Несколько дней назад аз, многогрешный, писал о том, как одесский градоначальник Толмачев оберегал еврейское благочестие, запретив продавать евреям некошерное мясо. И вот, просматривая найденную в уличной библиотеке монографию Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism, обнаружил, что эту миссию брали на себя и более высокопоставленные особы.
В начале XIX века в берлинской еврейской общине царили разброд и шатание: на молитву в синагогу ходили вяло и неохотно, куча народу вообще крестилась:
Secularization and disaffection with inherited ritual had made severe inroads among Berlin Jews, so that the old, and now inadequate synagogue was rarely filled. Many left behind the unstable combination of traditional practice with cultural integration espoused by Mendelssohn for partial or utter neglect of the former as feelings of belonging to modern Europe and a culturally emergent Germany replaced inherited Jewish values.
A number of Berlin Jews during these years converted to Christianity, mostly for opportunistic reasons. Those few who were themselves attracted by the Romantic movement, especially the Jewish hostesses of the famous Berlin literary salons, found in Christianity the only faith which they believed expressed genuine depth of feeling.
И тогда несколько берлинских евреев решило пойти другим путем: организовать в частном доме альтернативное еврейское богослужение, более соответствующее вкусам тогдашней публики:
Organ, played by a non-Jew, accompanied the German hymns intoned by a choir in which initially there was some Gentile participation. The services, which lasted from eight o'clock in the morning until about ten, were conducted mostly in Hebrew, with only a weekly selection from the preliminary prayers in German. The Torah was read in Sephardi Hebrew without the musical accents, while those called up to recite the blessings received cards indicating the sequence in which they would be honored.
Эксперимент оказался более чем удачным. Куча народу, давно забывшего, как выглядит синагога изнутри, повалила в новую молельню:
Within a few months three young men were engaged by the congregation as preachers. When Leopold Zunz first attended the service on the Day of Atonement that year, he was deeply impressed. "People who for twenty years had no communion with Jews spent the whole day there: men who believed themselves already beyond religious emotion spilled tears of devotion; the majority of the young people fasted." When attendance grew to over 400 hundred on some Sabbaths, it was decided to transfer the gathering to roomier quarters in the home of Jacob Herz Beer.
Хотя частные богослужения вне официальной синагоги были запрещены законом, руководство общины ничего не предпринимало. Но тут, как уже было сказано, вмешались высшие силы.
Мотив, почему эти силы приняли сторону традиционалистов против реформистов, разумеется, заслуживает и доставляет:
Although traditionalists in the community privately condemned these unorthodox religious services, they did not publicly raise their voice against them. Worship in the community synagogue remained as it was; reform energies were deflected away from collective institutions. It was rather the Prussian monarch who took the dimmest view of what was going on in the homes of Jacobson and Beer. Frederick William III and his officials shared the fear that the Jews might create a new "sect" which would be attractive even to Christians, and that any evidence Judaism could be modernized would weaken missionary efforts to bring about their conversion. When the king learned of the private services late in 1815, he immediately ordered them closed.
В общем, хорошая история. Разрушающая, по меньшей мере, один любимый пропагандистский миф.