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THE HASKALAH MOVEMENT IN RUSSIA
And the "Maskilim" shall shine
As the brightness of the firmament ...
Many shall run to and fro,
And knowledge shall be increased.
—Dan. xii. 3-4
Tobias Cohn, 1652-1759, From the Frontispiece of his Ma'aseh Tobiah
BY
JACOB S. RAISIN, PH.D., D.D.
Author of "Sect, Creed and Custom in Judaism," etc.
PHILADELPHIA
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
1913
TO AARON S. RAISIN
Your name, dear father, will not be found in the following pages, for, like "the waters of the Siloam that run softly," you ever preferred to pursue your useful course in unassuming silence. Yet, as it is your life, devoted entirely to meditating, learning, and teaching, that inspired me in my effort, I dedicate this book to you; and I am happy to know that I thus not only dedicate it to one of the noblest of Maskilim, but at the same time offer you some slight token of the esteem and affection felt for you by
Your Son,
JACOB S. RAISIN
CONTENTS
[CHAPTER I. THE PRE-HASKALAH PERIOD]
[CHAPTER II. THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION]
[CHAPTER III. THE DAWN OF HASKALAH]
[CHAPTER IV. CONFLICTS AND CONQUESTS]
[CHAPTER V. RUSSIFICATION, REFORMATION, AND ASSIMILATION]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
[ISAAC BÄR LEVINSOHN (1788-1860)]
[ALEXANDER ZEDERBAUM (1816-1893)]
[PEREZ BEN MOSHEH SMOLENSKIN (1842-1885)]
[MOSES LÖB LILIENBLUM (1843-1910)]
[PREFACE]
To the lover of mankind the history of the Russo-Jewish renaissance is an encouraging and inspiring phenomenon. Seldom has a people made such rapid strides forward as the Russian Jews. From the melancholy regularity that marked their existence a little more than two generations ago, from the darkness of the Middle Ages in which they were steeped until the time of Alexander II, they emerged suddenly into the life and light of the West, and some of the most intrepid devotees of latter-day culture, both in Europe and in America, have come from among them. Destitute of everything that makes for enlightenment, and under the dominion of a Government which sought to extinguish the few rushlights that scattered the shadows around them, they nevertheless snatched victory from defeat, sloughed off medieval superstition, and, disregarding the Dejanira shirt of modern disabilities, compelled their countrymen to admit more than once that
Tho' I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am!
Similar movements were started in Germany during the latter part of the eighteenth century, and in Austria, notably Galicia, at the beginning of the nineteenth, but none stirred the mind of the Jews to the same degree as the Haskalah movement in Russia during the last fifty years. In the former, the removal of restrictions soon rendered attempts toward self-emancipation unnecessary on the part of Jews, and the few Maskilim among them, satisfied with the present, devoted themselves to investigating and elucidating the past of their people's history. In Russia the past was all but forgotten on account of the immediate duties of the present. The energy and acquisitiveness that made the Jews of happier and more prosperous lands prominent in every sphere of practical life, were directed toward the realm of thought, and the merciless severity with which the Government excluded them from the enjoyment of things material only increased their ardor for things spiritual and intellectual.
In its wide sense Haskalah denotes enlightenment. Those who strove to enlighten their benighted coreligionists or disseminate European culture among them, were called Maskilim. A careful perusal of this work will reveal the exact ideals these terms embody. For Haskalah was not only progressive, it was also aggressive, militant, sometimes destructive. From the days of Mordecai Günzburg to the time of Asher Ginzberg (Ahad Ha-'Am), it changed its tendencies and motives more than once. Levinsohn, "the father of the Maskilim," was satisfied with removing the ban from secular learning; Gordon wished to see his brethren "Jews at home and men abroad"; Smolenskin dreamed of the rehabilitation of Jews in Palestine; and Ahad Ha-'Am hopes for the spiritual regeneration of his beloved people. Others advocated the levelling of all distinctions between Jews and Gentiles, or the upliftment of mankind in general and Russia in particular. To each of them Haskalah implied different ideals, and through each it promulgated diverse doctrines. To trace these varying phases from an indistinct glimmering in the eighteenth century to the glorious effulgence of the beginning of the twentieth, is the main object of this book.
In pursuance of my end, I have paid particular attention to the causes that retarded or accelerated Russo-Jewish cultural advance. As these causes originate in the social, economic, and political status of the Russian Jew, I frequently portray political events as well as the state of knowledge, belief, art, and morals of the periods under consideration. For this reason also I have marked the boundaries of the Haskalah epochs in correspondence to the dates of the reigns of the several czars, though the correspondence is not always exact.
Essays have been published, on some of the topics treated in these pages, by writers in different languages: in Russian, by Bramson, Klausner, and Morgulis; in Hebrew, by Izgur, Katz, and Klausner; in German, by Maimon, Lilienthal, Wengeroff, and Weissberg; in English, by Lilienthal and Wiener; and in French, by Slouschz. The subject as a whole, however, has not been treated. Should this work stimulate further research, I shall feel amply rewarded. Without prejudice and without partiality, by an honest presentation of facts drawn from what I regard as reliable sources, I have tried to unfold the story of the struggle of five millions of human beings for right living and rational thinking, in the hope of throwing light on the ideals and aspirations and the real character of the largely prejudged and misunderstood Russian Jew.
In conclusion, I wish to express my gratitude and indebtedness to those who encouraged me to proceed with my work after some specimens of it had been published in several Jewish periodicals, especially to Doctor Solomon Schechter, Rabbi Max Heller, and Mr. A.S. Freidus, for their courtesy and assistance while the work was being written.
JACOB S. RAISIN.
E. Las Vegas, N. Mex.,
Thanksgiving Day, 1909.
[CHAPTER I]
THE PRE-HASKALAH PERIOD
?-1648
"There is but one key to the present," says Max Müller, "and that is the past." To understand fully the growth and historical development of a people's mind, one must be familiar with the conditions that have shaped its present form. It would seem necessary, therefore, to introduce a description of the Haskalah movement with a rapid survey of the history of the Russo-Polish Jews from the time of their emergence from obscurity up to the middle of the seventeenth century.
Among those who laid the foundations for the study of this almost unexplored department of Jewish history, the settlement of Jews in Russia and their vicissitudes during the dark ages, the most prominent are perhaps Isaac Bär Levinsohn, Abraham Harkavy, and Simon Dubnow. There is much to be said of each of these as writers, scholars, and men. Here they concern us as Russo-Jewish historians. What Linnaeus, Agassiz, and Cuvier did in the field of natural philosophy, they accomplished in their chosen province of Jewish history.[1] Levinsohn was the first to express the opinion that the Russian Jews hailed, not from Germany, as is commonly supposed, but from the banks of the Volga. This hypothesis, corroborated by tradition, Harkavy established as a fact. Originally the vernacular of the Jews of Volhynia, Podolia, and Kiev was Russian and Polish, or, rather, the two being closely allied, Palaeo-Slavonic. The havoc wrought by the Crusades in the Jewish communities of Western Europe caused a constant stream of German-Jewish immigrants to pour, since 1090, into the comparatively free countries of the Slavonians. Russo-Poland became the America of the Old World. The Jewish settlers from abroad soon outnumbered the native Jews, and they spread a new language and new customs wherever they established themselves.[2]
Whether the Jews of Russia were originally pagans from the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas, converted to Judaism under the Khazars during the eighth century, or Palestinian exiles subjugated by their Slavonian conquerors and assimilated with them, it is indisputable that they inhabited what we know to-day as Russia long before the Varangian prince Rurik came, at the invitation of Scythian and Sarmatian savages, to lay the foundation of the Muscovite empire. In Feodosia there is a synagogue at least a thousand years old. The Greek inscription on a marble slab, dating back to 80-81 B.C.E., preserved in the Imperial Hermitage in St. Petersburg, makes it certain that they flourished in the Crimea before the destruction of the Temple. In a communication to the Russian Geographical Society, M. Pogodin makes the statement, that there still exist a synagogue and a cemetery in the Crimea that belong to the pre-Christian era. Some of the tombstones, bearing Jewish names, and decorated with the seven-branched Menorah, date back to 157 B.C.E.; while Chufut-Kale, also known as the Rock of the Jews (Sela' ha-Yehudim), from the fortress supposed to have been built there by the Jews, would prove Jewish settlements to have been made there during the Babylonian or Persian captivity.[3]
Though the same antiquity cannot be established for other Jewish settlements, we know that Kiev, "the mother of Russian cities," had many Jews long before the eighth century, who thus antedated the Russians as citizens. According to Joseph Hakohen they came there from Persia in 690, according to Malishevsky in 776. It is certain that their influence was felt as early as the latter part of the tenth century. The Russian Chronicles ascribed to Nestor relate that they endeavored, in 986, to induce Grand Duke Vladimir to accept their religion. They did not succeed as they had succeeded two centuries before with the khan of the Khazars.[4] Yet the grand duke, who had the greatest influence in introducing and spreading Greek Catholicism, and who is now worshipped as a saint, was always favorably disposed toward them.
There were other places that were inhabited early by Jews. There are traditions to the effect that Jews lived in Poland as early as the ninth century, and under the Boreslavs (992-1278) they are said to have enjoyed considerable privileges, carried on a lively trade, and spread as far as Kiev. Chernigov in Little Russia (the Ukraine), Baku in South Russia (Transcaucasia), Kalisz and Warsaw, Brest and Grodno, in West Russia (Russian Poland), all possess Jewish communities of considerable antiquity. In the townlet Eishishki, near Vilna, a tombstone set in 1171 was still in existence at the end of the last century, and Khelm, Government Kovno, has a synagogue to which tradition ascribes an age of eight hundred years.[5]
The Jewish population in all these communities was prosperous and respected. Jews were in favor with the Government, enjoyed equal rights with their Gentile neighbors, and were especially prominent as traders and farmers of taxes. Their monoxyla, or one-oared canoes, loaded with silks, furs, and precious metals, issued from the Borysthanes, traversed the Baltic and the Euxine, the Oder and the Bosphorus, the Danube and the Black Sea, and carried on the commerce between the Turks and the Slavonians. They were granted the honorable and lucrative privilege of directing and controlling the mints, and that of putting Hebrew as well as Slavonic inscriptions on their coins.[6] In the Lithuanian Magna Charta, granted by Vitold in 1388, the Jews of Brest were given many rights, and about a year later those of Grodno were permitted to engage in all pursuits and occupations, and exempted from paying taxes on synagogues and cemeteries. They possessed full jurisdiction in their own affairs. Some were raised to the nobility, notably the Josephovich brothers, Abraham and Michael. Under King Alexander Jagellon, Abraham was assessor of Kovno, alderman of Smolensk, and prefect of Minsk; he was called "sir" (jastrzhembets), was presented with the estates of Voidung, Grinkov, and Troki (1509), and appointed Secretary of the Treasury in Lithuania (1510). The other brother, Michael, was made "fiscal agent to the king." In the eighteenth century, Andrey Abramovich, of the same family but not of the Jewish faith, was senator and castellan of Brest-Litovsk.[7] They were not unique exceptions. Abraham Shmoilovich of Turisk is spoken of as "honorable sir" in leases of large estates. Affras Rachmailovich and Judah Bogdanovich figure among the merchant princes of Livonia and Lithuania; and Francisco Molo, who settled later in Amsterdam, was financial agent of John III of Poland in 1679. The influence of the last-named was so great with the Dutch States-General that the Treaty of Ryswick was concluded with Louis XIV, in 1697, through his mediation.[8]
That Russo-Poland should have elected a Jewish king on two occasions, a certain Abraham Prochovnik in 842 and the famous Saul Wahl[9] in the sixteenth century, sounds legendary; but that there was a Jewish queen, called Esterka, is probable, and that some Jews attained to political eminence is beyond reasonable doubt.[10] Records have been discovered concerning two envoys, Saul and Joseph, who served the Slavonic czar about 960, and an interesting story is told of two Jewish soldiers, Ephraim Moisievich and Anbal the Jassin, who won the confidence of Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky of Kiev, and afterwards became leaders in a conspiracy against him (1174).[11] Henry, Duke of Anjou, the successor of Sigismud August on the throne of Poland and Lithuania, owed his election mainly to the efforts of Solomon Ashkenazi. Ivan Vassilyevich, too, had many and important relations with Jews, and his favorable attitude towards them is amply proved by the fact that his family physician was the Jew Leo (1490). Throughout his reign he maintained an uninterrupted friendship with Chozi Kokos, a Jew of the Crimea, and he did not hesitate to offer hospitality and protection to Zacharias de Guizolfi, though the latter was not in a position to reciprocate such favors.[12]
In addition there are less prominent individuals who received honors at the hands of their non-Jewish countrymen. Meïr Ashkenazi of Kaffa, in the Crimea, who was slain by pirates on a trip from "Gava to Dakhel," was envoy of the khan of the Tatars to the king of Poland in the sixteenth century. Mention is made of "Jewish Cossacks," who distinguished themselves on the field of battle, and were elevated to the rank of major and colonel.[13] While the common opinion regarding Jews expressed itself in merry England in such ballads as "The Jewish Dochter," and "Gernutus, the Jew of Venice," many a Little Russian song had the bravery of a Jewish soldier as its burden. In everything save religion the Jews were hardly distinguishable from their neighbors.
There are—writes Cardinal Commendoni, an eye-witness—a great many Jews in these provinces, including Lithuania, who are not, as in other places, regarded with disrespect. They do not maintain themselves miserably by base profits; they are landed proprietors, are engaged in business, and even devote themselves to the study of literature and, above all, to medicine and astronomy; they hold almost everywhere the commission of levying customs duties, are classed among the most honest people, wear no outward mark to distinguish them from the Christians, and are permitted to carry swords and walk about with their arms. In a word they have equal rights with the other citizens.
A similar statement is made by Joseph Delmedigo, who spent many years in Livonia and Lithuania as physician to Prince Radziwill.[14]
In his inimitable manner Gibbon describes the fierce struggle the Greek Catholic Church had to wage before she obtained a foothold in Russia, but he neglects to mention the fact that Judaism no less than paganism was among her formidable opponents. The contest lasted several centuries, and in many places it is undecided to this day.[15] The Khazars, who had become proselytes in the eighth century, were constantly encroaching upon Russian Christianity. Buoyant as both were with the vigor of youth, missionary zeal was at its height among the two contending religions. Each made war upon the other. We read that Photius of Constantinople sent a message of thanks to Archbishop Anthony of Kertch (858-859) for his efforts to convert the Jews; that the first Bishop of the Established Church (1035) was "Lukas, the little Jew" (Luka Zhidyata), who was appointed to his office by Yaroslav; and that St. Feodosi Pechersky was fond of conversing with learned Jews on matters of theology.[16] On the other hand, the efforts of the Jews were not without success. The baptism of the pious Olga marks an era in Russian Christianity, the beginning of the "Judaizing heresy," which centuries of persecution only strengthened. In 1425, Zacharias of Kiev, who is reputed to have "studied astrology, necromancy, and various other magic arts," converted the priest Dionis, the Archbishop Aleksey, and, through the latter, many more clergymen of Novgorod, Moscow, and Pskov. Aleksey became a devout Jew. He called himself Abraham and his wife Sarah. Yet, strange to say, he retained the favor of the Grand Duke Ivan Vassilyevich, even after the latter's daughter-in-law, Princess Helena, his secretary Theodore Kuritzin, the Archimandrite Sosima, the monk Zacharias, and other persons of note had entered the fold of Judaism through his influence.
The "heresy" spread over many parts of the empire, and the number of its adherents constantly grew. Archbishop Nikk complains that in the very monastery of Moscow there were presumably converted Jews, "who had again begun to practice their old Jewish religion and demoralize the young monks." In Poland, too, proselytism was of frequent occurrence, especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The religious tolerance of Casimir IV (1434-1502) and his immediate successors, and the new doctrines preached by Huss and Luther, which permeated the upper classes of society, rendered the Poles more liberal on the one hand, and on the other the Jews more assertive. We hear of a certain nobleman, George Morschtyn, who married a Jewess, Magdalen, and had his daughter raised in the religion of her mother. In fact, at a time when Jews in Spain assumed the mask of Christianity to escape persecution, Russian and Polish Christians by birth could choose, with little fear of danger, to lead the Jewish life. It was not till about the eighteenth century that the Government began to resort to the usual methods of eradicating heresy. Katharina Weigel, a lady famous for her beauty, who embraced Judaism, was decapitated in Cracow at the instigation of Bishop Peter Gamrat. On the deposition of his wife, Captain Vosnitzin of the Polish navy was put to death by auto-da-fé (July 15, 1738). The eminent "Ger Zedek," Count Valentine Pototzki, less fortunate than his comrade and fellow-convert Zaremba, was burnt at the stake in Vilna (May 24, 1749), and his teacher in the Jewish doctrines, Menahem Mann, was tortured and executed a few months later, at the age of seventy. But these measures proved of little avail. According to Martin Bielski, the noted historian, Jews saved their proselytes from the impending doom by transporting them to Turkey. Many of them sought refuge in Amsterdam. For those who remained behind their new coreligionists provided through collections made for that purpose in Russia and in Germany. To this day these Russian and Polish proselytes adhere steadfastly to their faith, and whether they migrate to America or Palestine to escape the persecution of their countrymen, they seldom, if ever, indulge in the latitudinarianism into which many of longer Jewish lineage fall so readily when removed from old moorings.[17]
That the Russian Jews of the day were not altogether unenlightened, that they not only practiced the Law devoutly, but also studied it diligently, and cultivated the learning of the time as well, we may safely infer from researches recently made. Cyril, or Constantine, "the philosopher," the apostle to the Slavonians, acquired a knowledge of Hebrew while at Kherson, and was probably aided by Jews in his translation of the Bible into Slavonic. Manuscripts of Russo-Jewish commentaries to the Scriptures, written as early as 1094 and 1124, are still preserved in the Vatican and Bodleian libraries, and copyists were doing fairly good work at Azov in 1274.
