1. The rebuke of both parents stems from the focus on education in the family. However, the formal education of children was generally the father's responsibility. See, e.g., Ben-Naeh, Yaron, “Marriages of Minors among Jews in the Ottoman Empire” [in Hebrew], Zemanim 102 (2008): 39–40Google Scholar; Rozen, Minna, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul—The Formative Years, 1453–1566 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 185CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Benveniste, Samuel, ʾOrekh yamim (Livorno, 1845), 33aGoogle Scholar. This quote and all others in the article are my translation unless noted otherwise.

3. To date I have not found reliable information about R. Samuel b. Jacob Benveniste's life. The Benveniste family is one of the famous and extensive families active in the Iberian Peninsula in the late Middle Ages. The family name appears in sources in various spellings: Benbenesht, Benbeneshti, Benbenishti, Ben-Bnesht, Ben Banesht, Ben Binishti, Ben Binisti, Ben Vinisti, Ben Venishti, etc. (בנבנשת, בנבנשתי, בנבנישתי, בן בֵּנשת, בן בָּאנשת, בן בִּינישׁטי, בן בִּיניסטי, בן וִיניסטי, בן וִינישׁטי). Forenames occur repeatedly throughout the Mediterranean basin, making it difficult to identify members of the family. See, e.g., Emmanuel, Isaac, Precious Stones of the Jews of Salonica [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 1963)Google Scholar, indices. The name of R. Samuel, as printed in the first printing of ʾOrekh yamim, is בנבנשתי. Here I follow the English transliteration of the surname, as used by the Encyclopedia Judaica.

R. Abraham Zacut cites the contribution of R. Abraham Benveniste, Rab de la Corte of the Kingdom of Castile, and his great efforts to strengthen Jewish communities. He goes on to cite his son and descendants: “And his son, R. Joseph and his grandsons in our time are men of great wealth who distribute their money to support the yeshivas.” Zacut, Abraham, Liber juchassin, ed. Filipowski, Herschell (London, 1857), 226Google Scholar. Chronologically and in terms of lineage, this may be the R. Joseph to whom our author mentions that he is related, although we have no evidence for this. The family boasts many scholars. For example, a scholar named R. Joseph Benveniste is mentioned in the responsa of R. Samuel de Modena (Ḥoshen mishpat [Salonika, 1595], par. 146, fol. 106a–b) as a member of the rabbinical court in Ferrara(?) together with Don Isaac Abrabanel and R. Moses de Boton. Active in Salonika in the early sixteenth century were Don Judah Benveniste and Don Samuel b. Meir Benveniste, men of means and owners of great collections of books, which were used by sages of the community in their study and writings. See Joseph Hacker, “The Sefardi ‘Midrash’—a Jewish Public Library” [in Hebrew], in Rishonim ve-ʾaḥaronim: Abraham Grossman Jubilee Volume, ed. Joseph Hacker, Benjamin Z. Kedar, and Yosef Kaplan (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2010), 273–75. Regarding R. Joseph Benveniste of Salonika, who lived in the first half of the sixteenth century, see Meir Benayahu, “Rabbi David Ben Ban Banesht of Salonika and His Letter to Rabbi Abraham Ibn Yaish in Bursa” [in Hebrew], Sefunot 11 (1971–78): 270, 284–85, 293.

4. On this book, see Joseph Hacker, “Books Printed in Constantinople in the Sixteenth Century” [in Hebrew], ʾAreshet 5 (1972): 464. I would like to express my appreciation to Prof. Hacker, who drew my attention to the following matter: There is a degree of similarity between the shape of the letters on the title page of the book under discussion, ʾOrekh yamim (Constantinople, n.d.), and another book published at about the same time—ʿEin mishpat, on the title page of which it also says that it was printed in Constantinople (n.d.). Yitzhak Yudlov noted the similarity between some books that were printed in Ferrara and others that were ostensibly printed in Constantinople, among them ʿEin mishpat. He suggested the possibility that matrixes were transferred from one place to another, in addition to another phenomenon whereby books actually printed in Italy appeared as if they were printed in Turkey. It is possible that ʾOrekh yamim also appeared as having been printed in Constantinople, but was actually printed elsewhere, or maybe it was printed in Constantinople with matrixes from Ferrara. See Yitzhak Yudlov, “Pitron ḥalomot by Rav Ḥai Gaon” [in Hebrew], ʿAlei sefer, 6–7 (1979): 118–20; Meir Benayahu, “Turkish Printings That Are Actually Italian Printings” [in Hebrew], Sinai 72 (1973): 163–84.

