Athens in Jerusalem: Classical Antiquity and Hellenism in the Making of the Modern Secular Jew (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) 9781874774365

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ATHENS IN JERUSALEM

THE LITTMAN LIBRARY OF JEWISH CIVILIZATION

Dedicated to the memory of LOUIS THOMAS SIDNEY LITTMAN

who founded the Littman Library for the love of God and as an act ofcharity in memory of his father JOSEPH AARON LITTMAN

",:1 O';:'T Nil' 'Get wisdom, get understanding: Forsake her not and she shall preserve thee' PROV.

4: 5

Jhe Liwnan Lihrary (~/Jewish Civilization is 11 re,{!istered llK charity Registered dUlrity no. lOO07K4

ATHENS IN JERUSALEM • CLASSICAL ANTIQ!JITY AND HELLENISM IN THE MAKING OF THE MODERN SECULAR JEW

• YAACOV SHAVIT

Translated by CHA Y A N AOR AND NIKI WERNER

Oxford . Portland, Oregon

The Littman Library ofJewish Civilization

TI,e Uttmall Ubrary ofJewisil Civilizatioll Chi~f ExeClltive Officer: Ludo Craddock }"tallagill.!? Editor: COlmie Webber

PO Box 645, Oxford OX2 www.littmau.co.uk

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Published ill the UlIited States alld Callada by TIle Uttmall Ubrary ofJewish CivilizatioH clo ISBS, 920 NE 58th Avellue, Suite 300 Portlatld, Oregoll 97213-3786 Hebrew edition © AI1I Oved Publishers Ltd, Tel Aviv 1992 First published in English 1997 El1glish edition)irst issued il1 paperback 1999 First digital on-demand edition 2012 Erlglish tramlatiol1 © The Liftmal1 Library ifjewish Civilization 1997 All rights reserved. No part if this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trammitted, in any forn! or by any means, without the prior pern!ission in writing if The Liftman Library ifjewish Civilization This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way (!f trade or othenvise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or othenvise circulated !vithout the publishers prior consent in any form qf bitlding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition beillg imposed on the subsequel1t purchaser A catalogue record for this book is availablefrol1l the British Library The Library if Congress catalogued the hardback edition as follows: Shavit,jacob [Yahadut bi-re'i ha- Yapanut ve-hqfa 'at ha- Yehudi ha-Helenis(i ha-nwdemi, English} Athem ill Jerusalem: classical antiquity and Hellenism in the nwkillg (!f the l1Iodem secular je/v / Yaacov Shavit; translated by Chaya Naor al1d Nib We",er. p. cm. Includes bibliographical r~rerences al1d il1dex. 1. Judaism-ReiatiOlls-Creek. 2. Greecc~Religion 3. Jews-Civilization-Creek in./luences. 4. judaisl1l-Modern period, 17505. Historiography. I. Title. BJH506.G7S513 1997 296.]'7-dC2J 97-9809 CIP r97 ISBl,' 978-1-874774-36-5 Desigll: Pete Russell, Faringdon, Oxon. Printed in Great Britain by Lightnil1g Source UK, Milton Keynes, in the Utlited States by Lightning Source US, La Ve~ne, Tennessee, and ;n Australia by Lighming Source Australia, Scoresby, Victoria

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Then too, 'twill chance That mi"or unto mirror may hand on A single image, till e'en multiplied Five or sixjold the likeness will appear. LUCRETIUS, De Rerum Natura, iv. 326-7, trans. Chas. E. Bennett, 183

Since that day when many of our maskilim began to look only to the outside, they began to fashion all the sights they saw there beyond the boundaries of their nation, into a pattern and a programme for all the affairs of Israel. ZE 'EV JAWITZ, 'Olamot overim ve'olam omed' ('Worlds Pass and a World Remains')

And then the judges began to judge the ways of this people and to compare them with the Greeks. And it would not be surprising if there were many among them who gave the Greeks priference. PERETZ SMOLENSKIN, 'Et lata'at' ('A Time to Plant' [Ecd. 3: 2])

