to frame every stage of the female life cycle, lending meaning and explanation to everyday practice, widespread beliefs, the social order, and lived experience. Furthermore, I examine what medieval Jewish and Christian reworkings of these accounts from Genesis teach us about religious similarities and differences in quotidian life.

The story of Eve was familiar to medieval Jews and Christians, the learned and unlearned alike. Among Jews, the creation narrative and the subsequent expulsion from Eden were read in synagogue and retold in midrashim as well as in less formally codified tales; they were the topics of sermons, of songs sung on the Sabbath, and of illuminations. Jewish traditions presented Eve, far more than Adam, as a multifaceted personage, with specific medieval complexities.¹ Medieval Christians also heard the story in church, and plays of Adam and Eve were among the most popular ones, often enacted outside the church.² Medieval Christian exegetes and popular versions of the story most often cast Eve as a negative figure who had been superseded as a cultural heroine by the Virgin Mary.³ Yet a cardinal difference between Jews and Christians was their understanding not only of Eve but also of the event in which she had a large role, the theological understandings of the Fall. While both Jewish and Christian exegetes blamed Eve for the banishment from Eden, the implications of this biblical event for both religions were somewhat different. Eve and all women were defined through the understandings of these biblical events.

Both Jewish and Christian exegetes portrayed Eve as a wife and, by extension, a standard of womanhood.⁴ When Jews invoked a wholly negative figure, they often referred to Lilith—according to Jewish tradition, the initial wife-consort of Adam—as a subversive foil to virtuous Eve.⁵ Recent research has demonstrated that, although medieval Christians broadly cast Eve in negative terms, this depiction included nuances that merit attention.⁶ In Jewish studies, few scholars have examined portrayals of Eve after late antiquity. In the pages that follow, I will outline characterizations of Eve in Jewish and Christian culture; although I will demonstrate affinities, I contend that the distinctions between the cultures remained robust.⁷

As the original wife and mother, Eve was referenced to explain and provide a model for the realities of birth, marriage, and death even as she was also seen as a typological “everywoman” who became the anchor for gender hierarchies and their social implications for Jews and Christians. Depending on the circumstance, Eve served as a model to be emulated or the culpable catalyst for the experiences in life with which medieval people had to deal, whether birth, marriage, or death. Thus I am contending that everyday womanhood was experienced and viewed via the lens of the biblical Eve.

As we shall see, Eve came to represent a range of values and ideas that addressed the messiness of daily life. For the ease of analysis, I have divided this chapter into three sections, although in reality competing understandings would not have been mutually exclusive, and medieval Jews were certainly aware of the complex views of Eve. The first part of the chapter focuses on Adam and Eve as agents of sin and objects of divine retribution via their expulsion from the Garden of Eden and, ultimately, their mortality. As such, they are treated as models for humanity. As I will demonstrate, Eve was predominantly considered liable for their sin, despite the shared culpability conveyed in the Bible and by some commentators. This imagery was closely linked to the ordinal depiction of their creation—where God first gives form to Adam alone, then Eve from Adam’s rib—providing the foundational story for gender relations and hierarchy, which was used to justify stratified roles throughout society. From this perspective the biblical model set the precedent for daily life and relationships between men and women. At the same time, I will highlight a variety of voices that emerge from medieval evidence for the way rituals associated with Eve and her sin were viewed, seeking to identify dynamic and subversive understandings alongside consistent traditions of interpretation.

The second section examines a relatively minor but not unimportant role played by Eve in medieval Jewish discourse and practice. For medieval Jewry a portion of women’s conjugal rights were traced back to the first biblical couple. Following late antique traditions, medieval rabbis expounded on the verse, “And she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20), to offer instructions regarding the positive treatment of women. While there are few examples in this section, the reference to Eve as a prototype and the use of the biblical text as an explanation for prescribed conduct and legal rulings are important as they indicate both the importance attributed to the Bible and the relative dearth of other available prooftexts, including halakhic ones.

Finally, as evidenced in the marriage poem that opens this chapter, Adam and Eve were portrayed as an idealized couple who were married in heaven, shared love and companionship, and were commanded to procreate.⁸ The story of creation and the “wedding” of this first couple served as a backdrop for the Jewish wedding ritual and aspirations for fertility in Jewish unions. In this way Adam and Eve personified gendered roles, conjugal relationships, and procreation on many levels, both practical and abstract. All medieval references to Eve stem from the book of Genesis, with particular verses associated with each mode of interpretation. Therefore, each section of this chapter begins with a discussion of those relevant biblical verses and then moves to their application in everyday life. Throughout the chapter I also note the common and contrasting traditions about Eve that were held by medieval Jews and Christians, respectively, concluding with an overview of these perspectives.

Sin, Punishment, and Hierarchies

The association of sin and punishment with Adam and Eve is inherent in the biblical text itself. Each was subject to divine discipline after eating from the Tree of Life. Concerning Eve, the Bible states: “I will make most severe your pangs in childbearing. In pain you shall bear children, yet your urge shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:17–18). Medieval commentators saw this as the lot of all women. Some emphasized this point when discussing how Eve might have averted this outcome. They note that she had but one option: If she did not give birth, she would not suffer pain. These same commentators acknowledge the impossibility of such an escape, since the punishment concludes by declaring women’s subservience to men.⁹

The sentence imposed on Adam could equally have been interpreted as a symbol for the future of all humanity. However, Jewish and Christian commentaries alike placed far greater emphasis on women’s pain during childbirth and their domination by men. The Bible continues: “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return unto the ground; for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and unto dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19). Although the need for toil and the eventuality of death both stem from God’s words to Adam, there is little discussion of his punishment in the medieval texts. Admittedly, Jewish commentators sometimes referred to death as “Adam’s curse,”¹⁰ and his deeds and punishment are cited to clarify various blessings and practices, but none of these compare in frequency or intensity to the connection made between Eve, women, childbirth, and death.¹¹

Despite an understanding of punishment shared by Jews and Christians, there were some theological distinctions between the way the two religions understood the responsibility for the sin. Christian scholars tended to focus on Eve as responsible for the Fall—it was she who ate first from the Tree of Life—whereas Adam was held responsible for the sin and death. This approach is especially prominent in the writings of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), who follows a late antique tradition and explains this division of responsibility as the result of the power of men.¹² Making Adam responsible for sin and death reinforced the gender hierarchy between men and women.¹³ Similar sentiments emerge from other Christian commentaries, from late antiquity through the High Middle Ages. Augustine (d. 430) set the tone by stating that women were inferior to men and singling out their reproductive capacity as their sole redeeming quality.¹⁴ Medieval legal theorists further interpreted the narratives in Genesis as a bas...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Cultural Paradigms: Blessed Like Eve
• 2. Personal and Communal Liturgy: Prayers to the Matriarchs
• 3. At Her Husband’s Behest: Deborah and Yael
• 4. Women as Fiscal Agents: Charitable like Abigail
• 5. A Woman of Every Season: Jephthah’s Daughter
• 6. From Medieval Life to the Bible … and Back
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Acknowledgments