THE INNER LIFE OF RUSSIAN JEWRY DURING
THE PERIOD OF MILITARY DESPOTISM
1. THE UNCOMPROMISING ATTITUDE OF RABBINISM
The Russian Government had left nothing undone to shatter the old Jewish
mode of life. Despotic Tzardom, whose ignorance of Jewish life was only
equalled by its hostility to it, lifted its hand to strike not merely at
the obsolete forms but also at the sound historic foundations of
Judaism. The system of conscription which annually wrenched thousands of
youths and lads from the bosom of their families, the barracks which
served as mission houses, the method of stimulating and even forcing the
conversion of recruits, the establishment of Crown schools for the same
covert purpose, the abolition of communal autonomy, civil
disfranchisement, persecution and oppression, all were set in motion
against the citadel of Judaism. And the ancient citadel, which had held
out for thousands of years, stood firm again, while the defenders within
her walls, in their endeavor to ward off the enemies' blows, had not
only succeeded in covering up the breaches, but also in barring the
entrance of fresh air from without. If it be true that, in pursuing its
system of tutelage and oppression, the Russian Government was genuinely
actuated by the desire to graft the modicum of European culture, to
which the Russia of Nicholas I. could lay claim, upon the Jews, it
certainly achieved the reverse of what it aimed at. The hand which dealt
out blows could not disseminate enlightenment; the hammer which was
lifted to shatter Jewish separatism had only the effect of hardening it.
The persecuted Jews clutched eagerly at their old mode of life, the
target of their enemies' attacks; they clung not only to its permanent
foundations but also to its obsolete superstructure. The despotism of
extermination from without was counterbalanced by a despotism of
conservation from within, by that rigid discipline of conduct to which
the masses submitted without a murmur, though its yoke must have weighed
heavily upon the few, the stray harbingers of a new order of things.
The Government had managed to disrupt the Jewish communal organization
and rob the Kahal of all its authority by degrading it to a kind of
posse for the capture of recruits and extortion of taxes. But while the
Jewish masses hated the Kahal elders, they retained their faith in their
spiritual leaders, the rabbis and Tzaddiks. [1] Heeding the command of
these leaders, they closed their ranks, and offered stubborn resistance
to the dangerous cultural influences threatening them from without. Life
was dominated by rigidly conservative principles. The old scheme of
family life, with all its patriarchal survivals, remained in force. In
spite of the law, embodied in the Statute of 1835, which fixed the
minimum age of the bridegroom at eighteen (and that of the bride at
sixteen), the practice of early marriages continued as theretofore.
Parents arranged marriages between children of thirteen and fifteen.
Boys of school age often became husbands and fathers, and continued to
attend heder or yeshibah after their marriage, weighed down by the
triple tutelage of father, father-in-law, and teacher. The growing
generation knew not the sweetness of being young. Their youth withered
under the weight of family chains, the pressure of want or material
dependence. The spirit of protest, the striving for rejuvenation, which
asserted itself in some youthful souls, was crushed in the vise of a
time-honored discipline, the product of long ages. The slightest
deviation from a custom, a rite, or old habits of thought met with
severe punishment. A short jacket or a trimmed beard was looked upon as
a token of dangerous free-thinking. The reading of books written in
foreign languages, or even written in Hebrew, when treating of secular
subjects, brought upon the culprit untold hardships. The scholastic
education resulted in producing men entirely unfit for the battle of
life, so that in many families energetic women took charge of the
business and became the wage earners, [2] while their husbands were
losing themselves in the mazes of speculation, somewhere in the recesses
of the rabbinic _Betha-Midrash_ or the hasidic _Klaus_.
[Footnote 1: See on the latter term, Vol. I, p. 227.]
[Footnote 2: This type of Jewish woman, current in Russia until recent
times, was called _Eshet Hayil_, "a woman of valour," with allusion to
Prov. 31.10.]
In Lithuania the whole mental energy of the Jewish youth was absorbed by
Talmudism. The synagogue served as a "house of study" outside the hours
fixed for prayers. There the local rabbi or a private scholar gave
lectures on the Talmud which were listened to by hosts of _yeshibah
bahurs_. [1] The great yeshibahs of Volozhin, Mir, [2] and other towns
sent forth thousands of rabbis and Talmudists. Mentality, erudition,
dialectic subtlety were valued here above all else. Yet, as soon as the
mind, whetted by talmudic dialectics, would point its edge against the
existing order of things, or turn in the direction of living knowledge,
of "extraneous sciences," [3] it was checked by threats of
excommunication and persecution. Many were the victims of this petrified
milieu, whose protests against the old order of things and whose
strivings for a newer life were nipped in the bud.
[Footnote 1: On the _bahur_ or Talmud student see Vol. I, p. 116 et
seq.]
[Footnote 2: On the yeshibah in Volozhin, in the government of Vilna,
see Vol. I, p. 380 et seq. Mir is a townlet in the government of Minsk.]
[Footnote 3: An old Hebrew expression for secular learning.]
Instructive in this respect is the fate of one of the most remarkable
Talmudists of his time, Rabbi Menashe Ilyer. Ilyer spent most of his
life in the townlets of Smorgoni and Ilya (whence his surname), in the
government of Vilna, and died of the cholera, in 1831. While keeping
strictly within the bounds of rabbinical orthodoxy, whose adepts
respected him for his enormous erudition and strict piety, Menashe
assiduously endeavored to widen their range of thought and render them
more amenable to moderate freedom of research and a more sober outlook
on life. But his path was strewn with thorns. When on one occasion he
expounded before his pupils the conclusion, which he had reached after a
profound scientific investigation, that the text of the Mishnah had in
many cases been wrongly interpreted by the Gemara,[1] he was taken to
task by a conference of Lithuanian rabbis and barely escaped
excommunication.
[Footnote 1: The Mishnah is a code of laws edited about 200 C.E. by
Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi. The Gemara consists largely of the comments of the
talmudic authorities, who lived after that date, on the text of this
code.]
