The Maccabaean

A SCHOLAR is greater than a prophet, said the ancient Rabbis; possibly because the scholar, in a certain sense, is also a seer, one who sees great visions, who dreams beautiful dreams, who lives in a world of thought and fancy and evolves, out of the fabric of his lore and out of the depth of his heart, those lofty truths and precious precepts which were once the heritage of prophecy. It was Leopold Zunz, the sage of Detmold, who founded the school of latter-day prophets. With unerring instinct he set about to raise up disciples who, by brooding over the Letter, would be able to preserve the Spirit of the Law for Israel. Zunz realized that to save Judaism it was necessary to make solid its foundations — that done the venerable structure may stand firmly and outlast the ages. He reared up mighty men, whose Titanic strength supported its tottering walls, and who waged the wars of the spirit with the sword of righteousness. Nor did he battle alone. By his side stood valiant lieutenants; loyal and dauntless, who were content to follow where he led. Their number was legion. The names of Dukes and Frankel, and Geiger and Grætz, and Jellinek and Joel, and Jost and Krochmal, and Rappaport and Steinschneider are still names to conjure with, though only the last mentioned yet survives, entering upon the day that I write these lines, with the grace of God, into his eighty sixth year. What a brilliant galaxy! And how faithfully did they strive for the glory of Israel! Their battle-cry was Die Wissenschaft des Fudenthums and it sounded far above the din of tem-

poral things. Other enlightened men, remote from the rallying ground of this spiritual conflict, took up the tocsin and also entered the lists—and they have made the Jewish name illustrious where they dwelt. Reggio and Luzatto in Italy, Guedemann and Leopold Loew in Austria, Chwolson and Harkavy in Russia, Neubauer in England, and J. Derenbourg and Munk in France were also sons of the prophets, who purposed and wrought great things for Israel.

SOLOMON MUNK, as a native German, comes rightly by his heritage. Scholarship is the birthright and the striving for excellence is but the restless instinct of his race. A Jew and a German in the highest sense, he was a man of destiny—and a man of destiny knows no vanquishing! He, too, wielded the sword of the spirit with a courage born of virtue and a power sent of God—and who will say that in the battles he has fought he was ever other than conqueror and laureled chief? And, if in addition to courage and power he possessed the elements of all true greatness, modesty and love, he surely merits the affectionate regard of posterity. He had both in ample measure. He was diffident to a fault and generous to excess. “Munk ist uneigennuet- zig bis zum Hochmut,” wrote no less an authority than Heine of him, in March, 1854, “und bei all seinem reichen Wissen von einer ruehrenden Be- scheidenheit.” Surely this is fulsome enough praise for any man. He was the Leopold Zunz of France. He transplanted to French soil that accurate German scholarship, which still remains the marvel of the world. He loved his books