IN GERMANY
THE MEASSEFIM
The intellectual emancipation of the Jews in Germany anticipated their
political and social emancipation. That is a truth generally
acknowledged. Long secluded from all foreign ideas, confined within
religious and dogmatic bounds, German Judaism was a sharer in the
physical and social misery of the Judaism of Slavic countries. The
philosophic and tolerant ideas in vogue at the end of the eighteenth
century startled it somewhat out of its torpor. In the measure in which
those ideas gained a foothold in the communities, conditions, at least
in the larger centres, took on a comfortable aspect, with more or less
assurance of permanent well-being. The first contact of the ghetto with
the enlightened circles of the day gave the impetus to a marked movement
toward an inner emancipation. Associations of _Maskilim_
("intellectuals") were formed at Berlin, Hamburg, and Breslau. "The
Seekers of the Good and the Noble" (_Shohare ha-Tob weha-Tushiyah_)
should be mentioned particularly. They were composed of educated men
familiar with Occidental culture, and animated by the desire to make the
light of that culture penetrate to the heart of the provincial
communities. These "intellectuals" entered the lists against religious
fanaticism and casuistic methods, seeking to replace them by liberal
ideas and scientific research. Two schools, headed respectively by the
philosopher Mendelssohn and the poet Wessely, had their origin in this
movement--the school of the _Biurists_, deriving their name from
the _Biur_, a commentary on the Bible, and the school of the
_Meassefim_, from _Meassef_, "Collector." [Footnote: A
specimen of the _Biur_ appeared at Amsterdam, in 1778, under the
title _'Alim le-Terufah_.] The former defended Judaism against the
enemies from without, and combated the prejudices and the ignorance of
the Jews themselves. The Meassefim took as their sphere of activity the
reform of the education of the young and the revival of the Hebrew
language. The two schools agreed that to elevate the moral and social
status of the Jews, it was necessary to remove first the external
peculiarities separating them from their fellow-citizens. A new
translation of the Bible into literary German, undertaken by
Mendelssohn, was to deal the death blow to the Jewish-German
(_jüdisch-deutsch_) jargon, and the _Biur_, the commentary on
the Bible mentioned above, produced by the co-operation of a galaxy of
scholars and men of culture, was expected to sweep aside all mystic and
allegoric interpretations of the Scriptures and introduce the rational
and scientific method.
The results achieved by the Biurists tended beyond a doubt toward the
elevation of the mass of the Jews. One of these results was, as had been
hoped for, the dislodgment of the Jewish-German by the spread of the
pure German. The influence wielded by the Biurists, so far from stopping
with the German Jews, extended to the Jewish communities of Eastern
Europe.
* * * * *
In 1784-5, two Hebrew writers, Isaac Euchel and Mendel Bresslau,
undertook to publish a magazine, entitled _Ha-Meassef_ ("The
Collector"), whence the name Meassefim. The enterprise was under the
auspices of Mendelssohn and Wessely. A double aim was to be served. The
periodical was to promote the spread of knowledge and modern ideas in
the Hebrew language, the only language available for the Jews of the
ghetto; and at the same time it was to promote the purification of
Hebrew, which had degenerated in the Rabbinical schools. Its readers
were to be familiarized with the social and aesthetic demands of modern
life, and induced to rid themselves of ingrained peculiarities. Besides
its success in these directions, it must be set to the credit of _Ha-
Meassef_, that it was the first agency to gather under one banner all
the champions of the _Haskalah_ in the several countries of Europe.
It supplied the link connecting them with one another. [Footnote:
Properly speaking, the term Haskalah includes the notion at once of
humanism and humanitarianism.]