Having conceived a liking for mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy,
Menashe decided to go to Berlin to devote himself to these studies, but
on his way to the German capital, while temporarily sojourning in
Koenigsberg, he was halted by his countrymen, who visited Prussia on
business, and was cowed by all kinds of threats into returning home. By
persistent private study, this native of a Russian out-of-the-way
townlet managed to acquire a fair amount of general culture, which, with
all its limitations, yielded a rich literary harvest. In 1807 he made
his _début_ with the treatise _Pesher Dabar_ ("The Solution of the
Problem"), [1] in which he gave vent to his grief over the fact that the
spiritual leaders of the Jewish people kept aloof from concrete reality
and living knowledge. While the book was passing through the press in
Vilna, Lithuanian fanatics threatened the author with severe reprisals.
Their threats failed to intimidate him. When the book appeared, many
rabbis threw it into the flames, and made every possible effort to
arrest its circulation, with the result that the voice of the "heretic"
was stifled.
[Footnote 1: Literally, "The Interpretation of a Thing," from Eccl.
8.1.]
Ten years later, while residing temporarily in Volhynia, the hot-bed of
hasidism, Menashe began to print his religio-philosophic treatise _Alfe
Menassheh_ ("The Teachings of Manasseh"). [1] But the first proof-sheets
sufficed to impress the printer with the "heretical" character of the
book, and he threw them together with the whole manuscript into the
fire. The hapless author managed with difficulty to restore the text of
his "executed" work, and published it at Vilna in 1822. Here the
rabbinical censorship pounced upon him. The book had not yet left the
press, when the rabbi of Vilna, Saul Katzenellenbogen, learned that in
one passage the writer deduced from a verse in Deuteronomy (17.9) the
right of the "judges" or spiritual leaders of each generation to modify
many religious laws and customs in accordance with the requirements of
the time. The rabbi gave our author fair warning that, unless this
heretical argument was withdrawn, he would have the book burned publicly
in the synagogue yard. Menashe was forced to submit, and, contrary to
his conviction, weakened his heterodox argument by a number of
circumlocutions.
[Footnote 1: With a clever allusion to the Hebrew text of Deut. 33.17.]
These persecutions, however, did not smother the fire of protest in the
breast of the excommunicated rural philosopher. In the last years of his
life he published two pamphlets, [1] in which he severely lashed the
shortcomings of Jewish life, the early marriages, the one-sided school
training, the repugnance to living knowledge and physical labor.
However, the champions of orthodoxy took good care to prevent these
books from reaching the masses. Exhausted by his fruitless struggle,
Menashe died, unappreciated and almost unnoticed by his contemporaries.
[Footnote 1: One of these, entitled _Samme de-Hayye_ ("Elixir of Life"),
was written in Yiddish, being designed by the author for the lower
classes.]
2. THE STAGNATION OF HASIDISM
A critical attitude toward the existing order of things could on
occasions assert itself in the environment of Rabbinism, where the mind,
though forced into the mould of scholasticism, was yet working at high
speed. But such "heretical" thinking was utterly inconceivable in the
dominant circles of Hasidism, where the intellect was rocked to sleep by
mystical lullabies and fascinating stories of the miraculous exploits of
the Tzsaddiks. The era of political and civil disfranchisement was a
time of luxuriant growth for Hasidism, not in its creative, but rather
in its stationary, not to say stagnant, phase.
The old struggle between Hasidism and Rabbinism had long been fought
out, and the Tzaddiks rested on their laurels as teachers and
miracle-workers. The Tzaddik dynasties were now firmly entrenched. In
White Russia the sceptre lay in the hands of the Shneorsohn dynasty, the
successors of the "Old Rabbi," Shneor Zalman, the progenitor of the
Northern Hasidim. [1] The son of the "Old Rabbi," Baer, nicknamed "the
Middle Rabbi" (1813-1828), and the latter's son-in-law Mendel Lubavicher
[2] (1828-1866) succeeded one another on the hasidic "throne" during
this period, with a change in their place of residence. Under Rabbi
Zalman the townlets of Lozno and Ladi served as "capitals"; under his
successors, they were Ladi and Lubavichi. The three localities are all
situated on the border-line of the governments of Vitebsk and Moghilev,
in which the Hasidim of the _Habad_ persuasion [3] formed either a
majority, as was the case in the former government, or a substantial
minority, as was the case in the latter.
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 372.]
[Footnote 2: From the townlet Lubavichi. See later in the text.]
[Footnote 3: Compare Vol. I, p. 234, n. 2.]
Rabbi Baer, the son and successor of the "Old Rabbi," did not inherit
the creative genius of his father. He published many books, made up
mostly of his Sabbath discourses, but they lack originality. His method
is that of the talmudic _pilpul_, [1] transplanted upon the soil of
Cabala and Hasidism, or it consists in expatiating upon the ideas
contained in the _Tanyo_. [2] The last years of Rabbi Baer were darkened
by the White Russian catastrophes, the expulsion from the villages in
1823, and the ominous turn in the ritual murder trial of Velizh. On his
death-bed he spoke to those around him about the burning topic of the
day, the conscription ukase of 1827.
[Footnote 1: i.e., Dialectics. Comp. Vol. I, p. 122.]
[Footnote 2: The title of the philosophic treatise of Rabbi Shneor
Zalman. See Vol. I, p. 372, n. 1.]
