(Re)creating Traditions of Language and Texts: The Haskalah and Cultural Continuity

The past, as we know, was hardly the discovery of modern historical sensibilities. Among the variegated literatures of the Jews, from the Bible to the chronicles of early modern Europe, there was a notable regard for the experiences of earlier generations as a crucible of meaning and knowledge. This backwards gaze provided a source of authority and self-justification, and as such, embodied a particularly vital pedagogic quality not unlike the pervasive exegetical character of Jewish literary traditions. Invocations of the past, like the invocations of a text, were as natural as they were compelling, especially when conjoined; historical representations, after all, could both make sense of contemporary realities and justify certain personal or communal choices. The Jewish interest in earlier events, or what was imagined of them, was in any event heavily dependent on textual interpretation, and as such, text and historical writing remained inextricably linked in their imposing puissance. ¹

These uses of the past appeared in the literature of the German Haskalah and in the work of one of its more prolific members, Judah Leib ben Ze’ev (1764–1811). Although generally regarded as a late and somewhat peripheral member of the Berlin Haskalah, Ben Ze’ev was a scholar of prodigious energy and considerable breadth whose writings became popular in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. This study seeks to explore his keen appreciation for the uses of the past and for the increasingly problematic utilization of Jewish texts in its reconstruction. The significance of such a study is twofold. First, with much of his writing appearing at the turn of the nineteenth century, Ben Ze’ev stood at a historically portentous juncture. As one of the last contributors to the Berlin Haskalah, he was well aware of the limited success of this movement’s cultural and linguistic ideals. Cognizant of growing Jewish indifference, a hostile rabbinate, and the perceived failings of the Haskalah, he could no longer assume the enthusiastic naïveté of Maskilim who flourished only two decades earlier. His reflections on past Jewish cultures thus went beyond the utopian and self-congratulatory themes of other Maskilic writings, turning instead to problems of cultural discontinuity. Equally important was the fact that at this time traditional handlings of the past were being challenged by the philosophical and critical study of history taking root among German intellectuals. Bible scholars and historians of antiquity adopted new interpretative perspectives, including some that were anathema to classical Judaism. Fully conversant with this phenomenon, Ben Ze’ev was no longer in a position to take the events or texts of the past for granted.

Like other movements of cultural revival, the Haskalah was self-consciously pressed to justify and legitimate its calls for change and cultural reorientation. Exposed to the eighteenth-century efflorescence of German arts and letters and increasingly sensitive to the comparative dearth of Jewish cultural activity, a small number of Jews began to internalize these concerns and focus on the need for renewed attention to Hebrew and Bible study. It was in response to this and other challenges that Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) sought to publish a new German translation and Hebrew commentary to the Pentateuch, while others, launching the monthly journal Ha-Me’assef, tried to nurture more sophisticated literary-aesthetic sensibilities by encouraging Hebrew belles-lettres, essays, and some fresh exegetical work on Scripture. ² But perched between a European culture to which it was attracted and a traditionalist rabbinate that was ever more apprehensive, these Maskilim faced a twofold task. On the one hand, they needed to demonstrate in compelling terms the need for substantive and institutional reform and the realities that made their implementation imperative. On the other hand, they had to demonstrate the fact that their cultural sensibilities had long been a fundamental—and therefore seemingly legitimate—part of Jewish education and learning. Maskilic representations of the past were thus utilized in a simple and straightforward fashion: long and well-based traditions, they argued, had recently come to be neglected at a time when they were most desperately needed. The rider thus followed naturally: it was high time to revive these earlier traditions and make them a central feature of Jewish learning.

An early example of the Haskalah’s use of the past thus appeared in the prospectus and introduction to the Hebrew Bible published by Mendelssohn between 1780 and 1783. The prospectus, which Mendelssohn wrote with Solomon Dubno, naturally tried to affirm the acute need for a new German translation of the Hebrew Bible. ³ Setting its own age against a compressed survey of Jewish cultural history, the prospectus focused on the shift away from Hebrew as a spoken language and the successive Jewish absorptions of other vernaculars. In contrast to a time when Hebrew was a vibrant, living language, the endless exposure to foreign cultures effectively produced widespread linguistic alienation. As Jews ingested a succession of other languages, they slowly lost the ability to understand even the Hebrew Bible. These Maskilim, of course, were suggesting that the same pattern was now repeating itself, and it followed that their response would reflect that of earlier Jewish cultures: translating the Hebrew Bible into the dominant vernacular of their communities. This depiction of the past clearly had everything to do with the present. The idea of a German translation did not represent an essential break with earlier historical patterns, for the absorption of foreign languages was viewed as a natural and inevitable result of diaspora existence. Mendelssohn and Dubno saw themselves as part of a tradition of classical translators who wanted to facilitate language and Bible study by translating it “into a German customary at this time among our nation.” ⁴

A few years later, Mendelssohn’s introduction to this Bible again situated the German translation within the broader context of Jewish cultural history. ⁵ As before, Bible translations were necessitated by exposure to other languages and the concomitant loss of fluency in Hebrew, and were written for the sole purpose of promoting the study of Hebrew and Hebrew Scripture. Jews naturally “always learnt the language of the nation ruling over them,” but it often came at the price of linguistic and textural alienation from Biblical literature. ⁶ Medieval Hispano-Jewish culture was for Mendelssohn an important model in this regard, because the quality of Jewish writings in Arabic—wherein Jews used “the Arabic language in its refined and agreeable way” ⁷ —did not compromise its sophistication in Hebrew and Bible study. The German translation, then, supplanted the Onkelos Aramaic with a pure literary hochdeutsch that reflected the cultural norms of enlightened Germany. The Haskalah thus represented itself in terms that conformed fundamentally to earlier patterns of acculturation and adjustment, thereby legitimating its cultural and religious commitments.

