Jewish Literature and Other Essays Part 17

To judge Henriette Herz justly we must beware alike of the extravagance of her biographer and the malice of her friend Varnhagen von Ense; the former extols her cleverness to the skies, the other degrades her to the level of the commonplace. The two seem equally unreliable. She was neither extremely witty nor extremely cultured. She had a singularly clear mind, and possessed the rare faculty of spreading about her an atmosphere of ease and cheer--good subst.i.tutes for wit and intellectuality. Upon her beauty and amiability rested the popularity of her _salon_, which succeeded in uniting all the social factors of that period.

The nucleus of her social gatherings consisted of the representatives of the old literary traditions, Nicolai, Ramler, Engel, and Moritz, and they curiously enough attracted the theologians Spalding, Teller, Zollner, and later Schleiermacher, whose intimacy with his hostess is a matter of history. Music was represented by Reichardt and Wesseli; art, by Schadow; and the n.o.bility by Bernstorff, Dotina, Brinkmann, Friedrich von Gentz, and the Humboldts. Her drawing-room was the hearth of the romantic movement, and as may be imagined, her example was followed for better and for worse by her friends and sisters in faith, so that by the end of the century, Berlin could boast a number of _salons_, meeting-places of the n.o.bility, literary men, and cultured Jews, for the friendly exchange of spiritual and intellectual experiences. Henriette Herz's _salon_ became important not only for society in Berlin, but also for German literature, three great literary movements being sheltered in it: the cla.s.sical, the romantic, and, through Ludwig Borne, that of "Young Germany." Judaism alone was left unrepresented. In fact, she and all her cultured Jewish friends hastened to free themselves of their troublesome Jewish affiliations, or, at least, concealed them as best they could. Years afterwards, Borne spent his ridicule upon the Jewesses of the Berlin _salons_, with their enormous racial noses and their great gold crosses at their throats, pressing into Trinity church to hear Schleiermacher preach. But justice compels us to say that these women did not know Judaism, or knew it only in its slave's garb. Had they had a conception of its high ethical standard, of the wealth of its poetic and philosophic thoughts, being women of rare mental gifts and broad liberality, they certainly would not have abandoned Judaism. But the Judaism of their Berlin, as represented by its religious teachers and the leaders of the Jewish community, most of them, according to Mendelssohn's own account, immigrant Poles, could not appeal to women of keen, intellectual sympathies, and tastes conforming to the ideals of the new era.

As for Mendelssohn's friends who flocked to his hospitable home--their names are household words in the history of German literature. Nicolai and Lessing must be mentioned before all others, but no one came to Berlin without seeking Moses Mendelssohn--Goethe, Herder, Wieland, Hennings, Abt, Campe, Moritz, Jerusalem. Joachim Campe has left an account of his visit at Mendelssohn's house, which is probably a just picture of its attractions.[82] He says: "On a Friday afternoon, my wife and myself, together with some of the distinguished representatives of Berlin scholarship, visited Mendelssohn. We were chatting over our coffee, when Mendelssohn, about an hour before sundown, rose from his seat with the words: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I must leave you to receive the Sabbath. I shall be with you again presently; meantime my wife will enjoy your company doubly.' All eyes followed our amiable philosopher-host with reverent admiration as he withdrew to an adjoining room to recite the customary prayers. At the end of half an hour he returned, his face radiant, and seating himself, he said to his wife: 'Now I am again at my post, and shall try for once to do the honors in your place. Our friends will certainly excuse you, while you fulfil your religious duties.' Mendelssohn's wife excused herself, joined her family, consecrated the Sabbath by lighting the Sabbath lamp, and returned to us. We stayed on for some hours." Is it possible to conceive of a more touching picture?

When d.u.c.h.ess Dorothea of Kurland, and her sister Elise von der Recke were living at Friedrichsfelde near Berlin in 1785, they invited Mendelssohn, whom they were eager to know, to visit them. When dinner was announced, Mendelssohn was not to be found. The companion of the two ladies writes in her journal:[83] "He had quietly slipped away to the inn at which he had ordered a frugal meal. From a motive entirely worthy I am sure, this philosopher never permits himself to be invited to a meal at a Christian's house. Not to be deprived of Mendelssohn's society too long, the d.u.c.h.ess rose from the table as soon as possible."

