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Resisting Secularism? Grace Aguilar and Isaac Leeser on English Bibles Andrea Schatz

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Resisting Secularism? Grace Aguilar and Isaac Leeser on English Bibles Andrea Schatz Resisting Secularism? Grace Aguilar and Isaac Leeser on English Bibles Andrea Schatz arly in the history of secularism we prevented secularism from becoming a encounter a scene that seems to encap- powerful and productive project. And yet, Esulate the surprising and paradoxical a project it remained: never complete and nature of the new project. In the print shop, never identical with itself, evolving, failing, a text is made accessible to Jews and Chris- and returning in many competing versions. tians alike by the printer who publishes it From the start, the Bible was a major and by the editor or censor who prevents it focus of secularizing efforts and a site where from being published in full. This scene and their paradoxical character became quite its implications have been described vividly apparent. Critical study of the text intended to by Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin: the printed text liberate the original from unintelligible layers could become common ground for Christians of tradition while creating new authorities and Jews because of the publisher’s insistence and rules that would control the interpreta- on dissemination and the censor’s practice tion of the text. Translations aimed to make of differentiation. The Miqra’ot gedolot, for the Bible universally accessible also led to instance, the Hebrew Bible with translations new divisions between experts and those who and commentaries, was printed in Daniel were expected to look for the experts’ guid- Bomberg’s Venetian publishing house, but ance. In Jewish contexts, too, we find vivid without David Kimchi’s polemics against debates about the critical study of the Bible Christians in his commentary on the Psalms. and its translation into the vernaculars but What was publicly acceptable was identi- they unfold as extended commentaries on the fied and isolated from what was unaccept- implications of secularism rather than as secu- larizing trends in themselves. Here, I would able, in particular for Christians. Obviously, Portrait of Grace Aguilar. Courtesy of the complexities, for which early modern like to reflect on the Bible as a “readable” text The New York Public Library. printing offers just one example, have not as published in 1842 by Grace Aguilar, Anglo- Jewish novelist and essayist, in her Spirit of Judaism. Her work was published by Isaac These remarks echo concerns that Moses Men- Leeser, a German-born community leader, delssohn had expressed decades earlier in a casual scholar, Bible translator, and editor of The Occi- but now quite famous remark about the neces- dent in Philadelphia, who, in this case, was so sity “to support the ceremonies with authentic, worried by some of her remarks that he added solid meaning, to make Scripture readable and annotations in which he expressed his strong understandable again” (Letter to Herz Homberg, reservations. September 22, 1783). The emphasis on the Bible Aguilar’s starting point is a fixture of as a legible, intelligible, accessible text raises maskilic discourse—the Bible is virtually several questions: What is a readable text? How unknown among Jews and needs to be made does a text become readable? For whom does it readable again: become readable “again”? Mendelssohn adopted the early modern We are in general perfectly satisfied with model of the Miqra’ot gedolot with its transla- reading the Parasas and Haftorahs marked tions and Hebrew commentaries, while he out as our Sabbath portions. The other rejected the Zene rene, the early modern Yiddish parts of the Bible rest utterly unknown. paraphrase of the Pentateuch, which offered Brought out on the Sabbath for the brief interwoven portions of Biblical texts and exege- space of half an hour, the portions are sis. As a result, his edition tended to exclude, read, and hastily dismissed, as a com- rather than include, women, men, and children pleted task, bringing with it no pleasure who were not fluent in Hebrew or modern and little profit. Even this is but too often German: they were cut off from Biblical texts neglected, and we adhere to the forms and traditions they had enjoyed previously and ceremonies of our ancestors, scarcely when studying the Zene rene. Title page of Issac Leeser, Hebrew Reader, 5th knowing wherefore; and we permit our In a radical departure from Mendelssohn’s ed. (Philadelphia: John Fagen, 1866). Courtesy Bibles to rest undisturbed on their shelves method and his silence about gender, age, and of the Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center not even seeking them, to know the for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of education, Aguilar demands that “the Jewish Pennsylvania. meaning of what we do. (51–52) religion” should be studied “by its professors 10 AJS Perspectives of every age and sex” and that “the Bible, not attracted to Protestant, even evangelical, inter- introduced to the Hebrew language. At the tradition” should be regarded as “its