For anyone who has the sefer, can you tell me if this Rabbi is listed in that book? Also, does anyone know of any Rabbis, contemporary with him or later or even now, who were or are or would be opposed to reading his sefer "Conciliador," in which he constantly cites Christians in his peirush on the Torah? Thanks.
2 Answers
As mentioned by @Alex, his biography is in Early Acharonim beginning on page 158.
As I read the bio, which is fairly long as compared to other biographies in the book, I was struck by how much his background sounded very similar to Rabbi Yosef Solomon Rofeh of Delmedigo.
And then to my surprise, at the end of his bio, it states they were contemporaries and that Yashar of Delmedigo had written high praise of him and how he was recognized for his scholarship by both Jews and Christians in Amsterdam.
Much of what he wrote was aimed at the Marranos who had escaped Portugal to more tolerant Amsterdam.
Many in that community had been educated and raised with Christian teaching. So much of his work was written specifically for that part of the Jewish community in Amsterdam.
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Thanks. It seems that although Rabbi Menashe wrote the book l'shem shamayim in order to bring back the Marranos to Yiddishkeit and was a great tzaddik, as can be proven from his inclusion in the Chida's Shem HaGedolim, it is probably forbidden nowadays to read such a book, as it contains countless teachings from non-Jewish Christian sources and other non-Jewish sources.– user19095Apr 29, 2019 at 5:38
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@IsraelReader I’m assuming you were directing your request to user19095. You need to precede his exact screen name with @ in order to draw it to his attention. Jun 4, 2019 at 23:19
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@user19095 Can you provide sources that indicate that a "pshat" from non-Jewish sources, is unacceptable, even if it is correct? Jun 5, 2019 at 10:46
From this Google Books preview it appears that he is listed in the book, on page 158:
