Moses Mendelssohn summary

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Moses Mendelssohn, orig. Moses ben Menachem, (born Sept. 26, 1729, Dessau, Anhalt—died Jan. 4, 1786, Berlin, Prussia), German Jewish philosopher and scholar. The son of an impoverished scribe, he began his career as a tutor but eventually won fame for his philosophical writings, which would become influential among the 19th-century U.S. Transcendentalists. He combined Judaism with the rationalism of the Enlightenment, becoming one of the principal figures in the Haskala, which helped bring Jews into the mainstream of European culture. His works include Phädon (1767), a defense of the immortality of the soul, and Jerusalem (1783), on the relationship of religion and the state. His friend Gotthold Lessing based the protagonist of his celebrated drama Nathan the Wise on Mendelssohn. He was the grandfather of the composer Felix Mendelssohn.

soul Summary

Soul, in religion and philosophy, the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, that which confers individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self. In theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the individual which partakes of divinity and

Judaism Summary

Judaism, monotheistic religion developed among the ancient Hebrews. Judaism is characterized by a belief in one transcendent God who revealed himself to Abraham, Moses, and the Hebrew prophets and by a religious life in accordance with Scriptures and rabbinic traditions. Judaism is the complex

German language Summary

German language, official language of both Germany and Austria and one of the official languages of Switzerland. German belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with English, Frisian, and Dutch (Netherlandic, Flemish). The recorded history of Germanic languages

Haskala Summary

Haskala, a late 18th- and 19th-century intellectual movement among the Jews of central and eastern Europe that attempted to acquaint Jews with the European and Hebrew languages and with secular education and culture as supplements to traditional Talmudic studies. Though the Haskala owed much of its