Delmedigo does not seem, on the whole, to have been at ease in Poland. He could not carouse with the nobles whom he attended professionally for fear of the Jews, and it was not possible to earn money in so poor a country. So he betook himself by way of Dantzic to Hamburg, where a Portuguese community had been lately permitted to settle. His knowledge of medicine seems to have met with little esteem in the city on the Elbe. What was his skill in comparison with that of the De Castros, father and son? He was compelled, in order to subsist, to undertake a certain amount of rabbinical duty, if only as preacher. For the sake of bread he had to play the hypocrite, and speak in favor of Rabbinical Judaism. Nay, in order to dissipate the rumor from Poland, which represented him as a heretic, he was not ashamed to praise the Kabbala, which he had shortly before condemned, as the highest wisdom, before which philosophy and all sciences must be dumb. For this purpose he prepared his defense of the secret doctrine, in refutation of the crushing arguments against it by one of his ancestors, Elias Del Medigo. His work was of the kind to throw dust in the eyes of the ignorant multitude; it displayed a smattering of learning on all sorts of subjects, but no trace of logic. He was too clever to maintain the sheepish style of dull, stupid credulity, and could not refrain from satire. He defended the genuineness of the Zohar as an ancient work by Simon bar Yochaï, or at least by his school. He argued that one must not be shocked by its many incongruities and absurdities; the Talmud also contains not a few, and is yet a sacred book. To save his reputation with the more intelligent, Delmedigo intimated that he had defended the Kabbala only from necessity. We must not, he says, superficially judge the character of an author by his words. He, for instance, was writing this defense of the Kabbala at the desire of a patron of high position, who was enamored of it. Should this friend come to be of another mind, and require an attack upon the Kabbala, he would not refuse him. In conclusion, he observes that philosophical students would no doubt ridicule him for having turned his back on wisdom, and betaken himself to folly; but he would rather be called a fool all his life than for a single hour transgress against piety.