Moshe ben Chasdai Taku (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: ר' משה בן חסדאי תאקו) ( fl. 1250–1290 CE) was a 13th-century

Tosafist The Tosafot, Tosafos or Tosfot ( he, תוספות) are medieval commentaries on the Talmud. They take the form of critical and explanatory glosses, printed, in almost all Talmud editions, on the outer margin and opposite Rashi's notes. The auth ...

from

Tachov Tachov (; german: Tachau) is a town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 13,000 inhabitants. It lies on the Mže River. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone. Administrative parts ...

, Bohemia. Despite his own seemingly mystical orientation, Rabbi Taku is controversially known to have been an opponent of both the esoteric theology of the

Chassidei Ashkenaz The Hasidim of Ashkenaz ( he, חסידי אשכנז, trans. ''Khasidei Ashkenaz''; "German Pietists") were a Jewish mystical, ascetic movement in the German Rhineland during the 12th and 13th centuries. Background The leaders of the community ...

(particularly the Kalonymides, i.e. followers of Rabbi Yehudah HaChasid) and the philosophical orientation of rabbinic rationalists such as

Saadia Gaon Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; ...

Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Tora ...

, Abraham ibn Ezra et al. He believed that both trends were a deviant departure from traditional Judaism, which he understood to espouse a literal perspective of both the

biblical narrative The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a v ...

, and the Aggadata of the Sages. His opposition to all theological speculation earned him, in the opinion of Gershon Scholem, the title of one of the two truly reactionary Jewish writers of the Middle Ages (the other being Joseph Ashkenazi).

Controversial views

Taku is often cited as contradicting Maimonides’ Third Principle of Faith for insisting that God can be corporeally manifest and that to maintain otherwise is

heretical Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

. For Taku such a denial would be an infringement on God’s omnipotence and that accordingly all anthropomorphic allusions to God in the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Joseph Dan, an

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i scholar of Jewish mysticism, takes issue with this widely held view of Taku's position and espouses a more nuanced depiction:

"Taku insists on the literal acceptance of the prophets' descriptions of their visions as well as the anthropomorphic references to God in talmudic-midrashic literature. He does not do so because of his belief in the literal veracity of these descriptions; he only insists that they represent the maximum that can be conveyed concerning God's essence and appearance, and that any further inquiry cannot lead to valid conclusions. God chose to reveal to us in the scriptures whatever is found in them: man should be satisfied with that, and ask no more questions. It is not that Rabbi Moses Taku believed in an anthropomorphic God; most probably, he did not."

Writings

Ketav Tamim (

: כתב תמים) is the principal text from which we know of Rabbi Taku’s thought. It was composed around 1220 CE, and is largely polemical in nature. It serves as both an attack on the theologians of his day who espoused non-literal understandings of Aggada, and as a means to attempt to demonstrate the validity of corporealism by citing proof texts from the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

. Taku states that three theological catastrophes have occurred in Jewish history, each of which produced its own school of heresy -

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

, spearheaded by

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

;

Karaism Karaite Judaism () or Karaism (, sometimes spelt Karaitism (; ''Yahadut Qara'it''); also spelt Qaraite Judaism, Qaraism or Qaraitism) is a Jewish religious movement characterized by the recognition of the written Torah alone as its supreme a ...

, spearheaded by Anan; and the opinions expressed by

Saadia Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; ...

in his work

Emunoth ve-Deoth ''The Book of Beliefs and Opinions'' ( ar, كتاب الأمانات والاعتقادات, translit=Kitāb al-Amānāt wa l-Iʿtiqādāt) is a book written by Saadia Gaon (completed 933) which is the first systematic presentation and philosophi ...

and his commentary on

Sefer Yezirah ''Sefer Yetzirah'' ( ''Sēp̄er Yəṣīrā'', ''Book of Formation'', or ''Book of Creation'') is the title of a book on Jewish mysticism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed ...

. Though the complete work is not known to have survived to this day, several major sections have endured, and were first published in 1860, in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

.Kirchheim first published sections of the book in "''Oẓar Neḥmad''", III (1860) pp. 54–9

(See ) A facsimile of the manuscript was produced by the Dinur Center in 1984.

Notes and references

External links

Ketav Tamim - כתב תמים
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taku, Moses 13th-century Bohemian rabbis Czech Orthodox rabbis Tosafists Judaism-related controversies Jewish Czech history People from Tachov

Controversial views

Writings

Notes and references

See also

External links