From the literary point of view _Ha-Meassef_ is of subordinate
interest. Its contributors were devoid of taste. They offered their
readers mainly questionable imitations of the works of the German
romantic school. The periodical brought no new talent truly worthy of
the description into notice. Whatever reputation its principal writers
enjoyed had been won before the appearance of _Ha-Meassef_. They
owed their fame primarily to the favor acquired for Hebrew letters
through the efforts of Luzzatto's disciples. [Footnote: Since the
appearance of _La-Yesharim Tehillah_ by Luzzatto, imitations of it
without number have been published, and for the eighteenth century alone
allegorical dramas by the dozen might be enumerated.] Of the poems
published in _Ha-Meassef_ but a few deserve notice, and even they
are nothing more than mediocre imitations of didactic pieces in the
style of the day, or odes celebrating the splendor of contemporary kings
and princes. A poem by Wessely forms a rare exception. It extols the
residents of Basle, who, in 1789, welcomed Jewish refugees from Alsace.
And if we turn from its poetry to its historical contributions, we find
that the biographies, as of Abarbanel and Joseph Delmedigo, are hardly
scientific; they occupy themselves with external facts to the neglect of
underlying ideas. On the whole, _Ha-Meassef_ was an engine of
propaganda and polemics rather than a literary production, though the
campaign carried on in its pages against strait-laced orthodoxy and the
Rabbis did not reach the degree of bitterness which was to characterize
later periods--moderation that was due to its most prominent
contributors. Wessely exhorted the editors not to attack religiousness
nor ridicule the Rabbis, and Mendelssohn devoted his articles to minor
points of Rabbinic practice, such as the permissibility of vaccination
under the Jewish law.
The French Revolution precipitated events in an unexpected way. The tone
of _Ha-Meassef_ changed. It held that knowledge and liberty alone
could save the Jews. More aggressive toward the Rabbis than before, it
attacked fanaticism, and gave space to trite poems, glorifying a life,
for instance, in which women and wine played the prominent part (1790).
Six years after its first issue, _Ha-Meassef_ ceased to appear, not
without having materially advanced the intellectual emancipation of the
German Jews and the revival of Hebrew as a secular language. [Footnote:
The first series of _Ha-Meassef_ ran from 1784-1786 (Königsberg),
and from 1788-1790 (Königsberg and Berlin). An additional volume began
to appear in 1794, at Berlin and Breslau, under the editorship of Löwe
and Wolfsohn, and was completed in 1797. The second series ran from 1809
to 1811 at Berlin, Altona, and Dessau, under Shalom Hacohen. [Trl.] ] So
important was this first co-operative enterprise in Hebrew letters, that
it imposed its name on the whole of the literary movement of the second
half of the eighteenth century, the epoch of the Meassefim.
Two poets and five or six prose writers more or less worthy of the name
of author dominated the period.
Naphtali Hartwig Wessely (born at Hamburg in 1725; died there in 1805)
is considered the prince of the poets of the time. Belonging to a rather
intelligent family in easy circumstances, he received a modern
education. Though his mind was open to all the new influences, he
nevertheless remained a loyal adherent of his faith, and occupied
strictly religious ground until the end. He devoted himself with success
to the cultivation of poetry, and completed the work of reform begun by
the Italian Luzzatto, to whom, however, he was inferior in depth and
originality.
Wessely's poetic masterpiece was _Shire Tiferet_ ("Songs of
Glory"), or the Epic of Moses (Berlin, 1789), in five volumes. This poem
of the Exodus is on the model of the pseudo-classic productions of the
Germany of his day; the influence of Klopstock's _Messias_, for
instance, is striking.
Depth of thought, feeling for art, and original poetic imagination are
lacking in _Shire Tiferet_. Practically it is nothing more than an
oratorical paraphrase of the Biblical recital. The shortcomings of his
main work are characteristic of all the poetry by Wessely. On the other
hand, his oratorical manner is unusually attractive, and his Hebrew is
elegant and chaste. The somewhat labored precision of his style, taken
together with the absence of the poetic temperament, makes of him the
Malherbe of modern Hebrew poetry. He enjoyed the love and admiration of
his contemporaries to an extraordinary degree, and his chief poem
underwent a large number of editions, becoming in course of time a
popular book, and regarded with kindly favor even by the most orthodox--
testimony at once to the poet's personal influence upon his co-
religionists and the growing importance of the Hebrew language.
