Asceticism in Judaism

At the same time, other sources recommend and even require Jews to avoid intemperate and extravagant behavior, which is seen as leading to bad character traits and sometimes to outright sin.

Thus Jews were recommended to moderate their eating and drinking and sexual behavior; to "sanctify" their material consumption by intending its ultimate purpose to be enabling service of God rather than selfish pleasure; and where appropriate to make extra "fences" around the law by avoiding specific activities that seem likely to lead to sin.

Overall, Judaism recommends moderation rather than total abstinence, a balance perhaps best represented by Maimonides' "golden middle way" between sensual luxury and tortured self-deprivation.

In addition, many sources suggest that members of the spiritual elite would be best served by a greater level of asceticism than the masses, including practices such as fasting and sexual abstinence, in order to enable them to focus on Torah study or else mystical contemplation.

While such behavior was generally the choice of pious individuals, in a few cases it became the focus of widespread communal movements, particularly the Ashkenazi Hasidim and Lurianic Kabbalah.

This view is expressed in no uncertain terms by Rav: "Man in the life to come will have to account for every enjoyment offered him that was refused without sufficient cause.

Thus priests were prohibited to drink wine prior to their service,[15] sexual intercourse was forbidden to the Israelites in preparation for the Sinai Revelation,[16] and Moses was understood by the rabbis to have separated from his wife during the period of his prophecy.

Shimon bar Yochai lived as an ascetic for a period, hiding in a cave from Roman persecution while subsisting on a minimal diet.

[34] Judah ha-Nasi hosted elaborate feasts and had close social relations with prominent Romans,[35] yet on his deathbed he proclaimed that he had "derived no benefit" from the world,[36] implying that the luxuries in his house were necessary for his leadership role rather than intended for personal enjoyment.

When I asked him the reason, he said: 'I saw the evil inclination pursue me as I beheld my face reflected in the water, and I swore that these long curls shall be cut off and offered as a sacrifice to the Lord.'

[45] Four annual fast days were established in commemoration of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem;[44] it was stated that one who would not share in the distress would have no part in the consolation of the people.

He fasted for set periods with particular goals in mind: that he might forget his Babylonian method of teaching before emigrating to Palestine, and that hell-fire might later have no power over him.

According to Samuel of Nehardea, an individual who chose to fast was called a sinner,[46] based on the example of the Nazirite who was required to bring a sin-offering.

[55] Many of the great Jewish thinkers and mystics of the Middle Ages were inclined to asceticism, engaging in fasting, sexual abstinence, and other restrictive practices.

[56] Dosa ben Saadia, the head of Sura Academy from 1012-1018, took an oath in his teenage years to refrain from eating bread as an act of asceticism, which he continued up until his death.

Bahya ibn Paquda's ethical system, Ḥovot haLevavot, oscillates between asceticism and Jewish optimism, with a decided leaning to the former.

One should take a middle path: neither fully indulging one's lusts and vanities, nor rejecting material comforts and practicing fasting and asceticism.

[60] Similarly, The Guide for the Perplexed (directed at the spiritual elite) presents an ideal in which a person would "reject, despise, and reduce his desires as much as is in his power[...] He should only give way to them when absolutely necessary".

Abraham bar Hiyya (12th century) strongly refutes the Neoplatonic conception of evil as being identical with matter, and maintains against Bahya that indulgence in fasting and other modes of penitence is not meritorious, since only he who is ruled by his lower desires may resort to asceticism as the means of curbing his passion and disciplining his soul, whereas the really good should confine himself to such modes of abstinence as are prescribed by the Law.

Nevertheless, Abraham bar Hiyya claims a higher rank for the saint who, secluded from the world, leads a life altogether consecrated to the service of God.

It is possible for the world to be maintained by others, who are engaged in the mitzva to be fruitful and multiply.Like Bahya, Abraham bar Hiyya argued the ascetic, while leading a purer and holier life, requires less legal restraint.

[63] Asher ben Meshullam was reported to be an ascetic (Hebrew: פָּרוּשׁ, romanized: pārush) who did not attend to any worldly business, but studied day and night, kept fasts, and never ate meat.

[66] Among the Ashkenazi Hasidic movement which they led, it was frequent to practice extreme self-punishment, such as immersing the legs in ice water for hours, as a form of penitence for sins.

Lurianic kabbalah, as developed in the 16th and 17th centuries, introduced the idea that voluntary acts of piety could lead to a repair (tikkun) of the spiritually broken universe and bring about the Messianic era.

[70] Among non-hasidim, the Mesillat Yesharim condemned ascetic practices which led to weakening of the body, while still recommending that pious individuals moderate their material consumption in order to avoid developing bad character traits.

"Philo's ideal was to die daily, to mortify the flesh with fasting; he only insisted that the seclusion from social life should take place at the age of fifty, the time when the Levites retired from the active duties of the Temple service".

[74] Jewish hermits, living in a state of celibacy and devoting themselves to meditation, were found among Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) as late as 1900.