From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: Thursday, November 6, 1997 11:41 PM
To: Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: Geniza: The Burying of Jewish Literature
From: JUICE Administration <juice@virtual.co.il>
To: diaspora@virtual.co.il
Subject: JUICE Diaspora 7
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World Zionist Organization
Student and Academics Department
Jewish University in CyberspacE
juice@wzo.org.il birnbaum@wzo.org.il
http://www.wzo.org.il
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Course: Actors on the World's Stage: Jewish Life in the Diaspora
Lecture: 7/12
Lecturer: Rabbi Zvi Berger
A geniza is an area in which worn-out or illegible Jewish sacred literature is stored,
prior to actual burial in a Jewish cemetery. This may include old Torah
scrolls, tractates of Mishnah or Talmud, Midrashic collections, Halakhic
literature, prayer books, etc. (By the way, the existence of the geniza as
well as the burying of Jewish sacred books is a clear expression of the
importance of Talmud Torah, or the study of Torah in our tradition!) Those
of you that have been to Masada in Israel may recall that in the corner of
the ancient synagogue a geniza room was unearthed, in which fragments of
many scrolls were found. Geniza's still exist to this day in synagogues,
yeshivot, and Jewish libraries all over the world. So it should come as no
surprise that the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo included a large geniza, which
had been in use for about a thousand years! What makes this geniza so
special, however, is that for some reason, the tradition developed at this
particular synagogue not only to save Jewish sacred books, but also to store
other types of documents as well, from a wide variety of spheres of life!
Not only that, it appears that the Ben Ezra geniza was never emptied, thus
leaving in one room over 200,000 fragments of Jewish documentation,
including legal literature, religious texts, community records, financial
records, letters from traders, personal correspondence, and the list goes on
and on! While most of the documents deal with the Jewish community in North
Africa, (especially Egypt), there are also documents from Europe, including
the earliest known literature written in Yiddish, (a family letter from the
16th Century).
Think of the implications that the finding of the Geniza has for the study
of Jewish history! All too often the study of history revolves around the
major political and military developments, the "earthshaking" events that
constituted major "front-page news" in their time. Yet such a study often
overlooks the long-range socio-economic and cultural processes which
gradually change the face of society. And what about the day to day lives
of simple, common people, with all of the curious occurrences and anecdotes
that we read about today in the "Variety" "Leisure" or "Lifestyle" sections
of our daily newspapers? The Geniza provides us with a clear, almost
intimate look at real people living their lives! In a strange sort of way,
it reminds me of the Internet, with its websites on almost any topic or
theme imaginable, the difference being that today with the Net we have
almost instantaneous access to this tremendous quantity of info, whereas the
great majority of Geniza documents still await cataloguing and careful
reading and analysis by scholars...
What I find to be so interesting in the Geniza documents is that they're so
"real". These aren't the works of professional historians or chroniclers
whose accounts are often colored by all sorts of personal, communal, or
national "agendas". These letters and records were never designed to be
saved, so their authors didn't have to be concerned about what type of
impression they were leaving for generations to come. And so they present
us with life as it really was, without misleading idealizations and
apologies. As a result, a wonderful variety of personalities, concerns,
beliefs, and actions, are revealed to us!
You may be wondering about the religious life revealed in the Geniza. One
of the most significant contributions of the Geniza literature is in the
area of Jewish prayer. In particular, many piyyutim (religious poems of
praise) are revealed to us which were unknown to earlier generations of
scholars. We find over 800 piyyutim of Yannai, the 6th Century poet from
Israel, none of which (except for one poem) had appeared in the various
collections of ancient and medieval piyyutim. But what about the role of
religion in everyday life? Goitein wrote an article on this subject, which
basically stresses the depth of religious faith expressed by the simple,
common people, including a strong personal relationship with God. It's
interesting enough, but nothing particularly revolutionary is expressed
here. Goitein's conclusions, however, were probably a reflection of the
type of material he specialized in, which was personal letters. But as I
mentioned previously, there is a wide variety of types of literature in the
Geniza documents, and a number of contemporary scholars have recently
published some fascinating investigations of Jewish magical practices
expressed in amulets and incantations described in the Geniza.
Well, it's time to wrap things up. I hope you enjoyed this brief
introduction to Geniza literature, and I hope it gave you a glimpse of how
the Geniza documents deepen our understanding of the history of the Jewish
people in the Diaspora, particularly concerning issues of social history
which reflect everyday life, as well as the customs, beliefs, and social
mores of the common people.
Next week we jump into the modern period and deal with German Jewry in the
19th and 20th Centuries (preceding the rise of Nazism).
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