Moses ben Mendel was born in 1729 in Dessau, Germany. His childhood in the ghetto was like that of many poor young men who devoted themselves to the study of the Talmud, hoping to become rabbis, as some of their ancestors had done. He studied in Hebrew and spoke Yiddish at home. In 1743, his teacher, Rabbi David Frankel, was appointed chief rabbi of Berlin and Moses decided to follow him to that city.

With the help of his teacher, Moses was able to stay in Berlin. After a few years of living in poverty and devoting himself to study, he finally managed to become the tutor of the children of Isaac Bernhard, a wealthy silk manufacturer. This allowed him to eat regularly and, most importantly, to develop new circles of friends outside the Jewish community. Within five years, Moses ben Mendel had learned German, French, Greek and Latin. By breaking the language barrier, he had also broken the ghetto mentality.

He began to write about philosophy and soon became prominent in Berlin’s intellectual circles. It was then that he changed his name to Moses Mendelssohn. At that time he entered a philosophical competition organized by the Royal Academy in Berlin, where he won first place. Second place went to Immanuel Kant.

For anyone who came to Berlin, meeting Mendelssohn was a prerequisite for acceptance in intellectual circles. One such newcomer was Johann Kaspar Lavater, a German-speaking Swiss. In 1769, Lavater translated Charles Bonnet’s book “Palingenesis” into German. Lavater dedicated his translation to Mendelssohn, but it was more of a dedication than a challenge. He asked Mendelssohn to read the book and publicly refute the author’s arguments, which basically claimed that Christianity was the only valid religion, and if he could not refute it, he should do what should be the right thing to do: convert to Christianity.

For Mendelssohn, the challenge was a terrible event. It broke one of the paradigms of his life. For him, the way each person approaches God was a private matter and also implied respect for the religion of others. Now he was exposed to the eyes and comments of everyone. Mendelssohn answered him: “There comes a time in a person’s life when he has to decide on some fundamental issues. This happened to me a few years ago in relation to religion. I have read, I have compared, I have reflected and I have made a decision: there is nothing that will make me change my belief in Judaism. I have extraordinary friends who do not profess my faith and at no time have I heard them say that it is a pity that my soul is going to be lost for not belonging to their church.” Without offending Christians, Mendelssohn was true to his convictions.

Mendelssohn not only wisely faced the challenge of Lavater, but also the greater challenge of leaving the ghetto and integrating into civil society, and he did so without losing his Jewish roots at all.

Prepared by Marcos Gojman .

Bibliography: Emancipation by Michael Goldfarb, Encyclopaedia Judaica and other sources.