The instruction offered by Dr. Abramson is consistently outstanding. I have watched his videos for some years now.

Thank you, Prof. Abramson, for your expertise and way of making complex subjects enjoyable to learn! The more I listen, the more I want to read and learn more about Jewish history. Though I’m not Jewish, your conversations stir up my love and admiration for the Jews.

I’ve become a big fan of your content. What started as curiosity toward some blind spots in my education in Classics (your Jewish Biography as History talks on Josephus and Philo were excellent), has become a fascination with the subject of Jewish history. Thanks for the wonderful talks!

I’m amazed at the excellence of your teaching on Jewish history. Outstanding Sir.

Related note on Yiddish ...watched a fun KZfaq video with a Yiddish speaker and a German speaker With some basic detective work/tearing down word origins, they understood each other fairly well.

As usual, the teachings of this Rabbi have been very enlightening, inspiring and important to me, and I am sure they are to others who have been blessed by them also. Bless you Rabbi.

Thank you Rabbi Henry Abramson! You are amazing and I totally enjoy your lectures! Keep up the great work!!!

The little anecdote by Eliezer Zweifel is really something that blows my mind that those three people were recognized in their time as going to be influential. Thank you for sharing!

Eliezer Tzweifel had a companion in this view which they called שלשה הרועים . The companions name was רש״י פין. He was a prolific author on history of the jews and also a leader in the Lithuanian Haskalah movement. He translated from German to Hebrew some of the works of Moses Mendelson. This Shmuel Yosef Fin was chairman of the חובבי ציון movement, quite a rarity among thd enlightenment. The Maskilim were adamant pursuers for emancipation.

Thank you! I absolutely enjoy your lectures!

Very interesting. Thank you.

So many parallels for contemplation. Neighbors in Brotherly relationship this lecture is a wonderful synopsis for all who seek the highest enlightened Abrahamic.

Love the format. Why better than Bishop Sheen. My catholic upbringing since 1948 in Nova Soctia was a strange thing. Now all I want to know is when is the big yard sale at the Vatican. 🍁😎

Very good lectures....

Wahoo! Thank you, thank you, thank you...

Great!

... and you've just answered my question from your previous lecture. This is most interesting. Another question then: was Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy related to Moshe Mendelssohn? I vaguely remember some connection. Felix's family was very important, also rich, which always helps.

I am a descendant of a boy who was forced into the Tzar army and served 25 years... And stayed Jewish...

I'm now living in the "county" Mecklenburg Strelitz. After 200 years of abundance the duke settled jews for economic rise. And it was successful in the age of enlightenment. Now the region is poor and it will be hard to settle a new community.

Professor Abramson: What was Rabbi S. R. Hirsch's opinion of Moses Mendelsohn? I enjoy your interesting history videos.

The way I see it, the Jews are supposed to be a light unto the nations, which implies some sort of interaction with them, but at the same time Judaism places a strong emphasis on staying separate from the other nations, sometimes to the point of absolute self-segregation. I feel that this contradiction is at the heart of a lot of Jewish history, and I feel is in fact an integral part of the Jewish mission. Consider what the Covenant demands of the Jewish people: pursue justice, reject false idols and gods, do not conform to foreign practices, remember that you were once a slave, fear God before you act (especially if your actions impact others), love your neighbour as yourself, repair the world, value life, abhor cruelty, be a studious student and if you are forced to participate in an unjust system you have a responsibility to limit the harm it causes. Unlike most religions there is relatively little emphasis placed on belief, indeed there is far more emphasis on what not to believe, and a much stronger emphasis on actions (and we now know from neuroscience and cognitive psychology that actions are much more likely to shape belief than beliefs shape actions). The life of a Jew, especially an observant one, is one where these values and practices (which are pretty much designed to push us into conflict with bullies, bigots and tyrants) are reinforced and hammered in from birth till death and are passed down from generation to generation. These are all deeply ingrained into Jewish people, and it doesn't go away overnight if a Jew stops being a Jew (it will usually take a few generations) and when Jews go OTD or assimilate into Goyish society they take that with them. Now if all Jews fully embraced assimilation then the light of Judaism would flicker and fade within a few generations and if no Jews ever assimilated, and we remained cut off from the rest of the world, then it will be as if we have placed the light of Torah in a locked box and the world outside will remain in shadow. Consider the circumstances under which Jews go OTD. There are generally three different reasons. The first is external, the Goyim demand that the Jews convert/assimilate by force. Those that go ahead are probably not going to be that sincere and will hold onto their Judaism in the face of their oppression, in turn building sympathy between them and other oppressed groups, and even those who make a sincere attempt at it will more often be treated with suspicion. The second is as a result of a tension between Jewish and Goyish society, where the Jew is torn between the two worlds and ultimately takes a dry baptism so that they can participate, often times in an academic field that Jews are barred from. Their commitment to staying OTD might not have been that strong, but then neither is their commitment to assimilating. The third is an internal one. The Jew is brought up and raised to follow the 613 Mitzvot, which they sincerely try to uphold, but at some point they reach some sort of contradiction with their community. Perhaps their study and questioning lead them into conflict with the local religious authorities, perhaps they see some sort of hypocrisy between what they are taught to do and what their community practices, or perhaps they themselves cannot bring themselves to follow some particular Mitzvot that clashes with their moral compass. The tension rises until eventually they leave or are forced out, at which point one of two things happen. Either their resentment causes them to burn up and, turning their back on Judaism, they become the greatest of idolators and embrace that which they were told to reject (often also becoming virulent antisemites) or, seeing their fellow Jews fail to topple their own idols, blaze forth into the world of the Goyim as a great iconoclast looking for new idols to smash and false gods to slay (they may or may not also become antisemitic, pobody's nerfect). When Jews go OTD they take that light with them and spread it throughout the nations. Over time many, perhaps even most, will flicker and fade as they melt in among the Goyim whilst others will find their way back to the Derech to begin the cycle again, but in the end the world has been brighter and the world moves a few steps closer to the coming of Mashiach. There is a reason why the great movements that strive for justice and fight to make the world a better place are often filled with people who are Jews, the descendants of Jews or are familiar with and heavily influenced by them, whilst those who are on the wrong side of history tend to be the most extreme and open of all antisemites.

