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Jews and Healing at Medieval Saints' Shrines: Participation, Polemics, and Shared Cultures*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2010

Ephraim Shoham-Steiner
Ephraim Shoham-Steiner*
Affiliation:
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
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Extract

In an anonymous Jewish anti-Christian polemical tractate from the thirteenth century we find the Hebrew formulation of what seems to be a common sneer by Christians at their Jewish neighbors: “Why do you not seek the aid of the great the way we do? (for they seek the aid of their saints).”1 The assumption behind this question is that medieval Jews indeed refrained from visiting the shrines of Christian saints and from beseeching them to heal the sick or mediate between the human and divine realms. In this paper I wish to question this assumption and suggest the possibility that some Jews did approach the shrines of the saints and seek their assistance, especially in healing physical disabilities. Given the strong appeal of the cults of healing saints in medieval European societies, it seems likely that Jews not only were well aware of this practice and displayed a measure of curiosity toward it, but possibly participated in the rituals as well.2

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 103 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 111 - 129
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2010

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References

1 David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: A Critical edition of Nizzahon Vetus: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 1979) 210.

2 On magic as an intercultural agent from antiquity through the Middle Ages, see Gideon Bohak, “Greek, Coptic, and Jewish Magic in the Cairo Genizah,” BASP 36 (1999) 27–44; Naomi Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews and Christians (London: Routledge, 2001); Dan Levene, “ ‘… and by the name of Jesus …’: An Unpublished Magic Bowl in Jewish Aramaic,” JSQ 6 (1999) 283–308; Peter Schäfer, “Jewish Magic Literature in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages,” JJS 41 (1990) 75–91; Shaul Shaked, “Medieval Jewish Magic in Relation to Islam: Theoretical Attitudes and Genres,” in Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication and Interaction (ed. Benjamin J. Hary, John L. Hayes, and Fred Astren; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 97–109; Eliot R. Wolfson, “Magic from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages,” The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 4 (2001) 78–120.

3 On the nature of the Jewish anti-Christian polemics in Western Europe, see Samuel Krauss, Jewish-Christian Controversy from the Earliest Times to 1789 (ed. and rev. William Horbury; vol. 1; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995); Daniel Lasker, “Jewish Philosophical Polemics in Ashkenaz,” in Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics Between Christians and Jews (ed. Ora Limor and Guy Stroumsa; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1996) 195–214; and recently idem, Jewish Philosophical Polemics Against Christianity (Oxford: Littman, 2007).

4 In a previous paper I discussed the challenge that the cult of saints and its strong healing potential posed to medieval Jewry and pointed out possible devices constructed within the Jewish community as a result of this challenge. Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, “ ‘For a prayer in that place would be most welcome’: Jews, Holy Shrines and Miracles — A New Approach,” Viator 37 (2006) 369–95.

5 James Parks, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue: A Study in the Origins of Anti-Semitism (New York: Atheneum, 1981) 296–97.

6 André Jean Festugière, Saint Thècle, Saints Côme et Damien, Saints Cyr et Jean (extraits), Saint George (Paris: Picard, 1971) 100–102. I wish to thank Gabor Klaniczay of the Central European University in Budapest for referring me to this miracle tale. The story of St. Damien reflects the Christian understanding that Jews would not violate their dietary laws for medical reasons. Jews however did use “non-kosher” ingredients including lard and pork in medical recipes. Evidence of this phenomenon can be found in numerous documents in Judeo-European languages as well as in Hebrew medical remedies scattered in Jewish medieval manuscripts. See Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, “ ‘This should not to be shown to a gentile’: Medico-Magical Texts in Medieval Franco-German Jewish Rabbinic Manuscripts,” Journal of Early Medicine 2 (2009) (forthcoming). On this phenomenon see Sara Larrat-Keeper and Rolf H. Bremmer's splendid collection of essays, Signs on the Edge: Space, Text and Margin in Medieval Manuscripts (ed. Sara Larratt-Keefer and Rolf H. Bremmer Jr.; Peeters: Leuven, 2007).

