Philosophical and Kabbalistic Interpretations of Sacrifices in Late Medieval Ashkenaz

In this paper, I compare the approaches of three late medieval Ashkenazic scholars to the interpretation of Biblical sacrifices and their efficacy. Examining the works of Menahem ben Jacob Shalem, an interesting, if relatively obscure student of Maimonidean philosophy active in Prague at the beginning of the fifteenth century, Yom Tov Lipmann Muhlhausen, a polemicist, halakhist and Shalem`s colleage at the bet din in Prague, and Menahem Zion, a scholar from Cologne and the author of a Kabbalistic biblical commentary Zioni, I explore how these scholars conceptualized the conflict between philosophical and kabbalistic interpretations of Jewish religious practice and the tension between philosophy and Kabbalah more generally. Using manuscript material that has not been studied before, I show that each of these scholars interpreted the core and essence of this tension differently. At the same time, they addressed a shared concern. Their comments, often polemical in nature, illustrate the strategies devised to articulate, channel, and suppress the disharmony created by the attempts to integrate the study of philosophical texts into the broader canvas of Ashkenazic spiritual and intellectual life alongside other esoteric traditions. Attempts to harmonize the tension between philosophy and Kabbalah, or to delineate a clear line between them, reflect the broadening of intellectual horizons of Ashkenazic Jews at this critical historical juncture.