Preachers of the Italian Ghetto "d0e7100"

Notes

1. Babylonian Talmud (hereafter B.T.) Sanhedrin, 46b.

2. J. H. Hexter’s masterful essay on “The Rhetoric of History” is worth consulting even by those who have little interest in reading about Bobby Thomson’s 1951 home run. See D. L. Sills, ed., The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968), vol. 6, pp. 368–394, reprinted in J. H. Hexter, Doing History (Bloomington, 1971), pp. 15–76.

3. See J. M. McManamon, S. J., Funeral Oratory and the Cultural Ideals of Italian Humanism (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1989), pp. 10–11. On pre-humanist thematic funeral sermons, which “gravitated towards philosophical lectures on issues suggested by the Scriptural theme and only remotely touched on the life of the person eulogized,” see ibid., p. 10. On Vergerio see also idem, “Innovation in Early Humanist Rhetoric: The Oratory of Pier Paolo Vergerio (the Elder), ”Rinascimento n.s. 22 (1982): 3–32.

4. See Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance (revised ed. Princeton, 1966), pp. 412–413. According to Baron “Bruni allowed his eulogy of the dead general to grow into a Florentine counterpart to Pericles’ oration.” See also McManamon, Funeral Oratory, p. 23.

5. McManamon, Funeral Oratory, pp. 34–35. For a discussion of epideictic see also W. H. Beale, “Rhetorical Performative Discourse: A New Theory of Epideictic,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 11 (1978): 221–246.

6. On the date of Isserles’ death and the text of his epitaph, see Asher Siev, ed., She’elot u-Teshuvot ha-Rema (Jerusalem, 1971), p. 13. For Luria’s comment see ibid., no. 67.

7. Note the forty-four-page appendix containing a list of funeral orations delivered in Renaissance Italy ca. 1374–1534 in McManamon, Funeral Oratory, pp. 249–292. As he observes, “at least thirty-five funeral orations had appeared in print by 1500” (ibid., 24–25), so that sixteenth-century Italian Jews seeking to familiarize themselves with the written genre could so with relative ease.

8. For biographical information see the entries by Meyer Kayserling in the Jewish Encyclopedia (hereafter JE) (1901–1906), vol. 7, p. 455, and by Umberto Cassuto in the (German) Encyclopaedia Judaica (1928–1934), vol. 9, pp. 1083–1084. The entry by Shlomo Tal devoted to R. Samuel Judah’s father, R. Meir Katzenellenbogen, in the new Encyclopaedia Judaica (hereafter EJ) (1972), vol. 10, pp. 829–830, contains some information on the son, as well as additional bibliography. More recently see Asher Siev, “R. Shmuel Yehudah Katzenellenbogen,” Ha-darom 34 (1972): 177–201, which is still far from definitive. On the sermons of R. Samuel Judah see the brief but useful study by Gedaliah Nigal, “Derashotav shel R. Shmuel Yehudah Katzenellenbogen,” Sinai 36 (1971–1972): 79–85, and the illuminating comments of Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy, trans. J. Chipman (New York, 1990), especially pp. 309–311.

9. The famous R. Judah Minz was his great-grandfather, whose granddaughter was married to R. Samuel Judah’s father, R. Meir. On the family as a rabbinic dynasty see Cecil Roth, History of the Jews in Venice (hereafter Venice) (Philadelphia, 1930), p. 280.

10. For the view that Jewish sermons in Italy were delivered in “mellifluous Italian” see Cecil Roth, The Jews in the Renaissance (Philadelphia, 1959), p. 36; Moses Shulvass, The Jews in the World of the Renaissance, trans. E. I. Kose (Leiden, Chicago, 1973), p. 345; and, more recently (and comprehensively) Bonfil, Rabbis 301–302; idem, “Aḥat mi-Derashotav ha-Italkiot shel R. Mordekhai Dato,” Italia 1 (1976) (Hebrew section), pp. 2–3. On the language of delivery see also the general comments of Marc Saperstein, Jewish Preaching 1200–1800, An Anthology (New Haven, London, 1989), pp. 39–44. On Moscato, whose style, as Alexander Altmann noted, “exemplified, and did not merely discourse upon, the humanist concern for ars rhetorica,” see idem, “Ars Rhetorica as Reflected in Some Jewish Figures of the Italian Renaissance,” in B. D. Cooperman, ed., Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), pp. 15–21. Note also the comment of Leon Modena on Moscato’s style in Yacob Boksenboim, ed., Iggerot Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh mi-Modena (Tel Aviv, 1984), p. 84. Modena, in his eulogy upon R. Samuel Judah’s death, praised him as possessing not only Scriptural and rabbinic learning, but also “ẓaḥiot” (or possibly “ẓaḥiut”) by which he would seem to mean eloquence or rhetoric. See Leon Modena, Midbar Yehudah (Venice, 1602), 68b. On “ẓaḥut” as a term for rhetoric see Jacob Klatzkin, Thesaurus Philosophicus Linguae Hebraicae (Berlin, 1933), 3: 240.

11. On Maharam see the entries by Max Seligsohn in JE, vol. 7, p. 454, and Umberto Cassuto in the German EJ, vol. 9, p. 1079. More recent studies include Simon Schwarzfuchs, “I responsi di Rabbi Meir da Padova come fonte storica,” Scritti in memoria di Leone Carpi (Milan, Jerusalem, 1967), pp. 112–132; Asher Siev, “Maharam mi-Padovah,” Ha-darom 28 (1969): 160–195; for Maharam as “the greatest rabbi of the period” see Shulvass, Jews in the World of the Renaissance, p. 91, and note the seventeenth-century testimony quoted by Bonfil, Rabbis, p. 132, n. 159 and mentioned also in (the new) EJ, vol. 10, p. 829. On R. Samuel Judah’s rabbinical status in Venice, see Roth, Venice, p. 280; Bonfil, Rabbis, p. 229, n. 86; and M. A. Shulvass, “Venezia,” in J. L. Maimon, ed., Arim ve-Imahot be-Yisrael (Jerusalem, 1950), vol. 4, p. 77.

