Isaac Abarbanel's Stance Toward Tradition: Defense, Dissent, and Dialogue

Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward Tradition Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward Tradition 鵻 Defense, Dissent, and Dialogu...

Author: Eric Lawee

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Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Toward Tradition


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Defense, Dissent, and Dialogue

Eric Lawee

State University of New York Press

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Publication of this work was made possible by a generous grant from the Koret Foundation. Cover photo: carpet page from the “Lisbon Bible” (Lisbon, 1482). British Library, MS OR. 2628, fol. 185r. Printed by permission of the British Library, London, England. Published by State University of New York Press, Albany 䉷 2001 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207 Production by Judith Block Marketing by Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lawee, Eric. Isaac Abarbanel’s stance toward tradition : defense, dissent, and dialogue / Eric Lawee. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. ISBN 0-7914-5125-9 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5126-7 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Abravanel, Isaac, 1437–1508—Teachings. 2. Bible. O.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish. 3. Judaism—Doctrines. 4. Rabbinical literature— History and criticism. 5. Tradition (Judaism) I. Title. BM755 .A25 L29 2001 296⬘ .092—dc21 00-054798 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my parents with love

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Contents

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Acknowledgments

ix

Bibliographic Notes / Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1

1. Life and Contexts

9

2. Works and Traditions

27

3. “To the Help of the Lord Against the Mighty”: ‘Aខteret zeqenim

59

4. Rabbinic Legacy: Background and Parameters

83

5. The Rabbinic Hermeneutic: Midrash in the Biblical Commentaries

93

6. In Search of Classical Jewish Eschatology: Yeshu‘ot meshiខho

127

7. Historical Thinking, Critical Reading, and the Study of Classical Jewish Texts

169

8. Abarbanel and Tradition: Six Trends

203

Notes

217

Bibliography

287

Index

313

鵻 vii 鵼

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Acknowledgments

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This book reflects many debts of gratitude that I am eager to repay publicly. Aid from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Studies made possible the doctoral dissertation out of which the book grew. Further stages in the book’s gestation occurred during my tenures as a Ray D. Wolfe Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto and as a Research Associate at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. The book has also benefited from a generous publication subvention from the Koret Foundation as well as a research grant from York University’s Faculty of Arts. To all of these sources of support I wish to express my sincerest appreciation. Partial versions of Chapters 3, 5, and 7 appeared, respectively, in AJS Review 22 (1997), Hebrew Union College Annual 67 (1996), and Viator 26 (1995). I am grateful to these journals for their permission to reprint. In addition to generous material support, the book reflects liberal infusions of assistance from the best and most benevolent of teachers. To my sorrow, my mentor Isadore Twersky passed away before seeing this study in its final form. Professor Twersky provided me with a broad vision of Jewish religious and intellectual history early in my graduate career and lent to my dissertation his vast erudition, discerning scholarly eye, and quiet but always appreciable encouragement. His interest in my career and in my life beyond academe meant a great deal. He lives on for me in innumerable ways, both as a model and as a sustaining inspiration. May his memory be for a blessing. My other Harvard mentor, Bernard Septimus, gave unstintingly of his time and singular gifts as an interpreter of premodern Jewish thought and literature to make this study far richer and more exacting than it otherwise would have been. His modesty, despite his boundless learning and insight, makes elaborate encomiums inappropriate. Suffice it to say that I owe to his judicious counsel more specific formulations than I could hope to acknowledge without being tedious, and a general scholarly debt that only mounts with time. Though many other teachers and colleagues who spurred me along my current path can only be acknowledged in aggregate, a few must be mentioned by 鵻 ix 鵼

x 鵼

Acknowledgments

name. First and foremost, Daniel J. Lasker has been a constant source of intellectual insight, friendship, support, good will, sage advice (scholarly and otherwise), offprints, and email. Menachem Kellner provided regular doses of encouragement and good humor and helped to make my first connection with SUNY Press. Elisheva Carlebach dispensed savvy consultations when bid to do so. Beyond providing many a constructive observation regarding the dissertation, James Kugel offered a consummate model of limpid scholarly prose that has served as an ever beckoning ideal. In Israel, particulars of the book gained from broad erudition kindly put at my disposal by Robert Bonfil, Yosef Hacker, and Moshe Idel. In Toronto, Virginia Brown served as a cheerful and sagacious mentor while Josiah Blackmore offered patient and affable tutoring in the decipherment of medieval Portuguese documents. In Palo Alto, Arnie Eisen and Steve Zipperstein broadened my intellectual horizons and Aron Rodrigue gave the book’s first part the benefit of his keen editorial eye. All three offered warm collegiality. New colleagues at York University, Michael Brown and Marty Lockshin especially, have shaped the happy circumstances whence I send forth this study to its final disposition. Over the long period of this book’s evolution I have been strengthened not only by magnanimous teachers and colleagues but also by dear family and friends. My parents have been supremely devoted but never overbearing fonts of love and aid. My siblings and their families have contributed greatly to the (happily now local) support network. Aviezer, Noam, and Gavriella have provided much joy, many a precious moment, and ample opportunity to learn of the delights and apprehensions surrounding efforts to transmit and renew tradition among the next generation. Greatest among the provisioners of unflagging support and understanding has been Mollie. Beyond serving as a most perceptive (and severe) external reader, she remains a wonderful, multitalented partner in life. May she to whom I owe the greatest debt find in this small achievement some recompense for her immense, deeply appreciated investment in its author.

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I. Editions of Abarbanel’s Works Cited 1. Commentaries on the Torah. Perush ‘al ha-torah. 3 vols. Jerusalem: Benei Arabel, 1964. 2. Commentaries on the Former Prophets. Perush ‘al nevi’im rishonim. Jerusalem: Torah va-da‘at, 1955. 3. Commentaries on the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel). Perush ‘al nevi’im ’aខharonim. Jerusalem: Benei Arabel, 1979. 4. Commentaries on the Minor Prophets (Amos, Hosea, etc.). Perush ‘al nevi’im u-khetuvim. Tel Aviv: Sefarim Abarbanel, 1961. 5. ‘Aខteret zeqenim. 1894. Photo-offset, Jerusalem: n.p., 1967. 6. Ma‘ayenei ha-yeshu‘ah. As in Perush ‘al nevi’im u-khetuvim. 7. Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah. As in Perush ‘al nevi’im u-khetuvim. 8. Mif‘alot ’elohim. Ed. Berakhah Genut-Deror. Jerusalem: Reuven Mas, 1988. 9. Naខhalat ’avot. As in Pirqei ’avot ‘im perush Moshe ben Maimon ve-‘im perush naខhalat ’avot. New York: n.p., 1953. 10. Perush ‘al moreh nevukhim. In Moreh nevukhim le-ha-rav Moshe ben Maimon . . . be-ha‘ateqat ha-rav Shemu’el ibn Tibbon ‘im ’arba‘ah perushim. 1872. Photo-offset, Jerusalem: n.p., 1960. 11. Rosh ’amanah. Ed. Menachem Kellner. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1993. 12. Shamayim hខ adashim. Rödelheim, 1828. 13. A Surot ha-yesodot. As at the back of ‘Aខteret zeqenim. A 14. Ta‘anot lequខhot mi-ខteva‘ ha-ketuvim. As at the end of Moreh nevukhim. 15. Yeshu‘ot meshiខho. Königsberg, 1861. 16. Zevaខh pesaខh. As in Seder haggadah shel pesaខh. 1872. Reprint, Jerusalem: Sefarim Toraniyim, 1985. 17. Abarbanel’s responses to Saul Hakohen, published under the title She’elot le-he-ខhakham Sha’ul ha-Kohen sha’al me-’et . . . Yiខshខ aq ’Abarbanel. Venice, 1574. (References to the first eight folios are to the actual as opposed to 鵻 xi 鵼

xii 鵼


printed pagination. Includes (pp. 21v–26r) Ma’amar qaខsar be-ve’ur seder ha-moreh. 18. Abarbanel’s letter to Yehiel da Pisa of 1472. As in “Mikhtav me-ha-rav don Yiខshaq ខ ’Abarbanel.” ’Oខsar neខhmad 2 (1857): 67–68. 19. Abarbanel’s letters to Yehiel da Pisa of 1481 and 1482. As in the addendum to Abraham ibn Ezra, Sefer ha-‘aខsamim. Ed. M. Grossberg. London: A.Z. Rabinovitsh, 1901. References to the biblical commentaries are by individual biblical book (e.g., Genesis, Joshua) where possible. References to Abarbanel’s other works are abbreviated in the notes as follows: AZ Mash ME MN MQ MY NA RA A SH SSK A SY A TK A TL YM ZP

‘Aខteret zeqenim Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah Mif‘alot ’elohim Perush ‘al moreh nevukhim Ma’amar qaខsar be-ve’ur seder ha-moreh . . . Ma‘ayenei ha-yeshu‘ah Naខhalat ’avot Rosh ’amanah Shamayim hខ adashim She’elot . . . Sha’ul ha-Kohen A Surot ha-yesodot A Ta‘anot lequខhot mi-ខteva‘ ha-ketuvim Yeshu‘ot meshiខho Zevaខh pesaខh

Abarbanel’s 1472 letter to Yehiel—“Mikhtav” Abarbanel’s 1481 and 1482 letters to Yehiel—“Mikhtevei ’Abarbanel”

II. Other Abbreviations Abravanel

Pines

MYMY

B. Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher. 1953. 5th ed., revised and updated. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. The Guide of the Perplexed. Trans. with an introduction and notes by Shlomo Pines. 2 vols. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963. Meខhqerei yerushalayim be-maខhashevet yisra’el


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III. Biblical and Rabbinic Citations Biblical citations generally follow The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1917. Talmudic citations are to the Babylonian Talmud unless preceded by J.T. (Jerusalem Talmud).

IV. Transcription of Abarbanel’s Last Name Abarbanel’s last name is spelled as indicated on the basis of Shnayer Z. Leiman, “Abarbanel and the Censor,” Journal of Jewish Studies 19 (1968): 49 n. 1.

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Introduction

I

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saac ben Judah Abarbanel (1437–1508) attracts attention—and holds out the promise of revelatory insight for intellectual historians and students of religion alike—for a variety of reasons. For one thing, the life of this celebrated courtier-financier and scholar, who passed the majority of his years in Portugal but wrote nearly all of his works in Spain and Italy, intersected some of the most important and influential intellectual, religious, historical, political, and technological trends and transitions of late medieval and early modern times. Abarbanel was, for example, a close observer of European maritime expansion and incorporated information born of the Age of Discovery into his scholarship. In his waning years, he even attempted to mediate a spice trade dispute between Venice and Portugal occasioned by Portugal’s circumnavigation of Africa—this, around the time that three of his books were printed in Constantinople, making Abarbanel one of the earliest Hebrew writers to have works reproduced mechanically within his own lifetime. The great voyages of discovery sponsored by Portuguese and Spanish courts where Abarbanel held positions of prominence were partially driven by, and in turn spurred, “visions of the end.”1 Christopher Columbus, among others, was inspired by the millenarian significance of these great enterprises, which was only reinforced by highly significant and in some cases epochal historical events occurring in Abarbanel’s day: Constantinople’s fall to the Turks in 1453, a happening that shook the world; Italy’s invasion by the French in 1494, which, among other things, put Naples’ king to flight with his trusted adviser Isaac Abarbanel at his side; and, in and around Italy at the turn of the sixteenth century, Christian-Muslim military confrontations of a sort that had long served as a “nurturing ground” for medieval apocalyptic theories.2 Such terrestrial developments, combined with astral configurations deemed portentous by Jews and Christians alike, figured heavily in the eschatological corpus that Abarbanel produced in Italy several years after his arrival there in 1492. This corpus constituted the most prodigious treatment of Jewish messianism 鵻 1 鵼

2 鵼


ever produced by a Hebrew writer, and it remains so to this day. As part of his survey of the classical (biblical-rabbinic) eschatological tradition, Abarbanel set forth a powerful messianic message that included a specific forecast for the end-time, or major events anticipating it, in 1503. Abarbanel came to Italy from Castile, land of his forebears, where he had found refuge in 1483 upon fleeing Portugal’s João II, who deemed him a coconspirator in an antiroyal plot spearheaded by nobles with whom Abarbanel was closely associated. In Spain, Abarbanel recouped the untold wealth he had abandoned in Lisbon, serving as a leading financier to, among others, the country’s “Catholic monarchs” Ferdinand and Isabella and the country’s senior prelate, Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza. The period of Abarbanel’s arrival in Spain was one of foreboding for Iberia’s non-Christian and converso populations. The early 1480s had seen a declaration of war on the emirate of Granada, Islam’s last Iberian stronghold; the beginning of inquisitorial activity against the conversos under Tomás de Torquemada, and an inquisition-inspired expulsion of Jews in Andalusia. Shortly after Granada’s fall in 1492, Abarbanel’s royal employers signed an edict of expulsion against professing Jews in the whole of Spain and her possessions. As a renowned figure at court, Abarbanel must have played a critical (if, to the historian, regrettably veiled) role in Jewish efforts to effect the edict’s withdrawl. The failure of these efforts sealed the fate of Christian Europe’s largest and proudest Jewry—that “chosen” one (in Abarbanel’s words) the likes of which “never there was before” nor ever would there be again. The Abarbanels set sail for Italy where, among other things, the paterfamilias sought to comfort traumatized Spanish refugees and rebuild religious faith in the wake of a calamity whose consequences would reverberate through Jewish history for centuries. The foregoing aerial survey of salient biographical and historical contexts in which Abarbanel’s teachings and writings must be placed should suffice to suggest one overarching reason why his variegated corpus is rife with historical significance for researchers from several disciplines: these writings open a window on important developments in three prominent southern European centers (Portugal, Spain, Italy) in the tumultuous decades surrounding the turn of the sixteenth century. For students of religion, and of Judaism in particular, there is much more. An avid practitioner of the vita activa deeply enmeshed in this-worldly affairs, including major political and economic developments of his day, Abarbanel also stands out as Judaism’s leading scholar of the turn of the sixteenth century. He is assured of this distinction by virtue of the size, scope, and number of his works and the profound influence that his writings exercised on contemporary and later thinkers and writers, both Jewish and Christian.3 Beyond voluminous and wide-ranging commentaries on the Pentateuch and

Introduction

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Prophets, Abarbanel’s extant writings include a variety of exegetical and theological tracts including a treatise on Jewish dogma, commentaries on the Passover Haggadah and tractate ’Avot, a “messianic trilogy” largely devoted to antiChristian polemic, and a commentary on Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. His non-extant works include lost or unfinished studies in prophecy, theodicy, and Jewish history. Even, then, as he passed most of his life as an astute financier-politician at leading European courts, Abarbanel produced one of the largest Hebrew literary corpora of medieval and early modern times. As a thinker Abarbanel was wide-ranging, erudite, serious minded, and inquiring. As a writer he was versatile, systematic, and expansive (or “prolix,” as a by now standard politely adverse characterization of his manner of literary expression would have it).4 Abarbanel’s interests and learning ranged broadly. His weighty tomes bespeak his mastery of the whole of Scripture, much of the (nonlegal side of the) rabbinic corpus, well-nigh every literary and scholarly sphere cultivated by medieval Jews (with talmudics and poetry being notable exceptions), and an ample admixture of general medieval and incipient Renaissance scholarship. These tomes take in an exceptional diversity of disciplines and subjects, among them biblical commentary, theology, eschatology, aggadic interpretation, dogmatics, anti-Christian polemic, philosophy, Kabbalah, ethics, and political theory. In tackling such subjects, Abarbanel typically entered into a lively dialogue with an astonishing range of ancient, early medieval, and contemporary thinkers and works. Clearly, then, a major challenge to any study of Abarbanel’s thought and writings that is not simply local is the need to enter into a corpus that addresses a multitude of subjects, cuts across numerous geographic-historical and intellectual-literary lines, and reflects its author’s immersion in an exceptionally wide range of traditional (and indeed nontraditional) texts, tropes, and genres. It is this book’s aim to expose a broad cross section of religious and intellectual themes found in Abarbanel’s corpus, focussing on his hitherto largely neglected exegetical works. In so doing, the book considers Abarbanel’s scholarly posture and literary creativity from the integrating perspective of his “stance towards tradition.” This latter coinage is invoked as shorthand for Abarbanel’s negotiations with teachings, texts, methods, and debates bequeathed to him from various layers of the classical (biblical-rabbinic) and postrabbinic Jewish past. It is also meant to summon the marks of loyalty, vicissitude, ambivalence, tension, allusion, revision, appropriation, and reinterpretation which these negotiations variously reveal, conceal, or presuppose. Though an ample scholarly literature, much of it illuminating, now surrounds Abarbanel’s writings, it is almost wholly topical. By contrast, this book seeks to reveal unappreciated interactions between Abarbanel’s religious outlook, theological concerns, interpretive activities, and literary aims, giving special attention to the interplay of Abarbanel’s much studied theology and his little studied exegesis. It attempts

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to realize this aim by exposing intricacies in Abarbanel’s dialogue with earlier strands of Jewish learning and literature—in particular as these emerge from the dominant exegetical side of Abarbanel’s scholarship that has heretofore been mostly neglected. This process of study will, it is hoped, vivify previously overlooked works, heighten interest in typically forgotten aspects of Abarbanel’s scholarly achievement, expose “devices of discourse”5 through which Abarbanel’s interlocutions with earlier texts and writers are expressed, and generally provide revelatory glimpses into a religious oeuvre of remarkable breadth and diversity. The overall aim has been to render a textured, albeit by no means comprehensive, portrait of Abarbanel’s “intellectual personality, complete, alive and individual.”6 Though the fundamental objective of the chapters following is religiousintellectual biography, this book aspires to make contributions in other areas as well. Intriguingly individual in many aspects of his spiritual cast, Abarbanel is in many others very much representative of religious teachings and cultural impulses present in several Mediterranean Jewish centers in the decades surrounding Spanish Jewry’s expulsion. While the book’s main goal is a discriminating portrait of a specific religious personality living at a captivating historical moment when “the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were yet indistinct,”7 an effort has also been made to highlight aspects of Abarbanel’s habits of thought, religious preoccupations, and literary media that are representative of larger trends at play during this moment. To the extent that this secondary aim has been achieved, Abarbanel will stand as an exemplar. In this role, he throws light on continuities and shifts both in the larger world of elite learning and in a range of fields at the heart of medieval and early modern Judaism, exegetical ones in particular, such as new turns in conceptions of the aims of scriptural commentary, evolving attitudes towards nonlegal rabbinic discourse, or novel phases in the history of Maimonidean exegesis. As its title suggests, this study is undergirded by a broader set of queries and conundrums summoned by the ubiquitous if elusive concept of “tradition.” Deriving from a Latin usage meaning “delivery,” “surrender,” or “handing over,” and in some of its earliest incarnations implying a thing that is precious and given over in trust to be kept intact, tradition encompasses a diversity of phenomena, including the endurance of past practices and the past’s hold on the present.8 The term also conjures many questions: When do traditions remain stable? What is the relationship between tradition and rationality? Is there a human need for tradition? Must traditions always be conservative and stabilizing or may they be “critical and disruptive”?9 Some such questions are especially germane to premodern religious thinkers and writers like Abarbanel: What remains to be done in light of the legacy of the past? When is critical thinking concerning traditional teachings and sacrosanct figures sanctioned?

Introduction

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What theological justifications are there for efforts to discover and advance new insights? In approaching Abarbanel from the vantage-point of his stance towards tradition, one joins a substantial tradition of broad twentieth-century discourse whose point of departure is this critical category. In the late 1950s and decades following, long-standing assessments of Enlightenment thinkers, who typically viewed tradition in opposition to progress to the former’s manifest disfavor, gave way to increasingly complex understandings of the role of tradition in human society. Scholars with diverse intellectual interests such as the sinologist Joseph Levenson, Islamicist Marshall Hodgson, and European historian Eric Hobsbawn provided new insight into tradition-based thinking and at times developed a new critical vocabulary for understanding it. Terms such as “invented tradition,” and, to a lesser extent, “traditionalistic,” entered subsequent literature in this field.10 The category of “tradition” (with its common analytical concomitants “change” and “crisis”) has served as a staple in the study of early modern and modern Judaism in the last half century as well. It suffices to mention Jacob Katz’s landmark study Tradition and Crisis to illustrate the point. The rubric and its cognates retain a central place in the study of modern Judaism down to the present, with a basic investigatory point of departure being the traditional Jewish community’s dissolution—or, increasingly, transformed vestiges of its persistence—in the face of modernity’s onslaught.11 In studying Abarbanel, one began to see the notion of tradition as a fruitful integrating perspective that might bring into view and enliven salient aspects of—and in some measure lend coherence to—the writings, religious outlook, and scholarly disposition of one who stood at the indefinite intersection between premodern and early modern times. Minimally, a significant advantage of this approach to Abarbanel was its implicit demand to traverse boundaries of individual works and discrete conceptual domains in order to discern representative patterns and nuances that might go unnoticed in more strictly topical studies. No less important, application of the category of tradition to Abarbanel’s oeuvre served to quicken attentiveness to features of his works beyond the strictly substantive—elements of rhetorical strategy, literary timbre, emotional tone, and more. To be sure, Abarbanel was hardly the first Hebrew writer to inherit ancient texts and modes of discourse from predecessors or to owe these predecessors considerable intellectual debts. Clearly his forerunners, in varying measures, also often felt tradition’s “rich and intimidating legacy” weighing on their own intellectual and literary shoulders.12 Indeed, it has been noted that earlier representatives of medieval Judaism habitually felt compelled to justify their scholarly initiatives, and that they often did so using an almost conventional literary

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genre largely designed for this purpose—the introduction.13 However this may be, this study’s premise is that an exploration of adherence to and dissent from received teachings and texts provides an especially germane point of departure for one seeking insight into Abarbanel’s religious posture in particular. One reason, and perhaps the most notable, is Abarbanel’s double role as a consciously vigilant, at times ostentatious defender of tradition who, however, often acted as its innovative and occasionally bold critic. Buttressing the image of Abarbanel as a man bent on upholding inherited principles and ways of thinking and transmitting them to a new generation are his conservative theological views (e.g., regarding the literal veracity of biblical miracles in the face of rationalist nonliteral interpretation thereof), his elevation of each belief of Judaism to the status of a necessary dogma (in his tract on Jewish principles of faith), and his outwardly respectful (albeit, as will be seen, ultimately complex) bearing before the kabbalists’ claim to the mantle of classical Judaism’s esoteric tradition. At the same time, despite patent traditional sensibilities and rhetorical appeals, Abarbanel’s approach to sacrosanct figures and his readings of classical Jewish texts could be decidedly, and at times quite wittingly—nay, provocatively—“untraditional.” Abarbanel did not hesitate to castigate King David for contemptible behavior in his relationship with Bathsheba; to attribute grammatical irregularities in the prophetic legacies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel to these prophets’ poor spoken and written Hebrew; to suggest that the book of Chronicles contained an error because its author, Ezra, had misunderstood an earlier biblical text, or to regularly dismiss midrashic interpretations as “dubious,” “very strange,” or “evidently weak.” In sum, while he frequently venerated the legacy of the Jewish past, Abarbanel often dissented from its sources in surprising ways, criticizing even biblical figures and rabbinic views forthrightly. Arguing also for the tradition-based approach used in this investigation was Abarbanel’s primary metier as a textual interpreter. As one who applied his skills as a commentator to a wide variety of texts—most notably Scripture, but also the often cryptic or seemingly farfetched dicta of rabbinic sages and the deliberately multilayered theological prose of Maimonides—Abarbanel confronted hermeneutic questions and challenges that have a familiar ring: how to determine authorial intent; whose textual readings should dominate and why; which figures or texts deserve charitable interpretation and which ones not; when textual reinterpretation is salutary and when subversive? Abarbanel’s favored mode of expression was commentary, that “characteristic expression of Jewish thinking about truth” that by its nature is “always referring back to something earlier.”14 A major subplot of Abarbanel’s writings, therefore, and the exegetical ones in particular, is their author’s regular confrontation with problematics of textuality at a time when the requirements of faithful reading of classical strata of the tradition were far from clear.15 This ongoing theme in

Introduction

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Abarbanel’s works stands as an additional reason for considering them from the perspective of his stance towards tradition. A further cause to inquire after Abarbanel’s stance towards tradition is his link to the world of the Renaissance. Abarbanel has often been associated, for many a good reason, with “the closing period of the Middle Ages”; indeed he has been dubbed the Jewish Middle Age’s last “spokesman” (both of these being formulations of one of Abarbanel’s leading modern students).16 Yet, once compiled, Abarbanel’s Renaissance curriculum vitae is substantial. Even during his formative years, Abarbanel had imbibed nascent Renaissance awarenesses and sensibilities as these had diffused and metamorphosed within the Iberian world. And in Italy, where he wrote most of his works, he moved in an atmosphere permeated by a variety of distinctively Italian Renaissance literary and educational programs. It is little wonder, then, that Abarbanel’s ideas and thought processes at times reflect a transition from long-standing medieval interests and methods to Renaissance scholarly concerns. Scholars writing earlier in this century periodically noted a Renaissance coloring to selected segments of Abarbanel’s corpus, while evidence extracted from his post-1492 works only recently attests to his familiarity with a range of intellectual currents associated with the Italian Renaissance in particular.17 What has been too little explored, however, is the impact of the classicizing literary and educational movement known as Renaissance humanism on Abarbanel, especially as it appears in his biblical scholarship. As Renaissance modes of textual study displaced medieval ones in circles in which Abarbanel moved, he was apparently touched by innovative techniques of reading and a new critical vocabulary associated with this most robust of Renaissance cultural streams. Abarbanel’s encounter with humanism, a movement born of ruminations on the present’s relationship to the past and infused with preoccupations concerning the querelle des anciens et des modernes, offers another compelling reason to explore his works from the perspective of his handling of earlier strata of classical and medieval Jewish literature. Major events in his personal biography reinforce the salience of the category of “conventional paradigms and their rupture” to study of Abarbanel. Outstanding in this respect is his experience of Spanish Jewry’s dolorous demise, which terminated over a millennium of Jewish life in Spain. But the 1492 expulsion, which surely brought rupture, also unleashed, or at least forged new contexts for, creative energies and transformations that would suffuse Jewish thought and history for many a generation. For example, in Abarbanel’s case, the expulsion entailed encounters with Jewish traditions hitherto unknown to him, at least at first hand, most notably some of the intellectual and ritual habits of Franco-German Jewry and its offshoots (“the Ashkenazim,” as Abarbanel was wont to refer to this segment of the Jewish world). Many of this Jewry’s time-honored ways seemed alien to Abarbanel—or worse.

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With these and other rationales for examination of his stance towards tradition in hand (or in mind), we turn to Abarbanel, a figure recently described by a preeminent student of modern European history as “perverse and perplexing.”18 If this book enhances interest in this outstanding postrabbinic Jewish writer, both by evoking a sense of perplexity about him and by providing insights that help to dispel it, then it will have achieved much of its basic objective. More broadly, its aim is to paint a portrait of a fascinating religious type whose posture before the past’s rich and intimidating legacy combines conservatism with creativity and reverence with daring.

Chapter 1 鵻

I

Life and Contexts

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n a letter that he sent to the Cretan scholar Saul Hakohen Ashkenazi a few years prior to his death, Isaac Abarbanel observed that he had written all of his “commentaries and compilations”

after I left my homeland (’ereខs moladeti); for all of the days that I was in the courts and palaces of kings occupied in their service I had no time to study and looked at no book but squandered my days in vanity and years in futile pursuit so that wealth and honor would be mine; yet the wealth was lost by evil adventure and “honor is departed from Israel” [1 Sam. 4:21]. Only after wandering to and fro over the earth from one kingdom to another . . . did I “seek out the book of the Lord” [Isa. 34:16].1

This personal retrospective, stark even after allowances are made for its imprecision and an autobiographical topos that it reflects,2 alludes to major foci of Abarbanel’s life. He engaged in large-scale commercial and financial endeavors. He held positions at three leading European courts. He was a broad scholar who authored a multifaceted literary corpus comprising a variety of fullbodied exegetical tomes and theological tracts. And during roughly the last third of his life, in consequence of Spain’s expulsion of its Jews in 1492, his existence was characterized by itinerancy, often in isolation from family and scholarly peers. Situate these themes and their cognates on a wider historical, cultural, and intellectual canvas, and the result is a rich tableau at the center of which stands an ambitious seeker of power, prestige, and wealth who ardently cultivated the intellectual life and its vocations as exegete, theologian, and writer. Isaac son of Judah Abarbanel (Abravanel, Bravanel, Barbanel, Habravanel)3 was born in Portugal to an illustrious Ibero-Jewish family that, beyond its venerable roots in Spain, traced its origins to the royal Davidic house.4 Abarbanel’s grandfather, an acclaimed figure at the courts of three Castilian kings, came to prominence during the 1360s, a decade that saw a Castilian-Aragonese war 鵻 9 鵼

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and Castilian succession struggles that brought “devastation and ruin” to Castile’s Jewish communities.5 The only contemporary description of Samuel Abarbanel comes from Menahem ben Zerah, rabbi in Alcalá de Henares, who became indebted to Samuel for material assistance that he desperately required due to the Castilian civil strife. He described Abarbanel’s grandfather as his “reviver” and told of “a patron of scholars who, when the turbulence of the times abates, desires to delve into the books of writers and discoursers.”6 Yet Menahem felt compelled to add that the involvement of Castile’s Jewish courtiers in the vicissitudes of the political fray were such that these courtiers displayed “vacillation” in their observance of “obligatory commandments” like prayer, recitation of blessings, avoidance of forbidden foods, and Sabbath and festival observance.7 It does not occasion complete surprise, then, that Samuel Abarbanel received baptism, taking as his Christian name Juan Sánchez de Sevilla, even as it is somewhat startling to learn that this event very likely occurred prior to the anti-Jewish riots that swept through Spain in 1391–92, leaving thousands of Jews dead and tens of thousands of others as forced converts to Christianity. Samuel’s grandson would emulate his family’s longstanding tradition of engagement in Jewish communal endeavor and assiduous service to non-Jewish royalty but would never mention in writing his grandfather’s conversion, which Samuel may never have renounced.8 If Samuel Abarbanel remained a Christian, taking some sons along with him, several other sons deviated from his spiritual path, including Judah Abarbanel, who eventually established himself in Lisbon as a merchant and tax farmer with ties to Portuguese royalty and nobility. Most notably, Judah served as financier to Fernando, the son of Portugal’s King Duarte. In 1437, this prince set out on a conquest of Tangiers with his famous brother Henry, who was later dubbed “the Navigator” in recognition of his pioneering contributions to Portuguese maritime exploration. When, after the expedition’s dismal failure and nearly a dozen years in slavery, Fernando finally breathed his last, his will specified repayment of a huge debt to “the Jew [Judah] Abarbanel, resident of Lisbon.”9 The year of Fernando’s Tangiers expedition saw the birth to Judah of a second son, Isaac. The year following saw Duarte’s death and the accession to the throne of his nephew Afonso V, whose reign would prove highly advantageous for Portuguese Jewry.10 In the fifteenth century’s middle decades, Judah Abarbanel maintained close ties with Afonso’s court. By the early 1460s, his son Isaac was receiving special privileges from the king, including an exemption from the requirement to wear the “Jewish badge” and the rights to carry weapons and stay at Christian inns.11 Historical documentation is mostly silent regarding other aspects of Isaac’s earliest decades but, in general, this period of Portuguese history witnessed frequent epidemics, considerable political turmoil, an appreciable cultural reawakening, more overseas discoveries of the sort that

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had astounded Europe earlier in the century, and in 1449, three years after Afonso’s coming of age and as Isaac was about to achieve Jewish majority, a civil war and major outbreak of anti-Jewish violence in Lisbon, the first in the country’s history.12 Abarbanel was reared in Portuguese Jewry’s preeminent settlement, the Lisbon community. Numbering probably several thousand and economically prosperous, this community boasted, in addition to the Abarbanels, other Jewish clans characterized by wealth, pride, and pedigree. Foremost among them were the ibn Yahya, one of whose number, Gedaliah, held the royally-appointed post of Portuguese chief rabbi (rabi mor) along with his progeny for over half a century. He and his son Abraão also served as physicians to three Portuguese monarchs, including Afonso V, and, like others in the family, held important communal posts, like ritual slaughterer (degolador).13 In the 1470s, Abraão’s cousin Gedaliah ben David, another ibn Yahya high in Afonso’s retinue, exchanged letters with Isaac Abarbanel concerning matters of state while on a military expedition with the Portuguese king.14 Attesting their strong consciousness of noble ancestry and high station, members of Lisbon’s Jewish elite often referred to their fathers by the Hebrew nasi (prince), an honorific with an Iberian history stretching back to the “golden age” of the Jews in Muslim Spain. Those so designated were wealthy communal leaders and, typically, well-connected with non-Jewish society’s upper echelons as well. In Christian Spain, awareness of lineage intensified within Jewish circles after 1391, as increasing emphasis on the noble title “Don” reflects. In Portugal, the equivalent “Dom” was prefixed to the names of distinguished Jews such as Judah and Isaac Abarbanel. Referring to his father in Hebrew, Isaac invoked the sobriquet nasi as well.15 The sense of pedigree among Portugal’s leading Jewish families was reinforced by their tendency towards endogamy.16 An example is one of Abarbanel’s daughters, who married her cousin Joseph. This son-in-law’s financial career would remain intertwined with Abarbanel’s through Isaac’s and Joseph’s (alleged) enmeshment in various conspiracies fomented against Afonso V’s son and successor, João II, and beyond. Joseph’s political and economic fortunes were linked to those of Dioguo, duke of Viseu,17 a leading noble. Those of his father-in-law were tethered to the power and prestige of the Bragan¸ca, Portugal’s dominant noble house. Though the basis of the Abarbanel-Bragan¸ca association was joint economic interests, personal dimensions were not lacking, as attested by a letter of condolence written in Portuguese by Abarbanel and sent to the duke of Bragan¸ca’s eldest son upon the death of his father-in-law.18 Upon his flight from Portugal following implication in a Bragan¸ca plot against João, Abarbanel alluded to his “great love” for his patron-friends.19 Beyond political advantages and social prerogatives, Bragan¸ca ties bestowed

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considerable material benefits. In the death sentence passed against him in 1485 for ostensible participation in treasonous Bragan¸ca undertakings, Abarbanel is described as the duke’s “most great servant and friend” and as “extremely rich and land-wealthy [afazemdado].”20 Among choice rural properties on Lisbon’s outskirts held by Abarbanel was an estate given to him by the duke for services rendered.21 The duke could afford the gift. When the strife between him and João reached its height, he commanded over fifty cities, castles, and towns and a formidable military force.22 If the notion of a “Jewish aristocracy” is perhaps too readily assumed by historians of Iberian Jewry,23 it seems wholly apt in Abarbanel’s case. Well-connected to Portuguese nobility, Abarbanel also maintained associations with Jewish aristocracy elsewhere—or at least so his habit of writing annually to Italian Jewry’s preeminent banker and patron of culture Yehiel da Pisa suggests.24 In the earliest of the three letters sent to Yehiel that have survived, Abarbanel expresses sympathy for his friend’s recent unspecified troubles as apparently described in Yehiel’s earlier missive,25 then describes his role as one of twelve “princes” appointed by the Jewish community to redeem 250 Jews from slavery following Portugal’s capture of the North African city of Arzilla in summer 1471. Abarbanel and another traveled from city to city to free these “children of Zion” from their “wretched plight,” a task that proved “a great burden” for six months.26 His position at court allowed Abarbanel to intercede on behalf of Jewish community interests. Yehiel is asked to speak “words of peace” to two emissaries who are “favorites of the king” that have been sent to greet Sixtus IV upon his elevation to the papacy. (One, probably João da Silveira, Abarbanel describes as a dear friend who has promised to “speak favorably before the Pope on the Jews’ behalf.”) Displaying diplomatic savvy, Abarbanel enjoins Yehiel to extol Afonso for his benevolence towards the Jews before the envoys.27 But a few years later, in 1478, this Pope would respond positively to a request by Spain’s monarchs to establish a national inquisition to investigate the Christian loyalties of the country’s converso population. Around the same year, Yehiel’s son Isaac, eventually to assume his father’s pivotal role in Italo-Jewish economic and cultural life, would meet Abarbanel and other Portuguese-Jewish luminaries on a visit to Lisbon.28 As he wrote to Yehiel in 1472, Abarbanel’s own standing as one of the king’s “favorites” was confirmed. Indeed, it was in this year that he received a prerogative enjoyed by few other Jews: classification as a “resident” of the municipality in which he lived with all attendant “privileges, honors, and liberties,” including the right to live outside the Jewish quarter.29 This was granted as recompense for “special services” that go unspecified, but Abarbanel’s role as royal servidor during this period is subject to some reconstruction. In the early 1470s, he, along with the offshoot of another wealthy Lisbon Jewish family,

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served as a chief supplier of fine cloth to Afonso and other nobles. And when Afonso initiated his ultimately failed campaign against Castile at mid-decade, this same colleague, Gedaliah Pala¸cano, was, along with Abarbanel, a major underwriter. Indeed, their loans in cash and cloth, when added to those of a third Lisbon Jew, Moses Latam, nearly equalled those of all Lisbon’s Christians combined. No wonder that upon fleeing Portugal Abarbanel lamented the riches he had left behind.30 If Abarbanel traveled beyond the borders of his native land prior to his forced departure from it, his destinations can only be surmised. Still, travel was, by all indications, a significant part of his routine. Already in his first work, finished in the late 1460s, Abarbanel portrays himself as one “cast out from before study” having become a “wanderer . . . given over to business.” In his 1472 letter to Yehiel, he explains that another work remains incomplete since “I am at home but little and my travels come as a whirlwind to scatter me from the gates of investigation so that I have been unable [to finish].”31 The commercial interests of Judah Abarbanel extended as far as the great northern European center of textile production in Flanders, where Isaac’s father would occasionally serve as a conduit between Afonso and his “factor (feitor)” for business operations there.32 As Isaac increasingly relieved his father of business responsibilities in the early 1470s, he may also have undertaken such journeys. In later life Abarbanel told of “wisdom” he had heard from the mouth of Joseph ibn Shem Tov.33 Since this Castilian theologian and preacher apparently died around 1460, Abarbanel would have been quite young at the time, but one might presume an encounter with this older contemporary while en route. One might even wonder, despite the complete lack of evidence, whether Abarbanel’s association with Yehiel was nourished by personal contacts developed on trips to Italy. It has already been noted that Yehiel’s son visited Abarbanel in Lisbon, and Abarbanel did have Italian business contacts while in Portugal.34 “Who . . . in his youth will not take to the road or journey to a distant land for two or three years to engage in business and reap financial profit?” This was the rhetorical question that Abarbanel posed to Saul Hakohen late in his own life when enjoining Saul to relocate to Venice to pursue intellectual riches in the form of Maimonidean studies guided by Abarbanel.35 The question would seem to contain autobiographical echoes. Christian-Jewish relations in Abarbanel’s Portugal are thought to have been relatively tranquil. Joseph Hayyun, Lisbon’s presiding rabbinic presence during Abarbanel’s youth and early maturity, could, in an exegetical context, speak of “gentiles . . . who love us and would not speak wicked or hateful things against us.”36 Yet the Lusitanian scene did not lack for interreligious tensions. Though Afonso quickly suppressed the Lisbon riot of Abarbanel’s youth, such protection did little to mitigate the heightened anti-Jewish sentiments that remained in its wake, as stoked by popular writers, performers of passion plays, and the

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occasional preacher.37 One such preacher, Mestre Paulo, spoke vociferously against Jews in regions under Bragan¸ca control, eliciting letters of protest to the king from Jews forced to attend his sermons. Afonso returned a ruling siding with the Jews and offering protection from such maltreatment in the future.38 In some cases, Abarbanel himself became a focal point of Christian discontent. Pamphleteers derided him and other prominent Jews as possessors of unbridled financial power and embodiments of decadent habits that corrupted Portuguese society and emboldened Jewish converts to return to their ancestral faith.39 Merchants protested benefits derived by Abarbanel and Moses Latam from the leasing of royal properties, lamenting that these Jews were “more favored than the Christians” even as they attended at court to interests of their “partners” and coreligionists. The merchants’ brief further objected that Abarbanel and his ilk obtained whatever they wished by a simple request to “your [royal] highnesses”—accompanied, to be sure, by a substantial cash payment.40 Anti-Jewish social movements were, it would seem, more prevalent on the Portuguese landscape during Abarbanel’s formative years than has hitherto been appreciated.41 Apparently, the financial opportunism of Lusitano-Jewish entrepreneurs like Abarbanel and the profits and privileges that it bestowed particularly rankled. There were other doleful moments for Abarbanel while in Portugal besides ones traceable to the direct expression of Christian hostility. The 1472 letter to Yehiel reveals his distress at the fate of the captives of Arzilla and a sense of Jewish precariousness “in every place.”42 The mid-1470s saw the passing of Abarbanel’s father43 and the early 1480s another recurrence of plague, driving the Abarbanels from their Lisbon abode. In 1481, Abarbanel spoke of his life as a “fugitive” in consequence of the pestilence, while seeking to comfort his friend Yehiel over his daughter’s conversion to Christianity some two years earlier.44 Unmentioned in the letter to Yehiel was the recent sudden death of Afonso due to plague, an event that marked the beginning of the end of Abarbanel’s life in the land of his birth. With the ascension to the throne of Afonso’s son in 1481, Abarbanel’s fortunes at court were bound to deteriorate: João II was determined to curb noble power, and the Bragan¸ca were inevitably his primary target. Looking back, Abarbanel would speak (in characteristic biblically inflected prose) of “a new king . . . who . . . turned his heart to . . . deal craftily with his [noble] servants.”45 The end came in spring of 1483, when the duke of Bragan¸ca was beheaded, two of his brothers took refuge in Spain, and Abarbanel, facing a royal warrant for his arrest, fled to Castile along with other Jewish notables.46 Eventually João ordered the destruction of Abarbanel’s Lisbon dwellings in the belief that valuables and incriminating documents might be hidden there. Then, having ordered them rebuilt, he gave them to Isaac Latam, son of Abarbanel’s erstwhile

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business partner Moses. Abarbanel’s prized seats in the synagogue and precious library were disbursed to other royally connected Lisbon Jews.47 It was not long before he was sentenced in absentia to a “natural death”—execution by hanging or something more brutal—for his ostensible role in the Brangan¸ca plot against João. Scholars have long debated the plausibility of João’s charge of treason against Abarbanel, weighing such factors as Abarbanel’s intimate association with the Bragan¸ca against his unwavering protestations of innocence (he not only denied involvement in the conspiracy but its very existence) and strongly stated theoretical disapproval of royal deposition under any circumstances. In discussions “before kings and their wise men,” Abarbanel denied the right of rebellion against a monarch, even if he had “transgressed to commit every crime.” A recent attempt to weave together the strands concludes that Abarbanel and his son-in-law Joseph, also implicated in antimonarchic intrigue, were not actively involved in the affairs, but that João believed that they must at least have known of the conspiracies against him. On this reading, it was for their failure to draw appropriate conclusions and forewarn the king that the Abarbanels were blamed.48 Despite such ups and downs, Abarbanel looked back upon his Portuguese years with favor throughout most of his life. And though he depicted them to Saul Hakohen as a long interval misspent in royal “courts and palaces,” these four and one-half decades conjured up much happier memories in their immediate aftermath and for decades to come. Very much missed, as an “elegy” prefaced to a biblical commentary written soon after Abarbanel’s removal to Spain makes clear, were the “renowned” city of Lisbon; the riches and honor that were now lost; the “house full of God’s blessings,” which had served as a “meeting-place for scholars”; the “thriving reign” of Afonso V; Abarbanel’s delight as he sat “in the king’s shade,” and, of course, the king’s “dependence” on Abarbanel such that at times he felt like Daniel walking in “the palace of the kingdom of Babylon.”49 Unmentioned in this glance back, but presumably a source of satisfaction, were the three sons (Judah, Joseph, Samuel) and one or more daughters born to Abarbanel in Lisbon, and the many achievements of his fiscally adept son-in-law Joseph.50 Years later, as he wrote in Italy in the shadow of the calamity of the Spanish expulsion, auspicious images of Lisbon again filled Abarbanel’s head: wealth, honor, and Torah learning accrued; Passovers in the company of family, friends, and multitudinous guests; and, indeed, (divinely granted) elevated status in the “courts and palaces of kings and nobles”51 such as Abarbanel would rue in his letter to Saul Hakohen. Forsaking “the woman whom the Lord designated for me, the children whom God graciously bestowed upon me,”52 and his possessions, including an ample library, Abarbanel escaped to Castile in May 1483. The year was portentous for Spanish Jewry: in January the Spanish Inquisition had ordered the

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expulsion of Andalusia’s Jews, with the result that when Abarbanel crossed into Segura de la Orden, some thirty kilometers from the Portuguese border, the city’s population was swelling with Jewish refugees from this first of the “Spanish expulsions.”53 Inquisitorial activity against Spain’s converso population, under the determined leadership of inquisitor-general Tomás de Torquemada, had commenced in the early 1480s, a period that had also seen Spain’s declaration of war against the emirate of Granada, Islam’s last Iberian outpost. Seen in light of the expulsion of 1483 and other lesser pre-1492 expulsions of Spanish Jews, whether actual (from Valmaseda in 1486) or planned (from Saragossa and Albarrac´ın in the same year),54 and Spanish Jewry’s total expulsion in 1492, Spain indeed looks like a “Land of Persecution.”55 Yet if this characterization captures much that occurred to Jews and conversos during Abarbanel’s Spanish sojourn, it does not reflect his own experience of Spain—not even as he himself recalled it after 1492.56 Initially a welcome sanctuary for a fugitive from royal wrath, Spain quickly became Abarbanel’s land of security and prosperity. With a written appeal to João to “do justice” and permit his return to Portugal having fallen on deaf ears,57 Abarbanel began to rebuild his life on Spanish soil. Records relate involvement in consequential financial affairs involving conversos in Ciudad Real as early as 1483. In spring of 1484, under circumstances none too clear, Abarbanel was summoned for an audience with Ferdinand and Isabella, after which he entered their service. In summer of the same year Joseph Abarbanel, like his father-in-law accused of complicity in machinations against João, joined Abarbanel in Castile. Gold, silver, and “monies and jewels” smuggled out of Portugal with the help of family members enhanced the pecuniary situation of Isaac and Joseph as they established themselves in the land of the Abarbanel family’s original Iberian domicile.58 Throughout the late 1480s, Abarbanel connections to Spain’s upper echelons, Jewish and Christian, waxed significantly. By 1485, he had relocated to the Spanish heartland at Alcalá de Henares in order to oversee tax farming operations for Cardinal Mendoza, the “third king of Spain” (tercer rey de las Españas). Abarbanel continued in this role on a huge scale through at least 1488.59 While undertaking new tax farming ventures in Requena and Atienza, he also supported the Spanish monarchs’ Granada campaign, offering extensive loans. Work on behalf of Mendoza grandees continued, with Abarbanel eventually becoming chief paymaster to Cardinal Mendoza’s affluent nephew, the duke of Infantado.60 Though not well attested, links with wealthy court Jews and important conversos at court may be assumed. Outstanding among the former was Abraham Seneor, Castile’s leading tax farmer, who since the late 1470s had stood at the summit of its Jewish aljamas (corporate communal bodies) as well. Conversos holding key posts included the royal secretaries Fernando Alvarez and Alfonso Avila, the comptroller of the treasury Luis de San-

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tángel, and Aragon’s vice-chancellor Alfonso de la Cavaller´ıa.61 Abarbanel’s association with at least one Jewish financier living in Aragon, Abraham Car¸ fati, is also attested.62 Personal good fortune notwithstanding, Abarbanel must have recognized that some events swirling about him augured badly for Judaism’s future in the land of his ancestors. Like Abraham Seneor, he may have ransomed Jews taken captive during the ongoing conquest of Andalusian cities like Ronda and Málaga even as orders of expulsion were issued against other Hispano-Jewish communities.63 At the same time, Spain saw a precipitous rise in the volume and intensity of anti-converso and anti-Jewish propaganda as the Inquisition implemented ever more brutal tactics culminating in the staged Santo Niño de la Guardia trial of 1490–91. Granada’s fall in January 1492 and the triumphant royal entry into Islam’s last Iberian citadel might also seem a glaring portent of Spanish Jewry’s imminent demise, generating as it eventually would the first half of the inscription on the sepulcher of Abarbanel’s royal employers: “Prostrating the Mahomedan sect and extinguishing heretical perversity.”64 Yet if criticism of Abarbanel for failure to “grasp the developments of his time with a cold and piercing realistic view”65 is easily made in retrospect, it is readily countered if the perspective of hindsight is abandoned. Persecution of conversos could seem a kind of divine retribution for those who had abandoned Judaism. The government’s four-year renewal in 1491 of contracts with Jewish tax farmers, Abarbanel and Abraham Seneor included, spoke for itself.66 In short, Abarbanel may have found little to disturb the idea that the “royal alliance” in which Spanish Jews had so long placed their trust—relying on courtiers like himself to provide the key link between monarch and Jewish community—was essentially healthy. He may even have celebrated Granada’s fall, as did other Jews.67 However Abarbanel’s lack of clairvoyance may be appraised, Ferdinand’s and Isabella’s signing of an order of expulsion against Jews in Spain and her possessions, on the grounds that the earlier Andalusian expulsion and Inquisition had failed to stem the perilous tide of converso backsliding, clearly took Abarbanel by surprise. The edict was promulgated in April 1492. Abarbanel’s activities in its immediate aftermath are known largely on the basis of his own presumably self-serving accounts, though his efforts to collect outstanding debts appear from elsewhere.68 Skepticism is surely in order, then, with regard to romanticized conjectures that, building on Abarbanel’s depiction of his herculean endeavors to deliver Spanish Jewry, portray him speaking to Spain’s queen “like a scion of the House of David and as a representative of an unconquered . . . people . . . like a prophet of old.”69 Yet even giving skepticism its due, one must reckon with Abarbanel’s report of his appeals to leading Spanish nobles (his longtime employer Cardinal Mendoza no doubt among them) and his description of multiple encounters in which he claimed to have petitioned

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Spain’s king for his people’s “salvation.”70 It seems rash, then, to insist on Abarbanel’s complete passivity during Spanish Jewry’s darkest hour and reasonable to affirm a link between his intercessory efforts (and those of others, to be sure) and the monthlong delay between the expulsion order’s signing and promulgation, which is otherwise hard to explain.71 In short, even on the low view that he “had no other interest than fame and fortune while in Spain,”72 Abarbanel had every reason to want to see the expulsion decree revoked. With Spanish Jewry’s death knell having been sounded, grave concerns imposed themselves on Abarbanel and his family in the brief time given to Jews to convert or settle their affairs and leave. Beyond working to salvage some of his vast wealth, Abarbanel must have been concerned with the effects of a zealously mounted Christian missionizing effort,73 of which his family was made a special target. Judah Abarbanel, his eldest son, got wind of a planned kidnapping and forced baptism of his own firstborn (named Isaac, in accordance with family tradition, after Judah’s father). In a poem written a decade later and directed towards this son, Judah related how Spain’s king ordered “that my child, still nursing, should be seized / and brought into his faith on his behalf.”74 The hope, it would seem, was to induce Judah and perhaps his father to convert and remain in Spain—a hope nourished, perhaps, by Abraham Seneor’s conversion on June 15, with Spain’s king and queen as sponsors and Cardinal Mendoza presiding, an event that brought an already demoralized Spanish Jewry into further despair.75 Did the Abarbanels consider conversion? The curtain is drawn on their ruminations, but one may assume that Samuel Abarbanel’s example figured in any thoughts they had along these lines. As significant segments of Spanish Jewry elected to take on Christianity’s trappings just prior to the deadline for departure, the Abarbanels, having elected to leave, faced a grave and complex question: where to flee? The main refugee destination, Portugal, was no option for one who stood convicted of a capital crime there. Abarbanel’s grandson and namesake, however, was moved to Portugal, his grandfather’s land of birth, for safekeeping, accompanied by “his wet-nurse in the dark of midnight just like smuggled goods,” as Judah Abarbanel later lamented in the poem sent to the boy.76 (When this line was penned in 1503, the Abarbanels would indeed have cause to lament the fate suffered by the young Isaac Abarbanel; for in 1497 the whole of Portuguese Jewry had been forcibly converted to Christianity, Judah’s firstborn included.) The only other overland route, to the small Pyrenean kingdom of Navarre, was also rejected, perhaps because the Abarbanels sensed (rightly, as it would turn out) that this polity’s days of independence were numbered.77 So, in the summer of 1492, Abarbanel and his family found themselves bound for Italy, victims of what he called the “great and terrible destruction” of a “chosen” Jewry, the likes of which, he averred, “never there was before” nor would there be again.78 With his departure from Spain, a long line of illustrious Ibero-Jewish

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personalities who combined worldliness, royal service, and Jewish scholarship came to a woeful end. In fall of 1492 the Abarbanels landed in “the renowned city of Naples,” capital of the southern Italian kingdom of the same name. The kingdom, held by Aragon since 1442, was Italy’s biggest state. An anonymous Jewish writer, possibly of Neapolitan origin, described Naples’ Ferrante I, a relative of Ferdinand the Catholic and “pivotal figure in the politics of late fifteenth-century Italy,”79 as a “lover of the Jews.” This chronicler also reported that the new arrivals enjoyed a generally warm welcome from Jews, conversos, and Christians alike.80 Still, Italy could seem a “sad epilogue” for the Spanish exiles, who now experienced persecutions from without and, from within, difficulties integrating into the foreign ways of a new Jewish community.81 Then again, there were the memories of those “many,” as Abarbanel would recall, who had not made it intact: those who had traveled overland to Portugal and Navarre, only to perish of “famine and pestilence,” or those who, having set out to sea, were sold into slavery or drowned.82 (Still others, having left loved ones behind in Spain, arrived in Naples only to experience a change of heart, receive baptism, and return home.)83 The aforementioned chronicler speaks of “esteem” won by Abarbanel in Ferrante’s eyes,84 and a mid-sixteenth-century biographer, presumably relying on information supplied by Abarbanel’s middle son Joseph, tells of Ferrante bringing the erstwhile Spanish courtier immediately “into his chambers.”85 Though Abarbanel never speaks of service to Ferrante, he does praise him as a “merciful king.”86 By contrast, this king’s reputation among many in his own day (and not a few modern historians perhaps overly impressed by the propaganda of Ferrante’s enemies) was for a record of “subtle diplomacy, duplicity, and cruelty.”87 Abarbanel also tells of wealth recouped in Italy and renewed fame “akin to that of all of the magnates in the land.”88 Proof of his family’s quickly waxing fortunes lies in the offer of citizenship and all attendant privileges extended to Judah Abarbanel in July 1494 by Ferrante’s unpopular successor Alfonso II. Abarbanel’s son, so described (Jude abramenel ebrei filii don isac abramanel), was apparently here representing the larger Abarbanel family, including, naturally, his father.89 As events following Charles VIII’s invasion of Naples for the purpose of pressing an Angevin claim to the Neapolitan crown show, the Abarbanels’ closeness to Alfonso was unsurpassed. Reviled and already facing the ruin of his house, the king abdicated and fled to Sicily with Isaac Abarbanel at his side. Abarbanel’s swift rise to Italian prominence is, then, indisputable. And yet one is hard-pressed to chart Abarbanel’s pathway to near-immediate distinction in Italy. True, as has been observed, he had had Italian business contacts while still in Portugal. And it is possible that, despite the death of Yehiel da Pisa in 1490, Abarbanel renewed acquaintances with his son Isaac after 1492. (Among other things, Isaac occupied himself with the ransoming of

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Spanish exiles during this time.)90 Then, too, Ferrante had supported at least one Jewish scholar in the past, Abraham de Balmes, although such interest as he had in Abarbanel was apparently tied less to his scholarship than to his potential contributions to various royal initiatives designed to revive Naples’s economy.91 Finally, one should note the Neapolitan state’s Aragonese connection. Abarbanel would not have been the only figure active in late-fifteenthcentury Italy who was well seasoned in the ways of the pan-Mediterranean world. But even if one deems Abarbanel such an “homme sans frontières,”92 and adds in such partial explanations as have just been mentioned, his meteoric Neapolitan rise to prominence remains a bit mysterious. Abarbanel spent the first half of 1495 in various locales in Sicily (Mazzara, Palermo, Messina), an Aragonese dominion that had expelled its Jews over two years earlier,93 where he monitored events as a “holy league” of Italian and foreign powers led by Spain was formed to oust the French from Italy. He probably had at least a passing acquaintance from bygone days with the commander of the expeditionary force dispatched by King Ferdinand, the Castilian noble Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. Both Abarbanel’s eldest son and his nephew would be associated with this soon-to-be illustrious Spanish general in the years after he had won lasting fame in Italy under the title “el gran capitán.” Even as Gonzalo and the Holy League compelled a French retreat, however, Alfonso’s place was usurped by his son Ferrandino (Ferrante II). Though Aragonese-Neapolitan power began to reassert itself northwards, Abarbanel headed east for Corfu. Under Venetian control and possessed of a mixed Greek and Italian Jewish population, the island of Corfu had swelled with Spanish refugees after 1492, most seeking an outlet to the Levant.94 Now Abarbanel—conscious of having grown up at the world’s western edge, whence he had moved ever further east—also disembarked there with the idea of making his way to Turkish lands. This plan to leave Christian Europe forever he later ascribed to “the weight of the war.”95 The few books that had “escaped the hands of robbers” during Naples’s sack were forwarded to Solonika, a major center of settlement for the Spanish refugees. Here Abarbanel’s son Samuel was already resident, studying in the main rabbinic academy established by the exiles under the leadership of Joseph Fasi.96 Though Abarbanel never made it to Ottoman territory, many members of his extended family did. Acting in concert with the family’s Italian branch, they would serve as intermediaries between east and west for decades to come.97 Though in Naples Abarbanel had been prayerful that God would allow those who had “walked in darkness” finally to see light,98 little time was required to see that this prayer had been roundly rejected. The outbreak of plague soon after the arrival of the Spanish and Sicilian refugees was a bad omen; the physically weakened newcomers succumbed to the pestilence in especially large

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numbers. Worse yet, Jews were blamed for the scourge’s arrival, with royal intervention being required to protect them from the inevitable results of such accusations.99 The refugees’ economic condition was generally dire. Following Alfonso’s abdication, parliament resolved to expel most Jews from Naples while applying stringent anti-Jewish measures to the remainder. The kingdom’s Jews suffered ferocious attacks and despoliation at the hands of the local populace. The French soldiery soon joined in.100 Abarbanel later described in larmoyant terms the captivity and murder of Naples’s Jews and their conversion to Christianity in large numbers.101 At the onset of 1496, Abarbanel found himself back on the Italian mainland, his plans to move to the “abode of Islam”—for reasons that remain opaque to the historian—abandoned. Monopoli, an Adriatic seaport recently drawn under Venetian rule that remained in the shadow of French military superiority, was Abarbanel’s new home, or at least current place of residence. Abarbanel felt feeble and devoid of spiritual momentum as, now approaching his seventh decade, he again contemplated reconstruction of his life in the wake of personal misfortune and communal catastrophe. As occurred following his escapes from Portugal in 1483 and Spain in 1492, Abarbanel’s experience of traumatic circumstances again generated a cathartic outpouring of autobiographical exposition.102 Never was his mood more brooding or his literary timbre more tenebrous.103 Looking beyond his personal situation, Abarbanel found cause for deeper despair. The community of Spanish exiles (and, perhaps, segments of the larger Italian Jewish community) seemed to him in a state of pervasive spiritual decadence. To be sure, “fate,” so filled with “the tribulations of expulsion,” was largely to blame. Still, it was painful to see people of distinction neglecting eternal life in their pursuit of temporal affairs: money, comforts, and even such sinful activities as gambling. Others engaged in all manner of frivolous conduct. None regarded “God’s work . . . , the gift of His Torah.” Only glowing reports from far off Solonika of the sterling character (treating “time’s vanities as naught”) and intellectual achievements (pursuing wisdom with a “discerning” heart) of Abarbanel’s youngest son provided relief.104 A passage in Abarbanel’s commentary on the Passover Haggadah, composed soon after arrival in Monopoli, attests to the untold depths of religious despair into which many had fallen. In a phrase that appeared in the psalms of praise recited as part of the Haggadah, “I said in my haste all men are liars” (Ps. 116:11), Abarbanel saw a reference to the suffering of exile and its agonies105 . . . [meaning] that then during the period of redemption when I will be free I will recollect how I would say in those days [of exile]: “all men are liars (kol ha-’adam kozev)”—that is, all the prophets that prophesied regarding my redemption and salvation, all were

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liars. . . . Moses with his promises a liar, Isaiah with his words of comfort a liar, Jeremiah and Ezekiel with their prophecies liars and so too all of the prophets— “all men are liars.”106

If failures of faith were hardly unknown in the oppressive religious atmosphere of pre-1492 Spain, expressions of religious disbelief in Italy had become, if anything, still more more pained and, at times, defiant: Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel—liars! To be sure, these words placed in the mouth of the Passover ceremony’s participant lose much of their sting when placed in their exegetical context within the Haggadah: the now redeemed participant extols God while recollecting his ultimately misguided sense of betrayal in exile. Placed within the historical context in which Abarbanel devised this interpretation, however, the words betoken the serious spiritual doubts of many of his coreligionists—doubts that in some cases had hardened into resolute religious cynicism.107 Abarbanel himself was by no means immune to feelings of disillusionment, as when he contrasted Passovers past surrounded by family, people of learning, and the indigent who frequented his table, with his current dire situation.108 Abarbanel’s ventures in and around Monopoli and Barletta, a seaport situated some sixty miles to the north, are scarcely attested, if one discounts a spate of literary productivity that dwarfed all that had come before and that is by any measure astounding.109 The only basis for reconstruction of this interval in Abarbanel’s worldly affairs is a royal order of 10 May 1501, in which Ferrante I’s second son (and successor to Ferrante II), Federigo, enjoins the Barletta authorities to aid in every way the “esteemed Isaac Abarbanel and Master Leon [Judah] the physician, his son” as they implement plans to return with their families to the city of Naples for the purpose of engaging in royal service.110 One of the king’s remarks suggests that Abarbanel may have been in Barletta for some time by this point,111 just as the king’s description of him as “dear” to him indicates a long-standing relationship, suggesting perhaps that Abarbanel was already involved in royal service in Barletta. This conjecture would also account for his otherwise unexplained move to Barletta and the plans to uproot again to Naples: having been called to service in the eastern part of Federigo’s kingdom, Abarbanel was now repairing to the capital to serve the monarch at closer range.112 Favorable to his Jewish population generally, Federigo was clearly supportive of the Abarbanels.113 It seems unlikely that the Abarbanels ever returned to the capital. The main obstacle was an endlessly complex series of negotiations, battles, and broken treaties that bestowed upon Italy the dubious honor that it would hold for decades of being Latin Christendom’s battlefield of choice. The Venetians, who had fought the Turks from 1463 to 1479, now engaged in renewed struggle with the Ottoman enemy, while Gonzalo de Córdoba redeployed to Sicily and

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conquered Cephalonia from the Turks in 1500 (receiving a visit soon thereafter from Abarbanel’s nephew Joseph).114 In the same year, France and Spain acted on an agreement to partition Naples; French artillery occupied the capital by August 1501. Though the Abarbanels’ whereabouts for the year and a half following Naples’s fall are unknown, there is reason to believe their fortune was tied to Gonzalo’s exploits. Having vanquished Naples, the Spanish and French found themselves again at odds, with Barletta serving as Gonzalo’s base in the subsequent battle. There he remained through April of 1503 until his victory at Cerignola assured Spain’s triumph and emergence as a great expansionist European power. Throughout this time, Isaac and Judah Abarbanel probably remained in Barletta. Evidence that their relationship with Gonzalo ripened at this point lies in Judah’s summons to Gonzalo’s service soon thereafter. Other Abarbanels would remain involved in affairs in and around Naples during Gonzalo’s tenure as Spanish viceroy, beginning in 1504.115 Sometime around 1503, Isaac Abarbanel moved to “the great city of Venice,”116 the northernmost European center he would ever know. At the time, the Venetian terra firma (mainland territories across the lagoon from the city proper) possessed a tiny and precariously situated Jewish community connected with various economic interests, but Jewish residence in Venice itself was officially barred (as it had been throughout the late Middle Ages except for a short interval between 1382 and 1397).117 In assessing this move to so small and inhospitable a Jewish domain, it seems helpful to recall that Abarbanel had often lived at a remove from intense Jewish communal life, most notably during his time spent in Sicily as the island’s sole professing Jew. Abarbanel was used to living mainly among Christians, and was apparently content to do so. There are other possible explanations for the move to Venice. Assuming it could be verified, the antecedent presence there of Abarbanel’s middle son, Joseph, would obviously be among the most important.118 Abarbanel might also have felt that Jewish life in Venice was on an upswing despite restrictive and antagonistically worded legislation passed against Jews and conversos as recently as 1496–97. At the beginning of 1503 an “extremely liberal” ten-year charter was granted to three Jewish loan banks that, among other things, permitted their operators to rent houses in Venice proper and conduct religious activities within city limits, albeit not to establish a synagogue.119 When all is said and done, however, Abarbanel’s motive for moving to Venice remains elusive, notwithstanding his long-standing admiration for the republic of which this city was the heart.120 In 1503, Venice was on the defensive. A treaty relinquishing key territories to the Turks had just been signed, and Venice’s enmeshment in the FrenchSpanish wrangle entailed considerable costs to her army and trade. Economic threats also loomed large. Long a critical entrepôt between east and west, Venice was beginning to feel the effects of Portugal’s circumnavigation of Africa

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and Vasco da Gama’s successful voyage to Calicut. Supplies of pepper and other condiments from the east were now reaching the Mediterranean without Venice serving as their way station.121 As Venetian patricians sought to avert a financial disaster, Abarbanel developed a plan that he presented to the Council of Ten, volunteering his nephew as an emissary to the Portuguese. In August 1503, with plan and offer accepted, the Council assured Abarbanel of the state’s “customary gratitude” should all go well.122 Abarbanel’s effort at international diplomacy has been linked to the fate of his grandson, who, it will be recalled, had been sent for safekeeping to Portugal in 1492 only to fall victim to Portuguese Jewry’s mass forced conversion in 1497. The Abarbanels had recently suffered a grievous blow: the death of this son’s younger brother, the second of Judah Abarbanel’s “splendid sons,” at age five. No doubt Judah’s father shared his eldest son’s sorrow at the loss of this “precious, noble, handsome” child.123 In 1503 Judah addressed a lament to the firstborn son, who was then approaching his Jewish majority, in which he reminded the boy of his heritage, beginning with the fact that he had been named “after the quarry where I myself was hewn.” Judah’s poem indicates that this son, although living as a Christian, was receiving a Jewish education.124 His heartrending missive also implies an expectation that this son would be able to read his words. The proposal of Judah’s father to send an Abarbanel as Venice’s emissary to Portugal might have nurtured this hope and, possibly, plans for the boy’s escape.125 Whether young Isaac Abarbanel ever returned to his family or to open profession and practice of Judaism is unknown.126 Judah’s poem, as it discloses a deep sense of guilt over his son’s fate and reveals upheavals (including a ruptured marriage) occasioned by the “loss” of his child,127 conveys filial piety as well. Who, asks Judah, will perpetuate his own learning and “penetrate the mysteries my father put into his sacred books” if not his child now entrapped as “a pure soul lost among the nations, a rose among the desert thorns and weeds”?128 Invoking an old topos of HispanoJewish poetry, Judah ascribes his learning to a combination of his own efforts and that which “my own father bequeathed to me.”129 Like his father, who was quick to celebrate his conjoint scholarly and this-worldly achievements, Judah viewed his erudition with more than a little self-regard. For his part, Abarbanel nonchalantly (but with more than a hint of fatherly pride) informed Saul Hakohen that Judah was “undoubtedly the most accomplished philosopher in Italy in this generation.”130 The year 1505 saw a milestone in the history of the “sacred books” of his father to which Judah referred: three were printed in Constantinople, making them among the first to be published by the budding Hebrew press there. As this press sought to produce a series of major works that would abet efforts to transplant Iberian learning to new Sefardic centers, the turn to Abarbanel

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underscores his stature in what was now a major Jewish scholarly hub. Judah Abarbanel composed prefatory poems for the works to honor the occasion.131 Whether Abarbanel ever handled his printed writings is unclear, but he knew of their existence132 and was certainly attuned to the new technology that had produced them. Jews in the three centers where Abarbanel passed his life were in the forefront of those who employed “the newly-invented art of Gutenberg for the production of Hebrew books.”133 Lisbon and Guadalajara, where Abarbanel spent his Portuguese years and many of his Spanish ones, were among the first locales to see the transition from manually to mechanically produced Hebrew books,134 while Hebrew printing in southern Italy predated Abarbanel’s arrival there by nearly two decades. The existence of Hebrew printing in Naples is first attested in a notarial act of 1487. (Anti-Jewish works were churned out by Naples’s Latin printing press at around the same time.) And the famed Hebrew press of the Soncinos moved to Naples three years before Abarbanel did. By 1492 the city was also a major center of Latin and Italian printing, and its Hebrew printing press remained active throughout Abarbanel’s sojourn there.135 Abarbanel’s closing years were spent in the proximity of Venice’s famed Aldine press, which from the 1490s on had been churning out a variety of Greek and Latin works in a “radically and provocatively innovative” way.136 When Abarbanel arrived in Venice, the city was already Europe’s preeminent publishing center. As he wrote Saul Hakohen two years prior to his death, Abarbanel was in the grips of debilitating old age, his hands “heavy,” his eyes having “lost their light.”137 Saul had asked whether Abarbanel might consider a move to the Holy Land, in which case, if he passed through Crete, they could meet “face-toface.”138 Abarbanel’s loss of vigor and the severe difficulties entailed by such a trip and life in the Land of Israel under Mamluk rule must have made the proposition seem curious to Abarbanel, at best.139 He did not, at any rate, deign to reply. According to his earliest biographer, Isaac Abarbanel died in Venice around the winter of 1508–09, whence he was brought to Padua for burial, mourned by Jewish and Venetian eminences alike.140 An elegy composed upon his decease, perhaps by a grieving Judah, lauds one “whose doings were wondrous in our religion.”141 With a synopsis of Abarbanel’s life and contexts in hand, we turn now to his scholarly and literary doings, seen in terms of the extraordinary number and diversity of figures, intellectual streams, and controversies that stimulated and informed them.

Chapter 2 鵻

Works and Traditions

T

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hough Abarbanel wrote most of his works in Italy, he passed the greater part of his life in Iberia. In describing the concentric circles within which his religious posture and scholarly interests developed, then, one must begin with what was formatively decisive: the celebrated HispanoJewish intellectual and literary tradition that received its earliest articulation in Muslim Spain about half a millennium before Abarbanel’s birth. In Muslim Spain (Andalusia), Jewish religious sensibilities and cultural aspirations were powerfully shaped by Muslim achievements in such areas as linguistic studies, poetry, and scriptural interpretation.1 Perhaps most notably, many Andalusian Jewish scholars, advancing the new initiatives of various Babylonian Geonim, carried on a running dialogue with ideas espoused in Greco-Arabic scientific and philosophic writings. While some, like Judah Halevi, sought to undermine the authority of newly ascendent Aristotelian teachings, others, like Moses Maimonides (a product of an Andalusian paideia even as he lived most of his life outside Iberia), embraced many of these teachings.2 With the invasion of Andalusia by the Berber Almohade tribe in 1148, Andalusian Jews were forced to transplant themselves. Some, like the family of Maimonides, chose to remain in the Islamic sphere. Most headed north, however, bringing their highly variegated and, to the Jews of Christian Europe, largely unprecedented modes of religious-literary creativity with them. Upon arrival, leading figures of this Spanish exile community, members of the ibn Tibbon and Kimhi families most influentially, interacted with scholars “immersed head and shoulders in traditional learning.”3 Out of this amalgam emerged new lines of intellectual-literary achievement that would trigger ample, and at times bitter, religious ferment in Christian Spain and beyond. It was to the ever expanding domain of reconquista Iberian Christendom that most Andalusian Jews migrated. There, over time, allegiances to the educational ideals of Andalusian Jewry largely dissipated. Still, elements of that which would come to mark the Sefardic tradition persisted through Spanish 鵻 27 鵼

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Jewry’s dissolution in 1492. Thus it was that Arabic philosophic works and their Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew offshoots furnished the minds of Abarbanel and his Iberian contemporaries in a manner without parallel among scholars born into northern Europe’s more intellectually insular Ashkenazic communities. Two and one-half centuries after his death, Maimonides still dominated Jewish theological discourse in Abarbanel’s Iberia. With Andalusian Jewry’s demise, Jewish social and religio-intellectual realities in the polities comprised in Christian Iberia (Castile, Catalonia, Aragon, Portugal, Navarre) came to be shaped by challenges and stimuli arising from a Christian milieu. The thirteenth century saw a marked intensification in Christian missionary activity, especially as directed against Spanish Jews (and Muslims). These anti-Jewish polemical assaults were executed using some timeworn methods (e.g., citation of biblical texts said to bear witness to Christian truths) and some innovative ones. Most notable among the latter was invocation of rabbinic texts as witnesses to christological teachings, a practice largely refined by Jewish converts to Christianity eager to cure former coreligionists of their “purblind” ways.4 Though southern French and Italian writers produced anti-Christian polemical literature, it was Spain that supplied the largest share of Jewish respondents to the conversionary onslaught. HispanoJewish savants who put their responses down in writing include Isaac Polikar, Moses Hakohen of Tordesillas, Shem Tov ben Shaprut, Hasdai Crescas, Profet Duran, Joseph Albo, Simeon b. Zemah Duran and his son Solomon, Hayyim ibn Musa, and Joseph ibn Shem Tov.5 In composing three messianic works of a largely anti-Christian cast after 1492, Abarbanel joined a venerable IberoJewish tradition of defending the “despised religion” from Christian attack. Even as the volume and intensity of anti-Christian literature increased in the late Jewish Middle Ages, many southern European Jewish scholars became increasingly aware of trends within Christendom that they could admire. Evidence for this development comes first from southern France and Italy and only later from Spain. By the fifteenth century, however, a number of HispanoJewish writers and communal leaders were advocating emulation of various modes of Christian conduct for their own faith community (e.g., decorum in the house of prayer and attentiveness to the sermons delivered therein) and expressing appreciation for a number of Latin theological, philosophic, exegetical, and historiographic achievements.6 On the eve of the expulsion, studied cultivation of Latin (or “the language of the Christians” as Jewish writers of the day were wont to call it) was on the rise. Some Hispano-Jewish litterati even sought to make precious Latin finds, like works of Thomas Aquinas, available in Hebrew translation.7 Among Iberian scholars, however, few if any rivalled Abarbanel for broad immersion in Latin literature. Though the master narrative of the history of the Jews in Christian Spain tells of an inexorable decline from the time of the riots and forced conversions


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of 1391 through the Spanish expulsion of 1492, historians are beginning to recognize a more complex reality. Nowhere is the standard depiction more misleading than in the sphere of intellectual and literary creativity, where the fifteenth century saw achievements in talmudics, homiletics, theology (dogmatics especially), Kabbalah, and Maimonidean interpretation in addition to a notable vernacular literature composed by Spanish Jews.8 Even poetry, that quintessential expression of Andalusian culture, is present.9 The cultural dominance of the Spanish exiles in most every center where they found refuge, those located in Ottoman lands and along the Aegean littoral especially,10 speaks volumes about the vitality of the Hispano-Jewish tradition during Abarbanel’s formative years. As they thought, taught, and wrote, Abarbanel and his Lisbon confreres were inevitably mindful of the more prestigious and populous Spanish Jewries to the east. Some, taking sefarad in reference to the Iberian peninsula’s geographic unity, even referred to themselves as sefardim.11 The most notable prefifteenth-century Lusitano-Jewish writer whose name has come down is that of a translator, dogmatist, philosopher, and biblical exegete who worked in the century previous, David ibn Bilia. David’s works betray indebtedness to Spanish learning, which they may in turn have influenced.12 Spanish practices and priorities are also readily discernible in the scholarship of Joseph Hayyun, the Lisbon community’s leader during Abarbanel’s youth. His stress on Talmud study’s superiority notwithstanding, Hayyun’s written legacy, in keeping with a long tradition of Sefardic biblicism, comprises scriptural commentaries almost exclusively.13 Though the high Middle Ages had seen little by way of Lusitano-Jewish scholarship, the third quarter of the fifteenth century saw a flourishing under the auspices of Hayyun, “a great scholar upon whose lips no untruth is found,” as his former student Joseph Yavetz later described him.14 Hayyun and the Abarbanels enjoyed close ties. A manuscript of Hayyun’s Psalms commentary bears a dedication “to the noble Don Judah Abarbanel.”15 Hayyun also penned an essay in response to a query put to him by a presumably still young and evidently precocious and confident Isaac, in which he relates that Abarbanel sought clarification regarding the purpose and authorship of the book of Deuteronomy. In his response Hayyun describes his interlocutor as one who “heeds my word.”16 Beyond Hayyun’s leadership, another factor that contributed to the amelioration of the late fifteenth-century Portuguese Jewish intellectual scene was the availability of books. Portugal was one of the earliest venues of Hebrew printing, with a press established in Lisbon as early as the 1480s. To be sure, the primary vehicle for the reproduction of books remained pen and parchment, and here too Lisbon excelled. Manuscripts were turned out in a remarkable workshop that was “apparently the only institutionalized undertaking among

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medieval Jews for the production of Hebrew codices.”17 Several products of this workshop, including copies of Maimonides’ legal code and grammatical works of the thirteenth-century southern French Maimonidean David Kimhi, were underwritten by members of the wealthy ibn Yahya clan.18 Abarbanel’s earliest literary efforts centered on biblical exegesis. A natural product of time-honored Sefardic curricular emphases, the interest in Bible presumably owed something to Joseph Hayyun’s model as well. What is more, Hayyun’s yen for Bible study was shared by a wider circle of associates and disciples (ខhaverim). On one occasion, Hayyun even altered his “research agenda” to accommodate the felt need of these students for an exposition of the Psalter. Looking back after 1492, Joseph Yavetz would also depict Hayyun as the hub of a group interested in matters scriptural.19 It was in the 1460s, when Abarbanel had already begun to receive significant privileges from Afonso V, that his production of written biblical commentary commenced. Mirkevet ha-mishneh (Second Chariot), a commentary on Deuteronomy envisioned as the first installment in a full exposition of the Torah, was his most ambitious undertaking. A recently discovered manuscript may reflect a Portuguese draft of the work.20 In the aforementioned 1472 letter to Yehiel da Pisa (the one which described his role in the redemption of the Jews of Arzilla and beseeched his colleague’s intervention with Portuguese emissaries to the Pope), Abarbanel described how his exegetical program had been hampered by extensive travel. Nonetheless, though Mirkevet ha-mishneh was still a work in progress, Abarbanel thought it polished enough to send to Yehiel for advance perusal. “When the Lord grants me peace,” he promised, “I will not rest until I have completed it.”21 Peace, for this purpose, would be forthcoming only in Italy decades later. Abarbanel’s decision to interpret the Torah’s last book first and his query to Hayyun about its origins and character suggest a special affinity for Deuteronomy. The book posed exegetical and theological issues that may have exercised or intrigued him, but, beyond that, Abarbanel could have been drawn to Deuteronomy by its seeming relevance to the sorts of painful socioreligious predicaments that had plagued Spanish Jewry since 1391. Though Lisbon’s scholars and communal leaders did not have to deal directly with the development of mass forced conversions to Christianity, this unprecedented turn in Jewish history nevertheless must have felt rather close to one such as Abarbanel, whose family’s roots lay in Spain and whose grandfather had converted to what for him was Judaism’s main rival religion. Deuteronomy’s guiding leitmotif of Israel’s fidelity to the divine covenant and such subthemes as obedience to the law, material motivation and retribution, rejection of idol worship, Jewish election, and politics provided Abarbanel with a medium for reflection—at times wholly explicit—on the problems that bedeviled Spanish Jews. (Many of these reflections were to be censored out of the standard printed editions of Abar-


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banel’s commentary.)22 In order to derive a message of comfort for his day, Abarbanel at times read Deuteronomy in a way that willfully defied its clear purport. For instance he took Moses’ forecast, “from thence will you seek the Lord your God and you shall find Him if you search after Him with all your heart and all your soul” (Deut. 4:29), to refer to ones who, like some of the conversos, worshiped the gods of the nations in deed but the God of Israel with “all”—that is, only—their “heart and soul.”23 Though it has not been preserved as such, Abarbanel while in Portugal composed a monograph on Moses’ and Aaron’s sin at the waters of Meribah, the essence of which reappears in Mirkevet ha-mishneh.24 Abarbanel’s exposition provides a case study in a phenomenon that merits further investigation: his reliance on and independence from Joseph Hayyun.25 Hayyun was but one of a large number of Abarbanel’s Iberian predecessors and contemporaries who tackled this controverted biblical narrative so chock-full of challenges, not least being its most elusive account of Mosaic malfeasance.26 Seen from this angle Abarbanel’s composition of an exegetical essay devoted to this biblical crux heralds a trend: like the essay, many of Abarbanel’s later literary endeavors would hearken to topics and genres favored by late medieval IberoJewish writers. A brief discourse penned by Abarbanel in Lisbon also adumbrates distinctive features of later works. A Surot ha-yesodot (Forms of the Elements) explored the forms of the four elements (earth, water, fire, and air) of which, in Aristotelian physics, all substances in the sublunar world were composed.27 Abarbanel’s discussion of this abstruse subject revealed his familiarity (much of it probably mediate) with outstanding representatives of the Greek and Arabic philosophic traditions: Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, al-Ghazali, Avicenna, ibn Tufayl, and Averroes. The views of some earlier Hebrew writers such as Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides) and Moses of Narbonne (Narboni) were canvassed as well. A Surot ha-yesodot’s strictly philosophic substance makes it a study without parallel in Abarbanel’s later writings, but the work nevertheless exhibits features characteristic of works to come, including a penchant for orderly exposition and a tendency to assess opinions of earlier authorities before relating his own views concerning a given topic.28 Abarbanel apparently considered A Surot ha-yesodot little more than an exercise.29 Hence in his 1472 letter to Yehiel he dubs his subsequent exegetical monograph ‘Aខteret zeqenim (Crown of the Elders), composed in the late 1460s, “the first [literary] fruit that God has given me.” Regretting that this work was all that he had to offer Yehiel by way of an original and completed scholarly gift, Abarbanel nonetheless observed that his “small discourse” structured around a veiled passage in Exodus encapsulated “the method that I employ in interpreting the Torah.”30 Abarbanel’s plan to bring this method to bear on the books of the Former Prophets remained unrealized in Portugal, but the expan-

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sive commentaries on Joshua, Judges, and Samuel that he wrote soon after arrival in Spain undoubtedly reflect ideas long in the making. Lectures on the Former Prophets given after crossing into Castile provided a public forum for expression and refinement of some of these.31 Abarbanel had lectured publicly in Lisbon as well, as a post-1492 diatribe against philosophy’s corrosive effects penned by Joseph Yavetz attests. For Yavetz, rationalism’s deep impact on Spanish Jews explained much of their weakness of will at the moment of supreme religious test when, given the choice between conversion and expulsion, many chose the former.32 Putting behind this sentiment the authority of Joseph Hayyun as well as one of Lisbon’s “exalted” scholars whose name had become famous “due to his wisdom and greatness”—that is, Abarbanel—Yavetz recalled the latter’s words in his Lisbon classes on Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. “After explaining well the intention of the master [Maimonides]” Abarbanel would add: “ ‘this is the intention of our master Moses [Maimonides], not the intention of Moses our master.’ ”33 By reworking a well-known adage that encapsulated an image of Maimonidean supremacy since biblical times (“from Moses [son of Amram] to Moses [son of Maimon] none arose such as Moses”),34 Abarbanel had relayed his view that Maimonides’ accommodations to Greco-Arabic philosophy too often resulted in an unacceptable compromise of truths embodied in classical Jewish tradition as revealed by Maimonides’ biblical namesake. Abarbanel’s preoccupation with “the master” was hardly a novum of the Jewish Middle Ages, as the volatile scholarly exchanges and bitter intra- and intercommunal battles surrounding Maimonides’ religio-philosophic legacy attest. From the outset, the controversy had largely unfolded in Abarbanel’s native Iberia. Discord over philosophy had entered Europe’s Jewish communities through a skirmish over Maimonides’ naturalistic eschatology initiated in his lifetime by a Spanish talmudist.35 Spanish figures played pivotal roles in subsequent disputes over Maimonideanism (in the 1230s) and over philosophy’s religious acceptability (in the early 1300s).36 Even after the raging intercommunal altercations ceased, many Spanish thinkers, though far from advocating fideism, retained the conviction that Greco-Arabic philosophy was essentially incompatible with fundaments of Judaism. This attitude animated the anti-intellectualist theology of the prominent Catalonian talmudist and communal leader of the second half of the fourteenth century, Nissim Gerondi, and found its most systematic and philosophically acute expression in the religious teachings of Nissim’s student Hasdai Crescas. In the spirit of Judah Halevi, the sophisticated spokesman of pre-Maimonidean Hispano-Jewish anti-Aristotelianism, Nissim and Crescas issued trenchant critiques of Maimonideanism that reverberated within segments of Hispano-Jewish theological literature through the abrupt demise of the genre (as developed on Spanish soil) in the summer of 1492.37 Abarbanel was among those influenced by these critiques; yet they did


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nothing to quell his or others’ scholarly preoccupation with Maimonides or ongoing dissemination and popularization of philosophic ideas in late medieval Spain.38 Indeed, on the eve of the 1492 expulsion many a Sefardic scholar— Abraham Shalom, Abraham Bivagch, and Shem Tov ben Joseph ibn Shem Tov stand out—retained strong Maimonidean allegiances. Though also an admirer of Maimonides, Abarbanel was more critical in his approach to “the master and guide” than these authors. In his younger years, and his whole life long, he struggled to strike a balance between appropriate fidelity to Maimonidean teachings and critical distance from them. The result was an ongoing engaged and fruitful but often highly conflicted dialogue with this most revered of his medieval predecessors, which shaped Abarbanel’s religious sensibilities and bore witness to his earnest effort to come to grips with Maimonides’ imposing personage and legacy. Maimonides’ position in the Lisbon intellectual community is difficult to delineate with precision. There is reason to believe that a version of the Spanish paradigm of sustained meditation on Maimonides prevailed, though there is no evidence of any intense intrareligious polemic resulting from such Maimonidean studies. Maimonides was the central medieval figure in the spiritual world of Joseph Hayyun. Another Lisbon savant, David ben Solomon ibn Yahya, wrote a commentary on the introduction to the Guide after departing Portugal in 1492.39 How much other scholars in Abarbanel’s audience shared his assessment of Maimonides is hard to gauge. According to Yavetz, however, these scholars unanimously pronounced earlier expositions of the Guide in comparison with Abarbanel’s “as copper to gold.” Yavetz, for his part, declared Abarbanel the Guide’s wisest student since the work’s composition.40 Abarbanel’s Maimonidean interests during his Portuguese years are amply attested. Beyond Maimonides’ central place in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, there is evidence that Abarbanel began a commentary on the Guide before coming to Spain.41 What is more, he began a major prophetological treatise in Lisbon entitled Maខhazeh shaddai (Vision of the Almighty) that, to judge from later accounts, largely amounted to a protracted response to Maimonidean prophetology.42 Though the work was later lost “due to the tribulations of expulsion,”43 many of its main concerns can be retrieved. These included the difference between “prophecy” and communication received via “the holy spirit”; distinctive prophetic styles; the appearance of angels to ordinary people in human form; the Active Intellect’s role in prophecy; and, perhaps most importantly, and in many ways at the root of the subject, the question of prophecy’s status as an essentially natural or miraculous phenomenon.44 As regards the latter question, Abarbanel’s opposition to Maimonides’ position was unbending. In his Commentary on the Guide, he stated flatly that “the primary principle upon which the master built a ‘line of confusion and a plummet of emptiness’ [Isa. 34:11]—that is, that prophecy is a natural perfection—. . . is false.”45 Abar-

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banel’s interactions with Maimonides were characterized by profound inner tension already in Lisbon. Yavetz’s just mentioned recollection of the refrain from Abarbanel’s Guide classes tells one part of the story; a description in ‘Aខteret zeqenim of Maimonides as “the divine master who enlightens the earth and all who dwell in it” tells the other.46 That Abarbanel was, in his thirties and early forties, not only a versatile homme d’affaires pursuing lucre and political advancement but also a cultivator of matters of the mind and an extensive reader is confirmed by correspondence from this period. In one letter he promises to forward commentaries of David Kimhi to Yehiel da Pisa and tells of a Job commentary “sweeter than honey” written by a renowned and learned (though unfortunately unnamed) contemporary Aragonese scholar that he will include in the package.47 In another he requests the return of books on loan from Yehiel so that he might ponder them “during a free moment.” Authors mentioned are “En Profet,” possibly the fifteenth-century Iberian grammarian and anti-Christian polemicist Profet Duran; Joseph ibn Shem Tov, an older Castilian contemporary much admired by Abarbanel; and one “r[abbi] Immanuel.” (One would think to identify this latter with the fourteenth-century exegete and litterateur Immanuel of Rome, with whose commentaries Abarbanel was indeed familiar in Portugal,48 but for the fact that it would be strange that Yehiel should need Abarbanel to supply him with works of this Italian native.) During free moments, then, Abarbanel was reading in the classics of medieval Hebrew literature while keeping current with contemporary productions. Abarbanel’s Lisbon correspondence also provides glimpses of his nonHebraic education. In his letter of condolence to the eldest son of the duke of Bragan¸ca, Abarbanel moves with ease from biblical citations to illustrations drawn from philosophic literature and, briefly, an exemplum based on the initiation rites of Persian kings. Noteworthy is a reference to Aristotle’s Ethics, a work popular in late medieval Iberia among both Jews and Christians.49 Joseph ibn Shem Tov’s expansive commentary on the Ethics was copied in Lisbon soon after Abarbanel’s departure from there,50 while Aristotle’s treatise served as a staple in sermons of an Aragonese preacher whom Abarbanel would later come to know well, Isaac Arama.51 Also in keeping with contemporary trends are Abarbanel’s citations of Seneca and Cicero, writers barely known to earlier Jewish scholars, who had come into vogue in fifteenth-century Iberia under the aegis of nascent humanist predilections. Abarbanel’s encounter with Renaissance trends in Lisbon, such as it was, reflected recent shifts in Portuguese cultural allegiances. Growing up, Abarbanel may have known the first and greatest of the Portuguese royal chroniclers, Fernão Lopes, secretary to his father’s client, Prince Fernando.52 Later, he was exposed to humanism at the court of Afonso V, a major sponsor of the fifteenth-century revival of Portuguese letters, who himself was tutored by Ital-


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ian humanists.53 Afonso realized the important role that humanism could play in broadcasting the new discoveries of Portuguese navigators to the rest of Europe. Indeed, the application of the concept of “discovery” to these expeditions was of humanist origin: what was meant was not that the newly charted regions were uninhabited, but that they were unknown to classical geographers.54 When Afonso sponsored his African expeditions, Abarbanel was already a member of his inner circle. At court, geographic speculation was rife and Christopher Columbus’s in-laws were regularly in attendance. Abarbanel may even have met Columbus in Lisbon in the mid-1470s, when the latter was learning to imagine the prospect of sailing west to Asia.55 Some two decades later, as Abarbanel was consumed by the edict of expulsion just then issued against Spanish Jewry, Columbus would receive his earliest authorizations for his enterprise to the Indies from the monarchs who had promulgated this edict.56 Little wonder then that Abarbanel’s sense of geography surpassed that of most other Jewish writers in his day. He was, for instance, the first Hebrew writer to link then raging debates over the possibility of human settlement south of the equator with the Portuguese voyages. And at times Abarbanel’s biblical interpretation was molded by the new geographic awarenesses, as when he explained a perplexing prophecy of Jeremiah on the basis of reports of Portuguese spice merchants returning from voyages along the trade route to India.57 Though he would lament the extent to which worldly affairs thwarted his literary aspirations, Abarbanel seems to have done little to extricate himself from such concerns during the first half of his life. Joseph Hayyun’s response to his query concerning Deuteronomy may contain a subtle rebuke on this score. “Not all men merit to apprehend these and similar things,” advised Hayyun, “only those who keep a vigil by the gates of inquiry night and day, despise false yearning, and love the yearning for true felicity.”58 Abarbanel’s vigil by inquiry’s gates was, as he was the first to admit, far from constant. And yet, notwithstanding the biblically ornamented (and partially conventional) plaints about scarce time for study that have been canvassed, Abarbanel’s neglect of scholarship in Portugal was clearly far from total. A Surot ha-yesodot reveals a person erudite in an aspect of technical philosophy, and ‘Aខteret zeqenim presents a man of broad Jewish learning who, in his deployment of a heavily adorned “mosaic” prose style in his work’s prologue, displays a complete mastery of the biblical canon. More to the point, the fledging Torah commentary, plans for commentaries on the Former Prophets, and the beginnings of Maខhazeh shaddai (and, possibly, a commentary on the Guide) reveal an ambitious literary agenda in spheres that would remain the principal foci for all of Abarbanel’s later scholarship: biblical interpretation and theology, especially of the Maimonidean sort. Though he would later tell Saul Hakohen of days “squandered . . . in vanity and years in futile pursuit” in his “homeland” such that he had “no time to study,”59 by the time he reached the height of his

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stature in Portugal, Abarbanel was, in matter of fact, an erudite and confidant scholar and moderately accomplished, albeit habitually frustrated, writer. Even his Portuguese death sentence dubs the allegedly perfidious courtier a “knowledgeable” man.60 In his early months in Castile Abarbanel sought to regain his compass, engaging in an act of personal and religious introspection that found public expression in a memoir that he prefaced to his first Spanish writings. In this mixture of confession and historia calamitatum, Abarbanel recalled formerly “tranquil” days in Lisbon and noted how, having come to Castile, he now found himself separated from his family, friends, library, and unfinished Deuteronomy commentary. What else to conclude than that his fate was due to a failure to “‘seek out the book of the Lord’[Isa. 34:16]”?61 Having so determined, Abarbanel produced commentaries on Joshua, Judges, and the books of Samuel in amazingly rapid succession between fall of 1483 and spring of 1484.62 As already noted, a long period of gestation evidently stands behind this accomplishment. And as has further been mentioned, beyond his intention to write the commentaries in Portugal, Abarbanel lectured on the Former Prophets after arriving in Castile.63 Those in attendance urged him to record his thoughts; as a recent refugee, free time (if not, one assumes, peace of mind) was easy to come by. The result was Abarbanel’s first commentaries on complete biblical books. By the mid-1480s, presumably in connection with his service to the Mendoza, Abarbanel found himself in the region of Guadalajara, home to the yeshivah of one of Castile’s foremost talmudic scholars, Isaac Aboab. The nature of Abarbanel’s connection to one of Spain’s elite academies remains obscure. A passing remark of the famous sixteenth-century legist Joseph Karo locates him there attending a discourse of one of the academy’s leading students, Joseph Fasi. As has been mentioned, Abarbanel later, after 1492, enrolled his youngest son in Fasi’s academy.64 Contacts with Castile’s dominant rabbinic figures prior to the expulsion must have made the choice straightforward. If, in Abraham ibn Daud’s words, the Almohade invasion had left Spain “desolate of academies of [rabbinic] learning,”65 Iberia again saw distinguished and prolific talmudists spring forth following Spanish Jewry’s transfer to Christian soil. Though the best-known figures (such as Moses ben Nahman [Nahmonides], Solomon ibn Adret, and Nissim Gerondi) hail from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the fifteenth century was not bereft of rabbinic leadership and scholarship. In fact, in his description of pre-1492 Spain, Joseph Yavetz went so far as to claim that the country had “never been so full of academies and students” as when the expulsion order came forth.66 One wonders how Abarbanel was perceived by Aboab and his ilk. That this Portuguese newcomer had received a respectable education in rabbinics prior to his arrival in Spain might have been assumed, at least if Joseph Hayyun had


