{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_7836/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_7836","id":"gutenberg_7836","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7836","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Jews -- History","Judaism","Philosophy"],"text":"Produced by David King, Charles Franks, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJEWISH HISTORY\n\nAN ESSAY IN THE PHILOSOPHY\nOF HISTORY\n\nBy S. M. Dubnow\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE GERMAN TRANSLATION\n\n\nThe author of the present essay, S. M. Dubnow, occupies a well-nigh\ndominating position in Russian-Jewish literature as an historian and\nan acute critic. His investigations into the history of the\nPolish-Russian Jews, especially his achievements in the history of\nChassidism, have been of fundamental importance in these departments.\nWhat raises Mr. Dubnow far above the status of the professional\nhistorian, and awakens the reader's lively interest in him, is not so\nmuch the matter of his books, as the manner of presentation. It is\nrare to meet with an historian in whom scientific objectivity and\nthoroughness are so harmoniously combined with an ardent temperament\nand plastic ability. Mr. Dubnow's scientific activity, first and last,\nis a striking refutation of the widespread opinion that identifies\nattractiveness of form in the work of a scholar with superficiality of\ncontent. Even his strictly scientific investigations, besides offering\nthe scholar a wealth of new suggestions, form instructive and\nentertaining reading matter for the educated layman. In his critical\nessays, Mr. Dubnow shows himself to be possessed of keen psychologic\ninsight. By virtue of this quality of delicate perception, he aims to\nassign to every historical fact its proper place in the line of\ndevelopment, and so establish the bond between it and the general\nhistory of mankind. This psychologic ability contributes vastly to the\ninterest aroused by Mr. Dubnow's historical works outside of the\nlimited circle of scholars. There is a passage in one of his books[1]\nin which, in his incisive manner, he expresses his views on the limits\nand tasks of historical writing. As the passage bears upon the methods\nemployed in the present essay, and, at the same time, is a\ncharacteristic specimen of our author's style, I take the liberty of\nquoting:\n\n\"The popularization of history is by no means to be pursued to the\ndetriment of its severely scientific treatment. What is to be guarded\nagainst is the notion that tedium is inseparable from the scientific\nmethod. I have always been of the opinion that the dulness commonly\nlooked upon as the prerogative of scholarly inquiries, is not an\ninherent attribute. In most cases it is conditioned, not by the nature\nof the subject under investigation, but by the temper of the\ninvestigator. Often, indeed, the tediousness of a learned disquisition\nis intentional: it is considered one of the polite conventions of the\nacademic guild, and by many is identified with scientific thoroughness\nand profound learning.... If, in general, deadening, hide-bound caste\nmethods, not seldom the cover for poverty of thought and lack of\ncleverness, are reprehensible, they are doubly reprehensible in\nhistory. The history of a people is not a mere mental discipline, like\nbotany or mathematics, but a living science, a _magistra vitae_,\nleading straight to national self-knowledge, and acting to a certain\ndegree upon the national character. History is a science _by_ the\npeople, _for_ the people, and, therefore, its place is the open\nforum, not the scholar's musty closet. We relate the events of the\npast to the people, not merely to a handful of archaeologists and\nnumismaticians. We work for national self-knowledge, not for our own\nintellectual diversion.\"\n\n  [1] In the introduction to his _Historische Mitteilungen,\n    Vorarbeiten zu einer Geschichte der pol-nischrussischen\n    Juden_.\n\nThese are the principles that have guided Mr. Dubnow in all his works,\nand he has been true to them in the present essay, which exhibits in a\nremarkably striking way the author's art of making \"all things seem\nfresh and new, important and attractive.\" New and important his essay\nundoubtedly is. The author attempts, for the first time, a psychologic\ncharacterization of Jewish history. He endeavors to demonstrate the\ninner connection between events, and develop the ideas that underlie\nthem, or, to use his own expression, lay bare the soul of Jewish\nhistory, which clothes itself with external events as with a bodily\nenvelope. Jewish history has never before been considered from this\nphilosophic point of view, certainly not in German literature. The\npresent work, therefore, cannot fail to prove stimulating. As for the\npoet's other requirement, attractiveness, it is fully met by the work\nhere translated. The qualities of Mr. Dubnow's style, as described\nabove, are present to a marked degree. The enthusiasm flaming up in\nevery line, coupled with his plastic, figurative style, and his\nscintillating conceits, which lend vivacity to his presentation, is\nbound to charm the reader. Yet, in spite of the racy style, even the\nlayman will have no difficulty in discovering that it is not a clever\njournalist, an artificer of well-turned phrases, who is speaking to\nhim, but a scholar by profession, whose foremost concern is with\nhistorical truth, and whose every statement rests upon accurate,\nscientific knowledge; not a bookworm with pale, academic blood\ntrickling through his veins, but a man who, with unsoured mien, with\nfresh, buoyant delight, offers the world the results laboriously\nreached in his study, after all evidences of toil and moil have been\ncarefully removed; who derives inspiration from the noble and the\nsublime in whatever guise it may appear, and who knows how to\ncommunicate his inspiration to others.\n\nThe translator lays this book of an accomplished and spirited\nhistorian before the German public. He does so in the hope that it\nwill shed new light upon Jewish history even for professional\nscholars. He is confident that in many to whom our unexampled past of\nfour thousand years' duration is now _terra incognita_, it will\narouse enthusiastic interest, and even to those who, like the\ntranslator himself, differ from the author in religious views, it will\nfurnish edifying and suggestive reading. J. F.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION\n\n\nThe English translation of Mr. Dubnow's Essay is based upon the\nauthorized German translation, which was made from the original\nRussian. It is published under the joint auspices of the Jewish\nPublication Society of America and the Jewish Historical Society of\nEngland. H. S.\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE GERMAN TRANSLATION\n\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE\n\nI\n\nTHE RANGE OF JEWISH HISTORY\n   Historical and Unhistorical Peoples\n   Three Groups of Nations\n   The \"Most Historical\" People\n   Extent of Jewish History\n\nII\n\nTHE CONTENT OF JEWISH HISTORY\n   Two Periods of Jewish History\n   The Period of Independence\n   The Election of the Jewish People\n   Priests and Prophets\n   The Babylonian Exile and the Scribes\n   The Dispersion\n   Jewish History and Universal History\n   Jewish History Characterized\n\nIII\n\nTHE SIGNIFICANCE OF JEWISH HISTORY\n   The National Aspect of Jewish History\n   The Historical Consciousness\n   The National Idea and National Feeling\n   The Universal Aspect of Jewish History\n   An Historical Experiment\n   A Moral Discipline\n   Humanitarian Significance of Jewish History\n   Schleiden and George Eliot\n\nIV\n\nTHE HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS\n   Three Primary Periods\n   Four Composite Periods\n\nV\n\nTHE PRIMARY OR BIBLICAL PERIOD\n   Cosmic Origin of the Jewish Religion\n   Tribal Organization\n   Egyptian Influence and Experiences\n   Moses\n   Mosaism a Religious and Moral as well as a Social and Political\n       System\n   National Deities\n   The Prophets and the two Kingdoms\n   Judaism a Universal Religion\n\nVI\n\nTHE SECONDARY OR SPIRITUAL-POLITICAL PERIOD\n   Growth of National Feeling\n   Ezra and Nehemiah\n   The Scribes\n   Hellenism\n   The Maccabees\n   Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes\n   Alexandrian Jews\n   Christianity\n\nVII\n\nTHE TERTIARY TALMUDIC OR NATIONAL-RELIGIOUS\nPERIOD\n   The Isolation of Jewry and Judaism\n   The Mishna\n   The Talmud\n   Intellectual Activity in Palestine and Babylonia\n   The Agada and the Midrash\n   Unification of Judaism\n\nVIII\n\nTHE GAONIC PERIOD, OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE ORIENTAL JEWS (500-980)\n   The Academies\n   Islam\n   Karaism\n   Beginning of Persecutions in Europe\n   Arabic Civilization in Europe\n\nIX\n\nTHE RABBINIC-PHILOSOPHICAL PERIOD, OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE SPANISH\nJEWS (980-1492)\n   The Spanish Jews\n   The Arabic-Jewish Renaissance\n   The Crusades and the Jews\n   Degradation of the Jews in Christian Europe\n   The Provence\n   The Lateran Council\n   The Kabbala\n   Expulsion from Spain\n\nX\n\nTHE RABBINIC-MYSTICAL PERIOD, OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE GERMAN-POLISH\nJEWS (1492-1789)\n   The Humanists and the Reformation\n   Palestine an Asylum for Jews\n   Messianic Belief and Hopes\n   Holland a Jewish Centre\n   Poland and the Jews\n   The Rabbinical Authorities of Poland\n   Isolation of the Polish Jews\n   Mysticism and the Practical Kabbala\n   Chassidism\n   Persecutions and Morbid Piety\n\nXI\n\nTHE MODERN PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT (THE NINETEENTH CENTURY)\n   The French Revolution\n   The Jewish Middle Ages\n   Spiritual and Civil Emancipation\n   The Successors of Mendelssohn\n   Zunz and the Science of Judaism\n   The Modern Movements outside of Germany\n   The Jew in Russia\n   His Regeneration\n   Anti-Semitism and Judophobia\n\nXII\n\nTHE TEACHINGS OF JEWISH HISTORY\n   Jewry a Spiritual Community\n   Jewry Indestructible\n   The Creative Principle of Jewry\n   The Task of the Future\n   The Jew and the Nations\n   The Ultimate Ideal\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE\n\n\nWhat is Jewish History? In the first place, what does it offer as to\nquantity and as to quality? What are its range and content, and what\ndistinguishes it in these two respects from the history of other\nnations? Furthermore, what is the essential meaning, what the spirit,\nof Jewish History? Or, to put the question in another way, to what\ngeneral results are we led by the aggregate of its facts, considered,\nnot as a whole, but genetically, as a succession of evolutionary\nstages in the consciousness and education of the Jewish people?\n\nIf we could find precise answers to these several questions, they\nwould constitute a characterization of Jewish History as accurate as\nis attainable. To present such a characterization succinctly is the\npurpose of the following essay.\n\n\n\n\nJEWISH HISTORY\n\nAN ESSAY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE RANGE OF JEWISH HISTORY\n\n\n    Le peuple juif n'est pas seulement consid\u00e9rable par son\n    antiquit\u00e9, mais il est encore singulier en sa dur\u00e9e, qui a\n    toujours continu\u00e9 depuis son origine jusqu'\u00e0 maintenant ...\n    S'\u00e9tendant depuis les premiers temps jusqu'aux derniers,\n    l'histoire des juifs enferme dans sa dur\u00e9e celle de toutes nos\n    histoires.--PASCAL, _Pens\u00e9es_, II, 7.\n\nTo make clear the range of Jewish history, it is necessary to set down\na few general, elementary definitions by way of introduction.\n\nIt has long been recognized that a fundamental difference exists\nbetween historical and unhistorical peoples, a difference growing out\nof the fact of the natural inequality between the various elements\ncomposing the human race. Unhistorical is the attribute applied to\npeoples that have not yet broken away, or have not departed very far,\nfrom the state of primitive savagery, as, for instance, the barbarous\nraces of Asia and Africa who were the prehistoric ancestors of the\nEuropeans, or the obscure, untutored tribes of the present, like the\nTartars and the Kirghiz. Unhistorical peoples, then, are ethnic groups\nof all sorts that are bereft of a distinctive, spiritual\nindividuality, and have failed to display normal, independent capacity\nfor culture. The term historical, on the other hand, is applied to the\nnations that have had a conscious, purposeful history of appreciable\nduration; that have progressed, stage by stage, in their growth and in\nthe improvement of their mode and their views of life; that have\ndemonstrated mental productivity of some sort, and have elaborated\nprinciples of civilization and social life more or less rational;\nnations, in short, representing not only zoologic, but also spiritual\ntypes.[2]\n\n  [2] \"The primitive peoples that change with their environment,\n    constantly adapting themselves to their habitat and to\n    external nature, have no history.... Only those nations and\n    states belong to history which display self-conscious action;\n    which evince an inner spiritual life by diversified\n    manifestations; and combine into an organic whole what they\n    receive from without, and what they themselves originate.\"\n    (Introduction to Weber's _Allgemeine Weltgeschichte_, i,\n    pp. 16-18.)\n\nChronologically considered, these latter nations, of a higher type,\nare usually divided into three groups: 1, the most ancient civilized\npeoples of the Orient, such as the Chinese, the Hindoos, the\nEgyptians, the Chaldeans; 2, the ancient or classic peoples of the\nOccident, the Greeks and the Romans; and 3, the modern peoples, the\ncivilized nations of Europe and America of the present day. The most\nancient peoples of the Orient, standing \"at the threshold of history,\"\nwere the first heralds of a religious consciousness and of moral\nprinciples. In hoary antiquity, when most of the representatives of\nthe human kind were nothing more than a peculiar variety of the class\nmammalia, the peoples called the most ancient brought forth recognized\nforms of social life and a variety of theories of living of fairly\nfar-reaching effect. All these culture-bearers of the Orient soon\ndisappeared from the surface of history. Some (the Chaldeans,\nPhoenicians, and Egyptians) were washed away by the flood of time, and\ntheir remnants were absorbed by younger and more vigorous peoples.\nOthers (the Hindoos and Persians) relapsed into a semi-barbarous\nstate; and a third class (the Chinese) were arrested in their growth,\nand remained fixed in immobility. The best that the antique Orient had\nto bequeath in the way of spiritual possessions fell to the share of\nthe classic nations of the West, the Greeks and the Romans. They\ngreatly increased the heritage by their own spiritual achievements,\nand so produced a much more complex and diversified civilization,\nwhich has served as the substratum for the further development of the\nbetter part of mankind. Even the classic nations had to step aside as\nsoon as their historical mission was fulfilled. They left the field\nfree for the younger nations, with greater capability of living, which\nat that time had barely worked their way up to the beginnings of a\ncivilization. One after the other, during the first two centuries of\nthe Christian era, the members of this European family of nations\nappeared in the arena of history. They form the kernel of the\ncivilized part of mankind at the present day.\n\nNow, if we examine this accepted classification with a view to finding\nthe place belonging to the Jewish people in the chronological series,\nwe meet with embarrassing difficulties, and finally arrive at the\nconclusion that its history cannot be accommodated within the compass\nof the classification. Into which of the three historical groups\nmentioned could the Jewish people be put? Are we to call it one of the\nmost ancient, one of the ancient, or one of the modern nations? It is\nevident that it may lay claim to the first description, as well as to\nthe second and the last. In company with the most ancient nations of\nthe Orient, the Jewish people stood at the \"threshold of history.\" It\nwas the contemporary of the earliest civilized nations, the Egyptians\nand the Chaldeans. In those remote days it created and spread a\nreligious world-idea underlying an exalted social and moral system\nsurpassing everything produced in this sphere by its Oriental\ncontemporaries. Again, with the classical Greeks and Romans, it forms\nthe celebrated historical triad universally recognized as the source\nof all great systems of civilization. Finally, in fellowship with the\nnations of to-day, it leads an historical life, striding onward in the\npath of progress without stay or interruption. Deprived of political\nindependence, it nevertheless continues to fill a place in the world\nof thought as a distinctly marked spiritual individuality, as one of\nthe most active and intelligent forces. How, then, are we to\ndenominate this omnipresent people, which, from the first moment of\nits historical existence up to our days, a period of thirty-five\nhundred years, has been developing continuously. In view of this\nMethuselah among the nations, whose life is co-extensive with the\nwhole of history, how are we to dispose of the inevitable barriers\nbetween \"the most ancient\" and \"the ancient,\" between \"the ancient\"\nand \"the modern\" nations--the fateful barriers which form the\nmilestones on the path of the historical peoples, and which the Jewish\npeople has more than once overstepped?\n\nA definition of the Jewish people must needs correspond to the\naggregate of the concepts expressed by the three group-names, most\nancient, ancient, and modern. The only description applicable to it is\n\"the historical nation of all times,\" a description bringing into\nrelief the contrast between it and all other nations of modern and\nancient times, whose historical existence either came to an end in\ndays long past, or began at a date comparatively recent. And granted\nthat there are \"historical\" and \"unhistorical\" peoples, then it is\nbeyond dispute that the Jewish people deserves to be called \"the most\nhistorical\" (_historicissimus_). If the history of the world be\nconceived as a circle, then Jewish history occupies the position of\nthe diameter, the line passing through its centre, and the history of\nevery other nation is represented by a chord marking off a smaller\nsegment of the circle. The history of the Jewish people is like an\naxis crossing the history of mankind from one of its poles to the\nother. As an unbroken thread it runs through the ancient civilization\nof Egypt and Mesopotamia, down to the present-day culture of France\nand Germany. Its divisions are measured by thousands of years.\n\nJewish history, then, in its range, or, better, in its duration,\npresents an unique phenomenon. It consists of the longest series of\nevents ever recorded in the annals of a single people. To sum up its\npeculiarity briefly, it embraces a period of thirty-five hundred\nyears, and in all this vast extent it suffers no interruption. At\nevery point it is alive, full of sterling content. Presently we shall\nsee that in respect to content, too, it is distinguished by\nexceptional characteristics.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE CONTENT OF JEWISH HISTORY\n\n\nFrom the point of view of content, or qualitative structure, Jewish\nhistory, it is well known, falls into two parts. The dividing point\nbetween the two parts is the moment in which the Jewish state\ncollapsed irretrievably under the blows of the Roman Empire (70 C.\nE.). The first half deals with the vicissitudes of a nation, which,\nthough frequently at the mercy of stronger nations, still maintained\npossession of its territory and government, and was ruled by its own\nlaws. In the second half, we encounter the history of a people without\na government, more than that, without a land, a people stripped of all\nthe tangible accompaniments of nationality, and nevertheless\nsuccessful in preserving its spiritual unity, its originality,\ncomplete and undiminished.\n\nAt first glance, Jewish history during the period of independence\nseems to be but slightly different from the history of other nations.\nThough not without individual coloring, there are yet the same wars\nand intestine disturbances, the same political revolutions and\ndynastic quarrels, the same conflicts between the classes of the\npeople, the same warring between economical interests. This is only a\nsurface view of Jewish history. If we pierce to its depths, and\nscrutinize the processes that take place in its penetralia, we\nperceive that even in the early period there were latent within it\ngreat powers of intellect, universal principles, which, visibly or\ninvisibly, determined the course of events. We have before us not a\nsimple political or racial entity, but, to an eminent degree, \"a\nspiritual people.\" The national development is based upon an\nall-pervasive religious tradition, which lives in the soul of the\npeople as the Sinaitic Revelation, the Law of Moses. With this holy\ntradition, embracing a luminous theory of life and an explicit code of\nmorality and social converse, was associated the idea of the election\nof the Jewish people, of its peculiar spiritual mission. \"And ye shall\nbe unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation\" is the figurative\nexpression of this ideal calling. It conveys the thought that the\nIsraelitish people as a whole, without distinction of rank and\nregardless of the social prominence of individuals, has been called to\nguide the other nations toward sublime moral and religious principles,\nand to officiate for them, the laity as it were, in the capacity of\npriests. This exalted ideal would never have been reached, if the\ndevelopment of the Jewish people had lain along hackneyed lines; if,\nlike the Egyptians and the Chaldeans, it had had an inflexible caste\nof priests, who consider the guardianship of the spiritual treasures\nof the nation the exclusive privilege of their estate, and strive to\nkeep the mass of the people in crass ignorance. For a time, something\napproaching this condition prevailed among the Jews. The priests\ndescended from Aaron, with the Temple servants (the Levites), formed a\npriestly class, and played the part of authoritative bearers of the\nreligious tradition. But early, in the very infancy of the nation,\nthere arose by the side of this official, aristocratic hierarchy, a\nfar mightier priesthood, a democratic fraternity, seeking to enlighten\nthe whole nation, and inculcating convictions that make for a\nconsciously held aim. The Prophets were the real and appointed\nexecutors of the holy command enjoining the \"conversion\" of all Jews\ninto \"a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.