Ṭaʿame ha-miṣvot in Medieval Ashkenaz

Abstract

The search for taʿame ha-misvot (reasons for the commandments) in medieval Ashkenaz has received scant scholarly attention. Thus, for example, not a single Ashkenazic figure is found among the chapter headings of the classic study by Isaac Heinemann on this theme in the mid-twentieth century. As we shall see, this lacuna stems from the idea, prevalent in modern scholarship, that the tosafists, like their esteemed predecessor Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac; 1040–1105), did not have the philosophical training or formal, rationalistic frameworks in which to incorporate these discussions. Moreover, their strong focus on talmudic interpretation and Jewish law further attenuated the significance oftaʿame ha-misvot . (from author) ¶Almost no scholarly attention has been focused on the search for ṭaʿame ha-miṣvot among the writers and thinkers of medieval Ashkenaz. Although there was certainly a strain of tosafist thought in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that viewed the commandments as divine dicta that ought not be interrogated or explained, other tosafists, such as Joseph Bekhor Shor of Orleans, a student of Rabbenu Tam, did undertake this endeavor in the context of his peshaṭ-oriented commentary to the Torah. In addition, the contemporaneous German Pietists pursued ṭaʿame ha-miṣvot on different levels in both their exoteric and esoteric writings, as did leading Jewish polemicists. The seeming alliance or at least commonality among these three groups of Jewish intellectuals in northern Europe can also be detected in related areas of Jewish thought and suggests that the aversion to (or non-reception of) philosophical modes of study that has been posited for this cultural region needs to be modified or reframed. (From poublisher) .