A Sermon contra Naphtali Herts Wessely

David Tevele

1782

Beware! This man, Wessely, is an impious man. Beware, do not draw near to him! God, the Lord of Hosts, knows that for the sake of the glory of your Holy Torah I have come this day to hew down he who tramples upon the heads of your Holy People, and to make known to You the evil machinations of this man. In my perusal of his small book I have noted…

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Creator Bio

David Tevele

d. 1792

Born in Brody, Galicia, David Tevele held a major rabbinic pulpit in Lissa, Silesia. Tevele is best known for his antipathy to the educational reforms of Naphtali Herts Wessely, with whom he had a public controversy over secular education, outlined in Tevele's A Sermon contra Naphtali Herts Wessely. Although Tevele sought to ban the publication of Wessely's writings, Moses Mendelssohn and David Friedländer prevented his wishes from being carried out.

Related Guide

Rabbinic Scholarship, 1750–1880

Despite the challenges of the early modern period, rabbinic scholarship flourished in Central and Eastern Europe in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. 

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