Maskilim, Mitngadim, and the Haskalah
Two main factions in Jewish thought came into being from these developments. The maskilim, those who approved of Mendelssohn’s ideology of assimilation into the host society while keeping one’s religion intact, and the mitngadim, who argued it was impossible to assimilate successfully into European society and preferred to maintain the status quo in the Jewish community. Both sides made a ferocious intellectual undertaking in their battle to sway the Jewish community in Europe. The mitngadim were engaged against the maskilim and in many cases the Chasidim in Eastern Europe.
Mendelssohn is widely held to be the father of the Haskalah, and his writings were widely read not only in the Jewish community, but in Europe as a whole. He was already a world-renowned European Enlightenment voice by 1782, after his dissertation on the immortality of the soul in his Platonic dialogue, Phaeton, in 1767. Being assimilated into European society, Mendelssohn was one of the few Jewish scholars with a wide array of Christian friends, and he persuaded one of them, Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, to write to Joseph II about the positive utility of the Jews in 1781. With the Toleranzpatent, it can be said that Mendelssohn was the voice behind much of Joseph II’s policies (although he would not approve of Jews converting to Christianity).
While Mendelssohn was off to write Jerusalem in response to an attack from August Friedrich Cranz, Napthali Herz Wessely, one of his disciples, took up the fight for him and wrote Divrei Shalom Ve’emet (The Words of Peace and Truth) in 1782. Wessely, one of the maskilim, expanded on assimilation into European society even further than Mendelssohn. Wessely divides the realm of universal knowledge into “the study of human knowledge [Torat Ha’Adam]” (JMW 70) and the study of universal knowledge [Torat Ha’Elohim]. Mendelssohn argued for the perfect rights of the state and imperfect rights for religion, but acknowledged natural religion’s important role in society when he wrote that “all of men’s duties are obligations towards God” (Mendelssohn, et. al., 58). Wessely splits the two completely by arguing that where human knowledge ends, divine knowledge begins and although they are “closely correlated” (JMW 71), they have completely different spheres of influence. To Wessely, “God’s laws and teachings, matters above human reason” (JMW 70) could not be “deduced from the fixed laws of nature” (ibid). He also placed this human knowledge above the laws of God in temporal matters. Despite the fact that he admitted God’s law to be “far superior to human knowledge” (JMW 71), he criticized the Jewish community for not placing the studies of art, science, and etiquette above that of the Torah and Talmud.
Divrei Shalom Ve’Emet was castigated severely in several circles. Two of the most notable opponents of Jewish assimilation and secularization at the time were Rabbi David ben Nathan of Lissa and Rabbi Ezekiel Landau of Prague. Of the two, Nathan delivers far more invective than Landau, calling Wessely “a sycophantâÂ?¦a despicable manâÂ?¦an impious man” (JMW 74-76) among other things. Nathan is totally opposed to Wessely’s interpretation of the Toleranzpatent as a call to fully branch out into Austrian society, and wishes to only take the German language out of the deal. Nathan believes Wessely “perverts and distorts the counsel of his Majesty, the Emperor, claiming that he commanded the Jewish children shall no longer attend schools [which teach a traditional Jewish curriculum]” (JMW 75). To Nathan the sciences of Europe are not to be the centerpiece of a Jewish youth’s learning, but “as an adornmentâÂ?¦the foundations of their education will beâÂ?¦of the Talmud” (ibid). The ethics of Torah and the Jewish faith are more human in scope than Wessely’s human knowledge.
Landau, a more well-known figure in the Jewish community, took a much more nuanced approach to Wessely. He warned the Jews not to “become insolent and arrogant” (JMW 77) just because the Emperor of Austria did the community a favor. Landau used historical precedent by mentioning the Jews of Babylonia, who although under exile, took the Chaldean language and became masters of it, while still maintaining a clearly Jewish identity. To Landau, the prophet Daniel, among others, was the main role model to follow. “They distinguished themselves both in this area (Chaldean language) and in their knowledge of Torah and in their performance of good deeds” (JMW 78). Landau did not refer to Wessely by name, but does mention that “there are many Jews who reject the words of the sages and set out intentionally to keep their children from the oral Torah” (JMW 78). He encouraged the Jewish children to learn mathematics, German grammar and penmanship, but did not approve of subjective curriculum like history and European Enlightenment philosophy.
