Mendelssohn. A Chapter Dedicated to the Memory of a Great Friend
Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis?1
THE NAME OF MENDELSSOHN is so well known that I needn’t devote much space to portraying the excellent moral and intellectual characteristics of this renowned son of our nation. Here, then, I will simply outline the qualities that made the greatest impression on me.
He was a fine Talmudist, having studied under Rabbi Israel, the famous Polish rabbi who was rejected as a heretic by his nation.2 This rabbi, otherwise known as Nezach Israel (the strength of Israel)—the name derived from the title [169] of a Talmudic work he had written—had great philosophical talent in addition to his immense Talmudic capabilities and expertise. He was especially gifted in mathematics. Even while still in Poland, he had managed to acquire formidable expertise in this area by using the few texts on the topic written in Hebrew. The Talmudic work just mentioned draws on and displays his knowledge, for in it he solves important mathematical problems, either as a way of illuminating dark passages in the Talmud, or as a way to define a law. Of course, Rabbi Israel was more interested in spreading useful knowledge within his nation than in explaining or defining laws: The latter process was merely a means to that end. Thus he showed, for example, that when the Jews in our regions turn to the east to pray, they are not acting in accord with the law. Because the Talmudic law decrees that Jews must face Jerusalem, and our part of the globe [170] lies northwest of Jerusalem, we should actually pray facing southeast. He goes on from there to show, among other things, how spherical trigonometry can be employed in any part of the world to determine the proper direction with great precision. Along with Rabbi Fränkel, the famous chief rabbi, Rabbi Israel contributed much to the development Mendelssohn’s impressive skills.3
Mendelssohn had a thorough knowledge of mathematics. He appreciated mathematics not simply because of its self-evident truth, but also because he saw it as the best exercise in systematic thinking.
It is, of course, well known that Mendelssohn was a great philosopher. Though he didn’t invent new systems, he improved the old ones, especially the Wolff-Leibniz system, which he applied to diverse philosophical topics with much success.
It is hard to say whether he had more perspicacity or profundity. He combined the two, possessing a high degree of both. In his precision in defining and dividing, [171] as well as in drawing distinctions, the former capacity is manifest; in his deep philosophical treatises, the latter one.
Mendelssohn was, as he himself admitted, fiery by nature. But by cultivating stoic virtues, he had to a large extent succeeded in mastering this temperament. Take, for example, the following encounter with young B., who had decided that Mendelssohn had treated him unfairly. B. not only complained to Mendelssohn about this, but in doing so he went so far as to utter one impertinence after another. Mendelssohn stood leaning on a chair; his eyes fixed on young B., listening to all the rudeness with the greatest stoical patience. Only after the man had cooled down did Mendelssohn go up to him and say: “Leave! You see that you won’t achieve your goal. You cannot make me lose my temper.” Yet after such confrontations, Mendelssohn was unable to hide how troubled he was about human weakness. [172]
I myself was often too heated in my debates with him, and I did not show the respect one owes to such a man. This is something I regret to this day.
Mendelssohn was a keen observer of people. This skill does not consist of simply identifying several seemingly unrelated aspects of a person’s character and then depicting them with a certain virtuosity. Rather, it also entails identifying the essential aspects of a person’s character—those which, in effect, determine all the others and can therefore be used to understand the others. Mendelssohn knew how to discover a person’s deepest motivations and whole inner moral system with great precision. Moreover, he had successfully developed fundamental insights into the mechanics of the soul. He made use of these gifts not only in his in his daily interactions with others, they figured, as well, in his works.
Mendelssohn was adept at the practical—and also enjoyable—art of adopting another person’s way of thinking. He knew how to complete someone else’s thoughts and fill in the gaps. [173] Indeed, he could understand newly arrived Polish Jews, whose thinking was, for the most part, confused and whose speech was an unintelligible dialect. In his conversations with them, he took on their expressions and style of speaking, and he tried to lower his style of thinking down to their level in order to bring them up to his.
He knew how to find the good qualities in everyone, the bright side of every event. And he liked talking to people whom others mostly avoided, because they didn’t use their strengths well. Only stupidity and listlessness thoroughly disgusted him. I once saw him talk at length with a man who had the most illogical mind and little in the way of self-control. Just listening exhausted my patience. After the man had left, I asked Mendelssohn in amazement: “How could you spend so much time talking to that man?” Mendelssohn replied: “Why shouldn’t I have? If we don’t know how a given machine [174] is built or the mechanisms by which it works, we study it closely. Doesn’t this person warrant attention, too? Shouldn’t we try to understand his odd statements the same way? Like any machine, he surely has his motor forces and turning wheels.”
When debating a rigid thinker, the kind who clings dogmatically to the system he has accepted, Mendelssohn would be rigid and exploit the smallest mistake in his opponent’s logic. With a flexible thinker, on the other hand, he would be flexible, tending to conclude the debate with the following words: “We must focus on the things themselves, not on each other’s words.”
