Moses Mendelssohn

BORN: September 6, 1729 • Dessau, Anhalt-Dessau, Germany

DIED: January 4, 1786 • Berlin, Germany

German philosopher; writer

Moses Mendelssohn, an eighteenth-century German philosopher, is often referred to as the "father of the Jewish Enlightenment." A philosopher is someone who searches to understand values and reality. He was the author of a large number of literary and philosophical works. Mendelssohn called for reliance on reason rather than on blind faith and mysticism (direct, mysterious communication with God) when seeking religious truth. He also played a major role in unifying Jewish and secular (nonreligious) culture at a time when many European Jews desired education but were excluded from public and professional life. In German literature, he is remembered as the model for the noble title character in Gotthold Lessing's (1729–1781) Nathan the Wise (1779), a dramatic poem that is essentially a plea for religious tolerance. Some Jews call Mendelssohn the "third Moses" of Judaism, following the Old Testament prophet (divine messenger) and Moses Maimonides (1135–1204; see entry), a well-respected scholar of Judaism.

"Let everyone be permitted to speak as he thinks, to invoke God after his own manner."

Early life

Moses Mendelssohn was born on September 6, 1729, in Dessau, a city in what was then the German state of Anhalt-Dessau. Because his father, a poor scribe, or copier of manuscripts and other documents, was named Mendel, Moses took the surname Mendelssohn, which means "son of Mendel." As a child he suffered an illness that left him with a curvature, or curving, of the spine, and throughout his life he spoke with a stammer.

Although Mendelssohn was largely self-taught, he also took part in formal study under a local rabbi named David Fränkel. A rabbi is a person trained in Jewish law, ritual, and tradition who is often the head of a synagogue, or Jewish house of worship. Fränkel taught Mendelssohn the Hebrew Scriptures, or holy texts, commonly referred to by Christians as the Old Testament; the Talmud, which contains traditions that explain and interpret the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures; and the works of Moses Maimonides. One of Maimonides's most important works, Guide of the Perplexed, was reprinted for the first time in two centuries when Mendelssohn was thirteen. The publication of this book signaled a growing interest in Jewish thought.

In 1743 Fränkel received an appointment as rabbi in Berlin, Germany, and Mendelssohn, then fourteen years old, followed him in order to study at his yeshiva, or Jewish school. Mendelssohn's life in Berlin was one of extreme poverty, and although he earned small sums of money by tutoring, he was forced to accept meals from neighboring families. He did, however, receive a very thorough education at the yeshiva. In addition to studying Jewish theology (the study of religion), he became skilled in mathematics, philosophy, astronomy (the study of the stars and planets), and logic. He studied French, English, Italian, Greek, and Latin. He used his small income to purchase a Latin copy of Essay Concerning Human Understanding, a major work by the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704).

Mendelssohn took a job tutoring the children of Isaac Bernhard, a silk merchant in 1750. He quickly won Bernhard's confidence, and in time Bernhard made the young scholar his bookkeeper, then his partner. In 1754 Bernhard introduced Mendelssohn to the great German philosopher, dramatist, and literary critic Gotthold Lessing (1729–1781). Lessing was one of the important figures of the Enlightenment in Germany. The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement in Europe during the eighteenth century that emphasized reason over blind faith and tradition. These ideas were expressed in Lessing's writings. He was also a strong believer in religious tolerance at a time when Europe's Jews were forced to live in isolated portions of cities and were the victims of widespread discrimination. Jews were denied citizenship and education, barred from most professions, regarded as unintelligent and greedy, and blamed for all sorts of social problems. Lessing's 1749 play The Jews was extraordinary at the time for its depictions of Jews acting morally and kindly.

The relationship between Mendelssohn and Lessing was first established through the game of chess, which they both loved. Soon Mendelssohn found Lessing's views entirely consistent with his own, and the two men became lifelong friends. Mendelssohn also developed a friendship with the renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Although the two were professional rivals, Kant became one of Mendelssohn's admirers.

Mendelssohn the philosopher

During the 1750s and 1760s Mendelssohn became one of the leading philosophers in Europe and found himself at or very near the center of some of the age's fiercest philosophical debates. After he wrote his first book, Philosophical Conversations, he shared the manuscript with Lessing, who had it published anonymously in 1755 without telling his friend. With Lessing's encouragement, Mendelssohn continued to write philosophical treatises (papers; reports), many of them published anonymously in the 1750s.

In 1759 Mendelssohn began to write essays and letters for a journal called Literaturbriefe. In many of these pieces Mendelssohn defended German philosophy, especially the work of the philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716). Leibniz was a rationalist, but he also believed in a benevolent (kind) God who arranged the world as a harmonious and organized place. Mendelssohn believed that Leibniz had come under unfair attack by English and French philosophers. The French philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778), for example, had savagely ridiculed Leibniz in his most famous work, Candide (1759), and Mendelssohn offered a defense of his countryman.

