The Messianic Politics of Menasseh Ben Israel I

THE MESSIANIC POLITICS OF MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL HAROLD FISCH I Menasseh's most considerable Hebrew treatise, his Nishmat Hayyim (1651) on the subject of the immortality of the soul, shows him to be, according to Cecil Roth, essentially credulous and naif: "The staid Jewish scholar was revealed as crassly superstitious, believing im plicitly in spirits and ghosts, in possession by, and the expulsion of, demons, not to mention the transmigration of souls and similar doctrines" \ Other scholars have echoed this view of Menasseh's naivety and credulity. Now it is true that in this treatise Menasseh accepted a lot of tall stories, true also that he sought to controvert Maimonides who offered a rational interpretation of supernatural appearances and events in the Bible2. Me nasseh wanted real miracles, real demons and real angels. But all this has to be kept in proportion: after all, Maimonides' philosophical rationaliz- ings were by no means part of a theological consensus at this time. One didn't need to be "crassly superstitious" to reject them. The wildest (as well as the most dramatic) stories in Menasseh's book relate examples of " gil gul" or the transmigration of souls - what later would come to be called stories of the "dybbuk". One of these "gilgul" episodes took place in Safed in 1571 in the presence of R. Selomoh Alkabetz; another account mentions R. Isaac Luria and R. Hayyim Vital as involved with the process of exorcism3. Whilst such notions are today no longer part of Jewish belief, we are to bear in mind that stories of possession and exorcism were a by product of sixteenth and seventeenth century kabbalism, that associated with Isaac Luria4. As such they belonged to what might be termed "nor mal mysticism". As Scholem has argued, Lurianic Kabbalah had come to be almost standard Jewish theology at this time, and the doctrines of 1 Cecil Roth, A Life of Menasseh Ben Israel (Philadelphia, 1945), p. 99. 2 Sefer Nishmat Hayyim, Part III, section 28 (edition of Leipzig, 1862), p. 88 a.b. 3 Ibid., III, 10 and IV, 20 (pp. 68-69, 103b-104). For comment on the historical and literary background, see G. Nigal, Sippurey Dibbuk Be-Sifrut Yisrael (Jerusalem, 1983), pp. 11-26, 47, 61 f. 4 Cf. G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1946), pp. 280 f. MESSIANIC POLITICS 229 "gilgul" and "tikkun" were an integral part of it5. There was nothing ec centric about Menasseh going along with this. He also argues that on the separate existence of the soul he has Plato on his side and indeed all the ancients except Pliny6. But his immediate intellectual context is the Renaissance magic associated with Giordano Bruno and, on the Jewish side, with Luria and his disciples. But the question is, should a direct line be drawn between these aspects of Menasseh's beliefs and his messianic politics, in particular his project for the resettlement of the Jews in England? Frances Yates in her brief discussion of Menasseh's career proposes such a direct link between his Lurianic kabbalism and his mission to Cromwell with the messianic speculations that accompanied it7. It seems to me that a study oi Nishmat Hayyim and a closer look at the true nature of Menasseh's messianic project do not bear out this conclusion. In one place, arguing for the magical results to be obtained by the use of amulets and spells and by the manipu lation of divine Names, he mentions the use of such " practical kabbalah" or "natural magic" by David Alroy in twelfth-century Persia8. Drawing his information evidently from Selomoh Ibn Verga's SeferShevet Yehudah, he tells us how Alroy had declared himself to be the Messiah, leading many thousands of Jews astray with the promise of restoring the Jewish Kingdom in the Holy Land, how he had been imprisoned by the King of Persia for sedition and how, in escaping, he had performed wonders such as making himself invisible, all with the help of the Divine Names, and how eventually he had been killed9. Whilst this certainly suggests a measure of credulity on the part of Menasseh (though no greater than that of the fifteenth-century chronicler Ibn Verga himself) it is important to note that Menasseh classes Alroy with those who sought to "seduce and unsettle" the Jewish people of his time. He was, in short, in spite of his use of "practical kabbalah", a false Messiah. Whilst not adopting a scep tical position on natural magic, Menasseh is nevertheless here making it clear that its exercise is not an indubitable blessing, nor can it serve to validate messianic claims. In the continuation of the same section (III, 28) in which he speaks of David Alroy's manipulation of the divine name and the wonders that he 5 G. Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah (Princeton, 1973), pp. 25, 42; idem, s.v. "Gilgul", Encyc. Judaica, V, c. 576. 6 Nishmat Hayyim, IV, 5 (p. 95). 7 Frances A. Yates, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (London, 1979), p. 184. 8 Nishmat Hayyim, III, 28 (p. 89, a). Menasseh mistakenly refers to him as David Almusah but there can be little doubt that Alroy is the false Messiah intended. The terms "natural magic" and "practical kabbalah" occur in Menasseh's discussion. 9 Cf. Selomoh Ibn Verga, SeferShevet Yehuda, ed. Y. Baer and A. Shohat (Jerusalem, 1946), pp. 74-75. (In Ibn Verga the name is likewise corrupted and appears as David Aldavid.) .

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