Kabbalistic Culture of Eighteenth-century Prague

Abstract

Kabbalah played a surprisingly prominent and far-reaching role in eighteenth-century Prague. This book uncovers the centrality of this mystical tradition for Prague's influential Jewish community and its pre-eminent rabbinic authority, Ezekiel Landau, chief rabbi from 1754 to 1793. A rabbinic leader who is best known for his halakhic responsa collection the Noda biyehudah, Landau is generally considered a staunch opponent of esoteric practices and public kabbalistic discourse. This book challenges this portrayal, exposing the importance of Kabbalah in his work and thought and demonstrating his novel use of teachings from diverse kabbalistic schools. It also identifies the historical events and cultural forces underlying his reluctance to discuss Kabbalah publicly, including the rise of the hasidic movement and the acculturation spurred by the 1781 Habsburg Toleranzpatent. The book offers the first systematic overview of the eighteenth-century Jewish community of Prague, and the first critical account of Landau's life and writings, which continue to shape Jewish law and rabbinic thought to this day. Extensively examining Landau's rabbinic corpus, as well as a variety of archival and published German, Yiddish, and Hebrew sources, the book provides a unique glimpse into the spiritual and psychological world of eighteenth-century Prague Jewry. By unravelling and exploring the many diverse threads that were woven into the fabric of Prague's eighteenth-century Jewish life, the book offers a comprehensive portrayal of rabbinic culture at its height in one of the largest and most important centres of European Jewry.