The Dawn of Modernity

The title alone is enough to be an introduction to modernity and the “Tribe.” “Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew who gave us Modernity. (1) Whether it was Spinoza himself or the coterie of intellectuals who were his contemporaries and those influenced by him is a subject for scholarly debate. However, there is no doubt that after the ideas of Spinoza, John Locke and Voltaire percolated among the intellectual class of the western world, the world would never be the same. The concepts of Deism and Pantheism denied the various customs, traditions and laws of all religions their own peculiar and special validity. The American Revolution for all the shortcomings of its initiators and those who brought it to successful conclusion was a revolution in the thinking of the people who brought it into being. If not speaking to the reality of their lives the writers of the Declaration of Independence and later of the American Constitution planted the seeds for the eventual emancipation of all men and women no matter their origin, race or religion. As it was to affect the “Tribe” no other statement was as meaningful to them since Mount Sinai as the letter of George Washington to the Newport Synagogue as found in the National Archives of the United States.

In part: George Washington to the Hebrew congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, 18 August 1790 To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island
{Newport, R.I. 18 August 1790}

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

Go: Washington

There should be no argument that despite the reality that belied these noble principles of equality that the genie had been left out of the bottle and eventually the belief that all people are equal did manage to percolate across the globe. With varying success and with regression at times the idea of freedom and equality became accepted among most of the intellectual class and into the laws and rights afforded by them by the several governments of the western world and later aspired to everywhere. The ideals of the revolutions of America and France were spread throughout western Europe curiously enough by the conquests of Napolean Bonaparte. Where he went the ghetto walls came down and even after his defeat the attempt to raise them again failed. For the “Tribe” where modernity met tradition was in the land that was said to “rule the skies,” Germany. It was in this at the time a geographic name on the map that was divided into so many different governments that the “Tribe” attempted their accommodation to modernity. The drive to assimilate was strong enough to encourage the family of Moses Mendelssohn the foremost Jewish philosopher of his time to convert giving to the world his grandchildren Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. Heinrich Heine who began life as a committed Jew decided that a university degree was worth the price of conversion. His “Lorelei” so famous that the Nazis made it anonymous. To staunch the rush to the baptismal font rabbis of different approaches tried to reformulate the customs, prayers and traditions of the “Tribe” to meet the moment. Whether it was the more extreme Abraham Geiger, the more traditional Samson Raphael Hirsch or he who sailed between the Scylla and the Charybdis Zecharias Frankel all tried to accommodate the traditions of the “Tribe” so that the members thereof could fit without too much difficulty into their new acceptance as citizens of a state. The paths hewn by these pioneers were duplicated wherever Jews joined an equal citizenry around the world. To protect their newly one equality of citizenship and promote the interests of the “Tribe” a newly formed organization now spoke for the “Tribe.” “Central-Verein Deutscher Staatsbuerger juedischen Glaubens-Central Association German Citizens of the Jewish Faith. “ With modernity came the loss of control of rabbinical authority. Now it was to be well-connected laymen who would try to guide the destiny of the “Tribe.” In the western world of modernity, the rabbi was reduced to “priestly functions” as lay leadership guided the destiny of the “Tribe.” In the United States the Jewish Federations and the Anti-Defamation League imitated their German forbearers. Th situation in the “East” was different. In the small villages where the majority lived the “Rabbi” still held sway. The Yeshivah (Talmud Universities) produced an elite of learned in the ways of the “Tribe.” They held a place of esteem within the community and were in many places married to the daughters of wealthy merchants and entrepreneurs that gave them the leisure of study and the authority to be followed.
But that too was to be upset by a set of circumstances that changed life for the now numerous masses of east-European Jewry.

