An Obscure Apostle. Eliza Orzeszkowa
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talked of the holy river, Sabbation, hiding the Israelitic wanderers from the eyes of their toes. In time, however, lights began to shine in the windows on Fridays, and then, little by little, they began to talk and pray aloud. Rabbinits arrived. The worshippers of Talmudistic authorities, representative of blind faith in oral traditions gathered and transmitted by Kohens, Tanaits, and Gaons, came and pushed aside the handful of heretics and wrecks. Under the influence of the newcomers the community of Karaites began to melt away. The last blow was struck at it by a man well-known in the history of Polish Hebrews—Michael Ezofowich, Senior.
He was the first of his name to emerge from obscurity. His family, settled in Poland for a long time, was one of these which, during the reign of Jagiellons, under the influence of privileges and laws in Poland promulgated by a (for that time) high civilisation, was united by sympathetic ties to the aboriginal population, and Ezofowich was appointed Senior over all the Hebrew population of Lithuania and Bialorus, by King Zygmunt the First, by a document which read thus:
"We, Zygmunt, by God's grace, etc., make known to all Jews living on the estate, our Fatherland, having taken into consideration the faithful services of the Jew, Michael Ezofowich, and wishing you in your affairs not to meet with any obstacles and delays, according to the laws of justice, we constitute, that Michael Ezofowich shall settle all your affairs for US, and be your superior, and you must come to US through him, and be obedient to him in everything. He will judge you and rule over you according to the custom of our law, and punish the guilty ones by OUR permission, everyone according to his merit."
From the few historical notes about him, it can be seen that the Senior was a man of strong and energetic will. With a firm hand he seized the authority given him over his co-religionists, and he threw an anathema over those who would not obey him, especially on the Karaites, excluding them from the Hebrew community, and refusing them the friendship and help of their tribe. Under such a blow the existence of the inhabitants of Szybow, already poor, sad, and inactive, was made altogether unbearable. The descendants of Hazairan rulers, heretics, constituting, as always, a great minority of the population, exposed to aversion and hatred, oppressed and poor, left the place which had given them shelter for a certain time, carrying with them in their hearts their stubborn attachment to the Bible, and on their lips their poetical legends. They scattered in the broad and hostile world, leaving behind them in that little town where they had lived two hundred years only a few families, cherishing still more passionately their old graveyards, the hill now covered with the ruins of their temple, which the conquering Rabbinits had destroyed. The Rabbinits took possession of Szybow, and, if the truth be told, they changed, by their energy, industry, perfect harmony of action, the result of unusual mutual help, the quiet, gray, poor, sad little village into a town full of activity, noise, care, and riches.
In those times, under the Senior's rule, the Jews in general were prosperous. Besides material prosperity, there began to live in them the hope of a possibility of rising from their mental ignorance and social humiliation. The Senior must surely have had a superior and keen mind, for he was able to thoroughly understand the spirit of the time and the needs of his people, notwithstanding the ancient barriers and prejudices. He rejected the Karaites from the bosom of Israel, not because of religious fanaticism but for broader social reasons. Although he was a Rabbinit, and obliged to give to the religious authorities absolute faith and worship, his mind was sometimes visited by fits of scepticism—perhaps the best road to wisdom. In one of his reports to the King, refuting some objections which had been made to his sentences, he wrote, sadly and ironically:
