An Unknown Hebrew Deliverance Narrative from 1772: The Story of Joseph Isaac Poppers՚ Illness and Recovery
An Unknown Hebrew Deliverance Narrative from 1772: The Story of Joseph Isaac Poppers՚ Illness and Recovery

Summary/Abstract: MS New York, Columbia University Libraries, General 261, contains a short narrative, which recounts the illness and recovery in February 1771 of a Jewish trader from Prague named Isaac Poppers, known from other sources. The text, titled Divre ha-yamim me-ish holekh tamim [The chronicles of a man who walketh uprightly] is a deliverance story, which exhibits a number of similarities to so-called family scrolls. The narrative mentions various rituals and liturgies that Poppers’ wife arranged to be performed in Vienna, where her husband was taken ill, and in their home city of Prague, where Rabbi Ezekiel Landau (1713– 1793) was instrumental in organizing the rituals. The article interprets illness and medical therapy in the Divre ha-yamim through a comparison with another story of healing found in the roughly contemporary Shivhe ha-Besht, the wellknown collection of Hasidic tales. A parallel reading of both texts sheds light on the importance of non-physical cause of Poppers’ illness and the ensuing necessity of ritual “repairing” (tikkun) of his non-physical ailments, which was a pre-condition for the efficacy of medical treatment of the physical disease. In contrast to other deliverance stories, in this case the memorial day was not established by the main male protagonist but by Poppers՚ wife Frumet. It represented a periodic culmination of ongoing penitential practices, prescribed for Poppers. The manuscript was completed on 29 January 1772, shortly before the first anniversary of Poppers՚ recovery. Poppers died in September 1777 and his memorial day was most likely discontinued. The article is followed by a complete edition of the Hebrew text, which contains a Yiddish-Hebrew postscript.

• Details
• Contents