The first public Jewish intellectual in the Ashkenazi world who is religious and he is relatively successful in intervening. "So you're saying it was as simple as a letter about life after death, written in good German and some even omjus just loved us?" "No, no, listen. First of all, what does happen is he becomes a well-known figure, so you can't just brush him off if he writes to you." Welcome to History for the Curious. I'm Manor Eisner and I host the International Renowned Lecturer, Dynamic Historian and Tour Guide, Rabbi Aubrey Hirsch. Experience our history, confront dilemmas and reveal the untold stories of 3,000 years of Jewish heritage from Paris to Cairo, from the Russian's art monodies and from the Sinai Revelation to the French Revolution. Join the fastest growing Jewish history podcast in the world by subscribing to this channel and discovering the events that have shaped us into who we are today. This week's episode is Little Nishmas Rapt-Svi area Ben-Rubmasha. Rabbi Hirsch, welcome back. We first of all want to wish you a Chimerochem. Thank you. We all heard the "Hespad", which was very powerful. Just wondering with the passage of the last few days, is there anything else you wanted to add? The truth is that preparing a "Hespad" in the middle of a shiver, you have all sorts of ideas swirling around. I think I managed to express most of them. Just tell the listeners because we don't know when people hear it, that you weren't able to give a "Hespad" that "The Lavire". Yes, because of Nissan. Although I guess that is one thing I realized afterwards that I hadn't mentioned. It was something that was almost unnoticed but constantly there. And that's that my mother never complained. When she was in discomfort, in pain, at times over the years she was in hospital for her eye, her hip. And earlier during her lifetime, during various difficulties, she just never complained. She got on with it, which I think is something for us in the family to work on. Yeah, but it's really the older generation that's complained less. I personally met her a few times, didn't know her, but I met her walking around Golders Green. Always had a large smile on her face and she always made everyone feel good. So she'll definitely be missed for anyone who used to see her. And she should be a male at Tiersche for you and the whole family. So we are resuming our podcast now, it's been quite some time. And what period of time are we doing for this one? I'm going to introduce you to someone whose name you've undoubtedly heard, but whose life was very much two different halves. Moses Mendelssohn. Yes, I heard of him. Right. I am grateful to the multi-volume work of Rabbi Alexander Altman, who was actually a roving Berlin until 1938 and then a roving Manchester for 20 years, to Rabbi Avis Schaffrand for his article in Jewish Observer and subsequent interviews, to Rabbi David Katz in Baltimore for his three-part series on Mendelssohn, to Rupšnýz Arman Lyman for his piece in Tradition, and to professor of Jewish history in Erichis Rolmeer Hildersheimer for his various academic essays. What's going on here, over here? You never usually say any of your secrets, any of your sources. A sum. You don't usually give us behind the scenes of how you created the episode. Because I could not have made this podcast unless I had from sources, especially from Rabanim, talking about a controversial life, and from them I have taken from their knowledge and their writings. Now, Moses Mendelssohn was born in 1729. He dies in 1785. He lived in Prussia. Prussia was in Germany, right? Yes, and no. I mean, in the 1700s, Germany was not yet a single country. It was still made up of separate states. And Prussia itself was ruled by Frederick the Great, who in fact built Prussia into a major power. Mendelssohn was born in the small town of Desal, his father was a safer, his mother was of Polish descent from Krakow, and the local rov there was Robdovid Frankel, who would go on to write the Korbenhaedor on the Urshalmi, which is printed on the side of the page, like Russian Tosivus. And when Mendelssohn was 13, his reby becomes the rov in Berlin. It had probably a population of around 90,000 and a small Jewish community, because the Prussian government had an extremely intolerant economic attitude towards the Jews. If you were poor, you didn't get in. Only if you were wealthy or you contributed to the economy, and even then only in small numbers. Even if you got in and you then didn't succeed in business, you'd be expelled. However, alongside the actual Balabatim living there, they allowed a Shreiche to butcher a small Yashiva, and therefore you had poor Bachrim who also lived there, and this includes Mendelssohn. And there would be a few unusual factors that influenced his life, his interest, firstly, his reby, rovdovid Frankel, who was also interested in Jewish philosophy, so Mendelssohn is exposed to that part of the Rumbum, for instance, at a young age. And Mendelssohn had the interest and mindset to become a philosopher. And in Berlin, he met a broader range of Jews, people like Israel of Zammosh, who wrote a classic commentary on the Kuzary and a parish in the Chauvysel of Ovis, and therefore Mendelssohn learnt the Kuzary. He learnt M. Medesvedeus of Rupsa Dugan, the