noble character compelled his profound reverence, and who fully
realized all the expectations that he had harbored concerning him.
Hirsch was a man of modern culture, and his manner was distinguished,
even aristocratic, although he kept aloof from all social intercourse.
He was short of stature, yet those who came in contact with him were
strongly impressed by his external appearance, on account of his grave,
dignified demeanor, forbidding familiarity. With great intellectual
gifts and rare qualities of the heart, he combined varied theological
attainments and an excellent classical education. Comprehensive
or deep ideas cannot be said to have been at his disposal, but he
scintillated with original observations and suggestive sallies, which
put his new pupil into a fever of enthusiasm. He was the only teacher
from whom Graetz’s self-centered being received scientific stimulation;
perhaps the only man to exercise, so far as the stubborn peculiarity of
Graetz’s nature permitted it, permanent influence upon his reserved,
independent character.
On his arrival in Oldenburg, the new-comer was most kindly received by
Hirsch, and was at once installed in his house, of which thenceforth
he was an inmate. Instruction was begun on the very next day. The
forenoons were devoted to the Talmud, the late afternoons to the
Psalms. The disciple was singularly attracted and stimulated, fairly
elevated by the brilliant, penetrating method applied to the exegesis
of these works. Plan, order, and coherence were now imposed upon his
scientific acquirements. Hirsch took true fatherly interest in his
protegé; he exerted himself to discipline his mind and fix his moral
and religious standards. At the same time, as though even then a
suspicion of the unusual force and talent of this youth panting for
knowledge and instruction had dawned upon him, he guarded against
assuming the airs of a domineering pedagogue. Despite the difference
in age between them he treated him as an equal. He was endowed with
truly marvelous power to stir his disciple’s soul-life to its depths.
Every chord of Graetz’s being was set in vibration, and he solemnly
vowed to remain a true son and an honest adherent of Judaism under all
circumstances. Added years may have contributed to the result; but
at all events it is certain that Graetz developed visibly under this
master’s guidance.
The services required of him in the house of his teacher were mainly
those of an assistant. He accompanied the District Rabbi on his tours
of inspection, the tedium of their journeys being relieved with
discussions on Talmudic and Biblical subjects. He revised with Hirsch
the last part of the latter’s “Horeb,” helped him read the proof of
the last sheets of the book, which delighted and thrilled the young
man, and assisted him in various similar ways. How flattering an
opinion the punctilious rabbi must have held of his assistant is proved
by the fact, that when he had to go to a resort for the restoration
of his undermined health, he authorized him to render decisions on
questions of religious law (שאלות{Hebrew: Sh’eylot}) during his
absence. The assistant fulfilled his duties so conscientiously that the
responsibility oppressed him. He confessed that he had imagined the
rendering of correct decisions much easier. His enthusiasm burst into
flame when he received the following affectionate letter from Hirsch:
“My dear Graetz:--I still owe you cordial thanks for your kind
lines. I am delighted to hear that you are industrious, and that
you keep to my time-schedule so well. Continue to study, for I,
on my part, shall soon have forgotten how to study, and literally
shall have to begin to learn all over again. Before my departure,
I wanted to call your attention to something, and I do now what I
then forgot. I have frequently seen you read the works of Bayle.
They are a treasury of learning, and much information can be
derived from them, but the man takes peculiar pleasure in laying
stress upon דברי ערוה {Hebrew: Divrei ervah};[8] things of that
kind are טמא {Hebrew: tamei} and מטמא {Hebrew: M’tamei}[9]. Pass
lightly over such passages; they are unprofitable and harmful; read
only what is purely scientific. Follow my advice, etc., etc.”
