On Emancipation and Jewish Education

Throughout the duration of the exile of Israel, Jews worshiped God in awe, and from the time that freedom was granted to them and the exile of the body was made easier, the exile of the soul increased. That is because as long as we were regarded in their [Austro-Hungarian imperial] eyes as of little value, we, the children of Israel, were not required to violate Shabbat with the army recruits. They did not force fathers to separate their sons from the Torah in their childhood, and many such things like this. [But now, after Emancipation,] since all the official positions [in the Austro-Hungarian Empire] became open to every Jew, many of Israel stumbled [into sin] by accepting some office, as it is known that only in one out of a thousand appointments would it be possible to observe the holy Torah. Therefore, due to our many sins, the prophetic saying that many shall stumble [into sin] before the time of the end [see Isaiah 8:15] has come true. This, I say, can give new meaning to what we say [in the morning prayer]: “Remember what you swore to our forefathers, ‘like the stars of the sky will I multiply your seed,’ and see how now we remain a few out of many.”¹ Now the words out of many seem to be superfluous, since from the words we remain a few we could already tell that we had been many. However, in my humble opinion, both phrases are necessary, and they both tell us about our generation. For in truth, if we have remained only a few, that would not be so bad after all, because the Holy One “did not choose you because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of people” (Deuteronomy 7:7). The problem is that today there are many Jews, but due to our many sins, only a few truly cling in truth to the commandments of our holy Torah, and this condition, in which many Jews are caught in the trap of heresy and disbelief, dwindles [the Jewish people] by much [and is truly bad]. And it is on this that we say [in prayer] that “now we remain a few out of many,” for there are many Israelites and nevertheless we remain a few [who are truly Jews].

And all of this has come forth since the emancipation of the Jews, and due to our many sins, the study of Torah is “cast aside to a corner” [b. Kiddushin 66a]. Otherwise, they would not be seduced so quickly into nonobservance, for if they had studied Torah they would have seen in the Talmud how the holy sages gave up their body and soul so as not to transgress even less-severe commandments, such as Rabbi Akiva, who said, “It would be better to die of thirst than to transgress the law of washing hands” [b. Eruvin 21b], and the like. But since the people of our generation are so smart, everyone is ashamed if his son is not expert in [secular] learning, and they have also become so merciful, saying that the generation is weak and the children do not have the strength to study Torah. Hence they rob their offspring [of Torah learning], and these children grow up unable to distinguish good from evil. It is not a wonder that for a little monetary gain, they leave our holy Torah like Esau, who sold his birthright for a lentil stew. Indeed, we have seen that from the time they shouted with a loud voice all over the world that we people are brothers (Genesis 13:8), the exile of the soul greatly worsened.