\" Their activity cannot\nbe paralleled in the whole range of the world's history. They were not\npriests, but popular educators and popular teachers. They were\nanimated by the desire to instil into every soul a deeply religious\nconsciousness, to ennoble every heart by moral aspirations, to\nindoctrinate every individual with an unequivocal theory of life, to\ninspire every member of the nation with lofty ideals. Their work did\nnot fail to leave its traces. Slowly but deeply idealism entered into\nthe very pith and marrow of the national consciousness. This\nconsciousness gained in strength and amplitude century by century,\nshowing itself particularly in the latter part of the first period,\nafter the crisis known as \"the Babylonian Exile.\" Thanks to the\nexertions of the _Soferim_ (Scribes), directed toward the\nbroadest popularization of the Holy Writings, and constituting the\nformal complement to the work of the Prophets, spiritual activity\nbecame an integral part of Jewish national life. In the closing\ncenturies of its political existence, the Jewish people received its\npermanent form. There was imposed upon it the unmistakable hallmark of\nspirituality that has always identified it in the throng of the\nnations. Out of the bosom of Judaism went forth the religion that in a\nshort time ran its triumphant course through the whole ancient world,\ntransforming races of barbarians into civilized beings. It was the\nfulfilment of the Prophetical promise--that the nations would walk in\nthe light of Israel.\n\nAt the very moment when the strength and fertility of the Jewish mind\nreached the culminating point, occurred a political revolution--the\nperiod of homeless wandering began. It seemed as though, before\nscattering the Jewish people to all ends of the earth, the providence\nof history desired to teach it a final lesson, to take with it on its\nway. It seemed to say: \"Now you may go forth. Your character has been\nsufficiently tempered; you can bear the bitterest of hardships. You\nare equipped with an inexhaustible store of energy, and you can live\nfor centuries, yea, for thousands of years, under conditions that\nwould prove the bane of other nations in less than a single century.\nState, territory, army, the external attributes of national power, are\nfor you superfluous luxury. Go out into the world to prove that a\npeople can continue to live without these attributes, solely and alone\nthrough strength of spirit welding its widely scattered particles into\none firm organism!\"--And the Jewish people went forth and proved it.\n\nThis \"proof\" adduced by Jewry at the cost of eighteen centuries of\nprivation and suffering, forms the characteristic feature of the\nsecond half of Jewish history, the period of homelessness and\ndispersion. Uprooted from its political soil, national life displayed\nitself on intellectual fields exclusively. \"To think and to suffer\"\nbecame the watchword of the Jewish people, not merely because forced\nupon it by external circumstances beyond its control, but chiefly\nbecause it was conditioned by the very disposition of the people, by\nits national inclinations. The extraordinary mental energy that had\nmatured the Bible and the old writings in the first period, manifested\nitself in the second period in the encyclopedic productions of the\nTalmudists, in the religious philosophy of the middle ages, in\nRabbinism, in the Kabbala, in mysticism, and in science. The spiritual\ndiscipline of the school came to mean for the Jew what military\ndiscipline is for other nations. His remarkable longevity is due, I am\ntempted to say, to the acrid spiritual brine in which he was cured. In\nits second half, the originality of Jewish history consists indeed, in\nthe circumstance that it is the only history stripped of every active\npolitical element. There are no diplomatic artifices, no wars, no\ncampaigns, no unwarranted encroachments backed by armed force upon the\nrights of other nations, nothing of all that constitutes the chief\ncontent--the monotonous and for the most part idea-less content--of\nmany other chapters in the history of the world. Jewish history\npresents the chronicle of an ample spiritual life, a gallery of\npictures representing national scenes. Before our eyes passes a long\nprocession of facts from the fields of intellectual effort, of\nmorality, religion, and social converse. Finally, the thrilling drama\nof Jewish martyrdom is unrolled to our astonished gaze. If the inner\nlife and the social and intellectual development of a people form the\nkernel of history, and politics and occasional wars are but its\nhusk,[3] then certainly the history of the Jewish diaspora is all\nkernel. In contrast with the history of other nations it describes,\nnot the accidental deeds of princes and generals, not external pomp\nand physical prowess, but the life and development of a whole people.\nIt gives heartrending expression to the spiritual strivings of a\nnation whose brow is resplendent with the thorny crown of martyrdom.\nIt breathes heroism of mind that conquers bodily pain. In a word,\nJewish history is history sublimated.[4]\n\n  [3] \"History, without these (inner, spiritual elements), is a\n    shell without a kernel; and such is almost all the history\n    which is extant in the world.\" (Macaulay, on Mitford's History\n    of Greece, Collected Works, i, 198, ed. A. and C. Armstrong\n    and Son.)\n\n  [4] A Jewish historian makes the pregnant remark: \"If ever the\n    time comes when the prophecies of the Jewish seers are\n    fulfilled, and nation no longer raises the sword against\n    nation; when the olive leaf instead of the laurel adorns the\n    brow of the great, and the achievements of noble minds are\n    familiar to the dwellers in cottages and palaces alike, then\n    the history of the world will have the same character as\n    Jewish history. On its pages will be inscribed, not the\n    warrior's prowess and his victories, nor diplomatic schemes\n    and triumphs, but the progress of culture and its practical\n    application in real life.\"\n\nIn spite of the noteworthy features that raise Jewish history above\nthe level of the ordinary, and assign it a peculiar place, it is\nnevertheless not isolated, not severed from the history of mankind.\nRather is it most intimately interwoven with world-affairs at every\npoint throughout its whole extent. As the diameter, Jewish history is\nagain and again intersected by the chords of the historical circle.\nThe fortunes of the pilgrim people scattered in all the countries of\nthe civilized world are organically connected with the fortunes of the\nmost representative nations and states, and with manifold tendencies\nof human thought. The bond uniting them is twofold: in the times when\nthe powers of darkness and fanaticism held sway, the Jews were\namenable to the \"physical\" influence exerted by their neighbors in the\nform of persecutions, infringements of the liberty of conscience,\ninquisitions, violence of every sort; and during the prevalence of\nenlightment and humanity, the Jews were acted upon by the intellectual\nand cultural stimulus proceeding from the peoples with whom they\nentered into close relations. Momentary aberrations and reactionary\nincidents are not taken into account here. On its side, Jewry made its\npersonality felt among the nations by its independent, intellectual\nactivity, its theory of life, its literature, by the very fact,\nindeed, of its ideal staunchness and tenacity, its peculiar historical\nphysiognomy. From this reciprocal relation issued a great cycle of\nhistorical events and spiritual currents, making the past of the\nJewish people an organic constituent of the past of all that portion\nof mankind which has contributed to the treasury of human thought.\n\nWe see, then, that in reference to content Jewish history is unique in\nboth its halves. In the first \"national\" period, it is the history of\na people to which the epithet \"peculiar\" has been conceded, a people\nwhich has developed under the influence of exceptional circumstances,\nand finally attained to so high a degree of spiritual perfection and\nfertility that the creation of a new religious theory of life, which\neventually gained universal supremacy, neither exhausted its resources\nnor ended its activity. Not only did it continue to live upon its vast\nstore of spiritual energy, but day by day it increased the store. In\nthe second \"lackland\" half, it is the instructive history of a\nscattered people, organically one, in spite of dispersion, by reason\nof its unshaken ideal traditions; a people accepting misery and\nhardship with stoic calm, combining the characteristics of the thinker\nwith those of the sufferer, and eking out existence under conditions\nwhich no other nation has found adequate, or, indeed, can ever find\nadequate. The account of the people as teacher of religion--this is\nthe content of the first half of Jewish history; the account of the\npeople as thinker, stoic, and sufferer--this is the content of the\nsecond half of Jewish history.\n\nA summing up of all that has been said in this and the previous\nchapter proves true the statement with which we began, that Jewish\nhistory, in respect to its quantitative dimensions as well as its\nqualitative structure, is to the last degree distinctive and presents\na phenomenon of undeniable uniqueness.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE SIGNIFICANCE OF JEWISH HISTORY\n\n\nWe turn now to the question of the significance to be attached to\nJewish history. In view of its peculiar qualities, what has it to\noffer to the present generation and to future generations as a subject\nof study and research?\n\nThe significance of Jewish history is twofold. It is at once national\nand universal. At present the fulcrum of Jewish national being lies in\nthe historical consciousness. In the days of antiquity, the Jews were\nwelded into a single united nation by the triple agencies of state,\nrace, and religion, the complete array of material and spiritual\nforces directed to one point. Later, in the period of homelessness and\ndispersion, it was chiefly religious consciousness that cemented Jewry\ninto a whole, and replaced the severed political bond as well as the\ndulled racial instinct, which is bound to go on losing in keenness in\nproportion to the degree of removal from primitive conditions and\nnative soil. In our days, when the liberal movements leavening the\nwhole of mankind, if they have not completely shattered the religious\nconsciousness, have at least, in an important section of Jewry,\neffected a change in its form; when abrupt differences of opinion with\nregard to questions of faith and cult are asserting their presence;\nand traditional Judaism developed in historical sequence is proving\npowerless to hold together the diverse factors of the national\norganism,--in these days the keystone of national unity seems to be\nthe historical consciousness. Composed alike of physical,\nintellectual, and moral elements, of habits and views, of emotions and\nimpressions nursed into being and perfection by the hereditary\ninstinct active for thousands of years, this historical consciousness\nis a remarkably puzzling and complex psychic phenomenon. By our common\nmemory of a great, stirring past and heroic deeds on the battle-fields\nof the spirit, by the exalted historical mission allotted to us, by\nour thorn-strewn pilgrim's path, our martyrdom assumed for the sake of\nour principles, by such moral ties, we Jews, whether consciously or\nunconsciously, are bound fast to one another. As Renan well says:\n\"Common sorrow unites men more closely than common joy.\" A long chain\nof historical traditions is cast about us all like a strong ring. Our\nwonderful, unparalleled past attracts us with magnetic power. In the\ncourse of centuries, as generation followed generation, similarity of\nhistorical fortunes produced a mass of similar impressions which have\ncrystallized, and have thrown off the deposit that may be called \"the\nJewish national soul.\" This is the soil in which, deep down, lies\nimbedded, as an unconscious element, the Jewish national _feeling_,\nand as a conscious element, the Jewish national _idea_.\n\nIt follows that the Jewish national idea and the national feeling\nconnected with it have their origin primarily in the historical\nconsciousness, in a certain complex of ideas and psychic\npredispositions. These ideas and predispositions, the deposit left by\nthe aggregate of historical impressions, are of necessity the common\nproperty of the whole nation, and they can be developed and quickened\nto a considerable degree by a renewal of the impressions through the\nstudy of history. Upon the knowledge of history, then, depends the\nstrength of the national consciousness.[5]\n\n  [5] A different aspect of the same thought is presented with\n    logical clearness in another publication by our author. \"The\n    national _idea_, and the national _feeling_,\" says\n    Mr. Dubnow, \"must be kept strictly apart. Unfortunately the\n    difference between them is usually obliterated. National\n    feeling is spontaneous. To a greater or less degree it is\n    inborn in all the members of the nation as a feeling of\n    kinship. It has its flood-tide and its ebbtide in\n    correspondence to external conditions, either forcing the\n    nation to defend its nationality, or relieving it of the\n    necessity for self-defense. As this feeling is not merely a\n    blind impulse, but a complicated psychic phenomenon, it can be\n    subjected to a psychologic analysis. From the given historical\n    facts or the ideas that have become the common treasure of a\n    nation, thinking men, living life consciously, can, in one way\n    or another, derive the origin, development, and vital force of\n    its national feeling. The results of such an analysis,\n    arranged in some sort of system, form the content of the\n    national idea. The task of the national idea it is to clarify\n    the national feeling, and give it logical sanction for the\n    benefit of those who cannot rest satisfied with an unconscious\n    feeling.\n\n   \"In what, to be specific, does the essence of our Jewish national\n    idea consist? Or, putting the question in another form, what\n    is the cement that unites us into a single compact organism?\n    Territory and government, the external ties usually binding a\n    nation together, we have long ago lost. Their place is filled\n    by abstract principles, by religion and race. Undeniably these\n    are factors of first importance, and yet we ask the question,\n    do they alone and exclusively maintain the national cohesion\n    of Jewry? No, we reply, for if we admitted this proposition,\n    we should by consequence have to accept the inference, that\n    the laxity of religious principle prevailing among\n    free-thinking Jews, and the obliteration of race peculiarities\n    in the 'civilized' strata of our people, bring in their train\n    a corresponding weakening, or, indeed, a complete breaking up,\n    of our national foundations--which in point of fact is not the\n    case. On the contrary, it is noticeable that the\n    latitudinarians, the _libres penseurs_, and the\n    indifferent on the subject of religion, stand in the forefront\n    of all our national movements. Seeing that to belong to it is\n    in most cases heroism, and in many martyrdom, what is it that\n    attracts these Jews so forcibly to their people? There must be\n    something common to us all, so comprehensive that in the face\n    of multifarious views and degrees of culture it acts as a\n    consolidating force. This 'something,' I am convinced, is the\n    community of historical fortunes of all the scattered parts of\n    the Jewish nation. We are welded together by our glorious\n    past. We are encircled by a mighty chain of similar historical\n    impressions suffered by our ancestors, century after century\n    pressing in upon the Jewish soul, and leaving behind a\n    substantial deposit. In short, the Jewish national idea is\n    based chiefly upon the historical consciousness.\" [Note of the\n    German trl.]\n\nBut over and above its national significance, Jewish history, we\nrepeat, possesses universal significance. Let us, in the first place,\nexamine its value for science and philosophy. Inasmuch as it is\npre-eminently a chronicle of ideas and spiritual movements, Jewish\nhistory affords the philosopher or psychologist material for\nobservation of the most important and useful kind. The study of other,\nmostly dull chapters of universal history has led to the fixing of\npsychologic or sociologic theses, to the working out of comprehensive\nphilosophic systems, to the determination of general laws. Surely it\nfollows without far-fetched proof, that in some respects the chapter\ndealing with Jewish history must supply material of the most original\ncharacter for such theses and philosophies. If it is true, as the last\nchapter set out to demonstrate, that Jewish history is distinguished\nby sharply marked and peculiar features, and refuses to accommodate\nitself to conventional forms, then its content must have an original\ncontribution to make to philosophy. It does not admit of a doubt that\nthe study of Jewish history would yield new propositions appertaining\nto the philosophy of history and the psychology of nations, hitherto\noverlooked by inquirers occupied with the other divisions of universal\nhistory. Inductive logic lays down a rule for ascertaining the law of\na phenomenon produced by two or more contributory causes. By means of\nwhat might be called a laboratory experiment, the several causes must\nbe disengaged from one another, and the effect of each observed by\nitself. Thus it becomes possible to arrive with mathematical precision\nat the share of each cause in the result achieved by several\nco-operating causes. This method of difference, as it is called, is\navailable, however, only for a limited number of phenomena, only for\nphenomena in the department of the natural sciences. It is in the\nnature of the case that mental and spiritual phenomena, though they\nmay be observed, cannot be artificially reproduced. Now, in one\nrespect, Jewish history affords the advantages of an arranged\nexperiment. The historical life of ordinary nations, such nations as\nare endowed with territory and are organized into a state, is a\ncomplete intermingling of the political with the spiritual element.\nTotally ignorant as we are of the development either would have\nassumed, had it been dissevered from the other, the laws governing\neach of the elements singly can be discovered only approximately.\nJewish history, in which the two elements have for many centuries been\ncompletely disentangled from each other, presents a natural\nexperiment, with the advantage of artificial exclusions, rendering\npossible the determination of the laws of spiritual phenomena with far\ngreater scientific exactitude than the laws of phenomena that result\nfrom several similar causes.\n\nBesides this high value for the purposes of science, this fruitful\nsuggestiveness for philosophic thought, Jewish history, as compared\nwith the history of other nations, enjoys another distinction in its\ncapacity to exercise an ennobling influence upon the heart. Nothing so\nexalts and refines human nature as the contemplation of moral\nsteadfastness, the history of the trials of a martyr who has fought\nand suffered for his convictions. At bottom, the second half of Jewish\nhistory is nothing but this. The effective educational worth of the\nBiblical part of Jewish history is disputed by none. It is called\n\"sacred\" history, and he who acquires a knowledge of it is thought to\nadvance the salvation of his soul. Only a very few, however, recognize\nthe profound, moral content of the second half of Jewish history, the\nhistory of the diaspora. Yet, by reason of its exceptional qualities\nand intensely tragic circumstances, it is beyond all others calculated\nto yield edification to a notable degree. The Jewish people is\ndeserving of attention not only in the time when it displayed its\npower and enjoyed its independence, but as well in the period of its\nweakness and oppression, during which it was compelled to purchase\nspiritual development by constant sacrifice of self. A thinker crowned\nwith thorns demands no less veneration than a thinker with the laurel\nwreath upon his brow. The flame issuing from the funeral pile on which\nmartyrs die an heroic death for their ideas is, in its way, as\nawe-inspiring as the flame from Sinai's height. With equal force,\nthough by different methods, both touch the heart, and arouse the\nmoral sentiment. Biblical Israel the celebrated--medieval Judah the\ndespised--it is one and the same people, judged variously in the\nvarious phases of its historical life. If Israel bestowed upon mankind\na religious theory of life, Judah gave it a thrilling example of\ntenacious vitality and power of resistance for the sake of conviction.\nThis uninterrupted life of the spirit, this untiring aspiration for\nthe higher and the better in the domain of religious thought,\nphilosophy, and science, this moral intrepidity in night and storm and\nin despite of all the blows of fortune--is it not an imposing,\nsoul-stirring spectacle? The inexpressible tragedy of the Jewish\nhistorical life is unfailing in its effect upon a susceptible\nheart.