Sefer-e-Korim, the philosophical traditions of medieval Judaism. He also picks up languages, Latin, Greek, French, English, and all of this is contributing to the individual who is slightly unusual. Thirdly, in the 1700s, there were breakthroughs being made in mathematics, in science in general, and whereas in the Middle Ages, religious Jews were always wary of the sciences because they had a very strong philosophical content. In fact, science was called natural philosophy. But by the time you get to the 1700s, slowly but surely science and philosophy are breaking apart. And the question was now developing, will Jews now study these things which they had once shunned and Mendelssohn did? So he was effectively used Shiboboch, learning in Berlin, but colourful, more. Yeah, I guess that pretty much sums it up. Nowadays, if somebody wants to remain from, but he learns to speak a good English, read and write, or a good German, I guess, that's quite normal. But back then, it was very much a breach of the cultural norm of the insularity that existed and had existed for centuries because it hadn't been done before. Yeah, it was outside the box. And he begins writing pieces in secular journals on philosophy. They weren't anti-religious, but the very fact that he had a good enough German to do so and that he had that mindset is unusual. It's difficult to rewind back a couple of centuries and understand how unusual it was. And he's writing on culture and art. He didn't want to be a rave, so he does two things. First of all, he introduces himself to young German non-Jewish intellectuals, writers, poets, through discussion, through writings, people like God-hold-lessing. And here you have a Jew who's Schreme Schabbers, who has a social relationship, I guess you could call it, with somebody who wasn't Jewish. It's unheard of either by the Christians or by the Jews, but he's not a religious. And he also becomes a tutor in the house of a Jewish factory owner called Bernhardt. They needed somebody to teach their children. But after a while, the family actually offered him a job in the business. And he stayed there for the rest of his life. He eventually, in fact, becomes a partner, so he had a middle-class income. He gets married later, the age of 32, a girl from Hamburg who comes from or is related to court Jews like Robdoff at Oppenheim. And he had, I guess, you could call it a pretty traditional Jewish marriage. He always wore a beard, she always had her head covered. Would you say that he was somewhat of a Yodessaifa, he was a learned person? Yes, I believe so. He spent a number of years in Yashiva for sure, quite a few years, but you wouldn't call him a rabbi. And he wrote a book called "Faden", in which he dealt with issues such as his life after death, the immortality of the soul, because science was challenging religion, so it was a very pertinent discussion point in Western Europe. And Mendelssohn writes in a polished German, he does not quote Jewish sources. It's not written for Jews because Jews couldn't read Hachtdäut, really. It was an religious book. Really, in a way, you could call it a from book, because he doesn't say anything that was opposed to Judaism, quite the opposite. He says there is life after death that Hachtdäut is good, that the soul is immortal, but it wasn't written for Jews, and it became a bestseller in Europe. It was translated
translated into ten languages, I think, and it obviously touched a nerve in European culture of the 1760s, and suddenly he finds himself very famous. He's in the major city Berlin, which itself was extremely morally orientated, but as Robert Katz puts it, at times a sort of fancy coach and horse would pull up in the Jewish-Cortin Berlin, and there would be a Duke or, I don't know, an academic who would get out and say, "I want to visit Moses Mendelssohn the Jew." And so the Jews would say, "Gosh, if the goy-im hold of him." I mean, to the degree that in Berlin they exempted him from paying the Jewish taxes, which is back in the day a way of showing honor, and all of this transforms his life, not so much the fame and the money, but he's standing in non-Jewish circles, because now Jewish communities come to him and say, "Listen, the non-Jews hold you in high esteem. We need you to lobby for us, because there was always anti-Semitism, there was always someone trying to legislate against the Jews or expel the Jews from this town, or that state, and there was no Jew who could really explain or put over the Jewish point of view to the non-Jewish authorities. And Mendelssohn is what you might call the first public Jewish intellectual in the Ashkenazi world who is religious, and he is relatively successful in intervening. So you're saying it was as simple as a letter about life after death, written in good German, and suddenly the non-Jews just loved us? No, no, listen, first of all, what does happen is he becomes a well-known figure, so you can't just brush him off if he writes to you. I mean, to give an example, famously, he won a competition in the Royal Academy in Prussia, this is in 1763, he's in his 30s, he wrote an essay on philosophy, and in that context, he beats Emmanuel Kent, who is the philosopher of Germany, I mean, it's remarkable, so that type of guy writes to you, you