On Moses Mendelssohn
- Title
- On Moses Mendelssohn
- Author
- Morais, Sabato
- Date Created
- 4 January 1886
- Format
- 10 pages on 4 sheets
- Language(s)
- English
- Source
- Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
- Sabato Morais Collection, Box 12, Folder 12
- Has Format
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p35x25z7m/manifest.json
- Link to Colenda
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p35x25z7m
- Provenance
- Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.
- Is Format Of
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx12FF12.xml
- content
-
77
On Moses Mendelssohn [Hebrew]
Brethren. At the ministerial conference held in Baltimore towards the end of last October, it was proposed resolved that on the fourth of January, a me--morial service be held in honor of Moses Men--delssohn, for on that day, the one hundred years ago, the revered Sage departed this life. At a re--cent meeting of several of our city ministers, I moved that instead of the proposed united service--impracticable for various a number of cogent reasons--each Jewish pulpit should choose as a subject of discussion on the Sabbath preceding the fourth, the character and works of the celebrated philosopher of Dessau. Now, if I had never been offered before opportu--nities to speak in your presence of the German Isra--elite whom the literary world honors generates, or if I believed that to some of you his name is entirely new, I would tell of his humble parentage, of his poverty, of his feeble body, and of his mighty struggle withal to gain knowledge. But all know are aware that Mendelssohn's father was only a writer and vender of philacteries, or Tephillin and similar objects,
that his son could find scarcely enough to eat procure a meal, that at ten years of age he became sickly and deformed, that at fourteen he left his native city in his eagerness to follow his Hebrew Rabbinical teachers David Frankel to Berlin. It is not to the severe privations he bore, that I wish to refer. Others have, like Mendelssohn, endured trying want and a voluntary parting with home and its early associations for the sake of learning. But his--tory has rarely recorded instances of a lad who studied in the face of popular frowning & ridicule, in the certainty of never rising nationally or commu--nally. For the Germany of the days of Men--delssohn was an engine of torture to the Jews. All combined to their injury. The commonalty hated men considered by declared held registered in their statute book as aliens, the socially elevated despised men who spoke a language which was no language unintelligible beyond the ghettos. An emperor who made pretentions to lore and erudtion mental enlightenment; and who felt proud at being called "the Great," showed him--self contemptibly benefited and small in his dealings towards his Hebrew subjects.
When Frederick II of Prussia, struck off the name of Mendelssohn from among those the candidates who had earned by a scientific writing a title to a mem--bership in the Berlin Academy, the ruler proved that he was overruled by vulgar prejudices. Worthy of remembrance is Mendelssohn's answer remark on hearing of that injustice. He said: "I have would have been grieved if the Academy had refused me admission." Still, it would be unfar I should commit a great wrong to in condemning all Germans because of the narrow- vile mindedness bigotry and proscriptive laws of their country. Christians like Lessing, Nicolaï, Sulzer, Dohm, who recognized merit where it existed are always a glory to mankind in whatever nation they are met. Through the broad mindedness & noble hearted--ness of such Mendelssohn overcame the obstacles which his religion unhappily placed against the practical application of his wonderful powers, and the recognition of his genius. Some of his productions were borrowed in the manuscripts, and published, without his knowledge, by his admirer-- the philosopher-poet Ephraim Lessing.
Some were put in print because circumstances forced them out. When Lavater-- the renowned Swiss Physiognomist--who --but a fanatic--believing in Mendelssohn's honesty incapable of evasions, dared publicly to ask him to prove Judaism true, or become a Christian, the Hebrew Sage must unavoidably have replied through the press to let all understand why he remained a Jew. When the name of his dead friend and benefactor, the good Lessing, was blackened by with the accusation of atheism of or Spinosism, he must have penned a defence and spread it far and wide. When the question of his people's eman--cipation was began to be agitated and the laws of Moses were cited as precluding the consummation of the devoutly wished for object, Mendelssohn's devotion attachment to the Torah demanded that he should compose his famous double treatise called "Jerusalem". When the would be libe--rals of his days, aping voltairianism denied God and immortality, one profoundly sincere in his creed, could not hold back the sentiments, which have deservedly won for him the name of modern Plato--I mean the publication of his Phaedon, the most lurid and comforting exponent of a life hereafter in the realms of spirituality.
