1538–1566 C.E.
Every fresh column of smoke rising from the fires of the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal drove Marranos, singly or in groups, far away to the East, to Turkey, beyond the shadow of the cross. They no longer felt safe even in Italy, since the popes, against their own higher convictions, allowed themselves to be overborne concerning the Inquisition. In Turkey a little Jewish world was thus by degrees formed, on which even the sultan's despotic rule did not encroach, however much individuals might be exposed to arbitrary treatment. Here, as in Palestine, where numbers and prosperity had raised them in their own estimation, they could indulge in dreams of obtaining some degree of independence, might strive for national and religious unity, and hope to realize their wild Messianic fancies. The career of the Mantuan martyr, Solomon Molcho, did not fail to leave an impression; his words echoed in the ears of his brethren. At Safet, the largest congregation in Palestine, where he had made a long stay, forming intimate relations and awakening hopes, the fulfillment of his Messianic predictions was looked for even after his death. The completion of the round number 5300 from the creation of the world (1540) seemed to be a suitable year for the coming of the Messiah. But the Messianic period, according to then prevailing ideas, would not come suddenly; the Israelites had to do their part in preparing the way. Maimuni, the highest authority, had taught that the Messianic time would or must be preceded by the establishment of a universally recognized Jewish court of justice, or Synhedrion. Hence the necessity was felt of having authorized and duly appointed judges, such as existed at the time of the Temple and the Talmud in Palestine, of re-introducing, in fact, the long-disused ordination (Semichah). There was no hindrance to be feared from the Turkish state. As it was, the rabbis had their own civil and even criminal jurisdiction; but these rabbis (who were also judges), being appointed by the community, had not the warrant of authority required by Talmudic rules. Obedience was given them, but they also met with opposition. Authority was conventional, not built on the foundation of Talmudic Judaism. No unity of legislation and exposition of the Law was possible while every rabbi was absolute in his own congregation, not subject to some higher authority. It was, therefore, a need of the times to create a sort of religious supreme court, and where should that be done but in Palestine? The sacred memories connected with that country could alone lend the dignity of a Synhedrion to a college of rabbis. Teaching that was to meet with universal acceptance could proceed from Zion alone, and the word of God only from Jerusalem.
How excellent and necessary it was to re-introduce the ordination of rabbis by a higher authority had been discussed by many, but only one, the acute-minded but obstinate and daring Jacob Berab, had the energy to set about doing the thing. After much journeying from Egypt to Jerusalem, and thence to Damascus, Berab, in his old age, settled at Safet. He was in good circumstances, and, owing to his wealth and intellect, enjoyed marked respect and consideration. He determined to give a definite direction to the aimless ideas floating in men's minds with regard to the coming of the Messiah. This was certainly a praiseworthy aim, but some little ambition was undoubtedly mixed up in his plan: to be himself the highest authority, perhaps the chief of the Synhedrion in Palestine, and consequently revered throughout the East, and even by the whole Jewish race. The first step was difficult. Ordination could be lawfully given only by those who themselves had been ordained, and there had been no such for a very long time. An utterance of Maimuni happily offered ground for a new departure, viz., when wise men gathered together in Palestine shall agree to ordain one of their number, they have the right to do so, and the ordained rabbi can also ordain others. At that time no community in Palestine, in point of numbers, could compare with Safet, which had grown through frequent immigrations till it contained more than 1,000 Jewish families. Safet, or rather the Talmudists of that city, therefore, had it in their own hands, if they could only agree, to re-establish the dignity of the Synhedrion, even in the face of opposition from other congregations, because the Safet party was in the majority. The officiating and non-officiating rabbis of Safet, men without name or fame, had far too high a respect for Berab's intellectual power, Talmudic learning, and wealth, to gainsay his proposition, or put any obstacle in his path. A hint from him sufficed to bring together five and twenty men ready to confer on him the dignity of an ordained judge and rabbi. Thus ordination was re-established (1538), and the focus for a new Synhedrion determined. It rested with Jacob Berab to ordain as many colleagues as he pleased. From principles laid down in the Talmud he demonstrated in a lecture the legality of the step, and confuted every possible objection. One after another, Talmudists in other congregations in Palestine announced their assent to this innovation. By this step Berab and his followers thought that they had reached the first stage of preparation for the Messianic age. In fact, this renewal of ordination, if not able to bring about the Messianic times, might very well have been the nucleus of Jewish unity. A re-established Synhedrion in the Holy Land would have had a grand sound in Europe, might have exercised special attraction, and brought still more immigrants to Palestine. Persecutions of Jews in Italy and Germany, the war of extermination against Marranos in Spain and Portugal, a thirst for what was eccentric and out of the common in an age distinguished by strongly excited longing for the Messiah, all this would have been sufficient inducement to allure rich, educated Jews from western lands to the East. With the help of their capital, and founded on the authority of a Synhedrion, a Jewish community having the character of a state might have been organized, and Berab was the right person to carry out so great a scheme with perseverance—not to say stubbornness.
