HAHN’S NOTE BOOK
The Hahn family came to Frankfort-on-the-Main from Nordlingen (Bavaria), whence the Jews were expelled in 1507. Between that date and 1860 Nordlingen could not boast of a synagogue; such Jews as visited the place were admitted for a day at a time to the fairs, or were allowed temporarily to reside in war times. In each case a poll-tax was exacted (see Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. ix, p. 335). In Frankfort, the family dwelt in a house bearing the sign of “The Red Cock” (Zum rothen Hahn). Graetz fully describes the regulations which compelled the Jews of Frankfort to fix shields with various devices and names on their houses. He cites “the garlic,” “the ass,” “green shield,” “red shield” (Rothschild), “dragon.” The Frankfort Jews were forced to name themselves after these shields. Hence, in the Jewish sources, the author with whom we are now concerned is sometimes called Joseph Nordlinger, from his original home, and sometimes Joseph Hahn, from the family house-sign in Frankfort.
He himself was not permitted to live peaceably in Frankfort. Born in the second half of the sixteenth century, he not only had to endure the pitiable restrictions to which the Jews were at normal times subjected, but he suffered in 1614 under the Fettmilch riot, as the result of which, after many of the whole Jewish community had been slain and more injured, the survivors left the town. In March, 1616, the Jews—Joseph Hahn among them—were welcomed back amid public demonstrations of good-will, and the community instituted the Frankfort Purim on Adar 20, the anniversary of the return. Though the trouble thus ended happily, we can understand how insecure the life of the German Jews was at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Hence we need not be surprised to find in Hahn’s book Yosif Omez (§ 483) a form of dying confession drawn up in Frankfort to be recited by those undergoing martyrdom. It is a moving composition, simple in its pathos, yet too poignant in its note of sorrow to be cited here in full.
Let it not be thought, however, that the book is a doleful one. Joseph Hahn’s is a warm-hearted Judaism, and there was room in it for a manifold human interest. The work, in a sense, is learned, but it is written so crisply and epigrammatically that its charm surpasses and even disguises its technicalities. It was printed in 1723, but was written a good deal earlier, as we know that the author died in 1637. I have alluded to the manifold interests which occupied Hahn’s mind. Questions of Jewish law and fundamental problems of morality are considered; but so are matters of costume and cookery. How to wear a special dress for synagogue and how to keep a special overcoat for the benediction of the moon, how to rub off ink-stains from the fingers before meals, how “it is a truer penance to eat moderately at ordinary meals than to endure an occasional fast,” how the children should be encouraged to read good books at table, and how, when such a book is finished, there should be a jolly siyyum—these and many another interesting view crowd Joseph Hahn’s delightful pages. He enjoyed a cheerful meal, but he proceeds to denounce in unmeasured terms those who (“and there are many such in our times,” he adds) sing love-songs or tell indecent stories over their wine. “Do not esteem lightly,” he cautions his readers (§ 183), “the advice of our sages,” as to first putting on the right shoe and first removing the left. Joseph Hahn, in truth, is a remarkable mixture of the old and the new; he loves old customs, yet constantly praises new ones, such as the introduction of Psalms and of Lekah Dodi into the Friday night service. We are so familiar with the hymn “Come, O friend, to meet the bride,” that it is startling to be reminded that it dates from the sixteenth century. Joseph Hahn thoroughly entered into the spirit of such lively processions from place to place as accompanied Lekah Dodi, though he held them more suitable for Palestine than Germany. He detested low songs, and objected to games of chance, but he was no kill-joy. Again and again he refers to the synagogue tunes, and revels in hazzanut. His was a thoroughly Jewish synthesis of austerity and joviality.
He has many remarks as to the proper treatment of servants. An employer shall not retain wages in trust for the servant, even at the latter’s desire. He must first pay the wages, and the servant may then ask the employer to save it (§ 361). He had a very loving heart as well as a just mind. Delightful is his custom of saying Sheheheyanu on seeing a friend or beloved relative after an interval of thirty days. On the other hand, he, with equal gravity, tells us (§ 455) how his father, when he left the city, took a little splinter of wood from the gate, and fixed it in his hat-band, as a specific for his safety, or sure return. This is a wide-spread custom. The whole book is a wonderful union of sound sense and quaintness. The author, in the midst of deep ritual problems and of careful philological discussions of liturgical points, will turn aside to warn us against buying the Sabbath fish on Thursday. Fish, he says, must be fresh. In the same breath he has this fine remark: “What you eat profits the body; what you spare for God (that is, give to the poor) profits the soul.” He protests (§ 547) against permitting the poor to go round to beg from house to house; officials must be appointed to carry relief to the needy in their homes. But do not forget to taste your shalet on Friday to test whether it be properly cooked! One of the most characteristically Jewish features of life under the traditional régime was the man’s participation in the kitchen preparations. But Joseph Hahn takes a high view of the woman’s part in the moralization of the domestic life. Just as the husband was not excluded from the kitchen, so the wife was not limited to it. Yet Hahn would not allow women to sing the Zemirot or table hymns.
I have said that our author loves the old, yet has no objection to the new. The latter feature is exemplified by a long song on the Sabbath Light, composed by Joseph Hahn for Friday nights. Each verse is printed in Hebrew (§ 601) with a Yiddish paraphrase. He disliked setting the Zemirot to non-Jewish tunes. There is no sense, he adds, in the argument of those who urge that these non-Jewish tunes were stolen from the temple melodies! The children, we learn, had a special Sabbath cake. A Jewish child, he relates (§ 612), was carried off by robbers, but cried so pitifully for his cake on Friday night, that he was eventually discovered by Jews and ransomed. He protests against the “modern innovation” of introducing a sermon in the morning service; this compels the old and ailing to wait too long for breakfast. The sermon must, as of old, be given after the meal (§ 625). Yet he did not mind himself introducing an innovation, for he instituted a simple haggadic discourse on the afternoons of festivals, so as to attract the people and keep them from frivolous amusements (§ 821). The greater Spinholz on the Saturday before a wedding was still customary in the author’s time. He complains of those people who drink better wine on Sundays than on Saturdays (§ 693). He objects to the practice of the rich to have their daughters taught instrumental music by male instructors (§ 890). But here I must break off, though it is difficult to tear oneself from the book, even the narrowness of which has a historical interest, and the prejudices of which entertain. As a whole, it represents a phase of Jewish life which belongs to the past, yet there runs through it a vein of homely sentiment which is found also in our present.