LEON MODENA’S “RITES”
Said to have been composed at the request of an English nobleman for the delectation of James I, Leon Modena’s account of Jewish ceremonial was certainly intended for Christian readers. Though written in Italian, it first appeared in France (Paris, 1637), through the good offices of the author’s pupil and friend, J. Gaffarel. It was the source of a whole library of similar books. Not only was it translated into several languages, but onwards from Modena’s time, writers, Jewish and Christian, competent and incompetent, devoted themselves to the task of presenting to the world in general the teachings and customs of Judaism. The recent treatise of Oesterley and Box is a lineal descendant of Modena’s Rites.
Of the author it may be said that he was the Admirable Crichton of his age (1571-1648). His range of knowledge and power was extraordinary. As Dr. Johnson said of Oliver Goldsmith, he touched nothing which he did not adorn. Besides writing many books on many subjects, he filled the office of Rabbi at Venice with distinction, his sermons in Italian attracting large audiences. Some of his German critics call him “characterless.” Why? Because he denounced gambling, and yet was a life-long victim to the vice. In his boyhood he produced a pamphlet against card-playing, and in 1631 successfully protested against the excommunication of card-players. But is there lack of character here? Of many another great man could it be said that he saw and approved the better yet followed the worse. And there are things which one dislikes without wishing to put the offenders under a ban. On another occasion, Modena severely attacked Rabbinism, and then published a reply to his own attack. He assuredly was not the only man impelled to refute his own arguments.
Modena was, one might rather say, a man of moods, and therefore of singular openness and width of mind. He suffered not from lack of character, but from an excess of impressionability. A bee has not less character than a caterpillar, because the former flies from flower to flower, while the latter adheres to the same cabbage leaf. Modena, to put the case in yet another way, lived at a transitional period, when Jews were only beginning to acclimatize themselves to modern conditions, and when settled views on many subjects were not only difficult but undesirable. Despite his vagaries, one is rather attracted to him. There must have been solidity as well as versatility in his disposition, or he could not possibly have retained the important rabbinic post he filled for more than half-a-century. Probably the secret was that he not only possessed personal charm, but the real man was best known to those who knew him best. They—or many of them—assuredly admired and loved him.
We will now turn to another figure—the first English translator of Modena’s Riti Ebraici. This was Edmund Chilmead, who was born in 1610 and died in 1654. He was a good scholar and an accomplished musician. Up to 1648 he resided in Oxford, but as a result of the troubles between Charles I and the Parliament, he was expelled from the University because of his royalist opinions. Two things, however, speak well for Cromwell’s toleration. Chilmead was not only allowed to live unmolested in London to the day of his death, but had no hesitation, on the title-page of his translation of Modena, to describe himself still as “Chaplain of Christ Church, Oxon.” The date of the translation gives the clue. “The History of the Rites, Customes, and Manner of Life of the Present Jews throughout the World” was printed “for Jo. Martin and Jo. Ridley, at the Castle in Fleet Street, by Ram Alley” in 1650. By that time Cromwell was probably thinking of the Jewish question, and he must have welcomed this first-hand statement on the Jewish religion. Chilmead’s edition, one must confess, is badly printed, and is not very creditable to the printing capacity of the “Castle in Fleet Street.” One might pardon the many misprints in the Hebrew, but it is hard to overlook the numerous faults in the English. It is not wonderful that, in the following century, Ockley thought it necessary to issue a new version.
Modena’s own original was not, as the title suggests, a history. It does not so much give sources as facts. But this circumstance, that it is mainly descriptive, confers on it a permanent value. For it thus becomes a document. It helps us to realize several aspects of the Jewish position at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The author uses the term history in the sense of narrative; as he states in his Prefatory Epistle, he is concerned with the what and not with the why (“Quod sunt,” not “Propter quod sunt,” as he expresses it). He deals with his present, not with the past, and for that very limitation we may be grateful. He claims, too, that he is a “Relater,” not a “Defender.” That being so, it is of peculiar interest to find what we do in his work, arranged in five books, “according to the number of the Books of the Law.”