The first revolution against the sway of the “Shayne-Layt-rabbinical-wealthy “came in the form of a religious awakening to be known later as the “Hasidim-the Pietists”. Israel ben Eliezer known as the “Baal Shem Tov or Besht” (1698-1760) was a charismatic. There are certain individuals who are possessed of what is known as “charisma.” (2)
These charismatics, no matter what their attraction need followers to establish in Max Weber’s definition a bureaucracy that will turn the charismatic’s teachings into a formal set of rules, regulations and practices. The “Besht” would have been lost to history as Jesus without Paul, Shabtai Zevi without Nathan of Gaza and so on. The “Besht” was blessed with two competitors for expounding his doctrines. Foremost among them was Dov Ber ben Avraham of Mezeritch(d.1772) known as the “Magid-Teller of tales”. As the chosen successor the “Magid” was the first to be a systematic exponent of the mystical philosophy based on the teachings of the “Baal Shem Tov.”
Originally a follower of Jacob Joshua Falk a Talmudist and Codifier as well as the kabbalah of Isaac Luria the “Magid had the background to expound the simple ideas of the “Besht” in the language of Talmud and Kabbalah adding to them the weight of tradition. (3)
The second influential follower of the”Besht” Jacob Joseph of Polonne (1710-1784) was a practicing rabbi (background in Talmud and codes) and also an adherent of Lurianic Kabbalah. His “Toldot Yaakov Yosef published in 1780 was the first Hasidic work ever published. He quotes the “Besht” with the siginifier-“Words I heard from My Master.” (4) It is sufficient to say that with the emphasis on prayer and inner devotion rather than the mastery of hard Aramaic texts the Hasidic doctrine spread like wildfire among the poor, oppressed and basically ignorant masses of Jews in eastern-Europe. The institution of the “rebbe” the “Zaddik (The righteous One) and by adherence to him one was to be lifted into heaven holding on to his fringes was a very powerful one tht still holds in thrall so many members of the “Tribe.” The rabbinical authorities and the “Yeshivah Crowd” fought back against what was in their eyes a heresy. But despite the admonitions of the greatest rabbinic authority of the day the “Vilna Gaon” Hasidism prevailed all through eastern-Europe stopping only at the Litvak (Lithuanian Lands) and even there morphing into a more rabbinic friendly version known today as Chabad. (5) If modernity began with Spinoza another renegade Jew was to cause havoc beyond Europe to engulf the entire world in class struggle.

Karl Marx (1818-1883), was born to Heinrich and Henriette Pressburg. The family was alienated from Jewish custom and belief and his father to retain his profession as a lawyer converted to the Evangelical Church of Prussia. Heinrich Marx was a liberal devotee of the “enlightenment” and versed in the philosophy of Kant and the writings of Voltaire.

Marx studied law and philosophy influenced by Hegelian dialectics as it was to be applied to the class struggle. He met the German socialist Friedrich Engels in Paris and impressed by Engels that the working class would be the source of revolution. First published in 1848, “the Communist Manifesto” which set the stage for a “Communist League” stating that all history is that of class struggle between the “working classes (the Proletariat) the bourgeoisie (capitalists). The campaign was for the proletariat to overthrow capitalist society and establish a socialist society. He never completed his three volume “Das Kapital.”

Wherever the words and ideas and ideals of socialism and communism are admired or scorned throughout the world they are associated with this disaffiliated member of the “Tribe.” Socialism and the Labor Movements that it birthed found ready acceptance among the laboring masses of Jews in Easter-Europe. (6) In 1897 the Yidischer Arbeiter-Bund von Littauen und Polen (Jewish Labor Federation of Lithuania and Poland) was formed. This organization wedded socialist worker idealization with the novel idea at the time that Jews were a national minority population as similar as similar goes with Ruthenians and Czechs. The “Bund” soon became the largest organization of Jews in eastern-Europe challenging the hegemony of both the Yeshivah elite and the Hasidic dynasties. The ideals and ideas of “The Bund” would later be wedded with the most recent of movements among the “Tribe,” “Zionism but we shall treat of that later. One cannot speak of modernity without mentioning the work of Sigmund Freud another assimilated member of the “Tribe If one thinks on how psychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychology have permeated modern thought and life then one can only think of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). (7) Freud’s parents were Galician Jews steeped in the orthodoxy of their origins. It is highly unlikely that he was not aware of the Jewish beliefs in the origin of sin and combatting sin with the “Good Inclination.” (8) Masking Talmudical concepts of the origins of good and evil in Latin terminology -id=Yetser Ha Ra (Evil impulse) that however impels man to marry and build. Yetser HaTov (Good impulse) that impels us to do acts that are meritorious. Ego is Adam given the choice between good and evil. It is more than likely with so many Jewish associates and in Vienna where Hitler learned his anti-Semitism that Freud would have wished to identify any of his theories coming from sources with the “Tribe!” The ”Tribe” met modernity and neither would quite be the same thereafter!