The Jewish Enlightenment

Shmuel Feiner, Chaya Naor

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780812200942
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Jewish History
• Index: History

At the beginning of the eighteenth century most European Jews lived in restricted settlements and urban ghettos, isolated from the surrounding dominant Christian cultures not only by law but also by language, custom, and dress. By the end of the century urban, upwardly mobile Jews had shaved their beards and abandoned Yiddish in favor of the languages of the countries in which they lived. They began to participate in secular culture and they embraced rationalism and non-Jewish education as supplements to traditional Talmudic studies. The full participation of Jews in modern Europe and America would be unthinkable without the intellectual and social revolution that was the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment.Unparalleled in scale and comprehensiveness, The Jewish Enlightenment reconstructs the intellectual and social revolution of the Haskalah as it gradually gathered momentum throughout the eighteenth century. Relying on a huge range of previously unexplored sources, Shmuel Feiner fully views the Haskalah as the Jewish version of the European Enlightenment and, as such, a movement that cannot be isolated from broader eighteenth-century European traditions. Critically, he views the Haskalah as a truly European phenomenon and not one simply centered in Germany. He also shows how the republic of letters in European Jewry provided an avenue of secularization for Jewish society and culture, sowing the seeds of Jewish liberalism and modern ideology and sparking the Orthodox counterreaction that culminated in a clash of cultures within the Jewish community. The Haskalah's confrontations with its opponents within Jewry constitute one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of the dramatic and traumatic encounter between the Jews and modernity.The Haskalah is one of the central topics in modern Jewish historiography. With its scope, erudition, and new analysis, The Jewish Enlightenment now provides the most comprehensive treatment of this major cultural movement.

PART I

A Passion for Knowledge

Chapter 1

Intellectual Inferiority: The Affront

In the winter of 1702, a young Jewish student walked through the corridors of the faculty of medicine at the University of Frankfurt-on-Oder, his heart consumed by a sense of despair and frustration. Shmuel Shimon Ben-Yaacov, a native of Raudenai in Lithuania, had come to the Prussian University from Opatow, Poland, where he lived, to fulfill his dream of studying medicine. Like other Jewish students at German universities, from the end of the seventeenth century, Shmuel had received a well-grounded religious education (before coming to Prussia, he studied for two years in Rabbi Meir Frankel’s beit midrash [house of study] in Pinsk), and like them he needed a special permit from the rulers of Prussia, to study in the academic institution.¹ Not only did Shmuel Ben-Yaacov have to cope with the enormous challenge academic studies posed, he also had to endure the pain of loneliness and the distressing sense of being doubly exiled—as the only Jewish student in the university that year, alone in a foreign, Christian world. He might have been able to overcome his misery if he could only find one other student of his faith, so they could give one another support and, in their spare time, study religious literature as they had been accustomed to doing in their youth. When he learned that a Jewish student, Isaac Wallich of Koblenz, from a highly respected family of physicians, was enrolled at Halle University that year, he hastened to send him an emotional letter, suggesting that Isaac transfer to Frankfurt University and join him there. Within a few weeks, he received a reply.²

These two young men, who were apparently in their later teens, wrote their letters in mellifluous scholarly Hebrew, in ornate, embellished rhymed prose, interspersed with biblical verses, and in talmudic patterns of language. In them, they expressed their fervent desire to excel in their studies. They wrote of their boundless admiration for the new science, whose treasures were revealed to them at the German university, and their favorable impression of the diverse cosmopolitan student body, which even included students from faraway, exotic China. In particular, they wrote about their passion for knowledge: “The fervor that the Almighty has imprinted upon me lusts and yearns to quench its thirst in the chokhmot, and most of all, to light a torch to guide me in the chokhmah of medicine,” the student from Frankfurt wrote. And his friend from Halle lavished extravagant praise on the skills and innovative ideas of the well-known professor Friederich Hoffman (1660–1742), whose teachings he thirstily imbibed: “Had you not seen his genius at length, it would have seemed incredible. It bursts forth in every chokhmah and lore and nothing is hidden from him, he inquires into all mysteries, not only is his erudition vast in the science of medicine but he also has knowledge in the esoteric wisdoms and in all other inquiries.” Professor Hoffman had such a great affection for the Jewish student Isaac that he took him under his wing, concealing from him none of his innovative methods of healing, contrary to the conduct of other physicians at the time.³ And “he tells me of all the remedies and singular secrets that he has acquired and devised . . . that he will not disclose to one among thousands,” Issac Wallich proudly wrote.

