By-paths in Hebraic bookland

by Israel Abrahams

ISAAC’S LAMP AND JACOB’S WELL

To have one’s Hebrew book turned into the current speech, to have it read part by part in the synagogue by one’s fellows as a substitute for sermons, is not a common experience. Isaac Aboab enjoyed this honor. His Menorat ha-Maor, or Candelabrum of the Light, written in Spain somewhere about the year 1300, according to Zunz, or in France a little before 1400, according to Dr. Efros, became one of the most popular books of the late Middle Ages.

Well it deserved the favor which it won. The Talmud, said Aboab, may be used by the learned in their investigations of law. But for the masses, he felt, it has also a message. Aboab was the first (unless Dr. Efros be right in claiming this honor for Israel Alnaqua) to pick out from the Talmud and Midrash, from the gaonic and even later rabbinic writings, passages of every-day morals, ethical principles, secular and religious wisdom. Aboab’s work was not, however, a mere hap-hazard collection of detached sentences and maxims. Zedner (Catalogue, p. 381), does not hesitate to term it a “System of Moral Laws as explained in the Talmud.” Indeed, the book is surprisingly systematic. The first, or among the first, of its kind, it is also a most conspicuous example of the due ordering of materials.

The very title, also used by Alnaqua, and derived from Numbers 4. 9, was an inspiration. It conveys the idea of “illumination,” than which no idea penetrates deeper into the spiritual life. Fancifully enough, Aboab continues the metaphor into the main divisions of his book. The Menorah (Candelabrum) of the Pentateuch branched out into seven lamps, and so Aboab’s book is divided also into “Seven Lamps.” It is strange that he did not carry the metaphor further. He divides each of his “Lamps” into Parts and Chapters, with a Prologue and an Epilogue to each Lamp. The fourth chapter of Zechariah might have given him “olive-trees” for his Prologues, “bowls” for his Epilogues, and “pipes” for his Parts, while “wicks” might have served instead of Chapters. In point of fact, the “Seven Wicks” was the title chosen by Aboab’s epitomator, Moses Frankfurt, when he constructed a reduced copy of Aboab’s Candelabrum (Amsterdam, 1721).

To return to Aboab’s original work, Lamp I deals with Retribution, Desire, and Passion, Honor, and High-place—the motives and ends of moral conduct. In Lamp II is unfolded the rabbinic teaching on Irreverence, Hypocrisy, Profanation of the Name, Frivolity as distinct from Joy—the causes which impede morality. Then, in Lamp III—the largest Lamp of all the seven—we have morality at work practically, and are instructed as to the worth of religious exercises, charitable life, social and domestic virtue, justice in man’s dealings with his fellows. Next, in Lamp IV, is unfolded the duty and the great reward of studying the Law, as a beautiful corollary to the love and fear of God. Far-reaching in its analysis of the human soul is Lamp V, on Repentance. Lamp VI may be described as presenting the good Rule for body and mind, the amenities of life as shown in character. Or perhaps one might better put it that this section shows us how to be gentlemen, clean, wholesome, considerate. Then Lamp VII completes the whole. It sets out the ideals of Humility and Modesty, virtues which are the end, nay, the beginning also, of the noblest human possibilities, for these virtues are first in those wherein man may imitate God.

Appropriately, Aboab follows up his glorious eulogy of Humility with a full confession of his own shortcomings. He knows that his compilation is imperfect. “Some things I have omitted,” he explains, “because I have never read them; others because I have forgotten them.” “Some passages I left out,” he goes on, “as too abstruse for general reading, others as alien to the purpose of my book, others again because liable to misunderstanding, and liable to do more harm than good.” Wise man! Unfortunately not every imitator of Aboab has displayed the same excellent judgment. The olden Jewish literature is so abundantly full of beauties that it is an ill-service to repeat the few things of lesser value. Aboab’s Candelabrum of the Light is in this respect superior to its great rival, Ibn Habib’s Well of Jacob. Up to half-a-century ago the two books must have run each other very close as regards the number of editions; more recently Ibn Habib’s book (the ‘En Ya’akob) has probably surged ahead. Readers may be reminded of the difference in method. Ibn Habib takes the talmudic tractates one by one, and extracts from each its haggadic elements. There is no attempt at any other order than that of the Talmud. The Well of Jacob, moreover, includes everything, the folk-lore as well as the ethics. To the student, Ibn Habib’s service was greater than Aboab’s; the relation is reversed from the point of view of the man or woman in search of vital religion.

The Well of Jacob, it must be allowed, is in itself almost as good a title as that which Aboab chose. Ibn Habib himself seems to have used the Hebrew word ‘En rather in the sense of “Substance” or “Essence”—his work reproduced the “Essence” of the talmudic Haggadah. But Jacob’s Well, as the Midrash has it, was the source whence was drawn the Holy Spirit. Despite my personal preference for Aboab’s Menorah, it must be freely acknowledged that many generations have quaffed from Ibn Habib’s reservoir fine spiritual draughts. And still quaff. For just as Aboab’s Lamp still shines, so Jacob’s Well has not yet run dry.

Over and above the similarity of contents, with all the dissimilarity of method, there is another reason why one thinks of the works of Aboab and Ibn Habib together. Though Aboab wrote considerably before Ibn Habib, their books appeared for the first time in print almost simultaneously. Ibn Habib’s book came out as the author compiled it; in point of fact it was the son who completed the publication, because Jacob Ibn Habib died while the earlier sections of his work were passing through the press. If, as seems probable, the Lamp was first kindled in 1511, or 1514, and the Well began to pour its fertilizing streams in 1516, Aboab had the start; but these dates are uncertain. All that we can state with confidence is that both books appeared in print quite early in the sixteenth century, not later than 1516. The earliest editions of both books are scarce, and from a simple cause. Few copies have survived because the owners of the copies wore them out. Read and re-read, thumbed by many hands, by “the Jewish woman, the workman, the rank and file of Israel,” the copies were used up by those who treated books as something to hold in the hand and not to keep on a shelf out of reach. My own edition of the Candelabrum, that of Amsterdam (1739), boasts justly of the excellent paper on which it is printed. None the less does this copy, too, show signs of frequent perusal. The best books were the worst preserved, because they were the best treated. What better treatment of a book can there be than to read it so often that its pages no longer hold together, its margins fray, and its title-page suffers mutilation?