remained in Brody for the next two years, 1836‐8, but at the end of 1838
he fell so dangerously ill that he could no longer resist the pressing
request of his daughter to live with her at Tarnopol. She had urged him to
take this step even previous to his removal to Brody, but he had declined
on the plea that he preferred to live by the labour of his hands. Now,
however, he yielded to her wish, and betook himself to Tarnopol, where for
two years longer he lived affectionately tended by his children and
respected by all who knew him. In May 1840, Krochmal’s illness began to
develop fatal symptoms, and he died in the arms of his daughter on the
31st of July (the first of Ab), at the age of fifty‐five. As Zunz happily
remarked: “This great man was born on the 7th of Adar, the birthday of
Moses (according to Jewish tradition), and died on the first of Ab, the
anniversary of the death of Aaron, the High Priest.”
I have tried in the foregoing remarks to give a short sketch of our
Rabbi’s life according to the accounts of Zunz, Rapoport, and Letteris.
There is one other point to which I must allude, as it involves a
consideration on which Letteris seems to lay much stress. This biographer
appears to think that Krochmal was in his youth greatly influenced by the
society in which he moved, consisting as it did of many learned and
enlightened men. There is, too, the oft‐quoted saying of Goethe:—
Wer den Dichter will verstehen
Muss in Dichters Lande gehen.
And I am probably expected to give some account of the state of society in
which Nachman grew up. I regret that I must ask to be excused from doing
so. I cannot consent to take the reader to Krochmal’s land. And if I might
venture to give him my humble advice, I should only say, “By all means
stop at home.” Goethe may be right about the poet, but his remark does not
apply to the case of the scholar. It may be true, as some think, that
every great man is the product of his time, but it certainly does not
follow that he is the product of his country. Nor could I name any other
country of which Krochmal was the product. Many a city no doubt boasted
itself a town full of “_Chakhamim_ and _Sopherim_”(24) as the Hebrew
phrase is, or, as we would express it, “a seat of learning,” full of
scholars of the ancient and modern schools. But neither these ancient
scholars nor the modern were of a kind to produce a real scholar and an
enlightened thinker like Krochmal. There were many men who knew by heart
the whole of the Halachic works of Maimonides, the Mishnah, and even the
whole of the Babylonian Talmud. This is very imposing. But if you look a
little closer, you will find that with a few exceptions—such as the school
of R. Elijah Wilna—these men, generally speaking, hardly deserve the name
of scholars at all. They were rather a sort of studying engines. The
steam‐engine passes over a continent, here through romantic scenery, there
in the midst of arid deserts, by stream and mountain and valley, always
with the same monotonous hum and shriek. So these scholars went through
the Talmud with never changing feelings. They did not rejoice at the
description which is given in tractate _Biccurim_(25) of the procession
formed when the first‐fruits were brought into the Holy Temple. They were
not much saddened when reading in tractate _Taanith_(26) of the unhappy
days so recurrent in Jewish history. They were not delighted by the wisdom
of _Seder Nezikin_,(27) which deals with civil law; nor were they vexed of
_Seder Taharoth_,(28) which treats of the laws of cleanliness and
uncleanliness, that by their exaggeration gave cause to much dissension in
the time of the Temple. The pre‐Talmudic literature, such as the _Siphra_,
_Siphré_, and _Mechilta_(29)—the only existing means of obtaining an
insight into the Talmud—were altogether neglected. All that these readers
cared for was to push on to the end, and the prayer recited at the close
was of more importance to them than the treatise they had perused.
Not less melancholy was the spectacle presented by the so‐called men of
“Enlightenment” (_Aufklärung_). They belonged chiefly to the rationalistic
school of Mendelssohn, but they equalled their master neither in knowledge
nor in moral character. It was an enlightenment without foundation in real
scholarship, and did not lead to an ideal life, though again I must add
that there were exceptions. These men were rather what Germans would term
_Schöngeister_, a set of dilettanti who cared to study as little as
possible, and to write as much as possible. They wrote bad grammars,
superficial commentaries on the Bible, and terribly dull poems. Of this
literature, with the exception of Erter’s _Watchman_,(30) there is
scarcely a work that one would care to read twice. Most of them despised
Rabbinism, but without understanding its noblest forms as they are to be
traced in the Talmud and later Hebrew literature. They did not dislike
Judaism, but the only Judaism they affected was one “which does not oppose
itself to anything in particular”; or, as Heine would have described it,
“Eine reinliche Religion.” In one respect these little men were great: in
mutual admiration, which reached such a pitch that such titles as “Great
Luminary,” “World‐famed Sage,” were considered altogether too
insignificant and commonplace.
