Abraham Yagel

Abraham Yagel (1553 to 1623) was an Italian Jewish catechist, philosopher and cabalist, born at Monselice, who lived in turn at Luzzara, Venice, Ferrara and Sassuolo. His Lekah Tov, printed at Venice in 1587, is a Jewish catechism shaped on the model of the catechisms then used by the Roman clergy: it lists seven cardinal sins and treats faith, hope and charity, yet it leaves out the Decalogue so that heretics could not claim the Torah is only the Ten Commandments. He also wrote on curing plague by prayer and fasting, on the virtues of a wife, and on the secular sciences. Many details of his life come from his dream narrative Ge Hizzayon, and his own account of capture by bandits in 1615 shows he was still known as a pious Jew, which scholars use to separate him from the Christian censor Camillo Jagel.