His "morgenstunden," or morning hours, written specially for the education training of his son Joseph, was, like his Phaedon, intended to bring thoughful youths, humbly to the footstool of an omni--potent Creator. In none of his philosophical productions, the great Jew of Dessau aimed at no--toriety. He was lifted up to fame by the lever of his sterling merits, despite a natural disposition to retiredness, which circumstances had intensified. But if Mendelssohn's had simply labors to had simply enriched secular literature and purified and beautified the German language, this pulpit would not resound with his praises at the centennial period anniversary of his death. A pardonable racial pride might cause us individually to point to the Sage of Dessau, as to a luminous star in the world's literary horizon. We might boast that the despised Jew became the restorer of learning and philosophy, in the country even now shaming itself by antisemitism. Still Congregationally we could not feel gratitude. What claims had then that Moses to our veneration? Have his exer--tions benefitted his people, glorified his religion?
I answer "Yes," even while "Reformers" set up Men--delssohn as their leaders in the march of Synagogual devastation. For it is absolutely false that the philosopher was guilty of duplicity, that he out--wardly conformed with the rules of his faith, but secretly taught to despise them. This charge in--sinuated by the soi-distant progressive Jews, and brought boldly forth by Christian authors, I de--clare unfounded, and [?] unpardonably offensive to the memory of a noble Jew. What could have deterred Mendelssohn, who never exercised Rabbinical ecclesiastical functions, who never acted as Reader or Preacher to any congregation, who never denied derived pecuniary advantages from his coreligionists, who lived in extreme poverty to the age of his manhood, and afterwards finally in comparative ease as partner of a Jewish silk manufacturing Jew in Berlin, what could have deterred a man sought after by the greatest celebrities of his time, from acting with per--fect independence, and severing his connection with the Synagogue, even if he disdained to openly accept bap--tism? Hypocrisy may be the cloak which they put on, who expect that the disguise will procure gain
or fame, but it is utterly absurd to suppose that a person who needs neither at the hands of his brothers in faith, will clothe himself in that fictitious garment. Upon this day of his memorial, I pronounce Moses Mendelssohn a typical Jew, who loved all his fellow--mortals, but clung to his oppressed race and to Israel's God. His translation of the Pentateuch, and the his comment to several portions of it, he commented, his poetical rhythmical version of the five books of psalms, his preface to Menasseh Ben Israel's "Vin- dicae Judaeorum", or "Vindication of the Jews," and the rendition of the [?] same volume in German, his introduction to Ecclesiastes, his contribu--tions to Hebrew periodicals, were all inspired by his attachment to his fellow believers and to the Sinaic legislation. That a people unused to a language which the Christian community spoke, should interpret Mendelssohn's productions as an approximation to gentilism, we can scar--cely wonder; that his association with the poets and thinkers of Germany, should have aroused suspicion among his ostracised coreligionists, can--not occasion a surprise, but none of his multifarious writings betray a devotion departure from the Law and traditions.
All his actions evince a spirit of humility which finds its outflow in the education of the untutored and the social amelioration of the lowly. I shall not allow the apostasy of his descendants to asperse tarnish the character of their glorious sire. Exceedingly pain--ful to me is the thought that the children and grand-children of Moses Mendelssohn swerved from the path which he undeviatingly followed; molli--fying it is to me as well as sorrowful that ambition to shine within a circle unopen to the Jew, robbed us of men and women who would have shed lustre upon the Syna--gogue. Still I will always emphatically repel with force the accusation that the in his teachings and example, of the most honored Jew of the eighteenth century, had been false to Israel's God.
Mirabeau, the world renowned French orator and revolutio- -nist, who made the personal acquaintance of the Sage of Dessau wrote that a superior being towering intellect--ually to use superior above his contemporaries, cast among born in a race un--justly kept in degradation, without means, sickly, timid, compelled to engage in commercial pursuits,
but who de in spite of all impediments became a factor in the creation of a lan style lucid, graceful and energetic, a being more noted for his virtues than even for his learning, who influenced his fellow-religionists for good, and whom neither bigotry nor calumny could reach injure, deserves to be known and honored. Brethren. In a Jewish free school at Berlin a bust of the Sage of Dessau is set conspicuously. Upon it the poet Ramler inscribed these words on a bust of the Sage of Dessau: this memorable motto: "Moses Mendelssohn, wise like as Socrates--yet faithful to the religion of his fathers--as Socrates taught immortality like Socrates, and like him Socrates became immortal" Let us then, O children of the Lord he adored, bear this day his name on our lips with a blessing and a prayer. Let us beseech the Lord, whose word he expounded, whose commands he observed, that the life of eternity which he made us deeply to believe in, may yeild for his soul ever renewed delights among the saints and the pure, who contemplate the glories of the Universal Creator. (Here follows the long Hashcabah) - Identifier
- p35x25z7m
- identifier
- SMBx12FF12
Part of On Moses Mendelssohn
Morais, Sabato, “On Moses Mendelssohn”, Sabato Morais Digital Repository, accessed September 7, 2024, https://judaicadhpenn.org/legacyprojects/s/morais/item/91447