Читать книгу History of the Jews in Russia and Poland (Vol. 1-3) - Dubnow Simon - Страница 24

The high intellectual level of the Polish Jews was the result of their relative economic prosperity. As for the character of their mental productivity, it was the direct outcome of their social autonomy. The vast system of Kahal self-government enhanced not only the authority of the rabbi, but also that of the learned Talmudist and of every layman familiar with Jewish law. The rabbi discharged, within the limits of his community, the functions of spiritual guide, head of the yeshibah, and inspector of elementary schools, as well as those of legislator and judge. An acquaintance with the vast and complicated Talmudic law was to a certain extent necessary even for the layman who occupied the office of an elder (parnas, or rosh-ha-Kahal), or was in some way connected with the scheme of Jewish self-government. For the enactments of the Talmud regulated the inner life of the Polish Jews in the same way as they had done formerly in Babylonia, in the time of the autonomous Exilarchs and Gaons. But it must be remembered that, since the times of the Gaons, Jewish law had been considerably amplified, Rabbinic Judaism having been superimposed upon Talmudic Judaism. This mass of religious lore, which had been accumulating for centuries, now monopolized the minds of all educated Jews in the empire of Poland, which thus became a second Babylonia. It reigned supreme in the synagogues, the yeshibahs, and the elementary schools. It gave tone to social and domestic life. It spoke through the mouth of the judge, the administrator, and the communal leader. Lastly it determined the content of Jewish literary productivity. Polish-Jewish literature was almost exclusively consecrated to rabbinic law.

The beginnings of Talmudic learning in Poland can be traced back to the first half of the sixteenth century. It had been carried thither from neighboring Bohemia, primarily from the school of the originator of the pilpul method, Jacob Pollack.86 A pupil of the latter, Rabbi Shalom Shakhna (ab. 1500–1558), is regarded as one of the pioneers of Polish Talmudism. All we know about his fortunes is that he lived and died in Lublin, that in 1541 he was confirmed by a decree of King Sigismund I. in the office of chief rabbi of Little Poland, and that he stood at the head of the yeshibah which sent forth the rabbinical celebrities of the following generation.87 It is quite probable that the rabbinical conferences of Lublin, which afterwards led to the formation of the "Council of the Four Lands," owe their inception to the initiative of Rabbi Shakhna. After his death his son Israel succeeded to the post of chief rabbi in Lublin. But it was a pupil of Shakhna, Moses Isserles, known in literature by the abbreviated name of ReMO (1520–1572),88 who became famous throughout the entire Jewish world.

Moses Isserles, the son of a well-to-do Kahal elder in Cracow, became prominent in the rabbinical world early in life. He occupied the post of a member of the Jewish communal court in his native city, and stood at the head of the yeshibah. This combination of scholarly and practical activities prompted him to delve deep in the existing rabbinical codes, and he found, as a result of his investigation, that they were not exhaustive, and were in need of amplification.

Isserles was not even satisfied with the thoroughgoing elaboration of Jewish law which had been undertaken by his Palestinian contemporary Joseph Caro. When, in the middle of the sixteenth century, Caro's comprehensive commentary on the Code Turim,89 entitled Beth-Yoseph ("House of Joseph"), appeared, Isserles composed a commentary on the same code under the name Darkhe Moshe ("Ways of Moses"), in which he considerably enlarged the legal material collected there, drawing from sources which Caro had left out of consideration.

When, a few years later, the latter published his own code, under the name of Shulhan Arukh ("The Dressed Table"), Isserles called attention to the fact that its author, being a Sephardic Jew, had failed in many cases to utilize the investigations of the rabbinic authorities among the Ashkenazim, and had left out of consideration the local religious customs, or minhagim, which were current among various groups of German-Polish Jewry. These omissions were carefully noted and supplied by Isserles. He supplemented the text of the Shulhan Arukh by a large number of new laws, which he had framed on the basis of the above-mentioned popular customs or of the religious and legal practice of the Ashkenazic rabbis. Caro's code having been named by the author "The Dressed Table," Isserles gave his supplements thereto the title "Table-cloth" (Mappa).90 In this supplemented form the Shulhan Arukh was introduced, as a code of Jewish rabbinic law, into the religious and everyday life of the Polish Jews. The first edition of this combined code of Caro and Isserles appeared in Cracow in 1578, followed by numerous reprints, which testify to the extraordinary popularity of the work.