"Our different books give us different laws. Very often we know not what to do when Gamaliel differs from Eliezer. In Babylon is one truth—in Jerusalem another (two editions of the Talmud). We obey the second Moses (Majmonides) and the new ones call him heretic. I encourage the savants to write such wise books that the clever and stupid can understand them." It was at the time when the Occidental Israelites, settled in France and Spain, raised the question as to whether the professors of the Talmud and Bible should be permitted to acquire a knowledge of the lay sciences. Many opinions were considered, but none was strong enough to prevail, because the partisans of absolute separation from mental work and human tendencies constituted a great majority among the Israelites. Every society has such moments of darkness. It happens especially when a nation is exhausted by a series of successful efforts, after having undergone tortures, and enfeebled by the streams of blood poured out. The Occidental Jews, after centuries of existence in abject fear, wandering through fire and blood, passed such a moment in the sixteenth century. The time was still far distant which gave birth to famous doctors of secular sciences beloved of the people, esteemed by Kings. The high ideas of Majmonides who, giving deserved credit to the legislation of Israel, admired also the Greek scholars, were also far from the—they were even forgotten. Majmonides, who wished to base the knowledge of the Bible and Talmud on a foundation of mathematical and astronomical truths, and make it durable; who openly expressed the desire to shorten the twenty-five hundred sheets of the Talmud into one chapter, clear as the day; who did not justify religious beliefs which were contrary to commonsense, and claimed that "the eyes are placed in the front, and not in the rear of man's head, in order that he may look before him," and prophesied that the whole world would one day be filled with knowledge, as the sea is filled with water—such a man was despised. Four centuries had passed since the dignified, sweet, highly sympathetic figure of the Israelitic thinker had disappeared from the face of the earth. He was one of the greatest thinkers of the middle ages. The giant with the eagle eye and fiery heart had been succeeded by dwarfs, whose weak breasts were saturated with bitterness, and whose eyes looked on the world sadly, suspiciously, narrow-mindedly. "Keep away from Greek knowledge," Joseph Ezobi cried to his son, "because it is like the wine-garden of Sodom, pouring into man's head drunkenness and sin."
"The strangers are pushing into the Gates of Zion!" lamented Abba-Mari, when he learned that the Hebrew youths had begun to study with masters of other religions. And all the Rabbis and the Presidents of the Jewish communities in the West, ordered that no man under thirty years of age should study the lay sciences. "Because," said they, "he who has filled his mind with the Bible, and Talmud has the right to warm himself at the stranger's flame."
The bolder ones, while submitting to the decision of their superiors, cried, "Rabbi, how can we study lay sciences after our thirtieth year, when our minds will have become dulled and our memory tired, and we shall possess enthusiasm no longer and strength of youth."
The orders were obeyed. Their minds grew dull, tired memory fainted, and the strength and enthusiasm of youth left them. Majmonides, grave, silent, motionless, stood in the midst of the sea of darkness which covered the people who had been conducted by him toward the light. They cursed his memory, and a devastating hand rubbed off his tomb its grateful and glorious inscription, replacing it with stiff and cruel words, as fanatical as ignorant:
"Here lies Moses Majmonides, excommunicated heretic."
At the same time the same quarrels raged among the Hebrews settled in Poland, but being less tired by persecution, and because they were less tormented than their brothers in the West, and were freer and more sure of their privileges than their brothers in the West, their aversion to the 'stranger's flames' was less passionate. Nay, there was among them quite a numerous party which cried for secular sciences—for brotherhood with the rest of humanity in intellectual efforts and tendencies. One of these men who stood at the head of this party was the Lithuanian Senior, Ezofowich. Under his influence the Jewish Synod convocated in those times, issued a proclamation to all the Polish Jews. The principal paragraph of this was:
"Jehovah has numerous Sefirots, Adam has had numerous emanations of perfection. Therefore an Israelite must not be satisfied with one religious science only. Although it is a holy science the others must not on this account be neglected. The best fruit is a paradise apple, but shall we not eat less good apples? There were Jews in the courts of kings; Mordoheus was a savant, Esther was clever, Nehemias was a Persian counsellor, and they liberated the people from captivity. Study; be useful to the King and the nobles will respect you. The Jews are as numerous as the sands of the sea and the stars in the sky; they do not shine like the stars, but everyone tramples on them as on the sand. The wind scatters the seeds of different trees, and none asks from where the most beautiful tree has its origin. Why, then, should there not rise among us a Cedar of