Mendelssohn returned, stayed a long time, and, on bidding adieu to the d.u.c.h.ess, he said: "To-day, I have had a chat with mind."

This was Berlin society at Mendelssohn's time, and its toleration and humanity are the more to be valued as the majority of Jews by no means emulated Mendelssohn's enlightened example. All their energies were absorbed in the effort of compliance with the charter of Frederick the Great, which imposed many vexatious restrictions. On marrying, they were still compelled to buy the inferior porcelain made by the royal manufactory. The whole of the Jewish community continued to be held responsible for a theft committed by one of its members. Jews were not yet permitted to become manufacturers. Bankrupt Jews, without investigation of each case, were considered cheats. Their use of land and waterways was hampered by many petty obstructions. In every field an insurmountable barrier rose between them and their Christian fellow-citizens. Mendelssohn's great task was the moral and spiritual regeneration of his brethren in faith. In all disputes his word was final. He hoped to bring about reforms by influencing his people's inner life. Schools were founded, and every means used to further culture and education, but he met with much determined opposition among his fellow-believers. Of Ephraim, the debaser of the coin, we have spoken; also of the king's manner towards Jews. Here is another instance of his brusqueness: Abraham Posner begged for permission to shave his beard.

Frederick wrote on the margin of his pet.i.tion: "_Der Jude Posner soll mich und seinen Bart ungesch.o.r.en la.s.sen._"

Lawsuits of Jews against French and German traders made a great stir in those days. It was only after much annoyance that a naturalization patent was obtained by the family of Daniel Itzig, the father-in-law of David Friedlander, founder of the Jews' Free School in Berlin. In other cases, no amount of effort could secure the patent, the king saying: "Whatever concerns your trade is well and good. But I cannot permit you to settle tribes of Jews in Berlin, and turn it into a young Jerusalem."--

This is a picture of Jewish society in Berlin one hundred years ago. It united the most diverse currents and tendencies, emanating from romanticism, cla.s.sicism, reform, orthodoxy, love of trade, and efforts for spiritual regeneration. In all this queer tangle, Moses Mendelssohn alone stands untainted, his form enveloped in pure, white light.

LEOPOLD ZUNZ[84]

We are a.s.sembled for the solemn duty of paying a tribute to the memory of him whose name graces our lodge. A twofold interest attaches us to Leopold Zunz, appealing, as he does, to our local pride, and, beyond and above that, to our Jewish feelings. Leopold Zunz was part of the Berlin of the past, every trace of which is vanishing with startling rapidity.

Men, houses, streets are disappearing, and soon naught but a memory will remain of old Berlin, not, to be sure, a City Beautiful, yet filled for him that knew it with charming a.s.sociations. A precious remnant of this dear old Berlin was buried forever, when, on one misty day of the spring of 1886, we consigned to their last resting place the mortal remains of Leopold Zunz. Memorial addresses are apt to abound in such expressions as "immortal," "imperishable," and in flowery tributes. This one shall not indulge in them, although to no one could they more fittingly be applied than to Leopold Zunz, a pioneer in the labyrinth of science, and the architect of many a stately palace adorning the path but lately discovered by himself. Surely, such an one deserves the cordial recognition and enduring grat.i.tude of posterity.

Despite the fact that Zunz was born at Detmold (August 10, 1794), he was an integral part of old Berlin--a Berlin citizen, not by birth, but by vocation, so to speak. His being was intertwined with its life by a thousand tendrils of intellectual sympathy. The city, in turn, or, to be topographically precise, the district between _Mauerstra.s.se_ and _Rosenstra.s.se_ knew and loved him as one of its public characters. Time was when his witticisms leapt from mouth to mouth in the circuit between the Varnhagen _salon_ and the synagogue in the _Heidereuterga.s.se_, everywhere finding appreciative listeners. An observer stationed _Unter den Linden_ daily for more than thirty years might have seen a peculiar couple stride briskly towards the _Thiergarten_ in the early afternoon.

The loungers at Spargnapani's _cafe_ regularly interrupted their endless newspaper reading to crane their necks and say to one another, "There go Dr. Zunz and his wife."

