Rabbi Yishma’el haCohen (1723-1811)

Rabbi Yishma’el haCohen was born in the city of Modena, Italy, in 1723. He was considered the most important rabbi (poseq) of his generation in Italy.  He was also a very beloved rabbi by all his congregants. Despite his great intellect, he used to speak to his congregants in a simple language and at their level of understanding.
Rabbi Yishma’el served as the rabbi of Modena for more than 30 years, but practically speaking he was the main rabbinic referent  of Italy during his lifetime. He wrote thousands of Teshubot (Rabbinic Responsa) answering to Halakhic questions sent by Italian Jews from all the corners of the country.   He was highly praised by all his contemporary colleagues, among them the famous rabbi Hayim Yosef David Azulai, the Hida.
The times of rabbi Yishma’el, were the times of the first reformers in Europe.  Many “enlightened” Jews were proposing radical changes in Judaism, to reform the Tora to modern times and remove from Judaism its national dimension. Rabbi Yishma’el stood at the vanguard on the battle against reform, safeguarding traditional Judaism against the new waves of assimilation.
He wrote many religious poems (pizmonim, baqashot), some of them were sung every shabbat in his Synagogue.He also wrote:

Sefat emet: a collection of his speeches on the Parasha of the week.
Shebah Pesah. A book that explains the Hagada of Pesah and the laws of the holiday.
His most famous book is zera’ emet.  This is a collection of hundreds of Responsa on many different Halakhic subjects. It is also very important because it is one of the first books to address questions that arose in modern times which required a respected  Halakhic authority to set new legal precedents.
The name of the book, zera’ emet (“True descendants”) requires some explanation. Rabbi Yishma’el did not have children. And although, as he mentioned in his book, he loved and care for every one of his students as if they were his own children, he considered this book his true legacy for posterity.  In the introduction of zera’ emet he quotes the beautiful analogy our Rabbis wrote to express the “immortality” acquired by a Torah Scholar who writes a relevant book. They said that when the readers read the words of a Torah scholar who passed away, “his lips move in his grave”, (siftotav dobebot baqaber), in other words, the act of reading revives the words of the Torah scholar, bringing  his legacy and memory back to life.
Rabbi Yishma’el passed away in Modena, 1811



Rabbi Menashe Setton (ca. 1810-1876)

Rabbi Menashe Setton ( סתהון , also Sittehon or Sutton)  was born in Aram Soba (Aleppo) Syria.  He was a great Tora scholar, well versed in secular knowledge like astronomy, philosophy, mathematics and engineering. Although he was an ordained rabbi,  Rabbi Setton supported himself through business initiatives.  Following the tradition of Sephardic rabbis he was also an expert in Hebrew grammar (diqduq).

Rabbi Setton’s most famous book is “kenesiya leshem shamayim”, a “gathering for the sake of heaven”.  In this short book rabbi Setton argues fiercely against a prevalent superstitious ceremony called “Endulzado” (Spanish for “sweetening”).

In the beginning of his book Rabbi Setton describes this practice: Whenever there was a sick member of the family, a women about to give birth, or someone whose loved ones were dying, etc.  they would empty a house, remove all type of Tora books and Mezuzot and display in the floor all kinds of baked sweets, candies, honey, etc. The patient and the expert exorcist would stay and sleep for three consecutive nights in that house. All this time, it was forbidden for the patient to pronounce any word of Tora or Tefila. The exorcist, usually a female, would summon “demons” (shedim) to visit the house. The demons would come into the house freely, because the house was empty of anything “holy” which would drive them away. Once the exorcist felt that the demos were inside the house, she would offer the demons those sweets to appease them and ask them to cure the patient or release the patient from their curse.

Rabbi Setton first explains that this is a flagrant act of idol-worshiping, known in Hebrew as ‘aboda zara, the most serious offense in the entire Tora.  He also explained that these people learned this ceremony from the books of the ancient “sabians”, an ancient pagan sect who worshiped angels and demons.

After describing this practice, rabbi Setton referred to the silence of the rabbis of the city. He said that the reason the rabbis did not denounce this practice was probably because they were not aware of what was going on behind those closed doors. Many of them thought that perhaps, people were just praying in an intense way, etc.  Once the rabbis became aware of what was going on in those houses, ALL the rabbis “gathered together for the sake of heaven” (from here the name of the book) to ban and eradicated this pagan practice.

