Glossary Index
Terms and Concepts
Conservative Judaism,
Halakhah - Jewish Law,
Haskalah,
Jewish Denominations,
Kabbalah,
Kosher,
Kosher Food,
Midrash,
Mishnah,
Orthodox Judaism,
Rabbi,
Chief Rabbi,
Reconstructionist Judaism,
Reform Judaism,
Responsa,
Talmud,
Wissenschaft des Judentums (The scientific investigation of Judaism),
People
Rabbi Shlomo Alkavetz,
Rabbi Joseph Angelit,
Rabbi Moshe ben Mordechai Basola,
Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem Tov (BeShT),
Rabbi Moshe ben Yaakov Cordovero,
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein,
Rabbi Solomon Freehof,
Rabbi Meir Ibn Gabai,
Rabbi Avraham Galanti,
R. Judah Ha-Levi,
Rabbi Moshe Isserles,
Chief Rabbi of Great Britain Immanuel Jakobovits
Rabbi Joseph Karo,
Rabbi Isaac Luria Ben Shelomo (Ha'ARI)
Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon),
Rabbi Issac Mor Hayyim,
Rabbi Menahem Recanati,
Isaac Ben Solomon Sahula,
Rabbi Israel Sarug (or Saruk),
Rabbi Shem tov ibn-Shem Tov,
Rabbi Shim'on ibn-Lavi,
Rabbi Shim'on bar-Yokhai,
Baruch (Benedict)Spinoza,
Rabbi Joseph Ibn Tabul,
Rabbi Hayyim ben Joseph Vital,
Books
Guide for the Perplexed,
Ethics,
The Kuzari,
Megaleh Temirin,
Shivhei ha-Besht,
Shulhan Arukh,
Theological-Political Treatise,
The Zohar,
This is the glossary for the E-Lectures of the Goldstein-Goren
International Center for Jewish Thought
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
If you are having trouble viewing our lectures through our main page, feel free to access them directly:
When the Rabbis Meet the Doctors :How Medical Halakhah is Made, by Daniel J. Lasker
Zohar Hermeneutics, by Boaz Huss
Interpreting the Kuzari, by Haim Kreisel
(scroll down to browse glossary)
Yehuda ha-Levi
JUDAH
HALEVI (born in Spain before 1075 died 1141 Israel?) was a rabbi, philosopher
and Hebrew poet.
Halevi
was born either in Toledo or Tudela, apparently to a wealthy and learned family
and received a comprehensive education in both Hebrew and Arabic, apparently
under Moslem rule. At an early age
he traveled to Andalusia where his poetic talents where recognized and where he
befriended the renown poet Moshe ibn Ezra and other great poets of Granada,
Seville, and Saragossa. With the
Almoravides conquest of Moslem Spain (after 1090), when the situation of the
Jews there became more tenuous, Halevi left Granada and took to traveling. During the next twenty years Halevi
passed through many different communities and was in contact with a wide range
of people, such as rabbi Joseph ibn Migash, in Lucena, or the vizier Meir ibn
Kamhiel in Seville. In 1108 his
patron at the time, Solomon ibn Ferrizuel -- a Jewish nobleman in the court of
the king in Toledo -- was murdered.
Judging by the poem of eulogy that Halevi wrote after the incident, it
seem that his patron's status had given him a sense of security that was now
shattered. Halevi left Toledo
shortly after (before the death of Alfonso VI, 1109) and continued his travels.
Halevi
had contact with Jewish communities in North Africa, Egypt and Narbonne and as
his poems attest was friendly with many famous Jews of his time. Perhaps most well known was his
friendship with the renowned scholar Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra. Both wandered through the various
cities of Muslim Spain, and at least once traveled together to North
Africa. Ibn Ezra quotes Halevi
numerous times in his biblical commentary on matters of philosophy, grammar and
exegesis and Halevi likewise mentions ibn Ezra. Tradition has it that the two were related: According to Abraham Zacuto, in his
Sefer ha-Yuhasin, they were cousins, and Abrabanel in his commentary on the
Torah says ibn Ezra married Halevi's daughter. From a letter found in the Cairo Genizah, however, it seems
that in fact it was ibn Ezra's son, Yitzchak, was married to Halevi's daughter.
Towards
the end of his life, shortly after he finished his only philosophical book
the
Kuzari
-- Halevi decided to 'ascend' to the land of Israel. He arrived in Egypt in
1140, where he was welcome by the Jewish community, and he spent several months
there. Legend has it that when
Halevi finally made it to Jerusalem, and bent down to kiss it's stones while
reciting his elegy 'Tziyon halo tishali', an Arab horseman trampled him to
death. In the past scholars have
judged this legend to be completely baseless, and have asserted that Halevi
never left Egypt. Recent
publications from the Cairo Genizah however, show that he did board a boat at
Alexandria, and it seems likely that he did indeed make it to the land of
Israel before his death.
"About
800 poems written by Judah Halevi are known, covering all the subjects commonly
found in Spanish Hebrew poetry as well as the forms and artistic patterns of
secular and religious poetry." Close to half of Halevi's poetry is Piyyutim (liturgical poems for the
various festivals of the year). In
accordance with the piyut tradition, these include national themes such as
God's relationship with his people, the redemption from Egypt and the future
redemption while they also express personal religious feelings such as man's
reverence for God, his dread of sin, and the desperate struggle against his
carnal nature. A number of poems
(approximately 35) that Halevi is particularly known for - his 'shirei Tziyon'
(songs of Zion) - deal with the yearning for Zion, a theme that was not so
common his day. Most of his
secular poems deal with eulogy and friendship; of these the great majority are
addressed to his famous contemporaries poets, philosophers, religious
scholars, noblemen and philanthropists, while in some the recipient remains
unnamed. Lastly, Halevi's love
poems number about 80 and are similar in content and form to the love poems
found in his day both in Arabic and in Hebrew.
Halevi's
poetry constitutes his most important biographical source: it tells of his journeys in Spain and
in other countries, of his relations with his contemporaries, of his position
in society, and of his spiritual development. His poetry was widespread in
manuscript from an early period and was known outside Spain during his own
lifetime. His piyyutim were used
in the liturgy over the generations, and some are used to this day according
to Ashkenazi tradition, for instance, his 'Tzion Halo Tishali' is recited on
the 9
th of Av. Some of
Halevi's poetry was put to music in modern day Israel.
["Judah
Halevi",
Encyclopedia Judaica]
The
Kuzari,
or by its full title:
The
Book of Argument
and Proof in Defense of the Despised Faith, is a philosophical-theological
work by Rabbi Yehudah ha-Levi (c. 1075 1041).
Purpose
and Literary Framework
In one of his letters, Halevi wrote that
he began writing the Kuzari in order to address certain questions posed by the
Karrites. But in the final draft
of the book, compleated some twenty years later -- just before his departure for the land of Israel it seems Halevi
is more concerned with defending the 'despised Faith' against Aristotelian
philosophy, Christianity and Islam than against Karaism. The work is called the
Kuzri after the king of the Khazars
whose conversion to Judaism provides the literary framework of the work. After being told by an angel in a dream
that, while his intentions were acceptable to God, his actions were not, the
king, in an effort to discover how he should lead his life, invites first an
Aristotelian philosopher, and then representatives of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, to discuss with his their respective beliefs. This literary framework enables Halevi
to compare the teachings of Judaism with those of Aristotelianism, Islam, and
Christianity, in an effort to prove the superiority of Judaism.
Content
The
work is divided into five parts. In the first part the philosopher, the Christian, and the Muslim expound
their views. The king is with the
philosopher, and when he realizes that Christianity and Islam are both based on
Judaism, he calls in a Jewish scholar. The following four parts are devoted mainly to the dialogue between the
king and the Jew. In the second
part the king questions the Jewish scholar concerning the attributes of
God. The scholar, however, is more
concerned with the experience of God. Gained through prophecy than with the
theoretical knowledge of God. Thus, he directs the discussion to the circumstances in which prophecy
arose, and to the particular qualities of the people of Israel, of Erez [the
Land of] Israel, the Temple, and the Hebrew language. The third part deals with the details of the worship
of God in Judaism. The scholar
explains that worship in Judaism consists in fulfilling the biblical
commandments, which originated in divine revelation, and which cannot be
interpreted or applied except by means of the authoritative tradition. This last point leads to a detailed
argument against Karaism. In the fourth part the scholar discusses the names of
God, distinguishing between Elohim and Adonai, the former being a
general term denoting the god whois known through philosophical reasoning, the
latter, a proper name, denoting the God of Israel who is known only through
revelation and prophecy. He explains
prophecy as the experience of being in the presence of God or the Shekhinah (an
intermediary being between God and man) an experience brought about by the
special "inner sense" of the prophet. He goes on to discuss the uniqueness of the people of
Israel, in that they alone possess the faculty o the prophecy, the "inner
sense" wich enables the to approach the divine presence. Halevi in order to show that all
science originated with the Jews, and that the Jewish people from its inception
did not lack any human perfection, concludes this chapter with a summary of,
and a commentary on, Sefer ha-Yetzirah ("The Book of the
Creation"), which he regarded as a major scientific work, and which he
attributed, as did others at the time, to Abraham the Patriarch. In the fifth and final part of the book
he takes up the polemic with the philosopher whom he did not properly challenge
in the first part. The Jewish
scholar, in an ironic vein, presents his pupil with a sketch of the Aristotelian
philosophy of his day, at the same time exposing its weaknesses. While halevi seems better acquainted
with the doctrines of Aristotelianism than were his predecessors, it would be
wrong to assume that he studied Aristotle's works directly. It has been shown, for example, that
his exposition of Aristotelian psychology is based on a work by Avicenna (S.
Landauer, in ZDMG, 29 (1875), 335-418). Halevi's criticism of Aristotelianism is highly reminiscent of
al-Ghazali's criticism of philosophy in the incoherence of the Philosophers
(Tahafut al-Falasfia). Halevi
also presents his pupil with an outline of the arguments of the kalalm,
of which he does not approve any more than he does of Aristotelianism. Though he considers these arguments
useful for polemics he believes they have no great intrinsic value.
Central
Ideas
Halevi's
teachings are based on the concept of immediate religious experience and its
superiority over deductive reasoning. However, he does not negate the value of metaphysical speculation,
recognizing that, in the absence of direct experience, it is the only way of
learning the truth. Halevi regards
Aristotle's system as the finest achievement of the human intellect. Even Aristotle conceded that deductive
reasoning cannot refute experience, while the prophets based their teachings on
the special experience contained in revelation, Aristotle's conclusions are
valid only in regard to mathematics and logic, but have no validity in regard
to divine law. Thus, in contrast
to the philosopher, who defines the prophet as on e who has attained the
highest degree of perfection in conjunction with the perfection of the
imaginative faculty, Halevi defines the prophet as one who, by means of the
external senses, apprehends physical reality. The prophet, because he experiences directly the presence of
God, can become much closer to God than the philosopher who has an indirect
theoretical knowledge of Him. The
mission of the prophet is not to instruct men in eternal truths, but to teach
them the deeds whose performance leads to the experience of God's
presence. This is indeed the
purpose of the Torah, Judaism being the only religion, which seeks to instruct
men in correct and righteous actions, rather than speculative truths. The prophetic faculty is a faculty
beyond ordinary human reason, and constitutes a generic distinction between the
prophet and the ordinary man, parallel to the distinction between man and
animals. This faculty is
hereditary and unique to the people of Israel. It is only through the intermediacy of Israel that the other
nations can approach God, just as it is only through the intermediacy of the
prophets that the people of Israel can come close to Him. This is the cornerstone of Halevi's
doctrine of particularity of the people of Israel.
In
his polemic against Christianity and Islam, Halevi contends that a prophetic
religion, possessing the evidence of the prophectic experience, has no need to
authenticate itself by means of proof. What Halevi objects to in Christianity and Islam is not the
irrationality of their doctrines, but the fact that they cannot base their
doctrines on an unequivocal historical revelation such as the one granted to
Israel at Sinai, when 600,000 people were granted the experience of prophecy,
and found with a certitude what the intellect cannot attain, that God spoke to
man and commanded him to observe the laws of the Torah. Christianity and Islam must, therefore,
have recourse to the historical tradition of Judaism. Halevi recognizes the presence of authentic Jewish elements
in Christianity and Islam, and the vital role that these religions play in
history. However insofar as they
have diverged from the Torah and sought to supplant it they are falsehoods
which can neither be substantiated by the tradition of Israel, nor claim
authentic historical validity for their own traditions. Halevi in his view of history attempts
to explain the paradox of a "chosen people" suffering exile and
oppression, and to show that in spite of the suffering of the Jewish people,
Judaism is the relition par excellence. The function of history is to bring creation to completion in the
acceptance of the true worship of God on the part of all mankind. This is a gradual process.
Ha-Inyan
ha-Elohi ("the divine influence", a technical term used by Halevi
in a variety of senses, including that of an intermediary between mand and God)
is initially known to only a few individuals (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), then
to and entire family (the children of Jacob), and then to an entire nation (the
people of Israel), who will eventually make it known to mankind as a
whole. This history of the people
of Israel at this stage represents the true history of mankind. This is demonstrated by the fact that
only in the history of the people of Israel is divine providence directly
manifest, both in times of unnatural success and in times of unnatural
suffering. The successes and
failures of other nations can be explained in natural terms, without the
manifestation of divine providence. When the other nations recognize the divine influence they too will
become part of the true history. This, evidently, is the meaning of the suffering of Israel in
exile. Israel is like a seed,
which appears to be rotting in the ground, but is in reality preparing for life
and growth. Thus, unusual suffering
is not evidence of the inferiority of the Jewish faith, but of its
superiority. The suffering of
Israel is the public sanctification of the name of God, and its purpose swill
be understood at the time of deliverance. It must be noted that Halevi did not believe in a deterministic
historical development. Deliverance will only come about when God-'s commandments are performed
by men who willingly submit to divine authority.