foundation pretations of religion, and this fascination same time, Aguilar acknowledges the role and defence” (20–21). According to Aguilar, with Protestantism turns into an acceptance of the Hebrew sources when she reflects on the Bible can be transformed into a text that of core elements of secularism: differentiation, the meanings of the Shma’ by referring to the will be accessible to all, if text and tradition are dissemination, and internalization. words and letters of the Hebrew text. What is dissociated from each other, and if tradition is Leeser’s response to Aguilar’s irreverent more, in her Women of Israel and her History rejected. Isaac Leeser, quite predictably, finds remark about the “trammels of tradition” is of the Jews of England, she sets out to establish Aguilar’s proposal unacceptable. But the argu- sharp and passionate: “I am not permitted to alternative traditions that can explicate and ment he offers in favor of “tradition” is remark- alter the text so as to destroy the meaning; illuminate the Biblical concept of a “Hebrew able: “It is useless to say, that the Scriptures or else I should certainly have altered this nation.” These movements toward each speak for themselves; they assuredly do so to sentence; for without claiming for tradition other signal the authors’ shared resistance the person who has received instruction; but all that some assert for it, there is doubtlessly to the slippages between Protestantism and it requires no argument to prove that differ- found laid down therein nearly the whole of secularism: the Bible is reclaimed as the ence of education makes people take different our own manner of interpretation and mode source of Jewish religious as well as national views of the sacred Text” (21). Leeser high- of life. How else are we to read Scripture, self-assertion. lights a concept that is familiar to us because unless it be in accordance with the views of Spirit of Judaism presents contrasting of the work of Talal Asad and others who have our predecessors? What else forms the dis- voices; inscribes gender and class into debates drawn our attention to the “dispositions” that tinction between us and Christians?” (100). on the accessibility of Scripture; and attests to are created by families, communities, and According to Leeser, the universalizing and early concerns about the uncanny proximity institutions of learning: these communities secularizing tendencies in Aguilar’s text blur of universalizing, secularizing, and Christian- introduce us to frameworks of thinking and the boundaries between Jewish and Christian izing trends. Perhaps the preservation and acting that profoundly inform our attitudes, commitments and open the door to the Chris- publication of an ongoing argument leave the perspectives, and sensibilities. According to tianization of Judaism and Jews. deepest impression: as long as Aguilar and Leeser, reading is shaped by such dispositions. And yet, Aguilar and Leeser eventually Leeser continue to argue about these trends, It is not an activity that unfolds in an unmedi- move toward each other. Leeser shows that they haven’t accepted them just yet. ated way, governed solely by reason and text; the transformation of Scripture into a “read- on the contrary, it is always already mediated able” text does not depend on the rejection of Andrea Schatz is lecturer in Jewish Studies by institutions and traditions of “instruction,” tradition but on “instruction” that will make at King’s College London. She is the author of whether they are of Christian, Jewish, or, we Hebrew texts and traditions accessible to all: Language in the Diaspora: The Seculariza- might add, of secular origin. he supports Rebecca Gratz and the Hebrew tion of Hebrew in the Eighteenth Century It almost seems as if Aguilar had known Sunday schools, where girls and boys are (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2009 [in German]). Leeser’s arguments and is responding to them when she indicates in a later chapter of her book that the existing frameworks of teach- ing and learning need to be reformed. The “Hebrew poor” should receive “instruction in their religion,” the “trammels of tradition” and their “incomprehensible obscurity” should be ignored, and instead they should be taught Committed to an interdisciplinary, comparative, “their English Bibles” (102). Here, we can and theoretical approach to Jewish Studies clearly perceive Aguilar’s educational agenda. She proposes a project of differentiation: those • 35 Faculty Members • aspects of religion that can be illuminated by • Over 60 Courses • reason need to be distinguished from those • Ph.D. Certificates in Jewish Culture and Society & Holocaust, that are unintelligible; and she promotes a Genocide, and Memory Studies • project of dissemination: knowledge of the • Jewish Studies Major through Department of Religion • text should be made accessible to the entire “Hebrew nation,” including women and “the • Jewish Studies Minor • poor.” Both aspects—differentiation and dis- • Visiting Israeli Writers Program • semination of knowledge—are recognizable • Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies • as universalizing movements.
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