THE JEWS IN TURKEY. DON JOSEPH NASSI.
Joseph Nassi's Favor with Sultan Solyman--His Friendship
for Prince Selim--Hostility of Venice and France to Nassi--
Joseph Nassi restores Tiberias, and is created Duke of Naxos
--The Vizir Mahomet Sokolli--The Turks, at the Instigation
of Nassi, conquer Cyprus--Rebellion against Philip II in the
Netherlands--Solomon Ashkenazi--Election of Henry of Anjou
as King of Poland--Ashkenazi negotiates a Peace between
Venice and Turkey--Gedalya Ibn-Yachya and Jewish Literature
in Turkey--Joseph Karo compiles the "Shulchan Aruch"--Azarya
del Rossi--Isaac Lurya--The Jewish "Dark Age"--Spread of the
Kabbala--Lurya's Disciple, Chayim Vital Calabrese--Death of
Joseph Nassi--Esther Kiera and the Influence of Jewish Women
in Turkey.
1566-1600 C.E.
Again, as often before, the threads in the web of universal history
were so involved that it was impossible to annihilate the Jews of
Christendom even by systematic persecution. The sun, obscured on the
Jewish horizon by gloomy clouds in the West, again rose bright in the
East. Through a favorable turn of affairs a time was beginning in
Turkey which, to the superficial observer, may seem a brilliant epoch.
A Jew, who would have been burnt at the stake without ceremony in the
countries of the cross, occupied a very influential position in the
land of the crescent, rose to the rank of duke, and ruled over many
Christians. All the Jews in Turkey, amounting to millions in number,
rose with and by him to a free and honorable station, the envy of their
despised and less numerous brethren in Christian Europe. With rage
the Jew-hating Christian potentates saw their plans here and there
frustrated by Jewish hands, and their internal complications rendered
more and more involved and entangled. The down-trodden worm might yet
become an annoyance to its tormentors. Joseph Nassi, or João Miques,
the outlawed Marrano of Portugal, caused anxious hours to many a
Christian ruler and diplomatist, who were obliged to flatter him in an
abject manner, though they would have struck him dead like a dog if he
had been in their power. The illustrious republic of Venice, the mighty
kingdom of Spain, the conceited government of France, and even the
haughty papacy, all saw themselves endangered by him.
João Miques, or Don Joseph Nassi, who had been well recommended to
the Turkish court by French statesmen when first he entered Turkey,
had become yet more popular by his agreeable presence, his inventive
genius, his experience, and his knowledge of the Christian countries of
Europe and their political situation. Sultan Solyman, who understood
men well, soon took him into favor. He formed extensive plans for
beginning a war with Spain and aiding the Mahometans on the coast of
Africa against those who fed the stake. Joseph Nassi, through his
riches, and through the attachment of his fellow-believers in Christian
countries, was kept well informed as to what was going on in Christian
courts, and could tell the sultan the state of political and military
affairs, relieving the latter of the necessity of employing spies, or
of permitting himself to be deceived by the Christian ambassadors at
his court. Don Joseph could assist him with wise counsel, and thus as
a Frankish bey soon became a very important person in Constantinople
and was able to render material service to those of his own religion.
His importance increased still more by a fortunate chance. Hatred and
jealousy prevailed among the sons of Solyman, and the father preferred
the younger on account of his military inclinations. The courtiers
kept themselves aloof from the disregarded prince, Selim, and did not
intercede with his father on his behalf. Only Joseph Nassi pressed
Selim's claims warmly on his father, and when the latter wished to show
his favor to his son by making him a handsome present of 50,000 ducats
in cash, and 30,000 in valuables, he chose his Jewish favorite as the
bearer of the gift to Selim's residence in Asia Minor. The prince,
overjoyed both at the gift and at this proof of favor, from that moment
became very friendly towards the messenger, and assured him of his
life-long gratitude. He made a favorite and confidant of the Jewish
bey, and appointed him a member of the life-guard (Mutafarrica), an
honor to which even the sons of Christian princes eagerly aspired, and
to which a large salary was attached.
The ambassadors from Christian courts saw with vexation the growing
influence of a Jewish favorite, acquainted with all their plots, upon
the future sultan, and promulgated the falsest rumors about him. They
reported to their courts that Joseph Nassi was leading the prince into
all kinds of orgies and excesses, and was ruining him. The ambassadors
of Venice and of France were most hostile, because he saw through their
artful designs against the Turkish court, and was able to frustrate
them, and especially because he had private quarrels with them. The
government of Venice had imprisoned his mother-in-law, deprived her
of some of her property, and also had treated him scornfully; the
French court owed an immense sum (150,000 ducats) to the house of
Mendes-Nassi, and did not think of repaying it. The French ambassador
was, therefore, very eager for Joseph's ruin; he wrote to Henry II,
that he should inform Sultan Solyman that Joseph Nassi made it his
business to acquaint the enemies of France with all the negotiations
carried on at the Turkish court, and that being a Spaniard he did this
in the interest of Spain. But so far from punishing him, Prince Selim
and the reigning sultan took up Joseph's cause, and urgently insisted
that the court of France pay the debt owing their Jewish favorite.
Henry II and his successor raised an objection to Joseph's well-founded
demand, characteristic of the--shall we say, Christian?--morality
of the time. They averred that both law and religion forbade the king
to repay the debt to his Jewish creditor, because it was altogether
prohibited for Jews to have business dealings in France, and that all
their goods could be confiscated by the king. The sultan and his son
did not, of course, recognize this code of morals, and insisted with a
half-threat that Joseph Nassi should be satisfied. Joseph Nassi rose
so high in favor with Sultan Solyman, that the latter gave him a tract
of land in Palestine, on the Sea of Tiberias, to restore the city of
Tiberias under his own rule, with the express privilege that only Jews
should dwell therein. The deed of gift was signed by the reigning
sultan, by Selim, the heir to the throne, and by his son Murad, so as
to render it valid in the future, and not liable to dispute. Selim
proposed to his father to reward Joseph's services still further, and
to make him sovereign lord over Naxos and some other islands. But the
vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, a Christian renegade, who watched the growing
power of the Jewish favorite with jealous eyes, seems to have worked
against this and to have upset the plan.
After Solyman's death, when Selim II entered his capital to receive
the homage of his subjects (1566), and Joseph also presented himself
to swear allegiance to the new sovereign, he created him on the spot
Duke of Naxos, and of the Cyclades, Andro, Paro, Antiparo, Milo, twelve
islands in all, which he gave him one after the other, and for which he
had to pay but a small tribute. He also granted him the collection of
the duties paid in the Black Sea on imported wines.
Thus a Jew was able to issue his commands in the following grandiose
style: "We, Duke of the Ægean Sea, Lord of Andro." Joseph did not
reside in the capital of his duchy, where he would have been too
far away from the center of affairs, but remained in his handsome
palace Belvedere near Constantinople, and deputed the government of
the islands to a Spanish nobleman, a Christian named Coronello, whose
father had been governor of Segovia. Jealously as the Christian princes
regarded this Jewish duke, placed upon an equality with them, European
affairs were in such a condition that they were forced not only to
recognize, but even to flatter him. If they wished to gain anything
at the Turkish court, they dared not ignore him, knowing how high he
stood in Selim's favor, and of how much weight his opinion was in the
divan. When an Austrian embassy from Emperor Ferdinand I arrived in
Constantinople (after fresh victories gained by the Turks in Hungary)
to sue for peace, and win the great dignitaries by gifts and annual
subsidies, it was charged to make terms also with Joseph of Naxos.