Jewish scholars frequented celebrated seats of learning in foreign lands. Before the end of the twelfth century traces of them are to be found in France, Italy, and Spain. That in the eleventh century Judah Halevi of Toledo and Nathan of Rome should have been familiar with Russian words cannot but be attributed to their contact with Russian Jews. However, in the case of these two scholars, it may possibly be ascribed to their great erudition or extensive travels. But the many Slavonic expressions occurring in the commentaries of Rashi (1040-1105), and employed by Joseph Caro (ab. 1140), Benjamin of Tudela (ab. 1160), and Isaac of Vienna (ab. 1250), lend color to Harkavy's contention, that Russian was once the vernacular of the Russian Jews, and they also argue in favor of our contention, that these natives of the "land of Canaan"—as the country of the Slavs was then called in Hebrew—came into personal touch with the "lights and leaders" of other Jewish communities. Indeed, Rabbi Moses of Kiev is mentioned as one of the pupils of Jacob Tam, the Tosafist of France (d. 1170), and Asheri, or Rosh, of Spain is reported to have had among his pupils Rabbi Asher and Master (Bahur) Jonathan from Russia. From these peripatetic scholars perhaps came the martyrs of 1270, referred to in the Memorbuch of Mayence. It was Rabbi Moses who, while still in Russia, corresponded with Samuel ben Ali, head of the Babylonian Academy, and called the attention of Western scholars to certain Gaonic decisions. Another rabbi, Isaac, or Itshke, of Chernigov, was probably the first Talmudist in England, and his decisions were regarded as authoritative on certain occasions. These and others like them wrote super-commentaries on the commentaries of Rashi and Ibn Ezra, the most popular and profound scholars medieval Jewry produced, and made copies of the works of other authors.[18]
Soon the Russo-Polish Jews established at home what they had been compelled to seek abroad. Hearing of the advantages offered in the great North-East, German Jews flocked thither in such numbers as to dominate and absorb the original Russians and Poles. A new element asserted itself. Names like Ashkenazi, Heilperin, Hurwitz, Landau, Luria, Margolis, Schapiro, Weil, Zarfati, etc., variously spelled, took the place, through intermarriage and by adoption, of the ancient Slavonic nomenclature. The language, manners, modes of thought, and, to a certain extent, even the physiognomy of the earlier settlers, underwent a more or less radical change. In some provinces the conflict lasted longer than in others. To this day not a few Russian Jews would seem to be of Slavonic rather than Semitic extraction. As late as the sixteenth century there was still a demand in certain places for a Russian translation of the Hebrew Book of Common Prayer, and in 1635 Rabbi Meïr Ashkenazi, who came from Frankfort-on-the-Main to study in Lublin, and was retained as rabbi in Mohilev-on-the-Dnieper, had cause to exclaim, "Would to God that our coreligionists all spoke the same language—German."[19] Even Maimon, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, mentions one, by no means an exception, who did not "understand the Jewish language, and made use, therefore, of the Russian."[20] But by the middle of the seventeenth century the amalgamation was almost complete. It resulted in a product entirely new. As the invasion of England by the Normans produced the Anglo-Saxon, so the inundation of Russia by the Germans produced the Slav-Teuton. This is the clue to the study of the Haskalah, as will appear from what follows.
Russo-Poland gradually became the cynosure of the Talmudic world, the "Aksanye shel Torah," the asylum of the Law, whence "enlargement and deliverance" arose for the traditions which the Jews carried with them, through fire and water, during the dreary centuries of their dispersion. It became to Jews what Athens was to ancient Greece, Rome to medieval Christendom, New England to our early colonies. With the invention and importation of the printing-press, the publication and acquisition of the Bible, the Talmud, and most of the important rabbinic works were facilitated. As a consequence, yeshibot, or colleges, for the study of Jewish literature, were founded in almost every community. Their fame reached distant lands. It became a popular saying that "from Kiev shall go forth the Law, and the word of God from Starodub." Horodno, the vulgar pronunciation of Grodno, was construed to mean Har Adonaï, "the Mount of the Lord." A pious rabbi did not hesitate to write to a colleague, "Be it known to the high honor of your glory that it is preferable by far to dwell in the land of the Russ and promote the study of the Torah in Israel than in the land of Israel."[21] Especially the part of Poland ultimately swallowed up by Russia was the new Palestine of the Diaspora. Thither flocked all desirous of becoming adepts in the dialectics of the rabbis, "of learning how to swim in the sea of the Talmud." It was there that the voluminous works of Hebrew literature were studied, literally "by day and by night," and the subtleties of the Talmudists were developed to a degree unprecedented in Jewish history. Thither was sent, from the distant Netherlands, the youngest son of Manasseh ben Israel, and he "became mighty in the Talmud and master of four languages." Thither came, from Prague, the afterwards famous Cabbalist, author, and rabbi, Isaiah Horowitz (ab. 1555-1630), and there he chose to remain the rest of his days. Thither also went, from Frankfort, the above-mentioned Meïr Ashkenazi, who, according to some, was the first author of note in White Russia.
From everywhere they came "to pour water on the hands and sit at the feet" of the great ones of the second Palestine.[22]
For Jewish solidarity was more than a word in those days. "Sefardim" had not yet learned to boast of aristocratic lineage, nor "Ashkenazim" to look down contemptuously upon their Slavonic coreligionists. It was before the removal of civil disabilities from one portion of the Jewish people had sowed the seed of arrogance toward the other less favored portion. Honor was accorded to whom it was due, regardless of the locality in which he happened to have been born. Glückel von Hameln states in her Memoirs that preference was sometimes given to the decisions of the "great ones of Poland," and mentions with pride that her brother Shmuel married the daughter of the great Reb Shulem of Lemberg.[23] With open arms, Amsterdam, Frankfort, Fürth, Konigsberg, Metz, Prague, and other communities renowned for wealth and learning, welcomed the acute Talmudists of Brest, Grodno, Kovno, Lublin, Minsk, and Vilna, whenever they were willing or compelled to consider a call. The practice of summoning Russo-Polish rabbis to German posts was carried so far that it aroused the displeasure of the Western scholars, and they complained of being slighted.[24]
The reverence for Slavonic learning was strikingly illustrated during the years following the Cossack massacres, when many Russo-Polish rabbis fled for safety to foreign lands. Frankfort, Fürth, Prague, and Vienna successively elected the fugitive Shabbataï Horowitz of Ostrog as their religious guide. David Taz of Vladimir became rabbi of Steinitz in Moravia; Ephraim Hakohen was called to Trebitsch in Moravia and to Ofen in Hungary; David of Lyda, to Mayence and Amsterdam, and Naphtali Kohen, to Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1704, and later to Breslau. No less personages than Isaac Aboab and Saul Morteira welcomed the merchant-Talmudist Moses Rivkes of Vilna when he sought refuge in Amsterdam, and they entrusted to him the task of editing the Shulhan 'Aruk, his marginal notes to which, the Beër ha-Golah, have ever since been printed with the text. In addition to rabbis, Lithuania and other provinces furnished teachers for the young, melammedim, who exerted considerable influence upon the people among whom they lived. Their opinions, we are told, were highly valued in the choice of rabbis.[25]
It must not be supposed that supremacy in the Talmud was secured at the cost of secular knowledge, or what was then regarded as such. Their familiarity with other branches of study was not inferior to that of the Jews in better-known lands. Not a few of the prominent men united piety with philosophy, and thorough knowledge of the Talmud with mastery of one or more of the sciences of the time. Data on this phase of the subject might have been much more abundant, had not the storm of persecution suddenly swept over the communities, destroying them and their records. What we still possess indicates what may have been lost. The Ukraine was famous for its scholars. Among them was Jehiel Michael of Nemirov, reputed to have been "versed in all the sciences of the world."[26] Several of them were poets and grammarians. Poems of a liturgical character are still extant in which they bemoan their plight or assert their faith hopefully. Such were the poems of Ephraim of Khelm, Joseph of Kobrin, Solomon of Zamoscz, and Shabbataï Kohen. The last, eminent as a Talmudist, the author of commentaries on the Shulhan 'Aruk approved by the leading rabbis of his generation, is also known as a very trustworthy historian. His Megillah 'Afah, written in classic Hebrew, is a valuable source of information on the critical period in which he lived. He won the esteem of the Polish nobility by his secular attainments. To judge from his correspondence, he must have been on intimate terms with Vidrich of Leipsic.[27] Of the grammarians, Jacob Zaslaver wrote on the Massorah, and Shabbataï Sofer was the author of annotations and treatises.[28] Our taste in poetry and grammar is no longer the same, but the polemic and apologetic writings of those days, called forth by the discussions between Rabbanites and Karaites and by the constant attacks of Christianity, are still of uncommon interest. Specimens of the former kind are the polemics of Moses of Shavli, which caused consternation in the camp of the Karaites. Of the apologetic writings should be mentioned the reply, in Polish, of Jacob Nahman of Belzyc to Martin Chekhovic (Lublin, 1581), and the Hizzuk Emunah of the Karaite Isaac ben Abraham of Troki. In the latter the weakness of Christianity and the strength of Judaism are pointed out with trenchancy never before reached. The work stirred up heated discussions among the various Christian sects, with the tenets of which the author was intimately acquainted. It was translated into Latin (1681, 1705), Yiddish (1717), English (1851), and German (1865, 1873). Voltaire says that all the arguments used by free-thinkers against Christianity were drawn from it.[29]
In philosophy, mathematics, and medicine, the three main branches of medieval knowledge, many Slavonian Jews attained eminence. Devout Karaites as well as diligent Talmudists found secular learning a diversion and a delight. For the lovers of enlightenment Italy, especially Padua, was the centre of attraction, as France and Spain had been before, and Germany, particularly Berlin, became afterwards.[30] Towards the middle of the sixteenth century we find young Delacrut at the University of Bologna, the philosopher and Cabbalist, known for his commentaries to Gikatilla's Sha'are Orah (Cracow, 1600) and Ben Avigdor's Mar'eh ha-Ofanim (1720), and his translation of Gossuin's L'image du monde (Amsterdam, 1733). His famous disciple Mordecai Jaffe (Lebushim) spent ten years in the study of astronomy and mathematics before he occupied the rabbinate of Grodno (1572)[31] At the request of Yom-Tob Lipman Heller, Joseph ben Isaac Levi wrote a commentary on Maimuni's Moreh Nebukim, which was published with the former's annotations, Gibe'at ha-Moreh (Prague, 1611). Deservedly or not, Eliezer Mann was called "the Hebrew Socrates"; and many a Maskil in his study of mathematics turned for guidance to Manoah Handel of Brzeszticzka, Volhynia, author and translator of several scientific works, who rendered seven Euclidean propositions into Hebrew.[32]
Polyglots they were compelled to be by force of circumstances. When the exotic Judeo-German finally asserted itself as the vernacular, the language in which they wrote and prayed was still the ancient Hebrew, with which every one was familiar, and commercial intercourse with their Gentile neighbors was hardly feasible without at least a smattering of the local Slavonic dialect. "Look at our brethren in Poland," exclaims Wessely many years later in his address to his countrymen. "They converse with their neighbors in good Polish.... What excuse have we for our brogue and jargon?" He might have had still better cause for complaint, had he been aware that the Yiddish of the Russo-Polish Jews, despite its considerable Slavonic admixture, was purer German than that of his contemporaries in Germany, even as the English of our New England colonies was superior to the Grub Street style prevalent in Dr. Johnson's England, and the Spanish of our Mexican annexations to the Castilian spoken at the time of Coronado. But we are here concerned with their knowledge of foreign languages. We shall refer only to the Hebrew-German-Italian-Latin-French dictionary Safah Berurah (Prague, 1660; Amsterdam, 1701) by the eminent Talmudist Nathan Hannover.[33]
In medicine Jews were pre-eminent in the Slavonic countries, as they were everywhere else. They were in great demand as court physicians, though several had to pay with their lives "for having failed to effect cures." Doctor Leo, who was at the court of Moscow in 1490, was mentioned above. Jacob Isaac, the "nobleman of Jerusalem" (Yerosalimska shlyakhta), was attached to the court of Sigismund, where he was held in high esteem. Prince Radziwill's physician was Itshe Nisanovich, and among those in attendance on John Sobieski were Jonas Casal and Abraham Troki, the latter the author of several works on medicine and natural philosophy.[34]
Medieval Jewish physicians were prone to travel, and those of Russo-Poland were no exception. We find them in almost every part of the civilized world, and their number increases with the disappearance of prejudice. Some were noted Talmudists, such as Solomon Luria and Samuel ben Mattathias. Abraham Ashkenazi Apotheker was not only a compounder of herbs but a healer of souls, for the edification of which he wrote his Elixir of Life (Sam Hayyim, Prague, 1590). To the same class belong Moses Katzenellenbogen and his son Hayyim, who was styled Gaon. In 1657 Hayyim visited Italy. He was welcomed by the prominent Jews of Mantua, Modena, Venice, and Verona, but he preferred to continue the practice of his profession in his home town Lublin.[35] Nor may we omit the names of Stephen von Gaden and Moses Coën, because of their high standing among their colleagues and the honors conferred upon them for their statesmanship. Stephen von Gaden, who with Samuel Collins was physician-in-ordinary to Czar Aleksey Mikhailovich, was instrumental in removing many disabilities from the Jews of Moscow and in the interior of Russia. Moses Coën, in consequence of the Cossack uprising, escaped to Moldavia, and was made court physician by the hospodar Vassile Lupu. But for Coën, Lupu would have been dethroned by those who conspired against him. To his loyalty may probably be attributed the kind treatment Moldavian Jews later enjoyed at the hands of the prince. Coën also exposed the secret alliance between Russia and Sweden against Turkey, and his advice was sought by the doge of Venice.[36]
The personage who typifies best the enlightened Slavonic Jew of the pre-Haskalah period is Tobias Cohn (1652-1729). He was the son and grandson of physicians, who practiced at Kamenetz-Podolsk and Byelsk, and after 1648 went to Metz. After their father's death, he and his older brother returned to Poland, whence Tobias, in turn, emigrated first to Italy and then to Turkey. In Adrianople he was physician-in-ordinary to five successive sultans. In the history of medicine he is remembered as the discoverer of the plica polonica, and as the publisher of a Materia Medica in three languages. To the student of Haskalah he is interesting, because he marks the close of the old and the beginning of the new era. Like the Maskilim of a century or two centuries later, he compiled and edited an encyclopedia in Hebrew, that "knowledge be increased among his coreligionists." His acquaintance with learned works in several ancient and modern languages of which he was master, enabled him to write his magnum opus, Ma'aseh Tobiah, with tolerable ease. This work is divided into eight parts, devoted respectively to theology, astronomy, pharmacy, hygiene, venereal diseases, botany, cosmography, and chemistry. It is illustrated with several plates, among them the picture of an astrolabe and one of the human body treated as a house. From the numerous editions through which it passed (Venice, 1707, 1715, 1728, 1769), we may conclude that it met with marked success.[37]
To understand the raison d'Être of the Haskalah movement, it may not be superfluous to cast a glance at the inner social and religious life of the Slavonic Jews during pre-Haskalah times. The labors of the farmer are crowned with success only when nature lends him a helping hand. His soil must be fertile, and blessed with frequent showers. Nor would the Maskilim have accomplished their aim, had the material they found at hand been different from what it was.
The Jews in the land of the Slavonians were fortunate in being regarded as aliens in a country which, as we have seen, they inhabited long before those who claimed to be its possessors by divine right of conquest. If their position was precarious, their sufferings were those of a conquered nation. As the whim and fancy of the reigning prince, knyaz, varied, they were induced one day to settle in the country by the offer of the most flattering privileges, and the next day they were expelled, only to be requested to return again. Now their synagogues and cemeteries were exempt from taxation, now an additional poll-tax or land-tax was levied on every Jew (serebshizna); one day they were allowed to live unhampered by restrictions, then they were prohibited to wear certain garments and ornaments, and commanded to use yellow caps and kerchiefs to distinguish them from the Gentiles (1566).
But all this was the consequence of political subjugation. Judged by the standard of the times, they were veritable freemen, freer than the Huguenots of France and the Puritans of England. They were left unmolested in the administration of their internal affairs, and were permitted to appoint their own judges, enforce their own laws, and support their own institutions. Forming a state within a state, they developed a civilization contrasting strongly with that round about them, and comparing favorably with some of the features of ours of to-day. Slavonic Jewry was divided into four districts, consisting of the more important communities (kahals), to which a number of smaller ones (prikahalki) were subservient. These, known as the Jewish Assemblies (zbori zhidovskiye), met at stated intervals. As in our federal Government, the administrative, executive, and legislative departments were kept distinct, and those who presided over them (roshim) were elected annually by ballot. These roshim, or elders, served by turns for periods of one month each. The rabbi of each community was the chief judge, and was assisted by several inferior judges (dayyanim). For matters of importance there were courts of appeal established in Ostrog and Lemberg, the former having jurisdiction over Volhynia and the Ukraine, the latter over the rest of Jewish Russo-Poland. For inter-kahal litigation, there was a supreme court, the Wa'ad Arba' ha-Arazot (the Synod of the Four Countries), which held its sessions during the Lublin fair in winter and the Yaroslav fair in summer. In cases affecting Jews and Gentiles, a decision was given by the judex Judaeorum, who held his office by official appointment of the grand duke.
So far their system of self-government appears almost a prototype of our own. The same is true of their municipal administration. The rabbi, who had the deciding vote in case of a dead-lock, stood in the same relation to them as the mayor holds to us, only that his term of office, nominally limited to three years, was actually for life or during good behavior. Yet the power vested in him was only delegated power. A number of selectmen, or aldermen, guarded the rights of the community with the utmost jealousy, and tolerated no innovation, unless previously sanctioned by them. There were also several honorary offices, with a one-year tenure, which none could fill who had not had experience in an inferior position. The chief duties attached to these offices were to appraise the amount of taxation, pay the salaries of the rabbi, his dayyanim, and the teachers of the public schools, provide for the poor, and, above all, intercede with the Government.[38]
Still more interesting and, for our purpose, more important were their public and private institutions of learning. Jews have always been noted for the solicitous care they exercise in the education of the young. The Slavonic Jews surpassed their brethren of other countries in this respect. At times they wrenched the tender bond of parental love in their ardor for knowledge. With a republican form of government they created an aristocracy, not of wealth or of blood, but of intellect. The education of girls was, indeed, neglected. To be able to read her prayers in Hebrew and to write Yiddish was all that was expected of a mother in Israel. It was otherwise with the boys. Every Jew deemed himself in duty bound to educate his son. "Learning is the best merchandise"—Torah iz die beste sehorah—was the lesson inculcated from cradle to manhood, the precept followed from manhood to old age. All the lullabies transmitted to us from earliest times indicate the pursuit of knowledge as the highest ambition cherished by mothers for their sons:
Patsché, patsché, little tootsies,
We shall buy us little bootsies;
Little bootsies we shall buy,
To run to heder we shall try;
Torah we'll learn and all good ma'alot (qualities),
On our wedding eve we shall solve sha'alot (ritual problems).[39]
To have a scholarly son or son-in-law was the best passport to the highest circles, a means of rising from the lowliest to the loftiest station in life.
It is no wonder, then, that schools abounded in every community. At the early age of four the child was usually sent to the heder (school; literally, room), where he studied until he was ready for the yeshibah, the higher "seat" of learning. The melammedim, teachers, were graded according to their ability, and the school year consisted of two terms, zemannim, from the first Sabbath after the Holy Days to Passover and from after Passover to Rosh ha-Shanah. The boy's intellectual capacities were steadily, if not systematically, cultivated, sometimes at the expense of his bodily development. It was not unusual for a child of seven or eight to handle a difficult problem in the Talmud, a precocity characteristic to this day of the children hailing from Slavonic countries. Their 'illuyim (prodigies) might furnish ample material for more than one volume of les enfants célèbres.
Nor were the children of the poor left to grow up in ignorance. Learning was free, to be had for the asking. More than this, stringent measures were taken that no child be without instruction. Talmud Torahs were founded even in the smallest kehillot (communities), and the students were supplied, not only with books, but also with the necessaries of life. Communal and individual benefactors furnished clothes, and every member (ba'al ha-bayit) had to provide food and lodging for an indigent pupil at least one day of each week. The "Freitisch" (free board) was an inseparable adjunct to every school. Poor young men were not regarded as "beggar students." They were looked upon as earning their living by study, even as teachers by instructing. To pray for the dead or the living in return for their support is a recent innovation, and mostly among other than Slavonic Jews. It is a custom adopted from medieval Christianity, and practiced in England by the poor student, who, in the words of Chaucer,
Busily 'gan for the souls to pray
On them that gave him wherewith to scolay.
For a faithful and vivid description of the yeshibot we cannot do better than transcribe the account given in the pages of the little pamphlet Yeven Mezulah in which Nathan Hannover, mentioned above, has left us a reliable history of the Cossack uprisings and the Kulturgeschichte of his own time.