Influence
Originaly written in Judao-Arabic the
Kuzari was translated into Hebrew by Judah ibn Tibbon in the 12th century,
and first printed in Fano in 1506. It has been reissued many times. A critical edition of the arabic and Herew text was published by H.
Hirschfeld in 1887. An edition of
the Hebrew text, prepared by A. Zifroni, appeared in 1960. The Kuzari was translated into
English (H. Hirschfeld, 1905; reprinted with an introduction by H. Slonimsky, 1964; abridged version with introduction by I
Heinemann, 1947), Latin, Spanish, German, French and Italian.
The
Kuzari is a popular work, which exercised a great influence on Judaism through
history. It was particularly
influential in kabbalistic circles in the 13th century, and among
the anti-Aristotelians in the 14th an 15th centuries. In more recent
times it had a marked influence on Hasidism. Some philosophers of the 19th and 20th
centureis, such as Sameul David Luzzatto, Franz Rosenzweig, and Abraham Isaac Kook, saw in the Kuzari the most faithful description
of the particular qualities of the Jewish religion.
["Judah
Halevi", Encyclopedia Judaica]
Baruch (Benedict) De Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in
1632. His father had escaped from
Portugal and settled in the Spanish-Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam,
where he was a successful merchant. Spinoza studied at the community's school probably under Manasseh Ben
Israel and Saul Levi Morteira (the latter was to excommunicate him some years
later) -- and was recognized as an outstanding student. In 1652, against his father's wishes,
Spinoza took up lens grinding. His
father, who had remarried, died two years later, and Spinoza took his
stepsister to court for the inheritance. Though he won the legal battle that ensued, he handed virtually
everything over to his sister, and continued working as a lens grinder.
Scholars have argued whether Spinoza was
influenced by an ex-Jesuit Latin teacher, Van den Enden, or if the views he
came to hold stemmed form internal developments in the Jewish community of
Amsterdam. What is clear, however,
is that in 1656 Spinoza, doctor Juan de Pardo and schoolteacher Daniel de
Ribera, were noted as holding heretical views: They questioned whether the Torah was given to Moses,
whether it holds that God is incorporeal, whether the Adam was the first man
and if the soul is immortal. On 27
July 1656, a few days after Pardo withdrew his heretical views, a rabbinic
pronouncement singed by Morteira and others excommunicated Spinoza from the
Jewish community.
It is not completely clear what Spinoza did
during the next few years, however in 1658-1659, a report to the Spanish
Inquisition places him with Pardo in Amsterdam. According to the report they deny the Law of Moses, the
immortality of the soul and believe that God only exists philosophically. It seems the Jewish community still
held some sway with Spinoza during this period, since he wrote an apology for
his views (in Spanish). Though the work was lost, it evidently became the basis
for his
Tractus Thologico-Politicus. In 1660 The Amsterdam Synagogue officially petitioned
the municipal authorities to denounce Spinoza as a "menace to all piety
and morals" and the year after Spinoza left Amsterdam.
For
the next three years he lived in Rijnsburg where he was in touch with a group
of liberal Protestants, and wrote the only work he published in his lifetime
under his own name:
Principles
of the Philosophy of Rene Decartes. In 1664 he moved to Voorburg, a suburb of The Hague and in 1670 he
moved once again, this time to The Hague itself. It was in this year that his
Tractatus
theologico-politicus appeared anonymously
. His argument for religious freedom and his political
thought caused uproar, and he was constantly being accused of being an
atheist. The (Calvinist) Church
Council of Amsterdam denounced the work as "forged in Hell by a renegade
Jew and the Devil, and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de
Witt." De Witt, who had supported Spinoza with a
small pension, was killed two years later, during the French invasion of
Holland, by an angry mob that blamed him for the catastrophe. Spinoza prevented the publication of a
Dutch addition of the
Tractuts and in 1671, sent a lengthy letter in his
defense to the Jewish leader Orobio de Castro.
Spinoza
turned down both money and prestige for his intellectual freedom. In 1673 he declined the chair of
philosophy at Heidelberg, because he was unwilling to promise he would not
disturb established religion. He
likewise decided not to dedicate a work to Louis XIV, even thought he thought
he would get a pension for such a dedication. In 1674 he showed his friends the completed manuscript of
his major work --
Ethics, but he was not able to get it published. He lived out his last few years writing
and discussing philosophy with friends, such as Leibnitz, without joining any
sect or church nor trying to convert anyone to his opinions. He died in 1677 from consumption --
possibly caused by his work lens grinding.
Theological-Political Treatise
In 1665, with the first draft of the
Ethics nearly complete,
Benedict De Spinoza set it aside to work on his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (
Theological-Political Treatise), a defense of the freedom of thought and expression, published in 1670. Here his own philosophical views come to expression more clearly than in the earlier work, although there is some doubt whether he is completely open about his own views. The early chapters of the work deal with traditional theological topics: prophecy, divine law, miracles, and the principles of scriptural interpretation. Spinoza is highly critical of Old Testament theology, rejecting as anthropomorphic even such fundamental . prophetic teachings as the doctrine that God is a lawgiver, which he finds incompatible with God's omnipotence. He is largely silent about the New Testament, though the few things he does say about it have contributed to the suspicions about his candor. His own conception of God identifies God with the fundamental scientific laws of nature, which explain all phenomena occurring in nature. This excludes any possibility of miracles (where a miracle is understood as a divine interference with the natural order of things).
An important contribution of this work is its theory of scriptural interpretation. To understand the Bible, Spinoza argues, we must approach it as we would any other text, without presupposing as a principle of interpretation that what it says must be true; we must know the grammar, vocabulary and stylistic peculiarities of the language in which it was written; we must organize its teachings on various topics, and note passages which seem inconsistent or obscure; we must know the circumstances under which each book was written, how it was transmitted to us, and how it became part of the canon. If we examine the Bible according to these principles, he contends, we will conclude that it is the work of many human authors, who had very different and imperfect ideas about God, and were often writing many centuries after the events they described (relying on documents now lost); that it has been transmitted to us in a very corrupted form; and that often we simply have no idea of what it means. So we should take it as a guide only with respect to its most fundamental moral teachings, disregarding its theology and any principles of conduct which it does not teach repeatedly. We should learn from the Bible to practice justice and love our neighbors as ourselves. Nothing else matters. No one else in the seventeenth century wrote so boldly. This aspect of Spinoza's teaching exercised a strong influence on the eighteenth-century Enlightenment.
In its political portions, the
Theological-Political Treatise shows strongly the influence of Hobbes, though Spinoza often reaches unHobbesian conclusions. He starts by imagining a state of nature, a condition in which people live without any civil authority. He contends that people's competitiveness and liability to irrational emotions would make this a condition of radical insecurity, poverty, misery and ignorance, so in their own interest people would have to form a government to restrain their behaviour, accepting a limitation on their natural freedom for the sake of the benefits they can expect from life in an organized society. Since Spinoza rejects the notion of a prescriptive natural law, which would impose constraints on what people could justly do, theoretically the rights of this government would be absolute. But because Spinoza holds that natural right is coextensive with power, and because the power of government depends ultimately on the voluntary cooperation of the people, in practice the rights of government would be limited. A tyrannical government which oppresses its subjects necessarily destroys its own power, and thereby its right. Spinoza concludes by arguing that to preserve itself and its power, government must allow extensive liberty. Perhaps the most striking difference from Hobbes is that Spinoza defends democracy as the most natural and stable form of government.
Spinoza intended the
Theological-Political Treatise partly as support for the tolerant, republican policies of the DeWitt government, which faced strong opposition from the Calvinist clergy and monarchists supporting the Prince of Orange. But part of his intent was probably to defend his break with Judaism, and part, no doubt, was to prepare readers for the more systematic and rigorous presentation of his ideas which he intended to make in the
Ethics. His biblical criticism tends to undermine confidence in revelation, making room for an argument which appeals only to human reason. He also hoped to explain in a somewhat more popular way his austere, impersonal conception of God. But the uproar which greeted the Treatise made it impossible to publish the
Ethics in his lifetime.
Shivhei ha-Beshet
Shivhei ha-Besht (Praises of the Ba'al Shem Tov) is a collection of legends and stories about Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer Ba'al Shem Tov. First published in 1815, some 50 years after the Besht's death, the book includes over 200 stories about the Besht's life.
The stories tell of the adventures of the Besht's elderly, barren parents, and how his birth was a miraculous reward for their good deeds. After his parents past away when he was still a child, the community sent him to study with the local melamed, but he would often find his way to the woods and meadows instead and so the community gave up on supporting his study. Eventually he got a job escorting children to their classes. One story tells how wile he was singing the sweet melodies he always sang on the way to school, the devil, possessing a magician and transforming into a wild animal, came amidst the children, and how the Besht defeated him. Another story reveals that a certain Rabbi Adam sent the Besht special secret (mystical) writings. But until long after his marriage, the stories go on to tell, the Besht did not reveal his greatness and pretended he was a simpleton. For a time, we are told, he became the guard of the beit midrash, and he used to study all night when everyone thought he was asleep. Later he moved to Brody, where he worked as a Shohet, and a settler of disputes and through this last occupation he met the father of his second wife, Hana (little is said about his first wife who died shortly after their marrige). The father, who was a great Rabbi, came to settle a dispute with the aid of the Besht. When he recognized the Besht's greatness he promised to give him his daughter in marriage. But the father died before the Besht could come to collect her in Kitov. Hanah and her brother Rabbi Gershon of Kitov respected their father's wishes and the couple was married, but Rabbi Gershon, thinking the Besht was an unlearned simpleton, could not understand how his father had committed to such a marriage and wanted as little to do with the Besht as possible. Besht and his wife lived in the Carpathian Mountains for seven years. Only when the Besht was thirty seven did he reveal his true nature. Then he established himself as a spiritual leader in Meziboz. The book relates many other tales of the Besht, his teachings, and wonders, and also about his interactions with his students and others who he came into contact.
Shivhei ha-Besht has been a source for the study of the history and thought of Hasidism in general and that of its founder - the Besht - in particular, for as long as Hasidism has been studied. Scholars have never taken the stories in Shivhei ha-Besht as historical fact, but they have assumed that some of the more plausible details do indeed reflect the reality of the first generation of Hasidism, and its founder. Recently, however, this assumption has been called into question. Scholars have pointed out that Shivhei ha-Besht must be treated as a hagiography (sacred biography). According to some, this means that it can only be used to corroborate facts known from other sources. Another point made by scholars is that the collectors of the stories and the editors of the book had their own agenda. Fifty some odd years after the Besht's death, they were intent on portraying the Besht as hero. Even thought there is no reason to believe that anyone was interested in recording the Besht's family history before his birth or during his early childhood, a hero must have a miraculous birth story and a wondrous childhood; At the time Shivhei ha-Besht was compiled and published, Hsidim were in a bitter battle with the mitnagdim, and one could imagine they would want to think of themselves as continuing the battle their master.
Besht and
Hasidism.
Ethics
The
Ethics -- or by its full Latin title: Ethica More
Geometrico Demonstrate (Ethics Demonstrated
in Geometric Order) -- is Spinoza's major philosophical work, in which he meant to prove his
Pantheistic view of God and show its practical implications. Completed in 1674, only three years
before his death, opposition to his views both in Holland and in the rest of
Europe, made it impossible for him to publish. The
Ethics only appeared after his death, in 1677,
together with several other works he had written.
The Ethics, is divided into five books:
- Concerning God
- The Nature and Origin of the Human Mind
- The Nature and Origin of the Emotions
- Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions
- The Power of the Understanding, or Human Freedom
Perhaps
the most striking quality of the book is that it is modeled after Euclid's
geometry. Each part of the book
begins with a number of definitions and axioms and from them a series of
thermos are deduced.
For example the first book starts with the following list of
definitions:
- By
that which is self-caused, I mean that of which the essence involves
existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent.
- A
thing is called finite after its kind, when it can be limited by another
thing of the same nature; for instance, a body is called finite because
we always conceive another greater body. So, also, a thought is limited
by another thought, but a body is not limited by thought, nor a thought
by body.
- By
substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through
itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed
independently of any other conception.
- By
attribute, I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the
essence of substance.
- By
mode, I mean the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and
is conceived through, something other than itself.
- By
God, I mean a being absolutely infinite -- that is, a substance
consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and
infinite essentiality. ...
- That
thing is called free, which exists solely by the necessity of its own
nature, and of which the action is determined by itself alone. On the
other hand, that thing is necessary, or rather constrained, which is
determined by something external to itself to a fixed and definite method
of existence or action.
- By
eternity, I mean existence itself, in so far as it is conceived
necessarily to follow solely from the definition of that which is
eternal.
In the remainder of Part I of the
Ethics,
Spinoza derives various properties of God. He summarizes these properties in
the opening paragraph of the Appendix to Part I:
Appendix. In the foregoing I have explained the nature
and properties of God. I have shown that (1) he necessarily exists, (2) that he
is one, (3) that he is, and acts solely by the necessity of his own nature, (4)
that he is the free cause of all things, and how he is so, (5) that all things
are in God, and so depend on him, that without him they could neither exist nor
be conceived, and (6) that all things are predetermined by God, not through his
free will or absolute fiat, but from the very nature of God or infinite power.
This summery sounds deceptively
similar to traditional Jewish, Moslem and Christian philosophers of the middle
ages. Spinoza, however, did not
make the traditional distinction between God and Nature. Spinoza's fundamental insight
in Book One is that Nature is an indivisible, uncaused, substantial whole -- in
fact, it is the only substantial whole. Outside of Nature, there is
nothing, and everything that exists is a part of Nature and is brought into
being by Nature with a deterministic necessity. This unified, unique,
productive, necessary being is just what is meant by 'God'. Because of
the necessity inherent in Nature, there is no teleology in the universe. Nature
does not act for any ends, and things do not exist for any set purposes. There
are no "final causes" (to use the common Aristotelian phrase). God
does not "do" things for the sake of anything else. The order of
things just follows from God's essences with an inviolable determinism. All
talk of God's purposes, intentions, goals, preferences or aims is just an
anthropomorphizing fiction.
