History of the Jews, Vol. 5 (of 6). Graetz Heinrich

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СКАЧАТЬ and in this most neglected community he settled. Later (1652) he was at Worms, probably only temporarily, and ended his life, which had promised so much, and realized so little, at Prague. Nor did he publish any part of his great work, which he had announced with so much pomposity.

      In a measure Simone (Simcha) Luzzatto (born about 1590, died 1663) may be reckoned among the sceptics of this time. He was, at the same time as Leo Modena, rabbi in Venice. Luzzatto was not an eminent personage; but he had more solidity than his colleague Modena, or than Delmedigo. By the latter, who knew him personally, he was praised as a distinguished mathematician. He was also well read in ancient and modern literature. His uprightness and love of truth, which he never belied, distinguished him more than his knowledge and learning. A parable which Luzzatto wrote in Italian in his youth shows his views, as also his maturity of thought, and that he had reflected early on the relation of faith to science. He puts his thoughts into the mouth of Socrates, the father of Greek wisdom. At Delphi an academy had been formed to rectify the errors of human knowledge. Reason immediately presented a petition from the dungeon, where she had been so long kept by orthodox authority, to be set at liberty. Although the chief representatives of knowledge, Pythagoras and Aristotle, spoke against this request, and uttered a warning against her liberation, because, when free, she would produce and spread abroad most frightful errors, yet the academy set her at liberty; for by that means alone could knowledge be promoted. But the newly liberated minds caused great mischief; and the academicians were at a loss what to do. Then Socrates rose, and in a long speech explained that reason and authority, if allowed to reign alone, would produce only errors and mischief; but if mutually limited, reason by revelation, and revelation by reason, they mingle in the right proportion, and produce beautiful harmony, whereby man may attain his goal here below and hereafter. This thought, that reason and faith must regulate and keep watch over each other, which, in Maimuni's time had passed into a commonplace, was at this period, under the rule of Lurya's Kabbala, considered in Jewish circles a bold innovation.

      Simone Luzzatto did not suffer himself to be ensnared by Kabbalistic delusions; he did not cast reason behind him; he was a believer, but withal sober-minded. He did not share the delusion of Manasseh ben Israel and others that the lost tribes of Israel were existing in some part of the world enjoying independence as a military power. With sober Jewish inquirers of former times, he assumed that Daniel's revelation does not point to a future Messiah, but only reflects historical events. He composed a work on the manners and beliefs of the Jews, which he proposed to exhibit "faithfully to truth, without zeal and passion." It was probably designed to form a counterpart to Leo Modena's representation, which cast a shadow on Judaism.

      Luzzatto's defense of Judaism and the Jews, under the title "A Treatise on the Position of the Hebrews," is masterly. It speaks eloquently for his practical, sober sense, for his love of truth, his attachment to Judaism, and his solid knowledge. He did not wish to dedicate it to any individual patron out of flattery, but to the friends of truth in general. He conjured these friends not to esteem the remnant of the ancient Hebrew nation, even if disfigured by sufferings, and saddened by long oppression, more lightly than a mutilated work of art by Phidias or Lysippus, since all men were agreed that this nation was once animated and led by the greatest of Masters. It is astonishing what thorough knowledge the rabbi had of the commerce of that time, and the influence upon it of the political position of European and neighboring Asiatic states. The object of his defense was primarily to disarm the ill-will of certain Venetian patricians against the Jews in that strictly governed state. The common people had little antipathy to the Jews; they lived to some extent on them. But among those who had a share in the government there were fanatical religious zealots and envious opponents, who advocated further restrictions, or even banishment. It did not suit them that the Venetian Jews, who, shut up in the Ghetto, possessed neither land nor the right to carry on a handicraft, competed with them in finance and trade. The commercial city of Venice, far surpassed by the new naval powers, Holland and England, which had gradually obtained control of the trade with the Levant, saw many of its great houses of business in splendid misery, while new Jewish capitalists stepped into their place, and seized the Levantine business. With artful turns and delicate hints, Luzzatto gave the politicians of Venice to understand that exhaustion was hastening the downfall of the republic. The prosperous cared only to keep what they had acquired and for enjoyment, and former Venetian commerce seemed to be falling into the hands of foreigners. Hence the Jews had become a blessing to the state. It was more advisable to leave its extensive trade, especially that of the East, to native Jews, and to protect them, than to see it diverted to neighboring towns, or to strangers, who formed a state within the state, were not always obedient to the laws, and gradually carried the ready money out of the country. Luzzatto calculated from statistics that the Jews contributed more than 250,000 ducats to the republic every year, that they gave bread to 4,000 workpeople, supplied home manufactures at a cheap rate, and obtained goods from distant countries. It was reserved for a rabbi to bring this political-economical consideration, of vital importance for the island republic, to the notice of wise councilors. Luzzatto also called attention to the important advantage which the capital of the Jews had recently been, when, during the pestilence and the dissolution of political government, the Jews had spontaneously offered money to the state to prevent embarrassment.

