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These two leaders, Rapoport and Krochmal, stimulated a whole school of writers, whose works established the fortune of the Hebrew language in Galicia. With more or less originality, all departments of literature and science were cultivated. Very soon, however, the times ceased to be propitious to serene thinking and investigation of the past.
Hence it comes that Jewish culture is essentially spiritual, ideal, and tends to promote the perfection of the human kind. Krochmal in this way arrives at the following three conclusions: 1. The Jewish nation is like the phoenix, constantly arising to new life from its ashes. It comprises within itself the three elements of Hegel's triad: the idea, the object, and the intelligence.
There he met Joseph Perl, the noted educator; Doctor Isaac Erter, the immortal satirist; M.H. Letteris, the distinguished poet; S.L. Rapoport, one of the first and profoundest of Jewish historians, and Nahman Krochmal, the saintly philosopher. Into this circle of "shining ones" Levinsohn was introduced, and each and all left an impression, some greater, some less, upon his plastic soul.
Erter went on with his Rabbinic studies, and married a second time. A lucky chance brought him in contact with a Maskil who led him to the study of Hebrew grammar, and he became a devotee of the Haskalah. Encouraged by Rapoport and Krochmal, with whom he had entered into relations, he published his first satire on Hasidism. It evoked considerable comment.
At this point ceases the dominance of the litterateurs of Austrian Poland. The centre of literary activity was thereafter transferred to Russia permanently. Hasidism was about to take complete possession of Galicia, and Hebrew literature, confined to a few small circles, was never again to reach there the heights which it had occupied in the days of Rapoport and Krochmal.
On this Hegelian axiom of actual reason and absolute reason, Krochmal builds up his ingenious system of the philosophy of Jewish history. He is the first Jewish scholar who views Judaism, not as a distinct and independent entity, but as a part of the whole of civilization. At the same time, while it is attached to the civilized world, it is distinguished by qualities peculiar to itself.
Yet we must be grateful to him because many of his interpretations are beautiful ornaments to the text; and we may apply to them what Ibn Ezra said of the teachings of the Haggadah, 'Some of them are fine silks, others as heavy as sack-cloth." Krochmal translated into Hebrew examples of Philo's allegories and gave parallels and contrasts from the Talmud.
For the day on which the positions shall be reversed, and the spirit of humanity shall remain in possession of the field, that day will be the last in the life of the people of Israel." This conception of the providential role assigned to Israel is the point at which the Italian romanticist meets Krochmal, wide apart though their starting-places are.
His book offered them an explanation, based on modern science and yet in accord with their Jewish essence as revealed by history and therefore satisfying to their national pride. Thus Krochmal opened up a way for the seekers after enlightenment in future generations. On the ideas of the master, his successors built up their conceptions of the Jewish people.
More rational than Hegel himself, Krochmal thus avoids the contradiction which follows from the mystical definition of existence in the Hegelian system. For the German metaphysician, existence is the interval between not being and being, that is, the period of becoming. Krochmal simply eliminates this more or less materialistic notion of the interval.
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