The History of a Karaite Rabbi in Eastern Europe

In a little town in 18th-century Eastern Europe, there was a Jewish rabbi who eked out a living mostly as a melamed for little children. Life was difficult; in fact, in one month — Adar, 1743 — both his father and his son died. In addition to teaching, the rabbi tried to supplement his income by writing his own books of theology, biblical exegesis, law, and history. Even though the printing press had existed for almost 300 years, the potential audience for his works was so small that it did not make financial sense to print them; instead, he distributed his books by making multiple handwritten copies of them. In addition, he copied manuscripts of other people’s compositions, hoping to sell them to interested co-religionists. When he couldn’t find a buyer, he took one of the more expensive and elaborate manuscripts to the local pawnbroker; that manuscript was redeemed by his brother only after the scribe’s death. Finally, however, his scholarship was recognized and he was offered a lucrative position running a yeshiva in a community far away from his home city, invited by the local gevir. He relocated, but his patron soon died. While he continued to live and work in his new community, he never felt at home, complaining of being in exile and getting into arguments with his new neighbors. Finally, in 1760, he died at age 44, having composed around 24 books during his short life. He never returned to his native city; he was buried in the local cemetery, and then almost forgotten.

This melancholy story might not have been very remarkable if the unfortunate rabbi had not been Simhah Isaac Lutski, the most erudite Karaite in the 18th century. His birthplace was Lutsk in Volhynia, then a city in Poland and now in northwest Ukraine with a population of over 200,000. His new home and burial place was in Chufut-Kale (“The Jews’ Fortress”), a medieval city-fortress in the Crimean Mountains that has been reduced to ruins. The cemetery where he was buried still exists, with a treasure trove of important tombstones, including those of Lutski and his wife, Bat-Sheva. His literary output, those approximately 24 books composed in his very short life, is noteworthy for its breadth of learning and diverse subject matter. And, in an act most unusual for a Karaite,  he devoted a quarter of those books to Kabbalah, the epitome of Rabbinical Judaism’s mystical doctrines. So what was an impoverished, Karaite Kabbalist doing teaching children, writing books, and copying manuscripts in mid-18th-century Eastern Europe?

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