History of the Jews in Russia and Poland (Vol. 1-3). Dubnow Simon

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СКАЧАТЬ by the number of its celebrities in the field of rabbinic scholasticism, all men who refused to acknowledge any branch of secular and even religious knowledge outside the domain of Talmudic dialectics.

      A rare exception among these scholars was Jehiel Halperin (ab. 1670–1746), rabbi of Minsk, who wrote an extensive historic chronicle under the name of Seder ha-Doroth, "The Order of the Generations." Halperin's work, which is divided into three parts, narrates in the first the events of Jewish history from Biblical times down to the year 1696. The second part enumerates, in alphabetical order, the names of all the Tannaim and Amoraim,179 and cites the opinions and sayings attributed to each of them in the Talmud. The third part contains a list of authors and books of the post-Talmudic period. The original contribution of Halperin consists in his having systematized the extremely complicated material, and rendered it available for a characterization of the Talmudic rabbis. In all else he merely copied earlier chroniclers, particularly David Gans,180 without any attempt at a critical analysis. He even fails to render account of such important events of his own time as the Messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi. The essence of history to him is identical with the genealogies of scholars, saints, and rabbis; the only reason for existence which in his judgment historiography may claim is to serve as the handmaid of Rabbinism. Even this outlook upon history, narrow though it be, was entirely foreign to Halperin's contemporaries.

      Side by side with the scholastic literature of Rabbinism flourished popular ethical literature (musar181). Its originators were the preachers (darshanim), some of whom occupied permanent posts attached to synagogues, while others wandered about from town to town. The synagogue sermons of that period, which have come down to us in various collections,182 consist of a long string of Haggadic and Cabalistic quotations, by means of which the Biblical texts are given an entirely perverted meaning. The preachers were evidently less anxious to instruct their audience than to exhibit their enormous erudition in theological literature. Some of these preachers endeavored in particular to foist upon the people the notions of the "Practical Cabala."183 The "secret" writings of Ari184 and his school were circulated in Poland in manuscript copies, which went from hand to hand. The ideas embodied in the Cabalistic doctrine of Ari were popularized in the shape of "gruesome stories" concerning life after death, the tortures of the sinners in hell, the transmigration of souls, and the exploits of demons.

      The books which endeavored to inculcate piety among the masses by means of these stories became rapidly popular. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the Cabalist Joseph Dubno wrote a work in this spirit under the title Yesod Yoseph, "Foundation of Joseph." Prior to its publication, Dubno's work was utilized by Hirsch Kaidanover, a son of the above-mentioned rabbi of Cracow, Aaron Samuel Kaidanover,185 and issued by him in an improved and amplified version in Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1705, under the name Kab ha-Yashar, "The Just Measure." A few years later the book was published also in the Yiddish vernacular, and became a great favorite among the lower classes as well as among women.

      The Kab ha-Yashar breathes a spirit of gloomy asceticism, and is expressive of a funereal frame of mind. "O man,"—the author exclaims—"wert thou to know how many demons thirst for thy blood, thou wouldst abandon thyself entirely, with heart and soul, to Almighty God!" The air, according to the doctrine preached in this book, is filled with the invisible spirits of the dead who can find no rest in the other world, and teems with the wandering shadows of sinners and demons, who frequently slip into living beings and force them to rage like madmen. Scores of "reliable" stories are quoted, telling of the conflicts between men and demons and of the exploits of miracle-workers who have exorcised the evil spirits by means of incantations.

      Prominent among these stories is an account of the expulsion of devils from a house in Posen, which produced a great sensation at the time. Evil spirits had been constantly haunting the inhabitants of the house. At first they sought advice of the local Jesuit priests. When the remedy employed by the latter proved of no avail, the inhabitants invited the famous magician and miracle-worker Joel Baal-Shem186 from Zamoshch.187 The miracle-worker subjected the demons to a regular cross-examination, demanding an explanation why they refused to abandon the ill-fated house. At the cross-examination the demons argued that the house was theirs by inheritance, inasmuch as they were the legitimate children of the former owner of the house, a Jewish artisan who had had relations with a female devil. As a result, a conference of the rabbis of Posen was held in the presence of the above-mentioned miracle-worker, and their verdict was that the demons had no claim to immovable property in places populated by human beings, but were limited in their right of residence to forests and deserts.

      Such was the spiritual pabulum on which the Jewish masses were fed by their leaders. A writer of the beginning of the eighteenth century makes the observation, that "there is no country where the Jews are so much given to mystical fancies, devil hunting, talismans, and exorcism of evil spirits, as they are in Poland." The demand brought forth a supply, and even the celebrated rabbis frequently devoted themselves to Cabalistic exercises. One of these was the Rabbi of Ostrog and Posen, Naphtali Cohen (1640–1719), of whom the following curious incident is related. After settling in Frankfort-on-the-Main, he made the people believe that he had discovered a magic formula against fire. As luck would have it, a fire broke out in his own house, and destroyed a considerable part of the Jewish quarter. The ill-fated Cabalist was sent to jail on the charge of careless handling of fire during his pyrotechnic experiments (1711). After his release from prison Naphtali Cohen led the life of a wanderer, entering into suspicious relations with Hayyun, the notorious emissary of the Sabbatian sect, though afterwards, when Hayyun's heresy had been unmasked in Amsterdam, he renounced all connection with the heretic. During the contest which for many years was waged by Emden against Eibeshütz and his mysterious talismans,188 the majority of Polish rabbis sided with Eibeshütz. Evidently they found nothing objectionable in the attempt to cure diseases by means of cabalistically inscribed talismans.

      3. The Sabbatian Movement

      The mystical and sectarian tendencies which were in vogue among the masses of Polish Jewry were the outcome of the Messianic movement, which, originated by Sabbatai Zevi in 1648, spread like wildfire throughout the whole Jewish world. The movement made a particularly deep impression in Poland, where the mystical frame of mind of the Polish-Jewish masses offered a favorable soil for it. It was more than a mere coincidence that one and the same year, 1648, was marked by the wholesale murder of the Jews of the Ukraina and the first public appearance of Sabbatai Zevi in Smyrna. The thousands of Jewish captives, who in the summer of that terrible year had been carried to Turkey by the Tatar allies of Khmelnitzki and ransomed there by their coreligionists, conveyed to the minds of the Oriental Jews an appalling impression of the destruction of the great Jewish center in Poland. There can be no doubt that the descriptions of this catastrophe deeply affected the impressionable mind of Sabbatai, and prepared the soil for the success of the propaganda he carried on during his wanderings in Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt.

      When, in the year 1666, the whole Jewish world resounded with the fame of Sabbatai Zevi as the Messianic liberator of the Jewish people, the Jews of Poland responded with particularly keen, almost morbid sensitiveness.

      The Jews—says the contemporary Ukrainian writer Galatovski—triumphed. Some abandoned their houses and property, refusing to do any work and claiming that СКАЧАТЬ