Wessely wrote also several important works on questions in Hebrew
grammar and philology. The chief of them is _Lebanon_, two parts of
which appeared, each separately, under the title _Gan Na'ul_ ("The
Locked Garden", Berlin, 1765); the other parts never appeared in print.
They bear witness to their author's solid scientific attainments, and it
is regrettable that their value is obscured by his style, diffuse to the
point of prolixity. Besides, Wessely contributed to the German
translation of the Bible, and to the commentary on the Bible, both, as
mentioned before, works presided over by Mendelssohn, to whom he was
attached by the tie of admiring friendship.
Wessely's chief distinction, however, was his firm character and his
love of truth. His high ethical qualities were revealed notably in his
pamphlet _Dibre Shalom wa-Emet_ ("Words of Peace and Truth,"
Berlin, 1781), elicited by the edict of Emperor Joseph II ordering a
reform of Jewish education and the establishment of modern schools for
Jews. Though well on in years, he yet did not shrink from the risk of
incurring the anger of the fanatics. He openly declared himself in favor
of pedagogic innovations. With sage-like modesty and mildness, the poet
stated the pressing need for adopting new educational methods, and
showed them to be by no means in opposition to the Mosaic and Rabbinic
conception of the Jewish faith. In the name of _Torat ha-Adam_, the
law for man as such, he set forth urgent reforms which would raise the
prestige of the Law as well as of the Jews. He hoped for civil liberty,
the liberty the Jews were enjoying in England and in the Netherlands.
However, this courageous course gained for him the ban of the fanatics,
the effect of which was mitigated by the intervention of the Italian
Rabbis in favor of Wessely. On the other hand, it made him the most
prominent member of the Meassefim circle; he was regarded as the master
of the Maskilim.
Among the most distinguished of the contributors to _Ha-Meassef_ is
the second writer acclaimed poet by popular consent. David Franco Mendes
(1713-1792) was born at Amsterdam, of a family escaped from the
Inquisition. Like most Jews of Spanish origin, his family clung to the
Spanish language. He was the friend and disciple, and likewise the
imitator, of Moses Hayyim Luzzatto. What was true of Eastern Europe,
that the Hebrew language prevailed in the ghetto, and had to be resorted
to by all who would reach the Jewish masses, did not apply to the
countries of the Romance languages. Here Hebrew had little by little
been supplanted by the vernacular. Mendes, who paid veritable worship to
Hebrew literature, was distressed to see the object of his devotion
scorned by his co-religionists and the productions of the classic age of
France preferred to it. In the preface to his tragedy, "Athaliah's
Recompense" (_Gemul Athaliah_, Amsterdam, 1770), he set himself the
task of demonstrating the superiority of the sacred language to the
profane languages. Yet this very tragedy, in spite of its author's
protestations, is nothing more than a _rifacimento_ of Racine's
drama, and rather infelicitous at that, though it must be admitted that
Mendes' style is of classic purity, and some of his scenes are in a
measure characterized by vivacity of action. His other drama, "Judith",
also published at Amsterdam, has no greater merit than "Athaliah's
Recompense." Besides these dramas, Mendes wrote several biographical
sketches of the learned men of the Middle Ages for _Ha-Meassef_.
It were far from the truth to say that Mendes succeeded in rivalling the
French and Italian authors whom he set up as models for himself.
Nevertheless he was endorsed and admired by the literary men of his time
as the heir of Luzzatto.
* * * * *
An enumeration of all the writers and all the scholars who, directly or
indirectly, contributed to the work of _Ha-Meassef_, would be
wearisome. Only those who are distinguished by some degree of
originality will be set down by name.
Rabbi Solomon Pappenheim (1776-1814), of Breslau, was the author of a
sentimental elegy, _Arba' Kosot_ ("The Four Cups", Berlin, 1790).
