Like Levinsohn, he was a constructive force. In his
younger days, he had inveighed against the benighted rabbis and the
antiquated garb, but moderation came with discretion. He would not sweep
away by force the accumulation of hundreds of years. Judaism needed
reforms of some sort, but these could not be brought about by the
Russo-German-doctor-rabbis, men who could rede the seven riddles of the
world, but whose knowledge of their own people and its spiritual
treasures was close to the zero point. "For a rabbi," writes he, "Torah
must be the integer, science the cipher. Had Aristotle embraced Judaism,
notwithstanding his unparalleled erudition, he would still remain a
sage, never become a rabbi." But he was as little satisfied with the
exclusively Talmudistic rabbis. "O ye modern rabbis," he calls out in
one of his essays, in which he stigmatizes Lilienthal's plans as the
"gourd of Jonah," "you who stand in the place of seer and prophet of
yore, is it not your duty to rise above the people, to intervene between
them and the Government? And how can you expect to accomplish it, if the
language and regulations of our country are entirely unknown to you?"
The impress Guenzburg left upon Hebrew literature is of special
importance.
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