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4. The Tasks of Education
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4 The Tasks of Education E sriel Hildesheimer's approach to education cannot be understood apart from the concept of Bildung, a notion that dominated the world of nineteenth -century German culture and pedagogy. As George L. Mosse has observed, "The word Bildung combines the meaning carried by the English word 'education' with notions of character formation and moral education." It suggested the accomplishments of the privileged and the aspirations of the middle class with a lofty philosophical view of human potential. Bildung was thus a natural outgrowth of the Enlightenment, with its stress on the individual and reason, as well as romanticism. Its function was "to lead the individual from superstition to enlightenment."l Hildesheimer's commitment to this ideal is evidenced in his choice of citation for the frontispiece of the first annual report issued for his Eisenstadt yeshiva. The frontispiece featured an aphorism of Johann von Herder: "Places of learning are the spiritual guardians of the land."2 Herder was one of the greatest proponents of Bildung ideology and believed, as Mosse has described it, "Man must grow like a plant ... toward the unfolding of his personality until he becomes an harmonious, autonomous individual exemplifying both the continuing quest for knowledge and the moral imperative."3 For "modern Jews" seeking to integrate Jewish tradition into the larger German culture, Bildung provided a rationale and context for their acculturation: [Herder] had already envisioned the concept of Bildung as a means of overcoming the inequality between men. He wanted to level the dif115 ferences between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy by confronting the nobility with an ideal which would deflate its pretensions. The instrument used to abolish the inequality between bourgeois and aristocrat might also work to transcend the differences between the Jewish and the German middle classes. The centrality of the ideal of Bildung in German-Jewish consciousness must be understood from the very beginning ... [as] fundamental to the search for a new Jewish identity after emancipation.4 Hildesheimer exemplified this post-Emancipation German-Jewish consciousness. In his own upbringing and schooling and in the philosophy of education that guided his decisions about how to train others to serve the Jewish community, Hildesheimer exhibited a twin commitment to the "quest for knowledge" and the "moral imperative ." In other words, he not only reflected a commitment to the preservation of Jewish tradition, he perpetuated the ideal of Bildung as well. Simultaneously, his rabbinic leadership and his educational institutions provided pragmatic means toward achieving this distinctive synthesis of Judaism with the modem world. Hildesheimer devoted his life's work to the survival of Orthodox Judaism in the modem world. To his way of thinking, survival was dependent on the forging of educational policies and the establishment of Jewish educational institutions which would suit the changed character of the nineteenth-century central European Jewish world.s Hildesheimer felt that the need for secular studies, in addition to traditional Jewish knowledge, grew daily. If Orthodox Jews wanted to persist and flourish, they had to create educational institutions that would reflect this contemporary need.6 While still in Hungary , Hildesheimer commented that "the only possibility for a future directed against absolute destruction and the deadening paralysis of indifference" lay in the building of a rabbinical seminary, as well as elementary and high schools, where a modernist educational policy of Torah im Derekh Eretz would be implemented.7 In Hildesheimer's words, such institutions "were the one bulwark offered against the spread of ignorance in relation to Torah and its commandments !in the present as well as in the future]."8 Several years later, when he had moved to Berlin, he again wrote that the "one remedy" for the situation confronting contemporary Orthodox Jewry was "to educate our children in accordance with the philosophy of Torah im Derekh Eretz."9 The tasks of education constituted the core of Hildesheimer's activities and interests throughout his lifetime. The building of educa116 The Tasks of Education [3.238.57.9] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:36 GMT) tional institutions, the creation of appropriate curricula for these institutions, the administration and teaching required to run them, the engagement in academic research, and the forging of an educational philosophy all stand as specific areas to which he devoted his energies. Indeed, Hildesheimer's fame and the major part of his legacy to the Jewish world rest upon his achievements in each of these spheres of education. The roots of Hildesheimer's attitudes toward the relationship between Jewish...