Marcus Landau A Specimen of the Evolution of Modern By DR. GOTTHARD DEUTSCH

The interruption of our mail service with the Jacob Hirschel, ex- of Emden, and resident lation and through Hartwig Wessely's agitation greater part of the European continent is re- of Altona, Ezekiel Landau, then rabbi of the little for secular and systematic instruction of the sponsible for the bare and indefinite notice that town of Jampol, in Podolia, was among those youth, had to be met, and especially when the Marcus Landau, a celebrated author on compara- who were asked to render an opinion on the government of Austria under emperor Joseph tive literature, died in , in his eighty-first heresy charge levelled against Eybeschuetz. Lan- II, urged the same end by a series of laws, year. Under normal conditions we would have dau was prudent. His answer reads like Heine's beginning in 1782. On the other hand, in Lan- been able to read exhaustive appreciations of the famous: "Wer Recht hat von den Beiden weiss dau's home, rabbinic orthodoxy had another work which this remarkable man did in the field ich nicht." He deprecated controversies in Israel, mighty foe to meet. Mysticism, while not openly of history and literature, especially pertaining and condemned two cabbalistic works which cir- hostile .to Judaism of the old rabbinic type, to Italy. From a strictly Jewish viewpoint, this culated in manuscript without expressing an pursued tendencies which led to an opposition. would only be interesting insofar as it shoves, how opinion on the author, supposed to be Eybe- Rationalism on one side and mysticism, repre- we have in the course of a century enacted the schuetz. This prudence helped him to become sented by the growing group of Hasidim, were, regret of Sulamith and guarded the vineyards of, chief rabbi of Prague, a position which then the first openly, the latter indirectly, undermining others, for Marcus Landau wrote very little of ranked among the first rabbinic chairs in Judaism. the old ideal which stood for rabbinic learning Jewish interest. Yet, as a specimen of the grow- In this community Eybeschuetz had an influen- and punctilous conformity in ritual. ing secularization of Jewish intellectual life Mar- tial family and many warm admirers from the Secularism was in a way not so dangerous, cus Landau, owing to his family connections, is time, when he was preacher there, but also strong because it did not have the support of the masses, an impressive type of the evolution of modern enemies so that only a non-committal candidate but it had the powerful backing of the govern- Judaism. could succeed. The rabbinical see of Prague had ment. Joseph II had ordered that all must Born in Brody, the old center of Jewish life, been vacant for nearly twenty years after the receive a secular training in the elements of edu- in 1837, as greatgrandson of Ezekiel Landau who death of the mentally mediocre, but socially cation. Prague was among the first congregations together with Elijah of Wilna, was the strongest prominent David Oppenheim, when the-under to act on this law, and established a school in 1782. representative of old-fashioned rabbinic Judaism, the conditions of that time-young man of 42 The emperor had gone farther. The Jews should struggling in the latter half of the eighteenth took possession of it in 1755. earn their place in the state by doing military century against the inroads made on ideals by The temper of the old-fashioned rabbinical service. Resistance was impossible. The benev- political improvement in the condition of the scholar was intolerant criticism of contempor- olent monarch had it expressly stated as his will Jews from without and by' the yearning for aries and younger authorities, moderated by the and as a condition to their civic improvement. secular education from within, Marcus Landau's veneration of the older literature. Talmudic If they wished to be relieved from their intoler- life shows how completely this battle has been studies are based on dialectism, and the latter on able condition-and they certainly wished it-they lost in the course of a century. He was originally the eagerness to discover an inconsistency in older had to fulfill the condition which was obviously intended for a commercial career, and left his literature. Every Talmudic student, beginning fair. So Ezekiel Landau addressed the first con- native city for Vienna, where he engaged in with the Bar Mitzvah prided himself on his dis- tingent of Jewish soldiers, called to the flag, pre- business, but abandoned it for literature. His covery of an inconsistency in the ancient texts senting to them the religious duty of serving specialty, as already stated, was Italian literature and of his skill in solving this difficulty. Every- their benign ruler, and the only religious lesson and history, for the latter of which Austria body believed in having discovered the only solu- that he could give to them was that they should through its long connection with Italian politics, tion, just as the modern Bible critics who sneer observe the Sabbath law, as far as possible, and which lasted until 1866, was a fertile field. One at the "mental perversity" and the unscientific use conscientiously the Tallith and Tefillin which of Landau's best known works is a book on Boc- methods of the old Talmudists are absolutely he distributed among them. He had previously, caccio's classic "Decamerone" with its stories, so certain that the only possible explanation of a in the first year of his office. 