2. Hebraic literature
Of Mishna to Rabbi Loeb
The mishnic period (approx. Ist C.-230)
The return of captivity, the revolt of Asmonéens and found independence, then lost (70 b. J.-C.), support the blossoming of the sects Jewish, claiming all of the spiritual inheritance of the Bible (sadducéens, pharisees, essenians, Zealotes). Only the Judaism pharisee survived (vis-a-vis another sect exit of the Judaism accepting for Messiah Jesus of Nazareth: Christians).
In addition to the great flowering of the Judaism alexandrine, the literary monument of this period was without context Mishna (of a Hebraic root meaning repetition, study - Law).
The matter of Mishna is thus to explain the " Law and the prophets ". Hillel the Old one (end of Ist cent. b.. J.-C.) formulated the first rules of hermeneutic, which were taken again and supplemented by Rabbi Ismaël (IInd C.).
At the beginning of IIIrd century, Rabbi Juda the Saint put Mishna in writing, basing himself on some former collections but especially on the oral law transmitted of Master to disciples, from generation to generation. One finds in Mishna, beside legal teaching in all his rigour, an ethical teaching (maxims of the Fathers of the Synagogue) and monk of a great value:
- Ben Zoma said: Who deserves to be called wise? That which finds something to learn from each
man.
Who deserves to be called hero? That which overcomes its passions.
Who deserves to be called rich person? That which is satisfied with its fate.
Who enjoys the respect? That which testifies
consideration towards the creatures to God.Collections of midrashim are also had (allegorical explanations). Some are very old, such Sifra (comment on Levitic) or Sifre (comment on the Numbers or Deuteronome); others, later, such Midrash Rabba (allegorical comment on Pentateuque).
After the fence of Mishna, one attends very quickly a degradation of the linguistic situation, and Hebrew ceases being a language spoken to become exclusively a liturgical language and a literary language, and that until the beginning of XXth century.
Guemara (comments) was added to Mishna during three centuries which followed. These comments are at the same time of a nature legal, exegetic, moral. Mishna and Guemara constitute together Talmud (Teaching). Lastly, this time preserved the oldest prayers of the worship synagogal, posterior at the Bible.
- Before createbeing created, I was unworthiness even.
Now that I exist, I am as if I did not
have [ not created.
During the life, I am dust;
How much more, with my death!...
That it is your will, Seigneur, to make in [ kind
which I cease being a sinner
And condescends to erase the faults
that I made in front of You
and that in your infinite mercy,
and not by punishments.
(Prayer, talmudic time.)Hebraic literature at the time medieval
After the slow disintegration of the Palestinian Judaism (IVth-Vth C.), the centre of gravity of the Judaism moved towards Babylonia, and the Masters of the talmudic academies this country (geonim) became the spiritual heads of the entire Judaism, that until XIth century. Of all the Diaspora, one turned to them to solve the difficult problems of jurisprudence. However, the Palestinian Judaism was not completely destroyed: the massorètes (of will massora, " tradition ") definitively attached to IXth century, in Tibériade, the pronunciation of Hebrew biblical and worked out the system of point-vowels still into force today. The massoretic notes are of great importance for the comprehension of the Bible
The more famous gaon was Saadia (882-942): theologist and philosopher, he is the author of Kitab Al-Amanat w' Al-I' tiqadat (Beliefs and convictions), the first work of Jewish theology; he was also a lexicographer, grammarian, religious poet, exegete, translator of the Arabic Bible (Tafsir') and polemist (he could make face with the attacks force karaites, sect Jewish denying the value of Talmud and the oral tradition and stressing the need " for scanning the text of the written law diligently ").
The statute of the Jews of Europe changed nature when the most significant part of the Jewish people passed from the " diaspora of Esau " (Christendom) to that of Ismael (Islam). Admittedly the Jew is a dhimmi (citizen of second command), however Islam could be shown more tolerant for those (Jewish and Christian) that Coran calls " the people of the Book ". The Moslem domination in Spain allowed the blossoming of the golden age of the Judaism in all the fields: in policy (Hasdaï Ibn Chaprut was the vizier d' Abdul Rahman III), in medicine and astronomy, but more especially literature.
The golden age of Spain lasted several centuries; Reconquista had terrible consequences on the fate of the Jewish communities. The first posterior synagogue with the hard exile of 1492 was inaugurated in December 1968!