Evidently ʾOrekh yamim was printed for the first time in 1560 and widely distributed in the course of generations; it was also translated and frequently quoted in books by other authors. The book was translated into Yiddish and published in Venice in 1599 (the Yiddish translation was dedicated to Roza, the wife of Neḥemiah Luzzato of Venice). One year later it was printed again in Venice in Hebrew. Extensive sections of the book were copied in the following works: R. Moses b. R. Aaron Morapchik, Keiẓad seder mishnah (Lublin, 1635); R. Elijah b. R. Abraham Solomon Hacohen, Shevet musar (Constantinople, 1772), chap. 17; R. Moses Hagiz, Ẓror ha-ḥayim (Wanzbeck, 1728); Moses b. Reuben Roza, Zikhron tov (Livrono, 1845), and more. The work was translated into Arabic and printed in Baghdad in 1929 by Simon Faraj b. Abdallah Eini under the title Kitab ʾorekh yamim. Most of the manuscript copies of the work (see Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts in the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem) are from Yemen, where the work was also popular.

5. On the date of composition and publication of Shevet Yehudah, see R. Solomon ibn Verga, Sefer shevet Yehudah, ed. Yitzhak Baer and Azriel Shochat (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1947), 11.

6. Learning morality from Muslim women, who practice greater modesty than Jewish women, is a recurrent theme in Jewish ethical works written in the Muslim sphere. Likewise, criticism and disparagement of Jewish women's lack of modesty may be found in Muslim writings; see Yaron Ben-Naeh, “Feminine Gender and Its Restrictions in the Ethical Regulations of Ottoman Jewry” [in Hebrew], Pe'amim 105–6 (2006): 127–49; Ben-Naeh, “About Women and Women's Research” [in Hebrew], Cathedra 102 (2002): 131–33.

7. ʾOrekh yamim, 41a.

8. Simha Assaf, A Source-Book for the History of Jewish Education, vol. 2, From the Beginning of the Middle Ages to the Period of the Haskalah [in Hebrew], ed. Shmuel Glick (Jerusalem: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2001), 427n14. At that time a R. Meir Benveniste lived in Safed, according to a tombstone from 1553; see Yosef Stefansky and Eliyahu Ben-Tovim, “The Ancient Jewish Cemetery in Safed: Tombstones from the 16^th and 17^th Centuries CE” [in Hebrew], in Meḥkarim ḥadashim ʿal ha-galil, vol. 2, ed. Tziona Grossmark et al. (Zikhron Ya'akov: Itay Bahur, 2016), 229.

9. On the duty of education and its definition in Jewish law, see, e.g., “Education” [in Hebrew], Talmudic Encyclopedia, ed. Shlomo Yosef Zevin (Jerusalem: Talmudic Encyclopedia Institute, 1994), 16:161–200.

10. For example, the broad critique of the Maharal of Prague (1520–1609) regarding the teaching of Scripture and Talmud. See, for example, Aharon P. Kleinberger, The Educational Theory of the Maharal of Prague [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1962).

11. On the educational heritage from Spain that preceded the expulsion and greatly influenced education among the Iberian exiles in the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, see Yoel Marciano, Sages of Spain in the Eye of the Storm: Jewish Scholars of Late Medieval Spain [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2019), 20–139. On the educational heritage of Ashkenazic Jewry in the Middle Ages and early modern period, see, e.g., Ephraim Kanarfogel, Jewish Education and Society in the High Middle Ages (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1992), and Tali M. Berner, In Their Own Way [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2018). On the education of Jewish children in the Ottoman Empire, see an extensive bibliography in Minna Rozen, “The Life Cycle and the Meaning of Old Age in the Ottoman Period” [in Hebrew], in Daniel Carpi Jubilee Volume, ed. Dina Porat, Minna Rozen, and Anita Shapira (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1996), 111n3; Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community, 185–91; Ruth Lamdan, “Not All Children Are Equal and Not All Places Are Equal,” in Turkey: The Ottoman Past and the Republican Present [in Hebrew], ed. Michael Winter and Miri Sheffer (Tel Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center, 2007), 171–96; Lamdan, “Mothers and Children in Ottoman Jewish Society as Reflected in Hebrew Sources of the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in Jewish Cultural Studies, vol. 5, Mothers in the Jewish Cultural Imagination, ed. Marjorie Lehman, Jane L. Kanarek, and Simon J. Bronner (Liverpool, UK: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization and Liverpool University Press, 2017), 77–101. Multiple sources on Jewish education in the Ottoman Empire in modern times were collected and annotated by Shmuel Glick, Source-Book for the History of Jewish Education, vol. 4, Responsa from the Lands of Islam and the Ottoman Empire (16^th–20^th Century) [in Hebrew] (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Jerusalem: Lifshitz College, 2006).