pay attention even if you're not Jewish. And secondly, at the time, despite the anti-Semitism, there are a number, perhaps an increasing number of non-Jews in Western Europe, who are interested in what was called the Enlightenment. So they won't just dismiss and appeal to tolerance. So this goes on for a while, these people, these Kiilis, coming to him to lobby on their behalf, and therefore you could say that the first half of his life had unusual elements to it, but nothing controversial, he lived a from life with no thoughts of doing otherwise. The second half of his life is where the story changes, because, okay, he's now a public figure, and he is intelligent, highly intelligent, and he has a background in Yashiva, and this will create a toxic mix. As we said, Mendelssohn is publishing in the non-Jewish European cultural world, and at one point he was challenged publicly in his religious views by a Protestant minister called Lavater. Lavater wrote him, "How can you be so intelligent and remain a religious Jew? If you were intelligent, you would become a Christian." I mean, particularly a Protestant Christian, which is much more rational than Catholic Christianity. And Mendelssohn answers and says he is Jewish because he believes in Judaism. Every religion has rational and less rational elements, every religion has some superstition in it, but Judaism has less irrationality. So he defends Judaism but on rational grounds. And the question is, how did he feel about the less rational elements? Which is an area where you need a Munna, like Hukim. It's easier to keep the Mitzvahs that you understand. Now, it's true he isn't advocating dropping Mitzvahs, but his defense of Judaism is that it's more rational than Christianity, which it might be, but that's not why we follow it. It's true, he's talking to a non-Jew. He has no sort of obligation to engage this guy in explaining the less rational elements of Judaism. But the question is, and we don't know the answer to this, was he more comfortable with rational Judaism? But did he know this letter would be published widely? Yes, because to the degree that there was so much pressure on him to defend his views, which clearly weighed heavily on him, that he suffered a nervous breakdown after this became public, although it was never a private type of correspondence. And he's around 40 years old at the time. And after that Mendelssohn decides, as he writes in a letter in 1779, "To dedicate the remains of my strength for the benefit of my children, or a goodly portion of my nation, by trying to bring Jews closer to culture from which my nation is kept in such a distance." So he now has a sort of an approach, a shitter that he is following. And he also becomes now controversial because of certain episodes, the first of which is called Halonus Hamace, which means the delaying of burying somebody who's passed away. What had happened is there were non-Jewish scientists intellectuals who argued against immediate burial. Because how do you know the person's really dead? You're going to check their pulse. Maybe you should wait a couple of days before burial to make absolutely sure. Now the Jews are anxious, unhappy about this. And particularly the government in Mecklenburg wanted a rabbinic opinion. Why should an exception be made for the Jews? Rupiak-Vemden, who at the time was the godly of Germany because the Pneasured passed away in Rupiadsen. Iberschutz had passed away almost a decade earlier. This is 1772. And he writes a response, but he couldn't write in good German, so he writes in Losschenkoide, he has it translated. And he or Rybjak-Vemden writes to Mendelssohn to suggest that Mendelssohn pins a response as well, because as Rybjak-Vemden put it, Mendelssohn enjoys a high reputation at the courts of princes and kings is a master of the vernacular and knows how to explain and present matters in a convincing way. So Mendelssohn did and the government listened to him and they dropped the idea that for Jews there would be a delay in burial. Fine, this is in public. But then Mendelssohn wrote privately to a Rybjak-Vemden and asked, "Tucker, why is the Jewish world so strict about Halas Amace? Maybe science is right." And on their various gomoras that don't seem to be as insistent, Rybjak-Vemden rejected his reading and says, "You're wrong." But the exchange was created a correspondence between them. In fact, a few years later this is after Mendelssohn had died, this correspondence became public, and therefore, although at the time the duke accepted Mendelssohn's explanation, in 1787, when Mendelssohn's personal views found their way into the general public, they were used to pester the Jewish community and Muskelim used the "authority of Mendelssohn" to attack the halacha of immediate burial in a sort of test case for the Haskala that's later. But do we believe that he changed his mind? And he actually agreed to Rybjak-Vemden at the time, or he felt that it was his mission to help the Jews even though he privately disagreed. Probably the latter. He probably saw a case to be made for science. But okay, you know, this is what the Kehiller wants me to do. He'll do it. And in their correspondence, they also touched on the rhomboms position that a non-Jew who keeps the Sheffan-Mitsus-Benae-Noyach