In book two Spinoza turns to the
nature and origin of the human being. Like every other particular thing in nature, according to Spinoza, human
beings are a 'mode' of two attributes of God: extension the physical world or
what allows the physical world to exist -- and thought. Since extension and
thought are two different essences there can be no connection between them,
idea's are caused by ideas and bodies are caused by bodies, and so it would
seem that the there is no way of translating matter into thought. But since
both essences are actually expressing one and the same thing God they are
parallel. Human beings are,
therefore, specific modes of God's attributes and their knowledge comes from
knowing Him.
Sense experience alone could
never provide the information conveyed by an adequate idea. The senses perceive
things only as they appear from a given perspective at a given moment in time.
An adequate idea, on the other hand, presents it in its "eternal"
aspects -- sub specie aeternitatis, as Spinoza puts it -- without any
relation to time, by showing how a thing follows necessarily from one or
another of God's attributes. "It is of the nature of Reason to regard
things as necessary and not as contingent. And Reason perceives this necessity
of things truly, i.e., as it is in itself. But this necessity of things is the
very necessity of God's eternal nature. Therefore, it is of the nature of
Reason to regard things under this species of eternity". The third kind of
knowledge after random knowledge of the senses and adequate knowledge of
reason intuition, takes what is known by Reason and grasps it in a single act
of the mind.
The ramifications of Spinoza's
views are far reaching. Spinoza's
aim in Parts Three and Four is, as he says in his Preface to Part Three, to
restore the human being and his volitional and emotional life into their proper
place in nature. Our affects --
our love, anger, hate, envy, pride, jealousy, etc. -- "follow from the
same necessity and force of nature as the other singular things". But we do have some measure of control
over some of our affects. When something happens in us the cause of which lies
outside of our nature, then we are passive and being acted upon. On the other
hand, when the cause of an event lies in our own nature -- more particularly,
our knowledge or adequate ideas -- then it is a case of the mind acting.
The upshot is a fairly pathetic
picture of a life mired in the passions and pursuing and fleeing the changeable
and fleeting objects that occasion them: "We are driven about in many ways
by external causes, and . . . like waves on the sea, driven by contrary winds,
we toss about, not knowing our outcome and fate" (IIIp59s). The title for
Part Four of the Ethics reveals with perfect clarity Spinoza's
evaluation of such a life for a human being: "On Human Bondage, or the
Powers of the Affects (or the Strength of the Emotions)". He
explains that human beings "lack of power to moderate and restrain the
affects I call Bondage. For the man who is subject to affects is under the
control, not of himself, but of fortune, in whose power he so greatly is that
often, though he sees the better for himself, he is still forced to follow the
worse". It is, he says, a kind of "sickness of the mind" to
suffer too much love for a thing "that is liable to many variations and
that we can never fully possess."
The path to restraining and
moderating the affects is through virtue. Spinoza is a psychological and ethical
egoist. All beings naturally seek their own advantage -- to preserve their own
being -- and it is right for them do so. This is what virtue consists in. Since
we are thinking beings, endowed with intelligence and reason, what is to our
greatest advantage is knowledge. Our virtue, therefore, consists in the pursuit
of knowledge and understanding, of adequate ideas. The best kind of knowledge
is a purely intellectual intuition of the essences of things. But this is just
to say that, ultimately, we strive for a knowledge of God.
What, in the end, replaces the
passionate love for ephemeral "goods" is an intellectual love for an
eternal, immutable good that we can fully and stably possess, God. The third
kind of knowledge generates a love for its object, and in this love consists
not joy, a passion, but blessedness itself. Taking his cue from Maimonides,
Spinoza argues that the mind's intellectual love of God is our
understanding of the universe, our virtue, our happiness, our well-being and
our "salvation". It is also our freedom and autonomy, as we approach
the condition wherein what happens to us follows from our nature (as a
determinate and determined mode of one of God's attributes) alone and not as a
result of the ways external things affect us.
Wissenschaft des
Judentums
Wissenschaft
des Judentums (The scientific investigation of Judaism) refers to a
movement of the 19th century Europe that sought critical investigation of
Jewish literature and culture. At the time, the academic Christian world
generally ignored Jewish tradition considering it unworthy of study. Jews from traditional backgrounds, who
became familiar with scientific methods of research such as Leopold Zunz
Abraham Gieger and Zechariah Frankel from Germany, Samuel David Lutzzatto form
Italy, and Nahman Krohmal and Solomon Judah Rappaport from Galicia -- set out
to correct this situation. They
used scientific methods of investigation to restore original texts, trace the
origin and development of Jewish traditions, placing it in a wider context of
world culture. In this manner they
tried to place Jewish culture on par with Western European culture and to
restore a sense of Jewish pride.
While
the movement worked to restore intellectual respectability to Jews, it was also
a point of contention amongst the Jews themselves. The historical study of Judaism was not accepted equally by
all, and the establishment of the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox denominations
was closely linked to the different attitudes toward the scientific study of
Judaism. The Wissenschaft des
Judentums is considered the foundation for the academic study of Judaism to
this day.
Haskalah
Haskalah - The Jewish enlightenment movement that flourished in Europe between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the end of the 19th century. From the Hebrew root Sekhel, meaning intellect, the word Haskalah was adopted to describe the movement, and its adherers were known as Maskilim (Maskil in singular).
During the 17th century, most of the Jewish communities in Europe were detached from the trends of their time. With few exceptions (such as Italy Amsterdam and Jews of higher social status), Jews did not come into contact with the culture and philosophy of the Enlightenment. The Jews were socially and legally detached from their surroundings. Jewish education took place at home and at the traditional kheder, where children learned religious studies. The few particularly talented students that continued their studies went to Yishvot to pursue more advanced study of Talmud and become Rabbis. Band by law, in many places, from becoming doctors, lawyers and landowners, most Jews were small peddlers and some were merchants.
The Haskalah movement advocated rationalism and keeping up with the times. Haskalah started in Germany in the 1880's, when Moses Mendelssohn's students decided to put some of his thought into action. The Maskilim aspired to make Jews partake in the general society and culture around them. They established schools where mathematics, science and geography were taught, and not only Talmud. According to the Haskalah Jews had to become a productive part of society, in order for discrimination against them to cease. The Maskilim called upon Jews to learn German and get productive jobs and upon the governments they lived under to grant them emancipation.
Jewish Denominations
Although
there have been many varieties of Judaism since its very inception, the term
'denomination' is usually used in reference to the way in which Jew's define
themselves today (mainly, though not exclusively in the United States). The term is not generally used to
describe Jewish trends before the 19
th century, nor is it used
concerning the ethnic and cultural differences between Jews of diverse
origins. The four largest
denominations in the United States today are:
Conservative Judaism,
Reform Judaism,
Orthodox
Judaism and
Reconstructionist Judaism.
The division between the first three denominations -- Orthodox, Reform and
Conservative -- stems from the various Jewish responses to the emancipation of
the Jews in the 19
th century (particularly in Germany.) The fourth
denomination Reconstructionism was started by Mordechai Kaplan, an influential
rabbi who began to go his own way 1920's, while still teaching in the
Conservative rabbinical school. Nevertheless, Reconstructionism did not become a full-fledged movement
until it took off in the United States in the 1970's. It is worth noting that while these are the four largest
denominations, there exist several other smaller denominations (such as Jewish
Renewal, Jewish Buddhism, etc.), and that more and more Jews are defining
themselves as trans-denominational or non-denominational.
Reform
Judaism
The Reform
movement began in Germany in the first decade of the 19
th century as
a response to the emancipation. Though started by lay individuals who felt that the synagogue and its
rituals needed modernization, by the 1830's the movement had attracted the
backing of many rabbis who were steeped in both tradition and in German academic
studies. In a series of
conferences between 1844 and 1846, these rabbis notably Abraham Geiger and
Samuel Holdhiem gathered to define the Reform movement not only in terms of
practice by also as in terms of doctrinal belief. They held that humanistic moral values represented the core
of Judaism. While such values were
held to be divine, much of Jewish tradition and especially Jewish Law, though
appropriate for an earlier time, were now considered antiquated and even
harmful. Questions were raised as
to what dogma should be obligatory and as to whether Jewish Law should be
binding at all. Over the course of
these conferences, it was decided that the priestly ritual (including Jewish
dietary laws) should be abandoned.
In light of
the emancipation, the Jews of the Reform movement did not view themselves as
part of a larger Jewish nation, rather as participants in the Jewish
religion. After being granted
citizenship by their host countries, they no longer felt that it was warranted
to pray for the Messiah who would return the Jews to Zion. In their view the emancipation
was
the beginning of the messianic age an age of world peace that would allow
Jews to become integrated citizens of whatever country they resided in. Instead of praying in Hebrew for the
restoration of the Holy Temple, they would pray, speak, and preach in the
vernacular of their own country, and the building of their own local temples
was a sufficient aspiration. Not surprisingly, they were cool to the Zionist
idea when it first came around.
In the
middle of the 19
th century, when many Jews immigrated to North
America from Germany, the Reform movement took root in the United States under
the leadership of Rabbi Issac Mayer Wise. A rabbinic program was started in Pennsylvania and its first rabbis were
ordained in 1883 at a commencement dinner that was to become known (because of
its non-kosher menu) as the "traife banquet." Although there are Reform communities in Europe and Israel, most
Reform Jews live in the United States, where Reform Judaism represents the
second largest denomination after Conservative Judaism.
In the
latter half of the 20
th century, The Reform movement issued a number
of position statements altering some of its previous views. "[T]he movement has been steadily producing a mitzvah
system and an accompanying body of literature, and collective consensus.
Nevertheless, it would be a fallacy to suggest that this is necessarily leading
toward acceptance of halakhahh as a determinative code for Reform. What can be
said is that a substantial, although unmeasured, sector of Reform is taking
halakhahh far more seriously than it may have in the past, although even this
must be qualified by many instances of early halakhic discussions over such
issues as the circumcision of male converts. Today, however, the number of
halakhic inquiries and authoritative responses by Solomon Freehof who published
hundreds of responsa, and by his successor, Walter Jacob, who has written and
compiled many responsa, attest to the unprecedented interest of Reform Jews in
learning what the tradition has to say on a multitude of issues."
["Reform
Judaism", Encyclopaedia Judaica]
Megaleh Temirin
Megaleh Temirin (Hebrew for
Revealer of Secrets) by Joseph Perl, first published in 1819, is an anti-Hasidic satire and, some say, the first Hebrew novel. Perl was himself a Hasid in his youth, but by the age of twenty he had become a Maskil and thought Hasidism was a major obstacle to the modernization of Eastern European Jewry. In 1816 Perl wrote a book in German,
Ueber das Wesen der Sekte Chassidim Aus ihren eigenen Schriften gezogen (
On the Nature of the Sect of the Hasidim, Drawn from Their Own Writings), in which he tried to demonstrate the absurdity of Hasidic belief and practice. But his criticism was so extreme that the Austrian government censured the book for fear of the Hasidim's reactions. In order to get around the censorship, Perl decided to write a pseudonymous work, the supposed authors of which would be the Hasidim themselves. The result was an epistolary novel published under the name of Ovadya ben Petahya.
The plot of the novel revolved around Perls' actual book: A Hasidic Rabbi, having heard about the book, is so worried about the damage it might cause, he is not satisfied with the censorship placed on it by the Government and orders his followers to find the only existing manuscript and destroy it. The Hasidim will stop at nothing in order to track down the book and through their adventures they are portrayed in a most unflattering (and amusing) light. Fashioned after European books of the time, and written in a language designed to mock the terrible Hassidic Hebrew of the day, the book is, supposedly, a collection of the Hassidim's correspondence, relating their mishaps to each other as they scheme to get hold of the manuscript.
Orthodox
Judaism
In the face
of the emancipation and the Reform movement, Orthodox Judaism in Germany of the
19
th century saw itself as continuing tradition (hence Orthodox),
and this has been its defining characteristic in all its varieties ever
since. According to the Orthodox
movement the Torah is eternal. Since Jewish Law was based upon the divine, there could never be need
for reform in what God had commanded. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the main spokesman for Orthodox Jewry in
Germany, did not reject modernity altogether. He himself wrote and preached in German, and had secular
subjects taught in his school, but he held that these practices were in no way
contrary to Jewish Law and tradition.
Today
Orthodoxy is the third largest Jewish denomination in the United States. There are Orthodox communities all over
the world and in Israel Orthodoxy is the by far the largest religious
denomination (Orthodox in Israel is usually known simply as
dati
religious).
Conservative Judaism
During the
conventions held between 1844-46 in Germany, concerning the necessary reform in
Judaism, one of those who voiced a more conservative opinion was rabbi Zecharia
Frankel. According to Frankel
there was no need for radical reform, rather a 'positive historical' approach
was necessary: Although it was
obvious that Judaism, including the law, had developed historically and was not
God's very word to Moses at Mt. Sinai, a positive stance had to be taken toward
the tradition. The will of God
manifested itself through his people who preserved tradition throughout
history, even while changing it. There was thus a middle ground between Orthodoxy and Reform. The tradition had to be adjusted to
modern age, but there was no need for a brake with Halakhahh, the small changes
that the people of Israel required would be expressed in the development of
Halakhahh as had always been the case.
Toward the
end of the 19
th century, the Conservative movement was established
in the United States as a response to the growing Reform movement. Rabbi Solomon Shechter (1847-1915),
became the president of the movement's rabbinical school, the Jewish
Theological Seminary, in 1899. The movement gained many adherers during the
first half of the 20
th century, as new waves of Orthodox emigrants
from Eastern Europe settled in America.
Today,
there are Conservative communities both in Europe and in Israel (where they are
known as the Mesorati movement, i.e. the traditional movement, avoiding the
connotations connected with the Conservative movement), but the majority of
Conservative Jews live in the United States where they are the larges Jewish
denomination.