I need bring no proof for the statement that nowhere was the study of the Law so universal as in Russo-Poland. In every community there was a well-paid dean (rosh yeshibah), who, exempt from worry about a livelihood, devoted himself exclusively to teaching and studying by day and by night. In every kahal, many youths, maintained liberally, studied under the guidance of the dean. In turn, they instructed the less advanced, who were also supported by the community. A kahal of fifty [families] had to provide for at least thirty such. They boarded and lodged in the homes of their patrons, and frequently received pocket-money in addition. Thus there was hardly a house in which the Torah was not studied, either by the master of the house, a son, a son-in-law, or a student stranger. They always bore in mind the dictum of Rabba, "He who loves scholars will have scholarly sons; he who welcomes scholars will have scholarly sons-in-law; he who admires scholars will become learned himself." No wonder, then, that every community swarmed with scholars, that out of every fifty of its members at least twenty were far advanced, and had the morenu (i.e. bachelor) degree.
The dean was vested with absolute authority. He could punish an offender, whether rich or poor. Everybody respected him, and he often received gifts of money or valuables. In all religious processions he came first. Then followed the students, then the learned, and the rest of the congregation brought up the rear. This veneration for the dean prompted many a youth to imitate his example, and thus our country was rendered full of the knowledge of the Law.
What became of the students when they were graduated? Let us turn once more to Hannover's interesting narrative. The "fairs" of those days were much more than opportunities for barter; they afforded favorable and attractive occasions for other objects. Zaslav and Yaroslav during the summer, Lemberg and Lublin in the winter, were "filled with hundreds of deans and thousands of students," and one who had a marriageable daughter had but to resort thither to have his worries allayed. Therefore, "Jews and Jewesses attended these bazaars in magnificent attire, and [each season] several hundred, sometimes as many as a thousand, alliances were consummated."
That the rabbi, living in a strange land and recalling a glorious past, should have indulged in a bit of exaggeration in his sorrowful retrospect, is not more than natural; and that his picture on the whole is true is proved by similar schools which existed in Russia till recently. The descriptions of these institutions by Smolenskin as well as writers of less repute are graphic and intensely interesting. They constituted a unique world, in which the Jewish youth lived and moved until he reached man's estate. In later years, when Russian Jewry became infected, so to speak, with the Aufklärungs-bacilli, they became the nurseries of the new learning. But in the earlier time, too, a spirit of enlightenment pervaded them. The study of the Talmud fostered in them was regarded both as a religious duty and as a means to an end, the rabbinate. Even in the Middle Ages Aristotle was a favorite with the older students, and Solomon Luria complained that in the prayer books of many of them he had noticed the prayer of Aristotle, for which he blamed the liberal views of Moses Isserles![40]
Another typically, though not exclusively, Slavonic Jewish institution was the study-hall, or bet ha-midrash. As the synagogues gradually became Schulen (schools), so, by a contrary process, the bet ha-midrash assumed the function of a house of prayer. Its uniqueness it has retained to this day. It was at once a library, a reading-room, and a class-room; yet those who frequented it were bound by the rigorous laws of none of the three. There were no restrictions as to when, or what, or how one should study. It was a place in which originality was admired and research encouraged. As at a Spartan feast, youth and age commingled, men of all ages and diverse attainments exchanged views, and all benefited by mutual contact.
Those whose position precluded devotion to study availed themselves at least of the means for mutual improvement at their disposal. They organized societies for the study of certain branches of Jewish lore, and for the meetings of these societies the busiest spared time and the poorest put aside his work. It was a people composed of scholars and those who maintained scholars, and the scholars, in dress and appearance, represented the aristocracy, an aristocracy of the intellect.
Such was the pre-Haskalah period. From the meagre data at our disposal we are justified in concluding, that, left undisturbed, the Slavonic Jews would have evolved a civilization rivalling, if not surpassing, that of the golden era of the Spanish Jews. But this was not to be. Their onward march met a sudden and terrific check. Hetman Chmielnicki at the head of his savage hordes of Russians and Tatars conquered the Poles, and Jews and Catholics were subjected to the most inhuman treatment. The descendants of those who, in 1090, had escaped the Crusaders fell victims in 1648 to the more cruel Cossacks. About half a million Jews, it is estimated, lost their lives in Chmielnicki's horrible massacres. The few communities remaining were utterly demoralized. The education of the young was neglected, both sacred and secular branches of study were abandoned. And when the storm calmed down, they found themselves deprived of the accumulations of centuries, forced, like Noah after the deluge, but without his means, to start again from the very beginning. Indeed, as Levinsohn remarks, the wonder is that, despite the fiendish persecution they endured, these unfortunates should have preserved a spark of love of knowledge. Yet a little later it was to burst into flame again and bring light and warmth to hearts crushed by "man's inhumanity to man."
(Notes, pp. [305-310].)
[CHAPTER II]
THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION
1648-1794
The storm of persecution that had been brewing in the sixteenth century, and which burst in all its fury by the middle of the seventeenth century, was allayed but little by the rivers of blood that streamed over the length and breadth of the Slavonic land. Half a million Jewish victims were not sufficient to satisfy the followers of a religion of love. They only whetted their insatiable appetite. The anarchy among the Gentiles increased the misery of the Jews. The towns fell into the hands of the Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, and Tatars successively, and it was upon the Jews that the hounds of war were let loose at each defeat or conquest. Determined to exterminate each other, they joined forces in exterminating the Jews. When Bratzlav, for instance, was destroyed by the Tatars, in 1479, more than four hundred of its six hundred Jewish citizens were slain. When the city was attacked by the Cossacks in 1569, the greater number of the plundered and murdered were Jews. The same happened when Chmielnicki gained the upper hand in Bratzlav in 1648, again when the Russians slaughtered all the inhabitants in 1664, and when the Tatars plotted against their victorious enemy, Peter the Great.[1] Swedish attacks without and popular uprisings within rendered the Polish pan (dubbed among Jews poriz, rowdy or ruffian) as reckless as he was irresponsible. The Jew became for him a sponge to be squeezed for money, and a clown to contribute to his brutal amusements. The subtle and baneful influence of the Jesuits succeeded, besides, in introducing religion into politics and making the Jew the scapegoat for the evils of both. The Judaeus infidelis was the target of abuse and persecution. It was only the fear that the Government's exchequer might suffer that prevented his being turned into a veritable slave. His condition, indeed, was worse than slavery; his life was worth less than a beast's. It was frequently taken for the mere fun of it, and with impunity. An overseer once ordered all Jewish mothers living on the estate to climb to the tree-tops and leave their little ones below. He then fired at the children, and when the women fell from the trees at the horrible sight, he presented each with a piece of money, and thanked them for the pleasure they had afforded him.[2]
In the cities, though the pan's excesses were bound to be somewhat bridled there, the lot of the Jews was equally gloomy. They were treated like outlaws, were forbidden to engage in all but a few branches of trade or handicraft, or to live with Christians, or employ them as servants. In 1720 they were prohibited to build new synagogues or even repair the old ones. Sometimes the synagogues were locked "by order of ..." until a stipulated amount of money bought permission to reopen them. We of to-day can hardly imagine what pain a Jew of that time experienced when he hastened to the house of God on one of the great Holy Days only to find its doors closed by the police!
Their status was no better in Lithuania and Great Russia. The accession of Ivan IV, the Terrible (1533-1584), dealt their former comparative prosperity a blow from which it has not recovered to this day. As if to remove the impression of liberalism made by his predecessor and obliterate from memory his amicable relations with Doctor Leo, de Guizolfi, and Chozi Kolos, this monster czar, with the fiendishness of a Caligula, but lacking the accomplishments of his heathen prototype, delighted to invent tortures for inoffensive Jews. He expelled them from Moscow, and deprived them of the right of travel from place to place. During his occupancy of Polotsk he ordered all Jews residing there either to become converts to Greek Catholicism or choose between being drowned in the Dwina and burnt at the stake.
But even the removal of the terrible czar and the dawn of the century of reason and humanitarianism failed to effect a change for the better in the condition of the Slavonic Jews. For a while it appeared as if the Zeitgeist might penetrate even into Russo-Poland, and the Renaissance and the Reformation would not pass over the eastern portion of Europe without beneficent results. In Lithuania Calvinism threatened to oust Catholicism, science and culture began to be pursued, and Jewish and Gentile children attended the same schools. The successors of Ivan IV were men of better breeding, and the praiseworthy attempts of Peter the Great to introduce Western civilization are known to all.[3] But Slavonic soil has never been susceptible to the elevating influences that have transformed the rest of Europe. Every reformatory effort was nipped in the bud. The lot of the Jews accordingly grew from bad to worse. In 1727 they were expelled from the Ukraine and other provinces, and they were recalled, "for the benefit of the citizens," only at the instance of Apostol, the hetman of the very Cossacks that had massacred them in 1648. Baruch Leibov was burned alive in St. Petersburg, in 1738, for having dared "insult the Christian religion by building a synagogue in the village of Zvyerovichi," an offence that was aggravated by the suspicion that he had converted the Russian Captain Vosnitzin to Judaism. The same fate was, in 1783, meted out to Moses, a Jewish tailor, for refusing to accept Christianity, and in 1790 a Jew was quartered in Grodno, though the king had declined to sign his death warrant. In some places Jews had to contribute towards the maintenance of churches, and in Slutsk the law, enacted there in 1766, remains unrevoked to this day. Elizabeta Petrovna did not imitate Ivan III. When she discovered that Sanchez, her physician, was of the Jewish persuasion, she discharged him without notice, after eighteen years of faithful service. Similarly, when the Livonian merchants remonstrated, maintaining that the exclusion of Jews from their fairs was fraught with disastrous consequences to the commerce of the country, she is reported to have replied, "From the enemies of Christ I will not receive even a benefit."[4]
But worse things were yet to come, the worst since Chmielnicki's massacres. The bitterness of both Poles and Russians against the Jews grew especially intense as the days of the rozbior, the Partition of Poland, drew near (1794). The Poles, forgetting the many examples of loyalty and self-sacrifice shown by Jews in times of peace and war, suspected them of being treacherous and unreliable; while the Russians, though denying the patriotism of their own Jews, persisted in the accusation that Polish Jews spent money lavishly in fomenting rebellion and anarchy. The pupils of the Jesuits found great delight in attacks upon the Jews, which frequently culminated in riot and bloodshed and the payment of money by Jews to Catholic institutions. "What appalling spectacles," exclaims a Christian writer, "must we witness in the capital [Warsaw] on solemn holidays. Students and even adults in noisy mobs assault the Jews, and sometimes beat them with sticks. We have seen a gang waylay a Jew, stop his horses, and strike him till he fell from the wagon. How can we look with indifference on such a survival of barbarism?" The commonest manifestations of hatred and superstition, however, were, as in other countries, the charge that Jews were magicians, using the black art to avenge themselves on their persecutors, and that they used Christian blood for their observance of the Passover. The latter crime, the imputing of which was sternly prohibited by an edict of the liberal Bathory, in 1576, was so frequently laid at their door, that in the short period of sixty years (1700-1760) not less than twenty such accusations were brought against them, ending each time in the massacre of Jews by infuriated mobs. Even more shocking, if possible, was the frequent extermination of whole communities by the brigand bands known as Haidamacks. They added the "Massacre of Uman" (1768) to the Jewish calendar of misfortunes, the most terrible slaughter, equalled, perhaps, only by that of Nemirov in 1648.[5]
That all this should have left a marked impression on the mentality and intellectuality of the Jews, is little to be wondered at. The marvel is that they should have maintained their superiority over their surroundings, and continued to be a law-abiding and God-fearing people. While among the Russians and Poles the nobles who learned to read or write formed a rare exception, there was hardly one among the Jews, the very lowliest of them, who could not read Hebrew, and even translate it into the vernacular. Maimon tells us that in his early youth he became the family tutor of "a miserable farmer in a still more miserable village," who yet was ambitious of giving his children an education of some kind.
Fortunately for the Jews of those times—says a writer—their civilization was by far superior to that of the Christians. The rabbi, though in no way inferior to the priest mentally, was immeasurably above him morally. The students of the yeshibot, despite their exclusive devotion to the study of the Talmud, yet were better equipped for intellectual work, were of broader minds and better manners, than the pupils of the Jesuits. And the Jewish ba'ale battim, with an education as good as that of the Gentile shlyakhta, had a more ennobling and elevating object in life.[6]
It is remarkable how quickly they recuperated from the blows they received. In 1648 thousands of people were killed, whole communities exterminated, Volhynia, Podolia, and a great part of Lithuania utterly ruined. In 1660, in those very places, we hear again of Jewish settlements, with synagogues and schools and a system of education of the kind described in the preceding chapter, and we hear of the Council of Lithuania struggling to re-establish and cement the shattered foundation of their self-government. Yet all their efforts improved the demoralized condition of the country but little. As always in national crises, the individual was sacrificed to the community, and deprived of the few rights remaining to him. The kehillot became brutally oppressive. There were no longer men of the stamp of Abraham Rapoport, Solomon Luria, Mordecai Jaffe, and Meïr Katz, to put their feet on the neck of tyranny. Without special permission no one could buy or sell, or move from one place to another, or learn a trade or practice a profession. Rabbinism became synonymous with rigorism, the coercion of untold customs became unbearable, and the spirit of Judaism was lost in a heap of innumerable rites. The Jew's every act had to be sanctioned by religion. He knew of the outward world only from the heavy taxes he paid in order to be allowed to exist, and from the bloody riots with which his people was frequently visited.
What could result from such a state of affairs but poverty, material and spiritual, with all the suffering it engenders? Those at the head of the kehillot, being responsible solely to the Government, often had to deliver the full tale of bricks like the Jewish overseers in Egypt, though no straw was given to them. On one occasion Rabbi Mikel of Shkud was arrested because the kahal could not pay the thousand gulden it owed. In 1767, the whole kahal of Vilna went to Warsaw to protest against intolerable taxation. Such protests were usually of little avail. On the other hand, a few powerful families throve at the expense of their oppressed coreligionists. This aroused a spirit of animosity and a clamor for the abolition of the kahal institution. Jewish autonomy was more and more encroached upon. Rabbinates were bought and sold, and the aid of the Government was invoked in religious controversies. A question regarding the preferable form of prayer was submitted to the decision of Paul I. In 1777, Prince Radziwill decided who should officiate as rabbi in so important a centre of Judaism as Vilna,[7] and in 1804 the Government issued a "regulation" depriving the kahal of its judicial functions altogether.
What was even more disastrous was the spiritual poverty of the masses. Seldom have the awful warnings of the great lawgiver been fulfilled so literally as during the eighteenth century:
And upon them that remain of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall, when none pursueth. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies (Lev. 26: 36-37).
But the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind. And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and thou shalt have none assurance of thy life (Deut. 29: 65-66).
Having learned from sad experience that there was no crime their foes were incapable of perpetrating, they gave credence to every rumor as to an established fact. A report that boys and girls were to be prohibited from marrying before a certain age resulted in behalot (panics), during which children of the tenderest ages were united as husband and wife (1754, 1764, 1793). Mysticism became rampant. "Messiah" after "Messiah" "revealed" himself as the one promised to redeem Israel from all his troubles. Love of God began to be tinged with fear of the devil, and incantations to take the place of religious belief. The Zohar and works full of superstition, such as the Kab ha-Yashar, Midrash Talpiyot, and Nishmat Hayyim, the first studied by men, the others by both sexes, but mostly by women, prepared their minds for all sorts of mongrel beliefs. "In no land," says Tobias Cohn, "is the practice of summoning up devils and spirits by means of the Cabbalistic abracadabra so prevalent, and the belief in dreams and visions so strong, as in Poland."[8] All this, though it strengthened religious fervor in some, undermined it in others. Sects came into being, struggled, and, having brought added misery upon their followers, disappeared. Jewish criminals escaped justice by invoking the power of the Catholic priesthood and promising to become converted to Christianity.[9] And now and then even Talmudists left the fold, as, for instance, Carl Anton, the Courland pupil of Eybeschütz, who became professor of Hebrew at Hamsted, and wrote numerous works on Judaism. Others hoped to win the favor of the Gentiles by preaching a mixture of Judaism and Catholicism. In many places, especially in the Ukraine, the seat of learning that had suffered most from the ravages of the Cossacks, the state of morals sank very low, owing to the teaching of Jacob Querido, the self-proclaimed son of the pseudo-Messiah Shabbataï Zebi, "that the sinfulness of the world can be overcome only by a super-abundance of sin." This paved the way for the last of the long list of Messiahs, Jacob (Yankev Leibovich) Frank of Podolia. His experiences, adventures, and hairbreadth escapes, his entire career, beginning with his return from his travels in Turkey, through his conversion to Catholicism (1759), to the day of his death as "Baron von Offenbach," would furnish material for a stirring drama. As if to counteract this demoralizing tendency, a new sect, known as Hasidim, originating in Lithuania and headed by Judah Hasid of Dubno and Hayyim Malak, taught its devotees to hasten the advent of the Messiah by doing penance for the sins of Israel. They were so firmly convinced of the efficacy of fasts and prayers that they went to Jerusalem by hundreds to witness the impending redemption (ab. 1706). But the ascetic Hasidim and the epicurean Frankists were alike doomed to disappear or to be swallowed up by a new Hasidism, combining the teachings and aspirations of both, the sect founded by Israel Baal Shem, or Besht (ab. 1698-1759), and fully developed by Bar of Meseritz and Jacob Joseph of Polonnoy.
Isaac Bär Levinsohn, 1788-1860
Time was when all writers on the subject, usually Maskilim, thought it their duty to cast a stone at Hasidism. They described it as a Chinese wall shutting the Jews in and shutting the world out. It is becoming more and more plainly recognized and admitted, that it was, in reality, an attempt at reform rendered imperative by the tyranny of the kahal, the rigorism of the rabbis, the superciliousness of the learned classes, and the superstition of the masses. Its aim was to bring about a deep psychologic improvement, to change not so much the belief as the believer. It insisted on purity rather than profundity of thought. Unable to remove the galling yoke, it gave strength to its wearers by prohibiting sadness and asceticism, and emphasizing joy and fellowship as important elements in the fabric of its theology.
Hasidism was thus a plant the seeds of which had been sown by the various sects. Like the former Hasidim, or even the Assideans of nearly two thousand years before, their latter-day namesakes rigidly adhered to the laws of Levitical purification, and, to a certain extent, led a communistic life. In addition they accepted, in a modified form, certain customs and beliefs of the Catholic church that had been adopted by the followers of Frank. The prayers to the saints (zaddikim), the conception of faith as the fountain of salvation, even the belief in a trinity consisting of the Godhead, the Shekinah, and the Holy Ghost, these and other exotic doctrines introduced by the Cabbala took root and grew in the vineyard of Hasidism.[10]
The founder of the sect has an interesting history. In his childhood he gave no evidence of future greatness. His education was of a low order, but his feeling heart and sympathetic soul won him the esteem of all that knew him. The woods possessed the same charm for him as for Wordsworth or Whitman. With the latter especially he seems to have much in common. While a child, he absented himself frequently from the narrow and noisy heder, and spent the day in the quiet of the neighboring woods. When he grew up, he accepted the menial position of a school usher. His office was to go from house to house, arouse the sleeping children, dress them, and bring them to heder. But the time soon came when humble and obscure Israel "revealed" himself to the world. Owing to his tact and knowledge of human nature, combined with the conditions of the times, his teachings spread rapidly. He was speedily crowned with the glory of a "good name" (Baal Shem Tob), and in the end he was immortalized.