Such friendly and tactful admonitions, permitting the pupil to follow
out his own bent, were always employed by Hirsch, and they but served
to enkindle Graetz’s enthusiasm anew. In spite of the young man’s
critical propensities combined with a sanguine temperament, his devoted
attachment to his master by no means waned under the strain of daily
intimate intercourse, not even when he could no longer doubt his
ideal’s lack of historic depth and scientific, or rather philosophic
insight. Graetz’s nature strongly impelled him to form friendships,
and his attachments were fervent. He always felt a lively interest in
what went on about him, and even at that early time he was fond of
taking an active part in shaping the occurrences of the day, whenever
he thought, that by assuming the rôle of Providence he might be useful
to his friends in the ordering of their affairs--a disposition that
redounded later to the benefit of many of his pupils. In January,
1837, for instance, the belated news reached him from his home, with
which he kept up a steady correspondence, that the Chief Rabbi Akiba
Eger had died in Posen. Without being commissioned to do so, he wrote
to the directors of the Posen congregation, and brought Hirsch, whose
yearning for a wide sphere of activity he knew, to their notice. When
the directors entered into negotiations with Hirsch he broke out
into jubilation. In fact, a party favoring the pretensions of the
Oldenburg District Rabbi formed in Posen, but nothing more resulted.
The procedure was repeated when the Wollstein rabbinate fell vacant in
1840, except that Hirsch, to his disciple’s great disappointment, would
not share Graetz’s enthusiasm for Wollstein. From this it appears that
Graetz was not a recluse nor a bookworm. In Oldenburg, as everywhere,
he sought to meet people and cultivate friendly intercourse with them,
and his joyous nature readily yielded to the innocent gayety of social
pleasures.
At the same time he neglected neither his duties nor his studies. While
with Hirsch he acquired the English language, and finding some Syriac
books in the rabbi’s library, he began to devote himself to Syriac.
The study of the former language his master seems to have encouraged,
but not of the latter. Hirsch met his disciple with uniform kindness,
and returned his enthusiastic devotion with fatherly benevolence.
Graetz was treated as a member of his family. In the third year of
his Oldenburg sojourn, his relations with the mistress of the house
were disturbed by slight discords, such as cannot fail to arise in
long-continued, familiar intercourse, and tend now to strengthen, now
to abridge intimacy. With Graetz’s proud sense of independence they
finally sufficed to ruffle the tranquillity of a soul wholly absorbed
by the present. Anxiety about his future began to disquiet him. The
desire to decide definitely upon a career and the longing to see his
parents, who in the meantime had removed from Zerkow to Kosten near
Posen, a somewhat larger town, united to make his departure from
Oldenburg seem advisable.
III.
THE JOURNEYMAN.
The adieux were said with touching cordiality, and after an absence
of more than three years Graetz set his face homeward, and arrived in
Kosten in the middle of August, 1840. The younger people everywhere
received Hirsch’s disciple with joyous welcome, and induced him to
preach at Wollstein, Kosten, and Zerkow. His sermons, to be sure,
did not transport his audiences with enthusiasm, but they were ample
guarantees of the preacher’s fund of knowledge and originality. All
his friends, therefore, agreed, that it would be advisable for Graetz
to “study,” in the technical sense of the German word, that is, go
through the university and obtain a degree. They adduced the fact that
the smaller congregations at least, such as Wreschen, Wollstein, and
Kosten, in part had appointed “graduate rabbis” (_studirte Rabbiner_),
in part had resolved to fill their rabbinates with them.
To secure means for a university course, he agreed to accept a
position as tutor in Ostrowo, and entered upon his work at the end
of 1840. Ostrowo is a little town in the south-eastern part of the
Province, the seat of a large Jewish community, which at the time was
still completely under the sway of the graceless habits of Ghetto life.
Graetz felt thoroughly uncomfortable. His position in the house at
which he was engaged to teach did not please him, and in the town he
found no one with whom he cared to cultivate friendly intercourse. He
had submitted to tutoring, by no means an arduous occupation, in order
to lay by money, but he lacked financial talent and the ability to
economize. In fact, his devotion to his family connections, his good
nature, and his improvidence involved him in pecuniary embarrassments
so serious that the monologues in his diary overflow with pessimistic,
melancholy reflections. He sought indemnification in frequent
excursions to neighboring towns, in composing a Hebrew biography of
Mishna teachers under the title תולדות אבות {Hebrew: Toldot Avot},[10]
and, it appears, in reading the works of the Fathers of the Church. On
one of his little trips, the occasion being the betrothal of a friend
of his, he met the sister of the _fiancée_, a very young girl, who
attracted and pleased him, and who was destined to exert decisive and
salutary influence upon his life. The meeting acted like a soothing
charm upon his ill-humor, though he was far from anticipating the
consequences it bore. He remained in his position at Ostrowo for one
year and a half, until July, 1842, when a trivial occurrence ruptured
the irksome relation in a manner not altogether pleasant.
