Don Isaac ben Judah or Yitzchak ben Yehuda Abravanel was a Jewish statesman, philosopher, Bible commentator, and financier. He was a scion of the Abravanel family. In many works he is referred to solely by his last name, which is variously spelled as Abravanel, Abarbanel, and Abrabanel. Many Torah and Talmud scholars today, simply refer to him as "The Abarbanel".

He was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1437. He died in Venice in 1508 and was buried in Padua.

The Abravanel family (also Abarbanel and Abrabanel) is one of the oldest and most distinguished Jewish Spanish families; they trace their origin from the biblical King David. Members of this family lived at Seville, where dwelt its oldest representative, Don Judah Abravanel.

Biography

Abravanel was a pupil of Joseph Hayyim, rabbi of Lisbon. Well versed in rabbinic literature and in the learning of his time, he devoted his early years to the study of Jewish philosophy. When only twenty years old he wrote on the original form of the natural elements, on religious questions, on prophecy, etc. His political abilities also attracted attention while he was still young. He entered the service of King Alfonso V of Portugal as treasurer, and soon won the confidence of his master.

Notwithstanding his high position and the great wealth he had inherited from his father, his love for his afflicted brethren was unabated. When Arzilla, in Morocco, was taken by the Moors, and the Jewish captives were sold as slaves, he contributed largely to the funds needed to manumit them, and personally arranged for collections throughout Portugal. He also wrote to his learned and wealthy friend Jehiel, of Pisa, in behalf of the captives.

After the death of Alfonso he was obliged to relinquish his office, having been accused by King John II of connivance with the Duke of Braganza, who had been executed on the charge of conspiracy. Abravanel, warned in time, saved himself by a hasty flight to Castile (1483). His large fortune was confiscated by royal decree.

At Toledo, his new home, he occupied himself at first with Biblical studies, and in the course of six months produced an extensive commentary on the books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel. But shortly afterward he entered the service of the house of Castile. Together with his friend, the influential Don Abraham Senior, of Segovia, he undertook to farm the revenues and to supply provisions for the royal army, contracts that he carried out to the entire satisfaction of Queen Isabella.

During the Moorish war Abravanel advanced considerable sums of money to the government. When the banishment of the Jews from Spain was decreed, he left nothing undone to induce the king to revoke the edict. In vain did he offer him 30,000 ducats ($68,400, nominal value). With his brethren in faith he left Spain and went to Naples, where, soon after, he entered the service of the king. For a short time he lived in peace undisturbed; but when the city was taken by the French, bereft of all his possessions, he followed the young king, Ferdinand, in 1495, to Messina; then went to Corfu; and in 1496 settled in Monopoli, and lastly (1503) in Venice, where his services were employed in negotiating a commercial treaty between Portugal and the Venetian republic

Several times during the mid to late 1400's, he personally spent large amounts of his personal fortunes to bribe the Spanish Monarchy to permit the Jews to remain in Spain. On the eve of the 1492 expulsion, he was near an agreement with the crown to cancel the decree, when the Inquisition intervened, and convinced the crown to not relent. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel begged him to remain, but he eventually ended up choosing to leave Spain with the rest of the Jews, but leaving them with his tersely worded, and prophetic response to the Alhambra Decree. In the end, he managed only to get the date for the expulsion to be extended by two days. His scathing letter to the crown became the source of the Jewish curse against Spain, forbidding Jews to even set foot on Spanish soil until Franco abolished the Inquisition.

After his departure from Spain, he moved first to Genoa, then to Corfu, and finally to Venice. His riches exhausted, he died, in what he himself described as "exile", in 1508, in Venice, Italy.

Works

His works may be divided into three classes, referring to (1) exegesis, such as his commentary upon the entire Bible with the exception of the Hagiographa; (2) philosophy, dealing with philosophy in general and particularly with that of the Jewish religion; (3) apologetics, in defense of the Jewish doctrine of the Messiah.

Philosophy

Many of Abravanel's Jewish predecessors in the realm of philosophy were the subject of his criticisms. Men like Albalag, Palquera, Gersonides, Narboni, and others, were criticised by Abravanel as infidels and misleading guides, for venturing to assume a comparatively liberal standpoint in religio-philosophical questions.

Although he was the last Jewish Aristotelian, Abravanel was essentially an opponent of philosophy. His conception of Judaism, opposed to that of Maimonides and his school, was rooted in a firm conviction of God's revelation in history, and particularly in the history of the Jews as a chosen people. It has been noted by some that some of his ideas were in accord with the views of Maimonides, while other views of his were strongly in disagreement.

A characteristic instance of his vacillation is afforded by his most important religious work, the "Rosh Amanah" (The Pinnacle of Faith), based on Cant. iv. 8. This work, devoted to the championship of the Maimonidean thirteen articles of belief against the attacks of Crescas and Albo, ends with the statement that Maimonides compiled these articles merely in accordance with the fashion of other nations, which set up axioms or fundamental principles for their science. However, he holds that Judaism has nothing in common with human science; that the teachings of the Torah are revelations from God, and therefore are all of equal value; that among them are neither principles nor corollaries from principles.

Abravanel agrees and supports some of Maimonides ideas; however he assails assails Maimonides' conception that the prophetic visions were the creations of imagination. Abravanel will not hear of this explanation, even for the bat kol of the Talmud, which, according to him, was a veritable voice made audible by God — a miracle, in fact (commentary on Gen. xvi.).

In like manner Abravanel exceeded all his predecessors in combating Maimonides' theory of the "Heavenly Chariot" in Ezekiel, and commentary on the Guide for the Perplexed, part III:71-74.

Apologetics

Abravanel felt deeply the hopelessness and despair which possessed his brethren in the years following their expulsion from Spain, and set himself, therefore, to champion the Messianic belief and to strengthen it among his desponding brethren. With this aim he wrote the following three works: "Ma'yene ha-Yeshu'ah" (Sources of Salvation), completed Dec. 6, 1496; "Yeshu'ot Meshikho" (The Salvation of His Anointed), completed Dec. 20, 1497; and "Mashmia' Yeshu'ah" (Proclaiming Salvation), completed Feb. 26, 1498. All of these were about the Jewish messiah.

The first-named of these is in the form of a commentary upon Daniel, in which he controverts both the Christian exposition and the Jewish rationalism of this book. Curiously enough, in opposition to the Talmud and all later rabbinical tradition, he counts Daniel among the prophets, coinciding therein—but therein only—with the current Christian interpretation. He is impelled to this by the fact that Daniel furnishes the foundation for his Messianic theory. The remainder of his commentary is devoted to an exhaustive and caustic criticism of the Christian exposition.

The second work is probably unique in being an exposition of the doctrine concerning the Messiah according to the traditional testimony of Talmud and Midrash. His third apologetic work contains a collection of Messianic passages of the Bible and their interpretations, in the course of which latter Abravanel criticises the Christian interpretation of these passages.

Others

Other works are:

• "The Crown of the Ancients"
• "The Pinnacle of Faith"
• "The Sources of Salvation", in the form of a commentary on Daniel,
• "The Salvation of His Anointed"
• "The Herald of Salvation", in which are collected and explained all the Messianic texts.

External link

• Abrabanel