But difficulties immediately arose. It was to be expected that if the congregation at Jerusalem and its representatives were not consulted with regard to an act so pregnant with consequences, there would be danger that the whole arrangement would be declared null and void, for the Holy City should have the first vote in a matter of such weight for the Holy Land. Jacob Berab saw this perfectly well, and proposed, as the first exercise of his newly-acquired dignity, to ordain the head of the Jerusalem college of rabbis. Levi ben Jacob Chabib, who held that position, was born in Zamora, and was of about the same age as Berab. As a youth, in the times of forced baptism, under King Manoel, he had become a pseudo-Christian, received a baptismal name, made the sign of the cross, and performed other ceremonies of the Catholic Church with a heart full of despair. At the first favorable opportunity he fled from Portugal, cast off his assumed garb of Christianity, sought safety in Turkey, and finally betook himself to Jerusalem. There, by virtue of the wide range of his Talmudic learning, more extensive than profound, he became as rabbi the first person in the community. He deserved its gratitude by caring for the physical and spiritual welfare of his congregation, especially for piloting it through the disturbed state into which it was in danger of falling afresh through the new arrivals from various countries, who were disinclined to submit to law and order. Levi ben Chabib had also some knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, and the calculation of the calendar. Between himself and Jacob Berab, with whom he had lived for some time in Jerusalem, there was no friendly relationship. On several occasions they had come into collision, though Levi ben Chabib had always behaved in a friendly, unassuming manner, and avoided whatever might wound his opponent. Their relations of late years had been more intimate, but Levi ben Chabib could not forget how slightingly Jacob Berab had treated him.
And now, as chief rabbi of Jerusalem, he was invited to recognize the election of Jacob Berab as the first lawfully ordained rabbi-judge, member of the Synhedrion, and by his consent to approve of the same. Jerusalem was thereby subordinated to Safet, and he himself to Jacob Berab. This was a real offense, for Berab had not thought it worth while to ask the consent of the Jerusalem college beforehand, but had haughtily made his innovation known through a decree, in which, by virtue of the dignity conferred upon him, he designated Levi ben Chabib an ordained judge. At the same time he had made it evident that disapproval from Jerusalem would disturb him but little, since it could only be regarded as the opposition of a minority to the majority at Safet. The moment for taking an important step towards Jewish unity had come, and it found Levi ben Chabib, whose vote at all events was of importance, wanting in magnanimity. Resentment gained the upper hand; he forgot that in earlier days it had been also his desire to re-establish the ordination of rabbis. As soon as a notification of the act at Safet reached him, he immediately and emphatically declared himself against the election. His antagonism seems, however, to have found no response in Jerusalem, for only one of his rabbinical colleagues, Moses de Castro, adopted his view, the remainder acquiesced in Berab's action. In Talmudical and rabbinical law arguments could not fail to be discoverable against the revival of ordination and the Synhedrion. Such a confused host of opinions exists therein, that arguments may be found for or against almost anything. Berab and the electors obedient to his nod themselves furnished their opponents with an objection. Rabbinical Judaism is so thoroughly practical that it offers no foothold for romantic enthusiasm and sentimentality. The Jews of Safet dared not give utterance to their underlying hope that through ordination the Messianic time would be brought nearer. Though the rabbis might be filled with Messianic hopes, such a motive for the re-introduction of ordination would have sounded too fantastic and ridiculous in their own ears. Other plausible grounds were not just then to be found. The calendar of festivals, which had formerly been prepared by ordained members of the college, had been fixed for a thousand years, and could not now be meddled with. Other cases where the Talmud required an ordained judge were of too rare occurrence to permit that the necessity of ordination be proved on that head. The people of Safet, therefore, made the most of a reason meant to appear practical and suited to the times, which was nevertheless very far-fetched. Many Marranos were to be found in Palestine who had been forced during their outward assumption of Christianity to commit what according to the Talmud were deadly sins. With contrite hearts they repented of their transgressions, and longed for forgiveness and atonement—they had not given up the Catholic doctrine of outward penance when they cast off the mask of Christianity. Such forgiveness of sins, however (Berab made it appear), could be theirs only when the scourging prescribed by the Law (39 stripes) was inflicted; again, this punishment could be decreed only by a lawfully ordained college. Therein lay the necessity for ordination.
