Isaac Abarbanel's Stance toward Tradition: Defence, Dissent, and Dialogue (review)

T H E JE W I S H Q UA R T E R LY R E V I E W, Vol. 94, No. 2 (Spring 2004) 405–409 ERIC LAWEE. Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance toward Tradition: Defense, Dissent, and Dialogue. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Pp. xiii Ⳮ 320. Isaac Abarbanel has hardly been neglected by Jewish historians, as is evident from both the bibliography of Lawee’s monograph and his recently published survey of modern scholarship on Abarbanel.1 In Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance toward Tradition, however, Lawee makes the case that a new approach is needed to further our understanding of this polymath scholar. Lawee proposes that the organizing principle (or, in his words, the ‘‘integrating perspective’’) of this new approach be an inquiry into Abarbanel’s ‘‘stance toward tradition.’’ Since this question is potentially applicable to nearly every intellectual who has ever lived, Lawee offers three arguments for why such an inquiry is particularly appropriate in the case of Abarbanel. First, he points out that Abarbanel presented himself as a ‘‘defender’’ of Jewish traditions while at the same time subjecting some Jewish authorities to sharp criticism. Second, Abarbanel’s encounter with Renaissance humanism (in Iberia and in Italy) placed him at the intersection of distinct methodological traditions of reading and thinking. And third, Abarbanel’s experience of the rupturing of tradition in 1492 had an important impact on his thought. Following two preliminary chapters tracing Abarbanel’s life (chapter 1) and his intellectual activities (chapter 2), the bulk of the work is devoted to careful, precise, and informative case studies of various aspects of Abarbanel’s stance. The first of these case studies (chapter 3) is a detailed analysis of Abarbanel’s first book, Ateret zeqenim, written in Lisbon in the 1460s and ostensibly an exegesis of Exodus 24 and a defense of the ‘‘nobles’’ who come under criticism by rabbinic and medieval authorities . Lawee shows how the work encapsulates many of Abarbanel’s major views regarding tradition and anticipates major themes of Abarbanel ’s later intellectual career. Already here, Abarbanel is expressing outward devotion to traditional authorities while arguing for some exegetical leeway for later commentators, particularly in handling midrash. He be1 . ‘‘Isaac Abarbanel’s Intellectual Achievement and Literary Legacy in Modern Scholarship: A Retrospective and Opportunity,’’ Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature 3, ed. Isadore Twersky and Jay M. Harris (Cambridge, Mass., 2000), 213–47. 406 JQR 94:2 (2004) gins here to offer his complex understanding of Maimonides, the beginning of a dialogue that would continue through Abarbanel’s other works. Likewise, Lawee finds Abarbanel beginning to articulate his view of the kabbalistic tradition—that while the views of the kabbalists deserve respect , those views were theological opinions and not the inheritance of a continuously transmitted tradition. In the succeeding chapters, Lawee develops some of these issues in more detail. Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to Abarbanel’s views of rabbinic authority, particularly his view of aggadah and his use of and interpretation of midrash in his biblical commentaries . Chapter 6 continues this topic by tracing Abarbanel’s messianic and eschatological views, focusing on his readings of midrashim on these subjects. What emerges in these studies is the degree to which Abarbanel’s exegesis is intertwined with his theological (and, in the case of messianism, polemical) concerns. Lawee shows that one can never take Abarbanel’s claims about his work at face value—for example, that he is a pashtan in his commentary, or ‘‘the sages were bearers of infallible non-legal traditions ’’ in his messianic work (p. 164). Given his stated disagreement with some rabbinic views here and in other works (such as Ateret zeqenim), the latter claim is particularly problematic. And while Lawee convincingly argues that Abarbanel should primarily be seen as an exegete concerned with the peshat of the biblical text, he also shows that Abarbanel frequently discussed and referred to midrash in his commentaries (although often to dispute it). The last major case study (chapter 7) is a study of Abarbanel’s encounter with Renaissance humanism, concentrating on the ways in which ‘‘historical thinking’’ and ‘‘critical reading’’ find a place within his work. Here, Lawee...