Moses Hagiz

Moses Hagiz (1671-ca. 1750) (Hebrew: משה חגיז) was a Talmudic scholar, rabbi, kabbalist, and author born in Jerusalem. According to Elisheva Carlebach, Moses Hagiz was one of the most prominent and influential Jewish leaders in 17th-century Amsterdam. During Hagiz's lifetime there was an overall decline in rabbinic authority which Carlebach argues was the result of migration and assimilation, and Hagiz devoted his career to restoring rabbinic authority. His most prominent talent was as a polemicist, and he campaigned ceaselessly against Jewish heresy in an attempt to unify the rabbinate.

Biography

His father, Jacob Hagiz, died while Moses was still a child. The latter was therefore educated by his maternal grandfather, Moses Galante (the Younger), who had succeeded his son-in-law. With the death of Moses Galante (1689) support from Leghorn was withdrawn, and Ḥagiz found himself in very straitened circumstances. He went to Safed to collect a claim which his mother had against the congregation, but succeeded only in making bitter enemies, who later persecuted him.

Returning to Jerusalem, he was given letters of recommendation, through which he expected to obtain support for a bet ha-midrash which he intended to establish. At Rashid (Rosetta), Abraham Nathan gave him 30,000 thalers to deposit at Leghorn for this purpose. Arriving at Leghorn, he secured from Vega, the protector of his family, a promise of further support; but his Palestinian enemies slandered him and ruined his prospects. He subsequently wandered through Italy, and edited at Venice (1704) the Halakot Ḳeṭannot of his father. Somewhat later he went to Amsterdam, where he supported himself by teaching, and occupied himself with the publication of his works. In Amsterdam he made the acquaintance of Zebi Ashkenazi, then rabbi of the Ashkenazic congregation, and assisted him in unmasking the impostor Nehemiah Hayyun. This step, however, made more enemies for him, and, like Ẓebi Ashkenazi, he had to leave the city (1714).

Until 1738 he resided at Altona; he then returned to Palestine, settling first at Sidon, and later at Safed, where he died after 1750. He married a daughter of Raphael Mordecai Malachi, and was therefore a brother-in-law of Hezekiah da Silva. He had no children.

Carlebach, in her work, The Pursuit of Heresy, focuses on three of the most important episodes in Hagiz' organized campaigns against heresy: The Haylon Controversy in Amsterdam, 1713-1715; a campaign against Sabbatian emissaries in 1725-1726; and the Luzatto controversy of 1730-1736. Each episode, illuminates the struggle for control of the Jewish community between rabbinate and lay leaders. [1]

Works

Moses Hagiz was not only a great Talmudic scholar, but also a man of wider secular learning than most of the rabbis of his time. According to Wolf, who knew him personally (Bibl. Hebr. iii. 908), he understood several languages and was somewhat familiar with modern history (see his Mishnat Ḥakamim, Nos. 627 and 682); he advocated the study of secular sciences (ib. No. 114), and admitted that the Zohar has been interpolated by later scribes (ib. No. 108). In regard to his character reports differ; some represent him as filled with sincere religious zeal, others as a contentious wrangler (Grätz, Gesch. 3d ed., x. 479-482). Jacob Emden describes him as a time-server, and even as religiously insincere, though he respected him as a friend of his father (Megillat Sefer, pp. 117-122, Warsaw, 1896). Ḥagiz wrote:

• Leḳeṭ ha-Ḳemaḥ, novellæ to the Shulhan Aruk (Oraḥ Ḥayyim and Yoreh De'ah, Amsterdam, 1697 and 1707; Eben ha-'Ezer, Hamburg, 1711 and 1715)
• Sefat Emet, on the religious significance of Palestine (Amsterdam, 1697 and 1707)
• Eleh ha-Miẓwot, on the 613 commandments (Wandsbeck, 1713)
• Sheber Posh'im, polemics against Hayyun (London, 1714)
• Leḳeṭ ha-Ḳemaḥ, commentary on the Mishnah (Wandsbeck, 1726)
• Perure Pat ha-Ḳemaḥ, commentary to Book of Daniel (Amsterdam, 1727)
• Ẓeror ha-Ḥayyim, ethics (Wandsbeck, 1728)
• Mishnaṭ Ḥakamim, ethics (ib. 1733)
• Shete ha-Leḥem, responsa (ib. 1733)

Other works of his remained unpublished. He also wrote numerous prefaces to the books of others. His writings are signed "המביח", the initial letters of "Moses ben Jacob Ḥagiz."

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography

• Grätz, Gesch. x., passim, especially pp. 479-482, where the older sources are quoted;
• Jacob Emden, Megillat Sefer, Warsaw, 1896.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)