seems like a hard moment to change values & traditions to match another group's moment of mass delusion (in reference to the false burial decree); I did a little follow up research on Dr. Marcus Herz and Mendelssohn's solution to the issue; thanks for the knowledge!

Hello Mr. Abramson, for those not steeped in Jewish history please be more descriptive with your titles. What is the Haskalah? What is the relevance? Thanks!

Thank you for another fabulous lecture as usual. I'm wondering why you treat the Reform movement of Eastern Europe of the late 18th and early 19th century, as one and the same as the Haskala movement of the mid to late 19th century in Eastern Europe. While both were movements that looked outside Judaism for inspiration they were very different in nature. The Reform, led by people like Abraham Geiger and Leopold Zunz sought to create a Judaism that was more palatable for assimilation into broader German Christian Protestant culture - to modernize synagogue services, to move Shabbos to Sunday, to abolish many ritual practices that they saw as backwards. The Haskala of later Eastern Europe was a much more intellectual movement, focused on the revival of Hebrew grammar, Hebrew poetry, and academic study of Jewish sources... I'm very interested to hear your thoughts.

Do I remember correctly that in another lecture you mentioned that Heinrich Heine lamented his conversion?

I still remember somebody speaking in my shul on a Shabbos appeal, and saying that curiosity is dangerous for a religious Jew. That, in my opinion, is wrong. We are encouraged to delve into our faith, to seek out new angles, and that requires curiosity, about all things. In a shtetl, there may not have been much to be curious about. It was in the outside world that things changed and became more challenging. Ad to connect this to another, earlier post of yours, Professor, I think that the earliest Midrashim were not only very creative, but very curious, about all sorts of things. They wanted to leave a mark and to contribute to Jewish belief, one way or another.

Whewww... I like Zwiefel. The 3 shepherds made incredible sense. Allowed the Jews culture to move on to the future. Jews are chosen through heart and mind, no running away from it. To add the outside world actually complete the real Jews of God.

I love your work. You are clearly an evolved energy. I'm not going to get into who or what I am. It matters not Jew, gentile, Cain, Ham, Shem, Japheth.. this society or that. I assure you.. all that matters can be placed into 2 factions. The "creative and the destructive" (Those who add to the human experience and those who take away from it). The human experience is a singular lifeform. A great tree of diverse branches. As advanced as the men and women of this realm may believe they are.. they are as babies who have yet to open their eyes. The perception of man is so far from reality. Largely unaware of how to truly use their vision. Currently there is a virus in the body of man.. it walks like a man, but it stuns the growth, evolution, and strengthened expansion of the human experience to, even its own peril. I can't save this realm, but there is a slim chance that we convince the world to save itself. Clearly it is in a state of decadence, and all for what?

Do you think that the Renaissance era in Europe, especially 19th century Germany, made it difficult for Jews to stay a distinct and separate people. That was one of the greatest cultures in human history. With Jews aspirations for music and culture, I am guessing many Jews found it impossible to avoid!

Excellent . Haskalah maskilim led to Jews driving their VW s on shabbos to get a cheese burger on way to christmas party?

Skoyach! The haskalah argued the virtue of their ideas, but none of their descendants are Jewish today.

Cantonist sounds very much like the boy levy that the ottoman Turks used to impose on the Balkan Christians. They were called Janissaries.

Entre billets

Like the joke you are right

Amazingly deceptive and mush-mash but decent given time frame ...But within

Judaism as a culture

Thora be derech eretz

Interesting lecture (which, to be sure, needs some more edits: at least two piece are double). In such a short lecture it's of course impossible to do justice to the intellectual background that affected all religions, not only the Jews. But, the Jews are different: an completely non-religious Jew who has long since rejected the concept of a God as an attempt by primitive peoples to make sense of their world back then is still a Jew, recognized as such by Jew and non-Jew alike. A Christian (of any of the many stripes, from Romans to Anabaptists) who no longer thinks something like a God makes sense is no longer a Christian, just a person. He or she may be a citizen, a traveler, whatever, but they are no longer connected to their erstwhile religious partners. On the continent (that is, mostly Western Europe but without Britain) the de-christianization process has started earlier and progressed farther than in the US. Eventually, none of the religions may survive but, I suspect, many Jews will still be recognized as, and feel like, Jews despite being atheists.