דר. מיכה גאטליב
שרייבט:
”From Moses to Moses there never arose one as great as Moses.” This expression was originally coined to praise the great medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, but in 1761 when Mendelssohn was only thirty-two years old a Christian, Johann Jacob Rabe, first applied this expression to Mendelssohn in relation to Maimonides. In the same vein, Mendelssohn’s first biographer, Isaac Euchel, consistently referred to Mendelssohn using the Rabbinic acronym “Rambeman” (Rabbi Moshe ben Mendel) with its clear echo of Rambam (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, i.e., Maimonides). Connecting Mendelssohn and Maimonides sent a clear message. Mendelssohn was a modern Maimonides renowned among Gentiles as a profound philosopher and respected by the rabbis of his age for his extensive Talmudic learning. While Maimonides served as a guide for perplexed Jewish believers in the face of medieval challenges to Judaism, Mendelssohn was a guide for perplexed Jews confronting the challenges to Judaism posed by modernity. Modernity inaugurated an era of increased sociability between Jews and Christians. This presented challenges never encountered by Maimonides including how to reconcile obedience to the Torah with life in a liberal state where Jews could be equal citizens. Mendelssohn showed how Judaism could meet such challenges
. . .
Samson Raphael Hirsch, the founder of German Neo-Orthodoxy, praised Mendelssohn, as “a most brilliant and respected personality whose commanding influence has dominated developments to this day.”
Orthodox and Reform thinkers alike increasingly blamed Mendelssohn for the widespread defection from Judaism among young Jews though for different reasons. For many Orthodox thinkers, this defection stemmed from the rationalist nature of Mendelssohn’s philosophy of Judaism, which undercut all justification for halakhic observance, while for many Reform thinkers it was Mendelssohn’s atavistic adherence to halakha, which alienated young Jews who turned to a more spiritually free Christianity
און דאס איז וואס ער שרייבט איבער אים במשנתו של דר. ליִאוֺ סטראַוּס אודות
מחלוקתו עם דזשעקאָבּי בשיטת גאטהאלד אפרים לעסינג:
According to Strauss, unlike his later successors Mendelssohn adhered to “Orthodox” Jewish concepts in their “external” sense claiming rational grounds for belief in creation, revelation, divine providence, and the immortality of the soul. And he strove to show how the binding authority of halakha could be reconciled with liberal political ideals. In this way, Mendelssohn seemed to offer a foundation for faith/commitment that precluded intolerance and extremism, while embracing reason. But, Strauss wondered, was such a position coherent and defensible? Strauss noted that Mendelssohn faced this question in his own day, most importantly during the Pantheism Controversy with Jacobi, which Strauss interpreted as a theological- political debate
Strauss’s inquiry into the Controversy ultimately led him to reject both Mendelssohn’s enlightened Orthodoxy as well as Jacobi’s mystical faith. On the one hand, Strauss accepted Jacobi’s charge that Mendelssohn’s moderate religious enlightenment lacked consistency as exemplified by Lessing’s confession of Spinozism. In seeking to bridge faith and reason, authority and freedom, Strauss followed Jacobi in claiming that Mendelssohn ended up adopting a thoroughly muddled stance that was “indecisive, lukewarm, and mediocre.” According to Strauss, Mendelssohn’s “cautious half-dogmatism” resulted both in an emasculated faith and a shallow conception of reason. In consequence, while Mendelssohn claimed to defend revelation, he ended up undermining it. For the structure of reason, which proceeded by logically necessary judgments, precluded the possibility of faith, which was spontaneous and ungrounded. By making rationalism appear kosher to Jewish faith, Mendelssohn had introduced a Trojan Horse into Judaism as Spinozism, that is, atheism, was the most consistent form of rationalism. Once Mendelssohn legitimated the authority of reason for religious belief, the decline in religious belief among Jews was inevitable. Strauss also accepted Jacobi’s charge that in making human happiness the end of religion, Mendelssohn precipitated a turn to egoism and superficiality that was irreconcilable with obedience to God as the end of life. So in the final analysis, Strauss followed Jacobi in regarding Mendelssohn’s “moderate enlightenment” as nothing more than “bourgeois, self-satisfied, self-centeredness” motivated by an attempt to make Jews into urbane German burghers by diluting Judaism
דר. עלען ארקוש
טענה׳ט אז דער רמ״ד איז באמת געווען א דעאיסט נאר האט געזוכט אָנצוהאלטן זיין סמכות אלס א טראדיציאנאלע (טעאיסטישע) איד כדי צו קענען באאיינפלוסן זיינע אידישע ברודער צו קענען ווערן א חלק און בירגער פון דאס ליבעראלע אלגעמיינע פאלק.
