Isaac Lurya imagined a complete system of the transmigration and combination of souls. It also seemed to him important to know the sex of a soul, for feminine souls are found in masculine bodies, and vice versâ, according to the transmigration and attraction in each case. It is especially important in contracting a marriage to know whether the souls of man and wife harmonize with each other in respect of origin and degree. By means of this secret the visionary of Cairo expected to solve the other mystery, namely, how good spirits may be conjured down from heaven, and in a measure compelled to enter the bodies of living men, and thus made to divulge revelations of the world beyond. Hereby he believed that he held the key to the kingdom of the Messiah and the regeneration of the world. Lurya also believed that he possessed the soul of the Messiah of the branch of Joseph, and that he had a Messianic mission. He saw spirits everywhere, and heard their whispers in the rushing of the waters, the movements of the trees and grass, in the song or twittering of birds, even in the flickering of flames. He saw how at death the souls were set free from the body, how they hovered in the air, or rose out of their graves. He held intimate intercourse with the saints of the Bible, the Talmud, and with the rabbis, in particular with Simon bar Yochaï. In short, Lurya was a ghost-seer and raiser of the dead, a second Abraham Abulafia, or Solomon Molcho, arousing hopes of the coming of the Messiah by Kabbalistic jugglery, but with all this fanaticism he was sober and sophistical. He introduced the casuistry of the Talmud into the Kabbala.
In Egypt, Isaac Lurya found little or no favor with his labyrinth of higher worlds and his theories of creation and redemption. To realize his scheme of redemption he migrated with his wife and child to Safet, the Jerusalem of mysticism, where the mystic doctrine flourished, and the Zohar, the spurious work of Moses de Leon, was exalted to the same level as the Law of Moses ben Amram. Almost the whole college of rabbis and the chief leaders of Safet were Kabbalists. This place was at the time a flourishing city inhabited only by Jews. The members of the community knew little of oppression or the cares of life, and so the Kabbalists could spin mystical theories to their hearts' content. They felt as safe under the favor that the Jewish Duke of Naxos found with the sultan, as if in a state of their own, politically independent. The Kabbalists had gone so far in their imitation of Catholicism that they had adopted auricular confession and the adoration of martyrs. And this was the stage on which Lurya, the creator of the new Kabbala, was to originate new aberrations.
At first (about 1569), he appears to have received little attention in the city of Kabbalists. Only through his acquaintance and connection with a still greater visionary, perhaps not quite so honest as himself, did he become a person of consequence, and infect everyone with his waking dreams. This man was the Italian Chayim Vital Calabrese (born 1543, died 1620), whose father, a copyist of the scrolls of the Law, had traveled to Palestine from Italy. Vital had learned nothing thoroughly in his younger days; he had only gained a smattering of the Talmud and mystic lore. He possessed a wild, extravagant imagination, and a decided inclination for adventure and sensation. For two years and a half Vital had occupied his time with alchemy and the art of making gold. From this mystic art he turned to Lurya's Kabbala. It is not known which of these two men first sought the other, but it is certain that each, without wishing it, deceived the other. Together they visited desolate places and graves, particularly the grave of Simon bar Yochaï, the feigned author of the Zohar, in Meïron. This was Lurya's favorite spot, because there he fancied he could draw down upon himself the spirit of this supposed chief of the mystics. Now and again Lurya sent forth his disciple to conjure up spirits, and for this purpose delivered to him certain formulas made up of the transposed letters of the name of the Deity. Of course, evil spirits fled before Vital's gaze, whilst good spirits attached themselves to him, and communicated their secrets.
It was Vital who spread sensational reports concerning the extraordinary, almost divine gifts of his master, and of his power over departed and living souls; doing so, it appears, with an artful calculation of effect and publicity. Lurya, once so isolated, now found himself surrounded by crowds of visitors; Kabbalists, young and old, came to listen to the new revelation. Several disciples attached themselves to him, and he communicated to them his confused thoughts, assigned to each the original Adamite soul that dwelt in him, the transmigrations which it had undergone before its present corporeal existence, and its functions on earth. It never occurred to these people, already enmeshed in the Kabbalistic net, to doubt the truth of these communications. The disciples that gathered round him Lurya formed into two classes: the "initiated" and the "novices."