7 On this correspondence and the decisions of the Fourth Lateran council of 1215, see Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1933) 1:9–83. For a translation of the text of articles 67–70 in the decrees of the Forth Lateran Council of 1215, see Norman P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Original text established by Giuseppe Alberigo et al. in consultation with Hubert Jedin; 2 vols; London: Sheed & Ward, 1990).

8 For a survey of the vast network of Jewish-Christian relations in medieval Europe, see Jonathan M. Elukin, Living Together, Living Apart: Rethinking Jewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007). An example of this tight commercial connection can be found in Haym Soloveitchik, Principles and Pressures: Jewish Trade in Gentile Wine in the Middle Ages (Tel Aviv: ‘Alma, 2003) (Hebrew). In this book the author discusses the internal changes in Jewish ethical, religious, and legal reactions to the traditional approach to dealing with gentile wine in the Franco-German Jewish realm. The wine industry and trade as well as the wine-crediting business became important elements in the regional economy and involved both Jews and non-Jews.

9 This extraordinary source of information on Jewish culture in the medieval Franco-German world has survived in a few manuscripts. The most extensive of these is ms Parma Palatina Heb. 3280. This manuscript was forgotten after the Middle Ages. In 1891 it was discovered, copied, and published by Jehuda Wistinezki in Berlin. A later printing of Wistinezki's edition came out in Frankfurt am Main in 1924 with a long introduction by Jacob Freimann. Another, shorter, version of Sefer Hasidim survives only in an early printing from Bologna (1538). Unlike the Parma ms version, this version became rather popular and was reprinted many times after 1538. The most recent edition based on the Bologna printing was edited by Rabbi Reuven Margaliyot and published in Jerusalem in 1957. Three contemporary scholars — Alfred Haverkamp (Trier University), Peter Schäfer (Princeton University), and Israel J. Yuval (Hebrew University) — are currently leading a team of researchers (Saskia Dönitz, Avraham [Rami] Reiner, René Richtscheid, and others) working on a new edition of Sefer Hasidim entitled Juden und Christen im „Buch der Frommen“ (Sefer Hasidim). Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentierung ausgewählter Texte zur Geschichte der Juden und der jüdisch-christlichen Beziehungen im mittelalterlichen Deutschland. The team's preliminary findings were published in Peter Schäfer's “Jews and Christians in the High Middle Ages: The Book of the Pious,” in The Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages (Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries): Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Speyer, 20–25 October, 2002 (ed. Christoph Cluse; Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2004) 29–42. Another important contribution by Peter Schäfer and Michael Meerson to our knowledge and research of Sefer Hasidim is the recent uploading of the PUSHD- The Princeton University Sefer Hasidim Database onto the World Wide Web: https://etc.princeton.edu/sefer_hasidim/index.php. Our story appears in the Parma ms (Wistinezki edition) § 1552.

10 Rabbi Yehuda himself was apparently a revered Jewish holy man during his lifetime and probably even more so posthumously. See She'elot U'Teshuvot MaHaRIL § 118 (ed. Yitzchok Satz; Jerusalem: Mekhon Yerushalayim, 1980) 214 [Hebrew]. Many hagiographical accounts mention Rabbi Yehuda as well as his father, Rabbi Shmuel b. Kalonymus “the Pious” of Speyer, as saintly figures. One of the largest collections of these hagiographical accounts is the Judeo-German (Yiddish) Ma'ase Buch. This collection probably circulated orally in both Hebrew and Yiddish for some time before it was recorded in writing and eventually printed in Basel in 1602. A fine though somewhat archaic English translation of some of the tales can be found in Moses Gaster, Ma'aseh Book: Book of the Jewish Tales and Legends (2 vols.; Philadelphia: JPS, 1934).

11 Joseph Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England: Documents and Records from Latin and Hebrew Sources (London: Nutt, 1893) 153.