Reconstructionist Judaism
The
Reconstructionist denomination of Judaism is an outgrowth of the thought and
activities of rabbi Mordechai Kaplen. In 1922 Kaplen, who taught in the Conservative rabbinical school (the
Jewish Theological Seminary), established a synagogue in New York where he
tried to reconstruct Judaism in order to make it meaningful to American Jews of
the twentieth century. Kaplen
rejected the notion of the law being revealed at Mt. Sinai and that of the
people of Israel as being chosen by God above all others. He saw 'Judaism as a civilization' as
he called his book published in 1934. Judaism, therefore, encompasses all aspects of life, but is not
necessarily better than other civilizations.
"Kaplan saw no need to start a separate
movement to achieve his goals. His goal was to create a unified American
Judaism without denominational factionalism. However, it became clear to his
followers that, if Kaplan's visions were to be realized, a separate movement
was needed. In 1940, the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation (JRF) was
established to support the works that promoted the Reconstructionist
program. In 1954, the SAJ joined with three other synagogues to form to
Reconstructionist Federation of Congregations as the synagogue arm of the
foundation. The organization grew at a gradual pace throughout the 1960s and
1970s under the leadership of Ira Eisenstein and Rabbi Ludwig Nadelmann. It
then doubled in size in the 1980s under the direction of Rabbi David Teutsch.
"In 1968, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College was founded in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, with Eisenstein as its first
president. The decision to found the college can clearly be seen as a move by
Eisenstein and other Reconstructionist leaders to officially "found" a fourth
alternative in American Jewish life.
"The movement has been in the leadership on
Jewish identity issues. It pioneered the adoption of patrilineal descent and
warmly welcomes intermarried couples. The College officially announced in 1984
that it would admit qualified students who are open about their gay or lesbian
sexual orientation, and this position was subsequently adopted by the Reconstructionist
Federation of Congregations and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association,
which was founded in 1974.
"The movement has always been at the forefront
of the movement for
the equality of
women in Judaism. Kaplan's daughter Judith had the first bat mitzvah in America
(in 1922), and Kaplan firmly believed that "The Jewish woman must demand the
equality due her as a right to which she is fully entitled." One of the first
graduates of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College was Sandy Eisenberg Sasso,
who achieved rabbinic ordination in 1974."[myjewishlearning]
Today, the
movement is the forth largest Jewish denomination in the United States.
Kosher
Kosher is a
Hebrew word literally meaning 'fit' or 'proper'. Used in Hebrew and other Jewish languages to mean 'fit in
accordance to Jewish Law', mainly in relation to food and it is in this last
way that it is usually used in English (i.e. food is said to be kosher when it
is fit to be eaten according to Jewish Law see below). It is also used in
other contexts of Jewish Law. For
instance a person may be said to be kosher if they are of proper Jewish linage
or conversion, since they are then 'fit' for Jewish marriage. Kosher has also come to mean legal,
trusted (and therefore good), acceptable or proper in a general sense. In
English, it is used in this way mainly humorously.
Kosher
Food
Kosher Food Food that Jews are allowed to eat according to
Jewish Law.
According
to Jewish law all plants are Kosher, but only certain animals are, and even
those must be prepared appropriately. The Bible states that after Noah got out of the arc he was allowed to
eat animals except for their blood, evidently implying that before he saved the
animal life of the world, it was forbidden to eat animals altogether. Later on, the biblical text gives more
detailed instructions on what animals may be eaten: Fish may be eaten if they have fins and scales; Animals that
have split hoofs and chew their cud may be eaten cows, sheep, etc; Insects
that have six legs and jump are deemed kosher e.g. grasshoppers. Birds that may not be eaten are,
likewise, listed mainly birds of prey; All other animals are deemed
non-kosher including other insects and seafood. In addition to the prohibition
on eating blood, the bible prohibits certain types of fat (helev) and other
specific things such as cooking a calf in its mother's milk.
According
to the rabbis, animals the Bible considers permissible must be slaughtered and
treated in a specific way in order to be kosher. Thus for example, the animal
must be slaughtered using a sharp non-serrated knife, by a single slice at the
throat; the meat must be salted in a special way in order to insure no blood is
left in it etc. In addition
the rabbis interpreted the biblical law about cooking a calf in its mothers
milk to mean that milk and meat were not to be eaten together. Although fowl was not considered by all
to be included in this biblical prohibition, the rabbis band its mixture with
milk as well.
It is
common Orthodox practice to keep separate sets of dishes and cooking ware for
meat and milk products, and to wait as many as six hours between eating meat
and milk. In some circles it is
customary to have separate sinks and even ovens for preparing meat and milk. In the modern age, supervision over the
production of kosher food has become institutionalized, and in places heavily
populated by observant Jews, kosher certificates have been known to be crucial
for the success of a business.
Keeping
kosher has been a symbol of being Jewish at least since the Hellenistic age, and
has had obvious social implications. The rabbis band certain non-Jewish products such as wine -- suspected of
being used for idol worship -- cheese, oil, and vinegar. On occasion these
prohibitions have been explicitly explained as a means of keeping Jews from
socializing with non-Jews. It is
among other reasons, on these grounds that the Reform movement, in Germany and
in the United States, rejected the laws of kashrut altogether in the second
half of the 19th century.
Pigs are a
symbol of non-kosher food since they have split hoofs, but do not chew their
cud and seafood has also come to symbolize non-kosher food.
Halakhah - Jewish Law
"Halakha (halakhah, halacha, halachah)
is a Hebrew word, commonly used to refer to the collective corpus of Jewish
law, custom and tradition. It comes from the Hebrew root word for
"going". A literal translation does not yield the word
"law"; rather it translates as "the way to go."
"Halakha
is based on the commandments in the Torah (five books of Moses) as viewed
through the discussions and debates contained in the classical rabbinic
literature, especially the Mishnah and the Talmud. Jews refer to the Torah as The
Written Law, and the Mishnah and Talmud as the oral law.
Unlike
secular precedent based systems, halakha is a religious system, whose
axiom is that Jewish law represents the will of God. Most Orthodox Jews, hold
that halakha represents the actual will of God, either directly, or as
closely to directly as possible. If the laws in Jewish law codes are not the
word of God per se, they are nonetheless derived from the literal word of God
in the Torah, using a set of rules also revealed by God to Moses on Mount
Sinai, and have been derived with the utmost accuracy and care. In this world
view, one's ancestors are closer to the divine revelation and the later
Mishnaic and Talmudic rabbis; as such, the corollary is that one must be
extremely conservative changing or adapting Jewish law. This view is found in
all branches of Orthodox Judaism, and in the right-wing of Conservative
Judaism.
"Other
religious Jews equally hold that while God is real, for theological reasons
they hold that the Torah is not the word of God in a literal sense. However, in
this view the Torah is still held as mankind's record of its understanding of
God's revelation, and thus still has divine authority. In this view,
traditional Jewish law is still seen as binding. Jews who hold by this view
generally try to use modern methods of historical study to learn how Jewish law
has changed over time, and are more willing to change Jewish law in the
present. This view is found within Conservative Judaism, and within the left
wing of Orthodoxy. "
[From Wikipedia]
Halakhah is
usually used to mean Jewish law - including the law derived from the bible,
Talmudic traditions, customs, responsa literature, etc. - and excluding
thought, lore and dogma not directly related to practice. The word Halakhah comes form the Hebrew
root δ.μ.λ., meaning 'going' or
'walking', and presumably implies that Jewish law is the way in which one
should walk, Gods' way, or perhaps the way of His people. It should be noted, however, that
Halakhah is also used sometimes to refer to a certain part of the law e.g.
law handed down by tradition as apposed to law adduced directly from the Bible,
or a specific law.
Biblical
Law
A central
theme in the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, is that of God commanding
people, and particularly the people of Israel, to behave in certain ways. This theme is in fact so central to the
Hebrew name for the five books is Torah, (from the Hebrew root δ.ψ.δ. or ι.ψ.δ.)
meaning instruction. This comes
across in the first chapters of the bible, when God commands Adam and Eve not
to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and in subsequent stories of
Genesis, but name 'Torah' is most fitting for the laws God gave Moses. According to the Pentateuch, God
instructed His people how to behave in great detail from the time of the Exodus
from Egypt, and right up until Moses' death. In a large number of passages, the Torah emphasizes that
Moses was conveying the very words of God, and it likewise stresses that at Mt.
Sinai He appeared himself in order to instruct them directly.
The
biblical law deals with a wide array of topics, including the tabernacle and
its rituals and priests, holidays, diet, sexual relations, purity, torts,
penalties, and more. It is not,
however organized as a single codex of law, but rather as many distinct groups
of law, that relate to the biblical story line to varying degrees. As researchers
have pointed out, the various laws do not always fit together neatly. It is not uncommon for the various
groups of laws to overlap and contradict each other, and it is often the case
that stories of the prophets or their prophecies say things that contradict the
laws in the Pentateuch. Researchers
have likewise noted, that the comparison of biblical laws to those of other
ancient near eastern civilizations yields quite a few similarities. Different parts of the bible,
presumably coming from different times, and written by people from different
social strata, are not always in complete harmony with one other.
There is no
abundance of evidence about how the biblical law was applied over the
generations until the end of the second temple period (destroyed 70 CE). It seems that since the Hasmonean
period or so, the biblical cannon became an issue and so did the question of
what was to be considered binding law. The Pharisees claimed that beyond the written bible, that including most
if not all the bible canonized by Judaism today, there was an authoritative
oral tradition that was not to be committed to writing. The Samaritans claimed
that only the five books of Moses where to be canonized and, worshiping in
their temple in Mt. Gerizim, in stead of that in Jerusalem, they certainly did
not recognize the Pharisees' oral tradition. While accepting the Pharisee canon, the Seduces probably
rejected the Pharisee authority altogether. It is quite plain from the writings of the Qumran sect
(whether they are indeed the Eseeans or not), not only that they had different
versions of the bible and that they had additional books included in their
canon (and perhaps one missing), but that they disagreed on quite a few points
of law with the Pharisees and that they did write down their interpretation of
the law. Philo's
writing also make it clear that the Jews of the Hellenistic Diaspora also had
different traditions than those of the Pharisees. (It would seem that in this regard Jesus' remarks about the
law where not far from those made by various Jewish sects - and even by the
Pharisees themselves).
After the
destruction of the Temple, the rabbis, who saw themselves as successors of the
Pharisees, were those who ended up defining Judaism. It is they who first coined the term Halakhah. They held that together with the
written law, God gave Moses an oral law that explained how to interpret and
apply the written law. This meant
that the law could be viewed as being composed of several different parts: The law written in the bible, the law
that stemmed from the interpretation handed down by tradition or according to
the rules of interpretation handed down by tradition, and the laws handed down
by tradition that were independent of the written word of the bible. In addition the rabbis were authorized
to 'put a fence' around the torah -- in other words to institute prohibitions
and obligations as they deemed necessary.
Articles:
- http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/Gruss/katz.html -
Jacob Katz, "DA'AT TORA - The Unqualified Authority Claimed for
Halachists" (1994), from Harvard Law School, the Gruss lectures.
- http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/Gruss/stone.html -
Suzanne Last Stone "The Emergence of Jewish Law in Postmodernist Legal
Theory" (1994), from Harvard Law School, the Gruss lectures.
- http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/Gruss/frymer.html -
Tikva Frymer-Kensky," The Feminist Challenge to Halakhahh", from
Harvard Law School, the Gruss lectures.
- http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/Gruss/falk.html -
Ze'ev W. Falk "Jewish Religious Law in the Modern (and Postmodern)
World", (1994), from Harvard Law School, the Gruss lectures.
- http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/Gruss/halbert.html -
Moshe Halbertal, " The History of Halakhahh, Views from Within: Three
Medieval Approaches to Tradition and Controversy", (1994), from Harvard
Law School, the Gruss lectures.
- http://www.jlaw.com/About/
Mishnah
The Mishna
is the first collection of the Jewish oral legal tradition. Although the Mishnah assumes knowledge
of the Jewish bible, it is not arranged according to the order of the
Pentateuch (as are the Midrashei Halakhah that deal with much of the same legal
tradition, and were composed at about the same time), and references to the
bible are rare. Instead, the
Mishnah is arranged according to topic. It is divided into six larger portions,
called sedarim: 1. Zeraim (seeds)
- laws pertaining to agricultural produce; 2. Moed (Holiday) ritual law of the holidays; 3. Neziqim (torts) - civil law; 4. Nashim (women) laws of marriage divorce and related
rituals; 4. Kodashim (Holy Things)
laws of the sacrifices; And Taharot
(Pure Things) - laws of ritual impurity. The sedarim are sub-divided into an average of ten tractates a seder,
totaling sixty.
The Mishnah
quotes sages that lived as far back as the beginning of the Hellenistic era,
and on occasion even attributes laws to biblical figures or to Moses'
revelation at mount Sinai, but most of the rabbis that appear in the Mishnah,
lived in the first and second centuries C.E. According to tradition, although writing the oral law was
prohibited, at around the year 200 C.E. rabbi Judah the Prince felt that if the
great many traditions that had been transmitted down through the ages, would
not be collected, they would be lost. The Mishnah is thus a compilation of various traditions that had already
been transmitted and even edited to a certain extent.
The
Babylonian Talmud, also known as Gemara both words derived from the word
teaching (in Hebrew and Aramaic) -- is the Babylonian compilation of the
rabbis' studies of the Mishnah, between the third and the sixth centuries
C.E. Written in a mixture of
Babylonian Aramaic and Hebrew, the Talmud includes not only matters of law, but
also other Jewish tradition and lore.
Beginning
with its redaction, the Mishnah became the focal point of the rabbis'
learning. It was studied by heart,
and the rabbis of Babylon and Israel explained it, and expounded upon it, in
several different ways. They
sought to understand its words, its syntax and ideas, and its biblical sources.
