What’s a ‘maskil’?
In the comments to this post I was asked (pressed?) “How do you define a maskil?” given that the meaning of the term is somewhat elusive, or rather what made (or makes) someone a maskil appears to be elusive. At the time I responded “It depends on time and place. The same definitions will not apply in late 18th century Berlin as in early 19th century Galicia or in mid 19th century Russia, although some common ground will be found between all of them. I cannot offer a concise definition, but I do have thoughts about it and I will happy to dedicate a future post to those thoughts.” This is that post.
Now, I am aware that historians of the haskalah (eg, Klausner, Zinberg, Feiner, Pelli) proposed definitions or modifications. But I am not going to touch on their views. I am also not going to subdivide by place or time. Rather, I will try to provide the common-ground criteria which I think are what a maskil should be defined by to correctly get at the term. So broadly speaking, there will be a list at the end of this post that can apply equally to late 18th century Berlin, mid-1820s Lemberg and late 1890s Odessa.
Awhile ago Gil had a post called Reflections on Who is a Maskil. His definition became so broad that somehow it allowed room for R. Hershel Schachter and R. Elchonon Wasserman to be maskilim. Obviously, I cannot accept that except as a fun exercise in arguing the absurd. Clearly being a maskil was something other than “a Jew who manifests an interest in Jewish history or Hebrew.”
Getting back to the thread which sparked this post, why isn’t the answer simple and why would it require a post at all? I think it’s because there are two kinds of people who want to know what a maskil is (sometimes both types are found in the same person). Someone who wants to know out of pure historical interest. It is obviously a fact that there was something called Haskalah and it was espoused by people called maskilim. What made them maskilim? Was it a time and place bound term? Then there are people who have inherited what we may as well call the traditional or Orthodox attitude toward Haskalah and maskilim, namely that it was a destructive and seductive force among European Jewry, and it spelled destruction of much of the character of traditional society, and to be fair, present sympathizers of Haskalah who do not have only a detached historical interests, perhaps those historians included.
Now, countless traditional stories and anecdotes, new and old, have to do with maskilim, whether it’s Rabbi Mordechai Gifter trying to foil the speech of a famous maskil (here) or Malbim giving a sharp reply to an arrogant question from a maskil (here), or the Neziv explaining his success in acquiring Hebrew language and grammar (here), or Elizer Ben Yehuda being bested in Hebrew proficiency by a ga’on (here) or the Vilna Gaon ordering lashes be applied to a maskil, perhaps the elusive or even fictional Abba Glusk [Salomon Maimon?] (here, and also see here). There are hundreds and hundreds of these stories. It is obvious from them that Haskalah is bad and the maskilim are the villains and seducers and on the wrong track, not to mention delusional, at best, about being enlightened.
Just search the online archive of part of the Israeli Yated Ne’eman’s English version for the word “enlightenment.” There are many such results, including the story that the famous maskil Adam ha-kohen tried to seduce the Chafetz Chaim in his youth toward Haskalah (here).
On the other hand, there are people who are identified as maskilim who appear not as villains but to have been semi-colleagues and friends of traditionalists, and at times they are even quoted as authorities in this or that matter. These do not usually appear in “stories,” because what’s the story in the Neziv being close with Shmuel Yosef Fuenn or R. Dovid Zvi Hoffmann writing about Shadal (Melamed Le-hoilII YD 16) that ידוע שהחכם הנ”ל היה מדקדק מאד במלותיו ועדותו עדות ברורה just after he quotes him concerning a tradition for the kashrut of pheasant? A better example than these is the case of Matisyahu Strashun, who was one of the most prominent maskilim of Vilna (1817-1885), and who I will return to in a moment.
Because of this latter phenomenon, or at least I think it’s because of it, when such figures come up the approach seems to be to disagree with the contention that they were really maskilim at all. This is what I encountered about Heidenheim. How could the author of a venerable commentary on Rashi, an excellent guide to the trope, the highly qualified printer of important works and authoritative prayer books, a man held in high regard by the Chasam Sofer be a maskil? The answer then for some would be that in light of the positive facts presented, he really was not a maskil at all, and it would be wrong to say he was.
That he was held in high regard cannot be questioned, I think. Moreover, although the Chasam Sofer refers to him as ר” , מו”ה and even once as הג”מ “ר, he usually refers to him by some variant of the title חכם, which while hardly insulting, especially the particular ways he uses it for Heidenheim, at that point in time already was the conventional way of refering to a maskilic scholar. This is suggestive both that the Chasam Sofer held him in good regard, but also knew very well what sort of scholar and man he was.
(In an article in Hakirah 4 called Setting the Record Straight: Was the Chasam Sofer Inconsistent? by Rabbi Nosson Dovid Rabinowich the question of Heidenheim is touched upon. Rabinowich notes that Heidenheim is not only said to be a maskil, but even took a Reform-friendly stance in a notorious instance. Unfortunately, Rabinowich only touches on the question, but doesn’t really probe Heidenheim further. Instead, he proceeds to deny strongly that another particular rabbi could be rightfully called a maskil.)
“Oh come, on. Heidenheim wasn’t really a maskil,” seems to be the attitude, and the reason? Because we don’t have a laundry list of negative things to say about him. I encountered this much more strongly on this thread, regarding Mendel Lefin. When I noted that he was a maskil, someone responded that him being titled that on the title-leaf of one of his books doesn’t mean he was a maskil, because the term was being used in its classical sense (see below). The problem with this analysis is that Mendel Lefin really was . . . a maskil! But he and Heidenheim are just illustrative of the fact that unless we’re playing with definitions “maskil” doesn’t mean “rasha who worked nefarious schemes in Europe from about 1775 to 1925,” although some or even many of the maskilim certainly might have been that. Maskil means espouser or participant in Haskalah. Obviously then I also contend that Haskalah doesn’t mean “Godless plot to secularize and introduce impurity into traditional Jewish society between 1775 and 1925,” although perhaps some manifestations of Haskalah were that.
From On The Main Line, here.