Manasseh ben Joseph of Ilya (Menashe Ilyer, 1767–1831), known by his pseudonym Ben Porat, was a Talmudist, rabbi and forerunner of the haskalah, or Jewish enlightenment.[1][2][3]
Biography
Born in Smorgon before relocating to Ilya, he shifted from focusing on the Talmud to secular sciences and learning such as higher mathematics.[4] Manesseh was a conservative and a humanitarian, expressing ideas of unity and cooperation in secular and Jewish learning.[5] His writings can be seen as a blending of Talmudic thought and European enlightenment philosophy.[6] He can be seen as a precursor of modernity among Eastern European Jews.[7] He was a student of the Vilna Gaon.[3]
He was concerned with education of the Russian Jewish children. In his 1807 Pesher Dabar, he wrote:[8]
"...the Jews are divorced from real life and its practical needs and demands; that the leaders of the Jews are short-sighted men who, instead of enlightening their followers, darken their intellect with casuistic restrictions, in which each rabbi endeavors to outdo his predecessors and contemporaries. The wealthy class thinks only of its profits, and is not scrupulous with regard to the means of getting money. Even those who are honest and endeavor to help their poorer brethren do it in such an unintelligent way that they do harm rather than good. Instead of educating the children of the poor to become artisans, they add to the number of idlers, and are thus responsible for the dangerous consequences of such an education."
Manasseh was critical of traditional sources of information and authorities such as Rashi, the traditional interpretation of the Mishnah in the Gemara, and the Shulchan Aruch, and would have been put under a ban but not for the assistance of an influential rabbi, Joseph Mazel of Wyazyn, who took an interest in him. Elijah, the Gaon of Wilna, his teacher, found out that Manasseh had met with Shneur Zalman of Liadi and suspected him of Hasidic tendencies, which he denied although he did sympathize somewhat with that movement. The Orthodox community was supicious of him for his interest in secular philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. He planned to go to Berlin to study with Moses Mendelssohn, but his Orthodox coreligionists intervened with the Prussian authorities to deny him a passport, so he was forced to return home, but continued to study German, Polish, natural philosophy, and mechanics.[8]
Pesher Dabar, (Wilna, 1807), many rabbis destroyed the book and it alienated some of his friends and disciples
Binat Miḳra, (Grodno, 1818)
Samma-de-Ḥayye, translated into Judæo-German, educational text
Sheḳel ha-Ḳodesh, (Shklov, 1823), a defense of his views
Alfe Menashsheh, (Wilna, 1827, republished in Warsaw 1860) Samuel Katzenellenbogen threatened to burn it if he did not remove a section about amending rabbinical teachings
