BOOK REVIEW

Yosie Levine. Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate. London: Littman Library, 2024. xiv, 266.

Reviewed by Bezalel Naor

Yosie Levine has tackled the enigmatic figure of Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi (1658-1718), a man whose title alone beggars the imagination. At first blush, the terms “Hakham” and “Ashkenazi” present an oxymoron. The term “Hakham” is generally reserved for Sephardic sages. (An outlier would be Hakham Isaac Bernays of Hamburg [1792-1849], but that is a discussion for another paper.) Hakham Tsevi went so far as to add to his signature the letters samekh teth, in typical Sephardic fashion. (Levine grapples with the significance of the suffix on pages 206-207.)^[1]

Reared in Budin (today Budapest),^[2] then under Ottoman rule, our protagonist lived at various times in the Balkans (Adrianople, Belgrade, Constantinople, Salonika and Sarajevo), Central Europe (Altona, Hamburg, Wandsbek) and Western Europe (Amsterdam and London). This straddling of Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities produced a hybrid: Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi.

In the final chapter of the book, entitled “Afterlife: The Response of Modern-Day Posekim to Hakham Tsevi’s Early Modern Responsa,” the author demonstrates how certain positions of Hakham Tsevi which seemed outlandish and even revolutionary at the time, have come home to roost in the twenty-first century.

First, there is the Hakham’s responsum discussing whether an artificial man, a golem, can be counted in a minyan or prayer quorum of ten.^[3] The Talmud (Sanhedrin 65b) recounted how Rava created a man by employing Sefer Yetsirah. The Hakham’s own ancestor, Elijah Ba‘al Shem of Chelm, created such a humanoid. (The Hakham’s son, Rabbi Jacob Emden, would later address this very issue in his responsa.)^[4] In our own age of robotics and Artificial Intelligence, one anticipates a robust halakhic literature on the subject of the golem. (The golem of the Gemara was bereft of the power of speech, so in that respect, present-day robots are certainly superior.) An area of Halakhah that immediately comes to mind is Nezikin, torts or damages.

An outspoken responsum of the Hakham directed Diaspora Jews visiting the Land of Israel to observe but a single day of Yom Tov in conformity with local custom.^[5] A the time it was written, Hakham Tsevi’s decision flew in the face of the accepted practice, whereby Diaspora Jews observed two days of the festival during their sojourn in the Land, in conformity to their place of origin. Writing from Safed in the sixteenth century, Rabbi Joseph Karo attested that pilgrims to the Land would assemble their own minyan, in which they recited the prayers for the second day of Yom Tov in exile, a practice sanctioned by the gedolim of old.^[6]

Hakham Tsevi’s own son, Rabbi Jacob Emden, respectfully disagreed with his father’s opinion. In a lengthy responsum, he militated for the two-day observance.^[7]

According to Levine, the 1903 decision of Rabbi Elijah David Rabinowitz-Te’omim (Aderet) in Jerusalem, invoking and inveighing with Hakham Tsevi’s responsum, was a first.^[8] In Levine’s words: “This ruling represented a radical break with established norms and constituted a watershed in the reception history of Hakham Tsevi’s responsum” (page 197).^[9]

Earlier, Levine writes that Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady (1745-1812) was “sympathetic to Hakham Tsevi’s ruling in principle” (p. 195). The footnote refers us to Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s Shulhan ‘Arukh 496:11. This reference requires some unpacking. While Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s ruling just happened to coincide with that of Hakham Tsevi, it was certainly not the basis of his ruling. Rather, he based his decision on a rishon, the medieval authority Rabbi Eliezer ben Nathan (Ra’avan) of Mayence. Ra’avan, in turn, followed in the footsteps of Rabbenu Hananel ben Hushiel of Kairouan.^[10]

