Qahal

For other uses of the Hebrew term, see Kehilla disambiguation page

The Qahal/Kahal (Hebrew: קהל‎) was a theocratic organisational structure in ancient Israelite society, according to the Masoretic Text of the Bible. In later centuries, Qahal was the name of the autonomous governments of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.

Etymology and meaning

The Hebrew word qahal, which is a close etymological relation of the word qoheleth, comes from a root meaning of convoked [group]; its Arabic cognate, qala, means to speak.

Where the masoretic text uses the term qahal, the Septuagint usually uses the Greek term Ekklesia, which means summoned group (and literally means they who are called out). However, in one particular part of the Priestly Code the Septuagint instead uses the term synagogen, literally meaning gathering, where the masoretic text uses qahal.

Thus, the usual translation of qahal into English is congregation or assembly, although asuppoth, atsarah, 'edah, mo'ed, mikhra, and sod, are also usually translated like this.

In particular, the Biblical text consistently distinguishes between 'edah and qahal. One passage especially makes the distinction clear; part of the Priestly Code discusses what to do if the whole Israelite ['edah] commits a sin and the [qahal] is not aware of it.... Scholars conclude that the qahal must be a judicial body composed of representatives of the 'edah; in some biblical passages, 'edah is more accurately translated as swarm.

Biblical exclusions

Main articles: Mamzer and Spadone

The Deuteronomic Code prohibits certain members of the 'edah from taking part in the qahal of Yahweh. In particular, it excludes mamzers, and men who have been forcibly emasculated; their descendants, up to the tenth generation, were also prohibited by this law code from taking part in the congregation of Yahweh.

The Greek term spadones is usually used to refer forcibly emasculated men, but it is also used in the Septuagint to denote certain foreign political officials (resembling the meaning of eunuch). This category does not include men who were born without visible testicles (conditions including cryptorchidism), or without a visible penis (conditions including hermaphroditism). There is dispute, even in traditional Judaism, about whether this prohibited group of men should include those who have become, at some point since their birth, emasculated as the result of a disease

No explanation of the phrase mamzer is given in the masoretic text, but the Septuagint translates it as son of a prostitute (Greek:ek pornes). In the Talmud, it is suggested that the word mamzer derives from mum zer, meaning a strange blemish, and thus suggesting illicit parentage in some sense. There are differing opinions in the Talmud as to what this consists of, but the universally accepted ruling is that it refers to the offspring of adultery (defined as relations with a married woman) or incest, as defined in Leviticus. In the Talmud, there is fierce dispute about whether or not the term mamzer included a child who had a Jewish mother, and a father who is either non-Jewish, or a slave (or both); although the Talmud eventually concludes that this is not the case, a number of scholars now suspect that this was actually the original definition of mamzer. Abraham Geiger, a prominent Jewish scholar and rabbi of the mid 19th century, suggested that the etymological origin of mamzer might be ma'am zar, which means belonging to a foreign people.

The Talmud interprets the exclusion of certain people from the qahal as a prohibition against ordinary Jews marrying such people. Additionally, the biblical reference to the tenth generation was interpreted, by the classical rabbis, as an idiom meaning forever; thus the Talmud forbids all the descendants, forever, of these people from being married to ordinary Jews.

In Poland-Lithuania

In the 16th century, Jewish communities in southern Poland-Lithuania began to set up new qahals to administer tax collection. These had a minimum of 8 members, and in average Jewish communities had a membership of 22-35 Jews. Their executives were elected by the local Jewish community, and consisted of 4 elders (Hebrew: zaqen) with a further 3-5 honorary members (Hebrew: tuvim). There was one qahal for each Jewish community, although smaller qahals were often made subject to larger ones.

These Polish-Lithuanian qahals quickly came to be politically autonomous bodies, with major regulatory control over Jewish communities in the region; they administered commerce, hygiene, sanitation, charity, Jewish education, kashrut, and relations between landlords and their tenants. They provided a number of community facilities, such as a rabbi, a ritual bath, and an interest-free loan facility for the Jewish community. Qahals even had sufficient authority that they could arrange for individuals to be expelled from synagogues, excommunicating them.

However, rich and powerful individuals gradually began to dominate qahals, abusing their position for their own benefit. As a result, by the 18th century, many ordinary Jews had begun to clamour for the abolition of the institution. "In 1844 they were officially abolished by the tsarist regime in Ukraine and most of the rest of the empire; they continued to exist only in the Baltic region. Afterwards, Jewish communities were given jurisdiction only over religious and charitable affairs, and occasionally over education."

See also

• Synagogue
• Kenesa
• Forbidden relationships in Judaism
  • Mamzer
  • Spadone
• Aljama, Spanish name for a Jewish (or Muslim) community in Medieval Spain
• Jewish ghettos in Europe, a neighbourhood where Jews lived together.
• Shtetl/Shtot, Yiddish name for Central/Eastern European Jewish settlements
• Kehilla (modern), early 20th-Century successors to the Central/Eastern European Qahal

Further reading

• Seltzer, Robert M. (1980) Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History. New York: MacMillan. ISBN 0-02-408950-8