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anything to do with it. A modern scholar, however, has caught Abarbanel making an error that would be impossible for one deeply immersed in the “sea of Talmud.”67 Aboab, too, must have quickly realized that talmudic and halakhic study were far from the center of Abarbanel’s interests and expertise. Still, in contrast to other Bible commentators with little taste for halakhic minutiae (the fourteenth-century Proven¸cal maverick Joseph ibn Kaspi comes to mind as an admittedly extreme case), Abarbanel tackled legal material in his Torah commentaries as a matter of course, displaying neither self-consciousness nor aversion to the task.68 Perhaps Aboab would have viewed Abarbanel as a scholar in the mold of earlier Ibero-Jewish savants who had essentially eschewed rabbinics. Like Abraham ibn Ezra and others, Abarbanel was drawn to a wide range of extratalmudic disciplines, Bible study especially. In a general prologue to his commentaries on the Former Prophets, Abarbanel spelled out as systematically as he ever would his characteristic exegetical procedures, relationship to earlier strata of the Jewish commentary tradition, and conception of the scriptural exegete’s task.69 He would “divide each of the books into pericopes” smaller than those devised by Gersonides but larger than those fashioned by “the scholar Jerome, translator of Holy Writ for the Christians,” and would raise questions or “doubts” at the beginning of each pericope in order to “call attention to matters, spark debate, and broaden the inquiry.” The result would be intensive scrutiny of the verses and “elicitation from them of ‘things sweeter than honey and the honeycomb’s flow’ [Ps. 19:11].” Use of the “method of doubts” was common in fifteenth-century Iberian biblical interpretation, though its origins remain more elusive than might appear.70 With respect to forerunners, Abarbanel states his plan to “derive a bit of assistance at times from the words of the [earlier medieval] commentators and the ways of the midrashot” and “at times to incline away from them.” He was especially conscious of the vast reservoir of rabbinic interpretations with their claim to authority in the realm of law and their less clearly defined privileged status as mediators of the meaning of scriptural narrative.71 The overall aim was explication of verses “in the most satisfactory way possible” and investigation of “the conceptual problems (derushim) embedded therein to their very end, with great thoroughness.” The inevitable result was protracted commentary, which, Abarbanel insists, is not to be confused with exegetical “prolixity” but is rather to be seen as a reflection of “the extensiveness of the inquiry and investigation and of [the requirements for achieving] understanding of the truth of matters and their depth.”72 Here, then, was an epitome of the norms of biblical scholarship according to Abarbanel: attentiveness to exegetical procedure, including systematic, question-based probing with an eye to larger thematic issues and textual units; a strong sense of earlier strata of exegetical tradition, reflected both in openness to its achievements and independence from its ancient and earlier medieval expositors; preoccupation with both the

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exegetical and the theological dimensions of Scripture; and comprehensiveness up to and including unabashed digressiveness. Gazing back, Abarbanel distinguished two schools of post-rabbinic biblical commentary, the first associated with Rashi, eleventh-century dean of northern French interpretation, and the second with Abraham ibn Ezra, capstone of Andalusian exegetical achievements and transmitter of them to Jewries in Christian Europe. (Hard to locate in this taxonomy is the figure of Nahmanides, of whom Abarbanel was very much aware.)73 Regarding both schools Abarbanel registers surprisingly strong disapprobation. He deems it “an evil and bitter thing” that “the great rabbi Rashi contented himself in his commentaries on the Holy Scriptures in most matters with that which the rabbinic sages expounded.” Yet ibn Ezra’s approach, with its “[explanations of] the grammar of the words and the superficial meaning of the text’s contextual sense,” is deemed limited in its own way, one of its preposterous consequences being an exegesis often more abridged than the verses it presumes to illuminate. Later commentators imitated these interpretive modes, Abarbanel avers, “[expounding] either homiletically or in accordance with the superficial meaning of the text’s simple sense and surface meaning as well as the grammar.” Among other things, Abarbanel faulted both interpretive styles for their “great brevity,” deeming this an outward manifestation of a failure to give Scripture’s theologically and spiritually seminal character and polysemic language their due. Combining a rabbinic-based medieval formula with words from the book of Daniel, he wondered whether their practitioners knew that “the Torah has seventy faces”74 and that “the Holy Scriptures contain ‘light and understanding and great wisdom’ [Dan. 5:14].” Beyond his conception of Scripture and vision of the exegetical task, Abarbanel’s Spanish commentaries revealed the rich panoply of his theological concerns. For example, Abarbanel was apparently drawn to Scripture’s historical books at least partially due to their political dimension, which, as an experienced courtier, he was keen to explore. In one disquisition, he treated the necessity of a king for a good political order and the nature of the ideal Jewish polity. The result was as substantially and rhetorically powerful a case against monarchy as the Jewish Middle Ages would ever see, in which argumentation grounded in exegesis and reason was supplemented by Abarbanel’s vast knowledge of political regimes past and present. (As long as the governance of “wicked Rome” was in the hands of consuls, Rome was “in full strength and likewise many” [Nah. 1:12], but after “Caesar alone reigned over her ‘she became tributary’ [Lam. 1:1]”; contemporary monarchies are clearly inferior to the just Italian city-states of Venice, Florence, Genoa, Lucca, Bologna; and so forth.)75 When Hispano-Jewish e´ migrés sought safe haven in 1492, however, Italy’s northern republics failed to offer succor, leaving Abarbanel to laud Na-


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ples’s “merciful kings,” even as his antimonarchic stance remained, in theory, unshaken.76 No less novel and pronounced than his interest in history and politics were Abarbanel’s broad knowledge of, and ecumenical attitude towards, Christian exegetical literature. Thus, the discussion of kingship in the commentary on Samuel paid special heed to teachings of the prominent fourteenth-century converso churchman, Paul of Burgos.77 Elsewhere, within a dozen pages Abarbanel found occasion to refer to the Vulgate, praise as “very fine” an interpretation advanced by unnamed Christian commentators, reject without disparagement another Christian interpretation, and, while arguing contra Maimonides, invoke with approval prophetological views of Christian theologians.78 In treating the enigmatic story of the witch of Endor, he adduced the “greatest of the Christian scholars Augustine” and offered an explanation of necromancy built on the premise that spirits do possess a certain manner of knowledge of future events—a premise confirmed in writings of “all the gentile scholars and adduced by the scholar Thomas in his work entitled Secunda secundae.”79 One biblical interpreter with whom Abarbanel carried on a silent conversation was the supremely prolific mid-fifteenth-century Spanish Franciscan Alfonso de Madrigal, “el Tostado.” It seems likely that it was in Iberia that Abarbanel first encountered and began to borrow liberally from Tostado’s works. The two shared much in common as exegetes: both appreciated the Bible’s historical books; both sought to unfold Scripture in rich detail; and both, as practicing statesmen, lavished attention on Holy Writ’s political dimension.80 With the exception of a few little-known Hebrew translators,81 Abarbanel’s interest in Thomistic ideas was unrivalled among Ibero-Jewish scholars of his day. Even if a Hebrew translation of Thomas’ De spiritualibus creaturis ascribed to Abarbanel never existed,82 one notes a couple of formally laudatory references to Thomas (some censored from standard printed editions of Abarbanel’s Deuteronomy commentary) and evidence of explorations in Thomistic teachings on kingship, the longevity of biblical ancients, and divorce. Abarbanel probably knew Aristotle’s Politics—a knowledge rare among medieval Jewish scholars—by way of Thomas as well.83 And it was Thomas almost surely who was uppermost in Abarbanel’s mind when, in his commentary to Josh. 10, he sought to demolish Gersonides’ contention that the miracle described therein involved not an actual stoppage of the sun but an Israelite victory so swift that it seemed to those participating as if the sun had stopped. To this scurrilous (as he deemed it) reading, Abarbanel counterposed what he took to be the consensual view of the classical Jewish past, as reflected in both the Bible’s “contextual sense” and “received rabbinic tradition,” that, here as elsewhere, Scripture recorded a miracle outside the natural order, whose occurrence was directly traceable to the divine will.84 Advocating a more faith-inspired reli-

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gious stance than the one mustered by Gersonides and other late medieval Jewish rationalists, Abarbanel lauded the “scholars of Edom”—i.e., Christendom—none of whom “dared to contradict or malign” Scripture’s plain sense “despite their prodigious investigations into the sciences.” The Christian model was invoked to press a point on which Abarbanel would continue to harp in years to come, as when clarifying the dictum in ’Avot: “You have no better standard than it [the Torah].” The rabbinic sage called the Torah a “standard,” explained Abarbanel, “because by it one measures all other sciences.”85 The figure of Alfonso Tostado reflects a Renaissance turn in Iberian culture.86 Humanism arrived in Spain near the end of the fourteenth century, first in Aragon and then in Castile.87 Humanist perceptions focused on rhetoric and ethics but soon extended to history.88 Evidence of new sensibilities effected south of the Pyrenees by humanist pedagogy includes the creation of the posts of historian and secretary of Latin letters at Iberian courts by the mid-fifteenth century, the intellectual complexion of Paul of Burgos’s son Alfonso of Cartagena, and the humanist principles evident in the history of Spain composed by Cardinal Joan Margarit (and dedicated to Ferdinand and Isabella).89 Already in the mid-fifteenth century Alfonso V of Aragon, “the Magnanimous”—who ruled for twenty years from his Catalo-Aragonese base and for three more decades from Naples—served as a conduit for humanism to Spain. In the period of Abarbanel’s Spanish sojourn, one can point to activities of important Italian-born protagonists of Spanish humanism, like Marineo S´ıculo, as well.90 Especially relevant for assessing Abarbanel’s Iberian brushes with humanism is the patronage of the Mendoza. Most notably, Inigo ˜ López de Mendoza, marquis of Santillana and father of Abarbanel’s employer Cardinal Mendoza, composed, around 1450, the first non-Italian sonnets, sponsored Castilian translations of such classical authors as Virgil, Ovid, and Seneca, and made more widely known in Spain the works of the great fourteenth-century Italian writers Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.91 Descendants of the marquis continued in his path. Thus, in addition to building palaces and cloisters on Italian models in Guadalajara (where Abarbanel collected taxes on his behalf)92 and Santa Maria de la Fuente, Cardinal Mendoza produced Castilian translations of the Aeneid and several books of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.93 The prelate may have retained parts of his father’s Renaissance library, one of the finest in all of Europe,94 though Abarbanel’s use of this collection is not attested. However this may be, his Spanish Bible commentaries bear evidence of Abarbanel’s incipient Renaissance surroundings.95 Outside of these commentaries, Abarbanel produced only a single short (albeit dense) tract in Spain, perhaps in connection with ongoing work on a Guide commentary. Its focus was Maimonides’ understanding of the theophany of Ezek. 1 and 10, dubbed in rabbinic literature the “Work of the Chariot.” These biblical passages had long been viewed as an embodiment of the highest


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A in Jewish esoteric wisdom.96 In Ta‘anot lequខhot mi-ខteva‘ ha-ketuvim (Objections Based On The Nature Of The Verses) Abarbanel proffered a litany of exegetical objections against Maimonides’ identification of the contents of this vision with (Aristotelian) metaphysics. Here was another salvo in a battle already initiated in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, in which, employing carefully honed powers of textual analysis, Abarbanel sought to reverse Maimonides’ intertwining of Judaism and philosophy. That Abarbanel’s religious thinking in Spain found little literary expression reflects the swiftness with which he was drawn back into (or avidly reentered) the world of high finance and noble and royal service. Tax farming on a huge scale for Cardinal Mendoza, involvement at the Spanish court, and additional this-worldly activities left little time for writing. Even the short, thematically A circumscribed Ta‘anot had to be composed on the basis of “study stolen by day and night.”97 Still, Abarbanel’s learning presumably eased his entry into the social network of Castilian Jewish scholarship, or so his observation that his “wisdom and occupation with Torah stood me in good stead”98 suggests. If scholarship allowed Abarbanel to bridge the disparate worlds of gentile court and higher Jewish studies in a manner unachievable for fellow courtiers such as Abraham Seneor, he had little to show in writing for his decades of study upon departure from Iberia in 1492. Much time indeed had been spent “in the courts and palaces of kings occupied in their service” and immersed in other affairs of the world. Had the expulsion edict been withdrawn, things might have stayed this way; but with Ferdinand’s and Isabella’s signatures affixed to the edict, Abarbanel’s life was set on an unpredictable new trajectory. One outcome of the disaster was a fifteen-year surge in scholarly activity, during which Abarbanel produced one of the largest premodern Hebrew literary corpora. With the agony of expulsion upon him, Abarbanel, as it will be recalled, had headed for Italy. Here he found safe haven in Naples, where he regained wealth and prestige, only to lose all again following Charles VIII’s arrival in Italy and effort to make good his claim to the Neapolitan crown. Southern Italy had been largely dormant as a center of indigenous Jewish learning in the centuries preceding 1492, but with the advent to the region of scholars from diverse corners of the Jewish world—northern Italy, to be sure, but Germany and Iberia as well—the situation began to change. Among the Iberian arrivals were Abarbanel’s Lisbon contemporary Moses ibn Habib and the Spanish kabbalist Isaac Mar Hayyim. Another Lisbon savant of the Hayyun clan, Abraham ben Nissim, arrived in Naples in 1492 for reasons unknown. Soon after, he received a letter from Isaac da Pisa, in which his longstanding comrade recalled the Lisbon visit of his youth, where he had met the two “mighty” thinkers, Hayyun and Isaac Abarbanel.99 As a result of the 1492 expulsion, another large influx of Iberian scholars

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reached Naples. These included the Castilian kabbalist Judah Hayyat, Joseph Yavetz, and David ben Solomon ibn Yahya, nephew of one of Abarbanel’s erstwhile Lisbon courtier-colleagues, who left Portugal due to fear of retribution for his activities on behalf of Spanish refugees. Abarbanel’s interaction with many such e´ migré scholars can be assumed. In the case of yet another of the recent arrivals, Joseph Yavetz’s brother-in-law Isaac Arama, it can be documented. In a statement that he sought to have affixed to all editions of his father’s exegetical-homiletic magnum opus ‘Aqedat Yiខshខ aq, the son of this Aragonese preacher tells of regular visits by Abarbanel to the Arama home and then—serving as a mouthpiece for his father’s books—complains that Abarbanel wrote compilations that he “called original, sweet, profound, and subtle but the words were mine.” This was not the only allegation of “plagiarism” made against Abarbanel. David, son of Italian Jewry’s most eminent nativeborn fifteenth-century scholar Judah Messer Leon, included Abarbanel’s “theft” of others’ ideas as one in a long litany of accusations that he made against the Iberian newcomer.100 Judah Messer Leon—a physician, poet, orator, and holder of doctoral degrees in philosophy and medicine (the latter bestowed by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III himself)—was a composite of some of the diverse religious trends that could come together in late-fifteenth-century Jewish Italy. Among other things, his spiritual vision embraced Ashkenazi talmudism, Maimonidean philosophy, medieval scholasticism, and Renaissance humanism.101 Like Abarbanel, Judah had close links to the da Pisa, to whom he was related by marriage, and, again like Abarbanel, he enjoyed high standing in larger Italian society. Judah’s academy, which he relocated to Naples in the early 1480s, prospered throughout Abarbanel’s years there. Following a brief visit with the da Pisa in Florence, Judah’s son returned to it in 1492. Though little is known of this period in David ben Judah’s life, he would later decry the ascension of Spanish Jews in Italy and Ottoman lands, holding Abarbanel in special contempt. In one characteristic denunciation, he disparaged Abarbanel’s illicit borrowing of others’ thoughts and his haughtiness and pride in his (alleged) royal pedigree, such that he nearly “made of himself a Messiah with his claims to Davidic descent.” Elsewhere, David inveighed against Abarbanel’s “vanity . . . and ignorance of the master’s [Maimonides’] basic principles due to his [Abarbanel’s] deficiency in philosophy.”102 Though such denunciations occur in writings from a later period, one suspects they found oral expression soon after 1492, when David and Abarbanel both lived in Naples. However much focussed on realities as David perceived them, the charges also reflect a “feud between two Jewish aristocratic clans.”103 They thereby brightly illustrate the complexities of religious self-definition within Italy’s post-1492 Jewish community, with its mixture of Italian natives, e´ migré permanent residents,


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and frequent passers-through from disparate cultural corners of the Jewish globe. Like David ben Judah, Abarbanel too could feel a bit baffled by, and even affronted by, the Jewish “multiculturalism” rampant in post-1492 Italy. In particular, he expressed misgivings with respect to a range of religious practices associated with “the Ashkenazim.” One such was rabbinic ordination (semikhah), an institution with ancient roots that had long been in abeyance in Iberia but which, in high medieval northern Europe, had been revived and eventually transported via an eastward migration of Franco-German scholars to Italy. Among ordination’s staunchest Italian defenders were Judah Messer Leon and his son David, both of whom bore the title “rabbi” with pride and claimed extensive political powers in its name.104 In the course of defending his conception of the rabbi, David censured the title’s besmirchment in Spain through bestowal upon unworthies, his parade example being Abarbanel’s erstwhile colleague Abraham Seneor, the “famous rabbi of Castile” whose conversion to Christianity testified to the initial weakness of his Jewish convictions. For his part, Abarbanel traced ordination’s latter-day reincarnation to the Ashkenazim but, in an insight that has proved historically perspicacious, chalked up its Italian popularity to a phenomenon unknown in Ashkenaz: “jealousy of the ways of the gentiles who make [titles for] those who receive doctorates.”105 Yet more acute religious differences divided Abarbanel and the Ashkenazim. In his interpretation of the rabbinic maxim, “Five years old for the study of Scripture, ten for the study of Mishnah . . . ,” Abarbanel stressed that “all of these times refer to the point at which instruction should be initiated, not terminated,” adding, lest the practical application of this observation be lost: “He [the rabbinic sage] did not say that until the age of five one should occupy himself with Scripture and no further as the Ashkenazim still do today but rather that at five years of age one should begin to study Scripture . . . .”106 Writing a century earlier, the Catalonian biblicist Profet Duran had depicted lassitude in Bible study as a persistent, widespread malady of Franco-German Jews, while lamenting that a similar state of affairs had come to afflict Spain’s Jews as well. Abarbanel’s reference to what the Ashkenazim “still do today” suggests a perception, similar to Duran’s, of a long-standing and in their minds misguided Franco-German educational policy of scriptural neglect. For Abarbanel, occupation with Scripture was to be supplemented but never supplanted by other religious pursuits.107 Sefardic and Ashkenazic mentalities regarding exegetical methodology could clash as well. In this area, too, Abarbanel took a dim view of “the way of the Ashkenazim.” His basic orientation reflected ideas developed by certain late gaonic authorities and Spanish scholars, especially philosophically oriented ones, who advocated nonliteral interpretation as a way to alleviate problems

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posed by the plain meaning of various biblical and rabbinic texts. Coming from the conservative wing of the Spanish school, Abarbanel viewed this hermeneutic mode with reserve due to its potential to subvert the historical veracity of biblical miracles and such anchors (in his view) of rabbinic theology as resurrection of the dead. As in his biblical commentaries, so in his commentary on rabbinic messianic sayings Yeshu‘ot meshiខho (Salvations of His Anointed) Abarbanel railed against rationalists who had gone too far along the nonliteral path.108 Still, Abarbanel was no diehard literalist. Discounting as “insufficient and incorrect” a literal interpretation of one messianic midrash, he affirmed with characteristic Sefardic disapproval that thoroughgoing literalism in aggadic interpretation was “the way of the Ashkenazim.”109 A compliment that Abarbanel bestows upon Saul Hakohen reflects longstanding Spanish perceptions of northern European linguistic backwardness.110 Literary elegance, though never the obsession it had been in Muslim Spain, remained a hallmark of Jewish culture in Christian Spain. In a tone of amazement amplified by a gratuitous reference to his correspondent’s cultural baggage, Abarbanel remarks that Saul’s Hebraic proficiency marks a departure from the norms of Ashkenaz, where even the most perfect of sages are as “stammerers without understanding.”111 If Spanish Jews prized linguistic facility, Italian writers shaped by humanist ideals demanded it. At humanism’s core was rhetoric, a discipline long at the center of the medieval Latin curriculum and one that became only more important and influential during the Renaissance. Though medieval Jews had accorded rhetoric scant attention, some Jews living in Renaissance Italy quickly adjusted to the shifts in their immediate cultural ambit. Most notable was Judah Messer Leon, whose Nofet sខufim stands as the first “classically educated study of the rhetoric of the Hebrew Bible by a skilled Hebraist.”112 Judah’s son David also made use of works of classical orators and poets, and Judah’s student Yohanan Alemanno wrote extensively on rhetoric.113 Abarbanel’s awareness of rhetoric can be glimpsed in his audacious suggestion, in one of his Italian Bible commentaries, that Jeremiah and Ezekiel, though exceptional in their ability to impress truths onto their souls, were flawed in their “ordering of words or oratorical embellishment.”114 Abarbanel began his Italian sojourn in Aragonese Naples, one of Renaissance Italy’s most important intellectual centers. Here, in the 1430s and 1440s, Lorenzo Valla, perhaps the most significant of fifteenth-century humanists, had pursued literary projects, including his philologically oriented New Testament studies that would later inspire northern Europe’s foremost humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam.115 The successors to Valla’s patron Alfonso the Magnanimous, Ferrante I and Alfonso II, had continued the Neapolitan tradition of patronage of culture. In 1492, the native Neapolitan, Giovanni Pontano, was the city’s leading royal official and head of its renowned humanist academy. As one


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involved at court, Abarbanel must have gained some exposure to the humanism of this “poet-prime minister.”116 He may also have sampled riches housed in the well-stocked Neapolitan royal library, even as this collection lacked for Hebrew titles.117 Judah Messer Leon and his son were but two Jews of the Renaissance who dotted the Italian landscape.118 Others included Judah’s aforementioned student, Yohanan Alemanno, as well as Elijah Delmedigo, both of whom enjoyed close ties with the celebrated Florentine Neoplatonist Pico della Mirandola.119 Taken together, Judah, David, the neoplatonically inclined Alemanno, and the staunchly Averroist Aristotelian Delmedigo (described to Abarbanel by Saul Hakohen as a “wise and discerning man, perfect in philosophic investigation”)120 give testimony to most of the diverse streams interacting in Italo-Jewish scholarship in the decades around 1492, including talmudism, Jewish theology, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, humanism, and Kabbalah. Though already in his midfifties, Abarbanel would prove customarily open to many of the sometimes eccentric combinations such interaction could produce. The conduit for much of Abarbanel’s Italian Renaissance education seems to have been Yohanan Alemanno, though the nature of Abarbanel’s affiliation with this physician, theologian, kabbalist, exegete, and magician is shrouded in mystery. The da Pisa—with whom Abarbanel may now have renewed acquaintances—suggest themselves as one possible point of contact; Alemanno was their family scholar-in-residence during the 1480s and early 1490s. Another is Abarbanel’s eldest son Judah, eventually to become known to the world as Leone Ebreo, whose Dialoghi d’amore, authored around 1502, became one of the most influential Renaissance Neoplatonic works of all time following its publication in Italian in 1535. Soon after arriving in Italy, Judah may have met Pico and Alemanno, though clear evidence is lacking; at any rate elements of the Dialoghi argue in favor of their decisive influence on this work.121 What is to be stressed in the current context, though, is that some such elements, like awareness of the Corpus Hermeticum (a group of texts stemming from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt that Renaissance savants believed to contain an ancient secret lore), appear in Italian writings of Judah’s father. Indeed, characteristic Alemanno adaptations of Renaissance ideas regarding magic, music, and King Solomon as the ideal Renaissance sage appear in Abarbanel’s commentary on Kings, completed only a year after his arrival in Italy.122 Pico was drawn to Alemanno by an interest in Jewish mysticism. Kabbalah had emerged into the light of Jewish history in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, first in southern France and then in Christian Spain, where it won significant adherents while retaining a strong esoteric dimension. Throughout the late Middle Ages, in Spain especially, Kabbalah competed with philosophy for the allegiance of much of Jewry’s intellectual elite. A sense of rivalry between philosophy and Kabbalah was not, however, uni-

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versal. In Italy especially, some, such as Yohanan Alemanno, preferred to synthesize the two disciplines, along with such other currents as magic, into an exoteric theological whole.123 Though Alemanno’s synthesis yielded a vision of Jewish superiority, it suited Pico’s aim to universalize (read: Christianize) the Jewish mystical tradition. Writing from Naples just prior to Abarbanel’s arrival there, Isaac Mar Hayyim spoke for those who rejected the syncretist approach, warning his fellow kabbalist Isaac da Pisa that Alemanno took “the intelligibilia as the root,” then interpreted “kabbalistic matters so that they agree with [philosophic] speculation.”124 In keeping with the views of the Spanish exiles Mar Hayyim and Judah Hayyat, the native Italian kabbalist (and, as will be seen, fierce critic of Abarbanel’s first work ‘Aខteret zeqenim) Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano also sought to demonstrate rational philosophy’s limitations and its ultimate inability to penetrate the superior insights of theurgic Kabbalah.125 Abarbanel’s decidedly complex attitude towards Kabbalah—the intricacies are both substantive and rhetorical—remains to be elucidated. That he was familiar with Kabbalah in Portugal emerges from his engagement in ‘Aខteret zeqenim with several mystical allusions contained in Nahmanides’ Torah commentary.126 It seems likely, however, that this familiarity was, like that of other Lisbon savants such as Joseph Hayyun, rather limited. Only with the arrival of Spanish exiles in 1492 would Lusitanian Jewry encounter Kabbalah extensively.127 Yet Abarbanel’s Spanish writings reflect no upsurge in their author’s engagement with Kabbalah over that which is discernible from the Lisbon works. Once in Italy, Abarbanel adopted some of the new frames of reference within which Alemanno and Pico had come to view Kabbalah. Most notably, he interpreted various kabbalistic concepts neoplatonically on the assumption, shared by his son Judah, that certain ancient philosophic notions, ones advanced by Plato especially, coincided with Kabbalah. Underlying this claim was an idea championed by Pico and other Renaissance syncretists, according to which a single universal truth pervaded the writings of “ancient theologians (prisci theologi)” of the distant pagan past. Towards the end of his life, Abarbanel suggested to Saul Hakohen that the kabbalistic divine grades (sefirot) were identical with the Platonic ideas, understood as existents within the divine mind.128 If Abarbanel’s preoccupation with matters mystical probably increased upon arrival in Italy, his general stance towards this side of the Jewish religious inheritance, as towards so much else, continued to find its precursors in the attitudes of such Iberian figures as Isaac ibn Latif, Hasdai Crescas, Profet Duran, Joseph Albo, and Joseph ibn Shem Tov. Like all of these thinkers, Abarbanel sought to delineate the boundaries separating Kabbalah from philosophy and to determine their thickness. Like them, he offered unconditional allegiance neither to philosophy nor mysticism. In a manner similar to that of


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Crescas, Abarbanel’s involvement with philosophy was critical but abiding, while his engagement with Kabbalah was, on the whole, rhetorically deferent but marginal. Apparent already from ‘Aខteret zeqenim, however, is his inclination towards the sort of rationalized Kabbalah that so distressed Isaac Mar Hayyim.129 It has been noted that Mar Hayyim wished to distinguish philosophy, as the product of limited intellect, from Kabbalah, which, as something that had been “received from the mouth of a prophet,” was “higher than the intellect, so that it can correct whatever the intellect has distorted.”130 Abarbanel paid homage to this conception of Kabbalah as well. Thus, throughout his Italian works he disclaimed any initiation into the ways of Kabbalah and did so in a manner that, at least on the surface, emphasized Kabbalah’s esoteric, suprarational character: “I have no association with hidden things, and I have not traveled the ways of the Kabbalah, for it is distant from me”; “I have not studied the wisdom of the Kabbalah and the knowledge of the holy ones I do not know”; “It is not my intention to expound upon their [the kabbalists’] words, since I have not studied the wisdom of the Kabbalah and the knowledge of the holy ones I do not know.”131 On other occasions, he willingly blurred the demarcation between rabbinic qabbalah (received tradition) and its medieval mystical namesake.132 Still, Abarbanel hardly spoke with one voice in addressing the question of Kabbalah’s origins and epistemological status. Indeed, in his oft repeated disavowals of personal initiation into the byways of Kabbalah, including two just reproduced, he typically spoke of his ignorance of the “wisdom (ខhokhmah)” of Kabbalah, using a term reflective in post-Maimonidean philosophic literature of “rational speculation in opposition to knowledge of tradition.”133 The implication was that Kabbalah was not so much a privileged portion of authentic tradition handed down from antiquity as it was a branch of rational-discursive learning that Abarbanel might have mastered had he wished to do so. As has been seen, Kabbalah was perceived as a branch of wisdom by other Jews writing in late-fifteenth-century Italy, Yohanan Alemanno most notably. But in Abarbanel’s case this perception can also be attributed to views of Iberian origin, as the writings of other nonkabbalistic Spanish refugee scholars attest.134 Abarbanel’s disavowals of kabbalistic claims to continuity with classical received tradition were, however, at times uncharacteristically overt.135 Despite the ongoing reverberations of historical catastrophe and his exposure to new intellectual streams, it was in the service of an old project, his interpretation of the books of the Former Prophets, that Abarbanel first put pen to paper in Italy. With his profuse exposition of the two books of Kings, this longenvisioned project was complete. A chronicle of the sufferings of the Jewish people “from the birth of Adam until today,” to which Abarbanel turned next, attests a novel turn in his revi-

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talized Neapolitan literary ambitions, in terms of both his own previous writings and medieval Hebrew literature generally.136 If, more than has been thought, rabbinic literature’s weak historiographic impulse may have given way to a stronger one in the Jewish Middle Ages,137 historical writing proper still remained limited among medieval Jews. By contrast, between 1492 and the end of the sixteenth century close to a dozen authors wrote chronicles of one sort or another. Abarbanel’s entry into this field with Yemot ‘olam (Days of the World) seems to have made little progress, and none of the work has survived; but the attempt retains significance as the first, almost wholly overlooked, example of the “sudden rise in historiographical interest”138 among postexpulsion Jewish writers. While it is natural to cast Yemot ‘olam as Abarbanel’s response to “the great tragedy” that had just befallen his people,139 one should not overlook elements of continuity with his and others’ historical sensibilities and interests prior to 1492. In Spain he had opined that “it is certainly fitting for the children of Israel . . . to know and understand the unfolding of the generations from the beginning of creation up to the dispersion from Jerusalem and ‘until Shiloh comes’ [Gen. 49:10]”—that is, to study both biblical and postbiblical history. What is more, Abarbanel was only one late medieval southern European Jewish scholar whose yen for postbiblical historical learning led him to Christian historical literature.140 An Iberian precursor to Yemot ‘olam composed a century before 1492, Profet Duran’s no longer extant Ma’amar zikaron ha-shemadot,141 seemingly provided an exemplar for Abarbanel’s historiographic enterprise. More directly related to the anguish and spiritual dislocation occasioned by the expulsion, it seems, was a tripartite theodicy initiated in Naples by Abarbanel entitled A Sedeq ‘olamim (Justice Everlasting). The work was lost in the French sack of Naples, but an expanded reconstruction was undertaken towards the end of Abarbanel’s life and the first part was completed anew. The work explored the problem of this-worldly justice, including the judgments of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; the afterlife, including the garden of Eden and “netherworld (gehinnom)”; and resurrection of the dead. Though no portion of it is extant, a passing reference to A Sedeq ‘olamim’s seventy-ninth chapter leaves no doubt as to its intended massive size.142 As Charles VIII overran Rome on his way to Naples in 1494, Abarbanel composed a study structured around Maimonides’ classic enumeration of thirteen foundational principles of Judaism—principles that, on Maimonides’ reckoning, every Jew had to believe to gain a portion in the world to come. For two and one-half centuries following this pathbreaking doctrinal account, creed formulation garnered little attention among Jewish writers, but the decades surrounding the 1391 Spanish riots saw a renewal of interest in the subject.143 In Rosh ’amanah (Principles of Faith), Abarbanel expounded Maimonides’ principles, defended them against the critiques of Hasdai Crescas and Crescas’s


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student Joseph Albo, and offered his views concerning the subject.144 Having spent most of his tract on exposition and defense, Abarbanel concluded with an apparent about-face, arguing that “the entire Torah, and every single verse, word, and letter in it is a principle and root that ought to be believed.” The medieval search for archai of Judaism was, he contended, wrongheaded, its origins traceable to a misguided superimposition on the divine Torah of methods of gentile scientific discourse. Appealing to the classical tradition as was his wont, he observed that no inventory of fundamental beliefs was to be found in the Bible or rabbinic writings—neither at the beginning of the Torah, in the revelation at Sinai, nor in the Talmud.145 Were he forced to posit such roots, Abarbanel would “only lay down one, the world’s creation,”146 but since he had determined this activity to be spurious, he indicated that Maimonides’ list was defensible if and only if it was intended to yield heuristic devices for Jews who had not “delved into the Torah.” Understood in this way, the list offered a consummate summation of Jewish faith that remained unshaken despite Crescas’s and Albo’s critiques. Abarbanel’s five month tour of Sicily in the presence of Alfonso II could hardly have been conducive to religious reflection. First, he found himself in complete isolation from larger Jewish society, for Sicily, as a Spanish holding, had expelled its Jews a couple of years earlier. In addition, rites of everyday life and intellectual concerns were inevitably preempted by the uncertainties occasioned by a rapidly shifting political and military scene. When, however, Abarbanel arrived in Corfu, he repaired to his literary vocation with compulsive energy, initiating an astonishing period of intellectual productivity spanning, with few disruptions, the remainder of his life. Having completed the commentaries on the Former Prophets, Abarbanel turned to the latter ones, beginning with Isaiah. The Isaiah commentary afforded Abarbanel an opportunity to express himself on all manner of issues: resurrection of the dead, a theological tenet that he held to be of prime importance; conversos, those “sinners of Israel” who, having left the Jewish fold, “admixed with the gentiles, either forcibly due to the sword, temptations, or in other ways”; and, naturally, the “suffering servant” poems of Isa. 52–53 that were of such great interest to Christian apologists. Not surprisingly, Abarbanel’s own prolonged and careful scrutiny of the pericope was aimed at “disencumbering ourselves from the murmurings of the learned men of Edom [Christendom] with their spurious interpretations” based on identification of the servant in question with Jesus. As for Isaiah’s precedence to Jeremiah and Ezekiel in the canonical order, this Abarbanel explained in terms of this prophet’s (rabbinically ascribed) royal descent, in contrast to the other two prophets’ more lowly origins. As elsewhere in Abarbanel’s commentaries, autobiographical reverberations are readily discerned.147 Abarbanel’s glossing of the book of Isaiah was soon interrupted by his re-

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covery of a copy of the unfinished Deuteronomy commentary left behind during the abrupt flight from Lisbon decades earlier. Elated, Abarbanel now determined to complete the work.148 He must have found renewed intellectual companionship while so doing in the presence of several scholars then resident on Corfu. There were Eliezer al-Tansi, soon to be a prominent physician and courtier in Istanbul, who formed a favorable impression of Abarbanel, and David ibn Yahya, who, like al-Tansi, later “spoke well” of Abarbanel in “the land of ‘Uខs [Istanbul].”149 As was seen, by winter 1496 Abarbanel found himself not, as planned, in Solonika with his son Samuel but again on the Italian mainland in the Adriatic seaport of Monopoli. Here he finally completed the Deuteronomy commentary and, on the eve of Passover, a commentary on the Haggadah, Zevaខh pesaខh (Passover Sacrifice), which was at once a “sacrifice to God from a broken spirit” and a thanksgiving blessing on behalf of those who had survived recent unspeakable misfortune.150 Naខhalat ’avot (Inheritance of the Ancestors), an expansive commentary on ’Avot written at the request of Abarbanel’s youngest son, appeared a few months later. Abarbanel spent the next several years ruminating on the theological meaning of the beginning-time (creation) and endtime (messianic era) while engaging the field of biblical interpretation as well. Migdol yeshu‘ot (Tower of Salvations), a massive tripartite messianic treatise, appeared over the course of a year and a half,151 followed by Shamayim hខ adashim (New Heavens), a work on creation cast as an exhaustive commentary on a single chapter in Maimonides’ Guide. Next to be completed were the Isaiah commentary begun in Corfu and commentaries on the Minor Prophets. Somehow amidst it all, earlier writings were revised.152 And by the time he arrived in Venice in 1503, Abarbanel had written one more monumental tract, Mif‘alot ’elohim (Wonders of the Lord), a work that he would later describe to Saul Hakohen as a “decisive refutation of the arguments made by Aristotle and his later disciples in favor of [the world’s] eternity.”153 It is to a survey of these diverse works and the scholarly undertakings of Abarbanel’s closing years that we now turn. The title of Naខhalat ’avot possessed a twofold significance, referring both to the inheritance of the rabbinic “fathers of testimony” that Abarbanel expounded in the work and to the work’s status as an inheritance to his son. Evidently drawing on years of reflection—in his filial request for a study of ’Avot Samuel Abarbanel had referred to “sweet” interpretations offered by his father in bygone days—Abarbanel again fixed on a genre favored by Iberian writers both before and after 1492.154 Abarbanel was fully aware of this well-developed tradition of Iberian ’Avot commentary. Nonetheless, he believed he had much light to shed on this Mishnaic tractate. Novel were his insistence, and his efforts to demonstrate, that each dictum in the tractate was rooted in some verse in the Torah.155 Abarbanel also stressed what he took to be an egregious failure of earlier com-


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mentators to expose links that he was certain existed among all constituent parts of any given Mishnah and among all of the sayings collected in any one chapter.156 On his view, for example, the proper hermeneutic grille for understanding the second chapter of ’Avot was interpretation of the chapter’s constituents in terms of a running debate between conflicting approaches to “perfection in deed.” On the “traditionalist” view of Judah Hanasi and his “followers” (Hillel and Yohanan ben Zakkai), Torah alone sufficed to achieve such perfection. On the view of his son Rabban Gamliel and those who tended to his position (R. Yohanan’s five students), supplementation from philosophic ethics was desirable.157 In keeping with a pattern found elsewhere in his writings, Abarbanel’s interpretation of ’Avot, chapter 2, reflected his dialogue by proxy with Maimonides. In this case the issue was the propriety of reading classical Jewish texts in light of teachings of Greek philosophy. In his introduction to his own commentary on ’Avot, Maimonides had spoken openly about his intention to rely on “the discourse of both the ancient [Greek] and modern [Muslim] philosophers”158 in understanding the import of ’Avot’s maxims. And, indeed, throughout much of this prefatory tract and the commentary following, Maimonides had juxtaposed and sought to reconcile teachings of the “philosophers” with those of Jewish tradition. Disassociating himself from unnamed contemporaries who, following Maimonides, channeled their efforts into “harmonizing the moral instructions” of ’Avot with “the words of Aristotle in the Ethics and those of Plato in his tract Republic,” Abarbanel endorsed the approach of a subset of Spanish predecessors (Jonah Gerondi, Isaac Israeli, Mattathias Hayizhari) who had sought a nexus for ’Avot’s teachings within Jewish tradition, whether in “the words of Solomon [in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes] and David [in Psalms]” or in other dicta found in the rabbinic corpus.159 Yet, while polemicizing against some of Maimonides’ views and procedures, Abarbanel, in his interpretation of chapter 2 of ’Avot, also makes a characteristic move, turning a debate between philosophy and Judaism into a controversy internal to the rabbinic tradition. Concluding his interpretation of the chapter, Abarbanel allowed that while a system of moral instruction that took its bearings from philosophic as well as Jewish sources might be optimal, in practice there was insufficient time for a person to master “[even] all of the Torah, all the more if he strains himself with the remainder of things and disciplines to be mastered.”160 Yet while ultimately siding against Maimonides in arguing that the maxims in ’Avot were independent guidelines for Jewish living and not mere intimations of moral teachings expressed more adequately and precisely by pagan Greeks, Abarbanel did, by way of his exegesis, put in the mouths of several rabbinic sages a version of the Maimonidean outlook, thereby grounding it in the classical stratum of Jewish tradition. Only at the end of the chapter did he have his exegesis settle the matter in favor of his own more traditional position. In turning to eschatology, Abarbanel again took up a subject of long-stand-

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ing interest to Spanish thinkers. The topic had taken on special urgency in the decades following the 1391 riots, which saw an appreciable increase in messianic expectations among Spain’s Jewish and converso populations, and again in the wake of the widespread astonishment occasioned by Constantinople’s fall to the Turks. In the capture of eastern Christianity’s capital city in 1453, many found a sign of western Christendom’s imminent demise and Israel’s redemption. Still, the eschatological expectations of Spanish Jews vacillated in the century preceding 1492. At times there was profound longing for Israel’s imminent redemption, at times relinquishment of such hopes to such an extent that writers such as Joseph Albo and Hayyim ibn Musa felt compelled to reaffirm the truth of scriptural promises of redemption.161 As Abarbanel had implied in his Haggadah commentary, the inability of Spanish Jews to credit such biblical testimonia had intensified greatly after 1492.162 In Yeshu‘ot meshiខho he underscored his coreligionists’ despair more explicitly when he had them declare: “Our hope is lost . . . the anointed of the God of Jacob is dead or broken or imprisoned; his sun will not shine.”163 Beyond reassurance to those gripped by religious despair, Abarbanel’s messianic writings aimed to rebut Christian polemics grounded not only in the Hebrew Bible, whose authority was recognized by Jews and Christians, but also in rabbinic literature.164 Scriptural messianic passages were explained in Ma‘ayenei ha-yeshu‘ah and Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah; rabbinic sayings were treated in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho. Abarbanel devoted Ma‘ayenei ha-yeshu‘ah (Wells of Salvation)—a work he would later describe as “infinitely exquisite in my eyes”165 —to Scripture’s eschatological locus classicus, the book of Daniel. His aim was clear: “To comfort those who stumble from the exile and remain of the multitude, to seek out in the book of the Lord His good word as imparted to His servants the prophets, . . . to inquire ‘how long it will be until the end of the wonders’ [Dan. 12:6] . . .”166 For Abarbanel and the exiles, the expulsion had made the question of how long history would continue before being set aright more pressing than ever. In Ma‘ayenei ha-yeshu‘ah, which was completed in January 1497, Abarbanel declared the present trial almost over and judgment of the wicked and vindication of the just soon on its way, insisting that the Messiah had been born “before the great expulsion caused death and destruction for the Jewish diaspora in Spain, for, in truth, already then the great sufferings accompanying the birthpangs of the Messiah began.”167 While retreating from this claim elsewhere in the messianic trilogy, he remained constant in his efforts to “reveal the day of redemption in the ears of the sons of Judah.”168 After examining the veiled words of Daniel, whom he considered to be a prophet (thereby disagreeing with rabbinic tradition and with Maimonides but concurring with Christian tradition) and saw as the principal prophetic “announcer of salvation,169 he declared the Messiah’s forthcoming arrival in 1503. Barring this, major events anticipating his arrival no later than 1531 would occur at that time. Other


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Jewish and Christian thinkers awaited 1503 as an hour of eschatological consequence as well.170 The other volumes of Abarbanel’s trilogy, completed one after the other in late 1497 and early 1498 (giving rise to the reasonable surmise that Abarbanel worked on them in tandem),171 were Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, the commentary on rabbinic eschatological dicta, and Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah (Announcer of Salvation), a study of prophecies of redemption outside of Daniel. As noted, the former work’s principal external spur was the effort of Christian controversialists to adduce rabbinic messianic sayings in support of their conversionary propaganda. But though written primarily to counter Christian usurpation of such sayings, Yeshu‘ot meshiខho also sought to define traditional Jewish messianism in the face of what Abarbanel took to be its subversion from within by Maimonides and his philosophically oriented followers.172 Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah, which likewise had Christian claims as a main target, took aim at opponents internal to Jewish tradition as well. In this case, the accused were those commentators who had assigned biblical prophecies of redemption to the Second Temple period. Rooted in the early Jewish Middle Ages, this trend gained wide currency in Spain, especially beginning in the thirteenth century. As Joseph Albo observed, proponents of noneschatological readings of such prophetic messages did not repudiate belief in the Messiah’s coming but instead claimed this belief should be accepted on the basis of tradition (qabbalah). Yet Albo added that if Scripture did not contain conclusive evidence of the Messiah’s coming, “then tradition alone” was insufficient.173 Meanwhile, ordinary Spanish Jews, less subtle in their theological distinctions, seemingly concluded that there was little or no difference between the claim of various Jewish authorities that Scripture lacked testimony to Israel’s future redemption and the Christian argument that “old” Israel had been cast aside entirely. In Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah, Abarbanel spoke of the “many” who had been “felled by this corrupt thought”—that is, had “lost faith in the coming of our Messiah . . . as a result of these commentators [who are] ‘children that deal corruptly’ [Isa. 1:4].”174 He determined to “join words” against the subverters, a combination of Andalusian exegetes and recent writers from Christian Spain. With Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah, the monumental messianic corpus was complete. The messianic works mark a considerable disjunction in Abarbanel’s literary corpus, both when seen in terms of earlier writings and, be it noted, when seen in light of later ones as well.175 With his composition of two studies on creation shortly after completion of the messianic works, Abarbanel was on more familiar terrain. Here, too, he joined a Hispano-Jewish scholarly conversation long in progress. In the wake of the twelfth-century advent of substantial Aristotelian influence on Jewish thought, the question of the relationship between Aristotelian physics and the scriptural account of creation had taken on a uneasy urgency,

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since, in Maimonides’ blunt formulation, acceptance of the Aristotelian doctrine of eternity seemed to destroy the “Law in its principle” and give “the lie to every miracle.”176 On the face of things, Maimonides had not only accepted but defended a version of the doctrine of the world’s createdness in time, or at least established its possibility. Yet, as in all things Maimonidean, the matter was not so simple. As far as his contemporaries and successors were aware, Maimonides had omitted creation in time from his thirteen articles of faith.177 What is more, basing themselves on various Maimonidean pronouncements about its esoteric character, many of the Guide’s leading interpreters, including its foremost fourteenth-century expositors Joseph ibn Kaspi and Moses Narboni, treated this remarkable Maimonidean literary creation as a self-consistent interlocking textual network characterized by acts of calculated concealment of nontraditional views. Their Maimonidean exegeses accordingly yielded a surfeit of these sorts of views, the Aristotelian doctrine of the visible world’s eternity included. Reacting to Moses Narboni’s attribution of this doctrine to Maimonides, Joseph ibn Shem Tov’s son Shem Tov wrote: “Heaven forbid that the master should be of the opinion that this commentator thinks since he [Maimonides] says that the whole Torah would be toppled without belief in creation.”178 Like Shem Tov, Abarbanel was repelled by insinuations that Maimonides’ defense of creation was merely rhetorical. Suspicions among some that heterodox views lurked behind the Guide’s calculatedly cryptic literary exterior provided a stimulus for Shamayim hខ adashim. Acquaintances of Abarbanel wondered whether Maimonides’ arguments in favor of creation were “true, right, sound, and sturdy” or “rhetorical” and nondemonstrative and, if the latter, whether they had been advanced sincerely or “deceitfully . . . out of deference to the Torah.”179 In his answer, Abarbanel not only sought to shore up what he took to be the theological pillar of Judaism par excellence, but Maimonides’ traditionalist reputation as well. In Mif‘alot ’elohim, however, he admitted that where Maimonides ought to have been expansive in refuting the claims of the “adherents of eternity,” he had been “most terse.” Searching to justify such terseness bordering on prevarication, Abarbanel suggested that Maimonides “relied on his wisdom, which is great.” But, he admitted, Maimonides’ laconic defense has left less sagacious believers in a quandary: “A single handful does not satisfy a lion.”180 Making good these lacunae, Abarbanel offered a wealth of philosophic and exegetical argumentation in favor of creation in his two systematic studies of the topic. And, unlike Maimonides, he sought to demonstrate not only creation’s scientific possibility but its actuality, and creation ex nihilo to boot.181 In between the studies on creation, Abarbanel returned to biblical interpretation. After completing the Isaiah commentary begun in Corfu, he turned to the Minor Prophets, as a long-overlooked manuscript makes clear.182 Abarbanel’s departure from the order of the traditional Hebrew Bible is explicable


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in light of his novel threefold division of the books of the canon “according to the time in which they were written and compiled.”183 In 1503 Abarbanel headed for Venice. After time spent addressing the Venetian spice trade’s future, Abarbanel completed a commentary on Jeremiah, on the eve of Shavuot 1504. With the completion of a commentary on Ezekiel the year following, his interpretation of the Latter Prophets was complete. But what of the Messiah? If the passage of 1503 without the Messiah’s arrival made any deep impression on Abarbanel, if he was crushed by the failure of the Messiah to appear in this year, his experience of disappointment barely left a mark on his writing or practical activity in his final years. In Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah he revised up his main messianic date by a year, to 1504. In his commentary on Ezekiel he revised it again, expressing the hope that the Hebrew year 5265, due to end in fall of 1505, might still mark the conclusion of the forty-year period that had commenced in 1464 at the time of “the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.” As Abarbanel understood him, Ezekiel had referred to this period when he told of the children of Israel’s destiny to wander in the “wilderness of the peoples” (Ezek. 20:35).184 During the remaining years of his life, Abarbanel wrote nothing further about the messianic era’s precise timing. In 1505 Abarbanel revived his dream to write a commentary on the Torah. The exposition of Genesis was probably completed in the spring of that year and that of Exodus by September following. Commentaries on Leviticus, Numbers, and, it would seem, revisions to the Deuteronomy commentary followed.185 Abarbanel would give the commentary on the Torah “pride of place” in a list of works compiled a few years later. It was, he told Saul Hakohen, his “preeminent” work, in which he had included “all of [his] perceptions.”186 During his final years, Abarbanel took up old projects and initiated new ones. Though evidently the product of years of reflection, his Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed appears to have been mostly written in Venice. Apart from the epistle to Saul, the attempted expanded reconstruction of the lost theodicy, A Sedeq ‘olamim, and a replacement for Maខhazeh shaddai entitled Lehaqat ha-nevi’im round out the picture of Abarbanel’s final literary endeavors.187 As he described it, Lehaqat ha-nevi’im, which has not come down, was to serve as a “divine candle” illuminating the obscurities of prophecy for “the masters of Torah and lovers of wisdom among our people.” It may be supposed that Abarbanel again took strong issue with Maimonides’ naturalistic prophetology as in the Portuguese prototype but, predictably, he also stressed his intention to clarify Maimonides’ teaching, which he was sure earlier interpreters had misconstrued.188 As so often, Abarbanel would first explain and provisionally defend Maimonides, then challenge him. It was in such projects that Abarbanel was immersed when he received from Saul Hakohen, in spring 1506, twelve queries concerning the Guide and related philosophic matters. His reply took the form of a series of brief essays, to which

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he subjoined a “short discourse on the plan of the Guide and its manner of composition, parts, topics, and the linkage of its chapters one to another.”189 As requested, Abarbanel put Saul’s questions to his eldest son, though in answering them father and son did not always agree.190 In his epistolary preface to Saul, Abarbanel gave full expression to the convolutedness in his relationship to Maimonides. Confessing “transgressions” in his early youth (“my days of birth throes”) and “manhood” in the form of pursuit of “studies of the sciences, natural and divine,” he added that, “days of affliction having come” and he having “reached old age,” I said to myself: “Why become overwise in the books of the Greeks and ‘children of strangers’ [Isa. 2:6]’ any further? Why be stupefied?” I therefore restricted myself to study of the Guide and commentaries on the Holy Scriptures; for from it [such study] emerges all topics of the wisdom of the Torah and many bafflements with regard to its matters, which the master’s wisdom allays.191

Abarbanel continued that he did not believe “all that the master wrote absolutely.” Reversing the purport of Job’s rhetorical question to his wife following his accusation of impiety against her (“Shall we accept the good at the hand of God and not accept the bad?” [Job 2:10]), he told Saul: “The good [in Maimonides] we accept and the bad we do not.”192 Concluding this part of his soliloquy, Abarbanel observed that “it is incumbent upon us to praise the righteous master and guide” for repulsing the philosophers with respect to three fundamental propositions of the Torah: creation, divine knowledge, and providence.193 But, his obligation of praise discharged, Abarbanel went on to reveal his divided sentiments with respect to Maimonides. While crediting Maimonides for his rebuttal of philosophic critiques of cardinal Jewish beliefs, he added that as regards “the rest of the topics” there were in Maimonides “undoubtedly things against which the traditionalist scholar (ha-torani) will protest.” Whatever topics he had in mind (Maimonides’ teachings on miracles and prophecy suggest themselves),194 Abarbanel did not simply identify himself with this particular sort of remonstrating traditionalist. Nevertheless, he made clear his awareness of, and frequent sympathetic disposition towards, such a scholar. Saul was not alone in admiring Abarbanel’s Maimonidean scholarship. A perplexed student of the Guide who served as Abarbanel’s scribe speaks of his thirst for a correct understanding of Maimonides amid a welter of conflicting interpretations of his “precious book.” Whereas Moses Narboni, Joseph Albo, and others had failed to slake his thirst, the student, Haim Yonah, had found remedy in the “well of living waters, the flowing stream, the font of wisdom . . . the master in philosophy, the divine Isaac Abarbanel,” from whom he had heard “chapters from the Guide [interpreted] directly.”195


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Abarbanel’s response to Saul suggests a struggle with a bout of discouragement. His concluding words mix elements of conventional plaint with authentic brooding: “Thus sayeth the man who has seen the severity of expulsion and wandering, bitter and burdened by banishment from his homeland, who is tired and weary, unable to be at peace when the children of God’s people, the exile of Jerusalem in sefarad, are dispersed and separated.”196 But Abarbanel was no broken reed. The prospect of impending mortality apparently left his mental powers and intellectual enthusiasm intact even as physical frailties—and, perhaps, feelings of loneliness or other forms of emotional disquiet—intensified. He would still urge Saul to come from Crete in order to gain mastery of his “method of understanding this profound book,” Maimonides’ Guide.197 If all was not well during his final years, there were always study of the Bible and of Maimonides to invigorate the spirit and delight the mind.

Chapter 3

“To The Help of the Lord Against the Mighty”: ‘Aខteret zeqenim 鵻

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barbanel drew the title for his first work, completed in Lisbon sometime in the late 1460s,1 from a verse in Proverbs: “Children’s children are the crown of elders (‘aខteret zeqenim) / And the glory of children are their ancestors” (Prov. 17:6). His choice reflected the work’s initial impetus: to restore the reputation of an obscure group of biblical figures mentioned fleetingly in Exod. 24, the “nobles of the children of Israel,” from denigration by some of their latter-day “children”—that is, rabbinic and medieval commentators who had been critical of them. This pious intention was not without complications, however; for to vindicate the biblical nobles, Abarbanel had to controvert his own rabbinic and medieval elders to whom, ostensibly, he owed deference.2 ‘Aខteret zeqenim is the obvious place to begin any exploration of Abarbanel’s negotiations with texts and teachings handed down to him from the Jewish past, and not only because it was “the first [literary] fruit” that God had given him.3 More centrally, this work, seen in light of its contents, and even its very title, evokes many of the manifold “loyalties and ambivalences”4 embedded in the concept of tradition. ‘Aខteret zeqenim’s introduction makes a case for exegetical independence and intellectual innovation as part of its effort to delimit midrashic authority. Later chapters reveal points of contact and conflict in Abarbanel’s relationship with his most revered medieval predecessor, Maimonides. At the same time, this exegetical monograph evinces Abarbanel’s earliest effort to recover Maimonides from the radically Aristotelian commentary tradition that had coalesced around his Guide. ‘Aខteret zeqenim also provides a good sense of Abarbanel’s complex stance before the kabbalists—one of formal but qualified allegiance to various teachings embodied in the Kabbalah but one of distance even from their most “respectable” propagators. In short, Abarbanel’s first work provides a revelatory glimpse of its author at the earliest stage of his literary career standing before time-honored rabbinic interpretations and the

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main medieval claimants to the mantle of Jewish tradition, the philosophers and kabbalists. It begins to demonstrate, thereby, the salience of Abarbanel’s stance towards tradition as an orienting principal in study of his writings. Twice Abarbanel stresses that ‘Aខteret zeqenim was spurred by his wish to overturn negative evaluations of the nobles;5 yet despite a genuine interest in their plight, he also signals that his discussion will range far beyond this topic to include many things better and more important than it with regard to the rest of the doubts and issues related to the pericope [in which the nobles appear] and with regard to the promises made to the forefathers as well as our master Moses’ rank in prophecy, wisdom many times over . . . such that it will seem like this initial impetus [for the work] is of far less dignity than the other principles treated in the discourse.6

In the end, the nobles occupy only a relatively small place in ‘Aខteret zeqenim. The lion’s share of the work examines (“for the sake of investigatory comprehensiveness,” as Abarbanel somewhat disingenuously puts it) the larger scriptural passage in which the nobles’ story appeared, on the premise that “most of the foundations of the Torah and its secrets . . . are hidden within it.”7 The result is a systematic tract encompassing themes that continued to engage Abarbanel throughout his life: providence, prophecy, cosmology, the uniqueness of the Jewish people and their land, human felicity, and more.

“And Discretion to the Youth” Abarbanel begins ‘Aខteret zeqenim by relating that he has “heard the accusation of many, skillful in knowledge, discerning in thought, new and old, who spread an evil report about men who are righteous and good . . . saying they have blasphemed God in their hearts and that the nobles of the children of Israel imputed things that were not so [to the Lord their God (cf. 2 Kings 19:9)].” He was alluding to an exegetical tradition surrounding the ascent of the Israelites leaders up Mount Sinai as described in Exod. 24: Then went up Moses, and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under His feet the like of a paved work of sapphire stone, and the like of the very heaven for clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid not His hand; and they beheld God and did eat and drink. (Exod. 24:9–11)

This obscure biblical narrative raised vexing questions: How could these leaders have “seen the God of Israel” when, according to the divine pro-

“To the Help of the Lord Against the Mighty”: ‘Aខteret zeqenim

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nouncement of Exod. 33:20, no man could see God and live? What did it mean that they saw what lay beneath God’s feet? Why did God not “lay His hand” on the anonymous “nobles of the children of Israel” mentioned in the passage and why, more fundamentally, should He have been expected to do so? What was to be gleaned from the fact that the nobles “did eat and drink”? To resolve some of these knotty questions, various rabbinic interpreters had suggested that the nobles committed a grave transgression (for which, on some readings, they were eventually put to death): “And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid not His hand.” From this [i.e., the expression “He laid not His hand”], said R. Phinehas, it may be inferred that they deserved to have a hand laid on them. For R. Joshua said: did provisions go up with them to Sinai that you should be able to say, “And they beheld God and did eat and drink”? No, but it teaches you that they feasted their eyes upon on the divine presence [shekhinah] “and they beheld God” as a man looks upon his neighbor while in the act of eating and drinking.8

While containing harsh evaluations of the nobles, however,9 rabbinic literature offered positive appraisals as well. Thus, in the immediate continuation of the just cited midrash, R. Yohanan’s view averred that “they [the nobles] derived actual nourishment [from their vision], as is proved by the citation ‘In the light of the king’s countenance is life’ [Prov. 16:15].” The paraphrastic translation of Exod. 24:11 in the Aramaic “Targum Onkelos” sounded a similar note as it addressed several of the enumerated exegetical problems: “To the great ones of the children of Israel no harm was done and they saw the glory of God and rejoiced in their sacrifices, which were accepted favorably as if they were eating and drinking.” Apart from speaking cryptically of “feasting their eyes upon the divine presence,” rabbinic denunciations of the nobles generally neglected to specify their precise offense. By contrast, the critics described by Abarbanel indict them on the very specific charge of exchanging “the glory of the Lord for the likeness of a dumb stone . . . attributing corporeality to God.”10 This view had its origin in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, where the nobles were depicted as “overhasty” students who “strained their thoughts” and achieved an imperfect apprehension of God “inasmuch as corporeality entered into it to some extent.”11 But though he incorporates Maimonides’ distinctive critique of the nobles into his presentation from the outset, Abarbanel does not reveal initially that Maimonides is among the nobles’ foremost detractors. Instead, in distressed but respectful tones, he declares himself “bent over from hearing . . . wise men [the nobles’ critics] . . . judging unfavorably these men who are perfect with us, all of them holy, with God in their midst.”12 Could it possibly be “good in the eyes

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of the Lord,” he wonders, “who commanded our fathers to ‘honor the face of the elder’ [Lev. 19:32], that a man should arise in the midst of His people who possesses knowledge by way of intellect (yodea‘ da‘at be-ruaខh ha-sekhel) . . . and catch by the beard an elder that has acquired wisdom, a wise man or prophet, and not take mercy on him, saying rather ‘pursue him and snatch him . . . ?’ ” Better to “judge the prophets and wise men favorably,” counsels Abarbanel, “as the divine Torah commanded and the rabbinic sages instructed . . . , as Maimonides wrote in the introduction to his book [the Guide].”13 Abarbanel’s appeal to rabbinic and Maimonidean authority in support of his demand for favorable judgment is, it turns out, ironic. In the passage to which he refers, Maimonides had asked his reader to pass favorable judgment on anything in his discourse that the reader deemed “in some way harmful.” The sages enjoined that even the vulgar be given the benefit of the doubt, asserted Maimonides, alluding to a well-known Mishnaic directive, “all the more should this be so with respect to our erudite ones . . . who are trying to help us to the truth as they apprehend it.”14 But as Abarbanel soon reveals, Maimonides had judged the “nobles of the children of Israel” unfavorably and in so doing had appealed to condemnatory rabbinic precedent.15 By invoking Maimonides’ rabbinically based entreaty for kind judgment, Abarbanel quietly calls attention to some sages’ and Maimonides’ failure to heed their own advice.16 “Unable to abide” this disparagement of the nobles, Abarbanel sets out to demonstrate that their apprehension of the Deity “contained no blemish” and to explain the “manner of their knowledge.” In so doing, he asserts that he will not lean on “the authority of tradition (koaខh ha-qabbalah)” but on that which his own “spirit” and exegetical digging have unearthed by way of an “understanding of the verses’ contextual sense as they are.”17 As he will eschew past authority even where it favors his argument, so will Abarbanel renounce it where it weighs against him. Explaining his willingness to defy previous condemnations of the nobles, Abarbanel begins what develops into a programmatic statement regarding his grounds for such disregard. Abarbanel affirms that he would not defend the nobles were the opinions of those who had criticized them a “received tradition (qabbalah) in their hands”; were such the case it would be as if “God had spoken.” But, he insists, the bearers of authoritative opinion possessed no tradition regarding the nobles. Rather, among the rabbinic sages “each individual turned in his own direction concerning this matter, some interpreting positively and some negatively. Each judged as he saw fit on the basis of the most compelling argument (sevara’ goveret) and as his independent rational analysis of the verses’ contextual sense dictated (be-ruaខh hខ okhmah u-vinah, ruaខh da‘at bi-feshat ha-ketuvim).”18 Midrashic judgments concerning the nobles—and by extension other biblical figures and events—are incontrovertible when they reflect a “received tradition.” When,


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however, nonlegal rabbinic sources speak with more than one voice, it may be inferred that no such tradition exists. It follows, since “the chains of tradition are not in their [the rabbinic sages’] hands,” that “the gates of refutation” to rabbinic evaluations of the nobles are “not locked.” Unfavorable or otherwise, these assessments reflect ultimately fallible interpretations of the biblical text rather than indubitably true received insights to which the sages were heir.19 As one willing to deviate from rabbinic views, Abarbanel had to devise guidelines for doing so. In ‘Aខteret zeqenim he lays down the negative rule that (nonlegal) midrashim derived from the independent reflections of rabbinic sages are nonbinding, a long-standing feature of gaonic and Spanish thinking about the nature of midrashic authority.20 His reliance on this traditional delimitation of rabbinic authority aside, Abarbanel grappled with a further difficulty: could he presume that his own reflections were on the level of those of his forebears? After all, those who had “pursued” the nobles were “the mighty men of old,” foremost among them “the crown of the glory of wisdom,” Maimonides. After offering fulsome praise of “the master,” Abarbanel affirms that it would be impudent—and imprudent—to criticize him, since “all who hear [my reproach of Maimonides] will laugh at me.”21 At this critical juncture, Abarbanel sets aside his immediate concern with the nobles to deliver an ardent soliloquy in defense of his participation in the process of new discovery. “Our ancestors have left us room to comprehend words of understanding,” he asserts, building on a talmudic formula invoked elsewhere by him as well as by various predecessors and contemporaries.22 Then, turning to Scripture, he appeals to the words of Moses: “Not with our ancestors [alone] did the Lord make this covenant ‘Moses commanded us the Torah’ but also with us, those of us who are here, the lesser and the greater” (cf. Deut 5:3).23 If, however, past wisdom is simply superior to that of the present, then the right of dissent has no practical application. A rabbinic dictum alluded to by Abarbanel depicts a process of steep and seemingly unalterable intellectual decline from one generation to the next, but Abarbanel counters with an emphatic rejoinder: And even though the hearts [i.e., minds] of the ancients are like the opening of the ’ulam . . . and we are nothing,24 still we have a portion and inheritance in the house of our Father and there are many openings [to advance fresh insights] for us and our children forever. Always, all day long, a latter-day [sage] will arise . . . who seeks the word of the Lord—if he seeks it like silver he will . . . find food for his soul that his ancestors did not envisage; for it is a spirit in man and the Lord is in the heavens to give wisdom to fools and knowledge and discretion to the youth.25

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If scholarly capacities have diminished, God yet gives “discretion to the youth.” Of course, Abarbanel’s attempt to refute “ancients” in ‘Aខteret zeqenim implies that latter-day fools (among whom he includes himself for the rhetorical moment) may sometimes surpass their predecessors with the benefit of such divine aid. It is instructive to compare Abarbanel’s defense of exegetical independence (and, by analogy, intellectual freedom generally) to arguments adduced by a long line of medieval and modern Jewish and Christian scholars who sought to explain their ability to advance insights overlooked by their predecessors. Many such employed the analogy, traced to the turn-of-the-eleventh-century Christian grammarian and philosopher Bernard of Chartres, of “the dwarf standing on the shoulder of a giant.” The argument was that the insights of previous scholars were the monumental foundations on which their own lesser but nonetheless more farseeing perceptions rested.26 This metaphor made its way into Hebrew literature, where it has enjoyed a sustained afterlife,27 not long after its advent in Christendom. Yet though it was known to some of his contemporaries,28 Abarbanel, in justifying his right of autonomous reconsideration, studiously avoids this “dwarf/giant” image and the line of argumentation it suggests. Instead, he places emphasis on the highly individual quest of the contemporary scholar seeking food for the soul that his predecessors do not supply. The upshot is that valuable insights in modernity need not rest on past achievements, however lofty. Spirited in substance, Abarbanel’s defense of innovation is deferential in tone. Expressions of filial awe abound as the litany of assertive arguments grows. The intellects of the early sages reach “the heart of the heavens” while the new generation is “nothing.” And these sages are everywhere described as “ancestors”: “Our ancestors have left us room . . .”; “Not with our ancestors [alone] did the Lord make this covenant”; “He will find food for his soul that his ancestors did not envisage.” The new generation, far from trying to uproot the past, merely seeks its “inheritance in the house of our Father.” The past’s superiority is acknowledged with rhetorical flourish even as its authority is qualified.29 Abarbanel’s respectful disposition disappears rapidly, however, when he comes to apply the right of exegetical independence to the case at hand. Having rested his claim on a broad theoretical footing, he advances final grounds for his attempted rehabilitation of the nobles, arguing that since the nobles’ accusers summoned strength . . . to wage war on the nobles of the people, priest and prophet, . . . talked impudently . . . , so I will not restrain my mouth; for the relation of my understanding to their understanding is many times greater than the worth of their intellects’ understanding to the understanding of the


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nobles in whom the Lord’s spirit spoke—especially as they [the critics] would curse [the nobles] and I shall bless.30

Abarbanel concludes his introduction with a forthright and incisive critique of his “elders.” It is they who have disregarded the disparity between earlier and later generations and “talked impudently” against those greater than them. Specifically, they have ignored the fundamental distinction between prophets and nonprophets—a distinction to which he alludes here (“in whom the Lord’s spirit spoke”) as he did somewhat more ambiguously earlier in his introduction, when contrasting those who possess “knowledge by way of intellect” with a “wise man or prophet.” The nobles’ prophetic character establishes their superiority over their latter-day critics; hence, Abarbanel has not only the right but also the duty to defend these prophets of antiquity even though they are criticized by his own “elders.” Of the latter Abarbanel says that he will “speak and not fear them, in accordance with the Torah.” Far from being an act of irreverence towards the past, his dissent is demanded by the Torah, tradition’s highest authority. “To the help of the Lord against the mighty!” he exclaims.31 His rhetorical call to arms notwithstanding, the reason for Abarbanel’s preoccupation with the nobles remains none too clear by the end of ‘Aខteret zeqenim’s introduction. The problem becomes more acute when the reader, turning to the body of the work, finds that only a small portion thereof discusses the nobles at all.32 Yet Abarbanel insists that the nobles’ plight has provided the impetus for his wide-ranging tract. As he was sensitive to matters of structure already at this early stage of his career—as the highly structured form of ‘Aខteret zeqenim33 reveals—the disproportion between this insistence and the final arrangement of the work demands explanation. Abarbanel’s charge, “To the help of the Lord against the mighty!” brings a solution into focus. It serves as a reminder that the nobles’ vision had become an interpretive crux by Abarbanel’s day, mostly due to the influence of the foremost among the “mighty men of old” who had pursued the nobles, Maimonides. Maimonides had cast a spotlight on the nobles in Guide, I, 5, and a host of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century philosophic writers, including Shem Tov Falaquera, Moses Narboni, Joseph ibn Kaspi, and Gersonides, had followed suit, reflecting on the exegetical and theological implications of the brief and elliptical biblical narrative in which the nobles’ story was contained. These interpreters debated not only the nature and extent of the nobles’ failure but also whether to accept Maimonides’ negative appraisal of them at all.34 In a fashion that betrayed the lasting stigma of Maimonides’ unfavorable characterization of them as “overhasty students,” the nobles could also be assimilated to other forms of lack of restraint—risky eschatological recklessness, for instance.35 The “elders” of Exod. 24 continued to garner attention in settings literary and popular—and at times in his immediate surroundings—down through

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Abarbanel’s day. Joseph ibn Shem Tov adopted Maimonides’ condemnatory interpretation of their divine vision with but few changes in a sermon delivered at a family celebration.36 A passing mention in an exegetical essay of Abarbanel’s Lisbon teacher reveals Joseph Hayyun’s understanding that these elders were not prophets at all.37 As shall be seen presently, Abarbanel had discussed some of the philosophic intricacies of the nobles’ theophany with a “contemporary scholar.” He had also been disturbed to hear a preacher (in Lisbon one presumes) interpreting their divine vision to their manifest discredit “amidst large assemblies of Jews.” For one seeking to make a scholarly name for himself, then, the enigmatic episode of Exod. 24:9–11 presented an ideal point of departure for a maiden literary sortie. Not only could Abarbanel apply his exegetical talents to a now notorious biblical narrative for which, as will soon be seen, he had a strikingly original interpretation; but because this narrative appeared in a biblical passage which, as he saw it, contained “most of the foundations of the Torah and its secrets,” his analysis of the nobles could serve as a springboard for more wideranging discussion. In the venture of redeeming the nobles lay the seeds of the exploration of knotty theological issues that became ‘Aខteret zeqenim.

The Nobles’ Vision By incorporating Maimonides’ interpretation of the nobles’ divine vision into ‘Aខteret zeqenim from the start, Abarbanel implies that all critics of the nobles, rabbinic ones included, share in the Maimonidean understanding of their theophany. Likewise, in his systematic discussion, Abarbanel begins by citing rabbinic sources but turns immediately to “the divine master who sheds light on the earth,” Maimonides, to clarify “in what [the nobles’] sin consisted,” as if Maimonides’ ascription of a corporeal vision of the Deity to the nobles represents all that earlier detractors could have had in mind.38 It seems unlikely that Abarbanel was oblivious to the possibility that rabbinic allegations against the nobles might be glossed differently, but he was probably inclined to accept Maimonides’ reconstruction of them more uncritically than usual to spare himself the difficult task of recasting obscure midrashim in terms with which he then could take issue. What, for instance, was he to make of the aforementioned midrashic claim that the elders had “fed their eyes on the Shekhinah as a man looks upon his neighbor while in the act of eating or drinking”? Faced with the inscrutability of this indictment, Abarbanel must have been relieved that Maimonides had at least accused the nobles of an offense that was readily understood. Yet, as Abarbanel observed, Maimonides’ case against the nobles was, in its details, none too clear. Having asserted at the beginning of Guide, I, 5 that


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intellectual perfection must be preceded by moral perfection and by the acquisition of certain preparatory sciences, Maimonides then singled out Moses as one whose apprehension of God was preceded by fear of looking upon God. Contrasting Moses with the “nobles of the children of Israel,” he argued that these latter had been “overhasty, strained their thoughts, and achieved apprehension, but only an imperfect one,” and that it was the flawed contents of their divine vision—and emphatically not an actual description of the Deity— that Scripture had recorded: “And they saw the God of Israel, and there was under His feet, etc.” . . . These words are solely intended to present a criticism of their act of seeing, not to describe the manner of their seeing. Thus they were solely blamed for the form that their apprehension took inasmuch as corporeality entered into it to some extent—this being necessitated by their overhasty rushing forward before they had reached perfection.39

Like various later figures in Jewish history as understood by Maimonides, including the rabbinic sage Elisha ben Abuyah and even the prophet Ezekiel, the nobles had sought an understanding of divine matters while lacking sufficient preparation.40 As a result, they achieved an anthropomorphic divine apprehension wholly antithetical to Maimonidean theology’s unsurpassed stress on God’s incorporeality.41 But in just what way had the nobles’ “act of seeing” involved divine corporeality? This, avows Abarbanel, Maimonides nowhere explained beyond a passing remark in Guide, I, 28, the essence of which was that the nobles had apprehended “the true reality of the first matter”— that matter from which, in the Aristotelian understanding, all physical objects in the sublunar world were composed.42 Abarbanel discovered Maimonides attempting to substantiate this assertion elsewhere in the Guide,43 but he found the terse account of Guide, 1, 5 otherwise unadorned. Characteristically, Abarbanel reviews earlier interpretations of Maimonides’ critique of the nobles before explicating it in his own way. In so doing, he draws on the burgeoning exegetical tradition that had built up around the Guide, an interchange he had had with a scholar, and a popular presentation of Maimonides’ interpretation of the nobles by an unnamed preacher. Abarbanel relays first what he took to be Moses Narboni’s understanding of Maimonides’ approach to the nobles’ error, according to which they apprehended the Active Intellect as the “proximate cause of the first matter.” On this view, their mistake was to overlook the fact that “intellect, inasmuch as it is intellect, does not move matter.”44 Abarbanel pronounces himself “surprised” at this interpretation, however, arguing that Maimonides surely could not have believed that the nobles merited capital punishment for so slight a lapse. In

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fact, according to a pronouncement of Aristotle quoted in the Guide, this cosmological understanding would be wholly correct.45 Abarbanel now imparts the view of Zerahiyah Halevi, who held that the nobles perceived God as a “force in the sphere of the sun.” Though Abarbanel does not explain this interpretation’s origins or implications, they can be readily reconstructed. Maimonides had taught that the Israelites who left Egypt were inured to ideas and practices of Sabianism, a name given by him to what he depicted as the near universal pagan religion of the ancient world. The Sabians believed that the gods were the heavenly bodies and the sun “the greatest deity.” The “utmost attained by the speculation of those who philosophized in those times,” claimed Maimonides, was that “God was the spirit of the sphere.”46 Viewed in light of the teaching that vestiges of Sabianism endured among the Israelites after the exodus from Egypt, Zerahiyah’s suggestion that the nobles perceived God as a force in the sphere of the sun implies that Maimonides considered them still to be under the sway of the thoroughgoing materialism of the ancient world. This interpretation was popular in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Joseph ibn Kaspi told of “a few” of his contemporaries who had propounded a similar view,47 while Abarbanel’s older contemporary, Asher Crescas, noted that “there are some” who explained Maimonides to mean that the nobles perceived God as the “spirit of the sphere,” this being the view that Maimonides had described as the “utmost attained by the speculation of those who philosophized in those times.”48 Without allusion to the possible Sabian implications of Zerahiyah’s interpretation, Abarbanel condemns it as a “worthless perception into the divine master’s words.” Maimonides states that the nobles apprehended “the true reality of first matter which derives from Him,” he notes. He says nothing about the nobles’ apprehension of God as a force in the sphere of the sun.49 Behind this exegetical argument one senses Abarbanel’s recoil from the notion that biblical eminences might have entertained so crude a perception of the Deity. Abarbanel also rejects on exegetical grounds the opinion of an unnamed “contemporary scholar” with whom he had discussed Maimonides’ understanding of the nobles. On his view, Maimonides believed that the nobles perceived God as a “universal corporeal form attached to the first matter at every moment.”50 Again, the sources of this view can easily be recovered, though Abarbanel does not undertake to so do. Medieval Aristotelians held that the matter out of which the four basic elements were composed (“second matter”) came about through a conjoining of “first matter” and “corporeal form.” Abarbanel would discuss this “corporeal form” at great length in his epistle to Saul Hakohen, arguing that no such notion existed in Aristotle despite its prevalence among his medieval glossators.51 In the anonymous scholar’s understanding, Maimonides believed that the nobles ascription of corporeality to God lay in their perception of the Deity as the formal cause of first matter. While conced-


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ing that this interpretation has textual support, Abarbanel rejects it on the grounds that it does not conform to the assertion in Guide, I, 28 that the nobles’ apprehension “had as its object the first matter and the relation of the latter to God, inasmuch as it is the first among the things He has created that necessitates generation and corruption.” In other words, Abarbanel insists that Maimonides believed that the nobles perceived God as first matter’s efficient but not formal cause.52 Finally, there is the preacher heard by Abarbanel expostulating “amidst large assemblies of Jews,” who offered the philosophically less refined suggestion that Maimonides believed the nobles apprehended God as “some sort of corporeal entity.” After chiding this preacher for ignoring all other statements concerning the nobles in the Guide, Abarbanel censures all of the interpretations that he has enumerated: Heaven forfend . . . that the master and teacher of righteousness should think concerning the nobles . . . that which these scholars understood from him after that which the Torah testified regarding them [that] “they saw the God of Israel,” which Onkelos paraphrases as “they saw the glory of the God of Israel.” Though it does not devolve upon me to explicate the master’s words in this discourse, behold, in order to save him from the mouths of lions who think iniquitous thoughts about him I shall declare my opinion concerning the [correct] interpretation of his words before investigating whether his opinion corresponds to the truth or not.53

Having justified his right to take issue with the nobles’ critics, Maimonides foremost among them, Abarbanel now seeks to rescue the “master” from “lions” who impute to him “iniquitous thoughts.” Paradoxical as it seems in light of his defense of the nobles from Maimonidean attack, Abarbanel’s undertaking to save Maimonides is in step with ‘Aខteret zeqenim’s animating impulse. After all, if he challenged Maimonides’ deprecatory view of their common biblical elders, Abarbanel also beheld Maimonides as a master and guide who had himself been maligned. As he explained, many Maimonidean interpreters had “gone far from him [Maimonides].”54 The verse upon which Abarbanel drew told of one whose “friends have gone far from him” (Prov. 19:7), the intimation being that Maimonides’ ostensibly friendly esotericist commentators had in many cases strayed from or distorted their would-be master’s true teachings. To rescue the master from such injurious commentators, Abarbanel sets out to explain the true meaning of the Maimonidean condemnation of the nobles that he himself seeks to overturn. In light of his critiques of earlier Maimonidean expositors, it occasions little surprise that Abarbanel’s assessment of Maimonides’ interpretation of the nobles’ sin takes its bearings from the statement of Guide, I, 28 that the nobles

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apprehended “the true reality of first matter which derives from Him.” In essence (though, as always, Abarbanel does not hesitate to expatiate), Abarbanel offers a restrictive understanding of this assertion and of Maimonides’ elaboration that the nobles perceived “the first matter and the relation of the latter to God inasmuch as it is the first among things He has created that necessitates generation and corruption”: the nobles apprehended only God and the first matter but not the intermediaries through which the former controls the latter—the intellects and spheres.55 That this interpretation was widespread in late medieval Spanish Guide interpretation is evidenced by Profet Duran’s reference to it and Asher Crescas’s attribution of it to “some commentators.”56 Abarbanel next indicates how this error implied an ascription of corporeality to God. After quoting the relevant Maimonidean text and alluding to the medieval view that the spheres possessed souls through which they experienced desire of the higher beings, i.e., the Deity and the intellects, he glosses Maimonides’ “They were solely blamed for the form that their apprehension took inasmuch as corporeality entered into it to some extent” as follows: He means that since that which moves the [four] elements to existence is not like that which moves the sphere—[for that] which [moves the sphere] moves it by desire57 whereas that which moves the first matter and the elements in their [various] configurations must move them by means of a corporeal force and through [bodily] contact—therefore, corporeality entered into the apprehension of the elders, since they ascribed an element of corporeality to the Creator as a result of saying that He is the proximate cause of first matter.58

Since bodies composed of first matter are moved only by another body acting on them, the nobles ascribed corporeality to the Deity when they viewed God as the “proximate” instead of the “ultimate” cause of first matter. Having contrived what he deems a more theologically palatable and exegetically sound explanation of Maimonides’ critique of the nobles, Abarbanel offers a paean to the master that ends in harsh denunciation of his disciples: Blessed be the Creator who created him [Maimonides] to perfect His people . . . and happy is the one who approaches [the task of] understanding his [Maimonides’] words with clear method (‘iyyun zakh) and upstanding beliefs (’emunot meshubaខhot). This enhances one’s preparedness to understand words of wisdom and not to see in the master’s words perversity . . . , even though men from among the children of Israel, some inadvertently and some because they were ensnared by the corruption of their beliefs, stumbled in understanding the words of the master . . . in many places in his book [the Guide]. They fell into the trap of their heresy . . . and spoke against God and against Moses, woe to the creations for the humiliation of the Torah, woe to them because they have gone far from him. They spoke wrongly about him, did not believe his word, did not fathom his intention, pursued him with their evil devices . . . 59


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Singled out initially as the nobles’ foremost pursuer, Maimonides is, it turns out, himself the object of pursuit by disciples armed with “evil devices.” Abarbanel does not identify the devices, but he alludes to them when he states that many Maimonideans “did not believe his word.” They are hermeneutic devices that assume that the Guide was crafted to communicate, on its esoteric plane, radically untraditional ideas at variance with the more conventional teachings expressed by Maimonides on the work’s surface. Though concerned formally with defamation of Maimonides by his esotericist interpreters, Abarbanel indicates through biblically and rabbinically loaded language that a more basic subversion of tradition is at stake in the esotericists’ exegetical sabotage of Maimonides’ salutary intent. Given Maimonides’ stature and influence, misguided interpretations of him not only tarnish him personally but engender the “humiliation of Torah” lamented in a well-known Mishnah,60 as false conclusions, now deemed authoritative through their grounding in Maimonides, are spread in classical Judaism’s name. For this reason, to distort the Guide is to “speak against God and against Moses”: Moses Maimonides to be sure but, as the verse invoked by Abarbanel (Num. 21:5) indicates, his biblical namesake and transmitter of the revelation embodied in Scripture as well. In making his claim, Abarbanel trades on the famous Moses-Moses identification that had gained classic expression in the adage “From Moses [son of Amram] to Moses [son of Maimon] none arose such as Moses.”61 His harsh condemnation of them notwithstanding, Abarbanel actually shares much in common with Maimonides’ esotericist commentators. He, like them, takes Maimonides’ account of the nobles as the starting point for his own deliberations concerning the nobles’ vision, and he, like them (and Maimonides before), finds allusions to the separate intellects, celestial spheres, and sublunar elements embedded in Holy Writ. An exegetical aside made in the course of developing his own explanation of the nobles’ vision illustrates how ingrained in Abarbanel was the habit of reading classical Jewish texts in light of the philosophic categories so long familiar to the Jews of the Islamic east, Spain, and other southern Mediterranean centers. Abarbanel takes the phrase “the like of the very heaven for clearness” (Exod. 24:10) as a reference to the outermost celestial sphere; this is telling, if not exceptional, inasmuch as he invests the biblical text’s ‘eខsem with its medieval philosophic meaning of “essence.”62 What is truly instructive is Abarbanel’s further comment that “it is not as Rashi explained that it [‘eខsem] denotes ‘appearance’ . . . since the term essence would not be used with regard to appearance, which is an accident.”63 Abarbanel reflexively transposes not only biblical expressions but even the philosophically innocent comments of his northern French predecessor into Aristotelian terms, as if the language of essences and accidents had been spoken by Jews in all times and places. Though very real, Abarbanel’s differences with the esotericists stemmed from a shared universe of discourse in which Maimonides was the “prime mover.”

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Such obvious points of contact with Maimonides and his followers aside, Abarbanel’s account of the nobles’ vision is more striking as a witness to his decidedly different theological tendencies. Glossing “And they saw the God of Israel and there was under His feet . . .” (Exod. 24:10), Abarbanel writes that “it means they perceived that the Lord who is the God of Israel and [who] exercises providence [over them] directly and [who] took them out of Egypt and gave them the Torah—that He Himself governs the lower beings and he governs all of the higher beings, the separate intellects and the spheres.” In his interpretation, Abarbanel preserves the philosophic tenor of Maimonides’ account but characteristically places the universal-cosmological component within the larger framework of God’s special relationship with the Jewish people. (This, it might be noted, makes for elegant exegesis, since the verse does stress that it was “the God of Israel” seen by the elders.) In other words, in Abarbanel’s rendering, ancient Israelite elders perceived precisely those higher realms of the cosmos (the spheres and separate intellects) that they had failed to perceive in Abarbanel’s rendering of Maimonides’ view of the matter. More importantly, they understood what Abarbanel would expect pious and prophetic ancient Israelite leaders to recognize: that the One presiding over these realms was the very God who “took them out of Egypt and gave them the Torah.” The transcendent God of the cosmos, the God of the philosophers, is also the immanent and provident overseer of Jewish history. On the heels of this interpretation, Abarbanel raises an additional question: why were the Israelite leaders ordered to ascend Mount Sinai in the first place? Earlier in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, paying characteristic attention to narrative structure, he had concluded that the invitation was related to the divine pronouncement found at the outset of the larger pericope that began, “Behold I send an angel before thee to keep thee by the way . . .” (Exod. 23:20): I think . . . that since the angel’s coming to the people might have caused them to be mistaken with regards to its divinity, [such that] they would have worshiped it like the rest of the idol worshipers, . . . God commanded Moses ‘Come up to the Lord . . .’ [Exod. 24:1]—all this, so that they [the elders, according to Abarbanel’s preferred interpretation] should apprehend . . . His rulership over all of the separate intellects and spheres.64

Abarbanel now reaffirms that the elders’ instruction to ascend the mountain was so “they would know that the angel being sent to them was a messenger of God possessing no element of divinity.”65 Abarbanel next tackles two more problems. The first concerns the dramatis personae of Exod. 24: if the “nobles of the children of Israel” of verse 11 are identical with the “seventy elders of Israel” mentioned two verses earlier, why refer to them by a new name? The second concerns an apparent scriptural


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pleonasm: why after recording that the Israelite leaders “saw (vayyir’u) the God of Israel” does Scripture record that they “beheld (vayyeខhezu) God”? Abarbanel resolves the first question by distinguishing two groups hitherto treated as one. There were elders and there were nobles, and the latter did not ascend Mount Sinai at all; for though they were “wise men” and “heads of the tribes,” they “did not attain the level of pure prophecy like the elders.” As a prop for this interpretation, Abarbanel offers the verse, “And to the nobles of the children of Israel He sent not forth His hand.” On his reading, what God forbore to extend was not the hand of His punishment but the “hand of His prophecy.”66 With the distinction between elders and nobles in hand, Abarbanel easily resolves his second question. There is no redundancy in the biblical account of the leaders’ apprehension; rather, Scripture speaks of two groups. The elders received an exalted vision of the Deity; such did Exod. 24:10 signify (as Judah Halevi had claimed long before Abarbanel) when it stated that the elders “saw the God of Israel.”67 By contrast, the nobles merely “beheld God,” as Exod. 24:11 related, the “pure prophecy” of the elders exceeding their ken. In the nobles’ “brief” prophetic vision, the divine was apprehended, but only in a “general and incomplete (bilti mushlemet)” way.68 If, by the end of his long exegetical voyage, Abarbanel has come far from the soaring rhetorical exaltation of the nobles in ‘Aខteret zeqenim’s introduction, his differences with those who had previously condemned them remain. In describing the nobles’ vision as “imperfect,” Maimonides had denigrated it as severely flawed.69 By contrast, the “general, incomplete” apprehension of God attained by Abarbanel’s nobles marks a major human achievement. The essential argument of ‘Aខteret zeqenim’s introduction remains: the nobles were prophets, and as such must be viewed as superior to their postbiblical, nonprophetic critics. This argument in turn points to the quarrel between philosophy and prophecy, a recurring motif of Abarbanel’s first work that, in its connection to Abarbanel’s defense of the nobles, remains in this work none too luminous. By contrast, the connection is brightly underscored in Abarbanel’s discussion of the nobles in his Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed. To understand this connection, and, thereby, Abarbanel’s perception of the larger issues at stake in the medieval controversy over the nobles’ vision, it proves necessary to advert briefly to this discussion.

