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The Ground Floor of Judaism: Scepticism and Certainty in Moses Ze’ev Strauss The Ground Floor of Judaism: Scepticismand Certainty in Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem Introduction One of the central themes that Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalemoder über religiöse Machtund Judentum (Jerusalem or on Religious Power and Judaism)ispredicated upon is the notion of doubt.Yet in Jerusalem, Mendelssohn seems to employ not just one type, but rather awide array of varyingmodes of doubt. The following paper will set out to exploreMendelssohn’sequivocalapplication of doubtinJerusa- lem,and in so doing endeavour to demonstrate that he, despite his rather unfavour- able view of scepticism as a ‘disease of the soul’ (‘Krankheit der Seele’),¹ nonetheless drawsheavilyonit. Indeed, this is by no meansaforeign topic to Jewish thought: Alreadyinthe first century CE, the JewishPlatonist Philo of Alexandria resorted to Neo-Pyrrhonian and New Academicscepticism to substantiatethe ultimatemeta- physical truth of Jewish Scripture.² Similarly, we also find references to philosophical scepticism in the work of the medieval Jewish thinker Judah Halevi (1075 – 1141)and the Venetian Rabbi Simone Luzzatto (?1582–1663).³ Furthermore, the Jewish intellec- tual tradition can be understood as aconstant interplaybetween scepticism and dog- Moses Mendelssohn, JerusalemoronReligious Powerand Judaism,trans. Allan Arkus,Introduction and Commentary by Alexander Altmann (New England: University Press of New England, 1983): 66–67;idem, Jerusalemoder über religiöse Macht und Judentum,in, idem, Gesammelte Schriften. Ju- biläumsausgabe (JubA), vol. 8, eds.Ismar Elbogen, Julius Guttmann,Eugen Mittwoch, Alexander Alt- mann, EvaJ.Engel and Daniel Krochmalnik (Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1983): 134.Gideon Freudenthal has alreadypointed this out in his No Religion without Idolatry (Indiana: University of NotreDame Press, 2012): 22, 41– 42.Cf. also Jeremy Fogel, “Scepticism of Scepticism: On Mendels- sohn’sPhilosophyofCommon Sense,” Melilah 12 (2015): 61. Mendelssohn doesn’trefertoscepticism as ‘Seelenkrankheit’ onlyinhis Jerusalem,but also in his Morgenstunden oder Vorlesungen über das Daseyn Gottes (Berlin: Christian Friedrich Voß, 1785): 144(JubA 3.2, 72): ‘Atheismus und Aberglaube, Zweifelsucht und Schwärmerey,sind beides Krankheiten der Seele, die ihr den sittlichenTod andro- hen.’ Foradetailed analysis of Philo’sscepticism, see Carlos Lévy, “La conversion du scepticisme chez Philon d’Alexandrie,” in Philo of Alexandria and Post-Aristotelian Philosophy,ed. Francesca Alesse (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008): 103–120. ForLuzzatto’suse of sceptical strategies,see Bill Rebiger, “Sceptical Strategies in Simone Luzzat- to’sPresentation of the Kabbalists in his Discorso,” in Yearbookofthe Maimonides Centrefor Ad- vanced Studies 2017,ed. Bill Rebiger(Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2017): 51– 69;Giuseppe Veltri, Renaissance Philosophy in JewishGarb: Foundations and Challenges in Judaism on the Eve of Modernity (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009): 33– 36,107– 108;David B. Ruderman, “Scienceand Skepticism. Si- mone LuzzattoonPerceivingthe Natural World,” in idem, JewishThoughtand Scientific Discoveryin Early Modern Europe (Detroit: Wayne StateUniversity Press, 1995): 153–184 (5th Chapter). OpenAccess. ©2018 Ze’ev Strauss, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/978-3-11-057768-6-010 180 Ze’ev Strauss matism. However,the ideaofphilosophical doubt has led Mendelssohn—in contrast to the aforementioned Jewish thinkers—in acompletelydifferent direction: to an out- right repudiation of the pivotalpremise of Jewish philosophy, which claims that the HolyScriptures of Judaism entail eternal philosophical truths (‘ewigeVernunftwahr- heiten’): Judaism boasts of no exclusive revelation of eternal truths that areindispensable to salvation, of no revealed religion in the sense in which that term is usuallyunderstood. Revealed religion [‘geoffenbarte Religion’]isone thing, revealed legislation [‘geoffenbarteGesetzgebung’], anoth- er.The voice which let itself be heardonSinai on that great daydid not proclaim, ‘Iamthe Eter- nal, your God, the necessary,independent being, omnipotent and omniscient,that recompenses men in afuture life according to their deeds.’ This is the universal religion of mankind, not Ju- daism; […].