As you can see, this letter, dated 24 September 1781, says that Mendelssohn promises to send him a copy of
"An allegorical drama. The author lived in Amsterdam about 50 years ago, and was a great genius in many respects. He was unable to develop his talents due to the jealousy of some rabbis, and was treated poorly. He retreated into solitude and died before his time. His Kabbalistic manuscripts are today studied intensely in Poland. He evidently wrote some new Psalms, which I have not had an opportunity to see."
The "allegorical drama" is obviously לישרים תהלה, which had been printed in a very limited run Amsterdam in 1743, and then reprinted by Mendelssohn's colleague Solomon Dubno in 1780. Dubno had spent several years in Amsterdam before coming to Berlin, and there he became acquainted with the writings of Ramhal through his students, such as David Franco Mendes. He really loved this particular play - which was written in honor of someone's wedding. Dubno reprinted it because it was so rare. He writes that לא הדפיס ממנו רק חמישים ספרים ולא הובאו כי אם אל אוצרות הגבירים הספרדים שבאמשטרדם יצ"ו.
Funny how things work - the original 1743 edition, of which only 50 copies were printed, is available online, while the 1780 reprint is not.
The Psalms of which Mendelssohn writes are a series of 150 Psalms that Ramchal wrote when he was about 20 years old. They caused him no small amount of trouble, as it was seen as some sort of attempt to supplant the actual book of Psalms. To my knowledge it was never printed and may not have even survived. However, two were printed in Bikkure Ha-'ittim in 1825 and 1826. Here they are:
The reference to the Kabbalistic manuscripts being studied intently in Poland is because Ramhal's Vilna-born Paduan medical student pupil Yekusiel Gordon was responsible for disseminating many of his manuscripts in Brisk and elsewhere in his native Lithuania.
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>He really loved this particular play - which was written in honor of someone's wedding.
ReplyDeleteAll four of his plays were written for this purpose.
>The Psalms of which Mendelssohn writes are a series of 150 Psalms that Ramchal wrote when he was about 20 years old. They caused him no small amount of trouble, as it was seen as some sort of attempt to supplant the actual book of Psalms.
It was not. It was written because he believed that he was a gilgul of David HaMelech and was to be used for liturgical purposes. He specifically wanted them used in his simchat Torah hakafot liturgy. They were locked in R' Bassan's house with the zoharitic and maggid writings and IMO are lost - not necessarily destroyed. There are several chapters of psalms that did indeed survive:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5663/1776/1600/1st-Hakafa.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5663/1776/1600/2nd-Hakafa.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5663/1776/1600/3rd-Hakafa.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5663/1776/1600/592157/4th-Hakafa.jpg
and the prayer he composed for saying before the hakafot:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5663/1776/1600/Before-Hakafot.0.jpg
To my knowledge it was never printed and may not have even survived.
Wow, where are those printed?
ReplyDeleteIn the 19th century it was believed that the chest with his writings were in Prague.
The fact that two separate Italians had copies of single Psalms in the 1820s at least makes it possible that others, or even the whole thing, was copied and some or all of it may yet exist.
Did you notice that the first letter of every seventh word spells out S-B-T-I . . Z-V-I . . . CH-AI?
ReplyDeleteJust kidding. But the subject is fascinating. What's so terrible about the poems he wrote? And why would he want to supplant David's Psalms? it's not as though he felt the latter were "outdated" and needed to be modernized.
What a find it would be to discover all of these lost poems. Suggestion for next post Fred: Wish list or top ten list of missing/ lost documents or items you would like to see discovered.
1. When you are out to get someone, they can do no right.
ReplyDelete2. Given the pretensions of Sabbateanism, and the existence of strands of "in the future there will be a new Torah-in the future chazir will be chozer and permissible-in the future all yomim tovim except [] will be abolished" it wasn't necessarily so crazy to think that this was his intention.
>What a find it would be to discover all of these lost poems. Suggestion for next post Fred: Wish list or top ten list of missing/ lost documents or items you would like to see discovered.
ReplyDeleteGood idea. The trouble with such a list is that some of it must be mtyhical (i.e., the alleged Arabic translation of the entire Talmud). But I'll think about it!
>Wow, where are those printed?
ReplyDeleteA book called רמח"ל ובני דורו published by שמעון גינזבורג sometime in the 1930s. It has a lot of great stuff - mostly letters - but other things as well.
Where are the speculations of it being in Prague found?
Sabbateanism was a major theme in the ramchal contraversy. See Dr. Elisheva Carlibach's biography of Maharam Hagiz for an extended treatment of the episode.
Funny, that book was just added to hebrewbooks.org last week
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hebrewbooks.org/46820
Re Prague, from the Jewish Encyclopedia:
"This correspondence became known to the Venetian rabbis, and as they could do nothing further to Luzzatto, they attacked Bassani, who was suspected of having opened the casket which contained Luzzatto's works (though perhaps the psalms were not included [Kahana, "Luzzatto," p. 10, note 2]) and of having restored them to him. This casket, which was supposed to be guarded by a cherub (Zunz, "Die Monatstage des Kalenderjahrs," p. 26), is said to have found its way to Prague after many vicissitudes (comp. Kaufmann, "Contributions à la Biographie de Mosé Hayyim Luzzatto, Yekutiel Gordon et Mosé Hages.—La Caisse des Manuscrits de Luzzatto et Jacob Cohen Popers," in "R. E. J." xxiii. 256-261)."
Re Sabbatianism, it was indeed. I have Dr. Carlebach's book. I think many people are fooled by the idea that "Sabbateanism" means "Belief that Shabbetai Zvi was the Messiah."
>I think many people are fooled by the idea that "Sabbateanism" means "Belief that Shabbetai Zvi was the Messiah."
ReplyDeleteWhat then does it mean, if not that? Not mere sectarianism, surely.
I'm hardly an expert, but it's the theology, redemption through sin, immanent redemption by a messiah who may or may not be a reincarnation of Shat"z, etc. The point is that it's not necessarily focused *on* him, but it was the theologies in its various forms which developed from the movement. He wasn't necessarily important at all.
ReplyDeleteA-ha. Intressante.
ReplyDeletedoes anyone know if any of his other kabbalistic writtings in manuscript form were in the hidden box? i would be interested to see what conversations he had with his maggid.
ReplyDelete