12 Similar objections by religious authorities to the use of medical knowledge deriving from Jews can be found in the Latin East. See Benjamin Z. Kedar, “Jews and Samaritans in the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem,” Tarbiz 53 (1984) 387–408 (Hebrew), esp. 404. Kedar refers to the ruling of the Latin church council of Nicosia that objected to the use of medical assistance by Jewish and Muslim physicians. The reason for the ruling was that Jews and Muslims abstained from consulting Christian physicians and viewed it as a violation of their respective religious codes (Philippe Labbé and Gabriel Cossart, Sacrosancta Concilia, vol. 11/2 [Paris, 1621] col. 2379BC). Kedar dates these articles to the mid-thirteenth century and states that they originated in decrees made earlier by Latin Church authorities in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Holy Land. The Christian preference for Jewish and Muslim medical practitioners, especially in the Latin Outremer, is corroborated by the testimony of William of Tyre, ca. 1180, which states that the Frankish princes look down upon Christian physicians and prefer to consult with Jews and Muslims in matters of health (Guillelmus Tyrensis, Historia 18.34 in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades. Historiens occidentaux (Paris: Beugnot, 1841–1843) 1:879.

13 A late-thirteenth-century responsum by Rabbi Haim Paltiel of Magdeburg refers to the possible confessional error inherent in the Jewish folk practice of praying at the gravesites of deceased rabbis or martyred Jews. R. Haim states that mistaking the dead for divine intermediaries is more likely to occur among those “who don't fully understand the issues.” This may be a reference to the “uneducated masses” or to women. Rabbi Haim's responsa appears in the Lemberg edition of the responsa collection of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, §164. A similar opinion is voiced in Sefer Hasidim (Wistinetzki edition) § § 669–70. It should be noted, however, that Jewish dignitaries and sages of Franco-German descent testify that they themselves went to pray at the graves of the righteous. In The Testament of Judah Asheri (the son of Rabbi Asher Ben Yechiel [Ha'RoSH], who emigrated from Germany to Spain in the early fourteenth century) Judah writes the following: “… Likewise my desire for children was not due to my love for them or my expectation of pride in them, my desire was to obey the divine precept and to raise up an offspring to fill my father's place in study and righteousness. For this I often prayed at the graves of the perfect and upright. God in his mercy gave me five sons and I considered myself through them as a live man among my people and brethren. …” See Israel Abrahams, Hebrew Ethical Wills (Philadelphia: JPS, 1926) 2:168.

14 We do find evidence of Jews entering churches, although the exempla stories recounting such encounters usually describe them doing so in disguise. One such story tells of a Jew who attempts to steal a host from a church and is miraculously stopped (Das Viaticum Narrationum des Hermannus Bononiensis [ed. Alfons Hilka; vol. 3 of Beiträge zur lateinische Erzählungsliteratur des Mittelalters; Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1935] no. 72, 100–101). On this matter see Miri Rubin, “Imagining the Jew: The Late Medieval Eucharistic Discourse,” in In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (ed. R. Po-Chia-Hsia and Hartmut Lehmann; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 182–83.

15 This is a fine example of the eclectic nature of fourteenth-century medieval Hebrew manuscripts. Not only is it written in many different scribal hands, but paleographical analysis has shown that it contains a wide array of sources. Some of the manuscript's files and dossiers are penned in a style typical of Jewish Byzantine manuscripts, while parts of it are written by scribes adhering to the Jewish thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Franco-German style. It is not the paleography alone that shows diversity. The nature and content of the assembled works is also immensely varied. It contains Jewish exegetical commentaries on sections of the Hebrew Bible, tractates of medieval scientific knowledge in Hebrew, German Jewish ethical works, Jewish legal works, Hebrew homiletics, and a collection of exempla. The exempla collection belongs to the Franco-German portion of the manuscript and consists of almost two dozen tales. These tales are medieval Hebrew adaptations of older stories, some of which appear in earlier Jewish sources such as the Talmud. The entire cycle of stories is known as midrash aseret ha-dibrot (Homily on the Decalogue) and has been the subject of scholarly analysis since the nineteenth-century Wissenschaft des Judentums movement. See Adolph Jellinek, Bet ha'Midrasch. Kleiner Midraschim und vermischter Abhandlungen aus der ä lteren J ü dischen Literatur (Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1967) 1:62–90. Jellinek originally published this collection in 1853 in Leipzig. Our story appears on page 71. Jellinek's version of the story is slightly different from the version in ms Vatican Heb. 285.

