Menachem Mendel Lefin Explained

Menachem Mendel Lefin (also Menahem Mendel Levin) (1749–1826) was an early leader of the Haskalah movement.

Biography

He was born in Sataniv, Podolia, where he had a traditional Jewish education supplemented by studies in science, mathematics, and medieval philosophy. In the early 1780s he lived in Berlin, where he met Moses Mendelssohn and other Haskalah leaders. He was later introduced to Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, and became a tutor to Czartoryski's children in Podolia. He spent most of his life living in Galicia, and had great influence on Nachman Krochmal and Joseph Perl. He is widely regarded as the "father of the Galician Haskalah."^[1]

He campaigned in favor of adding general education to the standard curriculum in Jewish schools, and he was a fierce opponent of Hasidic Judaism and Kabbalah, which he viewed as "nonsense." In 1791, he published a French-language pamphlet advocating for Jewish reform, criticizing the Hasidic movement for opposing integration.^[2] Among his influential works is a Musar text titled Cheshbon Ha-Nefesh (Moral Accounting), which was published in 1808, based in part on the ethical program described in the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.^{[3] [4] [5]} Levin died in Tarnopol in 1826.

Among his writings are:

• Sefer Makhkimat Peti ("Book of the Enlightening of the Foolish"), no longer extant^[6]
• Der Ershter Khosid ("The First Hasid"), no longer extant^[6]
• Moda la-Binah (Berlin, 1789), which encouraged East European Jews to study natural sciences and medicine
• a translation of Joachim Heinrich Campe's travel book: Book: קמפה, יואכים הינריך . לפין . מנחם מנדל בן יהודה ליב . מסעות הים: המה מעשי ה' ונפלאותיו אשר ראו יורדי ימים באניות האלאנדי ובריטאניא ... כולל שני מסעות: א. על ים הקרח הצפוני בשנת שנ"ו ב. על ים הדרומי בשנת תקמ"ו . דוס D. H. SCHRNZEL S . 1859 . he . 2023-08-24.
• A translation of Maimonides' The Guide for the Perplexed (Zolkiew, 1829), written in easy-to-read Mishnaic Hebrew
• Elon Moreh, an introduction to the Guide for the Perplexed (Odessa, 1867)
• Sefer Kohelet (Odessa, 1873; Vilna, 1930), a Yiddish translation of Ecclesiastes
• Essai d'un plan de réforme ayant pour objet d'eclairer la nation juive en Pologne et de redresser par là ses moeurs (1791–92).

External links

• Shai Afsai. "Benjamin Franklin and Judaism." Journal of the American Revolution. November 17, 2016.
• Ken Frieden, “Neglected Origins of Modern Hebrew Prose: Hasidic and Maskilic Travel Narratives.” AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies 33 (2009): 3-43. https://www.academia.edu/4434797/Frieden_Neglected_Origins_of_Modern_Hebrew_Prose
• Nancy Sinkoff, YIVO Encyclopedia, http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Lefin_Menahem_Mendel
• Rabbi Menachem Mendel Lefin. "Cheshbon-Ha-Nefesh." Internet Archive

Notes and References

1. Rubinstein. Avraham. Levin (Lefin), Menahem Mendel. 12. 710-711.
2. Book: The Historical Atlas of the Jewish People . Hutchinson . 1992 . 0 09 177593 0 . Barnavi . Eli . 154–155 . The Breakup of Polish Jewry.
3. Sinkoff . Nancy . Out of the Shtetl: Making Jews Modern in the Polish Borderlands . 2020 . Brown Judaic Studies.
4. Afsai . Shai . Benjamin Franklin’s Influence on Mussar Thought and Practice: a Chronicle of Misapprehension . Review of Rabbinic Judaism . 16 September 2019 . 22 . 2 . 228–276 .
5. Afsai, Shai (2011). "The Sage, the Prince & the Rabbi." Philalethes 64, 3 (2011): 101-109,128.
6. Dauber, Jeremy (2004). Antonio’s Devils: Writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. . p. 217.