Jewish History Blog
The return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel is arguably the dominant theme of Jewish history for the past 150 years.
The return itself will take very strange forms and the cast of characters is quite varied. Since we are still in the midst of the story it is difficult to assess all of the ramifications. Nevertheless, the story is fascinating – and not just for the Jewish people. The State of Israel, small and relatively powerless as it is, has become a very central issue in world politics and occupies a very disproportionate space in the media as well as the minds and pocketbooks of the world. It remains a central a central drama that proves fascinating to all.
Hastening the Messiah
There always a Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, but it was relatively small from the year 500 CE until modern times. In fact, from 500 to 1500 CE the Jewish population can be numbered in the hundreds of people. The Jewish presence in Palestine was not really strengthened until the middle of the 1500s when the exiles from Spain arrived and established centers of learning in Safed and Jerusalem. From that time until the time we are discussing now most the Jews there were Sefardic. The Ashkenazic Jews had almost no presence whatsoever.
However, the modern rebirth of Jewish life in the Land of Israel begins with Ashkenazic immigration in the 1700s. And it began from two almost diametrically opposed camps: the Chassidim and their “opponents,” the Misnagdim. Nevertheless, both were motivated by the same religious and mystical impulse, which, simply put, was that one could force the Messiah to come.
The founder of Chassidim, the Baal Shem Tov, wanted very badly to come to Israel, but was stopped. “From heaven” they stopped him, he said. There is a famous legend that along the way he was set upon by robbers and he told them that if they would help him get to the Land of Israel he would give them a share of his portion in the World to Come. In any event, the pressure to bring the Messiah was part and parcel of the growth of Chassidism, and the pious leaders of the generation were the ones who had the power to force God’s hand.
Early Settlers
As a practical matter, the Baal Shem Tov never made it to the Land of Israel. However, his brother-in-law, Rabbi Gershon Kitover, did in 1742. In 1753, we find Rabbi Kitover in Jerusalem founding the first Ashkenazic community there.
Together with the Chassidim, the disciples of the Gaon of Vilna came, including two of his primary disciples, Rabbi Menachem of Shklov and Rabbi Israel of Shklov, who were brothers. They came with many students, disciples and families. Even though the Chassidim and the followers of the Vilna Gaon, the Misnagdim, did not get along with each other in Europe they found the wherewithal to unite and make a single, strong Ashkenazic community in the Land of Israel.
The Ashkenazim settled in Safed, Tiberius, Hebron and Jerusalem. In Hebron it was mainly a Chassidic community. In Safed there was a strong community of the Vilna Gaon’s disciples under Rabbi Israel of Shklov. However, in 1816 there was a tremendous cholera epidemic and then an earthquake which destroyed the city. Even today one can see the fault lines in the old cemetery of Safed; it moved 12-15 yards. Hundreds of people were killed, decimating the community. Most of the Jews there moved to either Tiberius or Jerusalem.
A Law Book of Agriculture
Rabbi Israel of Shklov wrote one of the great books that helped developed the Land of Israel, Paas HaShulchan. It is a code of Jewish law regarding agriculture, i.e. how to farm in the Land of Israel.
When in the 1500s Rabbi Joseph Caro wrote his seminal book on Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch, he did not include agricultural laws, because those laws applied only in the Land of Israel and there were no Jewish farmers at that time. A handful of scholars knew the laws from the Talmud and sources, but other than them these laws were largely unstudied. Rabbi Israel of Shklov changed that. His work was immediately recognized as an epic of scholarship, and all later works in this area of Jewish law were based upon it.
In his introduction, Rabbi Israel of Shklov describes what he calls “the pains of settling in the Land of Israel.” The Talmud long before said that a person cannot hope to settle in the Land of Israel unless he is willing pay a price. Rabbi Israel describes some of the personal tragedies he experienced settling there.
During the cholera epidemic his wife and all the children except one daughter died. The surviving daughter was subsequently killed in the earthquake. He literally lost everything and was forced to flee even without his manuscripts.
He eventually came to Jerusalem and resettled there, drawing on his deep wellsprings of faith to strengthen himself against the terrible tragedies that had been visited upon him. He writes that after all his suffering he was finally beginning to see a glimmer of the greatness and holiness of the land. Nevertheless, his introduction about “the pains – i.e. the costs — of settling in the Land of Israel” is a classic unto itself.
Today’s Israel bears little or no resemblance to the land that these early pioneers found. There were no trees in the country. It was rocks and swamp lands. Just about every tree one sees today was hand-planted.
Even clearing the land of rocks to prepare it for planting was herculean. Early pioneers told how before they went through the back-breaking labor of plowing and planting they did nothing but pick up rocks for a couple of years.
Those were the pioneers. The generation that came before them, like Rabbi Israel of Shklov and his compatriots, had even more unimaginable obstacles to deal with. They did not even have trains journeying from Europe to the Land of Israel in those days. And if one was Jewish there was the added danger of persecution from non-Jews. Then, if they made it, they had to face the ordeal of settling in an entirely different climate and deal with disease and unfriendly Arabs.
Yet, these European Jews came and settled. Their tenacity, love of the land and faith enabled them to establish a foothold in the country. Everything that Jews have today in Israel is built from that foothold.
Beginnings of New Jerusalem
Sir Moses Montefiore came to Palestine in 1839 and bought land right outside the walls of the Old City. Arab marauders made it unsafe for Jews to go out at night. People were reluctant to move out of the Old City. Even though apartments were built the danger was so real that people would go to the new city outside the walls during the day, but at night they would return to sleep within the Old City walls.
Since Jerusalem was under the control of the Ottoman Turks, there were no policemen for the Jews to appeal to. Therefore, it was not until 1872 that a group of seven young families agreed to buy land outside the walls and actually sleep there at night. That neighborhood is called Nachlat Shiva, “the inheritance of the seven.” It was the beginning of the New Jerusalem.
These first Jews lived there isolated and alone outside the protection of the city walls under a government that offered them no protection. Nevertheless, the historic fact is that Jews came and built a strong Jewish presence in a country is a testament to their determination and incredible sacrifices.
Economic Support
God has arranged things such that Jews living in the Land of Israel cannot support themselves. They have to seek outside help and charity. It was that way during certain epochs in Second-Temple times, during the Middle Ages and the last 150 or more years since Jews started resettling their ancient homeland.
Jewish leaders set up a special fund to support Jews in the Land of Israel called Kupas Rabbi Meir Baal HaNess, “The Fund of Rabbi Meir the Miracle Worker.” People went all over Europe to collect money for this all-encompassing fund.
In European countries this fund was entirely illegal. In Russia, for instance, it was forbidden to send any money out of the country or even collect it for that purpose. Even worse was collecting it to be sent to Palestine, which was under Turkish rule; the Turks and the Russians were frequently at war with each other or on the verge of war. Therefore, all the rabbis who participated – and almost all the major rabbis in Eastern Europe did participate in the fund – were liable to immediate arrest.
Nevertheless, this fund – which still exists today – was fabulously successful. Money arrived regularly. It is how the Jewish community survived.
Lovers of Zion
Beginning in the 1860s a new idea came into the Jewish world in Eastern Europe, Hovevei Tzion, “The Lovers of Zion.”
It was not as much an official organization as a mass movement among the Jewish people. The idea was to promote Jewish immigration to Palestine and make Jews self-sufficient there, i.e. to give them the wherewithal to not live on charity funds alone.
The Lovers of Zion were a strange mixed of people. They included pious and great rabbis as well as radical, atheistic Jews. It began as a religious movement steeped in Jewish tradition and belief, even though many of the participants were not religious Jews.
The religious philosopher of the movement was a German rabbi named Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (1795-1874). He was joined by other great rabbis, including the famous leader of the yeshiva in Volozhin, Rabbi Naftali Yehuda Zvi Berlin, the “Netziv.” These people were leaders of the Lovers of Zion movement and gave it a religious character.
However, there was another stream that flowed into the Lovers of Zion, the secularists. Two books were written at the time which advanced the secular stream and became progenitors of political, secular Zionism.
The first was written by a German Jewish philosopher named Moses Hess entitled Rome and Jerusalem. He was not referring to the Rome of the Roman Empire but the Rome of his time, in the 1850s. Hess was not religious and had very little Jewish background or even any idea what Judaism was about. Nevertheless, his idea was to build a Jewish state patterned upon the Italy of his time, which had just united after centuries of disunity. He wanted Jews to march into Palestine and take it over.
The second book was written by Leon (Yehudah Leib) Pinsker and called Auto Emancipation. By the title he meant that the Jewish people could free themselves — and the vehicle for their own self-freedom was colonization of the Land of Israel.
These two books were secular. They did not take any religious Jewish experience into account. But combined with the religious leadership of the rabbis these factors galvanized the Lovers of Zion movement and made it a strong reality, pushing Jews toward colonization.
Edmond Rothschild
The final piece of the puzzle known as the Lovers of Zion was another great character in Jewish history, Baron Edmond Rothschild (1845–1934). He was a traditional Jew. Rather than letting philanthropic opportunities come to him he went looking for them.
One day, a great rabbi convinced him that he should focus his efforts on the resettlement of the Jews in Palestine, and this became his life work.
In his moral last will and testament, he wrote that he thanks the Almighty for giving him the privilege of participating in helping the Jewish people return to their ancient homeland and allowed him to begin to see the fruits of his labors.
Baron Edmond Rothschild was the key to the success of the Lovers of Zion movement. He bought the land and brought the business, including the founding of the Carmel Wine Company, which he gave to the farmers.
The original towns that now are the oldest cities in modern Israel were either financed by him, encouraged by him or created because he created other towns.
To Baron Edmond Rothschild, resettling the land for the Jews was not just a hobby, but a mission that he was driven by. He is the final link in the picture of the Lovers of Zion. It originated with the rabbis, was joined by the secularists and finally fueled by the money, help and talents of Baron Rothschild.