12. Shneim-Asar Derashot (Venice, 1594). The date of publication is sometimes given erroneously as 1588. See, for example, M. S. Ghirondi in Kerem Ḥemed 3 (1838), p. 95. The number of eulogies in the collection is reported erroneously as five by Joseph Dan, Sifrut ha-Musar veha-Derush (Jerusalem, 1975), p. 197.

13. Besides the one for Isserles (no. 6), sermons were delivered upon the deaths of R. Judah Moscato (no. 3), R. Isaac Foa (no. 5), R. Joseph Caro (no. 10), and R. Zalman (Solomon) Katz (Cohen-Rapa) (n. 11). The sixth, which appears as the final sermon in the collection (whose organization, however, is not chronological), was recited upon the untimely death of an unnamed young man.

14. Moses ibn Ezra composed nearly forty of this variety. On his poems, and on the genre in general, see the excellent chapter (no. 8) in Dan Pagis, Shirat ha-Ḥol ve-Torat ha-Shir le-Moshe ibn Ezra u-Venei Doro (Jerusalem, 1970), pp. 197–224, and the more limited remarks in idem, Ḥiddush u-Masoret be-Shirat ha-Ḥol ha-Ivrit (Jerusalem, 1976), pp. 162–163. See also the book-length study by Israel Levin, Al Mavet: ha-Kinah al ha-Met be-Shirat ha-Ḥol ha-Ivrit bi-Sefarad al Rek’a ha-Kinah ba-Shira ha-Aravit (Tel-Aviv, 1973), together with the critical remarks of Pagis, Ḥiddush u-Masoret, p. 374. Levin’s study ends with the poet Todros Abulafia (d. c. 1300), who composed some thirty kinot. For some Spanish examples between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries see also H. Schirmann, ed., Ha-Shira ha-Ivrit bi-Sefarad uve-Provens, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, 1972), nos. 67–70, 257, 334.

15. Profiat Duran, Ma’aseh Efod, eds. J. Friedländer and J. Kohn (Vienna, 1865), pp. 189–197. On Duran see R. W. Emery, “New Light on Profayt Duran ‘The Efodi’,” Jewish Quarterly Review n.s. 58 (1967/68): 328–337 and the sources cited there. For bibliographies of surviving eulogies see Aharon (Adolph) Jellinek, Kuntres ha-Maspid (Berlin, 1884), and the more complete work by Duber (Bernhard) Wachstein. Mafteaḥ ha-Hespedim (Vienna, 1922–32), which nonetheless needs considerable updating.

16. An edition of Gerondi’s twelve sermons had been published in Constantinople earlier in the sixteenth century, and another appeared in Venice in 1596. See M. Steinscheider, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (2nd ed. Berlin, 1931) (hereafter CB), p. 2063.

17. See the account of Elijah Capsali, Seder Eliyahu Zuta, ed. Aryeh Shmuelevitz et al. (Jerusalem, 1977), vol. 2, p. 255.

18. See Meir Benayahu, “The Sermons of R. Yosef b. Meir Garson as a Source for the History of the Expulsion from Spain and [the] Sephardic Diaspora,” [Hebrew] Michael 7 (1981): 144–198 passim; Joseph Hacker, “On the Intellectual Character and Self-Perception of Spanish Jewry in [the] Late Fifteenth Century” [Hebrew] Sefunot (new series) 2, no. 17 (1982): 66–69, 82–95.

19. On Arabic influence upon the medieval Spanish kinah see Levin’s study mentioned above (n. 14). On the transition in cultural values see Bernard Septimus, Hispano-Jewish Culture in Transition: The Career and Controversies of Ramah (Cambridge, Mass., 1982). Note there p. 8 on R. Meir Abulafia’s thirteenth-century poem on the death of his sister, in which it is the latter who speaks. On this poetic device see ibid., p. 122, n. 50.

20. See Meir Benayahu, “Kinot Ḥakhmei Italia al R. Yosef Caro,” in R. Yosef Caro: Iyyunim u-Meḥkarim, ed. Y. Raphael (Jerusalem, 1969), pp. 302–359.

21. For the 1559 sermon of R. Samuel Ashkenazi Jaffe see Meir Benayahu, “Hespedo shel R. Shemuel Ashkenazi,” Kobeẓ al Yad 8, no. 18 (1976): 438–449, and the latter’s introductory comments there, pp. 435–437.

22. On the use of Yiddish in Ashkenazic preaching of the sixteenth century see H. H. Ben-Sasson, Hagut ve-Hanhaga (Jerusalem, 1959), p. 39. On Yiddish as the language of preference among Italian Ashkenazim see Shulvass, The Jews in the World of the Renaissance, pp. 222–227, and Riccardo Calimani, The Ghetto of Venice, trans. K. S. Wolfthal (New York, 1987), p. 141.

23. On R. Abraham of Sant’Angelo, known also as R. Abraham b. Meshullam of Modena, see Isaiah Tishby, “The Controversy about the Zohar in the Sixteenth Century in Italy” [Hebrew], in P’raqim: Yearbook of the Schocken Institute for Jewish Research (1967–1968), vol. 1, pp. 131–132 [=idem, Ḥikrei Kabbalah u-Sheluḥoteha (Jerusalem, 1982), vol. 1, pp. 79–80]; Ephraim Kupfer, “New Documents concerning the Controversy about the Publication of the Zohar,” Michael 1 (1973): 304–318 (Hebrew section), and Moshe Idel, “Major Currents in Italian Kabbalah Between 1560–1660,” Italia Judaica (Rome, 1986), vol. 2, pp. 246–247. See also Ya’akov Boksenboim’s biographical sketch in his edition of Iggerot Melamdim: Italia [5]315–[5]351 (1555–1591) (Tel Aviv, 1985), pp. 44–52. The third collection of correspondence published there (pp. 249–361) is mostly between R. Abraham, his students, and the members of his family (such as his father-in-law R. Isaac de Lattes). On the “Nizharim” confraternity see Bonfil, Rabbis, pp. 216–217, and now Bracha Rivlin, “Takkanot Ḥevrat Nizharim be-Bologna mi-Shenat [5]307,” Asufot 3 (1989): 357–396.