Mystical conversations and notes, the interviewing and summoning of spirits, formed the occupation of Lurya and his followers. In short, Lurya was on the eve of founding a new Jewish sect. On the Sabbath he dressed in white, and wore a fourfold garment to symbolize the four letters of the name of God. The underlying fact of all his revelations and exertions was that he was the Messiah of the race of Joseph, the forerunner of the Messiah of David's line. This, however, he only furtively hinted to his disciples. His delusion was that the Messianic period would commence at the beginning of the second half of the second period of a thousand years since the destruction of the Temple, i. e., in 1568.
The sudden death of the mystic, at the age of thirty-eight, conduced still more to his glorification. Death is wont to transfigure natures like his, and veneration for them increases as years roll on. With Eastern exaggeration, his disciples regarded him as even more than a worker of wonders; they called him the "Holy and Divine," and sought, for their own glory, to win adherents for him and his visionary extravagances. They declared that, if Lurya could only have lived five years longer, he would have improved the world so effectually, that the Messianic period would certainly have begun. Abraham Abulafia, who had evolved a Kabbalistic medley from his own consciousness, was declared a heretic, and persecuted. Isaac Lurya, who had done the same thing with the Zohar as a foundation, was almost deified.
After Lurya's death, Vital Calabrese came to the fore. He immediately usurped a kind of authority over his fellow-disciples, pretended that Lurya on his deathbed had appointed him his successor, and, in feigned obedience to a dying request of his master, took away from them the written notes given them by Lurya. Vital let it be understood that he was the Messiah of the race of Joseph. However, some disciples did not pay any attention to this, and forthwith taught in various countries what they had received from Lurya himself. This was especially done by Israel Saruk in Italy, whither he had traveled.
The harm that the Kabbalistic doctrines of Lurya caused in Jewish circles is inexpressible. Judaism became surrounded with so thick a husk of mysticism, that it has not even yet succeeded in entirely freeing itself, and showing its true kernel. Through Lurya's influence there was formed, side by side with the Judaism of the Talmud and the rabbis, a Judaism of the Zohar and the Kabbala. For it was due to him that the spurious Zohar was placed upon a level with, indeed higher than, the Holy Scriptures and the Talmud.
The mysticism of Lurya laid stress upon an idea which has been strangely neglected in Jewish circles, viz., devotion in prayer, but even this devotion degenerated into Kabbalistic trifling. Every word and every syllable of the ordained prayers was to be meditated on devoutly, so that one might reflect upon the worlds of the Sefiroth, the number of the names of God hidden therein, and many other things. Lurya's Kabbala certainly inculcated the preservation of an unruffled disposition, and interdicted dejection, or outbreaks of anger and ill-humor. But this serenity, from its mystical setting, received a touch of constraint and unpleasantness, like the laughter of a madman. The Sabbath, with its prayers and meals, forms the central point of Lurya's mystic teaching. He looked upon it as the visible representation of the world of the Sefiroth, as the embodiment of the Divinity (Shechinah) in temporal life, and all actions done or left undone on that day had an influence upon the higher world. Lurya's followers welcomed the Sabbath, "the mystic bride," with chanting, and for this purpose Lurya composed Chaldaic songs full of obscure and meaningless formulas. His Kabbala also introduced a second Day of Atonement. The "Day of Hosannas," the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, was formerly observed as a day of festivity. Even Joseph Karo did not venture in his code to attribute a higher, mystical, religious function to this day. Lurya's school first raised it, on the authority of the Zohar, to the rank of a minor day of expiation, introduced the practice of holding a mystic vigil the previous night, and perceived in every leaf of the willow branches, and in the seven-fold processions round the scrolls of the Law, a higher, mystical meaning. In relation to morality, too, the mysticism of Lurya had a corrupting influence. It demanded a "harmony of souls" as a condition of marriage, and, therefore, whenever disagreement showed itself in married life, it was said that the marriage was not a union foreordained by the harmony of the Sefiroth. Kabbalists, therefore, separated from their wives in consequence of the smallest dissension in married life, to seek out the harmonious soul predestined for them. Thus divorce became frequent in Kabbalistic circles. Kabbalists often left their wives and children in the West, and, migrating to the East, contracted a new marriage, or several new marriages, and the children of the different marriages knew nothing of one another.