The Jewish people are not strangers to dispute. In fact, from its earliest beginnings one of its hallmarks is that it is a contentious and cantankerous people.
The Jewish people are called “stiff-necked.” There is a positive side to this trait. The Rabbis teach that one of the differences between the Jewish world and the non-Jewish one is that the non-Jewish world is much more prepared to accept new fashions, ideas and ways of life. The Jewish world, by contrast, is slow to change. And over the centuries almost every new idea aroused opposition and was not accepted lightly. However, in its stiff-necked slowness to change lies a guarantee for the continuity of Jewish traditions and the Jewish people themselves.
New ideas are tested in the crucible of dispute. If it survives it has validity. If it doesn’t then there was really no reason to have it.
That is the story of the Mussar Movement. It engendered an enormous amount of opposition, but in the end survived and made the Jewish people better.
As long as its founder, Rabbi Israel Salanter, was alive the opposition was muted. He was such a great personality that it had no choice but to be muted. No one was willing to take him on in a headlong, direct confrontation. However, upon his death the struggle began in earnest. From 1875 for the next four decades, until the beginning of the First World War marked a tremendous struggle from within the traditional camp as well as from without, from Haskalah.
The Printed Word
This dispute marks the first time a dispute was fought from within the pages of the Jewish newspapers.
Beginning in the 1850s the power of the printed word took a different form in Eastern European Jewish life. Even today, Jews are avid readers. Perhaps it is our reputation as a people of the book, implying a certain respect for literature and knowledge. Whatever the reason, starting in the 1850s that relationship to the printed word reflected itself in the formation of a large number of newspapers, especially Hebrew newspapers.
Rabbi Israel Salanter also recognized the importance and power of the newspaper. He founded one called, HaPeless, meaning “The Balance Scale.” Though the life of that paper was short – perhaps only six quarterly issues in all – the fact that a Talmudic scholar of his stature published it made a huge statement. It brought the traditional world into contact with the modern media of its time.
There were two famous Hebrew-language papers in Lithuania and Russia that were edited by people of the Haskalah. Even though such people were non-observant and even anti-religious, they were nevertheless often knowledgeable. On the pages of those two papers a great deal of this struggle was fought.
Later, the struggle between Zionism and traditional Jewry would be fought on those pages too. In fact, one of the first and primary goals of the Zionist movement was to capture the press. In our time, we are well-aware of the power of the media. We are inundated by it. We are controlled by it. But by the 1870s the Jewish world was becoming media-oriented for the first time. Most of the records we have about the struggle between adherents of the Mussar Movement and its opponents are found in the pages of those two newspapers.
One paper was called HaMeilitz, “The Interpreter.” The second paper was HaTzefirah, “The Whistle,” as in a whistleblower. It was slightly more sensationalist and, for one reason or another, had a greater readership among the traditionalists, even though the editors were non-traditional people.
The Kovno Kollel
When Rabbi Israel Salanter died the Mussar Movement was taken over by his leading disciple, Rabbi Isaac Blazer, commonly called Reb Iztelle Peterburger. When Reb Itzelle moved to Kovno he connected with a wealthy Jew who set aside an endowment that was used to found an advanced Torah academy, the Kovno Kollel. At its height this institution had about 170 men. They were supported by a combination of this endowment and collections. Most of these men achieved greatness in the Jewish world.
Since Reb Iztelle was put in charge of the Kovno Kollel it naturally reflected the spirit of mussar. It was this spirit that would arouse the ire of Haskalah.
The chief rabbi of Kovno, and probably the leading rabbi of all Eastern Europe, was Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Spector (or Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor – 1817-1896). He was the honorary head of the Kovno Kollel. In Kovno at that time lived the youngest of Rabbi Salanter’s disciples, Rabbi Nosson Zvi Finkel. He founded a yeshiva across the river from Kovno in the small all-Jewish suburb of Slobodka. It had no official government recognition, thus was illegal, and was subject to sudden searches and governmental pressures. Financial support was provided by leftover funds of the Kovno Kollel. Since the government didn’t not recognize the Slobodka yeshiva the funds provided it were considered illegal.
It must be noted that most Jewish activity in Eastern Europe was considered illegal by the virulently anti-Semitic Czarist government. Jews had virtually no legal rights. If one wanted to maintain Jewish life he had little choice but to circumvent the decrees of the Czar.
In its war against traditional Jewry, leaders of the Haskalah threatened to expose these “illegal” proceedings of the Slobodka yeshiva. From the pages of HaMeilitz were published editorials by its editor and others which in effect said that Reb Itzelle Peterburger was stealing the funds. They also accused him of taking a high salary, 450 rubles per year, which back then was the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars. In reality, he had an independent income and his salary was less than 11 rubles per year.
Accusations like this do not need to be true to do damage. An accusation typically appears on the first page of the paper while its retraction some time later is placed in the back after the obituaries. Churchill said, “A lie goes halfway around the world before the truth even puts on its trousers.”
As a result of the pressures these articles brought about, the chief rabbi of Kovno, and probably the leading rabbi of all Eastern Europe, Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Spector (or Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor), wrote what became a famous letter to the editor of HaMeilitz entitled, “Regarding the desecration of the honor of the Torah.” In very strong language, the letter castigated the editor and others for making this sort of accusations not only against Reb Itzelle Peterburger, but against the Kovno Kollel, Torah and mussar.
The editor published his letter… along with his own rebuttal, which said in effect that although Rabbi Spector was upright he really did not know what was going on. Instead of ending the matter, Rabbi Spector’s letter helped inflame it further.
Opposition from Within
In 1896, Rabbi Spector died. His death signaled the end of the period of inhibition within the traditional circle. Until then, even though there were traditionalists who opposed the Mussar Movement they did not do so publicly. Rabbi Spector’s stature and name protected the movement and the yeshiva. Now, the war began from inside. And it began the town of Slutzk.
Slutzk was an important Jewish center and its rabbi was Rabbi Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky (1845-1913). In 1897, he went to Slobodka and asked Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel to send 14 students to Slutzk to found a new yeshiva there. The yeshiva they made was naturally a mussar yeshiva.
Opponents of Rabbi Yaakov Dovid Wilovsky in Slutzk said he had no right to make the request. Sadly, the dispute found expression in the Jewish newspapers and spiraled out of control. It divided traditional Jewry into a pro-mussar camp and an anti-mussar camp.
From Slutzk the dispute spread to Kovno. Even within the yeshiva in Slobodka, across the river, a great controversy developed. A number of the students said they didn’t want mussar or Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel. Rabbi Finkel was forced to leave and took with him about 65 loyal students. He formed a new yeshiva called, Knesses Bais Yisrael, named after Rabbi Israel Salanter. The name Slobodka would become famous and synonymous with Torah greatness and mussar. It was Knesses Bais Yisrael where that happened, not the first Slobodka yeshiva which experienced this rebellion against its founder.
The rabbis against the Mussar Movement wrote a long and bitter article called “A Public Statement” (Lemaan HaDaas) that they published in the HaTzefirah newspaper. There were three main arguments the anti-mussar camp made. First, they felt that the study of mussar took the emphasis off of the study of Torah and placed it on a matter that was a side issue. Second, they said it formed a new sect within the Jewish people and was therefore divisive in nature. Third, it was too modern, they felt.
The Maskilim were only too happy to capitalize on this civil war, in effect, within the traditional camp. They even went so far as to publish a letter in HaMeilitz that was a complete forgery claiming to have come from Reb Iztelle Peterburger. Not only did Reb Iztelle write many times that he never wrote the letter but the editor of HaMeilitz, three issues later, admitted that the signature on the letter that came to him is not the authentic signature of Reb Itzelle.
It was a very dirty trick, but the damage was done. It fanned the flames. And Haskalah exploited the situation. However, in exploiting the issue they went a long way toward settling it, because it led the opposing sides in the traditional camp to realize that their real enemy was the assimilationist Haskalah camp. Now both sides understood that if they didn’t stop their war of words they would destroy themselves and leave the field open for Haskalah.
In the defense of mussar, a number of great Lithuanian rabbis spoke out. The pendulum within the traditional camp began to swing in favor of the mussar leaders. Before the First World War almost every non-Chassidic yeshiva in Europe was a mussar yeshiva. Even the first yeshiva in Slobodka, the one that was founded in opposition to mussar, also now instituted many of the reforms that the mussar yeshivas advocated.
Final Considerations
All revolutions have revolutions within the revolution. When a movement is so vibrant and alive it naturally splits into many groups. The Mussar Movement also split into many groups, and eventually lost its identity as a movement.
Unfortunately, the external trappings of the Mussar Movement as a movement are gone today. We only see vestiges and imitations of it. There can be several reasons for that. Primarily, however, it is because our world is based upon the acquisition of things. It’s very hard to hear the reverberations of high and ethical ideas while driving a fancy car with the sunroof down. The modern lifestyle is based upon leisure, comfort and material things. Mussar was based upon the development of a higher ethical person not focused on the things of this world.
It was not a movement promoting asceticism. Nevertheless, it emphasized that ethics and the spirit comes first and the pleasures of the world, such as they are, are not to be reckoned with in life. It is very hard to find a responsive chord to that doctrine today.
The great men of mussar may be no more, and their movement as a distinct stream in contemporary life may have faded away, but their echo is still heard and their gauntlet is taken up by those who study the movement’s history and appreciate what its leaders represented.
In Jewish Lithuania and Russia during the 1800s there were various reactions to the coming of the Enlightenment/Haskalah. The Yeshiva Movement was one response. Another was the Mussar Movement, which had deep roots within the Jewish people and whose influence continues today.
Mussar means ethics or values. It was a movement to improve the Jewish people from within.
