38939415-Moses-mendelssohn-and-the-religious-enlightenment

Published on June 2016 | Categories: Documents | Downloads: 75 | Comments: 0 | Views: 509
of 18
Download PDF   Embed   Report

Comments

Content

David Sorkin

THE CASE FOR COMPARISON: MOSES MENDELSSOHN AND THE RELIGIOUS ENLIGHTENMENT

The distinguished historian of European Jewry, Jacob Katz, now Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University, has observed on more than one occasion that whereas European Jews were emancipated in the nineteenth century, Jewish history only began to be emancipated a century later. There is much to this observation. From its origins in the early nineteenth century the writing of Jewish history was an apologetic enterprise confined to seminaries and Hebrew colleges. Its practitioners were in the main independent scholars and rabbis (especially in Central and Western Europe), lawyers and political activists (especially in Eastern Europe). Deprived of the advantages the great European universities might have afforded, the discipline instead became the battleground for the competing ideologies within European Jewry: emancipationists and Zionists, autonomists and socialists. This situation began to change in the inter-war period: Cecil Roth was appointed at Oxford, Salo Baron at Columbia, Harry Wolfson at Harvard; the foundation stone was laid for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem; YIVO was established in Wilna, and the Czarist archives were thrown open. Yet these appointments were of exceptional individuals made possible by ad hominem endowments, and the appointees were not full citizens of their respective institutions; the new university in Jerusalem was a mere fledgling and the developments in Eastern European were sadly ephemeral. The true integration of Jewish history (and Jewish studies in general) occurred with the rapid growth of Israeli universities in the 1950s and 1960s and the expanding curriculum of North American universities since the 1970s. The process is obviously still underway, but in principle the discipline now has a recognized place in the university curriculum. What have been the implications for the discipline? Academic historians today have a common reaction when reading the work of their extramural predecessors: respect for the sheer erudition—often the result of Yeshiva training combined with a classical European education, but discomfort with the parochial vision, for Jewish history
Modem Judaism 14(19*4): 121-138 O 1994 by The Johns Hopkins Univerjity Press

122

David Sorkim

frequently unfolds in relative isolation. The result is that in the past two decades scholars have attempted to restore Jewish history to the "context" of the larger society, examining in minute detail the series of relationships—economic, social, political and cultural—through which Jews at once created their own history as a minority group and participated in that of the broader society. Such study of the "context" of Jewish history breaches only the outer perimeter that ghettoized the discipline. The inner perimeter that remains intact is the assumption, usually tacit, that Jewish history is somehow singular—that its peculiar nature either resists the categories historians use for other peoples or requires that those categories be so significandy modified as to be qualitatively different. To try to breach this inner perimeter it might be salutary to complement the study of "context" with "comparison," supplementing questions of influence and relationship widi ones about homologous trends, parallel changes and common developments. Jewish historians might ask what Jewish history can teach other historians about issues of general interest—whether a period, a cultural movement, a social and political process or altogether neglected topics—exploring how die Jewish variation on a dieme illuminates the variation, by showing the family of examples to which it belongs, but also illuminates the dieme itself, by adding the instance of a significant minority group. If the study of "context" integrates die Jews into the broader society and culture, "comparison" promises to integrate Jewish history into the discipline of history.1 The case of Moses Mendelssohn can illustrate the value of comparison as a complement to the study of context. Moses Mendelssohn numbers among those rare figures who are a legend in their own lifetime and a symbol diereafter. Yet so rare a status has distinct liabilities. Two relendessly eventful centuries of history have shaped the myriad versions of the legend and symbol as well as the diverse uses made of them. Those two centuries dominate our field of vision and obstruct our understanding of his diought. The legend and symbol present Mendelssohn in terms of two faces. The one is the man of the German Enlightenment, the Avfkl&rer, immortalized in die appellation "die Socrates of Berlin," after die publication of his socratic dialogues on die immortalizy of die soul, die Ph&don, in 1767. The odier is die ideal Jew, Moses Dessau, enshrined in die phrase, "from Moses unto Moses diere was none like Moses," which made him the Jewish diinker of modern dmes, die legitimate successor to die medieval Moses Maimonides. In die innumerable descripdons and analyses of die two faces since Mendelssohn's death, die inescapable quesdon has been die reladonship between diem. The answers to diis quesdon comprise a veritable index to modern Jewish diought, since such an answer has been integral to

Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment

123

virtually every Jewish philosophy and ideology. The answers range between two extremes. The one extreme is that Mendelssohn's faces were of a piece and at peace, that he was the exemplary modern Jew in his ability to harmonize European culture with Jewish belief and observance. Isaac Euchel took this position in his study of Mendelssohn published in 1788 (appropriately, it was the first book-length biography of any figure to be written in modern Hebrew). Euchel called Mendelssohn "singular in his generation, and unique in his nation" (yakar be-doro, yahid be-amo) and made him a model for all Jews: "His life should be our standard, his teaching our light."2 In the mid-nineteenth century Meyer Kayserling could celebrate him as the creator of a GermanJewish symbiosis, the man who "wished to foster jointly Judaism and German education (deutsche Bildung)," who, as a "sincere religious Jew and a German writer" presented "a noble model for posterity".3 The other extreme is that the two faces were ill-suited and at odds, making Mendelssohn the false prophet of assimilation and de-nationalization. The late nineteenth-century Hebrew publicist Peretz Smolenskin put this graphically: R. Moshe ben Menahem held to the view of the love of all humanity, and his household and friends followed him. But where did it lead to? Almost all of them converted.4 In the same spirit the twentieth-century philosopher Franz Rosenzweig wrote: "From Mendelssohn on . . . the Jewishness of every individual has squirmed on the needle point of a 'Why. "5 Between these two extremes are numerous variations, including such memorable ones as that of the poet Heinrich Heine, who saw Mendelssohn as the "reformer of the Jews" who "overturned the Talmud as Luther had the papacy;"6 or that of the theologian Solomon Ludwig Steinheim (1789—1866) who wrote that Mendelssohn was "a heathen in his brain and a Jew in his body."7 Whether one renders Mendelssohn a hero, a villain or something intermediate, the intractable difficulty of the relationship between his faces remains. Even Mendelssohn's recent authoritative and ardent biographer, the late Alexander Altmann, conveyed an unmistakable ambivalence in trying to comprehend it. Altmann called Mendelssohn the "patron saint of German Jewry" by virtue of his participation in German culture, his uncompromising loyalty as a Jew, his formulation of a modern philosophy of Judaism, and his advocacy of Jewish civil rights. Yet Altmann could not make this assertion unequivocally. In many ways Mendelssohn was the first modern German Jew, the prototype of what the world came to recognize as the specific character, for better or worse, of German Jewry."*