⁴ In the following article, Iwish to argue, both systematicallyund historically-philolo- gically, thatMendelssohn’sbasic motivation for resortingtosceptical stances is es- sentiallytwofold: He attempts to isolate the coreofJewish belief from philosophical doubt and at the same time expose the conceptual vulnerability of the dogmas of Christianity. The main assertion Iwillthus develop is that Mendelssohn’sexploita- tion of sceptical concepts comesfrom the general apologetic impulse for writing Je- rusalem. As is known, Mendelssohn formulatedthis treatise as areaction against the polemicalultimatum posed anonymouslybyAugust F. Cranz (1737– 1801) in Das For- schen nach Lichtund Recht⁵ to either convert to Christianity or to account for his stay- ing loyal to his Jewish faith while taking his ‘enlightened’ viewpoint of natural reli- gion into account.⁶ In light of this apologetic and interreligious discourse within which Jerusalem is situated, Iwill maintain that Mendelssohn endeavours to delin- eate the crucial differencesbetween Judaism and Christianity through the idea of scepticism. In the process, Iwill set out to answer two questions: (1) To what aim does Mendelssohn utilise sceptical strategies in Jerusalem for his fundamental un- derstandingofreligion and philosophy, revelation and reason?(2) What kind of dif- Mendelssohn, Jerusalem,97(JubA 8, 165). August F. Cranz, Das Forschen nach Licht und Rechtineinem Schreiben an Herrn Moses Mendels- sohnauf Veranlassung seiner merkwürdigen Vorrede zu Manasseh Ben Israel (Berlin, 1782): 9–11. Ibidem,41: ‘So lange Sie diesen Schritt nicht thun, nachdem Sie iezt den erstengethan haben, steht das Publikum in der allergerechtesten Erwartung, entweder eine Rechtfertigungvon Ihnen zu lesen, wie Sie eine so wichtige Abweichungmit der Religion Ihrer Vätervereinbaren wollen, oder—Gründe, die Sie einem öffentlichen Uebergang zu dem Glauben der Christen und dem eigentlichen Christen- tum selbst entgegenzusetzen haben.’ Cf. ibidem,9.Mendelssohnhimself addresses this point explic- itly; see his Jerusalem,86–87 (JubA 8, 152–153). Foramoredetailed discussion, see Micha Gottlieb, Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn’sTheological-Political Thought (Oxfordand New York: Oxford University Pres,2011): 34 and 51;Shmuel Feiner, Moses Mendelssohn: Sage of Modernity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010): 150 and 159–176; Elias Sacks, Moses Mendelssohn’sLiving Script: Philosophy,Practice, History, Judaism (Bloomington and Indianapolis:Indiana University Press, 2017): 25–28,98and 176 – 178. Scepticism and Certainty in Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem 181 ferent sceptical stances does Mendelssohn make use of in Jerusalem? The answer to these questions will unfold in three essential stages. In the first part,Iwill elaborate on Mendelssohn’sunderstanding of what ‘the spirit of true Judaism’⁷ is as it pertains to his harsh critique (if not sceptical undermining) of Maimonides’ dogmatic and philosophical distortion of its ‘ancient,original’ meaning.⁸ In the second part—draw- ing on the perceptiveand innovative research conducted by Gideon Freudenthal in his No Religion without Idolatry (2012)—Iwill suggest that Mendelssohn entertains sceptical doubt concerning the nature of languageasan effective epistemic vehicle to emphasise the merits of ‘the old Judaism’ (‘das alte Judentum’), which is primarily construed as asystem of ceremonial laws (‘Zeremonialgesetze’). In this part,light will be shed on anumber of theological and philosophical sources that constitute points of departure for Mendelssohn’sown stances and discussions. Several of these sources are by no means sceptical in nature, but they still share one unifying feature: They all entail critical inclinations in one wayoranother towards language and signs.Exactlythis common thread seemed to have been cleverlyexploited by Mendelssohn and incorporatedinto his systematic sceptical stance towards language in Jerusalem. In the concluding part,Iturn to his employmentofasceptical view- point in the framework of his critical analysis of ecclesiastical law(‘Kirchenrecht’) in the Kingdom of Prussia and the intolerance of the lawtowardsthe Jewishpopu- lation.Iwill show that Mendelssohn’sdescription relies,inthis instance, not so much on ancient scepticism, nor on the Jewish philosophicalaccount of ancient scepticism, but rather specificallyonJohann M. Schröckh’sfourth volume of his Christliche Kirchengeschichte (1777).⁹ 1The Non-Speculative NatureofAncient Judaism In one of the central sections of the second part of Jerusalem,Mendelssohn seems to grapple with Cranz’ssupposition that Judaism has determinedarticles of faith (‘Glaubensartikel der jüdischenReligion’).¹⁰ The wayheproceeds is not by straight- forwardlycriticizingCranz, but rather by disputing Maimonides’ dogmatic under- standing of Judaism. The specific notion he casts doubt on is Maimonides’ contention Mendelssohn, Jerusalem,100 (JubA 8, 167): ‘Geist […]des ächten Judentums.’ JubA 8, 168: ‘d[as] alte, ursprüngliche […]Judentum […].’ Johann M. Schröckh, ChristlicheKirchengeschichte,vol. 4(Leipzig: Engelhart Benjamin Schwickert, 1777). In this context, Cranz refers to the negativearticle of belief
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