GORDON, JACOB

GORDON, JACOB (1902–1943), philosopher. Gordon was born in Vilna. After graduating from the Jewish gymnasium founded by the Society for the Promotion of Culture among Jews, he studied philosophy, history, and psychology at the University of Hamburg (1920–24). His doctoral thesis, a comparative study of Kant's and hermann cohen 's philosophies, was published in 1926 with the aid of the Hermann Cohen Fund of the Akademie fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums and Albert Einstein. Gordon returned to Vilna, where he worked in the yivo Institute of Jewish Research and on scholarly journals in Yiddish. In World War II, during the Nazi occupation, he was employed by the Vilna Judenrat, during which time he continued his philosophical studies. In January 1943 he addressed a letter in Yiddish to the Writers' and Artists' Committee of the Vilna Ghetto in which he outlined his plan to write a study on the "a priori foundations of history" and on "Kant and Schopenhauer," but pointed out that nobody "could concentrate on a priori idealist matters while living under empirical, realistic conditions where getting money to buy a piece of bread assumes the weight and somberness of a fateful event." In September, a month before the liquidation of the ghetto, Gordon was deported to the Vaivara camp in Estonia, where he died as a result of malnutrition. Apart from his doctoral thesis, all of Gordon's works were written in Yiddish. He edited the academic journals Etyuden and Kultur un Problemen and published a Yiddish translation of Kant's Prolegomena. During the ghetto years he wrote an essay on the "Specificity of History." Most of his collected writings were published in Israel in Hebrew in 1961 under the title Yaḥid ve-Ḥevrah ba-Historyah ("Individual and Society in History"), with an introduction by S.H. Bergman. GORDON, JEKUTHIEL BEN LEIB GORDON, JEKUTHIEL BEN LEIB (18th century), kabbalist. Gordon went from Vilna to study medicine at the University of Padua. He became acquainted with Moses ḤayyimLuzzatto in Padua. At that time, Luzzatto was organizing his group for study and messianic activity. Gordon, who became his foremost disciple, was one of the first seven who signed the "regulations" of Luzzatto's circle around 1728. In 1729 Gordon wrote a letter in which he related in detail the activities of Luzzatto, especially the revelation of the maggid, the divine revelatory agent which disclosed to Luzzatto the Zohar Tinyana ("second Zohar"). Gordon described Luzzatto's many mystical powers and told of how various ẓaddikim were revealed to him. This letter fell into the hands of Moses Ḥagiz , who saw that the activities recounted in the letter were close to Shabbatean practices, and asked the rabbis of Venice to intervene and stop them. Gordon supported Luzzatto in the ensuing controversy. He probably discontinued his medical studies to devote his energy to the activities of the group. A poem written by Luzzatto seems to indicate, with other sources, that Gordon was believed by Luzzatto and his circle to be a reincarnation (gilgul ) of the soul of the hero Samson, who would be revealed in messianic times as Serayah from the tribe of Dan, and would be one of the leaders of the Israelite army in the apocalyptic wars. Gordon returned to Eastern Europe after Luzzatto had to cease his activities in Padua, but he probably continued to preach Luzzatto's teachings. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. Ginzburg, Ramḥal u-Venei Doro (1937), 18–20 and passim; I. Tishby, Netivei Emunah u-Minut (1964), 169–72, 192–6; Y. David, in: Tarbiz, 31 (1961/62), 102–4; J. Dan, ibid., 412–3. (Joseph Dan)