Moses Mendelssohn and the Bach Tradition by Steven P

Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 8, Number 2, Summer 1999 It was lawful that the Jewish liturgy would be rewritten in the Classical musical mode developed by the genius of the great composers Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Schubert, because the Jewish reform movement was an intellectual collaborator and heir of this Classical tradition. Moses Courtesy of the LEO BAECK INSTITUTE, NY Mendelssohn had been the odern history is indebted to Moses father of them both. Lessing, Mendelssohn (1729-1786), the German philoso- Mpher and orthodox Jew, who was the singular Schiller, the Humboldt individual whose work in reviving the ideas of Plato and brothers, and other Leibniz made possible the great German Classical period of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries [SEE prominent individuals, Helga Zepp LaRouche, “What It Takes To Be a had contributed to World-Historical Leader Today,” page 14, this Jewish emancipation. issue]. In addition, although it is little known The German Classical today, Moses Mendelssohn and his family period and the played a crucial role in keeping alive the music of J.S. Bach, and in transmitting this Jewish reform music to Mozart and Beethoven. It is this movement were role which lies behind the well-known 1829 performance of the “lost” St. parts of the same Matthew Passion by Moses whole. Mendelssohn’s grandson, the composer Felix, which revived interest in Bach’s music in Europe in that period. A true Renaissance individual, Mendelssohn played a Right: Moses Mendelssohn. pivotal role in keeping alive Top: New Synagogue, the Platonic tradition in philos- Mannheim, Germany. ophy, music, the natural sciences, Corbis/Bettmann and statecraft, which he inherited from Leibniz. As a young man, Mendelssohn and his lifelong collaborator Gotthold Ephraim Lessing entered the essay contest 46 © 1999 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. Moses Mendelssohn And the Bach Tradition by Steven P. Meyer of the Berlin Academy of Sciences to defend the ideas of Schiller, the great poet of universal freedom, and the sci- Leibniz, which had been under attack for more than a entist-statesmen Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, decade by the academy’s director, Pierre-Louis de Mau- are among the most prominent. pertuis. Maupertuis’ clear intent was to destroy continen- During the last period of his life, Mendelssohn devoted tal science, by replacing the scientific authority and himself to the emancipation, both civil and intellectual, of knowledge of Leibniz, with that of the untruthful, inferi- Europe’s ghettoized Jewish community. The condition of or Newton. Over the years, Mendelssohn wrote numer- the Jews, over the preceding several centuries, with few ous essays promoting Leibniz’s ideas. exceptions, had been horrendous. Jews were forced to live Mendelssohn learned classical Hebrew as a child, and in squalid, crowded ghettoes; special taxes were levied through the help of Jewish scholars associated with the upon them, including taxes for celebrating the holy Sab- Berlin Academy, later taught himself Greek, German, bath and congregating for religious prayer service; they French, English, Italian, and Latin. were banned from the skilled trades and most professions He was a scholar of the Hebrew Pentateuch (the and could not own land. There was little secular educa- Torah, or Five Books of Moses), the book of law upon tion. There were even laws enacted to reduce their total which he based his belief in Judaism. As a young boy, he numbers—only first-born sons were allowed to marry mastered the Guide for the Perplexed by Moses Mai- and have children. In effect, through religious, social, and monides, and later the Theodicy of Leibniz. financial oppression, there were efforts to exterminate Mendelssohn studied Homer and Plato, and translated Judaism. Any Jew could step away from this nightmare— the first three books of Plato’s Republic into German. Sev- but only by converting to Christianity. eral of his philosophical treatises are written in Platonic dialogue form, and his famous work, Phaedon, or On the Immortality of the Soul (1767), is based upon the Phaedo of Plato. It was this work which catapulted Mendelssohn into the role of preeminent philosopher of Europe, earning him the appellations “Berlin Plato” and “Jewish Socrates.” Lastly, he studied and recited the works of Shakespeare, and took a keen interest in the American Revolution and the nascent United States of America. Mendelssohn’s life activity directly shaped what would become the greatest republican minds of the day in Ger- many: the poets Gotthold Lessing, Heinrich Heine, Goethe, and Friedrich Lower Rhine Music Festival, Aachen, Germany. Corbis/Bettmann In Jerusalem—a work written for Christians, Moslems, would learn pure German as the gateway to other Classi- and Jews alike—Mendelssohn detailed the separate roles cal subjects. He helped found the Berlin Free