Ultimately the rabbis came to treat the text of the Mishnah as almost
infallible, and required an explanation even for its choice of words and their
order. The Talmud includes not
only lengthy, in depth discussions of the logic behind the Mishnah's laws, but also
attempts to explain its relationship with other oral traditions. The general
tendency of of the Talmud is to see the views held by rabbis of different
generations and conflicting traditions as harmoniously as possible.
The
Babylonian Talmud only covers thirty-seven out of the sixty tractates of the
Mishnah. It seems that in Babylonia two out of the six sedarim of the Mishnah
where not accorded full attention. These include the tractates that deal with the laws of agriculture
that were practiced only in the Land of Israel, and those that deal with 'pure
things' -- in other words with sacrifices these too were not practiced in
Babylon (or anywhere for that matter, since the destruction of the
temple).
"The distinctive character of the Talmud
derives largely from its intricate use of argumentation and debate. Some of
these debates were actually conducted by the Amora'im, though most of
them are hypothetically reconstructed by the Talmud's redactors ("This is
what Rabbi X could have argued...") As in the Mishnah, the Amora'ic
Rabbis encouraged multiple opinions and interpretations. Whereas the Mishnah
usually limits itself to a brief statement of the conflicting views, the Talmud
tries to verify the integrity of the positions of the Tanna'im and the Amora'im.
Prooftexts are quoted to corroborate or disprove the respective opinions.
The process of deduction required to derive a
conclusion from a prooftext is often logically complex and indirect. Every
effort is made to uphold the correctness (i.e., the logical consistency) of the
opinions ascribed to the Rabbis, though this often requires forced and
unconvincing interpretations of the evidence." [ucalgary]
The word Midrash
may refer to: 1) the non legal
Jewish tradition in general, 2) a specific story or or other piece of knowledge
from that tradition, 3) more narrowly, the act of extracting knowledge from the
Torah, or 4) specific books of rabbinic literature that are mainly occupied
with that act.
"Midrash is
an interpretive act, seeking the answers to religious questions (both practical
and theological) by plumbing the meaning of the words of the Torah. (In the
Bible, the root d-r-sh is used to mean inquiring into any matter, including
occasionally to seek out God's word.) Midrash responds to contemporary problems
and crafts new stories, making connections between new Jewish realities and the
unchanging biblical text.
"Midrash
falls into two categories. When
the subject is law and religious practice (halakhah), it is called midrash
halakhah. Midrash aggadah, on the other hand, interprets biblical narrative,
exploring questions of ethics or theology, or creating homilies and parables
based on the text. (Aggadah means"telling"; any midrash which is not
halakhic falls into this category.)" [from My Jewish Learning]
Rabbi
A Rabbi is
a Jewish religious leader and/or teacher of Judaism. Although technically a scholar and an ordained expert in Jewish law, the Rabbi is expected not only to be able to
decide on issues of religious law, but to be a leading figure in the community;
a spiritual consultant and
guide and perhaps above all a
teacher of Judaism. The term rabbi commonly refers to
the spiritual leader of a Jewish synagogue. The rabbi may,
but is not necessaraly required to conduct prayer services and deliver
sermons; He is the person to whom
Jews turn for answers to questions about Jewish laws and religious matters.
The term
evidently emerged from the Aramaic word for master, around the first century
C.E., when the relationship between the religious teacher and his disciples was
likened to that of master apprentice.
According
to tradition, before his death, Moses laid his hands on Joshua and in so doing
gave him not only the authority to lead the Israelites into the Land of Israel,
but also to rule on all matters of Jewish Law. Joshua passed this authority on to his students, and they in
turn passed it on to their successors. According to tradition, the term rabbi was originally used to describe
people from this line of ordination. The full rabbinic authority, however, was only granted in the land of
Israel, and the sages who lived in Babylonia even when it became the center
of Judaism - had only limited
power of jurisdiction and where known not as 'Rabbi', but as 'Rav'. (Contrary
to common belief, it seems the two terms are from different dialects of
Aramaic, and that linguistically there is no difference them).
By the time
of the Geonim (and probably a lot earlier), the line of ordination in Israel
had been discontinued as well, and the term rabbi became synonymous for
rav. Thus the rabbi of today, like
the rav of earlier generations, is not a direct link in the chain of ordination
passed down from Moses. According to tradition, a student may not rule on any
matter of religious law without his teachers' permission. One who has been
tested on certain segments of Jewish law, and has won his 'masters' approval,
receives permission to rule on religious matters by being ordained as
rabbi.
Over the
generations rabbis have filled various social functions. Rabbis have been political leaders,
spiritual leaders, religious judges, civil judges, and of course heads and
teachers of rabbinic institutions of study. Today, the rabbi's most common tasks are teaching and
providing spiritual leadership and guidance for the community.
Until
recent years only men were ordained as rabbis. During the last century non-Orthodox denominations have
begun ordaining woman. The Reform
movement has begun ordaining gay and lesbian rabbis, and the Conservative
movement has been debating this issue in recent years.
Chief Rabbi
Chief
Rabbi is an official position of state, held by the highest rabbinic authority
of the land. Originally
established by the non-Jewish authorities in order to 'deal' with the Jewish
community, the position of chief rabbi not only continues to exist in western
states such as England, but was also adopted by the state of Israel. The chief rabbi can be consulted on
state matters that concern Jewish religion and may have various official tasks
and authority.
In
Israel there are two chief rabbis, one Ashkenazic rabbi and one Sephardic rabbi
(known as the Rishon le-Zion), who are appointed or reappointed every four
years. In addition to being the
highest authority on matters of Jewish law that concern the state, the Israeli
chief rabbis head the high religious court and the Rabbi's Council, they are
responsible for certifying rabbis for special duties (such as city rabbi or
rabbinic Judge), and for supervising and certifying kosher food. Although many religious Jews hold
the chief rabbis in high esteem, not all consider them the highest religious
authority. Since they hold an
official position with the state, many consider their authority limited to
matters of state, and some, especially those that do not recognize the state's
legitimacy, view them as lacking any religious authority whatsoever.
Responsa
She'elot u'teshuvot, known also by the acronym
'shut', are the written decisions and rulings given by eminent rabbis,
teachers, or heads of academies to questions addressed to them in writing over
the ages. While commentaries are
devoted solely to the exegesis and hermeneutics of the Bible, the Mishnah, the
Talmud, and the other codes or Jewish law, and while the codes themselves and
the writings of the casuists contain the rules and regulations for all ordinary
incidents of life, the responsa were for the most part practical in nature,
concerned with specific new contingencies for which no provision had been made
in the codes.
Practical
questions regarding Jewish law were always communicated to the academy by a
teacher, who transmitted the answer and the decision by word of mouth, but it
is doubtful whether any were written until the end of the Tannaitic period,
since the custom which then prevailed was that no Halakhot should be written at
all. The responsa evidenced in the Talmudic literature, are characterized by
pregnant brevity and rigid restriction to their subject-matter. The first works devoted especially to
responsa appear in the post-Talmudic period. Many responsa have been lost, but
those that are extant number hundreds of thousands, and rabbis continually
produce them to this day.
The ruling
in the responsa was not a mere "yes" or "no,"
"permitted" or "forbidden," "right" or
"wrong". Much of the
responsa began with a lengthy poetic introductory formula stating that the
question had been received and considered. The body of the responsa generally
included at least a passage from the Talmud in support or proof of the decision
and usually several. Scholars who
wrote the responsa would try to controvert any possible opposition on the basis
of some other Talmudic passage by a refutation of it and a correct exegesis of
the section of the Talmud in question. In addition the scholars would site the
rulings of previous generations analyzing them and explaining how they
supported the ruling, or less often -- why they were mistaken. Many of the responsa end with a
blessing for those who asked the question. Most of the responsa was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Arabic. In the older rulings
systematic sequence was almost entirely lacking, but the responsa of the new
period had as models the "Arba' Turim" of Jacob b. Asher and, after
the sixteenth century, the "Shulhan 'Aruk" of Joseph Caro, so that
many of the responsa were arranged according to these two works, while among
the later scholars this practice became the rule.
The responsa
literature was by no means restricted to problems of legalism or ritualism, on
occasion it referred to all departments of human life and knowledge, treating
of liturgical, theological, philosophical, exegetic, lexicographical,
archeological, and historical questions; and they likewise contain abundant
material for a study of the conditions of the times in which they were written,
and for the culture-history and the commercial relations of the Jews, as well
as for a knowledge of the manners and customs then prevailing in Judaism.
During the
entire geonic period, the Babylonian schools were the chief centers of Jewish
learning, and the Geonim, the heads of these schools, were recognized as the
highest authorities in Talmudic matters. Even in the most distant lands the
Jews looked upon these academies and their heads as once their ancestors had
regarded the high court of the "Bet Din ha-Gadol," which had been
reverenced as the one place whence came valid instruction and whence rulings
might be drawn. Despite the tremendous difficulties that hampered the irregular
communications of the period, the Jews who lived even in most distant countries
sent their inquiries concerning religion and law to these high officials in
Babylonia. In the latter centuries of the geonic period, from the middle of the
tenth to the middle of the eleventh, their supremacy suffered in proportion as
the study of the Talmud received fostering care in other lands. The inhabitants
of these regions gradually began to submit their doubts to the teachers and
heads of the schools of their own countries, and soon, in view of the attendant
expense and difficulty, entirely ceased despatching their questions to the seat
of the Geonim, so that during this period responsa of eminent rabbis of other
lands appeared side by side with geonic rulings.
[Heavily
based on Jewish Encyclopedia see link below]
Shulhan
Arukh
The Shulhan Arukh, by
Rabbi Joseph Caro, first printed in 1564, together with the comments made by
Moses Isserliss, in his "mappa", became the codex of Jewish
Law for both Ashkenazim and Sefaradim -- as it still is for Orthodox Judaism to
this day. The book is actually a
summery of a much longer commentary, named Bet Yoseph, that Caro wrote on Rabbi
Yaakov Ben Asher's Arba'ah Turim. Following the order of the Arba'ah Turim, the Shulhan
Arukh deals with all of Jewish law that is applicable after the
destruction of the temple, and is divided into four parts: A. Orah
Hayyim, Path of Life, that deals with worship and ritual observance in the
home and synagogue, through the course of the day, the weekly sabbath and the
festival cycle. B. Yoreh De'ah, Teacher of
Knowledge, which deals with assorted ritual prohibitions, especially dietary
laws and regulations concerning menstrual impurity. C. Even Ha-'Ezer, Rock of Helpmate,
which deals with marriage, divorce and other issues in family law. D. Hoshen Mishpat, Breastplate of Judgment, which deals
with the administration and adjudication of civil law. The book came to be viewed as a symbol
of Halakhic Judaism and Jewish Legal thinking, and as such was both held in
great veneration by traditional Jews, and also came under attack by those who
apposed Halakhah and even by anti-Semites.
""Bet Yosef"
marked Caro as one of the greatest Talmudists of all times. He began the book
in 1522 at Adrianople, finished it in 1542 at Safed, and published it in
1550-59. In form it is a commentary upon Jacob b. Asher's "Arba' Turim";
but it is really much more comprehensive, going back to the Talmudim and
halakic Midrashim, discussing the pros and cons of the authorities cited by the
"Tur," and examining the opinions of the authorities not mentioned by
the latter. In addition, Caro included in "Bet Yosef" the immense
material of post-Talmudic literature".
"In the introduction to his monumental compilation, Caro clearly states the necessity of
and his reasons for undertaking such a work. The expulsion of the Jews from the
Pyrenean peninsula and the invention of printing endangered the stability of
religious observances on their legal and ritual sides. In Spain and Portugal
questions were generally decided by the "customs of the country"; the
different districts had their standard authorities to which they appealed in
doubtful cases. The most prominent of these were Maimonides, Nahmanides, and
Asher b. Jehiel. When the Spanish-Portuguese exiles came to the various
communities in the East and West, where usages entirely different from those to
which they had been accustomed prevailed, the question naturally arose whether
the newcomers, the majority of whom were men of greater learning than the
members of the invaded communities, should be ruled by the latter, or vice
versa. The increase of printed books, moreover, spread broadcast the products
of halakic literature; so that many half-educated persons, finding themselves
in possession of legal treatises, felt justified in following any ancient
authority at will. Caro undertook his "Bet Yosef" to
remedy this evil, quoting and critically examining in his book the opinions of
all the authorities then known." Ultimately, "Caro took
Alfasi, Maimonides, and Asher b. Jehiel as his standards; accepting as
authoritative the opinion of two of the three."
"Immediately upon the appearance of Caro's
Bet Yosef, Isserles wrote his Darke Mosheh,
a moderately expressed but very severe criticism of Caro's great work. In place of Caro's
three standard authorities, Isserles brings forward the ("the
later authorities"), together with the Franco-German Tosafists as criteria
of opinion ("Darke Mosheh" to Yoreh De'ah, 35). The importance of the
Minhag ("prevailing local custom") is also a point of dispute between Caro and Isserles: while the former held fast
to original authorities and material reasons, the latter considered the minhag
as an object of great importance, and not to be omitted in a codex. This point,
especially, induced Isserles to write his glosses to the Shulhan 'Aruhk, that
the customs (minhagim) of the Ashkenazim might be recognized, and not be set
aside through Caro's
reputation."
"Caro wrote the Shulhan 'Aruk for the benefit
of those who did not possess the education necessary to understand the
"Bet Yosef." The arrangement of this work is the same as that adopted
by Jacob b. Asher in his "Arba'ah Turim," but more concise; nor are
any authorities given. This book, which for centuries was, and in part still
is, "the code" of rabbinical Judaism for all ritual and legal
questions that obtained after the destruction of the Temple
The author himself
had no very high opinion of the work, remarking that he had written it chiefly
for "young
students," (Shulhan 'Arukh, Introduction). He never refers to it in his
responsa, but always to the "Bet Yosef." The Shulhan 'Aruhk, achieved
its reputation and popularity not only against the wishes of the author, but,
curiously enough, through the very scholars who attacked it
"
[Compiled mainly from the Jewish Encyclopedia and a
few lines from U. Calgary see links below]
Kabbalah
Kabbalah (also Qabbala, Cabala,
cabbala, cabbalah, kabala, kabalah,
kabbala) is the most central trend in Jewish mysticism and
is
often used to refer to
Jewish mysticism in general. The Hebrew word
Kabbalah (χαμδ) literaly means 'that which is received'
( i.e. tradition).