PREFCE T HIS book is more than a translation of my Hebrew book, published in 1992. In preparing the English version, I not only expanded and improved on it in several aspects; I also corrected those points that required correction, and tried to be more precise in the concepts and terms I used. In consequence this is in many respects a vastly different book from that published in Hebrew. When I began writing this book, almost six years ago, its general structure, scope, and central ideas were quite clear to me; I was familiar with some of the literature dealing with its main topic and related topics, but it had not occurred to me that the relevant literature was so vast. I am not referring only to academic works but to all those numerous texts in which the world of Judaism is linked, in one way or another, with classical antiquity and Hellenism. I very soon found myself as the reverse of Hemingway's old man: I had a skeleton, but in order to put skin and bones on it, I had to throw my net into the large ocean of texts. In the course of the years during which I wrote and rewrote this book, I cast my net again and again-and each time I discovered how full the sea is. I also had to resolve to throw back into the sea many fish that already were or subsequently became familiar to me; for example, I had to forgo citing many works of philosophy, theology, semantics, and psychosemantics. On the other hand, I tried to haul in those fish that were not so well known, or were dispersed in different waters. But I have no doubt that the number of references to the subject is immense and many fish still remain in the large sea of texts. While I believe that a few more of these texts could enrich the evidence presented in this book, they would not change its skeletal structure or its key ideas. The main subject of this study is Jewish history, but I truly believe that even a zealous classicist may fmd it interesting and enriching to see the diverse, and often strange, fields to which the classical heritage was borne and in which it was transplanted. It also seems to me that anyone interested in the history of classical culture and its heritage will be intrigued by the question of how these were reflected in the world of images of Judaism, which is after all the only culture to accompany classical antiquity in all its many transformations and ramifications, from the time of Homer to the present day. I was fortunate to have Dr Leofranc Holford-Strevens as my editor. He

viii

PREFACE

not only read the manuscript with a critical eye, saving me from many errors, but also made available to me the treasurehouse of his phenomenal knowledge in so many fields. Since classical antiquity was for me in many respects an alien sea, he was my Lynceus, guiding me through these boundless waters. Many references to classical literature (but not only to classical literature) are the fruit of his generous contribution. I do hope he will not object to my saying that in many respects the book is his hardly less than it is mine. I really regret that now that the work is completed, our prolonged exchange of e-mail queries and answers, which enriched me in so many regards, has come to its end. Tel Aviv University 199 6

Y AACOV SHAVIT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I FIRST began writing this book during my stay in Bonn and Bad Godesberg (1986-7), and I am pleased once more to express my gratitude to Edith and Dr Heinrich Pfeiffer for their hospitality. In the summer of 1989, Dr Barbara and Professor Peter Schafer not only extended me their warm hospitality in Berlin but also allowed me the use of their rich library, which was of indispensable help in broadening my knowledge of the Second Temple period. I owe thanks to my colleagues and friends who read the manuscript and made invaluable comments, and even saved me from falling into the grave errors that anyone venturing to grapple with this complex issue is likely to commit. In particular, I am grateful to Professor Aharon Oppenheimer and Nili Oppenheimer, who were always willing to spare the time to help me resolve questions relating to talmudic literature. To Professor Itamar Even-Zohar I am grateful for intellectual input and for friendship, to Professor Uriel Rappaport for his comments on Part Ill. My thanks go to Professor Aryeh Kasher for putting at my disposal the manuscript of his translation of Against Apion; he too also encouraged me and was ready to answer my queries concerning the literature of the Second Temple period. I am indebted to Professor Avraham Shapira for his assistance and encouragement. To Dr Nicholas de Lange I owe a debt of gratitude for the initiative that gave me the opportunity of rewriting this book for an English version. Mrs Connie Webber closely followed my work on the book throughout in detail; I am grateful to her for her attention and interest, but above all for her faith in its merit. DeserVing of special mention are Professor Benjamin Harshav and Barbara Harshav, who encouraged me to put pen to paper; I should also like to thank Mr Stanley Holwitz for his kindness and interest, and Professor David Shavit (De Kalb, Ill.) for his valuable bibliographical assistance. I am also grateful to Professor Dan Amir, the Rector ofTel Aviv University, for his assistance, and to Professor Yoram Dinstein, the President of Tel Aviv University, from whom I received the most precious of all gifts: moral support. I also wish to thank Chaya Naor and Niki Werner, the translators, for their excellent translation, as well as for their untiring patience in the face of the additions and changes I repeatedly introduced into the text. Tragically, Niki died without seeing the book published. I am also grateful to my wife Zohar, who has always been a source of support and encouragement;

x

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

in my work on this book, which extended over a very long period, and was beset by many difficulties, her constant support was invaluable; I could not have done without it. Last but not least, I am indebted to Mrs Colette Littman for her generosity. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah said' Acquire a teacher and gain a friend' (Mishnah Avot I: 6); Socrates asks in Xenophon's Memorabilia (2. 4. 5) 'But compared with what other possession would a good friend not appear far superior?' While writing this book, I have learnt how much truth there is in both the words of the Sages and the wisdom of the ancients.

