Samuel Usque's Consolation For The Tribulations Of Israel

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Man has always sought to give meaning to tragedy: Does suffering have any purpose? Is it part of the divine plan? The generation that witnessed the tragedy of the expulsion from Spain and Portugal asked these questions, and Samuel Usque, one of the exiles, offered an answer which he called Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel. Samuel Usque must have pondered the matter for many years and, toward the eve¬ning of his life, around the 1550’s, composed in the Portuguese language this strange, sad, highly emotional explanation for the calam¬ity which had befallen his people. Not sur¬prisingly his book took on the form and manner of an apocalypse—flowery in word¬ing, luxuriant in imagery, far-fetched in parables. It is a literary monument to a gen¬eration in despair and a heart-rending cry for heavenly aid. With substantial difference in style and. presentation, a modern theologically- minded Jew would not explain the destruction of German and Polish Jewries in the 1940’s much differently. Israel has sinned by breaking the Covenant or by not being true to itself. Hence it was punished through the very peoples whose ways it has assimilated. This, said Usque, was true of the Jews of Spain; this, the moderns would say, was true of the Jews of Central Europe. Usque divided his presentation into three dialogues, each covering a period of Jewish history: the First Temple, the Second Temple, and the period of the Diaspora. For the first two he drew upon what historical sources were available to him. For the latter part of the third period He had original information. But the temper and intellectual climate of Usque’s day is clear throughout. Although this book plunges the reader into an unusual environment and into a mode of thought alien to the twentieth century, it deserves attention for the very reason that it affords insight into the soul of a sorely tried and bewildered generation. Dr. Martin A. Cohen is on the faculty of the New York school of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, where he teaches History and Bible. He did gradu¬ate work in Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania and at Rutgers University. He was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and there received his degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Man has always sought to give meaning to tragedy: Does suffering have any purpose? Is it part of the divine plan?...

Author:Martin A Cohen
Type:Softcover
Condition Rating:Good

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Samuel Usque's Consolation For The Tribulations Of Israel

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