122.]

[Footnote 2: The title of the philosophic treatise of Rabbi Shneor
Zalman. See Vol. I, p. 372, n. 1.]

His successor Rabbi Mendel Lubavicher proved an energetic organizer of
the hasidic masses. He was highly esteemed not only as a learned
Talmudist--he wrote rabbinical _novellae and response--and as a preacher
of Hasidism, but also as a man of great practical wisdom, whose advice
was sought by thousands of people in family matters no less than in
communal and commercial affairs. This did not present him from being a
decided opponent of the new enlightenment. In the course of Lilienthal's
educational propaganda in 1843, Rabbi Mendel was summoned by the
Government to participate in the deliberations of the Rabbinical
Committee at St. Petersburg. There he found himself in a tragic
situation. He was compelled to give his sanction to the Crown schools,
although he firmly believed that they were subversive of Judaism, not
only because they were originated by Russian officials, but also because
they were intended to impart secular knowledge. The hasidic legend
narrates that the Tzaddik pleaded before the Committee passionately, and
often with tears in his eyes, not only to retain in the new schools the
traditional methods of Bible and Talmud instruction, but also to make
room in their curriculum for the teaching of the Cabala. Nevertheless,
Rabbi Mendel was compelled to endorse against his will the "godless"
plan of a school reform, and a little later to prefix his approbation to
a Russian edition of Mendelssohn's German Bible translation. His
attitude toward contemporary pedagogic methods may be gauged from the
epistle addressed by him in 1848 to Leon Mandelstamm, Lilienthal's
successor in the task of organizing the Jewish Crown schools. In this
epistle Rabbi Mendel categorically rejects all innovations in the
training of the young. In reply to a question concerning the edition of
an abbreviated Bible text for children, he trenchantly quotes the famous
medieval aphorism:

The Pentateuch was written by Moses at the dictation of God. Hence
every word in it is sacred. There is no difference whatsoever
between the verse "And Timna was the concubine" (Gen. 36. 12) and
"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deut 6. 4). [1]

[Footnote 1: See Maimonides' exposition of the dogma of the divine
origin of the Torah in his Mishnah Commentary, _Sanhedrin_, chapter X.]

Withal, the leaders of the Northern