The Persona of a Poseq: Law and Self-Fashioning in Seventeenth-Century Ashkenaz

With the publication of Jacob Katz’s Masoret u-Mashber and Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson’s Hagut ve-Hanhagah just over a half century ago, rabbinic responsa gained wide recognition as a valuable historical source for the study of late medieval and early modern Jewish history. The two Hebrew works, composed by eminent Israeli scholars, drew heavily on this largely overlooked literature and from ethical-moral writings as well, in order to reconstruct patterns of leadership and authority that prevailed in Ashkenazic kehillot, to probe deep-seated social and religious tensions, and to examine the relations between Jews and the surrounding general society and culture. Over the past several decades, the historical literature has come to rely on these sources rather routinely. Historians have also regularly consulted rabbinic responsa in order to measure, substantiate or disprove—as the case may be—the impact of major historical events and trends. The spread of Sabbatianism, the reception of the Enlightenment, the decline of rabbinic authority, and the first stirrings of secularization are several of the major themes in early modern Jewish history that have been studied profitably with the assistance of responsa. But it is also clear from an extended exchange between Ben-Sasson and Katz that the use of responsa raises any number of methodological questions that continue to divide historians to this day.¹

This essay will not occupy itself with questions concerning the reliability of responsa or other rabbinic writings as historical sources, nor will it dwell on the perspectives they bring to certain historical events. Preoccupation with the decline of religious authority and ritual observance, viewed by many as an essential condition of modernity, has all too often obscured important themes in cultural and intellectual history. It has also reinforced the assumption that Jewish law remained largely intact prior to the nineteenth century. Instead of focusing so much attention on the growth or decline of rabbinic authority, historians might consider exploring the dynamics of rabbinic authority in broader terms. Intellectual creativity and independence, alongside strategies aiming to accommodate changing needs and sensibilities in diverse areas of family life and economic interaction, are among the areas that stand to benefit from a new approach to responsa. Much also remains to be done to advance our understanding of the social and cultural role of Jewish law and decision-making; the intricacies of religious life and thought; interrelations among the institutions of the Jewish community, including its lay governing body, the rabbinic judiciary (the beit din), and decisors of Jewish law (poseqim); and cultural interchange between Jewish and general society.²

Seeking to shed light on the inner workings of Jewish jurisprudence, this essay will direct its attention at the early modern poseq qua jurist. Its main focus is the persona of an exemplary German rabbinic figure, Ya’ir Hayyim Bacharach (1638–1702), who spent the latter part of his life and career in the community of Worms.³ Bacharach may be considered exemplary in a dual sense. The outstanding character of his halachic writings was the product of an unusually brilliant and innovative mind. He and his collection of responsa, Havvot Ya’ir (Frankfurt, 1699), are conspicuous for their creativity and independence. But his achievement ought to be viewed, as well, as a shining example of a larger pattern shared by a number of other modern poseqim, such as Zvi Hirsch Ashkenazi, Jacob Reischer, and Ezekiel Landau, to name only a few. Bacharach’s remarkable quality of self-awareness, combined with an uncommon willingness to share his thinking with the broader public, opens a window onto a world that tends to be otherwise highly impenetrable. It may be assumed that despite these exceptional qualities, the issues with which Bacharach was concerned, and the methods he employed in analyzing and resolving them, were broadly characteristic of his contemporaries and especially those who succeeded him in the eighteenth century. Whether his approach was unique will depend, ultimately, on the undertaking of new research devoted to early modern poseqim and their oeuvre.

By “persona” I refer to the sense of self that emerges...