The Allure of Forbidden Knowledge

T H E J E W I S H Q U A R T E R LY R E V I E W , Vol. 102, No. 4 (Fall 2012) 589–616

The Allure of Forbidden Knowledge: The Temptation of Sabbatean Literature for Mainstream Rabbis in the Frankist Moment, 1756–1761 MAOZ KAHANA

For that Sabbatai Zevi—cursed be his name—led astray a number of the greatest men of the generation and outstanding scholars . . . they left the fold and spoke evil regarding the Oral Law . . . but when a Tsadik sweetens their words, he transforms their sayings back into Torah. Rabbi Nah.man of Bratzlav1 S E V EN T Y -F I VE Y EA R S after the death of Sabbatai Zevi in 1676 in remote Albania, Sabbateanism remained an issue of major public concern for Jewish society. By the eighteenth century, Sabbateanism had become a catch-all for a broad family of beliefs ascribed to both groups and individuals throughout the Jewish dispersion. But no less disturbing was the percolation of Sabbatean ideas into mainstream writings. In 1752, Rabbi Jacob Emden (Ya‘avets) published a blacklist of suspected works: ‘‘The following books have absorbed the venom of this snake in certain concealed parts . . . for now it suffices to demonstrate the extent to which this This study is an expanded version of a chapter of my dissertation ‘‘From Prague to Pressburg: Halakhic Writing in a Changing World: From the Noda‘ biyehudah to the H.atam sofer, 1730–1839’’ (Hebrew; Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010; (forthcoming version, Shazar Publication House, Jerusalem). The dissertation was generously supervised by Michael Silber. I want to thank him as well as Yehuda Liebes, Jonathan Garb, and Gavriel Wasserman for their sensitive reading and significant comments. 1. R. Nah.man of Bratzlaw, Likute moharan (Warsaw, 1934), I, 207. Regarding this source, see Yehuda Liebes, On Sabbateanism and Its Kabbalah (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1995), 249–50. The Jewish Quarterly Review (Fall 2012) Copyright ! 2012 Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. All rights reserved.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:54

PS

PAGE 589

590

JQR 102.4 (2012)

impurity has spread throughout Israel, hidden away in secret places.‘‘2 Emden’s index was intended to identify and draw attention to any covert heretical ideas, those subversive hints and literary influences that might escape the perusing eye. Thus the main purpose of this detective work was not to uncover actual Sabbateans but to battle the widespread impact of the literature generated by a diverse movement, some of whose teachings had been coopted by seemingly normative prayer books and homiletic works accepted by the mainstream public. A great uproar arose in Poland in 1756 when the scandalous deeds of Jacob Frank and his followers (who were drawn in part from dormant Sabbatean cells) were exposed. The conversion to Christianity of a significant portion of the members of the sect in 1759 seemed initially to solve the predicament posed by Sabbateanism by removing its adherents from the community. Some Frankist and non-Frankist Sabbateans remained within the Jewish fold, but more important for my discussion was the problematic parallel nature of the literary remains, which cannot so easily convert out. Through these literary remains, Emden saw, ‘‘poison’’ remained in the Jewish bloodstream. He himself admitted, during his heated attack on the Sabbatean heretical manuscript ‘‘And I Came This Day to the Fountain’’ (Va-avo’ ha-yom el ha-‘ayin), that ‘‘even upright people of this country possess copies of it.’’3 For what reason did ‘‘upright people’’ keep copies of such manuscripts? and, second, how would the tempestuous controversy over Frank and his believers affect the status of Sabbatean texts in the rabbinic library? In this essay I will examine a particular aspect of this literary opacity from the viewpoint of two Torah scholars who spent those years at a certain distance from the center of events—in Bohemia and Moravia respectively. By dating and revisiting lost manuscripts and short fragments, merged with well-known disputatious polemics, I will attempt to discover the basic attitudes of R. Ezekiel Landau of Prague and R. Pinh.as Katzenellenbogen of Boskowitz toward kabbalistic and Sabbatean literature. I will closely examine several personal writings dating from 1752 to 1761 with the aim of tracing two opposing yet prototypical responses to 2. R. Jacob Emden, Torat Ha-kena’ot (Altona, 1752), 71b–72a. Regarding the exact contents of this list, see Shnayer Z. Leiman, ‘‘Books Suspected of Sabbateanism: Rabbi Jacob Emden’s List‘‘ (Hebrew), in Essays in Memory of Rabbi Moshe Lifshitz, ed. R. Rosenbaum, (New York, 1996), 885–94. On the contemporary significance of Rabbi Emden’s literary endeavors, see J. J. Schacter, ‘‘Rabbi Jacob Emden: Life and Major Works’’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1988). 3. Shevirat luh.ot ha-‘aven (Altona, 1757), 31b. See Bet Yehonatan ha-sofer (Altona, 1763), 1b.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:55

PS PAGE 590

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

591

the place occupied by Sabbatean literature on the kabbalistic-Lurianic shelf of the contemporary rabbinic library. ‘‘HOLY WRITINGS’’ OR ‘‘HERETICAL W ORKS’’?

In 1752, at the height of the mounting polemic between Emden and R. Jonathan Eibeschu¨tz, R. Ezekiel Landau (1713–93) composed a letter of compromise. The letter was sent from Yampol, Volhynia (where Landau served as rabbi) to seven of the greatest Ashkenazic communities, where the controversy had escalated into a series of mutual excommunications.4 In order to end the quarrel and ‘‘make peace in the world,’’ R. Landau sought to suppress the supposedly Sabbatean amulets issued by R. Eibeschu¨tz, yet at the same time to declare Eibeschu¨tz’s personal innocence and clear him of all blame. At the conclusion of his convoluted efforts to resolve the confrontation between the pair, Landau added an unambiguous and penetrating paragraph calling for an ‘‘awakening’’: I have come to awaken the hearts of all the great men of the land regarding the books of magic and heresy that have been found in our country . . . [that aim] to deny heretically the basic truths . . . to uproot and remove all traces of the root of the belief of Israel . . . Believe me, amongst all gentile faiths . . . I have not heard such heresy as this. I will describe the writings and mention them by name . . . the first begins with ‘‘And I Came this Day to the Fountain’’ . . . it denies the Providence of the Eternal, a greater heresy than that of Aristotle and his peers . . . saying that [the Creator’s] strength has diminished . . . the second is a commentary on Song of Songs . . . [the third,] the Scroll of Esther, while the fourth discusses mystical intentions for the blowing of the ram’s horn. Therefore arise and stir yourselves! For these writings have spread throughout almost the majority of the regions of Podolia, where they are considered holy writings. Arise and ban each pamphlet by name, and excommunicate the first author to produce such writings, as well as all those who possess and copy such writings in order to learn from them . . . issue a printed proclamation of a severe excommunication, to vilify and curse its author . . . and 4. The letter was addressed and sent to an extensive audience: ‘‘The heads and leaders of the congregations of Jeshurun . . . in the lands of Ashkenaz (i.e., Germany), France, Moravia, and especially to the seven great communities,’’ which he lists as Frankfurt am Main, Altona, Hamburg, Wandsbek, Metz, Nikolsburg, and Amsterdam (Josef Prager, ‘‘Gah.ale ‘esh,’’ vol. 2 [Hebrew; Oxford MS Mich. 107], 118b). On the polemic and its ramifications, see, e.g., Schacter ‘‘Emden,’’ 370–498; Pawel Maciejko, ‘‘The Jews’ Entry into the Public Sphere: The Emden-Eibeschu¨tz Controversy Reconsidered,’’ Jahrbuch des Simon-DubnowInstituts 6 (2007): 135–54.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:55

PS PAGE 591

592

JQR 102.4 (2012)

those who study and possess them, and send instructions in print to this end to all communities of Israel in every country . . . Ezekiel.5 R. Landau saw the turbulence surrounding Eibeschu¨tz and his handful of amulets as a minor issue relative to the far greater problem—the spread and attraction of Sabbatean writings, which the masses viewed as holy writings. This literature, partly associated with the acclaimed figure of Eibeschu¨tz,6 boasted numerous ‘‘copiers’’ and ‘‘possessors’’ among the Jews of Podolia. Its circulation was not limited to members of the Sabbatean sect proper, and its success necessitated a sharp contravening move of separation. Thus, Landau’s approach was to oppose Eibeschu¨tz himself only by moderate means, and even to turn a blind eye to his peccadilloes. At the same time, heretical literature (including Eibeschu¨tz’s attributed composition) should be fought unambiguously. In this way, he hoped that Eibeschu¨tz would come to disavow his own heretical writings, thus weakening the link between the rabbinic establishment and the Sabbatean literature. He urged bans against this literature in order to reestablish the recently blurred boundaries between acceptable and inadmissible writings. A whole genre perceived by many Podolian Jews as ‘‘holy writings’’ was in fact heretical! It was this aspect of the ongoing controversy that Landau, the Rabbi of Yampol, sought to emphasize. European Sabbateanism in the mid-eighteenth century was frequently a diverse, shadowy phenomenon—an ‘‘open secret,’’ whose existence was known but not always exposed and analyzed. Sabbateanism occurred in the environs of the traditional community; typically it was neither publicly nor sharply distinguished from the ‘‘correct’’ faith. The Sabbatean manuscript, like the Sabbatean believer himself, exploited the widespread dissemination of kabbalistic-Lurianic culture. It was not easily differentiated from ‘‘holy writings’’ based on R. Isaac Luria (the Ari) and his followers, which at the time were at the height of their popularity.7 This blurring 5. ‘‘Gah.ale ‘esh,’’ Part 2, 132a–133a. Other, printed versions and translation are mentioned below. 6. ‘‘They attach themselves to a great person . . .’’ (‘‘Gah.ale ‘esh,’’ Part 2, 125b); ‘‘for secret matters came from him’’ (ibid., 133b). 7. See, e.g., Jacob Elbaum, Openness and Insularity: Late Sixteenth-Century Jewish Literature in Poland and Ashkenaz (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1990); Yosef Avivi, Kabbala Luriana (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 2008); Zeev Gries, ‘‘Printing and Publishing: Printing and Publishing before 1800,’’ in YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Printing_and_Publishing/Print ing_and_Publishing_before_1800 (accessed July 18, 2010); Moshe Idel, ‘‘Mysticism and Mystical Literature,’’ YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. http:// www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Mysticism_and_Mystical_Literature (accessed July 18, 2010). Sabbateanism itself, as Gries and others have argued, played an important role in this popularity.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:55