These corrupting mystic doctrines did not remain a dead letter, but were forthwith put into practice by their adherents. Thus, the brilliance shed by the Jewish Duke of Naxos and other influential Jews at the Turkish court over their fellow-believers in the East, came to resemble the light of the will-o'-the-wisps that make the waters of a stagnant marsh gleam with a flickering light. The religious stagnation at the time was glaring indeed; there was a complete relapse into heathenism; and what was worse, there sounded no warning voice which recognized the mischief, or stigmatized, though ever so feebly, the corruption as it really was. Perhaps the feeling of complete security in which the Jews in Turkey reposed under mighty protectors of their own race had encouraged this religious disorder. In any case, it did not decrease as this protection gradually disappeared, when the influence of Joseph of Naxos ceased on the death of Sultan Selim in 1574. His successor, Sultan Murad III (1574–1595), left the Jewish duke in possession of his rank and offices according to his father's dying request. But he no longer had direct influence over the divan; he was supplanted by his adversary, the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, and his rival, Solomon Ashkenazi, and could accomplish nothing without intrigues through the agency of the harem. Joseph Nassi did not long survive his partial disgrace; he died of calculus, on August 2d, 1579, sincerely lamented by the Jews. His accumulated treasures melted away even as his ambitious designs. The avaricious sultan, Murad, who slept upon heaps of gold in order that they might not be stolen from him, by the advice of Mahomet Sokolli confiscated all his property, ostensibly to cover his debts. The widowed duchess, Reyna Nassi, with difficulty retained her dowry of 90,000 ducats out of her husband's estate. This noble woman, although she certainly did not possess the spirit either of her mother, Donna Gracia, or of her husband, determined like these to spend her wealth in the interests of Jewish knowledge. She set up a Hebrew printing press in her palace of Belvedere, and afterwards in a village called Kuru-Gismu, on the European side near Constantinople. But she was misled by Joseph Askaloni, a business manager devoid of all taste, to whom she had intrusted the direction of her press, so that only writings of no importance, which had far better have remained in obscurity, were published in her establishment (1579–1598). And so this noble family of two men and two women, renowned in their own time, left no worthy or lasting memorial; and their deeds, prompted by the noblest intentions, have perished in the stream of the ages.
Duke Joseph having disappeared from the scene, the prestige of the Hebrew statesman, Solomon Ashkenazi, the peacemaker between Turkey and Venice, increased. But, much as he was able to accomplish by means of his diplomatic arts, he did not, like Joseph of Naxos, stand in the forefront of events as a Turkish dignitary, but rather remained in the background as a wise and silent mediator. Solomon Ashkenazi had no access to the sultan himself, but only held secret intercourse with the successive grand vizirs, whose right hand man he was. The negotiations between Turkey and Spain to procure a peace, or at least a modus vivendi, desired as it was by both sides, owing to pride on both sides, were delayed, broken off, and renewed. These diplomatic discussions were conducted by Solomon, who possessed greater qualifications for that purpose than anyone else, and the matters in dispute were partially brought to a conclusion by him. He was particularly careful to maintain a good understanding between the Porte and Venice, and was on this account rewarded by the doge, his sons being allowed to live in Venice at the expense of the state.
Also Jewish women of wisdom and good sense, having skill in medicine, gained great influence by means of the harem under the sultans Murad III, Mahomet IV, and Achmed I. Among these women, Esther Kiera, widow of one Elias Chendali, specially distinguished herself. She was a great favorite with the sultana Baffa, herself the favorite wife of Murad, who influenced politics under her husband and afterwards during the reign of her son. If a Christian state wished to gain any object at the Porte, it had first to win over the Jewish go-between, Kiera. The Venetians particularly knew how to turn this fact to account. All ambitious persons who aimed at attaining high office paid respect to Kiera, and addressed her with flattery. Naturally, she enriched herself by her secret power, as did everyone in Turkey who, however strong or weak he might be, formed one of the spokes in the wheel of the state. She showed great interest in her race, supported the poor and suffering, fed the hungry, and comforted the sorrowful. Jewish science was helped by her generous hand. Zacuto's history, as mentioned before, was published at her expense. Naturally her position excited envy. Esther Kiera imprudently allowed herself to be implicated in the appointment of cavalry officers, first promising one man a high post and then bestowing it on another. The Turkish Spahis, the proudest class of soldiers, took this treatment very ill, plotted together, and demanded her head. The deputy grand vizir Chalil wished to save her and her sons, and allowed them to take refuge in his palace. But on the very steps Esther Kiera and her three sons were seized by the Spahis, torn to pieces, and their limbs hung upon the doors of the favored magnates who had received their posts through her influence.
