Nachman Krochmal

Not to be confused with Menahem Mendel Krochmal.

Nachman HaKohen Krochmal (Hebrew: נחמן קְרוֹכְמַל; born in Brody, Galicia, on 17 February 1785; died at Ternopil on 31 July 1840) was a Jewish Galician philosopher, theologian, and historian.

Biography

Title page from Nachman Krochmal's Guide for the Perplexed of Our Time

Nachman HaKohen Krochmal began studying Talmud at an early age. He married at fourteen as was customary at the time. The girl was the daughter of a wealthy merchant named Habermann. The couple lived with the father-in-law in Zhovkva, near Lemberg, where Krochmal devoted himself to full-time study. He learned German and began to read the German philosophers, especially Immanuel Kant. He also read Latin and French classics, and Arabic and Syriac books. After suffering from health problems, he sought treatment in Lemberg. There he met Samuel Judah Löb Rapoport. He became Rapoport's teacher, a collaboration that was ultimately fruitful for "Jewish science" (Wissenschaft des Judentums).

On his return to Żółkiew, he went back to studying philosophy. He delved into the work of Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose ideas influenced him greatly. Aside from Rapoport, who often visited him in Żółkiew, he gathered around him a group of young students.

In 1814, after the death of his wife's parents, he went into business. Twelve years later he lost his wife and his health deteriorated. He refused an invitation to the rabbinate of Berlin despite the poor state of his business. Instead he began to work as a bookkeeper in Żółkiew, a position he held from 1836 to 1838. Now seriously ill, he went to stay with his daughter in Tarnopol and died there two years later.

Literary career

Krochmal was reluctant to publish his writings. Apart from several Hebrew essays in periodicals (Sulamith, 1818; Ha-Ẓefirah, Zolkiev, 1824; and Kerem Ḥemed, vols. iv., v.), he wrote only one book,, Moreh Nebuke ha-Zeman (Lemberg, 1851), edited, according to the author's last will, by Leopold Zunz, whom he admired as a great scholar though they never met. Other editions appeared in Lemberg in 1863 and Warsaw in 1898. The final, now-standard version of the text was established by Simon Rawidowicz in 1924. All later printings are facsimiles of the Rawidowicz edition.

Moreh Nevukhe ha-Zeman

Moreh Nevukhe ha-Zeman (Guide for the Perplexed of the Time) is divided into seventeen chapters, of which the first six deal with religion in general.

Ch. vii describes Israel's spiritual gift as the desire for and faculty of seeking God. The next three chapters contain a philosophical analysis of Jewish history, which, corresponding to Israel's attachment to the Lord, that is, to its religious development, is divided into three epochs. These epochs terminate respectively: (1) with the death of Gedaliah after the destruction of the Temple; (2) with the death of Bar Kokba (ca. 135); and (3) with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492). The author does not characterize the modern period in which he himself lived.

Ch. xi-xv deal with the post-exilic Biblical and the Apocryphal literature and with the various religious movements. The author discusses also the necessity of tradition and gives a critical résumé of the development of the Halakhah and Aggadah.

Ch. xvi gives a brief sketch of the future development of Jewish religious philosophy based on the principles of Hegel. The work finishes with an exposition of Ibn Ezra's philosophy. The historical digressions in the book touch the profoundest problems of Jewish science; and it remains their indisputable merit to have paved the way for critical studies in Jewish history. The work really became, as intended by the author, a "guide" to students of Jewish science in the nineteenth century.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rosenmann, G.; Schechter, Solomon (1904). "Krochmal, Nachman Kohen". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. pp. 576–577.

External links

• Moreh Nebuke ha-Zeman from Google Books (pages scanned in reverse order)
• Moreh Nebukhe ha-Zeman study in English from Google Books
• More Nebukhe ha-Zeman (Hebrew), introduction and academic editor: Yehoyada Amir, Jerusalem: Carmel Publishing House, 2010.
• Yehoyada Amir, “The Perplexity of our Time: Nachman Krochmal and Modern Jewish Existence”, Modern Judaism, 23, 3 (October 2003), 264-301.