His bitterest enemies were obliged to dissemble their hatred. The two
states which set themselves most to oppose him, namely, France and
Venice, felt the power of the Jewish duke severely.
The king of France declined to pay the debt contracted with the Marrano
house of Mendes and transferred to Joseph. The latter easily procured
a firman from the sultan, by virtue of which he was allowed to seize
all ships carrying the French flag which entered any Turkish harbor.
Joseph of Naxos sent privateers as far as Algiers to make a raid upon
French merchant vessels. At last he succeeded in getting possession of
several vessels in the port of Alexandria, captured all the merchandise
on board, and sold it to pay the debt owing to him (1569). The court
of France raised a clamor, protested, stormed, but all in vain;
Selim protected his favorite. A coolness arose in consequence in the
diplomatic relations of the two countries, which was more injurious to
France than to Turkey.
The French ambassador at the Porte was, therefore, very desirous to
bring about the overthrow of Joseph of Naxos. Not only was his own
honor concerned, but that of the French crown also. The French had
often boasted in the European cabinets that their word had the greatest
weight and influence at the Turkish court, and that they were in a
position to lead the divan to determine upon war or peace at will. And
now it was proved that a gross insult had been shown to the French
flag by this very court, and that France was not even in a position
to demand satisfaction from a Jew, the originator of the insult. The
French ambassador, therefore, directed his efforts to turning this
overthrow into triumph by compassing the fall of the influential Jew.
An opportunity soon presented itself in the discontent of one of
Joseph's agents. A Jewish physician, named David or Daud, one of the
physicians in ordinary at the Turkish court, and also in the service
of the duke, considered himself slighted and wronged by his superior,
and a quarrel arose between them. As soon as the French ambassador got
wind of this, he tried to fan the flame of dissension, promised Daud
a sum of money and a place as interpreter at the French embassy with
a yearly salary, and then entered into relations with him in order to
obtain secret information about Joseph of Naxos. In his irritation
Daud allowed himself to be led into hasty expressions. He promised to
furnish the French ambassador with full proofs that Joseph of Naxos had
carried on a correspondence traitorous to the Porte. He undertook to
produce documents to prove that Joseph sent daily information to the
pope, the king of Spain, the duke of Florence, the Genoese republic, in
short, to all the enemies of the sultan, and kept them acquainted with
every thing that went on at the Porte. Delighted at the opportunity of
overthrowing the Jewish duke, he informed the king of France and the
crafty queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, in cipher, that he would
soon be in a position to bring the powerful enemy of French influence
at the Turkish court to the scaffold (October, 1569).
The Jewish duke was placed in a position of the greatest danger, and
with him probably all the Jews in the Turkish empire. If Daud had
been able to push his hatred to the point of an open accusation, if
French money could have supported the intrigue, and if the grand
vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, the deadly enemy of Joseph, could have taken
the matter in hand, the latter would have been lost. But the French
ambassador thought it wise to treat the matter as a secret for a time.
In spite of this secrecy, the intrigues of Daud and the French
ambassador were betrayed to Joseph of Naxos, and he was able to be
beforehand with them. It was not difficult for him to convince Sultan
Selim that he had always served him faithfully, and that of all his
courtiers, he had been most sincerely attached to him. He obtained a
decree from the sultan by which the traitor Daud was banished for life
to Rhodes, the criminal colony of the Turkish empire. Either at the
instigation of Don Joseph, or by their own impulse, all the rabbis
and communities of Constantinople pronounced the severest form of
excommunication upon Daud and two of his accomplices. The rabbinical
colleges of the largest Turkish communities, Joseph Karo at their
head, in servile flattery joined them, without first having convinced
themselves of Daud's innocence or guilt. The extraordinary efforts of
the French ambassador and court to procure the overthrow of Joseph were
thus a complete failure, and left in the mind of the latter a feeling
of only too justifiable bitterness, which induced him to strive the
more to hinder and frustrate the diplomatic schemes of France.
Joseph of Naxos dealt even more severely with the state of Venice.
Secret enmity prevailed between the Jewish duke and the republic,
which both tried in vain to conceal by compliments. Independently of
the ill-treatment which his mother-in-law had undergone at the hands
of the Venetian government, it had refused Joseph's request for a safe
conduct through its dominions for himself and his brother. Selim, not
very well disposed towards the Venetians, was often urged by his Jewish
favorite to put an end to the long-existing peace between them, and
to set about the conquest of the Venetian island of Cyprus. In spite
of the disinclination of Mahomet Sokolli, the first vizir, who was
favorable to the Venetians, the war was undertaken.
The sultan is said to have promised Joseph that he should become king
of Cyprus, if the enterprise proved successful, and the duke of Naxos
is said to have kept a banner ready in his house, with the inscription,
"Joseph, King of Cyprus." His European alliances made this undertaking
easy. Whilst Mahomet Sokolli was still raising difficulties about
consenting to a naval war of this character, Joseph received the news
that the arsenal in Venice had been destroyed by an explosion. Joseph
and the party in the divan which he had gained over for war took
advantage of the embarrassment thus caused to the Republic of Venice,
and persuaded the sultan to allow the attacking fleet to sail at once.
Nicosia, one of the chief towns of Cyprus, fell at the first assault,
and the other, Famagusta, was closely besieged.
In this instance, as often before, all Jews were made answerable for
the action of one. That the Venetian government, at the outbreak of the
war, imprisoned all the Levantine merchants in Venice, for the most
part Jews, and seized their goods, was only natural in the barbarous
state of intercourse between one state and another. But that the
senate, at the instigation of the hostile doge, Luis Mocenigo, came
to the resolve (December, 1571) to expel all Jews from Venice, as
fellow-conspirators of Joseph Nassi and of the Turkish empire, was a
result of the race-hatred encouraged by Christianity. Happily, things
did not go so far. Notwithstanding the endeavors of the fanatical pope,
Pius V, to bring about a league of the Christian states against Turkey,
to organize a crusade against the so-called unbelievers, and to drive
the Turkish fleet from the waters of Cyprus, the town of Famagusta was
obliged to yield to the Turkish commander, and so the whole island
fell into the hands of Turkey. The Venetians were compelled to sue
for peace, and they placed their whole hope of obtaining it upon an
influential Jew, who was to negotiate it. In spite of the solemn
determination of the Venetian senate that no one should venture to say
a word in favor of Jews, they had to be tolerated, because it dared not
quite break with the Jews in Turkey.
The power of the latter was, indeed, so great that they, generally the
suppliants, were entreated for aid by Christians. A serious rebellion
had arisen in the Netherlands against Spain and the morose king, Philip
II, who wished to introduce the bloody tribunal of the Inquisition.
