Sermon of Ethical Rebuke Preached . . . during the Penitential Period Preceding the New Year’s Day, 5505 [1744], to the Congregation of Metz

Born in Kraków into a rabbinic family that settled in Moravia, Jonathan (Yonatan) Eybeschütz was regarded as a prodigy who wrote monumental works of rabbinic scholarship. He served as rabbi and head of a yeshiva in Prague from around 1711 to 1715, taking positions on religious matters that brought him into conflict with the city’s powerful chief rabbi, David Oppenheim. In 1741, Eybeschütz moved to Metz, France, and eight years later to the triple community of Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbek, assuming the position of chief rabbi. After some amulets he had written fell into the hands of Jacob Emden, a controversy erupted when Emden accused him of being a secret adherent of Sabbateanism. The controversy continued for two decades. Eybeschütz wrote numerous rabbinic works, including collections of sermons.