Читать книгу History of the Jews in Russia and Poland (Vol. 1-3) - Dubnow Simon - Страница 23

The representatives of the Four Lands—says a well-known annalist of the first half of the seventeenth century71—reminded one of the Sanhedrin, which in ancient days assembled in the Chamber of Hewn Stones (lishkath ha-gazith) of the temple. They dispensed justice to all the Jews of the Polish realm, issued preventive measures and obligatory enactments (takkanoth), and imposed penalties as they saw fit. All the difficult cases were brought before their court. To facilitate matters the delegates of the Four Lands appointed [a special commission of] so-called "provincial judges" (dayyane medinoth) to settle disputes concerning property, while they themselves [in plenary session] examined criminal cases, matters appertaining to hazaka (priority of possession) and other difficult points of law.

The Council of the Four Lands was the guardian of Jewish civil interests in Poland. It sent its shtadlans72 to the residential city of Warsaw73 and other meeting-places of the Polish Diets for the purpose of securing from the king and his dignitaries the ratification of the ancient Jewish privileges, which had been violated by the local authorities, or of forestalling contemplated restrictive laws and increased fiscal burdens for the Jewish population.

But the main energy of the Waad was directed towards the regulation of the inner life of the Jews. The statute of 1607, framed, at the instance of the Waad, by Joshua Falk Cohen, Rabbi of Lublin, is typical of this solicitude. The following rules are prescribed for the purpose of fostering piety and commercial integrity among the Jewish people: to pay special attention to the observance of the dietary laws, to refrain from adopting the Christian form of dress; not to drink wine with Christians in the pot-houses, in order not to be classed among the disreputable members of the community; to watch over the chastity of Jewish women, particularly in the villages where the Jewish arendars74 with their families were isolated in the midst of the Christian population. In the same statute rules are also laid down tending to restrain the activities of Jewish usurers and to regulate money credit in general.

In 1623 the Kahals of Lithuania withdrew from the federation of the Four Lands, and established a provincial organization of their own, which was centralized in the convention of delegates from the three principal Kahals of Brest, Grodno, and Pinsk. Subsequently, in 1652 and 1691, the Kahals of Vilna and Slutzk were added. The Lithuanian assembly was generally designated as the "Council of the Principal Communities of the Province of Lithuania" (Waad Kehilloth Rashioth di-Medinath Lita). The organic statute, framed by the first Council, comprises many aspects of the social and spiritual life of the Jews. It lays down rules concerning the mutual relationship of the communities, the methods of apportioning the taxes among them, the relations with the outside world (such as the Polish Diets, the local authorities, the landed nobility, and the urban estates), the elections of the Kahals, and the question of popular education. The Lithuanian Waad met every three years in various cities of Lithuania, but in cases of emergency extraordinary conventions were called. During the first years of its existence the Lithuanian Council was evidently subordinate to that of Poland, but at a later date this dependence ceased.

In this way both the Crown, or Poland proper, and Lithuania had their communal federations with central administrative agencies. As was pointed out previously, the Polish federation was composed of four provinces. The individual Kahals, which were the component parts of each of these four provinces, held their own provincial assemblies, which stood in the same relation to the Waad as the "Dietines," or provincial Diets, of Poland, to the national Diet of the whole country.75 Thus the communities of Great Poland had their own Great-Polish "Dietine," those of Volhynia their own Volhynian "Dietine," and so forth. The provincial Kahal conventions met for the purpose of allotting the taxes to the individual communities of a given province, in proportion to the size of its population, or of electing delegates to the federated Council. These Jewish Dietines acted as the intermediate agencies of self-government, standing half-way between the individual Kahals on the one hand and the general Waads of the Crown and of Lithuania on the other.

This firmly-knit organization of communal self-government could not but foster among the Jews of Poland a spirit of discipline and obedience to the law. It had an educational effect on the Jewish populace, which was left by the Government to itself, and had no share in the common life of the country. It provided the stateless nation with a substitute for national and political self-expression, keeping public spirit and civic virtue alive in it, and upholding and unfolding its genuine culture.

2. The Instruction of the Young

One of the mainstays of this genuine culture was the autonomous school. The instruction of the rising generation was the object of constant solicitude on the part of the Kahals and the rabbis as well as the conventions and Councils. Elementary and secondary education was centered in the heders, while higher education was fostered in the yeshibahs. Attendance at the heder was compulsory for all children of school age, approximately from six to thirteen. The subjects of instruction at these schools were the Bible in the original, accompanied by a translation into the Judeo-German vernacular,76 and the easier treatises of the Talmud with commentaries. In some heders the study of Hebrew grammar and the four fundamental operations of arithmetic were also admitted into the curriculum. The establishment of these heders was left to private initiative, every melammed, or Jewish elementary teacher, being allowed to open a heder for boys and to receive compensation for his labors from their parents. Only the heders for poor children or for orphans, the so-called Talmud Torahs, were maintained by the community from public funds. Yet the supervision of the Kahal extended not only to the public, but also to the private, elementary schools. The Kahal prescribed the curriculum of the heders, arranged examinations for the scholars, fixed the remuneration of the teachers, determined the hours of instruction (which were generally from eight to twelve a day), and took charge of the whole school work, in some places even appointing a sort of school board (Hevrah Talmud Torah) from among its own members.