The Nobles and the Revelation at Sinai The main lesson of Guide, I, 5 is that intellectual perfection based on understanding of the highest things is attainable only gradually and after various preliminary requirements have been met.70 A human being should “not hasten too much to accede to this great and sublime matter [knowledge of God] at the

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first try without having made his soul undergo training in the sciences and the different kinds of knowledge, having truly improved his character, and having extinguished the desires and cravings engendered in him by his imagination.”71 The nobles are said to illustrate this point and Maimonides buttresses this observation with an elliptical biblical citation: “It is said accordingly, ‘And let the priests also, that come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them’ (Exod. 19:22).” In seeking to unfold the teaching of Guide, I, 5 in his Commentary on the Guide, Abarbanel forgoes the opportunity to make the nobles’ case; as a commentator on the Guide, he says, it is his task to explicate Maimonides, not to criticize him.72 In this case he adheres to this policy.73 Following his standard procedure, however, he considers not only Maimonides’ words but also those of his commentators. And when reviewing the latter, he feels quite free to criticize, for, as he had already noted in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, some commentators imputed esoteric views to Maimonides that, Abarbanel was certain, the master never intended. In his view, two prominent esoteric Maimonidean interpreters had done just that in their commentaries on Guide, I, 5. Both Moses Narboni and Profet Duran discerned a radical teaching lurking beneath Maimonides’ enigmatic utterances concerning the nobles. Specifically, they found hints of a parallel between the preparations required to achieve intellectual perfection as enumerated at the beginning of Guide, I, 5 and the preparations made by the Israelites prior to the revelation at Mount Sinai, alluded to by Maimonides via his cryptic citation of Exod. 19:22 later in the chapter. The “priests” are “those who investigate,” says Duran. They wish to “come near to the Lord”— that is, apprehend divine science and attain knowledge of God’s existence. First, however, they must take care to “sanctify themselves”— that is, train themselves in the requisite propaedeutic sciences, “lest their intellects incur damage as occurred to the nobles.”74 Though Duran issues a terse concluding directive to “understand this,” suggesting thereby that he has spoken with deliberate restraint, the thrust of his interpretation is clear: the citation in the middle of Guide, I, 5 of the verse pertaining to the preparations undergone by the Israelites at Mount Sinai should be understood in light of Maimonides’ earlier admonition to “undergo training in the sciences” before investigating obscure matters. Indeed, fragmenting his own presentation, Duran spells out this interpretation with surprising frankness elsewhere in his commentary.75 Prior to Duran, Narboni had made the same connection while commenting on the preparations enumerated at the beginning of Guide, I, 5: “‘ Having truly improved his character.’ This corresponds to its [Scripture’s] dictum, ‘Let them wash their garments’ [Exod. 19:10]. ‘And having extinguished the desires and cravings engendered in him by his imagination.’ This corresponds to its [Scripture’s] dictum, ‘Come not near a woman’ [Exod. 19:15].”76


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To Abarbanel, the import of Narboni’s and Duran’s interpretations was clear: “Narboni and Efodi [Duran] . . . decreed that the master hints here that the revelation at Mount Sinai is a parable for [intellectual] apprehension.” He spells out this view’s grave implications, then thunders against them: I am utterly amazed that a Jew should say that the vision of our forefathers at Sinai was an intellectual apprehension and not a [prophetic] vision of God! Moreover, I am bent over from hearing such a view attributed to the master. If this were so, why should he have related . . . that at the gathering at Mount Sinai “not everything that reached Moses also reached all Israel” but that Moses apprehended his prophecy as it came while the rest of Israel heard the great voice but not the articulations of speech. . . . If it were as these commentators who have sinned at the cost of their lives would have it, there was no external voice [which the Jews] heard there but simply an intellectual apprehension of the type that we have nowadays. Heaven forfend . . . that the master should intend this wicked thing!77

Abarbanel suggests that while Narboni and Duran did not gainsay the historical reality of “the vision of our forefathers at Sinai,” their interpretation of it posed a threat to this vision’s incontrovertible eternal significance. If Narboni and Duran were right, then Maimonides had understood the Sinaitic revelation as a parable for apprehension no different in principle from the workings of reason that “we have nowadays.” Writing in his Commentary on Exodus, Abarbanel formulated his objection this way: If at Sinai the forefathers only engaged in rational investigation then “what need was there for them to ascend the mountain? They could have philosophized in their tents!”78 In Narboni’s and Duran’s commentaries on the Guide, Abarbanel found clear implications that they could have done, and perhaps did, just that. In struggling to refute this “wicked” reading, Abarbanel appeals to Guide, II, 33, where Maimonides had treated the difficulty that though not all of the Israelites could have possessed the preparatory perfections required for prophecy, all collectively experienced the revelation at Sinai.79 In resolving this difficulty, Maimonides, as Abarbanel read him, had distinguished different degrees of prophecy attained by Moses and the rest of the people, thereby attesting to his understanding of the events at Sinai in prophetic terms.80 As for the immediate textual issue—Maimonides’ problematic citation in Guide, 1, 5 of Exod. 19:22—Abarbanel argues (with some strain) that this was simply Maimonides’ way of providing an analogous example of the need for proper preparation in readying oneself for great things, whether of the rational-discursive or revelatory sort. In citing the verse from Exodus, Maimonides meant to round out his observations regarding the intellectual quest, not to insinuate anything untoward about the nature of events at Sinai. Viewed in light of his discussion in the Commentary on the Guide, Abar-

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banel’s defense in ‘Aខteret zeqenim of the elders of Exod. 24 emerges as an argument on behalf of biblical antiquity’s superiority, derived from access to prophecy, over “the present.”81 And viewed in light of Abarbanel’s assault on Narboni’s and Duran’s interpretations of Guide, I, 5, this defense also takes on the character of an argument on behalf of the unique, infallible, and prophetic character of the revelation at Sinai—the understanding of this event sanctioned by tradition and which, Abarbanel is keen to insist, Maimonides essentially shared. The elders of Exod. 24 are largely forgotten by the end of ‘Aខteret zeqenim, but the cause they represent—prophecy’s superiority, especially to philosophy—would reverberate throughout Abarbanel’s later writings. Indeed, in his Commentary on Exodus, Abarbanel would go so far as to locate eight wonders that, he believed, were created especially for the epiphany at Sinai; his express purpose there was to allude to the limitations of truths achieved “by way of a person’s intellect” over and against those arrived at through “prophetic cognition.”82

The Scholars of Truth . . . The Scholars of the Qabbalah On one reading ‘Aខteret zeqenim evinces a “radical change of view” in its author’s religious outlook, attesting Abarbanel’s “flight from rationalism” and emergent “mystical inclination” in his third decade of life. In this earliest of his works, it is claimed, Abarbanel “expresses his admiration for the cabalists . . . and his criticism of the philosophers.”83 While subject to decisive objection,84 this reconstruction of Abarbanel’s intellectual biography has the twin merit of raising the important question of his relationship to “mysticism” (or, more precisely, Kabbalah) and of pointing to ‘Aខteret zeqenim as a commendable place to look for initial answers. To be sure, Abarbanel does not reveal any “mystical inclination” in ‘Aខteret zeqenim. He does, however, manifest in this work aspects of his stance towards the kabbalists’ claim to possess privileged insight based on knowledge of classical Judaism’s esoteric tradition. It is in a disquisition on the divine lectures that he says Moses received during his forty days on Mount Sinai that Abarbanel allegedly exhibits his admiration for the kabbalists. Abarbanel questions the need for so extended a stay, and, providing pertinent background before addressing this perplexity, he indicates that the study of each realm of the tripartite cosmos and the study of the Deity involves a tenfold inquiry. Hence, the forty-day sojourn reflects lessons given to Moses regarding “the sublunar realm, the realm of the celestial spheres, the realm of the separate intellects, and God,” these having taken place in four ten-day installments. During the last ten days Moses “ascended to the Lord” to occupy himself with “what it is possible to apprehend of divinity.”85


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Abarbanel fears that this interpretation invites misunderstanding. Would it not be fair to conclude on its basis that during his first thirty days on the mountain Moses received knowledge of the universe’s three major parts—in other words, divine tutoring in physics and metaphysics? Yes and no, answers Abarbanel, who enjoins his reader to grasp that just as Moses’ apprehension of the sublunar world—that is, knowledge of physics—was “unlike that attained by the philosophers with their intellects” inasmuch as it was more comprehensive, so his apprehension of the spheres, of the separate intellects, and of the Deity was not in the manner of the apprehension of the philosophers who “do not know and walk in darkness” (Ps. 82:5).86 Abarbanel does not indicate in what way Moses’ inspired physical and metaphysical knowledge surpassed the philosophers’, but, in keeping with the overall pitch of ‘Aខteret zeqenim, he is careful to dissociate prophecy and philosophy, even when the topics concerning which they yield information are the same. The philosophers admit, he observes, that their views concerning “that which is above the sphere of the moon” amount to “guesswork.” Not so God’s servant, whose prophecy transcends “the way of conjectural intellectual demonstration” such that his apprehension was “elevated to an exalted level and was in accord with the truth of these existents, as if he possessed the insight of one of the hosts on high.” Indeed, not only did Moses know with certainty things about which philosophers, by their own admission, only speculate; he also achieved positive knowledge of “existents” including the Deity, in this way achieving human felicity “to an unsurpassable degree.”87 Enter the kabbalists. Invoking the biblical pericope that lies at the heart of ‘Aខteret zeqenim, Abarbanel states that they “‘ saw the God of Israel’ and apprehended of Him ten sublime sefirot which in their parlance are called Keter, Hokhmah, Binah . . .” If the philosophers have “clapped their hands over their mouths regarding divine matters” and “decreed” that positive attributes cannot be ascribed to God, then, the “scholars of the truth cognized and discerned (ខhakhemu yaskilu [Deut. 32:29]) this, and they are the scholars of the Kabbalah.”88 In other words, unlike the philosophers, the kabbalists do possess positive knowledge of God. By citing Exod. 24:10, Abarbanel hearkens to his acclaim of the divine apprehension of the elders mentioned in this verse, intimating thereby, in keeping with the kabbalists’ self-perception, that the “scholars of the qabbalah” are the inheritors of truths acquired by prophecy in Jewish antiquity. Admiration for the kabbalists there seems to be. Further probing of this passage, however, reveals a considerably more complex attitude towards the kabbalists and towards their central theosophic teaching, the doctrine of the sefirot. A question that had preoccupied kabbalists and nonkabbalists alike from the thirteenth century on was the status of the sefirot: were they identical with God or extradivine “instruments” or “vessels” of the divine revelation?89 Though the imagery used to describe the sefirot and

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their activity in early kabbalistic literature did not yield precise definition,90 demand for such grew over time, in large part out of a need to reconcile the central doctrine of theosophic Kabbalah with classical rabbinic concepts and, perhaps more critically, to explain the sefirot in terms of the categories of medieval philosophy.91 So it was that the issue of sefirot as “essence” or “vessels” became, well before Abarbanel’s day, a source of controversy in which rationalists and kabbalists alike advanced arguments informed by philosophic constructs and terminology. Philosophic discussions of the divine attributes were especially germane, with even some kabbalists choosing to identify attributes with sefirot and the latter with the divine essence.92 Nonkabbalists could also assert that “the intention of the kabbalists in this matter [of the sefirot] is the same as that of the philosophers concerning the attributes.”93 In speaking of the philosophers’ denial of positive divine attributes, Abarbanel obviously had in mind Maimonides’ teaching that an attribute predicated of God could never be an affirmative statement regarding the divine essence. Only attributes of action or ones intended to negate a privation in the Deity were permissible.94 Later theologians disagreed, and some, like the extreme rationalist Gersonides and Maimonidean critic Hasdai Crescas, either allowed for the possibility of, or posited the need to predicate, positive attributes in reference to the divine essence.95 Though Abarbanel chooses not to blur the sharp contrast between philosophers and kabbalists by introducing such complications, he, like these two predecessors and such contemporaries as Joseph ibn Shem Tov’s brother Isaac, seems dissatisfied with the Maimonidean account of divine attributes.96 And yet, even as he juxtaposes this account with what he paints as its kabbalistic counterpart, Abarbanel understands the latter in philosophic terms. The sefirot are, he says, “not essential, diverse elements within the Deity (devarim ‘aខsmiyim mitខhalefim bo yitbaraខh)”97 of the sort that would introduce multiplicity into the Godhead, nor are they “accidents,” since “God is not a substratum for them.” Sefirot are, rather, “notions which unite in Him that are attributed to Him in accordance with his actions (‘inyanim mit’aខhadim bo yuខhesu ’elav ke-fi pe‘ulotav).” Whatever the meaning of this elusive formulation, Abarbanel presents kabbalistic designations of the sefirot as a matter of parlance and the sefirot themselves as neither “essential elements subsisting within the Diety” nor “accidents.” One begins to suspect that Abarbanel’s sefirot must be identical with divine attributes of action of the sort permitted by Maimonides because they do not affirm anything of an agent’s essence.98 Such a view, rare in the period before ‘Aខteret zeqenim’s composition, would become popular in the sixteenth century.99 However this may be, behind Abarbanel’s interpretation of the sefirot lies clear evidence of his debt to teachings of the philosophers. There is more. Criticizing in ‘Aខteret zeqenim Maimonides’ account of the


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“Work of the Chariot,” Abarbanel insists that it and many secrets of the universe hidden from the “sight of the human intellect” are known only “by means of prophecy or by means of a received tradition (qabbalah) from the prophets.”100 Yet in ascribing positive knowledge of the Deity to the kabbalists, Abarbanel studiedly avoids any reference to prophetic tradition. In fact, his biblically ornamented prose points in the opposite direction, as he speaks of the kabbalists’ having “cognized and discerned” their understanding of the Deity. Abarbanel’s designation, “scholars of the Kabbalah,” may also be telling. It suggests a conception of Kabbalah as a product of intellectual endeavor by those who have received training in the field—a field, it is implied, in principle accessible to all.101 Abarbanel’s expressions of admiration for the kabbalists in ‘Aខteret zeqenim are, then, ambiguous to say the least. And “the scholars of the Kabbalah” go unmentioned elsewhere in this work. Abarbanel does, however, allude to matters mystical in another place in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, in the course of discussing the angel referred to in the opening verse of the pericope that is the work’s exegetical focus: “Behold, I will send an angel before you to keep you by the way . . .” (Exod. 23:20). Further illumination of Abarbanel’s stance towards Kabbalah and philosophy is forthcoming if one follows the thread of this allusion within ‘Aខteret zeqenim and beyond. As regards the relationship of the angel of Exod. 23 to a second angel mentioned in Exod. 33:2 (“And I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite . . .”), Abarbanel reports that both Abraham ibn Ezra and Nahmanides denied that these angels were one and the same. Abarbanel underscores the kabbalistic character of Nahmanides’ view that the angel of Exod. 23:20 was “the redeeming angel whose name is the same as his Master’s” when he speaks of Nahmanides’ “having plumbed deeply into his secrets regarding this matter.”102 For his own part, Abarbanel stresses his interest in Scripture’s “contextual sense” rather than its esoteric dimension. His finding on this plane is that the angels must be identical: granting the Aristotelian teaching that “a power is recognized . . . by the activity that derives from it,” and given that “the activity which it is said that the angel would perform in these two passages is one,” it follows that “the angel mentioned in both is one and the same.”103 For one interested in the contextual meaning of Exodus, it is Aristotelianism, not Kabbalah, that provides the needed exegetical assist. Nahmanides had been adamant that the angels of Exod. 23 and 33 were distinct. Following rabbinic interpretation, he had identified the former as Metatron.104 But to this foremost of kabbalistic biblical interpreters, Metatron was no mere angel. He was “the redeeming angel in whose midst is the great name [of God],” identical with the last of the ten sefirot, Shekhinah. Metatron was, that is, an attribute of God, neither created nor separate from the Divinity; hence the divine testimony that “My name is in him” (Exod. 23:21), or so

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Nahmanides and other thirteenth-century Catalonian kabbalists understood.105 By contrast, on Nahmanides’ reckoning, the angel of Exod. 33:2 was an emissary of God, pure and simple.106 When speaking of his predecessor’s “secrets,” Abarbanel seems certainly to have been alluding to Nahmanides’ identification of Metatron with Shekhinah. To see that he would have found this identification troubling, one may turn to his understanding of the motive underlying the divine command to the elders of Exod. 23–24 to ascend Mount Sinai in the first place. They were so instructed, Abarbanel explains, precisely to stress that “the angel being sent to them was a messenger of God possessing no element of divinity.”107 Similarly, early in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, Abarbanel is eager to blunt the force of the divine assertion that “My name is in him.” He explains that there is nothing singular here; such is said “of any angel or prophet sent by God,” since “the power of divinity rests upon him.”108 Descriptions elsewhere in ‘Aខteret zeqenim make clearer Abarbanel’s determination to exclude Metatron from the infradivine realm. In a neoplatonically colored usage with medieval precedents, he describes Metatron as the “first caused thing (ha-‘allul ha-rishon).” The clear implication is that whatever the sages meant when they spoke of an angel whose name was the “same as his Master’s,” it was not to affirm the angel’s divine status.109 And with Metatron understood as the “first caused thing,” the identification of this angel with the first of the separate intellects was sure to follow.110 With Maimonides’ urge to preserve a philosophically fastidious definition of divine unity Abarbanel had no quarrel. To Nahmanides’ criticism of Maimonides, “Heaven forfend that the thing which is called Shekhinah or created glory is something distinct from God,”111 Abarbanel would presumably have responded: “Heaven forfend not.” Abarbanel’s understanding of Shekhinah, even as it is not wholly apparent from the presentation in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, reflects a common occurrence in his stance towards tradition: a strong belief that neither the medieval rationalists nor the kabbalists transmitted the authentic voice of biblical-rabbinic Judaism. This stance emerges quite clearly from a discussion of the “first caused thing” penned nearly four decades after ‘Aខteret zeqenim, which occurs in Abarbanel’s account of the divine presence that appeared upon the Tabernacle’s erection. Here Abarbanel left no doubt as to his rejection of Nahmanides’ perception of Shekhinah as divine essence. At the same time, he also dismissed Maimonides’ identification of this entity with God’s “created glory.”112 The truth, he taught, lay somewhere between a kabbalistic tendency towards divine immanence and philosophically informed emphasis on divine transcendence. Revising slightly, but tellingly, his formulation in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, Abarbanel insisted that Shekhinah was the “first emanated being”— that is, an entity neither essentially divine nor essentially created and wholly apart from God.113 Returning to ‘Aខt-


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eret zeqenim, one senses that it is the kabbalistic understanding of Metatron that Abarbanel was most keen to defuse in his earliest work. From a young age, Abarbanel envisaged Nahmanides as Kabbalah’s foremost representative. He would speak later in life of “Nahmanides and the band (kat) of kabbalists” or “Nahmanides and the rest of the kabbalists.”114 Yet already in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, and in all of his later writings, Abarbanel did not hesitate to dispute “the words of the kabbalists”115 on which Nahmanides drew if and when such words seemed to Abarbanel to misrepresent teachings of biblical and rabbinic Jewish antiquity. 鵻鵼 In later life, Abarbanel would view ‘Aខteret zeqenim as a “small composition” written in his “early manhood.”116 Yet if succinct and circumscribed by the standards of later writings, this essay foreshadows much that would prove characteristic in those more mature productions. It broaches many subjects that Abarbanel would treat thematically in later works. It exemplifies the format that his biblical commentaries (of which it should be considered the first) would take.117 It evinces Abarbanel’s familiarity at the earliest stage of his literary career with a vast panoply of exegetical, theological, and philosophic currents, Jewish and non-Jewish, ancient and modern, and his tendency to bring them to bear on one another. And it otherwise displays features which, taken together, mark Abarbanel’s later writings as distinctively his own, among them a commitment to exegetically systematic and theologically searching Bible study and ongoing engagement with, and selective fidelity to, the principles of medieval rationalism. In addition, ‘Aខteret zeqenim draws attention to Abarbanel’s relationship to earlier layers of classical and early medieval Jewish tradition. It displays his cautious but confidant independence before midrashic authority. It reveals his intense preoccupation with the person and teachings of his most influential medieval predecessor, Maimonides, and evidences his rejections of pivotal philosophically inspired teachings of Maimonides that he deems deviationist from the classical Jewish past. It highlights his robust efforts to combat esotericist claims to the mantle of a still contested “Maimonidean tradition.” And it opens a window on his complex stance towards Kabbalah, a stance that combined outward deference with wide-scale indifference and hints of misgivings, especially towards rationally dubious kabbalistic teachings. In ‘Aខteret zeqenim’s introduction, Abarbanel upheld his right—or rather duty—to dissent from previous condemnations of the nobles of the children of Israel. In acting accordingly in the body of the work, he aroused the ire of two Italian contemporaries. One was David ben Judah Messer Leon, who charged Abarbanel with philosophic ineptitude, nowhere more evident than in this

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“discourse ‘Aខteret zeqenim, which he composed against the master [Maimonides].”118 The other was the kabbalist Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano, who denounced Abarbanel, this “man from Portugal,” for barefacedly defaming the rabbinic sages. In ‘Aខteret zeqenim Elijah saw an effort to “destroy the words of the rabbinic sages and all of the other commentators that the nobles of the children of Israel erred in their apprehension [of God].”119 He further charged that Abarbanel had “criticized midrash improperly—not in secret, quietly, and by way of hint. Rather, he desecrated the name of the aggadists (ba‘alei ’aggadah) in public.” Elijah rejected the claim that the distance separating Abarbanel from the sages was less than that separating the nonprophetic sages from the inspired biblical nobles. He fulminated that Abarbanel had “slung mud at their [i.e., the sages’] opinion until his foolishness carried him away to say that the relation of his understanding to their understanding was many times greater than the worth of their intellects’ understanding to the understanding of the nobles in whom the spirit of God spoke.”120 As Abarbanel had been “unable to abide” earlier criticisms of the nobles, so Elijah was “unable to abide seeing him [Abarbanel] deride the words of our sages.”121 Not all who read ‘Aខteret zeqenim shared Elijah’s perception. Saul Hakohen described the work as an attempt to “return the crown to . . . the heads of the wise and understanding nobles,”122 and this evaluation, made in an aside, has been advanced by several modern students of Abarbanel who saw in ‘Aខteret zeqenim—indeed in its very title—a sort of pars pro toto for its author’s essential conservatism.123 As has become clear, neither evaluation does justice to the richness and complexity of a work whose substance and rhetoric reflect disparate tendencies, both of them integral components of its author’s religious outlook and mind at work: conservatism on the one hand; occasionally bold independence from traditionally received opinion on the other.

Chapter 4

Rabbinic Legacy: Background and Parameters 鵻

W

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hile Saul Hakohen saw in ‘Aខteret zeqenim an attempt to “return the crown” to figures of biblical antiquity, Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano saw in it an egregiously public and brazen affront to midrashic authority. The fury of Elijah’s assault notwithstanding, Abarbanel evinces little sense that his dissent from midrash in his first work is unusual (even as he grants implicitly that it does require some explanation). Just what, then, was Abarbanel’s attitude towards those whom Elijah dubs “the aggadists”? The question requires immediate delimitation: Abarbanel accepted without qualification rabbinic authority as regards legal midrash. As a Rabbanite Jew, he held that, for purposes of practice, rabbinic “oral law (torah she-be‘al peh)” was the authentic elaboration of the Torah’s “written law.” The result of Karaite deviation from “the words of the true tradition and words of the Mishnaic sages, blessed be the One who chose them and their teaching (mishnatam),”1 could only be, insisted Abarbanel—joining a long line of gaonic and Spanish Rabbanite writers—falsification of the divine will.2 Left to his own devices, Abarbanel could show considerable independence in his handling of midrash halakhah, at times evincing a tendency (found among some predecessors as well) to establish the contextual sense of biblical law even where this contradicted midrashic interpretation.3 With respect to practical norms, however, midrashic interpretation was the unimpeachable guide.4 Far more variegated and ambivalent than his relationship to legal midrash was Abarbanel’s encounter with rabbinic dicta offering clarifications of Scripture’s nonlegal parts and with rabbinic sayings (homilies, stories, theological speculations, ethical ideas, historical reconstructions) that stood wholly independent of Scripture.5 To assess this encounter, an outline of earlier figures, ideas, methods, and movements that shaped posttalmudic discussion of the rich and (for some) problematic nonlegal rabbinic legacy will prove helpful. The task is twofold: to provide some sense of the theories and practices of Abar-

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banel’s gaonic and medieval forerunners and to suggest some of the diverse settings (e.g., sermons, interreligious disputations) and literary contexts (e.g., biblical commentary, pro- or antiphilosophic tracts) in which nonlegal rabbinic dicta could variously emerge as sources of stimulation, contention, or embarrassment. With such points of reference in hand, it will be possible to situate in their multiple religious and historical contexts Abarbanel’s attitudes towards and procedures with respect to nonlegal rabbinic discourse, as they appear in his biblical commentaries and his commentary on rabbinic messianic sayings. Rabbinic nonlegal discourse generated two basic sorts of quandaries in gaonic, medieval, and early modern times.6 Biblical exegetes, especially those seeking to render Scripture’s “contextual sense (peshaខt),”7 found that much midrashic interpretation did not accord with the expositions that their independent analyses of Scripture yielded. They confronted polarities such as midrash versus grammar or midrash versus context. Theologians grappled with different issues. To them, nonlegal rabbinic sayings could seem trivial, unscientific, even opposed to what they took to be cardinal Jewish teachings. They confronted polarities like aggadah versus rationality, aggadah versus the natural order, aggadah versus refined spirituality. As often as not, the spheres of exegesis and theology overlapped. In such cases, depending on its reader’s religious sensibilities and the “hermeneutic circle” in which he moved, a given midrash might at once raise both vexing conceptual and exegetical issues. In the late gaonic period, the rise of Jewish rationalism and persistence of various intra- and interreligious controversies provided the main external frames within which Rabbanite authorities considered nonlegal rabbinic dicta. Seen in terms of newly emergent Jewish engagements with Greco-Arabic philosophy and with Muslim theological streams informed by it, rabbinic sayings could seem irrational and even heretical. As a result, Karaite and Muslim scholars gleefully summoned the seemingly bizarre passages with which rabbinic lore was replete, adducing anthropomorphic aggadot, for example, to depict the talmudic authorities to whom Rabbanites were allegiant as fools, blasphemers, or both.8 Reacting to such indictments and ridicule—and, to be sure, reflecting their own individual religious sensibilities—the Geonim Sherira, Hayya, and Samuel ben Hofni advanced variously formulated claims that “one does not rely on the aggadah.”9 Specifying further, Sherira opined that midrashim were “conjectures” (’umdana’ ) while Hayya affirmed that they were “not like authentic tradition.” Samuel ben Hofni limned the distinction between halakhah and aggadah with startling frankness when he compared the former to “fine flour” and the latter to “chaff.” He was also quoted as saying that although midrashic interpretations of it implied the literal veracity of the story of the witch of Endor, “such things cannot be accepted when they contain that which human reason rejects.”10 Saadya Gaon could be sharply critical of midrashic ideas as

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well.11 For all that, the wall erected by these authorities between rabbinic law and lore was porous by design. Hayya warned that a serious hearing should be given to aggadot found in the Talmud since “had [a statement] not contained some [useful] teaching it would not have been included.” Even the more critical Samuel ben Hofni preached “discrimination in the use of ancient homilies and tales, not their outright repudiation.”12 Christian awareness of and attitudes towards nonlegal rabbinic discourse evolved over the Middle Ages. Aggadah was brought to the attention of the Christian world by Petrus Alfonsi, a twelfth-century Hispano-Jewish convert whose critique of rabbinic irrationality foreshadowed ongoing features of medieval Christian-Jewish debate including the prominent role played by converts in Christian missionary endeavor.13 Nonlegal rabbinic discourse was on the agenda at each of the three major staged Christian-Jewish “disputations” of the Middle Ages, with charges of aggadic foolishness and blasphemies against Christians eventually yielding to a new strategem invoked at the most famous of the disputations, held at Barcelona in 1263. Here Pablo Christiani, another convert, adduced rabbinic sayings not to denigrate Judaism but to supplement biblical testimonia that allegedly attested to Christian truths.14 The logic behind this tack was made plain in an ominous passage found in Pugio fidei, a massive aggadic compendium compiled for polemical purposes at the direction of the Catalan Dominican Ramon Mart´ı in the wake of the 1263 dispute. “What would be more joyous for a Christian,” asked Mart´ı, “than if he could most easily twist the sword of his enemy from his hand and then cut off the head of the infidel with his own blade?”15 Responding to the innovative tactic, Nahmanides denied aggadah’s authority, leading Pablo to gloat that the rabbi had denied “their [the Jews’] own [sacred] writings.”16 Like Nahmanides and later defenders of Judaism (including Nahmanides’ student Solomon ibn Adret, the first talmudic commentator to devote a work exclusively to aggadic exegesis,17 and participants in the drawn-out disputation of Tortosa and San Meteo of 1413–14), Abarbanel would be compelled to deal with midrash and aggadah as weapons of his primary interreligious adversaries that, if they could not be turned to advantage, at least had to be neutralized. Disagreement about midrashic authority and aggadic interpretive methodology fueled intrareligious disputes over philosophy as well. In varying degrees, philosophy’s champions tended to deny the authority of nonlegal rabbinic dicta or interpret them nonliterally, and especially allegorically. In varying degrees, and often out of a diversity of motives, opponents of rationalism inclined in the opposite direction.18 Maimonides formulated the problem for the philosophically oriented when he spoke of midrashim in which “the external sense manifestly contradicts the truth and departs from the intelligible.” Such midrashim should be considered “parables” and be read nonliterally, he counseled.19 His disciples followed his lead, for, as Yedaiah Hapenini told Solomon ibn

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Adret, Maimonides had “commanded” them to be “concerned for the honor of our sainted sages and to clarify and explain them [midrashim] in a fashion that will be compatible with the truth without the roots of faith being affected.”20 With characteristic bluntness, another fervent Maimonidean, Joseph ibn Kaspi, warned his son of “many aggadot the literal wording of which posits ideas inadmissible rationally. . . . Perchance you may eat to satiety from these evil viands, these deadly poisons—I refer to the aforementioned aggadot as literally interpreted, God deliver you!” Ibn Kaspi’s ready cure for this lethal mixture was interpretation of “most of the aggadot” as “figures of speech” possessing an “inner meaning.”21 Despite insisting on aggadah’s immanent intelligibility, rationalists occasionally hinted that some midrashim were in their minds more perceptive or theologically correct than others. An apposition in Maimonides’ Guide is telling: “You also know their [the rabbinic sages’] famous dictum—would that all dicta were like it . . . .” In his “Letter on Astrology” Maimonides stated that aggadic views propounded by individual sages could be rejected, and at the end of Mishneh torah he wrote concerning rabbinic messianic views that “the sages have no tradition concerning these matters but are guided by Scripture as regards all.”22 Following their teacher, latter-day Maimonideans rationalized, rejected, and ignored problematic aggadot, though sometimes, using categories clearly borrowed from the master, a disciple like Yedaiah might find a middle ground between reinterpretation and rejection by positing a midrash’s intention to communicate a “deliberate although well-intentioned falsehood” designed for the masses.23 Placed in radically philosophic hands, this interpretive mode could undermine such basic tenets of the talmudic tradition (and the religious expectations they inspired) as the righteous dead’s return at the end of time in the form of an embodied soul.24 Little wonder that Abarbanel typically recoiled from so many modes of aggadic interpretation favored by Jewish rationalists. Still, in reviewing the tradition of such interpretation Abarbanel praised both Yedaiah Hapenini and Solomon ibn Adret, despite their different spiritual orientations and interpretive proclivities, for initiating the “sacred task” of “explaining the aggadot . . . in a correct and agreeable manner.”25 The controversy over Maimonideanism of the 1230s revealed stark cleavages between the Franco-German and southern Mediterranean Jewish worlds. As regards midrashic interpretation, the willingness of Spanish and southern French scholars, rationalist or otherwise, to countenance nonliteral interpretation in some cases contrasted sharply with the Franco-German tendency to read all rabbinic texts with reverent literalism. From Abarbanel’s point of view little had changed centuries later; thus he would identify literalism in aggadic interpretation and its obliviousness to rationality as “the way of the Ashkenazim.”26 As a product of Sefarad, Abarbanel was quick to interpret rabbinic sayings that seemed theologically problematic or scientifically farfetched in a


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nonliteral fashion. As a thinker of conservative sensibility, he confronted philosophically oriented scholars when he felt they had eviscerated traditional mainstays with a stroke of their allegorical pen. Another feature of the philosophers’ engagement with aggadah was shared by kabbalists: aggadah could serve as a “mouthpiece” for the new modes of thought and exegeses of biblical texts that they championed.27 The Gerona kabbalists found suggestive links for their theosophical ideas embedded in rabbinic dicta, for instance,28 while rationalists like Joseph ibn Kaspi and Yedaiah Hapenini, each in his own way, took to heart Maimonides’ assurance that aggadah contained “deep allusions” and “marvelous matters.”29 He who studied nonlegal rabbinic dicta carefully would “gain from them understanding of the absolute good of which there is none greater,” claimed Maimonides, as such dicta “revealed divine matters and true matters that were concealed by men of science and by which the philosophers were preoccupied all of their lives.”30 Taking up their master’s exhortations, rationalists searched the aggadic lore for “divine matters” and, sure enough, discovered philosophic precepts hidden there. In their belief that aggadah was a repository for esoteric truths, rationalists and kabbalists shared a common approach, at least in theory.31 Indicating his sympathy for this view, Abarbanel nonetheless denounced esoteric aggadic interpretation in its philosophic guise while claiming ignorance of it in its kabbalistic one.32 As philosophers and kabbalists grappled with aggadah’s possibilities, medieval biblical exegetes asked an additional set of questions: how binding was midrashic interpretation, what relationship did it bear to Scripture’s contextual sense, and what place should it have in a running commentary? In implicit answer to some of these questions, Rashi offered exegesis in accordance with “Scripture’s peshaខt and such aggadot as explain the biblical passages in a fitting manner.” Other exegetes of the northern French school, however, in tacit criticism of this procedure, embraced the abundance of contextual interpretations that Rashi himself saw “coming to light each day.”33 Like many of Rashi’s successors, early medieval Jewish exegetes rooted in the Islamic sphere were inclined to leave midrashim out of their commentaries on the grounds that “we already have midrashim in the works of the ancients” and that “the method of peshaខt is not to be spurned in the face of midrashic interpretation.”34 These observations of Abraham Ibn Ezra reflected the views of Andalusian biblical commentators who, philologists and grammarians almost all, preferred contextual exegesis to the more atomistic and (to their minds) fanciful rabbinic hermeneutic. In Abarbanel’s immediate milieu, Joseph Hayyun exemplified this approach to biblical explication.35 Clearly Abarbanel’s emphasis on midrash’s role in biblical commentary was not learned from this Lisbon mentor. One Iberian predecessor from whom Abarbanel evidently did learn much

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about midrash’s potential to penetrate, instructively expand on, and enliven Scripture was the earliest and most influential exegete to emerge from Christian Spain, Nahmanides. Though he dissented from and even occasionally criticized nonlegal midrash, Nahmanides did not share the lukewarm, even negative attitude of Andalusian commentators towards it. At times he even defended rabbinic interpretations, and he bristled at ibn Ezra’s displays of irreverence towards them.36 In accordance with his view of the Torah as a polysemous text comprising a mystical dimension, Nahmanides incorporated rabbinic exegesis into his Torah commentary far more than his Hispano-Jewish predecessors, introducing theosophical readings of midrashic texts into his commentary frequently in the course of alluding to Scripture’s kabbalistic import.37 For his part, Abarbanel, like the Andalusians and Nahmanides, would make the quest for peshaខt the first criterion in assessing the place of midrash in his biblical commentaries. Broadening Nahmanides’ conception of the exegetical enterprise, however, he would often find occasion to include midrashim in these commentaries even when he deemed them distant from Scripture’s contextual sense. Nahmanides’ Torah commentary offered a “sustained” if somewhat muted critique of “Rashi’s more midrashic interpretations of Scripture”;38 yet it did much to enshrine Rashi as a pivot of subsequent Hispano-Jewish Bible study. Rashi’s heavy reliance on midrashim and typically literal understanding of them was but one reason that his commentary seemed unlikely to win a warm embrace south of the Pyrenees.39 Yet against high odds, Rashi’s commentary did win an increasingly central place in Spanish Bible study, both among scholars and as part of the curriculum. By the fourteenth century it was even recognized as a possible substitute for Targum in the ordinary Jew’s review of the weekly Torah reading. When Abarbanel arrived in Castile, leading rabbinic figures such as his acquaintance Isaac Aboab were engaged in a still relatively new endeavor: the production of systematic supercommentaries on Rashi’s interpretation of the Torah.40 If, then, Abarbanel did not always relate to Rashi’s biblical interpretations by inclination, he would do so by necessity, Rashi’s “canonization” of certain midrashic interpretations as Scripture’s peshaខt included.41 His “bitterness” towards Rashi’s overly midrashic rendering of Holy Writ has already been noted. Perhaps it was this feature of Rashi’s exegetical work that led Abarbanel to exclude study of Rashi from his call for diligent Bible study in the face of Ashkenazi neglect thereof.42 If Rashi regarded midrash as true and authoritative eo ipso, Abarbanel, as one nourished by the gaonic-Spanish tradition, could not help but see things otherwise. A commonplace of this tradition was the distinction made in ‘Aខteret zeqenim between midrashim grounded in a “received tradition in their hands” and ones reflecting “opinion (sevara’).” Indeed, some earlier writers had expressed their willingness to accept the former using a rabbinic formula: “If it is


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a tradition we will accept it.”43 In its original setting, this maxim occurred in a legal context and alluded to the rabbinic claim to possess trustworthy understandings of the legal portion of the revelation at Sinai. Other midrashim, however, told of a nonlegal component to the rabbinic “oral tradition,”44 and various medievals followed suit. Regarding such nonlegal midrashim, Abraham Ibn Ezra, David Kimhi, and Nahmanides counterposed the categories of tradition (qabbalah) and opinion (sevara’), as would Abarbanel and his Iberian contemporaries in later centuries.45 Abarbanel’s intention, as expressed in his introduction to his commentaries on the Former Prophets, “not to refrain from exposing the weakness present in their [the rabbinic sages’] words” was, accordingly, followed by an immediate qualification: “In places where their words were the result of interpretation (derekh ha-perush) and were not received [traditions] (mequbbalim) in their possession.” In the context—that is, at the beginning of commentaries on the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings—this statement could relate to nonlegal midrashim alone. Yet, while acknowledging that some such rabbinic sayings might reflect indubitably true tradition rather than mere interpretation, this declaration left much unsaid, and ample room for maneuver. In the event, Abarbanel’s handling of even those nonlegal midrashim that he placed in the category of qabbalah would prove more pliable, and considerably less deferential, than his formal statement of policy implied.46 By Abarbanel’s day, increasing awareness of Kabbalah among nonkabbalistic biblical exegetes had made the role of tradition in biblical interpretation a more complex issue than it had been in ibn Ezra’s or Kimhi’s times. Slippage was more or less inevitable between the notion that the rabbinic sages of old had “received teachings” regarding the meaning of the biblical text and the impression that some exegetical views propounded by kabbalists, whether mystical or otherwise, might also reflect received wisdom. Witness Joseph Hayyun’s handling of Nahmanides’ in no way mystical assessment that certain commandments appeared in the book of Deuteronomy because they became operative only after the Israelites’ entry into Canaan. “Were it a received tradition,” Hayyun states, he would accept it (though it is not, he adds, and hence he is free to dissent).47 Like Hayyun, Abarbanel occasionally paid obeisance to Nahmanides’ status as a kabbalist in this way. But though he expresses amenability to, say, deference before Nahmanides’ kabbalistic interpretation of the repetition of “far be it from You” in Gen. 18:25 “if it is a qabbalah . . . in accordance with his received wisdom,” Abarbanel reveals his ultimate lack of regard for this possibility when he offers his own more contextual understanding of the doubling.48 Claims to received traditions arose in the nonexegetical realm, of course, and here, too, Abarbanel was heir to a Spanish tradition willing to draw distinctions. Maimonides’ aforementioned permission to repudiate individual ag-

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gadic perceptions implied the authority of broadly based ones. Even Maimonidean critics, like the Castilian talmudist Meir Abulafia, could concur in upholding aggadot deemed reflective of a broadly accepted tradition while rejecting others not of this character.49 Again, closer to Abarbanel’s day, the distinction is transferred to teachings associated with the kabbalists. Thus, concerning metempsychosis, Hasdai Crescas stated that since the “group that affirms it bases itself on received tradition” the “gates of investigation are locked concerning it.”50 While not forbearing to express his many reservations concerning this doctrine, Crescas affirmed that he would “accept it with a happy countenance” should it indeed prove to reflect a qabbalah. Amplifying this formula with respect to another religious construct associated with the kabbalists, Joseph ibn Shem Tov concluded that if the existence of demons should prove to be a true tradition, he would accept it “with a happy countenance and turn objections into difficulties whose resolution we shall seek.”51 As a theologian, Abarbanel would likewise appeal to aggadot that ostensibly contained indubitably true received teachings, though his inclusion of the kabbalists in the chain of transmission was by no means a given. In his discussion of levirate marriage, linked as the subject was to the issue of metempsychosis, Abarbanel did blend prophetic, rabbinic, and kabbalistic strata of received tradition.52 Similarly, he argued that the kabbalistic “scholars of truth” knew by tradition that Jesus was Esau reincarnated.53 Yet in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, where he invoked with great fanfare the idea that rabbinic eschatological sayings contained prophetically vouchsafed information regarding the date and character of the endtime, Abarbanel alluded as nowhere else to his skepticism regarding the kabbalists’ claim to be inheritors of such traditional wisdom.54 As preoccupation with midrash and aggadah persisted and even intensified in the late Jewish Middle Ages, many writers, Spanish ones especially, revealed a desire to vindicate this side of rabbinic discourse “in the eyes of the nations.” The late-fourteenth-century Navarrese writer, Shem Tov ben Shaprut, who engaged in oral interreligious debate at the highest level, wrote two controversialist works, one of which, Pardes rimmonim, was devoted exclusively to aggadah.55 Speaking ambiguously of “belittlers” who composed books in which “aggadot are anthologized and explained in such a way as to make them seem worthless,” Shem Tov lamented a failure to respond adequately since “these matters remain unexamined by us.” Kabbalistic interpretation was of no use for this purpose, being “more obscure and concealed” than the rabbinic dicta it purported to explain. Invoking a slogan used by contemporaries and later writers (Abarbanel included)56 to eschew recourse to mystical constructs, Shem Tov proclaimed himself “innocent of hidden matters.” Certainly for one such as himself, who wished to make aggadah intelligible to outsiders, kabbalistic interpretations were ineffective. By contrast, an understanding of aggadot in terms of “traditional teachings of the Torah (de‘ot toriyyot)” as they had been made


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known by “our great master Maimonides and Abraham ibn Ezra,” these being “close to philosophy,” did allow for representation of rabbinic sayings “in a form that allows us to speak of them before the nations.” In a few cases Shem Tov hoped to “actually get to the bottom of the matter,” that is, unearth a given midrash’s true intent. But his principal goal was compelling apology, not interpretive accuracy.57 Abarbanel shared Shem Tov’s goal but doubted his strategy. The only way to render rabbinic discourse impervious to usurpation or critique was to reveal its true profundity. Of course, to Abarbanel it was patent that the traditional truths encased in rabbinic sayings were hardly close to philosophy. Spanish complaints of woeful inadequacy in Jewish responses to Christian missionizing continued into the fifteenth century. In his rejoinder to Nicholas of Lyre’s De Iudeorum perfidia, Hayyim ibn Musa spoke of “ignorant people not familiar with the ways of religious disputation who allow themselves to be led astray by the words of the Christians,” apostates from the Jewish camp especially.58 No less than three of his twelve guidelines for polemical debate touched on aggadah. In general, ibn Musa counseled avoidance: “If they adduce a midrash or aggadah I will say ‘it shall be neither thine nor mine’ [cf. 1 Kings 3:26]. Decide the matter on the basis of the verses’ contextual sense.” Not, he was quick to add, that he wished to “distance” himself from aggadah: “Far be it from me to do such wickedness.” But “no matter what, we will not be compelled by the Christians to believe in all the midrashim and aggadot—only those that we find reasonable or [halakhic midrashim] that explain one of the commandments.”59 Abarbanel shared ibn Musa’s misgivings about the cogency of Jewish anti-Christian polemic, but he advocated a head-on approach to the problem of Christian usurpation of aggadah rather than an attempt to circumvent it by denying aggadic authority, as was ibn Musa’s wont and that of Jewish spokesmen at the great medieval disputations. In Yeshu‘ot meshiខho he would offer a comprehensive account of rabbinic eschatological sayings that, so he claimed, would allay all vexation. In Abarbanel’s day the Christian stimulus for Jewish occupation with aggadah was palpable. In the introduction to his homilies constructed around aggadic texts, Abraham Shalom spoke of his intention “to display to the nations the wisdom of the Talmud which is greater than the wisdom of all the children of the east.”60 Here the tone is still apologetic. By contrast, in the introduction to his compendium of sermons-turned-homilies written after 1492, Isaac Arama told of parishioners who complained that in reading Holy Writ, “the Gentiles search enthusiastically for religious and ethical content, using all appropriate hermeneutical techniques,” while Jewish commentators merely sought to “explain the grammatical forms of words and the simple meaning of the stories and commandments.” Arama endeavored to provide exegesis that would “exalt our Torah” and aggadic interpretation that would

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reveal the profundity of the midrashim, “which are more precious than fine gold” but which, being but “chapter headings,” require “our investigation.”61 Arama’s description of his audience’s perception of Jewish biblical interpretation (“explain the grammatical forms . . .”) recalls Abarbanel’s deprecation a decade earlier of ibn Ezra-style biblical interpretation.62 Dissatisfaction with such exegesis and the concomitant sense that Scripture’s multilayered profundity needed urgently to be probed were apparently widespread in Abarbanel’s day, in part, it would seem, due to awareness and appreciation of Christian achievements in this sphere. To what extent Abarbanel’s commentaries mark a response to such positive appraisals of Christian models is unclear. Undeniable, however, is that in seeking to “regale” their audiences with biblical “gems,”63 writers like Abarbanel and Arama turned to midrash for help. Abarbanel’s works would prove, then, to be a fertile meeting point for most every stream of medieval Jewish consciousness regarding nonlegal rabbinic discourse. As an exegete, he had to decide on the role to accord midrash in his scriptural expositions, and, like Arama and other preachers of his day, he presumably did so with the tastes of his audience in mind. As one deeply immersed in the philosophic tradition, he felt challenged by theologically vexing and scientifically implausible rabbinic claims that, taken literally, proved offensive or incredible to postrabbinic Jews touched by rationalism. As a polemicist, Abarbanel sought to fend off Christian efforts to co-opt an important segment of the classical Jewish inheritance. At the same time, he had to respond to those who, through a variety of interpretive means, had sought to ground philosophic or kabbalistic teachings in the rabbinic stratum of the Jewish past. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it was in their nonlegal sayings that the classical sages had broached the theological issues that preoccupied Abarbanel his whole life long: God and Torah, miracles and creation, prophecy and eschatology, the Jewish people and their land, the reasons for the commandments, patterns in history, the merit of the ancestors, providence and theodicy, life in this world and the next. In addressing these vital topics, Abarbanel turned avidly to the rich rabbinic inheritance for enlightenment. Most everywhere he turned, then, Isaac Abarbanel either sought out or was confronted by midrash and aggadah.

Chapter 5

The Rabbinic Hermeneutic: Midrash in the Biblical Commentaries 鵻

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barbanel stresses, in statements of exegetical purpose scattered throughout his biblical commentaries, his fundamental preoccupation with explication of Scripture’s contextual meaning—peshuខto shel miqra’.1 Yet, like many of his predecessors, he combines in his biblical exegesis a quest for contextual sense with other levels of interpretation, midrash included. Like nearly all such writers, Abarbanel nowhere systematically defines his terms of reference, peshaខt and derash (nor, despite a considerable investment of time and energy, have modern scholars reached anything close to a consensus regarding such definitions).2 One might, then, in seeking to understand the place of the rabbinic hermeneutic in Abarbanel’s biblical commentaries, rest content to uncover the distinction between peshaខt and derash as he understood it and leave things at that. To unfold reasons why Abarbanel found various midrashim wanting as renderings of Scripture’s peshaខt, however, is to tell only a small part of the story. Overlooked in this telling would be the motivations, concerns, and objectives that characteristically governed Abarbanel’s intricate interaction with diverse sorts of midrash, patterns in his handling of such dicta, any sense of the place of midrash in his larger exegetical agenda, and the larger historical and cultural contexts in which Abarbanel’s stance towards midrash must be set. As has already been seen, for instance, Abarbanel’s aim of producing theologically probing exegesis did not arise in a vacuum. A general dissatisfaction with philologically and grammatically centered biblical interpretation prevailed in the Spain (if not necessarily the Portugal) of his day. The rise of the Spanish sermon and kabbalistic biblical interpretation catered to Jews seeking more spiritually inspiring fare in readings of Holy Writ. When soundings below the surface of Abarbanel’s quest for peshaខt are taken, they yield a variety of highly informative conclusions, of which the main ones might best be stated in advance. First, nearly all modern scholarly depictions of

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his exegesis notwithstanding, Abarbanel defined himself first and foremost as a seeker of Scripture’s plain sense and lived up to his representations on this score. Second, ready acceptance of rabbinic views, methods, and motifs was not the rule in his biblical commentaries. Third, for Abarbanel the fact that midrashim were rarely an evocation of or spur to contextual understanding was not decisive in determining whether they should have a place in his commentaries. Fourth and finally, this latter truth is reflective of a conception of the biblical exegete’s mission according to which, in addition to operating with the method of peshaខt, it was the exegete’s task to explore and expound many others from among Scripture’s “seventy faces.” As a dominant one, this last point deserves some elaboration at the outset. Abarbanel was both a biblical interpreter and a theologian; he channeled the lion’s share of his literary energy into biblical commentary but wrote extensive theological tracts as well.3 More to the point, however, theology was woven into Abarbanel’s exegesis and exegesis into his theology. Abarbanel’s biblical commentaries allow his reader to take a full measure of his religio-philosophic concern, while the characteristic interplay of exegesis and theology in his writings is most pronounced in his commentaries on the Torah. To understand the treatment of midrashim in Abarbanel’s biblical commentaries, then, it is critical to be alert both to his hermeneutic principles and techniques and to his general theological sensibilities and specific religious teachings. As has been seen, Abarbanel affirmed that his biblical commentary would have a dual focus: both explanation of the verses and investigation of the conceptual themes to which they pointed “to their very end with great thoroughness.” One aim of biblical exegesis, indeed its primary one, was explication of peshaខt, but doing interpretive justice to Scripture also meant, to him, generating theologically probing and religiously edifying renderings of Holy Writ. On rare occasion Abarbanel found midrash helpful in uncovering Scripture’s contextual sense. It was, however, as part of his effort to realize additional interpretive aims that midrash came into its own in his biblical commentaries.

Quest for Peshaខt In expressing his paramount preoccupation with peshuខto shel miqra’, Abarbanel often followed Rashi’s famous formulation, “I come only to present Scripture’s peshaខt and such aggadot as explain the biblical passages in a fitting manner.” Tellingly, however, the part of Rashi’s declaration that spoke of rabbinic dicta is invariably dropped in Abarbanel’s reformulation. By so doing, Abarbanel implied that midrash, rather than imparting Scripture’s peshaខt, typically contradicted it or at least failed to illuminate it. And so it is in the commentaries. Abarbanel will record what “our sages of blessed memory have said,”

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then give his own interpretation “according to the peshaខt” or “method of peshaខt.”4 He will underscore the difference in planes of interpretation by labeling views “derash” before giving his contextual interpretation.5 Frequently, he will append an editorial comment before imparting what he deems the peshaខt, now laudatory (“They [the sages] expounded this verse in a fresh and pleasing way but according to its peshaខt . . .), now perfunctorily deferential (“The sages propagated many opinions . . . all said wisely, but according to the peshaខt . . .”) or circumspectly critical (“The sages said . . . , but according to the peshaខt there is no need for all this.”).6 With a frequency and nonchalance uncharacteristic of Rabbanite writers, Abarbanel issues blunt denunciations of midrashim, branding them “unlikely (raខhoq),” “very unlikely,”7 “insufficient,” “dubious” (bilti maspiq and analogs),”8 “weak,” “very strange” (zar, a designation of midrashic-aggadic “remoteness from rationality” in Maimonides), or “evidently weak.”9 Though rarely condemned so roundly, “Targum Onkelos” is not spared.10 At times, Abarbanel vents emphatic dissatisfaction with midrashic interpretations—even, or rather especially, those that have won exegetical limelight via Rashi’s commentary. To him, the meaning of the enjoinder to gather together all Israelites including children (ខtaf) (Deut. 31:12) every seven years for the law’s public reading was clear, and so, after citing the midrash adduced by Rashi, he declares it most disturbing to me: how could they ask in their homily (’aggadatam) “why should the ខtaf come?” and respond, “to bestow reward on those who bring them”? . . . Behold, the Torah explains why the ខtaf come and does not say the reason is to give reward to those who bring them but “that their children who do not know may hear and learn to fear the Lord . . .” [Deut. 31:13], since study and training befit youths. Now given that the Torah explained the matter’s true reason how could they come along and give a different and weak reason in the ’aggadah?11

In another case, a midrash imparted by Rashi explains that the new generation of Israelite males that circumcised themselves at Gilgal had postponed the rite due to the absence of the north wind required for healing; as it might have dispersed the “clouds of glory” that accompanied the Israelites in the desert, no such wind blew during the forty years prior to the invasion of Canaan. But since, as everyday reality testifies, infants are circumcised “north wind or no,” Abarbanel opts for another explanation.12 It is, then, as these and many examples still to come will attest, simply not the case that Abarbanel neglected peshaខt “almost entirely” or that his biblical commentary proceeds “almost entirely according to the method of philosophic investigation”—nor did Abarbanel think so.13 And yet, the repeated and emphatic statements regarding quest for peshaខt notwithstanding, Abarbanel amply

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incorporated midrash into his biblical commentaries. Not without reason have these been dubbed a “small compendium” of midrash or, indeed, a “very treasure house of the choicest pearls of rabbinic and midrashic lore.”14 At times midrash seemingly wins its place in the commentaries on the strength of exegetical merits. On the verse “And it shall be for you for a fringe that you may look upon it . . . and that you go not about after your heart and your eyes” (Num. 15:39), Abarbanel remarks that “the sages said ‘ “after your heart” refers to heresy and “after your eyes” refers to licentiousness.’ And the meaning is that one should not believe false things nor be drawn after his [evil] inclination.”15 Because he holds (contra Rashi)16 that “heart” in this verse refers to the sphere of intellect and “eyes” to the realm of emotion and desire, Abarbanel has only to broaden the midrash’s references to heresy and licentiousness so as to encompass right opinion and base passion generally, and his peshaខt interpretation is complete. Similarly, building on a midrash, Abarbanel suggests that Abraham decided to go to Canaan before being commanded to do so (Gen. 12:1) because he knew that “‘ the air of the Land of Israel makes one wise,’ and he was seeking wisdom and knowledge.”17 Again, by the way that he incorporates the midrash into his commentary, Abarbanel implies that the rabbinic exposition is at one with the peshaខt. A midrash can be preferred over ibn Ezra’s interpretation, and diverse midrashic renderings of the same verses can be deemed “satisfying and plausible.”18 Even in such cases, however, where the calculus is presented as purely exegetical, one begins to glimpse Abarbanel’s abiding appreciation of midrash’s theological dimension. The midrash concerning Abraham’s journey to the Holy Land confirmed Abarbanel’s conception of divine election as a process in which “chosen” individuals chose God first.19 The midrash regarding fringes handsomely delineated the two main domains, ethical and intellectual, wherein he considered the fundamental human challenges to lie. However much midrash might contribute to one’s understanding of Scripture’s contextual meaning, the impression left by the commentaries is that even where midrash is deemed at a remove from this level of scriptural meaning, Abarbanel is often happy to include it in his biblical expositions anyway. If his methodological pronouncements as regards midrash’s role in biblical exegesis appear to place him in the exegetical camp of ibn Ezra and his ilk, Abarbanel’s commentaries tell a different story. The question then becomes: On what basis did Abarbanel commend some midrashim and condemn others? An investigation of his disparate reactions to two rabbinic expositions, both of which he considered incompatible with scriptural peshaខt, reveals the variety of considerations that could govern his appraisal of individual rabbinic dicta while illuminating aspects of his exegetical method and concerns generally. Again, the aim is not so much to specify why Abarbanel distinguishes peshaខt


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from derash (though this too will be made plain) but instead to explain why he moves in radically different directions once the distinction is drawn. In Gen. 1:11, God commands the first herbage to come forth and the first fruit tree to come forth “after its kind.” The ensuing verse describes how the herbage came forth “after its kind” and the fruit tree “after its kind,” prompting a rabbinic sage to remark that when God enjoined “after its kind” upon the trees, “the herbage applied to themselves an a fortiori argument saying . . . if on the trees that by nature do not grow up in a motley growth the Holy One enjoined ‘after its kind,’ how much more so does it apply to us! Immediately each plant came forth after its kind.” Sensitive to the textual anomaly, Rashi had made the midrash his lone comment on Gen. 1:12.20 Abarbanel, by contrast, tacitly following his thirteenth-century southern French predecessor David Kimhi, argues that “after its kind” in Gen. 1:11 applied to all vegetation referred to therein: The sages were troubled that it did not say “after its kind” in the divine command to the grass and herb-yielding seed and as a result expounded what they expounded . . . , as Rashi recorded. . . . It seems to me, however, that there is no place for their question according to the peshaខt. The command says, “[The earth shall sprout forth] grass, herb yielding seed, fruit trees yielding fruit after its kind.” The phrase “after its kind” does not refer to the fruit tree alone but to the grass and herb yielding seed as well.

On this reading the plants, like the tree, simply did as they were told. As for the discrepancy between the single “after its kind” in Gen. 1:11 and double occurrence immediately following, Abarbanel casts the issue as a matter of style, not substance. In his words, the repetition is “for greater explicitness (tosefet be’ur).”21 Elsewhere, explaining the elliptical warning given to Moses by Pharaoh to “look that evil (ra‘ah) is before your face” (Exod. 10:10), Rashi had commented: [Understand this] as the Targum does [i.e., “See, the evil you are about to do will turn against you.”] I have heard a midrashic explanation. There is a star the name of which is “Evil (ra‘ah).” Pharaoh said to them, “By my astrological art I see that that star is rising towards you in the wilderness. It is an emblem of blood and slaughter.” Thus, when Israel sinned by worshiping the calf and God intended to slay them, Moses said in his prayer: “Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, He brought them forth together with [the star named] ‘Evil’ [Exod. 32:12]; this is, indeed, what he [Pharaoh] has already said, ‘Look that evil is before you.’ ” At once, the Lord . . . changed the blood [of which the star was emblematic] to the blood of circumcision.22

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After citing the midrash adduced by Rashi in full—adding that by the star “the name of which is ‘Evil’ ” the sages had meant Mars, “which ordains murder and the spilling of blood”— Abarbanel declares it a “fitting midrash (midrash nakhon hu)” since Pharaoh was “learned in the science of astronomy.” He then tentatively suggests three ways to parse Pharaoh’s warning according to its peshaខt.23 Seeing as neither conformed to his understanding of Scripture’s peshaខt, why does Abarbanel rebuff the midrash concerning the first herbage while accepting the one concerning the star named “Evil”? He claims to reject the former on straightforward exegetical grounds: in Gen. 1:11 the Divinity enjoined all vegetation to come forth “after its kind,” not just the fruit tree, and the repetition of this phrase in Gen. 1:12 is simply “for greater explicitness.” Yet coming from Abarbanel, this argument should give pause, for unlike such exegetical predecessors as Kimhi, upon whose interpretation, it would seem, he here partially relies, Abarbanel was not inclined to invoke stylistic principles to make sense of scriptural discrepancies. (See, in this regard, his stipulation regarding divergences in the two versions of the song of David as recorded in 2 Sam. 22 and Ps. 18 that “it is unfitting for us to think that variations small and large entered into it or that David altered that which he had already fashioned for no reason” or, in a closer parallel, his insistence that variations in two adjacent versions of the command to the Israelites to erect stones after crossing the Jordan “undoubtedly serve an eminent purpose.”)24 When, then, Abarbanel invokes “greater explicitness” in rejection of a midrash, one may reasonably suspect that his uncharacteristic recourse to stylistic explanations masks other concerns. In this instance, such concerns are not hard to find. What, for example, was Abarbanel to make of the idea that the plants had formulated an “a fortiori argument or, still more vexing, that a primordial creation had deviated from the plan of the Creator? By arguing that the midrash that had posited such theological dubieties lacked a basis in peshaខt, Abarbanel saved having to deal with it. And yet he did not ignore the midrash (as he undoubtedly did many others that vexed him) entirely, for reasons which his manner of presentation makes clear. Without even citing it, Abarbanel notes that the sages expounded a midrash “as Rashi recorded in his commentary.” As in the case of the ខtaf of Deut. 31, a perplexing exposition had entered the mainstream via Rashi’s commentary, where it appeared as the sole and hence ostensibly contextual interpretation of a verse. Unable to disregard the offending exposition, Abarbanel could at least indicate why it lacked a basis in peshaខt. Rashi had included the exposition of Pharaoh’s warning to Moses in his commentary as well, suggesting however, by his prior reference to Targum, that he did not consider it reflective of peshaខt. Abarbanel concurred. Apart from its tenuous textual link, the midrash removed the word “evil” far from its denotation by taking it in reference to a star. Where, however, he could have adduced


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Rashi in support of rejecting the midrash as the verse’s contextual sense, Abarbanel instead avidly embraces it. One can suggest several reasons. First, as Abarbanel’s reference to “possible” contextual interpretations implies, the verse in question was not so easily rendered according to peshaខt. Then again, though the midrash unabashedly divested “ra‘ah” of its plain sense within the context of Exod. 10:10, it did alleviate exegetical problems in two disparate verses in which this word appeared in an unusual, even awkward way. But beyond such slight exegetical merit, the midrash clearly had additional virtues in Abarbanel’s eyes. First, it presented a picture that, as a theologian, Abarbanel undoubtedly relished: Pharaoh insisting that the Israelites were subject to the laws of an astrally determined causal network on the eve of their miraclestudded departure from Egypt. Furthermore—and significant given his noticeable inclination to view rabbinic texts in a historical light25 —the midrash accorded with Abarbanel’s image of ancient Egypt as a hotbed of astrological speculation. Like medieval Jewish thinkers in general, Abarbanel agreed that the stars affected the fates of people and nations,26 but he further held that astrology was especially prevalent in ancient Egypt. It was here, for example, that Abraham had acquired his mastery in reading astral signs.27 If, then, the midrash’s rendering of Pharaoh’s warning to Moses departed from the peshaខt, it nonetheless remained fitting, for in addition to displaying exegetical ingenuity, it was theologically profound and historically authentic. For these reasons, one may surmise, Abarbanel cited the midrash and translated it into contemporary astrological terms before elucidating Pharaoh’s warning, as best he was able, “according to the peshaខt.” Though willing to include midrashim that conflicted with the peshaខt in his commentaries, Abarbanel obviously had to be selective, for as Abraham ibn Ezra had noted cheerlessly, “the end of the matter is that to derashot there is no end.”28 Principles of selection varied. The midrash concerning the primordial herbage was treated because of its problematic substance and, presumably, prominence in Rashi’s commentary. The midrash concerning Pharaoh’s warning won attention because, apart from exegetical considerations, it accorded with Abarbanel’s theological and historical conceptions. Other midrashim, like those that suggested Balaam’s prophecy was equal or even superior to that of Moses, gave rise to pages of explanation, since their disturbing plain meaning had to be reworked in order to preserve such basic theological principles as the primacy of Mosaic prophecy.29 Often, however, midrashim were aired simply because they grappled with the textual difficulties that exercised Abarbanel. Moses’ claim that he had been refused entry into the Holy Land on account of the Israelites and the divine response thereto (Deut. 3:26) raised several such vexed points: Was it not Moses’ own failure at the waters of Meribah that had occasioned the devastating divine decree issued against him? And what did the divine rejoinder “let it suffice for you” mean, given that the decree had in no

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way been mitigated? To these questions the sages proffered many answers, a string of which Abarbanel lists. Then, dismissing them all, he concludes that “the sole intention here is to understand the verses according to . . . the method of peshaខt.”30 Abarbanel wrote no treatise on the relationship between midrashic techniques and what he called, borrowing a term rooted in Abraham ibn Ezra’s exegetical lexicon,31 the “method (derekh) of peshaខt.” As has been seen, in his introduction to his commentaries on the Former Prophets, he refers to the “words of the [earlier medieval] commentators and the ways of the midrashot.”32 The implication is that medieval commentators, whatever their differences, share a roughly similar global exegetical outlook and aim, whereas the rabbinic hermeneutic comprises decidedly different ways and goals. While the grounds for the validity of both methods in Abarbanel’s eyes—and, indeed, of other exegetical methods dedicated to exploration of the biblical text’s deeper significance, such as typological or philosophic-allegorical interpretation—merits study, there can be no doubting that Abarbanel’s celebration of and stress on the need for multilayered exegesis (in sharp contrast to, for example, ibn Ezra)33 is in no small measure due to his view of Scripture as a polysemous text. This quality of Holy Writ was one that, occasionally borrowing formulations from Arama, he often found occasion to highlight.34 At times, Abarbanel charts as if on a graph the proximity of results furnished by the method of peshaខt to the products of the rabbinic hermeneutic: a midrash may be “close to the contextual sense,” inclined towards it, or, as in rabbinic interpretations of Hannah’s prayer, “far from the method of peshaខt.”35 Following what is presumably his contextual interpretation of the divine blessing bestowed upon Abraham prior to his departure from his father’s home, Abarbanel describes as “also fitting (nakhon)” the midrash that the patriarch was blessed regarding offspring, wealth, and fame, since traveling diminishes all three.36 The purport is that the midrash, like the peshaខt, derives from a distinct interpretive stance with its own motivations, goals, and methodological moorings. The two methods are, in short, seen more as “on a continuum” than as “an actual dichotomy,”37 such that they will at times yield distinct but compatible results. A discussion of the offerings of the twelve “princes of Israel” at the time of the tabernacle’s erection (Num. 7:12–89) highlights characteristic differences between Abarbanel’s method of peshaខt and the ways of midrash, while also illustrating how Abarbanel could find the latter “sweeter than honey” even as they departed from peshaខt. In treating the identical offerings, the sages suggested that each prince had, on his own initiative and in accordance with prophetic traditions handed down from Jacob, offered items that symbolically prefigured great events in his tribe’s future development. Thus, Judah’s prince, Nahshon ben Amminadab, made his donations with kingship in mind, since

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Jacob had appointed Judah king over his brethren. His offering of a dish and basin symbolized “the kings of the House of David who would in time to come spring from him,” and so forth. Abarbanel records the very elaborate rabbinic treatment of Nahshon’s offering, synopsizes the rabbinic approach to the other eleven tribal leaders’ offerings, transcribes yet another midrashic interpretation of these offerings in copious detail, then states that he has included all of these midrashim in order to “show you that all their [the sages’] words [concerning this] are ‘sweeter than honey and the honeycomb’s flow’ [Ps. 19:11] and that the difficulties [which I enumerated] . . . are resolved as well according to their way.”38 In contrast to the midrashim that he cites, Abarbanel’s contextual interpretation of the offerings places the accent on plausibility, practicality, and concreteness. He raises two basic questions. First, how did it come about that twelve men of presumably unequal means who, according to the midrash, were acting independently, ended up bringing identical offerings? Second, as earlier commentators had wondered before him, why did Scripture describe the uniform offerings in full, thereby giving rise to “an extraordinary redundancy”?39 Abarbanel answers the first question by suggesting that, having been appointed the heads of their tribes, the princes brought offerings to God to promote their successful leadership of the people. They therefore agreed to make the same donations in order to rule out ostentatious displays and avoid inciting feelings of intertribal jealousy. They offered items needed in the tabernacle—dishes for cleaning the innards of sacrificed animals and so forth. Scripture enumerated each offering completely to emphasize the parity of the donations and the princes’ equal merit in bringing them.40 According to contextual interpretation, then, the princes were preoccupied by the uncertainties of the here and now rather than by happenings of the distant future (of which, in characteristic midrashic fashion,41 the sages had assumed them to have been apprised). They make identical offerings in the only plausible way possible, by prior consultation, out of a keen awareness that base passions can undermine communal harmony and in hopes of preventing civil strife. (Contextual interpretation as practiced by Abarbanel takes account of less noble features of human nature and of the political dimension in human affairs.) Finally, in bringing their offerings, the princes have in mind concrete uses of their donations in the physical tabernacle, not symbolic meanings as heralds of future events. Despite his markedly different approach to the princes’ offerings, Abarbanel insists that the sages have resolved in their way the exegetical difficulties he has raised, and indeed this is so. The midrashic reading explains both how each prince came to donate the same objects to the tabernacle (through divine inspiration) and the reason for the recording of each identical offering in Holy Writ (though identical in substance, each offering signified different events in each individual tribe’s destiny).

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Here, though, as in the case of his rejection of the midrash concerning the first herbage, Abarbanel’s stress on exegesis casts a veil over other considerations that almost certainly informed his approbation of the rabbinic readings of Num. 7. Like the sages (and such earlier medievals as Nahmanides), Abarbanel believed that the Torah contained the blueprints of history. This presumption in turn engendered his typically positive appraisal of midrashim whose rationale was the well-known rabbinic principle that the “deeds of the ancestors” reported in Scripture offered indications of events in the lives of their “children” in times to come.42 Given his predilection for typological midrashim and rabbinic dicta of a similar stamp, it is little wonder that Abarbanel heartily endorsed the rabbinic historico-symbolic interpretations of the princes’ offerings as “excellent ways that accord with [future events as recorded in] the narratives of the Torah and Prophets.”43 As one preoccupied by textual symbols purporting to expose history’s ups and downs and determined to show (especially in his messianic works) how such symbols, as found in classical texts, provided keys for unlocking contemporary historical events,44 Abarbanel was quick to accord the rabbinic reading of the princes’ offerings an ample berth alongside his peshaខt analysis of the superficially unilluminating, extraordinarily repetitive biblical account. Beyond reproducing the fruits of midrashic methods, Abarbanel also periodically offers original interpretations fashioned out of them. The revelation granted Abraham after his circumcision is interpreted “according to the way of midrash” by incorporating but not simply amalgamating midrashim, and only then according to the peshaខt.45 Similarly, as regards the sacrifices brought by Aaron upon his appointment as high priest, Abarbanel notes that while the sages viewed the bullock as an atonement for Aaron’s role in making the golden calf, they failed to discuss the significance of the rams, bread, cakes, or unleavened wafers. Abarbanel then undertakes to make good the lacunae “in accordance with their way, viewing [the sacrifices] in relation to the sin of the calf.”46 Midrash is a distinct hermeneutic mode, which, at times, Abarbanel is willing to try.47 On occasion, Abarbanel will deny the exegetical function of midrash entirely, as when he praises “his eminence,” Rashi, who, though not nearly so much as Abarbanel would have wished, could at times serve as a bulwark against midrashic encroachments: Rashi wrote: “I have seen many homiletical expositions concerning the verses . . . that do not fit the grammar of the words or the order of the verses.” Truly, the words of the rabbi are correct with respect to the method of midrashic homily (ke-fi derekh midrash ha-haggadah). And his eminence emboldened himself to disagree with them [the sages] in this place; for so a good and upstanding exegete ought to do being as their words . . . were [said] by way of affinity


(haskamah) [with the biblical text]—i.e., they would use the verses as a fulcrum for the expression of their [preconceived] opinions (somekhim sippurei de‘otehem la-khetuvim), but only in the manner of a peg (derekh ’asmakhta’). Accordingly, the rabbi [Rashi] imbued within us [the principle] that the derash should be expounded, but the verse settled according to its peshaខt.48

The discrepancy between midrashic exposition and contextual truth should not occasion surprise, since the sages never intended their dicta as explications of Scripture in the first place. This point, recently argued by a leading modern student of midrash,49 had been asserted also by various of Abarbanel’s predecessors (like Abraham ibn Ezra).50 One of Rashi’s late medieval critics had condemned Rashi’s failure to grasp this point, chalking this up to an ignorance of logic on Rashi’s part.51 Here was an amenable solution to the problem of the yawning gulf that so often separated peshaខt and derash: the sages were themselves perfectly aware of it in advancing their midrashic views, which they did for their own independent reasons. Abarbanel, too, would at times take to task those who expressed willingness to renounce midrashic views on the grounds that they constituted poor exegesis.52 As has been seen, however, denials of midrash’s exegetical function were far from the sum total of Abarbanel’s understanding of midrash, if only because Abarbanel periodically accepted midrashim as embodiments of Scripture’s contextual sense and often rejected them for falling short of the exegetical mark.

Qabbalah In the introduction to his commentaries on the Former Prophets, Abarbanel described his relationship to earlier Jewish biblical interpretation and related his intention to adduce those midrashim “most pleasing” to him, implying that some rabbinic dicta were more satisfying than others and perhaps intimating that still others were downright disagreeable. Abarbanel further affirmed that he would not refrain from exposing the “weakness” of a midrash that reflected rabbinic “interpretation” as opposed to “received [traditions] in their possession.”53 While he supplied no criteria to distinguish these categories of rabbinic utterance, he followed the line that he had already drawn in ‘Aខteret zeqenim between midrashim which, because they reflected fallible human reasoning, could be disputed, and incontrovertible, traditionally received rabbinic views, which could not.54 Abarbanel points to the authoritative ground of rabbinic sayings reflecting a received tradition when he challenges ibn Ezra’s conclusions regarding the date and identity of the prophet Obadiah. Anticipating the approach of modern biblical scholarship, ibn Ezra had pronounced these questions intractable, while

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clarifying that the prophet in question was not the Obadiah “mentioned in [the book of] Kings.”55 To Abarbanel, the blank yielded by the scriptural evidence mattered little, for do not our sages, who were in possession of received traditions handed down generation after generation from the prophets, tell you that this Obadiah is the one mentioned in the Book of Kings . . . ? They [also] say that he was an Edomite convert and a son of Job’s companion Eliphaz. . . . If the matter were not thus, these perfect ones would not testify about it. . . . All of this comes to them only by virtue of a received tradition from ancestors.56

When Abarbanel vehemently asserts the prophetic authority of midrashic views, sensitive theological issues are usually close at hand. Excoriating earlier Hispano-Jewish commentators who held that scriptural predictions of redemption were fulfilled in Second Temple times, he laments that “we have seen those who lost their faith in the coming of our Messiah . . . as a result of these commentators [who are] ‘children that deal corruptly’ [Is. 1:4].” Against the naysayers “who led others astray” Abarbanel pits “the discerning ones: Are there any who can be likened to the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud? They are the great ones . . . [who] demonstrated the future redemption on the basis of Scripture.” This demonstration is not a function of rabbinic whimsy. Rather, “they received the interpretation of the verses in a tradition handed down directly from the prophets, which they then recorded in the Talmud and [compendia of] midrashot.”57 Similarly, while seeking to establish by way of “compelling argument (sevara’ goveret)” that “Rome and all of the Christians who profess the religion of Jesus are from Edom”— and hence, crucially, that Christendom is the target of the prophetic predictions of doom that were uttered against Edom in ancient times—Abarbanel invokes the language of tradition at nearly every turn: the “apostate” Paul of Burgos who, against all evidence, dared to make Israel the referent for these prophecies, “blasphemed God and the sages of Israel and their qabbalah”; the identification is a “qabbalah of the rabbinic sages”; it has been “accepted [mequbbelet] among the [rabbinic] sages of Israel from the earliest times without dispute”; “the words of our holy sages with their qabbalah is . . .”; “according to the qabbalah of the rabbinic sages . . .” In the heat of anti-Christian disquisition, Abarbanel also ascribes a qabbalah to Nahmanides and, in another version of the same argument, adds for good measure that the “scholars of truth”— the kabbalists—knew by tradition (qibbelu) that Jesus’ soul was Esau’s reincarnated.58 Qabbalah, then, could contribute to a closure of ranks amidst acrimonious internal Jewish eschatological debate, to reinforcement of a crucial medieval Jewish symbol of the “religious other,” or to promotion of theological constructs deemed to be of prime messianic and anti-Christian importance. In the


latter category lay the belief in a Messiah issuing from the house of Joseph and the “tradition in the possession of the early sages who received [their information] from the prophets that the city of Constantinople would be destroyed first and afterwards Rome.”59 In short, when critical theological issues were at stake, Abarbanel was quick to assert the special standing of some midrashim concerning them. When, however, one peers behind the label, Abarbanel’s understanding of rabbinic received traditions turns out to be more ramified than expected—and this, in part, due to his historical orientation. The historically critical perspective can arise even in the context of midrash halakhah, as when Abarbanel states that a legal interpretation found in the Talmud and dubbed by him a qabbalah might be grounded in rabbinic observations of Second Temple period practices as well as in exegesis.60 The same impulse is at work when Abarbanel refers to nonlegal received traditions in introductory remarks to a chart of Israel’s kings that he compiled: To enable you to be able to identify easily all of the kings who reigned in Israel and Judah . . . I have seen fit to record them here . . . on the basis of [the information that] I have gathered from the scriptural narratives contained in this book [of Kings] and the book of Chronicles and what the rabbinic sages accepted (mah she-qibbelu hខ azal) into [the rabbinic historical chronicle] Seder ‘olam from among the things received (mequbbalim) by them; for there were undoubtedly royal chronicles of the kings of Judah and Israel in their midst from which they took their tradition (laqeខhu qabbalatam).61

Clearly, traditions concerning First Temple times did not stem from oral transmissions relayed at Sinai. But if not, whence did they come? In this instance, speaking in terms removed from those typically employed by his medieval predecessors, Abarbanel indicates that such data were drawn from ancient historical chronicles still extant in rabbinic times that the sages sifted and incorporated into Seder ‘olam.62 Again, seeking to establish the superiority of Solomon’s Temple to the great churches by which European Jews were surrounded, Abarbanel finds himself constrained, for lack of rabbinic data, to rely heavily on the medieval Hebrew chronicle Yosippon, understood by him to be the work of Josephus. Still, he counsels confidence, for “all that I have related of the [Temple] structure of Herod, king of Israel, is attested in the book of Joseph ben Gurion who received it from the sages of Israel and on the say-so of trustworthy gentile historians.”63 Qabbalah may be found in nonrabbinic writings, its truth reinforced by details known from reliable non-Jewish authorities.64 Regarding the Edom-Christendom identity attested by rabbinic qabbalah, Abarbanel stipulates against Paul of Burgos that leading Christian biblical commentators “received”— that is, accepted—it also (qibbelu ’oto).65

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In Abarbanel’s hands, then, the verbal root q-b-l becomes quite protean. The sages received a body of historical information in its entirety, some of which was received—that is, deemed reliable—by them, and it is the product of this process that constitutes the rabbinic received tradition concerning ancient monarchic history that stands as authoritative.66 That words derived from the root q-b-l can have distinct and even contradictory meanings, referring either to incontrovertibly true rabbinic traditions or anything received from the past by the rabbis, reliable or otherwise, explains cases where Abarbanel appears to violate his own principle of rabbinic authority. He may designate a midrash as “received (mequbbal)” or the embodiment of “words of tradition (divrei qabbalah),” then variously add to it, bypass it, or even reject it. Endorsement of rabbinic tradition does not preclude the discovery of supplementary explanations. Despite his acceptance of the received midrashic principle that “whenever a person’s name is given along with that of his father as the author of a prophecy we know that he is a prophet son of a prophet,”67 Abarbanel asserts, in interpreting superscriptions to the books of the Minor Prophets, that some prophets’ fathers were named because they were celebrated figures, so that including lineages brought honor to the prophets in question.68 After describing as “mequbbal” a midrashic identification of the “man of God” in 1 Sam. 2:27 with Elkanah, Abarbanel suggests that the man may have been Phinehas.69 The received tradition is plausible but not definitive. Similarly, as will soon be seen, while initially granting that “we are in need of the words of tradition” to account for the presence of Rebecca’s wet-nurse with Jacob, Abarbanel then follows Nahmanides in advancing a different understanding of the reason for the elderly former wet-nurse’s location. Abarbanel will object to the chronology of ancient Israelite history presented in Seder ‘olam even though “this is the chronology that they [the rabbinic sages] accepted (qibbelu) there.” Not all that the sages received (or that Abarbanel received from them) reflects inerrant qabbalah.70 Sometimes Abarbanel barely disguises his incredulity at a midrash upon which he bestows the “received” designation. After airing reservations about the occasional midrashic identification of the scriptural sខor (Tyre) with Rome, he expresses willingness to defer to this bit of rabbinic geography if it is a “received tradition (qabbalah).” Otherwise, “we should not budge from that which the verity of the prophecy and its predictions show.”71 His true inner convictions are left in little doubt. Likewise, after recording the theologically distasteful rabbinic claim that Daniel misunderstood a prophecy of Jeremiah, Abarbanel, reprising Hasdai Crescas’s coinage, states that “if this view is a received tradition in their hands we will accept it with a happy countenance, but if it is offered as an interpretation of the verses . . . then we may deliberate.” But by and by his true colors show: “My soul is not at peace with this view.”72 Abarbanel’s handling of a midrash concerning an incident in the book of Joshua shows him at his most suspicious. He ceremonially grants the possi-


bility of a received tradition to which, naturally, he will defer: “‘ Then Joshua built an altar unto the Lord’ [Josh. 8:30]. The rabbinic sages said in tractate Soខtah that this occurred on the day that they crossed the Jordan. . . . If this is a received tradition in the rabbinic sages’ possession we will accept it from them.” But a more indelicate prospect also seems the more likely scenario: If, however, they were led to this [by the desire] to vouch for [Joshua’s and the people’s observance of] the verse, “And it shall be when you have passed over the Jordan [you shall (immediately thereafter) set up these stones,”]—as seems the case reading their words—then they have fallen into deep pits from which they cannot get up and four objections to their opinion will entangle them.73

By the end it becomes clear that Abarbanel’s deferent expression towards tradition is a stock piety lacking in conviction. A common pattern in Abarbanel’s invocation of the notion of received nonlegal midrashim follows the lead of the Andalusian exegetical school and its offshoots: a midrash’s possibly received status is asserted when its exegetical cogency is suspect. The structure is citation of the midrash, speculation as to its conceivably received origins, expression of willingness to surrender to the midrash if it rests on such authoritative foundations, and rhetorically unresolved agnosticism as to the facticity of the prospect. Abraham ibn Ezra’s comment on the rabbinic suggestion that “Isaac was thirty-seven years old when he was bound” illustrates this paradigm: If these are words of tradition then we will accept [them]. However, on the basis of independent analysis (u-mi-derekh sevara’) this seems incorrect, since [were it so] then Isaac’s righteousness [in submitting to an enormous trial at a mature age] should have been expressly mentioned, since [had he submitted to the trial while an adult] his reward would have been twice that of his father’s since he submitted himself willingly to slaughter.74

Similarly, one finds David Kimhi, an exegete influenced decisively by the Spanish school, objecting to the rabbinic view that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter as the result of his ill-considered vow but adding: “If the words of the rabbinic sages reflect a tradition in their hands then we must accept it.”75 As has been seen, Abarbanel raised the possibility that certain midrashim might reflect authoritative tradition at precisely the point he found rabbinic geography dubious or midrashic deprecation of Daniel unsavory. If need be, of course, creative exegesis can be deployed to rescue a problematic dictum deemed reflective of true tradition. Rabbi Eliezer, queried about the propriety of spreading a cloth on the Sabbath to guard against the sun, responded that there was “no tribe in Israel that did not produce judges.” The Talmud ascribed his deflection of the question to this sage’s habitual refusal to

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pronounce on issues in the absence of a tradition handed down from his teacher.76 After entertaining Rashi’s handling of the statement (endorsing some parts, criticizing others), Abarbanel engages the “doubtful words” themselves. His independent study reveals no evidence that the tribes of Simeon, Gad, Asher, and Reuben produced judges. Abarbanel therefore assumes that R. Eliezer meant to say only that the majority of tribes generated judges. As the purpose of his statement was diversionary, one need not assume its complete verbal precision. A literary-contextual reading of the aggadah provides an escape from the conclusion that the statement reflects incontestable transmitted truth. Still, it is possible that R. Eliezer spoke carefully, in which case, if his dictum reflects received tradition, “we will accept it.” Abarbanel would then argue that four judges of unknown ancestry came from the judgeless tribes, though the biblical data concerning their geographic origins suggest otherwise. Such straining is, however, purely pro forma—hence Abarbanel’s conclusion that “there is nothing perverted or crooked” in his divergent account of the judges’ lineages and that “the truth speaks for itself.” Then, in a final act of restoration, Abarbanel supplies an interpretation of R. Eliezer that allows his dictum to be accepted as is, calling it “likely” (though most of his readers would surely beg to differ). On this reading, when the sage spoke of no tribe without its judges he was referring to rabbinic and not biblical times.77 Abarbanel’s traditionalist credentials are preserved, but not at the expense of an unacceptably forced reading of the biblical data. Abarbanel’s stance towards qabbalah is phenomenologically akin to that of several immediate Iberian predecessors with whom he shared a traditionalist impulse. Like Hasdai Crescas, Joseph ibn Shem Tov, and Joseph Hayyun, for instance, Abarbanel was—rhetorically to be sure but not only in this respect— deferent before tradition but hardly unthinking in his deference. In their handling of ideas associated with the kabbalists, Crescas and ibn Shem Tov appear to preserve a realm from which the doubts engendered by reason are excluded. Actually, though, they air those doubts before yielding to tradition and, indeed, ever so gently imply lingering skepticism of the kabbalistic claim to possess authoritative truths handed down from the past: “If it is a tradition,” they both state, “we will accept it.” Like Crescas and ibn Shem Tov, Abarbanel also acknowledged a realm of authoritative tradition before which all had to bow, while indicating that he would not yield unquestioningly to views handed down from the past. More than these intellectually kindred spirits, however, Abarbanel restricted the possibility of received traditions almost wholly to Judaism’s rabbinic layer, bestowing upon kabbalists at most the role of ratifiers of received rabbinic views and procedures.78 Some features of Abarbanel’s interaction with the notion of rabbinic qabbalah are distinctive. His tendency to find rabbinic exegetical traditions at the nexus of biblical interpretation and theology is in keeping with a pattern in his


attitude towards midrash alluded to earlier, according to which exegetical and theological concerns are closely intertwined. In addition, some of the critical sensibilities that Abarbanel brought to his reading of purportedly received midrashic views as found in Seder ‘olam reflect a historical sense unrivalled for his time, a side of his engagement with nonlegal rabbinic discourse explored below.79

“Ways of Midrash” The ways of midrash were many: sensitivity to unexpected asymmetries in adjacent biblical verses, as in the midrash concerning the first herbage; imposition of a secondary meaning on a common word80 and elaborations of a biblical speaker’s obscure or ostensibly elliptical utterance,81 as in the midrashic reconstruction of Pharaoh’s warning to Moses; the assumption that biblical figures knew the future,82 as in rabbinic dicta concerning the princes’ offerings; and so on.83 Throughout his commentaries, Abarbanel responds variously to these midrashic propositions and propensities, mainly by counterposing his contextual interpretations to midrashic ones, at times explicitly but more often tacitly. A systematic survey of Abarbanel’s reaction to a few typical rabbinic interpretive habits and concerns throws further light on the dynamics of his response to midrash. 1. Pleonasm Owing to their belief in Scripture’s uniqueness as the product of divine revelation, the sages assumed that nothing in the Bible was unaimed or adventitious and that the biblical text lacked embellishment: each nuance—letter, word, verse, or pericope—possessed independent significance as an instrument of divine instruction.84 The well-known consequence of this assumption was that midrashim were typically spurred by ever-so-slight “surface irregularities”85 in the biblical text. Apparent redundancies, unexpected additions or omissions, and other such phenomena provided occasion for rabbinic sages to ply their midrashic wares. The midrashic outlook was not fully accepted by all medieval Jewish exegetes. Andalusian commentators especially, and those whom they influenced, treated Scripture as a text that at times reflected standard patterns of human discourse. On this view, some of Scripture’s surface irregularities were to be understood as stylistic or rhetorical devices designed to add emphasis, clarity, pathos, or the like in the manner of human speech. As regards particulars, however, there was room for disagreement in the Andalusian school and, indeed, within individual families of exegetes. Thus, while the Andalusian-born Joseph Kimhi, as reported by his son David, had understood Jeremiah’s “the

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Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord” (Jer. 7:4) with reference to the Temple’s three parts (’ulam, hekhal, devir), the younger Kimhi ventured that it might be a “repetition for emphasis,” noting that it was “usual for Scripture to repeat words two or three times to stress a point.”86 Abarbanel’s way of reading Scripture was typically more akin to the sages’. He, too, customarily assumed that seemingly needless repetitions and parallel formulations presented difficulties that could not simply be reduced to a “general stylistic or formal principle.”87 Not surprisingly, after reproducing the elder Kimhi’s reading of Jer. 7:4 as his own (characteristically without attribution), Abarbanel observes that it would be wrong to understand the repetition as being strictly “for the sake of emphasis.”88 If not usually inclined towards stylistic exegesis of the Andalusian sort, Abarbanel was also rarely comfortable with rabbinic solutions to seemingly needless biblical pleonasm. Rashi had already drawn attention to an obvious case in the opening phrase of Gen. 23:1— “ And the life of Sarah was a hundred years and twenty years and seven years”— and relayed the midrashic response that “the word ‘years’ is written after each term to tell you that each should be expounded by itself [as a complete term]: at one hundred, she was as a woman of twenty as regards sin; for just as at twenty, one may regard her as being without sin . . . so too at one hundred; and at twenty, she was as seven with regard to beauty.”89 David Kimhi demurred: “It says ‘years’ three times where one time would have sufficed. . . . This is a form of elegant expression (derekh sខaខhot) in the holy tongue.”90 On the hermeneutic issue, Abarbanel sides with Rashi and the sages (“. . . though it occurs often that the word ‘years’ follows each numerical component [of an age], I think this separation is always for some purpose”),91 but his interpretation in this case stands at a clear remove from the rabbinic rendering. First, it remains within the biological framework of Sarah’s life. Second, it draws inspiration from teachings of the Muslim physician Avicenna. Third, and most notably, it eschews textually baseless eulogizing of the beauty and moral superiority of Israel’s first matriarch. In Abarbanel’s view, the threefold repetition of “years” suggests that Sarah’s “youth” lasted a hundred years since she bore and nursed Isaac at the age of ninety and then raised him. So until a hundred years she was like a young woman with respect to her activities. The twenty years following were years of old age (shenot ha-ziqnah), in which her strength remained. The last seven years were days of advanced old age (yemei ha-yeshishut). These are the stages in human life mentioned by Avicenna.92

Here and elsewhere, like the midrashists of old, Abarbanel sees significance in biblical repetitions. But what they signify is another matter entirely.


2. Narrative Expansions The rabbinic sages often created “exegetical narrative expansions” containing “background details, conversations, or even whole incidents that were not openly stated in a [biblical] narrative text.”93 Abarbanel often refers to these without registering any dissent: “The sages said that On the son of Pelet [Num. 16:1] bowed out of the controversy on the advice of his wife”; “the sages mentioned other words of reproach issued by Korach against Moses.”94 At times he asserts that the elaborations are “correct” or “well-expounded.”95 On other occasions, he tries to locate their textual ground, as when expounding the rabbinic view that “the first man separated from Eve, his wife, until Lamech’s wives rebuked him for this and then he returned to conjugal relations with her.”96 Where textual evidence proves elusive, he may seek explanation from another quarter: “The sages said that the donkey [of Balaam] which spoke died. It is fitting that this should be so, for when it spoke, of necessity its constitution was transformed and its nature as a donkey passed away.”97 When forced to fall back on supplementary rabbinic material to interpret Scripture’s peshaខt, Abarbanel usually seems ill at ease. Commenting on the “very cryptic” song of Lamech (Gen. 4:23–24), he declares it “impossible to explicate it well except in the way that the sages explained it” and then relates the story of Lamech’s inadvertent murder of his ancestor Cain as preserved in rabbinic sources, interpreting the apocopated utterances of Lamech’s song accordingly.98 A modern scholar has enumerated reasons why this particular narrative expansion was attractive to early biblical interpreters. For one thing, it solved significant exegetical problems: who, for example, was the anonymous “man” (Gen. 4:23) whom Lamech had killed? For another, it resolved the potentially disturbing question of whether Cain, after intentionally murdering his brother, had been allowed to live and die a natural death in contravention of later biblical law.99 Abarbanel may well have found the midrashic account of Cain’s end agreeable for these reasons. Then too, being conversant with historical sources rarely or never cited by earlier Hebrew writers, and having a marked interest in correlating rabbinic and non-Jewish historical sources,100 he no doubt appreciated a midrashic account for which he had found a parallel in “Roman books” that he ultimately traced to Josephus.101 Still and all, though he admits that the biblical text is opaque and implies that the midrash is fitting, Abarbanel seems perturbed by his reliance on an extraneous rabbinic expansion to make sense of Holy Writ. His remark about the impossibility of interpreting Lamech’s song well without rabbinic assistance is telling. It is as if he cannot quite bring himself to admit that the song is completely inscrutable— one could interpret it, just not well—without rabbinic aid.102 Abarbanel’s efforts to free himself from reliance on midrashic supplementations are more determined when acceptance of them offers no theological re-

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turn. He is sure (like Kimhi, in contrast to Nahmanides) that the midrash that Jephthah actually sacrificed his daughter following his ill-advised vow (Judg. 11:30–40) marks a departure from peshaខt. In truth, she was relegated to what would become the template for the institution of the monastery, whence Edom and its latter-day offshoot Christianity adopted the idea.103 Regarding the presence in Jacob’s home of Rebecca’s wet-nurse Deborah at the time of her death, Rashi, adverting to a midrash of the Narbonnese rabbi Moses the Preacher, explained that “because Rebecca promised Jacob ‘then I will send and fetch thee from thence” [Gen. 26:45], she sent Deborah to him . . . and she died on the [return] journey.”104 Nahmanides considered it “unlikely” that Rebecca would have made her elderly former wet-nurse an agent for this purpose, but Abarbanel at first concedes that “we are in need of the words of [rabbinic] tradition” to understand the wet-nurse’s presence with Jacob. Then, switching tacks, he endorses Nahmanides’ idea that having long ago returned to her place of origin, she was now “coming with Jacob to visit her mistress.”105 The background detail supplied by midrash is, happily, not required after all. In sum, Abarbanel strove, as a rule, to keep contextual interpretations free of midrashic supplementation. To endorse the likes of the midrashic understanding of Pharaoh’s reference to “evil” posed no problem, just so long as Abarbanel’s rendering of peshaខt was not reliant on them. 3. Names and Identifications Among the ways that midrashim brought focus to biblical narratives was to name anonymous biblical figures, derive insights from the name etymologies of biblical figures, and identify named but obscure biblical figures with known scriptural personages.106 Medieval writers could find such preoccupation with names to be both excessive and overly speculative. Regarding appellations in Chronicles, David Kimhi noted the “many midrashim” on them, then added: “Were we to expound them all, no book could contain them. We know only that which is written, for all these names are related to things known to [the ancients]. This is indicated with some of these names, and we are not to seek those for which we have no information.”107 For his part, Abarbanel was more open to midrashic operations surrounding names. He accepts that Lamech’s daughter Naamah was Noah’s wife and that she was so called “because her deeds were pleasant (ne‘imim),”108 although he posits that it was not through this wife that Noah repopulated the world following the flood, since if so, “the [population of the entire] world would descend from the seed of Cain on her side.” Here as elsewhere, a theological concern may be surmised: the identification and name etymology are fine as long as they do not taint the universal postdiluvian bloodline. As for derivation of insights from biblical names, Abarbanel readily engaged in this without rabbinic prompting.109


Name etymologies, as they typically had no bearing on the peshaខt, were one thing. Identifying unnamed biblical figures was another. Abarbanel generally rejects rabbinic identifications of biblical figures on either exegetical110 or nonexegetical grounds.111 He tacitly mitigates what he apparently regards as an unacceptable midrashic stretch regarding the identity of Phinehas’ maternal grandfather Putiel (Exod. 6:25), combining Nahmanides’ explicitly contextual explanation that the obscure personage was mentioned since he was “honorable and known in his generation” with rabbinic conclusions based on name etymologies that Phinehas was a descendent both of Joseph and Jethro. The upshot is that Phinehas might have descended from Joseph or Jethro but not both.112 The suppleness of Abarbanel’s response to characteristic rabbinic activities surrounding names and identifications appears from his ample reworking of midrashim concerning the midwives of Exod. 1. Though Scripture had named the women in question, a midrashist sought, typically, to correlate these unknown personages with known individuals, relying on the common midrashic assumption that scriptural names at times reflected avocations rather than identities.113 Rashi summed up his findings: “Shifrah” [is Moses’ mother] Yocheved, who was so called because she would primp (meshapperet) the babe. “Puah”— this is Miriam, so called because she would call aloud . . . to the babe as women do in order to pacify a crying infant as, “I will cry (’ef‘eh) like a travailing woman” [Isa. 42:14].114

Whether or not Rashi understood these identifications to reflect Scripture’s peshaខt is unclear.115 For Abarbanel, at any rate, difficulties remained, such as how only two midwives could have serviced the multitudinous children of Israel: One cannot say that these two were the chiefs of all the midwives as the commentators suggest, since then Scripture ought to have referred to them as the chiefs of the midwives as [it refers to] the “chief of the butlers” [Gen. 40:2]. . . . Besides, how would it help for Pharaoh to issue his decree concerning this to these chiefs . . . , especially as he did not order them to transmit the order to the midwives under them?116

His denial that Pharaoh had promulgated his decree to two women implied in and of itself an inability to accept unmodified the midrashic identification of Shifrah and Puah. But there was a more obvious objection to this identification: how could Pharaoh have trusted Hebrew women to kill their own? Abarbanel could only conclude that the midwives must have been “Egyptians who delivered the Israelites,” understanding “meyalledot ha-‘ivriyyot” as “midwives of

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the Hebrew women” rather than “Hebrew midwives.”117 On this reading, the identification with Yocheved and Miriam was a complete nonstarter. Although he abandons this identification, Abarbanel nevertheless incorporates the rabbinic name etymologies associated with it into his own contextual interpretation. Anticipating the observation of a modern scholar that the biblical reference to Shifra and Puah “tempts one to suggest that the text may be referring to an obstetrical and gynecological team,”118 Abarbanel indicates that Shifrah and Puah are not names but occupations. His explanation of “shifrah” reads like Rashi’s with a significant modification: “The common practice in Egypt was for two midwives to come to stand by any woman giving birth, one of whom would be occupied with extracting and caring for the newborn . . . [and] was therefore called [the] ‘shifrah’ because she would primp the babe.” The second midwife’s occupation, according to Abarbanel, was with mother, not baby. Rashi’s recapitulation of the rabbinic etymology is reworked accordingly: this woman “would comfort the one giving birth, encouraging her with words, cries, and prayers [and] . . . was therefore called [the] ‘pu‘ah’ as in ‘I will cry (’ef‘eh) like a travailing woman.’ ” Resolving all problems of exegesis, logistics, and intelligibility in one fell swoop, Abarbanel explains that Pharaoh spoke to all midwives of the Hebrews, not two; that his audience was divided into two specialties, “the name of the one being shifrah and the name of the second being pu‘ah”; and that though the midwives were not Hebrews but Egyptians, they nonetheless “feared God” (a rationale hardly needed for their act of civil disobedience were they Israelites saving their own).119 As in so many other circumstances, theological concerns also could mediate Abarbanel’s response to rabbinic identifications. His ready acceptance of the identification of “Melchizedek king of Salem” (Gen. 14:18) with Noah’s son Shem (and of Salem with Jerusalem)120 is in keeping with that of Rashi, who imparted the midrashic view twice in his commentary. The first instance was in his explanation of the phrase, “And the Canaanite was then in the land” (Gen. 12:6), about which Rashi says: “They were gradually conquering the land of Israel from Shem’s descendants; for it had fallen to the share of Shem when Noah apportioned the earth amongst his sons, as it is said, ‘And Melchizedek king of Salem’ [Gen. 14:18].”121 The second instance was in his interpretation of Gen. 14:18 itself. Here Rashi flagged the midrashic origins of the Melchizedek-Shem identification (“a midrash ’aggadah is that he is identical with Shem son of Noah”) without, however, providing an alternative according to the peshaខt.122 The notion that Noah had bequeathed the holy land to Shem seemed dubious at best, however, to Aaron Aboulrabi, one of the severest medieval Rabbanite critics of midrash. To Aboulrabi, it seemed “more correct to say that it [the Holy Land] fell to Canaan’s lot, as it states, ‘And the border of the Canaanite [was from Zidon . . .] unto Gaza as you go toward Sodom’ [Gen. 10:19],” since “these lands are all close to Jerusalem . . . and we


find always that the land is associated with the name of Canaan and his progeny.”123 Dismissing what to him was an extremely wobbly midrash-based line of interpretation, Aboulrabi asked curtly: “But for much derash, who told you that Melchizedek was a descendent of Shem and that Salem was Jerusalem?” On exegetical grounds alone, Abarbanel might have found Aboulrabi’s dismissal too quick by half. How was it, he must have wondered, that a Canaanite king-priest blessed Abraham in the name of “God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth” (Gen. 14:19)? By summoning the view that Melchizedek was “Shem son of Noah, a man righteous like his father,”124 the difficulty was resolved. Earlier in his commentary, Abarbanel had found occasion to invoke the identification as well: As Rashi wrote, that land [of Israel] fell to the share of Shem, and the Canaanites girded themselves then to conquer a part of it. It appears, however, that Jerusalem did not fall into their hands, since it was in the hand of Melchizedek—who was a descendant of Shem son of Noah or him [Shem] himself, as their [the sages’] words would have it.125

The exegetical usefulness of the midrashic identifications of Melchizedek with Shem and Salem with Jerusalem notwithstanding, one might yet wonder at Abarbanel’s ready acceptance of them and the complete absence of his typically skeptical attitude towards such rabbinic expositions were it not for their manifold nonexegetical advantages. First, the identifications bolstered the Jewish people’s primordial connection with the Holy Land and Jerusalem (now linked with Shem son of Noah to whom “all of the descendants of Eber” [Gen. 10:21] including Abraham, the father of the Hebrew nation, traced their ancestry). Beyond that they established Jerusalem as a site of pure divine worship from an early time.126 What is more, they placed the later Israelite occupation of Canaan in a new light, turning what appeared to be a war of conquest against an indigenous population into the reestablishment of a Jewish presence in the land long ago bequeathed to their earliest postdiluvian ancestor. Finally, though he does not so much as allude to it, Abarbanel was almost certainly aware of an alternate reading of the end of Gen. 12:6 (hinted at by Abraham ibn Ezra and articulated and defended openly by one of his supercommentators), whose theological implications were, from Abarbanel’s point of view, disastrous. On this reading, the “then” of Gen. 12:6 could be understood only if one assumed that it had not been written by Moses.127 That Abarbanel would not have viewed this possibility with equanimity is evident from his discussion of alleged post-Mosaisms elsewhere in the Pentateuch.128 Faced with this disturbing possibility, Abarbanel was glad to read the end of Gen. 12:6— “ the Canaanite was then in the land”— as Rashi had read it and as ibn Ezra had mentioned was possible: by the time of Abraham’s arrival in Canaan, the Can-

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aanites had already conquered the land from Shem and his offspring and taken occupancy of it. The sages had their own reasons for identifying Melchizedek with Shem: to link the generation of the flood with that of Abraham, perhaps; or, as in the case of other such identifications, simply to breathe life into biblical figures who were otherwise destined to remain “shrouded in darkness in the eyes of the reader on the basis of the peshaខt.”129 It was, one may surmise, a decidedly different combination of exegetical and theological advantages that commended the midrashic identification to Abarbanel and led him to incorporate it into his contextual interpretations of Holy Writ. 4. Moral Evaluations of Scriptural Figures It was common for midrash to seek to resolve scriptural moral complexities and ambiguities by vindicating biblical heroes and disparaging biblical villains in the most excessive terms. In the words of the nineteenth-century Galician savant Zevi Hirsch Chayes, it was standard rabbinic procedure to “amplify praise of the deeds of the righteous, represent them favorably, and tip the scales of judgment in their favor” while “heaping all possible abominable acts” upon biblical evildoers.130 To be sure, not always did the rabbinic sages proceed thus. At least occasionally, they ascribed ethical lapses to the righteous where Scripture was silent131 or rendered positive appraisals of figures otherwise viewed adversely in midrashic literature.132 To premodern Jews ruminating on the morality of biblical figures, rabbinic “creative historiography” in this sphere could seem capricious at best. Abarbanel’s younger contemporary Levi ben Habib was asked why, in the absence of biblical evidence, the sages accused David of sexual indiscretion in his relationship with his wife-to-be Abigail while working so hard to acquit him of wrongdoing in the explicit scriptural account of his relationship with Bathsheba and murder of her Hittite husband. His response was threefold: there were in fact compelling textual hints behind the midrashic charge of impropriety concerning Abigail; the sages had merely accused David of prurient thoughts and not improper deeds; and the accusation was meant to illustrate David’s greatness in overcoming base desire.133 As should by now be predictable, Abarbanel’s response to rabbinic moral evaluations would be intertwined with the full stock of theological commitments that he championed. The example of ‘Aខteret zeqenim, where he took issue with negative rabbinic views of the “nobles of the children of Israel” in order to defend the cause of inerrant prophecy, has already been discussed. Also deserving of close consideration is Abarbanel’s handling of the sages’ discernment, beneath the biblical description of Nimrod as a “mighty hunter before the Lord” (Gen. 10:9), of a guileful figure bent on fomenting rebellion against God. In this instance Abarbanel shows how he excels in working cre-


atively not only with midrashic ideas but also with ones handed down to him by earlier medievals. The rabbis’ disparagements of Nimrod had been endorsed by Rashi and seconded by Nahmanides. By contrast, Abraham ibn Ezra held that the meaning of the report that Nimrod was “a mighty hunter” was that he was “the first to display man’s mastery over the animals.” As for the explanation of “before the Lord,” ibn Ezra submitted that Nimrod would “build altars upon which he would offer the animals [that he had hunted] as sacrifices to God.” This was peshaខt, though ibn Ezra was aware that, in his diplomatic formulation, the rabbinic sages had “a different approach.”134 Reacting sharply, Nahmanides cited Rashi’s midrashic interpretation, then remarked that “Rabbi Abraham explained the opposite according to the way of its peshaខt, . . . [the result of his interpretation being that] he ‘justifies a wicked person’ [Prov. 17:15], since our sages knew of his [Nimrod’s] wickedness through tradition.” Nimrod could not be pious according to peshaខt and wicked according to derash. Rabbinic qabbalah settled the matter in favor of the latter assessment.135 Abarbanel begins his account by informing his reader that “you already know what the rabbinic sages explained that he would ensnare the minds of people with his wiles. But I think that he was a great hunter of animals.” On this detail it was wholly clear to Abarbanel that peshaខt and midrash diverged. But while rejecting the midrash’s metaphorical interpretation of Nimrod’s hunting, Abarbanel adopts the negative assessment of his character. Nahmanides (and David Kimhi) had already singled out Nimrod as human history’s first monarch on the basis of the passing reference in Gen. 10:10 to “the beginning of his kingdom.” Abarbanel—monarchy’s most implacable medieval Jewish critic, who believed that the first monarchs came to be “not by the election of the people but by force”— does something similar. That is, he adopts the midrash’s negative evaluation of Nimrod not on Nahmanides grounds, that it constitutes qabbalah, but (at least in part) because it accords with the view of Nimrod as history’s first monarch—who, by Abarbanel’s definition, must have had a leading role in the rise of primeval tyranny. But Abarbanel offers a remarkable variation on the midrashic theme by quietly incorporating ibn Ezra’s portrayal of Nimrod into his sketch: It is possible that Nimrod would offer sacrifices from his prey in order to seem pious and appear to be a servant of God, since in this way he could lure people’s hearts to follow him more [readily]. [It is] with reference to this [stratagem] that [Scripture] states “a mighty hunter before the Lord.”136

For the keen student of politics and seasoned court operator, it is no departure from peshaខt to assume that the world’s first monarch brought sacrifices to God,

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so long as it be understood that these were feigned acts of piety calculated to achieve his this-worldly ends. Not always were Abarbanel’s thoughts on the life and piety of biblical figures and the midrashic assessments of them so heavily overlaid with theological concerns. At times, midrash simply seemed beyond all legitimate exegetical bounds. Abarbanel’s handling of the seemingly indisputable evidence of David’s connivance in the death of his loyal mercenary Uriah the Hittite and adultery with Uriah’s wife Bathsheba reveals this feature of Abarbanel’s interaction with rabbinic exculpations of biblical heroes. R. Samuel b. Nahmani maintained in R. Jonathan’s name that “whoever says that David sinned is in error.” Similarly Rab observed that “Rabbi [i.e., Judah the Prince], who is descended from David,” had “turned around (mehapekh)” Nathan the prophet’s rebuke of David, “Wherefore did you despise the word of the Lord to do that which is evil in His sight?” (2 Sam. 12:9), and expounded it in David’s favor, stating that the “evil” mentioned here meant that “he wished to do [evil] but did not.”137 Following rabbinic precedent, several of Abarbanel’s Ibero-Jewish predecessors had insisted that the account of David’s apparent abuses should not be taken at face value. Nissim Gerondi explained that since David was a man of great moral stature, his minor sins were accounted as if he had committed the major sins described in the verses. Joseph ibn Shem Tov, after remarking, “Heaven forfend that the king of Israel . . . should acquiesce in two such great sins as these,” simply left it that the matter had “been explained in tractate Shabbat.”138 Like Judah the Prince, Abarbanel traced his ancestry to the House of David, but unlike the Mishnah’s redactor and his Ibero-Jewish predecessors, he refused to engage in what he deemed farfetched special pleading on David’s behalf. On the contrary, the king’s behavior was quintuply contemptible: First, that David committed the sin of adultery . . . , which is certainly more despicable when it is a king that lies with the wife of one of his subjects . . . , especially one occupied with his service fighting his wars. . . . Second, that David tried to get Uriah to lie with his wife so that the newborn would be considered his. . . . Third, that he ordered that Uriah be placed at the head of a heated battle in order to kill him. . . . Fourth, in the manner of his death and murder . . . that he was killed at the hands of the enemies of God the Ammonites. . . . The fifth despicable aspect is that immediately after the seven day morning period of Uriah’s wife had passed, the king ordered that she be taken forthwith to his house to be his wife. Why did he not wait . . . ?139

Having excoriated a venerable biblical great in remarkably forthright terms (along lines almost certainly known to him from Nicholas of Lyre’s Postilla litteralis), Abarbanel dismisses R. Judah’s exoneration on the grounds that it reflects “the ways of derash to which I do not have to respond.” What the


“ways of derash” had intended in this case Abarbanel does not say, but respond he does, deftly turning to advantage what he takes to be a pregnant intimation embedded in Rab’s statement that “Rabbi, who is descended from David, turned [the verse] around in his favor.” To Abarbanel, this statement suggested that the majority of sages denied the truth of Judah the Prince’s interpretation, viewing it as a reflection of R. Judah’s Davidic pedigree and resultant desire to excuse an illustrious forebear. The long and the short of it, he affirmed, was that if Scripture called David a sinner and he admitted his sin, how could one be considered in error for believing this? Better to affirm that he sinned, confessed, repented, and won forgiveness, making David a model of the true penitent.140 At his most independent, Abarbanel could all at once criticize the conduct of a divinely appointed biblical hero, reject a midrashic absolution of him, and depart from medieval readings grounded in this rabbinic exculpation.