In his obituary notice of the poet Mosenthal, Franz Dingelstedt roguishly says: "He was of poor, albeit Jewish parentage." The same applies to Zunz, only the saying would be truer, if not so witty, in this form: "He was of Jewish, hence of poor, parentage." Among German Jews throughout the middle ages and up to the first half of this century, poverty was the rule, a comfortable competency a rare exception, wealth an unheard of condition. But Jewish poverty was relieved of sordidness by a precious gift of the old rabbis, who said: "Have a tender care of the children of the poor; from them goeth forth the Law"; an admonition and a prediction destined to be ill.u.s.trated in the case of Zunz. Very early he lost his mother, and the year 1805 finds him bereft of both parents, under the shelter and in the loving care of an inst.i.tution founded by a pious Jew in Wolfenb.u.t.tel. Here he was taught the best within the reach of German Jews of the day, the _alpha_ and _omega_ of whose knowledge and teaching were comprised in the Talmud. The Wolfenb.u.t.tel school may be called progressive, inasmuch as a teacher, watchmaker by trade and novel-writer by vocation, was engaged to give instruction four times a week in the three R's. We may be sure that those four lessons were not given with unvarying regularity.

In his scholastic home, Leopold Zunz met Isaac Marcus Jost, a waif like himself, later the first Jewish historian, to whom we owe interesting details of Zunz's early life. In his memoirs[85] he tells the following: "Zunz had been entered as a pupil before I arrived. Even in those early days there were evidences of the ac.u.men of the future critic. He was dominated by the spirit of contradiction. On the sly we studied grammar, his cleverness helping me over many a stumbling-block. He was very witty, and wrote a lengthy Hebrew satire on our tyrants, from which we derived not a little amus.e.m.e.nt as each part was finished. Unfortunately, the misdemeanor was detected, and the _corpus delicti_ consigned to the flames, but the sobriquet _chotsuf_ (impudent fellow) clung to the writer."

It is only just to admit that in this _Beth ha-Midrash_ Zunz laid the foundation of the profound, comprehensive scholarship on Talmudic subjects, the groundwork of his future achievements as a critic. The circ.u.mstance that both these embryo historians had to draw their first information about history from the Jewish German paraphrase of "Yosippon," an historical compilation, is counterbalanced by careful instruction in Rabbinical literature, whose labyrinthine ways soon became paths of light to them.

A new day broke, and in its sunlight the condition of affairs changed.

In 1808 the _Beth ha-Midrash_ was suddenly transformed into the "Samsonschool," still in useful operation. It became a primary school, conducted on approved pedagogic principles, and Zunz and Jost were among the first registered under the new, as they had been under the old, administration. Though the one was thirteen, and the other fourteen years old, they had to begin with the very rudiments of reading and writing. Campe's juvenile books were the first they read. A year later finds them engaged in secretly studying Greek, Latin, and mathematics during the long winter evenings, by the light of bits of candles made by themselves of drippings from the great wax tapers in the synagogue.

After another six months, Zunz was admitted to the first cla.s.s of the Wolfenb.u.t.tel, and Jost to that of the Brunswick, _gymnasium_. It characterizes the men to say that Zunz was the first, and Jost the third, Jew in Germany to enter a _gymnasium_. Now progress was rapid.

The cla.s.ses of the _gymnasium_ were pa.s.sed through with astounding ease, and in 1811, with a minimum of luggage, but a very considerable mental equipment, Zunz arrived in Berlin, never to leave it except for short periods. He entered upon a course in philology at the newly founded university, and after three years of study, he was in the unenviable position to be able to tell himself that he had attained to--nothing.

For, to what could a cultured Jew attain in those days, unless he became a lawyer or a physician? The Hardenberg edict had opened academical careers to Jews, but when Zunz finished his studies, that provision was completely forgotten. So he became a preacher. A rich Jew, Jacob Herz Beer, the father of two highly gifted sons, Giacomo and Michael Beer, had established a private synagogue in his house, and here officiated Edward Kley, C. Gunsburg, J. L. Auerbach, and, from 1820 to 1822, Leopold Zunz. It is not known why he resigned his position, but to infer that he had been forced to embrace the vocation of a preacher by the stress of circ.u.mstances is unjust. At that juncture he probably would have chosen it, if he had been offered the rectorship of the Berlin university; for, he was animated by somewhat of the spirit that urged the prophets of old to proclaim and fulfil their mission in the midst of storms and in despite of threatening dangers.