16 Midrash Aseret Ha-Dibrot: A Midrash on the Ten Commandments Text, Sources and Interpretation (ed. Anat Shapira; Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2005). Another recent thorough analysis of the text form a different point of view can be found in Eli Yassif's monumental study of Hebrew folktales. (Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning [Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1994] 380–99 [Hebrew]; trans. Jacqueline S. Teitelbaum [Bloomington, Ind.: Bloomington University Press, 1999] 351–70)

17 Shapira reinforces Jellinek's assumption that the midrash was composed no earlier then the tenth century.

18 On this matter see the work of Myron B. Lerner, who has written extensively on the Midrash on the Decalogue. Among his works are “Liqutei Ma'asiyyot,” Quiryat Sefer 61 (1986–1987) 869–91 (Hebrew) and idem, “Al ha-midrashim le-aseret ha-dibrot,” Mehkerei Talmud (ed. Yaakov Sussman and David Rosenthal; Magnes: Jerusalem 1990) 1:217–36 (Hebrew).

19 My translation. The Hebrew reads as follows:

20 In the version recounted in Shapira's study of the story the demon is replaced by a man.

21 The author, compiler, or copyist's decision to end the tale with an affirmation that the Jewish God is a “living and existing God” is highly polemical. Jews in the Franco-German sphere referred time and again to the “dead” Christian deity manifested in the figure of Jesus nailed to the cross, contrasting him with the living, eternal Jewish God. An illustration of this can be found in yet another Jewish exemplum recounted by the Jewish mid-thirteenth-century Viennese sage Yitzchak ben Moshe (nicknamed “Or Zarua” after his popular halakhic compendium). In the final entry dealing with the details of the Jewish New Year, Or Zarua quotes the famous tale of the martyrdom of Rabbi Amnon of Mainz. For this text and a close analysis of it, see Ivan G. Marcus, “A Pious Community in Doubt: Jewish Martyrdom among Northern European Jewry and the Story of Rabbi Amnon of Mainz,” in Essays in Hebrew Literature in Honor of Avraham Holtz (ed. Tseviyah Ben-Yosef Ginor; New York: Bet ha-midrash le-Rabanim be-Amerika, 2003) 21–46.

22 John J. Macionis, Sociology (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1995) 9.

23 Owsei Temkin, Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991) 80. On Pagan and Christian incubation, see Ludwig Deubner, De Incubatione Capita Quattuor (Leipzig: Teubneri, 1900); Claudine Dauphin, “From Apollo and Asclepius to Christ: Pilgrimage and Healing at the Temple and Episcopal Basilica of Dor,” Liber Annuus 49 (1999) 397–430, esp. 419–24. On Jewish incubation dreams in talmudic culture, see Haim Weiss, “ ‘Twenty Four Dream Interpreters were in Jerusalem …’ On Dream Interpreters and Interpretation in the Talmudic Dream Tractate,” Jewish Studies 44 (2007) 37–77.

24 Another alternative for understanding the lame Jew's insomnia is that this is the first encounter with supernatural elements in the story. Eli Yassif describes the supernatural aspects of Hebrew folktales as a form of sign language, an indication that readers or listeners should pay special attention in anticipation of the story's main argument. See Yassif, The Hebrew Folklore, 144–66, 351–70 for this and other functions of magical and demonological elements in Hebrew folklore.

25 As noted above, in a different version of the story used by Anat Shapira, the Jew is met by a man rather than a demon, who administers the oil cure at the shrine. The difference between the versions should perhaps be explained as a polemical touch. The appearance of a man rather then a demon suggests that there was no actual miracle taking place but rather that the healing, attributed by Christians to divine power, was in fact all machinated by the priests of the shrine.

