Of a Pietist Gone Bad and Des(s)erts Not Had: The Fourteenth Chapter of Zechariah Aldahiri's Sefer hamusar

Zechariah Aldahiri, a sixteenth-century Yemenite Jewish traveler and respected religious scholar, composed his rhymed prose narrative, Sefer hamusar, while imprisoned along with the rest of the San'a Jewish community, in 1568. He hoped that the lesson (musar) of these afflictions "that befell us on account of our many sins" would spur the reader to humility and piety. But Sefer hamusar is not exclusively devoted to moral edification. Inspired by the Arabic Maqamat of al-Hariri (1054-1122), the Tahkemoni of Judah Alharizi (c. 1165-1225), and the Mahbarot of Immanuel of Rome (c. 1265-1335), it is an engaging belletristic confection of folk tales, animal fables, riddles, and travel accounts, interwoven with pious admonitions, religious polemics, messianic speculations, and philosophical and kabbalistic meditations. This article explores the work's fourteenth chapter, setting it in its cultural and literary historical contexts. In telling his tale of a pietist turned rhymester and swindler, Aldahiri draws on the philosophical language of Solomon Ibn Gabirol's Keter malkhut; has his characters engage in witty gastronomic repartee; and laces his narrative with deceptions, duplicity, and guile. The several portions of this entertaining maqama are tied together by the idea of musar, a term that translates the curricular and social ideal known in Arabic as adab, while retaining its biblical sense of reproof and moral instruction. Like Sefer hamusar as a whole, the fourteenth chapter is both a hilarious belletristic spoof and a cautionary tale exposing human weakness and excess.