From such a man we can expect only originality, not profundity. Indeed, his whole life was a protest against the subtleties of the Talmudists and the ceremonies, meaningless to him, which they introduced into Judaism. His object was to remove the petrified rabbinical restrictions (gezerot) and develop the emotional side of the Jew in their stead. He was primarily a man of action, and had little love for the rabbis, their passivity, world-weariness, and pride of intellect. It is said that when he "overheard the sounds of eager, loud discussions issuing from a rabbinical college, closing his ears with his hands, [he] declared that it was such disputants who delayed the redemption of Israel from captivity." Men like these, who study the Law for the sake of knowing, not of feeling, cannot claim any merit for it. They deserve to be called "Jewish devils." Only he is worthy of reward who is virtuous rather than innocent, who does what he is afraid to do, who, as Jacob Joseph of Polonnoy puts it, "acquires evil thoughts and converts them into holy ones." No asceticism for him. All kinds of human feelings deserve our respect, for it is not the body that feels but the soul, and the soul, "being a part of God on high, cannot possibly have an absolutely bad tendency." Men may not be heresy-hunters and fault-finders, for none is free from heresy and faults himself: the face he brings to the mirror, he finds reflected in it. Yea, even the followers of Abraham possess evil propensities, and noble qualities frequently belong to the disciples of Balaam himself.[11]
These democratic principles put the most ignorant Jew in Russia on an equality with the erudite Lithuanian. No wonder that they obtained such strong hold on the people of the Ukraine, the province shorn of all its glory. Hasidism invaded Podolia and Volhynia, swept over Galicia and Hungary, and found adherents even in many a large community in Western Russia and Prussia. It brought cheer and happiness in its wake, and rendered the unfortunate Jew forgetful of his misery. Gottlober maintains that the inspiring melodies of the Hasidic hymns were largely responsible for the spread of the movement, even as Moody attributed the success of his revivals to the singing of Sankey. For, as Doctor Schechter has it, "the Besht was a religious revivalist in the best sense, full of burning faith in his God and his cause; convinced of the value of his teaching and his truth."[12]
One province there was to which the Besht could not penetrate, at least not without a long siege and great losses. In Lithuania the inroads of Hasidism were strenuously opposed, and its advance disputed step by step. The Lithuanian Jews, to whom the Talmud was as dear as ever, could not countenance a movement sprung, as they believed, from the seed sown by Shabbataï Zebi, an opponent of the Talmud, and by Jacob Frank, at whose instigation the Bishop of Kamenetz ordered the Talmud to be publicly burnt.[13]
The opponents (Mitnaggedim) of Hasidism were headed by a leader who was as typical an exponent of the cause he espoused as the Besht was of his. Among the students of Jewish literature since the close of the Talmud, few have surpassed, or even equalled, Elijah of Vilna (1720-1797). Not inappropriately he was called Gaon and Hasid, for in mental and moral attainments he was unique in his generation. As the Besht was noted in his early life for dulness and indifference, so Elijah was remarkable for diligence and versatility. His life, like the Besht's, became the nucleus of many wonderful tales, which his biographer narrates with painstaking exactness. They present the picture of a man diametrically different from Israel Baal Shem Tob. Every year, we are told, added to the marvellous development of the young intellectual giant. When he was six years old, none but Rabbi Moses Margolioth, the renowned Talmudist and author, was competent enough to teach him. At seven, he worsted the chief rabbi of his native city in a Talmudic discussion. At nine, there was nothing in Jewish literature with which he was not familiar, and he turned to other studies to satisfy his craving for knowledge. And at thirteen, he was acknowledged by his fellows as the greatest of Talmudists.[14] He had neither guide nor teacher. All unaided he discovered the path of truth. He held neither a rabbinical nor any other public office. He was as retiring as the Besht was aggressive. Nevertheless his word was law, and his influence immense. The centenary of his death (1897) was celebrated among all classes with the solemnity which the memories of "men of God" inspire.[15]
Now, this Gaon of Vilna, or Hagra, was perhaps no less dissatisfied with prevailing conditions than the Besht, but his remedy for them was as different as the two personalities were unlike. He did not desire to abolish the Talmud, but rather to render it more attractive, by making its acquisition easier and putting its study on a scientific basis. Even in Lithuania, the citadel of the Talmud, the development of Talmudic learning had been hampered. In accordance with a Talmudic principle, mankind is continually degenerating, not only physically, but morally and mentally as well. It holds that if "the ancients were angels, we are mere men; if they were but men, we are asses." This high regard for antiquity produced a belief in the infallibility of the rabbis on the part of the Mitnaggedim, similar to that in their zaddikim by the Hasidim. No scholar of a later generation dared disagree with the statement of a rabbi of a previous generation. But as authorities sometimes conflict with each other, the Talmudists regarded it their duty to reconcile them or to prove, in the words of the ancient sages, that "these as well as those are the words of the living God." Similarly, the popes declared that, despite their contradictions, the Biblical translations of Sixtus V and Clement VIII were both correct.
It is true that Lithuanian Talmudists were not always the slaves of authority which they ultimately became. A study of the works of the early Slavonian rabbis, before and after Rabbi Polack, shows that they were free from unhealthy awe of their predecessors, and sometimes were audaciously independent. Neither Solomon Luria (Maharshal), Samuel Edels (Maharsha), or Meïr Lublin (Maharam) refrained from criticising and amending whenever they deemed it necessary. But in the course of time the casuistic method, originally a mere pastime, became the approved method of study, and produced what is known as pilpul. Scholars wasted days and nights in heaping Ossa upon Pelion, in reconciling difficulties which no logic could harmonize. Here the Gaon found the first and most urgent need for reform. The Talmudists, he declared, were not infallible. Every one may interpret the Mishnah in accordance with reason, even if the interpretation be not in keeping with the traditional meaning as construed by the Amoraim.[16]
His views on religion were equally liberal. The same process of reasoning which, spun out to its logical conclusion, led to pilpul in the schools, produced, when turned into the channel of religion, the over-piety culminating in the Shulhan 'Aruk. This remarkable book, with the euphonious name The Ready Table, prescribed enough regulations to keep one busy from early morning till late at night. The Jews found themselves bound hand and foot by ceremonial trammels and weighted down by a burden of innumerable customs. The spirit of freedom that had animated Slavonian Judaism during the Middle Ages had fled. The breadth of view that had marked the decision of many of its rabbis was gone.[17] Judaism was a mere mummy of its former self. Here, too, the Gaon came to the rescue. Rightly or wrongly, he "established the importance of Minhagim [religious ceremonies] according to their antiquity or primitivism, regarding those which have originated since the codification of the Shulhan 'Aruk as not binding at all; those which have been adopted since the Talmudic period to be subject to change by common consent; while those of the Bible and in the Talmud were to him fundamental and unalterable."[18]
But the Gaon's influence on the Haskalah movement by far surpassed his influence on the study of the Talmud or on the ceremonials of the synagogue. Many, in point of fact, regard him as the originator of the movement. As he was the first to oppose the authority of the Talmudists, so he was the first to inveigh against the educational system among the Jews of his day and country. The mania for distinction in rabbinical learning plunged the child into the mazes of Talmudic casuistry as soon as he could read; frequently he had not read the Bible or studied the rudiments of grammar. The Gaon insisted that every one should first master the twenty-four books of the Bible, their etymology, prosody, and syntax, then the six divisions of the Mishnah with the important commentaries and the suggested emendations, and finally the Talmud in general, without wasting much time on pilpul, which brings no practical result. "These few lines," says a writer, "contain a more thorough course of study than Wessely suggested in his Words of Peace and Truth. Though they did not entirely change the system in vogue—for great is the power of habit—they produced a wholesome effect, which was visible in a short time among the people." Furthermore, the Gaon exhorted the Talmudists to study secular science, since, "if one is ignorant of the other sciences, one is a hundredfold more ignorant of the sciences of the Torah, for the two are inseparably connected." He set the example by writing, not only on the most important Hebrew books, Biblical, Talmudic, and Cabbalistic, but also on algebra, geometry, trigonometry, astronomy, and grammar.[19] And his example served as an impetus and encouragement to the Maskilim in spreading knowledge among their coreligionists.
Such was the man who led the crusade against the converts to Hasidism. But even he could not stem the current. In their despair, the Lithuanian Jews turned to their coreligionists in Germany, and implored their assistance in eradicating, or at least suppressing, the threatened invasion. The great learning and literary ability of the "divine philosopher, Rabbi Moses ben Menahem" (Mendelssohn, 1729-1786), were appealed to for help. Not a stone was left unturned to crush the new sect (kat), so called. Volumes of the Toledot Ya'akob Yosef, in which Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonnoy set forth the principles of the Besht, were burnt in the market-place in Vilna. Intermarriage, social intercourse of any kind, was prohibited between Hasidim and Mitnaggedim. In Vilna, Grodno, Brest, Slutsk, Minsk, Pinsk, etc., the ban was hurled against the dissenters by the most prominent rabbis. Israel was divided into two hostile camps.[20] But soon everything was changed. Hasidim and Mitnaggedim discovered that while they were fighting each other, a common enemy was undermining the ground on which they stood. The Haskalah was steadily drawing recruits from both, and it threatened ultimately to become more dangerous to both than they were to each other.
From the South had come the impulse of religious revivalism through the followers of the Besht, and the North was showing signs of awakening through the reforms of the Gaon. At the same time a ray of enlightenment from the West pierced through the night. To make the regeneration of Slavonic Judaism complete, the element of estheticism had to be added to emotionalism and reason. From the warm South came Besht, from the studious North Hagra, and Rambman (Mendelssohn) made his appearance from the enlightened West. The triumvirate was complete.
Not that Mendelssohn ever visited or resided in Russo-Poland. But the gentle, cultured little savant of Berlin, with whose lips, Carlyle tells us, Socrates spoke like Socrates in German as in no other modern language, "for his own character was Socratic," was at no period of his life wholly cut off from influencing Slavonic Jews and from being influenced by them. As a lad Mendelssohn was instructed by Israel Moses Halevi of Zamoscz (ab. 1700-1772). This teacher of his, who is credited with several inventions, and of whom Lessing says, in a letter to Mendelssohn, that he was "one of the first to arouse a love for science in the hearts of Jews," imbued him with love for philosophy. When Mendelssohn emerged from obscurity, and, despite ill-health and ignorance, attained culture and breeding, his associate, who was with him the most important factor in German Haskalah, was the renowned Naphtali, or Hartwig, Wessely, whose grandfather Joseph Reis had been among the fugitives from the Cossack massacres in 1648. And when he became famous, and took his place among the greatest of his age, he still sought diversion and instruction among the Slavonian Jews, and boasted of being a descendant of one of them, Moses Isserles of Cracow. As formerly with the Talmud, the Haskalah seemed, at the time of Mendelssohn, to be moving from the East westward, through the agency of the Slavonic Jews pouring perennially into Germany. Positions, from the lowly melammed's to the honorable chief rabbi's in prominent communities, were filled almost exclusively by them. The cause of Judaism seems to have been entrusted to them. Ezekiel Landau, whose tactful intercession helped greatly to establish peace between the Emden-Eybeschütz factions, was rabbi of Prague for almost forty years (1755-1793); the equally prominent, but at first somewhat less liberal Phinehas Horowitz was rabbi and dean in Frankfort-on-the-Main for over thirty years (1771-1805); his brother Shmelke, regarded as a saint, was chief rabbi of Moravia (1775). Another Horwitz, Aaron Halevi, was rabbi of Berlin, one of those who favored Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch; while the cultured and profound Talmudist Raphael Hakohen, whose grandson, Gabriel Riesser, became the greatest champion of Jewish emancipation Germany has yet produced, was offered the rabbinate of Berlin (1771). He declined the post, and finally became chief rabbi (1776-1803) of the united congregations of Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck. It is also recorded that Samuel ben Avigdor, the last rabbi of Vilna, held the rabbinate of Königsberg,[21] and there certainly must have been many more who, because of their inferior positions, cannot be so easily traced. Besides, Germany, as we have seen, was the common fatherland of the greater part of both Slavonic and Teutonic Jews. It never remained a terra incognita to the former for any length of time. Its proximity to Russia, the business relations between the Jews of the two countries, intermarriage, and, with a few insignificant exceptions, the identity of language, made the Jews of both countries come into closer contact than was possible with any other Jews. For the studious, Germany possessed the attraction which the "land of universities" exerts upon seekers after knowledge the world over. To whom, indeed, could the profound and abstruse speculations of Leibnitz and Kant make a stronger appeal than to the Jew who had been initiated into metaphysical abstractions from his very childhood? It is no wonder, then, that immigration from Russo-Poland into Germany was constantly on the increase, until, under Alexander II, the advancement of Russian civilization put a stop in a measure to these roamings, to be resumed under Alexander III and Nicholas II.
The Russo-Polish youth, therefore, found himself quite at home in the country of Mendelssohn, and thither, in case of necessity, he would go. In the eleventh century Jews had gone from Germany to Poland. In the eighteenth they retraced their steps from Poland to Germany. Outnumbering by far those who went there from choice or by invitation, were those compelled to go in search of a livelihood. "When I reached the age of twenty, peaceful and comfortable in my father's house, I began to hope that henceforth I should pursue my studies uninterrupted. But all at once my father lost his fortune, and I was forced to go somewhere to provide for myself. So I became a melammed in Berlin." This piece of autobiography in the preface to a Talmudic treatise by Reuben of Zamoscz might have been written by many others, too. But there were also the goodly number led thither by thirst for knowledge, whose remarkable abilities attracted the admiration of Jew and Gentile alike. Wessely the poet and Linda the mathematician more than once expressed surprise at the amount of learning many of the poor immigrants were found to possess.[22]
Among these immigrants were two who may justly be regarded as the conducting medium through which the Haskalah currents were transmitted from Germany to Russo-Poland: Solomon Dubno, the indefatigable laborer in the province of Jewish science, and Solomon Maimon, the brilliant but unfortunate philosopher, both of them teachers in the house of Mendelssohn.
Solomon Dubno (1738-1813) was all his life a bee in search of flowers, to turn their sweetness into honey. Having exhausted the knowledge of his Volhynian instructors, he went to Galicia, where he became proficient in Hebrew grammar and Biblical exegesis. Thence, attracted by its rich collection of books, he left for Amsterdam, where he spent five years in study and research. Finally he settled in Berlin, and earned a livelihood by teaching among others the children of Mendelssohn. The gentle disposition and profound learning of the Polish emigrant made a favorable impression on the Berlin sage, who invited him to participate in his translation of the Bible, which revolutionized the Judaism of the nineteenth century more than the Septuagint that of the first century. The result was the Biur (commentary), which he, together with his countryman, Aaron Yaroslav, also a teacher, wrote on several books of the Bible. Comparatively few of Dubno's works have been published, but judging from such as are known we may safely pronounce him a master of the Massorah and a scholar of unusual attainments. Of his poems Delitzsch says that they are "in the truest sense Hebrew in expression, Biblical in imagery and subject-matter, medieval in rhyme and rhythm, and in general genuinely Jewish in manner of treatment,"—laudation which this exacting critic bestowed on no other Hebrew poet of his time. It was mainly through the endeavors of Dubno that Mendelssohn's Pentateuch, later regarded with suspicion, was everywhere bought and studied eagerly.[23]
One better known to the outside world than Dubno, and who has engraved his name forever on the history of theology and philosophy, was Solomon Maimon (Nieszvicz, Lithuania, 1754—Niedersiegersdorf, Silesia, 1800). In his famous autobiography is mirrored the lot of hundreds of his countrymen who, like him, left their homes and hearths, their nearest and dearest, and led a wretched and miserable existence, all because they were anxious to be ma'amike be-hakmah ("delvers in knowledge"), as he himself might have said, and avail themselves of the opportunities for acquiring the truth and wisdom unattainable in their own land.
But Maimon was doomed to suffer abroad even more than at home. He was one of those unfortunates whose sufferings are regarded as well-deserved. His exceptional ability was never to develop to its fullest capacity. Great injustice has been done to him, not only by the rabid orthodox, who denied him a grave in their cemetery, but even by the enlightened historian Graetz. Fortunately he left behind him his Lebensgeschichte, among the best of its kind in German literature, in which, with the frankness of a Rousseau, he described the events of his short and checkered career.[24]
From this admirable work, in which he neither hides his follies nor flaunts his talents, we learn that Maimon possessed rare virtues. His sympathy for the poor, his ready helpfulness even at the sacrifice of himself, rendered him as uncommon in moral action as in philosophic speculation. To the English reader a striking parallelism suggests itself between him and his contemporary Oliver Goldsmith. Both were afflicted with generosity above their fortunes; both had a "knack at hoping," which led frequently to their undoing; neither could subscribe easily to the "decent formalities of rigid virtue"; and, as of the latter we may also say of the former, in the language of a reviewer, "He had lights and shadows, virtues and foibles—vices you cannot call them, be you never so unkind."
As Goldsmith came to London, so came Maimon to Berlin, "without friends, recommendation, money, or impudence." His only luggage was two manuscripts: a commentary on the works of Maimuni, whose name he had adopted, and to whom he paid divine reverence; and a treatise in which he attempted to rationalize the recondite doctrines of the Cabbala, and which he always kept by him "as a monument of the struggle of the human mind after perfection in spite of all hindrances which were put in its way." The little bundle, which, to the zealot Jewish elders of that community, seemed sufficient indication that Maimon was tainted with heresy, and that his intentions were to devote himself to the study of science and philosophy, proved a great impediment to entering Berlin; and when, after a long, incredible struggle, he was finally admitted, he found himself incapable of earning a livelihood. In his childlike naïveté he was betrayed by the very persons upon whom he relied most. All this could not deaden his love for knowledge and truth. By chance he obtained Wolff's Metaphysics, and this marked a new epoch in his life. "Not only the sublime science in itself," says he, "but also the order and mathematical method of the celebrated author, the precision of his explanations, the exactness of his reasoning, and the scientific arrangement of his expositions—all this kindled a new light in my mind."
So profound a thinker could not for long be a mere pupil. Wolff's argument a posteriori for the existence of God, in accordance with his philosophic hobby, the "principle of sufficient reason," displeased him wholly. A Hebrew letter to Mendelssohn, in which he shook the foundation of the Metaphysics by means of his irrefutable ontology, won him the admiration of the Berlin sage, who invited him to become his daily guest.
Maimon's intellect unfolded from day to day, until, some time afterwards, he astonished the philosophic world by his great work, Die Transcendentale Philosophie (Berlin, 1790), in reference to which Kant wrote to his beloved disciple Marcus Herz: "A mere glance at it enabled me to recognize its merits, and showed me, that not only had none of my opponents understood me and the main problem so well, but very few could claim so much penetration as Herr Maimon in profound inquiries of this sort." He demolished the prevalent Leibnitzo-Wolffian system in it, and proved that even the Kantian theory, though irrefutable from a dogmatic point of view, is exposed to severe attacks from the skeptic's point of view.