CONTENTS Translators' Note

xiii

Introduction PART I

THE FIRST MIRROR

1

Waking the Dead-Greece as an Ideal and an Exemplar

21

2

Hellenism and Hebraism: The Two Poles of the World

40

3

Israel and Greece: Reviving a Legendary Past

58

4

'Greek Wisdom' as Secular Knowledge and Science

79

5

Japheth in the Tents of Shem: The Reception of the Classical Heritage in Modern Hebrew Culture

II9

6

The Moral Dimension: Commonality and Particularity

155

7

Worlds without Compromise: Reconstructing the Disparities

188

Have Jews Imagination? Jews and the Creative Arts

220

8

PART 11

THE SECOND MIRROR

9

10 11

The Nature of the Hellenistic Mirror

281

Judaism and Hellenism in Palestine and Alexandria: Two Models of a National and Cultural Encounter

306

Homeric Books and Hellenistic Culture in the World of the Sages

337

xii

CONTENTS

PART III

ATHENS IN JERUSALEM

12

Back to History: The Secularization of the Ancient Jewish Past

355

The Children of Japheth (Aryans) and the Children of Shem (Sernites): Race and Innate Nationalism

38I

The People and its Land: Country, Landscape, and Culture

403

15

A 'Polis' in Jerusalem: The Jewish State

432

16

The New Jewish Culture: Ideal and Reality

449

13 14

Conclusion: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?

473

Bibliography

48 I

Index

547

TRANSLATORS' NOTE T RAN S L A TI N G this book has been for us an enlighteningjourney through Jewish cultural and intellectual history in its reciprocal relations with its European counterpart. Along the way we encountered a corpus of works that ranged from classical antiquity to modern times. This occasionally presented us with challenges and difficulties as well as rewards. Many passages from Hebrew works are included in this book, some of them lengthy. We have used existing translations wherever possible (the translations used are noted in the Bibliography), but where no such possibility existed, we had to translate the material ourselves; when no note on the source is given, the translation is ours. The poetry excerpts were translated by Niki Werner. Many of the excerpts we translated ourselves were from works written during the period known as the Haskalah-the equivalent in the Jewish world of the Enlightenment-when Hebrew as a modern secular language was still in its formative stages; many words did not exist, and authors created their own diction. Since the Hebrew words used by Has~alah writers are sometimes unfamiliar to today's Hebrewspeaker, we have attempted to render them in English in a similarly archaic style. As the author notes in his Preface, this book is not a direct translation of the Hebrew edition. Much material was added and many changes made, some as we were working on the translation itself. Every effort was made to make the text fully accessible to an English-speaking readership not necessarily familiar with Jewish history or scholarship; for example, we have included biographical information about people mentioned in the text that was not considered necessary for the Hebrew edition. Since many of the works cited are in Hebrew, we had to decide how to refer to them in the text: whether to transliterate the Hebrew tide or to translate it. For this purpose, we distinguished between primary sources, whose tides might conceivably be familiar to readers, and scholarly books and articles. In the case of the former, the Hebrew tide is given in transliteration, followed at first mention by an English translation in parentheses, to give the non-Hebrew speaker an idea of what the work is about. In the notes such works are referred to by a shortened form of the transliterated Hebrew tide, while the full title and its translation are given in the Bibliography together with other bibliographical data. However,

xiv

TRANSLATORS' NOTE

for those primary sources available in English translation, we cited the translated tide only (as with some of Ahad Ha'am's essays). In contrast, the tides of scholarly works and articles in Hebrew are cited only in English translation; since readers are unlikely to be familiar with such works it was considered preferable to give them an idea of the subjectmatter rather than a transliteration of the Hebrew tide, which could in any case be ascertained fairly easily by the reader curious enough to follow up a reference. In most cases, the English tide given is the one that appears in the book or article; this has been done to help readers who may wish to search for the work in a catalogue. Since so many of the works are in this category, we have indicated that they are translations only in the Bibliography, by the addition of '(Heb.)' after the tide. However, since our use of shortened forms for tides throughout the notes means that readers will in any case have to check the Bibliography to ascertain full details of the works in which they are interested, this should not present too great an obstacle to scholarship. In transliterating Hebrew tides we decided to adopt the system that seemed to be most helpful to the general reader, a system that would convey the sounds of the Hebrew and help the reader approximate a correct pronunciation with a minimum of confusion. Connie Webber's advice in this regard was invaluable, and we are grateful for her assistance. Note that both 'ch', representing the letter chet, and 'kh', representing khaJ, are pronounced like the 'ch' in 'loch'. In spelling proper names, we have used the Encyclopaedia Judaica as our prime reference, except in transliterating Hebrew names, where we followed the guidelines outlined above. Those Hebrew words that are basic to an understanding of Judaism and likely to be part of the vocabulary of people reading this book have not been italicized, on the grounds that such italicization would be more intrusive than helpful. Other than that, we have wherever possible tried to avoid using Hebrew terms. One important exception is the Hebrew word chokhmah, usually translated as 'wisdom'. Unlike the English 'wisdom', chokhmah may refer to a discrete entity and be used in the plural chokhmot, which sometimes corresponds to English 'sciences', but also has a wider meaning. Since 'wisdoms' is not a customary usage in English, it has seemed better on some occasions to retain the Hebrew word. Most of the biblical citations are from the Revised Standard Version, published by Oxford University Press. A few, however, are from the King James Version; in each case we chose the translation closer to the sense of the original Hebrew. All the excerpts from rabbinic literature are from

