Levanon - Gan Naul [linguistic study of Hebrew synonyms and roots]

Famed as a Haskalah poet, linguist and exegete Wessely (1725-1805) was in his youth a disciple of R. Jonathan Eybeschuetz. However upon moving to Berlin he came under the influence of Moses Mendelssohn whom he assisted in composing the Bi’ur. Wessely pioneered the revival of Biblical Hebrew but in doing so encountered linguistic problems which led to the composition of this interesting philological work, issued with the approval of the rabbis of Amsterdam and the Hague. In later years, Wessely engendered controversy among the rabbis by way of his publication Divrei Shalom Ve-Emeth in which he purports it to be not possible to comprehend Divine teachings without secular acculturation and that he who studies the Torah without acquiring a broader knowledge-base is a burden upon society. See M. Carmilly-Weinberger, Censorship and Freedom of Expression in Jewish History (1977) pp. 111-3 and A. Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, A Biographical Study (1973) pp. 476-86; and A. S. Flatto, The Kabbalistic Culture of Eighteenth-Century Prague: Ezekiel Landau and His Contemporaries (2010) pp. 75-9. Recently, Congregation Sha’arei Chaim of Williamburg, Brooklyn, held a public burning of Gan Na’ul on account of Wessely’s role in the Haskalah.