24. One of the remaining two was delivered before the members of “Nizharim” upon the death of its previous teacher, R. Mordecai Canaruto, and another, the earliest of the three, delivered on 16 November, 1562, in the home of R. Elhanan Yael Fano, who, until his death, had been the leading figure among the Jews of Bologna. All are contained in ms. Jewish Theological Seminary of America mic. 5470 (hereafter ms. JTSA), no. 37234 in the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts of the Jewish National and University Library and were noted by Boksenboim, Iggerot Melamdim, p. 50. On Bologna see Isaiah Sonne, “On the History of the Jewish Community of Bologna at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century” [Hebrew], Hebrew Union College Annual 16 (1942): 35–100. On R. Mordecai Canaruto see Rivlin, “Takkanot Ḥevrat Nizharim,” pp. 358–359. Her transcription of a passage from R. Abraham’s eulogy, however, is far from accurate.

25. This sermon should be added to the one earlier thought to be R. Isaac’s “one extant sermon,” cited by Bonfil (Rabbis, p. 305) from a different manuscript. On de Lattes, whose origins were in Carpentras and Avignon, but who had been in Italy since the late 1530s or early 1540s, see David Fränkel, “Toledot R. Yiẓḥak Yehoshua de Lattes,” Alim 3 (1938): 27–33; the many citations in Bonfil, op. cit., index s.v. “Lattes, Isaac Emmanuel de”; Boksenboim, Iggerot Melamdim, pp. 20–21; and Idel, “Major Currents,” pp. 246–248. On the Spanish congregations in Rome see, most recently, Ariel Toaff, “The Jewish Communities of Catalonia, Aragon, and Castile in 16th-Century Rome,” in The Mediterranean and the Jews, ed. A. Toaff and S. Schwarzfuchs (Ramat Gan, 1989), pp. 249–270.

26. Note for example, the case of Abraham Colonia, a wealthy Jew of Viadana. When he died suddenly in 1556, the local rabbinic authorities ruled that his body should not be accompanied to burial since he did not confess publicly, and was therefore “akin to one who has no place in the next world.” See Ya’akov Boksenboim, ed. (Responsa), Mattanot be-Adam, p. 393. I hope to discuss this theme more extensively in a future study.

27. Moreover, R. Abraham ha-Kohen, Bologna’s leading rabbinical figure until his death in the late 1540s, had been his son-in-law, and R. Menahem Azariah of Fano was his grandson. On his wealth see Gedaliah ibn Yaḥya, Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah (Jerusalem, 1962), p. 153. For other details concerning R. Elhanan Yael and the members of his family, including a family tree of the Fano family, see Robert (Reuven) Bonfil, “New Information Concerning Rabbi Menahem Azariah da Fano and his Age” [Hebrew] in Perakim be-Toledot ha-Ḥevra ha-Yehudit bi-Yemei ha-Beinayim uva-Et ha-Ḥadasha Mukdashim le-Professor Ya’akov Katz, ed. I Etkes and Y. Salmon, (Jerusalem, 1980), pp. 99–101, 134–135, and the sources cited there.

28. The first to speak was R. Ishmael Ḥanina of Valmontone, in accordance with his rank as the first among Bologna’s rabbis, after whom followed R. Abraham, then R. Elijah of Nola, and then R. Solomon Modena, uncle of the yet unborn Leon. On R. Ishmael Ḥanina, who was probably then the teacher of R. Elhanan Yael’s grandson Menahem Azariah, see Bonfil, “New Information,” p. 101, and the many sources cited there, n. 22. Of the two individuals bearing the name Elijah of Nola known to us in sixteenth-century Italy, the one here mentioned is probably the physician and rabbi Elijah b. Joseph of Nola, who is known to have spent time in Bologna. In 1536 he translated a medieval Aristotelian work (by the bishop of Lincoln) from Latin into Hebrew, and is later praised for his learning by both Moses Alatino and David de Pomis. See Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebraische Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Berlin, 1893), pp. 126, 476, and the sources cited there, as well as Harry Friedenwald, The Jews and Medicine (New York, 1967), pp. 47, 579, 582, and Cecil Roth, The Jews in the Renaissance, p. 84, who confuses him (p. 150) with the physician and copyist Elijah b. Menahem di Nola of Rome. The latter eventually converted to Christianity, and was known during his period of papal employ (after 1568) by the name Giovanni Paulo Eustachio Renato. On the distinction between the two Elijahs of Nola see Friedenwald, The Jews and Medicine, p. 582 and earlier, Joseph Perles, Beiträge zur Geschichte der hebräischen und aramäischen Studien (Munich, 1884), p. 220. R. Elijah b. Joseph of Nola seems, like many others (such as R. Solomon Modena, concerning whom see below) to have left Bologna shortly before the expulsion of 1569, for we find him among the rabbis of Rome in Nisan, 1568. See Ya’akov Boksenboim, ed., Parshiot (Tel-Aviv, 1986), p. 49. It is likely that the kinah on the death of “the prince of physicians, R. Elijah of Nola of blessed memory,” preserved in ms. Budapest Kaufmann A 539, is for this Elijah b. Joseph. On R. Solomon b. Mordecai Modena of Bologna, who was ordained in 1546 by R. Isaac de Lattes, see Bonfil, Rabbis, pp. 43, 102, 197, and the sources cited there, as well as The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Rabbi: Leon Modena’s Life of Judah, trans. and ed. M. R. Cohen (Princeton, 1988), pp. 76, 78–79, and especially the biographical sketch (by H. Adelman and B. Ravid) on p. 189. See also Ya’akov Boksenboim, ed., Iggerot…Rieti (Tel-Aviv, 1987), p. 11 for a list of letters to and from R. Solomon, and the index s.v. “Modena, Solomon.”

29. On the later prohibition see Cecil Roth, History of the Jews in Italy, p. 384. On the use of torches in R. Judah Minz’s funeral see Capsali (cited above n. 17), pp. 254–255.