TRANSLATORS' NOTE

xv

published translations. A list of the translations used is included in the Bibliography. In general, whenever English translations were available of works published in other languages, we have cited the translation. We have had the advantage of Professor Shavit's readiness to respond to our numerous queries and to accept many of our suggestions. The results, we trust, make the book and its subject more accessible to the English reader. CHAYA NAOR NIKI WERNER

INTRODUCTION 'WHAT THEN HAS ATHENS TO DO WITH JERUSALEM?'!

The aim of this book is to try to answer Tertullian's rhetorical question and to deal with the dichotomy between Athens and Jerusalem from a new point of view, namely: did Athens (classical antiquity and Hellenism) have any impact on the shaping of modern Jewish culture? Athens and Jerusalem, Greeks and Jews, represent two distinct and different human entities. Here are but a few examples. In his lost book On Sleep, Clearchus of Soli in Cyprus, a pupil of Aristode, referred to the Jews as a 'philosophical race' and described aJew from Judaea who had met Aristode during the years he was teaching in Asia Minor as a perfect Greek 'not only in his language but also in his soul' Oosephus, Against Apion, i. 181}.2 By that, writes Werner Jaeger, he meant: Not what modern historical or philological scholarship tries to grasp in Homer, Pindar, or in Periclean Athens, of course; a Greek soul is for him the intellectualized human mind in whose crystal-clear world even a highly gifted and intelligent foreigner could participate and move with perfect ease and grace. 3

Clearchus' definition of a 'Greek soul' was different from what Heinrich Heine had in mind many generations later when he wrote about the 'Hellenic soul', in contrast to the 'Jewish soul'. The Greeks in Heine's I Tertullian, De praescriptione, 7. 9: 'Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis?' Jerusalem, of course, symbolized faith, Athens philosophy. Tertullian continues: 'Ol·.thel\cademy with the Church?', and elsewhere asks: 'What is there in conunon between the philosopher and the Christian, the pupil of Hellas and the pupil of Heaven?' (Apologeticus, 46. 18). See Cochrane, Christianity and Classical Culture, 2 I 3-60, esp. 222-3; Alexander, 'Quid Athenis et Hierosolymis?', 101, 120 n. J. 2 Or 'also his soul was Greek'. The passage is fragment 6 of Clearchus in Wehrli, Die Schule des Aristoteles. The first known 'Hellenized' Jew, according to an inscription discovered in Greece, was a slave whose prospective freedom is recorded in an inscription of 300-250 BC, Moschos son of Moschion, who like his father bore a Greek name and was so far assimilated to his pagan environment to have sought (and received) a dream in the Amphiareion at Oropus; see D. M. Lewis, 'The First GreekJew'; M. Stern's review ofY. Gutman, TI,e Beginnings ~f Jewish Hellenistic Literature, in Studies inJeUlish History, 573. 3 Jaeger, Early Christianity, 30;]. Levy, 'Aristode and the Jewish Sage'; Y. Gurman, 'Clearchus', 91-4; Bickerman, JfUJS in the Greek Age, 15-16, who believes that the story may well be true. According to Morton Smith, by philosophia the Hellenistic writers meant not 'philosophy' but 'cult of wisdom' (,Palestinian Judaism in the First Century', 79), or, better, 'religion', for which the Hellenistic and Roman world had no general term. It is worth recalling that Aristode was impressed by the self-restraint of the Jew and the fact that he abstained from eating certain foods. This idealistic image of the Jews as philosophers by race also appears in Theophrastus, On Piety (fragment 584A. 26. 3 Fortenbaugh et al.) and Strabo 16. 2. 35-40 (perhaps from Poseidonius of Apamea), contrasting with the negative image: see Modrzejewski, 'L'Image du juif.