Exposition of Exegetical Midrashim On occasion, Abarbanel treats midrashim designed to solve exegetical problems as objects worthy of exegesis in their own right. The result is, typically, twofold. First, there is exposition—quietly brief or visibly expansive—of the midrashic biblical interpretation, with such exposition upholding, as often as not, Abarbanel’s conviction that scriptural study can and should engender far ranging theological reflection. Second, there is inventive homiletics of the sort one would expect to find on display in a Spanish sermon of the period, like those delivered by Isaac Arama. Midrashim concerning creation, demons begotten by the first man, the sins of the generation of the tower of Babel, the donkey saddled by Abraham, Moses’ comportment at the burning bush, the prophetic capacities of Balaam, and more141 could all serve as points of departure for the sort of theologically searching biblical commentary that Abarbanel prized. In so doing, they could also become pretexts for gifted homiletical performances by Abarbanel that instruct even as they entertain, as several examples will serve to show.142 Unfolding the divine command to Moses to invest Joshua with “some of your honor (hodekha)” (Num. 27:20), a midrash states: “It says ‘some of your hod’ but not ‘all of your hod’ [because] Moses’ face was as the sun’s and Joshua’s as the moon’s.”143 As the meaning of hod is far from clear,144 Abarbanel’s recourse to midrash (following Rashi) is well understood. Yet the meaning of the midrash is itself none too luminous, and, characteristically, Rashi had cited it without elaboration. By contrast, Abarbanel explains: “The rabbinic sages said that it says ‘some of your hod’ and not ‘all of your hod’ because Joshua did not attain the level of prophecy of Moses, his teacher.” Abarbanel apparently deems the midrash in line with peshaខt, and his interpretation makes it read well

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contextually, for the text speaks of a transfer of leadership soon to occur. In Abarbanel’s politically attuned interpretation, Moses was enjoined to treat Joshua with greater honor than had hitherto been his practice since “the congregation and its leaders,” who have thus far known Joshua only as “Moses’ aide from his youth,” might otherwise “slight his honor.” By imparting some hod to the leader-to-be in his lifetime, Moses forestalls this problematic likelihood with the consequence (as the end of the verse relates) that “all of the congregation of the children of Israel may hearken.” Yet the directive sends a message to Joshua too: he will assume all of Moses’ authority but not all of his mentor’s prophetic capacities. And unable to prophesy at all times like Moses, he will be “constrained to ask of the high priest what Israel is to do” when knowledge of the future is required. And so the next verse teaches: “He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the Lord. . . .” When its main metaphorical tropes of “sun” and “moon” are recast into concrete theological terms, the midrash imparts peshaខt —and some important theological and political lessons to boot.145 Abarbanel explains that Moses was “content to dwell with” the man whose daughters he had saved from villainous shepherds (Exod. 2:21) since he found in him “good discernment and knowledge” (Ps. 119:66). The sages alluded to this idea when they said that “the rod of God was planted in the orchard of Jethro and no one was able to move it from its place except Moses, and that it was for this reason that he gave his daughter, Zipporah, to him as a wife”: They meant to refer to the “tree of life in the midst of the garden” [Gen. 2:9], which is a figurative expression (meliខsah) for the wisdom of Moses by virtue of which he merited prophecy. The “rod” of this knowledge was planted in the “orchard,” i.e., Jethro’s heart, and no man was able to take it from there except Moses. With it he performed the signs and miracles [in Egypt]. For this reason, “Moses was content to dwell” with Jethro and Jethro “gave Moses Zipporah, his daughter” [Exod. 2:21] for a wife, due to his [Moses’] wisdom.146

Its elusive imagery made transparent, the midrash buttresses Abarbanel’s contention that Moses remained with Jethro on account of his wisdom, not his daughter, and reveals why Moses was chosen to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. In conclusion, Abarbanel offers a “midrash” of his own: “For this reason, too, they [Jethro and Moses] are called ‘friends (re‘im)’, as it says, ‘each one inquired of the other’s (’ish le-re‘ehu) welfare’ [Exod. 18:7].” It was, in other words, due to a shared love of wisdom and admiration for each other’s goodness that Jethro and Moses were “friends.”147 This casual concluding remark based on a hyperliteral reading of “re‘ehu” in Exod. 18:7 (and reminiscent of Aristotle’s teaching in the Ethics, a work well-known to Abarbanel, that “complete friendship is the friendship of good people similar in virtue”),148 underscores how far


Abarbanel has drifted from biblical commentary into the realm of homily, such digression itself being typical of classical rabbinic exegetical collections. A seemingly straightforward verse in Exod. 2 has become a springboard for an engaging minisermon that alights on a host of larger topics including prophecy’s prerequisites, the miracles in Egypt, and the ground of true friendship. The illuminating diversion complete, Abarbanel returns from his minisermon to his running commentary on the biblical text. Slightly later in the Commentary on Exodus, Abarbanel interprets an enigmatic midrashic dispute regarding Moses’ conduct at the burning bush (“And Moses hid his face” [Exod. 3:6]) in a way that illustrates his occasional tendency to find a “traditional home” for Maimonidean views that he strongly disputes.149 According to R. Joshua ben Korhah, “Moses did not do well to hide his face,” while R. Hoshaiya said that “Moses did do well to hide his face. . . .” Abarbanel treats the midrash expansively: Now, it is fitting that we understand what these two sages were arguing about . . . and how R. Joshua could say that Moses did not do well to hide his face when God had commanded him, “Draw not nigh hither” [Exod. 3:5]. It seems that the dispute between these two perfect ones was about whether prophecy requires some sort of prior natural educational preparation or does not require it, being from the divine will alone, like those opinions mentioned by the master and guide in chapter thirty-two of part two [of the Guide]. R. Joshua ben Korhah would then be saying that training is not a necessary precondition for [achieving] prophecy, since it is by the will of God that the prophet prophesies. . . . By contrast, R. Hoshaiya praised what Moses did because his view was that prophecy requires prior preparation.150

The point of departure for Abarbanel’s analysis, as he notes, is a three-way disagreement described in the Guide concerning prophecy. The first opinion, ascribed to the vulgar, both pagan and Jewish, is that God chooses whomsoever He wishes to prophesy, more or less regardless of any prior qualifications. The second and third opinions, ascribed to “the philosophers” and “our Law” respectively, see prophecy as a natural perfection, with the Law making provisions for its miraculous denial to one who is otherwise deserving on purely natural grounds.151 In his Commentary on the Guide, Abarbanel would pronounce an anathema on Maimonides’ prophetology: “I say the primary principle upon which the master built a ‘line of confusion and a plummet of emptiness’ [Is. 34:11]—that is, that prophecy is a natural perfection—. . . is false.”152 In the biblical commentary, however, he nowhere hints that he considers this view defective when he attributes it to a “perfect” one from among the rabbinic sages, remaining content to explicate an elusive midrash in a way that airs a fundamental theological question. The result is that a Maimonidean

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view to which Abarbanel takes strong exception is validated by its introduction into classical Judaism’s rabbinic stratum.

Interweaving of Midrashic Motifs The regular interweaving of rabbinic dicta into his exegetical prose is a rather different facet of Abarbanel’s interaction with midrash that deserves mention. Rabbinic sayings and motifs are included naturally, in a way that creates a layered literary tapestry comprising biblical text, rabbinic source, and Abarbanel’s words, thereby leaving the impression that Abarbanel’s interpretations are firmly rooted in classical Jewish soil. Such midrashic interlacings usually provide mere literary flourish or incidental reinforcement of a motif (e.g., Moses and Aaron could have drawn water from the rock simply by speaking to it “in accordance with their [the sages’] saying ‘He that tells the oil to burn will tell vinegar to burn’ ”),153 but they occasionally grow into a steady stream, as in this nonliteral rendering of the “meal offering of firstfruits” of Lev. 2: A man should try to beat and destroy his evil inclination, as the sages said: “My son, if this repulsive wretch meets you, drag him to the study hall. . . .” [And the verse hints] that it is not fitting to nullify and destroy [the evil inclination] completely; for if this were to happen, the settlement and building of the world would abate, as the sages said: “Were it not for the evil inclination, a man would not build a house or marry a woman.”154

Midrash and the “Seventy Faces” of Scripture The term midrash was not nearly so “slippery and vague” to Abarbanel as it has become to modern scholars:155 to him it was essentially the product of the rabbinic hermeneutic, though on rare occasion he could dismiss original medieval interpretations as being “in the manner of derash.”156 Given his understanding of the exegete’s primary task—to convey peshaខt — and the fact that he generally finds midrash divergent from the contextual sense, it is little wonder that Abarbanel deemed it “evil and bitter” that Rashi had contented himself in his biblical commentaries “in most matters with that which the rabbinic sages expounded.” Unlike Rashi, Abarbanel in his capacity as a contextual interpreter (pashខtan) usually omitted or rejected midrash as inadequate or even inimical to his primary aim. And signs of Abarbanel as pashខtan are ubiquitous; they include such tendencies as his avoidance of reliance on textually tenuous midrashic narrative expansions and his eschewal of most midrashic identifications of anonymous figures. Often, as with the mid-


rashim on the ខtaf, the Israelites’ circumcision at Gilgal, and the first herbage, Abarbanel spells out what he finds misguided or extraneous in midrash. No less frequently, though, he spurns midrashim without elaboration (“this is the opinion of the derash . . . but it is very unlikely on the basis of the verses’ peshaខt”), and at times he does so in notably vivid terms (“very strange,” “evidently weak”). Such dismissals justify Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano’s characterization of Abarbanel157 as an especially open and emphatic critic of midrash. Indeed, Abarbanel is unsurpassed among well-known premodern Hebrew biblical commentators in this respect, albeit not among lesser-known figures.158 Abarbanel did not assume that all products of rabbinic Bible study were incompatible with Scripture’s contextual sense, but he did assume that they had to conform to a demanding set of criteria if they were to be accepted as renderings of peshaខt. Usually they failed the test. Yet, in contrast to some of his predecessors, Abarbanel insisted that a Bible commentary must go beyond contextual interpretation and relay Scripture’s untold theological, philosophic, spiritual, and historical planes. Abarbanel apparently approached the Andalusian outlook on matters exegetical when, reworking a Mishnaic dictum cited in his first work, he stated that “it is not midrash that is essential but rather the true peshaខt.”159 But while Hebrew exegetes living in Muslim Spain saw biblical interpretation as “anchored primarily in the consecutive grammatical exposition of individual words and phrases,”160 Iberian commentators from later centuries writing in Christian Spain like Bahya ben Asher, who formally included the midrashic interpretive plane in his exegetical program alongside the contextual, philosophic, and kabbalistic planes,161 and Nahmanides found this definition of the exegetical enterprise too narrow and superficial. In response, these commentators developed a broader conception of biblical interpretation, in which midrash occupied a significant place. Abarbanel, making good on the implications of his critique of earlier medieval biblical commentary—expressed in his rhetorical question, “Did they not know that the Torah has seventy faces?”— developed this program of expanding the commentatorial enterprise still further, shifting it in the direction of the midrashically oriented homiletics favored by Iberian Jews in his day, as developed by such preacher-exegetes as Isaac Arama and Abraham Saba.162 The “words of the commentators” were necessary, to be sure; but throughout his commentaries one encounters Abarbanel’s sentiment that “the ways of the midrashot” are in their own manner essential to any wholly satisfying and satisfactory exploration of the polysemous divine word. In terms of his main exegetical goal, Abarbanel usually rejected midrash. But his attitude shifted markedly once the quest for peshaខt was met. Perhaps most notably, Abarbanel valued midrash when it invested Scripture with a deeper religious dimension, entailed congenial theological consequences, offered vital spiritual food for thought, or buttressed what he deemed

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foundational classical Jewish beliefs. Conversely, midrashim that contained offensive theological content garnered attention to ensure their neutralization or reconfiguration. The connection between his attitude towards midrash and his theologizing is evident in Abarbanel’s tendency not simply to cite midrashim in the manner of most of his medieval predecessors but to expand upon them and refashion them, now with a gloss, now with a sermonette (“after your heart” refers to heresy; the star called “Evil”; “some of your hod”; the rod of the God planted in Jethro’s orchard). But whatever the end result, theological interests intrude on Abarbanel’s interpretive calculus with decisive regularity. The foregoing analysis has sought to explain this fact by reference to Abarbanel’s view that biblical interpretation, done correctly, should encompass theological as well as exegetical dimensions. Given his stress on theology, Abarbanel’s regular reference and recourse to midrash become understandable. As has been seen, theology lies close to the heart of Abarbanel’s manipulation of the concept of rabbinic qabbalah as well. Nowhere does Abarbanel spell out clearly how one is to know when a given midrashic view was or was not traditionally received. In ‘Aខteret zeqenim, he had already set down the negative rule that where rabbinic sources spoke with more than one voice, a lack of tradition could be inferred, and this principle remained a guideline in later years.163 (Indeed, he would at times invoke it so reflexively that he would forget to set out each step in the argument in full).164 Conversely, he intimates that the appearance of an idea in multiple midrashim—such as Abraham’s having been cast into the fiery furnace—suggests the existence of a qabbalah that cannot, therefore, be wholly dismissed (though Abarbanel is quick to reconcile the midrashic proposition with Maimonides’ political-naturalistic understanding of the reason for Abraham’s hasty departure from Ur).165 But if, in theory, there was a body of nonlegal rabbinic discourse before which Abarbanel committed himself to bend, in practice he assumed that most nonlegal midrash reflected “words derived by way of interpretation” that could be rejected where contextual interpretation so demanded. Abarbanel’s appeals to qabbalah therefore color the tone of his exegesis more than they determine its substance. The one sure pattern is that binding midrashic interpretation is likely to be invoked where there is need to reinforce biblical interpretations Abarbanel holds dear, such as the identification of Edom with Christianity or the premise that prophecies of national restoration refer to future events. As for more specific principles of selection governing the place of midrash in Abarbanel’s commentaries beyond considerations of theological attraction or repulsion, one may note the following. Special attention, positive or negative, was paid to midrashim that (1) in some way reflected the peshaខt (“after your heart and eyes”; air of the Land of Israel makes one wise; some of your hod) or at least grappled with and attempted to resolve real exegetical difficulties (princes’ offerings; Moses’ blame of the Israelites and God’s response), (2) fit


the words of the biblical text without, however, rendering peshaខt (a star named “Evil”; Abraham blessed with offspring, wealth, and fame because traveling diminishes all three), (3) supplied details not found in the biblical text (On’s withdrawal from controversy; the fate of Balaam’s donkey; the “man” killed by Lamech; Deborah’s sojourning with Jacob at the time of her death), including the names or identifications of biblical figures (the midwives; Melchizedek), (4) were prominent in the earlier tradition of medieval Hebrew biblical commentary as Abarbanel perceived it, consequently meriting or demanding (as in the case of many midrashim cited by Rashi) attention (ខtaf’s attendance of the law’s public reading every seventh year; failure to circumcise in the desert; initiative of the “first herbage”; Nimrod’s wickedness; some of your hod; typological midrashim favored by Nahmanides), (5) bear the stamp of historical authenticity (a star named “Evil” and astrology in ancient Egypt), cohere with external historical sources (Lamech as Cain’s killer in “Roman books” and Josephus), or shed light on the structure and meaning of history (princes’ offerings; typological midrashic interpretations of Jacob’s interaction with Esau), or as regards negative attention (6) harbor some scientific improbability or empirically unfounded premise (first herbage; failure to circumcise due to the absence of the healing north wind). All of the above amounts to saying that Abarbanel was a theologically minded exegete who was neither ardent friend nor relentless foe of midrash. In the end, it was individual midrashim that he judged, not rabbinic exegesis in aggregate. If he found, after completing his interpretive calculus, that a given midrash reflected the peshaខt, so be it; he incorporated it readily into his commentary. And if not, as was usually the case, this was rarely a problem: he either ignored the midrash or, often enough, incorporated it into his commentary anyway as an authentic expression of one of the other facets of Scripture that he deemed it his job to relay. In some instances, it seems clear that lavish praise of midrashic views reflects the support that they lend his own interpretations (“How sweet to my palate is that which they said in the midrash. . . . Behold, they hinted in a few words at the sublime opinion onto which I stumbled by the grace of God”).166 (In one instance he even reports happily that a midrash come his way in Italy has confirmed an interpretation developed in Iberia a decade and a half earlier.)167 But often, ample midrashic material is inserted without any apparent ulterior motive and even without elaboration.168 Indeed, at times Abarbanel collects and records large swathes of midrash after his own exegesis of a verse, topic, or biblical book is complete.169 Such gratuitous digests of midrash have no rationale other than Abarbanel’s conviction that the specific dicta in question are “pleasant, worthy, and sensible.”170 More broadly, they can be understood only in terms of Abarbanel’s view that midrashic interpretation was a necessary component of any full exposition of the infinitely meaningful and multifaceted divine word.

Chapter 6

In Search of Classical Jewish Eschatology: Yeshu‘ot meshiខho 鵼鵻

I

f, in the biblical commentaries, Abarbanel engaged midrash regularly, he made nonlegal rabbinic discourse his exclusive focus in the central tome of his messianic trilogy, Yeshu‘ot meshiខho.1 In this work, Abarbanel affirmed his intention to interpret rabbinic eschatological sayings “according to their roots and the ways of their wisdom on the basis of straightforward investigation, correct reasoning, and that which the sages and prophets have taught us.”2 In other words, he promised methodologically sound exegesis true to the spirit and teachings of classical Jewish (biblical and rabbinic) eschatology. While proclaiming this conservative or restorative objective with great fanfare, however, Abarbanel also indicated his intention to deploy an innovative hermeneutic in unraveling rabbinic messianic sayings—to blaze an exegetical trail “never trod by anyone before.”3 As in so many other cases, Abarbanel’s traditionalism would prove to be a composite of old and new. To begin to understand the apparently disparate commitments and sensibilities undergirding Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, it is necessary to consider the work’s two main axes: first, the history of interpretation of rabbinic messianic sayings and, second, the sprawling network of ideas, interpretations, and rhetoric that is Abarbanel’s messianism. Rabbinic messianic dicta presented unique problems as well as special challenges and opportunities to postrabbinic scholars. Like other nonlegal rabbinic pronouncements, they could seem bizarre when taken literally. And, like them, they were open to textual manipulations that could transmute their meanings and point them in new directions. Unlike other nonlegal dicta, however, rabbinic messianic utterances had been invoked by missionaries to prove the truth of Christian teachings.4 At the same time, they served as a basis upon which various postrabbinic Jewish savants tried to calculate the time of the (in their mind) real Messiah’s coming.5 Perhaps the greatest challenge that eschatological midrashim and aggadot presented, however, was the difficulty of eliciting

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from them a unified theology of redemption. As a leading scholar of rabbinic literature views it: [P]ossibly in this sphere, more than in regard to any other theme, there is evident the independent approach of the Sages, which finds expression in a variety of views and conceptions. At times this diversity exceeds the standards of normal differences of opinion and reaches down to fundaments. It is not confined to divergences within the framework of the generally accepted system of concepts, but reaches antitheses that imply the complete negation of one doctrine by the other.6

Posttalmudic efforts to interpret messianic aggadah must, then, be understood within several contexts, the most important being the diverse forces that generally shaped interest in and approaches to aggadah in different times and places; the specific exegetical, theological, and eschatological teachings of individual scholars; and, at times, the (often dramatically altered) historical circumstances in which interpretation of messianic sayings was undertaken. Abarbanel’s messianism has been the subject of ample study during this century,7 not least due to the almost universal assumption of scholars that Abarbanel’s preoccupation with “the end” was definitive in shaping his religious outlook and scholarly agenda after 1492, when he composed most of his works. Abarbanel’s messianism has also garnered attention due to a widely held belief regarding its immense influence, with one of Abarbanel’s leading modern students going so far as to dub him “the father of the [Jewish] messianic movements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”8 Actually, such perceptions, and the assumptions underlying them, remain far more dubious than earlier studies of Abarbanel’s messianism would allow. A full-fledged reevaluation of the issue requires a separate study,9 but basic issues regarding Abarbanel’s eschatology are clarified by focussing on Yeshu‘ot meshiខho from new vantage points. In particular, this work should be considered not only as a messianic tome (such being the focus of earlier scholarship) but also as one of the most extensive exercises in rabbinic exegesis even undertaken by a premodern Jew.10 In reflecting on Yeshu‘ot meshiខho from this perspective, it proves revelatory to consider Abarbanel’s stance towards tradition in the work; that is, the nuances and complexities that emerge as Abarbanel attempts to steer a course amidst a welter of earlier Jewish eschatological exegesis and theological speculation. So as not to lose the forest for the trees, a few overarching conclusions that arise when Yeshu‘ot meshiខho is studied from this angle should be stated at the outset. The work, it turns out, is true to its traditionalist rhetoric in many respects such as its regular appeals to received traditions handed down to the sages by the prophets and its efforts to confute what Abarbanel deems rationalist subversions of classical eschatology.11 But if Abarbanel wields a traditionalist

In Search of Classical Jewish Eschatology: Yeshu‘ot meshiខho

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razor with gusto, especially when assessing the work of predecessors, he also makes good on his promise of interpretive innovation. The result is what is in some ways one of his most original—which is to say least traditional—works. One can put this conclusion otherwise. There are those, such as Yitzhak Baer, who have viewed the messianic trilogy of which Yeshu‘ot meshiខho forms the center as little more than a reproduction of familiar material “in the form required to meet the demands of the time.” Others, including Gershom Scholem, have seen the trilogy, along with Judah Loew of Prague’s messianic writings, as one of two “classic compendia” that “codified the Messianic doctrines of Judaism.” On the evidence of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, those who advocated such views accepted Abarbanel’s rhetoric of tradition too uncritically.12

The “Dreadful” Messianic Aggadot Before reaching any such findings, it is necessary to recall and further fill out the circumstances in which Yeshu‘ot meshiខho was produced. Having accompanied Alfonso II in his flight from Naples and having passed time in Sicily and Corfu, Abarbanel found himself in Monopoli, uncertain as to what lay ahead. Despite a string of impressive literary accomplishments—Mirkevet hamishneh, Zevaខh pesaខh, Naខhalat ’avot—he was deeply pessimistic, because of both his sorrowful personal situation and his distress at the aftershocks of expulsion that continued to reverberate in the hearts and minds of his fellow Spanish exiles. The opening lines of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, the second of the three eschatological tomes that Abarbanel wrote beginning a half decade after his arrival in Italy, speak of a “plague” of hopelessness decimating the “house of Israel.”13 In the first of the messianic works, Ma‘ayenei ha-yeshu‘ah, Abarbanel had situated this plague within the plane of world and, indeed, cosmic history. During “these past thirty-two years [since 1464],” he observed, “many terrible evils have come upon the Jewish people in all places such as no eye has seen nor has ever occurred previously, neither to them nor any other nation, from the time humankind was put on Earth until today. . . .”14 Abarbanel was alluding to a period deemed significant by him and others in light of a theory of astral conjunctions championed by the twelfth-century Barcelonan philosopher and astrological adept Abraham Bar Hiyya. Bar Hiyya’s messianic treatise proclaimed its author’s intention to reveal “the secret of redemption.”15 Viewing history in terms of a correspondence between world eras and the days of creation, bar Hiyya offered—based in the main on scriptural testimonies but also on zodiacal signs and movements—detailed messianic prognostications. Jupiter’s and Saturn’s conjunction was for bar Hiyya, as for numerous other Jewish, Muslim, and Christian medieval astrologers, of especial importance due to these planets’ positions and the nature of their motions.16 In bar Hiyya’s Juda-

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ized version of this theory, the grand conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Pisces saw the revelation of the Torah; their seventh major conjunction in Virgo witnessed the rise and spread of Christianity, and the recurrence of these planets in Pisces for the second time in history promised the nations’ final downfall and beginning of Israel’s deliverance in 1464.17 For some in Abarbanel’s day, harbingers of hope were visible not only in the heavens but on the ground. In the minds of some, the expulsion of Europe’s largest Jewry from Spain, in conjunction with such events as the mass forced conversion of Portuguese Jewry in 1497, could be regarded as signs that the end was nigh. For example, an anonymous Portuguese-born scholar writing at the turn of the sixteenth century urged that the reason that all things depended on “the exile of Jerusalem in Spain” and that “all suffering began for the Jews in this country” was that it was at the end of the earth and hence it was fitting that through it “all the world will proclaim that ‘[God] is one and His name is one.’ ”18 In espousing an “acute apocalyptic messianism,”19 this author was anticipated by Abarbanel and other refugee-scholars who taught that the destruction of Iberia’s Jewish communities marked a penultimate stage in the divine plan for Israel’s redemption. Not by accident, opined Abarbanel, had the expulsions of Europe’s Jewries affected Jews and conversos “such that all of them left from all parts of the West . . . and in this manner assemble on the Holy Land.”20 In accordance with the pattern of apocalyptic writings,21 Abarbanel offered hope of imminent salvation as the prime motive for Jews to endure present trials but a little longer. Spain’s expulsion of her Jews was but one of the contexts for Abarbanel’s messianic works. These works were also written in a Renaissance Italy gripped by a “widespread sense of an imminent crisis in history.”22 Most notably, the Ferrarese friar, Girolamo Savonarola, stood at the height of his influence and continued to preach his millenarian sermons (focussed largely on books of the Hebrew Bible) throughout the time Abarbanel was absorbed in writing his eschatological tracts. Also contributing to the heightened apocalyptic sense of the epoch were the recently arrived Hermetic texts with which, as has been mentioned, Abarbanel quickly became acquainted after landing in Italy. Abarbanel’s early contact with ideas of Yohanan Alemanno, one of several Jewish writers immersed in specifically Italian varieties of Christian eschatology, has also been noted.23 The decisive outside factor that shaped Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, however, was neither recent historical events nor turns in Italian messianic thought but longstanding attempts by Christians to get Jews to relinquish their ancestral religion. The Spanish refugees, expert in the missionizing arguments employed for this purpose in their former land of domicile, may have been subjected to such proselytizing anew after their arrival in an Italy where a tradition of anti-Jewish disputation had existed for some time even as, by the end of the fifteenth century, it could hardly match its Spanish counterpart for virulence.24


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At issue in particular in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho was christological interpretation of rabbinic dicta, a weapon developed in the high and late medieval period by the Hispano-Christian mission in particular. True, in fifteenth-century Italy one could find Christians putting the authority of rabbinic sayings behind their conversionary cause, at times by interpreting such sayings in new ways—for example kabbalistically.25 But in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, it was Jerònim de Santa Fe, the former Joshua Lorki, Christendom’s spokesman at the disputation of Tortosa and San Mateo, who was singled out as primary foe. Abarbanel, it has been suggested, may have written his messianic works in part for an audience of conversos still living in Spain.26 Even if this were not so, one could wonder how meaningful Jews unfamiliar with Spanish adversos Judaeos literature would have found Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, replete as it was with refutations of christological interpretations of rabbinic sayings. In the work’s introduction, Abarbanel depicts the compendia of Jerònim devoted to aggadic interpretation as leading examples of works “written in our language” that had wreaked havoc in the Jewish camp.27 In its body, he reproduces dozens of Jerònim’s interpretations as found in the latter’s Sefer ha-piqqurim (the title of the Hebrew translation of Ad convincedum perfidiam Judaeorum, a sourcebook written by Jerònim in 1412, the year of his conversion, to serve him in a disputation with members of his former Jewish community in Alcaniz). ˜ 28 In opposing Jerònim specifically, Abarbanel joined a long list of earlier Jewish polemicists who had done the same.29 Abarbanel divided Yeshu‘ot meshiខho into two parts. In the first, he analyzed an eschatological midrash contained in the eighth-century pseudepigraphic compendium Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (which Abarbanel deemed an authentic work of the rabbinic sage referred to in its title).30 In the second, he mainly treated aggadot invoked by Christian disputants to prove that the Messiah either had come or would not come; that he had already been born; that he would be divine; or that the Law would be abrogated in messianic times. Before trying to penetrate these texts, Abarbanel, in his typical way, turned to earlier Hebrew writers for help; but this literature review yielded little, he claims, since the commentators on the Talmud, as you know, did not explicate the aggadot but occupied themselves solely with the explanation of the commandments, to clarify the opinions of those who forbade and those who permitted. Perhaps they set them aside with the intention of explicating them later . . . as Maimonides thought to do, though he ultimately forbore to do so, so as not to mislead fools and youths.31

Abarbanel praised R. Solomon ibn Adret and Yedaiah Hapenini for initiating “this sacred task of explaining the aggadot . . . in a correct and agreeable manner.”32 But, he comments, neither predecessor elucidated the messianic aggadot that he found “dreadful.” Contemporaries, Abarbanel adds, remain “dis-

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inclined from them.” The number of earlier sources that Abarbanel summons in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho gives away the partially conventional nature of his assertions of earlier near-total interpretive neglect in this sphere.33 Nonetheless, the pathbreaking comprehensiveness of his own achievement cannot be gainsaid. Abarbanel found rabbinic messianic dicta daunting for two reasons. There was, first, the problem that, when taken literally, they appeared “strange, vexing” and “contradictory” to any “intelligent believer”34 —a problem that, to be sure, afflicted many a rabbinic utterance. But unique to these sayings was the use to which they had been put by religious rivals who, as Abarbanel states their case, enjoined Jews to “hear the words of the aggadot . . . and consider . . . the statements of your leaders, elders, judges, and officers. Did they not recount . . . that your sun has set . . . and will not rise again?” In a psychological aside, Abarbanel notes that converts seeking to prove their sincerity were most bent on brandishing christologically interpreted aggadot before former coreligionists.35 Abarbanel rates Jewish responses to Christian invocations of rabbinic discourse as consistently poor. In public disputations, at least, “the wisdom of our wise men perished . . . , sometimes our wise men stayed silent . . . , and sometimes they groped blindly, offering wrongheaded or feeble answers.” Doubtless the rabbis who had confronted Jerònim at Tortosa were uppermost in Abarbanel’s mind. They had responded to the familiar Christian tactic of christological aggadic interpretation with the by then customary reply of aggadah’s nonbinding character.36 To be sure, Abarbanel was well aware of the oppressive conditions in which such scholars had operated, at times even fearing for their lives. He even describes these conditions in embellished Hebrew. Still, he cannot excuse the earlier inadequacies, if only because of their dire outcome: “Faith was lost; truth concealed.”37 How, then, to respond? In theory, Abarbanel suggests that no rebuttal is required; indeed to rejoin is “contemptible and offensive” and a needless “waste of time.” Christian teachings are “intrinsically impossible” and uproot “true intelligibles and the laws of nature.” Invoking the language of rationalism long deployed in Jewish anti-Christian polemic, Abarbanel asks how any thinking person could imagine that the sages, “upon whose tongues a fraudulent word was never found,” had embraced such teachings. Reprising Nahmanides at Barcelona, Abarbanel interrogates the basic logic of the Christian contention. If the sages believed in Jesus, why did they not “join his religion and follow his apostles like the rest of the nations?”38 Confident dismissals notwithstanding, Abarbanel was hardly oblivious to the devastation wrought by the Hispano-Christian mission in the period following his grandfather’s conversion around 1391. His immediate predecessors, Spanish ones especially, had not for nothing expended vast intellectual resources refuting Christian argumentation.39 The specific impact of christological aggadic


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interpretation on Jews is hard to measure; but, again, the activities of Abarbanel’s predecessors, not to mention his composition of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, suggest its appreciability. Minimally, Yeshu‘ot meshiខho attests the truth that Abarbanel did not consider engagement with the aggadic side of Christian-Jewish conflict to be as “pointless”40 as his initial broadside against it suggests. Still, if he makes little effort to disguise the polemical intent of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, Abarbanel does disparage what he dubs the “polemical approach (derekh vikkuខhi)” to rabbinic dicta. He grants that earlier disputational works were “fine compositions” that, taken together, adequately refute aggadah-based antiJewish thrusts, but he complains that the authors of these evinced no interest in aggadah per se. “All their efforts” being directed towards meeting the external threat, they failed to explicate rabbinic dicta “independently according to the meaning intended by those who pronounced them.” The result was “mollifying” interpretations created with the sole aim of saving the sages from “the mouths of lions.”41 It is not that earlier polemicists wittingly sacrificed truth to the exigencies of polemic,42 but that their narrow aim—neutralization of Christian usurpation of rabbinic material—did not engender within them the spirit required to pursue aggadic truth. One recalls Shem Tov ben Shaprut’s desire to present aggadah in a way that “allows us to speak of them before the nations” and his afterthought that perhaps a few of his interpretations will also uncover the true meaning of aggadic texts.43 So it was that Abarbanel could find that earlier writers had spoken “suitably” or used “good words” in refutation of Jero` nim but deem their interpretations wanting.44 In addition to their sense of expediency, Abarbanel is also critical of practitioners of the polemical approach for a failure to “consult trustworthy editions to see whether [the texts cited therein] agreed with the apostate’s words.” Having taken Jerònim’s citations of allegedly christological texts on faith, they were forced to “ ‘respond to the fool in his foolishness” [cf. Prov. 26:4], accepting his fabrications and devising interpretations for them that were forced, pathetic, and feeble,” thereby violating the biblical enjoinder “not to regard deceitful words” (Exod. 5:9).45 This charge points to a controverted historical question. On one view, Ramon Mart´ı, Jerònim’s main source of aggadic material, fabricated and distorted rabbinic texts in order to further the Christian cause. If so, Abarbanel’s criticism of his predecessors’ headlong rush to produce interpretations of pseudorabbinic sayings would be well taken. On another view, Jerònim and his ilk cited texts that earlier writers had accepted because they were legitimate. On this view, it was because Jewish scholars had at a later point reworked rabbinic sayings in order to blunt their missionary potential that Abarbanel failed to recognize their authenticity.46 At any rate, Abarbanel denies that Yeshu‘ot meshiខho is simply another manual designed to help Jews ensnared in interreligious wrangles. He claims rather to take aggadic commentary as an end in itself, using methods appropriate to

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the genre and realizing Jewish polemical aims in the process. “The truth speaks for itself,” he writes. It is by interpreting rabbinic dicta “according to their roots and the manner of their wisdom” that Abarbanel removes from them “the imputations placed on them by the defectors of the children of Israel.” As if to lend credence to his ostensibly nonpolemical approach, Abarbanel promises to treat texts that apostates have left “untouched,” analyzing them “for the sake of the perfection of he who wonders about them.”47 If the choice and classification of materials treated in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho evidently reflect categories of medieval Jewish-Christian polemic,48 Abarbanel strikes the pose of one whose interpretations of messianic aggadah are independent of such incidental concerns.

Reading Rabbinic Messianic Discourse To see how Abarbanel’s method of “straightforward analysis” rendered or transformed what it touched, one must turn to concrete examples. Upon so doing, one quickly begins to detect a familiar story: just as a complex of factors, exegetical and otherwise, governed Abarbanel’s approach to midrashim in his biblical commentaries, so in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho his interpretive calculus is multifaceted. It is not simply that his exegesis is, predictably, shaped by polemical goals despite promises to the contrary. In addition, other factors impose themselves; they include, most saliently, Abarbanel’s dearly held theological beliefs, his attempt to elicit precise information about the how, when, and why of Israel’s redemption, his allegiance to a modified Maimonidean rationality in unraveling classical texts, and his desire to align rabbinic propositions with the historical record as known to him from texts within and outside rabbinic tradition. All the while the claim to forge a new method of aggadic interpretation is realized—a method combining careful (or hypercritical, depending on the reader’s hermeneutic proclivities) word-by-word criticism with structural, contextual, and comparative analysis. Abarbanel’s interpretation of the perplexing assertion of the Palestinian ’amora’ R. Hillel that “Israel has no Messiah because they have already consumed him in the days of Hezekiah”49 repays extended study, inasmuch as it illustrates many of these exegetical techniques in their interaction with a variety of nonexegetical factors. Already in rabbinic times R. Hillel’s statement had unnerved a sage noted for his messianic fervor: “Said R. Joseph: ‘May R. Hillel’s Master forgive him! When did Hezekiah live? In the time of the First Temple. Yet Zechariah, prophesying during the time of the Second Temple, said: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, your king comes unto you” [Zech. 9:9].’ ”50 If, however, by dint of its vexing substance, provocative verbal formulation, and prominent place within rabbinic messianic litera-


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ture (its location in the Talmud and, moreover, the largest block of messianic material contained therein), R. Hillel’s dictum inevitably attracted analysis from medieval writers working in various times, places, and literary genres, it became a major crux interpretum in late medieval Spain. Explanations for this development are not far to seek. Through his assertion that Israel had no Messiah, R. Hillel seemingly corroborated the Christian view that ongoing adherence to Judaism in anticipation of the messianic advent was in vain. Here, then, was a threat to the efforts of scholars and communal leaders to buoy the faith of communities worn down by the impact of a unique and profoundly demoralizing combination of socioreligious circumstances that included missionary preaching, mass conversions to Christianity, and a long and disastrous disputation in Tortosa and San Mateo in 1413–14, all of these bringing about despair among Spain’s professing Jews and increasingly complex social, legal, and theological questions engendered by the phenomenon of the conversos. But even leaving aside its potential to abet an outside enemy during a century of Hispano-Jewish history characterized by considerable theological confusion and socioreligious disintegration, R. Hillel’s attestation raised a surfeit of immanent questions and conundrums that, given their preoccupation with matters of theology even prior to 1391, were sure to exercise Hispano-Jewish writers. To dogmatists, the aggadah could appear downright scandalous. Had not Maimonides listed belief in the Messiah’s coming as a fundamental principle of Judaism? If so, how could a rabbinic sage have denied it? These uncertainties and others (what precisely was the purport of R. Joseph’s response to R. Hillel?) challenged Spanish thinkers writing amidst a trying and at times desperate historical reality. As his initial presentation shows, Abarbanel was fully aware of earlier deliberations. Echoing such writers as Judah Zabara, Joseph Albo, and Hayyim ibn Musa before him,51 Abarbanel asks why, if R. Hillel denied the future redemption, did the other sages call him “rabbi,” transmit his deplorable teaching, and include it for posterity in the rabbinic record? Though Christians had not invoked this dictum in their disputations, they easily might have, arguing that R. Hillel believed that the Messiah had already come and that his reference to “Hezekiah” was an allusion to Jesus, this king’s name (ខhizqi-yah) being suggestive of an infinitely powerful (bilti ba‘al takhlit ha-ខhozeq) and divine human being.52 As was his way, Abarbanel considered the precedents before offering his own explanations, turning first to an obscure early fourteenth-century writer, Judah Zabara. In his Mikhtav teខhiyyah, Zabara had addressed R. Hillel’s assertion in the course of seeking to determine the span of time destined to elapse between the Jewish people’s ingathering and the eschatological stage to follow, “the period of resurrection [of the dead].” After citing a tannaitic debate over the

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messianic era’s duration recorded just prior to R. Hillel’s dictum—R. Eliezer suggested that “the days of the Messiah” would last forty years while two other sages had proposed intervals of seventy years and three generations respectively—Zabara asked how these “great ones of the world” could have entertained the notion of a temporal limit to the messianic age. Was it not agreed that the forthcoming redemption would be forever?53 Zabara’s resolved this and other difficulties generated by R. Hillel’s statement through a contextual reading that reflected his own immediate concern with the topic of bodily resurrection. Seeing the conjectures recorded prior to it as a dispute over the interval destined to elapse between the exiles’ ingathering and the period of resurrection, Zabara was able to understand R. Hillel’s dictum not as a denial of the messianic advent but as an affirmation of the extreme transience of the messianic era: the Messiah will come, but the “days of the Messiah” will last neither decades nor several generations, as earlier authorities had pronounced, but will immediately, or at least very quickly, be replaced by the “period of resurrection.” “Israel has no Messiah” was an appendix to the preexistent controversy over the “days of the Messiah”; hence R. Hillel assumed the language of the dispute and “spoke in an abbreviated way.” Understanding it in this way, Zabara found R. Hillel’s conjecture not only not troubling but “satisfying, suitable, and most befitting” the sage. After all, on this reading, R. Hillel had simply imparted the uplifting view that postmessianic Jews would achieve the summum bonum of resurrection far more swiftly than anyone had theretofore dared to believe. Abarbanel’s objection to Zabara’s approach is threefold. First, he points to countervailing contextual evidence. All other sages cited in the larger talmudic pericope (sugya) used the expression “days of the Messiah.” If it was this concept that R. Hillel had wished to deny, then he should have said so clearly. Second, Zabara fails to return R. Hillel to the traditional fold; for “how could he [R. Hillel] have added iniquity [denial of the messianic era] to his trespass [of carelessness of expression]?” Third, a fine point of R. Hillel’s verbal formulation is slighted in Zabara’s reading: if this sage meant “days of the Messiah,” he should have continued that “Israel has no [days of the] Messiah” because they consumed them, not him in the time of Hezekiah.54 Abarbanel turns next to Shem Tov ben Shaprut’s assessment of R. Hillel as a comment on a shift that had taken place in ancient times in the calculus governing Israel’s redemption. On this reading, R. Hillel meant that for the Messiah to come, Jews would have to merit his advent by themselves, “for the merit of the ancestors [patriarchs and matriarchs] expired at the time of the First Temple, and the merit of David that remained was exhausted by Hezekiah [through his miraculous deliverance from Sannacherib].”55 Abarbanel finds support for this idea in another talmudic passage that stipulates that the “merit of the ancestors” did indeed cease in Hezekiah’s time.56 Still, he remains


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unconvinced that it was R. Hillel’s aim to communicate this teaching in asserting that “Israel has no Messiah,” since if this were so, his dictum’s “main point” would be without grounding in the words of his statement (ha-‘iqqar hខ aser min ha-sefer).57 When, in the course of discussing Joseph Albo’s interpretations of R. Hillel, Abarbanel makes a caustic reference to Albo’s “[Book of] Roots, or rather Uprootings,” he leaves little doubt that this fifteenth-century forerunner’s reading of R. Hillel has acted as a strong negative stimulus provoking his own response. Abarbanel considered Albo’s handling of R. Hillel’s dictum doubly invidious. He bridles first at Albo’s transformation of R. Hillel’s aggadah into a “ ‘high and eminent mountain’ [Ezek. 17:22]” proving that “[belief in] the Messiah’s coming is not a root from among the roots of the law of Moses our Master as Maimonides had said.” He then assails Albo for insinuating that R. Hillel “interpreted the prophets’ promises of redemption as applying to the time of the Second Temple.” Abarbanel initially declines to deal with these conclusions. The first he has refuted in Rosh ’amanah and the second he intends to rebut elsewhere. But, unable to resist, he lists five “decisive objections” to the view that prophecies of redemption were realized in Second Temple times.58 Earlier explanations having been found wanting, Abarbanel reviews his own previous interpretation of R. Hillel in Rosh ’amanah, the context for which was his spirited, if provisional, defense of Maimonidean dogmatics against Crescas’s and Albo’s attack.59 Faced with the difficulty that R. Hillel had seemingly denied a principle that Maimonides had deemed inviolable, Abarbanel there invoked a messianic chronology, akin to one broached by the Jewish disputants at the Tortosa disputation, according to which eschatological history unfolded in three main stages. In the first the Messiah was precluded from coming; in the second he would come if the Jewish people were deserving; and by the end of the third the Messiah would come regardless.60 Understood in light of this paradigm, R. Hillel had denied that the Messiah would come during the second period, for the people’s merits were “consumed in the days of Hezekiah” by this king’s miraculous victory over Sennacherib. By virtue of this interpretation, a putative pleonasm in R. Hillel’s dictum now made sense: “en lahem mashi’aខh leyisra’el” indicated that the Messiah would not come “to them”—that is, “due to them.” R. Joseph’s citation of Zechariah’s prophecy in his retort to R. Hillel was, on this reading, wholly meticulous. In it was found, in a precisely matching verbal formulation, the notion that the Messiah would indeed come due to the people’s merits during the second stage: “. . . your king comes to you (melekekh yavo’ lakh)”—that is, “due to you.”61 In Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, Abarbanel outlines a new approach to R. Hillel. He begins by enumerating ten features that will distinguish the messianic era: a savior descended from the House of David will redeem the Jewish people and be their king; Jews will return to the Land of Israel; God will wreak vengeance

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on the nations; the Land will prosper; the Jewish people will be sanctified and enlightened; prophecy will return; miracles will be restored; Jews will be subject to exile no longer; the nations will recognize one God; and the dead will be resurrected. Then, borrowing the exegetical tack he knew from Zabara, Abarbanel explains that upon hearing of the controversy concerning the duration of the “days of the Messiah,” R. Hillel interjected that it was inexact to speak of the “days of the Messiah (mashi’aខh)” since “Israel has no Messiah,” that is, “no king to rule over them anointed (mashu’ah) with oil.” “My servant David will be prince (nasi’) over them forever” (Ezek. 37:25), Ezekiel had declared and, explains Abarbanel, R. Hillel had taken him at his word. He who would usher in the messianic era with its nine other distinguishing features would be Israel’s “prince” (perhaps some sort of limited monarch of the type known to Abarbanel from the Crown of Aragon) but not Israel’s king, though he would be such to the gentiles, “with whom he would make war.” In messianic times the Jewish people would dispense with human kings, for God would be their King as in the days of Moses, Joshua, and Samuel.62 The aggadah’s first half having been explained, a difficulty remains: what did R. Hillel make of various prophetic utterances indicating that the Jewish people’s savior would indeed be a king? It was, ventures Abarbanel, this question that led R. Hillel to broach the idea embodied in the second half of his assertion: the royal element found in some ancient depictions of the Messiah had been realized in the days of Hezekiah, who was, after all, a wise king of Davidic stock who judged the poor with righteousness and during whose reign peace prevailed. It therefore seemed possible to R. Hillel that human kingship would not figure in the Jewish people’s national life during messianic times. Again, R. Joseph’s rejoinder to his colleague was, on this understanding, precisely to the point: had not Zechariah, who lived centuries after Hezekiah, proclaimed, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion . . . your king comes unto you”?63 But whatever the case, asserts Abarbanel, R. Hillel certainly did not deny the future redemption or messianic redeemer, only one of ten traditional expectations for the end-time. Had he meant to deny the final redemption tout court, he would have said “Israel will experience no ingathering of the exiles” or the like. Concluding his exhaustive analysis, Abarbanel crosschecks R. Hillel’s dictum against data supplied by Rav’s statement that “the Israelites are going to eat in the years of the Messiah.” Concerning this, R. Joseph had asked: If not the Israelites, then who? R. Joseph was told that Rav had expressed his opinion “to exclude the view of R. Hillel, who said ‘Israel has no Messiah.’ ”64 Glossing this exchange, Abarbanel indicates that Rav had intended his statement not as a clarification of who would “eat” in redemptive times but that those times would indeed possess a monarchic-messianic dimension: “Rav did not say ‘the Israelites are going to eat in the years of the Messiah’ with reference to the anticipated benefits to be had during the period of redemption. . . . Rather, his


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statement was made with regard to the prediction that there would be a kingMessiah per se, since R. Hillel had doubted or denied this.” Having explained the Talmud’s linkage of the aggadot in a manner conforming to his interpretation of R. Hillel, Abarbanel proclaims the “perplexity” generated by Hillel’s dictum “resolved completely.”65 How do Abarbanel’s interpretations of R. Hillel throw light on his aggadic hermeneutic? Basic is the conviction, held by Abarbanel more profoundly than by any previous aggadic interpreter, that rabbinic sayings reflect an unsurpassedly dense, economical discursive mode: “Israel,” unlike the gentiles, “has no Messiah,” that is, no king-Messiah anointed with oil, “because they consumed him in the days of Hezekiah”—the prophetic promises of a kingMessiah, one of ten characteristics classically envisioned for the messianic era, were realized through Hezekiah. Abarbanel’s criticism of Judah Zabara (if by “Messiah” R. Hillel meant “the days of the Messiah” he should have said “consumed them” and not “him”) and his remark that had R. Hillel meant to deny the future redemption he would have said “Israel will experience no ingathering of the exiles” further illustrate his understanding that aggadah is a discursive mode in which each particularity tells. Abarbanel apparently considered structural and contextual analysis—both prominent in his treatments of R. Hillel’s saying—especially applicable to the messianic segment of the aggadic corpus. Like Zabara, he insists that R. Hillel’s dictum must be understood in light of its larger textual setting (as an interjection made concerning the controversy over the duration of the period of the “days of the Messiah”). And picking up on the Talmud’s lead, Abarbanel correlates his analysis of R. Hillel with Rav’s comment that “the Israelites are going to eat in the years of the Messiah.” Zabara, attuned to issues of context, is faulted for not going far enough (the other sages in the larger pericope say “the days of the Messiah”). This “holistic” approach to rabbinic eschatological sayings involves more than uncustomary emphasis on their immediate literary context. Abarbanel views such sayings as part of an interrelated matrix such that it makes sense to use a single interpretive scheme—the tripartite division of messianic history— to unlock the meaning of discrete, contextually disparate texts. To Abarbanel’s argument in Rosh ’amanah that R. Hillel meant that the Messiah would not come during the contingent stage of messianic history one might object, in the manner of his challenge to Shem Tov, that its main idea is nowhere stated in the text. To invalidate this protest, Abarbanel would presumably rejoin that the tripartite theorem is a given of rabbinic eschatological discourse, which would have been presupposed by any of R. Hillel’s listeners (so R. Joseph, as Abarbanel interprets his response to R. Hillel). On the one hand, then, Abarbanel attaches immense significance to nuances in the verbal formulations of individual aggadic sayings. On the other, he

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inclines toward interpretation of such dicta in light of a larger context, be it an immediate literary one or a global ideational one understood to pervade rabbinic messianic discourse as a whole. Both interpretive techniques are mainstays in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, as discussed further below. Abarbanel’s treatment of R. Hillel also illustrates how, as with so much exegetical midrash, his handling of nonexegetical rabbinic sayings was often forcefully shaped by what he took to be finalities of classical Jewish theology. The boundaries within which exegetical activity takes place are marked by Abarbanel’s provisional commitment to Maimonides’ dogmatic stipulations, which included belief in the Messiah’s future advent, and his insistence, again following Maimonides, that inadvertence was not exculpatory in the case of heretical belief.66 These considerations meant that Abarbanel could not take R. Hillel’s statement at face value without making the sage into a heretic—a conclusion that, though drawn by at least one contemporary scholar with whom he was familiar,67 Abarbanel was hardly eager to confirm. Another theological consideration that obviously molded Abarbanel’s reflections on R. Hillel’s statement was its seemingly close points of contact with Christian doctrine. While observing in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho that missionaries had not invoked R. Hillel for their purposes, Abarbanel elsewhere underscored the convergence between “repudiators among the gentiles,” who promulgated the notion that biblical messianic prophecies referred to “spiritual redemption,” and those “misguided” Jewish scholars who had assigned such prophecies to the Second Temple period using R. Hillel as a prop, thereby, like the Christians, robbing the prophecies of any future historical significance.68 Among the multiplicity of elements that informed the Spanish debate over prophetic promises of redemption was the Christian claim69 —a claim of which Abarbanel was unquestionably aware as he sought meaning in R. Hillel’s words. In invoking the tripartite chronology, Abarbanel had in mind both the Christian threat and the one issuing from within Jewish tradition. By ruling out the possibility that Scripture’s messianic predictions had been realized in the period of the second commonwealth (which, according to Abarbanel, fell within the first stage of messianic history, when the Messiah could not come), the threefold plan abetted his anti-Christian campaign: given when Jesus lived, he could not have been the Messiah. Similarly, the premise that the Second Temple period fell entirely within the initial stage of messianic history was fatal to earlier efforts by Jewish commentators to assign scriptural promises of redemption to this phase of world history. Beyond the dogmatic teachings and polemical aims that evidently inform them, Abarbanel’s exegeses of R. Hillel’s dictum embody less overt theological dimensions. The one in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, for instance, suggests a possible extension into redemptive times of Abarbanel’s famed opposition to monarchy. As kingship’s most implacable medieval Jewish critic, Abarbanel could only have


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been uneasy with Maimonides’ depiction of the Messiah as a royal military leader who would redeem the Jewish people from oppression and restore the Davidic house. The suggestion that R. Hillel viewed the Messiah as a king over only the gentiles but not the Jews—and that he envisioned the messianic age in terms of a return to forms of governance found in premonarchic ancient Israel—was, then, wholly in accord with Abarbanel’s own theoretical leanings. Only because he speaks here in R. Hillel’s name rather than his own must one refrain from concluding definitively that Abarbanel believed that Jews would not return to monarchic government following the Messiah’s triumph.70 At the same time, Abarbanel’s stress that R. Hillel believed that the Messiah would be a prince to the Jews but a king to the gentiles, “with whom he would make war,” is more in keeping with Maimonidean messianic thinking. By contrast, in an earlier day an anonymous Hispano-Jewish talmudist (almost certainly unknown to Abarbanel) had suggested that R. Hillel believed that the Jewish people would not need a king-Messiah at all, not even “to conquer the nations.”71 Elsewhere, Abarbanel would indicate that the Messiah’s military exploits would possess a supernatural character.72 Still, while envisioning the supernatural quality of the messianic age (as made clear by, among other things, the list of its ten attributes as this figures in his interpretation of R. Hillel in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho), Abarbanel retained the regal-military element of Maimonides’ naturalistic understanding of the measures required to bring that age into being. More than the anonymous talmudist, he was inclined to keep events leading up to the eschaton, in contrast to the end-time itself, “within the sphere of political and military reality.”73 As noted, one goal of Abarbanel in interpreting R. Hillel was to thwart the view that had circulated among Jews since the early Middle Ages—which some had ascribed to R. Hillel—that most if not all scriptural promises of redemption had been realized during the second Jewish commonwealth. In the tenth century, Saadya Gaon adduced the idea in order to combat it, and in the eleventh, the Andalusian Moses ibn Giqatila propounded it in his biblical commentaries.74 It was in late medieval Spain, however, that this tendency seemingly gained its widest currency. Nahmanides spoke of “many” who claimed that “the messages of comfort found at the beginning of the book of Isaiah are said with regard to King Hezekiah.” Shem Tov ben Shaprut told of “a great difficulty” concerning which “many” were uncertain. Joseph Albo related that the fourteenth-century Spanish scholar, Hayyim Galipapa, had written that “all the prophecies of Daniel refer to the Second Temple only.” Albo himself had invoked the view, to Abarbanel’s extreme displeasure.75 Abarbanel lists ibn Giqatila, his Andalusian adversary Judah ibn Balaam, and Galipapa as main proponents of the view. Abraham ibn Ezra is also said not to be free of “taint” in this regard.76 One way that Abarbanel sought to subvert this pernicious opinion has been noted: appeal to received traditions concerning the

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scriptural promises traceable to the age in which they were first uttered and eventually handed down to “the discerning ones . . . the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud.”77 Another, following Hasdai Crescas and buttressed by the tripartite messianic chronology, was to argue that prophecies of redemption could not have been fulfilled during the Second Temple period because this was not a time of redemption at all but a continuation of the exile inaugurated with the First Temple’s destruction.78 This argument was in turn bolstered by the observation that critical features of the messianic era, such as vengeance upon the nations and the restoration of prophecy, were lacking in Second Temple times. Yet another biblically vouchsafed promise that had not been realized in Second Temple times was the return of the ten tribes. From the early Middle Ages, the belief that these tribes were living in a far-off place and would rejoin their brethren in the Holy Land in redemptive times was for many Jews a matter of faith and of hope. In the thirteenth century, some Jews apocalyptically related the Mongol invasions to the tribes’ reappearance.79 In the century following, the tribes’ ongoing existence could be invoked as a bulwark against pessimism in the face of perceptions of diminished Jewish demographic viability. Before his own conversion to Christianity, Joshua Lorki made this point to Paul of Burgos. Wondering whether his friend might have partially been motivated to convert for fear that Jews were “doomed to disappear from the scene of history,” Lorki observed among other things that as his friend certainly knew (and as “world travelers” had confirmed), “the exiles of Samaria live in the lands of Persia and Media, and their numbers are as countless as the sands of the sea.” Closer to Abarbanel’s day, European maritime expansion and the powerful apocalyptic impulses unleashed by Constantinople’s fall in 1453 fueled further speculation about the tribes.80 For Abarbanel, too, the tribes could inspire hope, while their failure to return as of yet could serve (as it had for Nahmanides) as proof of the falsity of the identification of Jesus with the Messiah.81 What is more, in a manner exceptional among his eschatologically minded predecessors, Abarbanel offered a detailed scenario for the future restoration in which the tribes played a prominent role. After a Christian attack on Egypt, the Islamic power controlling the Holy Land, the Christians would proceed to Palestine, from which they would soon be driven out by Jewish and Islamic forces, the Jewish army comprising mostly members of the tribes.82 It is in light of the general messianic expectations pinned on the tribes and Abarbanel’s assignment to them of a significant role in the apocalypse that the handling in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho of R. Akiva’s troubling assertion that “the ten tribes are not destined to return” must be understood. Also salient was the fact that this aggadah had been invoked by some as authoritative traditional testimony that Scripture’s promises of redemption had been realized long ago. “Put a finger on your ear,” warns Abarbanel, “so as not to hear the words of the author of Sefer ha-‘iqqarim and his accomplices who say that it was R. Akiva’s


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view that Ezekiel’s promises were fulfilled . . . in the time of the Second Temple [and that this view informed this sage’s denial of the tribes’ future return].”83 From any perspective, then, Abarbanel had good reason to want to show that R. Akiva believed that the tribes would in fact return, his apparent statement to the contrary notwithstanding. Abarbanel’s approach is to say that R. Akiva meant only that the descendants of the tribes who had failed to return to Judea at the onset of the Second Temple period would not return as part of the future messianic ingathering. To make this claim credible, he tackles the problem that there seems to be no evidence that any such descendants ever returned to the Holy Land, let alone that many offshoots of the tribes rejoined the tribes of Judah and Benjamin as they went up to the land to restore the Temple in Ezra’s day. For such a return he finds verification in the rabbinic record. That this development goes unmentioned in the book of Ezra reflects the assimilation of the members of the ten tribes into the demographic majority composed of Judah and Benjamin. To his own day, contends Abarbanel, descendants of these returnees live scattered in exile with those Jews whose origins trace back to the tribes comprised in ancient Israel’s southern kingdom. In short, R. Akiva says—or is made to say—that “those from among the ten tribes who never rejoined Judah and Benjamin in Second Temple times are not destined to return.” And, following his routine procedure, Abarbanel buttresses his reading from particulars of the aggadah’s verbal expression. After all, R. Akiva stipulated not that “no individual from the ten tribes is destined to return,” but only, “speaking generically,” that the ten tribes—that is, the tribes in aggregate—would not return.84 Abarbanel, who did not doubt that “all twelve tribes” would experience the future ingathering,85 brings R. Akiva’s opinion into accord with what he takes to be the normative view of Jewish tradition—to the extent that R. Akiva’s statement allows. At this point, a brief pause is in order to notice how original and indeed highly idiosyncratic the exegeses found in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho could be. If the theme of the ten tribes was wholly familiar to Abarbanel’s audience, his interpretation of R. Akiva’s dictum concerning them was hardly a mere restatement of “ideas and hopes that had spread in previous generations in a ‘messianic codification’ framework.”86 Like his view of R. Hillel as a denier not of the Messiah but of the Messiah’s royal status among Jews, so Abarbanel’s rendering of R. Akiva calls into question both his own claim to provide “straightforward” aggadic exegesis and the standard scholarly view of Abarbanel as a purveyor of time-honored messianic teachings. In both cases, the assumption that the sages spoke with consummate care and compression allows Abarbanel to interpret disturbing dicta in a manner more or less congruent with his own cherished theological doctrines. Interpretations in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho appear at their most exegetically coerced

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when Abarbanel discovers that aggadah offers “confirmation” for the end-time calculations he had arrived at in Ma‘ayenei ha-yeshu‘ah.87 He is especially gratified to find that his exegesis of a dictum from Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho’s first part confirms 1503, a year to which he found allusion in Daniel also, as a time of messianic import. He states that he has examined the “manner of the words of these perfect ones” and “foundations of their views” as found elsewhere in Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer in order to grasp the intention of this dictum.88 The implication is that careful attention must be paid not only to a midrash’s underlying conceptual premises but also to its literary hues and external imagery (“manner of the words”). Interpreting the statement that “the rule of the four kingdoms will last only one day according to the day of the Holy One,” Abarbanel stresses that he has examined “all chapters” in Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer in order to grasp this dictum, “which is so difficult to fathom.” Two chapters supply the key by pointing to Ps. 90:4 (“For a thousand years in Thy sight / Are but as yesterday when it is past”) and its teaching that a divine day amounts to a thousand years. On this assumption, though, and the further supposition that the “day” during which the four kingdoms were granted dominion began with Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, the Messiah should have appeared nearly a millennium before Abarbanel’s era. But Abarbanel argues on the basis of the other passages that the midrash means that the exile will endure a full “day of God”—that is the period of day and night, or twice the thousand year period derived from Psalms which, ostensibly, refers to daylight alone. Such convoluted textual manipulations in combination with other figures mentioned in the midrash lead to the conclusion that the Messiah will appear in the year singled out in Ma‘ayenei ha-yeshu‘ah—1503.89 As in his explanation of Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, so elsewhere in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho Abarbanel views individual messianic aggadot as part of an interrelated whole, the most prominent manifestation of this pattern being his interpretations (some already sampled) of such sayings in light of a tripartite messianic chronology.90 An additional application of this scheme provides a final example of the exegetical tools through which Abarbanel realizes his polemical and apocalyptic ends. A threefold talmudic passage stated that The world will last six thousand years—two thousand years of desolation, two thousand years of Torah, and two thousand years of the days of the Messiah, but on account of our many transgressions what has been lost of them has been lost. Elijah said to Rav Judah . . . “The world will last not less than eight-five jubilees [from the time of creation] and the son of David shall come in the last jubilee. . . .” R. Anan bar Tachlifa sent [word] to Rav Joseph: “I met a certain man who had in his possession a scroll . . . in which it was stated: ‘Four thousand two hundred and ninety-one years after creation, the world will be orphaned.’ ”91


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In the first dictum’s conclusion (“on account of our many sins . . .”), Christian polemicists found evidence that the “days of the Messiah” anticipated by Jews was not to be. The ensuing text allegedly reinforced this finding, for the world’s age had long ago exceeded eighty-five jubilees (4,250 years).92 Acknowledging that these rabbinic statements brim with difficulties and apparent inconsistencies, Abarbanel sets out to resolve all of the conundrums by bringing the tripartite blueprint to bear. If the first text teaches that the divine plan for the Jewish people and their Messiah to rule the nations for two thousands years was altered due to the people’s many transgressions, it fails to indicate when the delayed (but not, as the Christians would have it, annulled) period of Jewish sovereignty will commence. And so “the Talmud adjoined to this rabbinic dictum another, that . . . the world will last not less than eighty-five jubilees.” This dictum, as Abarbanel understands it, relates not to when the messianic era must begin, as the Christians suppose, but to when the stage in which the Messiah may come commences.93 The Talmud’s redactor (mesadder ha-talmud ) then adduced the text concerning the scroll to clarify when the divine plan’s final stage will begin; for when this text speaks of the “world” being orphaned, it refers not to the world as such but to “this world as it is in its current state, with the gentiles exercising dominion and the Jews being in their exile, orphaned.” “Many places” in the rabbinic corpus confirm this usage, Abarbanel insists, though his examples do not leave one sanguine; they refer not to “the world” simply but to “this world (‘olam ha-zeh),” a term used unambiguously in rabbinic literature in contrast to “the world to come.”94 When this forced interpretation of the term “world” is combined with a chronological emendation to a later passage in the talmudic text, the scroll’s data conform to the tripartite messianic scheme. What is more, Abarbanel’s interpretation of the three texts in tandem yields a year designated by him earlier in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho as a terminus ad quem for the eschaton,95 1531. With the aid of the tripartite formula, the Christians are vanquished, the consistency of rabbinic messianic discourse is upheld, and Abarbanel’s eschatological forecasts are bolstered. In summary, Abarbanel’s claim to innovate in the field of aggadic interpretation seems valid. He departs from earlier writers in the attention that he lavishes on each verbal component of aggadic discourse and in his use of comparative method in analyzing rabbinic sayings. But Abarbanel’s pretensions to detached exegesis present a more complex problem. True, when he treats messianic midrash and aggadah as an integrated whole whose particles of speech deserves close analysis, he is not simply fashioning ad hoc exegetical instruments with which to win polemical battles or further his theological agenda. The operations of interpretation on display in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho are the same ones employed by Abarbanel in deciphering rabbinic maxims in ’Avot, Maimonidean formulations in the Guide, and the divine word. Still, Abarbanel’s commitment to a variety of theological propositions and his wish to blunt

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Christian usurpation of aggadah and to comfort Jews longing for redemption result in an ongoing struggle between the demands of credible exegesis and those of theologically correct polemical eschatology. As often as not, and perhaps more frequently, theology won out.

Renunciatory and Esoteric Alternatives Abarbanel criticizes the “polemical approach” while developing a threefold typology of aggadic interpretation. The second approach, claiming the allegiance of many scholars (and “reputable” ones at that), permits and at times demands repudiation of rabbinic dicta. A third school, with fewer adherents,96 interprets aggadah esoterically. The latter mainly comprises rationalists, though Abarbanel has also seen esoteric interpretations according to “the way of the Kabbalah.” Without addressing the question of overlap (such as polemical and rationalist sensibilities in Shem Tov ben Shaprut or renunciatory and esoteric approaches in Nahmanides), Abarbanel elaborates on these latter two schools, tendering criticism as he goes. In keeping with his penchant for schematization, but without providing sources,97 Abarbanel lists six circumstances in which adherents of the second school permit or require renunciation of midrashim and aggadot: when more than one rabbinic opinion exists concerning an issue that has no bearing on practice and the matter is left in abeyance; when a statement has been retracted by its original formulator, in which case it should be denied; when a specific dictum conflicts with a “broadly accepted overarching principle of the Torah (ma’amar . . . kolel muskam min ha-torah)”; when a midrash is associated with a biblical verse only inasmuch as the verse serves as a fulcrum (’asmakhta) for the exposition of the midrash (in such a case the midrash need not be accepted as a true exposition of Scripture’s contextual sense if the view that it sets forth was “not received from Sinai”); when a rabbinic saying relates fantastic tales lacking obvious theological purport, and the saying’s apparent aim is merely to entertain students or provide respite from arduous legal study; and when rabbinic dicta speak to issues of medicine, the natural world, astronomy, or other scientific matters. Abarbanel implies that it is Nahmanides’ authority that stands behind the willingness of subsequent scholars to accord repudiation its place on the spectrum of valid attitudes towards nonlegal rabbinic discourse, as if to say that only a renowned scholar of conservative reputation such as the respected Spanish talmudist and kabbalist could have achieved widespread legitimacy for such delimitation of rabbinic authority.98 Despite its ubiquity and apparent respectability Abarbanel immediately registers seemingly rock-hard disapproval for the renunciationist path, branding it as “unsmooth” inasmuch as “the sages of Israel were perfect.” Let it not be


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forgotten, Abarbanel reminds his reader, “that the spirit of the Lord spoke through them and that even their casual conversation ‘contained light and understanding and great wisdom’ [Dan. 5:14].” He then rebuts the main claims he has assembled, starting with a general caution that rejection of any consensual opinion or nonretracted rabbinic view sets a dangerous precedent, for dismissal of parts of the nonlegal rabbinic edifice threatens the whole. To countenance disagreement with the sages can only lead to a desecration of Heaven’s name. Countering the view that dicta that contravene broadly accepted “principles of the Torah” can be repugned, Abarbanel insists that careful study will reveal that such expressions harbor a “different intention” from the principle they supposedly negate. Both “are words of the living God,” insists Abarbanel, invoking a famous rabbinic locution typically but not necessarily related to the legal sphere.99 The claim that many midrashim depart from Scripture’s contextual sense also meets with a counterclaim: such dicta should be treated with respect, for the sages did not view them as interpretations of Scripture. Finally, fantastic and light-hearted dicta unquestionably bear some hidden purport, and rabbinic scientific observations seem mistaken or farfetched only due to “our limitations”: the sages’ remedies worked in their time and place, and the rabbis’ astronomy would be esteemed “if we understood their premises.” In sum, confronted by “some strangeness or contradiction” in a nonlegal rabbinic saying, one must “plumb the depths and scale the heights” to fathom the profound intent that undoubtedly informs such a pronouncement.100 Abarbanel’s defense of the sages is rhetorically vigorous: they are “perfect”; “we live by their words”; “the spirit of the Lord spoke through them”; disagreement with them is tantamount to desecration of Heaven’s name. Abarbanel goes so far as to invoke a biblicism (“light and understanding and great wisdom”) used by him elsewhere to characterize Scripture’s profoundly numinous qualities101 to press the point that the most adventitious rabbinic utterance radiates sublime wisdom. Yet for all its literary ornamentation, Abarbanel’s call for shared submission to an allegedly incontestable rabbinic patrimony does not completely veil his concurrence in fundamentals of the renunciationist approach. Agreement that rescinded views need not (and presumably should not) be accepted—the most unobjectionable of renunciationist points—is evident from Abarbanel’s silence. Nor does Abarbanel challenge the right to reject nonconsensual views concerning an issue of no practical consequence. This, too, is not to be wondered at; he had, after all, espoused this very principle in countless earlier works including his first, ‘Aខteret zeqenim, where the principle undergirded his defense of the nobles of Exod. 24 from the rabbinic aspersions cast upon them.102 Abarbanel also concedes that many midrashim depart from peshaខt. Again, rejection of midrash on these grounds is routine in his commentaries; “dubious,” “evidently weak,” and “very strange” are, it will be recalled, some of the terms

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that Abarbanel applies in these works. In Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, however, Abarbanel deftly turns this concession to advantage: midrashim that were never imbued with an interpretive function should not be dismissed as specimens of poor exegesis. (As earlier discussed, Abarbanel was true to this sentiment in the commentaries as well, often taking midrash seriously after severing its exegetical connection.) As regards science-related aggadot, Abarbanel upholds the past correctness of rabbinic medical sayings but denies their eternal validity, and he defends rabbinic astronomical observations on the conveniently unverifiable assumption that their tenability would be evident were their premises understood. With matters of interreligious polemic and end-time calculation on the line, it is easy to understand why Abarbanel rhetorically consecrates rabbinic discourse in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho in a manner without parallel in the biblical commentaries. Yet, as has been seen and will appear still further, his showy celebrations of rabbinic excellence and received wisdom in the aggadah commentary do not obscure his critical stance before midrash and aggadah, in principle and practice. The lone named aggadic repudiator that Abarbanel cites is Nahmanides, who had insisted at the 1263 disputation of Barcelona that if one believed in rabbinic sayings “fine, and if one does not believe [them], no harm is done.”103 At one point in the disputation, Nahmanides was forced to explain an enigmatic aggadah that told of an Arab who, upon hearing the lowing of a Jew’s ox, announced the Temple’s destruction and who, upon hearing the ox low again, declared the Messiah’s birth. After expressing willingness to deny the aggadah, Nahmanides accepted it provisionally in order to adduce proof that Jesus, killed prior to the Temple’s destruction, was not the Messiah.104 In Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, Abarbanel, in contrast to Nahmanides, immediately insists on the need for nonliteral interpretation of this aggadah: After all, could oxen have served as oracles of the messianic age? Could a simple Arab? Viewing Nahmanides’ willingness to deny the aggadah as a sign of weakness, Abarbanel, true to his disavowal of renunciation, explains through the use of two premises what he deems the truth encased in these rabbinic words. The first premise is drawn from Maimonides, who taught that many rabbinic dicta fall under the class of parables. The second (which turns out to be a hermeneutic mainstay of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho) is that concrete words and images within aggadot often bear stock metaphorical meaning. If one knows that in the mouth of the sages “the word ‘Arab’ [commonly] refers to an angel who appears to prophets or those pure of soul,” a path opens to an understanding of this and other perplexing rabbinic sayings. With the aggadah thrust at Nahmanides by Pablo deciphered, Abarbanel is able to extract no less than ten teachings concerning redemption from the elusive text.105 In responding to the renunciationists, Abarbanel contends that seemingly bizarre or merely diversionary rabbinic dicta possess some esoteric purport, but


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he distances himself from the “esoteric approach (derekh ha-nistar)” to aggadah as practiced by philosophers and kabbalists. He sidesteps the status of kabbalistic interpretation in his formal discussion, disclaiming initiation into the byways of mysticism, but he does not stay wholly faithful to his promise not to refer to such interpretation in the body of his work.106 Such interpretation remains, nevertheless, at the margins of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho. By contrast, much of the work reflects Abarbanel’s ongoing dialogue with and dissent from rationalist exegeses of rabbinic lore. In Abarbanel’s tendentious formulation, Jewish rationalists, in interpreting rabbinic sayings, had “tilted” their inner meanings towards philosophic constructs like form and matter. Evoking Samuel ibn Tibbon’s translation of the opening sentences of the Guide, Abarbanel opposes what he deems sophistical rationalist invocations of “equivocalities (shittufim)” aimed at establishing congruences between “the words of Israel’s holy wise men” and “teachings of Aristotle and his disciples.” Not only Maimonides and Abraham ibn Ezra, but also Levi ben Abraham, Samuel Motot, Hanoch al-Constantini, and Gersonides are listed as figures who invested energy into this project.107 Of course, as his interpretation of the aforementioned aggadic lowing ox testifies, Abarbanel is more than willing to interpret aggadah in a similar manner. Indeed, he could be genuinely amazed that Nahmanides had denied that an aggadah containing a detailed description of hell should be understood parabolically. For Abarbanel—here very much the Maimonidean—it was patent that “straightforward reasoning affirms that it is, of necessity, impossible to explain this aggadah literally.”108 It was, then, not nonliteral interpretation per se that rankled but the end to which rationalists deployed it. For Maimonides and his followers, nonliteralism achieved commensurability between rabbinic sayings and Aristotelian edicts. Yet Abarbanel was sure that “the way of the wise men of Israel” and their “received wisdom” was “as far from the ways of the philosophers with their inquiries and deliberations as east from west.”109 Rationalist readings of messianic aggadot reflected many a general feature of philosophically informed aggadic analysis. Some tenets of rationalism, however, exerted a special force when applied to rabbinic messianic discourse, if only because such discourse touched on many concerns close to rationalist hearts: the line dividing the realm of God’s voluntaristic activity from the natural order, issues of human perfection and historical causation, and so forth. As always, Maimonidean thinking steered rationalist deliberations and debate for generations to come. Among the concerns that shaped Maimonides’ attitude towards messianism—and thence rabbinic discourse concerning it—were his philosophic preference for the universal over the contingent (and resultant devaluation of history); his insistence that the world possessed an eternal order, with its consequence that the natural would not be annulled in messianic times; his

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view that intellectual perfection was man’s ultimate end, with its resultant emphasis on messianic times as a period in which optimal conditions would prevail for human pursuit of knowledge of God; and a concern that the Jewish people’s legitimate aspiration for political restoration not engender efforts to calculate the time of national redemption nor deflect individual Jews from seeking perfection in the preredemptive here and now.110 These and related themes Maimonides masterfully knitted together in the closing paragraphs of his legal code, which ruled: Let no one think that in the days of the Messiah anything of the natural course of the world will cease. . . . Rather, the world will continue its accustomed course. . . . The sages said: “The only difference between this world and the days of the Messiah is [the end of] subjugation to [foreign] powers.”111 . . . Some of the sages say that before the coming of the Messiah, Elijah will appear. Concerning all these things, . . . no one knows how they will come about, . . . since the words of the prophets on these matters are not clear. Even the sages have no tradition concerning these matters but are guided by Scripture as regards all. As a result, they disagree regarding these matters. At any rate, the order and details of these events are not religious dogmas. Therefore a person should not occupy himself with the words of the aggadot nor spend much time on the midrashim that deal with these . . . nor should he regard them as fundamental since they induce neither fear nor love [of God]. One should also not try to calculate the end-time. The sages said: “Blasted be the spirits of those who calculate the end.” . . . The sages and prophets longed for the days of the Messiah not in order to rule the world or lord it over the gentiles . . . nor even to eat, drink and rejoice. They wanted only to have time for the Torah and its wisdom.112

For messianic aggadot, Maimonidean eschatology yielded two main consequences: in theory, restraint in contemplating such dicta at all; in practice, interpretation in accordance with philosophically grounded principles enounced by “the master.” In a few cases Maimonides had shown the way. After indicating that messianic times would involve the renewal of Jewish sovereignty, he interpreted a text that envisioned a transformation of the entire natural order in light of a principle elicited from another messianic aggadah: The sages taught: “The only difference between this world and the days of the Messiah is [the end of] subjugation to [foreign] powers.” In his [the Messiah’s] days . . . it will be very easy for people to make a living. Minimum labor will produce great benefits. This is what the sages meant when they said, “In the future, the land of Israel will bring forth ready baked rolls . . . ,” since it is the way of people to say when someone finds something ready for use, “so-and-so found baked bread and a cooked meal.”


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If the eschaton involves nothing unnatural, an aggadic description of a harvest of “ready baked rolls” must be hyperbolic.113 One who developed Maimonidean leads into a more systematic exposition of messianic aggadot was Isaac ben Yedaiah. For example, he explicated the aggadah describing the world’s six-thousand-year duration in terms of the individual human life: two millennia of desolation connoted the first two decades of life, in which nothing constructive is achieved; two millennia of “Torah” reflected the next two decades, when stress ought to be placed on proper ethical conduct, and two millennia of “the days of the Messiah” referred to the years after forty, when a person could achieve full intellectual perfection.114 Abarbanel, taking this aggadah literally, correlated the periods mentioned with his tripartite messianic chronology. On Isaac’s reading, by contrast, the rabbinic statement relayed no information at all concerning the historical messianic advent. The problem that bedeviled philosophically minded Jews in reflecting on aggadah was its frequent “strangeness.”115 Maimonides had argued that many seemingly strange rabbinic sayings were actually riddles and parables: Since all wise men express themselves concerning lofty matters that are of ultimate significance by way of riddle and parable, why should we be surprised that they [the sages] recorded wisdom by way of parables, using images of a lowly popular kind? The wisest of all men did the same inspired by the Holy Spirit—that is Solomon in the books of Proverbs, Songs of Songs, and parts of Ecclesiates. Why should it be strange in our eyes to interpret their words and divest them of their literal sense so that they should agree with what is intelligible and should conform to truth and Holy Writ? Behold, they themselves reinterpret scriptural verses, divest them of their literal sense, and present them as parables!116

In the Guide, Maimonides called attention to the predilection for the method of riddle among ancient philosophers in particular,117 the upshot of his various presentations being that Israel’s sages had spoken figuratively in imitation of the best in enlightened non-Jewish discourse, not to mention prophetic speech. As will be seen, Abarbanel often sought to cut the ground out from under rationalist interpretations of aggadah. At the same time, however, his theory of aggadic discourse leaned heavily on Maimonidean insights. Witness his elucidation of a text invoked at Tortosa by Jerònim: R. Joshua ben Levi found Elijah by the entrance of R. Simeon ben Yochai’s burial cave in the Garden of Eden. . . . He said to him: “When will the Messiah come?” He answered him: “Go and ask him himself.” [He asked]: “Where does he abide?” [He answered]: “At the entrance of Rome.” [He asked]: “How is he to be recognized?” [He answered]: “He sits among the sick;

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now all of them untie and tie up [their bandages] at the same time while he unties and reties [his bandages] one at a time, saying [to himself]: “In case I am needed, I shall not be delayed.’ ” So he [R. Joshua] went to him [the Messiah].

Jerònim had proferred the aggadah as proof of the Messiah’s prior advent. Though Abarbanel naturally demurs, he admits that the aggadah heaps problem upon problem: Elijah died centuries before R. Joshua lived; it is nearly impossible to get to the Garden of Eden; the Garden’s heavenly analogue does not admit human beings who are still alive; and it is certainly impossible to travel to the Garden of Eden and back to Rome in a single day! Besides, could a thinking person entertain the thought that the Messiah sits “crouching at the entrance of sinful Rome amidst sick people whose legs hang limp from plagues?”118 Setting to specifics, Abarbanel tackles what he deems the most knotty of the issues at hand: a sage’s purported encounter with a prophet long since deceased. He takes it as axiomatic that the events described did not actually occur.119 This aggadah and others of a similar ilk may reflect the contents of dreams brought on by intense solitary study in which the senses are eventually nulled or perhaps reflect a highly realistic wakeful reverie, the psychology of which has been explored by Aristotle. But if not, such aggadot should be understood as showing that the sages often spoke in parables like the prophets and philosophers of ancient times who, when they wished to explain a certain subject, would “contrive a long debate between two well-known figures of the distant past as if they were conversing with each other. They would also fashion stories about dumb animals in dialogue form as if they were conversing.” Eventually, adds Abarbanel (without citing examples), “this practice was extended to include stories and debates between the heavens and separate intellects and God, as if He were speaking to them and they were responding.”120 Such is the way of “many” an aggadah, and thus it is that aggadic encounters between Elijah and individual sages can be seen as metaphoric expressions for an exalted link with the divine. “Elijah,” in such usages, refers to “the highest level of [intellectual] concentration, since the knowledge that would come to [the sages] with the cleaving of their spirit and intellect to divine matters was partly human, and partly superhuman (nivdal) and spiritual (ruខhani).”121 Figurative language, parables, and fables were, in short, commonplaces of ancient philosophic and rabbinic discourse alike. A remark elsewhere reveals where Abarbanel learned his lessons: “There is no cause to wonder that the sages spoke about profound matters using parables and riddles . . . as this was the way of all ancients. . . . Maimonides has already referred to them. He wrote that Plato designated the first matter as female and form as male.”122 Classed correctly according to genre, seemingly bizarre aggadot pose no threat to reason’s teachings, and enlightened Jews, therefore, can try to unearth their profound message without fear of em-


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barrassment. In this respect, Abarbanel stands not as an opponent of medieval Jewish rationalism but as its representative. Abarbanel sounds another Maimonidean note in insisting that seemingly odd aggadic expressions imitate divinely inspired discursive modes. His examples include wisdom’s personification by Solomon and the personification of concrete objects (the sea and depths) and abstract concepts (death and oblivion) in Job.123 As Abarbanel would have it, the sages were conscious emulators of such biblical tropes. In speaking in parables “with the aim of imparting the intended lesson (nimshal) [of their words], not the plain sense of the parable itself,” the sages “recalled that this type [of expression] also occurred in the divine Torah—[for example] the stories of the snake and Eve, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge—which were stated in the Torah unequivocally (bahaggadah muខhleខtet) but which, since they departed from the intelligible, were interpreted by them [the sages] figuratively (‘al derekh ha-ខsurah).”124 Abarbanel does not say which midrashim on Gen. 2–3 he has in mind; he may again have been thinking of examples adduced by Maimonides.125 At any rate, two clarificatory points are in order. First, Abarbanel denied that the opening chapters of Genesis should be read on a figurative plane exclusively. In his Commentary on Genesis, written less than a decade after Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, one finds insistence on the need for two-tiered interpretation of the primeval fall, one figurative and the other based in the verses’ contextual sense, albeit with even the latter rendered so as to ensure that “the intellect will not conflict with religion and the Torah will not incline away from that which is intelligible.”126 Second, Abarbanel knew that nonliteralism was hardly the prevalent mode in midrashic readings of Scripture’s opening chapters. Here, however, in order to strengthen his apology on behalf of aggadic speech, he gives himself leave to admit that these chapters cannot be interpreted “intelligibly” according to peshaខt. In sum, even as he resisted reading classical Jewish texts through lenses that he thought bore too heavy an Aristotelian tint, Abarbanel shared the goal of rationally intelligible interpretation of such texts. Little wonder, then, that Yeshu‘ot meshiខho bears significant rationalist marks, Abarbanel’s objections to the esoteric approach to aggadah notwithstanding. Abarbanel finds the plain sense of many messianic sayings unacceptable, often escapes difficulties posed by such sayings through nonliteral interpretation, and assimilates rabbinic speech to ancient philosophic discourse, stressing thereby that, far from being a departure from intelligent expression, aggadah attests familiarity with the most sophisticated literary and pedagogic tools handed down from non-Jewish antiquity. Finally, like such latter-day Maimonideans as Isaac ben Yedaiah, Abarbanel unlocks the meaning of groups of rabbinic sayings by expounding words and images in them as codes that operate across the field of rabbinic expression.127

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The extent and limits of Abarbanel’s Maimonidean proclivities in aggadic interpretation emerge clearly from a passage that appears both in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho and, in a different version, in the Commentary on Genesis. The aggadah has it that the donkey that Abraham rode at the time of Isaac’s binding was later used by Moses, and will be pressed into service yet again in the times of the Messiah. For Abarbanel, the rationalist, it goes more or less without saying that “it is inappropriate to understand this dictum literally, since it it impossible that that donkey should live more than three thousand years.”128 And so: [“He saddled his donkey” (Gen. 22:3).] Since in doing this [saddling his donkey as a first step towards sacrificing his son], Abraham was subjugating his [natural] inclination and nullifying the nature of matter (ខhomer), the rabbinic sages saw fit to homiletically expound “he saddled his donkey (vayyaខhavosh ’et hខ amoro)” in a figurative way (‘al derekh ha-meliខsah) to mean that he overcame (ខhavash) and subjugated (hikhnia‘) his matter (ខhomer) and [natural] inclination since [only] through this was he able to go to “the place which God had told him of” [Gen. 22:9] [to sacrifice Isaac]. And since Abraham marked a beginning in the perfect faith in Him, and Moses [marked a further stage of progress] through the giving of the Torah which was given by the True Perfecter in order to remove from them [the Jewish people] the impurity [found in them] due to [the sin of Adam and Eve caused by] the snake, and since the kingMessiah will be the ultimate of all the unique goodness—for this reason, the sages said in their figurative exposition (meliខsatam) that this very donkey that Abraham saddled is the one upon which Moses rode and is one on which the Messiah will ride. By this they meant that that matter which Abraham subjugated to his intellect, Moses also subjugated through his receiving [and purveying] of the Torah and the Messiah will also subjugate to render it perfect to the extreme of perfection. They [the sages] referred to Abraham, Moses, and the Messiah since they mark the beginning, midpoint, and end of [this process leading up to] perfect faith in Him.129

Confronted by the assertion that the donkey which Abraham saddled was the one used by Moses in Egypt and the one upon which the Messiah eventually will ride, Abarbanel characteristically130 makes an enigmatic midrash a medium for theological insight. He achieves this end by taking a concrete object as a metaphor for an abstract philosophic concept, abetted in this case by a wordplay well-attested in earlier philosophic exegesis, both biblical and aggadic (ខhamor/ខhomer; “donkey”/“materiality”). In Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, Abarbanel stresses the stock character of the trope, noting that “this metaphor was recurrent in their words.”131 Here, then, are substantive and methodological angles of aggadic interpretation of which any Maimonidean could be proud. If, however, Abarbanel’s interpretation of the rabbinic dictum does not lack for rationalist hues, these shine less brightly than the differences that divide


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Abarbanel from his philosophically minded counterparts. In keeping with the procedure of other rationalists, Isaac ben Yedaiah took “Messiah” as a metaphor for the intellect, since “it is the purpose of man to anoint it to be king over all the other faculties of his body.”132 Accordingly, he interpreted the Messiah’s donkey with reference to a human being’s material aspect and understood redemption to mean the intellect’s liberation from the body as it returned to its place of origin rather than the Jewish people’s collective redemption on the national-historical plane. Redemption was, in short, the individual Jew’s spiritual salvation (read: intellectual perfection) in the exilic here and now.133 Like Isaac, Abarbanel invokes metaphorical interchanges such as “donkey/materiality,” but his redeemer is no allegorical “messiah/intellect.” Messianic sayings invariably retain their national significance and historical points of reference in Abarbanel’s readings of them. Shem Tov ben Shaprut had entitled his commentary on rabbinic sayings “Orchard of Pomegranates,” thereby making explicit in the very title of his study his assumption that it was such sayings’ inner essence and not their outer sheathing (which, following Maimonides, Shem Tov had referred to as the “rind”) that was “primary (ha-‘iqqar).”134 Abarbanel disagreed. Though he, too, spoke of such sayings’ “inner meaning,” his exegetical energies were basically directed towards uncovering their plain sense, which he by no means viewed as rind to be discarded. As regards messianic midrashim and aggadot in particular, chronological sayings that supplied a basis for “calculating the end” were not to be allegorized. And, like all aggadah, the inner meanings of messianic sayings were surely not to be identified (at least not systematically) with discursiverational truths preached by medieval Aristotelians. Surely not; for, as Abarbanel was convinced, rabbinic “received wisdom” was as far removed from philosophy “as east from west.”