won't get Olem Habal unless the non-Jew keeps them because they believe that the Sheffan-Mitsus-Benae-Noyach are minataero, so to speak. And once again, Rybjak-Vemden rejected his questions. They do have a basis, but Rybjak-Vemden said no, and he said, "You know, people are looking at you as perhaps having an inclination to being less religious, so, you know, keep a low profile." So this is really the first insight we're getting into his own views? Yeah, although he then embarks on a much more controversial project, publishing his own edition of the Humish with Translation. If you wanted to compare it to something nowadays, it would probably be similar to the Ravaria-Capplin type of Humish. It wasn't a commentary, it's a translation, and the translation into German appears in Hebrew characters, but he added a beer, a commentary, and this is how that Humish is known. The commentary provided explanation and grammatical insight,
sites and justification for the translation. There are commentaries written in that style beforehand. And he and a few others worked on different sections. Guy called Schlummer Dubno worked on, I think, Gracies, Mendelssohn did Schmöes, Nuff Toli Hertz, Vesseli did Vajikra. Now, it wasn't "trief per se", but he acted without Huskommus unilaterally. If you think back, where two arts girls started translating the gumara, what they did, I think it's Mzachtus Muckis, if memory serves, they got dozens of Huskommus, because it was new, it was different, and Mendelssohn did not. Now, it's true, if you get Huskommus, you have to agree to a number of conditions. So now, you've got Rabonim, who felt that, you know, this guy isn't exactly Yszyvish, and now he's involved in matters, you know, he's Schmöes Schabbers, but he could weaken the cultural insularity. And this could unravel for the Jews of Western Europe, for the majority of whom, this is not going to be a plus, this is going to, you know, teach them German, but not teach them Yiddish guy. So, in other words, you couldn't put your finger on something being actually wrong, but as part of their dastterra, looking at the broader picture of a cloudy stroll in Europe in the 1770s, they said this will lead to trouble. And of course, now we know it did. It did, very much so, as we will see in detail. So this makes him controversial, and he knows he's controversial, he understood rabbinic politics, he had sort of informants telling him which rabbi was going to come out against him with a cheroom, and he counted it. You had a rubrifalke going from Hamburg, who wanted to put him a cheroom, but Hamburg at the time was part of Denmark. So Mendelssohn arranged for somebody either high up in the government or the king of Denmark to sign on as a subscriber to the new Chumish edition. And once the king of Denmark has said it is kosher, the raw vintown has to keep quiet. No, do you be heard it was put through the same situation. He had ruled that the bureau should not be introduced into schools, he didn't mind it being used by adults, and he wanted this confirmed, but he had to back it off because there was this wealthy, influential Jew in Prague who got involved because of Mendelssohn. And this is how Mendelssohn beat the opposition by using non-Jewish political back-up protect here. You know, it still goes on today, even in religious circles, but there are a bon him or now upset. Now, you do have later generations like Rubik Jyvejger and Rubiak Vakomynetski, who read the beer, but in the 1770s this is a breach. So currently you'd describe him as a certainly a non-conformist, but still very much within Orthodoxy, although getting multi-controversial. Then, in 1779, I would say the reason it's important to understand this is because we shouldn't think that reform landed in a spaceship from Mars, and suddenly there was reform. We need to know what the progression was to get there, and you can now spot similar leanings in certain, quote-unquote, "hashguffic" ideas. They're all being put out there, and understand why even if you can't necessarily say that this person is irreligious, but the views are leading in a very negative direction. Right. For any sort of damaging strain of Jyudson, there has to start with a bit of legitimacy, otherwise it would have been swacked down from the start. I think it's good to know how things start in order to know what to be wary of. Right. But more than legitimacy, it also has to have a confluence of factors. It needs to be that the person doing so is able to make that statement because. Yes, to straddle these worlds. If Stum, somebody makes a statement, very good. They can put it out and LinkedIn and get 16 likes. It's not going to create a revolution. So, in 1779 he got a letter from France, from Alsace-Lorraine, actually. Now, officially, France had expelled the Jews centuries earlier, but the French kingdom expanded eastwards towards Germany and swallowed up Alsace-Lorraine, which had a large Jewish community, maybe, I don't know, 40,000 Jews, who were religious. The kings of France were anti-Semitic, but the French army was there, and it's a border town, a border area, and they needed supplies, horses, uniforms, and the Jews made it their business to supply the army. And Alsace-Lorraine remained a Jewish area of