1756, when the war lascivious, that the English translations are even difficult passage in the much commented Psalm with Prussia broke out, declared the loyalty of today compelled to omit some of them. 68 is the change of the text proposed by them, the Jewish community in an almost obtrusive This one fact vividly presents to our eyes the and that they have discovered the exact year of way, as was quite natural, considering the fact wide gulf between the four generations typified the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, when this that a little over ten years previously, when the by Ezekiel Landau, 1713-1793 and Marcus Psalm was written. So in Ezekiel Landau's Austrian troops suffered such an ignominous de- Landau, 1837-1918. The presentation of this time there were numerous scholars in Prague feat against the same foe, the Jews were made historic development is the object of this sketch. eager to show that the new rabbi who had arrived the scapegoat of the national disaster, which Ezekiel Landau was born in Podolia in the from a town in Poland that no one had ever heard seems to be their providential role, and were part which is now Galicia or the Russian mentioned before was way below the standard of ordered expelled from the country for the sup- province by that name-leaving the territorial what a chief rabbi of Prague ought actually to be. posed aid and comfort which they had given to changes created by the present war out of con- Numerous anecdotes illustrated this feeling many the enemy. sideration. His family name indicates that his decades after his death. It was told that the rabbi Nor could R. Ezekiel hope to change the mon- ancestors belonged to the numerous German fami- who was quite tall and shortsighted had to bend, arch's mind in his determination that every Jew lies who in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when presiding over the session of the rabbinical should receive a modicum of secular education. were compelled by persecutions and economic college (Beth Din) he referred to a book before He may have even felt that this was not so bad oppression to seek new homes in the yet sparsely him. One of the members of the rabbinate re- after all, for in order to make a livelihood a Jew settled kingdom of Poland, where a middle class, marked maliciously: "Your seat is too high for had to be able to write the address of a letter, connecting the land holding lord and the toiling you, rabbi," but R. Ezekiel quickly answered with and even to pen a letter of a business character. peasant had not yet developed. There the Jewish the repartee: "No, it is the table which is too The trouble was that a number of rebellious immigrant found a field of economic activity as much beneath me." Another story reports that people desired to give to their children a secular mechanic, an occupation denied him in western a tailor was one of the severest critics of the education for cultural purposes in spite of the Europe by the guild system, as merchant, in his rabbi. The fact was promptly reported to the clear warning by the not to believe that old home hedged in by the many restrictions that rabbi who invited the tailor to see him, and one who has already studied the Torah may they practically amounted to a prohibition, and as asked him on the ground of the Biblical law and study the "wisdom of the gentiles also." The financier, chiefly as tax farmer, for. which owing its rabbinic interpretation to "rebuke his neighbor most dangerous agitators for such innovations to the Polish constitution which made every openly, but not to go as a talebearer among the were the graduates of the Yeshibahs, like Peter noble an autocrat on his estates, offered oppor- people." The tailor replied with a smile: "God (Perez) Beer, at one time Landau's own disciple, tunities, far superior .to those of Germany. The forbid, rabbi, that I should have anything against who had read the new German poets, while a Landau family was for three centuries very you, but my situation is peculiar. When you student of the Yeshibah of Prague. Landau to prominent and furnished many Talmudic schol- arrived in the city, the rich members of the whom this crime was reported threatened him ars, in those days the indispensable title to social congregation introduced themselves by presents, with expulsion, if he would continue to indulge distinction in Jewry. Ezekiel Landau's father, the learned by their display of scholarship in the in these forbidden fruits. Now Beer was teacher Judah, was one of the members of the "Council discussion of your lectures. I am a poor man and of the Jewish school of Prague and implanted of the Four Lands," as the Jewish diet of Poland an ignoramus besides. I could neither send pres- these heresies in the tender and susceptible hearts was called, and his uncle, Hirsch, was rabbi of ents nor show off in public disputation. Had I of the coming generation. Cracow, Ezekiel had at the age of forty already not spoken ill of you, the rabbi would have never Not less dangerous was .the modern epidemic acquired a reputation as one of the leading Tal- known that WVelwele the Schneider is living." of system in Jewish education. In olden times a mudists of the age which meant a great deal, at Turning from folklore to history, we see in child was sent to a primary teacher at the age of a time, when even among business men Talmudic Ezekiel Landau a prominent historic figure, fight- five, often already at the age of three, and taught scholars and authors were not uncommon. His ing on two fronts in the development of Judaism to read Hebrew. When the boy was far enough reputation is seen in the fact that in the historic during a critical period. On one hand, the grow- advanced to read Hebrew fluently, and received controversy between Chief Rabbi Jonathan Ey- ing secularism, which had received such a strong some lessons in the Pentateuch, he was placed beschuetz of Altona and his implacable opponent, itmpetus through Mendelssohn's Pentateuch trans- (Continued on page 22)