History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)

Duke Joseph having disappeared from the scene, the prestige of the Hebrew statesman, Solomon Ashkenazi, the peacemaker between Turkey and Venice, increased. But, much as he was able to accomplish by means of his diplomatic arts, he did not, like Joseph of Naxos, stand in the forefront of events as a Turkish dignitary, but rather remained in the background as a wise and silent mediator. Solomon Ashkenazi had no access to the sultan himself, but only held secret intercourse with the successive grand vizirs, whose right hand man he was. The negotiations between Turkey and Spain to procure a peace, or at least a modus vivendi, desired as it was by both sides, owing to pride on both sides, were delayed, broken off, and renewed. These diplomatic discussions were conducted by Solomon, who possessed greater qualifications for that purpose than anyone else, and the matters in dispute were partially brought to a conclusion by him. He was particularly careful to maintain a good understanding between the Porte and Venice, and was on this account rewarded by the doge, his sons being allowed to live in Venice at the expense of the state.

Also Jewish women of wisdom and good sense, having skill in medicine, gained great influence by means of the harem under the sultans Murad III, Mahomet IV, and Achmed I. Among these women, Esther Kiera, widow of one Elias Chendali, specially distinguished herself. She was a great favorite with the sultana Baffa, herself the favorite wife of Murad, who influenced politics under her husband and afterwards during the reign of her son. If a Christian state wished to gain any object at the Porte, it had first to win over the Jewish go-between, Kiera. The Venetians particularly knew how to turn this fact to account. All ambitious persons who aimed at attaining high office paid respect to Kiera, and addressed her with flattery. Naturally, she enriched herself by her secret power, as did everyone in Turkey who, however strong or weak he might be, formed one of the spokes in the wheel of the state. She showed great interest in her race, supported the poor and suffering, fed the hungry, and comforted the sorrowful. Jewish science was helped by her generous hand. Zacuto's history, as mentioned before, was published at her expense. Naturally her position excited envy. Esther Kiera imprudently allowed herself to be implicated in the appointment of cavalry officers, first promising one man a high post and then bestowing it on another. The Turkish Spahis, the proudest class of soldiers, took this treatment very ill, plotted together, and demanded her head. The deputy grand vizir Chalil wished to save her and her sons, and allowed them to take refuge in his palace. But on the very steps Esther Kiera and her three sons were seized by the Spahis, torn to pieces, and their limbs hung upon the doors of the favored magnates who had received their posts through her influence.

Under Sultan Achmed I, another Hebrew woman, the widow of the statesman Solomon Ashkenazi, gained great consideration. She was so fortunate as to cure the young sultan of the smallpox, which shortly after his accession threatened his life, and for which the Turkish physicians knew no remedy. She was richly rewarded for nursing him back to health. But such signs of favor towards Jews became continually rarer in Turkey, and at last ceased altogether, as the empire sank into enervation, and each sultan became a Sardanapalus; while the harem, on the one hand, and the Spahis and Janissaries, on the other, held the reins of power. The glory of the Turkish Jews was extinguished like a meteor, and plunged into utter darkness, from time to time illuminated by fanciful visions. Extortion, robbery, and open deeds of violence, on the part of the pashas towards Jews, began to occur daily, since they were now deprived of a powerful protector at the Sultan's side. The center of Judaism was shifted to another stage.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE JEWS IN POLAND

Condition of Poland – Favorable Situation of the Jews in that Country – Anti-Jewish Party in Poland – The Jewish Communities – Judaizing Poles – Studies of the Jews – The Talmud in Poland – Solomon Lurya – Moses Isserles – The Historian, David Gans – "Zemach David" – Supremacy of the Polish Authorities in Rabbinical Matters – The Jewish Seminaries in Poland – The Disputations at the Fairs – Chiddushim and Chillukim – Stephen Bathori – His Kindness towards his Jewish Subjects – Sigismund III – Restriction on the Erection of Synagogues – Jewish Synods – Vaad Arba Arazoth – Mordecai Jafa – Christian Sects in Poland – The Socinians or Unitarians – Simon Budny – The Reformers and the Jews – Isaac Troki – "The Strengthening of Faith."

