Download E-books Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture PDF

By Eliezer Diamond

The lifestyles of ascetic components inside of rabbinic Judaism has regularly been both ignored or truly denied. this can be partially simply because asceticism is often pointed out with celibacy, while the rabbis emphasised sexuality as a favorable strong. furthermore, argues Eliezer Diamond, it serves the theological agendas of either Jewish and Christian students to signify Judaism as non- or anti-ascetic.
In truth, even though, Diamond exhibits that rabbinic asceticism does certainly exist. This asceticism is especially secondary, instead of fundamental, in that the rabbis position no price on self-denial in and of itself, yet really require of themselves the digital abandonment of familial, social, and fiscal lifestyles in desire of an absolute dedication to the research of the Torah. it really is an asceticism of forget, instead of negation. He additionally notes that this asceticism of overlook dovetails with the rabbinic theology of sin and punishment, which inspires delaying gratification during this international within the hopes of a better gift within the subsequent. The rabbis believed, additionally, that each excitement taken during this global detracts from what awaits one within the future.
The rabbis valued and sometimes engaged in basic asceticism in addition. in truth, as Diamond exhibits, the vocabulary of holiness used to be frequently utilized by the rabbis in reference to voluntary self-denial. One type of fundamental asceticism--fasting--became more and more well known within the wake of the destruction of the second one temple. He lines this improvement to the necessity to mourn the temple's devastation but additionally to the cessation of 3 varieties of temple-related rituals: the sacrificial cult, the Ma'amadot (groups that might quick, pray, and skim from the Torah whereas day-by-day sacrifices have been offered), and naziritism. Fasting is associated by means of the rabbis to every of those practices and Diamond exhibits that fasting used to be noticeable in its place for them after the temple was once destroyed. In a last bankruptcy, Diamond indicates that there's a better tendency towards asceticism one of the Palestinian rabbis than one of the Babylonian. He contends that the divergent political histories of those groups in addition to differing exterior cultural affects account for this disparity.