I will now pass to the writings of Krochmal. It must be premised that
Krochmal was not a voluminous author. All his writings, including a few
letters which were published in various Hebrew periodicals, would scarcely
occupy four hundred pages. Krochmal used to call himself “der ewige
Student” (the perpetual pupil). He did not read books, nor study
philosophical systems, with the object of writing books of his own on
them. He read and studied in order that he might become a better and a
wiser man. Besides, he did not think himself competent to judge on grave
subjects, nor did he consider his judgment, even if he formed one, worthy
of publication. He counselled his friends to be equally slow in publishing
their views to the world. “Be not,” he wrote to a correspondent,—“be not
hasty in forming your opinions before you have studied the literature of
the subject with care and devotion. This is no easy matter, for no man can
obtain any real knowledge of the Torah and philosophy unless he is
prepared to give himself up in single‐hearted devotion to his studies.”
Severe though he was to his friends, he was still more severe to himself.
Though he had been collecting materials on subjects of Jewish history and
philosophy from his early youth, it was not until he had endured much
persuasion and pressure from his friends that he began to write down his
thoughts in a connected form. We thus possess only one work from the pen
of this author; but that work is the _Guide of the Perplexed of the
Time_,(31) a posthumous book published in 1851, eleven years after
Krochmal’s death. His work had been much interrupted by illness during the
last years of his life, and as a necessary consequence many parts of his
treatise finally remained in an unfinished state. Krochmal commissioned
his children to hand over his papers to Zunz, who was to arrange and edit
them as best he might. Zunz, who in his reverence for Krochmal went so far
as to call him the man of God, gladly accepted the task, in which he was
aided by Steinschneider. Unfortunately, the work was published in Lemberg,
a place famous for spoiling books. Even the skill of these two great
masters did not suffice to save Krochmal’s work from the fate to which all
the books printed in Lemberg seem inevitably doomed. Thus Krochmal’s work
is printed on bad paper, and with faint ink; it is full of misprints and
the text is sometimes confused with the notes. A second edition appeared
in Lemberg in 1863; but, it is scarcely necessary to add, the reprint is
even worse than the original issue.
The work occupies some 350 pages, and is divided into seventeen chapters.
The opening six treat of Religion in general. The author first indicates
the opposite dangers to which men are liable. On the one hand, men are
exposed to extravagant phantasy (_Schwärmerei_), superstition and
ceremonialism (_Werkheiligkeit_). Some, on the other hand, in their
endeavour to avoid this danger, fall into the opposite extreme,
materialism, unbelief, and moral degeneracy as a consequence of their
neglect of all law. He proceeds to say: Even in the ritual part of
religion, such as the regulations of the Sabbath, the dietary laws and so
forth, we find abstract definitions necessary, and differences of opinions
prevalent. In the dogmatic aspects of religion, dealing as they do with
the grave subjects of metaphysics, the mystery of life and death, the
destiny of man, his relation to God, reward and punishment, the inner
meaning of the laws,—in these spiritual matters, the difficulty of
accurate definition must be far greater and the opportunities for
difference of opinion more frequent and important. What guide are we to
follow, seeing that every error involves the most dangerous consequences?
Shall we abandon altogether the effort of thinking on these grave
subjects? Such a course is impossible. Do not believe, says Krochmal, that
there ever was a time when the religious man was entirely satisfied by
deeds of righteousness, as some people maintain. On the contrary, every
man, whether an independent thinker or a simple believer, always feels the
weight of these questions upon him. Every man desires to have some ideal
basis for his actions which must constitute his real life in its noblest
moments. Krochmal here quotes a famous passage from the Midrash.(32) The
Torah, according to one of our ancient sages, may be compared to two
paths, the one burning with fire, the other covered with snow. If a man
enters on the former path he will die by the heat; if he walks by the
latter path he will be frozen by the snow. What, then, must he do? He must
walk in the middle, or, as we should say, he must choose the golden mean.
But, as Krochmal suggests, the middle way in historical and philosophical
doubts does not consist, as some idle heads suppose, in a kind of
compromise between two opposing views. If one of two contending parties
declares that twice two make six, while his opponent asserts that twice
two make eight, a sort of compromise might be arrived at by conceding that
twice two make seven. But such a compromise would be as false as either
extreme; and the seeker after the truth must revert to that mean which is
the heart of all things, independently of all factions, placing himself
above them.