Rabbi Sutton was widely supported in his efforts by numerous other rabbis from his city (thirty six rabbis from Aleppo signed their approval of his book) as well as from rabbinic leaders in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron, and Safed, from both the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities.

Rabbi Menashe Setton died in Alexandria, Egypt in 1876

To download this enlightening book KENESIYA LESHEM SHAMAYIM click here

לע”נ אייל יפרח, נפתלי פרנקל וגיל-עד שאער הי”ד



Rabbi Moshe Capsali 1420-1495

Rabbi Capsali was born in the Island of Crete (today Greece) in 1420.  Not much is known about his early life, except that he went to study Tora in Germany, became a rabbi and then in 1450 he settled in Constantinople (modern day, Istanbul). 

Rabbi Capsali became very prominent thanks to his closeness with the Turkish Sultan Mehmed the Second, also known as “The Conqueror”. Mehmed II brought the end of the Byzantine empire and conquered Constantinople in 1453. He was one of the most powerful men on the planet in those days. The Sultan appointed Rabbi Capsali as the Chief Rabbi or Hakham Bashi of the Ottoman empire.    

As the Chief rabbi of the Empire, rabbi Capsali was in charge of appointing other rabbis and supervising the collection of taxes coming from the Jews. He also acted as a civil judge. It is said that the Sultan’s respect for the rabbi was because, disguised as a civilian, Mehmed II was present one day while Capsali was rendering his decisions and he assured himself that the rabbi was incorruptible and impartial in his judgments.

The Sultan appreciated so much Rabbi Capsali that he assigned him a seat beside the Mufti, the Muslim highest authority, and above the seat of the Christian patriarch.

One of the most important contribution of Rabbi Capsali to Am Israel is that thanks to his favor with the Sultan, the Sultan opened the gates of his empire to tens of thousands of Jewish refugees who were escaping form the horrors of the Inquisition in Spain and from persecutions they suffered in many Christian countries. The Sultan allowed and even encouraged the Jewish refugees to build homes, synagogues and houses of study (Bate Midrash), and to practice their religion freely.

In 1492, towards the last years of Rabbi Capsali’s life, the great tragedy of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain took place. His advanced age notwithstanding, Rabbi Capsali dedicated himself in soul and body to help the victims of the expulsion. Many Sephardic Jews were captured by pirates when escaping from Spain and were sold as slaves. Rabbi Capsali personally traveled to various Jewish communities in his country to collect funds for Pidyon Shebuim, to redeem these Jews.  It was thanks to rabbi Capsali that the most prominent Sephardic communities in those times flourished in Constantinople and other cities of the Ottoman empire.

Rabbi Capsali died in 1495 at the age of 75 he was succeeded as Hakham Bashi by  Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrahi.



Rabbi Hayim Habib (1882-1945)

Rabbi Hayim Habib was born in the city of Salonica (aka Saloniki, or Thessaloniki), Greece, in 1882. His father was a Dayan (Rabbinical judge), rabbi Refael Habib.  The Salonican Jewish community was one of the most prolific Sephardic communities in the world. In 1900 there were approximately 80,000 Jews in Salonica, out of a total population of 173,000 souls. The Jews could be found in every profession: merchants,  lawyers, physicians, teachers, etc. The Jewish stevedores of Salonica were famous. On Shabbats the town and the port was closed since the Jews did not work. There were 49 Synagogues in Salonica and a 500-year-old Sephardic cemetery with half-million graves. 

Rabbi Hayim Habib studied in the Talmud Tora (elementary and High School) under rabbi Moshe Ottolenghi (1840-1901) and later in the rabbinical School of Salonica, “Bet Yosef” where he was granted his rabbinical ordination.  He also studied accounting and European languages. 

When he was in his early 40’s Rabbi Habib was offered to serve as the chief rabbi of Salonica.  He was so humble that at the beginning he refused to take the position, but upon the insistence of the Rabbis, he accepted the difficult job.   The duties of rabbi Habib were many. Besides being responsible of the kashrut of the city and overseeing all the technical issues of Jewish family Law, Bet Din, etc. he was also in charge of overseeing education . He supervised the rabbinical school, the appointment of hazanim, mohalim and rabbanim for all the Synagogues of the city. 

