Moreh Nevuchei Ha’zman [“Guide for the Perplexed of the Time”]. Edited by Leopold (Yom Tov Lipmann) Zunz

KROCHMAL, NACHMAN

Joseph Schneider

Lemberg

1851

FIRST EDITION

Vinograd, Lemberg 1087

Considered to be the philosophical statement of the Galician Enlightenment. Unfinished by the Author, the treatise was compiled and published posthumously by Leopold Zunz. It attempts to reconcile Judaism with the prevailing philosophy of the age, post-Kantian idealism. The work discusses almost all of the major problems of Jewish historiography, thus laying the groundwork for future historical research. Krochmal was the first Jewish thinker to outline a projection of Jewish history that not only explained the survival of Jewry, but attributes to it an eternal existence as a consequence of the Jews relationship with God. For a detailed discussion of Krochmal’s philosophical development, see Zinberg, vol. X pp.65-86