His successor Rabbi Mendel Lubavicher proved an energetic organizer of
the hasidic masses. He was highly esteemed not only as a learned
Talmudist--he wrote rabbinical _novellae and response--and as a preacher
of Hasidism, but also as a man of great practical wisdom, whose advice
was sought by thousands of people in family matters no less than in
communal and commercial affairs. This did not present him from being a
decided opponent of the new enlightenment. In the course of Lilienthal's
educational propaganda in 1843, Rabbi Mendel was summoned by the
Government to participate in the deliberations of the Rabbinical
Committee at St. Petersburg. There he found himself in a tragic
situation. He was compelled to give his sanction to the Crown schools,
although he firmly believed that they were subversive of Judaism, not
only because they were originated by Russian officials, but also because
they were intended to impart secular knowledge. The hasidic legend
narrates that the Tzaddik pleaded before the Committee passionately, and
often with tears in his eyes, not only to retain in the new schools the
traditional methods of Bible and Talmud instruction, but also to make
room in their curriculum for the teaching of the Cabala. Nevertheless,
Rabbi Mendel was compelled to endorse against his will the "godless"
plan of a school reform, and a little later to prefix his approbation to
a Russian edition of Mendelssohn's German Bible translation. His
attitude toward contemporary pedagogic methods may be gauged from the
epistle addressed by him in 1848 to Leon Mandelstamm, Lilienthal's
successor in the task of organizing the Jewish Crown schools. In this
epistle Rabbi Mendel categorically rejects all innovations in the
training of the young. In reply to a question concerning the edition of
an abbreviated Bible text for children, he trenchantly quotes the famous
medieval aphorism:
The Pentateuch was written by Moses at the dictation of God. Hence
every word in it is sacred. There is no difference whatsoever
between the verse "And Timna was the concubine" (Gen. 36. 12) and
"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deut 6. 4). [1]
[Footnote 1: See Maimonides' exposition of the dogma of the divine
origin of the Torah in his Mishnah Commentary, _Sanhedrin_, chapter X.]
Withal, the leaders of the Northern Hasidim were, comparatively
speaking, "men of the world," and were ready here and there to make
concessions to the demands of the age. Quite different were the Tzaddiks
of the South-west. They were horrified by the mere thought of such
concessions. They were surrounded by immense throngs of Hasidim,
unenlightened, ecstatic, worshipping saints during their lifetime.
The most honored among these hasidic dynasties was that of Chernobyl.
[1] It was founded in the Ukraina toward the end of the eighteenth
century by an itinerant preacher, or Maggid, called Nahum. [2] His son
Mordecai, known under the endearing name "Rabbi Motele" (died in 1837),
attracted to Chernobyl enormous numbers of pilgrims who brought with
them ransom money, or _pidyons_. [3] Mordecai's "Empire" fell asunder
after his death. His eight sons divided among themselves the whole
territory of the Kiev and Volhynia province.
[Footnote 1: A townlet in the government of Kiev.]
[Footnote 2: See Vol. I, p. 382.]
[Footnote 3: The term is used in the Bible to denote a sum of money
which "redeems" or "ransoms" a man from death, as in the case of a
person guilty of manslaughter (Ex. 22. 30) or that of the first-born son
(Ex. 13. 13; 34. 20). The Hasidim designate by this term the
contributions made to the Tzaddik, in the belief that such contributions
have the power of averting from the contributor impending death or
misfortune.]
Aside from the original center in Chernobyl, seats of Tzaddiks were
established in the townlets of Korostyshev, Cherkassy, Makarov, Turisk,
Talno, Skvir and Rakhmistrovka. This resulted in a disgraceful rivalry
among the brothers, and still more so among their hasidic adherents.
Every Hasid was convinced that reverence was due only to his own
"Rebbe," [1] and he brushed aside the claims of the other Tzaddiks.
Whenever the adherents of the various Tzaddiks met, they invariably
engaged in passionate "party" quarrels, which on occasions, especially
after the customary hasidic drinking bouts, ended in physical violence.
[Footnote 1: Popular pronunciation of the word "rabbi," A hasidic
Tzaddik is designated as "Rebbe," in distinction from the rabbi proper,
or the _Rav_ (in Russia generally pronounced _Rov_), who discharges the
rabbinical functions within the community.]
The whole Chernobyl dynasty found a dangerous rival in the person of the
Tzaddik Israel Ruzhiner (of Ruzhin), the great-grandson of Rabbi Baer,
the apostle of Hasidism, known as the "Mezhiricher Maggid." [1] Rabbi
Israel settled in Ruzhin, a townlet in the government of Kiev, about
1815, and rapidly gained fame as a saint and miracle-worker. His
magnificent "court" at Ruzhin was always crowded with throngs of
Hasidim. Their onrush was checked by special "gentlemen in waiting," the
so-called _gabba'im,_ who were very fastidious in admitting the people
into the presence of the Tzaddik--dependent upon the size of the
proffered gifts. Israel drove out in a gorgeous carriage, surrounded by
a guard of honor. The gubernatorial administration of Kiev, presided
over by the ferocious Governor-General Bibikov, received intimations to
the effect "that the Tzaddik of Ruzhin wielded almost the power of a
Tzar" among his adherents, who did not stir with out his advice. The
police began to watch the Tzaddik, and at length found an occasion for a
"frame-up."
[Footnote 1: On Rabbi Baer see Vol. I, p. 229 et seq.]
When, in 1838, the Kahal of Ushitza, in the government of Podolia, was
implicated in the murder of an informer, [1] Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin was
arrested on the charge of abetting the murder. The hasidic "Tzar"
languished in prison for twenty-two months. He was finally set free and
placed under police surveillance. But he soon escaped to Austria, and
settled in 1841 in the Bukovina, in the townlet of Sadagora, near
Chernovitz, where he established his new "court." Many Hasidim in Russia
now made their pilgrimage abroad to their beloved Tzaddik; in addition,
new partisans were won among the hasidic masses of Galicia and the
Bukovina. Rabbi Israel died in 1850, but the "Sadagora dynasty" branched
out rapidly, and proved a serious handicap to modern progress during the
stormy epoch of emancipation which followed in Austria soon afterwards.
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 84 et seq.]
Another hot-bed of the Tzaddik cult was Podolia, the cradle of Hasidism.
