Moses Hagiz

Moses Hagiz (1671 – ca. 1750) (Hebrew: משה חגיז) was a Talmudic scholar, rabbi, kabbalist, and author born in Jerusalem, Palestine. He 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 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 With the death of Moses Galante (1689) support from Livorno was withdrawn, and Hagiz found himself in very straitened circumstances.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 nominating him as a Shadar 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 Livorno for this purpose. Arriving at Livorno, 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 Ketannot 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 Zebi 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.

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 Hakamim, 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). Hagiz wrote:

• Lekeṭ ha-Kemah, novellae to the Shulhan Arukh (OraH Hayyim and Yoreh De'ah, Amsterdam, 1697 and 1707; Eben ha-'Ezer, Hamburg, 1711 and 1715)
• Sefat Emet, on the religious significance of Palestine for Jews (Amsterdam, 1697 and 1707)
• Eleh ha-Mitswot, on the 613 commandments (Wandsbeck, 1713)
• Sheber Posh'im, polemics against Hayyun (London, 1714)
• Lekeṭ ha-Kemaḥ, commentary on the Mishnah (Wandsbeck, 1726)
• Perure Pat ha-Kemaḥ, commentary to Book of Daniel (Amsterdam, 1727)
• Zeror ha-Hayyim, ethics (Wandsbeck, 1728)
• Mishnaṭ Hakamim, 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 Hagiz."

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 the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.
• Carlebach, Elisheva (1990) (^{[dead link]} – ^{Scholar search}), The Pursuit of Heresy: Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatian Controversies, Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0231071901, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023107/0231071914.HTM 

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Name	Hagiz, Moses
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Date of birth	1671
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