Shever poshe‘im (Destruction of the Transgressors)
Moses Ḥagiz
1714
And they permitted themselves to place a blemish in the holiness of heaven and the holiness of the study of the holy Torah, to place the filth of the primeval serpent, behaving according to their foolishness, allowing every leper and every afflicted one and everyone who is unclean—Call out: Unclean! Unclean!—to enter into the innermost of the…
Creator Bio
Moses Ḥagiz
Moses Ḥagiz, scholar, kabbalist, and staunch opponent of Sabbateanism, was born in Jerusalem. He quarreled with the rabbis of Jerusalem; when he left to collect funds to establish his own yeshiva, damaging letters were sent to the communities he approached. He visited Egypt and then Italy, before arriving in Amsterdam. There he became involved in the struggle against Sabbateanism and, together with Tzvi Hirsch Ashkenazi, disputed with the elders of the Portuguese community over the excommunication of Nehemiah Ḥayun. After Ḥagiz was forced to leave Amsterdam, he lived in London and then Altona, where he continued his fight against Sabbateanism. He later induced the rabbis of Venice to excommunicate Moses Ḥayim Luzzatto. In 1738, he settled in Safed. Ḥagiz was fluent in several languages and possessed extensive secular knowledge. Among his many works are responsa, novellae on the Shulḥan arukh, ethical treatises, and works on the oral law and kabbalah. He died in Beirut.
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