“What the Sages and Prophets Have Taught” In the introduction to Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, Abarbanel promises aggadic interpretation in conformity with prophetic and rabbinic tradition. What forms does such interpretation take? At times, faithfulness to tradition means adherence to a literal understanding of classical doctrines. An example is Abarbanel’s treatment of the “resurrection of the dead” referred to in an aggadah adduced by Jerònim. The doctrine that the dead would be resurrected often proved a stumbling block to medieval Jewish rationalists, and even philosophically learned critics of rationalism could find it hard to square with reason’s dictates. Though just such a

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moderate antirationalist, Abarbanel saw resurrection as a pillar of classical theology that demanded unwavering support.135 The aggadah cited by Jerònim told of a pact between God and the Messiah: the latter would undergo sufferings on behalf of his people if the Divinity would resurrect Israel’s dead. Jerònim took this resurrection to refer to the divine Messiah’s capacity to secure the removal of “dead” souls from hell. Isaac Nathan of Arles had circumvented this interpretation by explaining resurrection in terms of the ingathering that would be experienced by Israel’s exiles (“the dead”) at the end of time. Though Abarbanel can take metaphorical renderings of the aggadah in some of its aspects in stride, he proclaims himself “uneasy about making resurrection of the dead into a figure (mashal) or allegory (ខsurah).” In expressing his unease, he seems to understand that Isaac was no die-hard rationalist seeking to deny resurrection; hence, it would seem, his muted critique where one would expect a harsher one (of the sort that he elsewhere makes against “latter-day commentators from among our people” who did view resurrection as a metaphor for the future ingathering).136 Nonetheless, Abarbanel is not willing to allegorize away what, to use the locution employed earlier in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, he most certainly considered a “broadly accepted overarching principle of the Torah.” Here was a case where the polemical method of aggadic interpretation achieved its narrow aim of fending off the Christian assault at, in Abarbanel’s estimation, too great a cost. As his treatment of the dictum that “the son of David will not come until all the souls in Guf have come to an end”137 shows, not all views that Abarbanel deems “traditional” in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho are traceable to classical sources. Shem Tov ben Shaprut had expounded the text as follows: the Messiah will come only when, due to a deficiency in matter, the universal soul or Active Intellect can no longer impose new souls as forms on new human bodies. In interpreting thus, he had assumed “the philosophers’ opinion” that the soul is created at the time of the body’s generation and, indeed, this was the Aristotelian view accepted by Maimonides. Reading the aggadah on the basis of this premise, Shem Tov was fulfilling his self-imposed mandate to interpret rabbinic discourse on the basis of the philosophically attuned “classical teachings of the Torah” prevalent in Maimonides’ writings.138 Abarbanel’s conception of authentic Jewish teaching on the soul was such that he dismisses summarily Shem Tov’s interpretation of the aggadah concerning “all the souls in Guf ” as one that “contradicts the traditionalist’s belief (’emunat ha-torani) regarding the soul.” (Abarbanel adds for good measure that there is no reason to believe matter will deteriorate around the time of the messianic advent such that natural processes of generation and deterioration will cease.)139 The key to understanding lies not with Aristotle but in “classical premises (haqdamot toriyyot)” propounded by the kabbalists. One such premise was the kabbalistic affirmation of the soul’s preexistence and teaching that a fixed number of preexistent souls were created for all times during the six days


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of creation (an idea about which Abarbanel had spoken approvingly in an earlier work.)140 Another was the kabbalists’ understanding of the soul as a distinct spiritual substance that existed separately from the body, a doctrine that, as Abarbanel well knew, clashed with Maimonides’ philosophically informed opinion that the soul was a potentiality in need of “actualization.” In A Sedeq ‘olamim, Abarbanel had pitted one view against another, demonstrating to his satisfaction that the notion of the soul as a separate metaphysical entity was “truly the view of the Torah.” Having set forth the traditional tenets on the basis of which the aggadah must be understood, Abarbanel offers an explanation which, indeed, seems consonant with the dictum’s simple sense: only when the souls created at the beginning of time have “come to an end” will the Messiah appear.141 As in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, so in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho Abarbanel quickly summons the kabbalists when contesting philosophic claims to relay classical tradition. But, again as in the earlier work, he hints that such invocations by no means imply his facile or comprehensive acceptance of kabbalistic claims to possess received traditions concerning true teachings of the Torah. Abarbanel states regarding the kabbalistic side of the esoteric school of aggadic interpretation that he “will not mention it nor will I speak in its name, since I am not of the scholars of this wisdom and it is distant from me.”142 But this pious demurral notwithstanding, he does not seem sanguine about the likelihood that the ancient sages spoke in mystical tongues. He speaks of “another [esoteric] approach in the interpretation of some aggadot according to the method of Kabbalah,” which he has seen “in the words of people who consider themselves mequbbalim.” The implication is that knowledge of the ancient sages’ received wisdom may be as distant from the kabbalists as himself. Though typically seen in terms of its messianic and anti-Christian motives and aims,143 Yeshu‘ot meshiខho has, as a work of midrashic-aggadic commentary, a hitherto overlooked dimension. The work’s epilogue, which echoes Abarbanel’s earlier promises to explore rabbinic dicta on the basis of what “the sages and prophets have taught,” ends on the following note: I have carved out an opening for those who come after me. Let them observe what I have done and let them do the same for all the other aggadot of the Talmud. It would also be of solace to me if men “skillful in knowledge and discerning in wisdom” [Dan. 1:4] would arise to explicate the aggadot of the Talmud and Midrashim in a good way, following straight paths, in a manner consistent with that which is intelligible—not according to the philosophy of the Greeks, but in keeping with traditional truth (ha-’emet ha-torani) and the wisdom of the early [rabbinic] sages in whom the spirit of God spoke.144

Painting a picture of rabbinic interpretation at a crossroads, Abarbanel expresses the hope that Yeshu‘ot meshiខho will mark the beginning of a larger ongo-

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ing effort to wrest interpretation of rabbinic nonlegal dicta from the distorting grasp of philosophic exegesis. To be sure, Abarbanel does not preach an abandonment of reason on the part of future aggadic interpreters. As has been seen time and again, Abarbanel’s traditionalism was far from entailing wholesale rejection of the demands of intelligibility. But to interpret these demands in strictly philosophic terms was, to his way of thinking, a calamity—one that could only subvert “traditional truths” grounded in a higher dispensation. The dispute with philosophic aggadic interpretation comes to a head in Abarbanel’s account of Samuel’s assertion that “the only difference between this world and the days of the Messiah is subjugation to [foreign] powers,” a saying that Maimonides had made the rabbinic cornerstone of his naturalistic eschatology. It was, as has been seen, Samuel to whom Maimonides appealed in reducing to natural dimensions the aggadic assertion that “in the future the land of Israel will bring forth ready baked rolls and fine woolen garments,” and it was Samuel whom Maimonides cited in codifying the view that prophetic promises of miraculous occurrences in messianic times be understood figuratively. While it is possible that Samuel’s assertion originally incorporated “big, ambitious, spectacular hopefulness,”145 and while it is true that some antiMaimonideans were willing to credit a literal interpretation of this text,146 Abarbanel viewed Samuel’s comment, as Maimonides had understood it, as entailing a devastating curtailment of traditional messianic hopes. And so, digressing from his campaign against Jerònim, Abarbanel challenges Maimonides on this crucial testimonium. He begins by noting this dictum’s centrality for Maimonides, who seized on this statement at the end of his great compilation Mishneh torah and in other places. He interpreted it to mean that in the days of the Messiah nothing of the natural order that governs us today will change; that the only thing [to change] will be that the yoke of subjugation to foreign powers will be removed from Israel; and that any prophetic utterances that appear to contradict this [view] are meant figuratively and should not be taken literally.147

Abarbanel then enters a methodological critique. To enhance this opinion’s authority, Maimonides cited it in the name of “the sages” as if “all sages concurred on this point.” But though Maimonides had taught the crucial significance of the distinction between widely held and individual rabbinic views,148 he here glossed over the fact that it was Samuel alone who had ventured the view in which he found rabbinic grounding for his anti-apocalyptic edifice. (Actually, Abarbanel had done the same elsewhere in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, but he does not advertise this fact here.)149 Abarbanel’s main criticism of Maimonides is not methodological, however, but substantive. Given that the prophets unanimously testify to the super-


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natural character of the age-to-come—the Messiah will possess superhuman perfection, extraordinary vengeance will be wreaked upon the nations, there will be unprecedented agricultural fertility, wisdom will be acquired without study, and so forth—how can it be maintained that a sage claimed that messianic times would be distinguished from current ones by Jewish national restoration alone? One might even argue that such a statement “entails heresy with regard to the principle of resurrection [of the dead], since if the natural order will not be altered in any way, then the dead will not live.” As Abarbanel hardly had to remind his reader, it was Maimonides who had counted resurrection as one of Judaism’s fundamental dogmas.150 Having identified problematic elements in Maimonides’ interpretation of the aggadah, Abarbanel channels his own efforts towards an explanation that preserves what he deems the classical understanding that messianic times will involve a cosmic transformation. His exegesis turns on a distinction between “the days of the Messiah” and the “time of the resurrection of the dead” akin to the one found in Judah Zabara’s gloss on R. Hillel. Samuel’s statement teaches that the exclusive innovation of the former period will be with respect to “subjugation of foreign powers.” This phrase, as Abarbanel understands Samuel, refers not to a cessation of foreign domination over Israel—this being an essential attribute of messianic times that goes without saying—but to Israel’s subjugation of other nations. What Samuel meant, then, was that the “only difference between this world”—i.e., Jewish life in exile—“and the days of the Messiah,” meaning the first stage of eschatological times, would be that Jews would subjugate “foreign powers.” This would be a “difference” from all earlier phases of the Jewish past, even in Israel’s most glorious eras, when no such subjugation was present. Maimonides had taught that while the Messiah would indeed inaugurate a period of Jewish independence, the “sages and prophets” did not long for this development in order to “lord it over the gentiles.” Abarbanel, clearly savoring the thought, proposes that such domination was precisely what Samuel had in mind. For Abarbanel, however, the heart of the issue is not the political one but his conclusion that Samuel by no means denied the end-time’s supernatural character. Rather, Samuel believed that supernatural occurrences would be restricted to the second phase of the eschaton, the period of resurrection—a period that, on Abarbanel’s reading, is implied by Samuel’s dictum even as it goes unmentioned there.151 It is well to attend to Abarbanel’s procedure here in light of an aspect of his theory of aggadic discourse seen above. Against the renunciationist claim that an aggadah that contravened a “broadly accepted overarching principle of the Torah” could be rejected, Abarbanel had advanced his view that careful study would reveal in the aggadah a “differing intention” from the overarching view with which it was assumed to conflict. In refuting Maimonides’ understanding of Samuel, Abarbanel acts on this insight in a way that brings Samuel’s inten-

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tion into conformity with what he takes to be an overarching principle of traditional messianism. There is one last twist. Having brought Samuel into line with traditional apocalypticism as best he is able (as he had R. Hillel and R. Akiva in examples seen above), Abarbanel now invokes principles of halakhic adjudication— there are parallels for this unusual procedure elsewhere in his writings—to demote an aggadah whose tenor remains to him as yet dismaying. “Good and correct” though Samuel’s words may be, they lack normative value, Abarbanel argues, since they are “words of an individual” and since R. Yohanan, “whose rulings we accept over Samuel’s (halakhah kemoto le-gabei Shemu’el),” as well as “the sages of the Mishnah,” disagree with him.”152 Given this final holding, one might wonder why Abarbanel did not simply cast Samuel’s as an eccentric minority opinion attesting to a wholly nonmiraculous eschaton rather than troubling himself to find in this dictum an opinion that, however flawed, ultimately concurred in his own vision of a miraculous end-time. Here, again, it seems necessary to recall a further bit of Abarbanel’s theory of rabbinic discourse—namely, that a diversity of rabbinic voices on a given subject indicates a lack of reliable tradition concerning the matter in question.153 If the miraculous nature of messianic times was to retain its status as an indisputable given of Jewish theology, as Abarbanel surely wished it to, then no interpretation of Samuel’s (or any other rabbinic sage’s) messianic saying could forfeit supernatural eschatology without surrendering this tenet’s claim to roots in unimpeachable tradition. Beyond a dispute with Maimonides over the character of the messianic age, Abarbanel disagreed with the master over the status of practical activities aimed at calculating its advent. As in the case of his naturalistic eschatology, here too Maimonides invoked aggadah on his side, citing R. Jonathan’s execration, “Blasted be the bones of those who calculate the End.” Even those such as Hasdai Crescas, with whom Abarbanel often made common cause against Maimonides and his followers, could see eye-to-eye with Maimonides on this score.154 Not so Abarbanel. The question was, to be sure, complex. Minimally, pitched against Maimonides’ view and the rabbinic execration on which he leaned was the plain fact that Jewish literature, both rabbinic and medieval, was replete with eschatological arithmetic. Abarbanel was quick to note that some of his most eminent postrabbinic predecessors—Saadya Gaon, Rashi, Abraham bar Hiyya, and Nahmanides—had professed messianic dates. As for R. Jonathan’s reproach, Abarbanel assigns it to calculations based on astrology. Since, however, he engaged in just such astrally based calculations, he was forced to lessen R. Jonathan’s aggadic encumbrance still further. This he does by arguing the propriety of such calculations so long as they are understood to be alterable by God and, like any such predictions, to be fallible, as products of the human


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mind. With this hurdle overcome, nothing impedes Abarbanel’s conclusion that, done correctly, calculating the end is a “most precious” pursuit—indeed that even “excessive” engagement in this task is “appropriate.”155 Abarbanel goes beyond the assertion that rabbinic tradition provides no bar to his efforts to determine the end-time. For thinkers like himself (philosophically inclined ones included), who believed that history possessed a divinely inspired design, the question of the end-time stimulated attempts to interpret signs that might provide the answer.156 For some, Scripture was such signs’ primary repository; for others, historical events themselves could be viewed through a similar lens. For yet others, the stars provided insight into history’s ups and down. In Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, Abarbanel enlists rabbinic received traditions (qabbalot) as part of his evidentiary base on the supposition that messianic aggadah—no less than Scripture, history, or the heavens—can disclose information concerning the end-time. In his effort to unlock the meaning of the “moving moments of time” against the “eternal pattern of reality,”157 Abarbanel was, as in so much else, following in a path marked out by earlier Ibero-Jewish thinkers. There was, for example, bar Hiyya, the pre-Maimonidean Spanish philosopher who departed from his neo-Platonic proclivities in the importance that he attached to history.158 As noted, writing at the time of deliverance foreseen by bar Hiyya, Abarbanel incorporated his predecessor’s astrological determinations into his own eschatological computations.159 There was also Abraham ibn Daud, another Spanish savant who, according to his foremost modern student, taught (mostly esoterically) that it was in the symmetrical periodization of past events that the divine design governing history could be discerned and who, through provision of messianic hints, apparently instructed that the eschaton would begin in Spain in 1188–89.160 And there was, finally, Nahmanides, the most prominent among Abarbanel’s Iberian predecessors who championed the notion of recurring patterns in history, albeit from a different point of view than ibn Daud. Following rabbinic leads, he spoke of the prefigured necessities in Jewish history embedded in events in the lives of Israel’s biblical patriarchs and matriarchs—a rabbinic theme that, as has been seen, also resonated with Abarbanel.161 Nahmanides also suggested that the history of the world was prefigured in the six days of creation and, like bar Hiyya, he was alert to this notion’s eschatological implications.162 Nahmanides engaged in messianic speculations as well, invoking chronological symmetries in the manner of ibn Daud to buttress his case.163 In Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, Abarbanel envisions a historical process that unfolds in accordance with “natural” patterns: redemption is like “natural generation that occurs only by way of opposites, since a new form (ខsurah) cannot be imposed on a subject except with the corruption (hefsed) of its earlier form. [In the case of redemption,] corruption perforce means great afflictions.”164 But while de-

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scribing historical processes in the language of physics, Abarbanel follows bar Hiyya in viewing redemption as a process influenced by a causal network bound up with the stars. Since the effect of the “great conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn is to transfer “the nation or subject that receives its influence from one extreme to the other . . . , its activity will not affect a nation of average standing and size to enhance it while, of necessity, its influence will affect a nation that is at the extreme of degradation, the extreme of abasement, and enslaved in a foreign land.” The result is that the conjunction “is then able to carry them to the [opposite] extreme of high stature.”165 Wary of sounding too much like an astrological determinist, Abarbanel explains—at Abarbanelian length—how God may alter natural astrological cycles, at least as these bear upon Israel. Barring such divine intercession, however, the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Pisces during 1464 should ensure the Jewish people’s imminent deliverance, just as millennia earlier it had initiated the Israelites’ redemption from Egypt.166 Abarbanel tells of signs of the coming cosmic upheaval on earth as well as in the stars. The fifty-year period beginning with Constantinople’s fall represents the final jubilee prior to the Messiah’s arrival, for which the fifty years of exile from the time of the First Temple’s destruction to Cyrus’ declaration of deliverance serves as a type. For Jews, these last decades of exile are a time of “death, starvation, captivity,” and expulsions.167 Other historical symmetries are also at work, such as the one alluded to in Ezekiel’s prophecy that God would judge Israel in “the wilderness of the peoples” as he had in the “wilderness of the land of Egypt” (Ezek. 20:35–36)”: He hinted by this comparison that as Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years after leaving Egypt . . . so at the time of the future redemption the children of Israel would wander for forty years in the “wilderness of the peoples.” The beginning was in 1464 . . . , since it was then that afflictions began among the Jews and among their offspring who assimilated among the nations [i.e., the conversos]. In Savoy, Provence, Piedmont, Lombardy, the whole of the kingdom of Spain . . . the lands of the [Holy Roman] Emperor . . . Portugal and also the kingdom of Naples . . . they [the gentiles] made expulsions and their hands are still outstretched against the ’anusim of the seed of Israel with the aim of removing them from their lands. I swear by God that this will continue until the end of forty years after [the beginning of] this conjunction, which will be completed in 1503.168

The gulf separating Abarbanel’s approach to historico-messianic questions from a (not entirely typical) Maimonidean one is illustrated by comparison of his understanding of the historical process as it affects Israel’s redemption with the view of Joseph ibn Kaspi. For that southern French maverick, the concatenation of events that would bring about Israel’s redemption was far from clear.


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Referring to Daniel’s dream of the four beasts which, in its classical understanding, alluded to a finite series of hegemonies that would run their course prior to the messianic advent, he asks: “Are there no more beasts?” Political vicissitudes being what they are, there is no telling how and when Israel’s national restoration will occur, and thus messianic speculation is as pointless, ibn Kaspi pointedly observes, as Christian certitudes regarding the impossibility of Israel’s renewal are irrational.169 If for the likes of ibn Kaspi the historical process, such as it was, was a largely impenetrable web, for Abarbanel the question of the relationship between human history and God’s eternal plan was tractable and deserving of attention. On the one occasion that he considers ibn Kaspi’s approach, he roundly condemns it.170 Like the author of the passage from Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer to which he devoted part one of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho,171 Abarbanel saw history proceeding according to a prefabricated plan subject to human discernment, with biblical texts midrashically unpacked (in the rabbinic typological way) providing one source of insight into the fragmentary historical contingencies that would ultimately prove to be of universal significance: How fine is his [Rabbi Eliezer’s] statement “and he [Abraham] brought each part against its corresponding part.” It alludes to the fact that he [Abraham] prepared (zimmen) Persia’s destruction of Babylon and Greece’s destruction of Persia and Rome’s destruction of Greece such that each would be an enemy to the other. And he prepared Ishmael [Islam] to be an opponent to Edom [Christendom] and Edom to Ishmael. As a result of this conflict, neither would rule over the whole world and wipe out his [Abraham’s] children.172

It is clear to Abarbanel that midrashim that speak to eschatologically charged events of his day reflect far more than historical prescience or information derivable from the stars. Rather, the specificity of one of R. Eliezer’s predictions is “eloquent testimony” to “the repository of received truths” bequeathed to the sages by the prophets.173 (As regards R. Eliezer specifically, the talmudic attestation that he said nothing not received through tradition was also to be borne in mind.)174 Abarbanel is keen to stress that “it was a tradition in the possession of the early sages who received [their information] from the prophets” that Constantinople would be destroyed before Rome. “You see this in the Aramaic translation of . . . Psalm 108 . . . and in the Aramaic translation of Ecclesiastes. . . .”175 And, again, “these derashot were not simply explanations based on the denotation of the text’s words. . . . Rather, these matters were handed down to them from the mouths of the prophets.”176 The ultimate direction in which Abarbanel is moving as he makes avowals of this sort becomes clear when he proclaims “thanks to the Lord” that his own messianic calculations coincide with “the opinion of these perfect ones in

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whom the holy spirit resides.”177 If Maimonides taught that the sages had no tradition concerning the end-time and that rabbinic messianic speculations were guided solely by “[interpretation of] Scripture [and not infallible tradition],” Abarbanel insisted that some messianic aggadot did serve as repositories for infallible traditions handed down to the sages by the prophets. On this assumption, aggadah could be added to scriptural prophecy as a source of reliable knowledge about history and hints of the precise hour of the Messiah’s arrival.

Rhetoric—Traditionalist and Apocalyptic The claim that the sages were bearers of infallible nonlegal traditions— invoked sparingly in the biblical commentaries178 —occurs in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho literally from beginning to end. The work’s introduction depicts the sages as “those who received all truths from the prophets” and even as “the great scholars of Israel in whom the spirit of the Lord spoke,” and its epilogue refers to them as “ancients (rishonim) in whom the spirit of God spoke.”179 Elsewhere, Abarbanel asks how Nahmanides and others can rebuff dicta of those “in whom we know the spirit of the Lord spoke,” and in numerous places he imbues the sages with quasi-prophetic capacities.180 After unfolding aggadot said to presage events of late antiquity and early medieval times—including the sack of Rome, Constantine’s patronage of Christianity, the Gothic invasions, and the rise of Islam—Abarbanel praises “the One who imparts of his wisdom to those that fear him.”181 Little wonder that Yeshu‘ot meshiខho’s epilogue has been made the basis of a characterization of Abarbanel’s attitude towards the rabbinic sages as figures in whom “the spirit of God spoke and to whom the secrets of divine revelation were revealed” and that the whole of the work has been said to reveal that Abarbanel required allegiance to the rabbinic word “absolutely.”182 But if an initial reading of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho seems to bear out such claims, one wonders: what of the Abarbanel of ‘Ateret zeqenim—and all of the subsequent biblical commentaries—who assumes that nonlegal rabbinic dicta typically reflect human reasoning to which “the gates of refutation” are not closed? The answer is that even in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho this Abarbanel makes more than a passing appearance. It has been seen that Abarbanel’s response to the renunciationists does not deny the right to diverge from rabbinic sayings that report more than one view. And, indeed, confronted in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho by an aggadah that threatens his messianic calculations, Abarbanel is quick to observe that “not all of the sages concurred in this opinion” and to conclude on this basis that the aggadah poses no challenge to his own view.183 Similarly, where it serves his polemical aims, Abarbanel undercuts Jerònim’s effort to exploit a rabbinic exposition by observing that it “reflects an individual view


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but they [the sages] also expounded this verse in other ways.”184 Then too, when in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho his focus momentarily shifts to a question of biblical interpretation, Abarbanel reverts to form, disputing a midrash despite its endorsement by his most distinguished medieval predecessor: “The rabbinic sages explained that when it states, ‘And He brought him [Abraham] forth outside’ [Gen. 15:5], this occurred in a vision of prophecy. . . . This was also Maimonides’ view. . . . But these views are foreign to the text’s true sense, since the Torah testifies that He [literally] brought him outside.”185 The combination of deference before and independence from rabbinic nonlegal authority familiar from the biblical commentaries is evident in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho as well. Beyond willingness to reject some rabbinic dicta outright, another feature that tempers Abarbanel’s characterizations of the sages as semiprophets in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho is his tendency to cast a spotlight on the humanity of the figures that lie behind these dicta: “As I already told you, it was R. Joshua ben Levi’s wont and habit to explain matters of wisdom and the secrets associated with it by means of enigmatic sayings and parables.”186 Behind the anonymous collective appellation “ខhazal (the sages, may their memory be blessed)” lie flesh-and-blood human beings with individuating, even idiosyncratic habits. For Abarbanel, R. Akiva’s recognition of Bar Kokhba as the Messiah was problematic. It called into question not only the general reliability of the sages’ eschatological perspicacity but Abarbanel’s tripartite messianic chronology as well, since this sage had lived during the period in which the Messiah was, according to the threefold scheme, unable to come. How, then, to explain that this “wise man and preceptor of secrets” (Isa. 3:3) had erred and how, in particular, to understand that he had mistakenly believed that the first of the three periods in messianic history, “the period of preclusion,” would be the period of the Messiah’s advent? Abarbanel advances two hypotheses, the second being that R. Akiva did not in fact believe that Bar Kokhba was the Messiah son of David but only the Messiah son of Joseph, a warrior, as alluded to in Jer. 51:2, sent by God to punish the Romans in anticipation of Messiah son of David’s coming. But Abarbanel is also prepared to grant that R. Akiva assumed that the tripartite messianic plan had been altered and that he genuinely believed that Bar Kokhba was the Messiah son of David, in which case “it happened to him what frequently happens to any judicious man, that he thinks and believes what his soul longs and pines for. So with R. Akiva, in his yearning for divine redemption, and upon observing Bar Kokhba’s valor and the fact that his military successes were not according to nature—it arose in his mind that this was from God.” R. Akiva succumbed to wishful thinking.187 Throughout Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, then, Abarbanel exalts the sages with a frequency and lavishness uncharacteristic of his other writings, repeatedly describing them as those “in whom the spirit of the Lord spoke.” At the same time, countervailing tendencies can be discerned beneath the rhetorical exaltations.

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Abarbanel renounces individual rabbinic opinions. And, in a manner quite atypical of earlier Jewish writers, he occasionally focusses on the individuality and distinctive human foibles of particular sages. One need not assume outright disingenuousness when he speaks of the sages as bearers of received traditions from the prophets: in his exegetical works he also periodically casts the sages in this light. There is, in sum, something to Abarbanel’s expressions of admiration for the sages in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, but these tell only part of the story. The rhetoric of tradition is a prominent feature of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho in other ways. Abarbanel affirms that he will analyze midrash and aggadah in accordance with what “the sages and prophets have taught us,” and he often appeals to what he takes to be such classical teachings: scriptural promises of redemption, the end-time’s miraculous character, the resurrection of the dead literally understood, the ten tribes’ reappearance on the historical scene, and so forth. Scholars with whom Abarbanel disputes are often accused of subverting tradition. The culprits include those who assign scriptural messianic testimonies to Second Temple times; Maimonides, on account of his interpretation of Samuel’s messianic dictum in a purely naturalistic and political way, and Shem Tov ben Shaprut, for his denial of the soul’s preexistence. Yet if often true to its author’s traditional rhetoric, Yeshu‘ot meshiខho is in its own way quite untraditional. As has been seen, the interpretations that it offers are, almost to a one, highly original, and the messianic vision that it presents is in many ways unique. True, Yeshu‘ot meshiខho often reprises ideas that would have a long afterlife in early modern Jewish messianic speculation: the ten tribes’ messianic role, Constantinople’s fall as major messianic pivot, the eschatological centrality of the astral configuration of Saturn conjoined with Jupiter in Pisces, and more. But, as is so often the case elsewhere in the exegetical side of his corpus, Abarbanel’s twists on and syntheses of his raw materials are often highly innovative. To say that Yeshu‘ot meshiខho offers a reproduction of familiar material “in the form required to meet the demands of the time” and that Abarbanel “does not come to create innovations” in this work, or to cast the work as part of a “codification” of Jewish messianism—longstanding characterizations of Abarbanel’s messianic corpus that remain current188 —is to defy Abarbanel’s description of at least one of the messianic works and the considerable creativity apparent within it. Traditionalist rhetoric is just one of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho’s devices of discourse. In the work’s introduction, Abarbanel insists that one should not even deign to respond to the preposterous claim that rabbinic texts sustain Christian beliefs; yet, as he makes no effort to disguise, Yeshu‘ot meshiខho marks just such a response on the grandest possible scale. Still, Abarbanel’s dissent from a polemical approach to aggadah was not simply disingenuous. He regretted that many earlier Jewish writers merely devised ad hoc interpretations of aggadah for the


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sake of apology, and he made good on his commitment to study the rabbinic messianic inheritance with fresh eyes and a new, highly fastidious method. The thoroughness of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho and the other two constituents of Abarbanel’s messianic trilogy—a thoroughness that cannot fail to impress—prove that Abarbanel’s interest in these works was not merely in defusing christological interpretation of classical Jewish texts. (That these vast and involved exercises in exegesis and theology could be characterized by a leading modern-day historian as concise [!] reference manuals for preachers attempting to blunt the Christian offensive is amazing.)189 Still, despite his claim to explicate rabbinic sayings immanently, factors relating to the Jewish-Christian debate clearly pushed Abarbanel off the path of detached interpretation at many a turn. There is, then, something to Abarbanel’s depiction of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho as a “nonpolemical” work; but it, too, tells only part of the story. The rhetoric of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho must be checked against its substantive reality in other respects. As was seen, despite his apparently unqualified rejection of midrashic-aggadic “renunciation” in the name of pious traditionalism, Abarbanel was in essence a renunciationist. And even as he offered a rhetorically high-pitched rejection of esoteric aggadic interpretation of the rationalist variety, Abarbanel shared with philosophically minded Jews an awareness of the rationally problematic character of many rabbinic sayings and a selective willingness to defuse difficulties posed by such texts through a quest for their “inner meaning.” As regards the other camp of esoteric interpreters, the kabbalists, it has been seen that Abarbanel’s rhetoric shifts to suit local needs. When the kabbalists abet his traditionalist interpretations, he enthrones them, crediting, at least implicitly, their self-perception as transmitters of true tradition. Elsewhere, he casts doubt on kabbalist claims to bear the mantle of classical Judaism’s esoteric lore. And what, finally, of Yeshu‘ot meshiខho’s powerful apocalyptic rhetoric? It has been noted that the passing of 1503 without the Messiah’s arrival left no mark on Abarbanel’s writing during his last half decade of life. Speculation is therefore hazardous; yet one very much doubts that Abarbanel died in Venice “confident that he had discovered the plan behind the terrible events of the past two decades.”190 Indeed, one may wonder how much confidence he ever possessed on this score—and whether he gave the matter much thought during his own “end-time.” But one can go further, questioning the depth of Abarbanel’s messianic consciousness even in the period during which he composed his great messianic tomes. Telling, if would seem, is the remark in the conclusion to Yeshu‘ot meshiខho that it would be “of solace to me if men . . . would arise to explicate the aggadot . . . in a manner consistent with that which is intelligible—not according to the philosophy of the Greeks but in keeping with traditional truth.” As he penned these words, did Abarbanel really believe that the era of premes-

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sianic aggadic interpretation had but a few years to run its course? In these lines the imminence of the messianic age and the Christian abuses of rabbinic tradition seem far from his mind, superseded by his longstanding concern— developed decades prior to 1492—over misdirected ideas and interpretations brought to classical texts by Jewish rationalists. Yeshu‘ot meshiខho’s undeniably vivid apocalyptic rhetoric notwithstanding, little disturbs the impression that Abarbanel expected the battle over “traditional truth” between Jewish rationalists and their opponents to continue in an unredeemed world for some time to come.

Chapter 7

Historical Thinking, Critical Reading, and the Study of Classical Jewish Texts 鵼鵻

T

hough he has been characterized as “the last spokesman of the Jewish Middle Ages,”1 Abarbanel was also a man of the Renaissance in important respects, and no wonder: he grew up and spent most of his life in Portugal and Spain at a time when new intellectual winds were blowing, and he composed most of his works in Italy when the Renaissance was in full swing.2 Abarbanel’s movement within circles that reflected shifts in Iberian cultural allegiances (the Portuguese court, the Mendoza) as well as currents associated with the Italian Renaissance (magical ideas, notions of king Solomon as a Renaissance sage, Hermeticism, “the ancient theology”) has already been highlighted. It should hardly occasion surprise, then, that despite their predominantly medieval ambience, Abarbanel’s writings at times attest methods and sensibilities best explained in terms of his osmotic absorption of Renaissance trends. And inasmuch as signs of the transition from medieval traits to those of the Renaissance appear already in Abarbanel’s Iberian productions, these works must be seen as the earliest witnesses to Renaissance stimuli on Hebrew literature produced by a thinker whose intellectual formation took place beyond Italy’s borders. Though the Renaissance witnessed and often combined a welter of intellectual streams—Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy, numerology, magic, and more—the most important force to emerge during this self-proclaimed period of renewal was humanism, a classicizing literary and educational movement that transformed literature, art, and scholarship in Italy beginning in the fourteenth century and in other centers on the European continent and England relatively soon thereafter.3 At the heart of humanism was an abiding concern with the inheritance of the past. History was one of the studia humanitatis; humanists generally evinced enthusiasm for the classics, which they studied from a particularly literary point of view, and the production of classicized rhetoric was a principal humanist aim.4 Taken together, these

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trends meant that during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the correction and interpretation of classical literary and historical texts was seen as a more urgent task than it had been regarded as for a millennium, save for a few medieval exceptions.5 Abarbanel’s interest in history was manifest not only in his concern for salvation history in his messianic works; it was, as has been noted, present as well, sometimes intensely so, in many a noneschatological context.6 While grounded in earlier medieval traditions, it dovetailed with emphases in humanist educational theory as well. Not only did humanists evince concern with the past; their endeavors were propelled by a sense of history and their critical reading of classical (and other) texts. Humanists venerated the classics in part because they read them in historical perspective—a perspective they established by, among other things, creating (or reviving) certain principles and tools of critical historical research.7 Humanist “historical thinking” took many forms, but its main features have been analyzed to include awareness of evidence, appreciation of temporal perspective, interest in causation, and a willingness to examine the past on its own terms.8 Similarly, humanist critical reading—one of many types of reading cultivated in the Renaissance—took diverse forms. Its main characteristics have been described as follows: [It] tends to look on texts as fontes rather than auctoritates. It is sensitive to anachronism. . . . It is essentially a comparative technique, discriminating among usages in different historical periods, attempting to reconstruct a true account of the past from variant historical accounts; its natural genre is the short study or monograph.9

The sharpened historical sense and innovative modes of reading that accompanied the humanists’ new intellectual concerns produced scholarly breakthroughs. For example, for the first time critical procedures were developed for the restoration of corrupted ancient texts. Such trailblazing modes of textual criticism were spurred in part by the spread of printing, but, at a deeper level, they reflected a new historical orientation according to which textual critics increasingly became attuned to the historicity of diction and style, the processes through which manuscripts were corrupted over time, and the need for knowledge of ancient and medieval history as a basis for making textual improvements.10 Applied to Scripture, humanist methods—especially philology, which incorporated modern notions of text criticism, literary analysis, and more—gave rise to far-reaching transformations.11 Thus, such scholars as Lorenza Valla and Desiderius Erasmus strove to establish the correct text of the New Testament in response to their awareness that Jerome’s Latin translation, whose authority

Historical Thinking, Critical Reading, and Classical Jewish Texts

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had hitherto scarcely been disputed, could not always be trusted. As such biblicists transfigured New Testament scholarship in momentous ways—with Erasmus’s Annotationes in Novum Testamentum shaking “the foundations of much that had passed for certainty in the Western Church”12 —others began to subject the Hebrew Bible to a new critical appraisal, in part on the basis of newly acquired learning in biblical Hebrew and postbiblical Jewish literature (targum, Talmud, and parts of the Hebrew medieval commentary tradition).13 For their troubles such biblical humanists regularly incurred the charge of undermining tradition—a grave accusation in the eyes of many of their contemporaries.14 Turning to the Hebrew biblical scholarship of Abarbanel’s day, one is hardpressed to find signs of traits associated with humanist learning and methods like those outlined above; the exception is a deepened concern with rhetoric.15 By contrast, in Abarbanel’s biblical commentaries, as well as some of his other exegetical works, leanings in the direction of historical thinking and critical reading are readily apparent. Before attempting to verify this claim, however, a few cautionary notes are in order. First, a full evaluation of Abarbanel’s precise relationship to medieval precursors to his historical-critical hermeneutic would require rehearsal of a larger amount of background material than can be achieved in the current format. It is sufficient to note that, in the area of scriptural interpretation, a small cadre of scholars devoted themselves throughout the Jewish Middle Ages to issues of irregularities and variants in matters of biblical orthography, vocalization, and the like.16 Of course, rabbinic literature did not lack for passing conjectures concerning such matters as biblical lexicography and the dating and authorship of biblical books.17 Indeed, the need to interpret rabbinic assessments regarding such topics inevitably spurred medieval writers to reflect on them. The resulting meditations were in some cases suggestive, in others rudimentary and, often, purely legal-ritualistic in substance.18 More notably, significant representatives of the school of Jewish biblical commentary that developed in the early medieval Islamic sphere, and members of the Andalusian school especially, tended towards literary and at times historical approaches to Scripture,19 and offshoots of this school within medieval Christendom at times followed their lead. So one can easily go wrong in assuming a Renaissance stimulus for any seemingly “critical” feature in Abarbanel, only to find, for example, that medieval antecedents exist for his many usages relating to writers and editors of scriptural books (several soon to be sampled).20 Second, even leaving aside the question of antecedents, labeling the motives, skills, and concerns that Abarbanel brought to his treatments of biblical texts is a task fraught with difficulty, if only because this activity may obscure the complexity and gradualness of the causes and manifestations of historical

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and intellectual change. True, those who trace historical thinking to the Renaissance typically claim that a “sense of history” was “lacking in the Middle Ages.”21 Yet if awareness of evidence, appreciation of temporal perspective, and a recognition of the “pastness of the past” were often missing from this period, they were not always so, as various Latin medievalists have observed.22 So drawing undiluted distinctions between categories such as “medieval” and “Renaissance” will lead more to obfuscation than enlightenment. Similarly, it would surely be wrongheaded to view all of Renaissance biblical scholarship as an undifferentiated whole. In claiming that there is a humanist side to Abarbanel’s biblical interpretation, one must be vigilant not to try to associate its components with ideas, figures, or standards that developed only after Abarbanel had ceased putting pen to parchment. Third, to speak of Renaissance features of Abarbanel’s biblical scholarship is not to argue that such scholarship is at every turn more radical—or less credulous—than its medieval antecedents. As will be seen, on matters of biblical authorship or questions of biblical errancy, Abarbanel could be more conservative than antecedent scholars (as a recent study comparing his and Nahmanides’ views on the human component in Deuteronomy aims to show).23 So the goal must be to marshal evidence that illustrates aspects of Abarbanel’s scholarship best understood in terms of stimuli absorbed from his Renaissance surroundings, not to insist in all cases on the more progressive character of his new presuppositions and approaches. However they be viewed, there certainly were novel features in the world of Renaissance scriptural interpretation. Humanist biblicists were exercised by issues never before explored, and, equipped with new scholarly tools, they raised fresh questions concerning biblical authorship and much else, or offered resolutions for longstanding problems in a manner without precedent in earlier literature. One of the only places to see signs of this development in Hebrew biblical scholarship is in the biblical commentaries of Abarbanel. For various reasons, Abarbanel’s accounts of the origins and authorship of biblical texts is a good place to commence study of the new methods and sensibilities in his biblical commentaries. These manifest a range of Renaissance concerns and intellectual currents, demonstrate humanism’s impact on Abarbanel’s interests and thought processes prior to his arrival in Italy, highlight ways in which Abarbanel departs from even his most critically attuned medieval predecessors, and, no less important, draw attention to countervailing tendencies in his critical hermeneutic. At the same time the biblical commentaries display other Renaissance features that will be investigated below: a heightened concern for geography and chronology, innovations in historically oriented anti-Christian polemic, periodic critical insights with respect to rabbinic nonlegal discourse, and Renaissance attitudes in the use of nontraditional exegetical and historical sources, both Jewish and Christian.


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“Who Wrote the Scriptures?” In a rare document that illuminates Abarbanel’s exegetical concerns while yet in Portugal, Joseph Hayyun reports that Abarbanel asked him whether the book of Deuteronomy was “from God . . . like the rest of the words of the Torah . . . or whether . . . [it] was written by Moses on his own.” Though less audacious than it seems, Abarbanel’s formulation of the query struck Hayyun as novel: “Neither the early nor the later authorities have said anything that suffices . . . to resolve adequately the dilemmas that [this question] poses.”24 In elaborating his uncertainty, Abarbanel noted various theological perplexities and rabbinic dicta with a bearing on the issue of Deuteronomy’s origins, but also approached the problem from a different angle. If God composed the last book of the Torah in order to explain material found in the divinely authored first four books, he wondered, then why was the earlier material imparted in such a way as to require clarification: “An author (meខhabber) should not obscure his meaning and then explain himself.” Further, if it was God who composed Deuteronomy, then why did Moses speak in this book in the first person, unlike in the first four books?25 In raising these questions, Abarbanel assumed that Scripture was in some measure subject to the same sorts of stylistic criticism as a humanly authored text. Already in Lisbon, he was feeling his way towards a type of literary and historical approach to Scripture that would later find striking expression in his commentaries on Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, written in Spain in 1483–84. In the introductions to these commentaries, which consider the books of Kings as well, questions that admix literary, historical, and prophetological meditations and interests are present at many a turn. Why were the “prophecies and words of the holy spirit contained in the Prophets and Writings” not incorporated into the historical accounts found in the Former Prophets with which they are contemporaneous, and why were they instead made into separate books (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and so on), unlike “the prophecies of Samuel, Gad, Nathan, Elijah, Elisha, and the rest of the prophets [referred to] in the book of Samuel and book of Kings”? Why was King David’s death recounted at the beginning of the book of Kings rather than the end of the book of Samuel? Why were the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings included in the Prophets, while Chronicles, with many of the same stories, was placed in the Writings? Why was the story of Ruth, which took place in the time of the judges, not part of the book of Judges? And if, for some reason, there was cause to set it off as a separate book, then why was this book then placed in the Writings when it, too, like Judges, was written by Samuel?26 How are discrepancies in parallel biblical accounts—for example, the descriptions of the reigns of King David and King Solomon in the book of Samuel over and against the retellings of Chronicles—to be understood? Why are such largely overlapping narratives included at all?27

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Abarbanel organizes the main body of his “general introduction” to the Former Prophets around an exordial topos used in Christian schools and universities from the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, the accessus ad auctores. In a version of this prefatory format that came into vogue in the thirteenth century, books were understood in light of categories derived from recently recovered works of Aristotle. Hence, the book’s “efficient cause” was its author, its “material cause” was its subject matter, and its “formal cause” was the pattern that the author imposed on his materials, encompassing both the author’s form of treatment (forma tractandi) as well as the form of the treatise (forma tractatus), this being principally the text’s ordering of parts. Its “final cause” was the book’s ultimate purpose or “ultimate objective in a Christian society.”28 This Aristotelian-style prologue had the effect of “focussing attention on the author of the book and on the reasons which impelled him to write.”29 In his introduction to his commentaries on the Former Prophets, Abarbanel uses this Aristotelian format, with similar results, but alongside this medieval dimension to his critical approach stand elements seemingly explicable only in terms of Abarbanel’s Renaissance environment. Considering the issue of form, Abarbanel notes that rabbinic tradition deems these books prophetic and places them in the second division of the canon (i.e., Prophets, not Writings) accordingly. He then clarifies that for a book to have been considered “prophetic,” it must have been written by a prophet, composed at divine behest, and contained information that would otherwise have remained “unknown in Israel.” In specifying how the Former Prophets meet these conditions, Abarbanel assumes that their authors lived long after the events related therein and hence that these authors based their narratives on earlier sources: These prophets undoubtedly found things that had been written in those times . . . by judges, kings, the rest of the righteous people of those generations, or chroniclers. Since, however, these [sources] were scattered and disparate and since they reflected [the] partiality [of their authors] rather than the truth—for such is the way of chroniclers and narrators: they praise or blame unduly in accordance with what they venerate or despise—the result was that [in these prebiblical records] truth was mixed with falsehood and the extraneous with the essential. For this reason, God’s spirit rested on these prophets and He commanded them to record all of these narratives fully and accurately. All of these documents (ketavim) were then gathered to them, and God informed them through prophecy . . . how to distinguish the true from the false and the essential from the extraneous.30

The books of the Former Prophets are prophetic because they were written by prophets at divine behest and contain information that would have remained unknown in Israel, the information in this case being accurate reconstructions


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of past events that would otherwise have been comprehended only in a fragmentary way on the basis of unreliable earlier sources.31 Penned at the beginning of the heyday of humanist activity in Spain, Abarbanel’s reconstruction of the origins of the Former Prophets bears traces of his immediate historiographic surroundings. Especially notable is his ascription of unavoidable bias to the ancient “chroniclers and narrators” whose writings ostensibly served as sources for the Bible’s accounts of early Israelite history. This comment bears a strong affinity both to some striking remarks of Fernão Lopes32 and to Spanish historiographic trends as attested, for example, by Hernando del Pulgar, historian to the Catholic Monarchs during the period that Abarbanel worked for them. In a typical expression, Pulgar explained that lies and false accusations were sometimes necessary to demonstrate Isabella’s legitimate right to the succession of the Castilian throne.33 Noteworthy, too, is Abarbanel’s supposition that the vocation of professional chronicler was one available to ancient Israelites. While this surmise might have been suggested by various scriptural references to the “book of the chronicles” of biblical kings (e.g., 1 Kings 14:29; 15:7), Abarbanel’s stress on this point and the traits with which he imbues these figures seem attributable at least partially to the prominence and character of the chroniclers at the Iberian courts where he served. Abarbanel’s account of the genesis of the books of the Former Prophets is at a considerable remove from the perceptions of his Jewish exegetical predecessors. A comparison with the hypotheses regarding “written (ketiv)” and “read (qere)” forms (words left unvocalized in the text of the Bible over and against the vocalized versions found in the margin that were to be read) advanced by his most historically minded predecessors on this score, David Kimhi and Profet Duran, highlights points of contact and elements of discontinuity. According to Kimhi, these differences in reading apparently developed because, during the first exile, the texts were lost, the scholars were dispersed, and the biblical experts died. Thus the members of the Great Assembly . . . found differences in the texts and followed the reading of the majority as far as possible. When they could not come to a decision, however . . . they wrote one in the margin and one in the text.34

At the turn of the fifteenth century, Profet Duran would view the emergence of these forms similarly: Ezra the priest and scribe, perfect head of the scribes, bestirred himself, and exerted all of his powers to rectify what was wrong, and so, too, all of the scribes who came after him. They corrected all those [biblical] books as much as possible, such that they have been preserved for us perfect in the number of pericopes, verses, words. . . . To this effect they also composed compilations

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which are the books of the Masorah, and in every passage in which they met with corruption and confusion, they preserved the qere and ketiv, being unsure [as to the correct reading given] what they found.35

For reasons to be clarified, Abarbanel would later decry, and then methodically criticize, these rather radical earlier explanations of the emergence of written and read forms. In describing the origins of the Former Prophets, however, he builds in his own way on the lead of those who produced them, plunging beneath Scripture’s surface to the historical processes and literary sources that shaped Holy Writ. (Indeed, Abarbanel depicts these far more richly and concretely than his forerunners.) Beyond this perception, though, Abarbanel views biblical authors not simply as figures sporadically confronting divergent traditions, but as writers seeking to forge historically accurate narratives. What is more, as a critical reader, he sees these authors working with far-flung and incompatible fontes, which he assumes reflect biases of their original authors. In all these respects, Abarbanel’s approach is new. Even where his forerunners spoke of prebiblical sources, they rarely if ever suggested that these were the product of their distinct historical situations.36 Differences between Abarbanel and his predecessors appear in still sharper relief elsewhere. Thus, seeking to account for divergences between the books of Samuel and Chronicles, Abarbanel suggests that the author of the former did not record David’s deeds for purely antiquarian purposes “as with the histories produced by all of the nations regarding their affairs,” but rather to impart lessons concerning “service of the Lord.” For this reason, he recounted David’s deeds selectively, focussing on the king’s virtues, sins, and punishments and on the kindnesses and miracles done for him by God, while omitting “unnecessary” material of the type found in modern-day histories to which, Abarbanel implies, the books of Chronicles may be compared.37 The development of this implication in one instance reveals how far Abarbanel has moved from medieval assumptions concerning Holy Writ. Not only did the Chronicler, whom Abarbanel identifies as Ezra, relay extraneous information in the manner of secular histories; he also sought to burnish the reputation of Zerubbabel, the principal Jewish political leader at the time of the restoration of the Temple. The humanist royal chroniclers of Abarbanel’s day aimed to portray the past in ways that would bring maximum glory to their political patrons, even if this meant altering or overlooking the truth. So, claims Abarbanel, did Ezra, omitting from his reportage of Zerubbabel’s Davidic ancestors their less estimable deeds: You ought to know that Ezra reported none of this in Chronicles: not Solomon’s marrying Pharaoh’s daughter; not that he took many wives or that his wives turned away his heart [after other gods]. . . . Nor, moreover, did he [Ezra]


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report that the kingship was taken away from his [Solomon’s] progeny on account of this or tell of the adversaries raised up against Solomon by God [in punishment for these misdeeds] since, as I have already written several times, the purpose of his book was to recount Solomon’s praises, not to deprecate him. Hence, anything which was blameworthy he disregarded.38

David Kimhi had also spoken of editorial involvement in Chronicles, and he, like other medieval commentators, was hardly oblivious to the obvious fact that the Chronicler’s account of King David (and others) had (in a memorable recent formulation) been “air-brushed of embarrassing detail.”39 Yet Kimhi’s leading modern-day student rightly instructs that “it would be too much to expect him to speak of editorial bias.”40 Abarbanel does, presaging modern evaluations of the Chronicler’s work in so doing.41 Abarbanel’s stress on the human component in Holy Writ finds striking expression on several occasions in his Italian biblical commentaries as well. By developing a rabbinic dictum in an unprecedented way in his Commentary on Jeremiah, Abarbanel makes sense of parallels in the arrangement and verbal formulations of prophecies found in different collections on the grounds that post-Mosaic prophets received general prophetic notions and then “on their own couched them in the language of verses with which they were familiar. So [is the case of] this prophecy of Jeremiah, which he couched in the language of Obadiah.”42 In the words of a modern biblicist, Abarbanel “has virtually anticipated the modern notion of the literary education of prophets, and on the same ground: evidence within the oracles of familiarity with antecedent Israelite traditions.”43 Elsewhere, Abarbanel indicates that Jeremiah and Ezekiel were exceptional in their ability to impress truths on their souls, this being one of three powers of “symbolic representation (ខhiqqui)”44 that a human being might perfect. Still, these prophets were deficient in their ability to express truths correctly and eloquently orally and in writing, a deficiency that explains the multitude of grammatical and structural irregularities and numerous “written” and “read” forms in their books: I believe that Jeremiah was not very proficient in the ordering of words or rhetorical embellishment, as was the prophet Isaiah and other prophets as well. Hence, you will find in Jeremiah’s speeches many verses that all commentators agree are missing a word or words. . . . Similarly, you will find very, very often . . . that ‘al [properly “on”] is used in place of ’el [properly “to”], masculine for feminine and feminine for masculine . . . , and the very same utterance may switch from second to third person. . . . And though such irregularities occur also in the rest of the prophets, there is a great difference in proportion—that is, in the rest you find that this is the exception whereas in Jeremiah it is the rule. . . . As regards the third representation and perfec-

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tion—clarity and precision in writing—Jeremiah was not perfect in this either.45

Abarbanel says much the same about Ezekiel.46 These startling remarks and their continuation may or may not reflect a humanist concern for rhetoric—that is, persuasive discourse—but they certainly do seem indebted to Abarbanel’s Renaissance mentality and milieu in another way. Isaiah, says Abarbanel, raised at court and of royal descent, naturally spoke well, and other prophets similarly prophesied after perfecting themselves in the sorts of this-worldly affairs that involve interaction with others; hence they “knew how to order their words.” By contrast, Jeremiah grew up among village priests and received the prophetic call at a young age. As a consequence, he was “forced to express that which God commanded him in the language to which he was accustomed.”47 Only by attending to the “historical situation” of this biblical auctor, implies Abarbanel, is it possible to understand this heretofore overlooked dimension of his biblical book. The spur for another audacious remark of Abarbanel concerning a biblical author is the seemingly innocuous scriptural report that King Solomon had a “navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram” (1 Kings 22:11). Abarbanel first explains why these navies should not be confused with ships mentioned earlier, in 1 Kings 9:10, said to have been sent by Solomon and Hiram to Ophir. “Ophir,” he remarks, “lies to the east of the land of Cush in the eastern zone of settlement known as Asia near Sheba,” while Tarshish, “the city known in earlier times as Carthage and today called Tunis,” is in “the southern zone of settlement called Africa.”48 In considering additional scriptural references to “ships of Tarshish,” Abarbanel is driven to the conclusion that Ezra misunderstood an earlier biblical text. The statement that “Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir (1 Kings 22:49)” presents only a slight difficulty; for though it apparently posits the impossibility that ships went from Tarshish on the Mediterranean to Ophir in the east, careful second consideration indicates that it does not state explicitly that these ships initiated their voyage from Tarshish. Of course, the question remains why these vessels are called “ships of Tarshish” if their voyages did not originate from this port. Abarbanel’s answer: they were “built like the ships built in Tarshish” and hence were called “ships of Tarshish.”49 The recapitulation in Chronicles of Jehoshaphat’s maritime expedition proves less tractable, however; for it states that Jehoshaphat joined Ahaziah in making ships in Ezion-geber and that these ships were “broken,” with the result that they were unable “to go” to Tarshish (2 Chron. 20:36–37). This deposition is “exceedingly difficult,” Abarbanel admits, affirming as it does that “the ships of Tarshish” constructed at Ezion-geber were destined for Tarshish even though “it would have been impossible for them to go there from Ezion-geber since the


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Sea of Reeds does not connect with the Mediterranean.” Seeking for the origins of this account, Abarbanel postulates that upon examining the report in Kings that Jehoshaphat made “ships of Tarshish,” Ezra “thought that this meant that these ships were intended to go to Tarshish.” In this he was mistaken, however, since “it was only regarding their construction that they were called ‘ships of Tarshish,’ in which case this was an error on the part of Ezra the Scribe.” Abarbanel concludes his account (which anticipates modern biblical scholarship’s findings on this score in detail) by asserting its geographic and exegetical accuracy: “This is what . . . agrees with the truth according to land settlements and sea routes and according to the structure of the narrative.” Earlier commentators, he notes pointedly, “sensed absolutely none of this.”50 That Abarbanel was more sensitive than his predecessors to truths concerning “land settlements and sea routes” is easily understood. During his formative years, the country of his birth embarked on a century of geographic discovery unparalleled in human history, and, as has been mentioned, when Afonso V sponsored his African expeditions, Abarbanel was a member of his inner circle, in which geographic speculation was rife. It will also be recalled that his final act in a long political career centered on the Portuguese-Venetian spice trade dispute brought about by Portugal’s discovery of an ocean route to India. In Abarbanel’s discussion of biblical “ships of Tarshish,” a Renaissance sense of geography combines with his critical approach to biblical auctores to generate a daring imputation of error to Ezra. Abarbanel’s account of the “efficient causes” of the books of Joshua and Samuel in the introduction to his Spanish commentaries repays extended critical audit, since it both exemplifies the new methods and concerns that Abarbanel brought to discussions of biblical authorship at an early stage of his career and demarcates the boundaries of his critical method. “Who wrote the Scriptures?” the rabbinic sages had asked, and they answered: “Moses wrote his book [the Torah] . . . Joshua wrote his book . . . Samuel wrote his book and Judges and Ruth.” Some of these attributions were disputed in the Talmud itself. The ascription of all of Joshua to Joshua had to be emended, for it was stated near the end of this book that “Joshua son of Nun the servant of the Lord died” (Josh. 24:29). The rabbinic answer: “Eleazar [the son of Aaron] . . . [and] Phinehas completed it.” So too, the ascription of all of Samuel to Samuel was reworked: “‘ Samuel wrote his book.’ But is it not written, ‘Now Samuel was dead’ [1 Sam. 28:3]? Gad the seer and Nathan the prophet completed it.”51 Assessing these rabbinic claims, Abarbanel argues that the view that Joshua wrote the book bearing his name is “highly unlikely,” since “it says regarding the setting up of the stones in the midst of the Jordan, ‘and they are there unto this day’ [Josh. 4:9]. It says regarding the matter of circumcision, ‘Wherefore the name of that place was called Gilgal unto this day’ [Josh. 5:9].”52 After citing additional verses (Josh. 9:27; 14:14; 15:63; 16:10) as evidence, Abar-

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banel argues that by its nature, the expression “unto this day” implies a long interval between event and recording. How then could Joshua, who lacked the requisite historical distance, have employed it in composing “his book”? Beyond temporally revealing language, Abarbanel invokes a chronological argument against Joshua’s authorship of “his book.” Josh. 19 relates how the children of Dan “fought against Leshem and took it . . . and dwelt therein” (Josh. 19:47). Already Rashi had clarified what a reading of Judg. 18 made clear: that the war against Leshem “[occurred] at a later time.” David Kimhi concurred.53 Abarbanel draws the findings of his predecessors to their logical conclusion but adds his own temporal stress. Not having occurred until the period of the judges, the war mentioned in Josh. 19 could not have been recorded until “many years after Joshua’s death.”54 His discussion of Joshua complete, Abarbanel turns to the origins of 1–2 Samuel (which, in keeping with rabbinic tradition, he treats as a single book), and again, on by now familiar grounds, he finds rabbinic historiography wanting. Samuel could not have authored those parts of “his book” that describe events prior to his death since verses in this section (1 Sam. 5:5; 6:18) contain the historically revealing expression “unto this day.” An apposition interposed into a conversation between Saul and a servant provides still more compelling proof of Samuel’s late date: “Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, thus he said: ‘Come and let us go to the seer’; for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime called a seer” (1 Sam. 9:9). Already earlier exegetes, like Joseph Kara, writing in the twelfth century, and Tanhum Yerushalmi, writing in the thirteenth, had concluded on the basis of this clarification of archaic language that Samuel “was not written in the days of Samuel.” By contrast, Kimhi struggled to uphold what he took to be an authoritative rabbinic “received tradition” concerning Samuel’s authorship.55 For Abarbanel, however, the verse provides “decisive proof ” that Samuel did not write those parts of “his book” that describe events in his day—at least, not in their present form.56 Formulating his argument more causally, temporally, and concretely than Kara, Abarbanel insists that such a clarification would have been required only “a long time” after Samuel’s death when “[linguistic] habits had changed.” Abarbanel also dismisses the sages’ ascription to Gad and Nathan of those parts of Samuel concerned with events after Samuel’s death, since a verse therein (2 Sam. 6:8) also uses the chronologically telling phrase “unto this day.”57 Having undermined traditional ascriptions of authorship, Abarbanel fills in the gaps that his temporally sensitized biblical hermeneutic has produced. On the basis of the rabbinic view that Samuel wrote Judges, he suggests that this prophet wrote Joshua as well. In addition to explaining the presence in Joshua of material that could have been written only long after Joshua’s death, this understanding accounts for another piece of evidence that militates against the traditional view:


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One does not find [the text] stating as regards Joshua that he wrote [the book of Joshua] as the Torah testifies with regard to Moses that “Moses wrote this law” (Deut. 31:9). . . . Consider. Scripture specifies at the end of Joshua that he wrote down all those things which he said to the people [in the ceremony at Shechem]. If he [also] wrote the book bearing his name, then why did Scripture not testify to this as well?

Invoking a range of criteria (chronology, the temporal implications of key phrases, comparisons with other biblical books), Abarbanel argues that his approach to the book of Joshua’s authorship better explains the evidence than its rabbinic counterpart. Abarbanel searches next for the author of Samuel. He begins with an important piece of scriptural evidence—a verse in Chronicles that states that the acts of King David were “written in the words of Samuel the seer and in the words of Nathan the prophet and in the words of Gad the seer” (1 Chron. 29:29). He is surprised that the sages did not adduce this verse in support of their contention that Samuel, Nathan, and Gad coauthored Samuel. His own account of the book’s genesis starts with the biblical attestation but goes much further: What I think concerning this matter is that Samuel recorded the events that occurred in his day and similarly Nathan the prophet recorded independently [what happened in his day] and similarly Gad the seer. . . . These documents (ketuvim) were then collected and joined together by Jeremiah the prophet, who arranged (sidder) the book as a whole on their basis. For if this is not so, then who assembled these tracts (ma’amarim), which were the work of different individuals?

The verse in Chronicles does not state that Samuel, Nathan, and Gad collaborated on a unified history. Thus, besides overlooking anachronisms, the rabbinic understanding of Samuel’s composition fails to account for the way in which the book achieved its final form. Abarbanel suggests that when Jeremiah undertook to compose Kings (this ascription of authorship he accepts on rabbinic authority), he prepared Samuel as well. In the course of arranging and editing the relevant documents, he added explanatory notes “as he saw fit.” So it is that Samuel came to contain expressions and clarifications that could not have been written by Samuel, Nathan, or Gad. In other words, Abarbanel agrees with the rabbinic view that the narratives of 1–2 Samuel were coauthored by Samuel, Gad, and Nathan in the sense that these figures authored the chronicles that were later joined together by Jeremiah to produce the book bearing Samuel’s name. But he breaks with rabbinic and earlier medieval opinion at the point where he seeks to clarify and concretize historical details that his predecessors had left unaddressed. As a result, he discerns a

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stage in the book’s development in which its “assembler (meqabbeខs)” and “editor (metaqqen)” shaped the book into its final form. The sources and exactitude of Abarbanel’s critical vocabulary remain to be evaluated, but one thing is certain: it is temporal perspective that allows him to see beyond Scripture as a finished product to its constituent parts and historical evolution. And it is this vision that leads him to modify time-honored rabbinic ascriptions of biblical authorship. One might wonder why Abarbanel does not assign complete authorship of Samuel to Jeremiah as he does the whole of the book of Joshua to this later prophet. The answer presumably lies in the biblical verse that attests to Gad’s and Nathan’s and Samuel’s involvement in the production of the book bearing Samuel’s name, Abarbanel’s deviation from rabbinic views naturally being guided by this bit of biblical testimony. At his discussion’s end, Abarbanel unexpectedly returns to the question of Joshua’s authoring, sensing that some might remain troubled by his break with traditional (i.e., rabbinic) opinion concerning this question. If, he suggests, in keeping with the words of the rabbinic sages, you wish to say that Joshua wrote his book, then say that Jeremiah also [as in the case of the book of Samuel]—or Samuel—collected these discourses and arranged them into a book and that it was he who added to them “according to the good hand of his God [upon him]” [Ezek. 7:9] in the manner that I have suggested regarding the book of Samuel.

For those who wish to preserve the letter of rabbinic lore, Joshua may be viewed as the author of his book so long as it is understood that a later redactor fixed its final form. On the latter point, however, Abarbanel’s critical sense insists. What light do Abarbanel’s accounts of the formation of the books of Joshua and Samuel shed on his historical method generally? Rashi and David Kimhi already had noted that the war against Leshem occurred in the time of the judges, and Joseph Kara had denied Samuel’s authorship of Samuel on the basis of the explanation of a linguistic anachronism contained therein. Yet Abarbanel differs from these writers in the systematic character of his discussion, the diligence with which he gathers and weighs evidence, the urgency that he attaches to literary and historical (including chronological) concerns, the efforts that he makes to reconstruct past events, and his invocation of such constructs as sources, editorial activity, and so forth. But despite its critical marks, Abarbanel’s study of attributions of authorship remains within traditional gaonic-medieval boundaries in several respects. After all, in breaking with rabbinic attributions of authorship, Abarbanel was preceded by earlier Jewish commentators, ones hailing from the Islamic sphere


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especially.58 And his justification of entitlement to independence in this regard also rests on familiar foundations. “Do not be amazed,” he tells his reader, “that I have deviated from the opinion of our sages in this matter,” for they disagreed there [in the talmudic discussion of biblical authorship] as to whether Moses wrote the book of Job and whether Joshua wrote [the last] eight verses of the Torah.59 Given that our sages themselves exhibited doubts in part of the dictum [concerning authorship], it is not inadmissible for me also to chose a more plausible and satisfying approach as regards a part in accordance with the nature of the verses and their straightforward purport.

In short, Abarbanel falls back on his and his Spanish predecessors’ tried and true position that where consensus is lacking among them, midrashic views cannot be binding.60 Introducing the talmudic account of biblical authorship, he states that “our sages investigated this generally in the first chapter of Bava batra.” By the end of his essay, the implication of his opening formulation is clear: talmudic statements regarding biblical authorship reflect fallible investigations, not indisputable received traditions in rabbinic hands.61 Judgments on the degree of historical acumen present in Abarbanel’s accounts of biblical authorship can reasonably vary. One might complain of his reliance on two rabbinic ascriptions of authorship as points of departure for his conclusions that Samuel composed Joshua and that Jeremiah composed Samuel. One might fault his failure to corroborate his historical claims. A comment on the verse adduced as “decisive proof ” for Samuel’s late date might seem to illustrate just how indifferent Abarbanel remained to rather basic, let alone fine-grained, historical distinctions. After reiterating that the phrase “for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime called a seer” demonstrates the impossibility that Samuel wrote “his book,” Abarbanel adds: “Rather Jeremiah or some other prophet who arose after him a long time later [wrote it].” He continues: “Or this verse was added by Ezra.”62 Unlike Joseph Kara, Abarbanel tries to solve problems created by his historical hermeneutic; but having delineated boundaries within which any plausible historical reconstruction must remain, and having indicated when rabbinic views fall outside of them, he apparently evinces little interest in exploring the “who, when, and where” of Samuel’s authorship with any precision. Does Abarbanel thus take his historical inquiry only to the point where later, more acute and determined historical thinkers like Spinoza (whose discussion of biblical authorship Abarbanel in some ways anticipates)63 would begin? Perhaps; but one may argue that such a stark verdict does not quite do justice to all of the facts. A more charitable appraisal is forthcoming when one asks how “scientific” interpretation could have been taken further on the basis of the slim evidentiary repository at Abarbanel’s disposal. Simply put, just how Abarbanel could have corroborated more

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precise findings is none too clear. Seen in this light, his confessed lack of certitude with respect to the actual authors of certain books can be adjudged a sign of historical responsibility where misplaced dogmatism could easily have asserted itself. But however astute Abarbanel’s handling of the origins and authorship of biblical books may be deemed, its many novelties are, viewed against a medieval backdrop, undeniable. To this finding one last critical wrinkle must be added. Abarbanel’s discussions of biblical authorship are more than the sum of their exegetical and historical parts; theology is a factor too, in several ways, though not always on the surface. First, Abarbanel’s understanding of the origins and nature of diverse biblical materials reflects aspects of his prophetology. More would be known of this side of his biblical scholarship if Maខhazeh shaddai, his study of prophecy, had survived. It was in this work that Abarbanel had investigated “in utmost detail” such issues as the distinctions between “the prophetic grade and the grade of the holy spirit—whether the distinction is on the part of the giver and emanator of the overflow, or on the part of its recipient, or the overflow itself, either in quantity or quality, or the nulling of the [recipient’s] senses or their operation.”64 In addition, however, there is Abarbanel’s commitment to the inviolability of Mosaic prophecy. Thus, while willing to deny rabbinic ascriptions of authorship for prophetic books like Joshua and Samuel on the basis of historical arguments, Abarbanel steadfastly refuses to undermine on similar grounds the traditional ascription of the whole of the Torah to Moses. On this score, the contrast with the procedure of an obscure fourteenth-century Hispano-Jewish supercommentator on ibn Ezra is telling. Interpreting the report that “Abram passed through the land . . . And the Canaanite was then in the land” (Gen. 12:6), Abraham ibn Ezra had stated that the land of Canaan might have been taken by Canaan from others, but if this were not the case, “there is a secret.” Unraveling this comment, Joseph ben Eliezer observed that the word “then” meant “at that time.” Hence, according to ibn Ezra’s first suggestion, “the Canaanite was then in the land” meant that Canaanites, having come from elsewhere, were already in the land by the time of Abraham’s arrival there.65 Otherwise, noted Joseph, the “then” was problematic, since it implied Canaanites had once been “in the land” but were no longer so at the time of this word’s writing. Addressing this problem, Joseph indicates that indeed Moses could not have written this phrase and that ibn Ezra’s “secret” is that the verse was written by “Joshua or one of the other prophets.” Elsewhere, Joseph explains why other verses linked by ibn Ezra to Gen. 12:6 must be post-Mosaic and dismisses as inconsequential this departure from the traditional doctrine of Mosaic authorship of the whole of the Torah.66 For his part, Abarbanel, in his commentaries on the Torah, studiedly by-


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passes phrases with temporal implications that threaten subversion, like the phrase “unto this day.”67 He also works hard to neutralize chronological quandaries of the type that had earlier led him to deny Joshua’s authorship of “his book.” Moses could have recorded the Israelite conquest of Arad, he explains, though it occurred after his death, since he wrote the Torah according to God’s literal dictation and, hence, it is “not implausible that he could write in it things destined to occur. . . .”68 To be sure, this distinction between Prophets and Torah in part reflects Abarbanel’s understanding of the unique character of Mosaic prophecy. In addition, the possibility of an older, more conservative Abarbanel (most of the Torah commentary was written near the end of his life) cannot be totally discounted. Yet there is surely more to it than that; for time and again, when historical thinking threatens the Torah’s Mosaic origins, Abarbanel either becomes uncharacteristically mute69 or forcefully rejects the implications of historical analysis while castigating others who ostensibly failed to do the same. He accuses Abraham ibn Ezra and Nahmanides of “reviling the word of the Lord” for maintaining that Joshua wrote the verses at the beginning of Num. 2170 and responds viscerally to Kimhi’s insinuation that the oppressive and idolatrous reign of Manasseh might have led to the “Torah being forgotten” such that corruptions entered the text: such corruptions, he insists, never happened “at any time whatsoever, not during First Temple times, Second Temple times, or during this exile. It [the Torah] is the surety in our hands from Him, may He be blessed, that attests to our exile and redemption.”71 In short, the “Torah of Moses” was a central theological prop that Abarbanel would not allow his historical sense to undermine. His rejection of Kimhi’s theory of the origin of biblical ketiv and qere forms, alluded to fleetingly above, reveals with great clarity Abarbanel’s unwillingness to countenance every conclusion that a sense of the past (even a medieval one like Kimhi’s) might generate. Having recorded it dispassionately, Abarbanel makes no effort to hide his pain and outrage when responding: “How can I believe in my soul and bring forth on my lips that Ezra the Scribe found the book of the law of God and the books of His prophets and all others who spoke through the Holy Spirit to be doubtful due to omission and confusion?” After arguing against this view from a variety of angles, he concludes on a more practically consequential note: “Behold, this is what has comforted us in our affliction—that God’s Torah is with us in our exile. And if we think that the Torah has been subject to omission and confusion . . . then nothing firm will remain upon which we can rely.”72 The complexity of Abarbanel’s historical hermeneutic here lies fully exposed; for in opposing Kimhi’s theory, he refuses to counterpose to it the classical rabbinic claim that the biblical phenomenon in question is rooted in inerrant divine revelation (“[Words] read but not written and words written but omitted in reading are all a law given to Moses at Sinai”).73 Instead, Abarbanel

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advances two hypotheses in which he seeks to reconstruct Ezra’s reasoning, and, in both, flashes of a critical sense appear. According to the first, Ezra discerned that the “anomalous expressions” found in the Torah (and perhaps the rest of Scripture) contained “secrets from among the secrets of the Torah.” These he sought to explain according to their simple sense by way of marginal glosses. In one example that Abarbanel gives, his awareness of change over time is especially apparent: he suggests that Ezra understood that the simple purport of a place-name in Genesis was no longer meaningful to Jews of Second Temple times and explained it in modern terms accordingly. According to Abarbanel’s second hypothesis—which he characteristically stresses is in no way applicable to the Torah—Ezra believed that certain scriptural expressions “lacked precision,” either on account of the undue carelessness of their speakers or deficiencies in these figures’ knowledge of correct writing. Feeling constrained to elucidate these expressions but fearing to emend the words of inspired writers, Ezra explicated the problematic passages in marginal glosses.74 As an exegete shaped by some of the methods and mentality of the Renaissance, Abarbanel could trace the textual history of biblical texts, posit the unreliability of prebiblical scriptural sources, call attention to linguistic and stylistic flaws in the speeches and writings of eminent prophets, find witting bias built into a biblical book, and claim that an author inspired by the Holy Spirit erred in his understanding of an earlier biblical text. As a theologian, however, and as a communal leader seeking to reinforce belief in the rock-hard inerrancy of scriptural prophecies of redemption, he was loath to admit that prophetic writings had ever experienced “confusion,” and he insisted that the Torah in particular was immune to the sorts of corruptions suffered by other texts handed down from antiquity. He did not accept with equanimity even the relatively mild suggestion that the Torah might in parts have been written by more than one divinely inspired hand. Renaissance exegete or not, as a traditionalist Abarbanel could endorse neither all of his medieval predecessors’ critical views nor all the findings to which his own critical hermeneutic might lead. In the seventeenth century, the pioneering biblical critic, Richard Simon, would assert that had Abarbanel applied his principles of textual criticism to the Pentateuch, he would have been forced to deny its complete Mosaic authorship.75 What Simon did not say was that as a critically oriented interpreter Abarbanel typically rejected such ideas only after staring into the abyss.

New Chronological Departures Another concern reflective of the heightened Renaissance sense of the past was the great interest taken by scholars in matters of chronology. As this phenomenon’s leading modern student observes, in the sixteenth century “the sub-


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ject of time could make tempers flare.”76 By the end of the century, Joseph Scaliger and others had made historical chronology a full-fledged discipline of its own, but the shift had roots in early humanism, when, for the first time, classical writers were approached with an awareness that they and their subjects ought to be chronologically ordered.77 Renaissance chronological interests were not without ancient and medieval antecedents. Among medieval Jews, the complexities of the calendar engendered at times elaborate expositions of its proper functioning that were later studied by leading Renaissance savants like Sebastian Münster and the great Scaliger himself.78 (Scaliger could laud the rabbinic sage Hillel for having devised “that most elegant computus which the Jews still use today.”)79 High and late medieval Hispano-Jewish theologians like Judah Halevi and Simeon ben Zemah Duran invoked chronological arguments to uphold the veracity of Mosaic prophecy or the world’s creation.80 Talmudists of a Maimonidean disposition such as Menahem ben Solomon Meiri assessed traditional notions regarding the dating of various rabbinic sages with a critical chronological eye.81 On the Christian side, the problem of identifying future Easter dates stimulated the construction of mechanisms to provide data concerning its reckoning,82 while the problem of the Last Supper’s dating led the fourteenth-century HispanoJewish convert to Christianity, Paul of Burgos, into the thickets of Jewish calendrical literature.83 Meanwhile Paul’s younger contemporary, Profet Duran, adroitly deployed chronological argumentation to refute Christian claims that the Temple’s destruction marked a punishment for the sin of the crucifixion.84 For Renaissance chronologers, problems presented by biblical accounts of the passage of time loomed especially large. Foremost was the difficulty of harmonizing biblical history with the chronologies of other nations. Increasingly, attempted solutions to this problem in the sixteenth century were informed by a “realization of the solidity of historical existence” and of “bodies located in chronological rather than sacral time.”85 Here, too, medieval commentators of diverse religious orientations and exegetical bents had set the stage for later developments in their own (at times rudimentary) ways. In northern France, Rashi evinced concern for dating biblical events, while commentators born of a Spanish milieu, such as Abraham ibn Ezra and Nahmanides, quarreled over the extent to which biblical narrative reflected the actual chronological sequence of the events reported therein.86 As an exegete, Abarbanel asked, in the manner of his predecessors, when Jethro visited the Israelites, when Korah rebelled, and in what order the events reported in the book of Judges occurred. After weighing earlier opinion, he usually concluded, like Nahmanides, that scriptural narrative reflected actual historical sequence.87 If, however, medieval scholars tackled chronological quandaries, they generally were not vexed by the problems that exercised Renaissance minds. Here as

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elsewhere, the sixteenth-century Italian Jew, Azariah ben Moses de’ Rossi, appears as an outstanding Hebrew representative of distinctively Renaissance trends.88 Almost a century prior to Azariah, however, Abarbanel presages the new orientation. Evidence of Abarbanel’s early chronological sensibilities can be found in diverse parts of his Spanish corpus. The very length of his inquiries into Samuel’s lifespan and the chronology of events reported in Judges is telling. What is more, in both cases, as in his discussion of Joshua’s and Samuel’s authorship, Abarbanel’s temporal awareness brings him into irreconcilable conflict with time-honored rabbinic opinion.89 At times, Abarbanel himself emphasizes the relative urgency of his chronological concerns in contrast with those of his predecessors: “I am amazed that the commentators did not . . . exert themselves to determine whether these wars occurred after the affairs concerning Absalom and the Gibionites, as they appear in Scripture, or before. Certainly, this is something crucial to know!”90 The novelty of Abarbanel’s chronological investigations in the Iberian commentaries is apparent in his sustained inquiry into the duration of Saul’s reign, the prompt for which is the report that Saul ruled over Israel for two years (1 Sam. 13:1). For Abarbanel, the problem that the verse poses is not primarily exegetical: “Gersonides . . . struggled to interpret the verse so that it would not force [the conclusion] that Saul’s reign lasted only two years . . . but this interpretation . . . is of no avail if it does not accord with the [actual] chronology of the judges and kings.”91 Rather, affirms Abarbanel, the chronological issue has its own integrity. This truth affects his procedure: “Since knowledge of the chronology of the judges and kings . . . is significant per se . . . I have seen fit here to expatiate on the topic.” Abarbanel builds his solution to the temporal impasse on a premise that illustrates the extent to which he felt challenged by chronological models found in non-Jewish literature. Echoing the twelfth-century Andalusian scholar Moses ibn Ezra, who had complained of Jewish “indolence” with respect to recording the past,92 he states: Since Scripture did not date the narratives concerning Israel’s judges and kings nor correlate them with the number of years since the time of creation or the exodus from Egypt, as would have been appropriate and as Christian and Muslim nations are accustomed to do in their annals and historical works, we at least ought to believe and be assured that a complete chronology can be elicited from [the biblical text’s enumerations of] the years of the [individual] judges and kings.

Moses Ibn Ezra had spoken of Jews abandoning the scripturally enjoined ideal of historiographic activity after the destruction of the second Temple and, by


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contrast, of non-Jewish excellence in this sphere. Abarbanel’s comparison yields a starker contrast: Scripture, here pictured as the Jewish counterpart to the annals of the nations, is itself deficient; though it contains adequate chronological information, it relates it in a less than optimal way.93 Abarbanel’s discussion of the canon’s structure provides a final illustration of his chronological orientation in the Spanish commentaries. In addition to the traditional rabbinic division of the Bible into Torah, Prophets, Writings, which he accepts, and the Christian arrangement into legal, historical, prophetic, and wisdom literature, which he rejects, Abarbanel suggests his own threefold division of biblical books “according to the time in which they were written and compiled”: books written prior to the conquest of Canaan, those composed after the conquest but prior to the exile, and postexilic works.94 In a later version of this approach to canonical structure, Abarbanel accepts the Masoretes’ placement of Isaiah before Jeremiah and Ezekiel over the divergent rabbinic arrangement since “it is appropriate for the temporally prior to be mentioned first . . . and it is well-known that Isaiah prophesied . . . long before Jeremiah and Ezekiel.”95 In his Italian biblical commentaries, polemical exigencies often energized Abarbanel’s chronological interests. An example is the doubt concerning the duration of Persian domination in the Land of Israel and its implications for a controversy over an apocalyptic passage in Daniel, the issue being what to make of the period of “seventy weeks” spoken of in Dan. 9:24 and taken by Jewish and Christian commentators alike to refer to an interval of 490 (⳱ 7 ⳯ 70) years. On the traditional Jewish view, the passage anticipated the length of the Second Temple period,96 but as Abarbanel reports, Christian scholars viewed it as a “great foundation for their faith” insofar as they identified the “anointed one” mentioned therein with Jesus, born, according to their estimate, roughly 490 years after the Babylonian exile.97 These scholars (Abarbanel mentions by name Julius Africanus, the Venerable Bede, Nicholas of Lyre, and Paul of Burgos) challenged the Jewish interpretation by appealing to passages in Josephus that suggested that Persian hegemony in Judea lasted far longer than the period which rabbinic sources envisaged. By exposing the flawed rabbinic chronology, the Christians left only their account of the oracle intact. Initially, Abarbanel rebuffs this assault by arguing that the data adduced by the Christians are not in “our version of Josephus”— that is, the medieval Hebrew version of Josephus entitled Sefer yosippon.98 But even were they found therein, he adds, there still would be no reason to doubt the rabbinic chronology, since Josephus wrote “many things in opposition to the truth and to what Holy Writ attests.” After adducing examples and noting a few places where he considers Josephus in error due to reliance on texts vitiated by copyists’ errors, Abarbanel reconstructs the evolution of the commonly held view that fourteen

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Persian kings ruled from Cyrus to Darius III. The number is already found in Roman histories, he says; elsewhere, he conjectures that these histories are based on still earlier Persian sources.99 In other circumstances, Abarbanel might consider this chain of historical evidence compelling, but in the thick of polemical battle, he insists that the data are wrong. Indeed, he believes that Josephus knew as much but endorsed the historical falsities anyway for reasons that Abarbanel elucidates: Josephus did this only to propitiate [the Romans]; for he was unable to gird himself amidst his enemies to disagree with that which was commonly believed by them; for . . . when he found himself in Rome amidst kings and dignitaries, in order to placate and flatter them, he wrote things that pandered to the biases that they held due to their false premises.100

The Christian critique having been defused and some further arguments of Nicholas and Paul having been dispatched, Abarbanel concludes that rabbinic chronology and his exegetical analysis conform to the truth—not just the exegetical truth but “reality as it was.”101 As in his research into the origins of biblical texts, so in his chronological analyses Abarbanel departs from earlier Hebrew models. If, in the medieval manner, these analyses usually issue from some exegetical concern (such as the need to explain a problematic report concerning the length of Saul’s reign or an oracle in Daniel), Abarbanel’s initial or eventual abstraction from purely exegetical issues, which grows out of his conviction that chronology is “significant per se,” is new. So is the literary format triggered by this conviction in those instances where Abarbanel treats chronological issues in pages-long excurses rather than in passing remarks in his running commentary. In such cases, Abarbanel can be seen groping hesitantly towards the natural genre for critical reading—the short study or monograph.102 Finally, Abarbanel’s chronological deliberations reflect familiarity with literature rarely cited by his predecessors (Latin histories and the commentaries of Christian exegetes) and utilize constructs hardly attested in earlier Hebrew literature: cross-cultural transmission of historical traditions (Persian to Roman chronicles to Josephus to medieval Latin exegetes); distortions in transmitted texts (copyists’ errors in Josephus); and recovery of the historical context in which a literary work was produced as a key to its understanding (Josephus in Roman exile). Yet as with his inquiries into the origins of biblical books, Abarbanel’s more exacting chronological focus quickly recedes where theological foundations are at stake. Only at a safe distance from the polemical fray does Abarbanel depart from his defense of the rabbinic chronology of the Persian period in order to reconcile rabbinic sources with non-Jewish data or indicate what a historical audit based exclusively on biblical testimonia and the evidence of (pseudo-)


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Josephus might reveal.103 By contrast, at the end of the sixteenth century, Azariah de’ Rossi would forthrightly reject the traditional chronology of this period on the basis of a far more comprehensive and critical chronological review.104 Chronology was not a “pillar” of Abarbanel’s historical method as it would be of Azariah’s,105 and such chronological sensibilities as Abarbanel did possess were not wholly unique. His fellow Iberian exile Abraham Zacuto addressed the relationship of traditional Jewish datings and those in general historiography more systematically than Abarbanel.106 The points of contact between Abarbanel and Zacuto with respect to specifics (e.g., stress on the correctness of Jewish dating of the Exodus) and their general shared appreciation for the attention lavished on chronology in non-Jewish historiographical literature may suggest a larger Ibero-Jewish milieu for their chronological concerns, especially as simple borrowing is seemingly not a factor here (Abarbanel and Zacuto apparently did not know each other personally or in writing).107 The points of contact between Abarbanel and Zacuto should not be unduly minimized, but it seems clear that in their awareness of evidence, temporal perspective, references to nontraditional sources, and essayistic form, Abarbanel’s chronological discussions mark a largely novel development in the history of the study of Judaism’s scriptural foundation stone.

Historical Thinking as Polemical Weapon Among the places where medieval historical thinking is most likely to be apparent is polemical literature, of both the intra- and interreligious sort. For instance, awareness of the distance between past and present—and its significance108 —is prominent in the argumentation advanced by such Church reformers as Marsilius of Padua, John Wyclif, and Jan Hus, all of whom distinguished between apostolic Christianity on the one hand and the latter-day Church on the other.109 With varying degrees of consciousness, this same distinction underlies diversely directed historical depictions of Jesus in antiChristian tracts produced by medieval Jews.110 In one of the most sophisticated entries in this genre, composed by the turn-of-the-fifteenth-century formal Christian convert Profet Duran, historical thinking is the weapon of choice. Among other things, Duran argued that major Christian doctrines and institutions were later inventions and that, viewed in its original historical setting, Christianity was a religion founded by Jewish illiterates.111 This second argument laid the groundwork for his critique of the New Testament, for since the misapprehensions of Christianity’s untutored founders were many, their “errors and confusions” had to be exposed. Duran’s historical contextualizing of St. Jerome provided the framework for a cogent textual critique of the Vulgate as well.112 Observing Christianity through historical lenses, Duran devised a line

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of argumentation against his rival religion that later Jewish writers like Abarbanel were quick to emulate.113 A capacity for historical thinking was of limited use to the polemicist in the absence of historical knowledge. Apologizing for his interest in past events, Abraham Zacuto explained that “knowledge of all that occurred in all times to all peoples” would help the Jews of Christendom “a great deal in disputing with them [the Christians] concerning their religion.”114 Of course, Abarbanel possessed knowledge of Jewish and general history in an abundance exceptional for his day. When coupled with his ability to think historically, such knowledge yielded path-breaking achievements in anti-Christian polemic. Nowhere are Abarbanel’s polemical innovations more in evidence than in his commentary on Daniel, though not always are the historical-literary clarifications found in this work directed primarily towards a disputational end. An example is Abarbanel’s reconstruction of the origins of “The Story of Bel and the Dragon,” a supplement to the book of Daniel found only in the Christian canon.115 The story tells of a miraculous mission to Babylon by Habakkuk to save Daniel during a six-day stay in a lion’s den during the reign of Cyrus. Abarbanel deems this account an evident doublet on the story of Daniel’s single-night stay in the lion’s den during Darius’ reign, as related in Dan. 6. In retelling the original story, Josephus and others spoke of Habakkuk coming to Daniel’s aid. Abarbanel surmises that the author of the apocryphal supplement “heard” this version and assumed that it referred to a separate incident in Daniel’s life.116 In context, this bit of “source criticism” seems aimed as much at clarifying the historical record as at discrediting the Christian canon.117 Whatever the case, Abarbanel’s familiarity with this scriptural addendum and the constructs that he employs in tracing its origins (including an allusion to the role of faulty oral transmission in its generation) are striking. At times, Abarbanel puts his knowledge of recent and contemporary nonJewish history to deft polemical use. He argues, for instance, that large-scale Christian conversions to Islam after Christianity’s initial spread belie the claim of Christendom to be the kingdom that Daniel said would “not be left to another people” (Dan. 2:44). Elsewhere, he builds on the long-standing Jewish argument that Muslim conquests of lands once under Christian control undermine a variety of Christian claims. Abarbanel applies the formula to undermine the biblical bases adduced by Christians in support of the doctrine of the Antichrist.118 When Abarbanel adverts to Constantine’s decisive role in Christianity’s enduring establishment and success, he again takes up, but again also expands in novel ways, a long-standing topos: You should know that the Christian faith had two commencements. The first was the affair of Jesus . . . and the second, which was the immediate cause [of


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Christianity’s success], was Emperor Constantine, who converted to Christianity and was baptized about three hundred years after Jesus’ death. . . . This Constantine, who ruled by force, compelled all of [the inhabitants of] the lands of the West, Italy, Greece, the region of the Negev, Egypt, Syria, and Babylonia . . . to believe in the religion of Jesus. He publicized throughout the world the idea that he [Jesus] was the God who created heaven and earth and his divinity was [thereby] established and accepted.119

Spanish writers from Abraham bar Hiyya through Shem Tov ben Shaprut and Profet Duran had laid emphasis on Constantine’s role in Christianity’s thisworldly good fortune.120 Abarbanel innovates, however, in the detail of his elaboration, his use of Christian sources to which earlier writers had no access, his stress on widespread propagation as the measure of a religion’s establishment and success, and his emphasis on the coercion at back of Constantine’s popularization of the notion of Jesus’ divinity.121 (His application of the vocabulary of philosophic causality to the events seems a novum as well.) Temporal perspective, awareness of evidence, and sensitivity to historical causation occasionally merge in Abarbanel’s debunking of Christian exegesis and doctrine. Christian commentators have “fabricated” historical facts “not attested in any book” to facilitate their interpretation of an apocalyptic passage in Daniel, Abarbanel complains. This, he adds, is their way always: “They fix events in accordance with the words of verses that they wish to explain . . . [and] not as they actually occurred.”122 Elsewhere, Abarbanel suggests that Jesus’ disciples developed the idea of the Antichrist as a preemptive tactic to counter the possible appearance of the real Jewish Messiah prior to the second coming, and that the doctrines of trinity, incarnation, virgin birth, Eucharist, and “the rest of the foundations of their faith” were fashioned during Constantine’s reign in order to “buttress” the fast-growing Christian religion.123 In adopting this polemical mode, he clearly follows the lead of Profet Duran and others, but more than these predecessors, and in keeping with Renaissance attitudes, he provides a functional analysis of religion that explains the role of alleged theological or ritual innovations in their original historical setting. In so doing, he prepares the way for the more subtle historical critique of Christianity advanced by the seventeenth-century Venetian rabbi, Leone da Modena.124

Historical-Critical Approaches to Rabbinic Tradition Medieval writers quick to deploy historical thinking against interreligious rivals typically fell silent with respect to historical criticism’s implications for their own religious tradition.125 Not so Abarbanel, and here again one can see him as an intermediate figure between the medievals and Azariah de’ Rossi.

