The hapless author managed with difficulty to restore the text of his "executed" work, and published it at Vilna in 1822.

Here the rabbinical censorship pounced upon him.

The book had not yet left the press, when the rabbi of Vilna, Saul Katzenellenbogen, learned that in one passage the writer deduced from a verse in Deuteronomy (17.9) the right of the "judges" or spiritual leaders of each generation to modify many religious laws and customs in accordance with the requirements of the time.

The rabbi gave our author fair warning that, unless this heretical argument was withdrawn, he would have the book burned publicly in the synagogue yard.

Menashe was forced to submit, and, contrary to his conviction, weakened his heterodox argument by a number of circumlocutions.
[Footnote 1: With a clever allusion to the Hebrew text of Deut.