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New Jews in Amsterdam: Some Social Aspects Reflected in the Thesouro Dos Dinim by Menasseh Ben Israel

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New Jews in Amsterdam: Some Social Aspects Reflected in the Thesouro Dos Dinim by Menasseh Ben Israel Chapter 18 New Jews in Amsterdam: Some Social Aspects Reflected in the Thesouro dos Dinim by Menasseh ben Israel Aliza Moreno-Goldschmidt The main goal of the present study is to analyze selected excerpts from Menasseh ben Israel’s Thesouro dos Dinim in order to extract his personal ap- proach regarding former conversos who joined the Amsterdam Jewish com- munity, as well as those who remained in the Lands of Idolatry.1 In order to understand the relevant background, the paper will include a brief description of the genre, that is to say, the halakhic manuals in Spanish and Portuguese published during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It will also present a concise account of the changes in the halakhic status of the former conversos until the time of Menasseh ben Israel. Menasseh ben Israel, one of seventeenth-century Jewish Amsterdam’s most prominent figures, has also been one of its most studied. However, his halakhic work Thesouro dos Dinim, considered by some to be one of his least original or innovative writings, has aroused little interest. Modern scholars share this dis- interest, but it also afflicted Menasseh ben Israel’s contemporary colleagues. As Asa Kasher demonstrated, in contrast to the reputation that Menasseh ben Israel gained among non-Jewish intellectuals (who were obviously uninter- ested in his Jewish legal writings), his reputation as a legal scholar among the rabbinical leaders of his time was hardly outstanding.2 Nevertheless, whatever his rabbinical colleagues may have thought, the actual impact of Menasseh’s work within the Jewish world—as a writer and communal religious leader— was significant especially among the New Christians who returned to Judaism in Amsterdam and elsewhere in the Western Sephardic diaspora. Even if his halakhic work (specifically, his Thesouro dos Dinim) fails to be one of the most outstanding halakhic essays of his time, it should be a primary source for the study of the social and religious history of his day. Just as Sina Rauschenbach 1 The common term used at the time referring to those lands where the practice of Judaism was prohibited, and in particular Spain, Portugal and their colonies. 2 Asa Kasher, “How Important was Menasseh ben Israel?” in Menasseh ben Israel and His World, ed. Yosef Kaplan, Henry Méchoulan and Richard H. Popkin (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 220. © Aliza Moreno-Goldschmidt, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004392489_019 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC License at the time of publication. Aliza Moreno-Goldschmidt - 9789004392489 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 11:24:00PM via free access Social aspects in Thesouro dos Dinim by Menasseh ben Israel 453 considers Menasseh’s theological writings his method for mediating Jewish knowledge to the non-Jewish intellectuals,3 I would propose that Thesouro dos Dinim was Menasseh ben Israel’s method of mediating Jewish practice to the former conversos who returned to Judaism. Were we to ask the author, he would probably also judge Thesouro dos Dinim one of his less original works. In fact, in the book Menasseh explicit- ly declares his commitment to the rabbinic tradition, asserting that his only intention is to facilitate traditional Jewish practice by writing a book in both the language and style most accessible to his community. Many of his readers only adopted normative Judaism as adults after they arrived from the Iberian Peninsula. In contrast to other philosophical and mystical fields in which Menasseh ben Israel, as Yosef Dan stated, “chose in complete freedom what- ever suited him, and rejected other elements,”4 in the realm of Jewish law he was uncompromisingly loyal to traditional Jewish law as he understood it. He had neither any intention nor ambition to propose even the slightest change or innovation. So, if Menasseh ben Israel did not intend to write an original work, how can we extricate his own voice from the text—a text that was merely meant to translate existing Jewish practice into a language his community members could understand? Although Menasseh did not state what were his rabbinical sources and did not openly proclaim that the Thesouro dos Dinim was largely a literal translation or adaptation of Yosef Caro’s Shulhan Arukh5 into Portuguese, a comparison between the two texts leads to the undeniable conclusion that this was his main source. In fact, it is interesting that he did not mention even a single time in any of the five parts of the Thesouro, either the Shulhan Arukh or its author Yosef Caro.6 Probably by the time Menasseh ben Israel wrote this work, the halakhic authority of the Shulhan Arukh was so spread in his cultural 3 Sina Rauschenbach, “Mediating Jewish Knowledge: Menasseh ben Israel and the Christian Respublica litteraria,” Jewish Quarterly Review 102, no. 4 (2012): 561–88. 