Now he went straightway to Breslau to the University. As he had not
been graduated from a _Gymnasium_, Graetz had to obtain ministerial
permission to attend the University. His petition was granted, and,
in October, 1842, he was matriculated. With reverential awe and
expectation the self-taught student entered the mysterious lecture
halls consecrated to pure science, only to leave them shrugging
his shoulders at the wisdom proclaimed, disappointed, his longings
unsatisfied. The knowledge of which he was master when he began his
University course was richer and more varied than ordinary students are
likely to start with, and though it was not systematically ordered nor
well-balanced, it formed a unit, and had already begun to crystallize
about a center. His apprenticeship years, in short, were over; the
maturity of his views and his judgment is unmistakable.
While at the University, he heard lectures on a wide variety of
subjects--on history, philosophy, Oriental languages, even physics--but
it does not appear that any left deep traces upon his mind. Even
Professor Bernstein, an Orientalist of considerable reputation, who
drew him into the circle of his close associates, did not understand
how to kindle his pupil’s zeal, usually so impetuous, for the thorough
study of Syriac and Arabic. Apparently Graetz had relinquished the
ambition to gain mastery of them. The only one to have success was
Professor Braniss, a philosopher in high esteem in his day, with whom
also Graetz cultivated intimate relations. He at all events must
have been instrumental in acquainting him with the Hegelian system
of philosophy, and in imbuing him with the recognition, that even
in the world of liberty, that is, man’s world of mental endeavor,
phases of development succeed each other in conformity with absolute
laws, chiefly of an ideal, non-mechanical nature; that therefore the
spiritual powers that produce the history of mankind by the realization
of ever higher ideas not only follow their indwelling laws, but at the
same time submit unconditionally to the law of cause and effect; and
that the paradox of opposites, the principle of thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis, is particularly helpful in the consideration of historical
phenomena.
Though Graetz was immersed in his studies, he did not fail to give
close attention to the occurrences in the Breslau Jewish community.
The events happening there in those days were not merely of local
interest. They cast their light and their shadow far beyond the
Silesian frontier, and were the cause of intense excitement in all
Jewish circles of Germany. In Breslau the orthodox and the reform views
of Judaism for the first time rushed at each other with full force in
the struggle for supremacy. Storm and conflict raged violently between
the old and the new. Blind to the conditions of the time, orthodoxy
stubbornly opposed a _non possumus_ to every offer looking to an
adjustment of difficulties. The representatives of the two parties,
the orthodox Solomon Tiktin on the one side and the progressive
Abraham Geiger on the other, sought to get the better of each other
with remorseless acrimony. Geiger won the upper hand, and even the
disruption of the Breslau congregation caused by Tiktin’s defeat did
not derogate from the reform champion’s victory.
Dr. Abraham Geiger should be classed among the most prominent rabbis
of his time. The modern development of the religious life had been
proceeding quietly though steadily, when it was convulsed to its depths
by the storm announced by his first appearance upon the rabbinical
scene. As a speaker and as a writer he handled a popular style with
masterful skill, which manifested itself in felicitous copiousness
rather than in the concentration of precise, forcible language. One of
the best pulpit orators among Jews, he succeeded in holding attention
and stimulating thought by his simple manner and brilliant turns of
expression. His published sermons, very limited in number, give not
even an approximate idea of the powerful impression produced by his
spoken words, totally unaided though they were by charms of person.[11]
His scholarly contributions to Jewish science are of pre-eminent and
of permanent value. He has rendered particularly valiant service by
his researches into the history of literature, a field in which he
was master. On the other hand, one sometimes misses thoroughness of
scholarly culture in his early productions, especially those of the
first part of his Breslau period. Besides, he was fond of obtruding his
reform bias. In spite of his scientific attainments, his historical
sense lacked profundity, and in spite of his great achievements in the
province of modern liturgy, his appreciation of the needs and emotions
of the people’s spiritual life was neither sufficiently delicate nor
sufficiently intense. At bottom he was a doctrinaire rationalist. His
religious program and aims, too, were not clearly and definitely put
forth. For example, his attitude towards the radical currents at that
time rolling their destructive waves over Judaism amounted to more than
benevolent neutrality. The observer cannot ward off the impression,
that he was inclined to steer straight for ethical deism, and was
restrained only by opportunist reasons. At this above all Graetz took
umbrage, and by and by his antipathy to Geiger was complete. A good
deal of sham and tinsel had probably slipped into the various tentative
organizations which Geiger endeavored to call into existence; perhaps
they were unavoidable concomitants of such efforts. It is possible,
too, that the unpleasant impression was reinforced by a tendency to
officiousness observable in Geiger--at worst a pardonable foible.