(An aside: Rabbi Abraham David Lavut of Nikolayev [1814-1890], a disciple of Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneersohn of Lubavitch [Tsemah Tsedek], brought to the discussion a mystical element, whereby the “illumination” [he’arah] of the Festival takes a day longer to reach the Diaspora.^[11] The late Rabbi Baruch Na’eh, of blessed memory, impressed upon this writer in no uncertain terms that the Alter Rebbe’s pesak was derived from Rabbenu Hananel—which is to say Ra’avan—and not from these mystical considerations.)^[12]

Aderet’s contemporary, Rabbi Hayyim Soloveichik of Brisk, also maintained that visitors to Erets Yisrael should observe but a single day of Yom Tov, but unlike Aderet, he did not see the need to invoke the authority of Hakham Tsevi. Neither did he seek support in the work of the rishon, Rabbi Eliezer ben Nathan (as did Rabbi Shneur Zalman). As it is often quipped, “Reb Hayyim was a rishon!”^[13]

In more recent times, Rabbi Tsevi Pesah Frank was open to the thinking of the Hakham Tsevi (though he countered that the law might devolve upon the individual, “a-karkafta de-gavra”).^[14] On the other hand, Rabbi Shelomo Zalman Auerbach rejected the ruling of the Hakham Tsevi.^[15]

This issue remains a heated debate to this day. Some Diaspora Jews keep two days in Erets Yisrael, while others observe but one day.

*

Perhaps the most infamous, and certainly the most traumatic of Hakham Tsevi’s controversies, was his confrontation with crypto-Sabbatian Nehemiah Hiyya Hayyon in Amsterdam in 1713. Hayyon, a man of dubious character, arrived in town from the East (he claimed to be from Safed), intent on publishing his literary oeuvre. Hakham Tsevi served at that time as Rabbi of the Ashkenazic community of Amsterdam. Upon perusal of Hayyon’s book ‘Oz le-Elohim, printed in Berlin earlier that year, Hakham Tsevi discovered that the work contained arch-heresy. (For a long time, it was thought that this was the theology of Shabbetai Tsevi. Today, the scholarly consensus is that ‘Oz le-Elohim is in fact an offshoot of the theology of Abraham Miguel Cardozo [1627-1706].)^[16]

Hakham Tsevi proceeded to issue a broadside banning the book. (Levine provides a facsimile on page 168.) One would imagine that the preeminent sage would have easily prevailed over the rascal. Actually, the outcome was the exact opposite. Hayyon remained in Amsterdam and Hakham Tsevi was routed, beating a retreat to London. (Elisheva Carlebach treated this sorry chapter in Jewish history in her biography of Hakham Tsevi’s ally in the affair, Rabbi Moses Hagiz, The Pursuit of Heresy.) It turned out that the Sephardic Hakham of Amsterdam, Solomon Ayllon, was himself a crypto-Sabbatian. Presented with the political clout of the powerful Spanish-Portuguese Mahamad (or Ma‘amad), and ultimately, the Dutch authorities, Hakham Tsevi was forced to flee.

One finds it of interest that Hakham Tsevi’s broadside skirts the issue of the mistaken belief in the pseudo-Messiah Shabbetai Tsevi. (You might call that “the elephant in the room.”) Instead, it focuses on how scandalous is this strange notion that Levine felicitously refers to as Hayyon’s “belief in a First Cause that was decoupled from the revealed God of Israel” (page 167).

Since Levine has discussed the afterlife of Hakham Tsevi’s literary legacy, I should like to take this opportunity to explore the afterlife of Hayyon’s—or more precisely, Cardozo’s theology.

Today one puzzles over vestiges of the opposition of the Sibah Rishonah (First Cause) and Elohei Yisrael (God of Israel) that survive in the reputable works of Rabbi Baruch of Kosov (Yesod ha-Emunah)^[17] and Rabbi Israel Hapstein, the Maggid of Kozienice (‘Avodat Yisrael).^[18] Should we suspect these authors of being closet Sabbatians?