The poem, inspired by Young's "Night Thoughts," is remarkable for its
personal note. In his plaints recalling Job's, this Hebrew Werther
mourns the loss, not of his mistress--that would not have been in
consonance with the spirit of the ghetto--but of his wife and his three
children. The elegy came near being a popular poem. Its vapid
sentimentality and its affected and exaggerated style were to exercise a
baneful influence upon the following generations. It is the tribute paid
by Hebrew literature to the diseased spirit of the age. Pappenheim
wrote, besides, on Hebrew philology. His work, _Yeri'ot Shelomoh_
("The Curtains of Solomon"), is an important contribution to the
subject.
Shalom Hacohen, the editor of a second series of _Ha-Meassef_,
published in 1809-1811 (Berlin, Altona, and Dessau), deserves mention.
He won considerable fame by his poems and articles, which appeared in
the second series of _Ha-Meassef_ and in _Bikkure ha-'Ittim_ ("The
First Fruits of the Times"), and especially through his historical
drama, "Amal and Tirzah" (Rödelheim, 1812). The last, a naïvely
conceived piece of work, is well fitted into its Biblical frame. Hacohen
is one of the intermediaries between the German Meassefim and their
successors in Poland. [Footnote: Another writer of the epoch, Hartwig
Derenburg, whose son and grandson have brilliantly carried on, in
France, the literary and scientific traditions of the family, was the
author of a widely-read allegorical drama, _Yoshebe Tebel_ ("The
Inhabitants of the World", Offenbach, 1789).]
Mendelssohn, the master admired and respected by all, contributed, as
was mentioned before, only minor controversial articles to _Ha-
Meassef_. His preface to the _Biur_ and his commentary on
Maimonides' treatise on logic are in good style. His philosophical
works, "Jerusalem" and "Phaedon," translated into Hebrew by his
disciples, were largely instrumental in giving prevalence to the idea
that the Jewish people is a religious community rather than a nation.
This circumstance explains the banishment of Hebrew from the synagogue
by his less religious followers, such as David Friedländer, and the
attacks of Herz Homberg on traditional Judaism in his pamphlet "To the
Shepherds of Israel" (_El Ro'e Yisraël_).
The chief editor of _Ha-Meassef_, Isaac Euchel (1756-1804), became
known for his polemic articles against the superstitions and
obscurantism of the fanatics of the ghetto. Euchel wrote also a
biographical sketch of Mendelssohn, which was published at Vienna in
1814.
There were also scientific writers among the Meassefim. Baruch Lindau
wrote a treatise on the natural sciences, _Reshit Limmudim_ ("The
Elements of the Sciences", Brünn, 1788), and Mordecai Gumpel Levisohn,
the learned professor at the University of Upsala, was the author of a
series of scientific essays in _Ha-Meassef_, which contributed
greatly to its success.
Up to the time we are speaking of, Poland had supplied the Jewish people
with Rabbis and Talmudists, and when the German Jews became imbued with
the new spirit, their Polish brethren did not lag behind. Polish authors
are to be found among the Meassefim, and several of them deserve special
notice.
Kant's brilliant disciple, the profound thinker Solomon Maimon,
published only his exegetical works and his ingenious commentary on
Maimonides in Hebrew. Another Polish writer, Solomon Dubno (1735-1813),
one of the first to co-operate with Mendelssohn in his _Biur_, was
a remarkable grammarian and stylist. Among other things he wrote an
allegorical drama and a number of poetic satires. Of the latter, the
"Hymn to Hypocrisy", published in _Bikkure To'elet_, is a finished
production.
Judah Ben-Zeëb (1764-1811) published in Berlin a Manual of the Hebrew
Language (_Talmud Leshon 'Ibri_), planned on modern lines, a work
contributing greatly toward spreading a knowledge of philology and
rhetoric among the Jews. His Hebrew-German Dictionary and his Hebrew
version of Ben Sira are well known to Hebraists.
