Studies in Judaism 13

Studies in Judaism 13

It is rather an unfortunate thing that history is so much made up of

parallels and contrasts that the historian or even the biographer cannot

possibly point out the greatness of some men without touching, however

slightly, on the smallness of others. It is only natural that every strong

shining object should push the minor lights of its surroundings into the

background and darken them. Thus, when we are speaking of the superiority

of the Gaon, we cannot escape hinting at least at the shortcomings of his

contemporaries, as well as of his predecessors.

 

To indicate briefly in what this superiority consisted, I will premise

here a few words from a _Responsum_ by one of his great predecessors, the

Gaon Rabbi Hai.(46) Consulted by a student as to the meaning of certain

mystical passages in the tractate _Chagigah_,(47) Rabbi Hai, in warning

his correspondent not to expect from him a long philosophical

dissertation, writes as follows: "Know that it never was our business to

palliate matters and explain them in a way of which the author never could

have thought. This is fashionable with other people, but our method is to

explain the words of this or that authority in accordance with his own

meaning. We do not pledge ourselves that this meaning is 'right rule' in

itself, for there _do_ exist statements made by the old authorities that

cannot be accepted as norm." Thus far the words of the Gaon of the tenth

century, which speak volumes. The Gaon of the eighteenth century followed

the same course. All his efforts were directed to this point; namely, to

find out the true meaning of the Mishnah, the true meaning of the

Gemara,(48) the true meaning of the Gaonim, the true meaning of the great

codifiers, and the true meaning of the commentators on the ancient

Rabbinical literature. Whether this meaning would be acceptable to us

mattered very little to him. His only object was to understand the words

of his predecessors, and this he obtained, as we shall soon see, by the

best critical means. This was the method of the Gaon; that of other

scholars (at least of the great majority) was dictated by entirely

different considerations. They would not suffer the idea that the great

man could be wrong at times. To them, all that he said was "right rule."

Now suppose a great author like Maimonides had overlooked an important

passage in the Talmud or any other statement by a great authority, the

alternative remaining to them was either to explain away the passage of

the Talmud or to give the words of Maimonides a strange meaning. This led

originally to the famous method of the _Pilpul_ (casuistry), a kind of

spiritual gymnastic, which R. Liva of Prague in the sixteenth century, and

many others condemned as most pernicious to Judaism and leading to the

decay of the study of the Torah.

 

Now it is beyond doubt that the method of the two Gaonim is the only right

one. But, in justice to the casuistic school, which includes many a great

name, it is only right to remember that this impartiality towards

acknowledged authorities as maintained by our hero is not at all such an

easy matter as we imagine. We quote often with great satisfaction the

famous saying, _Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis amica veritas_,

"Plato is our friend, so is Socrates, but Truth is, or rather ought to be,

our greatest friend." This sounds very nicely, but let us only realise

what difficulties it involves. To be a friend of Socrates or Plato means

to know them, or in other words to have a thorough knowledge of the

writings of the one and the recorded utterances of the other. But such a

knowledge can with most men only be obtained by devoting one's _whole_

life to the study of their works, so that there is not left much time for

new friendships. And the few who are able to save a few years after long

wanderings with these Greek philosophers, seldom see the necessity of new

friendships. For what else did those long courtships of Plato or Aristotle

mean except that those who conducted them thought that thereby they would

wed Truth?

 

This impartiality is the more difficult when these friends are invested

with a kind of religious authority where humility and submission are most

important factors. The history of Lanfranc, the predecessor of Anselm of

Canterbury, gives a striking example of what this submission meant in the

Middle Ages. One day, we are told, when he was still an ordinary monk, he

was reading at the table and pronounced a word as it ought to be

pronounced, but not as seemed right to the person presiding, who bade him

say it differently; "as if he had said _docere_, with the middle syllable

long, as is right, and the other had corrected it into _docere_, with the

middle short, which is wrong; for that Prior was not a scholar. But the

wise man, knowing that he owed obedience rather to Christ than to Donatus,

the grammarian, gave up his pronunciation, and said what he was wrongly

told to say; for to make a short syllable long, or a long one short, he

knew to be no deadly sin, but not to obey one set over him in God's behalf

was no light transgression."(49)

 

But this admiration--and here we turn again to the Gaon--must not prevent us

from believing that Providence is not confined to such ungrammatical

Priors, and that the men who are really working on behalf of God are those

who teach us to pronounce rightly, and to think rightly, and to take

matters as they are, not as we desire them to be on account of our

friends.

 

As for the critical means to which I have alluded, the Gaon himself said

somewhere that simplicity is the best criterion of truth, and this is the

most characteristic feature of all his literary career. The Gaon studied

Hebrew grammar in order to obtain a clear notion of the language in which

the scriptures are written. He tried to attain to the knowledge of the

Bible by reading the Bible itself; and was not satisfied to become

acquainted with its contents from the numerous quotations which are made

from it in Rabbinical literature. Again, he studied mathematics,

astronomy, and philosophy, as far as they could be found in Hebrew books.

