Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
258T hat work, Jerusalem, was completed and published in 1783. It presents
Mendelssohn’s major statement on Jewish identity and Christian–Jewish relat ions.
It is an elegant ly writ t en and c ompassion-st irring argument for t oleranc e of
religious differenc es on all sides.
Putting Judaism in the c ontext of the European Enlightenment, Mendelssohn
breaks sharply with Maimonides and other medieval Jewish thinkers, arguing that if
religion is based on reason (as the neo-Aristotelians believed) then it serves no
purpose, for revelation c annot disc lose any truths not already available to the
rat ional, quest ing mind. Judaism is not “revealed religion” but “revealed law,” the
product of doctrines of religious reason that require no proof or revelation to be
int elligible. What distinguishes the Jew from the non-Jew is not a revelat ion of
reason but a unique body of Mosaic law, an historic al fac t that is attested to by the
six hundred thousand men, women and c hildren of the Hebrew people present at
Sinai. Therefore, Jews c an only ac hieve fulfilment by adhering to the laws of Moses.
The God of reason and the God of Sinai are unified in the observanc e of halakhah
(an interesting forerunner to the ideas of Rabbi Soloveithc hik). It is the sheer daily-
ness of these observances that brings Jews closer to eternal truths.
Jerusalem is also a plea for religious t oleranc e. The knowledge of Truth is an
indispensable part of human happiness, Mendelssohn says, so truth must be
ac c essible t o all, regardless of c reed or nat ion. No religion, not even Judaism, c an
be the only path to God’s truths. Therefore, freedom of thought and tolerance for
other systems of thought are a prerequisite to happiness. As he observes,
“Ac c ording to the tenets of Judaism, all inhabitants of the earth have a c laim t o
salvation, and the means to attain it are as widespread as mankind itself, as
liberally dispensed as the means of satisfying one’s hunger and other natural
assets.”
At the same time, Mendelssohn argues in both this work and his later writings,
Diaspora Jews must integrate themselves into the cultures that host them:
Even now, no better advic e than this c an be given to the House of Jac ob:
Adopt the mores and c onstitution of the c ountry in whic h you find
yourself, but be steadfast in upholding the religion of your fathers, too.
Bear both burdens as well as you c an.After all, isn’t that the task Moses Mendelssohn had taken on himself?
Mendelssohn would spend the remainder of his life trying to rec onc ile the two
sides of his existence. He became a dedicated and public battler for the rights of
German Jews, an ac t ivist wit hin t he c ommunit y it self. At the same time, he worked
for the modernization of German Jewish c ulture, translating the Bible into High
German, thereby providing the Jews with a lesson in High German and the
Germans with an introduc tion to Jewish belief.
His writings do not c onstitute an original system of thought: they are a
reflec t ion of t he rat ionalist liberalis m of t he Enlight enment salons in whic h he was
an honoured guest. But he triggered the Jewish Enlightenment, the Haskalah, wit h
his passionate double emphasis on the modernization of Jewish c ulture paired with
the emancipation of Diaspora Jewry. As suc h the Haskalah became something
Mendelssohn never intended, a most formidable assault on t he edific e of Rabbinic
J u d a is m. Combined with the beginnings of emanc ipation for Europe’s Jews and the
concomitant temptations of assimilation, that assault was more devastating for