Manasseh of Ilya

Manasseh of Ilya
Born1767 
Smarhon 
DiedJuly 1831  (aged 63–64)

Manasseh ben Joseph of Ilya (Menashe Ilyer, 1767–1831), known by his pseudonym Ben Porat, was a Talmudist, rabbi and forerunner of the haskalah, or Jewish enlightenment.[1][2][3]

Biography

Born in Smorgon before relocating to Ilya, he shifted from focusing on the Talmud to secular sciences and learning such as higher mathematics.[4] Manasseh was a conservative and a humanitarian, expressing ideas of unity and cooperation in secular and Jewish learning.[5] His writings can be seen as a blending of Talmudic thought and European enlightenment philosophy.[6] He can be seen as a precursor of modernity among Eastern European Jews.[7] He was a student of the Vilna Gaon.[3]

He was concerned with education of the Russian Jewish children. In his 1807 Pesher Davar, he wrote:[8]

"...the Jews are divorced from real life and its practical needs and demands; that the leaders of the Jews are short-sighted men who, instead of enlightening their followers, darken their intellect with casuistic restrictions, in which each rabbi endeavors to outdo his predecessors and contemporaries. The wealthy class thinks only of its profits, and is not scrupulous with regard to the means of getting money. Even those who are honest and endeavor to help their poorer brethren do it in such an unintelligent way that they do harm rather than good. Instead of educating the children of the poor to become artisans, they add to the number of idlers, and are thus responsible for the dangerous consequences of such an education."

Due his rationalist worldview, which tried to avoid nonliteral explanations (derash) and Kabbalah, his views were often at odds with famous Jewish scholars and traditional authorities, such as Rashi (the traditional interpreter of the Mishnah in the Gemara) and the Shulchan Aruch. Sometimes he would even reject the Talmud's explanation of a given statement in the Mishna. He would have been banned if not for the assistance of an influential rabbi, Joseph Mazel of Wyazyn, who took an interest in him.[9]

The Vilna Gaon, his teacher, found out that Manasseh had met with Shneur Zalman of Liadi and suspected him of Hasidic tendencies, which he denied (although he did sympathize somewhat with that movement, he was skeptical of its emphasis on Kabbalah).[1] The Orthodox community was suspicious of him for his interest in secular philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy, which he viewed as valuable knowledge in and of themself, and as such things that should be taught in Jewish schools as part of a good education.[1] He planned to go to Berlin to study with Moses Mendelssohn, but his Orthodox coreligionists intervened with the Prussian authorities to deny him a passport, so he was forced to return home, but continued to study German, Polish, natural philosophy, and mechanics.[8]

He was friends with Judah Löb of Kovno, Samuel Eliasberg, and Wolf Adelsohn.[8]

He died in 1831 in the second cholera pandemic.[8]

Works

  • Pesher Davar [The Solution of the Problem] (Vilna, 1807). Many rabbis destroyed the book and it alienated some of his friends and disciples
  • Binat Miḳra, (Grodno, 1818)
  • Samma-de-Ḥayye [The Elixir of Life], written in Yiddish for general audiences, an educational text[10]
  • Sheḳel ha-Ḳodesh, (Shklov, 1823), a defense of his views
  • Alfe Menashsheh [The Teachings of Menashe] (Vilna, 1827, republished in Warsaw 1860). Samuel Katzenellenbogen threatened to burn it if he did not remove a section about amending rabbinical teachings.

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ a b c "Menasheh of Ilya". The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
  2. ^ Lempertienė, Lara (2019-09-25), "Jewish Literature and the Jewish Press in Lithuania in the Nineteenth and the First Half of the Twentieth Century", The History of Jews in Lithuania, Brill Schöningh, pp. 185–201, ISBN 978-3-657-70575-7, retrieved 2024-12-22{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  3. ^ a b "Ilyer, Menashe (1767–July 1831) — the Congress for Jewish Culture". congressforjewishculture.org. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
  4. ^ Barzilay, Isaac E. (1984). "Manasseh of Ilya (1767-1831) as Talmudist". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 74 (4): 345–378. doi:10.2307/1454276. ISSN 0021-6682. JSTOR 1454276.
  5. ^ Barzilay, Isaac E. (1984). "Manasseh of Ilya (1767-1831) and the European Enlightenment". Jewish Social Studies. 46 (1): 1–8. ISSN 0021-6704. JSTOR 4467239.
  6. ^ Barzilay, Isaac E. (1983). "Acceptance or Rejection: Manasseh of Ilya's (1767-1831) Ambivalent Attitude toward Hasidism". The Jewish Quarterly Review. 74 (1): 1–20. doi:10.2307/1454059. ISSN 0021-6682. JSTOR 1454059.
  7. ^ Barzilay, Isaac (1999). Manasseh of Ilya: Precursor of Modernity Among the Jews of Eastern Europe. Magnes Press, Hebrew University. ISBN 978-965-223-990-7.
  8. ^ a b c d "Manasseh ben Joseph of Ilye - JewishEncyclopedia.com". www.jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
  9. ^ "Manasseh ben Joseph of Ilye - JewishEncyclopedia.com". www.jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2026-01-23.
  10. ^ Dubnow, Simon. "History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Volume 2 [of 3] From the Death of Alexander I until the Death of Alexander III (1825-1894)". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2026-02-02.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Manasseh ben Joseph of Ilye (known also as Ben Porat)". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.

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