He was also involved in the schools, assisting the teachers, examining the students and making improvements in the school curriculum, which included also the study of modern Hebrew.  Rabbi Habib and all Salonica Jews, were very involved in the Zionist movement. 
Rabbi Habib was very loved by its community and many considered him a saint (איש קדוש) because he was always helping those in need. The poor, the sick, the elder, they all could count with the unconditional support of rabbi Habib. 

During the early 1900′ many Salonica Jews left Greece and emigrated to the US , France and Israel. Still, the pre-World War II Jewish population of Salonica counted 56,000 souls. In 1941 the Nazis יש”ו came to Salonica.  They destroyed the Synagogues, the Jewish schools, the libraries, and desecrated the Jewish cemetery.   98 percent of Salonica’s Jews, 54,000 Sephardic Jews, were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau, or died during the long, exhausting Death March from January to May 1945.  Among them Rabbi Hayim Habib, his wife and his two daughters הי”ד.

Rabbi Habib had also another daughter and a son who emigrated to Israel before the Nazis came into the city. The descendants of rabbi Habib live today in Tel Aviv.

 

 

 



Rabbi Shaul haLevi Mortera (1596-1660)

Rabbi Shaul haLevi Mortera was born in Venice, Italy, in 1596. He was a descendent of Portuguese Jews. In 1616 Rabbi Mortera escorted the body of the famous Jewish doctor Eliyahu Montalto, the personal physician of Maria di Medici, from Paris to Amsterdam. There, the new Sephardic community appointed him as their new Rabbi.
In Amsterdam, Rabbi Mortera continued his studies under rabbi Ytshaq Uziel, a rabbi from Morocco. He founded the school Keter Torah, in the highest class of which he taught Talmud and Jewish Philosophy. After a few years he was appointed as the Head of the rabbinical court of the  community of Amsterdam.
Later, he founded and taught in the famous Yeshiba Ets haHayim. Among his students were Rabbi Moshe Zacuto, Rabbi Abraham haCohen Pimientel (author of the book “Minhat Cohen”) and Baruch Spinoza.   Rabbi Mortera was one of the three dayanim which pronounced the excommunication (herem) against Spinoza on July 27, 1656.
Rabbi Mortera’s most famous book is Gib’at Shaul (here) written in Hebrew, Amsterdam, 1645. A collection of fifty sermons, selected from over 500 sermons, on the weekly sections of the Tora.
Rabbi Mortera was an expert in compared religions, and at that time, when many Jews who lived under the Inquisition for generations were coming back to embrace Judaism, it was critical to teach these “New Jews” (most of them educated in convents) the principles of Judaism, and particularly the differences between Judaism and Christianity.    He wrote many books for these Jews, in Portuguese  and Spanish. Among them: Tratado de la Verdad de la Ley de Moshe, written originally in Portuguese. In this work he defends Judaism against the attacks of Christianity and explains the Jewish view on the Mashiach, immortality of the soul, God’s revelation,  etc. clarifying the Jewish understanding of the Biblical verses the Church used to sustain their beliefs.
 
SOME OF THE BOOKS RABBI MORTERA  
WROTE for the “NEW JEWS”
 
Preguntas Que Hizo Un Clerigo de Ruan de Francia. 
A defense from the attacks of a Catholic priest against the talmud.  
Providencia de Dios con Israel
Why God chose the Jewish people? How this choice is manifest? 
  
Memorable relacion para confucion de aquellos que niegan la providencia divina
The Jewish belief in God’s constant providence and supervision (hashagcha)   
Obstaculos y opociciones contra la religion Christiana
A critical view on the principles of Christianity   
Tratados varios relativos a la religión judía
Basic principles of Judaism for “new Jews”.    
La eternidad de la ley de Mosseh
The eternal Law of Moshe, the Tora, cannot be replaced by a new testament. For more information see this

 



Rabbi Isaac Cardoso (1608-1687)

Rabbi Isaac Cardoso was a Jewish physician, philosopher and polemic writer. He was born as Fernando Cardoso into a marrano family in Beira, Portugal in 1604. His family, as many other Jewish families in Portugal, kept Jewish observance secretly for many generations. 

