Studies in Judaism 12

Studies in Judaism 12

So far Maimonides; and we are quite able to conceive his perplexity in

dealing with this passage. On one side, Maimonides himself believed that

Judaism is a dogmatic religion, and that one of its dogmas is the

principle of _Creatio ex nihilo_. On the other side, he found R.

Eliezer--one of the greatest authorities of the early part of the second

century--apparently denying this dogma. The perplexity was indeed a serious

one for Maimonides, but we find no difficulty whatever in extricating

ourselves from it. In the first place, there are many who cling to the

theory which holds that there are no dogmas in Judaism at all, and to them

Maimonides' difficulty would have no relevance. Secondly, those who

believe that there are dogmas in Judaism may regard such __EXPRESSION__s as

those quoted above from the "Chapters of R. Eliezer" in the light of mere

poetical metaphors, or may call them fairy tales or legends, or include

them in some other section of literature, known under the name of

folklore, which is an excuse for every absurdity, the fortunate authors of

which are responsible neither to philosophy nor to religion, and sometimes

not even to common sense. But there is a third consideration that affords

the best solution of the difficulty. The "Chapters of R. Eliezer," despite

their pompous title, are not the work of R. Eliezer at all. Criticism has

taught us to attach no importance to the heading of a chapter or the

title-page of a book. We are now in a position to judge from the tone,

style, and contents of the work, that the "Chapters of R. Eliezer" is a

later compilation of the eighth century, and that its author could not

have been R. Eliezer, the teacher of R. Akiba, in the second century. In

this way, these particular difficulties of Maimonides solve themselves for

us in a sufficiently easy way. But it is just these solutions that open up

new difficulties and perplexities which did not exist for the generation

of the great Spanish philosopher. Suppose that we accept the view that

Judaism is not a dogmatic religion. But how are we to conceive a religion

without dogmas, or, if you prefer the __EXPRESSION__, without principles or

bases of belief? Or is Judaism, as some platitudinarians think, a mere

national institute with some useful dietary and sanitary laws, but with

nothing that makes for the sanctification of man, with no guidance to

offer us in the great problems of our life, and in the greatest anxieties

of the human soul? On the other hand, granted that we may consider certain

things as mere legend, how are we to discriminate between these and the

things that must be taken seriously? Does it depend on the nature of the

subject, or on the position of the book in the canon of Hebrew literature?

In the thirteenth century symbolical meanings were given to certain

difficult passages in the Talmud; but the process was carried further, and

the Biblical narratives were subjected by philosophers to a like

treatment. R. Solomon ben Adereth and his colleagues (in the thirteenth

century) settled the question by indiscriminately excommunicating all

young men who should study philosophy; but this method is scarcely one to

be commended for present use.

 

The third, or the philological solution of difficulties, leads to fresh

troubles. A hundred years ago men were in that happy state of mind in

which they knew everything. They knew the exact author and date of every

Psalm; they knew the author of each and every ancient Midrash; they knew

the originator of every law and ordinance; they even knew the writer of

the Zohar, and of other mystical books. There were certainly a few who did

not know all these things, among them Ibn Ezra, Azariah de Rossi, and the

two Delmedigos.(40) But they were merely a miserable historical blunder,

men who had no right to be born when they were. But the philological

method has swept away all this knowingness as by a deluge from heaven, and

men find that they know nothing. True, there linger on a few who still

know all these things, but it is they who are now the anachronism. These,

and such as these, are the perplexities of our time, to the resolution of

which the labours of Krochmal and of a noble band of scholars have been

directed in this century.

 

Have these perplexities, we must ask, and these puzzles been solved by

Krochmal and his coadjutors? We may with all certainty answer: They have

only pointed out the way, it is for ourselves to proceed by it. It would

be unreasonable to expect that difficulties which have been accumulating

during the course of thousands of years should be solved by the men of one

or two generations. Again, we live in a century in which excavations and

discoveries in other fields have added at once to our knowledge and to our

uncertainty. Each country, we might almost say, over and above the

perplexities that trouble mankind in general, has its own special

difficulties which are entirely unknown to those who dwell outside its

frontiers. I am not disposed to discuss these difficulties in this place.

Nor have I the ability to do so. But of two things I am perfectly certain:

the first is, that for a solution of these difficulties which, in the

language of Maimonides, "confuse the notions of all intelligent and

religious persons," the only hope is in true knowledge and not in

ignorance; and secondly, this knowledge can only be obtained by a

combination of the utmost reverence for religion and the deepest devotion

to truth. The poor old Rabbis who have been so foully decried by their

calumniators as hedonists, and so foolishly praised by sorry apologists as

materialistic optimists, strongly insisted that when a man woos the truth,

his suit can only prosper if he is influenced by the purest and most

single-hearted affection. "A man," says the Siphré, "must not say: 'I will

study the Torah in order that I may attain the title of Rabbi or savant,

or that I may become rich by it, or that I may be rewarded for it in the

world to come.' He must study for love's sake." Such a knowledge, which is

free from all taint of worldliness and of other-worldliness, a knowledge

sought simply and solely for pure love of God, who is Truth,--such a

knowledge is in the highest sense a saving knowledge, and Nachman Krochmal

was in possession of it.