In the old residence of Besht, [1] in Medzhibozh, the sceptre was held
by Rabbi Joshua Heshel Apter, who succeeded Besht's grandson, Rabbi
Borukh of Tulchyn. [2] For a number of years, between 1810 and 1830, the
aged Joshua Heshel was revered as the nestor of Tzaddikism, the haughty
Israel of Ruzhin being the only one who refused to acknowledge his
supremacy. Heshel's successor was Rabbi Moyshe Savranski, who
established a regular hasidic "court," after the pattern of Chernobyl
and Ruzhin.
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 222 et seq.]
[Footnote 2: See Vol. I, p. 384.]
The only Tzaddik to whom it was not given to be the founder of a dynasty
was the somewhat eccentric Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav, [1] a great-grandson
of Besht. After his death, the Bratzlav Hasidim, who followed the lead
of his disciple Rabbi Nathan, suffered cruel persecutions at the hands
of the other hasidic factions. The "Bratzlavers" adopted the custom of
visiting once a year, during the High Holidays, the grave of their
founder in the city of Uman, in the government of Kiev, and subsequently
erected a house of prayer near his tomb. During these pilgrimages they
were often the target of the local Hasidim who reviled and often
maltreated them. The "Bratzlavers" were the Cinderella among the
Hasidim, lacking the powerful patronage of a living Tzaddik. Their
heavenly patron, Rabbi Nahman, could not hold his own against his living
rivals, the earthly Tzaddiks--all too earthly perhaps, in spite of their
saintliness.
[Footnote 1: A town in Podolia. See Vol. I, p. 382 et seq.]
The Tzaddik cult was equally diffused in the Kingdom of Poland. The
place of Rabbi Israel of Kozhenitz and Rabbi Jacob-Isaac of Lublin, who
together marshalled the hasidic forces during the time of the Varsovian
duchy, was taken by founders and representatives of new Tzaddik
dynasties. The most popular among these were the dynasty of Kotzk, [1]
established by Rabbi Mendel Kotzker (1827-1859), and that of Goora
Kalvaria, [2] or Gher, [3] founded by Rabbi Isaac Meier Alter [4] (about
1830-1866). The former reigned supreme in the provinces, the latter in
the capital of Poland, in Warsaw, which down to this day has remained
loyal to the Gher dynasty.
[Footnote 1: A town not far from Warsaw. Comp. Vol. I, p. 303, n. 1.]
[Footnote 2: In Polish, _Góra Kalwarya_, a town on the left bank of the
Vistula, not far from Warsaw.]
[Footnote 3: This form of the name is used by the Jews.]
[Footnote 4: Called popularly in Poland _Reb Itche Meier_, a name still
frequently found among the Jews of Warsaw, who to a large extent are
adherents of the "Gher dynasty."]
The Polish "Rebbes" [1] resembled by the character of their activity the
type of the Northern, or _Habad_, Tzaddiks rather than those of the
Ukraina. They did not keep luxurious "courts," did not hanker so
greedily after donations, and laid greater emphasis on talmudic
scholarship.
[Footnote 1: See p. 120, n. 1.]
Hasidism produced not only leaders but also martyrs, victims of the
Russian police regime. About the time when the Tzaddik of Ruzhin fell
under suspicion, the Russian Government began to watch the Jewish
printing-press in the Volhynian townlet of Slavuta. The owners of the
press were two brothers, Samuel-Abba and Phinehas Shapiro, grandsons of
Besht's companion, Rabbi Phinehas of Koretz. The two brothers were
denounced to the authorities as persons issuing dangerous mystical books
from their press, without the permission of the censor. This
denunciation was linked up with a criminal case, the discovery in the
house of prayer, which was attached to the printing-press, of the body
of one of the compositors who, it was alleged, had intended to lay bare
the activities of the "criminal" press before the Government. After a
protracted imprisonment of the two Slavuta printers in Kiev, their case
was submitted to Nicholas I. who sentenced them to _Spiessruten_ [1] and
deportation to Siberia. During the procedure of running the gauntlet,
while passing through the lines of whipping soldiers, one of the
brothers had his cap knocked off his head. Unconcerned by the hail of
lashes from which he was bleeding, he stopped to pick up his cap so as
to avoid going bare-headed, [2] and then resumed his march between the
two rows of executioners. The unfortunate brothers were released from
their Siberian exile during the reign of Alexander II.
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 85, n. 1.]
[Footnote 2: According to an ancient Jewish notion, which is current
throughout the Orient, baring the head is a sign of frivolity and
disrespect towards God.]
Hasidic life exhibited no doubt many examples of lofty idealism and
moral purity. But hand in hand with it went an impenetrable spiritual
gloom, boundless credulity, a passion for deifying men of a mediocre and
even inferior type, and the unwholesome hypnotizing influence of the
Tzaddiks. Spiritual self-intoxication was accompanied by physical. The
hasidic rank and file, particularly in the South-west, began to develop
an ugly passion for alcohol. Originally tolerated as a means of
producing cheerfulness and religious ecstasy, drinking gradually became
the standing feature of every hasidic gathering. It was in vogue at the
court of the Tzaddik during the rush of pilgrims; it was indulged in
after prayers in the hasidic "Shtiblach," [1] or houses of prayer, and
was accompanied by dancing and by the ecstatic narration of the
miraculous exploits of the "Rebbe." [2] Many Hasidim lost themselves
completely in this idle revelry and neglected their business affairs and
their starving families, looking forward in their blind fatalism to the
blessings which were to be showered upon them through the intercession
of the Tzaddik.
[Footnote 1: The word, which is a diminutive of German _Stube_, "room,"
denotes, like the word _Klaus_, the room, or set of rooms, in which the
Hasidim assemble for prayer, study, and recreation.]
[Footnote 2: See above, p, 120, n. 1.]