As Graetz was constituted, he felt so strong a repugnance to humbug
and pretense that he exercised neither forbearance nor consideration
towards such faults. He visited Geiger only once, possibly twice.
Immediately after Graetz had made himself at home in the lecture-rooms
of his department, he paid his respects to the two rabbinical
party-leaders. The entry in his diary is as follows:
“I have made the acquaintance of Rabbi Tiktin. With what reverence
I used to stand and look at the mail-clad names of the Tiktins on
the first pages of רי''פים {Hebrew: Rifim}![12] As Charlemagne in
his iron armor kept all intruders at a becoming distance, so the
dignity of those theologic knights seemed to me to be enhanced by
the long beards and the imposing Spanish canes[13] and the Talmudic
dust. There was I sitting next to a descendant of those rabbinical
נפילים {Hebrew: Nefilim}.[14] Ah! what a falling-off there has
been! _Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis._ To be sure, there
is still the stately stature, still the Spanish cane. But the
_ensemble_, a something not to be defined in words, is missing.
Next to the rabbi, _nolentes volentes_, I place Dr. Geiger, a
spare little man. Why he was so very kind to me I do not know.
Of Hirsch we have not yet spoken, and probably shall not speak.
But to what depths we have sunk! In the presence of fifty Jews,
headed by a רב {Hebrew: Rav}, Dr. Freund[15] dares utter words like
“rabbinically erratic inferences.” Cicero and Plato, then, are to
be read as antidotes to rabbinical perversions. Zounds! And to-day
Geiger delivered his first lecture on the Mishna. The Mishna is a
collection of _religious notions, as they were formed and developed
from the Exile to R. Jehuda Hanassi_. What insane logic!”
When, in March, 1843, the stiff-necked, tenacious champion of an effete
form of Judaism, the lion-warrior Solomon Tiktin, last representative
of a race of Talmudic heroes, wounded to the quick by his defeat,
was removed from the scene by death, Geiger stood at the zenith of
his fame. Since many a day no rabbi’s name had been so well-known as
Geiger’s in all the extent of German Jewry, none was so frequently
mentioned. In Silesia there was no more popular rabbi, and in Breslau
his word was potent, influential, and feared by his adversaries. His
scientific eminence was generally acknowledged; his eloquence dominated
the pulpit no less than the minds of his hearers. Who dared attack him
was badly used, and bore ridicule as well as injury from the fray.
