The Haskalah Movement in Russia | Page 7

Not a few of the prominent men united piety with philosophy, and thorough knowledge of the Talmud with mastery of one or more of the sciences of the time. Data on this phase of the subject might have been much more abundant, had not the storm of persecution suddenly swept over the communities, destroying them and their records. What we still possess indicates what may have been lost. The Ukraine was famous for its scholars. Among them was Jehiel Michael of Nemirov, reputed to have been "versed in all the sciences of the world."[26] Several of them were poets and grammarians. Poems of a liturgical character are still extant in which they bemoan their plight or assert their faith hopefully. Such were the poems of Ephraim of Khelm, Joseph of Kobrin, Solomon of Zamoscz, and Shabbata? Kohen. The last, eminent as a Talmudist, the author of commentaries on the _Shulhan 'Aruk_ approved by the leading rabbis of his generation, is also known as a very trustworthy historian. His _Megillah 'Afah_, written in classic Hebrew, is a valuable source of information on the critical period in which he lived. He won the esteem of the Polish nobility by his secular attainments. To judge from his correspondence, he must have been on intimate terms with Vidrich of Leipsic.[27] Of the grammarians, Jacob Zaslaver wrote on the Massorah, and Shabbata? Sofer was the author of annotations and treatises.[28] Our taste in poetry and grammar is no longer the same, but the polemic and apologetic writings of those days, called forth by the discussions between Rabbanites and Karaites and by the constant attacks of Christianity, are still of uncommon interest. Specimens of the former kind are the polemics of Moses of Shavli, which caused consternation in the camp of the Karaites. Of the apologetic writings should be mentioned the reply, in Polish, of Jacob Nahman of Belzyc to Martin Chekhovic (Lublin, 1581), and the Hizzuk Emunah of the Karaite Isaac ben Abraham of Troki. In the latter the weakness of Christianity and the strength of Judaism are pointed out with trenchancy never before reached. The work stirred up heated discussions among the various Christian sects, with the tenets of which the author was intimately acquainted. It was translated into Latin (1681, 1705), Yiddish (1717), English (1851), and German (1865, 1873). Voltaire says that all the arguments used by free-thinkers against Christianity were drawn from it.[29]
In philosophy, mathematics, and medicine, the three main branches of medieval knowledge, many Slavonian Jews attained eminence. Devout Karaites as well as diligent Talmudists found secular learning a diversion and a delight. For the lovers of enlightenment Italy, especially Padua, was the centre of attraction, as France and Spain had been before, and Germany, particularly Berlin, became afterwards.[30] Towards the middle of the sixteenth century we find young Delacrut at the University of Bologna, the philosopher and Cabbalist, known for his commentaries to Gikatilla's _Sha'are Orah_ (Cracow, 1600) and Ben Avigdor's _Mar'eh ha-Ofanim_ (1720), and his translation of Gossuin's _L'image du monde_ (Amsterdam, 1733). His famous disciple Mordecai Jaffe (Lebushim) spent ten years in the study of astronomy and mathematics before he occupied the rabbinate of Grodno (1572)[31] At the request of Yom-Tob Lipman Heller, Joseph ben Isaac Levi wrote a commentary on Maimuni's Moreh Nebukim, which was published with the former's annotations, _Gibe'at ha-Moreh_ (Prague, 1611). Deservedly or not, Eliezer Mann was called "the Hebrew Socrates"; and many a Maskil in his study of mathematics turned for guidance to Manoah Handel of Brzeszticzka, Volhynia, author and translator of several scientific works, who rendered seven Euclidean propositions into Hebrew.[32]
Polyglots they were compelled to be by force of circumstances. When the exotic Judeo-German finally asserted itself as the vernacular, the language in which they wrote and prayed was still the ancient Hebrew, with which every one was familiar, and commercial intercourse with their Gentile neighbors was hardly feasible without at least a smattering of the local Slavonic dialect. "Look at our brethren in Poland," exclaims Wessely many years later in his address to his countrymen. "They converse with their neighbors in good Polish.... What excuse have we for our brogue and jargon?" He might have had still better cause for complaint, had he been aware that the Yiddish of the Russo-Polish Jews, despite its considerable Slavonic admixture, was purer German than that of his contemporaries in Germany, even as the English of our New England colonies was superior to the Grub Street style prevalent in Dr. Johnson's England, and the Spanish of our Mexican annexations to the Castilian spoken at the time of Coronado. But we are here concerned with their knowledge of foreign languages. We shall refer only to the Hebrew-German-Italian-Latin-French dictionary Safah Berurah (Prague, 1660; Amsterdam, 1701) by the eminent Talmudist Nathan Hannover.[33]
In medicine Jews were pre-eminent in the