PS PAGE 592

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

593

of boundaries—the ramifications of which bedevil Sabbatean and Hasidic research to this day8—was also a troublesome issue for the scholars of the time, of course in relation to their own set of concerns.9 Landau attempted to divert Emden’s zealous advocacy of segregation away from the specific figure of Eibeschu¨tz toward the diffuse Sabbatean literature, whose pamphlets had been copied time and again, and which had ‘‘spread throughout almost the majority [!] of the regions of Podolia.’’10 The letter of compromise received much attention. Both antagonists printed it in their respective books,11 and, as Landau had feared,12 each 8. The book H.emdat yamim—its sources, composition, and ways in which it was accepted—offers an instructive example of this vagueness. There is a vast literature about this book. See among others Avraham Ya’ari, T‘alumat sefer (Jerusalem, 1954); Isaiah Tishby, Netive emunah u-minut (Ramat Gan, 1964), and the detailed research survey in M. Fogel, ‘‘The Sabbateanism of the Book H.emdat yamim: A Reconsideration,’’ ed. R. Elior, The Dream and Its Interpretation (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 2001), part 2, 365–422. 9. By the mid-eighteen century this concern already had a long history, typified by the stormy conflicts regarding Neh.emiah H . ayon, Abraham Cardozo, and Moses H . ayyim Luzzatto. The specific arena of R. Landau and Katzenellenbogen, discussed here, is one more instantiation of these affairs. See, for instance, Elisheva Carlebach, The Pursuit of Hersey: Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatian Controversies (New York, 1990) 75–256. 10. ‘‘Gah.ale ‘esh,’’ Part 2, 132a–133a. For an analysis of Emden’s modus operandi and his Weltanschauung, see Schacter, ‘‘Emden’’; David Sorotzkin, ‘‘The Timeless Community in an Age of Change: The Emergence of Conceptions of Time and the Collective as the Basis for the Development of Jewish Orthodoxy in Early and Late Modern Europe’’ (Hebrew; Ph.D. dissertation, Hebrew University, 2007), 158–90. 11. It was first incorporated by Eibeschu¨tz in Luh.ot ‘edut (Altona, 1755), 41. Emden claimed that the former had omitted and/or distorted all inconvenient sections of Landau’s missive (‘Edut be-ya‘akov [Altona, 1756], 27b) and proceeded to publish a more complete version in his book Petah. ‘enaim (Altona, 1755), 7–8, with the parenthetical additions of his own highly disputatious barbs. The form of the letter as it appears in ‘‘Gah.ale ‘esh,’’ the source of my quotation, is the most reliable and complete of these versions. Shnayer Z. Leiman plans to publish a reconstruction of the original Hebrew letter based upon several versions in the forthcoming Simon Schwarzfuchs Festschrift. In the meantime, an English translation has now appeared in Shnayer Z. Leiman, ‘‘Rabbi Ezekiel Landau: Letter of Reconciliation,’’ Tradition 43.4 (2010): 85–96. See also David Kahana, A History of Sabbatean and Hassidic Kabbalists, Based on Old and New Sources (Hebrew; Odessa, 1926); M. A. Perlmutter, Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschu¨tz and His Attitude toward Sabbateanism: New Studies Based on the Manuscript of the Book Va’avo’ Hayom el HaAyin (Hebrew; Tel Aviv, 1947), 48–51; and Shnayer Z. Leiman, ‘‘When a Rabbi Is Accused of Heresy: R. Ezekiel Landau’s Attitude toward R. Jonathan Eibeschuetz in the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy,’’ in From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, ed. J. Neusner, E.S. Frerichs, and N. Sarna (Atlanta, 1989), 3:179–94. 12. ‘‘Gah.ale ‘esh,’’ 130a; 131b.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:56

PS PAGE 593

594

JQR 102.4 (2012)

used it to his own advantage. Conversely, the call for a literary ban had a limited effect. The rabbis of the Brody kloyz assembled in September of the same year (1752). They rejected the proposition of their colleague, the Head of the Court of Yampol; they preferred an indulgent attitude toward the amulets in question, although they did issue a ban on the pamphlets listed in his letter.13 Beyond this local declaration by Landau’s ‘‘hometown’’ bet midrash,14 no move toward the exclusion of these texts was undertaken at this point in time by any of the ‘‘great people of the land’’ whose support the impassioned writer had hoped to enlist. ‘‘TO MEND A F ENCE’’

A different statement of Ezekiel Landau’s is recorded in an undated responsum in the first volume of Noda‘ bi-yehudah, published in Prague in 1776. The following paragraph was written in connection with a seemingly run-of-the-mill halakhic discussion regarding the correct written form of certain letters in a Torah scroll. Earlier discussions of this topic had cited the Zohar among other sources of halakhah and customs—a not unusual occurrence.15 Surprisingly, Landau interrupts his analysis of the case in order to comment on a worrisome state of affairs: Now, regarding the words of the Zohar, I do not wish to speak at length. How I am angered by those who study the book of the Zohar and the Kabbalistic literature in public. They remove the yoke of the revealed Torah from their necks, and chirp and make noises over the book of the Zohar, thus losing out on both, causing the Torah to be forgotten from Israel. Furthermore, since our generation has seen an increase in the heretics of the sect of Sabbatai Zevi, may his bones rot, it would be proper to mend a fence and prohibit the study of the Zohar and the Kabbalistic texts . . . in any case, we do not rule halakhah from the Zohar.16 I do not wish to speak at length regarding the meaning of 13. ‘‘Gah.ale ‘esh,’’ 140b; Aspaklarya ha-me’irah (Altona, 1752), 95a; Petah. ‘enayim 15a. 14. Landau was a member of the kloyz between 1732 and 1745, at which point he left for the position he held at the time, Rabbi of Yampol. 15. See, e.g., the Responsa of the Maharshal, 73; R. Menahem Lonzano, Or Torah (Berlin, 1745), section ‘‘Beha‘alotkha’’ and others. These two sources are cited by Landau in his responsa. 16. This expression is a paraphrase of the well-known statement of Shemu’el in yHag 1.8: ‘‘Rav Ze‘ira [said] in the name of Shemu’el: we do not teach [Halakhah] from mishnah, nor from legends, nor from additional teachings, but only from Talmud.’’ Landau rephrases the saying to fit his rejection of the Zohar as a source.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:56

PS

PAGE 594

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

595

the Zohar, as I do not deal with hidden secrets17 but merely reflect on that which has been permitted to me.18 He agitates here against two different groups. The ‘‘heretics of the sect of Sabbatai Zevi’’ form an external, remote opponent. However, this polemic is not aimed directly at them; rather, they serve as a warning to those who do not belong to the sect. Landau claims that their amateurish involvement with the Zohar (they ‘‘chirp and make noises’’), and their folksy public lectures in esoteric kabbalistic homiletics, though not heretical per se, threaten to lead them toward the rejection of the true law. Despite the distinctness of the two addressees, the paragraph links them together rhetorically: it is the existence of the heretical group that gives the catastrophic meaning to the activities of the normative. At this particular juncture (due to the ‘‘increase in the heretics of the sect of Sabbatai Zevi’’), the decisive action of ‘‘mending a fence’’ is required in order to meet this threat. This proposition is, of course, addressed only to the second, internal, group, the only one of the two that might pay attention to the rabbinical authority. It can be assumed that there is also another, less theoretical reason for this pointed amalgamation between the two groups: in the day-to-day reality reflected here, familiar to all readers of the time, there was no sharp differentiation between a recognized magid or kabbalistic preacher, on the one hand, and a hidden Sabbatean heretic, on the other.19 The polemical argument offered by Landau attempts to distinguish the two by means of denunciations and prohibitions. The bearers of Jewish tradition struggled with the various manifestations of the Sabbatean ‘‘perversion’’ precisely because of this elision: they were not dealing with a band clearly set apart but with one snugly integrated within majority culture. The worldview reflected here is reminiscent of the one encountered earlier in Landau’s letter of 1752. However, the passages differ in two significant ways: first, the ‘‘mending of a fence’’ mentioned is a far cry from the ban and excommunication which he called for in the previous section. Second, in this responsum, Landau’s censure is no longer 17. This phrase comes from the well-known saying of Ben Sira, quoted in both Talmuds (bHag 13a; yHag 2.1): ‘‘Search not the things that are too wonderful for thee, And seek not that which is hid from thee. What thou art permitted, think thereupon, but thou hast no business with the secret things.’’ 18. Noda‘ bi-yehudah Responsa, part 1 (Hebrew; Prague, 1776) ‘‘Yoreh De‘ah’’ 74. 19. This forms the background for the dozens of ‘‘exposures’’ of Sabbateans, documented in the writings of Emden, among others. See, e.g., Sefer Hit’avkut (Altona, 1762), 242–46; Kahana ‘‘From Prague to Pressburg,’’ 20–21; 28; 77.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:56