[6] The wonderful exhibition of spirit triumphant, subduing the\npangs of the flesh, must move every heart, and exercise uplifting\ninfluence upon the non-Jew no less than upon the Jew.\n\n  [6] \"If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of\n    all the nations--if the duration of sorrows and the patience\n    with which they are borne ennoble, the Jews are among the\n    aristocracy of every land--if a literature is called rich in\n    the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say\n    to a National Tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in\n    which the poets and the actors were also the heroes?\" (Zunz,\n    _Die synagogale Poesie_. Translation by George Eliot in\n    \"Daniel Deronda.\")\n\nFor non-Jews a knowledge of Jewish history may, under certain\nconditions, come to have another, an humanitarian significance. It is\ninconceivable that the Jewish people should be held in execration by\nthose acquainted with the course of its history, with its tragic and\nheroic past.[7] Indeed, so far as Jew-haters by profession are\nconcerned, it is running a risk to recommend the study of Jewish\nhistory to them, without adding a word of caution. Its effect upon\nthem might be disastrous. They might find themselves cured of their\nmodern disease, and in the possession of ideas that would render\nworthless their whole stock in trade. Verily, he must have fallen to\nthe zero-point of anti-Semitic callousness who is not thrilled through\nand through by the lofty fortitude, the saint-like humility, the\ntrustful resignation to the will of God, the stoic firmness, laid bare\nby the study of Jewish history. The tribute of respect cannot be\nreadily withheld from him to whom the words of the poet[8] are\napplicable:\n\n \"To die was not his hope; he fain\n  Would live to think and suffer pain.\"\n\n  [7] As examples and a proof of the strong humanitarian influence\n    Jewish history exercises upon Christians, I would point to the\n    relation established between the Jews and two celebrities of\n    the nineteenth century, Schleiden and George Eliot. In his old\n    age, the great scientist and thinker accidentally, in the\n    course of his study of sources for the history of botany,\n    became acquainted with medieval Jewish history. It filled him\n    with ardent enthusiasm for the Jews, for their intellectual\n    strength, their patience under martyrdom. Dominated by this\n    feeling, he wrote the two admirable sketches: _Die Bedeutung\n    der Juden f\u00fcr Erhaltung und Wiederbelebung der Wissenschaften\n    im Mittelalter_ (1876) and _Die Romantik des Martyriums\n    bei den Juden im Mittelalter_ (1878). According to his own\n    confession, the impulse to write them was \"the wish to take at\n    least the first step toward making partial amends for the\n    unspeakable wrong inflicted by Christians upon Jews.\" As for\n    George Eliot, it may not be generally known that it was her\n    reading of histories of the Jews that inspired her with the\n    profound veneration for the Jewish people to which she gave\n    glowing utterance in \"Daniel Deronda.\" (She cites Zunz, was\n    personally acquainted with Emanuel Deutsch, and carried on a\n    correspondence with Professor Dr. David Kaufmann. See\n    _George Eliot's Life as related in her Letters and\n    Journals_. Arranged and edited by her husband, J. W. Cross,\n    Vol. iii, ed. Harper and Brothers.) Her enthusiasm prompted\n    her, in 1879, to indite her passionate apology for the Jews,\n    under the title, \"The Modern Hep! Hep! Hep!\"\n\n  [8] Pushkin.\n\nWhen, in days to come, the curtain rises upon the touching tragedy of\nJewish history, revealing it to the astonished eye of a modern\ngeneration, then, perhaps, hearts will be attuned to tenderness, and\non the ruins of national hostility will be enthroned mutual love,\ngrowing out of mutual understanding and mutual esteem. And who can\ntell--perhaps Jewish history will have a not inconsiderable share in\nthe spiritual change that is to annihilate national intolerance, the\nmodern substitute for the religious bigotry of the middle ages. In\nthis case, the future task of Jewish history will prove as sublime as\nwas the mission of the Jewish people in the past. The latter consisted\nin the spread of the dogma of the unity of creation; the former will\ncontribute indirectly to the realization of the not yet accepted dogma\nof the unity of the human race.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS\n\n\nTo define the scope of Jewish history, its content and its\nsignificance, or its place among scientific pursuits, disposes only of\nthe formal part of the task we have set ourselves. The central problem\nis to unfold the meaning of Jewish history, to discover the principle\ntoward which its diversified phenomena converge, to state the\nuniversal laws and philosophic inferences deducible from the peculiar\ncourse of its events. If we liken history to an organic being, then\nthe skeleton of facts is its body, and the soul is the spiritual bond\nthat unites the facts into a whole, that conveys the meaning, the\npsychologic essence, of the facts. It becomes our duty, then, to\nunbare the soul of Jewish history, or, in scientific parlance, to\nconstruct, on the basis of the facts, the synthesis of the whole of\nJewish national life. To this end, we must pass in review, by periods\nand epochs, one after another, the most important groups of historical\nevents, the most noteworthy currents in life and thought that tell of\nthe stages in the development of Jewry and of Judaism. Exhaustive\ntreatment of the philosophical synthesis of a history extending over\nthree thousand years is possible only in a voluminous work. In an\nessay like the present it can merely be sketched in large outline, or\npainted in miniature. We cannot expect to do more than state a series\nof general principles substantiated by the most fundamental arguments.\nComplete demonstration of each of the principles must be sought in the\nannals that recount the events of Jewish history in detail.\n\nThe historical synthesis reduces itself, then, to uncovering the\npsychologic processes of national development. The object before us to\nbe studied is the national spirit undergoing continuous evolution\nduring thousands of years. Our task is to arrive at the laws\nunderlying this growth. We shall reach our goal by imitating the\nprocedure of the geologist, who divides the mass of the earth into its\nseveral strata or formations. In Jewish history there may be\ndistinguished three chief stratifications answering to its first three\nperiods, the Biblical period, the period of the Second Temple, and the\nTalmudic period. The later periods are nothing more than these same\nformations combined in various ways, with now and then the addition of\nnew strata. Of the composite periods there are four, which arrange\nthemselves either according to hegemonies, the countries in which at\ngiven times lay the centre of gravity of the scattered Jewish people,\nor according to the intellectual currents there predominant.\n\nThis, then, is our scheme:\n\n  I. The chief formations:\n    a) The primary or Biblical period.\n    b) The secondary or spiritual-political period\n      (the period of the Second Temple, 538\n      B. C. E. to 70 C.E.)\n    c) The tertiary or national-religious period\n      (the Talmudic period, 70-500).\n\n  II. The composite formations:\n    a) The Gaonic period, or the hegemony of\n      the Oriental Jews (500-980).\n    b) The Rabbinic-philosophical period, or the\n      hegemony of the Spanish Jews (980-1492).\n    c) The Rabbinic-mystical period, or the hegemony\n      of the German-Polish Jews\n      (1492-1789).\n    d) The modern period of enlightenment (the\n      nineteenth century).\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE PRIMARY OR BIBLICAL PERIOD\n\n\nIn the daybreak of history, the hoary days when seeming and reality\nmerge into each other, and the outlines of persons and things fade\ninto the surrounding mist, the picture of a nomad people, moving from\nthe deserts of Arabia in the direction of Mesopotamia and Western\nAsia, detaches itself clear and distinct from the dim background. The\ntiny tribe, a branch of the Semitic race, bears a peculiar stamp of\nits own. A shepherd people, always living in close touch with nature,\nit yet resists the potent influence of the natural phenomena, which,\nas a rule, entrap primitive man, and make him the bond-slave of the\nvisible and material. Tent life has attuned these Semitic nomads to\ncontemplativeness. In the endless variety of the phenomena of nature,\nthey seek to discover a single guiding power. They entertain an\nobscure presentiment of the existence of an invisible, universal soul\nanimating the visible, material universe. The intuition is personified\nin the Patriarch Abraham, who, according to Biblical tradition, held\ncommunion with God, when, on the open field, \"he looked up toward\nheaven, and counted the stars,\" or when, \"at the setting of the sun,\nhe fell into benumbing sleep, and terror seized upon him by reason of\nthe impenetrable darkness.\" Here we have a clear expression of the\noriginal, purely cosmical character of the Jewish religion.\n\nThere was no lack of human influence acting from without. Chaldea,\nwhich the peculiar Semitic shepherds crossed in their pilgrimage,\npresented them with notions from its rich mythology and cosmogony. The\nnatives of Syria and Canaan, among whom in the course of time the\nAbrahamites settled, imparted to them many of their religious views\nand customs. Nevertheless, the kernel of their pure original theory\nremained intact. The patriarchal mode of life, admirable in its\nsimplicity, continued to hold its own within the circle of the\nfirmly-knitted tribe. It was in Canaan, however, that the shepherd\npeople hailing from Arabia showed the first signs of approaching\ndisintegration. Various tribal groups, like Moab and Ammon,\nconsolidated themselves. They took permanent foothold in the land, and\nsubmitted with more or less readiness to the influences exerted by the\nindigenous peoples. The guardianship of the sublime traditions of the\ntribe remained with one group alone, the \"sons of Jacob\" or the \"sons\nof Israel,\" so named from the third Patriarch Jacob. To this group of\nthe Israelites composed of smaller, closely united divisions, a\nspecial mission was allotted; its development was destined to lie\nalong peculiar lines. The fortunes awaiting it were distinctive, and\nfor thousands of years have filled thinking and believing mankind with\nwondering admiration.\n\nGreat characters are formed under the influence of powerful\nimpressions, of violent convulsions, and especially under the\ninfluence of suffering. The Israelites early passed through their\nschool of suffering in Egypt. The removal of the sons of Jacob from\nthe banks of the Jordan to those of the Nile was of decisive\nimportance for the progress of their history. When the patriarchal\nIsraelitish shepherds encountered the old, highly complex culture of\nthe Egyptians, crystallized into fixed forms even at that early date,\nit was like the clash between two opposing electric currents. The pure\nconception of God, of _Elohim_, as of the spirit informing and\nsupporting the universe, collided with the blurred system of heathen\ndeities and crass idolatry. The simple cult of the shepherds,\nconsisting of a few severely plain ceremonies, transmitted from\ngeneration to generation, was confronted with the insidious, coarsely\nsensual animal worship of the Egyptians. The patriarchal customs of\nthe Israelites were brought into marked contrast with the vices of a\ncorrupt civilization. Sound in body and soul, the son of nature\nsuddenly found himself in unsavory surroundings fashioned by culture,\nin which he was as much despised as the inoffensive nomad is by\n\"civilized\" man of settled habit. The scorn had a practical result in\nthe enslavement of the Israelites by the Pharaohs. Association with\nthe Egyptians acted as a force at once of attraction and of repulsion.\nThe manners and customs of the natives could not fail to leave an\nimpression upon the simple aliens, and invite imitation on their part.\nOn the other hand, the whole life of the Egyptians, their crude\nnotions of religion, and their immoral ways, were calculated to\ninspire the more enlightened among the Israelites with disgust. The\nhostility of the Egyptians toward the \"intruders,\" and the horrible\npersecutions in which it expressed itself, could not but bring out\nmore aggressively the old spiritual opposition between the two races.\nThe antagonism between them was the first influence to foster the germ\nof Israel's national consciousness, the consciousness of his peculiar\ncharacter, his individuality. This early intimation of a national\nconsciousness was weak. It manifested itself only in the chosen few.\nBut it existed, and the time was appointed when, under more favorable\nconditions, it would develop, and display the extent of its power.\n\nThis consciousness it was that inspired the activity of Moses,\nIsrael's teacher and liberator. He was penetrated alike by national\nand religious feeling, and his desire was to impart both national and\nreligious feeling to his brethren. The fact of national redemption he\nconnected with the fact of religious revelation. \"I am the Lord thy\nGod who have brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt\" was\nproclaimed from Sinai. The God-idea was nationalized. Thenceforth\n\"Eternal\" became the name peculiar to the God of Israel. He was,\nindeed, the same _Elohim_, the Creator of the world and its\nGuide, who had been dimly discerned by the spiritual vision of the\nPatriarchs. At the same time He was the special God of the Israelitish\nnation, the only nation that avouched Him with a full and undivided\nheart, the nation chosen by God Himself to carry out, alone, His\nsublime plans.[9] In his wanderings, Israel became acquainted with the\nchaotic religious systems of other nations. Seeing to what they paid\nthe tribute of divine adoration, he could not but be dominated by the\nconsciousness that he alone from of old had been the exponent of the\nreligious idea in its purity. The resolution must have ripened within\nhim to continue for all time to advocate and cherish this idea. From\nthat moment Israel was possessed of a clear theory of life in religion\nand morality, and of a definite aim pursued with conscious intent.\n\n  [9] This is the true recondite meaning of the verses Exod. vi,\n    2-3: \"And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the\n    Eternal: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto\n    Jacob, as _El-Shaddai_ (God Almighty), but by my name\n    Eternal I was not known unto them.\"\n\nIts originators designed that this Israelitish conception of life\nshould serve not merely theoretically, as the basis of religious\ndoctrine, but also practically, as the starting point of legislation.\nIt was to be realized in the daily walks of the people, which at this\nvery time attained to political independence. Sublime religious\nconceptions were not to be made the content of a visionary creed, the\nsubject of dreamy contemplation, but, in the form of perspicuous\nguiding principles, were to control all spheres of individual and\nsocial life. Men must beware of looking upon religion as an ideal to\nbe yearned for, it should be an ideal to be applied directly, day by\nday, to practical contingencies. In \"Mosaism,\" so-called, the\nreligious and the ethical are intimately interwoven with the social\nand the political. The chief dogmas of creed are stated as principles\nshaping practical life. For instance, the exalted idea of One God\napplied to social life produces the principle of the equality of all\nmen before the One Supreme Power, a principle on which the whole of\nBiblical legislation is built. The commands concerning love of\nneighbor, the condemnation of slavery, the obligation to aid the poor,\nhumane treatment of the stranger, sympathy and compassion with every\nliving being--all these lofty injunctions ensue as inevitable\nconsequences from the principle of equality. Biblical legislation is\nperhaps the only example of a political and social code based, not\nupon abstract reasoning alone, but also upon the requirements of the\nfeelings, upon the finest impulses of the human soul. By the side of\nformal right and legality, it emphasizes, and, in a series of\nprecepts, makes tangible, the principle of justice and humanity. The\nMosaic law is a \"propaganda by deed.\" Everywhere it demands active,\nmore than passive, morality. Herein, in this elevated characteristic,\nthis vital attribute, consists the chief source of the power of\nMosaism. The same characteristic, to be sure, prevented it from at\nonce gaining ground in the national life. It established itself only\ngradually, after many fluctuations and errors. In the course of the\ncenturies, and keeping pace with the growth of the national\nconsciousness, it was cultivated and perfected in detail.\n\nThe conquest of Canaan wrought a radical transformation in the life of\nthe Israelitish people. The acquiring of national territory supplied\nfirm ground for the development and manifold application of the\nprinciples of Mosaism. At first, however, advance was out of the\nquestion. The mass of the people had not reached the degree of\nspiritual maturity requisite for the espousal of principles\nconstituting an exalted theory of life. It could be understood and\nrepresented only by a thoughtful minority, which consisted chiefly of\nAaronites and Levites, together forming a priestly estate, though not\na hierarchy animated by the isolating spirit of caste that flourished\namong all the other peoples of the Orient. The populace discovered\nonly the ceremonial side of the religion; its kernel was hidden from\ntheir sight. Defective spiritual culture made the people susceptible\nto alien influences, to notions more closely akin to its\nunderstanding. Residence in Canaan, among related Semitic tribes that\nhad long before separated from the Israelites, and adopted altogether\ndifferent views and customs, produced a far greater metamorphosis in\nthe character of the Israelites than the sojourn in Egypt. After the\nfirst flush of victory, when the unity of the Israelitish people had\nbeen weakened by the particularistic efforts of several of the tribes,\nthe spiritual bonds confining the nation began to relax. Political\ndecay always brings religious defection in its train. Whenever Israel\ncame under the dominion of the neighboring tribes, he also fell a\nvictim to their cult. This phenomenon is throughout characteristic of\nthe so-called era of the Judges. It is a natural phenomenon readily\nexplained on psychologic grounds. The Mosaic national conception of\nthe \"Eternal\" entered more and more deeply into the national\nconsciousness, and, accommodating itself to the limited mental\ncapacity of the majority, became narrower and narrower in compass--the\nlot of all great ideas! The \"Eternal\" was no longer thought of as the\nonly One God of the whole universe, but as the tutelar deity of the\nIsraelitish tribe. The idea of national tutelar deities was at that\ntime deeply rooted in the consciousness of all the peoples of Western\nAsia. Each nation, as it had a king of its own, had a tribal god of\nits own. The Phoenicians had their Baal, the Moabites their Kemosh, the\nAmmonites their Milkom. Belief in the god peculiar to a nation by no\nmeans excluded belief in the existence of other national gods. A\npeople worshiped its own god, because it regarded him as its master\nand protecting lord. In fact, according to the views then prevalent, a\nconflict between two nations was the conflict between two national\ndeities. In the measure in which respect for the god of the defeated\nparty waned, waxed the number of worshipers of the god of the\nvictorious nation, and not merely among the conquerors, but also among\nthe adherents of other religions.[10] These crude, coarsely\nmaterialistic conceptions of God gained entrance with the masses of\nthe Israelitish people. If Moab had his Kemosh, and Ammon his Milkom,\nthen Israel had his \"Eternal,\" who, after the model of all other\nnational gods, protected and abandoned his \"clients\" at pleasure, in\nthe one case winning, in the other losing, the devotion of his\npartisans. In times of distress, in which the Israelites groaned under\nthe yoke of the alien, the enslaved \"forgot\" their \"conquered\"\n\"Eternal.\" As they paid the tribute due the strange king, and yielded\nthemselves to his power, so they submitted to the strange god, and\npaid him his due tribute of devotion. It followed that liberation from\nthe yoke of the stranger coincided with return to the God of Israel,\nthe \"Eternal.\" At such times the national spirit leaped into flaming\nlife. This sums up the achievements of the hero-Judges. But the traces\nof repeated backsliding were deep and long visible, for, together with\nthe religious ideas of the strange peoples, the Israelites accepted\ntheir customs, as a rule corrupt and noxious customs, in sharp\ncontrast with the lofty principles of the Mosaic Law, designed to\ncontrol social life and the life of the individual.\n\n  [10] \"Ye have forsaken me,\" says God unto Israel, \"and served\n    other gods; wherefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry\n    unto the gods which ye have chosen: let them deliver you in\n    the time of your tribulations\" (Judges X, 13-14). The same\n    idea is brought out still more forcibly in the arguments\n    adduced by Jephthah in his message to the king of Ammon (more\n    correctly, Moab), who had laid claim to Israelitish lands:\n    \"Thou,\" says Jephthah, \"mayest possess that which Kemosh thy\n    god giveth thee to possess, but what the Lord our God giveth\n    us to possess, that will we possess\" (Judges xi, 24). Usually\n    these words are taken ironically; to me they seem to convey\n    literal truth rather than irony.\n\nThe Prophet Samuel, coming after the unsettled period of the Judges,\nhad only partial success in purifying the views of the people and\nelevating it out of degradation to a higher spiritual level. His work\nwas continued with more marked results in the brilliant reigns of\nSaul, David, and Solomon. An end was put to the baleful disunion among\nthe tribes, and the bond of national tradition was strengthened. The\nconsolidated Israelitish kingdom triumphed over its former oppressors.