The founder of the movement and its greatest protagonist was one of the great men of Israel, Rabbi Yisroel Lipkin, better known as Rabbi Israel Salanter (1810–1883). Salant was a small Lithuanian-Russian village that produced three tremendous spiritual giants in one generation. The first was Rabbi Zundel of Salant, a disciple of the Gaon of Vilna. The second was Rabbi Samuel of Salant, who immigrated to Jerusalem while he was in his twenties and became chief rabbi of Jerusalem for the next 70 years (1838-1909).
The third is Rabbi Israel of Salant (or Rabbi Israel Salanter). Among his talents, he was a master of the epigram, the quick phrase that described the situation. One such epigram went: “Reform came to reform Judaism; I came to reform Jews.”
That capsulizes his Mussar Movement.
Rabbi Zundel of Salant
In the early 1820s, when Rabbi Salanter was yet a young man, he encountered Rabbi Zundel of Salant and was taken by his personality. Part of that personality was that he hid his piety, knowledge and greatness. He dressed and behaved outwardly like no one special and simply called himself “Zundel,” without any titles.
Many times Rabbi Zundel would go on solitary walks in the woods to meditate and pray. A young Israel Salanter – opinions vary if he was 11 or 14 – used to clandestinely follow “Zundel” on his forays into the woods in the hope of learning from and ultimately emulating his hidden, pious ways. The legend goes that one day Rabbi Zundel suddenly turned and caught him in the act of following him. He then told him, “If you want to be a great Jew, first you must be a God-fearing Jew.”
By that he meant to impress upon the young man the importance of emphasizing ethics over scholarship. There had always been a tremendous emphasis on Torah scholarship, and rightfully so. However, scholarship is not necessarily accompanied by the best of character traits, as the Talmud itself warned many times.
The words that Rabbi Zundel said landed deep in young Israel’s soul and made a profound impression. Later in life, Rabbi Israel Salanter said that when he was 14 he was able to say a complex Talmudic discourse (“pilpul”) the equal of anyone in the generation. Nevertheless, after this encounter with Rabbi Zundel he never did so again. Rabbi Zundel showed him that it was just the exhibition of a great mind, but was not true in the sense that it did not show the true greatness of a person.
Rabbi Israel resolved from that point on that he would not let himself be blinded from the truth by his own talents.
His Genius
Rabbi Israel Salanter was a genius of rare proportions. The stories about his intellectual prowess boggle the mind. One story is said to have occurred early in his attempt to establish the Mussar Movement. The best way to establish it was to first prove that he was an eminent Talmudic scholar, so he would travel from town to town and deliver discourses, saving only the last part to outline his feelings about mussar and ethics.
It once happened that a cynic tried to expose him as someone who did not possess any particularly special Torah scholarship. The custom was for the lecturer to post a long list of his topics and sources before delivering the class so others could prepare. A day before the lecture, they would post this list of perhaps 8-10 sources from places like the Talmud, Maimonides and Rashi.
This cynic secretly took down the source list that Rabbi Salanter had posted and replaced it with a completely different list of sources. Moreover, the sources on the list were completely unconnected; one had nothing to do with the other.
When Rabbi Salanter walked into the lecture hall five minutes beforehand he saw the replaced list and understood what had happened. Nevertheless, he delivered his lecture on those very sources in the most coherent and moving way. He found the underlying threads among topics which on the surface were completely disparate. It took rare genius to do it.
Another story demonstrates his greatness even further. Later in his life, when he was very old and living in Paris, he was asked to deliver a major discourse to a crowd numbering in the thousands. Suddenly, as he stood there in front of everyone he forgot what he was going to talk about. He put his head down and wept. After a few moments he lifted his head and said, “That was the best lecture. Look what happens to a human being. When I was 14, I could deliver a discourse as well as or better than anybody in Lithuania. Now I don’t know anything.” Then he descended from the pulpit and departed.
Eye witnesses said that it was so emotional that the entire audience was in tears. That was the greatest lesson in mussar.
Nevertheless, until the end he was the shining star, so to speak, in a constellation of great men.
Reforming Jews, Not Judaism
Jewish culture in the 1800s in Russia suffered from certain chronic problems, which the Haskalah took advantage of, as we discussed before. The moral and social defects in Russian Jewish society were used by the Haskalah to attack traditional Jewry, as though it was the Torah’s fault. Of course, one should never confuse Jews with Judaism. If an otherwise fine and upstanding Jew does something wrong it is not Judaism’s fault. Nevertheless, on a mass scale the Haskalah mounted its attack on Judaism based on the societal character faults.
Rabbi Israel Salanter made it his personal mission to turn that around.
His method was to establish what he called “Houses of Mussar,” i.e. houses in the community devoted to people who would come on a regular basis to study the works of Jewish ethics. Through this study, and the encounter with people whole-heartedly committed to ethics, the level of ethical behavior among the masses would be raised.
By ethical behavior he did not only mean behavior between people, but also toward God. That included how to keep a commandment correctly, how to make a blessing correctly, how to dress, speak and behave correctly.
Rabbi Salanter was able to pull it off because he himself was such an outstanding, exemplary person.
Houses of Mussar
Rabbi Salanter envisioned spreading his movement through Houses of Mussar, as we said. He began these efforts in Vilna and his movement quickly became very popular. He intended it to be a movement not just for scholars, but a mass movement including laymen — and that is how it began. He had hundreds and hundreds of merchant-class businessmen as well as lower-class laborers participating in the study of mussar, committing themselves to a higher standard of ethical behavior. He was so successful that it was recognizable in town that something had changed; that something radical was going on.
Even though Vilna was the seat of Torah scholarship in Lithuania it was also the center of Haskalah. As Rabbi Salanter’s successes with his Mussar Movement mounted in Vilna the Maskilim (followers of Haskalah) felt more and more threatened.
In truth, the leading Maskilim badly misjudged Rabbi Salanter. They didn’t understand his distinction between reforming Jews vs. reforming Judaism. Somehow they came to the mistaken notion that he would support Haskalah and that his campaign to change the Jewish people made him an ally.
This led to moment of truth. In 1848, the Russian government established a rabbinical seminary in Vilna under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Education. They appointed Maskilim and even non-Jews as members of the faculty. Then they proposed that Rabbi Israel Salanter become the head of the institution.
At first he refused the Maskilim. Then they had the Russian government ask him, knowing that it was an invitation one could not refuse. The Russians had a penchant for sending those who refused their “generosity” away to Siberia. Therefore, Rabbi Salanter left Vilna in the dead of night, never to return again.
Mussar in Kovno
He moved farther north into Lithuania, to the city of Kovno (Kaunas), the capital. There he began again his Mussar Movement. However, in Kovno the movement took a far different form.
In Vilna it was a mass movement, one that reached all sectors of the population. It did not have strong opposition. It was viewed as constructive and positive, combatting the ravages that were occurring in Jewish life.
In Kovno, the Mussar Movement became an elitist movement. It did not reach much of the middle class; it certainly did not reach the lower class. Most of all, in Kovno it had very strong opposition – first and foremost from the Maskilim, who were tipped off by the Maskilim in Vilna.
To them, Rabbi Salanter and his movement and represented the greatest threat to their movement, especially its emphasis on behavior and even dress. A great deal of their success was due to a public stream of accusations that traditional Jews were unkept, unclean and uncouth. Rabbi Salanter’s Mussar Movement not only emphasized ethical behavior but a certain degree of outward deportment that took away some of the Maskilim’s favorite tactics for winning adherents. They saw the changes Rabbi Salanter brought about as unwelcome changes and became sworn enemies of the movement.
Departing West
Having started the ball rolling establishing mussar in Eastern Europe, Rabbi Salanter left to attempt to accomplish a much more daunting task: spreading it to Western Europe.
His main disciple quotes him as once saying that his reason for departing was the following parable: When the brakes on a locomotive have failed and the train hurtling down the hill out of control there is no force in the world that can stop it. But once the train has come to a stop at the bottom of the hill, and the inertia has dissipated, one can fix the brakes and repair whatever needs to be repaired.
Lithuania and Eastern European Jewry, Rabbi Salanter explained, is still the train hurtling down the hill; there is no way to fully stop it. All efforts will prove to be futile. However, Western European Jewry (which fell down the hill 100 years earlier) is at the bottom already, so there is a chance to be of influence and change things.
He therefore left Lithuania to travel throughout Germany and France, ultimately settling in Paris, attempting to strengthen the Jewish people wherever he went. The pressures of assimilation were great in Western Europe. Jews – those at least who still identified themselves as Jews — often lived as refugees in the slums of the great cities trying to hang onto whatever Judaism they had. Rabbi Salanter targeted them for his efforts.
The Mussar Movement was the complement – the necessary missing piece – that combined with the Yeshiva Movement to combat the ravages of assimilation and lighten the terrible burden of poverty and persecution that Jews suffered in Europe. It gave them that added spiritual dimension, transformed their lives into something above the mundane and created great people that would be role models for others. Their example still lives among us today.
The story of Chanukah is made up of two radically different components. One is the war, the battles of the Hasmoneans…
The wonderfully joyous holiday of Chanukah occurs this month. Chanukah, in its essence, represents the ability to withstand oppression and evil, coercion and bigotry, and to believe in the improbable miracles that have always marked Jewish history and advanced the cause of all human civilization.
The story of Chanukah is made up of two radically different components. One is the war, the battles of the Hasmoneans, the blood spilled and the casualties sustained, the human sacrifice and tragedy that always accompanies the struggle for Jewish survival and a better world for all humankind.
The other is the miraculous, supernatural event of the small pitcher of oil that supplied oil for eight days while physically holding oil only for one night. Chanukah is thus the culmination of man and God in the joint effort to improve our world and society. There is no message that could be more fitting for us this Chanukah season than this one.
The other is the miraculous, supernatural event of the small pitcher of oil that supplied oil for eight days while physically holding oil only for one night.
