Moses mendelssohn and the religious enlightenment

8/8/2019 Moses mendelssohn and the religious enlightenment

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David Sorkin

THE CASE FOR COMPARISON:MOSES MENDELSSOHN AND THERELIGIOUS ENLIGHTENMENT

Th e distinguished h istorian of Europ ean Jewry, Jacob K atz, now Pro-fessor Em eritus at the H ebrew University, has observed on mo re tha none occasion that whereas European Jews were emancipated in thenineteenth century, Jewish history only began to be emancipated acentury later. There is much to this observation. From its origins inthe early nineteenth century the writing of Jewish history was anapologetic enterp rise confined to seminaries and Hebrew colleges. Itspractitioners were in the main independent scholars and rabbis (es-pecially in Cen tral an d W estern Eu rop e), lawyers and political activists(especially in Eastern Europe). Deprived of the advantages the greatEuro pean universities might have afforded, the discipline instead be-came the battleground for the competing ideologies within EuropeanJewry: emancipationists and Zionists, autonomists and socialists. Thissituation began to change in the inter-war period: Cecil Roth wasappointed at Oxford, Salo Baron at Columbia, Harry Wolfson atHarvard; the foundation stone was laid for the Hebrew University inJerusalem; YIVO was established in Wilna, and the Czarist archiveswere thrown open. Yet these appointments were of exceptional in-dividuals made possible by ad hominem endowments, and the ap-pointees were not full citizens of their respective institutions; the newuniversity in Jerusalem was a mere fledgling and the developmentsin Eastern European were sadly ephemeral. The true integration ofJewish history (and Jewish studies in general) occurred with the rapidgrowth of Israeli universities in the 1950s and 1960s and the ex-panding curriculum of North American universities since the 1970s.The process is obviously still underway, but in principle the disciplinenow has a recognized place in the university curriculum.What have been the implications for the discipline? Academichistorians today have a common reaction when reading the work oftheir extramural predecessors: respect for the sheer eruditionoftenthe result of Yeshiva training combined with a classical Europeaneducation, but discomfort with the parochial vision, for Jewish history

Modem Judaism 14(19*4): 121-138 O 1994 by The Johns Hopkins Univerjity Press


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12 2 David Sorkimfrequently unfolds in relative isolation. The result is that in the pasttwo decades scholars have attempted to restore Jewish history to the"context" of the larger society, examining in minute detail the seriesof relationshipseconomic, social, political and culturalthroughwhich Jews at once created their own history as a minority gro up andparticipated in that of the broader society.

Such study of the "context" of Jewish history breaches only theouter perimeter that ghettoized the discipline. The inner perimeterthat remains intact is the assumption, usually tacit, that Jewish historyis somehow singularthat its peculiar nature either resists the cate-gories historians use for other peoples or requ ires that those categoriesbe so significandy modified as to be qualitatively different. To try tobreach this inner perimeter it might be salutary to complement thestudy of "context" with "comparison," supplementing questions ofinfluence and relationship widi ones about homologous trends, par-allel changes and common developments. Jewish historians might askwhat Jewish history can teach other historians about issues of generalinterest whe ther a period, a cultural mov ement, a social and politicalprocess or altogether neglected topicsexploring how die Jewish var-iation on a dieme illuminates the variation, by showing the family ofexamples to which it belongs, but also illuminates the diem e itself, byadding the instance of a significant minority group. If the study of"context" integrates die Jews into the broader society and culture,"com parison" prom ises to integrate Jewish history into the disciplineof history.1 The case of Moses Mendelssohn can illustrate the valueof comparison as a complement to the study of context.

Moses Mendelssohn numbers among those rare figures who area legend in their own lifetime and a symbol diereafter. Yet so rare astatus has distinct liabilities. Two relendessly eventful centuries ofhistory have shaped the myriad versions of the legend and symbol aswell as the diverse uses mad e of them. Tho se two centuries dom inateour field of vision and obstruct our understanding of his diought.The legend and symbol present Mendelssohn in terms of twofaces. Th e on e is the man of the German Enlightenm ent, the Avfkl&rer,immortalized in die appellation "die Socrates of Berlin," after diepublication of his socratic dialogues on die immortalizy of die soul,die Ph&don, in 1767. The odier is die ideal Jew, Moses Dessau, en-shrined in die phrase, "from Moses unto Moses diere was none likeMoses," which made him the Jewish diinker of modern dmes, dielegitimate successor to die medieval Moses Maimonides. In die in-numerable descripdons and analyses of die two faces since Mendels-sohn's death, die inescapable quesdon has been die reladonshipbetween d iem . Th e answers to diis quesdon comprise a veritable indexto modern Jewish diought, since such an answer has been integral to


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Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment 123virtually every Jewish philosophy and ideology. The answers rangebetween two extremes.The one extreme is that Mendelssohn's faces were of a piece andat peace, that he was the exemplary modern Jew in his ability toharm onize E uro pea n cu lture with Jewish belief and ob servance. IsaacEuchel took this position in his study of Mendelssohn published in1788 (appropriately, it was the first book-length biography of anyfigure to be written in modern Hebrew). Euchel called Mendelssohn"singular in his generation, and unique in his nation" (yakar be-doro,yahid be-amo) and ma de him a model for all Jews: "His life should beour standard, his teaching our light."2 In the mid-nineteenth centuryMeyer Kayserling could celebrate him as the creator of a German-Jewish symbiosis, the man who "wished to foster jointly Judaism andGerman education (deutsche Bildung)," who, as a "sincere religious Jewand a German writer" presented "a noble model for posterity".3 T h eoth er ex trem e is that th e two faces were ill-suited and at od ds, m akingMend elssohn th e false prop het of assimilation and de-nationalization.The late nineteenth-century Hebrew publicist Peretz Smolenskin putthis graphically:

R. Moshe ben M enahem held to the view of the love of all hum anity,and his household and friends followed him. But where did it leadto? Almost all of them converted.4In the same spirit the twentieth-century philosopher Franz Rosen-zweig wrote: "From Mendelssohn o n . . . the Jewishness of every in-dividual has squirmed on the needle po int of a 'Why. "5 Between thesetwo extremes are numerous variations, including such memorableones as that of the poet H einrich Heine , who saw Mend elssohn as the"reformer of the Jews" who "overturned the Talmud as Luther hadthe papacy;"6 or that of the theologian Solomon Ludwig Steinheim(17891866) who wrote that Mendelssohn was "a heathen in his brainand a Jew in his body."7Whether one renders Mendelssohn a hero, a villain or somethinginterm ediate , the intractable difficulty of the relationship between hisfaces remains. Even Mendelssohn's recent authoritative and ardentbiographer, the late Alexander Altmann, conveyed an unmistakableambivalence in trying to com preh end it. Altman n called M endelssohnthe "patron saint of German Jewry" by virtue of his participation inGerm an cu lture , his uncom prom ising loyalty as a Jew , his formulationof a m ode rn philosophy of Juda ism , and his advocacy of Jewish civilrights. Yet Altmann could not make this assertion unequivocally.

In many ways M endelssohn was the first modern German Jew, theprototype of what the world came to recognize as the specific char-acter, for better or worse, of German Jewry."*


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124 David Sorkm'For better or worse." This phrase reminds us how two centuries ofhistory haunt any investigation of Moses Mendelssohn, and especiallythe effort to utilize the legend and symbol to penetra te the u nderlyin greality. To offer a preliminary answer to the question of the "twofaces," this paper will make two arguments from "context," i.e., Men-delssohn vis-a-vis the Enlightment and the Haskalah, and then oneargument from "comparison."It is noteworthy that Mendelssohn kept pace with the Haskalahand Aufklarung, indeed, that he had a hand in altering both. Thoughmost writers and intellectuals change with the times, Mendelssohn'scase was unusual insofar as he was involved both as "the Berlin Soc-rates" and as Moses Dessau but also in that, for the Haskalah, he wasits only member (masfut) to make the transition from its early phaseto its later one.

Mendelssohn grew up under the influence of the early Haskalah.The Haskalah was an effort to correct the historical anomaly of aJudaism out of touch with central aspects of its textual heritage aswell as with the larger culture. Throughout most of the Middle Agesin Europ e, and especially duri ng m any periods of heightened religiouscreativity, Jews had sustained a balanced view of their own textualheritage as well as a beneficial and often intense interaction with thesurrounding culture. In the post-Reformation or Baroque period, incontrast, Ashkenazi Jewry had increasingly isolated itself in a worldof talmudic casuistry (pilpul; hUuhm ) and Kabbalah, neglecting theBible, Jewish philosophy and th e H ebrew language w ithin, and thevast changes in the general culture without. The Haskalah began byreviving those intellectual traditions that promoted a reasonable (asdistinct from a mystical or casuistic) und ers tan din g of Jewish textsand diereby made it possible to draw upon European science andphilosophy. It was a tendency w ithin mainstream Juda ism: only in thelast decade o r two of the eightee nth ce ntury did it become a faction.9Dessau was one locus of the early Haskalah. Th e famous Wulfnanpress issued a steady stream of Hebrew books on philosophy andHebrew grammar, including the first republication in two centuriesof Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, which transcended the curric-ulum of Talmudic dialectics and kabbalah. David Frankel, the rabbiwhom Mendelssohn followed to Berlin, approved and in some casesarranged support for such publications: his own landmark study ofthe Palestinian Talmud also departed from that curriculum. As ayouth in Dessau, Mendelssohn read the Bible, Hebrew grammar, andphilosophy, especially Maimonides (he often attributed his deformityto the rigors of that study). When he arrived in Berlin, Mendelssohnfound a circle of young Jews (Zamosc, Gumperz, Kisch), who werestudying science and philosophy in addition to Jewish subjects. These


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MendeUsohn and Religions Enlightenment 125men became Mendelssohn's tutors and guides. What made Mendels-sohn exceptional am ong them was not his studies, but his success. Healone becam e a figure of standing in Jewish and Euro pean culture.10When Mendelssohn reached Berlin in the 1740s, the GermanEnlightenment was in transition. Christian Wolff, the philosopher ofthe age, was a the height of his influence; for that very reason theground below him was shifting. Under the impact of the scientificrevolution, Wolff had devised a philosophical method that aspired tothe certainty of science. The method tried to deduce from a few self-evident logical principles (e.g., contradiction, sufficient reason) anentire philosophy whose truths would be linked one to the next as ifin an unbroken chain. These truths were to have the coherence ofmathematics, and Wolff tried to make them comprehensive as well,applying his method to all fields of philosophy: logic, metaphysics,ethics, politics, psychology, law and nature. Because of the premisesof his philosophy, Wolff left two major areas untouched: aestheticsand theology." That was the ground that began to shift. At mid-century the Wolffians who tried to extend the master to these twoareas began to alter his system. Not surprisingly, "the Socrates ofBerlin" devoted his best efforts to these areas.But what sort of change was there? The G erman Enlightenmentat mid-century was preoccupied with questions of aesthetics and re-ligion. O ne set of debates concerned how jud gm en ts about beautyand pleasure are made, and what their relationship is to morality.The discipline of aesthetics as we now understand it was emergingfrom under the mantle of metaphysics. Wolff had held beauty andeverything connected with it to be inferior to truth and intellect; hissuccessors began to valorize it. These debates continued for manydecades, and were one source of the German literary renaissance ofLessing, Goethe, and Schiller.By the 1770s a new set of political and social concerns began toabsorb the Enlightenment. The new "civic journ als" which purveyedinformation on government policies (geographic, military, economic)and personalities, broke the government monopoly on political in-formation and encouraged the emergence of "public opinion." Anassociational life also develop ed in conjunction with such jou rnal s.12This development can be seen in the intellectual associations inwhich Mendelssohn participated. The Berlin "learned coffee house"(1755-56) was a forum for philosophical and scientific issues. Men-delssohn contributed a paper on probability (which he had someoneelse read, though to everyone's amusement, the author's identity wasrevealed when the reader mistook a zero for an "o " and Mendelssohncorrected him), and discussed determinism with another of the dub'smembers.15 Almost thirty years later (1783), Mendelssohn became a


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126 David Sorkmmember of the Berlin "Wednesday Society" (Mitwochgesellschaft). Inthis forum Mendelssohn gave lectures on "What is Enlightenment,""On the Freedom to Express One's Opinion," 'On the Principles ofGovernment," "On the Best Constitution," etc.MThese two associations testify to the change in Mendelssohn asthe "Socrates of Berlin" (This does not imply that he stopped writingmetaphysics; he did not). What about Moses Dessau? He made asimilar pilgrimage. His Hebrew writings of the 1750s and 1760s weretypical of th e early Haskalah in promo ting a reasonable understand ingof Judaism through the revival of philosophy and the renewal ofHebrew studies. His Bible translations and com mentary of the 1770sand early 1780s were an attempt to apply these views. In the 1780she made the transition to the full Haskalah of ideology and politicsin his discussion of the Jews' legal situation and the theory of eman-cipation. During these phases the Haskalah also underwent a socialdevelopment: in the early period (1750s and 1760s) there were onlyisolated individuals; by the 1770s there was a distinct circle of mas-kilim; and by the 1780s a literary society and a journal (Me'asrf) hademerged.15That Mendelssohn kept pace with the Aufklarung and Haskalahdoes not sufficiently answer the question of the relationship betweenthe two faces. Another argument from context is required. For Men-delssohn, Enlightenment philosophy and Judaism supplementedand explained each other, yet each retained its integrity and respec-tive sphere. Judaism's basis in revelation set clear limits to the scopeof philosophy, and philosophy presupposed and depended uponrevelation. Philosophy in turn served Judaism as a means of self-articulation and restoration. As a result of this relationship, Men-delssohn's religious ends were always conservative or restorative,however novel or innovative his means.Mendelssohn was one of those thinkers who, in extending Wolff'sthought into new areas in the 1750s and 1760s, changed it. Men-delsso hn ad he red to the centra l notions of the Wolffian-Leibnizianposition. He believed that this was "the best of all possible worlds" inthat God had freely chosen it. He believed in man's free will, yet alsoin the pre-established harmony between the individual constituentsof the worldthe so-called "monads." The key concept in all of thiswas "perfection" (VoUhommenheit). God's existence could be provenfrom the possibility of a perfect being (the ontological proof) andma n's ethical life was a striving to attain the high est possible pe rfectioninherent in his being. For Mendelssohn the first law of nature was"make your and your fellowman's internal and external condition, inproper proportion, as perfect as you can."16Mendelssohn's main innovation was in aesthetics. By introducing


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Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment 127a hierarchy of pleasures, in which the aesthetic ranked below themetaphysical, he made way for notions of the autonomy of art ("thestage has its own m orality"), and new concepts of aesthetic perception(i.e., "mixed feelings") and artistic creativity (the artist creates whatnature has not) which left the metaphysical foundations of his phi-losophy intact.".

Though an eloquent exponent of the Wolffian philosophy, Men-delssoh n was also critical of it. He compla ined tha t Wolff's La tin workswould have been more useful as a philosophical dictionary than as asystem.18 He also thought Wolff's attempt to give philosophy irre-fragable certainty by adopting the mathematical method had beenmistaken.19More important than his criticism of Wolff was Mendelssohn'sinsistence on the limitations of philosophical knowledge. He rejectedas sheer arrogance the claims of any philosophy to omniscience, crit-icizing Leibniz's critics for virtually deifying the philosopher. 10 Hethought the problem of an infinite world, for example, must be leftto revelation.21 Instead, Mendelssohn pursued those issues pertinentto a natural philosophy, that is, one which presupposed God and Hisperfection but otherwise avoided revelation and all related issues.Thus Mendelssohn preferred German to French philosophy becauseit valued believing thinking over free thinking.2* For the same reasonhe chose to place his dialogues on immortality, the Phddon, in themouth of a pagan philosopher: in that way he could avoid the issueof revelation. (Socrates had the additional advantage of being a non-scholastic philosop her).25 Similarly, all moral issues had a m etaphysicalfoundation for Mendelssohn, since they were grounded in God's free-dom." In addition, he held a nomian view of ethics: an ethical lifemeant honoring God by following His law." "Observance of dutiestowards God (is). .. the only way to make our souls more perfect."* 6In his natural philosophy the precise dictates of the law went un-specified.In his Hebrew works Mendelssohn provided the revealed philos-ophy that comp leted, and was the counterpart to the natural one. H eused Wollfian categories to articulate it, and here he delineated thecontents of law and the role of belief. He first did this in two brief,if significant works in the 1750s and 1760s.In the Kohelet Musar (literally: Preacher of Morals) Mendelssohnused the form of a jou rnal popular in Germany at the time, the "moralweekly" (actually a monthly that appeared on the same day of theweek and was modelled on the English Toiler and Spectator). Men-delssohn ha d w ritten for such a jou rna l in the mid-1750s (der Cha-meleon). T he mo ral weekly was an intimate forum in which a fictionalnarrator used letters, essays, reports of incidents and conversations


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128 David Sorkinto discuss philosophical, ethical and cultural issues in an informalmanner.27 Mendelssohn used this forum to address Yeshivah stu dentsand others entirely at home in the world of rabbinic scholarship andJewish learning, on many of the same issues as in his German phi-losophy: the relationship between nature as a source of enjoymentand as a source of belief ("physico-theology"); how on e justifies t heobvious moral inequities of this world (theodicy); or the ethical natureof friendshiphow love of man is related to love of God. 28 In handlingthese issues Mendelssohn repeatedly employed the same method. Hefirst stated the issue using Wolffian categories; then gave an exampleto which the categories were applied, usually drawn from Jewish texts;he went on to quote rabbinic passages that agreed with the Wolffiananalysis; and ended with the Wolffian conclusions to be drawn fromit. To take one example: in considering the ethical nature of friend-ship, Mendelssohn used the Wolffian definition of love as taking plea-sure in another's increased perfection. The example he used was thefriendship of David and Jonathan in the Bible. He showed that inhuman love, pleasure arises from the achievement of perfection; inthe love of God in contrast, since He is the embodiment of all per-fection, pleasure arises out of obedience to His law. Mendelssohn thencited a passage from the Babylonian Talmud to confirm this view.29Significant here is the seamless transition from Wolffian categoriesand natural ph ilosophy to the revealed philosophy of Jud aism . Alsosignificant is that whereas the Germ an moral weekly purveyed n atura lphilosophy, Mendelssohn used it to offer a revealed, if entirely rea-sonable Judaism.The second Hebrew work was Mendelssohn's commentary onMaimonides' "Logical Terms." Maimonides' account of logical ter-minology was at once an introduction to logic and a philosophicalprimer.50 Mendelssohn republished it with an introduction and a com-men tary. His aim was to revive the philosophical tradition in Jud aism .Addressing the same audience here as in the Kohelet Musar, he de-fended philosophy as an entirely pious pursuit that is necessary tocorrect belief. Without logic one can neither fathom God's creationnor distinquish right from wrong.51 Mendelssohn argue d that to thinkwithout an awareness of logic is equivalent to using langua ge withoutknowing grammar.32 (Mendelssohn anticipated the charge that phi-losophy is a Greek invention foreign to Judaism . M aimonides' pietycannot be questioned, since he had neutralized the impact of Greekwisdom. "He swallowed the pit but spit out the peel.") 53Although Mendelssohn here set the same limits to philosophy hedid in his German treatises, he now discussed the revelation thatsurpassed and complemented it. He asserted that without Torah and


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Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment 129tradition we are "like a blind man in the dark."" The true path toknowledge is the combination of To rah and logic.55 However far man'sunderstanding can go in comprehending God and divine truth, it isonly possible through the application of God-given reason to God'sTorah and tradition. Only the prophet who has direct revelation candispense with logic.5* Mendelssohn there fore reco mm ends that stu-dents study logic an h ou r or so per week in supp ort of their traditionaltextual studies.57 Mendelssohn manifestly regarded logic as a meansand not as an end.Ma imonides' indisputab le piety and his succinct exposition servedMendelssohn's purposes, with one important exception. Maimonides'meth od a nd philosophy w ere distinctly medieval. His work might leadthe uninitiated stude nt backward to medieval Jewish philosophy, butit could not lead him forward to eighteenth-century philosophy. Men-delssohn's commentary was to be the bridge. At the end of each ofthe fourteen chapters of his treatise, Maimonides provided a list ofthe terms he had introduced. Mendelssohn used these as a philo-sophical lexicon: next to each Hebrew term he gave the equivalent inGerman and in Latin (in Hebrew characters). He thereby attemptedto renew philosophical discourse in Hebrew, performing the samefunction for Hebrew that Wolff had for German some four decadesearlier. I n his early Ge rma n philosophical treatises Wolff had inventedGerman equivalents for accepted Latin terms.58Mendelssohn did not rest content with creating an up-to-datephilosophical vocabulary. He also introduced the substance ofeighteenth-century philosophy. Wherever Maimonides had used Ar-istotelian or platonic notions, M endelssohn corrected it with the eight-eenth-century Leibnizian-Wolffian view.59 (The distaste for scholasticphilosophy Mendelssohn revealed in his German writings is apparenthere as well: he is especially critical of those medieval philosopherswho endlessly commented on the master without adding anything oftheir own.)40 In addition, Mendelssohn seized every opportunity tointrod uce W olfnan categories. At one point in his treatise Maim onidesmentioned the idea of luck (mezulat ha-adam). Mendelssohn pouncedon this chance phrase, employing the same method as in the KoheletMusar. He expounded the Wolfnan conception of theodicy; thenquoted a rabbinic source and Maimonides' own Guide of the Perplexed;and concluded with a peroration of Wolfnan concepts.'"Th is same u se of novel means for pious ends also holds for M en-delssohn's work in subsequen t period s. His biblical comm entaries andtranslations of the 1770s and early 1780s used the best of contem-porary aesthetics and Bible study, science and philosophy as well asdrawing on medieval Jewish philosophy, exegesis and grammar. At


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13 0 David Sorkimthe same time Mendelssohn defended the integrity of the Masoretictext and the validity of traditional rabbinic interpretation, and offereda translation thoroughly in keeping with Jewish tradition.42In his political writings he recapitulated the relationship betweenhis early philosophical writings in G erman and Hebrew . Th e first partof his Jerusalem is a natural political philosophy, in which he used thekey concepts of eighteenth-century political though t to delineate theprinciples of a state separated from the church which could accordequal treatment to its subjects regardless of their religious beliefs. Thesecond part is a revealed politics. Mendelssohn argued that Judaismis a "divine legislation" based on the symbolic acts of the command-ments (the mitxuot). It is no longer a political constitution but rathera ceremonial law which makes no claim to a monopoly over revealedknowledge and d oes not qualify the Jews' unconditional right to em an-cipation. Mendelssohn accordingly thoug ht that Judaism should be-come a voluntary religious community with no powers of coercionover its members. Here again, Mendelssohn embraced the novelmeans of emancipation in a secular state for the pious end of pre-serving an unaltered Judaism.43

Analyzing the development of Mendelssohn's thought and therelationship between the Enlightenm ent an d his Jewish thinking lo-cates him squarely in a n historical context. Yet the connection betweenAufklarung and Haskalah is still inadequate. That relationship mustalso be understood in terms of a neglected aspect of eighteenth-century cultural and religious history that emerges from comp arison.Connecting the face of the enlightened philosopher with that of thebelieving Jew was the interface of what might be called the religiousEnlightenment.If one looks at the relationship of religion to the Enlightenmentfrom the side of the established religions, it is apparent that all ofthem had influential representatives who welcomed the new scienceand philosophy of the Enlightenment as a means to renew and rein-vigorate faith. This attempt to put the Enlightenment in the serviceof revealed religion was at the heart of the religious Enlightenment.As a movem ent it repre sente d a kind of golden mean . For Protestantsthis was usually so in two senses: at first as a middle way between anolder orthodoxy and a form of "enthusiasm" or inspirational faith,later between the secular enlightenment and belief. (Thus in Englandafter the Act of Toleration a mode rate Anglicanism used key notionsof the EnlightenmentLockean reasonableness, Newtonian science,ideas of natural religion and tolerationto provide a broadly Ar-minian alternative to rigid Calvinism on die one side and Inn er L ightenthusiasm on die odier. Subsequendy it served as a middle groundbetween Deism and unreconstructed orthodoxy.) For Catholics in


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Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment 131Central Europe and Italy it meant a middle ground between Baroquepiety, scholasticism and Jesuitism on th e one side and a highly charg edreform movem ent like Jansenism on the other, that enabled them torecover neglected aspects of their textual heritage as well as absorbingmodern science and philosophy. What these representatives of reli-gious enlightenment sought was a way to reconcile faith and reasonby enlisting substantial portions of Enlightenment thought.44To place Mendelssohn in this comparative framework, which re-lieves him of the onus of spurious singularity, we must return to thephilosopher Christian Wolff. In the 1740s Wolff's followers extendedhis philosophy in two directions: aesthetics and theology. It is in theextension of Wolfnanism to theology that we find the emergence ofa German Protestant version of the religious enlightenment. Enlight-enment science and philosophy entered the theological faculties ofthe German universities (Halle, Leipzig and Gottingen) throughWolff's philosophy, offering a breath of fresh air in the suffocatingquarrel between Lutheran scholasticism and Pietism.It was certainly auspicious that one of the first books Mendelssohnread in German was a treatise by the foremost theological Wolffianin Berl in . In his Considerations of the Augsburg Confession ( 1 73 3 ), J o h a n nGustav Reinbeck tried to chart a middle course between the ration-alist's exclusive reliance on reason and the orthodox believer's exclu-sive reliance on Scripture. He tried to show that reason coulddemonstrate the truths of natural religion and revelation confirmthem. Thus he proved the existence of God using the ontologicalargument and principle of sufficient reason in chapter one, while inchapter two he showed it from Scripture. Other truths were onlypartially susceptible to proof, "from the light of nature and of rea-son."46 He proved as much as reason allowed about God's attributes(e.g., God as spirit), then carried on with scriptural citation.47 For themysteries of creation, revelation was the primary source. Reason coulddemonstrate the possibility of creatio ex nihilo, but Scripture providedthe rest. For the mysteries of the Trinity, revelation was the exclusivesource, yet following Wolff, Reinbeck insisted that revelation con-tained nothing at variance with reason.This work had an obvious affinity to Mendelssohn's own. For ayoung man who had cut his philosophical teeth studying M aimonides,the early encounter with an eighteenth-century Christian effort toreconcile philosophy and belief had a lasting influence, which can beseen in number of ways.

In the second half of h is Considerations on the Augsburg Confession,for example, Reinbeck had offered a sustained vindication of philos-ophy's service to theology which the key argum ents of Mendelssohn'sLogical Terms would unmistakably parallel. Reinbeck argued that phi-


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132 David SoHanlosophy, as the "science of the possible," is an indispensable aid inachieving co rrect belief.48 It first teaches us to use reason to scrutinizethe tru ths of natu re. It then leads us to the truths of Scripture, helpin gus to understand the objects behind the words and thus enables usto formulate distinctions and categories.49 Physics and mathematicsare similarly essential to comprehending the central scriptural pas-sages that treat nature.

50Finally, philosophy helps us to fathom thatthe truths of nature and the truths of scripture are in absolute agree-ment.51 While emphasizing the utility of philosophy, Reinbeck set itclear limits (as Mendelssohn would). Since philosophy has distinctboundaries in regard to natural matters, a fortiori in divine ones. Phi-losophy not only presup poses, and throug h its investigations confirmsrevelatio n, but also accepts miracles and respects mysteries.5* Reinbeckma de the argu m ent com mon to the theological Wolffians that ultimatetheological issues were not contrary to reason (contra rationem) butbeyond i t (supra rationem). f

Mendelssohn can be seen as a Jewish coun terpar t to the theolog-ical Wolffians, extending the master's system and altering it (as hehad in aesthetics) to articulate and renew Judais m. T his is evident forexample, in his defence of Judaism. The theological Wolffians hadfaced one major problem. Wolffs method asked for certainty usingstrict mathematical criteria. Was ther e certainty in Scripture an d rev-elation that would enable them to use Enlightenment philosophy tore-articulate and defend the faith? They found an answer in history.Scripture provided an indisputable account of historical facts. The-ological Wolffians such as Siegmund Jacob B aum garten began to in-vestigate Scripture as an historical document, thereby altering themaster jus t as had their cou nterpa rts (including Siegmund's br othe r,Alexander Baumgarten) in aesthetics. Wolff had deprecated historyas mere fact without certainty. They now valorized it.53

In his und ersta ndin g of Judais m as a "divine legislation", forexample, Mendelssohn employed the same intellectual strategy. Heused the public revelation of law to the entire nation at M ount Sinaias distinguished from the mere miracles of a prophetas a sourceof certainty that grounds Jewish practice and belief. "Here I have amatter of history on which I can rely with certainty." 54 Mendelssohnaddressed the same problem and solved it in a similar way to theProtestants. (Mendelssohn's views became public only in his Jerusalemof 1783, yet he had form ulated them d urin g the Lavater controversyin 1769-70. His metaphysical outlook and his view of Judaism re-mained largely unchanged after the seminal decade of the 1760s).55

Further comparison confirms Mendelssohn's standing as thepreeminent Jewish representative of the religious Enlightenment. Inhis political thought, Mendelssohn argued that church and state


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Mendelssohn and Religious Enlightenment 133should be separated; that religion should be constituted as a freeassociation of teachers and auditors since it is not based on a contractand has no right of coercion over its members; and that for this veryreason the rabbis should renounce the ban. Mendelssohn made thisargument using the doctrine of "collegial theory," which reconcilednatu ral law with belief by seeing the chu rch as a voluntary associationof individuals who had an inalienable right to freedom of conscienceand toleration. Originated by Dutch collegians in the seventeenth-century, the theory was adopted by German Protestant theologicalenlightenment thinkers in the first half of the eighteenth century, byGerman Reform Catholics in the 1780s. "Collegial theory" had thegreat advantage of advocating toleration without relativizing faith.Mendelssohn was not alone, then, either in his arguments or in hismethod of making them. He spoke a language of faith and naturallaw common to the religious Enlightenment in Central Europe. 56Comparison also illuminates his relation to the textual tradition.Mendelssohn and the early maskilim attempted to revive medievalJewish philosophy as a reasonable means to interp ret th e Jewish tex-tual heritag e as well as to exhum e neglected aspects of that heritagethe Bible, philological and philosophical Biblical exegesis and Hebrewlangu age. R eform Catholics did much the same. Jus t as the maskilimconsidered Maimonides more reasonable than Talmudic casuistry andmystical speculation, so many Reform Catholics thought Aquinasmore reasonable than the "senile scholasticism" of Suarez. ReformCatholics at mid-century not only turned to the philosophy of Chris-tian Wolff but also returned to the medieval sources of Catholic phi-losophy. Reform Catholics also revived the study of neglected textsScripture, patristics and church history, under the slogan "to thesources" {adfontes). These endeavors distinguished Catholic and Jew-ish religious enlightenment thinkers from their Protestant counter-parts.This affinity of Jewish and Catholic enlightenment thinkers alsoapp ear ed in respect to vernacular translations of sacred texts. ReformCatholics and maskilim argued for use of the vernacular under theinfluence of the Enlig htenm ent which posited that true belief requ iredfull understanding. Mendelssohn translated and commented on theBible because he wanted it to be understood properly, the Germantranslation serving the Hebrew original. For much the same reason,Ignaz Felbiger, the premiere Reform Catholic pedagogue in CentralEurope, translated the Bible into German for schoolchildren (1767).58Finally, comparison casts Mendelssohn's two faces in a new light.The religious Enlightenment's most gifted and influential represen-tatives were active in both secular and religious pursu its. The Bishopof Gloucester, William Warburton, wrote works on theology and ec-


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134 David Sorkmclesiastical politics, bu t also edited Pope and Shak espear e;59 the ItalianLudovico Muratori wrote on church reform and devotion but wasalso a pioneer in the writing of Italian history.60 S. J. Baum garten,the theological Wolffian, wrote theology, hermeneutics and exegesis,but also had a considerable reputation as a secular historian.61 IfMendelssohn is compared to such figures, his "two faces" no longerseem singular. Rather, he appears as the preeminent Jewish repre-sentative of the religious Enlightenment, a status which explains hisability to pass through the various stages of the Enlightenment andHaskalah, and his use of novel means for conservative ends.One goal of studying individuals or group s m ainstream historianshave neg lected or ostrac ized, beyond its intrinsic validity, is to modifyou r pe rceptions of the larger society or cultur e. Jewish history pro -vides fertile ground for such an endeavor. Comparison enhances un-derstanding not only of Moses Mendelssohn but also of the religiousEnlighte nme nt. O n th e one side it emerges that he was not a singularfigure in Europe but one among many eminent thinkers of the reli-gious Enlightenment. On the other it emerges that the religious En-lightenm ent was not a Protestant, a Catholic, or even a Ch ristian, buta Europ ean phe nom eno n. If applied to Jewish history, the methodof com parison will yield many exam ples of this sort. Once arm ed withsufficient exam ples of this kind, Jewish h istorians will be able to breachthe "inner" perimeter, the assumption of singularity, and Jewish his-tory will, perhap s, finally be emancipated.

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

NOTESI would like to thank Dr. David Cesarani for inviting me to present anearlier version of this paper at the Wiener Library and Institute of Contem-

porary History, London, and Frances Malino for her dose reading of it.1. For recent accounts of the state of scholarship on modern Jewishhistory see Paula Hym an, "Th e Ideological Transform ation of Modern JewishHistoriograph y," in Shaye J. D. Cohen an d Edw ard L. Greenstein eds., Th eState of Jewish Studies (Detroit, 1990), pp. 143-57; and Jonadian Frankel,"Assimilation and the Jews in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Towards a NewHistoriography?" in J. F. Frankel and S. Zipperstein (eds.). Assimilation an dCommunity: The Jews m Nineteenth-Century Europe (Ca mb ridge, 1992) , pp . 137 . For the historiography of German Jewry see the three introduc tory articlesin Leo Batch InstituU Yearbook, Vol. 35 (1990): Michael A. Meyer, "RecentHistoriography on th e Jewish Religion in M odern Germ any," p p. 316; DavidSorkin, "Emancipation and AssimilationTwo Concepts and their Appli-cation to German-Jewish History," pp. 1733; and Moshe Zimmermann,


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Mend elssohn and Religiou s Enlightenment 135"Jewish History and Jewish Histo riograp hy A Challenge to Contem poraryGerman Historiography," pp. 3552. For an attempt at comparison see my"From Context to Comparison: The German Haskalah and Reform Cathol -icism," Tel Aviver Jakrbuch fur deutsche Geschichte, Vol . 20 (1991) , pp . 23-41.

2. Isaac Euchel, ToUdot Rabemu he-Hakham Moshe ben Menahem (Berlin,1788) p . 113.3. Meyer Kayserling, Moses Mendelssohn. Sem Leben un d seine Werke (Leip-

zig, 1862) , pp . 284, 484.4 . "Am Olam," in Ma'amarim, 3 vols . (Jerusalem, 1 92 5-5 6) , 1:41.Quoted in Isaac E. Barzilay, "Smolenskin's Polemic Against Mendelssohn in

Historical Perspective," Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research,Vol . 53 (1986) , pp . 11-14.5. "Die Bauleute," Klemere Schriften (Berlin, 1937), p. 110. Translationin Nahum N. Glatzer (ed.) , Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New York,1953) , p . 238.6. H einrich H eine , "Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophic in

Deutschland," in Heinrich Heine: Beitrdge zur deutschen Ideologie (Frankfurt,1971) , p . 65.7. S. L. Steinheim, Moses Mendelssohn un d seine Schule (Hamburg, 1840) ,

p. 37. Quoted in Michael A. Meyer, Response to Modernity: A History of theReform M ovement in Judaism (New York, 1988), p. 69.8. Alexander Altmann, "Moses Mendelssohn as the Archetypal G ermanJew," in Jeh uda Reinharz and W alter Schatzberg (eds.) , The Jewish Responseto German Culture (Hanover, 1985) , pp . 17- 31 esp . pp . 17 -1 8.9. For this view of the Haskalah, see David Sorkin, "From Context to

Comparison: The German Haskalah and Reform Cathol ic i sm," pp. 2341.10. For the Wulffian press see Menahem Schmelzer, "Hebrew Printing

and Publ ish ing in Germany, 1650-1750," Le o Baeck Institute Yearbook, Vol . 33(1988), pp. 371-2; and Moritz Steinschneider, "Hebraische Drucke inDeutschland," Zeitsehrift fur die GeschichU derjuden in Deutschland (1892) , p .168. For Franckel see Max Freudenthal, "R. David Franckel," in M. Brannand F. Rosenthal (eds.) , Gedenkbuch zur Ermnerung an David Kaufmann (Bres-lau, 1900) , pp . 575-589. For Mendelssohn's ch i ldhood see Alexander Alt -mann, "Moses Mendelssohns Kindheit in Dessau," Bulletin des Leo BaeckInstituts 40 (1967) , pp . 237-275. For the Berl in period see Alexander Altmann,Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (Phi ladelphia, 1973) , pp . 15-25.

11. Lewis White Beck, Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors(Cambridge, Mass . 1969) , pp . 276-296.12 . For an overvie w of the late En lighte nm ent ("Srjfitaufklilrung") seeJames J . S h eeh an , German History, 1770-1866 (Oxford, 1989) , pp . 14 4-2 06 ,

and Richard van Dfllmen, Die Gesellschaft de r Aufkldrer. Zu r bQrgerUchen Eman-zipation und aufklarerischen Kultur in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1986). I am in-debted to Shmuel Feiner (Bar-Ilan University) for suggesting the point thatMendelssohn was the only mashl to pass throug h the Haskalah's various stages.

13 . Al t man n , Moses Mendelssohn, p p . 7 4 - 7 7 .14 . Ibid., pp. 653f; and James Schmidt , "The Quest ion of Enl ightenment:Kant, Mendelssohn and the Mitwochgesellschaft,"yournai of the History of Ideas50 ( 1989) , Vol . 2 , p p . 269- 291 .


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136 David SoHan15 . On the development of the Haskalah, see Sorkin, "From Context toComparison," pp . 2741.16 . Moses Mendelssohn, GesammelteSchriften.Jubilaumsausgabe, ed. F. Bam-berger et. al. 22 vols. (Stuttgart, 1 97 1- ) (hereafter JubA), Vol. 2, p. 317.17 . Beck, Early G erman Philosophy, p p . 3 2 6 - 7 .18 . "Gedanken" (Aus der Wochenschrift Der ChamcUeon) JubA, Vol. 2,

p. 121.19 . "Abhandlung fiber die Evidenz in Metaphysischen Wissenschaften,"

JubA, V ol . 2 , pp . 271 ,329 .20. "Philosophische Gespra che ,"/uM , Vol . 1: pp 2 4- 25 .21 . Ibid., p. 22.2 2. "Uber die Empfindungen," JubA, Vol. 1, p. 43; cf. Vol. 1, p. 62, Fora similar passage in the "Philosophische GesprSche" see JubA, Vol. 1, pp.1 3 - 1 4 .2 3. "Ph adon ",/uM Vol . 3 , pp. 16 and 128.24."Abhandlung uber die Evidenz," JubA, Vol. 2: p. 322.25. "Sokrates Gesprflch mit dem Euthydemus uber die Gottesfurcht und

Gerechtigkeit," (Aus der Wochenschrift Der Chamdleon) JubA, Vol. 2 , pp. 144-45 .26 . "Abhandlung Qber die Evidenz," JubA, VoL 2: p.317. cf. Vol. 2, pp.

3 2 1 - 2 2 .27 . Wolfgang Martens, Die Botschaft der Tugend (Stuttgart, 1968).28. For an excellent discussion of this work see Meir Gilon, Kohelet Musar

le-Mendelssohn al Reka Tekufato (Jerusalem, 1979).29. I have used the critical edition in Gilon. See "Sha'ar Daled," pp. 171

72 .30. On Maimonides' treatise see Israel Efros, "Maimonides' Treatise onLogic" Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research (193738), pp.365; and Raym ond L. Weiss, "On the Scope of Maimon ides' Logic, Or, WhatJosep h K new," in Ruth L ink-Salinger (ed.), A Straight Path: Studies in M edievalPhilosophy and Culture. Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman (Washington, D.C.,

1988) , pp . 25565. I am indebted to my colleague Daniel Frank for bringingthese sources to my attention.31. "Biur Milot ha-Higayon," JubA, Vol. 14, pp. 28 -2 9.32 . Ibid., pp. 28, 52 .33. Ibid., p. 29.34 . Ibid., p. 28.35 . Ibid., p. 48.36 . Ibid., pp. 49, 51 .37 . Ibid., p. 30.38 . See, for example, "Das erste Register, Darinnen einige KunstwOrterLatcinisch gegeben werden," in Vernunftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt undder Stele des Menschen (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1729), pp. 672-678. On Wolffsrole in the creation of a German philosophical language see E. A. Blackall,The Emergence of German as a Literary Language, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, 1978), pp.26-48.39 . JubA, Vol. 14, p. 80.40 . Ibid., pp. 84, 94, 117.


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Mendelssohn and Religions Enlightenment 1374 1 . Ibid., p. 99.42 . For the Bhtr vis-a-vis the masoretic text and rabbinic interpretation

see the recent excellent study, Edward Breuer, "In Defense of Rabbinic Tra-dition: The Masoretic Text and its Rabbinic Interpretation in the Early Has-kalah," (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1990). For Mendelssohn's use ofgeneral knowledge see Peretz Sandier, Ha-Bhir le-Torah shel Moshe Mendelssohnve-Siato (Jerusalem, 1940).

43 . JubA, Vol. 8, pp. 99-142. On the Jerusalem, see Altmann,Die TrostvolleAufkldrung: Studien zur Metaphysik und polituchen Theorie Moses Mendelssofms(Stuttgart, 1982), pp. 164-213.

44 . For a brief account of the religious Enlightenment, see Sorkin, "FromContext to Comparison."

45 . Betrachtungen uber die in der Augsburgischen Confession enlhallene und damiiverknUpfU Gdttliche Wahrheiten, 2 vols. (Berlin & Leipzig, 1733), Vol. 1, pp.xxi . On Reinbeck see D. A. Tholuck, Geschichte de s Rationalismus: Geschichte de sPietismus und des ersten Stadiums der Aufkldrung (Berlin, 1865), pp. 14243.That Reinbeck's work was one of the first Mendelssohn read in German, seeAltmann, Moses Mendelssohn, pp. 2526.

46. Betrachtungen, Vol. 1, p. 9.47. Ibid., Vol. l.pp. 115-93.48 . Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 6.49 . Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. xl-xliii.50. Ibid,. Vol. 2, pp. xliii-xlv.51 . Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. viii-ix, and xxxii.52. Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. xviii, and xxxvxxxvii.53. See, for example, his biblical hermeneutic (first edition 1742)Unterricht

von Auslegung der heiligen Schrift, 3rd ed. (Halle, 1759). On Baumgarten andhis turn to history see Martin Schloemann, SiegmundJacob Baumgarten: Systemu. Geschichte in der Theologie des Ubergangs zu m Neuprotestantismus Forschungenzur Kirchenund Dogmengeschichte. vol. 26, (Gdttingen, 1974). Also WalterSparn, "Auf dem Wege zur theologischen Aufklarung in Halle: von JohannFranz Budde zu Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten," WolfenbHUeler Studien zurAufkldrung, Vol. 15 (1989), pp. 71-89.

54. "Gegenbetrachtungen" JubA, Vol. 7, pp. 87-88; cf. JubA, Vol. 8, pp.157-64.

55. Bamberger stresses this point in his introduction to the metaphysicalworks. See JubA, Vol. 1, p. xxvi.

56 . For a brief comparison of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish uses ofcollegia] theory, see David Sorkin, "Jews, the Enlightenment and ReligiousToleration: Some Reflections," Le o Baech Institute Yearbook, Vol. 37 (1992), pp.1115. The standard work on Protestant collegial theory, with some referenceto Catholics, is Klaus Schlaich, Kollegial-theorie: Kxrche, Recht und Stoat in derAufl&rung (Munich, 1969). For Mendelssohn see Alexander Altmann, "MosesMendelssohn on Excommunication: The Ecclesiastical Law Background," inDie Trostvolle Aufkldrung (Stuttgart, 1982), pp. 229-243.

57. On the renewal of scholasticism see Karl Werner, Geschichte der kath-olischen Theologie. Sett dem Trienter Condi bis zur Gegenxvart (Munich, 1866), pp.179f. On the revival of neglected sources see Josef M uller, "Zu den theolo-


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138 David Sorkmgiegeschichtlichen Grundlagen der Studienreform Rautenstrauches," Tub-mger Theologische Quartalschrift 146 (1966), pp. 62-97.58 . For contemporary discussions see, for example, Beda Mayr, Prufungder bejahenden Grunde welche die Gottesgelehrten anfOhren; Ober die Frage: Soil mansich in der abendlandischen Sprache bedienen (Frankfur t u . Leipzig , 1777); andBen ed ik t Werk m ei s t e r , Beitrdge zur Verbessenmg der kathoUschen Liturgie inDeutschland (Ulm. 1789). For an overview at these issues see Sebastian Merkle,"Die katholische B eurteilung des Aufklarungszeitalters," in Ausgewdhlte Redenu. Aufsdtze (Wurzburg, 1965), pp. 380-9 2; Eduard Hegel, Die Katholische KircheDeutschlands unter dem Einfluss der Aufklarung des 18. Jahrkunderts (Rhein isch-westfalische Akad emie d er W issenschaften Vortrage, 1975, pp . 17-21; Leon-ard Swidler, Aufld&rung Catholicism, 1780-1850: Liturgical an d other Reforms inthe Catholic AufldSrung (Missoula, 1978).

59 . A. W. Evans, WarburUm an d the Warburtonians (London, 1932).60 . Franc o Ven turi, "History and Reform in the Middle of the Eigh teenthCentury," in J. H. Elliott & H. G. K oenigsberger (eds.), The Diversity of History:Essays in Honor of Sir Herbert Butterfield (London, 1970) .

6 1 . S c h l o e m a n n , Baumgarten: System u. Ge schichte, pp. 97213.

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Moses mendelssohn and the religious enlightenment