Luzzatto in his dramatic parable clothes and vivifies this train of ideas, and enunciates them in monologues and dialogues through the mouth of acting, or, more correctly, speaking characters. Luzzatto's masterpiece is indeed not a drama in the strict sense of the word. The characters represented are not of flesh and blood, but mere abstractions: Reason and Folly, Merit and Deceit, are placed on the stage. The dramatic action is slight. It is in truth a beautiful wreath of fragrant flowers of poesy, a series of delightful monologues and dialogues. In it Luzzatto embodies deep thoughts, difficult to quicken into life or to paint in poetical colors; but he succeeded. The wonderful evolution of the vegetable world, the extraordinary phenomena of light, are treated in dramatic verse by Luzzatto with the same facility as the appropriate subjects for poetry, and this too in the Hebrew language, not readily lending itself to new forms of thought, and with the self-imposed fetters of a meter never sinned against. His style is dignified, and he employed a diction quite his own, replete with youthful charms, beauty, and harmony. Thereby he supplied a new impulse for the coming age. When the mists of error passed away, the general chaos of thought was reduced to some sort of order, and a happier period opened, young poets derived inspiration from the soft warm rays diffused by the genius of Luzzatto. A modern Hebrew poet who helped to accomplish the transition from the old to the new period, David Franco Mendes, owes his inspiration to Luzzatto.
What might not Luzzatto have accomplished if he could have liberated his mind from the extravagant follies of the Kabbala! But it held him captive, and drew him not long after the completion of his drama (about 1744) to Palestine. Here he hoped to be able to follow unmolested the inspirations of his excited fancy, or play the rôle of a Messiah. From Safet, too, he continued his communications with his band of disciples; but before he could commence operations he fell a victim to the plague, in the fortieth year of his age. His body was buried in Tiberias. The two greatest modern Hebrew poets, Luzzatto and Jehuda Halevi, were to rest in Hebrew soil. Even the tongues of the slanderous Jews of Palestine, to whom Luzzatto, with his peculiarities, must have seemed an enigma, could only speak well of him after his death. Nevertheless he sowed bad seed. His Italian followers reintroduced the Kabbala into Italy. His Polish disciple, Yekutiel of Wilna, whose buffooneries had first got him into trouble, is said to have led an adventurer's life in Poland and Holland, playing scandalous tricks under the mask of mysticism. Another Pole, Elijah Olianow, who belonged to Luzzatto's following, and proclaimed him as Messiah and himself as his Elijah, did not enjoy the best of reputations. This man took part in the disgraceful disorders which broke out in Altona after Luzzatto's death, and which, again stirring up the Sabbatian mire, divided the Jews of Europe into two hostile camps.
The foul pool which for centuries, since the prohibition of free inquiry and the triumph of its enemy the Kabbala, had been in process of formation in Judaism was, with perverse stupidity, being continually stirred up, defiling the pure and the impure. The irrational excitement roused by the vain, false Messiah of Smyrna was not suppressed by the proscription of Chayon and the Polish Sabbatians, but showed a still more ill-favored aspect, forcing its way into circles hitherto closed against it. The rabbis, occupied with the practical and dialectical interpretation of the Talmud, had hitherto refused admission to the Kabbala on equal terms, and only here and there had surreptitiously introduced something from it. They had opposed the Sabbatian heresy, and pronounced an anathema against it. But one influential rabbi espoused its cause, invested it with importance, and so precipitated a conflict which undermined discipline and order, and blunted still more the sense of dignity and self-respect, of truth and rectitude. The occasion of the conflict was the petty jealousy of two rabbis. Its true origin lay deeper, in intellectual perversity and the secret dislike on the one hand to the excess of ritualistic observances, and on the other to the extravagances of the Kabbala. The authors of this far-reaching schism—two Polish rabbis of Altona—each unconsciously had taken a step across the threshold of orthodoxy. Diametrically opposed to each other in faculties and temperament, they were suited by their characters to be pitted against each other. Both Jonathan Eibeschütz and Jacob Emden had taken part in the foregoing conflicts, and eventually gave these quarrels a more extended influence.