Under Sultan Achmed I, another Hebrew woman, the widow of the statesman Solomon Ashkenazi, gained great consideration. She was so fortunate as to cure the young sultan of the smallpox, which shortly after his accession threatened his life, and for which the Turkish physicians knew no remedy. She was richly rewarded for nursing him back to health. But such signs of favor towards Jews became continually rarer in Turkey, and at last ceased altogether, as the empire sank into enervation, and each sultan became a Sardanapalus; while the harem, on the one hand, and the Spahis and Janissaries, on the other, held the reins of power. The glory of the Turkish Jews was extinguished like a meteor, and plunged into utter darkness, from time to time illuminated by fanciful visions. Extortion, robbery, and open deeds of violence, on the part of the pashas towards Jews, began to occur daily, since they were now deprived of a powerful protector at the Sultan's side. The center of Judaism was shifted to another stage.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE JEWS IN POLAND
Condition of Poland – Favorable Situation of the Jews in that Country – Anti-Jewish Party in Poland – The Jewish Communities – Judaizing Poles – Studies of the Jews – The Talmud in Poland – Solomon Lurya – Moses Isserles – The Historian, David Gans – "Zemach David" – Supremacy of the Polish Authorities in Rabbinical Matters – The Jewish Seminaries in Poland – The Disputations at the Fairs – Chiddushim and Chillukim – Stephen Bathori – His Kindness towards his Jewish Subjects – Sigismund III – Restriction on the Erection of Synagogues – Jewish Synods – Vaad Arba Arazoth – Mordecai Jafa – Christian Sects in Poland – The Socinians or Unitarians – Simon Budny – The Reformers and the Jews – Isaac Troki – "The Strengthening of Faith."
1566–160 °C.E
Poland, which in this century had become a great power by reason of its union with Lithuania under the sons of Casimir IV, like Turkey, was the refuge of the outlawed or persecuted. Canonical Christianity, with its love of persecution, had not yet struck firm roots there; and monarchical despotism, encouraged by priests in its obstinate determination to realize all its ends regardless of consequences, could not prevail against the independent spirit of the Polish nobility. The Starosts ruled unchecked in their provinces, like the English and Scottish lords and clans, and could ward off the encroachments of royalty. The reformed faith, that is to say Calvin's teaching, was readily received by the nobility and the middle classes. Poland, therefore, in this century, too, was a second Babylonia for the Jews, in which on the whole they were protected from bloody persecutions, where some of them could attain to respectable positions, and where they were allowed to develop their individuality without restraint. When the Jews were expelled from Bohemia, and turned their steps to Poland, they were kindly received. Indeed, so highly appreciated were they, that it was thought that the people could not do without them. When, attracted by the favored position of their brethren in Turkey, many prepared to migrate thither, the king made every exertion to retain them in his land either by persuasion or compulsion. It mattered very little what were the king's relations to them; for whether he was kindly or evilly disposed, the nobles protected those who dwelt on their estates from all attacks, in as far as their own interests were not injured thereby. Under some kings, the Jews received favors, under others, suffered restrictions, according as hostile or friendly influences preponderated.
But there was a party in Poland hostile to the Jews. It regarded with dissatisfied eyes their more favored position in that country as compared with the rest of Christendom, and endeavored to abrogate the statute of Casimir IV, still in force, giving protection against unduly severe persecution. It consisted, on the one hand, of the Catholic clergy which regretted the absence in the Polish legislation of canonical restrictions regarding Jews; on the other, of the German merchant and artisan class which feared Jewish competition.