26 In 1175 Burchard of Strasbourg (Burchardus Argentoratensis) traveled to the Outremer as Emperor Fredrick Barbarosa's special envoy. In his account he reports on a prodigy he witnessed at the site of the Greek Orthodox monastery of Saidnaiya (Syriac for “Our Lady”) in the outskirts of Damascus. “On this panel a likeness of the Blessed Virgin had once been painted, but now, wondrous to relate, a picture on wood has become incarnate, and oil, smelling sweeter than balsam, unceasingly flows from it. By which oil many Christians Saracens and Jews are often cured of ailment …” See Bernard Hamilton, “Our Lady of Saidnaiya: An Orthodox Shrine Revered by Muslims and Knights Templar at the Time of the Crusades,” in The Holy Land, Holy Lands and Christian History: Papers Read at the 1998 Summer Meeting and the 1999 Winter Meeting of The Ecclesiastical History Society (ed. Robert. N. Swanson; Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2000) 206–14. A vivid depiction of how oil was used in faith healing at the European shrines of saints can be found in the fifteenth-century stained glass windows of the York Minster, which houses a large collection of such windows. Some of these windows highlight the life and miracles of St. William Fitzherbert, the local archbishop from 1143–1154 and the city of York's patron saint. His tomb was located in the nave of the Minster and later shrines in the choir were among the outstanding architectural elements in the medieval building, but these, unfortunately, have not survived. The most important surviving monument of this cult is the 78-foot high stained glass window in the choir, painted ca. 1414 and funded by the Yorkshire Ros Barony. One panel (#16a) depicts cripples collecting healing oil from the tomb of St. William. See Thomas French, York Minster: The St. William Window (Corpus Vitraearum Medii Aevi: Great Britain Summary Catalogue 5; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Although it dates to the fifteenth century, this artistic representation reflects a practice common in the York Minster from the thirteenth century, when the cult of St. William became well known. The practices at St. William's shrine were in no way unique. Similar scenes appear in shrines all over Western Christendom. It is apparent that Jews such as our author not only knew that such shrines existed but were acquainted (if not quite intimately) with the practices that took place there, including visits by the disabled and the use of healing oil.

27 This response outlines Rabbi Meir's and other rabbis' concerns regarding Jews who encouraged Christians to swear oaths for commercial and monetary purposes and had them invoke the names of Christian saints. The same responsum mentions Jews who, in order to convince these same non-Jewish business partners of their solemn intentions, swore similar oaths, again invoking the names of Christian saints. Rabbi Meir writes that he has reprimanded his flock on this matter, but that his instruction was largely unheeded. See Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch of Rothenburg, Responsa, Rulings and Customs: Collected, Annotated and Arranged in the Order of the Shulchan Arukh (ed. Yitshak Ze'ev Kahana; Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kuk, 1960) 2:52–53 §57 (Hebrew).

28 Interestingly enough, the eleventh-century northern French Talmudic commentator Rabbi Shlomo ben Yizchak (Rashi) specifies that Zenon was not a gentile but an assimilated Hellenistic Jew. See his commentary on b. Avodah Zarah 55a.

29 Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate, 210–12 and notes on 330.

30 The Hebrew word means both victory and argument or debate. Preserved in a single manuscript in the University Library of Strasburg, this work was first printed in 1681 by Johann Christoph Wagenseil (1633–1705), a German historian and Hebraist, in his Tela Ignea Satanae (=The Fiery Arrows of the Devil). See Johann Christoph Wagenseil, Tela Ignea Satanae hoc est arcane et horribiles Judaeorum adversus Christum, Deum et Christianam Religionem Libri (Altdorf: J. H. Schönnerstaedt, 1681). The original manuscript that was copied by Wagenseil in his book was lost in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 when the Strasburg library sustained a direct artillery shell hit and was set ablaze. In the late 1970's David Berger published his invaluable bilingual annotated edition of the full text based on all the known sources. The quotes here are from this edition.