\nThe gods of the strange peoples cringed in the dust before the\nall-powerful \"Eternal.\" But, with the division of the kingdom and the\npolitical rupture between Judah and Israel, the period of\nefflorescence soon came to an end. Again confusion reigned supreme,\nand customs and convictions deteriorated under foreign influence.\nProphets like Elijah and Elisha, feverish though their activity was,\nstood powerless before the rank immorality in the two states. The\nnorthern kingdom of Israel, composed of the Ten Tribes, passed swiftly\ndownward on the road to destruction, sharing the fate of the\nnumberless Oriental states whose end was inevitable by reason of inner\ndecay. The inspired words of the early Israelitish Prophets, Amos,\nHosea, and Micah, their trumpet-toned reproofs, their thrilling\nadmonitions, died unheeded upon the air--society was too depraved to\nunderstand their import. It was reserved for later generations to give\near to their immortal utterances, eloquent witnesses to the lofty\nheights to which the Jewish spirit was permitted to mount in times of\ngeneral decline. The northern kingdom sank into irretrievable ruin.\nThen came the turn of Judah. He, too, had disregarded the law of\n\"sanctification\" from Sinai, and had nearly arrived at the point of\nstifling his better impulses in the morass of materialistic living.\n\nAt this critical moment, on the line between to be and not to be, a\nmiracle came to pass. The spirit of the people, become flesh in its\nnoblest sons, rose aloft. From out of the midst of the political\ndisturbances, the frightful infamy, and the moral corruption,\nresounded the impressive call of the great Prophets of Judah. Like a\nflaming torch carried through dense darkness, they cast a glaring\nlight upon the vices of society, at the same time illuminating the\npath that leads upward to the goal of the ethical ideal. At first the\nnegative, denouncing element predominated in the exhortations of the\nProphets: unsparingly they scourged the demoralization and the\niniquity, the social injustice and the political errors prevalent in\ntheir time; they threatened divine punishment, that is, the natural\nconsequences of evil-doing, and appealed to the reason rather than the\nfeelings of the people. But gradually they elaborated positive ideals,\nmore soul-stirring than the ideals identified with the old religious\ntradition. The Prophets were the first to touch the root of the evil.\nIt is clear that they realized that alien influences and the low grade\nof intelligence possessed by the masses were not the sole causes of\nthe frequent backsliding of the people. The Jewish doctrine itself\nbore within it the germ of error. The two chief pillars of the old\nfaith--the nationalizing of the God-idea, and the stress laid upon the\ncult, the ceremonial side of religion, as compared with moral\nrequirements--were first and foremost to be held responsible for the\nflagrant departures from the spirit of Judaism. This was the direction\nin which reform was needed. Thereafter the sermons of the Prophets\nbetray everywhere the intense desire, on the one hand, to restore to\nthe God-idea its original universal character, and, on the other hand,\nwhile strongly emphasizing the importance of morality in the religious\nand the social sphere, to derogate from the value of the ceremonial\nsystem. The \"Eternal\" is no longer the national God of Israel,\nbelonging to him exclusively; He becomes the God of the whole of\nmankind, the same _Elohim_, Creator and Preserver of the world,\nwhom the Patriarchs had worshiped, and to whom, being His creatures,\nall men owe worship. His precepts and His laws of morality are binding\nupon all nations; they will bring salvation and blessing to all\nwithout distinction.[11] The ideal of piety consists in the profession\nof God and a life of rectitude. The time will come when all nations\nwill be penetrated by true knowledge of God and actuated by the\nnoblest motives; then will follow the universal brotherhood of man.\nUntil this consummation is reached, and so long as Israel is the only\nnation formally professing the one true God, and accepting His blessed\nlaw, Israel's sole task is to embody in himself the highest ideals, to\nbe an \"ensign to the nations,\" to bear before them the banner of God's\nlaw, destined in time to effect the transformation of the whole of\nmankind. Israel is a missionary to the nations. As such he must stand\nbefore them as a model of holiness and purity. Here is the origin of\nthe great idea of the spiritual \"Messianism\" of the Jewish people, or,\nbetter, its \"missionism,\" an eternal idea, far more comprehensive than\nthe old idea of national election, which it supplanted.\n\n  [11] Two Biblical passages, the one from Deuteronomy, the other\n    from Deutero-Isaiah, afford a signal illustration of the\n    contrast between the religious nationalism of the Mosaic law\n    and the universalism of the Prophets. Moses says to Israel:\n    \"Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy\n    God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself,\n    above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord\n    did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were\n    more in number than any people: for ye were the fewest of all\n    people. But because the Lord loved you....\" (Deut. vii, 6-8).\n    And these are the words of the prophecy: \"Listen, O isles,\n    unto me, and hearken, ye people, from far! The Lord hath\n    called me... and said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel,\n    in whom I will be glorified! But I had thought, I have labored\n    in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain; yet\n    surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God.\n    For now said the Lord unto me... It is too light a thing that\n    thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob,\n    and to restore the preserved of Israel: no, I will also give\n    thee for a light to the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach\n    unto the end of the earth\" (Is. xlix, 1-6).\n\nThese sublime teachings were inculcated at the moment in which Judah\nwas hastening to meet his fate. It had become impossible to check the\nnatural results of the earlier transgressions. The inevitable\nhappened; Babylon the mighty laid her ponderous hand upon tiny Judah.\nBut Judah could not be crushed. From the heavy chastisement the Jewish\nnation emerged purified, re-born for a new life.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE SECONDARY OR SPIRITUAL-POLITICAL PERIOD\n\n\nThe rank and file of a people are instructed by revolutions and\ncatastrophes better than by sermons. More quickly than Isaiah and\nJeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar brought the Jews to a recognition of their\ntasks. The short span of the Babylonian Exile (586-538 B. C. E.) was a\nperiod of introspection and searching self-examination for the people.\nSpiritual forces hitherto latent came into play; a degree of\nself-consciousness asserted itself. The people grasped its mission. At\nlast it comprehended that to imitate inferior races, instead of\nteaching them and making itself a model for them to follow, was\ntreason to its vocation in life. When the hour of release from the\nBabylonian yoke struck, the people suddenly saw under its feet \"a new\nearth,\" and to \"a new heaven\" above it raised eyes dim with tears of\nrepentance and emotion. It renewed its covenant with God. Like the\nExodus from Egypt, so the second national deliverance was connected\nwith a revelation. But the messages delivered by the last\nProphets--especially by \"the great unknown,\" the author of the latter\npart of the Book of Isaiah--were too exalted, too universal in\nconception, for a people but lately emerged from a severe crisis to\nset about their realization at once. They could only illumine its path\nas a guiding-star, inspire it as the ultimate goal, the far-off\nMessianic ideal. Meanwhile the necessity appeared for uniform\nreligious laws, dogmas, and customs, to bind the Jews together\nexternally as a nation. The moralizing religion of the Prophets was\ncalculated to bring about the regeneration of the individual,\nregardless of national ties; but at that moment the chief point\ninvolved was the nation. It had to be established and its organization\nperfected. The universalism of the Prophets was inadequate for the\nconsolidating of a nation. To this end outward religious discipline\nwas requisite, an official cult and public ceremonies. Led by such\nconsiderations, the Jewish captives, on their return to Jerusalem,\nfirst of all devoted themselves to the erection of a Temple, to the\ncreating of a visible religious centre, which was to be the rallying\npoint for the whole nation.\n\nThe days of the Prophets were over. Their religious universalism could\napply only to a distant future. In the present, the nation, before it\nmight pose as a teacher, had to learn and grow spiritually strong.\nAims of such compass require centuries for their realization.\nTherefore, the spiritual-national unification of the people was pushed\ninto the foreground. The place of the Prophet was filled by the Priest\nand the Scribe. Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah were permeated by the\npurpose to make religion and the cult subservient to the cause of\nnational union and isolation. The erection of the Temple, the solemn\nservice with the singing of Psalms and the public reading from the\n\"Book of the Law\" (the Pentateuch, which underwent its final redaction\nat that time), the removal of whatever might arouse the remembrance of\nstrange and heathen institutions--these were the levers of their\nunifying activity. At first sight this activity might appear almost\ntoo one-sided. But if we summon to mind a picture of the conditions\nprevailing in those days, we are forced to the conclusion that, in the\ninterest of national restoration, a consistent course was imperative.\nIn point of fact, however, some of Ezra's innovations testify to the\nbroad-minded, reformatory character of this activity; as, for\ninstance, the public reading of the Pentateuch, introduced with a view\nto making the people see the necessity of obtaining detailed knowledge\nof the principles of its religion, and obeying the precepts of the\nLaw, not blindly, but with conscious assent. The object steadily aimed\nat was the elevation of the whole body of the people to the plane of\nspirituality, its transformation, in accordance with the Biblical\ninjunction, into a \"kingdom of priests.\"\n\nThis injunction of civilizing import became the starting point of the\nactivity of all of Ezra's successors, of the so-called school of the\n_Soferim_, the Scribes, those versed in the art of writing. The\npolitical calm that prevailed during the two centuries of the Persian\nsupremacy (538-332 B. C. E.), was calculated to an eminent degree to\npromote spiritual development and the organization of the inner life\nof the people. During this period, a large part of the writings after\nthe Pentateuch that have been received into the Bible were collected,\ncompiled, and reduced to writing. The immortal thoughts of the\nProphets clothed themselves in the visible garb of letters. On\nparchment rolls and in books they were made accessible to distant\nages. The impressive traditions transmitted from earliest times, the\nchronicles of the past of the people, the Psalms brought forth by the\nreligious enthusiasm of a long series of poets, all were gathered and\nput into literary shape with the extreme of care. The spiritual\ntreasures of the nation were capitalized, and to this process of\ncapitalization solely and alone generations of men have owed the\npossibility of resorting to them as a source of faith and knowledge.\nWithout the work of compilation achieved by the _Soferim_, of\nwhich the uninstructed are apt to speak slightingly, mankind to-day\nhad no Bible, that central sun in world-literature.\n\nThese two centuries may fitly be called the school-days of the Jewish\nnation; the Scribes were the teachers of Jewry. In the way of original\nwork but little was produced. The people fed upon the store of\nspiritual food, of which sufficient had been laid up for several\ngenerations. It was then that the Jews first earned their title to the\nname, \"the People of the Book.\" They made subservient to themselves\nthe two mightiest instruments of thought, the art of writing and of\nreading. Their progress was brilliant, and when their schooling had\ncome to an end, and they stepped out into the broader life, they were\nat once able to apply their knowledge successfully to practical\ncontingencies. They were prepared for all the vicissitudes of life.\nTheir spiritual equipment was complete.\n\nNothing could have been more opportune than this readiness to assume\nthe responsibilities of existence, for a time of peril and menace was\nagain approaching. From out of the West, a new agent of civilization,\nHellenism, advanced upon the East. Alexander the Great had put an end\nto the huge Persian monarchy, and brought the whole of Western Asia\nunder his dominion (332 B. C. E.). His generals divided the conquered\nlands among themselves. With all their might, the Ptolemies in Egypt\nand the Seleucidae in Syria hellenized the countries subject to their\nrule. In the old domain of the Pharaohs, as in Babylonia, in Phoenicia,\nand in Syria, the Greek language was currently spoken, Greek\nceremonies were observed, the Greek mode of life was adopted. Athens\nceded her rights of primogeniture to New Athens, Alexandria, capital\nof Egypt, and cosmopolitan centre of the civilized world. For a whole\ncentury Judea played the sad part of the apple of discord between the\nEgyptian and the Syrian dynasty (320-203 B. C. E.). By turns she owned\nthe sway of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae, until finally, in 203,\nshe was declared a Syro-Macedonian province. Here, as in the other\nparts of their realm, the rulers devoted themselves energetically to\nthe dissemination of Greek culture. Meeting with resistance, they had\nresort to main force. At first, indeed, a large part of the people\npermitted itself to be blinded by the \"beauty of Japheth,\" and\npromoted assimilation with the Greeks. But when the spread of\nHellenism began to threaten the spiritual individuality of Judaism,\nthe rest of the nation, endowed with greater capacity of resistance,\narose and sturdily repulsed the enemy.\n\nHellenism was the first gravely dangerous opponent Judaism had to\nencounter. It was not the ordinary meeting of two peoples, or of two\nkinds of civilization. It was a clash between two theories of life\nthat stood abruptly opposed to each other, were, indeed, mutually\nexclusive. It was a duel between \"the Eternal\" on the one side, and\nZeus on the other--between the Creator of the universe, the invisible\nspiritual Being who had, in a miraculous way, revealed religious and\nethical ideals to mankind, and the deity who resided upon Olympus, who\npersonified the highest force of nature, consumed vast quantities of\nnectar and ambrosia, and led a pretty wild life upon Olympus and\nelsewhere. In the sphere of religion and morality, Hellene and Judean\ncould not come close to each other. The former deified nature herself,\nthe material universe; the latter deified the Creator of nature, the\nspirit informing the material universe. The Hellene paid homage first\nand foremost to external beauty and physical strength; the Judean to\ninner beauty and spiritual heroism. The Hellenic theory identified the\nmoral with the beautiful and the agreeable, and made life consist of\nan uninterrupted series of physical and mental pleasures. The Judean\ntheory is permeated by the strictly ethical notions of duty, of\npurity, of \"holiness\"; it denounces licentiousness, and sets up as its\nideal the controlling of the passions and the infinite improvement of\nthe soul, not of the intellect alone, but of the feelings as well.\nThese differences between the two theories of life showed themselves\nin the brusque opposition in character and customs that made the\nGreeks and the Jews absolute antipodes in many spheres of life. It\ncannot be denied that in matters of the intellect, especially in the\nfield of philosophy and science, not to mention art, it might have\nbeen greatly to the advantage of the Jews to become disciples of the\nGreeks. Nor is there any doubt that the brighter aspects of Hellenism\nwould make an admirable complement to Judaism. An harmonious blending\nof the Prophets with Socrates and Plato would have produced a\nmany-sided, ideal _Weltanschauung_. The course of historical events\nfrom the first made such blending, which would doubtless have\nrequired great sacrifices on both sides, an impossible consummation.\nIn point of fact, the events were such as to widen the abyss between\nthe two systems. The meeting of Judaism and Hellenism unfortunately\noccurred at the very moment when the classical Hellenes had been\nsupplanted by the hellenized Macedonians and Syrians, who had accepted\nwhat were probably the worst elements of the antique system, while\nappropriating but few of the intellectual excellencies of Greek\nculture. There was another thwarting circumstance. In this epoch, the\nGreeks were the political oppressors of the Jews, outraging Jewish\nnational feeling through their tyranny to the same degree as by their\nimmoral life they shocked Jewish ethical feeling and Jewish chastity.\n\nOutraged national and religious feeling found expression in the\ninsurrection of the Maccabees (168 B. C. E.). The hoary priest\nMattathias and his sons fought for the dearest and noblest treasures\nof Judaism. Enthusiasm begets heroism. The Syrian-Greek yoke was\nthrown off, and, after groaning under alien rule, the Persian, the\nEgyptian, and the Syro-Macedonian, for four hundred years, Judea\nbecame an independent state. In its foreign relations, the new state\nwas secured by the self-sacrificing courage of the first Maccabean\nbrothers, and from within it was supported by the deep-sunk pillars of\nthe spiritual life. The rise of the three famous parties, the\nSadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes, by no means testifies, as\nmany would have us believe, to national disintegration, but rather to\nthe intense spiritual activity of the people. The three tendencies\nafforded opportunity for the self-consciousness of the nation to\nexpress itself in all its variety and force. The unbending religious\ndogmatism of the Sadducees, the comprehensive practical sense of the\nPharisees in religious and Rational concerns, the contemplative\nmysticism of the Essenes, they are the most important offshoots from\nthe Jewish system as held at that time. In consequence of the external\nconditions that brought about the destruction of the Maccabean\nstate[12] after a century's existence (165-63 B. C. E.), the Pharisee\ntendency, which had proved itself the best in practice, won the upper\nhand. When Judea was held fast in the clutches of the Roman eagle, all\nhope of escape being cut off, the far-seeing leaders of the people\ngained the firm conviction that the only trustworthy support of the\nJewish nation lay in its religion. They realized that the preservation\nof national unity could be effected only by a consistent organization\nof the religious law, which was to envelop and shape the whole\nexternal life of the people. This explains the feverish activity of\nthe early creators of the Mishna, of Hillel, Shammai, and others, and\nit interprets also the watchword of still older fame, \"Make a fence\nabout the Law.\" If up to that moment religious usage in its\ndevelopment had kept abreast of the requirements of social and\nindividual life, the requirements out of which it had grown forth, it\nnow became a national function, and its further evolution advanced\nwith tremendous strides. For the protection of the old \"Mosaic Laws,\"\na twofold and a threefold fence of new legal ordinances was erected\nabout them, and the cult became more and more complicated. But the\nexternals of religion did not monopolize all the forces. The moral\nelement in the nation was promoted with equal vigor. Hillel, the head\nof the Pharisee party, was not a legislator alone, he was also a model\nof humane principles and rare moral attainments.\n\n  [12] The external causes of the downfall of the Maccabean state,\n    dynastic quarrels, are well known. Much less light has been\n    thrown upon the inner, deeper-lying causes of the catastrophe.\n    These are possibly to be sought in the priestly-political\n    dualism of the Judean form of government. The ideal of a\n    nation educated by means of the Bible was a theocratic state,\n    and the first princes of the Maccabean house, acting at once\n    as regents and as high priests, in a measure reached this\n    ideal. But the attempts of other nations had demonstrated\n    conclusively enough that a dualistic form of government cannot\n    maintain itself permanently. Sooner or later one of the two\n    elements, the priestly or the secular, is bound to prevail\n    over the other and crush it. In the Judean realm, with its\n    profoundly religious trend, the priestly element obtained the\n    ascendency, and political ruin ensued. The priestly-political\n    retreated before the priestly-national form of government.\n    Though the religious element was powerless to preserve the\n    _state_ from destruction, we shall see that it has\n    brilliantly vindicated its ability to keep the _nation_\n    intact.\n\nWhile Judaism, in its native country was striving to isolate itself,\nand was seizing upon all sorts of expedients to insure this end, it\nreadily entered into relations, outside of Judea, with other systems\nof thought, and accepted elements of the classical culture. Instead of\nthe violent opposition which the Palestinian Judaism of the\npre-Maccabean period, that is, the period of strife, had offered to\nHellenism, the tendency to make mutual concessions, and pave the way\nfor an understanding between the two theories of life, asserted itself\nin Alexandria. In the capital city of the hellenized world the Jews\nconstituted one of the most important elements of culture. According\nto Mommsen, the Jewish colony in Alexandria was not inferior, in point\nof numbers, to the Jewish population of Jerusalem, the metropolis.