Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg

Yehuda ben Samuel he- Hasid, called Judah the Pious (ca. 1140-50 * probably in Speyer, † February 22, 1217 in Regensburg ) was a German - Jewish lawyer, philosopher and ethicist. He was one of the most important representatives of a movement within the high medieval Judaism, the chaside ashkenaz that from 1096 the strictly rational rabbinic scholarship, a mystical- spiritual piety, asceticism and martyr worship opposed in response to the bloody persecutions of the Jews of the time of the Crusades.

Life

Yehuda ben Samuel he- Hasid came from the well-known rabbis and scholars of family Kalonymiden. His father was the scribe Samuel ben Qalonymus he- Hasid. One of his teachers was next to his father would later be active as a rabbi and liturgical poet brother Abraham ben Samuel He- Hasid. After work in occupied Speyer Jude moved the Pious 1195/96 presumably because of anti-Jewish riots in the Lower Rhine his residence to Regensburg, where also was a strong Jewish community. There he founded a yeshiva. By Yehuda ben Samuel he- Hasid, the city grew quickly to become a center of Jewish learning, from which also contacts up to communities and scholars of East European region such as Prague or Krakow were made. He remained there until his death in 1217th As the most important disciple of Judah the Pious applies the related with it Eleazar of Worms. More historically suspected of his students are Isaac ben Moses of Vienna and Baruch ben Samuel of Mainz.

While there is a lack of contemporary sources about Yehuda he- Hasid, numerous legends from the 15th and 16th centuries have been preserved about him. He was - even though it is in principle no official veneration of saints are in Judaism - after his death in Jewish hagiography at least in the German-speaking countries to the ascetic "holy " and faith healers ( baale Shemot ) transfigured.

Works

The most influential of its ascribed in part works is the Sefer Hasidim ( " Book of the Pious " ), which is according to Gershom Scholem, "one of the most important and most memorable products of Jewish literature ," which allows " deep into the real life of a Jewish community in all its manifestations to gain insight. "It is in parts a social- ethical and social revolutionary Scripture, which showed the medieval Jewry new perspectives, but at the same time a work full of mysterious and mystical symbolism that is difficult to interpret. The work is a unique in its kind source for Jewish life and its Christian environment in the late 12th and early 13th century. Another important book ( Sefer HaKavod - "Book of Honor " ) was lost and is only fragmentary handed down by quotations from other authors. Most of his writings on esoteric theology is lost. Some passages in the book of the pious also explain the philosophical and mystical side of the Tanakh and the Talmud. Of the mystic- esoteric aspects of the book of the righteous but little effect is expected. It later was rather the Spanish Kabbalah prevail. Rabbi Judah he- Hasid and especially his book of the pious inspired centuries later the founder of the modern movement of Hasidism, in the 18th/19th. Century in Eastern Europe emerged.