SOME OF MANASSEH’S VIEWS
The massacres of Podolia――The _Marrano_ Tragedy――Manasseh’s
views on the mission of _Israel_――Dispersion and Restoration
――_R._ Jacob Emden’s annotations――Manasseh’s theory of the
Jewish race.
THE frightful massacres of the Jewish communities in Podolia, Volhynia,
and other provinces of Poland, entirely startled and horrified Jewry
all over the world. For months and years the murder of the Jews went
on. No language can describe the cruelties and sufferings inflicted
upon this unfortunate people from the Dnieper to the Vistula. There
was “a kind of chase taking place within an enclosed area.” Some of
the aged and prominent Jews were kept as hostages in the hands of
the mob, who demanded heavy ransoms from the Jews of other countries.
This was the purpose of Carcassone’s mission from Constantinople to
Amsterdam. Turkey offered an asylum for the hunted refugees who were
fortunate enough to cross the boundary, but only very few succeeded,
while thousands of those who tried to escape were murdered, or
languished in the galleys and prisons as hostages. Manasseh, himself
the son of a refugee and a martyr, felt this tragedy. On the other
hand, the news concerning the Inquisition in the country of his birth
was still horrifying the world, for Jews were still being burnt alive
there. Putting together the brief note in the _Nishmath Chayyim_
regarding the massacres of 1648 with the remarks in _De Termino Vitae_
on the Inquisition, we obtain a terrible picture. In _De Termino_
Manasseh alludes to the emigration of the _Marranos_.
The _Marranos_! What a splendid record of noble deeds, of spontaneous,
gentle piety, of triumphant suffering, is called to memory at the
mere mention of the word! What powerful endurance is described in
the history of these Jewish martyrs! What an inspiration to attempt
even the impossible in the cause of liberty of conscience! What
a great tragedy theirs was――a tragedy illumined by personal deeds
of self-sacrifice! Their story is a story of thrilling personal
experiences and of sorrow and separation and death.¹
¹ H. H. R. Jacob _de_ Aaron Sasportas gives in his _Ohel Jacob_
(Amsterdam, 1737) a most eloquent and stirring description
of the tragedy of the Marranos (_Respon._ III.).
They flock, says
Manasseh, in thousands to other countries, and it is useless to
attempt to tell in a few words the incalculable loss that Spain and
Portugal have sustained in losing wealth, and inhabitants, by the
inhuman acts of the Inquisition. Apart from their execrable inhumanity,
the utter folly of the atrocities is apparent from the fact that the
Inquisition forces the wealth, trade and skill of the country to leave
it. Here he speaks as a statesman who knows the countries in question.
In _Nishmath Chayyim_ the note is one of sober-minded resignation. He
does not inveigh against the Cossacks as he did against the Portuguese;
he simply expresses the hope that Carcassone may raise the necessary
funds, and that God may send His angel before him. By using this
Biblical phrase¹ Manasseh expresses his high appreciation of the
importance of the mission. The general situation of the Jews in the
Diaspora is described by him in short but plain terms: “If the nations
would ask, Why are you in captivity, exposed to outrage and contempt,
dispersed and scattered...?” Manasseh clearly rejected the idea that
Israel’s mission demands an everlasting dispersion. It seemed to him
that the dispersion ought to be made complete, because it must lead to
the Restoration. In this respect his views were not only in accordance
with Scripture, but the outcome of a train of reasoning. The process
of dispersion has to reach its climax, and then the process of
restoration will begin. The _Hagadic_ sentence:――
²צדקה עשה הקדוש ברוך הוא בישראל שפזרן לבין האומות. פסחים, פז׃
often quoted by the adherents of the dispersion in support of the
_Galuth_, was interpreted by Manasseh to mean that so long as the
Israelites must live dispersed they should live dispersed among
several nations, because in this way their complete destruction is
more difficult than if they were dependent upon one or two nations.
But dispersion is not for him the ideal state of the Jewish nation.
¹ “...He will send His Angel before thee,...”
(Genesis xxiv. 7).
² “The Holy One Blessed be He did justice with Israel by
scattering them among the nations” (_Pesachim_, _fol._ 87).
[The only sentence of this kind, against innumerable others
in the opposite sense.]
The law of Divine providence with regard to the nation of _Israel_ has
ever been that defection is eventually to be followed by dispersion
and reconciliation by restoration.
“Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land
they defiled it....” (Ezekiel xxxvi. 17).
“... and I scattered them among the nations, and they were
dispersed through the countries;...” (_Ibid._ 19).
“... from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols,
will I cleanse you” (_Ibid._ 25).
“And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers;
and ye shall be My people, and I will be your God”
(_Ibid._ 28).
