Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

Patriotic Pantheism { 20 1

the challenges subjectivity presented to their (differing) visions of social collec-

tivity. Like the majority of the figures in this book, Auerbach engaged in philo-

sophical politics by drawing creatively on a major philosopher to think his way

into the polity. This chapter looks especially at the criticism and literary produc-

tion of Auerbach’s early years to see how his conceptions of Jewish and German

identity and community and his engagement with Spinoza shaped one another.

My exploration uncovers a pervasive and anxious concern on the early Auer-

bach’s part with being seen as un-German due to his Jewishness and thereby re-

vises David Sorkin’s important assessment of the early Auerbach as naively blind

to the ways his contributions to German culture could be perceived by non-

Jews as not fully German. Auerbach’s abiding anxiety is especially evident in

the way he was constantly at pains to distance himself and Jews in general from

Heinrich Heine, who served as a privileged target for ideologically varied fulmi-

nations against purportedly nefarious, egoistic, and Jewish currents in German

society. Auerbach deployed Spinoza to negotiate the specter of such purport-

edly Jewish and un-German flaws and to imagine a liberal patriotism that would

have a place for Jews like him.

Auerbach’s Early Career

Auerbach was born in the Black Forest hamlet of Nordstetten in 1812 and grew

up in its rural Jewish community, attending a traditional heder (elementary

school) from age six to nine. From age nine until his bar mitzvah he went to

an innovative community school whose curriculum included secular subjects.

It was here that Auerbach learned to read and write German. Directly after his

bar mitzvah, Auerbach’s parents, who wished to see him become a rabbi, sent

him to attend a traditional yeshiva in nearby Hechingen; but Auerbach did not

thrive in the two years he spent there. In 1827 his parents, whose finances had

so deteriorated that they could no longer afford the boarding fees, sent him to

Karlsruhe. There, with support from his paternal uncle, Auerbach continued to

receive tutoring in Talmud while also auditing classes at the Lyceum.^3

Auerbach discovered Spinoza on his own while, at age eighteen, he was in

Stuttgart preparing for gymnasium admission exams.^4 An 1828 Württemberg

law had made a university degree obligatory for entrance to the rabbinate. Auer-

bach passed the gymnasium’s entrance exams on his second attempt and, after

two years of study, Abitur in hand, enrolled in the University of Tübingen in

1832.

After having abandoned his study of theology and law at Tübingen (the two

faculties in which he was alternately enrolled), Auerbach felt drawn to philoso-