Anan ben David
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Anan Ben David (
History
From the second third of the 7th century and until middle of the 8th, as a result of the tremendous intellectual commotion produced throughout the
"Anan", which means "Cloud", was never a very common name among Jews, but it is attested in the Bible: the original Anan was one of the Israelites who sealed the covenant after the return from the Babylonian captivity in Nehemiah 10.[1] (Nehemiah 10:26).
Some polemical accounts supply Anan with a typical background story often used of "heretics"—namely, that he was frustrated in a bid for power within the religious community and as a result broke away. According to these accounts, the Exilarch or leader of the Jews in Mesopotamia, probably Isaac Iskawi, died about 760. Two brothers among his nearest kin, probably his nephews, Anan and Josiah (Hassan), were next in order of succession to the exalted office. Eventually, Josiah was elected exilarch by the geonim or leaders of the Talmudic academies in Babylonia and by the notables of the chief Jewish congregations. The choice was confirmed by Abbasid caliph al-Mansur (754–775).
The story continues that Anan was proclaimed exilarch by his followers, an act construed by the Muslim authorities as a rebellion against the authority of the caliph, who had formally invested Josiah with the position. He was arrested by the authorities one Sunday in 767 and was to be executed on the ensuing Friday for
Luckily for Anan, the story goes, he met in jail a prominent fellow prisoner, the founder of the
The story so closely fits polemical clichés about the personal motives of "heretics" that it is open to grave doubt. Moreover, Leon Nemoy notes, "Natronai, scarcely ninety years after Anan's secession, tells us nothing about his aristocratic (Davidic) descent or about the contest for the office of exilarch which allegedly served as the immediate cause of his apostasy." He later notes that Natronai, a devout Rabbinic Jew, lived where Anan's activities took place and that the Karaite sage Jacob Qirqisani never mentioned Anan's purported lineage or candidacy for exilarch. (See Karaite Anthology; Yale Judaica Series 7)
Anan ben David's Sefer ha-Miṣwot or "Book of the Precepts" was published about 770. He adopted many principles and opinions of other anti-rabbinic forms of Judaism. It has been suggested that he took much from the Sadducees and Essenes, whose writings (or at least writings ascribed to them) were still in circulation. For example, these older sects prohibited the burning of any lights and the leaving of one's dwelling on Shabbat; they also enjoined the actual observation of the new moon for the appointment of festivals and celebrated Shavuot, one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, on a Sunday.
Fundamental principles of Ananism
Some sources claim that Anan borrowed the belief in the transmigration of the soul (
Ananism in practice
A number of ben David's teachings differ from those of Rabbinic Jews and of the majority of modern Karaites. Anan rejected the admeasurements instituted by the rabbis (
In addition, he maintained that as long as Israel is in exile the flesh of animals, with the exception of the deer, the pigeon and the turtle-dove, is forbidden from being eaten (although permitted animals may be eaten with dairy). Within Judaism, restrictions on consuming meat and poultry that extend beyond the Rabbinic concept of
Rules for slaughtering
To this limitation of the eating of meat must also be added his regulation concerning the personality of the individual who slays creatures for food; Anan rejected the broad precept of the Talmud that "slaughtering is permissible to anybody," demanded a certain dignity for the act, and required from the slaughterer a complete profession of faith. From this dates the Karaite custom of reciting the articles of the creed preparatory to slaughtering. Finally, not satisfied with the Talmudic dictum that in the act of slaughtering it is sufficient to cut through two ducts—gullet and windpipe—Anan required that in addition two more—arteries or veins—should be severed. In addition to the legal fast-days appointed by the Bible, Anan, by means of word-analogies instituted the following: The seventh day of every month; the 14th and 15th of Adar instead of the rabbinical fast of the 13th, including thus the Purim festival; also a seventy-days' fast from the 13th of Nisan to the 23d of Siwan; including Passover and Shavuot as times of fasting when neither food nor drink could be partaken of by day.
Rules for Sabbath
It was forbidden to go outside of one's dwelling on the Sabbath except for purposes of prayer or necessity. Anything that is ordinarily carried on the shoulders, owing to its size or weight, might not be carried around even in a room. Anan's law-book insists that the Sabbath evening (Friday) must be passed in darkness: lights kindled in the daytime on Friday must be extinguished at nightfall, for it is forbidden to pass the Sabbath in a place artificially illuminated. Cooking and baking must be done on Friday, not only for Friday and Saturday, but also for Saturday night, to forestall any impatient longing for the close of the Sabbath. Foods already prepared must not be kept warm, but eaten cold. Unleavened bread (Maẓẓah) must be made exclusively of barley-meal, and he that prepares it out of wheaten meal incurs the punishment appointed for those that eat actual leaven (ḥameẓ). Nor may this unleavened bread be baked in an oven, but, like the paschal lamb, it must be roasted on the coals.
Science
Anan ben David, in direct contradiction of Karaites such as
See also
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Anan ben David". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.