There is not one passage in which the promised restoration is
represented as anything other than a distinct proof of reconciliation
between God and his ancient People, or dispersion as anything other
than a punishment. The People and the Land of _Israel_ are so linked
with one another that whatever continuity is ascribed to the one must,
on all strict principles of interpretation, be also attributed to
the other. In the twenty-sixth chapter of _Leviticus_ we find _Moses_
giving the people, as warning and encouragement, a prophetic outline
of their future history, which forms the real basis, and, in fact,
makes up the substance of all that is found in the later prophets as
regards the people of _Israel_. It is true that both the judgments
there threatened and the mercies there promised are set forth
hypothetically, on the supposition of their wickedly departing from
the Lord and afterwards repenting――“_if ye walk contrary unto Me, and
will not hearken unto Me_,” on the one hand; “_if they shall confess
their iniquity_” on the other. But since the conditional statements
are changed――as they are in other places――into absolute announcements
of what is to take place, the hypothetical forms of expression must be
regarded as merely the appropriate mode of conveying warnings against
defection and an encouragement to repentance:――
“And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of
their fathers, ... and also that they have walked contrary
to Me” (Leviticus xxvi. 40).
“I also will walk contrary unto them, and bring them into
the land of their enemies; ... and they shall then be paid
the punishment of their iniquity” (_Ibid._ 41).
“then will I remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My
covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham will
I remember; and I will remember the land” (_Ibid._ 42).
It is impossible to deny that the “remembrance of the covenant” and
the “remembrance of the land” here go together. If we allegorize the
one, we must allegorize the other as well, and then there is neither
land, people, covenant, prophets nor law――an obvious absurdity which
at once refutes itself. The fundamental Mosaic principle is clear,
plain and positive. The land is to be held in perpetuity by the
Jewish nation, provided the conditions of the covenant are fulfilled.
The infringement of the covenant subjects the rebel to bondage and
makes him an outcast from the land of his inheritance. The promise of
redemption is a rescue from the penalties thus incurred. Therefore,
he explains, the _Agadist_ did not say _heglom_, “He drove them out,”
which is the usual expression, but _pizrom_, “He spread, scattered
them,” because, so long as the _Galuth_ lasts, they have to live
in various countries. Yet it is absurd to think that the state of
_Galuth_, predicted by _Moses_ as a curse, is a blessing. Here we have
in short Manasseh’s ideas as to the _Galuth_ and Restoration. We know
that he also acted in full accord with these ideas.¹
¹ The British Museum has a copy of the _Nishmath Chayyim_,
Amsterdam, 1651, with autograph annotations of _R._ Jacob
Emden [Jacob Israel] (1697‒1776) _ben_ Zebi Hirsch Ashkenazi
(1658‒1718). Two of these annotations are of special
interest. Manasseh writes (_fol. 6b_) about the physical
weakness of the Jews when compared with Gentiles. On this
Emden remarks: I admit this only with regard to the Jews
in the _Galuth_; when the Jews lived in their own land they
amazed the Romans by their great heroes and athletes, and
more so at the time of the First Temple. In another passage
(_fol. 8a_), where Manasseh writes about the shorter life
of those who keep the Law as compared with others, Emden
again remarks: But in Palestine the Jews distinguished
themselves by much greater longevity. (M. Seligsohn, the
author of Emden’s biography in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_,
who enumerates various books with Emden’s autograph
annotations, does not seem to have had any knowledge of
these annotations.)
The constitution established by _Moses_ was a theocracy. The true King
of _Israel_ was God, and the constitution was the Law. The priests
and Levites were God’s ministers; the prophets were God’s ambassadors,
commissioned to convey his instructions not only to the people but to
the King himself. The Kingdom was thus emphatically the Kingdom of God,
and the King was the earthly viceroy of the invisible Sovereign. He
was more limited than a constitutional monarch; he was subject not
only to the Law, but also to those who were entitled to explain the
Law. Such a state of things never existed in any other nation, either
in ancient or in modern times. The Jewish nation regards it as an
Ideal State, and looks forward to a future in which this idea will
be accepted by the whole world, when God will be the King; but this
will take place only after the establishment of this Divine order in
Palestine. Therefore Jews pray to God to give them their judges and
their counsellors as in ancient times, _i.e._ to restore their life
under God’s order, a life of justice and peace and wisdom; they hope
also that this will influence all mankind to recognize the Kingdom of
God, _i.e._ the rule of justice, mercy and love. Then the promise to
_Abraham_ will be fulfilled:――
“... and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed;...” (Genesis xxii. 18).
and the blessings and privileges of God’s Kingdom will be offered
freely to all mankind. Here the influence of Abrabanel is evident.¹
Another interesting point in Manasseh’s theory is his combination of
the idea of the _Nefesh Ha’yisraelith_ with the principle of heredity.
He terms this principle _Mizgé² Ha’aboth_, that is, the particular
character of the nationality inherited from the ancestors. This is
Jewish nationality, which is part of the Jew’s inheritance at birth.³
¹ Abrabanel’s commentary on 1 Samuel viii.
² In Biblical _Hebrew_ “_Mezeg_” means blended, or mingled
[“_Al Yechsar Hamazeg_” (_Cant._ vii. 3)]: in mediæval
_Hebrew_ it signifies “Character,” “Individual Nature,”
“Temperament.”
