A Karaite Ḥakham Kolel and a Hebrew Poet: Zeraḥ ben Nathan in a New World

Abstract

In modern research, Karaite Jews are often viewed, discussed, and scrutinized against their relationship with the Jewish mainstream-rabbinic Jews. Through centuries of survival as a minority form of Judaism, Karaites did adjust some of their ideas and traditions to conform to certain rabbinic standards, but they did so without losing their distinctive identity.¹ Nonetheless, Karaite halakha is often of interest due to its "deviations" from rabbinic halakha, and Karaite customs are worth mentioning due to their divergences from rabbinic minhagim.² Even certain Karaite individuals have roused attention, not because of the individuals themselves, but because of their relationship with someone more prominent from among the folds of mainstream Judaism.A case in point is the chief personality of this article, the Lithuanian Karaite Zeraḥ ben Nathan (ca. 1578 -1657/8),³ whose intellectual musings helped to inspire the Rabbanite scholar and polymath, Joseph Solomon Delmedigo of Candia (1591-1655).⁴ The ephemeral rise of Zeraḥ ben Nathan to fame owes to his correspondence over scientific questions with Delmedigo, published by the latter in  On such renewals in the fifteenth-century Byzantine Empire, including the use of candles on the Sabbath, see Daniel Frank, "Karaite Exegetical and Halakhical Literature in Byzantium and Turkey," in Karaite Judaism: A Guide to its History and Literary Studies, ed. Meira Polliack (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 550-52.  This trend has been pointed out by Yoram Erder, "Daily prayer times in Karaite halakha in light of the times of Islamic prayers," Revue des études juives 153 (1994): 5 -6. For a comparison of Karaite customs mainly with rabbinic ones, see, e. g. Percy Selvin Goldberg, Karaite Liturgy and its Relation to Synagogue Worship (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1957).