November 2, 2012 - The Jewish Transcript

6 commuNity News JtNews . www.JtNews.Net . friday, November 2, 2012
shedding light on an 18th-century bestseller
Janis siegel JtNews Correspondent
A Hebrew text from 1797, one of the
most widely read and influential Jewish
books of its time, caught the imagination
of one of today’s foremost Jewish scholars
because it promoted harmony and the
coherence between science, nature, and
the Divine.
David Ruderman, a professor of
modern Jewish history at the University
of Pennsylvania, spoke to packed audiences
in Seattle on October 22 and 24 as
part of the University of Washington’s
annual Stroum Lecture series. In his lectures,
“Behind a Best Seller: Kabbalah,
Science, and Loving One’s Neighbor in
Pinhas Hurwitz’s ‘Sefer ha-Brit,’” Ruderman
explained why “Sefer ha-Brit” (“The
Book of the Covenant”), written by European
kabbalist and entrepreneur Pinchas
Hurwitz, was reprinted in 40 editions.
“Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote about the
fact that his mother loved this book especially,”
Ruderman told JTNews. “He read
the Yiddish version. People like [S.Y.]
Agnon, Solomon Schechter, and a long list
of people have quoted the book. This is the
way people got their science. People had it
in their homes. This was the kind of book
that was ‘parve.’ You could learn your science
and still appreciate being a Jew.”
Ruderman said that the book’s second
part, which calls for a universal morality,
is its most remarkable. It provides a kind
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of early moral template for
uniting disparate groups,
both within and outside of
Judaism. Hurwitz’s book,
he said, contains a sophisticated
message he calls
“moral cosmopolitanism”
that appealed to Jews at
a time when the printing
press and the scientific revolution
were shaping a new
intellectual future.
“The work is a scientific
encyclopedia written
by a kabbalist,” said Ruderman.
“It was read by Jews
who were enlightened,
who were trying to express
their secularity, but it was
also read by Hassidim, and the opponents
of Hassidim. It breaks down all barriers.”
According to Ruderman, “Sefer ha-
Brit” includes chapters on astronomy,
botany, geology, animals, medicine, the
human body, and Creation. Hurwitz, who
was only known due to the popularity of
this book, wanted Jews to have all of the
available scientific knowledge of the time.
“He was an aggressive book dealer,”
Ruderman explained. “He goes around
the world selling this book. He was born
in Vilna, he goes to Germany, he comes
to the Netherlands, he’s in Amsterdam,
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Joel magalNiCk
Dr. David ruderman speaks about universal morality in Judaism
during his visit to seattle for the stroum lecture series at the
university of Washington.
spends a year in The Hague, he goes to
London, he goes back across the continent,
and he eventually dies in Krakow.”
Ruderman, who is also an ordained
Reform rabbi, noted that medicine and
the choice to become a doctor was always
accepted and encouraged in Jewish culture
throughout history, as it was during Hurwitz’s
time.
“Many Jews, from a very early period
of time, became doctors, and doctors were
approved of as a very important dimension
of the Jewish tradition,” said Ruderman.
“Medicine was not looked down
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Executive Director of Hadassah Offices, Israel
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upon. There were so many Jewish doctors,
and this continues in Northern Europe in
the Middle Ages.”
However, in the 19th and 20th century,
he said, science and traditional Judaism
underwent a partial split.
“I think it had to do with the breakdown
of the traditional community,” he
said. “During the scientific revolution,
Jews become aware, like others, of this
world, and they responded. Jews were
assimilating and leaving the Jewish fold,
but the connection wasn’t broken.”
Additionally, the growing acceptance
of Jews in academia further encouraged
the trend of Jews migrating toward the
sciences and away from traditional
influences.
“And then in the Early Modern period
there was an explosion, because universities,
for the first time, opened their doors
to Jews, and many Jews go to the university
to study medicine.”
Ruderman, who is the Joseph Meyerhoff
Professor of Modern Jewish History
and the Ella Darivoff Director of the Herbert
D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic
Studies at UPenn, originally went to rabbinical
school to follow a family legacy
of rabbis, but instead, excelled in the academic
world.
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