Originating in Provance and Northern Spain, the
Kabbalah is the medieval mystical tradition whose practitioners attempted to
understand, affect, and communicate with the divine. Sefer ha-Bahir, a book of
unknown authorship, is the most important early kabbalistic work. This book,
written in the form of traditional midrashim - rabbinic dialogues and
commentaries on the biblical text - introduces a revised theory of the sefirot,
the ten attributes of God first mentioned in Sefer Yetzirah. In
kabbalah, God as the Ein-Sof or "the Infinite" - cannot be comprehended by
humans. God can only be understood as He reveals himself in the sefirot.
The sefirot are dynamic; they interact with each other and can be
affected by humans. Indeed, much of the Kabbalah is an attempt to influence and
"fix" the sefirot.
The doctrine of the sefirot reached its
fullest articulation in the Zohar, a mystical commentary on the Torah. The Zohar
interprets the Torah symbolically in an attempt to extract secrets about the
divine realm. It is also
written in Aramaic and structured like a midrash, and its attribution to the
2nd-century sage Shimon bar Yohai was accepted in most traditional circles.
Scholars have refuted this claim categorically and believed the book to be the
work of the 13th-century Spanish Jewish mystic Moses de Leon, or as recent
scholars have suggested, the work of a group of mystics including Moses de
Leon.
Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem Tov (BeShT)
Rabbi Israel ben Elazar Ba'al Shem Tov (c. 1700-1760; hence referred to by his acronym - Besht) is known as the founder of Hasidism. The Besht himself wrote virtually nothing, and we know about him mainly through the writings of his disciples and from Hasidic tradition. Since tales about the Besht and his teachings (the main collection of tales is Shivhei ha-Besht, collections of his teachings include Keter Shem Tov and Tzavat ha-Rivash) were part of the shaping of Hasidism itself, it is very hard to tell what should actually be attributed to him and what really belongs to later generations or to the realm of myth. It has even been suggested that the Besht never existed. However this was never generally accepted, and was recently disproved conclusively, with the discovery of Polish government records of an Israel Balshem living in Medzibodz.
The Besht lived in city of Medziboz, in the province of Podolia, Southern Poland. Little can be said with certainty about his parents or teachers. He married the sister of Rabbi Gershon of Kitov - a copy of a letter to whom is probably the only written document we have that was actually written by the Besht. At the time, Jewish magical-religious medical men were known by the Hebrew title "Ba'al Shem" - meaning master of the (divine) and as the tales about him confirm, the Besht probably was such a practitioner of magical medicine. However, he must have been particularly charismatic, and his teachings were a lot broader than the average Ba'al Shem (perhaps 'Tov' - good - was added to his title in order to distinguish him from ordinary Ba'alei Shem), since it is around his character that Hasidism took shape.
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein
Moshe Feinstein
was born in Uzda, Belorussia in 1895. His father Rabbi David Feinstein was the grandson of Rabbi Abraham,
brother of the GRA and author of Beer Hagolah (a list of citations for the
Shulkhan Aruch that appear in what is considered the standard addition).
He studied with his father and with al local melamed until he was twelve when
he went to that yeshiva of rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer in Slutzk and studied
with rabbi Pesach Pruskin. Feinstein was first appointed rabbi at
Uzda in 1916 in order to avoid getting drafted, and became rabbi of Lublin
1921. He married Feige
Gittel, daughter of the Rabbi Yechiel of Kopolia, and they had three children before they moved to the United States. Once Feinstein arrived in New York
(1937) he joined -- and soon became head of -- a rabbinical school (Mesivta
Tiferes Yerushalaim).
Rabbi Feinstein, was known throughout the
Orthodox Jewish world as a great authority on Jewish Law. He wrote hundreds of responses to
questions of Jewish Law, many of them were collected in eight volumes titled
Igros Moshe. He also wrote
comments to several tractates of the Talmud. He died in 1986.
Rabbi
Solomon Bennett Freehof was born in London, 1892. and his parents moved to the
U.S in 1903, settling in Baltimore. "He graduated from the University of Cincinnati (1914) and a year later
was ordained at Hebrew Union College, whose faculty he then joined. After Serving as a chaplain with the
American forces in Europe during World War I, Freehof became professor of
liturgy at Hebrew Union College. In 1924 he became rabbi of Congregation Kehillath Anshe Maarav in
Chicago, and in 1934 he was appointed rabbi of Congregation Rodef Shalom in
Pittsburgh.
Freehof's
scholarly endeavors were largely in two fields. The first was Jewish liturgy. In 1930 he was appointed chairman of the Reform Committee on
Liturgy of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, whose work led to the
publication of the two volume Union Prayer Book (1940-45) and the Union
Home Prayer Book (1951), both of which stressed relevance to modern life
and the inclusion of contemporary material in the service. His second main interest was the
development of Jewish law as displayed in the literature of the responsa and
its bearing on modern Jewish practice. He was appointed head of the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference
of American Rabbis in 1955. " (Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol.7 p. 121).
Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits was Born in Koenigsberg,
Germany - now Kalingrad, Russia to the Orthodox rabbi of Koenigsberg. He
fleeing Nazi Germany he came to London in 1936, with his family, where he
enrolled in Yeshiva Etz Chaim and was eventually ordained. In the early 1950's
he moved to Ireland where he was appointed Chief Rabbi and married Amelie Munk,
herself the daughter of a prominent Rabbi (Elie Munk of Paris).
In 1957 he became the first rabbi of the Fifth
Avenue Synagogue, in New York a synagogue that came to be regarded as one of
the foremost Orthodox synagogues in America. In 1967, Rav Jakobovits was appointed Chief Rabbi of the
United Hebrew Congregations of Britain and the Commonwealth. In 1981, he was
knighted Sir Immanuel by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Rabbi Jakobovits was particularly interested in
Medical ethics. His Jewish Medical Ethics was the first book to both review the
diverse Jewish views and opinions of medical practice and stress the ethical
and universal dimensions embedded in the rulings. He also wrote extensively on
the application of traditional Jewish teachings vis-a-vis the importance of
self-reliance and personal moral responsibility in the wider modern world. It
was this contribution that led Margaret Thatcher in 1987 to recommend that the
Queen make him the first Chief Rabbi to be a member of the House of lords. It
is of particular interest to this site, that a center for the Study of Jewish
Medical Ethics was established under his name at Ben Gurion Medical. Rabbi Jakobovits died in 1999.
Rabbi Moshe ben Israel Isserles (1530-1572).
Born in Cracow, Isserles was the great grandson of Jehiel Luria, the first
Rabbi of Brisk. He studied in Lublin at the Shalom Shachna Yeshiva where he met
his first wife, Schachna's daughter. She died young, at the age of 20, and he
built the Isserles (later known as the Remu) Synagogue, in her memory. Isserles
remarried the sister of Joseph ben Morechai Gershon Ha-Kohen.
Isserles
founded a Yeshiva in Cracow. He became a world-renowned scholar, and was
approached by many other well-known rabbis for Halachic decisions, including Joseph Caro, Solom Luria and
Joseph Katz. One of his most well-known commentaries was the Mappa (the
Tablecloth), a commentary on the Shulhan Arukh,
written by Joseph Caro. The Shulhan
Arukh focuses mainly on Sephardic rite and customs, while the Mappa
emphasizes Ashkenazic customs, henceforth expanding the influence of the work
to Eastern European Jewry.
Not only was
Isserles well versed in Talmud, he also studied Kabbalah and Jewish mystical writings, as well as
history, astronomy and Greek philosophy. Isserles is considered one of the
forerunners of the Jewish enlightenment.
Isserles died
in Cracow and was buried next to his synagogue. Thousands of pilgrims visited
his grave annually on Lag b'Omer, until the Second
World War.
Rabbi Joseph ben Ephraim Karo was born in Spain or
Portugal in 1488 and after being expelled from Portugal in 1497 (and perhaps
from Spain as well in 1492), he moved to Turky. He studied first with his father who died when Joseph was
still young, and later with his uncle Issac.
While in
Turkey, he was in contact with several kabbalists, including Shlomo Molcho,
Shlomo Alkabetz and Joseph Taitazak.
After a short stay in Egypt he moved to Safed,
where he met Rabbi Jacob Berab. Berab was trying to renew the institution of ordination that had been
discontinued hundreds of years earlier and he bestowed the honor on Karo. In Safed Karo headed a Yeshiva of some
two hundred students and sat at the head of the communal council.
He is remembered most, however for his code of
Jewish Law the 'Shulkhan Aruch'. He died in Safed in 1575.
Maimonides -
Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon
Rabbi Moshe
ben Maimon (known by his Latin epithet, Maimonides, or in Hebrew by his acronym
Rambam) was a rabbi, commentator, physician, philosopher, and political leader,
and certainly one of the most influential, if not the most influential
Jewish figure of the Middle Ages. He was born in Cordova, Spain, in 1135 or 1138 to a prominent family,
his father, Rabbi Maimon, being a learned and respected dayan (judge) of
the affluent Cordova community. In
1148, the family fled their home for fear of the Almohades, a radical
Moslem faction then invading Spain that offered non-Moslems the choice between
conversion and death. The family
traveled throughout Christian Spain before finally settling in Fez,
Morocco in 1160. It was there that
Maimonides first learned medicine and where his father, Maimon, wrote his Iggeret
ha-Nechamah (mistakenly attributed to Maimonides), encouraging the Jews that
were forced to convert to Islam to retain their Jewish identity. In 1165 the family fled again, this time to
the Land of Israel, but living conditions there were extremely poor, and
shortly thereafter they settled in Fostat (ancient Cairo), Egypt.
For a while, Maimonides' younger brother, David,
who was a merchant, supported him while he studied and wrote. But this arrangement did not last. In
1173, David's ship sank in the Indian Ocean, drowning him and much of the
family fortune. Subsequently, Maimonides had to care for his brother's family
as well as his own. He began
making his living as a doctor.
By the time
Maimonides had to stop devoting all his time to his studies, he was already an
accomplished scholar. At age
seventeen he had already written his Milot Higayon a treatise
summarizing Aristotelian philosophy. By thirty he had completed his first major work his
Commentary on the Mishnah. This work, offering both close textual analysis of
the Mishnah and broader conceptual analysis, is both an excellent introduction
to the Talmud, and a summary of the Talmud's legal positions. Within the Commentary are several important
introductions, some of which could be considered independent monographs. The
general introduction is a doctrinal analysis of the Oral Tradition, focusing on
revelation, the transmission of Jewish law and its ongoing interpretation. The
introduction to Perek Helek provides a rationalist explanation for the "world
to come" (identifying it with the immortality of the soul) and acts as a
platform for Maimonides to propound his Thirteen Principles, a dogmatic
philosophical creed. The Eight Chapters, Maimonides' commentary to Tractate
Avot, reveals his approach to ethics, a variant of Aristotle's golden mean.
These introductions are still quite popular today.
Eventually
Maimonides became a doctor in the newly established Cairo court of the
Fattamide sultan Saladin, and at the same time the political leader of the
Jewish community in Egypt. When
Samuel Ibn Tibbon, the translator of his book Guide for the Perplexed, wrote
him asking whether he should come visit in order to clarify some matters of
translation, Maimonides discouraged him, giving the following description of
his daily routine:
Do not
expect to be able to confer with me on any scientific subject, for even one
hour, either by day or by night, for the following is my daily occupation: I
dwell at Misr [Fostat] and the Sultan resides at Kahira [Cairo.] These two
places are [about one mile and a half] distant from each other. My duties to the Sultan are very
heavy. I am obliged to visit him
every day, early in the morning; and when he or any of his children, or any of
the inmates of his harem is indisposed, I dare not quit Kahira, but must stay
during the greater part of the day in the palace. It also frequently happens that one or two of the royal
officers fall sick, and I must attend to their healing. Hence, as a rule, I repair to Kahira
very early in the day, and if nothing unusual happens, I do not return to Misr
until the afternoon. Then I am
almost dying with hunger. I find
the antechamber filled with people, Jews and Gentiles, nobles and common
people, judges and bailiffs, friends and foes a mixed multitude, who await
the time of my return.
I dismount
from my animal, wash my hands, go forth to my patients, and entreat them to
bear with me while I partake of some slight refreshment, the only meal I take
in the twenty-four hours. Then I
attend my patients, write prescriptions for their various ailments. Patients go
in and out until nightfall, and sometimes even, I solemnly assure you, until
two hours and more in the night. I
converse and prescribe for them while lying down from sheer fatigue, and when
night falls, I am so exhausted that I can scarcely speak.
Amazingly, while functioning both as harried court
doctor and political leader, Maimonides still found time to write some of the
most significant works ever written in Jewish history. His Mishneh Torah (also known as ha-Yad
ha-Hazakah) is a revolutionary fourteen volume legal codex in which Maimonides
reorganized, summarized, and ruled on virtually every topic of Jewish Law. The Mishneh Torah is remarkable for its
scope, its brevity, its systematization of laws into logical categories, and
for the fact that it is written in Hebrew. (Often, legal conclusions culled from the Talmud are
translated literally from Aramaic into Hebrew.) Maimonides proclaimed that in
order to learn the requirements of Jewish law, all that was necessary was to
read the Bible, and then read his book it could take the place of the
Talmudic literature and the writings of the Geonim (at least as far as the law
was concerned). The endeavor was immediately criticized for its
presumptuousness, but over the generations it was generally accepted, and to a
large extant it was the model for the Shulkhan Aruch the legal codex written
by Rabbi Yoseph Karo that would become accepted as the authoritative codex of
Jewish law.