30. Ms. JTSA, 174b. On Abraham as grandfather see Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, trans. H. Szold (Philadelphia, 1909), vol. 1, pp. 298–299, 316–317. So far as R. Elhanan Yael’s grandchildren are concerned, we know that he had at least two upon his death, since R. Menahem Azariah Fano, who was his father’s second son (the first was Abraham Jedidiah), was born ca. 1548. His immediately younger brother Judah Aryeh was most likely born before the death of their grandfather, but the fourth and youngest of the brothers, Elhanan Yael, was probably born after the death of his namesake in 1562. On the date of R. Menahem Azariah’s birth and the names and order of his brothers see Bonfil, “New Information,” pp. 99, 134.

31. Ms. JTSA, 172b, where he quotes the rabbinic account (B.T. Baba Batra 91a–b) of the reaction of Abraham’s leading contemporaries to his death (“Woe to the world whose leader is gone, woe to the ship whose helmsman is gone”) and applies these to the deceased. Compare also the use of this nautical motif in Solomon ibn Gabirol’s famous poem on the death of R. Hai Gaon. See Schirmann, Ha-Shira ha-Ivrit, no. 70.

32. See Boksenboim, ed., Parshiot, pp. 302, 305, 309, 312.

33. Ms. JTSA, 174b, and compare Ezek. 33:24. Although the straightforward meaning of the verse refers to Abraham’s being only one man (as opposed to many) it was often understood in Jewish exegesis as referring to his uniqueness in his day. See, for example, Midrash Bereshit Rabbah, ed. J. Theodor and Ch. Albeck (repr. Jerusalem, 1965), p. 1171; Midrash Tanhuma, ed. S. Buber, 35b; Zohar 1: 65b.

34. The suddenness of his death is mentioned explicitly (177a) and its untimeliness may be inferred from the use of Gen. 29:7 (“Behold, it is still high day, it is not time…to be gathered”). The absence of male offspring is suggested by the reference to R. Mordecai’s students among the Pisa family as being his spiritual sons—“banav ha-ruḥaniyyim” (ibid.). The conclusion of the eulogy mentions R. Mordecai’s devotion to and support of his parents, but nothing about a wife or children.

35. This is Boksenboim’s conclusion (Iggerot Melamdim, p. 50) based on the fact that R. Moses Basola, who is thought to have died in 1560, is mentioned in the sermon with the blessing of the dead (181b). It should be noted, however, that the sermon refers to such 1550s events as the burning of the Talmud (1553), the papal bull which followed afterwards (apparently the 1554 Cum sicut nuper of Julius III), and the burning at the stake of the twenty-four martyrs of Ancona (1555), in such a way as to suggest that these wounds were still fresh (177a). None of these events are alluded to in the 1562 eulogy for Fano, and they would appear to point to a late 1550s date for the sermon.

36. “Like a loyal and loving father he policed you day and night, so that the designs of your hearts would take on wings like eagles (cf. Is. 40:31) and embrace the bosom (cf. Pr. 5:20) of those actions that are proper, good and honorable” (Ms. JTSA, 177a–b). The model of the resident tutor who was either unmarried or separated from his family and capable thus of devoting full time not only to the teaching of his students but also to the supervision and control of their behavior was common among sixteenth-century Italian Jewry. See my forthcoming article in the Festschrift for Shlomo Simonsohn. The words that I have translated as “policed you” appear in the Hebrew original, as far as I can tell, as “hishter etkhem” but have been transcribed by Rivlin (p. 359) as “haya meyasser otam.” “Hishter” would appear to be a corruption of the “hiph’il” form “hishtir,” concerning which see E. Ben Yehuda, Milon ha-Lashon ha-Ivrit (repr. Jerusalem, New York, 1959), vol. 8, p. 7060. On policing as part of a teacher’s duty, even when teaching older students, see, for example, the 1557 letter appointing R. Isaac de Lattes as head of a yeshiva and study society in Pesaro, in Boksenboim, ed., Iggerot Melamdim, p. 259, and more extensively my forthcoming article mentioned above.

37. Ibid., 177b. The humble apology of the preacher was common in sixteenth-century Jewish sermons, and drew upon the rhetorical tradition of the “exordium.” See David Ruderman, The World of a Renaissance Jew, pp. 16–17; Bonfil, Rabbis, p. 304.

38. See also R. Abraham’s note at its conclusion (quoted by Boksenboim, Iggerot Melamdim, p. 50) where he refers to the sermon as having already been delivered.

39. See the statutes published by Rivlin, “Takkanot Ḥevrat Nizharim,” par. 18 (pp. 365, 374–375).

40. Ms. JTSA, 181b, 182a, 183a–b.

41. Bonfil, Rabbis, p. 305. On the kabbalistic content in R. Isaac’s sermons see further below.

42. See the instances cited by Nigal, “Derashotav,” p. 83. Note there also the list of the other kabbalistic works cited (less frequently) by Katzenellenbogen in his sermons.

43. Note, in addition to his role (together with his father-in-law) in the publication of the Mantuan edition of the Zohar, their joint role in the spread of Yohanan Alemanno’s writings, mentioned by Idel, “Major Currents,” pp. 246–247. Idel sees the two scribes as having influenced through their activity “the direction of kabbalah in Italy and elsewhere.” For the perception in Italy of kabbalah as “exoterical wisdom” see ibid., p. 244. The curriculum followed by one of R. Abraham’s students some years later included, according to the testimony of the latter’s brother, “Halakha [Hebrew] grammar, kabbalah, and music.” See Boksenboim, Iggerot Melamdim, p. 390. Note also R. Abraham’s statements on behalf of spreading kabbalistic wisdom and against the opponents of its dissemination published by Kupfer, “New Documents,” pp. 307–309.