Isaac Satanow (1732-1804), a Pole residing at Berlin, was a curious
personage, interesting alike for the variety of his productions and the
oddity of his mental make-up. He possessed a surprising capacity for
assimilation. It was this that enabled him to excel, whether he imitated
the style of the Bible or the style of mediaeval authors. Hebrew and
Aramaic he handled with the same ingenious skill. All his works he
attributed to some ancient author. His collection of Proverbs, bearing
the name of the Psalmist Asaph (_Mishle Asaph_, Berlin, 1789 and
1792, in three books), would cut a respectable figure in any literature.
A few specimens of his _Mishle_, or maxims, follow:
"Truth springs from research, justice from intelligence. The
beginning of research is curiosity, its essence is discernment,
and its goal truth and justice" (7: 5, 6).
"On the day of thy birth thou didst weep, and those about thee
were glad. On the day of thy death thou wilt laugh, and those
about thee will sigh. Know then, thou wilt one day be born anew
to rejoice in God, and matter will no longer hinder thee" (15: 5,
6). [Footnote: A play upon words: _Geshem_ in Hebrew means
both "matter" and "rain."]
"Rule thy spirit lest others rule thy body" (24:2).
"Pincers are made by means of pincers; work is helped on by work,
and science by science" (34:23).
"Think not what is sweet to thy palate is sweet to thy neighbor's
palate. Not so; for many are the beautiful wives that are hated
by their husbands, and many the ill-featured wives that are
beloved" (43:6,7).
"Every living being leaves off reproducing itself in its old age;
but falsehood plays the harlot even in her decrepitude. The older
she grows, the deeper she strikes root in the ground, the more
numerous becomes her lying progeny, the further does it spread
abroad. Her lovers multiply, and those who pay respect to the old
adhere to her, that her name be not wiped from the face of the
earth" (42:29-31).
Satanow pleaded for the language of the Mishnah as forming part of the
Hebrew linguistic stock, but the moment was not propitious to the reform
of the prevailing literary style suggested by him.
On the whole, as was intimated before, the literary movement called
forth by the Meassefim produced nothing, or almost nothing, of permanent
value. The writers of this school acted the part of pioneers and
heralds. Being primarily iconoclasts and reformers, they disappeared,
with but few exceptions, as soon as their task was completed and the
emancipation of the Jews was an accomplished fact in Western Europe.
They survived long enough, however, to see the movement with which they
were identified sweep away, along with the traditions of the past, also
the Hebrew language, the only relic dear to them, the only Jewish thing
capable of awakening a responsive thrill in their hearts.
Passionate humanists, and not very clear-sighted, they permitted
themselves to be dazzled by modernity and promises of light and liberty,
and forswore the ideal of the re-nationalization of Israel, so placing
themselves outside the fellowship bond that united, by a common hope,
the great masses of the Jews who were still attached to their faith and
to their people.
Writers of no consequence in many cases, and of no originality
whatsoever, failing to recognize the grandeur of Israel's past, the
Meassefim despised their Jewish surroundings too heartily to seek
inspiration in them. For the most part they were shallow imitators,
second-rate translators of Schiller and Racine. The language of the
Jewish soul they could not speak, and they could not formulate a new
ideal to take the place of the tottering traditions of the past and the
faltering hope of a Messianic time. An entire generation was to pass
before historical Judaism came into its own again, through the creation
of a pure "Science of Judaism" and the conception of the mission of the
Jewish people.
Nevertheless the movement called into being by the Meassefim caused
considerable stir. For the first time the Rabbinic tradition, petrified
by age and ignorance, was assailed, in the sacred language at that, and
the attack was launched in the name of science and life. For the first
time the _Haskalah_, Hebrew humanism, declared war on whatever in
the past trammelled the modern evolution of Judaism. In vain the
Meassefim, save the exceptional few, refrained scrupulously from violent
declamation against primary dogmatic principles. In vain their master
Mendelssohn, contravening good sense and historical Judaism, went so far
as to proclaim these principles sacrosanct. The secularization of Jewish
literature and Jewish life had made a breach in the ghetto wall.
Thereafter nothing could oppose the march of new ideas. The Rabbis of
the period saw it clearly; hence the stubbornness of their opposition.
