Moses Mendelssohn

“ Moses Mendelssohn may be said to have been actually the heart and lungs of the Berlin thought-life of his day. Now he was a learned Talmudist, and his co-religionists had no fault to find with his ideas of ritual.
The possibility of being a true world-reformer does not depend on occupying any particular position in the thought-world. The possibility of performing that function at all depends on having ideas about the nature of truth which are living, in contradistinction to such as are dead. ”

“ Mendelssohn, Nathan, the third son of Moses Mendelssohn, was born in 1782. In 1809, he was baptized [364] by the Reformed Pastor Petiscus, assuming the name of Carl Theodor Nathanael Mendelssohn. He became a mechanic by profession, and was at the head of a large industry in Silesia. He was a sincere Christian, and took an interest in missionary work among the Jews. He requested the missionaries of the L.J.S. in 1826 to supply him with Bibles for distribution among his workmen. He died in Berlin in 1852. ”

“ Mendelssohn came of a family that boasted an eminent intellectual leader of Judaism in the shape of Moses Mendelssohn, the composer's grandfather. Abraham, the father, brought up his two children, Fanny and Felix, in the Lutheran faith. Between the brother and sister there existed the most intimate understanding and affection, lasting through126 their entire lives. Both were musically gifted, possessing delicate hands and taper fingers that were often spoken of as if made expressly for playing Bach fugues. ”

“ The hero of Lessing’s play ‘Nathan the Wise’ had come in those thirty years to be a well-known and famous personage, and he, Moses Mendelssohn, and not the shambling pedlar whom they passed contemptuously in the street, was talked of now among cultivated people as ‘a Jew.’ The individual Jew whom they happen to come across is generally accepted by outsiders as a representative of his race, and thus the work that Mendelssohn did by being scholarly and good-mannered and straightforward was, perhaps, even more valuable to his people than his literary services. ”

“ He desired to imitate the example of his great prototype, Moses Mendelssohn, and spread the light of learning throughout the Jewish world. He did not lose sight of the vastness of the undertaking, of the dangers he was incurring, or of the animosity he was inviting, for the Jews of Russia still regarded all learning not found in the folios of the Talmud as sacrilegious and unholy. To overcome this antagonism to secular knowledge now became Mendel's self-imposed task. ”

“ The test of religion is its effect on conduct. This is the moral of Lessing’s Nathan the Wise, the hero of which is undoubtedly Mendelssohn. The parable of the three rings is the epitome of the pragmatic position. One direct result of this pragmatism was unexpected. Having been taught that there is no absolutely true religion, Mendelssohn’s own descendants—a brilliant circle, of which the musician Felix was the most noted—left the Synagogue for the Church. But despite this, Mendelssohn’s theory was found to be a strengthening bond in Judaism. ”

“ Her ideas were based upon that rare and beautiful character Moses Mendelssohn, a character as little typical of the Jewish as of any other race or religious creed, but common to all men who think and feel philosophically and have raised themselves above the petty prejudices of mankind. ”

“ For Mendelssohn’s biography the chief sources are Graetz, History of the Jews, vol. v., and Kayserling’s M. Mendelssohn’s Leben und Wirken (1887) . Much interesting material on the Mendelssohn family is given in Hensel’s Die Familie Mendelssohn (translated into English, 1881) . Much general comment on Moses Mendelssohn appeared in the press of the world on occasion of the centenary of the birth of the composer Mendelssohn in 1909. ”

“ And thus, in hard yet happy work, passed away the seven years, from fourteen till twenty-one, which are the seed-time of a man’s life. In 1750, when Moses was nearly of age, he came into possession of what really proved an inheritance. A rich silk manufacturer, named Bernhardt, who was a prominent member of the Berlin synagogue, made a proposal to the learned young man, whose perseverance had given reputation to his scholarship, to become resident tutor to his children. The offer was gladly accepted, and it may be considered Mendelssohn’s first step on the road to success. ”