It would be manifestly unjust to view the hasidic indulgence in alcohol
in the same light as the senseless drunkenness of the Russian peasant,
transforming man into a beast. The Hasid drank, and in moderate doses at
that, "for the soul," "to banish the grief which blunteth the heart," to
arouse religious exultation and enliven his social intercourse with his
fellow believers. Yet the consequences were equally sad. For the habit
resulted in drowsiness of thought, idleness and economic ruin,
insensibility to the outside world and to the social movements of the
age, as well as in stolid opposition to cultural progress in general. It
must be borne in mind that during the era of external oppression and
military inquisition the reactionary force of Hasidism acted as the only
antidote against the reactionary force from the outside. Hasidism and
Tzaddikism were, so to speak, a sleeping draught which dulled the pain
of the blows dealt out to the unfortunate Jewish populace by the Russian
Government. But in the long run the popular organism was injuriously
affected by this mystic opium. The poison rendered its consumers
insensible to every progressive movement, and planted them firmly at the
extreme pole of obscurantism, at a time when the Russian ghetto
resounded with the first appeals calling its inmates toward the light,
toward the regeneration and the uplift of inner Jewish life.
3. THE RUSSIAN MENDELSSOHN (ISAAC BAER LEVINSOHN)
It was in the hot-bed of the most fanatical species of Hasidism that the
first blossoms of Haskalah [1] timidly raised their heads. Isaac Baer
Levinsohn, from Kremenetz in Podolia (1788-1860), had associated in his
younger days with the champions of enlightenment in adjacent Galicia,
such as Joseph Perl, [2] Nahman Krochmal, [3] and their followers. When
he came back to his native land, it was with the firm resolve to devote
his energies to the task of civilizing the secluded masses of Russian
Jewry. In lonesome quietude, carefully guarding his designs from the
outside world which was exclusively hasidic, he worked at his book
_Te'udah, be-Israel_ ("Instruction in Israel"), which after many
difficulties he managed to publish in Vilna in 1828. In this book our
author endeavored, without trespassing the boundaries of orthodox
religious tradition, to demonstrate the following elementary truths by
citing examples from Jewish history and sayings of great Jewish
authorities:
[Footnote 1: A Hebrew term meaning "enlightenment." It is a translation
of the German _Aufklaerung_, and was first applied to the endeavors made
in the time of Moses Mendelssohn (died 1886) to introduce European
culture among the Jews of the ghetto.]
[Footnote 2: Died 1839. He became famous through his anti-hasidic parody
_Megalle Temirin_, "Revealing Hidden Things," written in the form of
letters in imitation of the hasidic style. Peri's book has been
frequently compared with the medieval _Epistolae obscurorum vivorum_,
which are ascribed to Ulrich von Hutten (d. 1523). See P. 127.]
[Footnote 3: Died 1840. Famous as the author of _More Nebuke ha-Zeman_,
"Guide of the Perplexed of (Our) Time," a profound treatise, dealing
with Jewish theological and historical problems.]
1. The Jew is obliged to study the Bible as well as Hebrew grammar
and to interpret the biblical text in accordance with the plain
grammatical sense.
2. The Jewish religion does not condemn the knowledge of foreign
languages and literatures, especially of the language of the
country, such knowledge being required both in the personal interest
of the individual Jew and in the common interest of the Jewish
people.
3. The study of secular sciences is not attended by any danger for
Judaism, men of the type of Maimonides having remained loyal Jews,
in spite of their extensive general culture.
4. It is necessary from the economic point of view to strengthen
productive labor, such as handicrafts and agriculture, at the
expense of commerce and brokerage, also to discourage early
marriages between persons who are unprovided for and have no
definite occupation.
These commonplaces sounded to that generation like epoch-making
revelations. They were condemned as rank heresies by the all-powerful
obscurantists and hailed as a gospel of the approaching renaissance by
that handful of progressives who dreamt of a new Jewish life and, cowed
by the fear of persecution, hid these thoughts deep down in their
breasts.
A similar fear compelled Levinsohn to exercise the utmost reserve and
caution in criticizing the existing order of things. The same
consideration forced him to shield himself behind a pseudonym in
publishing his anti-hasidic satire _Dibre Tzaddikim_, "The Words of the
Tzaddiks," [1] (Vienna, 1830), a rather feeble imitation of _Megalle
Temirin_, the Hebrew counterpart of the "Epistles of Obscure Men," by
Joseph Perl. [2] His principal work, entitled _Bet Yehudah_, "The House
of Judah," a semi-philosophic, semi-publicistic review of the history of
Judaism, remained for a long time in manuscript. Levinsohn was unable to
publish it for the reason that even the printing-press of Vilna, the
only one to issue publications of a non-religious character, was afraid
of bringing out a book which had failed to receive the approbation of
the local rabbis. Several years later, in 1839, the volume finally came
out, clothed in the form of a reply to inquiries addressed to the author
by a high Russian official.
[Footnote 1: Literally, "The Words of the Righteous," with reference to
Ex. 23. 8:]
[Footnote 2: See the preceding page, n. 1.]
From the point of view of Jewish learning, _Bet Yehudah_ can claim but
scanty merits. It lacks that depth of philosophic-historic insight which
distinguishes so brilliantly the "Guide of the Perplexed of Our Time" of
the Galician thinker Krochmal. [1] The writer's principal task is to
prove from history his rather trite doctrine that Judaism had at no time
shunned secular culture and philosophy.
[Footnote 1: See the preceding page, n. 2.]
For the rest, the author fights shy of the difficult problems of
religious philosophy, and is always on the lookout for compromises. Even
with reference to the Cabala, with which Levinsohn has but little
sympathy, he says timidly: "It is not for us to judge these lofty
matters" (Chapter 135). Fear of the orthodox environment compels him to
observe almost complete silence with reference to Hasidism, although, in
his private correspondence and in his anonymous writings he denounces it
severely. Levinsohn concludes his historic review of Judaism with a
eulogy upon the Russian Government for its kindness toward the Jews (Ch.