 

 

 

 

 

III. RABBI ELIJAH WILNA, GAON

 

 

The three great stars of German literature are usually characterised by

German scholars in the following way: Goethe they say represents the

beautiful, Schiller the ideal, while Lessing represents truth. I think

that we may apply the same characteristics to the three great luminaries,

with which the Jewish middle ages ceased--for as Zunz somewhere remarked,

the Jewish middle ages lasted till the beginning of the eighteenth

century--and the modern age of Judaism opened. I am thinking of Mendelssohn

in Germany, Israel Baalshem, the founder of the sect of the Chassidim in

Podolia, and Elijah Wilna, or as he is more frequently called, the

Gaon,(41) the Great One, in Lithuania.

 

As to Mendelssohn, enough, and perhaps more than enough, has already been

written and spoken about his merits in awakening the sense for the

beautiful and the harmonious which was almost entirely dormant among the

Jews of his age. In regard to the second, namely, Israel Baalshem, I have

only to refer the reader to the first essay in this volume. The subject of

the present essay will be R. Elijah Wilna, who, among the Jews, as Lessing

among the Germans, represented truth, both by his life and by his literary

activity.

 

I say that the Gaon represented truth, but these words must be taken _cum

grano salis_. For I do not mean at all to say that he was in possession of

the whole truth, still less in _exclusive_ possession of it. It is true as

we shall learn in the course of this essay, that the Gaon was a genius of

the first order. But there are matters of truth, the obtaining of which

cannot be accomplished by genius alone. R. Elijah Wilna did not know any

other language than Hebrew. Truths, therefore, which are only to be

reached through the medium of other languages, remained a secret to him.

Again, records of ancient times which are buried in the shelves of remote

libraries or under the ruins of past civilisations are not always a matter

of intuition. Even the most gifted of men have to wait patiently till

these are brought to light by the aid of spade and shovel, or the pen of

some obscure copyist. But R. Elijah lived at a time when excavation had as

yet done very little for Semitic studies, and when a Jew scarcely got

admittance into the great libraries of Europe. Thus much truth which we

get now in a very easy way was beyond this seer's eye.

 

But even if all the libraries on earth had been at his disposal, even if

he had read all the cuneiform writings which ornament the British Museum,

and had deciphered all the Hieroglyphics which the Louvre possesses, even

in that case we should not be justified in terming him a representative of

the truth, without qualifying our words.

 

"Truth," said the old Rabbis, "is the Seal of the Holy One, praised be

He." But Heaven has no Lord Chancellor. Neither men nor angels are trusted

with the great Seal. They are only allowed to catch a glimpse of it, or

rather to long after this glimpse. However, even the longing and effort

for this glimpse will bring man into communion with God, and make his life

divine. And the life of the Gaon was, as we shall see, one long effort and

unceasing longing after the truth.

 

Again, if I say that the Gaon represented truth, you must not think that

he lacked the two other qualities. A life entirely devoted to such a great

cause as that of seeking the truth is, _ipso facto_, ideal and harmonious.

It is only in his influence on Judaism--more particularly on the Jews in

the North of Europe--that this feature in his life becomes more prominent

than his other admirable qualities.

 

In what this truth consisted, how the Gaon arrived at it, and by what

means he conveyed it to others, we shall see in the course of this essay.

 

R. Elijah was born at Wilna in the year 1720. His father, Solomon Wilna,

is called by his biographers the great Rabbi Solomon, and is said to have

been the descendant of R. Moses Rivkas, the author of a learned work,

containing notes to the Code of the Law by R. Joseph Caro.(42)

 

Having quoted the biographers, I must point out that there are only two

biographies of the Gaon: the one by Finn, in his book _Faithful City_,(43)

on the celebrities of Wilna, the other by Nachman of Horodna, in his book

_Ascension of Elijah_.(44) The former is a very honest account of the

Gaon's life, but a little too short. The latter is too long, or rather too

much intermixed with that sort of absurd legend, the authors of which are

incapable of marking the line which separates the monster from the hero.

 

Even in the region of imagination we must not for a moment forget the good

advice given to us by one of our greatest scholars who had to deal with a

kindred subject: "He," says this scholar, "who banishes the thought of

higher and lower from his study, degrades it into a mere means of

gratifying his curiosity, and disqualifies it for the lofty task which it

is called upon to perform for modern society." We shall thus cling to the

higher and stop at the hero.

 

Our hero was the first-born of five brothers. They were all famous men in

their little world. According to the tradition in Wilna, Elijah was a

lovely child, with beautiful eyes, and goodly to look at, or as it is

expressed in another place, "as beautiful as an angel!" The tradition, or

rather the legend, relates that as a child of six years he was already the

pupil of R. Moses Margalith, the famous author of a commentary on the

Talmud of Jerusalem. At the age of seven years he is said to have already

perplexed the Chief Rabbi of his native town by his controversial skill in

Talmudical subjects. At the early age of nine he was acquainted with the

contents of the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud and its ancient

commentaries; and even the Cabbalistic works of R. Isaac Loria were no

secret to the youthful scholar.(45) At the age of twelve years he is said

to have acquired the seven liberal arts, and to have puzzled the scholars

of Wilna by his astronomical knowledge. At thirteen, when according to

Jewish law he attained his majority, he was already the accomplished or

"the great one" (Gaon); so far tradition. I am afraid that tradition is

here, against all experience, too exact in its dates. But we may learn

from it that the child Elijah showed many signs of the future Gaon, and

was therefore considered as the prodigy of his age. Again it is likewise

pretty certain that no man could boast of having been the master of

Elijah. He was not the product of any school, nor was he biassed by the

many prejudices of his time. He was allowed to walk his own way in his struggle after truth.