In our current struggle here in Israel we face a foe (just as the ancient Syrians of Mattisyahu’s time) that has yet not reconciled to our right to exist in our homeland and be different than our neighbors. It requires of us these same two elements that make up the Chanukah story. There are no cheap victories in the cause of human progress and freedom. “According to the effort and the pain is the reward,” was one of the favorite aphorisms of the rabbis of the Mishnah. We, the Jewish people, out of all nations should realize by our history how costly the battle for good and fairness and tolerance and independence truly is.
Assimilation, ignorance of Jewish values, fear of losses, fright as to being a minority, are all eventually to be cowardice in the Jewish view of things. Risk, sacrifice, devotion, integrity and tenacity are the weapons of the success of the Chanukah story. They are our weapons of success today as well in our war against terrorism inIsraeland worldwide.
Light in the world cannot be judged as being man-made alone. We do not have enough fuel by ourselves to light eternal lights that burn on for centuries and millennia. Chanukah took place more than 2,100 years ago. That is a pretty long time to keep a flame going. But since this flame is inspired by faith in the Creator and by loyalty to His value system and lifestyle, and is not merely the product of another good human idea, its eternity is guaranteed. It is the miraculous, the unexpected, that makes for the natural continuity ofIsraeland goodness in the world.
So, as we light and view the flames of Chanukah in this troubled year, literally in the winter of our current discontent, we should take heart and hope about the eventual triumph of good over evil, of holiness over profanity, of the few over the mighty many, of the original story of Chanukah repeating itself “in our time as in those days.” So, may I wish you, my friends, a happy, joyous, meaningful, memorable, and latke/doughnut filled Chanukah.
Far more virulent than religious anti-Semitism was racial anti-Semitism. Lord Rothschild’s pithy statement summarized it: “It is not my peculiar religion they object to; it is my peculiar nose.” The anti-Semitism of race cannot be dealt with, because if you are Jewish there is nothing you can do to make yourself not Jewish. Even if you convert you are still Jewish in racially-based anti-Semitism
The 19th century Haskalah Movement (Jewish Enlightenment) came in various forms and each form had differing goals, but the general common denominator was to attempt to free Eastern European Jewry from what it viewed as the shackles of an ancient tradition that had somehow outlived its time, and to infuse it with a new vitality that would make it acceptable to their non-Jewish neighbors — or at least, acceptable to the Russian government.
One of the great fallacies of Haskalah, which we see plainly in 20-20 hindsight, is that it was based on a misunderstanding of anti-Semitism.
In the 19th century there were two types of anti-Semitism. The first was the old religious anti-Semitism, which to a certain extent was on the decline. This was the anti-Semitism of the Middle Ages, of Jews being branded as Christ-killers and accused of needing Christian blood for ritual purposes. Even though these still existed in the 1800s, in the Enlightenment era — when the general populace’s belief in Christianity waned — the anti-Semitism of religion was muted.
However, a far more virulent form took its place: the anti-Semitism of race. Lord Rothschild’s pithy statement summarized it: “It is not my peculiar religion they object to; it is my peculiar nose.” The anti-Semitism of race cannot be dealt with, because if you are Jewish there is nothing you can do to make yourself not Jewish. Even if you convert you are still Jewish in racially-based anti-Semitism. That came to its fully logical crescendo in Hitler’s Nuremburg Laws where even somebody who was one-sixteenth Jewish was considered Jewish — even if for three generations he and his family had been good, practicing Lutheran Germans.
However, anti-Semitism in Russia in the 1800s was ostensibly based upon religious anti-Semitism. That is why Haskalah thought that by adjusting the religion, by showing that the Jews were not really the ogres that the Russian Orthodox Church portrayed them as, somehow they would be able to become more acceptable to Russian society; the pressure of the decrees would diminish, and the Jews would be able to function.
Looking back with hindsight we see the fallacy of this thinking. We see that in Russia it was not just religious anti-Semitism, but a hefty dose of racial anti-Semitism as well. Even decades later after Russia became the Soviet Union, Jews would be persecuted as Jews despite the fact that there was almost no Jewish religion! While the Soviet government subscribed officially to religious tolerance, a classless society and no bigotry, it was one of the worst times of persecution in Jewish history. Racial anti-Semitism in Soviet Russia had not diminished since the days of the Czars.
Therefore, the entire premise of the Haskalah was false. Of course, we say that with the clarity of hindsight. At the time that it was happening, however, many of the maskilim were sure that they were bringing salvation of the Jewish people — without realizing that they were bringing destruction.
The Volozhin Yeshiva (Academy), which was the main yeshiva in Lithuania, was closed in 1892 by the Russian government. There were many reasons why the Russians did that, but the basic one was that as long as the yeshiva was open the Czar’s systematic plan to convert and assimilate Jews — and the attempts to undermine the Jewish religion, in general — could not succeed. Volozhin was literally a factory of Jewish leadership.
The Russians eventually realized that. Therefore, the drastic action of closing the yeshiva was perfectly logical in the Czar’s eyes. Nevertheless, the closing of the yeshiva in Volozhin did not lead to the end of the Yeshiva Movement. In fact, it led to the beginning of a new era of yeshivas.
There is a mythical creature which, when one of its tentacles is chopped off, renews itself many times over. Yeshivas are similar. They have a tendency to split and multiply. The forceful closing of Volozhin guaranteed that other yeshivas would replace it.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire
While the main activity of the Yeshiva Movement remained in Lithuania and White Russia, it would be a mistake to think that those were the only places where there were strong yeshivas. At the same time that Volozhin was beginning, a second yeshiva began in the Austrian border city of Pressburg, which today is Bratislava.
Pressburg was part of the Hapsburg Empire, whose emperors ruled for hundreds of years. Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not hospitable for Jews, compared to the Czar the emperors of Austria were righteous, fair and just people. One emperor in particular, Franz Josef — who ruled for over 70 years – held a title among the Jews: Melech haChesed, “The Kind Ruler.”
One should not get the impression that the fervently Roman Catholics Hapsburgs were not anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism came with the turf. Nevertheless, the rights that the Jews had in the Austro-Hungarian Empire were mainly protected, and the Jews found it to be more hospitable than other places.
Therefore, beginning in the late 1700s and the early 1800s, and throughout the 19th century, there was a mass immigration of Jews into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including Chassidic Jews from Poland and Russia, as well as Western Jews from Germany.
Many historians claim that this mass immigration is what caused the Austro-Hungarian Empire to become more anti-Semitic. The Jews who moved to the Austro-Hungarian Empire were in fact alien; they were different. This no doubt contributed to the spirit of anti-Semitism, which always existed under the surface in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Officially, however, the emperor was pro-Jewish, at least to the extent that he protected Jewish rights and allowed them opportunity to be economically viable. And, in fact, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was far wealthier than the Russian Empire. Whereas there was a very miniscule middle class in Russia, under the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th century there was a large and powerful middle class.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire also embraced the ideas of the Western world. It was an open society in terms of ideas and culture. It was known for its art, music and architecture. Vienna was capital of the world for culture.
Because the non-Jewish culture was different, the Jews who existed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire had a different weltanschauung, a different view of life, than the Jews in Poland and Russia. And because the Jews were different, so were their yeshivas.
The Chasam Sofer
The singular Torah personality in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was Rabbi Moses Sofer, whose magnum opus, Chasam Sofer, became so popular that he is commonly call by its name. Rabbi Sofer wrote on every subject imaginable and left for posterity teachings that represent the pillar of Jewish law in the 19th century. His logic, knowledge — and his daring almost — in dealing with modern-day problems were legendary.
Rabbi Sofer hailed from Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany. He was a disciple of the great Rabbi Nosson Adler, one of the leading rabbis in Frankfurt. After a time, Rabbi Sofer left Frankfurt and took a position in an Austrian-Hungarian town named Eisenstadt. He quickly earned the love and respect of everyone for his knowledge and character.
Then he moved to the city of Mattersdorf, and from Mattersdorf to Pressburg. There are famous stories about how his congregants in Mattesdorf loved him so much that they made it emotionally hard for him to leave. He had to “leave” two or three times before he really left.
Finally, he came to Pressburg, which was the second most important city in the Austro-Hungarian Empire after Vienna, and later Budapest.
In additional to one-of-a-kind Torah knowledge, Rabbi Moses Sofer possessed great worldly knowledge, and spoke and wrote German very well. All these were needed in his monumental opposition Reform. In fact, he became the most determined foe of Reform that existed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and almost singlehandedly turned the tide against it.
Innovations
Rabbi Moses Sofer not only became chief rabbi of Pressburg but started one of the most important yeshivas of the Yeshiva Movement. He instituted many things that today may not seem innovative but back then were. For instance, in Pressburg they taught speech. When the boys reached a certain age, then they had to take courses in public speaking.
By contrast, in Volozhin there was no course in public speaking. That’s not to say that great orators did not come from Volozhin. They did. But they were all self-made; nobody ever polished them. However, in Pressburg it was part of a course of study.
All schools in Pressburg were required to be licensed, and so was the yeshiva. It operated under the auspices of the Minister of Education of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And under the law, the school required that in the four upper grades — we would call it high school: ninth through twelfth grade — secular studies had to be taught. These secular studies were not taught in the yeshiva, but there was a Jewish school in Pressburg with religious teachers who taught secular studies, and in which the students attended and took exams.
It was unthinkable, under the Russian government in Volozhin or in any of the Eastern European yeshivas, that a representative of the Ministry of Education would be present to administer exams. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, though, that was normal.
In Pressburg, in the yeshiva they would start prayers at 7:00 AM on the Sabbath, but stop midway through. Then they would break for Kiddush (the ceremony sanctifying the Sabbath over wine and pastries), return to their studies in the yeshiva for about an hour and a half or longer (sometimes they would learn until 11:00) and then they would go to the big synagogue to finish their prayers with the working class people and businessmen.
By contrast, in the yeshivas in Eastern Europe, yeshiva students would not stop their prayers and then finish them up with the working class people.
