The rise of arts and sciences in the Renaissance brought a new spirit to Europe, and at the helm was the watershed invention of the printing press. The entire world was revolutionized because of it, but nobody as much as the "people of the book." Great works of Jewish scholarship were now made accessible to the masses. Yet while the Renaissance brought about the spread of ideas, it also allowed charlatans to flourish. Rabbi Wein concludes this lecture with the fascinating stories of the false messiahs who preceded Shabtai Tzvi.

• Copernicus, Galileo, and the Church's suppression of science
• the Jews and their prominence in the Renaissance
• Soncino, Italy - where Jewish book publishing began
• copyright - a new concept in Jewish Law
• Dovid Ha Reuveni, Shlomo Molcho, and Eldad Adani