I

It is not known precisely when Ben Ze’ev first encountered this kind of contemporary literature, but there is little doubt that his sojourn in Berlin in the late 1780s exposed him thoroughly to the writings of the Haskalah. Like many other Maskilim of his generation, Ben Ze’ev was raised in Poland and educated with a traditional regimen of rabbinics. Married young and supported for a number of years by his father-in-law in Cracow, he eventually left his family behind and migrated between a number of Polish Jewish communities. Ben Ze’ev found his way to Berlin in 1787, and after leaving this city in 1790, he lived for some years in Breslau, and from 1799 to his premature death in 1811, in Vienna. He spent the last two decades of his life working in publishing houses that specialized in Hebraica, bringing a number of important rabbinic and Maskilic writings to press. ⁸

Like other Maskilim of his generation, Ben Ze’ev was a complex and enigmatic individual. On the one hand, seeking to demonstrate the expansiveness and adaptability of Hebrew, Ben Ze’ev had written a number of erotic poems and other less salacious parodies and satires. ⁹ On the other hand, he was a well-trained student of classical Hebrew texts who, despite his many nontraditional cultural interests, was respectful of the fundamental integrity of rabbinic Judaism. His facility with this scholarly tradition was manifest in his work on an edition of the Talmud Bavli which included the first printing of the notes of the Gaon Elijah of Vilna, as well as new editions of Hilkhot Rav ‘Alfas and the ‘Arba ‘ ah Turim. ¹⁰

The vast majority of Ben Ze’ev’s work, however, was neither narrowly traditional nor sexually risque, but of a distinct Maskilic scope and quality: commentaries to philosophical works, ¹¹ grammatical writings, ¹² Hebrew versions of Apocryphal literature, ¹³ school primers, ¹⁴ and assorted poems, translations, and other writings. ¹⁵ Clearly, his interest in philosophy, Hebrew language, and Scripture affirmed his rejection of narrowly construed Jewish curricula limited to Talmud and rabbinic codes in favor of a far broader conception of Jewish culture. Still, despite the considerable ideological and social tension that accompanied these new cultural interests, Ben Ze’ev did not view traditional and Maskilic cultures as two distinct worlds torn irrevocably asunder. His very first publication, for example, was a new edition and commentary to R. Saadya Gaon’s Sefer ‘Emunot ve-De ‘ ot, precisely the kind of work regarded suspiciously in the traditional world of his youth. Published during his sojourn in Berlin and his first direct exposure to the Haskalah, one might have expected some invective against Jewish scholars mired in superstitions and irrationalities who would invariably fail to appreciate the importance of such a philosophical classic. Although Ben Ze’ev had spent his early years surrounded by such individuals, he eschewed any such denunciation and graciously acknowledged both his early teacher and his father-in-law for the substantive and material opportunity to immerse himself in his traditional studies. ¹⁶ Years later, in one of his last publications, a brief autobiographical piece was again notable for its relatively respectful tones and a sense that traditional and Maskilic values, although unmistakably different, were not necessarily antithetical. ¹⁷

These variegated interests and sensitivities also informed Ben Ze’ev’s most popular works, Talmud Leshon ‘ Ivri (1796) and ‘Otzar ha-Shorashim (1807), and it is here that he addressed himself to the history of Jewish culture. In the introduction to the former, an often-reprinted comprehensive Hebrew grammar, our author set forth to justify the importance of Hebrew language study. Such knowledge, he suggested in well-worn terms, was fundamental to the fulfillment of one’s obligations as a Jew, for without it neither Scripture nor prayer could be truly comprehensible. ¹⁸ The introduction, however, really revolved around a far more universalist sanction for the importance of language study, namely the relationship between proper thinking and proper speech. Ben Ze’ev reiterated the classical notion that logic or correct thinking was integrally related to correct speech and writing, a correlation so fundamental that individual perfection was wholly contingent on its realization. Naturally, this was a reciprocal relationship: just as one could not hope for lucid speech without the requisite clarity of mind, one could not expect cognitively incisive and supple ideas without a concomitant means by which to give them shape. ¹⁹

Against the backdrop of these ideas, Ben Ze’ev turned to the particular case of Hebrew. He began by quickly distinguishing between the innate or potential qualities of this language and its contemporary character. Although in essence Hebrew was no less endowed with the inherent ability to foster intellectual perfection than any other language, the reality was that Hebrew fell short. ²⁰ Such arguments regarding the limitations of Hebrew were not novel and had been articulated as early as the twelfth century in ways that were strikingly similar to that of Talmud Leshon ‘ Ivri. ²¹ And yet, it is clear that Ben Ze’ev sounded this idea in a distinctly contemporaneous mode, pointing up, as the Maskilim were wont to do, the paucity of Hebrew language instruction in Jewish schools and the inferiority of Hebrew in light of the thriving, dynamic languages of Western Europe.