The Shulhan Arukh became the substructure for the further development of Polish rabbinism. Only very few scholars of consequence had the courage to challenge the authority of this generally acknowledged code of laws. One of these courageous men was the contemporary and correspondent of Isserles, Solomon Luria, known by the abbreviated name of ReSHaL91 (ab. 1510–1573). Solomon Luria was a native of Posen, whither his grandfather had immigrated from Germany. Endowed with a subtle, analytic mind, Luria was a determined opponent of the new school dialectics (pilpul), taking for his model the old casuistic method of the Tosafists,92 which consisted in a detailed criticism and an ingenious analysis of the Talmudic texts. In this spirit he began to compose his remarkable commentary on the Talmud (Yam shel Shelomo, "Sea of Solomon"93), but succeeded in interpreting only a few tractates.

In all his investigations Luria manifested boldness of thought and independence of judgment, without sparing the authorities whenever he believed them to be in the wrong. Of the Shulhan Arukh and its author Luria spoke slightingly, claiming that Joseph Caro had used his sources without the necessary discrimination, and had decided many moot points of law arbitrarily. In consequence of this independence of judgment, Solomon Luria had many enemies in the scholarly world, but he had, on the other hand, many enthusiastic admirers and devoted disciples. In the middle of the sixteenth century he occupied the post of rabbi in the city of Ostrog, in Volhynia. By his Talmudic lectures, which attracted students from the whole region, he made this city the intellectual center of Volhynian and Lithuanian Jewry. The last years of his life he spent in Lublin, where to this day there exists a synagogue which bears his name.

Luria and Isserles were looked upon as the pillars of Polish rabbinism. Questions of Jewish ritual and law were submitted to them for decision, not only from various parts of their own country but also from Western Europe, from Italy, Germany, and Bohemia. Their replies to these inquiries, or "Responsa" (Shaaloth u-Teshuboth), have been gathered in special collections. These two rabbis also carried on a scientific correspondence with each other. As a result of their divergent character and trend of mind, heated discussions frequently took place between them. Thus Luria, in spite of all his sobriety of intellect, gravitated towards the Cabala, while Isserles, with all his rabbinic conservatism, devoted part of his leisure to philosophy. The two scholars rebuked each other for their respective "weaknesses." Luria maintained that the wisdom of the "uncircumcised Aristotle" could be of no benefit, while Isserles tried to prove that many views of the Cabala were not in accord with the ideas of the Talmud, and that mysticism was more dangerous to faith than a moderate philosophy.

Isserles was right. The philosophy with which he occupied himself could scarcely be destructive of Orthodoxy. This is shown by his large work Torath ha-`Olah ("The Law of the Burnt-Offering," 1570),94 which represents a weird mixture of religious and philosophic discussions on themes borrowed from Maimonides' "Guide of the Perplexed," interspersed with speculations about the various classes of angels or the architecture of the Jerusalem temple, its vessels and order of sacrifices. The author professes to detect in all the details of the temple service a profound symbolism. Notwithstanding the strange plan of the book there are many chapters in it that show the intimate familiarity of Isserles with the philosophic literature of the Sephardim, a remarkable record for an Ashkenazic rabbi of the sixteenth century.

The intimate connection between rabbinic learning and Jewish life stood out in bold relief from the moment the "Council of the Four Lands" began to discharge its regular functions. The Council had frequent occasion to decide, for practical purposes, complicated questions appertaining to domestic, civil, and criminal law, or relating to legal procedure and religious practice, and the rabbis who participated in these conferences as legal experts were forced to accomplish a large amount of concrete, tangible work for themselves and their colleagues. Questions of law and ritual were everywhere assiduously investigated and elaborated, with that subtle analysis peculiar to the Jewish mind, which pursues every idea to its remotest consequences and its most trifling details.

The subject as well as the method of investigation depended, as a rule, on the social position of the investigator. The rabbis of higher rank, who took an active part in the Kahal administration, and participated in the meetings of the Councils, either of the Crown or of Lithuania, paid particular attention to the practical application of Talmudic law. One of the oldest scholars of this category during the period under discussion was Mordecai Jaffe (died 1612), a native of Bohemia, who occupied the post of rabbi successively in Grodno, Lublin, Kremenetz, Prague, and Posen. Towards the end of the sixteenth century he presided a number of times over the conferences of the "Council of the Four Lands." Though a pupil of Moses Isserles, Jaffe did not consider the Shulhan Arukh as supplemented by his teacher the last word in codification. He objected to the fact that its juridical conclusions were formulated dogmatically, without sufficient motivation.

For this reason he undertook the composition of a new and more elaborate code of laws, arranged in the accepted order of the four books of the Turim,95 which is known as Lebushim, or "Raiments."96 The method of Mordecai Jaffe differs from that of Joseph Caro and Isserles in the wealth of the scientific discussions which accompany every legal clause. At first Jaffe's code created a split in the rabbinical world, and threatened to weaken the authority of the Shulhan Arukh. In the end, however, the latter prevailed, and was acknowledged as the only authoritative guide for the religious and juridical practice of Judaism. Apart from his code, Mordecai Jaffe wrote, under the same general title Lebushim, five more volumes, containing Bible commentaries, synagogue sermons, and annotations to Maimonides' "Guide," as well as Cabalistic speculations.