The big synagogue also was famous for its cantors. Some were so famous that people would fight over the seats to listen. In Eastern Europe, yeshiva students would not out of their way to hear a cantor.
Franz Joseph
The greatness of Rabbi Moses Sofer can be seen in a legend about the time that the Emperor Franz Josef came to visit the Jewish community Pressburg.
The Emperor arrived on the Sabbath and Rabbi Sofer came to greet him. The Emperor took out a cigar and as a sign of favor gave it to the rabbi. Rabbi Sofer took the cigar and put it in his pocket.
The Emperor, knowing full well that it was the Sabbath and that the Rabbi Sofer would not light it, then said, “Herr Rabbiner, you aren’t going to smoke the Emperor’s cigar?”
Rabbi Sofer responded, “Should the honor given to me by the Emperor go up in smoke?”
In Russia, the Czar would never give the rabbi a cigar, and the rabbi would not dare answer him that way if he did. But in Austria-Hungary it was a different relationship.
Fighting Reform
Rabbi Moses Sofer’s stature in the Empire, and in the eyes of the emperor, was such that the rabbis in the community needed a letter from him certifying that they were rabbis. This went a long way in establishing the supremacy of Orthodoxy in that area of the world.
Rabbi Sofer attempted to insert one of his disciples in every Jewish community in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was divided into two sections: the Oberland and the Unterland. In the Oberland, almost every Jewish community had a rabbi who was a disciple of the Pressburg yeshiva and Rabbi Moses Sofer. He told all of his disciples that the first thing they had to do when they get to a town was to build a yeshiva. Therefore, every little town in the area had a yeshiva.
The top students from those yeshivas were sent to Pressburg. Contrary to the way it was in Eastern Europe, where formal Jewish education usually ended at the age of 12 or 13, and then people went to work, here even in the smaller communities it continued until 16, 17, or even 18 before they left the yeshivas. And that made a great difference.
Since Rabbi Moses Sofer himself was German, and since Austria is basically German, the German influence and the German type of life existed there. They were neat, orderly, clean—things that Eastern Europeans were not known for. Eastern Europe reflected the Polish and Russian chaos and inefficiency. German precision, and German respect for time, could be seen in a disciple of Pressburg. It could be seen in his dress, its neatness and style. It could be seen in his courtesy and elegance. It was a different culture.
That also weakened Reform. In Germany, Reformers could point and say, “Look how dirty the Orthodox are. Look how they dress in tattered rags.” Many of those stereotypes had a basis in truth not because of Judaism but because they had a basis in truth in Eastern European culture. The fact that the conditions and cultural traditions of Jewish life in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and especially in Pressburg, were not that way, gave Orthodoxy a tremendous defense; the ills of the other society could not be blamed upon them.
Two Yeshivas, One Goal
Although we have focused on two yeshivas, Volozhin and Pressburg, there were literally hundreds of others worthy of discussing. Yet, these represent unique approaches, each distinct in its own way.
Despite the differences and nuances that separated them, the common denominators were tremendous study and knowledge of Torah, adherence to tradition, and the ability to supply the Jewish people with a spiritual bastion that could withstand the pressures of the modern age. Each saved its area of the Jewish world. Each turned back the tide of assimilation that otherwise would have engulfed the Jewish people.
And not only did they provide a spiritual fortress for the Jewish people in the 19th century, but the rippling effects of the Yeshiva Movement that they began have been incorporated into the great yeshivas today, which remain the foundation rock of Jewish survival and spiritual prosperity.
The coming of Haskalah in Eastern Europe challenged the traditional Jewish community and drew out from it various reactions. One was the Yeshiva Movement. Indeed, the rise of the new yeshivas (academies of higher Jewish learning) in Eastern Europe was the main defense and main bastion of strength to oppose the Haskalah, and to guarantee the furtherance of traditional Judaism.
The Yeshiva Movement, especially in the town of Volozhin, was in itself revolutionary. Today, it has become the establishment. Once an innovative idea becomes the establishment, it’s hard to imagine it in its formative early years, in its revolutionary form. However, two centuries ago the yeshiva system as we know it today was revolutionary.
Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin
There are three main yeshivas that we can identify as the forerunners of the movement. One was the yeshiva in Volozhin, a small town between Minsk and Vilna in Lithuanian Russia. The second was in Lemberg (also known as Lvov), in Polish Galicia. The third was in Pressburg, which then was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire under the Hapsburg dynasty, and today is the city of Bratislava in Slovakia on the Hungarian border.
Volozhin is probably the most famous, because the yeshiva movement took root most strongly in Lithuanian Russia. Its influence and ideals, and in fact its curriculum, to a great extent, govern the operation of yeshivas today.
The founder of the yeshiva, Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin (popularly known as “Reb Chaim Volozhiner” or simply as “Reb Chaim”), was the main disciple of the Gaon of Vilna. Possessing great intellect, he enjoyed the reputation far and wide as the leading Talmudic scholar of his time — in a time when there were many great Talmudic scholars. He had discussed his idea about founding a yeshiva with the Vilna Gaon, according to sources within his family, in 1792.
A Central Place of Learning
Rabbi Chaim’s revolutionary idea was fourfold.
First, was to have a central place of learning. Until then, the system of learning in Eastern Europe was that boys went to cheder (literally “a room,” but more broadly an elementary school) from about the time they turned three until about bar mitzvah. Some stopped at 11 or 12. Most young Jewish men were working by the time they were bar mitzvah. The elite — those who showed promise in their Talmudic studies, or who came from the upper classes, or from rabbinic homes — continued their education into their adolescent years and beyond, usually by studying with the rabbi of the town in which they lived. That was part of the task of the rabbi, to conduct the study sessions with whoever came to learn. If the young man showed particular promise, then he was sent out of town to the cities of noted rabbinical scholars, where he would learn with that rabbinic scholar for a period of time. Then, finally, when he attained sufficient knowledge he would be ordained, usually by a number of rabbis.
It was a very loose system, not institutionalized. It had the great advantage of being personalized and inexpensive. Nevertheless, Reb Chaim saw, correctly, that such a system would not be able to continue in the coming times. The winds of change were blowing from Western Europe. Previously, a boy with a good Jewish mind had a choice: study the Talmud or become, say, a carpenter. But he was not going to pick up Plato. However, beginning in the middle of the 1700s, and with the advent of the Enlightenment, Reform and Haskalah, there was now competition. Good Jewish minds could find something other than Torah to occupy them. Those other things were not necessarily beneficial for the Jewish people, but they were available.
Therefore, the first point that Reb Chaim made to the Gaon of Vilna was the need for a central institution of higher learning that would so strengthen and raise the level of Torah study to challenge the students and be competition to any other form of intellectual pursuit.
Catering to the Elite
Implicit in that was the second point, that it would be an institution for the best minds in the Jewish world.
Today, the purpose of the typical yeshiva is different — because the world is different. Today, if a student doesn’t go to yeshiva high school, or post-high school, the chances are that he won’t remain a Sabbath-observant Jew. Today the yeshiva is a haven to produce Torah observant Jews. In the Europe of 100-200 years ago, observance was assumed; the purpose of the yeshiva was to produce leaders.
Volozhin was founded to bring about an esprit de corps among the student body that made the best even better; that developed really superior people.
A third point that Rabbi Chaim include in his blueprint for the Yeshiva Movement was that Torah had to be learned as community, not as individuals. In any yeshiva today the students are learning out loud in pairs or groups in the same room, noisy and distractive as that may. It is not like walking into a public library, where if one person coughs everyone lifts up his head from his book and gives him a look.
The genius behind that is that there is enthusiasm in numbers. The noise itself raises the pitch and the level of Torah study. If you visit large yeshivas that have a few hundred boys learning all at once, you will find that it is an emotional, psychological and educational experience.
Finally, the fourth point Reb Chaim made was that true joy lay in the intellectual exhilaration of Torah study and Torah knowledge, not necessarily in dancing, song and good fellowship. That may have been an oblique reference to the Chassidic emphasis on joy.
The Legend
That was the program that Reb Chaim outlined to the Gaon of Vilna.
Legend has it that even though he told his plan to the Gaon with great enthusiasm, the Gaon did not respond positively. Since Reb Chaim, would not undertake a project of this nature without his approval, he dropped it.
The legend also has it that a number of years later, immediately before the death of the Vilna Gaon, Reb Chaim again spoke to him about the project — this time with much less enthusiasm and much less confidence. Surprisingly, the Gaon told him that it was a wonderful idea and that he should proceed!
“Master,” he inquired, “when I first asked about it I was so enthusiastic, and you cooled me off. Why, suddenly, you are now in favor of it?”
“The first time you asked me about it,” the Gaon responded, “too much of your ego was involved. You wanted to make it. It would not have succeeded. Now you talk about it much more calmly — with more doubts, more rationally, with less personality and ego involved. It’s a great idea. Go ahead and do it.”
The Volozhin Devotion to Torah
When the yeshiva in Volozhin began Reb Chaim was its head, the “Rosh Yeshiva.”
Devotion to learning knew no limits. The average day in Volozhin was 18 hours. There were those who learned 36 hours consecutively (that’s where medical schools got the idea). Then they would sleep 8 or 10 hours, then learn another 36 hours consecutively again.
There was an institutional goal for at least some to be learning 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year. They had special arrangements during those times of the year when obligations such as the day before Passover or Yom Kippur or immediately after the fast might threaten to break the continuity of learning. These arrangements included a lottery as to which students would learn then. Other students would see to their needs, bring them food, etc.
This devotion to learning on a mass scale raised the level and the honor of Torah exponentially. Students felt that Torah was worth everything.
The curriculum consisted of the entire Talmud, from beginning to end. Later, in the Lithuanian yeshivas, the curriculum would be narrowed down to seven to ten volumes of the Talmud. However, in Volozhin it was the entire Talmud. There were many students who finished it in depth once or twice during their sojourn in Volozhin.