1566–160 °C.E

Poland, which in this century had become a great power by reason of its union with Lithuania under the sons of Casimir IV, like Turkey, was the refuge of the outlawed or persecuted. Canonical Christianity, with its love of persecution, had not yet struck firm roots there; and monarchical despotism, encouraged by priests in its obstinate determination to realize all its ends regardless of consequences, could not prevail against the independent spirit of the Polish nobility. The Starosts ruled unchecked in their provinces, like the English and Scottish lords and clans, and could ward off the encroachments of royalty. The reformed faith, that is to say Calvin's teaching, was readily received by the nobility and the middle classes. Poland, therefore, in this century, too, was a second Babylonia for the Jews, in which on the whole they were protected from bloody persecutions, where some of them could attain to respectable positions, and where they were allowed to develop their individuality without restraint. When the Jews were expelled from Bohemia, and turned their steps to Poland, they were kindly received. Indeed, so highly appreciated were they, that it was thought that the people could not do without them. When, attracted by the favored position of their brethren in Turkey, many prepared to migrate thither, the king made every exertion to retain them in his land either by persuasion or compulsion. It mattered very little what were the king's relations to them; for whether he was kindly or evilly disposed, the nobles protected those who dwelt on their estates from all attacks, in as far as their own interests were not injured thereby. Under some kings, the Jews received favors, under others, suffered restrictions, according as hostile or friendly influences preponderated.

But there was a party in Poland hostile to the Jews. It regarded with dissatisfied eyes their more favored position in that country as compared with the rest of Christendom, and endeavored to abrogate the statute of Casimir IV, still in force, giving protection against unduly severe persecution. It consisted, on the one hand, of the Catholic clergy which regretted the absence in the Polish legislation of canonical restrictions regarding Jews; on the other, of the German merchant and artisan class which feared Jewish competition.

There exists no estimate of the number of Jews in Poland at this time. It is said that there were 200,000 adults. The community at Posen numbered 3,000 members, and there were about as many in Cracow, or rather in the suburb Kazimierz, to which they had on a former occasion been banished. The third community in point of size was at Lublin. The Jews had many taxes to pay under different heads. For this purpose, indeed, they were received, and on this account tolerated in the country, and protected by the kings and the nobility, being almost the only ones in that impecunious land who possessed money. For this reason, also, the kings encouraged their commercial enterprises. When Sigismund Augustus, soon after his accession, negotiated for a prolongation of the peace with the Russian Czar, Ivan IV, called "the Terrible," he inserted the condition that the Jews of Lithuania be allowed, as formerly, to freely carry on trade with Russia. But Ivan absolutely refused this condition; he did not wish to see any Jews in his realm. "We do not want these men," he said, "who have brought us poison for our bodies and souls; they have sold deadly herbs among us, and blasphemed our Lord and Saviour." A Judaizing sect had been founded some seventy years before by a Jew called Zacharias, to which sect even some of the priests, and a metropolitan named Zosina belonged. This proselytizing sect continued to exist till the beginning of the sixteenth century, but its adherents were severely persecuted when discovered. On this account Jews were not allowed in Russia.

In consequence of the Reformation, which had made its way into Poland, a purer taste and a love of science and literature had developed there. Polish nobles fond of traveling brought back from Germany an interest in these matters, and sent their sons to study at the reformed universities of Wittenberg and Geneva. Schools arose in Poland where Jewish boys and youths were instructed together with Christians. The Polish Jews, it is true, did not devote themselves to science to a marked degree, but they were by no means so devoid of it as their German brethren.