Commentators began to deal with the Mishneh Torah
almost as soon as it was published. Rabbi Avraham ben David (known also as The RAVaD), Maimonides' elder
from Provence, wrote extremely critical comments on the work, which,
ironically, helped legitimize it, by sparking further criticism and defense of
the work. Numerous other
commentaries were written, including one by Karo.
Maimonides'
other great accomplishment was his Guide for the
Perplexed. Ostensibly written
in the form of letters to his student Yosef Aknin, the Guide comes to explain
Jewish tradition in terms of Aristotelian philosophy, thus attempting the
reconciliation of religious belief with rationalism.
Maimonides
apparently married twice. Of his first wife, who died in Egypt, we know very
little. He remarried, and in his older age, a son named Abraham (know by the
acronym RAabaM) was born, who would later become a prominent rabbi and
political leader of the Jewish community. Although Maimonides died when Abraham
was only 17, the son in his writings cites various interpretations and opinions
transmitted orally to him by his father. Ironically though, Abraham's thought is predominantly Sufi, a school of
religious thought that was foreign to his father.
It is said
that when Maimonides died in Egypt in 1204, Jews throughout the world mourned
his passing, and a public three-day mourning period was observed in Fostat.
Legend has it that his body was brought to Tiberias in the Land of Israel for
burial, and to this day, many visit the site thought to be his tomb.
The Guide
for the Perplexed, Moreh Hanevokhim in Hebrw or Dlalat al-Khaerin in the
original Arabic, is Maimonides' great philosophical
work. Ostensibly written in the
form of letters to his student Yosef Aknin, the Guide comes to explain Jewish
tradition in terms of Aristotelian philosophy, thus attempting the
reconciliation of religious belief with rationalism. Moving from topic to topic in a discursive manner
(where the train of thought is not always clear), Maimonides touches on the
philosophical issues of his day, while showing how the Bible addresses the very
same issues. The Guide attained a
great degree of prominence, and made an impact outside of the Jewish world of
thought as well as within it.
Nevertheless,
the Guide's rational explanation of Torah commandments coupled with its
allegorical explanation of many Biblical passages angered prominent rabbis,
mostly Ashkenazi rabbis who had little knowledge (or need) of Greek
philosophy. For them, Judaism was
based on revelation, and any attempt to ground the Torah in rational thought
was in-and-of-itself a heretical enterprise. A movement began in northern France to ban the study of the
Guide, which was met with great venom by the supporters of Maimonides in
southern France. The Maimonidean
controversy embroiled the Jewish community for some forty years, before matters
reached a head in 1232, twenty-eight years after Maimonides' death. In that year, the Dominicans in France
expropriated and publicly burned all the copies of the Guide that they could
find. After this shocking event, the controversy cooled, but it continued as
part of a larger controversy: whether Jews should be allowed to study the
sciences and secular subjects or whether they should be restricted to studying
only Jewish sources.
Biographies
Miscellaneous
- A manuscript
letter with Maimonides' signature.
-
Maimonides' Mishneh Torah an
image page by Eliezer Segal. The page explains the layout of the traditional addition and has an 'navigational aids'
for contents, page no. etc.
Bibliography
and Texts
Articles
Arguably the most important work in Jewish
mysticism, the Zohar sets forth a kabbalistic world-view, describing the
relationship between the Godhead and the various levels of existence. The Zohar
purports to be a record of discussions between the Talmudic Sages, who lived
between the second and fifth centuries BCE, in what is supposed to be the
Aramaic of their time, under the leadership of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai (2nd
Century BCE). However, scholars
agree that it was really written by Rabbi Moshe De Leon (1250-1305), or by a
circle of scholars associated with, him around the turn of the 13th
century.
The Book (as it is known in Hebrew: Sefer Ha-zohar i.e. The
Book of (the) Radiance, or Glory), is composed of quite a few treatises. The largest treatise, Zohar on
the Torah, is arranged as a midrashic commentary to the Pentateuch
(mainly covering Genesis through Laviticus) and the other treatises were either
inserted into this work or appended to it. Thus the part of the Zohar known as Midrash
ha-Ne'elam on the Torah parallels small parts of the Zohar on the
Torah, but includes shorter sayings by more Sages without describing any
interaction between them. Using a
mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, as apposed to the Aramaic of the Zohar, it deals
with only a limited number of kabblistic ideas -- such as creation, the soul,
the world to come and the end of the messiah -- while leaving out major topics
such as the secrets of the God Head and the Other Side. There are also similar treatises on the
scrolls of The Song of Songs, Ruth and known as Midrash ha-Ne'elam on
Shir ha-Shirim, Ruth and Eicha. Sifra de-Zniuta is a short enigmatic
treatise that touches upon most of the major central ideas of kabbalah, while
concentrating on the Secret of the God-Head. It does not mention any Sages and is not continuous with the
parts of the Zohar before or after it (neither at the end of Zohar Teruma, nor
according to the Krimona addition, where it is included in Parashat
Bereshit). The Idra
Rabba tells of congregating of 'the comrades' in which rabbi Shimon Bar
Yochai begins by explaining parts of the Sifera de-Zniuta and each 'comrade'
responds in tern, together explaining the secrete of the God-Head using the
imagery of the human body. The Idra
Zuta describes the last gathering of rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and his
disciples. Rabbi Shimon speaks at
length, mainly summarizing the ideas expressed in the Idra Rabba, and he passes
away in a state of elated spirit while speaking the word 'life'. The Idra Zuta is appended to the end of
Zohar Ha'azinu and also tells of Rabbi Shimons death and funeral.
Tikunei Ha-Zohar and Raya
Mehemana were composed slightly after other parts of the zohar,
probably by students of rabbi Moshe De Leon. Both books use similar terminology and deal with similar
topics; they are also both
organized in a less logical and more associative manner than the earlier parts
of the Zohar; the setting for both
is mainly the heavenly assembly, where rabbi Simon bar Yochai and his disciples
meet other-worldly spirits, such as Abraham Isaac and Jacob, Elijah, the
Messiah and especially Moses, the trustworthy shepherd.
Tikunei Ha-Zohar was published as a
separate book, composed of 'tikunim' that are more or less parallel to chapters
in this book. The Hebrew word
tikun (pl. tikunim), literally meaning mending or fixing, took on special
significance in the Zoharic literature referring to the mending of the world,
or worlds. Each tikun begins with
the first word of the Bible 'bereshit' (literally, at first) and expounds a few
verses from Genisis. includes
seventy 'tikunim' and a number of additional ones from a different
manuscript. A number of 'tikunim'
were also published in the Zohar Hadash.
Raya Mehemana, is a treatise
concerning the reasoning behind the commandments. In the printed additions, it has been inserted into the main
body of the Zohar, connected to the sequence of the verses of the bible, but as
attested by a few rare manuscripts, this was not its original form. Moses, the Raya Mehmana (i.e. 'loyal'
or 'trustworthy' shepherd) who received the commandments, plays a central role
in the treatise appearing to the rabbis and explaining the commandments.
-
http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/karr/zie.pdf
-- Don Karr, "Notes on the Zohar in English", Collected
Articles on Kabbalah, Vol. 1, pp. 21-28. This article is very useful
for the English reader. Besides a
short description of the Zohar, It includes references to articles and books
where parts of the Zohar are translated, a chart of the different parts of the
Zohar and where they can be found in English, and a general annotated English
bibliography of the Zohar.
- http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=142&letter=Z -- The entry for Zohar in the Jewish
Encyclopedia.
Rabbi Menahem Recanati
Rabbi Menahem ben Benymin Recanati was a Halakhist
and Kabbalist, who lived and was active in Italy, in the late 13th century
to the early 14th century. Virtually nothing is known of his life, but several of his writings
survive, including a number of Kabbalistic works -- Perush al ha-Tora, Perush Ta'amei
ha-Mitzvot, Perush ha-Tefillot -- and his halakhic work
-- Piskei Halakhot. Mattathias Delacrut and Mordechai jaffe both wrote commentaries on
Recanati's Perush al haTorah in the sixteenth century (Jaffe's
commentary is titled Beur Levush Even Yekarah). Moshe Idel has shown that it is likely
that Recanati also wrote a commentary on a small part of the Zohar.
Recanati used many different works, and many earlier
doctrines have survived only in his writings, but he does not always quote his
sources. He often uses Nahmanides,
Rabbi Ezra and also made reference to Jacob b. Sheshet Gerondi, Asher b. David,
Joseph Gikatilla, and Moshe b. Shem Tov de Leon. He was aware of two books written in his time about the
resons for the commandments, one by rabbi Joseph of Shushan (mistakenly
attributed to Itzkhak ibn Farkhi) and the other by an unknown author. He also used Keter Shem Tov, by Shem
Tov ibn Gaon, Sefer ha-Bahir and the Zohar.
Recanati was known in the Kabbalistic world for
maintaining that the Sefirot are not of the essence of God, but rather just
coverings and instruments of God. This opinion is expressed at length in his Taamei ha-Mitzvot,
and was referred to by many 16th century kabbalists who dealt with
the question of the essence of the Sefirot (e.g. Yitzkhak Mor Hayyim, Elhanan
Sagi Nahor, Shelomo Alkabetz and Moshe Cordevero), it was also quoted in full
by Judah Hayyat in his commentary to Maarekhet ha-Elohut.
[Encyclopedia Judaica vol. 13. p. 1608].
Rabbi Shem tov ibn-Shem Tov
"Rabbi Shem-Tov Ibn Shem-Tov (c. 1380- c. 1440,
Spanich kabbalist, and anti-Maimonidean polemicist. A witness to the persecutions and conversion movements of
the late 14th- and early 15th century Spain, Shem Tov
held Maimonidean Aristotelianism responsible for facilitating apostasy. In his Hebrew work Sefer
ha-Emunot [Ferrara, 1556] ( "Book of the Beliefs") he attacks Jewish
rationalists from Abraham ibn Ezra through Levi b. Gershom and Isaac Albalag,
but especially Maimonides." (Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 8, p. 1198)
According to Shem Tov, Maimonides thought that the
soul was non-substantial; that their is no providence accept through knowledge;
that only philosophers can achieve immortality by means of the intellect; that
the world has always existed and will never sees to exist; that miracles do not
exist; and that the miraculous
stories of the Torah were written for the multitudes. Shem Tov did not try to criticize Maimonidies on
philosophical grounds, nor did he offer a philosophical alternative to
Maimonides' views. Instead, he
argued for faith on the basis of faith alone. Shem-Tov didn't have many followers, and even his
interpretation of Maimonides was not accepted. Itzchak Alashkar wrote his Hassagot 'Al Mah She-Katab
R. Shem-Tob
Neged ha-RaMbaM (Ferrara, 1556) against Shem Tov's Sefer
ha-Emunot, claiming that Shem Tov attributed to Maimonides a doctrine
the latter did not hold. Shem
Tov's grandson, Shem-Tov ibn Yoseph Ibn Shem Tov, was a vigorous defender of
Maimonides, and his commentary on Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed
appears in most traditional additions. However, certain trends in the academic research on Maimonides parallel
Shem-Tov's interpretations quite closely.
Shem-Tov also wrote a book on the Sefirot and a
commentary on Avot. He is known in
the history of Kabbalah for holding that Keter is not a Sefirah, and that
therefore Hokhmah is the first Sefirah and Da'at is a separate Sefirah.
[Jewish Encyclopedia]
Rabbi Shim'on bar Yokhai
Rabbi Shimon bar Yokhai - Jewish sage of the beginning of the second century CE, from the land of Israel. Bar-Yokhai was a student of Rabbi Akiva, and is mentioned hundreds of times in Rabbinic literature. When a Rabbi by the name of Shimon is mentioned in rabbinic literature, without any further qualification (e.g. name of father), he is assumed to be Rabbi Shimon bar Yokhai. According to a Talmudic tradition (Sanhedrin 86a), the anonymous parts of Midrash Sifrei are the opinion of Bar-Yokhai, and one of the Midrashim is named after him: Mekhiltah Debei Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yokhai.
It seems that like his teacher, Rabbi Akiva, he was an ardent supporter of the Bar Kokhnva revolt. Legend has it that he was very outspoken against the Romans and that as a result had to flee with his son, Rabbi Elazar, to a secluded cave. There, the legend goes on to tell, they lived for thirteen years, studying the Torah and subsisting on water and carob fruit alone.
It is probably on account of this legend that Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yokhai was chosen as the central character of the Zohar (12th century), where he is described as a mystic of the highest degree. His grave was 'identified' by the Kabbalists of Zafed, in the 16th century, on mount Meron, and is frequented by thousands, to this day, on what is considered to be the day of his death - the 33rd day of the Omer.
Rabbi Meir Ibn Gabai
Rabbi Meir ben Ezekiel Ibn Gabbai was a Spanish
Kabbalist, born in 1480/1. Not
much is known about his life. He evidently lived in Turkey and died after 1543,
perhaps in the Land of Israel. He
wrote a number of books, including the following: 1. Tola'at
Ya'akov written in 1507, deals with prayer; 2. Derekh
Emunah written in 1539, essentially a question and answer book
regarding the Sefirot, based on Sha'ar ha-Sheol, by Azriel of
Gerona; 3. Avodat Hakodesh, written
between 1523 and 1531, deals with Kabbalah in general and is divided into four
parts -- a. concerning the unity of God; b. concerning the worship of God; c.
concerning man's purpose in the universe; d. concerning and the esoteric aspects of the Torah. This last book was widely used for
generations. It is the most comprehensive summary of the doctrines of Kabbalah
before the Kabbalah of Safed.
[Gershom Sholem's entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica
vol. 7, p. 233 and link below]
Rabbi Shlomo Alkavetz
Rabbi Shlomo Alkavetz son of Moshe the Levite was
born in Saloniki, around 1505, where grew up and studied with Rabbi Joseph
(Taitatzak?). After he was married
he decided to move to the Land of Israel and on his way, in Adriopolis, he met
Rabbi Joseph Karo. They both settled in Safed witch became the center of
kabbalah at the time. Alkavetz
married Rabbi Moses Cordevero's sister, and became Cordovero's teacher,
bringing him into the world of kabbalah. Later Cordevero became a renown kabbalist in his own right. Alkavetz wrote several books
including "Menot ha-Levi" about the Scroll of Ester, "Ayelet
Ahavim" about the Song of Songs, "Shoresh Yishai" about the
Scroll of Ruth, and "Berit ha-Levi" about the Haggadah of
Pasover. But he is known most for
his song "Lecha Dodi", that became part of the liturgy welcoming the
Sabbath in Jewish communities virtually all over the world. He died in Safed around 1555-1557.