Beginning with this time a new class appeared among the Jews of the
ghetto, the class of the _Maskilim_, or men of lay learning and
letters, a class with which the Rabbis have since had to reckon, with
which, indeed, they have had to share their authority over the people.
So far as the Hebrew language is concerned, the Meassefim succeeded in
purifying it and restoring it to its Biblical form. Wessely and Mendes
obliterated the last vestiges of the Middle Ages, and many of the
litterateurs of the period bequeathed models of the classic style to
posterity. But the return to the manner of the Bible had its
disadvantages. It went to extremes, and led to the creation of a
pompous, affected style, the _Melizah_, which has left indelible
traces in neo-Hebrew literature. In the effort to guard the Biblical
style against the Rabbinisms which had impaired the elegance of the
Hebrew language, the purists had gone beyond the bounds of moderation.
To express the most prosaic thought, the simplest ideas, they drew upon
the metaphors and the elevated diction of the Bible. This rage for
academic correctness is responsible for the reputation, not merited by
Hebrew literature, that it lacks originality, that it is no more than a
_jeu d'esprit_, a jumble of quibbling conceits.
Italian men of letters also took part in the literary movement of the
end of the eighteenth century. Two of them are worthy of mention by
name. The first is the poet Ephraim Luzzatto (1727-1792), whose love
sonnets, written in a sprightly style, sound a lyric note. The other is
Samuel Romanelli, the author of a melodrama, much admired by his
contemporaries, and of a "Journey to Arabia."
In France, also, especially in Alsace, there were collaborators of the
German Meassefim, the best known among them Ensheim. Besides, France
harbored the only poet of the period who can lay claim to originality,
but he was not of the school of the Meassefim. Elie Half an Halévy
(1760-1822), of Paris, the grandfather of Ludovic Halévy, by far
surpasses the other poets of his day in poetic temperament and fertility
of imagination. Unluckily, we do not possess all the poems written by
Halévy, who, moreover, was not a very prolific author. In what has come
down to us his talent is abundantly proved by the charm of his
individual style and the wealth of his images. The reader feels that the
breath of the Revolution has blown through his pages. His "Hymn to
Peace" (_Shir ha-Shalom_), published at Paris in 1804, is the
apotheosis of Napoleon, whom the poet hails as "liberty rescued" and
"beautiful France", the home of liberty. This unique poem is
characterized by unbounded love for France and the French, the beautiful
country, the free, high-mettled people, bearing love of country in its
heart and in its hand the avenging sword, and cherishing hatred against
"tyranny on the throne, which had changed a terrestrial Paradise into a
charnel house." The poet extols the dictator not only because he is a
"friend of victory", but because he is at the same time and still more a
"friend of science." He salutes the victorious armies. Although they
bring destruction and misery in their wake, they bear before them the
standard of science, civilization, and progress.
The cry of liberty wakened a loud echo in the ghettos of even the most
backward countries. Hebrew literature contains a number of curious
mementos, tokens of the ardent hopes which the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic conquests evoked in the breast of the Jews, whose character
has little enough affinity with the rule of despotism. In numerous
Hebrew hymns and songs they welcomed the armies of Napoleon as of the
savior Messiah. [Footnote: To name but a few among the many: an ode by
the celebrated Rabbi Jacob Meïr in Alsace, an ancestor of the family of
the Grand-Rabbin Zadoc Kahn; another ode composed at Vienna by the
Polish grammarian Ben-Zeëb; and the hymns sung in the synagogue at
Frankfort (1807), at Hamburg (1811), etc. The Revolutionary Code
published at Amsterdam in 1795 is also worthy of mention.] Before the
first flush of joy died away, the reaction set in, and their hopes were
blighted. The Jews relapsed into their olden social misery.
Nevertheless, the clash between received notions and the new conceptions
had contributed not a little to produce a ferment of ideas and create
new tendencies in the ghetto, at last aroused from its millennial
slumber.
* * * * *