Ka’or Nogah [“Bright as Light”: Refutation of Pinchas Elijah Hurwitz’s Sepher ha-Berith]

An Attempt to Reconcile Kabbalah and Jewish philosophy, Zohar and Guide of the Perplexed. Moses Koerner (1766-1836) was one of the breed of scholars who crossed the great divide between traditionalist Eastern Europe and modernist Western Europe. Early in his career he served as the rabbi of Shklov (today Belarus). Toward the end of his days he settled in Breslau, where he died. Many years in between were spent traveling from community to community, ostensibly to raise funds for the publication of his literary projects. Despite - or rather because of - his erratic lifestyle, he succeeded in producing an impressive bibliography: Torath Moshe (Nowy Dwor, 1786), homilies on the Pentateuch; Zera Kodesh (Berlin, 1798), a commentary on the Siphra; Igereth Rishphei Kesheth (Hanover, 1831), an account of his wanderings in which he settles scores with old foes; Megilath Eivah (Breslau, 1837), the autobiography of his ancestor Yom Tov Lippmann Heller with notes; and Birkath Moshe (Berlin, 1834). See EJ, Vol. X, col. 1132; David E. Fishman, Russia’s First Modern Jews: The Jews of Shklov (1995), pp. 60-61; Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, Vol. IX, p. 235, n. 5 In Ka-Or Nogah, Koerner subjects the religious psychology of Sepher ha-Berith, an extremely popular contemporary work - by an equally peripatetic scholar -to a thorough deconstruction. In his prologue, Koerner addresses a “letter of hidden love” to the author of Sepher ha-Berith, reminding him of their impromptu meeting in the home of Berlin’s R. Zevi Hirsch Levin, and assuring him that his scathing critique of his book is not based on any personal animosity. In a second prefatory letter (to Abraham ben Eliezerr of Neustadt), Koerner notes Rabbis Akiva Eiger of Posen and Jacob of Lissa as being ardent admirers of his writings