151) and with the following plan of reform suggested to it for execution
(Ch. 146):
To open elementary schools for the teaching of Hebrew and the tenets
of the Jewish religion as well as of Russian and arithmetic, and to
establish institutions of higher rabbinical learning in the larger
cities; to Institute the office of Chief Rabbi, with a supreme
council under him, which should be in charge of Jewish spiritual and
communal affairs in Russia; to allot to a third of the
Russian-Jewish population parcels of land for agricultural purposes;
to prohibit luxury in dress and furniture in which even the
impecunious classes are prone to indulge.
Levinsohn was not satisfied to propagate his ideas by purely literary
means. He anticipated meagre results from a literary propaganda among
the broad Jewish masses, in which the mere reading of such "licentious"
books was considered a criminal offence. He had greater faith in his
ability to carry out the regeneration of Jewish life with the powerful
help of the Government. As a matter of fact, Levinsohn had long before
this begun to knock at the doors of the Russian Government offices. Far
back in 1823 he had presented to the heir-apparent Constantine
Pavlovich [1] a memorandum concerning Jewish sects and a project looking
to the establishment of a system of Jewish schools and seminaries.
Moreover, before publishing his first work _Te'udah_, he had submitted
the manuscript to Shishkov, the reactionary Minister of Public
Instruction, applying for a Government subsidy towards the publication
of a work which demonstrates the usefulness of enlightenment and
agriculture, "instills love for the Tzar as well as for the people with
which we share our life, and recounts the innumerable favors which they
have bestowed upon us."
[Footnote 1: Being the eldest brother of Alexander I., Constantine was
the legitimate heir to the Russian throne. He resigned in favor of his
younger brother Nicholas. See above, p. 13, n. 2.]
These words were penned on December 2, 1827, three months after the
promulgation of the baneful conscription ukase ordering the compulsory
enlistment of under-aged cantonists! The request was complied with. A
year later the humble Volhynian littérateur received by imperial command
an "award" of 1000 rubles ($500) "for a work having for its object the
moral transformation of the Jews." This "award" came when the volume had
already appeared in print, in the terrible year 1828 which was marked by
the first conscription of Jewish recruits, the ominous turn in the
ritual murder trial of Velizh and the constant tightening of the knot of
disabilities.
But these events failed to cure the political _naiveté_ of Levinsohn. In
1831 he laid before Lieven, the new Minister of Public Instruction, a
memorandum advocating the necessity of modifications in Jewish religious
life. Again in 1833 he came forward with the dangerous proposal to close
all Jewish printing-presses, except those situated in towns in which
there was a censorship. The project was accompanied by a "list of
ancient and modern Hebrew books, indicating those that may be considered
useful and those that are harmful"--the hasidic works were declared to
belong to the latter category. Levinsohn's project was partly
instrumental in prompting the grievous law of 1836, which raised a cry
of despair in the Pale of Settlement, ordering a revision of the entire
Hebrew literature by Russian censors. [1]
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 42 et seq.]
Levinsohn's action would have been ignoble had it not been naive. The
recluse of Kremenetz, passionately devoted to his people but wanting in
political foresight, was calling Russian officialdom to aid in his fight
against the bigotry of the Jewish masses, in the childish conviction
that the Russian authorities had the welfare of the Jews truly at heart,
and that compulsory measures would do away with the hostility of the
Jewish populace toward enlightenment. He failed to perceive, as did also
some of his like-minded contemporaries, that the culture which the
Russian Government of his time was trying to foist upon the Jews was
only apt to accentuate their distrust, that, so long as they were the
target of persecution, the Jews could not possibly accept the gift of
enlightenment from the hands of those who lured them to the baptismal
font, pushed their children on the path of religious treason, and were
ruthless in breaking and disfiguring their whole mode of life.
In his literary works Levinsohn was fond of emphasizing his relations
with high Government officials. This probably saved him from a great
deal of unpleasantness on the part of the fanatic Hasidim, but it also
had the effect of increasing his unpopularity among the orthodox. The
only merit the latter were willing to concede to Levinsohn was that of an
apologist who defended Judaism against the attacks of non-Jews. During
the epidemic of ritual murder trials, the rabbis of Lithuania and
Volhynia addressed a request to Levinsohn to write a book against this
horrid libel. At their suggestion he published his work _Efes Damim_,
"No Blood!" (Vilna, 1837), [1] in the form of a dialogue between a Jewish
sage and a Greek-Orthodox patriarch in Jerusalem.
[Footnote 1: With a clever allusion to the geographic name Ephes-dammim,
I Sam. 17. 1.]
Somewhat later Levinsohn wrote other apologetic treatises, defending the
Talmud against the attacks contained in the book _Netibot 'Olam_ [1]
published in 1839 by the London missionary M'Caul. Levinsohn's great
apologetic work _Zerubbabel_, which appeared several years after his
death, was equally dedicated to the defence of the Talmud. It has,
moreover, considerable scientific merit, being one of the first research
works in the domain of talmudic theology. A number of other publications
by Levinsohn deal with Hebrew philology and lexicography. All these
efforts support Levinsohn's claim to the title of Founder of a modern
Jewish Science in Russia, though his scholarly achievements cannot be
classed with those of his German and Galician fellow-writers, such as
Rapoport, Zunz, Jost and Geiger.
[Footnote 1: "Old Paths," with reference to Jer. 6. 16.]
Levinsohn stood entirely aloof from the propaganda of bureaucratic
enlightenment which was carried on by Lilienthal in the name of Uvarov.
The Volhynian hermit was completely overshadowed by the energetic young
German. Even when Lilienthal, after realizing that a union between
Jewish culture and Russian officialdom was altogether unnatural, had
disappeared from the stage, Levinsohn still persisted in cultivating his
relations with the Government. But by that time the bureaucrats of St.
Petersburg had no more use for the Jewish friends of enlightenment.