44. Ms. JTSA, 188b.

45. See Simha Assaf, “La-Pulmus al Hadpasat Sifrei Kabbalah,” Sinai 5 (1939–1940), pp. 362, 368 [=idem, Mekorot u-Meḥkarim be-Toledot Yisrael (Jerusalem, 1946), pp. 240, 246]; Tishby, “The Controversy,” 133–135, 137, 150–151, 163–165; Kupfer, “New Documents,” pp. 308–309. Among the sometimes hostile marginal comments by R. Abraham Sant’Angelo in his copy of R. Jacob Israel Finzi’s letter published by Kupfer, one seems to relate directly to R. Meir. In response to Finzi’s claim there that since “the rabbis of Venice, R. Meir [Katzenellenbogen] and his colleagues, had issued a decree on this matter, their voice must be heeded,” according to the Talmudic teaching (B.T. Eruvin 21b) that “the words of the scribes were to be heeded more than those of the Torah,” R. Abraham, after “the words of the scribes” wrote in the margin “but not one like him” (ibid., pp. 308–309). Was this a reference to R. Meir himself (whom R. Abraham was later to eulogize), or to Finzi, the author of the letter he was annotating?

46. Ms. JTSA, 190a. The term used by R. Abraham to describe the type of study through which Maharam reached the highest levels of wisdom is “ha-esek ha-toriyyi,” by which he seems to mean the study of conventional, as opposed to esoteric, texts. On the term “toriyyi” see Klatzkin, Thesaurus, vol. 4, p. 186, where it is defined as religious, dogmatic, or relating to the Torah. The third meaning, however, suggests the possibility that the reference is to Maharam’s involvement in meditations making use of the Torah text, perhaps of the ecstatic-theosophic variety described in the book Berit Menuḥah (concerning which see the following note). Compare the kabbalistic technique advocated by another Italian Ashkenazi, Yohanan Alemanno: “Once one has divested oneself of all material thoughts, let him read only the Torah and the divine names written there. There shall be revealed awesome secrets and such divine visions as may be emanated upon pure clear souls who are prepared to receive them.” See Moshe Idel, “The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the Kabbalah in the Renaissance,” in Cooperman, ed., Jewish Thought, p. 198. On Alemanno’s influence see ibid., p. 229. The use of Berit Menuḥah by Alemanno was noted by Gershom Scholem, “Chapters from the History of Cabbalistical Literature” [Hebrew], Kiryat Sefer 5 (1929): 276 (I owe this reference to Moshe Idel). On the relationship between R. Abraham Sant’Angelo, who copied some of Alemanno’s manuscripts and possessed autographs of others (see Idel, “Major Currents,” pp. 246–247), and Maharam, see ms. JTSA, 189b, 190b.

47. See Altschuler’s remarks in the Prague, 1610 edition of Sefer Keneh Ḥokhma Keneh Binah (a partial edition of the kabbalistic work Sefer ha-Kanah), 28a, which are quoted extensively both by Tishby, “The Controversy,” p. 165, and Siev, “Maharam,” p. 191. On the Berit Menuḥah, which dates from the mid-fourteenth century but was not published until the mid-seventeenth, see Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1961), pp. 145–146, and his entry on “Abraham b. Isaac of Granada,” its putative author, in EJ, vol. 2., pp. 145–146, as well as the comments on the work in his entry on “Kabbalah,” ibid., vol. 10, pp. 538, 632, where he writes that “this book, which contains lengthy descriptions of visions of the supernal lights attained by meditating on the various vocalizations of the Tetragrammaton, borders on the frontier between ‘speculative Kabbalah’…and ‘practical Kabbalah.’ ” On the essentially magical “practical Kabbalah” see Scholem’s comments, ibid., pp. 632–638, as well as Major Trends, p. 144; idem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, and Other Essays in Jewish Spirituality (New York, 1971), p. 263, and in his Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, trans. R. J. Z. Werblowsky (Princeton, 1973), p. 75, where it is defined as “the special use of divine mysteries to produce supernatural changes in the world” (see n. 52). On the mystical technique of combining the letters of the divine name see more recently the wide-ranging discussion of Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, 1988), pp. 97–103.

48. The first position is Tishby’s (see the previous note) and the second that of Siev (ibid.) who does not mention him and appears to have arrived at his judgment independently. The responsum to Isserles is no. 126 in Siev’s edition (p. 496, and see there also n. 14). Tishby calls attention to the fact that R. Elazar avoids stating unequivocally that the work was composed by Maharam, describing it rather as “nikra ’al shemo.” I would see this, however, only as an indication of the recognition on his part that the work was largely derivative and that it drew extensively on other sources, especially the Berit Menuḥah. On the accessibility to Maharam of the Berit Menuḥa see the previous two notes. It should be noted also that the fifteenth-century manuscript of the work described in A. Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1886–1906), p. 635, as Spanish has now been identified as Ashkenazic. See card no. 19114 in the catalogue of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts in the JNUL.

49. As Meir Weiss has recently noted, “There is a distinct probability that Amos expressed himself in an exaggerated fashion.” See his The Bible from Within (Jerusalem 1984), p. 105, and for rabbinic exegesis, p. 102, n. 3. For references to the Zohar in R. Samuel Judah’s sermons see Nigal, “Derashotav,” p. 83, n. 60. The entire sentence in his responsum reads, “I, in my affliction, am neither a kabbalist nor the son of a kabbalist, but I have [in my possession] a kabbalistic commentary on the Song of Unity [Shir ha-Yiḥud], not a comprehensive one, but fragmentary.” If the testimony concerning himself and his father is as ironic as I suggest, the commentary alluded to by R. Samuel Judah may have been part of his father’s own work on practical kabbalah, which according to Altschuler’s description, contained more than five hundred entries and must have been rather fragmentary in character. On the “Song of Unity” in Ashkenazic kabbalah see Joseph Dan, Torat ha-Sod shel Ḥasidei Ashkenaz (Jerusalem, 1968), pp. 171–178.

50. It is possible that R. Samuel Judah was deprecating his own and his father’s kabbalistic stature in relation to that of his correspondent (Isserles), who has been recently described as “the most important Ashkenazi figure who was influenced by Italian philosphical-magical Kabbalah.” See Idel, “Major Currents,” p. 246. Although he chose not to stress it in his eulogy, this aspect of Isserles may have been well known to the younger Katzenellenbogen.

