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Page 6
From everywhere they came "to pour water on the hands and sit at the
feet" of the great ones of the second Palestine.[22]
For Jewish solidarity was more than a word in those days. "Sefardim" had
not yet learned to boast of aristocratic lineage, nor "Ashkenazim" to
look down contemptuously upon their Slavonic coreligionists. It was
before the removal of civil disabilities from one portion of the Jewish
people had sowed the seed of arrogance toward the other less favored
portion. Honor was accorded to whom it was due, regardless of the
locality in which he happened to have been born. Gl�ckel von Hameln
states in her _Memoirs_ that preference was sometimes given to the
decisions of the "great ones of Poland," and mentions with pride that
her brother Shmuel married the daughter of the great Reb Shulem of
Lemberg.[23] With open arms, Amsterdam, Frankfort, F�rth, Konigsberg,
Metz, Prague, and other communities renowned for wealth and learning,
welcomed the acute Talmudists of Brest, Grodno, Kovno, Lublin, Minsk,
and Vilna, whenever they were willing or compelled to consider a call.
The practice of summoning Russo-Polish rabbis to German posts was
carried so far that it aroused the displeasure of the Western scholars,
and they complained of being slighted.[24]
The reverence for Slavonic learning was strikingly illustrated during
the years following the Cossack massacres, when many Russo-Polish rabbis
fled for safety to foreign lands. Frankfort, F�rth, Prague, and Vienna
successively elected the fugitive Shabbata� Horowitz of Ostrog as their
religious guide. David Taz of Vladimir became rabbi of Steinitz in
Moravia; Ephraim Hakohen was called to Trebitsch in Moravia and to Ofen
in Hungary; David of Lyda, to Mayence and Amsterdam, and Naphtali Kohen,
to Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1704, and later to Breslau. No less
personages than Isaac Aboab and Saul Morteira welcomed the
merchant-Talmudist Moses Rivkes of Vilna when he sought refuge in
Amsterdam, and they entrusted to him the task of editing the _Shulhan
'Aruk_, his marginal notes to which, the _Be�r ha-Golah_, have ever
since been printed with the text. In addition to rabbis, Lithuania and
other provinces furnished teachers for the young, melammedim, who
exerted considerable influence upon the people among whom they lived.
Their opinions, we are told, were highly valued in the choice of
rabbis.[25]
It must not be supposed that supremacy in the Talmud was secured at the
cost of secular knowledge, or what was then regarded as such. Their
familiarity with other branches of study was not inferior to that of the
Jews in better-known lands. Not a few of the prominent men united piety
with philosophy, and thorough knowledge of the Talmud with mastery of
one or more of the sciences of the time. Data on this phase of the
subject might have been much more abundant, had not the storm of
persecution suddenly swept over the communities, destroying them and
their records. What we still possess indicates what may have been lost.
The Ukraine was famous for its scholars. Among them was Jehiel Michael
of Nemirov, reputed to have been "versed in all the sciences of the
world."[26] Several of them were poets and grammarians. Poems of a
liturgical character are still extant in which they bemoan their plight
or assert their faith hopefully. Such were the poems of Ephraim of
Khelm, Joseph of Kobrin, Solomon of Zamoscz, and Shabbata� Kohen. The
last, eminent as a Talmudist, the author of commentaries on the _Shulhan
'Aruk_ approved by the leading rabbis of his generation, is also known
as a very trustworthy historian. His _Megillah 'Afah_, written in
classic Hebrew, is a valuable source of information on the critical
period in which he lived. He won the esteem of the Polish nobility by
his secular attainments. To judge from his correspondence, he must have
been on intimate terms with Vidrich of Leipsic.[27] Of the grammarians,
Jacob Zaslaver wrote on the Massorah, and Shabbata� Sofer was the author
of annotations and treatises.[28] Our taste in poetry and grammar is no
longer the same, but the polemic and apologetic writings of those days,
called forth by the discussions between Rabbanites and Karaites and by
the constant attacks of Christianity, are still of uncommon interest.
Specimens of the former kind are the polemics of Moses of Shavli, which
caused consternation in the camp of the Karaites. Of the apologetic
writings should be mentioned the reply, in Polish, of Jacob Nahman of
Belzyc to Martin Chekhovic (Lublin, 1581), and the _Hizzuk Emunah_ of
the Karaite Isaac ben Abraham of Troki. In the latter the weakness of
Christianity and the strength of Judaism are pointed out with trenchancy
never before reached. The work stirred up heated discussions among the
various Christian sects, with the tenets of which the author was
intimately acquainted. It was translated into Latin (1681, 1705),
Yiddish (1717), English (1851), and German (1865, 1873). Voltaire says
that all the arguments used by free-thinkers against Christianity were
drawn from it.[29]
In philosophy, mathematics, and medicine, the three main branches of
medieval knowledge, many Slavonian Jews attained eminence. Devout
Karaites as well as diligent Talmudists found secular learning a
diversion and a delight. For the lovers of enlightenment Italy,
especially Padua, was the centre of attraction, as France and Spain had
been before, and Germany, particularly Berlin, became afterwards.[30]
Towards the middle of the sixteenth century we find young Delacrut at
the University of Bologna, the philosopher and Cabbalist, known for his
commentaries to Gikatilla's _Sha'are Orah_ (Cracow, 1600) and Ben
Avigdor's _Mar'eh ha-Ofanim_ (1720), and his translation of Gossuin's
_L'image du monde_ (Amsterdam, 1733). His famous disciple Mordecai Jaffe
(Lebushim) spent ten years in the study of astronomy and mathematics
before he occupied the rabbinate of Grodno (1572)[31] At the request of
Yom-Tob Lipman Heller, Joseph ben Isaac Levi wrote a commentary on
Maimuni's _Moreh Nebukim_, which was published with the former's
annotations, _Gibe'at ha-Moreh_ (Prague, 1611). Deservedly or not,
Eliezer Mann was called "the Hebrew Socrates"; and many a Maskil in his
study of mathematics turned for guidance to Manoah Handel of
Brzeszticzka, Volhynia, author and translator of several scientific
works, who rendered seven Euclidean propositions into Hebrew.[32]
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