Jewish Piety and Exercises in Penance
IN MY YOUTH, I WAS VERY RELIGIOUS, and because I had seen that most rabbis are prideful and combative and have other bad qualities, I had come to have a low opinion of them. I therefore sought out as models only those rabbis known by the name Hasidim, that is, “the pious ones.” Such rabbis devote their lives to the strictest observance of the laws and the cultivation of moral virtues. Yet I eventually began to recognize that while these rabbis may harm other people less than most rabbis do, they harm themselves more. For what they do, in effect, is “throw out the baby with the bathwater,” to cite the well-known saying. In striving to suppress their desires and passions, [182] they also suppress their vitality and, along with it, their ability to act with purpose. Indeed, their practices often result in premature death.
A few examples of this—examples I personally witnessed—should suffice to support my claim. Take Simon of Lubtsch, a Jew who, at the time, was well known for his piety. He had performed the Teshuvat Ha-Kana (the penance of Kana), which consists of fasting during the day, every day, for six years and, in the evening, denying oneself the pleasure of foods that come from a living creature (meat, diary, honey, etc.). He also completed the Golath, i.e., a constant wandering, where one isn’t permitted to stay anywhere for even two days. He wore a hair shirt with nothing underneath it. But even so, Simon believed that he wouldn’t have done enough to appease his conscience if he didn’t also perform the Teshuvat Ha-Mishkal (the penance of weighing), a particular penance that is supposed to be proportionate to each sin. Having calculated that his [183] sins were too numerous to be atoned for in this way, he hit upon the idea of starving himself to death.
After he had spent a while starving himself, his wanderings took him to the place where my father was living. The scholar walked unnoticed into my father’s barn and collapsed. My father happened to go into the barn. There my father found the man, whom he had known of for a long time, on the ground half dead, a copy of the Zohar—the most important work of the Kabbalah—in his hand.
Because he was an acquaintance, my father immediately sent for food, which the man refused. My father tried to persuade Simon again and again, repeatedly urging him to eat something. But nothing helped. While my father was taking care of some business in his house, Simon, who wanted to get away from my father’s attempts to save him, summoned all his strength, stood up, and left the barn—and eventually the village as well. When my father went back to the barn and [184] didn’t find him there, he ran after him, only to discover Simon’s dead body not far outside the village. The episode was soon known among Jews everywhere, and Simon became a saint.
Jossel of Klezk set himself the challenge of nothing less than hastening the arrival of the Messiah. To this end, he performed strict penances: fasting, wandering around in the snow, sitting up through the night, and such things. Each of these measures had the effect, he believed, of defeating a legion of evil spirits who guarded the Messiah and hindered His arrival.(a) Jossel eventually added many Kabbalistic fatuities to his repertoire, such as incense burning and incantations, until at last he lost his mind and came to think that he could actually see spirits with his bare eyes. He gave each one a name, hurled himself around, and smashed windows and [185] ovens, believing, much like his predecessor Don Quixote, that these spirits were his enemies. Finally, he collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Later and with much effort, Prince Radziwil’s personal doctor managed to restore his health.
As for my own attempts to perform such penances, I was, alas, never able to do more than resist eating animal products for a good while and fast during the days of atonement for three days in a row. I once resolved to perform the Teshuvat Ha-Kana(b). But this resolution and others like it remained unfulfilled, because I adopted Maimonides’ views, and Maimonides was no friend of fanaticism and hyper-piety. It is strange, though, that even when I was following rabbinic prescriptions in the most rigorous way, I resisted performing ceremonies that had something farcical about them. [186]
To this type belonged, for example, the Malkot-whipping before the high days of repentance, in which every Jew lies on his belly in the synagogue, while another Jew gives him thirty-nine lashes with a narrow strip of leather. There was also the Hatarath nedorim, or the releasing from vows on the day before New Year’s Day. Here three men are seated, and another man steps before them reciting phrases that say more or less this: “Gentlemen! I know what a terrible thing it is not to fulfill a pledge, and since, during the past year, I have definitely made some pledges that I have not yet fulfilled, and that I can no longer even remember, I ask you to release me from them. I don’t regret the worthy resolutions that I had vowed to carry out; rather, what I regret is not adding that these resolutions shouldn’t have the force of a pledge.” At this point, the speaker walks away from his judges, takes off his shoes, and sits down on the bare ground (which means that he has [187] banished himself until his pledges have been dissolved). After he has sat for a while and has said a prayer, his judges begin to call out loudly: “You are our brother! You are our brother! You are our brother! Now that you have subjected yourself to the court, the pledges, the oath, and the banishment are no more! Get up off the ground, and come to us!” This they repeat three times, whereupon the man is immediately released from all of his pledges.
During such tragicomic scenes, it was only with the greatest effort that I kept from laughing. When I had to perform such rituals myself, I would blush. And so I would try to get out of them whenever possible by claiming that I had already performed the ritual elsewhere, or by saying that I intended to do it at another synagogue. A remarkable psychological phenomenon! One would think that no one could be ashamed of actions he saw everyone else carrying out with no shame at all. But that proved not to be the case here. The phenomenon [188] can only be explained by the fact that in all my actions, I first considered the nature of the action itself (whether it was as such just or unjust, proper or improper), and only afterward did I consider its nature in relation to a goal. I would approve of an action as a means only if I had not disapproved of it as such. Later, I developed this principle more fully in my system of religion and morality. Most people, by contrast, follow the principle: The ends justify the means. [189]
a [Maimon] A certain fool named Chosek wanted to cause a famine in Lemberg, because he was angry with the city. To this end he lay outside its walls, thinking that he would be a blockade of one. The result of this blockade was that he nearly starved to death, while the city knew nothing of starvation.
b [Maimon] See above.