Daniel Al-Kumisi - Legal Decisions

Legal Decisions

Daniel favored a rigorous interpretation of the Torah. The following decisions of his have been preserved: It is forbidden to do any work whatever on the Shabbat (Sabbath)—even to clean the hands with powder—or to have any work done on the Sabbath by a non-Jew, whether gratuitously, or for wages or any other compensation. The burning of lights is forbidden not only on Friday evenings, but also on the evenings of the festivals. In the description in Lev. xxiii. 40 of the trees which, according to Daniel, were used in erecting the sukkah, the phrase "periez hadar" (the fruit of goodly trees) is more definitely explained by "kappot temarim" (branches of palms), the palm being distinguished for its beauty (Cant. vii. 8).

Like Anan, Benjamin al-Nahawandi, and Ishmael al-Ukbari, Daniel forbade in the Diaspora the eating of those animals that were used for sacrifice, adding to the proofs of his predecessors others drawn from Hosea ix. 4 and Isa. lxvi. 3. The prohibition contained in Exodus xxiii. 19 ("Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk") must not be interpreted allegorically, as Anan interpreted it, but literally. The priest carried out the injunction to "wring off the head" of the bird ("meliqah," Lev. i. 15) by cutting the head off entirely, after the slaughtering. The clean birds are not recognizable by certain signs, as the Rabbinites assert, but the names of the birds as found in the Pentateuch are decisive (and as these can not always be identified, the Karaites make the class of forbidden birds very large). Among the locusts only the four species expressly named in Lev. xi. 22 are permitted as food. It is forbidden to eat eggs because they must be considered as living things that can not be slaughtered, as is proved by Deut. xxii. 6-7, where it is permitted to take the young, but not the eggs. Of fish the eggs only are permitted; the blood is forbidden. The leper must still be considered as unclean (this, too, is directed against Anan, who had held that the laws regarding the clean and the unclean were not applicable in the Diaspora). The carcass of an animal, however, ceases to be unclean after use has been made of it in any way, as is proved by Lev. vii. 24.