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Solomon Dubno, His Eastern European Scholarship, and the German Haskalah

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Zuzanna Krzemien Solomon Dubno, His Eastern European Scholarship, and the German Haskalah This article examines the life and works of Solomon Dubno (1738–1813), an Eastern European intellectual who lived and worked in Berlin over a period of ten years. While he is remembered as an initiator of the publication Sefer netivot ha-shalom [Paths of Peace], and for his work on the commentary (Bi’ur) of Moses Mendelssohn’s Pentateuch translation,1 Dubno’s influence on the early German Jewish Enlightenment, as a commentator of the book of Genesis, has been largely forgotten. Following a dispute with Mendelssohn, Dubno abandoned the Bi’ur project and headed for Vilna. There, he persuaded several members of the rabbinical elite of the need to create a new Bible commentary under his authorship, which could be published together with the Aramaic translation of Onkelos. He aimed to facilitate a correct understanding of the sacred text among Eastern European Jews, for whom Mendelssohn’s translation was not easily understandable, and which was regarded as a German textbook rather than a tool for enhanced study of the Torah. In this way, Dubno combined the maskilic program of Berlin Jewry with the Eastern European reverence for a traditional religious education. The Life and Works of Solomon Dubno Solomon ben Yoel Dubno was a renowned scholar from Eastern Europe and a preeminent representative of the early Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), who found recognition among his contemporaries through his poetry and expertise in Hebrew grammar. He was educated under the tutelage of Solomon Chelm (1717–1781),2 whose Sha’arei ne’imah [Gates of Melody], a work on accentuation in 1 Moses Mendelssohn (ed.), Sefer netivot ha-shalom [Paths of Peace] (Berlin: George Friederich Starcke, 1780–1783). 2 It is unclear where and when Dubno studied under Chelm. According to Alexander Altmann and Gershom Scholem, Dubno’s instruction took place in Lemberg. Rehav Rubin claims that Chelm worked first as a rabbi in the city of Chelm, and subsequently received a rabbinical position in Zamosc in 1767 and in Lemberg in 1771. Since Dubno printed Chelm’s Sha’arei ne’im- ah in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1766 and immigrated to Amsterdam a year later, they must have met in Chelm. See Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (London: Litt- man Library of Jewish Civilisation, 1998), 354; Gershom Scholem, “Eduto shel rav shlomo dubno Open Access. © 2018 Zuzanna Krzemien, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110492484-003 Solomon Dubno, His Eastern European Scholarship, and the German Haskalah 47 the books of Job, Proverbs and Psalms, was published with Dubno’s commentary.3 In his late twenties, Dubno decided to leave his native Volhynia for Amsterdam, where he became acquainted with local Jewish followers of the Enlightenment and discovered a manuscript of Moses Hayyim Luzzatto’s La-yesharim tehillah, an alle- gorical drama written in 1743, which was not duly appreciated by the Jewish public until Dubno republished it with an introduction in 1780.4 After spending five years in the Dutch Republic, he moved to Berlin in 1772, where he lived for a decade before leaving for Eastern Europe as a result of his conflict with Mendelssohn. Dubno’s sojourn in Prussia was his most productive period in terms of literary and scholarly activity. He composed several poems,5 most notably Evel yahid,6 a eulogy of Jacob Emden (1697–1776), and became engaged in collaboration with Mendelssohn on the German Pentateuch translation. His last published composi- tion, Birkat yosef,7 praised a Vilna rabbi, Yosef Pesseles, for his financial support during Dubno’s stay in Lithuania, and advocated the study of neglected texts of the Tanakh–the books of Prophets and Writings. Many unpublished works by Dubno testify to the versatility of his interests, which included both science and halakhah.8 Through contact with Amsterdam and Berlin Jewry, Dubno’s intellectual horizons, which until his journey westwards rested mainly on rabbinical educa- tion, were expanded by the ideas of the Enlightenment, to which Dubno was indi- rectly exposed thanks to his acquaintance with Moses Mendelssohn. However, their collaboration ended in a dispute,9 as a result of which Dubno decided to al ha-hasidut” in Ha-shalav ha-aharon: mehkarei ha-hasidut shel gershom shalom [The Latest Phase: Essays on Hasidism by Gershom Scholem], David Assaf and Esther Liebes (eds.) (Jerusalem: Am Oved Publishers, The Hebrew University Magnet Press, 2008), 177; Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. “Chelm, Solomon ben Moses,” 4, 589; Rehav Rubin, “Ḥug ha-ʾareṣ by Rabbi Solomon of Chelm: An Early Geographical Treatise and Its Sources,” Aleph 8 (2008): 135–136. 