In the course of the year 1844, the first signs of a slowly
crystallizing reaction became noticeable. Various germinating forces
looking to the formation of a new theologic party on a conservative
platform consolidated in that year under the leadership of Zacharias
Frankel. From this place and that, single barbed arrows, followed
by more and sharper ones, winged by irony and hard to parry, came
whizzing through the air, striking Geiger and his followers in the most
sensitive spots. A well-known weekly Jewish journal, _Der Orient_,
under the editorship of Dr. Fürst, published reports of the more
important occurrences in the Breslau community. The descriptions of
the anonymous correspondent were graphic, pungent, and critical. The
articles naturally aroused attention. In Breslau, as they continued
to appear week after week, they created a veritable sensation. The
two parties looked forward to each issue of the “Orient” with equal
expectancy, though otherwise with opposite feelings. In the orthodox
camp there was exultation. At last an expert writer had appeared,
who laid bare all sorts of evils fearlessly and unsparingly, and who
seemed to serve the cause of conservatism by his bold opposition to
Geiger. But who was the archer that sped his arrow with aim so true
and poise so elegant? Guesses were hazarded, a narrow search was
instituted, and especially the ranks of the Jewish students of theology
at that time gathered in Breslau, mostly about Geiger, were sharply
inspected. It was established beyond a doubt, that it was a _homo
novus_, a student from the Province--Graetz, who, proudly independent
of every sort of patronage, was earning a scant livelihood by giving
lessons. The amazement grew when Graetz, nearly simultaneously with
the just mentioned contributions to the “Orient,” published a critical
review, valuable even at this late day, of Geiger’s “Textbook of the
Mishnic Language.”[16] This critique, auspiciously ushering him into
the scientific world,[17] was begun in the literary supplement of the
“Orient” at the end of 1844, and continued as a series of articles
in the following year. It gave him the opportunity of expounding his
own views upon the subject and displaying advantageously a fund of
information, mastery of the material, philological tact, scientific
instincts, and considerable talent as a stylist. His criticism of the
book is often to the point, but rather severe and not entirely free
from animosity. It was characteristic of Graetz to express his opinion
clearly and directly. Geiger replied to the challenge in “The Israelite
of the Nineteenth Century”[18] in still more acrimonious articles,
which likewise are not wholly objective. In fact, they contain
approaches to personalities, and dwell upon slips and trivial details,
thus demonstrating the importance attached to the appearance of his
young antagonist in the arena. In any event, Graetz had drawn the
attention of a wider circle to himself, and in Breslau he had become at
one bound the central topic of interest in _Karlsstrasse_. The orthodox
partisans made advances to him, although he did not for a moment leave
them in doubt about his disapproval of their program and his dissent
from their religious views. He told them that he was pursuing his
own original ideas, and that his guiding principle was unalterable
loyalty to positive Judaism. However, he restrained them from many a
foolish and fanatic step. In the face of orthodox opposition Geiger
had energetically organized a religious school, which was prospering.
Graetz therefore advised the adherents of orthodoxy not to permit
themselves to lose touch with the younger generation, but to build up
a similar institution on conservative lines. The advice seems to have
fallen on fruitful soil. It was intimated to the counselor, that the
intention was to entrust him with the organization and superintendence
of a school of that kind, provided he obtained his University degree
before its opening. Besides, his name was beginning to be mentioned
in connection with vacant rabbinates. It was therefore necessary to
hasten his graduation. After a few weeks of severe application, he
finished his thesis, _De auctoritate et vi, quam gnosis in Judaismum
habuerit_, which secured him the doctorate from the University of Jena
in April, 1845. Under the title, “Gnosticism and Judaism,”[19] the
dissertation was published in that year as the first original product
of his pen. The work in every respect bears the peculiar stamp of his
scientific character. It is distinguished by familiarity with patristic
literature; by his method of explaining Talmud statements, commonly
taken to be general, as particular historical cases; by lucidity of
arrangement and presentation; and by his happy gift of divining the
occult relation between things, which enabled him to shed the first
rays of light upon the ספר יצירה {Hebrew: Sefer Yetzirah},[20] the
most enigmatic book of rabbinical literature. The thesis was received
kindly, and it gave him a place in the Jewish world of scholarship.
Such surprising successes swelled the breast of the literary novice,
who had worked his way to the front by arduous toil, with justifiable
and happy hopes. The halcyon days of young fame, at the remembrance of
which his face lighted up with pleasure even in old age, he planned to
spend with his parents. On his way home he passed through Krotoschin.
There, in his friend’s house, he met the half-grown girl of other days,
now in the flush of young womanhood. Her image, faint though it had
become in the background of his memory, had not faded entirely. She
was the daughter of Monasch, the proprietor of the well-known Hebrew
printing establishment. Each made a deep impression upon the other,
and encouraged to believe that his future might be considered assured,
Graetz did not conceal his feelings. They were requited, and the young
people plighted their troth. Graetz did not suspect that he had won a
strong womanly heart that would be his beacon and a prop to which he
would cling for support during the dark days soon to break over him.