124

David Sorkm

'For better or worse." This phrase reminds us how two centuries of history haunt any investigation of Moses Mendelssohn, and especially the effort to utilize the legend and symbol to penetrate the underlying reality. To offer a preliminary answer to the question of the "two faces," this paper will make two arguments from "context," i.e., Mendelssohn vis-a-vis the Enlightment and the Haskalah, and then one argument from "comparison." It is noteworthy that Mendelssohn kept pace with the Haskalah and Aufklarung, indeed, that he had a hand in altering both. Though most writers and intellectuals change with the times, Mendelssohn's case was unusual insofar as he was involved both as "the Berlin Socrates" and as Moses Dessau but also in that, for the Haskalah, he was its only member (masfut) to make the transition from its early phase to its later one. Mendelssohn grew up under the influence of the early Haskalah. The Haskalah was an effort to correct the historical anomaly of a Judaism out of touch with central aspects of its textual heritage as well as with the larger culture. Throughout most of the Middle Ages in Europe, and especially during many periods of heightened religious creativity, Jews had sustained a balanced view of their own textual heritage as well as a beneficial and often intense interaction with the surrounding culture. In the post-Reformation or Baroque period, in contrast, Ashkenazi Jewry had increasingly isolated itself in a world of talmudic casuistry (pilpul; hUuhm) and Kabbalah, neglecting the Bible, Jewish philosophy and the Hebrew language within, and the vast changes in the general culture without. The Haskalah began by reviving those intellectual traditions that promoted a reasonable (as distinct from a mystical or casuistic) understanding of Jewish texts and diereby made it possible to draw upon European science and philosophy. It was a tendency within mainstream Judaism: only in the last decade or two of the eighteenth century did it become a faction.9 Dessau was one locus of the early Haskalah. The famous Wulfnan press issued a steady stream of Hebrew books on philosophy and Hebrew grammar, including the first republication in two centuries of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, which transcended the curriculum of Talmudic dialectics and kabbalah. David Frankel, the rabbi whom Mendelssohn followed to Berlin, approved and in some cases arranged support for such publications: his own landmark study of the Palestinian Talmud also departed from that curriculum. As a youth in Dessau, Mendelssohn read the Bible, Hebrew grammar, and philosophy, especially Maimonides (he often attributed his deformity to the rigors of that study). When he arrived in Berlin, Mendelssohn found a circle of young Jews (Zamosc, Gumperz, Kisch), who were studying science and philosophy in addition to Jewish subjects. These

MendeUsohn and Religions Enlightenment

125

men became Mendelssohn's tutors and guides. What made Mendelssohn exceptional among them was not his studies, but his success. He alone became a figure of standing in Jewish and European culture.10 When Mendelssohn reached Berlin in the 1740s, the German Enlightenment was in transition. Christian Wolff, the philosopher of the age, was a the height of his influence; for that very reason the ground below him was shifting. Under the impact of the scientific revolution, Wolff had devised a philosophical method that aspired to the certainty of science. The method tried to deduce from a few selfevident logical principles (e.g., contradiction, sufficient reason) an entire philosophy whose truths would be linked one to the next as if in an unbroken chain. These truths were to have the coherence of mathematics, and Wolff tried to make them comprehensive as well, applying his method to all fields of philosophy: logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, psychology, law and nature. Because of the premises of his philosophy, Wolff left two major areas untouched: aesthetics and theology." That was the ground that began to shift. At midcentury the Wolffians who tried to extend the master to these two areas began to alter his system. Not surprisingly, "the Socrates of Berlin" devoted his best efforts to these areas. But what sort of change was there? The German Enlightenment at mid-century was preoccupied with questions of aesthetics and religion. One set of debates concerned how judgments about beauty and pleasure are made, and what their relationship is to morality. The discipline of aesthetics as we now understand it was emerging from under the mantle of metaphysics. Wolff had held beauty and everything connected with it to be inferior to truth and intellect; his successors began to valorize it. These debates continued for many decades, and were one source of the German literary renaissance of Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller. By the 1770s a new set of political and social concerns began to absorb the Enlightenment. The new "civic journals" which purveyed information on government policies (geographic, military, economic) and personalities, broke the government monopoly on political information and encouraged the emergence of "public opinion." An associational life also developed in conjunction with such journals.12 This development can be seen in the intellectual associations in which Mendelssohn participated. The Berlin "learned coffee house" (1755-56) was a forum for philosophical and scientific issues. Mendelssohn contributed a paper on probability (which he had someone else read, though to everyone's amusement, the author's identity was revealed when the reader mistook a zero for an "o" and Mendelssohn corrected him), and discussed determinism with another of the dub's members.15 Almost thirty years later (1783), Mendelssohn became a