      Luzzatto also defended the Jews against attacks on the religious side, but on this point his exposition is not original. If he brought out the bright traits of his Jewish contemporaries, he by no means passed over their dark ones in silence, and that redounds to his credit. Luzzatto depicted them in the following manner. However different may be the manner of Venetian Jews from their brethren in Constantinople, Damascus, Germany, or Poland, they all have something in common: —

      "It is a nation of timid and unmanly disposition, at present incapable of political government, occupied only with its separate interests, and caring little about the public welfare. The economy of the Jews borders on avarice; they are admirers of antiquity, and have no eye for the present course of things. Many are uneducated, without taste for learning or the knowledge of languages, and, in following the laws of their religion, they exaggerate to the most painful degree. But they have also noteworthy peculiarities – firmness and endurance in their religion, uniformity of doctrinal teaching in the long course of more than fifteen centuries since the dispersion; wonderful steadfastness, which leads them, if not to go into dangers, yet to endure the severest suffering. They possess knowledge of Holy Scripture and its exposition, gentleness and hospitality to the members of their race – the Persian Jew in some degree suffers the wrongs of the Italian – strict abstinence from carnal offenses, extraordinary carefulness to keep the family unspotted, and skill in managing difficult matters. They are submissive and yielding to everyone, only not to their brethren in religion. The failings of the Jews have rather the character of cowardice and meanness than of cruelty and atrocity."

      What Luzzatto's position was with regard to the Talmud he did not distinctly state, but only explained generally that there are three or four classes of Jews: Talmudists or Rabbanites, who hold the oral law of equal authority with the Bible; secondly, a philosophical and cultured class; and, lastly, Kabbalists, and Karaites. Yet he intimated that he held the Talmudical tradition to be true; whilst he considered the Kabbala as not of Jewish, but of Platonic, Pythagorean, and Gnostic origin. One of his disciples relates of him that he ridiculed the Kabbalists, and thought their theory had no claim to the title of tradition; it was wanting in the Holy Spirit.

      These four thinkers, more or less dissatisfied with the Judaism of the day, who were furnished with so much intellect, knowledge, and eloquence, yet exerted very little influence over their Jewish contemporaries, and thus did not break through the prevailing obscurity in the smallest degree. Luzzatto wrote for only a limited class of readers, and did not inflict, or wish to inflict, heavy blows on Judaism. Uriel da Costa missed his mark on account of his violent, impatient disposition; Leo Modena was himself too wavering, driven hither and thither by the wind of conflicting opinions, to acquire serious convictions and do battle for them. His attacks on the weak side of Judaism, as has been stated, were made in private. Joseph Delmedigo did more harm than good through his insincerity and hypocrisy. Lacking character, he sank so low as to speak in favor of the confused doctrines of the Kabbala, and by the weight of his knowledge confirmed СКАЧАТЬ