d
into Jewry through its means, but Hebrew itself should be so perfected
as to take a place by the side of the more modern and cultivated
languages. It should find adequate expressions for the new thoughts and
ideas which the new learning would introduce into it directly or
indirectly. The medieval translations from the Arabic should be
retranslated into the new Hebrew, he held, and he furnished an example
by recasting the first part of Maimuni's _Moreh Nebukim_. His modernized
version, lucid and fluent, printed alongside of Ibn Tibbon's, presents a
striking contrast to the stiffness and obscurity of the Provencal
scholar's. Levin was also the first to write in the Yiddish, or
Judeo-German, dialect, for the instruction of the masses, which made him
the butt of more than one satire. But what was generally regarded as a
degrading task was fraught with the greatest consequences to the
Haskalah. To this day Yiddish has continued an important medium for
disseminating culture among Russian Jews, both in the Old World and in
the New.[37]

The century remarkable among other things for encyclopedia
enterprises,--_Chambers' Encyclopedia_ in England, the _Universal
Lexicon_ in Germany, and that wonderful and monumental work, the
_Encyclopedie_ in France--saw, before its close, a similar attempt, in
miniature, in Hebrew and by a Slavonic Maskil. Whether the Hebrew
encyclopedist was influenced by the example of Dr. Tobias Cohn's
_Ma'aseh Tobiah_ mentioned above, or was unconsciously imbued with the
prevailing tendency of the times, it is impossible to tell. In any
event, he resorted to the same means, and presented the Jewish world
with a volume containing a little of every science known, under the
innocent name _The Book of the Covenant_ (_Sefer ha-Berit_, Bruenn,
1797).

The book appeared anonymously. This, the author assures us, was due not
to humbleness of spirit, but to a vow. His diligence and constant
application had greatly impaired his eyes. He vowed that if God restored
his sight, and enabled him to finish his task, he would publish the book
without disclosing his authorship. God hearkened unto his prayers, and
the work was soon completed. But an unforeseen trouble arose. His book
was ascribed "by some to the sage of Berlin, by others to the Gaon of
Vilna, and by many to the united efforts of a coterie of scholars, for
it could not be believed that so many and diverse sciences could be
mastered by one person." Moreover,