The barbarous Alva was trying to suppress apostasy and to lead back
the erring into the bosom of the Catholic church by hecatombs of human
beings. The block was to support the cross. In this extremity, the
rebels turned to Joseph of Naxos, who had dealings with some of the
nobility of Flanders from the time of his residence there. Prince
William of Orange, the moving spirit of the rebellion, sent a private
messenger to Joseph of Naxos, entreating him to persuade the sultan
to declare war against Spain, which would necessitate the withdrawal
of the Spanish troops from the Netherlands. The Austrian emperor,
Ferdinand, also condescended to address an autograph letter to the
Jewish duke in order to obtain the favor of the Porte, increasing the
grand vizir's envy. Sigismund Augustus, king of Poland, who was hoping
for an important service from the Porte, also addressed him, gave him
the title of "Serene Highness," and, what was of greater importance,
promised favorable conditions to the Jews in his country, to ensure
Joseph's approval of his plans.
We may almost say that the divan, or Turkish council of state, under
Sultan Selim consisted of two parties trying to checkmate each other:
the Christian party, represented by the first vizir, and the Jewish,
headed by Joseph of Naxos. Through and besides him there were other
Jews who, though only in subordinate positions, exercised influence--
the men on the holders of office, the women on the ladies of the harem.
Sultan Selim's goodwill towards Jews was so evident that a story became
current that by birth he was a Jew, foisted into the harem as a prince,
when he was a child. Even the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, although an
enemy of Joseph of Naxos and of Jewish influence, was forced to employ
a Jewish negotiator and to intrust him with important commissions.
The Venetian envoy, ordered to work secretly against the Jews at the
Turkish court, himself assisted such a man in obtaining influence.
Solomon ben Nathan Ashkenazi, who conducted the diplomatic affairs
of Turkey with Christian courts for nearly thirty years, and who
supplanted Nassi, was an unknown personage in Constantinople at the
period when the duke of Naxos had a powerful voice in the divan.
Descended from a German family of Udine, he began to travel early
in life, and went to Poland, where he rose to be first physician to
the king. On his removal to the Turkish capital, he placed himself
as a subject of the Venetian republic under the protection of the
diplomatic agents of Venice. Solomon Ashkenazi understood the Talmud,
and was called rabbi, but displayed greatest intelligence and skill
in the niceties of diplomatic technicalities, the disentanglement of
knotty questions, in negotiations, settlements, and compromises. For
these qualities he had been esteemed by successive Venetian agents in
Constantinople. The first minister of the Turkish court recognized his
diplomatic skill, attached him to his service, and trusted him to the
end of his life with such commissions as required tact, wisdom, and
discernment in their fulfillment. Whilst the Turkish arms were raised
against the Venetians, Solomon Ashkenazi was beginning to weave the web
for the future treaty of peace.
Christian cabinets did not suspect that the course of events which
compelled them to side with one party or the other was set in motion
by a Jewish hand. This was especially the case at the election of the
Polish king. The death (July, 1572) of the last Polish king of the
Jagellon family, Sigismund Augustus, who left no heir, necessitated a
genuine election from an indefinite number of candidates, and this put
the whole of Europe, at all events the cabinets and diplomatic circles,
into the utmost excitement. The German emperor, Maximilian II, and the
Russian ruler, Ivan the Cruel, were most intimately concerned in the
election, as neighbors of Poland. The former did everything that he
could to insure the choice of his own son, and the latter boasted that
he or his son would be chosen king. The pope plotted for a Catholic
prince to be placed on the throne of Poland; otherwise it was to be
feared that the choice of a king in favor of the Reformation, already
on the increase among the nobles and the townspeople of Poland, would
strengthen the movement, and that the country would free itself from
the papacy. On the other hand, the Protestant countries of Germany and
England, and, above all, the adherents of the various sects of the
new church in Poland itself, felt the greatest interest in securing
the election of a sovereign of their own faith, or at least of one
not an aggressive Catholic. To this was added the personal ambition
of a powerful French queen, who interfered with a deft hand. The
widowed queen, Catherine de Medici, as clever as false, who believed
in astrology, and to whom it had been announced that each of her
sons should wear a crown, wished to procure a foreign throne for her
son, Henry of Anjou, so that the astrological prophecy might not be
fulfilled by the death of her reigning son, Charles IX. She and her
son, the king of France, therefore, set every lever in motion to place
Anjou on the throne of Poland. Turkey also had important interests
and a powerful voice in the election of the king of Poland. A tangle
of cabals and intrigues was developed by the election. Each candidate
sought to gain a strong party among the higher and lesser nobility of
Poland, and also to gain the favor of the Porte. Henry of Anjou seemed
at first to have some prospect of success, but this was imperiled by
the bloody massacre of St. Bartholomew, in France, in which, at a hint
from the king and the queen-mother, a hundred thousand Huguenots,
great and small--men, women and children--were attacked, and
murdered (August 26th, 1572). Such barbarity, planned and carried
out in cold blood, had been unheard of in European history since the
murderous attack made on the Albigenses in the thirteenth century by
papal command. The Lutherans and other adherents of the Reformation in
every country were completely stunned by this blow. The candidates for
the throne of Poland sought to make capital out of it against Anjou.
So much the more the French candidate, his mother, and his brother,
were compelled to endeavor to gain over the Porte to their side. An
ambassador extraordinary was dispatched to Constantinople with this
object. So the choice of a king of Poland rested with a Jew who was
in the background, for Solomon Ashkenazi governed the grand vizir
completely, and ruled his will, and he managed foreign affairs in the
sultan's name. Solomon decided in favor of Henry of Anjou, and won over
the grand vizir to his side. When Henry of Anjou, by a combination of
favorable circumstances, was at last chosen almost unanimously (May,
1573), the French ambassador boasted that he had not been one of the
last in bringing about this election. But Solomon Ashkenazi ventured to
write as follows to the king of Poland, afterwards king of France under
the name of Henry III: "I have rendered your majesty most important
service in securing your election; I have effected all that was done
here" (at the Porte).
Great sensation was aroused throughout Christian Europe when this
Jewish physician and diplomatist was appointed by the Porte to conclude
the peace which he had for several years been trying to bring about
with Venice, and thus to stand forth as a person of the highest
official importance. The Jewish ambassador was not accepted without
opposition by the illustrious republic. The subject was eagerly
discussed in the senate, and the members of the government were against
him. But, on the one hand, the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli, was
resolved upon it, because Solomon enjoyed his unreserved confidence,
and he wished through him to establish diplomatic relations for other
purposes. On the other hand, the words of the Venetian consul, Mark
Antonio Barbaro, who repeatedly assured his state that the Jewish
diplomatist cherished the warmest sympathy with Venice, made a great
impression. Under these circumstances, "Rabbi Solomon Ashkenazi," as he
was termed, went to Venice in the capacity of envoy extraordinary from
Turkey. When once he was acknowledged, the dignitaries of the republic,
the doge, and the senators, paid him the greatest honor and attention,
because the Turkish court was very sensitive on this point, and would
have regarded want of due respect to its representative as an insult.
Solomon was, therefore, received in state audience at the doge's
palace, and there the act of peace between Turkey and Venice was signed
by him on behalf of the former. The signoria showed him the most polite
attentions during his stay in Venice (May to July, 1574), and all the
European ambassadors in Venice paid him court.
Solomon was an angel of deliverance to his fellow-believers in Venice.
Their joy at the honor shown by the authorities to one of their race
was mingled with anxiety and sorrow on account of threatened expulsion.