Our author went on to offer two reasons for this unfortunate reality. First, again echoing earlier Jewish scholars, he suggested that the quality of cultural life of any society was always contingent upon a degree of national stability, here specifically identified as a function of political independence. With political tranquility came a requisite degree of social permanence and cultural equilibrium, which, in turn, allowed for the flourishing of a full range of scientific and humanistic endeavors. ²² All this cultural activity naturally stimulated a rich vocabulary and a certain linguistic elasticity, and it was precisely this creative responsiveness that was lost to centuries of diaspora existence. In practical terms, political subjugation squelched any possibility of native cultural advancement, a fact manifest in the abandonment of Hebrew and the acquisition of new languages. It was hardly coincidental that Scripture, representing the remaining vestige of ancient Hebrew literature, emanated from a time when Jews last retained political autonomy. ²³

The second reason that Hebrew ceased to be a vibrant and functional language, however, was the simple neglect of the Hebrew Bible. Here again, Talmud Leshon ‘ Ivri offered a number of explanations. With the shift of Hebrew from a spoken language to an exclusively literary one, the gap between one’s spoken vernacular—invariably a mother tongue—and the language of Scripture could only be bridged with the aid of translations. This dependency on translations plainly circumscribed the reader’s appreciation for the Hebrew original, “for languages are very distinct from one another in syntax and structure, and everything translated loses its gracefulness and clarity.” ²⁴ It is true, Ben Ze’ev conceded, that a translator of the first order who claimed mastery of both Biblical Hebrew and the vernacular could effectively capture the nuanced meaning of the original, such that the reader could really attain an independent mastery of Hebrew. In reality—and here Ben Ze’ev parroted his Maskilic predecessors ²⁵ —such scholars or teachers were scarce in Europe, for they were generally proficient neither in Hebrew nor the European languages. For our author, the resultant damage went far beyond a deficiency in language: Jewish adults would not only fail to appreciate Scripture, but, with exposure to the rich literatures of Europe, they would come to disregard Hebrew books and learning. Finally, Ben Ze’ev returned to his previous theme and reiterated the fact that the chronological and physical distance from Biblical times and its cultural and linguistic conventions made it all but impossible to maintain competence in Hebrew. ²⁶

There is much about this presentation that is curious, but its most striking feature is the correlation of national sovereignty and linguistic development. It is evident, for example, that this author completely ignored a wealth of Hebrew literature that emanated from the diaspora—from rabbinic collections to medieval poetry—without even so much as bothering to demonstrate the qualitative superiority of Biblical Hebrew. Moreover, although Ben Ze’ev never took his assumptions to their natural conclusion, the unstated implication of his thinking was that Hebrew would never flourish in a naturally organic manner without political autonomy. While the immediate Maskilic aim of Talmud Leshon ‘ Ivri may have been quite obvious, its ultimate ability to bring about a full-fledged renaissance of Hebrew letters seemed peculiarly circumscribed. In the absence of Jewish autonomy, one could not easily explain the rise of the very movement with which he identified. Ben Ze’ev would appear to have inadvertently pointed to an unnatural quality of the Haskalah’s cultural endeavors and effectively qualified its historical permanence.

II

A decade later, Ben Ze’ev’s ‘Otzar ha-Shorashim furthered his pedagogic and linguistic interests by providing a combined lexicon of Hebrew roots and Hebrew-German dictionary. ²⁷ Here again, in a preface placed between his autobiographical introduction and the body of the work, our author returned to questions of history and culture and the vicissitudes of Hebrew language study over the centuries. ²⁸ He began, in fact, by suggesting that anyone writing a work on language should properly

search and investigate the history of that language and its tribulations and the transformations and modifications that have affected it; for language is subject to changing circumstances and is changed in accordance with the conditions of the nation that speaks it. ²⁹

Despite the fact that Ben Ze’ev would here appear to have expressed the historical-critical sensibility of modern scholarship, his preface quickly revealed itself to be a rather extended apology for the historical deficiencies of Hebrew and its literature. Reiterating the themes of Talmud Leshon ‘ Ivri, he lamented the fact that like other languages of antiquity, Hebrew had lost all its “glory and splendor, its quality and its grace, and all the virtuosity attributed the perfection of language.” ³⁰ This, again, was a function of the fact that Hebrew was no longer a living, spoken language that served an autonomous nation. In affected but sincere terms, Ben Ze’ev poignantly depicted the vibrancy of living western languages:

Their perfection continuously increases, and they become more proficient, improved and expansive; this occurs because of the essays and books written by men of virtuosity and wisdom in that nation, who endeavor to write with beauty and elegance, and strive to bejewel their words with a burnishing of expressions. ³¹

This description, of course, had less to do with modern vernaculars than his idealization of Hebrew’s past and future glory.

Ben Ze’ev presented the history of the Hebrew language by laying out six epochs of its development. For reasons already enunciated above, the first epoch, which extended from the giving of the Torah to the Babylonian exile, clearly represented the period of linguistic perfection and efflorescence. The primary attribute of the literature of this epoch, namely Scripture, was the sine qua non of all languages at their apex: its ability to give sufficient expression to all that it wanted to convey. The Hebrew Bible itself, our author went on to say, amply demonstrated this perfection in the qualitative excellence of its narrative and poetry, which in turn reflected the active scientific and ethical discourse of its age. ³² It is evident here and throughout the preface that Ben Ze’ev’s appraisal of linguistic and literary excellence was measured in narrow belletristic terms, focusing particularly on the quality of its poetry. In the case of this early period, however, poetic eloquence was not limited to a few segments of Biblical literature that fit with variously defined notions of formal poetry, but was rather expansively viewed as synonymous with much of the prophetic tradition.