51. The suggestion in favor of emendation is that of Boksenboim, who has published the letter and established its approximate date. See Iggerot…Rieti, pp. 305–306. Boksenboim does not mention the evidence for Maharam’s interest in practical kabbalah. The letter may possibly suggest, as he has noted, that a portrait of Maharam hung in the Rieti household. See ibid., p. 305 and compare Shulvass, The Jews in the World of the Renaissance, p. 235. If this is, in fact, what is intended by the cryptic words, “The likeness of the moon rising was engraved on the walls of our house, a throne to your great name, and upon the likeness of a throne, great love” (cf. Ezekiel 1:26, “and seated above the likeness of a throne was the likeness of a human form”), then the fact that R. Samuel Judah later posed for a portrait, thought by some to be the first portrait of a rabbi, would be yet another example of continuity in the Katzenellenbogen family. The allusions to Ezekiel’s vision, however, may suggest that the reference is not to a portrait which hung in the Rieti home, but to a kabbalistic wall chart containing divine names which had been prepared either by Maharam or according to his instructions. This would dovetail, of course, with the reference to Maharam some lines later in the same letter as one in whom “those who know the names put their trust.” On the knowledge of “names” see also the following note.

52. As Scholem has noted, ba’al shem was the title given, in both popular usage and literary works from the Middle Ages onward, “to one who possessed the secret knowledge of the Tetragrammaton and the other ‘Holy Names,’ and who knew how to work miracles by the power of these names.” He has observed also that “there were large numbers of ba’alei shem, particularly in Germany and Poland, from the sixteenth century onward,” some of whom were, like Maharam, important rabbis and scholars. See G. Scholem, “Ba’al Shem,” EJ, vol. 4, pp. 5–6, and note also idem, On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, trans. R. Manheim (New York, 1969), p. 200.

53. On R. Isaac’s period of service in the Rieti household see Boksenboim, Iggerot Melamdim, p. 20, and idem, Iggerot…Rieti, pp. 33, 292. Note the letter sent to de Lattes in late 1557 by two sons of Ishmael Rieti congratulating the former on the marriage of his daughter to Sant’Angelo (referred to as “our brother and our flesh”) published by Boksenboim, Iggerot Melamdim, pp. 269–270.

54. The age given by R. Abraham for Maharam Padovah at his death is considerably younger than that which has been traditionally accepted in scholarship (see the sources cited in n. 11 above), as Boksenboim (Iggerot Melamdim, p. 50) has already noted. It is thus less likely that Maharam’s strange behavior at his deathbed (concerning which see below) can be attributed to senility.

55. Ms. JTSA, 190a. On the Messiah son of Joseph, “the dying Messiah who perishes in the Messianic catastrophe,” see Scholem, The Messianic Idea, pp. 18, 97; idem, Sabbetai Sevi, pp. 53, 55–56, 70, 82; and David Tamar, “Luria and Vital as the Messiah Ben Joseph” [Hebrew], Sefunot 7 (1963): 167–177. On messianic speculation in Ashkenazi Hasidism, which may have influenced Maharam, see Dan, Torat ha-Sod, pp. 241–245, and his comments in EJ, vol. 11, pp. 1414–1415.

56. Note also the great respect shown by the Italian scholar Sant’Angelo for the Ashkenazi rabbi, in contrast to the letter (written in late November, 1563) by R. Abraham Rovigo of Ferrara to Maharam in which he accused the latter of blatant favoritism toward Ashkenazim and questioned the basis of his authority to override the decisions of other rabbis. See E. Kupfer, “R. Abraham b. Menahem of Rovigo and his Removal from the Rabbinate” [Hebrew], Sinai 61 (1967): 162, and Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities, p. 108. Yet it should be noted that Maharam made it difficult for Rovigo to show him respect, calling him a madman (meshuga) twice in one of his rabbinical decisions, and referring there also to his “diseased mind” (Kupfer, “R. Abraham…and his Removal,” p. 159). These words were not easy to take sitting down, even from the leading rabbi of the period.

57. This caused some consternation on the part of such fellow opponents as R. Jacob Israel Finzi. See Simḥa Assaf, “La-Pulmus,” pp. 362, 368; Tishby, “The Controvesy,” pp. 137, 163. On Finzi’s opposition see also his letter, mentioned above, to R. Isaac Porto-Katz of Mantua, published by Kupfer, “New Documents,” pp. 307–309.

58. See Tishby, “The Controversy,” p. 164, who noted how strange it was that Italy’s leading rabbinic authority would need Basola’s approval to institute such a ban, and suggested pragmatic considerations on the part of the former. It should be noted that the two rabbis seem to have entertained similar messianic speculations. Maharam, in 1565, felt that the Messiah son of Joseph would soon be born, whereas Basola had in 1547 predicted that the final redemption would come between 1560–1588. See Isaiah Tishby, “Rabbi Moses Cordovero As He Appears in the Treatise of Rabbi Mordekhai Dato” [Hebrew], Sefunot 7 (1963): 129; “The Controversy,” p. 150 [=idem, Studies, pp. 98, 139]. On messianic speculation in Italy during this period see also David Tamar, “The Messianic Expectations in Italy for the Year 1575” (Hebrew), Sefunot 2 (1958): 61–88.

59. As Boksenboim (Letters, p. 50) notes, at least one page (194) of the sermon is missing, but I do not share his certainty that the conclusion is missing as well. My suspicion is that the short section at the head of page 195a contains the brief notes that R. Abraham made for the conclusion of his eulogy on Maharam. As to why brief notes would suffice, see below. The use of verses describing a “woman of valor” concerning a man was technically facilitated by the fact that the Hebrew word for soul (here: nefesh) takes the feminine. For the earlier use of “Eshet Ḥayyil” as the basis for a lament on a woman see the poem written by R. Eleazar b. Judah of Worms (d. c. 1230) after the martyrdom of his wife Dulcia, published by A. M. Haberman, Sefer Gezerot Ashkenaz ve-Ẓarefat (Jerusalem, 1945), pp. 165–166. See also the English translation in Ivan Marcus, “Mothers, Martyrs, and Moneymakers: Some Jewish Women in Medieval Europe,” Conservative Judaism 38, no. 3 (1986): 34–45. On exegesis of “Eshet Ḥayyil” as a separate unit see the commentary from late fourteenth-century Spain published by L. A. Feldman, “Exegesis of Proverbs XXXI: 10–31 by R. Abraham Tamakh” [Hebrew], in the Samuel K. Mirsky Memorial Volume (Jerusalem, New York, 1970), pp. 85–103. On the use of the first verse of “Eshet Ḥayyil” in the Ashkava prayer for women according to the Sephardi rite, see EJ, vol. 6, p. 887. On the use of an alphabetical scheme, apparently as a mnemonic device, for eulogies, see S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 5, “The Individual” (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1988), pp. 164–165.