Aristotle, that philosophical authority so familiar to the Hebrew world and so closely akin to the Hebrew spirit, found admirers also among Polish Jews. Even Maimuni's philosophic and religious writings found a few readers. Astronomy and medicine, two favorite sciences of the Jews from time immemorial, were studied also by Polish Jews. Generally speaking, they did not share the intellectual degradation of the Jewish inhabitants of Germany. Among them the study of the Talmud received an impetus greater almost than in France in the times of the Tossafist schools. Of all the Jews in Europe and Asia those in Poland were the last to become familiar with the Talmud; as though desirous of making up for lost time, they cherished it with extravagant affection. It appeared as if the deep secrets of the Talmud were to be rightly understood and completely unraveled and appreciated only in Poland. Comprehensive erudition and marvelous insight were united in a surprising manner in the Polish students of this book, and everyone whom nature had not deprived of all talent devoted himself to its study. The dead letter received new life from the eager inspiration of the Jewish sons of Poland; in this land it exerted an influence of great force, striking sparks of intellectual fire, and creating a ceaseless flow of thought. The Talmudical schools in Poland henceforward became the most celebrated throughout the whole of European Judaism. All who sought sound learning betook themselves thither. To have been educated in a college of the Polish Jews was of itself a sufficient recommendation; and all who did not possess this advantage were considered inferiors.

The fame of the rabbinical schools of Poland was due to three men: Shalom Shachna, Solomon Lurya, and Moses Isserles. Solomon Lurya (born in Posen about 1510, died about 1573) came from a family of German immigrants. Had he been born in a better, a more intellectual epoch, he would have been one of the makers of Judaism, perhaps another Maimuni. But being the son of an age of decadence, he became only a profound and thorough Talmud scholar, in the higher sense of the word, not remaining satisfied with traditional data, but examining every single point and weighing it in the golden balance of critical exactitude. To the thorough and critical investigation of the great field of the Talmud his whole mental activity was devoted, and he possessed the greatest natural qualifications for such critical work. With his bold spirit of inquiry, ruthlessly subjecting everything to the severest examination, Lurya in any other age would have gone beyond the Talmud, if its contradictions had made themselves glaringly apparent to him. But by this son of an age of faith the whole book was regarded as an actual continuation of the revelation made at Sinai, an unassailable authority, which only needed to be properly understood, or which wanted perhaps a little rectification here and there, but as a whole contained the truth. Lurya was a strongly marked character, having all the acerbity and angularity commonly associated therewith. Injustice, venality, and hypocrisy, were so hateful to him, that he broke out into what was sometimes imprudent excess of zealous indignation. By reason of his distinct individuality and firmness, which he wished to assert everywhere, Solomon Lurya offended and hurt the vanity of not a few. He lashed in bitter terms those Talmudical scholars whose actions did not correspond to their teaching, and devoted themselves to the study of rabbinical literature only for the sake of discussion, or to gain a reputation. Hence he made many enemies, and in his own time was more feared than loved. In polemical discussion he was reckless and unsparing, and very naturally brought upon himself retaliation which only embittered him the more. Then he complained of persecution, and even of the ingratitude of his disciples, who, he said, had turned against him, and looked at everything in a gloomy light. He attacked the students of the Talmud, because, he said, the ignorant were so many and the possessors of knowledge so few, while their arrogance continually increased, and no one was content to take the position that properly belonged to him. No sooner was one of them ordained than he assumed the airs of a master, collected a troop of disciples around him for money, as people of rank hire a body-guard. "There are," he complained, "gray-headed rabbis with very little knowledge of the Talmud, who behave imperiously to congregations and to people of real knowledge, excommunicate and re-admit members, ordain disciples – all for their own selfish purposes." Solomon Lurya extended the sarcastic bitterness of his scorn to German experts in the Talmud, "who, in the case of people of wealth and authority, show indulgence towards the transgression of rabbinical precepts, while they spread evil reports about men of moderate means and strangers who are guilty of slight irregularities, such as going about with uncovered head."

However, things were not so bad in Jewish society as depicted by Lurya's bitter humor; and this is proved in the most conclusive manner by the recognition that this morose faultfinder himself received. Talmudical students, both young and old, even in his lifetime, were full of admiration for his achievements. While still betwixt youth and middle age, he undertook his principal work of elucidating and sifting Talmudic discussions with a view to establishing religious practice, and he continued this work up to the end of his life without completing it. Solomon Lurya performed this task with more thoroughness, clearness, and depth than his contemporaries and predecessors. But if he hoped, as it appears he did, to put an end to all variety and confusion of opinion, he made the same mistake as Maimuni and others. He only contributed to further entanglement of the knot. His numerous other writings bear the same impress of thoroughness and critical insight, but he could not reach the seat of the trouble any more than others who had made the attempt; it lay too deep.

