Between Worlds: The Life and Thought of Rabbi David ben Judah Messer Leon

Conclusion

Conclusion R. David ben Judah Messer Leon died some time before 1536, and before completing Tehillah Ie-David. J The manuscript was published in Constantinople in 1576 by R. David's grandson, R. Aharon, on the printing press of R. Joseph Ya'abez. R. Aharon added an epilogue to that printing that speaks of the decline of the House of Messer Leon. R. Aharon laments the current misery and poverty of this once glorious family, and in highly stylized language, he mentions an internal feud among the family members and their total loss of wealth and political status.2 R. Aharon actually published Tehillah Ie-David in an attempt to restore lost family honor. The project required assembling scattered manuscripts, because the family had lost even the writings of both R. David and his father R. Judah Messer Leon. R. David's writings were dispersed among private owners, and none of R. Judah's compositions was to be found in the Ottoman Empire at all.3 Other works by David were cited by Sephardic Kabbalists in Salonika during the 1540s and 1550s. R. Shlomo Alkabe~ was familiar with both 'Ein ha-Qore and Magen David. In his Shoresh Yishai, Alkabe~ refers to David's defense of Maimonides, praising David as "among the outstanding ones in our generation."4 Surprisingly, however , Alkabe~ did not know that the same person (i.e., David) wrote both 'Ein ha-Qore and Magen David.s Of particular interest to Alkabe~ and other Jewish intellectuals in Salonika were the few pages of Magen David concerning the doctrine of Sefirot as the essence of God.6 R. David took the bulk of this 231 232 Conclusion discussion verbatim from the letters of Isaac Mar Hayyim to Isaac of Pisa, which R. David interpreted philosophically, identifying the Sefirot with divine perfections. R. Moses Cordovero was also familiar with these pages of Magen David and correctly understood David's philosophic posture.7 Another Sephardic Kabbalist, R. Meir ibn Gabbai, also advocated the view of Sejirot as the essence of God. He incorporated R. David's discussion into his own exposition of the doctrine, not knowing that Isaac Mar Hayyim was the source.8 Alkabe~ and Cordovero were versed in philosophy, but their main intellectual interest was Kabbalah. It is no wonder that they were attracted in particular to David's exposition of a central Kabbalistic doctrine such as the Sejirot, even though David's knowledge of Kabbalah generally was rather limited. By the second half of the sixteenth century, the intellectual climate in the Ottoman Empire began to shift toward greater interest in Kabbalah, reaching its apex by the 1570s, when the center of intellectual activity in the Ottoman Empire shifted to Safed. There Kabbalah received a new interpretation under the leadership of R. Isaac Luria. In fact, Magen David was mistakenly attributed to R. David ibn Zimra, Luria's teacher in Egypt, until Gershom Scholem, the modern student of Kabbalah, correctly identified the author as R. David ben Judah Messer Leon.9 Thus, modern scholarship on Kabbalah revived the interest in R. David ben Judah Messer Leon even though Kabbalah was not R. David's exclusive mode of self expression. What can we learn from this case study? First, R. Judah Messer Leon and his son R. David enable us to chart the impact of Renaissance humanism on Italian Jews. R. Judah Messer Leon was among the first Jewish scholars to respond to the challenge of humanism. His manual of Hebrew rhetoric, Nojet Zujim, shows some Jewish familiarity both with contemporary academic debates between scholastics and humanists and with the centrality of Ciceronian rhetoric in humanist education. Arguing that Renaissance rhetorical ideals were already embedded in the Hebrew Bible, R. Judah legitimized the study of classical rhetoric for Jews, thereby facilitating Jewish involvement in the rebirth of antiquity. But R. Judah Messer Leon could hardly be called a Jewish humanist, for humanism remained peripheral to his scholastic world view and literary conventions. R. David ben Judah Messer Leon went further than his father in incorporating the studia humanitatis into the Jewish curriculum. He admired Roman orators, poets, and historians, and regarded the Conclusion 233 classics worthy of emulation. Similarly, R. David was informed of contemporary debates among the Italian literatti (for example, the debate about women) and shared his contemporaries' admiration for Petrarch and Boccaccio. R. David's openness to Renaissance humanism did not come at...