Aman
THE
Amarkol
JEWltJH
stories iilHiut this |>riiiicval imtii)n. whidi they funcied to Imve ruled ovit Aral)iii and the surri)iindiii<?
Niildeke ("Clier countries, espeeinlly over Egypt. die Ainnlekiter." GiUtiniren, 181)4) 1ms fully shown the tietitious character of all these tales.
W. M.
AMAX
This name
M.
found only in the ApiK ly plia. Tobit, xiv. 10. lie is there mentioned as the perseeutor of Arhiaeharus, hut even in that 1.
is
pas,siii;e the reading is not certain, the versions giving Nadab, Accab, and Adam as possible readings. See AniK.vu. 2. l-'or Amvn in A|)Ocr. Esther, xii. (i. vi.' 1(1, 17, read 11a.ma.n. G. B. L.
AM ANA
1.
River rising
in
Anti-Lebanon ami
flowing through Daniaseus, the modern XalirKarada (II Kings, v. 12, where there is a variant. Aliana: see AEt.vN.x"). 2. Mountainous distriel of llie Leba-
non from which the
Amana river rises (Cant.
iv. 8).
It
occurs in cuneiform literature as Am-ma-na (Delitzsch, "Wo Lag das Paradies?" p. 103). G. B. L.
AMARAGI, ISAAC BEKOR
Translator and writer nl the ninclccnth century, who lived in Saloniea. He translated, from the Hebrew into Judipo-Spanish, Samson Hloch's geographical " Shebile -Olam" (Salonica, 18.J3-57, 1860), with work, additions of his own, and wrote a short history of
histdrical
Napoleon. BiBLiOGR.vPHY
KayserllDjt, Bihl.
Esp.-Pwt.
Jitil. p. V2.
M. K.
AMARAGI, MOSES
Physician in ordinary to the eouit of Sultan .Murad IV. (1623-40) in Oon:
staiitin(i])Ie. He was rich and learned and a jiatrou of Jewish scholars. In his okl age he returned to his native city, Salonica, where he died.
M. K.
'AM HA-AREZ
A
term used in common jiarlauce in the .sense of "ignoramus." applied particularly to one ignorant of Jewish matters. Compare Ganudiel's maxim (.Vbot, ii. ii): " No 'Am ha- Are/, can be pious [hasid]: also Lev. 1{. .xxvii. "Jephthah, the judge, who failid to oljbiin release from ids rash vow, was an 'Am ha-Arez " that is, "one of the multitude which knows not the Law " (see John, vii. 49). According to the Tannuim of the second century an "Am ha-.Vrez is "he who does not eat his
—
ordinary food in a state of [iriestly purity " (H. Meir); or, according to the majority of rabbis, "he who does not give his tithes in due manner"; according to R. Elie/.er, it is "he who does not read the Slienia' evening and morning " according to R. Joshua, "he who does not put on the phylacteries [tefjllin]": according to Ben '.Vzzai." lie who does not wear fringes [zi/it] on his garments" according to R. Nathan, "he who has no mezuzah on his doorpost" (Dent. vi. 9); according to R. Nathan ben Joseph, "he who has clnldren and does not educate them in the Law"; and according to others, "he who has not associated with the wise in order to learn the practise of the oral law " (Ber. 47i; Sotah, 22«;Git. fill/). Ishmael b. Eleazarssiys: "The'amme ha-arez [the vulgar crowds] incur the penalty of death by the disregard with which they treat the sacred Ark and the synagogue, calling the one " simi)lv chest and the other the ])eople's house
'
(Shab.
'
'
32rt).
'Am ha-Arez meaning
literally
" the
people of
"or "the rural population." this appellation, like pagan from "pagus" or heathen from "heath" in the early Christian centuries, came to the land
denote the country people inaccessible
to,
or un-
ENXVCLOPEDIA
484
touched by, the inlluenee of the teachings offered in a word, by the
by the religious community Synagogue.
—
The history of the term 'Am ha Are? leads us back to the beginning of the second eoinmonwealth. or rather to the lime of the exile, when "none reniaimil, save the poorest sort of the Historical iieople of the land" (II Kings, xxiv. Origin. 14): these had mingled with the rest of the surrounding l)eo])le and lost their specific characti'ras Jews, Then Ezra and Nehemiah made "separations from the i>eoi)les of the lands I'amme-ha-arazot] the condition of admission to the congregation (Ezra. ix. 1; Nell. x. 31). Henceforth separation from the lawless multitude became the watchword, and the result was the formation of the parly of the Separatists ("Hasidim"= the pious; like the -Vraniaan " I'erushini " = those that se|)ai'ate themselves from all impurity). United in as.soeiations (liaberim) in every town for common worship and common meals, as well as forcomnuinal works
of charity, the faithful observers of the law (Phari.sees) shunned any contact with an '.Viii ha-.Vrez. any one of "till' vulgar crowd." as (letililli.^ because such a one failed to oljserve conseieiiliously the l.evitieal laws of purity, or to give the portions of his produce due to the priest and the Levite. Moreover, he was regarded as a transgressor of the law, sinc<' he neglected to fullil all those duties which the religious practise of the synagogue had in the eoursi' of time introduced as meansof thesiuictitication of lil'e. The very touch of his garment was detiling to the members of the Pharisaic brotherliond (Hag. ii. 7). nor was he trusted in matters of Levitieal i>urity or of tithes even as a witness in court (I)em. ii. '2 et mij.. Pes. As a matter of course, no marriage relations 494). with him were entered into by the Phari.sees. Such exclusiveness naturally tended to intensify the hatred between the massesand the Pharisees, and bitterexpressions were used on both sideswhich an scarcely be taken literally. "When I wasoneof the uneducated, I used to say, Give me one of the learned seniles that I may bite him like an ass, '"said R. Akiba. R. Eliezer says, if they were subject to the 'Am lia-Arcz. they could not be sure of their lives. Accordingly it is declared that an '.m ha-Are? is so dangerous a man that he may be killed Antipathy onthe"Saliballiof Sabbaths"; orsays amillier. "torn like a tish"(Pes. 4!W). of the Pharisees. Such ex])ressions have been taken perhaps too seriously by Montetiore (" Hibbert Lectures, " 1892, p. 499) on the ot her hand, Lazarus("Ethicsof Judaism," i. ajipendix, note48((, 2.W. English translation) goes too far in the other J). direction, taking them as mere jests. That a hostile feeling ]irevailid. is shown by the expression in John. vii. 49: "this people who knoweth not tlw law are cursed." Even more animosity is shown in the lialakic dictum of Joshua ben Levi in the name of Antigonus: "The claim of the haber upon the charity-treasury to provide his wife with raiment is greater than that of the 'Am ha-Arez for the support of his life" (Ver. Hor. iii. 48"; compare also B. B. 8^). There can be no doubt that it was this contemptuous and hostile attitude of the Pharisaic schools toward the masses that was the chief cause of the triumphant power of the Christian church. In preaching the good tidings to the poor and the outcast, Jesus of Nazareth won the great masses of <
'
.Tudea.
The
Pharis;iic schools, laying all stress
on
the Law and on learning, held the 'Am ha-Arez in utter contempt. The new Christian sect recruited itself chietly from the ranks of the untaught, laying special stress on the merits of the simple and the