Reb Iztele
Reb Chaim headed the yeshiva until 1825. He had a son, Rabbi Yitzchak, who was called “Reb Itzele.”
When Reb Chaim died, Reb Itzele became head of the yeshiva and the chief rabbi in Volozhin. When Reb Itzele died, around 1854-55, his son-in-law, Rabbi Eliezar Fried, became the head of the yeshiva, together with Rabbi Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik, a direct grandson of Reb Chaim.
Reb Itzele had a son-in-law, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, who would become famous and called by the acronym, “the Netziv” (which in Hebrew means “the Prince”). Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin married into the family when he was only 14. He learned for 10 years in his father-in-law’s house, but his greatness was not readily apparent at first. Rabbi Eliezar Fried, Reb Itzele’s other son-in-law, was far more well-known for his Talmudic prowess.
Nevertheless, while yet in his father-in-law’s house, the Netziv wrote a commentary to the eight century classic Sheiltos d’Rabbi Chai Gaon, which was authored by Rabbi Hai Gaon, one of the greatest Jewish scholars in the post-Talmudic era. For all its greatness, Rabbi Hai Gaon’s book was written in a way that is very hard to understand, and, therefore it never was very popular. However, the commentary of the Netziv opened up the book, at the same time it showed the Jewish scholarly world how great the Netziv was.
The first volume, which he titled Ha’emek Shailah, was published while the Netziv was in his mid-20s. Suddenly, the scholarly Jewish world realized that they were dealing with a top-tier intellect and scholar.
Succession Issues
Rabbi Eliezar Fried died less than two years after his father-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Volozhiner, which left open the question of who would lead the rabbinate and become the head of the yeshiva: the Netziv or Rabbi Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik. Rabbi Yoshe Ber was not only a true, rare genius, but also had great charisma (even though he lived a tragic personal life).
They decided that they would submit the matter to a Jewish court. There was no personal animosity between them, but for the sake of the yeshiva and its direction they realized that they had to submit the decision to an objective third party.
The final decision defied expectations: the Netziv would be the head of the yeshiva. Rabbi Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik accepted the verdict, and soon afterward he left Volozhin to become the rabbi in Slutsk and later in Brisk.
Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik had a son, Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik¸ a child prodigy, who later became one of the great men of Israel. Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik married the granddaughter of the Netziv. Therefore, the families became one, and Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik became the next Rosh Yeshiva in Volozhin together with his grandfather.
It was the high point of this period, when Volozhin reached its peak in terms of quality of students, and when Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik developed his signature analytical approach to explanations regarding the Talmud and Maimonides, often referred to today as the Brisk approach. Offshoots of Brisk yeshivas exist all over the world to this day in the United States and Israel.
The End of Volozhin
Volozhin was personified by these two people: the Netziv and Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik. At its peak the institution grew to 450 students.
The Russian government, through the efforts of the Maskilim, put great pressure on Volozhin to teach Russian subjects. The Netziv and Rabbi Chaim came to an accommodation with the Russians for almost 10 years during which perfunctory classes in Russian subjects were taught outside the yeshiva on a private basis. But it never intended to have Russian studies as part of its main curriculum.
Losing patience with the Jews generally, and again at the instigation of the Maskilim, the Russian government finally realized that Volozhin was producing the spiritual armaments necessary to defeat Russia’s attempt to destroy and assimilate the Jews. As long as Volozhin kept producing Jewish leaders, generation after generation, the government and the Russian Orthodox Church were not going to succeed. When they finally realized that, they decided to close the institution.
In 1892, the government issued an ultimatum that the yeshiva conform to the official standards, or they would close it. They drove the students out of the yeshiva and disbanded it. Legend has it that the Netziv himself put the lock on the door, rather than give in to the demands of the government.
In retrospect, he was correct. The closure of Volozhin led to the opening of a number of Lithuanian yeshivas that became, in the late 1900s and early 1900s, the fountainhead of knowledge and scholarship in traditional Judaism. Nevertheless, the closing of the yeshiva broke the heart of the Netziv and of Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik. When the latter’s father died he became the rabbi in Brisk but he never was the same person that he had been in the yeshiva.
The Netziv decided to go to the Land of Israel. However, he only made it as far as Warsaw, where he died.
Though these great men died without their yeshiva, their efforts and legend lived on, and lives on, empowering the Jewish people with the spiritual backbone to survive arguably the most difficult times in its long and difficult history.
To traditional Jewry, Germany had become a spiritual wasteland. It needed a prophet to take it out of the chaos and restore order. That savior came in the form of a very original, strong individual: Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.
By the mid-1800s, the Reform Movement had in essence taken over Jewish life in Germany; there were very few Orthodox Jews and very little Orthodox power left. To traditional Jewry, Germany had become a spiritual wasteland. It needed a prophet to take it out of the chaos and restore order. That savior came in the form of a very original, strong individual: Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.
He was born in 1808 in Hungary and became rabbi in Moravia before coming to Frankfort, Germany. When he arrived in Frankfort, he was hired by a very small congregation of only 11 families. Nevertheless, he quickly built into a very great and strong group that became the bulwark of German Jewry.
He also opened what today we would call a “day school,” which innovative for its time. It was called the Realschule. It offered studies of Torah for half a day, and secular studies taught in German the other half of the day. When they taught the secular studies in the Realschule the young men would take off their hats, because that was the way they did it in Germany.
On the other hand, among Rabbi Hirsch’s congregants were many men with beards. Many of them wore toupees or other false headpieces so that their heads would never be uncovered. Their extreme loyalty to the Torah and meticulous observance of mitzvos became legendary.
Rabbi Hirsch himself went to university. He was very well read in all the classical studies. First and foremost, however, he was a great Torah scholar. His seminal work is a commentary on Bible which he wrote in German. Whereas in Eastern Europe the traditional rabbis only spoke in Yiddish – which was the language of the people – Rabbi Hirsch spoke perfect German and delivered his sermons in German, in addition to his voluminous writings that were in German.
Where Rabbi Hirsch differed from Reform is that he did not compromise one iota on observance. He said that Judaism was a religion with a mission. God had bequeathed the Jewish people a mission to civilize the world. The role of each Jew was to observe the Torah and through that he fulfilled his highest ideal.
Rabbi Hirsch disagreed completely with the idea of Reform that said that Judaism was a religion that evolved and changed with the times. He saw it as a metaphysical religion, given by God to a certain people, and that people would carry it throughout history, wherever they existed. The purpose of every Jew was to be part of that group of people, to find his place as an individual in the whole.
Rabbi Hirsch was uncompromising in his stance against Reform. In Germany, the government had awarded administration of the congregations – including the distribution of monies – to the Reform Jews. Only certain religious facets of life were left in the hands of the Orthodox: they took care of the kosher dietary laws, upkeep of the cemeteries and other these things that the establishment of Reform did not feel threatened their hegemony. One of Rabbi Hirsch’s greatest and most controversial accomplishments was his fight to obtain government permission to be a separate congregation from Reform. That meant that they could collect their own taxes, make their budget and establish their own rights; they controlled their own religious lives.
Throughout Germany, there was a heated debate between Orthodox Jews whether or not this was the right course of action. As a very small, minority should be become independent, as did Rabbi Hirsch’s congregation in Frankfort-am-Main, or should they remain as part of the overall general structure controlled by Reform. Some rabbis chose to stay, but the hallmark of Rabbi Hirsch’s was that he opted out.
In the end, Rabbi Hirsch was triumphant. He restored traditional Judaism to Germany. In our time, the Hirschian congregation was transplanted just before the Second World War to Washington Heights, New York, where it has undergone a series of metamorphoses. Rabbi Hirsch’s direct descendant, the late Rabbi Breuer, is an example again of that type of philosophy and weltanschauung. He was an expert in Schiller and Goethe, yet he would study the very obscure Jerusalem Talmud every day (in addition to the normative Babylonian Talmud). He was the perfect example of the person of iron will who was able to hold his community within the realms of Orthodoxy at a time when it would have been very easy to fall away completely.
In the 19th century in Russia there occurred a drastic change in Jewish life whose ripple effects are still felt today. For the first time in perhaps seven or eight centuries Jews orchestrated a direct confrontation with traditional Judaism.
Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, came in various forms and each form had differing goals, but the general common denominator was to attempt to free Eastern European Jewry from what it viewed as the shackles of an ancient tradition that had somehow outlived its time, and to infuse it with a new vitality that would make it acceptable to their non-Jewish neighbors — or at least, acceptable to the Russian government.
The maskilim (as the followers of Haskalah were called) pushed very hard for a complete reform and change in Jewish life, including a complete reform and change in the system of Jewish education, in order to produce what they said was the “new Jew.” They summed up their idea of the “new Jew” in one phrase: yehei Yehudi b’oholecha, adam b’tzeitzecha, “In your tent you can be as Jewish as you want, but when you go out in the street be like everyone else.”
Time has proven that as a practical matter it was impossible. A person who is not Jewish in the street as well will not end up being Jewish at home. That dichotomy is a painful one, but one that has proven itself again and again in the long history of the Jewish people. It takes time to see it clearly, but it is an unmistakable pattern.
Beginnings of Haskalah
In 1819, in Berlin, an organization was founded called the Verein für Cultur und Wissenschaft der Juden, the “Organization for Culture and Scientific Knowledge of Judaism and the Jews.” Translated into Hebrew it known as Chochmas Yisrael, “The Wisdom of Israel.”
The people who founded it were convinced that traditional Judaism, Orthodox Judaism, was dying and would never reawaken. Therefore, they set out to make a museum that would preserve the treasures of a religion and way of life that would soon cease to exist. Central to their curriculum was the study of Hebrew language, Jewish history and the Bible in a scientific fashion (or a non-scientific fashion).
Not every idea that existed in Germany came east, but Chochmas Yisrael did. It had wide appeal, because the Jews in Eastern Europe were studious, the subject matter was fascinating and many brilliant Jewish young men in Eastern Europe found it an acceptable outlet for their talents.