31 Berger, Jewish-Christian Polemics, § 217 (= English section pp. 210–11).

32 Jews had a special set of anti-Christian claims directed against the cult of the dead in Christianity and the Christian custom of church burials as well as burial within consecrated grounds. This practice seemed exceptionally counter-intuitive to Jews, for in Jewish law death is considered the most defiling form of impurity.

33 This Hebrew word, literally translated “heretics,” is used as a code word for Christians as early as the second century c.e. This polemic manual can be found in ms Oxford, Bodleian Library 2289 fol. 30–58. I wish to take this opportunity to thank Prof. Israel Jacob Yuval for directing my attention to this manuscript. Paleographical analysis indicates that this short, never-published medieval Hebrew polemical tract should be dated no earlier than the fifteenth century. The manuscript itself is something of a riddle. Most of the material found within it is of a rather eclectic nature, but it echoes medieval Jewish rabbinic material; some of the contents, including the polemical tract, have much in common with the writings of the Hasidei Ashkenaz (Jewish pietists of medieval Germany). The material in this manuscript is recorded in Hebrew in a standard European script. Although, as noted above, the manuscript itself dates to no earlier than the fifteenth century, large portions of the text date to the thirteenth century, and most of the material is even older. Judah Rosenthal published a portion of this manuscript in Mehqarim u-meqorot (vol. 1 of Studies and Texts in Jewish History, Literature and Religion; Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1967) 368–72 (Hebrew), following an abridged version in ms Paris BN Heb. 1408. See Daniel Abrams, “The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Metatron in the Godhead,” HTR 87 (1994) 291–321. On Hasidei Ashkenaz and their prominent spokesmen, including the aforementioned Rabbi Judah the Pious, see Ivan G. Marcus, Piety and Society: The Jewish Pietists of Medieval Germany (Leiden: Brill, 1981); Haym Soloveitchik, “Three Themes in Sefer Hasidim,” AJS Review 1 (1976) 311–47 (here Soloveitchik discusses the role of “the Creator” in their theology); idem, “Piety, Pietism and German Pietism: Sefer Hasidim and the Influence of Hasidei Ashkenaz,” JQR 92 (2002) 455–93. The scholarly discussion on Hasidei Ashkenaz was recently updated in an entire volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review dedicated to this subject (JQR 96:1 [2006]).

34 Nishmat Kol Hai, Sabbath morning prayer, based on Deut 25:59.

35 See Allan's recent book on the construction of exempla in Middle English literature: Elizabeth Allan, False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later Middle English Literature (New York: Macmillan, 2005) 1–27.

36 See Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, “The Virgin Mary, Miriam and the Vicissitudes of Jewish Reactions to Marian Devotion in the High Middle Ages” (forthcoming).

37 In this version, the story is recounted as a quote from Sefer HaNachmani, one of the lost halakhic works of Rabbi Nachman, the son of R. Haym Hacohen, a twelfth-century Jewish sage from northern France. On the lost writings of the Tosafists see Simcha Emmanuel, The Fragments of the Tablets: Lost Books of the Tosaphists (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2006) 297–302 (Hebrew).

38 Qidd. 41a.

39 The exemplum bares yet another interesting resemblance to the story of Godeliva and the Jewess discussed earlier in this article. In that exemplum too, anger (in that case St. Thomas Becket's) prevented the use of potentially miraculous waters for healing.

40 B. Shabb. 105b. This notion is also strongly advocated by Maimonides in his exegesis on m. Avot 2:9. Maimonides' halakhic and exegetical works began circulating among Jewish scholars in Europe in the late twelfth century. Unlike his philosophical works, which were at the center of much controversy and at times even rejected, works of this nature were accepted and quoted extensively all over Western Europe.

41 I discuss this issue at length in my book: Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, Involuntary Marginals: Lepers, Madmen and Disabled Individuals in Medieval European Jewish Society (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2007) (Hebrew). An English version of this book is in preparation.