The higher Talmudic school or college, the yeshibah, was entirely under the care of the Kahal and the rabbis. This school, which provided a complete religious and juridical education based on the Talmud and the rabbinical codes of law, received the sanction of the Polish Government. King Sigismund Augustus granted the Jewish community of Lublin permission to open a yeshibah, or "gymnazium" (gymnazium ad instituendos homines illorum religionis), with a synagogue attached to it, bestowing upon its president, a learned rabbi, not only the title of "rector," but also extensive powers over the affairs of the community (1567). Four years later the same King granted an even larger license to "the learned Solomon of Lemberg, whom the Jewish community of Lemberg and the whole land of Russia77 have chosen for their 'senior doctor' (ab-beth-din, or rosh-yeshibah)," conferring upon him the right to open schools in various cities, "to train the students in the sciences," to keep them under his control, and to inure them to a strict discipline.

In the course of time Talmudic yeshibahs sprang up in all the cities of Poland and Lithuania. The functions of rector, or rosh-yeshibah, were performed either by the local rabbi or by a man especially selected for this post on account of his learning. It seems that the combination of the two offices of rabbi and college president in one person was limited to those communities in which the duties of the spiritual guide of the community were not complex, and admitted of the simultaneous discharge of pedagogic functions. In the large centers, however, where the public responsibilities were regularly divided, the rosh-yeshibah was an independent dignitary, who was clothed with considerable authority. Similar to the contemporary rectors of Jesuit colleges, the rosh-yeshibah was absolute master within the school walls; he exercised unrestricted control over his pupils, subjecting them to a well-established discipline and dispensing justice among them.

The contemporary chronicler quoted above, Rabbi Nathan Hannover, of Zaslav, in Volhynia, portrays in vivid colors the Jewish school life of Poland and Lithuania in the first half of the seventeenth century.

In no country—quoth Rabbi Nathan78—was the study of the Torah so widespread among the Jews as in the Kingdom of Poland. Every Jewish community maintained a yeshibah, paying its president a large salary, so as to enable him to conduct the institution without worry and to devote himself entirely to the pursuit of learning. … Moreover, every Jewish community supported college students (bahurs), giving them a certain amount of money per week, so that they might study under the direction of the president. Every one of these bahurs was made to instruct at least two boys, for the purpose of deepening his own studies and gaining some experience in Talmudic discussions. The [poor] boys obtained their food either from the charity fund or from the public kitchen. A community of fifty Jewish families would support no less than thirty of these young men and boys, one family supplying board for one college student and his two pupils, the former sitting at the family table like one of the sons. … There was scarcely a house in the whole Kingdom of Poland where the Torah was not studied, and where either the head of the family or his son or his son-in-law, or the yeshibah student boarding with him, was not an expert in Jewish learning; frequently all of these could be found under one roof. For this reason every community contained a large number of scholars, a community of fifty families having as many as twenty learned men, who were styled morenu79 or haber.80 They were all excelled by the rosh-yeshibah, all the scholars submitting to his authority and studying under him at the yeshibah.

The program of study in Poland was as follows: The scholastic term during which the young men and the boys were obliged to study under the rosh-yeshibah lasted from the beginning of the month of Iyyar until the middle of Ab [approximately from April until July] in the summer and from the first of the month of Heshvan until the fifteenth of Shebat [October-June] in the winter. Outside of these terms the young men and the boys were free to choose their own place of study. From the beginning of the summer term until Shabuoth and from the beginning of the winter term until Hanukkah all the students of the yeshibah studied with great intensity the Gemara [the Babylonian Talmud] and the commentaries of Rashi81 and the Tosafists.82

The scholars and young students of the community as well as all interested in the study of the Law assembled daily at the yeshibah, where the president alone occupied a chair, while the scholars and college students stood around him. Before the appearance of the rosh-yeshibah they would discuss questions of Jewish law, and when he arrived every one laid his difficulties before him, and received an explanation. Thereupon silence was restored, and the rosh-yeshibah delivered his lecture, presenting the new results of his study. At the conclusion of the lecture he arranged a scientific argumentation (hilluk), proceeding in the following way: Various contradictions in the Talmud and the commentaries were pointed out, and solutions were proposed. These solutions were, in turn, shown to be contradictory, and other solutions were offered, this process being continued until the subject of discussion was completely elucidated. These exercises continued in summer at least until midday. From the middle of the two scholastic terms until their conclusion the rosh-yeshibah paid less attention to these argumentations, and read instead the religious codes, studying with the mature scholars the Turim83 with commentaries, and with the [younger] students the compendium of Alfasi84. … Several weeks before the close of the term the rosh-yeshibah would honor the members of his college, both the scholars and the students, by inviting them to conduct the scientific disputations on his behalf, though he himself would participate in the discussion in order to exercise the mental faculties of all those attending the yeshibah.