Thenceforth he became a leading figure in philosophic controversy. In 1793 he published Ueber die Progresse der Philosophie; in 1794, Versuch einer neuen Logik, and Die Kategorien des Aristoteles, and, three years later, Kritische Untersuchungen über den menschlichen Geist (Berlin, 1797), wherein he originated a speculative, monistic idealism, which pervaded not only philosophy, but all sciences during the first half of the nineteenth century, the system by which Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel were influenced. According to Bernfeld, he was the greatest Jewish philosopher since the time of Spinoza, with whose depth of reasoning he combined an ease and straightforwardness of illustration characteristic of Benjamin Franklin.[25]
With all this he remained an ardent lover of the Talmud to the last. In fact, his philosophy is distinctively Jewish. Like Spinoza, he exhibited the effects of the Cabbala and of rabbinic speculation, with which he had been familiar from childhood. The honor of the Talmudic sages was always dear to him, and he never mentioned them without expressing profound respect. Persecuted though he was by his German coreligionists, he never bore them a grudge. As a man he loved them as brothers, but as a philosopher he could not subscribe to their views implicitly. But for friends and benefactors his affection was unusually strong. With what love he talks of Mendelssohn in the chapter dedicated to him in his autobiography, even though "he could not explain the persistency of Mendelssohn and the Wolffians generally in adhering to their system, except as a political dodge, and a piece of hypocrisy, by which they studiously endeavored to descend to the mode of thinking common to the popular mind!" His devotion to his wife was not diminished even after he had been compelled to divorce her because of his supposed heretical proclivities. "When the subject [of his divorce] came up in conversation, it was easy," says his biographer,[26] "to read in his face the deep sorrow he felt: his liveliness then faded away sensibly. By and by he would become perfectly silent, was incapable of further entertainment, and went home earlier than usual." Of his Russo-Polish brethren he speaks in the highest terms. He cannot bestow too much praise on their care for the poor and the sick, and he always hoped once more to see his native land, to whose king he dedicated his Transcendental Philosophy. "For," says he, "the Polish Jews are, indeed, for the most part not enlightened by science; their manners and way of life are still rude, but they are loyal to the religion of their fathers and to the laws of their country."[27]
It is because I regard him as the greatest Maskil of his time that I have dwelt on Maimon at such length. Mendelssohn's philosophy, if he had an original system, has long since passed into oblivion; Maimon's will be studied as long as Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Kant are in vogue. His importance to us does not lie in the circumstance that his autobiography—"that wonderful bit of Autobiography," as George Eliot speaks of it, or "that curious and rare book," as Dean Milman calls it—and the pictures drawn of him by Berthold Auerbach and Israel Zangwill[28] have made him the hero of some of the world's best biographies and novels. Over and above this, he is the prototype of his unfortunate countrymen during the days of transition. He embodied the aspiration, courage, and disappointments of them all, and if, as Carlyle said, "the history of the world is the history of its great men," Maimon's life should be studied by all interested in the Kulturkampf of the Russo-Polish and of the German Jews in the eighteenth century.
What could he not have accomplished, he to whom Kant and Goethe, Schiller and Körner paid tributes of unstinted praise, had he not been doomed to suffer and to starve. Only at the last moment, before he was silenced forever, was he able to say, Ich bin ruhig ("I am at peace"). Yet, in spite of the difficulties and impediments besetting him at every step, his promise of greatness and usefulness was not belied. In the Introduction to his commentary on Maimuni's Guide to the Perplexed (Gibe'at ha-Moreh), in which he attempted to reconcile his master's system with that of modern philosophy—even as the master had tried to reconcile Judaism with Aristotelianism—he gave a brief sketch of the development of modern thought. This part of his work was assiduously studied by his compatriots. Among his unpublished writings was found a work on mathematical physics, Ta'alumot Hokmah, and in his Talmudic treatise, Heshek Shelomoh, he inserted a dissertation, Ma'aseh Hosheb, on arithmetic, like a skilful physician putting a healing, though to some it may appear a repelling, balm into a delicious, attractive capsule.
The story of Maimon, as I have said, is the story of many of the peripatetic apostles of Haskalah, and his experience was more or less also theirs. Issachar Falkensohn Behr (or Bär Falkensohn, 1746-1796?), without funds, friends, or rudimentary knowledge of the subjects necessary for admission into a public school, left his native city of Zamosez with the determination to enter the university of "Little Berlin," as Königsberg was called. Too poor to carry out his plan, he tramped to Berlin. Through the influence of his relatives and countrymen, Israel Moses Halevi and Daniel Jaffe, he was introduced to Mendelssohn, and was enabled to devote himself systematically to the study of German, the alphabet of which he had learned from Wolff's treatise on mathematics, and to French, Latin, physics, philosophy, and medicine. In a very short time he mastered them all, especially German. His Gedichte eines polnischen Juden (Mitau and Leipsic, 1772) caused no little stir among the poets. Lessing and Goethe, close observers of symptoms of enlightenment among the Jews, expressed themselves differently as to the real merit of the collection; but both concurred with Boie, who, writing to Knebel, the friend of Goethe, remarked concerning them, "You are right; the Jewish nation promises much after it is once awakened."[29]
For one reason or another we find that some Slavonic Jewish youths preferred other places to Berlin for the pursuit of their studies. Such were Benjamin Wolf Günzberg and Jacob Liboschüts. The former was probably the only Jew at the Göttingen University. It was from there that he inquired of Jacob Emden "whether it was permissible to dissect on the Sabbath," and his thesis for the doctor's degree was De medica ex Talmudicis illustrata (Göttingen, 1743).[30] Liboschüts studied at the University of Halle. After graduation, finding that as a Jew he could not settle in St. Petersburg, he established himself in Vilna, where he became celebrated as a diplomat, philanthropist, and, more especially, expert physician. When Professor Frank was asked who would take care of the public health in his absence, he is reported to have said, Deus et Judaeus, "God and the Jew" [Liboschüts]!
In their deep-rooted love for learning, they sometimes ventured even beyond the German boundaries, into countries whose language and customs had little in common with theirs. Padua continued to be the resort of Russo-Polish Jews that it had been before 1648. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto found an ardent admirer and zealous propagandist of his principles in the young medical student Jekuthiel Gordon (ab. 1729), who wrote concerning his master to friends in Vienna and Vilna.[31] Judah Halevi Hurwitz (d. 1797), whose work 'Ammude Bet Yehudah (Amsterdam, 1765) was highly recommended by Mendelssohn and Wessely, was a graduate of the same famous institution. In addition to his medical and philosophic attainments, he wrote a number of poems, and he was among the first to translate fables from German into Hebrew.[32]
The story of Zalkind Hurwitz (1740-1812), "le fameux," as he was called by a French writer, is interesting. Starting, as usual, by going to Berlin, and succeeding, as usual, in gaining the friendship of Mendelssohn, he then visited Nancy, Metz, and Strasburg, and finally settled in Paris. Like Doctor Behr, he had to resort to peddling as a means for a livelihood. The rudiments of French he acquired from any book he chanced to obtain. Nevertheless, he soon became proficient in the language of his adopted country, and wrote his excellent Apologie des juifs, which, crowned by the Academy of Metz and quoted by Mirabeau, was largely instrumental in removing the disabilities of the Jews in France. Clermont-Tonnerre, the advocate of Jewish emancipation, said of him, Le juif polonais seul avait parlé en philosophe. He was suggested as a member of the Sanhedrin convoked by Napoleon in 1807. Though for some reason he never enjoyed the honor of membership in it, he was, nevertheless, the ruling spirit in the august assembly, and later generations have paid him the homage he deserves.[33]
Where Hurwitz failed, another of his countrymen was to succeed. Judah Litvack (1776-1836) removed from Berlin to Amsterdam, became prominent among the Dutch mathematicians, and wrote a Dutch work, Verhandeling over de Profgetallen Gen. ii (Amsterdam, 1817), which appeared in a second edition four years after the first. The author was elected a member of the Mathesis Artium Genetrix Society, and appointed one of the deputation sent to the Sanhedrin (February 12, 1807), before which he delivered a discourse in the German language.
The "distant isles of the sea," the British Islands, Russo-Polish Jews seem to have frequented ever since the Restoration, probably contemporaneously with the settlement of the Spanish Jews. The famous mystic Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk, one of the many Baal-Shems who flourished in Podolia at the beginning of the eighteenth century, settled in London before 1750, and became the subject of many wonder stories. Sussman Shesnovzi, apparently a countryman of his, describes him, in a letter to Jacob Emden, as "standing alone in his generation by reason of his knowledge of holy mysteries." That this was the opinion of many and prominent personages may be inferred from the fact that among his callers were such distinguished visitors as the Marchese de Crona, Baron de Neuhoff, Prince Czartorisky, and the Duke of Orleans. The confidence of such as these brought Falk a considerable fortune, a large part of which he bequeathed to a charity fund, the interest of which the overseers of the United Synagogue still distribute annually among the poor.[34] Shortly before "Doctor" Falk's death (1782), there settled in London Phinehas Phillips of Krotoschin, the founder of the Phillips family, which has furnished two Lord Mayors to the city of London.
It was not merely because of its business facilities that England appealed to the Slavonic Jews. Baruch Shklover, or Schick (1740-1812), went thither to study medicine, and it was from English literature that he selected the material for his Keneh ha-Middah (Prague, 1784; Shklov, 1793), on trigonometry. It would appear that the first Hebrew book, Toledot Ya'akob, printed for a Jew in England, was, as the name of the author, Eisenstadt, suggests, that of a Slavonic Jew. Although a silversmith by profession, Israel Lyons (d. 1770) was appointed teacher of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge. He acquired repute as a Hebrew scholar, and published, in 1757, the Scholar's Instructor, or Hebrew Grammar (4th ed., 1823), and in 1768 a treatise printed by the Cambridge Press, Observations and Inquiries Relating to Various Parts of Scripture History. In the same chosen field labored Hyman Hurwitz (1770-1844), the friend of Coleridge, who founded the Highgate Academy (1799), and wrote an Introduction to Hebrew Grammar, Vindica Hebraica, and Hebrew Tales, which were translated into various languages. He finally became professor of Hebrew in University College, London.
A younger contemporary of Abrahamson, the Jewish German medallist, was Solomon (Yom Tob) Bennett (1780-1841), the engraver of Polotsk, who spent a number of years at Copenhagen and Berlin in perfecting himself in his art. Among his works is a highly praised bas-relief of Frederick II, which was much admired by the professors of the Academy. An ardent lover of liberty, of which there was little more in Germany at that time than in Russia, he left for England, where he spent the remaining years of his life, in Bristol. Besides being an artist and an engraver he was a profound theologian, anxious to defend the cause of Judaism against enemies within and without. The enemy within he attacked in his cutting criticism of Solomon Cohen's Rudiments of Religion, and the enemy outside, in his other work, The Constancy of Israel (Nezah Yisraël, London, 1809). He also wrote expositions on many important Biblical topics, such as sacrifices (1815) and the Temple (1824). Having pointed out the defects of the Authorized Version (1834), he was ambitious of publishing a complete revised translation of the Bible. Specimens appeared in 1841. Death intervened and frustrated his plans. As Schick was the first Jew to translate from English into Hebrew, so Bennett was the first after Manasseh ben Israel to write in English in behalf of his people.[35]
If the contributions of Slavonic Jews to Latin, German, French, Dutch, and English literature were not less considerable at that time than those of the Jews residing in the countries where these languages were respectively used as media, they excelled them in Hebrew literature. In the renaissance of the holy tongue, they played the most important part from the first. The striving for knowledge, not for the purpose of obtaining a coveted privilege, but for its own sake, became an irresistible passion, and it was accompanied by an unquenchable desire to disseminate knowledge among the masses, to make learning and wisdom common property. The Hebrew language being the best vehicle for the purpose, it was soon impressed into the service of Haskalah. The pioneer Maskilim learned to handle it with ease and clearness that would do credit to a modern writer in a much more developed European language.
From the middle of the fifteenth to the latter part of the eighteenth century, Hebrew literature consisted, if a few scattered books on philosophy, mostly translations from the Arabic, are excepted, mainly of Talmudic disquisitions, written in the rabbinic dialect and in a euphuistic style. Besides the great Maimuni, there were few able or willing to write Hebrew "as she should be spoke." The early German Maskilim, in trying to escape the Scylla of Rabbinism, fell victims to the Charybdis of Germanism. They possessed originality neither of style nor of sentiment, neither of rhyme nor of reason. Hebrew poetry was an adaptation of current German poetry. The very best the period produced, the Mosaïde of Wessely, was influenced by and largely an imitation of Klopstock and others. Like English classic poetry, it is pretty in form but poor in spirit. The element of nationality, or distinctiveness, the life-giving and soul-uplifting element in all poetry, as Delitzsch justly maintains it to be, was lacking in the German Maskilim, anxious for naturalization as they were. It was the Slavonic Maskilim who mastered Hebrew in its purity, as it had not been mastered since the day of Judah Halevi. In those days of transition the diligent student can find, in germ, what was later to develop into the resplendent poetical flowers produced by the Lebensohns, the Gordons, Dolitzky, Schapiro, Mane, and Bialik.
The Slavonic contributors to the Meassef, the first Hebrew literary periodical (1784-1811), were not conspicuous in number, but if quality can compensate for quantity, they made up for it by the value of their articles. Dubno and Maimon enriched the early issues, the one with poetry, the other with philosophy; and when it began to struggle for its existence, and was on the point of giving up the ghost, Shalom Cohen (1772-1845) came to the rescue, and, as editor, prolonged its existence by a few years. Among the best articles in the Meassef are those of Isaac Halevi Satanov (1733-1805). This "conglomeration of contrasts," whom Delitzsch regards as the restorer of Hebrew poetry to its primitive beauty and purity, was the embodiment of the period in which he lived. "He was," we are told, "a thorough master of Jewish traditional lore, and at the same time a most advanced thinker, a profound physicist, and an inspired poet; a master of the old school and at the same time the founder of the new school, the national-classical, of Hebrew poetry." His pure and precise style, his good-natured, Horace-like, delicate, yet unmistakable, humor, he showed in a series of books bearing the name of Asaf, which still must be counted among the gems of Hebrew literature.[36]
Satanov was greatly in favor of expanding the Hebrew language, but the first to borrow expressions from the Talmud literature or coin words of his own was Mendel Levin, also of Satanov, Podolia (1741-1819), the friend of Mendelssohn while in Berlin, the inspirer of Perl and Krochmal while in Brody, the companion of Zeitlin and Schick while in Mohilev. The Meassefim, the name generally applied to all who participated in the publication of the Meassef, were shocked by what they regarded a profanation of the sacred tongue. Their idea was that Hebrew was to be utilized as a means of introducing Western civilization. Afterwards it was to be relegated once more to the holy Ark. To Levin Hebrew had a far higher significance. Not only should Western civilization be introduced into Jewry through its means, but Hebrew itself should be so perfected as to take a place by the side of the more modern and cultivated languages. It should find adequate expressions for the new thoughts and ideas which the new learning would introduce into it directly or indirectly. The medieval translations from the Arabic should be retranslated into the new Hebrew, he held, and he furnished an example by recasting the first part of Maimuni's Moreh Nebukim. His modernized version, lucid and fluent, printed alongside of Ibn Tibbon's, presents a striking contrast to the stiffness and obscurity of the Provençal scholar's. Levin was also the first to write in the Yiddish, or Judeo-German, dialect, for the instruction of the masses, which made him the butt of more than one satire. But what was generally regarded as a degrading task was fraught with the greatest consequences to the Haskalah. To this day Yiddish has continued an important medium for disseminating culture among Russian Jews, both in the Old World and in the New.[37]
The century remarkable among other things for encyclopedia enterprises,—Chambers' Encyclopedia in England, the Universal Lexicon in Germany, and that wonderful and monumental work, the Encyclopédie in France—saw, before its close, a similar attempt, in miniature, in Hebrew and by a Slavonic Maskil. Whether the Hebrew encyclopedist was influenced by the example of Dr. Tobias Cohn's Ma'aseh Tobiah mentioned above, or was unconsciously imbued with the prevailing tendency of the times, it is impossible to tell. In any event, he resorted to the same means, and presented the Jewish world with a volume containing a little of every science known, under the innocent name The Book of the Covenant (Sefer ha-Berit, Brünn, 1797).
The book appeared anonymously. This, the author assures us, was due not to humbleness of spirit, but to a vow. His diligence and constant application had greatly impaired his eyes. He vowed that if God restored his sight, and enabled him to finish his task, he would publish the book without disclosing his authorship. God hearkened unto his prayers, and the work was soon completed. But an unforeseen trouble arose. His book was ascribed "by some to the sage of Berlin, by others to the Gaon of Vilna, and by many to the united efforts of a coterie of scholars, for it could not be believed that so many and diverse sciences could be mastered by one person." Moreover, the author was censured for being afraid to come out openly and boldly as a champion of Haskalah.[38] In spite of obstacles and strictures, the book met with success surpassing the author's expectations. It found its way not only into Russia, Poland, and Germany, but even into France, Italy, England, Holland, and Palestine. An edition of two thousand copies was entirely exhausted, unusual at a time when books were costly and money was scarce, and another edition was issued. What Phinehas Elijah (Hurwitz) of Vilna had sown in tears, he lived to reap in joy.
There was a crying need in Russia for a work of the sort. In Germany the very Government encouraged organizations and publications aiming at enlightenment. Accordingly, a Society for the Promotion of the Good and the Noble was started, and the Meassef was published. In Russo-Poland not even a Hebrew printing-press was permitted, and certainly no periodical publications would have been tolerated. Phinehas Elijah, therefore, grasped the opportunity, and showed himself equal to it. His aim was, like that of the French encyclopedists, to lead his readers "through nature to God." He gives an account of the various sciences, natural and philosophical, as a prolegomenon to the study of theology, even of the mystic teachings of Vital's Gates of Holiness. Withal he evinces a sound intellect and refined, if rudimentary, taste. He decries the "ancestor worship" that rendered the Jew of his day a fossil specimen of an extinct species. The present is superior to the past, "a dwarf on a giant's shoulder seeth farther than doth the giant himself." He ridicules the base and degrading habit of dedicating books to "benefactors, friends, lovers, parents, men, or women." His work was written for the glory of God, and he dedicates it to eternal, all-conquering truth.[39]
All these Maskilim, so many hands reaching out into the light, were both the cause and the consequence of the longing for enlightenment characteristic at all times of the Slavonic Jew. Graetz and his followers among the latter-day Maskilim delighted in calling them "they that walk in darkness." Facts, however, prove that at no time before Nicholas I was education per se regarded with the least suspicion, though the Talmud was given the preference. As in the pre-Haskalah period, the greatest Talmudists deemed it a sacred duty to perfect themselves in some branch of secular science. When, in 1710, a terrible plague broke out in his native town, Rabbi Jonathan of Risenci (Grodno) vowed that, "if he were spared, he would disseminate a knowledge of astronomy among his countrymen." To fulfil the vow he went to Germany (1725), where, though blind, he devoted himself assiduously first to the acquisition of astronomy, then to writing on it.[40] Baruch Yavan of Volhynia, who more than any one exposed the impostures of Jacob Frank, "spoke and wrote Hebrew, Polish, German, and probably French," and his accomplishments and address won him the admiration of Count Brühl, the virtual ruler of Poland, and the favor of the highest officials at St. Petersburg. His associate in the righteous fight, Bima Speir of Mohilev, was also possessed of a thorough command of the language of Russia, and was well posted in its literature, history, and politics. The Pinczovs, descendants of Rabbi Polack, connected with the most eminent rabbinical families, and themselves famous for piety and erudition, produced many works on mathematics and philosophy. Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch was at first hailed with joy, and was recommended by the most zealous rabbis. Doctor Hurwitz of Vilna did not hesitate to dedicate his 'Ammude Bet Yehudah to Wessely, who was more popular in Russo-Poland than in Germany. The whole edition of his Yen Lebanon, which fell flat in the latter country, though offered gratis, was sold when introduced into the former.[41] Joseph Pesseles' correspondence concerning Dubno, with David Friedländer, the disciple of Mendelssohn (1773), proves the high esteem in which the liberal-minded savants of Berlin were held in Russia. The rabbis of Brest, Slutsk, and Lublin gave laudatory recommendations to Judah Löb Margolioth's popular works of natural science, which form a little encyclopedia by themselves. Margolioth was the grandson of Mordecai Jaffe, himself rabbi successively at Busnov, Szebrszyn, Polotsk, Lesla, and Frankfort-on-the-Oder (d. 1811). The writings of Baruch Schick of Shklov, referred to above, were accorded the same welcome. His translation of Euclid and his treatises on trigonometry, astronomy ('Ammude ha-Shamayim), and anatomy (Tiferet Adam) won the admiration of rabbis as well as laymen. Epitaphs of the day contain the statement that the deceased was not only "at home in all the chambers of the Torah," but also in "philosophy and the seven sciences." And this, exaggerated though it may be, must be seen to contain a kernel of the truth, when we recall that among Maimon's intimate friends was the rabbi of Kletzk, Lithuania; that in the humble dwelling of his father there were works on historical, astronomical, and philosophical subjects; that the chief rabbi of a neighboring town, Rabbi Samson of Slonim, who, according to Fünn, "had in his youth lived for a while in Germany, learned the German language there, and made himself acquainted in some measure with the sciences," continued his study of the sciences, and soon collected a fair library of German books.[42] Saadia, Bahya, Halevi, Ibn Ezra, Crescas, Bedersi, Levi ben Gerson (whom Goldenthal calls the Hebrew Kant), Albo, Abarbanel, and others whose works deserve a high place in the history of Jewish philosophy, were on the whole fairly represented in the libraries, and diligently studied in the numerous yeshibot and batte midrashim.