PS

PAGE 595

596

JQR 102.4 (2012)

directed against particular Sabbatean pamphlets that had successfully ‘‘infiltrated’’ legitimate mystical texts but against the Zohar and kabbalistic literature as a whole. The escalation of heretical activities necessitates a clear renunciation of kabbalistic literature in all its varieties. The living bearers of its traditions (magidim of all types) must be removed, like their literary sources, from both the public realm and halakhic writing. The common thread in both of Landau’s reactions is his literary sensitivity—the cultural sources of the heretical Sabbatean sect disturbed him more than any fleeting controversy. The struggle to configure a legitimate library was an important part of his battle against the Sabbateans. Yet although Landau first names and then seeks to ban the Sabbatean ‘‘holy writings,’’ he subsequently demands a broad public enactment that would proscribe the entire kabbalistic tradition by prohibiting all study of the Zohar and kabbalistic texts. The reason for this intriguing discrepancy between the two pronouncements is not immediately apparent. WINTER 1756

While the date of the responsum is omitted from the printed editions of Noda‘ bi-yehudah, a copy can be found in the notebooks of its addressee, R. Pinh.as of Boskowitz.20 The manuscript enables us to establish the date as Friday, 19 Adar I, 5516 (February 20, 1756). This dating clarifies the urgency and the harsh tone that holds sway over what should have been a normal halakhic exchange. On 1 Tevet (December 1, 1755), Jacob Frank had crossed the Dniester into Poland. During his ostentatious campaign through Podolia, he had openly solicited groups of Sabbatean believers, occasionally clashing with the rabbinical establishment.21 Two months later, on the eve of 26 Tevet (January 28, 1756), Frank and his supporters were discovered in Lanckorona conducting a Sabbateannihilist ritual ceremony. This incident snowballed into arrests, hearings, persecutions, and eventually into a frontal confrontation on a vast scale. As it ran its convoluted course (lasting roughly three years), the clash between the rabbis of the region and the Frankist group—under the partisan ‘‘patronage’’ of the local bishop, Dembowsky—escalated into two dramatic public debates (in Kamieniec Podolski and Lwow), an extraordinary blood libel which featured counteraccusations between Jews and the burning of the Talmud (in the wake of the first debate) and culmi20. Katzenellenbogen, ‘‘Derashot ve-h.idushim,’’ Oxford University Bodlean Library, MS Heb. E. 13, 12a–12b. 21. See M. S. Balaban, Le-toldot ha-tenu‘ah ha-frankit (Tel Aviv, 1926), 12–17; and Dov Ber of Bolechov’s ‘‘Divre binah,’’ in Studies in Galician Jewry, ed. A.Y. Brawer (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1956), 214.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:57

PS

PAGE 596

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

597

nated in Frank’s baptism, along with the conversion of many hundreds of his devotees to Christianity.22 Landau’s responsum coincides with the early stages of these developments, whose denouement was certainly not envisioned at the time. R. Pinh.as of Boskowitz’s innocent question regarding the laws of letters in a Torah scroll caught Landau in the middle of the maelstrom—less than three months after Frank’s return to Poland, and within three weeks of the incident at Lanckorona. It appears that the ‘‘increase in the heretics’’ in this particular period imbued an ordinary halakhic discussion concerning scribal duties with a sense of impending crisis, thus leading Landau to react with such intensity. As the newly installed rabbi and head of the court in Prague, who had only recently departed Volhynia in the summer of 1755, Landau appears to have reacted swiftly and harshly to the unfolding of events in the provinces of his youth.23 This ‘‘increase in the heretics’’ in this specific context should not be taken as a factual account of a surge in the number of the various Sabbatean groups scattered throughout the Habsburg Empire and the kingdom of Poland in the eighteenth century. The exposure of a ‘‘dormant’’ Sabbateanism to the public eye, carried out by Jacob Frank with much fanfare, entailed an increase of heretics that went beyond a correction of the earlier rabbinical refusal to recognize the strength of the sect’s beliefs in the hearts of seemingly mainstream Jews. The Frankist disclosure of various Sabbatean groups throughout Europe also provided a solution of sorts to their existence, which was often indistinct and confusing in their own eyes as well: they were now the subjects of clearly defined, separate cultish beliefs, an unambiguous heresy in the eyes of the majority. In any case, Landau’s reaction goes beyond the usual denunciation of a heresy and the concomitant call to excommunicate it. The broad fence he wished to erect would serve to designate a community purified from both the actual heretics and from the source material shared by the rabbinical community and its Sabbatean rival: the Zohar and the kabbalistic texts. This expanding literary exclusion apparently reflects two stages of an internal modification in Landau’s basic attitude toward kabbalistic litera22. See Balaban, Tenu‘ah ha-frankit, 12–17; Pawel Maciejko, ‘‘The Development of the Frankist Movement in Poland, the Czech Lands, and Germany (1755– 1816)’’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 2003), 19–60 (cf. his book based on the dissertation The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755–1816 [Philadelphia, 2011]). On the different sources regarding the precise number of converts, see ibid., 44–45. 23. For more on the extent of his knowledge of contemporary affairs, see Kahana, ‘‘From Prague to Pressburg,’’ 22, n. 48.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:57

PS

PAGE 597

598

JQR 102.4 (2012)

ture and its preachers. Various sources attest to his earlier acceptance of and personal involvement in the circulation of printed works of Kabbalah and the kabbalistic magidim throughout his many years at the Brody kloyz (1732–45) and the Yampol rabbinate (1745–55).24 This positive outlook is in keeping with his active objection to any ‘‘perverted Kabbalah’’ that was clearly Sabbatean in nature, as seen from his 1752 declaration. By contrast, the statement he issued in the halakhic ruling, which I have dated to early 1756, expresses a negative view of the very standing of Kabbalah in contemporary Jewish culture. At this particular juncture he loudly and roundly rejects its public study, proposing a collective public veto on any type of Kabbalah study, whether of the acceptable kind or otherwise. It is in this context that the representative character of the wandering (or stationary) magid is transformed into a menacing figure. From this point on, R. Landau’s letters of approval to homiletic works include warnings and attach conditions on wandering preachers and ‘‘revealing of secrets,’’ even when no Sabbatean influence was identified.25 The almost forty years he was to spend in Prague (1755 to 1793) only served to entrench and deepen his hostility to Kabbalah—this in a man who himself had grown up, been educated, and had been unconditionally active in an environment saturated with it.26 Due to the intensity of ongoing events, Landau’s call on this occasion received a speedy and noteworthy response. Three months later, after the conclusion of the rabbinical court’s investigations in Satano´w into the Lanckorona affair, a number of rabbis (including friends and relatives of Landau) gathered in Brody and promulgated a writ of excommunication against the Frankists. Yet, unlike previous bans issued against Sabbateansim, this excommunication was not only directed outward in an effort to isolate the proscribed group but also erected a surprising ‘‘fence’’ facing the community left inside, exactly in accordance with Landau’s words and intentions in his communication to Rabbi Katzenellenbogen. This ‘‘fence’’ mandated that the minimum age for the study of the Zohar was 24. See Kahana, ‘‘From Prague to Pressburg,’’ 73–88, and compare an alternative, important attitude: Sharon Flatto, The Kabbalistic Culture of EighteenthCentury Prague: Ezekiel Landau (the ‘Noda Biyehudah’) and his Contemporaries (Oxford, 2010), 111–89. 25. See Mendel Pierkarz, The Beginning of Hasidism: Ideological Trends in Derush and Musar Literature (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1978), 145–47; Kahana, ‘‘From Prague to Pressburg,’’ 47; 83. 26. Kahana, ‘‘From Prague to Pressburg,’’ 73–88; Maoz Kahana and Michael K. Silber, ‘‘Deists, Sabbateans and Kabbalists in Prague: A Censored Sermon of R. Ezekiel Landau 1770’’ (Hebrew), Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 21 (2010): 371–78; and cf. Flatto, Kabbalistic Culture, 97–232.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:57

PS PAGE 598

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

599

thirty; in regard to the writings of the Ari and the rest of the kabbalistic literature, the requisite age was forty.27 Two months later, this excommunication, titled ‘‘The Double-edged Sword,’’ was partly ratified at the gathering of the Council of Four Lands in Konstantyno´w28 and henceforth became the official policy of the leadership of Eastern European Jewry.29 At this stage Landau’s earlier request was also granted—the excommunication included not only the believers in Sabbatai Zevi and Nathan of Gaza but also anyone who possessed the Sabbatean pamphlets mentioned in his 1752 warning. The relevant clause read, ‘‘and the excommunication shall apply to anyone who owns the aforementioned impure books, unless he burns them, including the names of God they contain.’’30 The 1756 Frankist outbreak was not the only factor that led Rabbi Landau to adapt a combative approach to the kabbalistic cultural supremacy of his surroundings,31 but its contribution was clearly decisive in his efforts to formulate an alternative. In opposition to the ‘‘Zoharite’’ Sabbatean-Frankists, who rejected the Talmud (‘‘Contratalmudists,’’ as they were known at the time), Landau presented the mirror-image of the rabbinic talmudist, whose knowledge is purified from kabbalistic dross. A contemporary confrontation had thus served to redefine, and sharply reshape, the boundaries of rabbinic culture. R A B B I PI N H . A S K AT Z E N E L L E N B O G E N — KABBALAH AND SABBATEANISM

The aforementioned fence had indeed been constructed, but official decisions, of course, merely present a narrow view of actual reality. A differ27. The writ of excommunication was printed in proclamations, reprinted by Y. Cohen-Tzeddek, Otsar h.okhmah (Lwow, 1859), 1:22–28. A corresponding description of the excommunication was printed in 1758 by Emden (Sefer shimush 7b), which provides the source for The Records of the Council of the Four Lands, compiled and annotated by I. Bartal, Y. Halperin, and S. Ettinger (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1990), section 753. Regarding the link between Landau’s letter and the Brody excommunication, see Kahana ‘‘From Prague to Pressburg,’’ 22, n. 50. On the development of the different traditions regarding the limit of Kabbalah study to age forty, see Moshe Idel, ‘‘On the History of the Interdiction against the Study of Kabbalah before the Age of Forty,’’ AJS Review 5 (1980): 1*–20*. 28. The distinguished backgrounds, contexts, and contents of Brody and Konstantyno´w bans can be traced through Pawel Maciejko, ‘‘Baruch Yavan and the Frankist Movement: Intercession in an Age of Upheaval,’’ Jahrbuch des SimonDubnow-Instituts 4 (2005): 333–54. 29. Halperin, ‘‘The Records,’’ sections 751–53. 30. Ibid. 31. See Kahana and Silber, ‘‘A Censored Sermon.’’