Broken in health, chained to his bed for half a lifetime, without means
of subsistence, lonely amidst a hostile orthodox environment, Levinsohn
time and again addressed to St. Petersburg humiliating appeals for
monetary assistance, occasionally receiving small pittances, which were
booked under the heading "Relief in Distress," accepted subventions from
various Jewish Mæcenases, and remained a pauper till the end of his
life. The pioneer of modern culture among Russian Jews, the founder of
Neo-Hebraic literature, spent his life in the midst of a realm of
darkness, shunned like an outcast, appreciated by a mere handful of
sympathizers. It was only after his death that he was crowned with
laurels, when the intellectuals of Russian Jewry were beginning to press
forward in close formation.
4. THE RISE OF NEO-HEBRAIC CULTURE
The Volhynian soil proved unfavorable for the seeds of enlightenment.
The Haskalah pioneers were looked upon as dangerous enemies in this
hot-bed of Tzaddikism. They were held in disgrace and were often the
victims of cruel persecutions, from which some saved themselves by
conversion. A more favorable soil for cultural endeavors was found in
the extreme south of the Pale of Settlement as well as in its northern
section: Odessa, the youthful capital of New Russia, and Vilna, the old
capital of Lithuania, both became centers of the Haskalah movement.
As far as Odessa was concerned, the seeds of enlightenment had been
carried hither from neighboring Galicia by the Jews of Brody, who formed
a wealthy merchant colony in that city. As early as 1826 Odessa saw the
opening of the first Jewish school for secular education, which was
managed at first by Sittenfeld and later on by the well-known public
worker Bezalel Stern. Among the teachers of the new school was Simha
Pinsker, who subsequently became the historian of Karaism. This school,
the only educational establishment of its kind during that period,
served in Odessa as a center for the "Friends of Enlightenment." Being a
new city, unfettered by traditions, and at the same time a large
sea-port, with a checkered international population, Odessa outran other
Jewish centers in the process of modernization, though it must be
confessed that it never went beyond the externalities of civilization.
As far as the period under discussion is concerned, the Jewish center of
the South can claim no share in the production of new Jewish values.
While yielding to Odessa in point of external civilization, Vilna
surpassed the capital of the South by her store of mental energy. The
circle of the Vilna Maskilim, which came into being during the fourth
decade of the nineteenth century, gave rise to the two founders of the
Neo-Hebraic literary style: the prose writer Mordecai Aaron Ginzburg
(1796-1846) and the poet Abraham Baer Lebensohn (1794-1878).
Ginzburg, born in the townlet Salant, in the Zhmud region, [1] lived for
some time in Courland, and finally settled in Vilna. He managed to
familiarize himself with German literature, and was so fascinated by it
that he started his literary career by translating and adapting German
works into Hebrew. His translation of Campe's "Discovery of America" and
Politz' Universal History, as well as his own history of the
Franco-Russian War of 1812, compiled from various sources, were, as far
as Russia is concerned, the first specimens of secular literature in
pure Hebrew, which boldly claimed their place side by side with rabbinic
and hasidic writings. In that juvenile stage of the Hebrew renaissance,
when the mere treatment of language and style was considered an
achievement, even the appearance of such elementary books was hailed as
epoch-making.
[Footnote 1: Zhmud, or Samogitia, is part of the present government of
Kovno. Compare Vol. I, p. 293, n. 1.]
The profoundest influence on the formation of the Neo-Hebraic style must
be ascribed to two other works by the same author, _Kiriai Sefer_, [1]
an epistolary manual containing specimens of personal, commercial, and
other forms of correspondence (Vilna, 1835, and many later editions),
and _Debir_, [2] a miscellaneous collection of essays, consisting for
the most part of translations and compilations (Vilna, 1844). Ginzburg's
premature death in 1846 was mourned by the Vilna Maskilim as the loss of
a leader in the struggle for the Neo-Hebraic renaissance, and they gave
expression to these sentiments in verse and prose. Ginzburg's
autobiography _(Abi-'ezer,_ 1863) and his letters _(Debir,_ Vol. II.,
1861) portray the milieu in which our author grew up and developed.
[Footnote 1: See next note.]
[Footnote 2: Both titles are derived from the message in Josh. 15. 15,
according to which _Debir_, a city in the territory of the tribe of
Judah, was originally called _Kiriat Sefer_, "Book City."]
Abraham Baer Lebensohn, [1] a native of Vilna, awakened the dormant
Hebrew lyre by the sonorous rhymes of his "Songs in the Sacred Tongue"
(_Shire Sefat Kodesh_, Vol. I., Leipsic, 1842). In this volume solemn
odes celebrating events of all kinds alternate with lyrical poems of a
philosophical content. The unaccustomed ear of the Jew of that period
was struck by these powerful sounds of rhymed biblical speech which
exhibited greater elegance and harmony than the Mosaïd of Wessely, the
Jewish Klopstock. [2] His compositions, which are marked by thought
rather than by feeling, suited to perfection the taste of the
contemporary Jewish reader, who was ever on the lookout for
"intellectuality," even where poetry was concerned. Philosophic and
moralizing lyrics are a characteristic feature of Lebensohn's pen. The
general human sorrow, common to all individuals, stirs him more deeply
than national grief. His only composition of a nationalistic character,
"The Wailing of the Daughter of Judah," seems strangely out of harmony
with the accompanying odes which celebrate the coronation of Nicholas I.
and similar patriotic occasions, although the "Wailing" is shrewdly
prefaced by a note, evidently meant for the censor, to the effect that
the poem refers to the Middle Ages. At any rate, the principal merit of
the "Songs in the Sacred Tongue" is not to be sought in their poetry but
rather in their style, for it was this style which became the basis of
Neo-Hebraic poetic diction, perfected more and more by the poets of the
succeeding generations.
[Footnote 1: He assumed the pen-name "Adam," the initials of Abraham Dob
(Hebrew equivalent for Baer) Mikhailishker (from the town of
Mikhailishok, in the government of Vilna, where he resided for a number
of years). See later, p. 226.]