60. Ms. JTSA, 186b.

61. Ibid. On this custom in sixteenth-century Italy note Moses Basola’s advice, on explicitly kabbalistic grounds, to engage in Torah study after midnight, in a letter to a student published by Ruth Lamdan, “Two Writings by R. Moshe Basola” [Hebrew], Michael 9 (1985): 181–182. See also, for its actual practice, the 1579 letter of R. Mordecai Foligno in Boksenboim, ed., Iggerot Melamdim, p. 186.

62. Ms. JTSA, 195b. The eulogy was delivered during the week of the pericope of “Bo” in the year 5318, which was late 1557 or early 1558. For whom it was delivered is less clear, since R. Abraham writes cryptically that the eulogy had taken place in Pesaro upon the “fall from heaven of the shining star, son of dawn [cf. Is. 14:12], a cedar in Lebanon.” The Hebrew, “hellel ben shaḥar,” may possibly be a reference (if the first two words are reversed) to a son of R. Judah (Laudadio) de Blanis, the noted Pesaro physician and rabbi, who had been instrumental in bringing R. Isaac de Lattes to head the yeshiva there. The latter was referred to the previous year by Lattes (in a letter to R. Abraham) as “the physician R. Maestro Laudadio de Blanis,” who, he claimed, had been his “shepherd” since 1538–59. See Boksenboim, Iggerot Melamdim, pp. 251, 257–258, 267–269, and, on the Blanis family in general, Ariel Toaff, Gli ebrei a Perugia (Perugia, 1975), pp. 149–150, 158, 162–163 (including a family tree). The deceased may have been Judah-Laudadio’s son Mordecai (Angelo), with whom Lattes is known to have had a special relationship, and concerning whom nothing is known (to me) after June of 1557. See ibid., pp. 267, 391. In a letter of February 1557 to R. Abraham Sant’Angelo, Lattes refers to the sons of R. Judah-Laudadio as “cedars of Lebanon,” (ibid., p. 251) precisely the phrase with which the deceased is described in R. Abraham’s note!

63. Another instance in the written version is on the verse “She puts her hands to the distaff,” (31:19) where the last word (kishor) is read punningly as a reference to the laws of kashrut and those of torts (“ki yigaḥ shor”). See Ms. JTSA 186b and compare ibid., 198a–b. Whether, as seems likely, R. Abraham borrowed further in the oral version, we cannot know for sure. His transcription of the sermon he delivered for R. Elhanan Yael Fano contains no hint, as noted above, of the “Eshet Ḥayyil” formula. R. Abraham may have decided against using it on that more public occasion, since some of those present, especially his fellow rabbis, may have already heard the “Eshet Ḥayyil” rendition straight from the horse’s mouth—during one of his father-in-law’s periods of residence in Bologna. R. Isaac de Lattes is known to have been in Bologna between February and June of 1557 and during the first half 1559 (see Boksenboim, ed., Iggerot Melamdim, p. 20), and may have delivered at least one eulogy there in which he used the “Eshet Ḥayyil” formula.

64. See Zohar 3:51a, 86b, and Isaiah Tishby, Mishnat ha-Zohar (Jerusalem, 1961), vol. 2, pp. 472–476. For wool and flax as symbols of divine justice and divine mercy seee Zohar 3: 259b. For “Sh’atnez” as one of the commandments whose explanation was traditionally regarded as hidden, see, for example, B.T. Yoma 67b.

65. The translation is taken from Isaiah Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, trans. David Goldstein (Oxford, 1989), vol. 3, pp. 1207–1208.

66. See Steinschneider, CB, pp. 1735–1736. His Ta’amei ha-Miẓvot was published in Constantinople in 1544. See also Efraim Gottlieb, “Recanati, Menahem” in EJ, vol. 13, p. 1608.

67. See Efraim Gottlieb, Ha-Kabbalah be-Kitvei Rabbenu Baḥya ben Asher ibn Halawa [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1970), p. 9, on the popularity of the work and on the five editions which appeared between 1492 and 1524. Note also the two editions published in Venice in the 1540s and that of Riva di Trento, 1559, mentioned by Steinscheider, CB, p. 779.

68. See Rabbenu Baḥya: Beur ’al ha-Torah, ed. C. Chavel (Jerusalem, 1974), vol. 2, pp. 527–528. The close correspondence between R. Baḥya’s remarks on Lev. 19:19 and those of the Zohar was already noted and stressed by Gottlieb, Ha-Kabbalah, pp. 183–185.

69. Ms. JTSA, 195b. Note also the Zoharic identification of “Eshet Ḥayyil” with the “Shekhina,” the female aspect of the divine presence and the lowest of the ten Sefirot. See Tishby, Mishnat ha-Zohar I (rev. ed. Jerusalem, 1971), p. 240; EJ, vol. 6, p. 887. The eulogy was evidently delivered for someone who combined a kabbalistic tendency with a philosophical inclination, a combination especially common in Italy and characteristic of the “school” of Alemanno (see Idel, “Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations,” pp. 188–189; “Major Currents,” pp. 245–246). The gloss on the word shalal (“gain,” Ps. 31:12: “he will have no lack of gain”) plays on its similarity to the word shelili (negative), and states about the deceased that “when analyzing the divine attributes he would not fail to do so in negative terms.” This might be an allusion to the demythicized philosophical view of the Sefirot in the negative kabbalistic theology favored by Alemanno and his followers in Italy. See Moshe Idel, “Bein Tefisat ha-Aẓmut le-Tefisat ha-Kelim ba-Kabbalah bi-Tekufat ha-Renesans,” Italia 3 (1982): esp. p. 95 (Hebrew section); idem, “Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations,” pp. 219–227. De Lattes himself, who claims to have been for some time a teacher of the deceased, was, as was noted above, a follower of Alemanno in matters of kabbalah.