126

David Sorkm

member of the Berlin "Wednesday Society" (Mitwochgesellschaft). In this forum Mendelssohn gave lectures on "What is Enlightenment," "On the Freedom to Express One's Opinion," 'On the Principles of Government," "On the Best Constitution," etc.M These two associations testify to the change in Mendelssohn as the "Socrates of Berlin" (This does not imply that he stopped writing metaphysics; he did not). What about Moses Dessau? He made a similar pilgrimage. His Hebrew writings of the 1750s and 1760s were typical of the early Haskalah in promoting a reasonable understanding of Judaism through the revival of philosophy and the renewal of Hebrew studies. His Bible translations and commentary of the 1770s and early 1780s were an attempt to apply these views. In the 1780s he made the transition to the full Haskalah of ideology and politics in his discussion of the Jews' legal situation and the theory of emancipation. During these phases the Haskalah also underwent a social development: in the early period (1750s and 1760s) there were only isolated individuals; by the 1770s there was a distinct circle of maskilim; and by the 1780s a literary society and a journal (Me'asrf) had emerged.15 That Mendelssohn kept pace with the Aufklarung and Haskalah does not sufficiently answer the question of the relationship between the two faces. Another argument from context is required. For Mendelssohn, Enlightenment philosophy and Judaism supplemented and explained each other, yet each retained its integrity and respective sphere. Judaism's basis in revelation set clear limits to the scope of philosophy, and philosophy presupposed and depended upon revelation. Philosophy in turn served Judaism as a means of selfarticulation and restoration. As a result of this relationship, Mendelssohn's religious ends were always conservative or restorative, however novel or innovative his means. Mendelssohn was one of those thinkers who, in extending Wolff's thought into new areas in the 1750s and 1760s, changed it. Mendelssohn adhered to the central notions of the Wolffian-Leibnizian position. He believed that this was "the best of all possible worlds" in that God had freely chosen it. He believed in man's free will, yet also in the pre-established harmony between the individual constituents of the world—the so-called "monads." The key concept in all of this was "perfection" (VoUhommenheit). God's existence could be proven from the possibility of a perfect being (the ontological proof) and man's ethical life was a striving to attain the highest possible perfection inherent in his being. For Mendelssohn the first law of nature was "make your and your fellowman's internal and external condition, in proper proportion, as perfect as you can."16 Mendelssohn's main innovation was in aesthetics. By introducing

Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment

127

a hierarchy of pleasures, in which the aesthetic ranked below the metaphysical, he made way for notions of the autonomy of art ("the stage has its own morality"), and new concepts of aesthetic perception (i.e., "mixed feelings") and artistic creativity (the artist creates what nature has not) which left the metaphysical foundations of his philosophy intact.". Though an eloquent exponent of the Wolffian philosophy, Mendelssohn was also critical of it. He complained that Wolff's Latin works would have been more useful as a philosophical dictionary than as a system.18 He also thought Wolff's attempt to give philosophy irrefragable certainty by adopting the mathematical method had been mistaken.19 More important than his criticism of Wolff was Mendelssohn's insistence on the limitations of philosophical knowledge. He rejected as sheer arrogance the claims of any philosophy to omniscience, criticizing Leibniz's critics for virtually deifying the philosopher.10 He thought the problem of an infinite world, for example, must be left to revelation.21 Instead, Mendelssohn pursued those issues pertinent to a natural philosophy, that is, one which presupposed God and His perfection but otherwise avoided revelation and all related issues. Thus Mendelssohn preferred German to French philosophy because it valued believing thinking over free thinking.2* For the same reason he chose to place his dialogues on immortality, the Phddon, in the mouth of a pagan philosopher: in that way he could avoid the issue of revelation. (Socrates had the additional advantage of being a nonscholastic philosopher).25 Similarly, all moral issues had a metaphysical foundation for Mendelssohn, since they were grounded in God's freedom." In addition, he held a nomian view of ethics: an ethical life meant honoring God by following His law." "Observance of duties towards God (is). . . the only way to make our souls more perfect."*6 In his natural philosophy the precise dictates of the law went unspecified. In his Hebrew works Mendelssohn provided the revealed philosophy that completed, and was the counterpart to the natural one. He used Wollfian categories to articulate it, and here he delineated the contents of law and the role of belief. He first did this in two brief, if significant works in the 1750s and 1760s. In the Kohelet Musar (literally: Preacher of Morals) Mendelssohn used the form of a journal popular in Germany at the time, the "moral weekly" (actually a monthly that appeared on the same day of the week and was modelled on the English Toiler and Spectator). Mendelssohn had written for such a journal in the mid-1750s (der Chameleon). The moral weekly was an intimate forum in which a fictional narrator used letters, essays, reports of incidents and conversations