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:57

PS PAGE 599

600

JQR 102.4 (2012)

ent vantage point can be found by way of a brief look at the notebooks of Rabbi Pinh.as Katzenellenbogen, the addressee of Landau’s 1756 responsum. Pinh.as Katzenellenbogen (1691–1765), an eighth-generation descendant of Rabbi Meir (Maharam) of Padua, was a scion of a distinguished and well-known family, whose offspring occupied many rabbinical posts in eighteenth-century German lands and Poland. He was born in Dubno in 1691. His father, Moses, served as the rabbi of Podhayce before falling victim to a blood libel in 1699 and fleeing to Fu¨rth. Subsequently, Moses served as rabbi of Ansbach and Zirendorf. Katzenellenbogen himself stayed for a while with his grandfather, accompanying him to Fu¨rth as well, where the latter served as rabbi of the community. Later, Katzenellenbogen studied in Prague, at the yeshivot of Rabbi David Oppenheim and Rabbi Abraham Broda. He served later in the rabbinate in Wallerstein, Leipnik, and Markbreit before moving to Boskowitz in Moravia.32 It was from there in 1756 that he sent his query regarding scribal practices to Landau in Prague. Happily, Katzenellenbogen was a near-obsessive recorder of his life. Equally fortunate, ten of his notebooks had already reached the Bodleian Library in Oxford by the nineteenth century.33 These notebooks, roughly two thousand pages in total, contain an abundance of diverse material: novel Torah ideas and insights into tractates he had studied, sermons and eulogies, various calculations, halakhic responsa, and court rulings. Alongside these, he also recorded dreams, visions, and encounters with assorted mystics, as well as the advice he received from them, and many other events of his life. In 1986 Rabbi Isaac Dov Feld published one of these notebooks: Yesh manh.ilin (There Are Those Who Bequeath), containing Katzenellenbogen’s last testament, in addition to his life story.34 This book, together with the manuscripts, offers a unique glimpse into the world of an eighteenth-century Ashkenazi rabbi of a medium-sized community. If Landau’s words and actions embody the desire to draw a firm dividing line between those who ‘‘chirp and make noises over the book of the 32. A detailed and accurate portrayal of his life and family history can be found in Y. D. Feld’s introduction to Katzenellenbogen’s book Yesh manh.ilin, and in the appendix added to the volume, ‘‘H . aluke avanim.’’ 33. See Aharon Walden, Shem ha-gedolim he-h.adash (Warsaw, 1864); Ma‘arekhet gedolim 80. 34. Katzenellenbogen, Yesh manh.ilin (Jerusalem 1986). On testament literature, see Zeev Gries, Conduct Literature (Regimen Vitae): Its History and Place in the Life of Beshtian Hasidism (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1989), 51–54.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:58

PS

PAGE 600

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

601

Zohar’’ and the rabbinic masters, the writings of Katzenellenbogen provide the best demonstration of the nonexistence of any such demarcation. His life and writings combine diligent study and uninterrupted study of Talmud, the halakhic authorities, and novel teachings of Torah, alongside his correspondence regarding Kabbalah, visionary dreams, the use of kabbalistic and magical talismans, and dealings with various kabbalistic ‘‘Names,’’ some of which he learnt from books, others from living mystics. Naturally, his rabbinical service was not disconnected from his written interests.35 A survey of his attitude toward Sabbateanism reveals the extent to which his viewpoint differed from that of R. Landau. Yesh manh.ilin, interestingly enough, was composed between 1758 and 1761, at the height of the Frankist confrontation discussed above. At the beginning of this book of his testament, Katzenellenbogen recorded his childhood relationship with two wondrous mystics in 1704–5, during the period of his stay with his father in Fu¨rth: A holy and pure man . . . his faith was in the hidden secrets of Torah, and all the pious (H.asidim), including their most learned and ascetic, would approach him in order to draw living waters from his well of kabbalistic wisdom . . . My father—my master, teacher and rabbi—also attended him . . . his name was the Sage, our Master, Abraham Rovigo, may his memory be blessed, and let his merit be in our stead forever. His student who served him, our Master Rabbi Mordecai from the holy community of Lwow, he cleaved unto his master’s Torah and faith,36 until he merited . . . that a [heavenly] Magid was revealed to him in the form of his perfectly wise rabbi (h.akham ha-shalem), the same Master, Rabbi Abraham Rovigo. He studied the wisdom of the Kabbala with him, and revealed secrets to him until he wrote a book on several passages from the Zohar, called Eshel avraham after the Rabbi [Rovigo] . . . since I know that our Master, Rabbi Mordecai, was not learned enough to be versed in the Talmud, he must have obtained the knowledge as a gift from Heaven for serving the great man . . . for I have known him [Abraham Rovigo] from my youth—his countenance 35. See, e.g., Yesh manh.ilin, section 31. 36. By the recurring expression ‘‘his faith’’ Katzenellenbogen might be referring to Rovigo’s Sabbatean beliefs: ‘‘in the faith of the righteous man’’; ‘‘mistaken in his faith.’’ See Y. Tishby, Netive emunah u-minut—masot u-mekhkarim be-sifrut ha-kabala ve-hashabeta’ut (Tel Aviv, 1964), 229–30; Gershom Scholem, Shabethai Zebi veha-tenua ha-shabtait bi-yeme h.ayav (Tel Aviv, 1957), 2:822 (index), ‘‘ma’aminim.’’

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:58

PS

PAGE 601

602

JQR 102.4 (2012)

is like an angel of God, and his appearance is majestic . . . and every Shabbat I would go to him to receive his blessing . . .37 It would be hard to find a more suitable example of Landau’s 1756 comment regarding ‘‘those who study the book of the Zohar and the Kabbalistic literature in public’’38 than the portrayal of Abraham Rovigo surrounding himself with the scholars of Fu¨rth. Similarly, Landau’s complaint in a different responsum regarding those of his generation who ‘‘have abandoned the two Talmuds, the Babylonian and the Jerusalem . . . each of them saying I am the seer and to me the Gates of Heaven have been opened’’39 is perfectly exemplified by the figure of the student Mordecai Ashkenazi and his magidic-prophetic work, Eshel avraham.40 Abraham Rovigo and his student Mordecai Ashkenazi were not, however, merely ordinary kabbalists. The pair played an important role at the center of the dissemination of Sabbatean teachings in the early eighteenth century.41 The question then arises: when he immortalized these two figures with such great affection at the outset of his testament in autumn 1758,42 was Katzenellenbogen aware of the nature of this ‘‘faith’’ of theirs? A clear answer to this question can be found in a different volume of his writings. Katzenellenbogen’s diverse library included, among other kabbalistic works, a manuscript of the Shulh.an ‘arukh of the Ari.43 If we browse 37. Yesh manh.ilin, section 6. 38. Noda‘ bi-yehudah Responsa, 141; Yoeh de‘ah, 74. 39. Noda‘ bi-yehudah Responsa, 141; Yoeh de‘ah, 93. This famous responsa of 1776 was written in opposition to the kabbalistic formula ‘‘for the purpose of the unification of the Name’’ (le-shem yih.ud). 40. R. Mordecai Ashkenazi, Eshel avraham (Fu¨rth, 1701). The author describes the magid’s revelation to him in the book itself: ‘‘I also merited to see [the magid’s] face, and it was most similar to the face of my teacher and rabbi, our master and teacher Rabbi Rovigo; he could only be distinguished by his dress, which was white as snow, and by his beard, clean as white wool . . . ’’ (13a). Regarding the identity of the magid, Ashkenazi himself believed that it was actually his master Rovigo himself who was ‘‘nothing more than a spark from this rabbi [the magid] who comes to study with me by night . . . they are as one’’ (27b). On the ignorance of the author, see ibid., 25a; 96a. Cf. R. Abraham Rovigo’s letter of approval, ibid., introduction, 6a–b. 41. See, e.g., Gershom Scholem, The Dreams of Mordecai Ashkenazi (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1938); Y. Tishby, ‘‘The First Sabbatean Maggid in Abraham Rovigo’s Beth Midrash,’’ Netive emunah u-minut, 169–85. 42. This date is based on Yesh manh.ilin, author’s prologue, sections 25–26. 43. On the miscellaneous content of Katzenellenbogen’s library, see Yesh manh.ilin, 41–51; Zeev Gries, The Book as Agent of Culture, 1700–1900 (Hebrew; Tel Aviv, 2002), 65–70.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:58