Having dealt with the arguments relating to the existence of God as
elaborated in the philosophical systems of his time, Krochmal leads up to
his treatment of the History of Israel by a chapter on the ideal gifts
bestowed upon the various ancient nations, which, possessed by them
through many centuries, were lost when their nationality ceased. We next
come, in Chapter VII., to the ideal gifts of Israel. These are the
religious gift and the faculty and desire for seeking the ideal of all
ideals, namely, God. But Israel, whose mission it was to propagate this
ideal, was, even as other nations, subject to natural laws; and its
history presents progress and reaction, rise and decline. Krochmal devotes
his next three chapters to showing how, in the history of Israel, as in
other histories, may be detected a triple process. These three stages are
the budding, the period of maturity, and the decay. As the history of
Israel is more a history of religion than of politics and battles, its
rise and decline correspond more or less with Israel’s attachment to God,
and its falling away from Him. The decay would be associated with the
adoption of either of the extremes, the dangerous effects of which have
been already mentioned. But “through progress and backsliding, amid
infectious contact with idolatry, amid survival of old growths of
superstition, of the crude practices of the past; amid the solicitation of
new aspects of life; in material prosperity and in material ruin,” Israel
was never wholly detached from God. In the worst times it had its judges
or its prophets, its heroes or its sages, its Rabbis or its philosophers,
who strove to bring Israel back to its mission, and who succeeded in their
efforts to do so. Even in its decay traces of the Divine spirit made
themselves felt, and revived the nation, which entered again on a triple
course and repeated its three phases. The first of these three‐fold epochs
began, according to Krochmal’s eighth chapter, with the times of the
Patriarchs, and ended with the death of Gedaliah after the destruction of
the first Temple. Next, in the following two chapters, Krochmal finds the
second triple movement in the interval between the prophets of the exile
in Babylon and the death of Bar‐Cochba about 135 A.C. The author also
hints at the existence of a third such epoch beginning with R. Judah the
Patriarch, the compiler of the Mishnah (220 A.C.),(33) and ending with the
expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492). This idea is not further
developed by Krochmal; but it would be interesting to ask, by the way, in
which phase of the three‐fold process—rise, maturity, or decay—are we at
the present time?
The next five chapters may be regarded as an excursus on the preceding
two. Krochmal discusses the Biblical books which belong to the period of
the Exile and of the Second Temple, such as the Second Isaiah, certain
Exilic and Maccabean psalms, Ecclesiastes, certain Apocryphal books, and
the work of the Men of the Great Synagogue. They contain, again,
researches on the various sects, such as the Assideans, Sadducees,
Pharisees, Essenes, the Gnostics, the Cabbalists and their relation to the
latter, and the Minim,(34) who are mentioned in the Talmud. In another
part of this excursus Krochmal describes the systems of the Alexandrian
Jewish philosophers, such as Philo and Aristobulus, and discusses their
relation to certain theosophic ideas in various Midrash‐collections. The
author also attempts to prove the necessity of Tradition; he shows its
first traces in the Bible, and explains the term Sopherim (scribes); and
he points out the meaning of the phrase “A law unto Moses from Mount
Sinai,”(35) and similar expressions. He gives a summary of the development
of the Halachah in its different stages, the criteria by which the older
Halachahs may be discriminated; he seeks to arrive at the origin of the
Mishnah, and deals with various cognate topics. In another discourse
Krochmal endeavours to explain the term Agadah,(36) its origin and
development; the different kinds of Agadah and their relative value.
Chapter XVI. contains the Prolegomena to a philosophy of the Jewish
religion in accordance with the principles laid down by Hegel. In the
seventeenth and last chapter the author gives a general introduction to
the Philosophy of Ibn Ezra, and quotes illustrative extracts.
The space of an essay does not permit me to give further details of
Krochmal’s book. I am conscious that the preceding outline is deficient in
quality as well as in quantity. Yet, even from this meagre abstract, the
reader will gather that Krochmal reviews many of the great problems which
concern religion in general and Judaism in particular. Zunz somewhere
remarks that Krochmal was inspired in his work by the study of Hegel, just
as Maimonides had been by the study of Aristotle. I give this statement
solely on the authority of Zunz, as I myself have never made a study of
the works of the German philosopher, and am therefore unable to express an
opinion on the question.
Now there is no doubt that Krochmal’s book is not without defects. The
materials are not always well arranged, there is at times a want of
proportion in the length at which the various points are treated, and the
author occasionally seems to wander from the subject in hand. But we shall
be better able to account for these and similar technical faults, as well
as to appreciate the real value of the author’s work, if we consider the
following fact. Nachman Krochmal’s object was to elaborate a philosophy of
Jewish history, to trace the leading ideas that ran through it, and the
ultimate causes that led to its various phases. But, unfortunately, at the
time when Krochmal began to write, there did not exist a Jewish history at
all. The labours of Zunz were conducted in an altogether different field.