Thus the enlightenment which dawned upon France, Germany, and England cast a glow even on the Slavonic Jews, despite the Chinese wall of disabilities that hemmed them in. Unfortunately, this only helped to render them dissatisfied with their wretched lot, without affording them the means of ameliorating it. While the Jews in Western Europe profited and were encouraged by the example of their Christian neighbors; while, in addition to their innate thirst for learning, they had everywhere else political and civil preferments to look forward to, in Russo-Poland not only were such outside stimuli absent, but the Slavonic Jews had to struggle against obstacles and hindrances at every step. No such heaven on earth could be dreamed of there. The country was still in a most barbarous state. Those who wished to perfect themselves in any of the sciences had to leave home and all and go to a foreign land, and had to study, as they were bidden to study the Talmud, "lishmah," that is, for its own sake. This is the distinguishing feature between the German and Slavonic Maskilim during the eighteenth century. The cry of the former was, "Become learned, lest the nations say we are not civilized and deny us the wealth, respect, and especially the equality we covet!" The latter were humbly seeking after the truth, either because they could better elucidate the Talmud, or because, as they held, it was their truth, of which the nations had deprived them during their long exile.[43] They were unlike their German brethren in another respect. Almost all of them were "self-made men," autodidacts in the truest sense. Lacking the advantages of secular schools, they culled their first information from scanty, antiquated Hebrew translations. Maimon learned the Roman alphabet from the transliteration of the titles on the fly-leaves of some Talmudic tracts; Doctor Behr, from Wolff's Mathematics. But no sooner was the impetus given than it was followed by an insatiable craving for more and more of the intellectual manna, for a wider and wider horizon. "Look," says Wessely, "look at our Russian and Polish brethren who immigrate hither, men great in Torah, yet admirers of the sciences, which, without the guiding help of teachers, they all master to such perfection as to surpass even a Gentile sage!"[44] Such self-education was, of course, not without unfavorable results. Never having enjoyed the advantage of a systematic elementary training, the enthusiasts sometimes lacked the very rudiments of knowledge, though engaged in the profoundest speculations of philosophy. "As our mothers in Egypt gave birth to their children before the mid-wife came," writes Pinsker somewhat later,[45] "even so it is with the intellectual products of our brethren: before one becomes acquainted with the grammar of a language, he masters its classic and scientific literature!"
Steadily though slowly, brighter, if not better, days were coming. "Thought once awakened shall not again slumber." As Carlyle says of the French of that period, it became clear for the first time to the upturned eyes of the Jews, "that Thought has actually a kind of existence in other kingdoms [than the Talmud]; that some glimmerings of civilization had dawned here and there on the human species." They begin to try all things; they visit Germany, France, Denmark, Holland, even England; learn their literatures, study in their universities, and contribute their quota to the apologetic, controversial, scientific, and philosophic investigations "with a candor and real love of improvement which give the best omens of a still higher success." Fortune, indeed, has cast them also into a cavern, and they are groping around darkly. But this prisoner, too, is a giant, and he will, at length, burst forth as a giant into the light of day.
(Notes, pp. [310-314].)
[CHAPTER III]
THE DAWN OF HASKALAH
1794-1840
A glimmer of light pierced the Russian sky at the accession of Catherine II (1762-1796). This "Semiramis of the North," the admirer of Buffon, Montesquieu, Diderot, and, more especially, Voltaire, whose motto, N'en croyez rien, she adopted, endeavored, and for a while not without success, to introduce into her own country the spirit of tolerance which pervaded France. Her ukases were intended for all alike, "without distinction of religion and nationality." Her regard for her Jewish citizens she showed by allowing them to settle in the interior, establish printing-presses (January 27, 1783), and become civil and Government officers (April 2, 1785). In the edict promulgated by Governor-General Chernyshev it is stated that "religious liberty and inviolability of property are hereby granted to all subjects of Russia and certainly to the Jews; for the humanitarian principles of her Majesty do not permit the exclusion of the Jews alone from the favors shown to all, so long as they, as faithful subjects, continue to employ themselves, as hitherto, with commerce and trade, each according to his vocation." That she remained true to her promise, we see from the numerous privileges enjoyed by many Jews, who began to frequent Moscow and St. Petersburg and reside there for business purposes.
Paul (1796-1801), too, was kindly disposed toward the Jews, and permitted them to live in Courland; and when Alexander I (1801-1825) became czar, their hopes turned into certainty. Alexander I did, indeed, appear a most promising ruler at his accession. The theories he had acquired from Laharpe he fully intended to apply to practical life. Like Catherine, he wished to rule in equity and promote the welfare of his subjects irrespective of race or creed. He ordered a commission to investigate the status of the Russian Jews (December 9, 1802). The result was the polozheniye (enactment) of December 9, 1804, according to which Jews were to be eligible to one-third of all municipal offices; they were to be permitted to establish factories, become agriculturists, and either attend the schools and colleges of the empire on the same footing as subjects of the Christian faith, or, if they desired, found and maintain schools of their own. The approach of the great Usurper and the crushing defeat the Russians sustained at the battle of Friedland (June 4, 1808) also favored the advance of the Jews. As the short, but troublous, reign of Paul and his wars with Turkey, Persia, Prussia, Poland, and Sweden had impoverished the country and depleted the treasury, the shrewd Alexander was not averse from appealing to Jews for help. Of course, as in many more enlightened countries and in more modern times, most of the privileges were merely paper privileges. Few of them ever went into effect. The noble intentions of the enlightened rulers were steadily thwarted by bigoted councillors and jealous merchants. Every favor shown the Jews aroused a storm of protests, which resulted in numerous infringements. The Jews were compelled to pay for the good intentions of Catherine with a double tax (June 25, 1794), and, during Paul's reign, without the emperor's knowledge, a law was enacted requiring of Jews double payment of the guild license. In spite of all efforts, the Jews, instead of being emancipated politically, were burdened with additional discriminations.[1]
Had not the wheel of progress suddenly stopped revolving, Russian Jews might have constituted one of the most useful as well as most intellectual elements in the vast empire. As it was, the kindly intention of czar or czarina sufficed to arouse them from the asthenia to which they were reduced for want of freedom. The times were rife with excitement, and the Jewish atmosphere with expectancy. The mighty changes which were taking place in Russia and Poland; the dismemberment of the latter; the annexation of Balta (1791), Lithuania (1794), and Courland (1797) to the former; the short-lived yet potent German rule in Byelostok (1793-1807), and the rude but memorable contact with France (1807-1812), these and many other important happenings in a brief span of time had a telling effect upon the diverse races under the dominion of Russia, and among them not the least upon the Jewish race. Everywhere the desire for "liberty, equality, and fraternity" began to manifest itself. In Courland, the most German of Russian provinces, Georg Gottfried Mylich, a Lutheran pastor at Nerft, made a touching appeal (ab. 1787) in German on behalf of the Jews, insisting that the word Jew "should not be taken to indicate a class of people different from us, but only a different religious body; and as regards his nationality, it should not hinder him from obtaining citizen's rights and liberties equal to those of the people of Sleswick, the Saxons, Danes, Swedes, Swiss, French, and Italians, who also live among us." In Poland, Tadeusz Czacki, the historian, wrote his Discourse on the Jews (Rosprava o Zhydakh, Vilna, 1807), in which he deplores that Jews "experienced indulgence rarely, oppression often, and contempt nearly always" under the most Christian governments, and suggests a plan for reforming their condition. But the main appeal for freedom came, as might have been expected, from the Jews themselves. Contemporaneous with, if not before, Michel Beer's Appel à la justice des nations et des rois, a Lithuanian Jew, during his imprisonment in Nieszvicz on a false charge, wrote a work in Polish on the Jewish problem,[2] while in 1803 Löb, or Leon, Nebakhovich, an intimate friend of Count Shakovskoy, published The Cry of the Daughter of Judah (Fopli Docheri Yudeyskoy), the first defence of the Russian Jew in the Russian language. The followers of the religion of love are implored to love a Jew because he is a Jew, and they are assured that the Jew who preserves his religion undefiled can be neither a bad man nor a bad citizen.
But the Jews did not wait for their dreams to be realized. They threw themselves into the swirl of their country's ambition, as if they had never received anything other than the tenderness of a devoted mother at her hands. They were "kindled in a common blaze" of patriotism with the rest of the population. That in spite of all accusations to the contrary they remained loyal to Poland, is amply proved by the history of that unfortunate country. The characteristic kapota of the Polish Jew, his whole garb, including the yarmulka (under cap), is simply the old Polish costume, which the Jews retained after the Poles had adopted the German form of dress.[3] "When, in the year 1794," says Czacki, "despair armed the [Polish] capital, the Jews were not afraid of death, but, mingling with the troops and the populace, they proved that danger did not terrify them, and that the cause of the fatherland was dear to them." With the permission of Kosciusko, Colonel Joselovich Berek, later killed at the battle of Kotzk (1809), formed a regiment of light cavalry consisting entirely of Jews, which distinguished itself especially at the siege of Warsaw. Most of the members perished in defence of the suburb of Praga. In the agony of death, Rabbi Hayyim longed for good tidings, that he might die in peace. And when the fight was over, Zbitkover expended two barrels of money, one filled with gold ducats and one with silver rubles, for the live and dead soldiers who were brought to him.[4] Indeed, Prince Czartorisky was so convinced of their patriotism, that he always advocated the same rights for the Polish Jews as were claimed for the Polish Gentiles, entrusted his children to the care of Mendel Levin of Satanov, and instructed his son, Prince Ladislaus, always to remain their friend.[5]
But when, in spite of struggle and sacrifice, the doom "finis Poloniae" was sounded, and a large portion of the once powerful empire was incorporated into Russia, we find the Jews bearing their sorrow patiently, and willingly performing their duties as subjects to their new masters. Their attachment to their czar and country was not shaken in the least when, in 1812, Napoleon made them flattering promises to secure their services in his behalf. Rabbi Shneor Zalman, the eminent leader of the Lithuanian Hasidim, hearing of the invasion of the French army, spent many days in prayer and fasting for the success of the Russians, and fled on the Sabbath day, not to be contaminated by contact with the "godless French." When Napoleon was finally defeated, the event was celebrated both at home and in the synagogue, and Russian soldiers were everywhere welcomed by Jews with gifts and good cheer.[6] Lilienthal relates that the Jews succeeded in intercepting a courier who carried the plan of operations of the French army, and Alexander declared in a dispatch that Jews had opened the eyes of the Russians, and the Government, therefore, felt itself bound to them by eternal gratitude.[7] It is to this proof of patriotism that some attribute Alexander's interest in the Jews and his order that three deputies should reside in St. Petersburg to represent them in Russia, and in Poland a committee consisting of three Christians and eight Jews should be appointed to devise ways and means of ameliorating their condition.[8]
The times were promising in other respects. In that critical period, the Government, reposing but little confidence in Russian merchants, whose business motto was "No swindle, no sale," allowed several Jews to become Government contractors (podradchiki). These, while rendering valuable services, amassed considerable fortunes. Notwithstanding the law restricting Jewish residence to the Pale of Settlement, Catherine II speaks of Jews who resided in St. Petersburg for many years, and lodged in the house of a priest, who had been her confessor. Moreover, Jews contributed not a little to the liberal policy of Alexander I. Among them were Eliezer Dillon of Nieszvicz (d. 1838), who was honored by the emperor with a gold medal "for faithful and conscientious services," and was given an audience by his Majesty, at which he pleaded the cause of his coreligionists;[9] Nathan Notkin, who mitigated the possible effect of Senator Dyerzhavin's baneful opinions concerning Jews, as expressed in his report (Mnyenie, September, 1800), and who suggested the establishment of schools for children and for adults in Yekaterinoslav and elsewhere; Abraham Peretz, the personal friend of Speransky, Dyerzhavin, and Potemkin, and a brilliant financier, whose high standing enabled him to be a power for good in the councils concerning Jews;[10] and his father-in-law, Joshua Zeitlin (1724-1822). Zeitlin was a rare phenomenon, reminding one of the golden days of Jewish Spain. His knowledge of finance and political economy won him the admiration of Prince Potemkin, the protection of Czarina Catherine, and the esteem of Alexander I, who appointed him court councillor (nadvorny sovyetnik). But his mercantile pursuits did not hinder him from study, and his high living did not interfere with his high thinking. His palatial home at Ustye, in Mohilev, became a refuge for all needy Talmudists and Maskilim, whom he helped with the liberality of a Maecenas; he conducted an extensive correspondence on rabbinic literature, and for many years supported Doctor Schick and Mendel Levin. For Doctor Schick he built a laboratory, and filled his library with rare manuscripts and works on Jewish and secular subjects.[11]
Even among the conservative Talmudists signs of improvement were not wanting. The Gaon became the centre of a group of enlightened friends and disciples, who continued in his footsteps after his death. His son, Rabbi Abraham, who published and edited many of his works, a task requiring no small amount of acumen and Talmudic erudition,[12] was also the author of books on geography, mathematics, and physics. His pupils, such as Doctor Schick and Rabbi Benjamin and Rabbi Zelmele, influenced their contemporaries either directly, by bringing them in touch with the new learning, or indirectly, by reforming the school system and the method of Talmud study.[13] Of Rabbi Zelmele, who like his master became the hero of a wonder-biography written by his disciple Ezekiel Feivel of Plungian, we are told that he regarded grammar as indispensable to a thorough knowledge of the Bible and the Talmud, pleaded for a return to the order of study prescribed in the Pirke Abot, and complained that, owing to the neglect of Aramaic, the benefits of comparative philology were lost and unknown. He declared also that while he believed in all the Bible contains, the stories in the Talmud are, for the most part, legends and parables used for the purpose of illustration.[14]
Max Lilienthal, 1815-1882
Towering above all the disciples of the Gaon, the most outspoken in behalf of enlightenment is Manasseh of Ilye (1767-1831). At a very early age he attracted the attention of Talmudists by his originality and boldness. In his unflinching determination to get at the truth, he did not shrink from criticising Rashi and the Shulhan 'Aruk, and dared to interpret some parts of the Mishnah differently from the explanation given in the Gemara. With all his admiration for the Gaon, but for whom, he claimed, the Torah would have been forgotten, he also had points of sympathy with the Hasidim, for whose leader, Shneor Zalman of Ladi, he had the highest respect. Like many of his contemporaries, he determined to go to Berlin. He started on his way, but was stopped at Königsberg by some orthodox coreligionists, and compelled to return to Russia. This did not prevent his perfecting himself in German, Polish, natural philosophy, mechanics, and even strategics. On the last subject he wrote a book, which was burnt by his friends, "lest the Government suspect that Jews are making preparations for war!" But it is not so much his Talmudic or secular scholarship that makes him interesting to us to-day. His true greatness is revealed by his attempts, the first made in his generation perhaps, to reconcile the Hasidim with the Mitnaggedim, and these in turn with the Maskilim. He spoke a good word for manual labor, and proved from the Talmud that burdensome laws should be abolished. His Pesher Dabar (Vilna, 1807) and Alfe Menasheh (ibid., 1827, 1860) are monuments to the advanced views of the author. In the Hebrew literature of his time, they are equalled only by the 'Ammude Bet Yehudah and the Hekal 'Oneg of Doctor Hurwitz.[15]
This short period of enlightenment and tolerance, inaugurated by a semblance of equality, indicates the native optimism of the Slavonic Jew. For a while a cessation of hostilities was evident in the camp of Israel. The reforms introduced by the Gaon, and propagated by his disciples, began to bear fruit. Hasidism itself underwent a radical change under the leadership of Rabbi Shneor Zalman of Ladi (1747-1813) and Jacob Joseph of Polonnoy, who, unlike their colleagues of the Ukraine, were learned in the Talmud and familiar with the sciences. Protests by Hasidim themselves against the irreverent spirit that developed after the death of the Besht, had in fact been heard before. The saintly and retiring Abraham Malak (d. 1780) had denounced, in no uncertain terms, the gross conception held by the Hasidim of the sublime teachings of their own sect. He drew a beautiful picture of the ideal zaddik, who is "so absorbed in meditation on the Divine wisdom that he cannot descend to the lower steps upon which ordinary people stand."[16] But the more active Rabbi Shneor, or Zalman Ladier, as he was usually called, insisted on putting the zaddik on a par with the rabbi, whose duty it is not to work miracles but to teach righteousness. Assuming for his followers the name HaBaD, the three letters of which are the initials of the Hebrew words for Wisdom, Reason, and Knowledge, he furthered the cause of enlightenment in the only way possible among his adherents.[17] How well he succeeded may be inferred from the fact, trivial though it be, that the biography of the Besht, The Praises of the Besht (Shibhe ha-Besht), by Dob Bär, published in Berdichev (1815), omits many of the legends about the Master included in the version published the same year in Kopys. The omission can be explained only on the ground that the editor, Judah Löb, who was the son of the author, did not wish to give offence, or he had outgrown the credulity of his father.[18]
The feeling of tolerance manifested itself also in the Jewish attitude towards the Gentiles. "O that we were identified with the nations of our time, created by the same God, children of one Father, and did not hate each other because we are at variance in some views!" This exclamation of Doctor Hurwitz[19] found an echo in the works of the other Maskilim that wrote in Hebrew, but more especially of those who used a European language. They were deeply interested in whatever marked a step forward in their country's civilization. The opening of a gymnasium in Mitau (1775) was a joyful occasion, which inspired Hurwitz's Hebrew muse, and at the centennial celebration of the surrender of Riga to Peter the Great (July 4, 1810), the craving of the Jewish heart, avowed in a German poem, was expressed "in the name of the local Hebrew community to their Christian compatriots." The last stanza runs as follows:
Grant us, who, like you, worship the God above,
Also on earth to enjoy equality with you!
