A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz by David Shyovitz

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz by David Shyovitz Suzanne Wijsman Shyovitz, David, A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017; cloth; pp. ix, 336; 8 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$65.00, £52.00; ISBN 9780812249118. The lasting impact of the twelfth-century Ashkenazic Jewish Pietist movement (Ḥasidei Ashkenaz) on the subsequent trajectory of Jewish history, theology, liturgical practice, and culture can hardly be over-estimated. In this fascinating, meticulously researched book, David Shyovitz delves deeply into the writings of the Ashkenazic Pietists to probe their views on the ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’. The rich primary source material that underpins the scholarship of this book includes some of the most important writings that emerged from Ashkenaz during this period. Plumbing this complex and, at times, esoteric corpus of medieval texts to explore this topic is a daunting task, but one that Shyovitz has clearly embraced with zeal. From the outset, Shyovitz rejects the assertion that, when compared with the philosophical/scientific discourse that blossomed on the Iberian Peninsula among medieval Sephardic Jews, Ashkenazim during this period were disinterested in the natural world, inward-looking and superstitious. Instead, he argues that the views expressed by the Pietists demonstrate a deep interest in the workings of the natural world and the theological significance of both the mundane and magical, and that their ideas were consonant with wider intellectual currents of the era. Chapter 1 discusses empirical observations by the Pietists concerning God’s ‘wonders’ in both natural and supernatural phenomena, with topics ranging from the properties of air to the power of magnetic stones. Shyovitz asserts that the Pietists’ [End Page 248] attitudes, beliefs, and hypotheses expressed in this literature are in accord not only with medieval Ashkenazic Jewish theology, but reflect the Pietists’ engagement with prevailing currents of thought in medieval Christendom. For example, in Chapter 2 entitled ‘The World Made Flesh’, Shyovitz makes a convincing case that the human body—often called the ‘olam katan (small world) in Hebrew—was considered by the Pietists to be a ‘microcosm of the created world in its entirety’ (p. 19), a concept that finds parallels in twelfth-century Christian theological writings and visual sources. In particular, Shyovitz compares the microcosm-ism of the Pietists and microcosmic motifs in works by Hildegard von Bingen, whom he notes was active in the German Rhineland where important medieval Jewish communities were located, including those of the early Pietists. The close parallels between incarnational worldviews in Christian and Jewish sources leads Shyovitz to suggest that, in this regard, the Pietists were not just exposed to and aware of Christian theology, but influenced by it. Shyovitz shows the extent to which the Pietists use corporeal language to explain not only the spiritual body, but also the soul’s inhabitation of specific bodily locations and the consequential inseparability of body and soul. While this finds parallels in Christian thought, as discussed in Chapter 3, it also contrasts dualistic conceptions of the body and soul that were prevalent among some Christian theologians. Particularly interesting is this chapter’s discussion of the paradox between the Pietists’ emphasis on the positive value of the body on the one hand, and their well-known advocacy of ascetic and extreme penitential behaviours on the other. Chapter 4 deals with the views of the Pietists on monstrosity and supernatural beings, examining again commonalities and differences between Jewish and Christian sources. Shyovitz highlights that processes of human transformation evident in some supernatural beings, such as werewolves, particularly interested the Pietists, who viewed this as a positive quality, a manifestation of the human body’s stability as opposed to the incorporeality of other, more malevolent supernatural creatures, such as demons. In addressing the historical legacy of the werewolf motif in this chapter, however, Shyovitz digresses perhaps unnecessarily from what is otherwise a well-focused essay. The vivid portrayal of grotesques and hybrid figures in a fourteenth-century manuscript that appears as the book’s cover illustration also suggests a missed the opportunity to explore how the Pietists’ views on the monstrous may have influenced representations of supernatural...