Fernando studied medicine, philosophy, and natural sciences at the prestigious university of Salamanca, Spain.  He excelled in his medical practice and in 1632 he became the chief physician of Madrid.   In Madrid he published an article on Mt. Vesuvius, analyzing the causes of earthquakes. He also composed a funeral poem (elegy)  for the famous Spanish poet Lope de Vega and a treatise on the uses of cold water, dedicated to King Philip IV of Spain.  Fernando Cardoso left Spain and settled in Venice where he embraced publicly Judaism.  In Venice he changed his name  to “Isaac.”  After a short stay in Venice he settled in Verona, where he remained until his death, highly honored by Jews and Christians.

Aside from the works already mentioned, Cardoso published a comprehensive treatise on cosmogony, physics, medicine, philosophy, theology, and natural sciences, printed at Venice in 1673 under the title Philosophia Libera in Septem Libros Distributa.

He wrote his most famous Jewish book in Spanish,  “Las Excelencias y Calumnias de los Hebreos”, printed in 1679 at Amsterdam.  In the first ten chapters of this long book he describes the “excelencias” (distinguishing features) of the Jews, their selection by God, their separation from all other peoples by special laws, their compassion for the sufferings of others, their philanthropy, chastity, faith, etc.; and in next ten chapters he refutes the “calumnias” (calumnies) brought against them; that they worship false gods, they have a tail,  smell badly, are hard and unfeeling toward other peoples, have corrupted Scripture, blaspheme holy images and the host, kill Christian children to use the blood for ritual purposes, etc.

This book was submitted in 1679 to Rabbi Shemuel Abohab in Venice. Rabbi Abohab praised the book and thanked rabbi Cardoso for his splendid work. 

Those who can understand classic Spanish can read now “Las Excelencias y Calumnias de los Hebreos”, directly from the original source, thanks to Hebrewbooks.  See  THIS.  

A brief text from the introduction


“El pueblo de Ysrael, al mismo passo amado de Dios que perseguido de los hombres, ha dos mil anios desde el tiempo de Nebuhadnezar que anda esparzido en las naciones….de unas maltratado, de otras herido, y de todas desespreciado, sin que haya monarquia o reyno que no haya desembainado contra el la espada…”

My translation (Y.B.): 
The people of Israel, at the same time loved by God and persecuted by men, has been two thousand years, from the times of Nebuhadnezzar,  scattered among the nations…. abused by some, wounded by other, and despised by all, there is no monarchy or kingdom that has not drawn its sword against him



Rabbi Menahem de Lonzano (d.1611)

It is not known when and where Rabbi Menahem ben Judah  de Lonzano was born. Probably in Turkey or Italy. But we do know that at avery young age he settled in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem).
Rabbi Lonzano had a very difficult life. He lost both his father and mother at a very young age, and throughout his entire life he was haunted by poverty and sickness . He was paralyzed in both feet and with the sight of one eye entirely lost.  He still was a great Talmudist, a poet and a distinguished grammarian.
Or Tora is perhaps his most famous work. This book is about the Masoretic Biblical text.  This deserves a brief explanation. The Sefer Tora, the Torah scroll, is written without vowels and without te’amim (punctuation marks). The Humashim, the printed books of Tora from which we study and follow the Torah reading, include the vowels, te’amim, etc. This is the Masoretic text. Many times there are small variations in the vowels and te’amim, almost irrelevant for beginners but very significant for the expert readers, teachers, rabbis and for those who publish Tora books. In this important work, “The Light of the Tora” rabbi Lonzano goes thru the text of the Pentateuch and clarifies the right Masoretic version. Rabbi Lonzano follows a rigorous method of comparing our texts with old Biblical texts, some of them -he says- were more than 600 years old,  to arrive to the most precise version of the Masoretic text.    
Another important book he wrote is the ma‘arikh, a book that clarifies obscure words found in classic Rabbinic texts . The famous Rabbi Hida wrote about this book: “Rabbi Menahem de Lonzano elucidated many unclear words in the Talmud Yerushalmi and the Zohar in a rather scientific way… because he was an expert in the Greek, Arabic and Turkish language… I saw that while many rabbis interpreted those words according to their context, rabbi Lonzano clarified these words based on his solid knowledge [of philology] and the impressive collection of old books and manuscripts which preserved the most accurate version of these words.”  
 