Zunz's sermons delivered from 1820 to 1822 in the first German reform temple are truly instinct with the prophetic spirit. The breath of a mighty enthusiasm rises from the yellowed pages. Every word testifies that they were indited by a writer of puissant individuality, disengaged from the shackles of conventional homiletics, and boldly striking out on untrodden paths. In the Jewish Berlin of the day, a rationalistic, half-cultured generation, swaying irresolutely between Mendelssohn and Schleiermacher, these new notes awoke sympathetic echoes. But scarcely had the music of his voice become familiar, when it was hushed. In 1823, a royal cabinet order prohibited the holding of the Jewish service in German, as well as every other innovation in the ritual, and so German sermons ceased in the synagogue. Zunz, who had spoken like Moses, now held his peace like Aaron, in modesty and humility, yielding to the inevitable without rancor or repining, always loyal to the exalted ideal which inspired him under the most depressing circ.u.mstances. He dedicated his sermons, delivered at a time of religious enthusiasm, to "youth at the crossroads," whom he had in mind throughout, in the hope that they might "be found worthy to lead back to the Lord hearts, which, through deception or by reason of stubbornness, have fallen away from Him."

The rescue of the young was his ideal. At the very beginning of his career he recognized that the old were beyond redemption, and that, if response and confidence were to be won from the young, the expounding of the new Judaism was work, not for the pulpit, but for the professor's chair. "Devotional exercises and balmy lotions for the soul" could not heal their wounds. It was imperative to bring their latent strength into play. Knowing this to be his pedagogic principle, we shall not go far wrong, if we suppose that in the organization of the "Society for Jewish Culture and Science" the initial step was taken by Leopold Zunz. In 1819 when the mobs of Wurzburg, Hamburg, and Frankfort-on-the-Main revived the "Hep, hep!" cry, three young men, Edward Gans, Moses Moser, and Leopold Zunz conceived the idea of a society with the purpose of bringing Jews into harmony with their age and environment, not by forcing upon them views of alien growth, but by a rational training of their inherited faculties. Whatever might serve to promote intelligence and culture was to be nurtured: schools, seminaries, academies, were to be erected, literary aspirations fostered, and all public-spirited enterprises aided; on the other hand, the rising generation was to be induced to devote itself to arts, trades, agriculture, and the applied sciences; finally, the strong inclination to commerce on the part of Jews was to be curbed, and the tone and conditions of Jewish society radically changed--lofty goals for the attainment of which most limited means were at the disposal of the projectors. The first fruits of the society were the "Scientific Inst.i.tute," and the "Journal for the Science of Judaism," published in the spring of 1822, under the editorship of Zunz. Only three numbers appeared, and they met with so small a sale that the cost of printing was not realized. Means were inadequate, the plans magnificent, the times above all not ripe for such ideals. The "Scientific Inst.i.tute" crumbled away, too, and in 1823, the society was breathing its last. Zunz poured out the bitterness of his disappointment in a letter written in the summer of 1824 to his Hamburg friend Immanuel Wohlwill:

"I am so disheartened that I can nevermore believe in Jewish reform. A stone must be thrown at this phantasm to make it vanish. Good Jews are either Asiatics, or Christians (unconscious thereof), besides a small minority consisting of myself and a few others, the possibility of mentioning whom saves me from the imputation of conceit, though, truth to say, the bitterness of irony cares precious little for the forms of good society. Jews, and the Judaism which we wish to reconstruct, are a prey to disunion, and the booty of vandals, fools, money-changers, idiots, and _parna.s.sim_.[86] Many a change of season will pa.s.s over this generation, and leave it unchanged: internally ruptured; rushing into the arms of Christianity, the religion of expediency; without stamina and without principle; one section thrust aside by Europe, and vegetating in filth with longing eyes directed towards the Messiah's a.s.s or other member of the long-eared fraternity; the other occupied with fingering state securities and the pages of a cyclopaedia, and constantly oscillating between wealth and bankruptcy, oppression and tolerance.