Mendelssohn encountered trouble in 1760 when he published a highly unfavorable review of a volume of poetry written by the Prussian king Frederick the Great (1712–1786; ruled 1740–86). He was critical of the king's poems because they appeared to deny that the soul was immortal. Mendelssohn also criticized the king for writing in French rather than in German, the language of his own people. In response to this review, the king's censor banned the journal in which it was published.

The Parable of the Ring

Gotthold Lessing's Nathan the Wise is set during the Third Crusade, which was conducted in the early 1190s as part of Christian Europe's effort to retain control of Palestine, the Holy Land, and especially Jerusalem. The play depicts representatives of the warring parties, which include Nathan, a Jewish merchant; Saladin, a Muslim general; and a Knight Templar (a Christian warrior). The parties are shown resolving the differences between Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. At the center of the play is the ring parable, which Nathan tells after Saladin asks him which religion is the true one. (A parable is a simple story that illustrates a moral or religious lesson.) Within the parable, a ring is repeatedly passed from father to most-favored son, with the belief that the ring would make the son pleasing in the eyes of God. In time the ring comes to a father who has three sons, whom he loves equally. Accordingly he has two duplicates of the ring made so that he can give one ring to each son. After the father's death, the sons quarrel about who owns the real ring. They take the matter to a judge, who gives the following decision:

    If you will take advice in lieu of sentence,
    This is my counsel to you, to take up
    The matter where it stands. If each of you
    Has had a ring presented by his father,
    Let each believe his own the real ring.
    'Tis possible the father chose no longer
    To tolerate the one ring's tyranny;
    And certainly, as he much loved you all,
    And loved you all alike, it could not please him
    By favouring one to be of two the oppressor.
    Let each feel honoured by this free affection.
    Unwarped of prejudice; let each endeavour
    To vie with both his brothers in displaying
    The virtue of his ring; assist its might
    With gentleness, benevolence, forbearance,
    With inward resignation to the godhead,
    And if the virtues of the ring continue
    To show themselves among your children's children,
    After a thousand thousand years, appear Before this judgment-seat—a greater one Than I shall sit upon it, and decide.

The three rings, of course, represent Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, all gifts from God the Father in heaven.

        Peterson, Daniel C. and William J. Hamblin.

        "Nathan the Wise—An Allegory of Religious Toleration?" Meridian Magazine. 2004. Available online at http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ideas/041003nathan.html.

Nonetheless, Frederick evidently came to set aside whatever sense of personal insult he had felt. In 1763 Mendelssohn entered a competition held by the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He had become increasingly troubled by the effect that science was having on religious belief. To address this, he wrote an essay in which he argued that certain mathematical problems could be applied to metaphysics, or the branch of philosophy that deals with reality that lies beyond the senses. After the essay won the academy's first prize, Frederick awarded Mendelssohn the status of "Jew under extraordinary protection." As such, Mendelssohn enjoyed the right to live in Berlin undisturbed.

In 1767 Mendelssohn's major work Phädon was published. Mendelssohn wrote the text in response to the age's growing materialism, or focus on the physical world rather than the spiritual one. He structured the book as a philosophical dialogue modeled on Phaedo, by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (427–347 bce; see entry). Phädon, which was written in German, became a huge success. Before long, it was translated into nearly all European languages and gave rise to the "Phädon movement," a number of published treatises on the same topic by various authors. Many people called Mendelssohn the "German Plato" or the "German Socrates." He became a popular figure, and anyone of intellectual stature visiting Berlin would set aside time to pay him a visit.

Controversy with Lavater

Up until this point in his career Mendelssohn had paid little attention to Judaism in his published writings. Indeed, in most of his work he engaged in the same scientific debates that preoccupied virtually all Enlightenment philosophers, regardless of religion. From his early years, he had been troubled by the popularity of Jewish mysticism in Germany, especially a movement known as Hasidism, founded by Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (1700–1760; see entry). This movement featured a mystical view of Judaism, with followers focusing more on personal experience than on reason and formal education. Mendelssohn, a rationalist, opposed such mysticism, which he believed was a rejection of human reason.

Mendelssohn's largely secular approach to philosophy underwent a transformation, however, after August 1769. That month the Swiss theologian Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) published a German translation of an essay by the Swiss theologian and naturalist (a person who studies natural history) Charles Bonnet (1720–1793) entitled Christian Evidences. This essay argued that Christianity was superior to other religions. Lavater believed that Christians would only be able to achieve salvation if they somehow managed to convert Jews to Christianity. He was a central figure in a group of religious enthusiasts informally known as Schwärmer, or "fanatics."

In the introduction to Bonnet's text, Lavater, although he greatly admired Mendelssohn, issued a challenge to him: disprove Bonnet's ideas or convert to Christianity. Mendelssohn refused to engage Lavater in public debate. He believed such debate would only heighten religious passions and make the climate of intolerance worse. Instead he published pleas for open-mindedness regarding religion. Other Schwärmer then began to bother Mendelssohn with the same challenge. They believed that if Mendelssohn was an advocate of proving things through the use of reason, he had no alternative but to either defend his views or accept Christianity as the one true religion.