Nothing repelled Mendelssohn as much as triviality and affectation: He simply couldn’t conceal his abhorrence of these qualities. On one occasion, [175] H. invited a group to join him for a conversation, with Mendelssohn as the main interlocutor. Yet H. prattled on the whole time about the things that interested him, which tended to be coarse and lacking in substance. Mendelssohn showed his disgust by refusing to dignify this worthless person with even a moment of his attention. Then there was the lady who acted as though she were extraordinarily refined, and who tended to criticize herself as a way of cajoling others into praising her. Mendelssohn tried to draw her to a more reasonable mode of behavior by emphatically demonstrating how misguided her actions were. She should aim, he stressed, to better her ways.
In a disjointed conversation, he wouldn’t contribute much. He would offer some of his own reflections, but mainly he would enjoy observing the others. But he would take part most enthusiastically in a coherent discussion. Mendelssohn was also good at guiding an exchange with artful interventions that did not come across as heavy-handed. [176]
Mendelssohn’s mind was simply too busy for trivialities. Matters of the greatest importance kept it ceaselessly active: moral principles, natural theology, the immortality of the soul, and the like. In domains such as these, which, in my view, should be of interest to all humanity, Mendelssohn accomplished as much as one can hope to using the principles of Wolff-Leibniz philosophy.
In all his investigations, perfection was the compass he followed. His God was the ideal of complete perfection; the idea of complete perfection was the foundation of his morality. The guiding principle of his aesthetics was sensuous perfection.
When I was still getting to know Mendelssohn, our debates generally centered on the following matters. Having been a loyal disciple of Maimonides before I learned about more modern philosophy, I insisted on the unity of all [177] God’s positive characteristics. My reasoning was that we can only represent these properties in a limited way. Proceeding from this position, I came to a dilemma. Either 1) God isn’t the most perfect Being, in which case we should be able not only to conceive of His characteristics, but also to know them—that is, we should be able to represent them as actual concepts (ones that map onto objects), or 2) God is the most perfect of all beings, and we can thus conceive of the idea of Him, though we must still take as problematic the reality of the idea as given. Mendelssohn, for his part, insisted on affirming all of God’s realities, a position very much in line with Wolff-Leibniz philosophy, because there a concept need only be thinkable (in the sense of being without contradictions) in order to have reality.
My own morality, back then, was genuine stoicism: striving to achieve freedom of will and the dominance of reason over subjective impressions and passions.4 This view also meant believing that the highest calling of man was the assertion of his differentia specifica—knowledge of truth. All [178] other drives that we share with the animal world should be employed to that end. For me, there was no distinction between knowledge of the good and knowledge of the true. Following Maimonides’ lead, I held knowledge of the truth to be the highest good worthy of man.
Mendelssohn, on the other hand, regarded the concept of perfection that forms the basis of morality as extending well beyond knowledge of the truth. All of our natural drives, capacities, and powers must be exercised as something good—as realities—in themselves, and not as merely as means with which to bring about something good. The highest perfection is the idea of the maximum or greatest sum of these realities.
As I saw it (following Maimonides), the immortality of the soul lies in the unification of the active intellect, to the extent that it is active in practice, with the world spirit. [179] Only those who devoted themselves to gaining knowledge of eternal truth partake of this immortality, and they do so only to the extent they are thus devoted. It follows that individuality is lost when this higher form of immortality is achieved.5 That Mendelssohn thought otherwise, in accordance with modern philosophy, should surprise no one.
I cannot convey his opinions on revealed or positive religion as information conveyed to me by Mendelssohn in person. I will present them only insofar as I have been able to derive them from what Mendelssohn wrote about the topic, which I will supplement with my own reflections. The reason why is as follows. As a budding free-thinker, I denounced all revealed religion as false as such and claimed that its utility, insofar as I could recognize it through the writings of Maimonides, was merely temporal. And as a naïve and inexperienced person, I blithely assumed it would be possible to persuade [180] others of this, despite their entrenched customs and long-held prejudices. I also presupposed, without any doubts or self-reflection, the usefulness of such persuasion. Mendelssohn wouldn’t talk to me about this topic, for he must have feared that I would criticize his responses as sophistry and question his motivations (as many had done and continue to do). However, what he writes in the preface to Menascheh Ben Israel, as well as in his Jerusalem, shows that he accepted the revealed laws of religion, though not revealed teachings, as eternal truths. What he wrote also makes it clear that he regarded the laws of Judaism as the fundamental and inviolable laws of a theocratic constitution, insofar as circumstances allow for one.
I have found my way to full agreement with Mendelssohn’s reasoning on this topic, something that resulted from my thinking freely about the fundamental laws of the religion of my fathers. The fundamental laws of [181] Judaism are simultaneously the basis of a state. All who belong to the state, who want to enjoy the rights granted to them on the condition that they obey the laws, must in fact obey them. However, those who want to leave the state, who no longer want to be seen as members and want renounce all the rights that go with membership, are no longer obligated to follow the law, not even in their conscience, whether they join another state or recede into solitude.