Each of these two young men was the only Jewish student in his university, and each sought a companion with whom to converse and study. “Oh, my brother, how much we would inquire into every wisdom and discretion as the good Lord allows us,” Shmuel wrote to the student in Halle, “in religious study, in all its categories, sorts, and distinctions, as well as in matters of wisdom from the holy books of our ancestors or from the books of the gentiles written in their languages.” However, all entreaties to Wallich pleading with him to transfer from Halle to Frankfurt to rescue him from his lonely state and be a companion were of no avail. Wallich was already then in an advanced stage of his studies, living comfortably in the home of the wealthy Jewish banker Asher Markus, and enjoying his patronage, and he saw no reason to leave the faculty of medicine, then considered the best and most modern in Germany. He was enthralled by Halle University and its vibrant, tolerant atmosphere, and he suggested that Shmuel join him there: “We will be together, what can remain that we shall not inquire into, what can be too difficult for us to overcome, what can be too hard that we shall not learn it, and what can be beyond our grasp to acquire it.” With these words, Wallich tried to tempt his inexperienced friend, tendering him but a taste of the intellectual experience they could expect to share.⁴

Wallich could more easily bear the psychological anguish of a young Jew alone in a foreign, Christian environment, because he had grown up in Germany, in a family many of whose sons had studied medicine in a European academic institution (mainly in Italy). Shmuel, in contrast, was from Poland-Lithuania, where Jews rarely attended universities, even though it was necessary if the community were to have doctors. Nonetheless, they were both aware that they had taken an unusual, daring step in enrolling at a university, which exposed them to intellectual challenges and a Christian environment, and knew all too well that they were among the first Jewish students in Germany. Throughout the entire eighteenth century, only some three hundred Jews studied in Germany, and from 1678 to 1730, only twenty-five Jews were enrolled in five universities. Wallich had far more self-confidence, and he boasted to the somewhat more timid student in Frankfurt that he was not afraid to walk about freely in public: “As I wear my sword upon my hip as do all the medical students, there is no one who will tell me what to do.” This was certainly exceptional and pretentious behavior in a university which only seven years before had first opened its doors to Jewish students. Wallich tried to embolden Shmuel, advising him to overcome his sense of inferiority and his awe of his Christian environment. “Unquestionably we two represent an unusual, relatively rare phenomenon as Jewish students in the heart of Christian institutions of higher learning,” Isaac stated. “And since this fact arouses surprise and wonder, we must show a large measure of self-confidence.” Realizing that he was breaking fresh ground and shattering the accepted image of the Jew, Wallich declared that the time had come to remedy the anomalous situation in which members of the Jewish minority in Europe were merchants while all the scientific and humanistic knowledge was left solely in the hands of the ruling Christian elite.

The Restoration of Jewish Honor

The voices of the two medical students that we hear from between the lines of the letters they wrote to one another in 1702 were the first to articulate the battle cry of the early maskil: no more Jewish inferiority in Europe’s new world of knowledge! The voice of another early maskil, Isaac Wetzlar (1680–1751), from Celle, was heard only in 1749, in the unpublished manuscript of his book, Libes briv, two years before his death. Wetzlar was a wealthy merchant and businessman who traveled widely throughout Europe, but he had also received a broad Jewish education. He owned an extensive library, which contained printed books from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well as manuscripts, and his erudition in musar (ethical) literature and in Jewish rationalist philosophy of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was very impressive. None of those who read the relatively numerous copies of Wetzlar’s manuscript had any reason to doubt his piety. Nonetheless, his criticism, often sharply cynical in tone, of the religious elite and the serious flaws that he saw in the education, society, and leadership of Ashkenazi Jewry in Europe, was very scathing. Wetzlar cloaked his critique with his good intentions, because supposedly his only desire was to modestly fulfill the commandment “Love thy brethren as yourself,” and he prefaced nearly every criticism he wrote with the sanctimonious phrase, “Because of our many sins.”