“ The enlightened epikoros could by no means understand Mendelssohn's conscientious attachment to traditional Judaism. His relation to orthodox Judaism was not, as Mendelssohn persuaded himself, a logical result of his rationalism, but was a natural expression of his true Jewish spirit. His fine sense of religiosity told him, that when a man turns his back on tradition, he really severs himself from Judaism itself and from its national essence. It is one thing to restore Judaism, through unbiased historical criticism, to its origins ”

“ So wrote the subject of this memoir more than a hundred years ago, and the sentence may well stand for the motto of his life; for much as Moses Mendelssohn achieved by his ability, much more did he by his conduct, and great as he was as a philosopher, far greater was he as a man. Starting with every possible disadvantage—prejudice, poverty, and deformity—he yet reached the goal of ‘honour, fame, and troops of friends’ by simple force of character ”

“ Have you not heard the voice of Moses Mendelssohn, the celebrated writer of our people, who asked your co-religionists, 'Of what avail that you should continue to attach men lacking faith and religion to yourselves'? ”

“ It is a very prevalent error, most likely borrowed from Christianity, that an entire view of life can be compressed into a single dogma. I do not agree with Mendelssohn that Judaism has no dogmas. I claim that the divine teaching of Judaism was never, at any time, completed and finished. It has always kept on developing, its development being based upon the harmonizing of the Jewish genius with that of life and humanity. Development of the knowledge of God, through study and conscientious investigation, is not only not forbidden in Judaism, but is even considered a religious duty. ”

“ Among Lessing’s chief friends during his second residence in Berlin were the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) , in association with whom he wrote in 1755 an admirable treatise, Pope ein Metaphysiker! tracing sharply the lines which separate the poet from the philosopher. He was also on intimate terms with C. F. Nicolai (1733–1811) , a Berlin bookseller and rationalistic writer, and with the “German Horace” K. W. Ramler (1725–1798) ”

“ From “Josiah” young and old may learn that “the most manly king of Judah was also the most religious”; so, too, the character of “Nehemiah” was a “combination of manliness and holiness.” “Moses Mendelssohn” enables us to learn to be “good and happy,” and, adds Michael Henry, “it is refreshing to turn from the troubled stories of kings, warriors, and statesmen, to the record of this calm, pure life, in which, as in the religion he followed, peace, love and wisdom [Pg 314] are harmoniously combined.” ”

“ It is the same tendency which came to the front immediately after the appearance of Mendelssohn and which caused Mendelssohn himself pain and aggravation. During the life of Mendelssohn, there emerged those "Modern Jews" who measure the degree of enlightenment and education one possesses by the amount of his disregard for Jewish customs, and who finally graduated into State service by presenting a conversion certificate as their diploma. ”

“ So far, Mendelssohn had devoted his talents to philosophy and criticism; now, however, an incident turned the current of his life in the direction of the cause of Judaism. Lavater was one of the most ardent admirers of Mendelssohn. He described him as “a companionable, brilliant soul, with piercing eyes, the body of an Aesop—a man of keen insight, exquisite taste and wide erudition . . . frank and open-hearted.” Lavater was fired with the ambition to convert his friend to Christianity. ”

“ In this book our author endeavored, without trespassing the boundaries of orthodox religious tradition, to demonstrate the following elementary truths by citing examples from Jewish history and sayings of great Jewish authorities:
[Footnote 1: A Hebrew term meaning "enlightenment." It is a translation of the German Aufklaerung, and was first applied to the endeavors made in the time of Moses Mendelssohn (died 1886) to introduce European culture among the Jews of the ghetto.] ”

“ Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was born at Hamburg, in the Grosse Michaelisstrasse No. 14 [2] Friday, Feb. 3, 1809. That was at all events a lucky Friday. The family was already well known from Moses Mendelssohn, the grandfather of Felix, 'The Modern Plato,' whose 'Phädon,' a dialogue upon the immortality of the soul, based on the Phædo of Plato, was translated, long before the birth of his illustrious grandson, into almost every European [3] (and at least one Asiatic) language. Moses was the son of Mendel, a poor Jewish schoolmaster of Dessau, on the Elbe, and was born there Sept. ”

