Jacob Emden

Jacob Emden was a Jewish rabbi, Talmud scholar, and opponent of the Sabbatians. He was born at Altona June 4, 1697, and died there April 19, 1776.

Biography

Until seventeen Emden studied Talmud under his father Zvi Ashkenazi, the foremost Talmudic authority of the age, first at Altona, then from 1710 to 1714 at Amsterdam. In 1715 Emden married the daughter of Mordecai ben Naphtali Kohen, rabbi of Uhersky Brod, Moravia, and continued his studies in his father-in-law's yeshivah. Emden became well versed in Talmudic literature; later he studied philosophy, Kabbalah, and grammar, and made an effort to acquire the Latin and Dutch languages, in which, however, he was seriously hindered by his belief that a Jew should occupy himself with secular sciences only during the hour of twilight.

He was opposed to philosophy, and maintained that The Guide to the Perplexed could not have been written by Maimonides, as he could not imagine that a pious Jew would write a work accepting and promoting what Emden saw as a non-Jewish theology. (Since this time, most in the Orthodox Jewish community have come to accept philosophy, at least in some forms, as a valid field of study, and nearly all Orthodox Jews agree that Maimonides was the author of the Guide to the Perplexed; this is also the view of all historians on this subject.)

Emden spent three years at Ungarish-Brod, where he held the office of private lecturer in Talmud. Then be became a dealer in jewelry and other articles, which occupation compelled him to travel. He generally declined to accept the office of rabbi, though in 1728 he was induced to accept the rabbinate of Emden, from which place he took his name.

In 1733 Emden returned to Altona, where he obtained the permission of the Jewish community to possess a private synagogue. Emden was at first on friendly terms with Moses Ḥagis, the head of the Portuguese community at Altona, who was afterward turned against Emden by some calumny. His relations with Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, the chief rabbi of the German community, were strained from the very beginning. Emden seems to have considered every successor of his father as an intruder.

A few years later Emden obtained from the King of Denmark the privilege of establishing at Altona a printing-press. He was soon attacked for his publication of the siddur (prayer book) Ammude Shamayim, being accused of having dealt arbitrarily with the text. His opponents did not cease denouncing him even after he had obtained for his work the approbation of the chief rabbi of the German communities.

The Emden-Eybeschütz Controversy

Emden is known for his controversial activities, his attacks being generally directed against the adherents, or those he supposed to be adherents, of Sabbatai Zevi. Of these controversies the most celebrated was that with Jonathan Eybeschütz, who in Emden's eyes was a convicted Shabbethaian. The controversy lasted several years, continuing even after Eybeschütz's death.

Emden's assertion of the heresy of his antagonist was chiefly based on the interpretation of some amulets prepared by Eybeschütz, in which Emden professed to see Shabbethaian allusions. Hostilities began before Eybeschütz left Prague; when Eybeschütz was named chief rabbi of the three communities of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck (1751), the controversy reached the stage of intense and bitter antagonism. Emden maintained that he was at first prevented by threats from publishing anything against Eybeschütz. He solemnly declared in his synagogue the writer of the amulets to be a Shabbethaian heretic and deserving of excommunication.

The majority of the community favoring Eybeschütz, the council condemned Emden as a calumniator. People were ordered, under pain of excommunication, not to attend Emden's synagogue, and he himself was forbidden to issue anything from his press. As Emden still continued his philippics against Eybeschütz, he was ordered by the council of the three communities to leave Altona. This he refused to do, relying on the strength of the king's charter, and he was, as he maintained, relentlessly persecuted. His life seeming to be in actual danger, he left the town and took refuge in Amsterdam (May 1751), where he had many friends and where he joined the household of his brother-in-law, Aryeh Löb b. Saul, rabbi of the Ashkenazic community.

Emden's cause was subsequently taken up by the court of King Frederick of Denmark, and on June 3, 1752, a judgment was given in favor of Emden, severely censuring the council of the three communities and condemning them to a fine of one hundred thalers. Emden then returned to Altona and took possession of his synagogue and printing-establishment, though he was forbidden to continue his agitation against Eybeschütz. The latter's partizans, however, did not desist from their warfare against Emden. They accused him before the authorities of continuing to publish denunciations against his opponent. One Friday evening (July 8, 1755) his house was broken into and his papers seized and turned over to the "Ober-Präsident," Von Kwalen. Six months later Von Kwalen appointed a commission of three scholars, who, after a close examination, found nothing which could inculpate Emden.

Analysis

The truth or falsity of his denunciations against Eybeschütz can not be proved, but the fact remains that he quarreled with almost all his contemporaries. He considered that every man who was not for him was against him, and attacked him accordingly. Still, he enjoyed a certain authority, even among the Polish rabbis. In 1756 the members of the Synod of Constantinov applied to Emden to aid in repressing the Shabbethaian movement. As the Shabbethaians referred much to the Zohar, Emden thought it wise to examine that book, and after a careful study he concluded that a great part of the Zohar was the production of an impostor.

Emden's works show him to have been possessed of critical powers rarely found among his contemporaries, who generally took things for granted. He was strictly Orthodox, never deviating the least from tradition, even when the difference in time and circumstance might have fairly been regarded as warranting a deviation from the old custom. In 1772 the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin having issued a decree forbidding burial on the day of death, the Jews in his territories approached Emden with the request that he demonstrate from the Talmud that a longer exposure of a corpse would be against the Law. Emden referred them to Mendelssohn, who had great influence with Christian authorities; but as Mendelssohn agreed with the ducal order, Emden wrote to him and urged the desirability of opposing the duke if only to remove the suspicion of irreligiousness he (Mendelssohn) had aroused by his associations.

Emden was a prolific writer.