Not to mention the names of the younger scholars then unborn, Graetz, the
author of the _History of the Jews_, and Weiss, who wrote a history of the
Tradition, were still studying at college. Frankel’s masterly essays on
the Essenes and the Septuagint, his well‐known work, _Introduction to the
__ Mishnah_, and the results of Geiger’s most interesting and suggestive
researches on the older and later Halachah, and on the Pharisees and
Sadducees, had yet to be written. Rapoport’s great treatise, _Erech
Millin_,(37) had not been published at that time, and Steinschneider was
not yet working at his historical sketch of Jewish literature. It was not
till six years after Krochmal’s death (viz. in 1846) that Landauer’s
memorable studies on the Jewish mystics were given to the world. Even the
bad books of Julius Fürst, such as his _History of the Canon_, and his
still worse _History of Jewish Literature in Babylon_, were then
unwritten. Neither the most charlatanic _History of the Opinions and
Teachings of All the Jewish Sects_, by Peter Beer, the universal provider,
nor Jost’s most honest but narrow‐minded and superficial _History of the
Jews_, was of much use to Krochmal. Jost’s more scholarly works were not
published till long afterwards. Krochmal was thus without the guidance of
those authorities to which we are now accustomed to turn for information.
Excepting the aid that he derived from the writings of Azariah de
Rossi,(38) Krochmal was therefore compelled to prosecute all the necessary
research for himself; he had to establish the facts of Jewish history as
well as to philosophise upon them. Hence, in the very midst of his
philosophical analysis, the author was bound to introduce digressions on
historical subjects, in order to justify as well as to form the basis of
that analysis. He had to survey the ground and to collect the materials,
besides constructing the plan of the edifice and working at its erection.
Nevertheless, it is precisely for these historical excursuses that
Krochmal has deserved the gratitude of posterity. He it was who taught
Jewish scholars how to submit the ancient Rabbinic records to the test of
criticism and the way in which they might be utilised for the purpose of
historical studies; he it was who enabled them to trace the genesis of the
tradition, and to watch the inner germination of that vast organism. He
even indicated to them how they might continue to connect their own lives
with it, how they might derive nourishment from it, and in their turn
further its growth. I may assert with the utmost confidence that there is
scarcely a single page in Krochmal’s book that did not afterwards give
birth to some essay or monograph or even elaborate treatise, though their
authors were not always very careful about mentioning the source of their
inspiration. Thus Krochmal justly deserves the honourable title assigned
to him by one of our greatest historians, who terms him the Father of
Jewish Science.
So far, I have been speaking of the importance of Krochmal’s treatise and
of its significance in the region of Jewish Science. It is necessary, I
think, to add a few words with regard to the general tendency of his whole
work. I have already alluded to the characteristic modesty of Krochmal; I
have pointed out how little he cared for publicity, how dearly he loved
retirement. The question accordingly presents itself—What can have been
the real and sufficient causes that prevailed upon him to yield to the
solicitations of his friends and to write upon what the Talmud would term
“matters standing on the heights of the world”?
The answer to this question may, I think, be found in the title of
Krochmal’s book, the _Guide of the Perplexed of the Time_. It is indeed a
rather unusual coincidence for the title of a Hebrew book to have any
connection with its subject matter. The same merit is possessed by the
_Guide of the Perplexed_ of Maimonides, the title of which undoubtedly
suggested that of Krochmal’s treatise. There is, however, one little
addition in Krochmal’s title that contains a most important lesson for us.
I mean the words “of the Time.” By these words Krochmal reminds us that,
great as are the merits of the immortal work of Maimonides—and it would be
difficult to exaggerate its value and importance—still it will no longer
suffice for us. For, as Krochmal himself remarks, every time has its own
perplexities, and therefore needs its own guide. In order to show that
these words are no idle phrase, I shall endeavour to illustrate them by
one example at least. In the _Guide of the Perplexed_ of Maimonides, Part
II., Chapter XXVI., occurs a passage which runs thus: “In the famous
chapters known as the ‘Chapters of R. Eliezer the Great,’(39) I find R.
Eliezer the Great saying something more extraordinary than I have ever
seen in the utterances of any believer in the Law of Moses. I refer to the
following passage: ‘Whence were the heavens created? He (God) took part of
the light of His garment, He stretched it like a cloth, and thus the
heavens were extending continually, as it is said (Ps. civ. 2): He
covereth Himself with light as with a garment, He stretcheth the heavens
like a curtain. Whence was the earth created? He took of the snow under
the throne of glory, and threw it; according to the words (in Job xxxvii.
6), He said to the snow be thou earth.’ These are the words given there
(in the ‘Chapters of R. Eliezer the Great’), and I, in my surprise, ask,
What was the belief of this sage? Did he think it impossible that
something be produced from nothing?... If the terms ‘the light of His
garment’ and the ‘snow of glory’ mean something eternal (as matter) they
_must_ be rejected.... In short, it is a passage that greatly confuses the
notions of all intelligent and religious persons. I am unable to explain
it sufficiently.”