128

David Sorkin

to discuss philosophical, ethical and cultural issues in an informal manner.27 Mendelssohn used this forum to address Yeshivah students and others entirely at home in the world of rabbinic scholarship and Jewish learning, on many of the same issues as in his German philosophy: the relationship between nature as a source of enjoyment and as a source of belief ("physico-theology"); how one justifies the obvious moral inequities of this world (theodicy); or the ethical nature of friendship—how love of man is related to love of God.28 In handling these issues Mendelssohn repeatedly employed the same method. He first stated the issue using Wolffian categories; then gave an example to which the categories were applied, usually drawn from Jewish texts; he went on to quote rabbinic passages that agreed with the Wolffian analysis; and ended with the Wolffian conclusions to be drawn from it. To take one example: in considering the ethical nature of friendship, Mendelssohn used the Wolffian definition of love as taking pleasure in another's increased perfection. The example he used was the friendship of David and Jonathan in the Bible. He showed that in human love, pleasure arises from the achievement of perfection; in the love of God in contrast, since He is the embodiment of all perfection, pleasure arises out of obedience to His law. Mendelssohn then cited a passage from the Babylonian Talmud to confirm this view.29 Significant here is the seamless transition from Wolffian categories and natural philosophy to the revealed philosophy of Judaism. Also significant is that whereas the German moral weekly purveyed natural philosophy, Mendelssohn used it to offer a revealed, if entirely reasonable Judaism. The second Hebrew work was Mendelssohn's commentary on Maimonides' "Logical Terms." Maimonides' account of logical terminology was at once an introduction to logic and a philosophical primer.50 Mendelssohn republished it with an introduction and a commentary. His aim was to revive the philosophical tradition in Judaism. Addressing the same audience here as in the Kohelet Musar, he defended philosophy as an entirely pious pursuit that is necessary to correct belief. Without logic one can neither fathom God's creation nor distinquish right from wrong.51 Mendelssohn argued that to think without an awareness of logic is equivalent to using language without knowing grammar.32 (Mendelssohn anticipated the charge that philosophy is a Greek invention foreign to Judaism. Maimonides' piety cannot be questioned, since he had neutralized the impact of Greek wisdom. "He swallowed the pit but spit out the peel.")53 Although Mendelssohn here set the same limits to philosophy he did in his German treatises, he now discussed the revelation that surpassed and complemented it. He asserted that without Torah and

Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment

129

tradition we are "like a blind man in the dark."" The true path to knowledge is the combination of Torah and logic.55 However far man's understanding can go in comprehending God and divine truth, it is only possible through the application of God-given reason to God's Torah and tradition. Only the prophet who has direct revelation can dispense with logic.5* Mendelssohn therefore recommends that students study logic an hour or so per week in support of their traditional textual studies.57 Mendelssohn manifestly regarded logic as a means and not as an end. Maimonides' indisputable piety and his succinct exposition served Mendelssohn's purposes, with one important exception. Maimonides' method and philosophy were distinctly medieval. His work might lead the uninitiated student backward to medieval Jewish philosophy, but it could not lead him forward to eighteenth-century philosophy. Mendelssohn's commentary was to be the bridge. At the end of each of the fourteen chapters of his treatise, Maimonides provided a list of the terms he had introduced. Mendelssohn used these as a philosophical lexicon: next to each Hebrew term he gave the equivalent in German and in Latin (in Hebrew characters). He thereby attempted to renew philosophical discourse in Hebrew, performing the same function for Hebrew that Wolff had for German some four decades earlier. In his early German philosophical treatises Wolff had invented German equivalents for accepted Latin terms.58 Mendelssohn did not rest content with creating an up-to-date philosophical vocabulary. He also introduced the substance of eighteenth-century philosophy. Wherever Maimonides had used Aristotelian or platonic notions, Mendelssohn corrected it with the eighteenth-century Leibnizian-Wolffian view.59 (The distaste for scholastic philosophy Mendelssohn revealed in his German writings is apparent here as well: he is especially critical of those medieval philosophers who endlessly commented on the master without adding anything of their own.)40 In addition, Mendelssohn seized every opportunity to introduce Wolfnan categories. At one point in his treatise Maimonides mentioned the idea of luck (mezulat ha-adam). Mendelssohn pounced on this chance phrase, employing the same method as in the Kohelet Musar. He expounded the Wolfnan conception of theodicy; then quoted a rabbinic source and Maimonides' own Guide of the Perplexed; and concluded with a peroration of Wolfnan concepts.'" This same use of novel means for pious ends also holds for Mendelssohn's work in subsequent periods. His biblical commentaries and translations of the 1770s and early 1780s used the best of contemporary aesthetics and Bible study, science and philosophy as well as drawing on medieval Jewish philosophy, exegesis and grammar. At

130

David Sorkim

the same time Mendelssohn defended the integrity of the Masoretic text and the validity of traditional rabbinic interpretation, and offered a translation thoroughly in keeping with Jewish tradition.42 In his political writings he recapitulated the relationship between his early philosophical writings in German and Hebrew. The first part of his Jerusalem is a natural political philosophy, in which he used the key concepts of eighteenth-century political thought to delineate the principles of a state separated from the church which could accord equal treatment to its subjects regardless of their religious beliefs. The second part is a revealed politics. Mendelssohn argued that Judaism is a "divine legislation" based on the symbolic acts of the commandments (the mitxuot). It is no longer a political constitution but rather a ceremonial law which makes no claim to a monopoly over revealed knowledge and does not qualify the Jews' unconditional right to emancipation. Mendelssohn accordingly thought that Judaism should become a voluntary religious community with no powers of coercion over its members. Here again, Mendelssohn embraced the novel means of emancipation in a secular state for the pious end of preserving an unaltered Judaism.43 Analyzing the development of Mendelssohn's thought and the relationship between the Enlightenment and his Jewish thinking locates him squarely in an historical context. Yet the connection between Aufklarung and Haskalah is still inadequate. That relationship must also be understood in terms of a neglected aspect of eighteenthcentury cultural and religious history that emerges from comparison. Connecting the face of the enlightened philosopher with that of the believing Jew was the interface of what might be called the religious Enlightenment. If one looks at the relationship of religion to the Enlightenment from the side of the established religions, it is apparent that all of them had influential representatives who welcomed the new science and philosophy of the Enlightenment as a means to renew and reinvigorate faith. This attempt to put the Enlightenment in the service of revealed religion was at the heart of the religious Enlightenment. As a movement it represented a kind of golden mean. For Protestants this was usually so in two senses: at first as a middle way between an older orthodoxy and a form of "enthusiasm" or inspirational faith, later between the secular enlightenment and belief. (Thus in England after the Act of Toleration a moderate Anglicanism used key notions of the Enlightenment—Lockean reasonableness, Newtonian science, ideas of natural religion and toleration—to provide a broadly Arminian alternative to rigid Calvinism on die one side and Inner Light enthusiasm on die odier. Subsequendy it served as a middle ground between Deism and unreconstructed orthodoxy.) For Catholics in

Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment

131

Central Europe and Italy it meant a middle ground between Baroque piety, scholasticism and Jesuitism on the one side and a highly charged reform movement like Jansenism on the other, that enabled them to recover neglected aspects of their textual heritage as well as absorbing modern science and philosophy. What these representatives of religious enlightenment sought was a way to reconcile faith and reason by enlisting substantial portions of Enlightenment thought.44 To place Mendelssohn in this comparative framework, which relieves him of the onus of spurious singularity, we must return to the philosopher Christian Wolff. In the 1740s Wolff's followers extended his philosophy in two directions: aesthetics and theology. It is in the extension of Wolfnanism to theology that we find the emergence of a German Protestant version of the religious enlightenment. Enlightenment science and philosophy entered the theological faculties of the German universities (Halle, Leipzig and Gottingen) through Wolff's philosophy, offering a breath of fresh air in the suffocating quarrel between Lutheran scholasticism and Pietism. It was certainly auspicious that one of the first books Mendelssohn read in German was a treatise by the foremost theological Wolffian
in Berlin. In his Considerations of the Augsburg Confession (1733), Johann

Gustav Reinbeck tried to chart a middle course between the rationalist's exclusive reliance on reason and the orthodox believer's exclusive reliance on Scripture. He tried to show that reason could demonstrate the truths of natural religion and revelation confirm them. Thus he proved the existence of God using the ontological argument and principle of sufficient reason in chapter one, while in chapter two he showed it from Scripture. Other truths were only partially susceptible to proof, "from the light of nature and of reason."46 He proved as much as reason allowed about God's attributes (e.g., God as spirit), then carried on with scriptural citation.47 For the mysteries of creation, revelation was the primary source. Reason could demonstrate the possibility of creatio ex nihilo, but Scripture provided the rest. For the mysteries of the Trinity, revelation was the exclusive source, yet following Wolff, Reinbeck insisted that revelation contained nothing at variance with reason. This work had an obvious affinity to Mendelssohn's own. For a young man who had cut his philosophical teeth studying Maimonides, the early encounter with an eighteenth-century Christian effort to reconcile philosophy and belief had a lasting influence, which can be seen in number of ways.
In the second half of his Considerations on the Augsburg Confession,

for example, Reinbeck had offered a sustained vindication of philosophy's service to theology which the key arguments of Mendelssohn's Logical Terms would unmistakably parallel. Reinbeck argued that phi-

132

David SoHan

losophy, as the "science of the possible," is an indispensable aid in achieving correct belief.48 It first teaches us to use reason to scrutinize the truths of nature. It then leads us to the truths of Scripture, helping us to understand the objects behind the words and thus enables us to formulate distinctions and categories.49 Physics and mathematics are similarly essential to comprehending the central scriptural passages that treat nature.50 Finally, philosophy helps us to fathom that the truths of nature and the truths of scripture are in absolute agreement.51 While emphasizing the utility of philosophy, Reinbeck set it clear limits (as Mendelssohn would). Since philosophy has distinct boundaries in regard to natural matters, a fortiori in divine ones. Philosophy not only presupposes, and through its investigations confirms revelation, but also accepts miracles and respects mysteries.5* Reinbeck made the argument common to the theological Wolffians that ultimate theological issues were not contrary to reason (contra rationem) but
beyond it (supra rationem). f

Mendelssohn can be seen as a Jewish counterpart to the theological Wolffians, extending the master's system and altering it (as he had in aesthetics) to articulate and renew Judaism. This is evident for example, in his defence of Judaism. The theological Wolffians had faced one major problem. Wolffs method asked for certainty using strict mathematical criteria. Was there certainty in Scripture and revelation that would enable them to use Enlightenment philosophy to re-articulate and defend the faith? They found an answer in history. Scripture provided an indisputable account of historical facts. Theological Wolffians such as Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten began to investigate Scripture as an historical document, thereby altering the master just as had their counterparts (including Siegmund's brother, Alexander Baumgarten) in aesthetics. Wolff had deprecated history as mere fact without certainty. They now valorized it.53 In his understanding of Judaism as a "divine legislation", for example, Mendelssohn employed the same intellectual strategy. He used the public revelation of law to the entire nation at Mount Sinai— as distinguished from the mere miracles of a prophet—as a source of certainty that grounds Jewish practice and belief. "Here I have a matter of history on which I can rely with certainty."54 Mendelssohn addressed the same problem and solved it in a similar way to the Protestants. (Mendelssohn's views became public only in his Jerusalem of 1783, yet he had formulated them during the Lavater controversy in 1769-70. His metaphysical outlook and his view of Judaism remained largely unchanged after the seminal decade of the 1760s).55 Further comparison confirms Mendelssohn's standing as the preeminent Jewish representative of the religious Enlightenment. In his political thought, Mendelssohn argued that church and state

Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment

133

should be separated; that religion should be constituted as a free association of teachers and auditors since it is not based on a contract and has no right of coercion over its members; and that for this very reason the rabbis should renounce the ban. Mendelssohn made this argument using the doctrine of "collegial theory," which reconciled natural law with belief by seeing the church as a voluntary association of individuals who had an inalienable right to freedom of conscience and toleration. Originated by Dutch collegians in the seventeenthcentury, the theory was adopted by German Protestant theological enlightenment thinkers in the first half of the eighteenth century, by German Reform Catholics in the 1780s. "Collegial theory" had the great advantage of advocating toleration without relativizing faith. Mendelssohn was not alone, then, either in his arguments or in his method of making them. He spoke a language of faith and natural law common to the religious Enlightenment in Central Europe.56 Comparison also illuminates his relation to the textual tradition. Mendelssohn and the early maskilim attempted to revive medieval Jewish philosophy as a reasonable means to interpret the Jewish textual heritage as well as to exhume neglected aspects of that heritage— the Bible, philological and philosophical Biblical exegesis and Hebrew language. Reform Catholics did much the same. Just as the maskilim considered Maimonides more reasonable than Talmudic casuistry and mystical speculation, so many Reform Catholics thought Aquinas more reasonable than the "senile scholasticism" of Suarez. Reform Catholics at mid-century not only turned to the philosophy of Christian Wolff but also returned to the medieval sources of Catholic philosophy. Reform Catholics also revived the study of neglected texts— Scripture, patristics and church history, under the slogan "to the sources" {adfontes). These endeavors distinguished Catholic and Jewish religious enlightenment thinkers from their Protestant counterparts. This affinity of Jewish and Catholic enlightenment thinkers also appeared in respect to vernacular translations of sacred texts. Reform Catholics and maskilim argued for use of the vernacular under the influence of the Enlightenment which posited that true belief required full understanding. Mendelssohn translated and commented on the Bible because he wanted it to be understood properly, the German translation serving the Hebrew original. For much the same reason, Ignaz Felbiger, the premiere Reform Catholic pedagogue in Central Europe, translated the Bible into German for schoolchildren (1767).58 Finally, comparison casts Mendelssohn's two faces in a new light. The religious Enlightenment's most gifted and influential representatives were active in both secular and religious pursuits. The Bishop of Gloucester, William Warburton, wrote works on theology and ec-

134

David Sorkm

clesiastical politics, but also edited Pope and Shakespeare;59 the Italian Ludovico Muratori wrote on church reform and devotion but was also a pioneer in the writing of Italian history.60 S. J. Baumgarten, the theological Wolffian, wrote theology, hermeneutics and exegesis, but also had a considerable reputation as a secular historian.61 If Mendelssohn is compared to such figures, his "two faces" no longer seem singular. Rather, he appears as the preeminent Jewish representative of the religious Enlightenment, a status which explains his ability to pass through the various stages of the Enlightenment and Haskalah, and his use of novel means for conservative ends. One goal of studying individuals or groups mainstream historians have neglected or ostracized, beyond its intrinsic validity, is to modify our perceptions of the larger society or culture. Jewish history provides fertile ground for such an endeavor. Comparison enhances understanding not only of Moses Mendelssohn but also of the religious Enlightenment. On the one side it emerges that he was not a singular figure in Europe but one among many eminent thinkers of the religious Enlightenment. On the other it emerges that the religious Enlightenment was not a Protestant, a Catholic, or even a Christian, but a European phenomenon. If applied to Jewish history, the method of comparison will yield many examples of this sort. Once armed with sufficient examples of this kind, Jewish historians will be able to breach the "inner" perimeter, the assumption of singularity, and Jewish history will, perhaps, finally be emancipated.
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

NOTES

I would like to thank Dr. David Cesarani for inviting me to present an earlier version of this paper at the Wiener Library and Institute of Contemporary History, London, and Frances Malino for her dose reading of it. 1. For recent accounts of the state of scholarship on modern Jewish history see Paula Hyman, "The Ideological Transformation of Modern Jewish Historiography," in Shaye J. D. Cohen and Edward L. Greenstein eds., The State of Jewish Studies (Detroit, 1990), pp. 143-57; and Jonadian Frankel, "Assimilation and the Jews in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Towards a New Historiography?" in J. F. Frankel and S. Zipperstein (eds.). Assimilation and
Community: The Jews m Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 1 —

37. For the historiography of German Jewry see the three introductory articles in Leo Batch InstituU Yearbook, Vol. 35 (1990): Michael A. Meyer, "Recent Historiography on the Jewish Religion in Modern Germany," pp. 3—16; David Sorkin, "Emancipation and Assimilation—Two Concepts and their Application to German-Jewish History," pp. 17—33; and Moshe Zimmermann,

Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment

135

"Jewish History and Jewish Historiography—A Challenge to Contemporary German Historiography," pp. 35—52. For an attempt at comparison see my "From Context to Comparison: The German Haskalah and Reform Catholicism," Tel Aviver Jakrbuch fur deutsche Geschichte, Vol. 20 (1991), pp. 2 3 - 4 1 . 2. Isaac Euchel, ToUdot Rabemu he-Hakham Moshe ben Menahem (Berlin, 1788) p. 113. 3. Meyer Kayserling, Moses Mendelssohn. Sem Leben und seine Werke (Leipzig, 1862), pp. 284, 484. 4. "Am Olam," in Ma'amarim, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1925-56), 1:41. Quoted in Isaac E. Barzilay, "Smolenskin's Polemic Against Mendelssohn in Historical Perspective," Proceedings of the American Academy ofJewish Research, Vol. 53 (1986), pp. 11-14. 5. "Die Bauleute," Klemere Schriften (Berlin, 1937), p. 110. Translation in Nahum N. Glatzer (ed.), Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New York, 1953), p. 238. 6. Heinrich Heine, "Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophic in Deutschland," in Heinrich Heine: Beitrdge zur deutschen Ideologie (Frankfurt, 1971), p. 65. 7. S. L. Steinheim, Moses Mendelssohn und seine Schule (Hamburg, 1840), p. 37. Quoted in Michael A. Meyer, Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (New York, 1988), p. 69. 8. Alexander Altmann, "Moses Mendelssohn as the Archetypal German Jew," in Jehuda Reinharz and Walter Schatzberg (eds.), The Jewish Response to German Culture (Hanover, 1985), pp. 17-31 esp. pp. 17-18. 9. For this view of the Haskalah, see David Sorkin, "From Context to Comparison: The German Haskalah and Reform Catholicism," pp. 23—41. 10. For the Wulffian press see Menahem Schmelzer, "Hebrew Printing and Publishing in Germany, 1650-1750," Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, Vol. 33 (1988), pp. 3 7 1 - 2 ; and Moritz Steinschneider, "Hebraische Drucke in Deutschland," Zeitsehrift fur die GeschichU derjuden in Deutschland (1892), p. 168. For Franckel see Max Freudenthal, "R. David Franckel," in M. Brann and F. Rosenthal (eds.), Gedenkbuch zur Ermnerung an David Kaufmann (Breslau, 1900), pp. 575-589. For Mendelssohn's childhood see Alexander Altmann, "Moses Mendelssohns Kindheit in Dessau," Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts 40 (1967), pp. 237-275. For the Berlin period see Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (Philadelphia, 1973), pp. 15-25. 11. Lewis White Beck, Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors (Cambridge, Mass. 1969), pp. 276-296. 12. For an overview of the late Enlightenment ("Srjfitaufklilrung") see James J. Sheehan, German History, 1770-1866 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 144-206, and Richard van Dfllmen, Die Gesellschaft der Aufkldrer. Zur bQrgerUchen Emanzipation und aufklarerischen Kultur in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1986). I am indebted to Shmuel Feiner (Bar-Ilan University) for suggesting the point that Mendelssohn was the only mashl to pass through the Haskalah's various stages. 13. Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, pp. 74-77. 14. Ibid., pp. 653f; and James Schmidt, "The Question of Enlightenment: Kant, Mendelssohn and the Mitwochgesellschaft,"yournai of the History ofIdeas 50 (1989), Vol. 2, pp. 269-291.

136

David SoHan

15. On the development of the Haskalah, see Sorkin, "From Context to Comparison," pp. 27—41. 16. Moses Mendelssohn, GesammelteSchriften.Jubilaumsausgabe, ed. F. Bamberger et. al. 22 vols. (Stuttgart, 1971) (hereafter JubA), Vol. 2, p. 317. 17. Beck, Early German Philosophy, pp. 326-7. 18. "Gedanken" (Aus der Wochenschrift Der ChamcUeon) JubA, Vol. 2, p. 121. 19. "Abhandlung fiber die Evidenz in Metaphysischen Wissenschaften," JubA, Vol. 2, pp. 271,329. 20. "Philosophische Gesprache,"/uM, Vol. 1: pp 24-25. 21. Ibid., p. 22. 22. "Uber die Empfindungen," JubA, Vol. 1, p. 43; cf. Vol. 1, p. 62, For a similar passage in the "Philosophische GesprSche" see JubA, Vol. 1, pp. 13-14. 23. "Phadon",/uM Vol. 3, pp. 16 and 128. 24."Abhandlung uber die Evidenz," JubA, Vol. 2: p. 322. 25. "Sokrates Gesprflch mit dem Euthydemus uber die Gottesfurcht und Gerechtigkeit," (Aus der Wochenschrift Der Chamdleon) JubA, Vol. 2, pp. 1 4 4 45. 26. "Abhandlung Qber die Evidenz," JubA, VoL 2: p.317. cf. Vol. 2, pp. 321-22. 27. Wolfgang Martens, Die Botschaft der Tugend (Stuttgart, 1968). 28. For an excellent discussion of this work see Meir Gilon, Kohelet Musar le-Mendelssohn al Reka Tekufato (Jerusalem, 1979). 29. I have used the critical edition in Gilon. See "Sha'ar Daled," pp. 171— 72. 30. On Maimonides' treatise see Israel Efros, "Maimonides' Treatise on Logic" Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research (1937—38), pp. 3—65; and Raymond L. Weiss, "On the Scope of Maimonides' Logic, Or, What Joseph Knew," in Ruth Link-Salinger (ed.), A Straight Path: Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture. Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman (Washington, D.C., 1988), pp. 255—65. I am indebted to my colleague Daniel Frank for bringing these sources to my attention. 31. "Biur Milot ha-Higayon," JubA, Vol. 14, pp. 28-29. 32. Ibid., pp. 28, 52. 33. Ibid., p. 29. 34. Ibid., p. 28. 35. Ibid., p. 48. 36. Ibid., pp. 49, 51. 37. Ibid., p. 30. 38. See, for example, "Das erste Register, Darinnen einige KunstwOrter Latcinisch gegeben werden," in Vernunftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Stele des Menschen (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1729), pp. 672-678. On Wolffs role in the creation of a German philosophical language see E. A. Blackall, The Emergence of German as a Literary Language, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, 1978), pp.