Another salient issue that reemerged in this discussion was the relationship of political autonomy and literary accomplishment. Ben Ze’ev revisited his understanding of this phenomenon, but here allowed for a more nuanced appreciation for the vicissitudes of political independence and their potential to stimulate—and quell—literary achievement. Pointing to the Song of Deborah and the prophetic schools of the books of Samuel and Kings, he drew attention to the fact that a facility for poetic expression took institutional root and flourished despite the unrelenting territorial pressure and uncertainty of these times. ³³ This literary spirit naturally reached its apex with the political ascendancy of the house of David, and began slipping with the interscene split and the rise of the Northern Kingdom. With the heightened degree of political instability and the resultant incapacity for superior poetic articulation, the years leading up to the Babylonian captivity yielded some fine although increasingly diminished literary fruits. ³⁴

The second epoch corresponded to the re-establishment and later destruction of the Second Temple, which Ben Ze’ev tactfully refers to as “close to 500 years,” ³⁵ predictably yielding a further decline. Using an oft-repeated topos drawn from Nehemiah 13:24—“And some of their children spoke in the language of Ashdod and could not speak in the language of the Jews”—our author pointed out the paucity of original Hebrew literature during this era. ³⁶ The scholars of the Second Commonwealth period, however, did make one significant contribution: they applied themselves to the canonization of Scripture, thereby erecting a “fence around the Holy Scripture” and insuring the preservation of this vestige of cultural perfection for future generations. Despite the fact that these generations were unable to marshal their linguistic and literary creativity, the kind of scholarship required to fix the books of Scripture and prayer still reflected a considerable grasp of Hebrew and Scripture.

The fact that the Second Commonwealth period allowed the Jews to live as a nation in their homeland did little to mitigate the appreciable linguistic deterioration, since, dominated by a succession of other powers, Jews did not truly exercise political autonomy. Here, however, Ben Ze’ev made a point that shed further light upon the relationship of political independence and cultural activity. The Jews, he wrote,

were subjugated nearly all the days of the Second Temple, and it is the manner of a nation subject to foreign rule to weaken in its own language and to exert itself in the language of the ruling nation in order to seek favor through it to be reconciled with it at a time of need. ³⁷

Here, at least, it appeared that the importance of national autonomy had perhaps less to do with a set of intrinsic sociocultural preconditions—that culture thrived when it was bound to the political maintenance of a robust society—than with the inevitable dynamics of a vanquished nation seeking accommodation.

The third epoch described in this preface to ‘Otzar ha-Shorashim, from the emergence of the early Pharisees (perushim) and Scribes until the final redaction of the Talmud, clearly overlapped with the second epoch. Although Ben Ze’ev never addressed this problem, it is evident that this epoch was substantively limited to the literary accomplishments of the Sages and thus demarcated a literary rather than a broader political-cultural phenomenon. As for the linguistic and literary development of Hebrew, this period made no discernible contribution. On the one hand, our author touched upon the substance of the old medieval controversy regarding the purity of Rabbinic Hebrew, eschewing the notion that this dialect served as a legitimate evolutionary successor to the Hebrew of Scripture. The language of rabbinic texts, he argued, was an admixture of Hebrew, Aramaic, and other languages, and reflected the vernacular commonly spoken by the broad populace of that era. Given the legal-pedagogic nature of Tannaitic and Amoraitic literature, the redactors of these texts needed to maximize their accessibility and did so by using a language with considerable currency. ³⁸

On the other hand, Ben Ze’ev insisted that this concession was not an indication of the poor quality of Hebrew among the rabbinic elite. It is true, he duly noted, that Hebrew had by this time become too constricted to address itself efficaciously to the halakhic subject matter at hand, ³⁹ a problem exacerbated by the Sages’ own primary use of an Aramaic dialect and their increased distance from a spoken and living Hebrew. And yet, in a transparently apologetic attempt to maintain the scholarly and intellectual integrity of rabbinic Judaism, he insisted that they had retained a sophisticated and creative appreciation of Hebrew.

One cannot doubt that the scholars and pillars of the religion, those who arranged the halakhot and rules and explicated Scripture—upon whom all Israel depend in speech and deed for generations on end—knew the rules of the language and its framework. ⁴⁰

Further on, Ben Ze’ev returned to this point and made clear his underlying presupposition.

We cannot deny these generations the presence of exceptional writers and poets who spoke a pure refined Hebrew. A nation ensconced in Torah and science and ethics cannot be without masters of pure and refined language as I have already noted, because refined language and poetry are sisters to sciences and metaphysics; where you find one, you find the other. ⁴¹

To suggest that the Sages of the Talmud and Midrashic anthologies were completely devoid of linguistic sensibilities would be to impugn their intellectual endowment and ultimately their scholarly authority. And so, even if rabbinic writers were removed from the linguistic facilities of the classical Biblical prophets and only rarely displayed their poetic acumen, Ben Ze’ev could not completely allow that they had become estranged from the spirit of later Biblical writings. ⁴² That he cited a rare poetic passage from the Talmud in support of this contention highlighted the apparent tendentiousness of his presentation and its constricted presupposition. ⁴³ It was also evident that, in limiting literary creativity to a few poetic fragments, this Maskil refused to allow the vast midrashic corpus the possibility of cultural vitality and originality.