I also accept the truth of Mendelssohn’s remark that a Jew doesn’t necessarily free himself from his religious laws by converting to Christianity, for Jesus of Nazareth himself followed the laws and ordered his disciples to do the same. What if, however, a Jew no longer wants to be part of the theocratic state and embraces a pagan or philosophical religion, which is nothing but pure natural religion? And what if, [182] as a member of a civil state, he simply places himself under the authority of its laws and demands his rights from the state, without saying a thing about his religion—and the state, for its part, is rational enough not to demand such information (which shouldn’t be its concern)? If Mendelssohn had spoken about cases such as these, I don’t believe he would have said that every Jew is duty-bound in conscience to follow the laws of his ancestral religion simply because they are the laws of his ancestral religion. Mendelssohn lived according to the laws of his religion, as far as we know; he likely saw himself as a member of the theocratic state of his fathers, and from his perspective, he behaved as duty required. But someone who leaves that state is acting no less in accord with his duty.
At the same time, I consider it wrong to continue to claim to be Jewish, with family ties and interests as one’s motivation, and yet violate its laws (assuming that, in the opinion of [183] the people doing so, the motivating factors just mentioned do not stand in their way). Thus I cannot see how Mendelssohn could both: (a) claim that the church has no authority in civil matters, as he did in defending a Hamburg Jew who publicly flouted religious laws and was therefore excommunicated by the chief rabbi of Hamburg;6 and (b) assert the permanence of the Jewish-theocratic state. What is a state without rights, and by this logic, what exactly would the rights of this theocratic state be? Mendelssohn asks (in the preface to Menascheh Ben Israel, page 48), “How can the state permit any one of its useful and respected citizens to be punished by the laws?” “Not so!” I would reply. It wasn’t the power of excommunication that threatened the Hamburg Jew. To be free of it, he need only say and do nothing that would, by law, result in excommunication. Excommunication means only: As long as you publicly oppose the laws of our [184] community, you will be excluded from it. Therefore, you must decide whether public opposition or the advantages of the community will be more conducive to your happiness. All this certainly wouldn’t have escaped a man like Mendelssohn, and I will leave it to others to decide whether, or to what extent, one should be allowed to be inconsistent for the good of humanity.
Men who are otherwise estimable—that is, men from whom one would least expect it—treated Mendelssohn unfairly in various ways.
Lavater’s derision is already sufficiently well known, and all fair-minded men have condemned it.
Acting on his affinity for Spinozism, which no independent mind would ever look askance at, Jacobi, a deep thinker, tried to make Mendelssohn (as well as his friend Lessing) into a Spinozist despite himself (malgre lui). [185] Jacobi also published an exchange of letters on the topic that was not meant to appear in print or be presented to a general audience. What purpose were these measures supposed to serve? If Spinozism is true, then it would be so without Mendelssohn’s endorsement. With eternal truths, what matters isn’t having the majority on your side. This is especially so when the truth is of the kind I take this one to be: a truth that defies all expression.
Such injustices must have caused Mendelssohn much aggravation. Indeed, a famous doctor once claimed that Mendelssohn died as a result of them. Though I am no doctor, I would reject this diagnosis in the strongest possible terms. Mendelssohn behaved like a hero toward both Jacobi and Lavater. No! This hero died in the fifth act.
After Mendelssohn’s death, the astute H. Pr. Jakob, based in Halle, published a book under the title: Putting Mendelssohn’s “Early Hours” to the Test. In it, he showed [186] that according to the Critique of Pure Reason, all metaphysical assertions should be dismissed as unfounded. But why should Kant’s accomplishment be more damaging for Mendelssohn than for any other metaphysician? Mendelssohn did nothing less than make the Leibniz-Wolff philosophy more complete, apply it to various important topics of human inquiry, and present all this eloquently. Maimonides wrote a superb astronomical treatise, in which, with the greatest precision, he operated according to Ptolemian principle, applying astronomical knowledge to the most important objects. If someone published a book called Putting Maimonides’ “Hylchoth Kidosch Hachodesch” to the Test, a book that takes on Maimonides and tries to refute him using Newtonian principles, they would have produced a work very much like H. Pr. Jakob’s. But enough said! [187]
1 “How shall we keep in or limit our grief, so dear was this man?” Horace, Ode 1.24, addressed to Virgil on the death of their mutual friend Quintilius. Perhaps significantly, all three were avowed Epicureans.
2 Israel Zamosc, whose book Nezach Israel (Frankfurt, 1741) was a critique of traditional Talmudism. On his scientific and philosophical work, see David Sorkin, “The Early Haskalah,” in New Perspectives on the Haskalah, Shmuel Feiner and David Sorkin, eds. (London: Littman, 2000); David Ruderman, Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).
3 Rabbi David Fraenkel (1707–62), the author of the canonic commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud, Qorban ha-Eda. For the classic twentieth-century account of Mendelssohn’s intellectual development, see Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (London, 1973).
4 This is how Maimon elsewhere describes rabbinic ethics.
5 This is a crisp description of the so-called Averroist, or radical Maimonidean, position with regard to immortality in the middle ages.
6 Maimon refers to a well-known case of the time. The Rabbi in question was Rabbi Raphael Kohen, who Maimon had met as a child, looked for in Posen (bk. 1, ch. 22), and with whom he would dispute below, bk. 2, ch. 14, p. 219.