“Seek the Peace of the City to which I have exiled you” in Simone Luzzatto and Menasseh ben Israel, with Azariah de’ Rossi behind the Scenes
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Abstract
Not infrequently, specific biblical passages attain a special resonance at particular moments of Jewish history, coming to be interpreted in a fresh light in response to contingent circumstances. In the early modern period, Jer 29:7 was invoked in order to defend the Jews’ rights of residence in various geographical contexts and to assert the value of their cultural and economic contribution. This chapter analyses how Simone Luzzatto and Menasseh ben Israel used this verse, highlighting the extent to which they drew inspiration from Azariah de’ Rossi. Both, indeed, combined the exhortation of Jeremiah, just as Azariah had done, with a passage from Philo’s On the Special Laws, with a specific extract from the book of Ezra, and with the same passages from Flavius Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities. Menasseh follows Azariah even more closely than Luzzatto does. Through their recovery, thanks to Menasseh, a rich and cogent argument begins to take shape, which aims to emphasise the care and attention that the Jews devoted to the non-Jewish world, and above all to their rulers, in their prayers.