Avraham Hildik’s Minhagim:An Accessible, Thirteenth-Century Relative of the Klausner Minhagim Book Family

Since it was first identified by Shlomo Spitzer in 1979, the minhagim of R. Avraham Hildik has received almost no scholarly attention even though it is among the earliest known Ashkenazic minhagim books. Based on the rabbis and sources it cites, it was written in the first half or middle of the thirteenth century. Avraham Hildik, a relatively obscure figure whose name appears in the colophon of one of the extant manuscripts, was active in eastern Ashkenaz during this period. Hildik’s minhagim seems to have drawn extensively on Mahzor Vitry. It is also related to – and probably dependent on – a thirteenth-century work, the minhagim of Yehezkiyahu of Magdeburg. This latter book played an important role in the development of late medieval eastern Ashkenazic minhagim literature. Two later books, the minhagim of Hayyim Paltiel and of Avraham Klausner, once regarded as independent works, are each actually glossed adaptations of the Yehezkiyahu minhagim book. Hildik’s minhagim can be considered a distant relative of this highly interrelated minhagim book family due to its textual connections to the Yehezkiyahu book. However, Hildik’s minhagim is a particularly accessible work, which distinguishes it from most other thirteenth-century works and also from the other minhagim books in this family. Although all these minhagim books are concise practical guides, only Hildik’s minhagim includes no halakhic argumentation and few differing opinions. Produced at a time of expanding settlement in eastern Ashkenaz, this book would have been useful in new communities, where rabbinic scholars were not always available.