12. Child-beating was a widespread phenomenon, see, e.g., Elliott Horowitz, “The Way We Were: Jewish Life in the Middle Ages,” Jewish History 1, no. 1 (1986): 80–82. Expressions of this kind may be found in guides that prescribe disciplining children from a tender age. For example, R. Israel al-Nakawa (martyred in Toledo in 1391): “It is better for a man to die or go blind than to raise a wicked son … ‘and do not set your heart on his destruction’ [Prov 19:18], i.e., to his screaming and crying, do not pity him when you beat him when he is small with a rod, ignore his screaming … ‘do not withhold discipline from a child … etc., beat him with a rod and you will save him from the grave’ [Prov 23:13–14]. A man must always discipline a child when he is small, because if he disciplines him he will gain wisdom, and if he spares the rod from disciplining his child, when he is small, he despises his son and in the end he will join the evildoers.” See Israel b. Joseph b. al-Nakawa, Sefer menorat ha-maʾor, ed. Hillel G. Enelow (New York: Blokh, 1929–1932), 5:118–22. And see Isaac Aboab, Menorat ha-maʾor, ed. Moshe Katzenelenbogen (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1961), 197–99. This view was given halakhic status. See, e.g., B. Bava Batra 21a; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot talmud torah 2:2; ʾArbaʿah turim and Shulḥan ʿarukh, Yoreh deʿah, no. 245.

13. See, e.g., Mordechai Frishtik, “Physical Violence by Parents against Their Children in Jewish History and Jewish Law,” Jewish Law Annual 10 (1992): 79–97. The view that beating should be moderate also occurs in non-Jewish writings on education, see, e.g., Shulamit Shahar, Medieval Childhood [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1990), 166–68, 273–74.

14. ʾOrekh yamim, 37a.

15. Ibid., 37b.

16. See, for example, sources on a twelve-year-old boy who quarreled with his father who beat him, who got back at his father by going to the qadi and converting to Islam: Minna Rozen, “The Incident of the Converted Boy: A Chapter in the History of the Jews in Seventeenth-Century Jerusalem” [in Hebrew], Cathedra 14 (1980): 65–80.

17. See, e.g., Al-Nakawa, Menorat ha-maʾor, 146: “But when the boy grows up, his father should take care not to discipline him too much. But he should talk to him patiently. And he should not curse him or humiliate him. And it goes without saying that he should not beat him, lest the son sin against his father, and he will cause him to sin and be lost from the world.”

18. Philippe Ariès, in his groundbreaking and controversial study, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (New York: Knopf, 1962), asserted that the concept of childhood did not exist until recent centuries and that parents did not devote much attention or emotion to their children's development before the age of seven. Thus, the death of a small child was not an occasion of great sadness. Those who subscribe to this view argue that widespread infant mortality led to an emotional distancing of parents from their children, and a lack of a concept of childhood. The publication of this study in the 1960s raised an outcry, and numerous studies have addressed his thesis. Many researchers have rejected his claim (cf., e.g., Shahar, Medieval Childhood, 13–22), others have accepted it entirely or partially, and still others have accepted it with reservations. Researchers of Jewish history have discussed the extent to which this polemic, based on Christian religion, culture, and society in Europe, reflects Jewish attitudes toward children in Christian lands, and have generally concluded that Ariès's claims and descriptions do not apply to Jewish society. See, e.g., Israel M. Ta-Shma, “Children in Medieval Germanic Jewry: A Perspective on Ariès from Jewish Sources,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 12 (1991): 261–80; Kanarfogel, Jewish Education; Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community, 187–91; Berner, In Their Own Way, 14–28; Marciano, Sages of Spain, 20–22. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that there are testimonies with a different attitude toward adult mortality and infant mortality, and sometimes reflections on infant mortality express indifference and insensitivity regarding the death of very young infants. Thus, for example, R. Jacob Culi (1689–1732, Jerusalem, Safed, and Istanbul) in his work Me-ʿam loʿez, wrote, “And there are some ignorant people, who, if their infant dies, they do not care and especially if they have many at home.” This was the formulation in the Hebrew translation, but in the original Ladino text the sentence refers to the death of daughters. In addition, he warns people not to be lax in preparing shrouds for the dead, and his words reflect a distinction some people made between the burial of infants and that of adults: “Not to use a piece of old cloth, as others do, so that if they lose an infant, they wrap him in some old clothing and make from it a shroud.” R. Jacob Culi, Yalkut me-ʿam loʿez, trans. Shmuel Kroizer (Jerusalem: H. Vagshal, 1968), vol. 2, Bereshit, parashat Va-yehi, chap. 11, cited in: Alisa Meyuhas Ginio, “Me-ʿam loʿez (1730): Daily Life of Sephardic Families in Jerusalem,” in Women, Children and the Elderly: Essays in Honour of Shulamit Shahar, ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon and Yitzhak Hen (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2001), 164–65.