If Levi ben Chabib was disposed to extend his antipathy from the originator to the execution of his work, there would be no difficulty in proving this reason for the scheme invalid. Not content with this, he brought forward a host of sophistries. Jacob Berab had not expected such antagonism at Jerusalem from Levi ben Chabib and his colleague, Moses de Castro, because he credited them either with less courage or more self-denial, and it embittered him extremely. It was all the more painful to him since their opposition was calculated to wreck his whole undertaking. How could he hope to prove it acceptable to Asiatic, European, and African Jews, when Jerusalem, the Holy City, would have none of it? And without such acceptance, how could he make it the central point of a re-organization? Besides, his life was in danger at Safet, probably through denunciation to the Turkish authorities, who were willing to grasp at any opportunity to get hold of his property. Berab had to leave Palestine for a time. He consecrated four Talmudists, as Judah ben Baba had done in Hadrian's time, so that the practice of ordination might not immediately fall to the ground. These four were chosen not from the elder, but from the younger rabbis, among them Joseph Karo, the enthusiastic adherent of Solomon Molcho and his Kabbalistic Messiahship, who entered heart and soul into the ordination scheme. Such preference, shown to younger and more pliable, if more gifted men, stirred up still more ill-will in Jerusalem. The two rabbis of Palestine in the epistles exchanged on the subject (written with a view to publication) grew more and more bitter against each other, so offensive indeed that the most passionate excitement cannot excuse their language. In reply to Levi ben Chabib's censorious remark: "One who is consecrated and ordained should have not only learning, but holiness also," Jacob Berab made a spiteful reference to Levi's compulsory adoption of Christianity: "I have never changed my name; in the midst of distress and despair I kept always in the way of the Lord." He upbraided Levi ben Chabib with still having somewhat of Christian dogma sticking to him. This thrust reached his opponent's heart. The latter confessed that in the day of forced baptisms in Portugal his name had been changed, that he had been made a Christian, and that he had not been able to die for the religion of his fathers. But he brought forward his youth as an excuse; he had not been twenty years old, had remained a pseudo-Christian scarcely a year, and he hoped that the flood of tears which he had shed since then, and which he still shed, would wipe out his sin before God. After this humiliation Levi ben Chabib's violence against Berab knew no bounds. He flung the grossest insults at him, and declared that he hoped never more to meet him face to face. Through this intemperate violence of the chief rabbi of Jerusalem and Berab's death, which followed immediately after (January, 1541), the system of ordination fell to the ground.
