Language or Politics? Moses Mendelssohn and Nachman Krochmal on Biblical Exegesis

While Moses Mendelssohn`s German writings are often treated as foundational to modern Judaism, his Hebrew writings on the Bible have received far less attention. I explore these Hebrew works in order to reassess the rise of Jewish modernity. More specifically, I argue that the emergence of modern Jewish thought involves a linguistic debate between East and West--that one of modern Jewish philosophy`s early episodes is a debate between Mendelssohn and Nachman Krochmal regarding the importance of language.

The key is Mendelssohn`s linguistically-oriented biblical hermeneutics, which revolve around a general theory of communication: like any speaker or text, a biblical verse may express both a "primary" meaning that does not depend on the subtle nuances of its language, and a "secondary" meaning that arises from employing some words rather than others. This theory, I argue, exercised influence far beyond its original context, shaping the work of the Eastern European thinker Nachman Krochmal. One of Krochmal`s historical claims is that ancient Jews enacted politically vital interpretive strategies, explicating Scripture in ways that grounded the communal life of, and offered moral guidance to, the Jewish nation. I show that Krochmal is implicitly drawing on, yet criticizing, his German-Jewish predecessor: even as he employs Mendelssohn`s theory of multiple meanings to explain how ancient Jews read the Bible, he casts this Mendelssohnian approach as too focused on linguistic factors--as neglecting social concerns that should animate biblical exegesis. Krochmal`s account of history thus rests on a covert engagement with Mendelssohn`s treatment of language.