INTRODUCTION

perception were far from being gifted philosophers with 'intellectualized human minds'. For him, they represented an entirely different human type. In contrast to Clearchus' view, an excess of intellectuality and abstraction was considered a negative trait by Heine as well as by those Jewish thinkers who adhered to the doctrine of vitalism. A 'Greek soul', that is, a pagan soul, was a symbol of a vibrant, robust entity, possessed of youth, spontaneity, and energy. 4 In a similar vein, M. J. Berdyczewski (1865-1921), the Hebrew radical writer and thinker,s wrote in his personal diary in May 1905: 'When the Jews return to the Land of Canaan and setde there as a people, they must again grasp hold of the thread that the prophets had already broken by their overzealous morality. A political and spiritual renewal of the Jews as a people, but as a Hellenic people .. .'.6 And when the eminent French orientalist Ernest Renan (1823-92) came to visit Athens after a stay in Palestine (1860-1), he was so overwhelmed by the sublime manifestation of pure beauty and pure reason that he saw in his mind's eye, that he uttered an enthusiastic prayer: his 'Priere sur I'Acropole', in which he addressed Athene, as the goddess of truth and beauty, the opposite ofJerusalem. For him, a 'Greek soul' was the longed-for unity of sublime beauty and pure reason. When the author of the Second Book of Maccabees tells in disgust how the establishment of the gymnasium in Jerusalem under Jason's rule (and the city's conversion into a polis) immediately imposed a Hellenic c4aracter upon his fellow Jews (2 Mace. 4), it is clear that by akme tis Hellenismou (v. 13: 'a climax of Hellenism'), ton Hellenikon charaktera (v. 10: 'the Greek way of life') and tas Hellenikas doxas (v: 16: 'the Greek scale of values'), he is referring to a way of life which is decidedly different from that intended by Clearchus or by Heine. Here a 'Greek soul' is the soul of an amoral idolater. 'The ways of the Hellenes' in traditional Jewish literature mean the abandonment of the Torah and the ancestral tradition; the abandonment of both religion and culture. Throughout the whole of Jewish literature, as we shall see, 'the ways of the Hellenes' always carry a negative connotation. From these two polar points of view, Athens and Jerusalem represent two different and contradictory worlds. 7 • See Ch. I. 5 His views will be described in detail in the following chapters . • In Holzman, Ginzei Mikhah Yos~f, vi. 58. 7 Jaeger, Early Christianity, 3-4; Highet, The Classical Tradition, 454, 687 n. 44. In describing Paul's visit to Athens, Renan also finds an excellent occasion to contrast Greek and Christian sensibilities. The Greeks are said to have litde care for the profundity of death but are an artistic people who take

INTRODUCTION

3

What, then, has Athens to do with Jerusalem? Jerusalem and the Jews, Athens and the Greeks (Hellenes), the 'Greek soul' and the 'Jewish soul'-these few instances are the product of different perceptions; Athens andJerusalem,Jews and Hellene, are conceptual twins in a binary model. If this is so, how can one speak of'Athens' in 'Jerusalem', of 'Athens' as an integral part of 'Jerusalem'? Of the 'Greek soul' as an integral component of the 'Jewish soul'? This question is at the core of my study. I have chosen not to write under the heading of 'Athens and Jerusalem', which would imply that Jerusalem and Athens (as well as Rome and Alexandria) belonged to the same historical-cultural sphere. s Nor am I writing under the heading of 'Athens versus Jerusalem', representing the notion that there wasand still is-an irreconcilable opposition and struggle between the nature of 'Athens' (Greek culture) and 'Jerusalem' Uewish culture). These two headings have in fact served as the tides of quite a few studies; I, however, have chosen to write this book under the heading of'Athens in Jerusalem', namely, on the manner in which cultural traits or values characterized as 'Greek' became an integral part of the Jewish collective soul in the modern era, altering its nature and identity. By 'Athens in Jerusalem' I am not merely suggesting that there are gymnasia or stadia in the new Jerusalem. Neither do I accept the Orthodox view that the modern secular Jew is a Hellenizing Jew like those in the time of the Hasmonean revolt. My intention in this book is to examine the impact 'Greek' values had in the making of the 'new Jerusalem', that is to say, modern secular Judaism. I am using 'new Jerusalem' as a metaphor for the new Jewish culture which emerged from the dawn of the Jewish Enlightenment or Haskalah in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, inspired modern Jewish nationalism, and nurtured the creation of modern Jewish (Hebrew) culture in Palestine from the I880s and thereafter. This is, of course, only one possible road to take in exploring the complex terrain of the modern history of Judaism, but it is a major thoroughfare. Why 'Athens' and not 'Greece'? Because 'Athens' symbolizes 'Greece', or 'classical antiquity', as it does in most of the texts I am dealing with. Those who lived in the Hellenistic era also knew very well that Athens did an inmlediate joy in the present; their art is always a modification of nature (Shapiro, 'Nietzsche contra Renan', 208). • 'Thus Rome gave us the framework, as Athens and Jerusalem on the whole gave the inner content of our living Christian civilization', Murray, Hellenism alld tile Modern m,rld, 19. In the same vein, see W. T. Harris, in his introduction to Davidson, The EdHcation ~f the Greek People: 'Thus Greece educated all modern nations in the forms of art and literature, while Rome educates them in civil law' (p. viii).

