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| - Until seventeen Emden studied Talmud under his father Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi, the foremost Talmudic authority of the age, first at Altona, then from 1710 to 1714 at Amsterdam. In 1715 Emden married Rachel, the daughter of Mordecai ben Naphtali Kohen, rabbi of Uherský Brod, Moravia, and continued his studies in his father-in-law's yeshivah. Emden became well versed in Talmudic literature; later he studied philosophy, Kabbalah, and grammar, and made an effort to acquire the Latin and Dutch languages, in which, however, he was seriously hindered by his belief that a Jew should occupy himself with secular sciences only during the hour of twilight. This belief stems from the biblical verse (Josh. I, 8): "You will study [the Torah] day and night", leaving room for secular studies during hours, whi
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| abstract
| - Until seventeen Emden studied Talmud under his father Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi, the foremost Talmudic authority of the age, first at Altona, then from 1710 to 1714 at Amsterdam. In 1715 Emden married Rachel, the daughter of Mordecai ben Naphtali Kohen, rabbi of Uherský Brod, Moravia, and continued his studies in his father-in-law's yeshivah. Emden became well versed in Talmudic literature; later he studied philosophy, Kabbalah, and grammar, and made an effort to acquire the Latin and Dutch languages, in which, however, he was seriously hindered by his belief that a Jew should occupy himself with secular sciences only during the hour of twilight. This belief stems from the biblical verse (Josh. I, 8): "You will study [the Torah] day and night", leaving room for secular studies during hours, which are neither truly day nor truly night. He was opposed to philosophy, and maintained that The Guide to the Perplexed could not have been written by Maimonides, as he could not imagine that a pious Jew would write a work accepting and promoting what Emden saw as a non-Jewish theology. Emden spent three years at Ungarish-Brod, where he held the office of private lecturer in Talmud. Then be became a dealer in jewelry and other articles, which occupation compelled him to travel. He generally declined to accept the office of rabbi, though in 1728 he was induced to accept the rabbinate of Emden, from which place he took his name. In 1733 Emden returned to Altona, where he obtained the permission of the Jewish community to possess a private synagogue. Emden was at first on friendly terms with Moses Hagis, the head of the Portuguese-Jewish community at Altona, who was afterward turned against Emden by some calumny. His relations with Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, the chief rabbi of the German community, were strained from the very beginning. Emden seems to have considered every successor of his father as an intruder. A few years later Emden obtained from the King of Denmark the privilege of establishing at Altona a printing-press. He was soon attacked for his publication of the siddur (prayer book) Ammudei Shamayim, being accused of having dealt arbitrarily with the text. His opponents did not cease denouncing him even after he had obtained for his work the approbation of the chief rabbi of the German communities.
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