Ground the Hebraic literature of Spain was of an astonishing richness. After the polemic of the rabbanites against the karaïtes, illustrated by Saadia and bearing on the interpretation of the Bible, of scientists grammarians trained at the Arab school founded truly grammatical and lexicological science Jewish. Let us quote inter alia Menahem Ibn Saruq, author of a " collection " (dictionary of Hebraic roots) and its adversary Dunash Ibn Labrat, Hayyug (author of the theory of the " triliterality " of the Hebraic roots), Ibn Jannah, Abraham Ibn Ezra (large scholar who is at the same time, like Saadia, grammarian, exegete and poet), the family of Qimhi, in particular David Qimhi (RaDaQ).
It was the apogee of Hebraic poetry. Since biblical times and until the end of XIXth century, nothing which is comparable with the poetic talent and the splendid language of Solomon Ibn Gabirol (XIth C.), of Moshé Ibn Ezra, Juda Hallevi (XIth-XIIth C.). This last, author of immortal Sionides, was the cantor par excellence of the love of Israel (designating at the same time the people and the ground of Israel):
- Are not you anxious, o Sion! fate of your prisoners,
Whereas they do torment tien, them,
[ surviving of your herd? [... ]
to feel sorry for your distress, I howl like the
[ jackals, but when I dream
Of the return of your prisoners, I am a vibrating zither all of your anthems.Jewish philosophy is strongly impregnated of Arab culture and, through it, of Greek culture. The largest philosopher was without Maimonide question, born into 1134, died into 1205. Its works, written in Arabic, were translated into Hebrew by Samuel Ibn Tibbon (of the great family of Provence of Tibbonides which translated the most significant works of Jewish philosophy).
Because of the decline of the gaonat, the care " to slice " Halakah returned to the " decisions-making ", authors of many collections of Responsa: Rabbenu Gershon, " Light of the Exile " (Xth C.), Rabbi Asher Ben Yehiel (XIIIth C.-beginning of XIVth C.), his son Jacob, author of Arba' Tourim (Four Lines), finally the author of famous Shulhan Aroukh (drawn up Table, code on which is founded the traditional Judaism nowadays), Joseph Qaro (XVIth C.), and its " commentator ", Moshe Iserles
Throughout the centuries, the biblical and talmudic exegese constituted a significant share of the literary activity of the Jews. The most famous commentators were without question Shelomo Ishaqi (Raši, Troyes, XIth C.), its disciples, then Abraham Ibn Ezra and Mose Ben Nahman (XIIIth C.).At the end of XIIth century develops a mystical movement in the Rhenish area, whose outstanding personalities were Juda the Piles and Éleazar of Worms. The Kabbale, being nourished with the same mystical sources, differs from it deeply. The movement kabbalist, was born in Provence towards the end from XIIth century, on the basis of old lesson esoteric, such Sefer ha-Bahir (the luminous Book). Zohar, or Delivers splendour, was the text essential kabbalist.
XVIth century was one century of transition. The expulsion of the Jews of Spain made burst this community towards the Moslem countries on the one hand, the Maghreb and Turkey, on the other hand towards Italy, Balkans, and towards central and Eastern Europe. The invention of printing works made it possible to the people of the Book to extend the diffusion of the basic texts.
The great figures of this XVIth century were ' Azaria of Rossi in Italy, author of Méor Eynayim (the Light of the eyes) and especially the Chief rabbi of Prague, celebrates it Maharal (the High Rabbi Loeb)..., humanistic Jew, basically attached to the tradition, moralist, philosopher, exegete and eminent kabbalist. Its writings were recently the subject of remarkable studies. The material situation of the Jews was then not very brilliant, the imposed " ghettos " led to a mentality of fold on oneself, persecutions and the brimades of all kinds hardly created the conditions favorable to the blooming of a literature.
The revival came from Italy where the fate of the Jews was much better. Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto (1707-1746), eminent kabbalist, was also a playwright: Migdal ' oz (the Tower of power), Lišarim Tehila (Praise with the virtuous men) are the first parts which produced the Jewish literature since long centuries; he was still moralist (Mesilat yešarim, the Path of right) and polemist. He gave up " secondarized " Hebrew, where all was formulated by means of biblical or rabbinical quotations; he introduced a clearness of design and expression into a language then in full lethargy.