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Some features of Abarbanel’s historical approach within the realm of biblical scholarship have already been seen. But this approach also comes to the fore at times in Abarbanel’s encounter with the rabbinic inheritance. Indeed even Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, the aggadah commentary so fulsome in its rhetorical deference to rabbinic tradition, does not lack for such touches. Consider this rationale that Abarbanel appends to his formulation of the “renunciationist” approach to rabbinic dicta. Though ostensibly an extrapolation of the position of a view Abarbanel rejects, this supplementary idea clearly reflects Abarbanel’s own critical orientation: Thus, it is clear to you that there are dicta in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds that one is not obliged to believe . . . , how much more is this the case with [such other midrashic compendia as] Sifra, Sifrei, Tosefta, Tanខhuma, Mekhilta, the various Rabbot . . . and the rest of the compilations and anthologies, since [the names of] those who created them are not preserved and we are unsure whether their final shapers (me‘abbedehem) were trustworthy or what exactly was their character.126

As Abarbanel notes, the renunciationist position is grounded in such venerable medieval authorities as Nahmanides. Nonetheless, the conceptual undergirding that Abarbanel supplies for this position, with its stress on the historical processes through which rabbinic compendia (including legal ones) came into being and the uncertain intellectual probity of their redactors, is without any precedent. Turning to the biblical commentaries, one finds Abarbanel, in the manner of his medieval predecessors, generally assuming the trustworthiness of rabbinic assertions concerning Jewish biblical and postbiblical history. As a result, he is able to relay data concerning matters such as chronology or lineage that would otherwise remain beclouded or wholly unknown: The Jews were only in Babylonia just under fifty-two years, as the sages said, when God bestirred the spirit of Cyrus to grant them permission to go to Jerusalem. . . . The [Temple’s] construction ceased for the fourteen years of Ahasuerus’ reign until the second year of [the reign of] his son who was also queen Esther’s son, as the sages have indicated.127

In addition, as has been seen, Abarbanel classes many rabbinic historical sayings as dependable “received traditions.” At times, however, Abarbanel’s analysis of historical midrash and aggadah could display Renaissance turns of a sort apparent in his handling of biblical and other rabbinic texts. Two examples have already been seen: Abarbanel’s notion of rabbinic received traditions grounded in data found in historical


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chronicles extant in rabbinic times, which the sages screened and took into Seder ‘olam;128 and his dismissal of rabbinic views regarding Joshua’s and Samuel’s authorship on the grounds of their irreconcilability with the biblical record historically interpreted. And Abarbanel’s critical reconstruction of an obscure event in postbiblical Jewish history, while by no means representative of his approach to rabbinic sayings as a whole, serves to illustrate how his occasional analyses of rabbinic texts from an historical point of view could bridge the gap between earlier ahistorical readings and the essentially historical approach of such later figures as Azariah de’ Rossi. After listing ten exiles suffered by the Jewish people between the period of the First Temple and the destruction of the Second, Abarbanel notes the later occurrence that “Traginus [Trajan] . . . went up to Alexandria and slaughtered twice as many Jews as left Egypt.”129 But while the source from the Palestinian Talmud on which Abarbanel based himself designated Trajan as agent of Alexandrian Jewry’s destruction, another in the Babylonian Talmud singled out this emperor’s successor, Hadrian, as perpetrator of the crime.130 Ignoring or overlooking this source, Abarbanel cites another of Babylonian provenance: “Said Abbaye: ‘All of them were killed by Alexander of Macedon.’ ”131 Confronted by these discrepant rabbinic accounts, Abarbanel seeks both to reconcile his traditional sources and to reconstruct events as they actually occurred. He first rejects the possibility that Alexander the Great could have destroyed Alexandrian Jewry, citing the compelling grounds that he lived toward the beginning of the Second Temple period and built Alexandria in the first place. But neither does he credit those commentators, whom he does not name, who preferred on chronological grounds the tradition that Trajan massacred Alexandrian Jewry. Had they read “Roman royal chronicles,” they would have realized that “of Macedon” in the extant talmudic texts is a scribal addition and that the Alexander intended by Abbaye was the twenty-forth Roman emperor, Severus Alexander.132 Coordinating contradictory data, Abarbanel offers a historical reconstruction that allows him to argue that there is nothing “perverted or twisted” in either rabbinic account: Alexandrian Jewry was assaulted twice, once by Trajan, who slaughtered “twice the number of Jews who left Egypt,” and once by Severus Alexander, who annihilated Alexandria’s Jews for good more than a century later. Though Abarbanel states that he has raised the issue of Alexandrian Jewry because an “error has crept into the talmudic text,” his concern clearly goes beyond textual correction. Confronted by conflicting rabbinic claims, the twelfth-century northern French Tosafists had postulated that Alexandrian Jewry was destroyed twice, once by Alexander the Great and once by Hadrian. In this way, they alleviated the textual contradiction found in the Babylonian Talmud and, having done so, adjourned their discussion.133 Abarbanel, by con-

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trast, seeks not only harmony among rabbinic texts, but also concord between aggadic saying and historical reality. For this, textual emendation and recourse to non-Jewish historical literature are required. Even as his analysis displays critical features and a concern to make text agree with reality, Abarbanel relies on and strives to justify rabbinic historiography and ultimately arrives at a flawed conclusion regarding the agent of Alexandrian Jewry’s destruction (unlike those commentators who, on chronological grounds, simply opted for the tradition that assigned Trajan this role). Abarbanel incorporates reflexively into his historical narrative the fantastic rabbinic estimates of the number of Jews killed (twice those who left Egypt) while yet insisting that a “great [Jewish] populace” remained—this, to enable his suggestion of the community’s later final destruction by Alexander Severus. More to the point, having cleansed the Talmud of a scribal error, Abarbanel incorporates this latter figure into his account solely on the basis of the reconstituted rabbinic record, without attempting to corroborate positively Alexander Severus’s role in Alexandrian Jewry’s demise. Abarbanel’s deficiencies as a historically minded critic of rabbinic tradition appear in high relief when viewed from the vantage point of Azariah de’ Rossi’s inquiry into Alexandrian Jewry’s demise. Endorsing Abarbanel’s textual emendation, Azariah adds that the Alexander referred to by the Talmud cannot be Severus Alexander, since the main rabbinic accounts of Alexandrian Jewry’s demise are related in the names of rabbinic sages who predated this emperor. What is more, as far as he knows, no ancient or modern chronicler relates anything of Severus’ campaigns in Egypt or attacks on Jews, while the tradition of Alexandrian Jewry’s ruin at the hands of Trajan is corroborated by ancient chroniclers and a then recently published history of Roman emperors. Still, Azariah feels that something can be made of the Talmud’s reference to Alexander the Great if Abarbanel’s corrected text is adopted. The figure in question would then be identified with a Roman military leader mentioned by Josephus who slaughtered some fifty-thousand Alexandrian Jews during Nero’s reign.134 As in matters of chronology, Abarbanel’s historically sensitized approach to aggadah provides a link to Azariah even as it appears fragmentary when considered in terms of Azariah’s accomplishment. If the Tosafists harmonized rabbinic texts but remained indifferent to the events of which they spoke, Abarbanel sought where possible to show that nothing “perverted” was to be found in the talmudic record textually or historically. Unlike Azariah, he did not devote an essay to Alexandrian Jewry’s downfall, and he did not provide a fully coherent account of this event. But his lengthy note on the subject far surpasses the Tosafists’ episodic treatment, and he deployed tools (textual criticism, use of non-Jewish historical literature) in a way that heralded Azariah’s still more open-minded approach. Finally, Abarbanel did not read rabbinic dicta through historical lenses as a regular practice, in the manner of Azariah. Yet there is a


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shared element of complexity in the “Renaissance” profiles of both these “critics” of rabbinic literature inasmuch as they use their historical instruments to justify traditional historiography where they can, their attempts to explain the Talmud’s reference to “Alexander” in one rabbinic retelling of Alexandrian Jewry’s destruction being a case in point.135 Azariah’s approach to the relationship of historical study to rabbinic texts stood at one of the poles of a late-sixteenth-century debate that raged concerning this sensitive issue. The other was espoused by Azariah’s implacable critic, Judah Loew of Prague. For Loew, Azariah’s study of Alexandrian Jewry’s destruction epitomized his misguided approach to a segment of classical Judaism that Loew deemed as inerrant as Holy Writ or rabbinic legal dicta. As far as Loew was concerned, the talmudic pronouncement that Alexander the Great destroyed Alexandrian Jewry posed no problem, nor did it conflict with the alternate rabbinic claim that Hadrian had perpetrated the deed, since, as the Tosafist glossators had explained, Alexandria’s Jews may have been destroyed twice.136 Still, after harmonizing rabbinic texts in the manner of the Tosafists, Loew took aim at what he deemed Azariah’s more basic, egregious malfeasance, stating: “Though it seems clear that there is no difficulty whatever, I maintain that the words of the sages are not in the manner of history books in which authors chronicle past events. For had they wished to relate . . . what occurred concerning Trajan . . . the matter would be difficult.137 But the sages intended solely to relate what befell Israel and the Holy Land.”138 To Loew, it was patent that the sages’ words and the accounts of non-Jewish historians were in distinct categories. The former were “Torah,” properly understood only by way of received tradition; hence they were impervious to historical critique. The latter were “wisdom,” subject to the sorts of investigation that Azariah undertook.139 Oblivious to this distinction, Azariah had, in Loew’s view, misapplied the methods of historical investigation to essentially “metahistorical”140 materials. Viewed in terms of Loew’s denunciation of Azariah, Abarbanel’s approach to rabbinic texts might seem to mark a middle path between the outlooks of these two not-too-distant successors. Like Azariah, Abarbanel assumes that historical aggadot reflect concrete external events: he treats rabbinic depositions concerning biblical authorship or occurrences in Alexandria as utterances subject to historical inquiry. Yet if he did not know of Loew’s “metahistorical” understanding of aggadah, Abarbanel often anticipated its conservative cast. Witness the prefatory remarks to his endorsement of rabbinic views concerning the identify of the prophet Obadiah: We have no way of knowing past events that our eyes have not observed save on the basis of those who relate them insofar as they are men of truth upon whose received tradition it is appropriate to rely. For this reason, Aristotle enumerated received data (mequbbalot) as one of the [valid] forms of proof.

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Now, Scripture does not clarify who this prophet [Obadiah] was and when he lived; but do not our sages, who were in possession of received traditions handed down generation after generation from the prophets, tell you that this Obadiah is the one mentioned in the Book of Kings?141

Unlike Azariah, who limited incontestable rabbinic authority to the realm of religious law,142 Abarbanel recognized in some aggadot, as Loew later would in all, the stamp of incontestable truth. Yet, his historical sensibilities being what they were, he felt compelled to defend his acceptance of traditional historical information in rational terms. Examination of tradition was no crime, but neither was appeal to it; for, as no less an authority than Aristotle had confirmed, tradition was “one of the [valid] forms of proof.”

Nontraditional Sources In some ways, Abarbanel’s stance towards the reliability of aggadah stands at the point from which Loew’s and Azariah’s paths would later diverge as regards the question of classical Jewish literature’s relationship to texts emanating from sources outside the traditional fold. Still, Abarbanel often adumbrates Azariah’s general orientation. Abarbanel’s novel integration of nontraditional sources into his study of traditional ones is most evident in his messianic writings. Here, in seeking to extract eschatological meaning from history’s ups and downs, he draws on the vast repository of historical information found in pagan and Christian literature with which he was familiar. Abarbanel will outline Ptolemaic and Seleucid political history in preparation for elucidating parts of the book of Daniel, consciously imitating the narrative style (derekh haggadah) of Latin historical works.143 At the end of the Daniel commentary, he correlates forecasts contained therein not only with rabbinic sources, as would be expected, but with accounts of “non-Jewish historians in their chronicles” as well.144 In Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, Abarbanel seeks to extenuate R. Akiva’s erroneous perception of Bar Kokhba as Messiah of the house of Joseph by describing the courageous and indeed miraculous doings of this figure, such that the rabbinic sage could reasonably have viewed him in messianic terms. As, however, the story is related only “very tersely” in traditional sources and “you will find only a tiny bit in the Talmud and midrashim,” he remarks that there is need to turn to “Roman chronicles” with their much fuller accounts of Bar Kokhba’s military exploits, valor, and “fierceness against his enemies.”145 In addition to such non-Jewish historical sources, Abarbanel often adduces Josephus in his biblical commentaries, assuming like his predecessors that the medieval Hebrew chronicle, Yosippon, is a genuine work of the first-century


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historian. (Only a century later would Joseph Scaliger show otherwise.)146 In contrast to these predecessors, however, Abarbanel also cites authentic writings of Josephus. These he generally refers to as Josephus’ works “addressed to the Romans,”147 implying thereby that discrepancies between Yosippon (or “our version of Josephus,” as Abarbanel refers to it in the discussion of the Persian period seen above as well as elsewhere) and Greek or Latin versions of Josephus (Abarbanel would have read Latin translations) should be understood in terms of the different audiences for whom they were intended. This view was later espoused by Azariah de’ Rossi, whose extensive use of Josephus is anticipated by Abarbanel.148 To describe Josephus unequivocally as one of Abarbanel’s “nontraditional” sources is slightly misleading, however, for Abarbanel’s attitude towards the great general, historian, and exegete is, to say the least, ambivalent. Typically, Abarbanel depicts Josephus as a nonrabbinic author whose views can be accepted or rejected at will, as in the discussion of the chronology of the Persian period seen above, where Abarbanel submits that Josephus wrote “many things in opposition to the truth and to what Holy Writ attests.” On other occasions, however, Abarbanel counts Josephus among the “righteous” who submitted to Roman rule, as one of the “holy sages” of antiquity who gave nonliteral interpretations of the Tabernacle, or simply as a traditional rabbi worthy of respect.149 However these strands are to be joined, familiarity with authentic writings of Josephus was a new tool that Abarbanel brought to his study of classical Jewish texts. The renown accorded to this ancient Jewish historian by scholars of the Renaissance provides context for Abarbanel’s new procedure: though less popular than most Latin histories, Josephus’ Jewish War and Antiquities were the most popular Greek historical works to circulate during this period.150 More unexpected than Abarbanel’s invocation of Josephus are his occasional positive appeals to a wide range of Christian materials. Abarbanel’s familiarity with such sources is truly impressive. Beyond the New Testament151 and the deuterocanonical supplement to Daniel noted above, Abarbanel cites numerous patristic and medieval Christian authorities (Julius Africanus, Jerome, Augustine, Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Lyre, Paul of Burgos) as well as contemporary Christian scholars with whom he has debated such issues as divorce, transmigration of souls, and the right to rebel against a king.152 Of course, excerpting of Christian literature was not unprecedented in medieval Hebrew literature; but earlier writers tended to cite Christian authorities in the context of interreligious polemics or discussions of neutral topics like metaphysics and political theory. While, as noted,153 this began to change slowly in the late Middle Ages, few Jews of this period were so ecumenical in their attitude to Christian learning as the traditionally minded anti-Christian polemicist Isaac Abarbanel. It goes without saying that Abarbanel often invokes Christians to further

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long-standing Jewish apologetic aims, his invocation of Isidore of Seville to reinforce the classical Edom-Christendom identification being a case in point. But elsewhere, even in the hotly contested arena of scriptural interpretation, Abarbanel will grant that Christian biblical commentators have outdone their Jewish counterparts, concluding in one instance that earlier Jewish exegetes have misconstrued a passage in Daniel due to their ignorance of ancient royal annals, while Christian exegetes have offered an interpretation that is “appropriate and satisfying in that it accords with Persian and Egyptian royal chronicles.”154 Abarbanel also appends laudatory honorifics to the names of Christian savants, both theologians (Aquinas is “the greatest of their sages”) and exegetes (Nicholas of Lyre is “their most accomplished interpreter”).155 To be sure, some of Abarbanel’s medieval predecessors, Maimonides most notably, were, on the basis of their non-Jewish learning in areas lying beyond Jewish law’s purview, quite capable of ascribing insufficiency or error to traditional authorities.156 And many (again often following Maimonides’ lead) counseled Jews to “accept the truth from whomever says it.”157 Still, Abarbanel’s infusion of nontraditional sources into his writings parallels Renaissance trends in several ways. First, in addition to the Greek, Muslim, and Christian authorities adduced by his predecessors, Abarbanel periodically refers to sources (both classical and Christian) rarely and in some cases never cited by earlier Hebrew writers: Pythagoras, Cicero, Ovid, Seneca, Pliny, the real Josephus, Julius Africanus, Plotinus, the ubiquitous “Latin” or “Roman” historical works, which include Eusebius’ world-chronicle in Jerome’s Latin adaptation,158 and others.159 Second, Abarbanel at times cites novel sources in order to buttress a conviction derived from his specifically Renaissance milieu. An example is his invocation of Josephus’ Antiquities in making his case for Solomon’s superiority as a practitioner of magic.160 Third, Abarbanel’s humanist orientation leads him to do this with respect to historical (as distinct from, say, philosophic) sources either unknown or uninteresting to his predecessors and contemporaries. For Abarbanel it is by no means axiomatic that such nontraditional historical sources lack credibility. As has been seen, he finds himself constrained to rely heavily on Yosippon in his account of the Second Temple’s architecture, but he allays his reader’s presumed doubts on this score by observing that at any rate “Joseph ben Gurion received it [his information] from the sages of Israel and on the say-so of trustworthy gentile historians.”161 But at times Abarbanel takes the next big step, preferring Josephus’s views over rabbinic ones.162 Of course, historical data of Christian provenance are by no means ruled out a priori. After concluding a precis of historical events based on various sources—Roman and, it would seem, Christian as well—Abarbanel insists that his account of late Roman antiquity, Constantine’s conversion, the Gothic invasions, and so forth constitutes “the whole of this story and its truth as agreed upon in all their [the


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collective non-Jews’] historical books.”163 In writing such lines, he must have relished the opportunity to put to rest the critique of the Salamancan exegete whom he so admired, Alfonso Tostado, that Rashi and other Jewish commentators were ignorant of history in consequence of their failure to read the historical chronicles of other nations.164 In disputing what he deems Josephus’s erroneous dating of the career of Habakkuk, Abarbanel supplies the criterion that apparently governs his integration of nontraditional sources into his historico-exegetical understanding. “In the end,” he states, “we rely only on that which is mentioned in Scripture or supported by the testimony of the rabbinic sages and not on historical works when they are farfetched.”165 When information found in sources beyond the traditional pale is farfetched, the study of classical Jewish texts need not be affected. Otherwise, Abarbanel implies, tradition loses its exclusive prerogative. At this point, a priori nonauthoritative but nevertheless compelling sources, including ones associated with what Abarbanel deemed Judaism’s primary rival religion, must be given their say. In expressing this sentiment, Abarbanel heralds a conspicuous feature of Azariah de’ Rossi’s outlook—one that has been seen as “an important step toward a rapprochement with the Christian world.”166 鵻鵼 “The present,” observes an historian of the Renaissance, “seems an auspicious time for expanding Renaissance studies both temporally and geographically.”167 Exploration of Abarbanel’s “Renaissance” side as it appears in his exegetical works (and not just in theological discourse) acts on this expansive impulse. It also adds elements of freshness by filling out the picture of Renaissance influence on scholarship of the Hebrew Bible (New Testament scholarship in the Renaissance having garnered its fair share of attention) and by clarifying an overlooked chapter in the transition from medieval to early modern Jewish scholarship. In short, if one of the great challenges of “Jewish cultural history” is “to properly understand the transmission and transformation of the medieval Jewish heritage in the Renaissance period,”168 Abarbanel’s exegetical writings can now be included as significant entries in the dossier of works that attest to this transitional moment in the Jewish past. The full extent of Abarbanel’s Renaissance profile remains to be determined; but the foregoing analysis suggests several conclusions with progressively broader implications. One, surely, is that no student of the Jewish Middle Ages should conclude that “[h]istorical criticism . . . was almost unknown in the Middle Ages and any statement in any history book was taken at its face value as long as it did not conflict with Holy Writ.” That such a conclusion was drawn as a verdict on Abarbanel himself by one of his leading modern students169 speaks volumes about the need to revisit Abarbanel’s corpus with new eyes.

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Second, it has emerged that Abarbanel was touched by the Renaissance not only as a theologian but as an exegete, and this before 1492 and his direct encounter with the Italian Renaissance. This finding suggests that the question of Hebrew culture in the Renaissance must be broached broadly, be it regarding the sorts of texts probed for Renaissance stimulus or the geographic centers accorded scholarly attention. Finally, it has become clear that the impact of the Renaissance on Abarbanel’s exegesis cannot be studied in isolation. Rather, it is on the way in which Renaissance (and especially humanist) methods and sensibilities infused, altered, or otherwise informed his exegetical principles in their interaction with much else—theological views, polemical aims, rhetorical strategies, and dialogue with earlier sources—that future investigation of Abarbanel as a crossing point between medieval and Renaissance scholarly ways must concentrate.

Chapter 8 鵻

Abarbanel and Tradition: Six Trends

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T

he foregoing has sought to show how vital features of Isaac Abarbanel’s religious outlook, intellectual cast, and mind at work come into view when his teachings and writings are regarded from the perspective of his defenses of, dissents from, and dialogues with Jewish tradition. It is time now to put the question of broader trends in his stance towards tradition. Supplementation and recasting of material canvassed above brings six such trends into view.

Abarbanel as a Harvester of Tradition One very conspicuous trend is Abarbanel’s frequent assumption of the role of “harvester” 1 of tradition, to use an agricultural image invoked by a modern late medievalist but familiar to Abarbanel as well. Seeking to inject a note of humility (soon to be overcome by a more characteristically confident, self-assertive tone, as will be seen) into his deliberations concerning the biblical story of the binding of Isaac, Abarbanel states that having “seen the words of the writers and commentators concerning its details,” he would “ ‘come after the reapers’ [Ruth 2:7] and glean from the stocks.”2 There can be more to this harvesting mentality than Abarbanel’s propensity for a systematic scholarly method; though, to be sure, it was his wont to enumerate and discuss, for example, the views on creation of Aristotle, Plato, Anaxagoras, Empedicles, and Maimonides before clarifying his own.3 Harvesting assumes different forms. It can involve “simple” collation and arrangement of traditional materials, as when Abarbanel sees fit to enumerate here the details of all of the sacrifices. Not that I will innovate with regard to them anything on my own, since I will not diverge from that which the verses and true [rabbinic] tradition teach but will [instead] elaborate on matters in accordance with what Maimonides has explained of them. . . . 鵻 203 鵼

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What I will do is order these things and gather them from all places to which they have been scattered and set them down in a correct, proper manner in methodical divisions.4

But as often as not there is an additional need, to separate wheat from chaff: Maimonides’ statements concerning the principle of resurrection were extremely terse. . . . Saadya Gaon considered this topic from every angle . . . but in his statements, too, I have observed serious difficulties. So it is with the words of the latter-day scholars, by whom I mean Nahmanides, Hasdai Crescas and others. I investigated this subject extensively . . . and clarified the correct from the incorrect in these rabbis’ views in my discourse entitled A Sedeq ‘olamim.5

On occasions, the need for sifting and synthesis remained clear and considerable: The gentile scholars said that the [structure of the] tabernacle alludes to [the construction of] the cosmos in general. . . . The latter-day Jewish commentators have trod this path as well. And seeing as it appears to be a straight path and they [the earlier commentators] curtailed its explanation and the manner of its reconciliation with the verses, I saw fit to expand the discourse concerning it [this approach] in order to complete it and relate it to the verses as much as possible. Regarding a few things, I will derive assistance from the words of the commentators, since the good we accept from them and that which is missing from their sacks God will accomplish through me and I will complete it.6

Two earlier opinions, each inadequate, could provide the raw materials for a true understanding of the “heavens” referred to in Gen. 1:1: “[Although] Maimonides’ view alone is incorrect and so too Nahmanides’ view alone is incorrect, these two, when combined, are correct. This would be if we say . . . .”7 Perhaps most notably, harvesting can mean bringing closure to long-standing debates over such matters as the reason for the exile in Egypt, ancient Israelite chronology, the explanation for the exclusively this-worldly blessings and execrations found at the end of Leviticus, the definition of the punishment of karet, the sin of Moses and Aaron at Meribah, and issues concerning the division of the Land of Israel.8 In the case of the Mosaic peroration prior to blessing the twelve tribes, Abarbanel had found divergent interpretations among “the holy [rabbinic] sages and among the commentators.” Though all were “the words of the living God,” he deemed it apt to “note those which are most consistent with the verses’ contextual sense, not as they interpreted the verses but rather as I have suitably altered them in accordance with their approach.


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My words will supplement theirs, creating a new interpretation of the verses as my heart desires.”9 At times, earlier interpretations all pointed towards the truth. Through judicious selection, calculated modification, and creative synthesis, Abarbanel brought to final fruition a diverse tradition of interpretation ripe for harvest.

Building on the Past Of course, Abarbanel was by no means merely a harvester of the works and words of others. He was also a builder who, as when harvesting, surveyed and assessed (and as often as not also recorded) a panorama of earlier views or reconstructed the state of the field before erecting his own edifice. For example, he outlines his stance towards rabbinic and medieval biblical exegesis before clarifying the nature and aims of his own interpretive program,10 appraises earlier schools of aggadic interpretation before explaining his own approach,11 and notes presuppositions and methods of earlier and contemporary ’Avot commentaries before unveiling his understanding of this tractate’s “intention” and his manner of unpacking it.12 In such cases, what is mandatory—and so very characteristic of Abarbanel—is an exhaustive analysis of a full panoply of earlier positions followed by presentation and defense of his, the most satisfactory, conclusion: Behold, I have seen fit to investigate here . . . whether there was one or two arks among the Israelites. I will cite the opinions of those who have spoken to the issue and the decisive arguments. . . . Nahmanides wrote . . . The words of Rashi are those of the aggadah. . . . Nahmanides did not address the verses that the rabbinic sages adduced . . . and this was the procedure of all the rest of the scholars who supported [one or another of] these views: they did not envision or address the objections of the opposing camp but contented themselves to relate their opinions alone. For this reason, I myself saw fit to clarify my view regarding this subject and to point out the decisive objections that appertain to the opposing view after which I will respond to the doubts that one might possibly advance against me.13

In the course of such analysis, text and interpretive tradition often meld into a single object of study: “There are twenty-one questions on this pericope according to a straightforward analysis of the verses and that which the commentators have said about them.”14 One does not wish to associate Abarbanel with trends with which he was unfamiliar. Any evidence that he was touched by reflection on antiquity’s and modernity’s relative merits as manifested in la querelle des anciens et des modernes prevalent in Renaissance humanism or by the frequent invocations found

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in late medieval Latin literature of antiqui and moderni can only be circumstantial.15 As examples already seen and others still to follow (and yet countless instances that here go unmentioned) will show, however, Abarbanel’s sense of tradition and of its distinct layers was strong.

Self-Consciousness, Self-Confidence, Self-Regard A counterpoint to the “sense of tradition” found in Abarbanel’s writings is the high degree of self-consciousness, self-confidence, and frequent self-regard evidenced in them. Abarbanel was a “traditionalist”; that is, he was one who, far from engaging in “blind plodding in the footsteps of the past,” expressed a fidelity to the past that was notably self-conscious and that inevitably involved transformation of “traditional ideas in the present.”16 It is precisely in consequence of this self-consciousness that many questions concerning tradition (as evoked, for example, in this study’s introduction) so regularly bubble to the surface of his writings. Abarbanel repeatedly refers to himself in first person, as in the passage regarding the number of arks in Israelite possession cited above: “I have seen fit to investigate here . . . I will cite . . . I myself saw fit to clarify my view, . . . after which I will respond to the doubts that one might possibly advance against me.” Emphatic first-person references often stand alongside references to “the commentators” viewed en bloc: “This is the approach of the scholars, . . . but as for myself, I perceive eight difficulties concerning this.”17 This sense of self is inscribed in the earliest of Abarbanel’s writings in a variety of ways. On the intellectual plane, one finds already in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, written around age thirty, Abarbanel’s sense of significant achievement frequently protruding to the surface.18 The same is true in his Spanish works, both A in the biblical commentaries and Ta‘anot. In the former, Abarbanel challenged “the one who wishes to discern whether there is injustice on my tongue [Job 6:30] or whether my mouth utters truth [Prov. 8:7] in interpreting the verses” to “examine the commentators’ approach to and interpretations for any given pericope and then ‘upon them let my speech drop’ [Job 29:22]. Then let him judge with equity and he will know and understand . . . who among all of us is correct.”19 Clearly, for his own part, Abarbanel was in little doubt. In the latter study, though he denied any special insight into the “Work of the Chariot,” he expressed certitude that his critique of Maimonides’ interpretation of it was compelling: “Now, you, O seeker, blessed be the Lord! Listen to me, my lord, and all men of knowledge! Judge, please, between me and the master and guide and his words and principles [regarding Ezekiel’s vision], whether the words of the verses allow his opinion, no matter [how interpreted] by any one of the


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commentators. . . . In sum, the wording of the verses do not sustain the view of the master.”20 A related phenomenon, as yet too little studied, are the ample personal reflections and memoirs contained in Abarbanel’s writings, including the pre-1492 works, which stand out as an incipient stage in the history of Hebrew autobiography. These surpass in quantity and authorial self-consciousness, even in their Spanish phase and certainly in their Italian one, the already intensified “construction of an individual persona” in other Ibero-Jewish writings of Abarbanel’s day.21 Nor, given the pre-1492 provenance of some these passages,22 can the Spanish expulsion be advanced as the “central reason” for Abarbanel’s engagement in such autobiographical exercises.23 Compared to earlier Jewish biblical interpreters and theologians—even those who project a great sense of self (ibn Ezra, Maimonides)—and compared to such contemporaries as Joseph ibn Shem Tov or Isaac Arama, Abarbanel’s self-awareness is often of a different order. So, on the whole, are his expressions of confidence and self-regard. The continuation of his introductory remarks to the previously mentioned exposition of the binding of Isaac is characteristic. Having depicted himself as a gleaner coming after the reapers, he lets his conventional humility give way to characteristic self-assurance: “I will come ‘after the reapers’ and glean from the stocks. The good in their opinions I will accept and that which seems bad or incorrect in my eyes I will not accept. Let my discourse descend upon them as the good hand of God upon me.”24 The profusion of first-person singulars in such passages and the sense of presence that they generate is, by the standards of premodern Jewish literature, highly uncommon, especially in the naturally self-effacing exegetical context. Abarbanel’s preferred literary mode was indeed the one “favored in the Jewish tradition, namely, the commentary, always referring back to something earlier.”25 Yet in his commentaries on all manner of topics, which do indeed continually point towards the past, the first-person present is frequently audible, often at high volume.

Between Philosophy and Kabbalah Another prominent feature of Abarbanel’s engagement with the Jewish past is his effort to steer a course between medieval philosophic and kabbalistic claims to the mantle of classical Jewish tradition. Whereas kabbalists like Nahmanides could view classical teachings and biblical and rabbinic testimonia through a “mystical” lens, Jewish philosophers, with Maimonides at their head, often examined them through an Aristotelian one. As noted, Abarbanel, like many a fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Ibero-Jewish thinker, mapped boundaries separating the philosophic from the kabbalistic mediations of the biblicalrabbinic inheritance. At various times he drew inspiration from philosophy; at

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others he paid homage to Kabbalah. Never did he offer anything near unconditional allegiance to either re-presentation of the classical endowment. Abarbanel’s dialogue with rationalism was far more sustained and involved than his interlocutions with Kabbalah. In the main, this dialogue took the form of a lifelong searching, fruitful, and often highly conflicted study of Maimonides. Product of Iberia that he was, Abarbanel considered it axiomatic that a Jew should spend a good deal of intellectual capital engaging in critical conversation with findings of the philosophic tradition, pernicious as they could be, with Maimonides as a by-no-means infallible guide. Occasionally, as in his interpretation of the midrash regarding Moses at the burning bush,26 Abarbanel took debates that Maimonides had presented between “the philosophers” and Judaism and made them “traditional.” Elsewhere, he found a home for philosophically oriented Maimonidean views—including ones he found repellent—within the tent of classical tradition.27 For Abarbanel, Maimonides’ theological legacy was decidedly mixed: “The good we accept and the bad we do not accept,” he told Saul Hakohen. Eventually, Maimonides (and, more so, his followers) went where Abarbanel could not, systematically reading and translating Judaism’s highest wisdom and canonical texts into terms—and in terms of a worldview—learned from Aristotle and, in the case of many latter-day Maimonideans, Averroes. Already in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, after asserting that many secrets of the universe were hidden from the “sight of the human intellect” and knowable only “by means of prophecy or a received tradition (qabbalah),” Abarbanel granted that “this wisdom is distant from me.”28 In later writings, he consistently maintained his ignorance of traditional esoteric truth. Of one thing, however, he was certain: classical received wisdom was “as far from the ways of the philosophers with their inquiries and deliberations as east from west.”29 Abarbanel’s recoil from salient elements of Maimonideanism is a recurrent feature of his encounter with the multilayered religious inheritance that he received from the past. His anti-Maimonideanism is often seen as part of an alleged “hatred of ‘Greek philosophy’ ”30 or of “antirationalism,” seen as the essential and “outstanding characteristic” of his vast literary activity.31 Far less appreciated is Abarbanel’s genuine affinity and gratitude for many elements of Maimonides’ mediation of problematic features of classical tradition. Abarbanel apparently never stopped believing that “the master’s words stir hearts to seek the good and right”32 —if only by providing a spur to and basis for further research into the fundamental questions. True, he held the “transfigured Judaism”33 left behind by Maimonides’ Guide (in concert with other Maimonidean writings) to be unacceptable in its totality. Yet, it seems clear, Abarbanel could scarcely have imagined a Jewish tradition from which the Guide and the “master and guide” were absent. Some places where Maimonides’ lasting imprint on Abarbanel’s theological vision is apparent have been seen above: the nature of rabbinic discourse, for example,34 or his rationalist reinterpretations of philo-


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sophically challenging mystical concepts—among them the central tenet of theosophic Kabbalah, the doctrine of the sefirot.35 Many other examples could be cited. If, at times, Abarbanel subtly sought to bring what he deemed wayward or irrational kabbalistic ideas into alignment with philosophic teachings, on other occasions, in seeking to curb philosophy’s excesses, he invoked Kabbalah as a foil. Not that Abarbanel was a kabbalist. As he repeatedly disclaimed initiation into the byways of rabbinic tradition’s esoteric dimension, he consistently disavowed knowledge of medieval kabbalistic teachings advanced as this tradition’s continuation. But confessed nonkabbalist though he was, Abarbanel could eagerly enthrone Kabbalah where there arose an urgent need to articulate philosophy’s limitations. He was quick to observe that though philosophy, in its Maimonidean version, acknowledged its ignorance (actually professed the impossibility) of positive knowledge of the Deity (beyond divine attributes of action), the “scholars of the truth . . . discerned this, . . . the scholars of the Kabbalah.”36 Elsewhere, he might summon “classical premises of the Torah (haqdamot toriyyot)” propounded by the kabbalists, like the soul’s preexistence, to interpret a messianic aggadah, thereby adding traditional ballast to his strong opposition to philosophically grounded teachings authorized by Maimonides regarding body and soul.37 At a distance from the antiphilosophic fray, however, Abarbanel’s kabbalistic ardor quickly dissipates even as his deference before and acceptance of kabbalistic claims to authority can, in such circumstances, also become quite attenuated. By its self-designation, so replete with rabbinic echoes, Kabbalah— received Tradition—resisted conceptualization as a discipline in the manner of philosophy and demanded reverence on grounds that, in Isaac Mar Hayyim’s formulation, it transmitted traditional teachings “received from the mouth of a prophet.”38 By contrast, Abarbanel often depicted Kabbalah as just another branch of wisdom that, so he implied, any scholar with acuity and interest could master.39 He was more than willing to subject kabbalistic doctrines and claims to critical scrutiny even as his rhetoric typically retained marks of respect. There can be a devout “would that I knew according to this way of theirs the meaning of . . .” followed by extended cogitation on perplexities engendered by a kabbalistic interpretation of an aggadah concerning judicial astrology and ending in a rather obviously pro forma “I have no occupation with hidden things” and a self-confident exposition of “what appears to me concerning this dubiety.” The final disposition of the kabbalistic contribution is left in little doubt.40 In his moment of least circumspection, or greatest candor, Abarbanel would, in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, speak of operations of aggadic interpretation performed by “people who consider themselves receivers of tradition [mequbbalim].”41 At points Abarbanel expressed his attitude towards the kabbalists through a pregnant silence, even as he rejected philosophic alternatives advocated by

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Maimonides. As regards the controverted question of the means to ultimate human perfection, Abarbanel sought to parry the philosophic claim that such perfection was attainable only through contemplation, but in so doing he did not choose to advance the counterclaim that the Jew’s perfection might only be obtained via initiation into kabbalistic lore. In ‘Aខteret zeqenim he conceded the philosophic conception in part: intellection is the ultimate perfection of man qua man. But, echoing the voices of Spanish predecessors wary of philosophic excesses such as Nissim, Crescas, and Joseph ibn Shem Tov, Abarbanel insists on the futility of any effort to achieve “through study and philosophizing” the “cleaving” that marks God’s special relationship to the Jewish people. The higher perfection of the Jew transcends the intellect’s reach. For such a one, felicity is acquired through “faith, desirable deeds, and a representation of the conclusions concerning issues about which the Torah apprises us—not the demonstrations that lead to these [conclusions].”42 Abarbanel’s path to felicity entails no mandatory stop by philosophy’s gates; but in charting the journey, Abarbanel does not even bother to mention Kabbalah. Abarbanel’s quiet appropriation of kabbalistic teachings and exegetical motifs may be more extensive than is generally realized; it has yet to be adequately researched.43 Still, there is reason to suspect that Abarbanel’s indifference to and suspicion of Kabbalah and its traditional pretentions were greater than those of other fifteenth-century nonkabbalistic writers of Iberian origin who stressed Kabbalah’s superiority to philosophy (such as Joseph ibn Shem Tov, Abraham Shalom). One doubts that Abarbanel’s failure to pursue kabbalistic studies was due to a sense of religious inadequacy, either personal or generational.44 The notion that classical qabbalah found echoes in its medieval version was, it would seem, genuinely meaningful to Abarbanel, but detailed exploration of kabbalistic niceties remained of little interest. One suspects that, more so than his writings indicate, he found many a kabbalistic idea disagreeable. Unlike his treatment of unsavory philosophic ideas, however, he typically ignored kabbalistic teachings that he found improbable or worse, rather than engaging them. At times Abarbanel found it useful, theologically and tactically, to acclaim “the scholars of the truth . . . the scholars of the qabbalah,” especially as a way to highlight philosophy’s limitations. For all that, he was more than content to remain kabbalistically uninitiated.

Defense and Dissent: Theology Versus Exegesis As noted at the outset, Abarbanel’s stance towards tradition embodies disparate tendencies. While often depicting himself as tradition’s defender, Abarbanel at times proved to be a remarkably probing, overt, and inventive critic of past figures and received texts and teachings. A pattern that alleviates tension


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in this regard may now be seen. The most striking examples of bold criticism— of King David for his treatment of Uriah and Bathsheba, of Jeremiah and Ezekiel for their poor rhetorical and compositional technique, of rabbinic ascriptions of biblical authorship, of midrashic interpretation as “evidently weak”— all fall within the exegetical sphere. At the same time, Abarbanel’s defense of what he deems unimpeachable principles of traditional theology— creation, the miraculous character of messianic times, resurrection of the dead, and metempsychosis—never wavers. To be sure, it would be wrongheaded to draw too sharp a line between Abarbanel’s exegesis and his theology. When a particular interpretation of a classical text, biblical or rabbinic, threatens what Abarbanel takes to be a fundamental theological point, he reverts to conservative type. He was fluent in the Jewish philosophers’ allegorical approach to Scripture and rabbinic discourse, but from that sort of exegetical boldness, which threatened the literal veracity of biblical miracles or the doctrine of resurrection of the dead, he recoiled. So, too, in the face of external Christian attacks, Abarbanel defended traditional exegeses such as those that assigned to Christianity biblical prophecies of doom against Edom. Conservative theological views delimited the boundaries within which legitimate exegesis could take place when fundamentals of Jewish faith and tradition were at stake. Another reason why it is overly facile to distinguish Abarbanel’s exegesis too markedly from his theology is that some of his more audacious exegetical propositions contain within them seeds of theological intrepidity. When, for instance, Abarbanel criticizes the Hebrew of two of Israel’s foremost prophets, ascribes the misunderstanding of a biblical text to Ezra, and calls attention to anachronisms in Joshua and Samuel, rejecting rabbinic ascriptions of biblical authorship accordingly, he raises questions concerning Scripture’s origins and authority. That he was not oblivious to these and their potential theological fallout is attested by his avoidance of similarly bold observations regarding the Torah. In later centuries, not least when the Jewish religious landscape had been altered by a range of unprecedented historical and intellectual developments, the theological implications of some of Abarbanel’s bold exegetical insights would elicit pained protests from traditionalists seeking to defend classical Judaism from modernity’s onslaught.45 Such qualifications notwithstanding, it is generally the case that Abarbanel was a staunch theological conservative who readily and regularly expressed audacious views in the exegetical sphere.

Innovation, in the Interstices and Beyond Another problem that becomes tractable when the distinction between Abarbanel’s exegesis and his theology is borne in mind is a contradiction between the preponderance of modern scholarly assessments of Abarbanel, which

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put him down as an unoriginal thinker who relied heavily on predecessors and contemporaries for formulations and ideas,46 and Abarbanel’s frequent self-perception as a forger of new ideas and approaches. There is little inconsistency, however, when it is remembered that modern scholarship on Abarbanel has accorded the lion’s share of its attention to his theological legacy,47 which, while not without significant novelties (e.g., in dogmatics and political theory),48 is, on the whole, light on dramatic innovation. When, however, one looks to Abarbanel’s exegesis—of Scripture, the maxims in ’Avot, rabbinic messianic sayings, and more—the picture changes, and one often does find distinctiveness, creative synthesis, and innovation of the sort that Abarbanel frequently claims for himself. In ‘Aខteret zeqenim, Abarbanel insisted that in every age new scholars would necessarily feel impelled to contribute insights that their predecessors had overlooked. A sampling of his exegetical works indicates that he frequently saw himself as just such an innovating scholar—and with ample justification. In Naខhalat ’avot, he viewed his quest for structurally holistic interpretations of individual dicta in ’Avot and complete chapters in this Mishnaic tractate as a critical rectification of earlier exegetical negligence, and he called attention to his exegetical innovation with considerable fanfare: “I said, I shall forge a breakthrough.”49 In Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, he promised to walk an interpretive path “never trod by any person before” and to explain rabbinic sayings overlooked by earlier commentators “from which the scholars of our generation [also] turn away.”50 The result was an approach to midrashic and aggadic interpretation that, in its effort to find a relationship between an aggadic dictum’s “details, large and small” and the “ideal core of the dictum,” anticipated aspects of the interpretive approach of the more famous later aggadic interpreter, Judah Loew of Prague.51 It was in his role as biblical interpreter, however, that Abarbanel was most emphatic on the freshness of his contributions. In the case of the numerous questions he raised and addressed concerning such matters as the authors of the Former Prophets and sources they used, the characteristics of books written through prophecy compared to those composed through the holy spirit, the division of the canon, and discrepancies in parallel biblical accounts, Abarbanel spoke of the “blessing” he had bestowed upon his reader, adding that his achievement in this case reflected “prodigious investigation” and a “comprehensive encompassing” of the Holy Scriptures. The resulting inquiries were “new” and, to say the least, ones that “our ancestors did not envision.”52 Embeddedness in tradition need not entail an incapacity to forge new beginnings, especially for one such as Abarbanel, who was willing to “rub tradition against its own grain.”53 Abarbanel’s sense of innovation as a biblical scholar extended to countless specifics and could encompass rabbinic as well as medieval layers of tradition.


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He took pride in his research into the relationship of the books of Samuel to 1 and 2 Chronicles, especially as, in undertaking to resolve the “plethora of doubts” concerning this relationship, he had been “bereft, with nobody working with me on them.” Turning to tradition, he again came up empty-handed, finding “nothing great or small, good or bad, from our sages—not the early ones, the talmudic masters, nor the later writers and commentators.” No earlier source had so much as “alluded to the difficulty at all,” let alone “suggested a path towards its resolution.”54 As regards the verses comprising the tithe declaration of Deut. 26, Abarbanel adduces a series of interpretations reflecting the rabbinic sages’ view that the declaration encompasses all tithes from the threeyear cycle preceding its recitation, adding that “all of the commentators have been drawn after them.” He then broaches his own view, “according to the method of peshaខt,” which understands the declaration with respect to the poortithe exclusively.55 At times, Abarbanel looked at rabbinic and medieval Jewish tradition and beyond for assistance, only to be disappointed, before going his own way. He found that midrashic texts expounded all of the verses from the song of David in 2 Sam. 22 as referring to Pharaoh, Egypt, the splitting of the sea, and God’s deliverance of Israel, and that some medieval Jewish commentators and “the Christian scholars” had followed the midrashic view. “But,” he continues, “I have inclined away from this, since David’s sole intention in this song was to give praise and thanks to God for his good fortune.”56 Claims of originality in the commentary on Deuteronomy, again with respect to the totality of earlier rabbinic and medieval tradition, are especially forceful,57 perhaps because this work was begun in Portugal where, it seems, young man Abarbanel was anxious to celebrate what he considered his novel interpretations. ‘Aខteret zeqenim also speaks loudly on this score.58 But whatever the variation, and whatever chronological developments may be discerned, Abarbanel frequently maintains the novelty of his exegetical insights and explorations of uncharted commentatorial territories. Of course, declarations of innovation are hardly unprecedented in medieval and early modern Hebrew literature, and some medievals could be highly preoccupied with issues of tradition and innovation (rationales for novelty, interpretation of prooftexts from the classical past approving of it, and so forth).59 It is noteworthy also that in Spanish refugee communities that developed after 1492 originality of interpretation was especially prized,60 though, as noted, Abarbanel’s own emphasis in this regard is, if anything, most pronounced in his preexpulsion works. But whatever may be the wider context for his assertions of innovation, as regards specific interpretations, the claim, explicit or otherwise, often bears weight. Examples seen above that sustain this conclusion are Abarbanel’s interpretations of the nobles of the children of Israel in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, his understanding of the God-fearing midwives in Exodus, his renderings of the meaning of “Israel has no Messiah” in Hillel’s messianic saying and

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of “subjugation of [foreign] powers” in Samuel’s, his many creative harmonizations (e.g., of ibn Ezra’s positive portrayal of Nimrod and the midrash’s denunciation of him), and, perhaps most notably, his sweepingly broad and new applications of historical thinking and non-Jewish learning in his study of classical Jewish texts. In some sense, of course, the question of the extent of Abarbanel’s originality—like that of premodern writers generally—is a false one. The premium that Abarbanel placed on originality, if evidently substantial, doubtless was smaller than that placed on it by his modern students.61 As is well known, in the Middle Ages “innovation” could invite accusations rather than accolades.62 More to the point, modern assessments of originality often start with a certain notion of “sources,” a “sedimented metaphor of origin” that suggests that “the text using sources is secondary, derivative, belated.”63 Abarbanel’s example serves as a salutary reminder of the way in which nuances of loyalty, ambivalence, tension, and revision in the interstices often have the effect of shaping earlier sources into something distinctly new.64 Abarbanel’s exegesis serves as a reminder as well of the need to train one’s eyes to see forms of originality that are not modern and of the inadequacy of overly facile conceptions of Judaism in terms of creative text and derivative commentary, a conception that “goes too far in deepening the gap between ‘creating’ and ‘interpreting,’ thereby adding to misunderstanding “of the very essence of ‘interpreting.’ ”65 Abarbanel was indeed a traditionalist, but by no means a mere imitator or compiler of the thought and work of others. His traditionalism was not unthinking, derivative, or crude. Abarbanel’s inscription of self and sense of pioneering achievement, though evident most often in his gaze towards the past and aspirations to contemporary influence, was at times directed towards posterity. He spoke in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho of a possible turning point in the history of aggadic exegesis wrought by his novel methods which had “carved out an opening for those who come after me” to conserve a sophisticated traditionalist approach to rabbinic discourse. Similarly, concluding what he rightly considered an unprecedented discussion of historico-literary issues pertaining to the Bible, he advised his reader to contemplate all that he had written, for the questions that he had raised and his thoughts and ideas for resolving them were “not profitless.” What is more, insisted Abarbanel, “any man whose heart the Lord has touched with the spirit of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and the fear of God is invited to advance his opinion concerning these subjects. Permission has been given him to occupy himself with this investigation.” Conscious, and characteristically proud, of the via exegetica moderna that he felt he had developed with respect to the issues of scriptural interpretation in question, Abarbanel summoned both Proverbs and Aristotle, the former to the effect that Jews should actively carry forward his accomplishments66 and the latter to the effect that gratitude


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was due to ones such as himself who “initiated investigations,” since even if their views were later found to be erroneous, their disclosure of hitherto unperceived questions paved the way for future scholarly progress: “Let the wise one pay heed and increase instruction” [Prov. 1:5] in keeping with the statement of the chief of the philosophers [Aristotle] in On the Heavens: “It is incumbent upon us to thank the early scholars (rishonim) who initiate investigations, since even if they did not achieve the truth, they nevertheless achieved disclosure of the problem. And had they not initiated investigation, we latter-day scholars (’aខharonim) could not have completed it.”67

At times Abarbanel could see himself founding traditions of the Jewish future.

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Notes

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Introduction 1. For the coinage, see Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 149–52. 2. See (including for the quoted formulation) McGinn, Visions, 149–52. For apocalypticism associated with the voyages of Columbus, see Alain Milhou, Colón y su mentalidad mesiánica en el ambiente franciscanista español (Valladolid: Seminario americanista de la Universidad de Valladolid, 1983); Pauline Moffitt Watts, “Prophecy and Discovery: On the Spiritual Origins of Christopher Columbus’s ‘Enterprise of the Indies,’ ” American Historical Review 90 (1985): 73–102. 3. During the revival of interest in Hebraic literature in the Renaissance and centuries following, Abarbanel’s works were translated into Latin and studied by Christian Hebraists such as Constantijn l’Empereur van Oppijck, Johann Buxtorf the younger, Sebastian Schmid, Johann Benedict Carpzov, and Richard Simon as much as those of any other postrabbinic Hebrew writer. The little written about Abarbanel’s Nachleben concerns his fate in Latin literature. See Abravanel, 251–54; Frank E. Manuel, The Broken Staff: Judaism Through Christian Eyes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), in the index under “Abravanel, Isaac”; Solomon Gaon, “Don Isaac Abravanel and the Christian Scholars,” The American Sephardi 6 (1973): 17–21. The fullest account of Christian interest in Abarbanel through the early eighteenth century is Johannes Henricus Majus, “Vita Don Isaaci Abrabanelis,” in Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah (Frankfurt am Main: Io. Maximilian A Sande, 1711), 20–34. 4. Representative is the discussion in Gregorio Ruiz, Don Isaac Abrabanel y su commentario al libro de Amos (Madrid: Universidad Pontificia Comillas Madrid, 1984), xlvii– xlix, under the heading “Su gran defecto: la prolijidad.” For medieval and modern references, see ibid., cxx nn. 451–56. For historical contextualization of this side of Abarbanel’s literary inheritance, see my “Isaac Abarbanel’s Intellectual Achievement and Literary Legacy in Modern Scholarship: A Retrospective and Opportunity,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature III, ed. Isadore Twersky and Jay M. Harris (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 2000), 225. 5. For this term and its implications, see the passage in Roger Chartier’s “Le monde comme représentation,” as translated in Histories: French Constructions of the Past, ed. Jacques Revel and Lynn Hunt (New York: New Press, 1995), 555–56. 鵻 217 鵼

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Notes to Pages 4–6

6. David Grene, Greek Political Theory (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1950), v. 7. Frank Talmage, “Keep Your Sons from Scripture: The Bible in Medieval Jewish Scholarship and Spirituality,” in Understanding Scripture: Explorations of Jewish and Christian Traditions of Interpretation, ed. Clemens Thoma and Michael Wyschogrod (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 63. 8. A wide-ranging exploration is Edward Shils, Tradition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981). A recent essayistic reflection pitched toward contemporary concerns is David Gross, The Past in Ruins: Tradition and the Critique of Modernity (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992). See also János Kristóf Ny´ıri, “ ‘Tradition’ and Related Terms: A Semantic Survey,” in his Tradition and Individuality: Essays (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992), 61–74. 9. Shils, Tradition, 213–310, 328–30; Gross, Past in Ruins, 7. 10. For a summary of these academic trends through the mid-1980s, see Marilyn Robinson Waldman, “Tradition as a Modality of Change: Islamic Examples,” History of Religions 25 (1986): 318–27. 11. A recent volume that reflects this reality is Jack Wertheimer, ed., The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992). For an assessment of the impact of Katz’s study, see Bernard Cooperman’s essay in his translation of it ([New York: New York University Press, 1993], 237– 53). 12. The quoted phrase is Walter Jackson Bate’s in The Burden of the Past and the English Poet (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1970), 4. Note Robert Brody’s recent observation (The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998], 248) that “the yoke of tradition lay more heavily on Se‘adyah [Gaon]’s shoulders than on those of Maimonides.” 13. Marc Saperstein, Decoding the Rabbis: A Thirteenth-Century Commentary on the Aggadah (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 208 and, in greater detail, Jeanˆ Christophe Attias, “L’Ame et la clef: De l’introduction comme genre littéraire dans la production exégètique du juda¨ısme médiéval,” in Entrer en Matière (Paris: Cerf, 1998), 350–55. 14. For the first citation, see Gershom Scholem, “Revelation and Tradition as Religious Categories,” in The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken, 1971), 290. For the second, see Leo Strauss, “The Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy,” The Independent Journal of Philosophy 3 (1979): 112. 15. That Abarbanel’s works consist primarily of commentaries makes for certain methodological difficulties in studying them. What has been aptly remarked concerning challenges posed by works of biblical exegesis in general applies to much of Abarbanel’s oeuvre as well: such works are “sometimes repetitious, sometimes inconsistent . . . and the attempt to systematize non-systematic writings, to extrapolate rigorously structured concepts from soft, pliable molds, is problematic.” (Isadore Twersky, “Joseph Ibn Kaspi: Portrait of a Medieval Jewish Intellectual,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, ed. Isadore Twersky [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979], 232–33.) The exegetical setting of a particular pronouncement may decisively affect its substance, determine the rhetorical inflection in which it is couched, or even call into doubt the degree to which it reflects an author’s true position. (For the latter case as regards


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Abarbanel see, e.g., below, Chapter 6, at n. 70.) To be sure, problems posed by the commentary genre are by no means uniform; see, e.g., for the realm of medieval Latin philosophic commentary, Mark D. Jordan, “Thomas Aquinas’ Disclaimers in the Aristotelian Commentaries,” in Philosophy and the God of Abraham: Essays in Memory of James A. Weisheipl, OP, ed. R. James Long (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991), 99–100. 16. Abravanel, ix. Cf. Erwin I. J. Rosenthal’s remark (“Don Isaac Abravanel: Financier, Statesman and Scholar, 1437–1937,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 24 [1937]: 451–52) that Abarbanel “lived at the close of an epoch rich in . . . scholars whose achievements . . . form an integral part of mediaeval culture” and the title of Samuel Grünberg, “Eine Leuchte der Bibelexegese um die Wende des Mittelalters,” Jeschurun 15 (1928): 21–32, 213–25, 297–312. 17. For orientation in much of the relevant bibliography, see Richard G. Marks, The Image of Bar Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature (University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 127 n. 50. Pioneering were Isaac Baer’s suggestive comments in “Don Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel ve-yehaso ខ ’el be‘ayot ha-historiyah ve-hamedinah,” Tarbiខz 8 (1937): 245–48, though Baer remained essentially content to cite texts. For new findings, see Chapters 2 and 7. 18. Manuel, Broken Staff, 127.

Chapter 1. Life and Contexts 1. SSK, 8v (reading ’akhen for ve-khen). On moledet as “homeland” in Ibero-Jewish writings of Abarbanel’s day, see Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, “Exile and Expulsion in Jewish History,” in Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World 1391–1648, ed. Benjamin R. Gampel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 16–18. Whether the term as used here refers to all of Iberia or Portugal alone is unclear. Abarbanel elsewhere uses the term with respect to Portugal specifically (e.g., Kings, 422). Still, in writings composed in Italy he would often stress his roots in sefarad (cf. Joshua, 2 with the almost but not quite exact parallel in MY, 275); and, from the vantage point of Italy, his conception of “Sefarad” might have included the entire Iberian peninsula. It therefore is possible that his late-in-life perception of his moledet might have encompassed all of Iberia. (For the self-description “Sefardi from the kingdom of Portugal” by a contemporary of Abarbanel, see the reference in Chapter 2, n. 11.) 2. The statement presents two difficulties. First, Abarbanel here speaks as if all of his works were written after he left his “homeland,” yet ‘Aខteret zeqenim (see Chapter 3) was written in Portugal and several other works were started there. (This problem is compounded if one takes his referent to be all of Iberia, as discussed in the previous note, since Abarbanel wrote large and significant “commentaries and compilations” in Spain, which he should not easily have discounted in describing his career to Saul.) Second, Abarbanel wrongly implies that he did not spend time in royal courts after arriving in Italy. To explain these imprecisions, one must seemingly note two facts. First, Abarbanel spent most of his years as a courtier in Iberia and most of his years in Italy writing. Second, his comments reflect a “conversion narrative” in which, late in life, a writer regrets the manner in which earlier years have been disposed as he now contem-

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plates them from “the point of view of immutable truth” (William C. Spengemann, The Forms of Autobiography: Episodes in the History of a Literary Genre [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980], 6–7; see further on this autobiographical topos, James D. Fernandez, Apology to Apostrophe: Autobiography and the Rhetoric of Self-Representation in Spain [Durham: Duke University Press, 1992], 30–31.) Failure to make allowances for Abarbanel’s stereotypical rhetoric in this passage results in historiographic caricature of the sort found in Norman Roth, Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), xiv, 299–300. Here Abarbanel is said to have indicated “by his own admission” (original italics) his exclusive concern “with his own power and wealth” while in Iberia. Taking Abarbanel’s “admission” at face value in this way, one is incapable of explaining his ample scholarly activities and achievements in Iberia, about which see Chapter 2. 3. For these variant spellings of the family name as they appear in Portuguese registers, see Elias Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles in Castile: Dom David Negro and Dom Isaac Abravanel (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1997), 21–22. 4. For claims to Davidic descent, see Abravanel, 3, 266 n. 6. For lore regarding the Abarbanel family’s roots in Iberia stretching back to the period of the first temple’s destruction, see Zechariah, 239. 5. Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1961–66), 1:364. 6. Menahem ben Zerah, A Sedah la-derekh (1880; photo-offset Tel Aviv: n.p., 1962), 4r. Menahem makes no reference to specifically “philosophical works” in his remarks as B. Netanyahu has it; see “The Conversion of Don Samuel Abravanel,” in Between History and Literature: Studies in Honor of Isaac Barzilay, ed. Stanley Nash (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1997), 105. 7. A Sedah la-derekh, 4r–v. The tendency to view the phenomenon of the HispanoJewish courtier from the perspective of this type’s assimilation to his non-Jewish milieu is found in other Hispano-Jewish writers as well. For a nuanced study of Abarbanel’s foremost Jewish colleague at the Spanish court from this angle, see Eleazar Gutwirth, “Abraham Seneor: Social Tensions and the Court-Jew,” Michael 11 (1989): 169–229. 8. Details of Samuel’s conversion remain in doubt. The fullest treatment is Netanyahu’s study cited in n. 6. Cf. Roth, Conversos, 118–19. Assuming a pre-1391 conversion, Samuel would have been prominent in “a considerable converso group” that came into existence during this period in Spain (cf. Netanyahu’s depiction); see Eleazar Gutwirth, “Conversions to Christianity Amongst Fifteenth-Century Spanish Jews: An Alternative Explanation,” in Sefer yovel li-Shlomo Simonsohn (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1993), 99. On the 1391 riots and their aftermath, see Baer, History, 2:95–169. 9. Maria José Pimenta Ferro Tavares, Os Judeus em Portugal no século XV, 2 vols. (Lisbon: Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1982–84), 1:229 n. 3, 312, 361. 10. Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles, 21–22; Reuven Faingold, “Los Jud´ıos en las cortes reales portuguesas,” Sefarad 55 (1995): 85 n. 30. 11. Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles, 50–51. On the Jewish badge in Portugal, see Reuven Faingold, “ ‘Ha-siman ha-yehudi’ be-porខtugal,” Pe‘amim 51 (1992): 70–79. For Judah Abarbanel’s ties to Afonso, see Ferro Tavares, Os Judeus, 1:229 n. 3. 12. For epidemics, see António Henriques de Oliveira Marques, Daily Life in Portugal in the Middle Ages, trans. S. S. Wyatt (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,


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1971), 142, and, for the one of the mid-1460s as described by Lisbon’s foremost rabbi, A see Abraham Gross, R[abbi] Yosef ben ’Avraham Hayyun: manhig qehilat lisbon ve-yeខsirato (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1993), 192. Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), 566–67 surveys political upheaval. Jeremy N. H. Lawrance, “Humanism in the Iberian Peninsula,” in The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe, ed. Anthony Goodman and Angus MacKay (London: Longman, 1990), 235–37 surveys cultural developments, including the maritime discoveries’ impact. On the riot of 1449, see Humberto Carlos Baquero Moreno, “Assalto a` Judiaria grande de Lisboa em Dezembro de 1449,” Revista de ciências do homem 3 (Série A) (1970): 207–36. 13. Ferro Tavares, Os Judeus, 1:116, 124, 131–36. Note the frequent references to members of the Negro (ibn Yahya), Pala¸cano, Hayyun, Navarro, Latam, Gabay, Vivas, Ben Crespo, and Abarbanel families in the data on financiers and tax farmers contained in the index to volume 2 of Ferro Tavares’ study. 14. For the only surviving trace of this correspondence, see Jacob M. Toledano, ’Oខsar genazim (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1960), 37–40. 15. See Abravanel, 268 n. 26, for deferential references by Abarbanel to his father, including ones that invoke the term nasi. For the usage’s history through the thirteenth century, see Saperstein, Decoding the Rabbis, 169–74. On lineage, see Eleazar Gutwirth, “Lineage in XVth C. Hispano-Jewish Thought,” Miscelánea de estudios a´ rabes y hebráicos 34 (1985): 85–91 (where it is noted [p. 89] that “Hispano-Jewish attitudes may be a minor note to the general lineage consciousness of Christendom and the Islamic world”). For “Don” and “Dom” see M. Ferrer-Chivite, “El factor judeo-converso en el A proceso de consolidac´ıon del t´ıtulo don,” Sefarad 45 (1985): 131–73; Gross, Hayyun, 22; Faingold, “Los Jud´ıos,” 103. 16. Ferro Tavares, Os Judeus, 1:241. 17. See Carl Gebhardt, Leone Ebreo (Heidelberg: n.p., 1929), in the section entitled “Regesten zur Lebensgeschichte Leone Ebreo” (hereinafter Gebhardt, “Regesten”), 42. 18. For the contents of this consolatio mortis and its conjectural dating to 1470 or 1471, see Joaquim de Carvalho, “Uma ep´ıstola de Isaac Abarbanel,” Revista de estudos hebráicos 1 (1928): 234. For more on its circumstances, see Abravanel, 23; Menahem Dorman, “Introduction,” in Siខhot ‘al ha-’ahavah, ed. and trans. Menahem Dorman (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1983), 29. 19. Joshua, 2. 20. Gebhardt, “Regesten,” 37. 21. Ferro Tavares, Os Judeus, 1:276, 412, 455 n. 113. (The property was transferred to a nobleman who testified against the Bragan¸ca following Abarbanel’s trial; see Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles, 52 n. 20.) 22. H. V. Livermore, A New History of Portugal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 123. 23. Eleazar Gutwirth, “Widows, Artisans, and the Issues of Life: Hispano-Jewish Bourgeois Ideology,” in In Iberia and Beyond: Hispanic Jews Between Cultures, ed. Bernard Dov Cooperman (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998), 145–46. 24. For Abarbanel’s habit of sending a yearly letter to Yehiel, see “Mikhtevei ’Abarbanel,” 41 (for correct dating of this letter see Joseph Hacker, “Qevuខsat ’iggerot ‘al gerush ha-yehudim mi-sefarad u-mi-siខsiliyah ve-‘al goral ha-megorashim,” in Peraqim be-

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toledot he-ខhevrah ha-yehudit bi-yemei ha-benayim u-va-‘et ha-ខhadashah, ed. Emmanuel Etkes and Joseph Salmon [Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1980], 74–75 n. 60). On the da Pisa, see Umberto Cassuto, “Sulla famiglia Da Pisa,” Rivista Israelitica 5 (1908): 227–38; 6 (1909): 21–30, 102–13, 160–70, 223–36. 25. Possibly related to anti-Jewish sentiments stirred by a convert to Christianity in protest over excessive interest taking on the part of Florentine Jewish bankers (Dorman, “Introduction,” 25). 26. “Mikhtav,” 67–68. 27. Ibid., 67–69. For the identification of da Silveira, see Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles, 75 n. 67. 28. Hacker, “Qevuខsat ’iggerot,” 74–75, 94 (on the date of the visit as almost certainly prior to 1480, see p. 75 n. 59). 29. Ferro Tavares, Os Judeus, 1:224, 447 n. 1 (for examples of the same concession and similar privileged authorizations to other Portuguese Jews, see ibid., 407). 30. Joshua, 2. For cloth supplies, see Ferro Tavares, Os Judeus, 1:296. Records for a royal “defense” fund from 1478 to 1480 (ibid., 1:176–83, 296, 312) place Abarbanel second only to Gedaliah as the king’s foremost individual lender. For the complex of political and marital circumstances surrounding the Portuguese invasion of Castile and the larger consequential possible outcomes of the campaign, see R. B. Tate, “The Medieval Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula (to 1474),” in Spain: A Companion to Spanish Studies, ed. P. E. Russell (London: Methuen, 1973), 102–3. 31. AZ, 3; “Mikhtav,” 69. 32. Ferro Tavares, Os Judeus, 1:289. For exporting to Flanders by Jewish and Genovese merchants of sugar and honey from the island of Medeira, see ibid., 282. An “at first sight unexpected” Castilian-Flemish connection is in evidence during this period as well; see Tate, “Medieval Kingdoms,” 97 (and the further reference in n. 1 there). Note also the presence of Flemish influences in the decorations found in the manuscript produced in Lisbon in 1482 from which the cover illustration to this book is drawn. See Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Isles (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities; London: The British Academy, 1982), 143–44. 33. Exodus, 253. 34. Ferro Tavares, Os Judeus, 1:290. 35. SSK, 8r. 36. Cited in Barry Dov Walfish, Esther in Medieval Garb: Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Esther in the Middle Ages (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), 134. 37. Salo Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 18 vols., 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press and the Jewish Publication Society, 1952–80), 11:244– 45. For Afonso’s firm intervention in 1449, see Moreno, “Assalto a` Judiaria Grande,” 218–19. 38. On Paulo, see most recently Reuven Faingold, “ ‘Apologetiqah u-fulmus be-fortខugal: yehudim ve-yahadut be-khitvei João de Barro” (masters diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1983), 11; Humberto Baquero Moreno, “Novos elementos relativos a Mestre Paulo, pregador do século XV, contra os Judeus Bracarenses,” Bracara Augusta 32 (1978): 117–24. 39. Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles, 47–48. 40. Ferro Tavares, Os Judeos, 1:283.


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41. Humberto Baquero Moreno, “Movimentos sociais anti-judaicos em Portugal no século XV,” in Jews and Conversos, ed. Yosef Kaplan (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1985), 62–73. For the Abarbanels specifically as a major source of “rupture” in this respect, see pp. 64–65. 42. “Mikhtav,” 66. 43. Abravanel, 269–70 n. 45. 44. “Mikhtevei ’Abarbanel,” 40–42. On Clemenza’s conversion, see M. Luzzati, “Per la storio degli Ebrei italiani nel rinascimento: Matrimonii e apostasia de Clemenza di Vitale da Pisa,” in Studi sul medioevo Cristiano offerti a Raffaelo Morghen, 2 vols. (Rome: Instituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1974), 1:427–73. 45. Joshua, 2. 46. For details, see Livermore, New History of Portugal, 124–25. For other Jews who fled with Abarbanel, see Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles, 68–69. 47. Os Judeus, 86 n. 63, 424; Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles, 67–68. 48. Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles, 62–64. This scenario would account both for the king’s perception of Abarbanel’s guilt and Abarbanel’s steadfastly vehement claims of innocence but seems hard to square with Abarbanel’s ongoing high regard for the Bragan¸ca who, on this assessment, would seemingly have implicated Abarbanel in the conspiracy more deeply than was warranted. For Abarbanel’s reference to discussions before royalty of the right of royal rebellion, see Deuteronomy, 170. For his denial of the antiJoão conspiracy, see Joshua, 3. 49. Joshua, 2. For descriptions by Lusitano-Jewish scholars of Lisbon as “renowned A (hollelah),” see Gross, Hayyun, 15 (to which this reference can be added). 50. For the sons, see Abravanel, 25. That Abarbanel had more than one daughter is suggested in one of his letters; see “Mikhtevei ’Abarbanel,” 40. 51. ZP, 3. 52. Joshua, 2. 53. Haim Beinart, Gerush sefarad (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1994), 467 and, in greater detail on this expulsion, idem, “La Inquisición espanola ˜ y la expulsión de los Jud´ıos de Andaluc´ıa,” in Jews and Conversos, 103–23. The usage, “Spanish expulsions,” is borrowed from Roth’s chapter by this title in Conversos. 54. Baer, History, 2:381; Haim Beinart, “Gerush yehudei valmaseda,” Zion 46 (1981): 39–51. 55. The subtitle for Netanyahu’s chapter on Abarbanel’s Spanish period (Abravanel, 33). 56. ZP, 3 (as Netanyahu himself [Abravanel, 53] notes!). Cf. Francisco CanteraBurgos, “Don Isaac Abravanel: Estadista y filosofo,” Sefarad 30 (1970): 53. 57. Joshua, 2–3. 58. Ferro Tavares, Os Judeus, 1:336–37; Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles, 70. 59. Francisco Cantera Burgos, “Don ‘Iខshaq ខ Braunel’: Algunas precisiones biograficas sobre su estancia en Castilla,” in Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume, 3 vols., ed. Saul Lieberman (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1975), 1:241–45; Beinart, Gerush, 468–70. The initial total involved was the vast sum of 6,400,000 maravedis, with Abarbanel earning 118,500 maravedis per year as commission. As collateral he put up, without restriction, all that he owned. 60. Beinart, Gerush, 470–71; Luis Suarez Fernandez, Documentos acerca de la expulsion de los Judios (Valladolid: Consejo superior de investigaciones cientificas, 1964), 408.

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61. Beinart, Gerush, 468; Baer, History, 2:313–22; Roth, Conversos, 126–33. For Seneor’s multiple roles, see Gutwirth, “Abraham Seneor,” 208. A LT A K, 73r, where Abarbanel briefly describes the circumstances of this 62. See T work’s composition at Carfati’s ¸ home in Molina. 63. Beinart, Gerush, 474. For Seneor in this respect, see Gutwirth, “Social Tensions and the Court-Jew,” 221–22. 64. For an overview of events from the mid-1480s through the expulsion edict’s promulgation see Haim Beinart, “Order of the Expulsion from Spain: Antecedents, Causes, and Textual Analysis,” in Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World 1391–1648, 86–89. For the inscription on Ferdinand’s and Isabella’s grave, see J. N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976–78), 2:618, 625. 65. Abravanel, 89–90. 66. Baer, History, 2:443. 67. Hillgarth, Spanish Kingdoms, 2:447. On the “royal alliance” in historical fact and, more so, Hispano-Jewish myth, see Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, The Lisbon Massacre of 1506 and the Royal Image in the Shebet Yehudah, Hebrew Union College Annual Supplements 1 (Cincinnati: HUC Press, 1976), xi–xii, 35–66. 68. For a royal decree that debts owing to Abarbanel be repaid in accordance with his earlier request, see Suarez Fernandez, Documentos, 403–8. Other royal edicts granted Abarbanel exemption from the restrictive provisions otherwise governing the transfer of currency and movables belonging to departing Jews. One from October 1492 (Suarez Fernandez, Documentos, 472–73), however, says nothing about Abarbanel’s ongoing presence in Spain months after the final date for departure, only about the right of his agents to collect debts there. (Correct on this score Roth, Conversos, 300–301.) Abarbanel was owed large sums by the crown, scores of individuals, and several cities; see Beinart, Gerush, 481–86. 69. Roth (Conversos, 298–300) raises legitimate questions regarding such later accounts of Abarbanel’s role, including Netanyahu’s, whose oratorical flights include the remarks just quoted (Abravanel, 55). 70. Kings, 422. (Contra Roth, this report was not written “many years” after the expulsion [Conversos, 289, 291] but a year and a half later at most; Kings, 681.) Nonetheless, Beinart’s suggestion (Gerush, 195–96 n. 3) that Abarbanel’s claims about meetings with the king be checked against their logistical possibility seems wise. 71. In Hillgarth’s cautious formulation (Spanish Kingdoms, 2:447), the failure to publish the edict was “probably due to the efforts of leading Jews to obtain its revocation.” Cf. Abravanel, 54. 72. Roth, Conversos, 300. Even granting Roth’s caricature, the threat to “fame and forture” entailed by explusion should have galvanized Abarbanel to protect his own interests even if it be deemed plausible that he did not care for those of his family, friends, or Spanish Jews generally. 73. Described in Mark D. Myerson, “Aragonese and Catalan Jewish Converts at the Time of the Expulsion,” in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume, 2 vols., ed. Barry Walfish (Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1992), 2:132–33. 74. Gebhardt, Leone Ebreo, in the section entitled “Die hebräischen Gedichte” (hereafter Gebhardt, “Gedichte”), 3 ll. 25–27; as translated in Raymond P. Scheindlin, “Judah Abravanel to His Son,” Judaism 41 (1992): 194.


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75. Yosef Hacker, “Kroniqot hadashot ខ ‘al gerush ha-yehudim mi-sefarad, sibotav vetoខsa’otav,” Zion 44 (1979): 217–18. 76. Gebhardt, “Gedichte,” 3 l. 28; Scheindlin, “Judah Abravanel,” 194. 77. Abravanel, 59. Navarre’s Jews were ordered to convert to Christianity or leave in 1498. See Benjamin R. Gampel, The Last Jews on Iberian Soil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 78. Kings, 423; MY, 272. 79. David Abulafia, “The Crown and the Economy Under Ferrante I of Naples,” in Commerce and Conquest in the Mediterranean, 1100–1500 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1993), 135. 80. Alexander Marx, “The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain: Two New Accounts,” Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s., 20 (1908): 251. 81. Robert Bonfil, “Italia: Un triste ep´ılogo de la expulsión de los jud´ıos de espana,” ˜ ´ in Judios. Sefarditas. Conversos: la expulsión de 1492 y sus consecuencias, ed. Angel Alcalá (Valladolid: Ambito, 1995), 246–68. 82. Kings, 422. 83. In one poignant case a woman found upon her return that her husband had already remarried; see Meyerson, “Jewish Converts,” 139. 84. Marx, “Expulsion,” 250. 85. See the biographical sketch (as in MY, 269) composed in Ferrara in 1551 by Barukh Uzziel Forti (Hazketto), penned on the occasion of the eightieth birthday of Hazketto’s patron, Joseph Abarbanel. On this sketch, see Arthur M. Lesley, “Hebrew Humanism in Italy: The Case of Biography,” Prooftexts 2 (1982): 166. 86. Kings, 423. Note Netanyahu’s failure to document his nevertheless confident assertion (Abravanel, 64) that “Abravanel must have assumed a position of importance in Ferrante’s Court.” 87. For this description of Ferrante’s reputation, see David Abulafia, “Introduction,” in The French Descent Into Renaissance Italy 1494–95, ed. David Abulafia (Aldershot: Variorum, 1995), 3. For corrective comments see the entry on “Naples” by John A. Marino in Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, ed. Paul F. Grendler, 6 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1999), 4:277. 88. ZP, 3. 89. Gebhardt, “Regesten,” 16–17. For interpretation of the relevant document, see Isaia Sonne, Intorno alla vita di Leone Ebreo (Florence: Civiltà Moderna, [1934]), 17. 90. Hacker, “Qevuខsat ’iggerot,” 83. 91. Abulafia, “The Crown and the Economy Under Ferrante,” 136–37. For Jewish scholars and doctors associated with Ferrante’s court including de Balmes, see idem, “The Role of the Jews in the Cultural Life of the Aragonese Kingdom of Naples,” in Gli ebrei in Sicilia dal tardoantico al medioevo (Palermo: Flaccovio, 1998), 49. 92. See for this coinage Joël Blanchard, Commynes l’European: L’invention du politique (Geneva: Droz, 1996), 29. 93. For his itinerary, see Abravanel, 68–69 and, for the Sicilian expulsion, Cecil Roth, The History of the Jews in Italy (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1946), 254–61; Hacker, “Qevuខsat ’iggerot,” 80–83. 94. For the general history of the community, see Cecil Roth, Venice (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1930), 310–31. For its admixture of Greek and Italian Jews,

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see Salo Baron, “Jewish Immigration and Communal Conflicts in Seventeenth-Century Corfù,” in The Joshua Starr Memorial Volume (New York: n.p., 1953), 170. 95. SSK, 18r. For Abarbanel’s consciousness of having grown up at the world’s “edge (qeខseh),” see Deuteronomy, 3. For this as typical of Portugal’s medieval inhabitants inA cluding Jews, see Gross, Hayyun, 117–20. 96. SSK, 18r. For Samuel in Solonika at Fasi’s academy, see Meir Benayahu, “Bet ’Abarbanel be-saloniki,” Sefunot 12 (1971–78): 10–11. 97. Renata Segre, “Sephardic Settlements in Sixteenth-Century Italy: A Historical and Geographical Survey,” Mediterranean Historical Review 6 (1991): 132–33. 98. ZP, 3. 99. P. Lopez, Napoli e la Peste 1464–1530: Politica, istituzioni, problemi sanitari (Naples: Jovene, 1989), 99–122. 100. Baron, Social and Religious History, 11:257; Roth, History of the Jews in Italy, 279– 81. If the arrival of Charles and the French aroused messianic expectations among many Christians and possibly a few Jews (David Ruderman, “Hope Against Hope: Jewish and Christian Messianic Expectations in the Late Middle Ages,” in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. David Ruderman [New York: New York University Press, 1992], 304–5), Abarbanel was presumably not among them. 101. Deuteronomy, 3; ZP, 4. 102. For this nexus, see Chris D. Ferguson, “Autobiography as Therapy: Guibert de Nogent, Peter Abelard, and the Making of Medieval Autobiography,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 13 (1983): 193. 103. ZP, 3–4. 104. NA, 7–8. 105. The word “ខhofzi” (’ani ’amarti ve-ខhofzi) being understood in terms of fear caused by exile, based on the context of 1 Sam. 23:26 (“And David made haste [neខhpaz] to get away for fear of Saul”). 106. ZP, 167. 107. Solomon le-vet Levi, exercising rabbinic leadership in the sixteenth century in the Ottoman Empire, buttressed faith in messianic promises found in Prophetic literature by grounding them in the Torah; see Joseph Hacker, “Ha-ye’ush min ha-ge’ulah veha-tiqvah ha-meshihit ខ be-khitvei R. Shelomo le-vet ha-levi mi-soloniki,” Tarbiខz 39 (1970): 199. This tack implies his audience’s faith in the Pentateuch’s trustworthiness. By contrast, Abarbanel includes Moses among the perceived prophetic “liars.” 108. ZP, 4. 109. See Chapter 2. 110. Gebhardt, “Regesten,” 20–21. 111. Sonne, Intorno, 28. 112. This reconstruction (building on Sonne, Intorno, 23–26) would also explain the near-total absence of literary productivity during what should be seen as Abarbanel’s “Barletta” period (not so distinguished by Netanyahu; Abravanel, xi)—this, after the astonishingly large, diverse, and rapid outpouring during the Monopoli years. 113. Evidence, beyond his relations with Isaac and Judah, is forthcoming from a royal order of 1501 requesting that another Abarbanel be well-treated in every affair out of regard for “our beloved Joseph Abarbanel,” presumably Abarbanel’s nephew. See Nicola Ferorelli, Gli Ebrei nell’Italia meridionale dall’età romana al secolo XVIII, ed. Filena Patroni


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Griffi (1915; reprint, Naples: Arnaldo Forni, 1990), 99. For Federigo’s generally auspicious Jewish policy see Vincenzo Giura, “Gli ebrei nel regno di Napoli tra Aragona e Spagna,” in Ebrei e Venezia: secoli XIV–XVIII (Milan: Edizioni Comunità, 1987), 775–76. 114. Hillgarth, Spanish Kingdoms, 2:557 and, for the visit, Ferorelli, Gli Ebrei, 99 (with the updated note of Griffi, 109). 115. For Judah see SSK, 20v. For the basis of this reconstruction see Sonne, Intorno, 29, where it is suggested that Judah resided with his father in Venice before joining Gonzalo’s retinue. Cf. Abravanel, 80. For other Abarbanels, see, e.g., the letter reproduced in Cesare Colafemmina, Documenti per la storio degli ebrei in Puglia nell’archivo di stato di Napoli (Bari: Regione Puglia, Assessorato alla cultura, 1990), 212–13, inquiring after a cargo of wheat carried by unnamed “Abravanelli” in 1507. For the decisive battle at Cerigola and events surrounding it, see Hillgarth, Spanish Kingdoms, 2:558. 116. For the date as the Hebrew year 5263 (1502–1503), see Hazketto in MY, 269. As, however, the Venetian senate’s response to Abarbanel (below, n. 122) is dated August 1503, Abarbanel must have arrived early in the year if not towards the end of 1502. For Abarbanel’s praises of Venice see below n. 120. 117. Roth, History of the Jews in Venice, 18–38; Benjamin Ravid, “The Legal Status of the Jews in Venice to 1509,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 54 (1987): 169–202; David Jacoby, “Venice and the Venetian Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean,” in Gli Ebrei e Venezia, 30–31. 118. Whether Joseph already resided in Venice is, however, unclear; Hasketo’s account, which is the basis for the information concerning involvement of Abarbanel’s middle son in his move, is ambiguous. See MY, 269 (and the overly definitive presentation in Abravanel, 80). 119. Ravid, “Legal Status,” 192–93 (for restrictive legislation) and 195–96 (for the charter). 120. For a compilation of sources reflecting this admiration, see Abraham Melamed, “The Myth of Venice in Italian Renaissance Jewish Thought,” in Italia Judaica: Atti del I convegno internazionale Bari (Rome: Ministero per i beni culturale e ambientali, 1983), 403–4. 121. For the impact of the spice trade, see Frederic C. Lane, Venice and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 13. For details regarding concessions to the Turks, see Robert Findlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1980), 4; Frederic C. Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 242. For complaints from both the French and Spanish sides about Venetian policy during the period of the seige of Barletta, see Carol Kidwell, “Venice, the French Invasion and the Apulian Ports,” in The French Descent Into Renaissance Italy, 307–8. 122. For Abarbanel’s role in the affair and the document containing the official Venetian response, see David Kaufmann, “Don Isaac Abrabanel et le commerce des e´ spices avec Calicut,” Revue des e´tudes juives 38 (1899): 145–48. 123. “Gedichte,” 3 l. 20; Scheindlin, “Judah Abravanel,” 194. 124. “Gedichte,” 3, l. 21; Scheindlin, “Judah Abravanel,” 192, 194. For an earlier version of the observation regarding young Isaac’s education, see Nahum Slousch, “Poésies hebra¨ıques de Don Jehuda Abrabanel,” Revista de estudios hebráicos 1 (1928): 194.

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125. Scheindlin, “Judah Abravanel,” 191; Abravanel, 289 n. 8 (following Gebhardt). 126. For the possibility of Isaac’s return to Judaism, see Abravanel, 289 n. 8. It has been argued, though it is by no means certain, that Judah Abarbanel himself joined Christianity’s ranks some decades after his father’s death. See David Harari, “Yishuv hamahaloqet ខ bi-devar hitnaខssខeruto shel Yehudah ’Abarbanel,” in Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division C, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1994), 2:48–54. 127. Gebhardt, “Gedichte,” 4–5, ll. 76–79; Scheindlin, “Judah Abravanel,” 197. 128. Gebhardt, “Gedichte,” 5–6, ll. 90–99, 115–116; Scheindlin, “Judah Abravanel,” 198–99. 129. Gebhardt, “Gedichte,” 6, ll. 107–108; Scheindlin, “Judah Abravanel,” 198. For the topos as one of several aspects of Solomon ibn Gavirol’s influence on Judah’s poem, see Sarah Katz, Pituខhim petuខhim va-’aខturim (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1992), 275. 130. SSK, 20v. Judah says of himself: “Christian scholars are grasshoppers next to me. I’ve seen their colleges—they’ve no one who can best me in the duel of words.” Gebhardt, “Gedichte,” 6, ll. 109–111; Scheindlin, “Judah Abravanel,” 198–99. For one of Judah’s father’s more celebratory self-depictions, see ZP, 3: “hosafti ‘al kol ’asher hayah lefanai torah u-gedulah.” 131. On the chronology of the earliest Constantinople printings, see Avraham Yaari, Ha-defus ha-‘ivri be-qushta (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967), 60–61; Yosef Hacker, “Defusei qushta be-me’ah ha-shesh-‘esreh,” ’Areshet 5 (1972): 474. For the press’s aims see Menahem Schmelzer, “Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books Among the Sephardim Before and After the Expulsion,” in Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World 1391– 1648, 263. For Judah’s poems see Gebhardt, “Gedichte,” 17–20. 132. SSK, 8r. 133. Joshua Bloch, “Hebrew Printing in Naples,” in Hebrew Printing and Bibliography, selected and with a preface by Charles Berlin (New York: New York Public Library, 1976), 113. 134. Bloch, Hebrew Printing and Bibliography, 7, 119; Schmelzer, “Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books,” 258–59. 135. Bloch, Hebrew Printing, 26; Abulafia, “Role of the Jews,” 44–49 (for secondary literature on books in Latin and Italian printed at Naples, see p. 37 n. 10); idem, “Il Mezzogiorno peninsulare dai bizantini all’espulsione,” in Storia d’Italia XI: Gli Ebrei in Italia (Rome: Giulio Einaudi, 1996), 33–34. 136. Brian Richardson, Print Culture in Renaissance Italy: The Editor and the Vernacular Text, 1470–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 48. Abarbanel may have known of the arrival in Venice of a scholar come to visit Aldus Manuzio whose humanism would eventually reshape Latin learning, Erasmus of Rotterdam. For Erasmus’s New Testament scholarship, see the literature cited in Chapter 7. For his sojourn in Venice beginning in April 1508, see Léon E. Halkin, Erasme (Paris: Fayard, 1987), 106–7. 137. SSK, 7r–7v. 138. Ibid., 4r. 139. For deterioration in Jewish life in the Land of Israel throughout the fifteenth century, see Eliyahu Strauss (Ashtor), Toledot ha-yehudim be-miខsrayim ve-suryah taខhat shilខton ha-mamlukim, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1944–70), 2:204–36. For diffi-


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culties attendent upon the trip east from Venice, see Abraham David, “Meqorot hadashim ខ ‘al haflagat ha-yehudim mi-veneខsiyah la-mizrahខ u-le-’ereខs yisra’el ba-me’ot ha-15 ve-ha-17,” Shalem 6 (1992): 322–26. 140. MY, 270. For the possible dates of Abarbanel’s death, see Gebhardt, “Regesten,” 55–57. 141. See Pinina Navè, “Leone Ebreo’s Lament on the Death of His Father,” in Romanica et occidentalia: Etudes dédiées a` la mémoire de Hiram Peri (Pflaum), ed. Moshe Lazar (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1963), 56–69 (for the cited passage p. 65 l. 8). Netanyahu (Abravanel, 290 n. 24) doubts Judah’s authorship of this dirge.

Chapter 2. Works and Traditions 1. A convenient overview of the emergence of Sefardic civilization can be found in Jane S. Gerber, The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience (New York: The Free Press, 1992), 60–89. 2. The key figures driving this development in Babylonia and Andalusia, and their interactions with stimuli emanating from the non-Jewish world, are effectively surveyed in the up-to-date presentations of Steven M. Wasserstrom, Haggai Ben-Shammai, T. M. Rudavsky, Lenn E. Goodman, Norbert M. Samuelson, and Howard Kreisel in History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, Routledge History of World Philosophies 2 (London: Routledge, 1997), 93–280. 3. For this description of the Jewish scholars of the time living in Provence, see Isadore Twersky, “Aspects of the Social and Cultural History of Proven¸cal Jewry,” in Studies in Jewish Law and Philosophy (New York: KTAV, 1982), 190. This is but one of several superb studies available on the Andalusian paideia’s reception in new centers, Christian Spain and southern France in particular. See also Bernard Septimus, HispanoJewish Culture in Transition: The Career and Controversies of Ramah (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982); idem, “ ‘Open Rebuke and Concealed Love’: Nahmanides ខ and the Andalusian Tradition,” in Rabbi Moses Naខhmanides (Ramban): Explorations in His Religious and Literary Virtuosity, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 11–34, and, most recently, Moshe Halbertal, Ben torah le-ខhokhmah (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2000). 4. Chapters 4 and 6. 5. For these polemicists and bibliography on them, see Hanne Trautner-Kromann, Shield and Sword: Jewish Polemics against Christianity and the Christians in France and Spain from 1100–1500, trans. James Manley (Tübingen: J. B. Mohr, 1993). 6. The phenomenon is treated in my “Changing Jewish Mentalities Towards Christian Society in the Late Middle Ages” (forthcoming). ¨ 7. Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Ubersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Berlin: n.p., 1893), 483–88. 8. For the standard view, see Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, vol. 2. A diversely illustrated corrective that takes in political, social, economic, and cultural affairs is Eleazar Gutwirth, “Towards Expulsion: 1391–1492,” in Spain and the Jews: The Sephardi Experience 1492 and After, ed. Elie Kedourie (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992), 51–73. For another study written from the same revisionist perspective, see Jav-

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ier Castano, ˜ “Social Networks in a Castilian Jewish Aljama and the Court Jews in the Fifteenth Century: A Preliminary Survey (Madrid 1440–1475),” En la España medieval 20 (1997): 379–92. 9. Albeit in small measure and, it would seem, of less than optimal quality; see Raymond P. Scheindlin, “Secular Hebrew Poetry in Fifteenth-Century Spain,” in Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World 1391–1648, 25–37. 10. For a fine overview, see Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue, Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th–20th Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 1–64. A 11. For Abraham Shamsolo, see Gross, Hayyun, 118; cf. Yosef Hacker, “Li-demutam ha-ruhanit ខ shel yehudei sefarad be-sof ha-me’ah ha-hamesh ខ ‘esreh,” Sefunot 17 (1983): 25. Note Judah Abarbanel’s description of his father (“Gedichte,” 18 l. 16) as ner ma‘aravi mi-sefarad sខaខs. 12. Nehemiah Allony, “David ibn Biliyah vi-yeខsirotav,” in Mi-sifrut yemei ha-benayim (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1945), 13. For ibn Bilia as a trendsetter in IberoJewish philosophy see Ari Ackerman, “A Magical Fragment of David Ibn Bilia’s Me’or Enayim,” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 1 (1996): 76. A 13. Gross, Hayyun, 106–11. 14. Joseph Yavetz, ’Or ha-ខhayyim (Lublin: n.p., 1910), 95. A 15. Gross, Hayyun, 172 (for Abarbanel’s father rather than eldest son as the likely referent see Sonne, Intorno, 12). A 16. Maggid mishneh as in Gross, Hayyun, 231–32 (and Deuteronomy, 4–7 for recapitulation of the question and Hayyun’s response, as well as Abarbanel’s rejection thereof). 17. Schmelzer, “Hebrew Manuscripts,” 258. See for further details Thérèse Metzger, Les manuscrits hébreux copiés et décorés a` Lisbonne dans les dernières décennies du XVe siècle (Paris: Funda¸ca˜ o Calouste Gulbenkian, 1977). 18. Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, Manuscrits hébreux de Lisbonne: Un atalier de copistes et d’enlumineurs au XVe (Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1970), 21–22, 52–53. A 19. ’Or ha-ខhayyim, 95; Gross, Hayyun, 106–7. 20. See Saul Regev, “Nusahខ rishon shel perush ’Abravanel le-sefer devarim,” Kobez al-yad, n.s., 15 (2000): 287–380. A problem regarding the age at which Abarbanel began his Deuteronomy commentary (see Deuteronomy, 3 in conjunction with A Abravanel, 270 n. 46) may well have been solved (Gross, Hayyun, 35–36); however, Abravanel’s choice of title for the work remains somewhat obscure. That the commentatorial work was eventually to encompass the entire Torah emerges from AZ, 9, 91. 21. “Mikhtav,” 69. 22. Such passages, which appear in the editio princeps (Sabbionetta, 1551) but are lacking in almost all later printed editions, are reproduced in Shnayer Z. Leiman, “Abarbanel and the Censor,” Journal of Jewish Studies 19 (1968): 55–61. For a recent edition that restores these passages, see Perush ha-torah le-rabbenu Yiខshខ aq ’Abravanel, ed. Avishai Shottland (Jerusalem: Horev, 1999), vol. 5. 23. Deuteronomy, 55. For the fuller uncensored version see Leiman, “Abarbanel and the Censor,” 55 (噛6); Perush ha-torah, ed. Shottland, 93. 24. This work—mentioned in Deuteronomy, 23 (where Abarbanel also notes that his interpretation essentially summarizes the treatment found in the earlier essay)—has,


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as far as I know, gone unnoticed hitherto. My assumption of the monograph’s Portuguese provenance is premised on three facts: (1) It is mentioned in a work begun in Portugal; (2) Abarbanel’s Spanish and Italian works are full-size literary productions whereas a monograph of this sort is in keeping with a few other works that Abarbanel wrote in Portugal; and (3) Abarbanel’s Lisbon teacher, Joseph Hayyun, also devoted a A separate study to the subject of the “sin of Meribah” (Gross, Hayyun, 216–30), providing evidence of currency of debate regarding this subject in Lisbon. A 25. Abraham Gross, “R. Yosef Hayyun ve-r[abbi] Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel,” Mikhael 11 (1989): 29, who presumes that Hayyun penned his treatment prior to Abarbanel. 26. See the survey in Saul Regev, “Ma’amar ‘yizal mayyim’ le-rabbi ’Avraham Shomsolo: het ខ moshe ve-’aharon be-farshanut ha-filosofit ba-me’ah ha-ខtet-vav-ខtetzayin,” ’Asuppot 9 (1995): 379–418 (which, however, does not treat Abarbanel’s handling of the theme). 27. As both Jakob Guttmann (Die religionsphilosophischen Lehren des Isaak Abravanel [Breslau: M. & H. Marcus, 1916], 19) and Netanyahu (Abravanel, 268 n. 34) observed, Abarbanel refers to this essay in ‘Aខteret zeqenim (though not by name), thereby indicating its chronological priority to this latter work. 28. Abarbanel first outlines three conflicting views concerning the nature of the elemental forms and cites objections to them (A SY, 107–10), then discusses these (110– 13) and renders a verdict (113–17). 29. Thus its omission from Abarbanel’s listing of his works in SSK, 8r–8v. 30. “Mikhtav,” 69. On this work, including its dating, see Chapter 3. 31. See Kings, 422 for the intention to write these commentaries in Portugal and Joshua, 3 for the Castilian lectures. 32. See Gedaliyah Nigal, “De‘otav shel r[abbi] Y[osef] Yaveខs ‘al filosofiyah u-mitpalsefim, torah u-miខsvot,” Eshel Beer Sheva 1 (1976): 258–87. 33. ’Or ha-ខhayyim, 96. For Abarbanel as the figure to whom Yavetz refers, see A Abravanel, 272 n. 73; Gross, “Yosef Hayyun ve-r[abbi] Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel,” 23 n. 4. 34. For the dictum’s history, see Isadore Twersky, “Li-demuto shel ha-rambam: Masah ‘al ma‘amado ha-yihudi ខ be-toledot yisra’el,” ’Asuppot 10 (1997): 17–20. 35. Septimus, Hispano-Jewish Culture, 39–60. Maimonides’ eschatology was also criticized in his lifetime in the Judeo-Muslim sphere; see Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 43–44. 36. Septimus, Hispano-Jewish Culture, 61–103; Gregg Stern, “Menahem Ha-Meiri and the Second Controversy Over Philosophy” (Ph. D. diss., Harvard University, 1995). These altercations are briefly revisited in Moshe Halbertal, People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 109–19. 37. See Sara Klein-Braslavy, “R. Nissim ben Reuben de Gerone devant la philosophie de son temps,” (Ph. D. diss., Sorbonne, 1972) (p. viii for the characterization of Nissim’s theology as “anti-intellectualist”). For Nissim’s influence, see idem, “Vérité prophétique et vérité philosophique chez Nissim de Gérone: Une interprétation du ‘Récit de la Création’ et du ‘Récit du Char’,” Revue des e´tudes juives 134 (1975): 95–96. The most recent summary of Crescas’s thought is Daniel J. Lasker, “Chasdai Crescas,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Frank and Leaman, 399–414 (for Maimonidean criticism in particular, see pp. 403–4). For Crescas’ influence on Abarbanel’s anti-philosophic argumentation in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, see Chapter 8, p. 210. For Abarbanel’s scores of refer-

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ences to Crescas (not all complimentary), see Aviezer Ravitzky, Derashat ha-pesaខh le-R. A Hasdai Qresqas (Jerusalem: Ha-’aqademiyah ha-le’umit ha-yisra’elit la-mada‘im, 1988), 15 n. 18. 38. Popular interest is attested in Spanish sermonic literature, which is a particularly telling barometer of the ubiquity of philosophic ideas in the wider culture; see Marc Saperstein, “Sermons as Evidence for the Popularization of Philosophy in Fifteenth-Century Spain,” in “Your Voice Like a Ram’s Horn”: Themes and Texts in Traditional Jewish Preaching (Cincinnati: HUC Press, 1996), 75–87. A 39. Gross, Hayyun, 86–89, 115. For the circumstances surrounding David’s exit from Portugal and his subsequent composition, see Hacker, “Qevuខsat ’iggerot,” 70–71. 40. ’Or ha-ខhayyim, 96. 41. Samuel, 271. 42. See the description in SSK, 8v. The ample disquisition on this topic in MN (2: 64v–94v) likely reflects ideas first developed in Maខhazeh shaddai, a work that Netanyahu (Abravanel, 272 n. 72) seems correct in viewing as Portuguese in its inception. (Note, for instance, references to it in Joshua, 8, 16, 32, 54—that is, in a work completed soon after Abarbanel’s arrival in Spain.) 43. SSK, 8v. 44. Joshua, 8, 16, 32, 54; Kings, 479; MY, 293–96. 45. MN, 2:69r. 46. AZ, 22. For further discussion, see my “ ‘The Good We Accept and the Bad We Do Not’: Aspects of Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance Towards Maimonides,” in Isadore Twersky Memorial Volume, ed. Jay M. Harris (forthcoming). 47. “Mikhtav,” 69. 48. AZ, 87. 49. A. R. D. Pagden, “The Diffusion of Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy in Spain, ca. 1400–ca. 1600,” Traditio 31 (1975): 289–91. 50. Sed-Rajna, Manuscrits hébreux de Lisbonne, 54–55. 51. See now Bernard Septimus, “Yitzhak Arama and Aristotle’s Ethics,” in Dor gerush sefarad: koveខs ma’amarim, ed. Yom Tov Assis and Yosef Kaplan (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 1999), 1–24 (English Section). 52. On Lopes see Derek W. Lomax and R. J. Oakley, Fernao Lopes: The English in Portugal 1367–87 (Warminster, England: Aris and Phillips, 1988), v–xxxi. 53. See the subentry on “Portugal” by Jeffrey S. Ruth found in the article on “Humanism” in Encylopedia of the Renaissance, 3:221. 54. Lawrance, “Humanism in the Iberian Peninsula,” 236–37. 55. William D. Phillips and Carla Rahn Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 95, 108, 112; Mayer Kayserling, Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries (New York: G. Dobsevage, 1928), 53–54. 56. See The Book of Privileges Issued to Christopher Columbus by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel, 1492–1502, ed. and trans. by Helen Nader (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 63–69. 57. Jeremiah, 316–17. For habitation of the southern hemisphere, see Genesis, 113. For discussion of the issue by Hayyun without reference to discoveries, see Gross, A Hayyun, 79–80.


