Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The Earth Is the Lord’s: The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe, by Abraham Joshua Heschel. 1950

Jewish Particularism and AGGRESSIVE JEWISH NONCONFORMISM Were the Main Drivers Behind Jewish Anti-Assimilationist Tendencies

My review is based on the original 1950 edition. In common with many Jewish authors, author Abraham Joshua Heschel emphasizes the role of learning in Jewish life. Almost every Jewish home, no matter how poor, had books. The Jew studied the Torah, Talmud, and various kinds of rabbinical literature. (p. 42).

Members of various professions, be they bakers, butchers, shoemakers, wood-choppers, etc., each had their own SHTIBL (communal room), within the Jewish community. They used these to take time off from work in order to study the Torah or Talmud. (pp. 46-47).

For a long time, Jews tended to resist gentile learning, in part because they thought that spiritual nobility was more important than all the secular sciences, and because they believed that prayer, and meditation on religious texts, were more important than the study of physics or history. (pp. 95-96).

I now focus on some items. The paragraphs [EXCEPT FOR TITLES IN CAPS] below all are direct quotes.

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JEWISH ASSIMILATION–TOO GREAT A LOSS OF JEWISH ESSENTIALS? HENCE ANTI-ANTIASSIMILATION: EVEN SELF-IMPOSED APARTHEID

The masses of East European Jews repudiated emancipation when it was offered at the price of disloyalty to Israel’s traditions. (p. 104).

For more on the ways that Poland’s Jews rejected proffered civil rights in favor of their continued separatism, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/jewish-civil-rights-spurned-for-jewish-separatism-rabinowicz/

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/jewish-civil-rights-spurned-for-jewish-separatism-biale/

JEWISH FREEDOMS IN POLAND. AGGRESSIVE JEWISH NONCONFORMISM

There, in Eastern Europe, the Jewish people came into its own. It did not live like a guest in somebody else’s house, who must constantly keep in mind the ways and customs of the host. (p. 26).

COVERT IDEAS. COVERT TEACHINGS?

Audacious doctrines were disguised as allegories or even witty maxims, and a seeming commonplace often contained a sublime thought. Holy men seemed to be discussing the building of a roof; they spoke of bricks and shingles, while they were actually debating the mysteries of the Torah. (pp. 59-60).

OVEREMPHASIS ON INTELLECTUALISM

With many people, the attitude toward learning has become a kind of idolatry, depreciating the values of the heart. Excessive PILPUL had often dried up the inner wells, and became the object of pretentious display of the intellect. Such self-indulgence, in the eyes of the Hasid, hurts more than sin. (pp. 81-82).

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End of direct quotations.