Several forms of prayer appear for the first time in his pages. Certainly Chilmead is the earliest to give us in English the Prayer for the Government, or a translation of the Thirteen Articles drawn up by Maimonides. Modena, again, tells us that in his day it was customary to “leave about a yard square of the wall of the house unplaistered on which they write either the verse of Psalm 137, ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,’ or the words Zecher Lahorban—a Memorial of the Desolation.” He knows only wooden Mezuzahs. Jews in Italy have pictures and images in their houses, “especially if they be not with Relief, or Imbossed work, nor the Bodies at large.” Few, he reports, take heed to the custom of placing the beds north and south; many attach significance to dreams. Jewish men never paint their faces, for the custom is “effeminate”; and “in whatsoever country they are, they (the men) usually affect the long garment, or Gown.” The women dress “in the habite of the countries where they inhabite”; but after marriage wear a perruke to cover their natural hair. The Jews build their synagogues wherever they can, “it being impossible for them now to erect any statelie or sumptuous Fabricks.” Things, as we know, soon after Modena’s time became different, for by the middle of the seventeenth century, several fine synagogues were built in Rome and elsewhere. The women “see whatever is done in the School (thus Chilmead renders scuola or synagogue), though they are themselves unseen of any man.” In the same city there will be places of worship “according to the different customes of the Levantines, Dutch (German), and Italians.” Then, “in their singing, the Dutch far exceed all the rest: the Levantines and Spaniards use a certain singing tone, much after the Turkish manner; and the Italians affect a more plain, and quiet way in their devotions.” The “Favours” of “having a hand” in the acts connected with the reading of the Law “are bought of the Chaunter, and he that biddeth most, shall have a share in them.”
Willingly, did space permit, we would follow the author through his account of the Judaism of his time. The majority of Jews, he says, are poor, yet annually they send “Almes to Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron.” The Jews never “torment, or abuse, or put to any cruel death, any Brute Beast.” Very few Jews are able to speak Hebrew; all learn the language of the countries where they are born. “Onely those of the Morea still retain the Hebrew Tongue also, and use it in their Familiar Letters.” In Italy, he records, the Talmud “continues utterly prohibited,” and copies are not to be found in the country. Jews do not regard “Vowes” as “commendable”; yet “when they are made, they ought to be kept.” Not many now observe the “tradition” against eating “Fish and Flesh together.” He tells us of an arrangement by which, for the Sabbath, some “so ordered the matter aforehand, that the Fire should kindle itself at such and such a time.” The Passover bread is made in “flat cakes of divers forms and shapes.” The “Ceremonie with a Cock,” on the eve of the Day of Atonement, “is now left off both in the East and in Italy, as being a thing both Superstitious and Groundlesse.” But they still, on Purim, “as often as they hear Haman named, beat the ground, and make a great murmuring noise.” Bigamy “is seldome or never used.” Marriages are usually performed before full moon, and the favorite days are Wednesdays and Fridays, with Thursdays for widows. “Little boyes, with lighted torches in their hands,” sing before the bridal couple, who are seated under the canopy. The Ketubah is read at the marriage. Modena mentions the charms against Lilit, and name-changing in case of sickness. He describes how, in Germany, in the case of girls, “the Chaunter goeth home to the Parents house, and lifting the child’s cradle on high, he blesseth it, and so giveth it the Name.” Modena also informs us that the Karaites were, in his time, numerous in Constantinople, Cairo, and Russia.
Modena records that among the Jews “there are many women that are much more devout and pious than the men, and who not only endeavour to bring up their children in all manner of Vertuous Education; but are a means also of restraining their husbands from their Vitious Courses, they would otherwise take, and of inclining them to a more Godly way of Life.” With which handsome and just compliment we will take leave of our author.