Abraham Yagel
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Abraham Yagel (
Monselice Monselice (; vec, Monséłexe ) is a town and municipality (comune) located in northeastern Italy, in the Veneto region, in the province of Padua about southwest of the city of Padua, at the southern edge of the Euganean Hills (''Colli Euganei' ...
1553 – 1623) was an Italian Jewish catechist, philosopher, and cabalist. He lived successively at
Luzzara Luzzara ( Guastallese: ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Reggio Emilia, in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is located at the northern end of the province, on the right bank of the river Po. Luzzara is the birthplace of the composer Maurizio Cazzat ...
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Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400  ...
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Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...
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Sassuolo Sassuolo (; egl, label=Modenese dialect, Modenese, Sasól ) is an Italian town, ''comune'', and industrial centre of the Province of Modena in Emilia-Romagna. Standing on the right bank of the river Secchia some southwest of Modena, the town ...
.


Life and identity

Giulio Bartolocci Giulio Bartolocci (1 April 1613 – 19 October 1687) was an Italian Cistercian Hebrew scholar and author of the four volume ''Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica.'' Life He was born at Celleno and became the a pupil of a baptized Jew, Giovanni Battista ...
, followed by De Rossi, Wolf, and
Julius Fürst Julius Fürst (; 12 May 1805, Żerków, South Prussia – 9 February 1873, Leipzig), born Joseph Alsari, was a Jewish German orientalist and the son of noted maggid, teacher, and Hebrew grammarian Jacob Alsari. Fürst was a distinguished schola ...
, 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 Guastalla ( Guastallese: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Reggio Emilia in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Geography Guastalla is situated in the Po Valley, and lies on the banks of the Po River. Guastalla is located at around from the citie ...
. 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 Isaiah or Yeshayahu ben Avraham Ha-Levi Horowitz ( he, ישעיה בן אברהם הלוי הורוויץ), (c. 1555 – March 24, 1630), also known as the ''Shelah HaKaddosh'' ( "the holy ''Shelah''") after the title of his best-known work, was ...
, 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 Carpzov is the name of a family, many of whose members attained distinction in Saxony in the 17th and 18th centuries as jurists, theologians and statesmen. Origins They were said to be descended from a Spanish family named Carpezano, who were drive ...
(Leipsic, 1687), Odhelius (Frankfort-on-the-Oder, 1691),
Hermann van der Hardt Hermann von der Hardt (November 15, 1660 – February 28, 1746) was a German historian and orientalist. He was born at Melle, Germany, Melle, in Duchy of Westphalia, Westphalia (now in Lower Saxony). He studied oriental languages at the universit ...
(Helmstädt, 1704), and
Buxtorf Buxtorf is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Johannes Buxtorf (1564–1629), German theologian * Johannes Buxtorf II (1599–1664), Swiss theologian, son of Johannes * Johannes Jakob Buxtorf (1645–1705), Swiss Hebraist, ...
(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 Karl Anton or Karel Anton (25 October 1898 12 April 1979) was a Bohemian-born German film director, screenwriter and film producer. Biography He was born in Prague on 25 October 1898. His father Wilhelm Anton (1861–1918) was a physician. An ...
(Brunswick, 1756). An English translation from one of the Latin versions, called "The Jews' Catechism, Containing the Thirteen Articles of the Jewish Religion" was printed in London (1721). "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 Julius Fürst (; 12 May 1805, Żerków, South Prussia – 9 February 1873, Leipzig), born Joseph Alsari, was a Jewish German orientalist and the son of noted maggid, teacher, and Hebrew grammarian Jacob Alsari. Fürst was a distinguished schola ...
, Bibl. Jud. ii. 10 et seq.; *
Marco Mortara Marco Mortara (born at Viadana, 7 May 1815; died at Mantua, 2 February 1894) was an Italian rabbi and scholar. Having graduated from the rabbinical college of Padua in 1836, he was called as rabbi to Mantua in 1842, and occupied this position unti ...
, Indice, pp. 25–26; *D. Oppenheim, in Hebr. Bibl. vii. 19-20; *Reggio, in Bikkure ha-'Ittim, ix. 13-14; *
Moritz Steinschneider Moritz Steinschneider (30 March 1816, Prostějov, Moravia, Austrian Empire – 24 January 1907, Berlin) was a Moravian bibliographer and Orientalist. He received his early instruction in Hebrew from his father, Jacob Steinschneider ( 1782; ...
, in Hebr. Bibl. xxi. 76-79; *idem, Cat. Bodl. cols. 694-695; *Maybaum, Abraham Jagel's Katechismus Lekach-tob, Berlin, 1892. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Yagel, Abraham 1553 births 1623 deaths Italian philosophers Jewish philosophers 16th-century Italian Jews 17th-century Italian Jews