Moses Mendelssohn: Portrait of a Life for Jewish Youths

In those days, but especially since the year 1740, when Frederick the Great ascended the throne, various social circles in Berlin began zealously to acquire intellectual knowledge. Even among individual Jews in the Prussian capital a secret desire for German learning evolved. It began to dawn on Jewish society that their former mode of education had led to deep pockets of ignorance and that the barriers separating Jews from their Christian fellow citizens could be broken down and overcome through the acquisition of a German education.

The young Moses, called “Mendelssohn” by one of the guards at the Rosenthal Gate,¹ had quickly arrived at this insight. [ . . . ]

But how could the poor, weak Talmud student possibly carry out his resolution? He did not possess the necessary means. Indeed, he mustn’t even hint at what he intended to do. Because at that time, Jews who held on tight to tradition and fought any kind of reform looked on German education as equal to an abandonment of God. They considered German sciences and secular knowledge, in general, a danger for religion and the Jewish people. In most regions, Polish rabbis were the spiritual leader who opposed with hot zeal every step toward breaking down the barriers that closed Jews off from their fellow citizens of different faiths. They fought against the reformers who instead of the usual gibberish, the Jewish-German mishmash language that was prevalent among the Jews of Poland, used pure German as their vernacular. But in particular they abhorred a preoccupation with the creations of German literature. This is because they recognized that German cultivation and German character could only be acquired from these treasures. Woe to the one in whose possession a German book was found! But three times woe to the foreign Jews, who were only tolerated and who were in constant danger of being expelled. They were legally under the jurisdiction of the head of the Jewish community who did not deny assistance to the zealous rabbis.

Mendelssohn, too, exposed himself to grave danger in carrying out his resolution. But he faced it courageously. He soon learned to speak and write in German and began with great ardor to drink from the fountain of non-Jewish knowledge. There was no difficulty that he was not prepared to overcome. He incurred the danger of discovery and was unperturbed by the thought that if his doings were discovered he would be escorted back out through the Rosenthal Gate. Furtively he tried to acquire German books. Until late at night he read them in the dim light of a flickering candle and greedily devoured what they contained. Whatever printed materials in German he could obtain, he read irrespective of their content. [ . . . ]

In one of the ugly houses built in close proximity to the St. Nicholas Church in Berlin, two flights up in a tiny room, lived a young poet who was the same age as Mendelssohn. That poet was Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.

At the time Lessing lived in great poverty. But his knowledge was enormous. He was fond of gathering around himself a small circle of friends and acquaintances. He loved lively interactions and enjoyed exchanging ideas with people of a similar bent. It was often very colorful in his little room. Young poets, actors, artists—and even Jews gathered there. One of them was [Aaron Solomon] Gumperz. Since Lessing enjoyed playing chess, Gumperz recommended Mendelssohn as an experienced player. It is quite likely that Gumperz kindly wanted to provide his former student with another opportunity to advance his intellectual and social education.

Lessing received Mendelssohn with pleasure in his modest home. He had already heard him praised for his superb command of several fields of knowledge. Mendelssohn too was delighted about the new acquaintance because he held Lessing in high esteem as a German scholar. His regard for him would be raised when Lessing dared not only to come out on behalf of the adherents to Judaism in his play The Jews but to prove publicly just how unfair it was to treat the Jews with hatred and contempt. [ . . . ]

The introduction of a purely German vernacular among the Jews was for Mendelssohn one of the most important tasks that had to be accomplished. No “jargon,” no admixture of German and Hebrew! That was his command. He had realized that the discrimination of his fellow Jews was caused in no small measure by the fact that they anxiously refrained from using German and shied away from adopting German forms of behavior.

Hence the resolution grew in him to teach them to speak German and to educate them to be Germans. He wanted to begin this work with the younger generation. While absorbing the word of God, the young were to be lead down the road of German culture. Toward this purpose, he worked on a translation of the Five Books of Moses into German. [ . . . ]

Mendelssohn’s translation of the Pentateuch and Psalms exerted the most powerful and lasting influence on the intellectual development of Jewry. It is possible to claim that with their appearance a new age began for the Jewish people. Mendelssohn’s translation became the teacher of the German Jews not only with regard to the understanding of Scripture itself, but also, and chiefly, with regard to the German language. It also became the teacher of Jewish youths. It opened their minds and hearts to German culture. Jewish boys learned to understand the word of God while being exposed to the pure sounds of the German mother tongue. They learned to think and feel in the German language with rapidly growing independence.

A remarkable consequence of the translation was that the entire instruction of Jewish youth was transformed. [ . . . ]

As a result of the general striving of the Jews to become educated, their standing in society changed. In order to ease the path to learning, schools were founded. Mendelssohn himself, along with David Friedländer and Daniel Itzig, established the Berliner Freyschule [Free School of Berlin]. [ . . . ]

Thus Mendelssohn witnessed that which he had most desired came to pass. Culture and morality spread further and further among his fellow Jews. They grew ever more mature and capable of inner freedom, which enabled them to participate in external freedom and enjoy its blessings, a civic good that was still withheld from them under the pretense that they had not yet achieved the necessary ability.