Rabbi Moshe ben Yaakov Cordovero
Rabbi Moshe ben Yaakov Cordovero, otherwise known by
his acronym ReMaK, is known as the founder of the Cordoverian school of
Kabbalah. Born in 1522,
Cordovero's place of birth is not known, however judging by his name, his
family probably originated from Cordova, Spain. At any event, he lived in Safed, where he studied with Rabbi
Yosheph Caro and with Rabbi Moshe Alkavetz. Al-Kabetz married Cordevero's sister, and it was he who
brought Cordovero into the world of Kabbalah, and into the circle of Kabbalists
who were active in Safed at the time.
Like Rabbi Yoseph Caro -- who kept a journal of his
mystical experiences, called Magid Meisharim Cordevero too kept
a mystical journal, he called Sefer Gerushin. Codovero describes
the practice of Alkavtez and his students, who would act out the Galut of the
Shekhinah, by expelling themselves from their homes, and staying in the fields
and going to the graves of the righteous, where they would experience mystical
revelations. Cordovero quickly became an authority on Kabbalah and started a
system of his own (see bellow). He
became head of the yeshiva of the Portuguese Jews in Safed (perhaps his family,
who presumably came from Cordova, lived in Portugal after the expulsion from
spain). Among Cordevero's students
were R. Eliyahu de-Vidash, R. Abraham Gelanti and R. Hayyim Vital before he went to study with R. Yitzkhak
Luria. Luria himself studied
Cordevero's books and considered himself a student of Cordevero to some extent,
although he disagreed with him on many points and established a separate
school. Cordovero died in Safed (1570).
See Bracha Sack, The Kabbalah of Rabbi Moshe
Cordevero, Jerusalem, 1995 [Hebrew].
Rabbi Isaac Luria Ben Shelomo (Ha'ARI)
Rabbi Isaac Luria, know as Ha'ARI ha-Kadosh (HaARI,
Hebrew for the lion, stands for ha-Elohi (the Godly) Rabbi Issac, and ha-Kadosh
means the holy), was the founder of the Lurianic school of Kabbalah. Born in
Jerusalem (1534) to parents of the Ashkenazi descent, Luria moved to Cairo at a
young age, due to the death of his father, and grew up in Cairo where his
uncle, Mordecai Francis, lived. Being a tax-farmer, his uncle was able to send him to study under the
renown Rabbi Betzalel Ashkenazi. Luria was evidently very successful in his studies, and at age fifteen
he was married to his cousin. His uncle continued to support him and he devoted
himself completely to study. He is
said to have spent seven year living as a hermit, visiting his family only on
the Sabbath, while studying the Zohar.
At close to thirty, after a short stay in Jerusalem,
Luria settled in Safed. Rabbi
Joseph Caro, and Rabbi Moshe Cordovero were already living in Safed at the
time, and Luria became a central figure in the most prominent circle of
kabbalists anywhere. Luria taught
what was to be known as Lurianic Kabbalah for the next eight years, and died at
age thirty-eight in Safed (1572), his disciple rabbi Hayyim Vital wrote his
teachings in a series of books.
Rabbi Hayyim ben Joseph Vital
Kabbalist; born at Safed in 1543; died at Damascus
May 6, 1620. Hayyim Vital's teacher was rabbi Moshe Alshech. It is said that rabbi Joseph Caro also
noticed him and that he met Lapidot Ashkenazi in 1557, and was influenced by
him thereafter. Vital also studied
Kabbalah with Rabbi Moshe Cordevero before he became the student of Rabbi
Itzkhak Luria. Vital only studied
under Luria, for two years from 1570 until Luria died in 1572, but he became
known as his most prominent student. Luria left nothing in writing and Vital took it upon himself to write
his teachings.
Rabbi Joseph Ibn Tabul
Rabbi Yoseph Ibn Tabul (of Magreb) was a student of
rabbi Yitzkhak Luria. His student
rabbi Shimshon Baki, who described him as a wonderful charismatic teacher,
relates the little that is known about his life. His writings were never published and the manuscripts were
often attributed to rabbi Yitzkhak Luria or to rabbi Hayyim Vital.
Rabbi Avraham Galanti
Rabbi Abraham Galanti was a Cabbalist who was active in the second half of the 16th century. Born to a Jewish family that had fled Spain in 1492, and had settled in Rome, he moved to the Land of Israel as a young man and studied there with Rabbi Moses Cordovero. He wrote several Kabbalistic commentaries: one on Lamentations, called Kinat Setarim (pulished in Kol Bokhim: lamentations for the 9th of Av), one on Chapters of the Fathers, called Zekhut Avot, published in Beit Avot: Four Commentaries on the tractate of avot, and one on the Zohar, entitled Yerah Yakar. In addition, a list of hanagot (costomes or ways of behavior), written by Galanti was published by S. Shechter, Studies in Judaism (Second Series), Philadelphia, 1908, pp. 294-297.
Rabbi Joseph Angelit
Rabbi Joseph Angelit of Spain was a Cabbalist who lived in Saragosa in the first half of the 14th century. (Scholars had originally believed his name was Angelino, and that he was Italian, but this was a scribal error). He authored several books including Sefer Livnat Sapir, Sefer Kupat Rokhlin, a commentary on Sha'arei Orah, Kaf Dalet Yesodot, and he also refers to a commentary on Aggadot and a Sefer Mitzvoth that he wrote, but these are not been found. The date he gives for writing his Livnat Sapir is 1327, and according to Spanish archival material he was present during an arbitration proceedings that took place in Sarragosa in 1335.
Some of his writing is in the style of the Zohar and Yehudah Libes has suggested not only that he himself thought of his writing as contiguous with Zohar Literature, but that bits of his writings have in fact been included in the Zohar.
See: Iris Felix, The Kabbalistic Thought of Rabbi Joseph Angelit, M.A. thesis, 1991.[Hebrew]
Rabbi Issac Mor Hayyim
Rabbi Isaac ben Shemuel Mar-Hayyim was a Kabbalist from Spain who left for the Land of Israel in 1491, a short time before the Spanish expulsion that took place in 1492. This is known, since on his way he sent two epistles from Italy. It has been assumed that he did indeed arrive in Israel since his signature was found on a tax amendment made in Jerusalem in 1508/9, and it has further been assumed that he then moved to Safed -- where, according to a letter to Yaakov Berav, dated 1523/4, he was a judge.
Since the rabbi writing from Italy was described as venerable and aged in 1491, and since there are numerous variations on the name Mor Hayyim (ibn Hayyim, b"r Hayyim, Mo"r Hayyim, M"r Hayyim, Mr Hayyim, m' Hayyim, and even Moreh Hayyim), some scholars have suggested that in fact there were two separate Rabbis, one (the son of Hayyim) who came from Spain and sent the epistles form Italy, and another (whose last name was Mor or Mar Hayyim), who was in touch with Ya'akov Berav. Furthermore some have suggested that the rabbi who was in touch Ya'akov Berav, may never have been in Safed at all, but rather resided in Damascus.
Rabbi Shim'on ibn-Lavi
Rabbi Shim'on ibn Lavi was a Kabbalist who lived in the city of Fez and then in the city of Tripoli in the second half of the 16th century.
According to a number of traditions ibn-Lavi was born in Spain and left in 1492 with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, but recently this has been brought into question (see bellow). Ibn-Lavi lived in Fez (Morocco) in the first half of the 16th century until he decided to 'ascend' to the Land of Israel. En route he was taken prisoner, and after being freed, ended up in Tripoli (Libya), in 1548/9. According to one report, when he first came to Tripoli most of the Jewish community didn not even know the Friday evening prayer. In any event, it seems that he felt that his guidance was needed, and he decided to stay in Tripoli. According to Sefer Higid Mordekhai, in 1548/9 ibn-Lavi was the personal physician of Yihya Pasha, the Turkish governor at the time. In his commentary on the Zohar, Sefer Ketem Paz, ibn-Lavi mentions he is writing in Tripoli in 1570/1.
Ibn Lavi also wrote a number of piyyutim (liturgical songs), the most famous of which - Bar Yochai -- is used in prayer in some Jewish communities to this day. He probably also wrote the Seder Tikkun Lel Shavuot Keminhag Yehudy Tripoli (The Kabbalist liturgy for the night of Shavuot according to custom of the Jews of Tripoli). An explanation of the foreign words in the Zohar (Beur Hamilim Hazarot Shebesefer Hazohar) is also said to have been written by him, but it seems plausible that this was written by a master of his, and that he only copied it. In Ketem Paz, ibn-Lavi comes across as an authoritative figure that was involved in polemics both against Christian theology and Jewish philosophy, but other than that, very little historical information can be gleaned from his writings. The only one of his contemporaries that he mentions is the famous piyytan Mandil, Yitzkhak ben Zimrah. To the best of our knowledge, his contemporaries took no notice of his book, presumably because of the Kabbalah of the ARI became so prominent at the time. Sefer Ketem Paz, was printed in Livorno only 1694/5. The book is important, however, as a commentary on the Zohar, especially since it is the only running commentary on the Zohar written without awareness of the Kabbalah of Safed. Avraham Kalfon writes that ibn-Lavi died in 1584/5 and the site held by the Jewish community to be his grave was cause for strife with the Moslem community of Tripoli in the first half of the 20th century.
Recently, researchers have noted that in order to account for the reports about ibn-Lavi being born in Spain before 1492, and dying in 1584/5, one must assume that he lived to a very old age. Furthermore, his name appears in the sources in several variations: some have Shimon ben or ibn (the son of) Lavi, while others simply have Shimon Lavi. These facts have lead researchers to suggest that there where in fact to "Lavi"s - Shim'on Lavi who was expelled from Spain and wrote Bar-Yochai and other piyyutim, and Shim'on ibn-Lavi, author of Ketem Paz and other piyyutim.
Rabbi Israel Sarug (or Saruk)
Rabbi Israel Sarug (or Saruk) (fl. 1590-1610) was
originally Egyptian and seems to have spent some time in Safed before 1593,
when he began teaching Kabbalah in Italy. It was Sarug who first began to
spread Lurianic Kabbalah outside Rabbi Yitzhack Luria's immediate circle in
Safed. Claiming to be
Luria's disciple, Sarug started a whole school of Lurianic Kabbalah, which
included such rabbis as Menahem Azariah Fano, Issac Fano and Aaron Berechiah b.
Moses of Modena. But as it turns
out, Sarug's teachings were actually substantially different than what we know
of Lurianic Kabbalah from other sources (primarily the writing of rabbi Hayyim
Vital). Sarug obviously had
accesses to the Lurianic ideas and writings, but his teachings also included
ideas of which classic Lurianic Kabbalah knew nothing. Scholars have debated the question of
whether Sarug actually studies with Luria, if so where and if not how he got
access to his writings (see below). His teachings were attacked as inauthentic by rabbi Hayyim b. Abraham
ha-kohen of Aleppo and others, but to no avail. It seems unlikely that he is the Israel Saruk
that died in Safed in 1602, he most probably died elsewhere between 1608-1615.
His published works include: a. two works under the
title Limmudei Atzilut (1897), attributed erroneously to Hayyim Vital one of
these deals with the Saruk's version of Kabbalistic concept of Tzimtzum, (which
is quite different from Luria's concept thereof), and the other is a commentary
on Sifra de-Tzniuta from the Zohar and a
description of the world of Beriah; b. His traditions on transmigrations of souls of certain Talmudic sages,
were published under Menahem Azariah Fano's name (Prauge 1688); c. His
commentary on three of Luria's hymns for Shabbat was published in Nowy
Oleksiniec 1767.
Rabbi Moshe ben Mordechai Basola
Rabbi Moshe ben Mordechai Basola was born in Pesaro,
Italy, in 1480, where he served as rabbi; he was of French extraction (as
implied the way he singed his name ha-tzarfati, i.e. "the Frenchman"). He supported his student, Immanuel
Benevento in publishing the Zohar, while he still lived in Pesaro, and his
endorsement appears in the Mantuba addition of the Tikkunei ha-Zohar. In 1521 He went on pilgrimage to the
Land of Israel, where he remained for a year and a half. His record of Jerusalem at the time, Shivhei
Yerushalaim, ("Praises of Jerusalem"), was published by
Yitzkhak ben Tzvi in 1939. On his
return to Italy Basola settled in Ancona, where he became rabbi. While he lived in Ancona he fought
against the ban put on the city's port by Gracia Nasi to avenge the persecution
of Marranos there. The Christian
French Kabbalist, Guillaume Postel, was in touch with Basola and wrote highly
of him. Basola returned to the
Land of Israel and settled in Safed, not long before his death in 1560.
Two other rabbis by the name of Moshe Basola lived
in the sixteenth century. One,
known as Della Rocca, was Basola's daughter's son. He taught Leon Modena at Ferrara (1582-84) and died in
Cyprus. The other may have also
been Basola's grandson. Born in
Safed, he settled in Italy, and edited Moshe Cordovero's Or Ne-erav and
TomerDevora, together with Cordovero's son Gedaliah.
Sahula, Isaac Ben Solomon
Sahula, Isaac Ben Solomon Abi (b. 1244). Sahula lived in Gaudalajara, Castile
and was the student of the kabbalist Moshe burgos. He also know rabbi Moshe b. Shem-Tov de Leon who lived in
the same town. His Meshal
ha-Kadmoni is a large collections of stories and parables that was
written in order to dissplace words translated from the Arabic, such as the
Voyages of Synbad, and is written in the style of the makkama.
[Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 8 p. 656-657]