rum, Yiddishkaite, from then. My mother was probably sixth generation in that area. So, in the 1770s, France, in the late 1770s, France is considering new restrictions. And the Jews wrote to Mendelssohn, because he could write in French as well. He understood European culture. He could think that way, he could think in that language. And one of his non-Jewish admirers' friends is a guy called Christian Wilhelm Dom, who had a fairly high position in depression treasury. Dom was a member of the Enlightenment, which is why he's friendly with Mendelssohn, and together they wrote a memo, and it worked. The French government reconsidered. And Surfbear was the person who had contact with the government. That was the main correspondent with Mendelssohn. Surfbear, by the way, is the brother-in-law of David Zincin. And Mendelssohn, having sort of achieved this, easing of restriction for the Jews, then asked Surfbear deeper question. Obviously, Jews don't want anti-Semitic decrees. But is there anything positive that we want from the non-Jewish government? What is the ideal political solution for Jews in Europe? Should Jews simply continue, like they have for the past few hundred years, pay your taxes, be left alone, continue with, so to speak, autonomous communities, but shunned by the non-Jews? And in the olden days, Akehiller could shut down the store that opened on Shabbos. It could beat people, it could excommunicate them. And the Jewish communities governed themselves directly, rather than the state having intervention. But Mendelssohn asked, could there be an improvement in the political status of the Jews in Europe? Because Jews are living under all sorts of legal discrimination. Now, in this period of the Enlightenment, which is using reason to improve health and education and welfare, maybe this is a time to push for a positive change for the Jews. But wouldn't you need leaders, rulers that were part of the Enlightenment, not just philosophers, but actual people with power, were they any? Mendelssohn's Chiddish was that, no, you don't. You don't need liberal rulers. You just need to tell these dictators that they are going to gain. It's useful for them. If you can persuade even dictators that reform is worthwhile if the rulers benefit. Now, no one has thought of this before, because on the non-Jewish side, everyone that ignored or looked down on the Jews, and on the Jewish side, first of all, the thinking wasn't that way, and nobody could formulate it. So Mendelssohn fresh from his success in appealing to the French state, once the bill done that, he suggested writing a book, making the Enlightenment case for better treatment of the Jews. It's not going to be fully quality. It's not going to be full civil rights, but it eases things up. And he told this friend, is Christian Villalondon, that if I Mendelssohn write it, it's not going to carry enough weight. You write it. Mendelssohn would help. And it would be published under a non-Jewish name, because, you know, that way gets more respect. And the argument was pretty much, are Jews obnoxious? Yes. But why? Because the laws push them in that direction. If you deny Jews the right to participate in ordinary business, they will turn to smuggling and other illegal activity. And this is the first time that a book is written by a Christian intellectual arguing for an improvement in Jewish status. And then, Joseph II, he is the ruler of the Habsburg Empire, eventually will become the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He's a son of Maria Teresa. He was famous for the fact that he thinks practically. He reads the book, and he thinks, "How can I get more out of my Jews?" Because he had tens of thousands of them in Bohemia, in Hungary, in Galicia. And he has no respect for them, but he wanted them to be a better fit into the state. So he issued the tolerance patent, the edict of toleration in 1782. For the first time, a Christian ruler says, "I'm going to grant the Jews an upgrade." "Not because I'm a nice guy, but as a quid pro quo. I will move towards the Jews, and they're going to have to move towards me." He wants basically a degree of sympathy.
But the ultimate outcome. If we now fast forward a few decades from the point that Mendelssohn has made into the 19th century in the sort of modern era, after Mendelssohn's long died, Jews in Europe would get civil rights, but at the cost of their Yiddish Goethe. And therefore, Rabanim liked the Noidu Bihudah to try to fight this tooth and nail, but the Balabati more uninterested. And under Joseph II in the 1780s and later, Jewish schooling shifts. So they introduce secular subjects, reading, writing, arithmetic, German. And for the first time, the state is now poking its nose into what's happening inside the Jewish community in Jewish culture, and it has enormous consequence. The Emperor would have liked them all to convert, but at least he wants to weaken the traditional Jewish framework, and that's what happened. So you're saying that Mendelssohn himself didn't have an agenda to make Jews secular? He does not write negative things about, for instance, orthodox Rabanim. That's normally the litmus test. He doesn't, but he does want them to become more cultured and learner. Things that we take for granted, but at the time you're