26-48. 39. JubA, Vol. 14, p. 80. 40. Ibid., pp. 84, 94, 117.

Mendelssohn and Religions Enlightenment

137

41. Ibid., p. 99. 42. For the Bhtr vis-a-vis the masoretic text and rabbinic interpretation see the recent excellent study, Edward Breuer, "In Defense of Rabbinic Tradition: The Masoretic Text and its Rabbinic Interpretation in the Early Haskalah," (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1990). For Mendelssohn's use of general knowledge see Peretz Sandier, Ha-Bhir le-Torah shel Moshe Mendelssohn ve-Siato (Jerusalem, 1940). 43. JubA, Vol. 8, pp. 99-142. On the Jerusalem, see Altmann, Die Trostvolle Aufkldrung: Studien zur Metaphysik und polituchen Theorie Moses Mendelssofms (Stuttgart, 1982), pp. 164-213. 44. For a brief account of the religious Enlightenment, see Sorkin, "From Context to Comparison." 45. Betrachtungen uber die in der Augsburgischen Confession enlhallene und damii verknUpfU Gdttliche Wahrheiten, 2 vols. (Berlin & Leipzig, 1733), Vol. 1, pp. xxi. On Reinbeck see D. A. Tholuck, Geschichte des Rationalismus: Geschichte des Pietismus und des ersten Stadiums der Aufkldrung (Berlin, 1865), pp. 142—43. That Reinbeck's work was one of the first Mendelssohn read in German, see Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, pp. 25—26. 46. Betrachtungen, Vol. 1, p. 9. 47. Ibid., Vol. l . p p . 115-93. 48. Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 6. 49. Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. xl-xliii. 50. Ibid,. Vol. 2, pp. xliii-xlv. 51. Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. viii-ix, and xxxii. 52. Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. xviii, and xxxv—xxxvii. 53. See, for example, his biblical hermeneutic (first edition 1742) Unterricht von Auslegung der heiligen Schrift, 3rd ed. (Halle, 1759). On Baumgarten and his turn to history see Martin Schloemann, Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten: System u. Geschichte in der Theologie des Ubergangs zum Neuprotestantismus Forschungen zur Kirchen—und Dogmengeschichte. vol. 26, (Gdttingen, 1974). Also Walter Sparn, "Auf dem Wege zur theologischen Aufklarung in Halle: von Johann Franz Budde zu Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten," WolfenbHUeler Studien zur Aufkldrung, Vol. 15 (1989), pp. 71-89. 54. "Gegenbetrachtungen" JubA, Vol. 7, pp. 87-88; cf. JubA, Vol. 8, pp. 157-64. 55. Bamberger stresses this point in his introduction to the metaphysical works. See JubA, Vol. 1, p. xxvi. 56. For a brief comparison of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish uses of collegia] theory, see David Sorkin, "Jews, the Enlightenment and Religious Toleration: Some Reflections," Leo Baech Institute Yearbook, Vol. 37 (1992), pp. 11—15. The standard work on Protestant collegial theory, with some reference to Catholics, is Klaus Schlaich, Kollegial-theorie: Kxrche, Recht und Stoat in der Aufl&rung (Munich, 1969). For Mendelssohn see Alexander Altmann, "Moses Mendelssohn on Excommunication: The Ecclesiastical Law Background," in Die Trostvolle Aufkldrung (Stuttgart, 1982), pp. 229-243. 57. On the renewal of scholasticism see Karl Werner, Geschichte der katholischen Theologie. Sett dem Trienter Condi bis zur Gegenxvart (Munich, 1866), pp. 179f. On the revival of neglected sources see Josef M uller, "Zu den theolo-

138

David Sorkm

giegeschichtlichen Grundlagen der Studienreform Rautenstrauches," Tubmger Theologische Quartalschrift 146 (1966), pp. 62-97. 58. For contemporary discussions see, for example, Beda Mayr, Prufung
der bejahenden Grunde welche die Gottesgelehrten anfOhren; Ober die Frage: Soil man sich in der abendlandischen Sprache bedienen (Frankfurt u. Leipzig, 1777); and Benedikt Werkmeister, Beitrdge zur Verbessenmg der kathoUschen Liturgie in

Deutschland (Ulm. 1789). For an overview at these issues see Sebastian Merkle, "Die katholische Beurteilung des Aufklarungszeitalters," in Ausgewdhlte Reden u. Aufsdtze (Wurzburg, 1965), pp. 380-92; Eduard Hegel, Die Katholische Kirche
Deutschlands unter dem Einfluss der Aufklarung des 18. Jahrkunderts (Rheinisch-

westfalische Akademie der Wissenschaften Vortrage, 1975, pp. 17-21; Leonard Swidler, Aufld&rung Catholicism, 1780-1850: Liturgical and other Reforms in the Catholic AufldSrung (Missoula, 1978). 59. A. W. Evans, WarburUm and the Warburtonians (London, 1932). 60. Franco Venturi, "History and Reform in the Middle of the Eighteenth Century," in J. H. Elliott & H. G. Koenigsberger (eds.), The Diversity of History:
Essays in Honor of Sir Herbert Butterfield (London, 1970). 61. Schloemann, Baumgarten: System u. Geschichte, pp. 97—213.

Sponsor Documents

Recommended

No recommend documents

Or use your account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Forgot your password?

Or register your new account on DocShare.tips

Hide

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link to create a new password.

Back to log-in

Close