Moise Mendelssohn (1729-1786) and N H. Viesel (1725-1805) are considered, with Luzzatto, like the fathers of the modern literature. Forcing the gates of the ghetto, the first especially took an active share with the German cultural life and opened the way with the emancipation of the Jews. Mendelssohn, after Luther, translated the Bible into German, accompanying his translation by a beour (interpretation) in Hebrew. Five centuries after Maimonide, it dared to confront the Jewish thought with the philosophy of time. This confrontation with the external culture, this rebirth of the letters and science Jewish will open out during all XIXth century.
Maskilim: hopes and lost illusions
The general movement of the ideas which, in Western Europe, had proposed the concepts of freedom, human fraternity, equality, progress..., found an echo immediate among intellectuals Jewish, so completely private of all that constituted their burning aspirations, since centuries, and yet so avid all to study, all to learn. This " thirst to know ", about which spoke already the Amos prophet, had seized the young people for the ghetto.
Haskala (" Lights ") comprises three periods: rationalist, it rather quickly became romantic; then the vexations, the failures and the pogroms brought it to realism and despair. However these three elements were never exclusive one of the other; Haskala sings the man maskil: the Jew ideal, intelligent and refined, attentive with others, intensely in love with this nature of which the ghetto deprives it so painfully; more still, the maskil must come out of its spiritual ghetto, to open with other values that those of the traditional Judaism. It is consequently not surprising only the attacks against the Jewish religion, in what it has of constraining, against its interference in the least acts of the life, are made so violent and, very often, so unjust.
J L Gordon, the poet of Haskala, preaches the new currency: " Be Jewish in your residence, are man out of at home. "
S. D. Luzzatto (1800-1865), like its distance relative, excelled in many fields. Its work is clearly tinted of romanticism:
- When thus the world did see appearing discoveries as marvellous as with our generation? Did one, for that, see decreasing the wars, the assassinations, the abductions and the flights, pauperism and misery, misfortunes, the jealousy and hatred, the cries of unhappy and the gémissements of afflicted, the untimely deaths?... (Foreword with the Bases of the Law.)
H. N Krochmal (1785-1840), native of Galicie, traditional hearth of the hassidism, inflects the evolution of the Jewish religious thought of XIXe century. Its More Neboukhe Hazeman (Guide of stray of our time) realized, at least partially, the aimings of the author. It is in the middle of the century that Haskala reached its apogee in central Europe and Russia; all the literary kinds flower there, the theatre however with some delay. There were initially translations of works of science and especially of classic authors (of Homère with... Eugene Sue, whose Mysteries of Paris knew, thanks to the translation of C Schulmann, an immense success).
In Russia, I B Levensohn (1788-1860) took, in Hebrew, the defense of the modern instruction and an up to date handing-over of the Jewish thought. Lyric poetry, as for it, made great great strides, thanks to A. B. Lebensohn [ Adam Hakohen ] (1784-1880) and, especially, to its son Micha Yoseph, or Michal (1828-1852). Of a vast culture, at the same time Jewish and layman, admirer of Schiller, excel translator of the Fall of Troy, drawn from Eneide, its poems draw their inspiration as well in the biblical and Jewish history as in the contemplation of nature or the experiment intimates of a major faith.
J L Gordon (1830-1892) was without question the standard poet of Haskala. It was lyric in turn, fabulist with Mishle Yehudah, then satirical author. It attacks the traditional Judaism savagely, and the rabbis whom it depicts are the object of all its ironic liveliness. Rabbi Vafsi Hakuzari (Qoso šel yod, the Jamb of the yod) has the heart as black as Kuzari (" Tatare ") from which it undoubtedly goes down: for a tiny jamb of yod, it refuses to validate a religious act, thus causing a new misfortune with poor Jewish given up by her first husband. The poor Sarah (' Ašaqa derispaq, For a hub of tank) sees her hearth destroyed, on the intervention of the rabbi, to have made the crime to drop by inadvertency a grain from barley in soup the Pascale evening. God itself, which attends without a tear the martyrdom of pure girl who, like thousands of others, will prefer death with the apostasy during the expulsion of Spain, does not escape the reproaches from the poet (Bimsulot yam, In the depths of the sea). But " to be man out of at home ", similar to its fellow-citizens, fascinating share with their life, their efforts, for their culture, still is necessary it to be accepted! After the pogroms of Kichinev (1881), in Lemi ' ani ' amel (For which is, the sorrow which I take? Gordon is in despair:
- Am I the last of the bards of Sion?
