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Updated: June 20, 2025
Thanks to the efforts of Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Mendes, and Wessely, it rose for a brief moment to the rank of a truly literary medium, very soon, however, to make way for the languages of the various countries, while it receded to the narrow confines provided by the Maskilim. Its final destiny was to be decided in Slav lands.
Josephus further ascribes to the singleness of the tradition the absence of original genius among the people. The excellence of the Law produces a conservative outlook, whereas the Greeks, lacking a fixed law, love a new thing. S.D. Luzzatto, the Hebraist of the middle of the nineteenth century, emphasized the same contrast between Hellenism and Hebraism.
As a result, Jost, Zunz, and Samuel David Luzzatto devoted themselves to the thorough examination of the Judaism of the Middle Ages. The outcome was a new science, the Science of Judaism. Rapoport published also a pamphlet against the Hasidim and their wonder- working Rabbis, and various articles on the necessity of promoting knowledge and civilization among the Jews.
After it had been transformed into a modern tongue, in touch with all departments of thought, the sole remaining task was to make it acceptable to the masses of the orthodox Jews, and use it as an effective instrument of social and religious emancipation. This task became easy of accomplishment because Luzzatto knew how to direct the mind of his contemporaries.
Though his mind was open to all the new influences, he nevertheless remained a loyal adherent of his faith, and occupied strictly religious ground until the end. He devoted himself with success to the cultivation of poetry, and completed the work of reform begun by the Italian Luzzatto, to whom, however, he was inferior in depth and originality.
The scene of his drama is laid in Cyprus; Venus and Cupid figure in the action. Romanelli gives a moral turn to his mythology, by interposing Peace to stay the conflict between Love and Fame. Ephraim Luzzatto, at the same period, tried his hand, not unsuccessfully, at Hebrew love sonnets.
Luzzatto became the founder of a school. Writers of our own day, like Vittorio Castiglioni, Eude Lolli, and others, draw upon the works of the master as a source, and they acknowledge it openly.
From early youth Luzzatto showed remarkable aptitude for poetry. The young man then decided to break with the poetry of the Middle Ages, which hampered the development of the Hebrew language. A poetic breath animates it, and it is characterized by the artistic taste that is one of the distinctions of its author.
Besides news bearing on politics and literature, and philological essays, and poems more or less bombastic, Ha-Maggid published a number of original articles of great value. Its issues formed the link between the old masters, Rapoport and Luzzatto, and young Russian writers like Gordon and Lilienblum.
Luzzatto does not hesitate to criticise the masters of the Middle Ages rather sharply, chief among them Maimonides, who attempted the impossible when he endeavored to harmonize science and faith, reason and feeling, Moses and Aristotle. These are the irreconcilable oppositions in human life.
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