The apologetic nature of Ben Ze’ev’s portrayal of the hidden rabbinic engagement with Hebrew letters was thrown into further relief in his segue to the fourth historical epoch, extending from the redaction of the Talmud to the Spanish expulsion. He began by describing this eight-century period as one of outstanding linguistic attainments, boldly proclaiming that this generation “breathed life into dry bones; and they became a living soul.” ⁴⁴ The same note was struck at the end of this section when it referred to the medieval era as providing a “second birth for the language.” ⁴⁵ The conspicuous allusion to Ezekiel and the use of the metaphors of resurrection and rebirth were doubly telling: they reflected the rather lifeless nature of rabbinic culture, but it also highlighted the messianic hues with which Ben Ze’ev and other Maskilim came to represent the substantial literary achievements of Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Spanish cultures.

After pointing out the important contribution of the Tiberian Masoretes and the historical issue of Biblical vocalization and accentuation, ⁴⁶ Ben Ze’ev proffered a quick survey of medieval Jewish grammarians from Saadya Gaon to R. Abraham Ibn Ezra and R. David Kimhi, whose works “were our eyes in all the ways of our language, and from which all later writings derive until this day.” ⁴⁷ The question, arising also out of his exposition in Talmud Leshon ‘ Ivri, was how to account for the rise and dazzling attainments of medieval Hebrew literature in the absence of any kind of political autonomy. Cognizant of this problem, he explained this historical idiosyncracy by pointing to the close linguistic ties between Arabic and Hebrew, whereby the intellectual and linguistic efflorescence of the former—sustained by Arabic political hegemony—served to stimulate the latter. ⁴⁸ The renewed growth of Hebrew was not in any way an indigenous development but a rather fortuitous and parasitic phenomenon.

Before moving on to the next epoch, Ben Ze’ev made it clear that the linguistic and literary engagements of this era did not sprout uniformly throughout medieval Jewry. With poetry as his barometer, he predictably distinguished between the early medieval piyyutim, which he identified as the poetry of Ashkenaz, and Spanish poetry of the “masters of grammar.” ⁴⁹ Given that Ben Ze’ev went on at length about the first group and dispensed with the second in a few laudatory lines, it is evident that his intention here was to reflect critically upon the poor quality of language study in Ashkenazic-Jewish culture. Along these lines, he described piyyut in terms that were antithetical to his conception of good Hebrew poetry: they were stylistically unedifying, their vocabulary and verbal forms were irregular, and their obscure allusions to midrashic and aggadic literature rendered them all but incomprehensible. ⁵⁰

This criticism of ashkenazic piyyut served to set the stage for his discussion of the fifth epoch, which brought the history of Hebrew language and literature down to the dawn of the Haskalah. This period, he opined, constituted “three hundred years of darkness for language and the sciences. . . .” As before, the forced migrations made it difficult to sustain any cultural activity and sowed a measure of decline and confusion, ultimately affecting even the singular preoccupation with classical rabbinic literature. In good Maskilic fashion, Ben Ze’ev decried the pilpulistic casuistry that overtook late Ashkenazic Talmud study as a reversal of earlier trends and as proof of a deeply entrenched cultural degeneration; while the Spanish codification and consolidation of Talmudic literature represented the ‘ways of earlier scholars,’ the attempt to probe the Talmud through novellae and exhaustively subtle analysis was seen as the bane of later Ashkenazic scholarship. Ben Ze’ev’s invective was biting and particularly harsh when, drawing upon the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel, he began to weave his criticism of Ashkenazi culture with regard to its effects on language and text study. ⁵¹

‘They found a plane’ and they distinguished themselves saying ‘Come, let us build a tower with its top in the heavens’ and its footing in the depths of pilpul and inferences and thin distinctions. Not upon the truth of religion and law were they established, but to ‘make a name’ in the land like nephilim and giants . . . Upon them it was said ‘Their heart is divided; now they shall bear their guilt.’ ⁵² And behold, their guilt is greater, and their ‘language even more confounded’ than the generation of the dispersion. They came upon each section of the Torah in circuitous and tortuous ways, and their words were as if God had opened the mouth of the ass. ⁵³

These generations, then, were devoid of linguistic appreciation and were essentially unable to understand the Biblical text. Although Ben Ze’ev acknowledged the few exceptional Jewish scholars who made significant contributions to the study of Hebrew, ⁵⁴ he poignantly drew attention to early modern Christian scholars who “wrote many helpful and precious books” and demonstrated a sustained appreciation for the qualities of this language. ⁵⁵

Ben Ze’ev’s sixth and final epoch naturally corresponded to the enlightened culture spawned by Mendelssohn and Naftali Hirz Wessely (1725–1805). In the overwrought tones of Maskilic writing, he described these figures in redemptive terms that reiterated the familiar themes of this preface: they revived the study of the humanistic and natural sciences, expanded the use of Hebrew, and corrected the pedagogic defects of Jewish education. And yet, this section of the preface was striking not for its strong partisan tones, but for the degree of critical insight into contemporary realities and their admission of historical discontinuity. Ben Ze’ev framed his remarks on this contemporary epoch within the first few sentences of this section.