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A 58. Maggid mishneh as in Gross, Hayyun, 240, as understood by Gross in “Yosef A Hayyun ve-r[abbi] Yiខshaq ខ ’Abarbanel,” 33. 59. See the citation at the beginning of Chapter 1. 60. Gebhardt, “Regesten,” 37. 61. Joshua, 2–3; Deuteronomy, 3. 62. Joshua, 92; Judges, 161; Samuel, 421. 63. Joshua, 3. 64. See Chapter 1, n. 96. For Karo’s remark, see Kesef mishneh on Mishneh torah, Berakhot 3:8. 65. The Book of Tradition (Sefer Ha-Qabbalah), trans. and ed. Gerson D. Cohen (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1967), 87. 66. ’Or ha-ខhayyim, 8. On Spanish rabbinic learning in the two generations prior to the expulsion, see Israel M. Ta-Shma, “Li-yediyat maខsav limmud ha-torah bi-sefarad beme’ah ha-hamesh-‘esreh,” ខ in Dor gerush sefarad, 47–62. For a view of Aboab as head of one of Spain’s premier academies as held by a contemporary see Marx, “Expulsion,” 250. For his academy see Abraham Gross, “Qavvim le-toledot ha-yeshivot be-qastiliyah beme’ah ha-ខtet-vav,” Pe‘amim 31 (1987): 8. 67. Menahem M. Kasher, Haggadah shelemah (Jerusalem: Makhon Torah Shelemah, 1967), 197. 68. Note as well the (admittedly rather basic) halakhic digest found near the end of the editio princeps of ZP (Constantinople, 1505), with its citation of a variety of legal authorities—a most uncharacteristic couple of pages seen in terms of the rest of Abarbanel’s oeuvre. For ibn Kaspi’s disinclination towards halakhic study, see Twersky, “Joseph Ibn Kaspi,” 255 n. 50. 69. For what follows see Joshua, 13. 70. See Marc Saperstein’s forthcoming study, “The Method of Doubts: Problematizing of the Bible in Late Medieval Jewish Exegesis,” in With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Interpretation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish, and Joseph W. Goering (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming), where the question of possible scholastic roots is treated. 71. See Chapter 5. 72. Reading ‘omqam for ‘amaqim on the basis of the first printed edition (Pesaro, 1511), fol. [5v]. 73. For Nahmanides’ exegesis in relation to Rashi’s and ibn Ezra’s, see Septimus, “Nahmanides,” ខ 17–19. 74. For the notion of the Torah’s “seventy faces” in its rabbinic and medieval development, see Numbers Rabbah 13:15; Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York: Schocken, 1965), 62–63; Hannanel Mack, “Shiv‘im panim la-torah— le-mehalekho shel biខttខui,” in Sefer ha-yovel la-rav Mordekhai Breuer, ed. Moshe BarAsher (Jerusalem: Akademon, 1992), 2:449–62. 75. Samuel, 202–9. 76. The theory recurs in Deuteronomy, 163–71. For the encomium to Naples’s monarchic rulers, see Kings, 423. 77. Samuel, 204–205. 78. Ibid., 171, 181, 184.

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79. Ibid., 295–97. 80. Solomon Gaon, The Influence of the Catholic Theologian Alfonso Tostado on the Pentateuch Commentary of Isaac Abravanel (Hoboken: KTAV, 1993) treats the two exegetes’ relationship. Evidence is adduced only from Abarbanel’s Torah commentaries, however, which were produced in Italy. Still, as printed editions of Tostado’s commentaries began to appear only in Venice in 1507 (Klaus Reinhardt and Horacio SantiagoOtero, Biblioteca b´ıblica ibérica medieval [Madrid: Consejo superior de investigaciones cientificas, 1986], 68–77), it is clear that Abarbanel’s knowledge of Tostado’s ideas predates their appearence in print. It seems best ascribed to the Iberian context where Tostado’s works saw their earliest diffusion. On Tostado’s exegesis, see David Gonzolo Maeso, “Alonso de Madrigal (Tostado) y su labor escrituraria,” Miscelánea de estudios a´ rabes y hebráicos 4 (1955): 143–85. For up-to-date bibliography see Carmen Parrilla, Las çinco figuratas paradoxas / Alfonso Fernández de Madrigal, el Tostado (Alcalá de henares [Madrid]: Universidad de Alcalá, 1998). 81. Above, n. 7. 82. Moses Almosnino, Sefer ma’amaខs ko’aខh (Venice, 1588), 117. The translation is otherwise unknown. 83. ME, 129; Deuteronomy, 222 (with Leiman, “Abarbanel and the Censor,” 58); Abraham Melamed, “R. Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel ve-ha-politiqah le-’aristo—deramah shel ta‘uyot,” Daat 29 (1992): 69–81; idem, “ ‘Ha-politiqah’ le-’aristo be-mahashavah ខ hayehudit bi-yemei habenayim u-ve-tequfat ha-renesans,” Pe‘amim 51 (1992): 48–58; Frank Talmage, “So Teach Us to Number Our Days: A Theology of Longevity in Jewish Exegetical Literature,” in Aging and the Aged in Medieval Europe, ed. Michael M. Sheehan (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990), 51. 84. For a detailed account of Abarbanel’s full-throated attack on Gersonides’ interpretation of Josh. 10, see Menachem Marc Kellner, “Gersonides and His Cultured Despisers: Arama and Abravanel,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (1976): 269–92. For the relation of Abarbanel’s reading to others on the wide spectrum of medieval Jewish philosophically informed opinion regarding this biblical narrative, see Dov Schwartz, “Ha-’umnam ‘amedah lo hamah ខ li-yehoshua‘? Pereq be-torat ha-nes befilosofiyah ha-yehudit shel yemei ha-benayim,” Daat 42 (1999): 33–62 (for Abarbanel’s approach, see pp. 57–58). See also, more generally, Isaac Barzilay, Between Reason and Faith: Anti-Rationalism in Italian Jewish Thought 1250–1650 (The Hague-Paris: Mouton & Co., 1967), 94–109. 85. Joshua, 53; NA, 370. Cf. ’Avot 5:22: “. . . she-’en lakh middah ខtovah hemenna.” 86. R. G. Keightley, “Alfonso de Madrigal and the Chronici Canones of Eusebius,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 7 (1977): 225–51. 87. The question of dating naturally depends on that of definition, a controverted issue; see Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, 1:170–89; idem, Readers and Books in Majorca 1229–1550, 2 vols. (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1991), 1:117– 18; Ottavio Di Camillo, “Humanism in Spain,” in Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, 3 vols., Albert Rabil, Jr. ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), vol. 2, Humanism Beyond Italy, 3, 59. 88. R. B. Tate, Ensayos sobre la historiograf´ıa peninsular del siglo XV (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1970), 280–96.


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89. See, for new posts, Di Camillo, “Humanism,” 61. For Cartagena, see idem, El Humanismo Castellano del Siglo XV (Valencia: F. Torres, 1976), 137–93 (though not all share Di Camillo’s assessment of Cartagena as a humanist; for a balanced discussion see Lawrance, “Humanism in the Iberian Peninsula,” 223–25). For Margarit as the first practitioner of Spanish humanist historiography, see the entry by Jesús Carrillo on “Spanish Historiography” in Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, 3:182. 90. For Alfonso V as conduit, see the entry on him by Robert I. Burns, S.J. in Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, 1:43–44. For S´ıculo, see Erika Rummel, “Marineo S´ıculo: A Protagonist of Humanism in Spain,” Renaissance Quarterly 50 (1997): 701–22. 91. See P. E. Russell, “Fifteenth-Century Lay Humanism,” in Spain: A Companion to Spanish Studies, 237; Di Camillo, “Humanism,” 75–78, and the entry on “Spanish Literature and Language” by Elias L. Rivers in Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, 6:68. 92. Cantero Burgos, “Algunas precisiones,” 242. 93. Helen Nader, The Mendoza Family in the Spanish Renaissance, 1350–1550 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1979), 115–19; Lawrence, “Humanism,” 229. 94. Di Camillo, “Humanism,” 76, 94 n. 3, 100 n. 66; Nader, Mendoza, 95–97. 95. See Chapter 7. A 96. Hagigah 11b, 13a. A TK, A 73r. 97. TL 98. ZP, 3. 99. Hacker, “Qevuខsat ’iggerot,” 76–77, 94. 100. “Mikhtav le-ha-rav R. Meir ben-ha-rav R. Yiខshaq ខ ‘Aramah,” Ha-maggid 2 (1858): 99, reproduced in Sarah Heler-Vilenski, R. Yiខshខ aq ‘Aramah u-mishnato (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1956), 52–53. For David ben Judah Messer Leon’s similar charge of plagiarism, see immediately below, n. 102. My “Retrospective and Opportunity” (see above, Introduction n. 4) lists later accusers (and seeks [pp. 228–29] to justify the quotation marks around the word plagiarism in the formulation here). 101. Hava Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds: The Life and Thought of Rabbi David Ben Judah Messer Leon (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), 24–33 and literature cited there. 102. Israelitische Letterbode 12 (1886–87): 88; Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds, 269 n. 112. 103. Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds, 300 n. 118. 104. Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy, trans. Jonathan Chipman (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1993), 44–52. 105. NA, 377. On David’s critique of Spanish debasement of the rabbinic title, see Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds, 102–3. For links with the doctorate, see Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities, 86; idem, “Aliens Within: The Jews and Antijudaism,” in Handbook of European History, 1400–1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Heiko Oberman, and James D. Tracy (Leiden: Eerdmans, 1994), vol. 1, Structures and Assertions, 284–86. 106. NA, 371. 107. For Duran’s critique, see Ma‘aseh ’efod (1865; photo-offset, Jerusalem: Makor, 1970), 41. For Abarbanel’s familiarity with it, see Joshua 4, 57; Judges, 137. 108. See Chapter 6.

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109. YM, 39v. 110. For which, see Septimus, Hispano-Jewish Culture, 64–65. 111. SSK, 6v. 112. Isaac Rabinowitz, “Pre-Modern Jewish Study of Rhetoric: An Introductory Bibliography,” Rhetorica 3 (1985): 137. A recent study is Robert Bonfil, “The Book of the Honeycomb’s Flow by Judah Messer Leon: The Rhetorical Dimension of Jewish Humanism in Fifteenth-Century Italy,” in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume, 2:21–33. 113. For David, see Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds, 48–49. For Yohanan, see the recently published Hay Ha-‘olamim (L’Immortale) Parte I: la Rhetorica, ed. Fabrizio Lelli (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1995). 114. Jeremiah, 297–98. See further on this subject in Chapter 7. 115. On Valla see Jerry H. Bentley, Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 32–69. 116. Carol Kidwell, Pontano. Poet and Prime Minister (London: Duckworth, 1991). See also Jerry H. Bentley, Politics and Culture in Renaissance Naples (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 127–34. 117. Bentley, Politics and Culture, 56–57, 68, 82; Abulafia, “Role of the Jews,” 39–42. 118. This formulation, as opposed to one that speaks of Jewish scholars “influenced” by the Renaissance, follows Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 168. 119. For Alemanno’s connection to Pico, see Fabrizio Lelli, “Yohanan Alemanno, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola e la cultura ebraica italiana del XV secolo,” in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Convegno internazionale di studi nel cinquecentesimo anniversario della morte (1494–1994), ed. Gian Carlo Garfagnini (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1997), 303–25. For Elijah’s, see Jacob Ross’s introduction to del Medigo’s Sefer beខhinat ha-dat (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1984), 30–33 and, more recently, Kalman P. Bland, “Elijah del Medigo’s Averroist Response to the Kabbalahs of Fifteenth-Century Jewry and Pico Della Mirandola,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 1 (1991): 3–53. 120. SSK, 6r. 121. David B. Ruderman, “The Italian Renaissance and Jewish Thought,” in Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, vol. 1, Humanism in Italy, 407–11. 122. See Moshe Idel, “Qabbalah u-filosofiyah qedumah ’eខsel R. Yiខshaq ខ ve-Yehudah ’Abravanel,” in Filosofiyat ha-’ahavah shel Yehudah ’Abarbanel, ed. Menahem Dorman and Zevi Levi (Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1985), 74–86; idem, “The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the Kabbalah in the Renaissance,” in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Bernard Dov Cooperman (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 1983), 213–15, 226–27; and idem, “Ha-perush ha-magi ve-ha-te’urgi shel ha-musiqah be-ខteqsខtim yehudiyyim mi-tequfat ha-renesans ve-‘ad ha-hasidut,” ខ Yuval 4 (1982): 42–45. On Solomon as model of the perfect Renaissance sage, see, for Alemanno, Arthur M. Lesley, “Jewish Adaptation of Humanist Concepts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Italy,” in Renaissance Rereadings: Intertext and Context, ed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Anne J. Cruz, and Wendy A. Furman (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1988), 62, and for Abarbanel, Kings, 466–78 (cf. Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds, 279 n. 57). For Alemanno’s stint as scholar in residence of the da Pisa, see ibid., 47. 123. Moshe Idel, “Encounters Between Spanish and Italian Kabbalists in the Generation of the Expulsion,” in Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World 1391–1648, 206– 207.


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124. Yael Nadav, “ ‘Iggeret ha-meqqubal r[abbi] Yiខshaq ខ Mar Hayyim ‘al torat ha-ខsahខ ខ sahot,” ខ Tarbiខz 26 (1957): 458. 125. For Elijah’s critique of ‘Aខteret zeqenim, see the end of Chapter 3. On Elijah’s kabbalism and critique of philosophy, see Roland Goetschel, “Elie Hayyim de Genazzano et la Kabbale,” Revue des e´tudes juives 142 (1983): 91–108; Alexander Altmann, A “Me-‘al li-gevul ha-filosofiyah: demuto shel ha-meqqubal R. ’Eliyah Hayyim Genazzano,” MYMY 7 (1988): 61–101. 126. See Chapter 3. A 127. Gross, Hayyun, 81–82, 164 n. 53. 128. SSK, 12v. Idel, “Kabbalah u-filosofiyah qedumah”; idem, “Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations,” 226–27. 129. See Chapter 3. 130. Idel, “Encounters,” 207. 131. Deuteronomy, 49; Ezekiel, 439; Genesis, 115. 132. See Chapter 5. 133. Jean-Pierre Rothschild, “Scientia bifrons: Les ambivalences de la ’hokhmâh (sapientia/scientia) dans la pensée juive du moyen aˆ ge occidental après Ma¨ımonide,” Miscellanea Mediaevalia 22 (1994), 2 vols., 2:673. 134. See, e.g., the citation from Joseph Garcon’s Ben Porat Yosef in Hacker, “Lidemutam ha-ruhanit,” ខ 54 n. 166. 135. See Chapter 6, p. 157. 136. For the plan to write this work in Naples, see Kings, 425. For its description, see MY, 288. 137. Robert Bonfil, “Jewish Attitudes Toward History and Historical Writing in PreModern Times,” Jewish History 11 (1997): 7–40. 138. Abraham A. Neuman, “The Shebet Yehudah and Sixteenth Century Historiography,” in Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume (New York: American Academy of Jewish Research, 1945), 257. 139. Abravanel, 75. 140. Joshua, 6. See generally Ram Ben-Shalom, “Dimmui ha-tarbut ha-noខserit betoda‘ah ha-hisខtorit shel yehudei sefarad u-provens (ha-me’ot ha-shtem-‘esreh ‘ad ha-hamesh-‘esreh)” ខ (Ph. D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 1996). 141. On which see Frank Ephraim Talmage, Kitvei pulmus le-Profet Duran (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 1981), 11. For Abarbanel’s reference to the work, see YM, 46r–v. 142. For the work’s description, see SSK, 8v. For the reconstructed first part, see Leviticus, 163. 143. See Menachem Kellner, Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought: From Maimonides to Abravanel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 83–155. 144. For an overview of salient features, see Kellner’s introduction to RA, 3–35. The external circumstances surrounding the work’s composition help to explain why “[t]he book gives every indication of having been written hastily” (Principles of Faith [Rosh ’Amanah], trans. Menachem Marc Kellner [Rutherford: Associated University Presses, 1983], 13). 145. RA, 146, 153. The novelty of Abarbanel’s argument is sharpened when seen in light of Joseph Hayyun’s failure to disavow the concept of “fundamental principles”; see A Gross, Hayyun, 152 n. 49.

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146. RA, 144. 147. Isaiah, 4–5. (Another biblical figure with whom Abarbanel shared an a priori identification is Joseph.) For resurrection, see Isaiah, 3–16. For the conversos, see the references in B. Netanyahu, The Marranos of Spain from the Late 14th to the Early 16th Century According to Contemporary Hebrew Sources (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1966), 179 n. 100, 180 nn. 104–105, 191 n. 127. For the suffering servant, see Isaiah, 241–53, reproduced and translated in The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters, 2 vols., trans. S. R. Driver and Ad. Neubauer (1877; photo-offset, New York: KTAV, 1969), 2:153–97. 148. Deuteronomy, 3–4. For the possibility that the agent of Abarbanel’s good fortune was a refugee from Spain arrived in Corfu, see Dorman, “Introduction,” 64. 149. SSK, 2v. 150. ZP, 5. For interpretation of this passage and its larger context within the framework of immediate postexpulsion Hebrew literature, see Abraham Gross, “Gerush sefarad ve-yeខsiratam ha-sifrutit shel ha-megorashim,” Pe‘amim 75 (1998): 79–80. 151. Abarbanel presents the three messianic works as parts of a larger whole in SSK, 8r. As far as I know, he did not depict them as such during the period of their composition. Still, modern scholars typically speak of a “messianic trilogy,” employing the coinage of Simon Bernstein, Shomerei ha-ខhomot (Tel Aviv: Mitzpeh, 1938), 15. 152. See, e.g., the reference to Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah in RA, 105, a reference that could not have been included in the first version of the dogmatic tract. 153. SSK, 8v. 154. NA, 7, 10. The heavy Iberian presence in pre-1492 ’Avot commentators emerges from the list in Michael A. Shmidman, “An Excerpt from the Abot Commentary of R. Mattathias Ha-Yizhari,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature I, 315. For ongoing interest in ’Avot among Spanish exiles, see Joseph Hacker, “The Intellectual Activity of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 1987), 112–14. 155. NA, 34. 156. Ibid. Judah Abarbanel would later laud this innovation of his father in the poem he would compose in honor of the work’s printing in 1505; “Gedichte,” 17 l. 5. 157. NA, 94–125. 158. Mishnah ‘im perush rabbenu Moshe ben Maimon, ed. Yosef Kapah, ខ 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1965), Neziqin, 247. 159. NA, 32. 160. Ibid., 126–27. 161. On ibn Musa’s no longer extant Sha‘ar ha-ye‘udim, see David Kaufmann, “MikhA tav ha-rav Hayyim ibn Musa li-veno,” Bet talmud (1882) (reprinted in ibn Musa’s Sefer magen va-romaខh [Jerusalem: Akademon, 1971], 116). For Albo, see Sefer ha-‘iqqarim, 5 vols., ed. Isaac Husik (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1930), 4:437–40. 162. See Chapter 1, pp. 21–22. For continuity in this respect between the pre- and postexpulsion periods see Hacker, “Ha-ye’ush,” 195–213. 163. YM, 4r. 164. See Chapter 4.


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165. SSK, 8r. 166. MY, 247. 167. Ibid., 414–15. 168. Ibid., 247. For retreats see YM, 15r, 23v, 51r. 169. Mash., 429. 170. MY, 351. Abba Hillel Silver, A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel (Boston: Beacon, 1927), 119–125 offers a full account of Abarbanel’s messianic calculations. For the status of Daniel, see MY, 290–293; cf. Megillah 3a; Guide, II, 45 (Pines, 400). For 1503 as a widespread date shared cross-culturally, see Ruderman, “Hope Against Hope,” 303, 307. 171. Abravanel, 286 n. 59. 172. See Chapter 6. 173. Sefer ha-‘iqqarim, 4:423; Mash, 425. 174. Mash, 425. 175. See Chapter 6. For a fuller exposition, see my “The Messianism of Isaac Abarbanel, ‘Father of the [Jewish] Messianic Movements of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’,” in Jewish Messianism in the Early Modern Period, ed. Richard H. Popkin and Matthew Goldish (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer, in press). 176. Guide, II, 25 (Pines, 328). 177. In the formulation of the fourth principle known to medievals, Maimonides stressed the Deity’s ontological rather than temporal priority; see Kellner, Dogma, 54– 57, 240 n. 211. 178. MN, 2:9r. A introduction. 179. SH, 180. ME, 108–9. 181. Seymour Feldman, “R. Isaac Abravanel’s Defense of Creation Ex Nihilo,” in Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division C (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1994), 2:36–37. 182. See the colophon to Escorial MS G-I-11. Hazketto was the first to suggest that “reason dictated” that Abarbanel, having interpreted Isaiah, turned next to Jeremiah, Ezekiel and only subsequently to the “Minor Prophets,” and this view has become standard (see Ruiz, Don Isaac Abrabanel y su commentario al libro de Amos, cxxxiii n. 489, for references). Incidentally, this chronological revision undermines the evolutionary reading of Abarbanel’s attitude towards conversos proposed in Netanyahu, The Marranos of Spain, 177–203 (especially 200–201). 183. On which see Chapter 7, p. 189. Abarbanel speaks of books written prior to the conquest of Canaan, ones written after it but before the exile, and postexilic works. Having completed Isaiah, it was natural to turn to other preexilic prophets (and, having begun a commentary on the Minor Prophets in this manner, to treat the postexilic segment of this corpus) before tackling Jeremiah and Ezekiel. For this idea, see Gregorio Ruiz, “Las introducciones y cuestiones de don Isaac Abrabanel,” in Simposio Biblico Español, ed. N. Fernandez Marcos, J. Trebolle Barrera, and J. Fernandez Vallina (Madrid: Universidad complutense, 1984), 712. 184. Mash, 513; Ezekiel, 521. For more on this astrological portent, see Chapter 6. 185. On the problem of the Deuteronomy commentary see my “Retrospective and Opportunity,” p. 242, n. 70.

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186. SSK, 8r. (The larger phrase kol ma‘ayenai ve-yedi‘otai appears to contain a typographical error, perhaps due to Abarbanel’s reference to ma‘ayenei ha-yeshu‘ah a few lines later. The original may have read kol ‘iyyunai ve-yedi‘otai.) 187. Netanyahu (Abravanel, 85) tells of Abarbanel’s desire to complete his unfinished historical work but Abarbanel does not. 188. SSK, 8v. 189. For the query, see ibid., 3v. For the work, see MQ. 190. SSK, 20r, for disagreement regarding the “corporeal form” with which commentators had invested Aristotle’s notion of “first matter.” 191. Ibid., 11v. 192. For the same formula (“the good we accept . . .”) in the early recension of Abarbanel’s Deuteronomy commentary, see Regev, “Nusahខ rishon,” 379 (there applied to, among others, the rabbinic sages). 193. SSK, 11v. 194. See Collette Sirat, History of Jewish Philosophy, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 180–203. 195. Jewish National and University Library, MS Heb. 8⬚ 1116, 21v. 196. MQ, 26r. 197. SSK, 8v.

Chapter 3. “To the Help of the Lord Against the Mighty”: ‘Aខteret Zeqenim 1. MS Russian State Library, Günzburg 572 (⳱ film no. 47826 at the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library) bears the date 1469 (p. 69r) in the same hand as the version of ‘Aខteret zeqenim which appears therein (pp. 74v–106v), making this the work’s terminus ad quem. The work was first printed in Sabbionetta in 1557. Subsequent editions are Amsterdam (1739), Lemberg (1859), and Warsaw (1894). A check of the editio princeps and various manuscripts at the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts in Jerusalem yielded no significant variants from the text in the Warsaw edition herein cited for the sections of the work with which I am concerned. 2. There is, then, an element of irony implicit in the work’s title, drawn as it is from a verse that depicts a wholly idyllic picture of the relationship between generations. Whether this is an intended irony is hard to say, given that the phrase has been removed from its scriptural context. The work’s introduction—being largely a pastiche of verses artfully woven together to express Abarbanel’s thoughts—presents the same interpretive difficulty at well-nigh every turn. For this sort of challenge in interpreting A “mosaic style” in medieval Hebrew poetry, see Dan Pagis, Hiddush u-masoret be-shirat ha-ខhol (Jerusalem: Keter, 1976), 70–77. 3. See Chapter 2, n. 30. 4. I owe this phrase to Arnold Eisen, “The Search for Authority in TwentiethCentury Judaism,” in Religion and the Authority of the Past, ed. Tobin Siebers (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 250. 5. AZ, 4, 22.


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6. Ibid., 3. 7. Ibid. The work can be divided into five sections. In the first three, Abarbanel raises questions concerning the verses in the pericope under investigation (chapters 1– 10), sets forth propositions that he will use to answer them (chapters 11–14), and proposes solutions to the difficulties enumerated (chapters 15–22). In the last two, he rebuts Maimonides’ interpretation of Exod. 24:11 (chapters 23–24) and discourses on the unique qualities of the Jewish people (chapter 25). Chapters 8, 19, 23, and 24 are the only ones to touch on the problem of the nobles, and the first of these alone deals with this issue directly. 8. Leviticus Rabbah 20:10. 9. See, e.g, in addition to the passage just cited, Numbers Rabbah 15:24; Midrash tanខhuma, Beha‘lotekha 16. For an overview of rabbinic and later interpretations, see Menahem M. Kasher, Torah shelemah, 43 vols. (New York: American Biblical Encyclopedia Society, 1949–92), 14:272–73. 10. AZ, 1. Abarbanel embeds the charge in a pun on 1 Kings 17:4 (yom tet ’adonai geshem), employing the concluding word of this biblical phrase in its medieval philosophic sense of “body.” 11. Guide, I, 5 (Pines, 30). 12. AZ, 1. 13. Ibid., 2. 14. Guide, introduction (Pines, 15–16). Cf. ’Avot 1:6. 15. Guide, I, 5 (Pines, 30). 16. Early in the introduction, the nobles’ detractors are described as ones who judge the nobles unfavorably (yadinu le-khaf hខ ovah). Now Abarbanel appeals to the most formidable among the medieval naysayers to support his contention that the nobles should be judged in the opposite manner (le-khaf zekhut). 17. AZ, 2. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., 2–3. Abarbanel plays on Maimonides’ famous formulation in the opening sentences of Guide, II, 25 as rendered in Samuel ibn Tibbon’s translation: lo’ sha‘arei haperush setumim be-fanenu. 20. See Chapter 4. Abarbanel’s argument permitting rejection of midrashic views of the nobles is strengthened by the fact that these are not only divergent but wholly conflicting (“some interpreting . . . positively . . . some negatively”). It seems clear, however, that Abarbanel regards mere multiplicity of opinion as a sufficient condition allowing for dissent. Cf. the commentary of David Kimhi to Josh. 3:2 in Miqra’ot gedolot ha-keter, vol. 1, Sefer yehoshua‘—sefer shofetim, ed. Menachem Cohen (Ramat-Gan: BarIlan University, 1992), 11. 21. AZ, 3. Abarbanel puns on his first name through invocation of Gen. 21:6—kol ha-shomea‘ yiខsaខhaq li). A 22. Cf. Hullin 7a: “My fathers have left me room whereby I might distinguish (lehitgadder) myself.” Abarbanel would later summon this talmudic dictum to buttress his claim that books should be written without fear that earlier authorities had said all there was to say; Jeremiah, 297. For invocations of the same by predecessors of Abarbanel see, e.g., Menahem Meiri, Bet ha-beខhirah, Berakhot (Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-talmud ha-yisraeli ha-shalem, 1964), 23; Hanokh ben Shelomo al-Constantini, Marot ’elohim, ed.

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Colette Sirat (Jerusalem: n.p., 1976), 22; Anselm Astruc, Midreshei torah, ed. Shimon Eppenstein (Berlin: T. H. Ittskovski, 1899), 202. For invocations by fifteenth-century Iberian contemporaries see, for Abarbanel’s teacher Joseph Hayyun, “Ma’amar A A la-hakham ខ ha-nizkar [R. Yosef Hayyun] ‘al het ខ Mosheh ve-’Aharon” in Gross, Hayyun, 216; Abraham Saba, ’Eshkol ha-kofer ‘al megillat rut (Bartfeld: Yosef Meir Blayer, 1907), 21r. 23. Abarbanel grafts a phrase from Psalms 115:13 onto the end of this Mosaic proclamation in order to underscore that the covenant embraces all, “the lesser and greater.” Cf. the similar full and emphatic declaration of the duty to innovate made by Eliezer Ashkenazi based on other Mosaic statements found in Deuteronomy (29:13–14) in Ma‘aseh ’adonai, 2 vols. (1871; photo-offset, Jerusalem: Ozar ha-sefarim, 1972), 2:75v. 24. Cf. ‘Eruvin 53a: “The hearts [i.e., minds] of the earlier ones (rishonim) are like the door of the ’ulam [a Temple chamber the door of which was twenty cubits wide] and that of the later ones (’aខharonim) like the door of the hekhal [a smaller chamber, the door of which was ten cubits wide] but ours are like the eye of a fine needle.” The implication is that criticism of one’s predecessors is never legitimate. For invocation of this passage to a similar end by an older contemporary of Abarbanel, see Jean-Christophe Attias, Le commentaire biblique: Mordekhai Komtino ou l’herméneutique du dialogue (Paris: Cerf, 1991), 154. 25. AZ, 3. 26. For the attribution to Bernard, see John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, ed. C. C. J. Webb (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929), 136. Ample secondary literature on this maxim can be found in Jacqueline T. Miller, Poetic License: Authority and Authorship in Medieval and Renaissance Contexts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 178–82 nn. 1, 5, and 16. My presentation of the dictum’s purport concurs with Miller’s (179 n. 5) in seeing here a “double-edged” analogy even in its medieval usages—i.e., as conveying a sense of modern superiority in addition to an assertion of ancient greatness. 27. Shnayer Z. Leiman, “Dwarfs on the Shoulders of Giants,” Tradition 27 (1993): 93–94 n. 10. It has been assumed that the image was introduced into Hebrew literature by Isaiah of Trani the Elder; Teshuvot ha-Rid, ed. Abraham J. Wertheimer (Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-talmud ha-yisraeli ha-shalem, 1967) no. 61 (translated in Leiman, “Dwarfs,” 91–92). Cf., however, Avraham Melamed, “Li-meqorotav shel dimmui he-hagav ve-ha‘anaqim be-‘nedod hesir ’oni’ le-rabbi ’Avraham ibn ‘Ezra,” Meខhqerei yerushalayim besifrut ‘ivrit 13 (1992): 95–102. For analysis of the parable, see Isadore Twersky, “The Contribution of Italian Sages to Rabbinic Literature,” in Italia Judaica: Atti del I convegno internazionale Bari, 396–97 and Miller, Poetic License, 9–20. 28. As attested, for example, by its usage (to be added to Leiman’s list) in Abraham Bivagch’s Derekh ’emunah II-6 (noted in Alan Lazaroff, The Theology of Abraham Bibago: A Defense of the Divine Will, Knowledge, and Providence in Fifteenth-Century SpanishJewish Philosophy [University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1981], 3). 29. More could be said about the introduction’s rhetoric, which at times tempers the substance of Abarbanel’s argument (as here, where deferential rhetoric softens otherwise forceful assertions of independence) and at times reinforces his point (as when, wishing to emphasize the impudence implicit in condemnation of the nobles, Abarbanel repeatedly alludes to their venerableness and wisdom):


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hbc kf ,nfjn unfj rat uhryau ogv hbez ieuzn uscf otv / / / ovc ,pxu,b vnfj ohbhezna sug kf ohnfj / / / ose AZ, 2 On yet other occasions, Abarbanel’s diction gives the ostensibly deferential sharp bite, as when he speaks of the “great men of old who have pursued (radefu) the nobles of the people.” The negative connotations of “pursuer” are evoked even as those said to have engaged in the activity are described as “great men.” Deference is laced with rebuke. 30. The key passage reads: ,dav lrgn ,kpufn vkupf o,davk h,dav xjh hf /oc rcs ohvkt jur rat ohkhmtv ,davk ovhkfa AZ, 3 31. Ibid. 32. See above, n. 7. 33. Which Abarbanel himself delineates; AZ, 4–5. 34. See Saul Regev, “Re’iyat ’aខsilei benei yisra’el be-filosofiyah ha-yehudit bi-yemei ha-benayim,” MYMY 4 (1984): 281–302. 35. See Samuel ibn Zarza’s understanding of “forcing the end,” cited in Dov Schwartz, “Ha-‘neខtralizaខsiyah’ shel he-re‘ayon ha-meshihi ខ bi-sekhaltanut ha-yehudit biyemei ha-benayim,” Hebrew Union College Annual 64 (1993): 40 (Hebrew section). 36. Regev, “Re’iyat ’aខsilei benei yisra’el,” 298–302. A 37. “Perush la-hakham ខ ha-nizkar [R. Yosef Hayyun] be-farashat beha‘alotekha . . .” A as in Gross, Hayyun, 203. 38. Abarbanel would continue to associate the rabbinic and Maimonidean critiques; see Numbers, 48–49, where Maimonidean language is used in relating the midrashic view of the nobles. 39. Guide, I, 5 (Pines, 30). 40. Zev Harvey, “Keខsad le-hathil ខ lilmod ’et moreh ha-nevukhim h[eleq] ខ ’aleph p[ereq] ’aleph,” Daat 21 (1988): 22 n. 6. For elaboration on the case of Elisha, see Sara Stroumsa, “Elisha Ben Abuyah and Muslim Heretics in Maimonides’ Writings,” Maimonidean Studies 3 (1992–93): 175–81. 41. For a recent study of this aspect of Maimonidean thought, see Zev Harvey, “‘Gadol kohan ខ shel nevi’im’,” Daat 37 (1996): 53–61. 42. John Herman Randall, Jr., Aristotle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 207–18. For prime matter in the Guide, see Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, Maimonides and St. Thomas on the Limits of Reason (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995), 74–76. 43. Cf. Guide, II, 26 and III, 4. An undiscerning or even careful reader might easily miss the relationship of these chapters to the nobles’ vision, not only because the vision is mentioned only fleetingly therein but also because they appear long after Maimonides’ explicit exposition of the nobles’ vision in Guide, I, 5 and I, 28. 44. AZ, 23. I have been unable to locate the interpretation here cited in Narboni’s name. To compound the difficulty, Abarbanel suggests in MN (1:22r) that Narboni’s interpretation accords with his own view as developed in ‘Aខteret zeqenim and his Commentary on the Guide. Maurice R. Hayoun, Moshe Narboni (Tübingen: J. B. Mohr, 1986),

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98, mentions these references to Narboni but does not enlighten as regards the location of the interpretation here ascribed to Narboni by Abarbanel. 45. Cf. Guide, II, 4 (Pines, 258): “The relation of the Active Intellect to the elements and that which is composed of them is similar to the relation obtaining between every separate intellect particularly related to a sphere and that sphere.” The implication is that, as the intellects move the spheres to which they are related, so the Active Intellect moves the elements, which ultimately derive from “first matter.” This understanding accords precisely with that which Narboni—in Abarbanel’s version of him— ascribes to the nobles. 46. Guide, III, 29 (Pines, 514–15). 47. Joseph ibn Kaspi, ‘Amudei khesef, in Sheloshah qadmonei mefareshei ha-moreh (Jerusalem: Ortsel, 1961), 20. 48. MN, 1:21r. 49. AZ, 23. 50. Ibid. 51. SSK, 18r–18v. Cf. Harry A. Wolfson, Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929), 99, 579–90; Arthur Hyman, “Aristotle’s ‘First Matter’ and Avicenna’s and Averroes’ ‘Corporeal Form’,” Essays in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy, ed. Arthur Hyman (New York: KTAV, 1977), 335–406. 52. AZ, 23. For the passage in Guide, I, 28, see Pines, 61. 53. AZ, 24. 54. Ibid., 26. 55. Ibid., 24–25. 56. MN, 1:21r–22r. 57. Cf. Guide, II, 4. The spheres express their desire by seeking to emulate the higher beings; this they do by performing the most perfect action possible. The spheres being corporeal, this action takes the form of the most perfect action of which a body is capable, which is perpetual circular motion. 58. AZ, 25. 59. Ibid., 26. 60. ’Avot 6:2. 61. See Chapter 2, p. 32. 62. AZ, 70. See, for the philosophic usage, e.g., Samuel ibn Tibbon, Perush ha-millot ha-zarot, s.vv. ’ekhut and ‘eខsem; Jacob Klatzkin, ’Oខsar ha-munaខhim ha-filosofiyim, 3 vols. (Berlin: [Eshkol], 1928–33), 3:154. 63. AZ, 70. 64. Ibid., 68. 65. Ibid., 71. 66. To support the contention already found in Guide, II, 41 that “God’s hand” at times refers to prophecy, Abarbanel adduces Ezek. 37:1 and 40:1, both of which contain the expression “the hand of the Lord was upon me.” Nonetheless, the application of the Maimonidean notion here is, on strict exegetical grounds, hard to accept. Though “yad” refers to prophecy on a few occasions in the Bible, the idiom shalaខh yad (followed usually by the preposition be but, as in Exod. 24:11, occasionally by other prepositions) almost exclusively means “to stretch forth one’s hand against.” Of course, it is this standard


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significance of the idiom that prompts the rabbinic interpretation of the nobles that Abarbanel seeks to overturn (“He laid not His hand,” whence it may be inferred that they “were deserving that [His] hand should be laid on them”). Two of Abarbanel’s contemporaries, Isaac Arama (‘Aqedat yiខshខ aq, 6 vols., ed. H. J. Pollak [1849; reprint, Jerusalem: Books Export, 1960], 2:147v) and Abraham Saba (A Seror ha-mor [Benei Berak: n.p., 1991], 343), also read “hand” as a reference to prophecy in this verse. Though not unprecedented in the medieval Hebrew commentary tradition (see, e.g., Joseph ibn Kaspi, Maខseref la-khesef in Mishneh kesef [Cracow: Y. Fischer, 1905], 214; Aaron Aboulrabi, Perushim le-Rashi [Constantinople, 1625], on Exod. 24:11; Leqaខh tov, cited in Kasher, Torah shelemah, 273, no. 101), these contemporaries might have adopted this interpretation under Abarbanel’s influence. If so, we would—given ‘Aខteret zeqenim’s early date—have an instance of Arama borrowing from Abarbanel as opposed to the usual reverse situation (see above, Chapter 2, n. 100.). 67. Kit¯ab al-radd wa-’l-dal¯ıl fi-’l-d¯ın al-dhal¯ıl (Al-kit¯ab al-Khazar¯ı), ed. David H. Baneth, prepared for publication by Haggai Ben-Shammai (Jerusalem: Magnes Press / The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1977), 163. Far more than Halevi however—and very much in a Maimonidean vein—Abarbanel is at pains in ‘Aខteret zeqenim to retain the distinct qualitative superiority of Mosaic prophecy over that of all others, including the elders. 68. AZ, 71. 69. For elaboration, see Menachem Kellner, “Maimonides on the Science of the Mishneh Torah: Provisional or Permanent?,” AJS Review 18 (1993): 180–81. 70. On the chapter’s teaching and place in the overall structure of the Guide, see Leo Strauss, “How to Begin To Study The Guide of the Perplexed,” in Guide, trans. Pines, 1:xxviii (whose understanding of the chapter’s main concern differs from Abarbanel’s; cf. MN, 1:21r). On the pertinence of the chapter’s teaching to the official addressee of the Guide, Joseph ben Judah, see Joel L. Kraemer, “Maimonides on Aristotle and Scientific Method,” in Moses Maimonides and His Time, ed. Eric L. Ormsby (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 56–59. See most recently on this chapter, Sara Klein-Braslavy, Shelomo ha-melekh ve-ha-’esoខserizem ha-filosofi be-mishnat ha-rambam (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1997), 142–45. 71. Guide, I, 5 (Pines, 29). 72. MN, 1:22v. 73. Though not always elsewhere in this work; see, e.g., MN, 1:26v and the lengthy critique of Maimonidean prophetology in MN, 2:69r–70r. 74. Ibid., 1:22v. 75. Ibid., 1:55r. 76. Be’ur la-moreh as in Sheloshah qadmonei mefareshei ha-moreh, 3. Duran presumably borrowed his line of interpretation from Narboni as was his wont, though he never cites Narboni by name (Hayoun, Moshe Narboni, 89–91). 77. MN, 1:22v. 78. Exodus, 231. 79. For treatment of this question and its cognates by Maimonides and his interlocutors, including Abarbanel, see Saul Regev, “Hitgalut qoleqខtivit u-ma‘amad har sinai ’eខsel ha-rambam u-mefareshav,” MYMY 4 (1985): 251–65.

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80. MN, 1:22v. 81. An argument clarified at its deepest theoretical level through reference to Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1950), 83–84. 82. Exodus, 170–72; cf. Feldman, “Crisis,” 40–41. 83. Abravanel, 15–17. 84. See my “Isaac Abarbanel’s Intellectual Biography in Light of His Portuguese Writings,” in Yahadut portugal be-mifneh ha-‘idan he-ខhadash, ed. Yom-Tov Assis (Jerusalem: Magnes Press forthcoming). 85. AZ, 84. 86. Ibid., 83–84. 87. Ibid. 88. Ibid., 82–83. 89. Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 136–44, where other medieval conceptions of the sefirot are discusssed as well. 90. Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah (Jerusalem: Dorset, 1974), 101. 91. Efraim Gottlieb, “Ha-qabbalah be-khitvei r[abbi] Yosef Gikatiliah u-ve-sefer ma‘arekhet ha-’elohut,” in Meខhqarim be-sifrut ha-qabbalah, ed. Yosef Hacker (Tel Aviv: Chaim Rosenberg School for Jewish Studies, 1976), 294. 92. Idel, Kabbalah, 143; idem, “Te’arim ve-sefirot be-te’ologiyah ha-yehudit,” in Meខhqarim be-hagut yehudit, ed. Sara O. Heler-Villenski and Moshe Idel (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1989), 87–111. esp. 94–98. As posed by medieval philosophers, the question of divine attributes—i.e., how can an essentially unknowable God be spoken about in a meaningful way—is traceable to Philo. See Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947), 2:149–51. 93. Duran, Kelimat ha-goyyim in Kitvei pulmus, 12. 94. Guide, I, 52, 56 (Pines, 114–19; 130–47). 95. For a summary, see Alexander Altmann, “The Divine Attributes: An Historical Survey of the Jewish Discussion,” Judaism 15 (1966): 55–58. 96. For Isaac on attributes, see Julia Schwartzmann, “Perusho shel Yiខshaq ខ ibn Shem Tov le-‘moreh nevukhim’,” Daat 26 (1991): 49–50. For his general religious outlook, see idem, “Hitmodeduto shel r[abbi] Yiខshaq ខ ibn Shem Tov ‘im hokhehot ខ ’arisខtoខteliyyot leniខshiyyut ខ ha-tenu‘ah ve-qadmut ha-‘olam,” Tarbiខz 64 (1995): 259–74. 97. Cf. Guide, I, 53 in ibn Tibbon’s translation, where the term ‘inyanim mitខhalefim occurs, and the larger context there. 98. Ibid., 1, 54 (Pines, 123–28). 99. Idel, “Te’arim,” 100–104. 100. AZ, 102. 101. See Chapter 2, p. 47. 102. AZ, 10. Cf. Perushei ha-torah la-rabbenu Moshe ben Naខhman (Ramban), ed. Hayyim Dov Chavel, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1959), 1:442: ve-‘al derekh ha-’emet ha-mal’akh ha-zeh . . . hu ha-mal’akh ha-goel.” (On “derekh ha-’emet” as Nahmanides’ way of alluding to Scripture’s kabbalistic dimension, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “By Way of Truth: Aspects of Nahmanides’ Kabbalistic Hermeneutic,” AJS Review 14 [1989]: 106.)


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103. AZ, 10. 104. On Metatron in rabbinic literature, see Scholem, Kabbalah, 377–81; Moshe Idel, “Meខtaខtron—he‘arot ‘al hitpathut ខ ha-mitos ba-yahadut,” Eshel Beer Sheva 4 (⳱ Ha-mitos ba-yahadut, ed. Havivah Pedayah) (1996): 29–44. The key passage occurs in Sanhedrin 38b. 105. Perushei ha-torah, 1:441. For other ways in which Nahmanides refers to Shekhinah, see Wolfson, “By Way of Truth,” 134 n. 86. See, further, Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, ed. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, trans. Allan Arkush (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1987), 187 n. 214 and, for the relationship between Metatron and the last of the divine emanations in other kabbalistic sources, Isaiah Tishby, Mishnat ha-zohar (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1971), 452–53. 106. Perushei ha-torah, 1:442. 107. AZ, 71. 108. Ibid., 10. 109. Ibid., 35, 59. For similar earlier medieval usages, see Sarah Heler-Villenski, “ ‘Al ha-nivra’ ha-rishon be-reshit ha-qabbalah u-meqorotav ha-filosofiyyim,” Meខhqarim behagut yehudit, 261–76. 110. AZ, 34–35, 41–43. 111. Perushei ha-torah, 1:250. Cf. Guide, I, 25 (Pines, 55). 112. Exodus, 362. 113. For the stress on emanation in this later work as opposed to ‘Aខteret zeqenim, see Idel, “Te’arim,” 101–2. 114. Genesis, 19, 21. 115. Exodus, 270. 116. RA, 64; SSK, 8r. 117. One reason among several why Netanyahu’s characterization of the work as “a brief dissertation on God and the meaning of prophecy” (Abravanel, 16) is so deficient is that it fails to convey the work’s exegetical character. Like Louis Rabinowitz before him (“Abravanel as Exegete,” in Isaac Abravanel: Six Lectures, ed. J. B. Trend and H. Loewe [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937], 77), Ruiz correctly identifies the genre to which ‘Aខteret zeqenim belongs by calling it a “commentary,” but, like Rabinowitz, he errs when he calls it “a commentary on Exod. 23:20” (Don Isaac Abrabanel, 81 n. 113; idem, “Actualidad de la exegesis de Don Isaac Abrabanel,” Identitad y Testimonio [Madrid: Centro de Estudios Judeo-Christianos 1979], 133). The primacy of exegesis in ‘Aខteret zeqenim finds expression in a remark made at the end of chapter nineteen (73), where Abarbanel observes that having discussed a certain point, it would now be appropriate for him to examine Maimonides’ approach to the same but that he will postpone this undertaking so as not to interrupt the flow of his exegetical account. 118. Tirosh-Rothschild, Between Worlds, 269 n. 112. 119. ’Iggeret hខ amudot, ed. A. W. Greenup (London: n.p., 1912), 13–14. Altmann (“Me-‘al li-gevul,” 64) uses Abarbanel’s arrival in Italy in 1492 to fix the terminus ad quem for ’Iggeret hខ amudot, arguing that Elijah would not have referred to Abarbanel as “this man from Portugal” if he were already on Italian soil. The argument, while plausible, does not seem decisive. As has already been observed, only a few chapters of ‘Aខteret zeqenim are ultimately devoted to the issue of the nobles. Hence, Elijah’s comment that the work’s “fundamen-

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tal purpose” (‘iqqar) is to refute negative views of the nobles must be understood either as a reflection of Abarbanel’s own assertions to this effect in his work’s introduction or of Elijah’s cursory reading of ‘Aខteret zeqenim. Elijah’s presentation of Abarbanel’s approach as unprecedented is also problematic. Elijah does deal with the favorable account of Onkelos invoked by Abarbanel (’Iggeret hខ amudot, 20), seeking to demonstrate (rather improbably) its concord with the negative view of the nobles found in other rabbinic sources, but he ignores the approbatory views of Abraham ibn Ezra, Nahmanides, and Gersonides (to which Abarbanel had referred; AZ, 27–28). Apparently Elijah distinguished between Abarbanel’s (to his way of thinking) brazen departure from midrash and what he deemed the more circumspect deviations of earlier writers. 120. Above, n. 30. 121. ’Iggeret hខ amudot, 13–14. 122. SSK, 1r. 123. E.g. Abraham J. Heschel, Don Jizchak Abravanel (Berlin: E. Reiss, 1937), 6–7. Heschel writes that Abravanel was “conservative in his essence and thought” and that “the title of the work of his youth ‘The Crown of the Elders’ expresses this stance.” Cf. Ruiz, Don Isaac Abrabanel, xxx; Efraim Shemueli, Don Yiខshខ aq ’Abravanel ve-gerush sefarad (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1963), 87.

Chapter 4. Rabbinic Legacy: Background and Parameters 1. Leviticus, 148. 2. Abarbanel saw fit to parry the Karaite challenge more than one would expect given his time and place; see the material in Abraham Lipshitz, Pirqei ‘iyyun be-mishnat raba‘ (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1982), 197–203. He apparently knew Karaite literature at first hand (ibid., 200 n. 225) and, in time-honored Rabbanite fashion, at times put knowledge of anarchy in contemporary Karaite practice to polemical use (Exodus, 95; Leviticus, 128). 3. For examples see J. Wiesner, “Abravanels Thorakommentar, namentlich in seinem Verhältnesse zur Halacha,” Forshungen des wissenschaftlich-talmudischen Vereins 17, 18, 19, 20, 22 (⳱ Beilage zu Ben Chananja 12, 14, 17, 18, 22 [1867]): 237–39, 254– 56, 174–5, 197–200, 209–12 (according to the printed pagination). 4. As regards the medieval debate over the nature of midrash halakhah (see Jay M. Harris, How Do We Know This? Midrash and the Fragmentation of Modern Judaism [Albany: SUNY Press, 1995], 73–101), Abarbanel apparently leaned towards the view that rabbinic elaborations of scriptural law reflected received traditions; thus, when adducing what he considers scripturally unattested rabbinic teachings (e.g., regarding the officials who are to address soldiers at the time of their mobilization, the assignment of the biblical entitlement to eat of a neighbor’s unharvested crops to workers alone), he speaks of legal verities which the sages “received.” Nonetheless, Abarbanel at times also makes a gesture in the direction of the idea of creative, indubitably correct rabbinic exegesis, using such expressions as hខ akhamenu pereshu or hevanu hខ akhamenu (Deuteronomy, 204, 248). If there is a coherent theory underlying such pronouncements, it may be


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along the lines of Abarbanel’s characterization of the Mishnah, which speaks both of rabbinic received traditions that constitute an autonomous source of data not derivable exegetically, and of Mishnaic materials that, though they are received, are reflected in scriptural verbal formulations: the Mishnah is “perush kol ha-miខsvot ha-ketuvot ba-torah, mehem qabbalot meqqubalot mi-pi mosheh rabbenu . . . ve-’en ‘alehem re’ayah me-ha-ketuvim u-mehem she-yesh lahem remez ba-katuv ve-hem perushim meqqubalim mi-pi moshe rabbenu ve-’efshar lehoខsi’am min ha-ketuvim be-derekh sevara’ . . . (NA, 27). 5. Here and in what follows, I use “midrash” to refer to nonlegal rabbinic interpretations of Scripture and “aggadah” to refer to the various types of freestanding (i.e., nonexegetical) sayings or stories. “Definitions” and discussions of midrash and aggadah are legion. For the most recent synthetic study see Yonah Fraenkel, Darkhei ha-’aggadah veha-midrash, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Massada, 1991). Other noteworthy discussions are Joseph Heinemann, ’Aggadot ve-toldotehen (Jerusalem: Keter, 1974), 7–15; James L. Kugel, “Two Introductions to Midrash,” Prooftexts 3 (1983): 144–45; and David Stern, s.vv. “Aggadah” and “Midrash,” in Arthur A. Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr, eds., Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought: Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs (New York: Scribners, 1987), 7–12, 613–19. For additional sources, see Gary G. Porton, “Defining Midrash,” in The Study of Ancient Judaism, ed. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, Nahum M. Sarna (New York: KTAV, 1981), 1:55–92 (Porton’s definition appears on p. 62). For what hereinafter is called midrash, Isaac Heinemann’s Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 3rd ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1974) remains indispensable, despite datedness and limitations. See, e.g., on its apologetic character, Fraenkel, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 2:558–60. For its intellectual roots and a contemporary critique, see Daniel Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 5–11. 6. Rabbinic legal interpretations presented significant but, in terms of consequences, largely dissimilar problems; see Harris, How Do We Know This? 7. On the meaning of peshaខt and recent thinking on its optimal English rendering see Stephen Garfinkel, “Applied Peshat: Historical-Critical Method and Religious Meaning,” The Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 22 (1993): 21–22, and the literature cited there. For peshaខt in the premodern period as “as flexible and subjective a term as ‘scientific’ is in our own time,” see Frank Talmage, review of Jewish Exegesis of the book of Ruth, by D. R. G. Beattie, Journal of the American Oriental Society 99 (1979): 111. The standard English rendering for peshaខt —“literal interpretation”—has increasingly been rejected. Cf. in light of this development Simon Rawidowicz’s comment of several decades back (made in a broader context) that “[l]iteral interpretatio is a contradictio in adjecto. All interpretatio transcends by its very nature the literal. The literal can only be identical with itself, repeating itself.” (“On Interpretation,” in Studies in Jewish Thought [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1974], 49.) In what follows, I generally leave the term “peshaខt” as is but when translating render it as “contextual sense.” 8. Saperstein, Decoding the Rabbis, 1–3. On the wider Muslim and Christian milieu for gaonic theological concerns, see Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 284–89. 9. Though ascribed to rabbinic sources by many gaonic and medieval writers, these principles do not appear in extant rabbinic literature. Cf. the far less sweeping statement in J.T. Pe’ah 2:6, 17a: ’en lemedin min . . . ha-’aggadot . . . (“one does not derive legal conclusions from aggadah”).

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10. Saperstein, Decoding, 10; Benzion Dinur, Yisra’el ba-golah, 2nd ed., 2 vols. in 10 (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1961), I:3, 23; David Kimhi’s commentary to 1 Sam. 28:24 (Miqra’ot gedolot ha-keter, vol. 2, Sefer shemu’el, ed. Menachem Cohen [Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1993], 145). 11. Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 312–13. 12. Dinur, Yisra’el ba-golah, I:3, 43; Baron, Social and Religious History, 6:177; Saperstein, Decoding, 9–10, 215 nn. 19–23, 217 nn. 41–42, for further discussion of gaonic attitudes and sources. 13. Saperstein, Decoding, 3–5. For prominent anti-Jewish polemics by converts, see Baron, Social and Religious History, 9:292–93. 14. This innovation has been traced to the twelfth-century Alan of Lille, though the documentation disappoints; see the balanced discussion in Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 308–9. For this tendency in an early thirteenth-century Spanish antiJewish polemicist seemingly influenced by Alan, see Lucy Kristina Pick, “Christians and Jews in Thirteenth-Century Castile: The Career and Writings of Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo (1209–1247)” (Ph. D. diss., University of Toronto, 1995), 214 (for Alan’s likely influence on Roderigo, see pp. 167–70, 184). But it was not until the mid-thirteenth century that such argumentation became a staple of the Christian attack. For an up-to-date discussion with bibliography, see Cohen Living Letters, 317– 363. 15. Pugio fidei adversus Mauros et Judaeos (1687; photo-offset, Farnborough, England: Gregg Press, 1967), 2–4; cited in Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), 138. On this work and Ramon Mart´ı’s other anti-Jewish writing, see now Cohen, Living Letters, 348–58. For Saul Lieberman’s view that the Pugio was not compiled by Mart´ı alone, see Sheki’in (Jerusalem: Bamberger, 1939), 46. 16. Note that at no point in the disputation does Nahmanides actually rely on repudiation of aggadic authority as an exclusive strategy, preferring instead to offer interpretive alternatives even as he denies the absolute need to do so. (Nahmanides also raises the possibility that a messianic aggadah may possess an esoteric meaning once in the disputation; see Kitvei ramban, 1:306) Whether Nahmanides’ repudiation of aggadic authority represented his true convictions has long been debated; for extensive bibliography, see Wolfson, “By Way of Truth,” 173–74. The most recent full discussion is Robert Chazan, Barcelona and Beyond (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 142–57. 17. Carmi Horowitz, “ ‘Al perush ha-’aggadot shel ha-rashba: ben qabbalah le-filosofiyah,” Daat 18 (1987): 15. 18. For a survey see Dov Schwartz, “Ha-parshanut ha-filosofit la-miqra ve-la-’aggadah,” Maខhanayim 7 (1994): 158–65. 19. Guide, I, introduction (Pines, 9). 20. Ketav ha-hitnaខssខelut in She’elot u-teshuvot ha-rashba (Benei Berak: Sifriyati, 1958), I, 158 n. 418. Cf. A. S. Halkin, “Yedaiah Bedershi’s Apology,” Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 173. 21. Yoreh de‘ah, in Hebrew Ethical Wills, ed. Israel Abrahams (2 vols. 1926; reprint, 2 vols. in 1, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1976), 155. Cf. Twersky, “Joseph ibn Kaspi,” 234.


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22. Guide, I, 59 (Pines, 140); ’Iggerot ha-rambam, ed. Yizhak Shailat, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Maaliyot Press, 1987–88), 2:488 (and cf. the letter to Obadiah the Convert in ibid., 1:237 and Maimonides’ implication in Guide, II, 29 [Pines, 344]); H. Melakhim, 12:2 and 12:4. 23. Marc Saperstein, “Selected Passages from Yedaiah Bedersi’s Commentary on the Midrashim,” Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature II, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 1984), 2:424–25. Cf. Isadore Twersky, “R. Yeda‘yah Hapenini u-ferusho la-’aggadah,” Studies in Jewish Religious and Intellectual History, ed. Siegfried Stein and Raphael Loewe (University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1979), 68. 24. See the example in Schwartz, “Ha-‘neខtralizaខsiyah’ shel he-re‘ayon ha-meshiខhi,” 51. 25. See Chapter 6. 26. See Chapter 2, p. 44. 27. Saperstein, Decoding, 15–20 (and for the term “mouthpiece,” p. 15). Cf. the broader statement of Jacob Elbaum in “Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague and his Attitude to the Aggadah,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 22 (1971): 28: “The history of the exposition of the Aggadah may be seen, essentially, as the attempt to reconcile an ever changing religious situation with a traditional and authoritative text.” Saperstein’s particular characterization may be taken to indicate self-conscious reconciliation or superimposition of ideas foreign to aggadah on rabbinic dicta. The extent to which philosophers and kabbalists believed their interpretations to reflect such dicta’s direct meaning merits exploration, though evaluations are likely to remain impressionistic; see, e.g., W. Zev Harvey, “Quelques réflexions sur l’attitude de Gersonides vis-à-vis du Midrash,” in Gersonide en son temps, ed. Gilbert Dahan (Louvain-Paris: E. Peeters, 1991), 111. 28. See, e.g., Rabbi Ezra’s statement in his commentary on Song of Songs (Kitvei ramban, 2:479) and, in general, Isaiah Tishby, “ ‘Aggadah ve-qabbalah be-ferushei ha-’agA gadot shel R. ‘Ezra ve-R. ‘Azri’el mi-gerona,” Hikrei qabbalah u-sheluខhoteha (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1982), 31–35. 29. Mishnah ‘im perush r[abbi] Mosheh ben Maimon, 1:19. For a high medieval school of philosophically oriented aggadic interpretation centered in southern France, see Saperstein, Decoding, 207–8; Twersky, “Yeda‘yah ha-Penini,” 81–82. For Maimonides on aggadah, see Saperstein, Decoding, 17–25. For its place in Mishneh torah see Twersky, Introduction, 150–53, 219–20, 386–87. 30. Mishnah ‘im perush R. Mosheh b. Maimon, 1:19. 31. Frank Talmage, “Apples of Gold: The Inner Meaning of Sacred Texts in Medieval Judaism,” Jewish Spirituality, ed. Arthur Green, 2 vols. (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 1:333–37. Cf. Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1961), 30–32. Wolfson (“By Way of Truth,” 156) defends the essential correctness of Scholem’s view while taking Talmage’s criticisms into account. 32. See Chapter 6. 33. For Rashi’s varied formulations that attest to his intent, see Benjamin J. Gelles, Peshat and Derash in the Exegesis of Rashi (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), 9–27. Rashi’s comment concerning new contextual interpretations is relayed in Samuel b. Meir’s commentary to Gen. 37:2 (ed. David Rosin [Breslau, 1882], 49). 34. Perushei ha-torah le-rabbenu ’Avraham ibn ‘Ezra’, ed. Asher Weiser, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1976), 1:7, 10. For the rabbinic saying (“Scripture does not

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depart from its simple sense”) that ibn Ezra here refits, see Gelles, Exegesis, 1–8; Sarah Kamin, Rashi: peshuខto shel miqra’ u-midrasho shel miqra’ (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), 23– 56. A 35. Gross, Hayyun, 54–56. 36. Septimus, “Nahmanides,” ខ 17 n. 24. 37. Wolfson, “By Way of Truth,” 175–77. 38. Septimus, “Nahmanides,” ខ 16 n. 21. 39. His innocence of logic and philosophy was another reason; see in general Abraham Gross, “Rashi u-mesoret limmud ha-torah she-be-khetav bi-sefarad,” Rashi: ‘iyyunim bi-yeខsirato, ed. Zevi Aryeh Steinfeld (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1993), 27–53. 40. Ibid., 27, 37–40. 41. See Chapter 5. 42. See Chapter 2, p. 43. 43. Yevamot 8:3; Keretot 3:9. 44. E.g., J.T. Pe’ah 2:6, 17a and parallels. For valences of the root q-b-l in its nominal form in rabbinic literature, see Gerson Cohen’s comments in Ibn Daud, Book of Tradition, lvi–lvii. 45. See Chapter 5. 46. See Chapters 5 and 6. A 47. Gross, Hayyun, 234. 48. Genesis, 231, 245. 49. Septimus, Hispano-Jewish Culture, 77. 50. ’Or ’adonai, ed. Shelomo Fischer (Jerusalem: Sifrei Ramot, 1990), 405. See Zev A Harvey, “Yesodot qabbaliyyim be-sefer ’or hashem le r[abbi] Hasdai Qresqas,” MYMY 2 (1982–83): 101. 51. Hasdai Crescas, Sefer biខtខtul ‘iqqarei ha-noខserim, trans. Joseph ben Shem Tov, ed. Daniel J. Lasker (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press; Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1990), 94–95. 52. Deuteronomy, 230–33, where Abarbanel insists that the “profundity” informing the institution of levirate marriage—the phenomenon of metempsychosis—is “possible in and of itself” and “necessarily true” on the basis of prophetic and rabbinic tradition as reflected, among other places, in Nahamnides’ approach to the issue. For summaries of A Abarbanel’s and others’ discussions of the subject, see Saul Regev, “ ’Ta‘amei miខsvat hayibbum—ben filosofiyah la-qabbalah,” Daat 28 (1992): 68–70. 53. See Chapter 5, p. 104. 54. See Chapter 6, p. 157. 55. For this commentary as the first of its sort “to appear in print as a volume unto itself,” see Lester A. Segal, “Late-Fourteenth-Century Perception of Classical Jewish Lore: Shem Toខb Ben Isaac Shaprut’s Aggadic Exegesis,” in From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding, 4 vols. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 2:219. For the profound chagrin of some at its appearence, see ibid., 225–27. For Shem Tov’s thought and writings generally, see Norman E. Frimer and Dov Schwartz, Hagut be-ខsel ha-’emah (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1992). For his disputation with cardinal Pedro de Luna, the future schismatic pope (and overseer of the Tortosa disputation) Benedict XIII, see Baer, History of the Jews, 2:172.


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56. See Chapter 6. 57. Pardes rimmonim (Sabbioneta, 1554), 1–2. 58. Magen va-romaខh, 1. For brief discussions of ibn Musa’s polemic, see Cohen, Friars, 192–95; Eleazar Gutwirth, “History and Apologetics in XVth century Hispano-Jewish Thought,” Helmantica 35 (1984): 240–42. 59. Magen va-romaខh, 7–9. 60. Neveh shalom (Venice, 1574), i. On this work see Herbert Davidson, The Philosophy of Abraham Shalom: A Fifteenth-Century Exposition and Defense of Maimonides (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964). As Davidson’s study is conducted exclusively from the vantage point of the subtitle of his book, it merely notes the external form of Shalom’s work while generally ignoring the focus on aggadic exegesis. 61. ‘Aqedat yiខshខ aq, 1:[1r–1v], as translated in Marc Saperstein, Jewish Preaching 1200– 1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 393. 62. See Chapter 2, p. 38. 63. ‘Aqedat yiខshខ aq, [1v].

Chapter 5. The Rabbinic Hermeneutic: Midrash in the Biblical Commentaries 1. E.g., Genesis, 79 (first question); Exodus, 313; Zecheriah, 229. 2. See Chapter 4, n. 5. 3. See Chapter 2. 4. E.g., Genesis, 100; Exodus, 360; Leviticus, 57, 70; Numbers, 91; Joshua, 65, 75; Judges, 111. 5. He will record a midrash, then state what “the commentators” have clarified “according to the peshaខt” (e.g., Joshua, 35; Judges, 110); note that another commentator, like Rashi, has rejected a midrash because it does not conform to the simple sense (e.g., Isaiah, 3); or dismiss the interpretation of another commentator, usually Rashi, on the grounds that it is drawn from “words of the ’aggadah [which] do not fit the peshaខt” (e.g., Numbers, 60 [the ninth question]; Judges, 96; for a similar case involving Nahmanides, Numbers, 11). After distinguishing the rabbinic reading from his contextual interpretation and dismissing the former as “homiletical,” Abarbanel may remind his reader that peshaខt is his primary objective or that “Scripture does not depart from its peshaខt” (e.g., Exodus, 313; Joshua, 75). 6. Genesis, 105; Exodus, 230; Numbers, 154. 7. Exodus, 241; Numbers, 55, 114 (twentieth question); Deuteronomy, 255; Joshua, 36; Kings, 452 (sixth question). 8. Leviticus, 92, 136; Numbers, 17 (eighth question). 9. E.g., Genesis, 5 (second question), 173 (sixth question), and 203; Deuteronomy, 352; Joshua, 90; Samuel, 164. For “strangeness” in Maimonides, see Twersky, Introduction to the Code, 387. The term zarut in medieval Hebrew literature grows out of Samuel ibn Tibbon’s activity as a translator from Arabic to Hebrew; see Jonah ibn Janah, Sefer hariqmah, trans. Judah ibn Tibbon, ed. M. Wilensky, 2nd rev. ed. (Jerusalem: Ha-’akademiyah la-lashon ha-‘ivrit, 1964), 350 n. 4.

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10. Genesis, 83, 234; Numbers, 47 (fifteenth question; Onkelos’ interpretation is “very strange”). There can be also praise for targumic renderings, e.g. Exodus, 154. A 11. Deuteronomy, 291. Cf. Hullin 3a. At first, Abarbanel’s identification of the “children who do not know” with the ខtaf (usually translated as “little ones”—hence the midrashic comment) seems problematic; but the idea that ខtaf may refer to educable youths reflects Abarbanel’s view that the term encompasses all those below age twenty. Cf. Exodus, 106; given the end of the verse (“six hundred thousand on foot that were men besides ខtaf”) discussed there this view seems reasonable. 12. Joshua, 30–31; cf. Yevamot 72b. 13. The first formulation occurs in Meyer Waxman, A History of Jewish Literature, 5 vols. in 6 (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1933), 2:46, the second in M. S. Segal, “R. Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel be-tor parshan ha-miqra’,” Tarbiខz 8 (1937): 263. Segal only makes a belated passing reference to peshaខt in his account of Abarbanel’s commentaries. More recently, a close student of Abarbanel has managed to survey his exegesis without mentioning the word peshaខt; see Saul Regev, “Ha-shiខtah ha-parshanit shel ha-’Abarbanel,” Maខhanayim 4 (1992): 242–49. This latter article improbably casts Abarbanel’s interpretive efforts as “generally by way of philosophic-rational investigation.” For an exception to the pattern of neglect of Abarbanel’s peshatist orientation, see Grünberg, “Eine Leuchte,” 25. Already in the seventeenth century some were able to observe that Abarbanel “s’y applique particulierement au sens littéral”; see Louis Moréri’s article on Abarbanel in his Dictionnaire historique, ou, Le mélange curieux de l’histoire sacrée et profane (1674; Paris, 1759), 1:57. 14. Grünberg, “Eine Leuchte,” 25 and Rabinowitz, “Abravanel as Exegete,” 83 respectively. 15. Numbers, 86. Cf. Sifrei to Numbers 115:4. 16. Perushei rashi ‘al ha-torah, ed. Hayyim Dov Chavel, 6th ed. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1990), 453: ha-‘ayin ro’ah ve-ha-lev hខ omed. 17. Genesis, 192. Cf. Bava Qama 158b. 18. Exodus, 82; MY, 306. 19. Shaul Regev, “Behirat ខ ‘am yisra’el be-haguto shel rabbi Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel,” ’Asuppot 2 (1989): 271–83. The idea that Abraham left to go to the Holy Land prior to any direct divine command is therefore congenial to Abarbanel. The midrash that he makes a constituent of his simple-sense interpretation allows for such a reading by supplying a reason that Abraham might have conceived to do so: he knew that the Land of Israel was conducive to acquisition of the spiritual wisdom he sought. A 20. Perushei rashi, 5. Cf. Hullin 60a. 21. Genesis, 51. For “greater explicitness” in Kimhi’s exegesis, see Frank Ephraim Talmage, David Kimhi: the man and the commentaries (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), 106. 22. Perushei rashi, 200. Translations from Rashi’s commentary generally follow Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos, Haphtaroth and Rashi’s Commentary, trans. and annotated by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 5 vols. (Jerusalem: Silbermann Family, 1973). 23. Exodus, 82–83. In justification of my translation of nakhon as “fitting” here (and elsewhere where Abarbanel refers to rabbinic dicta as such), cf. the remark of Uriel Simon regarding ibn Ezra, at times, on such dicta (Four Approaches to the Book of Psalms,


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trans. Lenn J. Schramm [Albany: SUNY Press, 1991], 187): “When Ibn Ezra says ‘the correct answer’ he means one that is ‘reasonable’ and ‘compatible with the plain meaning of the text,’ not necessarily that it has exclusive validity.” This being so, “correct” does not seem the best English rendering of the term when used in this way. For Abarbanel’s view that an effort of Nissim ben Reuven Gerondi to support the rabbinic tradition of seventy languages on the basis of Scripture is nakhon, followed by his own simple-sense interpretation of the same verses, see Genesis, 171–72. 24. Samuel, 389; Deuteronomy, 240 (sixth question). For further examples of Kimhi’s recourse to stylistic principles where Abarbanel rejects them, see the section on “Pleonasm” below. 25. See below, p. 105 and see Chapter 6. 26. Abravanel, 118–20; Saul Regev, “Meshihiyyut ខ ve-’astrologiyah be-haguto shel rabbi Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel,” ’Asuppot 1 (1987): 169–87. 27. Kings, 478. 28. Perushei ha-torah, 1:9. 29. Deuteronomy, 316, 354–59. 30. Ibid., 34 (fourth question). 31. Septimus, “Nahmanides,” ខ 19 n. 30. 32. Joshua, 13. 33. Uriel Simon, “Shnei ‘eqronot yesod shel perush ha-torah le-ra’ba‘: ba-‘avotot ha-diqduq niqshar u-ve-‘enei ha-da‘at yikhshar,” Meខhqarim be-miqra’ u-ve-ខhinukh mugashim le-prof’ Moshe ’Arend, ed. Dov Rappel (Jerusalem: Touro College, 1996), 110– 11. 34. In Joshua, 13 multiple significance is apparently attributed to all of Scripture and not just the Torah; see Chapter 2, p. 38. See also ZP, 46, an account reminiscent of various formulations of Thomas Aquinas (e.g., Summa Theologiae, Ia. I, 10 [Cambridge: Blackfriars, 1964], 39 and Quaestiones quodlibetales, 7, q. 6, a. 3 [16] [Rome: Marietti, 1956], 148). An integrated study of medieval Jewish and Christian teachings on polysemy generally is a desideratum. For now, regarding nonbiblical literature, see Moshe Idel, “On Symbolic Self-Interpretation in Thirteenth-Century Jewish Writings,” Hebrew University Studies in Literature and the Arts 16 (1988): 90–96 and for a case study involving biblical interpretation, Giusseppi Sermoneta, “Prophecy in the Writings of R. Yehuda Romano,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature II, 337–74. For borrowings from Arama in this area, see Genesis, 88 and ‘Aqedat yiខshខ aq, 1:72r (both citing Zohar 3:152a at length regarding the Torah’s “higher words and higher mysteries” and different layers of meaning as symbolized in the imagery of outer “garments” covering a “body” and “soul”); Genesis, 87–88 and ‘Aqedat yiខshខ aq, 1:72r (quoting Arama almost verbatim with respect to the Torah’s “wondrous superiority” over all other “compilations of sciences and morals,” this being a function of its polysemy). 35. Samuel, 280; Genesis, 78; Samuel, 177. 36. Genesis, 190–91. 37. These alternate characterizations of the relationship between peshaខt and derash are delineated in Garfinkel, “Applied Peshat,” 20 n. 9. 38. Numbers, 28–29. Cf. Numbers Rabbah 13:14. 39. Ibid., 25 (seventh and eighth questions). Cf. Nahmanides, Perushei ha-torah, 2:218–19.

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40. Numbers, 27–28. 41. Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 40–41. 42. Tanខhuma’, Lekh lekha 9. Other rabbinic sources are noted in Marc Saperstein, “Typological Exegesis after Nahmanides,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 1 (1993–94): 159 n. 6. For Nahmanides’ application of this principle, see Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berekely: University of California Press, 1993), 105–21. Favorable appraisals of rabbinic typological interpretation can be found at Genesis, 114–15, 193, 200, 347–48 (in the latter, Abarbanel indicates that rabbinic exegesis has not exhausted the typological potential of the narratives involving Jacob’s and Esau’s interactions). A rarer case of original engagement in typology (of sorts) that invokes the standard rabbinic rationale of the “deeds of the ancestors . . .” occurs in ibid., 315. In light of the many approbatory references to rabbinic typological readings just noted, and this last example, which involves typology concerning the Temple, one cannot easily accept that Abarbanel’s criticism of Nahmanides’ Temple-related typological reading of Gen. 26 (Genesis, 303; cf. for the object of the criticism Perushei ha-torah, 1:152) harbors a “sense of reservation” regarding typological interpretation per se (Saperstein, “Typological Exegesis,” 168 n. 35). In this case, a wholly local reaction, Nahmanidean recourse to a “hidden” typological interpretation is not the irritant but its apparent cause—namely Abarbanel’s predecessor’s failure to uncover the consequential nature of the contextual sense, and especially (Nahmanides notwithstanding) the “great honor” that it does to Isaac. Abarbanel is unhappy with Nahmanides’ implication that it is this failure that engenders the turn to typology. As in the cases noted above, he presumably would have welcomed Nahmanides’ rendering (or at least deemed it unoffensive) had it served as a supplement to rather than replacement for correct contextual interpretation. Hence, the conclusion that the implication of Abarbanel’s critique is to “limit the typological interpretation to narrative passages that seem to have no other positive function” (ibid.) would seem to be unfounded, but only a more systematic study of Abarbanel’s attitude towards typology would clinch the accuracy of this impression. 43. Numbers, 29. 44. See Chapter 6. 45. Genesis, 232–33. 46. Exodus, 287. 47. Further examples occur in Deuteronomy, 353 and Judges, 141–42. 48. Isaiah, 141. For “ha-derash yiddaresh ve-ha-miqra’ yityashev ‘al peshuខto,” cf. Rashi’s commentary to Exod. 6:9. Abarbanel invokes this formula elsewhere (e.g., AZ, 8; Joshua, 57; YM, 17v). Note, however, that in Rashi’s usage the expression may not reflect a distinction between peshaខt and derash as Abarbanel assumes. See Kamin, Rashi, 90. (Though the ke-fi rendered here by “with respect to” is difficult, it must be deemed correct based on its appearence in the apograph in the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Escorial MS G-I-11, 116r.) 49. Fraenkel, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 12. For critical commentary, see Richard Kalmin, “The Modern Study of Ancient Rabbinic Literature: Yonah Fraenkel’s Darkhei ha’aggadah vehamidrash,” Prooftexts 14 (1994): 198. Neither Abarbanel nor his predecessors, however, envision the sages’ esoterically “pretending” that their midrashim are “indeed the necessary, inevitable meaning” of the biblical text as does another modern scholar;


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see David Stern, Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 68. 50. Simon, “Shnei ‘eqronot yesod,” 110–11. Ibn Ezra insists that the apparently multifaceted character of rabbinic interpretation is illusory on the grounds that the sages knew Scripture’s contextual sense, with their midrashim merely broaching additional nonexegetical layers of meaning. In the east, a similar view was voiced by the early fourteenth-century polymath, Shemaryah ben Elijah. See Aaron Arend, “Perush megillat ’ester le-r[abbi] Shemaryah ben Eliyah ha-’iqriខti,” in Meខhqarim be-miqra’ u-ve-ខhinukh mugashim le-prof’ Moshe ’Arend, 34 n. 4. 51. See the passage from Sefer ‘alilot devarim cited in Gross, “Rashi,” 36. On this work, see Israel M. Ta-Shma, “Hekhan nithabber ខ sefer ‘ ‘Alilot devarim’,” ‘Alei sefer 3 (1977): 44–53; Reuven Bonfil, “Sefer ‘ ‘Alilot devarim’: pereq be-toledot he-hagut hayehudit be-me’ah ha-yud-dalet,” Eshel Beer Sheva 2 (1980): 229–64. 52. See Chapter 6, p. 147. 53. Joshua, 13. 54. See Chapter 3. 55. For the history of discussion (including ibn Ezra’s and Abarbanel’s views), see Mordechai Cogan, ‘Ovadyah ‘im mavo’ u-ferush (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1993), 3. 56. Obadiah, 111 (and Sanhedrin 39b for the rabbinic identification). 57. MY, 425. For elaboration, see Chapter 6. 58. Mash, 462–63; Isaiah, 172. For the Edom-Christendom identification generally, see Gerson D. Cohen, “Esau as Symbol in Early Medieval Thought,” in Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 19–48. 59. MY, 394, 400–401. On the Messiah of the House of Joseph, see Scholem, Messianic Idea, 18. 60. Leviticus, 147–48: ki lo’ hខ iddeshu hem ‘inyan ha-miខsvah ha-zot be-sof bayit sheni ’o ba-golah ’aval laqehu ha-miខsvah ke-fi kavvanat ha-pesuqim ve-’amitatam u-khe-fi mah she-‘asu ba-miqdash kol yemei bayit sheni ka’asher ‘asu ’otah kol yemei bayit rishon ve-zeh hu . . . haqabbalah ha-’amitit. 61. Kings, 426. 62. On Seder ‘olam see H. L. Strack and G. Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, trans. Markus Bockmuehl (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991), 354–55 and the literature cited there. 63. Kings, 526. 64. For elaboration, see Chapter 7. 65. Mash, 461. 66. Using the equivocal root in variegated fashion again when discussing Samuel’s lifespan (Samuel, 201), Abarbanel notes that the midrashic view that Samuel lived fiftytwo years (Ta‘anit 5b) is derived from the combined evidence of four scriptural passages. From this derivation from biblical evidence, Abarbanel concludes that “the matter was apparently not received (meqqubal) among them”—that is, that the sages did not possess authoritative transmitted information on this score. Hence, he adds, they established (qiyyemu ve-qibbelu) their view on the basis of what they found in or inferred from verses. 67. Megillah, 15a.

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68. Commentary on Minor Prophets, 9–10; Joel, 64. 69. Samuel, 180. 70. Ibid., 231. In yet another twist, Abarbanel can even speak of a midrash built on a scriptural interpretation that is “not generally accepted (bilti mequbbal)” by “the commentators”—i.e., medieval exegetes. See ibid., 201. 71. Isaiah, 131. The wider context of Abarbanel’s discussion is explained in BenShalom, “Dimmui,” 160–63. 72. MY, 364. 73. Joshua, 43. 74. Perushei ha-torah, 1:72. Cf. Genesis Rabbah 56:11. 75. Commentary to Judges 11:31 in Miqra’ot gedolot ha-keter: sefer yehoshua‘–sefer shofetim, 143. 76. Sukkah 27b. 77. Judges, 95–96. 78. Abarbanel’s legitimation of treating the garden of Eden story as an allegory on the basis of rabbinic and kabbalistic nonliteral interpretations of the vexing narrative is an example; Genesis, 88. 79. See Chapter 7. 80. Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 120–22. 81. Ibid., 23–25; James L. Kugel, In Potiphar’s House (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1990), 4; Joseph Heinemann, ’Aggadot ve-toledotehen, 9–10. 82. Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 40–41. 83. See ibid., 275–76, for a list of “aggadic ways.” 84. Ibid., 96. 85. For this term see Kugel, “Two Introductions to Midrash,” 144. 86. Commentaries to Jeremiah 7:4 as cited in Talmage, Kimhi, 103. 87. James L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 105 88. Jeremiah, 327. 89. Perushei rashi, 83. 90. Perushei David Kimខhi, 125. For “ខsaខhot” see Kugel, Idea, 174 n. 4. For Saadya Gaon as the originator of this biblical term (Isa. 32:4) as loan translation for Arabic faខsaha, see Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 320. 91. Genesis, 279. 92. Ibid. For the terminology of aging invoked here, see Frank Talmage, “So Teach Us to Number Our Days: A Theology of Longevity in Jewish Exegetical Literature,” in Aging and the Aged in Medieval Europe, ed. Michael M. Sheehan (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990), 49–62 (especially 61 n. 29). A fourfold division of the stages of human life (ascribed to the “naturalists [ខtivi‘im]”) occurs in a homily found at the end of the editio princeps of ZP (Constantinople, 1505). The same division appears in Exodus, 104. 93. Kugel, Potiphar’s House, 4–5. 94. Numbers, 88. 95. Genesis, 355; Joshua, 75. 96. Genesis, 131: “Its [Scripture’s] statement, ‘And Adam knew Eve his wife,’ attests the truth of this.” 97. Numbers, 119.


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98. Genesis, 130–31. 99. Kugel, Potiphar’s House, 159–62. 100. See Chapter 6. 101. Genesis, 130. 102. Similar ambivalence towards supplementary midrash is evident in Abarbanel’s parsing of Gen. 29–30. Here the exegetical challenge was to uncover the peshaខt of the utterances made by Leah and Rachel in association with the naming of their and their handmaidens’ children without presupposing, like midrashic accounts, matriarchal foreknowledge of a full complement of twelve children who would eventually father the tribes of Israel. Though not exactly resigned in the face of reliance upon these accounts, neither is Abarbanel eager to admit such reliance. He therefore declares the truth of the rabbinic supposition (ibid., 326 and, for a specific instance, 327); claims, at first tentatively, then more assuredly, a textual basis for it (325); and occasionally presupposes it in his interpretations of individual matriarchal expressions (325, 327). Yet nowhere does Abarbanel state unqualifiedly that the midrashic background is indispensable for making sense of the biblical text—and this despite his clearly favorable attitude towards the idea that the twelve tribes and their divisions into four standards was envisaged at the embryonic stages of Jewish history. 103. Judges, 130 (and, e.g., Ta‘anit 4a for the midrashic view). Cf. Nahmanides, Perushei ha-torah, 2:193 versus Kimhi, as in Michael Celniker, The Commentary of Rabbi David Kimខhi on the Book of Judges (Toronto: Rabbi Dr. M. Celniker Book Committee, 1983), 130–31. 104. Perushei rashi, 127. 105. Genesis, 355. Cf. Nahmanides, Perushei ha-torah, 1:195. 106. Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 28–29, 110–12. 107. On 1 Chron. 2:55, as cited in Talmage, Kimhi, 110. 108. Genesis, 130. Cf. the view of R. Abba bar Kahana in Genesis Rabbah 23:3. 109. Genesis, 129–30; Exodus, 433–34. 110. E.g., Numbers, 135 (Zelophehad); Zecheriah, 205 (Zerubbabel). 111. E.g., Exodus, 9 (implicitly, regarding Keturah as Hagar; cf. Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 29); Joshua, 21, 35 (implicitly, regarding the spies sent by Joshua as Caleb and Phinehas; cf. Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 28); Samuel, 193 (regarding Saul as the “man of Benjamin”). When, however, Abarbanel records identifications without comment, (e.g., Kings, 619, 624) he leaves the impression that he accepts them. 112. Exodus, 50. Cf. Nahmanides, Perushei ha-torah, 1:308. Cf. Soខtah 43a. In his aforementioned two-tiered interpretation of Gen. 18, Abarbanel adopts the identification of “the youth” of Gen. 18:7 with Ishmael (Genesis Rabbah 48:13) when explaining according to “the method of midrash” but omits it when elucidating the simple sense; Genesis, 233, 237. 113. Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 29. 114. Perushei rashi, 176. Cf. Soខtah 11b and Exodus Rabbah 1:13 where both the opinion cited by Rashi and an alternate view that the midwives were Yocheved and Elisheva (Aaron’s wife) are mentioned. 115. Yonatan Cohen, “La-meyalledot ha-‘ivriyyot,” Leshonenu 55 (1991): 295–97. 116. Exodus, 7. For the view of “the commentators” cf. Abraham ibn Ezra, Perushei ha-torah, 2:11. 117. Exodus, 7.

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118. H. Rand, “Figure-Vases in Ancient Egypt and Hebrew Midwives,” Israel Exploration Journal 20 (1970): 209. 119. Exodus, 7. 120. For the former, see, e.g., Nedarim 32b; for the latter, Targum Onkelos and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan ad. loc. For prerabbinic interpretation, see Claudio Gianotto, “La figura di Melchisedek nelle tradizioni giudaica, cristiana e gnostica (sec.II a.C.-III d.C.),” Annali di storia dell’ esegesi 1 (1984): 137–52. 121. Perushei rashi, 46. 122. Ibid., 53. Cases where Rashi stresses the midrashic nature of interpretations without offering a contextual alternative are noted by Kamin (Rashi, 147 n. 117) without elaboration. 123. On Gen. 12:6, in Perushim le-Rashi. For this work see Joseph Perles, “Ahron ben Gerson Aboulrabi,” Revue des e´tudes juives 21 (1890): 246–69; for a sampling of Aboulrabi’s midrashic criticism see ibid., 254–58. For the work’s date, see Joseph Hacker, “Links Between Spanish Jewry and Palestine, 1391–1492,” Vision and Conflict in the Holy Land, ed. Richard I. Cohen (New York: St. Martin’s, 1985), 134 n. 42 (where Perles’s surmise of 1420 is shown to be flawed). On the work’s first and only printing see Yaari, Ha-defus ha-‘ivri be-qushta, 86. 124. Genesis, 199. 125. Ibid., 192. 126. See Nahum M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York: Schocken, 1970), 117. 127. Joseph ben Eliezer, A Sofenat pa‘neaខh: Ein Beitrag zur Pentateuchexegese des Mittelalters, 2 vols., ed. D. Herzog (Cracow and Berlin: n.p., 1912–30), 1:91–92. For discussion, see Nahum M. Sarna, “The Modern Study of the Bible in the Framework of Jewish Studies,” in Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Bible and Hebrew Language (Jerusalem: World Congress of Jewish Studies, 1983), 22–23. For critical reaction to Sarna in a mixed scholarly-theological vein see Jon D. Levenson, “The Eighth Principle of Judaism and the Literary Simultaneity of Scripture,” in The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Louisville: Westminster, 1993), 66–71. A fuller account of Joseph’s presentation can be found in Chapter 7. 128. E.g., Numbers, 108–9. See Chapter 7, pp. 184–86. 129. Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 29. A 130. Mavo’ ha-talmud in Kol sifrei Maharaខs Hayot, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Divrei hakhaខ mim, 1934), 1:322–23. 131. Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 50–51. 132. E.g., regarding Esau’s scrupulousness with respect to honor for parents, see Genesis Rabbah 65:16. For conjecture regarding historical background for this and qualifications of it elsewhere in rabbinic literature, see Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 33. 133. She’elot u-teshuvot me-ha-ralbaខh (1865; reprint, Brooklyn, New York: M. Y. Finkelstein, 1961) no. 126. Levi does not explain the midrashic exoneration of David’s abuse of royal privilege in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah. 134. Perushei ha-torah, 1:46. For a recent positive portrayal of Nimrod from a different angle, see Cameron Wybrow, “The Significance of the City in Genesis 1–11,” Interpretation 26 (1998): 15–17. 135. Perushei ha-torah, 1:68.


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136. Genesis, 172. 137. Shabbat 56a. 138. Nissim b. Reuven Gerondi, Derashot ha-ran, ed. Aryeh L. Feldman (Jerusalem: Shalem, 1977), 109; Saul Regev, “Derashot ‘al ha-teshuvah le-rabbi Yosef ibn Shem Tov,” ’Asuppot 5 (1991): 189. 139. Samuel, 342. 140. Ibid. For David’s five transgressions as enumerated in Nicholas of Lyre’s commentary on the fiftieth psalm, several of which conform in detail to the charges in Abarbanel’s litany such that Abarbanel’s use of this commentary can reasonably be assumed, see A. J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Latter Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1988), 108. (For other examples of Abarbanel’s familiarity with Nicholas’s exegesis see Chapter 7.) Even as Abarbanel’s critique of King David breaks with rabbinic and medieval Jewish tradition, it invokes, in its elaboration of David’s first sin, a traditional Spanish exemplum concerning royal lust according to which Spain’s fall to the Muslims in 711 occurred in consequence of King Rodrigo’s sexual assault on Caba, daughter of Count Julian. See, e.g., Primera crónica general de España, ed. Ramon Menéndez Pidal, 2 vols. (Madrid: Gredos, 1955), 1:307–8. 141. Genesis, 78, 135, 177, 269–70; Exodus, 28–29; Deuteronomy, 354–59. 142. One can occasionally glimpse Abarbanel’s homiletical impulse where he is not constrained by the genre of biblical commentary. See, e.g., the aforementioned pages found at the end of the editio princeps of ZP (Constantinople, 1505). 143. Sifrei de-ve rav, ed. H. S. Horovitz (1917; reprint, Jerusalem: Shalem, 1992), 186. 144. Nahum M. Sarna, On the Book of Psalms: Exploring the Prayers of Ancient Israel (New York: Schocken, 1993), 55–56. 145. Numbers, 137 (and, for interpretation of the midrash along similar lines, Deuteronomy, 312). 146. Exodus, 16. For the original midrash, see Heinemann, Darkhei ha-’aggadah, 30– 31; Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1938–1980), 5:411 n. 88. 147. Exodus, 16. 148. Nicomachean Ethics 1156b6. 149. See Chapter 2, p. 51, for an additional example. 150. Exodus, 28. 151. Guide, II, 32 (Pines, 2:360–61). 152. 2:69r. 153. Numbers, 100 (cf. Ta‘anit 28a). Cf. Leviticus, 92 (“the evil inclination precedes the good inclination in a person by thirteen years”; cf. Ecclesiastes Rabbah 4:13); Numbers, 79 (“proselytes are as bad for Israel as a scab”; cf. Qiddushin 70b). 154. Leviticus, 28. Cf. Sukkah 52b; Genesis Rabbah 9:7. 155 Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1987), 205. 156. E.g., contra Kimhi in Joshua, 65. 157. See Chapter 3, p. 82. 158. To Aboulrabi (above, n. 123) should be added two other lesser-known Rabbanites who criticized midrash far more severely than Abarbanel, Eleazar Ashkenazi ben Nathan ha-Bavli and an anonymous supercommentator on Rashi. For the former’s mid-

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A rashic criticism, see Abraham Epstein, “Ma’amar ‘al hibbur ខ Safenat pa‘neaខh,” in Kitvei R. ’Avraham ‘Epshខtein, ed. A. M. Haberman, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1949), 2:116. For the latter’s, see Ephraim E. Urbach, “Hassagot ha-rabad ‘al perush rashi latorah?” Qiryat sefer 34 (1958–59): 101–8. 159. AZ, 61. Cf. ’Avot 1:17. For a reprise of this statement in one of his last biblical commentaries, see Exodus, 227. 160. Septimus, “Nahmanides,” ខ 18 (describing Abraham ibn Ezra’s definition of the exegetical enterprise). 161. Be’ur ‘al ha-torah, ed. Hayyim Dov Chavel, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1966), 1:5. 162. For the extensive use of midrash by the latter, see Abraham Gross, Iberian Jewry from Twilight to Dawn: The World of Rabbi Abraham Saba (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 55– 58. 163. E.g., Samuel, 164, 197, 288; Ezekiel, 602. 164. Explaining the deaths of Aaron’s sons (Leviticus, 54), Abarbanel enumerates five rabbinic views, then states: “Since the sages of Israel and its holy ones were divided in their opinions, it is no dishonor if we raise doubts regarding them.” Omitted is the middle term of the equation: multiplicity of views implies the absence of an authoritative tradition. 165. Genesis, 188. 166. Deuteronomy, 341. For more examples, usually introduced by the phrase “u-maskim le-zeh” or the equivalent, see ibid., 317; Genesis, 95, 96, 121, 177. 167. MY, 338. 168. E.g., concluding his discussion of fringes on a four-cornered garment (Numbers, 85–86). Note here the number and diversity of midrashic sources cited (Sifrei to Numbers, the two Talmuds, Midrash tanខhuma). 169. E.g., Numbers, 8–9; Samuel, 172; Hosea, 30, 63. 170. Numbers, 24.

Chapter 6. In Search of Classical Jewish Eschatology: Yeshu‘ot Meshiខho 1. Given Abarbanel’s ’Avot commentary, one cannot call Yeshu‘ot meshiខho his only work dedicated to nonlegal rabbinic sayings. As, however, ’Avot is conventionally viewed as a sui generis mishnaic tractate rather than compendium of midrashic or aggadic statements, it would be eccentric to characterize Naខhalat ’avot as a work of “aggadic interpretation.” ’Avot commentary is best seen as an allied genre and not as a subset of aggadic exegesis; see Jacob Elbaum, “ ‘Al parshanut ’aggadah,” Tarbiខz 52 (1982– 83): 674. 2. YM, 17v reading ke-fi ha-‘iyyun ha-yashar ve-ha-sevara’ ha-’amitit, in accordance with Paris MS héb. 749, 32r (⳱ film no. 12055 of the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts), the lone surviving manuscript witness to the work, on which the printed edition used herein is based. The other main printed editions are Paris (1812), Karlsruhe (1828) (also based on the Paris MS; see Catalogues des manuscrits hébreux et samaritains de la bibliothèque impériale [Paris, 1866], 121), and Jerusalem (1993).