The doge Mocenigo had insisted upon the fulfillment of the decree of
banishment previously issued against the Jews. Many Jewish families had
already departed without waiting for the term to expire. Solomon had
arranged with Jacopo Soranzo, the Venetian agent in Constantinople, to
receive these unfortunates. On his return to Venice, Soranzo at once
brought the question of the Jews to the consideration of the council
of the doge and the Ten. He made them understand the injury to the
republic which would arise by the expulsion of the Jews. Those driven
out of Spain and Portugal had manufactured guns and other arms for the
Turks, and it would be a serious matter to make enemies of a people
who constituted a power in Turkey. To maintain friendship with this
country would be the surest guarantee of peace, as neither the pope nor
Spain could be trusted. This earnest appeal of Soranzo in favor of the
Jews effected a change in the disposition of the doge and the Dieci
(ten) towards them. The decree of banishment was revoked (July 19th,
1573), and Solomon's presence in Venice served to increase the joy of
his fellow-believers, as he obtained for them the promise that they
should never again be threatened with expulsion. Loaded with honors
and enriched by a gift of ten pounds (weight) of gold, Solomon returned
to Constantinople, where his position became more assured and his
importance greater than ever. His son, who was residing in Venice for
his education, was treated by the doge with the greatest consideration.
In consequence of the influence of Joseph of Naxos over Sultan Selim
and of Solomon Ashkenazi over the prime minister, Mahomet Sokolli,
the foreign Christian courts strove yet more earnestly to obtain the
favor of the Turkish Jews in Stambul. If one of them wished to effect
any object with the Porte, it first of all sought a Jewish negotiator,
because without this aid there was no prospect of success. Even the
morose Philip II of Spain, that incarnate hater of Jews and heretics,
was obliged to turn to Jewish mediators in order to obtain peace
with the Turks. The position of the Jews in Turkey, and above all in
the capital, under the very eyes of their powerful protectors, was,
therefore, extraordinarily favorable. They were able to put forth all
their powers freely, and thus earned the wealth which then meant power,
as it does now. The wholesale trade and customs dues were mostly in
their hands; they also carried on wholesale shipping, and emulated the
Venetians. They owned the largest and best houses, with gardens and
kiosks, in Constantinople, equal to those of the grand vizir.
This prosperity, freedom, and security of the Turkish Jews could not
fail to produce an exalted frame of mind, to open a prospect beyond
the actual present, and to stir up their minds to activity. The mental
fertility of the Spanish Jews, which brought so much that is beautiful
and true to the light of day, was not exhausted or extinct in Turkey.
The taste for history and events outside the Jewish world was not
yet lost to them. Moses Almosnino, a favorite preacher at Salonica,
while on a visit to Constantinople to procure privileges for the
community of Salonica, described life in the Turkish capital, with its
contrasts of glowing heat and benumbing cold, its astonishing wealth
and terrible poverty, its enervating luxury and severe privations,
its extravagant generosity and heartless greed, exaggerated piety and
callous indifference, which followed one another abruptly, without any
gradual transition. In his Spanish work on the "Contrasts and Greatness
of Constantinople," Almosnino described the power and development of
the Turkish empire with the pen of a master. He had a taste for the
sciences and philosophy, and worked out his sermons as well as his
expositions of the Scriptures in a scientific shape.
The physician, Samuel Shulam, likewise a Spaniard by birth, also had
a great taste for history. He led a life of adventure until he was
taken up by a Jewish woman in Constantinople, named Esther Kiera, in
high favor with the sultana. He published Zacuto's poor but useful
chronicle at her expense (1566-1567). This favorite of the court-Jewess
also translated from the Latin the interesting work of the old Jewish
historian Josephus against the attacks of Apion, the Alexandrine enemy
of the Jews, being the first Jewish writer to make use of it. The dark
side of Jewish history, the thousand years' martyrdom of the Jewish
race, was at the same time described by a more competent historian, the
now venerable Joseph Cohen, of Spanish descent. His "Vale of Weeping"
presents a long series of mournful scenes, tortures, death, and
distress in every form, but he was enabled to conclude his history with
the joyful tidings that the Venetians were eager, if only from policy,
to pay honor to and distinguish a Jew, the Turkish ambassador Solomon
Ashkenazi.
Even Hebrew poetry bore some blossoms at this period in Turkey, and
although but autumn flowers, showing traces of damp mists and a pale
sun, they form an agreeable contrast to the joyless wintry waste of
other regions and times. But we are more interested in the originator
of these efforts than in the productions themselves. He was a certain
Ibn-Yachya of the Turkish branch of this widespread family. This
family preserved nobility of heart and mind throughout a long line
of generations. The great-grandfather Jacob Tam, the grandfather
Gedalya Ibn-Yachya, the grandson Moses, and the great-grandson Gedalya
Ibn-Yachya II, with all collateral branches, were without exception
friends of learning, and shared their property with the poor. Moses
Ibn-Yachya not only spent thousands of ducats on sufferers at the time
of the plague, but even exposed himself to the risk of death in his
attendance upon the sick. His son Gedalya, a wise man and an agreeable
orator, imitated his father in all his virtues, and by his love for
poetry excelled him in gifts of the mind. He formed a sort of school or
circle of poetry, that is to say, he assembled from time to time, at
his own expense, all those interested in neo-Hebrew poetry, to recite
their poems, and urged those at a distance to send him the fruit of
their muse in order to encourage their zeal for this beautiful but
neglected art. Two poets distinguished themselves in this numerous
circle, Jehuda Zarko and Saadio Longo. To them we may add Israel
Najara, the prolific versifier, living in Damascus. It is true that
the verses of these writers do not contain much real poetry, and that
the authors deserve the name of poet only on account of the smoothness
and euphony of their style. As a matter of course this group of poets
extolled Gedalya Ibn-Yachya, their patron and protector, in their
verses.
The Jews of Turkey also wrote Latin verses in the security and comfort
of their present life. The writers were, of course, immigrant Marranos,
who had learnt the language of their oppressors in the dungeons of
Spain and Portugal. When the conscientious physician, Amatus Lusitanus,
whose aid had been sought alike by kings and beggars, and who, on
account of the intolerance of the reactionary policy, emigrated from
Italy to Salonica, and there acquired new friends and admirers, fell
a sacrifice to his devoted energy, and died of the plague, one of his
friends, the Marrano Flavio Jacopo de Evora, composed a memorial to him
in beautiful Latin verses to the following effect:
He who so often recalled the breath well-nigh gone from the
dying, and was, therefore, beloved by kings and peoples, lies
far from the land of his birth, beneath the dust of Macedonia.
The exaltation of the Turkish Jews and their contentment with their
present condition imbued them with thoughts of independence. Whilst
the Jews of Christendom had no such thought, and from time immemorial
considered themselves in a condition of subjugation to their masters,
the Turkish Jews became familiar with the idea of regarding themselves
as independent men.
Joseph of Naxos long cherished the thought of founding a Jewish state.