Rabbi De Lonzano died in 1611 and is buried in Har haZetim, Mt Olives Cemetery, Jerusalem.
Click here to download sefer OR TORA ( Amsterdam, 1659).
Click here to download sefer MA’ARIKH (Leipzig, Germany, 1853 ).


Rabbi Yosef Hayon (15th Century, Portugal)

Not many details are known about the biographical data of rabbi Yosef Hayon (or Hayun). We know that he was born and died in Lisbon, Portugal. And that his main rabbinical activity must have been between 1440 and 1480.  We also know that he was considered “The last Rabbi of Lisbon”, before the forced conversion of the Portuguese Jews in 1496.  Rabbi Hayon was one of the four students of rabbi Isaac Canpanton (1360-1463), the Gaon of Castile (Spain) and author of darkhe haTalmud, a book that instructs teachers and rabbis how to teach the Talmud.  


We also know that Rabbi Hayon lead a selected group of students to whom he taught  the More Nebukhim, Maimonides’ Guide of Perplexed, a book that requires, beyond mastery of Biblical and rabbinical literature,  a vast knowledge of philosophy, language and science.   Among his students in that circle was the celebrate Rabbi Don Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508) 

Rabbi Hayon wrote commentaries on most Biblical books. But most of those books are not extant today.  What we do have in its entirety is his commentary on Pirqe Abot, written in 1470 . 

Some of the personal characteristic of Rabbi Hayon might be learned from his commentaries about the ideal Tora Scholar. 

Rabbi Hayon says (p. 163, Venezia Edition): “If a Tora scholar wants to have many students, he has to be a role model. If the teacher’s personal actions do not reflect his wisdom and his moral teachings, he will not have students”. 

When a Tora scholar teaches or speaks (p. 104), “he has to use few words with rich meaning, and not many words with little meaning… long discourses are not easy to digest for the students” 

A rabbi (p.281) “cannot loss his temper, not just with his students but with every person, because anger and wisdom exclude each other (כי הכעס מעלים חכמה).    On the contrary , the rabbi has to be friendly with all those who come to learn from him. This attitude is what will allow students to getting closer to the rabbi”.

Rabbi Hayon explains (p.174) that there is a balance to be kept in the relationship between a rabbi and his students. The rabbi, being an authority, has to behave with humbleness toward his students. But the students should not behave toward the rabbi according to the rabbi’s humbleness; the students must act toward the rabbi with the respect owed to a high authority.  
Rabbi Yosef’s great humbleness is reflected in one of his commentaries (p.187) where he says that a student should not learn just from one rabbi (תלמיד חכמים), “because even a great rabbi could be mistaken in some of his opinions, and other rabbis with less knowledge might have great ideas”.  Let’s remember that this encouragement is coming from the Senior Rabbi of Portugal. 
 
 
To download the book MILE DEABOT click here
 


Rabbi Ya’aqob Kholi (1689-1732)

Rabbi Ya’aqob Kholi (aka Culi, Koli, etc) was born in Yerushalayim in 1689. In those days the situation of the Jews in Israel turned to be disastrous, politically and financially, and at a young age, rabbi Ya’aqob established himself in Constantinople, Turkey.  There he met the famous rabbi Yehuda Rosanes. Rabbi Ya’aqob became one of this best students, and Rabbi Rosanes assigned him as Dayan of Constantinople.  In 1727 rabbi Rosanes died, leaving behind a vast literary work in handwriting. Rabbi Ya’aqob took upon himself to publish his teacher’s books, knowing that the task will demand many years of his life.  In 1728 he published Rabbi Rosanes’ Parashat Derakhim and in 1731 he published the most famous book of rabbi Rosanes: Mishne leMelekh, a commentary on Maimonides’ Mishne Tora.  During these years he also began his own work, the famous book me’am lo’ez.  
Me’am lo’ez is an extraordinary book, a monumental anthology of Midrashim and Halakhic material, arranged according to the weekly Parasha. The special thing about this book is that it was one of the first books written for the masses, not for Tora-scholars.  One book of this sort was previously written, ‘en-ya’aqob, by Rabbi Kholi’s great-grandfather, rabbi Ya’aqob ibn Habib.  The book was written in Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish (Spanish written with Hebrew characters) the language introduced  by those Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, which became popular among most Sephardic communities.   