3 Solomon Chelm, Sha’arei ne’imah [Gates of Melody] (Frankfurt an der Oder: 1766). 4 Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, La-yesharim tehillah [Glory to the Righteous] (Berlin: 1780). 5 See for example: Solomon Dubno, Kol simhah [The Voice of Happiness] (Berlin: 1780). Dub- no’s poems were also included in Immanuel Solomon, Sefer mahberet tofet ve-ʿeden u-mahberet purim [Poem of Hell and Paradise and a Purim Poem] (Berlin: 1778); Naftali Wessely, Hokhmat shlomo [The Wisdom of Solomon] (Berlin: 1780). 6 Solomon Dubno, Evel yahid [Private Mourning] (Berlin: 1776). 7 Solomon Dubno, Birkat yosef [The Blessing of Joseph] (Dyhernfurth: 1783). 8 For example, see Solomon Dubno, Kelalei isur ve-heiter bi-shehitah [Precepts for Ritual Slaugh- tering], HS. ROS. 268, Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam; Solomon Dubno, Hibbur al ha- tekhunah, ha-filosofiah ve-ha-mistorin [Astrological, Philosophical and Mystical Treatise], HS. ROS. 577, Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam. 9 Dubno claims in Birkat yosef that finances where the main source of the conflict: “And some- times I quarreled a bit with those authors [whose works Dubno studied] and I proved that they 48 Zuzanna Krzemien devote himself to writing his own biblical commentary. Despite the fact that he was the initiator of the publication of Sefer netivot ha-shalom, Dubno’s role in that undertaking has often been underestimated by academics. Solomon Dubno and the Jewish Enlightenment The Haskalah emerged in eighteenth-century Prussia, and subsequently arose in other parts of Europe.10 The movement’s agenda was to revive Hebrew, to popu- larize secular knowledge (such as the sciences and modern languages) among the Jewish population, and to improve the position of Jews in society.11 Conse- quently, through its absorption of elements of the European Enlightenment and, in some cases, the advocacy of cultural integration, it ushered in the beginning of a new kind of relationship between Jews and Gentiles.12 In its early stages, the Haskalah was composed of individuals such as rabbis, doctors, and amateur scholars, though was not an organized movement.13 Dubno was one of several Eastern European Jews who immigrated to Western Europe in the early modern age due to the worsening economic situation in the Polish-Lithuanian were wrong in some points regarding the meaning of the tradition, and that they did not read it correctly. […] I have already published commentaries on the Books of Genesis and Exodus, which were welcomed by those who are wise in heart and knowledgeable, and by scholars. And if I was not stopped [in my work] […] because of someone’s desire of money that does not belong to him, […] who corrupted many with his hypocritical flattery, I would have already finished my commentary on the whole Torah.” See Solomon Dubno, Birkat Yosef, in David Kamenetsky, “Haskamot gedolei ha-rabanim le-humashim shel rabi shlomo dubno [Approbations of Great Rabbis to the Pentateuch by Rabbi Solomon Dubno]” (part 3), Yeshurun 10 (2002), 767. 10 While some scholars, such as Jacob Katz, believe that the Prussian Haskalah inspired Haska- lah movements in other locations, other academics, like David B. Ruderman, Israel Bartal, and Lois C. Dubin, refute this view and claim that Jewish enlightenments developed independently in different parts of Europe. See Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation, 1770–1870 (Syracuse University Press, 1973); David B. Ruderman, Jewish Enlight- enment in an English Key: Anglo-Jewry’s Construction of Modern Jewish Thought (Princeton Uni- versity Press, 2000); Israel Bartal, The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772–1881 (Philadelphia: Univer- sity of Pennsylvania Press, 2005); Lois C. Dubin, The Port Jews of Habsburg Trieste: Absolutist Politics and Enlightenment Culture (Stanford University Press, 1999). 11 Moshe Pelli, Haskalah and Beyond: The Reception of the Hebrew Enlightenment and the Emer- gence of Haskalah Judaism (University Press of America, 2012), 9–10. 12 Edward Breuer, The Limits of Enlightenment: Jews, Germans, and the Eighteenth-Century Study of Scripture (Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 1996), 15. 13 David Sorkin, The Berlin Haskalah and German Religious Thought: Orphans of Knowledge (Vallentine Mitchell, 2000), 62. Solomon Dubno, His Eastern European Scholarship, and the German Haskalah 49 Commonwealth, antisemitism, and the longing for more access to cultural and scholarly resources.14 Consequently, the immigration of Eastern European tutors would constitute a major source of religious education for the German-Jewish youth.15 Among the most noteworthy Polish advocates of the Prussian Haskalah were Barukh Schick of Shklov (1744–1808), Solomon Maimon (1753–1800), Menahem Mendel
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