\nInfluenced by Greek civilization, the Jews in turn exercised decisive\ninfluence upon their heathen surroundings, and introduced a new\nprinciple of development into the activity of the cultivated classes.\nThe Greek translation of the Biblical writings formed the connecting\nlink between Judaism and Hellenism. The \"Septuaginta,\" the translation\nof the Pentateuch, in use since the third century before the Christian\nera, had acquainted the classical world with Jewish views and\nprinciples. The productions of the Prophets and, in later centuries,\nof the other Biblical authors, translated and spread broadcast, acted\nirresistibly upon the spirit of the cultivated heathen, and granted\nhim a glimpse into a world of hitherto unknown notions. On this soil\nsprang up the voluminous Judeo-Hellenic literature, of which but a\nfew, though characteristic, specimens have descended to us. The\nintermingling of Greek philosophy with Jewish religious conceptions\nresulted in a new religio-philosophic doctrine, with a mystic tinge,\nof which Philo is the chief exponent. In Jerusalem, Judaism appeared\nas a system of practical ceremonies and moral principles; in\nAlexandria, it presented itself as a complex of abstract symbols and\npoetical allegories. The Alexandrian form of Judaism might satisfy the\nintellect, but it could not appeal to the feelings. It may have made\nJudaism accessible to the cultivated minority, to the upper ten\nthousand with philosophic training; for the masses of the heathen\npeople Judaism continued unintelligible. Yet it was pre-eminently the\nmasses that were strongly possessed by religious craving. Disappointed\nin their old beliefs, they panted after a new belief, after spiritual\nenlightenment. In the decaying classical world, which had so long\nfilled out life with materialistic and intellectual interests, the\nmoral and religious feelings, the desire for a living faith, for an\nactive inspiration, had awakened, and was growing with irresistible\nforce.\n\nThen, from deep out of the bosom of Judaism, there sprang a moral,\nreligious doctrine destined to allay the burning thirst for religion,\nand bring about a reorganization of the heathen world. The originators\nof Christianity stood wholly upon the ground of Judaism. In their\nteachings were reflected as well the lofty moral principles of the\nPharisee leader as the contemplative aims of the Essenes. But the same\nexternal circumstances that had put Judaism under the necessity of\nchoosing a sharply-defined practical, national policy, made it\nimpossible for Judaism to fraternize with the preachers of the new\ndoctrine. Judaism, in fact, was compelled to put aside entirely the\nthought of universal missionary activity. Instead, it had to devote\nits powers to the more pressing task of guarding the spiritual unity\nof a nation whose political bonds were visibly dropping away.\n\nFor just then the Jewish nation, gory with its own blood, was\nstruggling in the talons of the Roman eagle. Its sons fought\nheroically, without thought of self. When, finally, physical strength\ngave out, their spiritual energy rose to an intenser degree. The state\nwas annihilated, the nation remained alive. At the very moment when\nthe Temple was enwrapped in flames, and the Roman legions flooded\nJerusalem, the spiritual leaders of Jewry sat musing, busily casting\nabout for a means whereby, without a state, without a capital, without\na Temple, Jewish unity might be maintained. And they solved the\ndifficult problem.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE TERTIARY TALMUDIC OR NATIONAL-RELIGIOUS PERIOD\n\n\nThe solution of the problem consisted chiefly in more strictly\nfollowing out the process of isolation. In a time in which the worship\nof God preached by Judaism was rapidly spreading to all parts of the\nclassical world, and the fundamental principles of the Jewish religion\nwere steadily gaining appreciation and active adherence, this intense\ndesire for seclusion may at first glance seem curious. But the\nphenomenon is perfectly simple. A foremost factor was national\nfeeling, enhanced to a tremendous degree at the time of the\ndestruction of Jerusalem. Lacking a political basis, it was\ntransferred to religious soil. Every tradition, every custom, however\ninsignificant, was cherished as a jewel. Though without a state and\nwithout territory, the Jews desired to form a nation, if only a\nspiritual nation, complete in itself. They considered themselves then\nas before the sole guardians of the law of God. They did not believe\nin a speedy fulfilment of the prophetical promise concerning \"the end\nof time\" when all nations would be converted to God. A scrupulous\nkeeper of the Law, Judaism would not hear of the compromises that\nheathendom, lately entered into the bosom of the faith, claimed as its\ndue consideration. It refused to sacrifice a single feature of its\nsimple dogmatism, of its essential ceremonies, such as circumcision\nand Sabbath rest. Moreover, in the period following close upon the\nfall of the Temple, a part of the people still nursed the hope of\npolitical restoration, a hope repudiating in its totality the\nproclamation of quite another Messianic doctrine. The delusion ended\ntragically in Bar Kochba's hapless rebellion (135 C. E.), whose\ndisastrous issue cut off the last remnant of hope for the restoration\nof an \"earthly kingdom.\" Thereafter the ideal of a spiritual state was\nreplaced by the ideal of a spiritual nation, rallying about a peculiar\nreligious banner. Jewry grew more and more absorbed in itself. Its\nseclusion from the rest of the world became progressively more\ncomplete. Instinct dictated this course as an escape from the danger\nof extinction, or, at least, of stagnation. It was conscious of\npossessing enough vitality and energy to live for itself and work out\nits own salvation. It had its spiritual interests, its peculiar\nideals, and a firm belief in the future. It constituted an ancient\norder, whose patent of nobility had been conferred upon it in the days\nof the hoary past by the Lord God Himself. Such as it was, it could\nnot consent to ally itself with _parvenus_, ennobled but to-day,\nand yesterday still bowing down before \"gods of silver and gods of\ngold.\" This white-haired old man, with a stormy past full of\nexperiences and thought, would not mingle with the scatter-brained\ncrowd, would not descend to the level of neophytes dominated by\nfleeting, youthful enthusiasm. Loyally this weather-bronzed,\ninflexible guardian of the Law stuck to his post--the post entrusted\nto him by God Himself--and, faithful to his duty, held fast to the\nprinciple _j'y suis, j'y reste_.\n\nAs a political nation threatened by its neighbors seeks support in its\narmy, and provides sufficient implements of war, so a spiritual nation\nmust have spiritual weapons of defense at its command. Such weapons\nwere forged in great numbers, and deposited in the vast arsenal called\nthe Talmud. The Talmud represents a complicated spiritual discipline,\nenjoining unconditional obedience to a higher invisible power. Where\ndiscipline is concerned, questions as to the necessity for one or\nanother regulation are out of place. Every regulation is necessary, if\nonly because it contributes to the desired end, namely, discipline.\nLet no one ask, then, to what purpose the innumerable religious and\nritual regulations, sometimes reaching the extreme of pettiness, to\nwhat purpose the comprehensive code in which every step in the life of\nthe faithful is foreseen. The Talmudic religious provisions, all taken\ntogether, aim to put the regimen of the nation on a strictly uniform\nbasis, so that everywhere the Jew may be able to distinguish a brother\nin faith by his peculiar mode of life. It is a uniform with insignia,\nby which soldiers of the same regiment recognize one another. Despite\nthe vast extent of the Jewish diaspora, the Jews formed a\nwell-articulated spiritual army, an invisible \"state of God\"\n(_civitas dei_). Hence these \"knights of the spirit,\" the\ncitizens of this invisible state, had to wear a distinct uniform, and\nbe governed by a suitable code of army regulations.\n\nAs a protection for Jewish national unity, which was exposed to the\ngreatest danger after the downfall of the state, there arose and\ndeveloped, without any external influence whatsoever, an extraordinary\ndictatorship, unofficial and spiritual. The legislative activity of\nall the dictators--such as, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai, Rabbi Akiba,\nthe Hillelites, and the Shammaites--was formulated in the Mishna, the\n\"oral law,\" which was the substructure of the Talmud. Their activity\nhad a characteristic feature, which deserves somewhat particularized\ndescription. The laws were not laid down arbitrarily and without\nceremony. In order to possess binding force, they required the\nauthoritative confirmation to be found in the Mosaic Books. From\nthese, whether by logical or by forced interpretation of the holy\ntext, its words, or, perchance, its letters, they had to be derived.\nEach law, barring only the original \"traditions,\" the _Halacha\nle-Moshe mi-Sinai_, was promulgated over the supreme signature, as\nit were, that is, with the authentication of a word from the Holy\nScriptures. Or it was inferred from another law so authenticated. The\nelaboration of every law was thus connected with a very complicated\nprocess of thought, requiring both inductive and deductive reasoning,\nand uniting juridical interpretation with the refinements of\ncasuistry. This legislation was the beginning of Talmudic science,\nwhich from that time on, for many centuries, growing with the ages,\nclaimed in chief part the intellectual activity of Jewry. The schools\nand the academies worked out a system of laws at once religious and\npractical in character, which constituted, in turn, the object of\nfurther theoretic study in the same schools and academies. In the\ncourse of time, however, the means became the end. Theoretic\ninvestigation of the law, extending and developing to the furthest\nlimits, in itself, without reference to its practical value, afforded\nsatisfaction to the spiritual need. The results of theorizing often\nattained the binding force of law in practical life, not because\ncircumstances ordered it, but simply because one or another academy,\nby dint of logic or casuistry, had established it as law. The number\nof such deductions from original and secondary laws increased in\ngeometric progression, and practical life all but failed to keep up\nwith the theory. The \"close of the Mishna,\" that is, its reduction to\nwriting, had no daunting effect upon the zeal for research. If\nanything, a new and strong impetus was imparted to it. As up to that\ntime the text of the Holy Scriptures had been made the basis of\ninterpretation, giving rise to the most diverse inferences, so the\nrabbis now began to use the law book recently canonized as a new basis\nof interpretation, and to carry its principles to their utmost\nconsequences. In this way originated first the \"Palestinian Gemara.\"\nLater, when the Patriarchate in Palestine was stripped of its glory by\npersecutions, and, in consequence, the centre of activity had to be\ntransferred from the Talmud academies of Palestine to those of\nBabylonia, supreme place and exclusive dominion were obtained by the\n\"Babylonian Gemara,\" put into permanent form about the year 500 C. E.,\na gigantic work, the result of two hundred years of mental labor.\n\nThis busy intellectual activity was as comprehensive as it was\nthoroughgoing. Talmudic legislation, the Halacha, by no means confines\nitself to religious practices, extensive as this field is. It embraces\nthe whole range of civil and social life. Apart from the dietary laws,\nthe regulations for the festivals and the divine service, and a mass\nof enactments for the shaping of daily life, the Talmud elaborated a\ncomprehensive and fairly well-ordered system of civil and criminal\nlaw, which not infrequently bears favorable comparison with the famous\n_rationi scriptae_ of the Romans. While proceeding with extreme\nrigor and scrupulousness in ritual matters, the Talmud is governed in\nits social legislation by the noblest humanitarian principles.\nDoubtless this difference of attitude can be explained by the fact\nthat religious norms are of very much greater importance for a nation\nthan judicial regulations, which concern themselves only with the\ninterests of the individual, and exercise but little influence upon\nthe development of the national spirit.\n\nThe most sympathetic aspects of the Jewish spirit in that epoch are\nrevealed in the moral and poetic elements of the Talmud, in the Agada.\nThey are the receptacles into which the people poured all its\nsentiments, its whole soul. They are a clear reflex of its inner\nworld, its feelings, hopes, ideals. The collective work of the nation\nand the trend of history have left much plainer traces in the Agada\nthan in the dry, methodical Halacha. In the Agada the learned jurist\nand formalist appears transformed into a sage or poet, conversing with\nthe people in a warm, cordial tone, about the phenomena of nature,\nhistory, and life. The reader is often thrown into amazement by the\ndepth of thought and the loftiness of feeling manifested in the Agada.\nInvoluntarily one pays the tribute of reverence to its practical\nwisdom, to its touching legends pervaded by the magic breath of poesy,\nto the patriarchal purity of its views. But these pearls are not\nstrung upon one string, they are not arranged in a complete system.\nThey are imbedded here and there, in gay variety, in a vast mass of\nheterogeneous opinions and sentiments naive at times and at times\neccentric. The reader becomes aware of the thoughts before they are\nconsolidated. They are still in a fluid, mobile state, still in\nprocess of making. The same vivacious, versatile spirit is revealed in\nthe Midrashim literature, directly continuing the Agada up to the end\nof the middle ages. These two species of Jewish literature, the Agada\nand the Midrashim, have a far greater absolute value than the Halacha.\nThe latter is an official work, the former a national product. Like\nevery other special legislation, the Halacha is bound to definite\nconditions and times, while the Agada concerns itself with the eternal\nverities. The creations of the philosophers, poets, and moralists are\nmore permanent than the work of legislators.\n\nBeautiful as the Agada is, and with all its profundity, it lacks\nbreadth. It rests wholly on the national, not on a universal basis. It\nwould be vain to seek in it for the comprehensive universalism of the\nProphets. Every lofty ideal is claimed as exclusively Jewish. So far\nfrom bridging over the chasm between Israel and the other nations,\nknowledge and morality served to widen it. It could not be otherwise,\nthere was no influx of air from without. The national horizon grew\nmore and more contracted. The activities of the people gathered\nintensity, but in the same measure they lost in breadth. It was the\nonly result to be expected from the course of history in those ages.\nLet us try to conceive what the first five centuries of the Christian\nera, the centuries during which the Talmud was built up, meant in the\nlife of mankind. Barbarism, darkness, and elemental outbreaks of man's\nmigratory instincts, illustrated by the \"great migration of races,\"\nare characteristic features of those centuries. It was a wretched\ntransition period between the fall of the world of antique culture and\nthe first germinating of a new Christian civilization. The Orient, the\ncentre and hearth of Judaism, was shrouded in impenetrable darkness.\nIn Palestine and in Babylonia, their two chief seats, the Jews were\nsurrounded by nations that still occupied the lowest rung of the\nladder of civilization, that had not yet risen above naive mysticism\nin religion, or continued to be immersed in superstitions of the\ngrossest sort.\n\nIn this abysmal night of the middle ages, the lamp of thought was fed\nand guarded solely and alone by the Jews. It is not astonishing, then,\nthat oblivious of the other nations they should have dispensed light\nonly for themselves. Furthermore, the circumstance must be considered\nthat, in the period under discussion, the impulse to separate from\nJudaism gained ground in the Christian world. After the Council of\nNicaea, after Constantine the Great had established Christianity as\nthe state-church, the official breach between the Old Testament and\nthe New Testament partisans became unavoidable.\n\nThus the Jews, robbed of their political home, created a spiritual\nhome for themselves. Through the instrumentality of the numberless\nreligious rules which the Talmud had laid down, and which shaped the\nlife of the individual as well as that of the community, they were\nwelded into a firmly united whole. The Jewish spirit--national feeling\nand individual mental effort alike--was absorbed in this pursuit of\nunification. Head, heart, hands, all human functions of the Jew, were\nbrought under complete control and cast into fixed forms, by these\nfive centuries of labor. With painful exactitude, the Talmud\nprescribed ordinances for all the vicissitudes of life, yet, at the\nsame time, offered sufficient food for brain and heart. It was at once\na religion and a science. The Jew was equipped with all the\nnecessaries. He could satisfy his wants from his own store. There was\nno need for him to knock at strange doors, even though he had thereby\nprofited. The consequences of this attitude, positive as well as\nnegative consequences, asserted themselves in the further course of\nJewish history.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE GAONIC PERIOD, OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE ORIENTAL JEWS (500-980)\n\n\nWith the close of the Talmud, at the beginning of the sixth century,\nthe feverish intellectual activity abated. The Jewish centre of\ngravity continued in Babylonia. In this country, in which the Jewish\nrace had heard its cradle song at the dawn of existence, and later on\n_Judaea capta_ had sat and wept remembering Zion, Judaism, after\nthe destruction of the second Temple and hundreds of years of trials,\nwas favored with a secure asylum. In the rest of the diaspora,\npersecution gave the Jews no respite, but in Babylonia, under Persian\nrule, they lived for some centuries comparatively free from\nmolestation. Indeed, they enjoyed a measure of autonomy in internal\naffairs, under a chief who was entitled Exilarch (_Resh-Galutha_).\nThe Law and the word of God went forth from Babylonia for the Jews of\nall lands. The Babylonian Talmud became the anthoritative code for the\nJewish people, a holy book second only to the Bible. The intellectual\ncalm that supervened at the beginning of the sixth century and lasted\nuntil the end of the eighth century, betrayed itself in the slackening of\nindependent creation, though not in the flagging of intellectual activity\nin general. In the schools and academies of Pumbeditha, Nahardea,\nand Sura, scientific work was carried on with the same zest as before,\nonly this work had for its primary object the sifting and exposition of\nthe material heaped up by the preceding generations. This was the\nprovince of the Sabureans and the Geonim, whose relation to the Talmud\nwas the same as that of the Scribes (the _Soferim_) of the Second\nTemple to the Bible (see above, ch. vi). In the later period, as in the\nearlier, the aim was the capitalization of the accumulated spiritual\ntreasures, an undertaking that gives little occasion for movement and\nlife, but all the more for endurance and industry.\n\nThis intellectual balance was destroyed by two events: the appearance\nof Islam and the rise of Karaism. Islam, the second legitimate\noffspring of Judaism, was appointed to give to religious thought in\nthe slumbering Orient the slight impulse it needed to start it on its\nrapid career of sovereign power. Barely emancipated from swaddling\nclothes, young Hotspur at once began to rage. He sought an outlet for\nhis unconquerable thirst for action, his lust for world-dominion. The\nvictorious religious wars of the followers of Allah ensued. This\nforeign movement was not without significance for the fate of the\nJews. They were surrounded no longer by heathens but by Mohammedans,\nwho believed in the God of the Bible, and through the mouth of their\nprophet conferred upon the Jews the honorable appellation of \"the\nPeople of the Book.\" In the eighth century the wars ceased, and the\nimpetuous energy of the rejuvenated Orient was diverted into quieter\nchannels. The Bagdad Khalifate arose, the peaceful era of the growth\nof industry, the sciences, and the arts was inaugurated. Endowed with\nquick discernment for every enlightening movement, the Jews yielded to\nthe vivifying magic of young Arabic culture.\n\nPartly under the influence of the Arabic tendency to split into\nreligio-philosophic sects, partly from inner causes, Karaism sprang up\nin the second half of the eighth century. Its active career began with\na vehement protest against the Talmud as the regulator of life and\nthought. It proclaimed the creators of this vast encyclopedia to be\nusurpers of spiritual power, and urged a return to the Biblical laws\nin their unadulterated simplicity. The weakness of its positive\nprinciples hindered the spread of Karaism, keeping it forever within\nthe narrow limits of a sect and consigning it to stagnation. What gave\nit vogue during the first century of its existence was its negative\nstrength, its violent opposition to the Talmud, which aroused\nstrenuous intellectual activity. For a long time it turned Judaism\naway from its one-sided Talmudic tendency, and opened up new avenues\nof work for it. True to their motto: \"Search diligently in the Holy\nScriptures,\" the adherents of Karaism applied themselves to the\nrational study of the Bible, which had come to be, among the\nTalmudists, the object of casuistic interpretation and legendary\nadornment. By the cultivation of grammar and lexicography as applied\nto the Biblical thesaurus of words, they resuscitated the Hebrew\nlanguage, which, ousted by the Aramaic dialect, had already sunk into\noblivion. By the same means they laid the foundation of a school of\nrejuvenated poetry. In general, thought on religious and philosophic\nsubjects was promoted to a higher degree by the lively discussions\nbetween them and the Talmudists.