We need to disentangle theology from sociology. Espousal of this kind of theology does not necessarily connect one to the Sabbatian movement.

It is plausible (though unlikely) that even the way Cardozo himself came to his theology was coincidental to his attraction to the Sabbatian movement. Prima facie, what one observes in Cardozan theology is the convergence of two worlds: that of the philosopher and that of the kabbalist. The Marrano physician, educated at Salamanca in general philosophy, encountered, upon reentry to the Jewish fold, an opposed worldview of a particularistic Judaic nature. The valorization of Elohei Yisrael over the Sibah Rishonah is a celebration of Cardozo’s conversion (or re-conversion) to Judaism. The “decoupling,” or to use the Hebrew term, the pirud that so scandalized Hakham Tsevi, is an outgrowth of the maelstrom, and perhaps unresolved tension, within Cardozo’s soul.

Hakham Tsevi was outraged by the proposition of a First Cause without will (ratson) and intention (kavanah). Similarly irksome was the notion that on the ultimate level of divinity, chosenness disappears. The first proposition is articulated by Rav Kook.^[19] The second, by Rabbi Dov Baer Shneuri of Lubavitch (Mitteler Rebbe).^[20] Would Hakham Tsevi consider these writings beyond the pale? Perhaps not.

As long as unity (yihud)—for lack of a better term, monotheism—is maintained, one remains within the mainstream of Jewish belief. It was precisely the “decoupling” of these two elements—the universalist and the particularist—that provoked the defender of the faith. The Hakham recognized shtei reshuyot (dualism)^[21] when he saw it. No amount of sophistry could camouflage an incipient idolatry.

Again, we need to distinguish between Cardozo’s Messianism and his theology. And even then, there is required a refinement before that theology can mainstream. (Just as Rav Kook entertained the thought that by a process of purification or tseruf, Spinoza’s pantheism might one day be rehabilitated. No longer would Spinoza be referred to as Maledictus but Benedictus.)^[22]