Haskalah Leaders
In their time, those who took the lead in the Haskalah movement became people of note. One was Nachman Krochmal, who wrote a famous philosophic work, the thrust of which was that the old had to go, and the new had to take over. The title of the book, which was called Moreh Nevuchei Hazman, “The Guide for the Perplexed of This Time,” was patterned after the title of Maimonides’ Moreh Nevuchim. But that was where the comparison ended. Krochmal’s book was the first step for producing the ideas of Haskalah in Eastern Europe.
Another Haskalah leader was a trained rabbi, Solomon Judah Rapoport (called by the acronym “Shir”), who a Talmudic scholar of note. But he was also a maskil and because of his adherence to Haskalah he was always engaged in running feuds between himself and other Jews in Galicia.
The Haskalah in Eastern Europe took on a sharper note than the work of Chochmas Yisrael, which existed in Germany and Austria. The people who were the great maskilim in Eastern Europe bitterly hated the traditional camp, and they wrote in a very sarcastic, ironic, derogatory and mocking vein. They mocked the Jewish religion, the Jewish leaders and everything that was Jewish.
Every action begets a reaction. The maskilim brought upon themselves terrible hatred, because they exhibited terrible hatred. No one likes to be mocked. If you disagree with someone, disagree with him, but mocking and inveighing personal insult is usually not going to be taken sitting down.
There are examples of these biting attacks from the first appearance of the Haskalah in Eastern Europe in the 1820s. For instance, Isaac Baer Levinsohn wrote a book called Hefkervelt, which was a mockery of the Jewish religious establishment.
Abraham Mapu (1808-1867) wrote probably the first Hebrew novel of our time, in the mid-1800s, in which he portrayed the rabbinate as rapacious vultures who simply attempted to oppress the Jewish people instead of trying to help them.
Others intellects of Haskalah included Abraham “Adam Dov HaKohen” Lebensohn (1794-1878), Mordecai Ginzberg (1796-1846), Judah Leib Gordon (1831-1892) and Moses Leib Lilienblum (1843-1910). It’s ironic that their names are all but forgotten today. Even in the secular schools in Israel today they command very little attention, because everything that was the basis of their world has been destroyed. The past century has shown it to be invalid, and therefore their ideals have almost no echo in today’s Jewish world. But the harm that they did does have an echo.
Hebrew Haskalah
There were a number of different types of Haskalah. First was what can be called the “Hebrew Haskalah.”
It was based upon making Hebrew the language of the Jewish people. Hebrew, as lashon hakodesh, as “the holy tongue,” had always existed in prayers and holy books. Hebrew Haskalah, however, sought to promote Hebrew as an expression of language like any other language: to write secular, even profane ideas and words in Hebrew. They elevated the Hebrew language itself to a kind of deity, a goal unto itself. Somehow, they convinced themselves that if there would be a great Hebrew literature, the Czar would say, “What a wonderful people; look at that literature! They have revived the Hebrew language! We’re going to be nice to them.”
The Hebrew Haskalah found fertile soil among the scholarly, Talmudic Jews. Therefore, among all the types of Haskalah this was the one that made the most progress among traditional Jewry. It was also the one that was the most difficult to combat.
Yiddish Haskalah
The second type of Haskalah was Yiddish Haskalah, which tried to do for Yiddish what the Hebrew Haskalah tried to do for Hebrew.
The Yiddish Haskalah made a fetish out of the Yiddish language. That was the medium of culture, and very many famous authors wrote in Yiddish. The Yiddish Haskalah is the one that developed the newspapers. Although there were Hebrew newspapers in Eastern Europe as well, the Yiddish newspapers were read by the masses. Yiddish Haskalah also developed the theater, which itself was Yiddish, but not Jewish.
Today, the irony of it is that Yiddish is almost exclusively the preserve of the Orthodox, and in particular the right-wing Orthodox. But for a long time, the Yiddish Haskalah was strong.
Yiddish almost became the language of the State of Israel. When the first Ashkenazic settlers came to the Land of Yisrael, there was a strong debate among them regarding what should be the language of the land, Yiddish or Hebrew. It was only through the perseverance of one man, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, that the official state language became Hebrew. Nevertheless, for the first 30 years of among the main section of Jewish settlement Yiddish was the language.
Russian Haskalah
The third Haskalah was the Russian Haskalah.
The goal of Russian Haskalah was to make the Jews Russian in dress, habit and language. The Jews would gather on the Sabbath to read Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin or whatever works were then in vogue. It was to show the Russians that the Jews were Russian.
Part of the complaint of the Czar — and they felt that the Czar was correct in his complaint — was that the Jews weren’t really Russian. If they weren’t really Russian, then he had a right to do whatever he wanted. So they set about making the Jews Russian.
Socialist Haskalah
The fourth Haskalah, which would come later and be a very strong type of Haskalah, is what we could call the “Labor Union Socialist Haskalah.”
This was based not upon language, although they were mainly Yiddish-speakers and part of the Yiddish cultural stream. However, they did not look upon the Yiddish language as their savior or as their culture. Their culture was basically Marxism.
The publication of the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels in the 1800s, the revolutions that occurred throughout Europe in 1848, the labor strikes which existed throughout Europe, the coming of the working class as a strong political force — all of this had a powerful effect upon Jews as well. Socialist Haskalah became the organizer for Jewish trade unions, for Jewish labor unions, for the rights of the workers, for Socialism, and, in its extreme form, for Communism. It became a very strong and potent force within the Jewish world.
Some of the bitterest strikes in all of Eastern Europe involved Jews against Jews: the Jewish labor unions against the Jewish owners. The impetus for violence was very strong, because each side was idealistic: they were doing the work of Heaven.
Jewish society was torn to shreds because of this type of class warfare.
Why they Died
All of these Haskalahs would have died, if not for another type of Haskalah: the Zionist Haskalah. Zionism came and pulled all these embers out of the fire. The reasons that these Haskalahs were waning and would have died are numerous.
First, for reasons that escape us, almost all the Haskalahs cooperated with the Russian government in the enforcement of all these terrible decrees against the Jewish people. They felt that if the Russian government would break the Jewish people and the Jewish religion, then upon the ruins of that people and culture the new Haskalah would be able to rise.
Haskalah failed because it ended up working with the Russian government and thereby earned the deserved enmity of a great section of the Jewish people, who saw in the maskilim behavior that was traitorous and treacherous beyond words.
The second factor was that the maskilim made a serious error in thinking that what they were doing would not evoke any reaction from the traditional camp; that the traditional camp would continue always to allow itself to be painted as old-fashioned reactionaries from another century, the source of all troubles in Jewish life. That did not happen.
Three Reactions from Traditional Judaism
The attack of the maskilim brought to the fore three great movements defending traditional Judaism. The main movement was Chassidism, which had been founded a century earlier. The Chassidim and the maskilim went at it tooth and nail.
As a result of the fight, Chassidus became even a more vital force. The great dynasties of the Chassidim strengthened themselves and spread. If the maskilim represented change they dug in their heels and clung to even the smallest nuance, the smallest custom.
The second group that arose in response to Haskalah was the Yeshiva movement. In the 1820s, there developed a new style of higher education among young Jewish men. Even though it was a system for the elite — rather than for the masses, like today’s yeshiva system — it produced so many great people and such a high level of scholarship that the Haskalah more than found its match.
These people were the intellectual arm, so to speak, of traditional Judaism and turned back the tide of Haskalah in Eastern Europe.
The third reaction of traditional Judaism to Haskalah was the Mussar movement, pioneered and driven by Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. His was a movement of ethical behavior, of renewal and of polishing the beauty of the Torah so that it became apparent to all. When that happened the accusations of the Haskalah were no longer relevant; many of their words and slogans fell on deaf ears.
The Final Nail in the Coffin
The final thing with which the Haskalah had not reckoned was the Russian government itself. They did not realize the depths of hatred that the government had toward the Jewish people, and the lengths to which it would go to enforce that hatred.
By the 1860s and 1870s, it became clear that the Jewish situation in Russia would not improve, short of a major revolution. There was very little hope for significant, meaningful change vis-a-vis the Russian government.
Among the maskilim a feeling of depression, of having supported a lost cause, set in. Too late they understand that in order to get anywhere in Russia one had to convert to Russian Orthodoxy, a route that many maskilim chose out of desperation.
All of this served to make the Haskalah lose its luster. Whether you spoke perfect Hebrew or you wrote poems in Yiddish or you knew Marx by heart or even if you spoke perfect Russian, it really didn’t make any difference. It didn’t get you anywhere.
The Enlightenment in the 19th century brought much more heat than light, much more smoke than clarity, to European Jewry. But any attempt to comprehend what the Jewish world went through in the 19th century has to include an understanding of the pressure that the Haskalah placed upon the Jewish people and the direction in which it pushed them.
In the 1800s, the Czar of Russia dealt with his “Jewish problem” in three ways: conversion, emigration and destruction. Through a series of harsh decrees Jews would convert to Russian Orthodoxy, emigrate out of Russia or face destruction.
Had the Czar’s decrees been enforced with a consistent hand for a long period of time they would have almost undoubtedly accomplished their purposes. But Russia was a very corrupt society. At the county and village levels, the level of the local magistrates, it was extremely corrupt. Therefore, in many instances, the Jews were able to finesse their way out of these terrible decrees simply by paying a bribe. At other times they averted the decrees by various methods of subterfuge such as changing their last names or hiding. In short, the decrees were not enforced uniformly or consistently.
Nevertheless, the atmosphere the decrees raised had a terribly negative effect upon Jewish life in Russia and Poland. And that negative effect brought about reactions that further eroded the strength of the Jewish community and their loyalty to Jewish tradition.