The Jew and the statesman in him yearned for this, and the enormous
wealth of his mother-in-law, over which he had control, was to serve
him as the means for its execution. Even when a fugitive Marrano he
had seriously put before the Republic of Venice the request that it
give him one of its numerous islands, so that he might people it
with Jewish inhabitants. But this was refused either on account of
the narrow-mindedness of the Christians or the fear of mercantile
competition. When later on Joseph stood high in favor with Prince
Selim, and also with Sultan Solyman, he obtained from them, besides
seven villages, the ruins of the city of Tiberias, for a small Jewish
state to be peopled only with Jews. He sent one of his agents to
superintend the re-building of Tiberias. The Turkish prince gave the
pasha of Egypt strict orders to assist the building in every way. The
Arab occupants of the neighboring villages were compelled to render
forced labor, and the new and beautiful houses and streets of the city
of Tiberias were completed in a year. Joseph of Naxos wished to make it
a manufacturing town to compete with Venice. He planted mulberry-trees
for the cultivation of silk-worms, and introduced looms for the
manufacture of silks; he also imported wool from Spain for the making
of fine cloth.
Joseph does not seem to have directed his full energy to the little
Jewish state; his plans were far more extensive, and thus New Tiberias
never became an important place. He next endeavored to obtain the
island of Naxos as a dukedom, together with the adjacent islands of the
Ægean Sea, and when he was fortunate enough to be appointed duke by
Sultan Selim, he thought no more about peopling his little island state
with Jews; perhaps it was not practicable. His mind was next set on
becoming king of Cyprus. It is possible that he might have transformed
this island of the goddess of beauty into a Jewish state had he
obtained possession of it, but his enemy, the grand vizir, Mahomet
Sokolli, prevented this. Thus his dreams of founding an independent
Jewish state were dispelled. In reality, Joseph of Naxos did nothing
of lasting importance for Judaism. He made various attempts, and then
relaxed in his endeavors, or misspent his means.
The fact that Jews occupied an exceedingly favored position in Turkey
for so long a period did not result in correspondingly enduring
progress. They did not produce a single great genius who originated
ideas to stimulate future ages, nor mark out a new line of thought for
men of average intelligence. Not one of the leaders of the different
congregations was above the level of mediocrity. The rabbis and
preachers were deeply learned in their particular subjects, but kept
to the beaten track, without making a new discovery or bequeathing an
original contribution, even in their own department. Only one rabbi
left to posterity an epoch-making work, which even yet possesses
significance, disputed though it be; but even this work contained
nothing new or original. Joseph Karo, chief rabbi of the city of
Safet, in Palestine, completed, after many years of toil, a new book
of religious ordinances, the "Shulchan Aruch." Religious impulses,
mystical fanaticism, and ambition, had equal shares in the making of
this book. For Joseph Karo was still subject to strange visions: he
still believed that he would be recognized everywhere as the highest
authority by the compilation of his religious code, a norm for Jewish
religious life; and that, by this means, he would accomplish the
revival of rabbinical ordination, in which Jacob Berab had failed;
restore, in fact, the unity of Judaism, and thereby hasten the coming
of the Messiah. He spent the whole of his life in collecting the
vast material, in weighing the pros and cons of arguments, drawing
conclusions and arranging them in their proper places. By doing this he
supplied a serious want. There was no manual that embraced the whole
field of religious observance. As the Talmud and the later religious
codes to an even greater extent favored differences of opinion upon
nearly every single point in matters of religion, ritual, law and the
marriage state, disputes constantly occurred which led to altercation
and divisions in the communities, for it rarely happened that two
rabbis agreed upon any question that came up for discussion. Each was
able to adduce reasons for or against any argument from the vast mass
of rabbinical literature.
It was this confusion and divergence of opinion that Joseph Karo wished
to check by means of his new religious Code. He embraced the whole
of the vast field of Talmudic and rabbinical literature, although his
intellect could not master it. By birth a Spaniard, he involuntarily
preferred the views of Spanish authorities to those of French and
German writers. Hence he allowed partiality to creep into his
compilation. As a matter of course, too, Karo admitted various elements
of mysticism, though only sparingly, as if unwilling to place the
Zohar upon a level with the Talmud in matters of practical religious
observance. He has embodied in his Code excellent precepts in regard to
sanctity, chastity, brotherly love, morality, and honesty in business,
drawn from the Talmud and the rabbinical writings; but they disappear
in a sea of casuistical details and mere externals, in a patchwork of
divisions and subdivisions, of "ifs" and "buts." In this work there
appears an altogether different kind of Judaism from that revealed
on Sinai, announced by the prophets, or even taught by Maimuni. But
this Judaism thoroughly suited the ideas of the Jews of that period,
and therefore Karo's Code was immediately hailed with delight,
disseminated, and received as the infallible standard authority in
Turkey, throughout the East, in Italy, and even in Poland.
Thus religious life received a certain finality and unity, but at the
expense of spirituality and freedom of thought. From Karo Judaism
received the form maintained up to the present time. His dream was
partially fulfilled. His rabbinical writings became the common property
of Judaism, and gave it religious unity. But he himself did not become
the leader and head, as the "Spirit of the Mishna" had repeatedly
promised him: he was only honored as one authority among many others.
Still less did he restore the ordination of rabbi-judges as members of
a Synhedrion, or hasten in any way the coming of the Messiah.
At that time there was a man in Italy, who not only surpassed all his
Jewish contemporaries in his spirit of inquiry and desire for truth,
but who would have been able to purify Judaism from the dross of
centuries of hardship, if the tendency of the age had not run counter
to this endeavor, or if he had had greater courage in opposing it.
Azarya ben Moses deï Rossi (born at Mantua about 1514, died in 1578),
descended from an old Italian family, had buried himself so deeply in
books, that his body bore traces of severe suffering from over-study.
Feeble, yellow, withered, and afflicted with fever, he crept about
like a dying man. Yet in this living corpse a powerful and healthy
mind worked with great activity. He had thoroughly mastered the whole
of Jewish literature, besides being well read in Latin historical
works, and he had also practiced medicine. At the same time he led a
wandering life. He dwelt for some time at Ferrara, then in Bologna,
had to leave that city in consequence of the persecution and expulsion
of the Jews under Pius V, and finally settled again permanently in
Ferrara. He held intercourse with the greatest Jews, Christians, and
Marranos of his age, and was regarded by all with astonishment as a
marvel of learning. He did not allow the treasures of his knowledge to
lie dead within him, but let them grow and spread luxuriantly. Ancient
history possessed special attraction for him. But even more admirable
than his vast reading was the use he made of it. He was the first to
bring into contact and connection with one another two provinces of
literature which were far apart--the Talmud and its offshoots, with
Philo, Josephus, and the works of the Church Fathers, proving the
truth of historical narratives from the mouths of many witnesses. Deï
Rossi, too, was the only one not satisfied with the data of tradition;
he accepted nothing as truth till he had subjected it to a searching
examination.