“ It is only with the national rebirth that the religious genius of the Jews, like the giant of legend touching mother earth, will be endowed with new strength and again be reinspired with the prophetic spirit. No aspirant for enlightenment, not even a Mendelssohn, has so far succeeded in crushing the hard shell with which Rabbinism has encrusted Judaism without, at the same time, destroying the national ideal in its innermost essence. ”

“ Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, celebrated German composer, grandson of the succeeding, born in Hamburg; he began to compose early in life, and his compositions consisted of symphonies, operas, oratorios, and church music; his oratorios of "St. Paul" and "Elijah" are well known, and are enduring monuments of his genius; he was a man universally loved and esteemed, and had the good fortune to live amidst the happiest surroundings (1809-1847) .
Mendelssohn, Moses, a German philosopher, born at Dessau, of Jewish descent, a zealous monotheist, and wrote against Spinoza ”

“ According to a traditional Jewish manner of forming a surname Moses called himself “Son of Mendel”—in German, “Mendels Sohn”—albeit he long alluded to himself as “Moses Dessauer”. When Rabbi Frankel transferred his activities to Berlin his disciple, though only fourteen, followed him on foot. Hunger, sickness, deprivations, bitter antagonisms, far from breaking the youth’s spirit, deepened his perceptions and broadened his vision. He wrote and studied with fanatic zeal and in the fullness of time developed into one of the greatest scholars and philosophers of the age. ”

“ Gumperz or Hess rendered a conspicuous service to Mendelssohn and to the cause of enlightenment in 1754 by introducing him to Lessing. Just as the latter afterwards makes Nathan the Wise and Saladin meet over the chess-board, so did Lessing and Mendelssohn actually come together as lovers of the game. The Berlin of the day—the day of Frederick the Great—was in a moral and intellectual ferment. Lessing was the great liberator of the German mind. ”

“ Spinoza conceived Judaism to be grounded in Nationalism, and held that the restoration of the Jewish kingdom depends entirely upon the will and courage of the Jewish people. Even the rationalistic Mendelssohn did not know of a cosmopolitan Judaism. It is only in modern times that, for the purposes of obtaining equal rights, some German Jews denied the existence of Jewish nationality. Moreover, they have convinced themselves, contrary to the fact that the further existence of Judaism will not at all be threatened by the elimination of its innermost essence. ”

“ They did see in every modification of the view of life a new religion, and never persuaded themselves that they could reform the historical basis of our religion. Saadia and Maimonides, Spinoza and Mendelssohn did not become apostates, in spite of their progressive spirit, though there were many fanatics who wanted to exclude them from Judaism, or, as in the case of Spinoza, had him excluded. Our modern rationalists would excommunicate from the Synagogue Jews who declare themselves Spinozists, if they only had the power. ”

“ With a subject like 'Elijah' it appears to me that the dramatic element should predominate, as it should in all Old Testament subjects, Moses, perhaps, excepted. The personages should act and speak as if they were living beings—for Heaven's sake let them not be a musical picture, but a real world, such as you find in every chapter of the Old Testament; and the contemplative and pathetic element, which you desire, ought to be entirely conveyed to our understanding by the words and the mood of the acting personages.... ”

“ It is not often that people live up to their names so thoroughly as Mendelssohn lived up to his. His parents were prophets when they called him Felix, for his life was happy, though he enjoyed it only thirty-eight years, and though it was not without its disappointments and rebuffs,—being a Christianised Jew, he was acceptable to neither the Jews nor the Gentiles. None the less, Mendelssohn's life was, as human lives go, one of complete felicity. ”

“ But the Mendelssohnian revival in Judaism was a literary revival, in which moral and religious forces had only an indirect influence. By the aid of greater refinement of language, for hitherto the "German" Jews had not spoken pure German; by a widening of the scope of education in the Jewish schools; by the introduction of all that is known as culture, Mendelssohn changed the whole aspect of Jewish life. And he produced this reformation by books and by books alone. Never playing the part of a religious or moral reformer, Mendelssohn became the Jewish apostle of culture. ”