Mendelssohn felt considerable strain as a result of these and other disputes. In 1771 he experienced an illness that left him partially paralyzed. He underwent medical treatment for five years, and during these years he withdrew from public debate and did not publish. He did, however, begin to believe that he could best put his powers of reason to use by opposing the Schwärmer and bettering the condition of Europe's Jews. From the mid-1770s until his death, Mendelssohn devoted himself to issues that affected the welfare of the Jewish community.

The Jewish Enlightenment

Mendelssohn believed that the main problem faced by Jews in Germany and throughout the rest of Europe was that they were isolated. They were separated from the surrounding Christian culture because their children went to Jewish schools and they conducted their affairs in Yiddish, a form of German written in Hebrew and spoken mainly by northern European Jews. To improve the cultural, social, and economic status of German Jews, Mendelssohn took steps to mix them into the surrounding culture. To that end, one of the chief projects that occupied him in his later years was a new translation of the Torah, as well as other portions of the Bible, into German. While preparing the translation, Mendelssohn attracted a number of helpers, all of whom worked on various portions of the project.

The translation was published in 1783. Because of its grace and clarity, this translation has often been considered largely responsible for the standardization of the German language. More importantly, by having scripture written in the local language, German Jews began to see themselves as Germans rather than as aliens wandering in a foreign land. German Jews began to engage themselves in German culture and society by reforming education, studying secular disciplines such as the sciences, and adding their voices to Enlightenment thought. The period of the German Jewish Enlightenment is referred to as the Haskalah, literally, "enlightenment" in Hebrew. In time the movement spread throughout much of Europe.

Mendelssohn continued to publish works that invited debate, which were then as much political as philosophical. People in Europe were paying attention to the struggle of Americans to achieve independence from the British Empire. Growing discontent in France would lead to the French Revolution late in the 1780s. In 1781 Mendelssohn published On the Civil Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews, a plea for religious tolerance and a call for the freedom of Jewish people from the cultural limitations that suppressed them. His most important work during this period was Jerusalem; or, On Religious Power and Judaism (1783). Jerusalem was a forcefully written work that asserted freedom of conscience and the view that the state should play no role in determining the religious beliefs of its citizens. This doctrine would become a part of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which established "separation of church and state" in American government. In Jerusalem, Mendelssohn takes the position that many truths exist. Just as governments may differ depending on the needs of their people, people themselves may differ in their understandings of religious truths according to their own situations.

During his later years Mendelssohn became an outright activist on behalf of Jewish political rights. In time his writings, as well as those of other prominent figures during the Haskalah, began to have far-reaching effects. He campaigned on behalf of the Patent of Toleration, issued in Austria on October 19, 1781. This proclamation called for "better instruction and enlightenment of [Jewish] youth, and its employment in the sciences, arts, and crafts." Joseph II (1741–1790), the emperor of Austria, had come to believe that the only way to improve the condition of Jews was to ensure that they enjoyed the same political rights as other citizens of the empire.

Mendelssohn lived to see the publication of Morning Hours; or, Lectures about God's Existence in 1785. His final work was a book defending Lessing, who had been widely and viciously criticized for The Jews and Nathan the Wise, which called for toleration of Jews at a time when large numbers of people in Europe strongly disliked Jews. Mendelssohn carried the work to his publishers, caught a cold, and died of complications on January 4, 1786. He left behind his wife, Fromet Gugenheim, whom he had married in 1762. The couple had six surviving children, several of whom went on to distinguished careers.

Mendelssohn's views faced intense criticism during his lifetime and afterward, from both Jews and non-Jews. Mendelssohn is widely regarded as the spark behind modern Reform Judaism, which does not accept many of the traditional Jewish beliefs, such as that God gave Moses the Torah, but does adhere to the central practices of the religion. As such, conservative Orthodox Jews feared that Mendelssohn's reforms would alienate Jews from their traditional culture and law. They were partially right. In response to the Haskalah, many European Jews discontinued their practice of Jewish law. Many converted to Christianity, including all of Mendelssohn's children and his grandson, the pianist and composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847). Many immigrated to the United States, while others initiated the Zionist movement, which eventually led to the formation of a Jewish state in Israel. Judaism in Europe was forever changed because of the work of Moses Mendelssohn.

For More Information

BOOKS

Altmann, Alexander. Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study. Oxford, UK: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1998.

Isaacs, Abram S. Step by Step: A Story of the Early Days of Moses Mendelssohn. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2005.

Sorkin, David. Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996.

WEB SITES

"Mendelssohn." JewishEncyclopedia.com. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=446&letter=M (accessed on June 2, 2006).

"Moses Mendelssohn." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mendelssohn/(accessed on June 2, 2006).

Peterson, Daniel C. and William J. Hamblin. "Nathan the Wise—An Allegory of Religious Toleration?." Meridian Magazine. 2004. http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ideas/041003nathan.html (accessed June 2, 2006).

Schoenberg, Shira. "The Haskalah." Jewish Virtual Library. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Haskalah.html (accessed on June 2, 2006).

Shavin, David. "Philosophical Vignettes from the Political Life of Moses Mendelssohn." The Schiller Institute. http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_97-01/992_mend_dms.html (accessed on June 2, 2006).