Jaffe's successor as leading rabbi and president of the "Council of the Four Lands" was, in all likelihood, Joshua Falk Cohen (died 1616), Rabbi of Lublin and subsequently rector of the Talmudic yeshibah in Lemberg. He attained to fame through his commentary to the Hoshen Mishpat, the part of Caro's code dealing with civil law,97 which he called Sepher Meïrath `Enaïm, "A Book of the Enlightenment of the Eyes"98 (abbreviated to SeM`A). He also framed, at the instance of the Waad, a large part of the above-mentioned regulations of 1607,99 which were issued for the purpose of establishing piety and good morals more firmly among the Jews of Poland.

A more scholastic and less practical tendency is noticeable in the labors of Joshua Falk's contemporary, Meïr of Lublin (1554–1616), known by the abbreviated name of MaHaRaM.100 He was active as rabbi in Cracow, Lemberg, and Lublin, delivered Talmudic discourses before large audiences, wrote ingenious, casuistic commentaries to the most important treatises of the Talmud (entitled Meïr `Ene Hahamim, "Enlightening the Eyes of the Wise"), and was busy replying to the numerous inquiries addressed to him by scholars from all parts (Shaaloth u-Teshuboth Maharam). Laying particular stress on subtle analysis, Rabbi Meïr of Lublin looked down upon the codifiers and systematic writers of the class to which Isserles and Jaffe belonged. The trifling minuteness of his investigations may be illustrated by the fact that he considered it necessary to write a special "opinion" about the question whether a woman is guilty of conjugal infidelity, if she is convicted of having had relations with the devil, the latter having visited her first in the shape of her husband and afterwards in the disguise of a Polish nobleman.

In the domain of dialectics Rabbi Meïr found a successful rival in the person of Samuel Edels, known by the abbreviated name of MaHaRSHO101 (died 1631), who occupied the post of rabbi in Posen, Lublin, and Ostrog. In his comprehensive expositions to all the sections of the Talmudic Halakha (Hiddushe Halakhoth, "Novel Expositions of the Halakha"), he endeavored principally to exercise the thinking faculties and the memory of his students by an ingenious comparison of texts and by other scholastic intricacies. The dialectic commentary of Edels became one of the most important handbooks for the study of the Talmud in the heders and yeshibahs, and is frequently used there in our own days. His commentary on the Talmudic Haggada is strewn over with Cabalistic and religio-philosophic ideas of the conservative Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages.

In the middle of the seventeenth century the authority of the Shulhan Arukh, as edited by Isserles, had been so firmly established in Poland that this code was studied and expounded with even greater zeal than the Talmud. Joel Sirkis (died 1640) delivered lectures on Jewish Law on the basis of the Turim and the Shulhan Arukh. He wrote a commentary to the former under the name of Beth Hadash ("New House," abbreviated to BaH), and published a large number of opinions on questions of religious law. He held the Cabala in esteem, while condemning philosophy violently. His younger contemporaries devoted themselves exclusively to the exposition of the Shulhan Arukh, particularly to the section called Yore De`a,102 dealing with the Jewish ritual, such as the religious customs of the home, the dietary laws, etc. Two elaborate commentaries to the Yore De`a appeared in 1646, the one composed by David Halevi, rabbi in Lemberg and Ostrog, under the title Ture Zahab,103 and the other written by the famous Vilna scholar Sabbatai Kohen, under the name Sifthe Kohen ("Lips of the Priest").104 These two commentaries, known by their abbreviated titles of TaZ and ShaK, have since that time been published together with the text of the Shulhan Arukh.

This literary productivity was largely stimulated by the rapid growth of Jewish typography in Poland. The first Jewish book printed in that country is the Pentateuch (Cracow, 1530). In the second half of the sixteenth century two large printing-presses, those of Cracow and Lublin, were active in publishing a vast number of old and new books from the domain of Talmudic, Rabbinic, and popular-didactic literature. In 1566 King Sigismund Augustus granted Benedict Levita, of Cracow, the monopoly of importing into Poland Jewish books from abroad. Again, in 1578, Stephen Batory bestowed on a certain Kalman the right of printing Jewish books in Lublin, owing to the difficulty of importing them from abroad. One of the causes of this intensified typographic activity in Poland was the papal censorship of the Talmud, which was established in Italy in 1564. From that time the printing-offices of Cracow and Lublin competed successfully with the technically perfected printing-presses of Venice and Prague, and the Polish book-market, as a result, was more and more dominated by local editions.