Plague, Practice, and Prescriptive Text: Jewish Traditions on Fleeing Afflicted Cities in Early Modern Ashkenaz
Abstract This article studies the fate of a contradiction between practice and prescriptive text in 16th-century Ashkenaz. The practice was fleeing a plagued city, which contradicted a Talmudic passage requiring self-isolation at home when plague strikes. The emergence of this contradiction as a hal...
| Published in: | Journal of law, religion and state |
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| Authors: | ; |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2020
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| In: |
Journal of law, religion and state
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Talmud
/ Plague
/ Quarantine
/ Flight
/ Ashkenazim
/ Halacha
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy BH Judaism TJ Modern history ZA Social sciences |
| Further subjects: | B
Plague
B Early Modern B Jewish Law |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | Abstract This article studies the fate of a contradiction between practice and prescriptive text in 16th-century Ashkenaz. The practice was fleeing a plagued city, which contradicted a Talmudic passage requiring self-isolation at home when plague strikes. The emergence of this contradiction as a halakhic problem and its various forms of resolution are analyzed as a case study for the development of halakhic literature in early modern Ashkenaz. The Talmudic text was not considered a challenge to the accepted practice prior to the early modern period. The conflict between practice and Talmud gradually emerged as a halakhic problem in 15th-century rabbinic sources. These sources mixed legal and non-legal material, leaving the status of this contradiction ambiguous. The 16th century saw a variety of solutions to the problem in different halakhic writings, each with their own dynamics, type of authority, possibilities, and limitations. This variety reflects the crystallization of separate genres of halakhic literature. |
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| ISSN: | 2212-4810 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of law, religion and state
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/22124810-2020014 |