In Morgenstunden Mendelssohn addresses the truths he believes to be self-evident to reason, that is, the belief in a wise and merciful G-d and the immortality of the human soul. These metaphysical truths are the essential elements of the religion of reason. According to Mendelssohn, the world is to be regarded as detached from G-d, in addition to its immanent existence within G-d - according to the pantheistic outlook of Spinoza. This enables Mendelssohn to uphold the concept of the creation of the world by G-d and divine providence which metes out reward and punishment - which Mendelssohn regarded to be the basis of moral conduct. Mendelssohn was compelled to dissociate himself from Spinoza's attitude toward Judaism as expressed in the latter's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Both Mendelssohn and Spinoza defined the powers of the state and religion in order to assure freedom of religion. However, whereas Spinoza essentially sought to liberate religion from the coercive measures employed by the state, Mendelssohn also called for the avoidance of coercive measures within the domain of religion itself. Mendelssohn also challenged Spinoza's appraisal of the revelation at Sinai. Both shared the opinion that revelation of a religious truth was an impossibility, but Spinoza characterized Judaism as being based on the revelation of a political constitution which created a theocracy and which had lost its practical validity with the destruction of the Temple, while Mendelssohn maintained that it had retained its validity and that the ancient Jewish state was a unique phenomenon that cannot be characterized by such general conceptions. It was because Mendelssohn was very close to Spinoza in his point of departure and his approach that he was compelled to keep his distance and dissociate himself from that which was condemned as his "atheism." At the time of the publication of his Morgenstunden, Mendelssohn was personally attacked on religious questions for the third time in his life - on this occasion for his divided attitude to Spinoza.

שער-נוסף: Moses Mendelsohns Morgenstunden oder Vorlesungen ueber das Dasein gottes. In das Hebraeische uebertragen von Joseph Herzberg aus Mohilew am Dniester...

עמ' IX-V: חליפת מכתבים בין המתרגם ומשה מונטיפיורי. בעברית ובאנגלית. עמ' X: דברי שבח לספר, מאת יצחק בער לעווינזאהן. Source: Morgenstuden, Berlin 1876.