There exists no estimate of the number of Jews in Poland at this time. It is said that there were 200,000 adults. The community at Posen numbered 3,000 members, and there were about as many in Cracow, or rather in the suburb Kazimierz, to which they had on a former occasion been banished. The third community in point of size was at Lublin. The Jews had many taxes to pay under different heads. For this purpose, indeed, they were received, and on this account tolerated in the country, and protected by the kings and the nobility, being almost the only ones in that impecunious land who possessed money. For this reason, also, the kings encouraged their commercial enterprises. When Sigismund Augustus, soon after his accession, negotiated for a prolongation of the peace with the Russian Czar, Ivan IV, called "the Terrible," he inserted the condition that the Jews of Lithuania be allowed, as formerly, to freely carry on trade with Russia. But Ivan absolutely refused this condition; he did not wish to see any Jews in his realm. "We do not want these men," he said, "who have brought us poison for our bodies and souls; they have sold deadly herbs among us, and blasphemed our Lord and Saviour." A Judaizing sect had been founded some seventy years before by a Jew called Zacharias, to which sect even some of the priests, and a metropolitan named Zosina belonged. This proselytizing sect continued to exist till the beginning of the sixteenth century, but its adherents were severely persecuted when discovered. On this account Jews were not allowed in Russia.
In consequence of the Reformation, which had made its way into Poland, a purer taste and a love of science and literature had developed there. Polish nobles fond of traveling brought back from Germany an interest in these matters, and sent their sons to study at the reformed universities of Wittenberg and Geneva. Schools arose in Poland where Jewish boys and youths were instructed together with Christians. The Polish Jews, it is true, did not devote themselves to science to a marked degree, but they were by no means so devoid of it as their German brethren.
Aristotle, that philosophical authority so familiar to the Hebrew world and so closely akin to the Hebrew spirit, found admirers also among Polish Jews. Even Maimuni's philosophic and religious writings found a few readers. Astronomy and medicine, two favorite sciences of the Jews from time immemorial, were studied also by Polish Jews. Generally speaking, they did not share the intellectual degradation of the Jewish inhabitants of Germany. Among them the study of the Talmud received an impetus greater almost than in France in the times of the Tossafist schools. Of all the Jews in Europe and Asia those in Poland were the last to become familiar with the Talmud; as though desirous of making up for lost time, they cherished it with extravagant affection. It appeared as if the deep secrets of the Talmud were to be rightly understood and completely unraveled and appreciated only in Poland. Comprehensive erudition and marvelous insight were united in a surprising manner in the Polish students of this book, and everyone whom nature had not deprived of all talent devoted himself to its study. The dead letter received new life from the eager inspiration of the Jewish sons of Poland; in this land it exerted an influence of great force, striking sparks of intellectual fire, and creating a ceaseless flow of thought. The Talmudical schools in Poland henceforward became the most celebrated throughout the whole of European Judaism. All who sought sound learning betook themselves thither. To have been educated in a college of the Polish Jews was of itself a sufficient recommendation; and all who did not possess this advantage were considered inferiors.
