Difference of a Different Kind. Iris Idelson-Shein
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Название: Difference of a Different Kind
Автор: Iris Idelson-Shein
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Культурология
Серия: Jewish Culture and Contexts
isbn: 9780812209709
isbn:
The question of ceremonial law is one of the core questions with which Enlightenment and particularly maskilic thought was burdened. Whereas most thinkers would have agreed that the existence of God is a universally recognized fact that can be easily deduced by use of natural reason, the reasonability of the dictates of religion was a much more complex and demanding issue. Some writers shared Mendelssohn’s view that there is reason to the commandments. Thus, for instance, Isaac Satanov wrote that while the motivation behind each and every commandment is not always immediately accessible to the mind, still the commandments are never truly contrary to reason. More radical in his commitment to the rationality of religion was Mordecai Gumpel Schnaber Levison, who claimed that the tendency to refrain from a rationalistic discussion of religious commandments leads inadvertently to epicureanism.27 But other writers were less convinced. German pedagogue Joachim Heinrich Campe, whose works were extremely popular amongst the maskilim, offers a valuable example. In his 1791 rendition of story of the English “discovery” of Palau, Campe stressed that “there exists a theology of the heart [which is] independent of external expressions, and is the only one worthy of its holy name.”28 Campe’s book was translated by the Polish maskil Menachem Mendel Lefin in 1818; however, Lefin chose to omit Campe’s somewhat subversive observations on Palauan religion, which bordered on deism, and made no mention of Campe’s “theology of the heart.”29 And yet, no few maskilim would have agreed with Campe’s observations. Amongst these were deists such as Salomon Maimon or Ephraim Kuh, who dismissed the importance of practical religion completely.30 Others exhibited a more ambivalent approach. Tang, for instance claimed that real religious practice is achieved not through the observance of ceremonial law but through the adherence to universal morals and thought.31
A particularly instructive example of the attempt to grapple with the reasonability of the commandments is offered by the Copenhagen-born maskil Isaac Euchel, one of the central figures of the late eighteenth-century Haskalah. In a series of fictional letters published in Ha-measef in 1789–1790, Euchel introduced his readers to the image of a Jewish Syrian traveler in Europe by the name of Meshulam ben Uriah ha-Ashtemoy [משולם בן אוריה האשתמועי]. In similar vein to Horowitz before him, Euchel utilized his naïve observer as a means to scrutinize the shortcomings of European society, such as intolerance, greed, and the marginalization of women. And yet, once again like Horowitz’s Ira, Euchel’s exotic traveler was first and foremost preoccupied with questions concerning religion. In his letters, Meshulam took a stand against religious intolerance, Jewish separatism, and the rabbinical neglect of secular knowledge. Meshulam’s observations on these matters were often subversive, at times bordering on the radical. His observations on the Marannos of Madrid offer an interesting case in point. Most of them, writes Meshulam, “do not keep the commandments at all, claiming that their sole purpose is to tie the knot of the people of Israel in Diaspora, but when they are between enemies and at a great risk, a theology of the heart should suffice—indeed, it is the essence of religion. I do not know if these things are true, because to the best of my knowledge the success of every Jewish individual has to do with the keeping of the commandments alone, and if it is possible to be whole and happy without keeping the commandments, why the Greek Socrates and the Indian Zarathustra would be as happy and as complete as any one of the people of Israel.” “Let me know my brother,” Meshulam addressed the ever absent recipient of his letters, “let me know your thoughts on this matter, because your faith is pure and whole, and your wisdom great and deep.”32
Like Horowitz before him, then, Euchel utilized the image of the exotic critic in order to raise some extremely radical questions concerning Jewish faith. But whereas Horowitz presented these questions within the framework of a three-way dialogue, in which each and every one of the savage’s inquiries was met by a conclusive answer provided by one of the two Jewish sages, Euchel provided his readers solely with Meshulam’s epistles, and the naïve observer’s skepticism remained in effect unanswered. In this manner, Euchel’s traveler seems to serve precisely the opposite purpose of Horowitz’s savage. While Ira’s questions conveyed a methodical skepticism, which would subsequently serve as a platform for the fortification of Jewish tradition with the building blocks of science and reason, Meshulam’s reflections appear to have manifested Euchel’s genuine ambivalence toward some of the essential principles of the Jewish faith of his time.33
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