Q&A: Was Moses Mendelssohn Wicked??
Was Moses Mendelssohn Wicked??
Question
Dear Rabbi, hello,
What does the Rabbi think about Moses Mendelssohn? Was he wicked?
I read a book by some professor about him, and I couldn’t come to the conclusion that he was wicked.
Thank you.
Answer
I haven’t looked into it in depth, but from what I know he was simply ahead of his time. Ideas that he said back then, which sounded innovative and even heretical, are today fairly banal and deeply rooted in Orthodoxy (usually Modern Orthodoxy). It has nothing whatsoever to do with wickedness. On the contrary, my impression is that he was a Torah scholar and God-fearing. By the way, he was apparently among the most talented people of his generation, even in the estimation of non-Jews. He won first prize from the Prussian Academy of Sciences for his essay on metaphysics, while second prize went to Kant.
You are one hundred percent right.
There are people who, if they had been born later, would have been leaders of the generation, but because they were the first to break new ground, they are ostracized forever. It’s a shame.