‘A girl! He ought to be whipped’ The Hasid as Homo Ludens

Salomon maimon’s testimony about the whipping of a hasid on the birth of a daughter

The well-known account of the visit by Salomon Maimon (1753–1800) to the court of the Magid Dov Ber of Mezritsh is unique. There is no eyewitness report like it depicting the earliest days of hasidism.¹ Maimon apparently visited Mezritsh (Międzyrzecz Korecki) at the end of the 1760s, when he was himself a young married man of 16 or 17.²

Maimon is not suspected of having been partial to hasidism, but nor is he believed to have been hostile to it. Despite his disappointment with hasidism, and his eventually becoming a maskil and a philosopher, his description suggests an appreciation for those first hasidim he met.³ Independent testimonies confirm the reliability of his memoirs⁴ and his encounter with hasidism. These include Maimon’s account of three homilies delivered by the Magid, which are cited in the Magid’s name almost verbatim in other hasidic sources;⁵ his detailed description of the third sabbath meal at the court, where the Magid performed theatrical gestures in order to become infused with the Holy Spirit; and the belief of each one of the hasidim present that the Magid’s homily contained a message that was directed only at him and responded to his own particular needs. All these are documented in other sources by mitnagedim and hasidim alike.⁶ It is no wonder that scholars of hasidism have attributed a great deal of credibility to Maimon’s testimony and relied on various parts of it.⁷

Nevertheless, when Maimon wished to explain to his readers why he became disillusioned with hasidism, he attributed his change of mind, among other things, to an event he himself had witnessed at the court of the Magid. Here is his story:

The whole society also displeased me not a little by their cynical spirit and the excess of their merriment. A single example of this may suffice. We had met once at the hour of prayer in the house of the superior [the Magid].⁸ One of the company arrived somewhat late, and the others asked him the reason. He replied that he had been detained by his wife having been that evening confined with a daughter. As soon as they heard this, they began to congratulate him in a somewhat uproarious fashion. The superior thereupon came out of his study and asked the cause of the noise. He was told that we were congratulating our friend [P.],⁹ because his wife had brought a girl into the world. ‘A girl!’ he answered with the greatest indignation, ‘he ought to be whipped.’¹⁰

The poor fellow [P.] protested. He could not comprehend why he should be made to suffer for his wife having brought a girl into the world. But this was of no avail: he was seized, thrown down on the floor, and whipped unmercifully. All except the victim became hilarious over the affair, upon which the superior called them to prayer with the words, ‘Now, brethren, serve the Lord with gladness!’ [Ps. 100: 2].¹¹

I would not stay in the place any longer. I sought the superior’s blessing, took my leave of the society with the resolution to abandon it forever, and returned home.¹²

Even if we are to disregard Maimon’s interpretations of the event many years later, such as his comment about ‘their contempt for the other sex’ (added as a note in the German original), we are still left with a bizarre episode. A group of hasidim¹³ had gathered at the home of the Magid to pray. There is no indication that this was the sabbath, and it was certainly not the third sabbath meal. Rather it was a regular weekday morning prayer. The members of the group were concerned for one of them who was late to arrive, and it turned out that he was delayed because his wife had given birth. There is no doubt that the woman gave birth in Mezritsh. Thus...