Chance brought to light the mental treasures of Deï Rossi. Ferrara,
where, after leaving Bologna, he had settled shortly before, had
been visited by a terrible earthquake (November 18th, 1570), and the
inhabitants were compelled to leave their ruined and crumbling houses
and seek places of refuge outside the city. In one of the villages
Deï Rossi happened to meet a learned Christian, who was trying to
overcome the gloomy thoughts caused by the earthquake by reading a
Greek book of Jewish antiquity. In conversation Deï Rossi became aware
that his co-religionists, even those possessed of some culture, owing
to their one-sided absorption in the Talmud or obsolete philosophical
writings, knew nothing of their own brilliant literature of the period
of the Second Temple, whilst Christians resorted to it to dispel
melancholy thoughts. Encouraged by his Christian friend, he determined
to translate into Hebrew the "Letter of Aristas," supposed to be the
discourse of a Greek king about the wisdom of the Jews, in order to
make it accessible to his fellow-believers. He completed this task
in twenty days. This was the first-fruit of his learning, and it led
him on to further undertakings. His principal work, "Light of the
Eyes," consists chiefly of parallel passages from Talmudic and profane
sources upon the same subjects. Deï Rossi's distinction rests upon
the fact that he did not adhere to tradition, but applied the methods
of scientific inquiry to what the multitude regarded as unassailable
truths, and that he used profane sources in elucidating them. The
actual results of this historical investigation, for the most part,
have proved unsound. Strong as Deï Rossi was in removing obstructive
rubbish, his power of reconstruction was small.
The value of his efforts appears in its proper light only if we
compare them with the circumstances of his time, or with the works of
contemporary writers on the same subject, as, for example, those of
Gedalya Ibn-Yachya; to these they form a complete contrast.
A descendant of the Italian branch of the noble Ibn-Yachya family,
Gedalya inherited taste for knowledge. He was born in 1515, and died
in 1587. His wealth enabled him to satisfy his taste by collecting
a magnificent library. In his voluntary and compulsory journeys in
northern Italy--for he was a preacher, and owing to the intolerance
of the popes had to lead an unsettled life--he had seen and read
much, both in sacred and profane literature, but without independent
judgment, without discrimination, and without appreciation of the
essence of truth. Ibn-Yachya's abbreviated "History of the Jews,"
together with a chronicle of the world, called "The Chain of
Tradition," at which he worked for nearly forty years, is a confused
medley of authentic historical narratives and mere fables. But in
spite, or perhaps because, of its legendary contents, his book has
found more acceptance among Jews than the researches of Deï Rossi.
When the first edition of the latter's "Light of the Eyes" found its
way to Safet, the orthodox of that town declared its contents to be
heretical. Joseph Karo commissioned Elisha Gallaico, one of the members
of his rabbinical college, to draw up an indictment, to be distributed
amongst all Jews, ordering Deï Rossi's work to be burned. The people
of Safet likewise had an inquisition. But Joseph Karo died (in Nisan,
_i.e._, April, 1575) before he had signed the indictment. The Italian
Jews were not so fanatical as to condemn Deï Rossi, for they knew him
to be a pious and pure Jew. But the rabbis of Mantua employed the
procedure of Ben Adret concerning the study of profane literature, that
is, they forbade the reading of Deï Rossi's works by young people under
twenty-five years of age. In consequence of this semi-official sentence
of heresy, the book exercised but little influence upon the Jewish
world of that day, or the generation immediately succeeding it, and
has been appreciated only in quite recent times, when it created a new,
enlightened view of history in Jewish circles. But in the Christian
world Deï Rossi's work was noticed much sooner, and was annotated, and
translated into Latin.
How, indeed, could a sober, critical method of inquiry have found favor
in an age when the mystic, dazing Kabbala was the first authority,
bidding men esteem blind credulity as the highest virtue, and exciting
visionary enthusiasm to the highest pitch of fanatical intoxication?
The visions of Solomon Molcho and Joseph Karo and their fond enthusiasm
about the Messiah were sober compared with the excitement which reigned
after their death, and celebrated a veritable witches' Sabbath. During
the last three decades of the sixteenth century the Kabbala gained
sole mastery in Palestine, conjured up apparitions, and encouraged
orgies of mysticism. It spread thence over the whole of Turkey, Poland,
Germany, and Italy, darkening and confusing men's minds, having an
evil influence even upon their hearts, allowing no healthy thought to
appear, or branding such thought as heretical and sinful. Once again,
as in the early days of Christianity, Galilee, especially the district
of Safet, became the scene of a host of evil spirits, of people
possessed with devils, which challenged mystic exorcism, and revealed
profound mysteries; and it is impossible to say whether the possessed
appeared in consequence of the exorcisers, or the latter of the former.
It was a period of Kabbalistic mania, coincident with profligacy and
moral degradation, and its victims despised not only the sciences, but
even the Talmud with its exhortations to sobriety. Then for the first
time the Jewish world entered on a "dark age" of its own, with all the
appropriate credulity, while only the last traces of such darkness
were visible in Europe generally. This tendency was exaggerated by
two men, who by their fanaticism and visionary extravagance infected a
continually widening circle. These were Isaac Lurya and his disciple
Chayim Vital Calabrese.
Isaac Lurya Levi (born in Jerusalem in 1534, and died 1572) was
descended from a German family. Left an orphan at an early age by the
death of his father, young Isaac came to Egypt, to the house of a rich
uncle, Mardochaï Francis, a tax-farmer, and began to study the Talmud.
The dry study of the Talmud, which filled the mind with voluminous
learning, unfruitful hairsplitting, and mere formulas, yet failed to
satisfy the wants of the heart, seems to have become repugnant to
Lurya, and to have driven him to fantastic mysticism. He preferred
the awful loneliness of the Nile country to the noise of the school;
abstraction in worlds of mysticism and devout praying to working out
intellectual problems. He was greatly attracted by the Zohar, which
had then been printed for the first time, and, widely spread abroad,
had become accessible to everybody. The more familiar he became with
the Kabbala through his absorption in the sounding emptiness of the
Zohar, the more did he seek solitude, and the less intercourse had he
with men. He even neglected his young wife, only visited his house
from Sabbath to Sabbath, and spoke little, that little being only in
Hebrew. Lurya is said to have spent several years in solitude in this
manner, and the result was that like all whose reason is weaker than
their imagination, he became a confirmed visionary. The mystic book,
the Zohar, his constant companion in this seclusion, aided in exciting
his imagination. Firmly convinced of its authenticity as the work of
Simon bar Yochaï, and also of the divine character of all the fantasies
and follies therein revealed, Lurya persisted in seeing in it high
allusions and profound wisdom. In his heated imagination he even saw
Elijah, the teacher of mysteries, face to face.
But what did the prophet Elijah, or the Zohar, or rather his own
heated imagination, reveal to him? First he took the trouble to put
system, unity, and logical order into the confusion and intricacies
of the Zohar, as if connected thought could be expected in the idle
chatter of a half imbecile. The hermit of Cairo sought to deduce
from it how God had created and ordered the world by means of the
mystic numbers (Sefiroth), or how the Godhead revealed itself in the
forms of substances, or how it concentrated itself within itself in
order to project the finite nature of created things from its own
infinitude. Thus he evolved an extraordinarily complicated system
of powers and opposing powers, forces and counterforces, forms and
degrees (Parsophin), in the four spheres of Separation, Creation,
Formation, and Transformation; and he clothed these empty abstractions
with such wondrous names, that he afterwards complained, with reason,
that no one could understand his mystic system. Yet Lurya looked upon
this intricate and complex theory of the creation as only a kind of
introduction to what seemed to him a much more important and practical
part of the Kabbala, whereby the divine order of the world (Olam
ha-Tikkun) could be brought about. This practical Kabbala of Lurya
rests upon a not less marvelous doctrine of souls, also based upon the
visions of the Zohar.