Their own science is dead among Jews, and the intellectual concerns of European nations do not appeal to them, because, faithless to themselves, they are strangers to abstract truth and slaves of self-interest. This abject wretchedness is stamped upon their penny-a-liners, their preachers, councillors, const.i.tutions, _parna.s.sim_, t.i.tles, meetings, inst.i.tutions, subscriptions, their literature, their book-trade, their representatives, their happiness, and their misfortune. No heart, no feeling! All a medley of prayers, banknotes, and _rachmones_,[87] with a few strains of enlightenment and _chilluk_![88]--

Now, my friend, after so revolting a sketch of Judaism, you will hardly ask why the society and the journal have vanished into thin air, and are missed as little as the temple, the school, and the rights of citizenship. The society might have survived despite its splitting up into sections. That was merely a mistake in management. The truth is that it never had existence. Five or six enthusiasts met together, and like Moses ventured to believe that their spirit would communicate itself to others. That was self-deception. _The only imperishable possession rescued from this deluge is the science of Judaism. It lives even though not a finger has been raised in its service since hundreds of years. I confess that, barring submission to the judgment of G.o.d, I find solace only in the cultivation of the science of Judaism._

As for myself, those rough experiences of mine shall a.s.suredly not persuade me into a course of action inconsistent with my highest aspirations. I did what I held my duty. I ceased to preach, not in order to fall away from my own words, but because I realized that I was preaching in the wilderness. _Sapienti sat_.... After all that I have said, you will readily understand that I cannot favor an unduly ostentatious mode of dissolution. Such a course would be prompted by the vanity of the puffed-out frog in the fable, and affect the Jews ... as little as all that has gone before. There is nothing for the members to do but to remain unshaken, and radiate their influence in their limited circles, leaving all else to G.o.d."

The man who wrote these words, it is hard to realize, had not yet pa.s.sed his thirtieth year, but his aim in life was perfectly defined. He knew the path leading to his goal, and--most important circ.u.mstance--never deviated from it until he attained it. His activity throughout life shows no inconsistency with his plans. It is his strength of character, rarest of attributes in a time of universal defection from the Jewish standard, that calls for admiration, accorded by none so readily as by his companions in arms. Casting up his own spiritual accounts, Heinrich Heine in the latter part of his life wrote of his friend Zunz:[89] "In the instability of a transition period he was characterized by incorruptible constancy, remaining true, despite his ac.u.men, his scepticism, and his scholarship, to self-imposed promises, to the exalted hobby of his soul. A man of thought and action, he created and worked when others hesitated, and sank discouraged," or, what Heine prudently omitted to say, deserted the flag, and stealthily slunk out of the life of the oppressed.

In Zunz, strength of character was a.s.sociated with a mature, richly stored mind. He was a man of talent, of character, and of science, and this rare union of traits is his distinction. At a time when the majority of his co-religionists could not grasp the plain, elementary meaning of the phrase, "the science of Judaism," he made it the loadstar of his life.

Sad though it be, I fear that it is true that there are those of this generation who, after the lapse of years, are prompted to repeat the question put by Zunz's contemporaries, "What is the science of Judaism?"

Zunz gave a comprehensive answer in a short essay, "On Rabbinical Literature," published by Mauer in 1818:[90] "When the shadows of barbarism were gradually lifting from the mist-shrouded earth, and light universally diffused could not fail to strike the Jews scattered everywhere, a remnant of old Hebrew learning attached itself to new, foreign elements of culture, and in the course of centuries enlightened minds elaborated the heterogeneous ingredients into the literature called rabbinical." To this rabbinical, or, to use the more fitting name proposed by himself, this neo-Hebraic, Jewish literature and science, Zunz devoted his love, his work, his life. Since centuries this field of knowledge had been a trackless, uncultivated waste. He who would pa.s.s across, had need to be a pathfinder, robust and energetic, able to concentrate his mind upon a single aim, undisturbed by distracting influences. Such was Leopold Zunz, who sketched in bold, but admirably precise outlines the extent of Jewish science, marking the boundaries of its several departments, estimating its resources, and laying out the work and aims of the future. The words of the prophet must have appealed to him with peculiar force: "I remember unto thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thy espousals, thy going after me in the wilderness, through a land that is not sown."