One place where public opinion in the Jewish community was divided over the philosophy of the Haskalah was revolutionary France, the birthplace of the European Enlightenment. The majority of Jews in France lived in the eastern border communities of Alsace and Lorraine, and many were refugees from more hostile lands, such as Prussia, Poland, and Russia. “A banker and merchant from Nancy”, Berr Isaac Berr was an integrated French Jew from Nancy who agreed wholeheartedly with Wessely’s ideal. The emancipation of the Jews in 1791 in France was a joyous event for Berr. He wrote to the rabbis of Alsace and Lorraine to encourage the newest citizens of France to fully engage in affairs with their Christian countrymen. To Berr “the name of the active citizenâÂ?¦is, without a doubt the most precious title a man can possess in a free empire” (JMW 118) and Jews needed to capitalize on this by creating their own wealth in mainstream French society. As the means to that end, Berr pressed that French become the main language for the Jews and that they must pursue the studies of all sciences. The example Berr cites is that of the Asian Jews, “the most devout and the most scrupulous of our brethren” (JMW 120). These Jews wrote and spoke only in Hebrew and the vernacular tongue, and held high positions commercially in the Ottoman Empire. Berr wished for a similar future for French Jewry.
The Haskalah took root in Western and Central Europe much more easily than in Eastern Europe, most notably Poland and Russia. Most Jewish communities in France, the German states, and Austria shed their tallit and tefillin for business suits, stylish hats, and the top fashion of the period. In fact the nascent Romantic period took the intellectual Jews of the Haskalah right into the mainstream of Europe. Four of Moses Mendelssohn’s six children converted to Christianity and the two who remained Jews barely held an identity with the religion. Many Jews in the early 19th century sought to make business their main religion over the faith itself and make a financial killing. The Rothschilds, and Dreyfuses were Western European Jewish families who made a tremendous financial windfall, but barely placed any stress on the ethics of Torah and Talmud when doing so.
The Jews of Eastern Europe, led by the rabbinate of Vilna, for the most part stuck to the traditions of the Torah and Talmud as their main guide. Yiddish remained their tongue and they were not open to the Haskalah at all in the late 18th century. In fact, Nathan thought the burning of Wessely’s Divrei Shalom Ve’Emet was “justiceâÂ?¦realized in Vilna” (JMW 76). Eastern European Jewry was far less tolerated by the peoples of Poland and Russia and the Jews were nigh in giving the Poles and Russians the time of day in their shtetls.
A different argument erupted among the Eastern European Jews in the 18th century. A sect of Jews called the Chasidim arose who based their laws and edicts on Kabbalah more than Torah and Talmud. Due to the destitute conditions Jews lived in at the time, there was fervent prayer for the Messiah’s arrival. Earlier sects such as the Sabbateans, led by the crazy Sabbatai Tzvi, and the Frankists, led by Jacob Frank, endorsed an extreme curbing of Torah and Talmudic study and focused purely on the joy of religion and the Messiah. In fact, the Frankists advocated acts of orgy and masturbation in synagogue. When the charismatic Baal Shem Tov organized the Chasidic movement in the mid 18th century, many Jews thought he possessed mystical powers and could bring rain, travel to parallel universes, and talk with angels, among other things. Chasidism, with its Messianic appeal, its Yiddish prayers services, and its more joyous bend, including doing cartwheels in synagogue, appealed to the masses.
The more established rabbinical authorities in Eastern Europe decried Chasidism and asserted that it “belittled the study of Torah” (JMW 390). The Vilna Gaon, the head of the Jewish religion in Eastern Europe, formed a council of rabbis to excommunicate the Chasidim in 1772. The punishment delivered to the Chasidim was severe; it was declared that “two heretics should not be found togetherâÂ?¦and it befits the world to separate them (ibid). Despite the fact that it was a low moment for Chasidism, the movement remained viable, and upon the Vilna Gaon’s death in 1797, the Chasidim of Vilna threw a riotous party in the streets.
The Haskalah, with its maskilim and mitngadim, was the origin of the divides in Judaism today in regards to observal of the faith. Descendents of the proponents of the Maskilim, such as Abraham Geiger, created the Reform movement of today. Samson Hirsch, a descendent of the 18th century mitngadim, formed the modern Orthodox movement, and Zacharias Frankel, a more religious German Jew not sold on the Haskalah, created the Conservative movement. Although all three Jewish movements began in the middle of the nineteenth century, the arguments which led to these schisms started in the 1780s.
Works Cited
Mendelssohn, Moses. Jerusalem: Or On Religious Power and Judaism. Int. AlexanderAltmann. Trans. Allan Arkush. Hanover, New Hampshire: Brandeis University Press, 1983. pg. 58.
Mendes-Flohr, Paul and Jehuda Reinharz. The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. ppg. 70, 71, 74-78, 118, 120, 390.