\n\nBy imperceptible steps Talmudic Judaism, influenced at once by the\nenlightened Arabs and the protesting Karaites, departed from the \"four\nells of the Halacha,\" and widened its horizon. Among the spiritual\nleaders of the people arose men who occupied themselves not only with\nthe study of the Talmud but also with a rational exegesis of the\nBible, with philology, poetry, philosophy. The great Gaon Saadiah\n(892-942) united within himself all strands of thought. Over and above\na large number of philological and other writings of scientific\npurport, he created a momentous religio-philosophic system, with the\naim to clarify Judaism and refine religious conceptions. He was an\nencyclopedic thinker, a representative of the highest Jewish culture\nand of Arabic culture as well--he wrote his works in Arabic by\npreference. In this way Jewish thought gained ground more and more in\nthe Orient. It was in the West, however, that it attained soon after\nto the climax of its development.\n\nGradually the centre of gravity of Jewry shifted from Asia Minor to\nWestern Europe. Beginning with the sixth century, the sparsely sown\nJewish population of Occidental Europe increased rapidly in numbers.\nIn Italy, Byzantium, France, and Visigothic Spain, important Jewish\ncommunities were formed. The medieval intolerance of the Church,\nthough neither so widespread nor so violent as it later became,\nsuffered its first outbreak in that early century. The persecutions of\nthe Jews by the Visigothic kings of Spain and the Bishops Avitus of\nClermont and Agobard in France (sixth to the ninth century) were the\nprelude to the more systematic and the more bloody cruelties of\nsubsequent days. The insignificant numbers of the European Jews and\nthe insecurity of their condition stood in the way of forming an\nintellectual centre of their own. They were compelled to acknowledge\nthe spiritual supremacy of their Oriental brethren in faith. With the\nbeginning of the tenth century the situation underwent a change.\nArabic civilization, which had penetrated to Spain in previous\ncenturies, brought about a radical transformation in the character of\nthe country. The realm of the fanatic Visigoths, half barbarous and\nwholly averse to the light of progress, changed into the prosperous\nand civilized Khalifate of the Ommeyyades. Thither the best forces of\nOriental Jewry transferred themselves. With the growth of the Jewish\npopulation in Arabic Spain and the strengthening of its communal\norganization, the spiritual centre of the Jewish people gradually\nestablished itself in Spain. The academies of Sura and Pumbeditha\nyielded first place to the high schools of Cordova and Toledo.\n\nThe Jewry of the East resigned the national hegemony to the Jewry of\nthe West. The Geonim withdrew in favor of the Rabbis. After centuries\nof seclusion, the Jewish spirit once more asserted itself, and enjoyed\na period of efflorescence. The process of national growth became more\ncomplex, more varied.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nTHE RABBINIC-PHILOSOPHICAL PERIOD, OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE SPANISH JEWS\n(980-1492)\n\n\nThe five centuries marked at their beginning by the rise of\nArabic-Jewish civilization in Spain and at their end by the banishment\nof the Jews from Spain (980-1492), offer the Jewish historian an\nabundance of culture manifestations and intellectual movements so\nluxuriant that it is well-nigh impossible to gather them up in one\nformula. The monotony formerly prevailing in Jewish national life,\nboth in its external and in its internal relations, was succeeded by\nalmost gaily checkered variety. Swept along by the movement towards\nenlightenment that dominated their surroundings, the Jews of Arabic\nSpain threw themselves into energetic work in all the spheres of life\nand thought. While they had political ground more or less firm under\ntheir feet, and for the most part enjoyed peace and liberty, the Jews\nin the Christian lands of Europe stood upon volcanic soil, every\nmoment threatening to swallow them up. Exposed constantly to\npersecutions, they lived more or less isolated, and devoted themselves\nto one-sided though intense intellectual activity. Sombre shadows and\nstreaks of bright light alternate with each other in this period. In\nits second half, the clouds massed themselves heavily upon the\ndarkening horizon. Even the \"privileged\" Spanish Jews suffered an\nuntoward change in their affairs at the beginning of the thirteenth\ncentury: gradually they were withdrawn from under the sovereignty of\nthe Arabs, and made subject to the power of the Catholic monarchs.\nThey became thenceforward the equal partners of their brethren in\nfaith in the rest of Europe. All without distinction had a share in\nthe spiritual martyrdom which is the greenest bayleaf in the crown of\nJewish history. To think and to suffer became the watchword of the\nwhole nation.\n\nAt first, as we have said, a considerable portion of the Jewish people\nenjoyed the happy possibility of thinking. This was during the\nclassical epoch of the Arabic-Jewish Renaissance, which preceded the\nItalian Renaissance by four centuries. There is a fundamental\ndifference between the two Renaissance periods: the earlier one was\nsignalized by a re-birth of the sciences and of philosophy, the later\none pre-eminently of the arts and of literature. The eleventh and\ntwelfth centuries marked the meridian of the intellectual development\nof medieval Judaism. As once, in Alexandria, the union of Judaic with\nHellenic culture brought in its train a superabundance of new ideas of\na universal character, so again the amalgamation, on Spanish soil, of\nJewish culture with Arabic gave rise to rich intellectual results,\nmore lasting and fruitful than the Alexandrian, inasmuch as, in spite\nof their universal character, they did not contravene the national\nspirit. The Jewish people dropped its misanthropy and its leaning\ntoward isolation. The Jews entered all sorts of careers: by the side\nof influential and cultivated statesmen, such as Chasdai ibn Shaprut\nand Samuel Hanagid, at the courts of the Khalifs, stood a brilliant\ngroup of grammarians, poets, and philosophers, like Jonah ibn Ganach,\nSolomon Gabirol, and Moses ibn Ezra. The philosophic-critical\nscepticism of Abraham ibn Ezra co-existed in peace and harmony with\nthe philosophic-poetic enthusiasm of Jehuda Halevi. The study of\nmedicine, mathematics, physics, and astronomy went hand in hand with\nthe study of the Talmud, which, though it may not have occupied the\nfirst place with the Spanish Jews of this time, by no means\ndisappeared, as witness the compendium by Alphassi. Unusual breadth\nand fulness of the spiritual life is the distinction of the epoch.\nThis variety of mental traits combined in a marvelous union to form\nthe great personality of Maimonides, the crown of a glorious period.\nWith one \"Strong Hand,\" this intellectual giant brought order out of\nthe Talmudic chaos, which at his word was transformed into a\nsymmetrical, legal system; with the other, he \"guided the Perplexed\"\nthrough the realm of faith and knowledge. For rationalistic clarity\nand breadth of view no counterpart to the religio-philosophic doctrine\nwhich he formulated can be found in the whole extent of medieval\nliterature. The main feature of the philosophy of Maimonides and of\nthe systems based upon it is rationalism, not a dry, scholastic,\nabstract rationalism, but a living rationalism, embracing the whole\nfield of the most exalted psychic phenomena. It is not philosophy pure\nand simple, but religious philosophy, an harmonization, more or less\nfelicitous, of the postulates of reason with the dogmas of faith. It\nis reason mitigated by faith, and faith regulated by reason. In the\ndarkness of the middle ages, when the Romish Church impregnated\nreligion with the crudest superstitions, going so far as to forbid its\nadherents to read the Bible, and when the greatest philosopher\nrepresentatives of the Church, like Albertus Magnus, would have\nrejected offhand, as a childish fancy or, indeed, as an heretical\nchimera, any attempt to rescue the lower classes of the people from\ntheir wretched state of spiritual servitude--in a time like this, the\ntruly majestic spectacle is presented of a philosophy declaring war on\nsuperstition, and setting out to purify the religious notions of the\npeople.\n\nNot a breath of this ample spiritual development of the Jews of Arabic\nSpain reached the Jews living in the Christian countries of Europe.\nTheir circumstances were too grievous, and in sombreness their inner\nlife matched their outer estate. Their horizon was as contracted as\nthe streets of the Jewries in which they were penned. The crusades\n(beginning in 1096) clearly showed the Jews of France and Germany what\nsentiments their neighbors cherished towards them. They were the first\nreturns which Christianity paid the Jewish people for its old-time\nteaching of religion. The descendants of the \"chosen people,\" the\noriginators of the Bible, were condemned to torture of a sort to\nexhaust their spiritual heritage. Judaism suffered the tragic fate of\nKing Lear. Was it conceivable that the horrors--the rivers of blood,\nthe groans of massacred communities, the serried ranks of martyrs, the\never-haunting fear of the morrow--should fail to leave traces in the\ncharacter of Judaism? The Jewish people realized its imminent danger.\nIt convulsively held fast to its precious relics, clung to the pillars\nof its religion, which it regarded as the only asylum. The Jewish\nspirit again withdrew from the outer world. It gave itself up wholly\nto the study of the Talmud. In northern France and in Germany,\nTalmudic learning degenerated into the extreme of scholastic pedantry,\nthe lot of every branch of science that is lopped off from the main\ntrunk of knowledge, and vegetates in a heavy, dank atmosphere, lacking\nlight and air. Rashi (1064-1105), whose genial activity began before\nthe first crusade, opened up Jewish religious literature to the\npopular mind, by his systematic commentaries on the Bible and the\nTalmud. On the other hand, the Tossafists, the school of commentators\nsucceeding him, by their petty quibbling and hairsplitting casuistry\nmade the Talmudic books more intricate and less intelligible. Such\nbeing the intellectual bias of the age, a sober, rationalistic\nphilosophy could not assert itself. In lieu of an Ibn Ezra or a\nMaimonides, we have Jehuda Hachassid and Eliezer of Worms, with their\nmystical books of devotion, _Sefer Chassidim, Rokeach_, etc.,\nfilled with pietistic reflections on the other world, in which the\nearth figures as a \"vale of tears.\" Poetry likewise took on the dismal\nhue of its environment. Instead of the varied lyrical notes of Gabirol\nand Halevi, who sang the weal and woe, not only of the nation, but\nalso of the individual, and lost themselves in psychologic analysis,\nthere now fall upon our ear the melancholy, heartrending strains of\nsynagogue poetry, the harrowing outcries that forced themselves from\nthe oppressed bosoms of the hunted people, the prayerful lamentations\nthat so often shook the crumbling walls of the medieval synagogues at\nthe very moment when, full of worshipers, they were fired by the\ninhuman crusaders. A mighty chord reverberates in this poetry:\n_Morituri te salutant_.\n\nOne small spot there was, in the whole of Europe, in which Jews could\nstill hope to endure existence and enjoy a measure of security. This\nwas Southern France, or the Provence. The population of Provence had\nassimilated the culture of the neighboring country, Arabic Spain, and\nbecome the mediator between it and the rest of Europe. This work of\nmediation was undertaken primarily by the Jews. In the twelfth century\nseveral universities existed in Provence, which were frequented in\ngreat numbers by students from all countries. At these universities\nthe teachers of philosophy, medicine, and other branches of science\nwere for the most part Jews. The rationalistic philosophy of the\nSpanish Jews was there proclaimed _ex cathedra_. The Tibbonides\ntranslated all the more important works of the Jewish thinkers of\nSpain from Arabic into Hebrew. The Kimchis devoted themselves to\ngrammatical studies and the investigation of the Bible. In\nMontpellier, Narbonne, and Lunel, intellectual work was in full swing.\nRational ideas gradually leavened the masses of the Proven\u00e7al\npopulation. Conscience freed from intellectual trammels began to\nrevolt against the oppression exercised by the Roman clergy. Through\nthe Albigensian heresy, Innocent III, founder of the papal power, had\nhis attention directed to the Jews, whom he considered the dangerous\nprotagonists of rationalism. The \"heresy\" was stifled, Provence in all\nher magnificence fell a prey to the Roman mania for destruction, and,\non the ruins of a noble civilization, the Dominican Inquisition raged\nwith all its horrors (1213).\n\nThenceforward the Catholic Church devoted herself to a hostile watch\nupon the Jews. Either she persecuted them directly through her\nInquisition, or indirectly through her omnipotent influence on kings\nand peoples. In the hearts of the citizens of medieval Europe, the\nflame of religious hatred was enkindled, and religious hatred served\nas a cloak for the basest passions. Jewish history from that time on\nbecame a history of uninterrupted suffering. The Lateran Council\ndeclared the Jews to be outcasts, and designed a peculiar,\ndishonorable badge for them, a round patch of yellow cloth, to be worn\non their upper garment (1215). In France the Jews became by turns the\nvictims of royal rapacity and the scapegoats of popular fanaticism.\nMassacres, confiscations, banishments followed by dearly purchased\npermission to return, by renewed restrictions, persecutions, and\noppressions--these were the measures that characterized the treatment\nof the Jews in France until their final expulsion (1394). In Germany\nthe Jews were not so much hated as despised. They were _servi\ncamerae_, serfs of the state, and as such had to pay oppressive\ntaxes. Besides, they were limited to the meanest trades and to usury\nand peddling. They were shut up in their narrow Jewries, huddled in\nwretched cabins, which clustered about the dilapidated synagogue in a\nshamefaced way. What strange homes! What gigantic misery, what\nboundless suffering dumbly borne, was concealed in those crumbling,\ncurse-laden dwellings! And yet, how resplendent they were with\nspiritual light, what exalted virtues, what lofty heroism they\nharbored! In those gloomy, tumbledown Jew houses, intellectual\nendeavor was at white heat. The torch of faith blazed clear in them,\nand on the pure domestic hearth played a gentle flame. In the abject,\ndishonored son of the Ghetto was hidden an intellectual giant. In his\nnerveless body, bent double by suffering, and enveloped in the shabby\nold cloak still further disfigured by the yellow wheel, dwelt the soul\nof a thinker. The son of the Ghetto might have worn his badge with\npride, for in truth it was a medal of distinction awarded by the papal\nChurch to the Jews, for dauntlessness and courage. The awkward, puny\nJew in his way was stronger and braver than a German knight armed\ncap-a-pie, for he was penetrated by the faith that \"moves mountains.\"\nAnd when the worst came to the worst, he demonstrated his courage.\nWhen his peaceful home was stormed by the bestialized hordes of\nArmleder, or the drunken bands of the Flagellants, or the furious\navengers of the \"Black Death,\" he did not yield, did not purchase life\nby disgraceful treason. With invincible courage he put his head under\nthe executioner's axe, and breathed forth his heroic spirit with the\nenthusiastic cry: \"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One.\"\n\nAt length the turn of the Spanish Jews arrived. For the unbroken peace\nthey had enjoyed, they had to atone by centuries of unexampled\nsuffering. By degrees, the Arabs were forced out of the Pyrenean\nPeninsula, and the power they had to abdicate was assumed by the\nCatholic kings of Castile and Aragon. In 1236 occurred the fall of\nCordova, the most important centre of Arabic Jewish culture.\nThereafter Arab power held sway only in the province of Granada. The\nfortunes of the Spanish Jews underwent a calamitous change. The kings\nand the upper ten thousand were, indeed, favorably disposed toward\nthem. At the courts of Castile and Aragon, the Jews were active as\nministers, physicians, astronomers. But the people, incited by the\npropaganda of the clerics, nursed frightful hatred against the Jews,\nnot only as \"infidels,\" but also as intellectual aristocrats. The rage\nof the populace was the combustible material in the terrific\nexplosions that occurred periodically, in the bloody saturnalia of the\nPastouraux (1320), in the Black Death riots (1348), in the massacre of\nSeville (1391).\n\nDire blows of fortune were unable to weigh down the Spanish Jew,\naccustomed to independence, as they did the German Jew. He carried his\nhead proudly on high, for he was conscious that in all respects he\nstood above the rabble pursuing him, above its very leaders, the\nclerics. In spite of untoward fate his mental development proceeded,\nbut inevitably it was modified by the trend of the times. By the side\nof the philosophic tendency of the previous age, a mystical tendency\nappeared in literature. The Kabbala, with its mist-shrouded symbolism,\nso grateful to the feelings and the imagination, chimed in better than\nrationalistic philosophy with the depressed humor under which the\ngreater part of the Jews were then laboring. Another force\nantagonistic to rationalistic philosophy was the Rabbinism\ntransplanted from France and Germany. The controversy between\nRabbinism and philosophy, which dragged itself through three-quarters\nof a century (1232-1305), ended in the formal triumph of Rabbinism.\nHowever, philosophic activity merely languished, it did not cease\nentirely; in fact, the three currents for some time ran along parallel\nwith one another. Next to the pillars of Rabbinism, Asheri, Rashba,\nIsaac ben Sheshet, loomed up the philosophers, Gersonides (Ralbag),\nKreskas, and Albo, and a long line of Kabbalists, beginning with\nNachmanides and Moses de Leon, the compiler of the Zohar, and ending\nwith the anonymous authors of the mysterious \"Kana and Pelia.\"\n\nThe times grew less and less propitious. Catholicism steadily gained\nground in Spain. The scowling Dominican put forward his claim upon the\nJewish soul with vehement emphasis, and made every effort to drag it\ninto the bosom of the alone-saving Church. The conversion of the Jews\nwould have been a great triumph, indeed, for Catholicism militant. The\nconversion methods of the Dominican monk were of a most insinuating\nkind--he usually began with a public religious disputation.\nUnfortunately, the Jews were experts in the art of debate, and too\noften by their bold replies covered the self-sufficient dignitaries of\nRome with confusion. The Jews should have known, from bitter\nexperience, that such boldness would not be passed over silently. From\nsumptuous debating hall to Dominican prison and scaffold was but a\nshort step. In 1391, one of these worthy soul-catchers, Bishop\nFerdinando Martinez, set the fanatical mob of Seville on the Jews, and\nnot without success. Terrorized by the threat of death, many accepted\nCatholicism under duress. But they became Christians only in\nappearance; in reality they remained true to the faith of their\nfathers, and, in secret, running the risk of loss of life, they\nfulfilled all the Jewish ordinances. This is the prologue to the\nthrilling Marrano tragedy.\n\nFinally, the moment approached when gloomy Catholicism attained to\nunchallenged supremacy in the Pyrenean Peninsula. On the ruins of the\nenlightened culture of the Arabs, Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella\nof Castile reared the reactionary government of medieval Rome. The\nInquisition was introduced (1480). Torquemada presided as high priest\nover the rites attending the human sacrifices. _Ad gloriam\necclesiae_, the whole of Spain was illuminated. Everywhere the\nfuneral pyres of the Inquisition flared to the skies, the air was rent\nby the despairing shrieks of martyrs enveloped in flames or racked by\ntortures, the prisons overflowed with Marranos,--all instruments of\ntorture were vigorously plied.\n\nAt last the hour of redemption struck: in 1492 all Jews were driven\nfrom Spain, and a few years later from Portugal. Jewish-Arabic culture\nafter five centuries of ascendency suffered a sudden collapse. The\nunhappy people again grasped its staff, and wandered forth into the\nworld without knowing whither.