The sixth epoch is the shortest and most unusual of them all. The shortest, because it is no longer than forty or fifty years in duration. And unusual, because no earlier epoch underwent as many extreme changes with regard to its advances and regressions as this brief epoch. ⁵⁶

After speaking of Mendelssohn and Wessely and the heightened expectations of that generation, our author returned to the antipodal character of the contemporary epoch. ⁵⁷

Great was the hope that appeared to that generation, in seeing ‘fine young men’ and ‘favorite children’ who were ‘as a watered garden’ ⁵⁸ sprouting wisdom and science, knowing language and books, quick to learn and ready to teach . . . But who believed that this spectacle would become like an ‘appearance of lightning’ ⁵⁹ with its momentary flash of light which is afterwards gone. Or that this ‘shoot of righteousness’ would be like a gourd that comes into being and is lost within a night. ⁶⁰

With the death of Mendelssohn, the linguistic and cultural attainments of this renaissance faded almost as quickly as they had appeared. From Ben Ze’ev’s discussion, however, it was evident that while Mendelssohn’s passing coincided with this cultural reversal, it was hardly its proximate cause.

Why the sudden cultural reversal? Ben Ze’ev offered two remarkably astute explanations. First, he well understood that the accelerated embourgeoisement of German Jewry was accompanied by a profound attraction to German language and culture. The needs of such Jews were significantly defined by economic and social considerations, and the study of Hebrew and Jewish texts held little advantage. In light of these realities, Ben Ze’ev hastened to point out, the absence of well-ordered and accessible texts—a lacunae naturally filled by the ‘Otzar ha-Shorashim—made it all that much more difficult to promote the study of Hebrew alongside other curricular needs. Second, the rabbis of this generation were resistant to “pitching the tent of wisdom alongside the tent of Torah,” and openly scorned those who would pursue an interest in Hebrew. Clinging stubbornly to the centuries-old ideal of Talmud-centered education, they brought about a fundamental rift among contemporary Jews:

One extreme group raise their children on the lap of the sciences and the ways of the world, and embrace the bosom of foreign languages and their books, and turn their back on the study of Hebrew. The rest of the people who feared for the name of the Talmud, ⁶¹ set aside their children’s prime days for the study of Hebrew, which in their eyes was synonymous with the exclusive study of Talmud, for this will sufficiently encompass all areas of study. ⁶²

Without the patronage of the emerging Jewish bourgeoisie or the rabbinic leadership, the cultivation of Hebrew language and literature had no natural base of support within the Jewish communities. Under these conditions, the promise of Jewish cultural regeneration soon languished.

Ben Ze’ev’s critical appraisal of contemporary realities besetting the advancement of Maskilic culture was not original, and drew specifically upon a similar portrayal that appeared in the writings of Wessely. ⁶³ However much these insights were solidly grounded in historical reality, it is obvious that this sociocultural presentation was primarily intended to buttress the need for ‘Otzar ha-Shorashim and other works of this kind. Indeed, Ben Ze’ev concluded his preface by asserting that every generation needed to make its own cultural determinations, and that earlier patterns of Jewish education were singularly unsuitable for the nineteenth-century cultural realities. The preface, as one might have expected, was thus centrally grounded in the programmatic agenda of the moment: a passionate exhortation to the lay and rabbinic leadership to recognize and respond to the cultural issues raised by the Haskalah.

Ben Ze’ev’s recognition of the unusual character of his epoch bespoke an historical discontinuity far more profound than he acknowledged. His admission that the cultural attainments of the Haskalah were not broadly shared by German Jews and had all but faded were precisely what made this, in his words, a period of “many extreme changes with regard to its advances and regressions.” Although he well understood proximate causes for this state of affairs, the broad themes of his preface actually point to a more fundamental reason.

The problem, as before, was that Ben Ze’ev had no historical means of explaining the advent of the sixth epoch. Both here and in the earlier Talmud Leshon ‘ Ivri, he insisted that cultural and linguistic progress was ultimately possible only with a degree of political autonomy and its indigenous intellectual endeavors. The preface had already encountered this problem in its discussion of the fourth epoch and the remarkable cultural achievements of Spanish Jewry. Ben Ze’ev had there addressed the problem by pointing to the shared semitic roots of Hebrew and Arabic and suggesting that Judeo-Arabic culture was effectively nurtured through parasitic stimulation. The culture of the Haskalah, too, it would seem, was inspired by the stimulation of a larger surrounding society, and as such, merely paralleled the earlier cultural pattern of medieval Spanish Jews. There was, however, one significant difference: Ben Ze’ev could nowhere claim linguistic affinity between Hebrew and German. Unlike the Judeo-Arabic milieu, exposure to German culture had the effect of drawing Jews towards German arts and letters, and while there was clearly an immediate cross-cultural stimulus, the long-term effect on the development of Hebrew language and literature was far less certain. The preface was conspicuously silent on the issue of historical factors that brought about the Maskilic revival of Hebrew, although in the end, this silence was unintentionally punctuated by his sense of the fleeting accomplishments of the Haskalah. If the Haskalah’s contribution to the history of Hebrew and Jewish culture was hanging in the balance, it was in no small measure due to its own attenuated historical roots. However unintended this connection may have been, Ben Ze’ev’s concern for the permanence of the Haskalah underscored the latent discontinuities of this modern cultural revival.

III

The problem of cultural discontinuity manifested itself in Ben Ze’ev’s writings three years later when, in writing a new literary-historical work on Hebrew Scripture, he confronted the problem of historical reconstruction. In the ‘Otzar ha-Shorashim, he had already noted that any history of Hebrew was necessarily dependent upon written sources which yielded only a partial and ‘positive’ view of linguistic realities, especially in the study of antiquity. ⁶⁴ The problem, as he broached it, reflected the fact that the sometimes nebulous presumptions of historical narrative were beginning to yield to a concern for the demonstrable actualities of historical truth.