4

INTRODUCTION

not represent all of Greece, but the idealization of the classical past nearly always was the idealization of Athens. Thucydides, for example, made Pericles call Athens 'the school (paideusis) of all Greece', and Isocrates traced the origin of all culture in Attica, making Athens the founder of all civilization. 9 And why 'Athens' and not 'Western culture'? The truth is, of course, that 'Athens' stands for 'Europe' since Greece was perceived, both by Jews and Europeans, as the alma mater of Europe, and it served as a metaphor for modern 'secular' Europe and secularization. The image of Greece as a pagan or 'secular' entity became a code by which the Jews symbolized, signified, and defined hopes and fears, as well as the familiar and the alien. They also applied this code to various concepts and traits that in their minds were different and opposed to those they thought were inherent in them, defined them, and were represented by them. By means of this code and its various signals, Judaism made known its attitude towards the world outside. A cultural value or trait was identified as 'Greek' in order to approve of it or, conversely, to attach a stigma to it. The changes that took place in the image of Greek and classical antiquity are but reflections of the changes in the Jews' attitude both towards their ancient past and towards 'Europe'. Some Jewish writers, as we shall see, have argued that 'Athens' and Jerusalem' signify the two forces of a primal duality (Urzwet) that have been contending with each other in Judaism since its inception, creating within it a tension, as well as a dynamic and enriching multiplicity. However, duality also creates a disintegrating tension, or one which in the final analysis causes the totality and the unity to alter their nature. The reception of the classical tradition in Russia from the time of Peter the Great's reign was one aspect of 'Russia's orientation towards Western Europe in general' .10 Taking the Russian case as an analogy, one could also say that the reception of the classical heritage by the Jews from the dawn of the Haskalah movement was one aspect of Judaism's orientation towards Western Europe. Greek philosophy first became known to Jewish philosophers in the Hellenistic period and the encounter with it became intensive and influential from the Middle Ages up to the modern era, but classical antiquity was an almost unknown world to the Jewish public at large. Only during the nineteenth century did Jews become more familiar with it, and this was one aspect of their acculturation or 'Europeanization'. 9 Thucydides, Historics, 2. 41. I; for Isocrates see esp. PanegyriOls, 23-50. Matthew Arnold echoed these authors when he declared: 'The Athens of Pericles was a vigorous man, at the summit of his bodily strength and mental energy' (,Modern Element', 45), with 'the utmost energy of mature manhood, public and private, the most unprejudiced and intelligent observation of human affairs' (ibid. 60). 10 Wes, Classics i" Russia, 4.

INTRODUCTION

5

But the modern encounter of Judaism with classical tradition was far more than the reading of Greek literature or the translation of Greek literature into Hebrew, thereby exhibiting cultural openness and tolerance, as well as sensitivity to the depth and otherness of human and cultural movements. It was a process by which 'Greek values' permeated and changed the value system of Judaism and the cultural reality of the Jews in nearly every sphere. 'Athens' became an integral part of 'Jerusalem', or, if we prefer a different metaphor, 'Jerusalem' became a new reality in which 'Athens' and 'Jerusalem' are integral parts. This, then, was a process of more than becoming acquainted with the' other', or even of borrowing certain values and traits from its culture. The Jews and Judaism have always borrowed traits and values from other cultures, changing them while assimilating them (by 'Judaizing' them), or modifying them in one or another sphere. This time, the change was more sweeping and substantial than in previous instances. Jews often redefined their identity and its nature by looking into the Greek mirror. The prominent Islamist G. E. von Grunebaum wrote that 'the tendency to utilize the "other" civilization in order to understand one's own is clearly to be distinguished from mere recognition of another civilization as an entity of some value' .11 Polarization had been a way to define the world beyond the borders of one's own culture, and to defme, or redefine, one's own culture. The 'other' was utilized in order to represent it as foreign and inferior, in order to reinforce one's sense of self-value (though occasionally as a model of a superior type of person or society). In the fifth century BC, the consciousness of the polarization of barbarian and Hellene became a popular topos in Greek tragedy. A 'discourse of barbarism' was created as a component of the Panhellenic ideology; this discourse comprised 'a complex system of signifiers denoting the ethnically, psychologically, and politically "other": terms, themes, actions, and images' .12 This was the case with the polarization between Jews and Gentiles (goyim), and is so too with 'Judaism' and 'Hellenism'. Frequendy the 'other' serves as an oppositional model, an external Gegenpol; such a structure must be contrasted with an immanent polar duality in which the two contradictory but mutually enriching forces are inherent in the specific entity itself, so that the Gegenpol is not external. This principle of dual polarity, which finds in the tension between the Grunebaum, 'An Analysis ofIslamic Anthropology', 43. Hall, ItIVfll1in.~ the Barbarian, 2, cf. 11; Herodotus, writes Lateiner, already showed an 'impulse toward discovering polarities' (17Je Historical Methods ~f HerodotllS, 150). See also G. E. R. Lloyd, Polarity and Allalo}!)'; Romm, 17Je Ed}!es 4the Earth, 45-81. 11