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHE RABBINIC-MYSTICAL PERIOD, OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE GERMAN-POLISH\nJEWS (1492-1789)\n\n\nThe expulsion from Spain was a stunning blow. The hoary martyr people\nwhich had defied so many storms in its long life was for a moment\ndazed. The soil of Europe was quaking under its feet. At the time when\nthe medieval period had formally come to a close for Occidental\nChristendom, and the modern period had opened, the middle ages\ncontinued in unmitigated brutality for the Jews. If anything, the life\nof the Jews had become more unendurable than before. What, indeed, had\nthe much-vaunted modern age to offer them? In the ranks of the\nhumanistic movement Reuchlin alone stood forth prominently as the\nadvocate of the Jews, and he was powerless before the prejudices of\nthe populace. The Reformation in Germany and elsewhere had illuminated\nthe minds of the people, but had not softened their hearts. Luther\nhimself, the creator of the Reformation, was not innocent of hating\nthe followers of an alien faith. The Jews especially did not enjoy too\ngreat a measure of his sympathies. The wars growing out of the\nReformation, which in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries\ndevastated Europe in the name of religion, were not calculated to\nfavor the spread of tolerance and milder manners. The conflict raging\nin the bosom of the Church and setting her own children by the ears,\nwas yet insufficient to divert her maternal care from her\n\"unbelieving\" stepchildren. In Spain and Portugal, stakes continued to\nburn two centuries longer for the benefit of the Marranos, the false\nChristians. In Germany and Austria, the Jews were kept in the same\ncondition of servitude as before. Their economic circumstances were\nappalling. They were forced to emigrate _en masse_ to Poland,\nwhich offered the adherents of their faith a comparatively quiet life,\nand by and by was invested with the Jewish hegemony. Some of the\nsmaller states and independent towns of Italy also afforded the Jews\nan asylum, though one not always to be depended upon. A group of\nhard-driven Spanish exiles, for instance, under the leadership of\nAbarbanel had found peace in Italy. The rest had turned to Turkey and\nher province Palestine,\n\nFor a time, indeed, the Jewish spiritual centre was located in Turkey.\nWhat Europe, old, Christian, and hardhearted, refused the Jews, was\ngranted them by Turkey, young, Mussulman, and liberal. On hearing of\nthe banishment of the Jews from Spain, Sultan Bajazet exclaimed: \"How\ncan you call Ferdinand of Aragon a wise king, the same Ferdinand who\nhas made his land poor and enriched ours?\" His amazement characterizes\nthe relation of Turkey to the Jews of the day. The one-time Marrano,\nJoseph Nassi, rose to be a considerable dignitary at the court of\nSultan Selim (1566-1580). Occasionally he succeeded, by diplomatic\nmeans, in wreaking vengeance upon European courts in retaliation for\nthe brutal tortures inflicted upon his people. With the generosity of\na Maecenas, he assembled Jewish scholars and poets, and surrounded\nhimself with a sunlit atmosphere of intellectuality and talent. All\nother Jewish communities looked up to that of Constantinople. Now and\nagain its rabbis played the part of Patriarchs of the synagogue. To\nthis commanding position the rabbis of Palestine especially were\ninclined to lay claim. They even attempted to restore the\nPatriarchate, and the famous controversy between Jacob Berab and Levi\nben Chabib regarding the _Semicha_ is another evidence of the\nsame assertive tendency. Among the Spanish exiles settled in the Holy\nLand a peculiar spiritual current set in. The storm-tossed wanderers,\nbut now returned to their native Jordan from the shores of the\nblood-stained Tagus and Guadalquivir, were mightily moved at the sight\nof their ancestral home. Ahasuerus, who on his thorn-strewn pilgrim's\npath had drained the cup of woe to the dregs, suddenly caught sight of\nthe home of his childhood razed level with the ground. The precious,\nnever-to-be-forgotten ruins exhaled the home feeling, which took\npossession of him with irresistible charm. Into his soul there flowed\nsweet memories of a golden youth, past beyond recall. The impact of\nthese emotions enkindled passionate \"longing for Zion\" in the heart of\nthe forlorn, homeless martyr. He was seized by torturing thirst for\npolitical resurrection. Such melancholy feelings and vehement\noutbursts found expression in the practical Kabbala, originating with\nAri (Isaac Luria) and his famous Safed school. A mystical belief in\nthe coming of Messiah thenceforward became one of the essential\nelements of the Jewish spirit. It vanquished the heart of the learned\nJoseph Karo, who had brought Rabbinism to its climax by the\ncompilation of his celebrated ritual code, the Shulchan Aruch. With\nequal force it dominated the being of Solomon Molcho, the enthusiastic\nyouth who, at one time a Marrano, on his public return to Judaism\nproclaimed the speedy regeneration of Israel. He sealed his faith in\nhis prophecy with death at the stake (1532). The Marranos beyond the\nPyrenees and the unfortunate Jews of Italy, who, in the second half of\nthe sixteenth century had to bear the brunt of papal fanaticism, on\nthe increase since the Reformation, were kept in a state of constant\nexcitement by this Messianic doctrine, with its obscure stirrings of\nhope. A mournful national feeling pervades the Jewish literature of\nthe time. Recollections of torments endured enflamed all hearts. A\nseries of chronicles were thus produced that record the centuries of\nJewish martyrdom--_Jocha-sin, Shebet Jehuda, Emek ha-Bacha_, etc.\nThe art of printing, even then developed to a considerable degree of\nperfection, became for the dispersed Jews the strongest bond of\nspiritual union. The papal _index librorum prohibitorum_ was\nimpotent in the face of the all-pervading propaganda for thought and\nfeeling carried on by the printing press.\n\nAfter Palestine and Turkey, Holland for a time became the spiritual\ncentre of the scattered Jews (in the seventeenth century). Holland was\nwarmly attached to the cause of liberty. When it succeeded in freeing\nitself from the clutches of fanatical Spain and her rapacious king,\nPhilip II, it inaugurated the golden era of liberty of conscience, of\npeaceful development in culture and industry, and granted an asylum to\nthe persecuted and abandoned of all countries. By the thousands the\nharassed Ghetto sons, especially the Marranos from Spain and Portugal,\nmigrated to Holland. Amsterdam became a second Cordova. The\nintellectual life was quickened. Freedom from restraint tended to\nbreak down the national exclusivism of the Jew, and intercourse with\nhis liberal surroundings varied his mental pursuits. Rabbinism, the\nKabbala, philosophy, national poetry--they all had their prominent\nrepresentatives in Holland. These manifold tendencies were united in\nthe literary activity of Manasseh ben Israel, a scholar of extensive,\nthough not intensive, encyclopedic attainments. Free thought and\nreligious rationalism were embodied in Uriel Acosta. To a still higher\ndegree they were illustrated in the theory of life expounded by the\nimmortal author of the \"Theologico-Political Tractate\" (1640-1677).\nThis advanced state of culture in Holland did not fail to react upon\nthe neighboring countries. Under the impulse of enthusiasm for the\nBible Puritan England under Cromwell opened its portals to the Jews.\nIn Italy, in the dank atmosphere of rabbinical dialectics and morbid\nmysticism, great figures loom up--Leon de Modena, the antagonist of\nRabbinism and of the Kabbala, and Joseph del Medigo, mathematician,\nphilosopher, and mystic, the disciple of Galileo.\n\nThese purple patches were nothing more than the accidents of a\ntransition period. The people as a whole was on the decline. The\nJewish mind darted hither and thither, like a startled bird seeking\nits nest. Holland or Turkey was an inadequate substitute for Spain, if\nonly for the reason that but a tiny fraction of the Jews had found\nshelter in either. The Jewish national centre must perforce coincide\nwith the numerical centre of the dispersed people, in which, moreover,\nconditions must grant Jews the possibility of living undisturbed in\nclosely compacted masses, and of perfecting a well-knit organization\nof social and individual life. Outside of Spain these conditions were\nfulfilled only by Poland, which gradually, beginning with the\nsixteenth century, assumed the hegemony over the Jewry of the world.\nThis marks the displacement of the Sephardic (Spanish, in a broader\nsense, Romanic) element, and the supremacy of the Ashkenazic\n(German-Polish) element.\n\nPoland had been a resort for Jewish immigrants from Germany since the\noutbreak of the Crusades, until, in the sixteenth century, it rose to\nthe position of a Jewish centre of the first magnitude. As the\nmerchant middle class, the Jews were protected and advanced by the\nkings and the Szlachta. The consequent security of their position\ninduced so rapid a growth of the Jewish element that in a little while\nthe Jews of Poland outnumbered those of the old Jewish settlements in\nOccidental Europe. The numerous privileges granted the Jews, by\nBoleslaus of Kalish (1246), Kasimir the Great (1347-1370), Witowt\n(1388), Kasimir IV (1447), and some of their successors, fortified\ntheir position in the extended territory covered by Poland, Lithuania,\nand the Ukraine. Their peculiar circumstances in Poland left an\nimpress upon their inner life. An intense mental activity was called\nforth. This activity can be traced back to German beginnings, though\nat the same time it is made up of many original elements. For a space\nRabbinism monopolized the intellectual endeavors of the Polish Jews.\nThe rabbi of Cracow, Moses Isserles, and the rabbi of Ostrog, Solomon\nLuria (d. 1572), disputed first place with the foremost rabbinical\nauthorities of other countries. Their decisions and circular letters\nregarding religious and legal questions were accorded binding force.\nAssociates and successors of theirs founded Talmud academies\nthroughout the country, and large numbers of students attended them.\nCommentators upon the Talmud and expounders of classical works in\nJewish theological literature appeared in shoals. Jewish printing\nestablishments in Cracow and Lublin were assiduous in turning out a\nmass of writings, which spread the fame of the Polish rabbis to the\nremotest communities. The large autonomy enjoyed by the Polish and\nLithuanian Jews conferred executive power upon rabbinical legislation.\nThe _Kahal_, or Jewish communal government, to a certain degree\ninvested with judicial and administrative competence, could not do\nwithout the guiding hand of the rabbis as interpreters of the law. The\nguild of rabbis, on their side, chose a \"college of judges,\" with\nfairly extensive jurisdiction, from among their own members. The\norganization of the Rabbinical Conferences, or the \"Synods of the Four\nCountries,\" formed the keystone of this intricate social-spiritual\nhierarchy. The comprehensive inner autonomy and the system of Talmud\nacademies (_Yeshiboth_) that covered the whole of Poland remind\none of the brilliant days of the Exilarchate and the Babylonia of the\nGeonim. One element was lacking, there was no versatile, commanding\nthinker like Saadia Gaon. Secular knowledge and philosophy were under\nthe ban in Poland. Rabbinism absorbed the whole output of intellectual\nenergy. As little as the Poles resembled the Arabs of the \"golden\nage,\" did the Polish Jews resemble their brethren in faith in the\nOrient at Saadia's time or in the Spain of Gabirol and Maimonides.\nIsolation and clannishness were inevitable in view of the character of\nthe Christian environment and the almost insuperable barriers raised\nbetween the classes of Polish society. But it was this exclusiveness\nthat gave peculiar stability and completeness to the life of the Jew\nas an individual and as a member of Jewish society, and it was the\nsame exclusiveness that afforded opportunity for the development of a\nsharply defined culture, for its fixation to the point of resisting\nviolent shocks and beyond the danger point of extinction through\nforeign invasion.\n\nThe fateful year 1648 formed a turning point in the history of the\nPolish Jews, as in the history of the countries belonging to the\nPolish crown. The Cossack butcheries and wars of extermination of\n1648-1658 were the same for the Polish Jews that the Crusades, the\nBlack Death, and all the other occasions for carnage had been for the\nJews of Western Europe. It seemed as though history desired to avoid\nthe reproach of partiality, and hastened to mete out even-handed\njustice by apportioning the same measure of woe to the Jews of Poland\nas to the Jews of Western Europe. But the Polish Jews were prepared to\naccept the questionable gift from the hands of history. They had\nmounted that eminence of spiritual stability on which suffering loses\nthe power to weaken its victim, but, on the contrary, endues him with\nstrength. More than ever they shrank into their shell. They shut\nthemselves up more completely in their inner world, and became morally\ndulled against the persecutions, the bitter humiliations, the deep\nscorn, which their surroundings visited upon them. The Polish Jew\ngradually accustomed himself to his pitiable condition. He hardly knew\nthat life might be other than it was. That the Polish lord to whom he\nwas a means of entertainment might treat him with a trace of respect,\nor that his neighbors, the middle class merchant, the German guild\nmember, and the Little Russian peasant, might cherish kindly feelings\ntoward him, he could not conceive as a possibility. Seeing himself\nsurrounded by enemies, he took precautions to fortify his camp, not so\nmuch to protect himself against hostile assaults from without--they\nwere inevitable--as to paralyze the disastrous consequences of such\nassaults in his inner world. To compass this end he brought into play\nall the means suggested by his exceptional position before the law and\nby his own peculiar social constitution. The _Kahal_, the\nautonomous rabbinical administration of communal affairs, more and\nmore assumed the character of an inner dictatorship. Jewish society\nwas persistently kept under the discipline of rigid principles. In\nmany affairs the synagogue attained the position of a court of final\nappeal. The people were united, or rather packed, into a solid mass by\npurely mechanical processes--by pressure from without, and by drawing\ntight a noose from within. Besides this social factor tending to\nconsolidate the Jewish people into a separate union, an intellectual\nlever was applied to produce the same result. Rabbinism employed the\nmystical as its adjutant. The one exercised control over all minds,\nthe other over all hearts. The growth of mysticism was fostered both\nby the unfortunate conditions under which the Polish Jews endured\nexistence and by the Messianic movements which made their appearance\namong the Jews of other countries.\n\nIn the second half of the seventeenth century, mysticism reached its\nzenith in Turkey, the country in which, had stood the cradle of the\n\"practical Kabbala.\" The teachings of Ari, Vital, and the school\nestablished by them spread like wildfire. Messianic extravagances\nintoxicated the baited and persecuted people. In Smyrna appeared the\nfalse Messiah, Sabbatai Zebi. As by magic he attracted to himself a\ntremendous company of adherents in the East and in the West. For a\nquarter of a century (1650-1676), he kept the Jewish communities\neverywhere in a state of quivering suspense.\n\nThe harassed people tossed to and fro like a fever patient, and raved\nabout political re-birth. Its delirious visions still further heated\nits agitated blood. It came to its senses but slowly. Not even the\napostasy and death of Sabbatai Zebi sufficed to sober all his\nfollowers. Under the guise of a symbolic faith in a Messiah, many of\nthem, publicly or secretly, continued the propaganda for his\ndoctrines.\n\nThis propaganda prepared the fertile soil from which, in the\neighteenth century, shot up Messianic systems, tending to split\nJudaism into sects. Nowhere did the mystical teachings evoke so ready\na response as in Poland, the very centre of Judaism. At first an ally\nof the rabbinical school, mysticism grown passionate and\nuncontrollable now and again acted as the violent opponent of\nRabbinism. Secret devotion to the Sabbatian doctrines, which had made\ntheir home in Poland, sometimes led to such extremes in dogma and\nethics that the rabbis could not contain themselves. Chayyim Malach,\nJudah Chassid, and other Galician mystics, in the second decade of the\neighteenth century brought down upon themselves a rabbinical decree of\nexcommunication. The mystical tendency was the precursor of the\nheretical half-Christian sect of Frankists, who ventured so far as to\nlift a hand against the fundamentals of Judaism: they rejected the\nTalmud in favor of the Zohar (1756-1773). At the same time a much more\nprofound movement, instinct with greater vitality, made its appearance\namong the Polish-Jewish masses, a movement rooted in their social and\nspiritual organization. The wretched, debased condition of the average\nJew, conjoined with the traditions of the Kabbala and the excrescences\nof Rabbinism, created a foothold for Chassidic teaching. Chassidism\nreplaced Talmudic ratiocination by exalted religious sentiment. By the\nforce of enthusiasm for faith, it drew its adherents together into a\nfirmly welded unit in contrast with Rabbinism, which sought the same\ngoal by the aid of the formal law. Scenting danger, the rabbinical\nhierarchy declared war upon the Kabbala. Emden opposed Eibesch\u00fctz, the\nPolish Sabbatians and Frankists were fought to the death, the Wilna\nGaon organized a campaign against the Chassidim. Too late! Rabbinism\nwas too old, too arid, to tone down the impulsive outbreaks of passion\namong the people. In their religious exaltation the masses were\nlooking for an elixir. They were languishing, not for light to\nillumine the reason, but for warmth to set the heart aglow. They\ndesired to lose themselves in ecstatic self-renunciation. Chassidism\nand its necessary dependence upon the Zaddik offered the masses the\nmeans of this forgetfulness of self through faith. They were the\nmedium through which the people saw the world in a rosy light, and the\nconsequences following upon their prevalence were seen in a marked\nintensification of Jewish exclusiveness.\n\nThe same aloofness characterizes the Jews of the rest of the\neighteenth century diaspora. Wherever, as in Germany, Austria, and\nItaly, Jews were settled in considerable numbers, they were separated\nfrom their surroundings by forbidding Ghetto walls. On the whole, no\ndifference is noticeable between conditions affecting Jews in one\ncountry and those in another. Everywhere they were merely tolerated,\neverywhere oppressed and humiliated. The bloody persecutions of the\nmiddle ages were replaced by the burden of the exceptional laws, which\nin practice degraded the Jews socially to an inferior race, to\ncitizens of a subordinate degree. The consequences were uniformly the\nsame in all countries: spiritual isolation and a morbid religious\nmood. During the first half of the \"century of reason,\" Jewry\npresented the appearance of an exhausted wanderer, heavily dragging\nhimself on his way, his consciousness clouded, his trend of thought\nobviously anti-rationalistic. At the very moment in which Europe was\nbeginning to realize its medieval errors and repent of them, and the\nera of universal ideals of humanity was dawning, Judaism raised\nbarricades between itself and the world at large. Elijah Gaon and\nIsrael Besht were the contemporaries of Voltaire and Rousseau.\nApparently there was no possibility of establishing communication\nbetween these two diametrically opposed worlds. But history is a\nmagician. Not far from the Poland enveloped in medieval darkness, the\nmorning light of a new life was breaking upon slumbering Jewry in\nGerman lands. New voices made themselves heard, reverberating like an\necho to the appeal issued by the \"great century\" in behalf of a\nspiritual and social regeneration of mankind.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE MODERN PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT (THE NINETEENTH CENTURY)\n\n\nTwo phenomena signalized the beginning of the latest period in Jewish\nhistory: the lofty activity of Mendelssohn and the occurrence of the\ngreat French Revolution. The man stands for the spiritual emancipation\nof the Jews, the movement for their political emancipation. At bottom,\nthese two phenomena were by no means the ultimate causes of the social\nand spiritual regeneration of the Jewish people. They were only the\nproducts of the more general causes that had effected a similar\nregeneration in all the peoples of Western Europe. The new currents,\nthe abandonment of effete intellectual and social forms, the\nsubstitution of juster and more energetic principles, the protest\nagainst superstition and despotism--all these traits had a common\norigin, the resuscitation of reason and free thought, which dominated\nall minds without asking whether they belonged to Jew or to Christian.\nIt might seem that the rejuvenation of the Jews had been consummated\nmore rapidly than the rejuvenation of the other peoples. The latter\nhad had two centuries, the period elapsing since the middle ages, that\nis, the period between the Reformation and the great Revolution, in\nwhich to prepare for a more rational and a more humane conduct of\nlife. As for the Jews, their middle ages began much later, and ended\nlater, almost on the eve of 1789, so that the revolution in their\nminds and their mode of life had to accomplish itself hastily, under\nthe urgence of swiftly crowding events, by the omission of\nintermediate stages. But it must be taken into consideration that long\nbefore, in the Judeo-Hellenic and in the Arabic-Spanish period, the\nJews had passed through their \"century of reason.\" In spite of the\nintervening ages of suffering and gloom, the faculty of assimilating\nnew principles had survived. For the descendants of Philo and\nMaimonides the rationalistic movement of the eighteenth century was in\npart a repetition of a well-known historical process. They had had the\nbenefit of a similar course of studies before, and, therefore, had no\nneed to cram on the eve of the final examination.