Q&A: Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn
Question
Hello Rabbi,
It seems that quite a few times, when you want to justify your approach educationally, you use the rabbis’ ineffective approach in their struggle against the Enlightenment.
What do you think about the case of Mendelssohn? After all, he did something somewhat like your approach [I haven’t seen anyone write this, but it seems that his influence on Leibowitz was enormous], and he failed.
And more generally, what do you think of him?
Answer
I don’t know him well enough, but he was probably a decent observant Jew and a Torah scholar.
Was the Haredi approach more successful? All of today’s secular Jews are products of it and of its way of dealing with the Enlightenment. There are quite a few decent observant and Haredi Jews who failed exactly like Mendelssohn, if you’re speaking on the personal level. And on the general level, I don’t see in what sense he failed.
Discussion on Answer
Whenever Mendelssohn is discussed, it always makes me smirk,
because at least some of the time he was very unclear, and every modern Jewish movement that came after him could use him as a symbol (and unfairly, for better or worse; in my opinion his historical influence wasn’t all that great).
On the one hand, he believed in Torah from Heaven and in the need to observe Jewish law, and on the other hand he was a liberal and advocated freedom of speech, tolerance, and friendly relations with members of other religions (he expanded Meiri’s idea from the 13th century to much broader dimensions). He supported Enlightenment and free thought. Up to this point, he could be the image of an Orthodox American rabbi in 2020.
But when you get to his whole philosophical move, where he talks about the essence of Judaism and command, something there starts sounding like apologetics that smells very bad.
And also all sorts of statements that are very hard to defend logically, like the idea that Spinoza and atheists in general can be part of the religious community and be considered fit as long as they observe the commandments, because the essence of the Jew is command rather than facts. (That can resemble Michi’s and Leibowitz’s claim, for example, about thin theology, but anyone with a straight head, whether with thin theology or thick theology, will agree that there is no religious value in observing commandments when you are a complete atheist.)
I don’t know what the degree of rationality is or what the relativity is, but it seems that you do not know Mendelssohn’s writings.
True, I also don’t know them in depth, but still my impression is that you are not right.
I suggest you read at least Heinemann’s discussion (at the beginning of volume 2 of his book The Reasons for the Commandments), and then write again.
I don’t need certification,
rather an assessment of the quality of his thought.
It’s a shame you don’t know him well enough.
It seems to me you could find a lot of interest in his writings. (I already wrote that your conception—like Leibowitz’s—of Jewish law and its exclusive place is embedded in his writings, and as far as I know, he was the first.)
I didn’t understand your answer: if both failed, then what do you take from the Enlightenment?
True, there’s no comparison in the balance of power, but even in his close circle [not necessarily his descendants], Mendelssohn almost had no influence. (Except for Wessely.)