Mavo’ ‘el Mikra’ei Kodesh, his last major publication, took up this issue as one of its central challenges. This text was comprised of introductory essays to each of the prophetic and hagiographic books which began appearing in German translation in the 1790s as a Maskilic endeavor to “complete” Mendelssohn’s Pentateuch translation. ⁶⁵ In its very conception, this book represented a significant departure from the premodern genre of Jewish chronologies, for such works, generally penned in response to polemical or historical pressures, remained primarily interested in the post-biblical and post-exilic periods. As a result, their treatment of the Biblical period was rather perfunctory. ⁶⁶ This text, in contrast, was exclusively devoted to this period, and, more important, went beyond mere chronology to serve as a comprehensive overview of Scripture that highlighted the historical and literary features unique to each book. Drawing heavily upon the contemporary German writings of Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, Ben Ze’ev effectively introduced Jewish readers to the early fruits of modern Biblical criticism. ⁶⁷

The issue squarely facing Ben Ze’ev here was that of interpretative authority and freedom with regard to the Biblical literature. Post-Biblical Jewish literature, both rabbinic and medieval, had preserved traditions that formed a distinct if not altogether precise collection of normative ideas concerning Biblical chronology and textual authorship. Setting out to speak broadly about literary-substantive features of the Bible, Ben Ze’ev’s positive regard for European scholarship demanded a fundamental reckoning. ⁶⁸ He thus opened his work by affirming the value of intellectual honesty and unfettered evaluation.

It is the obligation of one who inquires after something and attempts to discern the truth from among divergent opinions to render his heart free and his thoughts clear; nothing should sway him nor should he unduly favor anything; ⁶⁹ fear should not alarm him, and the pressure of men should not weigh upon him ⁷⁰ to force him to decide a matter against reason and in opposition to proper judgement . . . in [all] deliberations, truth must be the aim of his intentions. ⁷¹

Notwithstanding this passionate affirmation of scholarly independence, Ben Ze’ev was careful to give rabbinic traditions their due, claiming to tread judiciously between inherited Jewish perspectives and the newly formulated views of the German academies.

In truth, Ben Ze’ev’s regard for the integrity and value of Jewish interpretative traditions was multi-faceted, and ultimately reflected his attempt to negotiate the cultural disparities that informed Jewish and European readings of Biblical texts. It is evident throughout this book that the intrinsic veracity of modern scholarship outweighed the perspicacious reliability of the Sages of antiquity. When, in one notable instance, the presumptions of the rabbinic tradition and modern scholarship appeared unbridgeable, our author’s languid defence of the former—following a detailed and convincing presentation of the latter—spoke for itself. ⁷² And yet, one senses that his avoidance of any sweeping dismissal of rabbinic traditions went beyond a mere desire to deflect the wrath of contemporary rabbis and to preserve a certain sheen of conservative moderation for the Haskalah. Ben Ze’ev, rather, still appeared to cling to a belief that his literary-historical approach to Scripture represented a degree of continuity with earlier Jewish cultural traditions.

The most telling manifestation of this attempted expression of continuity appeared in a discussion of the authority of rabbinic midrash and aggadah. ⁷³ Any attempt on the part of Ben Ze’ev to engage Biblical literature afresh necessitated some thinking about the nature of post-Biblical literature and its interpretative claims. Clearly aware that his embrace of European scholarship would appear to impugn the authority of the Talmudic Sages, Ben Ze’ev reached back to old Geonic and Spanish traditions that differentiated between the legal corpus of rabbinic Judaism and the vast body of non-legal material. ⁷⁴ One must, he argued, sharply distinguish between the binding nature of their authority: the Sages only insisted on absolute obedience to the legal traditions, but allowed for full intellectual autonomy with regard to other aspects of Jewish literary culture, including homiletic exegesis, stories, or things deduced by reason. His strategy here was clear. If the Sages themselves never really intended their non-halakhic traditions to be taken definitively, then their interpretations of difficult Biblical passages, and even their occasional statements regarding prophetic authorship and Biblical chronology, could be disregarded in favor of other views. Ben Ze’ev thus upheld the effort on the part of some medieval scholars to limit the authority of aggadic passages but extended it to include a subject that hardly gave these medievals pause. Our author, finding certain rabbinic statements to be problematic in light of new historical and textual thinking, applied an old medieval stance to a distinctly modern problem.

Determined to demonstrate the well-rooted nature of such an approach to the Sages’ own interpretative readings, Ben Ze’ev cited a long and distinguished list of earlier scholars who fundamentally supported this stance: the Geonim, Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Nahmanides, and many more. Indeed, this portion of his general introduction, sprinkled liberally with direct quotations of such distinguished Jewish writers, appeared to have effectively supported his desire to place this work well within the bounds of normative license. For the casual reader, the texts referred to here undoubtedly produced their desired effect, but while Ben Ze’ev’s citations were all vaguely familiar, most could not be easily located or verified. His very first citation, for example, was identified as a portion of the opening chapter of Maimonides’ Hilkhot Mamrim [Laws Concerning Rebels]. ⁷⁵ The text, placed between formal quotation marks, appeared to say exactly what our author himself argued: that while one could not question any tradition that emanated from Mosaic prophecy or deduced by its principles, this did not hold for ideas and historical observations that were gleaned from non-prophetic or gentile scholars of later generations. The reader familiar with Hilkhot Mamrim, however, might find the quote rather dubious, and with good reason: no such words or ideas are to be found there. A small part of Ben Ze’ev’s citation, in fact, came not from Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah but from his Guide of the Perplexed, in a statement that did indeed explicitly allow for independent judgment—in matters of science. ⁷⁶ The Mavo’, similarly, cited a line from Nahmanides’ introduction to his Bible commentary stating that “if there is any legal consequence, we shall not deviate from the Talmud, and if not, one is to ‘incline after the majority.’” ⁷⁷ Once again, nothing of this kind appeared in the original source.