Our souls, he says, reflect the close connection between the finite
and the infinite, and, therefore, have a manifold character. The whole
of the soul material to appear in temporal life was created with Adam,
but each soul, according to its higher or lower degree, was fashioned
in, from, or with the first man, out of high or low organs and forms.
Accordingly, there are souls of the brain, the eyes, the hands, and
the feet. Each of these must be regarded as an effluence, or spark
(Nizuz), from Adam. By the first sin of the first man--for the
Kabbala finds original sin necessary for its fanciful creations--the
higher and the lower, the superior and the inferior souls, good and
evil, became confused and mingled together. Even the purest beings
thereby received an admixture of evil and the devilish element of the
"husk" (Kelifa). But the moral order of the world, or the purification
of the first man, cannot be brought about till the consequences of
original sin, the confusion of good and evil, are obliterated and
removed. From the most evil part of the soul material emanates the
heathen world; the people of Israel, on the other hand, come from the
good part. But the former are not quite without an admixture of the
original good, while the latter are not free from an admixture of the
corrupt and demoniac. This imperfection gives the continual impulse
towards sin, and hinders the chosen fragment of the human race from
following the law of God, the Torah. The Messianic period will put an
end to the disturbance of divine order arising from the first sin, or
abolish the disorder which has since crept in, and will introduce,
or see introduced, the divinity of the world. Therefore, a complete
separation of good from evil must take place, and this can only happen
through Israel, if it or each of its members will lose or cast away
the admixture of evil. For this purpose, men's souls (especially
those of the Israelites) have to wander through the bodies of men and
animals, even through rivers, wood, and stones. The doctrine of the
transmigration of souls forms the center and basis of Lurya's Kabbala,
but he has a peculiar development of the idea. According to this theory
even the souls of the pious must suffer transmigration, since not even
they are free from the taint of evil; there is none righteous upon
earth, who does only good, and sins not. In this way, Lurya solved the
difficulty, which former Kabbalist writers could not overcome.
But this separation of the good and evil elements in the world's soul
material, the expiation and obliteration of original sin, or the
restoration of the divine order in Adam, would require a long series
of ages, owing to the impulse towards sin continually present. There
are, however, means of hastening this process, and this was the really
original doctrine that Lurya enunciated. Besides the transmigration
of our souls, sinful and subject to demoniac forces as they are,
there is another mode of expiation, the elevation or impregnation of
the soul (Ibbur, _superfœtatio_). If a purified soul has neglected
various religious duties here on earth, or has had no opportunity of
fulfilling them, it must return to the earthly life, attach itself to
the soul of a living human being, and unite and coalesce with it in
order to retrieve this neglect. Or again, the departed spirits of men
freed from sin appear again on earth to support the weak and wavering
souls which cannot attain to good by their own efforts, strengthen
them and lead them to the final goal. These pure spirits combine with
weaker souls still struggling, and form a union with them, provided
that they have some affinity with one another, _i. e._, if they
originate from the same spark or organ of Adam, since as a rule only
similar (homogeneous) souls attract each other, while on the other hand
dissimilar (heterogeneous) souls repel each other. According to this
theory the banishment and dispersion of Israel have for their purpose
the salvation of the world or of men's souls. The purified spirits of
pious Israelites unite with the souls of men of other nationalities in
order to free them from the demoniacal impurities that possess them.
Isaac Lurya imagined a complete system of the transmigration and
combination of souls. It also seemed to him important to know the
sex of a soul, for feminine souls are found in masculine bodies, and
_vice versâ_, according to the transmigration and attraction in each
case. It is especially important in contracting a marriage to know
whether the souls of man and wife harmonize with each other in respect
of origin and degree. By means of this secret the visionary of Cairo
expected to solve the other mystery, namely, how good spirits may be
conjured down from heaven, and in a measure compelled to enter the
bodies of living men, and thus made to divulge revelations of the
world beyond. Hereby he believed that he held the key to the kingdom
of the Messiah and the regeneration of the world. Lurya also believed
that he possessed the soul of the Messiah of the branch of Joseph,
and that he had a Messianic mission. He saw spirits everywhere, and
heard their whispers in the rushing of the waters, the movements of
the trees and grass, in the song or twittering of birds, even in the
flickering of flames. He saw how at death the souls were set free from
the body, how they hovered in the air, or rose out of their graves. He
held intimate intercourse with the saints of the Bible, the Talmud, and
with the rabbis, in particular with Simon bar Yochaï. In short, Lurya
was a ghost-seer and raiser of the dead, a second Abraham Abulafia,
or Solomon Molcho, arousing hopes of the coming of the Messiah by
Kabbalistic jugglery, but with all this fanaticism he was sober and
sophistical. He introduced the casuistry of the Talmud into the Kabbala.
In Egypt, Isaac Lurya found little or no favor with his labyrinth of
higher worlds and his theories of creation and redemption. To realize
his scheme of redemption he migrated with his wife and child to Safet,
the Jerusalem of mysticism, where the mystic doctrine flourished, and
the Zohar, the spurious work of Moses de Leon, was exalted to the same
level as the Law of Moses ben Amram. Almost the whole college of rabbis
and the chief leaders of Safet were Kabbalists. This place was at the
time a flourishing city inhabited only by Jews. The members of the
community knew little of oppression or the cares of life, and so the
Kabbalists could spin mystical theories to their hearts' content. They
felt as safe under the favor that the Jewish Duke of Naxos found with
the sultan, as if in a state of their own, politically independent. The
Kabbalists had gone so far in their imitation of Catholicism that they
had adopted auricular confession and the adoration of martyrs. And this
was the stage on which Lurya, the creator of the new Kabbala, was to
originate new aberrations.
At first (about 1569), he appears to have received little attention in
the city of Kabbalists. Only through his acquaintance and connection
with a still greater visionary, perhaps not quite so honest as himself,
did he become a person of consequence, and infect everyone with his
waking dreams. This man was the Italian Chayim Vital Calabrese (born
1543, died 1620), whose father, a copyist of the scrolls of the Law,
had traveled to Palestine from Italy. Vital had learned nothing
thoroughly in his younger days; he had only gained a smattering of the
Talmud and mystic lore. He possessed a wild, extravagant imagination,
and a decided inclination for adventure and sensation. For two years
and a half Vital had occupied his time with alchemy and the art of
making gold. From this mystic art he turned to Lurya's Kabbala. It is
not known which of these two men first sought the other, but it is
certain that each, without wishing it, deceived the other. Together
they visited desolate places and graves, particularly the grave of
Simon bar Yochaï, the feigned author of the Zohar, in Meïron. This was
Lurya's favorite spot, because there he fancied he could draw down
upon himself the spirit of this supposed chief of the mystics. Now and
again Lurya sent forth his disciple to conjure up spirits, and for this
purpose delivered to him certain formulas made up of the transposed
letters of the name of the Deity. Of course, evil spirits fled before
Vital's gaze, whilst good spirits attached themselves to him, and
communicated their secrets.