Joseph Karo alone, one of the ordained, refused to give in. This remarkable man, who later on had so deep an influence on Jewish history (born 1488, died 1575), when a child, was driven from Spain with his parents. He early learned the bitter lessons of suffering, and after long traveling about, came to Nicopolis in European Turkey. He studied the text of the Mishnah so assiduously that he knew it by heart. Later on Karo left Nicopolis to settle at Adrianople, where, on account of his extraordinary Talmudical learning, he was looked up to with respect, and found disciples. In his thirtieth year he undertook the gigantic work of furnishing Jacob Asheri's Code with a commentary, authorities, and corrections, to which he devoted twenty years of his life (1522–1542). Twelve years more were spent in a further revision (1542–1554). His imagination, kept in entire inactivity by such a dry task, was fired by the appearance of Solomon Molcho. That young enthusiast from Portugal made so overpowering an impression upon him, that Karo allowed himself to be initiated into the tortuous mazes of the Kabbala and to share Molcho's Messianic dreams. After this time his mind was divided between dry rabbinical scholarship and the fantastic ideas of the Kabbala. He kept up a correspondence with Molcho during the latter's stay in Palestine, and formed plans for going thither himself. Like Molcho, he prepared for a martyr's death, "as a burnt-sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord," and like Molcho, he had strange visions, which, according to his belief, were inspired by some superior being. This superior being (Maggid) was not an angel, or an imaginary voice, but—oddly enough—the Mishnah personified, who descended to him, and generally at night whispered revelations, because he had devoted himself to its service. Joseph Karo had these visions (which he for the most part committed to paper), not for a short period of time, but at intervals, to the end of his life, for nearly forty years. Part of them were afterwards published, and it is melancholy to see what havoc the Kabbala played with the intellect of that day. The superior being (or the Mishnah) laid the heaviest penances on Karo, forbade him to indulge in meat and wine, and went to the extent of prohibiting much drinking of water. If he was guilty of any fault, sleeping too long, being late at prayers, or slightly neglecting his study of the Mishnah, the mother Mishnah appeared, and made the most tender remonstrances. She certainly made astonishing revelations to him. These predictions were far from being mere deceptions, but were the promptings of a tumultuous epoch, or an excited imagination, such as is found in the warm, luxurious East oftener than in the cold, sober North.
Joseph Karo was so full of the thought that he was called to play a part in Palestine, and die as a martyr, during the time of preparation for the Messiah as begun by Solomon Molcho, that he left Adrianople. He stayed for some time at Salonica, a place swarming with Kabbalists. At length, he arrived in Safet, that nest of Kabbalists, with a companion of like mind, Solomon Alkabez, a dull, spiritless writer, whose song of welcome for the Sabbath bride (Lecha Dodi) has become more famous than its author. At Safet, Joseph Karo experienced the joy of seeing part of his fantastic dreams fulfilled; he was ordained by Berab as a member of the Synhedrion. After Berab's death Karo dreamed of nothing but his future greatness; he was to bring about ordination, and to be recognized by the sages of Palestine and foreign countries as a patriarch and leader of the Jews in Palestine. He would educate the best Talmudists, so that disciples of his school only would be accepted. Everyone would do him reverence as the holy likeness (Diokna Kadisha), and he would work miracles. Like Molcho, he was to die a martyr's death, that the name of God might be hallowed; but his resurrection would soon afterwards follow, and he would enter into the Messianic kingdom.
All these advantages and prerogatives were to be won by a single achievement, which of itself would make the Jews into one great people, and gain him universal admiration. When his thorough commentary on Jacob Asheri's Code was completed, printed, published, and in circulation, when he had elaborated a comprehensive code of religious law grounded on that work, he would surely be acknowledged as patriarch and lawgiver in all Israel. His guardian angel had whispered to him that he would be made worthy to train many disciples and to see his writings printed and circulated throughout Israel. Even the supernatural worlds would ask, "Who is the man with whom the King of kings is well pleased, the patriarch of Palestine, the great writer of the Holy Land?" He would be enabled to publish his commentary, elucidations, and decisions without fault or error.
Devoted piety, fantastical imagination, and some degree of ambition inspired the author, who elaborated, for the whole Jewish race, the final code of religious law, destined to end all wavering, uncertainty, and antagonism of opinion. Kabbalistic enthusiasm combined with the Messianic hopes excited by Solomon Molcho, and the ceremony of ordination administered by Berab, gave Karo no rest, until by means of a comprehensive written work he had accomplished these hopes, at least so far as religious unity was concerned. Yet several decades were to elapse before the Jewish world received this gift, a colossal work which required years for its completion. Joseph Karo's astounding, incessant industry had to eke out lack of genius. Such a work could be accomplished only by religious devotion and inspiration united with a fantastic imagination. Of all his lofty dreams one only was actually realized, that he would be chief rabbi of Safet after Jacob Berab's death, and would be acknowledged as a rabbinical authority, the latter coming about only gradually. But his authority was not absolute; he had a rival in Berab's best disciple, Moses de Trani.