The Haskalah Movement in Russia. Jacob S. Raisin
a demand in certain places for a Russian translation of the Hebrew Book of Common Prayer, and in 1635 Rabbi Meïr Ashkenazi, who came from Frankfort-on-the-Main to study in Lublin, and was retained as rabbi in Mohilev-on-the-Dnieper, had cause to exclaim, "Would to God that our coreligionists all spoke the same language—German."19 Even Maimon, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, mentions one, by no means an exception, who did not "understand the Jewish language, and made use, therefore, of the Russian."20 But by the middle of the seventeenth century the amalgamation was almost complete. It resulted in a product entirely new. As the invasion of England by the Normans produced the Anglo-Saxon, so the inundation of Russia by the Germans produced the Slav-Teuton. This is the clue to the study of the Haskalah, as will appear from what follows.
Russo-Poland gradually became the cynosure of the Talmudic world, the "Aksanye shel Torah," the asylum of the Law, whence "enlargement and deliverance" arose for the traditions which the Jews carried with them, through fire and water, during the dreary centuries of their dispersion. It became to Jews what Athens was to ancient Greece, Rome to medieval Christendom, New England to our early colonies. With the invention and importation of the printing-press, the publication and acquisition of the Bible, the Talmud, and most of the important rabbinic works were facilitated. As a consequence, yeshibot, or colleges, for the study of Jewish literature, were founded in almost every community. Their fame reached distant lands. It became a popular saying that "from Kiev shall go forth the Law, and the word of God from Starodub." Horodno, the vulgar pronunciation of Grodno, was construed to mean Har Adonaï, "the Mount of the Lord." A pious rabbi did not hesitate to write to a colleague, "Be it known to the high honor of your glory that it is preferable by far to dwell in the land of the Russ and promote the study of the Torah in Israel than in the land of Israel."21 Especially the part of Poland ultimately swallowed up by Russia was the new Palestine of the Diaspora. Thither flocked all desirous of becoming adepts in the dialectics of the rabbis, "of learning how to swim in the sea of the Talmud." It was there that the voluminous works of Hebrew literature were studied, literally "by day and by night," and the subtleties of the Talmudists were developed to a degree unprecedented in Jewish history. Thither was sent, from the distant Netherlands, the youngest son of Manasseh ben Israel, and he "became mighty in the Talmud and master of four languages." Thither came, from Prague, the afterwards famous Cabbalist, author, and rabbi, Isaiah Horowitz (ab. 1555–1630), and there he chose to remain the rest of his days. Thither also went, from Frankfort, the above-mentioned Meïr Ashkenazi, who, according to some, was the first author of note in White Russia.
From everywhere they came "to pour water on the hands and sit at the feet" of the great ones of the second Palestine.22
For Jewish solidarity was more than a word in those days. "Sefardim" had not yet learned to boast of aristocratic lineage, nor "Ashkenazim" to look down contemptuously upon their Slavonic coreligionists. It was before the removal of civil disabilities from one portion of the Jewish people had sowed the seed of arrogance toward the other less favored portion. Honor was accorded to whom it was due, regardless of the locality in which he happened to have been born. Glückel von Hameln states in her Memoirs that preference was sometimes given to the decisions of the "great ones of Poland," and mentions with pride that her brother Shmuel married the daughter of the great Reb Shulem of Lemberg.23 With open arms, Amsterdam, Frankfort, Fürth, Konigsberg, Metz, Prague, and other communities renowned for wealth and learning, welcomed the acute Talmudists of Brest, Grodno, Kovno, Lublin, Minsk, and Vilna, whenever they were willing or compelled to consider a call. The practice of summoning Russo-Polish rabbis to German posts was carried so far that it aroused the displeasure of the Western scholars, and they complained of being slighted.24
The reverence for Slavonic learning was strikingly illustrated during the years following the Cossack massacres, when many Russo-Polish rabbis fled for safety to foreign lands. Frankfort, Fürth, Prague, and Vienna successively elected the fugitive Shabbataï Horowitz of Ostrog as their religious guide. David Taz of Vladimir became rabbi of Steinitz in Moravia; Ephraim Hakohen was called to Trebitsch in Moravia and to Ofen in Hungary; David of Lyda, to Mayence and Amsterdam, and Naphtali Kohen, to Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1704, and later to Breslau. No less personages than Isaac Aboab and Saul Morteira welcomed the merchant-Talmudist Moses Rivkes of Vilna when he sought refuge in Amsterdam, and they entrusted to him the task of editing the Shulhan 'Aruk, his marginal notes to which, the Beër ha-Golah, have ever since been printed with the text. In addition to rabbis, Lithuania and other provinces furnished teachers for the young, melammedim, who exerted considerable influence upon the people among whom they lived. Their opinions, we are told, were highly valued in the choice of rabbis.25
It must not be supposed that supremacy in the Talmud was secured at the cost of secular knowledge, or what was then regarded as such. Their familiarity with other branches of study was not inferior to that of the Jews in better-known lands. Not a few of the prominent men united piety with philosophy, and thorough knowledge of the Talmud with mastery of one or more of the sciences of the time. Data on this phase of the subject might have been much more abundant, had not the storm of persecution suddenly swept over the communities, destroying them and their records. What we still possess indicates what may have been lost. The Ukraine was famous for its scholars. Among them was Jehiel Michael of Nemirov, reputed to have been "versed in all the sciences of the world."26 Several of them were poets and grammarians. Poems of a liturgical character are still extant in which they bemoan their plight or assert their faith hopefully. Such were the poems of Ephraim of Khelm, Joseph of Kobrin, Solomon of Zamoscz, and Shabbataï Kohen. The last, eminent as a Talmudist, the author of commentaries on the Shulhan 'Aruk approved by the leading rabbis of his generation, is also known as a very trustworthy historian. His Megillah 'Afah, written in classic Hebrew, is a valuable source of information on the critical period in which he lived. He won the esteem of the Polish nobility by his secular attainments. To judge from his correspondence, he must have been on intimate terms with Vidrich of Leipsic.27 Of the grammarians, Jacob Zaslaver wrote on the Massorah, and Shabbataï Sofer was the author of annotations and treatises.28 Our taste in poetry and grammar is no longer the same, but the polemic and apologetic writings of those days, called forth by the discussions between Rabbanites and Karaites and by the constant attacks of Christianity, are still of uncommon interest. Specimens of the former kind are the polemics of Moses of Shavli, which caused consternation in the camp of the Karaites. Of the apologetic writings should be mentioned the reply, in Polish, of Jacob Nahman of Belzyc to Martin Chekhovic (Lublin, 1581), and the Hizzuk Emunah of the Karaite Isaac ben Abraham of Troki. In the latter the weakness of Christianity and the strength of Judaism are pointed out with trenchancy never before reached. The work stirred up heated discussions among the various Christian sects, with the tenets of which the author was intimately acquainted. It was translated into Latin (1681, 1705), Yiddish (1717), English (1851), and German (1865, 1873). Voltaire says that all the arguments used by free-thinkers against Christianity were drawn from it.29
In philosophy, mathematics, and medicine, the three main branches of medieval knowledge, many Slavonian Jews attained eminence. Devout Karaites as well as diligent Talmudists found secular learning a diversion and a delight. For the lovers of enlightenment Italy, especially Padua, was the centre of attraction, as France and Spain had been before, and Germany, particularly Berlin, became afterwards.30 Towards the middle of the sixteenth century we find young Delacrut at the University of Bologna, the philosopher and Cabbalist, known for his commentaries to Gikatilla's Sha'are Orah (Cracow, 1600) and Ben Avigdor's Mar'eh ha-Ofanim (1720), and his translation of Gossuin's L'image du monde (Amsterdam, 1733). His famous disciple Mordecai Jaffe (Lebushim) spent ten years in the study of astronomy and mathematics before he occupied the rabbinate of Grodno (1572)31 At the request of Yom-Tob Lipman Heller, Joseph ben Isaac Levi wrote a commentary on Maimuni's Moreh Nebukim, which was published with the former's annotations, Gibe'at ha-Moreh (Prague, 1611). Deservedly or not, Eliezer Mann was called "the Hebrew Socrates"; and many a Maskil in his study of mathematics turned for guidance to Manoah Handel of Brzeszticzka, Volhynia, author and translator of several scientific works, who rendered seven Euclidean propositions into Hebrew.32
Polyglots they were compelled to be by force of circumstances. When