PS

PAGE 602

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

603

through the pages of this manuscript, which was also brought by the exigencies of history to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, we will discover an interesting composition, roughly fifteen pages in length, which includes the following lines: ‘‘penitential rectifications (tikune teshuva) sent from Gaza, instituted by our most dignified teacher, Rabbi Nathan the Prophet Ashkenazi.’’44 Katzenellenbogen kept this manuscript— including the penitential rectifications of Nathan of Gaza—in his private library for many years, dating back to his Fu¨rth period. On one summer’s day in 175645 he added a comment of his own, identifying the copyist of the writings he had brought from Fu¨rth as none other than Abraham Rovigo.46 Just as the reference to Nathan of Gaza did not lead Katzenellenbogen to burn the Sabbatean manuscript, or even remove it from his house, so Rovigo’s affiliation with Sabbateanism, clearly established by the manuscript, failed to induce the author to repudiate his youthful relationship with the latter. Nor did it have any noticeable effect on his reverential portrayal of the ‘‘holy, pure man,’’47 written in 1758, more than two years after the outbreak of the conflicts between Frank and the rabbis in Podolia. Katzenellenbogen’s esteem for Rovigo belongs also to the realm of the mystical. Like Mordecai Ashkenazi, the youthful Katzenellenbogen had seen Rovigo in a dream, in which he taught him the relevant biblical verse assigned esoterically to his name. Even when writing his comment on the Sabbatean ‘‘rectification,’’ more than fifty years after this vision, Katzenellenbogen continued to recite that verse on a daily basis: ‘‘since I merited from heaven that he show it to me, and I heard it from that holy, pure mouth.’’48 This leads to the inevitable question: was Katzenellenbogen— 44. ‘‘ Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari and Other Kabbalistic Writings’’ (Hebrew; Oxford manuscript, MS Mich. 36), 214a. These lines are inserted between the lines in pages 214b and 228b. This manuscript, mentioning the rectifications of Nathan of Gaza, has been noted by Scholem, ‘‘Shabbetai Zevi,’’ 460, n. 1. On the identity of the copyist and its implications for the dissemination of Sabbateanism by Rovigo during his Fu¨rth days, see Tishby, who also mentions Katzenellenbogen’s aforementioned comments on this manuscript: ‘‘Doctor Rabbi Meir’s Letters to Rabbi Abraham Rovigo, 1675–1680’’ (Hebrew), Sefunot 2/3 (1959–60): 77–84. 45. June 18, 1756. Interestingly, the Hebrew date was 20 Sivan 5516, the same date as the Frankist excommunication in Brody. 46. ‘‘Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari,’’ 259a. 47. ‘‘Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari,’’ 259a; in the same year, using the same expression, see Yesh manh.ilin, section 6. 48. ‘‘Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari,’’ 259a. With slight variations, he copied this two years later into his testament; Yesh manh.ilin, section 6.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:58

PS

PAGE 603

604

JQR 102.4 (2012)

who kept a Sabbatean manuscript in his home and who recorded his and his father’s relations with Rovigo and Ashkenazi in unreservedly affectionate terms, was he a distinguished rabbi of a standard community, and a secret ‘‘believer’’ in Sabbateanism at the same time? Interestingly, it appears that troublesome thoughts of this kind actually occurred to Katzenellenbogen himself. On November 17, 1758,49 roughly two and a half years after writing his first comment,50 he added another note, prominently positioned at the head of the binding of the Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari (which included the aforementioned Sabbatean manuscript). This note was written in the course of his use of Nathan of Gaza’s penitential rectifications—he had copied parts of it for he own purposes, ‘‘excellent words,’’ as he put it.51 After praising Rovigo once again, Katzenellenbogen sought to rid himself of any suspicion: Now I have observed in this book that he calls Nathan of Gaza a true and righteous prophet . . . the same man who prophesied falsely regarding Sabbatai Zevi, may his name be blotted out, who caused a great stumbling-block. Lest anyone suspect me, God forbid, of being one of them, far be it for [me] the seed of father, our holy teacher, may his memory be blessed, and the faith of the righteous, may he live forever. However, we do not criticize the ‘‘lion’’ [Ari], that Godfearing, righteous man; one should not be astonished even if he wrote such things, for in those days, in the year 1666, most communities of Israel believed in those strange matters. But their disgrace has since been revealed, and no more need be said.52 The unease of the owner of the Sabbatean manuscript at the time is evident to anyone who glances at it. Alongside this note, at the head of the binding, Katzenellenbogen scribbled a few short words of reservation next to the praises of Nathan the Prophet, on the opening page of the Sabbatean rectification itself. He added similar comments to the closing page as well.53 49. ‘‘Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari,’’ 259a. The page was originally placed at the head of the binding of the writings. It is dated ‘‘Friday, on the eve of Shabbat Parashat Vayyera, 16 H . eshvan 5519 [1759].’’ 50. ‘‘Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari,’’ 259a. 51. ‘‘Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari,’’ 259a. On the significance of penitential rectifications for Rabbi Pinchas, see Yesh manchilin, sections 38–46; Kahana ‘‘From Prague to Pressburg,’’ 49–51. 52. ‘‘Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari,’’ 259a. 53. ‘‘Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari,’’ 214a (‘‘and his disgrace was revealed, for he was a false prophet, as is well-known’’); 223a. Although these additions are undated, they direct the reader to the earlier, more detailed comment, which appears above.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:58

PS PAGE 604

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

605

The timing of the addition of this comment, autumn 1758, is telling. The excommunications of the Sabbateans in 1725 may have had no effect on Katzenellenbogen, nor the ones issued in 1756 at Brody or by the Council of the Four Lands at Konstantyno´w, nor even Landau’s agitated letter of the same year—but the events of the following two years may have finally affected him. The public debate between the Sabbateans and the rabbis in Kaminiec-Podolsk under the supervision of the priests, and the ensuing triumph of the Sabbateans, which culminated in the burning of the Talmud in 1757, was followed by the ‘‘iron letter’’ of Augustus III, king of Poland, in which the king granted Frank his protection upon his return to Poland, in those very days of 1758.54 These spiraling events transformed the local unmasking in Lanckorona into something else entirely—a kind of representative medieval public disputation that threatened to leave its mark on all communities of Israel throughout the world. It is likely that these developments stirred Katzenellenbogen into the realization of a possible further manifestation, widespread in scale, of that ‘‘great stumbling-block,’’ in his words, caused by Sabbatai Zevi years ago, long before his birth. The tensions of the past had returned to shake up the present, demanding a reevaluation. It is at this juncture that Katzenellenbogen felt the need to add a note explaining his ownership of a proscribed manuscript. However, in the process of deflecting any possible suspicion, he revealed his attitude toward Rovigo and the Sabbatean movement as a whole, which in effect remained unchanged: while Katzenellenbogen expressed reservations over the praise of Nathan of Gaza, the false prophet cited at the start of the ‘‘rectification,’’ he nevertheless retained his praise for the penitential rectifications themselves (which he copied and considered of useful value) as well as his affection for the figure of Rovigo, the source of the writings. He drew a shrewd distinction between the sociological meaning of the belief in Sabbateanism for those who witnessed the events of ‘‘those days,’’ the seventh decade of the seventeenth century, when it was a normative and perhaps even necessary faith, and its significance for an eighteenth-century figure like Katzenellenbogen himself, far removed from such a set of beliefs, once their ‘‘disgrace’’ had been ‘‘exposed.’’55 The historical distance between ‘‘then’’ and ‘‘now’’ allowed him to retain his adoration of Rovigo, the hero of his youth, despite the fact that in 54. See Balaban, Tenu‘ah ha-frankit, 192–200. 55. This expression is based on bH . ul 56b. This term was frequently applied to Sabbateanism, as in the aforementioned citation from Landau, and similarly by R. Elazar Fleckeles (Teshuvah me-ahavah, part 1, 8), and many others.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 11:59:59

PS PAGE 605

606

JQR 102.4 (2012)

retrospect he had been mistaken.56 Even at this stage, Nathan’s penitential rectification was not buried or consigned to the flames. Katzenellenbogen, the recipient of Landau’s 1756 letter, had indeed fallen prey to the allure of forbidden knowledge. Just like the ‘‘masses’’ of Podolia, he viewed Nathan of Gaza’s rectifications as ‘‘holy writings,’’ and just like them, he denied being a Sabbatean adherent. Katzenellenbogen’s four personal comments scribbled on the back of the penitential rectification manuscript appear to reflect a change of heart in the light of current events. Between the initial revelation of the Frankist movement and later its fateful denouement, he had to confront afresh the implications of a ‘‘normative’’ rabbi such as himself possessing a Sabbatean manuscript. His response clearly displays a dialectical attitude toward the Sabbatean phenomenon on the one hand and its literary productions on the other. Katzenellenbogen’s public writings of those years also suggest that he recoiled from some of his earlier opinions in light of the ensuing events. In the winter of 1761, about three years after he had begun his testament Yesh manh.ilin, he had completed one hundred and fifty pages of the project. In the traditional manner, he sought to finish on a positive note by mentioning the long-awaited redemption. At this point, more than a year after the Frankist conversions began (September 1759), his troubled state of mind is manifest in the concluding paragraphs of his personal testament: According to the Tosafot57 . . . even Shmuel, who says ‘‘the only difference between this world and the days of the Messiah is the subjugation of the kingdoms alone,’’58 agrees that we will nonetheless possess the Temple and the holy city of Jerusalem, may it be rebuilt speedily in the days of the Messiah, in our days, with God’s help. And what shall we do with those who believe in Sabbatai Zevi etc., and claim that he has already arrived; may their name be blotted out? For if so, where is the Temple in its glory? And Jerusalem, our holy city? In our sins, our splendor has been removed from us.59 56. The first part of the quotation cited above includes a renewed account of Rovigo’s praises (‘‘Shulch.an Arukh of the Ari,’’ 259b). 57. The reference is to the comments of the Tosafot on bShab 63a, which he had mentioned earlier in section 239. 58. bBer 34a. 59. Yesh manh.ilin, section 241. This section can be approximately dated to January or February 1761. In March 1760, Katzenellenbogen set aside the conclusion of the volume, due to the passing of his wife. In early November 1760 he ‘‘undertook to finish’’ the work (Yesh manh.ilin, ‘‘Everyday Events,’’ 346). This he