Wetzlar saw himself as an outsider, not part of the traditional religious elite, and the role he undertook was that of an observer, an eyewitness with a sense of responsibility, traveling between communities, seeking the truth and reporting on the flaws he sees. He tried to convey his messages in his book Libes briv, written in spoken Yiddish, which was also the language of the popular literature. His aim was to reach all groups in Jewish society, and bypassing the men, he also sought paths to the hearts of the women—a rather rare phenomenon at the time. Wetzlar warned the Jews to be wary about the new Kabbalists, expressed his concern that the gentiles would mock the meager knowledge of the Jewish masses and their vulgar behavior in the synagogue, called on them to teach girls Hebrew and the Bible, decried the numerous errors in Hebrew in the new books, stressed the importance of the natural sciences, and warmly recommended the study of Jewish philosophy. More than anything else, he condemned the corruption and ineptitude of the Rabbinate and denounced the deplorable level of contemporary scholars. This scourge was so appalling that from time to time, popular, anticlerical protests burst forth—justifiably, in his view. Simple Jews hurl public criticism against those who are responsible for the Torah and are distorting it. With my own ears I heard, Wetzlar wrote, “that scholars are among the most contemptible people, doing the worst deeds.” Among the ideal types he mentions favorably in Libes briv, one, rarely found according to Wetzlar, stands out above all others. This is the intellectual Jew, who observes nature and ponders the great wonder and beauty of the divine creation. Several years later, this type was the subject of further development and idealization in the Hebrew periodical Kohelet musar (The Preacher), published in Berlin in the 1750s by two early maskilim: the young Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86) and his friend, Tobias Bock, an early maskil, whose identity is not yet altogether clear.⁵

In the 1780s, a fire in the city of Slonim totally destroyed Rabbi Shimson ben Mordechai’s library, including manuscripts he had written himself. Unfortunately, this prevents us from hearing the voice of this scholar, who served as the rabbi of the Slonim community and later as the rabbi of Königsberg, and in the family tradition was known as “A scholar and Kabbalist, an astronomer and philosopher, accomplished in all seven sciences, the author of many books, on the exoteric and the esoteric, and the chokhmot.”⁶ In the middle of the century, the rabbi from Slonim spent some time in Hamburg and brought science books back with him. He became well known as a man who secretly studied the sciences, read German, and kept a library rare in its diversity. In the early 1770s, Solomon Maimon (1753–1800) walked from Nieshviz to Slonim in midwinter to borrow German scientific and medical books from the rabbi’s library. His study of these books in physics and optics brought the young Maimon one step closer to his future entry into enlightened culture. As a result of the medical knowledge he acquired then, he began to think himself superior to the “ignorant boors” around him and to jeer at the superstitions and irrational beliefs of the Jews in Lithuania among whom he had lived until then.⁷ According to the tradition of the Epstein family, the Gaon from Vilna also sent the rabbi of Slonim a letter, in which he requested that he send him some books from his library.⁸ In 1778, he was among the advance subscribers to the German translation of the Torah (the Bi’ur) by Moses Mendelssohn. That same year, another well-known early maskil came to him—the dayan (a justice in a rabbinical court) from Minsk, Baruch Schick of Shklov (1774–1808), who on his way from a meeting with the Gaon in Vilna, to Germany and Holland, passed through Slonim. Rabbi Shimshon wrote an enthused approbation for Schick’s partial translation into Hebrew of Euclid’s geometry, commending the writer for having undertaken a project that would bring honor to the Jewish people and might dissuade the gentiles from mocking the Jews for their lack of knowledge.⁹ These words reflect the early maskilim’s sense of intellectual inferiority in relation to European scholars, as well as the hope that the Jewish cultural world would expand in the near future. These feelings, often expressed by the early maskilim, also resonate in the writing of one of the first Jewish students in a German university—Tobias Cohen (1653–1729), born to a Polish family in Metz. In his introduction to his science and medical book, Ma’aseh Tuvyah (1707), he explains how he was motivated by his encounter and that of his friend Gabriel ben Moshe of Brode, with Christian scholars and students at Frankfurt-on-Oder University in 1678–79 to try to rehabilitate the reputation of the Jews. He was bitterly frustrated by the fact that he lacked the proper knowledge to cope with the new cultural world:

So that we may reply to the nations of the world who open their mouths without measure and speak of us arrogantly, saying you have no mouth with which to answer us, nor the impudence to raise your heads in matters of faith, and you have lost your wisdom and intelligence of yore, as I have heard the calumny of many in the days of my youth. And in truth the men of the house of learning [Frankfurt University] do us great honor and each and every day debate with us on matters of faith at length as is their wont. And at times they have reproached us, saying where is your wisdom and intelligence? It has been taken from you and given to us, for you have no knowledge . . . and thus they reproached us every day. We were filled with shame instead of glory, and had it not been for the mercy and help of the Almighty, we could not have raised our heads to answer them. For we had no experience in such debates. Although we were, thank God, proficient in the verses of the Talmud and the midrashim, in debates with them we were appallingly deficient. Then the spirit of jealousy came upon me and I took an oath that with God’s help I would write a book containing some chokhmot and knowledge that I may answer those who reproach me and show them that not to them alone were the chokhmot given.¹⁰

We hear the voice of another early maskil in an encomium in verse written in Amsterdam in 1766 to the author of the book Amudei bet Yehudah (Pillars of the House of Judah), the physician Judah Hurwitz (1734–97), a native of Vilna who studied medicine in Padua. This Hebrew poem was written by the poet, writer, and linguist Naphtali Herz Wessely (1725–1805), better known as the author of the pamphlets Divrei shalom ve’emet (Words of Peace and Truth), which were disseminated from Berlin at the beginning of the 1780s, as an ardent response to the Jewish legislation (Edict of Toleration) of the Austrian emperor Joseph II. In 1766, Wessely was still living in Amsterdam, in the company of Sephardi and Ashkenazi men of letters, and was already well known as a scholar of the Hebrew language and author of the grammar book Gan na’ul (Amsterdam 1765–66). Others in this circle in Amsterdam were David Franco-Mendes (1713–92), Isaac Hacohen Belinfante (1720–80), David Wagenaar, and from 1767, Shlomo Dubno (1738–1813). In 1740, a society of scholars and literary men (Chevrat Mikra Kodesh) was founded there, and in the 1760s, Mendes and Wessely’s group often met in the home of Shmuel Baruch Benavente to study together, among other works, Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed.¹¹ The society maintained contacts with its counterpart in Berlin. When Mendelssohn’s widely acclaimed book Phädon was published in 1767, several scholars in Amsterdam persuaded David Wagenaar to translate this philosophical work on the afterlife from German into Hebrew. Several years passed before Wagenaar sent Mendelssohn the manuscript of his translation (which was never published) for his opinion. In his accompanying letter, Wagenaar sent special regards to Wessely, then living in Berlin, from the members of the Amsterdam society. Whenever one of them published a book, the others were in the habit of appending poems of friendship to it, to encourage the author and express their identification with his aims. Wessely wrote his encomium, which was printed on the frontispiece of Amudei bet Yehudah in honor of the “wise and perfect maskil,” Judah Hurwitz, who had recently been warmly welcomed into the group. This was a kind of poetic approbation for a very special book, one that proposed a rationalist religion in response to the challenge posed by both mysticism and skepticism.¹² Two years later, in a lett...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: The Jews and the Enlightenment
• Part I A Passion for Knowledge
• Part II Jewish Kulturkampf
• Part III The Maskilic Republic
• Part IV On Two Fronts
• Notes
• Index