Again, when there was question of cultivating the desert soil, and seeking for life under the rubbish, Zunz was the first to present himself as a laborer. The only fruit of the Society for Jewish Culture and Science, during the three years of its existence, was the "Journal for the Science of Judaism," and its publication was due exclusively to Zunz's perseverance. Though only three numbers appeared, a positive addition to our literature was made through them in Zunz's biographical essay on Rashi, the old master expounder of the Bible and the Talmud. By its arrangement of material, by its criticism and grouping of facts, and not a little by its brilliant style, this essay became the model for all future work on kindred subjects. When the society dissolved, and Zunz was left to enjoy undesired leisure, he continued to work on the lines laid down therein. Besides, Zunz was a political journalist, for many years political editor of "Spener's Journal," and a contributor to the _Gesellschafter_, the _Iris_, _Die Freimutigen_, and other publications of a literary character. From 1825 to 1829, he was a director of the newly founded Jewish congregational school; for one year he occupied the position of preacher at Prague; and from 1839 to 1849, the year of its final closing, he acted as trustee of the Jewish teachers' seminary in Berlin. Thereafter he had no official position.

As a politician he was a p.r.o.nounced democrat. Reading his political addresses to-day, after a lapse of half a century, we find in them the clearness and sagacity that distinguish the scientific productions of the investigator. Here is an extract from his words of consolation addressed to the families of the heroes of the March revolution of 1848:[91]

"They who walked our streets unnoticed, who meditated in their quiet studies, toiled in their workshops, cast up accounts in offices, sold wares in the shops, were suddenly transformed into valiant fighters, and we discovered them at the moment when like meteors they vanished. When they grew l.u.s.trous, they disappeared from our sight, and when they became our deliverers, we lost the opportunity of thanking them. Death has made them great and precious to us. Departing they poured unmeasured wealth upon us all, who were so poor. Our heads, parched like a summer sky, produced no fruitful rain of magnanimous thoughts. The hearts in our bosoms, turned into stone, were bereft of human sympathies. Vanity and illusions were our idols; lies and deception poisoned our lives; l.u.s.t and avarice dictated our actions; a h.e.l.l of immorality and misery, corroding every inst.i.tution, heated the atmosphere to suffocation, until black clouds gathered, a storm of the nations raged about us, and purifying streaks of lightning darted down upon the barricades and into the streets. Through the storm-wind, I saw chariots of fire and horses of fire bearing to heaven the men of G.o.d who fell fighting for right and liberty. I hear the voice of G.o.d, O ye that weep, knighting your dear ones. The freedom of the press is their patent of n.o.bility, our hearts, their monuments. Every one of us, every German, is a mourner, and you, survivors, are no longer abandoned."

In an election address of February 1849,[92] Zunz says: "The first step towards liberty is to miss liberty, the second, to seek it, the third, to find it. Of course, many years may pa.s.s between the seeking and the finding." And further on: "As an elector, I should give my vote for representatives only to men of principle and immaculate reputation, who neither hesitate nor yield; who cannot be made to say cold is warm, and warm is cold; who disdain legal subtleties, diplomatic intrigues, lies of whatever kind, even when they redound to the advantage of the party.

Such are worthy of the confidence of the people, because conscience is their monitor. They may err, for to err is human, but they will never deceive."

Twelve years later, on a similar occasion, he uttered the following prophetic words:[93] "A genuinely free form of government makes a people free and upright, and its representatives are bound to be champions of liberty and progress. If Prussia, unfurling the banner of liberty and progress, will undertake to provide us with such a const.i.tution, our self-confidence, energy, and trustfulness will return. Progress will be the fundamental principle of our lives, and out of our united efforts to advance it will grow a firm, indissoluble union. Now, then, Germans! Be resolved, all of you, to attain the same goal, and your will shall be a storm-wind scattering like chaff whatever is old and rotten. In your struggle for a free country, you will have as allies the army of mighty minds that have suffered for right and liberty in the past. Now you are split up into tribes and clans, held together only by the bond of language and a cla.s.sic literature. You will grow into a great nation, if but all brother-tribes will join us. Then Germany, strongly secure in the heart of Europe, will be able to put an end to the quailing before attacks from the East or the West, and cry a halt to war. The empire, some one has said, means peace. Verily, with Prussia at its head, the German empire means peace."