By reason of his critical faculty, Lurya laid stress upon what his Polish and German fellow-students neglected as too trifling – namely, on grammatical correctness and precision in the distinction of the forms of speech. On the other hand, he was a declared enemy of scholastic philosophy. It appeared to him to be dangerous and fatal to faith.

Another leading rabbi in Poland was Moses ben Israel Isserles, of Cracow (born in 1520, died Iyar, 1572). The son of a greatly respected father, who had held the office of president of the community, he distinguished himself more by his precocity and comprehensive learning than by striking mental individuality. Inheriting so much property from his family that he dedicated one of his houses as a synagogue, Isserles was able to follow the bent of his genius with ease and comfort, devote himself to the Talmud, and make himself familiar with its mazes. He soon gained such a reputation that, while still almost a youth, he was nominated rabbi-judge in Cracow. At thirty years of age he had embraced the whole field of Talmudic and rabbinical literature as thoroughly as Joseph Karo, a man double his age.

Isserles also felt the need of collecting and giving finality to the widely scattered materials of rabbinical Judaism. But since Joseph Karo had forestalled him by the compilation of his Code, it only remained for him to rectify it, and comment upon it. For he regretted the omission of several elements in that work, especially the neglect of German rabbinical authorities and customs. This continuation of Karo's Code, or "Table," he called the "Mappa" or "Table-cloth." As the Jews in Germany had always been more scrupulous in their observances than those elsewhere, the additions and supplementations made by Isserles turned out to be burdensome. His decisions immediately received recognition, and to the present day form the religious standard, the official Judaism, of the German and Polish communities and those allied to them. It cannot quite be said that he contributed to its ossification, for he did not invent and introduce these burdens, but only noted and codified them; he followed the universal tendency. If Isserles had not arranged them into a religious code, some one else would have done so.

Isserles had taste also for other subjects besides the Talmud, especially for astronomy. He produced a commentary to Frohbach's astronomical work, "Theorica." He likewise had an inclination for philosophy, and pursued the subject rather deeply, though only through the medium of Hebrew works. Maimuni's "Guide" was his guide, too. On this account he had to submit to a sharp reproof from the proud Solomon Lurya. Isserles also had some taste for history, which led him to induce one of his disciples to occupy himself seriously with it. David Gans (born in Westphalia in 1541, died in Prague in 1613) had come to Cracow when a youth in order to study in the rabbinical academy there; but his natural taste for scientific subjects, history, geography, mathematics, and astronomy, was involuntarily aroused by Isserles, who brought him up, and guided his studies. Gans devoted himself to these subjects, and made the acquaintance of two great leaders in mathematics and astronomy, Kepler and Tycho de Brahe. He wrote several works on these subjects, of course in Hebrew. His chronicle (Zemach David), consisting of annals of Jewish and general history, has become celebrated. It was a very great thing for a German Jew to have devoted himself to studies outside of the ordinary track. But one cannot call David's historical work great. He introduced among Jews the dry, bare form of historical narrative formerly employed by monks, which at that time had already given place to a more artistic method. However, unimportant as David's chronicle is, it possesses some merit, because it reminded those wrapped up in the study of the Talmud that they were the last links of a long historical chain. The want of appreciation of history displayed by German Jews is indicated by the brief inscription placed on Gans' tomb, while there were no limits to the eulogies glorifying the memory of some obscure rabbinical dignitary. The study of the Talmud, prosecuted merely as an effort of memory, won greater fame for its votaries than devotion to any branch of science, however profoundly grasped.

