The following selection is taken from a Hebrew manuscript first published by the Italian Jewish scholar Isaac S. Reggio, at Gorizia, in 1852 in his book Behinath ha-Kabbalah. The manuscript contains a violent attack against rabbinic Judaism, supposedly written by one Ammittai bar Yeda’iah ibn Raz, together with a defense of Jewish tradition from the pen of Rabbi Leon da Modena. The title given to this attack, Kol Sakhal—“The Voice of the Fool”—is manifestly not the one chosen by its author, but reflects the reaction of a traditionalist Jew to its contents.

For a long time the scholarly world had accepted Reggio’s suggestion that the colorful Venetian rabbi, Leon da Modena (1571-1648), was the author not only of the refutation, but also of the attack itself, and that the latter reflects his real, though concealed, views. Of late, however, attempts have been made to deny da Modena’s authorship of the Kol Sakhal. Isaiah Sonne endeavors to trace the work back to the heresiarch of 17th-century Amsterdam, Uriel da Costa; while Ellis Rivkin has devoted a whole book (Leon da Modena and the Kol Sakhal, Cincinnati 1952) to proving his contention that da Modena was a sincere champion of tradition who, in all honesty, objected to the contents of the Kol Sakhal.

Whoever the author, “The Voice of the Fool” is a fascinating document of the 17th century, a period of Jewish history which has given us, on the one hand, men like Uriel da Costa and Spinoza, and, on the other, a pseudo-Messiah like Sabbatai Zevi. It was an age characterized—to use the phrase of the historian Graetz—by its “agitators.” Judaism had yet to make its adjustments to the new spirit of the times.

The Kol Sakhal consists of three parts. In the first, from which the selection here is taken, the author states his theological position. In the second he attacks the belief in an Oral Law on historical grounds. In the third he voices his objections to some specific details of rabbinic law. My translation, the first, I believe, into English, is based on the text by Reggio.—Jakob J. Petuchowski

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Just as, from the point of view of sense perception, we have no reason to believe that man’s soul was in existence before he himself came into being, so we would be inclined to say that with his death, his soul, too, must perish. No man has ever returned after his death and given us any compelling testimony to his soul’s immortality. He, therefore, who would not deceive himself must admit that no decisive proof of man’s spiritual immortality has ever been furnished by either a Jewish or a Gentile thinker. On the contrary, since the burden of proof is upon him who would maintain a given belief, rather than on him who denies it, it might almost be said that those who deny the belief in immortality have positive proof of the soul’s disintegration.

It is not my task here to enumerate the arguments on either side. I merely wish to state my own conclusions, arrived at after a careful consideration of all of these arguments.

Most frightening for every Jew is the fact that, when we read through the whole Pentateuch from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, we fail to find in all the words of Moses a single indication pointing to man’s spiritual immortality after his physical death, or the existence of any world beside this one. Even though Moses . . . on several occasions speaks about how the observance of the commandments would be duly rewarded, he contents himself with promising the people physical rewards and success in this life—children, honor, and wealth.

Not when he spoke, before the revelation of the Law, about God’s promises to the patriarchs and saints, nor at the time that the Law was revealed through him, nor even after then, did Moses say a single word to the effect that God has promised: If you will walk in My statutes, then your soul will enjoy everlasing bliss after death. Moses speaks instead of seasonal rain, bread, natural increase, life secure in the land, the defeat of enemies, and the like. Even in the Prophets and in the Hagiographa there are only vague hints concerning immortality; and all such supposed hints might just as well be interpreted as having reference to physical life.

Nevertheless, when we contemplate our present existence, reason inclines us (if it does not altogether compel us) to believe that the soul continues on after our physical death. There is, first, some sense of this in the fact that Nature, doing nothing in vain, has implanted in the human mind a desire for eternal life that is not realized in the life of the body. Then there is the evidence from the increase of our mental powers at the very time when old age brings with it a weakening of the body; if the connection between body and mind were absolute rather than incidental, we should expect the opposite to be true: the mind becoming weaker in proportion to the body’s enfeeblement.

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But what I consider to be the decisive proof is derived from our basic assumption that man is sui generis, neither like the angels nor like the beasts, and that he has been created for the purpose of giving God pleasure by his wide range of intelligent actions. How, then, can we say that ultimately man has no advantage over the beasts, and that the same fate, the same death, will befall him as them? How can we say that the creature who, by dint of his intellect, builds cities and moves mountains, changes the course of rivers, knows the paths of the high heavens, and can recognize his God—that this creature should come in the end to perish entirely like a horse, or a dog, or a fly?

Moreover, if this were so, then man’s consciousness would be a sorry drawback. Animals are not troubled by anything about life or death other than by those things which they actually experience at a given moment. Man’s consciousness, on the other hand, increases his pain by anticipating troubles yet to come, and dwelling on those already present. This is far more painful than the actual trouble: as it has rightly been said, the trouble of death is the thought of it before it comes.

Rather should it be said that the Creator Who, having joined man’s soul to his body, takes pleasure in, or abhors, man’s deeds, and bestows His rewards or punishments accordingly—that this Creator has made it possible for a man at his death to have his soul separated from his body, so that the soul may remain to receive the pleasure or the pain of which, in his lifetime, the man was judged deserving, in accordance with his deeds.

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