19. Joseph R. Hacker, “Pride and Depression: Polarity of the Spiritual and Social Experience of the Iberian Exiles in the Ottoman Empire” [in Hebrew], in Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, ed. Menahem Ben-Sasson, Robert Bonfil, and Joseph R. Hacker (Jerusalem: The Historical Society of Israel and Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 1989), 579–82. According to Minna Rozen, the Romaniote Jews were influenced by the posttraumatic attitudes of the exiles from the Iberian Peninsula who settled among them and as a result there are similar expressions of emotion regarding the death of children and other tragedies that struck the general population in the Ottoman Empire. See Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community, 99–105.

20. R. Joseph Garçon, Ben Porat Yosef, Ms. British Library, Gaster Collection, Or. 10726 (NLI Microfilm Institute 8041), fol. 138r, cited in Hacker, “Pride and Depression,” 549. On Garçon, see Hacker, “On the Intellectual Character and Self-Perception of Spanish Jewry in the Late Fifteenth Century” [in Hebrew], Sefunot 17 (1983): 21–95, esp. 21–47; Meir Benayahu, “The Sermons of Rabbi Joseph b. Meir Garçon” [in Hebrew], Michael 7 (1982): 42–205.

21. For example, at the age of sixty-four, after the deaths of his children, R. Elazar Azikri writes that he dreamed: “On 24 Tishrei I saw that I had a son that I walked after, and he ran before me and went out of the door … and I was running after him and calling him by his name to come back to me. And I was calling him again: ‘because Shul [his wife] calls you.’ And behold he came back and in his hand lilies and I tasted them and took him on my arm and went back and entered the house with him and I woke up. ‘I am like a thriving olive tree’ [Ps 52:10]. May it be that our loss will return to me and to Shul and inherit us.” See Mordechai Pachter, “The Life and Character of R. Elazar Azikri as Reflected in His Mystical Diary and Haredim Book” [in Hebrew], Shalem 3 (1981): 141–42; Hacker, “Pride and Depression,” 561. Striking descriptions of the depth of tragedy that contemporaries underwent and their yearning for children may be found in the writings of R. Isaac Karo and R. Joseph Garçon, see ibid., 547–54. For additional descriptions of dreams and visions of contemporaries, see ibid., 559–62.

22. Thus, for example in the years that preceded publication of the book (1560) there were epidemics in Safed in 1513–1514, 1533, 1540–1543, 1550, and more—in addition to infants and children who died from other causes.

23. For data on the extent of infant mortality in the East in comparison to that in Europe in the fourteenth century, see Michael W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 283.

24. On the reaction of Muslim parents to infant mortality during plagues see Avner Giladi, “Concepts of Childhood and Attitudes towards Children in Medieval Islam,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 32 (1989): 138–52; Giladi, “Infants, Children, and Death in Medieval Muslim Society: Some Preliminary Observations,” Social History of Medicine 3 (1990): 345–68; Giladi, Children of Islam: Concepts of Childhood in Medieval Muslim Society (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1992). On the Arabic Islamic genre of consolation treatises for bereaved parents, see Giladi, Children of Islam, 11–13, 86–93; Giladi, “‘The Child Was Small … Not So the Grief for Him’: Sources, Structure and Content of Al-Sakhāwī's Consolation Treatise for Bereaved Parents,” Poetics Today 14 (1993): 367–86; Giladi, “Islamic Consolation Treatises for Bereaved Parents: Some Bibliographical Notes,” Studia Islamica 81 (1995): 197–202.

25. On plagues and other disasters and their influence on communal and private life in the Ottoman Empire see, e.g., Nükhet Varlik, Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Yaron Ayalon, Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague, Famine, and Other Misfortunes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

26. Moshe b. R. Yosef of Trani, Sefer beit ʾElohim (Venice, 1576), fols. 17v–18r. Cited in Hacker, “Pride and Depression,” 566, and see also 567.

27. See Ex 21:15, 17.

28. ʾOrekh yamim, 37b–38a.

29. ” If anyone insults his father or his mother, he shall be put to death; he has insulted his father and his mother—his bloodguilt is upon him” (Lev 20:9); “He who strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death” (Ex 21:15). He means here that the child may be punished by Heaven, since rabbis were no longer empowered to issue punishments such as fines, flogging, and the death penalty. This power (semikhah) was probably nullified in the early Middle Ages.