Such utterances are characteristic of Zunz, the politician. His best energies and efforts, however, were devoted to his researches. Science, he believed, would bring about amelioration of political conditions; science, he hoped, would preserve Judaism from the storms and calamities of his generation, for the fulfilment of its historical mission.

Possessed by this idea, he wrote _Die Gottesdienstlichen Vortrage der Juden_ ("Jewish Homiletics," 1832), the basis of the future science of Judaism, the first clearing in the primeval forest of rabbinical writings, through which the pioneer led his followers with steady step and hand, as though walking on well trodden ground. Heinrich Heine, who appreciated Zunz at his full worth, justly reckoned this book "among the noteworthy productions of the higher criticism," and another reviewer with equal justice ranks it on a level with the great works of Bockh, Diez, Grimm, and others of that period, the golden age of philological research in Germany.

Like almost all that Zunz wrote, _Die Gottesdienstlichen Vortrage der Juden_ was the result of a polemic need. By nature Zunz was a controversialist. Like a sentinel upon the battlements, he kept a sharp lookout upon the land. Let the Jews be threatened with injustice by ruler, statesman, or scholar, and straightway he attacked the enemy with the weapons of satire and science. One can fancy that the cabinet order prohibiting German sermons in the synagogue, and so stifling the ambition of his youth, awakened the resolve to trace the development of the sermon among Jews, and show that thousands of years ago the well-spring of religious instruction bubbled up in Judah's halls of prayer, and has never since failed, its wealth of waters overflowing into the popular Midrash, the repository of little known, unappreciated treasures of knowledge and experience, acc.u.mulated in the course of many centuries.

In the preface to this book, Zunz, the democrat, says that for his brethren in faith he demands of the European powers, "not rights and liberties, but right and liberty. Deep shame should mantle the cheek of him who, by means of a patent of n.o.bility conferred by favoritism, is willing to rise above his _co-religionists_, while the law of the land brands him by a.s.signing him a place among the lowest of his _co-citizens_. Only in the rights common to all citizens can we find satisfaction; only in unquestioned equality, the end of our pain.

Liberty unshackling the hand to fetter the tongue; tolerance delighting not in our progress, but in our decay; citizenship promising protection without honor, imposing burdens without holding out prospects of advancement; they all, in my opinion, are lacking in love and justice, and such baneful elements in the body politic must needs engender pestiferous diseases, affecting the whole and its every part."

Zunz sees a connection between the civil disabilities of the Jews and their neglect of Jewish science and literature. Untrammelled, instructive speech he accounts the surest weapon. Hence the homilies of the Jews appear to him to be worthy, and to stand in need, of historical investigation, and the results of his research into their origin, development, and uses, from the time of Ezra to the present day, are laid down in this epoch-making work.

The law forbidding the bearing of German names by Jews provoked Zunz's famous and influential little book, "The Names of the Jews," like most of his later writings polemic in origin, in which respect they remind one of Lessing's works.

In the ardor of youth Zunz had borne the banner of reform; in middle age he became convinced that the young generation of iconoclasts had rushed far beyond the ideal goal of the reform movement cherished in his visions. As he had upheld the age and sacred uses of the German sermon against the a.s.saults of the orthodox; so for the benefit and instruction of radical reformers, he expounded the value and importance of the Hebrew liturgy in profound works, which appeared during a period of ten years, crystallizing the results of a half-century's severe application.

They rounded off the symmetry of his spiritual activity. For, when Midrashic inspiration ceased to flow, the _piut_--synagogue poetry--established itself, and the transformation from the one into the other was the active principle of neo-Hebraic literature for more than a thousand years. Zunz's vivifying sympathies knit the old and the new into a wondrously firm historical thread. Nowhere have the harmony and continuity of Jewish literary development found such adequate expression as in his _Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters_ ("Synagogue Poetry of the Middle Ages," 1855), _Ritus des synagogalen Gottesdienstes_ ("The Ritual of the Synagogue," 1859), and _Litteraturgeschichte der synagogalen Poesie_ ("History of Synagogue Poetry," 1864), the capstone of his literary endeavors.