Notes

1. Hakham Tsevi’s son, Jacob Emden, continued the practice, signing responsa “Ya‘abets Samekh Teth.” Ya‘abets is the initials of Ya‘akov ben Tsevi. ↑
2. Also referred to in German as Ofen. ↑
3. She’elot u-Teshuvot Hakham Tsevi, no. 93. ↑
4. She’elat Ya‘abets II, no. 82. ↑
5. She’elot u-Teshuvot Hakham Tsevi, no. 167. He reasoned that should one observe an additional day in Erets Yisrael, one would thereby be in violation of Bal Tosif (Thou shalt not add). See Rosh Hashanah 28b, regarding one who sleeps in the sukkah on Shemini ‘Atseret. ↑
6. See Rabbi Joseph Karo, She’elot u-Teshuvot Avkat Rokhel, no. 26 ↑
7. She’elat Ya‘abets, Part One, no. 168. ↑
8. See Rabbi Elijah David Rabinowitz-Te’omim, Kuntress Shevah ha-Arets, in Be-Shemen Ra‘anan, vol. 2, ed. Ben Zion Shapira (Jerusalem, 1991), p. 209, par. 35. The reference to Hakham Tsevi’s responsum should read no. 167 (not no. 147). ↑
9. Rabbi Elijah David Rabinowitz-Te’omim (known by the acronym Aderet) served as the assistant to Rabbi Samuel Salant, Rabbi of Jerusalem. Aderet was the father-in-law of Rav Kook, who would go on to become Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Erets Israel. Evidently, Rav Kook—unlike Aderet—did not accept the ruling of Hakham Tsevi. See Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hakohen Kook, Orah Mishpat, no. 125. ↑
10. See the commentaries of Ra’avan and Rabbenu Hananel to Pesahim 51b-52a. Rabbenu Hananel’s reading differs from our own. In our version, Rav Safra travels from Erets Yisrael to Bavel. In Rabbenu Hananel’s version, Rav Safra travels from Bavel to Erets Yisrael. The conclusion is that in places of habitation (yishuv), one must conform to local custom (and observe a single day of Yom Tov); in the desert (midbar), one maintains one’s original custom of two-day observance. See the letter of Rabbi Meir Don Plotzki published in Rabbi Shelomo Zalman Ehrenreich’s edition of Ra’avan. Unfortunately, Rabbi Ehrenreich terribly misunderstood the reference to Ra’avan in Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady’s Shulhan ‘Arukh. This misreading persisted in Rabbi Yitzhak Flakser’s Sha‘arei Yitzhak.
    See Rabbi Eliezer ben Nathan of Mayence, Even ha-‘Ezer/Sefer Ra’avan, ed. Shelomo Zalman Ehrenreich (Simleul, 1926), Pesahim, 162b (text of Ra’avan), 161d-162c (supercommentary of Even Shelemah); Rabbi Yitzhak Flakser, Sha‘arei Yitzhak, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1999), Hilkhot Yom Tov Sheni, chap. 3.
    In a stroke of originality, Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch suggested that this variant of Rabbenu Hananel might have been the source of Maimonides’ startling ruling (Hilkhot Kiddush ha-Hodesh 5:12) that in the desert of Erets Yisrael one observes two days of Yom Tov. See Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, Mo‘adim u-Zemanim, Part III (Pesahim) (Jerusalem, n.d.), chap. 121 (62a).
    First published in Prague in 1610, Ra’avan was available to Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady. Rabbenu Hananel’s commentary to Pesahim, on the other hand, did not become available until 1868, when it was published in Paris (from a Munich manuscript) by Rabbi Yosef Halevi Stern. ↑
11. Rabbi A.D. Lavut, Sha‘ar ha-Kollel (Brooklyn, 2005), 1:2 (1b-2a). ↑
12. Rabbi Baruch Na’eh in private conversation with the writer (BN) before Pesah of 1987. He was the son of the famed Habad halakhist Rabbi Abraham Hayyim Na’eh, author of Ketsot ha-Shulhan (on Shulhan ‘Arukh Harav). Rabbi Barukh Na’eh authored two volumes of Gemara Shelemah Pesahim.
    Inter alia, see the reaction of Rabbi Meir Mazuz when presented with the Sha‘ar ha-Kollel. Recorded in She’elot u-Teshuvot Ish Matsli’ah, vol. 1, 2^nd edition (B’nei Berak, 1989), Orah Hayyim, no. 40 (116b). Rabbi Matsli’ah Mazuz’s posture as a posek–similar to that of the Hakham Tsevi (Part One, no. 36)—was that the Kabbalistic perspective must never result in a bouleversement of the Halakhah. See Levine, pp. 84-86. Also, Rabbi Jacob Emden’s lengthy responsum in She’elat Ya‘abets, Part One, no. 47. ↑