4 Yosef Dan, “Menasseh ben Israel: Attitude Towards the Zohar and Lurianic Kabbalah,” in Menasseh ben Israel and His World, ed. Yosef Kaplan, Henry Méchoulan, and Richard H. Popkin (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 201. 5 The Shulhan Arukh is a practical and detailed manual of Jewish law published in Safed in 1565 by Rabbi Yosef Caro in Hebrew. Since its publication, and with the additions made by Rabbi Moshe Isserles known as the Mapah (that include the Ashkenazic customs, in addition to the Sephardic ones), the Shulhan Arukh became the supreme halakhic authority in the traditional Jewish world, a reality that continues to the present day. 6 In contrast, the author did mention, on few occasions, other rabbinical authorities, mainly Maimonides. See for example, Thesouro dos Dinim, Part IV, Cap. IV; Part V, Cap. IV; Part V, Cap. XXVIII. Aliza Moreno-Goldschmidt - 9789004392489 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 11:24:00PM via free access 454 Moreno-Goldschmidt and social context that the author felt no need to state what his main source was, but took it for granted that the readers will be aware of this fact. The present study will be based on a thorough comparison of Thesouro dos Dinim and its main source, the Shulhan Arukh. Since we are trying to extract Menasseh ben Israel’s voice, any part of the text that was translated from the Shulhan Arukh won’t be useful to us. On the contrary, I will take into account only those parts that differ from Yosef Caro’s work, that is to say, any additions or omissions and the cases in which the author utilizes a Jewish source that is not the Shulhan Arukh (cases in which it will be relevant to ask, what were Menasseh’s reasons for choosing a different source?). As Yosef Dan has systematically demonstrated,7 if we can determine Menasseh ben Israel’s source, we can also learn from his silences. In some con- texts, the decision of the Thesouro dos Dinim’s author not to include a specific subject can lead us to important conclusions. However, this methodological tool must be used cautiously so as to avoid unfounded speculation. Therefore, I will only point out a few of his omissions and will focus primarily on his additions. 1 Halakhic Manuals in Ladino, Portuguese, and Spanish Before beginning the textual analysis, it is also important to understand the sixteenth-century intellectual context of Thesouro dos Dinim and other simi- lar period works. Menasseh ben Israel was neither the first, nor the last, au- thor to publish halakhic manuals in the vernacular in the Eastern and Western Sephardic diasporas. In fact, the publication of various halakhic texts in Ladino, Spanish, and Portuguese may be considered one of the peculiarities of those communities, during a period when halakhic literature was exclusively published in Hebrew or Aramaic in other Jewish centers. The oldest work of this kind was a translation into Ladino of extracts from Yosef Caro’s Shulhan Arukh under the name Meza de el Alma by Meir Ben Shmuel ben Ban Benst (Benbeniste),8 published in Salonica in 1568—around a decade after the Shulhan Arukh’s first publication, while Caro was still alive—and reprinted in Venice in 1602. This was not only the first translation 7 Dan compares Menasseh ben Israel’s Nishmat Hayyim with the concepts of the Zohar, and reconstructs its mystical views pointing out the ideas that were adopted from the Zohar and those that were omitted as well. See Dan, “Menasseh ben Israel,” 200–2. 8 See Dov Cohen, “The Ladino Bookshelf: Research and Mapping,” (Hebrew) PhD diss., Bar- Ilan University, 2011, 178–86. Aliza Moreno-Goldschmidt - 9789004392489 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 11:24:00PM via free access Social aspects in Thesouro dos Dinim by Menasseh ben Israel 455 into Ladino, but the very first translation of the Shulhan Arukh into any other language. In accord with the norms and customs prevailing in the Ottoman Empire’s Sephardic publishing world, this Ladino edition was printed in Hebrew characters.9 The selections included in this lengthy work are very much a literal, however sometimes partial, shortened or paraphrased10 transla- tion of its source. In 1609, Moses Altaras published the Libro de Mantenimiento de la Alma in Venice. This work seems to be a revised edition of the Mesa de el Alma,11 the main difference being the use of Latin characters.12 Isaac Athias, who was a religious leader of Hamburg’s Portuguese congrega- tion and later settled in Italy, published his Tesoro de Preceptos in Venice in 1627. It was reprinted in Amsterdam in 1649. This book, written in Spanish, details the 613 Jewish precepts, that is to say, the Jewish tradition’s 613 biblical commandments. This text analyzes each precept and its significance.
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