ZAMOSC, ISRAEL BEN MOSES HA-LEVI

ZAMOSC, ISRAEL BEN MOSES HA-LEVI (also Segal ; c. 1700–1772), talmudist, mathematician, and one of the early Haskalah writers. Zamosc was born in Bóbrka (near Lvov) to an undistinguished family and studied in Zamosc, where he also taught at a yeshivah. His first published work is Neẓaḥ Yisra'el ("The Eternity of Israel"; written c. 1737): while essentially devoted to traditional sugyot, it is innovative in that it interprets numerous Talmudic passages from a mathematical and astronomical viewpoint. Zamosc proclaims his fidelity to Maimonides and gives reason priority in interpreting tradition. He thus argued that the rabbis of the Talmud held true scientific views, so that, if interpreted correctly, even seemingly "odd" statements in the Talmud turn out to be consistent with science; by contrast, he boldly took to task venerated Talmud commentators who held, for example, that the earth was flat. Conservatives rightly identified this work as subversive and dubbed it Reẓaḥ Yisra'el ("The Assassination of Israel"). The scientific knowledge displayed in Neẓaḥ Yisra'el is astonishingly broad but outdated (his authorities are Aristotle and Ptolemy): it is drawn exclusively from Hebrew books, almost all medieval. (The only exception is Joseph Delmedigo's Sefer Elim (1629), on which Zamosc wrote a commentary, now lost.) The exceptional availability of books in Zamosc, many in manuscript, is perhaps a consequence of the earlier presence there of Sephardi Jew's, brought in by its founder, Jan Zamoyski (1541–1605). Israel Zamosc had followers and allies, among them Joel b. Uri Ba'al Shem (the younger). The town of Zamosc became a center of early Haskalah a generation later. In Zamosc, Israel composed a number of further works, of which the (geocentric) astronomical treatise, Arubbot ha-Shamayim ("The Windows of the Heaven"), is the only one to survive (in manuscript). His predilection for science notwithstanding, Israel Zamosc was conventional in his respect for the Kabbalah.

In 1741 Zamosc went to Frankfurt an der Oder, where he had Neẓaḥ Yisra'el published. He then settled in Berlin, where he taught Hebrew, science, and Jewish philosophy to Aharon Zalman Gumpertz (1723–1769) and Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), thus exerting a formative influence on two important figures of the early Berlin Haskalah. He studied (with Mendelssohn's help) German elementary books of science.

In 1744 Zamosc published in Jessnitz his (commissioned) commentary on Ruaḥ Ḥen ("A Spirit of Grace"), a 13^th-century anonymous popular introduction to philosophy and science. In addition to simple textual interpretations, Zamosc "comments" on the Aristotelian principles in the medieval text by exposing totally incompatible findings of recent – namely, Wolffian – science. The "small animals" observable through a microscope in a droplet of semen elicit his exclamation, "How awe-inspiring is this statement, which our forefathers did not fathom." The new knowledge grounded in experience opened new unexpected horizons, refuting at the same time entrenched (Aristotelian) beliefs and thus undermining traditional authority, including that of Maimonides. Zamosc's is a subversive commentary: a venerated, authoritative text was used to legitimate the introduction of new ideas into a conservative community. This new literary genre was to be employed by later maskilim. Yet Zamosc's reception of the new science was limited to its descriptive aspects, and he failed to grasp mathematical physics or to accommodate contemporary philosophy.

The breakdown of all received verities weakened Zamosc's commitment to Maimonides' philosophy and hence to reason and science. Zamosc's views became more conservative and fideist: the commentary on Ruaḥ Ḥen paradoxically both exposes recent science and signals its author's turn toward the authority of traditional, including kabbalistic, texts. During the third, conservative, period of his life, spent between Berlin and Brody, Zamosc wrote two further (posthumously published) commentaries on medieval classics, which now accompany the traditional editions of these two works: Oẓar Neḥmad ("A Lovely Treasure"), on the Kuzari, and Tuv ha-Levanon ("Lebanon's Best"), on Ḥovot ha-Levavot ("The Duties of the Heart"). Although in these commentaries Zamosc replaced certain outdated medieval scientific ideas with facts from modern science, he held that belief and revelation are superior to reason and science. In 1764 Zamosc contacted Jacob Emden (1697–1776) on matters of halakhah.

In an unknown period, Israel Zamosc also wrote Nezed ha-Dema' ("A Pottage of Tears"; published posthumously: Dyhernfurth, 1773), a bitter, pessimistic social criticism written in rhymed prose. Its obscure style and intertextual allusions have led to a dispute over the target of its critique. Some scholars have interpreted it as a fierce attack on the ḥasidic movement, which was then becoming prominent: it contains most of the claims against the Ḥasidim used by later opponents – e.g., the allegations that Ḥasidim fostered ignorance, were prone to drunkenness, made unjustified innovations in religious practice, and misled simple people. Other scholars see in Nezed ha-Dema' a critique of contemporary Jewish society generally. Perhaps the truth is in between: the work may have been written over a long period of time, so that some passages have a particular target, whereas others are unspecific social criticism, of the kind Zamosc had expressed already in his youth.

Zamosc, who often oscillated between a tone of melancholic discouragement and elation, saw himself as a reformer of the spiritual cum social state of contemporary Jews: he was not only enlightened, but also sought to enlighten his audience. In his last years, he was venerated as an erudite maskil in Brody, where he died on April 20, 1772. Later maskilim and secular historians rightly gave him a place of pride in the history of the Haskalah. At the same time, Orthodox circles have hailed him as the author of two classic commentaries on standard works of Jewish thought.

bibliography:

A. Shohat, Im Ḥilufei Tekufot. Reshit ha-Haskalah be-Yahadut Germanyah (1960), index, s.v.; G. Freudenthal, "Hebrew Medieval Science in Zamość ca. 1730: The Early Years of Rabbi Israel ben Moses Halevy of Zamość," in: R. Fontaine, A. Schatz, and I. Zwiep (eds.), Sepharad in Ashkenaz. Medieval Learning and Eighteenth-Century Enlightened Jewish Discourse (2006); idem, "R. Israel Zamość's Encounter with Early Modern Science (Berlin, 1744); The Subversive Commentary on Ruaḥ Ḥen and the Birth of a New Conservative," in: Thinking Impossibilities: The Legacy of Amos Funkenstein (2006); R.S. Westman, D. Biale, and D.B. Ruderman (eds.), Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe (1995), 332ff.; Y. Friedlander, Be-Misterei ha-Satirah. Hebrew Satire in Europe in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, vol. 2 (Heb., 1989), 9–110.

[Gad Freudenthal (2^nd ed.)]