To-day, while your hearts are open to love,
Let us seal our happiness with your love, too![20]
This desire for naturalization brought with it an attempt at "Russification." To show the beauty of the Russian language, Baruch Czatzskes of Volhynia translated some of the poems of Khersakov into Hebrew, and others published manuals for the study of Russian and Polish.[21] Among the first books issued from the newly-established printing-press in Shklov, the centre of Jewish wealth, refinement, and culture at that time, was the Zeker Rab with a German translation (1804). In an appendix thereto the Shklov Maskilim announced their intention to publish a weekly, the first in the Hebrew tongue. Yiddish was also resorted to as a medium for educating the masses, and as early as 1813 some Vilna Jews applied to the Government for permission to publish a paper in that language, though it was not until ten years later (1823-1824) that a Yiddish periodical, Der Beobachter an der Weichsel, appeared in Warsaw. Nor do we hear of any opposition to the Government decrees, issued probably at the request of Dillon, Notkin, Peretz, or Nebakhovich, that the elders of the kahals in and after 1808, and the rabbis of the congregations in and after 1812, be conversant with either Russian, German, or Polish. This sudden Russification of the Jews amounted sometimes to no more than a superficial imitation of Russian civilization, which pious rabbis as well as liberal-minded men like Schick, Margolioth, Ilye, and Hurwitz, felt impelled to call a halt to. Jews, especially the rich, aped the Polish pans. Their wives dressed in Parisian gowns of the latest fashion, and their homes were conducted in a manner so luxurious as to arouse the envy of the noblemen. Israel waxed fat and kicked. Their greatest care was to become wealthy; they pampered their bodies at the expense of the impoverishment of their souls, and some feared that "with the passing away of the elder generation there would not remain a man capable of filling the position of rabbi."[22]
The privilege of attending public schools and colleges further stimulated the Russification of the Jews. As soon as these institutions of learning were thrown open to them, numerous Jewish youths made headway in all branches taught, especially in medicine. That Alexander's benign decree of November 10, 1811, issued through the Secretary of State Speransky, was not always executed by his officials goes without saying. Simeon Levy Wolf, one of the first Russo-Jewish graduates, was denied his degree of doctor of jurisprudence in Dorpat unless he embraced Christianity.[23] When, in 1819, some of the Vilna graduates applied for the privilege of not paying the double tax, they were told that they must first renounce their faith, an exception being made only in favor of Arthur Parlovich. Still the number of Jewish graduate physicians was on the increase. Osip Yakovlevich Liboschüts, who was the son of the famous physician of Vilna, took his doctor degree at Dorpat (1806), became court physician in St. Petersburg, where he founded a hospital for children, and wrote extensively in French on the flora of his country.[24] The medical institute of Vilna (1803-1833), afterwards transferred to Kiev, became the centre of attraction for the Russian Jewry. Padua, Berlin, Königsberg, Göttingen, Copenhagen, Halle, Amsterdam, Cambridge, and London were for a third of a century replaced by the home of the Gaon and of Doctor Liboschüts. The first students were recruited from the bet ha-midrash, and they frequently joined, as in former days, knowledge of the Law with the practice of their chosen profession. Such were Isaac Markusevich, whose annotations to the Shulhan 'Aruk (ab. 1830) were published fifty years later;[25] Joseph Rosensohn, the promising Talmudist who became rabbi of Pyosk at the age of nineteen;[26] and Kusselyevsky of Nieszvicz, a stipendiary of a Polish nobleman and a great favorite with Professor Frank. Because of his proficiency, he was exempted from serving as a vratch (interne), and for his piety and learning he was addressed by Jews and Gentiles as "rabbi."[27]
With what dreams such happenings filled the Jewish heart! "Thank God," writes a merchant of the first guild in reply to an inquiry from distant Bokhara, "thank God, we dwell in peace under the sovereignty of our czar Alexander, who has shown us his mercy, and has put us in every respect on an equality with all the inhabitants of the land."[28] But a rude awakening was soon to make the Jews aware that their visions of better days were still far from realization. In 1815, Alexander I formed the acquaintance of Baroness Krüdener, and since then, to the satisfaction of Prince Galitzin, "with what giant strides the emperor advanced in the pathway of religion!" His humanitarian deeds gave way to a profound religious mysticism. He experienced a revulsion of feeling toward reforms in his vast empire, and, as always, the Jews were the first victims of an ill-boding change. The kindly monarch who, at Paris, had said to a Russo-Jewish deputation, J'enleverai le joug de vos épaules, began to make their yoke heavier than he had found it. The enlightened czar, who, in striking a medal commemorating the emancipation of the Jews of his empire, had anticipated Napoleon by a year, suddenly became a bigoted tyrant, whose efforts were devoted to converting the same Jews to Christianity. He who had claimed that his greatest reward would be to produce a Mendelssohn, now resorted to various expedients, to render education unpalatable to the Jews. The Jewish assemblymen, who, in 1816, soon after the Franco-Russian war, had been convoked to St. Petersburg, were not allowed to meet; and when, two years later, they did meet, their every attempt was baffled by the Government. Jews were expelled systematically from St. Petersburg (1818). They were forbidden to employ Christians as servants (May 4, 1820), to immigrate into Russia from abroad (August 10, 1824), and reside in the towns and villages of Mohilev and Vitebsk (January 13, 1825). Several years after the double poll and guild tax had been abolished in Courland (November 8, 1807), it was restored with an additional impost on meat from cattle slaughtered according to the Jewish rite (korobka). All this impoverished the Jews to such an extent that they were forced to sell the cravats of their praying shawls (taletim), in order to defray the expense of a second deputation to St. Petersburg.[29]
Had Alexander I been satisfied with merely restricting the Jews' rights, the favorable attitude towards enlightenment we have noticed above would probably have remained unaltered. Unfortunately, Alexander became a fanatic conversionist. It was a time when missionary zeal became endemic, and Baroness Krüdener's influence was strengthened. The Reverend Lewis Way, having founded (1808) the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, made a tour through Europe, everywhere urging the Gentiles to enfranchise the Jews as an inducement to them to embrace Christianity, the only means of hastening the advent of the Apostolic millennium. His Mémoires sur l'état des israélites presented to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (October 11, 1818) and his visit to Russia resulted in an imperial ukase (March 25, 1817) organizing a Committee of Guardians for Israelitish Christians (Izrailskiye Christyanye). The members of this association were to be granted land in the northern or southern provinces of Russia and to enjoy special privileges. The bait proved tempting, and, as a consequence, some prominent Maskilim, too weak to resist the allurements, precipitated themselves into the Greek Catholic fold. Abraham Peretz, financier and champion of Jews' rights, consented to be converted, as also Löb Nebakhovich, the dramatist, whose plays were produced in the Imperial theatre of St. Petersburg and performed in the presence of the emperor.[30] Equally bad, if not worse, for the cause of Haskalah was the conduct of those who, disdaining, or unable, to profess the new religion, discarded every vestige of traditional Judaism, and deemed it their duty to set an example of infidelity and sometimes immorality to their less enlightened coreligionists. What Leroy-Beaulieu says of Maimon, "that type of the most cultured Jew to be found before the French Revolution," might more justly be applied to many a less prominent Maskil after him: "Despite his learning and philosophy he sank deeper than the most degraded of his fellow-men, because in repudiating his ancestral faith he had lost the staff which, through all their humiliations, served as a prop even to the most debased of ancient Jews."[31]
Haskalah thus having become synonymous with apostasy or licentiousness, we can easily understand why the unsophisticated among the Russian Jews were so bitterly opposed to it from the time the sad truth dawned upon them, until, under Alexander II, their suspicions were somewhat dissipated. Previous to the latter part of the reign of Alexander I the "struggle groups" in Russian Jewry were at first Frankists and anti-Frankists, and afterwards Hasidim and Mitnaggedim. It was a conflict, not between religion and science, but between religion and what was regarded as superstition. Secular instruction, far from being opposed, was, as we have seen, sought and disseminated. Long after the pious element in Germany had been aroused to the dangers that lurked in the wake of their "Aufklärung," and had begun to endeavor to check its further progress by excommunication and other methods, the Russian Jews remained "seekers after light." They might have condemned a Maskil, they had not yet condemned Haskalah. Mendelssohn's German translation was welcomed in Russia at its first appearance no less than in Germany, but when some of the children of Rabbi Moses ben Menahem embraced the Christian faith, and their father, as was natural, was suspected of skepticism, the Biur and the Meassefim were pronounced, like libraries by Sir Anthony Absolute, to be "an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge." So also with Wessely's Epistles, which were destroyed in public, together with Polonnoy's Toledot Ya'akob Yosef. Haskalah itself was not impugned, and as theretofore translations and original works on science were encouraged, and the wish was entertained that "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."[32]
But the latest experiences in their own country put Haskalah in a very different light from that in which they were wont to regard it. Formerly the opposition to it had been limited to the very land that gave it birth. Because of their determination to study, Solomon Maimon was denied admission to Berlin, Manasseh of Ilye was stopped in Königsberg, and Abba Glusk Leczeka, better known as "the Glusker Maggid," the subject of a poem by Chamisso, was persecuted everywhere. It was Rabbi Levin, of Berlin, who prohibited the publication of Wessely's works, and insisted that the author be expelled from the city.[33] It was Rabbi Ezekiel Landau of Prague who, though approving of Wessely's Yen Lebanon, opposed the translation of the Pentateuch by Mendelssohn, while Rabbi Horowitz of Hamburg denounced it in unmeasured terms, admonishing his hearers to shun the work as unclean, and approving the action of those persons who had publicly burnt it in Vilna (1782). Moses Sofer of Pressburg adopted as his motto, "Touch not the works of the Dessauer" (Mendelssohn),[34] and seldom allowed an opportunity to pass without denouncing the Maskilim of his country. Now the clarion note of anti-Haskalah, sounded by these luminaries in Israel, found an echo among the Jews in Russia. They had discovered, to their great sorrow, that like Elisha ben Abuya, the apostate in the Talmud, "those who once entered the paradise [of enlightenment] returned no more." The very name of the seat of Haskalah was an abomination to the pious. To be called "Berlinchick" or "Deitschel" was tantamount to being called infidel and epicurean, anarchist and outlaw. The old instinct of self-preservation, which turned Jews from lambs into lions, holding their ground to the last, asserted itself again. As the Talmudic rabbis excluded certain books from the Canon, as the study of even the Jewish philosophers was later proscribed by certain French rabbis, so the Russian rabbis laid the ban upon whatever savored of German "Aufklärerei."
Thus began the bitter fight against Haskalah, in which Hasidim and Mitnaggedim, forgetting their differences, joined hands, and stood shoulder to shoulder. For, after all, was not Judaism in both these phases endangered by the new and aggressive enemy from the West? And did not the two have enough in common to become one in the hour of great need? Hasidism, in fact, was Judaism emotionalized, and since, beginning with Rabbi Shneor Zalman of Ladi, it, too, advocated the study of the Talmud, the distinction between it and Mitnaggedism was hardly perceptible. The study of the Zohar and Cabbala was equally cultivated by both; Isaac Luria and Hayyim Vital were equally venerated by both, and hero worship was common to both. The Ascension of Elijah (Gaon) is as full of miracles as The Praises of the Besht. It is no wonder, then, that the animosities, which reached their acme during the last few years of the Gaon's life, were weakened after his death, and that the compromise, pleaded for by Doctor Hurwitz and Manasseh Ilye, was somehow effected. But it was otherwise with the Haskalah. "Verily," says the zaddik Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, "verily, grammar is useful; that our great ones indulged in the study thereof I also know; but what is to be done since the wicked and sinful have taken possession of it?" In the same manner does Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin inveigh against the followers of Mendelssohn, because of the latitudinarian habits of the Maskilim, who "despise the counsel of their betters, and go after the dictates of their hearts."[35] Both saw in Haskalah a deadly foe to their dearest ideals, a blight upon their most cherished hopes, and, like Elizabeta Petrovna, they would not derive even a benefit from the enemies of their religion.
Still, Alexander I approached his object only tentatively. Haskalah during his reign was like the Leviathan in the Talmud legend which resembled an island, so that wayfarers approached it to moor under its lee and find shelter in its shade, but as soon as they began to walk and cook on it, it would turn and submerge them in the stormy and bottomless sea. The Jews were invited or induced to forsake their religion, and only the less discerning were caught in the snare. It remained for the "terrible incarnation of autocracy," Nicholas I (1825-1855), or, as his Jewish subjects called him, Haman II, to fill their cup of woe to overflowing and employ every available means to convert them to his own religion.
Nicholas's one aim was "to diminish the number of Jews in the empire," but not by expulsion, the means employed by Ferdinand and Isabella. He knew too well their value as citizens to allow them to migrate. He would diminish their numbers by forced baptism. Baptized Jews were exempted from the payment of taxes for three years; Jewish criminals could have their punishment commuted or could obtain a pardon by ceasing to be Jews. But as these inducements could naturally appeal only to comparatively few, more stringent measures were resorted to. Hitherto the Jews had been excused from military service, paying an annual sum of money for the privilege. On September 7, 1827, an ukase was issued requiring them not only to pay the same amount as theretofore, but also to serve in the army; and while Christians had to furnish only seven recruits per thousand, and only at certain intervals, the Jews had to contribute ten recruits for each thousand, and that at every conscription. The only exception was made in the case of the Karaites, who, according to Nicholas's decision, had emigrated from Palestine before the Christian era, and could not therefore have participated in the crucifixion of Jesus. Jews found outside of their native towns without passports, and those in arrears with their taxes, frequently even those who, having lagged behind in their payment to the Government, eventually discharged their obligations, were to be seized and sentenced to serve in the army, and this meant a lifetime, or at least twenty-five years, of the most abject slavery imaginable. This grievous measure caused the utmost misery. No Jewish youth leaving home could be sure of returning and seeing his dear ones again. The scum of the Jewish population (poimshchiki, or "catchers") made it their profession to ensnare helpless young men or poor itinerant students suspected of the Haskalah heresy, destroy their passports, and deliver them up as poimaniki (recruits), to spare the rich who paid for the substitutes. To form an idea of the time we need but read some of the numerous folk-songs of that day. Here is one of many:
Quietly I walk in the street,
When behind me I hear the rush of feet.
Woes have come and sought me,
Alas, had I bethought me.
"Your passport," they ask. Alas, it is lost!
"Then serve the White Czar!" that is the cost.
Woe has come and sought me,
Alas, had I bethought me.
There are many rooms, they take me to one,
And strip from my body the poor homespun.
Woe has come and sought me,
Alas, had I bethought me.
They take me to another room,
The uniform,—that is my doom.
Woe has come and sought me,
Alas, had I bethought me.
Rather than wear the cap of the czar,
To study the Torah were better by far.
Woe has come and sought me,
Alas, had I bethought me.
Rather than eat of the czar's black bread,
I'd study the Scriptures head by head.
Woes have come and sought me,
Alas, had I bethought me.
Yet this was not all. Knowing that it is easier to convert the children than their elders, the Government of Nicholas I, out-Heroding Herod, inaugurated a system so cruel as to fill with terror and pity the heart of the most ferocious barbarian. Infants were torn from their mothers, boys of the age of twelve, sometimes of ten and eight, were herded like cattle, sent to distant parts of Russia, and there distributed as chattels among the officers of the army. Many of these Cantonists, as they were called, either died on the way, or were killed off when they resisted conversion. Those who survived sometimes returned to Judaism, and formed the nucleus of Jewish settlements in the interior of Russia. These "soldiers of Nicholas" (Nikolayevskiye soldati), with their uncouth demeanor and devoted, though ignorant, adherence to the faith of their fathers, furnished much material for the folk-songs of the time and the novelists of the somewhat happier reigns of Nicholas's successors.[36]
One of these Cantonists, the first to give a description of the life of his fellow-sufferers, was Wolf Nachlass, or Alexander Alekseyev. For many years he remained faithful to the religion of his forefathers, though he had been pressed into the service at the age of ten. About 1845 he changed his views, became an ardent Greek Catholic, and converted five hundred Cantonists, to the great delight of Nicholas I, who thanked him in person for his zeal. He lost his leg, and during the long illness that followed Nachlass settled in Novgorod, and wrote several works on Jewish customs and on missionary topics.
Less horrifying, but equally aiming at disintegration, was Nicholas's scheme of colonization. What better means was there for "diminishing the number of Jews" than to scatter them over the wilderness of Russia and leave them to shift for themselves? This, of course, was necessarily a slow process and one involving some expense, but it was fraught with great importance not only for the Russian Church, but for Russian trade and agriculture as well.
"Back to the soil!" Was not this the cry of the romantic Maskilim in Germany, in Galicia, and particularly in Russia? And have not country life and field labor been depicted by them in the most glowing colors? Here was an opportunity to save the honor of the Jewish name and also ameliorate the material condition of the Russian Jews. The permission given to them by Alexander I to establish themselves as farmers in the frigid yet free Siberian steppes was greeted with enthusiasm by all. Nicholas's ukase was hailed with joy. Elias Mitauer and Meyer Mendelssohn, at the head of seventy families from Courland, were the first to migrate to the new region (1836), and they were followed by hundreds more. Indeed, the exodus assumed such proportions that the Christians in the parts of the country abandoned by the colonists complained of the decline in business and the depreciation of property. The movement was heartily approved by the rabbis; the populace, its imagination stimulated, began to dream dreams and see visions of brighter days, and all gave vent to their hopefulness in songs of gladness and gratitude, in strains like these:[37]
Who lives so free
As the farmer on his land?
His farm his companion is,
His never-failing friend.
His sleep to him is sweet
After a hearty meal;
Neither grief nor worry
The farmer-man doth feel.
He rises very early
To start betimes his toil,
Healthy and very happy
On his ever-smiling soil.
O blessings on our czar,
Czar Nikolai, then be,
Who granted us this gladness,
And bade the Jews be free.
Alas, this joy was of short duration! Very soon Nicholas became suspicious of his Siberian colonization scheme, that it was in reality a philanthropic measure, and in place of saving the Jew's soul it only promoted his physical well-being. This suspicion grew into a conviction when he learned that the Jewish community at Tomsk, still faithful to the heritage of Israel, applied for permission to appoint a spiritual leader. The autocrat, therefore, signed an ukase checking settlement in the hitherto free land, depriving honest men of the privilege enjoyed by the worst of criminals, and enrolling the children of those already there among the military Cantonists (January 5, 1837).
Then began real misery. Believing at first that the czar's intentions were sincere, many Jews had sold their hut and land and left for Siberia. No sooner were they there than they were sent, on foot, to Kherson. The decree of the "little father" was executed in—no other phrase can describe it so well—Russian fashion. The innocent Jews who had come to Siberia by invitation were seized, treated as vagabonds, and deported to their destination. Want and suffering produced contagious diseases, and many became a burden to the Jews of Kremenchug and such Christians as could not witness unmoved the infernal comedy played by the defender of the Greek Catholic Church. Help could be rendered only secretly, and those who dared complain were severely punished.