opening a door. And you have no idea where it's going to lead. And he now also moves into this area of rational Judaism. He creates some mixed messages, and he's creating waves. He wrote an essay in which he basically said that Judaism should not be coercive, meaning in regards to what we do, Hush Gaffa Wise, the Torah tells us, gives us midstvus, and therefore a kehilla should be able to close down a shop that operates on Shabbos. But if a guy says, "I don't take, I don't know, heaven and hell literally," the Burstin shouldn't punish you for that. Because midstvus is action not thoughts. Now that's not exactly the full picture. You look at the Rambams-Hakadomah to the Yud-Gimli Korim in his parish in Mishnaijas. He says, "If you don't hold of these Yud-Gimli Korim, which are belief-based, you have no portion in Al-Mahabal." And Mendelssohn develops his idea in a book called Jerusalem, where he argued that there shouldn't be a rabbinic control, kehilla control, of a deus. And then he even goes as far to say that certain matters of Khashan Mishbot should be left to the state, areas which are in the public domain. And anyway, it was a time where European states are now becoming uncomfortable with this idea of a Jewish state within the state. It's something that if you go back to what we spoke about during the French Revolution, Napoleon tried to abolish, and therefore they wanted Jewish kehillas increasingly coordinated with secular or royal authorities. And it started happening in Germany, in France with the Shagasariate, not only because of Mendelssohn, but he was a public voice in this arena. The Noydubihudah has to deal with this. And obviously not having Khashan Mishbot means removing power of baston, which is devastating. Yes. And when we come, we have to do a piece on the Shagasariate, we will see the accommodation he had to make with this. So what you say in history, that you didn't run their communities in a much stronger way than we sort of see today. That's a real hold of the kehilla. Yeah, yeah, sure. And that's what he was battling with. Yes. Because he felt that as a result Jews will no longer live under the oppression of the burdens of anti-Semitism. Now, we do have an example of somebody who was part of Mendelssohn's crowd. He'd written the Vajicropart in the Mendelssohn Chumish, Veseli. He wrote an essay called Diverish Shalvan Vemis. And he argued to restructure Jewish education. His mortal was a pyramid. At the bottom, little children learn a little bit of Limudiköydösh and a lot of Limudiköyl. And as you get older and move up this pyramid, more and more people would drop away because they're going to go into business. And at the top, the smaller group is interested in becoming Rabbonym and, you know, people who would have a Jewish influence in the world. They should start learning more and more seriously. And they would obviously be doing much, much more koe desh than koeil. But this is explosive and the rabbis condemned him, especially because he said he used this phrase, "Kol Tomytchochum sch Inleu Das nveiler Toeva Mimeu." Any Tomytchochum who does not have Das, a dead animal is better than him. But he interpreted Das to mean secular education. And the Vilnogon and others were not best pleased. Now Mendelssohn once again gets the non-Jewish government to prevent the worst outcomes of this guy being put in Kherem, but the Gadonim are really unhappy. And then Mendelssohn dies. In 1785, he's relative Lyong. He's in the middle of being this major macher in European enlightenment. I mean, you look at his Matsave in Berlin, it's all in Hebrew, but at the time of his death, his ideas about Jewish autonomy and Jewish rights were a pipe dream, because Frederick the Great was the king of Prussia and there was no chance that he was going to give Jews civil rights. But four years later, the world turns upside down, because the French revolution overthrew the monarchy killed the king in Queen, stripped the church of its property and power, and remade France. And therefore five years after Mendelssohn's death, France gives the Jews civil rights. An idea that has been beyond the imagination in Mendelssohn's lifetime now is a reality. And the French state that emerged from the revolution is secular. That never happened before. A regime now defining itself in secular terms, not in Christian terms, as Rabbi Katz puts it, in that kind of state what you believe is your business. On Monday you can be Jewish, on Tuesday you can be Christian, on Wednesday you can be Muslim, on Thursday you can be Jewish again. And the state would say as long as you're a good citizen, you obey the law and you remain loyal to the country and serve in the army, that's all that matters. You should be free to vote like everybody else. Once again, today we take this for absolute granted, but not then. So the French go on to conquer huge territories in Italy and the Reinland and they impose this French system wherever they went. No more discrimination against Jews, abolition of ghettos, civil rights. You could go into any business that you wanted. And now, after France was defeated in 1815, these other countries withdrew these rights and literally put people back in the ghettos, reconstructed the ghetto gates in places like Venice, but France kept those civil rights in other places it took much longer. You know, we've discussed Austria in the past, it took years, decades, only by 1870 did the Jews in all the countries of Europe have complete civil rights. But that leaves Mendelssohn with a very mixed legacy. He helped set the ball rolling towards Jewish civil rights, but not the type that you have in the 21st century where you can remain entirely from and separate and still receive equal treatment. In Europe, if you lived in France, you had to learn French things and you had to be subject to certain government intrusion. And over the next couple of hundred years, Jews become contributors, major contributors to European culture, but often at the expense of their religion. So what he has now done is removed some of the foundations of Yiddishgite without replacing them with something equally as a strong Jewish component. And so he is seen as a negative phenomenon, even if he was probably personally observant throughout, he wasn't advocating reform Judaism. But this is a guy who's an exception to many rules and the legacy left behind had an enormous impact on Yiddishgite and not in a good way. He opened the door and as I said, once the door is open, it's not going to be closed. He possibly was able to navigate it, but no one else did. Every one of his students was irreligious, if not worse, as we will see next week. And his kids became Christians or married out. It was a disaster. And yet Mendelssohn's children and disciples all claimed their following his philosophy. But you can't really continue his legacy if you think about it. He's definitely too liberal for the Orthodox community. And he was a observant person. He's too stringent for the non-authorous community. Yeah. There's nothing to continue. Yeah, but the ideas are now in circulation. Right. And pink Dufka, the time that it happened, was just the time that non Jews were thinking about Jewish rights. And it was the beginning of this development. And it broke down the ghetto, not just physically, but the cultural insulation. You know, if he'd lived 100 years earlier, he would have gotten nowhere. If he'd have lived 100 years later, he would have been helpful to robon him like Rupshams Raffal Hirsch. Living when he did made him a bridge for reform. That's just the way it was. He is almost a symbolic figure, a turning point. And after him the commas
changes, the old model is no longer. The state begins to step in. Education begins to change. Jews, you know, nowadays in England, you can't have a school which teachers know secular subject. And we might think it's a very good idea that that is the case. But the state has very real say. We make our peace with it and we still put up barriers and walls, etc. But thinking back to 250 years ago, you can't predict what's going to happen as a result. Jews are now speaking different languages, social boundaries begin to break down and once that starts, assimilation accelerates. The rub on him saw the danger. The enlightenment saw the promise, you know, the states saw the usefulness and the Jews are caught in the middle. Some are inspired by him, some are frightened by him, some admire him in public and criticised him privately or the other way around and that made him a very controversial drew. You're weakening the old Jewish structure. But today, we wouldn't want to go back to being ruled by the Tsar and having no rights. You know, refresh yourself on the state of affairs in countries in Europe that didn't give the Jews any rights at that time in the 1800s. You know, a series on Russia. It was horrific. The Cantonists, the expulsions. So what's the solution then? Obviously not assimilation in two marriages, not a price worth paying for living in a ghetto? Yeah. In his later years, he did say things which were decidedly wrong. He wrote in Jerusalem, "I acknowledge no immutable truth, only those in other words which are conceivable to human understanding and are demonstrated and warranted by human faculties." You can't talk that way because there are truths that can't be demonstrated. So he definitely has ideas that don't conform. But when Rabbi Avi Shaffran wrote an article in the Jewish Observer in the Goodecese Royal Publication, I think it was 1986, at the request of Rabbanim. He hindered the essay by saying, "Rather than simply condemn Mendelssohn, we would do better to understand him. That doesn't mean to agree with him because we don't, but we do need to understand him." So after all this, you would say that he was positively motivated. Probably. But definitely wrong. Definitely. Right. I mean reform is born the next generation and it was terribly destructive. Now, to end this week, we will turn to the possibly the most famous mention of Mendelssohn's name in the will of the Chasam-safah. But just like other things tonight, it turns out it isn't so simple. The text of the Chasam-safah's will contains warning against using any of Mendelssohn's books. It's almost the first line. The "Besifri Ramad Al-Tishlakhuyyideikhim", I think it says, "Two interesting things. First of all, the Chasam-safah refers to Mendelssohn by the abbreviation "Rashmemdallad" or "Muysha of Desau". Now, the "Rash" is sort of "Reb", not just his name, right? But this is in 1836 and by then the