Jonathan Eibeschütz, or Eibeschützer (born at Cracow 1690, died 1764), was descended from a Polish family of Kabbalists. His father, Nathan Nata, was for a short time rabbi of the small Moravian town of Eibenschitz, from which his son derived his surname. Endowed with a remarkably acute intellect and a retentive memory, the youthful Jonathan, early left an orphan, received the irregular education, or rather bewildering instruction of the age, which supplied him with only two subjects on which to exercise his brains—the far-reaching sphere of the Talmud, with its labyrinthine mazes, and the ensnaring Kabbala, with its shallows full of hidden rocks. The one offered abundant food for his hungry reason, the other for his ill-regulated fancy. With his hair-splitting ingenuity he might have made an adroit, pettifogging attorney, qualified to make out a brilliant and successful justification for the worst case; or, had he had access to the higher mathematics of Newton and Leibnitz, he might have accomplished much in this field as a discoverer. Eibeschütz had some taste for branches of learning beyond the sphere of the Talmud, and also a certain vanity that made him desire to excel in them; but this he could not satisfy. The perverted spirit of the Polish and German Jews of the time closed to every aspiring youth the gates of the sciences based on truth and keen observation, and drove him into the mazes of Rabbinical and Talmudic literature. From lack of more wholesome food for his active intellect, young Eibeschütz filled his brain with pernicious matter, and want of method forced him into the crooked paths of sophistry. He imagined indeed, or wished it to be supposed, that he had acquired every variety of knowledge, but his writings on subjects not connected with the Talmud, so far as it is possible to judge of them, his sermons, his Kabbalistic compositions, and a mass of occasional papers, reveal nothing that can be described as wisdom or solid learning. Eibeschütz was not even familiar with the Jewish philosophers who wrote in Hebrew; he was at home only in the Talmud. This he could manipulate like soft clay, give it any form he desired, and he could unravel the most intricately entangled skeins. He surpassed all his contemporaries and predecessors not only in his knowledge of the Talmud, but also in ready wit.
But Eibeschütz did not derive complete satisfaction from his scholarship; it only served to sharpen his wits, afford him amusement, and dazzle others. His restless nature and fiery temperament could not content themselves with this, but aspired to a higher goal. This goal, however, was unknown even to himself, or was only dimly shadowed before his mind. Hence his life and conduct appear enigmatical and full of contradictions. Had he lived in the age of the struggle for reform, for the loosening of the bands of authority, he would have been among the assailants, and would have employed his Talmudical learning and aggressive wit as levers to upheave the edifice of Rabbinical Judaism, and oppose the Talmud with the weapons it had supplied. For he was easy-going, and disliked the gloomy piety of the German and Polish Jews; and though impressed by it, he lacked fervor to yield to its influence. He therefore found mysticism as interpreted by the followers of Sabbataï very comforting: the Law was to be abolished by the commencement of the Messianic era, or the spirit of the Kabbala demanded no over-scrupulousness with regard to trifles. Nehemiah Chayon appears to have made a great impression on young Eibeschütz in Prague or Hamburg. With the Sabbatian Löbele Prosnitz, he was in constant, though secret intercourse. He studied thoroughly the works of Abraham Michael Cardoso, though they had been publicly condemned and branded as heretical. Eibeschütz had adopted the blasphemous tenets of these and other Sabbatians—namely, that there is no relation of any kind between the Most High God, the First Cause, and the Universe, but that a second person in the Godhead, the God of Israel, the image and prototype of the former, created the world, gave the Law, chose Israel, in short governs the Finite. He appears to have embraced also the conclusions deduced from this heretical theory, that Sabbataï Zevi was the true Messiah, that the second person of the Godhead was incorporated in him, and that by his appearance the Torah had ceased to have any importance.
But Eibeschütz had not sufficient strength of character or determination to act in conformity with his convictions. It would have been contrary to his nature to break openly with Rabbinical Judaism, and by proclaiming himself an anti-Talmudist, as had been done by several Sabbatians, to wage war against the whole of Judaism. He was too practical and loved ease too well to expose himself to the disagreeable consequences of such a rupture. Should he, like Chayon, wander forth a fugitive through Asia and Europe, and back again? Besides, he loved the Talmud and Rabbinical literature as food for his wit, and could not do without them. The contradictions in his career and the disorders which he originated may be traced to want of harmony between his intellect and his temperament. Rabbinical Judaism did not altogether suit him, but the sources from which it was derived were indispensable to him, and had they not been in existence he would have created them. Fettered by this contradiction he deceived not only the world, but also himself; he could not arrive at any clear understanding with himself, and was a hypocrite without intending it.