70. For the dates of publication see Tishby, “The Controversy,” p. 131; Boksenboim, ed., Iggerot Melamdim, p. 268.

71. On Pesaro as a split community on the issue see Kupfer, “New Documents,” p. 305; and on R. Judah’s stand in favor of publication see ibid., pp. 305, 310, as well as Boksenboim, ed., Iggerot Melamdim, p. 271. On R. Judah’s possession of a Zoharic manuscript which he put at the disposal of the book’s publishers see Tishby, “The Controversy,” pp. 143–144. For another kabbalistic manuscript in his possession see Toaff, Gli ebrei, pp. 149, 158.

72. See Kupfer, “New Documents,” p. 305, 311–314. Significantly, R. Menahem, no opponent of kabbalah, was also in possession of a manuscript of the Zohar which he attempted to withold from those involved in its publication. See ibid., p. 312.

73. Note, for example, his letter in March of 1557 to R. Abraham, who was engaged but not yet married to his daughter, in which the language and allusions in which his praises for the former are couched move gradually from rabbinic to kabbalistic. See Boksenboim, ed., Iggerot Melamdim, pp. 256–257.

74. See the documents concerning R. Isaac’s invitation to head a yeshiva and/or study society in Pesaro, in Boksenboim, ed., Iggerot Melamdim, p. 258–269 (some of which were originally published by David Fränkel, “Shelosha Mikhtavim le-Toledot R. Yiẓḥak Yehoshua da Lattes,” Alim 3 [1938]: 23–26). For the relative generosity of the contract see Bonfil, Rabbis, p. 162.

75. The events are narrated briefly by Roth, Venice, pp. 255–256, and in greater detail by David Amram, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (Philadelphia, 1909, reprint London, 1963), pp. 254–263. See also Siev, “Maharam,” pp. 183–190, and no. 10 in his edition of She’elot u-Teshuvot ha-Rema.

76. On this matter see Siev’s edition of She’elot u-Teshuvot ha-Rema, nos. 18–19, as well as Leon Modena’s responsum in his Ziknei Yehuda, ed. Shlomo Simonsohn (Jerusalem, 1956), no. 4. See also Boksenboim, Iggerot…Modena, no. 35. On earlier tension between Ashkenazim and Italiani on this issue see Bonfil, Rabbis, 258–260, and the sources cited there.

77. The glosses of Isserles to the Shulkhan Arukh were published as early as the Krakow, 1569–1571 edition of that work, and in subsequent editions which appeared there through the early seventeenth century. The first Venice edition they appeared in, however, was that of 1632, being conspicuously absent from those of the 1570s and of 1598. See H. D. Friedberg, Bet EkedSefarim (2d ed. Tel Aviv, 1954), p. 1005. On Isserles and the Shulhan Arukh see Isadore Twersky, “The Shulkhan Arukh: Enduring Code of Jewish Law,” Judaism 16 (1967): 145–155 [=Judah Goldin ed., The Jewish Expression (New Haven, 1976), pp. 325–334]. It is significant that in contrast to the dozen other Italian rabbis who composed poetic elegies (kinot) on the death of R. Joseph Caro in 1575 (among them, the virtuoso sermonizer R. Judah Moscato), the Ashkenazi Katzenellenbogen evidently felt culturally more at home with the prose genre of the hesped than the poetic one of the kinah. See the thirteen poems published by Benayahu, “Kinot Ḥakhmei Italia,” pp. 302–359.

78. See de Lattes’s responsum in the Mantua 1558 edition of the Zohar, where several Zoharic passages glossing the verse in Daniel are quoted. For the originals see, for example, Zohar 3: 124b; Tikkunei Zohar 1a. See also Tishby, The Wisdom, pp. 19, 1107, 1150.

79. Shneim-Asar Derashot, 34b. The passage, identified there only as coming from the Zohar on the pericope of “Pinḥas,” is from Zohar 3:218a.

80. I follow the translation in Tishby, The Wisdom, p. 1495. Note also the translation in S. R. Driver and A. Neubauer, The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah According to Jewish Interpreters (Oxford, London, 1877), vol. 2, p. 15.

81. Driver and Neubauer, The Fifty-Third Chapter, Preface, p. iii.

82. Note Yehudah Liebes, “Christian Influences in the Zohar,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 2 (1982–1983): 43–74 [Hebrew].

83. On Katzenellenbogen’s intellectual eclecticism see Bonfil, Rabbis, pp. 309–311. I am somewhat more inclined to see this eclecticism in terms of the preacher’s need to meet the varied expectations of his audience than as a true reflection of his intellectual profile.

84. Modena, Midbar Yehudah (Venice, 1602), 67b. On the later use of Christo- logical motifs by the kabbalist R. Moses Zacuto and the baroque implications thereof see Robert Bonfil, “Change in the Cultural Patterns of a Jewish Society in Crisis: Italian Jewry at the Close of the Sixteenth Century,” Jewish History 3 (1988):21.

85. On Modena’s polemical work Magen ve-Ḥerev, written shortly before his death, see Shlomo Simonsohn’s introduction to his edition of that work (Jerusalem, 1960). On the comparison of Katzenellenbogen with Alexander the Great see Modena, Midbar Yehudah, 69a. On comparisons with Alexander the Great in Renaissance funeral orations see McMannamon, Funeral Oratory, pp. 47, 99, 103.

86. On the deliberate ambiguities which often puzzle the beholder of late sixteenth-century Italian mannerist art, “which not rarely reveals a hardly veiled licentiousness under the guise of prudery,” see Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600–1750 (London, 1986), p. 23. On the baroque sensibility and Jewish culture in Italy see now the remarks of David Ruderman, A Valley of Vision: The Heavenly Journey of Abraham ben Hananiah Yagel (Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 65–68.