30. ”Honor your father and your mother, that you may long endure on the land that the Lord your God is assigning to you” (Ex 20:12).

31. As described by R. Joseph Garçon: “Who is it that has a living son in this kingdom [the Ottoman Empire]? And if he remains, it will be surprising if he is righteous and wise, so that he will be a credit to his father.” See Hacker, “Pride and Depression,” 552. R. Isaac Karo writes: “And I fled to the land of Turkey for help and for my sins, more than I could stand … all of my male children, adult and young, went to their graves.” See ibid., 548.

32. Joseph Garçon, Ben Porat Yosef, fol. 138r, cites reasons for child mortality: “The plagues come from the evil deeds of people” (see Hacker, “Pride and Depression,” 551). Elsewhere he mentions specifically the sin of failing to study Torah, based on the words of the sages that when the Holy One blessed be He wanted to give the Torah to the People of Israel He demanded guarantors and the Children of Israel responded that their children would be the guarantors for keeping the Torah. “So God said I want them to be the guarantors, and when they do not keep the Torah, God exacts payment from our sons. And that explains why sons die without sin, they die because of neglect of Torah” (Garçon, Ben Porat Yosef, fol. 190v; Hacker, “Pride and Depression,” 553n36). The sages mention repeatedly the idea that charity wards off death, based on the verse: “Wealth is of no avail on the day of wrath, but righteousness saves from death” (Prov 11:4).

33. Earthquakes are common in the Land of Israel due to its proximity to the Great Rift Valley. A famous earthquake occurred on January 14, 1546, i.e., close to the time of the epidemic. See Dothan Arad, “Destruction and Memory: The Destruction of the Synagogue in Damascus and Its Collective Preservation” [in Hebrew], Zion 81 (2016): 67–94.

34. Moshe Idel, “R. Judah Haliwa and His Composition Sefer Ẓafnat Paʿaneaḥ” [in Hebrew], Shalem 4 (1984): 122.

35. R. Elazar Azikri believed that an ascetic life together with religious devotion would grant him a son. See Pachter, “Life and Character of R. Elazar Azikri,” 132–47; Hacker, “Pride and Depression,” 560.

36. Ibn Verga, Shevet Yehudah, 122; Hacker, “Pride and Depression,” 545.

37. For example, he writes, “And if he is not trained in cultural behavior and civilized manners in his childhood, then when he grows up he will not fear and respect his heavenly father or his father and mother, and how will he achieve length of days?” (ʾOrekh yamim, 38a); “And in this way the boy will grow up with culture and respect, and after he grows old will have fear and respect for his heavenly father, and also for his father and his mother, and thus achieve length of days” (ibid., 39a); “Every daughter of Israel should take discipline … in order to achieve length of days” (ibid., 41a); “Please my brothers and friends, heed my advice and eat from the fruit of the tree of life, the fruit of humility and thus achieve length of days” (ibid., 43a); “I have seen fit to remind and urge a father and mother not to fail in disciplining children and in this way they and their children will achieve length of days” (ibid., 43a–b).

38. See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Talmud Torah 2:2; Shulḥan ʿarukh, Yore deʿah, 245:10.

39. These remarks are similar to those of R. Elijah b. R. Elkanah Capsali of Crete (also active in the first half of the sixteenth century), who even cited the verse “And my eyes saw, and not another's” (cf. Job 19:27) and criticized those who prefer to curse their sons but refrain from striking them. In his opinion one should do the opposite since curses might be fulfilled in certain cases: “And except for some people, who curse their sons severely and always all day their name is condemned by their fathers, who think that they are doing good for the sons when they curse them like that and do not strike them. … But it would be better for them to strike them than curse them since it could happen that the curse will be fulfilled on their progeny. … Because perhaps at that moment the Holy One Blessed be He is angry and the father cursing his son causes his death and cuts him off by cursing … and I myself, not another, beheld.” Glick, Source-Book for the History of Jewish Education, 4:306–7.

40. The halakhah is mentioned in reference to days that are disaster prone, between the fasts of the seventeenth of Tammuz and the fast of Tisha be-’Av. (See Eikhah Rabbah; Midrash Tehillim [ed. Salomon Buber] on Ps. 91, incipit “You need not fear the terror by night.”) Because of the danger, halakhic rulings also forbade striking pupils. See Shulḥan ʿarukh, ʾOraḥ ḥayim, no. 551.

41. ʾOrekh yamim, 38b.

42. Ibid., 37a.

43. Ibid., 38b.

44. Ibid., 39b–40a.

45. See, for example, the instructions of R. Solomon Alami: “When you sit at your table, when you understand what is before you, do not take to eat your meal before your comrade, and when your brother stops taking, also stop, and take from what is in your [plate]. And do not eat hastily and drops of your soup should not be seen on your clothing or on your lips.” Solomon Alami, ʾIggeret ha-musar, ed. Abraham M. Haberman (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1946), 29.