Certainly the Gaon did not study these subjects for their own sake, and

they were considered by him only as a means to the end, or as the phrase

goes, as the "hand-maidens" of Theology, the queen of all sciences. But it

may be looked upon as a mark of great progress in an age when Queen

Theology had become rather sulky, continually finding fault with her hand-

maidens, and stigmatising every attention paid to them as conducive to

disloyalty. To these accusations the Gaon answered that Queen Theology

does not study her own interests. Knowledge of all arts and sciences, the

Gaon maintained, is necessary for the real understanding of the Torah

which embraces the whole of them. From his own writings it is evident that

he himself was familiar with Euclid, and his _Ayil Meshulash_ contains

several original developments of Euclid. It was at his suggestion that a

certain Baruch of Sclow translated Euclid into the Hebrew language.

 

Another way which led the Gaon to the discovery of many truths was his

study of the pre-Talmudic literature, and of the Jerusalem Talmud. By some

accident or other it came to pass that only the Babylonian Talmud was

recognised as a guide _in the practices of religious life_. As the great

teachers and their pupils cared more for satisfying the religious wants of

their flocks than for theoretic researches, the consequence was that a

most important part of the ancient Rabbinic literature was almost entirely

neglected by them for many centuries. And it was certainly no

exaggeration, when R. Elijah said that even the Gaonim and Maimonides,

occupied as they were with the practical part of the law, did not pay

sufficient attention to the Talmud of Jerusalem and the Tosephta.(50) The

Gaon was no official head of any Jewish community, and was but little

troubled by decisions of questions which concern daily life. He was thus

in a position to leave for a little while the Babylonian Talmud and to

become acquainted with the guides of the guide. I refer to Siphra, Siphré,

Mechilta, Tosephta, the Seder Olam,(51) the Minor Tractates,(52) and above

all the Talmud of Jerusalem, which, regarded from an historical and

critical point of view, is even of more importance than its Babylonian

twin-brother. But by this means there came a new light upon the whole of

ancient Rabbinic literature. The words of the Torah, the Midrash says, are

poor in one place, but we shall find them rich in another place. The Gaon

by his acquaintance with the _whole_ of the Torah had no difficulty

whatever in discovering the rich places. If there was a difficult passage

in this or that Tractate, he showed, by giving a reference to some other

place, that it was wanting in some words or lines. Obscure passages in the

Mishnah he tried to elucidate by parallel passages in the Tosephta. The

too complicated controversies of the Babylonian Talmud he tried to explain

by comparing them with the more ancient and more simple Talmud of

Jerusalem.

 

There is little to be told of the Gaon's private affairs. Even the date of

his marriage with a certain Miss Anna of Kaidon is not mentioned by his

biographers. But it may be taken for granted that, in accordance with the

custom in Poland, he married at a very early age, say about eighteen

years. It was also when a young man that he travelled for some years

through Poland and Germany. It is rather difficult to say what his object

may have been in making these travels--for the Gaon was not the man to

travel for pleasure's sake. Perhaps it was to become acquainted with the

great Rabbis of these countries. It is also possible, as others maintain,

that the Gaon considered the many privations which a traveller had to

endure a hundred and fifty years ago, as an atonement for his imaginary

sins. Indeed we find in many ascetic books that travelling, or as they

term it "receiving upon oneself to be banished into the exile,"(53) is

recommended as a very successful substitute for penance. At least it seems

that the coachmen whom the Gaon employed on his journeys looked at it from

this point of view. One of them went so far in adding to the privations of

the Gaon as to run away with his carriage when the Rabbi alighted from it

in order to read his prayers. But the reading of the Eighteen

Benedictions(54) must not be interrupted excepting in the case of danger;

and the Gaon did not consider it very dangerous to be left without money

and without luggage.

 

These travels ended in the year 1745. The Gaon left Wilna again at a later

date with the purpose of going to Palestine and settling there. But he

found so many obstacles on his way that he was soon compelled to give up

his favourite plan and to return to his native town. It is not known

whether he left Wilna again.

 

The position which the Gaon occupied in Wilna was, as already hinted, that

of a private man. He could never be prevailed upon to accept the post of

Rabbi or any other office in a Jewish community. I am unable to give the

reason for his declining all the offers made to him in this direction. But

it may be suggested here that it was in the time of the Gaon that there

arose a bitter struggle between the Rabbi and the Jewish wardens of his

native town, which ended in the abolition of the office of Rabbi. The

history of the struggle is the more irritating, as it arose from the

pettiest reasons imaginable. People actually discovered that there was no

light in the house of the Rabbi after the middle of the night, which fact

might lead to the conclusion that he did not study later than 12 o'clock

P.M. What an idle man! And this idleness was the less pardonable in the

eyes of the community, as the Rabbi's wife was so unfortunate as not to

have been polite enough to some Mrs. Warden. Under such circumstances we

must not wonder if the Gaon did not find it very desirable to meddle with

congregational affairs in an official capacity. The relation of the Gaon

to his contemporaries resembles rather the position in the olden times of

a Tanna or Amora,(55) who neither enjoyed the title of Nasin or that of Ab Beth Din.(56) Like R. Akiba, or Mar Samuel, the Gaon became influential among his contemporaries only by his teaching and his exemplary life.