Pleasures and liberation from religious supervision -- Temptations of fashion and passion -- The mystical sect: subversive Sabbateans -- The rationalist sect: neo-Karaites and deists -- Providence is tested: secularization on the rise in the 1760s -- The supremacy of nature: deists on the margins -- The emergence of the new world -- Scandals and rebellions -- Replacing Mosaic laws with laws of freedom -- On the decline of Judaism: the last decade -- Soon our faith will be lost: deists and believers
Summary
Throughout the eighteenth century, an ever-sharper distinction emerged between Jews of the old order and those who were self-consciously of a new world. In this pioneering work Shmuel Feiner reconstructs this evolution by listening to the voices of those who participated in this process by deciphering its cultural codes and meanings