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:00

PS

PAGE 606

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

607

Here Katzenellenbogen confronts the Sabbatean faith, claiming that even according to the minimalist positions put forth by the Talmud and its commentaries, there can be no redemption without the building of the Temple and Jerusalem. If the Messiah has already arrived, as the believers in Sabbatai Zevi claimed, where is the Temple, and why has Jerusalem not been rebuilt? Even our ‘‘splendor,’’ the dignity of the Jewish community in its exile, has been taken away. Such were his sentiments in the winter of 1761, roughly a year after the mass conversions of Frank’s followers, a sizeable number stemming from Podhayce, the seat of his father long ago. Alongside this bitter and emotional rejection, one can still detect his basic approach beneath the pressures of the hour: even after the blood libel and the Frankist conversions, the belief in Sabbatai Zevi remains a kind of mistake, one that can be corrected by talmudic argumentation. The praises of Rovigo and Zakendorf,60 with which the author began his testament three years earlier, were not expunged from the manuscript even at this stage. L E A R N I N G T O R A H EV E N FR O M ‘‘ A H . ER’’

An extract from the third volume of Katzenellenbogen’s writings might aid our understanding of his complex stance toward the heretical movement, various manifestations of which he witnessed in his youth and old age. To this end, let us return to autumn 1756, a few short months after the bans issued at Brody and Konstantyno´w. Revealing an intriguing sense of timing, Katzenellenbogen records in one of his notebooks61 a frank description of the various stages of vacillation he experienced during the course of dozens of years of indecision caused by Or Yisra’el—a book which incorporated a clear expression of Sabbatean faith, as Katzenellenbogen discovered upon reading it. He wrestled with these misgivings for four decades: achieved on the tenth of Tevet of that year, after which he wrote sections 235 through 241, which deal with the days of the Messiah and the redemption. His rabbinical correspondence with son in Ettingen (sections 242–44) form a kind of appendix to the book. 60. Isaac Zakendorf was the synagogue attendant (shamash) at Fu¨rth. It was he who copied the writings of Nathan of Gaza that Rovigo transferred to the volume of writings later owned by Katzenellenbogen. For a description of his praise (‘‘an upright, God-fearing, righteous man, of great piety’’) and Katzenellenbogen’s record of his copying work, see Yesh manh.ilin, section 32. 61. Pinchas Katzenellenbogen, ‘‘Derashot ve-h.idushe torah’’ (Oxford manuscript, MS Heb. E. 130) 24a–b. The passage quoted below is part of a broader survey of Katzenellenbogen’s overall attitude toward various kabbalistic texts, and of his reaction to the different writs of excommunication of the period. I hope to say more about the particular context of this passage on another occasion.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:00

PS

PAGE 607

608

JQR 102.4 (2012)

When I was in the community of Markbreit,62 a book entitled Or Yisra’el came into my possession. I realized that this man63 was indeed a great Kabbalist. I learned wonderful ideas from this book, which I studied literally every day. However, when I came to realize from his words that he was a believer in the faith of Sabbatai Zevi, may the Merciful One protect us from such things,64 I realized that it was a mitsvah to withdraw from the study of this book, so that I should not be drawn into error, God forbid. I said that just as I will receive reward for expounding it, so will I be rewarded for withdrawing from it.65 Subsequently, however, I retracted and said to myself: why should I refrain from studying this book? It is entirely comprised of kabbalistic explanations, elucidations of the Zohar, and clarifications of the words of the Holy Ari, may his memory be blessed. All its teachings are insightful, becoming, and in good taste. If he is in error regarding his beliefs (emunato), I will make sure not to follow his mistake, just as R. Meir learned Torah from ‘‘Ah.er’’ by eating the pulp of his words and discarding the rind etc.66 I did not want to hold back from the book any longer, but I was confused as to what to do; I would not read it on a regular basis as before, but only occasionally, etc. [This remained the 62. Katzenellenbogen served as a rabbi in Markbreit from the summer of 1722 to the summer of 1750, before moving to Boskowitz. Regarding his unhappiness as rabbi of this community, a role that took up all his time, see, e.g., Yesh manh.ilin, section 182, as well as many other sources. 63. The reference is to the author of the book, R. Israel Jaffe (Uman 1640— Frankfurt an der Oder, aft 1702). The book was first published in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1702, about twenty years before Katzenellenbogen read it. 64. The author’s belief in Sabbatai Zevi’s messianic claims is in fact already evident from the fourth page of the book. Thus Katzenellenbogen’s recollection in 1756 that he had observed that the book was Sabbatean in nature already in the early 1720s, some thirty years earlier than the first printed warnings to the effect, which appeared in Emden’s Torat ha-kena’ot (1752). For a survey for the book’s Sabbatean expositions, and the significance of the polemical controversy surrounding it, see Kahana Sabbatean and Hassidic Kabbalists, part 2, 126–29; Yehuda Liebes, ‘‘The Letter tsadi and the Attitude of the Vilna Gaon and His Circle toward Sabbateanism’’ (Hebrew), Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 9 (2003): 225–307. 65. A paraphrase of the comment by the tanna R. Shim‘on Ha-Amsoni in bPes 22b and elsewhere. 66. A paraphrase of the Talmud’s statement regarding R. Meir, who learned Torah from the heretical tanna Elisha ben Avuyah, known as ‘‘Ah.er,’’ the ‘‘Other.’’ Regarding Elisha ben Avuyah and his talmudic portrayal, see Yehuda Liebes, The Sin of Elisha: The Four Who Entered Paradise and the Nature of Talmudic Mysticism (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1986).

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:00

PS

PAGE 608

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

609

case] until one time, [a certain individual] appeared to me in a dream and greeted me with peace, and I answered him with peace.67 I asked him who he was, and he replied that he was Elijah the Prophet. Among other things, he encouraged me to study the book Or Yisra’el, praising it highly. I awoke perturbed by this dream, and I said to myself: who am I that Elijah the Prophet should reveal himself to me? This dream must be a worthless message that the deceiving and destructive forces have sent to mislead me, and perhaps he only says so, etc. After this incident, which happened in about 5483 [1723],68 I withdrew my hand from that book, only reading it on the ninth of Av [!], or the occasional halakhah which cannot lead one astray, and even this only once or twice a year.69 Several years passed during which I did not so much as glance at it. For this I must praise and give thanks to the Holy One, blessed be he and blessed be his name, for inspiring the above abstention. Nonetheless, this last summer [1756]70 I have occasionally returned to the 67. The description of this dream (and perhaps the language of the dream itself) undoubtedly alludes to the well-known chorus recited at the conclusion of Shabbat: ‘‘Happy is he who has seen his face in a dream [!]; happy is he who is greeted by him with peace and responds to him with peace.’’ Such ‘‘revelations of Elijah’’ have deep and diverse cultural roots. For a mere sample, see the sources collected by Meir Ish-Shalom, Tana de-ve Eliyahu rabah ve-zuta (Jerusalem, 1969), 27–38, and the Maharal’s thematic discussions of this issue (Netsah. Yisra’el, chap. 28), as well as that of R. Joseph H . ayyim of Baghdad (Responsa Rav pe‘alim (Jerusalem, 1970), part 2, section 4. The link between the teachings of the Ari and a possible revelation from Elijah was likewise a key issue in discussions of the source of his authority. 68. Katzenellenbogen was living in Markbreit in 5483 (1722–23). Over the following years Katzenellenbogen received additional support regarding various issues in the form of further dreams. These dreams featured many important rabbinic figures of his acquaintance, such as R. Naphtali Katz of Frankfurt am Main (1660–1719), R. Jacob Katz (d. 1740, head of the court of Frankfurt am Main, author of the responsa Shav Ya‘akov), and especially his late father-in-law, R. Gabriel Eskeles (d. 1718), who served as head of the court in Prague, Metz, and Nikolsburg. On these dreams in general, and the author’s self-awareness regarding the cultural role of the ‘‘dreamer,’’ see Yesh manh.ilin, section 6; 9–13; see also sections 65–66; 185; 189, and others. 69. The second part of the book (from page 77b onward) indeed gives the appearance of a halakhic ‘‘commentary,’’ but it too clearly betrays a complex kabbalistic bent, as indicated by its title: ‘‘A mystical commentary on Orah. h.ayim, along with a commentary on teachings of the Zohar, and talmudic explanations . . .’’ (Yesh manh.ilin 77b). 70. This date of this passage is November 29, 1756, as it appears at the head of the lengthy section of which this forms a part (Oxford MS Heb. E. 130, p. 22b). ‘‘This past summer’’ thus refers to the summer of 1756.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:00

PS

PAGE 609

610

JQR 102.4 (2012)

book, for he truly was a great and cherished kabbalist, all of whose words are in good taste, and composed with perceptive understanding. And if he was in error—I said to myself—now that I have reached old age71 [ . . . God] will assist me and teach me the way of truth, and until the day of my death he will lead me in straight paths for the sake of his true name, Amen, let it be his will. This remarkable passage sketches out in clear terms Katzenellenbogen’s spiritual tribulations, as his unequivocal rejection of Sabbateanism confronts his honest appreciation of the merits of the book and the pleasure he takes in reading it. While its author is decidedly ‘‘mistaken in his faith,’’ he remains ‘‘a great and cherished kabbalist, all of whose words are in good taste, and composed with perceptive understanding.’’ The end result of his confusion and misgivings is far from unambiguous—even an explicit ‘‘revelation of Elijah’’ in favor of the book leads him to distance himself temporarily from its perusal. This point is remarkable: Katzenellenbogen, who accepted Nathan of Gaza’s rectifications, was suspicious of Elijah the Prophet’s visionary revelation! It is likely that the thenstandard association of prophecy with Sabbateanism caused Katzenellenbogen to doubt the validity of his own dream.72 The ‘‘Elijah’’ who appeared in his dreams might actually be a ‘‘lure from the Other Side [Satan],’’ as R. Isaiah Bassan feared might be the case in regard to the identity of the otherwordly magid who visited his student Moses H . ayyim Luzzatto, suspected in his time of Sabbateanism.73 A similar concern was expressed by the Gaon of Vilna when he ruled that now that ‘‘the delinquents (Sabbateans) have increased’’ . . . ‘‘it is impossible for all the words [of a magid] to be holy of holies without any dross.’’74 It will be recalled that in his youth a magid appeared to Katzenellenbogen in the form of the Sabbatean Rovigo, just as he featured in the dreams of his Sabbatean student, Mordecai Ashkenazi.75 Although his admiration 71. Katzenellenbogen turned sixty-five in 1756. 72. See, e.g., Scholem, The Dreams of Mordecai Ashkenazi; Tishby, ‘‘The First Sabbatean Maggid.’’ On the early stages of this phenomenon and its broader European context, see, e.g., Matt Goldish, The Sabbatean Prophets (Cambridge, Mass., 2004). For later ones, see Moshe Idel, ‘‘On Prophecy and Early Hasidism,’’ in Studies in Modern Religions, Religious Movements and the Babi-Baha’i Faiths, ed. M. Sharon. (Leiden, 2004): 41–75. 73. S. Ginsburg, Rabbi Moses Haim Luzzatto and His Generation: A Collection of Letters and Records (Hebrew; Tel Aviv, 1937), 1:86. 74. Rabbi H . aim of Volozhin, Sifra de-tzni‘uta im bi’ur ha- Gra (Jerusalem, 1986), introduction. 75. See ‘‘Shulh.an ‘Arukh of the Ari,’’ 259a.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:01

PS

PAGE 610

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

611

of Rovigo remained intact, Katzenellenbogen had also learned to suspect the authenticity of the medium of the vision. Thus when Elijah the Prophet appeared to him at night in order to encourage his continued study of the problematic volume, Katzenellenbogen suspected a misleading emissary of the ‘‘deceiver.’’ Throughout those years Katzenellenbogen did not withdraw from Nathan of Gaza’s rectifications but continued to make use of them. It seems that in this case the use of traditional, clearly defined texts, albeit clearly Sabbatean in origin, was to a certain extent more straightforward than his own trust in his inner world and his dreams. At this juncture Katzenellenbogen appears to have triumphed almost completely over his attraction to the book, only peering into infrequently. Fascinatingly, he succumbed to this temptation on, of all days, the ninth of Av. On the one hand, this is the date on which conventional Torah study is forbidden; on the other, a dialectical analysis of Sabbatean material appears eminently suitable for the overtly ‘‘disposable’’ character of a day of mourning for dashed hopes of redemption, one which the Sabbateans sought to annul. On regular days Katzenellenbogen would turn only to the ‘‘safer’’ halakhic sections of the book, which presented no danger. Still, this tortuous effort to steer clear of the book was not the end of the matter. It was only toward the end of the 1750s, safeguarded by the divine protection and providence afforded to him by his old age, that Katzenellenbogen felt free to read his ‘‘cherished’’ book as much as he wished. In the liberty afforded him by his advanced years, Katzenellenbogen reminisced about the various changes in his attitude toward the volume over the previous four decades. He viewed its author’s belief in Sabbatai Zevi as an ‘‘error’’ that might contain ‘‘edible matter,’’ rather than as a heresy that rendered the book simply as taboo. This coming to peace with the work in question occurred toward the end of the summer of 1756, when the uproar surrounding the Rabbinic-Frankist clash was at its height. Only a few months earlier, Katzenellenbogen had received Landau’s reply regarding the ‘‘increase in heretics’’ and the need to erect a ‘‘fence’’ around all study of kabbalistic works. In these last years of his life, Katzenellenbogen’s inclinations tended in the opposite direction. Katzenellenbogen was not a Sabbatean, but his objections to Sabbateanism were limited. While the ‘‘great stumbling-block,’’ as he calls it, caused harm to the Jewish people, he did not perceive its human and literary consequences as categorically negative. Within a Jewish tradition that seemed in some ways to lack the necessary vocabulary and historical experience for an understanding of the term ‘‘heretic’’ and the exclusion

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:01

PS

PAGE 611

612

JQR 102.4 (2012)

of those who fit the type,76 Katzenellenbogen argued for a rejection of certain Sabbatean beliefs, but not the renunciation of all traditions and homiletic material. The respective attitudes of the correspondents—Katzenellenbogen and Landau—toward the events that began in 1756 appear to offer an almost perfect contrast. While the head of the court of Prague attempted to establish clear lines of demarcation between both Sabbateanism and its kabbalistic sources, to ‘‘the integral members of Israel’’ (shelume emune Yisra’el), his addressee, the venerable rabbi from Boskowitz, refused to acknowledge the existence of any such segregating boundaries. In this exchange between descendants of distinguished Ashkenazi lineages, the young rabbi from Prague is the more innovative. The elder rabbi’s more modulated approach issues from a sense of cultural continuity, in which the Zohar, its elucidation, and the writings of the Ari are venerated disciplines that cannot be categorically removed from the tradition, notwithstanding any ‘‘errors’’ that might have tainted these sources. In this light, Landau’s aggressive and polemical arguments regarding ‘‘the true learning . . . our tradition . . . from the times of our teacher Moses until now’’77 as extending no further than ‘‘the Talmud and its commentaries’’78 would be seen by many as an attempt to establish a novel, even revolutionary, clear tradition, well purified from its own traditional complexities. Let us return to Landau’s milieu. His older contemporary’s private writings were hidden, of course, from the prying eyes of his peers. Lan76. E.g., Moshe Carmilly-Weingerber, Book and Sword: Freedom of Expression and Thought among the Jewish People (Hebrew; New York, 1966); intro.; 48–185; cf., for example, Francis S. Betten, The Roman Index of Forbidden Books (St. Louis, Mo., 2009); Gigliola Fragnito, ed., Church, Censorship, and Culture in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, 2001). On the encounter between the censoring establishment and the culture of Jewish printing, see Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, The Censor, the Editor, and the Text:? the Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century, trans. J. Feldman (Philadelphia, 2007). 77. Noda‘ bi-yehudah Responsa, part 1, Orah. h.ayim 62, dated September 1775. The link between the date of this responsa, three years after the 1772 excommunication of the Hasidim, and its address, in Bedzin in the Cracow region, indicates that its heated rhetoric is influenced by its anti-Hasidic context. For Landau, the anti-Hasidic debate ‘‘inherits’’ the mantle of his kabbalistic polemics of two decades earlier. Cf. Flatto, ‘‘ ‘Hasidim’ and ‘Mitnaggedim’: Not a World Apart,’’ Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 12.2 (2003): 99–121. 78. Noda‘ bi-yehudah Responsa, Part I, Orah. h.ayim 62, and in many other places. Regarding the various aspects of Landau’s literary ‘‘purification’’ movement—critical-philological-modern as well as polemical—see Kahana, ‘‘From Prague to Pressburg,’’ 14–166.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:01

PS

PAGE 612

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

613

dau’s attack was not directed against Katzenellenbogen. It is his very position as a legitimate correspondent, rather than ‘‘visionary’’ ‘‘magid,’’ or ‘‘chirper in public’’—a position that made him likely (in Landau’s view) to agree with the latter’s arguments—that serves to emphasize Katzenellenbogen’s very different cultural outlook. In actual fact, Landau’s exclusionary move is more dialectical in nature than might be understood from his polemical declarations. In Prague, where he spent forty years of his life, he had to maintain a tense but stable coexistence with wealthy and well-known Sabbatean families who were prominent in community life.79 Landau’s consistent policy was to issue harsh public pronouncements while deliberately and knowingly turning a blind eye to his constituents.80 It seems that the clear barriers unattainable in relation to the Prague Jewish community find magnified expression and importance in his literary works. ‘‘ WORDS O F TRUTH WITHIN LIES’’

