Moses Mendelssohn

German philosopher and Jewish reformer

• Born: September 6, 1729
• Birthplace: Dessau, Anhalt (now in Germany)
• Died: January 4, 1786
• Place of death: Berlin, Prussia (now in Germany)

A scholar both of Talmudic Hebrew literature and of Enlightenment philosophy, Mendelssohn demonstrated a middle ground for eighteenth century European Jews, leading to their integration into modern German society.

Early Life

Moses Mendelssohn (MOH-zehs MEHN-duhl-zohn) was the son of Menachem Mendelssohn, a poor Torah scribe who ensured that Moses received a traditional Jewish education. His teacher David Frankel instructed him in Talmud and gave him a thorough introduction to the writings of the Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides. In 1743, when Frankel received an appointment in Berlin, Mendelssohn followed him. There his study was expanded to include Latin, Greek, French, and English, as well as mathematics and science.

It was Mendelssohn’s good fortune at the age of twenty-one to be hired as a tutor for the family of the successful businessman Isaac Bernhard. Soon, he took on responsibilities as bookkeeper and became a partner in the family’s silk manufacturing firm. As a result, Mendelssohn achieved the economic independence necessary to engage in his scholarly pursuits.

Life’s Work

Already, in his early twenties, Mendelssohn had developed a close association with the German dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. It was Lessing who recognized the gifts of his talented young friend and who encouraged him to publish several essays in 1754, as well as a translation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discours sur l’inégalité (1754; A Discourse on Inequality, 1756). When, in 1763, Mendelssohn was awarded first prize, ahead of Immanuel Kant, from the Prussian Royal Academy of Sciences for a treatise on metaphysics, it was clear that he had arrived as a respected philosopher.

In 1762, Mendelssohn married Fromet Guggenheim of Hamburg, with whom he would have six children. As a Jew, his situation was always precarious. However, in 1763, he was granted the “right of residence” in Berlin by royal edict. This also exempted him from paying taxes for the rest of his life. He was accepted into Berlin’s prominent social circles, and his house became a popular gathering place for the academic elite. In 1771, he was elected by his peers into the Royal Academy, but Frederick the Great refused to ratify the election.

Mendelssohn’s most important philosophical work was Phädon: Oder, Uber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (1767; Phaedon: Or, The Death of Socrates, 1789). As is evident from the title, this was an attempt to imitate Plato’s dialogue concerning the immortality of the soul. Influenced by the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), Mendelssohn argued for an infinite number of souls (called monads) that make up the basic substance of the universe. When individuals die, he asserted, their souls do not cease to be but dissolve into their original substance. It is the belief in the goodness of God that guarantees continued consciousness of the soul after death.

Mendelssohn’s popularity as a philosopher led to religious challenges that diverted him from his theoretical philosophic work. In 1769, a Lutheran Swiss pastor, Johann Kasper Lavater, publicly challenged him to explain why, as an enlightened man, he did not convert to Christianity. The assumption, of course, was that Christianity had been proven by the Enlightenment to be the most rational of all religions.

Mendelssohn’s response was to oppose any such pressure for Jewish conversion. He often said that he would prefer to rebut derogatory attitudes about Judaism by righteous living. However, he felt compelled to respond, arguing in detail that Judaism was indeed compatible with rationalism. Knowledge of God was something that all humans possessed through rational thought. However, he said, it is the unique revelation of God at Mount Sinai that provides Jews with the laws for righteous living. This belief had been the essence of his upbringing and his years of study; it was not to be deserted or rejected even in the modern era. A year later, Lavater apologized.

Mendelssohn took an active role in supporting Jewish rights in Europe. When another pastor proposed a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Mendelssohn rejected the idea, arguing instead for full integration of Jews into European society. When the Jews of Dresden were threatened with expulsion, he appealed to his Christian friends for support. When new decrees were proposed against the Jews of Switzerland, it was Lavater to whom he turned. Eventually, Mendelssohn himself appealed directly to the Prussian government at the request of the chief rabbi of Berlin. In such endeavors, Mendelssohn was influential.

