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

This work, commenced in Hamburg, Delmedigo could not finish there. A pestilence broke out, and drove him, physician though he was, to Glückstadt. In this small community, where, as he said, there was neither town (Stadt) nor luck (Glück), he could find no means of subsistence, and he traveled on to Amsterdam about 1629. He could not attempt to practice medicine in a city where physicians lived of even higher eminence than at Hamburg, and so was obliged a second time to apply himself to the functions of rabbi. To show his importance, he printed his scientific replies to the questions of his Polish admirers, with the fulsome eulogies, clouds of incense, and foolish homage which the young Karaite Serach had offered him. It is a work of truly Polish disorder, in which mathematical theorems and scientific problems are discussed by the side of philosophical and theological questions, in a confused way. Delmedigo took care not to print his attacks upon the Kabbala and the Talmud, and his preference for the Karaites – in short, all that he had written to please the rich Serach. Instead of publishing an encyclopædic work which he boastfully said he had composed in his earliest youth, and which embraced all sciences and solved all questions, he produced a mere medley.

The Amsterdam community was then full of suspicion against philosophy and culture owing to the reckless behavior of Da Costa, and therefore Delmedigo thought it advisable to ward off every suspicion of unbelief, and get a reputation for strictest orthodoxy. This transparent hypocrisy did not answer well. He was, it is true, appointed preacher, and partially rabbi, in or near Amsterdam, but he could remain in Holland only a few years. Poor and unstable as he was, he went with his wife to Frankfort-on-the-Main about 1630 to seek means of subsistence. But here, in a German community, where Rabbinical learning was diffused, he could not obtain a rabbinical office; but he could turn his medical knowledge, scanty as it was, to account. As he felt no vocation for the office of rabbi, nor for medical practice, it was a matter of indifference if he changed the preacher's gown for the doctor's mantle. He was engaged, under irksome conditions, as communal doctor (February 14, 1631). How long he remained at Frankfort is not known; his position cannot have been favorable, for he removed to Prague (about 1648–1650), 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.