Are you, yourselves, my last readers?A. Mapou (1808-1868) drew its inspiration in the ancient history of Israel, and, in ' Ahavat Šion (Love of Sion), in 1853, it depicts the loves of Amnon (shepherd of Judaea, under king Ezechias, at the time of the Isaie prophet) and of Tamar. In voluntarily reduced Hebrew with the biblical vocabulary (in this pastoral novel appear only two names of flowers: the pink and the lily, because the Bible does not quote of them others!), with the style and the syntax of the Book of the books, Mapou celebrates the landscape of the Holy Land, the purity of manners of its inhabitants. How the life " according to nature ", in an independent country where each one enjoys the fruits of its work, beautiful was compared with that of the choking ghetto, obscurantist!
But the Jew of the ghetto could find his defenders. Authors such Mendele Mokher Sforim (pseudonym of S. Y. Abramovitch, 1836-1918), Y. L. Peretz (1851-1915) and Shalom Aleichem (pseudonym of S. Rabinovitch, 1859-1916) were full with tenderness for its exemplary piety, its simplicity, its softness, its so particular humour, its quiet courage, its faith unshakeable... The fanatic rabbi that had seen Gordon reveals under their feather a saint man, whose life is made only spirituality, of which the days and many the nights is devoted to the study of the Tevie Law, the slag (cf the modern part a violin on the roof), speaks the language about the Bible and of the rabbis, and accepts the tests and misfortunes which melt on him with an admirable faith and a resignation. The shtetl, the Jewish village, is the place where opens out the Judaism. The language of these authors does not give up the richnesses of Hebrew postbiblic and rabbinical. More still, the Yiddish, language spoken by all the Jews about central and Eastern Europe, composed of Hebrew, high-German, Slavic..., become, like the " crowned language ", one their means of expression. The Jewish populism will have found, in these authors, its worthy representatives.
The properly religious literature does not miss in XIXth century. Malbim (1809-1879) composed a traditional comment of the Bible which quickly became popular. But especially, the science of the Judaism (Wissenschaft of Judentums) developed: the history (H. Graetz, 1817-1891), medieval literature (L Zunz, 1794-1886; A. Geiger, 1810-1874; and A. Berliner, 1833-1915), the bibliography (Mr. Steinschneider, 1816-1907), philosophy medieval (S. Munk, 1803-1867) cause studies of the greatest interest, which, for a number of them, remain still valid nowadays.
The religious reform also makes its appearance in Germany, spreading then in the United States and in France (A. Geiger). By by-effect, neo-orthodoxy will continue with glare (S. R. Hirsch, 1808-1888). In Italy, the rabbi E Benamozegh (1823-1900) will confront Jewish Morale and moral Christian woman and will study the relationship between Israel and humanity. However, all these authors, so fine hébraists who they were, did not use Hebrew but primarily German (incidentally French) to develop their erudite theses!
Two events will mark the Hebraic literature between 1880 and 1917: pogroms of Russia (1881...) and appearance of the movement of the Lovers of Sion with the political and cultural Zionism.
The disappointed ambition of Haskala, to make a success of the emancipation of the Jews and to make Europeans of them (of confession or Jewish origin), yields the place to a will unbrakeable to make a success of the "auto-emancipation " (Avtoemansipatsia), to take in hand the destinies of the Jewish people and to assume them fully. This love of Sion must cease being a nostalgia, a topic of novel or poem, to find its realization
Ahad Haam (pseudonym of A. Ginsberg, 1856-1927) will especially endeavour to define the contents of a cultural Zionism. He will write and publish in 1889 Lo zo haderekh (It is not the good direction), lampoon which precisely returned it celebrates.
- We must, we also, become majority in a country single with world [... ] on which our right historical be indubitable [... ] Then our existence national can himself develop in agreement with our engineering [... ] Then only, the remainder of our people, in spite of its dispersion in all the country, can hope that our home national it impregnate of its spirit in him insufflate some its life, him give the force of live, even private of its right national in the country where it himself find...
The Halusiut (the work and the spirit of the pioneers) proved the movement by carrying it out. The large theorist of the " religion of work " was A. D. Gordon (1850-1920). Y. Arikh (born in 1907), D. Maletz (born in 1900), A. Barash (1889-1952), Y. Yaari (born in 1900) in prose, and Rahel (1890-1931), D. Shimoni (1886-1956) and Y. Lamdan (1899-1954) in poetry also celebrated it.