[Footnote 2: The author refers to Naphtali Hirz Wessely (d. 1805), an
associate of Mendelssohn in his cultural endeavors. He wrote _Shire
Tif'eret_, "Songs of Glory," an epic in five parts dealing with the
Exodus. The poem was patterned after the epic _Der Messias_ of his
famous German contemporary Gottlieb Friedrich Klopstock, who, in turn,
was influenced by Milton.]
Ginzburg and Lebensohn were the central pillars of the Vilna Maskilim
circle, which also included men of the type of Samuel Joseph Fünn, the
historian, Mattathiah Strashun, the Talmudist, the censor Tugendhold,
the bibliographer Ben-jacob, N. Rosenthal, in a word, the "radicals" of
that era--for the mere striving for the restoration of biblical Hebrew
and for elementary secular education was looked upon as bold radicalism.
The same circle made an attempt to create a scientific periodical after
the pattern of similar publications in Galicia and Germany, In 1841 and
1843 two issues of the magazine _Pirhe Tzafon_, "Flowers of the North,"
appeared in Vilna, under Fünn's editorship. The volumes contained
scientific and publicistic articles as well as poems, contributed by the
feeble literary talents which were then active in the Hebrew literary
and educational revival in Russia--all of them efforts of not very high
merit. But even these poor hot-house flowers were fated to be nipped in
the Northern chill. The ruthless Russian censorship scented in the
unassuming magazine of the Vilna Maskilim a criminal attempt to publish
a Hebrew periodical. Such an undertaking required an official license
from the central Government in St. Petersburg, and the latter was not in
the habit of granting licenses for such purposes.
In Vilna, as in Odessa, the coterie of local Maskilim formed the
mainstay of Lilienthal, the apostle of enlightenment, in, his struggle
with the orthodox. In the year 1840, prior to Lilienthal's arrival, when
the first intimation of Uvarov's plans reached the city of Vilna, the
local Maskilim responded to the call of the Government in a circular
letter, in which the following four cardinal reforms were emphasized:
1. The transformation of the Rabbinate through the establishment of
rabbinical seminaries, the appointment of graduates from German
universities as rabbis, and the formation of consistories after the
pattern of Western Europe.
2. The reform of school education through the opening of secular
schools after the model of Odessa and Riga and the training of new
teachers from among the Maskilim.
3. The struggle with the fiends of obscurantism, who stifle every
endeavor for popular enlightenment.
4. The improvement of Jewish economic life by intensifying
agricultural colonization, the establishment of technical and arts
and crafts schools, and similar measures.
Several years later the authors of this circular had reason to share
Lilienthal's disillusionment over the "benevolent intentions" of the
Government. This, however, was not strong enough to uproot the original
sin of the Haskalah: its constant readiness to lean for support upon
"enlightened absolutism." The despotism of the orthodox and the
intolerance of the unenlightened masses forced the handful of Maskilim
to fall back upon those who in the eyes of the Jewish populace were the
source of its sorrow and tears. There was a profound tragedy in this
incongruity.
The culture movement in Russia of the second quarter of the nineteenth
century corresponds in its complexion to the early stage of the
Mendelssohnian enlightenment in Germany, the period of the
_Me'assefim_. [1] But there were also essential differences between the
two. The beginning of German enlightenment was accompanied by a strong
drift toward assimilation which led to the elimination of the national
language from literature. In Russia the initial period of Haskalah was
not marked by any sudden social and cultural upheavals.
[Footnote 1: So named after the Hebrew periodical _ha-Me'assef_ "The
Collector," which was founded in Berlin in 1784. Compare Vol. I, p. 386,
n. 3.]
On the contrary, it laid the foundations for a national literary
renaissance which in the following period was destined to become an
important social factor.
5. THE JEWS AND THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE
As for the Russian people, an impenetrable wall continued as theretofore
to keep it apart from the Jewish population. To the inhabitants of the
two Russian capitals and of the interior of the Empire the Pale of
Settlement seemed as distant as China, while among the Russians living
within the Pale the sparks of former historic conflagrations, the
prejudices of the ages and the unenlightened notions of days gone by
were still glimmering beneath the ashes. The ignorance of some and the
vicious prejudices of others could not very well manifest themselves in
periodical literature, for the simple reason that in pre-reformatory
Russia, throtled by the hand of the censorship, none was in existence.
Only in Russian fiction one might see the shadow of the Jew moving
across. In the imagination of the great Russian poet Pushkin this shadow
wavered between the "despised Jew" of the street (in the "Black Shawl,"
1820) and the figure of the venerable "old man reading the Bible under
the shelter of the night" (in the "Beginning of a Novel," 1832). On the
other hand, in Gogol's "Taras Bulba" (1835-1842) the Jew bears the
well-defined features of an inhuman fiend. In the delineation of the
hideous figure of "Zhyd Yankel," a mercenary, soulless, dastardly
creature, Gogol, the descendant of the haidamacks, [1] gave vent to his
inherited hatred of the Jew, the victim of Khmelnitzki [2] and the
haidamacks. In these dismal historic tragedies, in the figures of the
Jewish martyrs of old Ukraina, Gogol can only discern "miserable,
terror-stricken creatures." Thus one of the principal founders of
Russian fiction set up in its very center the repelling scarecrow of a
Jew, an abomination of desolation, which poured the poison of hatred
into the hearts of the Russian readers and determined to a certain
extent the literary types of later writers.
[Footnote 1: Name of the Ukrainian rebels who rose in the seventeenth
century against the tyranny of their Polish masters. Compare Vol. I, p.
182, n. 3.]
[Footnote 2: Compare Vol. I, p. 144 et seq.]
In the back-yards of Russian literature, which were then most of all
patronized by the reading public, the literary slanderer Thaddeus
Bulgarin delineated in his novel "Ivan Vyzhigin" (1829) the type of a
Lithuanian Jew by the name of Movsha (Moses), who appears as the
embodiment of all mortal sins. The product of an untalented and tainted
pen, Bulgarin's novel was soon forgotten. Yet it contributed its share
toward instilling Jew-hatred into the minds of the Russian people.