46. ʾOrekh yamim, 37b.

47. Ibid., 39a. The blessing “Blessed is he who begat him and blessed is he who raised him” is a paraphrase of the expression in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 52a: “Cursed is he who begat and cursed is he who reared.”

48. The father's demand that the teacher refrain from hitting his child is based on the view that the father is the teacher's employer, and the low status of teachers of young children in Jewish society in general. However, from the religious-halakhic perspective, with which R. Samuel Benveniste examines the matter, there is no distinction between father and teacher regarding striking the child and all of the regulations that pertain to it.

49. ʾOrekh yamim, 38b–39a.

50. As Maimonides wrote, “In a place where they were accustomed to pay for teaching the Written Law, it is permissible to teach for payment, but it is forbidden to teach the Oral Law for payment, as it says: ‘Behold I taught you’—just as I taught you without charge, so you without charge” (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Talmud Torah 1:7). This sensitive subject, receiving payment for teaching Torah, led to many debates over the generations, particularly in light of Maimonides's harsh words in a number of his writings (see, e.g., Commentary on Avot, ed. Yitzhak Shilat [Maʿaleh Adumim: Maaliyot Press, 1994], 70–75). It seems that against this background R. Samuel Benveniste saw fit to pay a teacher for instruction in ethics and discipline work, even though he was primarily occupied with teaching the Written Law, for which he could receive payment.

51. ʾOrekh yamim, 38r.

52. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.1.

53. See Ibn Verga, Shevet Yehudah, 159.

54. See Aboab, Menorat ha-maʾor, no. 85.

55. Moshe b. Makhir, Seder ha-yom (Venice, 1599), fol. 104a–b, incipit: “Ben shloshim la-koaḥ.”

56. On this broad patriarchal attitude, as well as nuances among cultures and religions, see, e.g., Oded Zinger and David Torollo, “From an Arab Queen to a Yiddische Mama: The Travels of Marital Advice around the Medieval Mediterranean,” Medieval Encounters 22 (2016): 471–516.

57. See, e.g., Ruth Lamdan, A Separate People: Jewish Women in Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, in the Sixteenth Century [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University and Bitan Publishers, 1996); Lamdan, “Deviations from Norms of Moral Behavior in the Jewish Society of ’Ereẓ Yisra'el and Egypt in the Sixteenth Century” [in Hebrew], in Sexuality and the Family in History, ed. Israel Bartal and Isaiah Gafni (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 1998), 119–30; Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community, 99–191; Yaron Ben-Naeh, Jews in the Realm of the Sultans (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 351–70; Ben-Naeh, “Feminine Gender,” 127–49; Ben-Naeh, “About Women and Women's Research,” 191–97.

58. On the view of women as a seductive force toward men in Ottoman Jewish society in the sixteenth century, see, e.g., Lamdan, A Separate People, 24.

59. Avraham Grossman analyzed attitudes toward women in the writings of medieval Jewish sages, both Ashkenazim and Sephardim, some of them from the milieu of R. Samuel Benveniste—R. Isaac Arama, R. Isaac Abravanel, and R. Gedalyah ibn Yahyah—on topics like women's characteristics, their place within the framework of creation, “the disgrace of intercourse,” etc. R. Gedalyah ibn Yahyah (d. 1587) is exceptional among them in that he wrote a composition in praise of women in which he maintained that a woman takes precedence over a man. Presuming that the work is to be taken seriously and not regarded as a parody, the writer appears to have been influenced by trends he absorbed in Renaissance Italy, where he lived. The gap between the conservative and commonly accepted view expressed by Benveniste and that of Ibn Yahyah may reflect the influence of geographical and cultural location on both sages, both of whom belonged to the communities of Iberian exile and to the same milieu. See Avraham Grossman, Ve-hu yimshol bakh? Ha-ʾishah be-mishnatam shel ḥakhmei Yisraʾel bimei ha-beinayim (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2011), 475–535. On Gedalyah ibn Yahyah cf. Avraham Grossman, “The Quality of Women and Their Preference in a Composition by R. Gedalyah ibn Yahyah” [in Hebrew], Zion 72 (2007): 37–61.

60. Translation by Lamdan. See Lamdan, “Mothers and Children,” 77. And see Lamdan on the image of women in the eyes of the sages: A Separate People, 21–29.

61. ʾOrekh yamim, 40a–40b.