Antagonist of Ahad Haam, Mr. Y. Berditchewsky (1865-1921), " nietzschean " of tendency, milked throughout its work of the uprooted Jew and his concern. Belonging to the "esthetism ", it rejects with force the primacy of spiritual in the Jewish life and claims for the man freedom to obey its passions and its natural instincts.
Hebrew of as of the other announces already the contemporary language. Clearness and the concision, the precision and art to choose well the word right easily explain the deep influence that they had on their direct successors and, therefore, on the evolution of Hebrew. These two large polemists open the way with the national literature.
In same mobility as Berditchewsky, other writers such Brenner (1881-1921), Berkovitch (1885-1967), Gnessin (1879-1913), pretend the Jewish intellectual torn between his native village with the ancestral traditions and the large foreign and hostile city where it hopelessly tries to survive in a world without God. Does Feierberg (1874-1899) illustrate this topic in its short novel with the evocative title Lean? (Where to go?
H. N Bialik (1873-1934) and S. Tchernichovski (1875-1943) are the large Masters of the generation of the " Passage " (Ma' abar), that which will transfer the center from the Hebraic literature of Eastern Europe in Erets Israel (ground of Israel), name which carries Palestine in all their writings, until the independence of the State of Israel in 1948. With a number of writers of their generation they lived this emigration which bears in Hebrew the beautiful name of ' Aliya (" Gone up ").
Bialik, called " the national poet " by excellence, will start by celebrating its yešiva (college of talmudic studies); in Hamatmid (the Studious one), it depicts the young student who it was, leaning on its large folio, knowing to resist the nature which tries it, which calls it. In ' Ir haharega (the City of the massacre), it cries his tortured brothers, assassinated. The poet Zionist appears in Mete midbar (Deaths of the desert, which ressuscitent the pioneers), and the famous anthem Tehezaqna (Which take again courage...) is dedicated to the first congress Zionist. The treasures of the traditional literature remained to him expensive. With his friend Y. H. Ravnitsky, it publishes the book of Haggadah, anthology of the allegorical texts, morals, theology, Talmud and Midrash. Just as Tchernichovski, it translated the many traditional ones.
Nevertheless, these two writers are extremely different. Whereas Bialik draws its inspiration in a permanent identification with the people of Israel, history and contemporary, Tchernichovski appears, in its poems, less specifically Jewish: it sings nature, the joy in life, the Jewish man, more than the Jew. It is not far from thinking that they are the " prophets of lies " (' El nevi' E hašeqer) which were right against the biblical prophets! It is " vis-a-vis with the statue of Apollo " that it requests!
1917 mark a turning in the Hebraic literature: the revolution of October gives a brutal brake application to the emigration of the Jews of Russia, which had accelerated considerably since the pogroms of the end of the century, primarily towards the United States or Palestine. The other event, even more significant, is the declaration Balfour (Nov. 2), which solemnly recognizes the right of the Jews to a " national hearth " in Palestine and promises the assistance of the English government for the realization of this project. The dream Zionist becomes reality, symbolized by Tel-Aviv, city built on dunes in 1909 and which counts, nowadays, more than one million inhabitants! The Hebraic literature is shared henceforth between three hearths: Eastern Europe (Poland counts three million Jews then), the United States, Palestine.
Poland, between the two world wars, will have given to the Hebraic literature a large playwright, Mr. Shoham (1897-1937). The theatre was never a kind very in vogue; however the parts of Shoham, although drawing, they also, their inspiration in the Bible, made a deep impression because of the topicality of the selected topics and the talent of the author. On virušalayim (Tyr and Jerusalem) opposes the prophet Élie (Jerusalem) to the queen Jézabel (Tyr); the man of the ideals, morals, the spirituality, opposed to pagan, avid of pleasures and stripped of moral sense... Elohe barzel lo ta' ase lach (1934, You will not make metal gods) opposes Abraham the Hebrew to Gog the bloodthirsty man.
In 1918 is created in U.R.S.S. the famous Habimah troop, which " will go up " in its turn to Palestine in 1932. The Hakameri troop is born in 1945. Its creation constitutes to a certain extent a reaction against his prestigious elder sister of which it rejects the " cultural " character too much as well as the literary language and fixed which is not appropriate for sabred (born in the country). Hakameri wants to interest the public by subjects borrowed from the Israeli company in full formation. New authors will révèleront themselves who will write an alive and current theatre.