In 1783, he wrote Jerusalem: Oder, Über religiöse Macht und Judentum (1783; Jerusalem: A Treatise on Ecclesiastical Authority and Judaism, 1838), again in response to another challenge from the Christian community. In Jerusalem, Mendelssohn argued for a separation of church and state similar to that which was emerging in the American experiment (Mendelssohn had even corresponded with George Washington). Church and state both seek the happiness of individuals, Mendelssohn argued, but they go about it in different ways. While the state has the power of coercion, religious institutions have the power of persuasion. Many Jewish rabbis did not respond well to this work, since excommunication was still part of their authority as community leaders.

Mendelssohn also contributed his learning to the Jewish community, translating the Torah and the Psalms into German. Interestingly, when translating these works, he wrote the German in Hebrew characters, since the Gothic German script was still foreign to many German Jews. Likewise, he wrote commentaries on the biblical books Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. While some accused him of abandoning traditional Judaism, he was dedicated to preserving Jewish culture. He was a coeditor of the Jewish periodical Kohelet Musar, which was published in immaculate Hebrew. It was the Yiddish language that he disdained. Jews, in his view, should be fluent in both Hebrew and German. These were the marks of a Torah-true Jew in modern Germany.

Finally, Mendelssohn was able to turn to philosophy again in his Morgenstunden (1785; morning hours). There, he argues that people of all religions can have knowledge of God through their own rational thought processes. In many ways, this is the age-old ontological argument that the idea of God within human consciousness is itself proof of God’s existence. Mendelssohn died in Berlin on January 4, 1786.

Significance

Within two years of Moses Mendelssohn’s death, Isaac Euchel had written the first biography of Mendelssohn. Such was the legendary character of the philosopher’s life. Within fifty-five years of his death, seven volumes of his collected writings had been gathered and published. For later generations, however, Mendelssohn’s exemplary character has been preserved in the tolerant and enlightened protagonist of Lessing’s well-known play Nathan der Weise (pb. 1779, pr. 1783; Nathan the Wise, 1781).

As a product of the Enlightenment, Mendelssohn played a central role in assisting European Jews to wrestle with their identity. On one hand, he was a staunch defender of Judaism, yet on the other hand, many saw him as undermining it. His position was certainly complex. He was concerned about Jews who had totally assimilated, and he opposed all attempts by Christians to pressure conversion of Jews, yet he was uncomfortable with the separation among European Jews, especially in eastern Europe. He disdained the artificial Yiddish language, but he held biblical Hebrew in high regard and encouraged Jewish integration into modern society through German and other modern languages. Reform Judaism is indebted to him.

For Mendelssohn, the paradox of religion accessible through knowledge and the acceptance of divine law revealed at Sinai was possible. Even his own family, however, did not hold on to that distinction: Many of them converted to Christianity, including his grandson Felix, the well-known composer. It is interesting that moderns have dubbed him both “the Jewish Socrates” and “the Jewish Luther.”

Bibliography

Altmann, Alexander. Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study. Oxford, England: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1998. This is a republication of a 1973 work published by the University of Alabama Press. The author sets the life of Mendelssohn against the background of eighteenth century Europe, describing the development of German philosophy and the status of European Judaism.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. Moses Mendelssohn—Jerusalem: Or, On Religious Power and Judaism. Translated by Allan Arkush. Boston: Brandeis University Press, 1983. An English translation and commentary of Mendelssohn’s important theological work.

Arkush, Allan. Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. The author focuses on the rationalist philosophy of Mendelssohn in relationship to his continued adherence to Judaism.

Dahlstrom, Daniel O., ed. Moses Mendelssohn: Philosophical Writings. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. An updated translation of Mendelssohn’s metaphysics.

Hess, Jonathan. Germans, Jews, and the Claims of Modernity. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002. This is an analysis of the debate in Germany over the role of Jews in modern society.

Nordhaus, Jean. The Porcelain Apes of Moses Mendelssohn. Minneapolis, Minn.: Milkweed Editions, 2002. This is a biography in poems voiced through individuals who encountered Mendelssohn. The title refers to a mandate under Frederick the Great that Prussian Jews were required to purchase a certain amount of porcelain in order to marry.