The fame of the rabbinical schools of Poland was due to three men: Shalom Shachna, Solomon Lurya, and Moses Isserles. Solomon Lurya (born in Posen about 1510, died about 1573) came from a family of German immigrants. Had he been born in a better, a more intellectual epoch, he would have been one of the makers of Judaism, perhaps another Maimuni. But being the son of an age of decadence, he became only a profound and thorough Talmud scholar, in the higher sense of the word, not remaining satisfied with traditional data, but examining every single point and weighing it in the golden balance of critical exactitude. To the thorough and critical investigation of the great field of the Talmud his whole mental activity was devoted, and he possessed the greatest natural qualifications for such critical work. With his bold spirit of inquiry, ruthlessly subjecting everything to the severest examination, Lurya in any other age would have gone beyond the Talmud, if its contradictions had made themselves glaringly apparent to him. But by this son of an age of faith the whole book was regarded as an actual continuation of the revelation made at Sinai, an unassailable authority, which only needed to be properly understood, or which wanted perhaps a little rectification here and there, but as a whole contained the truth. Lurya was a strongly marked character, having all the acerbity and angularity commonly associated therewith. Injustice, venality, and hypocrisy, were so hateful to him, that he broke out into what was sometimes imprudent excess of zealous indignation. By reason of his distinct individuality and firmness, which he wished to assert everywhere, Solomon Lurya offended and hurt the vanity of not a few. He lashed in bitter terms those Talmudical scholars whose actions did not correspond to their teaching, and devoted themselves to the study of rabbinical literature only for the sake of discussion, or to gain a reputation. Hence he made many enemies, and in his own time was more feared than loved. In polemical discussion he was reckless and unsparing, and very naturally brought upon himself retaliation which only embittered him the more. Then he complained of persecution, and even of the ingratitude of his disciples, who, he said, had turned against him, and looked at everything in a gloomy light. He attacked the students of the Talmud, because, he said, the ignorant were so many and the possessors of knowledge so few, while their arrogance continually increased, and no one was content to take the position that properly belonged to him. No sooner was one of them ordained than he assumed the airs of a master, collected a troop of disciples around him for money, as people of rank hire a body-guard. "There are," he complained, "gray-headed rabbis with very little knowledge of the Talmud, who behave imperiously to congregations and to people of real knowledge, excommunicate and re-admit members, ordain disciples – all for their own selfish purposes." Solomon Lurya extended the sarcastic bitterness of his scorn to German experts in the Talmud, "who, in the case of people of wealth and authority, show indulgence towards the transgression of rabbinical precepts, while they spread evil reports about men of moderate means and strangers who are guilty of slight irregularities, such as going about with uncovered head."
However, things were not so bad in Jewish society as depicted by Lurya's bitter humor; and this is proved in the most conclusive manner by the recognition that this morose faultfinder himself received. Talmudical students, both young and old, even in his lifetime, were full of admiration for his achievements. While still betwixt youth and middle age, he undertook his principal work of elucidating and sifting Talmudic discussions with a view to establishing religious practice, and he continued this work up to the end of his life without completing it. Solomon Lurya performed this task with more thoroughness, clearness, and depth than his contemporaries and predecessors. But if he hoped, as it appears he did, to put an end to all variety and confusion of opinion, he made the same mistake as Maimuni and others. He only contributed to further entanglement of the knot. His numerous other writings bear the same impress of thoroughness and critical insight, but he could not reach the seat of the trouble any more than others who had made the attempt; it lay too deep.
By reason of his critical faculty, Lurya laid stress upon what his Polish and German fellow-students neglected as too trifling – namely, on grammatical correctness and precision in the distinction of the forms of speech. On the other hand, he was a declared enemy of scholastic philosophy. It appeared to him to be dangerous and fatal to faith.
Another leading rabbi in Poland was Moses ben Israel Isserles, of Cracow (born in 1520, died Iyar, 1572). The son of a greatly respected father, who had held the office of president of the community, he distinguished himself more by his precocity and comprehensive learning than by striking mental individuality. Inheriting so much property from his family that he dedicated one of his houses as a synagogue, Isserles was able to follow the bent of his genius with ease and comfort, devote himself to the Talmud, and make himself familiar with its mazes. He soon gained such a reputation that, while still almost a youth, he was nominated rabbi-judge in Cracow. At thirty years of age he had embraced the whole field of Talmudic and rabbinical literature as thoroughly as Joseph Karo, a man double his age.
Isserles also felt the need of collecting and giving finality to the widely scattered materials of rabbinical Judaism. But since Joseph Karo had forestalled him by the compilation of his Code, it only remained for him to rectify it, and comment upon it. For he regretted the omission of several elements in that work, especially the neglect of German rabbinical authorities and customs. This continuation of Karo's Code, or "Table," he called the "Mappa" or "Table-cloth." As the Jews in Germany had always been more scrupulous in their observances than those elsewhere, the additions and supplementations made by Isserles turned out to be burdensome. His decisions immediately received recognition, and to the present day form the religious standard, the official Judaism, of the German and Polish communities and those allied to them. It cannot quite be said that he contributed to its ossification, for he did not invent and introduce these burdens, but only noted and codified them; he followed the universal tendency. If Isserles had not arranged them into a religious code, some one else would have done so.