ELEAZAR BEN JUDAH OF WORMS (1174)

ELEAZAR BEN JUDAH BEN KALONYMOS OF WORMS
ELEAZAR ROKEAH

Rabbi, mustic, Talmudist and codifier.

Along with the Sefer Hasidim (1538, Book of the Pious) of which he was a coauthor, his voluminous works are the major extant documents of medieval German Hasidism (a fervent ultrapious sect that stressed prayer, devoutness and practical mysticism as a means of attaining to God).

Eleazar was a member of the eminent Kalonymos family which gave medieval Germany many of its spiritual leaders and mystics; another member of that family the semilegendary pietist Judah ben Samuel the Hasid of Regensburg was his teacher and spiritual master.

Eleazar´s wife conducted a business so that he could devote himself to his studies.

In 1196 two Christians crusaders broke into his house and, before his eyes, murdered his wife and two daughters. 

In spite of this horrendous experience he continued to teach a doctrine of love of humanity.

He became a rabbi at Worms in 1201 and in 1223 took part in a synod at Mainz which considered such questions as the inequitable exemptions of particularly favoured Jews from the tax imposed by the government and business relations with Christians.

Eleazar was a man of great erudition who did not compartmentalize his knowledge of Kabbalism (the influential body of Jewish mystical writings) and the Talmud (the normative rabbinic compendium of law, lore and commentary); rather he tried to unify these opposing aspects of Judaism in his writings often with strange results.

His greatest work is his ethical code Rokeah (1505, Dealer in Spice) for which he is sometimes known as Eleazar Rokeah. The work is prefaced with a number of chapters dealing with the essential principles of Judaism in which Eleazar attempts to explain mystic concepts including the unity of God, in terms of Halakha (Law). The work itself which is not complete contains some 497 sections addressed to every aspect of Jewish life, from sabbath law, holiday rituals and marriage ceremony to penance for sins, the latter a preoccupation of the German Hasidim in common with medieval Christianity.

Eleazar believed in letter and number mysticism. On prayer he wrote a mystic treatise entitled Te´amim we-sodot hatefilla (Explanations and Secret Meanings of Prayer). In it he expounded the Kabbalistic belief that angels have secret names and if one can use these names in prayer, he can control the angels who will then beat the prayers to God; this would be an effective method of ending illness or increasing good fortune. Eleazar was an angelologist not only in his mystic theories of theurgy (the art of persuading or compelling supernatural beings to one´s bidding) but also in his writings on the kavod (divine glory) a concept also shared by his master Judah ben Samuel the Hasid who wrote a mystic work existing only in citations on the subject. Eleazar believed that the kavod, a ruling angel, was an emanation from God and the knowable aspect of him while God himself was infinitely trascendent and unknowable to man.

Eleazar also wrote tosafot (Talmudic commentaries) on a number of Talmudic tractates as well as mystical commentaries on the five scrolls (Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther) and on the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses).