Volume II Part 10 (1/2)
For the rest, the author fights shy of the difficult problems of religious philosophy, and is always on the lookout for compromises. Even with reference to the Cabala, with which Levinsohn has but little sympathy, he says timidly: ”It is not for us to judge these lofty matters” (Chapter 135). Fear of the orthodox environment compels him to observe almost complete silence with reference to Hasidism, although, in his private correspondence and in his anonymous writings he denounces it severely. Levinsohn concludes his historic review of Judaism with a eulogy upon the Russian Government for its kindness toward the Jews (Ch.
151) and with the following plan of reform suggested to it for execution (Ch. 146):
To open elementary schools for the teaching of Hebrew and the tenets of the Jewish religion as well as of Russian and arithmetic, and to establish inst.i.tutions of higher rabbinical learning in the larger cities; to Inst.i.tute the office of Chief Rabbi, with a supreme council under him, which should be in charge of Jewish spiritual and communal affairs in Russia; to allot to a third of the Russian-Jewish population parcels of land for agricultural purposes; to prohibit luxury in dress and furniture in which even the impecunious cla.s.ses are p.r.o.ne to indulge.
Levinsohn was not satisfied to propagate his ideas by purely literary means. He antic.i.p.ated meagre results from a literary propaganda among the broad Jewish ma.s.ses, in which the mere reading of such ”licentious”
books was considered a criminal offence. He had greater faith in his ability to carry out the regeneration of Jewish life with the powerful help of the Government. As a matter of fact, Levinsohn had long before this begun to knock at the doors of the Russian Government offices. Far back in 1823 he had presented to the heir-apparent Constantine Pavlovich [1] a memorandum concerning Jewish sects and a project looking to the establishment of a system of Jewish schools and seminaries.
Moreover, before publis.h.i.+ng his first work _Te'udah_, he had submitted the ma.n.u.script to s.h.i.+shkov, the reactionary Minister of Public Instruction, applying for a Government subsidy towards the publication of a work which demonstrates the usefulness of enlightenment and agriculture, ”instills love for the Tzar as well as for the people with which we share our life, and recounts the innumerable favors which they have bestowed upon us.”
[Footnote 1: Being the eldest brother of Alexander I., Constantine was the legitimate heir to the Russian throne. He resigned in favor of his younger brother Nicholas. See above, p. 13, n. 2.]
These words were penned on December 2, 1827, three months after the promulgation of the baneful conscription ukase ordering the compulsory enlistment of under-aged cantonists! The request was complied with. A year later the humble Volhynian litterateur received by imperial command an ”award” of 1000 rubles ($500) ”for a work having for its object the moral transformation of the Jews.” This ”award” came when the volume had already appeared in print, in the terrible year 1828 which was marked by the first conscription of Jewish recruits, the ominous turn in the ritual murder trial of Velizh and the constant tightening of the knot of disabilities.
But these events failed to cure the political _naivete_ of Levinsohn. In 1831 he laid before Lieven, the new Minister of Public Instruction, a memorandum advocating the necessity of modifications in Jewish religious life. Again in 1833 he came forward with the dangerous proposal to close all Jewish printing-presses, except those situated in towns in which there was a censors.h.i.+p. The project was accompanied by a ”list of ancient and modern Hebrew books, indicating those that may be considered useful and those that are harmful”--the hasidic works were declared to belong to the latter category. Levinsohn's project was partly instrumental in prompting the grievous law of 1836, which raised a cry of despair in the Pale of Settlement, ordering a revision of the entire Hebrew literature by Russian censors. [1]
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 42 et seq.]
Levinsohn's action would have been ign.o.ble had it not been naive. The recluse of Kremenetz, pa.s.sionately devoted to his people but wanting in political foresight, was calling Russian officialdom to aid in his fight against the bigotry of the Jewish ma.s.ses, in the childish conviction that the Russian authorities had the welfare of the Jews truly at heart, and that compulsory measures would do away with the hostility of the Jewish populace toward enlightenment. He failed to perceive, as did also some of his like-minded contemporaries, that the culture which the Russian Government of his time was trying to foist upon the Jews was only apt to accentuate their distrust, that, so long as they were the target of persecution, the Jews could not possibly accept the gift of enlightenment from the hands of those who lured them to the baptismal font, pushed their children on the path of religious treason, and were ruthless in breaking and disfiguring their whole mode of life.
In his literary works Levinsohn was fond of emphasizing his relations with high Government officials. This probably saved him from a great deal of unpleasantness on the part of the fanatic Hasidim, but it also had the effect of increasing his unpopularity among the orthodox. The only merit the latter were willing to concede to Levinsohn was that of an apologist who defended Judaism against the attacks of non-Jews. During the epidemic of ritual murder trials, the rabbis of Lithuania and Volhynia addressed a request to Levinsohn to write a book against this horrid libel. At their suggestion he published his work _Efes Damim_, ”No Blood!” (Vilna, 1837), [1] in the form of a dialogue between a Jewish sage and a Greek-Orthodox patriarch in Jerusalem.
[Footnote 1: With a clever allusion to the geographic name Ephes-dammim, I Sam. 17. 1.]
Somewhat later Levinsohn wrote other apologetic treatises, defending the Talmud against the attacks contained in the book _Netibot 'Olam_ [1]
published in 1839 by the London missionary M'Caul. Levinsohn's great apologetic work _Zerubbabel_, which appeared several years after his death, was equally dedicated to the defence of the Talmud. It has, moreover, considerable scientific merit, being one of the first research works in the domain of talmudic theology. A number of other publications by Levinsohn deal with Hebrew philology and lexicography. All these efforts support Levinsohn's claim to the t.i.tle of Founder of a modern Jewish Science in Russia, though his scholarly achievements cannot be cla.s.sed with those of his German and Galician fellow-writers, such as Rapoport, Zunz, Jost and Geiger.
[Footnote 1: ”Old Paths,” with reference to Jer. 6. 16.]
Levinsohn stood entirely aloof from the propaganda of bureaucratic enlightenment which was carried on by Lilienthal in the name of Uvarov.
The Volhynian hermit was completely overshadowed by the energetic young German. Even when Lilienthal, after realizing that a union between Jewish culture and Russian officialdom was altogether unnatural, had disappeared from the stage, Levinsohn still persisted in cultivating his relations with the Government. But by that time the bureaucrats of St.
Petersburg had no more use for the Jewish friends of enlightenment.
Broken in health, chained to his bed for half a lifetime, without means of subsistence, lonely amidst a hostile orthodox environment, Levinsohn time and again addressed to St. Petersburg humiliating appeals for monetary a.s.sistance, occasionally receiving small pittances, which were booked under the heading ”Relief in Distress,” accepted subventions from various Jewish Maecenases, and remained a pauper till the end of his life. The pioneer of modern culture among Russian Jews, the founder of Neo-Hebraic literature, spent his life in the midst of a realm of darkness, shunned like an outcast, appreciated by a mere handful of sympathizers. It was only after his death that he was crowned with laurels, when the intellectuals of Russian Jewry were beginning to press forward in close formation.
4. THE RISE OF NEO-HEBRAIC CULTURE
The Volhynian soil proved unfavorable for the seeds of enlightenment.
The Haskalah pioneers were looked upon as dangerous enemies in this hot-bed of Tzaddikism. They were held in disgrace and were often the victims of cruel persecutions, from which some saved themselves by conversion. A more favorable soil for cultural endeavors was found in the extreme south of the Pale of Settlement as well as in its northern section: Odessa, the youthful capital of New Russia, and Vilna, the old capital of Lithuania, both became centers of the Haskalah movement.
As far as Odessa was concerned, the seeds of enlightenment had been carried hither from neighboring Galicia by the Jews of Brody, who formed a wealthy merchant colony in that city. As early as 1826 Odessa saw the opening of the first Jewish school for secular education, which was managed at first by Sittenfeld and later on by the well-known public worker Bezalel Stern. Among the teachers of the new school was Simha Pinsker, who subsequently became the historian of Karaism. This school, the only educational establishment of its kind during that period, served in Odessa as a center for the ”Friends of Enlightenment.” Being a new city, unfettered by traditions, and at the same time a large sea-port, with a checkered international population, Odessa outran other Jewish centers in the process of modernization, though it must be confessed that it never went beyond the externalities of civilization.
As far as the period under discussion is concerned, the Jewish center of the South can claim no share in the production of new Jewish values.
While yielding to Odessa in point of external civilization, Vilna surpa.s.sed the capital of the South by her store of mental energy. The circle of the Vilna Maskilim, which came into being during the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, gave rise to the two founders of the Neo-Hebraic literary style: the prose writer Mordecai Aaron Ginzburg (1796-1846) and the poet Abraham Baer Lebensohn (1794-1878).
Ginzburg, born in the townlet Salant, in the Zhmud region, [1] lived for some time in Courland, and finally settled in Vilna. He managed to familiarize himself with German literature, and was so fascinated by it that he started his literary career by translating and adapting German works into Hebrew. His translation of Campe's ”Discovery of America” and Politz' Universal History, as well as his own history of the Franco-Russian War of 1812, compiled from various sources, were, as far as Russia is concerned, the first specimens of secular literature in pure Hebrew, which boldly claimed their place side by side with rabbinic and hasidic writings. In that juvenile stage of the Hebrew renaissance, when the mere treatment of language and style was considered an achievement, even the appearance of such elementary books was hailed as epoch-making.
[Footnote 1: Zhmud, or Samogitia, is part of the present government of Kovno. Compare Vol. I, p. 293, n. 1.]
The profoundest influence on the formation of the Neo-Hebraic style must be ascribed to two other works by the same author, _Kiriai Sefer_, [1]