³ It is worthy of notice that some Christian theologians have
come――from another point of view――to the same conclusion as
to the importance of the Jewish race:
“The question of their National Restoration is one of
blood and not of creed, of race and not of conversion, of
nationality which might include as many sects as in the days
of Christ. One only question can be demanded by the hallowed
soil of that country, and by the Providence of God――_Are
you a Jew?_ In this sense the twelve Apostles were Jews,
and if now on earth their title to their land is as clear,
undoubted, and equitable as that of Nehemiah or any modern
Jew. The Christian creed does not make any of that nation
less a Jew and a descendant of Abraham.... The question of
Jewish nationality, and consequently of restoration, is not
one of creed but of race, and as such it should be kept
before the mind. The isolation of the Jew would be as great,
if all were Christians, as at present. His separation from
amongst the nations has been pronounced by that omnipotent
word, whose truth and will in effecting its purposes are
only equalled by the unalterable character of the Divine
nature. They shall dwell alone. They are not amalgamated
with the nations. In their final return, a peculiarity of
religious rites and laws will keep them apart from other
people. Once a Jew, he is always a Jew, whatever may be
his creed” (Rev. A. G. H. Hollingsworth, Remarks, _etc._,
London, 1852, _p._ 21).
This is more than the religious idea of the _Z’chuth Aboth_ (Merits of
the Fathers); it is, though mixed up with _Cabbalistic_ notions, an
ethnological conception――the real basis of the modern Jewish national
idea.
Manasseh’s conception of the character (or particular blood mingling)
of ancestors, which lives on in the nation, accords entirely with
the mode of thought of a modern national Jew as this finds expression
in the best writings of the new Zionistic literature. When the Jew
feels the pulse-beat of nature in his heart, then the history of his
forefathers comes to life within him. He no longer struggles alone
through life, he is sensible of connections between himself and
millions who have been and of whose spirit and soul he has received
a share in life. The most glorious, invigorating feeling which an old
race can offer; the consciousness of individual transitoriness and
universal constancy, begins only then to be of value for him because
the easily intelligible national future has made comprehensible his
own infinite one. This psychic process is the unconscious aim of
that which he perceives as national longing. The free individual
must become a problematic nature if he cannot force the roots of his
spiritual and physical personality into the soil of a soul-related
community. The unit goes adrift in the chaos of social struggles when
it is not linked by a thousand tender and yet untearable threads with
the ethnical community of a nation. This ethnical community is the
fount of two infinite perceptions which have become the mightiest
supports of human civilization; first of all arises the consciousness
of national control which develops into the unnoticed, yea,
self-evident foundation of the ethnical unit, the moral consciousness
of duty and sense of responsibility. National responsibility finds
its complement in the right of recovery of the individual against
the community. In the wrestle with other morals and conceptions of
life, the individual has often to lean on those who are like-minded
because like-born so as not to lose himself. It has been repeatedly
experienced in Jewish history that many Jews have not only lost
their veriest substance but have voluntarily surrendered it, so that
their culture subsisted only through an ingenious system of exquisite
imitations of foreign nature and foreign customs.
What Manasseh understood under “Character of Ancestors” pertains
as little to atavism as the modern Jewish national idea. Atavism is
something unconscious, it is found even among the dejudaized Jews.
But what with the dejudaized is atavism becomes with nationalist Jews
the historic basis of their whole life tendency. The comprehension
of the past wafts the first breath of life into the present, upon the
wreckage of bygone times dawns the premonition of the greatness of
each lived moment――and new life blossoms upon the ruins. Therein lies
also the power of the national consciousness to create cultural values.
What is based upon heredity and tradition is no longer sacrificed
to thoughtless recession of self――misconstrued as civilization――but
replenished with national love. It is no longer the anarchy of aimless
“culture” which wants to link up with the attainments of unfamiliar
races so as to become like them, and which as an imitation it can
never attain, but it is a strongly rooted culture, which reaches deep
down to the national wells of life, and can thereby become equal to
all other great and deep-rooted cultures.
The individual is the outcome of a nation, its ultimate aim. The
nation is the circuitous way of nature to produce an individual. A
nation is great, not only when great creative minds arise from its
midst, but also when the many live intensively, so that they receive
impulses from the few, and return impulses to the few――and when the
past lives on in the present. It is this idea of Jewish nationality
which Manasseh had forefelt in spite of his mysticism. He was
permeated with religious enthusiasm and, at the same time, all
aglow with intense national feeling. Therefore, his thoughts and
sentiments tended to greatness; he understood that the best means of
strengthening and reaffirming the national consciousness of a people
about to lose the knowledge of its ethnical individuality, is just
that it should be told its history, that its ancestors should be
recalled to memory, their great deeds sung and praised, and that pride
of the past should be instilled. As he poetised so sublimely he could
also accomplish great deeds, because he kept his eye upon Palestine
he was also able to achieve great results in the Diaspora. He was
the father of post-exilic English Judaism, and this Judaism ought to
follow in his footsteps.
To conclude, reference should be made to the _Hebrew_ writer Perez
Smolenskin, himself a pioneer of modern Zionism, who, though he did
not deal with the matter in detail, was guided by a sound intuition
when he characterized Manasseh in his _Am Olam_ (1880) as a great
pioneer of the national idea.