SEFER SHIMMUSH (ANTI-SABBATIAN POLEMICAL COLLECTANEA), RABBI JACOB EMDEN, [ALTONA: RABBI JACOB EMDEN], 1758-[CA. 1762]

A rare copy of this provocative book.

Rabbi Jacob Emden, like his father before him, is perhaps best known outside of the rabbinic world for his heresy-hunting and pamphleteering against followers of the false messiah Shabbetai Zevi (1626-1676). The present work was compiled in the aftermath of a reported antinomian sexual orgy with Christian overtones conducted by members of the Sabbatian sect led by Jacob Frank (1726-1791) in Lanckorona, Podolia, in January 1756. Its name is an acronym of its three principal parts: Shot la-sus, Meteg la-hamor, Ve-Shevet le-gev kesilim (A whip for a horse and a bridle for a donkey, and a rod for the back of dullards; Prov. 26:3).

Sefer shimmush’s fame rests in part on the essay Resen mat‘eh (A Misleading Bridle; Isa. 30:28) included in Meteg la-hamor, which outlines Emden’s unusually tolerant, positive view of Jesus and of Christianity (in contrast to his undying enmity for Sabbatianism). Also renowned are the six captioned woodcuts with which the book closes, the last of which, a monstrous, serpentine, three-headed caricature of Sabbatian “believers” (a tricephalos), is meant to represent their religious syncretism and shapeshifting, as well as the midrashic idea that “falsehood has no legs [to stand on]” (Alfa beita de-rabbi akiva). (This is likely one of the earliest caricatures in Jewish literature.)

Emden must have known that Sefer shimmush would be controversial on account of its unbridled critique of Jonathan Eibeschuetz (ca. 1694-1764), chief rabbi of the “triple community” of Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbek, whom Emden accused of crypto-Sabbatianism. He therefore falsified the place of publication on the title page, making as though the book was issued in Amsterdam rather than Altona and was therefore exempt from communal censorship. (Three other books of his – Sefer ets avot [1751], Zot torat ha-kena’ot [1752], and Akitsat akrav [1752] – were also printed in “Amsterdam.”) Many of his other polemical works were banned and publicly burned on account of their offensive contents; the survival of the present lot, under such conditions, makes it a rare find.

Literature

Arthur Arnheim, “Hebrew Prints and Censorship in Altona,” Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 21 (2001): 3-9.

Moshe Carmilly-Weinberger, Sefer ve-sayyif: hofesh ha-bittui ve-ha-mahashavah etsel am yisra’el (Jerusalem; New York: Yeshiva University, 1967), 137-144.

Leeor Gottlieb, “‘Resen mat‘eh’ le-rabbi ya‘akov emden – mahadurah kamma u-batra im mavo, hashva’ah tekstu’alit ve-he‘arot,” in Binyamin Ish-Shalom (ed.), Be-darkhei shalom: iyyunim ba-hagut ha-yehudit, muggashim le-shalom rosenberg (Jerusalem: Beit Morashah bi-Yerushalayim – Mikhlelet Robert M. Beren, 2007), 295-321.

Harris Lenowitz, “The Struggle over Images in the Propaganda of the Frankist Movement,” Polin 15 (2002): 105-129, at pp. 114-122.

Paweł Maciejko, “Ha-sakkanot ve-ha-ta‘anugot she-be-sinkretizm dati,” Mehkerei yerushalayim be-mahshevet yisra’el 22 (2011): 249-277, esp. pp. 263-269.

Isaac Raphael, “Kitvei rabbi ya‘akov emden: bibli’ogerafyah,” Areshet 3 (1961): 231-276, at pp. 232, 239 (no. 15), 257-259 (no. 13).

Judah Rosenthal, “Tsiyyur anti-shabbeta’i ke-semel ekumeni,” Kiryat sefer 47,3-4 (1972): 502-503, 719.

Jacob J. Schacter, “Rabbi Jacob Emden, Sabbatianism, and Frankism: Attitudes Toward Christianity in the Eighteenth Century,” in Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob J. Schacter (eds.), New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations – In Honor of David Berger (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 359-396.

Vinograd, Altona 62