Ben Ze’ev was not simply fabricating his sources. His excursus on the limitations of rabbinic authority in areas of Biblical authorship and chronology was lifted almost entirely from Azariah de Rossi’s Me’or ‘ Einayim, a wide-ranging sixteenth-century work that addressed a variety of historical and textual issues in ways that paralleled the Mavo’. ⁷⁸ Azariah’s work had always been of interest to the Haskalah precisely because of its critical mien, and the fact that it would serve as a primary source for Ben Ze’ev’s own writing was entirely natural. ⁷⁹ But neither Azariah’s name nor book were cited here, and as such, three pages of the Mavo’ were effectively plagiarized. The Me’or ‘ Einayim, to be sure, had come under considerable attack when it was first published, and its positions vis-à-vis aggadah were hardly normative in early modern Europe. It was possible, however naive and misguided he may have been, that Ben Ze’ev hoped to reintroduce the issue of rabbinic authority without immediately alienating those readers for whom Azariah’s name was suspect. ⁸⁰

The problems with Ben Ze’ev’s Mavo’ do not end here, for a careful comparison of this text with Me’or ‘ Einayim reveals a rather duplicitous use of source material. With regard to the first example cited above, Azariah began by loosely paraphrasing Maimonides’ Hilkhot Mamrim to emphasize the notion of rabbinic authority in matters of law, after which, some twenty lines later, he continued in his own narrative voice to suggest that the same demand for authority did not extend to other areas of discourse, then ended by briefly citing the Guide III:14. ⁸¹ Ben Ze’ev, for his part, took Azariah’s paraphrase and discussion and the two lines from the Guide, and composed a slightly abbreviated and seamless paragraph with quotation marks and an explicit reference to the Mishneh Torah. ⁸² The quote attributed to Nahmanides was likewise unscrupulously contrived; Azariah was explicitly referring not to his Bible commentary, but to a responsum of Nahmanides’ on the discrepancies between Masoretic Bibles and citations of Scripture in the Talmud. ⁸³ The issue in the Me’or ‘ Einayim—that the authority of Talmud in establishing the Masoretic version was paramount only in matters of halakhah—was here presented as a statement about aggadah in general. ⁸⁴

Ben Ze’ev’s textual manipulations are puzzling. Even if he had not wanted to cite Azariah explicitly, the latter’s own words surely provided him with the position he sought in defense of an independently constructed Biblical chronology. Other medievals also plainly denied the presumptive authority which the Sages accorded many non-halakhic statements, and he could just as easily have used their words to buttress his claims. Moreover, what this Maskil appeared to have gained would surely be lost as soon as some readers, be they learned Maskilim or traditionalists, recognized them for the prevarications that they were. Ben Ze’ev, unfortunately, left no indication of what had motivated this textual inventiveness, and there is much here that may ultimately go unanswered.

In the end, however, Mavo’ ‘el Mikra’ei Kodesh points in different ways to the same problem of historical and cultural continuity evident in the ‘Otzar ha-Shorashim. In his attempt to construct afresh some textual and chronological features of Hebrew Scripture, Ben Ze’ev was compelled to address himself to preexistent Jewish traditions that were presumed to speak authoritatively. The endeavor to demonstrate that these earlier rabbinic traditions did not stand in the way of unorthodox judgments on matters of Scripture, was ostensibly intended to show that his work did not represent a break with either the rabbinic or medieval past. And yet, above and beyond its dishonesty, Ben Ze’ev’s handling of medieval sources ultimately demonstrated his own tacit acknowledgement that such a case could not easily be made. Although some earlier scholars would have fundamentally shared the claim that the Sages “cast off before us the bridle of obligation to accept their [non-halakhic] words,” ⁸⁵ Ben Ze’ev’s immediate interests were novel and were not addressed in earlier formulations. One book that did deal with these very issues, Azariah’s Me’or ‘ Einayim, was suspect precisely because its handling of antiquarian texts was informed by an a priori commitment to historical truths that lay outside of traditional texts. ⁸⁶ This, of course, was as true of Ben Ze’ev as it was of Azariah, and his struggle to demonstrate the normativity of such views led him to his rather egregious textual prevarications.

Ben Ze’ev’s sustained interest in past traditions of language and cultural were thus informed by a profound sensitivity to issues of cultural continuity. Jewish literary traditions, as we suggested at the beginning, always had an appreciation for the need to connect past to present, and in their own differing ways ‘Otzar ha-Shorashim and Mavo’ ‘el Mikra’ei Kodesh set out to do just that. Substantively, however, both these texts succeeded in underscoring the real discontinuities that informed the linguistic and literary program of the Haskalah. From the cultural vantage point of an eighteenth-century Maskil, reaching for the past was as intuitive as it was necessary, but it had also become problematic in ways that it could neither admit nor recognize.