12

6

INTRODUCTION

poles a universally immanent polare Natur of society, first appeared in the historical philosophy of the German Enlightenment or Aujkliirung, and then developed in the Romantic and conservative philosophy of history. Often the immanent Gegenpol is signified by external phenomena that are in a sense its metaphor and manifestation, as when 'the Orient' stands for supposedly 'Oriental' elements in the West. However, in the case of the Jewish-Greek polarity, Judaism was not only a manifestation of an innate Gegenpol in Western culture and in the nature of Western man; it was also a real external Gegenpol, constituting a complete essence in polar opposition to Westernism. Jews utilized it for purposes of self-observation and self-definition and in order to establish a new relationship with the world of the 'other', which was perceived as different from the 'old' Christian world or the Gentiles as defined in the traditional point of view. The appearance of a new 'other'--side by side with the traditional 'others'-resulted from the change that took place in the status of Jews in the surrounding European society and their attitude towards it, as well as from the fact that Jews began to define and regard Judaism as a culture: an all-encompassing life experience, no longer corresponding and identical with religion. By the start of the Haskalah, this tireless effort had already begun: to depict Judaism as a culture and Jews as a nation of culture (Kulturnation), who carried with them, wherever they went, a rich cultural heritage of great attainment that bore its own distinctive stamp and which they continued to enrich and enhance in every locale. This definition made it necessary not only to examine the features and exclusive qualities of Jewish culture, but also to draw the portrait of this culture in full detail, and to elucidate the patterns of contact that existed between it and the surrounding culture. The' other' is turned into an inverted mirror in which Judaism examines itself using the method of opposition. I use the term 'method of opposition' in its simplest sense, as a method of comparison and analogy.13 For many it was not enough to identify the idea or content of Judaism; it was also necessary to place it in opposition to another entity in order to delineate its nature the more precisely. Jews have done this throughout history when comparing Judaism and Christianity. Now, in modern times, they had begun to compare it with the classical heritage as well. 'Jews, who for centuries had fiercely defended themselves against Christianity, were noW occasionally tainted by pagan imagery'. 14 Many Jews looked into the Greek mirror and in order to prove the 13 It should be noted that an analogy is 'never an absolute likeness; it poinrs to a similarity in certain respecrs shown in context which will differ in other respecrs', Encyclopaedia Britannica (1962), i. 863-4. ,. Manuel, The Eighteenth Century Confronts the Gods, 3.

INTRODUCTION

7

superiority of Judaism paraphrased the question asked by the queen in the famous fairy-tale: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Is not our culture the finest of all? Others looked there not merely to see the opposite of their own image and essence but to discover in it essential attributes which, in their view, their own culture lacked. In this way, they could discern the absence of attributes and elements of culture that they now felt they needed. Not only did such mirror-inspection create an all-encompassing and stereotypical portrait of the 'other'; very often, as in the subject of the present study, it also obliged Jews to ask new questions about their own identity, to ascribe different emphases and meaning to various fundamental elements in their tradition and their historical experience, to effect radical changes in that tradition, to internalize new criteria and tools for self-judgement. In other words, the meeting with an 'other'-one that has the status of a close and oppositional culture--engenders conflict, while at the same time generating a complex and dialectical process of self-discovery and even of self-rebuilding and of defining the desirable and the actual relationship between these two worlds. It was the cause and the result of the discovery of both the world outside and the 'inner world'. When Ahad Ha' am (1856-1927), one of the main exponents of the idea of modern Jewish nationalism, approached the task of writing a work of summation of the treasures of Jewish culture that would demonstrate its unity and uniqueness in all spheres, he proposed, among other things, using the method of comparison: 'It will be necessary, in my opinion, to choose the method of comparison, that is, to compare every experience in the life of Jews and Judaism to those experiences close to it in the lives of other peoples, so that all issues may be understood in their general contexts, which are grounded in the nature of man, and Judaism will no longer be an upside-down world that survives by a miracle and has no relation to life at all'.IS The Jewish scholar Leopold (Yom Tov) Lippmann Zunz (17941886), one of the founders of the Wissenschqft des Judentums or 'science of Judaism', wrote ironically in May 1836: 'I search desperately to find some positive content for Judaism, in contrast to non-Judaism, in other words, the taste of an apple is nothing other than the opposite of the taste of a non-apple.'16 Neither Ahad Ha'am nor Leopold Zunz contemplated Ahad Ha'am, 'AI devar otzar hayahadut', 213-14. ,. Clatzer, Leopo/d Z/IIIZ, 8S. A 'Western man', educated in Christian and classical traditions, wrote Toynbee, 'came to look upon history as a comparison in two terms' (A Study ~f History, ii. 387). 15