At one-and-twenty Eibeschütz directed a school in Prague, and a band of subtlety-loving Talmud students gathered round him, hung on his lips, and admired his stimulating method, and playful way of dealing with difficulties. He captivated and inspired his pupils by his genial, one might almost say student-like, manners, by his sparkling wit, and scintillating sallies, not always within the bounds of propriety. His manner towards his pupils was altogether different from that of rabbis of the ordinary type. He did not slink along gloomily, like a penitent, and with bowed head, and he imposed no such restraints on them, but allowed them great freedom. Social life and lively, interesting conversation were necessities to him. For these reasons the number of Eibeschütz's disciples yearly increased, and counted by thousands. At thirty he was regarded not alone in Prague, but far and wide as an authority.
It has been stated that the council of rabbis of Frankfort-on-the-Main had clear proofs of Eibeschütz's connection with Löbele Prosnitz and the Podolian Sabbatians. Only his extensive influence and the great number of his disciples protected him from being included in the sentence of excommunication pronounced against the others. He had the hardihood to meet the suspicions against himself by excommunicating the Sabbatians (1725). Moses Chages, the man without "respect of persons," the "watchman of Zion" of that age, predicted that forbearance would prove hurtful. In fact, Eibeschütz was at that time deeply committed to the Sabbatian heresies, confessed the fact to Meïr Eisenstadt, the teacher of his youth, who knew his erring ways, and, apparently ashamed and repentant, promised amendment. Thanks to this clemency Eibeschütz maintained his reputation, increased by his erudition, his ever-growing body of disciples, and his activity. The suspicion of heresy was by degrees forgotten, and the community of Prague, in recognition of his merits, appointed him preacher (1728).
In another matter Eibeschütz left the beaten path, and placed himself in a somewhat ambiguous light. Either from vanity or calculation, he entered into intimate relations with the Jesuits in Prague. He carried on discussions with them, displaying a certain sort of liberality, as though he did not share the prejudices of the Jews. He associated, for instance, with that spiritual tyrant, Hasselbauer, the Jesuit bishop of Prague, who frequently made domiciliary visits among Jews, to search for and confiscate Hebrew books that had escaped the vigilance of the censor. Through this intimacy Eibeschütz obtained from the bishop the privilege to print the Talmud, so often proscribed by the Church of Rome. Did he act thus from self-interest, with the view of compelling the Bohemian Jews to use only copies of the Talmud printed by him, and in this way create a remunerative business, the profits to be shared with the Jesuits? This was most positively asserted in many Jewish circles. Eibeschütz obtained permission to print from the episcopal board of censors, on condition that every expression, every word in the Talmud which, in howsoever small a degree, appeared to be antagonistic to Christianity be expunged. He was willing to perpetrate this process of mutilation (1728–1739). Such obsequious pliability to the Jesuits excited the displeasure of many Jews. The community of Frankfort-on-the-Main spent a considerable sum—Moses Chages and perhaps David Oppenheim being at the bottom of the movement—in their efforts to obtain from the emperor a prohibition against the publication of the Prague edition. Eibeschütz, on the other hand, used his connection with Christian circles to avert perils impending over the Bohemian Jews.
Eibeschütz's early heretical leanings were not absolutely forgotten. When the post of rabbi at Metz became vacant, he applied for it. When the council were occupied with the election, the gray-haired widow of the late rabbi appeared at the meeting, and warned them not to insult the memory of her dead husband and the pious rabbis who had preceded him, by appointing a heretic, perhaps worse (a Mumar), their successor. This solemn admonition from the venerable matron who was related to the wife of Eibeschütz so impressed the council that his election fell through. Jacob Joshua Falk was appointed at Metz. He remained there only a few years, and, on his removal to Frankfort-on-the-Main, Eibeschütz was chosen in his place. Before he entered on his duties, the Austrian War of Succession broke out, a struggle between youthful, aspiring Prussia, under Frederick the Great, and decrepit Austria, under Maria Theresa. A French army, in conjunction with Prussia and the anti-emperor Charles VII, occupied Prague. The systematically brutalized population of Bohemia and Moravia conceived the false notion that the Jews were treacherously taking part with the enemy. It was said that Frederick the Great, the Protestant heretic, was an especial patron of the Jews. In Moravia, whither the Prussians had not yet penetrated, occurred passionate outbursts of fury against the Jews. An Austrian field-marshal in Moravia, under the delusion of the Jews' treachery, issued a decree that the communities, within six days, should "pay down in cash 50,000 Rhenish gulden at Brünn, failing which, they would all be delivered over to pillage and the sword." Through the devoted exertions of Baron de Aguilar and the wealthy rabbi, Issachar Berush Eskeles—two members of the Vienna community—this decree was revoked by the empress, Maria Theresa (March 21). These men had another opportunity to avert a crushing disaster from their brethren.