At the same time that this was taking place in the wilderness of Siberia, a phenomenon of rare occurrence was to be witnessed in the very heart of the Jewish Pale, in Lithuania. Aroused by the wretched condition of his coreligionists, Solomon Posner (1780-1848) determined to erect cloth factories exclusively for Jews. He sent to Germany for experts to teach them the trade. These Jewish workingmen proved so industrious and intelligent that before the end of three years they surpassed their teachers in mechanical skill. But this attempt of Posner was only prefatory to the greater and more arduous task he set himself. It was nothing less than the establishment of a colony in which some of the most Utopian theories would be applied to actual life. Ten years after Robert Owen founded his communistic settlement at New Harmony, Indiana, several hundred robust Russian Jews settled on some of the thousands of acres in Lithuania that were lying fallow for want of tillers. With these farmers Posner hoped to realize his Utopia. He provided every family with sufficient land, the necessary agricultural implements, as well as with horses, cows, etc., free of charge, for a term of twenty-five years. In return, the members of the community pledged themselves to use simple homespun for their apparel, black on holidays, gray on week-days, not to indulge in the luxuries of city life, and to avoid trading of any sort. As time passed, Posner opened coeducational technical schools for the children and batte midrashim for adults, and soon the homesteads presented the appearance of progressive and flourishing farms. Posner's successful effort attracted the admiration of Prince Pashkevich, and was both a living protest against the accusation of Nicholas that Jews were unfit to be farmers and an eloquent plea for the unfortunate victims of a capricious tyrant in Siberia and Kherson.[38]
In his efforts to curb the stiff-necked Jews by all manner of fiendish persecution, Nicholas did not neglect to try the efficacy of some of the plans advocated by Lewis Way. Undismayed by the failure of the Committee of Guardians for Israelitish Christians, in which Alexander I had put so much confidence, a "Jewish Committee," all the members of which were Christians, was organized by imperial decree (May 22, 1825). This committee established, in 1829, a school at Warsaw where Christian divinity students were to be instructed in rabbinical literature and in Judeo-German, in order to be fully equipped for missionary work among the Jews. It appointed Abbé Luigi Chiarini to translate, or rather expose, the Babylonian Talmud, to which undertaking the Government contributed twelve thousand thalers.
To do his work thoroughly, the abbé deemed it advisable to write a preliminary dissertation, presenting his aim and views. This he did in his Theory of Judaism (Théorie du judaisme, Paris, 1830). He endeavored to show how worthless, injurious, and immoral were the teachings of the Talmud. Only by discarding them would the Jews qualify themselves to enjoy the right of citizenship. He proved, to his own satisfaction, that ritual murder was enjoined in the Talmud, and this he did at a time when many a community was harassed by this fiendish accusation. When early death cut short the abbé's effort (1832), the Government, still persisting in its plans, engaged the services of Ephraim Moses Pinner of Posen, who published specimens of his intended translation in his Compendium (Berlin, 1831). But the fickle or restless emperor seems to have tired of the plan, or perhaps he found Pinner too Jewish for his purposes. Of the twenty-eight volumes planned, only one, which was dedicated to Nicholas, appeared during the decade following Chiarini's death, and the work was abandoned entirely.[39]
The crusade against the Talmud, thus headed and backed by the Government, now broke out in all its fury. Anti-Talmudic works in English, French, and German were imported into Russia, translated into Hebrew, and scattered among the people. The Old Paths, by Alexander McCaul, a countryman and colleague of Lewis Way, but surpassing him in zeal for the conversion of Jews, was translated into Hebrew and German (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1839) for the edification of those who knew no English. Jews themselves, either out of revenge or because they sought to ingratiate themselves with the high authorities, joined the movement, and openly came out against the Talmud in works modelled after Eisenmenger's Entdecktes Judenthum. Such were Buchner, author of Worthlessness of the Talmud (Der Talmud in seiner Nichtigkeit, 2 vols., Warsaw, 1848), and Temkin, who wrote The Straight Road (Derek Selulah, St. Petersburg, 1835). The former was instructor in Hebrew and Holy Writ in the rabbinical seminary in Warsaw; the latter was a zealous convert to the Greek Catholic faith, who spared no effort to make Judaism disliked among his former coreligionists.
All these desperate attempts proved of no avail. Judaism was practiced, and the Talmud was studied during the reign of Nicholas I more ardently than ever before. Their sacred treasures attacked by the Government without and by renegades and detractors within, the Russian Jews nevertheless clung to them with a tenacity unparalleled even in their own history. Danzig's Life of Man (Hayye Adam, Vilna, 1810), containing all Jewish ritual ceremonies, was followed out to the least minutiae. Despite the poverty of the Jews and the comparatively exorbitant price the publisher had to charge for the Talmud, and, aside from the many sets of former editions in the country and those continually imported, and in addition to the Responsa, commentaries, Midrashim, and other works directly and indirectly bearing on it, more than a dozen editions of the Talmud had appeared in Russia alone since the ukase of Catherine II (October 30, 1795) permitting Russian Jews to publish Hebrew works in their own country. This ukase had been intended originally to exclude seditious literature from Russia, but what was unfavorable for the rebellious Poles proved, in a measure, very beneficial to the law-abiding Jews. Under the supervision of a censor, and with but slight interruptions, the Jews published their own books, and in 1806 Slavuta, in Volhynia, saw the first complete edition of the Talmud on Russian soil. Then followed another edition in the same place (1808-1813), a third in Kopys (1816-1828), and a fourth in Slavuta (1817-1822), and several others elsewhere.
The story of the Vilna-Grodno edition of the Talmud is interesting as well as illuminating. It depicts the relation of the Jews among themselves and to the Government. Begun in 1835, at Ozar, near Grodno, an imperial ukase directed the removal of the work to Vilna, the metropolis of Russo-Poland. When the publishers, Simhah Ziml and Menahem Mann Romm, had completed their work in the new quarters, the copies of the book were destroyed by incendiaries (1840). After some time, an effort was made by Joseph Eliasberg and Mattathias Strashun to continue the publication, but the Warsaw censor prohibited its importation into Poland, where the bulk of the subscribers lived. To add to the calamity, a feud broke out between the head of the Slavuta publishing company, Moses Schapira (1758-1838), and the Vilna publishers. The publication of the Talmud had always been supervised by the prominent rabbis of the land, and their authorization was necessary to make an edition legal. This the rabbi never granted unless the previous edition was entirely disposed of. The Slavuta publishers claimed that their edition had not been sold out when the Vilna publishers started theirs. The litigation continued for some time, and was finally decided in favor of the Vilna firm. The publishers of Slavuta, however, having the Polish rabbis and zaddikim on their side, continued to publish the Talmud, regardless of the protests of Rabbi Akiba Eger and the "great ones" of Lithuania. But a terrible misfortune befell the Slavuta publishers. On account of some accusation, the two brothers engaged in the business were deported to Siberia, and their father, the head of the establishment, died of a broken heart. This cleared the field for the Romms of Vilna, who continue to prosper to this day, and have now the greatest Hebrew publishing house in the world. "It is the finger of God," the pious ones said, and studied the Talmud with increased devotion.[40]
The numerous Talmud editions indicate the demand for the work, and the multiplicity of yeshibot explains the cause of the demand. We have seen how the yeshibot destroyed by Chmielnicki were re-established soon after the massacres ceased. Their number increased when the Hasidic movement threatened to render the knowledge of the Talmud unpopular; and when the Maskilim, too, made them a target for their attacks, there was hardly a town in which such institutions were not to be found. But surpassing all the yeshibot of the nineteenth century, if not of all centuries, was the Yeshibah Tree of Life (Yeshibat 'Ez Hayyim) in the townlet of Volozhin. There the cherished hopes of the Gaon were finally realized. Within its walls gathered the elect of the Russo-Jewish youth for almost a century.
The founder of this famous yeshibah was Rabbi Hayyim Volozhin, the greatest of the Gaon's disciples (1749-1821). A prominent Talmudist at twenty-five, he, nevertheless, left his business and household at that age, and went to Vilna to become the humble pupil of the Gaon, whose method he had followed from the beginning. When he felt himself proficient enough in his studies, he returned to his native place, and founded (1803) the Tree of Life College, with an enrollment of ten students, whom he maintained at his own expense. But soon the fame of the yeshibah and its founder spread far and wide, and students flocked to it from all corners of Russia and outside of it. In response to Rabbi Hayyim's appeal contributions came pouring in, a new and spacious school-house was erected, and Volozhin became a Talmudic Oxford. To be a student there was both an indication of superiority and a means to proficiency. Rabbi Hayyim did away with the "Tag-essen," or "Freitisch" custom, and introduced a stipendiary system in its stead, thus fostering the self-respect of the students. But they did not as a rule require much to satisfy them with their lot. They came to Volozhin "to learn," and they well knew the Talmudic statement, that "no one can attain eminence in the Torah unless he is willing to die for its sake."
Rabbi Hayyim was succeeded by his son Rabbi Isaac, who united knowledge of secular subjects with profound Talmudic erudition, was active in worldly affairs, and played a prominent part in the Jewish history of his day. He was of the leading spirits who, in 1842, attended the rabbinical conference at St. Petersburg convoked by Nicholas I. The number of students increased under his leadership, according to Lilienthal, to three hundred. But Rabbi Isaac became so engrossed in public affairs that he found he could no longer do justice to his position. His two sons-in-law, therefore, took his place, and when the older died, in 1854, Rabbi Naphtali Zebi Judah Berlin (1817-1893) entered on his useful career, unbroken for forty years, as the dean of the greatest seat of learning in the Diaspora. Under his administration the Tree of Life College reached both the height of its prosperity and the end of its existence (1892).[41]
Thus all the schemes and machinations of the Russian Government respecting the Jews proved ineffectual. Nicholas I, with the possible exception of Ivan the Terrible, the greatest autocrat in Russian history, at whose wish seemingly insuperable obstacles were instantly removed, the wink of whose eye was sufficient to kill or revive the millions of his crouching slaves—Nicholas I, with all his herculean strength, yet found himself helpless in the presence of a handful of wretched Jews. Furious at his defeat, he expressed the intention to reduce all Jews to Governmental servitude or to make them, like the Cossacks, lifelong soldiers. Being advised to postpone the execution of this plan and to employ less severe measures meanwhile, he issued the Exportation Law of 1843, ordering the expulsion of Jews from the fifty-vyerst boundary zone and from the villages within the Pale, thereby depriving fifty thousand families at once of their homes and their support.
Those from the country—writes a Russo-Jewish eye-witness of the scenes following the enforcement of this inhuman law—move first to the neighboring cities, and increase the existing poverty, rendering the difficulty of finding profitable employment still greater. God only knows how it will end when the congestion increases still further.... I must also inform you—he proceeds—that these past four months several imperial commissioners have visited the frontier towns on the Lithuanian border, from which the Jews are to be banished, in order that the value of the real estate may be estimated. But how is the valuation calculated? Even one who is acquainted with the venality and unscrupulousness of Russian officers cannot form a correct idea of how this business is conducted. If a man has no connection with those in authority, or cannot obtain powerful intercession, or is unable to give heavy bribes, his property is valued at perhaps five per cent, or is set at so low a figure as to make the appraisal differ little from downright robbery. We, however, are used to such measures, for when they banished us some time past from certain districts of the city of Brest-Litovsk, where for centuries celebrated scholars of our people dwelt, nothing better was done by the crown to compensate us for our houses.[42] The same occurred at the expulsion from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Nikolayev, Alexandrov, Sebastopol, etc., but as it did not affect so large a mass, nor injure us to so great an extent, we bore the injury silently. Alas, this is not the case at present. We should gladly quit the country, gladly should we emigrate to America, Texas, and especially to Palestine under English protection, if, on the one hand, we had the means and, on the other, the Government would permit us.[43]
This Exportation Law of Nicholas I, the result of a lawsuit between a Jew and a nobleman living on the eastern frontier, which had been decided by the supreme court in favor of the former, aroused much excitement in every civilized country of Europe. It was before anti-Semitism was in flower, and the people of the time were more responsive even than during the later Kishinev massacres. Indignation meetings were held. Both Jews and Gentiles, not only abroad, but even in Russia, protested. Prayers were offered for the unfortunate. Crémieux in France and Rabbi Philippson in Germany appealed to the public. All to no effect. Grief was especially manifest among English Jews, always the first to feel when their fellow-Jews in other countries suffer, and Grace Aguilar, like Rachel weeping over her children, lamented over her Russian brethren:
Ay, death! for such is exile—fearful doom,
From homes expelled yet still to Poland chain'd;
Till want and famine mind and life consume,
And sorrow's poison'd chalice all is drained.
O God, that this should be! that one frail man
Hath power to crush a nation 'neath his ban.
At this critical period, Moses Montefiore, encouraged by his success in refuting the blood accusation at Damascus, and stimulated by the many petitions he had received from Russia, Germany, France, Italy, England, and America, undertook the philanthropic mission of interceding with the czar on behalf of his coreligionists. It is natural to suspect that no trouble is entirely undeserved; it is but human to sympathize with our friends, and yet regard their suffering as a judgment rather than a misfortune. But Montefiore's trip to Russia dispelled the last trace of suspicion against the Russian Jews. In spite of their poverty, he saw numerous charitable and educational institutions in every city he visited. He found the Jewish men to be the cream of Russia. "He had the satisfaction," Doctor Loewe, his secretary, tells us, "of seeing among them many well-educated wives, sons, and daughters; their dwellings were scrupulously clean, the furniture plain but suitable for the purpose, and the appearance of the family healthy." To all his pleadings Count Uvarov returned but a single answer: "The Russian Jews are different from other Jews; they are orthodox, and believe in the Talmud"[44]—a reason for persecution in Holy Russia!
Montefiore's visit to Russia, from which so much had been hoped, did not improve the situation in the least. For all his strenuous efforts, he was compelled to leave the Jews as destitute as he had found them. Nay, they might truthfully have said to the Moses of England what their ancestors had said to the Moses of Egypt, "Since thou didst come to Pharaoh, the hardness of our lot has increased." From the first of May (1844) they were not allowed to continue to earn the pittance necessary to maintain life, as, for instance, by the slavish labor of breaking stones on the highways, with which three hundred families had barely earned dry bread.[45] The great love and respect shown to the uncrowned king of Israel proved to the czar's officials the existence of some artful design on the part of the Jews, and convinced them especially of the disloyalty of Montefiore. The latter, they maintained, was scheming to set himself up as the Jewish czar. Hence every movement of his was closely watched, every word he uttered carefully noted, and not a few Jews were left with memorable tokens for doing homage to the English baronet. Their disabilities were not removed, their condition was not improved, the hopes they entertained resolved themselves into pleasant dreams followed by a sad awakening.[46]
Yet, though his visit did not, as Sir Moses had anticipated, "raise the Jews in the estimation of the people," it was not without beneficent effect on the Jews themselves. It cemented the "traditional friendship" which has always existed between Anglo-Jews and Russo-Jews more than between any sets of Jews of the dispersion. It disclosed to the latter that there were happier Jews and better countries than their own; that there were men who sympathized with them as effectively as could be. Above all, it convinced them that a Jew may be highly educated and wealthy, and take his place among the noble ones of the earth, and still remain a faithful Jew and a loyal son of his persecuted people. "I leave you," Sir Moses called to them at parting, "but my heart will ever remain with you. When my brethren suffer, I feel it painfully; when they have reason to weep, my eyes shed tears." Had Montefiore's visit resulted merely in arousing his brethren's self-consciousness, he had earned a place in the history of Haskalah, for self-consciousness is the most potent factor in the culture of mankind.
Jews from other lands also came to the rescue of their Russian coreligionists. Jacques Isaac Altaras, the ship-builder of Marseilles, petitioned the czar to allow forty thousand Jewish families to emigrate to Algeria. Rabbi Ludwig Philippson, editor of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, appealed to his countrymen to help the Russian Jews to settle in America, Australia, Africa, anywhere away from Russia. But all attempts were ineffectual. Though Count Kissilyef assured Montefiore that the czar "did not wish to keep them [the Jews], five or six hundred thousand might leave altogether," emigration was next to impossible. Russia was constantly playing the game of the cat with the mouse. Her nails were set and her eyes fixed upon her prey, and yet she made it appear to the outside world that she was anxious about the welfare of the Jews. For Russian tactics have always been, and still are, the despair of the diplomat, a labyrinth through which only they who hold the clue can ever hope to find their way.
The condition of the Jews in Russo-Poland was, if possible, even worse than in Lithuania and Russia proper. Nothing, in fact, but the auto-da-fé was needed to give it the stamp of medieval Spain. As before the division of Poland, the Poles suspected the Jews of disloyalty to Poland, while the Russians suspected them of disloyalty to Russia. Hitherto too proud to soil his hand with a manual or mercantile pursuit, the Polish pan, now that the glory of his country had departed, and he was deprived of his lordly estates, began to engage in business of all kinds, and, finding in the Jewish trader a rival with whose skill and diligence he could seldom compete, he became embittered against the entire race. This was the cause of the innumerable restrictions, the extortion, and exploitation in Russo-Poland, which surpassed those of Russia proper.
The Jewish archives—said Doctor Marcus Jastrow, then Rabbi in Warsaw—were humorously known as "California" or the "Mexican Gold Mines." Jews had to pay at every step. They had to pay a Tagzettel [daily tax] for permission to stay in Warsaw, which permission, however, did not include the luxury of breathing. The latter had to be purchased with an additional ten kopecks per capita. The income from these taxations amounted to over a million and a half, but in spite of all this the Jews were regarded as parasites, as leeches feasting upon the life-blood of their Christian compatriots.[47]
Such is the background upon which the picture of Haskalah is to be drawn—black enough to throw into relief the faintest ray of light. The Russian Jews, during the reign of Nicholas I, found themselves in a position possible only in Russia. They were not allowed to emigrate, nor suffered to stay. In 1823 they were expelled from the farms, and had to crowd into the cities; in 1838 they were expelled from the cities, and forced to go back to the country. Then Siberia was opened to them, but when it was found that even the land of the outcasts was hailed as a place of refuge by the Jews, they were told to go to Kherson. At last arrangements were perfected to allow them to colonize Lithuania—all at once even this was interdicted. They had been conquered with the Poles, yet were left unprotected against the Poles. Could they help suspecting the tyrant of what he really intended to do—of seeking to diminish their numbers by conversion? Is it surprising that when he determined to open public schools and establish rabbinical seminaries, Jews looked upon these, too, as the sugared poison with which he intended to extirpate Judaism? Or can we blame them for being determined to the last to baffle him? Nicholas did not understand the great lesson taught by the history of the Jews and inculcated in the old song,
To destroy all these people
You should let them alone.
All that tyranny could inflict, the Russian Jews endured. Yet their number was not diminished. No coercion could make them leave, in a body, the old paths they were wont to tread. Nicholas's so-called reforms only encouraged a reaction, and the more he afflicted the Jews, the more they multiplied and grew. The behalot of 1754, 1764, and 1793 were repeated in 1833 and 1843; the missionary propaganda only strengthened the devotion of the faithful; and the denial of the means of support only increased the stolidity of the sufferers. And if, like some stepchildren, they were first beaten till they cried, and then beaten because they cried, like some stepchildren they rapidly forgot their lot in the happiness of home and the studies of the bet ha-midrash, and could sing[48] without bitterness even of the behalah-days, when
Little boys and little girls
Together had been mated,
Tishah be-Ab, the wedding day,—
Not a soul invited.
Only the father and the mother,
And also uncle Elye—
In his lengthy delye (caftan),
With his scanty beard—
Jump and jig with each other
Like a colt afeared.
(Notes, pp. [314-317].)