8

INTRODUCTION

comparison with the cultures of the Far East or of Islam, but rather with Western culture and its progenitrix, the culture of classical antiquity. This was not because they excluded those cultures from humanity as a whole, but because they, like many of their contemporaries, adopted a distinctly Eurocentric point of view; for them, Europe represented progress. The fact that Jews and Judaism existed in the midst of a European society whose secularism grew ever more intense called for a new approach in studying the relations between Judaism and modern secular culture, of which the idea and essence ofclassical antiquity, which we shall call Greekness, was the quintessential metaphor. In fact, the antinomy of Judaism and Greekness was, at one and the same time, a chapter in the old-new Judaeo-Christian polemics and in the confrontational encounter of Jews with the modern secular culture around them. This chapter has precursors and parallels in Hellenistic Alexandria, in Islamic Spain, in Europe of the RenaissanceY The method of comparison clearly requires a knowledge of the culture with which one is drawing a comparison, and a culture capable of comparison, that is to say not entirely foreign and disparate. However, this does not necessarily mean that the object of comparison is relativized. The danger of relativization exists, but the comparison can also strengthen the absolute value that one assigns oneself. It seems that both Zunz and Ahad Ha'am were aware of the fact that, in the words of Bakhtin, 'in the realm of culture, outsidedness is a most powerful factor in understanding. It is only in the eyes of another culture that foreign culture reveals itself fully and profoundly .. .'.18 Although the outside observer may understand or err, feel identity or identification, owing to his point of view he will necessarily see things differently from someone on the 'inside'. The tension between the two viewpoints-the inner and the outer-is an inseparable part of the history of culture. However, more is involved here than a process of comparison and analogy. It is also a process of shaping a world-picture based on a binary model in which two opposites confront one another. Thus 'Greece' became the Gegentyp of Judaism in such a model. A binary model is one of the available options for organizing and constituting a diversified and multifaceted world. Every such model calls for the choice of an opposite, whether it be 17 The interchanges between Islamic civilization and Judaism are the subject of many studies and lie outside the scope of this book. On the impact of Persian culture and religion on Judaism see Gafui, 17Ie

Jews ~f Babylollia, 149-76.

,. Bakhtin, 'Response to a Question', 1-7. Christopher Herbert writes: 'In order not to be paralyzed by these and analogous questions, cultural analysis has no option except to proceed by means of what by its own axioms it ought not to allow, a process of comparison with some point of reference external to the "culture" under study' (Cu/ture and AI/omit, 8).

INTRODUCTION

9

the sole existing opposite or one selected from among several possibilities; in general, it is not a distant and alien culture that is chosen as the opposite, but rather a familiar culture, often one with which there are common links. The paradox is that there is no point in drawing an antithesis with anything totally different. The antithesis draws its vitality and strength from the fact that by constituting the world according to a binary model one incorporates the power of myth into various aspects of life. The antithesis is powerful because oppositions do exist in various spheres of life, that is, they are not inventions, but really do exist. 19 Greece and the Greeks of classical antiquity became a model of a human typos, a prototype, and an ideal type of society and culture; as a result, from a Jewish point of view, they became a counter-type. Obviously, these are generalizations and abstractions, but without them no opposition is possible. In Weber's definition, an ideal type is 'formed by a synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sided emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct (Gedankenbild)'.20 Thus Greece as an ideal type could present a clear collective human entity and culture, an encompassing entity whose complex traits add up to a coherent whole. Only when plurality is transformed into unity, can this unity serve as an 'opposition', as a mirror, or as the 'other'. The 'Greek soul' and the 'Jewish soul', the 'Greek mentality' and 'Greek spirit', as much as the 'Jewish mentality' and 'Jewish spirit', are but presupposed imaginary abstractions,21 but they were, as we shall see, very powerful and useful abstractions. The method of comparison and analogy does not only call for some familiarity with the object of this comparison; it can also attest to the internalization of some of the values of the 'other', culminating in selfchange. Again, what von Grunebaum has to say on the phenomena of acculturation in modern Islam is very relevant to modern Judaism: 'Arab writers of more recent days are concerned with fighting Westernization by means of a self-image that is itself very largely a result of acculturation' .22 And indeed, the impact of the tradition and heritage of classical antiquity and of Hellenism on modern Judaism has two aspects: it induced Jews to fight against Westernization by reinforcing their self-image in order to resist acculturation; and it caused them to internalize 'Greek values' in the course of their struggle. The Jewish historical consciousness underwent a ,. Lotman and Uspenski, 'Binary Models'. Weber, 'On the Methodology of the Social Sciences', 90. 21 Momigliano, 'Introduction', 298--