Darmstadt Haggadah

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From the Darmstadt Haggadah

The Darmstadt Haggadah (Cod. Or. 8) is a collection of biblical and homiletic verses, prayers, poems, religious customs and chants, which refer primarily to the exodus and the liberation from Egyptian bondage. The illuminated manuscript from the 15th century is in the Darmstadt University and State Library . The writer, Israel ben Meir from Heidelberg, names himself. The illustrator remains unknown. The codex consists of 58 parchment sheets in the format 24.5 × 35.5 cm.

Dating issues

The Haggada is from Paul Pieper dated in the facsimile edition from 1972 to about 1430, while Bruno Italians had proposed the 14th century. Earlier dating can be ruled out for stylistic reasons.

Ownership history

The Darmstadt Haggadah was probably created for private use, initially in private Jewish hands. It was not until 1805 that it became part of the collection of Baron Hüpsch, a Cologne collector, in the Hessian State and University Library in Darmstadt. Previously it was probably owned by Heinrich Heine's great-uncle , Simon von Geldern . As traces of use show, it has certainly served its actual purpose, the lecture at Passover celebrations, for a long time.

meaning

The manuscript has raised many questions and speculations on gender research , halacha and Jewish culture in terms of its rich and enigmatic illustration : men and women holding books together, engrossed in conversations on separate floors under Gothic vaults and arches. For a Passover Haggadah, not only the hunting scene and the fountain of youth with the depiction of naked men and women are completely unfamiliar, but also the multitude of depictions of women - without headgear or veil - reading religious scriptures in pilp-pulse scenes that are unseemly for women . Such an equal and harmonious representation of man and woman in a building, which seems to be a house in which religious texts are interpreted (beit midrash ), or a synagogue, is unacceptable for medieval Ashkena . For the experienced Rabbi Jakob ben Moses haLevi Molin , known as MaHaRIL, who was regarded as an authority in the field of Jewish law, forbade male teachers to teach women the Talmud and Pilpul, as did Rabbi Eleazar von Worms.

Since there are no parallels in the Jewish imagery for the unchaste interaction of man and woman and the unconscious killing of animals out of pure lust for hunting, it is assumed that the rich client was inspired by remarkably similar scenes in court literature that were used for this Found time on tapestries, in manuscripts, on statues and murals. The genre (courtship, hunts, dances, festivals, battles, games and baths) was extremely popular with wealthy and distinguished families in Western Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries, and one goes to the unknown because of the excellent mastery of secular and courtly roles Illustrator from a non-Jew.

Since it can hardly be assumed that any client would pay a large sum of money to portray the sins of men and rebellious women, Meyrav Levy draws the bow back to Rabbi Eleazar von Worms, who in an interpretation of the Passover Haggadah recitation of the Haggadah Olam Haba (ie the Coming World or Garden of Eden ) connects. He adds a story from the Zohar , the most important written work of Kabbalah , to his comment : "Everyone who retells the story of the Exodus and is happy about it is welcome to celebrate the festival of joy in the Olam Haba with a divine spirit." In the Olam Haba, however, there are no differences between men and women, there are no temptations between the sexes and therefore no reason to separate the sexes from one another. The Olam Haba motif is a reminder of the joyous festival of the blessed in paradise with the pious on earth through the common recitation of the story of the Exodus to Leil HaSeder. So the client could have both: a magnificent manuscript full of typical aristocratic illustrations and a proper representation of God's glorification.

literature

  • Meyrav Levy: Enigmatic Illustrations in the Darmstadt Haggada. A Chivalric Version of Olam ha-Ba , in: Dorothea Weltecke (Ed.): Guest at Jews. Konstanz 2017, pp. 132-139 ISBN 978-3-7977-0734-5
  • Joseph Gutmann, Paul Pieper: The Darmstadt Passover Haggadah. Codex Orientalis 8 of the Hessian State and University Library Darmstadt. Berlin 1972.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Passover Haggadah in the Yale University Library Collections - Manuscripts

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