He Who Enters the Bath-House Utters Two Blessings: On the Evolvement and Decline of an Ancient Jewish Prayer
One of the improvements introduced by the Romans was the public bath-house. This article discusses the formation of Jewish prayers, which were composed during the early rabbinic period, following the dangers of the public baths. Sages from late antiquity published two prayers: Before entering to the...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
MDPI
[2017]
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In: |
Religions
Year: 2017, Volume: 8, Issue: 10, Pages: 1-15 |
Further subjects: | B
caldarium
B dangers of bath-house B Jewish halakha B ancient prayer B bath-house B Kala Rabati B Tractate Derech Eretz B Yehuda Hanassi B hypocaust B Talmudic literature |
Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | One of the improvements introduced by the Romans was the public bath-house. This article discusses the formation of Jewish prayers, which were composed during the early rabbinic period, following the dangers of the public baths. Sages from late antiquity published two prayers: Before entering to the bathhouse, the bather has to pray for his safety, and after leaving the bath-house he has to thank Gd for not having suffered harm. The dangers of the bathhouse were deemed to include: Weakness, fainting or dehydration due to the heat of the bathhouse; Legs injury of the bathers due to the heat of the warm floor; Dental damage; Sliding on the wet floor; Fear of death due to collapse of the hypocaust. Due to changes in the bath-house in the modern era; these prayers lost their relevance up to a point; or at any rate; they were no longer prescribed or recorded in practice. Bathhouse heaters were no longer located in the hypocaust; and were rather only located close to the wall of the upper room. Hence; falling into the hot lower space was irrelevant. Following the introduction of domestic baths; these prayers have completely vanished. |
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ISSN: | 2077-1444 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Religions
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3390/rel8100225 |