judaism without a temple 251
should there not have been four graveyards? It is a tradition that there
should be but two.
A similar notion must lie behind the custom exhibited from the third
to the sixth century at Beth Shearim, in Lower Galilee, of bringing corpses
from afar in ossuaries for burial in the proximity of learned rabbis. For
other diaspora Jews, a desire to be buried next to fellow Jews led at
times to the purchase by individual Jewish families of specific locations
for the purpose, such as the Jewish catacombs of Rome (used from the
third to the fifth century) and the catacombs from Venosa, further south
in Italy in Apulia (used from the fourth to the eighth century). A cem-
etery was not in itself hallowed, but by the early medieval period Jewish
communities in both Christian and Muslim lands purchased plots for
communal burial. Among the earliest known is the cemetery at Worms,
which dates back to the tenth century.^16
In contrast to their partial exclusion from the public religious life of
the community, women and children were fully integrated into the
development of religious liturgy within the family group at home.
Already in the Mishnah it is taken for granted that responsibility for
the religious life of the household falls (with severe consequences) in
some crucial matters on the householder’s wife: ‘For these transgres-
sions, women die in childbirth: because they have been negligent in
regard to their periods of separation [after menstruation], in respect
to the consecration of the first cake of the dough, and in the lighting of
the Sabbath lamp.’ According to the Mishnah, ‘light the lamp’ is one of
the crucial commands a man must give to his household when darkness
is falling on the eve of Sabbath. The lighting of Sabbath candles on
Friday evenings remains pervasive in most forms of Judaism to the
present.^17
Preparing for the Sabbath was thus not without anxiety for the
women of the household, but they were full participants in the pleasures
of the celebration itself when, on a Friday evening, the Sabbath day was
blessed by the man of the house over wine and bread:
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has made us
holy though His commandments, who has favoured us, and in love and
favour gave us His holy Sabbath as a heritage, a remembrance of the work
of creation. It is the first among the holy days of assembly, a remembrance
of the exodus from Egypt. For You chose us and sanctified us from all the
peoples, and in love and favour gave us Your holy Sabbath as a heritage.
Blessed are You, Lord, who sanctifies the Sabbath.