It was Vital who spread sensational reports concerning the
extraordinary, almost divine gifts of his master, and of his power
over departed and living souls; doing so, it appears, with an artful
calculation of effect and publicity. Lurya, once so isolated, now
found himself surrounded by crowds of visitors; Kabbalists, young and
old, came to listen to the new revelation. Several disciples attached
themselves to him, and he communicated to them his confused thoughts,
assigned to each the original Adamite soul that dwelt in him, the
transmigrations which it had undergone before its present corporeal
existence, and its functions on earth. It never occurred to these
people, already enmeshed in the Kabbalistic net, to doubt the truth
of these communications. The disciples that gathered round him Lurya
formed into two classes: the "initiated" and the "novices."
Mystical conversations and notes, the interviewing and summoning of
spirits, formed the occupation of Lurya and his followers. In short,
Lurya was on the eve of founding a new Jewish sect. On the Sabbath he
dressed in white, and wore a fourfold garment to symbolize the four
letters of the name of God. The underlying fact of all his revelations
and exertions was that he was the Messiah of the race of Joseph, the
forerunner of the Messiah of David's line. This, however, he only
furtively hinted to his disciples. His delusion was that the Messianic
period would commence at the beginning of the second half of the second
period of a thousand years since the destruction of the Temple, _i.
e._, in 1568.
The sudden death of the mystic, at the age of thirty-eight, conduced
still more to his glorification. Death is wont to transfigure natures
like his, and veneration for them increases as years roll on. With
Eastern exaggeration, his disciples regarded him as even more than a
worker of wonders; they called him the "Holy and Divine," and sought,
for their own glory, to win adherents for him and his visionary
extravagances. They declared that, if Lurya could only have lived five
years longer, he would have improved the world so effectually, that the
Messianic period would certainly have begun. Abraham Abulafia, who had
evolved a Kabbalistic medley from his own consciousness, was declared a
heretic, and persecuted. Isaac Lurya, who had done the same thing with
the Zohar as a foundation, was almost deified.
After Lurya's death, Vital Calabrese came to the fore. He immediately
usurped a kind of authority over his fellow-disciples, pretended that
Lurya on his deathbed had appointed him his successor, and, in feigned
obedience to a dying request of his master, took away from them the
written notes given them by Lurya. Vital let it be understood that he
was the Messiah of the race of Joseph. However, some disciples did not
pay any attention to this, and forthwith taught in various countries
what they had received from Lurya himself. This was especially done by
Israel Saruk in Italy, whither he had traveled.
The harm that the Kabbalistic doctrines of Lurya caused in Jewish
circles is inexpressible. Judaism became surrounded with so thick a
husk of mysticism, that it has not even yet succeeded in entirely
freeing itself, and showing its true kernel. Through Lurya's influence
there was formed, side by side with the Judaism of the Talmud and the
rabbis, a Judaism of the Zohar and the Kabbala. For it was due to him
that the spurious Zohar was placed upon a level with, indeed higher
than, the Holy Scriptures and the Talmud.
The mysticism of Lurya laid stress upon an idea which has been
strangely neglected in Jewish circles, viz., devotion in prayer, but
even this devotion degenerated into Kabbalistic trifling. Every word
and every syllable of the ordained prayers was to be meditated on
devoutly, so that one might reflect upon the worlds of the Sefiroth,
the number of the names of God hidden therein, and many other things.
Lurya's Kabbala certainly inculcated the preservation of an unruffled
disposition, and interdicted dejection, or outbreaks of anger and
ill-humor. But this serenity, from its mystical setting, received
a touch of constraint and unpleasantness, like the laughter of a
madman. The Sabbath, with its prayers and meals, forms the central
point of Lurya's mystic teaching. He looked upon it as the visible
representation of the world of the Sefiroth, as the embodiment of the
Divinity (Shechinah) in temporal life, and all actions done or left
undone on that day had an influence upon the higher world. Lurya's
followers welcomed the Sabbath, "the mystic bride," with chanting,
and for this purpose Lurya composed Chaldaic songs full of obscure
and meaningless formulas. His Kabbala also introduced a second Day
of Atonement. The "Day of Hosannas," the seventh day of the Feast of
Tabernacles, was formerly observed as a day of festivity. Even Joseph
Karo did not venture in his code to attribute a higher, mystical,
religious function to this day. Lurya's school first raised it, on
the authority of the Zohar, to the rank of a minor day of expiation,
introduced the practice of holding a mystic vigil the previous
night, and perceived in every leaf of the willow branches, and in
the seven-fold processions round the scrolls of the Law, a higher,
mystical meaning. In relation to morality, too, the mysticism of Lurya
had a corrupting influence. It demanded a "harmony of souls" as a
condition of marriage, and, therefore, whenever disagreement showed
itself in married life, it was said that the marriage was not a union
foreordained by the harmony of the Sefiroth. Kabbalists, therefore,
separated from their wives in consequence of the smallest dissension
in married life, to seek out the harmonious soul predestined for them.
Thus divorce became frequent in Kabbalistic circles. Kabbalists often
left their wives and children in the West, and, migrating to the East,
contracted a new marriage, or several new marriages, and the children
of the different marriages knew nothing of one another.
These corrupting mystic doctrines did not remain a dead letter,
but were forthwith put into practice by their adherents. Thus, the
brilliance shed by the Jewish Duke of Naxos and other influential Jews
at the Turkish court over their fellow-believers in the East, came to
resemble the light of the will-o'-the-wisps that make the waters of a
stagnant marsh gleam with a flickering light. The religious stagnation
at the time was glaring indeed; there was a complete relapse into
heathenism; and what was worse, there sounded no warning voice which
recognized the mischief, or stigmatized, though ever so feebly, the
corruption as it really was. Perhaps the feeling of complete security
in which the Jews in Turkey reposed under mighty protectors of their
own race had encouraged this religious disorder. In any case, it
did not decrease as this protection gradually disappeared, when the
influence of Joseph of Naxos ceased on the death of Sultan Selim in
1574. His successor, Sultan Murad III (1574-1595), left the Jewish
duke in possession of his rank and offices according to his father's
dying request. But he no longer had direct influence over the divan;
he was supplanted by his adversary, the grand vizir, Mahomet Sokolli,
and his rival, Solomon Ashkenazi, and could accomplish nothing without
intrigues through the agency of the harem. Joseph Nassi did not long
survive his partial disgrace; he died of calculus, on August 2d, 1579,
sincerely lamented by the Jews. His accumulated treasures melted away
even as his ambitious designs. The avaricious sultan, Murad, who slept
upon heaps of gold in order that they might not be stolen from him, by
the advice of Mahomet Sokolli confiscated all his property, ostensibly
to cover his debts. The widowed duchess, Reyna Nassi, with difficulty
retained her dowry of 90,000 ducats out of her husband's estate. This
noble woman, although she certainly did not possess the spirit either
of her mother, Donna Gracia, or of her husband, determined like these
to spend her wealth in the interests of Jewish knowledge. She set up a
Hebrew printing press in her palace of Belvedere, and afterwards in a
village called Kuru-Gismu, on the European side near Constantinople.
But she was misled by Joseph Askaloni, a business manager devoid of all
taste, to whom she had intrusted the direction of her press, so that
only writings of no importance, which had far better have remained in
obscurity, were published in her establishment (1579-1598). And so this
noble family of two men and two women, renowned in their own time, left
no worthy or lasting memorial; and their deeds, prompted by the noblest
intentions, have perished in the stream of the ages.
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.