School, a of Church and State, and defined Mosaic law to be coher- secular school where impoverished Jewish children could ent with Reason as defined by Plato, a concept which was learn the natural sciences, languages, and philosophy. to revolutionize Judaism. He translated the Jewish Torah and other sacred writings, as well as the traditional daily Reason and Mosaic Law prayer book, from Hebrew into German, so that Jews Although Mendelssohn’s secular, philosophical, and religious works were coherent with the conception of orthodox Judaism he practiced, these ideas were rejected by the From Jerusalem: fundamentalist rabbis of his time, especially among the Hasidic Jews of Eastern Europe, who rejected the coher- On Church and State ence of reason with Mosaic law. They dismissed Mendelssohn’s notion that the marriage of religious train- he reasons which lead men to rational actions ing with the most advanced secular knowledge, was not Tand convictions rest partly on the relations of only natural, but essential to modern life. They also men to each other, partly on the relations of men to refused to accept the related idea, that man’s obligation to their Creator and Keeper. The former are the the whole of civil society—regardless of his individual reli- province of the state, the latter that of religion. Insofar gious beliefs—should be defined in a ecumenical way. as men’s actions and convictions can be made to serve Mendelssohn’s writings became the basis for the mod- the common weal through reasons arising from their ernizing tendency within Judaism, known as the Reform relations to each other, they are a matter for the civil Movement, which spread for several generations constitution; but insofar as the relations between man throughout Europe and Russia, and into the United and God can be seen as their source, they belong to States (it is known in the U.S. today as both Reform and the church, the synagogue, or the mosque. Public Conservative Judaism). institutions for the moral development of man that Mendelssohn’s Jewish collaborators, and those that fol- concern his relations with God I call church; those lowed his teaching, called themselves maskilim (intellectu- that concern his relations with man I call state. By the als). Under the influence of Mendelssohn’s legacy and the formation of man I understand the effort to arrange Humboldt education reforms of the early 1800’s, young both actions and convictions in such a way that they Jewish intellectuals who were studying to become rabbis, will be in accord with his felicity; that they will edu- attended universities for the first time, and approximately cate and govern men. ... Laws do not alter convictions; arbitrary punish- sixty of these students received advanced degrees. ments and rewards produce no principles, refine no These rabbis were trained in philology, Platonic phi- morals. Fear and hope are no criteria of truth. losophy, astronomy, geometry, and other Classical sub- Knowledge, reasoning, and persuasion alone can jects—a truly monumental accomplishment, as the tradi- bring forth principles, with the help of authority and tional rabbinate which preceded them had little or no example, can pass into morals. And it is here that secular education! They used this university training in religion should come to the aid of the state and the German Classical culture, to educate their Jewish congre- church should become a pillar of civil felicity. It is gants. Trained in the Greek Classics and Platonic the business of the church . .. to show then that method, they sought to bring reason to a reinvigorated duties toward men are also duties toward God, the Judaism. It was these rabbis who led the Reform Move- violation of which is the greatest misery; that serving ment, and were bitterly opposed by elements within the the state is true service of God; that charity is his entrenched orthodox rabbinate. most sacred will, and that true knowledge of the In the tradition of Mendelssohn, these Reform leaders Creator can not leave behind in the soul any hatred considered themselves, first, to be men and women who for men. To teach this is the business, duty, and voca- shared the universal gift of reason from God. They saw tion of religion; to preach it, the business and duty of themselves as participants in the life of their nation, with its ministers. How, then, could it ever have occurred obligations for its present and future, and Judaism served to men to permit religion to teach and its ministers as their moral guide. This was a major break with the to preach the opposite? orthodox rabbinate, who believed that the Jews were a —Moses Mendelssohn, from ‘Jerusalem, or On theocratic nation in exile, awaiting their return to Zion. Religious Power and Judaism’ Several exceptional reform rabbis stepped outside the traditional role of theological and educational matters, to 48 attempt to organize the entire population into republican forms of government throughout Europe.

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