The three great rabbinical lights, first both in rank and in priority of time, Shachna, Solomon Lurya, and Isserles, laid the foundation of the extraordinary erudition of the Polish Jews. Any complicated or generally interesting question, arising in Germany, Moravia, Bohemia, even in Italy and Turkey, was submitted to them, especially to Isserles, for final decision. The revoltingly vulgar actions of the community at Prague, against which the local college of rabbis was powerless, were brought before the rabbis of Poland, and attacked vigorously by them. Passionate disputes in Frankfort-on-the-Main, which threatened to produce persecution or expulsion, were settled, and a reconciliation effected from Poland. Thus this rabbinical triumvirate founded a kind of supremacy of Poland over the Jews of Europe, acknowledged on all sides, and the Polish rabbis maintained their position as leaders up to the end of the eighteenth century.

The triumvirate, whose numerous disciples rivaled each other in the study of the Talmud, gradually caused nearly all Polish Jews to become familiar with that book, and eligible for the rabbinical office. Even in small communities of only fifty members there were at least twenty Talmudical scholars, who in turn instructed at least thirty pupils. Everywhere there arose schools with rabbis at their head as teachers, whose chief duty was to deliver lectures, everything else being of secondary importance. Young men crowded to these establishments, where they could live free from care, their maintenance being defrayed out of the treasury of the community, or by wealthy private individuals. Children were put to the study of the Talmud at a tender age, certainly to the detriment of the natural development of their minds. It was the highest honor to conduct a rabbinical school, and their ambition was encouraged to strive for this object. Supervisors were nominated to watch over the industry of the students (Bachurim) and the children. Gradually a kind of syllabus with alternating themes, in use up to recent times, was introduced for the lectures on the Talmud in the summer and the winter term.

At the end of the term, the teachers and their numerous pupils went to the great Polish fairs, in summer to Zaslaw and Jaroslaw, in winter to Lemberg and Lublin. Thus several thousand students of the Talmud met, and there ensued a lively interchange of remarks and subtle disputations upon the subject-matter of rabbinical and Talmudic study. Public disputations were held, in which anyone might take part. The keener intellects received wealthy brides as a reward for their mental exertions. Rich parents took pride in having sons-in-law educated in Talmudic schools, and sought for them at the fairs. The Polish Jews, by reason of this fervent zeal, acquired a Talmudic deportment, so to speak, which showed itself in every movement and every utterance, by ungraceful shrugging of the shoulders and a peculiar movement of the thumbs. Every conversation, whether of a perfectly indifferent nature or even upon matters of business, resembled a disputation upon the Talmud. Talmudical words, designations, phrases, and allusions, passed into popular speech, and were understood even by women and children.

But this excessive study of the Talmud in Poland was of no real advantage to Judaism. It was not carried on in order to gain a proper understanding of the book, but merely to find something unique, rare, witty, striking, something to tickle the intellectual palate. In these meetings of thousands of students of the Talmud, masters and disciples, teachers and pupils, at the great fairs, every individual exerted himself to discover something new, startling, and casuistical, bringing it forward only to surpass all others, without caring whether it stood the test of proof, or was only relatively true, but merely to gain a reputation for sharp-wittedness. The chief endeavor of the Talmudical students of Poland was directed to bringing to light something new in Talmudic criticism, or in inventing something (Chiddush). The lectures of the heads of schools, and of all rabbis, had only this object in view – to set up something hitherto unsurpassed, to weave a net of sophistical Talmudical propositions, and to go still further in the process of incomprehensible hair-splitting (Chillukim). Hence the whole trend of Jewish thought in Poland was in a wrong direction. The language of the Jews in particular suffered from this cause, degenerating into a ridiculous jargon, a mixture of German, Polish, and Talmudical elements, an unpleasant stammering, rendered still more repulsive by forced attempts at wit. This corrupt speech, despising all forms, could be understood only by Jews, natives of the country. Together with their language the Polish Jews lost that which really constitutes a man, and were thus exposed to the scorn and contempt of non-Jewish society. The Bible had fallen gradually into the background in the course of development since the time of Maimuni; now in Poland knowledge of it was utterly lost. If anyone occupied himself with it, it was merely to derive the materials for wit, or false wit, from its pages.