62. See, e.g., Midrash Tanḥuma, Va-yishlaḥ, 5. See also Yalkut Shim‘oni, Job, 918. This idea is also mentioned in the Zohar (Zohar ḥadash 2, Shir Hashirim, 17b). And see Avraham Grossman, Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Europe in the Middle Ages [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2001), 174–75.

63. Thus, e.g., in ʾOrhot ẓadikim (Bnei Brak: Mishor, 1990), chapter on pride, fol. 23: “And also the woman who adorns herself in front of people, by doing so she arouses them, and introduces thoughts into their hearts and for this there is a very great punishment, because she puts an obstacle before many. Indeed, the sages forbade looking at the women's colored clothing spread out on the wall, even when she is not wearing them, all the more so is there great punishment for a woman adorning herself when people look at her.”

64. This story does not appear in the printed editions of Shevet Yehudah by Ibn Verga. Nevertheless, criticism of how Jews dress, the jewelry they wear and the harm they cause thereby is common in the work. For example, Ibn Verga attributes blood libels to such activities. “When they did not provide anything to be jealous of—they were liked, but now the Jew has risen up and if he has two hundred golden ones, he immediately wears silk clothing and gives his children embroidery … therefore they make libels against them” (30–31). Elsewhere the king mentioned in the story addresses the fact that Jewish women wear silk clothing, embroidery, and gold jewelry, chastising the Jews: “You [the men] go about like the donkey of a coal-dealer and your wives like the Pope's mule” (48); See also additional expressions on pp. 32, 92, and 152. Thus, there may have been a version of the work in which the harsh criticism of R. Isaac Abrabanel's wife appeared, but it was censored and lost. This folktale and additional remarks in the book reflect the popular social awareness that expressed regret at Spanish Jewry's immersion and imitation of the surrounding society and the elite's life of luxury.

65. Isaac Molkho, ʾOrhot yosher, ed. Abraham Recanati et al. (Tel Aviv: The synagogue committee of Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gvirol in memory of the community of Thessaloniki, 1975), 99.

66. Shulḥan ʿarukh, ʾOrah ḥayim, 303:18. Here Karo relied on sages who preceded him. For example, Ramban: “I observed the custom of people to go out [on the Sabbath] wearing rings, and did not protest, and also women go out like that. But let them be in ignorance, better they should be in error and not with intention … since they are light-headed and show off their jewelry” (Novella of Ramban on B. Shabbat 57a; and see Rabbenu Tam in Tosafot, Shabbat 64b, s.v. Rabbi Anani).

67. Perceiving a man's actions as virtually out of control and requiring women to alter their behavior accordingly is not confined to the sexual sphere. Thus, we find instructions for a wife on how to avoid angering her husband, and prevent his depression or bitterness. All this presumes that these are normal male responses. Only wise behavior on the part of the woman, suiting herself to her husband's will (e.g., not rejoicing when he is sad, not contradicting him, obeying him at all times, loving his family, dressing modestly, not going out when he is away from home, not refusing sexual relations, and the like), may prevent his falling into undesirable emotional states. See, e.g., Zinger and Torollo, “From an Arab Queen,” 471–516, esp. 506–8 and the bibliography cited there.

68. See B. Nedarim 20b: “Bnei temurah—one of nine situations in intercourse in which those born as a result are considered illegitimate and not illegitimate.” See Maimonides: “And therefore the sages forbade a man while having intercourse to think about another woman … in all of these cases, children born from them are the rebellious and sinful whom the torments of exile purify,” Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot ʾissurei biʾah 21:13–14.

69. ʾOrekh yamim, 40b. For admonitions to women regarding lack of modesty in the Ottoman Empire, see, e.g., Ben-Naeh, “Feminine Gender,” 127–49; Lamdan, A Separate People, 21–29. On the man as helpless, see, ibid., 128.

70. Some authors attributed communities’ misfortunes to women's immodesty. See sources cited in Ben-Naeh, “Feminine Gender,” 133–34. Benveniste stresses in his book the punishment that a woman will incur if she does not behave accordingly.

71. This argument is mentioned in a number of writings by the Iberian exiles, e.g., Ibn Verga: “The king said: Wise Jew, I have deep questions … and first I will chastise you why do you not warn your people because I heard that they rob the peoples and that is how it appears from your clothing and the jewelry of your wives.” See Shevet Yehudah, 141.

72. ʾOrekh yamim, 40b.

73. Ibid. Regarding this cf. Shevet Yehudah, 141. Lamdan, “Mothers and Children,” 77.

74. See Psalms 105:41. By this he means to sail in ships on the river, stressing the great efforts they have to make to bring luxuries from afar in order to satisfy their wives' desires.