Sir Moses Montefiore
In 1846, a special visitor came to Russia: Sir Moses Montefiore. Today we cannot imagine the status that he held in the Jewish world. He cut a figure that transcended Jewish life at the time. His story is not quite rags-to-riches, but a combination of fortunate events.
He was born in the late 1700s to a Sefardic family in London, and was employed as a clerk in the banking house of Rothschild in London. In the War of 1812, and the later Napoleonic War of 1815, the Rothschilds made a tremendous fortune financing both sides of the war.
They did so through their own independent network of intelligence and carrier pigeons, which allowed them to find out events before others. The legend is told how Lord Rothschild came to the British stock market on the day of the Battle of Waterloo, leaned against a pillar and started selling. No one yet knew whether Napoleon or the Duke of Wellington and the Prussians had won. However, everyone knew that Rothschild had his own independent sources of information, so his selling forced a panic in the market. As much as 15-20% of the value of the stocks on the British market fell in about three hours!
Rothschild knew that Wellington had won, that England had triumphed, and that therefore the stock market would go up. Back then there were no SEC regulations or investigations, no rules against insider trading and all of the other restrictions which exist today. After the stocks had fallen, Rothschild turned around and bought. It is reputed that on that one day alone, in the space of a few hours, a substantial amount of the Rothschild fortune, in England in least, was made.
Moses Montefiore, who was a secretary to Rothschild, joined in the selling and buying. He too became extremely rich literally overnight. With his newfound wealth he dedicated the rest of his life to philanthropy and the cause of the Jewish people. For the next almost 75 years, Montefiore would be the representative of the Jewish people in places where no other Jew could come.
He was knighted by Queen Victoria and became a leading member of the aristocratic establishment in England – yet he remained an observant Jew, fulfilling all the laws of the Torah to the best of his knowledge and ability. Many Jews—including many of the Rothschilds—lost their Jewish way when they made their millions. Montefiore further intensified it. He became a shining example.
There is a legend about him that every night before bed he would put on shrouds, go down to the basement of his mansion and lie in his coffin for a while. He said that it was a very good way to counter arrogance; to remove a certain amount of hubris that very wealthy people otherwise have. It was a reminder of reality. Whether the story is true or not is not of primary importance. The fact that they tell it about him shows us his characteristics; it shows how the Jewish people felt about him.
He lived to be 103, but had no children, and bequeathed most of his money to charity. By the turn of the century, shortly after his death, the Jewish world named many things after him as a memorial. Even today, there are hundreds of institutions, hospitals (e.g. in New York, Montefiore Hospital), schools, etc. named after Sir Moses Montefiore.
A Revival of the Blood Libel
In 1840 in Damascus there occurred the infamous blood libel, which is a horrible canard that Jews need the blood of non-Jews for ritual purposes. Blood libels had been strictly a Christian-European phenomenon. Among the Arabs, there were no blood libels because their religion never accused the Jews of killing Mohammed, and no one invented the fiction that Jews needed Arab blood for matzah, wine or anything else. Therefore, in the Muslim countries blood libels were unknown. Jews had plenty of troubles and persecution in the Muslim countries, but they did not have this and other types of accusations leveled against them that they had in the Christian countries.
The Turkish Empire, otherwise known as the Ottoman Empire, which controlled the Middle East, was an empire teetering on its death bed for 300 years before it finally fell after World War I. It had long rotted from within by corruption, immorality and narcotics. The Ottoman Empire leadership as a whole was regularly in a state of intoxication due to opium, a derivative of the poppies which grew in Turkey. Ironically, that could make it easier for others to bribe and win concessions from them.
In the 1800s, the French, especially under Napoleon III, came to Syria—what is today Lebanon—thus inaugurating the beginning of the French influence in the Middle East. It was the French who brought the blood libel as part of the heritage of Western culture to that part of the world.
The blood libel in Damascus was especially heinous because the French consul who stirred up the trouble made his accusations after the disappearance of one of the servants from the French Embassy even as he was well aware that the servant was murdered a jealous lover, and that it had nothing to do with the Jews or the Jewish community. Nevertheless, for political reasons, France pursued the matter in this fashion, and before long Turkish authorities arrested the heads of the Jewish community in Damascus.
Under torture they were able to extract the confession that there was such a ritual murder and that the Jews needed blood, etc. Of course, under torture, you can get almost anyone to say almost anything. In the Middle Ages it was believed that the only time the person told the truth was under torture! If the person voluntarily offered to tell the story it would not avail him anything; they had to torture him anyway.
In any event, under torture, the leaders of the Jewish community of Damascus confessed to an entire fairy tale, and a number of them died in prison. A great fine was levied against the Jewish community, but Jews throughout the rest of the Jewish world rose up in indignation — especially Sir Moses Montefiore. It was he who bombarded the British Foreign Office to right the wrong, until finally enough pressure was put upon the Ottoman Empire to release the remaining prisoners. The Turks apologized, but it was not really sincere and the damage had been done.
The Blood Libel of 1840 came as a shock to the Jewish world, because Jews thought that civilization had outgrown that. In particular, the Western European Jews, who were convinced that the modern world would not accommodate such terrible lies, suddenly had to deal with the specter of medieval hatred still in their midst.
Pressuring Evil-Doers
Just as he had done in Damascus, in 1846 Moses Montefiore made a trip to Russia to try to ameliorate the decrees of the Czar. He brought with him a letter from the Queen of England. It made an enormous impression on Russian Jewry, and it even made some impression on the Russian government.
He had arrived with his own golden carriage, pulled by six white horses. Wherever he went he was greeted by the great rabbis and leading Jews. He eventually had a number of audiences with the leaders of the Russian government, including one audience with the Czar himself. The Czar described him as “a distasteful little Jew.”
Despite that, his visit was a success. It represented the beginning of the exertion of outside pressures on the Czarist government. It made them uncomfortable enough to ameliorate the enforcement of the decrees.
One of the great tragedies of the Holocaust, amid all of the other tragedies, was simply the lack of any outside pressure on Hitler regarding the Jewish question. That is the unspeakable part of it. President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1908, after the Kishinev pogrom, called in the Russian ambassador and threatened to throw him out of America if Russia did not stop. It helped. However, in the United States in the 1930s, the German ambassador was not spoken to in those terms. That is really the core issue of the Holocaust, that there was no outside pressure on Germany to stop.
The Crimean War
From 1854 to 1856, the Russians engaged in the Crimean War, which Russia eventually lost. We in the West know of the war from the famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” which was about a suicidal cavalry charge by the British in the town of Balaklava.
The Crimean War, strange as it may seem, had its antecedents in the Land of Israel. There have always been competing claims as to who is entitled to take care of the churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The competing claims have been between the Greek Orthodox religion and the Roman Catholic religion — and later the Protestants and the Russian Orthodox. Therefore, there have been many occasions where the police and the army had to intervene in order to stop what otherwise would have been bloodshed in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or in the other churches in Jerusalem.
Turkey exploited the dispute, because depending on who provided the better bribe they gave access to the church and the right to perform the services. After a period of time, this so enraged the Christian world that England and France forced upon Turkey an agreement, under which the Christian countries were the protectors of the Christian holy places in the Land of Israel. Therefore, even though it belonged to Turkey, other countries had the legal right to make decisions about the churches: who would protect them, what roles each denomination would be assigned, etc.
The Russians were also a Christian power and wanted their share. They claimed that Turkey was somehow not living up to its part of the agreement to administer it fairly. In reality they had other motivations. Russia always wanted to be a power in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, but Turkey blocked them. Russia also wanted a presence in the Balkans, but that was also blocked by Turkey (and Austria).
Through very skillful maneuvering they were able to pull together an alliance against Britain, France, Austria and Turkey — four enemies who hated each other. However, the Russians were so inept in executing their alliance that all four joined together against them in the Crimean War.
The war began with an invasion by British and French forces. Eventually, the city of Sevastopol, which is the capital of the Crimea and a port city, fell to these forces. The Russians were forced to retreat. In the ensuing settlement, which set boundaries and rights regarding who would be in charge the Land of Israel, Russia was given nothing. They were right back where they had started. In the interim, however, they had lost about 250,000 lives.
Liberalization
It was now abundantly clear to the Czar that the reason that they were so soundly defeated was because Russia was a backward country. The other countries (with the exception of Turkey) were more westernized and in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Therefore, in the 1850s Czar Alexander II accepted the advice of many of his ministers who said that the way to modernize Russia was to remove all of the harsh decrees.
This liberalization culminated in 1861 when the Czar Alexander II freed the serfs – around the same time that Lincoln emancipated the slaves in the United States. This brought Russia a step closer to modernism. However, Alexander II would be assassinated in 1881 and Russia would return to its old reactionary ways. All of the gains that were made in the late 1850s and early 1860s were wiped out. Russia would become more autocratic, dictatorial and repressive – culminating in the Communist Revolution, which ended the reign of the Czars once and for all.
Nevertheless, in the attempt of the Czar to liberalize Russia, many of these harsh decrees against the Jews were repealed, or at least not enforced. There was a hiatus of about 10-15 years in the severe oppression of the Jews in Russia. It is during this hiatus that the Haskalah grew. Some Jews felt now for the first time that the Russian government was willing to allow them to exist in Russia, so it behooved the Jews to become more Russian, and Haskalah was the vehicle to do that.
Later, in the 1870s and 1880s, the Haskalah would begin to die again. The revived repressions of the new Czar made it obvious that Jews were never going to gain equality, so most Jews logically concluded: Why bother giving up our Jewish ways and becoming more Russian? Nevertheless, immediately after the Crimean War the liberalization of Russia changed the face of Jewish life.
In a broad sense, there were three reactions by Jews to this situation in Russia. One was the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment. The second was the founding of the yeshiva system of education. And the third was the Mussar movement. All three came to deal with the problem of Jewish life in Russia. All three provided different answers, or at least different nuances to the answer of how to survive as Jews.
Next, we will discuss the response of Haskalah.