In his opinion, the only safeguard against error lies in the pursuit of science, not, indeed, dryasdust science, but science in close touch with the exuberance of life regulated by high-minded principles, and transfigured by ideal hopes. Sermons and prayers in harmonious relation, he believed,[94] will "enable some future generation to enjoy the fruits of a progressive, rational policy, and it is meet that science and poetry should be permeated with ideas serving the furtherance of such policy. Education is charged with the task of moulding enlightened minds to think the thoughts that prepare for right-doing, and warm, enthusiastic hearts to execute commendable deeds. For, after all is said and done, the well-being of the community can only grow out of the intelligence and the moral life of each member. Every individual that strives to apprehend the harmony of human and divine elements attains to membership in the divine covenant. The divine is the aim of all our thoughts, actions, sentiments, and hopes. It invests our lives with dignity, and supplies a moral basis for our relations to one another.

Well, then, let us hope for redemption--for the universal recognition of a form of government under which the rights of man are respected. Then free citizens will welcome Jews as brethren, and Israel's prayers will be offered up by mankind."

These are samples of the thoughts underlying Zunz's great works, as well as his numerous smaller, though not less important, productions: biographical and critical essays, legal opinions, sketches in the history of literature, reviews, scientific inquiries, polemical and literary fragments, collected in his work _Zur Geschichte und Litteratur_ ("Contributions to History and Literature," 1873), and in three volumes of collected writings. Since the publication of his "History of Synagogue Poetry," Zunz wrote only on rare occasions. His last work but one was _Deutsche Briefe_ (1872) on German language and German intellect, and his last, an incisive and liberal contribution to Bible criticism (_Studie zur Bibelkritik_, 1874), published in the _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft_ in Leipsic.

From that time on, when the death of his beloved wife, Adelheid Zunz, a most faithful helpmate, friend, counsellor, and support, occurred, he was silent.

Zunz had pa.s.sed his seventieth year when his "History of Synagogue Poetry" appeared. He could permit himself to indulge in well-earned rest, and from the vantage-ground of age inspect the bustling activity of a new generation of friends and disciples on the once neglected field of Jewish science.

Often as the cause of religion and civil liberty received a check at one place or another, during those long years when he stood aside from the turmoil of life, a mere looker-on, he did not despair; he continued to hope undaunted. Under his picture he wrote sententiously: "Thought is strong enough to vanquish arrogance and injustice without recourse to arrogance and injustice."

Zunz's life and work are of incalculable importance to the present age and to future generations. With eagle vision he surveyed the whole domain of Jewish learning, and traced the lines of its development.

Constructive as well as critical, he raised widely scattered fragments to the rank of a literature which may well claim a place beside the literatures of the nations. Endowed with rare strength of character, he remained unflinchingly loyal to his ancestral faith, "the exalted hobby of his soul"--a model for three generations. Jewish literature owes to him a scientific style. He wrote epigrammatic, incisive, perspicuous German, stimulating and suggestive, such as Lessing used. The reform movement he supported as a legitimate development of Judaism on historical lines. On the other hand, he fostered loyalty to Judaism by lucidly presenting to young Israel the value of his faith, his intellectual heritage, and his treasures of poetry. Zunz, then, is the originator of a momentous phase in our development, producing among its adherents as among outsiders a complete revolution in the appreciation of Judaism, its religious and intellectual aspects. Together with self-knowledge he taught his brethren self-respect. He was, in short, a clear thinker and acute critic; a German, deeply attached to his beloved country, and fully convinced of the supremacy of German mind; at the same time, an ardent believer in Judaism, imbued with some of the spirit of the prophets, somewhat of the strength of Jewish heroes and martyrs, who sacrificed life for their conviction, and with dying lips made the ancient confession: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our G.o.d, the Lord is one!"

His name is an abiding possession for our nation; it will not perish from our memory. "Good night, my prince! O that angel choirs might lull thy slumbers!"