\n\nIn point of fact, the transformation in the life of the Jews did take\nplace with extraordinary swiftness. It was hastened in France by the\nprinciples of the Revolution and the proclamation of the civil\nequality of Jews with the other citizens. In Germany, however, it\nadvanced upon purely spiritual lines. Mendelssohn and Lessing, the\nheralds of spiritual reform, who exposed old prejudices, carried on\ntheir labors at a time in which the Jews still stood beyond the pale\nof the law, a condition which it did not occur to Frederick II, \"the\nphilosopher upon the throne,\" to improve. A whole generation was\ndestined to pass before the civil emancipation of the German Jews was\naccomplished. Meantime their spiritual emancipation proceeded apace,\nwithout help from the ruling powers. A time so early as the end of the\neighteenth century found the German Jews in a position to keep step\nwith their Christian fellow-citizens in cultural progress. Enlightened\nJews formed close connections with enlightened Christians, and joined\nthem in the universal concerns of mankind as confederates espousing\nthe same fundamental principles. If they renounced some of their\nreligious and national traditions, it was by no means out of\ncomplaisance for their neighbors. They were guided solely and alone by\nthose universal principles that forced non-Jews as well as Jews to\nreject many traditions as incompatible with reason and conscience.\nNon-Jews and Jews alike yielded themselves up to the fresh inspiration\nof the time, and permitted themselves to be carried along by the\nuniversal transforming movement. Mendelssohn himself, circumspect and\nwise, did not move off from religious national ground. But the\ngeneration after him abandoned his position for that of universal\nhumanity, or, better, German nationality. His successors intoxicated\nthemselves with deep draughts of the marvelous poetry created by the\nmagic of Goethe and Schiller. They permitted themselves to be rushed\nalong by the liberty doctrines of 1789, they plunged head over heels\ninto the vortex of romanticism, and took an active part in the\nconspicuous movements of Europe, political, social, and literary, as\nwitness B\u00f4rne, Heine, and their fellow-combatants.\n\nThe excitement soon evaporated. When the noise of the liberty\nlove-feasts had subsided, when the cruel reaction (after 1814) had\nsettled heavily upon the Europe of the nineteenth century, and God's\nearth had again become the arena of those agents of darkness whom\ndreamers had thought buried forever beneath the ruins of the old\norder, then the German Jews, or such of them as thought, came to their\nsenses. The more intelligent Jewish circles realized that, in devotion\nto the German national movement, they had completely neglected their\nown people. Yet their people, too, had needs, practical or spiritual,\nhad its peculiar national sphere of activity, circumscribed, indeed,\nby the larger sphere of mankind's activities as by a concentric\ncircle, but by no means merged into it. To atone for their sin,\nthinking Jews retraced their steps. They took in hand the transforming\nof Jewish inner life, the simplification of the extremely complicated\nJewish ritual, the remodeling of pedagogic methods, and, above all,\nthe cultivation of the extended fields of Jewish science, whose head\nand front is Jewish historical research in all its vastness and\ndetail. Heine's friend, Zunz, laid the cornerstone of Jewish science\nin the second decade of the nineteenth century. His work was taken up\nby a goodly company of zealous and able builders occupied for half a\ncentury with the task of rearing the proud edifice of a scientific\nhistorical literature, in which national self-consciousness was\nsheltered and fostered. At the very height of this reforming and\nliterary activity, German Jewry was overwhelmed by the civil\nemancipation of 1848. Again a stirring movement drew them into\nsympathy with a great general cause, but this time without drawing\nthem away from Jewish national interests. Cultural and civil\nassimilation was accomplished as an inner compelling necessity, as a\nnatural outcome of living. But spiritual assimilation, in the sense of\na merging of Judaism in foreign elements, was earnestly repudiated by\nthe noblest representatives of Judaism. It was their ideal that\nuniversal activity and national activity should be pursued to the\nprejudice of neither, certainly not to the exclusion of one or the\nother, but in perfect harmony with each other. In point of fact, it\nmay be asserted that, in spite of a frequent tendency to go to the one\nor the other extreme, the two currents, the universal and the\nnational, co-exist within German Jewry, and there is no fear of their\nuniting, they run parallel with each other. The Jewish genius is\nversatile. Without hurt to itself it can be active in all sorts of\ncareers: in politics and in civil life, in parliament and on the\nlecture platform, in all branches of science and departments of\nliterature, in every one of the chambers of mankind's intellectual\nlaboratory. At the same time it has its domestic hearth, its national\nsanctuary; it has its sphere of original work and its self-consciousness,\nits national interests and spiritual ideals rooted in the past of the Jew.\nBy the side of a Lassalle, a Lasker, and a Marx towers a Riesser, a\nGeiger, a Graetz. The leveling process unavoidably connected with\nwidespread culture, so far from causing spiritual desolation in\nGerman Judaism, has, on the contrary, furnished redundant proof\nthat even under present conditions, so unfavorable to what is\nindividual and original, the Jewish people has preserved its vitality\nto the full.\n\nAn analogous movement stirred the other countries of Western\nEurope--France, Italy, and England. The political emancipation of the\nJews was accomplished earlier in them than in Germany. The\nreconstruction of the inner life, too, proceeded more quietly and\nregularly, without leaps and bounds, and religious reform established\nitself by degrees. Yet even here, where the Jewish contingent was\ninsignificant, the spiritual physiognomy of the Jews maintained its\ntypical character. In these countries, as in Germany, the Jew\nassimilated European culture with all its advantages and its\ndrawbacks. He was active on diplomatic fields, he devoted himself to\neconomic investigations, he produced intellectual creations of all\nkinds--first and last he felt himself to be a citizen of his country.\nNone the less he was a loyal son of the Jewish people considered as a\nspiritual people with an appointed task. Cr\u00e9mieux, Beaconsfield,\nLuzzatti are counterbalanced by Salvador, Frank, Munk, Reggio, and\nMontefiore. All the good qualities and the shortcomings distinctive of\nthe civilization of modern times adhere to the Jew. But at its worst\nmodern civilization has not succeeded in extinguishing the national\nspirit in Jewry. The national spirit continues to live in the people,\nand it is this spirit that quickens the people. The genius of Jewish\nhistory, as in centuries gone by, holds watch over the sons of the\n\"eternal people\" scattered to all ends of the earth. West-European\nJewry may say of itself, without presumption: _Cogito ergo sum_.\n\nRussian Jewry, the Jewry that had been Polish, and that is counted by\nthe millions, might, if necessary, prove its existence by even more\ntangible marks than Occidental Jewry. To begin with, the centre of\ngravity of the Jewish nation lies in Russia, whose Jews not only\noutnumber those of the rest of Europe, but continue to live in a\ncompact mass. Besides, they have preserved the original Jewish culture\nand their traditional physiognomy to a higher degree than the Jews of\nother countries. The development of the Russian Jews took a course\nvery different from that of the Jews of the West. This difference was\nconditioned by the tremendous contrast between Russian culture and\nWest-European culture, and by the change which the external\ncircumstances of Jews outside of Russia underwent during the modern\nperiod. The admission of the Polish provinces into the Russian Empire\nat the end of the eighteenth century found the numerous Jewish\npopulation in an almost medieval condition, the same condition in\nwhich the non-Jewish population of Russian Poland was at that time.\nThe Polish regime, as we saw above, had isolated the Jews alike in\ncivil and spiritual relations. The new order did not break down the\nbarriers. The masses of Jews cooped up in the \"Pale of Settlement\"\nwere strong only by reason of their inner unity, their firmly\nestablished patriarchal organization. The bulwark of Rabbinism and the\ncitadel of Chassidism protected them against alien influences. They\nguarded their isolation jealously. True to the law of inertia, they\nwould not allow the privilege of isolation to be wrested from them.\nThey did not care to step beyond the ramparts. Why, indeed, should the\nJews have quitted their fortress, if outside of their walls they could\nexpect nothing but scorn and blows? The unfortunates encaged in the\nsinister Pale of Settlement could have been lured out of their\nexclusive position only by complete civil emancipation combined with a\nhigher degree of culture than had been attained by Russian society, an\nimpossible set of circumstances in the first half of the nineteenth\ncentury. The legislative measures of the time, in so far as they\nrelate to the Jews, breathe the spirit of police surveillance rather\nthan of enlightenment and humanity. To civilizing and intellectual\ninfluences from without the way was equally barred. Yet all this\nwatchfulness was of no avail. Nothing could prevent the liberty\nprinciples espoused by the Jews of Western Europe from being smuggled\ninto the Pale, to leaven the sad, serried masses. A sluggish process\nof fermentation set in, and culminated in the literary activity of\nIsaac Beer Levinsohn and of the Wilna reformers of the second and\nfourth decades of the nineteenth century. They were the harbingers of\napproaching spring.\n\nWhen spring finally came (after 1855), and the sun sent down his\ngenial rays upon the wretched Jewry of Russia, life and activity began\nto appear at once, especially in the upper strata. As in Germany, so\nin Russia spiritual emancipation preceded political emancipation.\nStill shorn almost entirely of the elementary rights of citizens, the\nRussian Jews nevertheless followed their ideal promptings, and\nparticipated enthusiastically in the movement for enlightenment which\nat that time held the noblest of the Russians enthralled. In a\nconsiderable portion of the Russian Jewish community a process of\nculture regeneration began, an eager throwing off of outworn forms of\nlife and thought, a swift adoption of humane principles. Jewish young\nmen crowded into the secular schools, in which they came in close\ncontact with their Christian contemporaries. Influenced by their new\ncompanions, they gave themselves up to Russian national movements,\noften at the cost of renunciation of self. Some of them, indeed, in\none-sided aspiration strove to become, not Russians, but men. The\ninfluence exercised by literature was more moderate than that of the\nschools. Rabbinic and Chassidistic literature, on the point of dying\nout as it was, abandoned the field to the literature of enlightenment\nin the Hebrew language, a literature of somewhat primitive character.\nIt consisted chiefly of naive novels and of didactic writings of\npublicists, and lacked the solid scientific and historical element\nthat forms the crown of Western Jewish literature. It is indisputable,\nhowever, that it exerted an educational influence. Besides, it\npossesses the merit of having resuscitated one of the most valuable of\nJewish national possessions, the Hebrew language in its purity, which\nin Russia alone has become a pliant instrument of literary expression.\nA still greater field was reserved for the Jewish-Russian literature\nthat arose in the \"sixties.\" It was called into being in order to\npresent a vivid and true picture of the social and spiritual interests\nof the Jews. Proceeding from discussions of current political topics,\nthis literature gradually widened its limits so as to include Jewish\nhistory, Jewish science, and the portrayal of Jewish life, and more\nand more approached the character of a normal European literature. All\nthis was in the making, and the most important work had not yet begun.\nThe lower strata of the people had not been touched by the fresh air.\nIn time, if all had gone well, they, too, would have had their day.\nAnd if the minority of the Jewish people in the West in a short span\nof time brought forth so many notable workers in so many departments\nof life and thought, how much superior would be the culture\nachievements of the Eastern majority! How vigorously the mighty mental\nforces latent in Russian Jewry would develop when their advance was no\nlonger obstructed by all sorts of obstacles, and they could be applied\nto every sphere of political, social, and intellectual life!\n\nNothing of all this came to pass; exactly the opposite happened. Not\nonly were the barriers in the way of a prosperous, free development of\nJewry not removed, but fresh hindrances without number were\nmultiplied. Some spectre of the middle ages, some power of darkness,\nput brakes upon the wheel of history. It first appeared in the West,\nunder the name anti-Semitism, among the dregs of European society. But\nin its earliest abode it was and is still met with an abrupt rebuff on\nthe part of the most intelligent circles, those whom even the present\nage of decadence has not succeeded in robbing of belief in lofty moral\nideals. Anti-Semitism in the West is in _anima vili_. Its cult is\nconfined to a certain party, which enjoys a rather scandalous\nreputation. But there are countries in which this power of darkness,\nin the coarser form of Judophobia[13], has cast its baleful spell upon\nthe most influential members of society and upon the press. There it\nhas ripened noxious fruit. Mocking at the exalted ideals and the\nethical traditions of religious and thinking mankind, Judophobia\nshamelessly professes the dogma of misanthropy. Its propaganda is\nbringing about the moral ruin of an immature society, not yet\nconfirmed in ethical or truly religious principles. Upon its victims,\nthe Jews, it has the same effect as the misfortunes of the middle\nages, which were meted out to our hoary people with overflowing\nmeasure, and against which it learnt to assume an armor of steel. The\nrecent severe trials are having the same result as the persecutions of\nformer days: they do not weaken, on the contrary, they invigorate the\nJewish spirit, they spur on to thought, they stimulate the pulse of\nthe people.\n\n \"The hammer shivers glass,\n  But iron by its blows is forged.\"[14]\n\n  [13] As anti-Semitism is called in Russia.\n  [14] Pushkin.\n\nThe historical process Jewry has undergone repeatedly, it must undergo\nonce again. But now, too, in this blasting time of confusion and\ndispersion, of daily torture and the horrors of international\nconflict, \"the keeper of Israel slumbereth not and sleepeth not.\" The\nJewish spirit is on the alert. It is ever purging and tempering itself\nin the furnace of suffering. The people which justly bears the name of\nthe veteran of history withdraws and falls into a revery. It is not a\nnarrow-minded fanatic's flight from the world, but the concentrated\nthought of a mourner. Jewry is absorbed in contemplation of its great,\nunparalleled past. More than ever it is now in need of the teachings\nof its past, of the moral support and the prudent counsels of its\nhistory, its four thousand years of life crowded with checkered\nexperiences.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nTHE TEACHINGS OF JEWISH HISTORY\n\n\nLet us return now to the starting point of our discussion, and\nendeavor to establish the thoughts and lessons to be deduced from the\ncourse of Jewish history.\n\nAbove all, Jewish history possesses the student with the conviction\nthat Jewry at all times, even in the period of political independence,\nwas pre-eminently a spiritual nation, and a spiritual nation it\ncontinues to be in our own days, too. Furthermore, it inspires him\nwith the belief that Jewry, being a spiritual entity, cannot suffer\nannihilation: the body, the mold, may be destroyed, the spirit is\nimmortal. Bereft of country and dispersed as it is, the Jewish nation\nlives, and will go on living, because a creative principle permeates\nit, a principle that is the root of its being and an indigenous\nproduct of its history. This principle consists first in a sum of\ndefinite religious, moral, or philosophic ideals, whose exponent at\nall times was the Jewish people, either in its totality, or in the\nperson of its most prominent representatives. Next, this principle\nconsists in a sum of historical memories, recollections of what in the\ncourse of many centuries the Jewish people experienced, thought, and\nfelt, in the depths of its being. Finally, it consists in the\nconsciousness that true Judaism, which has accomplished great things\nfor humanity in the past, has not yet played out its part, and,\ntherefore, may not perish. In short, the Jewish people lives because\nit contains a living soul which refuses to separate from its\nintegument, and cannot be forced out of it by heavy trials and\nmisfortunes, such as would unfailingly inflict mortal injury upon less\nsturdy organisms.\n\nThis self-consciousness is the source from which the suffering Jewish\nsoul draws comfort. History speaks to it constantly through the mouth\nof the great apostle who went forth from the midst of Israel eighteen\nhundred years ago: \"Call to remembrance the former days, in which,\nafter ye were enlightened, ye endured a great conflict of sufferings;\npartly, being made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions;\nand partly, becoming partakers with them that were so used.... Cast\nnot away therefore your boldness, which hath great recompense of\nreward\" (Epistle to the Hebrews, x, 32-34, 35).\n\nJewish history, moreover, arouses in the Jew the desire to work\nunceasingly at the task of perfecting himself. To direct his attention\nto his glorious past, to the resplendent intellectual feats of his\nancestors, to their masterly skill in thinking and suffering, does not\nlull him to sleep, does not awaken a dullard's complacency or hollow\nself-conceit. On the contrary, it makes exacting demands upon him.\nJewish history admonishes the Jews: \"_Noblesse oblige_. The\nprivilege of belonging to a people to whom the honorable title of the\n'veteran of history' has been conceded, puts serious responsibilities\non your shoulders. You must demonstrate that you are worthy of your\nheroic past. The descendants of teachers of religion and martyrs of\nthe faith dare not be insignificant, not to say wicked. If the long\ncenturies of wandering and misery have inoculated you with faults,\nextirpate them in the name of the exalted moral ideals whose bearers\nyou were commissioned to be. If, in the course of time, elements out\nof harmony with your essential being have fastened upon your mind,\ncast them out, purify yourselves. In all places and at all times, in\njoy and and in sorrow, you must aim to live for the higher, the\nspiritual interests. But never may you deem yourselves perfect. If you\nbecome faithless to these sacred principles, you sever the bonds that\nunite you with the most vital elements of your past, with the first\ncause of your national existence.\"\n\nThe final lesson to be learned is that in the sunny days of mankind's\nhistory, in which reason, justice, and philanthropic instinct had the\nupper hand, the Jews steadfastly made common cause with the other\nnations. Hand in hand with them, they trod the path leading to\nperfection. But in the dark days, during the reign of rude force,\nprejudice, and passion, of which they were the first victims, the Jews\nretired from the world, withdrew into their shell, to await better\ndays. Union with mankind at large, on the basis of the spiritual and\nthe intellectual, the goal set up by the Jewish Prophets in their\nsublime vision of the future (Isaiah, ch. ii, and Micah, ch. iv), is\nthe ultimate ideal of Judaism's noblest votaries. Will their radiant\nhope ever attain to realization? If ever it should be realized,--and\nit is incumbent upon us to believe that it will,--not a slight part of\nthe merits involved will be due to Jewish history. We have adverted to\nthe lofty moral and humanitarian significance of Jewish history in its\nrole as conciliator. With regard to one-half of Jewish history, this\nconciliatory power is even now a well-established fact. The first part\nof Jewish history, the Biblical part, is a source from which, for many\ncenturies, millions of human beings belonging to the most diverse\ndenominations have derived instruction, solace, and inspiration. It is\nread with devotion by Christians in both hemispheres, in their houses\nand their temples. Its heroes have long ago become types, incarnations\nof great ideas. The events it relates serve as living ethical\nformulas. But a time will come--perhaps it is not very far off--when\nthe second half of Jewish history, the record of the two thousand\nyears of the Jewish people's life after the Biblical period, will be\naccorded the same treatment. This latter part of Jewish history is not\nyet known, and many, in the thrall of prejudice, do not wish to know\nit. But ere long it will be known and appreciated. For the thinking\nportion of mankind it will be a source of uplifting moral and\nphilosophical teaching. The thousand years' martyrdom of the Jewish\npeople, its unbroken pilgrimage, its tragic fate, its teachers of\nreligion, its martyrs, philosophers, champions, this whole epic will\nin days to come sink deep into the memory of men. It will speak to the\nheart and the conscience of men, not merely to their curious mind. It\nwill secure respect for the silvery hair of the Jewish people, a\npeople of thinkers and sufferers. It will dispense consolation to the\nafflicted, and by its examples of spiritual steadfastness and\nself-denial encourage martyrs in their devotion. It is our firm\nconviction that the time is approaching in which the second half of\nJewish history will be to the noblest part of _thinking_ humanity\nwhat its first half has long been to _believing_ humanity, a\nsource of sublime moral truths. In this sense, Jewish history in its\nentirety is the pledge of the spiritual union between the Jews and the\nrest of the nations.","title":"Jewish History : An Essay in the Philosophy of History","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":28121}