13. See Rabbi Tsevi Yosef Reichman, Reshimot Shi‘urim, Sukkah (New York, 1990), p. 227; Rabbi Tsevi Schachter, Nefesh Harav (Jerusalem, 1994), p. 84; Levine, Hakham Tsevi, p. 198.
    Another Lithuanian posek who inclined to the one-day observance was Rabbi David Friedman of Karlin. See She’elat David (Piotrkow, 1913), Kuntress ha-Minhagim, 11b, footnote. One should not be surprised that he did not mention Hakham Tsevi. Reb Dovid Karliner was famous for his eschewal of Aharonim (later-day authorities)! ↑
14. Har Tsevi, Orah Hayyim, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1973), no. 78 (126b). ↑
15. See the letter of Rabbi S.Z. Auerbach to Rabbi Yitzhak Flakser in Sha‘arei Yitzhak, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1999), Hilkhot Yom Tov Sheni, chapter 17. ↑
16. See Yehudah Liebes, On Sabbateanism and Its Kabbalah (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1995), pp. 35-36.
    For a cornucopia of Cardozo’s literary output, see David J. Halperin, Abraham Miguel Cardozo: Selected Writings (Mahwah, New Jersey, 2001).
    Rabbi Yahya Kafah of San‘a, Yemen, mistook ‘Oz le-Elohim for a work of mainstream Kabbalah. Rav Kook set him straight that this is in fact a heretical work. See Rabbi Yahya Kafah, Milhamot Hashem (Jerusalem, 1931); RAYH Kook, Ma’amrei ha-Rayah, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1984), p. 520; idem, Haskamot ha-Rayah (Jerusalem, 1988), no. 41, p. 46; idem, letter and pesak din in front matter of anonymous Emunat Hashem (Jerusalem, 1937). ↑
17. See Rabbi Baruch of Kosov, ‘Ammud ha-‘Avodah (Chernowitz, 1863), Kuntresim le-Hokhmat ha-Emet, 128d. In the newer edition, Yesod ha-Emunah, ed. Ya‘akov Aharon Ilowich (Monsey, NY, 2007), Kuntresim le-Hokhmat ha-Emet, par. 206 (p. 488). And see Esther Liebes, Ahavah vi-yetsirah be-haguto shel R. Baruch mi-Kosov (Ph.D. dissertation, Hebrew University, 1997), pp. 279-280. ↑
18. In the Pe’er mi-Kedoshim edition of ‘Avodat Yisrael (B’nei Berak, 2013), 290b. The context is a kavanah for Rosh Hashanah.
    See the lengthy discussion in Bezalel Naor, Navigating Worlds: Collected Essays (New York, 2021), pp. 529-530. ↑
19. Siddur ‘Olat Re’iyah, vol. 1, p. 23, s.v. Le-shem yihud; p. 111, s.v. Atah hu ‘ad she-lo nivra ha-‘olam. ↑
20. Rabbi Dov Baer of Lubavitch, Imrei Binah (Brooklyn, 2018), Sha‘ar Keri’at Shema‘, par. 94 (120c); quoted in Bezalel Naor, The Project of Hasidism (New York, 2025), p. 108. ↑
21. Mutatis mutandis, we find in the Mishnaic era the heretic Elisha ben Abuyah (Aher) constructing a duality of the Unmoved One (“no sitting or standing”) and Metatron, the advocate of Israel (“sitting and writing the merits of Israel”). See Hagigah 15a; and the reading of Maimonides, Commentary to the Mishnah, Introduction to Perek Helek (Sanhedrin chap. 10), the third fundamental (Kafah edition, p. 141). ↑
22. Rav Avraham Yitzhak Hakohen Kook, Pinkas Rishon le-Yaffo, par. 117, in Kevatsim mi-Ketav Yad Kodsho, ed. Boaz Ofen (Jerusalem, 2006), p. 146.
    It seems such a purification of Cardozan theology was uppermost in the mind of Rabbi Pinhas Elijah Hurwitz of Vilna. See his Sefer ha-Berit (Brünn, 1797), Part One, ma’amar 20, chap. 15 (109a-111a). After presenting the opposition of the First Cause and the God of Israel (the hallmark of Cardozo’s theology), Hurwitz quotes the Italian kabbalist Rabbi Joseph Ergas (author of Shomer Emunim) in his polemic work, Tokhahat Megullah & Ha-Tsad Nahash (London, 1715) against Hayyon and Abraham Cardozo. The upshot is the integration of the two aspects of the divinity within an acceptable orthodox framework. Concerning Ergas’ anti-Sabbatian polemic, see Bezalel Naor, Post-Sabbatian Sabbatianism (Spring Valley, NY, 1999), pp. 145-149.Hurwitz has misquoted Tokhahat Megullah f.12. For “Hu mitparesh bi-fe‘ulotav ve-ne‘elam be-‘atsmuto,” read: Hu mitparsem bi-fe‘ulotav ve-ne‘elam be-‘atsmuto. ↑