Chasam-safah has already mentioned Mendelssohn twice in Chruvas and refers to him as "Hachum". Okay. Secondly, what did he mean with these three letters? Did he mean "Ramad" or was the "Rash" actually a Chas and he meant "Hemed"? Did he not want. because this is written to his children. Did he not want his children to read books of romance and fiction? Or did he not want them to read Mendelssohn's book? And you'll say, "Well, have a look at the will". It's a problem because this "Rash" seems to have been written slightly differently to other "Rashers" in the will and the original has disappeared in the Holocaust. And even if it was a Chas, he might mean Mendelssohn because, as I said earlier, he refers to him in his Chruvas as "Hachum" "Muysha of Desau". Not because he means "Hachum", but because he means an intellectual and not a rabbi. So does he mean him? Does he not mean him? You have Roshim and Safer, who is the Chasam Safer's second elder son. I think he was the rov of Krakow. He said it's definitely chemed and not "Ramad". You also have in 1816 the Chasam Safer says that unfortunately people are trying to acquire a literary knowledge of pure German and since it's not available in religious works as translations, many had begun to read novels of a romantic nature. This is in his Haskoma to Makhni Israel. So he definitely was against that. Ravuzril Hildesheimer, who was the rovin Eisenstadt and then in Berlin, he said that somebody who he held in very high esteem and who had a direct part in the will of Chasam Safer had told him that the correct version is chemed and it's probably the Chasam Safer or Shimon Safer because he was friendly with both of them. And the son-in-law of the Chasam Safer, Wynom and Shloman Zalman's Spitzer, the rov of the Shifshul in Vienna, initially said that he thought it was chemed but after it he said actually it could be rumoured. Now it is very clear that the Chasam Safer did not approve of Mendelssohn's writings and he said that when the Bior appeared in 1783 his reber of Inchassarovitz in the Haaflaur in Frankfurt had told him that these teachings should not be accepted and the Mahram Shik, who was a Talmud, a close Talmud of Chasam Safer said that the Chasam Safer once saw a Bior chumish in the Mahram Shik's house and told him off for it, told him off for learning it. And there is an episode about the Chasam Safer's attitude towards Mendelssohn which is recalled by Rabbi Schlesinger in 1863 when he wrote that Chasam Safer was once in a town close to Preshburg and he wanted to remember a posseuk and he asked one of his Talmud to bring him a chumish and the Talmud handed him a chumish which was the Bior and the Chasam Safer took it and threw it on the ground. To that there was a booklet called Ksav Yeyshe Divree Ebes which completely refutes this story which was published by a group of other Talmud in Preshburg on the 11th of Ardaren 1865 and it denies this event as having happened and all that the Mahram Shik in any way proved the testimony which he in fact didn't. So it's in itself a mini mystery in its own right. That's what I'm saying, it was definitely opposed but we just don't know how opposed. Yeah. It's basically reflection on this whole episode. Right. In other words, Mendelssohn was a controversial figure. His views would definitely be expanded upon to justify and legitimize reform and he did write things that were wrong and some which were trough. But it's just interesting as we come to the end of this episode to reflect on nowadays how miraculous is it the time that we live in which is that the state treats us exactly like equals. We have the attack same rights and everything for all the taxes for the Jews are long forgotten about and yet we could be completely from. There's explosion of Torah, there's an explosion of Yashivas and we are and this is just unthinkable about 200 years ago. But it's terribly dangerous. But how many do you mean how many Jews of we lost as a result? Millions. There were and I probably said this statistic before. There were six million Jews in the United States of America in 1945. Two generations later with zero essentially anti-Semitism, there should be 30 million Jews in the United States. But instead of six million they're now five and a half million. That is a simulation and into marriage it killed potential Jews to an unbelievable degree. So it's always parallel to when Jews live in prosperity. There's always the Jews that are falling by the wayside. Prosperity and freedom. Freedom, right? Yeah. Where you can choose to do what you want. So what is going to keep you in line? Not the non-Jews oppressing you and not the care of the Kayla of Bezden. It's your own autonomous choice. Now as you say as a result we have been able to build Torah etc. But out what cast? Yeah. Thank you Rabbi Hirsch. A fascinating episode. We wish you on Scamclama Ruchim. Listeners can still we really appreciate all the messages that have come in. I know you've been receiving many personal messages and please feel free to send in any questions and feedback to
[email protected]. And next week we will be diving into deeper. We will look at reform. It's different to what we've looked at so far. Thank you Rabbi Hirsch.
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