75. Lit. wives of the prophets. See 2 Kings 4:1, referring to scholars.

76. See Exodus 38:8. One interpretation of ha-ẓovʾot is “gathered together.”

77. R. Shlomo le-Beit Halevy, Responsa on ʾArbaʿah Turim (Salonika, 1652), Ḥoshen mishpat, no. 24, s.v. ʾOmer de-ha-tur, cited in Joseph R. Hacker, “The Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth Century,” in Moreshet Sepharad: The Sephardi Legacy, ed. Haim Beinart (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992), 2:132.

78. The regulations of the Spanish and Portuguese communities in Morocco, promulgated in 1613, limited wearing jewelry and also restricted the kinds of clothing a woman could wear and her going out of the home unnecessarily. The regulations, written in Spanish (in Hebrew letters) detail forbidden jewelry and clothing. For example, they prohibit certain items of jewelry (such as anklets) and any kind of jewelry made of gold—except for a young girl in her father's home or a bride in the first eight (!) days after her wedding, during which time she may wear all the jewelry she wants. Likewise, they limited the kinds of clothing worn and forbade entirely wearing or manufacturing silk clothing. In addition, they restricted women from going out of their homes and being present in the public sphere unnecessarily. It is interesting that in these regulations, which deal with modesty and restraining material competition in the community, an additional regulation was included forbidding women from taking an oath in the name of God and punishing a woman who did so—much like the two subjects that Benveniste cited as social problems that require attention. See also Shalom Bar-Asher, Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Morocco (1492–1753): Sefer Ha-takanot, The Book of Communal Ordination [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Akademon, 1990), 165–70. For additional examples of regulations of this kind see Ben-Naeh, “Feminine Gender,” 141–45.

79. ʾOrekh yamim, 40b–41a.

80. In light of the high mortality rate of mothers and infants at birth, the subject of birth had a central place in society. On anxiety over death at childbirth, infant mortality, imaginary pregnancy, and polygamy for the sake of ensuring the birth of surviving children, see Hacker, “Pride and Depression,” 554–57, 563. See Lamdan, Ruth, “Mothers and Children as Seen by Sixteenth-Century Rabbis in the Ottoman Empire,” in Sephardi Family Life in the Early Modern Diaspora, ed. Lieberman, Julia R. (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011), 70–75Google Scholar.

81. ʾOrekh yamim, 41a.

82. Ẓahalon, R. Yom Tov, New Responsa of R. Yom Tov Ẓahalon (Jerusalem, 1980–81)Google Scholar, I, no. 92. See Lamdan, “Not All Children,” 172–74. On dangers to infants during pregnancy, birth, and in their first years in medieval Europe, and the responses to these, see, e.g., Finucane, Ronald C., The Rescue of the Innocents: Endangered Children in Medieval Miracles (New York: St. Martin's, 2000), 18–53Google Scholar, 214–25; on children in epidemics: 68–72, 229–30.

83. Wife-beating was a common social phenomenon and halakhic literature contains warnings not to beat a wife and a call to consider the pain of childbirth and difficulties raising them. For example, R. Solomon ibn Aderet writes in one of his responsa, “A husband should not beat or torment his wife, because she was given for life and not for sorrow. On the contrary he should respect her more than his own body …, and if he beats and pains her unfairly and she runs away, she is justified because ‘a person does not live together with a snake.’” Responsa of Rashba, vol. 7 (The second part of the volume, attributed to Ramban) (Jerusalem: ʾOr ha-Mizraḥ and Mekhon Yerushalayim, 2001), responsa no. 102, 76–77. The distinction between encouraging corporal punishment of children for educational purposes and the prohibition of wife-beating is not just a technical matter, in that beating children is permitted only when they are very small, after which it is also prohibited (see above). Rather, it is also a matter of principle, in the spirit of Rashba, according to which a woman must be allowed to live without fear or pain, and it is the husband's obligation, under whose protection she lives, to take care of her and respect her and not to cause her sorrow. There are some exceptions, and the opinions of a few who permitted beating wives in certain circumstances, but that is not the general and prevailing ruling. See Grossman, Ve-hu yimshol bakh?, 263–65; Grossman, , Transformations in Medieval Jewish Society [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2017), 471–89Google Scholar, and bibliography in n. 1.

84. B. Bava Meẓiʿa 59a.

85. ʾOrekh yamim, 38b.

86. For example, he writes, “It is well known that the humble exercise the morality of a youth more than is demanded, and a woman flatters a child more than a man. Therefore, in order to save the holy seed from the judgment of hell, I saw fit to mention again and encourage a father and mother not to fail in disciplining the young and by doing so they and their children will earn length of days.” See ʾOrekh yamim, 43a–43b.

87. Ibid., 41a–41b.