The Jewish Enlightenment

Chapter Two The Early Haskalah and the Redemption of Knowledge

Chapter Two The Early Haskalah and the Redemption of Knowledge Intense curiosity and a strong drive to acquire knowledge not easily accessible within the culture of the traditional Jewish society were the hallmarks of the early maskilim. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, it is hard to appreciate how much audacity these men needed to venture into the realms of the forbidden extra-Jewish and extra-religious knowledge . To satisfy their passion for knowledge, they had not only to cross barriers of language and social norms, but also to cope with the fear of undermining their religious faith. When a young Jew took a step like this it often had a subversive cultural and social implication: there was a significant difference between merely reading a book and studying medicine at a university where the student was exposed to the new science. To appreciate the momentous significance of this step, we need to listen with sensitivity to the voices of those intellectuals of the time describing their passion for knowledge as a spiritual, even a religious experience that carried a special meaning. ‘‘The uncontrolled mob inside me has a strong craving to learn the science of medicine,’’ Benjamin Wolf Ginzburg, a medical student at Göttingen University, wrote in  to Rabbi Jacob Emden in Altona. He used biblical associations and images that signified unrestrained passion for something forbidden . Although in principle Rabbi Emden was opposed to Jews pursuing academic studies and stressed the religious dangers lying in wait for a Jew in a European university outside the confines of the community, he was unable to conceal his envy of the young student who was in the company of scholars, surrounded by books of science. He urged Ginzburg to find in academia answers to questions that had been troubling him, for example, how reliable alchemy was as an exact science. At the end of his long halakhic response, which gave the student permission to observe an anatomy lesson on the Sabbath , Emden was unable to contain his own desire for knowledge. He concluded with words that reflected his erotic attraction and frustration: ‘‘Like you, I also crave to enter into a covenant with the sciences and to cleave unto them with love; I long to delve into the depths of scientific research, to uncover The Early Haskalah and the Redemption of Knowledge  its secrets, to quench my thirst and to take my pleasure.’’ But to his misfortune , ‘‘the sciences have despised me and have not let me come into them after the manner of all flesh and have banished me, driving me away with both hands, as if I were a worthless person.’’1 Indeed, on many occasions similar feelings were voiced by frustrated rabbis whose occupation and status did not permit them to venture into the new spheres of knowledge they so longed for. Unfortunately they had to content themselves with writing enthusiastic approbations for books written by others and with making general declarations about their support of the early maskilim. The Erotic Seductiveness of Knowledge In the ‘‘war of books’’ waged between modernistic maskilim and the traditionalists , the forbidden book had a very subversive meaning. The maskilim utilized it as an agent of the modern era and as a weapon with which to demolish a world of traditional scholarship, in which cracks had already begun to appear, while the guardians of tradition dreaded its poisoned arrows. The power of the quasi-erotic attraction of the forbidden book is mentioned, for example, in an instance related by Rabbi Judah Leib Margolioth. Visiting the home of a religiously observant friend, he was surprised to discover there one of these ‘‘prohibited’’ books, whose author was already infamous as a man of weakened religious faith. To his astonishment, he saw that the book was in a state of deliberate neglect, ‘‘placed on a bench, nude and unbound, covered with dust and ashes.’’ Margolioth, amazed by the double message—the very existence of the book, on the one hand, and its harsh neglect, on the other— queried his host: If you like this book, ‘‘why do you not cover its nudity?’’ and ‘‘If you dislike it, why do you not observe the ruling by burning and burying it?’’ The book owner’s reply revealed at one stroke how intensely seductive that tattered forbidden book was, a temptation that for very good reason was aptly depicted in erotic terms: ‘‘Brother, know that what happened to me in taking [this book] was akin to...