Abraham Yagel

Abraham Yagel

Abraham Yagel [Abraham ben Hananiah dei Galicci Yagel or Jagel] (Monselice 1553-1623) was an Italian Jewish catechist, philosopher, and cabalist. He lived successively at Luzzara, Venice, Ferrara, and Sassuolo.

Life and identity

Giulio Bartolocci ["Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica," i. 26.] , followed by De Rossi ["Dizionario," i. 160.] , Wolf ["Bibl. Hebr." i., No. 78.] , and Julius Fürst ["Bibl. Jud." ii. 10.] , erroneously identified Abraham Yagel with the Christian censor Camillo Jagel, declaring that Abraham Jagel embraced Christianity and changed his name to "Camillo Jagel." The untenability of this identification has been proved by later scholars, including Hananiah Coèn ["Saggio di Eloquenza Ebrea," p. 25, Florence, 1827] .

Coèn's chief argument is that many books dated as early as 1611 bear the signature of "Inquisitor Camillo Jagel," while Abraham Yagel was known in 1615 as a pious Jew, as is shown by the following adventure related by himself. In 1615 he was captured by bandits soon after leaving Luzzara, between Reggio and Guastalla. His traveling companion, Raphael Modena, a rich Jew of Sassuolo, to whose house Yagel acted as family adviser, was captured with him. Yagel was sent back by the bandits to Modena's family for a ransom; the sum being too high, the rabbis and influential Jews of Modena came to his aid, and, supported by the duke and his brother, the cardinal, obtained Modena's liberty.

Works

Many details of Yagel's life are given in his "Ge Ḥizzayon," the first part of which was published by Baruch Mani (Alexandria, 1880). It purports to be the relation of a dream in which he saw his deceased father, to whom he narrated the events of his life. After his father's death he went, an inexperienced youth, to Luzzara, where he became involved in an inheritance trial, and was thrown into prison. It seems that he was imprisoned for a considerable time, for he wrote there one of his important works.

Yagel was the author of the following works: "Leḳaḥ Ṭob," a catechism (Venice, 1587); "Moshia' Ḥosim," a treatise on curing the pest by prayer and fasting (Venice, 1587; this work is extant in manuscript under the title "Oraḥ Ḥayyim"; see Neubauer, "Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS." No. 2310, 1); "Eshet Ḥayil," on the virtues of a wife and her duties toward her husband (Venice, 1606); "Bet Ya'ar ha-Lebanon" (see below); "Be'er Sheba'," on the secular sciences; "Peri Megadim," not extant, but mentioned by Yagel in another work.

It is evident that Yagel endeavored to make his "Leḳaḥ Ṭob" conform to the catechisms then used by the Roman clergy; like the latter, he pointed out seven "cardinal sins" (), six other sins that are "hated by God," and four sins that themselves "cry out for vengeance." With the Roman clergy, he treats of the three virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and defines faith in the Christian sense. On the other hand, he deviates much from the Christian catechisms by omitting the Decalogue, lest the heretics say that the Torah is only the Decalogue (comp. Ber. 12a). Isaiah Horowitz, Yagel's contemporary, quotes in his "Shene Luḥot ha-Berit" (section "Gate of Letters," s.v. ) a long passage from the "Leḳaḥ Ṭob," treating of love toward one's neighbor. This work has been translated into Latin by Ludwig Veil (London, 1679), Carpzov (Leipsic, 1687), Odhelius (Frankfort-on-the-Oder, 1691), Hermann van der Hardt (Helmstädt, 1704), and Buxtorf (unpublished). A Judæo-German translation was made by Jacob b. Mattithiah Treves (Amsterdam, 1658), and was followed by three German translations—one by Bock (Leipsic, 1694), one from Van der Hardt's Latin translation (Jesnitz, 1722), and one by Karl Anton (Brunswick, 1756).

"Bet Ya'ar ha-Lebanon," in four parts, discusses Cabala, metaphysics, and natural history. The thirtieth chapter of the second part was published by Reggio in his "Iggerot Yashar" (Vienna, 1834).

Notes

References

*David B. Ruderman (1990), "A Valley of Vision: The Heavenly Journey of Abraham Ben Hananiah Yagel"
*Della Torre, in Arch. Isr. xxiv. 570;
*Fuenn, Keneset Yisrael, p. 29;
*Julius Fürst, Bibl. Jud. ii. 10 et seq.;
*Marco Mortara, Indice, pp. 25-26;
*D. Oppenheim, in Hebr. Bibl. vii. 19-20;
*Reggio, in Bikkure ha-'Ittim, ix. 13-14;
*Moritz Steinschneider, in Hebr. Bibl. xxi. 76-79;
*idem, Cat. Bodl. cols. 694-695;
*Maybaum, Abraham Jagel's Katechismus Lekach-tob, Berlin, 1892.

*Jewish Encyclopedia

Notes


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Jacob ben Abraham Faitusi — (d. July 1812, Algiers) was a Tunisian Jewish scholar. He settled in the later part of his life at Jerusalem, whence he was sent as a collector of alms to Italy and Algeria.Faitusi was the author of Berit Ya aqob (Livorno, 1800), the contents of… …   Wikipedia

  • FAITUSI, JACOB BEN ABRAHAM — (d. 1812), Jerusalem emissary and talmudist. Faitusi was born in tunis and immigrated to jerusalem around 1800. In 1806 he became an emissary of Jerusalem to tripoli , tunisia , and algeria . He published: Berit Ya akov (Leghorn, 1800), including …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • ASHKENAZI, BEZALEL BEN ABRAHAM — (c. 1520–1591/94), talmudist and halakhic authority. Ashkenazi was born in Jerusalem or in Safed, where he studied in his youth under Israel di curiel . About 1540 he went to Egypt where he studied in Cairo under david b. solomon ibn Abi Zimra.… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Kabbalah — This article is about traditional Jewish Kabbalah. For other Kabbalistic traditions see Christian Cabbalah, Hermetic Qabalah, and Practical Kabbalah Part of a series on …   Wikipedia

  • Hermetism and other religions — This is a comparative religion article which outlines both similarities between Hermetism, Hermeticism, and other thought systems as well as their interactions between one another. Christianity Christianity and Hermetism have interacted in such a …   Wikipedia

  • MANTUA — MANTUA, city and province in N. Italy, an important Jewish center in late medieval and modern times. History The first record of a Jewish settlement in Mantua dates from 1145, when abraham ibn ezra lived there for a while. A small Jewish… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Shemariah Catarivas — was a Talmudic writer of the eighteenth century. He was originally from Tiberias, and went to Tunis in 1750 as alms collector, settling there after a sojourn in Algiers. He gained a reputation for scholarship and piety. Catarivas was an intimate… …   Wikipedia

  • ALEMANNO, JOHANAN BEN ISAAC — (1435/8–after 1504), philosopher, kabbalist and biblical exegete. A descendant of an Ashkenazi family expelled from France, his father married an Aragonese Jewess, and the family came to Italy because of his grandfather s (Elijah) mission to the… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • ALATRINI — (or Alatrino), Italian family originating in Alatri in central Italy and later dispersed throughout the country. Its members were known from the 14th century as copyists of Hebrew manuscripts, and from the 15th century as authors. MATTATHIAS BEN… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • TOLEDANO — TOLEDANO, family of rabbis and ḥakhamim which originated in Toledo, spain . After the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Toledanos were to be found in Safed, Salonika, and Morocco. According to a family tradition, they arrived in Fez during the… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”