Aside form the rich Talmudic material, rabbi Ya’aqob introduced many autobiographic notes and anecdotes, which makes the reader feel transported to the ancient Sephardic communities in Turkey and other parts of the Middle East, where Jews were victims of permanent abuse and persecutions. In those difficult circumstances Me’am Lo’ez invites the Jewish families to see the Shabbat as an “Island of time”, a 24 hours opportunity to disconnect from sadness and enjoy peace and happiness.  The author encourages Jews, most of them living in poor conditions, to practice Hesed (kindness) with those who are in a worse situation.  He found that the best antidote to cope with the feelings of hardship is not self-pity but opening one’s homes and hearts to those who are poorer than him (hakhnasat orahim), to take care of the widows, the orphans and the sick.  Rabbi Kholi died at a very young age. When he was just 43 years old.  

 

 
ספר מעם לועז
Rabbi Kholi, the author of me’am lo’ez, wrote the book of Genesis and on two thirds of the book of Shemot.  He had a great zekhut: in the same way that he published the books of his ancestors and teachers, his own book me’am lo’ez was continued by several rabbis from Turkey and other communities, for generations to come. 
Rabbi Ytshaq Magriso completed the book of Exodus and wrote the commentary on the books of Leviticus and Numbers.
Deuteronomy was written by Rabbi Ytshaq Bekhor Agruiti. 
The Book of Yehoshua by Rabbi Rahamim Menahem Miterani. 
The book of Esther by Rabbi Raphael Hiya Pontremoli. 
Rabbi Shemuel Yerushalmi translated the Me’am Lo’ez to Hebrew. 
And Rabbi  Aryeh Kaplan from Ladino to English  (see this)


 


Rabbi Binyamin Musafia (1606-1675)

Rabbi Binyamin ben Emanuel Musafia was born in Spain in 1606. He belonged to a family of “conversos”, Jews that were forced to convert and pretend to live as Christians, while studying Tora and observe Jewish law in secret.  In Spain he studied medicine and at a young age he went to Hamburg where he was able to practice openly his Jewish faith.
While in Hamburg he was invited to serve as a physician in the Danish-Norway Monarchy. He was the personal doctor of King Christian the IVth. Here in 1640 he composed his first book in Latin:   “Sacro-Medics” a book that contains 650 different medical advices, cures and antidotes coming from the Hebrew Bible. He signed his name in Latin  “Dionysius Manuel”
In 1642 he went to Amsterdam. When his wife died, six years after their wedding, he composed in her honor a book called “zekher rab”, in this book he took all the nouns and verbs of the Hebrew Bible in thematic order and composed for each term pomes of praise and prayer to haShem.  This extraordinary book was reprinted in Germany in 1868 by rabbi Naftali Hertz with footnotes mentioning the sources of each term.  To download this book click  here.
At his old age Rabbi Musafia served as the rabbi of the Sephardic community of Amsterdam (Spanish -Portuguese). At this time he wrote a commentary on the Talmud of Jerusalem which was never published.  In those days 1664-1665 the false Messiah Shabbetai Zebi was acclaimed by most Jewish communities and Rabbis.  The community of Amsterdam was no exception, and apparently, rabbi Musafia was also a supporter of Shabettai Zebi until the false Messiah converted to islam in 1666.   As rabbi David Margaliot explains, unfortunately most rabbis of that time fell naively into this belief, more for psychological than from philosophical reasons.
The main contribution of Rabbi Binyamin Musafia is a book called “Musaf he’arukh”, a supplement to the famous book “he’arukh”. The book “he’arukh” written in the 11th century by Rabbi Nathan ben Yehiel from Roma, is one of the most important books of Jewish linguistic. A comprehensive dictionary of difficult words found in the Talmud and Midrash.  The sefer he’arukh was extensively used by great rabbis, for example, Rashi (see TB Shabbat 13b) who quoted the ‘arukh as an authoritative book . Rabbi Musafia wrote a multiple-volumes supplement to that book: “Mosif he’arukh”.  Rabbi Musafia was an expert in classic literature and languages, and the Talmudic Literature contains approximately 3000 terms coming from Greek or Latin. His contribution was thus priceless.
He died in Amsterdam in 1675.