new certainties and new mysticism 383
the first half of the eighteenth century the great spiritual leader of
Moroccan Jewry, Yaakov ibn Zur, decreed that in a small community a
single judge (dayyan ) had as much authority to take decisions as a full
court of three judges, and that a ruling handed down in one place could
not be challenged in another.^6
Karo and Isserles were well aware that even quite clear legal stipula-
tions in the Talmud were no longer observed in their day and that it was
pointless to object to the way that Jews had responded over the cen-
turies to changed conditions. Thus the Babylonian Talmud explicitly
requires workmen to recite only a short form of grace after meals
because the time they spend is at the expense of their employer, but
Karo ruled that ‘nowadays’ they should recite the full grace. Conversely,
Isserles endorsed the universal practice in his day, when Jews lived
among non- Jews, to light Hanukkah lights in the home rather than out-
side in the street as mandated in the Mishnah. So, too, after the
compilation of the Shulhan Arukh and Mappah, later rabbis felt able to
claim that conditions had changed. Thus, R. Joel Sirkes in Poland in the
seventeenth century contradicted the ruling of Karo that two males
should never be alone together for fear of homosexual acts, noting that
‘in our lands, where it is unheard of for anyone to be lax in this matter,
there is no need for separation.’^7
At the same time, some new customs emerged which took hold of
the religious imagination of communities and became central to the
lives of many Jews, such as the recitation of Kaddish by a mourner.
The notion that a mourner should recite this expression of praise of
God which had long been used to separate sections of the synagogue
service, is not mentioned by Karo in the Shulhan Arukh. The practice,
which seems to have become common only in the high Middle Ages,
was apparently confined at that time to Ashkenazi communities. But
Isserles discussed the procedures for the mourner’s Kaddish in detail,
and it is evident that in Poland the custom was observed with great
tenacity:
One should recite kaddish for a father. Therefore, it is the adopted practice
to recite the last kaddish twelve months for a father and mother ... It is
the adopted usage to recite kaddish for one’s mother although the father is
still living ... It is a religious duty to fast on the day that one’s father and
mother died ... It is customary that when the day on which one’s father or
mother died arrives, one always recites the mourner’s kaddish for them.
One who knows how to lead the entire service should do so. However, if