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3. YM, 5r. 4. See Chapter 4. 5. Silver, History of Messianic Speculation, 36–150. 6. Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. Israel Abrahams (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 649. On the lack of a messianic canon at the center of ancient and medieval Jewish “culture,” see Idel, introduction to Aaron Zev Aescoly, Ha-tenu‘ot ha-meshiខhiyyot be-yisra’el (1956; reprint, Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1987), 10. 7. E.g., Yitzhak Baer, “Ha-tenu‘ah ha-meshihit ខ bi-sefarad bi-tequfat ha-gerush,” Ma’assef Ziyyon 5 (1933): 71–77; Rivka Shatz, “Kavvim li-demutah shel ha-hit‘orerut ha-poliខtit-meshihit ខ le-’ahar ខ gerush sefarad,” Daat 11 (1983): 53–66; Yeshayahu Leibowitz, “Ha-ge’ulah ve-’aharit ខ ha-yamim ’eខsel ’Abravanel,” in ’Emunah hisខtoriyah va‘arakhim (Jerusalem: Akademon, 1983), 102–111; Marianne Awerbuch, Zwischen Hoffnung und Vernunft: Geschichtsdeutung der Juden in Spanien vor der Vertreibung am Beispiel Abravanels und Ibn Vergas (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 1985); Regev, “Meshihiyyut ខ ve-’astrologiyah be-haguto shel R. Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel,” 169–87; Jacqueline Genot-Bismuth, “Le mythe de l’orient dans l’eschatologie des Juifs d’Espagne a` l’époque des conversions forcées et de l’expulsion,” Annales ESC (1990): 827–30; Jean Christophe Attias, Isaac Abravanel—La mémoire et l’espérance (Paris: Cerf, 1992), 20–50; Yehoshafat Navo, “Galut u-ge’ulah be-haguto shel don Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel,” Sinai 110 (1993): 36–57. 8. Abravanel, x. 9. See my “The Messianism of Isaac Abarbanel, ‘Father of the [Jewish] Messianic Movements of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.’ ” 10. The single earlier study from this perspective that exists (Juda Bergmann, “Abrabanels Stellung zur Agada,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 81 [1937]: 270–77) is brief and at times inaccurate. 11. In speaking of his sense that a subversion has occurred, one simply describes what Abarbanel deems the situation without necessarily endorsing his view. The aim is not, at any rate, to endorse a unidimensional understanding of the Jewish messianic idea—understood in exclusively apocalyptic (read: historical-national) terms—of the sort that Moshe Idel has found to be all too prevalent in modern scholarship on Jewish messianism (Messianic Mystics [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998]). One is, however, entitled to wonder whether subversion, or at least neutralization, is not also a most appropriate historical description of strands of medieval Jewish philosophic and mystical eschatological discourse (including ones sampled in this chapter) when seen from the perspective of the biblical-rabbinic tradition and efforts of philosophers and mystics to ground their nonapocalyptic spiritual messianisms in biblical and rabbinic texts through exegeses of these texts. 12. For Baer, see “Ha-tenu‘ah ha-meshihit,” ខ 72. Scholem’s main formulations with respect to Abarbanel occur in Major Trends, 247 and The Messianic Idea in Judaism, 33. For a similar view expressed earlier, see Silver, History of Messianic Speculation, 116. 13. YM, 4r. 14. MY, 412. 15. Megillat ha-megalleh, ed. Adolph Poznanski (Berlin: Mekize nirdamim, 1924), 1. On this work see Julius Guttmann’s introduction to this edition.

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16. For insights and literature on the subject, see Bernard R. Goldstein, “Astronomy and Astrology in the Works of Abraham Ibn Ezra,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 6 (1996): 13–19; Laura Ackerman Smoller, History, Prophecy, and the Stars: The Christian Astrology of Pierre D’Ailly, 1350–1420 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), in the index s.v. Jupiter. For the Christian origin of bar Hiyya’s doctrine, see Guttmann’s introduction (n. 15 above), xiii. 17. Megillat ha-megalleh, 112, 139–40. 18. Isaiah Tishby, Meshiខhiyyut be-dor gerushei sefarad u-fortugal (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 1985) as in Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History, ed. Marc Saperstein (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 272. 19. Tishby’s coinage. 20. Isaiah, 207. 21. Bernard McGinn, Apocalyptic Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 6. 22. Marjorie Reeves, “Cardinal Egidio of Viterbo: A Prophetic Interpretation of History,” in Prophetic Rome in the High Renaissance Period, ed. Marjorie Reeves (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 92. 23. For Netanyahu’s overly assertive verdict that “[t]he impact of Savonarola’s campaign” on Abarbanel’s messianic predictions “can hardly be doubted,” see Abravanel, 246. On Hermeticism’s “profound” implications for messianism see David S. Katz and Richard H. Popkin, Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), 5–6. For Alemanno and Christian eschatology see Idel, Messianic Mystics, 142–43. 24. For Jewish-Christian polemics and debates in fifteenth-century Italy, see Daniel J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemics Against Christianity in the Middle Ages (New York: KTAV, 1977), 15, 18; David Ruderman, The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol (Cincinnati: HUC Press, 1981), 57–62. In earlier centuries, Italian Jewry had been in some measure exempt from the interreligious polemical confrontations that beset the Jewries of Iberia, Provence, France, and Germany; see Daniel J. Lasker, “Jewish Polemics Against Christianity in Thirteenth-CenA tury Italy,” in Hazon Naខhum, ed. Yaakov Elman and Jeffrey S. Gurock (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1997), 252. 25. Ruderman, Renaissance Jew, 54–55. 26. “Ha-tenu‘ah ha-meshihit,” ខ 71. In YM (4r–v), Abarbanel would accord the converts a central role in the process of redemption, viewing them as subverters of Christianity preparing the way for a return to a pure monotheism in messianic times. For discussion and additional texts, see Ram Ben-Shalom, “The Converso as Subversive: Jewish Traditions or Christian Libel? Journal of Jewish Studies 50 (1999): 259–66. 27. YM, 5r. 28. On Jerònim’s work, see Moises Orfali, “The Portuguese Edition (1565) of Hieronymous de Santa Fide’s Contra Iudaeos,” in Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Christians and Jews, ed. Ora Limor and Guy G. Stroumsa (Tübingen: J. B. Mohr, 1996), 240–43. For written anthologies in which the Christian interpretations of midrash and aggadah are found, see YM, 49r, 58v, 71r, 72v. Note that Jerònim also wrote other works in the older polemical fashion aimed at highlighting rabbinic statements deemed to defy the Pentateuch, morality, Jesus and Christianity, and the essence of


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God. See his El Tratado “De Iudaicis Erroribus Ex Talmut” de Jeronimo de Santa Fe, ed. Moises Orfali (Madrid: Consejo superior de investigaciones cientificas, 1987). 29. Three such were Don Vidal Benveniste, Isaac Nathan ben Kolonymous of Arles, and Solomon ben Zemah Duran. On the former’s Qodesh qodashim, see Adolf Poznanski, “Le colloque de Tortose et de San Mateo,” Revue des e´tudes juives 74–75 (1922): 164; for citations from the work see A. Z. Schwarz, Die hebräischen Handschriften in Osterreich ausserhalb der Nationalbibliothek in Wien (Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1931), 159–60. On Benveniste’s role at Tortosa and eventual conversion to Christianity, see Baer, History of the Jews, 2:174, 211–12. On Isaac Nathan, whose anti-Lorki work Tokhaខhat mat‘eh is not extant, see Ram Ben-Shalom, “Yiខshaq ខ Natan ‘me’or gelutenu’: hanhagah, pulmus, veyiខsirah ’inខteleqខtu’alit be-merkaz hayyehah ខ shel yahadut provens, ba-me’ah ha-ខtet-vav (master’s thesis, Tel Aviv University, 1989). For Solomon ben Zemah’s Milខhemet miខsvah, see P. Murciano, “Simon Ben Zemah Duran, ‘Keshet u-magen’: A Critical Edition” (Ph. D. diss., Columbia University 1975). Though Hayyim ibn Musa states that his main opponent in Magen va-romaខh is Nicholas of Lyre, he includes Lorki in his list of adversaries (p. 1). 30. YM, 6r–16r. On the date and contents of this midrash, see Strack and Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, 356–58. For its messianic dimensions, see Jacob Elbaum, “Meshihiyyut ខ be-pirkei de-rabbi ’Eliezer: ’apoqalipsah u-midrash,” Te‘udah 11 (1996): 245–66. 31. YM, 5r. Cf. Mishnah ’im perush rabbenu Moshe ben Maimon, Neziqin, 209, where Maimonides states his intention to write a work explaining “all the derashot of the Talmud and other sources.” In the introduction to the Guide (Pines, 9), in the passage alluded to here, Maimonides explains why he ultimately abandoned this plan. 32. YM, 5r. For ibn Adret and Yedaiah as aggadic interpreters, see Chapter 4. 33. On this topos in medieval Hebrew prefatory literature, see Saperstein, Decoding, 208. 34. YM, 16v, 4v. 35. Ibid., 4v. 36. Baer, History of the Jews, 2:185, 189. 37. YM, 5r. 38. Ibid., 16v. For the original formulation, see Kitvei ramban, 1:303. 39. See Chapter 2. 40. YM, 16r. 41. Ibid., 5r, 16v–17r. 42. Cf. Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 168. 43. See Chapter 4, p. 91. 44. YM, 70r–71r. 45. Ibid., 53v. For Abarbanel’s clearest insistence that Lorki regularly distorted aggadic texts, see ibid., 65r (and for other examples of criticism of predecessors on this score 49v, 53r, 54v, 59v, 61v). 46. For up-to-date discussion and bibliography, see Hannanel Mack, “Ha-derashah ha-shabta’it bi-devar biខttខul ha-miខsvot—meqorah ve-gilguleha,” Sidra 11 (1995): 65–69. 47. YM, 16v, 17v. Two striking examples of Abarbanel making good on his promise to deal with “untouched” rabbinic texts are considered in this chapter, his discussions of

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R. Hillel’s and Samuel’s messianic statements. For interpretation of other dicta which Abarbanel says Jewish apostates (or at least Jerònim) did not adduce, see ibid., 46v, 72r– 73v. (The material in the last reference does, however, appear in Pugio fidei.) 48. Chazan, Daggers, 168. 49. Sanhedrin 99a. The following draws on my “ ‘Israel has No Messiah’ in Late Medieval Spain,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 5 (1995): 245–79, which offers more elaboration regarding writers other than Abarbanel. 50. On R. Joseph’s messianic preoccupations, see Urbach, The Sages, 681. 51. Lawee, “Israel Has No Messiah,” 252–67. 52. Though somewhat surprising, Abarbanel’s claim that Christians did not invoke R. Hillel’s dictum seems to be true. It appears neither in Pugio fidei nor the Latin protocols of the disputation of Tortosa and San Mateo (Antonio Pacios Lopez, La Disputa de Tortosa, 2 vols. [Madrid-Barcelona: Instituto Arias Montano, 1957]). Perhaps the dictum’s denial of a messianic advent after Hezekiah struck Christian polemicists as unhelpful. But if Abarbanel could devise a christological interpretation of R. Hillel, could not Christians? 53. (Constantinople, 1569), chapter 4. For additional textual information see Lawee, “Israel Has No Messiah,” 252 n. 31. 54. YM, 25v. 55. Pardes rimmonim, 15r. 56. Shabbat 55a. 57. YM, 25v. 58. Ibid., 25r–28r. For a full discussion, see my “Israel Has No Messiah,” 259–63. 59. See Chapter 2, pp. 48–49. 60. RA, 106. For invocation of this chronology at Tortosa see Solomon ibn Verga, Shevet yehudah, ed. Azriel Shohat (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1946), 99. 61. RA, 106–7. 62. YM, 25v–27r. For the distinction between nasi’ and melekh found (but understood differently) in at least one earlier aggadic commentary, see Saperstein, Decoding, 172. Cf. Samuel, 206: “And in this also not all kingdoms are the same, since in some of them the power of the king is limited, as in the Crown of Aragon, while in some of them it is absolute.” The referent of these remarks is not entirely clear. Most likely Abarbanel refers to the decentralization of royal power within the Crown of Aragon (taxes, for instance, could be obtained only by a vote of the Catalonian, Aragonese, and Valencian Cortes; Tate, “Monarchy and Empire,” 110). He may, however, have in mind limitations on royal prerogatives within the Kingdom of Aragon in contrast to Castile (on which see Hillgarth, Spanish Kingdoms, 2:191). On absolute versus limited monarchy in Abarbanel’s thought, see Aviezer Ravitzky, “ ‘Al melakhim u-mishpatim be-hagut hayehudit bi-yemei ha-benayim (ben R. Nissim Gerondi le-R. Yiខshaq ខ ’Abarbanel),” in Tarbut ve-ខhevrah be-toldot yisra’el bi-yemei ha-benayim (qoveខs ma’amarim le-zikhro shel A Hayyim Hillel ben-Sasson), ed. Reuven Bonfil, Menahem Ben-Sasson, and Yosef Hacker (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 1989), 470–76; Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History, 161–65. 63. YM, 27r–27v. 64. Sanhedrin 98b. For Zabara’s earlier correlation of these talmudic passages see Lawee, “Israel Has No Messiah,” 253–54.


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65. YM, 28r. 66. RA, 88–90. 67. Abraham Bivagch; see my “Israel Has No Messiah,” 263–64. 68. Mash, 426, 495–96, 491. 69. Joseph Hacker, “Ha-ye’ush min ha-ge’ulah,” 206 n. 59. 70. Baer asserts that Abarbanel’s interpretation of R. Hillel “doubtless” reflects his own view (“Don Yiខshaq ខ ’Abarbanel ve-yehaso ខ ’el be‘ayot ha-hisខtoriyah ve-ha-medinah,” 259). Basing himself on Baer, Leo Strauss makes this into Abarbanel’s teaching without reference to R. Hillel or the interpretive context of Abarbanel’s remarks (“On Abravanel’s Philsophical Tendency and Political Teaching,” 118). 71. Lawee, “Israel Has No Messiah,” 252 n. 29. 72. Mash, 442. 73. Ira Robinson, “Abraham Ben Eliezer Halevi: Kabbalist and Messianic Visionary of the Early Sixteenth Century” (Ph. D. diss., Harvard University, 1980), 34. 74. For Saadya, see Kit¯ab al-am¯an¯at wal-i‘tiq¯ad¯at, 8:7–8 (⳱ Sefer ha-’emunot ve-hade‘ot [Jerusalem, 1987], 181–83); for Moses, see Nahum M. Sarna, “Hebrew and Bible Studies in Medieval Spain,” The Sephardi Heritage: Essays on the History and Cultural Contribution of the Jews in Spain and Portugal, ed. Richard D. Barnett (London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1971), 350. 75. Sefer ha-ge’ulah in Kitvei ramban, 1:275; Pardes rimmonim, 4r; Sefer ha-‘iqqarim, 4:414, 423. 76. Mash, 425. 77. See Chapter 5, p. 104. 78. YM, 38v; Mash, 440–45 (ten reasons why the “redemption from Babylonia” was incomplete), 491; Kings, 681; Deuteronomy, 262. Cf. ’Or ’adonai 3:8:2 (Fisher ed., pp. 366–70). 79. Aescoly, Tenu‘ot meshiខhiyyot, 164–67. For the example of Meshulam Da Piera, see ibid., 214–15. 80. For Lorki, see L. Landau, Das apologetische Schreiben des Josua Lorki: an den Abtrümigen Don Solomon ha-Lewi (Antwerp: Verlag von Teitelbaum & Boxenbaum, 1906), 2–3. For the decades surrounding the expulsion see Abravanel, 229–30; Abraham Gross, “The Expulsion and the Search for the Ten Tribes,” Judaism 41 (1992): 130–147. 81. Mash, 440, 470; cf. Kitvei ramban, 1:315. Cf. Gross, “Search for the Ten Tribes,” 140: “Although almost every exegete or moralist of Sefardi origin, who wrote during this generation [of the expulsion], refers to the Tribes, none can be compared to Abravanel.” 82. A convenient summary is Abravanel, 228–32. 83. YM, 31v; Sefer ha-‘iqqarim 4:415. For the dictum in question see Sanhedrin 110b. 84. YM, 33r. 85. Mash, 440, 443; Isaiah, 4. 86. Gross, “The Expulsion,” 141. 87. YM, 4r. 88. Ibid., 12v. 89. Ibid., 12v–13r. Cf. MY, 351. For fascination with figures in Abarbanel’s messianic works and assimilation of this side of the works to medieval proclivities generally, see Attias, La mémoire et l’espérance, 33–50. 90. YM, 11v-12r, 16v, 18v–21v, 23v, 24r, 25v, 30v, 41v–42r.

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91. Sanhedrin 97a-b. Abarbanel’s text has Nahman b. Tachlifa. The standard edition of the Talmud has Hanan b. Tachlifa. As no figure by either name is known from elsewhere, the reading found in some manuscripts of Anan bar Tachlifa, a student of Samuel, is to be preferred. See Urbach, The Sages, 681–82. 92. YM, 18r–v. 93. Ibid., 20v. 94. For examples, see Urbach, The Sages, index s.v. ‘olam ha-zeh. 95. YM, 21v (cp. 13r). Here Abarbanel explains as well the relationship between 1531 and his other main projected date for the messianic advent, 1503. 96. With respect to the second approach, he says, “ve-nimshekhu rabim ’aharav,” whereas of the third he states “’asher ra’iti li-qeខsat meខhabberim”; YM, 17r. 97. To track down Abarbanel’s sources would be to build a wide-ranging survey of medieval attitudes towards aggadah around this typology—a worthy endeavor not undertaken here. For earlier aggadic classifications, see Ma’amar ‘al ’odot derashot hខ azal by Maimonides’ son Abraham in Milខhamot ’adonai, ed. Reuven Margaliyot (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1954) and Sefer tagmulei ha-nefesh le-Hillel ben Shemu’el mi-veronah, ed. Joseph Sermoneta (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1981), 180–91. 98. YM, 17r: “Nahmanides trod this path . . . and many other scholars were drawn after him.” For Nahmanides’ pronouncement at Barcelona, see Chapter 4. Note the tendency to cast Nahmanides’ catalytic role as a legitimator of Kabbalah in similar terms, as attested in, e.g., Joseph Solomon Delmedigo’s “Mikhtav ’ahuz” ខ (Melo’ A Hofnayyim, ed. Abraham Geiger [Berlin, 1840], 21); Scholem, Kabbalah, 50; Wolfson, “By Way of Truth,” 103. Cf. Isadore Twersky, Rabad of Posquieres: A Twelfth-Century Talmudist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 300. 99. ‘Eruvin 13b. For different conceptions of this principle as applied to legal materials see Moshe Sokol, “What Does a Jewish Text Mean? Theories of Elu Ve-Elu Divrei Elohim Hayim in Rabbinic Literature,” Daat 32–33 (1994): xxiii–xxxv. Abarbanel apparently means, judging from his reference to differing intentions, that seemingly incongruous aggadic materials should be seen not as products of some higher inscrutable metaphysical harmony but as understandable reflections of diverse facets of truth. 100. YM, 17r–v. 101. See Chapter 2, p. 38. 102. See Chapter 3. For affirmation of this renunciationist position, following Maimonides, in almost the exact language found in the formulation of it in Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, see Deuteronomy, 56. 103. Kitvei ramban, 1:308. 104. For the rabbinic text, see Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:57. In the Latin protocol of the Barcelona disputation, Nahmanides is left at a loss (Chazan, Daggers, 97). In Nahmanides’ account (Kitvei ramban, 1:306) he provides a substantive response. 105. YM, 39v–42r. 106. Ibid., 17r. For kabbalistic interpretations see 13r, 31r, 37r. For Abarbanel’s own interpretation of an aggadah on the basis of premises upheld by kabbalists, see below in this chapter. 107. For Levi, see Sirat, History of Jewish Philosophy, 243–247. For a pronouncement of the fourteenth-century Motot regarding a cosmological aggadah see Georges Vajda,


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“Reserches sur la synthese philosophico-kabbalistique de Samuel ibn Motot,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen age 27 (1960): 45–46. (Motot is elsewhere cited by Abarbanel; Deuteronomy, 214.) Al-Constantini’s philosophic-allegorical approach to classical Jewish texts is evidenced in his Sefer mar’ot ’elohim. The context for the second of two references to this work found in Abarbanel’s writings (Isaiah, 50, 53) concerns a discrepancy between aggadic and Maimonidean notions of cosmogony. 108. YM, 65r–v. For Nahmanides see Torat ha-’adam in Kitvei ramban, 2:285. 109. Ibid., 17r. 110. For a recent discriminating treatment of various elements of Maimonidean messianism, see Hannah Kasher’s review of Dov Schwartz’s Ha-ra‘ayon ha-meshiខhi be-hagut ha-yehudit bi-yemei ha-benayim in Mada‘ei ha-yahadut 39 (1999): 178–84. 111. Berakhot 34b; Shabbat 63a; Sanhedrin 99a. A 112. H. Melakhim 12:2 and 12:4. For “blasted be the spirits . . .” cf. Sanhedrin 97b. 113. For the Maimonidean passage, see Mishnah ’im perush rabbenu Moshe ben Maimon, Neziqin, 139. For the rabbinic text interpreted, see Shabbat 30b. Another naturalistic interpretation of a messianic aggadah can be found in Guide, II, 29. 114. Saperstein, Decoding, 103–109, 114. Note that Isaac does allow for the renewal of miracles with a biblical precedent. For other rationalists of a similar interpretive bent, see Moshe Idel, “Defusim shel pi‘ilut go’elet bi-yemei ha-benayim,” in Meshiខhiyyut ve’asqatologiyah, ed. Zevi Baras (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 1983), 262; Schwartz, “Ha-‘neខtralizaខsiyah’ shel he-re‘ayon ha-meshihi,” ខ 37–58. 115. Twersky, Introduction to the Code, 386–87. 116. Mishnah ‘im perush R. Moshe ben Maimon, Neziqin, 137. 117. Guide, I, 17 (Pines, 42–43). 118. YM, 21v–22r. For the text, see Sanhedrin 98a. The reference to the Garden of Eden found in Abarbanel’s version is missing from current printed editions of the Talmud but appears to be correct. For a critical edition of the aggadah see Yonah Fraenkel, “Demuto shel R. Yehoshua‘ ben Levi be-sippurei ha-talmud ha-bavli,” Divrei ha-qongres ha-‘olami ha-shelishi le-mada‘ei ha-yahadut (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1977), 3:410–411. For invocation of the aggadah at Barcelona and Tortosa, see Kitvei ramban, 1:307 and Shevet yehudah, 102 respectively. 119. To express this idea he employs the term ruខhani, a term he uses elsewhere (e.g., YM, 22r), as do other Hebrew writers, to refer to Christian interpretations spiritualiter of the sort he was often keen to combat for having uprooted the plain sense of polemically critical biblical texts. Cf. Mash, 427, for his strenuous objection to interpretation of prophecies of redemption “be-derekh ruខhani . . . ka’asher rageshu goyim u-le’ummim [i.e., the Christians].” On the manner and place of “spiritual interpretation” in the medieval Latin hermenetutic, see the index in J. S. Preus, From Shadow to Promise (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), s.v. “Spiritual sense(s).” 120. YM, 22r (reading medabber for medabberim). The identity of the “animal fables” referred to by Abarbanel is not clear. Perhaps he has Kalila wa-Dimna in mind (cf. the citation from Judah ben Joseph ibn Aknin in Talmage, “Apples of Gold,” 323). 121. YM, 22r. 122. Genesis, 46. In the passage alluded to (Guide, I, 17; Pines, 42–43), Maimonides notes that the “philosophers and learned men of the various communities in ancient times” had “concealed what they said about the first principles and presented it in

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riddles,” then adds: “Thus Plato and his predecessors designated matter as the female and form as the male.” 123. YM, 22r. 124. Ibid., 39r. 125. Cf. Guide, II, 30. 126. Genesis, 85, 88. 127. YM, 48r for “riding on a donkey” as a widespread rabbinic metaphor for an individual’s overcoming his evil inclination. Ibid., 40r, 43v for generic metaphorical meanings of aggadic Arabs. For “code words” in aggadic exegesis, see Twersky, “Yeda‘yah Hapenini,” 69; Saperstein, Decoding, 47–78. 128. YM, 48r. But note the slightly less assertive formulation at Genesis, 263, where Abarbanel observes that “this dictum requires explanation since it is unlikely and indeed near impossible to understand it literally.” Here the reticence to rule out a literal understanding of the midrash entirely is striking and seems reflective of a general coolness on Abarbanel’s part with respect to the philosophic category of “the impossible.” 129. Genesis, 269–70 (reading yakhnia‘ for hikhnia‘). For a generally similar reading that, however, focuses less on national developments and more on the lives of the three individuals mentioned in the aggadah see the version in YM, 48r–v. 130. See Chapter 5. 131. YM, 48v. 132. Saperstein, Decoding, 112–13. For a similar example from Levi ben Abraham’s Livyat hខ en, see Idel, “Defusim,” 262 (shemo shel mashiaខh hu’ ha-sekhel ha-’enoshi). 133. Saperstein, Decoding, 110, 112–13. Isaac thereby addressed a question triggered by fundaments of Maimonidean eschatology which the master had not broached: how would one who attained philosophic enlightenment in exile gain from the Messiah’s coming at all? 134. Pardes rimmonim, 2v. Cp. Guide, I, 71 (Pines, 176). 135. One part of the lost theodicy was devoted to this subject, and extended reflections are found in numerous other works, e.g., NA, 270–93; MY, 396–98; Isaiah, 3–16. For grapplings with this doctrine among philosophically minded thinkers, see Dov Schwartz, Ha-ra‘ayon ha-meshiខhi be-hagut ha-yehudit bi-yemei ha-benayim (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1997), 133–45. 136. YM, 61v-63r. Cf. NA, 272. 137. Yevamot 62a; ‘Avodah zarah 5a. Abarbanel ascribes the saying to R. Yossi in accordance with the version in the latter. For Rav Assi as the likely source, see Urbach, The Sages, 237, 792 n. 79. 138. See Chapter 4 and Pardes rimmonim, 17r. In Guide, I, 70, Maimonides speaks of the soul as “that which comes into being at the time a man is generated” (Pines, 173– 74). (In contrast to Aristotle, Plato adhered to the doctrine of preexistence; Urbach, The Sages, 234.) 139. YM, 36r. 140. NA, 272. For this idea see Kitvei ramban, 1:383–84. Cf. Rashi (‘Avodah zarah 5a, s.v. ‘ad): “there is a treasure house called guf, and at the time of creation all the souls destined to be born were formed and placed there.” 141. YM, 36r. 142. Ibid., 17v.


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143. Marks, Image of Bar Kokhba, 100 is typical: “In it Abravanel collects all rabbinic passages dealing with eschatological subjects, classifies them according to four issues raised by Christian polemicists . . . and then systematically refutes the Christian interpretation of these passages.” An exception to the usual characterizations is Netanyahu’s wildly misdirected portrayal of the work (Abravanel, 78) as comprising “a thorough survey of the mystical parts of post-biblical literature.” For Netanyahu’s abuse of “mysticism” in his account of Abarbanel’s religious development see my “Isaac Abarbanel’s Intellectual Biography in Light of His Portuguese Writings.” 144. YM, 73v. 145. Judah Goldin, “Of Midrash and the Messianic Theme,” in Studies in Midrash and Related Literature, ed. Barry L. Eichler and Jeffrey H. Tigay (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1988), 373. For the saying itself, see n. 111 above. A 146. For that of Hasdai Crescas, see Nathan Ophir, “Ha-rav Hasdai Qresqas ke-parshan filosofi le-ma’amarei hazal ខ le-’or ha-temurot be-haguto” (Ph. D. diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1993), 215. 147. YM, 56v. 148. See Chapter 4. 149. YM, 31, where R. Johanan ben Torta’s retort in response to R. Akiva’s support of Bar Kokhba’s messianic status (“Akiva, grass will grow out of your cheek bones.”) is ascribed to “the rest of the sages of Israel”; cf. Marks, Image of Bar Kokhba, 113. On Maimonides’ “arbitrary” selection of rabbinic materials congenial to his messianic views, see Scholem, The Messianic Idea, 28. But Twersky (Introduction to the Code, 99–100) notes a general tendency in Mishneh torah to make rabbinic authorities speak in an “anonymous-collective voice.” 150. YM, 56v; cf. Mishnah ‘im perush R. Moshe ben Maimon, Nezeqin, 144. 151. YM, 57r–58r. Cf. Aviezer Ravitzky, “ ‘Kefi koahខ ha-’adam’: yemot ha-mashiahខ be-mishnat ha-rambam,” in ‘Al da‘at ha-maqom, 85 n. 28, who corelates Abarbanel’s two periods with Scholem’s distinction (Messianic Idea, 3) between “restorative” and “utopian” Jewish messianism. 152. YM, 58r. For a similar issuance of a “pesaq halakhah” in the aggadic realm (the number of commandments heard by the Israelites at Sinai) see Deuteronomy, 71: “da‘at rabbanan, she-halakhah kemotam ’eខsel ha-yaខhid, hu’ she-kol ha-dibberot shame‘u mi-pi hakadosh barukh hu’.” Another more subtle conflation of the rules of halakhic and aggadic discourse occurs at Genesis, 39. In support of an aggadic expression concerning the primordial firmament, Abarbanel adverts to the Talmud’s justification for acceptance of all of R. Eliezer ben Jacob’s legal opinions: “divrei ’Eli‘ezer ben Ya‘aqov be-khol maqom hem kulam qav ve-naqi” (cf. Yevamot 49b). 153. See Chapters 3, 4, 5. 154. Sanhedrin 97b; see the passage from Mishneh torah cited above (where “spirits” appears in place of “bones”). Cf. ’Or ’adonai 3:8:2 (ed. Fisher, p. 366). 155. MY, 282–3. 156. On this theme, see Marjorie E. Reeves, “History and Prophecy in Medieval Thought,” Medievalia et Humanistica n.s. 5 (1974): 53. 157. Ibid., 51. 158. Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism, trans. David. W. Silverman (New York: Schocken, 1973), 128–129.

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159. Abarbanel does not refer to bar Hiyya by name but his reliance on him is patent; Guttmann, “Introduction,” (above n. 15), 27. 160. Book of Tradition, 191. Gerson Cohen, “Messianic Postures of Ashkenazim and Sephardim,” Studies in the Variety of Rabbinic Culture (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 281. 161. See Chapter 5, n. 42. 162. Perush ha-ramban, 1:30–31 163. Kitvei ramban, 1:294. Ramban argues that, at the time of redemption, the Jews will have passed as much time outside the Land of Israel subsequent to the second Temple’s destruction as they had passed inside the Land prior to this temple’s destruction. 164. YM, 33v. 165. MY, 409. 166. Ibid., 412, 415–18. 167. Ibid., 401. 168. Mash, 513. 169. Tam ha-kesef (1913; reprint, Jerusalem: Makor, 1970), 42, 45. On ibn Kaspi’s argument, see Shlomo Pines, “Histabberut ha-tequmah me-hadash ខ shel medinah yehudit le-fi Yosef ibn Kaspi u-le-fi Shpinoza,” ‘Iyyun 14 (1964): 289–317. 170. Isaiah, 185–86. 171. Elbaum, “Meshihiyyut,” ខ 245. 172. YM, 11r. 173. Ibid., 14r. 174. Ibid., 4v. See Chapter 5, pp. 107–8. 175. MY, 400–1. 176. YM, 10r. 177. Ibid., 13v–14r. 178. See Chapter 5. 179. YM, 4r, 17r, 73v. 180. Ibid., 13r, 17r, 22v, 23r, 23v, 35r, 43v. 181. Ibid., 45v. 182. See, respectively, Abravanel, 103 (only the first half of Netanyahu’s quotation of Abarbanel appears in the text cited) and Marks, Image of Bar Kokhba, 104–5. For an evaluation of Abarbanel’s stance towards the sages that tends in the same direction, see Meyer Waxman, “Don Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel,” Sefer ha-shanah li-yehudei ’ameriqah 3 (1939): 72–73. 183. YM, 13r. 184. Ibid., 38r. 185. Ibid., 9r. 186. Ibid., 65v. 187. Ibid., 30v–31r. For a full exposition of Abarbanel’s account of Akiva’s support of Bar Kokhba, see Marks, Image of Bar Kokhba, 99–135. Abarbanel goes on to suggest that it may have been in punishment for his error regarding Bar Kokhba that R. Akiva was made to suffer an especially painful death at the hands of the Romans! 188. For a recent reprise of Scholem’s notion of “codification” as cited at the beginning of the chapter, see n. 86. For one of Baer’s expressions that Abarbanel “does not


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come to create innovations” in the messianic writings (“Ha-tenu‘ah meshihit,” ខ 72) reprised, see Ben-Shalom, “Dimmui,” 20. 189. Baer, “Ha-tenu‘ah ha-meshihit,” ខ 71–72. 190. Katz and Popkin, Messianic Revolution, 28.

Chapter 7. Historical Thinking, Critical Reading, and the Study of Classical Jewish Texts 1. For this and another similar characterization of Abarbanel by Benzion Netanyahu, see the Introduction at n. 16. 2. See Chapters 1 and 2. 3. For recent thinking on Italian humanism’s “definition” and meaning, see Kenneth Gouwens, “Perceiving the Past: Renaissance Humanism After the ‘Cognitive Turn’,” American Historical Review 103 (1998): 55–82, and the literature cited therein. 4. Paul Oskar Kristeller, “The Humanist Movement,” in Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic, and Humanist Strains (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1961), 9–10; George M. Logan, “Substance and Form in Renaissance Humanism,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 7 (1977): 18–34. 5. Anthony Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983–93), 1:3. One might argue that the devotion to classical literature evinced during the “twelfth-century Renaissance” (e.g., by John of Salisbury) constitutes one of the exceptions. 6. See Chapter 2. 7. See Eugene Rice, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460–1559 (New York: Norton, 1970), 68. The extent to which humanist historico-critical techniques mark an innovation is disputed. Dissent from the standard view that the roots of criticism stretch back to humanists is forthcoming in Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), especially as assessed in James Hankins, “Forging Links with the Past,” Journal of the History of Ideas 52 (1991): 509–13. For the standard view, see, e.g., Donald R. Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970); Peter Burke, The Renaissance Sense of the Past (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970). 8. Kelley, Foundations, 7; Burke, Renaissance, 1. 9. James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols., 2nd impression with addenda and corrigenda (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), 1:24–25. 10. John F. D’Amico, Theory and Practice in Renaissance Textual Criticism: Beatus Rhenanus Between Conjecture and History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 13, 14, 143. 11. See, e.g., Bentley, Humanists and Holy Writ. 12. M. A. Schreech, introduction to Erasmus’s Annotations on the New Testament: The Gospels, ed. Anne Reeve (London: Duckworth, 1986), x. Cf. the title of Robert Coogan, Erasmus, Lee and the Correction of the Vulgate: The Shaking of the Foundations (Geneva: Droz, 1992).

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Notes to Page 171

13. As noted, this facet of Renaissance biblical scholarship has not as yet received its due. For a judicious overview see James L. Kugel, “The Bible in the University,” in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, William Henry Propp, Barukh Halpern, and David Noel Freedman (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 149–53. See also G. R. Evans, The Language and Logic of the Bible: The Road to the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 15–19. Of course, individual medieval Christian biblical interpreters like Andrew of St. Victor and Nicholas of Lyre had, on occasion, been drawn to Hebrew and Jewish learning in their quest for Hebraica veritas; see, for Andrew, Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in The Middle Ages (first paperback edition Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964), 112–85 and, for Nicholas, Herman Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963). The mastery of rabbinics sought by Ramon Mart´ı for a wholly different purpose has been mentioned (Chapter 4), but it was in Abarbanel’s Italy, and soon thereafter in more northerly European centers, that Hebrew studies “burst upon the consciousness of a literate Christian elite” in widespread fashion; see Manuel, Broken Staff, 30. 14. Erika Rummel, The Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance and Reformation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 96. 15. As noted above (Chapter 2) with respect to Judah Messer Leon and his son. 16. For a survey, see Edward Breuer, The Limits of Enlightenment: Jews, Germans, and the Eighteenth-Century Study of Scripture (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 1996), 40–45. 17. Frederick Greenspahn, “Biblical Scholars, Medieval and Modern,” in Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel, ed. Jacob Neusner, Barukh A. Levine, and Ernest S. Frerichs (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 168–77. 18. For a collection of such rabbinic dicta and medieval discussions thereof, see Menahem M. Kasher, “Quntres seder ketivat ha-torah,” in Torah shelemah, 19:328–79. 19. For Moses ibn Giqatilah, see Simon, Four Approaches, 126–27. For Abraham ibn Ezra see idem, “Ibn Ezra Between Medievalism and Modernism: The Case of Isaiah XL– LXVI,” Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 36 (1983): 266–68. 20. Abarbanel will speak of an anonymous editor who divided the Torah into pericopes and occasionally refers in a strangely impersonal way to “the writer” (reminiscent of the Latin scriptor) of the Torah rather than to Moses, but such usages turn out to have precedents. On the divider of the Pentateuch into pericopes, see, e.g., Genesis, 313, 379; Exodus, 80; cf. Abraham ibn Ezra on Exodus 6:28. For “writer of the Torah” see Exodus, 13 and, for a precursor, Joseph’s ibn Kaspi’s remark in Basil Herring, Joseph Ibn Kaspi’s Gevia‘ Kesef: A Study in Medieval Jewish Philosophic Bible Commentary (New York: KTAV, 1982), 44. Note that Moses is described as one who “wrote his book”—i.e., the Torah—in the classic rabbinic account of authorship (Bava batra 14b). This, in addition to the Latin scriptor, may lie behind Abarbanel’s usage. With regard to other biblical books Abarbanel invokes a number of usages, e.g., ba‘al ha-sefer (Joshua, 31; Judges, 149); kotev ha-sefer ’o ha-metaqqen ve-hamekabbeខs ’oto (Joshua, 82). There is also an “arranger” of the prophetic books (mesadder ha-nevu’ot; mesadder ha-sefer; Commentary on the Minor Prophets, 3). For the mesadder in Abarbanel’s conception, and Moses’ acts of siddur in Deuteronomy, see Yaakov Elman, “The Book of Deuteronomy as Revelation: A Nahmanides and Abarbanel,” in Hazon Naខhum, 236–48. For other “critical” observa-


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tions of ibn Kaspi, see Shnayer Leiman’s entry in Parshanut ha-miqra’ ha-yehudit: pirkei mavo’, 93–94. 21. Burke, Renaissance, 1; Kelley, Foundations, 5–8; Myrone P. Gilmore, “The Renaissance Conception of the Lessons of History,” in Humanists and Jurists: Six Studies in The Renaissance (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1963), 9. 22. See, e.g., Bernard Guenée, “Y a-t-il une historiographie médiévale?” Revue historique 524 (1977): 261–63. For John of Salisbury see Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 285–94. 23. Elman, “Book of Deuteronomy as Revelation.” A 24. Maggid mishneh as in Gross, Hayyun, 231–32. The apparently daring phrase “Moses on his own” reflects a well-known rabbinic locution. See Megillah 31b and parallels. 25. Maggid mishneh, 231. 26. Joshua, 5–9. 27. Samuel, 163–67. For an overview, see Ruiz, “Las introducciones y cuestiones,” 707–22. 28. A. J. Minnis, “The Accessus Extended: Henry of Ghent on the Transmission and Reception of Theology,” in Ad litteram: Authoritative Texts and Their Medieval Readers, ed. Mark D. Jordan and Kent Emery, Jr. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 276. For the Aristotelian prologue in detail, see idem, Medieval Theory of Authorship, 28–33. For prologue-formats of Christian origin in Jewish exegetical literature see my “Introducing Scripture: The Accessus Ad Auctores in Medieval Hebrew Exegetical Literature from the 13th to 15th Centuries,” in With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Interpretation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (forthcoming). For Greco-Arabic background, see James T. Robinson, “Samuel ibn Tibbon’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes and the Philosopher’s Prooemium,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature III, 83–85. 29. Smalley, Study of the Bible, 297. 30. Joshua, 8. 31. For an echo (almost certainly witting) of this understanding of the divine role in producing biblical texts, see Joseph ibn Yahya’s introduction to Esther as in Isaac Arama, ‘Aqedat yiខshខ aq, 6 (unpaginated). (On the authorship of this introduction, see Isaiah Sonne, “Tokh kedei qeri’ah III: genevah sifrutit ’o tខa‘ut ha-madpis?” Qiryat sefer 7 [1930–31]: 279–81.) 32. Fernão Lopes, 157–59. Unlike Abarbanel, Lopes singles out attachment to one’s land (terra) as a prime cause of partiality. Without a “land” of his own, Abarbanel was less inclined to think in such terms. 33. See J. Poyol Alonso, “Los cronistas de Enrique IV,” Bolet´ın de la real academia de historia (1922): 131; cited in Nader, Mendoza, 33–34. Abarbanel does not claim that the tendency of chroniclers to “praise and blame unduly” necessarily reflects willful intent, but examples that he knew at first hand must have made him aware of this possibility. 34. Cited from Talmage, Kimhi, 93. 35. Ma‘aseh ’efod, 40. 36. For this trait of historical thinking, see Burke, Renaissance, 19. 37. Samuel, 164.

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38. Kings, 548. 39. James L. Kugel, “David the Prophet,” in Poetry and Prophecy, ed. James L. Kugel (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 50. 40. Talmage, Kimhi, 113. 41. E.g., James King West, Introduction to the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1981), 486 and the literature cited in Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 1989), 468 n. 61. 42. Jeremiah, 422. For the translation and other examples, see Moshe Greenberg, “Jewish Conceptions of the Human Factor in Biblical Prophecy,” in Justice and the Holy: Essays in Honor of Walter Harrelson, ed. Douglas A. Knight and Peter J. Paris (Atlanta: Scholars, 1989), 157–58. 43. Greenberg, “Jewish Conceptions,” 158. 44. On this term, see the translator’s observations in Levi ben Gershom, Commentary on Song of Songs, trans. Menachem Kellner (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 101 n. 9. 45. Jeremiah, 297–98. 46. Ezekiel, 434. For applications in the body of the commentaries, see Jeremiah, 382; Ezekiel, 514, 571. 47. Jeremiah, 298. 48. Kings, 543. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid., 544. Cf. Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster, 1993), 802: “ ‘The ships of Tarshish’ . . . are clearly a type of vessel; the destination of the expedition was to be ‘Ophir’. . . . [Whereas] for the Chronicler, ‘ships of Tarshish’ denotes a fleet sailing to Tarshish . . .; this explains the Chronicler’s omission of ‘to go to Ophir,’ which is replaced by ‘to go to Tarshish.’ ” For Tarshish ships as possibly designed for importing iron ingots, see West, Introduction to the Old Testament, 244. 51. Bava batra, 14b–15a. 52. Joshua, 7. Further references to the full discussion (ibid., 7–8) are omitted hereinafter. For an English translation of the passage in full, see my “Don Isaac Abarbanel: Who Wrote the Books of the Bible?” Tradition 30 (1996): 65–73. 53. See their commentaries on Josh. 19:47. 54. Cf. the approach to one usage of the expression “until this day” in the book of Joshua as developed by the Karaite Yefet ben ‘Ali Halevi (Simon, Four Approaches, 91). Yefet assumes that the phrase was added not long after Joshua’s death and hence that it must reflect prophetic knowledge of the future. 55. Perush R. Yosef Qara ‘al nevi’im rishonim, ed. Simon Eppenstein (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kuk, 1972), 65. For a recapitulation of Tanhum’s argument see Abraham S. Halkin, “Ha-parshanut ha-yehudit be-‘aravit huខ ខ s li-sefarad ve-ha-parshanut ha-qera’it ha-qedumah,” in Parshanut ha-miqra’ ha-yehudit: pirkei mavo’, 28. For Kimhi see Talmage, Kimhi, 113–14. 56. Though Abarbanel speaks here unequivocally of Samuel’s “not having written his book,” he later qualifies this view, as will be seen. 57. Here too, as will appear, Abarbanel subsequently qualifies this absolute statement concerning Gad’s and Nathan’s lack of authorship.


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58. E.g., for Saadya Gaon, Moses ibn Giqatila, and Abraham ibn Ezra on Psalms see Simon, Four Approaches, 13–15, 122–37, 182–86, 275 n. 99. 59. Bava batra, 15a-b. 60. See Chapters 4 and 5. 61. In making his argument for a lack of qabbalah in the case of Joshua’s and Samuel’s authorship, Abarbanel faces the difficulty that even as the sages debated aspects of the authorship issue (Job, the last eight verses of the Torah), they seemingly concurred that Joshua wrote all of “his book” except for the concluding verses. Abarbanel addresses this problem by refitting his standard argument. Despite such unanimity, he states, ascriptions in another “part of the dictum” are disputed; hence a lack of certitude for all data relayed in the dictum can be assumed. 62. Samuel, 217. 63. In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza also concludes that Joshua could not have written the book bearing his name nor Samuel the book bearing his, and in so doing he also adduces 1 Sam. 9:9. For brief discussion, see Leo Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, trans. E. M. Sinclair (1930; 2nd ed. New York: Schocken, 1965), 320–21. 64. Joshua, 8. For the most recent study of (an aspect of) Abarbanel’s prophetology, see Seymour Feldman, “Prophecy and Perception in Isaac Abravanel,” in Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism, ed. Alfred Ivry, Elliot Wolfson, and Allan Arkush (London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 223–35. 65. A Safenat pa‘neaខh, 1:91. On this work, see, most recently, Eleazar Gutwirth, “Fourteenth Century Supercommentaries on Abraham Ibn Ezra,” in Abraham ibn Ezra y su tiempo, ed. Fernando D´ıaz Esteban (Madrid: Asociacion espanola de orientalistas, 1990), 148–54. 66. A Safenat pa‘neaខh, 2:65–66. Ibid. 1:91–92: “Why should I care whether it was Moses or another prophet who wrote it since the words of all of them are true and inspired?” For scholarly discussion, see the sources cited in Chapter 5, n. 127. 67. For “unto this day,” see, e.g., Deuteronomy, 100, 351. For his handling of “hayyom” in Gen. 22:14 in light of earlier interpretations, see Uriel Simon, “Parshanut hapashខtanit shel ha-historiyah ha-miqra’it—ben hisខtoriyyut, dogmaខtiyyut, u-venaimiyyut,” in Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 200–201 (Hebrew Section). 68. Numbers, 108–9. 69. Bypassing, for instance, the anachronistic reference to Dan in Genesis 14:14 (Genesis, 198). 70. Numbers, 108. For justified rejection of the charge against the latter, see the note in Perush ha-ramban, 2:281–82. The case of ibn Ezra is more complicated. In his commentary to Numbers 21:1, ibn Ezra observes that “many have said that Joshua wrote this pericope,” then disputes this view. Two possibilities suggest themselves. Either Abarbanel ascribed this opinion to ibn Ezra out of error (he occasionally wrongly attributes views to ibn Ezra which ibn Ezra had ascribed to others; see Lipshutz, Pirqei ‘iyyun bemishnat R. ’Abraham ibn ‘Ezra’, 103 n. 4) or he believed that ibn Ezra’s protestation was disingenuous. 71. Kings, 669. 72. Jeremiah, 299.

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73. Nedarim, 37b. 74. Jeremiah, 299–300. 75. Histoire critique du vieux testament (Rotterdam: Leers, 1685), 45. In a similar vein, but to opposite effect, Zadok Hakohen Rabinowitz of Lublin, amidst castigation of Abarbanel for dissent from rabbinic attributions of authorship for Joshua and Samuel, highlights occurences of the phrase “unto this day” in Deut. 10:8 and 34:6. Taking it (rightly) as a given that Abarbanel accepts the ascription of the whole Torah to Moses, he argues that the phrase should be subject in its prophetic occurences to whatever atemporal interpretation Abarbanel places on it in its Pentateuchal ones; ’Or Zarua‘ la-ខsaddiq (Lublin: n.p., 1927), 49–51. 76. Anthony Grafton, Defenders of the Text: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450–1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 104. See also Burke, Renaissance, 47. 77. Grafton, Joseph Scaliger, 1:3–4 (and for a detailed account, vol. 2); Logan, “Substance and Form,” 17. Cf. Grafton’s discussion of limitations of humanistic as opposed to “systematic” approaches to chronology in Defenders, 119–20. 78. Grafton, Defenders, 126–28; idem, Joseph Scaliger, 2:177–92. 79. Grafton, Joseph Scaliger, 2:652. 80. Ben-Shalom, “Dimmui,” 36. 81. See the passages quoted by Havlin in the introduction to Seder ha-qabbalah leMenaខhem Ha-meiri, ed. Shlomo Zalman Havlin (Jerusalem-Cleveland: Makhon Ofek, [1992]), 30–31. 82. See R. Dean Ware, “Medieval Chronology,” in Medieval Studies: An Introduction, ed. James M. Powell, 2nd. ed. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992), 268–73. 83. Debora Kuller Shuger, The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice, and Subjectivity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 36–37. 84. Talmage, Kitvei pulmos, 60–63. 85. Shuger, Renaissance Bible, 37. 86. For Rashi, see Mark Berger, “The Torah Commentary of Samuel b. Meir” (Ph. D. diss., Harvard University, 1982), 104–5. For ibn Ezra and Nahmanides, see Ezra Zion Melammed, Mefareshei ha-miqra’: darkehem ve-shiខtotehem, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1979), 2:539–41, 939–40. Nahmanides also evinced considerable concern for issues turning on the question of “narrative and expositional sequentiality within the biblical text.” See Yaakov Elman, “ ‘It Is No Empty Thing’: Nahmanides and The Search for Omnisignificance,” The Torah U-Madda Journal 4 (1993): 1–83 (for the cited passage p. 13). 87. Exodus, 316; Numbers, 87–88; Judges, 142, for the three questions enumerated. For other examples, see Exodus, 316; Samuel, 386–87, and Elman, “No Empty Thing,” 21–22. 88. For up-to-date bibliography, see Giuseppe Veltri, “The Humanist Sense of History and the Jewish Idea of Tradition: Azaria De’ Rossi’s Critique of Philo Alexandrinus,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 2 (1995): 372–93; The Light of the Eyes, trans. Joanna Weinberg (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). For Azariah on issues of chronology, see Salo W. Baron, “Azariah de’ Rossi’s Historical Method,” History and Jewish Historians (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1964), 233–35. 89. Samuel, 201–2; Judges, 141–42.


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90. Samuel, 386. 91. Ibid., 230. 92. Kitab al-muខha¯ dខ ara wal-mudh¯akara, ed. with Hebrew trans. by A. S. Halkin (Jerusalem: Mekize nirdamim, 1975), 51. 93. Samuel, 232–33. That Abarbanel’s critique here is more far-reaching than Moses ibn Ezra’s will be lost on the reader of Yosef Yerushalmi’s Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory ([New York: Schocken, 1982], 33), which fails to convey ibn Ezra’s belief that the decline of Jewish historiography dates only from the period following the Second Temple. (For Scaliger’s view that determination of the number, names, and order of the kings of ancient Israel was a problem without a wholly satisfactory solution, see Grafton, Defenders, 105.) 94. Joshua, 4–5. In Commentary on the Minor Prophets, 3, the same idea is broached, but Jeremiah is there classed as a post- rather than preexilic author. 95. Isaiah, 3. 96. ‘Avodah zarah 9a; Seder ‘olam, chapter 30. For medieval interpretations see briefly Robert Chazan, “Joseph Kimhi’s Sefer Ha-Berit: Pathbreaking Medieval Jewish Apologetics,” Harvard Theological Review 85 (1992): 429. 97. MY, 377. 98. On which see, most recently, Steven Bowman, “Sefer Yosippon: History and Midrash,” in The Midrashic Imagination: Jewish Exegesis, Thought, and History, ed. Michael Fishbane (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), 280–94. 99. MY, 284. 100. Ibid., 375. 101. Ibid., 377. 102. See above at n. 9. 103. MY, 288–89, 384. 104. Sefer me’or ‘enayim, ed. David Cassel, 3 vols. (1864–66; reprint, Jerusalem: Makor, 1970), 2:312–21. 105. Baron, “De’ Rossi’s Historical Method,” 233. 106. Ben-Shalom, “Dimmui,” 111–19. 107. Ibid., 115, 117, 137. 108. Burke (Renaissance, 1) has it that medievals were aware of the difference between past and present but did not take it “very seriously.” 109. For Wyclif and Hus, see Francis Oakley, The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979), 194; Gordon Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent, 2 vols. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967), 2:512, 671–76. 110. David Berger, “On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic Against Christianity: The Quest for the Historical Jesus,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, ed. Elisheva Carlebach, John M. Efron, and David N. Myers (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1998), 25–39. 111. Kelimmat ha-goyyim in Talmage, Kitvei pulmos, 4–66. On the problem of Duran’s religious status at the time of the composition of his anti-Christian works, see Richard Emery, “New Light on Profyat Duran the Efodi,” Jewish Quarterly Review 58 (1968): 328–37. 112. Kelimmat ha-goyyim, 49, 64–65.

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113. For other fifteenth-century disputants who adopted and expanded Duran’s approach see Baer, History, 2:475 n. 41; Gutwirth, “History and Apologetics,” 239–42. 114. Sefer yuខhasin ha-shalem, ed. Zevi Filipowski (1857; reprint [with introduction and notes by A. H. Freimann], Frankfurt am Main: Wahrmann Verlag, 1924), 231r. 115. West, Introduction to the Old Testament, 515–17. 116. MY, 327. 117. For further ascriptions of traditions found in Christian works to Jewish sources, again without obvious polemical intent, see MY, 332; Samuel, 387, 415; Isaiah, 71. 118. MY, 310, 392. For a summary of various usages to which ongoing ChristianMuslim conflict and Muslim this-worldly success were put by Jewish polemicists, see Daniel J. Lasker, “The Impact of the Crusades on the Jewish-Christian Debate,” Jewish History 13 (1999): 26–30. 119. MY, 400. Cf. ibid., 337. 120. Ben-Shalom, “Dimmui,” 288–301. For Shem Tov, see ’Even boខhan 1:12 and 12:116 (with thanks to Dr. Libby Garshowitz for sharing the typescript of her forthcoming edition of this work). 121. Ben-Shalom, “Dimmui,” 306–7. 122. MY, 360. Cf. ibid., 378, where Abarbanel again claims that Christian scholars have construed events “not as they were but as they wanted them to be.” 123. Ibid., 341, 393. 124. Concerning which see Bezalel Safran, “Leone Da Modena’s Historical Thinking,” in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 1987), 389–90. 125. Shalom Rosenberg, “Hisខtoriyah be-perspeqខtivah ’askaខtologit,” in Mi-romi lirushalayim: sefer zikaron le-Yosef-Barukh Sermonetta (⳱ MYMY 14), ed. Aviezer Ravitzky (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1998), 315 n. 9. 126. YM, 17r. 127. Haggai, 185. 128. See Chapter 5, p. 105. 129. Kings, 424–25 (further references to this discussion are omitted in the notes). 130. J. T. Sukkah 55a–b; Giខtខtin 57b. 131. Sukkah 51b. 132. Cf. Abraham Melamed, “The Perception of Jewish History in Italian Jewish Thought of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: A Re-Examination,” in Italia Judaica: Gli Ebrei in Italia tra Rinascimento ed età barocca (Rome: Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici, 1986), 155, where Abarbanel’s remark is misconstrued to mean that “the Sages were confused due to their lack of knowledge of the writings of Roman histories.” It is not the talmudic sages but their latter-day interpreters whom Abarbanel accuses of “confusion” for want of adequate knowledge of non-Jewish writings. 133. Giខtខtin 57b, s.v. “zeh ’adrianos qesar.” 134. Me’or ‘enayim, 2:184–85. 135. Lester Segal (Historical Consciousness and Religious Tradition in Azariah De’ Rossi’s Me’or ‘Enayim [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989], 137–38) offers a lucid discussion of Azariah’s treatment which, however, fails to call attention to Azariah’s effort to justify the tradition found in the Babylonian Talmud. As a result, Segal draws a


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sharper contrast between Azariah’s and Abarbanel’s historical senses than is warranted based on this example. 136. Be’er ha-golah (New York: Talpiyot, 1953), 132. On this work and its historical setting, see Mordechai Breuer, “Vikkuho ខ shel maharal mi-prag ’im ha-noខserim: mabat hadash ខ ‘al sefer be’er ha-golah,” Tarbiខz 55 (1985–86): 253–60. 137. The relationship between this admission and the stout opening line, “it seems clear that there is no difficulty whatever,” is none too clear. 138. Be’er ha-golah, 132. 139. See Andre Neher, Le puits de l’exil (Paris: A. Michel, 1966), 115–16. 140. Neher’s term (Le puits, 112). 141. Obadiah, 111. 142. Segal, Historical Consciousness, 115. 143. MY, 385. 144. Ibid., 418–21. 145. Ibid., 31r; Marks, Image of Bar Kokhba, 118–19. 146. See David Flusser, “Josippon, a Medieval Hebrew Version of Josephus,” in Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, ed. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), 396 n. 10. 147. E.g., MY, 375; Kings, 478, 519, where “the Antiquities addressed to the Romans” are cited at length. 148. For Azariah, see Baron, “De’ Rossi’s Historical Method,” 223; Melamed, “Perception,” 155. It was, then, Abarbanel and not Samuel Usque who had “the honor of rediscovering Josephus for the Jews.” Cf. Martin Cohen, Samuel Usque’s “Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel” (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1965), 271. 149. E.g., MY, 393; Kings, 519; Exodus, 244. 150. Peter Burke, “A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians, 1450–1700,” History and Theory 5 (1960): 136–37. For Josephus in Spain, see Helen Nader, “Josephus and Diego,” Romance Philology 26 (1973): 554–55. 151. MY, 341. 152. For patristic and medieval writers, see the passages gathered in Guttmann, Religionsphilosophischen Lehren, 45–47. For discussions with contemporary Christian scholars see Deuteronomy, 170, 221, 232 in conjunction with the uncensored versions of these passages in Leiman, “Abarbanel and the Censor,” 57–58 (nos. 14, 19, 24). 153. See Chapter 2. 154. MY, 385. For Isidore, see Mash, 462. 155. Guttmann, Religionsphilosophischen Lehren, 45–46. 156. See, most recently, Menachem Kellner, Maimonides on the “Decline of the Generations” and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 55–67. 157. For sources, including Maimonides’ famous expression as here quoted from the introduction to his commentary on Pirkei Avot, see Steven Harvey, Falaquera’s Epistle of the Debate (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 1987), 19 n. 13. 158. Marks, Image of Bar Kokhba, 119. 159. Beyond literature already cited, see Guttmann, Religionsphilosophischen Lehren, 41–43. 160. Kings, 478.

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161. Ibid., 526. 162. MY, 324, 380. 163. YM, 45r. 164. Gaon, Influence of the Catholic Theologian, 22. 165. Habakkuk, 163. 166. Salo W. Baron, “Azariah de’ Rossi’s Attitude to Life,” in History and Jewish Historians, 191. 167. John Martin, “Recent Italian Works on the Renaissance: Perspectives of Intellectual, Political, and Social History,” Renaissance Quarterly 47 (1994): 638. 168. Moshe Idel, “Judah Moscato: A Late Renaissance Jewish Preacher,” in Preachers of the Italian Ghetto, ed. David B. Ruderman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 41. 169. Abravanel, 233.

Chapter 8. Abarbanel and Tradition: Six Trends 1. For the metaphor and its implications, see Heiko Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), 5. 2. Genesis, 265. 3. ME, 31–47. 4. Leviticus, 3. 5. Isaiah, 9. 6. Exodus, 245. 7. Genesis, 20. 8. Genesis, 203–4; Samuel, 232; Leviticus, 163–66; Numbers, 79–83, 101–102; Joshua, 68–72. 9. Deuteronomy, 317. 10. See Chapter 2. 11. See Chapter 6. 12. See Chapter 2. 13. Samuel, 189. 14. Deuteronomy, 83. 15. For the latter, see the essays in Antiqui und Moderni: Traditionsbewusstsein und Fortschrittsbewusstsein im späten Mittelalter, ed. A. Zimmerman, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 9 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974). Note, nevertheless, the frequent occurences of the Hebrew equivalents of antiqui and moderni (rishonim and ’aខharonim) in Abarbanel’s corpus. On halakhic signification of these usages in Ashkenaz, see Yisrael Yaakov Yuval, “Rishonim va-’aharonim, ខ Antiqui et Moderni,” Zion 57 (1992): 369–94, and the literature cited there. 16. For these (including the quoted passages) as ingredients in “traditionalism,” see Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy, vol. 1, The Problem of Intellectual Continuity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), xviii, xxi, xxvii–xxvix.


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17. Zecheriah, 231. 18. See Chapter 3. 19. Joshua, 13. A TK, A 72v–73r. 20. TL 21. For preliminary remarks on Abarbanel as autobiographer, see Attias, Isaac Abravanel, 18–19. For the late medieval Iberian scene, see Eleazar Gutwirth, “Isaac Caro in His Time,” Miscelánea de estudios a´ rabes y hebraicos 40 (1991): 120; idem, “Habitat and Ideology: The Organization of Private Space in Late Medieval Juder´ıas,” Mediterranean Historical Review 9 (1994): 219–34. The cited phrase occurs in idem, “Hebrew Letters, Hispanic Mail: Communication Among Fourteenth-Century Aragon Jewry,” in Communication in the Jewish Diaspora: The Pre-Modern World, ed. Sophia Menache (New York: E. J. Brill, 1996), 267. To Gutwirth’s Spanish examples should be added Abarbanel’s Lisbon letters to Yehiel da Pisa, which regularly articulate personal circumstances and states of mind; see Chapter 1. 22. See especially Joshua, 1–3. 23. As “autobiographical elements in the writings of kabbalists from the generation of the expulsion” are explained in an article by this title of Michal Oron (Mediterranean Historical Review 6 [1991]: 102–11; see p. 110 for the assessment cited). For bibliography regarding premodern autobiography, including Hebrew examples, few as they are, see Yisrael Yaakov Yuval, “ ’Auខtobiyografiyah ’ashkenazit me-ha-me’ah ha-’arba‘-‘esreh,” Tarbiខz 55 (1985): 541–43 nn. 1–7. 24. Genesis, 265. 25. Leo Strauss, “The Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy,” Independent Journal of Philosophy 3 (1979): 112. 26. See Chapter 5, pp. 121–22. 27. For further examples see Lawee, “The Good We Accept.” 28. AZ, 102. 29. YM, 17r. 30. Netanyahu, Abravanel, 97. 31. Barzilay, Between Reason and Faith, 72. 32. SSK, 11v. See further on this my “The Good We Accept.” 33. Maurice-Ruben Hayoun, Ma¨ımonide ou l’autre Mo¨ıse (Paris: J.-C. Lattès, 1994), 335–62. 34. See Chapter 6. 35. See Chapter 3. 36. Ibid. 37. See Chapter 6. For a similar example, see Genesis, 76. Where “some people from among our people”—i.e., philosophic interpreters—thought to read the rabbinic saying that Shabbat complained to the master of the universe that “each one of the days has a mate but I have no mate” (Genesis Rabbah 11:8) in terms of the active intellect, Abarbanel builds his interpretation on “the way that I explained from the kabbalists.” 38. See Chapter 2, p. 47. 39. See Chapter 2. 40. Deuteronomy, 49. For more on Abarbanel’s rhetoric with respect to the kabbalists, see Chapter 3. An obscure biblicism can communicate a sentiment bordering on sarcasm: “Now Nahmanides and the rest of the kabbalists, who flew high (yagbihu ‘uf; cf.

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Job 5:7) in their explanation of this, explained . . . Some said that [’ereខs in Gen. 1:1] refers to the sefirah which is called by them ’ereខs ha-ខhayyim, ’ereខs hខ efeខs. And because of this Nahmanides wrote that the ‘heavens’ and ‘earth’ in this verse allude to the Holy One blessed be He.” In this case Abarbanel’s down-to-earth conclusion is not far to follow: “I have already suggested that it improper to accept this as the verse’s contextual meaning since testimony in the Torah to heaven’s and earth’s creation and genesis would then be lacking.” (Genesis, 21) Also deflating with respect to their origin is Abarbanel’s praise of Nahmanides’ comments in one instance (Deuteronomy, 309): “Though the root of his words is in the wisdom of Kabbalah, these words are congenial in and of themselves.” 41. See Chapter 6, p. 157. 42. AZ, 42. Cf. Joseph ibn Shem Tov, Kevod ’elohim (Ferrara, 1556), 24v, for close verbal parallels. Note that Abarbanel specifically extolled ibn Shem Tov’s soteriology in the few places where he referred to his writings. See Exodus, 253 and Samuel, 285. 43. Abarbanel does not refer to mystical works other than in mentioning the kabbalistic remarks in Nahmanides’ biblical commentary and in making no more than a handful of references to the Zohar; see, e.g., Genesis, 88; Joshua, 31. There may, however, be more kabbalistic material beneath the surface. 44. Saul Regev, “Ha-mahashavah ខ ha-raខsiyonalisខtit be-hagut ha-yehudit ba-me’ah ha-ខtet-vav,” MYMY 5 (1986): 187. Regev’s inclusion of Abarbanel and ibn Shem Tov in a group of fifteenth-century scholars who shared the same attitude towards philosophy and Kabbalah seems ill-conceived, inasmuch as ibn Shem Tov’s father was a kabbalist and ibn Shem Tov himself wrote at least one (now lost) kabbalistic work. 45. For a tacit effort to overturn Abarbanel’s view concerning Ezra’s error, see the commentary of David Altshuler in Meខsudat david to 1 Kings 22:49 (as Segal notes [“R. Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel,” 268, n. 20], Abarbanel is clearly Altshuler’s target though he is not mentioned by name). For an explicit rejoinder to Abarbanel’s ascription of error to Ezra, see the comments of Meir Loeb ben Yehiel Michael (Malbim) on 1 Kings 10:22 (Nevi’im u-khetuvim [Jerusalem, 1955], 3:117–18). For chastisement of Abarbanel’s dissent from rabbinic attributions of authorship, see the passage from Zadok Hakohen cited above, Chapter 7, n. 75. For objections to his views regarding Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s Hebrew, see Malbim’s introduction to commentary on Jeremiah, Nevi’im u-khetuvim, 5:[i–iv]. To be sure, the context of the rise of modern biblical criticism was not a necessary condition for a negative animus on the part of modern traditionalists towards some of Abarbanel’s more audacious claims. For earlier negative reactions to these, see, regarding Ezra’s error or the faulty Hebrew of Jeremiah and Ezekiel respectively, Samuel Laniado’s argument composed at the turn of the seventeenth century in Keli yaqar: Perush ‘al nevi’im rishonim, melakhim, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Mekhon ha-ketav, 1988), 1:423–24 and Shelomo Hanau’s composed in the early eighteenth in Binyan shelomo (Frankfurt am Main, 1708), “the third introduction.” 46. Guttmann, Isaak Abravanel, 6; Heschel, Don Jizchak Abravanel, 27; Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism, 288; Husik, History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy, 431; Segal, “R. Yiខshaq ខ ’Abravanel,” 267; Waxman, “Don Yiខshaq ខ ’Abarbanel,” 71, 91, 101; Sirat, History of Jewish Philosophy, 396. For a notable exception see Netanyahu, Abravanel, 248. 47. See my “Isaac Abarbanel’s Intellectual Achievement and Literary Legacy.” 48. For representative pronouncements in the secondary literature regarding Abarbanel’s originality in the “sphere of philosophy of history and culture” and political


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theory, see Sirat, History of Jewish Philosophy, 396; Guttmann, Philosophies, 289; Ephraim Urbach, “Die Staatsauffassung des Don Isaak Abravanel,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 81 (1937): 257. 49. NA, 34–35. 50. YM, 5. 51. For this characterization of Loew’s approach, see Elbaum, “Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague,” 43. 52. Joshua, 12. 53. The felicitous formulation of Gross in Past in Ruins, 6. 54. Samuel, 163–64. 55. Deuteronomy, 248. In this case Abarbanel appears not to give due credit to Abraham ibn Ezra’s apparent anticipation of his reading. See Perushei ha-torah, 3:290. For a similarly dissatisfied glance back at all prior explanation in the case of biblical narrative (the existence of two creation accounts), see Genesis, 80 (the rabbinic view is followed by “all the commentators” and “still the question remains . . .”). 56. Samuel, 394. 57. E.g., twice—and emphatically—in Abarbanel’s handling of military matters in Moses’ first discourse (Deuteronomy, 9). After several pages of review of rabbinic and medieval approaches to Moses’ blessings of Israel, Abarbanel advances his own approach with a first-person salute: “Behold, I am innovating a fifth explanation regarding this [matter].” See ibid., 320. 58. Beyond the work’s introduction, largely pitched towards explaining the grounds for such innovation, there is the constant refrain of uniqueness and innovation in the work’s table of contents, an emphatic declaration in the middle of the study, and Abarbanel’s stress on the work’s pioneering dimension in his letter to Yehiel of Pisa (AZ, 4– 5, 32; “Mikhtav,” 69). 59. See, for a recent account from the halakhic sphere, G. J. Blidstein, “R. Menahem Ha-Me’iri: Aspects of an Intellectual Profile,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 5 (1995): 67–74. (Interestingly, Meiri’s abiding concern with legitimation for innovation is seemingly not matched by his actual practice of it; see ibid., 68.) 60. See Hacker, “The Intellectual Activity of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” 99–101. 61. Cf. Steven Harvey’s remark (Falaquera’s Epistle of the Debate, xiii) regarding the modern scholarly “charge” of unoriginality against another medieval Jewish thinker: “[Shem Tov] Falaquera would not have taken exception to the above criticism, although he probably would have been puzzled by it, for he neither intended nor claimed to be original.” 62. James S. Preus, “Theological Legitimation for Innovation in the Middle Ages,” Viator 3 (1972): 2. (In the medieval Church, “innovation and heresy were practically synonymous.”) 63. Mark D. Jordan, “The Competition of Authoritative Languages and Aquinas’s Theological Rhetoric,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 4 (1994): 73. 64. See, e.g., regarding Boethius, Thomas F. Curley III, “How To Read the Consolation of Philosophy,” Interpretation 14 (1986): 213: “It has turned out that in almost every line of both the prose and verse sections Boethius can be detected echoing, if not quoting, the literature and philosophy of the past; nonetheless it has become increasingly clear that he has shaped his material into a complex pattern of his own contrivance.”

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65. Rawidowicz, Studies in Jewish Thought, 46. 66. For invocations by Abarbanel of the verse in Proverbs to similar effect, see Commentary on the Minor Prophets, 13 and Mash, 438. This interpretation of the verse is suggested in passing in NA, 76. 67. Joshua, 13.

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鵻

Index

Abarbanel, Isaac: alleged pride, 42; on Ashkenazic tradition, 7, 43–44, 86; autobiographical expressions, 9, 13, 15, 21, 22, 25, 36, 56, 207; and Bragan¸ca conspiracy, 12, 14–15; commercial/ financial endeavor, 12–14, 16, 18; daughters, 11; death and burial, 25; death sentence against, 12, 15, 36; “Dom” prefixed to name, 11; efforts to prevent Spanish expulsion, 2, 17–18; letters to Yehiel da Pisa, 12, 13, 14, 30, 31, 34, 283n.21; library, 15, 20, 34, 36; non-extant works, 3, 31; origins and family, 9–10; plagiarism, 42, 110, 245n.66, 255n.34; printing of works in own lifetime, 1, 24–25; prolixity, 3, 37–38; redemption of captives, 12, 17; self-regard, 24, 206–7; travel, 12, 13, 20, 30. See also individual works by name; ancients and moderns; Aquinas, Saint Thomas; Arama, Isaac; Aristotelianism; Aristotle; Christian literature; Christian missionizing and polemic; chronology; conversos; Crescas, Hasdai; David ben Judah; Gersonides; Halakhah; Hayyun, Joseph; humanism; innovation, intellectual; Kabbalah; ketiv/qere forms; Maimonides, Moses; peshaខt; qabbalah; Rashi; resurrection of the dead; voyages of discovery

鵼

Abarbanel, Isaac (Abarbanel’s grandson), 18, 24 Abarbanel, Joseph (Abarbanel’s son), 15, 19, 23 Abarbanel, Joseph (Abarbanel’s nephew/ son-in-law), 11, 15, 16, 23, 226n.113 Abarbanel, Judah (Abarbanel’s father), 10, 11, 13, 14, 29 Abarbanel, Judah (Abarbanel’s son), 15, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24; and Christian scholars, 228n.130; eulogy of father, 25; letter to son, 18, 24; philosophic disagreement with father, 56; poems in honor of father’s works, 25, 238n.156; Renaissance learning, 45 Abarbanel, Samuel (Abarbanel’s grandfather), 9–10 Abarbanel, Samuel (Abarbanel’s son), 15, 20, 50 Aboab, Isaac, 36, 37, 88 Aboulrabi, Aaron, 114–15, 245n.66, 261n.158 Abulafia, Meir, 90 Adret, Solomon ibn (Rashba), 36, 85– 86, 131 Afonso V (king of Portugal), 10–11, 12, 13, 14, 15; humanism under, 34–35 Africanus, Julius, 189, 199, 200 aggadah. See midrash and aggadah Alan of Lille, 250n.14 Albertus Magnus, 199

鵻 313 鵼

314 鵼

Index

Albo, Joseph, 28, 46, 56; on dogma, 49, 137; on R. Hillel’s messianic dictum, 135, 137; on scriptural promises of redemption, 52, 53, 141, 142–43 Aldine press, 25 Alemanno, Yohanan: approach to Kabbalah, 46, 47; eschatology, 130; Renaissance learning, 44, 45 Alexander of Aphrodisias, 31 Alfonsi, Petrus, 85 Alfonso I (king of Naples). See Alfonso V “the Magnanimous” Alfonso II (king of Naples), 19, 21, 44 Alfonso V “the Magnanimous” (king of Aragon), 40, 44 Alfonso Garc´ıa, of Cartagena, 40 Altshuler, David, 284n.45 Anaxagoras, 203 ancients and moderns (antiqui/moderni; rishonim/’aខharonim): gratitude due ancients by moderns, 215; moderns as dwarves on ancients’ shoulders, 64; querelle des anciens et des modernes, 7, 205–6; references to, in Abarbanel’s writings, 282n.15 ancient theology (prisca theologia), 46, 169 Andrew of St. Victor, 274n.13 Aquinas, Saint Thomas: Abarbanel’s interest in 39, 199, 200; Hebrew translators of, 28; on scriptural polysemy, 255n.34 Arama, Isaac, 123, 207; and Abarbanel, 42, 92, 100, 119, 245n.66; Christian stimulus for homiletical technique, 91– 92; use of Ethics, 34 Arama, Meir, 42 Aristotelianism, 31, 59, 67, 68, 207; Abarbanel’s stance towards, 41, 149, 153, 155, 156, 208; in Hispano-Jewish tradition, 27, 32; in Italy, 45, 169; world’s eternity according to, 50, 53– 54 Aristotle, 31, 68, 174, 203; Abarbanel’s invocations of, 71, 79, 152, 197–98,

214–15; Ethics, 34, 51, 120; On the Heavens, 215; Politics, 39 Astruc, Anselm (Midreshei torah), 242n.22 ‘Aខteret zeqenim, 31, 35, 59–82, 206, 208, 210, 212, 213 Augustine, Saint 39, 199 Averroes, 31, 208 Avicenna, 31, 110 Baer, Yitzhak, 129, 272n.188 Bahya ben Asher, 123 Bar Hiyya, Abraham, 129–30, 160, 161, 162, 193 Bar Kokhba (Simeon ben Kosiba), 165, 198 Benedict XIII, 252n.55 Benveniste, Don Vidal, 265n.29 Bernard of Chartres, 64 Bivagch, Abraham, 33, 242n.28 Boccaccio, 40 Boethius, 285n.64 Bragan¸ca, house of, 11–12, 14–15, 34 Buxtorf, Johann (the younger), 217n.3 Carfati, ¸ Abraham, 17 Carpzov, Johann Benedict, 217n.3 Cavaller´ıa, Alfonso de la, 17 Cephalonia (battle), 23 Cerignola (battle), 23 Charles VIII (king of France), 19 Chayes, Zevi Hirsch, 116 Christiani, Pablo, 85 Christianity: apostolic versus latter-day, 191; conversion to, by Jews, 10, 14, 18, 21, 43, 130, 142; identified with Edom, 104, 105, 112, 124, 163, 200, 211; rise and spread of, 130, 191, 192–93 Christian literature: Abarbanel’s immersion in, 28, 39–40, 48, 174, 189, 192, 199–200; influenced by Abarbanel, 2; historiographic models in, 188. See also Aquinas, Saint Thomas; Jerome, Saint; New Testament

Index

Christian missionizing and polemic: Abarbanel’s response to, 28, 49, 52–53, 130–34, 140, 145, 155–56, 166–67, 189–90, 192–93, 211; in Italy, 130; late medieval intensification of, 28; midrash and aggadah in, 28, 53, 85, 91, 127, 131–33, 144–45, 151–52, 155–56; in Spain, 18, 134 Christians: future removal of, from land of Israel, 142; worthy of emulation, 28, 40, 91–92 chronology: Abarbanel’s interest in, 106, 188–91; Azariah De’ Rossi’s interest in, 188, 191; in medieval times, 187; Renaissance concern with, 186–87; tripartite messianic chronology, 137, 139, 140, 142, 144–45, 151, 165 Cicero, 34, 200 Columbus, Christopher, 1, 35 Commentaries on the Former Prophets, 31– 32, 35, 36, 47 Commentaries on the Major Prophets, 49, 55 Commentaries on the Minor Prophets, 50, 54 Commentaries on the Torah, 37, 55. See also Mirkevet ha-mishneh Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed, 33, 35, 55, 74, 121 Constantine, 164, 192–93, 200 al-Constantini, Hanokh, 149, 241n.22 conversos, 12; Abarbanel on, 31, 49, 239n.182, 264n.26; persecution of, 16, 17; possible audience for Abarbanel’s messianic works, 131; at Spanish court, 16–17 createdness of the world, 49, 54. See also Shamayim hខ adashim; Mif‘alot ’elohim Crescas, Asher, 68, 70, 108 Crescas, Hasdai: anti-Christian writer, 28; critic of Maimonides, 32, 48–49; object of Abarbanel’s critique, 48–49, 204, 232n.37; precursor to Abarbanel, 46, 106, 142, 210

鵻 315

da Gama, Vasco, 24 Dante, 40 Da Piera, Meshulam, 267n.79 da Pisa family: Isaac, 12, 19–20, 41, 46; Yehiel, 14, 19, 34 David ben Judah: criticisms of Abarbanel, 42, 81–82; defense of ordination, 43; Renaissance sensibilities, 44, 45 de Balmes, Abraham, 20 Delmedigo, Elijah, 45 Delmedigo, Joseph Solomon, 268n.98 de Madrigal, Alfonso, 39, 40, 201 de’ Rossi, Azariah: and chronology, 188, 191; historical approach to rabbinic dicta, 193, 195, 196–98; on Josephus, 199; openness to Christian literature, 201 de Santa Fe, Jerònim (Joshua Lorki), 131, 133, 142, 151–52, 155–56, 164 Dioguo, duke of Viseu, 11 Duarte (king of Portugal), 10 Duran, Profet, 34; anti-Christian polemic, 28, 87, 191, 193; Guide commentary, 70, 74–75; historical chronicle, 48; on ketiv/qere forms, 175–76 Duran, Simeon ben Zemah, 28, 187 Duran, Solomon ben Simeon, 28, 265n.29 Efodi. See Duran, Profet Eleazar Ashkenazi ben Nathan ha-Bavli, 261n.158 Elijah Hayyim, of Genazzano, 46, 82, 123 Empedicles, 203 Erasmus, 44, 170–1, 228n.136 eschatology. See messianism Eusebius, 200 Ezra ben Solomon, 251n.28 Falaquera, Shem Tov, 65, 285n.61 Fasi, Joseph, 20, 36 Federigo (king of Naples), 22 Ferdinand II (king of Aragon), 2, 16, 17, 18, 20

316 鵼

Index

Fernández de Córdoba, Gonzalo (el gran capitán), 20, 22–23 Fernando, Prince, 10, 34 Ferrandino. See Ferrante II Ferrante I (king of Naples), 19, 20, 44 Ferrante II (king of Naples), 20 Forti (Hazketto), Barukh Uzziel (Abarbanel’s first biographer), 225n.85, 227n.116, 239n.182 Frederick III (Holy Roman Emperor), 42 Galipapa, Hayyim, 141 Gersonides (Levi ben Gershom; Ralbag), 31, 65; object of Abarbanel’s critique, 37, 39–40, 149, 188 al-Ghazali, 31 Gothic invasions, 164, 200 Habib, Levi ben, 116 Hakohen, Moses, 28 Hakohen, Saul, 9, 25, 44, 56, 57, 82, 83 Halakhah: in Abarbanel’s writings, 37, 83, 160, 233n.68; midrash halakhah 105, 248n.4; Spanish study of, 36–37 Halevi, Judah, 27, 32, 73, 187 Halevi, Zerahiyah, 68 Hanau, Shelomo, 284n.45 Hapenini, Yedaiah, 85, 86, 131 Hayizhari, Mattathias, 51 Hayya Gaon, 84–85 Hayyat, Judah, 42, 46 Hayyun, Abraham ben Nissim, 41 Hayyun, Joseph: and Abarbanel, 29, 31, 35, 36, 173, 237n.145; alleged antiphilosophic stance, 32; biblical exegesis, 30, 66, 87; on intellectual freedom, 89, 108, 242n.22; and Maimonides, 33 Henry, Prince (“the Navigator”), 10 Hermeticism, 45, 130, 169 Hillel ben Samuel, of Verona, 268n.97 historiography and historical outlook, 47– 48, 169–70, 172, 178, 186–89. See also midrash and aggadah: historical approach

Hobsbawn, Eric, 5 Hodgeson, Marshall, 5 Holy League, 20 humanism: Abarbanel and, 7, 44–45, 172, 175, 176, 178, 200, 202, 205; and biblical scholarship, 44, 170–71, 172; and classicized rhetoric, 169; and historical studies/thinking, 169–70, 172, 186–87; in Italy, 42, 44–45, 169; in Portugal, 34–35; in Spain, 34, 40, 175, 176 Hus, Jan, 191 ibn Balaam, Judah, 141 ibn Bilia, David, 29 ibn Daud, Abraham, 36, 161 ibn Ezra, Abraham, 37, 79, 91, 141, 187, 207, 285n.55; on biblical authorship, 115, 185, 277n.58; exegetical terminology, 100, 274n.20; and midrash, 89, 99, 103, 107, 117; reflects Andalusian exegetical approach, 38, 87 ibn Ezra, Moses, 188–89 ibn Gavirol, Solomon, 228n.129 ibn Giqatila, Moses, 141, 277n.58 ibn Habib, Moses, 41 ibn Kaspi, Joseph, 37, 54, 65, 68, 86, 162–63, 245n.66, 274n.20 ibn Latif, Isaac, 46 ibn Musa, Hayyim, 28, 91, 265n.29 ibn Shem Tov, Isaac, 78 ibn Shem Tov, Joseph, 13, 28, 34, 66, 118, 207; stance towards tradition, 46, 90, 108, 210 ibn Shem Tov, Shem Tov ben Joseph, 33, 54 ibn Tibbon family, 27; Samuel, 149 ibn Tufayl, 31 ibn Yahya family, 30; Abraão ben Gedaliah (rabi mor), 11; David ben Solomon, 33, 50; Gedaliah ben David, 11; Gedaliah ben Solomon (rabi mor), 11; Joseph ben David, 275n.31 Immanuel ben Solomon, of Rome, 34

Index

innovation, intellectual: Abarbanel on, 63–65, 211–15; and commentary genre, 207, 214, 218n.15; premium on, in post-1492 Sefardic communities, 213; in premodern times, 4–6, 64, 214; in Renaissance, 170–71 introduction (literary genre): in Hebrew literature, 5, 265n.33; in Latin commentary tradition (accessus ad auctores), 174 Isaac ben Yedaiah, 151, 153, 155 Isaac Nathan, of Arles, 156, 265n.29 Isabella I (queen of Castile), 2, 16, 17 Isaiah of Trani (the Elder), 242n.27 Isidore of Seville, 199, 200 Israeli, Isaac, 51 Italian city-states, 38 Jerome, Saint: adaptation of Eusebius, 200; Vulgate, 37, 39, 170, 191, 199 Jesus, 189, 191, 192–93; Jewish rejection of, as Messiah, 49, 132, 142, 148; soul of, identified with Esau’s 90, 104 Jiménez de Rada, Rodrigo (archbishop of Toledo), 250n.14 João II (king of Portugal), 2, 12, 14–15 John of Salisbury, 273n.5, 275n.22 Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi, 51 Joseph ben Eliezer, 115, 184 Josephus, 111, 189–90, 192, 198–99; Sefer yosippon, 105, 189, 190–91, 198– 99, 200 Judah Loew ben Bezalel (Maharal), 129, 197–98, 212 Kabbalah: Abarbanel and, 46–47, 76–81, 90, 104, 108, 149, 156–57, 167, 207– 10; aggadic interpretation in light of, 87, 131, 156; in biblical commentary, 79–80, 88, 89, 93, 123; conceptions of sefirot, 77–78; in Italy, 46, 131; in Portugal, 46; in Renaissance, 169; slippage between, and qabbalah, 47, 90, 210; in Spain, 29, 45–46 Kara, Joseph, 180, 182, 183

鵻 317

Karaites, 83, 84 Karo, Joseph, 36 Katz, Jacob, 5 ketiv/qere forms, 175; Abarbanel on, 177, 185–86 Kimhi, David, 30, 34, 117, 177, 180, 182; on ketiv/qere forms, 175, 185; stance towards midrash, 89, 107, 112, 180; stylistic exegesis, 97, 98, 110 Kimhi, Joseph, 109 Kimhi family, 27 Laniado, Samuel, 284n.45 Latam family, 13, 14–15 Latin, 28, 40 Lehaqat ha-nevi’im. See Maខhazeh shaddai L’Empereur, Constantijn, 217n.3 Levenson, Joseph, 5 Levi ben Abraham, 149 Lopes, Fernão, 34, 175 Ma’amar qaខsar be-ve’ur seder ha-moreh, 56 Ma‘ayenei ha-yeshu‘ah, 52, 129, 144 Maខhazeh shaddai, 33, 35, 55, 184 Maimonides, Abraham, 268n.97 Maimonides, Moses: Abarbanel’s engagement with, 33–34, 39, 40–41, 48–49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61– 62, 63, 65–76, 78, 80, 95, 121–22, 137, 140, 141, 148, 149, 151–53, 154, 156–57, 158–59, 160, 164, 165, 203, 206, 207–9; on aggadah, 85–87, 95, 148–50, 151, 152, 155, 265n.31; Aristotelian allegiances of, 27, 41, 51, 149, 156, 207; attitudes towards, in Iberia, 28, 30, 32–33, 91; and biblical Moses, 32, 71; controversy concerning, 32–33, 54, 86; dogmatic teachings, 48, 54, 135, 137, 140; esotericism, 54, 71, 149; messianic teachings, 141, 149–51, 160, 164; openness to gentile learning, 200 Margarit, Cardinal Joan, 40 Mar Hayyim, Isaac, 41, 46, 47, 209 Marsilius of Padua, 191 Mashmia‘ yeshu‘ah, 52, 53, 55

318 鵼

Index

Meiri, Menahem ben Solomon, 187, 241n.22, 285n.59 Meir Loeb ben Yehiel Michael (Malbim), 284n.45 Menahem ben Zerah, 10 Mendoza family: duke of Infantado (nephew of Cardinal Mendoza), 16; In˜ igo López (marquis of Santillana), 40; Cardinal Pedro González, 2, 16, 17, 18, 40, 41 Messer Leon, Judah, 42, 44, 45 messianism: and astrology, 129–30, 160– 62; cross-cultural manifestations of, 1, 53, 129, 130; end-time calculations, 2, 52–53, 55, 127, 144, 150, 155, 160, 163–64; and fall of Constantinople, 52, 162, 166; and French invasion of Italy, 226n.100; Maimonides on, 141, 149–51, 160, 164; Messiah son of Joseph, 105, 165, 198; R. Hillel’s messianic dictum, 134–41; in Renaissance Italy, 130; Samuel’s messianic dictum, 158–60; and Spanish expulsion, 130; and ten tribes, 142–43, 166; tripartite messianic chronology, 137, 139, 140, 142, 144–45, 151, 165; and voyages of discovery, 1 Mestre Paulo, 14 Metatron, 79–80 midrash and aggadah: ’asmakhta’, 103, 146; authority of, 52, 62–63, 84–86, 88–90, 146–48, 160, 164–65, 183, 194, 241n.20; divinely inspired, 147, 164; historical approach to, 99, 105, 111, 193–98; kabbalistic interpretation of, 87, 131, 156–57; and messianic speculation, 127; midrash halakhah 105, 248n.4; object of Karaite critique, 83, 84; object of Muslim critique, 84; and overarching principles of the Torah, 146–47, 156; parabolic interpretation of, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 156, 165; postrabbinic approaches to, 83–92; rationalist interpretation of, 85–87, 148– 54, 167; stock metaphors in, 148, 152,

153, 154; tropes in, akin to philosophic and prophetic discourse, 151, 153. See also Christian missionizing and polemic: midrash and aggadah in; Maimonides: on aggadah Mif‘alot ’elohim, 50, 54 Mirkevet ha-mishneh, 30, 31, 36, 50, 55, 213; passages censored from, 30–31, 39 Modena, Leone da, 193 Moses ben Maimon. See Maimonides, Moses Moses ben Nahman. See Nahmanides, Moses Moses the Preacher, 112 Motot, Samuel, 149 Münster, Sebastian, 187 Naខhalat ’avot, 50–51, 212, 262n.1 Nahmanides, Moses, 36, 112, 113, 141, 204, 205; and anti-Christian controversy, 85, 132, 142, 148; on composition of the Torah, 172, 185; exegesis, 38, 102, 123, 161, 187; kabbalism, 79– 81, 89, 207; messianic calculations, 160, 161; on midrashic/aggadic authority, 85, 89, 117, 146, 148, 149 Narboni, Moses, 31, 54, 56, 65, 67, 74– 75 New Testament, 44, 170–71, 191, 199, 201; “Story of Bel and the Dragon, The,” 192 Nicholas of Lyre, 91, 118, 189–90, 199, 200, 265n.29, 274n.13 Nissim ben Reuven Gerondi (Ran), 32, 36, 118, 210, 255n.23 ordination, rabbinic (semikhah), 43 Ottoman Turks, 1, 22, 23, 52 Ovid, 40, 200 Pala¸cano, Gedaliah, 13 Paul of Burgos (Pablo de Santa Mar´ıa), 39, 142, 187, 199; on duration of Persian period, 189–90; on EdomChristendom identification, 104, 105

Index

鵻 319

peshaខt (contextual meaning), 84, 146, 147; Abarbanel’s quest for, 88, 93–103, 109, 111–14, 117, 119–20, 122, 123, 124, 125, 153; in ‘Aខteret zeqenim, 62, 79; method of, in ibn Ezra, 34, 117; and Rashi, 87, 88, 113, 114 Petrarch, 40 Philo, 246n.92 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 45, 46 Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, 131, 144, 163 Plato, 46, 51, 152, 203, 270n.138 Pliny, 200 Plotinus, 200 Polikar, Isaac, 28 Pontano, Giovanni, 44–45 Primera crónica general de España, 261n.140 prophecy. See Maខhazeh shaddai; revelation Pugio fidei, 85, 266nn. 47, 52 Pulgar, Hernando del, 175 Pythagoras, 200

Rawidowicz, Simon, 249n.7 Responses to Saul Hakohen, 55–56, 68 resurrection of the dead: Abarbanel on, 44, 48, 49, 156, 159, 166, 204; doctrine of, subverted though non-literal interpretation, 86, 155–56, 211 revelation: human factor in, 174–78; ketiv/qere forms traceable to, 185; natural or supernatural, 33, 121–22; rabbinic sages as recipients of, 147, 164; teachings grounded in, superior to rational knowledge, 40, 65, 75–76, 77, 79, 158; of Torah (during conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn), 130 rhetoric: Renaissance Jewish interest in, 44, 171; and scriptural interpretation, 44, 109–10, 177–78; in transition from Middle Ages to Renaissance, 40, 44, 169 Rosh ’amanah, 48–49, 137 royal alliance, 17

qabbalah (received tradition): in Abarbanel’s commentaries, 39, 62–63, 103– 9, 124; basis of eschatological belief, 53, 161, 163; infallibility of views grounded in, 62–63, 79, 88–89, 183; and Kabbalah, 47, 90, 157, 210; as source of knowledge superior to reason, 39, 149, 155, 208, 210

Saadya Gaon, 84, 141, 160, 204, 277n.58 Saba, Abraham, 123, 245n.66 Samuel ben Hofni Gaon, 84–85 Santo Niño de la Guardia, 17 Savonarola, Girolamo, 130 Scaliger, Joseph Justus, 187, 199, 279n.93 Schmid, Sebastian, 217n.3 Scholem, Gershom, 129, 271n.151, 272n.188 A Sedeq ‘olamim, 48, 55 Seder ‘olam, 105, 106, 109, 195 sefarad: “exile of Jerusalem” in, 57; includes Portugal, 29, 219n.1; viewed as homeland (moledet), 219n.1 Sefer ‘alilot devarim, 103 Sefer yosippon. See Josephus Seneca, 34, 40, 200 Seneor, Abraham, 16, 17, 18, 43 Shalom, Abraham, 33, 91, 210 Shamayim hខ adashim, 50, 54 Shamsolo, Abraham, 230n.11 Shaprut, Shem Tov ben, 28, 90–91, 133, 136–37, 141, 155, 156, 193

Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac): in contrast to Abarbanel, 108, 122; on biblical chronology, 180, 182, 187; on biblical verses, 96 (Num. 15:39), 97 (Gen. 1:12), 98 (Exod. 10:10), 110 (Gen. 23:1), 112 (Gen. 35:8), 113 (Exod. 1:15), 114–15 (Gen. 12:6; 14:18), 117 (Gen. 10:9), 119 (Num. 27:20), 205; commentary tradition on, 88; exegesis faulted, 38, 71, 87, 88; messianic forecast, 160; quest for peshaខt praised by Abarbanel, 102–3; renown of midrashim cited by, 95, 98, 125; talmudic exegesis, 108, 270n.140

320 鵼

Index

shekhinah, 79–80 Shemaryah ben Elijah, 257n.50 Sherira Gaon, 84 S´ıculo, Marineo, 40 Simon, Richard, 186, 217n.3 Sixtus IV, 12 Solomon le-vet Levi, 226n.107 Solonika, 20, 50 Soncino family, 25 sources: of books of the Former Prophets, 174, 176; Ezra’s handling of, 176–77, 178–79, 186; as metaphor, 214; texts as, according to humanists, 170, 176 Spanish expulsion: apocalyptic response to, 130; autobiographical expressions born of, 21, 207; despair occasioned by, 21–22, 129; efforts to prevent, 2, 17– 18; Spanish precursors to, 16, 17 Spanish Inquisition, 15–16, 17 spice trade dispute, 1, 23–24, 179 Spinoza, Benedict, 183 A Surot ha-yesodot, 31, 35 ខ Ta‘anot lequខhot mi-ខteva‘ ha-ketuvim, 40– 41, 206 al-Tansi, Eliezer, 50 Targum, 61, 88, 95, 98 Themistius, 31 Tomás de Torquemada, 16 Tosafists, 195, 196 Tostado, Alfonso. See de Madrigal, Alfonso tradition: humanists as subverters of, 171; modern scholarship on, 5; R. Eliezer as

bearer of, 107–8, 163; semantic range of term, 4. See also ancients and moderns; innovation, intellectual; qabbalah typological interpretation, 100, 102, 163 Usque, Samuel, 281n.148 Valla, Lorenzo, 44, 170 Venerable Bede, 189, 199 Virgil, 40 voyages of discovery: in Abarbanel’s exegesis, 35, 179; in debate over human settlement of southern hemisphere, 35; in Portugal, 10, 35, 179; spur to messianism, 1; and ten tribes, 142 “Work of the Chariot,” 40–41, 79, 206 Wyclif, John, 191 Yavetz, Joseph, 29, 30, 32, 33, 36, 42 Yefet ben ‘Ali, 276n.54 Yemot ‘olam, 47–48 Yerushalmi, Tanhum, 180 Yeshu‘ot meshiខho, 53, 127–68, 194, 198, 209, 212, 214 Zabara, Judah, 135–36, 138, 139 Zacuto, Abraham, 191, 192 Zadok Hakohen Rabinowitz, of Lublin, 278n.75 Zevaខh pesaខh, 21–22, 50, 233n.68, 258n.92, 261n.142 Zohar, 255n.34, 284n.43

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