Detailed
Description |
|
Polemical work in defense of the Talmud by R. Isaac ben Elijah Margolies. Ma’oz ha-Yam was written as a response to Megaleh Afeh by Moses Leib Lilienblum (1843–1910), one of the leaders of the Haskalah of Hibbat Zion. R. Margolies had written Ma'oz ha-Talmud (1869), also in defense of the Talmud. Lilienblum had written Orhot ha-Talmud and Nosafot le-Orhot ha-Talmud in Ha-Meliz, advocating reforms in religion and in society. He criticized the outstanding rabbis of his time through the pages of Ha-Levanon and Kevod ha-Levanon. The title page of Ma’oz ha-Yam states that it is a response, “And that my adversary would write a book of his indictment” (Job 31:35), referencing Ha-Meliz, year 9 no. 46 attacking R. Margolies’ Ma’oz ha-Talmud. There is a letter written by R. Raphael Nathan Nata Rabbinovicz (Rabinovitz, 1835–1888), the renowned Dikdukei Soferim, for Ma’oz ha-Talmud, prefatory remarks by R. Margolies, and then the text.
R. Isaac ben Elijah Margolies, (1842–1887) was born in Kalvarija, S.W. Lithuania, the son of a rabbi. He devoted himself in his early youth solely to talmudic studies. After his marriage in 1862 to the daughter of a prominent member of the community of Merech in Vilna province, he took up residence there and began to take a keen interest in the Haskalah. This interest aroused the hostility of anti-Haskalah zealots, which, together with reverses in his father-in-law's business, compelled him to seek employment elsewhere. After spending some 15 years as a teacher, particularly in the house of Ezekiel Jaffe in Kovno, R. Margolies was appointed rabbi of Druskinnikai in Grodno province. There too he was persecuted by the opponents of the Haskalah, and two years later he accepted the invitation of the congregation of Anshei Kalvarija in New York, where he became renowned as a public lecturer and teacher. R. Margolies is the author of two works, Ma'oz ha-Talmud (1869) and Ma'oz ha-Yam (1871), in which he uses his outstanding talmudic knowledge to defend the Talmud against its critics. He is also the author of Sippurei Yeshurun (1877), an anthology of aggadic and talmudic literature written in a pleasant and easily readable Hebrew. Margolies contributed to the Hebrew periodicals Ha-Maggid, Ha-Shahar, Ha-Meliz, and Ha-Zefrah.
Lilienblum’s positions went through several stages. Thiose pertinenmt to this work are the first two, that is, from 1866-1870 when Lilienblum believed that the Jewish religion was stagnating and hindering the development of the nation. During this period Lilienblum advocated the introduction of the evolutionary principle into the field of religious practice. His main desire was to create close cooperation between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors to be expressed in moderate reform of the more rigid religious precepts. From1870–81, he abandoned the principle of religious evolution and the adoption of the demand for equal rights to be granted by the state as a prerequisite for the renaissance of Judaism in the spirit of the Haskalah. The Haskalah and progress are not a guarantee against anti-Semitism, and civil equality cannot be created only as a result of internal reforms in Judaism. |