I will tell you face-to-face: how could such a thing be, that words of truth could be found within lies?! Hence whoever is wise should eat the pulp and discard the rind, as Rabbi Meir did with Ah.er’s teachings. Moshe H . aim Luzzatto81 I have attempted to trace, step by step, the parallel reactions of these two correspondents—Rabbi Pinh.as Katzenellenbogen and Rabbi Ezekiel Landau—to the tumultuous events, which they experienced from a certain distance, in the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia respectively. However, this limited survey has wider implications with regard to the conceptualization and exclusion of the Sabbatean movement in the latter half of the eighteenth century and beyond. The unambiguous compartmentalization of ‘‘impure’’ and ‘‘pure,’’ combined with the ‘‘revelation’’ and ‘‘exposure’’ of Sabbatean literature and figures, was a discourse beloved by Emden, who made continuous use of 79. On the Sabbateans of Prague, see, e.g., Gershom Scholem, ‘‘A Frankist Document from Prague,’’ in Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee, ed. S. Lieberman (Jerusalem, 1974), 2:787–814; Scholem, Researches in Sabbateanism, ed. Y. Liebes (Hebrew; Tel Aviv, 1991), see index; Maciejko, ‘‘Frankist Movement,’’ 231–46; Alexandr Putı´k, ‘‘Prague Jews and Judah Hasid: A Study of the Social, Political and Religious History of the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries,’’ Judaica Bohemiae 38 (2003): 72–105; ibid, 39 (2004): 53–92. 80. On Landau and the Sabbateans of Prague, see Kahana, ‘‘From Prague to Pressburg,’’ 73–78. 81. Letters of the Ramh.al (Ginsburg, Letters and Records), 152.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:01

PS

PAGE 613

614

JQR 102.4 (2012)

such rhetoric through many years of obsessive writing. The Sabbatean heresy-hunter’s82 mindset, which has also on occasion infiltrated the ‘‘discourse of exposure’’ which became familiar in historical research, does not appear to accord with the actual consciousness of many of the time. All the participants had to deal with an uncertain reality, in which Sabbatean homiletics were interlaced with legitimate kabbalistic texts. However, in contrast to Jacob Emden’s purge campaign, Landau and Katzenellenbogen deeply shared the sense that they were dealing with a literary totality that resisted easy censorship. The difference between the two is that whereas Landau sought to negate this dangerous totality, to the extent that he attempted to formulate a novel, insulated cultural path, one that would entail the complete exclusion of kabbalistic texts, the older Katzenellenbogen, like many of his contemporaries, could not cut his profound ties to kabbalistic literature, including its Sabbatean offshoots. Notwithstanding his many concerns and scruples, he felt free to return to reading Or Yisra’el and continued to make use of Nathan of Gaza’s rectifications, which he kept in his library; this despite his resolute opposition to Jacob Frank and his followers, and in the face of all the letters, excommunications, and official decisions of the Council of the Four Lands. Katzenellenbogen’s loyalties to this material, however, does not prove a secret leaning toward Sabbatean beliefs, nor is it due to any eccentricity of character. In my opinion, his personal struggles are representative of those of a large proportion of the rabbinic mainstream and their deepseated historical memory of the spread of Sabbateanism throughout Jewry over the previous century. Add to this the pervasive Sabbatean strain of the beloved kabbalistic sources, and one can see why it was so difficult to embark on a campaign to remove this ‘‘heresy’’ and its sources from Jewish literature. The sporadic jottings of Katzenellenbogen’s forgotten manuscripts, by my reading, have noteworthy implications for our understanding of one of the marvels of contemporary Jewish literature—the widespread appeal of Sabbatean literature for the rabbinic elite, an attraction common to Hasidim and Mitnagdim, Sephardim and Ashkenazim alike. It is precisely this sense of cultural continuity, as described in Katzenellenbogen’s writings, that motivated the complex, dialectical confrontation with the Sabbatean ‘‘stumbling-block’’ characteristic of so many at the time. When 82. In accordance with Emden’s self-appraisal of his role: ‘‘for it is the zealousness of God . . . and it is He who has decreed that I must conduct the hunt’’ (Sefer hitavkut [The Book of Struggle], 148a).

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:01

PS

PAGE 614

THE ALLURE OF FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE—KAHANA

615

viewed as an ‘‘error’’ and a ‘‘stumbling-block’’ of central importance to the continued existence of Judaism and its literature, the study and scrutiny of Sabbateanism became almost compulsory, as the movement demanded ‘‘rectification’’ and ‘‘sweetening,’’ and sometimes even acceptance and enrichment.83 This partly explains, I believe, the attraction of Sabbatean literature and its various offshoots for so many different writers of the age, from R. Luzzatto84 and R. Azulai (H . ida)85 to R. Nah.man of Bratzlav86 and R. Menachem Mendel of Shklov, student of the Vilna Gaon,87 each in accordance with his approach. Paradoxically, the same attraction was felt by and motivated the life project of the faithful heresy-hunter himself, R. Jacob Emden, who obsessively investigated any homiletical material and numerological expositions of Sabbatean origin.88 Admittedly, a certain portion of the Sabbatean limb was amputated from the Jewish body as a result of the Frankist conversion of 1759, but its remaining appendages, including a diverse and complex literary inheritance, posed a troubling, yet fruitful and ongoing, challenge. Fitting context for this important cultural phenomenon might be the 83. This is the meaning of the well-known ‘‘rectification of the soul’’ attempted by the Ba‘al Shem-Tov on behalf of Sabbatai Zevi, by connecting with him ‘‘soul to soul, spirit to spirit, essence to essence,’’ as the legend has it. See Avraham Rubenstein, In Praise of the Ba‘al Shem Tov (Hebrew; Jerusalem, 1991), 262–65. A detailed account of a ‘‘soul/spirit/essence rectification’’ for Nathan of Gaza and Sabbatai Zevi performed by R. Judah Petaiah in Baghdad in 1911 can be found in his book Minh.at yehudah (Jerusalem, 1956), 76–99. Anticipating these kinds of ‘‘rectifications,’’ and in opposition to a tendency he (correctly) sensed in the writings of Moshe H . aim Luzzatto, Emden compared Sabbateanism to that ‘‘primeval snake whose legs have been cut off, and which will not be mended even in the future.’’ Tsitsim u-ferah.im (Altona, 1768), 16b. See below regarding his realistic approach. See also Haviva Pedaya, ‘‘The Ba’al Shem Tov’s Iggeret Hakodesh: Towards a Critique of the Textual Variations, and an Exploration of its Convergence with the World-Picture: Messianism, Revelation, Ecstasy and the Sabbatean Background’’ (Hebrew), Zion 70.3 (2005): 311–55, 348–49. 84. See, e.g., Tishby, Netive emunah u-minut, 169–85; Jonathan Garb, ‘‘Ramh.al: Experience, Messianism, and Power,’’ http://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/!jogarb// ramhallecture.doc 85. See Tishby, Netive emunah u-minut, 227–32. 86. Likute moharan (Collected Teachings of Our Teacher, Rabbi Nah.man), part 1, 207 (cited partly at the top of the essay); Liebes, ‘‘On Sabbateanism,’’ 238–61. 87. See Yehuda Liebes, ‘‘The Vilna Gaon School, Sabbateanism and Das Pintale Yid’’ (Hebrew), Daat: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah 50/52 (2003): 255–91; 198–212. 88. See Y. Liebes, ‘‘On Sabbateanism,’’ 198–212.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:02

PS

PAGE 615

616

JQR 102.4 (2012)

literary genre of ‘‘forbidden texts’’ and their weighty influence on various manifestations of modern European culture.89 Equally significant might be the formation of the modern self in its individual and collective guises, which develops by way of contrast with earlier, more diverse and obscure identities.90 Yet it appears that for our purposes the more pertinent tradition is the internal Jewish one, at once ancient and relevant. Katzenellenbogen himself utilized this tradition in his conceptualization of his persistent attraction to the forbidden texts. It is this tradition that tells of the tanna R. Meir, who persisted in learning Torah from Elisha ben Avuyah, even after the latter became a heretic: ‘‘he ate the pulp and discarded the rind.’’91 Torah should be learned, it seems, even from the ‘‘Other.’’

89. A parallel example, with many points of similarity and contrast, can be found in Darnton’s study of ‘‘philosophical’’ literature in prerevolutionary France; see Robert Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (New York, 1995). In a Jewish connection, the kabbalistic writings of the Ramh.al himself form an integral part of any such discussion, as they were prohibited and banned, while having a unusually wide influence, throughout the eighteenth century. 90. Emden’s long-term project of literary purification, including the typological conflict between himself and R. Jonathan Eibeschu¨tz, can be helpfully viewed from this vantage point as well, in the form of an encounter between a vague, convoluted, multifaceted sense of self and a certain kind of modern, distinct, pure identity. On these transformations, see Dror Wahrman, The Making of the Modern Self: Identity and Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven. Conn., 2006). Wahrman’s study focuses mainly on England, and to a limited extent France and the United States. His work is partly a development of Taylor’s classic, more general survey of European culture: Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, Mass., 1989). The development of secret societies in the eighteenth century, such as the Freemasons, is also relevant to this discussion. A similar approach to Emden’s complex personality can be found in Schacter’s study of his autobiography: Jacob J. Schacter, ‘‘History and Memory of Self: The Autobiography of Rabbi Jacob Emden,’’ in Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, ed. E. Carlebach, J. M. Efron, D. N. Myers (Hanover, N.H., 1998), 428–52. See also Sorotzkin, ‘‘The Timeless Community.’’ On mixed identities in eighteenth-century Jewish society, including Sabbateanism, see David B. Ruderman, Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (Princeton, N.J., 2010), 159–90. 91. bH . ag 15a. Luzzatto used this exact same metaphor.

................. 18302$

$CH6

10-10-12 12:00:02

PS

PAGE 616