Abstrakt
The chapter posits the question about the relation of the thought of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Betsalel (Maharal, ca. 1525-1609) to the Renaissance Humanism. In the first part, it deals with two Maharal's known philosophical-theological controversies.
In his attack on the work of Azariah de' Rossi, the Maharal rejected the possibility of historicising the rabbinic narratives (aggadot), while the debate with Eliezer Ashkenazi is in many ways a continuation of the attack on Azariah. The chapter interprets Maharal's relevant texts as addressed primarily to the circle of the students of his Kloiz - an academy for adult students.
From this angle, while the Maharal speaks rather as a conservative defender of the "traditional", he acts as an initiator of a dialogue about the most progressive and controversial trends. In the second part, the chapter gives a survey of Maharal's anthropology and delineates its emphatically exclusivist limitations.
Conclusion: The Maharal shares certain themes with the Renaissance humanism, which on its own is remarkable among the 16th century Jews north from the Alps. At the same moment, the limitations of his acceptance of Renaissance-humanist concepts of man are so narrow that it is impossible to define the Maharal as a Renaissance humanist but rather as an integrist-theologian with a component of Renaissance-humanism.