MICAH JOSEF BERDICHEVSKY

Abstract

Micah Yosef Berdichevsky (1865–1921) was notorious in his lifetime as a rebel against rabbinic Judaism and the inhibitions of shtetl life. In a flood of Hebrew essays and stories (his collected works were published in 20 volumes after his death) he argued that the Jews needed a Nietzschean transvaluation of values. The morality associated with traditional Jewish life, its modesty and purity, was corrupted by religious fanaticism, ignorance, pettiness and provinciality, which crippled and enslaved the individual spirit and made happiness impossible.

Ancient idolatrous Israelite religion was natural, uninhibited, life-giving, rooted in the land. But Judaism—the law of Moses, the teachings of the Prophets and rabbis—had paralyzed the militant spirit of the nation. It unnaturally elevated the virtues of humility and pacifism, making the Jewish people sheep-like and vulnerable to defeat and exile. Modern Jewish nationalism could succeed only if the Jews broke free of Judaism. Berdichevsky was a pioneer in what Philip Roth called ‘Jews going wild in public’.