Attached to the president of the yeshibah was an inspector, who had the duty of visiting the elementary schools, or heders, daily, and seeing to it that all boys, whether poor or rich, applied themselves to study and did not loiter in the streets. On Thursdays the pupils had to present themselves before the trustee (gabbai) of the Talmud Torah, who examined them in what they had covered during the week. The boy who knew nothing or who did not answer adequately was by order of the trustee turned over to the inspector, who subjected him, in the presence of his fellow-pupils, to severe physical punishment and other painful degradations, that he might firmly resolve to improve in his studies during the following week. On Fridays the heder pupils presented themselves in a body before the rosh-yeshibah himself, to undergo a similar examination. This had a strong deterrent effect upon the boys, and they devoted themselves energetically to their studies. … The scholars, seeing this [the honors showered upon the rosh-yeshibah], coveted the same distinction, that of becoming a rosh-yeshibah in some community. They studied assiduously in consequence. Prompted originally by self-interest, they gradually came to devote themselves to the Torah from pure, unselfish motives.

By way of contrast to this panegyric upon Polish-Jewish school life, it is only fair that we should quote another contemporary, who severely criticizes the methods of instruction then in vogue at the yeshibahs.

The whole instruction at the yeshibah—writes the well-known preacher Solomon Ephraim of Lenchitza (d. 1619)85—reduces itself to mental equilibristics and empty argumentations called hilluk. It is dreadful to contemplate that some venerable rabbi, presiding over a yeshibah, in his anxiety to discover and communicate to others some new interpretation, should offer a perverted explanation of the Talmud, though he himself and every one else be fully aware that the true meaning is different. Can it be God's will that we sharpen our minds by fallacies and sophistries, spending our time in vain and teaching the listeners to do likewise? And all this for the mere ambition of passing for a great scholar! … I myself have more than once argued with the Talmudic celebrities of our time, showing the need for abolishing the method of pilpul and hilluk, without being able to convince them. This attitude can only be explained by the eagerness of these scholars for honors and rosh-yeshibah posts. These empty quibbles have a particularly pernicious effect on our bahurs, for the reason that the bahur who does not shine in the discussion is looked down upon as incapable, and is practically forced to lay aside his studies, though he might prove to be one of the best, if Bible, Mishnah, Talmud, and the Codes were studied in a regular fashion. I myself have known capable young men who, not having distinguished themselves in pilpul, forfeited the respect of their fellow-students, and stopped studying altogether after their marriage.

Secular studies were not included in the curriculum of the yeshibahs. The religious codes composed during that period allow the study of "the other sciences" only "on occasion," and only to those who have completely mastered Talmudic and rabbinic literature. Needless to say, no yeshibah student could lay claim to such mastery until the completion of the college course. Moreover, the secular sciences had to be excluded from the yeshibah, for the external reason that the latter was generally located in a sacred place, near the synagogue, where the mere presence of a secular book was regarded as a profanation. Yet it occasionally happened that young men strayed away from the path of the Talmud, and secretly indulged in the study of secular sciences and of Aristotelian philosophy. This fact is attested by the great rabbinical authority of the sixteenth century, Rabbi Solomon Luria. "I myself"—he writes indignantly—"have seen the prayer of Aristotle copied in the prayer-books of the bahurs." This somewhat veiled expression indicates, in all likelihood, that among the books of the yeshibah students "contraband" was occasionally discovered, in the shape of manuscripts of philosophic content. Unfortunately we hear nothing more definite as to the way in which the Jewish youth of that period became infatuated with anathematized philosophy. We have reason to assume, however, that such deviations from the rigorous discipline of rabbinical scholarship were few and far between.

The yeshibahs, providing as they did an academic training, were the nurseries of that intellectual aristocracy which subsequently became so powerful a factor in the life of Polish-Lithuanian Jewry. This numerically considerable class of scholars looked down upon the uneducated multitude. Yet the level of literacy even among the latter was comparatively high. All boys, without exception, attended the heder, where they studied the Hebrew language and the Bible, while many devoted themselves to the Talmud. A different attitude is observable towards female education. Girls remained outside the school, their instruction not being considered obligatory according to the Jewish law. No heders for girls are mentioned in any of the documents of the time. Nor did a single woman attain to literary fame among the Jews of Poland and Lithuania. The girls were taught at home to read the prayers, but they were seldom instructed in the Hebrew language, so that the majority of women had but a very imperfect notion of the meaning of the prayers in the original. In consequence, the women began at that time to use the translations of the prayers in the Jewish vernacular, the so-called Jüdisch-Deutsch.